443: Rick Perry—The Fight of a Lifetime

Summary

Episode 443: Rick Perry—The Fight of a Lifetime

Release Date: July 15, 2025
Podcast: The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
Host: Mike Rowe
Guest: Rick Perry, former Governor of Texas and Secretary of Energy

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, host Mike Rowe sits down with former Texas Governor and current Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry. The conversation navigates through Perry's ambitious initiatives in energy and artificial intelligence (AI), his passionate advocacy for veterans battling PTSD and addiction, and the broader implications of these efforts on America's future.

---

Rick Perry's Vision on AI and Energy

Rick Perry begins by drawing parallels between the current AI race and the historical Manhattan Project. He emphasizes the urgency and significance of building robust energy infrastructures to support AI advancements.

“Like many today, Rick Perry believes we're in the fight of a lifetime. We have to win the AI race. Electricity really is AI as processed through these data centers that need to get built.”
[00:56] Mike Rowe

Perry introduces Fermi America, a Texas-based company he co-founded, aiming to construct the largest energy and data complex powered by nuclear, natural gas, and solar energy. This initiative is positioned as pivotal in maintaining America's competitive edge against global rivals, particularly China.

“Rick Perry is damn sure that Fermi America is a Texas company co-founded by him. They're going to be building the largest energy and data complex of its kind, powered by nuclear, natural gas, and solar.”
[01:50] Chuck Klausmeier

---

Supporting Skilled Trades

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the critical shortage of skilled tradespeople essential for constructing these massive data centers. Perry highlights the necessity of plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, and welders in driving forward the AI and energy sectors.

“We have to focus on teaching these young people these skills that are very sellable to make a big difference in their lives, but more importantly, make a big difference in this country.”
[40:01] Rick Perry

Perry commends Mike Rowe's longstanding advocacy for the trades, attributing the potential success of Fermi America's projects to a well-trained workforce nurtured through trade education.

---

Advocacy for Veterans: Ibogaine Treatment

Transitioning to a more personal topic, Perry passionately discusses his commitment to addressing PTSD and addiction among veterans through the use of ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from the iboga shrub of Gabon, Africa. He outlines the legislative breakthrough in Texas, where the state committed $50 million to study ibogaine's efficacy in treating various addictions and PTSD.

“This legislation, which by the grace of God and the people of the state of Texas... passed the Texas legislature with only two dissenting votes.”
[89:32] Rick Perry

Perry shares poignant anecdotes about his personal interactions with veterans like Marcus Luttrell, the renowned Navy SEAL and author of Lone Survivor. He recounts supporting Luttrell during his struggles with addiction and how this experience fueled his advocacy for ibogaine.

“There's something that happens. Some of them handle it better than others. We have sent this entire generation of kids into war for nearly 20 years in some cases, and our government handed them a stack of opioids and said, here you go, take these until we figure out how to help you.”
[68:33] Rick Perry

---

Government Legislation and Support

Perry elaborates on the bipartisan support and legislative efforts in Texas that enabled the allocation of $50 million towards ibogaine research and treatment programs for veterans. He underscores the potential of ibogaine to revolutionize addiction treatment, citing studies from Stanford that demonstrate significant improvements in brain health among treated individuals.

“The focus is on veterans, but this is a lot bigger because ibogaine is extraordinarily effective against addictions—alcohol, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl opioids. One treatment, one oral treatment with ibogaine in 80-plus percent of the cases, and the addiction is gone.”
[89:32] Rick Perry

---

Public Perception and Political Challenges

A recurring theme in the conversation is the challenge of overcoming public misconceptions surrounding nuclear energy and psychoactive compounds like ibogaine. Perry argues that historical events have unjustly tarnished the reputation of nuclear power, equating it to the initial public fear of nuclear weapons.

“Nuclear is bad. Your children will all be born naked if we have nuclear power. It’s like these crazy statements that people say, oh my God, that’d be bad.”
[62:10] Rick Perry

Similarly, he addresses the stigmatization of ibogaine due to its classification as a Schedule I substance, limiting its accessibility and research despite its proven benefits.

“Drugs and medicine and plant-based and recreational... there's an incredible confusion that seems to hover like the cloud of dirt.”
[57:58] Mike Rowe

Perry emphasizes the importance of open-mindedness and scientific inquiry in embracing innovative solutions to contemporary challenges.

---

Personal Stories and Experiences

Throughout the episode, Perry shares personal anecdotes that humanize his advocacy. From hosting Marcus Luttrell in the Governor's residence to witnessing the transformative impact of ibogaine on veterans' lives, these stories illustrate the tangible benefits of his initiatives.

“This may be the most profound advancement in medicine in my lifetime. And let's look at it. That is some talk.”
[99:46] Rick Perry

He also reflects on his enduring marriage, drawing parallels between personal perseverance and his professional battles to effect meaningful change.

---

Future Outlook and Optimism

Perry concludes with a message of unwavering optimism about Texas's role in leading both the AI revolution and pioneering addiction treatment through ibogaine. He envisions a future where Texas not only stands at the forefront of technological advancements but also serves as a beacon of hope for veterans and individuals battling addiction.

“I'm the most optimistic guy in the world. This country has faced so many challenges through the years... We got our issues. We're not perfect. But when it comes to the can-do spirit, when it comes to having the heart of freedom fighters... no place does it like America.”
[109:42] Mike Rowe

---

Conclusion

Episode 443 presents a multifaceted dialogue between Mike Rowe and Rick Perry, blending discussions on energy, AI, and veteran affairs with personal narratives and legislative insights. Perry's dual focus on propelling Texas into a leadership role in AI and addressing the opioid crisis among veterans through innovative treatments like ibogaine encapsulates the essence of "The Fight of a Lifetime." This episode underscores the importance of visionary leadership, skilled trades, and compassionate solutions in shaping a resilient and prosperous future for America.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Rick Perry on AI and Energy Race:
  “We have to win the AI race. Electricity really is AI as processed through these data centers that need to get built.”
  [00:56]

• Chuck Klausmeier on Texas's Commitment:
  “$50 million, yes.”
  [02:24]

• Rick Perry on Ibogaine's Effectiveness:
  “One treatment, one oral treatment with ibogaine in 80-plus percent of the cases, and the addiction is gone.”
  [89:32]

• Rick Perry on Bipartisan Support:
  “This legislation... passed the Texas legislature with only two dissenting votes.”
  [89:32]

• Rick Perry on Public Misconceptions:
  “Nuclear is bad. Your children will all be born naked if we have nuclear power.”
  [62:10]

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of Episode 443, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of the key discussions and insights shared by Rick Perry and Mike Rowe. It highlights Perry's strategic initiatives, personal motivations, and the broader societal impacts of his work, providing valuable context for both regular listeners and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Mike Rowe]

Hello, friends. Mike Rowe here with another episode of the Way I Heard it, starring Chuck Klausmeier.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yes, thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

[Rick Perry]

It's good to be here.

[Mike Rowe]

Our guest today is actually a man who needs no introduction. I mean, and yet, and yet I must tell you that he was once the governor of California. And the.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I don't believe he was the governor of California, Mike.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, I'm sorry, what is the. Was it Texas?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yes, it was Texas. He would probably, if he heard you saying that he would, he would probably want to belt you.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know what? He's in California because I'm not going to edit out. I'm sitting here in California looking out at California. And I said California. Look, it's not the first mistake you'll hear me make in the next 90 minutes. Actually, I think I did pretty good on this one. He's easy to talk to and easy to listen.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Super easy. And just seems like a genuinely nice guy.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, real nice guy. We met Rick Perry in person about four months ago at this conference you'll hear us make reference to, in California, not Texas, hosted by our friend Alex Epstein. And it was at this conference that I first heard the governor refer to the modern day Manhattan Project.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And he spoke to a room full of big shots with a level of urgency that certainly got my attention. Like many today, Rick Perry believes we're in the fight of a lifetime. We have to win the AI race. Electricity really is AI as processed through these data centers that need to get built. And he believes that Texas or California, who knows? Really?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I think it's Texas. I think he really wants to do it in Texas.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Rick Perry is damn sure that Fermi America is a Texas company co founded by him. They're going to be building the largest energy and data complex of its kind, powered by nuclear, natural gas and solar. This is a big, big deal. And if they pull it off, not only are we gonna beat the Chinese, who we're trailing at the moment, but Texas is gonna lead the charge. But wait, there's more. Chuck, he's just simply not content to have this fight of a lifetime. He needs two fights.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He needs two fights. He needs another fight. And that fight, Mike is fighting for veterans with ptsd, with a. Not necessarily a new drug, but a hallucinogen drug, a psycho drug or whatever.

[Mike Rowe]

What would you call it? Ancient plant.

[Rick Perry]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

That gives us a substance called ibogaine. It's now in the headlines all over the place. Because, as you'll hear me say, the evidence around this kind of thing does demand a verdict. And the stakes are very, very high. You know, 6,500 men and women punched their own tickets last year, soldiers who came home and just simply couldn't cope. The problem is real. This solution now seems like more than a potential solution. He's worked really hard at this for over a decade and just got Texas to commit, I think, $50 million.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

$50 million, yes.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

To study this.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So this guy pushes a lot of boulders up a lot of different hills, and he always has, but he's fighting really hard for our vets, and he's fighting really hard for. For our energy independence, specifically with regard to AI. These are massive battles, and he's up to his neck in both of them. So I invited him on because we got along pretty well, and he's also been very supportive of my own efforts around reinvigorating the trade. So we're in violent agreement on a great many things. And because our friend Sean McCourt, who I know many of you know, Sean and I have worked together for years, both on Deadliest Catch and on the Stories for the Way I Heard it. Yeah. Sean has produced a terrific documentary called the Fight of a Lifetime. I began the Fight of a Lifetime. You'll hear us struggle to find the title later in the show, which is kind of funny, but we found it. But we found it. And that premieres on Fox nation soon, Chuck.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

July 17th. That'll be on. I have no idea if that's before or after this appears.

