Senator Mark Kelly on Stoicism, Space, and Staying Calm Under Pressure

Summary

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The Daily Stoic Podcast: Senator Mark Kelly on Stoicism, Space, and Staying Calm Under Pressure

Host: Ryan Holiday
Guest: Senator Mark Kelly
Date: May 30, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Ryan Holiday sits down with Senator Mark Kelly—a retired Navy captain, test pilot, NASA astronaut, and now United States senator—to discuss how the principles of Stoicism apply to high-pressure moments, from landing fighter jets and flying space missions to surviving political and personal crises. The conversation explores the necessity of humility, the power of pausing under pressure, the "overview effect" from space, public service, the importance of institutions, and historic case studies of virtue under duress, including Admiral Stockdale’s POW experience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pressure, Crisis, and Stoic Virtues

• Ryan introduces the episode’s core question: How do you stay steady and do the right thing when the pressure is real? (00:00)
• Citing Mark Kelly's combat and astronaut experience, Ryan notes that true character is revealed not in calm, but in crisis.
• Sen. Kelly reflects on family, parenthood, and parallels between home life and the high-stakes pressure of the military or Senate.

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2. Learning from Extreme Environments: Aviation & Space

The Anxiety–Performance Balance

• Carrier Landings:
  • Kelly describes landing on an aircraft carrier at night as the ultimate high-anxiety situation.

    “At night, it’s a control crash, and you’re just holding on.” (12:04, Kelly)

  • Emphasizes that anxiety, up to a point, is necessary for optimal performance:

    “It's also good to always have a little bit of anxiety about it... performance goes up if you’re more anxious about it… you don’t want somebody who has such an ego that they think they’re good at something.” (21:02, Kelly)

• Practice, Ego, and Continuous Improvement:
  • Every naval aviator’s landing is graded and made public, fostering humility and excellence:

    “The grades are displayed in the ready room… so everybody knows who’s doing the best and worst. That worst guy doesn’t want to be worst next week.” (19:54, Kelly)

  • The system is designed to avoid perfectionism and complacency, reminding pilots never to lose respect for the challenge.

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3. Dealing with the Unknown: Space & Risk Management

Training for the Unknowable

• Kelly discusses intense preparation for space shuttle missions—thousands of hours in simulators—yet anomalies still occur that cannot be anticipated.
  • Example: encountering an unexpected issue with solid rocket boosters and choosing to pause before acting, which resolved the crisis:

    “I was about to hit the button to take over manually… but I gave it another second, and then we got back in. Never practiced that in thousands of hours.” (31:13, Kelly)

• The meta-skill of not overreacting:
  > “There’s no problem in space so bad that you can’t make it worse.” (31:45, Ryan, quoting Chris Hadfield) > “When you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything… take a beat. Think.” (31:54, Kelly, on NASA wisdom)

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4. The Stoic Perspective: The Overview Effect

• Meditations & The Overview Effect:
  • Ryan reads Marcus Aurelius’ passages advocating detachment and viewing the world from above.

    “To watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them... Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below.” (33:15, Marcus Aurelius via Ryan)

  • Mark likens Stoicism’s cosmic perspective to the “overview effect” astronauts experience:

    “You get this sense of… almost the insignificance. We have to do a better job taking care of this place. There’s no other option.” (38:55, Kelly)

• Kelly notes that from space, national borders are invisible, reinforcing the broader obligations to humanity. > “You can’t see any of those borders from space. With one exception…” (40:03, Kelly, describing only rare highly visible boundaries)

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5. Public Service, Responsibility, and Institutional Failure

• Frustrations with American Institutions:
  • Kelly voices concern about political institutions failing to represent citizen interests, citing local battles over land use and environmental regulation.

    “Even if everyone around here doesn’t want it, can the political system... actually work?” (45:03, Ryan)

  • Highlights the need for governmental checks and balances and the dangers when personal ambition overrides public responsibility.

    “None of us should think we matter so much that the world comes to an end if we lose our job in the United States Congress.” (54:31, Kelly)

• Corruption and Accountability:
  • Kelly criticizes the current administration’s conflicts of interest, lack of oversight, and examples of rule-bending for donors.

    “What comes first is profits and donations... When people make big donations, they generally expect something for it.” (49:56, Kelly)

  • Discusses the challenge of ensuring virtue, honor, and shame in leadership as the Founders envisioned.

    “They assumed most leaders would be like Marcus Aurelius or George Washington... at some point somebody could just flip this whole thing upside down.” (51:23, Kelly)

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6. Military Command, Stoicism, and Moral Dilemmas

• Admiral James Stockdale & Lawful Orders:
  • Kelly and Ryan discuss Stockdale’s ethical struggles in Vietnam, the differentiation between lawful and unlawful orders, and the limits of obedience.

    “Members of the military have a responsibility to follow all lawful orders... but not illegal orders; those are the things that are obvious... not the big geopolitical questions.” (60:55, Kelly)

  • Talks about Stockdale's leadership at the Hanoi Hilton and his commitment to duty in spite of doubts about the war’s morality.

    “He did a fantastic job of leading all these men from different services… took on that role as a senior captive.” (65:29, Kelly)

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7. Technical and Academic Demands of Pilots and Astronauts

• Kelly dispels the myth of "cowboy pilots," emphasizing the deep academic and technical demands—especially for test pilots. > “A lot of academics behind, especially being a test pilot... Physics, propulsion engineering, aerodynamics, electronic warfare, radars, all that stuff.” (68:33, Kelly)
  • Discusses his own teaching at test pilot school and anecdotes about legends like John Glenn and Stockdale.

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8. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “It's always going to be easier to survive on Earth... Mars is a shit planet. It is not a place we want to move to. We want to go, explore, come back.” (38:23, Kelly)
• “The thing about science is science doesn’t care if you don’t believe in it.” (69:15, Kelly)
• “Every decision should not require the same amount of contemplation and reflection. Some do, some you can... think about for a week.” (32:54, Kelly)
• “[Admiral Stockdale] did a fantastic job of leading... all these men from different services... including John McCain, who I now serve in the Senate seat.” (65:29, Kelly)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00] – Theme introduction: Stoicism under real pressure; Mark Kelly’s background
• [10:18] – Anxiety and heart rate in high-pressure flight
• [12:04-17:55] – The culture and technical challenge of aircraft carrier landings
• [19:05-21:54] – Anxiety, humility, and performance: The importance of never feeling “perfect”
• [31:13-32:54] – The importance of not overreacting: Handling emergencies, NASA lessons
• [33:03-40:26] – Marcus Aurelius, the overview effect, and seeing Earth from space
• [45:03-51:02] – Institutional accountability, local vs. national politics, and frustration with political processes
• [54:31-57:34] – Political career, public service, and the duty to do the right thing in office
• [58:09-65:29] – Admiral Stockdale, lawful orders, and ethical dilemmas of military command
• [68:33-69:22] – Academic rigor of test pilots, science and history in public life

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Tone & Language

The tone remains reflective, candid, and at times wryly humorous, especially when demystifying space travel, military culture, and politics. Kelly’s grounded, matter-of-fact style complements Ryan’s philosophical curiosity and appeals to listeners seeking both practical insights and big-picture perspective.

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Notable Moments

• Kelly’s memories of the “knot in his stomach” before difficult flights, reinforcing that humility and nerves are signals of respect, not weakness.
• The recurring theme: “Pause. Don’t make it worse.” as a Stoic and operational principle.
• Linking the astronaut’s “overview effect” to Marcus Aurelius’ cosmic detachment.
• Candid criticism of the current administration’s ethics, Congressional cowardice, and the erosion of virtue in politics.
• The reminder that technical excellence in aviation and space is built atop deep scholarship in physics and engineering—not cowboy bravado.

