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This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.
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Everybody seems to think that there's a war in the MAGA party, but my guest today, chief Warrant officer for Eric Schwam, with 30 years of experience in Special Forces and intelligence, doesn't believe that. He believes there's an insurgency taking place in the entire Republican Party. So don't miss today on the David Rutherford Show. Foreign. Eric1 Just thank you, sir, for coming on. I appreciate you, I appreciate what you've done. But what really got me is you just wrote an article that is one of the most powerful articles I've read in the last probably four months. And it's called the Insurgency Within. And if you could just describe to our audience what the article's about and why you wrote it to just get going, that'd be awesome.
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Okay, so up front, I'm America first. I'm mega. I'm very pro Trump. He's probably the best president I've seen in at least as far as I've been alive. Very who's all about America. And I'm very much into analyzing groups, regardless whether they're liberal, whether they're conservative, whether they're a foreign entity that's trying to control America from within. I'm constantly assessing them and looking at their strengths or weaknesses or vulnerabilities and what their end state is. And so one of the things I've been looking at, especially following data Republican, was her analysis of Thune and what the old school Republicans are doing within the Republican Party and then also adding in what just happened down in Florida, right outside Mar a Lago, where they just had a Democrat get elected right there when Trump won, I think by like 14 plus 14 down there previously. And this is right in his backyard. And things that I've seen in Georgia and Alabama is just very, very lackadaisical GOP influence when it comes to elections. Georgia had a horrible special election last year where they lost the two key positions within, within some of the, with one of the controlling entities here in Georgia. And they should have won it. They should have won it flat out. And then I'm watching the current elections which are going or the, the, the, the primaries and the upcoming elections here in Georgia and all and elsewhere as well. And all I'm seeing is a total lack of effort. I'm watching social media, I'm watching actions on the ground. I'm, I'm following what they're doing, and it's nothing. There's, it's, it's, it's lip service at best. And When I see stuff like that, I had to question and start doing some analysis. Like, what are they doing? Why are they doing this? Because if you're, if you're, if you're conservative, if you consider yourself a Republican, because that's the opposite of, of this liberal progressive party and the craziness that's out there, if you're, if you're on that side, you want to win. That's your team. You want, you, you have aspirations for America. You have goals, you know, for your family, for your kids, for your neighbors, for your, where you live and the future of America. And when you see like the SAVE act being the Save America act, stalling in Congress, when you see what just happened last night where they basically caved to the Democrats when it came to homeland defense, this, the inaction speaks volumes. I mean, if saying nothing says something. And so I go, okay, so what are they doing? And to me, really looking into them and their efforts, what, what speaks to me is stall tactics. And the reason for the stall tactic is to put it plain and simple, is no matter who Trump endorses, no matter what goes on, what they're trying to do is show that the, the populist movement, the maga, the America first movement is losing traction. And because like, if Trump's endorsements don't work, if we lose the House and the person, the people on the blame line is going to be Trump, they're going to, their hold him up, that he can't carry the weight, that he's running out of time, he's a lame duck and they're just going to use it. And they've been, it's been killing them that the progressive movement has, has taken over the Republic Party, the, the old school Republicans, like, I forget who it was out of Utah, Romney and Romney. Oh yeah, like some.
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And McCain.
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Yes. What we consider Rhinos. They're totally upset because they're losing their power to the younger people who want to accomplish things, who have, who are tired of sitting, sitting down. They got goals, they, they, they have dreams. And when there's, there's a place in your life where you get old enough where you just become comfortable and you want things to kind of remain the same. We see it in the military with like field grade officers, you know, they get into a position, you know, major and above, where they're sitting in their chair and they got a wife at home, they got the kids, they got the nice house and nice cars and everything else like that, and they stop dreaming and they start protecting and What I'm seeing is what appear like these, the old school Republicans are becoming protective of their positions. And it's not that they're Democrat, it's that they're protective of their positions. But in doing so, they're helping the Democrat side. They're, they're undercutting the dreams, the aspirations of all of the people who are waking up and want to accomplish things with you. You know, and the government's getting in their way or holding them back or any number of things. And this, that's what I'm seeing from the, it's. And in doing so, by holding back, they're collecting money too. If they're not spending money on campaigns, they're saving money for later. So what does that look like is okay, if we lose the house in 26, we're going to immediately roll over and they're going to start trying to, they're going to send impeachment after impeachment up to the Senate. It's the same thing we saw from 16 to 20. And it's the delay tactic by the Democrats to just block everything. And if we still control the Senate, they can keep voting it down repeatedly, but the impeachments are going to come and it's going to bring everything to a standstill. We're not going to get anything accomplished. And nothing getting accomplished serves two different goals other than America. First, it serves the Democrats, you know, resistance to Trump and their efforts and it serves the old school Republicans growing back into power because if they can show that, that Trump's ineffective, it's going to, is going to go to their side and they're going to start re putting all those, you know, the, the Republicans that just do nothing repeatedly over and over again back into power and there'll be that neutrality between the Democrats and Republicans where nothing happens and things just continue to slide down.
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Great answer. You, you, you call them out and they're, they actually call themselves the, our Republican legacy. So obviously you, you've been involved in counterinsurgency your entire career. I mean, that's essentially what our whole mission set was. You know, after the initial waves, how, how once you identify what the organization that's running the insurgency, how do you apply your background in COIN to evaluate what you just listed out? Like what are the systems or process you put in place to evaluate that?
