The Ex CIA & Air Force PJ Who Hunts Predators - Nic McKinley | Unsubscribe Podcast 262

Summary

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Unsubscribe Podcast 262: The Ex-CIA & Air Force PJ Who Hunts Predators - Nic McKinley

Podcast: Unsubscribe Podcast
Hosts: Eli Doubletap, Brandon Herrera, Donut Operator, The Fat Electrician
Guest: Nic McKinley (Former Air Force Pararescueman, ex-CIA, Founder of DeliverFund)
Date: May 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Nic McKinley, a former Air Force pararescueman (PJ), ex-CIA operative, and founder of DeliverFund, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking. The conversation balances humor with serious, in-depth discussions on evil, the realities of trafficking, the pitfalls of big tech, and the challenges of special operations and intelligence work. Nic shares both war stories and hard data, unpacking how trafficking persists and what scalable solutions look like.

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Main Themes & Key Points

1. Introduction to Nic McKinley’s Background

• Military & CIA Experience

  • 11 years as an Air Force Pararescueman (PJ), followed by time in private equity, then recruitment into the CIA ([6:11])
  • Describes the PJ selection process: “It's a water-based selection process. The pool is the great equalizer... Every single mammal, when you put them underwater, starts reacting exactly the same way.” ([23:13])
  • CIA experience: clandestine operations, team leadership, exposure to bureaucratic challenges ([75:55], [88:18])

• Transition to Fighting Human Trafficking

  • Founded DeliverFund after recognizing the systemic failure to address trafficking, despite U.S. technical and military prowess ([6:41])
  • Mission: Build scalable, data-driven solutions to combat child trafficking, moving from “kicking down doors” to empowering law enforcement with actionable intelligence ([111:03])

2. The Reality and Nature of Evil

• Defining Evil vs. 'Bad'
  • Eli Double Tap: “You can be a bad guy... but you can go to bad men in that situation and they'll still help you because they're bad, but they're not evil.” ([8:36])
  • Nick McKinley stresses that evil is real and often goes unseen by the public; fighting trafficking means direct confrontation with true evil, not just criminality ([8:02], [8:19])
  • Stories from prisons where even hardened criminals reject child predators ([9:22])

3. Why Trafficking Persists in the U.S.

• Lack of Centralized Focus

  • Despite having agencies for regulated industries (ATF), there’s no dedicated federal entity for trafficking which is entirely illegal ([10:27])
  • Law enforcement resources are spread thin due to policy, funding, and lack of political will ([14:03])
  • “Kids don’t vote” and this disproportionately impacts the marginalized—politicians act only when the tragedy hits the middle class ([14:56])

• Big Tech & Structural Problems

  • Tech companies and social media accelerate predation; broadband, smartphones, and frictionless account creation let predators access children remotely ([102:03], [104:08])
  • Example: Roblox and other platforms enable predators to target and off-platform minors, often aided by tech companies prioritizing growth over safety ([107:47], [120:39])
  • The difference between privacy and anonymity is emphasized—removing accountability through burner phones and anonymous social accounts creates protection for predators ([114:54])

• Institutional Complicity & Wealthy Interests

  • Richie and powerful circles implicated (Epstein), but legal and political structures often protect or ignore these transgressors ([15:53], [16:23])
  • Memorable moment: “There have been more people arrested so far this year for selling unpasteurized milk than… for any association with Epstein.” (Nick McKinley, [15:53])

4. Special Operations, Training, and Mindset

• PJ and CIA Selection

  • Brutality and rigor of selection processes (91% attrition). Emphasis on water-based stress, life-saving skills, and advanced medical training ([23:13], [25:19])
  • Humorous segment: getting married to nurses/doctors after hospital rotations; “Abs working out… This guy waiting underwater. This guy doesn't need to breathe.” ([28:06])
  • Agency testing: no aggregate scoring, each shooting test must be perfect—“If you threw a round at the 25-yard line, you fail.” ([81:49])
  • Agency culture: big-boy rules, little oversight, the expectation to “just go solve” problems ([88:15])

• Combat Rescue & American Ethos

  • Extensive breakdown of mission sets, including recent high-profile combat recovery operations in Iran ([39:18], [43:27])
  • Notable quote: “Maybe that's also why we win every war that we go into... because they know that for the most part, the government’s got their back.” ([43:11])

• Legal & Ethical Gray Areas

  • Discussing how legal frameworks lag behind operational realities (Geneva Convention, ammunition types, rules of engagement) ([59:46], [66:09])
  • Frustration toward lawyers removed from the front lines: “We have a bunch of lawyers who aren't on the field... creating rules for people who are actually on the field.” ([66:09])

5. The DeliverFund Approach: Data, Law Enforcement, Disruption

• DeliverFund’s Mission & Methods

  • Equips police with large-scale, real-time data and analytics—collects and shares 75,000+ online commercial sex ads/day ([108:55])
  • Trains cops and directly advises on cases, ensuring adaptability to traffickers’ evolving tactics ([111:03])
  • 100% conviction rate in trafficking cases where DeliverFund data was used ([67:19])

• Predator Tactics Online

  • How traffickers use social media, gaming (esp. Roblox), and burner accounts to connect with children ([104:08], [107:47])
  • Example: "Within 15 seconds of showing up on Roblox, a child will see some type of nudity that actually would be regulated in the physical space." ([107:47])
  • “We have a list of confirmed [predator] accounts on Roblox… over 400,000.” ([107:55])

• Policy and Industry Recommendations

  • Close the VOIP/burner loophole – require ID for phone number acquisition, ensure only law enforcement with a warrant can access identity info ([113:16], [114:54])
  • Challenge: Most regulatory, technical, and policy levers to reduce trafficking reside with industry, not government; calls for action by telcos, tech, and social networks ([111:29])
  • “There's a difference between privacy and anonymity. Privacy says you have... It's not the government's business what I'm doing. Anonymity says I have no ability to have consequences for my actions.” ([114:54])

• Cultural and Platform Accountability

  • Reads direct, damning quotes from Roblox CEO David Baszucki, exposing an indifferent or opportunistic stance toward child exploitation and underage relationships on the platform ([124:04], [125:45], [127:01])
  • Frustration over platforms and algorithms penalizing or hiding anti-trafficking content under the guise of “safe” guidelines, making it harder for parents and the public to get critical information ([138:16], [139:17])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote & Context | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------| | 08:02 | “There's just really, really nasty people in this country. This is an American problem. It's happening to American kids. And someone had to start doing something about it. So I figured, why not me?” (Nick McKinley) | | 14:56 | “Kids don't vote. And this disproportionately affects the marginalized in our society... That's why.” (Nick McKinley, on why trafficking is ignored) | | 15:53 | "Look at who makes the rules. Look at who is in the Epstein files… There have been more people arrested so far this year for selling unpasteurized milk than... for any association with Epstein." (Nick McKinley) | | 23:13 | "[PJ selection's] a water-based selection process. The pool is the great equalizer... Every single mammal, when you put them underwater, starts reacting exactly the same way." (Nic McKinley) | | 43:11 | "...but maybe that's also why we win every war that we go into. Right? Maybe that's why our people are... willing to actually take chances, is because they know that for the most part, the government's got their back." (McKinley) | | 59:46 | [On geneva convention/weapon use] "So I handed in my .416, I handed my Glock... They had specialized ammunition... technically, allegedly against the Geneva Conventions, which is great." (McKinley) | | 66:09 | "...one of the big problems that we have in war fighting today is we have a bunch of lawyers who aren't on the field... creating rules for people who are actually on the field." (McKinley) | | 81:49 | "It's 32 separate [shooting] tests... if you throw a round, you fail." (on CIA shooting qualifications) (McKinley) | | 104:08 | "For the first time in history, you could be a 40 year old man 3000 miles away from a 12 year old girl who just made a social media video... and that trafficker, that predator, slides into their DMs at that very point of vulnerability and starts grooming them." (McKinley) | | 107:47 | "Within 15 seconds of showing up on Roblox, a child will see some type of nudity that actually would be regulated in the physical space." (McKinley) | | 120:54 | "Frictionless account creation is what's leading to everything from... a lot of the problems we're dealing with in politics to the lack of discourse in our country." (McKinley) | | 124:44 | "We think of it, not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well." (McKinley quoting Roblox CEO David Baszucki regarding predators on Roblox) | | 137:49 | "We, we don't have a TikTok account. You know why we don't have a TikTok account? Because we talk about trafficking. And TikTok doesn't want you talking about child trafficking." (McKinley) |

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Crucial Timestamps & Segments

• 06:11 – Nic’s Air Force PJ and CIA background
• 08:02 – Calling out American “evil” and the reason for fighting trafficking
• 14:56 – Why fighting trafficking gets little political action
• 23:13 – Inside the brutal PJ selection process: attrition, water stress
• 39:18-44:00 – Combat rescue in Iran and U.S. search & rescue ethos
• 66:09-71:00 – Frustrations with lawyers, rules of engagement, “lawyer as slur”
• 75:55-89:09 – CIA selection, operational ethos, and exposure to policy limits
• 94:55-97:00 – U.S. traffficking market, parallel to terrorism networks
• 104:08-109:56 – Tech, smartphones, social media as trafficking accelerators; how DeliverFund arms law enforcement with data
• 114:54-118:07 – Privacy vs. anonymity, policy solutions for burner phones/VOIP loophole
• 120:39-133:08 – Roblox, platform responsibility, and underage predation
• 136:00-139:19 – Platforms censoring anti-trafficking info, the need to get the truth to parents & law enforcement

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Action Items & Where to Support

• DeliverFund:

  • Nonprofit, data-driven counter-trafficking organization
  • Site: deliverfund.org ([108:58])
  • Accepts donations to support analytics, engineering, and law enforcement partnerships

• Law Enforcement:

  • Encouraged to reach out for access to tools, data, and specialized training ([141:13])

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Final Notes

• Nic drives home that identifying and combating trafficking is not just about individual heroics but arming and enabling law enforcement with better tools and support.
• The conversation encourages listeners to be vigilant: demand platform accountability, support anti-trafficking nonprofits, and pressure both policymakers and tech giants to close predatory loopholes.
• Despite the heavy subject, the hosts and Nic use humor and camaraderie to make the conversation accessible and deeply human.

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For more:

• DeliverFund.org
• Follow Nic: @theNickMcKinley | www.nickmckinley.com

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Transcript

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[Nick McKinley]

I've felt like I've crushed things before and like, actually did a terrible job.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Dude, my wife knows about that when I have sex with her. Same.

[Donut Operator]

I love how you keep saying lawyer like it's a slur.

[Nick McKinley]

It is a slur, you lawyer.

[Eli Double Tap]

Anything's possible at this point.

[Donut Operator]

Put another quarter in the Alex Jones was right jar.

[Nick McKinley]

That's evolved quickly.

[Donut Operator]

Welcome to the podcast, brother.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous.

[Nick McKinley]

And Brandon, his hair is fucking fabulous.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Some donut, a dog joke disposition.

[Nick McKinley]

And there's a fat electrician. Welcome to Unsubscribe.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Hey, what is up, everyone? I just wanted to do a quick update on the autism goal. We were just trying to break last year's and I mean go above and beyond. We are just shy of that quarter million goal, but because of that, I'm extending this until Monday. If you head over to Bunker and buy any of the autism related merch, 100% will be going towards that. We all just want to crush that goal and it is truly amazing to see that number. Thank you all so freaking much. Head over bunkerbranding.com unsub anything you buy that is autism related will be going towards that. Amazing cause I don't think you understand how many lives you are changing with that amount and the families you are helping. I am speechless just knowing we're going to be able to donate the amount we have now. So thank you so freaking much. Y' all are amazing humans. I am so thankful for everything y' all do. Head over to Bunker, buy some autism related merch. Let's kick some butt. Let's see how big this gets. Thank you all so much. Also, Echelon might or might not have one of our new flavors, Double Tap T. Just go check it out. Just go. Just go give a [e-mail] we rolling that audio. Okay, ready?

[Eli Double Tap]

Okay.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So at the. At this, we don't gotta drown.

[Eli Double Tap]

You gotta crack it. Yeah, just in front of the mic.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Ready? Oh, yeah. This one.

[Nick McKinley]

No, this one. Sorry.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're good.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You're good. Ready? Three, two, one.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, that orange cream flavor. Is actually really good.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah. And it's orange now.

[Donut Operator]

That helps.

[Eli Double Tap]

Cody says it's good with vanilla ice cream. Vanilla. Vanilla protein powder.

[Donut Operator]

I could see.

[Eli Double Tap]

I've also heard it's good with Greek yogurt for some reason.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, that actually sounds really good. Fun.

[Donut Operator]

Try that anyway.

[Nick McKinley]

That's weird.

[Donut Operator]

Welcome to the Unsubscribe podcast. I'm joined today by Eli Double Tap, Nick the fat electrician, other Nick McKinley, and myself, donut operator. Thank you for joining us.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Thank you, Donut. Truly appreciate it. By the way, we forgot to bring this up. Demo's dad stopped us. He was at our restaurant. Demo's dad comes. Matt Carricker's.

[Donut Operator]

Yep.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Matt Carricker's dad comes up. It's like, Cody. Or he sees Cody. Oh, man. Dude, how's the race going? It's awesome to see. Brandon is sitting right next to him. I look at Brandon and he' like,

[Donut Operator]

Mr. Carrer, a man who has met both me and Cody, he just goes up like, we're really rooting for you.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

We voted for you.

[Donut Operator]

Me and Eli. Immediately, like, oh, it's happening again.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You have.

[Eli Double Tap]

You have to do the thing. You have to do the thing where you send Cody in to sit in your seat for just, like, one. One thing where you have a body double go in and it's Cody.

[Donut Operator]

That might be a crime.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's fine.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It'll be fine.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just have him, like, give an interview or something. Like trick a news outlet into thinking,

[Donut Operator]

I think we genuinely could do it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And then just make sure he takes a breathalyzer before there's a fine line

[Nick McKinley]

of which, Cody, you're getting.

[Donut Operator]

You know, honestly, which is funnier.

[Eli Double Tap]

It might be better if Cody drops a couple of slurs and the news says that a congressman did it, and it's verifiably not the congressman. They have the footage. It would be hilarious.

[Donut Operator]

Not really, because then it blows up and it's still Congressman. Congressman's best friend. That's not great.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, man. Yeah, I forgot we didn't tell you that yesterday.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's a super relatable story, though. My friends are trying to ruin my career because they think it's funny and

[Nick McKinley]

they don't have to know it's your best friend.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, well, I mean, his name's literally. Or his profile picture is literally to the right of my Twitter handle right now because I'm still under his, like, corporate account.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

The world knows I don't even know that, man. Q. 200 episodes of unsubscribe Other piece of

[Donut Operator]

content You've done together the army of Darkness. I've never even seen this before.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, man. Mr. Nick, what is up? It is. This is one of the episodes. It'll be a little more serious tone, but also the amount of knowledge and then your resume is insane.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, but it looks good on paper. But I'll tell you, man, like, I had a pretty mediocre average career. Right? I mean, you. You look at that stuff that I did, and people look at that, they're like, oh, that's really cool. I'm like, yeah, but you should know, the guys that I know, looking good

[Eli Double Tap]

on paper is impressive to us.

[Donut Operator]

You told us at brunch you're one of the founding members of Delta, I believe.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, I mean, you know, I don't like to brag about that. You know, I mean, obviously I look a lot younger than. Than I actually am going on over probably, what, 80 at this point?

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

No, yeah, you're doing great.

[Donut Operator]

Is it like Pilates or what?

[Nick McKinley]

You know, it's. What were you discussing? It's. It's peptides. Yeah, that's what it is. Right? Lots of. Yeah, just stuff I inject.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right. Tanner ones.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, but no, but for real, I mean, your. Your military career, I mean, on paper, sounds impressive, which. Because it's probably impressive.

[Nick McKinley]

It was super fun. It was super fun. Yeah. So for people who don't know who I am, Nick McKinley spent 11 years in the Air Force as a Air Force pararescueman. Right. So it's good to be, you know, kind of back in San Antonio, where 30 years ago, I basically got the crap kicked out of me. How old are you? For me?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yes.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, I'm 48.

