📄 Extracted Text (23,524 words)
[00:00:00] Ambassador
[00:00:02] [music]
[00:00:06] Mike Wals. Thank you, brother.
[00:00:07] >> Welcome to the show.
[00:00:09] >> Honored to be with you, man. And I'm I'm
[00:00:11] I'm so proud of of uh you and what
[00:00:13] you've done with this with this
[00:00:15] platform, what you're doing with it.
[00:00:16] Really honored to be here.
[00:00:17] >> That means a hell of a lot coming from
[00:00:19] you. Thank you. Thank you. And it's an
[00:00:21] honor to have you here. So,
[00:00:24] >> yeah. Uh [sighs] it's it's been a heck
[00:00:26] of a year. Uh, [laughter]
[00:00:28] I'll bet it has. I'll bet it has. But,
[00:00:32] uh, man, uh, like congratulations to
[00:00:35] you, too. I mean, you know, uh, very
[00:00:38] interesting breakfast, but
[00:00:40] >> growing up, you know, Jacksonville,
[00:00:43] Jacksonville, Florida. I mean, sounds
[00:00:45] like you came from damn near nothing.
[00:00:47] >> Yep.
[00:00:48] >> And Green Beret, congressman,
[00:00:51] entrepreneur, ambassador of the UN,
[00:00:54] national security adviser. I mean,
[00:00:56] [sighs] holy [ __ ] dude. It's
[00:00:58] impressive. It's uh quite the arc,
[00:01:01] >> you know. It's been a blessing. It's It
[00:01:03] sounds cliche, but uh but I mean it only
[00:01:06] in this country, the most amazing
[00:01:09] country the world has ever seen. Uh I
[00:01:12] think I was telling you at breakfast
[00:01:14] that there was this moment I grew up in
[00:01:16] the west side of Jacksonville, which is
[00:01:18] the kind of the definitely the poor side
[00:01:21] of town, one of the poorer sides of
[00:01:24] town. big Navy town. Grandfather was in
[00:01:27] the Navy, father was in the Navy. I
[00:01:29] obviously defected and went Army. Um,
[00:01:32] but there was this moment a couple years
[00:01:34] into Congress during the presidential
[00:01:37] campaign and I'm I'm standing up on this
[00:01:39] big stage, thousands of people. The
[00:01:41] mayor of Jacksonville had just walked
[00:01:43] off and and uh President Trump's rolling
[00:01:46] in with Air Force One like literally
[00:01:49] boss move rolling in in the backdrop and
[00:01:53] we're on this uh Navy base, Cecil Field
[00:01:56] in in Jacksonville. And I'm looking out
[00:01:58] at the PX where my grandmother and I
[00:02:00] used to go to buy her cigarettes because
[00:02:02] they were you know they were subsidized
[00:02:05] uh back then and like I mean you know
[00:02:08] look out and see my mother um who
[00:02:12] literally my dad when I was an infant
[00:02:14] just went out to see and we never saw
[00:02:16] him again. I mean he just left her and
[00:02:18] left us.
[00:02:19] >> Uh oh [ __ ]
[00:02:20] >> Yeah. Um so I never really knew him. I
[00:02:23] saw him once before he before he passed
[00:02:25] when I was when I was an adult and I was
[00:02:28] at VMI, Virginia Military Institute. I
[00:02:30] was like, "Who the hell is this guy?"
[00:02:32] It's my dad. Wrote him and went and saw
[00:02:34] him. But
[00:02:35] >> you went he was Yeah, I went to saw see
[00:02:38] him. You know, it's just
[00:02:39] >> What was that like?
[00:02:40] >> Um mixed, right? Uh you know, as a as a
[00:02:44] teenage boy, you you build up a lot of
[00:02:46] anger, I think, and resentment when you
[00:02:49] see your mother
[00:02:50] >> Yeah.
[00:02:51] struggling
[00:02:53] like she was. But um
[00:02:56] man, I didn't expect you to go there
[00:02:58] right out the gate, Sean. But it um but
[00:03:01] at the same time, you want to know who
[00:03:02] your dad is and I'd always had this kind
[00:03:04] of military bug and I knew this family
[00:03:07] history of Navy, you know, Navy chiefs
[00:03:09] and seen all the the photos and stuff
[00:03:12] and went and saw him and, you know, he
[00:03:14] he kind of had some reasons and excuses,
[00:03:16] but I was just there to get to know him
[00:03:17] and thank God I did it cuz he died a few
[00:03:19] years later. Holy [ __ ] How old were
[00:03:22] you?
[00:03:23] >> Oh, 20
[00:03:25] 21 22.
[00:03:26] >> So you you you you did not meet your dad
[00:03:28] until you were 22 years old.
[00:03:29] >> Until I was 19. I mean I had met him but
[00:03:32] I didn't really remember him. I had not
[00:03:33] met him, you know, where I could really
[00:03:35] remember him and have a relationship,
[00:03:37] have a conversation with him until then.
[00:03:40] But the point is my mother uh was my
[00:03:43] rock is my rock. um worked three jobs,
[00:03:47] night security guard, dental hygienist,
[00:03:50] pick and save clerk, uh but then put
[00:03:54] herself through college on nights and
[00:03:57] weekends. We actually ended up
[00:03:58] graduating the same year. Took her 15
[00:04:01] years so that I could get through in
[00:04:03] four, right?
[00:04:04] >> Are you serious? And then as you well
[00:04:07] know and the military becomes such a
[00:04:09] pathway, you know, uh not only for you
[00:04:13] personally, but kind of has been for for
[00:04:17] the United States really since World War
[00:04:19] II, out of out of poverty and and into
[00:04:22] the middle class. And now my daughter is
[00:04:25] my uh I've got a 21-year-old and a
[00:04:27] three-year-old. [laughter]
[00:04:29] That's a whole other conversation. But
[00:04:31] my daughter's going to uh is about to
[00:04:33] graduate school on the GI Bill,
[00:04:36] >> right? No kidding. And so to go from uh
[00:04:38] cuz you can pass it on now to your to
[00:04:40] your kids. great thing that Congress did
[00:04:43] a few decades ago, but to get have that
[00:04:45] full arc and to have been standing with
[00:04:49] the president of the United States in
[00:04:50] the Oval Office, to have been
[00:04:52] representing, every congressman
[00:04:54] represents about 800,000 people,
[00:04:57] uh to have now been a part of the
[00:05:01] republic that you and I and so many
[00:05:04] others were willing and did die for, uh
[00:05:07] has been an honor and an amazing ride.
[00:05:10] Man, I'll bet.
[00:05:11] >> Yeah,
[00:05:11] >> man. I did not uh
[00:05:15] that childhood stuff, man. Wow. We're
[00:05:18] going to dive into that, I hope.
[00:05:20] >> We'll go anywhere you want.
[00:05:21] >> Perfect.
[00:05:22] >> Yeah. As long I'm not going to do a deep
[00:05:24] water swim with you out in the out in
[00:05:26] the Pacific, but anywhere but that.
[00:05:28] >> Cool.
[00:05:28] >> Yeah. [laughter]
[00:05:30] >> But uh well, Mike, everybody starts off
[00:05:32] with an introduction, so let me uh
[00:05:34] >> Okay.
[00:05:35] >> Let me do yours. Ambassador Mike Walsh,
[00:05:38] an American politician, diplomat,
[00:05:41] author, businessman, and retired combat
[00:05:43] veteran, US Army Special Forces Colonel.
[00:05:48] First [clears throat] Green Beret
[00:05:49] elected to Congress and still served in
[00:05:51] the reserves while you were in office.
[00:05:53] While in Congress, you represented
[00:05:54] Florida and served on the Armed Services
[00:05:57] Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees and
[00:05:59] the China Task Force, co-founded a
[00:06:02] bipartisan veterans caucus called the
[00:06:04] four country caucus of veteran members
[00:06:07] of Congress to work issues together and
[00:06:10] increase the number of vets running for
[00:06:12] office. [ __ ] amazing. By the way, you
[00:06:15] come [clears throat] from a family
[00:06:16] steeped in military tradition as the son
[00:06:18] and grandson of Navy chiefs, author of
[00:06:21] three books, including War Diplomat,
[00:06:24] which recounts your military and policy
[00:06:26] experiences. Also a successful business
[00:06:29] owner, founding Meta Solutions, a
[00:06:31] strategy and an intelligence firm.
[00:06:34] Husband to Amy, [clears throat] an army
[00:06:36] veteran, father to son.
[00:06:40] >> Oh, let me jump in on you.
[00:06:41] >> Sorry. Husband to Julia.
[00:06:44] >> Well, excuse me. It's
[00:06:44] >> all good. Julia's my wife.
[00:06:46] >> Husband to an Army veteran, right?
[00:06:48] Father of son Army. And most
[00:06:50] importantly, you're a Christian.
[00:06:52] >> Yeah, man.
[00:06:52] >> Welcome to the show.
[00:06:53] >> I got to throw in my daughter Anderson
[00:06:55] in there, too. Yeah.
[00:06:56] >> Perfect.
[00:06:58] >> Thanks, man.
[00:06:59] >> My pleasure. Appreciate it.
[00:07:00] >> My pleasure. Like I said, man, uh very
[00:07:03] accomplished career. That's that's um
[00:07:05] very impressive. But, uh, I'd like to
[00:07:09] I'd like to, you know, one thing that,
[00:07:12] and I wasn't expecting to go here, and
[00:07:14] if you don't want to, that's okay. But,
[00:07:16] you know, the the the the the childhood
[00:07:18] stuff that comes out on this show is is
[00:07:23] it just always surprises me how many
[00:07:26] people go through some type of, you
[00:07:29] know, abuse or parentless childhood.
[00:07:32] It's it's just it's it's it's it it
[00:07:35] makes it real to me how many people
[00:07:36] there are in in the world and in the
[00:07:39] country, you know, that that that
[00:07:41] go through that. And um and I think a
[00:07:45] lot of America's youth find answers to
[00:07:47] things that they're going through from
[00:07:48] people that have been on this show
[00:07:50] because it it because we go in so deep
[00:07:52] on that and so on, you know, and just
[00:07:58] I mean what so many people I've had on
[00:08:00] the show have
[00:08:04] growing up without fathers and you hear
[00:08:06] about this, you know, all these kids
[00:08:09] that do this and and I mean what So what
[00:08:12] Was it that
[00:08:15] Can you just describe going to your dad?
[00:08:18] >> Well, look, it it I I don't want to make
[00:08:20] too much of it. Uh because
[00:08:24] my mother did such an amazing job of of
[00:08:26] of filling the void. I mean, she was
[00:08:28] provider, mother, father, rock,
[00:08:31] inspiration,
[00:08:33] kick you in the ass when you needed it.
[00:08:37] >> Um uh forced me. I wanted to go hang out
[00:08:40] with my friends, but I I like tested for
[00:08:43] this gifted program. And she forced me
[00:08:45] to go to this charter school um because
[00:08:47] she could see that I was just going to
[00:08:49] screw around, you know, and and and not
[00:08:51] apply myself. I didn't want to do it.
[00:08:54] She made me do it. And it was a
[00:08:55] fantastic education. Graduated with, you
[00:08:58] know, uh 36 college credits uh right out
[00:09:01] the gate. So, but I also remember her
[00:09:04] sitting me down and saying, "Look, um,
[00:09:09] I've got to work. I've got to provide.
[00:09:11] I've I I can't be here to make you do
[00:09:14] your homework. I can't be here. You've
[00:09:15] got to have a a sense of selfm
[00:09:17] motivation." Um, if you want to do these
[00:09:20] sports and other stuff, you've got to
[00:09:22] get yourself there. You have to get
[00:09:23] ready. Uh and it just I think imbued in
[00:09:27] me this uh a level of independence and
[00:09:30] self-motivation.
[00:09:32] Uh I I hear you on the
[00:09:36] the the lack of fatherhood, but at the
[00:09:39] same time, you can't let yourself become
[00:09:40] a victim.
[00:09:41] >> Well, that's that's one of your
[00:09:43] circumstances. And I just just quick as
[00:09:46] aside because she's an amazing woman.
[00:09:48] My, you know, my wife is um one of five
[00:09:52] uh raised by a single mom who literally
[00:09:56] was an immigrant from Jordan,
[00:09:57] Christians, uh that that fled
[00:09:59] persecution and and came here. Their dad
[00:10:02] died in an accident when they were
[00:10:04] young. She being the oldest became the
[00:10:06] quasi parent. And they now are doctors,
[00:10:10] lawyers. She's an army veteran and a
[00:10:12] diplomat herself, right? I mean, they
[00:10:15] they pulled themselves up from a
[00:10:17] one-stop light little town because of
[00:10:19] the strength of their mother.
[00:10:21] >> Yeah.
[00:10:21] >> Um so, if anything, I just I also I I
[00:10:26] think two things. One, um there's been a
[00:10:28] revival of men. Uh and I would put
[00:10:31] myself as one of those that are
[00:10:34] determined to be good parents, to be as
[00:10:38] Christianity calls us to do, to be the
[00:10:40] moral leaders of your family. Uh, and
[00:10:42] you're seeing that revival post Charlie
[00:10:44] Kirk and uh, and his assassination and
[00:10:47] others. You're seeing that, I think,
[00:10:49] revival of people focused on family and
[00:10:52] and being good fathers and and leaders,
[00:10:55] but also just the strength of the women
[00:10:57] in this country. Um, uh, and, uh, you
[00:11:01] see in this administration strong women
[00:11:03] from the chief of staff, the attorney
[00:11:05] general, and and on down. Um
[00:11:09] I I forget which journalist made some
[00:11:11] comment that the president doesn't like
[00:11:12] strong women like [laughter]
[00:11:15] surrounded by him. And so I don't know,
[00:11:18] you know, bootstrap yourself, suck it
[00:11:21] up, dust yourself off and and and move
[00:11:23] forward and the greatest country in the
[00:11:25] world. You have opportunity here.
[00:11:26] >> Yeah. Yeah. Did you did you have any
[00:11:29] brothers and sisters?
[00:11:30] >> I have a half sister. Um but it was
[00:11:33] really mainly just me and my mom.
[00:11:35] >> No. Is she older or younger?
[00:11:37] >> My My [clears throat] sister's uh older.
[00:11:39] >> Okay.
[00:11:39] >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
[00:11:40] >> Yeah, she was older.
[00:11:41] >> No [ __ ] So, just you and your mom
[00:11:43] growing up.
[00:11:43] >> Yeah, pretty much.
[00:11:44] >> What did she What would you
[00:11:46] >> And I also sought out to and my mother
[00:11:50] pushed this. Um I remember her walking
[00:11:52] up to a group of men at my church
[00:11:55] saying, "I heard you guys are doing a a
[00:11:57] men's Bible study." And said, "Yeah, we
[00:12:00] we are. Uh her name's Brenda." And they
[00:12:03] said, "Good. I've got a teenage boy and
[00:12:05] he's coming to it [laughter] this uh uh
[00:12:08] this Sunday. And so she sought out for
[00:12:12] me positive male role models. My priest
[00:12:14] went to VMI. That's how I got really
[00:12:17] focused on Virginia Military Institute.
[00:12:19] And then through him, uh my two favorite
[00:12:21] generals, George C. Marshall, [snorts]
[00:12:24] uh who's by the way the only general uh
[00:12:27] to also win the Nobel Peace Prize for
[00:12:29] the Marshall Plan, who led the entire
[00:12:31] effort in World War II. and and of
[00:12:33] course Patton uh went went to VMI and
[00:12:36] through them through him got steeped in
[00:12:38] history and then my friends fathers I
[00:12:40] had there you you can surround yourself
[00:12:43] by positive role models and the old
[00:12:45] saying you are you become who you
[00:12:47] surround yourself by but again that was
[00:12:49] back to my mom
[00:12:50] >> man great insight for your mom wow
[00:12:54] that's
[00:12:55] >> that's awesome man I [ __ ] love
[00:12:57] stories like this you know I mean it's
[00:12:59] is it's sad but it shows I mean you You
[00:13:02] just see so many people who victimize
[00:13:04] themsel and I I can't talk about
[00:13:06] childhood cuz I had a great childhood
[00:13:08] you know and so to me for me to get up
[00:13:10] on a [ __ ] soap box and you know what
[00:13:12] I mean would it would be asinine but for
[00:13:15] somebody like you or a lot of the other
[00:13:17] people on the show I mean it shows like
[00:13:19] you can still [ __ ] make something you
[00:13:21] don't have to victimize
[00:13:22] >> but I even feel I don't even feel like
[00:13:23] it was a bad you know I mean we we
[00:13:26] didn't have much the only place my
[00:13:28] mother could afford was literally in the
[00:13:31] flight line of Naval Air Station
[00:13:33] Jacksonville. So P3s, those, you know,
[00:13:36] 4ine submarine hunters were buzzing our
[00:13:39] house every 20 minutes and rattling the
[00:13:41] whole thing. But I think part of it is
[00:13:43] is serving now abroad uh across Africa
[00:13:47] and the Middle East where you really see
[00:13:49] true poverty.
[00:13:50] >> Yeah.
[00:13:51] >> I don't even want I don't want to come
[00:13:52] out of the show that I had a you know a
[00:13:54] tough childhood compared to others. I'm
[00:13:57] not, but but [clears throat] I could
[00:13:59] have easily and we've all seen people
[00:14:01] that just fall into victimhood and they
[00:14:03] never leave where they are and they
[00:14:04] never push themselves and and you know,
[00:14:06] thanks to great parenting and a kick in
[00:14:08] the ass when when a young man needed it.
[00:14:11] >> Yep. Yep.
[00:14:12] >> I think we've done okay.
[00:14:14] >> Right on, man. Well, I forgot to give
[00:14:16] you your gift, too.
[00:14:17] >> Here you go. Vigilance Elite Gummy
[00:14:20] Bears. Legal in all 50 states. Made here
[00:14:22] in the USA.
[00:14:24] Probably the only reason you came.
[00:14:26] >> [laughter]
[00:14:26] >> I don't blame you.
[00:14:27] >> This was it.
[00:14:30] [clears throat]
[00:14:30] >> I've got one for a couple for you.
[00:14:32] Actually, I don't mean to turn this into
[00:14:34] a uh to a whole thing, but first and
[00:14:37] foremost,
[00:14:39] I've got to add to your collection over
[00:14:41] there. Bottle of Horse Soldier bourbon.
[00:14:44] Uh this is distilled uh by the Green
[00:14:48] Berets who went into Afghanistan,
[00:14:50] dropped off in the middle of the night,
[00:14:53] linked up with warlords uh and and rode
[00:14:56] into to liberating that country and
[00:14:58] kicking the [ __ ] out of al-Qaeda on
[00:15:00] horseback.
[00:15:02] >> And those that that team, those guys
[00:15:04] have now become entrepreneurs much like
[00:15:07] yourself and me and so many others. I'm
[00:15:09] so proud of them. Uh they're building a
[00:15:11] massive distillery.
[00:15:13] uh 9/11 themed uh veteran themed in in
[00:15:17] Kentucky, but uh they they batched this
[00:15:21] bottle for the 250th anniversary of the
[00:15:23] Army.
[00:15:24] >> No kidding.
[00:15:25] >> That was uh that was their original
[00:15:26] batch,
[00:15:27] >> man.
[00:15:27] >> So, I'd love for you to have that add
[00:15:28] that. Um
[00:15:34] [laughter]
[00:15:37] >> the same team that made the president's
[00:15:39] iconic red hats. Uh, and this just
[00:15:42] captures, you know, people ask you what
[00:15:44] the heck are you doing at the UN, which
[00:15:46] is a whole other conversation, how we
[00:15:47] need to clean house and dozege that
[00:15:49] place, but also save some of the
[00:15:51] goodness, make the UN great again. So
[00:15:53] when all the world leaders come together
[00:15:56] one place in the world once a year uh
[00:16:00] the president was just there speaking to
[00:16:02] prime ministers presidents uh they call
[00:16:04] it ANGA the UN general assembly but
[00:16:07] we've now relabeled it Monga [laughter]
[00:16:11] make the UN uh great again my mission
[00:16:15] and then finally of course uh
[00:16:18] copy of hard truths my latest book uh so
[00:16:22] I you mentioned warrior diplomat.
