#812 - Mike Baker - Emergency Episode: Former CIA Agent On Trump Assassination Attempt 01:13:06

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. Another emergency episode today in the wake of the events this past weekend with Trump's assassination attempt, this time with Mike Baker, who is a former CIA operative, and he has a great insight into domestic politics, international relations, how this will be changing the landscape of politics over the next few months up until the November election, what this means for the Trump campaign, the Biden campaign, how other countries are going to interpret this.

intelligence failures from a sort of more agency systematic perspective. Full works. And again, same as yesterday's episode, no ads, no interruptions, no nothing. I just wanted to get some information from people who have expertise out there. So I hope that you take something away from this one. Please welcome Mike Baker. Three, two, one.

Mike Baker, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, man. Appreciate you. Emergency episodes, needed to have a chat with you. How big of an intelligence failure was this?

Well, you have to think of it more as a logistical failure as opposed to an intelligence failure. This was a breakdown in what should be very standard security protocols. And look, the Secret Service does that very well, but clearly, right? And you always have to... I'd caveat this with one thing. You have to always wait for an investigation to finish, right? They're currently in the middle of their own investigation as to what the hell happened. And...

Obviously, as soon as this happens, everybody on social media is an executive protection expert. So everybody's talking about exactly how this happened. Well, so I think it's important not to get out over your skis. But in a situation like this, clearly, it would be insane to say that there weren't failures, there weren't breakdowns here. And even people with no experience can look at this and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

How did you not have somebody up on top of a roof that had line of sight to the stage, to the rally event? And so typically, look, when something like this happens, and I've done countless advanced plannings and security assessments and risk and threat assessments, and typically when something happens like this,

It's not one thing, right? It's a series of mistakes or missteps that compound and then you end up with this goat rope that never should have happened. So they're doing an investigation. Congress, of course, has called for an investigation. I wouldn't expect anything to come from that because Washington, D.C. is where all investigations go to die.

And, but the, the, the Bureau is, is involved Secret Service, obviously doing their own hot wash. And they sit underneath the Department of Homeland Security, you know, so if DHS does a review, fine, but there's so much video footage of this, right? And it happened in real time with so many people watching and so many different angles that,

I think in this case, unlike sometimes, sometimes you get investigations of an event and you don't get much transparency, right? Because internally they're trying to figure out, okay, how do we improve this? Well, you don't want to necessarily talk about all that activities because you're informing people who might have nefarious intent. But here, it was clear for everyone to see that there was a significant number of issues and problems.

Whose responsibility, who does the buck ultimately stop with when we're talking about this? Homeland security, secret service, local law enforcement? Well, I think what you're going to find likely is, first of all, in terms of who has primacy on the ground, it's a secret service, right? So they established a security perimeter.

And then according to at least early reports and what Secret Service is saying is then they designated local law enforcement as having control outside that designated security zone, which included the building where the shooter took up position. But that's, you know, ultimately it's the Secret Service's responsibility. So they should have obviously said, okay, so what are you doing in relation to those buildings that have line of sight?

And if local law enforcement said, well, we've got a couple of unarmed officers that are patrolling the ground and, you know, interacting with the attendees, then you'd say, okay, well, how about you give me a state trooper or one of your local officers up on that rooftop? And that went over there. Any building, right, that's got line of sight. And you post somebody up there, just cover it down.

That's Secret Service's ultimate responsibility, even if, you know, theoretically, okay, on paper, this area over here is under the control of local authorities. So there is a procedural problem. There's a command and control problem. There's a communications problem during the course of this rally.

I think you'll also find there was some command and control issues in terms of the ability for the sniper or the counter sniper team on site. And they had a couple of them up there to act. Right. And there was probably, I don't know this I'm speculating, right. But I'm speculating based on experience from past events that, you know, there may have been a lag time in getting the, you know, the, the go, no go figured out in terms of taking a shot on the, on the target. Right.

There may have been problems at the top of Secret Service in terms of what did they allow for as a security package for former President Trump. When you say that, you mean the number and quality of the people that were on the ground? Yeah. You've kind of got a standard former president security package because they get coverage for life after they finish their time. And

You could easily argue that perhaps the package for Trump, given that he's now the presumptive nominee for the November election, that clearly he draws a lot of heat from a lot of people. Should have been beefed up. Should have been beefed up. And look, also, it was under the Trump administration when we tagged Soleimani, right?

And the Iranians and their various proxies are still very upset about that. And we know that they've been looking at various opportunities to try to target individuals they feel responsible. So there were a variety of reasons why you could look and go, yeah, the package for former President Trump needs to be more robust.

than say what we would normally allocate. And so that may be, I don't know, I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying that may be an issue where now you've got more of a procedural problem with management, right? And then you've got the whole other issue of just general discourse. If you demonize somebody,

on either side and call them Hitler, fascist, intent on destroying democracy, a threat to the nation as President Biden's referred to him even the day before the shooting, you're probably inciting some irrational person who may not be able to process all that as hyperbole. They're going to take it literally. This is a point that Tulsi Gabbard made where she said that how

How can you expect someone to not try and stop Hitler if you keep calling them Hitler? Would you not go back in time and try and kill Hitler? And if literally Hitler, there was a magazine that had him looking like the few, a number of magazines that have had him basically in the same...

poster style that Adolf Hitler did in the past. You know, how many more analogies do you need to draw? And it's one of these things where until the repercussions and the consequences of doing that become kinetic, everyone thinks that it's just a lot. Well, Trump's bombastic. He's gregarious. He says crazy things. We need to push back with the same sort of technology that he uses, which is words and imagery. And then,

someone takes it up a notch. Yeah, look, I mean, it's clear and people always say, ah, it's whataboutism, but it's clear it's a problem on both sides, right? On the edges of both sides, there's all this rhetoric and hyperbole. So there's no doubt about that. But you're right. Look, if the New Republican, that was one of the magazines that had sort of this propaganda poster of Trump as Hitler, they're throwing these things out there and

And I think rational people look at that and go, okay, well, man, that's over the top. It's rhetoric, it's hyperbole. I get it. You guys are using this as a campaign strategy, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't going to process it that way and disappear down these rabbit holes. So there's a lot of layers here. So when you say who's responsible, it depends on what...