[Eli Double Tap]

Jesus.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, so I'm old. Right. So I'm a. I'm a pre. Gy. Into g. What? Vet.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

Then after the Air Force, I spent a couple years in the private equity community. Learned to hate that real fast, and got recruited to the Central Intelligence Agency. Spent a number of years there. Can't. I'm not allowed to say the total amount because that's the rules, and the rules are stupid. But I still got to follow him. So, yeah, I spent a number of years there and then left 10 years ago to do a number of different things. Started a bunch of tech companies, but really my passion has been fighting child trafficking and trying to create scalable solutions to that problem. And so that's. That's the journey I've been on for the last 10 years.

[Eli Double Tap]

Guillotines,

[Nick McKinley]

trying to just get them to the guillotines. You know, Andy Stumpf was talking about it when I was on his podcast about guillotines are too fast. And I actually would agree with him. Wood chippers. Way too fast. His idea.

[Donut Operator]

That's why you do foot first.

[Nick McKinley]

But his idea, that's still too fast, man. His idea, which I really liked, was you just duct tape them to a chair and you just go to work with a potato peeler and you just keep going until there's nothing left. Right. Now that's gonna take a while.

[Donut Operator]

It's a relaxing hobby, much like whittling.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. It's woodworking kind of. Right.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

A lot of noise, though. Shut up.

[Donut Operator]

You just have the noise canceling headphones playing like Enya.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

This is the most Pornoko flow.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right?

[Nick McKinley]

Your freaking, you know, waterfall puts you to sleep. Beats right as you just go to work on these people. I mean, reality is there's just really, really nasty people in this country. This is an American problem. It's happening to American kids. And someone had to start doing something about it. So I figured, why not me?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's. I don't. I don't think a lot of people realize when you say there's bad people. They. They cannot.

[Nick McKinley]

Can't.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Their head. Yeah. It's just like, oh, no, they're.

[Nick McKinley]

They're bad.

[Eli Double Tap]

Evil's the word.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And. But they don't know that evil, because they don't. They've never seen it in person. So they're like, it doesn't exist until, you know.

[Eli Double Tap]

This is like my definition. If you. If I had to, like, describe evil to an alien that didn't understand the concept. It's how I would describe it. Be like, okay, you could be a bad guy. Like. But if you were like a child getting kidnapped, you could run up to 99 out of a hundred of the most. Gang banger dude standing on a corner in Chicago with a Glock switch in his pocket, actively dealing drugs with three prostitutes that he's pimping out behind him. That guy's not my dad. That dude's probably gonna help you. He's a bad guy, but he's not evil. Same thing with, like a big jack, scary biker dude, Hell's Angels across his shoulder. You can go to bad men in that situation and they'll still help you because they're bad, but they're not evil.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It's like prison they get. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Also another great example, when you are

[Nick (the other Nick)]

in prison for murders around murders, and they're the pieces of shit. Everyone's like, no, we're gonna take care of them. That's how bad those. That's evil.

[Donut Operator]

It turns out a lot of bad guys have kids.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

I've got some stories about that we can get into as well. Some of the statistics around it. I mean, it's. It's not.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It's not a.

[Nick McKinley]

It's not a fun thing to constantly go talk about. Right. I mean, a lot of people are like, oh, you're. You're. You're fighting human trafficking. Like, yeah, but I kind of wish I didn't have to. You know, if you look at. I wish the problem hadn't gotten to this level and it was really on our watch that it did get to this level. And the. I can talk about the way I started the whole organization, but if you think about it, I mean, we can kill people with flying robots from 6,000 miles away, but who's got the ball on the trafficking issue in America? Right? So we have a. The examples I like to use, like, we have an atf, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I know you're a huge fan.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, yeah. And can't think of a single thing they did wrong in any place ever. Especially in Texas.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. And so we have a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. All three of those things are legal. Last time I checked, firearms is actually a constitution. Constitutionally protected. Right. And yet who's got the ball on that issue? On the trafficking issue, where 100% of trafficking and human trafficking is illegal, but we don't have anybody who is centrally focused on that. We got great men and women in the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, State and local law enforcement, but where's our ATF for protecting our children? And it doesn't exist. And that was kind of the. The epiphany that I had when I was working at the CIA and to kind of back up a little bit, I was actually in. In Lashkar Ga. Afghanistan, and I was working with a JSOC counterpart. And we had. The best way to describe it is smoking gun intel on a. On a trafficker that was selling across the Afghanistan Pakistan border. And that's the kind of stuff like you join to do, right? And you join the military, you're like, man, I'm gonna freaking go save babies from burning buildings and kill bad. This is the most amazing job ever. And part of the reason why I went into pararescue, Right. It was a really good way to. To kind of always have a job, regardless of what was going on. And intel doesn't work like the movies, believe it. Or not. Now, this is going to shock your, your viewers, but Jason Bourne is not a follow documentary.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You're a liar.

[Nick McKinley]

Guy doesn't exist. And in fact, I think anybody who's worked at any high levels in the government can tell you there are individual units who are just absolutely amazing. And you're. I'm incredibly honored to have been a part of the units I got to be part of. In fact, it just kind of goes to show that people do slip through the cracks and actually get through those. Those processes. But at the end of the day, you're trying to do your best at the missions that are put in front of you. So what happens when you have a known trafficker put in front of you and the intel can't get to the right place? Because it's not even something that the government has a mandatory presidential reporting requirement on.

[Donut Operator]

Have you seen the memes about that? Like how the movies portray army intelligence? It's like, oh, he's going to be in this house behind the blue door. He's going to be in the corner, whatever. Like real army intel. Projected to be about 73 degrees today.

[Nick McKinley]

The moon will be out, but there will be some clouds. I mean, it's just.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

This is all. We're going up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

And we think.

[Donut Operator]

I mean, just local population, predominantly Islamic.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Three miles per hour.

[Nick McKinley]

And they speak this language, right? Yeah. Go. Go for it. And we think he's here, but we don't know. Last time we saw him here was three months ago. Go for it. Right? And it's just you.

[Donut Operator]

Here's a picture from his high school yearbook.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. You look at, you look at what happens in our country with the, with all the different things that we care about. And basically I figured out when I was working at the agency that this is just not something our government truly cares about. Lots of politicians say all the right words. And I'd encourage anybody who knows any politicians, right, Especially state and local, go to them and say, hey, do you care about the trafficking issue? And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's lots of wringing of hands. It's my most important issue, and it's my top priority and all that.

[Donut Operator]

And then what did you do?

[Nick McKinley]

The very next question you should ask is, cool, show me the budget line item that funds your counter human trafficking unit for your law enforcement. Because we forget that law enforcement, they're soldiers and generals and they do with the politicians equip and train and fund them to do. And so it's not the police's fault. I mean the police. You ask any, any law enforcement officer, I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule. But you ask any law enforcement officer and say, hey, would you rather fight trafficking or pull, pull over, you know, tourists for going 10 miles an hour of the speed limit, they're going to pick the trafficking every single time. But they're forced and mandated to pull over the tourists who are doing 10 miles an hour.

[Eli Double Tap]

We figured out how to tax window tent. We don't know how to tax.

[Donut Operator]

Right, well, yeah. Now not to skip to the end of the story too quick, but the 10 billion dollar question is why do you think that is taxes?

[Nick McKinley]

So no, I actually, I think it's much simpler than people think. And I think there's two reasons. One is kids don't vote. And this disproportionately affects the marginalized in our society. And so the proxy here is the war on drugs. Way before the Reagan's came into office, there's a lot of inner city kids who are dying from drugs. Why did we suddenly get the war on drugs? Middle class white girls started dying, that's why. And suddenly we have the war on drugs. So I think you're starting to see a little more of a groundswell on this issue. And people are starting to pay attention to it because it's starting to affect the middle class. Right, the middle class and the wealthy. And we'll get into like how the Internet plays a role.

[Donut Operator]

People are starting to call out the wealthy for doing it.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. That's the second reason. Look at who makes the rules. Look at who is in the Epstein files. Like you want to know who the bad guys are? There you go. We literally have them in millions of pages of redacted, of redacted documents. There have been more people arrested so far this year for selling unpasteurized milk than there have been held accountable for any association with Epstein. Well, it's just like, that's just a statement of fact.

[Donut Operator]

The, the meme going around for a while when they're talking about the charges being brought against Ghislaine Maxwell, they're saying, oh yeah, no, this is now the first person to ever be convicted of, you know, child trafficking despite having trafficked nobody to no one.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

And just facilitated it on paper. Right.

[Donut Operator]

It's like, well, okay, so cool. So there were no clients and there were no victims. Yet you're still looking at this jail time. Me think something going on.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, there's something is in the maths aren't mathing. Right. So I think that ultimately comes down to those two reasons. I'm not saying all politicians are in on it. That's obviously not the case. But they don't care about it because they, like those kids, don't vote well.

[Donut Operator]

And I think it also ties in. I've seen this not firsthand, but I've seen enough to see where this happens is a lot of them are wealthy donors as well.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes.

[Donut Operator]

So you have a lot of people that have put in, oh Well, I contributed $100,000 to your PAC last election cycle. I'm sure that was helpful, by the way. Yeah, I don't really know if that's a door you should be looking behind. You know, that sort of implied strong arming. I could see that happening so easily.

[Nick McKinley]

We know that happens. I mean, we have so many recorded incidents of that happening and other issues. Why wouldn't it be happening on this issue? Yeah, so. So that's, that's ultimately, you know, kind of the reasons why I think, I think we're in this, in this predicament as a country right now. And it's, it's also something that big tech is involved in as well, but they're just involved in looking the other direction. And we can get into kind of how all of that works as, as well.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Hey, you ever just wake up and felt like your mattress sucks and it beat your ass, punched you in the face?

[Donut Operator]

That's crazy. Does the mattress also your mom? You ever wake up feeling like you

[Nick McKinley]

slept in a swamp because of your

[Donut Operator]

disgusting, nasty ball sweat? I see most of you on Reddit, so I know you have time to

[Nick (the other Nick)]

break up with that mattress.

[Nick McKinley]

Get divorced from your mattress, Get a

[Nick (the other Nick)]

ghostbed that hoe you're worth more.

[Nick McKinley]

You're so strong. Well, guess what?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Ghostbed just launched their new mattress line.

[Donut Operator]

It's designed to keep you cool, supported in all the right areas, if you catch my drift, you giant hog. And help you get sleep.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

These beds are built with its patented cooling technology, Brandon, so you can keep

[Donut Operator]

your giant hog cool.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Did you know they're built to last?

[Nick McKinley]

That's right.

[Donut Operator]

None of that dripping ear nonsense. Every Mattress has a 20 or 25 year warranty. That means if I bought one today, it will outlive me before the warranty expires. I don't have much time left. Especially with as much as you smoke.

[Nick McKinley]

Way to make it real, Brandon.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Plus 101 night sleep trial.

[Donut Operator]

Don't love it. Send that back.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

101 nights. That's three months risk free.

[Donut Operator]

They got the full Setup.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Adjustable bases and pillows. Buttery soft sheets. Buttery.

[Donut Operator]

And even better, you can get 10% off site wide. When you go to ghostbed.com unsubscribe and use code unsubscribe. And that's on top of their everyday deals of mattresses, adjustable bases, and pillows already being upgraded to 50% off. Come on, guys. What are we doing? What are we doing? Why aren't you going to. Why aren't you going. Why aren't you going? Using code unsubscribe.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Hey, go use cold on sub.

[Donut Operator]

What's happening? What's going on?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's ghostbad.com unsubscribe use code unsubscribe Sleep better. Stay cooler.

[Donut Operator]

This is a threat.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It was one of those things. We got to see it. Zuckerberg came out last year, and it's like, yeah, this is. I was told I couldn't even do this stuff. On his own social media platform for presenting information.

[Donut Operator]

It was like the COVID stuff and. Yeah, and the Biden administration, like, had him purposely suppress things and then lie about it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, it's crazy. You get to see across.

[Nick McKinley]

All of.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It's like, well, it doesn't happen for years. Everyone's like, no, they can't do that. That's not possible. Even talking with Darnell, he thought that was some weird conspiracy. I had. Until we started getting affected by it, and he's like, holy shit, dude. Like, you guys just sound crazy when you talk about it a lot of the times. Then you start seeing it roll out. Even how media presents, like, the Rolling Stone on that, how they talked about you.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, yeah. And you're like, I'm still not sure if I'm gonna sue the shit out of them or not.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And that's.

[Donut Operator]

I don't. I don't think the word apparent means what they think it is. I think they thought it meant alleged. It does not. They. They said that after my opponent backed out in the. The primary because he got caught in a, you know, again, a very serious scandal, they said, you know, basically, GOP lawmaker basically called him, like, a sexual ab, Which I'm like, yeah, that's pretty. Pretty accurate. Steps down, apparent neo Nazi. This. This. This takes his place.

[Nick McKinley]

Like, whoa.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, okay.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

All right.

[Donut Operator]

Which. I mean, it doesn't. Like, I don't think it holds any water because, you know, they're. We're used to them calling us fucking Nazis. Left all day long. But for a. For a major publication to throw that slander at me using a word that I think like said, I think they threw that out there, thinking it meant alleged. It doesn't. I feel like. I just feel like more people need to hold them accountable. It's like, you can't just lie. Like, you can say, we think this person does X, Y and Z, whatever, that's fine. It's your opinion when you're informing millions of people, informing, and you're delivering statements of fact that are provably, demonstrably not true.

[Nick McKinley]

Mm.

[Donut Operator]

Come on.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, maybe they're just going off of. I heard that you really hate veterans.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. You know, despite.

[Donut Operator]

They wouldn't be the first.

[Nick McKinley]

Despite raising hundreds of thousand dollars for them. Right. I mean, that's. That's how I would really project my hatred on somebody is by, like helping them.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah. It's like a kink.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. You know, it's weird. That's cool. Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Take that money better. Ooh, Ooh. I like it when you get help. I'm like, Brandon's weird.

[Donut Operator]

You like that? You like that Proper health care.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, you do. Dirty little bit.

[Nick McKinley]

It's evolved quickly.

[Donut Operator]

Welcome to the podcast, brother.

[Eli Double Tap]

I've said this before. The Epstein thing, like, just like, I don't like, broke your brain because, like, I feel like it ruins anybody's ability to call on anything. Because before the Epstein island thing came out, if anybody would have told you, yeah, there's an island where rich billionaires do what happened there. And you could just go, that's. And now it's like, oh, that was right now, fuck, maybe the earth is flat. I don't know, man. Like, anything's possible at this point.

[Donut Operator]

Put another quarter in the Alex Jones was right jar.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And then two years later, it turns out the frogs are gay.

[Donut Operator]

Actually. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

By the way, true statement.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, go real quick. I want to go back to even becoming a pj, because as you said, well, it's not that impressive how many percent actually make being a pj.

[Nick McKinley]

When I now my date, my information is dated. So we'll like. That's the big disclaimer. Just anything I say, just assume it's wrong. So when I went through, it was a 91% attrition rate. And there's a couple of reasons for that. And it's not me trying to say that like PJs are better than anybody else or anything, but the reality is it's a water based selection process. And anybody who's ever been through a water based selection process will tell you that the pool is the great equalizer. It's like, oh, you're really smart. That's awesome. Get in the pool. Oh, you're fast. Sweet. Get in the pool. Oh, you're really strong. That's amazing. Get in the pool. Because every single mammal, when you put them underwater, starts reacting exactly the same way.

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[Nick McKinley]

Learn more@american express.com business-platinum and water based selections essentially are. Can you keep your brain under control and override that survival instinct in order to accomplish the mission? PJs take it a little bit farther in that when I went through, at least if you passed out from a shallow water blackout in the pool, you know they not drowning. Yeah, no, drowning is like you're dead. So near drowning. Right. You're fine. And so if you passed out, you got to do that one time because you didn't know what it felt like, so you couldn't have seen it coming. If you do it twice, you were out. And because pararescue's general philosophy was, if you're not smart enough to save yourself, how can we trust you to go save other people?

[Donut Operator]

Like, so, so you have the option of like going up for air.

[Nick McKinley]

No, you don't have the option. Oh, well.

[Donut Operator]

So what's the alternative?

[Nick McKinley]

The alternative is get better at accomplishing the mission before learn how to not need oxygen more.

[Eli Double Tap]

Nerd.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes, that's it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So it's dog Brandon.

[Nick McKinley]

It's, it's.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Look at this retard.

[Eli Double Tap]

Stupid.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

What's wrong with you?

[Nick McKinley]

Get back underwater.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, just laughing underwater as he dies.

[Eli Double Tap]

That was, that was a veteran test that you did. So we're also like, yeah, no, that makes complete sense. Learn how to not need air.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Exactly.

[Eli Double Tap]

Obviously

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I need to work harder with that.