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Final Thoughts

The conversation combines vivid war stories, rare astronaut insights, and a tutorial on both Stoic philosophy and responsible public service. Kelly argues persuasively that true steadiness arises from humility, preparation, and knowing when to act—or not act—under pressure. Throughout, the values of Stoicism, from Marcus Aurelius to James Stockdale, are shown to be not only philosophical ideals, but essential guides for navigating turbulent times, whether in space, in the cockpit, or in the halls of power.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. One of the things I think that the Stoics understood was that pressure reveals, like, who you are when things are awesome, when things are calm. It doesn't say that much, but. But what about when you're under strain? What about when the world is falling apart? What about when you're under attack, literally and figuratively? What about when you're being accused of something untrue or unjust, when you are the victim of an injustice? What about when you're stuck in traffic? What about when you're isolated and lonely? What about when tragedy strikes, right? That's where stoicism comes in. That's where discipline comes in. That's where all the virtues come in, right? Courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. And there are some people who are tested more than others, right? When you're trying to land an aircraft carrier at night in the middle of the ocean, knowing that everyone is watching and every landing is going to be graded, and by the way, the real failing grade isn't an F. It's dying in a fiery crash. What about being shot into space? What about being attacked by the most powerful person in the world? What about a deranged maniac trying to murder the woman that you love? How do you come back from that? How do you get through that? That's why I was really excited to talk to today's guest, Senator Mark Kelly. Might be how you know him. I first met him many, many years ago when he was Captain Mark Kelly or Astronaut Mark Kelly. He's been all those things. Retired Navy captain, combat pilot, test pilot, NASA astronaut, husband, father, and now United States senator. He flew 39 combat missions during the Gulf War. He logged thousands of hours in more than 50 aircraft. He completed more than 375 carrier landings. He flew four space missions, commanding two of them. And he has stood up in this unique moment in American history and taken some heat, taken some pressure for it. He's currently the enemy of the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense. So in today's episode, I wanted to ask him about that. I asked him what it means to operate under real pressure. Talked about anxiety, talked about ego, talked about pausing. One of the things he says in today's episode, a lesson from NASA. When you don't know what to do, don't do anything. Take a beat, think. Don't make the problem worse. We talk quite a bit about Marcus Aurelius. We talk about the overview effect, the fragility of our planet, the responsibilities of public service, and of course, Admiral James Stockdale. Because what Whether you're flying a jet, commanding a space shuttle, serving in the Senate, or just trying to get through personal tragedy, the question is the same. Can you stay steady? Can you stay humble? Can you do the right thing when the pressure is real? And that's what this conversation is about. I think it's worth mentioning his incredible wife, former Congressman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in an assassination attempt in 2011. Kelly retired from the Navy and NASA that year to nurse his wife back to health. And they have both become incredible activists and both continued public service in their own ways. And she is just an incredible woman. And I think that's worth calling out as well. It's also worth saying Mark Kelly is the author of a children's book series called Mousetronaut. He also co wrote two books with his wife, Gabby, A Story of Courage and Hope and Enough Our Fight to Keep America Safe From Gun Violence. You can follow Senator Kelly on Instagram. Sen. Mark Kelly that's Mark with a K. Anyways, you're gonna like this episode. Foreign. As a business owner, I'm super familiar with how important a strong Internet connection is to keeping everything running smoothly. 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People selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces, and that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers. For a limited time, Whatnot will match your first $150 sold in the month. You just got to visit whatnot.com sell to start selling. W-H A T N O T.com sell whatnot.com sell. We've met once before. I don't. You would have no memory of this, but it had an impact on me. So I was going to tell you about it. It was a. Do you remember Renaissance Weekends? It was one of those. So New Year's in Charleston. I think this would have been like 2011 or 2012.

[B]

Okay. So was it before Gabby got shot or after?

[A]

I think so.

[B]

I think before because it was days before, in 2011. We were there. The last one we went to was in 2012, a year after she got shot.

[A]

It was, it was, I think, before. I think it was before because what I remember this is my wife and I, we weren't married yet. We were, but we were starting to think about having a family. And I remember you, you had very like maybe preteen or teen daughters. And I remember going, you had your hands full. And I was like, he's an astronaut and he has his hands full.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With these kids, what are we signing up for? And I have thought about that every once in a while in the years since that was my memory of meeting you.

[B]

I was just with my daughter Claudia at a thing. It was at the McCain Sedona forum. And a woman came up to us who used to go, she says, same thing. You wouldn't remember. But at the Renaissance weekend thing, and her son was my daughter's age. Got it. And we basically had the same conversation about how. Because my kids in 2011, you know, was 15 years. So she was. She was 15. Yeah. So I had a 15 year old and a 13 year old there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they Loved going to that thing.

[A]

Yeah. It was probably 11:30 at night. They're getting to stay out. It was craziness, you know, and there's kids and they're in a hotel. It was probably incredibly fun for them. But I just remember, okay, this is what that's like.

[B]

That is what it's like. And kids are great and it's so much fun. And for me, even as when they were teenagers, it's all great until like one of them takes the car, doesn't come back for 24 hours. You're like, why did I do this? But then you have grandkids, which is the best.

[A]

My 9 year old, he's about to turn 10. He told me he's a preteen. And I was like, oh, okay, now it's, it's real. Like, I mean, it's technically, I guess, technically true, but I was like, oh, man. Okay, so it's about to get real. It's about to get real.

[B]

Does he think he gets like more privileges or something?

[A]

I think it just occurred to him the math of it just became real.

[B]

Just tell him that gets you nothing.

[A]

Yeah. It actually gets you less. I'm going to watch you more like a hawk now because you're going to start doing things because you recognize that. Yes, totally. Yeah. The other person I met at that one, that I was. One of the cool encounters in my life was Jim Lovell. Was. Oh, yeah. I don't know if he was at that one or another one, but I found myself sitting at a dinner table with him and I was this real life. This is crazy.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, Apollo 13 commander.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Went around the moon, I think, on Apollo 10 as well. A guy I, you know, got to know a little bit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I got to NASA, to the astronaut office long after he was gone.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But I did get to meet him a number of times. And he's one of those guys I looked up to when I was a kid.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I think probably your layperson probably thinks, oh, they all know each other and you probably all don't.

[B]

We don't, no. But I knew Neil Armstrong pretty well. I knew Buzz Aldrin pretty well. John Glenn. I got to sit next between John Glenn and Neil Armstrong at a dinner once after I was an astronaut.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But other than my four space flights, that was probably the next biggest cool thing for me is at dinner. And it was on the 50th, I think, the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's first flight.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I, I remember I didn't get a picture.

[A]

Didn't happen then.

[B]

Well, I thought it would be too weird.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To, like, ask for a selfie with John Glenn and Neil Armstrong sitting at the dinner table. But I. I do kind of regret it when in.

[A]

In the right stuff. The line that I was always struck by is Tom Wolf points out that, like, John Glenn's heart rate never goes above 100 during the thing. And I asked Jim Lovell, I was like, could that possibly be true? Like, how could his. How could it not be pounding out of his chest? And he was like, I mean, you've just done it so many times that unless something's going wrong, this is. This is normal.

[B]

You mean when he was strapped into the rocket ship before launch?

[A]

Well, just. Just in the course of the mission, that he never gets the spike of adrenaline.