The level of magnification you want to look at it from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where does the domino begin? One of the things that I did read was that there was a lot of

Homeland Security contractors on site as opposed to Secret Service agents that there was a more heavy reliance on local law enforcement than you would have done typically. I'm going to guess that this is the package, the security detail package, as you mentioned, just being more diluted than it should be. You have some talent and some of the talent, I guess, is questionable based on the video footage. But then you also have this sort of

the outer regions, which are maybe not even more as competent and more of that was done by contractors and more of that was done by local law enforcement than typical. Yeah, look, the election season, any election season, right? But particularly now when everything's so heated and both sides have been lobbing hand grenades at each other for quite some time, it's a difficult time for Secret Service, right? They're stretched out

you know, thin because there's so much to do and they, and their resources are working constantly. So yes, they draw on, but they typically draw on even, you know, when, when it's not an election season, they draw on local authorities. And there was a significant presence at the rally of Butler County police and,

And, you know, there's going to be some other issues about, you know, there was an encounter between one of those police officers who, you know, attempted to go up and interact with the shooter and then, you know, didn't when the shooter pointed a gun at him.

And then the firing started shortly thereafter. But look, there's a real breakdown there, right? Because you've got a moment where obviously this guy has enough time to go to the building, try to get up to the top of the building to interact. Where are the comms with the counter sniper team saying, I'm going up on the top of the building to interact with somebody who apparently has a weapon because lots of people on the ground saw him and alerted the authorities. So there's, again, as I mentioned, it's

It's never just one thing. It's a series of problems usually that contribute to a security breakdown. It's interesting. I get what you mean about during an election cycle, there's more people, more places, more checks need to be done. But it's not like you don't know this. Right. You know reliably it's going to happen in four years' time and four years after that and four years after that. So all of this could have been prepared for in advance, whether it's training, whether it's recruitment, whether it's whatever you need in terms of staffing. I remember...

reading not so long ago as well after trump's indictment conviction whatever it is uh that there'd been some suggestion to completely rescind the security detail from him or at the very least to dial it back as some kind of recompense that he needed to pay for now being a felon exactly exactly yeah that was that was a move in in congress by uh uh i think it was uh congressman uh

Jeffries, maybe? I don't want to get caught with the wrong name, but one or a handful had, I think, kind of floated the idea that somebody who's been convicted shouldn't have

Secret Service protection. It's an asinine idea. I mean, it was a completely asinine idea because he's still a former president and he's still the presumptive nominee. But they were trying to score some political points. Right. And that's that's been part of the problem. You get you're getting a lot of dysfunctional and irrational behavior because.

you know, the, an element within the Democrat party has this, this, uh, I don't even know how to describe that, the, the hatred for Trump, but then again, on the, on the right side, on the extreme right, obviously you've got this same sort of rhetoric that goes and, and, and demonizes the Democrats and Biden and all this. It just, it, uh, it's not a, it's not a good place for the nation to be, obviously, given what can happen and what we saw happen on Saturday. Yeah.

It's, at least at the moment, a little bit asymmetric that only one side has control over how much protection an ex-president gets. And, you know, it's so... It just seems to me like the amount of protection should be proportionate to the potential threat. And, you know, regardless of...

whether you like or don't like Trump, he's a pretty big target. I mean, you know, you don't need to do much to Biden to cause him to fall over. But, you know, Trump's a much, much larger target. Yeah, I'm gonna let that one go.

But, yeah, no, you're not wrong. And that's why you do risk and threat assessments on a constant basis, right? Because the risks, the threats, they change. They can increase, they can decrease. And you're always doing that. Whether you're talking about executive protection, you know, for a political candidate, whether you're talking about, you know, what sort of level of protection you provide to a facility or it doesn't matter. So you're absolutely right.

And they should have been looking at this. Now, they did say that they there has been some comment that the Secret Service did heavy up the security package to some degree back in June, I believe, for Trump. But it's only now that they've approved it.

uh secret service protection for robert f kennedy right and yeah you know that's an indication that really what the democrats wanted was they just wanted him to go away they didn't they almost didn't want to acknowledge that kennedy was a a candidate out there and mike turn your turn your phone under silent for me please yeah yeah so it's not my phone it's it's my irritating uh laptop um and i you know what it's

I have no idea. If I turn that down, I think- There might be, is there a little button? Is there a little button at the top of your screen that looks like a half moon? Look at you with your IT knowledge. Press that. There you go.

All right. Maybe that works. Beautiful. All right. We'll see. Yeah. Dude. So I've been to, I went to dinner with an RFK at a friend's house, maybe about a year ago. Then I went to a rally thing of his in Austin about six months ago. And then I went to another meetup with him about two months ago. And each one of those, he's made it very, very plain. I have no security detail. I have no, uh,

uh extra special care from the government despite the fact that i come from the most assassinated family in american political history yeah it was insane and it were you know and it has been and i but i do think it was a it was essentially for a very uh political reason which was we don't want to acknowledge that he's a candidate we just wanted to go away can you i mean you know giving giving him the detail is almost like a stamp of approval in some way this is a legitimate yeah yeah it's it's

It's kind of that formalizing of his candidacy in a way. A lot of people process it that way. They see the Secret Service detail and they imagine, OK, he's a presidential candidate. And they were so afraid of him taking oxygen out of the room. But now as a result of what happened on Saturday, they've reviewed. I assume they're going to increase the package for President Trump. They've approved a package for Robert F. Kennedy.

You know, they've been looking at I'm in Milwaukee where they have the Republican National Convention there.

you know, they immediately got on the ground here and started reviewing the security. Go figure. I mean, that should have been done. Look, there's a methodology here, right? And you can have little bits and pieces that change based on what the event is. But the standard practice, the standard protocols really don't change that much. And so more than anything, there were

There was a command and control and a communications breakdown between Secret Service and local authorities that I believe an investigation is going to prove contributed mightily to

what happened on Saturday. What will the process from here internally be to investigate? I imagine it's just going to be a fucking nightmare to try and work out who's culpable, what happened, how's this going to occur, whilst also doing the investigation, which requires resources from the very thing that you're trying to now beef up, given the failure that just occurred during a time when you need them more than ever, but also their time is trying to be split working out what the fuck happened.

Yeah. Well, that, yeah. And you raised a really good point. And that's where, that's where our congressional investigation can really kind of muck up the works, get in the way because, you know, they, you know, they, they get out there and they start sucking up oxygen that really needs to be spent, you know,

doing operations. But look, it's important. Right after this go-rope, internally, Secret Service was doing a hot wash. What's this mean? Stop using these words. What do you mean? I mean, they were basically just doing an after-action review of...

You know what happened immediately in the aftermath of this thing. But there's a lot of moving parts, as you pointed out. Look, it's just DHS personnel. There's the local law enforcement. It's not a good sign that so soon after this event, there's already some finger pointing going on saying, well, that was their zone, not ours. Yeah.

Butler County saying, well, that doesn't matter. Secret Service has primacy, so they should be telling us what to do in a sense. So that's not necessarily a good indication. But I think this thing has got to play out in public, in part because...