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So I use a system of analysis that comes out of Sam's, it's the School of Military Studies, which is in Leavenworth. And their system is looking at operational art and design and the way they look at it, they look for centers of gravity first. Then you look at the critical capabilities, the critical requirements, the critical vulnerabilities. And then I take it a little step further and I try to identify the leaders in overall mission, the commander's intent, their key tasks, and then the end state that they're looking for. And I put that all into, if you look at the article, I actually spell all of that out. And that's, that's how I, the, the way I do analysis on, on groups at like insurgencies. And what we did, the way I, I learned to use this was first in the warrant officer course, and then I got to see it over in Syria. And, and we had a sam's grad school, I'm sorry, School of Advanced Military Studies, we had a SAMS grad that was working up in Turkey and he did the same analysis over a week. These guys, they call them Jedi knights for a reason. But he did that analysis of isis. And I watched it. I would go into the room, I had the knowledge, and I would look at what they were doing and he spelled it all out. And despite what everybody was trying to do versus isis, because it was all off the hip, people were a lot of hip pocket shooting at ISIS until he laid it out and said what ISIS needs, if they're going to be looking to establish caliphate, they need to hold ground. And that's it, that's their cog. The center of gravity for ISIS was ground and control of ground. So all we had to do to really destroy ISIS and the way it all worked out, using the Kurds, using the assets that were available to us, was deny them control of anything. Didn't matter. If ISIS continue to exist, they can wear the T shirts all day long. You don't control anything, anything. And when the Caliphate went away, when it shrunk down to nothing and it just into one huge firefight at the final end there, and we took away any, any control of ground space, ISIS failed. And that is the beauty of doing a solid analysis against these groups, is to find their center of gravity. Be honest about it, don't just off the cuff, shoot out as a center of gravity, but you gotta, you gotta tear into it. And, and that's, that's, and then go after their vulnerabilities, go after, deny them their capabilities, deny them the requirements and, and then go after their commander's mission. It's, you got to think like they
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do well, and I love that you put that out there and what's, what a Lot of people kind of, you know, in our former world, it's a lot more difficult to do that. Right. We're using, you know, clandestine ability to collect human sigint. You know, we're, we're behind enemy lines. I think the unique thing about all of this in terms of the political insurgency that's taking place is a lot of it they're just doing out in the open.
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Oh yeah.
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And so can you like. And this is not new, right, this, this group, right, Dating probably back to those who emerged out of the Reagan era, in particular, George Senior. I mean I think that's really where the modern, the neocons. Yeah, the neocon development. I, you know, I think it's such a overplayed out word, but there's not many better words for it. And so, you know, I think everybody's like, oh, all those old guys are gone, the Bushes are gone. Right. The Rumsfeld are gone, the Cheney's gone. And so it's, it's over and it's dead and the MAGA populist movement is now firmly in control. But can you go down to the nuance level? So the, like you talked about Washington state and the, the head of the Republican Committee there, can you, can you talk about how they're looking at precincts, right. And where the rest of the pundits, if you will, are looking at expost. And that, that difference.
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Yeah. So what' funny is it's like I'm not, I'm not making stuff up. If you, they actually have a website out there, you can go read it for you. You can look them up. You can actually read what their, their stated mission is, what their goals are and intent and what even what they brag about. When we're talking about the precincts, when they say they own 25 different precincts across the United States, that's huge. I mean that's, it's only 12, right.
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That will shift an election or something like that.
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Right. And they brag about it. They're like the, you look at the names that are on there and it like mind blowing. It's all on the website. There they are. John Thune is their poster boy. He's not, he is not a declared member of it. But if you look at like they have their, on there is what their accomplishments are, what their, their, their goals are. He's following it to the letter and that like, you know, deny the SAVE Act. No, we're not going to do that. You know, crush the filibuster. That's, they're not going to do that. It's all to them, it's all about going back to basically following the current path of how things get done. They are literally the party of this is how we've always done it and we can't keep. My God, man. It's like we used to fight on our, used to do wars where we line up and fight against each other. We don't do that anymore. It's like when it takes weeks to make a decision out of D.C. when you've got businesses that are making, you know, you look at X and you look at the things that Musk is doing, how fast the decision trees are being made out there and we're using AI to make go even faster. And Washington D.C. takes forever to make decisions. That's insane. Like, how do we even keep this up? But that's the way they're all about it. They're all about it. It's like we need to go back to the old way. We need to go back to following policies and it's annoying at the, at such a level. I can't imagine how the younger population looks at this and doesn't lose their mind. Like how, like I can make a decision right now about what we, we're doing and, but we. That you're going to take six months to try to work the SAVE Act. It's eight. What, what, 82% of America is out or 87 of America is on board with the SAVE Act. And, and we got to know. Are you kidding me?