[B]

Yeah, I. I think it's different for different people. You know, we've. We've done EKGs on even shuttle crew members. I think. I never wore one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I think they did for some, you know, some data. And I've heard of folks that feel like, you know, their heart is rapidly beating. I thought about that on my four missions, and I think my heart rate was up a little bit. Yeah. More about, like, don't screw this up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because as a pilot and the commander, you're turning a lot of stuff on. You gotta make sure things go well, and you could mess it up where the launch is gonna stop.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then it's like you wasted, you know, millions of dollars worth of fuel and all your guests have to come back the next day, and it's gonna be kind of embarrassing. So you're worried about that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're also worried about getting blown up a little bit.

[A]

Did you have techniques for calming yourself down?

[B]

No. No, I probably should have. I don't think they would work on me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I generally don't get worked up about things all that much, so. I used to fly airplanes off of an aircraft carrier. I've almost gotten shot down a number of times at a missile blow up next to my airplane. Almost flew into the ground, you know, two or three times because of me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like screwing it up.

[A]

Pilot error.

[B]

Yeah. Pilot error. Yeah. You know, once in Korea, I got really close. So other things lately just don't get. I don't get too worked up.

[A]

Yeah. I would imagine landing on a carrier at night sort of level sets what's scary and.

[B]

Yeah, that's scary, by the way. And, you know, if somebody would, you know, have the, you know, EKG on Me measuring my heart rate for that, that's really high. Because it's a hard thing to do. And it's hard to do.

[A]

Well, it feels like, like they've, they've done studies of, like, what it means to actually hit, like, pitchers, fastball. Like you have like 400 milliseconds to decide, like, it. To decide it's impossible that a human can do it. A carrier landing strikes me as almost un. Like if I hadn't seen videos of people doing it and you described it to me, I would say that's not possible.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I would. I would have thought so myself, until I had to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Eventually it gets to the point where in the daytime you get comfortable. Yeah. Doing it. And you can, you know, you feel like, hey, I can be successful at this. At night, it's a control crash and you're just, like, you're just holding on, you know, I don't know, you know, what, what frequency your, you know, our brains are operating on in that moment. But the stick movement and the throttle movement can be just kind of. Kind of nuts.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you're in an enormous thing hitting a minuscule target in the middle of the ocean.

[B]

And if you, if you land short, the ramp strike is a high probability.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you're dead.

[A]

And almost. Well, I thought it was. I was reading about this. It's like that. They don't even refer to it as landing. They call it like, recovering the aircraft strikes me as illustrative of like. No, no. We're snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Every time.

[B]

Yeah. It's the recovery, the launch, the recovery. And you gotta get all these airplanes aboard in a short period of time. You just, you know, then you gotta move them. You know, you're moving them around on the deck. And what we call it physically the event is. We call it a trap.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is, now that I think about it as a weird way to say it, because a trap is usually like you're. You're going to, you know, capture an animal. Yeah. But the event of landing on the aircraft carrier, that's a trap.

[A]

Is that because you're being snagged by the wire and that's the trap?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a hook, there's a wire. I've done that 375 times. Something like that.

[A]

Does it get any easier?

[B]

Not at night. Yeah, daytime it does.

[A]

Just because you can at least see what's happening.

[B]

It's just scary at night, I mean, it's just, you know, You're. Especially if there's no horizon. Yeah. You know, you're flying initially on instruments, so you're flying an ILS approach and then you get to three quarters of a mile and then you transition to the light system, the meatball, the Fresnel lens on the deck. And it's a very high gain task. A lot of inputs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You get waved off maybe if you're screwed, if you're. If it's not looking good. I used to be a landing signals officer as well, standing on the side of the ship when other airplanes are coming aboard and you're talking to them. Yeah, right. And you're telling, you know, you're giving them suggestions. You know, you might say, like, you know, you're a little high. You know, don't fly through it. Power. Power wave off or right for lineup or don't settle. You know, so you've got this cadence of talking somebody through this landing. You get waved off or you bolter, which means the wire or the cook doesn't catch the wire. You go airborne again. You come around again, you might bolter again. Now you need gas. Now you got to go to the tanker. It's embarrassing. You know, that's called. Especially if you have to go to the tanker multiple times. A night in the barrel is what we call it. You had your night in the barrel and sometimes you're doing this in what we call blue water ops, which means there's no divert.

[A]

You can't go land on a Runway somewhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because they're like, you don't have the stuff tonight. Get out of here.

[B]

And there are only certain people that can fly during blue water ops. And then if it's blue water ops, there's the extra anxiety at night that you have to get aboard the ship. You know, if things start to go really south on somebody, they'll rig the barricade so then there's no boltering.

[A]

That's to catch you.

[B]

Yeah. Like if it got really bad. I never, I don't remember anybody ever being having their night in the barrel where they rigged the barricade on our ship. So it's a. It's an uncommon thing, but it does happen.

[A]

Yeah. And, you know, everyone is watching. After you've missed a couple of watches,

[B]

everyone's starting to watch every one of the ready rooms. Everybody's, you know, watching the. Your guy go around and around. They know who it is. Yeah. And, you know, I guess some people are cheering you on. And then there's, you know, probably a little depending on who the person is. A little bit of that schadenfreude there.

[A]

Maybe they're betting on it.

[B]

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And I was fascinated to learn that every landing. So you did 300 plus every one, you get a grade?

[B]

Yes. Graded on all of them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, this has gotten. Become a lot different now lately over the last decade or so because of advances in the systems, even like an F18, this thing called magic carpet, which helps you fly the airplane in a way that keeps you on glide slope much more easily. I went out to the ship a couple years ago in the backseat of an F18, and the guy in the front was a Navy lieutenant, and he was just talking through this, and he would say, even when he's on the ball, which is behind the ship at a half a mile, he says he can look around and see where people are walking around on the flight deck. Not a thing. And when I was back in the day, when I was.

[A]

And I'm sure before that, like, I mean, aren't the LSOs called paddles? Because they used to just do it with, like you said, paddles. Yeah.

[B]

But, yeah, we didn't do it with paddles. We did it over the radio. And we have a thing called a pickle, which we can wave them off. You know, red lights come on on the Fresnel lens and people have to go around. But they've improved these systems. So the boarding rate now is really high. It's very rare that somebody bolters or they get waved off. And what that's allowed us to do in the Navy is we've just transitioned to where people don't even go to the ship before they get their wings anymore. They're going to go to their fleet airplane.

[A]

They're going to.

[B]

And we have to do a lot less practice. It used to be so much time and energy and effort to train the crews up to be able to operate off the ship. It's gotten a lot easier. And what that means they can focus on the mission more.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Which is often the strike mission of, you know, dropping bombs or the fighter mission of countering enemy air threat. So we're now much more effective Naval Air Force because of it becoming easier to land on the ship.

[A]

Right, Right. Yeah. Dave Burke, who was in lso, I was reading about him, and he was saying that it says something about the culture of the Navy that every landing is graded and the best grade you can get is okay.

[B]

That's right. No, you can get an okay underlined.

[A]

But there's no such thing as perfection. There's no such thing as the only

[B]

underline, which are very rare. That's perfection. And then an okay and then fair, and then a no grade. Yeah. And was there anything. This is. Dating by. This is a long time ago. I was in lso below a. There was something below a no grade. But it was. No grade's bad.

[A]

Yeah. But it's a brutal scale. Like, it's.

[B]

And then it's displayed in the ready room.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So everybody sees the grades.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Required under naval rules for aviation that the grades be displayed. So everybody knows who's doing the best and who's doing the worst. And that worst guy doesn't want to be the worst guy next week.

