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Joe Rogan Experience #1800 - Gavin de Becker

Gavin de Becker is a leading authority on the prediction and management of violence. A three-time presidential appointee, he and his firm Gavin de Becker and Associates have provided protection, investigation, and threat assessment services for numerous high profile individuals and organizations.

Joe RoganhostGavin de BeckerguestGuest (third person in studio, brief interjection)guest
Jun 27, 20242h 51mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:49

    Gavin de Becker’s origin story: childhood violence shaping a safety expert

    1. JR

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. GB

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello, Gavin.

    4. GB

      Hey.

    5. JR

      Pleasure to meet you in person, in the flesh.

    6. GB

      You too. Uh, we obviously have a lot of friends in common, and I'm glad to be here.

    7. JR

      I'm glad to have you here. And, uh, I'm glad to talk about, uh, we have a lot of shared interests, but, uh, this Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence.

    8. GB

      Mm.

    9. JR

      Now, this is, uh... I- I've always wanted to talk to you because you are a truly an expert on preparedness and cautionary tactics in, in, w- what to do and not to do, like in terms of security and how to protect people. And how did, what is your background like? How did you get started in all this?

    10. GB

      Uh, bad childhood, violent childhood is the way I started. Um, when I was, uh, 10 years old, my mother shot my stepfather in front of me.

    11. JR

      Oh, Jesus Christ.

    12. GB

      And that was one of many-

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. GB

      ... sort of gun incidents, uh, in our family. And so I grew-

    15. JR

      Was your stepfather violent or something?

    16. GB

      No, he wasn't. Uh,, uh, my mother was. And, um-

    17. JR

      Wow, that's unusual, right?

    18. GB

      Uh, it is. It's the, it is the more unusual of the two, you know, the two genders. Certainly men are more violent more often throughout history. Uh, so I had that experience but, uh, and a whole bunch of others. Uh, my mother was a heroin addict. She committed suicide when I was, uh, 16. And so I saw a lot of stuff. I saw a lot of criminality, I saw a lot of violence. And I guess I developed kind of like a, uh, an ambassador between the two worlds. I spoke both languages.

    19. JR

      Hmm.

    20. GB

      You know, if I had a few other disadvantages, there's no way I would have, uh, you know, succeeded in life. I would have died young. Like, if I'd been a Black kid with the same circumstance, I'd have been in big trouble.

    21. JR

      Hmm.

  2. 1:49 – 4:59

    From JFK assassination fascination to protecting the world’s most famous couple

    1. GB

      And, uh, so that, uh, that life brought me to a fascination with... When John Kennedy was killed, I was 10, and, uh, I was home from school, and it just absolutely captivated and fascinated me, not so much the issue of who killed him or the conspiratorial sides of these things, which, (laughs) which are very real, not so much that, but the actual physics of how you prevent assassination. And that interest stayed with me throughout my life, and I eventually... I've had a, an odd life. So as, as I tell you this story, uh, you'll, you'll be ready for it to be unusual. But by the time I was, uh, 19, I had already read and devoured everything I could on this subject, which was pretty limited. Most of the stuff on anti-assassination strategies I wrote later in life, but there wasn't a lot to read at the time. And at 19, I got a job w- working for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and they were the most, uh, famous people in the world, maybe not known to everybody today, but she was a big movie star and he was a big movie star. And, uh, at that time, there was really only, uh, Jackie Onassis and, uh, Elizabeth Taylor and the Queen of England. Those were the giant media figures. Now we've got-

    2. JR

      Oh yeah.

    3. GB

      ... hundreds of media figures. Uh, and Marilyn Monroe, who had died already. And I worked for them starting as a kind of flunky. Do you know the word?

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GB

      A gopher.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. GB

      And then, uh, a- a- and through the course of everybody above me being fired, I ended up being what's called Traveling Chief of Staff. And, uh, uh, I traveled with them around the world. I got to work with protectors and intelligence agencies in South Africa and in Israel and in Mexico and all over Europe, and I learned a lot, and I observed everything. And when I was done, I was 21, and I wrote a, uh, an article about public figure protection in the private sector for, uh, a law enforcement journal. And everybody assumed I was a 55-year-old ex-FBI agent, but I was 21 years old. And so I used to get asked to come and give speeches, and when I would arrive, they would look around, you know, "Is your dad with you?" You know, they'd look around, and I-

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. GB

      ... had a mustache. I used to darken it, because you could see through it.

