When War is The Easy Part | Mike Glover | Ep. 432

Summary

Cleared Hot Podcast — Ep. 432

"When War is The Easy Part" | Mike Glover
Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Mike Glover
Date: February 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is a raw, candid, and thoughtful conversation between Andy Stumpf and Mike Glover. The central theme is resilience and personal reinvention after profound adversity—exploring how the true “hard part” of life isn’t war, but facing public and personal fallout, divorce, custody battles, and losing nearly everything, including one’s business and public reputation. The episode weaves together war stories, difficult life lessons, reflections on faith and fatherhood, and a sharp, sometimes dark sense of humor about starting over.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Book Project Misadventures

• Origin Story: Andy recounts how Mike “tricked” him into starting a book project—Mike’s idea, but Andy ended up doing most of the work.
  • "We have to open with: Nobody believes me that you tricked me into writing a book." (00:34, Andy)
  • "I think you never intended to. I think it was your long term play to trick me into writing a book." (01:34, Andy)
• Leadership Translation Gap: Both discuss how military leadership doesn’t translate neatly into the civilian sector, especially when teams aren’t self-motivated or selected.
  • "Most of [those principles] don't translate...You can't replicate the environment that got us to the places we were at." (03:30, Andy)
  • [See also: 04:18-05:01] Mike's failed attempt to run a "sergeant major’s board" at his civilian company and its disastrous consequences.

Timestamp: 00:34–06:00

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2. Life Falling Apart: Divorce, Loss, and Public Fallout

• Mike’s Hardest Season: Open about the gravity of his situation: public allegations, loss of custody, legal battles, loss of his company (Fieldcraft Survival), and financial devastation.
  • "I've been quietly fighting that for a year...it has been the most difficult year of my entire life...The most significant trauma is the prospect of losing my children." (31:19, Mike)
  • "You think SEAL training is hard? ...The hardest thing I've ever done in my life was my divorce." (33:47, Andy)
  • Both recount struggling for contact with their children and battling feelings of self-worth.
• Systemic Biases Against Fathers: Mike shares statistics about custody cases and the emotional/financial toll.
  • "83% of men lose custody overall...I'm over $200,000 in legal fees..." (29:23, Mike)
• Community Support and Caution Against Public Judgement:
  • "People were like, what are you guys doing?... you're putting his children on blast and you're populating this thing for likes..." (27:05, Mike)
  • Andy calls out how public/family rifts are not unique, comparing special operations “brotherhood” with average family tension. (25:21)

Timestamps: 12:50–44:30

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3. Resilience and Advice for Divorced Parents

• Approach to Parental Alienation:
  • "Don't ever insult their mother... the truth will come out eventually..." (38:36, Andy)
  • Andy explains how eventually, children will see character for themselves—relationships after estrangement (e.g., with his son) can be rebuilt, but it takes years.
• Mike’s Ongoing Recovery:
  • Starting “from scratch” in life, focusing on reconnecting with his kids and simplifying his work and routines.
    • "Now that it's all settled and having to restart, I'm actually following your model a lot… where you used to tell me years ago, it's like, man, you need to simplify things..." (44:39, Mike)

Timestamps: 35:00–46:28

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4. Faith, Surrender, and Spiritual Growth

• Profound Surrender:
  • Mike recounts crawling on the ground in grief, begging God for relief as he lost contact with his twins and his dog died.
    • "I'm like low crawling through dirt... and it broke me..." (68:45, Mike)
  • The “turning point” was letting go of control (after a vivid dream of reuniting with his children), surrendering to God, and learning the problem was wanting too much control.
    • "For the first time in my life, I relinquished control and realized, I'm not in charge...and that hard lesson was learned over that experience. And when I came out of that, it changed my life forever." (70:12, Mike)
• Religion’s Role:
  • Discusses personal vs. public faith, not needing church but finding strength in prayer and introspection during crisis.
    • "Ever since I've integrated him [God] back in... my life is squared away... the more I integrate God foundationally..." (61:25, Mike)
  • Andy—agnostic, largely critical but open, reaffirming respect for others’ faith journeys.

Timestamps: 60:45–77:45

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5. Starting Over and New Projects

• New Business Plans:

  • Mike details the genesis of “Long Haul Supply Company” — a body-care/adventure hygiene line for "the long haul" (e.g., field wipes, anti-chafing, and novelty ‘ass-to-mouth’ chapstick—a tongue-in-cheek idea).
    • "Long haul supply company... for body care solutions to allow you to operate and live for the long haul..." (89:25, Mike)
  • The challenges/quirks of starting a new company (product ideas, branding, marketing).

• Reflections on Brand and Entrepreneurship:

  • Mike as the “brand” of Fieldcraft Survival—what he’d do differently, dangers of becoming synonymous with a single company.
    • "You were the brand... That brand went where you went... You kind of have a blank canvas." (88:03, Andy)

Timestamps: 86:07–96:53

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6. Law Enforcement, Minneapolis, Political Polarization, and Public Outrage

• Analysis of Minneapolis Police Shootings:
  • Both with experience in use-of-force training, dissect recent fatal police shootings and the aftermath in public/LEO communities:
    • "Was it a good shoot? In my opinion, it was not a good shoot." (113:00, Mike)
    • The importance of actual legal/policy standards over viral internet opinions; dangers of agitators, poor federal tactics, and public ignorance.
  • Condemnation of political leaders and agency heads for immediate, inflammatory statements and lacking accountability.
    • "If you are unsure of what you're going to say, don't say anything..." (126:31, Andy)
  • Broader worries about rising agitation, political division, and the trend toward “proxy civil war”–the US becoming more like a collection of deeply divided, ideologically homogeneous states.

Timestamps: 106:05–152:07

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Resilience and Letting Go:
  • "The most significant trauma is the prospect of losing my children. Not fighting for my children. That's easy. It’s the prospect of losing them and not being able to see them again."
    — Mike, (32:07)
  • "Just show them who you are. You don't have to say anything... That is literally years. Months and years."
    — Andy, (38:36)
  • "For the first time in my life, I relinquished control and realized, I'm not in charge."
    — Mike, (70:12)
• On Public Outrage/Cancellations:
  • "You're putting his children on blast and you're populating this thing for likes..."
    — Mike, (27:05)
• On Leadership and Military Culture:
  • "That type of leadership—although there is a huge difference in risk—is more complex and difficult than leading a group of solid overachieving performers."
    — Andy, (05:01)
• On Faith and Suffering:
  • "I’m like, Andy, I'm like, low crawling through dirt on my hands and knees, begging God...and it broke me..."
    — Mike, (68:45)
• On Political Climate:
  • "You elicit emotions, you exploit confrontation. The perfect recipe for disaster."
    — Mike, (116:32)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Book project origins & the military-civilian leadership gulf: 00:34–06:00
• Mike’s divorce, legal battle, and personal fallout: 12:50–44:30
• Navigating parent/child estrangement and advice: 35:00–46:28
• Spiritual breakdown and breakthrough in adversity: 60:45–77:45
• Leaving Fieldcraft, lessons of personal branding, and Long Haul Supply: 86:07–96:53
• Breakdown of Minneapolis shootings, law enforcement judgment, and political fallout: 106:05–152:07

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Tone and Language

• Frank, often darkly humorous (“Chapstick for ass-to-mouth”), unvarnished honesty about suffering
• Buddy-banter and ribbing, but deeply vulnerable when discussing family, trauma, and loss
• Intellectually sharp but cautious about reaching conclusions on complex issues (law enforcement, politics)
• Higlight moments of gratitude to friendship, community, and the “long game” of being a present father

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Memorable Funny/Comic Relief

• Start-up “Ass-to-Mouth” Chapstick:
  • "Two ends to it. One side for your ass and one side for your mouth... Not to confuse."
    — Mike, (92:42)
  • "I'm terrified of this product."
    — Andy, (93:19)
• Height Debates and Fake Studio Guns:
  • Ongoing jokes about military records, studio props, and physical stature
    — (16:02–16:35)
• The “K-Hole” Ketamine Surgery Experience:
  • Mike’s wild story about accidentally living an entire alternative-lifetime in 10 real-world minutes after a hospital overshot his anesthesia dosage
    — (99:18–104:27)

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Conclusion

This is a dense, honest episode that goes well beyond combat heroics—exploring real-life “trenches” like divorce, public cancellation, and the spiritual/mental reckoning that follows. It ends with hope, humor about starting new (“Ass to Mouth” and “Mud Butt”) and a renewed commitment to fatherhood, faith, and “playing the long game.”

Listen for:

• Candid advice for parents in custody battles
• Insights on modern law enforcement and America’s deepening divides
• Rare, open dialogue about regret, faith, and letting go

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Find more:

• Andy Stumpf's Cleared Hot Podcast
• Mike Glover on YouTube & Long Haul Supply Co.

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For the full context, listen to the full episode. If you’re a parent, veteran, entrepreneur, or anyone recovering from a major life storm, you’ll find something here worth hearing.

Transcript

[Mike]

Okay, I got the red smoke.

[Andy]

Sun runs north or south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy.

[Mike]

West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[Andy]

Come on with it, baby.

[Mike]

Give it to me.

[Andy]

I need it. You're clean hot.

[Mike]

Can't be cleared hot.

[Andy]

We need this studio tour. We can't wait to see what you've done with Michael's desk. It's like I did nothing.

[Mike]

This is still a Gen one. Chopped off a couple inches on the edge.

[Andy]

I don't know if you guys know this, but this stuff is expensive and we are not spending a lot of money on Michael's space.

[Mike]

I know.

[Andy]

We have to open with Nobody believes me that you tricked me into writing a book. And the more that I have thought about this, how this all played itself out.

[Mike]

A.

[Andy]

It was your idea to begin with. You had the idea and approached me of, let's write a book. Two different angles. We can pick certain subject matters, maybe seven or eight. Whatever it was, we'd figure out a way to italicize the text or whatever so people could see that, you know, this would be my thoughts on it. Then there would be your thoughts on it. We are supposed to write a test chapter.

[Mike]

I think we did, actually.

[Andy]

Why did you just use the word we? Because I did.

[Mike]

Yeah, I remember that. What happened?

[Andy]

You showed up to the date where we were going to submit our test chapter.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And didn't have a chapter that you had written.

[Mike]

It was so hard.

[Andy]

No, I think you never intended to. I think it was your long term play to trick me into writing a book.

[Mike]

I had talked about that for years.

[Andy]

About tricking me into writing a book?

[Mike]

Yeah, we had talked about. And you refused. I know you legitimately, for two years, refused to even talk. You would. You would get uncomfortable even off camera and be like, no, man, I'm just. I'm not doing that. I'm like, all right, we'll see. Yeah. Well, I didn't say it out loud. We'll see.

[Andy]

I said, was that your long term play to trick me?

[Mike]

Well, I legitimately, I thought a Army Navy Special operations leadership book because we had been on the road for probably a year at that point with leadership and it was really effective. And I was like, man, this should be evolved into a book. And then I realized when we went to the writer's table and we worked with basically a person who put it together production wise.

[Andy]

Why do you keep using the term we?

[Mike]

Because it was we. And so I was like, this ain't going to work.

[Andy]

It Was we until it became me.

[Mike]

Do you think it would have worked? Yes, I don't think it would have worked.

[Andy]

Also, what would have worked is if when we went from the me or the we and it became the me is if you would have told the. The we that you didn't want to do it because you basically. Well, I mean, let's be honest. Your life absolutely crumbled and fell apart for a period.

[Mike]

So that would have been a good. In hindsight. In hindsight, it was the perfect timing. Because honestly, I think. I think at the time we talked about the book people Need a guide to Leadership that's more practical because we. Here. Here's the defining moment where I think you. You were on board. We were talking about how a lot of military leadership books, when they communicate about leadership, and we discovered this, by the way, I think, in our seminars that we were doing together again and again and again, was that a lot of the principles that we think translate, they do not translate.

[Andy]

Most of them don't.

[Mike]

Yeah. And your exact verbiage was it's because you have buy in. Most of the operators you work with, they're there because they volunteered, they went through a process, and they're there in civilian speak. And in terms a lot of people don't want to be where they're at.

[Andy]

Well, you also can't replicate the environment that got us to the places we were at. Yeah, Yeah, I take that back. I'll rephrase that. I don't think you can replicate those environments without getting sued.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Because we volunteered in our perhaps less intelligent, youthful days for a training pipeline and protocol that is nonsensical in so many ways. That involves a lot of discomfort and pain. I don't think you can legally do those things in the civilian world.

[Mike]

Yeah. And I. I had a lot of mistakes in the beginning of running a company where I tried to migrate some of those processes and completely failed. Like, I. I had a sergeant majors board with civilian employees and reviewing their performance. Dude, it was where I had, like, the tables, and then people came into a chair, and I was like, this will be effective because it's, like, organized and they know what to expect. And they were nearly crying. Like, they would sit in the chair, and they're like, what is happening? I'm like, that was a surprise to you.

[Andy]

You didn't inherently realize that that might be an outcome.

[Mike]

I was so close to transitioning, and I was like, this is what you do. If you want effective leadership, this is what you do.

[Andy]

When you say that Are you talking about out of the military or more of a.

[Mike]

Well, that's still ongoing. That's an ongoing. That's a chemical process.

[Andy]

Just checking. We have to be sure in early 2026 and the terms we're using. The average employee at the coffee shop we just walked over here from, we have more female than male. I would say late teens to early twenties. Can you imagine taking any level of military leadership philosophy just if you were to. Here's a three by five index card, people of how we did this, the shortcuts. Can you imagine applying that to that cohort? No shows, no calls, people would the same thing be in tears? You can't do it. That type of leadership, although of course there is a huge difference in risk and potential outcome is more complex and difficult than leading a group of solid overachieving performers that are completely bought in. In the world we came from the coffee shop is harder from a complexity standpoint.

[Mike]

Yeah. And then what you did effectively, I think when we lined out the book together.

[Andy]

Why do you keep using this term we. I was on board when we lined out the book. You had four chapters. I had four chapters, yes. And what we agreed to do was that we would pick one and I would write my side and you would write your side and somewhere in first step of the journey. Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. February is a big month for MKC. Specifically February 26th. This is going to be their largest tactical blade drop that they've ever done. They are dropping out five knives. The Mini War Goat. The War Goat, the battle goat, the TF24 and the V24. I have a couple of these in front of me right here. The Battle Goat. This is actually just. Well, you're not going to see it yet, but I gave this to Mike at the end of the show. A knife similar to this. The Mini War Goat. This thing is awesome. The little pink loop is amazing. This is my daily in my fanny pack. Not getting knife fights with anybody. This thing is just vicious. Against envelopes and cardboard boxes though, I tell you what, it's just undefeated. Just dicing those things up. The TF24, short for Task Force 24. It's a do it all tactical blade. Larger and thicker than the Battle Goat and War Goat. It's very true. It is probably something you would put in a bag, maybe a little bit heavy or big to carry on you. But it is amazing for a. We'll call it a multi tool. The V24 is inspired by the combat Knife of the Devil's Brigade, America's first special forces unit. It's a modern take on the classic fighting stiletto. Did I miss anything here? Battle Goat. War Goat. Mini War Goat. So, yeah, you're going to get one of these bad boys, but a little bit larger, which be. Be the full size is going to come with the pinky. These things are pretty awesome. They're very infrequently in stock. 26 February, all of these are going to be released. So this is coming out a little bit early in the month. You know the deal, plan ahead, go buy a sticker or something. Get all of your credit card information online on their website because it becomes a rush to get to check out montanaknifecompany.com February Tactical Month. The 26th. Get ready. Back to the show. One of us conducted what they said they were going.

[Mike]

I vaguely recall. I vaguely recall.

[Andy]

But it is safe to say that you were actually the impetus behind this. I tell people you tricked me because I've come to the conclusion that you actually were trying to trick me.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, I wanted to do it and, and I. You were onto something about the framework and I honestly had never thought about leadership in that way and we changed it on the road. I. You didn't change anything because you were using a lot of the things that you had talked to the corporate and civilian world about for years. I changed a lot of my protocols in the way I communicated. Like I'm about to go to a. A rant ranch group in Alabama and talk to 50 to 100 ranchers on some processes. And this happens to be course of action development, contingency based planning. But that idea of leadership not being easily translatable and creating a framework is what I think this book is. You have the framework now you need to change the tactics. Right. You had an sop.

[Andy]

You've never read the book.

[Mike]

How do you know your now you need to adapt. I actually have a lot of the book in emails.

[Andy]

You do?

[Mike]

Yeah, I've read a lot.

[Andy]

Son of a bitch.

[Mike]

So what's crazy is like you're a really good, effective writer. You've always been a good writer and I've known that your close friends know that. And when you got interested in the subject matter and then you were bought into it, you were off to the races.

[Andy]

I found the process to be quite easy as far as creating the initial document. I am so incredibly thankful that there are people who specialize in editing because I've determined a few things. I do not have mastery of the semicolon. Yeah, there are many words that I was pluralizing that in an English spoken by somebody with an IQ higher than a room temperature thermometer doesn't do the repetitive nature of some of the edits they made. I left reading those documents thinking, thank you so much. I am glad I didn't try to self publish this in the form that it was in.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Because that would have been real, real bad.