[Mike Rowe]

Who knows? Who knows? We're making it up as we go. But I watched the documentary this morning. It's important and it's really well done. And, of course, I'm up to my neck with these other issues, too, so strap in. It's a great conversation with a guy who loves this country a lot and truly believes that Texas can lead us to the promised land right after this. I read somewhere that the average commercial needs to be seen or heard 14 times before it has any hope of eliciting the desired reaction. I don't know if that's true, but I did listen myself to the MyPillow guy for, like, 200 times before I finally broke down and bought one. But I know that many of you who listen to this podcast and run a business have heard me extol the benefits of posting a job for [e-mail] for at least 14 times. So maybe this time you'll quit listening simply because you like the sound of my voice and take the plunge Go ahead, do it. Post a job for [e-mail] ro and watch what happens. Spoiler alert. You're probably going to find a quality candidate within 24 hours or less. Four out of five people do. Why? Because every month 320,000 brand new resumes are added, which means you can reach more potential hires and fill your open roles sooner. It's no wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site. But I've already told you that 14 times, so what are you waiting for? You have nothing to lose. It's free and it works. I've used them before. And when I finally fire Chuck, I'll use them again. Ziprecruiter.com ro post a job for free ziprecruiter.com row the smartest way to hire.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

You know Sean McCourt, of course. Oh yeah, yeah, he's a good buddy of ours. He helped with this podcast years ago, helping to write the stories for. We used to do like Paul Harvey type stories. That was the whole deal. It was a real short podcast. Love this guy. He works for us now, you know, on a contract basis, you know, editing a new project we have. But anyway, he shared with us, you know, the. What is it? The documentary that he's doing with him.

[Rick Perry]

Fox Nation.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah, that Fox Nation doc.

[Rick Perry]

Pretty strong and very strong.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I'm like, yeah, I'm very excited about this.

[Rick Perry]

So there was an interesting movie made about this subject called Of Waves and War. It's out now and it was well done. I mean, it was a Hollywood director that put it together, the 12 of, of ways of War, of Waves and war.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Waves and.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, Waves and War. That's a quote from the Odyssey, Homer's Odyssey, when his guys came home from the war. And anyway, that's where this is taken from. But it is a, it's, it's a very well done. It's a little too woo woo for me. I mean, there's a little bit too much psychedelic, you know, imagery. Not that that's necessarily bad, but for my, my purposes and selling the general public about what we're doing here, healing, there's nothing magical about it. Unless you believe, you know, medicine and God are magical. Then you know, it's just a definition. Different in definitions, I would suggest. But my point is what Sean did with his one hour was some number X better than this, this movie number one. The movie's too long. It's like an hour and 47 minutes. And unlike, you know, Mike Rose podcast, which it's going to take an hour and 40 minutes to really say hello, educate the public.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I hope you're comfortable, Governor.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So hope you're wearing your stadium, pal.

[Rick Perry]

Hey, I put on a T shirt, man. I'm kind of like, if anybody's looking for Mr. Professional here, good luck.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know you're in the right room when you just pop in in time to hear the Governor talking about Homer, God, magic and psychedelics, man.

[Rick Perry]

What a world. Okay, here we go. Grab a deep seat, cowboy. We're fixing to take off.

[Mike Rowe]

Charlie, we rolling?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

We're good to go. I just need to do something.

[Rick Perry]

That was the introduction, Mike.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Look, you know what? Assume I've said something both flattering and cogent in the preamble and we'll just.

[Rick Perry]

Right, go from there. Here we go.

[Mike Rowe]

Start where we are. I'll just start by saying, I don't know about you, but my life has been very weird since I saw you last in Newport at that energy festival when you.

[Rick Perry]

You're not the first person to ever say that.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it was really a pleasure to finally meet you there. And like everybody else in that room, I hung onto every word that you said that day. A lot of stuff I want to bounce off of you, but in particular, likening this race for data centers and our current energy situation to a modern day Manhattan Project. I mean, forgive me for jumping right in, but that's been on my mind for the last few months. And I wonder if you've improved on the metaphor or you're sticking with it.

[Rick Perry]

I'm not sure you can improve on that metaphor because if, you know, a lot of your podcast listeners and viewers may not be familiar because they. This was 80 years ago that America found itself at this very precarious place of the Germans had invaded the UK was out there by themselves. The Germans seemed to be almost unstoppable. In 1942, there was talk that they were on the precipice of being able to find this weapon, this atomic weapon. And so Franklin Roosevelt and some other very bright and knowledgeable individuals, some scientists, you know, military leaders, they made the decision that we had to get in this race and we had to win it. Because literally mankind, or freedom loving mankind at least, was in the balance here. So they put together this project to go build this device, if you will, to go find the materials, go find the elements to make this work. And listen, I'm an animal science major from the beloved Texas A and M, so me talking about nuclear materials and what have you is a bit Humorous. But where my life has taken me from being the governor of Texas to the Secretary of energy and what have you. And I actually visited that site. It's in the Columbia River Basin in eastern Washington state, where that piece of just raw dirt, Mike, I mean, they got given the task. They said, we got to go win this race. And all hands on deck, let's go do this. And in that area in the Columbia River Basin, from just a flat piece of dirt out there, it's almost deserty looking in that part of Washington. If you've been there. Sure, in 11 months, they went from a flat piece of dirt to producing plutonium. Now were some mistakes made, were some corners cut? I'm not going to. I don't know that. What I know is that literally freedom in the world was saved because there were people who believed they could do this. They had a leader that said, let's go do this. And plutonium, which is a very important part of that building that weapon that was used to stop the end of the war at Hiroshima and Fukushima, or, excuse me, at Nagasaki. The dogs like that.

[Mike Rowe]

Which dog is that? What do you call him?

[Rick Perry]

Well, that's one of five. So we're rescue dog people. That is, I think, by the sound of that. That was Cody. He's a Belgian Malinois. So great dogs.

[Mike Rowe]

They are, man.

[Rick Perry]

They will interrupt here. We got a blind wiener dog. We've got a wire haired, pointing griffon that's deaf. We've got the Belgian Malinois. We've got a rescue dog from the streets of Las Vegas. That's not half anything. And then we had a new one show up, oh, I don't know, half a mile down the road who's a blue heeler.

[Mike Rowe]

So anyway, they all answer to the name of Lucky.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, they're. They're good dogs.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Well, hang on a second here. How do you have a rescue dog from Las Vegas in Texas?

[Rick Perry]

Okay, so don't leave where we are here because you know, we're just about to get the saving humanity here.

[Mike Rowe]

No, this is the world we live in, Governor. We can go from the very essence of consequence to where you got your rescue dog. Because in the end, right, I mean, who's not in need of a little rescue here?

[Rick Perry]

I think that's the real essence of the story here. When we finish this up in an hour and a half, let's look back and see if we landed the plane. Being rescued is not a part of that. But to answer your question, Chuck, the. My daughter and her husband who's a former naval officer, a Navy SEAL. He was 07 through 16, active duty, and then, you know, and has all of the. Has all the things going on in their lives that those boys had from 07 when he graduated from the Naval Academy and went into the fleet. And then he ended up in Las Vegas working with a really incredibly interesting fellow who's an Israeli national in the real estate business out there. So now subsequently, they have moved to Austin. He started a. One of the largest bitcoin mining companies in North America called. Well, I think it's the name of it now is Core Scientific, which is about to be acquired by another big company. None of that has anything to do with the dog that was saved on the streets of Las Vegas.

[Mike Rowe]

I bet it does. I bet our dog, it's gonna come back to energy.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, my daughter is. Yeah, it's energy, but it's kind of one of those strange ones. My daughter is a dog magnet. Most of these dogs that are here at our place now came to us through our daughter, the Malinois did. The Las Vegas dog was about an hour away from being euthanized, and she saved it from a shelter. It was picked up on the streets of Vegas.

[Mike Rowe]

So, anyway, Governor, have you heard of these, like, I think of them, like, underground railroads? And Chuck has a good friend, Amy, who kind of runs one of these. That's how I got my dog from Freddy. He was about an hour away from the needle, and somebody picked him up from a shelter in California and, like, drove him, I think, from Bakersfield up to the Republic of Marin where I found him. Right. And they're constantly shuttling these dogs back and forth, sometimes across state lines, and there's this whole industry nobody knows about with regard to mutts and rescues.

[Rick Perry]

Interesting. I'm just listening to a book on. On tape called Tina T I N A, and it's about a dog rescue guy who lives in Thailand now. You know, we're getting way outside of the bounds of where I thought we were going to go on this podcast, but that's okay. That's what makes Mike Row interesting.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, look, if you're going to invoke a part of the world where the dogs are, well, forgive me, but from what I've read from time to time on the menu and juxtapose that with Sin City, where a dog can be adopted vis a vis the daughter magnet that you currently have, I guess we could pivot from magnetism into electricity, which are inherently linked, and eventually get you back to that flat Piece of ground. Right. So look, just to frame all of this in a way that I wanted to ask you about, isn't it amazing, like take the Manhattan Project or take the current initiative, that that's really going to redefine our whole energy posture? Sometimes we are reactors, I mean, not to put too fine a point on the pun, but greatness sometimes happens because circumstances have been thrust upon us. And other times you've got these forward thinking people who are able in a really proactive way to get ahead of the problem. And I just wonder, you know, you spent your year in your life in politics really, and in the military and all of that. What are we dealing with here? Are we reacting to something existential or are we trying to get in front of a danger that can really only be called clear and present?