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. GB

      And, um, and I gave speeches. And, uh, and I got better and better at it. And giving speeches, you have to be, you have to be right, you know? You get tested a lot by audiences. And so, uh, I was driven by the idea of accuracy and, uh, and, and good intellectual process, because I didn't have... I wasn't a former cop, I wasn't an FBI agent, etc. Later, I became all that kind of stuff. Later, I got appointed by the president to the Department of Justice Advisory Board and, and worked with CIA and FBI and all the things that have gone on between 10 years old and today. By the way, the reason I mentioned that is sometimes when somebody wants to say something shitty about me, they say, "Oh, his whole training is that he had a bad childhood." Uh, could we count the 55 years between then and now? Uh, perhaps, but ultimately I, I developed a company that had, you know, as a consulting company that advises people at risk and, um, and, uh, w- wrote books on the topic and did a lot of, a lot of research and study on the topic.

  3. 4:59 – 10:38

    The accidental break that kept him employed: Hollywood logistics, luck, and learning fast

    1. JR

      So when you were 19 years old, how did you get this job working with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton?

    2. GB

      It's a good question. So I went to Beverly Hills High School. My, uh... We were on welfare and food stamps, but my grandfather got a one-room apartment in Beverly Hills where we could lie, and my sister and I would say we lived in Beverly Hills, used that address. So I went to Beverly High, and there I met a lot of friends who are still friends today. And, uh, one of them was Gina Martin. And Gina Martin was Dean Martin's daughter. Uh, and, uh, and so I went to work for her mother for $60 a week, uh, which I still have by the way. And, uh, the, uh... A- and one day, Elizabeth Taylor came over to their house. And, uh, Gina and I, my girlfriend and I, we sat up at the balustrade and looked through the railing, and I saw Elizabeth Taylor. I didn't really even know who she was, but I thought this is gonna be a big deal, and in came this giant, you know, big hair and all, all the stuff. And, and then a, uh, few months later, somebody called me and said, uh, "She's looking for an assistant, and will you go meet with her?" So I went to the Beverly Hills Hotel to meet with her, and she wasn't there. Her boyfriend was there. I met with him.I got hired. "Uh, can you type?" "Yes." Couldn't type.

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. GB

      "Uh, do you speak French?" "Yes." Don't speak French.

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. GB

      Uh, but-

    7. JR

      Why French?

    8. GB

      Uh, they were going to France two weeks later.

    9. JR

      Wow.

    10. GB

      So, uh, the, uh, I, I, uh, got the job and I went home, and I told my friends I got this job, it's unbelievable, and turned on the television. And, uh, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have gotten back together. She's left her boyfriend, and I see her, you know, going through the airport paparazzi, and my career is over.

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. GB

      I'd never even, never even met her. And then, uh, a few months later, got another call, and this time she was back in Los Angeles with the same boyfriend, and we, uh, we had a-

    13. JR

      So her and Elizabeth, uh, Richard Burton broke up already?

    14. GB

      Three times when I was with them.

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. GB

      Three times broke up and three times back together. And then we, uh, so I started working for her. Um, she was, sh- she was great to me, very, very nice and, uh, and kind. And one day she came into my office and she said, I was at, working at the house, and she said, uh, "Can you take me to the tropical fish place tomorrow?" Uh, and I thought, "Yeah, sure. That'd be great." And her boyfriend was a guy named Henry Weinberg, and he used to take her and so I thought maybe he's gonna be a little jealous or something, but I figured I'll take her. This means driving some Rolls-Royce I've never driven. I didn't have a car at the time. And I was supposed to pick her up in, at her house, meet her there at 10:00 AM. At about 10:45 in the morning, I wake up at home. Fuck, I have totally (laughs) blown it. I am, I've missed the appointment completely. I rush like crazy to get to the house, get there by noon. She's gone to the fish place. And she comes into my office afterwards, clearly to fire me, and she says, uh, "Gavin, thank you so much for what you did this morning. That was, that was a very admirable thing to do." But, you know, uh, I don't know what it is yet. And she says, "You knew Henry would be jealous and so you stood back and, and let him take me to the fish place, so that was great."