[00:16:25] That was really uh about my time in the
[00:16:28] Bush White House as a civilian policy
[00:16:31] person. But then, as you know, both the
[00:16:33] SEALs and the Green Beretss have reserve
[00:16:36] units.
[00:16:37] >> So, I was a reservist. Mitch, you had a
[00:16:38] day job. My day job was in the the
[00:16:41] Pentagon and then the the the Bush White
[00:16:43] House. I had to be the only idiot in
[00:16:44] Washington that was writing the
[00:16:46] strategy, but then I would get mobilized
[00:16:48] and have to go do it. Um, that was my
[00:16:51] first book, Warrior Diplomat. I've done
[00:16:53] a children's book, uh, and then would
[00:16:56] happy to give you this copy of Hard
[00:16:58] Truths,
[00:16:59] >> which talks about the lessons I learned
[00:17:00] in combat and how I've applied them now
[00:17:02] to to Congress. And
[00:17:05] >> is there combat going on over there in
[00:17:07] Congress? [laughter]
[00:17:09] >> You know, man,
[00:17:10] >> thank you.
[00:17:11] >> There are many days I thought the tribes
[00:17:12] of Afghanistan were easier hurting
[00:17:15] hurting those cats than uh than the
[00:17:18] tribes of DC,
[00:17:19] >> man. I don't know which one more
[00:17:20] dangerous, right? [laughter]
[00:17:23] >> Right.
[00:17:24] >> For sure.
[00:17:25] >> What a disaster over there. Well, Mike,
[00:17:28] >> yeah,
[00:17:28] >> let's get into your story.
[00:17:30] >> All right.
[00:17:30] >> So, grew up in Jacksonville, single
[00:17:34] mother. What got your interest in the
[00:17:36] military? I
[00:17:37] >> was always a a a history guy. My uh I
[00:17:41] remember mom would um she was a runner.
[00:17:45] Uh and I would literally ride behind her
[00:17:48] and in my bike. She tells the story
[00:17:50] better than I do talking about Pearl
[00:17:53] Harbor, Midway, Battle of the Coral Sea.
[00:17:57] Uh, your mom was talking to you about
[00:17:59] No, I was like, I had read I was
[00:18:02] literally read every World War II
[00:18:04] history book, military history book in
[00:18:07] our elementary school library. In fact,
[00:18:09] they brought in more from the local high
[00:18:11] school that I was just devouring these
[00:18:13] things and um and but I would ride
[00:18:16] behind her and recite, you know, how
[00:18:19] Yamamato
[00:18:20] got shot down and his strategy for
[00:18:23] having shallow torpedoes to to to come
[00:18:25] after our fleet and then also obviously
[00:18:27] in Europe and Africa, Patton,
[00:18:29] Eisenhower, Marshall, all the greats.
[00:18:31] >> Wow.
[00:18:32] >> Right. So, so that was there. I always
[00:18:34] knew I wanted to serve. Uh my really my
[00:18:38] high school or childhood priest was a
[00:18:41] VMI grad and and um I went up and then
[00:18:45] tortured myself through uh I gra you
[00:18:48] know told you about the great education
[00:18:50] I had through high school. And um rather
[00:18:54] than go and party at Florida State like
[00:18:56] a lot of my friends did, I went and got
[00:18:58] my head shaved every Monday and the snot
[00:19:01] kicked out of me uh for four years,
[00:19:04] right? Uh but proud to say I graduated a
[00:19:08] distinguished military graduate,
[00:19:10] commissioned in the commissioned in the
[00:19:11] army, got a full ride uh to go there. So
[00:19:15] at least I didn't pay to suffer. Um but
[00:19:19] it it was actually an amazing education.
[00:19:20] And you want to talk about another place
[00:19:21] that's completely steeped in in both
[00:19:25] discipline and history. Uh the my
[00:19:30] barracks room was Stonewall Jackson's
[00:19:33] classroom.
[00:19:35] >> Wow.
[00:19:35] >> And I mean there's all kinds of stories
[00:19:37] about having ghosts and
[00:19:40] what people saw and didn't see. Um, we
[00:19:43] had to literally prop up our beds, uh,
[00:19:46] like these plywood, we called them racks
[00:19:48] with a little thin mattress on them
[00:19:51] every day. We'd prop them up. You're in
[00:19:53] the, you know, gray uniform in formation
[00:19:55] every morning. But it taught me,
[00:19:58] um,
[00:19:59] a couple of things. One,
[00:20:04] the rules that are the most important,
[00:20:07] uh, you have to appreciate, and that was
[00:20:10] our honor code.
[00:20:11] >> Mhm. Um, you know, I will not lie,
[00:20:14] cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who
[00:20:15] do. And that period. And we we had a
[00:20:19] ceremony there that if someone was
[00:20:21] convicted by their peers of violating
[00:20:24] the honor code, they called it a drum
[00:20:26] roll. You gathered everyone up at night.
[00:20:29] Uh, and at 2 3 in the morning, you'd
[00:20:32] hear this drum roll starting to come out
[00:20:35] and everyone would line up against the
[00:20:36] the rails and they would announce the
[00:20:38] cadet's name that had been found to be
[00:20:40] dishonorable. when they were banished,
[00:20:43] right? So, there's that, but then
[00:20:44] there's all the rules that are bendable.
[00:20:46] Um, and
[00:20:49] I think that served me really well in
[00:20:51] the unconventional warfare space of
[00:20:53] knowing when you can push the rules uh
[00:20:57] and then which ones are which ones are
[00:21:00] sacrosanked. And again, another male
[00:21:02] role model, the sergeant major uh uh uh
[00:21:06] Sergeant Major Bill Goodson Green Beret
[00:21:09] E9 became the guy [snorts] was probably
[00:21:13] 45 48 years old, still outr running all
[00:21:15] of us. Um greatlooking, charming, funny,
[00:21:21] knowledgeable of the world, spoke
[00:21:23] multiple languages. Uh and um
[00:21:26] >> is that what captivated you?
[00:21:28] >> Yeah. Yeah, it is. I started out so in
[00:21:30] army special forces you have to do
[00:21:33] something in big army first. You can't
[00:21:35] even try out until you're a captain or a
[00:21:38] staff sergeant, right? Unlike the SEALs
[00:21:40] where you can just go go right in. They
[00:21:42] want you to go season
[00:21:44] >> in kind of big army. So I started out in
[00:21:46] armor and tanks. Loved it. Um, but it
[00:21:49] was the '90s Army and uh I remember we
[00:21:52] had to get a colonel or onear general's
[00:21:54] permission to basically start and move
[00:21:56] your tank because we were so short on
[00:21:59] money, on fuel, on everything, parts,
[00:22:03] the whole deal. I used to take my
[00:22:04] platoon out on golf carts that I would
[00:22:06] just go rent to my own to practice our
[00:22:08] formations. And so that was pretty
[00:22:11] frustrating uh to say the least. And
[00:22:14] [clears throat] um but I loved the
[00:22:16] special forces mission where one day uh
[00:22:20] you know you're out with your medics
[00:22:23] building a clinic.
[00:22:25] >> Uh uh actually this actually happened to
[00:22:29] me down range. Um,
[00:22:32] just to take a step back on the story
[00:22:34] real quick, but we um
[00:22:39] were embedded with
[00:22:41] Australian Special Air Service, uh,
[00:22:44] Australian Commandos and also some
[00:22:46] SEALs. They were doing the traditional
[00:22:48] kill capture. Uh they had sniper teams
[00:22:52] out that they were watching this uh
[00:22:55] really bad guy, this really bad Taliban
[00:22:57] commander uh who had beheaded a couple
[00:22:59] of police officers, tortured a kid on on
[00:23:03] radio and uh live.
[00:23:05] >> You guys are listening to this
[00:23:07] >> just bad guy to to force uh his tribe to
[00:23:10] listen to it because they weren't
[00:23:11] working with him. Anyway, they have
[00:23:12] their snipers out. They've been out
[00:23:14] there for days. Uh we all know what
[00:23:16] happened. For example, Operation Redwing
[00:23:20] and Lone Survivor, really worried about
[00:23:22] him getting compromised.
[00:23:24] My medics come up to me and say, "Why
[00:23:26] don't we just
[00:23:28] host a medical clinic right down from
[00:23:30] where we know this guy is?" We did. We
[00:23:33] got a bunch of local doctors and as And
[00:23:36] sure enough, people are lined up down
[00:23:38] the road because they haven't seen a
[00:23:40] doctor in forever. Uh, and we got a
[00:23:43] bunch of local doctors and as they come
[00:23:45] in, we're fingerprinting them, getting
[00:23:46] the biometrics and whatever, and then
[00:23:48] they get treated. Sure enough, this guy
[00:23:51] steps in. Before we can take his
[00:23:53] picture, he turns around and bolts. One
[00:23:56] of my guys goes to go after him. Said,
[00:23:58] "No, no, no, no, wait. We didn't go
[00:24:00] after him. We call the local police
[00:24:02] chief. He goes and gets him, wraps him
[00:24:04] up. It's our guy." Uh and um
[00:24:09] now the police chief is a hero. We've
[00:24:13] treated all kinds of villagers. Uh one
[00:24:16] of the one of the village chiefs so
[00:24:18] appreciated us treating their kid. They
[00:24:20] gave us information on three of his
[00:24:21] other lieutenants that we went and
[00:24:23] rolled up. And the cool thing is I was
[00:24:26] able to go back to the Australian
[00:24:27] commander and say, "We got them. You can
[00:24:30] bring your bring your guys in." So what
[00:24:31] I loved about the special forces mission
[00:24:34] was one day you can be doing that you
[00:24:37] have to learn
[00:24:39] local languages specialize in a certain
[00:24:41] part of the world and you know as we saw
[00:24:45] in one of my tours um there were three
[00:24:49] of us embedded in a UAE Arab task force
[00:24:53] partnered with 180 Afghans.
[00:24:56] >> Wow.
[00:24:56] >> Right. It's the closest I'll get to
[00:24:57] Lawrence of Arabia in my entire
[00:24:59] [laughter] in my entire life. And uh and
[00:25:02] by the way, if I never eat goat again,
[00:25:05] you know, I'm good because we were just
[00:25:06] out there living off the land. It was
[00:25:08] me, a medic, and a and a como sergeant.
[00:25:11] Three Americans, 90 Arabs, 180 Afghans
[00:25:14] out in the mountains. And uh
[00:25:17] >> Say that again. three Americans,
[00:25:21] 90 Arab soldiers
[00:25:24] from the United Arab Emirates Special
[00:25:27] Operations Task Force that was deployed
[00:25:28] in Afghanistan. We were in beds with
[00:25:30] them, partnered with 180 uh unit of 180
[00:25:34] Afghans. We were
[00:25:35] >> holy out there, man.
[00:25:37] >> Completely out there.
[00:25:38] >> What are the UAE guys like? I've never
[00:25:40] even I've never seen them. I've never
[00:25:42] worked with them.
[00:25:43] >> The at at the operational level of No,
[00:25:45] the operational level, they were great.
[00:25:48] Um
[00:25:50] sometimes at the command and control
[00:25:52] level we had to you know we had to work
[00:25:54] with them. That's what we were there to
[00:25:56] do with the close air support with the
[00:25:58] uh with the drones with the fire support
[00:26:01] coordinating with other units the the
[00:26:02] the whole deal. At one point I got
[00:26:06] caught uh we had a miscommunication. I
[00:26:09] mean I had an interpreter that was doing
[00:26:10] four-way
[00:26:12] translation in combat. He was doing
[00:26:15] Poshtune, Dari, the two languages spoke
[00:26:18] by the Afghan unit, Arabic and English.
[00:26:21] [laughter]
[00:26:21] >> Holy [ __ ]
[00:26:22] >> That guy was worth his weight and gold,
[00:26:24] >> right?
[00:26:25] >> By the way, he was left behind by the
[00:26:27] Biden administration, but we're still
[00:26:29] working on getting him out. Um,
[00:26:33] so that, you know, that complexity of
[00:26:36] mission
[00:26:38] I found fascinating. And so as a as a
[00:26:40] captain, I went and tried it out. And uh
[00:26:44] I'm one of those that took me twice,
[00:26:46] right? And I I say that because I talked
[00:26:48] when I talk to student groups or young
[00:26:50] soldiers like it's okay to fail.
[00:26:53] >> You know, it's set up often time for you
[00:26:56] to learn to fail. So, but I got through
[00:26:58] it. Uh got through Ranger school and and
[00:27:02] um then somebody turned me on to the
[00:27:04] fact that you could do this in the
[00:27:06] reserves. And I and I fell into this
[00:27:08] kind of policy world and this like I
[00:27:11] said this back and forth of there I am
[00:27:13] writing it there I am deployed and then
[00:27:15] the really fun part or sad part and I
[00:27:18] write about this in my first book is
[00:27:20] coming back
[00:27:22] and saying hey Mr. President I was there
[00:27:24] in the room when you said do this. We're
[00:27:27] now out there on the ground not doing
[00:27:31] what you said uh and and coming back and
[00:27:35] speaking that truth to power.
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[00:29:37] How did you I mean I know we're on a
[00:29:41] time constraint so we're going to skip
[00:29:42] some stuff but I think that is one of
[00:29:45] the one of the things in your story that
[00:29:47] I found most interesting is that at some
[00:29:50] point in time after special forces you
[00:29:52] were you were writing policy and then
[00:29:55] living out that policy in a in a wartime
[00:29:59] environment as a green beret. I mean,
[00:30:01] how how did you go from special forces
[00:30:05] to writing policy back to special
[00:30:07] forces?
[00:30:09] >> Well, I just um
[00:30:12] my first office uh in the Pentagon that
[00:30:15] I worked in as a civilian was actually
[00:30:19] set around dealing with the narcotics
[00:30:22] problem in Afghanistan. Uh the office
[00:30:24] was originally stood up to go after the
[00:30:27] narcotics problem in Colombia. relevant
[00:30:29] again today what we're seeing in
[00:30:31] Venezuela under what was called Plan
[00:30:33] Colombia in the 90s and early 2000s I
[00:30:36] think one of the real success stories
[00:30:37] Green Beret success stories American
[00:30:39] success stories if you remember where
[00:30:41] the Medí and other cartels were
[00:30:43] basically about to take the the place
[00:30:45] over blew up an airliner attacking uh
[00:30:49] parliamentarians just a few green berets
[00:30:52] in there train uh advise and assist the
[00:30:57] Colombian military
[00:30:58] and they defeat the FARC insurgency over
[00:31:01] time.
[00:31:03] We were looking to do the same thing
[00:31:05] with how opium was funding international
[00:31:08] terrorism in in the Taliban. So
[00:31:12] yeah, they were attracted by my
[00:31:13] background. We did that. I helped craft
[00:31:16] that policy and then that started the
[00:31:18] back and forth, right, of
[00:31:20] >> Oh [ __ ] So they sought you out?
[00:31:22] >> No. No. I applied. It was through It was
[00:31:25] through a mentor of mine. Were you still
[00:31:27] in the military?
[00:31:28] >> I just uh yeah, I was in at this point
[00:31:30] in the reserves at this point in uh both
[00:31:33] the SEALs and Green Berets that actually
[00:31:35] it's in National Guard uh have have
[00:31:38] National Guard units and went in with
[00:31:40] that went in with that background.
[00:31:42] Started kind of really working on not
[00:31:45] just the counter narcotics piece, but
[00:31:47] then the broader Afghan policy. went
[00:31:50] back out and did the tour where I was
[00:31:52] embedded with the Amiradis and with the
[00:31:54] um um
[00:31:57] the Jordanians were there to a smaller
[00:31:59] extent and with the Afghans just a few
[00:32:02] of us. I had others embedded with NATO
[00:32:05] special operations. So I saw at that
[00:32:08] time
[00:32:10] that the Europeans were in way over
[00:32:13] their heads in terms what they were
[00:32:15] willing to do politically. The soldiers
[00:32:18] out on the ground were great. Um, but I
[00:32:21] tell a story in in in my first book
[00:32:23] where this Danish unit had to call back
[00:32:25] to their parliament to send us a QRF
[00:32:28] because it violated their ROE or the
[00:32:31] Germans were in the north wouldn't send
[00:32:33] us a medevac. Um, it wouldn't send us
[00:32:36] close air support because we couldn't
[00:32:38] identify the enemy the way their what
[00:32:41] they called national caveats.
[00:32:43] >> Gez,
[00:32:43] >> uh, demanded it. And you know, I think
[00:32:46] it's one of the reasons that we
[00:32:47] struggled so badly in that in that
[00:32:49] conflict. [snorts]
[00:32:51] >> Yeah. Yeah. Damn. How do what are what
[00:32:55] are some of the things that
[00:32:57] [clears throat]
[00:32:58] >> I mean, I just it just is so wild to me.
[00:33:00] You're writing policy and then and then
[00:33:03] you're living it. I mean it how fast
[00:33:05] >> but then bringing that knowledge uh you
[00:33:07] know bringing that knowledge back to
[00:33:09] policy makers and then you know that's
[00:33:11] one of the reasons I stayed in the
[00:33:12] reserves
[00:33:14] while I was in Congress too um uh was to
[00:33:19] have that ground truth to bring in when
[00:33:21] I was on the armed services committee
[00:33:23] the intel committee uh and others and
[00:33:25] it's it's part of what I write about you
[00:33:27] know in in the book is you have to stay
[00:33:31] I call it bottoms up leadership where
[00:33:33] you or talking to the soldiers or as a
[00:33:35] CEO, I would always end uh my staff
[00:33:39] meetings with my team on what decisions
[00:33:42] are you waiting on from me? What
[00:33:44] resources do you need from me? Uh how
[00:33:47] can I empower you? And that's that kind
[00:33:50] of green beret mentality. You empower
[00:33:52] the teams, you empower those out there.
[00:33:54] But I've tried to do it as a CEO, as a
[00:33:56] member of Congress, and now uh as
[00:33:59] ambassador of the UN.
[00:34:05] But, you know, one of the, you know,
[00:34:08] couple of things that I have really
[00:34:11] focused on that I write about and that
[00:34:13] I'm trying to
[00:34:15] um instill now and to live that I think
[00:34:19] we really need more of. One of the
[00:34:21] stories I write about, if you don't
[00:34:23] mind, is is
[00:34:25] discipline and how that applies not only
[00:34:28] as a leader, but as a as a Christian
[00:34:30] leader. And I I I I know you have people
[00:34:33] uh who've been through ranger school
[00:34:34] here. Um you know, the difference there
[00:34:38] is they starve you and they sleep
[00:34:41] deprive you. Uh and one of our patrols,
[00:34:44] [snorts]
[00:34:45] >> you know, they give you like normally
[00:34:46] when you're going out like five MREs for
[00:34:50] seven days, right? And you're supposed
[00:34:52] to have the discipline to kind of ration
[00:34:53] your Nobody does. I mean, they've
[00:34:55] they've eaten like all five MREs by like
[00:34:57] day two because you're starving and
[00:34:59] you're moving 23 hours a day. You're
[00:35:01] getting like an hour sleep a night uh
[00:35:03] out on these patrols. And so by the time
[00:35:06] you come to day six or seven, it's time
[00:35:09] for the resupply mission. And man, that
[00:35:11] is the most important mission. I'll
[00:35:13] never forget this second lieutenant got
[00:35:16] tapped. Hey, you're in charge. Get us to
[00:35:18] the resupply site. And we're moving all
[00:35:20] night long. we're trying to get to this
[00:35:22] thing and every I mean you're
[00:35:23] hallucinating you I had lost 31 pounds
[00:35:27] >> uh by this point as you're you know over
[00:35:29] mountains and across streams and as we
[00:35:32] were getting near the site we could hear
[00:35:34] the helicopter the resupply helicopter
[00:35:36] that was going to drop a bundle with our
[00:35:37] like next batch of our MREs circling
[00:35:40] with they're only circling for a certain
[00:35:41] window and this poor kid got us so lost
[00:35:44] I mean I'll never forget seeing aido
[00:35:46] he's in there looking at the map and
[00:35:48] he's stopping we can hear the helicopter
[00:35:50] and everybody's bitching and grumbling
[00:35:52] and then the worst sound you'll ever
[00:35:54] think of that helicopter
[00:35:56] flies off. I thought the whole platoon
[00:35:59] was going to beat his ass. Um cuz we
[00:36:02] were and I forget the the ranger
[00:36:04] instructors like, "Ah man, I think there
[00:36:06] was a big big batch of Snickers on that
[00:36:08] one. That sucks, guys. I hope you you
[00:36:11] know, hope you're not too hungry." Well,
[00:36:15] I had had the discipline uh to remember
[00:36:18] the MREs, they had those like little
[00:36:20] Halloween packs of Skittles.