[Mike]

Or the question would be, are you satisfied with it? Because that I noticed I would always.

[Andy]

Make changes, even to this day when I was reading back in the audiobook, the changes to the core subjects, there would be none like the core subjects. I would maybe find more, not more tactful, but I guess maybe ways that to get to the end state that sound a little bit more intelligent. I don't use big words because I don't understand big words. And the people who have read it, they have said, well, it sounds a lot like you talk. I'm like, okay, that wasn't a structured approach. But this is just who I am. Right? Like, you and I have known each other.

[Mike]

It's your story from your.

[Andy]

And you and I have known each other for years. Like, there's no difference between who I am sitting right here, even though we're recording this. And in the real world, whatever that means, you're shorter.

[Mike]

You're like five, eight. And everybody thinks you're like my.

[Andy]

I wear lifts, though.

[Mike]

It's weird.

[Andy]

It's not a big deal. But yeah. And so that's. I communicate in the way. Like, this is just the way I communicate. So I think it kind of came through that way. I am happy with the end product, but I don't think anybody that truly cares about anything they've ever created would probably be satisfied.

[Mike]

That's true. And that's the good thing about books like this that are evergreen is you could always add revisions as your own intellect and experiences evolve. So.

[Andy]

Oh, I didn't even thought about that.

[Mike]

Yeah, revisions would actually be good. I would do revisions every few years because you're always going to learn something and adapt it to it. And whether it's a pamphlet, an attachment, or a revised version of it, I think that would be really cool because again, like, who you are today and what we're talking about in leadership and experiences is not who we are. Even when we did it three, four years ago.

[Andy]

Did I ever send you the original cover art that they created for me that had the spelling error in it? I'll find it and Text it to you. It was missing the first R in drown proof. I'm like, that's a whole different book that is genetic based. And I don't know if I can write. I shit you not. The first pitch had a spelling error that my buddy Steve caught. And I was. My response was, yeah, that's my second book. Don't worry about it.

[Mike]

Way different meaning down proof.

[Andy]

Yeah, that's first.

[Mike]

Totally different.

[Andy]

Oh, how have you been, man?

[Mike]

I've been good of recent. In the last, I would say several months, I've been good or been really good.

[Andy]

Follow up question. How did you galactically mess up your life so badly, bro?

[Mike]

Okay, how long is this podcast?

[Andy]

We have a 1 terabyte SSD which. What does it show on the roadcast right now, Michael? 12 plus hours.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, we got time.

[Andy]

We got nothing but time. We got gigs or megabytes. Whichever one of those is bigger.

[Mike]

This studio looks great, by the way.

[Andy]

Thank you.

[Mike]

I.

[Andy]

Do you know why it looks so good?

[Mike]

Why?

[Andy]

I did not have any direct involvement.

[Mike]

That's. That's.

[Andy]

I am. I have said this for years. I'm not creative. This was honestly the brainchild of JT more than anything.

[Mike]

Oh, really?

[Andy]

He found the. It was created by the design, even itself. We sent Trask House is the name of the company in Los Angeles. They're set builders. And if you think about it, at first I was like, why would we do that? And they're like, who makes things that aren't real look real better than set builders?

[Mike]

It's literally Hollywood set.

[Andy]

It's their job. Yeah, he found them and I think it was based off of a relationship. We sent them some ideation slides based off the John Wick sommelier room. Kind of more for like the lighting and the tone and the vibe. Yeah, they took it all from there. I measured the room that was. And they actually, if I'm being honest, they asked me to redo the measurements several times. Which, because they were building it there, I can appreciate now because when this came up here, it went from the blue curtains behind me to this in 36 hours. Wow. It was unbelievable. Wow. So the digital design, the templates, all those things, the ideas I did find the photos and, you know, upscale those. And there was a company, I think it was in Huntington beach that put those on metal. Those are metal with like a matte finish. So they don't reflect a lot of light.

[Mike]

That MP5, that's not real, is it?

[Andy]

No one knows that.

[Mike]

Looks legit.

[Andy]

Yeah. I mean, I would let you touch it, but you're a criminal, and I don't know if you're going to go to jail for touching a fire.

[Mike]

They're all fake. They're not real.

[Andy]

Current legal status.

[Mike]

They're not real. Yeah.

[Andy]

So, yeah, stay. You're. You have Covid rules in this room from any firearm. Because I don't want you to end up in prison because I don't know your legal status. Oh, but so jt, he is great when it comes to ideation. I've said this forever. I really struggle with brand ideas. Once we get going, it definitely became a collaboration, but, man, that was somebody else's heavy lifting, which is why it looks the way it does.

[Mike]

JT's the best at that. He's, he's one of the smartest, dumbest people I know as far as, like, he's so smart that when you meet him, you would like this guy. What's he got going that I don't have going until he sits down behind a piano and he plays like Beethoven or sings or sings away.

[Andy]

To go back to the leadership stuff we used to do. When he would get up and talk about the back end of, like, the beginning of the Drinking Bros podcast and all of the Facebook pages and the metrics and the data, you would think that it was just people throwing clay against the wall to see what stick. And he was back there, like, playing a piano, just navigating all of this stuff and his understanding of the advertising and the marketing and the community like that. To this day, I think back about some of the stuff he said, and I just noodle over the information that he was putting out, like it was at an incredibly deep level.

[Mike]

Yeah, he's a sleeper for sure. I mean, I think a lot of JTACs have brains structured that way.

[Andy]

Take it easy. He was attack P. He was attack pull, which, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know the difference.

[Mike]

I don't either.

[Andy]

I just feel like it's something that I can insert there that might be insulting.

[Mike]

I, I, I, I think there's some technical way that his brain works that's different. And I could see a lot of this in his brain. I mean, if you've ever been to his compound, his house. Yeah. The way that it's designed, everything's deliberate, which seemingly everything is deliberate in here. It looks great.

[Andy]

I like it.

[Mike]

This coffee is making me sweat.

[Andy]

It's just regular coffee, dude. Secret Water Society ecs, which is Evan's coffee subscription.

[Mike]

It is really good. And I Don't think that's what ECS stands for.

[Andy]

But that's.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I mean, Evan's name starts with I'm sweating profusely.

[Mike]

Big shout out to flylo. They don't.

[Andy]

Is it because you're nervous about talking about the poor life choices you've made?

[Mike]

No, I'm not. I'm actually.

[Andy]

Don't ever try to dodge questions again.

[Mike]

I will never. You know what's funny is, like, people ask me, like, hey, do you ever censor? Or there's. Are there any conversations prior to there? I don't think we've ever had a conversation ever about subject matter.

[Andy]

We've never. Also, I'm too dumb to remember we were doing an episode. Remember, my dad called mid Episode Michael. He was. The air conditioning system in our lake house was getting ready to be serviced. He couldn't figure out how to get in.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So over the air, I'm giving him the combo to the lockbox. Yeah. I forgot to take that out for anybody. Many people were like, hey, privately message me like, listen, you may want to change that. So for anybody listening, I did change it.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I also appreciate the heads up. I'm not. I'm just too dumb to remember to do that stuff. I actually. And I oftentimes forget that it happened. I'll sit in here and talk for three hours with somebody. Like, when you're in the conversation, I forget a lot of what we said before.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And I don't even know how much time has passed.

[Mike]

So I don't.

[Andy]

I don't even think about going back and editing stuff out.

[Mike]

Yeah. That podcast you did with Rob o', Neill, by the way, was really good.

[Andy]

Zero editing. That was literally from Play Flash to bang.

[Mike]

What's very different about that conversation is that a lot of people who seemingly host would allow the guest to get away with whatever they want and. And direct redirect the conversation. And it's not like you were interrogating him. But what I loved about it is just when you. When you ask yourself as a listener, which I listen to the whole thing, which I rarely do with podcasts nowadays, when I listen to it, where I.

[Andy]

Was like, your support Mike. I've never watched.

[Mike]

I just play them in the background when I'm sleeping. Get your numbers up. When. When. When there was a question in my mind like, oh, that's not acceptable. Then you asked it. But you asked it in a way that wasn't interrogating him.

[Andy]

Yeah. I wasn't trying to interrogate.

[Mike]

Yeah. And I like how you were able to go back to just being friendly and laughing about things. Despite what I think is the difficulty in the conversation, because it was a difficult conversation. And maybe if you're not in special operations, it's not difficult because you're like, oh, this is just silly stuff. But when you're talking about, like, statements to lawyers and to people like, that makes me like. I'm like, oh, my gosh, dude, is this conversation happening? But I like the transparency. Both big credit to Rob for actually being transparent about it, despite I think everybody's identified how difficult that was for him to do. And if there's any credit, it's to both of you guys for having that difficult conversation, because who. I don't think anybody else has been able to do that with him.

[Andy]

I think the advantage I have, and I don't mean over Rob, but the advantage in a conversation like that is that both he and I understand the mechanics of how that exact command works.

[Mike]

Yeah, you tandem bundle him. I didn't even realize that.

[Andy]

I didn't even remember either. When we connected over the phone, he was like, hey, man, just so you know, we have met. I was. And I said, oh, shit. When he goes, you took me for my first tandem and I apologize. I'm like, first off in the command. And when he was at the tandem course, I said, a, I'm sorry, I don't remember that. And B, obviously it was inspirational and forged the remainder of your career. But no, I. And I, I had no recollection of it because the first day at the tandem course, you're taking five or six people for their first tandem, they get exposed to it.

[Mike]

He had already been on the team, so for a while, I imagine that wasn't like, that's.

[Andy]

You go to that after you've been at a squadron for a bit. But the mechanics of how an assault squadron, at least when I was there, I'm sure it's dated at this point, but the ability to talk about it with somebody who went through the same selection both from buds then and through Green Team, or S and T, whatever they call it now, it helps facilitate that conversation because as. As he's talking about what happened, it helps me figure out what it is. I want to ask based on a legitimate real world understanding of having been in those shoes. Not like those shoes on that target, but I just, I have an understanding of the mechanics of how that place works. And I don't think he sat down with somebody who shared that level of experience with him. Not again, not an operational experience. But just the experience at that command.

[Mike]

Itself, I think it's immediate trust. It's, it's, it's validation. It's like me interviewing a MACV. So guy, a lot of MacVsaw guys who interview with civilians, they don't open up about anything.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But I'll ask him tough questions because in a similar experience, not similar to Magazol because nothing is similar to those guys experience, but a similar military experience, they tend to open up more. I will say also that conversation made me realize, and I think Rob said this a couple times, that all of the focus in his entire life and career in the military has been on the bin Laden raid. And I get it. It's not like I don't get it and don't understand why, but there's so much more to that guy's career and his profession and it's, it, it's kind of sad. You, you reap what you sow. Right. And I think the question where you asked him, do you regret like coming out the way he did?

[Andy]

And I think our terminology.

[Mike]

Well, yes, yes, he came out the right way. And, and, and when he did, I, I think any guy, you know, even I wanted to hear your response to that because you've done it, but you've done it very calculated and deliberately and very humbly. I think there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it. And I think what he regrets is the way he specifically did it isn't the way he would do it.

[Andy]

Again, hindsight is. Yeah, you know, 2020, I don't know if there's a right or a wrong way because you will never please everybody for sure. Like good luck trying to maneuver like a FL in the wind because you get this piece of feedback and you shift which will upset other people. I have thought since that conversation there's a few things of course at the end I wish I would have asked one of them. I wish I would have asked if how the mission was briefed. Was it capture or kill or was this guy going to be dead on arrival regardless. And the reason I'm curious about that and you know, I have talked about this a bunch in previous episodes. You know, our actions are based on our ROEs or rules of engagement. Right. Hostile act, hostile intact, inherent right to self defense. You could easily justify shooting him, especially if he was shielded with his wife as one of the narratives says, worried that he had a suicide vest on or whatever. Like I get that but I also thinking about again the way the how the entire focus of his life past that incident was that incident. Imagine if they had captured him. All you ever would have heard about is the team. You never would have heard about any individuals. It would have been a totally different trajectory.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And I'm not. I don't. I'm not. Who knows what choice he would have made. And the choices have all been made. But it is an interesting way to look at it. You know, instead of an argument very publicly and ugly at times about who did what and this, that or the other, it only would have been about the team.

[Mike]

Yeah. It makes me sad when.

[Andy]

And I'm not saying they should have captured it. I'm just. That was one of the things after that conversation, I was thinking, like, what would the world look like differently if they had. What would these people's lives look like differently if they had?

[Mike]

Yeah. It's kind of weird for civilians, I think, to see, like, what they think is the most mended brotherhood in the universe, you know, brothers in arms and special operations. And he said it several times, like, we're going to be best friends forever.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then them have a hiccup and a hard time with even communicating in civilian life, like, after, you know, post this professional experience and just talking about it and figuring it out and being like, hey, man, let's just talk like men. And I felt like Rob desperately wanted to talk to Bis and. And I feel like they have each.

[Andy]

Other'S phone number after walking with each other for that long.

[Mike]

Yeah. Why would you.

[Andy]

I didn't say that or ask that, but I have heard him say that a few times. And. And if he don't, we're in a one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon. Text a guy that, you know, that is mutual and, like, you know what I mean? This isn't a hard one to solve. Yeah.

[Mike]

It makes me kind of sad just to see that. Cause I want them to kind of sort it out as brothers in arms. But also, it's a rift that I think a lot of people would jump on the bandwagon, obviously, because it's good for analytics and in a very toxic way. And I don't like that. I thought you handled it very professionally. I thought it was really well.

[Andy]

For people who don't understand that rift in the community, I would ask you to look no closer than your own family or no farther than your own family because. And if it. And if your current family circle is amazing, go back a generation or two, let me tell you what you're going to find a really Weird uncle or grandmother or grandmother as daughter or aunt or whatever all this stuff is. And you're going to find fractures inside of what should be the closest net nuclear family. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a community of people.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You know, most of the time it's great. But even in my own personal family, with my dad and his dad and him disowning us and like calling the cops on Christmas, like that shouldn't happen. People would say, well, how can that happen in a family so. Because families are complicated, man.

[Mike]

Yeah, I see where you're going with that.

[Andy]

No, I'm not trying to bring it back to you. Even though you are trying to dodge the question, which is as you just described, I'm not going to let you get away with.

[Mike]

Did I tell you about how beautiful the studio looks, man? It's just. So things are good. I. There's no pending criminal cases. There is litigation. That's civil. Lawsuits are civil. There are custody cases that I'm involved in fighting for the custody of my children. And the whole. The whole thing is really ugly because it involves kids. And that's what breaks my heart over it, this idea that that's been. Yeah, I think it was for a period of time, people jumped on the bandwagon because it was very popular to do. And I appreciate all the guys support.

[Andy]

What they. Am I going to be talking about?

[Mike]

Well, when. When there was allegations of me, period. Yeah. People did videos and when they did videos, guys like, you had private conversations.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Behind the scenes. And also people on social media were like, what are you guys doing? Like, this isn't like a deal, like a Rob o' Neill drama. This is like this dude's kids. And you are putting his children on blast. And you're. And you're populating this thing for likes.

[Andy]

Based off of a police report, which is not a complete document, nor an investigation, nor a verdict of guilty.

[Mike]

Yeah. And. And look, here's what I've known, what I've learned about this whole system and the due process. After the due process, they make a decision. And the decision was every allegation that was made against me was false and it was dismissed. So that is not just like a, oh, you got a good lawyer. So we're not going to combat this. This is like, we take this very seriously. We're going to go through this with a fine tooth comb. And as they did that, I had to go back and forth and we had to manage this. The last thing I thought about really was. And you Know this personally was my professional or public relations position. I literally in a way abandoned ship because I was like, I can't handle both at the same time because this isn't just about me. It's about fighting for my children. And in a lot of these instances, and I've learned this post, this experience, fathers are looked at as liabilities in their homes and the benefit of the doubt goes to the nurturing mother.

[Andy]

Do you think that there is a reason for that?

[Mike]

Yeah, for sure.

[Andy]

I think the stats there's probably. And again, this is where stats can be beneficial. Like hey, the stats of being bitten by a shark are super low. But if you're screaming that at the shark while you're being crushed by its jaws, it doesn't help you at all. Yeah, I unfortunately, I think men are more violent than women and more prone to violence than women. So.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Andy]

And it's like those. Unfortunately I think it trends in that way where they may end up being more right than wrong when it comes to that. But it also does allow people that don't fall into that category to get stuck in that. And then you have an uphill of uphill battles to get your way out of.

[Mike]

Yeah. The system and the institution's used to that standard.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And here's an interesting statistic like 83% of men lose custody overall in this fight for their children across the country, 100% custody, 83% lose custody of their children.

[Andy]

Wow.

[Mike]

In the fight. So what they don't tell you though is many of those men relinquish custody of their children voluntarily. And so they do that. Well, imagine somebody serves you custody and they say I want 100 custody. Well, the entry point for that is $3,000 to pay the lawyers to retain them to begin the fight.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The average cost in Utah for a custody case is between 10 and $30,000. Right. I'm a, I'm over $200,000 in legal fees in all of this.