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. GB

      Okay, world. (laughs) I'm in. So I kept the job.

    19. JR

      (clears throat) Wow.

    20. GB

      Uh, and, uh, and then, uh, home one night and a friend of mine calls and says, "Put on the television," and it's Elizabeth Taylor back with Richard Burton-

    21. JR

      (laughs)

    22. GB

      ... has left her boyfriend, and my career's over again.

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. GB

      And, uh, so I, uh, I'm done, f- finished. It's over, and, uh, few weeks later she calls me and she says, "Would you be willing to come to work for me and Richard in Europe?" I don't think I'd ever been to Europe. Maybe I'd been one time to England at that point and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And I say, you know, Richard Burton was an intimidating British actor and, and, uh, so I said to her, "What should I call him? Do I call him Richard? Do I call him Mr. Burton?" And she said, "Richard, he wants to know what he should call you." And in the background I hear, "I don't give a shit, love."

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. GB

      Uh, fuck, I'm gonna (laughs) have a, have a rough time with this guy. And then I show up and we, we live in Switzerland for a year. I live with them in their house, and, uh, the very first night he comes to talk to me and we talk for, like, six hours. I'm 19 years old.

    27. JR

      Wow.

    28. GB

      And I love him and he loves me. I don't just mean in that moment. I mean through our lives, and we stayed, even after I left working for them, we stayed friends until he died at maybe 50, 50 years old, uh, from, uh, alcoholism.

    29. JR

      Wow.

    30. GB

      So that was an interesting start, just the way things, the way things went.

  4. 10:38 – 23:56

    Inside fame: addiction, pressure, and the “uniform” effect of celebrity

    1. GB

      And, uh, so it gave me the idea to download the diaries of Richard Burton, which I had never read. He used to keep a diary all the time when we were traveling, and if he was drunk or in trouble, I used to go get the diary out of the room so, uh, you know, it wouldn't get stolen or by pap, uh, photographers or-

    2. JR

      Oh.

    3. GB

      ... news media people or housekeepers or whatever. And I always wo-

    4. JR

      Handwritten?

    5. GB

      What?

    6. JR

      Handwritten?

    7. GB

      Yeah. T- tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. He'd be writing all the time. And so I had two experiences with that diary that are good teachers for, for my kids now. Uh, one is that one day he went to sleep and he was on a bender. He was an alcoholic and he was having a hard time. And I saw the diary sitting just folded over the armchair and I thought, "Well, I better grab that so a housekeeper doesn't get it." And I pick it up and I turn it over and I read it, curious, like, "What does he always write in here?" And my eyes land on these words. "Uh, must get rid of Gavin when we get back to London."

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. GB

      (laughs) Good, good teaching. Uh-

    10. JR

      Oh, boy.

    11. GB

      So anyway, now years later-

    12. JR

      (laughs)

    13. GB

      ... I'm at the King David Hotel and I download this book and it's a book of his diaries and I think, "Oh, am I in there?" So I start looking around. And I find, uh, passages, uh, that, you know, it's a, by this point it's been 45 years or so since I worked for them, and I find these passages from him. One of them says, uh, "Gavin gave us a long letter yesterday, uh, telling us that he's right about everything and we're wrong about everything." I have no memory, but it sounds like some young Gavin move. And, uh, and then, you know, other entries regarding me, but one of them that really struck me is, uh, that he said, "There were days and days without any entry." There'd be five days with no entry and at the end of it, he would say, "Lost five days."... five days gone. And, and I realized that I was a kid living with this couple, and really had no idea, uh, what they were going through, and what he was going through with, uh, with alcoholism, and what she was going through with, with drug addiction.

    14. JR

      W- were they always like that? Or is this a response to the pressures of fame? Is it... 'cause one of the things that I've encountered, and you meet a lot of movie stars-

    15. GB

      Mm-hmm.

    16. JR

      ... and celebrity-type people, there's, especially rock stars, they're, it's not just all of the life on the road and the partying that goes with that, but it's, it's in response to the pressures of so many people wanting your attention, and so much, so much focus on you-

    17. GB

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      ... that a lot of them turn to something to dilute that.