[00:36:22] >> Yeah.
[00:36:22] >> I had saved my Skittles from every one
[00:36:25] of those. Everybody else had inhaled
[00:36:27] everything. And as we're like trudging
[00:36:29] through uh through the mountains again,
[00:36:32] I decided every 500 meters
[00:36:35] I was going to treat myself to a single
[00:36:37] Skittle. And this thing was like a burst
[00:36:39] of energy and happiness and um I mean
[00:36:45] just it just kept me going every 500 cuz
[00:36:47] I had I I was on the verge uh of either
[00:36:50] just falling flat on my face or
[00:36:51] quitting. I was it was so demoralizing
[00:36:53] to hear that damn helicopter fly off.
[00:36:55] And I'll forget we're laying down in a
[00:36:57] in a fighting position. I pop one in. I
[00:36:59] look over and the two guys next to me
[00:37:03] are I mean they're just staring a hole
[00:37:05] through me and they're like give me one
[00:37:09] and [laughter]
[00:37:11] no. And they're like come on man. I'm
[00:37:13] like you didn't share. You know we're
[00:37:15] having like this argument.
[00:37:17] I thought they were going to come, you
[00:37:19] know, like come after those Skittles.
[00:37:21] They wanted them so bad. Anyway, long
[00:37:23] story short, I ended up I never forget
[00:37:25] it was a purple one. and I throw it and
[00:37:26] I hit him in the face. And I'm thinking
[00:37:29] I had the discipline to, you know, to to
[00:37:33] ration my food. These guys didn't. They
[00:37:35] didn't help me out. Whatever. Fast
[00:37:37] forward, finish the phase. You go in for
[00:37:39] your final evaluation. It's a big burly
[00:37:43] master sergeant. I don't forget standing
[00:37:44] there in front of me. He's got big big
[00:37:47] dip in and he's flipping through my
[00:37:49] stuff. And I could see I mean, you know,
[00:37:51] you get evaluated by them, but also by
[00:37:52] your peers.
[00:37:53] >> Yeah.
[00:37:53] >> Which is incredibly important. had all
[00:37:56] all goes. He said, "Uh, Ranger Waltz,
[00:38:01] you did great. You got all these good
[00:38:03] good marks except you got two
[00:38:07] bad peers must not pass from two of your
[00:38:10] fellow squadmates."
[00:38:12] And I could see the red slip sitting on
[00:38:14] his desk and I'm like those if they if I
[00:38:17] don't get my tab over those [ __ ] and
[00:38:20] Skittles I I mean it's just like rolling
[00:38:22] through my mind as I'm sitting there and
[00:38:25] uh he said this the point of the story.
[00:38:28] He said I see you put down your site
[00:38:30] profile that you're a Christian. Yes,
[00:38:32] Sergeant I am. He said I see you kind of
[00:38:35] describe your leadership style as
[00:38:36] servant leadership.
[00:38:38] Yes, Sergeant I am. He said, "Well, I
[00:38:40] have one question for you, and this for
[00:38:42] all the marbles."
[00:38:44] He said, "In that situation, what would
[00:38:47] Jesus have done?"
[00:38:49] And I was like, "He [gasps]
[00:38:52] would have given him He would have
[00:38:53] shared his Skittles, Sergeant." Yeah,
[00:38:56] you're right. He would have shared it.
[00:38:59] [laughter] You're damn right. I'm right.
[00:39:00] Like, dip spit. Like, you don't ever
[00:39:02] tell an NCO HE'S RIGHT. I'M ALWAYS
[00:39:04] RIGHT. I'M A RANGER INSTRUCTOR. Like
[00:39:07] spits flying and I'm like, "Oh man, I'm
[00:39:08] screwed now. pissed him off. And I'm
[00:39:11] standing there with dip spit all over my
[00:39:13] face going, I I've I blew it. And he
[00:39:15] sits back down. And he says,
[00:39:18] I'm going to let you have your tab.
[00:39:21] Said, but don't you ever forget. Earning
[00:39:24] it was the easy part. Living it is the
[00:39:27] hard part. And as an officer, officers
[00:39:30] always eat last. And if you have the
[00:39:32] discipline
[00:39:35] to to do the right thing, you pay that
[00:39:38] forward when your men don't. Right? And
[00:39:41] so
[00:39:44] I've tried to apply that
[00:39:46] uh my whole life. Uh
[00:39:49] fast forward, there I am in Congress
[00:39:52] running my first my first I'm not in
[00:39:54] Congress yet, running uh for the first
[00:39:56] time to be in Congress. I get the call
[00:39:58] that you dread when you're doing this
[00:40:00] that uh my opponent just had millions of
[00:40:03] dollars dumped into their account by
[00:40:05] Pelosi, super PACs, Bloomberg, the whole
[00:40:09] thing. By the way, Bloomberg dumped
[00:40:11] money into 24 races. This is in 2018,
[00:40:14] Trump's first midterm.
[00:40:17] >> Pelosi comes back in. Um he dumped money
[00:40:20] into 24 races and won 21 of them,
[00:40:24] >> right? Uh, and you get that call.
[00:40:29] I couldn't compete with that. Um, but
[00:40:32] what I could do is outwork them. So, my
[00:40:34] team of volunteers and I ended up
[00:40:37] knocking
[00:40:39] 210,000 doors. And I'll never forget uh
[00:40:43] and so what I started doing was popping
[00:40:45] a skittle every like successful door
[00:40:48] knock. And I'll never forget, I I'll I
[00:40:50] I've taken up too much time, but at my
[00:40:53] last door, um a woman opens up and I saw
[00:40:57] as I was walking up, there was a little
[00:40:59] shrine in her yard.
[00:41:01] And I asked her who it was. And uh and I
[00:41:04] introduced myself and she said, "Oh, I
[00:41:06] know who you are, Colonel. I've seen all
[00:41:08] the negative ads on you on [laughter]
[00:41:09] TV."
[00:41:11] And I said, "Well, that's not who I am,
[00:41:13] and this is who I am." And she said,
[00:41:14] "You're pretty conservative for me, but
[00:41:16] you know what? if you've had the guts to
[00:41:18] do what you've done, you'll have the
[00:41:19] guts to do the right thing in Congress.
[00:41:21] And it turns out her son uh was an E4
[00:41:24] that was killed, second Ranger
[00:41:26] Battalion,
[00:41:27] >> uh in Panama.
[00:41:29] >> And uh she had a little shrine to him
[00:41:31] and and as I was thanking her and
[00:41:33] hugging her and she said,
[00:41:36] >> "Don't ever forget him and be worthy of
[00:41:38] him." When you're walking up those steps
[00:41:40] in Congress, be worthy. And so I think
[00:41:42] about that. I think about, you know, one
[00:41:45] of my Green Brays. I didn't bring back
[00:41:48] Matt Pacino and and his sacrifice and
[00:41:50] all of them.
[00:41:51] >> What happened to him?
[00:41:52] >> Uh
[00:41:53] Matt
[00:41:55] was a was an absolute stud uh former um
[00:42:00] police officer uh up in Massachusetts uh
[00:42:03] before he became a Green Beret. And um
[00:42:09] the the the shorter version was he
[00:42:12] always volunteered to go on point
[00:42:14] >> and keep story alive. What's up?
[00:42:16] >> You want to keep his story alive? Yeah.
[00:42:18] Give me the full version.
[00:42:20] >> Um
[00:42:21] he was probably if I had to rank uh all
[00:42:25] of my all of my guys, you know, at that
[00:42:27] point I was commanding a special forces
[00:42:29] company, about 90 of them, I' I'd have
[00:42:31] ranked him top five. I mean, he was just
[00:42:33] incredible. Smart, sharp, good-looking,
[00:42:36] built like a, you know, built like a
[00:42:38] linebacker. But uh and this was kind of
[00:42:41] a bigger story of the war. Um the the
[00:42:44] enemy had gone to IEDs.
[00:42:47] Uh we had all of these jammers and
[00:42:49] antennas and whatever and they the you
[00:42:51] know the good news is they had worked.
[00:42:53] So what did the Taliban do? They went
[00:42:55] back old school. They went back to trip
[00:42:56] wires. Um and the difference in Iraq
[00:42:59] where they tended to come in from the
[00:43:00] side in Afghanistan because it was dirt
[00:43:02] roads. They tended to come up through
[00:43:04] the bottom and it yeah the conventional
[00:43:07] units and what have you didn't know how
[00:43:08] to deal with it. Uh and and a lot of
[00:43:11] them shut down. not this team. And these
[00:43:12] were, you know, I'm sure you've seen
[00:43:14] them. They just got after it. And uh
[00:43:17] they were going out one night after um
[00:43:21] uh after a commander [snorts] and Matt
[00:43:25] started volunteering to go out on either
[00:43:27] motorcycle or four-wheeler ahead of our
[00:43:31] armored convoy [snorts] so that he would
[00:43:34] be close enough to the ground to see if
[00:43:35] there was any dirt disturbances or trip
[00:43:37] wires or or or what have you. I don't
[00:43:40] forget stopping them before they went
[00:43:42] out on a mission. I was a commander
[00:43:43] approving the missions and um saying,
[00:43:46] "Guys, you guys are pushing it." And I
[00:43:49] said, "Matt, you're volunteering to go
[00:43:50] out every time." And he said, "You know
[00:43:52] what, Mike?
[00:43:54] If I miss something or we miss
[00:43:56] something, I wanted to get just me, not
[00:43:59] my four or five brothers in the car
[00:44:01] behind me, right?" Like, who
[00:44:05] thinks that way? I mean, these are this
[00:44:07] is the best America has to give. And um
[00:44:12] you know uh they were they were going
[00:44:14] going out one night successful hit
[00:44:18] came back alternate route. We think
[00:44:20] somehow it got compromised because they
[00:44:22] set up the trip wire at night which was
[00:44:24] highly highly unusual and he was on an
[00:44:28] ATV when it it came up and damn killed
[00:44:30] him. But um his family is amazing. Uh
[00:44:35] they uh have set up of course a
[00:44:37] foundation. They work a lot with Gary
[00:44:39] Senise. It's the Matthew Pacino
[00:44:40] Foundation. I've donated the proceeds
[00:44:42] from my books uh to him to Wow.
[00:44:45] >> and and his family to pay it forward.
[00:44:48] >> Um
[00:44:49] so those are the ones, you know, it's
[00:44:52] one of the reasons that I I'm so
[00:44:54] passionate about now veterans serving
[00:44:56] again. It doesn't have to be in
[00:44:57] Congress. It can be city council, state
[00:45:00] rep up in Congress. And you know, you
[00:45:03] mentioned in the bio, I I f co-founded a
[00:45:06] um bipartisan veterans caucus because,
[00:45:10] you know, if we were all willing to die
[00:45:11] together a few years ago, we could
[00:45:14] figure out things like healthc care
[00:45:16] policy or taxes or or whatever together
[00:45:19] as veterans uh in office. When I ran in
[00:45:23] 20 uh 18, we're at a record low. 15% of
[00:45:27] Congress were vets. That was down from
[00:45:30] 75%
[00:45:32] uh in the in the 1970s and we've now
[00:45:34] >> in the 70s
[00:45:35] >> in the 70s three quarters. Now a lot of
[00:45:38] people would say okay of course that's
[00:45:39] because of the draft but you know after
[00:45:42] 20 years of warfare in the Middle East.
[00:45:44] We've had a lot of veterans go through.
[00:45:46] There's just they're just not taking
[00:45:48] that next step to run for office.
[00:45:49] >> I mean I I I think that's great that you
[00:45:51] did that Mike. I'm just curious, why do
[00:45:55] you think it's important for veterans to
[00:45:57] continue service in Congress and the
[00:46:01] Senate and local politics?
[00:46:04] Why do you feel that that's important?
[00:46:06] >> You're not done serving just because you
[00:46:08] went overseas and came back. That
[00:46:09] doesn't mean you get to sit in the VFW
[00:46:11] hall and drink beer and and uh and tell
[00:46:14] war stories. with such a few a small
[00:46:17] percentage of Americans now post-draft
[00:46:20] serving um the country needs you.
[00:46:25] Leadership, teamwork, followership,
[00:46:28] discipline, mission focus. Uh
[00:46:33] if you look at no offense to lawyers out
[00:46:36] there, but if you look at um the type of
[00:46:39] profession that's gotten into politics
[00:46:41] now,
[00:46:42] lawyers have lar and activists have
[00:46:44] largely replaced business owners and
[00:46:46] veterans
[00:46:47] >> and we're looking to write that ship.
[00:46:49] >> Why do you think that is? Um, well, I
[00:46:52] think on the on the veteran side, you
[00:46:54] used to back in the day, you'd go serve
[00:46:57] a couple years, and you'd come back to
[00:46:58] your hometown, pick up your life, get
[00:47:02] well known in the community, and, you
[00:47:04] know, and perhaps run for office. Now,
[00:47:06] you're running around the world for 20,
[00:47:09] 25 years, and then you come back home
[00:47:11] and decide you want to do this, as I
[00:47:13] did, and people try to call you a carpet
[00:47:15] bagger. Like,
[00:47:17] I I've been around defending you, thank
[00:47:19] you very much. But um so I think it's
[00:47:22] the nature of service that that shifted
[00:47:24] somewhat over time. Uh I also think it's
[00:47:27] the amount of money uh involved and
[00:47:29] there's a number of organizations out
[00:47:31] there that are focused on on getting
[00:47:33] veterans back in. And we again we've
[00:47:35] seen that you've seen that uptake coming
[00:47:37] back. But at the end of the day, it's
[00:47:39] the ability to overcome differences,
[00:47:42] focus on a mission
[00:47:44] >> for the betterment of your country, and
[00:47:46] get things done.
[00:47:47] >> I mean, I just I can't remember. I think
[00:47:49] I can't remember if I just had this
[00:47:51] conversation with Jaco or Matt and
[00:47:53] others.
[00:47:53] >> This is not a beer by the way. This is
[00:47:55] it. [laughter]
[00:47:57] >> Just for everybody out there.
[00:47:58] >> No beer. But um you know we we we were
[00:48:02] kind of discussing that I think it was
[00:48:04] with Jaco and and we were talking about
[00:48:07] you know how in in soft units and
[00:48:10] military units I mean we we have to work
[00:48:14] together because our [ __ ] life
[00:48:15] depends on it you know and and then we
[00:48:17] look at what goes on in Congress. What
[00:48:20] goes on
[00:48:20] >> have to work together. Your country
[00:48:21] depends on it.
[00:48:23] >> Exactly. and and and it you know from
[00:48:26] the outside looking in it doesn't seem
[00:48:27] like much is is getting done.
[00:48:31] >> Yeah. Uh part of that is the media like
[00:48:33] the media loves to focus on the
[00:48:35] dysfunction. Like we've had a defense
[00:48:37] bill get passed. A lot of veterans on
[00:48:40] that committee consecutively for it's
[00:48:42] the only piece of legislation for 61
[00:48:44] years running that has passed and
[00:48:46] there's a lot of uh of good stuff in it.
[00:48:49] But like case in point, um several years
[00:48:51] ago,
[00:48:53] impeachments going on. Everybody is is
[00:48:57] hating uh President Trump. Everyone's
[00:49:00] calling everyone a racist uh or this or
[00:49:03] that. I sent a note out to all the
[00:49:05] veterans in the house and said, "Meet me
[00:49:08] 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning." You know
[00:49:10] what? 40 did uh how many Vietnam at the
[00:49:14] Vietnam Memorial Wall
[00:49:16] >> and we linked up with the park service
[00:49:18] who himself the the head park ranger
[00:49:20] there at the Vietnam Memorial Wall is a
[00:49:22] disabled veteran who who lost his leg
[00:49:26] and we washed the Vietnam Memorial Wall
[00:49:28] together, right? And we had, you know, a
[00:49:30] camera crew out there, Brett Bearer from
[00:49:32] Fox and others have come. America needs
[00:49:35] to see that. They need to see if we can
[00:49:36] get over it and come together to solve
[00:49:38] their problems and quit bitching,
[00:49:40] bickering, fighting. Now, we need to
[00:49:42] fight for what we believe in. But at
[00:49:44] some point, you move the, you know, you
[00:49:45] move the country forward.
[00:49:47] >> Mhm.
[00:49:47] >> Um, and you know, other things we've
[00:49:49] done. Let me share with you a fun one.
[00:49:51] Uh, and it was actually the uh horse
[00:49:53] soldier bourbon guys that put this
[00:49:55] together. I brought uh 10 veteran
[00:49:58] members of Congress together. We went
[00:50:01] over to Normandy uh for the both the
[00:50:03] 75th and the 80th anniversary of D-Day
[00:50:06] and we jumped out of the original C47
[00:50:10] Sean that led the 101st Airborne
[00:50:14] uh in the invasion in 1944. And we did
[00:50:17] it by the way with a 97year-old
[00:50:19] paratrooper
[00:50:20] >> I remember
[00:50:21] >> who was TANM buddy of mine. Yeah. I'll
[00:50:23] never forget landing. His name was Tom
[00:50:25] Rice. And I walk up to him, Tom, you
[00:50:26] okay? He's like, hell yeah. That was a
[00:50:29] hell of a lot more fun than last time.
[00:50:30] You know, back in [laughter]
[00:50:32] Nobody's shooting at me, right? Yeah.
[00:50:34] Right. But the point is, you you know,
[00:50:38] if I could get every high school class
[00:50:41] over to Normandy where you see more
[00:50:43] American flags flying on French homes.
[00:50:46] You see all these French kids running
[00:50:48] around with American flag t-shirts and
[00:50:50] big banners that say, "Thank you for our
[00:50:53] freedom. Welcome to our liberators."
[00:50:56] Uh, "Thank you, America.
[00:50:58] You would think D-Day had happened like
[00:51:00] last year, not
[00:51:01] >> 80 years ago. Um, by the way, last time
[00:51:05] I took um
[00:51:08] 10 members with me. I'll never forget
[00:51:11] Speaker Johnson stops me on the way out
[00:51:13] and he said, "Mike, heard you're doing
[00:51:14] this like, yeah, it's going to be
[00:51:15] amazing and this is good for people to
[00:51:17] see." He said, "You know, we only have a
[00:51:20] two seat majority and you're going to be
[00:51:22] out there jumping out of uh original
[00:51:24] plays." Like, it's all right. The
[00:51:26] parachutes are new. The parachutes are
[00:51:27] new, Mr. Speaker. Everything else,
[00:51:29] double check them. Everything else is
[00:51:31] vintage. He was a little worried.
[00:51:32] >> I remember seeing you doing that. That
[00:51:33] was that was um that was really cool to
[00:51:35] see.
[00:51:36] >> But the country needs to see that,
[00:51:38] right? And I think the next generation
[00:51:39] needs to see that and always appreciate
[00:51:43] and be worthy of those who
[00:51:46] >> made this country what it is for.
[00:51:48] >> Yeah.
[00:51:48] >> Be an American worth dying for.
[00:51:52] I want to go back to veterans and
[00:51:55] serving in the in the political sphere.
[00:51:57] >> You know, you
[00:51:59] do you has have in your mind have
[00:52:03] veterans lost interest in serving in in
[00:52:07] politics or have the American
[00:52:10] people do they just not give a [ __ ]
[00:52:13] anymore and they're not getting elected?