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, and I will answer that by saying probably both. We are being reactive because we woke up and I'm a Donald Trump fan. I think what Donald Trump is doing, the chaos that he's bringing, look, I'll let other people argue about whether they like that or not. What I'm interested in. I've always been a results person. Process wears me out. And of all the oddball things to have gotten into that, where you didn't particularly like process. Government is full of process. I mean, the swamp is about as processy a place as you can find. Even Austin, Texas, it's got way much more process than I like. I like results. Go do X, get this done. Trump's the same kind of individual. I mean, that is why he has been successful in his life. He is a results oriented individual. And he basically, as he's come back in, in the second term, you know, he's leaned back, he's analyzed the landscape out there and he said, you know what, China is about to kick our butt in the AI business and AI is an energy hog. If you're going to be participating in artificial intelligence and winning that race, you're going to have to have an extraordinary supply of energy. Where do you get that energy? Well, you know, we've been told here for way too long that if we'll just build enough windmills and enough, you know, solar panels and renewables out there that will live happily ever after. And the fact is that's just wrong because they're not reliable because they're frankly, require a lot of government subsidies to be competitive and they're not dense enough. And when I talk about dense, I'm talking about for the amount of power that they deliver, the cost going into it so there's only two ways that you can get the type of baseload power, and that is with fossil fuels, which we're blessed in this country to have an extraordinary amount of natural gas and I might add, relatively clean burning natural gas and nuclear power. Those are the only two. It's kind of like when people used to criticize me when I was a governor and, and we were a growing state. And I told people, I said, there's only three ways that you can build more infrastructure to handle the amount of roads that we're going to have to have to move things around and people around in this state. You either believe in tax roads or you believe in toll roads, or you believe in the asphalt ferry. Pick one. People were a little bit irritated because I said, look you. I mean, toll roads are the answer to building out. The same is true with this energy concept. There's actually only two types of power that you can count on to win this AI race. It's either fossil fuels, which is in our case, natural gas, and these natural gas combined cycle turbines that we are really good at building and by the grace of God, sitting on copious amounts of this carbon fuel, or nuclear, and nuclear has been demonized. Well, we listened to Alex Epstein at the event out in California where you and I met. I think he's one of the brightest. Interestingly, just as an aside, he got criticized by Thom Tillis yesterday when Thom Tillis was leaving or saying that he was going to leave the Senate for whatever reason. I'll leave that to somebody else. But he was criticizing Alex Epstein because he was a philosopher. And that is true. Alex Epstein is a philosopher. He is one of the smartest, brightest young men I've ever been around in my life. I met him in 2017, 2018, in South Africa at an energy conference. And he just, I mean, I was taken by, by how bright he is. He's a believer in his philosophy that fossil fuels are the answer to mankind's woes. When you think about what has happened and the quality of life that mankind has achieved over the course of the invention of the fossil fuel engine, then the flourishing of mankind is absolutely needs to be saluting fossil fuels. And fossil fuels have allowed us to tame the environment. They've allowed us to have air conditioning and irrigation and, you know, copious amounts of water around the world. And Alex understands, intellectually, I think, morally and ethically, that if you're not for using fossil fuels to help mankind flourish, you might have a bit of a dark heart issue because you think about it.

[Mike Rowe]

Mike, you might be wicked.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, you might just have a dark heart. You're basically saying to people in Africa, well, suck it up. You just happen to be born on a continent where you don't have the ability to have electricity.

[Mike Rowe]

No industrial revolution for you.

[Rick Perry]

It ain't gonna happen for you. Now listen, we're not cutting our electricity off over here and we're gonna fly around in our jets and go to the climate conferences we need to. But for you people over there, you're just not gonna flourish. Your children are not gonna probably be even be born because you're not gonna have an incubator or you're not gonna have electricity to have a hospital that's up to any standards. And God forbid you have a light bulb to keep away people in the dark of night.

[Mike Rowe]

Alex told me 3 billion people are currently relying on wood and dung as their primary source of energy.

[Rick Perry]

Suck that in every day into your lungs.

[Mike Rowe]

And that India and China combined are on track to build a coal fired plant every week for the next 30 years. You know, I think the thing, I'm. I'm usually a little skeptical of binary choices, but Alex has been on this podcast a couple of times and every time he leaves, I find myself thinking, behind curtain number one is a world where man is dedicated to protecting the environment and saving the climate for the betterment of the species. And behind door number two is a world where man is engaged in mortal stakes whereby he is protecting the species from the environment and from the climate. And, you know, I realize that's probably an oversimplification, but boy, if you set the table one way or the other, the entire conversation is going to be informed by that. And that's why that meeting where we met was so, so interesting. I knew that in general, everybody there was sitting around the same table and it was set in a way that I think most people understood. Look, these are mortal stakes. And back to the Manhattan Project. The thing that has stuck with me about that is that we can compare the race to get data AI and all of that built with enriching uranium. It's the stakes of what happens if we fail that keeps me up dumb. My first thought when I heard about Company Cam was, damn, why didn't I think of that? This is one of those ideas that's so good on its face, you know it's going to succeed long before it's even executed. Well, now the cat's out of the bag and everybody in the skilled trades is signing up for Company Cam. This is a Photo based communication tool that contractors and pros are using every single day to document millions of jobs, centralize and store project details, and then share all kinds of visual information back and forth between the field and the office. Crews on a job site can take unlimited timestamp photos and videos and then add them to their checklists and reports and so forth. Companycam makes it super easy to track work, manage teams and move projects forward. In other words, it's a complete and total game changer. CompanyCam serves pros in over 50 different trades, including general contracting, restoration, H Vac, roofing, landscaping, solar, all of them. I love it. I think it's going to be a tool in every toolbox all over the country. And with over 2 billion photos filed, 2 billion on 80 million different projects, they're well on their way. Simplest thing to do if you make your living in the trades is go to companycam.com, just watch the demo, read the gajillion reviews and you'll get a sense of what you've been missing out on. And it's impressive. Companycam.com Companycam.com if anyone, anyone can. It's Company Cam. It's Company Cam.

[Rick Perry]

And that's a really good comparison, Mike, because in 1942 the world was facing Nazism fascism and today the world is facing communism from the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, that's the comparison and I think it's a correct comparison. I've dealt with the Chinese enough to know that they do not play with the game rules that we have learned in Western civilization. They just don't. And I'm not sure that ever changes. I think they understand power and they understand overwhelming power. And artificial intelligence and its ability to be used in a large number of areas is our big challenge, I think, in the Western world. Are we going to get there first? Are we going to win this? We used to say over at the Department of Energy when we were over there and working towards quantum computing, that which the Department of Energy, as some people may or may not know, has got 17 national labs. And these national labs are absolutely the crown jewels of this country, the work that's done out there. That project out in Washington at the Pacific Northwest lab, which is one of those 17 labs today, are those jewels. The most extraordinary work I think in the world is being done at these variousness sundry labs. You know, there's Sandia, there's.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm sorry, but it just really strikes me that the three words I heard when I jumped into this room were Homer, God and Magic. And there is a magical element to, to everything. You're talking about the mystery in which plutonium is immersed. I mean, people just, most people don't have a frickin clue. And how could they? The science is so big and so wondrous that it feels like magic. And AI feels like magic. So do you think that part of the getting this thing over the finish line will involve demystifying the magical components of this? Or are we better off just looking in wonder and letting the experts get in there and sprinkle their fairy dust on it so we can all live happily ever after?

[Rick Perry]

Well, I'll answer it like I did your previous question. It's probably a little bit of both. You know, for those that want to understand quantum computing is and why that's important, for those that want to understand what artificial intelligence will allow us to do, the book is there to be read, the movie is there to be watched. For the vast majority of us who just want to enjoy life and quietness and calmness and in peace, you know, y' all figure this out and let us enjoy it. And I'm good with that. That's our history of our country has been full of people, you know, the Einstein's, the Fermi's, the, you know, the scientists that understood it but made our lives so much better. And that's where I kind of think we find ourselves today. That's the reason that Donald Trump saying and signing these executive orders that have said, go make this happen. Here are these executive orders on nuclear power. Here are these executive orders on energy development. Go make this happen. He understands it. I think Donald Trump is a visionary. I'm not sure and I share that visionary title with him. Listen, I'm not trying to get confused that I'm the smartest guy in the room, never have been, but I really like to hire the smartest people in the room and then they'll make me look good. And I think Donald Trump is not unlike that. He goes and brings people in. He says, you go do X and Y and Z. And I'm going to tell you, I'm enjoying greatly watching what I'm seeing right now. Sometimes it's Fun to watch MSNBC's heads blow off every day. But that's, you know, I'll try not to be too political here. But the point is he has given this directive and he said, go win this race. And when I saw you four months ago, we, this small group of people, my son being one of them, and a couple of other really bright extraordinarily talented people put together this concept that we were going to build the largest AI driven data center in the world. And that was what you saw announced the last week in June to be our goal was to do this on the 4th of July, Independence Day. That's not lost on anyone that if America were able to build to power the largest data center in the world, then we would send the message to the Chinese, nice try, but you know what? America is leading in this race and we're going to win it. And that's exactly what the plan is. So Fermi America is matter of fact today, which is, I don't know whether I can say the, the dates or not, but the end of magic.

[Mike Rowe]

We're recording this on July 1st, first day of July.