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I, I think you're 100% right. But you know, I think to also reinforce what you're saying is that this infrastructure has been in place for a long period of time. And I, I believe that, you know, MAGA messaging or merit now emerging out of America first messaging is very strong messaging, but I think what we've watched through Covid and then now what we've watched through Doge, through the Epstein files, through this continued sequence, right? When, when, when you have Pam Bondi and you have the infrastructure of this current administration constantly saying Brennan broke the law, Clapper broke the law. Right. Mueller broke the law, McCombey broke the law. They we have the emails that was a soft coup that took place. And then now you have Rand Paul that has the internal communications with Fauci and all that. And then we know with the Epstein files that I mean he openly was like, yeah, I work for the, the Rothschilds. Yeah, I, I can connect you. We just found out Catherine Hendridge just posted yesterday that we now know that Epstein was let into a skiff in order to help messaging for something that happened a few years ago. So those young kids, the Zoomers, who are the biggest voting bloc since the boomers, they're seeing all the inactivity. They're seeing the infrast, the broken infrastructures on both sides, right? The same kids that were liberal progressives who believe socialism is the answer. Now you had the conservative capitalists who are more popular national populace. They're seeing. Whoa. It doesn't matter what side you on. The infrastructure is in place to resist its dismantling.
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Yeah, Systems theory. System is going to defend itself.
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Can you explain systems theory to everybody? Because it's. That's a brilliant assessment.
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I can't. Really, I can't. My brother could do a much better job of explaining system theory than I can. He was a chemical engineer and also a safety engineer for several different companies. But the general concept is that a system eventually gets to a point where it is a living, breathing entity. Somebody once described it as a dragon. And it will protect itself. It will. It feeds, it eats, it breathes, but it also fights and it resists. It doesn't want to die. And you to the. In order to defeat a system, you have to slay the dragon. And it. And it, as long as it has been. And you know, it's been going on for so long. I would say the. Probably since the development of the CIA and the FBI back right after World War II, is. Is when the dragon really started to become. Was. Was really born. You can maybe go back to the. The island where they developed the, the idea for the. The central bank, Federal Reserve, Jekyll Island.
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Yeah, I agree.
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All those things. Eventually they're all part of the system that will defend itself. And one of the articles I wrote about was they had like, they have a product, a media product that they put out every day up there in D.C. which is. It's circulated through all the offices and it's a shortcut. It's essentially an update of all the. The bills that are in play, all the thought processes that are across Congress. It's purely an internal congressional report. And its simplicity, because it's so simple, it makes it easy for every congressional staffer and congressman to read it. But they're all reading the same product. It would be like every one of us getting the same intel product from the same people. And eventually that becomes we all know the same thing, we all think the same way, but you got to. You've got to have different inputs and it's so easy for the congressional staffers. It's so easy for the Congress people to go through the, to immediately go to this product to get their thoughts on what they're going to do regarding this bill, regarding that bill, one way or the other. But they're not talking to the people anymore. That's how this, that's also part of the system right there. Is there information, you know, you may come out of like Georgia or wherever and you, you've been talking to the people and you believe you got a handle on things. So you go up there to D.C. and you're like, OK. And you get inundated with information and then somebody goes, hey, you know, if you really want to know what's going on, just read this product. And they're like, oh, so it's easy. And I can just update myself every day. The staff, it's a shortcut. It's a beautiful shortcut. If you're for your job, it helps you protect your, if you're a staffer, it helps protect your boss. It's going to get him reelected. It's going to, you're going to be in the right line of thinking. With John Thune. The first two, when they first put this thing out, I can't remember the name of it right now, but when they first put these product out within the first two or three editions, they, they had John Thune on there and they also had the speaker of the House on there. And so now here's the other caveat to this thing is that they're, the way they get their funds is not from people ordering it. Most of their funds, 90% of their funds, comes from people who commercialize it. So you're talking about great big business out there putting money into this product, which goes to the staffers, which goes to the Congress, people were cut out. And that's also part of the system. Their information system is all contained within itself. You look at the, the election, the, the votes that came out of D.C. what was it, 90 plus percent of D.C. voted Democrat. Talk about a bubble. And so information is the same. They're all sharing information. The information is sourced. The money for the information is sourced from big business. They, it makes it so simple. You don't have to talk to the people anymore. Okay, great. It's the, the, the ideas that are put out there come from the, the, the standard parties that are out there. So you're here, John Thune's putting out the party line. Okay? This is the party line. Do you want to get elected again. Do this and the system will fight. The system will fight. And for, you know, the, I think one of the biggest things we're going to have to do as American people is to start the people. If we're, if we're going from going kinetic, we've got to put people, we've got to, we've got to vote. We've got to vote. We've got to interrogate the people that we're going to be putting in office and we've got to put stipulations on. You know, if you're going to go up there, you're going to come talk to us. You've got to not read that document that, the easy paper that they put out there. Your staffers can't read that. You got to come vote. If we, we're going to cut you down. You're, if you're not going to sit there and create it so that you only get to two rotations in Congress or two rotations in the Senate, we're going to cut you out. We as a people have to take charge of this situation because it's not going to take care of itself. It's going to resist us 100%.