    19. GB

      Yeah, no question. I, I mean, Elizabeth was famous from when she was, uh, 11 years old. So, she was the star in a big movie called National Velvet, she became an international sensation. Richard was not. Uh, he grew up poor in Wales, and, uh, and then was thrust into this circumstance. He was a stage actor, and suddenly thrust into this circumstance of being with, in this couple, and, uh, and they had a lot of, you know, tabloid stories, and, and controversies. But on your, on your main point, yeah, I have a, you know, I've had a real, uh, front row seat on fame and the pressures that go with fame, and it's highly unnatural circumstance, right? If we go back a thousand years, there was no such thing.

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. GB

      You could, you could be known in your community. You could be called the King Caesar, but nobody met you, or knew you, or saw you.

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. GB

      The vast majority of people, you know, had no connection to you. And now, you have people who, uh, are known to millions and billions of people. If you're a female singer, you're singing romantically to somebody. If you're a female actress, or male, your face is closer to people than you would ever be unless you were gonna kiss them or hit them. You would never see all the little lines in somebody's face, and have this kind of intimacy, and I think physiologically, our bodies are not able to distinguish between that which we see in media and that which we see in our actual lives. And, uh, so it is an enormous pressure to have everybody you meet... You'll recognize some of this yourself, that everybody you meet will have some idea about you in advance, everybody you see, uh, will have seen you first. You're at a restaurant going like this, they've already made you, and, uh, and, and that's a weird distortion of, you know, you wanna meet somebody and build a relationship, right? You don't wanna meet somebody and they already have their 50% done.

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. GB

      And now you have to undo it-

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. GB

      ... uh, a- and, and, uh, you know, and, and assert yourself. Years ago, you know, the Beatles had a line that, uh, uh, the whole world went crazy and used the four of them to do it, and that they were the only four people in the world who didn't experience the Beatles.

    28. JR

      Mm. That's-

    29. GB

      And so ...

    30. JR

      Jamie had a very similar s-

  5. 23:56 – 27:11

    From assistant to recognized authority: publishing young and building credibility

    1. JR

      So, you're 19 years old. You work with them. How long does this relationship last?

    2. GB

      I, I worked with them and lived with them for two years.

    3. JR

      Two years?

    4. GB

      Yeah. And then I wrote this, um, this paper, uh, that got picked up by the National Justice, uh, National Criminal Justice Reference Center, which is a, uh, part of the Department of Justice and given to every police department in America.

    5. JR

      Back then?

    6. GB

      Yeah. Back then. And, uh, w- the, uh ... A- and it was a, a four-part series on ... Not about the Burtons, but about public figure protection in the private sector. And I was a good writer. Uh, and-

    7. JR

      That's ... Uh, w- public figure protection in the private sector when you were 21 years old?

    8. GB

      Yeah.... yeah. But it was only of interest to law enforcement.

    9. JR

      But you weren't law enforcement back then.

    10. GB

      No.

    11. JR

      You were just an assistant to two famous people.

    12. GB

      Well, I had become, I became their, to use the lofty title there, uh, traveling chief of staff. So, when we would go to cities, it was me who arranged security and logistics, and I learned. And I had this really good gift you might, you might like from your own, uh, you know, Eastern self-defense training, and that is that in the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities, and in the mind of the expert, there are few. Right?

    13. JR

      Hmm.

    14. GB

      The expert says, "Oh, we tried that. That doesn't work."

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. GB

      The beginner says, uh, "Why do they do it that way? How about this way?"

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. GB

      And that's been my whole career. Uh, I wasn't a cop, I wasn't a Secret Service agent, but I've worked with Secret Service now, and worked on research projects with them, and, uh, you know, trained police departments all over the country. And it isn't always the path of, uh, uh, you know, going to college and learning a particular skill. I'm glad I didn't, by the way. I, I went to college, uh, for one course, one class, uh, criminal investigation. And then when I got, uh, appointed as a senior fellow at UCLA School of Public Policy, and I had to give a little speech, I thanked the dean, because, uh, "You're the first person to ever put me through college, and I've, you know, I've only been here for 20 minutes." But, uh, you know, I drove through Princeton once, was my, my other college experience. But it, look, not everybody has the life, uh, that is in the system.