[Rick Perry]

We announced today that we've got some substantially large Siemens equipment headed our way to go to that site. And let me just give you a little look under the hood here so people will understand just what an extraordinary project this is. So Pantex is a Department of Energy piece of property just outside of Amarillo, Texas. It's on I don't know how many acres. I want to say it's 6 to 8,000 acres just east of the Amarillo Airport. It all belonged to Texas Tech University at one time. I won't take you through all of the back and forth, but the Department of Energy ended up with this property in the late forties as a place to dispose of the nuclear materials that we had. And it's been there used for multiple purposes, the least of which is not to disassemble nuclear weapons from around the world. Substantial amount of the weaponry that when the Iron Curtain fell, when Reagan helped bring to a close the the great Soviet Union. And a lot of the weapons that they had were relocated to the United States and disassembled. There's probably more nuclear material right outside of Amarillo, Texas than there is any place in the world. Now that's. I don't think I. Well, I didn't tell you anything that's classified. But we have nuclear materials in a lot of different places. But that facility right there has been the home to high explosives, to nuclear materials for literally over a half a century. The reason that's important is the people of Amarillo and Carson county and Randall counties, which are two counties up there, they're kind of like you're going to build some nuclear power plants over there to drive a data centers when you're getting started. They are very supportive of that. And then into your core issue and Mine, I might add. There are two limiting factors for building AI driven data centers. One of those is the energy. Are you going to have enough energy to keep those data centers running? I mean, they are literally data hogs like you can't imagine. I mean, gigawatts of power. As a matter of fact, this facility, when it is completely built out, 11 gigawatts of power, that's enough to keep Manhattan light it up for a year. This is a stunning amount of energy. So having enough power, and again, we go back to the point is you got to have. I mean, listen, wind and solar are fine. I'm not an anti wind, anti solar guy, but they're not going to be able to drive the baseload that you're going to need to be competitive in this race. So I mean, that's a given. That's not my theory or anything. That's just a given. Anybody?

[Mike Rowe]

No one disagrees?

[Rick Perry]

Nobody disagrees very well. So building that power is consequential. And the second issue is the trades and having the men and women with the skills to go build these facilities, the plumbers, the electricians, the H Vacs, my favorite, the welders, all of those tradesmen and women. That's the future of this race. And we're behind in both of those. Mike. I mean, one of the reasons I was so excited to get to do the Mike Rowe program, because everybody knows where you are when it comes to the trades. And you're right, you've been the Johnny Appleseed. You've been the messiah of the trades, and rightfully so. I think people are just now starting to, you know, sit back in their chairs and go, you know, Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe's right. We've got to go get focused on teaching these young people these skills that are very sellable to make a big difference in their lives, but more importantly, make a big difference in this country. The welding school over at Bernie, Texas, that my friend Dorman Vic, that, I mean, he's. What a great and extraordinary story. Young kids who come in at 14, 15 years of age and at 18 and 19, they're graduating from Bernie Champion High School with a certification as a welder and starting to work making 80 to $120,000 a year with zero debt. They're happy as they can be. They're doing what they want to do in their life. They're not trying to figure it out. They're not going to college being taught how to be woke. They're literally going and doing their life's work. But more importantly, from my perspective, they are filling the jobs that this country must have if we are going to win this AI driven data center race.

[Mike Rowe]

Do you see a kind of Rosie the Riveter rhyme here? Do you see an Uncle Sam wants you kind of recruiting message for this? I do. But I also see at its core something that over the last 17 years, I feel like has been somewhat dismissed because it's so damn simple. But it really comes down to the kid you just described making 150 grand a year with no college debt, maybe welcoming his first kid into the world. Maybe he's 27, 28 years old. That guy. He needs to be on a billboard. He needs to be on PSAs. He needs to be pointed to as the proximate cause of success and the American dream. And, and as a citizen who. Back to my earlier question, who answered a call, right. I mean, there's a, there's a bit of the first responder component to what you're talking about. And what I really want to say to you is since we met and I've said this to Chuck and Mary, my business partner, and really everybody in my world, it's like a memo went out to every CEO and half the governors. I met with Governor Abbott in detail about a potential campaign around the very thing you're discussing in Texas. We're having similar conversations in Pennsylvania. We already did it in South Dakota. But it's just a heck of a thing when the ship actually turns around. Now, I'm not saying that we're nowhere near ready for a victory lap, but at least in terms of acknowledging the problem, I was so heartened to hear your comments and Alex's and, and Toby Rice and guys who have a front row seat to this. And I'm just waiting for somebody to pick up the hammer and really hit the alarm, like, with real urgency. Cause five out, two in. Five out, two in. That's not sustainable math. It scares the hell out of me.

[Rick Perry]

Well, you're spot on. And Governor Abbott, to his great credit, took your challenge. I think you're seeing him speak about this. I'm going to continue to talk about it, you know, and I'm not, you know, blowing smoke up your dress here, but I don't think anybody has sounded the alarm any louder, any better than Mike Rowe has. You. You moved the needle. But there needs to be more Mike Rose out there. There needs to be more governors out there. There needs to be, you know, Chris Wright, the current Secretary of Energy. Chris gets this.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, he does.

[Rick Perry]

And when we Showed Chris this Fermi America plan and I don't think I've even mentioned this. Our site is almost 5,800 acres and it is contiguous too. It is shares a border with the Pantex facility in Amarillo. This is land that Texas Tech has had, they've been, they've been grazing cattle on it for, for many years. The government has used it from time to time. But this will build a monumental. As a matter of fact this will be a monument to the American trades. This will be a monument to the America ingenuity. This will be a monument to the Trump administration for seeing and having the vision that America can win this race. And this is the right place. This is the perfect site. Just as I told you. You've got the workforce, you've got a city that sees this and goes let's get started today. What are we waiting for? This is a state that is sending the message out. You want to come and risk your capital and have a chance to keep more of it. You, you moved to the state of Texas. Think about what they've done over in Dallas in the last, during this last year in the legislative session they created the Texas Stock Exchange which has sent the message to New York City. And now particularly with this Marxist communist person that may be the mayor of New York City who's basically said, you know, we don't even need police here. We're going to have our own grocery stores. And you think the communists did socialism right? Watch us.

[Mike Rowe]

You know what I realized the other day? His name, what is it? Mondami Mamdani. It's basically an anagram for I madman.

[Rick Perry]

Hadn't thought about that. But seriously, you think about if you're a Wall Streeter and you have just been told your city potentially in a year is going to be a war zone. You want to raise your family there, you want to have, you want to walk down Wall street to go to work and there are people lurking around who know there's not any police, no, there's not any law enforcement, no, there's not any protection. And socialism has taken over New York. And there is a place you can go called Dallas, Texas with the Texas Stock Exchange where you're going to be safe. And the mayor of Dallas is a law abiding, freedom loving individual. What are you going to do? You know what you're going to do? You're going to start saying, you know what, we've been here for 100 plus years. But we're thinking the, the new frontier down there in Texas that's looking pretty.

[Mike Rowe]

Good if you watch much television. You might have seen me pop up recently in a commercial for Pure Talk. In this particular commercial, I casually mention that I switched wireless companies because I was sick of overpaying my previous provider for a level of coverage I found to be lacking. Unfortunately, in this particular commercial, I also called out my previous service provider by name. And that made somebody up the food chain very, very, very angry. How angry? So angry that the commercial in question has been pulled off the air, never to be seen again. It's true. This is what happens, I suppose, when you upset a client worth $185 billion. Look, I wasn't trying to make trouble or embarrass anybody. I was just telling the truth. And the truth is this. My previous wireless provider was a disappointment. They were expensive, their service wasn't great, and neither was their coverage. PureTalk, on the other hand, has the most dependable 5G service in the country. They're on the same 5G towers as the big guys, but they don't charge you for any of the extra crap. As a result, they can offer unlimited talk and text with plenty of data for just $25 a month. And they support our vets in a meaningful way as well as my own foundation, which I do appreciate. Bottom line, if you're tired of doing business with a big, bloated, multi billion dollar wireless company who doesn't even know who you are, do what I did. Switch to a company that actually stands for something. Go to PureTalk.com RO and save an additional 50% off your first [e-mail] Roe, Texas looking good. And I'm just imagining, you know, waking up this morning in Florida as a high end real estate agent and going, all right, yeah, all right, I'll see you soon, you know.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, you know, I want to tell you an interesting story about how government can make a difference and they basically can make a difference by getting out of the way. In the early 2000s, Boeing was deciding that they were going to get out of the Pacific Northwest and they were going to go to another location. You know, I think, let's see, was it United and Continental that were had either merged or were thinking about merging at that, at that same period of time. And the two cities that it came down to was Chicago and Houston. Those were the two places and that may have been the United Continental. But beside the point, they chose, we recruited them. This was the early 2000s. This is before we really got good at recruiting businesses in the mid to late 2000s. We got really good at it in Texas. We got hp, we got Toyota. They came by the literally tens of thousands to the state of Texas over the end of the 2000s. And Governor Abbott has kept it going. Matter of fact, he's expanded it substantially.

[Mike Rowe]

Was it a recruiting message that worked, or did you just simply incentivize them and really you just run the numbers and then you're left to square it or ignore it?

[Rick Perry]

We did both. We had a. I had like a $35,000 radio ad campaign in Texas in 2006 or seven. I mean, you think $35,000 mean. It's pretty tiny. But we advertised it. I was going out to California. We were going to recruit these businesses. We literally bought some ads to put on some taxis. You remember when they put. Used to put ads on the back of taxis and drive around, it's like, you know, come to Texas. You know, we're wide open for business. And we had a little TV spot that showed me flipping a sign on a. On a door to open for business. And. And anyway, Jerry Brown, who was the governor of California. California. Then he got asked about it and somebody stuck a microphone on his face. You know, Governor Brown, what do you think about this ad campaign that Texas is doing here to recruit businesses back out of California to Texas? And Jerry kind of, you know, gave him the back side of his hand signal and said that that ad campaign doesn't even make a fart. Could not have been a greater.

[Mike Rowe]

That's all you needed.

[Rick Perry]

That took a $35,000 little ad campaign. And it was on every TV. It was made national news. I mean, it was a multi. Hundreds of thousands of dollars little ad campaign that was kind of like Jerry Brown says, texas ad campaign's not even a fart. It was awesome.

[Mike Rowe]

That's it. Well, you know, today they call that earned media.

[Rick Perry]

Earned media.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. And it's. And I know I really want to dig into the ibogaine thing soon, but this all comes down to what's persuasive. You know, I'm kind of obsessed with that. And I want you to make your point about what was it the airlines.