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All right, before we get into the next aspect of this madness right here, I just really want to talk about how blessed we are to be sponsored by Black Rifle Coffee. I've been a Black Rifle fan and supporter since the beginning, since Evan came up with the idea years and years and years ago. We drink it at home today. I just want to tell you about their new cold brew, Just Black that came out. This is really an amazing, it's, it's, it's for those who really love a bold flavor without compromise, right. And it's made from premium coffee beans and steeped cold for a smoother, naturally rich taste. This is ready to drink can that delivers a crisp, refreshing finish with every, every single sip. Now you can find Black Rifle all over the place from Bass Pro shops to pop up stores that, that sell Black Rifle tactical stores. You can get it at Walmart or just go online which I recommend you do the most. Just go to black riflecoffee.com either sign up for your subscription or order that single case and get your cold brew soon. You know, if you like cold brew in a can, man on the go, this is the cold brew for you again. That's Black Rifles cold bre just black@blackrifflecoffee.com Hoo ya. Love you guys. One of the interesting things and as you talk about that, that reinforcing system or the bubble, right. You have the McKinsey's or whatever think tank that's funded by Big Farmer, the military industrial complex, whatever it might be, you know, and then you're right in. And it's interesting even, even, even when you, you know, to take for Iran and for instance. And I think one of the things that people are so offended by what Joe Ken is saying is that that type of information from, you know, the people who got on board with us thinking this was the way to break the system, the system has then encapsulated the President and he's being funneled what they want him to hear. And so he's, you know, it's the typical characters out there. It's, it's like you said, it's the thunes, right. It's William Cohen, Allen Simpson who are the kind of the founders of, of this whole thing. Right. You've got the Chris Vance's like you said in your article. You know, you've got, you know, and then looking forward, they have a whole slew of people that they can come in and be distracting to the populist movement that they're funding. And you know, I guarantee we see Kemp in 28, we're going to see Youngkin in 28, we're going to See Bacon in 28. And if you pay attention to poly market or you pay attention to other, you know, poll analysis, it's like, oh, J.D. vance isn't even a thing. Yeah. And let's just get rid of him because he was the populist guy. That's, and everybody was angry that Trump picked him. And remember, remember the lead up before Butler, you know, and I almost think like Butler was like, oh, you made the wrong choice. You know, you're, we're, we're taking you down type of thing. I have, no, no, that's. Allegedly I have no understanding inside ball everything whatsoever. But it seems like it's the same principles that we saw from Bush, Obama. It's all, it's all those same people. And then you know, after I let you respond to this, let's go into the donor aspect of it.
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Oh, he brought up the think tanks and that's a, that's another key ally of the, the old school Republican Party. Is that all the think tanks that are out there, like I was talking about that one information paper that circulates daily over there in D.C. the think tanks are all owned by old school Republicans. We can change out the politicians all we want, but all those Think tanks are old school Republicans and they're the ones that, again, it's the easy button to go to the think tank to, hey, we need some thoughts on this. And so they call the same think tanks over and over and over, but we're not replacing the people who are at the top of the think tank. So when somebody did an analysis of DC especially of the Republican Party, of what happens when they go, they get elected, like there's like a descending graph of where they are on the Republican. The longer they say in D.C. the more they move towards the middle. And that's huge. It's like I elected you to be because you were here. And if you're going to drift towards there, the longer you're in D.C. that's not good because the other party is not drifting towards the middle, they're drifting further and further away. The middle is not the middle. The middle is support. See other side. Because it's a do nothing concept.
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Yeah.
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You've got to be just as aggressive if I'm electing you there to go there, you got to remain just as aggressive as you sold me because that's the only way we're going to counter this. The middle is stop going towards average. The average is not what you think it is. The average supports the other side easily. So you talk about the think tanks, you talk about like, especially Kemp coming out of, out of Georgia. And as I was saying, like, Georgia's not putting a whole lot of money and effort into this election campaign for the midterms. And I'm like, okay, so what are they using that, where's that money going? And you know, when I saw that Kemp was being considered, I was like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. And he's very, he's in deep with the GOP here in Georgia.
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He's horrible. Absolutely. I had Greg Dozel, who's running for lieutenant governor, on to discuss, you know, his pushback on Covid as well as the election systems. Right. And he, he was the first guy as a freshman congressman to bring, hey, we need to look at these special elections with Ossoff. And, and I forget what the other Democratic senator's name was. And, and, and, and that was in the beginning of 21. I also had Garland Favorito on who from the get go has, has, you know, mapped out the whole scam, but nothing has taken place. Right. And people want to believe. You know, I think, I think the miracle of the Trump populist movement was that it gave, like you said, it gave the people hope. Right. It gave the people hope that through. And by relegating traditional media off to the side. So you weren't going to win an election by going on CNN or Fox. You were going to win the election by going on Joe Rogan, Sean Ryan having Tucker for you and even Theo Vaughan, which is the most unbelievable thing. But that's who the zoomers are watching. They're paying attention. And so the whole dynamic of, of how you reach the voters changed. And I think that donor class and the entrenched old guard are furious. That's why you're trying to see like, I don't know if you saw it like Jake Tapper's show is this the set looks like a podcast now. It's hilarious. Right. And, and they're trying to adapt to the growth, but they're so detached because they're all in their bubbles.
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Yep.
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That there's a, there's a challenge. Right. But again, let me ask you this. And this is like the people like it's, it's up to. Right. It's up to that 28 year old kid or, or 34 year old new parent who's still in a rental who is just trying to grind out. And now what they're seeing is that their money can control a feedback. Right. And their money went through bot farms or through the messaging or whatever it is, is starting to interrupt the populous feeds like you talked about, going from 2,700 to 77,000, which is amazing and awesome because your voice should be in the, at the forefront of making decisions because of how your, your entire adult life has been based on analysis of critical information into intelligence. How, how does, how do those people fight back against the billionaires, the, the, the think tanks, the lobby firms? How, how do they begin to fight back against that? How do they do their own analysis?