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. GB

      And the system offers certain, uh, makes certain promises if you do certain things. "If you go to medical school, maybe you'll become a doctor." I think those promises get broken very often by big systems. But, uh, I just had a, a different life, a different circumstance. And I did research, just like a scientist, and I met with people, and I studied, and we did experiments, and we'd do all variety of things in my company. Uh, but it wasn't at a university.

    21. JR

      But that's just a v- a very unusual thing for a 21-year-old to do with no real background in law enforcement, other than the fact that you were, you know, coordinating with them when you were traveling with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

    22. GB

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      That's strange that you would write s- a paper, and that that paper would actually be taken seriously.

    24. GB

      Yeah, it was. And nobody thought I wrote it, but it, but it was. Uh, at the time, it was, uh, taken seriously, and there wasn't a lot on the topic, and most people who had experience in this field were, were cops. And, and police departments have exactly zero training on public figure protection. It's not, uh, you know, it's its, its own discipline, and much more so now. And, uh, I, I was just fascinated by it. And, uh, and I still am.

    25. JR

      So, you leave this, you're in your early 20s, and what do you do from then?

  6. 27:11 – 33:27

    Reagan era, Lennon/Hinckley overlap, and threat research becoming a career

    1. GB

      So, the next thing that happened is, uh, friends and people that knew me would recommend me to others who were just becoming famous, and say, "You know, you oughta talk to this guy, Gavin De Becker. Maybe he has some advice for you." And so, a, uh, a good friend of mine at the time was a kid named Shaun Cassidy, and he became, um, a big teen idol. He was just my friend in high school, and, uh, h- he went off. He had an interesting experience too, because he was our, uh, you know, high school buddy. He was a couple years younger than me. We used to pick on him like crazy. Keep him in the middle of the pool at a friend's house, and we wouldn't let him go to the edge, uh, until (laughs) he was getting really tired 'cause he was smaller than us, and, and, uh, we were, uh, what I would call-

    2. JR

      Bullies?

    3. GB

      F- uh, no, no, I call it fun bullies.

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. GB

      But it's the, but it's the same thing, yes, bullies. And, um, he went off to Germany, and had an experience of being The Beatles. We did not know it. We didn't know, uh, and, and he got to come back, and be in the pool again, and be treated like shit again. And ultimately, he did become a big teen idol in America. And, uh, and I was a natural person to give him advice and guide him-

    6. JR

      So he-

    7. GB

      ... through that circumstance.

    8. JR

      He was like David Hasselhoff in that regard? Like, he would go to Germany and he'd be huge?

    9. GB

      I- in the beginning, but then he became huge all over the world. I mean, he-

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm. But that was the first place he was famous?

    11. GB

      It was, yeah. And he, he became, you know, cover of People Magazine and big recording artist, and all that stuff, and-

    12. JR

      My sister was in love with him when I was a kid.

    13. GB

      Yeah? A lot of sisters.

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. GB

      And, uh, in fact, when we, when we, now as, uh, as adults, we would go into a restaurant and he could tell if the person seating you was of a certain age, "We're gonna get a great table," right? Some people would say, "Oh, you know, I was, uh, I was a big fan of your brother," 'cause his older brother, David Cassidy-

    16. JR

      David, yeah.

    17. GB

      ... was also famous. And then other people would say, "Oh my God, you were on my, you were on my bedroom wall all, all through childhood." Of course, they're now 56 years old and-

    18. JR

      Is he still alive?

    19. GB

      Oh my God, yes.

    20. JR

      Shaun is?

    21. GB

      Uh, Shaun, oh yeah, alive?

    22. JR

      David's not?

    23. GB

      Na- David's not, but Shaun is alive, a big TV producer.

    24. JR

      Oh.

    25. GB

      And a, and, and a TV writer, smart guy. But anyway, so then I had an experience with him, then he referred me to somebody else, then comes a whole series of, of clients, and this company began to be formed. And around 1980, um, a dear friend of mine, Morgan Mason, uh, still a dear friend, uh, went to work for Ronald Reagan. Speaking of controversial and unpopular, that was like going to work for Trump if, uh, in Hollywood, you know that-

    26. JR

      Hmm.

