#812 - Mike Baker - Emergency Episode: Former CIA Agent On Trump Assassination Attempt

28:57And I've not had that sense really before. It's just like, oh, if you've got truth social on one side and you've got X kind of more toward the middle and then you've got threads on the other side, it's just another one of these. But it made me think differently, I think. Yeah. I think it takes a little while for the crazy to come out, right? So I have seen some conspiracy theories. at, you know, this was an inside job, you know, and, you know, and then, of course, all the, all the, you know, the sort of the armchair executive protection specialists, you know, talking about exactly, you know, how, what went wrong, five minutes after the event, right?

29:32Are they okay? Well, at least less the dust settle a little bit before, let's talk to the blizzard up off the stage kind of. Yeah. Might be, might be good, but no, they did, look, the, the The imagery was amazing. The like him or hate him, right? And there's a lot of people on both sides of that for Trump, but you have to think, good God, right? I mean, the fact that he stood up, had to wear with all the kind of like face to crowd, you know, give him that indication that he was fine and he was, you know, I mean, that's those instincts, right? You can't teach that, right? That's kind of in there somewhere.

30:12and so I think that was amazing. Right, again, people who hate him are gonna say it was terrible. He shouldn't have shook his fist. I did hear CNN was upset with him because he shook his fist at the crowd and said, fight and they were like, well, that seems inappropriate. He's stoking, he's stoking a wartime rhetoric. We just got shot. He just got shot. They're upset because he's like shaking his fist and he's, they're like, well, that's not appropriate. Inappropriate to get aggressive when you've just been shot. Yeah. Yeah, I do, I said this to Tim. Look, I have, I sort of respect Trump in the, I find him an interesting orator and his sort of staying power has been, has been impressive.

30:55But I've never before said that I admired him. You know, I don't know whether it's because he's kind of like a WWE character, which he actually also happened to be briefly for a little while. He's super gregarious and he's out there and he's all of these things. And he's like older and he is from a different culture and all of these things lots and lots and lots of things right and I saw that video and then I saw that imagery and I was like that is fucking Badass that is a You there is no amount of media training or Sort of top down dictatorial rhetoric building and image sort of promoting that you can do to make being shot, then standing up and putting your fist in the air and going fight, fight, fight.

31:44That is him, that's his character. That is his character. We saw everything stripped back. Who is the guy? If you wanna know who someone is, shoot them in the air. Right? Well, let's say, okay, now, for those of you watching at home,

32:01let's step back on that guidance. but okay kids. No, but I take your point and also the striking thing is just the contrast right between that and what we had been talking about on nonstop, right on Friday and Thursday and Wednesday before that which was. People in theness, fragility. People in the mental now going through this election and obviously, you know, the Republicans will use that imagery, you know, but I think they have the rest of time. But they do have to be careful. I mean, Jesse, you don't want to, you know, because look, we, you know, there was a fatality there. You know, people maybe, maybe more.

32:52Yeah, maybe more. And so I think they're going to want to, so I'm hoping what this does is I hope it dials down the discourse. I hope it keeps things for a little bit of time. Again, I'm cynical, but you know, civil. And I hope it makes the Trump campaign more reflective, right? About their strategy and their tone and the way that they approach things. What does that mean, be most specific for me? Well, I think, look, everybody talks about, everybody talks about how you gotta win the moderates, right? You gotta win the independence. You know, if you're gonna win it all in November. And I think if what we got was the Trump of old, right, he's not winning those people, right?

33:40Because they already left him in 2020. That's why he didn't win, right? Because they were like, I'm tired of the chaos. I'm tired of the noise. I'm tired of it. You know, all of this. And so I think that if this makes him more or the campaign more reflective and they say, you know, what, you know, let's, let's, let's continue to dial it back. Democrats are going to do whatever they're going to do if they get back to throwing hand grenades. Okay, fine, let them. But let's be the, let's be the contrast. Right. I think that's the way that you get and then just focus on policies. Just talk about policies.