[00:52:16] >> Um I think it's more I think it's more
[00:52:19] the former. Uh, nothing's 100% one way
[00:52:22] or another. I think it's I think it's
[00:52:24] more the former. Um, there's
[00:52:26] organizations now that help them set up
[00:52:30] a, you know, how do you set up a
[00:52:31] political campaign? There's a lot of
[00:52:33] consultants out there that are shysters
[00:52:35] and ripoff artists. They know someone
[00:52:37] with your profile or raise a lot of
[00:52:39] money. They're happy to spend it even if
[00:52:41] it's a hopeless strategy or race. So,
[00:52:45] uh, I I became very passionate about
[00:52:46] helping them navigate. I mean, you look
[00:52:48] at at Shehy, uh, who just came in. You,
[00:52:52] you know, you I mean, just great
[00:52:54] veterans. Uh, Mark Wayne Mullen, Tom
[00:52:56] Cotton, uh, uh, you know, I I
[00:53:01] Jared Hudson running for Senate in
[00:53:02] Alabama, right? You know, but
[00:53:04] >> get in it, you know, [clears throat] uh,
[00:53:06] you know, yelling at the TV and throwing
[00:53:08] [ __ ] at it and saying, "This is what I
[00:53:10] fought for." Not good enough. Get in
[00:53:12] there, roll up your sleeves, be part of
[00:53:14] this amazing republic that we were
[00:53:16] willing to die for.
[00:53:18] Do you think veterans are leading the
[00:53:19] way in Congress?
[00:53:20] >> And I think and and and and I think the
[00:53:22] American people have been incredibly
[00:53:25] responsive uh to those who step up. Not
[00:53:27] always. Look, I'm not going to say that
[00:53:29] always makes the best uh politician, and
[00:53:31] I certainly don't agree with a a there's
[00:53:34] not that many progressives that are
[00:53:36] actually veterans, which are odd, but
[00:53:37] doesn't mean we always agree. We
[00:53:39] disagree on all kinds of things, but we
[00:53:41] do agree almost always that America has
[00:53:44] been a force for good uh historically
[00:53:46] and certainly it's not systemically
[00:53:49] racist, misogynist and you know a
[00:53:52] [clears throat] a a a terrible country.
[00:53:54] So in that sense we have that
[00:53:56] commonality and uh that leads to that
[00:53:59] leads to mission accomplishment getting
[00:54:01] things done.
[00:54:02] >> What do you think the pulse of veterans
[00:54:05] within the sphere is? Are they hopeful?
[00:54:09] Are they I
[00:54:10] >> think they're hopeful now. Not to sound
[00:54:12] overly partisan, but they're hopeful
[00:54:14] under President Trump's leadership. The
[00:54:16] recruiting numbers show it. Uh Pete
[00:54:19] Hegsath is is restoring that warrior
[00:54:22] mentality. Uh Dan Driscoll uh at Army,
[00:54:26] right, is is taking uh the military
[00:54:29] mindset with technology into the next
[00:54:32] >> uh the the the next level. We have great
[00:54:34] leadership in Navy and Air Force. So,
[00:54:35] it's about leadership. I was the
[00:54:38] chairman of readiness uh the readiness
[00:54:40] subcommittee and we were focused on
[00:54:42] everything but putting two bullets or
[00:54:46] bombs on foreheads when you have to
[00:54:49] >> uh and that pointy end of the spear.
[00:54:51] Everything else should be to support
[00:54:52] that, not these social experiments that
[00:54:54] are going on. I I pushed uh the Biden
[00:54:57] administration fought back left, right,
[00:54:58] and center on genderneutral standards.
[00:55:01] The rucksack's the rucks sack. The
[00:55:03] artillery shell is the artillery shell,
[00:55:05] right? uh doesn't matter black, white or
[00:55:08] brown, man, woman. It's about standards,
[00:55:11] not all of not all of that other stuff.
[00:55:14] And so now to see that being enacted,
[00:55:18] uh you've seen the recruiting numbers
[00:55:20] follow and I think the mentality and the
[00:55:23] retention numbers have followed, all of
[00:55:25] which were at a record low just a year
[00:55:27] ago. Just a year ago,
[00:55:29] >> right? And you know, the amazing thing
[00:55:31] about President Trump is uh he puts the
[00:55:34] right people in the right seats in the
[00:55:35] bus, gives them a vision, and says go
[00:55:38] and expects results.
[00:55:40] >> Right on.
[00:55:42] And that's [clears throat] what I think
[00:55:42] our military members want. Right. It's
[00:55:45] what I loved about being a Green Beret.
[00:55:47] uh is,
[00:55:49] you know, you you were given a broad
[00:55:52] mission set and you were dropped off in
[00:55:54] the middle of nowhere uh and and told be
[00:55:57] a warrior diplomat, figure it out, win
[00:55:59] that guerilla chief over, win that
[00:56:02] government official over in line with
[00:56:04] what America needs and you know,
[00:56:06] nobody's going to micromanage you on how
[00:56:07] to get it done.
[00:56:08] >> Yeah. I want to I just have to ask you
[00:56:12] this totally off totally off subject
[00:56:14] right now, but
[00:56:16] >> I met you through Scott, man, at Tyler
[00:56:20] Andrew Vargas' uh thing at the in DC
[00:56:24] that I spoke at. That's when we first
[00:56:25] met. I met you through Scott. And Scott
[00:56:27] told me about this operation you were on
[00:56:30] where it sounded like you were a
[00:56:32] singleton and uh on Escape and Evasion
[00:56:36] and Scott was on the talk kind of
[00:56:38] walking you through where to go.
[00:56:41] You got to tell me this. He never told
[00:56:43] it to me.
[00:56:44] >> Yeah.
[00:56:44] >> I want to hear
[00:56:45] >> young
[00:56:46] >> young Captain Mike Waltz.
[00:56:48] >> I mean this sounds [ __ ] badass. uh uh
[00:56:51] Major uh Scott man who I think is is one
[00:56:55] of our legendary Green Beretss in his
[00:56:57] own right is a is a thought leader
[00:57:00] speaker founded Task Force Pineapple by
[00:57:03] the way that got so many of our Afghan
[00:57:05] allies out in the Biden withdrawal
[00:57:07] debacle. But um this was actually in the
[00:57:10] tour where I was embedded with the the
[00:57:13] Arab task force with the UAE task force.
[00:57:15] So it was just three of us. The first
[00:57:18] call um I get from him, by the way,
[00:57:21] we're out in Helman Province, middle of
[00:57:24] nowhere. This is back in 0506. There
[00:57:27] were less less than 50 Americans in the
[00:57:29] entire province.
[00:57:30] >> 10 years later, there were over 20,000
[00:57:33] Marines back then. There was just none
[00:57:36] of us.
[00:57:36] >> One of the hottest zones,
[00:57:37] >> one of the hottest. Uh I mean, it was a
[00:57:40] everyday firefight.
[00:57:43] This is the amazing thing about you know
[00:57:45] our our mission set. I had worked with
[00:57:49] the UAE command and my command and
[00:57:53] reached back to DC because I was the
[00:57:55] this reserveist back or forth and and
[00:57:58] convince them to build an airfield out
[00:58:01] in this hottest Taliban zone where we
[00:58:03] were going to get an Arab partner now
[00:58:04] with all of their assets. Oh, by the
[00:58:07] way, in this hot Taliban zone, not that
[00:58:09] far from Iran either. is strategic
[00:58:11] asset. We were taking the survey a
[00:58:14] Emirrod Air Force survey team up there
[00:58:17] and uh got into a running gun battle. Um
[00:58:23] my only medic got shot with a femoral
[00:58:27] >> [ __ ]
[00:58:27] >> bleed. So I'll never forget he was
[00:58:30] left-handed. Round goes through his arm,
[00:58:32] bounces off his chest plate, and shoots
[00:58:35] down. And you know with a femoral
[00:58:36] artery, you got minutes. Uh, I'm down
[00:58:39] there working on him. Uh, you know,
[00:58:43] calling in calling in the medevac.
[00:58:46] Literally put my knee on his on the
[00:58:48] artery while we're while we're running
[00:58:50] and gunning.
[00:58:52] >> And I think it's got to be the only
[00:58:54] deployment of the uh of the Taliban Navy
[00:58:57] because the road where they were
[00:58:59] ambushing us, cliff on one side, so they
[00:59:02] had us pinned and we're trying to drive
[00:59:03] out of it. They had barges with mortar
[00:59:06] and RPG teams. are you
[00:59:08] >> that were paralleling us
[00:59:10] >> that we couldn't uh that we couldn't get
[00:59:12] out of. So we eventually fought our way
[00:59:14] out of that. Um I broke some rules and
[00:59:19] uh when we called in the medevac
[00:59:22] and told them that the LZ was clear, it
[00:59:26] wasn't. Uh the bird got a little bird
[00:59:29] got a little shot up, but we got our
[00:59:30] guys and a couple of UAE guys out as
[00:59:33] well. Uh that got that got shot up. got
[00:59:37] them out of there. So the first call I
[00:59:39] get that night is from Scott man on and
[00:59:42] you know the satellite radios everybody
[00:59:45] can hear it. I mean when you call up
[00:59:47] that tick that troops in contact
[00:59:49] everybody hears it. You're directing
[00:59:51] fire directing the fight. When you get
[00:59:53] the notice to hey step off of the
[00:59:56] satellite radio that everybody can hear
[00:59:57] and have a one-on-one on the satphone
[00:59:59] like something's up. First call he calls
[01:00:01] in and says hey we think someone's
[01:00:04] inside your perimeter. What do you mean?
[01:00:06] Well, we just got an intercept that the
[01:00:08] uh Taliban think they can capture you
[01:00:11] and you know two other Americans are
[01:00:13] with you if they overrun, but they were
[01:00:15] just offered a bounty from a guy that
[01:00:17] was in Pakistan
[01:00:18] uh to get you alive. And we think
[01:00:21] they're working with somebody on the
[01:00:22] inside. Mike, if you have to go full E
[01:00:25] and E, you do what you got to do.
[01:00:27] >> Holy [ __ ] And this is it was so remote
[01:00:30] back then. There wasn't much many
[01:00:32] assets. I mean, we were probably a solid
[01:00:36] hour, hour and a half flight um from
[01:00:40] Kandahar. And oh, by the way, when they
[01:00:42] had tried to send in uh some QRF, it got
[01:00:44] shot up. So,
[01:00:46] >> this is an ' 05.
[01:00:47] >> This was 06.
[01:00:48] >> What is this?
[01:00:48] >> 06.
[01:00:49] >> Wow.
[01:00:50] >> This was an 06. I mean, longer story,
[01:00:52] what had happened was the British were
[01:00:53] supposed to come down at the transfer to
[01:00:55] NATO. They were delayed. Uh, so it was
[01:00:58] just us and our little, you know, UAE
[01:01:02] task force out there,
[01:01:04] [laughter]
[01:01:05] trying to establish this air base,
[01:01:07] trying to pacify the region, um, doing
[01:01:10] doing the best we could. The next call I
[01:01:13] get, uh, was even better from the major
[01:01:17] man who's up at the [clears throat]
[01:01:18] headquarters. Hey, Mike, um,
[01:01:23] you need to get out of there.
[01:01:26] Your mission is canled. I was pissed.
[01:01:27] I'd been working on this for months to
[01:01:29] get this air base, strategic air base
[01:01:31] set up. You're done. I [snorts] was
[01:01:33] ready to fight my way forward. He said,
[01:01:34] "No, you're not. Uh gave me a direct
[01:01:38] order." He said, "They believe they have
[01:01:39] you surrounded. They're going to overrun
[01:01:41] you. Uh when I give you when I give you
[01:01:45] the next call, you need to get under
[01:01:46] anything you can. It's going to look
[01:01:48] like apocalypse [ __ ] now."
[01:01:50] And uh he he had B1s,
[01:01:54] Prreds, F-18s from Carrier Strike Group
[01:01:58] just stacked up and just just laid laid
[01:02:02] waste, including um I saw the footage
[01:02:05] later uh where everybody was
[01:02:07] celebrating. I don't know. I hope this
[01:02:10] doesn't get you in trouble, Scott. They
[01:02:11] hit a they hit everybody was celebrating
[01:02:13] in a mosque and they just blew the snot
[01:02:15] out of it. I mean, body parts flying
[01:02:17] everywhere. So, holy [ __ ]
[01:02:19] >> We ended up Yeah. We ended up fighting
[01:02:21] our way over the next
[01:02:22] >> Where did you Where So, you you hunkered
[01:02:25] down.
[01:02:26] >> We hunkered down as as Scott was
[01:02:30] commanding, controlling every Air Force
[01:02:32] asset they had in theater just as we
[01:02:35] were trying to get out of where they had
[01:02:38] us surrounded and and fight our way out.
[01:02:40] He ended up staying on the phone with me
[01:02:42] for uh probably the next 40 hours uh on
[01:02:47] just just constant as they were guiding
[01:02:50] us through um these various ambushes
[01:02:53] that we had till we could get back to
[01:02:54] our base, which by the way was for
[01:02:57] everybody who served out there was uh
[01:02:59] Fob Robinson who's named after Chris
[01:03:01] Robinson, one of the Green Beretss we
[01:03:03] lost that tour.
[01:03:05] >> Holy [ __ ] dude. So that was Scott and
[01:03:08] uh he's a he's a great friend. Uh he's
[01:03:11] written several books on the Green Bay
[01:03:13] mentality and um
[01:03:16] >> 40 40 hours of kinetic ent.
[01:03:19] >> Yeah.
[01:03:21] >> Off and on. Yeah. As you know what I
[01:03:22] mean? It's not rounds aren't flying.
[01:03:24] [laughter]
[01:03:25] >> I mean rounds aren't flying every minute
[01:03:26] but it was
[01:03:28] >> you know you don't know that. And so
[01:03:30] I'll never forget, I don't know why, um
[01:03:32] it seemed like every AC-130, which is my
[01:03:35] favorite platform in the Air Force, by
[01:03:37] the way, the big cargo gunships, right,
[01:03:41] that have that 120 mm cannon and the
[01:03:44] miniguns. It seemed like every targeting
[01:03:46] officer was a female. And I've never
[01:03:48] asked the chief of staff of the Air
[01:03:49] Force why this was, but I'll never
[01:03:52] forget my guys. Um uh I mean she was
[01:03:56] like an angel and then the angel of
[01:03:58] death in in every minute. Target
[01:04:02] eliminated
[01:04:03] [laughter]
[01:04:04] ambush 50 meters to your left. Boom.
[01:04:08] Damn. They're gone. And then my guys are
[01:04:12] are running bets on whether she was
[01:04:14] blonde, whether she was brunette. And of
[01:04:16] course, they're all tripping over
[01:04:17] theelves when we get back to the base,
[01:04:19] back to uh finally get back to Kandahar
[01:04:21] and then Bram Air Base to go thank her
[01:04:24] in person. And um yeah, I mean it was it
[01:04:28] was it was a hell of a fight.
[01:04:30] >> What the UAE fighters were fantastic. Uh
[01:04:33] the soldiers were fantastic, but man,
[01:04:35] >> what was going through your head when
[01:04:37] they said it was an insider, somebody
[01:04:38] inside the perimeter? Do you ever I
[01:04:40] mean, did they ever figure that out? you
[01:04:43] know, I don't they did it that tour. Um,
[01:04:47] but a year later, uh, I saw some some
[01:04:52] traffic that they themselves rolled a
[01:04:56] guy up and, uh, he just kind of
[01:04:58] disappeared right on. And then fast
[01:05:01] forward that uh uh
[01:05:05] fast forward a few years later, I'm
[01:05:06] actually in uh Abu Dhabi, the capital of
[01:05:08] the UAE, and we have, you know, it's a
[01:05:11] bunch of people, but we have a kind of a
[01:05:14] meeting and and greeting with the with
[01:05:16] the crown prince, Muhammad bin Zed,
[01:05:19] and the ambassador uh at the time is
[01:05:22] introducing everyone. And then as he
[01:05:24] comes and introduces me, he says, "And
[01:05:26] your highness, this was the American
[01:05:29] soldier that was embedded with our
[01:05:30] forces." Da da walks him through, you
[01:05:32] know, what had happened couple years
[01:05:33] prior. And he stopped and locked eyes
[01:05:36] and said, um, you know, basically, we've
[01:05:40] carried each other from the field of
[01:05:41] battle and we will defeat the extremists
[01:05:44] together. It's look, it's an amazing
[01:05:46] country and not to not to sell UAE, but
[01:05:48] I mean I've been to Paul McCartney
[01:05:50] concerts and
[01:05:52] >> uh and they were a key key member of now
[01:05:54] of the Abraham Accords and you can go
[01:05:56] there and go to a church, you can go to
[01:05:58] a synagogue and you can go um of course
[01:06:02] to a mosque.
[01:06:04] Very tolerant, very open.
[01:06:07] Take it back to Afghanistan with those
[01:06:10] guys. We would go into these villages
[01:06:13] that hadn't seen a Westerner probably
[01:06:15] since the Russians, right up in the
[01:06:16] mountains.
[01:06:18] And Sean, I can't tell you how powerful
[01:06:20] it was to be standing there with an
[01:06:22] Afghan officer, an Arab officer, and
[01:06:25] then me, but I'm bearded up and just
[01:06:27] kind of trying to blend in cuz you've
[01:06:29] got a whole sea of of uh Afghans sitting
[01:06:32] there with black eyeliner and a you
[01:06:34] know, AK sitting on their laps. They're
[01:06:36] all talib. But for the Arabs to say this
[01:06:41] isn't the way forward. This isn't true
[01:06:44] Islam. Look at Jakarta. Look at Dubai,
[01:06:48] right? Look at Istanbul. You can have a
[01:06:51] better life for your children and not
[01:06:53] follow these, you know, basically these
[01:06:56] al-Qaeda losers.
[01:06:58] >> Um, that was incredibly powerful. What
[01:07:01] was even more powerful is they would
[01:07:03] then turn to me and say, "Look at what
[01:07:05] the United States did for Germany. Look
[01:07:07] at what the United States did for Japan.
[01:07:09] Look at what America does even though uh
[01:07:12] they were once enemies. That's what
[01:07:13] they're trying to do here uh for you.
[01:07:16] Stop attacking them. And oh, by the way,
[01:07:18] don't let al-Qaeda and ISIS, you know,
[01:07:21] attack America. You can have a better
[01:07:23] life." That coming from them was worth
[01:07:25] its weight and gold. It turned whole
[01:07:27] areas. I'll take that over a division
[01:07:29] any day. That strategic messaging is
[01:07:31] critical.
[01:07:32] >> That's Wow. That's great to hear.
[01:07:35] >> Yeah.
[01:07:36] >> Mike, let's take a break.
[01:07:37] >> All right.
[01:07:38] >> And uh when we come back, we'll get into
[01:07:40] all things UN. I know you're a big fan.
[01:07:42] So cool.
[01:07:43] >> We're dozing. We're cleaning house.
[01:07:45] >> All right.
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[01:11:43] All right, Mike, we're back from the
[01:11:44] break. We're getting ready to get into
[01:11:45] some UN stuff, but I know we got a
[01:11:47] couple of things left to wrap up here.
[01:11:50] So, uh, [clears throat] one of them
[01:11:51] being a story, I believe, from your
[01:11:54] service. Yeah, it, you know, so much of
[01:11:58] uh today's discourse, right, is
[01:12:03] punch back harder if you're punched, you
[01:12:05] know, get ahead of it, be aggressive,
[01:12:09] hit hard, which look, I'm all for it.
[01:12:11] Um, but you have to also know when to
[01:12:13] show restraint. And one of the chapters
[01:12:18] that I that I talk about in hard truths,
[01:12:22] um, and I know, you know, a lot of other
[01:12:24] veterans that have faced this scenario,
[01:12:26] but we were told to hold the line,
[01:12:30] you know, in a valley, uh, we were we
[01:12:32] were holding a flank and as you know, in
[01:12:35] Afghanistan, as soon as you're static
[01:12:37] for a while, eventually you're going to
[01:12:38] come under fire. Mhm.