You know, government agencies, whether it's the Secret Service or the Bureau, the CIA, whatever, they've lost a lot of credibility, which is kind of a painful thing to admit. But they've lost a lot of credibility over the recent past. And so, you know, one of those things, one of those ways I think you build back some level of trust is,

is to be more transparent. And again, they don't have anything to lose because everybody was watching. They're starting at zero. Yeah, they're starting. Well, I meant because everybody was watching, they can afford to be more transparent. But okay, I take your point. So going into the rest of this year, do you think these sorts of threats are over or are there more serious risks to come as we get toward the presidential election?

Well, the threat's not over, for sure. That never goes away. You never get this down to zero. That's not how the game is played. So they have to approach every event, whether it's the RNC happening outside or whether it's any other campaign rally, the DNC, which will be taking place in Chicago. They've got to approach every event in the same fashion. And yes, there'll be more

under the spotlight, you know, from the public and, and from, you know, their own agencies and the various people involved. But that's a good thing, right? It kind of refocuses the mind. You know, I'm not saying that the event on Saturday was a good thing. I'm just saying that it's going to, one of the, one of the, one of the end results will be, everyone's going to be a little bit more on their game because they're going to be reminded in a very terrible way. What's at stake.

You could argue they shouldn't have to be reminded, but you do these events and you do these events. And the thing about executive protection is it can be a grind. Mentally, it can be a real grind, right? Well, you're-

you're standing outside a door, secret service details, there's a lot of hurry up and wait. It can be kind of mind numbing in a way, right? Then you got a movement, okay, fine. Now I got to go do another advance and I'm doing the advance. And there's a lot of routine, a lot of rote, which can be a bit, again, it can be a bit mind numbing. Which

Which inevitably causes people to pay less attention, which then allows small errors to kick up. Yeah, I was speaking to Tim Kennedy. I got him to break down the body language of the counter sniper from the Secret Service that was on the roof. And he's, you know, looking, he's coming up off his glass, he's going back down, then he flinches and then he goes back down again. And, you know, Tim's assessment was he thought that was a person who'd never been in a firefight before.

that that was someone who potentially hadn't seen combat action. But another thing to consider is that this isn't training. You haven't just rocked up full of caffeine, you know, on the range with your buddy. That's your spotter. And I know when I'm going to need to shoot. You've been there for...

how many hours sat up there doing this thing you know that sort of endurance um and as it continues to go on but again that it seems to me that all of that can be fixed just by more volume and higher quality personnel you know if you've got someone that's doing the night shift don't make them do the day shift you know have sufficient resources that you don't need to to drain everyone like

that. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. You've got to have sufficient staffing. And again, talking about how much of a grind it can be, it's not the sort of business where you can just work through people until they're exhausted, right? You've got people have to be at an optimum level all the time. And so that requires you to be able to work through a number of shifts of rotations. And so you have to have those resources. But

Look, and training, you know, you've got to have constant training and that costs money and time. And so sometimes those things get kicked aside. I'm not saying they did. I'm just saying that, you know, sometimes in the world of government, you know, certain things can be pushed aside in favor of other things that aren't really as operationally beneficial. Right.

How likely do you think it is that the heads of Homeland Security or the Secret Service are going to end up getting fired or disciplined for this?

Well, I don't think DHS Mayorkas, I don't think, isn't going anywhere. He seems to be, you know, coated in Teflon because, you know, you could argue he should have been fired for the, you know, for the lack of management of the U.S. southern border for the past three years. But I don't think he's going anywhere. Kimberly Cheadle over at Secret Service.

Look, she's been there, what, almost 30 years maybe longer. She was an agent and a supervising agent for 27 years, finished up, then went to, I forget, Pepsi, I think, where she was global security director. And then she got called in. She had worked on Vice President Biden's detail years and years ago. And so that, who knows, maybe that was part of the connection, but she came back in to run the Secret Service agency.

Is she going to be kicked out? I don't think so. Washington, D.C. is not typically a place where people get fired.

Why is that? Just nepotism and people know people and people know things and you scratch my back? Yeah, I think people get reassigned at lower levels. If things go sideways, typically that shit rolls downhill. And so you may get mid-level officers or agents that get reassigned or put on ice. But typically people don't.

you know at higher levels you know they're not expected to pay the price i don't know why

But it's a little bit like this problem with the civil discourse and people talking about how we have to turn the temperature down, right? Well, that requires self-awareness and it requires a willingness to accept some responsibility for where we got to now, right? Because they were part of the problem. But I don't think politicians necessarily or political appointees tend to be loaded for bear with self-awareness or willingness to accept responsibility. Right.

What do you think happens to the political discourse moving forward from here? How do you think it changes or doesn't? I think give it another, I don't know, 15 minutes. And we're going to be right back. We're going to revert to the main. I have no doubt that...

There will be a short period of time, including, I think, including Trump's nominating speech at the RNC. I think that's going to be more dialed back than people would imagine coming from Trump. He said that he wrote a brand new one for it. Yeah, and I'm sure he did. Look, I don't think you can go through an experience like that and not have some...

Moment of reflection. Right now, whether it lasts, whether he can change his stripes, I don't know whether the Democrats can change their stripes. Who knows? You know, look, they ran a campaign based on Trump as a fascist and he's going to destroy democracy. And it was working for them. Right. It was energizing at least their base. And I think they felt like that's the narrative they were going to run with for the next few months.

I don't think either side's really going to dial it back significantly for any period of time. So yes, there'll be a moment, but then I think everyone's going to kind of revert back to the normal, jump back in their trenches, and we'll be right back to that.

Biden said, or at least the Dems said that they'd turned off their campaign ads for a little while, sort of a show of a mark of respect. I imagine that if you'd kept running those, there'd be some in there that are absolutely tone deaf for a guy that just got shot. But yeah, there is a big question. Can you say that Trump is Hitler one day and then the next day wish him well?

Given that he was just shot. Yeah. I know. I know. Blowing with the wind. Thank God he was only grazed. Yeah. It's a really good question. But I think what they're counting on is...

The attention span of the Americans, maybe, you know, everybody's so busy just trying to get by and feed their families and do their work and whatever. And they're all staring at tick tock anyway. So, yeah.

I think they honestly think, yeah, sure, we can get away with this incredible pivot from he's going to terminate the Constitution and take away all your rights and he's the biggest threat to the nation and then turn around and go, well, I talked to Donald and I told him I was going to do it. But I think they feel like they can get away with it because they've done it. Wow.