34:15Nothing else. Well, you already had a little bit more of a pivot to a slightly more statesman like version of Trump during the debate. And then after the debate, you know, there was no posting about Biden, there was no silly tweet of what equivalent there was there was none of that. Silence was his greatest weapon for the first time ever. Absolutely. Absolutely. When your enemy is imploding, don't talk it in a way. To get in the way, yeah, precisely. Talk to me about what you think this does to Trump's image among the American populace. How do you think that this incident changes it if at all?

34:51Well, I don't know that it, look, I think it will make a difference with some who are undecided. Not necessarily, I'm not talking necessarily about, you know, independence and moderates who are focused on politics, but I think those people who, you know, maybe don't spend a lot of time thinking about politics, but we're still kind of undecided. Maybe unregistered. Yeah, maybe unregistered. I wasn't sure if I was going to vote at all. Yeah. I think that that, and part of that will be that contrast between this guy standing up that's really shot and what they saw during that debate if they happen to see clips or they watch some of the debate.

35:26I think that contrast will influence a certain group. I think if he can, I don't know if statesmen's the right word, but I think if he can be more moderate than and speak to the issues and just stay there, then I think that can influence those moderates and independence perhaps that that are a little more focused on politics and did abandoned or abandoned the campaign the last time around. So I think it can have an impact. Look, the Democrats, you know, they must be amazed right now, right? Because all that conversation about Biden, that's nowhere to be found, right? That's done. At least for now, people are not talking about Biden.

36:03They're not talking about his feebleness, his mental acuity, is he still fit to serve? And so I think the White House, if anything, is taking a breath and going, I think, I'm not sure that. So I think that I get what you mean. It's a good day for bad news or it's a good day to be seen. I suppose. But the problem is that this recent shooting assassination attempt is framed against the foundation that we already had. Everyone still already has that in the back of their mind. We know the fragility that we've seen of the existing president, the fact that he doesn't have that sort of gusto and that get up that we want to show from a leader up against China, up against Russia, et cetera.

36:46And then you have this, even if you're not looking at it anymore, it's like just being in a cold bath and getting into a hot one, you're like, holy fuck, this is different. So I do think that that's going to be there. I also agree, I think the more mature and stand -offish that the Republicans can be when it comes to messaging around this, I think that's going to benefit them more. for the first time ever. This is one of my George who I'm traveling with at the moment told me this yesterday. For the first time ever, Trump has a victim card. He's never had a victim card before. Trump has, he has a fucking victim card.

37:24Yeah. Well, although I would argue that the base, right? His loyal, loyal supporters view him as the supreme victim, just being victimized by law fair and the Biden administration. And so I think that group always looks at them in that regard. right? You know, look what they're doing to them again. And now he's being shot in the, in the, in the fucking air. Well, so another interesting thing is how much damage does this incident do to the left moral high ground around not being the violent ones? Yeah, I don't think they care. I think they just, they'll just, I've never seen any awareness on their part that, that could be an issue, right?

38:07It's sort of like that mostly peacefully and Tifa riots and, you know, burnings and violence. I think that they just brushed that aside. And so I don't know that they're worried about that idea. They all jumped on the notion, they were really wordsmithing, but they jumped on the notion in their statements about the assassination attempt that the shooter was a registered Republican. And by the way, why do all these guys look the same. I don't understand. They were lost. You know, and I didn't say that. My oldest boy said that. He said, what the hell is it with people like you know, what are the, what is the commonality?

38:49You know, his point was maybe they need to do a study of all these people and find out what was that thing that was super racist and done in the 90s. Was it frenology or physiognomy or whatever it was? Talk like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. like face shape as being indicative. What do we know about the shooter? You know, what, 20 years old from the area, Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, you know, I've only heard a few comments from people who claim that they knew them in high school and those are typical comments, quiet, loaner, lead. Only, you know, is dad purchased legally, legally, Apparently, the long gun that was used on Saturday by his kid some six months ago.