[Rick Perry]

Yep, the airlines. The airlines were moving. And here was the point with this that I saw in later years. They chose Chicago and the wives of the decision makers, I heard a couple of years later, they were very influential in where the headquarters went. And Chicago was chosen over. As a matter of fact, I think it was Dallas rather than Houston. It was either Dallas or Chicago. And they chose Chicago. And I picked up through Very good sources that the spouses of the decision makers helped make that decision because they thought the cultural arts were more expansive in Chicago than Dallas. And Maybe in early 2000s, that might have been the case. But here's what happened in a decade in the state of Texas. And the reason this happened in the state of Texas over that decade is because we didn't overtax, we didn't over regulate, we didn't over litigate, and we had a skilled workforce, which basically means you've got accountable public schools. Those four things are the real message for anybody who wants their state to get ahead. Don't overtax, don't overregulate, don't ever litigate, have skilled workforce. Because in that decade, Fort Worth built a new museum of modern art. The Formula one race came to Austin, Texas. Dallas built another performing arts facility, the Myers, on top of a performing arts facility they already had. Ross Perot's family built a museum of natural history. There was south by Southwest, one of the biggest music and film festivals in the world now came to Austin, Texas. You know, Austin got the Formula one. I mean, all of these things happened in a decade because I'm going to be just a little political here. When I became the governor the next year, the next legislative session was the first time in the history of the state of Texas that we have all Republican leadership. And that's when we put these policies into place that didn't over tax, over regulate, over litigate. And we really changed the thought process, if you will. We changed the character of the state of Texas where people were like, that's where I want to be. I want to come into this, this state, be a part of this, enjoy the freedoms that are there. And if you get to keep more of your money, you'll decide where to put the state of Texas. And I'll suggest very few other states, if any, would have built a performing arts facility, would have built an F1 track, would have done all of these things. That was the private sector being able to have more of its money to decide itself. And that is a great, I think, lesson to everyone who's in public service. If you want your community to grow, let the private sector keep more of their money. Government is never going to be able to build these great museums and edifices. I will suggest to you now, they may help, they may can participate, they can get out of the way, right? But in 2011, on Reagan's birthday, I was on the USS Reagan doing one of my bucket lists in life. And that was to do a catapult launch and a trap in an F18. My friend Jake Elsey, who is now a United States Congressman, was the air boss on the Reagan, and he got that done for me. And as one of the cods landed and the door let down, and I was watching the people walk off, one of the individuals was the head of that company that had chosen to go to Chicago. And I recognized him and I went over and just shook his hand. I hadn't seen him since a meeting probably a decade earlier. And I said, after some pleasantries, I said, where are you living now? And he gets this big smile and literally belly laughs. He went, well, governor, he said, I'm in Plano, Texas. So in the decade since he and his wife had moved to Chicago, the cultural arts had gotten good enough for him to move to the state of Texas. And he got to keep a lot more of his money because we don't have a personal income tax.

[Mike Rowe]

Here's how we get to ibogaine. Everything we've talked about so far really does redound to persuasion. And it does occur to me that everything you've done in your long career is part and parcel of that. The Manhattan Project preceded you, obviously, but there was an awful lot of persuading that had to happen. Chicago versus Dallas. These are cities making a case for themselves. Right? Rescue dogs. Right. Somebody needs to make a persuasive case for adopting a dog versus buying a purebred. And that battle will go on and on and on. The environment, nuclear, certainly. We have to make a more persuasive case to dispel the irrational fears that so many people carry around with regard to that. You're Sisyphus, dude. Every time I turn around, you're pushing another rock up another hill. And I think maybe the ibogaine story, it's certainly right there with all of the other ones. And you know, Sean McCourt is a good friend of ours. I've known him for years, and he just produced this film and you're in it. And I just watched it on my walk this morning and congratulations. I know this has been a big fight and we can frame it any way you want, but. But for me, this rock that you're pushing up this particular hill goes all the way back to this weird dichotomy between drugs and medicine and plant based and recreational and just the incredible confusion that seems to hover like the cloud of dirt hovered around Pig Pen. How you're going to cut through it.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, it's interesting that you made the Connection between nuclear and ibogaine. Because they're alike. And they're alike because there's been this great mystery and there's been this great fraud about the truth about both of them. You think about nuclear power and what, three events, maybe four, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and obviously the two bombs on the nuclear weapon, this terribly destructive weapon that killed tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in Japan. So we've been taught that all of our lives. You remember, I think it was the 64 election. You may not have been alive in 64 Roe, but I was okay. I started to say, you're just a baby. The 64 election, there was this ad, I think that one of the, either Goldwater or Johnson used and it was the explosion, the daisy ad, pulling the things off the daisy. And it was used to scare people. Nuclear is bad. Your children will all be born naked if we have nuclear power. I mean, you know, it's just kind of like come up with every crazy statement you can and people, oh my God, that'd be bad. So the same thing happened in the late 60s, in the 70s and carried on through the 80s when it came to these compounds. And listen, don't ever get me confused as being some pro drug guy. I'm not. I mean, I'm still a knuckle dragging right wing Republican when it comes to these issues of recreational drugs. I'm never going to be for that. I mean, I think we're learning now about cannabis. You know, some studies are coming out right now. It's like, you know what, just opening up these stores on every corner might not be such a great idea. So you know, set that aside. Recreational use of drugs, bad. But are there some compounds out there that got swept up in the anti drug mentality of the late 60s and 70s? What Nixon did, using these compounds as a political tool in hindsight, really hurt our country and hurt the world in turn. And what I mean by that is Nixon saw there were two groups that Nixon really disliked. He hated blacks and he hated hippies.

[Mike Rowe]

And he really hated black hippies.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, they used the DEA and the anti drug mentality to go after these groups. So anything that had the word psycho or psychedelic or psychoactive or, I mean they swept them up, put them under schedule one and go get those people. And in hindsight, and so we add on to that in the 70s and even the 80s and the Reagan administration and Mrs. Reagan, who I dearly love, Nancy Reagan, but her just say no to drugs. Yes. Don't be using these things recreationally, but it cast a pall over every broad.

[Mike Rowe]

Brush, Broad, broad brush.

[Rick Perry]

So a lot of compounds that potentially could save a lot of lives got sat on the shelf, locked in a closet, put in the basement, hands off. And we're just now, you know, literally 50 years later figuring out we may have overreacted, just to spell. So let me delve into and share with you where this transition for me occurred.

[Mike Rowe]

Could we start first with the problem, just to make sure people understand. And I know listeners here will get it, but I mean, is it 17 a day? Is it 20? Is it 22?

[Rick Perry]

We don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

We don't know. Right. But we do know if you're going to ring an alarm bell, whether it's around the skilled trade shortage or the importance of a, you know, a better energy plan, surely there's an alarm for this because last year it was 66,500, I believe, that were attributed to straight up suicide. I don't know that that includes deaths of despair and misadventure and all sort of things. Right. So that, that are adjacent to this number. My point is it's a scandal. These men and women, they need a right to try.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Mike, in Sean's documentary, they had an incredible stat that just dropped my jaw, which was in the time from 9, 11 to 20, you know, the two wars that we fought, 7,000 men and women died in battle, and during that very same time, 140,000 killed themselves.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, right, that goes on a billboard just as surely as the trade school kid we're talking about. It's just, it's extraordinary. I want to hear how you came to it, Governor, but I just want to make sure people understand the totality and the enormity of the problem because you found success with this thing and it's still freaking people out. Shameless plug. So I'm not yet 100% sure, but it's looking very likely that the Microworks foundation is going to be able to award a record setting $5 million in work ethic scholarships this year. Wouldn't be possible without the generous support of our corporate donors and individuals and people who listen to this podcast and of course, people who enjoy noble Tennessee whiskey. Yes, my granddad's whiskey continues to raise money for the foundation that was inspired by him. Karl Nobel. Nobelspirits.com K N O B E L Try some of the original juice or the Rick house or the barrel strength or the single barrel or the rye. They're all delicious. And proceeds benefit the Microworks Foundation. Right now, if you spend 100 [e-mail] you also get nine orange sugar infused cubes that are perfect for making an instant old fashioned. Every time you just muddle up one there in a old fashioned glass filled with noble and poof, you're done. Anyway, people love them and I'm so grateful for all the support and all of the donors and all of the people with the sophisticated palate to enjoy my granddad's whiskey. Go get some at K N o B E L spirits dot com. Thanks. Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waiting is done, we'll take a drink and go.

[Rick Perry]

So we've never been at war for this long. In this intensive war, I think I may be correct in saying this. In the history of mankind, you think about the Spartans and however many millennial ago that we've been fighting wars and we fought for a little bit of time, then we walked and we did some things, but the intensity of being at warfare. Look at the Civil War when we fought. Then we may walk for three or four weeks, then we fought for 24 hours, and then then World War I, a little more intense, World War II, a little more intense. But we were not at combat even in World War II. I think if you were in the 1st Division, 16th infantry, you went in on the North Africa, you, you fought there for that, you know, May and summer of 43, then you went to Sicily and then you got shipped over to England. And then on the 6th of June of 44, you invaded and then you went all the way through, you know, Europe and the war was over with basically around the end of April of 45. That's only two years. Only. I mean, if you were one of those frontline war fighters, that was a long period of time. But think about Vietnam a little bit more. Maybe a couple of tours in Vietnam where you didn't know where the bad guy was. I mean, a little more intensity on that brain, a little bit more of those chemicals pumping out into your brain. We saw what we call it back in World War II. Shell shock.

[Mike Rowe]

Shell shock. World War I, actually. Yeah, battle fatigue. Right.