[A]

And that's creating a culture of excellence and competition and.

[B]

And hard work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And just, you know, you're just going to grind through it and always try to get better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because everybody's going to see your grade. And the okay was green, fair was yellow, and no grade was white. I can't remember what okay underline was. That was a really good pass.

[A]

You ever get one of those?

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

Right. Yeah, it's probably one of those.

[B]

It was usually F18s. Got them. I flew the A6 Intruder. It's a little harder to. To land on the ship.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It must be hard to do something so difficult that even as you get really good at it, it still. So, like, you're never gonna feel like I've got this. And yet if you don't feel like you've got it, it probably makes it hard to do, like, the confidence ego line is. And then imposter syndrome. The balancing of those three things must be interesting.

[B]

Yeah. I think it's also good to always have a little bit of anxiety about it. I think you're, you know, when you plot, like, performance and anxiety, sometimes your performance goes up if you're more anxious about it and, you know you're not. And it's always good. You know, you don't want somebody who has such an ego that they think they're good at something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think we see this at very high levels in our government right now. Yes. You know somebody who thinks that they've got this.

[A]

Yes. They're not intimidated by the task or they're not humbled before the task as they probably should be.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. I think it's always good to have people knowing that they're never gonna. Never gonna reach the place that they want to get to.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, that's Gonna mean that they're gonna continuously try to improve. It makes them better. But if they ever think they actually got there, if they have that kind of ego and they think, man, I got this, then they're gonna get worse.

[A]

Floyd Patterson, the boxer, he went into one fight that he lost and he said he knew he was gonna lose as soon as he stepped in the ring. Cause he didn't have any nerves.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Which meant he hadn't taken it seriously. And he just. It was this sort of stomach churning moment of realizing that he had taken some things for granted and that the other person hadn't.

[B]

Yep. I used to feel that way, you know, around the ship, like during the day, if I'm flying at night, I'd have that knot in my stomach the entire day. Yeah, a little bit. With the space shuttle. When you're going out there, you're driving out to the launch pad, you get that little bit of a knot in your stomach because you know, this is like game time. I gotta get this right. I can't screw it up.

[A]

It's a sign of respect to the thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and if you don't have it, it's probably ego and a kind of finger to the gods and they're gonna make you pay for it.

[B]

That's right. The big hammer is coming down on you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Pride goeth before the fall. As soon as you think you've got it, you're about to learn the part of it that you don't have.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I'll tell you what, with the space shuttle especially. Yeah. There was, you know, something hiding around the corner that was about to kill you all the time.

[A]

Well, I can imagine. At least with fighter jets, a lot of people have done a lot of flights. Right. So there's a lot more data about what can go wrong. You have millions of cumulative human hours doing this thing. And even though we've been going to space a surprisingly long time, we haven't done it that much and not that many people have done it.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I flew the 108th, 121st, 124th, and the 134th flight of the space shuttle. That in a test program.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For an airplane, think of about like a Boeing, you know, the Boeing Triple seven.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That is in the beginning, the infancy of a test program.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the last space shuttle flight was the one after my last one, the 135 times. So. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's one of the reasons I hired test pilots for this job.

[A]

Right.

[B]

By the time we ended the space shuttle program, there was still a lot we did not understand about it.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you went to test pilot school. I mean, those pilots have thousands of hours in these jets. And you had to be the 108th flight period. Period is like. Obviously every plane has 108th flight, but that was like, so long ago.

[B]

Yeah. And it took us in the space shuttle. The first flight was in 1981. That 108th flight was in 2001, 20 years later.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And to go to fly the next 30 flights took another decade. We didn't fly a lot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's expensive. It also took a lot to get the space shuttle orbiter ready for a mission.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And basically take it all apart and put it back together every time, which might not have been the smartest thing to do.

[A]

Yeah. If there's something that goes wrong every 10,000 times, like, no one knows what that thing is because it's never happened, because they haven't done it 10,000 times yet.

[B]

Well, that's the thing about probabilistic risk assessment is when you're not doing a lot of them, you don't really know what the risk is, especially not until you start having some problems. But without the repetition, you don't have the problems. So the risk is still very uncertain.

[A]

Right. It's an unknown. Unknown because you don't even know you have the sum. And then you have the things that we've never even conceived of happening.

[B]

We were okay with the known unknowns. Yes, the unknown unknowns.

[A]

Those are the ones that keep you up there.

[B]

Yes. And so you're always mapping this stuff out, like, the probability of it happening and the risk, like, is it catastrophic? So you try to. Then you always got to focus in the very likely and catastrophic quarter of the box. The unlikely, uneventful stuff, you can sort of let that go. But even the unlikely catastrophic, you had to focus there because of the consequences.

[A]

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I don't know about you, but the idea of therapy can bring up some resistance. Right. Some hesitation. Not only does it take a lot of time, but it requires you to get vulnerable. It requires you to get outside your comfort zone. And that resistance can get in the way of doing something that's good for you. And so one way we can reduce that is by virtual therapy. And that's where today's sponsor, BetterHelp, comes in. Knowing that if I have to drive across town, if I have to wait in traffic, if I have to look for parking, these are all Excuses I'm going to use to not take the time to do this thing that I know that I should do. BetterHelp makes starting and sticking with therapy easier. You take their quiz, they match you with a licensed therapist. You can communicate with that therapist however you want. Phone, video, text. You can join over 6 million people to date who have gotten help with better help. May is mental health awareness month. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] DailyStoicPod that's betterhelp.com DailyStoicpod in Texas, a lot of the bugs are just not cool. The ants bite. Spiders are poisonous. There's all these kinds of wasps that I didn't even know existed before. Scorpions. Oh, man, it's crazy. And pest control is just a part of living here, owning a home or a store or anything. It's your problem, honestly. And the easiest way to keep bugs away is with Pesti. And when you sign up, Pesti will send you everything you need to do your own pest control. The Pesti kit comes with everything you need to do your own pest control. Pro grade pesticide. That's the same stuff that the pros use. Sprayer, mixing bag, gloves, instructions. You can even get a kit customized to the season, location and weather. And with Pesti, it starts at just $35 a treatment. With their DIY kit, there's no strangers in your house or appointments to make. Pesti gets rid of over 100 types of bugs, from spiders to ants to roaches and scorpions. It's also kid and pet friendly. Get bugs out of your house with pesti. Just go to Pesti.com Doak for an extra 10% off your order. That's Pesti.com DoAK for an extra 10% off. You talked about some of the things that have gone wrong on your flights, space and otherwise. Those are things that you prepared mentally for. Like you, you roughly knew what to do or what do you do when everything is so falling apart.

[B]

In the space shuttle, we train a lot, thousands of hours. I have, I have about 6,000 hours of flight time. I think I stopped counting at some point. I probably have as much time in the space shuttle simulator. Yeah, you know, we just spend a ton of time over, you know, for me, over 15 years practice in almost every possible scenario of multiple malfunctions in different systems. And in the space shuttle, because of the required redundancy to make sure you don't, you know, system failure doesn't kill you. This stuff Gets really complex. Yeah. And then you go to fly the vehicle. And the accidents we've had with Challenger and Columbia, you know, those were, you know, Challenger accident, nothing you can do about it. Yeah. Columbia accident. Nothing you could have really done about it. I mean, if something falls off on liftoff, a hole in the wing, the vehicle disintegrates on entry. But we've had other problems in space. On my first launch, we got a master alarm on liftoff, if I remember correctly. I think it had to do with an RCS jet, one of the reaction control system jets. On my third flight, where I was a commander, this is something we never trained for, was one of the solid rocket boosters. They're designed to burn, so they're solid propellant. You can't turn them off. They're designed to burn out exactly the same. Same time. They're poured to very high tolerances. In Ogden, Utah, at a company called Thiocol. And they're supposed to flame out 2 minutes and 5 seconds into the liftoff. Flame out at the same time? Well, in our case, one got to chamber pressure of zero before the other one. And the space shuttle started rolling and yawing. Yeah. Not even thrust. Started rolling and yawing. And I was, like, about to hit the button to take over manually to then try to correct this, and then I gave it another second, and then we got back in. To me, it seemed like we were about to kind of go out of control. And then it corrected itself and we were fine. Never practiced that simulator in those thousands of hours. So that was one of the unknown unknowns.