[Andy]

So non recuperable, probably in any way.

[Mike]

Gone. Yeah, gone. And so a lot of the statistics do point to that if a father wants to be involved in their kids lives, which I certainly do, then they do get better statistics on getting custody because a lot of states, including Utah, which I'm thankful for, looks at the father and says the best interest of the children is that both parents are in their lives. 50, 50 is the standard. And so you have to fight that. And going through a year basically adjudication process through the family court where they've determined that that's the standard. 50. 50. That's their determination.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Is a good position to be in when fighting for custody for my children. Because as a legal precedent and standard, the institution has declared this is what's in the best interest. Now, obviously, because there is a custody battle that is being challenged. But again, that's the nature of adult problems. And what I am thankful for is the people who supported me and said.

[Andy]

Look.

[Mike]

Let'S leave Mike alone, because he's fighting for his kids. He's involved with his kids. And I've been quietly fighting that for a year. And you know this because you checked it in on me personally. It has been the most difficult year of my entire life. And again, I'm not sitting here because I'm a victim. I'm not sitting here because I want people's sympathy. I'm just saying that I've been through a lot of trauma in my life. The most significant trauma is the prospect of losing my children. Not fighting for my children. That's easy. It's the prospect of losing them and not being able to see them again. And so it's been a very difficult year. And I'm coming out. I'm already out. I'm out of this hole that I've been in for, I would say, the last year and some change. And there's several reasons for that, which we can get into. But I'm just thankful and grateful to God, to my family, to my friends like you, and to people who have supported me along the way. I lost everything. I mean, and I say that oddly out loud, because it doesn't feel right, because I feel like I've lost nothing because I still have my family intact.

[Andy]

I was going to say, you could almost add, you lost everything that didn't really matter.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Which is where we focused almost all of our time and attention on our normal, like, bombarded with BS days. Yeah, dude, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life was my divorce.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I thought, well, my oldest son didn't talk to me for 18 months. Dude, I'll never get that time back. I went. I went to the. I'm, like, writing him letters, sitting at Starbucks, shout out to Starbucks because Black Rifle Coffee wasn't built yet. Uh, they'll. They'll let you sit there and, you know, use their table and writing him, like, handwritten letters. Couldn't email him, you know, trying to figure out what social platforms he might be on to create. And, like, I don't. Like, I had a Snapchat account for, like, seven seconds. Till I realized that's not for our generation. Just so you know.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Tried to call, tried to text. And then, then in all of that dealing with a party on the other side, who the most gracious way to say it is is. Has a narrative that I will say as a casual relationship to the truth, but a very loud megaphone into the very small ears of the children that are living with that person full time, fighting against that and just asking yourself constantly, like questioning your own self worth, am I even a good enough person to have custody my kids?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You know.

[Mike]

And that went through your mind.

[Andy]

Yeah. You think SEAL training is hard?

[Mike]

No.

[Andy]

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not easy from a physical perspective. You want to talk about emotional and a mental turmoil. Almost two years of a divorce process. Strap in. That's like a five point harness for that one, not a lap belt.

[Mike]

Yeah. Your perspective from offering me advice when I was going through this was very helpful because I just, I did a. I did this Sunday episode called Preaching the Choir where I just talk about God and just talk about my relationship.

[Andy]

We'll talk about your cult leadership later. Yeah, we're going to get to that. I understand.

[Mike]

A good call. It's the best. Of course.

[Andy]

Listen, I understand this already. As soon as I heard this, I'm like, tax strategy. He's sneaking outside the box. So you sure you don't want to. You. I don't want you to sweat to death.

[Mike]

I am. I'm. It's already gone. I'm already dehydrated, so I might as well.

[Andy]

Sweet.

[Mike]

It's really good coffee too.

[Andy]

People say that you need to drink water before you have your coffee. And somehow to me, they, I, I feel like they're missing the point that coffee is made with water.

[Mike]

Yeah. So I feel like you're getting at the same time.

[Andy]

Yeah. Leah does not agree with this concept.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy]

We have one of those scales that'll measure your hydration. Yeah. I got on it one day after travel and it said, we are not going to count this measurement because you are. So these are my words. Not to scale because it was a little screaming. It was like you're so catastrophically dehydrated that you might want to seek medical attention. And so I made the mistake of telling Leah that as I was on my way to make myself a coffee.

[Mike]

She said, what's wrong with you? We need those people in our lives. Yeah. This, this analogy that I used in this episode was about the thousand yard stare. And we're familiar with that term and the thousand yard stare analogy that I use, the example I use was when I was in Ranger School, 18, 19 years old.

[Andy]

Was Tim Kennedy the honor grad?

[Mike]

Yeah, of course he was. I was 18, 19 years old in 4th RTB Ranger Training Brigade. And I was sitting in the rocks and we were about to deploy out into the field, and these guys had just offloaded a deuce and a half a truck. And when they offloaded and I looked at them, I was like, dude, something's very different about them. And this is pre g wop. This is like in the 90s. And they all had that thousand yard stare. And what I realized is they had just been through all phases of Ranger school. This is two months in simulated combat, one meal a day, four hours of sleep a night. And they had this staircase. And I recognize that as something different. And what I realized in coming back from 6 RTB from Florida phase back to Fort Benning, Georgia to graduate, guys looked at us the same way. And when I have talked to you about this subject matter, you've had a similar stare. And what I don't think people understand, and maybe they do if they've been through something like this, is when you go through something so profoundly traumatic that involves the closest and nearest dearest people that you love, you do so and you suffer in silence. And when you do that, it changes you. And I knew when I was going through my experience and you were giving me advice, that I recognized something different in you, that you had already been through that experience. You were the ranger who just offloaded the truck. I was 6 RTB.

[Andy]

I was in the Navy, sir.

[Mike]

Yeah, but I went with SEALs too. There was a couple of SEALs there. They failed patrols.

[Andy]

Just so you know, pre 9 11, that was where you went when you got a DUI. I'm not joking. That was the punishment for a DUI. You would come back from that absol. From your sins and you would go back onto your.

[Mike]

It's a good punishment, but I recognize that that was likely something that was changed in your life. And, and, and not that. Not to put your business out there like that. We've talked about it several times.

[Andy]

Talked very openly about the divorce. I won't go into details, but the process, I'll tell people.

[Mike]

Yeah, and, and that's, that's the perspective I got, is that you had been the ranger who'd went through it all and you had been back and you were like offering a fourth RTB Ranger the advice on how to, you know, pick yourself up and get through it. And one of the best pieces of advice you gave me was, look, there are going to be things said on the other side. Don't ever fall into that trap. Don't ever insult their mother. Don't ever let them see you criticize anybody, because the truth will come out eventually. And when it does, you'll have a relationship with them in life. Not just in childhood, but in life. That will be very important. And exactly what you said happened in your life, and exactly what you said is, I see transitioning in my life.

[Andy]

It's measured in years. And that's the hard part about that particular advice. It was, I have tried to set many standards for myself and, you know, behaviors that I want to exhibit, and I've fallen short at most. But that particular one I have been able to hold fast to. And I'm sure somebody gave me that advice. Honestly, it was probably my dad because it consistently what he told me when I was going through my divorce is, just show them who you are. You don't have to say anything. And also, how can you. How can you say something from a distance that is going to overpower or somehow penetrate this force field of the person that they're spending the majority of the time with being bombarded on the. Like, you're not going to do that. It's just going to ricochet off and it's probably going to make you look like the opposite of who you are. So don't. Don't say anything to show them who you are. But that is literally years. I mean, so the son that I didn't talk to for 18 months, I mean, he selling cars now here, locally. First off, he is a very introverted. I don't say that negatively. And I say that to say that social interaction does not fill his cup. Like Leah, my wife, my God, get her to a cocktail party and she is just loving it. I'm probably hiding in the broom closet because it's not that I don't like them. For me, it's at best neutral. Oftentimes it'll drain me a little bit. But my son never thought he would go into sales. And now I get a text message from him every time that he sells a car or something happens in his life, or he'll call me for advice, or we just sit and talk, or he'll come to Costa Rica with us and we're just hanging out together. Stuff that I thought was going to be impossible in the depths of that 18 months where I literally couldn't get a response or If I did, it was like you, which is a text message from a 16 year old kid coming back at you. And then those were. Sometimes he added some actually relatively impressive combinations and combinations in depth.

[Mike]

He's a good writer like his dad.

[Andy]

Depth to the insult, where it's just like, oh, he's like, he deserved this and more. I'm just like, ah.

[Mike]

Have you guys talked about that at all? It's like coming full circle or, you know, because leave it in the past.

[Andy]

We have to talk about it at some point. But right now my job is to try to push as much wind under his sails as he is because he's going to be 23 this year. Killing it, selling cars. Just bought his first car from the dealership. I think they totally screwed him on an interest rate. I'm like, dude, don't you do this to other people. How did you sign this contract? And then also somehow got credit on his monthly total for selling a car to himself. Just gaming the system.

[Mike]

Yeah. So.

[Andy]

I'm gonna wait until he wants to talk about it because I know he remembers that time too, because he has alluded to now that his brother, who is 20, Tyler's going to mechanical engineering school in Bozeman. Just slaying it. Likes to call and talk to me about things. I don't even understand the words that he's using. He's like, oh yeah, volunteering for the quantum computer lab. You know what I mean? I'm like, no, I don't know what you mean. I think I saw that in Iron Man. And then my daughter, who was finishing up the vocational welding. So they are, they are now older and have worked their way through the age that he was at at that time. And kids are interesting. You'll see. If you think you have kid problems now, enjoy the problems when they're non complex. Wait until it's drug, sex, alcohol, social circle, phone, like standby. The best advice I can give you is hope that doesn't all occur in one incident in one day. Then you're nailing it. He, when I, he'll ask me, you know, hey, you know, how's Tao doing? Or Julian, talk about some stuff. And he'll be like, oh, I cannot believe that, you know, well, that's happening or that's going on. I'm like, man, don't forget you were at that phase too. And he'll say, he's like, yeah, I was in a, a total. Or I was just a total mess. So there's some level of recognition there. But I want to wait for him to want to talk about it. At this point, I'm just glad to have my son back.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, man.

[Andy]

I don't think the converse, if I did bring it up, I don't think it would push us away at all. I don't think he would be comfortable talking about it yet. But when he does approach me with it or if it ever comes up, I think that will be him achieving that level of comfort and then I think we can be good to go because I'm not mad about that time. I'm just bummed that I lost 18 months of his life that I can never get back.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm bummed too. I lost a lot of months of my children's young lives and I felt like it was unfair, like most parents would feel it's unfair. And I just want to be part of my kids lives and you know, moving forward. I hope me and their mother could navigate this murky water and look and reflect back on it as a hiccup and as a time where we overcame some obstacles and I pray that everything works out for the better. Everything right now, personally is going very well and like it's just a hard reset. Right. It's rediscovering myself because I'm starting almost from scratch.

[Andy]

Well, your social group friends behind the scenes, without involving you, have decided that you have a limited amount of things in your life moving forward you're allowed to make decisions on and the rest of them you're going to come to us for a committee.

[Mike]

I like that. Yeah. Specifically, I need a board.

[Andy]

Specifically women. You are not allowed to make decisions about women I love.

[Mike]

Again, I actually need that in my life. I need a board of directors to manage some things. I, I, I was doing a lot at one time. And you know this like because you were involved with it. I mean we were here teaching together self defense classes, we were doing seminars and then trying to balance that with everything else was very difficult. And now that it's all settled and having to restart, I'm actually following your model a lot. Where you used to tell me years ago, it's like, man, you need to simplify things, dumb things down, make it very simple where, you know, you go to your coffee shop, you check in, manage some things, walk across the street and then you're in your podcast studio.

[Andy]

And then the jiu jitsu gyms literally down the alley walk away.

[Mike]

Yeah, so I'm doing that same thing, kind of restarting everything. And it's been nice, I mean to spend a Lot of time with my family not be stretched so thin that I don't have any capacity or bandwidth. It's been pretty nice, man.

[Andy]

What are your plans as your children get older? Have you thought about how you are going to explain to them what happened? Because my biggest concern in the divorce which I initiated, I've always been open that I was the one who made the decision to initiate it. One of the biggest hurdles that hung me up from doing so was the worry that it would change my children's perspective on relationships and marriage. Because as somebody who has been in a failed marriage that was nearly two decades long, we were married for 19 years and 11 months, but together for two years before that. So together for over two decades. I am not against the idea of marriage. I'm against the idea of marrying somebody who's not the right person. Just like I'm against the idea of going into business with somebody who is not the right person. But the kids are the innocent ones in that. And it was. I don't want to rob them of that. And of the three, I think two are open to the idea, one, not so much. And I, and I do think it's because of that experience.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's, it's difficult because in your situation, your children were very aware of what was going on.

[Andy]

You're older, you and I. I don't even know how to say this because it's not a. Nothing that you went through is a benefit to you or your kids, but it is beneficial perhaps that their processing ability and memory is not what it was for my kids who were approaching their teens, if not in their teens at the time. Like they were pretty goddamn aware of what was going on.

[Mike]

Yeah. Having having 50, 50 custody right now and being immersed in my kids lives, which, I mean I have to turn and burn just on this podcast because I got to pick up my kids for school tomorrow, which is awesome. They don't recognize or realize anything is off besides like there are gaps in space and time, but they're so young that my hope is that moving forward, it's just something that is like a vague memory and doesn't have to be over explained. I, I don't. Look, I want my kids focused on Bluey. Right. And Paw Patrol and playing with our kids at school. I don't want them to have to recall a traumatic event in their lives and then resurface it and create a narrative around it. You know, that's, that's the fear that I have with, with these kids is all these people talking to them is that they're being not manipulated or coached, but they're being told a narrative or story from that person's perspective, not their own. And it's like, okay, you didn't see Daddy for a while. Well, Daddy was at work. Okay, Daddy's at work. Let's move forward in our lives now. If they were. If they were 7, 8, 9, 10, that'd be completely different. But my children are 4 or 5, and they. When they're hanging out with me at the house, there is no. No speak. There's no recognition of anything. And it's not brought up. It's not like they go, hey, Daddy, what happened a year ago? Why weren't. Why weren't you around? Yeah.

[Andy]

Be prepared for them to find things on the Internet when they get older.

[Mike]

For sure. I actually, I. I'm very conscious of that, and I'm very careful of what I say, which is not the case in most subject. Subject matters because I. I say how I feel. But in this particular case, like, even I'm aware right now that our. Our children, your children and my children are going to watch this podcast at some point.

[Andy]

They'll at least have access to it. Whether or not they do is one thing, but the fact that it is out there.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And 15 years from now, when your sons are, you know, 20 something, they might stumble across something and it might remind them of something that they didn't even have a good recollection or memory of.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So you have to be cognizant of that.

[Mike]

Yeah. And. And I'm prepared to have that conversation like you had just lined out when it's appropriate. When they want to have the conversation.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, like you said, everybody in every family goes through hardship. I mean, we. I've dealt with it on my mom's side and my dad's side. It's just what families go through. It's typical. What's not typical is the very public component of being a public figure. What I have realized, even thinking about the Rob o' Neill podcast with you, is that's what you have to accept. I'm that immune from criticism. I used to get offended. I'm no longer offended because I realize, well, you built wealth, security for your family based on that position. So that's how it works now. You don't have to pay attention to it. You don't have to involve yourself in it and take it personal. But that's just how it works. So I'm not immune from public scrutiny, and neither is anybody else in this limelight. I'm very thankful and grateful for it. But I will be very careful as it relates to my children because again, I don't. I want them focused on positive things in life. There's enough negative things to focus on. And so I hope this is the end of that chapter. And it's just a, you know, it's an experience and we move forward, both me and their mother and our families extended move forward and can learn from it.

[Andy]

I'm going to grab us some water. I forgot. Do you want water?

[Mike]

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[Andy]

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[Mike]

What? You poop. I have a bucket in my truck. I carry a bucket in my raptor.

[Andy]

It's very, very Evan hair. Very micro sf. My favorite. Oh, these are good. Still, not that there's anything really awesome about you getting arrested. For you. For me, it was fantastic. There was constant comedy. I just like the idea of when Evan came to bail you out. I tell people that he wasn't tall enough to see over the window. So this little hand just comes up with a check. And.

[Mike]

That'S a true story.

[Andy]

Hey, guys, I'm here to get Mike.

[Mike]

That's a true story. He bailed me out, man.

[Andy]

Micro sf. Do you think there's ever been a shorter SF dude than Evan?

[Mike]

There's a couple short SF guys that have been successful because they just. They fly under the radar, man. They're. They're like the gray men, literally and figuratively. They. They, they don't stand out. They're not impressive. They don't look intimidating.

[Andy]

I don't think our old job actually rewards people because you're six foot, aren't you?

[Mike]

Six one.

[Andy]

You're six foot.

[Mike]

I'm six one. You're six one.

[Andy]

I am six foot.