So yeah, selective amnesia of the entire populace. So I'm glad that you brought up TikTok, your favorite topic of discussion. This is the first time that I've

observed, actually, I didn't even do this with January 6th, because with January 6th, I actually watched mostly Fox News, CNN coverage. I was watching things be streamed live. But on Saturday, this happened just as I was going for dinner here in Montana. And I, for the first time, realized just how important X, Twitter, is as a social media. It was a genuine utility to

for everybody that wanted to know what was going on. And I wasn't, I'm not going to Facebook to find out this information. I'm not going to TikTok to find out this information. I'm not going to Instagram to find out this information. I'm not going to the mainstream media to find out this information, like mostly peaceful, but fiery assassination attempt from CNN or whatever the headline was. Yeah. There were some headlines. There were some headlines that he was pulled from the rally because he fell down.

Secret Service interrupts Trump rally. Yeah. There was a New York Times article just today that referred to the assassination attempt as that somebody shot at the president during a rally.

And you think, okay, so I agree with you. I think X has kind of proven its usefulness in this event over the weekend. Yeah, I spent probably more time monitoring what was happening there than I think pretty much anything else. Although I was perfecting a new TikTok dance, so I had to. That wasn't easy. Yeah.

but it's going to be a hit. I tell you what else I didn't see much of. Um, I didn't see much sort of crazy misinformation, uh, wild accusations. I haven't seen much that people have really needed to row back. Now, is that the, is that the benefit of the platform or is that simply just because of what users were talking about? Um, you know, you, you, you can't promote a

tweet which lies about something that somebody doesn't actually post you can only actually promulgate whatever messages people say but yeah I was really impressed I was looking at X and going holy fuck like we need this thing and I've not had that sense really before it's just like oh it's

you know, if you've got truth social on one side and you've got X kind of more toward the middle, and then you've got threads on the other side, you know, it's just, it's just another one of these, but it, yeah, it made me think differently, I think. Yeah. I think it takes a little while for the crazy to come out. Right. So I have seen some conspiracy theories that, you know, this was an inside job, you know, and, and, you know, and then of course all the, all the, you know, the sort of the armchair,

executive protection specialists talking about exactly what went wrong five minutes after the event. At least let the dust settle a little bit before... Let's mop the blood up off the stage canvas before we... Yeah, might be good. Look, the imagery was amazing. The...

like him or hate him. And there's a lot of people on both sides of that for Trump. But you have to think, good God. I mean, the fact that he stood up, had the wherewithal to kind of like face the crowd, give him that indication that he was fine, that he was... Those instincts, you can't teach that. That's kind of in there somewhere. And so I think

That was amazing. Again, people who hate him are going to say it was terrible. He shouldn't have shook his fist. I did hear CNN was upset with him because he shook his fist at the crowd and said, fight. And they were like, well, that seems inappropriate. He's stoking a wartime rhetoric. He just got shot. He just got shot. They're upset because he's shaking his fist. And they're like, well, that's not appropriate.

inappropriate to get aggressive when you've just been shot. Yeah, dude, I said this to Tim. Look, I sort of respect Trump in that I find him an interesting orator and his sort of staying power has been impressive. But I've never before said that I admired him. You know, I don't know...

Whether it's because he's kind of like a WWE character, which he actually also happened to be briefly for a little while. Or he's super gregarious and he's out there and he's all of these things. And he's like older and he's from a different culture and all of these things. Lots and lots and lots of things, right? And I saw that video and then I saw that imagery and I was like, that is fucking...

Badass. There is no amount of media training or top-down dictatorial rhetoric building and image promoting that you can do to make being shot, then standing up and putting your fist in the air and going, fight, fight, fight.

That is him. That's his character. That is his character. We saw everything stripped back. Who is the guy? If you want to know who someone is, shoot them in the ear. Right? Well, let's say, okay, now, for those of you watching at home, let's step back on that guidance. Okay, kids. No, but I take your point. And also, the striking thing is,

Just the contrast between that

And what we had been talking about on nonstop, right, on Friday and Thursday and Wednesday before that, which was- Feebleness, fragility. Feebleness, the mental acuity issues for Biden. And so that contrast, I think, is going to hit really hard for some time now going through this election. And obviously, you know, the Republicans will use that imagery, you know, but I think they have- For the rest of time. But they do have to be careful, right? I mean, you don't want to-

Because look, there was a fatality there. Maybe more. Yeah, maybe more. And so I think they're going to want to... So I'm hoping what this does is I hope it dials down the discourse. I hope it keeps things for a little bit of time. Again, I'm cynical, but civil discourse.

And I hope it makes the Trump campaign more reflective, right? About their strategy and their tone and the way that they approach things. What does, what does that mean be most specific for me? Well, I think, look, everybody talks about, everybody talks about how you got to win the moderates, right? You got to win the, the independence, you know, if you're going to win it all in November. And I think, um,

If if if what we got was the Trump of old. Right. He's not winning those people. Right. Because they already left him in 2020. That's why he didn't win. Right. Because they were like, I'm tired of the chaos. I'm tired of the noise. I'm tired of, you know, all of this. And and so I think that if this makes him more or the campaign more reflective and they say, you know what, you know, let's let's.

Let's continue to dial it back. The Democrats are going to do whatever they're going to do. If they get back to throwing hand grenades, okay, fine, let them. But let's be the contrast, right? I think that's the way that you...

And then just focus on policies. Just talk about policies. Nothing else. Well, you already had a little bit more of a pivot to a slightly more statesman-like version of Trump during the debate. And then after the debate, there was no posting about Biden. There was no silly tweet or what equivalent. There was none of that. Silence was his greatest weapon for the first time ever.

Absolutely. Absolutely. When your enemy is imploding, don't get in the way. Don't get in the way. Yeah, precisely. Talk to me about what you think this does to Trump's image among the American populace. How do you think that this incident changes it, if at all? Well, I don't know that it... Look, I think it...

I think it will make a difference with some who are undecided. I'm not talking necessarily about independents and moderates who are focused on politics. But I think those people who maybe don't spend a lot of time thinking about politics, but were still kind of undecided. Maybe unregistered. Yeah, maybe unregistered. I wasn't sure if I was going to vote at all. Yeah.