[Rick Perry]

Same thing in Vietnam. And we just kind of set it aside. You know, we're war fighters. We don't talk about that. We'll deal with it ourselves. And generally they would find a way to mask it with alcohol, which was a whole other problem. Then we get into this war on terror. And for almost 20 years, these young men and women, in some cases Deployed eight, nine, ten times, not knowing. I mean, literally walking down the street in Baghdad, whether the person coming towards you is a good guy or a bad guy. That intensity of war fighting we have never seen potentially in the history of mankind. So we're basically test pilots right now, Mike, is what we are. We've got this massive amount of young men and women. I will say, yeah, I will suggest to you some of the finest that we've got who have sacrificed time after time, they've held their hand up and said, here am I, send me. And then they come home. And our government has been an abject failure at dealing with how these young men and women process into the. Into the civilian world.

[Mike Rowe]

There's no reverse boot camp.

[Rick Perry]

No. And anyway, as that is your basis that our government has failed, our government owes these young people at least some answers about why are my friends killing themselves? Why is this happening? And now over the last. I'm going to say last decade, we're starting to understand it a lot better. We're starting to see a lot of different things. And so I want to take you back. This started for me. My dad was a B17 tail gunner in 1944 and 45. His crew member was killed in October 7th of 1944 on a mission. My dad got to see com. He was a tail gunner. He got to see real combat. Best I can tell, my dad never exhibited any symptoms. But what I know now is that you cannot go to combat. You cannot be in intense combat, whether you're a tail gunner on a B17 in 1944, or whether you're a young man on point in Vietnam in 1967, or whether you're a Navy SEAL dropping into someplace in some God forbidden place around the world today. You cannot go into combat and come back home and be the same person you were. I believe that with all my heart. There's something that happens. Some of them handle it better than others. Some of them handle it differently. But my point is, we have sent this entire generation of kids into war for nearly 20 years in some cases. And our government handed them a stack of opioids and said, here you go, take these until we figure out how to help you. They mask it with alcohol. And then we sit around and go, damn, did you hear that, Mike or Bobby or Jane? They killed themselves last week. Huh? Wonder why. Well, we know why. And so what are we going to do about it? So this started for me back in 2006 when I met a young man just by the grace of God, out on Naval Special Warfare center in San Diego gave us a tour of the place while I was the governor, the Lieutenant commander, Naval aviator, just kind of show you how small the world is and how this is really meant to be. That Naval aviator that actually led the tour who went in the barracks and pulled out this enlisted kid to give a Saturday morning tour to a vip, which, you know, most of them shot the finger to that I'm sure. But this one came because he was from Texas. And this was Texas Governor. The boy who led that was Jake Elsey, the now United States Congressman from over in Central Texas. The enlisted SEAL who assisted that tour was a boy by the name of Marcus Luttrell, lone Survivor in 2006. This is when this occurred, about a year after Operation Red Wings. And we took him to dinner that night after they had given us the tour. I knew this was an extraordinary story as we were picking his brain about, because Jake shared a little bit with us about what happened. This was before the book, this for the movie. Nobody ever heard of Marcus Luttrell before. I told him, I said, give me your mother's phone number. I'll call her when I get back to Austin. Tell her I ran into you, doing fine. And I said, hey, if you ever buy you're ever in Austin, come by and see me. Fat chance, right? I mean, it's a nice thing to say, you know, I told it to hundreds of people, hey, if you're ever through Austin, come by and see me. And we went about our way. I called his mom, told her, I said, I saw your son. He's doing fine. And, you know, I went back to being a governor doing what I did. The Following May of 07, the security detail calls into the governor's mansion and says, sir, there's a young man down here who said, you told him if he was ever too awesome to come by and see you. And I literally laughed and I said, I said that to hundreds of people. I said, what's a person's name? And he told me. And I went, yeah, I did tell that kid that. I said, well, send him in. We'll. We'll give him dinner. And that was in May of 07. And he lived with us for the next two and a half years.

[Mike Rowe]

With your family?

[Rick Perry]

Yes, in the governor's residence. He was really sick. He was separated in a very oddball way that we subsequently got involved with and got him, you know, reevaluated where he was eligible for Tricare. I mean, they literally just sent him out the door. It was the weirdest thing in the world. I know a little bit about how the military functions, being the commander in chief of the Texas military forces, but this was just an oddball deal. And this kid had. The only health care he could get was through the va. And I was just kind of like, after he came and stayed with us. My wife's a nurse, and she identified this pretty quickly. Addicted to opioids, had alcohol issues. He had physical issues, obviously traumatic brain injury. Slept with the light on all the time. Was, you know, afraid to wake up in the dark. I mean, it was a tragic set of events.

[Mike Rowe]

And did he tell you the story of what happened in that made him famous? The whole lone survivor thing. So you knew all that?

[Rick Perry]

I knew that at dinner the night we first met. As a matter of fact, I told him, I said, marcus, you have a really interesting story here. I said, you need to find somebody to help you put this into a book form to honor your friends. And we knew his backstory. And again, he was living with us in may of, I think, 08 when his book became number one on the new York Times bestseller list. So, yeah, you may or may not remember this. The governor's mansion was being redone. There was an arsonist that tried to burn it down. We lived off campus, as we refer to it, in a private residence for nearly five years. And for two of those years, he lived with us. We had a third floor on this house that we had moved into, and we just gave it to him and he could come and go and the detail knew him. And. And during that period of time, Marcus goes from being, you know, some unknown, big, tall drink of water kid to a very well known New York Times bestseller, to, I guess the movie didn't occur until he actually had moved out with us.

[Mike Rowe]

But now, the way I heard it, you guys were fishing when he got the word.

[Rick Perry]

I've actually got pictures. We're bass fishing back over here about 50 miles from where we live today. And I've got a picture of him holding up his number one finger as he got the call from his publisher that, hey, man, you just made number one our Times bestseller list.

[Mike Rowe]

But he's also got like a seven pound bask on. This is pretty sweet, too. This is a pretty big bay. That's great.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So then obviously he's sick, he's struggling, he's having this extraordinary thing happen to him. But I. I'm guessing he's not really getting better as a result of that. Where does the ibogaine happen?

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, well, that's actually way down in his story. We chased a lot of rabbits. I took him to multiple places. The Carrick Brain center up in Dallas, we did. We threw a lot of jello at the wall, I guess is a way to say it, and some of it would help a little bit and what have you. But he went to a place in Florida called Athletes Performance, I think it's now called Axios. And he still goes there every year. It's in the Panhandle up around Pensacola. And they do a lot of work for high end athletes, you know, special operators, NFL players, law enforcement. And it's where we got his addiction to the opioids addressed. I don't know. You know, there's a difference between being cured and healed. We got him off of the opioids by going there. They headed him in a good way. The greatest thing that ever happened to Marcus is he got married and he married a fabulous woman. Melanie Juneau was, I mean, she literally was an angel that saved his life. Yeah, it was great that he, he got to live with my wife and myself. You know, I, I tell people, I said there, you know, unfortunately, there are tens of thousands of young men just like Marcus Luttrell. They just didn't know a governor. Marcus just happened to, to meet me at a time that was very fortuitous for him and in turn us. But the point is, I mean, I see God's hands all over. This is where we met, why we met, what we're doing now, how this is all working out. This is, I'm just a good, useful tool, just as Marcus is just a good, useful tool in this to make a difference in a lot of people's lives. So anyway, let's fast forward. And during the time he was living with us, we met his brother, his identical twin brother, Navy SEAL Morgan Luttrell. And when I left the governorship, Morgan was leaving the SEAL teams and he had some traumatic accidents. He crashed off the coast, the east coast of Norfolk, in a nighttime training mission. Broke his back. This was in 09, I believe, about the same time Marcus was down at this facility being treated for his opioid addiction. Morgan ends up down there because he has broken his back. And they sent him to the same place. And we, you know, he became very much a part of our family as well, as did Marcus. So these two boys stay in our lives. And after I leave the governorship, I've run for president in 2015. That didn't last very long. And help Trump, he asked me to come be the Secretary of Energy. And I want to take some people to D.C. with me that I know and I trust. I sued Washington a lot while I was governor, but I didn't know a lot about Washington. And so I wanted some folks up there. And both of these young men are peculiarly bright. You know, I don't know whether you put them in the genius category, but they are very, very bright. Morgan was working on his PhD in brain science because he was very interested in PTSD and traumatic brain injury and what have you. I knew that. So when I got to dc, there was a nascent program at the Department of Energy using the department supercomputers. All the supercomputers in the United States basically belong to doe. And University of California, San Francisco was in a early on program to scan the brains of people with traumatic brain injuries using those supercomputers and their power to be able to map the brain. I asked Morgan if he would set aside his PhD work, come to D.C. with me, help work on that program, keep an eye on it, and quite frankly, just have my back as we were in Washington D.C. and he agreed to do that. And that micro is the first time I ever heard the word ibogaine. It was through Morgan in a. Probably a casual conversation as we were talking about brain science and what they were doing. Dr. Jeffrey Manley, PhD, MD, out of the University of California, San Francisco, ran this program. Still does. Great guy. A wonderful scientist and doctor and researcher. And Morgan worked with him. And in a casual conversation, I heard Morgan say that they were sending some of their friends down to Mexico to be treated with this plant medicine called ibogaine. I said, morgan, you need to be really careful with that. I said, I don't know what that is, but that doesn't sound like a good idea.

[Mike Rowe]

Doesn't sound like Tylenol.

[Rick Perry]

That was my first. Sorry.

[Mike Rowe]

In the background, they got a good rhythm going on. Yeah.

[Rick Perry]

The FedEx truck has just pulled up out here. And this is the way that we say hi to the FedEx driver. And he loves them, but they announced that he's coming up. So we live like I live. 75 miles from Austin, 85 miles from Houston, 3 miles outside of a town that's population 87. So to say we're rural is a pretty descriptive term.

[Mike Rowe]

And that's where you're sitting right now?

[Rick Perry]

That's correct. Nobody sneaks up on us out here.