[Donut Operator]

Come up for air boot immediately on forehead. Oh, no you don't.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when I went through, at least if you came up before, like you tied your knots or you did your ditch and dawn properly or something like if you came up mid, mid sequence that you were told to execute, that was considered quitting. And if you did that three times over the course of a ten week selection process, I don't know how long the selection process is. Now. Apparently if you've got a Bunch of Instagram followers. And you are a former Navy seal and you're 51 years old. We're going to go ahead and give you, like, an easy way. Now. Do you see David Goggins just enlisted in the air for.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I was wondering what you were gonna think about. Oh, yeah, I was like, dude, that. At that age also you're like, oh, good job. But why?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, anyway. Oh, because, I mean, at the end of the day, the guy did become a seal, but sorry, guys, he couldn't make the PJ standard. Just saying. I'm just kidding. I love him. I love my SEAL brothers. I don't know now, but anyway, the general thesis of pararescue selection, I think one of the reasons why it gets a little more. Why the attrition rate tends to be a little bit long or harder is just because of the sheer amount of stuff that you're required to do. So if you make it through selection, right, that just means you made it through selection. Like, you still got another year and a half plus to go through the whole pipeline. And the academics in the medical side are no joke. So you can't. Like, we don't have the equivalent of a machine gunner in pararescue. Like, every single person has to go through that SACHEM program and has to get their civilian paramedic qualification, which they're doing at a civilian hospital, which means they have to, like, not show up drunk. So every single one has to do that. So the.

[Donut Operator]

So why don't you look at me?

[Eli Double Tap]

No, not, not that. All I could think of was like, how many guys have gotten kicked out of the program for knocking up a nurse during.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, I like that. That's exactly where your brain went. Because, yes, that happens a lot. I mean, you're. You're taking these guys, you're putting them in a civilian hospital and.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And then the nurses with a bunch of.

[Nick McKinley]

With a bunch of other, like, paramedic and nursing students and. Yeah, let's just say there's a lot of. There's a lot of PJs that are married to doctors and nurses and people they met when they were during. During their. Their paramedic school in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, there's your average male nurse. Oh, by the way, there's these guys, like, abs working out.

[Nick McKinley]

There's these guys who, like, you know, graduated six months ago.

[Eli Double Tap]

This Captain America that we just taught how to not come up for air.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

This guy waiting underwater.

[Nick McKinley]

This guy doesn't need to breathe. Guess what he can do with those skills.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Doesn't need to breathe, winky face.

[Nick McKinley]

So. Yeah. So anyway, that. That was the. The pararescue, you know, selection program here in San Antonio was. Was awesome. And. And then you've got the whole pipeline. Right. So you're doing like, like airborne school, like, whatever. Right. Super easy se school. Super easy. But then you get to things like

[Donut Operator]

how I often hear it described.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yes.

[Nick McKinley]

I'm an eagle scout, so, like, se school for me was fun. I was like. I mean, I grew up in Montana, so, like, I thought sear school was a. Was a blast. I also got to go in the spring, which is the absolute perfect weather up in Washington state. I mean, it was.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, yeah. Oh, you were at Lewis.

[Nick McKinley]

No, yeah. Spokane. That's where the Sears school is. Right. So it was. I mean, it was awesome. So it was. It was a. I mean, it was a camping trip, really. It was super fun. And then. But, like, when I was at HALO school is a great example. We had a couple of seals fell out, fail out of my HALO class. We had a.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Can I just. So you did halo, where your training was on the. The belly board, like when you.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's when you.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That.

[Nick McKinley]

That's how you start. Is on Billy board. And then you go into.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Did they teach you. Okay, you had tunnel.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. So you spend a week back then, at least you spent a week at Bragg doing. Doing tunnel work and, you know, learning how to pack your parachute and all that stuff. And then they ship you off to you and I Yuma for a couple weeks and. And then you do the free fall stuff.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Did the tunnel have the sides? I know there was a problem in Bragg, they had the wind tunnel, but no edges, so people would fly.

[Nick McKinley]

So when I went. When I went in, they had the nets up, but I'd heard about that.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

Hey, maybe we should have thought this through.

[Donut Operator]

Like the Paraclete place out there or was that.

[Nick McKinley]

No, it's. It's. I mean, Bragg's had their own wind tunnel for probably, I mean, I don't know, decades.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, no.

[Nick McKinley]

I've been out of it for a long time.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And no sight and nothing to hold you in.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So you could.

[Nick McKinley]

Like, that was like the old school days.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

There's nothing better get good at it.

[Nick McKinley]

Pain is a great. Is a great teacher. No, in my day, they had the nets up, and then obviously they have the big net over the fan. Right. Because that would be a little death drill bad. That would really get the attrition rate up, though.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You can fly.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

I was Just gonna say what you were talking about, like the attrition rate being so high because of the pool. I'm like, ah yes, defective scuba equipment.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

No.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, well they purposely make your, your scuba equipment defective, right. Because you're supposed to get through that. So you go, I went through cdqc, which is the Army's Combat Diver Qualification course, because the Air Force, I understand, has its own, its own combat dive course in conjunction with the Marine Corps. Now I believe I'm curious why the

[Donut Operator]

Air Force would have a, a diving qualification, a combat diving,

[Nick McKinley]

rescue and combat control. So back in the day combat control went through that too. So you know, you get done with selection and selection was so much harder than dive school that dive school became pretty easy and. But when I was at dive school is another good example. There were Rangers, SF dudes. We had a CAD guy there with us. And you got Rangers failing out, SF guys failing out. Those Rangers go back to their unit. Granted they're going to get razzed and harassed a little bit, but everybody knows it's really hard. Same thing with the SF guys. If you're a PJ student and you fail that, you're out of the program. Like you don't get to be a pj. If you're a PJ student and you don't make it through HALO school, you know, for stupid reasons, you don't get to be a pj. And so, and that's part of the reason why the pipeline is so long is because I mean that's a lot of opportunities to fail. Right?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Those are rare ass schools in general like that. You usually do Halo and, or just, or combat diver, you don't have both.

[Eli Double Tap]

But he's got to be.

[Nick McKinley]

Some guys do.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

But you. Well for army, so sorry this comes from. It's a rare thing to see. Holy shit. Even the sergeant Major during the Pentagon episode, that's when he sat down, I was like, holy homie, you went to all the schools. He was.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, he was stacked.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, he was like third bat did everything and then everything.

[Nick McKinley]

And I think pre 911 that was a lot more rare. I think post 911 that's there's a lot more people who go through a lot of those different schools because at the end of the day you don't know what your mission is. Like what the mission set is going to be. Right. This isn't the Cold War. This isn't near peer for the most part. I mean who knows, I might, might start any day now, but, but for the most it hasn't been near peer

[Eli Double Tap]

wars, people in mud huts could be anywhere.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

So you really have to be ready for anything. And so for PJs, PJs are attached with CAG, with dam neck, with various ODAs, various seal teams, Ranger battalion. I mean they're all over the place doing civilian rescues. And so you have to be able to like if you're with the seals and the seals are diving in, well then you're diving in. If you're with an ODA and they're jumping in and you're jumping in, right, You've got to be able to, to facilitate whoever it is that you're with. And then also you look at what just happened in Iran, right? You, you no doubt saw the video going around the, the Internet with the, the C130 that was gassing up those two 60s, right? The, the, the rescue birds. So you've got a team of PJs in the back of that 130 and you got a team of PJs. And who knows, they probably have combat rescues officers with them now or you know, maybe combat controller. You know, I don't know what their current package is, but in each one of those birds. And so if the person that they need to go after is far enough in front of where the helos can get to, like let's say there's a two hour delay between the 130 getting on station and the 60s getting on station. Well, two hours is life and death. And so PJs will, and the 130 will free fall out and go to, you know, like go to work and then the 60s will come in later and pick them up. But if they don't need to free fall out, well then they'll bring in the 60s, right? Because it's like on top of a mountain or something. So, so you just have to be able to do everything, which is, which is why that career field is so freaking cool, right? You, you, we don't have radio guys. We are the radio guys. We are the medics. You know, PJs don't, at least in my day we didn't have like snipers, you know, heavy breachers, things like that. Because that's not our job. I think they've, I think there are, there's a little bit of that happening now. But you, you kind of had to be able to solve any problem that was thrown in front of you. You know, where the, the high angle rescue, right. Vertical rope access experts. So that was a lot of fun because you're just constantly training because it is a lot of work to stay up on top of all those qual.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's insane.

[Nick McKinley]

I think, I think Pararescue is probably one of the. One of the, I wouldn't say most misunderstood career fields, but it's definitely one of the quietest, I think at least known within the special operations community.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Hold up, I'll hit you with my frying pan. Yes, that's right. We are now sponsored by Hexclad. We were actually super stoked for this because I've let them cook. So they gave me a walk that gave me an Asian wok. Gentlemen and three ladies. Mother's Day's around the corner. But instead of flowers, which you should also do actually, I don't know how that sounds.

[Eli Double Tap]

Babe.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I got you pants. But very nice pants. I think they'll love them. And chances are the pots and pans you are using aren't the best. Now my least favorite part is sticky pants. Just hate it. But usually if it's easy to clean, then it suffers with performance. But Hexclad gives you both. I cannot stress how hot they get. They're oven safe to over 900 degrees. They're not gonna melt. The wok is chef's kiss. And they have over a million customers with 50,000 five star reviews. That is a lot. And just like our shoes, these come with a lifetime warranty. That means they actually care about their customer. That is literally how it is dictate if a company cares about you or not. Lifetime warranty, awesome. Hexclad's 12 piece set is the ultimate all in one cookware upgrade. And they have their patented hexagonal laser etched steel ridge boost for searing for a very limited time only shop the Hexclad's mother day sell for up to 49% off site wide and score big savings with their best selling [e-mail] unsub support our show and check them out. Hexclyde hex c l-a d.com forward slash unsub. Unsub. Just in case the saying he said, oh, all of us have to get this level of training. On the medical side, special forces teams, you have delta. That's the hard one. That's the shit you're going to school for a year and a half.

[Nick McKinley]

And they're great medics. Yeah, they're really good.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

But that's. Every one of you have to do that. That's what's wild. That is one of multiple jobs in special forces because it's like, oh, you're going to be gunner. So like I think think it's like 18 Bravo. You're specifically focused on the firearms and then demo go down the line. It's like, oh, you're learning all those schools. Yeah, that's it. Sorry.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. And now you're in a four man PJ team. And oh by the way, a week ago you got handed a Barrett and you're like, they're like, oh yeah, we're going to send you this school, you're going to learn how to shoot this thing and now you got to figure out how to freefall that sucker out of the back of the aircraft. Right. It's just like, okay, like it's in some ways the Cesar missions. It appears that PJs get a little over their skis, but they're not. And you saw this with that, with that Iran rescue. Because when the PJs are going to work for a combat search and rescue mission, that is the mission.

[Donut Operator]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

And so all of the US government wraps around that. So you might just see couple of helicopters, one C130, couple dudes on the ground, but there might be 70 aircraft on station.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Donut Operator]

Glad you brought that up because that was exactly what I was about to ask. Is that that new Iran mission where they were rescuing the pilot? We talked about that a little bit earlier with that, that chick leaking the details from the Pentagon. But yeah, because that would have been, that would have been PJs then.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right?

[Donut Operator]

With, with a bunch of support.

[Nick McKinley]

So it was, it was, it was PJs. My understanding is it was our. There's a tier one PJ team often referred to as the Hill, 24th Sts or I don't know what they call themselves these days. That's what they call themselves back in the day.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That was so cool hearing because that's, I mean we've all been associated with them. That's the first time I've ever heard of that. The Hill, you're like Delta Dev group depending on what their names are.

[Nick McKinley]

The Hill.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So that's okay, that's their tier one.

[Nick McKinley]

So that's tier one PJs and combat controllers. So if you look at like bin Laden raid, allegedly a couple PJs embedded with, with. Damn neck. You look at the, you know, Al Baghdadi raid, allegedly a couple of PJs embedded with, you know, the JSOC elements.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And so I have buddies on that.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, the one that just the, this rescue that just happened, I think everybody knows it Was, you know, damn. Was helping with the CIA ruse. And CAG was really, I mean, dude, they freaking. Basically assaulted a mountain as if it was a freaking urban objective. I mean, that's. I. I was unprepared for this level of fomo, right? I mean, just completely unprepared. Like, I'm looking at that. I'm like freaking 48 years old. Like, do I still got it? No, I don't got it. But. But, man, talk about the mission of a freaking lifetime, right? And they. But yeah, it was. There was a PJ team, right? And then you've got essentially, we call it SAR security, right? So it's your search and rescue security. So you've got your, in this case, a bunch of JSOC operators. And. And that's kind of the way it works. But with the leak, you know, if. If the leak hadn't happened, and I don't have any special, like, knowledge or anything, but just knowing the way that it works, if the leak hadn't happened, then most likely you wouldn't have needed that size of a force. I mean, most of the time, PJs can get in and out pretty stinking fast, right? And the, the one thing that I don't think people understand about the Air Force CSAR pilots is like, that's all they do. So PJs will be on assaults. We're on all kinds of. I mean, PJs are into kind of all kinds of different stuff. Sometimes they're bored out of their mind. Sometimes they're just working so hard like they. They don't know which end is up. But those, Those, those Cesar pilots, that's all they train for all day, every day, is combat search and Rescue. The A10 Sandy pilots. A Sandy qualification for an A10 is one of your highest pilot qualifications. And that is those. Those pilots are amazing the way that they can. They can come in and essentially protect, you know, a team of PJs on the ground and protect those helicopters. And then you've also got fast movers up there, right? F15s, F16s, you know, whatever they are that are then protecting the A10s. So you just got these layers and layers of security and also that a couple of dudes on the ground can get to their objective and accomplish their mission. So it's pretty cool. And it's really a feather in the hat.

[Eli Double Tap]

And then you have the retards on Twitter insisting that all of that displays America's weakness because they would go through

[Nick McKinley]

all of that to save a Man on the ground.

[Eli Double Tap]

What a waste of funding. Now it's.

[Donut Operator]

You know, the one guy reply on Twitter, he's like, and the amount of Europeans who cannot fathom why we would do all of this to save one of our guys proves that you cannot be made American by a piece of paper.

[Nick McKinley]

Thank you. It's a. Yeah, it's. And not only that, but, like, really like you are. You're. You're so calloused about the life. The life of a father, you know, a husband, a son. I mean, another. A fellow human that you're looking at it as. As a price tag.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. But maybe that's also why we win every war that we go into. Right. Maybe that's why our people are, like, willing to actually take chances, is because they know that for the most part, the. The government's got their back and that's the way.

[Donut Operator]

The way that it should be, not the way it always is. We fall short of it quite a lot. But. But the idea is when you sign on the dotted line to serve your country and protect your country, it's bilateral. That should be going both ways. The military should be there to help. If you are going to be that person, they're going to at least try to help you as much as they can, too.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. And also the idiots on Twitter looking at it like it's a price tag. It's like, okay, let's just look at the geopolitical chess game. You think that guy was a little bit valuable, right? I think the Iranians would have used him as a negotiation chip. Maybe so.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Thinking about that.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. I mean, come on.

[Donut Operator]

But going back to. Just in case people in the audience haven't been following this one in particular, when you brought up the leak referencing, there was apparently somebody within the Pentagon who leaked the information that we still had not rescued the second pilot.

[Nick McKinley]

Right.

[Donut Operator]

The Iranians thought that we did.

[Nick McKinley]

Right.

[Donut Operator]

They had no idea that there was still a pilot that was mia. So that leak to the media is what alerted the Iranian government that there was still a pilot there in play.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

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[Donut Operator]

And which is why we had to do such a big operation.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Wild to even.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, it's wild to think about, but. But also, you're telling me you don't have, like, serious FOMO that, like, wait a minute. Like, you've got thousands of Baji militia, and you've got irgc, and. And they're basically all funneling into one location, and you've got probably hundreds of aircraft on station and more am. I mean, come on.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You're calling. You're about. It's You.

[Nick McKinley]

Come on.

[Eli Double Tap]

They're working on a patient. Like, I hope somebody shoots at me right now just so I can get lit up.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Because that's one of those times in it where they're not gonna ask questions. You get to ask and shoot what you want. And there is no paperwork at the end.

[Nick McKinley]

No. There's no shooter statements like that. That.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And.