[01:12:40] >> And I had a coalition element because
[01:12:42] again, you know, as Green Beretss, we're
[01:12:43] always embedded. Sure enough, we hadn't
[01:12:46] been there. 30 minutes, mortar rounds
[01:12:50] start coming in, hit, next one comes in,
[01:12:54] it's closer. Next one comes in's closer.
[01:12:57] Pretty quickly, one of my snipers spots
[01:12:59] a probably 10, 12 year old boy up on a
[01:13:03] hill.
[01:13:05] Every time this kid brings a phone up to
[01:13:07] his unarmed, but every time he brings
[01:13:09] the phone up to his ear and brings binos
[01:13:11] up, another round comes in closer. And
[01:13:15] after about the third time that
[01:13:16] happened, sniper asks for me permission
[01:13:18] to take him out. And he was sitting on a
[01:13:20] barrett. And you know what a 50 cal
[01:13:23] round's going to do to a 10-year-old
[01:13:25] boy. And
[01:13:28] I, you know, thought about it for for
[01:13:30] half a second. He's screaming
[01:13:32] four-letter words at me, giving
[01:13:33] permission to take the shot. You start
[01:13:36] thinking about your own kids. I was
[01:13:38] thinking about my daughter. Another
[01:13:39] round comes in. Uh actually wounded one
[01:13:42] of our Afghans who start screaming and
[01:13:45] um
[01:13:47] you know, I ended up telling the sniper,
[01:13:49] "Take a warning shot." Took a warning
[01:13:52] shot, splashed rocks, you know, right at
[01:13:55] his feet. Kid dives behind a boulder,
[01:13:58] comes back up, takes another shot, and
[01:14:01] kid ends up running over the running
[01:14:03] over the hill and and uh we did we
[01:14:05] didn't kill him. And if you think about
[01:14:08] it for a moment, like kind of take a
[01:14:10] step back and I wrote about times when
[01:14:13] we've shown restraint as a country and
[01:14:15] whether that was a right thing. Grant
[01:14:18] showing restraint with the surrender of
[01:14:20] Lee I think prevented a insurgency in
[01:14:23] the south for many years uh following
[01:14:27] helped the country heal. Um Truman in
[01:14:31] Korea didn't hit China.
[01:14:35] MacArthur fired over it but showed
[01:14:37] restraint. Bush 41 stopped in Kuwait.
[01:14:41] Didn't keep going all the way to Baghdad
[01:14:44] in the Persian Gulf War. But one of my
[01:14:46] favorite stories that I think is really
[01:14:48] untold in history was during the Cuban
[01:14:51] missile crisis.
[01:14:54] A Soviet submarine executive officer,
[01:14:57] the number two. Soviet submarine is
[01:14:59] coming in under the US Navy's blockade
[01:15:02] of Cuba. They get picked up. Navy
[01:15:05] destroyer starts dropping depth charges
[01:15:07] on them. And the Soviet submarine
[01:15:10] captain believes that World War III has
[01:15:12] broken out over the Cuban missile crisis
[01:15:14] and orders his executive officer to turn
[01:15:16] the keys, the dual keys, to launch a
[01:15:19] nuclear tipped torpedo into our fleet,
[01:15:23] which had he done that,
[01:15:26] no doubt would have would have kicked
[01:15:28] off World War II.
[01:15:30] Vassili Archipov was the Soviet uh
[01:15:33] Russian exo, refused the order. didn't
[01:15:38] do it. Can you imagine? I mean, Soviet
[01:15:39] Navy depth charges are dropping. He
[01:15:42] refused to launch a nuke uh at our
[01:15:44] fleet.
[01:15:45] >> They eventually ended up surfacing and
[01:15:47] found out no World War II had not
[01:15:49] >> kicked off. And I mean, that restraint
[01:15:52] saved all of us, right?
[01:15:53] >> Yeah.
[01:15:54] So, I mean, back to the story, we um
[01:16:00] we ended up following the kid into his
[01:16:02] village, lined up all the elders, you
[01:16:05] know, reading him the riot act, and one
[01:16:07] of the elders stepped forward and said,
[01:16:09] "Look, the Taliban were here this
[01:16:10] morning, told us every family to give
[01:16:13] their oldest son to go attack the
[01:16:15] Americans."
[01:16:17] Um, al-Qaeda had been in and out.
[01:16:19] Al-Qaeda had been in and out of that
[01:16:20] village telling them the same thing. One
[01:16:22] family refused and they hung a
[01:16:25] seven-year-old boy. His body was laying
[01:16:28] right there. Um, so I don't know, man.
[01:16:31] You know, like was that the right call?
[01:16:35] I'm sure a lot of people watching this
[01:16:37] saying you should have taken the kid
[01:16:38] out. I don't, you know, um,
[01:16:40] >> I was in a similar situation.
[01:16:41] >> I say that in the sense of we've got
[01:16:45] people making these life or death
[01:16:46] decisions every day. They stick with you
[01:16:51] one way or another. if I had been
[01:16:52] sitting if I if one of my guys had been
[01:16:54] killed by one of those mortar rounds,
[01:16:56] could I explain that to the family,
[01:16:59] right? Um
[01:17:02] yeah, but you were saying sorry
[01:17:04] >> I I mean I I just
[01:17:07] I don't know, you know, I think that um
[01:17:11] showing some mercy, having a heart is is
[01:17:14] definitely a good thing. I mean, I was
[01:17:16] in I was in a similar situation in
[01:17:18] Baghdad where
[01:17:21] the MSR was get, you know, IED every
[01:17:23] [ __ ] day. Americans are dying every
[01:17:26] day. They sent us out. We go set up
[01:17:28] outside of a it's happening right
[01:17:30] outside of a schoolyard. And so we're
[01:17:33] all in in a rural environment. And so we
[01:17:35] we're all gillied up [clears throat]
[01:17:39] and
[01:17:41] convoy goes by first within the first
[01:17:43] you know 24 hours and these but right
[01:17:46] before the convoy comes in school gets
[01:17:48] out these kids come and they set up.
[01:17:52] I mean it was 10 yards from me right
[01:17:55] [ __ ] there. They did not even I mean
[01:17:57] right I could have reached out and
[01:17:59] grabbed them
[01:18:01] >> and
[01:18:02] there was three of them. One pulls out a
[01:18:04] cell phone, I'm like, "Fuck, please
[01:18:06] don't do this shit." And uh
[01:18:09] >> this is all rules of engagement, right?
[01:18:11] Like you make a bad call.
[01:18:12] >> Yep.
[01:18:13] >> You can be prosecuted.
[01:18:14] >> Yeah.
[01:18:15] >> And um convoy goes by, we we called it
[01:18:20] in, said, "Hey, we got a group of, you
[01:18:22] know, kids sitting here." And uh they
[01:18:25] said, "Don't engage." Comboy goes by,
[01:18:28] they [ __ ] hit the ID. They missed.
[01:18:31] We asked if it we could restrain him.
[01:18:34] Nope. Let him go. And then, you know, I
[01:18:38] mean, you just thinking back it's like I
[01:18:41] didn't want to kill that [ __ ] kid.
[01:18:42] >> Yeah.
[01:18:43] >> You know, I did not want to kill that
[01:18:44] kid. But then on the same on the, you
[01:18:48] know, on the same accord, what happens
[01:18:50] tomorrow? whose convoy comes by here
[01:18:52] tomorrow with this kid sitting in this
[01:18:55] exact spot
[01:18:57] knowing I could reach out and touch him
[01:19:01] at least restrain him, kill him,
[01:19:03] anything to save an American's life and
[01:19:05] [ __ ] nothing. And I, you know, I just
[01:19:08] I don't know what the right call is in
[01:19:10] those scenarios.
[01:19:12] >> Well, but in yours, I didn't have that
[01:19:14] kind of closure. I'll say um as now as
[01:19:19] leaders
[01:19:21] uh you have to give our junior officers
[01:19:25] and leaders and NCOs's the latitude
[01:19:28] I to make those calls the right training
[01:19:32] right the understanding of what you can
[01:19:34] and can't do
[01:19:36] but you know I mean President Trump god
[01:19:38] bless him pardoned a number of guys who
[01:19:44] were just prosecuted to the hill. One
[01:19:46] was put in jail for 19 years.
[01:19:48] >> No, four of them are right up there.
[01:19:50] They're their pardons. The Blackwater
[01:19:51] guys.
[01:19:52] >> Yeah. Right. You know,
[01:19:53] >> we saw what happened to
[01:19:54] >> Three for 35 years, one for life.
[01:19:56] >> We saw what, you know, what the media
[01:19:58] tried to do to Eddie Gallagher.
[01:19:59] >> Yeah. There's Eddie Gallagher's murder
[01:20:01] charges right there.
[01:20:02] >> Right. And and it's it's one of the many
[01:20:05] things I um love about our president,
[01:20:08] but he instinctively knows you let your
[01:20:10] warriors be warriors. They're inherently
[01:20:13] good. If one goes way off the
[01:20:16] reservation, fine. But you know, in
[01:20:18] these kind of life or death, seconds go
[01:20:20] by calls.
[01:20:21] >> Um, this goes for law enforcement.
[01:20:24] >> Yeah. Oh, even more so for law
[01:20:26] enforcement. I have so much. I tell this
[01:20:27] to all my sheriffs, my district, my
[01:20:29] state, all of them. You know, we go down
[01:20:32] range and we're in it, but then when we
[01:20:34] come home, we can psychologically turn
[01:20:37] off. Police officer can never
[01:20:39] >> Mhm.
[01:20:40] >> never
[01:20:41] >> psychologically switch off. They're
[01:20:42] never off duty and they're one cell
[01:20:44] phone, you know, away from a a riot for
[01:20:48] making a bad call. At least we make one.
[01:20:50] It's out in the mountains, right?
[01:20:52] >> Um I don't know. In this case, I you
[01:20:54] know, I talked about those times in
[01:20:57] history we showed restraint or strategic
[01:20:59] level. I made that call then. Uh you
[01:21:04] know, I remember my again back to one of
[01:21:06] my campaigns early on.
[01:21:09] this guy accused me of stolen valor uh
[01:21:11] on the you know on the bronze stars and
[01:21:14] stuff and I swore the next time I was
[01:21:17] gonna see him I was gonna punch the guy
[01:21:18] in the mouth and I wanted to go back out
[01:21:21] and when the media and online she was
[01:21:23] putting all this stuff out online thank
[01:21:24] God for my amazing wife Julia and my
[01:21:27] team said
[01:21:30] rise above it right and show show some
[01:21:33] restraint show you know some some
[01:21:35] dignity and don't crawl in the mud with
[01:21:38] them so I Just I think it's important
[01:21:40] for people to think about sometimes the
[01:21:44] discretion is the better part of hour
[01:21:45] and take a step back rise above all the
[01:21:48] noise. I think that is a [laughter] a
[01:21:51] major people could could learn right
[01:21:53] about now,
[01:21:54] >> right?
[01:21:54] >> You know, I I wanted to ask you um but I
[01:21:58] lost my train of thought earlier when
[01:22:00] you were coming out when you were
[01:22:02] creating policy and then going back into
[01:22:04] the field and fighting and living that
[01:22:06] policy and seeing you know the
[01:22:07] repercussions of it and then going back
[01:22:09] and giving the feedback on the I mean
[01:22:12] I'm curious how
[01:22:16] seriously did they take you? Did you
[01:22:18] feel like they gave a [ __ ] when you were
[01:22:21] giving them the information?
[01:22:22] >> I I I'll tell you, even though um
[01:22:27] I disagree with a number of policy
[01:22:29] decisions they made in the Bush
[01:22:31] administration, Iraq being one of them.
[01:22:33] Um and and I hope that's not too hurtful
[01:22:36] to people out there, but I think it was
[01:22:38] a strategic mistake. The intelligence
[01:22:41] got it wrong. Um but they valued that
[01:22:43] ground truth. They knew they were being
[01:22:46] fed, you know, I mean, the most
[01:22:48] politicized thing in Washington is
[01:22:50] what's coming into the what's coming
[01:22:52] into the White House. And they knew they
[01:22:53] were in a bubble. And so for me to come
[01:22:56] back from the field was very valuable to
[01:22:58] them. They appreciated it. And I
[01:23:00] appreciated that they appreciated it.
[01:23:02] Um, I also broke a lot of China and but
[01:23:04] I had to have the guts to speak truth to
[01:23:06] power. And you know, I'll never forget
[01:23:09] one general piping in
[01:23:12] saying, "Mr. President, Mr. Vice
[01:23:15] President, the Afghan Army will be
[01:23:17] operating on its own, independent of us,
[01:23:20] kicking ass, and taking names within 18
[01:23:23] months. We're going to get it done.
[01:23:25] Here's how we're getting it done. Oh, by
[01:23:27] the This was 2007,
[01:23:29] >> by the [laughter] way. Right. And oh, by
[01:23:32] the way, guess what his tour was? Was 18
[01:23:34] months.
[01:23:35] >> Um, shocker, right? like it was all
[01:23:38] going to be, you know, unicorns and
[01:23:40] rainbows and the Afghan army was going
[01:23:42] to be, you know, fighting like the
[01:23:44] British army by the time his watch and I
[01:23:46] never forget he turned off and they
[01:23:48] looked at me. I said,
[01:23:51] "Mr. Vice President, they can't even
[01:23:53] count." Like, look how long, not that
[01:23:56] it's a
[01:23:58] perfect analogy, but you know, we've
[01:24:00] been partnered with the South Korean
[01:24:02] army for 70 years. Um, by the way, the
[01:24:07] South Koreans had a higher illiteracy
[01:24:09] rate after years of occupation and
[01:24:12] devastation. No army, no police force,
[01:24:14] no government, um, you know, by by Japan
[01:24:17] up until World War II. We've been with
[01:24:19] them for 70 years. I'm not saying we
[01:24:21] should do that and should have done that
[01:24:23] in Afghanistan or elsewhere, but we have
[01:24:25] to appreciate what we're dealing with.
[01:24:27] Number one. Number two, um,
[01:24:32] decades to defeat communism.
[01:24:35] world war to defeat fascism, Islamic
[01:24:38] extremism. Uh we can't take our eye off
[01:24:40] the ball. It will follow us home.
[01:24:43] And you know, we've just got to find a
[01:24:44] better way to deal with it and we can't
[01:24:46] do nation building. But uh a
[01:24:49] counterterrorism approach partnered with
[01:24:51] by with and through small teams.
[01:24:54] >> I want it fought over there, not here.
[01:24:57] >> So
[01:24:58] yeah, I mean it was that speaking truth
[01:25:01] to power. you had to do it. And
[01:25:05] whether it's uh whether it's as a
[01:25:08] captain coming back from a tour, a major
[01:25:10] coming back for a tour, or now in
[01:25:12] Congress, uh or as ambassador of the
[01:25:14] United Nations.
[01:25:15] >> I mean, did you feel did you feel like
[01:25:17] the generals were fighting against you
[01:25:20] for their own self-interest? I mean,
[01:25:23] obviously that one his self-interest
[01:25:25] was, "Oh, no, we have to [ __ ]
[01:25:26] continue cuz I need this extra star
[01:25:29] after." I man this is a this is a longer
[01:25:32] conversation but I think an important
[01:25:33] one. I think we have you know the
[01:25:35] incentives have changed so much since
[01:25:37] the all volunteer from the draft army.
[01:25:40] >> Don't get me wrong all volunteer service
[01:25:42] the best uh the world has ever seen but
[01:25:45] it is different.
[01:25:47] A tour on an otherwise very promising 20
[01:25:50] 30 year career which you've sacrificed a
[01:25:52] lot. A tour is a blip on that otherwise
[01:25:55] career. back of the draft army, it was
[01:25:57] get over there, fight until you win, and
[01:25:59] don't come home. Take every risk
[01:26:01] necessary that you need to. Now, um,
[01:26:06] you know, don't have a base, get hit too
[01:26:09] hard, don't take any casualties, don't,
[01:26:13] you know, don't take too many risks. God
[01:26:15] forbid you don't lose a sensitive item.
[01:26:18] And so the you never see anybody
[01:26:21] relieved for the enemy actually making
[01:26:25] gains. It's really
[01:26:28] I mean we we you the biggest [ __ ]
[01:26:30] risk you can take is to actually go to
[01:26:32] [ __ ] war. Correct. I'm with you.
[01:26:34] That's the biggest [ __ ] risk. So we
[01:26:36] take the biggest [ __ ] risk and then
[01:26:40] we and then we and then we and then and
[01:26:42] that's when we do the risk mitigation
[01:26:44] [ __ ] The and the the the the risk
[01:26:46] analysts.
[01:26:47] >> Yes. Look what the [ __ ] is that?
[01:26:49] >> The default uh
[01:26:52] action becomes inaction
[01:26:55] >> because nobody gets fired for kind of
[01:26:58] getting through getting through your
[01:27:00] tour. And we had an accumulation
[01:27:02] of 20 years of that. I mean, I'll never
[01:27:05] forget I, you know, we
[01:27:09] switched to the MRAP, right, which was
[01:27:10] the the in order to deal with the IEDs.
[01:27:13] It had a V-shaped hole, armored hole. It
[01:27:16] was great in the sense of how it
[01:27:18] protected people, but the vehicles were
[01:27:20] too heavy.
[01:27:21] They made you use predictable roads. Um,
[01:27:25] they were often broken. And we had this
[01:27:28] accumulation of rules. I'll never forget
[01:27:30] dealing with this platoon. It was a
[01:27:32] conventional platoon. We had to get our
[01:27:34] guys in there and clean u clean out
[01:27:37] al-Qaeda and the Taliban out of this
[01:27:38] area that was right next to the hill
[01:27:40] that this platoon was on. I go up and
[01:27:41] talk to the platoon leader.
[01:27:43] We had a tough conversation, but he made
[01:27:46] me realize that um it was this
[01:27:48] accumulation of rules that tied his
[01:27:50] hands. He couldn't leave the base unless
[01:27:53] he was in a minimum. First of all,
[01:27:55] unless he was in an M wrap, even though
[01:27:57] he had all these armored Humvees that he
[01:27:59] could have taken various routes or gone
[01:28:01] at night or what have you. So, he had to
[01:28:03] be in the M wraps. He had to be in four.
[01:28:06] He only had five and two or three were
[01:28:07] always broken. So, vehicles were out. He
[01:28:11] had to have a certain number of soldiers
[01:28:12] to go out on patrol, but he had to have
[01:28:14] a certain number of soldiers to defend
[01:28:17] the base. It didn't add up to the right
[01:28:19] total. So, he bas he basically sat
[01:28:22] right.
[01:28:23] >> Yeah.
[01:28:24] >> What am I going to do?
[01:28:28] >> You know, what are you going to do? or I
[01:28:30] I you know this was back to my point on
[01:28:33] VMI where you learn which rules
[01:28:36] to bend to get the mission done but that
[01:28:39] doesn't cross the line. I mean at at one
[01:28:42] point we had this village chief who
[01:28:45] really wanted to be on our side every
[01:28:49] time al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban would
[01:28:52] come in. us one commander in particular,
[01:28:55] he would call us, but the third or
[01:28:56] fourth time we didn't show up and take
[01:28:58] care of business.
[01:29:00] He and his entire tribe gave up. And
[01:29:02] what turned out, and the generals would
[01:29:04] tell you to answer your question, they
[01:29:05] never declined a mission.
[01:29:08] I laid out the 12 different headquarters
[01:29:12] that we had to ask permission of 12 to
[01:29:15] get approval to go out.
[01:29:19] And if you went out on helicopters,
[01:29:20] regular, you know, shinooks or
[01:29:22] Blackhawks,
[01:29:24] you had to have an Apache escorting
[01:29:26] ahead of it
[01:29:27] >> because you didn't want the birds to get
[01:29:29] shot up. So then you had the Apache.