[Mike Rowe]

Who's over your left shoulder right there in the frame? That. Yeah.

[Rick Perry]

That is the most beautiful woman in the world. That's the first girl I ever had a date with.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rick Perry]

I dated her for 16 years before I talked her into marrying me.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

So this really trying it on, huh?

[Mike Rowe]

You're still trying it out? Yeah.

[Rick Perry]

59 years since we had our first date together.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rick Perry]

That's pretty good stuff. Now, we hadn't been married that long. We dated for 16 years. She was not a. She was not an easy sell. Let me put it that way.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't want to fry. I'm just saying.

[Rick Perry]

So, Ro, I will tell you, you'll love this. So when I was a pilot in the Air Force, I was pretty cool, right? You know, I was wearing a flight suit, flying all over the world.

[Mike Rowe]

C130s. Right.

[Rick Perry]

You know, I was attracted to her. When I got out of that and came back home and moved back to the farm and, you know, old, worn out, blue jeans and greasy hair. I lost a lot of my cool. So she was like a really hard sell. But I persevered. Kind of like selling the people of the state of Texas that ibogaine is something that they ought to pay attention.

[Mike Rowe]

To or that nuclear is not a thing to be afraid of.

[Rick Perry]

So. And that really gets to the. To the core of this. I'm a curious person. Yes. I'm conservative. I don't make any, you know, I don't make any excuses for that. I don't apologize for that. I'm a conservative. I think conservatism is a good thing. But I'm curious, and if you come to me with facts and data, I will. Criminal justice reform is a great example of it.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Rick Perry]

I was a. Do not get. Come and talk to me about this criminal justice reform. You break the laws of the state of Texas, we are throwing you in jail and we are throwing the key away. That was my mentality in the early 2000s. And I had a district judge, a Democrat district judge by the name of John Cruzo, who came and said, governor, here's what we're doing up here in Fort Worth with these drug courts and with the shock probation and. And people who are, you know, they broke the law and they need to be punished, but we're not sending them to prison where they become professional criminals. And I found that to be curious. And I was like, that's interesting. And the more I got talked to about it and the more open I was to, this is a productive way to deal with these individuals. And Texas became the first state, I want to say in 07, we implemented this statewide criminal justice reform, that the product that came out of that the result was by 2011, we had saved $3 billion in building new prisons and untold lives that were saved because they never went to jail. Never went to prison, which is where you become a professional criminal. That mentality served me very well when it came to either being open to this concept of why would a psychoactive compound, why would you be open to betting your reputation on this to, you know, potentially save a few people's lives? That same mentality and same characteristics was how I sat down with Donald Trump at Bedminster in, I think, 2018 and talked to him about criminal justice reform. And I had Brooke Rollins, who is now his secretary of Agriculture, and I think the governor of Kentucky at that particular point in time, was in this meeting, and Trump was. Trump sounded like me. He was like, get behind me, Satan. He said, I'm tough on crime. And then we made the pitch to him, and he was curious. That was the meeting that started him to be open to a criminal justice reform That, I will suggest to you, was one of the very important reasons he got elected in 2024. Because there were, particularly in the African American community, there were people that said, you know what? He understands us. He understands what's happened to us. He understands that the criminal justice system hadn't been fair to us, and that being open and curious has been one of the great gifts that I've been given as a person and being able to share with other pretty conservative Republicans that you can do these things and it's not going to ruin your political career.

[Mike Rowe]

It's not enough just to be curious. You've got to be, you know, you got to be willing to be wrong. Right. I mean, curiosity requires a measure of humility, you know, that's in short supply, I think it seems like, in the political class, certainly in the journalistic class. We're very long on certainty these days. And literally every topic that we've talked about so far has required a kind of peripetia to get homeric on it. Right. It's just the willingness to say, you know what? I was sure about? I was sure about this. And now I'm not only open, I've changed my mind. That's a hell of a thing.

[Rick Perry]

That beautiful woman over my left shoulder reminds me on a regular basis that one of the hardest things to do in life is to admit you're wrong.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know what? I've had lots of practice. Like anything else, it gets easier the more wrong you are. Yeah, but flash forward a bit. I don't want to keep you all day you got a house full of dogs and you're trying to change the world. What's happened in Texas with ibogaine? Where are we in this long slog to acceptance?

[Rick Perry]

So this last session of the legislature, Brian Hubbard, who, if you want to talk to the smartest guy on the planet, from my perspective, Brian is my partner in this. He ran the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Commission until it was shut down by their current governor and attorney general, who someday they'll have to explain why that happened, but that's on them. But the point is, Brian Hubbard, myself, Amber and Marcus Capone, the vets organization, and a host of really good, capable people that I just don't have time to name all their names, were out helping on this. We put together a plan, we implemented it to allow for the state of Texas to commit $50 million, that's real money, 50 million taxpayer dollars, to partner with a drug development company, an equal amount, the state of Texas gets to maintain any patents that come out of this and do clinical trials. The focus is on veterans. But, Mike, this is a lot bigger than veterans, because what we know about ibogaine now is it is extraordinarily effective against addictions. I'm talking alcohol, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl opioids. I mean, one treatment, one oral treatment with ibogaine in 80 plus percent of the cases, and the addiction is gone. I mean, that sounds too good to be true, but I've seen the data. Stanford's done a clinical trial on this. I've seen over a thousand veterans that we sent down to Mexico to a facility called Ambio that has had extraordinary success, particularly dealing with our war fighters. That's where Marcus and Morgan, where Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor recipient, all of them have been to Ambio and to be treated and had stunningly good success. So this legislation, which by the grace of God and you know, the people of the state of Texas standing up and saying, we want to do this, Governor Abbott was fully behind this. The lieutenant governor came on board, the speaker came on board. It passed the Texas legislature, which has 150 members in the state House with only two dissenting votes. It passed, I think, on a voice vote in the Senate, the governor publicly signed it. I mean, the governor put his reputation on the line on this as well. So a lot of courageous Texans. So just kind of as a little background, when it first became public that I was talking about using some psychoactive drug to treat veterans in Mexico, one of my political consultants came up to me and he said, what in the hell are you doing? He said, man, he said, you're fixing to throw away 40 years of, you know, conservative history. You know, he said, what are you doing? And I, I said, well, I said, I don't. I don't think so. I said, I have studied this. I've talked to literally hundreds of people that have been treated. I've been down there and looked at this facility. I said, I've done my homework on this. I probably studied this more than anything I ever faced while I was the governor looking at issues. I said, because I knew how sensitive this was going to be and I needed to really know what I was talking about. But I said, here's the other side of this and this is what I appreciate about these other members that have done the same thing, that have to stand up in front of their citizens for elections. I said, my reputation is not worth more than those veterans lives. And that's what's really important is that there are a lot of courageous men and women who understand that this is a compound that has the potential to really change people's lives, save people's lives. And if you cannot be for that kind of goes back to that statement that we talked about earlier about those environmental radicals. You got a dark heart. If you want to say, yeah, you know, there may be some combat out there that could save your life, but you know, my, my being against those psychedelics are stronger than that. So you're just gonna die, I think too.

[Mike Rowe]

Rick, may I call you Rick at this point? It's been nine years.

[Rick Perry]

Yes, sir. I think R. Hey, you. I will, I will answer.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, like you've just jumped straight to Ro. So I figure I'm good with Rick, dude, T shirt boy, whatever.

[Rick Perry]

Here in a T shirt. You can call me.

[Mike Rowe]

That's just from the waist up. I don't even want to know what you're rocking. It's none of my business, but it's this idea of you're either reacting to a circumstance or you're trying to get ahead of an eventuality. And you know, it's a harder slog to sell when you're trying to get ahead of an eventuality because you're dealing with the theoretical thing that might happen and you want to do this thing to prevent that. But again, the evidence demands a verdict. These guys are punching their own tickets at record and heartbreaking numbers. And I feel like, you know, I don't know who those two knuckleheads were who voted nay on this thing, but I know our country is Full of people who kind of, they'll show up. The house is fully involved, the flames are everywhere and they stroke their chin and they talk about what might be done to deal with this fire that's happening in front of them. The whole approach is just so much more suited to fire prevention as opposed to brother, your house is on fire. Well, our house is on fire with regard to trade schools. Our house is on fire with regard to energy. I'll suggest again that there is a fire with our four legged friends and the incredible ridiculousness that has separated purebreds from rescues. And this is certainly a fire. I just for the life of me think we're entering the most extraordinary time of advocacy and persuasion that I've ever seen in my life. And whether you wanted to or not, you certainly have a seat at the grown up table, man.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, so it's really interesting. We've had a meeting with I think 15 other states and I would suggest it's going to grow. It's going to be more than that as some pretty conservative members of the legislature from all across the country have contacted me and said, hey, they're curious. And we talk about this, their heart's in the right place. They've got veterans, they've got loved ones who have addiction problems or have PTSD or traumatic brain injury. We think that there's probably, and this is me speaking, I'm not hanging this on anything other than some data that needs to be looked at. If neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Mississippi Alzheimer's, I will suggest to you, all of those may be affected in a positive way with this plant that comes from Gabon in western Africa and has been used for centuries over there from the aboga shrub. And let's do these clinical trials across the country. I mean Bobby Kennedy, Secretary Kennedy, he and his agency, they're going to be supportive of this. I'm just, I'm comfortable that, that Bobby's one of those curious individuals who is going to say let's take a look at this. Dr. Oz. I think, Dr. Bhattachara, you'd look over at. You know what I'd like to see is there be a rescheduling of ibogaine. And listen, I'm not going to get into anybody else's field here. I don't want to get distracted of my mission. My mission is about ibogaine. You know, there's some really interesting things out there with psilocybin. There's really interesting things out there with mdma. There's Other compounds that I hope this administration will say, you know what? Let's go do these clinical trials so that we know, and we'll find out whether or not they are what you say they are. I'm focused on ibogaine because I am convinced that this compound, particularly with our veterans and particularly with addictions. And, Mike, think about how many people you know. I'll speak for myself. How many people I know whose families are tragically impacted by someone who has a substance addiction, whatever it may be. And I'm convinced that this compound has the ability to reset the brain. You look at the Stanford study and the work that they did, there's measurable increases in the white matter in the brain of every one of the veterans that. The Stanford study. You go to Stanford and ibogaine, and it'll pop up and take a look at it. The white matter increased. That's the myelin sheath around the exterior of the brain. That's the superhighway. That's what moves your. Your thoughts around in your brain. Every one of those veterans had measurable increases in white matter. There's a regenerative effect of this medicine. And so, I mean, this may be the most profound advancement in medicine in my lifetime. And let's look at it. That is some talk.