[Nick McKinley]

And what would be.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I didn't even think about that.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, dude, come on.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, we had. When the guys came back, the. They went. My guys deployed again. Two years later, surge is done. I mean, it's like cooking down. But they had one gunfight, and they're like, dude, we had to do paperwork because I. I didn't understand. He's like, why? Like. Well, we got engaged and all this happened, but we had to write who shot, how much, where they were. It was dumb. As. Yeah, 15 months is not as. And we went through a lot of ammo.

[Nick McKinley]

What year was that?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

2007.

[Nick McKinley]

When. No, when you went through 2007. Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So it was the surgeon. Baghdad.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Bakuba and Mokdadiya. So we would. I mean, I've said it before. We would go on these 24 hour ops, and sergeant would be like, hey, just remember, at four is way lighter if you shoot it. So we would initiate ambushes of the AT4.

[Nick McKinley]

Recon by fire.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Go, go.

[Nick McKinley]

It works. Yeah, it works.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And then paperwork.

[Eli Double Tap]

I need more at 4s. Why? The enemy doesn't have tanks. Yeah, but I have at 4s. What part of bazooka didn't you hear

[Nick (the other Nick)]

they weigh a lot.

[Nick McKinley]

What part of. Because I can.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Did you not hear?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's.

[Eli Double Tap]

God.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

In that big mission that was all that. They're like, he's just dropping JDAMs. Probably about that. Oh, dude. Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

I mean, so bottom line, though, we got him back. And I think that between. If you look at, like, the Maduro rescue and then this rescue or not the Maduro rescue, shall we say, we rescued. We rescued him from the country of Venezuela.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

We rescued him from our princess.

[Nick McKinley]

We Rescued.

[Donut Operator]

We rescued him from his position of power.

[Eli Double Tap]

Nothing glorifies communism like saying, our President,

[Nick McKinley]

yes, we rescued him back to capitalism. Really? Yeah, we did. I mean, it's.

[Donut Operator]

Quit being an asshole, here's some Starbucks.

[Nick McKinley]

He really, he really should be thanking us. And so here's a jocko origin hoodie

[Eli Double Tap]

pose for the picture made in America. Do you.

[Nick McKinley]

Thumbs up.

[Donut Operator]

We're also rescuing a lot of their oil.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, we rescued it, we liberated it. We didn't rescue it, we liberated it. True, A lot of it. But you look at these military operations that the military has done, and regardless of anybody's political beliefs about whether or not we should have been in the war, we should have gone after majority or any of that. But just the sheer, the, it's like the capacity of the US Military to just execute and get things done is unbelievable.

[Donut Operator]

I got some shit for that because I was just saying that, like, look, I mean, like, I, again, like, I typically tend way more toward the non intervention side. Like, I'm not stating whether or not we should or should not have been involved. I'm just saying we're kicking ass. And I said it on, I think it was Benny Johnson show where I had that clip where I'm just saying, like, look, for all these like little Reddit kids that, oh, Americans get. America's getting steamrolled by Iran. It's like, on what fucking metric? And I brought up like, yeah, like, we've lost 13Americans, which is 13 too many. Like, any American dead is a horrible thing. But I mean, theirs is in the thousands. Like, oh, well, you don't win wars on kd. I'm like, well, A, you kind of do.

[Nick McKinley]

You could.

[Donut Operator]

And B, it's not just that, but also their air defense is crippled. We sank their entire navy this time. It's like by any metric, we're, we're

[Eli Double Tap]

steaming with these people, though. Like, with those people, like, they'll never admit America wins anything. There's only two options to them. It's either America's losing or America's committing war crimes.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

You might be like, war is happening. That's a war crime. You can't have war. Ever since we decided war is illegal, like, shut up.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It's the same people with stolen land. You mean every place in the world?

[Eli Double Tap]

Bridges aren't a valid military target. They've been says what? That disproves all of history. Since we invented bridges, since we were a country.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, it's been a target since we

[Nick McKinley]

started actually writing things down. We talked about how it's important to take away the ability or the enemy's ability to mobilize and move from one side of the. Of their plot of land to the other.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I mean, you can't destroy the moat. Oh, whoa.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That is a sacred bridge that crosses that. Dickhead move.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. So anyway, that was how we get down that rabbit hole. That was.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Welcome notes.

[Donut Operator]

Like, yeah, I mean, like, war crimes

[Nick McKinley]

weren't even really war crimes.

[Donut Operator]

War crimes weren't really even a thing until the Germans started using gas. And then we're all like, oh, well, we should probably write down some rules.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Which is also wild to think about it.

[Nick McKinley]

It's wild to think about, but at the same time, like, you've got all these people talking about, well, in international law. So that's against international law. Says fricking who. Show me the international law. Like, I did 30 combat deployments, and never once did I see an international law. And not only that, but I promise you, in those 30 combat deployments, I freaking broke the international law. Go ahead and send the international police to my house in Montana. See how that works out for them.

[Donut Operator]

They say I'm the international lawyer.

[Eli Double Tap]

They say it with the authority. Like, Judge Dredd is gonna superhero drop out of the sky.

[Nick McKinley]

Right.

[Eli Double Tap]

Bring you to justice. It's like, well, Australia just arrested their. Their most decorated soldier.

[Donut Operator]

What?

[Nick McKinley]

But that's Australia.

[Eli Double Tap]

Australia arrested the most decorated soldier.

[Nick McKinley]

SAS guy.

[Eli Double Tap]

SAS guy. Arrested him for war crimes that he allegedly did 12 years ago with no forensic evidence.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

No.

[Eli Double Tap]

Anything other than rested, though. No.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

He's in.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, he's in custody right now, and he's gonna have to go through court and prove that he didn't do something they have no evidence for 12 years ago.

[Nick McKinley]

He just got real nervous. Yeah, you can go back still.

[Donut Operator]

It's gonna be real. Eli's gonna be very, very selective on what stories he tells on the podcast from here on. What were we saying earlier? The. Well, I didn't. But my buddy. I watched it happen.

[Nick McKinley]

I heard of a guy who allegedly. Allegedly.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's crazy, though.

[Nick McKinley]

The international law. I don't get me started on that in Minecraft.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, well, even Geneva, like, depending on your ao, it just switches, and then you're just going off of what somebody says.

[Donut Operator]

Well, that's all we went off of.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I didn't know I was a soldier.

[Donut Operator]

The ROI changes. The Geneva Convention.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's the roi. Rules of Gayment change.

[Nick McKinley]

But it also depends on. It depends on what? What title you're under, too, because I was in. I was in Afghanistan. And one of our indig took a round. A couple rounds to the chest on. On a target. And so we just.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

They.

[Nick McKinley]

We get him back to the fob via ground. There just so happen to be a male bird landing at the same time. So I sent my dudes out there. I was like, hey, like, freaking get all the mail off that thing. Like, that is now a medevac bird, and we're taking the rule three. And so me and this 18 delta in this Canadian version of an 18 delta, we freaking scoop him up, throw him in the back of the bird, and I grab an interpreter and this, you know, this little Afghan, I mean, you know, these Afghans are not huge people. Like, they're very, very tiny people for the most part. And so I had given him a fentanyl lollipop, but it's a fentanyl lollipop that I, like. I would, like, give one of you guys, right? So it's just. It's just fentanyl in an actual, like, sucker, like a lollipop.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Why would you give us that? You.

[Donut Operator]

It's for fun.

[Eli Double Tap]

Pain medicine.

[Nick McKinley]

Pain meds.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, okay.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, I was.

[Eli Double Tap]

So you, like.

[Nick McKinley]

Because it's party time, man.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Like, not telling me.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm like, no. Like, literally, somebody's up. You, like, tape it to their finger, and then once they pass out from the fentanyl, their arm drops and the lollipop comes out so they don't od.

[Donut Operator]

It's been great time on the unsubscribe podcast he brought us on.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Doesn't tell us.

[Nick McKinley]

We're just like, hey, I got. Hey, yeah, those. Those go pills I gave you earlier. Yeah, this is about to get real fun.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Brandon, do you need.

[Donut Operator]

Not one more time. You got this, buddy.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Brandon, can you.

[Donut Operator]

Brandon, do you. Almost there, bud.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Brandon, where do you store your firearms?

[Donut Operator]

All over my house, in every crevice.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, do I have the product for you, Nick. Show them here.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hand it to me, Brandon, so I can show you. Brandon, this is. Stop box.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Stop box.

[Eli Double Tap]

We love box.

[Donut Operator]

You're selling me.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

What's in the box?

[Eli Double Tap]

You have to open it and find out.

[Donut Operator]

All right, well, let's see if I can do this. Oh, wow, look at that.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, it didn't stop you.

[Nick McKinley]

Can I hide my goop in that?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You can hide your goop in that. Cody. Cody, do you know why I love this thing? Why?

[Nick McKinley]

Why? Why? God, why?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Because you don't have to use keys.

[Eli Double Tap]

Gun not included.

[Donut Operator]

Cody, you've got multiple cats in your house, including Squirt, who's quite the scrapper. Would you want squirt to have access to your firearms? No, he's violent. Well then, stop boxes. That the perfect product for you.

[Eli Double Tap]

No cats getting inside that or people without thumbs. The nice part is it is actually TSA compliant.

[Donut Operator]

I didn't actually know that part until a couple months ago. That is actually really cool. Just put a little lock through there.

[Eli Double Tap]

Exactly.

[Donut Operator]

When you check in a pistol or

[Nick McKinley]

any gun, if there's a hole that a lot can go through on whatever you're checking your gun in, you have

[Donut Operator]

to put a lock through that. This has one hole, so you just need one lock. Easily accessible once you land on the ground. I know you're not normally a one hole kind of guy, but this is definitely an exception to the rule. Never worry about tariffs because everything is

[Nick McKinley]

sourced right here in the usa.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Wait, what are tariffs like?

[Donut Operator]

I'm pretty sure I shot a few

[Nick McKinley]

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[Nick (the other Nick)]

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[Eli Double Tap]

And right now, if you buy one stop box, you're gonna get another stop box free. So that's 10 off plus buy one, get one free. When you use code unsub at checkout.

[Nick McKinley]

Out.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's stopboxusa.com discover a better way to

[Donut Operator]

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[Nick (the other Nick)]

Stopboxusa.com use code unsubscribe.

[Nick McKinley]

But yeah, they give him this, this fentanyl lollipop and, and he's this, this, this afghan starts ODing, right? And so I, I pull it out and then anytime you, for you street paramedics don't take this advice. Military medics, this works really well because you don't have to worry about getting sued. So you hit the pain button, right? So you have a, you have a patient who starts kind of narcing out on you. You just freaking. Whatever's causing pain, you just make it cause a little more pain. And they will, they will start breathing again, right? And so my, the interpreter is looking at me like, you sadistic freaking crazy person. Right? Keep putting my thumb in this guy's, in this guy's bullet hole to get him to kind of come back a little bit. And he had, he had two holes. He had a hole here, a hole down here, a hole here. And then the other one, trying to remember. It was like right up here, right by his neck. And so I was like, oh, man, this guy, like. And his, his vitals, he was just like, cool as a cucumber, right? Pulse was, was still under A hundred. He was still breathing, relatively normal. And normally, when you see people with holes in this area, like, that's real bad. And so. And then when you see somebody who's kind of a smaller human, like, this is. This is the problem with, like, pediatrics and stuff. You see somebody who, like, appears to be fine and they have holes in this area, then you get real nervous because they just fall off a cliff and die fast, where bigger people tend to die slower. And you can kind of see it coming. So we get to the rule three. And I'm trying to. I'm trying to pass this patient off to the doctors. And I'm in civilian clothes because I'm working for the agency, right? And I got. You know, I mean, I look like maybe I know what I'm doing, but. But I'm in civilian clothes and no identifiers on me. And we just had a freaking Russian aircraft. Aircraft land and start bringing this thing in. And these Navy Shore Patrol guys, like, the Navy cops who are guarding the. The roll three, apparently, they're like, because I wasn't a member of the military, they. I couldn't bring weapons in. So they're telling me, I'm trying to, like, talk to the doctors, and I'm thinking, this guy is gonna die on me. It turned out he was just fine. But I'm nervous, and my job, the way I looked at it was like, I gave him to you alive. Anything that happened after that is your fault. So I'm trying to make sure that this handoff happens very quickly and this. And the shore patrol guys are like, you know, telling me I can't go in. And so finally, I just handed in my.416. I handed my Glock, and I was like, they're loaded. And I. And I went inside, and I just gave him my guns. And I'm so. I. I'm in there, I'm talking to the radiologist because they, you know, we're working this guy up, and. And these shore patrol guys come in, and they said, sir, you have to come with us. Like, oh, like, for. Why? And the agency boss there is. Is with me because he's trying to, like. Like, you know, all he knows is that some of us are landing, and he just needs to be there to kind of help us out. So the boss of that base was there, and. And these shore patrol guys go, well, sir, we have to put you in the brig for 24 hours. And I was like, again, why? Like, well, you have non NATO ammunition in your gun. Because they unloaded My Glock. And I had some specialized ammunition in there that had been given to me by the US government. And in my.416, I had some specialized ammunition that had been given to me by the US Government. That is technically I. From what I understand, allegedly against the Geneva Conventions, which is great.

[Eli Double Tap]

Stupid, because I know what ammunition you're talking about. Sorry, I can.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

We can bleed.

[Nick McKinley]

You probably do. Because I promise you, you know more about this actual. Is it great?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he's talking about hollow points.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Great tip.

[Nick McKinley]

For a nine millimeter. That would be it. And for something different in the.

[Eli Double Tap]

Probably five.

[Donut Operator]

Five A one. Like the tungsten tip.

[Nick McKinley]

Shit, no. Oh, that stuff is terrible.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

I was gonna say it's so bad. It's like freaking sewing needles going.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hollow points, in particular, are against.

[Nick McKinley]

Are we expanding ammunition?

[Eli Double Tap]

Expanding ammunition. Because it falls under. It actually falls under fracturing ammunition, which is a military agreement that predates the Geneva Convention. It's from, like, the 1800s. It's like civil War era.

[Nick McKinley]

I promise you. The lawyers don't even know this stuff.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's when they were using exploding ammunition. So musket balls that would. Miniature cannonballs that would detonate inside of a person. That sounds cool. Brutal. And they're like, give me that. Oh, it expands. Oh, that's very similar. And it's like. No, hollow points are argu. Not even. Arguably, they're factually safer.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Because a hollow point is less.

[Nick McKinley]

Less over penetration issues.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon, hypothetically, I don't want to show the person behind him. You know what I mean? I want the bullet to stop in the guy that. I mean, for it to stop in, like, hollow point ammunition is safer by any metric you can get.

[Nick McKinley]

It also tends to stop the individual more effective, more effectively.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

A lot of people don't realize that it is. Hey, you don't want full metal jacket clearing a house, because that is just going that. That.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tungsten stuff.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Bad, bad news.

[Eli Double Tap]

Even in Kyle Rittenhouse's court case, Like, I watched a lot of it, and one of the points they brought up is that Kyle Rittenhouse was using full metal jacket ammunition in his gun. And they were trying to say that he did that on purpose with the intent of trying to shoot through people. And they were asking him why he didn't use hollow points.

[Donut Operator]

He was 17 and broke.

[Eli Double Tap]

Not only that, I've never even per. I've been around a lot of guns. I know they exist, but I've never even seen in person. Hollow point.556ammunition.

[Donut Operator]

A lot of times with.556 and rifle rounds like that, they use like ballistic for it. Like, well, they use like ballistic tips. So it's like a little red tip or it's like polymer or whatever that just like fills that. So it's still ballistically stable.

[Eli Double Tap]

But it's like. But I remember watching it and I was like, oh, my God, please say you didn't carry it because that's a war crime. Because he would have been factually correct and it would have been just devastating to the other person's case, sir. I can't do that. That's a war crime. Would have been hilarious.

[Donut Operator]

It's against the Geneva Convention, sir.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, yeah. And also there's ammunition. You want your ammunition to be barrier blind, right? Because you need to sometimes shoot through things and you don't want that bullet to disintegrate when it gets to the other side of the thing, right? And so now you're just shooting powder at somebody. And so. So anyway, so I have this ammunition and they're like, oh, no, it's immediate 24 hours in the break. And so the agency boss and one of the.

[Donut Operator]

Until they could get somebody out there. Or is that just like.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I don't know.

[Nick McKinley]

That's just. That's. That's just what they told me. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's not gonna happen, man. And so these guys are like, like looking at each other like, what do we do?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You just said, no, yeah, we've never had this before.

[Donut Operator]

And so they're like Zach Galifianakis with like the no numbers going by his head.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Like, like, never.