39:38And so there's not a lot of information out there. It's interesting. The bureaus got his, obviously they got his electronic devices. They took us phone down to Quantico. And once again, they're struggling, according to reports. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but they say they're struggling to unlock it. I'm following a 20 year old Lona from Nicole Green, whatever it is. Yeah, so I think it's, it's, you know, we'll get more detail, but that's one of those areas, right? Well, you have to be, I always hate to see people speculating about motives because that's one of the things in terms of an investigation regardless of what type of shooting event it is that you really need to let the facts, you know, come to light before you start talking and earnest about, oh, you know, what the motivation of the shooter was, Soba, Zaman, there's definitely, I think, another discussion to be had around what is the training of local law enforcement?

40:34You know, we've had it before. I was watching this documentary about, there's a name for them. What's the name for police officers that don't enter firefights even though they should do? It's like, it's not coward or whatever. It's like there's a specific name for it, you know, like a false valor or whatever. There's like an equivalent sort of name for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well just failing at duty and you know I saw in this same documentary I was talking about that a lot of the police officers were saying that they spend more time in diversity meetings than they do with their firearm in the hand.

41:08Yeah, and that is true. When you look at the consistency of training, that's why that, you know, one of the things that could drive you crazy during that, that sort of the height of the defund the police was really, you're just fucking stupid because if you want a better police force, a more responsive police force, a more responsible police force, you want to actually give them more funds for training. That's where it all starts, right? So part of the problem is, again, going back to something we talked about earlier, is that a lot of times when you hit budget cuts, training's one of the first things to go.

41:38And that can't be the case when you're talking about law enforcement. Especially not if you're gonna be a guy who goes to a bladder and sees a dude with a long gun and... Yeah. And that again, I'm fascinated by the comms portion of this and the line of communication because there's a period of time there, right? Whether you attend these, alert the local authorities, local authorities, decide someone, you know, Bob's gotta go over there and investigate, well, at the same time, all that communication should have been shared with the counter sniper teams and command and control from the secret servants, right?

42:09They should have been making decisions in real time. So if that person was going up a ladder on that building, they should have had him in their sites at that point, right? Now, maybe they didn't have line of sight on the shooter. Maybe he was out of range, not out of range, but out of sight. And then he pops up and points his weapon at the, but that's the time to shoot him. As soon as it, you know, so there's little steps here. But again, you know, is it fair for me without the investigation being done to make all these, you know, statements? I don't know. I'm just speaking from, you know, from past experience on other events, but, you know, they got to let the investigation play out, it's just, it's such a, the event had such magnitude and such impact that it's natural.

42:51I get why people rush to make judgment or statements or talk about things. It makes sense. Do you think that this stops Biden from stepping down because Trump now has a martyr vote? Well, I think, yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a really interesting point, but I think it goes back to what I was saying when I was trying to refer to the fact that the noise around Biden's situation has died down to no noise, right? So I think it does buy him significant time. And I think him coming out and saying, you know, look, we need to be civil. We need to think about how we talk about each other. He's trying to be presidential.

43:34He's trying to show obviously, like with every event that he's had since the debate, that he's up to the job. But I think it's making it more difficult, right, for the Democrats to continue to beat the drum. There were probably prior to Saturday, there were probably more Democrats in Congress or in the Senate who were going to step out, you know, and say, we think he needs to go, right? That was a building drum beat. I think that it's more difficult now for them to do that because of the events of Saturday and because it felt like, okay, well maybe, you know, maybe we just got to stick with you.

44:12Dude, think about the last three weeks of fucking news. Yeah. Well, think about the, I mean, really think about this past year, right? Everything's been going on. I mean, obviously, you know, Ukraine, Huck and Gaza, right? You know, the discourse around the election, this event on Saturday. I mean, good God. You know, all we need is a pandemic. Sorry. Sorry. That's terrible, but you know, not that we won't want one. We're going to get another pandemic by the way. It'll happen. It'll continue to happen. Talk to me about JD Vans. Yeah. Interesting. I guess not an unexpected choice. They've been banging on for a while saying it was either going to be Vance or Bergen or Rubio.

