Exposing the Truth Behind Shawn Ryan Fight & Drug Boat Strikes | Dan Crenshaw

0:00Hey, I'm Dan Harris, host of the 10 % Happier podcast. When life gets a little rough, sometimes we feel this overwhelming urge to fix everything, which really is impossible. So I've got a new series coming up called Reset, where we're going to help you find simple, practical, surgical ways to reset key areas of your life. The lineup is incredible. We've got people like Gretchen Rubin, Laurie Santos, Atul Gawande, and The Daily Show's Josh Johnson. 10 % Happier with Dan Harris. Join the party wherever you get your podcasts. I hate these dumb, these ridiculous social media fights that media people just like to create.

0:35I get it. Look, that's their livelihood. And Dan Crenshaw equals engagement. But I also have to defend myself. So people ask me, well, why do you even engage? Well, Michael, because you're accusing me of a crime. You accuse me of conspiring to gather a bunch of seal team six guys and come assault you so what he said was that i that that text was that i would get them together and go quote unquote whoop his ass never said that right and so i'm like what are we doing here

1:15all right congressman dan cranshaw this is my last interview today in dc i've done i think about a dozen of them i've asked every question i can ask so where do you want to start here you want to do end of year you want to do venezuela you want to do what what do you want to do you know we you told us we want to do venezuela i think i mean it's an interesting topic right now let's do venezuela and you know a little something about the military yeah and also like what you know justifying what we're doing yeah in the caribbean and in the eastern pacific uh actually we just just came from a briefing um that secretary hegsat secretary rubio um chairman of the joint chiefs gave us i thought it was pretty good um i think their explanations are good and i think the intent is good where we began i mean look we're we've changed the the dynamic here um the war on drugs you know making it a law enforcement operation making it an interdiction operation it has never worked you have to target the networks and these networks we've defined now as terrorist networks.

2:16There's a lot of good reason for that. They act as terrorist networks, especially the cartels in Mexico. And they really run everything. There's Tren de Aragua and Venezuela. There's the Maduro regime itself, which has been indicted by our own courts. Like him, plus a lot of his senior officials in administration have been indicted on drug charges. So it's not like they're allowing this to happen. They actively manage it. It's the only country that actually does that. Like not all the countries. It's sort of the purposeful driver of their existence. And it is. I mean, and they you know, and what else do they do?

2:51I mean, they're bringing in all of the all of the adversaries that we wouldn't want in our hemisphere. The Russians really control Maduro. The Cubans control Maduro. The Chinese are pushing in. You know, there's hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens that live there working those oil fields, trying to trying to uplift that regime. China does that very specifically. Again, China's China's role is more of an economic warfare as usual. um and so the president is absolutely right to take these kind of bold actions and he's also within his legal means you know once you're once you're a designated terrorist as as we've seen plenty of times over the over the course of the last 25 years yes we can strike you and these strikes are are i think very well planned um very well vetted there's a very rigorous process that happens with these strikes um multi-source intelligence we have to know what's on the boat and who's on the boat and what their intent is.

3:41Otherwise, there won't be a kinetic operation. As the administration said, you know, this is about deterrence. And the proof of it is, in the Caribbean part, there has not been a strike in four weeks. Why is that? Because they're having trouble finding people who will actually pilot these boats now. Right, because you only need to blow up a couple boats before they get the signal, right? Right, then they've gotten, I think they're starting to get the message. So, okay, so having seen the intelligence, having just come from this hearing, did you see the, or I don't even know if you're allowed to say, but have you seen the classified video that deals with the double tap that got everybody freaked out?

4:14I have not seen it. But you got an explainer on... Yeah, I mean, and just, I know from my own history how this works. So let's talk about the double tap real quick. And then, you know, people freaked out about that. Like, you can't kill them, they're survivors. And my point would be, okay, guys, let's look at 20 years of war where we're going after Al-Qaeda or ISIS, whoever it is, and, you know, they're in a building and we blow it up. and we see a guy run out of that building what are we we're not going to just we don't like assume that he just should not be killed right they keep shooting you take that second shot if you miss the first shot you take the second shot and that's what's happening here um you know these again the these are designated terrorist networks um and designated terrorists and so yes we threw what you know you can argue the morality of that all you want but the legality of it is pretty clear.

5:04Right. So do you think this is just a little bit of people falling for the mainstream narrative? Like it just came out so quickly, like, oh my God, something so illegal must've happened here. And it's like, they must've been waving a white flag and da da da. Where to me, it seems again, putting aside the morality, uh, not, well, not exactly putting aside the morality, but the basic direction of it is that people agree with Trump. We've just had it with drugs coming to our shores illegally. Yeah. And I think Trump derangement syndrome as a part to play here, you know, look, I think his opposition is just going to be against whatever he does just because it's him.