[Mike]

I'm. I'm six one on my right foot.

[Andy]

See this?

[Mike]

I've been 73 inches in the military my entire career.

[Andy]

That doesn't mean anything.

[Mike]

How many times you've been measured for height? Yeah, where you stand your back against the wall.

[Andy]

Don't make me.

[Mike]

I've always been 70.

[Andy]

Don't make me FOIA your DD214. To see how tall you are, you can. Well, your height's not on it. But this is the difference between you and I. You're like, you're 73 and I'll undersell how tall I am and then surprise you because maybe I am 73. I don't think our old job rewards people that are in the 6 foot range. I think about 5, 9 to 5, 10 is optimal. They just move over stuff better.

[Mike]

The most impressive operators that I've ever known are about a buck 70 and between 5, 8 and 5 10. Because when you're, when you're trying to move that much weight, especially in the army with a rucksack, I mean, I had, I had really impressive times for my 12 mile and 18 mile ruck because I could carry a hump a lot of weight. But there's a point of diminishment when you're carrying that much muscle. Like a lot of guys think that. For the exception of Red Squadron, when I was in Iraq in 07, where every one of them looked like a Spartan, I was like, it's required, dude. I was like, dude, what are these? Dudes were in the gym punching bags and lifting weights before they loaded the helicopter. They like stopped by the gym to drop guns to lift weights before they got on the hook.

[Andy]

I was like, it's not how good you are, it's how good you look.

[Mike]

I was like, you know, beards like.

[Andy]

This, you know, rule number one in combat look good. And if you don't know what you're doing, act as if it was too crazy.

[Mike]

Side by side, it was crazy. But if you see a room full of, you know, Delta operators, they all look like, you know, endurance athletes, marathon runners. And some of those guys are physical.

[Andy]

Studs as well too. It's really hit and miss. I just don't think the community actually rewards excess size. And this is, looking back on it, you just, you got to feed all that with oxygen, regardless of whether or not you're using it.

[Mike]

Yeah, I was, my first team was a mountain team and in the SIF company, I was in a sniper team. And I was always the last climber because I was the biggest guy.

[Andy]

Did you shoot a shy tech? Yeah, just checking.

[Mike]

Of course you're right. Heavy drop. Like, we just, we were not. Everything was more difficult because our loadouts were bigger. And most of the guys, when we started doing six plus K infills, that was not pretty. Like seeing guys go from the gym with all this muscle to burning out in the middle of summer in Iraq or Afghanistan doing 6k plus offsets. It got ugly for a period of time. Yeah.

[Andy]

I was always of the theory that, you know, race cars can do Great things as long as you're feeding them race car fuel.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

But when you get over to an environment where you lose control of that, you probably should be able to function on diesel from time to time.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I know guys that took cruise boxes full of supplements and all this stuff, but then it's like, hey, man, we might get lifted and shifted for like a week. And your creatine or whatever other supplements you have in your protein powder. Apparently chicken breast means different things to different people. If you're away from that and you're going to fall apart, how much of the benefit actually is there? Like, this is not a controlled environment where you can make sure you have access to that stuff all the time.

[Mike]

Yeah. I remember task force was handing out metrics. Remember metrics? It was like. Was it a bar? It was like a protein powder and it was in these packets. It was meal replacement.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But it had a lot of protein in it. And everybody was doing rip itself and metrics protein. And it was kind of like the beginning of this craze over supplements. But all the guys that were on these, they were like red bottles. And there was like a small version of it, a medium version, and it had creatine and basic. I know some of it became illegal, but it was like 1, 1 A.D. or something like that. Anyways, everybody was on it and it was near anabolic steroids kind of thing. And everybody was getting jacked. But again, they couldn't perform a 6k offset. They couldn't get through a workout of the day. And CrossFit and Functional Fitness was just coming on board. Jim Jones was just coming on board and nobody could get through those workouts. And I, I had the realization, like being in a fire base for nine months in Afghanistan where we didn't have good food, that you had to adapt to that environment and you couldn't supplement everything. And then whatever you got to baseline, if you could still perform well, then you. You were functionally fit. You know, I. That there was a weird time in special operations, probably in 0708 09, where dudes were just yoked and it hurt us. It hurt the. The task force as a whole.

[Andy]

I do feel sorry for people who have never had the chance to chug a. Rip it at a set point though, to just have a pouch, like you have frags, but also rip its. Rip its, dude. And you get to like an orp or a set point and you just hear it and people are. And then it's just he man. For about 20 minutes.

[Mike]

Dude, what Whoever put that rip it contract and task force got a lot of bad guys killed because dudes were jacked up on caffeine and just running.

[Andy]

Around pallets of those things. Pallets. Sitting in the sun all day long in triple digit heat. Oh yeah, I'm sure. I mean in aluminum cans. Can you imagine the chemical makeup that was changing in that thing?

[Mike]

Dude. Well, I thought, I thought about the plastic bottles that were sitting in pallets out in the sun and then eventually brought inside.

[Andy]

No, those are plastic. No, those are super good for you.

[Mike]

Are they? Yeah, the plastic.

[Andy]

So yeah, the longer the water sits in the plastic they say the better it is.

[Mike]

Yeah. Have you ever got your plastics checked? I guarantee you our stuff is off the charts.

[Andy]

How do you check your plastics in your blood? Is there a test for that?

[Mike]

There is a test. Yeah.

[Andy]

That might be one of those where I would be so afraid of the results that I have to pretend that it's not real.

[Mike]

Yeah. I guarantee you the rip its the plastic bottles is going to be the detriment similar to like, you know, napalm was to Vietnam veterans. We had a lot of exposure to trash pits to plastic and just weird stuff that I don't think comes full circle for decades.

[Andy]

You know what the problem is though? How do you separate the plastic exposure while you're in the military to dish the plastic expos exposure of everyday life? Because we're all still surrounded by plastic.

[Mike]

Yeah. But I think like when you cook a plastic bottle and you drink out of them every rotation times a dozen rotations for your for a decade, I think that's where it catches up with you.

[Andy]

That's a good business idea. You ready for this pitch?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Plastic bottle seasoning.

[Mike]

Oh.

[Andy]

Because it is a different flavor. Right. When you're talking about cooking in a.

[Mike]

Plastic bottle, it's completely different.

[Andy]

Small niche market. Yeah, but we could have a seasoning. Mike and Andy's plastic bottle.

[Mike]

Yeah. It's a firecracker farm plunger. And you plunge it into the plastic.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Maybe it's just plastic to kill.

[Andy]

Yeah. We just have Alex like, hey, can you just put plastic through your grinder that you use for salt?

[Mike]

Yeah. Let's just get this over with.

[Andy]

And we're going to need you to absorb any risk and liability from exposure. Man, oh man. What, what's the biggest thing you learned through the last two years of what I would call you crawling through the trenches of World War I?

[Mike]

That my relationship with God has been on and off my entire life. I, I, I have always been a Christian have leaned in on my faith in difficult times. But I've been a convenient Christian. Like, it's. When it's convenient for me, when I'm at the bottom of the barrel, sure, I'm a Christian. And that's. And that's a lot of people. And that happens to be me. And I had the realization that ever since I decided to kind of set that aside and separate that from my professional life or just my life, period, because I didn't want to offend anybody or because I was just like uncomfortable with that subject matter.

[Andy]

Religion. You were afraid to offend somebody with religion?

[Mike]

Yeah, because I was always the guy like that grew up in the home where you would separate politics, religion and everything else. Like, you didn't talk about that at the table. And, and if you were in the military in the 90s and 2000s in the GWAT, religion wasn't exactly top of mind. I mean, I don't remember many religious interventions or support along the way. It's just we didn't pray before we got on a helicopter.

[Andy]

Some guys did. I know guys that did.

[Mike]

Some guys did.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And it's funny because, like, those guys who did. I remember when the 22sas were working with TF16 and we were one of the action arms and we had a couple tutu SAS operators that were killed. And this is, I think, 07, one of the troop commanders, I believe, was a troop commander from the 22 SAS, gave a spiel and he communicated to everybody in this spiel. So you got Rangers, Delta, Dev, and the Sith, and he's talking to us and it's very religious based, foundationally. And he's like, go off into battle. And we were all like, we thought we were crusaders. You know, everybody had the tattoos, it was branded. And I remember that was like profound in a moment that I remember. And it was very spiritual. Outside of that, I don't remember ever praying to God or doing those things that I normally would have done in my. In my life. And, you know, long story short, the profound lesson learned is foundationally I've kind of like pushed God out because of whatever reason. And ever since I've integrated him back in and said, look, I'm just going to be more spiritual. I'm going to pray with my family, I'm going to have my kids talk about God. I'm not even a churchgoer. Like, I don't even go to church. I don't need it. I don't feel like I need to go to church. So it's not like that. I just feel like the more I introduce God as the foundation, the more my life is squared away. And some guys seemingly go through this life experience, and they have all the successes, and they don't have God play a role at all. I'm just not one of those guys. The more I integrate God foundationally. I prayed before I came over here for the podcast, the more like, to.

[Andy]

Have a good podcast.

[Mike]

Yeah. I just was like, please let Andy give him the right words to not embarrass himself.

[Andy]

So I had Chad right here. Apparently, I'm a heathen. He used the term heathen for me, which I haven't looked up yet. But I'm assuming I just mean somebody that. And again, it's not that I don't believe in God. I say this every time. The concept of religion has just never landed with me. Yeah, I'm agnostic. I don't know, and I don't claim to know. I don't know is actually becoming one of my favorite answers to almost everything, because I don't know. Do I think, like, I want to believe in aliens, but also God could be real, too? Yeah. But I don't know how that fits in the Bible. But also, it's been a while. You know, Chad led me with the Bible, but it's like, in this form of English that you need another dictionary to understand.

[Mike]

It's difficult to understand. Yeah, I think that's the point, though. I think the point is I feel that way, too, in many ways in my faith. But my faith is more personal. And a lot of people who try to judge other people, like, Christians are the best at judging other people. Right. Because they judge them based on their biblical knowledge, for example. And if they don't know Scripture, if they don't know the Bible. Well, I have had a personal relationship with God my entire life. As far as I can remember, any memories I've had a relationship with God. I remember crying as a child trying to navigate this understanding of is, if God's our father, then who's God's father? And there's a big question mark in that. And I'm like. And that I lost sleep over that.

[Andy]

Like, what's the answer to that question?

[Mike]

Well, there is no answer, I don't think. And I think the point is the journey. I think the point is, like, there is no absolute, clear, concise moment in time. Just like, as we would define success, where you say, I made it. I'm a Christian. I'm all knowing. It's the Journey and the path that we walk in God kind of as an asthma check to keep us away from all of these things that would consume us. Right. And however you navigate that is your personal path to your own salvation. I personally think, in my opinion, that the more I've relied on God and absolved myself from sin and just checked myself in that way, it's made my personal relationship with people around me better. Right. And so I see a lot of things in a lot of different religious aspects. My mom pulled me through a journey, her own personal journey. We were a Catholic for a month. We were in a tent, a sweat tent, where people were speaking in tongues. What, dude? I mean, like, the most.

[Andy]

Is this recently?

[Mike]

No, this is last week.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Mike]

But she was going through her own personal journey. And where I've landed is kind of where you are, where there is curiosity. And I am on my journey, and I don't have to go to a biblical college and get a master's degree to say that I'm a better person or Christian. As long as I'm working towards that in a deeper understanding of my faith, of Scripture, the better I feel. And I think that's something that I wish everybody would lean into because, like, I don't think there's any down a lot of downsides to being curious, to looking into biblical scripture, to leaning in on your faith when you're actually talking to yourself. Because that. What I've noticed in my own prayer, for example, is in this very difficult time, I'm talking to God, which is giving me better introspect. And when I wake up in the morning, I feel better about the circumstance that I'm going through. And I. And I feel repaired. There are many times where I've prayed in this difficult circumstance where God has directly answered these prayers. And whether you believe in it or not, in my personal journey, that is very profound and very defined. I mean, there's. Let me share one example with you. I was wrestling with this, and I was like, I'm going to abandon my faith because I'm praying and nothing's happening. I haven't seen my kids in four months, and I've done everything right. Right. This is me challenging God. And I've always been a big dreamer. I've talked about it before with you. I always have very profound dreams. Every single day, every single night, I prayed that I would see my kids in my dreams. When I hadn't seen my kids in four months, where I had seen them their entire lives up until that point, it broke me. I'M like, Andy, I'm like in the backyard, low crawling through dirt on my hands and knees, begging God in the middle of winter. I mean, it was. Dude, it was brutal. It like physically happened, physically doing that, man. And it broke me.

[Andy]

Oh, did you capture any of that for a content usage?

[Mike]

I had the phone set up, but it died.

[Andy]

I don't know a lot about Patreon, but I feel like that could be.

[Mike]

That's a separate breakout.

[Andy]

I'm just trying to help make it easier for you.

[Mike]

I'm just trying to bring you back. So I'm. I'm literally low crawling through this situation. And they tell me that I can't see my kids until after this adjudicates. So at the point, four months in, where I'm begging God and I'm like, give me some relief. They tell me I can't see my. See my kids for an additional 30 days.

[Andy]

So basically the opposite of what you're.

[Mike]

The opposite of what I asked for. Then my dog dies. My Pearl, yeah, she dies that night. And I hadn't seen my kids, and I'm like laying over my dog and she's been like my best friend for nine years and she had cancer and I was fighting with her and I'm like, God, don't take my dog away from me. That's like literally been there for. For my entire nine years, who's helped me through a lot of situations. My service dog. And I'm laying on top of her and I'm like, God, please what? Just give her some life, give me some time. And dude, I'm praying that over her. And she takes her last breath, she takes a big inhale and she. She exhales and she dies in my arms. And I'm like, you gotta be. You have to be kidding me. My children. I just got notified that I can't see my kids for a month. My dog dies in my arms that night. And. And finally I submit and I say, you know what? I'm done fighting. This is like at 2 in the morning, I'm done. And I'm out in the backyard. It's a full moon, it's cold. And everything just feels like it's the end. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not. I'm not burdening any of my friends. And I know you would never say it's a burden, but I don't want to talk to anybody. And I go upstairs and I'm just. I pass out from exhaustion. And as soon as I go to sleep, I Had prayed that God give me my children for four months. And I hadn't seen them once in my dreams. And I just wanted a memory. I just wanted to be able to embrace my kids. I pass out. Pearl's downstairs, dead, laying under a blanket. And I go into a lucid dream. And it's the realest dream I've ever had in my life. And I'm in the kids classroom because I had been very involved in their kindergarten class. And months prior to that, before all this had happened, I had brought their classes, their gingerbread houses that they won in a contest. I bought them in an auction for the kids because I wanted them to bring them back to their individual classrooms, both of my kids, their twins, to their individual classrooms because I wanted the kids to be able to eat the gingerbread cookies after the thing. And so I'm back in the classroom that I was just in four months prior, over the Christmas holidays, giving their gingerbread houses back. And I hear my kids, and everybody gets quiet, and I hear them coming down the hallway, and their mom's with them, and I get scared because I know that their mom is gonna come down, and if she sees me, I'm gonna get in trouble. And so I hear her voice fade away. And my kids come into the classroom, they see me, and they. Like they always do. You've seen it yourself. They run towards me and they say, daddy. And they gave me an embrace. As soon as they hugged me, I started weeping. I started crying. And as I'm coming, I'm waking myself out of this lucid dream. And I don't want to. I want to go back to it. But as soon as I wake up, I'm crying in the dream and I'm crying lucidly in real life, I realized that full circle, that all of this was for a very specific reason. And at that moment, before I had gone into that dream, I had let go because, bro, I want the control. And I'm a control freak. And it's the worst part of my character, my personality is I've always been in control. And the points in my life that have led to catastrophe are when I wanted the most control. And then when I couldn't have it, I acted like a baby and I lost it. I got angry, I got frustrated, I destroyed relationships. And for the first time in my life, I relinquished control and realized, I'm not in charge. This isn't up to me. And as soon as I did that, when I woke up, I started praising God. And I went outside of the backyard and thanked God because I got it full circle. And from that moment on in my life, I realized that the problem hasn't lied with other people in my life that I've blamed, but with me, because I want the control. And I've selfishly ran my life that way because I thought operationally, professionally and personally it would benefit everybody around me. But that's the opposite. And that hard lesson was learned over that experience. And when I came out of that, it changed my life forever. And look, my relationship with God is still personal. And I talk about God more often than I have before. But in that full circle moment with Pearl lying dead underneath the sheets, I buried her about 5 in the morning. Couldn't even break the ground. It took me a few hours to dig deep enough to bury her. It was snowing. It was very like, man, full circle. As a moment. I realized that a lot of the fault in this life, in my own catastrophes, was because of me. And if I just let God take control, that I was going to be better off for it. And that profoundly changed my life, man.

[Andy]

And was this all up at your house in Heber?

[Mike]

It was, yeah.

[Andy]

I feel like you're really lucky that your neighbors are spread out because you would have had them call the cops on a crazy dude.

[Mike]

I thought about that.