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All right, so if you've read several of my articles, I keep a series going, how to Think Like a Green Beret. One of the things that in waking people up is the ability to analyze information and turn it into intelligence. Also looking at your sources of information and grading it accordingly as to whether it has any validity to it and whether it can be corroborated. And then just like we did overseas, where we did working with sources overseas, you had to sit there and figure out who you want to listen to, what their overall, what their goals are, put things into perspective and then proceed forward from there. And we have to bring. It's one thing, it's one thing for them to sit there and select their, their source Their. Their sources of information to shift from the. The legacy media, which is just pure propaganda, it's pure Russian propaganda, and then switching over to online, where. And you've got to select people who are doing this. They're not getting paid. They're. When you start seeing people in the millions and you look at the amount of money that's circulating into them, you immediately got to bring into something. There's got to be some sort of suspicion in your mind about how much of their information is. They may be good people, but you know, how they're getting their information, why they're getting their information can come into question. And so you've got to teach these younger generation. And they're great, you know, Lord love them. I am the Zoomer generation. I'm excited for them. I really consider them my team. And I try to act like a team leader, protecting my team and bringing them into play, because they're going to do it. But to teach them how to sift through the information just as quick as we did, to sit there, look at everything, scan it, put it into your mind, it's like, okay, these are people I want to listen to. These are people I don't want to listen to. There are people out there that, you know that are liars, that you listen to just because you know they're going to lie, because you want to see what they're going to do, what the
B
lie is, and so what the narrative is.
A
So can you.
B
Can you expand? Two quick things. One, I think when people hear information and intelligence, they're like, well, what's the difference? So will you explain that? And then explain why you want to look at the opposite, the opposition as well, too?
A
Okay? So in the intelligence cycle, there is gathering information, then it goes through a process where it gets processed, and then it comes out into intelligence. So every piece of the way you have to look at it and the way I teach young intelligence people is using puzzles, okay? So if I were to take. Go out, buy five boxes of puzzles, immediately open them up, and I grab a handful of pieces from each of those boxes, and I throw it into another box with no P on it whatsoever. All those little pieces from five different puzzles are information. Okay? So now I sit there and I give you a box. It's got no picture on it, because never mind that whole. Everybody used to always go around, go, what's the picture? They come up to intel. What's the intel picture? The hell, I don't know. You got 10 different, you know, five, 10 different puzzles going on out there. But now once you take those pieces of information, those puzzles and you start putting them on, on the board and you start looking at it and analyzing and see where things fit, what looks alike and it around that's the analysis when as, as you get more pieces and they start to form into something again you don't know what the picture necessarily is. But that's where you're now into the intelligence realm as things start to form that there's plenty of dangers with each one because what puzzle is relevant, which puzzle is irrelevant? I will give you an example from Iraq. One of the things that everybody used to do. They used to classify every Sunni was Al Qaeda, every Shia was J Shalmadi or jam. It didn't matter what the relationship are they Sunni or are they Shia? And then immediately that was, and that was the way the picture formed. But those of us who were on the ground, like I encountered a family of three guys or three or four guys and they were Shia. They were living in one of the smaller towns there. They were raised in absolute Cain and everybody's like oh they're Jaishal Madi. And then when we eventually captured them and I did the, you know, we were doing the, the post hit analysis of the target and I'm looking around, I'm like yeah, there's Shia. I can sit there and see all the key people there. And we did look at deeper. All they were was thugs. They were just a gang. And so that's a different, completely different picture. And then so are they Jay Shamadi, are they a political gang? Are they just a small town gang? And every Sunni being Al Qaeda was absolutely ridiculous too. And because show me the connection to like I said, where's the phone call? Show me an email from the, you know them to bin Laden, anything. But no, they're not. And so you're, you're, the analysis comes from that and that's where your picture starts to form and you start having to. That's intelligence. And now you sit there and prosecute the right targets for the right reasons. So that's the difference between information. Intelligence information is cold. It's a fact. Whatever it is, it doesn't mean anything until you put it through a process, analyze it and see and try to come up with some sort of meaning behind this. All right, so now when you, you're talking about why would I ever consider listening to the opposing side? So if I'm dealing with the source, we had this Afghanistan, we had a guy, his brother was involved in IEDs and whenever we. We were looking at. So we would talk to him, and anytime his brother was involved with what we were looking at, he would immediately divert. And we were like, oh, there we go. You know, we knew his brother was an IED maker and in placer. And so as soon as we sat there and we. We had information from other sources saying that IED was being placed in the area where his brother operated, he deviated. And. And so when he deviated, that was kind of, to us, kind of like his brother's involved. This is it. We. It's almost. It's a signature yes to what's going on. He'll tell you the truth about everything else but what his brother is involved in. And that you just have to know that about you're working with. It's like, if they. If you can deal with, like, let's take Israel, for instance, okay? And you can talk to Israel about everything you want to, and they'll be honest and upfront about everything except for what they're involved in and. Or any other country for that matter. They're not gonna. They're.
B
They're gonna. It's not just Israel. Everybody does the same thing.
A
And again, as I said when we were talking earlier, I have no. I'm not anti Semitic. I'm not anti anybody. I treat everybody the same and analyze everybody. Everybody. You know, I treat you as, as, as an equal. I respect you. I respect the Democrats. I watch what they do. And. And I will. You know, people call the Democrats loonies and all this other stuff, and then I'm like, hold up. You know, if they're so loony, they've been. They've been, you know, whipping us all over the place right now. So if you continue thinking they're idiots, you're making a huge mistake because they're good at what they do. And you have to respect people. You have to respect whether they're friendly or enemy. You have to respect them. You have to know what they're doing. And so you have to understand that people are going to lie about things. People are going to tell the truth about things if they're consistently lying about one thing. That's a truth in and of itself.