I think that that – and part of that will be that contrast between this guy standing up after he's shot and what they saw during that debate if they happened to see clips or they watched some of the debate. I think that contrast will influence a certain group. I think if he can –

I don't know if statesman's the right word, but I think if he can be more moderate and speak to the issues and just stay there, then I think that can influence those moderates and independents perhaps that are a little more focused on politics and did abandon the campaign the last time around. So I think it can have an impact. Look, the Democrats, they must be amazed right now, right? Because all that conversation about Biden, that's

That's nowhere to be found, right? That's done, at least for now. People are not talking about Biden. They're not talking about his feebleness, his mental acuity. Is he still fit to serve? And so I think the White House, if anything, is taking a breath and going, oh, thank God. I'm not sure there. So I think that I get what you mean. It's a good day for bad news or it's a good day to be senile, I suppose. But the problem is that this recent shooting assassination attempt is –

framed against the foundation that we already had. Everyone still already has that in the back of their mind. We know the fragility that we've seen of the existing president, the fact that he doesn't have that sort of gusto and that get up that we want to show from a leader up against China, up against Russia, et cetera. And then you have this

even if you're not looking at it anymore, it's like just being in a cold bath and getting into a hot one. You're like, holy fuck, this is different. So I do think that that's going to be there. I also agree. I think the more mature and standoffish that the Republicans can be when it comes to messaging around this, I think that's going to benefit them more. For the first time ever, this is one of my, George, who I'm traveling with at the moment, told me this yesterday. For the first time ever, Trump has a victim card.

He's never had a victim card before. Trump has, that's, he has a fucking victim card.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, although I would argue that the base, right, his loyal, loyal supporters view him as the supreme victim, right? Just being victimized by lawfare and the Biden administration. And so I think that group always looks at them in that regard, right? You know, look what they're doing to him again. And now he's been shot in the fucking ear. So another interesting thing is how much damage

does this incident do to the left's moral high ground around not being the violent ones? Yeah, I don't think they care. I think they just, they'll just, I've never seen any awareness on their part that that could be an issue, right? It's sort of like that mostly peaceful Antifa riots and, you know, burnings and violence. I think that they just brush that aside. And so I don't know that they're worried about

That idea, they all jumped on the notion. They were really wordsmithing, but they jumped on the notion in their statements about the assassination attempt that the shooter was a registered Republican. And by the way, why do all these guys look the same? I don't understand. They're all...

You know, and I didn't, I didn't say that my oldest boy said that he said, what the hell is it with, with, with people like, what are they, what is the commonality? You know, his point was maybe they need to do a study of all these people and find that one thing. What was that thing that was super racist and done in the 90s? Was it phrenology or physiognomy or whatever it was? Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like face shape as being indicative. What, what do we, what, what do we know about the shooter?

You know, what, 20 years old from the area of Bethel Park in Pennsylvania. You know, I've only heard a few comments from people who claim that they knew him in high school, and those are typical comments. Quiet, loner, bullied. You know, his dad purchased legally, legally apparently, the long gun that was used on Saturday by his kid some six months ago.

And, you know, so there's not a lot of information out there. It's interesting. The Bureau's got his... Obviously, they got his electronic devices. They took his phone down to Quantico. And, you know, once again, they're struggling, according to reports. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but they say they're struggling to unlock it. The phone of a 20-year-old loner from Michael Green or whatever it is. Yeah, so I think it's...

You know, we'll get more detail, but that's one of those areas, right? Well, you have to be, I always hate to see people speculating about motives because that's one of the things in terms of an investigation, regardless of what type of shooting event it is, that you really need to let the facts, you know, come to light before you start talking in earnest about, you know, what the motivation of the shooter was.

So bizarre, man. There's definitely, I think, another discussion to be had around what is the training of local law enforcement? You know, we've had it before. I was watching this documentary about, there's a name for them. What's the name for police officers that don't enter firefights, even though they should do? It's like, it's not coward or whatever. It's like, there's a specific name for it, you know, like a false valor or whatever. There's like an equivalent sort of name for it. Douchebag.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, just failing at duty. And, you know, I saw in this same documentary I was talking about that a lot of the police officers were saying that they spend more time in diversity meetings than they do with their firearm in their hand. Yeah, and that is true. When you look at the consistency of training, that's why that...

One of the things that could drive you crazy during the height of the defund the police was really, you're just fucking stupid because if you want a better police force, a more responsive police force, a more responsible police force, you want to actually give them more funds for training. That's where it all starts. Part of the problem is, again, going back to something we talked about earlier, is that a lot of times when you hit budget cuts, training is one of the first things to go. That can't be the case when you're talking about law enforcement.

Especially not if you're going to be a guy who goes up a ladder and sees a dude with a long gun. Yeah. And that, again, I'm fascinated by the comms portion of this and the line of communication because there's a period of time there, right, where the attendees...

alert the local authorities, local authorities decide someone, you know, Bob's got to go over there and investigate. Well, at the same time, all that communication should have been shared with the counter sniper teams and command and control from the Secret Service, right? They should have been making decisions in real time. So if that person was going up a ladder,

on that building, they should have had him in their sights at that point. Right now, maybe they didn't have line of sight on the, on the shooter. Maybe he, you know, he was out of range, not out of range, but out of sight. And then he pops up and points his weapon at the, but that's the time to shoot him as soon as it, you know, so there's little steps here, but again, you know, is it fair for me without the investigation being done to make all these statements? I don't know. I'm just speaking from, you know, from past experience on other events, but yeah,

they got to let the investigation play out. It's just, it's such a, the event had such magnitude and such impact that it's natural. I get why people rush to make judgment or statements or talk about things. It makes sense. Do you think that this stops Biden from stepping down because Trump now has a martyr vote? Well, I think, yeah, that's a really interesting point. But I think it goes back to what I was saying when

I was trying to refer to the fact that the noise around Biden's situation has died down to no noise. So I think it does buy him significant time. And I think him coming out and saying, look, we need to be civil. We need to think about how we talk about each other. He's trying to be presidential. He's trying to show, obviously, like with every event that he's had since the debate, that he's up to the job. But I think

It's making it more difficult, right, for the Democrats to continue to beat the drum. There were probably prior to Saturday, there were probably more Democrats in Congress or in the Senate who were going to step out, you know, and say, we think he needs to go. Right. That that was a building drumbeat. I think that it's more difficult now for them to do that because of the events of Saturday and because of feeling like, OK, well, maybe, you know, maybe we just got to stick with Joe. Right.

Dude, think about the last three weeks of fucking news. Yeah. Well, think about the last, I mean, really think about this past year, right? Everything that's been going on. I mean, obviously, you know, Ukraine, fucking Gaza, right? You know, the discourse around the election, this event on Saturday. I mean, good God.

All we need is a pandemic. Sorry. Sorry. That's terrible. Not that we won't get one. We're going to get another pandemic, by the way. It'll happen. It'll continue to happen. Talk to me about JD Vance. Yeah, interesting. I guess not an unexpected choice. They've been banging on for a while saying it was either going to be Vance or Burgum or Rubio. Yeah.

And, look, J.D. Vance is close to Trump's son. They're very good friends. He's...