45:06And look, JD Vance is close to his, to Trump's son. They're very good friends. He's, he's an interesting cat, right? Has almost no, anything about him, explain to me who he is. Yeah, he's got almost no political experience. He wrote that book, Hillbilly Elegy, which was a very interesting book. I mean, a very interesting book. And they made a movie out of it, I think. but he's a political newcomer. He's been a very staunch supporter of Trump. He's at Ohio.

45:43And, you know, of the candidates, I don't know that if what you were saying was I want to, I want to pick a candidate who can really help me win over, you know, groups that I'm, I, I need to win. I don't know that JD Vance is that person because he's already got his base, right? And so I think JD Vance kind of shares the same supporters. Rubio could have shown up for it up. Obviously, with a Hispanic vote as well, it would help. He's a much more seasoned politician. Bergam is a good friend of Trump. He's got very good political instincts, business instincts. Nicky Haley was hanging out there. And I gotta tell you, if you wanted to moderate, so you wanted the independent voters, you could argue from Nicky Haley could have been a terrific choice, except they got, you know, there were so sideways with each other during the primary.

46:44What do you think, do you think there's any chance that Trump changed his VP pick post Saturday? No, that's interesting.

46:56No, probably not. I think the wheels are in motion too much. Yeah, I think the factor that would have changed his decision possibly would have been if Biden had stepped out. And it pulled himself out that that may have recalibrated the thinking perhaps over the VP pick. But I don't think Saturday, I think at that point, he just he went with Vance and didn't change his mind. I was in a group chat with a bunch of different people here. One of them saying, Teal hired him at his VC fund, MythRoll, also endorsed his Senate campaign with the biggest individual donation ever for a Senate campaign of $15 million.

47:39Very happy with Vans, super smart, competent veteran, rust belt, blue collar orientation, also, and sad that this is the case. He provides assassination insurance. Yeah, well, look, I mean Trump had been saying that, right? He said, you know, his decision over who to pick would be, you know, if something bad happens, are they ready to step in? But okay, to be fair, you know, every presidential nominee says that. I want my VP picked to be ready on day one. And look, I like, I like Vance in the sense that he's, he's unique, Right? He's not a he's not a 110 year politician, right? And that's not a bad thing at all.

48:19And I like the fact that he's a veteran. That's a very good thing. So I'm just saying it's an interesting choice in the sense that I don't know that it expands the voting block necessarily for the campaign because it's drawing from the same kind of block as opposed to maybe one of the other picks, but then again, you know, you want somebody that you can, you know, be simpatical with and Vance has been a staunch support. Nicky Haley might have just been a fucking nightmare from behind the scenes from day one. Well, I think it would have been a very interesting dive. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the case and maybe Rubio, you know, was a bit of the same way, you know, maybe there was some concern over past, you know, you know, punches they thrown at each other.

49:09So who knows? At the end of the day, does it, does it matter all that much? I don't know that a VP pick matters all that much. Look, if Biden stays in, you know, I think the key has got to be saying, look, you're not running against Biden, you're running against, you know, President Harris, because I don't think anybody in their right mind believes that Biden makes it through four years if he wins. So a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris and you're willing to say that Kamala Harris could be the leader of the free world. And I can't even say that with a straight face. I mean, that's more terrifying than the president getting shot.

49:48Oh, the presidential candidate being shot in the ear. I've seen this map, the election map of when Reagan got shot afterward and you've got red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, and then this one blue dot that remained up at the top. How likely, or how unlikely is that to be the case given the sort of never die, never trump, etc. kind of even after all of this. You've basically got the ultimate one to punch. Like jab in the face, Biden's completely incompetent punch. The other guy is totally competent and can literally get shot and stand up 15 seconds later. But that's just, surely there's no way that we can see a huge red sweep in the same way because people are just so passionate about hating Trump.

50:37Yeah. Yeah. It's a different situation. It's apples and oranges when you're talking about what happened with Reagan, I think. And so, there's no way he's going to run the table or get anywhere to close. It's going to be a close race still. And I think that, you know, the jury's still out. maybe when the noise dies down, right? And the election really heats up again, and the rhetoric comes back kind of the way it was, that the Democrats start re -evaluating again Biden's suitability. And so that could be the next big event in terms of the election season that we're in the middle of. Fucking hell.