[01:29:31] Well, then if you had the Apache, those
[01:29:33] were getting shot up. So you had to have
[01:29:34] a predator ahead of that. Then you had
[01:29:37] to be within an hour of a medevac. Then
[01:29:40] you had to have a certain size QRF. And
[01:29:43] all these risk mitigation measures added
[01:29:45] up means, you know, we were we were
[01:29:47] tying our own hands.
[01:29:49] Uh, and I think that that added up in
[01:29:51] many ways to strategic defeat.
[01:29:54] I do want to say, Sean, though, because
[01:29:56] there's a lot of I think our generation
[01:29:59] out there hurting on what was it all
[01:30:00] for?
[01:30:03] We didn't have another 9/11 for 20
[01:30:06] years, and they had every intention of
[01:30:09] hitting us again. Uh, I've seen the
[01:30:12] intelligence of plot after plot after
[01:30:14] plot that was thwarted. uh the more they
[01:30:17] were running around worried about
[01:30:18] whether they were going to where they
[01:30:20] were going to sleep at night, the less
[01:30:21] they were plotting and planning to hit
[01:30:24] us. Uh we kept an entire generation
[01:30:27] safe. We've got to find a better way to
[01:30:29] do it now. But um
[01:30:34] I don't want people to think their
[01:30:35] sacrifice was in vain. It was not. It
[01:30:38] absolutely was not.
[01:30:42] >> Yeah. I wonder that a lot too. I I know
[01:30:46] everybody does.
[01:30:47] >> We all do. Um and again, for those out
[01:30:50] there that are really wondering, saying
[01:30:52] this and that was all screwed up, get in
[01:30:55] position to make a difference, right? Um
[01:30:59] one of the the first couple of things I
[01:31:01] did when I got into Congress was address
[01:31:03] things that I saw that were effed up
[01:31:05] when I was downrange. One of them I I
[01:31:08] think I told you one of my guys I lost,
[01:31:11] the Pentagon wouldn't pay to bury him in
[01:31:13] two different places. So, I get a call
[01:31:15] from my sergeant majors uh that the
[01:31:18] Greenberry I lost was Brian Woods. And
[01:31:21] um the family wanted him celebrated in
[01:31:23] one place, but his wife wanted him
[01:31:25] buried in another. And they tried to
[01:31:27] hand him a bill. Said absolutely not. We
[01:31:29] ended up passing the hat around our unit
[01:31:32] to to pay for it. You know, 8 $900
[01:31:34] billion budget. But anyway, we got that
[01:31:38] into a bill. We got it passed. We got a
[01:31:41] a guy by the name of Richard Stacl uh
[01:31:44] who was misdiagnosed, the military
[01:31:46] doctors missed him um with lung cancer
[01:31:51] until it was stage four. Uh and on his
[01:31:55] deathbed rather than enjoy his life or
[01:31:57] enjoy his family or you know as he was
[01:31:58] heading into stage four anyway, he's up
[01:32:01] on the hill
[01:32:03] making it making it happen. And we ended
[01:32:06] up getting the law changed to where you
[01:32:07] can sue for malpractice if it's here
[01:32:10] states side. Not a medic downrange, but
[01:32:12] if you're mis diagnosed here, we got
[01:32:14] service dogs introduced into the VA,
[01:32:17] right? Um, believe it or not, the VA
[01:32:20] were saying, "We're not paying for
[01:32:21] service dogs. They don't do anything.
[01:32:23] Here's your bag of pills." Right? You
[01:32:25] know, here's your therapist appointment.
[01:32:28] I can't tell you how many veterans I
[01:32:30] know that got off their meds, got out of
[01:32:32] their house, are out socializing again
[01:32:35] because of a well-trained, good service
[01:32:38] dog. We fought through the bureaucracy
[01:32:41] and got the legislation.
[01:32:43] >> We got all this stuff pushed through.
[01:32:44] >> We got the stuff pushed through. Not
[01:32:45] just me. I mean, this is a team effort.
[01:32:47] It's a team effort, right? But my point
[01:32:50] is, um, the service wasn't in vain. We
[01:32:53] kept the country safe as best we could.
[01:32:57] And for all the stuff that pisses you
[01:32:59] off, get in there, knock the doors, I'll
[01:33:02] put you in touch with people to help and
[01:33:03] get in there and keep serving, man.
[01:33:05] >> Yep.
[01:33:06] >> Right. Next generation deserves us
[01:33:08] pushing all the way through to the end.
[01:33:12] >> Yeah. Um I agree with you. There's a lot
[01:33:15] of It's frustrating.
[01:33:16] >> There's a lot [laughter] of I mean, I
[01:33:18] got a lot of buddies in there, too. I I
[01:33:20] mean, you were in there, but I got a lot
[01:33:21] of buddies that are in Congress. I got
[01:33:23] buddies that are in the Senate. And I,
[01:33:25] you know, and and man, they're just so
[01:33:28] [ __ ] distraught. They really are.
[01:33:32] Some of them are thinking about not
[01:33:33] running again because they haven't been
[01:33:35] able to make it the difference. But then
[01:33:36] then you come in here and you talk about
[01:33:38] these things that you're able to get
[01:33:39] pushed through. That's
[01:33:40] >> we never media doesn't cover half of it.
[01:33:42] They cover the they cover the drama. And
[01:33:44] look, I I I get I get the frustration,
[01:33:48] but [clears throat] um
[01:33:50] this is the greatest country the world's
[01:33:52] ever seen. We've got to, you know, as
[01:33:55] Reagan said, we're one generation from
[01:33:57] from losing it all.
[01:33:58] >> Yeah.
[01:33:58] >> So, uh and with fewer and fewer of our
[01:34:01] population serving those attributes,
[01:34:04] >> we've got to get uh we have to get in
[01:34:07] there and fight the fight. And then
[01:34:08] look, I mean, this administration in
[01:34:12] just a year, you're turning the military
[01:34:14] around. Recruiting numbers have turned
[01:34:16] around. We're getting focused on the
[01:34:18] right things in terms of technology. Uh
[01:34:22] the legislation's moving to rebuild.
[01:34:24] It's going to take a lot uh to rebuild
[01:34:27] our shipyards and our ship building. At
[01:34:30] the same time, you have new technologies
[01:34:32] like Seronic and Andero and others that
[01:34:35] will leapfrog us uh that will leaprog us
[01:34:37] forward. Um
[01:34:41] look at the Middle East. I mean, I just
[01:34:42] got back from Israel, Jordan. Uh looking
[01:34:46] at the whole Gaza situation, we got the
[01:34:49] entire UN Security Council unanimously
[01:34:54] to support the president's 20point peace
[01:34:56] plan. Just a few months ago, you had
[01:34:59] hostages and tunnels and a lot of people
[01:35:01] would have lost a lot of money betting
[01:35:04] that you'd see all of them come out
[01:35:05] alive. And now every all of the remains
[01:35:08] except one left. I met with the family
[01:35:10] of of Ron Gavili. um one left that have
[01:35:13] come out, ceasefire in place, Hezbollah
[01:35:17] on its back foot, the Assad regime gone,
[01:35:21] uh decisive action from the president,
[01:35:24] Iran no longer chasing uh a nuke. Uh the
[01:35:27] Houthis no longer using our ships as
[01:35:30] target practice.
[01:35:32] That's what leadership comes, you know,
[01:35:34] that's what leadership brings you from a
[01:35:35] commander-in-chief who gets it.
[01:35:37] >> What is the plan with Gaza now?
[01:35:40] So what the UN security council
[01:35:43] resolution and the president's uh peace
[01:35:46] plan established is a board of peace led
[01:35:49] by him um that will have
[01:35:52] >> led by who? led by the president. So, so
[01:35:56] President Trump, so American leadership
[01:35:58] will continue. What
[01:36:00] >> just underneath that, there's three
[01:36:01] things. Uh, a funding mechanism, not the
[01:36:05] UN, it's independent. It would be run by
[01:36:07] the World Bank that countries like the
[01:36:08] Gulf Arabs can contribute to uh for for
[01:36:12] reconstruction. one, two, uh, a
[01:36:16] technocratic Palestinian committee, uh,
[01:36:19] that everybody's going to agree to who's
[01:36:20] sitting on it, not Hamas,
[01:36:23] uh, to restore government services,
[01:36:26] water, sewage, you know, basic basic
[01:36:28] services. And number three, an
[01:36:30] international stabilization force,
[01:36:32] countries like Indonesia, Aarjan, and
[01:36:34] others. What the president did that was
[01:36:37] so brilliant, he actually did it at the
[01:36:38] UN uh was pulled together not just the
[01:36:42] Gulf Arabs but countries like Turkey,
[01:36:45] Pakistan, Indonesia, Muslim majority
[01:36:47] countries and said
[01:36:50] we're going to tell Hamas this is the
[01:36:52] way it's going to be and that united
[01:36:55] pressure got us to the peace plan, got
[01:36:57] the hostages out and uh I think will get
[01:37:00] us to the next phase.
[01:37:02] >> And the president's been clear like look
[01:37:04] a lot of valid questions. I asked it,
[01:37:06] others are asking it. Is Mas really
[01:37:08] going to disarm? He's been clear.
[01:37:11] They're going to disarm one way or
[01:37:12] another, either the easy way or the hard
[01:37:14] way. Uh and I think only he could pull
[01:37:16] together the Arabs, Palestinians, the
[01:37:20] Israelis, the Europeans. Um uh it really
[01:37:24] I think history is going to look back on
[01:37:26] that charm shake peace agreement uh and
[01:37:29] say it was one of the turning points in
[01:37:31] history towards Middle East peace.
[01:37:34] you think this is going to bring Middle
[01:37:36] East peace? H
[01:37:37] >> you know um I think if anybody can do
[01:37:41] it, it's him. Um and that's not, you
[01:37:45] know, that that's not just coming from
[01:37:47] me. That's coming from Prime Minister of
[01:37:49] Israel. It's coming from the
[01:37:50] Palestinians, the leaders of the Gulf
[01:37:52] War or the Gulf, uh excuse me, Arab
[01:37:55] countries,
[01:37:57] um the Europeans and others. I do. and
[01:38:00] the team that he puts around them, Steve
[01:38:02] Wickoff, Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio, the
[01:38:04] vice president, Susie Wilds, um, they're
[01:38:07] very businessoriented. Why does that
[01:38:10] matter? They're not beholden by this is
[01:38:12] the way it's always been and has to be.
[01:38:15] They're focused on results. DC is
[01:38:17] horrible for a priority means more
[01:38:20] people, more money, more inputs. They're
[01:38:22] focused on the outputs, even if they're
[01:38:24] unconventional. They're not held back by
[01:38:26] the way things have done in the past.
[01:38:28] and you know the business people he's
[01:38:30] put around them and I've you know I've
[01:38:31] worked with all of them and still am
[01:38:34] >> [snorts]
[01:38:34] >> uh are
[01:38:36] incredibly focused on commercial
[01:38:39] diplomacy
[01:38:40] business binds people together
[01:38:43] >> and that was the brilliance of the
[01:38:44] Abraham Accords was you know the more
[01:38:47] we're talking about rail and ports and
[01:38:50] data centers
[01:38:52] and you know just a better life for
[01:38:55] everyone by working together the less
[01:38:56] we're talking about 2,000y old uh
[01:38:59] animosities. Is it going to be bumpy? Is
[01:39:01] it going to be difficult? Absolutely.
[01:39:04] But again, just look in the last decade,
[01:39:06] no one would have believed you would
[01:39:08] have had Arab countries and the Israelis
[01:39:12] coming together like they have under the
[01:39:13] Abraham Accords. And the next step is
[01:39:15] going to be expansion of it. And being
[01:39:17] at the UN, you know, we have a we have a
[01:39:19] key piece of that.
[01:39:20] >> What else did you learn on that trip,
[01:39:23] Israel and Jordan trip?
[01:39:25] >> Yeah. Um, I think there's it's a it's a
[01:39:27] real um fragile moment, but it's a
[01:39:30] moment of of opportunity. You have a
[01:39:32] real opportunity in Lebanon. Uh, we have
[01:39:36] a uh
[01:39:37] >> what's the opportunity?
[01:39:38] >> Well, you have a former general, the
[01:39:40] head of their armed forces, uh,
[01:39:43] President Oon. So, you have a non-hebah
[01:39:46] line. Actually, he's committed to
[01:39:47] fighting Hezbollah, now elected as
[01:39:49] president. Uh you've got Hezbollah, if
[01:39:52] you remember the Pager the the Beeper
[01:39:54] and Pager operation, uh plus taking out
[01:39:58] their leader, Nasalla, they've been
[01:40:00] decimated. They're trying to rebuild,
[01:40:02] but they're on their back foot right
[01:40:03] now. Iran is on its back foot that has
[01:40:06] supported all of these guys. And the
[01:40:08] Assad regime, which was also a puppet of
[01:40:10] Iran, is gone. So you have this window
[01:40:14] uh I think to get
[01:40:17] everyone moving in a common direction.
[01:40:20] Uh it's it's going to be a lot of work
[01:40:22] but it is a real opportunity. Uh had the
[01:40:25] opportunity to sit with the king of
[01:40:26] Jordan uh King Abdullah. I I think I
[01:40:29] told you my wife's family as Jordanian
[01:40:32] Christians came over as immigrants
[01:40:34] through Ellis Island uh in in the 1950s
[01:40:37] and built an amazing life here. Uh he's
[01:40:40] a real leader in the region. has a real
[01:40:42] cleareyed view. Um, not always
[01:40:46] seeing eye to eye uh with their
[01:40:48] neighbors, the Israelis, but if you look
[01:40:50] over the over the arc of time, um, have
[01:40:54] been a great ally. And
[01:40:57] I do believe under this president and
[01:41:00] this team's leadership,
[01:41:03] is it going to be I don't know, you
[01:41:05] know, is it going to be Switzerland? No.
[01:41:08] Um, but we can get to a level of
[01:41:10] stability. And the key, as the president
[01:41:11] said recently in an interview, was
[01:41:15] knocking the Iranian regime back so that
[01:41:17] they're not meddling
[01:41:20] nefariously and against us, against
[01:41:23] Israel, uh, and against stability in the
[01:41:25] region and all the Arab allies. Um, I
[01:41:28] think that was a critical critical step.
[01:41:31] >> Yeah. What I mean, what about the what
[01:41:35] about the humanitarian crisis that's
[01:41:37] going on over there? Did you go into
[01:41:39] Gaza?
[01:41:41] >> I went right into the edge of it. I
[01:41:43] there, you know, depends on the the the
[01:41:45] security situation. It looks like a I
[01:41:47] mean, it's it's devastated.
[01:41:49] >> I mean, it looks
[01:41:50] >> it is just it's not even
[01:41:52] >> it's absolutely
[01:41:54] >> devastated in many ways. So, in my role,
[01:41:57] you know, a lot of the key uh agencies
[01:42:00] that are providing humanitarian aid are
[01:42:02] aligned with the UN. Some of them uh one
[01:42:06] of them called UNRA uh the UN relief
[01:42:08] works agency has been completely
[01:42:10] infiltrated by Hamas over the years has
[01:42:13] radicalized the Palestinian youth
[01:42:15] through radical uh uh educational
[01:42:19] material and curriculum and has to be
[01:42:21] completely dismantled and reformed. Uh
[01:42:24] so that was a piece uh there's a
[01:42:27] humanitarian corridor coming through
[01:42:29] Jordan. Uh by the end of my trip, we
[01:42:32] were able to get that border crossing uh
[01:42:34] reopened. Look, we've gone from almost
[01:42:36] nothing going in to by the time uh I
[01:42:40] left, nearly a thousand trucks a day uh
[01:42:43] were going in, screened, acceptable by
[01:42:46] the Israelis so it's not smuggling in
[01:42:49] all the things that Hamas used to build
[01:42:50] all of these tunnels. I mean, we can't
[01:42:52] forget who started all of this.
[01:42:54] >> Mhm. and the miles and miles and miles
[01:42:57] of concrete and generators and fuel that
[01:43:00] they could have used to improve Gaza,
[01:43:03] they used to build the the most
[01:43:06] nefarious, incredible tunnel network I
[01:43:08] think the world has seen ever. Uh, and
[01:43:11] that the Israelis are still working to
[01:43:12] destroy.
[01:43:16] So, it's it's it's a challenge and I
[01:43:20] think we all have to appreciate that
[01:43:22] President Trump has taken this on. could
[01:43:23] have just
[01:43:25] said, you know, you guys work it out.
[01:43:27] Um, but ultimately what it'll lead to is
[01:43:30] an expansion of the Abraham Accords.
[01:43:32] >> Do you think it would have
[01:43:34] >> and that will lead to broader stability
[01:43:35] and so that finally we can,
[01:43:38] >> you know,
[01:43:39] >> what do you think would have happened if
[01:43:40] we wouldn't have interjected ourselves
[01:43:42] into that?
[01:43:45] Uh, I think
[01:43:47] I know um
[01:43:51] the hostages would either still be there
[01:43:53] or no longer be alive. Remember, we had
[01:43:56] a a number of Americans pulled out. Uh,
[01:44:00] Israel would be bogged down in the most
[01:44:04] vicious urban warfare. There will be no
[01:44:07] expansion of the Abraham Accords.
[01:44:10] uh and uh Iran would have the
[01:44:13] opportunity
[01:44:15] to reassert itself uh in the most
[01:44:18] nefarious of ways.
[01:44:19] >> Mhm.
[01:44:20] >> So
[01:44:22] it it's only with American leadership
[01:44:24] and really only with this presidency,
[01:44:26] look where we were under Biden. I mean,
[01:44:28] the whole world was on fire and
[01:44:31] continuing to spread and to get worse.
[01:44:33] Look what happened under the Obama
[01:44:35] administration when he just completely
[01:44:36] walked away with no plan. And you had
[01:44:38] attacks all over Europe and attacks here
[01:44:40] in the United States with ISIS expanding
[01:44:43] and growing. A caliphate the size,
[01:44:46] >> you know, a caliphate the size of
[01:44:48] Indiana with an economy the size of
[01:44:50] Austria.
[01:44:51] >> So, I just don't think we can afford to
[01:44:53] ignore the problem and wish it away.
[01:44:55] >> Um, it's just how do we get it to a
[01:44:57] place
[01:44:59] >> uh that, you know, we can focus on as
[01:45:02] the president's also doing in our own
[01:45:04] hemisphere. We have all of the energy,
[01:45:08] food supply, critical minerals that we
[01:45:11] need in the Western Hemisphere. We just
[01:45:13] have to pay attention to it. And he is
[01:45:14] from the Arctic to our own border to
[01:45:17] South America uh and and Central
[01:45:20] America. We have to continue to focus on
[01:45:22] the Pacific on what I think is the
[01:45:24] greatest threat this country has ever
[01:45:26] faced, which is the Chinese Communist
[01:45:29] Party. um
[01:45:32] only the president can uniquely work
[01:45:33] with them and get this to a a place
[01:45:36] that's workable. But um
[01:45:40] if the Middle East is constantly on
[01:45:42] fire,
[01:45:43] uh I don't think it could be ignored. Uh
[01:45:46] the president is putting this on a
[01:45:47] trajectory with this peace plan that we
[01:45:50] can have an expansion of the Abraham
[01:45:52] Accords and get this to a much more
[01:45:53] stable place.
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[01:48:26] >> I'm just going to ask a couple
[01:48:27] questions.
[01:48:28] >> Yeah, it's okay.
[01:48:29] >> And you know, I mean, when we talk about
[01:48:32] and I don't I don't know the money. I
[01:48:33] know. I just I know we sent another what
[01:48:35] 60 was it 60 billion to Israel a couple
[01:48:38] week ago maybe or so. No.
[01:48:40] >> Okay. Whatever. What?
[01:48:42] >> Throw all the [ __ ] numbers out. We
[01:48:43] spent a [ __ ] ton of money in Ukraine.
[01:48:45] We've spent a [ __ ] ton of money on
[01:48:47] Israel and Gaza conflict.
[01:48:49] >> We're no longer spending money on
[01:48:50] Ukraine.