[Nick McKinley]

I was like, yeah, yeah, that's. That's not gonna happen. And then. And then at the same time, they tried to put our indige guy, who is a like, super secret indige guy, in with the other Afghans, like, military indige who had gotten hurt. And I'm like, yeah, that also is not gonna happen. Like, he's going in with the Americans and he's gonna be like, his identity is going to be protected and all that. And so one of the cool things about the agency, there's drawbacks to the military, and there's cool things about the military, there's drawbacks to the agency, and there's cool things about the agency. And one of the cool things about the agency is at the end of the day, you work for one person, President of the United States, and holy smokes, the phone calls that you can make and so the agency base commander who's there, he looks at these shore patrol guys and they're just like, like, just like, staring at me like they don't know what to say. And these, like, poor dudes, like, these are like enlisted, like E2s, right? They're just, they're on the crap shift in the middle of the night. Like, you got to feel kind of bad for these guys.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

19. You're 40? 30.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. I was like, I was probably 32, 33 years old.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Here's handcuffs. Do you want to put them on? Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

And they're just like. They have no idea what to do. And agency boss comes over and he's like, what's going on? I was like, well, so here's, here's the situation. And they're just like, nodding like, yes. That's what we told him. And the agency boss is like, yeah, f. No, that's not going to happen. And he, he walks out, get a cell phone signal, comes back in about three minutes later, and he's like, hey, you guys should be hearing something on your radios pretty soon. And sure enough, it was like, would, you know, so and so and so and so please report to the, you know, they're like, talk thing.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And.

[Nick McKinley]

And that was all around freaking, you know, because I didn't have the, the proper ammunition in my weapon. And you've got these freaking lawyers who sit in the air conditioning and, and create rules for the people who are actually on the field. In fact, we had. I got into this big argument with an agency lawyer because he said we couldn't have frag grenades because he said they were offensive weapons.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

What?

[Nick McKinley]

But, but, yeah. Which I was like, well, that's really interesting.

[Eli Double Tap]

What if I need to defend myself against a lot of bad guys?

[Nick McKinley]

Well, every single military manual says that a frag gren defensive weapon, you know, what is classified as. As offensive flashbangs. Could carry those all day long. Yeah. Could carry those all day long.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I did not.

[Nick McKinley]

They also said that we could carry a 40mm grenade launcher, right, with like, HEDP grenades, because those. That was a. Defensive weapons. But. But frag grenades were offensive.

[Donut Operator]

It's. It's offensive for something. A grenade in throwing distance, but it's defensive.

[Nick McKinley]

For one, you can shoot at 300 meters. Go for it. Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

All right.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, that. And, and that's one of the big problems that we have in war fighting today is we have a bunch of lawyers who aren't on the field. They're not doing the work like you did combat time. Do you Ever see a lawyer on the field? I never did. And I never realized, like, when I was in the military how much freaking pull these idiots have with different commanders and, you know, administrations and things like that. It wasn't until I got to the agency where now you're like, like, kind of at the top of the stack when you're in a country that I was like, oh, man. Like, I constantly have to check with the lawyers in order to figure out, like, what I can do today under what title authority I'm working under. This sucks.

[Donut Operator]

I love how you keep saying lawyer like it's a slur.

[Nick McKinley]

It is a slur. Lawyer. Well, I mean, there's, there's great lawyers, obviously. Like, I like my lawyers and, and I like. There's a lot of incredible prosecutors in this country who are doing amazing work. We work with them a lot on the human traffick trafficking stuff. They love, they love our data because it, I mean, so far in the last 11 years, we've had a hundred percent conviction rate on every single case we've been involved in that have gone to court.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Holy.

[Nick McKinley]

That's thousands of cases.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage, damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.

[Nick McKinley]

And the reason why is because the data is so binary. It's just a statement of fact. It either is or is not true. And so there's great prosecutors, but lawyers who, like, are trying to make rules for other people, right? And they're not, they're not actively part or they don't have the consequences of the rules that they're making. Like, I, I legitimately have a problem with that.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

If you've never been in a gunfight, shut the up. Like, that's. If you've never been on the ground,

[Nick McKinley]

I don't care if you haven't been in one. If you're not willing to even put yourself in the position to be in one.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, and that's maybe talk to individuals that do experience and be like, you know what? I don't. How does this rule sound? I would present that to, from lower enlisted to soft. It's like, hey, what do you guys think of These rules.

[Nick McKinley]

And that's why you would be a terrible lawyer.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I know.

[Eli Double Tap]

I hate the people on the Internet. Like there's obviously like, you know, torturing somebody, I guess, like war, crime, whatever. Like, obviously. But like in situations where it's like, whatever.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So annoying.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. But like where it's something where like, like somebody drew a gun and somebody shot. And it's like, now this dude's facing prison because he couldn't make the decision in half a second to know what the exact laws were right. To be able to execute him on the fly when it's going to take 17 lawyers six months to figure out if he violated the law or not. But he was supposed to know that in half a second.

[Nick McKinley]

That's a great point.

[Eli Double Tap]

Is insane.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, I never looked at it like that.

[Eli Double Tap]

You know what I mean? It's like it takes 17 legal experts to analyze this and decide whether or not he broke the law, but he's up for punishment for it because he couldn't do the same thing 17 lawyers couldn't do in six months, in half a second.

[Donut Operator]

It's a multi billion dollar Monday morning quarterbacking industry.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, it's insane to me.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I never looked at that.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, what's interesting about the military is military member obviously can't refuse a shooter statement. CIA, you can. Ah, they're like, we need you to write this down. No, you can just do that. Yeah, nice.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's what's great.

[Nick McKinley]

Like, because when you're a member of the military, people don't realize like you are the defender of the constitution, you are not subject to it. Right. You are in any of the civilian agencies, you are subject to the constitution for the first time. So you can be like, no, not doing that. No, I'm not doing that. Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Damn, Eli's jealous.

[Nick McKinley]

It's like, God dang it.

[Eli Double Tap]

I have the right to remain silent.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, it's just different. Like you get to hear, I have

[Nick McKinley]

the right to not self incriminate.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

More importantly, hey, on Baghdad initially it was unless they shoot at you, you cannot engage. They contain their guns. You can do that. And there was very strict like, hey, they can point their guns at you unless they shoot at you guys. You, I can't do anything. And then we went to Moka. I always compare that drive is like 40 minutes northeast near Iran border to in Iraq from Baghdad.

[Eli Double Tap]

Different server.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, it looked like different.

[Eli Double Tap]

Different.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It looked like the Metro.

[Nick McKinley]

A different server.

[Donut Operator]

It was like Metro, 3,000 tickets. Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I was like, oh, we're driving up this road. The main msr and it looks like the moon because it's just ID holes. Everyone like. And then they're like, oh, hey, if they have a cell phone and are recording, you should engage them. We're like, yeah, well, these rules have changed.

[Nick McKinley]

Or a shovel dressed. There was a time when it was a shovel.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

Military age male with a weapon. Could be a handgun in a holster. Military age male with a weapon. Game on.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

This was. They could do this and then.

[Donut Operator]

Yep.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So they stopped doing anything with these. Yeah, real quick. So we had that opposite end. Baghdad was bad. We had. We lost, I think like eight guys in Baghdad and then we lost the other eight there. But just that wild.

[Eli Double Tap]

How'd the other team make out on both of those?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The rules just changed.

[Eli Double Tap]

The local T mobile went out of business. Like it was bad.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Just never change. They would not pull their phones out. They were just like, nah, dog, I ain't answering this shit.

[Eli Double Tap]

Cool.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Okay, mom. See, they call me now.

[Donut Operator]

They can be trained.

[Nick McKinley]

What'd you call it? A lunch? Forced respect.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, exactly. What was it? You're like, oh, yeah, people should, you know, have a healthy amount of fear for like, you know, their law enforcement at that degree. Like, well, no, fear sounds bad. Like forced respect.

[Nick McKinley]

Force respect.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I like that.

[Nick McKinley]

You know, it's a better way of putting it. You'll be a great politician.

[Donut Operator]

Gang bangers should have that sort of, you know, for respect.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, for sure.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's a good band name.

[Nick McKinley]

Force respect to be the next middle band.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, my God. It's the perfect jeans, right?

[Donut Operator]

I can leave.

[Eli Double Tap]

Get on his shoulders up here, big boy. Try the perfect jeans out as earmuffs.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Brandon, how perfect are they?

[Donut Operator]

Feels like the perfect jeans.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

They're so flexible.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm fat. I can actually do squats on them.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Usually that's an issue.

[Donut Operator]

I'm picturing you do doing squats in the gym with these jeans.

[Eli Double Tap]

I could.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Dude, they are like

[Donut Operator]

Eli's just mogging on the audience right now.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Finn, make my dick talk to you. Now you're watching the ad and pant season is almost here.

[Nick McKinley]

Year.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's always pants season if you're a adult.

[Donut Operator]

It's August in Texas. We're all wearing jeans.

[Eli Double Tap]

The perfect jeans.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's right. Today we're talking about the perfect gene. Brandon, how my jeans feel on your neck?

[Donut Operator]

Feels like I need to talk to hr.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

But they were comfortable, right?

[Donut Operator]

Absolutely.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

This brand, the perfect gene. It's actually perfect. It's real denim, but not the heavy stuff.

[Eli Double Tap]

I just like how they finally say that. We can say your khakis, which is. Works great. Great pretty much everywhere except for Boston, I'm sure.

[Donut Operator]

Just means the valet is quitting. For a limited time, our listeners get 15 off their first order plus free shipping at ThePerfectGene NYC or Google the

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Perfect Gene and use code UNSUB15 to get 15 off.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's finally time to stop crushing your balls and wear comfortable jeans. By going to ThePerfectGene NYC, our listeners

[Nick (the other Nick)]

get 15 off their first order plus free shipping.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's lighter, softer, stretchier, and it's not

[Donut Operator]

a sex toy, not with that attitude.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Use that one.

[Donut Operator]

And again, that's free returns. Free exchanges. When you use code unsub15 at checkout,

[Eli Double Tap]

that's 15 off at checkout for the perfect jeans. Connor loves perfect jeans.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

He does. They fit him really nice.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, pants.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So now you got out of PJs. You did 10, 10 years or 11 years.

[Nick McKinley]

So 10 years in active duty, a year in the reserves. I was doing some like private personnel recovery stuff for banks and insurance companies. That was freaking, quite frankly. It was just, it was really interesting, but it was really, let's just say it wasn't values aligned for me. So I left that actually did a quick six months in Hollywood because I, while I was waiting for my agency clearance to go through, just freaking Forrest Gumped my way into working for a very well known Hollywood actor who's like still a good friend to this day.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Security?

[Nick McKinley]

No, not security. As a technical advisor on a movie for him. I was smart, did a few months in Hollywood, decided that was not the life for me. I don't want anything to do with that. And then my agency clearance went through and yeah, I went to specialized unit at the CIA.

[Eli Double Tap]

Goes, goes to Hollywood. I'd rather go back to Afghanistan.

[Nick McKinley]

War looks.

[Donut Operator]

I was gonna go the opposite direction with that. Goes to Hollywood. Once works in Hollywood, decides to dedicate the rest of his life to stopping basically going after Hollywood.

[Eli Double Tap]

Two things could be true at once.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, it's just not for me. And so I, you know, there's people who work there. I met some, met some awesome people, but also met some real, real dirtbags. And yeah, so ended up at the agency. That was super interesting. I literally just got a call one day. It was like, hey, do you want to come try out for this program? Can't tell you what it is. The answer to that, if you ever get the call, should always be yes. And so I show up to this nondescript building and I'm there with a bunch of other dudes who look like me. And we go in and sit in these little freaking desks. Like, little, like, like, like the Men

[Eli Double Tap]

in Black opening scene.

[Nick McKinley]

Like, yeah, like these little, like little. I don't know, like school desks, right? With a little. The little arm that comes up and

[Eli Double Tap]

the little crack your back.

[Nick McKinley]

Little deal there. No, but I should.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm about to. I've been this close to buying a school desk just to have it crack my back. That's.

[Nick McKinley]

Maybe I could use one of those. Perfectly delete my chiropractor bill. So I go in and they have you take this test. And so I take the test and then, you know, you leave after that. And then they. They read off a bunch of names and they're like. They read off those names. They're like, you guys can leave and everybody else come back into the room. So we go back into the room and they're like, you probably figured this out by now. We're the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the last time we're going to talk about that. Here's. Here's what you're going to do for the next couple of months. If you want to continue to do that, we'll pick you up tomorrow morning at the hotel. If you don't want to continue to do that. No harm, no foul. And so, of course, everybody did. And then I went to their little selection process for that unit for,

[Nick (the other Nick)]

man,

[Nick McKinley]

I'm trying to remember, I think it was six weeks, five weeks, something like that, that. And then, yeah, made it through. And about two months later, I was in Baghdad on a covert action platform.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So what was the hardest school you did up to with that included? Was it still in the military side, like Combat Diver?

[Nick McKinley]

PJ Selection, hands down, the hardest. But then I also wonder, like, maybe is that just because I. I hadn't learned to play the game yet and I was still a new guy and all that? Because I don't know. But PJ Selection was definitely the hardest, followed by Combat Diver, followed by PJ School itself. It's not that PJ School is all that hard. It's just you have zero room for error. Like, you, like, everything is a selection, right? Everything is like, oh, why did you make that choice? Why did you do that? You know, it. It's.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You're.

[Nick McKinley]

You're expected to be a thinker. There's no, like, if you just. There's no going into robot mode, except for maybe in land nav. It's going to help you to Go in robot mode, but after that there's really no going in robot mode. Right? Because. Yeah, because it's non linear problem solving. And you are, I mean, you are in PJ school. Like, this isn't unit training yet. You are jumping out of aircraft into the Atlantic Ocean after a boat. And you're doing that in PJ school. So, like, yes, it's training, but there is very little room for error when you're doing that kind of stuff. And so you're doing, you know, night jumps into, you know, quasi mountainous terrain. You're doing night jumps into the ocean. I mean, it's, you're doing a lot of high angle stuff. I mean, for two weeks you're doing high angle stuff. And like, try not to screw that up because, you know, I mean, some of those cliffs are a couple hundred feet. So it's, it's not that it was hard per se. It was a freaking blast is what it was. It was. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you think about it like people have each one of those things for hobbies, and you're getting paid to go do that, you know, every single day for weeks on end and getting some of the best training. So. But at the same time, like, you just, there's, there's no downtime. Like you have to be on all the time. The, the, the agency stuff was more of a gentleman's course, right? Because that unit, you had to have a minimum at the time. And there are people who, because of nepotism, kind of slipped through the cracks and things like that. But for the most part, you were supposed to have a minimum of six years of special ops experience and a minimum of three combat deployments under your belt just to go to tryouts so you don't have to. I mean, I had CAG dudes in my class just fricking just like, how do you, you shoot that fast and that accurately? Like, please teach me your ways. I mean, it was amazing.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That was crazy when you say it like that. You're like, oh. And they looked at you swimming and like, what the fuck?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. I mean, it was like, wow. But it was kind of the same thing at the agencies. It was in PJ school. They're like every, every little micro movement you make is evaluated and then you're also peer evaluated. So it's not that it's that hard, right? PT test wasn't that big of a deal. The shooting standards were very high. But what the agency did, which I had never experienced before, is you know how like, when you're Shooting a qual and you know, maybe you're not great at the 25 yard line with the handgun. So you're gonna, you're gonna make sure that all of your up close hits, our A zone hits so that you know if you throw one it's a like you're still going to pass. Because it's aggregate scoring the agency. It's 32 separate tests. Wow. So you, every single one is scored. So if you throw around, if you passed everything and you get back to the 25 yard line and you threw around, you fail. Never experienced that before. I was like, well this is new.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh, so it's like get.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, go.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

No go.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. And then you know how in the military you've got a shooting standard at least in, in training, right? At the unit it gets different but you've got a standard and then your night quals come around. You usually shoot the same thing but you're on nods. But they'll add a second right, because you're on nods. Agency. Nope. Exact same. Exact same standard. It's freaking snowing on us. And so I'm like, got my hand over my eotech and I'm like trying to like, you know, keep, keep the snow off my eotech and I'm not wearing gloves because I want it, I want that dexterity but now my hands are freaking freezing and, and it's just like shooter ready. And you're just like okay, here we go and beep. And and they, I mean they, and they have a student to instructor ratio so that, that nothing slips through the cracks. I mean it's like one instructor to I think like three students on test day. So if there's a shot that breaks after the, you know, after the timer goes off, like they know exactly who it is and they're like yep, it's you. Right. And so now you, now you failed the time standard. And so it's not that it was that hard. I mean anybody who is a decent marksman could, could pass his qualification. But like you're shooting for a multi hundred thousand dollar a year job doing what you think is going to be some really cool stuff. So if you got that monkey on your back, right and you got that pressure and that was, that was something that was just different.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right?