51:18OK, so one other thing that I really wanted to ask you, one of your expertise international relations. First off, have any other world leaders of interest said anything that's interesting? And secondly, how do you think other countries, the China's, the Russia's, the Iran's of the world? How do you think they interpret the ease with which a 20 year old bullied kid with bad hair was able to shoot the president's ear off? Yeah. Well, I think that jihadists are looking at and going, what? That's it, that's all we have to do is climb up on a damn shed. Yeah, so I think that they're looking at it from a security breakdown and thinking, oh my God, maybe we've been overthinking this, right?

52:02They've been too much credit. Yeah. And so the Chinese regime has always Xi Jinping and the foreign ministry, they, you know, they were very muted in their response after the assassination attempt and, You know, they wished him well, but they tend to try to be seen as not waiting in because they don't want anybody stepping in their business. European leaders said exactly what you would imagine. You know, everybody was condemning the political violence. There were really many... I'm trying to think Slovakia, Robert Fiko, you know, he made a couple of interesting comments because he had been, you know, they tried to assassinate him not that long ago, shot him I think four times.

52:50So he alluded to the idea that, you know, the rhetoric from the opposition party, you know, probably played a role. But there was pretty much just what you would expect, you know, condemnation of political violence from world leaders, you know, UK, Kirstaarmer, the new prime minister, he came in and weighed in very quickly. And so that makes sense. It's, you wouldn't expect anything different. I think Russian, I'm trying to remember what they, they didn't really say much. I think Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin made an off -handed comment, but basically it was not that interesting. Is it not that interesting?

53:33Another advertisement of America's in fighting operational operational poor management, the fact that one party that's kind of in charge of the protection detail for the other party isn't capable of stopping this. It's more sort of America falling flat on its face on the world stage. Only recently after the guy that's in charge couldn't string a sentence together. Yeah, it was interesting. I mean, speaking of that, you know, the the White House during the NATO summit, which was just, you know, concluded last week, like John Kirby was asked and he said, look, nobody in NATO questions Biden's abilities.

54:13We don't have to justify Biden to anybody. They all firmly believe, well, what else is the NATO leader is going to say? But it was interesting that even at that point when it was clear that there were some issues, the White House was still trying to portray Biden as being on top of his game and sharp as a tack and all the other, like, again, we're all getting older, right? You know, you, me, everybody, we're all getting older. We all age differently, right? It's not age, it's mental locuity. And we've all got elderly parents. We've all got elderly grandparents. We all know what it looks like. So I think the problem the White House has, even during this moment when that talk has died down, is that people understand that process, right?

54:59And they know what it looks like because they've seen it. or they've had to deal with it directly. So I don't know ultimately that they're gonna be able to hold the line and keep him in there.

55:12But frankly, Kamala Harris and John Kirby and Karin Jean Pierre and everybody in his little circle and his family, they've kind of been lying to the American public for quite some time now and trying to cover up what's been happening. Despite the fact that we've been seeing bits and pieces of it, but that's why he hasn't been out there, right? What was it called? What was it called when you when you take videos out of context? What was that? There was a name or a cheap fake cheap. It was a fake. Yeah, that's what they were referring to it It was a cheap fake every time that there was a reference to it or that we were just and the media for the most part We're willing to cover up as well.

55:50I can't do it. I can't place it. Did you read? I think it was Ben Usher. He wrote an article called common knowledge I didn't read that no. I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you afterwards So basically the break down, it's phenomenal. It's so good. And it basically says that it's not enough for you to know a thing. You need to know that other people know that thing too. So for instance, it's not enough for you to know that it's the Ampriz New Clothes. Right? You can pick your favorite fairy tale of choice. And the problem being that until you have reliable insight that other people will agree with your position, nobody is prepared to take the position.