    27. GB

      ... "Oh, Ronald Reagan was the worst thing in the world." He'd been governor of California. Uh, and, uh, so he went to work for Ronald Reagan, and guess what happened? Reagan became president when everybody said, "You're wasting your time," and, "He'll never become president." And he called me and, and gave me a job. I was now, I probably was 26, and he gave me a job as a director of special services group for the president's inaugural. And this president, because he'd been in show business, had all kinds of people coming, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Johnny Carson, et cetera. And right at the beginning of my getting there, John Lennon, uh, was assassinated. And the Lennon's had also hired me to do work for them if they went on tour. And they were deciding whether to go on tour based on the success of a, of a, his last record album called Double Fantasy. And they decided, uh, not to go on tour. I never met them at that time. Uh, uh, uh, I did, uh, meet her later. But, uh, so I went up to the, uh, to New York, uh, and we had this, uh, a bunch of meetings after he was assassinated. Uh, sad memories. And interestingly, I learned later that I was at Blair House, uh, I was now working for Reagan, was now working for President-elect Reagan-... uh, as director of Special Services Group. And I was at Blair House in the morning, where the president-elect was staying, and then I flew to New York for this meeting after John Lennon was killed. And I let, later learned that John Hinckley made the same trip the same day, and flew back the same, on the same trip the same day. He also went and stood outside the Dakota building, where John Lennon was killed, in getting up his courage to eventually shoot, uh, President Reagan. And, and he shot him-

    28. JR

      Wow.

    29. GB

      ... a few months later. So then Reagan became president, and he was the oldest president at that time. Not anymore. But he was the oldest president at that time, and he appointed me as the youngest appointee ever at Department of Justice, on the President's Advisory Board. So I'm kinda giving you the, the process of how this, how this particular life happened. And, um, I remember, you know, being on that advisory board, and there was the Supreme Court justice, uh, chief justice from Arizona was on the board with me, and a Supreme Court justice from California, and the sheriff of San Diego County, and this kid. You know, and we're sitting at the table at our first meeting, and I, as an icebreaker, I said, uh, "Well, has anybody here ever been arrested?" Knowing that, of course, none of these people would have been arrested. And every single one of them had a story about being arrested. We went around the table. I had mine. They had theirs. You know, it would be, "I was standing in line with my, you know, 20-year-old son, and the guy behind me said, 'Such, such and such,' and my son took a swing at him, and I took a swing at him, and we all went to jail." Or it would be, "I was in college, and my girlfriend called the police because I took the record collection, and I got arrested." Every single one of them, Supreme Court justices, chiefs of police, uh, head of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, all of them had a story of being arrested. And my asking that question was an icebreaker that, uh, uh, you know, that made our relationship work. Suddenly, this 26-year-old kid in the room who doesn't know shit about shit was actually kind of interesting. (laughs) And, uh, so, uh, that led to some, uh, big research projects that I got done. Uh, uh, the biggest one being on, uh, assessment of threats to public figures, and, uh, that I worked on for five years, and that was published and became a big deal, again, in law enforcement, and, uh, led to all kinds of things. I mean, and then I got appointed to something by, by George Bush also, not the younger but the older George Bush.

    30. JR

      So it essentially started out as almost like a word of mouth.

  7. 33:27 – 37:38

    What protects public figures: why direct threats are often the wrong signal

    1. GB

      I think the big... Yes is the answer. It's a, it's a good question, because it was a-

    2. JR

      (clears throat)

    3. GB

      You know, in those days, when John Lennon was assassinated, uh, there then came a few in a row, and they tend to group, uh, all kinds of, of, uh, uh, sort of media-age violence groups. So if you have a school shooting, you'll have another and another, uh, within a geographical area. Right now, by the way, at the present moment in the United States, we're having multiple victim shootings almost every day. So something that, you know, used to happen every few months and be a giant story is now happening all the time, but we'll cover that, uh, maybe later. But on your question, I think the biggest mistake that people were making in public figure protection was the belief that threats, a direct death threat, "I'm gonna kill you," was the most important communication that could be assessed in advance, and that was simply not true. What I learned through research and then later wrote about is that of every public figure attack you've ever heard of, of everyone you've ever known where a public figure was killed, not any of them were threatened directly by that, by the person who killed them in advance.

    4. JR

      Really?