[Andy]

I wonder if they have a video file of you. They're like. And then at 2am Mike was crawling around.

[Mike]

Yeah, but my neighbors are Mexican and since the ICE stuff came out, I haven't seen them in a year. Yeah, man.

[Andy]

Damn, dude.

[Mike]

Oh.

[Andy]

I had heard that for a moment you tried to become a Mormon.

[Mike]

You know what's funny is the Mormon Church denied me. They actually said, they legitimately said on a couch in my house was like, yeah, this ain't going to work out for us.

[Andy]

What information did they have access to that others didn't? How did they make an informed decision in that moment?

[Mike]

Well, I think they got a database. I honestly do. I, I've heard that they have a, when the missionaries come to your house, they have a database and it might even be an app. But they, they knew, they're like, we know you're involved in some, some court stuff and you know, sorry, we can't, we can't support you.

[Andy]

I'm like, if they wouldn't have said no, would you become a Mormon?

[Mike]

No more. So I wanted like having 18 year old kids on my couch trying to convince me of my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. It's like I, I get it, man. Like I'm I'm on board. More so because my entire community of my very small town of 17,000 people is Mormon. All the community benefits, the outdoor activities, the family stuff. I wanted my family to be involved and invested in our local church. And I was told, based on the circumstances, I was basically a liability. This is not. This is not a lie or exaggeration. The guy told me that if I wanted to come and be baptized, I would have to let my lawyers know to contact the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints lawyers. Maybe if we can have our lawyers kind of meet up and talk, we could navigate this. And I was like, oh. I mean, no offense to my own community and the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, but it felt like they were gatekeeping.

[Andy]

You failed selection, bro.

[Mike]

I literally failed the process. I didn't even get in the door. I didn't even make it to Shakeout. I didn't even get to the check in.

[Andy]

God. They didn't even check to make sure you had all the gear. You know what I mean? Which. I don't know. Wow. What would that gear list even entail?

[Mike]

I have a lot of it. The bunker, the. All the food storage. Like, I'm halfway there.

[Andy]

Undergarments.

[Mike]

I don't have those. I don't have those.

[Andy]

The Internet's probably the answer to that question.

[Mike]

Oh, man.

[Andy]

Man, that is a journey. It is amazing when you are in your lowest moments, that the life just finds a way of, like, you know, you don't think you can take any more. Here's a whole metric ton more.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. That made me realize that there is probably nothing even comparable to that moment. Having buddies die like a friend die in my arms isn't even. Doesn't even come close to that because of the sorrow and grief and pain I felt at once. And the fact that I could turn it around has made me realize how strong people are and resilient people are. Because I didn't want to be on this earth. I didn't want to contend with those feelings. I didn't want to fight. I wanted to give it all up.

[Andy]

Did it get to that point?

[Mike]

It got to that point. Oh, yeah. I mean, it got to the point I would.

[Andy]

If you had done that, I would go to your service and I would piss on your coffin.

[Mike]

That was partially why it wasn't an option for me, because I knew guys like you and Evan would hate me for it. Because you wouldn't hate you. Yeah.

[Andy]

But I would be mad at you for the remainder of all time.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And Then on the anniversary, I would go piss on your headstone.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Which I would make sure was intentionally misspelled because I'll be honest, your control freak nature was one of the. Don't get rid of it. Because it's one of my favorite ways to mess with you.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

Because I'll just move things around a little bit.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Or you'll say, this is a plan. It's like, yeah, but what about this plan? Also, I was an officer, so you can call me sir and we're going to do it my way.

[Mike]

Yeah. But I, like, I needed that balance in life and I.

[Andy]

That's one of the biggest things I struggle with too. It's. I'll use the podcast as an example. One of the things I have found that helps, that is beneficial is consistency. And there the idea of starting a podcast, which a lot of people have that idea. And I always tell people, go for it, but maybe just know what you're getting into. The release cadence, finding the guests, the edit, like all of that stuff. You go at it for a year and you're like, where's my next guest going to be? You're going to get. I don't have one for next week. What do I do? The control of trying to always know what's coming on your calendar, how it's going to work itself out. And it is an anxiety ridden evolution. And finally, a few years ago, and I still fight with this, the more I realize that I don't have control over that and that it's going to come at the right time and I don't get incredibly nervous. And it's funny when I can find myself into that place, like just take a breath. You don't have control over this. Things start falling into place.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Is that divine intervention? I don't know. Or is it just realizing you have. We have so little control over anything in our lives and kind of just accepting that and freeing up the bandwidth to allow that stuff to happen. I don't know. But the control freak thing, and I don't say it negatively because I struggle with it as well. Man, that is a recipe for just anxiety.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

It's the worst.

[Mike]

Yeah. Letting go of that has been very helpful and a benefit to my family and even my friends. I mean, just. Just letting go of a lot of things that I thought I had control over in my life has been a blessing and I still struggle with it. I mean, I, I said, I prayed before I came over here. A lot of it had to do with the custody battle that I'm in and having to have control over it and trying to invest all this time in navigating the tactics on how to manage this when a lot of these things are outside of my control. And the more I can let go and just give it to God, the better off I'll be. And it's turned around my life in profound ways. But it's not an overnight fix. It's sustainment training. I'm in sustainment.

[Andy]

It's simple, not easy. Knowing the path and walking the path are two very, very different things.

[Mike]

Consistency and commitment to my family every day. And I, I mess up all the time. But against being conscious of that and having at least the self introspect to like check in and go, okay, did we do that right? It's a constant battle that I wage. And meditation, this ibogaine stuff, all these things have helped me. They're not the fix. The fix is just staying conscious and aware of it. And so yeah, it's, it's crazy, man. It's a, it's a life journey for sure.

[Andy]

When do you, when is the custody stuff? In a perfect world, when would it wrap up for you? You look at another few months or.

[Mike]

It depends on, on their, their mother. If, if we, if we mediate and things are amicable, it could wrap up almost instantaneously.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

If it continues to stretch out. Because you know, the only winners in this are the lawyers because they're the only ones who are reaping a benefit, a reward.

[Andy]

120 emails, dude. The other side, which is going to send an email to your attorney, charges for that time, which charges for the time to get it to you for your response, to get it back to them. To get it back. It's about 120 bucks round trip.

[Mike]

Yeah. And there's no incentive for them to close it out. Why would you, why would you close it out? Let's stretch this thing out as long as possible. So it could take a year while.

[Andy]

They happen to have insight into your bank accounts, because you have to update them with your statements. And then when it gets the discovery where you're almost at zero, they start talking about wrapping things up.

[Mike]

Yeah, discovery is scary because they could look into text messages, they could subpoena people, they could do all this stuff. And it's like every one of those calculations cost a lot of money because they have to review the documentation, do all the stuff. So best case scenario, it's done in a couple of weeks. Worst case scenario, we stretch it out to a year. I don't want that for my family, for my children and hopefully we could wrap this thing up.

[Andy]

You'll have this point where you, when you look back, when this is all done and your relationship is the best it's probably ever been and continue to get better with your kids, you'll think back and you'll realize the amount of money that you spent to get to this point and what you could have done for your kids future if two adults could have actually sat down and been adults and navigated and navigate it with the actual best interest of their children in mind instead of saying this is for the best interest of the kids. But what they're really saying is this is in the best interest of me.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like why?

[Mike]

Why the stress, the trauma on the kids.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The investment in capital and resources. I mean losing the book deal, losing my company, all these elements, it's like.

[Andy]

What book deal did you lose?

[Mike]

The. So my, my publisher book deal, which is a two part book deal in a contract, they basically canceled on me. They canceled on me mid book. And they said that, you know, they had their reasons and it wasn't any moral clause or ethical clause. It was because they said I didn't meet the timeline for a manuscript, which was not true. And we went back and forth with them and we eventually settled, but that was a million dollar deal and that's gone. My next book which will be wrapped up is probably going to be self published. My company, Feelcraft Survival, which I was booted out of that company. I have to start over.

[Andy]

What are your thoughts on your departure from Fieldcraft?

[Mike]

I get it, I understand it. I mean, look, it's not like I didn't have allies like even you that were advising people, but I get it. From a liability perspective, I think it's bad.

[Andy]

I don't know if they had a choice.

[Mike]

Yeah, they. Well technically I think legally they didn't have a choice except to circumnavigate. I do wish, because the initial paperwork that I signed was I basically don't go near the company for three years. I do think I could have been a revenue driver. I wouldn't have done the deal that way because I would have used me as a revenue driver. Being that I was the majority of the revenue generator for that company. If it was an allegation, which it was, and there was no conviction, which there wasn't, and there was a way to bring me back into the fold, which there was, I would have kept that door open versus knowing that if you pulled Me and pushed me out, which they did then it could mean the demise of the company overall. Now, maybe that was the plan from the beginning because it's like, okay, well, this isn't going to work. And so I was slightly offended up front because I'm like, well, I built this thing, but I got it from a liability perspective. And now coming full circle, I'm like, oh, I would have definitely wrote me in to generate revenue at some point, but again, hindsight's 20 20.

[Andy]

Yeah. And there's another way you can look at it too. It's. There's a clear separation and delineation between everything you did prior to this legal stuff going on and now to a degree, obviously, you know, you can't have weapons because you're a convicted felon and a danger to society, but you have an open canvas in front of you where you can decide what it is that you want to do next. And you're not a guy that's absent of ideas. I mean, like you said, you have not only vivid dreams, but, I mean, God, how many times have we sat around and just BSed and ideated about concepts or things that we would want to do. You kind of have a blank canvas.

[Mike]

It's freedom.

[Andy]

What do you think you want to do?

[Mike]

Well, I know what I want to do, and we've never talked about this at all.

[Andy]

It's starting a cult, right?

[Mike]

Yeah, that's one thing.

[Andy]

I mean, let's be honest. From a tax perspective, I get it. I'm never having a beverage at your house, though, you know, because the history there with cult leaders. Is it going to require robes? Do you like.

[Mike]

I've thought about it. I've thought about that. I, I, you know what's funny is you're right in a lot of ways when it comes to how this kind of unfolded. At the same time, I felt bad, sad, and, and it disappointed by the circumstances. I realized, like, I, dude, I was a slave to my own company. I mean, I, there were employees who made more money than I made. Everything that I did revenue generating was pouring back into the company.

[Andy]

Bro, the baristas at the coffee shop make more money from the coffee shop than I do. Yeah, I pulled and have pulled $0.

[Mike]

And that's how it should be. Right? You're investing in something and every single penny, you're going to reinvest to build the thing. Well, building that thing came out of personal and professional cost.

[Andy]

You were the brand.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy]

Which is an interesting place to be. And that's kind of Why I asked you about the blank canvas going forward because you now can look back with that 2020 hindsight and see the cost that I don't think anybody realizes necessarily that is associated with that. Because where you went, that brand went. Right. And even like we're just human beings, right. If you misspeak or say something dumb, which I do often with a microphone in front of my face, samesies it. Well, it comes back to you because they associate it with the brand. Right. And some people can tolerate that and grow with that and learn to navigate that. And for other people it destroys them. And now that you can look back and know that cost, you can decide whether or not you want to repeat.

[Mike]

That, all the lessons learned. And I don't want that again. But I, I know how to navigate it moving forward and I've always had an interest. Like people probably don't know this because I've never talked about it except for OG Phil Craft Survival. Guys, before Phil Craft Survival, I sold products. I actually sold a DVD on called Selected on how to get selected for Special Operations. And part of that was fitness, nutrition and foot care. The most popular product I sold when I started Feelcraft wasn't a survival related at all. It was actually foot care kits. I put together foot care kits of tincture, benzoin.

[Andy]

That hurts.

[Mike]

That it hurts. Nobody even knew what that word meant when I talked about it.

[Andy]

You ever seen somebody inject that into a blister?

[Mike]

Oh yeah, I've done it. I've done it a lot.

[Andy]

It doesn't hurt right away. It's a growing pain.

[Mike]

It burns.

[Andy]

Not right away. Yeah, it eats you up a little bit. It's as if a fire is starting.

[Mike]

Yes, yes. But if you, if you've ever worked on your feet.

[Andy]

Oh, the recovery from. It's amazing.

[Mike]

You know that tincture, benzoin and certain things like moleskin. Like again if you say moleskin, most people, even hikers and, and outdoor enthusiasts have no, no clue what that is. I did a whole video on how to take care of your feet for rucking and then made a foot care kit and we sold out of it. I've always been interested in body care solutions to include things like that, like a body glide.

[Andy]

Body glide for endurance athletes.

[Mike]

For endurance athletes. Save my ass in West Virginia selection because literally it sounds like save my ass. I literally, I had no blisters in West. I mean my feet were chewed up in Rayner School and SFAs and, and Green Beret selection. But in West Virginia I had no blisters because I became an expert at body care and foot care. And so I've been toying around this idea and for about a year I've been working on a concept called long haul supply company. Long haul supply company.com LHSC okay, yeah, okay. Long Haul Supply Company. And it's, it's, it's a company for body care solutions to allow you to operate and live for the long haul, whether you're hiking, you're camping, you're just outdoors. Here's. Here's an example. We know special techniques of wiping our ass and hygiene, taking care of our body in the field.

[Andy]

Are they really special? Well, I would call them rudimentary.

[Mike]

They're rudimentary. Like if you take a square of basically the toilet paper or the towelette that's in MREs. Meals ready to eat. We know how to operate with that.

[Andy]

That's a full body shower. It is a shower and a towelette.

[Mike]

It's a bath. I actually have. We've come out with. We haven't come out with a product. We're designing the product, which is intensive. I never thought this would be intensive. But you have to make IP and recipes and all formulas.

[Andy]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Mike]

And we're making a Ranger Bath body wipe. And it's based on some of these experiences in the field where if you don't take care of the crevices and nooks and crannies of your body, you get cellulitis and you can actually die.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I was in rainer school where my squad had three guys in my squad that got dropped from ranger school because they had cellulitis. I had onset cellulitis in my knee from taking a knee. Yeah. Which is like. So the bacteria fills the crevice, the crack. The crack gets infected, causes bacterial infection on your skin, and then it becomes infected, it spreads, and if you don't address it, you'll die. So these little things tied into retail, direct to consumer sales and also marketing. Because I love the idea of marketing these things because you could have fun with it. Is going to be my next company.

[Andy]

I like it. That's awesome.

[Mike]

Yeah. Fun stuff. Yeah. Chapstick. We're going to do a chapstick that has two ends to it. One side for your ass and one side your for your mouth. Not to confuse.

[Andy]

Okay, hold on, hold on. I have several questions.

[Mike]

You'll be the first to get the sample.

[Andy]

We're R and D. Question is this. How do you ensure you don't forget which end is which?

[Mike]

An arrow that says ass and Then an arrow that says mouth.

[Andy]

What are you going to call this product?

[Mike]

Ass to mouth atmosphere.

[Andy]

I'm on board with that. Marketing. I'm terrified of this product.

[Mike]

But how many times that you wiped your ass with. With chapstick? But all of the.

[Andy]

I have never wiped my ass with chapstick. I might have had to apply chapstick to a chafed ass.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

Because you have a handful of pine needles is all you can get a hold of or a fistful of gravel.

[Mike]

That's it. Men use chapstick. Men use chapstick a different way than women use it. They use it as to gloss in their lips. We use it in the field for our hands.

[Andy]

Yeah, for chaps.

[Mike]

Like if we're chafing on in our crotch or our ass, especially for our hands. But what we tend to do is we take a small chapstick and we use it for all those things. And then our method is, okay, we use it on our body. And you know what our method is? We wipe it on our pants and then use it on our lips.

[Andy]

That's because it's effective.

[Mike]

It's effective. It cleans it immediately off your, your pants.

[Andy]

Can we create two separate products so that your and your mouth are not connected?

[Mike]

Well, it's not recommended for asshole use.

[Andy]

You just said it's double sided cheeks cheeks.

[Mike]

We want you to use it on your butt cheeks or your chafing areas.

[Andy]

I don't know if you know what the neighbor is to your butt cheeks. The topography and geography of that part of the world.

[Mike]

We'll have diagrams on our products and tutorials. You actually are going to be part of this because you're going to be helping make the videos for marketing. And so we'll, we'll use your ass. We actually have been going back and forth on, on this size and it's bigger than a typical chopstick. But you could see some of the mock ups on long haul.

[Andy]

Can we do some market research on this?

[Mike]

It's gonna be so fun. The R D and the tne, which you'll be part of is going to be so fun.

[Andy]

Just.

[Mike]

Just go with it.

[Andy]

Just.

[Mike]

Just go with it.

[Andy]

You need to have different colored ends to this thing.

[Mike]

We thought about that too.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Having different colored ends is, is, is good. But having a, a wider side on one end and a more narrow side on the other end, which, yeah, you don't. It depends on yourself.

[Andy]

You don't need to make a Harry Potter chapstick wand here, dude.

[Mike]

Like, it's gonna be fun.

[Andy]

I Am not gonna agree with that term you just used.

[Mike]

Ask the Mouth.

[Andy]

No, that. It's gonna be fun.