[A]

But practicing all that stuff in the simulator is giving you the meta skill of not freaking out, not overreacting. Like, really what you'd practiced for is the wait and see that you did there instead of. Perhaps you could have made it worse by immediately asserting manual control.

[B]

Could have, but I'm pretty good at flying things, so it would have been fine.

[A]

Yeah. There's a quote I heard from the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield where he says, there's no problem in space so bad that you can't make it worse.

[B]

That is true.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Chris Kraft was the first flight director and then was the head of flight crew operations. You see him in a lot of, like, movies, Apollo 13 and you know those. He had this saying. I think it was him. When you don't know what to do, don't do anything. And I've used that through my career, even sometimes my political career. Is that. Take a beat. Let's think about this. Just don't jump to some conclusion.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, not too long.

[B]

Try to figure it out. And there's some things that require an immediate response, like space shuttle is about to go out of control and there's others that you can wait on, you can think about, you can reflect on. Every decision should not require the same amount of contemplation and reflection. Some do, some you can. Let's think about this for a week.

[A]

Yeah. Knowing the difference of what requires that sort of immediate concrete action and then what? It requires a little bit of restraint.

[B]

Yeah. You know, you're over Iraq and the missile's coming at you. You don't have much time to think about it. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, so I've, I've, you know, I think about that a little bit in my, in my new job here.

[A]

Well, okay, so as far as I know, Mark Srealis never goes to space. Maybe, maybe we.

[B]

But is that meditations?

[A]

This is meditations. I'm curious what you thought. I'm going to read you these quick passages. It sounds like he has. I wonder if it jives with your.

[B]

I don't think he went to space.

[A]

Yeah, probably.

[B]

Unless there's some buried spaceship somewhere under Rome.

[A]

Now we're going to get into conspiracy theory territory. Okay. These are all in book seven. Three in a row. So I wonder what he's doing as he's deciding this. Thoughts? He says to watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them. To keep constantly in mind how the elements alter into one another. Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below. And then the next one he says, plato has it right. If you want to talk about people, you need to look down on Earth from above. Herds, armies, farms, weddings, divorces, births, deaths, noisy courtrooms, desert places, all the foreign peoples, holidays, days of mourning, market days, all mixed together. A harmony of opposites. And then the last one, he says, look at the past. Empire succeeding empire. And from that extrapolate the future. The same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events, which is one. Observing life for 40 years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new then? Actually, there's some more here, but it strikes me as very similar to what I've heard astronauts talk about with what they call the overview effect.

[B]

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, imagine if Marcus Aurelius knew that we were one galaxy in a universe of 2 trillion galaxies.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Probably wouldn't. It changed his view on this. But he certainly realized that to some extent we're kind of insignificant in the big Picture, he's referencing the stars and how things are going to happen that are. Whether it's over a thousand years or 40 years, things are going to happen that are just the way it is, outside of our control. And, you know, in there, I haven't read all of meditations, but I've read pieces of it. You know, there are. Then there are things that we can, you know, have an effect on. Yeah, but, you know, we're seeing history repeat itself. We've seen that through a couple thousand years of history.

[A]

One morning I went for a run. We were in Greece, and I got up sort of to the top of the Acropolis. And I'm looking down, and you go, this is probably what he's talking about. Like this. He's seeing so much of. Of the civilized world.

[B]

Is there any evidence of Marcus Aurelius actually going to Greece? Oh, there is. Okay.

[A]

And also traveled. Incredible.

[B]

Like, I mean, he traveled a lot.

[A]

Dies in Vienna, he writes, spent a

[B]

lot of time in Germany.

[A]

It's crazy. Like, when you. When you realize how big the Roman Empire was, it sort of blows your mind that one human being was responsible for all this. Given communication.

[B]

And then he spent a lot of time outside of Rome, like on the road.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

In camps and fighting wars and Almost all of it. Yes.

[A]

And, yeah, there's another line of meditation. He says, life is warfare and a journey far from home. And I think he means that literally and figuratively.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But, yeah, you get the sense, like, that bird's eye view that he's taking. I mean, how high up could he have really ever gotten? Like, not that. Like, not that high. I mean, probably some mountain.

[B]

Probably some mountain in near Vienna. Right? Or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Northern. What's now northern Italy, maybe in the Alps.

[A]

Yeah. What the ancients would have. How much it would have blown their mind to see, like, the blue marble photograph or to know that a human was on the. Like, taking that view out of space.

[B]

He probably didn't. He. He probably thought the Earth was flat, maybe. Marcus Aurelius was almost certainly a flat Earther. Certainly his son was.

[A]

Yes. He had some other problems.

[B]

Yeah, he had a lot of problems. Yeah. So when, you know, I remember the first time I saw the Earth as a big round ball just floating there in this blackness. And your initial reaction, I think, for most of us is like, holy shit.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I mean, we live on an island in our solar system and there's no place else to go.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, we're all not, like, moving to Mars someday. That's not like the reality for any of us. Any of us that matters. And yeah, I know, like, Elon wants to put this, like, thinks, you know, civilization is gonna, human civilization is gonna one day colonize Mars. You know, he said it was gonna happen by 2022. That didn't happen.

[A]

I think he believed, he said it was. No question it would happen by then.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, no question. We're gonna have people living on Mars and they're gonna stay and we're gonna eventually have an atmosphere. We're gonna blow up nuclear weapons in the Martian atmosphere. And by the way, we need this because a single planet species doesn't survive because that's the history of species on Earth. Well also nobody else, no other species, dinosaurs, were not engineering themselves out of a problem.

[A]

Yeah, what if we just didn't screw it up here?

[B]

Yeah, just don't screw it up here. It's always going to be easier to survive on Earth. Regardless of what happens, including the big rock or the worst pandemic. It's always going to be easier to survive on Earth. Mars is a shit planet. It is not a place that we want to move to. We want to go and explore, we want to come back. But you really do get this sense that kind of the, almost the insignificance of the universe is 13.9 billion years old. We think, by the way, we don't know for sure, may have been around a lot longer. We're figuring out more all the time about astrophysics, about the nature of existence. But my, you know, my four trips to space, I really, you know, kind of a deep seated view that we have to do a better job taking care of this place. There's no other option.

[A]

Yeah. And it's, it's interesting because he talks about this as the emperor of Rome, this idea that we're all sort of citizens of this larger thing, we're all citizens of this world and we have these obligations and responsibilities to each other. Now of course, as the, the, the head of state of this thing, he has certain obligations and responsibilities and priorities. But you do get the sense that he's trying to, by zooming out, going like these borders are made up, like. And again, you have a legal obligation to enforce them, but it doesn't mean that the person on the other side of that border doesn't exist or doesn't matter and isn't.