B
When I went to the agency is when I really understood that is how to spot the deviations. Right. As well as how to spot the structure of the messages.
A
Gene.
B
Right. And then find its counterpoint. Right.
A
And then.
B
And then find. Find, you know, where it's being distributed and how. Right. And. And I think. And that's. And that's the same thing, I think in, in American politics, one of the, one of the easiest ways that's really kind of out in the open. Right. For, you know, certain campaign finance laws and lobbying laws and fair responsibilities is that, that you just follow the money. Yes. And, and it's really out in the open. And you know, one of, I think one of the major players in what's taking place right now, obviously, is Ballard Partners and Mercury Public Affairs. You know, and, and what's, what people don't have any idea is that the White House Chief of staff, Susie Wiles, spent eight years as a lobbyist at Ballard Partners with offices in Florida, Tel Aviv and Saudi Arabia. So if you look at the nexus of that alone as what's taking place overseas, it's pretty amazing. The other side of that is, is then served as the co chair of Mercury Public Affairs. And then Pam Bondi also came from Ballard. Right. And Ballard bundled 1.8 million for Trump this cycle. And then after he got elected, they signed 28 new clients in 66 days while she was the Chief of staff. Right, right. So as you pull back. And also Ballard has been a, you know, pretty much been a part of Rubio's career from the beginning. So, you know, when you, when you take a step back and look at that, why is it so difficult for our team, let's say. Right. Which is for the American people, those kids. Yes, because that's, that's my, one of my main focus on this is to really try and inspire, you know, young American men how to make good decisions that strengthen the country in a way that gives them back the dream we promised them.
A
Yeah.
B
You know, and, and how do you, how do you, what do you say to those kids in order to understand the power of what lobbying represents, to kind of provoke them into action themselves and then what action specifically can they do?
A
This is where it's going to require work and they're not going to freely tell you all this information that's not in their best interest to sit there and lay their cards down on the table. You've got to look at it like a poker game. You've got to do your analysis of the person on the other side of the table. Constantly recently you've got to look at, you know, where you've got to, the information's out there. One of the beautiful things that like data Republican is showing is how much information is out there if you, if you scan for it and look for it.
B
She's incredible.
A
Oh, isn't she? Yeah.
B
Absolutely.
A
Background for years. And the analysis and the, the connections and everything, just fantastic. But that's the level of, of it's going to require work. And the one like we're like I was talking about with the Zoomers going after marathons, that's work. And if you're going to be a good citizen, this is. And like I said, we went to much earlier, I talked about the fact that we went to sleep as a good citizen. It's on us to do the research. It's on us to get a decent education, to do the research on our own. They're not going to give it to us. We've got to do, sort information into intelligence, do the analysis and then vote accordingly. It's going to require work on our part. I'm sorry that the old days of just getting your news from the tv, like the Boomers and like we thought as an early X gen is, I'll just watch TV and I'll get what I need to know from them. Those days are gone. We're in an information age. Use the information. AI is out there. If you got questions, jump. Use the tools that you have available. They're beautiful. Jump on AI. Ask the question. The AI will fill your, fill you up with knowledge faster. But you got to read it. You can't just sit there and accept AI as is. But, but read it and, and really do it. And I trust I. The one thing I, I suspect with the Zoomers is that they are going to go, they are going to adopt that mentality. They're not going to take everything at face value anymore. They've already seen the mistake of taking things at face value. And, and so they're, they're learning, learning and they're asking questions and they're doing the hard work. They're doing marathons, they're. They're lifting weights again.
B
They're jiu jitsu. And I just want to say you're black belt and jiu jitsu and have your own judge. You're a black belt in judo as well too. So how, how critical is it learning the work? Not just, you know, obviously the physicality of, of of the grind teaches you so much about yourself and expands, expands what your potential might be. But the work intellectually, the work emotionally.
A
Yeah, so I had a school before. I'm going to college right now because I'm getting some surgeries, some much needed surgeries on my body. I've had a shoulder replacement and knee replacement just in the past two months. But once that's healed back up and I've graduated from school, I'm going to open up another school here in the area. And one of the ways that I'm going with this is I'm going to go into the intellectual side of it because the one. There's so much Jiu Jitsu is kind of falling in the wayside because they put too much effort into the physicality of it and not enough into the intellectual side of it to. It all has meaning, it all has relevance. I'm not saying jiu Jitsu is life and you need to become a cultist or anything like that, but what you, you need to sit there and realize, like one of the things we're going to be teaching, and I've talked this over with my wife and we're really, really. It's something we want to do, is that there are six different ways to conflict. You know, I'll give you the big three is always fight, flight or freeze. Right? Those are the big three. There's three more beyond that. But everybody has a way of dealing with conflict. And so you have people out there who absolutely are scared to just step on the map because it's not within their conflict realm. They, their idea of engaging in any sort of conflict, whether verbally, mentally, physically, is antithetical to them. They don't want to upset people. People conflict is, is you may wind up upsetting somebody and you have to sit there and go beyond that spot in and just getting on the mat and engaging with somebody and saying, I'm going to resist you. And so training, taking that over into what we're doing is even, even off the mat is that people still respond with those same six different things. Probably one of the bigger ones that you're seeing with the, the millennial gener fawning where they try to, they try to get along because they've been beat down with your racist, you're this, you're that. And so they try to get along. They and that. That they try to make the other side happy, but the other side is absolutely refuses to be happy. And so you got one side trying to make the other happy and the other side is not going to ever be happy. And so you got one side constantly working, you know, trying not to be racist, trying not to be a fascist, trying not to be anti Semitic, trying, trying. And they're doing everything possible to try to make the other side happy and it's not going to happen. That is a form of conflict reaction, is the fawning response of trying to make the other side Happy and to. You got to sit there and address that. You can't, you can't live your life trying to make somebody else happy. It doesn't work. Not in the history of ever has I'm a people pleaser ever made anybody happy. You can, you cannot list on, count on one hand on how many people you've pleased. Being a people pleaser, you've got you be yourself and maybe you'll please people. And so with like the BJJ and to real life aspect of look, you're going to get on the mat, you're going to resist, you're going to put effort, you're going to fight for you, for you. You don't have to. You can work it so you don't upset the other person, but you can still win without upsetting the other person. And all those relationships of conflict, of teaching people not just to react with fight or not to react with oh my God, flight but. Or freeze even worse. Oh my God. I don't know what to do. It's just move them through te them all six forms of conflict. And to be able to sit there and, and react and pick and choose those things. I want to take a white belt who has, who comes in there and is a fawner and get them to the point where they can pick and choose which form of conflict that they're going to resolution they're going to go with by the time they're black belt.