[Mike]

Oh, it's gonna be fun.

[Andy]

So, you know, what's the commercial for this look like? A guy yarding on his butt cheeks down. Then he's just like, oh, hey, look, if I just flip this over, I can't do a joker.

[Mike]

It's even better than that. It's like the guy's hiking with his wife, and his wife reaches into his backpack and is digging through it, and he's not paying attention. And he looks. And she's wiping the chapstick on her lips. And. And then he has a montage moment where he's, like, bent over and he just has. Has been.

[Andy]

Heroin, isn't she?

[Mike]

No, no, this is the. This is the standard chapstick. This is the error in it. This is where he comes up with the product. She's wiping it and getting him out. He has a montage of him bending over and going to work. And then he's like, oh. And then she's like, what? This is so weird that you're looking at me this way. And he's like, what's going on? He's like, nothing. And then he gets back to the drawing board, and then he comes up with atm. Ask the Mouth. The marketing is going to be fun. It reminds me of OG BRCC days, which they've been coming back with some cool. Some cool and funny stuff.

[Andy]

I don't know if old school coffee marketing isn't aligned in any way with chapstick for your.

[Mike]

It's gonna be fun. If you. If you. If JT's listening to this, I need you to hit me up with all your ideas.

[Andy]

Do you have any other products in mind?

[Mike]

There's a product called Mud Butt. Let me. Let me explain. Let me explain. So. So me and my buddy Andy Moore, we were. We're doing this Raptor content, which you'll. You'll have a Raptor soon, which is gonna be fun.

[Andy]

Will I have it soon? It's. The build's been pushed back several times. Yes, it's in March at some point, whatever, which means delivery in probably May.

[Mike]

But it's gonna be super fun. We're gonna get gfc campers do all the stuff. It'd be fun. Well, I was in Kanab, Utah, and we were cleaning out this truck, and Kanab sand and mud. It's clay. It's everywhere. And we're cleaning the seats, and my son Leland kicked mud all over the back of the seat and I'm like, oh, I need to clean that up. And Andy's like, hey, do you have baby wipes? And I'm like, yeah, but, man, you can't use baby wipes on. On the truck. And he's like, well, why don't they have a baby wipe that you could use on trucks? I'm like, I don't know. There's a wipe for bodies, and then there's a wipe Armor all wipe for trucks. They're different wipes. Well, we did the formula research, and you could actually make a wipe for both that actually applies to both. So mud butt implies. Like, we used to say, dude, you got mud butt. Like, you went to the bathroom and you got a mess. But what we mean is, like, when you go out in the field and you're dirty and you're recreating with your vehicle, which I do all the time, you could use them for both. So it's an. It could be used on vinyl and leather, but it could also be used for your. And so it's safe or truck safe. If you do it the other way. Mud butt off road wipes.

[Andy]

It's really niche. Very, very niche.

[Mike]

Yeah, but you could use it for your body and everything else.

[Andy]

Oh, no, don't get me wrong, Mike. I understand the concept.

[Mike]

Well, you're gonna have a truck full of it, and you tell me.

[Andy]

Oh, you know, I appreciate the direction you're moving with this blank cabinet. Hey, I like it. Before I forget, this is a total departure, but I have to ask this. When I was in the hospital with my little tummy ache, which you were there for the initiation of the tummy ache, by the way. We were doing a podcast when it started hurting.

[Mike]

Yeah, I remember.

[Andy]

I was. You guys came to visit. You and Evan came to visit after the surgery, and I was telling you how I. They had given me some ketamine, and I started hearing the hairs in my ears.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You started to tell a story about how you got shot through the K hole and lived an entire life and then, like, died of old age. Am I remembering that?

[Mike]

That's right. Yeah.

[Andy]

You need to explain that to me. Yeah. So they pushed too much ketamine.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Andy]

And you went to a different plane of existence. Yep. Live what you thought was an entire life, died of old age, and how much time had expired?

[Mike]

10 minutes.

[Andy]

I also remember you saying that oftentimes you'll think back about that because it was such a profound experience.

[Mike]

It's. It's top three since I've done ibogaine. Five meo DMD and psilocybin. A mega dose of psilocybin. It's in the top three still of the most profound experiences of my life. And it was on accident.

[Andy]

And it felt as if you had lived to old age.

[Mike]

It felt like I died. I accepted my reality, which was an alternative reality, obviously, and was getting used to what was going on and then completely got ripped back into reality. And I didn't want it like I had. I was waking up realizing that my hands could work and that my appendages could work, and I didn't want it. I wanted to go back to where I was hanging out in spiritual world. So, you know, ketamine is a disassociative, and it's. It's commonly used in veterinary practices for animals because of the way morphine and ketamine works. It's not often used in our world, but overseas, it's typically used because 18 deltas have access to it. Right, As a controlled substance over morphine. When I was in the hospital, I actually had facial cellulitis. I had a piece of shrapnel, a piece of brass that was working itself out of my face. It turned into an orb of infection. I had facial cellulitis on my cheek. And they had to do emergency surgery. They literally said, look, this is very dangerous. If this leaks into your blood system, you could die. And so they said, we're going to do an operation. We're going to go through your gum, but we need to do it now. Like, they didn't even want to prep me for surgery. They said, we want to do it now. And here's your options. Ketamine. Have you ever done ketamine? I was like, well, yeah, I actually have, because 18 Delta is when you go down range, they bump you with ketamine as part of their practice to make sure you're not allergic to it. And it's something that you could use. An emergency surgery situation downrange. So I had experience, and he goes, okay, I'm a pa. I'm gonna go get the doctor from upstairs and we're gonna get this done. So they start prepping me, and they're not putting me in, like, a gown. I'm in plain clothes. They're like, it's going to be a quick surgery, and it's going to be a local. You're going to go out, and then we're going to get it done. And then you're going to wake up a couple minutes. So this doctor comes in, doesn't speak any. He Barely speaks English, and he's got a beard. He's of Indian descent. Like, dot Indian. And I'm like, okay. Like. And he has no clue what's going on. He's kind of confused. And he's like, so what am I doing? And the PA Is like, oh, you're just going to administer this? And he hands him a syringe and he goes, okay, that's cool. I'll administer this. And I have an IV Line hooked up. And he goes, so what do you want me to do? He goes, oh, I just want you to hook it in there and just stand by. So he preps the needle. He's standing by. And the PA Looks at me and he goes, are you ready? He looks at me and says, are you ready?

[Andy]

That is not a confidence inspiring question, Ari.

[Mike]

I'll never forget this, dude. Are you ready? And I said, yeah. And he turns back and he looks at the doctor and the doctor goes.

[Andy]

Just fires the plunger.

[Mike]

The whole plunger. He goes. And he looks back at the doctor and goes, did you just put. And the doctor's like, did you not? And as soon as that happened, dude, the work was, like, gone. So what was supposed to happen is they're gonna give me incremental bumps until I go out.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But they. Instead, he pumps me with the entire thing, and I go, it's in call. I learned this in hindsight, or I learned this post. It's called the K hole, the ketamine hole. Instantaneously, I'm ahead on a roller coaster traveling through the galaxy. I realize I'm dead. I realize I have no physical body and I'm floating around. I'm like. I'm like, this is actually really cool. And I'm like, dude, what is going on? Like, you have no body. You don't exist, and this is the new world you live in. And I'm like, wow, this is really cool. So then suddenly, you know how like a roller coaster, when it's. When it's stopping, they have the tracks and it goes. It started doing that, and then I could feel my hands. And then I woke up and I had pulled the gurney of the person next to me. Her gurney. I had grabbed her gurney and pulled it next to me. I know this because at the time, my. My girlfriend was filming the entire thing. I basically was coming out and I was like the Incredible Hulk. Nurses were pinning me to the table because I wasn't prepped for surgery. I was just in plain clothes and had just gone through this experience.

[Andy]

And so this is obviously a medical or a military hospital.

[Mike]

This is a civilian hospital in rural Jackson, California.

[Andy]

Because this checks out for military medicine.

[Mike]

This might as well been a military cache.

[Andy]

Did they get all this out of your face?

[Mike]

They did.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Mike]

They did. Almost died. Can I pee? Can we pee?

[Andy]

Yes, you can pee.

[Mike]

God, I gotta pee so bad.

[Andy]

Go pee. Did you, while you were in the bathroom urinating, did you think of any products that you could use while you were urinating and sell them?

[Mike]

Yeah. Well, I thought about Ask to Mouth, and maybe you're right, because I think the term asked mouth means something very different. But I think if people went with the acronym, they would mess it up because they would go ask. I think it's like, we should probably do Ask no Mouth Ass.

[Andy]

Ian M. I think as a general form of feedback that you might want to reconsider that entire product line.

[Mike]

You think so?

[Andy]

I do. What you.

[Mike]

Is there liability in that? Like, if a dude, like, hooks his butt up and puts it on his lips, then we get sued for, like, the transfer of whatever that is. Conjunctivitis.

[Andy]

I don't know how that works.

[Mike]

Pink guy.

[Andy]

Yeah. I'm just saying I think it's a good product. We'll.

[Mike]

We'll let the market.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Determine what.

[Andy]

So you wanted to jump forward. You want to talk about Minneapolis?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

What are your thoughts?

[Mike]

Have you talked about this yet?

[Andy]

No, I. I am always slow to talk about this stuff because the information that comes out when these things happen is almost always inaccurate to begin with or the least verified. I'm not in the breaking business model. You know what I mean? So I'm not constantly terminally online. Especially in January, I got my screen time down to about an hour a day, which was hugely beneficial. So I was aware that this happened, but not inundated with the details. But, I mean, I'm certainly aware that it did happen, but I have yet to talk openly about it.

[Mike]

Yeah, the. The situation. There's the, you know, Renee, good. And then the Alex.

[Andy]

Pretty separated by what, 48, 72 hours.

[Mike]

Yeah. Not long.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And, I mean, there's a lot that we know, now know, and there's absolute gaps that have been filled by the assumptions of many people, as per. That's typically what happens. But the Alex Preddy circumstance I haven't commented on until now. And people were like, hey, why aren't you giving input to this? You must be, I don't know, a bootlicker, supportive, whatever it is. One of the reasons that I haven't commented is I was Going to wait for this. And this was supposed to be out the week prior. It would have been closer to the time. Yeah. Yeah. And so. And also to your point, a lot of information that was initially released where people jumped on the bandwagon. They were contradicting themselves 24 hours later. For example, this idea that Alex Preddy was just an innocent protester that was involved in a confrontation with protecting a woman as an ICU nurse. It's in his nature. And then he gets murdered. That. That is not true. I don't believe that.

[Andy]

But what have you seen that counters that?

[Mike]

Well, one, it has been reported that he was part of a group of about 50 people that were professional agitators. Two, a video came out where 11 days prior to this, he was seen on video. A lot of people claimed it was AI. I actually looked at the initial video and went, it kind of looks like AI because of the perspective. It was like he was shot with a. A red camera where everything was, like, really weird and it was looking weird, but then there's multiple angles. And then the family actually confirmed, and then law enforcement actually confirmed that it is.

[Andy]

It's when he kicked the taillight, right?

[Mike]

Yes. He spit on an officer. He kicked the tail light.

[Andy]

I am aware that that happened. What I've seen and what I'll disagree with is people justifying his death based off the actions from 11 days ago. It gives you context and insight into the person and perhaps their motivation, but has absolutely nothing to do with what occurred that day. Yeah, because the officers there that day, I guarantee you were unaware of those actions 11 days prior.

[Mike]

For sure. But my big question was, why was he not arrested? Because it's certainly a felony to obstruct justice, to interfere with a investigation or an ongoing execution of a duties and responsibilities of a law enforcement officer. Their whole tactic was kind of intervening.

[Andy]

This is the video.

[Mike]

Yeah, it looks really fake. It actually looks like it's not real the way it's filmed. The guy.

[Andy]

That is definitely a different camera. Did you see just the zoom in? I mean, I guess you could do that with an iPhone.

[Mike]

Yeah, he's using an SLR is what we determine.

[Andy]

And here's the thing. Like, yeah, this seems to be this guy, and it gives you context for who he is. That is a good question. Why didn't they arrest him for those actions right there?

[Mike]

So the general understanding is because they didn't have the time and they rolled him up. And honestly, if they arrested him in this moment for the felony that he just committed, then it would have, wouldn't have happened, obviously. So let's break down just the Alex Preddy moment for, for a little bit of his death. Of his death. So we, we are good at critically thinking through these scenarios because I, I don't have any opinion on either side of this. You, I could, you could ask me for my opinion. I'll give you an opinion based on my understanding. But in this particular situation, I'm very objective at how I look at it. One, he does interfere with the executions of these law enforcement duties. That's a felony. It's obstruction of justice. It's a federal felony. And so he's in the conduct of executing a felony.

[Andy]

What was the obstruction?

[Mike]

Just being there, basically interfering in the middle of their movement. Because I believe at some point what they were doing is just like the other video, getting in between the patrol cars as he's asked to step back, he's given lawful orders and then he again continues to interfere. He's holding a cell phone in his right hand. He's not doing anything that obviously justifies a shooting. Yeah, but the standard for self defense for law enforcement and Graham v. Connor, this 89 ruling has to do with objective reasonableness, right? Is it objective, is it reasonable that a law enforcement officer in that law enforcement officer's position via their own perspective would think that somebody was seriously going to be harmed or killed? It's not just killed. It's actually serious bodily injury or death. And what changes is you have two perspectives. One, the law enforcement perspective, which is they're given the benefit of the doubt because they're in their conduct of their professional duties, they're doing a job. The other person, what is their motivation? Well, if they're a professional agitator, meaning the video 11 days proves that this is kind of their M.O. and they're doing that, they're not just innocent protesters. Which would change the perspective. Right? Because if it's like he was just protesting innocently, he saw a woman, was injured or hurt and then he tried to interject, then you would ask, well, what are his motivations? Right.

[Andy]

Was this actually declared a protest? What is the difference between people being there and filming law enforcement and a protest? Because I don't know, the legal line.

[Mike]

In the sand, the protest versus what they're doing. Right here is the difference between this idea of peacefully protesting and staying in a public area and not interfering with law enforcement officers. And I think that's the biggest differentiation in these scenarios is these people are directly interjecting themselves and in some cases Interdicting police movement, which is that threshold.

[Andy]

Beyond their First Amendment protective right.

[Mike]

Because immediately they're con. They're one. Immediately they become felons, and they're in the conduct or execution of committing a felony. Right. Which is different in the perspective of how you would view or judge them. Right. If the person wasn't committing a crime and then randomly shot in the back, obviously that would be murder. If they're in the conduct of committing a felony, they're being stopped or prevented, then that. That changes the standard. Right. It becomes more objectively. More objectively reasonable. But via the standard. So here's the problem, and you've alluded to this already. One, was it a good shoot? In my opinion, it was not a good shoot.

[Andy]

I agree.

[Mike]

One of the things to consider, though, is based on what perspective? Because most of the analysis and people who are judging this, some experts, some not, is that they're analyzing it from a perspective, from a cell phone camera perspective, like even this camera perspective right here, this is not the perspective of the officer's senses.

[Andy]

So one of the same things I said about the man who was standing in front of the vehicle, all of these different angles that show what happened are not what he's going to be either found guilty or adjudicated to be found not guilty of in court. It's his pov, not an outside POV that he doesn't have.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

Because people are saying, you can look at the tires from the original position where they're standing. I challenge somebody to go in front of a vehicle like that. You can't tell the direction.

[Mike]

You can't. And, and, and so if you take the standard, and we're talking about somebody who's objective and reasonable, would other officers feel the same? Well, apparently only two officers shot. Right. So that would be the question. Like, wait a minute. Well, if it was reasonable, why didn't nobody else shoot? Well, here's a problem. One, as they're wrestling with this guy, one of the officers sees that he has a firearm and a holster underneath the shirt and announces gun. Now, it's hard to find out what that SOP means per the department, but in our line of work, downrange, if you said gun, somebody was getting killed.

[Andy]

Yeah, but we're not downrange.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah. Just as a contrast, if we were downrange and we said gun, that would be our sop. And these particular situations where somebody says gun, they're likely announcing that they see a gun that's visible. Right. Well, one that's going to spike Everybody's central nervous systems, if they're not already spiked and they're going to be hyper alert, cortisol, adrenaline and they're going to be in fight or flight nearly if they're trained, should they be? They shouldn't be. And this is the point as border patrol agents who do things like this, it is my opinion that one, no federal agents should ever be put in this situation, ever. They shouldn't be containing any objectives, standing outside with active people interfering. That would be like if they took a troop of devgru and said we're going to have you block off a position while an operation is taking place on this target. That would never happen. You know why? Because if people came out and tried to manage this, especially in a civilian circumstance, they wouldn't know how to contain the situation.

[Andy]

Well, it's not what they're trained, tooled and equipped for.