[Nick McKinley]

It's not that it was harder, it was just different.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I think that's one of those, that's the thing people do not think about. It is holy now all that pressure. This is 32 tests you were saying?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, so like 32 different shooting lines.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And that's the thing. It's like, oh, if I this one up, you just don't get to breathe the entire time. It's like, oh, fuck. Okay, I have to be perfect.

[Nick McKinley]

And then your, your, your CQB testing, I got hooked up with this. This former Marine got paired up with him, and he was awesome. I mean, the guy was just like, when, when Captain America pops into your head, like, that was this dude, man, super fit, really good on the gun, incredibly humble, like just a, just a great human being. And I got paired up with him and we're doing our. We're doing. I think we're doing two man hostage rescue runs. Because the agency operates in small teams. That's kind of the whole point. So this unit specialized in kind of a personnel recovery is a way to think about it, right? So doing security personnel recovery, operational facilitation in very, very small teams. Like. And I mean, sometimes you are your own team, so you have. So it's not a lot of what I came from, from the military, which is like, you know, there's 12 dudes in a stack, there's fricking 30 dudes outside getting ready to come in. You know, when you call for more help, it's. It's like, okay, it's you, there's QRF

[Nick (the other Nick)]

and then there's no qrf.

[Nick McKinley]

It's you and me, right? And like, that's it. And so we're doing our house runs on this and I think we're. Everybody else had come back and they'd done like three iterations in the house. And you're not allowed to talk to each other about what the scenarios were, but it's just like, hey, how many times did you go through, how much ammo did you go through? Like you're trying to get some. Some beta on, like, what. What you need to be prepared for. And look at how shot up they are with like UTM rounds and stuff. And. And we're going through and. And this guy's name is Pat. And they're like, they're like, all right, Pat, Nick, you're good. We've seen enough. And that's what we hear from the catwalk. And we'd only done two rounds. And I was like, like, oh, man. Like, we just failed.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's really good or really bad.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

And I'm.

[Nick McKinley]

I'm thinking through in my head.

[Donut Operator]

I'm like, we've seen enough.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I. I feel like.

[Nick McKinley]

I feel like we just crushed that. And that's the worst. Cuz I I've felt like I've crushed things before and, like, actually, like, did a terrible job, dude.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

My wife knows about that when I have sex with.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, she was talking about that at lunch.

[Donut Operator]

I crushed that new personal record. 37 seconds.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

What you got on that, babe?

[Donut Operator]

S tier

[Nick McKinley]

speed is a company policy. Anyway, then they. They're like, all right, we've seen enough. And then I'm like, we're like, walking out of the house with our freaking head hang hung low. And they're like, hey, you two, great job. Like, that's. That's exactly what we expect to see. And I was like, oh, thank God. So, like, you just never knew, like, did I. I do that right? And the instructors, the whole time, when you're like, okay, like, you're always. The military will always tell you what the standard is. And when I went through this selection process, they were just like, like, okay, like, PT test. You're gonna run a half a mile. You're gonna pick up this 180 pound Mr. Hertz dummy. You're gonna sprint a hundred yards with that dummy, and then you're gonna run a half a mile back. Okay? I'm like, yeah, what's. What's the. What's the time standard? Do your best.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

What?

[Nick McKinley]

Do your best.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That makes life way more stressful.

[Nick McKinley]

All right, mount the pull up bar. How many pull ups we got to do? Do your best. And you're just like, but like, do I need to keep some in the tank? Because, like, after this, you're gonna have me doing, like, muscle ups on the side of a building. Like, what do I gotta do? And that, that's a lot of the pressure was just the unknown of just like, all right, do your best and we'll let you know whether or not you did good enough.

[Donut Operator]

I'm sure they had a bunch of other, like, specialized courses and training, stuff like that. For example, like, you know, agency specific, like what to do when you have to start a podcast afterward.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, well, that. That was. They don't have that in the agency training. I believe that's phase three of buds is the books and, you know, PR phase and stuff like that. I love it. I love it.

[Donut Operator]

That's a nice way of saying that the. The agency podcast pipeline is still part of Operation Mockingbird.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes, yes.

[Donut Operator]

So we're not gonna tell.

[Nick McKinley]

We're just, we're just. We're just putting people into the media. Right? You know, guys like you as an example.

[Donut Operator]

And so you're not supposed to help me like that.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, shoot. Yeah. So the. And then the. You know, once you get to the agency, then it was a lot of. I mean, it's just freaking big boy rules. It was actually shocking what the US Government would allow us to do with zero oversight and just like, hey, there's a problem in this country.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Go figure it out.

[Nick McKinley]

And, like.

[Donut Operator]

In a good way.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, in a very good way. And then. And then I'm like, oh, well, you know. And then eventually I became a team leader, and then eventually a country team leader. And I had a. The guys who really wanted to work hard and do cool stuff wanted to be on my team, and the guys who wanted to kind of sit around and play Xbox, they didn't want to be on my team. And so, you know, the. The things that I'm like, okay, I'm gonna submit this for an op. Oh, look, that got approved. Okay, well, now I'm gonna submit this for an op. And. Oh, that got approved, too. And. And then one day, I. I'm in a foreign embassy in a country because I'm helping one of our NATO partners, and they had a lot of. Let's just say, an insane amount of restrictions on them, and my guys could kind of do whatever they wanted. And so my guys were the action element for their op.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You were the kinetic side when you ran everything, right?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, we were the guys with guns. That was our job, was to carry guns. And anger. I mean, you don't.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Guns and anger is a good shirt. Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

You don't hire dudes with soft backgrounds in order to, you know, do analysis and. Because they would suck at it, and they would be like, yeah, there's a guy with a thing. He's doing bad stuff. And so I was. I'm sitting there, and we're getting ready to have a VTC with their counterparts at their headquarters in their country. And these agencies, our agency and their agency have a very close relationship. Obviously, for national security reasons, I can't say who it was. And so the VTC screen pops on, and who's the very first person I see? Deputy chief of my unit? He was like. I was like, oh, hey, what are you doing there? He's like, nick, good to see you. I was like, all right, so what are you doing there? He's like, well, that's what I'm here to find out. And I was like, okay, maybe I've advanced that line a little too far. And that's ultra. Ultimately, why I ended up. One of many reasons I ended up leaving the agency was I just looked at the wars are winding down. I don't really want to be part of something like that when we're not in wartime. I mean, it's just I don't see that as being a good time. And I started looking at the upper echelons because I was kind of on a career rocket ship and saying, okay, like, do I want to be that guy? And do I want to be that guy? And there's a couple of them that I really respected and really liked, and they were great leaders, but I didn't want to do their job right. And ultimately, you have to. I think in an organization like that, you have to make a decision on are you willing to play the game? Right? Are you willing to play that bureaucratic game? Because the only way for you to continue to be successful is to play that game.

[Donut Operator]

What's this Green?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Eli, if I could read, I would be able to tell you AG1.

[Eli Double Tap]

I took that class in high school.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't take corn three. Boom.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

We're talking about AG1. Or as Nick says, AG1.

[Donut Operator]

Is it a multivitamin that combines your

[Nick (the other Nick)]

pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants into one simple scoop.

[Eli Double Tap]

Not amateur biotics. Probiotics.

[Nick McKinley]

Them kids are dirty, dude. The kids are running around with their little kids counterparts. They're touching hands with each other. They're getting dirty. So it's better to boost your immune system with AG1.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

He 1. Ah, yummy.

[Eli Double Tap]

You drank all that?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. All right.

[Donut Operator]

Heading into the holidays, it can be hard to maintain a balanced diet and give your body the nutrients it needs, which is why A1 comes in AG1. Tomato, tomato.

[Nick McKinley]

Them kids is dirty.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

AG1 is one of the easiest daily health habits you can start.

[Eli Double Tap]

What a great new year's resolution, Eli.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Brandon, what are yours, other than taking AG1?

[Donut Operator]

Well, if you take out AG1, that's my all of my new year's resolutions. That's all I want to do is I want to drink more of it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

They come in little packs or travel packs.

[Eli Double Tap]

Show them the travel pack hot dog style pack as opposed to the hamburger style pack.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And we use this for the live shows because when we are on the road or touring, hot dog or hamburger is very nice to carry around. Also, AG1 comes in multiple flavors. We have original grass, citrus, berry, and tropical.

[Donut Operator]

And right now, AG1 has their best offer ever. If you head on over to drink ag1.com unsubscribe, what do you get, Eli?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, you'll get the welcome kit. Three free AG1 travel packs and three free AGZ travel packs. A bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2, an AG1 flavor sampler. And you'll get to try their new new sleep product, Agz.

[Eli Double Tap]

We're drinking it at night.

[Donut Operator]

That's drink ag1.com unsubscribe for $126 in

[Nick (the other Nick)]

free gifts for new subscribers. I think a lot of your average American is not going to understand when you say that. They're like, no, you can do what you want. You're like, no, you, you have to play the game. Politics. Everything we've seen so far is to

[Donut Operator]

a degree, like there's, you have to

[Nick (the other Nick)]

still have to modify even. You have to mold yourself or who you are. You have to change slightly.

[Donut Operator]

Some of us are better at it than others.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

And that's what I just realized that

[Donut Operator]

like what, it gets you in trouble. You get, you, you get PP slapped when you don't. That's the thing.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

And some of us are willing to

[Donut Operator]

take more PP slaps than others.

[Nick McKinley]

And I got, I had one of those incidents when I was at the Agency where I got, I got my own private flight out of a base because I got fired by the base commander. And I was right, I was right. I did the right thing. Like, I will die on that hill. But I might have gone about it a little harshly. Right. And so I just ultimately was like, hey, to continue. This wasn't going to be a good fit for what I wanted to do with my life. Where I was. I was really starting to kind of get into the tech side of some of the stuff we were doing at the Agency and so wanted to try that. And then also I had just been, you know, from the time this lash car gas incident happened to the time that I'm in this country and that was a two year period. And I started like I was the CIA rep for that country and on the hostage working group. And so I just started seeing it over and over and over and I'm like, all right, like I really dove into the, the data and the, the books on it because I'm just a big nerd. And I realized that $1 for dollar, the largest human trafficking market is United States of America. That blew my mind. Like, it's us, we are the problem.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Two. That's why.

[Nick McKinley]

Right? Like if you think about it, you know, the Bible and Proverbs says something along the lines of start stop calling out the log in your brother or the speck in your brother's eye and not acknowledging the Log in your own. And I feel like that's.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Splinter in your brother's eye.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. I feel like that's what we were doing in America. And so I was like, all right, I. I think we can solve this problem in America or at least reduce it significantly, because the end of the day, it's the terrorism model. Like, we. We have 20 years of fighting these bad guys, and people don't realize that terrorism is a commodity. It's literally, like, sold. And. And people think of terrorism, they think of just the person who's willing to blow themselves up.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Up.

[Nick McKinley]

What about the entire chain of the. The guy who makes the vest, the guy who makes the explosive, the guy who finances all that stuff, the imam who, you know. Yeah. Like, radicalizes the individual. I mean, it's. It's an entire commerce chain. And we. Then. That's what we ultimately got really good at fighting. And when I started looking at the way that trafficking was working in America and the way that terrorism worked, it was like, okay, we have a lot of correlations here. Maybe the general thesis was maybe this counterterrorism model can be modified to working with indigenous. And the indigenous force in America is law enforcement, which is not perfect. Still the best law enforcement in the world. Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

I'm glad you were able to pivot to that, because I know we're coming up, like, we got, like, time constraints on the podcast. I was really hoping we could. We could get to some of this.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

Because that. We were talking about it a little bit earlier. I find this incredibly intriguing, like how you were able to take that skill set and put it directly into something like preventing trafficking.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. It took me about five years to get it figured out, but now, I mean, I hate to say we have it figured out, but we kind of have it figured out probably more than the government does. So think about it this way.

[Donut Operator]

Not as high of a bar as I would like it.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

I was trying to figure out how to word that exact same sentiment.

[Nick McKinley]

But it's the problem we have with trafficking. It's not that trafficking hasn't existed for a long time. Obviously it has. Right. And what people traditionally think of as prostitutes and pimps. Pimps are human traffickers. Like, there's no such thing as a good pimp. They are human traffickers. A lot of what people think are prostitutes, like, upwards of 80% like Pareto applies in a lot of this. Are actually trafficking victims. They're not there by will. And even if they're 21.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

And so even if they're like 21, 22 years old. They're like, oh no. This is a woman who's making this choice. It's like, is it really a choice when she was first trafficked by her parents for drug money when she was 12 and this is literally what she's been trained to do. Like, that's not a choice, people. That's desperation.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And a lot of people don't have that mindset where it's like, if you know no better. This is, is from a childhood. This is your right. It's the idea of like what's evil. Yeah. Depend. Like, you're right, you're wrong.

[Nick McKinley]

There's nuance.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah. And a lot of people just dropped that to the side and like, what are you talking about? Like, that girl's not gonna know anything.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

It's like I grew up in this. This is normal. This is what everyone.

[Nick McKinley]

This is what my parents trained me to do.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

And that's it. And if your parents taught you that. There was just a kid case, I want to say Portland or Utah, where it was a grandfather who had been taking the females. And they're just isolated, the house kids and all that. The kids got arrested. The males, they were like 20 to 25. Their entire life they never associated with a single person. They were just told to have with your sister. And then that's it. And then we're making everything right through genetics. You guys are pure breeds. The world's evil. This is all you experience. Those 20 year old guys went to jail. They're in prison right now and they're like, we're sorry we did, we're sorry. They're apologetic now that they're in the limelight. They had no clue of anything going on in their head. They were just doing what they were told and they were isolated from the world.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes.

[Donut Operator]

Just horrifically depressing because you're just talking about that pipeline, you know, when they start with their parents selling them off at like 13, 14 or renting them out.

[Nick McKinley]

As crude as it sounds, that was, that was a lot of it.

[Donut Operator]

They can't be trusted. Like as a parent, like if you've got like a daughter, like that's something of inherent value and you're supposed to be trusted to protect that and, you know, turn that into a functional member of society. And certain people just don't have that, that responsibility.

[Nick McKinley]

So one of our analysts was embedded with a Texas county sheriff's office doing counter human trafficking operations a couple of weeks ago. And they had a customer show up. Because when we do counter Human trafficking operations. And I'll get to what that means. We are going after customers, traffickers, and then rescuing victims. Right. So we help law enforcement do all three simultaneously in an operation, not treating each one as its own operation. Right. And that's really the way that you should be doing these operations. And so customer shows up, gets busted and he starts crying. And so of course our analyst, and she's amazing, Alicia Williamson is her name, who was running this, this op. Former Marine Corps SIGINT analyst who then went and did spooky things and, and, and she, she's doing this, this op and this guy starts crying. And so the cops are like, well of course you're crying and. Because you got, you got caught. And he said, no, he said, I'm crying because my daughter's not going to get a recital dress. And we're like, she's like, we're like, what is, what do you mean?

[Donut Operator]

That's a wild disc.

[Nick McKinley]

I went, I was, I had just gone to get my daughter's dress for her recital. And he decided that he was going to book a date on his way home to give his daughter his recital, her recital dress so that she could go to her recital. And he was booking a date with a 15 year old girl.

[Donut Operator]

How old was his daughter?

[Nick McKinley]

Thirteen.

[Donut Operator]

Oh my God.

[Nick McKinley]

And then his head is just so like this is the problem right now is that guy's daughter being, I don't know, high likelihood, high likelihood. And so like this, this is the problem. And, and so how was this guy able to book. Oh, in the girl. So who's the trafficker? The trafficker is a suburban mom with her own kids. Suburban single mom with her own kids. And this is how she's paying for like in a, in a, in a neighborhood like any middle class, last neighborhood that you would see. This is how she's paying for her kids soccer fees is by trafficking a 13 year old girl. Right.

[Donut Operator]

When.