56:33So it's not enough for you to know that you know, you need to know that everybody else also knows. And what we saw on the debate night was common knowledge be distributed to the masses. There was nowhere else for anybody to hide. Therefore, when you come out as someone who previously has said Biden's sharp is attack or you know, we pick New York Times fucking like Washington and post whoever it is. And then you pivot and say something else, well, it's a completely costless position to hold because everybody else knows it. Like it's the same with the free speech position. You know, free speech doesn't matter for people who agree with you or who you agree with.

57:10Free speech only matters for the people who you disagree with because it's a costly position in order to be able to hold that and it's the same with this common knowledge thing. And it's so interesting to me because for those of us that exists terminally online in the heterodoxosphere of substachistan. We have all known this. For forever, this is something, this is, to me, talking like doing jokes about Biden's mental degradation was hacky. It was so obvious that it felt low ball to say. And then you watch the debate and you go, oh, this couple in the world who don't have access to my common knowledge.

57:50Now I'm sure that there's shit tons of stuff that I don't know about, but that was one of the things that I did. So much so that I take it for granted. It's an accepted fact, and it's so much of an accepted fact that it would be hacky and low -ball to make a joke about it. And oh, the world thinks that this is fucking revolutionary, and it really broke my brain. For a while when I realized, oh, my understanding and the way that I see certain parts of the world and the way that maybe the rest of the part, a big chunk of the populist does is Yeah. Is fucking miles apart. I'm no fucking clairvoyant political divinity guy, but fuck me, I knew that.

58:23And to be a revelation was just like, oh wow, this really does show how echo bubbles and still the power of legacy media to be able to filter what actually gets down to this sort of ocean floor of most people. Why? Why would it be? And the ability to repeat a message, right? If you're, you know, if you just keep saying the same thing over the attack shop as attack shop as attack and then it works. And then we find out that they've been basically complicit in hiding this and that's why. And then of course, people come out and plundits come out and people who had just been on their shows, talking about how great he is saying, well, we've kind of seen this for a while.

59:05I can't believe that they've hit it from us. It's kind of like again, what we talked about earlier, calling Trump Hitler and then the It's that it's that immediate turn around that to me is shocking, but but people just move on, right? And they know that, right? They know they can do this. There's almost no shame because they just like, okay, I'm going to pivot and completely reverse my position. And I'll be fine in a day or two. It's shocking. But anyway, in the interim, just rounding out the conversation on security, does Tim Kennedy or Eric Prince need to be called in? Do you go private security to bolster Trump security detail or maybe maybe other people's security details?

59:51No, no, I think look, I was out and we had a large operation on Iraq, early days of Iraq, right? I'm talking about 03, 04, 05, 06. I mean, and we had a large private security operation out there and that's a war zone. It's a little bit different, but when we're talking about augmenting secret service with private security, I don't think so. I think, look, David, the challenge is that you face when you try to augment secret service with private guys in Iraq. You're just layering on potential communications and command and control issues. I just think And it's also, I think, look, the Secret Service, their staff with some great people, right?

1:00:44We always have to be careful about, there's this tendency to say, they're all screwed, dismantle it, you know, that's, it was a cryback. You gotta get rid of the bureau, get rid of the agency and do all these things. And I'm thinking really, that's your take on this. I'm not just fixing problems. And so the Secret Service augmented by, local and state law enforcement, they can do the job. They've been doing the job. Part of this is, they've got to be transparent again. They've got to come out and say these are the steps that occurred. Some of them won't surprise us because we all watched. But they've got to be very clear about what those steps are.

1:01:29They've got to be very clear about how they intend to not have it happen again. Right, and that's going to require some people taking responsibility. And that's where I think that can be a problem because you have to make people at the top take responsibility and maybe suffer some consequences as opposed to just saying, you know, the officer on the ground who failed to communicate in real time, what he was about to do by going up on that building, you know, that's the guy who's you we can all blame. Yeah, I have had it in my head since Saturday. I wonder whether there is a level of negligence you reach where it almost becomes complicity.