[B]

Well, they might not also have, they might not have the same legal obligation either. Yeah, and by the way, you can't see any of those borders from space.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

With one Exception.

[A]

Great Wall.

[B]

No, that's a whole. The Chinese like to say it's the only thing you can see from space.

[A]

What is it?

[B]

That's bullshit. The only border you actually see that's not a river is the southern part of Israel. Because on one side it's desert, the other side, you know, it's cultivated land.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So there's a straight line. And that's the only place I can think of that you physically can see a border during the day. And why I say during the day is because at night you sort of

[A]

see north and South Korea.

[B]

Yes. And the United States and Canada. Sometimes when you look at it in the United States, you're like, I wonder if the Canadians need more electricity. But the reason it looks like that is because most of the Canadian population live within 100 miles of the US border.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, all 20 million of them basically live on the US border.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Canada goes way up.

[B]

It does.

[A]

And nobody's there.

[B]

Nobody's there. Yeah.

[A]

Canada and Australia are kind of like that.

[B]

It's wild to look at at night. I mean, Pyongyang looks like an island in an ocean because there's. Nobody else has lights in North Korea. And then you, you know, you fly over places like Times Square, fly over New York City, the brightest spot on Earth. And I think second would probably be the strip in Vegas. And then in the middle of Tokyo would probably be my top three bright spots on Earth.

[A]

Well, and then to go to Marcus's point about history, I mean, what is interesting is that a hundred years ago that wouldn't have been the case.

[B]

Nope.

[A]

150 years ago wouldn't have been the case. Like, I mean, there are parts of Texas here that less than a hundred years ago didn't have electricity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so to think about how, you know, in the big clock of all of human history. Yep. What a tiny sliver. A lot of these things we take for granted actually are.

[B]

120 years ago, Arizona wasn't a state.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Very few people live there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of native tribes. Things change, and they're changing fast right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's going to be a, you know, amazing thing to watch, you know, what happens in the next, you know, couple decades.

[A]

You could look at everything that's happening in the world and be really excited. You could look at everything that's happening in the world and be absolutely horrified. It's kind of somewhere in the middle, probably is the right view.

[B]

I think there are a lot of people out there that are very anxious Apprehensive about the future, about whether they're going to have a job, whether if you're a young person, whether you're going to be able to afford a place to live, whether you can afford a family. These are issues that weigh on me a lot in my job because I'm supposed to be, be trying to figure out ways to fix this.

[A]

Yeah. If you're 21 right now, what have you seen work really well in your lifetime? You've kind of seen people screw it up over and over and over again, largely at your expense. Not so much at their expense, but at your expense.

[B]

Yeah. Often the same people.

[A]

Yeah. Crash the car, get back in, crash again.

[B]

Yeah. Same. Same guy.

[A]

Yeah. Put it on the tab. Put it on the grandkids tab.

[B]

Yep. 39 trillion. You know, people don't seem to care that it could be 50 trillion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In what decade? Actually less than that. We gotta address some of these problems in our country in a serious way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, we have an election coming up. You know, my hope is people see that and you know, you gotta, at some point you gotta take the keys away from grandpa.

[A]

Yes. It's not fair. It's a lot to put on a generation and yet there's no alternative. Do you know what I mean? Like, ignoring it's not going to make it go away.

[B]

No, we can't. It is not going to go away. And then at the same time, we have, with innovation and technology, we have things that are going to change rapidly. AI is going to replace people in certain jobs. We'll have a demand for other jobs that people have an option. We gotta. How do you figure out a way to make sure these folks that lost their job have the training and know about these other things that they could do? Yeah. And what do we do for people that are just displaced and don't have an option? How are they going to afford their lives? So we have to think about that. And then the energy demand is just skyrocketing right now.

[A]

What do you do when the political institutions have proven themselves to not be up to these tasks over and over and over again and to not work and to not necessarily show themselves as reflecting the will of the people? Like, I just thought about this this week because it was just announced. I live out here in rural Texas and like Amazon just bought 1300 acres and they want to build a data center. Right. And that's not why people moved out to where you. Yeah, right where I live.

[B]

Like how close?

[A]

10 minutes.

[B]

Yeah, like, I mean, well, 10 minutes you're probably okay if you're like two minutes, are you going to walk outside and there's going to be like 60

[A]

decibels of noise, noise, light pollution, traffic.

[B]

Also just utility rates. Is, is your electric bill going to double because of this data center?

[A]

Well, and then illustration of the other problem we have. It's like they were going to build a housing development and Amazon came in, bought out the housing development and said, no, no, we're going to put a data set. So it could have been 2,000 houses, which desperately need. Instead it's going to be this. And, and I remember going like. My first thought was, like, why? Obviously, I don't want this. I want to get involved and not make it happen. And then going like, like, even if everyone around here doesn't want it, can the political system, can the representatives who are supposed to listen to the will of the people, will that system actually work? And I think a lot of the frustration people have is that, like, I see so much of our problem is that, like the political system, which our founders designed to be responsive to the people, to the people, it isn't doing that. And then that energy has to find other places to go.

[B]

Well, in some cases, like in Arizona, we had the same issue happen. One case, I think it was in Chandler and the other was in Tucson where Gabby and I live, where the data center came in. They wanted to build there and it didn't get approved because the people didn't want it. And if the people don't want it, it shouldn't go there. Yes, they should find another place. Now I'm trying to address that issue in my job in the Senate with legislation to try to set the conditions where the community can benefit. The data center company can benefit because we're not going to. This technology is not going to go away. And we want to be the leaders. We don't want Chinese to be the leaders. There's an advantage to us as a nation, as a country, and all of us should be able to benefit. We don't want like the top 1% to be the people that benefit from this. That has gone sideways on us too long. But so we've got to, you know, make, you know, smarter decisions here. Yeah, but your community shouldn't get stuck with this data center if people don't want it. There is some place in the country, country that will be happy to have that data center. Yeah, they need to go there. Yeah.

[A]

And, and I mean, just watching some of these things play out, as I've lived here over the last decade or so is, you're like, you know, they wanted to build some. I forget what. It was like a trash facility or something. And then all of a sudden, the people were like, well, why won't the Texas Environmental Commission do something about it? And it's like the one that you neutered and gutted because you. You thought, that's big government. It's like, look, I get being somewhat suspicious of big government. I don't want government messing with my life. But at the same time, if you don't have institutions that can do things, then you basically only have corporations who can do things. And they don't care that much about regular people. Their job isn't to care about people. Their jobs care about shareholder value.

[B]

We're seeing that a lot at the federal level, too, not just here. I mean, I just got into it with the EPA administrator over a smelter in Arizona that emits, I think it was 12 tons of lead. Lead into the atmosphere every year. And it has a elementary school that's a couple miles away. You could see the smelter from the elementary school. And there's technology available to clean the lead and arsenic out of the exhaust. And it was rather expensive. And they didn't do it. They asked for a waiver because this administration set up a process that didn't. Didn't exist before where they could send a letter to the EPA that then just went right to the White House. Straight line, just pass through. EPA doesn't get a say. And then Donald Trump could decide whether or not to approve the waiver. The White House decides, and the waiver was approved. The thing that cleans out the lead and arsenic didn't get put in, and then these kids have to. To breathe this in. Now, I've had conversations now with the company that owns the mine and the smelter, and they're gonna try to work with us to come up with a solution, because we can't have these kids breathing this. But this is the process that this administration set up. So even though we have an EPA that's trying to protect people's health, not right now. In this administration, what comes first is profits and donations. How many people have made donations to. They've joined Mar A Lago or they bought into the Meme coin or the Stablecoin, or they made donations to MAGA Inc. The super pac. And when people make big donations like that, they generally expect something for it. And we're seeing that over and over and over again.