[Nick McKinley]

So how does all of that happen? How is it that this guy can book a date? Well, this is how, right. Broadband connected microcomputers that are in everybody's pockets. So it used to be right back in the day you had the red light district and you had the girls walking the street.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

Harry Hines Boulevard in, in, in Dallas, what's it called, Bissonette in, in Houston. So that's, that's the way that I

[Nick (the other Nick)]

like you say this and we're just, I've never heard of any of these guys.

[Donut Operator]

I was willing to go with it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Sure. He hangs out with. You have to like associate and know this stuff. And I'm like, I have none of.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, traditionally those girls walk in the street. It was girls on the. That the reason that Backpage.com back in the day was called Backpage was because it used to be the back pages of the newspaper. Right? It was.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So this is old Internet actually like go 2000 pre2012. I want to say. Backpages got back back.

[Nick McKinley]

No, Backpage got seized in 2018. We were one of the sources of. Of intelligence that led to their takedown.

[Donut Operator]

No.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, there's a big escort problem on it. Yeah, we actually, we actually moved into their corporate headquarters. We got a screen and deal on it from the bank who owned the building because they were trying to rebrand a little bit. So we had our Dallas office there. We've. We've since moved it.

[Donut Operator]

But I was always told like the whole. Because you brought that up like the escort thing, like I was always told and I always kind of assumed it was basically just like a thin veil of legality behind what was trafficking.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, it's. I mean they were literally the big box store of trafficking. Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Let's go get ready for a new kid case.

[Ad Voice]

We're going to crack this case and prove we're victorious partners of all time.

[Nick McKinley]

New friends. You are Gary Destiny and your last

[Nick (the other Nick)]

name Des Snake Dream Team Habitats.

[Nick McKinley]

Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home.

[Donut Operator]

You're clearly baring it.

[Nick McKinley]

Zootopia 2 now available on Disney Plus. Rated PG. And so this is a menu where

[Nick (the other Nick)]

it's just like click, that's it.

[Nick McKinley]

So one of the statistics I like to point out is between 2010 and 2015, the National center for Missing and Exploited children had an 846% increase in suspected trafficking cases. Why did that happen? Right, 846% increase in five years. Well, I started looking into the data on it and the reason why is broad adoption of smartphones. See, smartphones used to be luxury Items. And then AT&T came out with their next program where you could finance the smartphone as part of your monthly bill. And then every other telco provider started doing exactly the same thing. And so what do you have? You have a massive increase in smartphone use. And when you have a massive increase in smartphone use, what directly comes with that? It's a one to one correlation. Social media use increases. So for the first time in history, you could be a 40 year old man 3000 miles away from a 12 year old girl who just made a social media video about how she's mad at her dad for not letting her wear the mini skirt to the mall. And that trafficker, that predator, that right, slides into their DMs right at that very point of vulnerability and starts telling them, oh no, it's just because you're so pretty, your dad's just trying to keep you from growing up. Here, let me, let me send you a gift. And then it's take a picture for me and then it's a nude picture and then it's now I got you, right? And so that's the problem we have given. It used to be that predators could only access the prey that they could physically access. What the Internet did was it gave the predators access to all of the prey and the social media marketing algorithms that was the targeting algorithm for the predator. Because now all a predator has to do is get a burner phone, create a burner email address, very easy to do, that'll take you about two minutes, cost you no money. And then start up a fake book account and then like something that a 12 year old girl likes and then Instagram, Snapchat, everybody goes, oh well you might also like this, right? And then just to kind of make the numbers easy, let's we'll use round ones. A predator knows that he's got to talk, he's got to try to connect with a hundred girls, to get 50 to connect with him, to get 25, to talk to him, to get 10, to have a meaningful conversation, to get five to do something they regret, to get two to agree to meet him, to get one to actually show up. And that one girl's worth on average about $93,000 a year in black market money. So he's not paying taxes, taxes on that. Right. And he can run three to five girls at a time. So the Internet is what created that problem. And that, that's how we got here. Then what do we do? We give kids access to gaming consoles that have Internet connections that allow predators to get on companies like to get on games like Roblox, which is one of the biggest offenders, and then pretend like they're somebody else. There's been number of experiments that have been conducted and they said that within 15 seconds of showing up on Roblox, a child will see some type of nudity that actually would be regulated in the physical space. Do what that they shouldn't see. Within 15 seconds. Yes. On Roblox a child can see what would otherwise be considered regulated. Yes.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

The Lobbies, it's just lobby based. So then it's, I'm a kid, I'm joining this because.

[Nick McKinley]

Cool.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I mean I guarantee you have actual.

[Nick McKinley]

We got, we got, we got data that Roblox doesn't want us to have. And this is a massive scale because like just on Roblox alone we've got, we. So we have a list of confirmed accounts on Roblox. Now how many lines are on that list? Jesus, over 400,000. The commercial sex advertisements where these, where these kids are and these, these, these victims are advertised, these different websites, right? Like it used to be Backpage.com. now it's a number of them. I'm obviously not going to say which ones because I don't want to drive traffic to them. They're predominantly outside of the US jurisdiction, right? So nothing the US government can do about it. We collect those advertisements at a massive scale. On average about 75,000 a day. Right? So we're bringing those in. We have our own engineers, we have our own supercomputers and we're distributing this data thanks to the generosity of donors to over 8, 000 law enforcement officers across the United States.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, just real quick, where can people donate for that specifically?

[Nick McKinley]

Because, so that's just deliverfund.org and that's deliver D E L I V E R Fund f u n d.org and, and deliver is, you know, deliver me from evil. Deliver the orphans in the rescue. Right. Psalm 82. And so what we do at Deliver Fund by, by providing this data to law enforcement, right? People think with my background, the way that we're fighting human trafficking, like oh, you must be kicking doors and stuff. It's like, no, not because I don't know how to do that, but because that's not scalable. And we have a massive scale problem when it comes to the fight against human trafficking. So it's not a matter of like some guy who used to be special ops is like, I'm going to go be a hunter now. Like, no, it's like it's, it's providing the data to the law enforcement officers who are actually doing this. And, and if the government came up with money for this, like, let's just say all of a sudden the government put a billion dollars towards the fight against commercial sex trafficking in America, we

[Nick (the other Nick)]

would never want to pay for that as taxpayers.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, but the defense contractors would come in and they would build all the tools that law enforcement needs. But there's no money for law enforcement to be able to actually solve this problem.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's why there's a lot of money. We just don't use.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, there's no money that's dedicated to this problem. And so. So we just stepped in and said, okay, fine, we'll just start solving these. These law enforcement problems. And so what we do, we do three things. We equip with technology and data. We train because you got to teach the cops how to use the technology and data. And then we advise, which is a fancy way of saying we give them intelligence on traffickers. And what that allows us to do is our analysts, because they're actually doing task force operations with these law enforcement officers. They get to stay on top of the pivots that the. The traffickers are making in the market. Right. They're no longer doing this. They're now doing this. They're. They're advertising minors this way and not this way anymore. Right. And then that information goes to our engineers. Our engineers automate that, and then that goes to law enforcement, and that cycle just continues to go.

[Donut Operator]

There's a lot of law enforcement organizations across the country. They're doing a great job in this regard, but there's also a lot that are woefully behind. Just like the one that Cody was talking about earlier, the guy that was saying that, oh, did. Can you believe, like, we just got a briefing today. Can you believe that they're using bitcoin?

[Nick McKinley]

It's like, no, they're actually using monero now.

[Donut Operator]

But congratulations, you've graduated to 2012. Yeah, this has been a thing for over a decade.

[Nick McKinley]

So it's a big problem. Federal government needs to come up with money, and that's one of the solutions. But the other solutions are industry. So I actually wrote a pretty lengthy paper on this. So you can go to 10 points, that's T E N points.deliverfund AI and you can see, like, there's. There's 10 opportunities to disrupt any illicit commodity sale. Nine of them sit with industry. So one, those victims should never be able to be advertised on the Internet in America anyway. Can't really do anything about those websites because they sit outside of u. S. Jurisdiction. Well, the next is the phone carriers, specifically a company called cinch and then another company called banner bandwidth dot com. So what they do is they provide these burner phone numbers, right? And it used to be that the burner phone was a, you know, prepaid phone that you could buy at walgreens or whatever, and. And it was your anonymous phone. Now it's all voip. So it's all software. So it doesn't fall under the same rules as the this phone. Like you cannot go to Verizon and walk out with a piece of hardware with a phone number attached to it it without showing an ID and Verizon knowing who you are. You can do that through software apps that you can download from the app store. So then what happens is law enforcement will try to subpoena that phone record. It goes to a bandwidth.com or cinch or somebody like that envoy. And then they, they are like, well we sold it to, we sold that number rent releasing that number to this app company. Now they have to subpoena that app company and then the app company is like oh well we're allowing this organization to use it. And it just goes on and on.

[Donut Operator]

So what's the solution there?

[Nick McKinley]

The solution is that we need to apply the same FCC rules that we apply to the regular telco industry to the VoIP companies and we need to not allow them to sell those numbers direct to consumer without id. Right. And one of the things that. And I can already hear the privacy people in the comments just shooting. Shut up and let me finish.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I was, I was gonna bring it up. I was like. Because I guarantee you experience like to anything. It is, hey, well this and it is that.

[Nick McKinley]

So anonymous transactions are allowed in America and are constitutionally protected as they should be. Gun dealers. I can buy a gun with cash. Can I buy a gun with cash without showing an id?

[Donut Operator]

If it's private sale, yes.

[Nick McKinley]

Depends on the state. But can I sell that to a miner?

[Donut Operator]

No.

[Nick McKinley]

There you go. So now I understand the impetus on me and there's a lot of gray area there. But the point is, is that the telco industry is a regulated industry. So I can't buy tobacco without showing an id. I can't buy alcohol without showing an id. Why is it that I can buy a burner phone number on an app for 99 cents without some, without that company knowing who I am. And I'm not, I'm not saying the government should know who I am. The only way the government should know that I'm using that, that number is if there is a subpoena signed by a judge. Right. And I have. And they're actually going to collect that information.

[Donut Operator]

Right. Which is just like basic fourth amendment level stuff. Like, you know.

[Nick McKinley]

So there's a difference between privacy and anonymity.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick McKinley]

Privacy says you have. It's. No, it's not the government's business or anybody's business. What it is that I'm doing anonymity says I have no ability to have consequences for my actions. Right. And license plates are a great example. Your license plate on your car gives you privacy, but it doesn't give you anonymity if you're in a hit and run. Right. And you kill somebody. Well, law enforcement has the ability to track you down and try to figure out what happened, happened, but it does. Your license plate doesn't tell the, the government like what you did last Tuesday. Right. And so the, one of the things that we have to come to terms with in America is the difference between privacy and anonymity.

[Donut Operator]

Which I like what you said about the, the as long as there's a warrant signed by a judge, like it's still due process. It's not just like mass surveillance. It's just the ability to, if we accuse you of committing a crime time which we have reasonable suspicion that you have done, we have an ability to find out who.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, bank accounts are a great example. Right. I mean personally I'm of the kin that, you know, income taxation. Notice I said income taxation is theft. But, but it doesn't mean that we should have anonymous bank accounts. Right, because anonymous bank accounts, like we tried that for a little while and it didn't work. And we had this massive organized crime problem in America in the 50s and 60s. We've got the Banking Privacy act and different AML and KYC rules that got passed and okay, well now the bank knows who's putting money into the, into the bank and what the source of funds are. It's not a perfect, it's not, it's not perfect, but it's, it's better than we had it where we didn't have that. And so you can't have a, you can't have all the benefits of a, a, a polite and safe society and not have any rules. And that's where we are on this issue. And so the, the burner phone issue is a great example. You don't have to actually pass a new law. You just have to make the existing law apply to this software technology. Because this software technology didn't exist when the law was written. Like that's it. So it's not a policy change at all. It's just closing a loophole. And it's a loophole that companies like cinch and bandwidth.com are making millions and millions of dollars on and the price is children. Like it's the innocence of those children.

[Donut Operator]

And if I can already counter the devil's advocate, you know, they Would say something along the lines of, oh, well, you know, semi automatic firearms didn't exist when the second amendment was, was written.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Sure.

[Donut Operator]

It's like, okay, well, a. That's not the spirit of the law. Like it shouldn't matter what kind of firearms, but firearms are a constitutionally protected natural right. You know, on something. You have a natural right to defend yourself and to, you know, have your own property and everything like that. And you have a right to defend yourself. It's constitutionally protected. Whereas this, what you're proposing is still falling in line with what is constitutionally protected because you're talking about. Okay, it's still not violating your right to privacy, your right to be secure in your possessions against unreasonable searches and seizures because you're still following due process.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. And there's also, like, there should not be a government registry. Just like there shouldn't be for firearms, there shouldn't be for phones. However, when the government, when we task the government, right. The one thing the Constitution says that the government is supposed to do is defend and protect. Right. It's the one positive liberty to the government. So when the government is trying to do its job of defend and protect, the government should be able, with the proper paperwork and the proper fourth amendment procedures, go to the phone company that runs that number and say, who has that number? Because they were just sending. Yeah, they were just exploiting a child. Right.

[Donut Operator]

Which, you know, the federal government has that anyway. Like in today's day and age.

[Nick McKinley]

Not, not on the burner phones, they don't. It's actually the biggest problem we have in the child exploitation fight.

[Donut Operator]

I'm saying it depends on how, how high you go up the line. Oh, sure, sure. Like they.

[Nick McKinley]

Let's just say it's not, it's not, it's not making it to the county Detective.

[Donut Operator]

That's my problem. Yeah, it's like your county government doesn't have the ability. It's like there's. You climb that ladder high enough, there's nothing they don't have. They're just not giving that information.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. And, or there might be actual rules against you using those technologies on US soil or something like that. Right. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't give them to.

[Donut Operator]

Doesn't mean they don't collect it.

[Nick McKinley]

It doesn't mean that. Yeah. So the point here is that we have, we've made it so that predators can have direct access to children anonymously. And that's a problem. And that's why we have, we've. That's why we have problems like the 764 group on, on, on Roblox, which is literally a satanic cult. That is, they're, they're not money motivated. Their motivation is getting children to cut like the, the numbers 7, 6, 4 onto like their chest, trying to get them to commit it. Like that's their currency. They're actually trading in this stuff. And so we have to like, we can't just say, okay, we're, you know, we're not going to allow this stuff to happen on Roblox anymore is a great example because the only way to do that is for Roblox to be able to say, okay, we know that this account belongs to Brandon and we know that this account belongs to Nick. And so when law enforcement shows up, then they can tell law enforcement who it belongs to. And right now they can't do that. And I think for, with companies like Roblox, it's by design.

[Donut Operator]

Well, I mean it seems very clear like the way that their company has responded to a lot of this stuff that they don't want to solve the problem.

[Nick McKinley]

No, because that would mean friction in signups, in frictionless signup. Frictionless account creation is what's leading to everything from, from a lot of the problems we're dealing with in politics to the lack of discourse in our country.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

Because other countries are doing this to us as well. So what human traffickers are doing to you have the Russians doing at a very large scale within our social media platforms. But Roblox can report more daily active users, Never mind if 60% of them are bots and another large percentage of them are. So when we look at this Internet anonymity issue, right, the burner phone issue, the fact that these can just set up these accounts at will, that's the ultimate upstream problem on why we're dealing with this trafficking pandemic in America. And that's what we have to start solving. And so at Deliver Fund we're solving that, that working directly with law enforcement. We work with a lot of industry partners as well, but we do it all in a way so that it's all donor funded. Yeah. So nobody in the government and we have had this happen where people call us and say, hey, maybe you don't look behind that door. And we say, oh, that's really interesting. We're gonna go look behind that door.

[Donut Operator]

That sounds like the kind of door you need to look behind.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, we don't have any, any hooks into us. So that's, that's, that's what we're doing to fight the trafficking epidemic. And working it was a side project that got way out of control.

[Donut Operator]

I've got to give shouts out while we're on the roadblocks thing again. We talked about this a little bit before, but our Attorney General Ken Paxton for the state of Texas being I think the first to actually go after Roblox specifically for that.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. And there's a number of other attorney generals that then followed suit. And that's great. But is that really going to move the needle on the problem?

[Donut Operator]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

I mean you're talking a multi billion dollar publicly traded company, Right. That their, their price to sales ratio last time I checked was like a 13. I mean they're just, they're, they're a tech growth story.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So they just last year switched from a small time LLC to an actual, they tried to get away with. Oh no, we're a small company. What are you talking about?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah, you're a publicly traded.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Very low millions of dollars. They, that was last year. Yeah, they were forced to switch their LLC and how they were filing because they were just, just too big worrying about taxes. Like no, we're not. And you're like homies. You guys are publicly trained. You have a currency, you have a actual currency in your game that makes billions of dollars. What the fuck are you talking about?