He's an interesting cat, right? I don't know anything about him. Explain to me who he is. Yeah, he's got almost no political experience. He wrote that book, Hillbilly Elegy, which was a very interesting book. I mean, a very interesting book. And they made a movie out of it, I think. But he's a political newcomer. He's been a very staunch supporter of Trump. He's out of Ohio. And...

Of the candidates, I don't know that if what you were saying was I want to pick a candidate who can really help me win over groups that I need to win. I don't know that J.D. Vance is that person because he's already got his base, right? And so I think J.D. Vance kind of shares the same thing.

Rubio, you know, could have shorn up Florida. Obviously, you know, with a Hispanic vote as well would help. He's a much more seasoned politician. Burgum is, you know, he's a good friend of Trump's. He's got, you know, very good political instincts, business instincts. Nikki Haley was hanging out there. And I got to tell you, if you wanted the moderates or you wanted the independent voters, you

You could argue Nikki Haley could have been a terrific choice, except they got, you know, they were so sideways with each other during the primary. What do you think? Do you think there's any chance that Trump changed his VP pick post-Saturday? No, that's interesting. No, probably not. I think the- Wheels are in motion too much. Yeah, I think the factor that would have changed his decision possibly would have been if Biden had stepped out and had pulled himself out. That may have-

recalibrated the thinking perhaps over the VP pick. But I don't think Saturday, I think at that point, he, you know, he just, he went with Vance and, and,

didn't change his mind. I was in a, I'm in a group chat with a bunch of different people here. One of them saying Teal hired him at his VC fund, Mithril, also endorsed his Senate campaign with the biggest individual donation ever for a Senate campaign of $15 million. Very happy with Van, super smart, competent veteran, Rust Belt, blue collar orientation. Also, and sad that this is the case, he provides assassination insurance.

Yeah. Well, look, I mean, Trump had been saying that, right? He said, you know, his decision over who to pick would be, you know, if something bad happens, are they ready to step in? But okay, to be fair, you know, every presidential nominee says that. I want my VP pick to be ready on day one. And look, I like Vance in the sense that he's

He's unique, right? He's not a 110-year politician, right? And that's not a bad thing at all. And I like the fact that he's a veteran. That's a very good thing. So I'm just saying it's an interesting choice in the sense that I don't know that it expands the voting block necessarily for the campaign because it's drawing from the same

kind of block as opposed to maybe one of the other picks. But then again, you know, you want somebody that you can, you know, be simpatico with. And Vance has been a staunch supporter. Nikki Haley might have just been a fucking nightmare from behind the scenes from day one. Well, I think it would have been, it would have been a very interesting dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's the case. And maybe Rubio, you know, was a bit of the same way, you know, maybe there was some, you know, concern over past, you know, you know, uh,

they'd thrown at each other. So who knows? At the end of the day, does it matter all that much? I don't know that a VP pick matters all that much. Look, if Biden stays in,

You know, I think the key has got to be saying, look, you're not running against Biden. You're running against, you know, President Harris, because I don't think anybody in their right mind believes that Biden, you know, makes it through four years if he wins. So a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. And you're willing to say that Kamala Harris, you know, is...

could be the leader of the free world. And I can't even say that with a straight face. I mean, that's more terrifying than the president getting shot, or the presidential candidate being shot in the ear. I've seen this map, the election map of when Reagan got shot afterward, and you've got red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, and then this one blue dot that remained up at the top.

How likely or how unlikely is that to be the case given the sort of never die, never Trump, et cetera, kind of even after all of this? You've basically got the ultimate one-two punch, like jab in the face. Biden's completely incompetent. Punch. The other guy is totally competent and can literally get shot and stand up 15 seconds later. Yeah.

But that's just, surely there's no way that we can see a huge red sweep in the same way because people are just so passionate about hating Trump. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different situation. You can't, it's apples and oranges when you're talking about what happened with Reagan, I think. And so, look, there's no way he's going to run the table or get anywhere close. It's going to be a close race still. And I think that

The jury's still out. Maybe when the noise dies down and the election really heats up again and the rhetoric comes back kind of the way it was, that the Democrats start reevaluating again Biden's suitability. So that could be the next big event in terms of the election season that we're in the middle of. Fucking hell. Okay, so one other thing that I really wanted to ask you –

one of your expertise international relations uh first off have any other world leaders of interest said anything that's interesting and secondly how do you think other countries the china's the russia's the iran's of the world how do you think they interpret the ease with which a 20 year old bullied kid with bad hair was able to shoot the president's ear off

Yeah. Well, I think that, I think that jihadists are looking at it and going, what? That's it. That's all. I'm up on a damn shed.

Yeah. So I think that they're looking at it from a security breakdown and thinking, oh my God, maybe we've been overthinking this. Gave them too much credit. Yeah. But look, the Chinese regime has always, Xi Jinping and the foreign ministry, they were very muted in their response after the assassination attempt. And they wished him well, but they tend to try to

be seen as not waiting in because they don't want anybody stepping in their business. European leaders said exactly what you would imagine. You know, everybody was condemning the political violence. There weren't really many. I'm trying to think. Slovakia, Robert Fico, you know, he made a couple of interesting comments because he had been, you know, they tried to assassinate him not that long ago. Shot him, I think, four times. So, yeah.

He alluded to the idea that the rhetoric from the opposition party probably played a role. But there was pretty much just what you would expect, condemnation of political violence from world leaders. UK, Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, he came in and weighed in very quickly. And so that makes sense. It's

You wouldn't expect anything different. I think the Russian, I'm trying to remember what they, they didn't really say much. I think Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, made an offhanded comment. But, you know, basically it was not that interesting. Is it another advertisement of America's infighting operational power?

poor management, the fact that one party that's kind of in charge of the protection detail for the other party isn't capable of stopping this. It's more sort of America falling flat on its face on the world stage only recently after the guy that's in charge couldn't string a sentence together. Yeah. It was interesting. I mean, speaking of that, you know, the White House during the NATO summit, which was just, you know, concluded last week, um,

And John Kirby was asked and he said, look, you know, nobody in NATO questions Biden's abilities. Right. We don't have to justify Biden to anybody. They all firmly believe. Well, what else are the NATO leaders going to say? You know, I mean, you know, but it was it was interesting that that even at that point, when it was clear that there were some issues there,

And the White House was still trying to portray Biden as, you know, being on top of his game and sharp as a tack and all the other. Again, we're all getting older, right? You know, you, me, everybody, we're all getting older. We all age differently, right? It's not age, it's mental acuity. And we've all got elderly parents. We've all got elderly grandparents. We all know what it looks like.