[A]

Yeah, it feels like the opportunities For. And then the examples of corruption are almost too staggering for people to wrap their heads around. Like, it's interesting that that isn't a bigger story.

[B]

I think folks are just, like, overwhelmed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, the president is suing the federal government for $50 billion. 50 billion. Not million. $50 billion. And he says the federal government is probably going to settle with him.

[A]

Right.

[B]

He is the guy who decides whether or not the federal government settles his $50 billion lawsuit. So he's on both sides of the lawsuit.

[A]

I think we call that. There's a word for that.

[B]

I think there's a word. There's a couple words for that. So he'll make the decision whether or not to settle. And he'll probably settle for. Maybe he settles for, I don't know, 30 billion. Because he's a reasonable man, doesn't want

[A]

to steal too much.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, that's $30 billion from the taxpayer into his bank account. That's what he's looking to do. Can we stop him? I mean, we're going to try. Right now, we don't have the. The, you know, the levers to do that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And certainly this Department of Justice is just like. They just do what he wants. Yeah. At this point.

[A]

Yeah. I. I do think that was clearly the. The big miss of the founders is that they assumed that there would always be the check of personal honor and virtue in the highest levels of leadership. They could not conceive of it.

[B]

Virtue, a little bit of wisdom, shame, a little bit of shame, a little bit of temperance. They assume those things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They assumed most leaders would be like Marcus Aurelius or George Washington. But they did also in the Federalist Papers. But they also wrote about the fear that at some point somebody would come along and could just flip this whole thing upside down.

[A]

Down.

[B]

Yeah. We have checks and balances. I don't know if you saw King Charles's speech to the joint session of Congress a couple weeks ago. So he gave this speech and he. It was a good speech, 25 minutes. Touched on a lot of points, made some jokes. At one point, he talks about the importance of checks and balances. And I was shocked because everybody in the chamber was clapping.

[A]

It's.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm thinking to myself, you guys

[A]

are the checks and balances.

[B]

Some of you guys over there are not doing the checks and balance part of the job.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, we're trying, but we're in the minority.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I mean, it's really. The majority, you know, has to step up and really speak Truth to power and tell a leader, whether it's a president or the CEO of the company. You gotta tell somebody when you know what they're doing doesn't make any sense, or they're off track or, you know, you, you just can't do this.

[A]

Yeah. If I agree with you on everything

[B]

that is illegal, that one thing. Do not do that.

[A]

Yeah. Right.

[B]

They're not doing a lot of that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's really disturbing.

[A]

What is it? Is it a belief that someone else will do it? I was talking to Adam Kinzinger one time and he said it's like Congress believes. There's a super Congress.

[B]

Some people think we have like a giant button we can like press and stop things. There's no button. Yeah. I think it is that, that this president, he's got full control over the base of the Republican Party in a way that no president in my lifetime has ever had. Democrat or Republican. Yeah. Nobody has commanded that type of control over the base. And he is very willing and able to use that against anybody that he perceives as a political foe or enemy be. I mean he doing it to me.

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

You know, right now he. I said something he didn't like. He said I should be hanged, executed, prosecuted, tried to throw me in jail. The indictment didn't work. Who knows if he's going to try again. Then they tried to reduce me in rank and take away my pension. So I sued Pete Hegseth. So this, you know, I, I have no problem fighting back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm not going to give up. And. Because there's a lot at stake here.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

You know, First Amendment rights of 2 million retired service members. But what I think is there's a lot of members of Congress in his party that just know that he can end their careers.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And they think their career is pretty valuable to them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Unfortunately.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, none of us should think we matter so much that the world comes to an end if we lose our job in the United States Congress. The problem is there are a lot of people that think they are so important that our country would collapse if they were not there. And that is not true. The country will have the same problems it has right now. It'll recover if rando senator from whatever state is no longer in his seat.

[A]

There's only a one term senator instead of a two term senator.

[B]

Whatever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean it's not gonna, it's not gonna matter. So they shouldn't.

[A]

And isn't that the point of the six year term is that You.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One job security.

[B]

That's right. You have. Yeah. You can make decisions based on. Always make the decision based on what's right.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Which is what I always try to do. And I don't. You know, I never wanted this job anyway. I had a great job. And then my wife gets shot in the head, and then she resigns. And then I find myself in a position where before the election in 2018, a woman comes up to me, it was like at a get out the vote rally. And she says. She says, hey, my son has down syndrome, and I'm terrified he's going to lose his health insurance. Would you please consider running for the US Senate? Without that conversation, I would not be in the Senate right now. That was November 2018. So this was not something I ever wanted to do. And then I ran in 2020, ran again in 2022. And, you know, you know, here I am, you know, just trying to solve some of these problems that we have.

[A]

Well, it's a reminder that this isn't a game. I think that's the other problem is that everyone is like, yeah, it's bad. Yeah, I disagree. But, like, there's consequences for gutting usaid. There's consequences for cutting off healthcare. There's consequences for these decisions.

[B]

There's consequences for going to war with Iran with no strategic goal, with no plan.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With no way to get it. Now the President finds himself in a really tough spot trying to figure out how you get out of this. We have 13 dead Americans. We got other people who are injured. We got thousands of innocent Iranians that have been killed, including at least 150 kids in a school. And the President's trying to figure out, like, what do I do? Didn't think the Strait of Hormuz is going to be closed, so gas prices are really, really high. There was a woman that we helped her daughter get her health care back after she got kicked off of Medicaid. Kid gets kicked off of Medicaid and shouldn't have been. And it was all at the beginning, during all that Doge stuff, and got her back on. What we call Medicaid in Arizona is called Access. Got her back on it. She sent me a text a couple weeks ago and just really sort of felt like she was in a panic because she says now she can't afford to drive her kid to get the cancer treatments because the round trip is 300 miles and she can't afford to put gas in the car.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So we're trying to figure out, you know, get her some help here. But how many people across our country are experiencing the same thing?

[A]

Yeah. I think to the average person, you hear, okay, now they're moving ships here. And that just feels like these set pieces. But there are sailors on those ships.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they have family. Like, the tragedy of war, ultimately, is that these are human beings being moved around to get a little negotiation leverage or to send a point or make a signal. I'm writing about Vietnam right now, actually, I wanted to ask you about this because I feel like you're the perfect person to give me some insight on this. So I'm writing about doing a book on Admiral Stockdale.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So who I knew. Oh, well, now I have a million classes.

[B]

I went on a trip with him to Switzerland once when I was a test pilot.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know he was part of the SCTP Society of Experimental Test pilots.

[A]

Yes. Right. Because he went and taught at Test Pilot School. Yeah.

[B]

As I did.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I was an instructor there before I was an astronaut.

[A]

Well, I'll tell you a funny story about him at Test pilots. Well, maybe, you know, maybe don't. But. So. So, you know, August 2nd, he's up on a Crusader flight and gets flown over in South China Sea. Hey. One of our ships is being attacked. So he flies over there and he sees the PT boats. People don't think that. That the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin happened the first day. It did. There was a real. There wasn't a big attack, but there's an attack. And then he. He flies back, back. There's two days between. And then on the fourth.

[B]

And he's the air wing commander at this point.