[Nick McKinley]

Well, and what, what's, what's crazy about that then? They're what. One of the things that they try to defend the themselves with is they're like, oh, these are just a few cases that slipped through the cracks. Oh no. All these lawsuits are proving that this is not just a few cases that slipped through the cracks. But I think it was part of

[Donut Operator]

their own team too, right?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Oh yeah, their statement. I've showed this clip with Papa Me at Meat Canyon talking about it.

[Donut Operator]

Yeah.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

He reads a statement from the owners and the board and they're like, well you know what, we're making money. What's the problem?

[Donut Operator]

Well, because wasn't it, it was some of their own people. Like I don't want to go into like the defamation territory because this is just what my understanding.

[Nick McKinley]

That's okay. I got, I got the actual quotes written down right here so we can just read them.

[Donut Operator]

So you can just do it for me. Because it seemed like people that were on their team were like participating in this.

[Nick McKinley]

So yes, that has been well documented. But really at the end of the day, like what's, what's the CEO's view on this stuff? Like the CEO's name is David Bouzucki, what is his view on this stuff? Well, let's ask him. So he was on the Hard Fork podcast, which is. This was November of last year. Right. So this is relatively recent. Recent. He was on the Hard Fork podcast which is like a, it's a New York Times podcast. And he was asked about the, the predator problem that was coming out around Roblox. And he said, and this is a direct quote, I'm going to read it. We think of it, it being the predator problem, not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well.

[Donut Operator]

What the was the context of that?

[Nick McKinley]

How do we allow young people to build, communicate and hang out out together? That was his response to being asked about the predator problem, right? The. Yeah. Oh absolutely. At the September 2023 Roblox Developers Conference. So where all of their developers, the people who make these games, where they all get together in one conference. Right. He's the keynote. And so September 2023 at the Roblox Developers Con Conference. And then he continued to do it in 2025, he said, and this is a direct quote when he was making his like predictions about the direction that the company is going to go. So at the developers conference in 2023 he said thousands of 17+ users will meet for the first time in Roblox dating experiences and subsequently form real life relationships. Last time I checked, 17 year olds were minors.

[Donut Operator]

Is he American?

[Nick McKinley]

He is Canadian.

[Donut Operator]

What are the rules in Canada?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Is that not. That's where Mr. Swirls. I'm sure you've read that.

[Donut Operator]

Oh well I know about that.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That can Canada let him go? Yeah, three. Three years and homie was the most notorious in the world.

[Donut Operator]

Legit child.

[Nick McKinley]

But this company is headquartered in Silicon Valley. It is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. This man and his company are completely subject to U.S. jurisdiction. So I just think it's one of the things that one of my early mentors at the agency told me. He said if you, if you listen to what the enemy says, they will tell you what they're going to do and you should believe them. Right. And in this case that's why I

[Donut Operator]

listen to the World Economic Forum.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

There you go.

[Nick McKinley]

But he's telling you like he's saying all the quiet parts out loud. In July 2023, in an interview with Gaily with Game Daily Biz, Bouzouki was asked if Roblox would ever allow nudity on its platform. Keep in mind the major majority of users on the Roblox platform are under the age of 13. He knows he knows this, right? Like he knows who is, who his players are and who his users are.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Are.

[Nick McKinley]

And you know what his response was when asked if he would ever allow nudity on the platform? He said, I would never rule it out.

[Donut Operator]

Isn't it? Didn't you already say that? Like you're possibly 15 seconds away, like a child's 15 seconds away from regulated nude content?

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah. His direct quote was, I would never rule it out. And they went on to say, based on the company's long term view of mirroring real life activities and enthusiasms while also maintaining safe boundaries. And they went on to add that getting to that kind of stuff probably isn't in the short term for us though, right?

[Donut Operator]

Oh, good.

[Nick McKinley]

So then he was asked also on Hard Fork about, about gambling for kids and the. And if you go watch the interview, you'll see the Hard Fork interviewer said like, well, like it's not like you'd ever allow gambling or something like that. Right. You could tell he was totally trying to give him a softball. And Bouzouki's response was, he said here, direct quote, he said, that's a brilliant idea. It sounds very fun and obvious. I love that. And then you could see the honor. The interviewer was like, no, no, man. Like, like on the record, like, I think this is a horrible idea. And then Bouzouki doubled down and he said, he said, no, it's a brilliant idea if it can be done in an educational way. That's legal.

[Donut Operator]

All right, let me back up. So the, so in this, in this example, what the. You're using an in game, what is it? Robux or whatever the, like that currency

[Nick McKinley]

which is tied to.

[Donut Operator]

Purchased by US Dollars.

[Nick McKinley]

Yes. Like there's a credit card attached.

[Donut Operator]

Child gambling with extra steps with real money.

[Nick McKinley]

Money, yeah, but it is real money because roblox hat, I mean Robux has an actual, like an actual value. Right?

[Donut Operator]

Right. Because you have to buy the robot with real money.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. And then Roblox takes, I believe, 30% of, of the, the of that transaction. Right. So that's how they make their money. So here you've got somebody who has no problem with child gambling. Right?

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

Turning it into a dating platform for minors. Saying that knowing that the majority of his users are minors, saying that he wouldn't rule out nudity. Right. That he wants to mirror real life enthusiasms, which, like, that's weird.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, it's.

[Donut Operator]

Check this motherfucker's hard drive.

[Nick McKinley]

Well, thank you. Like I want to see that. Browsing history and I Want to see that hard drive? Because I have a lot of questions. But they do.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Crystal, first off, Waltz talks about this when he was interviewed about his character in

[Donut Operator]

J. No, no, it was Inglourious Bastards.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Inglorious bastards. And he says, man, how did you play evil so well? What are you talking about? He thought he was right. I just played it like my perspective of, oh, this is normal, this is okay behavior. That's why it's so foreign to him. He's like, oh, that's a great idea. Let me implement this.

[Nick McKinley]

Exactly.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Evil's not gonna know. Know they're evil. They're not going to know they're exploiting individuals. It's okay for them, right? And then you get statements like that, where it is holy no, homie. Like, what are you talking?

[Nick McKinley]

What a great way to grow the game. Right? And so then they, they added these age blocks, which is part of the, the pressure that's come from the, that's come from the Attorney General lawsuits and these other private lawsuits that have been filed, but they aren't, still aren't showing IDs. What they're doing is they're using this age estimation software. That's terrible. There's actually videos on YouTube of a kid who drew a face on a thumb with a marker and did the age estimation. Just, just doing that. Like, the technology doesn't work. It's freaking smoke and mirrors. There's another one where you can see this little kid, he drew a beard on his face with a marker and it, it, it estimated him at like over 18.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You have, just for reference, view under your average. I want to say Counter Strike massive game, like 10 million players actively daily. And that's an absurd number. That usually doesn't happen. Now you look at Robux, you have 10 billion registered accounts. So more registered accounts than humans exist.

[Nick McKinley]

10 billion.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

10 billion monthly users. 380 million daily. 144 million active daily users. And Robux, 40%. 40% are under 13. So 40% of. What, like 50 million then? 50 million of the active user base daily is under 13.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're the Asian.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I don't have my calculation.

[Nick McKinley]

And so we've got, we've got documentation.

[Donut Operator]

You are the calculator.

[Nick McKinley]

You're supposed to be at least dropped

[Eli Double Tap]

harder or whatever the.

[Nick McKinley]

You got to do.

[Donut Operator]

Well, it's like 300, 380 million. It's like that's the population of the U.S. yeah, that's.

[Nick McKinley]

So we, we have, we have documentation of people selling basically minor authenticated accounts. So they'll they'll, they'll sell them to. Right? So, so they, they put in these age gates Roblox did, which I think was also saying the private, the, the, the quiet part out loud because on one end of the H1 group, so you're allowed to talk like one group down and one group up. So what that allows is it allows a 15 year old boy to have a conversation with a 9 year old girl that he doesn't know. And Roblox has no problem with that. They, they think it's absolutely fine. And I have had conversations with so many people at Roblox and they all like just basically take this like well, you don't understand the volume problem. The volume problem? Well, no, I understand the volume of kids that are getting hurt.

[Donut Operator]

And this is, this is where I'm a boomer on this because I don't know shit about Roblox outside of, you know, super like wave top stuff and all the shit I learned through this. There's, I'm sure a lot of this is taking place like through DM features and stuff like that.

[Nick McKinley]

So it's taking. So the, the what parents. So like let's get to kind of the meat of this. Like what do parents need to know know? Couple, two, couple things that parents need to know. The, the process is the, the trafficker. Right. Whatever they are. Because those are actually two different things. But we don't get into the, the minutia of it. The, the bad guy meets your child on a gaming platform pretending to be somebody that they're not. Right. So that's fraud. Then they off platform them to Discord, something like that. Snapchat, something like that. And, and what they'll try to do is they'll try to do it through multiple different platforms. So they'll send them a message on Row on, on Roblox and then they'll send them a message on Discord and then they'll send them a message on Snapchat. So it's really hard for law enforcement to tie all that together. Right. And that's where our analysts and stuff come in. And they do an amazing job of, of tying that together for law enforcement and a lot of our technology as well. So that's, that's kind of the way that they'll do it. And so they'll off platform them and then they're slowly trying to get them to do something that they regret that they can use as a handle to extort them. And in some cases like in the 764 group, which is like Literally a satanic group that is trying to target your kids. That is happening to every single child who is on, on a platform like Roblox, right. Who is on, you know, a discord server. Like they are in there and the currency is the kids. And so they'll, once they off platform them, they get them to do something they regret and it's like, okay, well now I'm going to get you to do more and I'm going to get you to do more. And then it forks. So on one hand the human trafficker wants physical control of that individual so they can rent them by, you know, basically by the 20 minute increment. On the other side you've got these sick who want to control that child psychologically and get them to send photos and get them to do more and more terrible stuff. In the case of the 764 group, they're trying to get the kids to kill themselves and to kill themselves on camera. Like that is their ultimate goal. And if they.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

I hate. We can't like, like YouTube kill them. Well, yeah, that. But YouTube I do hate. We can't talk about this without getting. We have to then around the words and the verbiage.

[Nick McKinley]

Sure.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Because then. And I don't want you to. I'm just saying I.

[Nick McKinley]

Some of this you're gonna have to cut. I totally get it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

No, we're gonna keep it. It's just we have to, we hate that we have to censor or skirt around this so it hits the mess

[Nick McKinley]

which is a whole other problem. Like so deliver fun. We, we don't have a TikTok account. You know why we don't have a Tik Tok account? Because we talk about trafficking. And TikTok doesn't want you talking about child trafficking.

[Donut Operator]

Right.

[Nick McKinley]

We got to be very careful about what we say on our YouTube channel and what we say on Instagram and whatnot. That's why these like all these podcasts saying the same thing is so important is because you can't like, you parents need to know this stuff, kids need to know this stuff and more importantly our policymakers need to know this stuff so they can actually start getting to the, the bottom of it and actually start regulating this. I mean there's, there are, there's not a reasonable argument why an 18 year old boy should be able to talk to a 12 year old girl who's a stranger. There is no reasonable argument for that. And anybody who thinks that's a reasonable argument wants to defend that. Like I want to check their browsing history in their, in their hard drive. Right. Because they're probably in on it. And, and so we, we have to start actually taking these problems seriously and saying, okay, like, children are being abused and being exploited at a rate we have never seen before. We understand exactly why in our data that we have at Deliver Fund, I can tell you exactly what companies, what they're doing, how, how they're. They're working this. And I actually have gone to so many of these companies and said, hey, your phone numbers are being used for child exploitation. One of them, the CEO and I are even in this same kind of like, economics group, and he doesn't even have the common courtesy to respond. Right. Another one I've sent them. I mean, I sent them tons of information, like spreadsheets of information. Don't even respond. And then we'll go check those numbers to see if they're still up. And they're still up. They don't take any action. It's the same thing on the advertisements. It's the same thing on social media. And so that's the problem that we're solving, and that's the problem we collectively have to start working together to solve just really quick.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

So it is clear, like, we cut and censor this the best we can to deliver it to the most. The most people we can. Otherwise, if we just left as is, no one's going to see it, unfortunately. So that's why if there was bleeps or how it's specifically cut is to reach the masses. It's not us censoring. It's like, oh, we care about advertising. We don't. We don't give a Fuck. It is.

[Donut Operator]

YouTube will kill our reach.

[Eli Double Tap]

YouTube will kill the algorithm. Then nobody sees it.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

That's the thing. It will throttle it. And that's. I want you all to understand that of everything going on or the beeps or anything. That's why.

[Donut Operator]

Which is one of my many problems with the algorithm. And the way that a lot of not just YouTube, but like a lot of corporations run things is because they're, it's. They're trying to solve a problem and they think one step ahead and not three. And the one step is, ooh, well, that's a sensitive topic. We don't want people to talk about it on our platform. And then the downstream effects of that is we're warning against it and we're trying to show. We're trying to expose this stuff, a. But show what people can do about it to help with it, to keep people informed. And because that information doesn't get out more kids get over.

[Nick McKinley]

Yeah.

[Donut Operator]

And if, you know, that's the long

[Nick McKinley]

term, if YouTube was serious or meta or any of these companies, if they were actually serious, if the words that came out of their mouths meant something, they would actually create their algorithm in such a way so that it promoted this kind of content to get it in front of as many people as possible to warn them. And they would even be creating their own content to put in front of people.

[Donut Operator]

Or at least don't penalize it.

[Nick McKinley]

Right. But the fact that they're penalizing it makes you ask a lot of questions about why they would do that. And I've got a lot of.

[Donut Operator]

Because they've got to sell ads to Nabisco. Yes. Really is the short. The short answer to that. Not calling out Nabisco specifically. I'm sure you're just as corporate as anybody else.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

But, Nick, where. Before we move into just this, the. The after show, because we are. I know everyone's on restriction, and I do want to ask one question that will go on the after show. I want the kidnap story. Like. And that's how I'm gonna leave that. Because now everyone's like, like, what?

[Nick McKinley]

The. The kidnap story.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You were. There was a situation where it escalated where you're. Maybe it's not. Is it? There was.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, the. The thing you wanted. So, like, how we're going to end this. So we'll cut this piece right here.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Yeah, but it's. There was something that escalated. I was reading. Or maybe it was just like random information. There's like kidnap or escalation when you were overseas.

[Nick McKinley]

Oh, yeah. So. So. Oh, so like the. The one that I tell in the real Jack Ryan documentary. So that's kind of a funny story. And it just goes. Goes to show how, like, things just go wrong at the most random time. So.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Well, before I went. We're gonna hold on that for Patreon. But where can everyone find you or your information?

[Nick McKinley]

So the best way to find me is. Is just by. By following Deliver Fund. I'm not a big social media guy. I put some stuff out every once in a while. From most part, I'm putting out Deliver Fund stuff. So it's just Deliver Fund on every platform where you could find it. You can learn more about me by going to Nick McKinley dot com. So if you. If you need to get a hold of me for whatever reason, that's the best way to do it. And then I'm personally on all the social accounts at the Nick McKinley. And that's Nic spelled correctly.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

The two nicks.

[Donut Operator]

That's right.

[Nick McKinley]

There's two of us. Yeah, just the Nick McKinley on all the social platforms. And for anybody who this resonated with, like we are a non profit, we gotta raise the money to keep our servers and supercomputers and engineers going year round. And the financial support is really the thing we need the most. And for law enforcement who heard this and is like, man, I really need to reach out. Please do. You are the reason we exist. If you don't take action and you don't do something at all of the work that we're doing is completely for naught. So if you're law enforcement, please reach out. We can help you. We can give you access to our platforms, we can give you access to our data, we can train you on what to look for and how to do these operations. So please, please let us help. Fantastic.

[Donut Operator]

Well, seriously, thank you so much for coming.

[Nick McKinley]

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Hope to be on again anytime.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

You're going to be a homie, homie.

[Donut Operator]

Anytime, brother Brandon.

[Nick (the other Nick)]

Close out, you beautiful son of a.

[Donut Operator]

All right, well, thank you guys so much for joining the unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli Double Tap, Nick, the other Nick, both spelled with a C and myself, bronut operator. Thank you guys so much. And we will see you in the

[Nick (the other Nick)]

next one in the after show.

[Donut Operator]

Oh, in the after show.

[Nick McKinley]

Love you. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail]

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