1:02:04Well, I think it's complicity. It can be what's the word I'm looking for complacency, maybe at times. The reason I brought up the private security thing is I saw that trailer saying 30 % of secret service staff are going to be female by 2030. I spoke to Tim and Tim explained to me that the mile time for guys versus goals to run is different. The weight load that you need to be able to lift is different. The height, all of the rest of the stuff. You saw a woman who was, she came up to Trump's nipple, maybe, you know, got this big guy, got this big dude and this little woman. That's where he decided to go as far as the height measurement was the nipple.

1:02:49That's precisely where she got to. I know what you mean. And then you know, they would get a yet at age and kind of fumble fucking with their weapon trying to re -hul in a holster it was the same one who used Trump to hit behind Trump like this like sort of in that kind of like for the fucking the guy woman in the kitchen from Tom and Jerry like yeah. That's a great cultural pull right there. Yeah, you haven't thought about that for a while. You haven't thought about Tom and Jerry. Look, I think there's no room for DEI in the world of operations of security, right? You just simply choose the, it shouldn't be the way it is in everything, not just those sectors, but you choose the most qualified, capable people.

1:03:34And if they can't cut it, then you move them out, and you bring in somebody who's more capable and qualified. And you're right, you can't, there's a problem when you, when you, because I think the Secret Service will say that, look, we didn't lower the standards, right? That's not, that's not what we did, right? But you hear that all the time. Problem is that that belies the reality right? Al -Nirok is a good example right? For a while there was only one we bring former you know spec ops guys out right? Well that's a that's a small pool right? There's not a lot it's not a lot of former guys there with that qualification.

1:04:08So then you started seeing you know everybody squatting and everybody coming out there and claiming that they were a spec ops former you know this and that and and so So you've got a limited pool of capable people, I believe, right, that you can choose from for certain jobs. And you just have to take those people and say, fuck the EI, that's not what's important in this business, right? And again, I don't want to rush to judgment, right? I don't know the qualifications these people. We have to kind of look and see, you know, let's be measured, that sort of thing. But I take your point and I don't disagree with it at all.

1:04:47Well, the problem being the reason that I mentioned Eric or Tim or some other private contractor is that Tim brought it up to me. He said, the people that you see that are on Trump's detail, even though they may not have performed like the A -Team, they weren't hired yesterday. You don't get hired and then get put on a presidential candidate's detail. You have been in the agency for a while. You've been hired and trained long ago. You've been around for a long time. So in order to say, well, we're going to rectify it, we're going to train better, we're going to hire better We're going to change the DEI initiative.

1:05:18We're going to do whatever it is that they say that they're going to do brilliant You know, the 2028 election may very well be more way more secure than this one But you know when you're thinking what's going to happen over the next however long our fk junior is just being given Seek it service detail that's going to take some of the resources away and How many people are going to have their time taken up going through fucking meeting after meeting after hearing after court case after investigation. As you said, sucking New Oxygen out of the room and taking the attention away from the thing that it needs to be focused on.

1:05:50So yeah, I, I, I don't know, man, I mean, America is not showering itself in glory and oddly the only person that is at the moment is Trump.

1:06:01That's a great way to put it. That's no, I, yeah, that's, that's gonna drive a lot of people crazy when they hear you say that. But it's fucking true, dude. I, I, people can go back and listen, and I don't think I've ever been complimentary about Trump. Not that I was particularly critical of him over Biden, but I'm like, he's just a f**king dude. He's a dude that's kind of a bit crazy. And I just think, tell me, tell me that you look at that photo and you don't think, yeah, like that's some late 80s flag fly in Americana, like legitimacy. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's probably exactly a yellow Wolverines, right?

1:06:39No, I, I, again, and it's that imagery that's so important, right? Because people make decisions quickly. People don't dig deep, you know, and they're going to see that and maybe they make up their mind and, and you know, what, again, you can't, what are you going to argue with that? You're going to look at that and then you're going to look at that president Biden from the debate and you're going to go, okay, who's more than obviously. Yeah. What's, tell you what's an awesome, awesome video that you can get a hold of. So Evan, the guy that took the photo, um, he is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guy looks an awful lot like a Navy SEAL.