So, I think the problem the White House has, even during this moment when that talk has died down, is that people understand that process, right? And they know what it looks like because they've seen it or they've had to deal with it directly. So, I don't know, ultimately, that they're going to be able to hold the line and keep him in there. But frankly, Kamala Harris and John Kirby and Karine Jean-Pierre and

You know, everybody in his little circle and his family, they've kind of been lying to the American public for quite some time now and trying to cover up.

what's been happening despite the fact that we've been seeing bits and pieces of it but that's why he hasn't been out there right what was it called what was it called when you when you take videos out of context what was that there was a name oh a cheap fake cheap fake yeah that's what how they were referring to it it was a it was a cheap fake every time that there was a reference to it or that we were just and the media for the most part were willing to cover it up as well dude fucking complicit did you read i think it was ben usher he wrote an article called common knowledge

I didn't read that, no. I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you afterwards. So basically the breakdown, it's fucking phenomenal. It's so good. And it basically says that it's not enough for you to know a thing. You need to know that other people know that thing too. So for instance, it's not enough for you to know that Biden, it's the emperor's new clothes, right? You can pick your favorite fairy tale of choice. And the problem being that until you have reliable information

insight that other people will agree with your position, nobody is prepared to take the position. So it's not enough for you to know that you know. You need to know that everybody else also knows. And what we saw on the debate night was common knowledge be distributed to the masses. There was nowhere else for anybody to hide. Therefore, when you come out as someone who previously has said,

"Biden's sharp as a tack," or pick New York Times, fucking Washington Post, whoever it is, and then you pivot and say something else, well, it's a completely costless position to hold because everybody else knows it. It's the same with the free speech position. Free speech doesn't matter for people who agree with you or who you agree with. Free speech only matters for the people who you disagree with because it's a costly position in order to be able to hold that. And it's the same with this common knowledge thing.

And it's so interesting to me because for those of us that exist terminally online in the heterodox sphere of Substakistan, we have all known this for forever. This is something, this is to me, talking like doing jokes about Biden's mental degradation was hacky. It was so obvious that it felt low ball to say, and then you watch the debate and you go,

There's people in the world who don't have access to my common knowledge. Now, I'm sure that there's shit tons of stuff that I don't know about, but that was one of the things that I did. So much so that I take it for granted. It's an accepted fact. And it's so much of an accepted fact that it would be hacky and lowball to make a joke about it. And, oh, the world thinks that this is fucking revolutionary. And it really broke my brain for a while when I realized, oh, my...

understanding and the way that I see certain parts of the world and the way that maybe the rest of the, a big chunk of the populace does is, is fucking miles apart. I'm no fucking clairvoyant political divinity guy, but,

but fuck me, I knew that. And for it to be a revelation was just like, Oh wow. This really does show how, uh, echo bubbles and the, still the power of legacy media to be able to filter what actually gets down to the sort of ocean floor of most people, uh,

Wild. Wild. And the ability to repeat a message, right? If you just keep saying the same thing over and over again. Shop is attacked. Shop is attacked. Yeah. And then it works. And then we find out that they had been basically complicit in hiding this. And that's why... And then, of course, people come out and

and pundits come out and people who had just been on their shows talking about how great he is saying, well, we've kind of seen this for a while and I can't believe that they've hid it from us. It's kind of like, again, what we talked about earlier, calling Trump Hitler and then the next day wishing him well. It's that immediate turnaround that

To me, it's shocking, but people just move on, right? And they know that, right? They know they can do this. There's almost no shame because they're just like, okay, I'm going to pivot and completely reverse my position, and I'll be fine in a day or two. It's shocking. But anyway.

In the interim, just rounding out the conversation on security, does Tim Kennedy or Eric Prince need to be called in? Do you go private security to bolster Trump's security detail or maybe other people's security details? No, no. I think, look, I was out and we had a large operation out in Iraq, and

early days of Iraq, right? I'm talking 03, 04, 05, 06. I mean, and we had a large private security operation out there and that's a war zone. So it's a little bit different. But when we're talking about augmenting Secret Service with private security, I

I don't think so. I think, look, Dave- What are the challenges that you face when you try to augment Secret Service with private guys? Hierarchy, power? Yeah, you're just layering on potential communications and command and control issues. And I just think it's, and it's also, I think, look, the Secret Service-

their staff was some great people, right? We always have to be careful about, you know, there's this tendency to say, oh, they're all screwed. Dismantle it. You know, it was that cry about, you got to get rid of the bureau and get rid of the agency and do all these things. And I'm thinking, really? That's your take on this? How about just fixing problems? And so the Secret Service augmented by

and state law enforcement, they can do the job. They've been doing the job. Part of this is they've got to...

They've got to be transparent again. They've got to come out and say, these are the steps that occurred. And some of them won't surprise us because we all watched. But they've got to be very clear about what those steps are. And they've got to be very clear about how they intend to not have it happen again. And that's going to require some people taking responsibility. And that's where I think that can be a problem because-

You have to make people at the top take responsibility and maybe suffer some consequences as opposed to just saying, you know, the officer on the ground who failed to communicate in real time what he was about to do by going up on that building. You know, that's the guy who you can all blame. Yeah, I have had it in my head since Saturday. I wonder whether there is a level of negligence you reach where it almost becomes complicity.

Well, I don't think it's complicity. It could be, what's the word I'm looking for? Complacency, you know, maybe at times. Well, you know, it's just the reason that I brought up the private security thing is because

I saw that trailer saying 30% of Secret Service staff are going to be female by 2030. I spoke to Tim and Tim explained to me that the mile time for guys versus girls to run is different. The weight load that you need to be able to lift is different. The height, all of the rest of this stuff. You know, you saw a woman who was, she came up to Trump's

nipple maybe you know got this big guy got this big dude and this like little woman in that's where you decided that's where you decided to go as far as the height measurement was the nipple yeah i think that's precisely where she that's precisely where she got to and um you know i know what you mean and then you know they would get a yet an agent you know kind of fumble fucking with their weapon trying to rehaul you know holster it that was the same one who used trump

hid behind trump like this like sort of in that kind of like uh the fucking the guy woman in the kitchen from tom and jerry like

That's a great cultural pull right there. Yeah, you haven't thought about that for a while, have you? Tom and Jerry. Look, I think there's no room for DEI in the world of operations and security, right? You just simply choose. It should be the way it is in everything, not just those sectors, but you choose the most qualified, capable people. And if they can't cut it, then you move them out and you bring in somebody who's more capable and qualified. And you're right, you can't.

there's a problem when you, because I think the Secret Service will say that, look, we didn't lower the standards. That's not what we did. But you hear that all the time. Problem is that