    5. GB

      So the... And likewise, none of the people who made a direct threat to a public figure later shot that public figure. So when I started, everybody was very, uh, you know, responsive to a direct threat. "Oh, it's a death threat. He says he's gonna kill me." And, uh, and I learned that other kinds of communications were far more indicative of who will show up. And I learned that the, the art, and still today, the art and craft of what I do and what my company does, is try to avoid unplanned encounters, unwanted encounters. Because if you avoid the, all the unwanted encounters, you're also avoiding the dangerous ones. And you can be sure that nobody who travels 1,000 miles to get a meeting with you or waits outside your house if you're a famous person is gonna hand you a check for a million dollars. That's not (laughs) what they're coming for. It's always something for them, and it's always something, uh, inappropriate, because millions of people write fan letters or emails or are, uh, admirers of a recording artist or a, or a politician or whatever, but very few, statistically speaking, make, uh, what we call targeted travel. You know, get, figure out where somebody lives or where they work and, and travels to see them. So my approach was different from others, which was to, uh, try to detect as early as possible those individuals who might pursue encounters. And from that to where we are now, we now have the largest library in the world of threat material directed to public figures. I think it's about 600,000 pieces of communication. People who send blood, people who send bullets, people who send body parts.

    6. JR

      They send blood?

    7. GB

      Oh yeah, we've-

    8. JR

      Body parts?

    9. GB

      Yeah, we've had everything.

    10. JR

      Like what kind of body parts?

    11. GB

      We've had a finger. Uh, we've had-

    12. JR

      Their own finger or somebody else's?

    13. GB

      Uh, their own. We've had-

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. GB

      ... explosives. Uh-

    16. JR

      Ooh.

    17. GB

      We've had facsimile bombs, uh, uh, blood, hair-

    18. JR

      So someone cut-

    19. GB

      ... skin.

    20. JR

      ... their own finger off to send it to a celebrity?

    21. GB

      Yeah, to a public figure.

    22. JR

      Can you say who, who they did it to?

    23. GB

      No.

    24. JR

      No?

    25. GB

      Um, but, uh, uh, I mean, uh, our whole podcast would be talking about weird things people have sent to public figures.

    26. JR

      What was the message with the finger?

    27. GB

      I'll give you another one 'cause, that I remember the message for, which is somebody, uh, sent an animal they had killed.... and said, um, "I killed this because it's, it was beautiful like you."

    28. JR

      Oh, Jesus.

    29. GB

      So there's no direct threat there-

    30. JR

      (clears throat)

  8. 37:38 – 38:11

    Pre-Incident Indicators (PINs): predicting violence before it happens

    1. GB

      that are pre-incident indicators. I just wanna give you and your listeners this, uh, little, uh, uh, acronym, which is PIN, pre-incident indicators.

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. GB

      So before everything that ever happens, there are PINs. And so one of the things in my work and in my book and in the masterclass that I've done, what we're trying to teach people about is what are the early pre-incident indicators of people in your life who turn violent or people who aren't yet in your life who turn violent? In other words, can we predict violence in advance? And the answer is we can.

  9. 38:11 – 51:55

    Bezos phone hack and Pegasus: what happens when a government targets you

    1. JR

      And so you go from this to, uh, uh, I mean, I don't wanna make this big leap into the Jeff Bezos thing, but it is, um, i- i- it's, it's very fascinating to me. You were involved in finding out how Jeff Bezos' phone got hacked, and you were involved in connecting it to the Saudis and that whole thing. How did, how did this all come about?

    2. GB

      Well, I, I, I have promised, I wrote one, um, op-ed for The Daily Beast about this and in that op-ed at the end, I say, "I'll never say another word on this case because I'm turning it over to the federal government." That was a few years ago. So I, what I can share is only that which has been public and, and a lot wasn't public. But, uh, the, the, uh, circumstance did involve, uh, MBS, who's the prime, you know, the, the, the prince of Saudi Arabia, and he did send a, uh, a text with a video to Jeff Bezos. They knew each other, they had met, they had exchanged phone numbers and embedded in that video was a, uh, a, uh, system that downloaded something that then later connects to a website and downloads something more sinister like Pegasus 2.0, which is a, a, a, um, a system that, uh, governments around the world use to get into your phone and then they have full control of your phone.

    3. JR

      So it doesn't immediately connect to it?

    4. GB

      No. It doesn't download immediately because it's a bigger-

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. GB

      ... package. Uh, what, what you're getting in your first, uh, incursion into a phone, uh, or laptop or iPad or whatever, you're getting a, uh, a very small file, a little executable file that then later reaches out, uh, via the internet.