1:07:11He looks like a young Jokka Willink, hard dude. And if you watch the video, there's a handout version of the stage. And those shots start firing. He doesn't stop in power. He starts strafing across the front of the stage to get those shots. There's two guys that get them. Really interesting video that you can find, which was shot on a pair of Rayban metaglasses. So I've got a pair of those two. So it's a pair of sunglasses. that you wear and they've got two little lenses on either side and they can shoot up to about a minute of video in very high quality and the color representations really good and This guy so Evans the guy that took the photo the photos that are going around everywhere There's another dude who presumably got very similarly good photos as that.

1:07:52Yeah, he's from the New York Times I think yeah Doug Mills maybe yeah, so he Yeah, it is Doug Mills he had the foresight when he's round the back. He's around the back of the stage and And the video begins, but you can't remotely start those glasses. So he's had his camera like this or whatever it is like this. And he's shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. And he's taking his hand off, pressed the button, held it. You have to hold it if you want to take a video and then go back to that. And if you watch, I message Dean, the guy that led it this episode, you met him in Miami, my video guy. I was asking him, what is that dude?

1:08:26Doug? What's that dude doing? Because you actually see from his glasses, you can see both of his hands, right? So he's got his hands up like this and you're looking at this thing and he He's shooting a lot. This is during a fire fight. Yeah, these guys. It's so cool. I love seeing People who know their craft inside out doing something and what's coolest about this? Isn't the shot the shot that you get It's the seamlessness with which he does it so you see that he's shooting and he can't frame up properly So he takes his hand off the front of the camera flips the screen down so that he can get a better look and he's working on his, I think either exposure or focus, whatever Dean said.

1:09:05And then he's checking, he's checking the screen, he's going like this. And Dean was like, he's working about every one to one and a half seconds, he's looking at the composition of his shot during this. So he's shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, looks, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, and the burst, burst, burst, burst, burst. I don't like that's one of the coolest parts of it. You know what else is amazing? if you watched right behind Trump, there's some lady, right? As soon as the shooting starts, literally, shooting starts, she puts up her phone. And she just, she just sit in the audience, right?

1:09:40She said, first or second, roll behind Trump. So you gotta watch the videos that are out there and you'll see, she's got a, I think she's got a white case on her phone and she's sitting there and wearing a white shirt, I think, and then literally, it starts off and she just puts her phone up. I'm like, God! So I don't know whether this is true. Tim is the only guy that's told me this. He said that the man who died, comp... Compatoying. Yeah, if they're quarry, compatoying. Yes. He apparently, this is what Tim said, threw himself on top of his family, and that he took the shot in his head. That's the basic...

1:10:22That's what they're saying. Yeah, that's what he's using his body, which is the Aurora Colorado shooting all over again, right? That someone goes in and boyfriends throw themselves on something girlfriends. Yeah, no, it's, you know, and I think, I think that's another reason why I look, you know, if no one else had been hurt, maybe they would treat a little bit differently, but you can't, you got to be very measured about how they talk about this. I'm from the Republican side, from the campaign side, and I think they, they're, their best thing to do is just let it go. Obviously, they'll probably reference it during the RNC speeches or whatever, but they got to let it go, just go, and then just, and then just let some of the imagery speak for itself, but move on and go to the issues.

1:10:57And it looks to callus to use it as a look at how awesome we are, where hardest, whilst a guy died, and one or two people still in intensive care. Exactly. Dude, I hate to say this, but I got a pop. That's all right. Dude, I appreciate you for doing this emergency episode. I needed to get you on. Mike Baker, ladies and gentlemen, MB company man. and be company man. Also the President's Daily Brief Podcast. Look at me marketing right now just before we finish up. But now he's talking about that. But the President's Daily Brief Podcast available on all podcasts, platforms, and we do a weekend TV show now called the Situation Report.

1:11:38Well you'll have a lot to talk about next weekend. I really appreciate you. Stay safe in the RNC. And Doug, here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemo, is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual .com. Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.