That belies the reality, right? Out in Iraq is a good example, right? For a while there, it was only one, only bringing former spec ops guys out, right? Well, that's a small pool, right? There's not a lot of former guys there with that qualification. So then you started seeing, you know, everybody, squaddies and everybody coming out there and claiming that they were a spec ops former, you know, this and that. And so...

you've got a limited pool of capable people, I believe, that you can choose from for certain jobs. And you just have to take those people and say, fuck DEI. That's not what's important in this business. And again, I don't want to rush to judgment. I don't know the qualifications of these people. We have to kind of look and see. Let's be measured, that sort of thing. But

I take your point and I don't disagree with it at all. Well, the problem being the reason that I mentioned Eric or Tim or some other private contractor is that

you know, Tim brought it up to me. He said, the people that you see that are on Trump's detail, even though they may not have performed like the A-team, they weren't hired yesterday. You don't get hired and then get put on a presidential candidate's detail. You have been in the agency for a while. You've been hired and trained long ago. You've been around for a long time. So in order to say, well, we're going to rectify it. We're going to train better. We're going to hire better. We're going to change the DEI initiative. We're going to do whatever it is that they say that they're going to do. Brilliant. You know, the

The 2028 election may very well be way more secure than this one, but when you're thinking what's going to happen over the next however long, RFK Jr. is just being given secret service detail. That's going to take some of the resources away. And how many people are going to have their time taken up going through fucking meeting after meeting after hearing after court case after investigation?

As you said, sucking the oxygen out of the room and taking the attention away from the thing that it needs to be focused on. So yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, America is not showering itself in glory. And oddly, the only person that is at the moment is Trump.

that's a great way to put it that's no i you know that's that's gonna drive a lot of people crazy when they hear you say that but it's fucking true it's fucking right dude i i people can go back and listen i i don't think i've ever been complimentary about trump not that i was particularly critical of him over biden but i'm like he's just a fucking dude he's a dude that's kind of a bit crazy and i just think

Tell me, tell me that you look at that photo and you don't think, fuck yeah, like that's some late 80s,

flag flying Americana. Yeah. Like legitimacy. Yeah. It's, it's, it's crazy. He's out there yelling Wolverines, right? Yeah. No, I, I, again, and it's that imagery that's so important, right? Because people make decisions quickly. People don't dig deep, you know, and they're going to see that and maybe they make up their mind. And, and you know what, again, you can't, what are you going to argue with that? You're going to look at that and then you're going to look at that president Biden from the debate and you're going to go, okay, who's more obviously. Yeah. What's,

tell you what's an awesome, awesome video that you can get a hold of. So Evan, the guy that took the photo, he is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy, looks an awful lot like a Navy SEAL. He looks like a young Jocker Willink, hard fucking dude. And if you watch the video, there's a panned out version of the stage and

those shots start firing he doesn't stop and cower he starts strafing across the front of the stage to get those shots there's two guys that get them really interesting video that you can find um which was shot on a pair of ray-ban meta glasses so i've i've got a pair of those too so it's a pair of sunglasses that you wear and they've got two little lenses on either side and they can shoot up to about a minute of video in very high quality and the color representation is really good

And this guy... So Evan's the guy that took the photo, the photos that are going around everywhere. There's another dude who presumably got very similarly good photos as that. Yeah, I think he's from the New York Times. I think, yeah, Doug Mills, maybe. So he... Yeah, it is Doug Mills. He had the foresight when he's around the back, he's around the back of the stage, and the video begins, but you can't remotely start those glasses. So he's had...

his camera like this or whatever it is like this and he's shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. And he's taking his hand off, press the button, held it. You have to hold it if you want to take a video and then go back to that. And if you watch, I messaged Dean, the guy that led it this episode, you met him in Miami, my video guy. I was asking him, what is that dude, Doug? What's that dude doing?

doing because you actually see from his glasses, you can see both of his hands, right? So he's got his hands up like this and you're looking at this thing. And, um, he, he's shooting a lot. This is during a fucking firefight. These guys, it's so fucking cool. I love seeing people who know their craft inside out doing something. And what's coolest about this isn't the shot, the shots that he get, it's the seamlessness with which he does it. So you see that he's shooting and he can't frame up properly. So he takes his hand off the front of the camera and

flips the screen down so that he can get a better look. And he's working on his, I think, either exposure or focus, whatever Dean said. And then he's checking. He's checking the screen. He's going like this. And Dean was like, he's working about every one to one and a half seconds. He's looking at the composition of his shot during this. So he's shooting, shooting, shooting, look.

Shooting, shooting, shooting looks. Shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting. And they'll burst, burst, burst, burst, burst. I'm like, that's one of the fucking coolest parts of it. Unbelievable. You know what else is amazing? If you watch right behind Trump, there's some lady, right? As soon as the shooting starts, literally, the shooting starts, she puts up her phone.

And she just she just in the audience. Right. She's like first or second row behind Trump. So you got to watch watch the videos that are out there and you'll see she's got I think she's got a white case on her phone and she's sitting there and wearing a white shirt, I think. And she and it literally it starts off and she just puts her phone up.

And I'm like, God, that's fucking nails. So I don't know whether this is true. Tim is the only guy that's told me this. He said that the man who died, uh, comp, comp, comp, yeah. Yes. Um, he apparently, this is what Tim said, threw himself on top of his family.

And that he took the shot in his head. Yeah, that's what the reports are saying. Using his body, which is the Aurora, Colorado shooting all over again, right? That someone goes in and boyfriends throw themselves on top of girlfriends. Yeah, yeah. No, it's...

You know, and I think that's another reason why, look, you know, if no one else had been hurt, maybe they would treat it a little bit differently. But you can't, you got to be very measured about how they talk about this from the Republican side, from the campaign side. And I think their best thing to do is just let it go. Obviously, they'll probably reference it during the RNC speeches or whatever, but they got to let it go. Just go and then just let some of the imagery speak for itself, but move on and go to the issues. It looks to...

callous to use it as a look at how awesome we are, we're hard as rock whilst a guy died and there's one or two people still in intensive care. Exactly. Dude, I hate to say this, but

I got to pop. That's all right, dude. I appreciate you for doing this emergency episode. I needed to get you on. Mike Baker, ladies and gentlemen, MB Company Man. MB Company Man. Also, the President's Daily Brief podcast. Look at me marketing right now. Just before we finish up, I'm putting that. I don't know if you should talk about that, but the President's Daily Brief podcast, available on all podcast platforms. And we do a weekend TV show now called The Situation Report.

Well, you'll have a lot to talk about next weekend. Mate, I really appreciate you. Stay safe at the RNC.