[01:48:51] >> You know what I mean though, right? Like
[01:48:52] if you if you take all the aid that we
[01:48:56] have sent all over the [ __ ] globe and
[01:49:00] I'm not talking about this
[01:49:01] administration, the last one, the one
[01:49:03] before. I'm just talking in general,
[01:49:06] right? We have we have Chicago [ __ ]
[01:49:09] disaster. San Francisco disaster. New
[01:49:11] York disaster. Yeah.
[01:49:13] >> Detroit disaster. St. Louis disaster.
[01:49:16] North Carolina, East Tennessee from the
[01:49:18] hurricane [ __ ] disaster. We got I
[01:49:21] mean lots and lots and lots of American
[01:49:24] cities
[01:49:27] are damn near [ __ ] destroyed and we
[01:49:30] are sending 60 billion here, 100 billion
[01:49:33] there, a billion here. I mean all over
[01:49:35] the place. What?
[01:49:39] And we've been doing this strategy for
[01:49:41] [ __ ] ever. Why aren't we taking and
[01:49:45] maybe I don't know why we aren't, but
[01:49:47] why aren't we taking the 60 billion here
[01:49:50] and the hundred billion there and why
[01:49:52] aren't we not taking all that aid and
[01:49:53] going, you know what? [ __ ] you. I'm
[01:49:57] going to take the 60 billion and I'm
[01:49:59] going to dump it into Chicago. That
[01:50:01] doesn't mean free phones and free food
[01:50:04] and free everything for Chicago, but
[01:50:06] that means I'm going to I'm going to get
[01:50:08] the [ __ ] I'm going to build up the
[01:50:10] police. I'm going to build up the
[01:50:11] sheriff's departments. I'm going to
[01:50:12] build all this [ __ ] up. Look,
[01:50:14] >> you know, I mean I mean I'm going to I'm
[01:50:16] going to fix the education system and
[01:50:17] we're going to go city by city by city.
[01:50:20] We're going to go and we're going to
[01:50:22] invest $60 billion in our southern
[01:50:25] border because if we're going to sit
[01:50:27] here and say we need we need X country
[01:50:31] to go and kill all the Islamic
[01:50:34] terrorists for us. Okay, great. We've
[01:50:36] been doing that method for a while. We
[01:50:38] were over there for [ __ ] 20 years
[01:50:39] ourselves doing this [ __ ] you know. But
[01:50:43] what we haven't done is dump all of that
[01:50:45] into our border.
[01:50:47] >> We haven't dumped that into our border
[01:50:49] patrol. We haven't dumped that into our
[01:50:50] police departments. We haven't dumped
[01:50:52] that into our
[01:50:54] >> just our infrastructure. Our
[01:50:56] infrastructure. We have not dumped that
[01:50:58] into our infrastructure.
[01:51:00] under this president we are um first he
[01:51:03] started first thing you have to have
[01:51:05] which you know I mean security is the
[01:51:07] oxygen commerce everything else needs to
[01:51:10] breathe
[01:51:12] >> started with DC or on nation's capital
[01:51:14] uh and the national guard there you've
[01:51:16] seen from carjackings to robberies to
[01:51:19] murders drop dramatically just by the
[01:51:21] presence of security uh you've got
[01:51:24] Janine Piro and actually prosecuting
[01:51:27] uh people that that commit crime times
[01:51:29] and and and keep him in jail. You saw
[01:51:31] what he's done in LA. You saw what he's
[01:51:33] trying to do in other cities to
[01:51:36] establish a modocum of security. First,
[01:51:40] $150 billion. That's almost the ent the
[01:51:44] entire budget of the entire United
[01:51:46] States Army in the big beautiful bill to
[01:51:49] go to our border, to go to CBP, to ICE,
[01:51:52] and others. And you've seen encounters
[01:51:55] in our borders, which we were told it
[01:51:57] was impossible.
[01:51:58] >> Mhm. uh go from over 12 million people
[01:52:01] coming in unvetted to now virtually
[01:52:06] zero. Uh you have down in Venezuela, you
[01:52:09] have the Iranians, the Russians, the
[01:52:13] Chinese, massive amounts of trafficking.
[01:52:16] Uh an individual that is the head of an
[01:52:20] international cartel
[01:52:23] that's now under a hell of a lot of uh
[01:52:26] of pressure from this administration. So
[01:52:27] I do so I would argue that exactly what
[01:52:30] you just laid out which is an America
[01:52:31] first policy
[01:52:33] this administration has done and I'm
[01:52:35] proud to have been a part of it and then
[01:52:36] separately what is that abroad it's
[01:52:38] American leadership but it's also burden
[01:52:40] sharing no I mean I was there at NATO
[01:52:44] ministerial after NATO ministerial I
[01:52:46] told you about the fact that their
[01:52:48] soldiers were there with their lives on
[01:52:49] the line in Afghanistan but their
[01:52:51] governments were tying their hand and at
[01:52:53] these NATO ministerials where I think
[01:52:56] seven countries at the start of the
[01:52:57] first Trump term, we're meeting their
[01:52:59] bare minimum, 2%.
[01:53:02] Now, second term, he's got them all
[01:53:04] signing up to five um% of their GDP to
[01:53:08] contribute to their own militaries. Oh,
[01:53:12] by the way, we're not providing any more
[01:53:14] money to Ukraine. the the Europeans are
[01:53:18] buying the hardware from us, creating
[01:53:21] jobs from us, also reinvigorating our
[01:53:23] industrial base, and they're paying for
[01:53:26] the defense of themselves. Uh, and then,
[01:53:28] you know, where does where does the UN
[01:53:30] fit on that? Look, first of all,
[01:53:34] we're dozing it. We're cleaning it up. I
[01:53:38] already have a commitment from the UN
[01:53:40] Secretary General to cut 2600
[01:53:43] UN bureaucrats. These are international
[01:53:45] bureaucrats. We pay for a fourth of of
[01:53:47] everything uh they do. 2600 gone. 25% of
[01:53:52] global peacekeepers
[01:53:54] uh gone overall uh 18% budget cut. First
[01:53:59] real cut they've seen in their in their
[01:54:02] history. They've only been there a few
[01:54:03] months. We're working on it. This is all
[01:54:05] because they see what's coming with
[01:54:07] President Trump. But here's the here's
[01:54:09] the other side of that on the you know
[01:54:11] why don't we just why does President
[01:54:13] Trump say look uh it has potential help
[01:54:16] it find its potential rather than just
[01:54:18] get completely out. There needs to be
[01:54:20] one place in the world if he's the peace
[01:54:23] president we take a diplomacy first
[01:54:25] approach we which we should backed by
[01:54:27] the big stick of a rebuilt military.
[01:54:30] There's got to be one place in the world
[01:54:31] where everybody comes together to talk.
[01:54:35] >> I want that to be here in the United
[01:54:37] States. And if we didn't invent it,
[01:54:38] somebody would reinvent it. And I don't
[01:54:40] want it in Beijing or EU or or or
[01:54:42] somewhere else. Every year, every world
[01:54:45] leader comes to New York uh to to try to
[01:54:49] hash things out. That's one. And then
[01:54:51] number two, burden sharing is a key part
[01:54:53] of America First principles. So for
[01:54:56] example, talk about cartels. Haiti has
[01:54:58] been completely overrun by gangs right
[01:55:01] off of Florida shores. They are moving
[01:55:03] people, guns, drugs, fentanyl, you name
[01:55:08] it. Working with the cartels in
[01:55:09] Venezuela and Colombia over into Europe,
[01:55:12] the United States, what have you. Much
[01:55:13] less if we have a migration crisis
[01:55:15] because the country is collapsing onto
[01:55:17] our shores. Under the last
[01:55:19] administration, they spent over a
[01:55:21] billion dollars trying to take care of
[01:55:23] it ourselves. Now, we've shifted that to
[01:55:25] the UN. You're going to have other
[01:55:26] countries coming in and we pay a quarter
[01:55:28] of that. I don't think we can just
[01:55:30] completely ignore it and wait till it's
[01:55:32] a total crisis. But we're now sharing
[01:55:35] the burden. Others are taking that on.
[01:55:37] Same thing in Gaza like I described. I
[01:55:39] don't want US boots there. We talked
[01:55:41] about the problem with having uh the
[01:55:43] Israelis go back to war uh like it was
[01:55:47] at least. Um so there's a burden sharing
[01:55:50] aspect to that that I think is
[01:55:52] important. And then finally, this is the
[01:55:55] piece that's that I'm only fully coming
[01:55:57] to appreciate. There's all of these
[01:56:00] international bodies that kind of govern
[01:56:02] global commerce. Everything from
[01:56:05] international shipping to the seabed
[01:56:09] uh the the the you know the the ocean
[01:56:13] bottoms which by the way president
[01:56:16] signed an executive order to begin
[01:56:17] mining critical minerals out of that.
[01:56:19] How is that all uh how is that all
[01:56:22] regulated to space to telecommunications
[01:56:24] to international civil aviation?
[01:56:27] If we just walk away, 193 other
[01:56:29] countries, Europeans, Chinese, Russians
[01:56:31] are all calling the shots. I want us
[01:56:33] calling the shots. We have to get in
[01:56:34] there and block and tackle. We talked at
[01:56:36] we talked at breakfast a recent when the
[01:56:40] International Maritime Organization was
[01:56:42] on the verge of putting in place a
[01:56:45] carbon tax on shipping.
[01:56:48] >> Yeah. What the [ __ ] is that? What? Who
[01:56:52] the [ __ ]
[01:56:53] >> Who do we even pay that tax to?
[01:56:54] >> Let Well, it would be levied on shipping
[01:56:58] companies that didn't have that
[01:57:00] basically had fossil fueled ships uh as
[01:57:03] a way to reduce the carbon footprint and
[01:57:06] to force them in kind of like what
[01:57:07] they've tried to do with EVs with cars.
[01:57:10] Here's here's the problem. It would have
[01:57:12] passed on a estimated billion dollars a
[01:57:15] month on to consumers. would have const
[01:57:18] would have created a slush fund for the
[01:57:21] UN, would have pushed ships towards
[01:57:24] bofuels that the EU subsidizing and that
[01:57:26] only Chinese shipyards could
[01:57:29] could transform, right? And so we got I
[01:57:33] mean Secretary Rubio was engaged, our
[01:57:36] Secretary of Energy, Wright, uh Duffy,
[01:57:39] uh the president got involved. They
[01:57:41] called us diplomatic gangsters, but we
[01:57:44] got in there and uh fought the good
[01:57:46] fight and defeated it.
[01:57:48] What, Mike? Before we
[01:57:51] >> So, I guess my point is is the president
[01:57:54] has charged us with cleaning it up, but
[01:57:57] also with the burden sharing and the
[01:57:58] diplomacy aspects of working in line
[01:58:00] with our with our interests.
[01:58:02] >> Before we go into
[01:58:05] everything we're going to we're going to
[01:58:07] talk about at the UN, I just one more
[01:58:09] thing on the Venezuela stuff.
[01:58:13] It's been Mexico, Mexico, Mexico,
[01:58:15] Mexico. Cartel, cart, like all this
[01:58:17] cartel [ __ ] coming out of Mexico.
[01:58:18] China's sending in the precursors to
[01:58:20] fentanyl to Mexico, to the Mexican
[01:58:23] cartels.
[01:58:24] I'm not saying we shouldn't be in
[01:58:26] Venezuela, but why are we not in Mexico?
[01:58:29] Because it's been Mexico, Mexico,
[01:58:30] Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. Now we're
[01:58:33] [ __ ] around in Venezuela. Mexico's on
[01:58:36] our border. We've been talking about
[01:58:37] >> Well, we're pressuring the hell. I mean,
[01:58:39] >> the aren't going the Mexican government
[01:58:41] sent back several dozen
[01:58:45] >> major leaders of cartels that they had
[01:58:47] refused for years and definitely under
[01:58:48] the last administration, they extradited
[01:58:50] all of them into our court system. Uh
[01:58:53] that was a huge win uh from just a few
[01:58:56] months ago. Uh the Mexican government
[01:58:59] put 10,000 of their own guardsmen onto
[01:59:03] their side of our northern border and
[01:59:05] they're sending security forces to their
[01:59:07] southern border which President Trump
[01:59:09] had them you know worked with them to do
[01:59:10] his first term. Biden let it go. Now
[01:59:13] that's back again. Um I think the bigger
[01:59:16] piece and you know when I was in
[01:59:18] Congress I pushed for us to be able to
[01:59:20] go on offense against these cartels. You
[01:59:23] know, I tell people this all the time.
[01:59:26] Back in the 90s, the FBI was running
[01:59:29] around the world trying to arrest Osama
[01:59:32] bin Laden.
[01:59:34] >> And remember that? I mean, in Sudan and
[01:59:36] other places and and al-Qaeda
[01:59:39] lieutenants and often times didn't
[01:59:41] because it wouldn't stand up in court.
[01:59:42] They viewed it as a law enforcement
[01:59:44] problem. After 9/11, we saw it squarely
[01:59:47] for what it is, a national security
[01:59:48] problem. We have to move in the same
[01:59:51] direction with these cartels. They are
[01:59:54] killing Americans. They are attacking
[01:59:56] our inner cities. Uh they are poisoning
[02:00:00] more people than we lo in a year. More
[02:00:02] people than we lost in 10 years of
[02:00:04] Vietnam. This is a national security
[02:00:07] threat and we have to treat it as such.
[02:00:09] And these cartels aren't like you know I
[02:00:12] don't know your mafia groups back in the
[02:00:15] 60s of organized crime. They are armed
[02:00:17] to the teeth. They're armies. They are
[02:00:20] many armies and they control whole swas
[02:00:23] of Mexico and they have a state backer
[02:00:25] in Venezuela. So that's the kind of the
[02:00:28] mental shift I just, you know, the media
[02:00:30] doesn't want to talk about that this
[02:00:32] administration uh has brought Christy
[02:00:35] Noom, Homeland Security, Steven Miller
[02:00:37] in the White House, the president of
[02:00:38] course, vice president, and that's
[02:00:41] squarely in America first. But it I I
[02:00:43] just push back. It's Mexico, too. too. I
[02:00:45] think Venezuela is getting all the
[02:00:46] media, but it's Mexico, too.
[02:00:48] >> Okay. Okay. All right. Moving into the
[02:00:52] UN. So,
[02:00:55] it's just it's just been a question on
[02:00:56] my mind and uh
[02:00:58] >> from the DC swamp to the, you know,
[02:01:00] international swamp up in New York.
[02:01:02] >> So, the UN, I mean, what what is the
[02:01:06] UN's purpose? What is its purpose
[02:01:08] supposed to be? Yeah.
[02:01:09] >> And where are they getting off the
[02:01:11] rails?
[02:01:12] >> It was established post World War II. uh
[02:01:15] by basically the victors led by the
[02:01:17] United States but the victors of World
[02:01:19] War II um to prevent another world war
[02:01:23] certainly to prevent World War II
[02:01:26] with nukes and I think in that sense
[02:01:28] looking through the cold war it was
[02:01:31] largely successful unfortunately since
[02:01:34] then much like you know many of our own
[02:01:36] federal agencies it's now trying to do
[02:01:38] everything for everybody 80 years of
[02:01:41] bureaucratic bloat focused on all this
[02:01:45] nonsense. I mean, Sean, there's seven
[02:01:47] agencies, seven major agencies with
[02:01:51] massive budgets focused on climate. So,
[02:01:53] set aside the whole debate on climate.
[02:01:55] You don't need seven. You arguably
[02:01:57] don't, you know, get it down to one. Uh,
[02:01:59] and then, oh, by the way, there, let's
[02:02:01] talk about
[02:02:03] energy independence, talk about all of
[02:02:05] the above solutions and and the right
[02:02:08] things. But so just cutting this massive
[02:02:10] bureaucracy down is first and foremost
[02:02:12] and I just laid out to you step one.
[02:02:15] >> How is the UN doing that?
[02:02:17] >> So it's controls it.
[02:02:19] >> So it has um think of it as kind of you
[02:02:22] know like a legislature in the sense it
[02:02:24] has a general assembly
[02:02:26] 193 countries participate.
[02:02:30] um think of that it's a rough analogy
[02:02:32] but kind of like the house the bigger
[02:02:34] body smaller body the UN security
[02:02:36] council
[02:02:38] that has the five permanent members UK
[02:02:40] US China Russia uh France right we all
[02:02:45] have a veto and then you get elected
[02:02:48] members that rotate on and off 10 other
[02:02:50] elected members what they what the UN
[02:02:52] security council passing passes is
[02:02:54] binding international law and then it
[02:02:57] has a secretary general that's kind of
[02:02:58] the admin administrative head that's
[02:03:00] over the peacekeeping forces and the
[02:03:02] huge humanitarian agencies, but it's
[02:03:04] also got a lot of these independent
[02:03:05] agencies that heard of like World Food
[02:03:08] Program, UNICEF that focuses on children
[02:03:11] and then the IEA focused on the the
[02:03:15] International Atomic uh Energy Agency
[02:03:18] and others, right? World Trade
[02:03:20] Organization,
[02:03:21] >> keep keep going down the list. Um,
[02:03:24] again, there is a body that governs from
[02:03:26] space to telecommunications to I mean,
[02:03:30] there's an international civil aviation
[02:03:32] organization under the UN.
[02:03:34] >> Wow.
[02:03:35] >> Well, I want pilots as I fly around the
[02:03:37] world, international travel to all speak
[02:03:39] English, the air traffic controllers to,
[02:03:42] you know, be trained up to a certain
[02:03:44] standard, the mechanics to be trained up
[02:03:45] to a certain standard. So, you know, I
[02:03:48] just worked with um Secretary Rollins,
[02:03:50] the Secretary of Agriculture, because as
[02:03:52] our farmers export food, the Europeans
[02:03:56] and others through these international
[02:03:57] agencies are trying to put all of these
[02:03:59] crazy regulations on it. So, just as
[02:04:01] we're deregulating in DC, I've got a
[02:04:04] mandate and mission uh you know, from
[02:04:07] the president to deregulate, get out of
[02:04:09] the way of uh for American businesses
[02:04:12] and industries and these international
[02:04:14] organizations. how we're trying to put I
[02:04:16] mean that the Chinese and others are in
[02:04:17] there trying to overregulate AI. We're
[02:04:20] making sure they stay out of the way so
[02:04:22] our entrepreneurs can win that race,
[02:04:25] right? Um but my argument is we have to
[02:04:28] be in there and block and tackle like I
[02:04:30] told you on that international shipping
[02:04:31] vote. Uh if we walk away, they're going
[02:04:34] to do it without us. And
[02:04:35] >> so there's 193 countries in the
[02:04:38] >> there's more. So the UN is this
[02:04:40] international kind of like the Vatican
[02:04:42] is in Rome. It's this international
[02:04:43] entity in New York. That's where we
[02:04:45] established it post World War II. And
[02:04:48] all of these countries have embassies to
[02:04:50] the UN in New York. There's actually
[02:04:52] more in New York than there are in
[02:04:55] Washington DC because there's countries
[02:04:56] we don't have relationships with like
[02:04:59] Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and
[02:05:01] others that by treaty can be in the UN
[02:05:05] uh but not in Washington. The other
[02:05:08] interesting thing about it is New York
[02:05:10] because of that dynamic is one of the
[02:05:13] most active spy versus spy cities like
[02:05:16] Vienna um where a lot of these other
[02:05:19] organizations are in the world um
[02:05:21] because you've got all these other
[02:05:23] players there.
[02:05:24] >> Yeah.
[02:05:25] >> Yeah.
[02:05:27] >> How is it funded?
[02:05:29] >> So everybody contributes uh but we
[02:05:32] contribute the most. It's US number one,
[02:05:35] uh, China number two
[02:05:37] >> now, uh, with the world's second largest
[02:05:39] economy, and then, uh, and then on down
[02:05:42] the list.
[02:05:43] >> We, and we're at we contribute 25%.
[02:05:45] Correct.
[02:05:46] >> But we are, uh, we have withheld that
[02:05:49] funding until we see the reforms that
[02:05:52] that we want to see. So that
[02:05:54] conversation and negotiations ongoing.