[A]

Yes. And so then the second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, they fly out there. There's nothing there. He says, we were shooting at ghosts or something like that. Right. There's nothing there. And then. So he lands back later that night, and when he wakes up the next day, they go, hey, we're leading the strikes tomorrow. The reprisal strikes. And he famously says, reprisal for what? Right. So he. So. So it's this complicated instance. I'm trying to wrap my head around both the mindset and the responsibility, the obligation. So he gets ordered to lead a strike, basically the beginning of the Vietnam War over. They're not illegal orders because the President can give these orders, but the pretext for them is he has some insight that they're fundamentally flawed. Right. How do you think about a dilemma like that for someone in his position?

[B]

Well, I mean, for him. I mean, it becomes A bigger question that often a guy, even in his role as an air wing commander, not up to him to decide what country we go to war against and what country we don't. Yes, right. The decision to use combat power to achieve some larger geopolitical outcome or purpose relies with the President.

[A]

It's a civilian decision.

[B]

Civilian lies with the President. And that is struggle that I think people in Admiral Stockdale's at this time, Captain Stockdale, probably.

[A]

Yeah, I think, yeah, maybe Captain could

[B]

have been a commander, probably a captain has to deal with. It's something we all have to deal with. Everybody who puts on the uniform and like me, I dropped bombs 30 something times. I flew 39 combat missions. You know, I sunk ships, I bombed buildings and tanks. And there's always like the ethical struggle.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like, is this the right thing to do? That's different than the situation that myself and five of my colleagues were outlining troops about illegal orders or unlawful orders. Members of the military have a responsibility to follow all lawful orders. And written down in the law of war manual and in the ucmj, you do not follow illegal orders. Those are the things that are obvious to troops, sailors, soldiers, Marines that are obviously against the law. They're not the big geopolitical questions about whether we, we take our country to war against another country. But any commander is often going to be wondering because he's the guy who has to lead the troops. And as an air wing commander, he's out front in the first airplane and he's got to motivate these guys and often he's going to have to explain this stuff and they're going to ask him questions and it's his responsibility to motivate and inspire. To motivate, inspire and get, you know, get behind, you know, the decisions that are made by our political leaders. Yeah, you know, that's, that's a different thing than the thing we were talking about.

[A]

No, no, I know it's, it's a. Because I think people, your average civilian is probably thinking, well, if you don't agree, just don't. But that's not. If you don't agree would not work.

[B]

It doesn't work.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. If you don't, agreeing or not agreeing, that's not an option.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You've got a responsibility. When you swear an oath to defend the Constitution and when you get sworn into the military as an officer or enlisted person, your responsibility is to follow the orders of your senior officers and the President of the United States. Now, what happened later in the Vietnam War, the Malay massacre. When a company commander tells his troops, we're going to kill everybody, no mercy,

[A]

no quarter or no quarter.

[B]

What Pete Hegseth said, which I questioned him about this on the Senate Armed Services Committee a couple weeks ago. Like, what did you mean? And I'm gonna give you another chance, because it was asked of him the day before, when you say no quarter, what that means, and it's defined by the US Military, that means there are no prisoners. You kill prisoners. I gave him the opportunity to clarify what he meant. He refused to do that. So he stuck with what he said originally, which was no quarter. That's not who we are as a nation. We've never been that way. We can't be the Russians who are brutal and commit war crimes. But he decided to stick with that. So that's a whole different. Different problem. But no quarter would be an example of an illegal order.

[A]

We're going to destroy your entire civilization. Things like that.

[B]

That is one, too. And by the way, even saying a threat of a war crime is not allowed.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Even the threat, first of all, doing it is a war crime. Destroying an entire civilization would be a war crime. Genocide, threatening genocide is also against the law.

[A]

If you have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, you say, give me all your stuff or I'm going to drop nuclear weapons on you. You haven't committed the war crime yet, but you are using the threat of the war crime and the uncertainty of whether you'll do it or not to do something illegal.

[B]

Yeah. That's also against the law. Yeah.

[A]

I'm fascinated with this question that what he must have wrestled with because, you know, he was there. It was incredibly complicated. And I'm sure that takes time to work through this, but to then spend all these years as a prisoner of war as you, staying loyal to a country that had, you know, done something imperfect or outright wrong, it makes what he did and what he went through almost more inconceivable and superhuman like that. He. The dark nights of the soul that he must have had, knowing that he is a sort of a pawn in this war. That was, you know, and then as

[B]

a senior officer, though, at the Hanoi Hill.

[A]

You can't put that on. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, he did, like. I mean, from what I understand about, you know, him as a pow, I mean, did a fantastic job of leading, you know, all these men from different services. Yeah. And took on that role, you know, as a senior captive there at the Hanoi Hilton, including the guy who. I serve in the Senate seat, John McCain, who probably was Shot down, I don't know, a year and a half, year and a half later. But it was interesting experience to spend. I spent a couple days with Admiral Stockdale and his wife in Switzerland.

[A]

Two incredible people.

[B]

Yeah, he really was. Yeah. Great American. You're writing a book about him, Doing

[A]

a biography of Stockdale.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Including his time as the VP candidate for.

[A]

I'm probably going to fast forward at the end of that. But did you know he at test pilot school he taught John Glenn?

[B]

Oh, I did not know that.

[A]

Yeah, so maybe I did. John Glenn was a much more experienced pilot because he'd flown in Korea in World War II. So he took Stockdale on his first cross country night flight and then Stockdale taught him physics because he had a better engineering and math background.

[B]

Stockdale did.

[A]

Yeah. Glenn was more of a just your sort of natural pilot that to go to the next level, had to kind of learn.

[B]

I don't think John Glenn had like a degree in engineering.

[A]

No. Didn't have like a service academy or anything.

[B]

Not everybody, but most of the students at the U.S. navy Test Pilot School, you know, have at least a bachelor's degree in engineering or maybe physics, sometimes math. That's about how deep we go, at least when I was there. And it was a great tour for me because I did get to be a teacher. Not only a flight instructor, in my case, three different kinds of airplanes teaching all different kinds of things, but actually in a classroom with a piece of chalk. And I taught classes on transonic flying qualities like. And aerodynamics and how airplanes flight control and performance in that region between about 0.9 and 1.1 Mach. Just that little band where things change rapidly as you accelerate or decelerate through Mach 1, through the speed of sound. It was a good experience. So I understand. I mean, certainly I don't understand what a middle school teacher goes through, but I have a little bit of a sense of what it's like to be in a classroom with a piece of chalk and the chalkboard.

[A]

Yeah. I think people maybe from Top Gun and stuff think that the fighter pilots are kind of like these cowboys, just like sort of really good at doing this thing. And like it sort of skips over the incredible technical expertise and mathematical and physics background required to do it at that level.

[B]

Yeah. A lot of academics behind, especially being a test pilot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Fighter weapons school, little bit, bit different. They're actually teaching people how to teach at the highest level of aerial combat, the air to air portion of it. Not what I used to do. I was the air to ground guy. But at the two test pilot schools, the military ones here, it's a lot of heavy academics. Physics, propulsion engineering, aerodynamics, electronic warfare, radars, all the. That stuff.

[A]

Yeah. All that woke stuff.

[B]

Yeah, all that woke stuff, all that science, that sciency stuff, we don't need that. Some people don't believe anymore.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. The thing about science is science doesn't care. If you don't believe in science, it's still there, by the way.

[A]

Neither does history. Right. Like, you can. You can make up whatever you want. It doesn't change what happened. It doesn't change some of the sort of iron laws and patterns of history and.

[B]

But some people will try to change history.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They will try really, really hard. They will go all the way to Fulton County, Georgia, and send the Director of National Intelligence to try to figure, how do we change the history?

[A]

Wild.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You want to go next door? I've got some books for you. Yeah.