[Mike Rowe]

That's some tall cotton, man. I mean, you know, full disclosure, I mentioned on this podcast probably a month and a half ago that we had met or maybe I wrote something on Facebook and I said, you know, that this was a key area of interest, and I was really looking forward to talking to you about it. And I immediately heard from people who were like, well, okay, but wait. Okay. And I mean, people really. I mean, the lines are drawn, Governor. And you've got. There are vocal detractors out there, and I don't. Again, I'd be much more charitable to their skepticism in the framework of, well, we don't really know how bad the problem is yet that we're trying to cure, so let's just tap the brakes. But come on, this is like experimental drugs being denied people with ALS because they haven't been properly tested. Aren't. I mean, isn't it rational to say, wait, there is nothing to lose here? I mean. And again, not to plug my friend's movie too hard, but you really meet the vets in this movie who are really walking around with the weight of the world. They're this close to punching their own ticket. Yep.

[Rick Perry]

Yep.

[Mike Rowe]

And to say to that guy, or to his wife or to his kids, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm skeptical of all of this. So you don't get to try. Well, that's, that's outrageous.

[Rick Perry]

The 17th of July is when that will air on Fox Nation. So I hope everyone that's watching, listening will take a look at it because it is a profound piece of reporting. Sean.

[Mike Rowe]

Terrific.

[Rick Perry]

Sean's done a really good job with this.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, yeah. He's a real friend of the court, as it were. Chuck, what's it called? The movie. Remember?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh, I don't. Do you know, Governor, I don't.

[Rick Perry]

I'm not. You know what it is? It's got. He says in the Washington Post editorial, I said that this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. That was. Oh, and it's something to do with.

[Mike Rowe]

That's it.

[Rick Perry]

The rest of the. I'm sorry, I've. I've only looked at the, at the, at the clip of it. He let me see. I've seen it all, but I've be darned if. And he told me what he named it. But Fox nation and the 17th, so. And it's something about the rest of my life.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, it'll be easy enough to find for people.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It's not listed on here. It just says Ibogaine Master, so.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know what it is? It's. He's got it in the movie itself. It's still the rough cut, but the title's in there.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, somewhere in there.

[Mike Rowe]

I literally saw it this morning. Yeah, it's a very strange thing, Rick, to be rucking with 50 or 60 pounds on your back watching a film about ibogaine huffing and puffing, sweating profusely, just stalking through the fog here in Northern California. But that's how I started my day, watching you be interviewed.

[Rick Perry]

Well, not necessarily watching me, but watching it.

[Mike Rowe]

Who was. Who's your associate? He was on Rogan with you as well.

[Rick Perry]

Brian Hubbard. Brilliant.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

That guy's good.

[Rick Perry]

He's fast good.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

That guy's.

[Rick Perry]

Brian Hubbard may be the brightest person I've ever dealt with in my life. And I've been, just by the grace of God, been exposed to a lot of really interesting, extraordinarily bright people. Brian Hubbard may be at the top of that list.

[Mike Rowe]

He's got such a style about him. Like when he really gets wound up, he. He kind of gets close to the microphone and he tells you very quickly.

[Rick Perry]

And he's got a sonorous voice.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, it's. It's really.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh, that Kentucky accent. I mean, I could Listen to him all day.

[Rick Perry]

Do seem from time to time I said, now, folks, Brian is going to look like and sound like a hillbilly from Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains. And he is, which is. I mean, he grew up in eastern Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains in a family dysfunctional. And he very public about this, affected by alcohol and, you know, coal mining country. And he has just found his real calling in life and he's incredibly passionate. He and his wife are both just two of the loveliest people I've had the privilege to get to meet in my lifetime.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I got the title. It's. I began the fight of a lifetime.

[Rick Perry]

There you go. I know something about a lifetime.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, well, you know what I mean. I'm glad you found it because that might be the title of this episode. Rick Perry, it's the fight of your lifetime. Or at least it's the fight for this year. Who knows what's coming up for you?

[Rick Perry]

I'm not ever gonna. Somebody asked me, how do you like being retired? And I said, wouldn't have a clue. I'm not ever gonna retire. I'm gonna work until the last breath is taken.

[Mike Rowe]

So bottom line, is Texas going to lead the AI revolution in this country as well as cure ptsd?

[Rick Perry]

Yes. If you don't believe it, when do you even want to start? I believe in both of these things. The team that we put together to build this AI data center, the potential for. I realize I'm biased. I get it. That Texas is a unique place. We got a unique history. We're, you know, if you drew the outline of Texas in the dirt in Afghanistan, the kid over there would know what that is. I mean, Texas is a unique place for a lot of different reasons. And our spirit of, you know what we're going to carve out of this absolutely just hard as hell place to live this great empire. And we're going. And you think about the movie Giant or you think about the Alamo, you think about the history of this place, and it is bigger than life. So the idea that we're going to build a data center that literally takes America to the cusp of winning the most important battle in our lifetime is why not?

[Mike Rowe]

Why not? You know, Pennsylvania is feeling pretty consequential too, these days for a lot of different reasons. Our friend Selena Zito, who I love.

[Rick Perry]

Man, she is awesome. She and I met, and not to get off subject here, but Selena Zito is one of my favorite people in the business. I mean, I love her. She came and traveled with me when I ran for people president in 2011, and just. I completely became enamored with her in a professional way. I mean, she's just the most lovely person, great family. Give her a hug for me.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, she's my sister in some weird, cosmic way. Her whole approach to journalism and writing was my whole approach to Dirty Jobs. It was to take the back roads and to let the people be the star of the story and just try and stay out of the way and be an honest broker of the day you experienced. And she's so good at that. She's taken such an interest in microworks, and she's connected me with some of these CEOs that I mentioned who are turning out to be very generous with our foundation. And I'm wondering, do you know there's a thing happening in Pittsburgh on 15 July that she got me invited to? It looks like McCormick and Fetterman will be there. Looks like Trump will be there. Looks like a big sort of roundtable of people who are talking about data centers and AI.

[Rick Perry]

Yeah, AI. Yeah. We actually are looking at how to get up there and be participating in that. So I may see you up there.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm going to be there. I just decided this morning it's going to be. Yeah, no, I'm going to do it. I got to move.

[Rick Perry]

Then I'm calling Selena when we hang up here and saying, hey, where's my invite?

[Mike Rowe]

I just mention it because it's a good place to land the plane. In terms of weird, it's like a hive mentality, you know, I think about back in the day. I remember Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby were both working on the integrated circuit. One at Texas Instruments, your backyard, and one out here in what would become Silicon Valley. And they never met Rick, but they were both focused on this problem and came to the same basic solution, to the point where they wound up sharing the Nobel Prize, which had never happened before. And so if I'm looking for reasons to hope, I'd leave you with this. This is happening in different pockets all over the place. This awakening, if you'll pardon that old trope. It's real and it's bubbling to the point where I wound up at one of these, the Aspen Ideas Festival, which, you know, in general, I avoid festivals and gatherings and all of that kind of thing. But I saw a remarkable panel, and there's Larry Fink, head of BlackRock, who, you know, all the ESG stuff. I was pretty vocal that that was not my jam. But he stood up there in front of a very liberal crowd and said, don't fool yourselves. We need 500,000 electricians in the next couple of years or we lose everything.

[Rick Perry]

Yes, sir.

[Mike Rowe]

So if that guy got the memo, I think there's reason for. For optimism.

[Rick Perry]

I'm the most optimistic guy in the world. This country has faced so many challenges through the years, and you think about, you know, whether it was back in 1778 or whether it was in 1917 or whether it was in 1943, what we faced and what we've overcome. There's a spirit about this country that is absolutely untouchable anyplace else in the world. We got our issues. We're not perfect. But when it comes to the can do spirit, when it comes to having the heart of freedom fighters, when it comes to being able to, you know, sacrifice above everything else for family or country, no place does it like America. And that's the reason that I'm as. I'm as excited about living at this period of time as I've ever been.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I'm glad you're still alive, and I'm glad you're still in the fight. Please thank the most beautiful girl in the world for giving us so much of your time and give that pack of wolves a collective scratch.

[Rick Perry]

We're fixing to go outside. Shake it out.

[Mike Rowe]

All right, Governor, I sincerely appreciate Mike Rowe.

[Rick Perry]

You're a great American. I appreciate you. God bless you, brother.

[Mike Rowe]

You're not so bad yourself. Don't hang up yet. Gotta make sure all your wisdom is properly uploaded. As for the rest of you, we'll talk to you next week.

[Rick Perry]

That won't take long.

[Mike Rowe]

This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long but if it made you smile then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online.

[Rick Perry]

And.

[Mike Rowe]

Leave us a river. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge but in this world the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch just a line or two. All you got to do is leave a quick five star review. All you got to do is leave a quick 5 star review and not 3. All you got to do is leave a quick 5 star review definitely not 2. All you got to do is Leave a quick 5 star review 5. All you got to do is leave a quick Even if you hate 5? Especially if you hate it.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Thank you. The way I Heard it is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.