[Mike]

It's not what they're equipped to do. Border patrol is not equipped to do things like this. Even when you see them tackling somebody and dealing with that person in a city street in America, that's not what they're prepared to do. And so one, that's a bad tactic from leadership, from border patrol, in this case ice. In most cases that boggles my mind. To me it's a failure in leadership. You should never put your guys out there in a compromising position. What's the, what's the ask? Use more sound tactics. Go hit these targets at night. Minimize the amount of exposure you guys have on the ground. Be surreptitious guys with kit that says ice. That's as overt as it gets. You want the confrontation. It seems like you want the confrontation.

[Andy]

It's legally required as well.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, it seems like if, if you have guys standing in the city streets, you're following into what I believe is a Marxist operation, which is how do you get national attention to and all this propaganda that's being pushed to come to your side. You elicit emotions, you exploit the fact that there is going to be a confrontation. You use politicians to antagonize people to get out there, hit the city streets and then you deliberately plan it. This protest and this exposure is a deliberate up. It's been proven through signal chats, through communications, through paid actors, some of which are getting 80 to $100,000 salaries to be professional antagonists. So it's the recipe that's always going to in these federal law enforcement case, they're going to be on the losing side of it. So somebody says gun, then an officer pulls the gun out of the holster. Right. Which is the right thing to do. Right. If you're. If you're dealing with somebody and you have the ability to remove it, you.

[Andy]

Either remove it or you make sure it can't be removed by containing it with your own hands.

[Mike]

Exactly. So he moves it, he announces his gun. I think he did all the right things. And then there's this question of whether or not there was an accidental discharge. From all the evidence, which I've reviewed, reviewed all the videos, it doesn't appear to me that he had an accidental discharge. They say it, but when they say it, his fingers extended on the gun, he's holding it, and you don't see the gun recoil at all. And it happened to be a SIG P320.

[Andy]

No, it did not. Huh. Did it really?

[Mike]

It was a 630. Oh.

[Andy]

The potential ad was the gun that was removed from. What's his first name? Alex.

[Mike]

Alex Pretty. Yeah, that is.

[Andy]

Oh, it was a 320.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

No, he. His. That gun did not go off.

[Mike]

That gun did not go off. I did not see any evidence of that. There's. There was videos pointing to like. Or there looks like there's a round shot on the ground that was likely from the other officer's point of view or perspective. So I don't think that happened. But if a shot goes off, so the gun call happens, the shot goes off, and then somebody's reacting in fear, then that's what you get. Right? Because. But here's what I'll say. Is it going to be a manslaughter charge? The answer is probably no. You know why? Because all the officer has to say, who, by the way, was on the opposite side of where the cameras are, is when there was a gun call, when there was a situation where the gun was removed, I didn't see it. And when that gun call was made, I saw him reach towards the right side of his waistband. Whether or not he saw it or not, that's all he has to say. And I thought he was going to pull the gun and shoot and kill us. And I used deadly force because I was in the position where I did not want to take a chance. And I thought it was objective and reasonable for me to defend all the officers around me from serious bodily harm or death. And that's probably good enough in that particular case now.

[Andy]

Good enough for a courtroom. I agree.

[Mike]

Yes. And the court of public opinion, we have more experience in this recently. Remember when we taught decisive point, decision point in that Course it derived from this understanding that most people knew how to shoot guns. Like you could draw a pistol and shoot a paper target all day long. That's the easy part. The execution of your technical skill sets. This autopilot, this autonomic response, that's easy. The hard thing is deciding whether or not it was the time and place and it met your personal criteria for defending your life. And every scenario that we ran with civilians, how many times were we surprised?

[Andy]

100%.

[Mike]

Every single time. Like the guy's walking with his proposed spouse from the gym into their vehicle, they get interdicted by a bum who wants to ask for money. The guy defending the girl shoots the bum in the back five times and then justifies it saying, well, I thought he was going to hurt my wife. Yeah, but in this scenario we actually programmed it to where he was only going to ask for money, he wasn't going to physically touch your spouse, and you shot him in the back five times. And you thought that was justified? Well, I still think it's justified. And they would go to their grave for that.

[Andy]

What about the guy who was just trespassing and he has a cell phone.

[Mike]

He goes to pull his cell phone out and he gets schwacked every time, Every time. And here's what you should understand. When I was a FLETC instructor for the, in this case the CIA, I had to go to the farm to go to firearms instructor development course, fidc, where it made me federal qualified to basically call any federal law enforcement officers before they went to training or to sustain their training. Mostly CIA personnel. But I could train anybody. I could run FBI calls, I could run border patrol and ICE calls. So in that training, there was no OP4 related training in these type of scenarios, like the scenarios you ran in Decision Point. So how do you know if you're capable of doing that? You don't. Because you have a pro timer or the call of threat. You're taught to conditionally react based off of that. You draw your pistol and you shoot a target. That has nothing to do with critical critically thinking through a high stress scenario and deciding whether or not to shoot or not shoot. And that's the biggest mistake law enforcement makes. And this is likely what happened. He heard the gun call, he heard potentially a shot break. It might have been another shooter on his team. And then he mag dump. He shot eight to ten rounds into this guy because he thought he was a potential threat. Now it's justified in his head, but the reality is, did he have specific criteria for him to live with in Utah. I just read the story yesterday. They just, they just determined that a law enforcement officer that was involved with a. I think he potentially was illegal, that drove away. He was shot. He shot two rounds in the back of this vehicle with an AR15 as the guy was fleeing. One of the rounds hit him, didn't kill him. But the courts have determined, the new attorney general has determined it was a bad shoot and they're going to now determine whether or not criminal charges are to be brought. So you've seen the videos. A guy backs up into the cop, starts driving forward. The cop draws his pistol and mag, dumps the back of the vehicle, and then he kills or he doesn't kill. Let's say he kills the guy. Is that a justified shooting? Well, it depends on the perspective of the officer. If the person was in the execution phase of conducting a felony that was going to potentially seriously injure somebody or kill somebody, including the public, based on his perspective, he's likely going to get away with it. Do I think it was a good shoot? Absolutely not. Because his criteria should have been he should have one, seen a gun in his hand, seen specific actions that he was going to kill somebody in order to justify him shooting that guy eight times in the back. Now, was it a murder? No, I think it was just super negligent. Was it an assassination? No. I think they just don't have good enough training. But again, the perfect recipe for disaster is a deliberate campaign by radical extremists to elicit these type of responses. And then federal agencies buying into it by setting the conditions in the environment for this exact thing that they wanted.

[Andy]

And they're not trained, tooled, or equipped to do the job. They're not this one dude getting dogpiled by seven people. If you know how to control somebody, that's a one person problem.

[Mike]

One person problem.

[Andy]

It's in this. These situations are so nuanced too. Like, you can go, yes. No questions like, do I support immigration enforcement? Yes. Do I support these particular type of tactics? No.

[Mike]

No.

[Andy]

Do I support why ICE exists? Yes. Do I want people who are in this country illegally, hopefully starting at the top of the wedding cake, the most violent criminals working your way down, removed from this country, or at least going back to the country of origin where they came from? Yes. Do I want to see people getting shot in the street like this? No.

[Mike]

No.

[Andy]

Do I support the tactics that those officers use that day? No. Does that make ICE an organization that should not exist? No.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's nuanced. It's incredibly nuanced. And, you know, one of the biggest things that upsets me about this three people, specifically, the narrative out of their mouths so quickly. Kristi Noem. This is domestic terrorists. This is within, like, hours.

[Mike]

Talking about the gun. Bringing a gun to a protest is somehow an illegal act. Yeah.

[Andy]

Well, that was Cash Patel.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You can't have a gun at a protest. Like, would you. Michael, just pull up some. Go ahead. Armed Covid protests and let me know about how you can't bring a gun to a protest. I'm sorry.

[Mike]

Constitutional right.

[Andy]

Yeah, 100%. Now, can you do it when you're in the execution of a crime? No. And people said, well, he was. He committed a felony 11 days before, so therefore he was a felon and shouldn't be able to carry it. Mike, listen, I'm not a. Oh, this is January 6th.

[Mike]

But this is a.

[Andy]

I thought we couldn't have guns in a protest. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Now, having said that, of course there are state and local laws that may prohibit you from doing so, but my understanding is he had a legal carry permit. And that's kind of why I asked, like, was it declared as a protest because it may change the laws? But as far as I could tell, he was exercising his second amendment right. You know, you got Kristi Noem, the head of ice, saying, you know, almost instantly, and in doing so, calling somebody a domestic and maybe they were found to be a domestic terrorist in the investigation that would occur. But she has no way of demonstrably proving that in the moment. All she's trying to do is shed any accountability from her organization. And I have a problem with that.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Cash Patel. Dude, if you sit in the office of. You are the head of all law enforcement, the apex of the. Of the pyramid, and you better know the fucking law, and you better understand the Constitution as well. And if you are unsure of what it is that you're gonna say, don't say anything. And then you got Trump walking. And again, it's. It's. It was tough to hear the exact question, but he makes an off the cuff remark of, well, you can't have guns at those type of things. And again, all of those things are an attempt to shed any level of responsibility from the federal agencies that, guess what, Trump. This starts at the top. This is your policy. And again, at a baseline level, I agree with the policy, but these type of tactics is going to turn just about everybody against you.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So those three people with that narrative almost Immediately like that is the exact opposite of leadership. Do you need to burn your organization at the stake? No, you don't. But let's make sure that that doesn't happen again. Yeah, let's look at the training. Let's make it like you said, tooled, equipped, trained, all of those things. Is this the job that you should be doing? I mean, probably right now the most vocal people who should be talking about whether or not that is a good shoot or a no shoot is actually law enforcement themselves. You want to maintain integrity in your organization. When your organization messes up, you admit it, you acknowledge it, you learn from it, and you move forward. It doesn't mean you have to burn your organization to the ground. But if you sit there and piss on me and tell me it's raining, nobody's ever going to listen to you again.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's a recipe for disaster. I think one of the things that I've identified kind of in this pattern is specifically in Minnesota, Nick Shirley dropped the bomb of exposing the fraud that the government was talking about. Right. So the government's saying there's a whole bunch of fraud. We know about fraud, but nobody pays attention or trusts the government, especially over the Epstein files. That's just stacking the deck. Nobody trusts the government. You have an independent journalist who goes out, exposes the fraud in real time, identifies who the players are, and it's billions of dollars in fraud. And the next headlines you see is Tim Walls, Jacob Frey, all these guys being questioning, grilled because of all the fraud that's happening. What happens next? Well, agitators are professionally organized and mobilized. They go in the streets with ice. Then you have one of these incidents takes place, takes place. And now nobody's talking about the fraud. Right. It's.

[Andy]

Do you really think it's that coordinated?

[Mike]

Oh yeah.

[Andy]

I didn't realize you had a tinfoil three piece suit in your closet, dude.

[Mike]

I, I honestly I've, I've one.

[Andy]

I don't think the gov. You've worked at the highest levels with the government. I don't think they're capable of doing something that.

[Mike]

Not the government. I, I think the, the agitators. Look, I've never. If the conservative right wing, let's say right wing, whoever could take the playbook from the planning and execution phase of what radical leftists are doing in this country. They would be doing some things. There is nothing taking place on the right. But when you see the left, the radical left is what I'm talking about. They have organized protests that immediately get Stood up financial, financial backers. You have enablers, you have communication on the ground. You have very coordinated efforts to do this type of thing, to change the story in the narrative. Here's, here's, here's a, here's proof of this.

[Andy]

Do you think the situation would be reversed if the people in office were in the left and conducting these same type operations? Do you think the right would take the same actions?

[Mike]

No, I just don't think that that's how the right ideology or culture is broken out. I mean, most conservatives would say, I just want to be at home, my family. Like, I want less government. I don't want to have to deal with this kind of thing. What radical leftists are good at is actually getting off their ass and doing something about it. They will. BLM and Antifa is a perfect example of this. They mobilize across the country using massive influencers like Sean King, by the way, a white dude who's pretending to be black to activate all of these people to hit the streets to burn it down. And who went to jail over that? Nobody did. They burned it down on January 6th. The right attempts to do that and it's called an insurrection and they're put in prison. So the right is not very good at doing this. Here's the proof in the pudding. Here's a prediction. Right now, Nick Shirley's in California. He hasn't dropped the content yet. By the time this podcast drops, it will be dropping which content?

[Andy]

The second stuff from Minneapolis.

[Mike]

He. No, he's in California exposing the fraud. And just like he did in Minnesota where it became national headlines, it will do so that way in California. Like the Palisades fire.

[Andy]

Which type of fraud is he going after?

[Mike]

The Palisades fire? The homeless situation where billions of dollars are invested. He's going to expose it all. When that happens, what you're going to see is one, the government going, we need to get control of this, just like they did in Minnesota. They're going to send more troops. There's going to be more federal agents on the street. The Governor Newsom is going to want to conceal all this. However they do it, the professional agitators are going to come out of the woodwork. There's going to be massive protest. They're going to have a situation like Renee Goode or Alex Preddy. Somebody's going to die. And that same exact protocol will likely happen in California. And the next week's Talking Points, you won't hear anything about corruption or fraud. Look, the way I see it, because There's a lot of people like Tim Pool thinks this is the precursor to Civil war. I won't go that far, but here's what I know. This is a midterm election year. The reason that's so impactful, because as soon as the Democrats are going to win across, they're going to landslide across the board, because they're the ones who redistrict, whereby the conservatives can't even agree at the state level to redistrict. And so they lose all their positions and slots. Massachusetts has 11 seats total, nine congressionally and two senators. 25% of that. Well, it's actually 8% of the entire state of Massachusetts is Republican. Right? 25% of the entire state is Democrat. That makes the rest basically swingers. They're swinging left or right, depending on who's in charge. I think it was 26% of Massachusetts, or it was 26 to 33% voted for Trump. How many seats out of the 11 seats are Republican? Zero. All seats are Democrat. So what does that mean? Well, it means the entire state is a Democratic locked in state. So if you're trying to get anything accomplished as a Republican, conservative or libertarian, good luck. Not happening. So what does that mean? That means that the tactics they're utilizing and leveraging, I think successfully, they're making states basically swing and commit. And that's what they'll be. It's why New Yorkers, New Yorkers are moving to Florida, it's why Californians are moving to Texas. And then what you have is a divided United States where you're either a Republican state or Democrat state. You don't like it, move. And then what happens is it becomes like a proxy civil war whereby these states will not relinquish control. And then if you're on the other side of this, for example, in Minneapolis, it's happening right now. I just saw the headlines of this and I saw the videos, because I'm like, there's no way this is happening. It's the same thing that happened in a microcosm in Seattle. You have checkpoints in Chaz, right? This rapper decides to lock it down and he's saying, down with fascists. At the same time, he's standing up checkpoints, checking IDs, and then abusing people, handing out AR15s to his people. The same thing is happening in Minneapolis. They are literally roadblocking people, checking IDs.

[Andy]

That's a really shitty roadblock.

[Mike]

That's. That's the worst roadblock I've seen.

[Andy]

I would just go around that burning.

[Mike]

Tires is the best way to do it.

[Andy]

That's very Somali.

[Mike]

So they're actually checking license plates through databases, stopping people to see who they are. Why would that be effective? Well, one, the state law enforcement agencies are not enforcing that. Right. So the local municipalities have been told to stand down. They're not doing it just like they did in Seattle, where the mayor said chaz is a protected area. Let them protest. They think that's a form of protest. That's a form of insurgency. That's a form of a civil war that's going on right now that nobody's paying attention to. And so what happens when this isn't just checking for ice? It's funny, because they'll stop a car and they'll, like, attack these people, and they happen to be Mexican. It's like, dude, I'm Mexican.

[Andy]

First off, why would anybody stop?

[Mike]

I don't know. It's a good question. Because most of the people in that town are complicit at what's going on. They're like, this is good for our town. So what happens when this doesn't happen with just people who they think are ice, but they go. They stop you, and they go, are you Republican? Are you Democrat? Show us your papers. I mean, they're literally asking people for papers.

[Andy]

What papers?

[Mike]

They want their identification and whether or not they stop the Somali refugee. I heard the audio on this. Tim Pole released this. They stop a Somali refugee. And the guy's like, dude, I'm smiling. He goes. And the guy who's. They're all white, by the way, he's like, oh, he's small, man. He's good. He's like, all right, man. Sorry, man. Sorry. We're bugging you. And it's like, what this is happening? This is the same thing that happened in 1860, prior to the 1861 kickoff of the Civil War, where it's like states started dividing themselves, and then anybody who was a threat to that state, they kicked him out. So can you imagine trying to drive from Montana to Utah, which you'd be good. And then you're diverting your route because you're trying to go around roadblocks in certain areas that you can't go in because if they find you, they'll drag you out of your car and do whatever they do. That's. That's happening in this country in small places. But this could be potentially where it heads in the direction if I'm right, I. That I don't want to be right. But we have three more years of this.

[Andy]

Do you believe in the Illuminati?

[Mike]

No, I don't pay attention to any of that stuff. Besides the movie with Tom Hanks, which is really good. Was that even involving the Illuminati? It was. Yes. Yeah.

[Andy]

That was off the book series. Damn it. It escapes me right now.

[Mike]

Great book.