5:40And, you know, there's, I think that's honestly a lot of it. And it's, that's, that's the cynical view. Maybe some people do have a moral question about, about shooting at survivors. But again, that's why I use the analogy. It's like, you didn't have that moral question right before um under the obama administration doing very similar things i mean if they're a bad guy they're a bad guy land see what's the difference and and so i think that analogy is important right and your argument is having been to this briefing that you're confident that they did the right thing with within our framework well yeah i mean legally i think it's very defensible yeah um i remember like you know yeah these these these kind of measures are very defensible obama did it in libya um jefferson did it in libya you know This authority from the executive branch goes back a long way.

6:27Right. Let's shift altogether. No segue here. Sean Ryan, podcaster, former Navy SEAL guy, was kind of in a sort of ancillary way going after you a little bit. I feel like you've probably got some response on that. Yeah. I mean, like, can you give us the backdrop here for people that don't know? The backdrop's a little convoluted, but like, look, what it comes down to is this. he's accused me of the same tired old tropes that you see online that I've seen online for years and that have been debunked for years. This idea that I've gotten very rich off of Congress. There's no evidence for that whatsoever.

7:03People just make up numbers and they post them and, you know, it's clickbait. It's pure clickbait. It's pretty easy to disprove, you know, since we actually disclose all of our trades and all of our financial disclosures. The most I've ever had in a brokerage account is about$40 ,000. And I have a lot less than that now. So that just puts it in perspective, like this idea of making millions. And he said, I hired the famous DJ, Steve Aoki for my birthday party. Not true at all. I reached out to him privately when he said this like a year ago. And I'm like, you know, you can just reach out to your fellow team guy.

7:37And he never did never ask any questions. And but then recently said that that message was a threat. And it's funny because it's like, you know, we can just pull up the message, right? It's not a threat. I was like, I was like, Hey, why don't you reach out to me? Um, my, my, my boys are six and I just happen to be hanging out with them. And so he says that, well, because you said seal team six, it means you threatened me. I'm like, no, I just said, they told me that I literally, it's like, we can read this. It's not like, it's not like we misunderstood a conversation here. And, and so, you know, look, man, I, I have better things to do.

8:09You know, we're about to go vote on a bill, uh, that, that streamlines permitting that we desperately need in our district for building oil and gas pipelines for building infrastructure uh on thursday i'll be putting up my bill to to stop funding for hospital children's hospitals that do transgender treatments on minors like this is big stuff that we're trying to work on i work on flood mitigation right like you know we've been able to get 200 million dollars or so back to my district for flood mitigation projects because remember when i ran for congress that was off that was in the wake of hurricane harvey um every single day we are trying to do something that actually matters i mean this month it's all about health care and you know i'm on the health subcommittee for energy and commerce like i hate these dumb these these ridiculous social media fights that media people just like to create yeah because i get it look it's it that's their livelihood they need and get they and and dan crenshaw equals engagement yeah um but i also have to defend myself you know so So people ask me, well, why do you even engage?

9:09Well, I'm like, well, because you're accusing me of a crime. You know, you accuse me of conspiring to gather a bunch of SEAL Team 6 guys and come assault you. So what he said was, Hey, I'm Dan Harris, host of the 10 % Happier podcast. With summer winding down, now is the perfect time to hit the reset button. So many of us get stuck in ruts at work, in our relationships, in our nervous system. We've got a special series where I'm going to be talking to psychologists, meditation teachers, even some comedians about how to get out of that rut how to reset your life in lots of different super practical ways 10 happier with dan harris join the party wherever you get your podcasts that that text was that i would get them together and go quote unquote whoop his ass never said that right and so i'm like what are we doing here and and it's just the internet's blown up all about it you told me i i envy you that you haven't even seen it yeah but uh well every now it's such a distraction from like real things that we're working on right well every now and again you just miss a story you know what i mean and you go boy i'm lucky i missed that one and somehow this is one that i just missed it's just so ridiculous it's it really is um but again like we've got real things to work on i've got an opponent who whose main argument against me right now this is the primary opponent by the way the guy who considers himself a real trump advocate one of his main arguments that he put a website up about me number one because dan crenshaw voted for trump's big beautiful bill it's like what are you crazy this guy has voted against flood mitigation efforts in our in our state he's a state rep sorry i should have said that he's a state rep been a politician longer than i have uh in a state where it's by the way very easy to get things done because the republicans run everything right you should be you should have a good record he's voted with democrats to oppose property tax decreases in texas like what like i don't even know what his reason he was for that now he voted this is a guy who voted against uh bulletproofing police cars i mean it's just this wild stuff like against flooding you're against trump's big beautiful bill you're against bulletproofing police cars and you and you're telling me that you're coming at me from the right it's a it doesn't really sound like it's gonna fly in texas well this guy's lost multiple elections uh he's lost kevin brady he's lost our montgomery county's current county county judge um and he'll lose again look because once people see the record and understand look what are we really voting on we're voting on what i'm gonna do for you not some stuff that somebody else is making up or what you know or this tit for tat about reputational assaults.