B
Fantastic. All right, last thoughts on last question for you. Obviously, you know, I think people in particular those zoomers, they, they, they're nervous right now. They, you know, all the different changes in draft numbers and you know, they're 80 seconds being moved. There's two muse that are in everybody saying we're going to war. There's boots on the ground, you know, and, and so I think these, these young people are in this, you know, unique space of going. The, the main challenges are ahead of us, but in reality we're already in this insurgency. There's an insurgency going on internally, just as you noticed with the Minnesota post, that garnered 32 million views, which was unbelievable, by the way. But we're in an insurgency. And I loved how what you just talked about with Jiu Jitsu, it, it formulates your mind to face the insurgency. See, obviously these p, these young people and us included, I mean we're not out of the woods. We're, I think you're right. We're in an operational hierarchical structure, right? We're the teachers, we're the influencers. We're that. And I hate using that word, I'm sorry. But, but as this, as they're making, as they're adapting to this intellectually and emotionally, how, how did they begin to interact with each other? Like what, what, what should they. Because one of the things that I think was so catastrophic with Charlie Kirk's death was he was teaching them how to think as a collective. Right. And in order to beat the system. Right. That's already entrenched in order. And now I believe that the, there's a group within that system that are trying to bring AI in to solidify the permanently right. Whether it's through a digital currency or voting by phone or a social credit score or whatever that is. Because. Right. Every time we go into a massive war footing, we lose our liberties a lot more as we saw from the Patriot act.
A
Opportunity.
B
Right, right. How do they begin to fortify themselves as a collective group that can push back? Like it, you know, is it only through social media? Is it only through getting involved in their precinct or running for office? What, what, what systems can they create?
A
Okay, so first off, I'm, I have faith that no matter what insurgent insurgency it is, you know, whether it be the, the Democrat insurgency, whether it be, you know, the Republican old school insurgency that is going on, all of them trying to capture society and make and reframe it in, in their way of doing, I think all of them are destined to fail. The, the core of the country, the, the, the actual line of people who, who are quiet, who are out here farming, who live their lives, they are in their neighborhoods and stuff like that. Part of an insurgency is you have to con, you got to convince everybody to think, think your way. And they're, what they're selling is not going to take. The problem is with the insert is still going, the insurgencies are still going to cause problems. And that's the bigger aspect that I want to stop. They're going to fail. They can't, they can't switch the American thought process. We're, we are so. We are a team that is designed. We want to be number one, we want to go to the moon, we want to go to Mars, we want to win an NBA game. You know, when you got young football players on high school teams and they don't even have a car and they're walking to school and bringing their gear with them. You know, that type of fortitude within the American, you can't change that at score. And I have faith in that when I see it every day. As I look around where I live here in Georgia, and there are so many good people out there doing so many great things. It's just a matter of everybody looking and seeing each other, because we all got drifted into this. The COVID of living in your house and not looking around and looking at the people to your left and right. Your team is out there. And so how do I see these young people doing? The biggest thing is be yourself. Be your true self. Don't people, your team, your crew, your people will find you. If you're out there doing marathons, like, what is going on with, with the Zoomer, where they hold that in high esteem as a medal from a marathon, I thought, God, that's beautiful. It speaks volumes when you see that they're going to weight room and be. They're being themselves. They're done. They're done playing games for other people that. I don't care if you call me a racist, I don't care if you call a homophobe. They're done trying to get along, and they're going to be themselves. And in that, when you. It's just like finding your spouse or something. You can't change who you are and attract your spouse. You have to be yourself and you'll find somebody who will join with you, who will become part of your team, your, Your support, your. Your, you know, your partner for life is because you're true to who you are, and that's forward, just like we do. Head on the teams. Everybody on the teams was true to themselves. They had gone through selection, they had gone through. They had revealed their character, and then they put us together, and then we work together and combine as a team, and we work together and everybody sees each other and, you know, that's my team. And, and all the challenges that come along the way, and you go through them and, and the more you go through the. I mean, they're. They're young, they've got a lot of things they're going to do. They're going to get a lot of challenges. Keeping yourself, be strong, show your true character, and the right people will find you. If you try to fake who you are, you're the only people you're going to get around you who want you because of who you're faking you are. So if you believe in America, if you believe in, you know, the goodness of how we are, we're the best team out there. We are. There's no other team trying to do what we are. There's no other country that believes that we're trying to. We're well beyond trying to win the game. We're trying to