[02:05:57] >> Interesting. And so how is the
[02:05:59] >> we need to see salary reform, bureaucrat
[02:06:02] reform. We need to see all kinds of uh
[02:06:04] of things before they get another dollar
[02:06:06] of the tax.
[02:06:07] >> Do we have more poll than everybody else
[02:06:09] since we put in 25%.
[02:06:11] >> Yeah, we not always. We should. One of
[02:06:15] the flaws is that everybody gets an
[02:06:17] equal vote in the general assembly where
[02:06:19] we have more pulled than anybody else is
[02:06:22] in the security council where we have a
[02:06:23] veto. something's going against our
[02:06:25] interests, then we'll veto it.
[02:06:29] But, you know, again, things like
[02:06:32] getting the UN to get Haiti under
[02:06:35] control, we just got that through. Uh
[02:06:39] why did we go to them for Gaza? a lot of
[02:06:41] these countries that are willing to
[02:06:45] contribute forces so that we don't or
[02:06:48] others don't have to um they need the
[02:06:52] stamp of international law for their own
[02:06:55] domestic reasons to be able to do that.
[02:06:58] So in order to get that the president's
[02:07:00] plan now endorsed by the international
[02:07:02] community unanimously was a was a big
[02:07:05] deal. Um, and there's other, you know,
[02:07:08] there's other crises around the world
[02:07:10] that we'd rather them deal with than
[02:07:12] than us.
[02:07:13] >> How are you, I mean, how how is it
[02:07:15] introducing reform into the UN?
[02:07:18] [laughter] I would imagine that that uh
[02:07:23] I mean it's,
[02:07:24] >> oh, here comes the new ambassador.
[02:07:27] [laughter] I mean, how's that? Look, uh,
[02:07:30] well, first of all, a number of
[02:07:32] administrations haven't even really
[02:07:34] tried. Um, we're determined to do it
[02:07:37] and, uh, the the the president's going
[02:07:40] to use and I on his behalf whatever
[02:07:43] leverage we have to. I I you know as a
[02:07:46] former member of Congress standing
[02:07:47] before, you know, a town hall of
[02:07:51] firemen,
[02:07:52] nurses, doctors, lawyers, everyday
[02:07:55] Americans, uh need to be able to look
[02:07:57] them straight in the eye and say, "We're
[02:08:00] going to get this organization to work
[02:08:01] for us." And look, I know rightly a lot
[02:08:04] of skepticism. Look where the president
[02:08:06] took NATO uh since the beginning of his
[02:08:09] first term
[02:08:10] >> back to real, you know, they're at least
[02:08:12] on a pathway to burden sharing and real
[02:08:14] partnership. I think what he's done with
[02:08:16] NATO and what we've done with NATO, we
[02:08:18] can do with the UN in the second term.
[02:08:21] >> What would happen if we don't see the
[02:08:22] reform?
[02:08:24] >> Uh if we don't see the reform, we don't
[02:08:26] pay.
[02:08:27] >> Do you will we leave the UN?
[02:08:30] >> That's up to the president. That's
[02:08:31] ultimately up to the president. the
[02:08:33] president just gave in his speech at the
[02:08:35] UN General Assembly um he said look uh
[02:08:39] we need to get back to basics. We need
[02:08:41] to get back focused on stopping wars,
[02:08:45] maintaining the peace, preventing wars,
[02:08:48] and stop all of this gender climate, all
[02:08:51] of this other nonsense. Same
[02:08:53] conversation we're having in Washington
[02:08:54] DC,
[02:08:55] >> but we're having it with the world. Uh
[02:08:57] especially if we're going to be the
[02:08:58] biggest bill payper. So, back to basics.
[02:09:02] fight for American industry in these uh
[02:09:05] in these um international bodies and
[02:09:07] then you know it can provide a platform
[02:09:11] for issues that we really care about. I
[02:09:13] I did not have on my dance card man that
[02:09:16] I was going to have Nicki Minaj at the
[02:09:18] UN talking about the persecution of
[02:09:21] Christians
[02:09:23] mostly in Nigeria but all over the
[02:09:26] world. Um she has I don't know quarter
[02:09:30] billion followers. Y
[02:09:31] >> I mean that's incredibly powerful. So uh
[02:09:34] as much as it needs to be cleaned up, it
[02:09:36] does have that 80 years of kind of a
[02:09:39] brand. It's a platform for people to do
[02:09:41] that. We want to focus on human
[02:09:43] trafficking. We want to focus on a
[02:09:44] number of things uh anti-semitism and
[02:09:47] others that are righteous worthy causes
[02:09:51] uh that the administration cares about
[02:09:53] and that this can be a platform to touch
[02:09:55] the global community.
[02:10:04] Man, talk about I told you tribes of
[02:10:06] Afghanistan are easier some days. I
[02:10:08] mean, it's it's tough.
[02:10:09] >> Yeah,
[02:10:10] >> it's tough.
[02:10:10] >> I'll bet it is. I'll bet it is. I mean,
[02:10:12] do you have any
[02:10:14] >> what
[02:10:16] I I don't have a whole lot of insight
[02:10:17] into, you know, how this all works
[02:10:19] within the UN. So I mean I'm the way
[02:10:22] you're kind of describing it sounds like
[02:10:24] Congress for the world,
[02:10:25] >> you know, and so what I'm what I want to
[02:10:27] ask is, you know, when you were in
[02:10:28] Congress, I'm sure you had allies, you
[02:10:30] know, people that you were working with
[02:10:31] to get stuff pushed through. Do you have
[02:10:33] anybody within the UN? Do you have other
[02:10:35] ambassadors from other countries
[02:10:37] >> that that you consider to be friendly
[02:10:39] that you you have a a common agenda, a
[02:10:43] common goal? Yeah, look, um I mean this
[02:10:46] Sean, this is where kind of so many of
[02:10:48] the lessons being a Green Beret comes
[02:10:51] in, right? You know, I mean, we're
[02:10:53] dropped off in the middle of nowhere,
[02:10:56] the middle of a tribe or allied
[02:10:57] military. Half them soon kill us than
[02:11:00] than they would the bad guys. And it's
[02:11:03] through relationships. It's through
[02:11:04] influence. It's by with and through.
[02:11:07] It's building coalitions.
[02:11:09] Um it's negotiation,
[02:11:13] right? It's it's all of those bringing
[02:11:15] all of those skill sets. Uh yeah, often
[02:11:18] times in special forces, we can't make
[02:11:21] that partner military or that tribe or
[02:11:23] whomever guerrilla force do exactly what
[02:11:26] we want to do. But we're the United
[02:11:28] States of America. We come with that
[02:11:29] moral authority. We come with that
[02:11:30] leadership. We come with the, you know,
[02:11:33] in the case of the horse soldiers, the
[02:11:35] backing of the United States Air Force
[02:11:37] and that leverage that comes with that.
[02:11:39] Um so it's bringing all of those tools.
[02:11:42] I mean, I'm right. Yeah,
[02:11:43] >> I'm I'm I'm curious. You know who I I
[02:11:46] work with Argentina. I work with Italy,
[02:11:48] you know, of course with uh with with
[02:11:50] the United Kingdom.
[02:11:52] >> Um you know, we have a lot of
[02:11:54] like-minded leaders a lot with the Gulf
[02:11:57] States. Now, that Gaza resolution, uh,
[02:12:01] we had all of the same, uh, countries
[02:12:03] that were with the Abraham Accords, plus
[02:12:05] the ones that President Trump had
[02:12:07] developed these relationships with, come
[02:12:09] with us publicly that led to the
[02:12:10] Palestinians, that kept the Israelis
[02:12:13] comfortable. And then we had to tell the
[02:12:15] Europeans,
[02:12:17] you can't be more Catholic than the Pope
[02:12:19] here. You can't care about the
[02:12:21] Palestinian issue more than the
[02:12:22] Palestinians and Arabs and Egyptians,
[02:12:24] everybody that that that's right there
[02:12:26] dealing with it. and we got everybody on
[02:12:28] board, but it was
[02:12:29] >> yeah,
[02:12:30] >> a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of
[02:12:31] work.
[02:12:32] >> I mean, when you're talking about, you
[02:12:33] know, when you know,
[02:12:37] fighting that carbon tax,
[02:12:40] wokeism, all this kind of stuff. And
[02:12:43] what goes through my mind is
[02:12:47] I mean, we're I I just don't see any
[02:12:50] other countries
[02:12:52] fighting against that. Well, we ended up
[02:12:55] winning the vote, right, on that carbon
[02:12:58] tax, but we had to lead.
[02:13:00] >> Uh we had to give a little bit of you're
[02:13:02] going to work with us or else. Uh we had
[02:13:05] to, you know, we had to lean in and use
[02:13:09] the leverage that the United States has.
[02:13:12] Uh and that
[02:13:14] President Trump uniquely
[02:13:16] does. And there's no other I mean, you
[02:13:19] know, the the head of NATO in our first
[02:13:22] meeting in the um in the Oval Office
[02:13:25] said only you could get the Russians and
[02:13:30] Ukrainians
[02:13:31] could get Zilinsky and Putin on the
[02:13:33] phone from where they're annihilating to
[02:13:37] each other to now at least we're
[02:13:39] talking. We're not there yet. Uh, and I
[02:13:41] don't want to get ahead of the president
[02:13:43] in these um negotiations or his team,
[02:13:45] but that's only the United States and
[02:13:49] and I'm convinced only this president
[02:13:51] could have gotten us this far.
[02:13:54] >> You know, earlier you had mentioned that
[02:13:56] you think that the one the threat that
[02:13:58] you're most concerned about is uh the
[02:14:00] CCP.
[02:14:01] >> Why is that?
[02:14:02] >> Not the amazing wonderful Chinese
[02:14:04] people, Chinese culture. Uh but we have
[02:14:07] never
[02:14:09] faced an adversary, not the Soviet
[02:14:12] Union, not Germany, Japan, never faced
[02:14:14] an adversary with rival economic might
[02:14:17] that openly talks about surpassing us
[02:14:20] technologically.
[02:14:22] That is building ships at a rate of 3 to
[02:14:26] 5 to one. You could fit every shipyard
[02:14:30] in the United States inside China's one
[02:14:32] largest shipyard.
[02:14:34] um
[02:14:36] you know we have 1 to 2% of ship
[02:14:39] building over 50% and the rest is is
[02:14:42] South Korea and in Japan right um that
[02:14:46] is increasingly dominate dominating not
[02:14:49] dominating but challenging us in space
[02:14:52] that intends to put a station on the
[02:14:55] moon the ultimate high ground by the end
[02:14:58] of this decade. Thank God for Jared
[02:15:00] Isaac men and the renewed push. Uh I had
[02:15:03] the northern I touched Cape Canaveral in
[02:15:05] my old congressional district and you
[02:15:08] know in 2018
[02:15:11] the Chinese launched more into space
[02:15:13] than us and the rest of the world
[02:15:15] combined.
[02:15:17] By last year SpaceX was launching more
[02:15:20] than the rest of the world combined.
[02:15:22] That's American ingenuity right um uh at
[02:15:26] at its best. So
[02:15:29] no other adversary has the has ever had
[02:15:32] the ability to challenge us in all of
[02:15:34] those domains,
[02:15:36] add cyber to that and has such an
[02:15:40] aggressive influence operation here at
[02:15:43] home. uh in academia through Confucious
[02:15:47] Institutes.
[02:15:48] Um many of these Chinese students are
[02:15:52] wonderful young people, but if their
[02:15:54] families threatened at home, they don't
[02:15:56] have a lot of choice. Uh and uh it's
[02:16:01] it's it's a challenge unlike any we've
[02:16:03] ever faced. Now
[02:16:06] ultimately I convinced we will prevail.
[02:16:09] Um it's it's a real competition.
[02:16:16] How close is it?
[02:16:19] >> Ultimately, we will prevail.
[02:16:22] Uh we always have
[02:16:24] >> what's the biggest thing in the way?
[02:16:26] >> Um I'll tell you well right now and and
[02:16:30] a number of us and the president is
[02:16:31] laser focused on this supply chain
[02:16:34] supply chain supply chain. If there was
[02:16:36] any lesson from CO was that seemingly
[02:16:39] inexpensive things that cost pennies
[02:16:42] like mask gowns and gloves can become a
[02:16:45] national security risk. I'll never
[02:16:47] forget in 2019
[02:16:50] uh the Pentagon I was on the on the
[02:16:52] relevant committee in the armed services
[02:16:55] committee
[02:16:57] comes to us kind of in a panic about
[02:16:58] ammunition, the cost of ammunition and
[02:17:00] they need more money and we're all
[02:17:02] shooters. We know how expensive a bullet
[02:17:05] is this these days and need more money,
[02:17:09] need more this. We dug into it and it
[02:17:11] turns out the biggest missing piece was
[02:17:13] an element called antimony.
[02:17:17] There was formerly five mines in Idaho
[02:17:20] and Utah. They'd all been shut down by
[02:17:22] overregulation, environmental
[02:17:23] regulation. Investors, the owners had
[02:17:26] walked away. Three countries in the
[02:17:27] world that mine and refine antimony.
[02:17:29] Tajjikhstan, Russia, China. go back to
[02:17:32] the Pentagon like this is this is a
[02:17:34] crisis. What are you going to do about
[02:17:35] it? This was uh actually I think by this
[02:17:38] time it was 2021 2022.
[02:17:41] Uh and they said oh no we're we're we're
[02:17:43] demaring meaning sending a strongly
[02:17:45] worded letter on you know why these
[02:17:48] countries have withheld shipments from
[02:17:51] us? You kidding me? So
[02:17:55] like-minded group uh mainly veterans, we
[02:17:57] forced the Pentagon to create a
[02:17:59] stockpile
[02:18:01] at least. So we have some emergency
[02:18:03] supply until what we see now with
[02:18:06] Secretary Bergam and Bright and the
[02:18:08] president and others are revitalizing
[02:18:10] our mining and refining industry. And if
[02:18:13] it can't happen here fast enough, at
[02:18:15] least it's happened with allied
[02:18:16] countries, Seabbed and and and other
[02:18:19] places, right? So supply chains across
[02:18:21] the board uh we have to be
[02:18:24] self-sufficient. I mean that you know
[02:18:26] the the arsenal of democracy has to be
[02:18:29] uh there and present. It's what
[02:18:30] President Trump so uniquely realizes the
[02:18:33] big stick isn't our military. the big
[02:18:35] stick is the strength of our economy and
[02:18:37] our supply chains and our resilience and
[02:18:40] um you know he's taken all kinds of
[02:18:42] measures to revitalize that and I have
[02:18:44] to you know I my small piece of this is
[02:18:47] blocking and tackling in these
[02:18:48] international organizations.
[02:18:50] >> What do you think your biggest challenge
[02:18:51] is going to be as ambassador to the UN
[02:18:54] as far as the reform goes?
[02:18:56] >> Well, uh it's a challenge but it's an
[02:18:59] opportunity is we'll have a new
[02:19:01] secretary general. So kind of you know
[02:19:03] the administrative head of it all uh
[02:19:05] elected this year. Um again
[02:19:10] China, Russia, Europeans, we all have a
[02:19:12] veto. So it has to be somebody that we
[02:19:14] come to a consensus on but this needs to
[02:19:17] be has to be somebody uh that is
[02:19:20] reform-minded. We have to save this
[02:19:22] institution from itself. It's just
[02:19:23] sinking under its own bureaucratic
[02:19:25] weight. And it should be the secretary
[02:19:28] general. Well, it should be the UN
[02:19:29] that's solving things like Cambodia,
[02:19:31] Thailand, and India, Pakistan, and
[02:19:35] Aaraijan,
[02:19:37] Armenia. Um, they should [clears throat]
[02:19:39] be in there. You know, fine. President
[02:19:42] Trump has stepped in as the peace
[02:19:44] president. I think he'll get the Nobel
[02:19:45] Peace Prize for it. I I'm now getting
[02:19:48] the UN in a supporting role, but with
[02:19:50] the next Secretary General, they should
[02:19:51] be in a leading role. Again, back to
[02:19:53] basics, not solving all this trying to
[02:19:55] solve all this other woke nonsense.
[02:19:57] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[02:19:59] Well, Mike, is there anything we didn't
[02:20:02] cover that you want to cover?
[02:20:04] >> Uh, well, uh, I I would be remiss if I
[02:20:08] didn't just very publicly, uh, thank my
[02:20:12] amazing wife. Um, she is herself a
[02:20:15] combat veteran, both Afghanistan and
[02:20:18] Iraq. Uh, a family of immigrants.
[02:20:22] Um, she was also established the State
[02:20:25] Department's hostage negotiation
[02:20:28] office. She one of the first hostage
[02:20:30] envoys and was President Trump's
[02:20:32] Homeland adviser uh in his first term.
[02:20:36] So, man, you know, as husbands, like we
[02:20:38] try, but we never win an argument. Like,
[02:20:40] I really never [laughter] ever
[02:20:43] win an argument. And oh, by the way,
[02:20:45] she's dropped dead gorgeous. So, you
[02:20:47] know, I I I say that because my wife's
[02:20:50] amazing and my family's amazing, but I
[02:20:53] say that as a Christian, but I also say
[02:20:55] that as a veteran in the sense that like
[02:20:59] it's the families that bear the burden
[02:21:00] of service. You know, we're out there
[02:21:05] being commandos or diplomats or
[02:21:08] whatever, you know, serving this amazing
[02:21:10] countries in a in in ways that are
[02:21:13] incredible.
[02:21:15] the families like we don't come home
[02:21:19] we come home missing limbs or we come
[02:21:21] home not right up here anymore right so
[02:21:24] I just have for both the gold star
[02:21:26] community um
[02:21:29] uh and all the families out there
[02:21:31] whether you're in the intelligence
[02:21:32] community diplomatic service military
[02:21:34] whatever just a deep deep appreciation
[02:21:37] and one last thing we don't want to go
[02:21:39] too long
[02:21:41] I think my most amazing moment
[02:21:44] um with President Trump and I talked
[02:21:47] about this in my speech at the
[02:21:49] Republican National Convention was with
[02:21:51] the 13 gold star families of Abbey Gate.
[02:21:54] These families were it's it's bad enough
[02:21:57] the loss uh and how the loss happened,
[02:22:01] but they literally couldn't get an
[02:22:02] audience with the previous
[02:22:04] commander-in-chief with Biden. They were
[02:22:06] so distraught and they come to us in
[02:22:08] Congress um and and this is what I love
[02:22:11] about him. I said, "Let me let me give
[02:22:14] him a call. Call him." He um he get him
[02:22:19] up here tonight. Tonight. [laughter]
[02:22:23] And so, uh we get him up to Bedminster.
[02:22:26] The scheduler calls me and, you know, a
[02:22:29] little bit
[02:22:31] distraught and says, "All right, we can
[02:22:33] we had a lot going on. We can carve out
[02:22:34] an hour." Um he ended up spending the
[02:22:38] entire night with him. He shook every
[02:22:40] one of them's hand, heard the stories,
[02:22:43] talked about their loved ones, then
[02:22:45] invites him up to dinner. Sean, by the
[02:22:47] end of the night,
[02:22:49] >> he had uh one of the couples who was
[02:22:51] having a really hard time with it all up
[02:22:52] dancing. The moms were laughing like
[02:22:55] that's awesome.
[02:22:56] >> A couple of the moms came up uh to me
[02:22:58] and Julia, my wife, afterwards and said,
[02:23:00] "This is the best thing that has
[02:23:01] happened to me since I lost my son." So,
[02:23:03] I just say that in a sense that's a side
[02:23:06] no one ever sees that I, you know,
[02:23:08] deeply appreciate and I think your
[02:23:10] viewers would appreciate too. Yeah.
[02:23:12] >> Thank you, Mike.
[02:23:13] >> Yeah, man. Best of luck to you.
[02:23:15] >> I'll take prayer.
[02:23:18] [music]
[02:23:25] >> [music]
[02:23:29] >> No matter where you're watching Shawn
[02:23:30] Ryan Show from, if you get anything out
[02:23:32] of this, please like, comment,
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