11:51It's about what I'm going to do, you know, and people know what I'm going to do. And I work, I'm the lead on everything that has to do with the cartels and the fentanyl problem. Um, I'm the one who goes and do and, and, and, and creates that legislation leads that and has led that task force in the past. I, I'm the, you know, I, I work on defense intelligence. I literally chair the subcommittee. It's a huge responsibility. Um, keeping America safe. I work the energy issues for my state because I'm on energy and commerce and I work the healthcare issues for my state on energy and commerce. You know, I had the chance to be hugely influential when we did the Medicaid reform that really saved us over a trillion dollars in the long term without really hurting the system itself, even though Democrats claim that longer story, we can debunk everything they say about it.

12:36So that's real work. You know, that's stuff that like, that's the reason you run. Because there's a lot of cons to running in politics, as you well know, right? Especially if you would go on Saturday Night Live. You've been to real war. Yeah, but that was at least black and white. Politics is really something. But my first day in politics, I'm on Saturday Night Live. And so you become a target naturally. And I expect some of that. When it comes to the Sean Ryan thing, look, I expect a huge degree of criticism, people making things up. But you can't lie about me committing a crime. whether it's insider trading or whether it's conspiring to assault you like these are criminal things like you know and i do have to defend my reputation my daughter's going to read this stuff one day and and so i do it and i do it with what i where i try to put the least amount of effort possible into it so i can continue to do the job that i was sent here to do by my constituents so speaking of that job what is it that republicans are going to have to do over the next 11 months to not have a massive loss come november 26 man you're getting a million different answers on that one um i think we need to figure out health care this month right because we're a looming so we're going to vote on health care bills that i think are really good this week but they're going to be partisan they shouldn't be democrats should agree with what we're voting on but they don't right it's it's all about opposition for them but we are going to face just like we faced before another government shutdown and it's going to be about these enhanced premium tax credits, right?

14:10These tax credits for Obamacare that came in the wake of COVID. And we're going to have to figure out a way to manage that. I'm part of that conversation. I have some really good ideas. And I think there's conceptually, I think there's actually a path forward. And I think an opportunity to remake Obamacare with a very conservative face on it. And I could get into the exquisite details on that, but I don't think we have time. And it's complicated. Healthcare policy is complicated you do that i think we've got some wins under our belt um we've secured the border that's what people wanted um let's get prices down and you get prices down with deregulation we've already we know what we got to do we really got to sell people better on on the big beautiful bill the working the working families tax cut act because that's exactly what it was i don't think people knew really that their taxes were about to go up in december massively we've prevented that right so some of this say that a lot so some of this you think will be once the bill kicks in in essence that's what several people have said to me today that people will then start seeing the fruits of it right now they don't they kind of just don't see what it did well what the thing is is what it did was stop your your taxes from increasing they were automatically by law going to increase and i bet you most americans weren't prepared for that and i think we need to say that more often yeah we you know the democrats are literally running on the midterms on on the idea that your taxes should have been raised because they all wanted that.

15:36They did not want the 2017 tax cuts to be extended. That's effectively what we did. We've got to say that more. I think that's why the president, I think, changed the name from Big Beautiful Bill to I think something more accurate, which was Working Families Tax Cut Act because that's really what it was. And there was more to it than just not increasing your taxes. There's no tax on tips. There was no tax on Social Security. um salt deductions but also not for the rich so when so when democrats like well you just cut taxes for billionaires i always just say tell me which provision does that because in fact we we managed to make every single tax if there was a tax cut only apply to the middle class so it you know it's we just got to say that more we got to say what we're doing we got to be confident about it and deliver on the agenda because the agenda is popular and you know the infighting is is terrible and shouldn't happen.

16:30You know, we go into all the things we're watching right now in our own movement. I got my own version of it. Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad you're in the fight. Yeah. You know, it has to be done, but in the end, our job in Congress is to deliver on the agenda. Deliver on Trump's agenda because the agenda is popular, and it works for the American people. Enjoy the break. Merry Christmas, and good luck in 26.

16:58Hey, I'm Dan Harris, host of the 10 % Happier podcast. When life gets a little rough, sometimes we feel this overwhelming urge to fix everything, which really is impossible. So I've got a new series coming up called Reset, where we're going to help you find simple, practical, surgical ways to reset key areas of your life. The lineup is incredible. We've got people like Gretchen Rubin, Laurie Santos, Atul Gawande, and The Daily Show's Josh Johnson, 10 % happier with Dan Harris. Join the party wherever you get your podcasts.