[Andy]

Yeah. Multiple books.

[Mike]

What is it? Adam Brown?

[Andy]

The name of the book, though. It's the Da Vinci Code. Yeah.

[Mike]

Da Vinci Code pulled that out of his. Great. It was great.

[Andy]

Yeah. Do you think that we landed on the moon?

[Mike]

I'm questioning it.

[Andy]

Do you think that the earth is round?

[Mike]

Yes, for sure. Round.

[Andy]

Okay. So you have some semblance of common sense and like 80 of you's gone crazy.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You've gone through it for the last two years.

[Mike]

Ask people in your comments to comment. I get. I mean, you could comment on this, but did you.

[Andy]

I don't think you're crazy. I don't. I just. I can't fathom a world where we head in that direction and that becomes the norm.

[Mike]

But did you ever think we'd be here right now based on everything that we were talking about three years ago.

[Andy]

When we're talking about instances of what you are talking about? Absolutely. Are happening, but I think they are microscopic in nature. I think it's a trend and a demand signal that should be paid attention to. Is it as prevalent as either somebody on the left or the right, depending on what their motivation is to make it seem as if more than it is. Is it the reality? You know what I mean?

[Mike]

Yeah. It's about impact to your personal life, too. I mean, am I going to be affected. Are you going to be affected by this? Sitting in Kalispell, Montana, the answer is probably not. Because you live in a very conservative state. It's actually one of the most conservative states in the country.

[Andy]

Deep pockets of blue, though.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Whitefish, just above us. Deep blue. Missoula, College town. Deep blue boat and deep blue.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

So. And again, you know that that's, you know, Montana. People think that it's all Yellowstone, where it's just Republicans and cowboy hats and boots.

[Mike]

Go to Bozeman, you will not see that.

[Andy]

You will see cowboy hats and you will see boots and Teslas.

[Mike]

Pink. Yeah. Pink cowboy hats.

[Andy]

But, you know, it's. I, I can. I don't have to agree with somebody to appreciate that they have the right to believe what they want to believe.

[Mike]

100. You know, so again, you're, You're. You come from a libertarian, independent perspective.

[Andy]

I don't even know what anything you just said.

[Mike]

Well, you come from a perspective that you want liberty. You want your liberty and freedom, and you want to be left alone.

[Andy]

Well, I also want everybody else to have those as well.

[Mike]

Yeah, but most people, because their ideology, their religion is their political ideology, are now so invested they're willing to die on American streets because they think Nazis and fascists are actually running the country when they don't even know what that means.

[Andy]

I don't think they're ready to. To die. I think some people have gotten killed in probably two not great looks for federal law enforcement.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I bet you if you were to. Which of course, we can't do this, and this is a total hypothesis, go back in time and let those two individuals that were recently killed at the hands of federal law enforcement, which I'll let the court adjudicate whether or not it was legitimate or not, if you were to tell them what the next 12 hours of the remainder of their life was going to look like, I bet you they would have made different choices. Maybe, maybe. I, you know, I think just an average person, if you were to let them know, hey, in 12 hours, if you make this decision and choose to do this about what you believe, this is what's going to happen. How these people. Do you believe it?

[Mike]

These people aren't average. These people are outliers, perhaps, and they're very extreme. I mean, what would it take for you to take your vehicle and drive it between two law enforcement, Federal law enforcement vehicles to interdict them, to interrupt their ongoing operation? Is there any point in your life that you could see yourself doing that? I mean, that. That's a very poor tactic. So I. I don't think we would do that.

[Andy]

I can't even fathom a place where that would be a reasonable solution. I don't. We'd have to get pretty far out into orbit of crazy ideas.

[Mike]

Well, to them, that was completely in their wheelhouse. I mean, both Renee Goode and Alex Preddy have been proven to do that, have done that before. And it was part of their M.O. it was something that they were invested in doing. So it's not just the innocent ICU nurse for Veteran Affairs. It's a man who is a true believer as part of his cause is being a soldier on the battlefield. That is Minneapolis. And it's like, what word did you.

[Andy]

Just use for the city name?

[Mike]

True believer?

[Andy]

Yeah, it was like, Minneapolis.

[Mike]

I can't.

[Andy]

I.

[Mike]

That name, Minneapolis. I don't know. People have criticized me on that. I'M gonna get that. It's.

[Andy]

You used a word that sounded similar. It was like Minneapolis.

[Mike]

Minneapolis.

[Andy]

Are you combining Minnesota and Indianapolis?

[Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

I'm not gonna say it. It's Minneapolis.

[Mike]

Minneapolis.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Mike]

Minneapolis. No, I'm Korean, man. Cut me some slack.

[Andy]

That's super racist.

[Mike]

My first language is Korean.

[Andy]

No, it's not.

[Mike]

It's not. It wasn't. Learning it, though, screwed me all up.

[Andy]

I worry about this stuff, man. I don't know where it leads. And I agree with you that we have three years left.

[Mike]

I.

[Andy]

And we only have probably a year left until we have start hearing political ads again for the next presidential election in 24 months. I don't know, man. I can't determine if they're just trying to turn the volume up so high that nobody pays attention because then they can maneuver. I can't figure out if people truly believe the things that they're saying or they're just saying it because it aligns with their team's jersey color, everything in between. I cannot figure it out. I don't know. I don't like it. But I also, in the world that we live in, where we can get bombarded, you can make it seem, depending on what you consume, that everywhere in the world is like Minneapolis. Right? I'm using it incorrectly to try to lure you to do something.

[Mike]

That's the phonetic. That's how you say it.

[Andy]

It's actually really easy.

[Mike]

It's the old term.

[Andy]

That's how you said it, Minneapolis. You could directed properly make people think that that is happening everywhere, all the time, in every city, and it's coming for you next. And I don't. Maybe one day, if this continues, it would get to that point, but it's not at that point now. It doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to it, but also we should talk about it in the size, scope, and scale that it exists in and not, you know, I don't want to say cry wolf, because that's a shitty example, but also a little bit in line with how I feel as well, too. Not everything can be an emergency in a crisis at all times, because then nothing becomes an emergency in a crisis.

[Mike]

If. If this pendulum swings back in the other, other direction, that's the real threat.

[Andy]

Politically, you mean?

[Mike]

Politically and I think civilly.

[Andy]

What do you mean, pendulum? What would that look like?

[Mike]

So, okay, so under the Biden administration, which is really incoherent, right? To say the least. Politically, internationally, how many relationships did we burn to the ground because we weren't doing Anything. I mean, nobody was okay.

[Andy]

So I think Trump is doing a pretty good job of burning some relationships.

[Mike]

Oh, for sure as well.

[Andy]

Right. So both of them. I would say it's a wrecking ball. One, maybe the, the motivation behind it or the ability behind it might have changed, but the wrecking ball is still swinging, man.

[Mike]

Well, I think the difference would be many conservatives were targeted by the FBI and investigated. Many conservatives, including active senators, were tapped. They were tapped in their phones, their communications and emails. January 6th is a great example of what happens when the left is in charge. If it was up to them, and it was up to them. And what happened, 200 federal agents were at a protest that to me looked like, I mean, in many cases, law enforcement officers inviting people into the building.

[Andy]

How was the left in charge during that time? Trump was still in office.

[Mike]

No, no, what I mean is the prosecution of all the people that were there in January 6, including decade sentences.

[Andy]

That occurred after the change in leadership.

[Mike]

After the change in leadership. And so how many people were investigated? How hard do they go in the paint and how hard is Trump going in the paint? I mean, he's going hard. Now, a lot of it I agree with, because a lot of these politicians are getting away, I mean, with a lot of things that you're like, how is this possible? They would get away with it. I hear Jacob Frey talk openly about F F ice and we should be out there fighting and these are murderers. And I'm like, you can get away with that as a politician? I guess you can, because he's not been arrested. So what happens when it swings in the other direction, where now the left is learning the actual execution tactics, and when you have somebody who is coherent in a position of power that is like Mumdani who comes out and says, not only am I saying it, but I'm going to do it. Now Trump said he was going to do it and he's doing it. He's executing it. Biden couldn't execute on anything. So what happens when you get a young Mandani type come out and say, look, all these things that have been happening to us for four years, I'm going to turn around and change and I'm going after. I'm going to head hunt them and then what?

[Andy]

That probably is going to be the message too, dude.

[Mike]

It's going to be. It will be the message because that will get people to activate and go, finally somebody who's on our side.

[Andy]

Well, it sways the people in the middle who may align with the overall Concepts, but disagree with the tactics being used.

[Mike]

Yeah. And then what happens when you're a conservative and you've been getting away with whatever you've been getting away with, and then all of a sudden it's turned around on you and the FBI is kicking in your door? And then when does that stop in scale? Because it seems like it just scales more intensely over time.

[Andy]

I don't know where.

[Mike]

It's like, dude, you have ICE standing in the middle of like a city square going toe to toe with American citizens. That's not a good look. Poor tactics, poor execution. We probably shouldn't be doing that. Should we be going after illegal immigrants who are here? For sure, we've done it before. Obama, three and a half million deported. Bush and Clinton both 10 plus million deported. I think Trump right now is at two and a half million. So it's not like this is new, it's not a precedent, but it's like it eventually politically and divisively scales to a point to where violence is the only thing left. I mean, they're not afraid. AOC and all these extremists aren't afraid to say fascists, Nazi, Hitler, murderers, and that's antagonizing enough radicals to do violent things. Where do you think that stops? I don't know if it does until they're just waging war on the streets, which is a scary prospect.

[Andy]

Let's go back to talking about Chapstick.

[Mike]

For assholes ATM ass to mouth, because.

[Andy]

I don't have an answer to any of those political things and I don't know where it goes. And it's really easy to go down rabbit holes that have yet to flesh themselves out. You know, it to some degree. A little bit of this is sit back and see where this plays out. Yeah, the stuff you're saying, you know, these, these things that inspire radicals to take action. I really wish people had a little bit more critical thinking if they could look at phrases like that or these magic words and realize like this is. It's optional, that you have an emotional response to this. You can do your own research. Critical thinking, objectivity. It's. It's sad to see that. I was going to say that for some, but I think it's a very, very small minority. But that very, very small minority can be very, very powerful in the world that we live in. So I don't have an answer to it, man. I am. I'm not scared. I do feel more unsettled, I would say, about the potential future and trajectory of our country. Than I ever have. And a lot of that could be because I'm paying more attention to it now. But it's. I don't have any of the answers, nor do I want to portray that I do play any stretch of the imagination.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think there's a. A very definitive separation now more than ever before in history between governments and people, elites and people. And that's a bad thing as far as it's good. As far as our power of observation now through social media, through transparency and communications. I mean, the Epstein files are perfect example of that, whereby you look at that and you go, how is this even possible?

[Andy]

Cash Patel sat there and said, there's nothing left to release.

[Mike]

Yeah. Three and a half million documents later.

[Andy]

I mean, first off, is it just me or can that dude clear two corners at one time? Is he.

[Mike]

What is Sid from. What is it Sid?

[Andy]

Are his eyes slightly misaligned?

[Mike]

What is it Sid from that, that. That Pixar movie? No, no, no. What is it? Ice Age Sid, where he's like, looking into. That's pretty funny. And he can. He's. He. He's got both points of domination, which is an advantage in a CQB scenario. He doesn't need a number two, man.

[Andy]

I think it's not in every other scenario. But that guy, how does he still have a job? I don't understand.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's a weird one. There's a reason Bongino left, and there's a reason why things are happening the way they are. When you look at Epstein files, where you have three and a half million documents newly released, where 200,000 of those pages are redacted, there's still millions of files that haven't been released. And you look at, for example, Bill Gates and his involvement with trafficking. I've asked every search engine on the planet to navigate this for me. How is it possible that a man who is basically responsible for the efficacy of vaccines in our country able to get away with human trafficking, he's complicit in every conversation with.

[Andy]

That's an easy answer.

[Mike]

Moving. Yeah. The power and wealth and influence.

[Andy]

Assuming that all that stuff in the. In there can be verified. And it's true. It's money.

[Mike]

It's money. It's power. Yeah, it's scary. I mean, because there's a lot me.

[Andy]

Is what the deep state is. People who have power and money and want that and want to maintain it over everything else. So they act in accordance with what aligns with that.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah. It's like there's Nothing to see here. But here's three and a half million pages of a lot to see.

[Andy]

He said they didn't exist. Exist. It's like, come on.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I, I again, I don't know where we go.

[Mike]

It's scary. The prospect for the future. I, I think tight knit communities, family and then preparing just in case. I think that's what you should, that's the, that's the default because your money, not literal money, figurative wealth is made in your own community with the investment you pour into your own family. And I think that's where I'm at. I'm like, I don't have besides. But Chapstick, I don't have any endeavors to go outside of my sphere of influence at all.

[Andy]

That's your new sphere you would say is, hey, that's the, the ecosystem you're focusing on Uranus.

[Mike]

That's, that's the furthest I will go. Is Uranus in this galaxy.

[Andy]

Well, I gotta get you on the road here shortly because I know you got to drive again. Are you legally allowed to possess sharp things?

[Mike]

I can. That's a utility knife. That's. I'm legally allowed to possess that.

[Andy]

Do you have any documentation that shows that? Because I don't want you to get pulled over. Because I don't want to have to fly Evan up here again just to recreate the bill coming over the top.

[Mike]

I have redacted documents. I'll send you.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

What is this? Let me see.

[Andy]

MKC knife. They make good stuff, man. Josh and Brandon make good stuff.

[Mike]

Beautiful stuff. Yeah.

[Andy]

That's the Battle Goat. I think it is.

[Mike]

Yeah. I love it, man. Yeah. Thank you.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Big shout out to mkc.

[Andy]

Yeah. Laser etched with the podcast logo on there.

[Mike]

Heck yeah, man. Thank you.

[Andy]

What do you want to close out with? I know we're going to do some Patreon stuff for you which I just deeply don't understand. Patreon. Maybe you can educate me on the ways of what you utilize it for what the benefit may be.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's just, it's just a closer group of people that have backed me since all this went down. Honestly, like I didn't have a job a year ago and what I did.

[Andy]

You're a criminal and you make bad life choices.

[Mike]

Absolutely. I was, dude, I was, I was literally going to get out and get a job. I was going to.

[Andy]

I was like, were you going to. I think you would be good at the hardware section depot.

[Mike]

Ace. Ace Hardware down the road was Tractor supply too. Was a quick option. But I legitimately was going to get a job. And then I reached into my patreon and those guys supported me. They stepped up and I did a lot of content for them and they stepped up, man. I'm very appreciative of all those guys. And just in closing, I mean, I'm very grateful to friends like you, friends that stepped up. You know, a lot of the things that we go through personally, we don't have to like, reach out to know that there are friends that have our backs. And I've never been the one that's like, hey, man, I have a problem. I have a. I'm in trouble.

[Andy]

This is the difficulty. I struggle with that too.

[Mike]

And so it's just not what we do. But I knew that anytime I reached out to you, Evan, and some of the guys that you guys were going to have my back. And I'm very appreciative of that. And I'm thankful to be back and just to be, you know, my health's intact, I'm working out again because my back is better. My relationship with my family, my spouse, my children, you know, I see the uphill battle as something that's in my past and I'm very grateful for moving forward. And your audience, who's been great over the years. Yeah. And I think we're posting this on both channels.

[Andy]

Are we cool?

[Mike]

Yeah. So if you're watching this on my channel, Mike glover channel on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to Andy's Cleared Hot podcast, which is a YouTube, but also wherever podcasts are found. And that's how you can support me and the channel and Long Haul Supply Company dot com. If, like I say some of that stuff jokingly, most of it's not a joke because it's real.

[Andy]

Oh, I just took you completely seriously.

[Mike]

It's serious.

[Andy]

We're doing it well enough.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm doing all that. But if you want to. If you want to get on like an email newsletter, because we're developing stuff right now, I'm working with manufacturers. You can go to long haul supply.com or longhaulsupplycompany.com we'll link it down below. And you guys should sign up for the newsletter and. And hopefully have some fun with something different.

[Andy]

Have some fun. All right.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy]

Some multi purpose chapstick.

[Mike]

Yeah. Are you gonna give me one of those copies of those books?

[Andy]

I can't. Both of those are spoken for. Those are my last two galley copies, Mother. I'll get you one of the first hardbacks. I should have them in early March, so about a month.

[Mike]

Okay. I'm excited about that.

[Andy]

There's a little. Yeah, I did. I put up on social media yesterday. One of these I got to send to a buddy. And the other one, dude, I sitting here, just did a quick Instagram, like, hey, if you would want this, just. Just let me know in the comments. It's almost like 5,000 people that responded, which I was shocked.

[Mike]

Wow.

[Andy]

So I'm going to task my daughter with picking one of those.

[Mike]

That's going to be awesome. It's going to be a hit, man. Congrats.

[Andy]

Hope so. Well, yeah, save the congrats for when it actually is a hit.

[Mike]

If it will be, it will be cool.

[Andy]

All right, man, let's do your Patreon stuff.

[Mike]

Thanks, sir. Cool.