improve and be better than we are. Than we are every single day. Elon MUSK and it's just leading the way. We. I was just thinking about this just this morning too. Is like one of the worst things that's happened in, in the United States is the street lights and neon lights. The thing about street lights and neon lights is when they're lit up, you can't see the stars. But those of us who've been out in the desert like we were in overseas, and you look up and you see stars everywhere. That is the American way of thinking. It's like, I'm not contained, I'm not blinded. I see, see the universe out there. And you have to aspire to such great things. That's the human condition is to aspire to move forward, to go, to continue going. I mean, humankind, we're all masked on planet Earth. If something takes up planet Earth, that's the end of mankind. That's it. All of our eggs are in one basket right now. We've got to be moving so much forward that we've got to expand beyond Earth. And if we don't do that as humans, as we don't come together and grab the people around, around us and move forward, we're done. That's it. This is the end of the human experiment as it is. And we've got to. You've just got to adopt a mindset. The Goggins, the, the, the jocko will nicks and stuff like that. Those guys are great at getting people going. That the next level is leading, is going out, you know. Yeah, you're running marathons. Yeah. You're lifting weights. Yeah. You're getting good grades and taking different realms of education. It's like, now go lead. Go big. Do big things. Go. I'm on your team. I'm cheering for them. I am cheering for them every single day. I love it. One of the funniest things about the marathon, I just saw this the other day too, is they're. Now this is how I'm going to sit there and say the devil, Satan or whatever. And you can read into it how you want is somebody has come up with the ideas that they're going to. They hand out medals at the. If you get to 18 miles, they're willing to give you a medal. If that isn't the devil at work right there to sit there and hit you. That is exactly where the wall hits. Is at the right. And God bless every Zoomer who looks at that guy out there waiting to pass out a medal at the 18 mile mark when they signed up to do 26, and he doesn't give them the finger, he's like, how dare you try to compromise me that I'm going to give up that easily for here. I got a medal. I got a medal. You can have it at 18. I think the Zoomers are done with that. They're not playing. They don't want a participation medal. They want to. They want to. I'm going to run 26. I may just get done and run 27, 28, 29. I make goggins the heck out of this thing. Yeah, God bless them.
B
I love them.
A
You know that, like, I am, I am so enthusiastic about them out there. I'm like, it gives me like the, the joy that you have on your team, you know, as you, as you're looking at the younger guys and they are pushing the limits, and you're like, oh, yes. And then now you join in and now you're pushing the limits again, too. I hate that static feeling. And like I said, Zoomers, young guys and everybody out there, just be yourself. Your crowd will find you. Trust me. Don't. Don't fake anything. Be you. And your people will find you.
B
Amen. Holy cow. Eric Schwam. How can people follow you? How can they sign up for your newsletters? How can they support you? And what do you got coming up next?
A
So if you know, you can find me on X, that's where I pretty much live and breathe. I'm not looking to make any money. I. Out of this, I do this purely out of the spirit of what I was trained in, being Special Forces and being a good leader and the selfless service. I'm fine monetarily, I'm fine. I'm going to get better physically. I got future plans of my own and goals. I'm here for the fight. I'm here for America. I'm here for the people, the young people, and who want, who have, want to dream, who want to chase those dreams and aren't satisfied with sitting on the couch. Who, who look at a mountain and they don't get to a plateau and think, I'm going to stop. They continue to climb that mountain, and that's what I'm here for. That's it. That's. I got no other aspirations. I'm here to provide information, you know, read my stories. I'm going to put out, you know, good ways of thinking that'll help you achieve your goals and dreams and, and then you know, once I, hopefully at some point I can sit there and pass the ball and move on. If you want to continue to listen to me, keep listening. If not, no problem. I'm going to go do my American things.
B
Outstanding. Sir. I can't thank you enough for just all your service and then sharing your insight and your wisdom. I'm really looking forward to paying attention to what you're doing and man, I would love to have you on in the future, future if you willing to come back.
A
I'm here, brother. You know that it's like, you know, saying one team, one fight. I'm, I'm, I'm here for to, to make America better. To, to, to, to help everybody get to the next step.
B
Outstanding. Thank you very much. God bless you.
A
God bless you, sir.
Date: March 30, 2026 | Network: iHeartPodcasts
This episode features a deep-dive conversation with Eric Schwalm, retired Chief Warrant Officer with three decades in Special Forces and intelligence, discussing what he identifies as an "insurgency" within the entire Republican Party, rather than just a war in the MAGA movement. Schwalm brings a counterinsurgency analyzer’s lens to intra-party tensions, focusing on old-guard Republicans’ tactics, the systemic inertia within DC, the generational change driven by youth movements, and the strategies required to reclaim and redirect the GOP’s future.
On the GOP Establishment:
On Systems Theory:
On Intelligence vs. Information:
On Young Conservatives:
On Participatory Culture:
"Just be yourself. Your crowd will find you. Trust me. Don’t fake anything. Be you. And your people will find you."
— Eric Schwalm [54:00]