    7. JR

      And that executable file could be a website, it could be...

    8. GB

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      And does it exist only on the physical phone itself? Or is it, is it in the operating system? And if you change phones and, like, upload to the cloud and then re-upload, do you... or re-download on a new phone, does th- that, does that spy software make it onto your phone again?

    10. GB

      Probably not, but we don't know completely. Whether it does or it doesn't, when a government wants you, like the US government or Saudi or... So basically there are, there are two kinds of countries in the world when it comes to, uh, to incursions into, uh, smartphones. There are, uh, original developers, the United States, China, Soviet Union and Israel. So there are original developers of programs that do these things. And then there are the purchasing countries, uh, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and all 190 other countries. By the way, I say 190. Do you know there isn't even a consensus about the number of countries in the world? Countries can't even agree on that.

    11. JR

      Is that because of like Taiwan and-

    12. GB

      Taiwan's a good example.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. GB

      Yeah. So, um, so, uh, the, the best way I can put it to you is that if a government wants you, from an informational point of view, wants to get into your phone, um, they have you. Uh, the, these systems are extraordinarily robust, powerful as I learned more and more about them. It's not actually my area of expertise, cybersecurity, but as I had to learn more about it for myself and for clients, uh, when the Saudis wanted to get into a phone, they could.

    15. JR

      What if you're dealing... What if you're communicating rather only through direct encryption devices or, uh, applications rather like Signal?

    16. GB

      Yeah. It's a very good question. So if Signal, uh, i- encrypts the, the package going back and forth between the two devices over the internet. So if you have, uh, interception between device A and device B, the... it'll be encrypted and... But that's not what happens with things like Pegasus 2.0. Pegasus 2.0 is a very high-end, uh, system, and it's in your phone just like you're in your phone. Everything you can do on your phone, I can do from 7,000 miles away in some Saudi government office.

    17. JR

      Wow.

    18. GB

      And so Signal doesn't help you with that. I do think, however, uh, by the way, Signal is a, is a foundation. It's not a for-profit company, so I'm glad to, to promote it. I do think they have something very valuable on Signal, and that is disappearing messages, which is you can s- if you and I were exchanging Signal communications, we could set in one week, make all this disappear. In one hour, make all this disappear, up to four weeks. That's very valuable because otherwise our text messages... Look, I, I was tasked to do this for myself when the Saudi thing started, which is, I have to think about everything that's on my phone. Holy shit.... every communication I had, you know, for years. Every text I sent, every photo, every argument, every joke that would be taken out of context. Y- you know, it's a very hard thing to do because we're, it's, we're like a mind. We're collecting all of this data-

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. GB

      ... i- in the phone. And so Signal is valuable. I think Signal's a good, a good service and, uh, but it doesn't solve the problem if a government wants you. Uh, if a government wants information, uh, they, they can get it through programs like, uh, like, uh, Pegasus 2.

    21. JR

      Right. Well, how does Pegasus 2 get on your phone?

    22. GB

      Well, different ways. It is a no-click-

    23. JR

      (clears throat)

    24. GB

      ... uh, incursion, meaning you don't have to click on anything. Uh, you, you might, you know, typically, you would get a text and you would open that text and that would download the little executable file. Or you would watch a video and it would be i- in the video. But e- now, the newest, uh, Pegasus systems, they don't even need you to do anything. Uh, they can send you a message on WhatsApp, and even if you never m-, uh, even if you delete it, even if you never open it, they can get in your phone.

    25. JR

      But what if you don't use WhatsApp?

    26. GB

      It's a help. By the way, I, I don't recommend WhatsApp. A- or-

    27. JR

      Why's that?

    28. GB

      ... because WhatsApp has had a, um, s- uh, for some reasons that I don't wanna share, and for some reasons that I do wanna share, WhatsApp has had a particularly, uh, vulnerable circumstance with regard to, uh, with regard to, uh, people getting into other people's phones. Now having said that, there are thousands of people right now all over the world working on nothing but getting into the new iPhone operating system. And then there's thousands of people at Apple working on nothing but being sure that the new operating system is impenetrable. And this just is a, uh, you know, is an arms race that's gonna go on, it's gonna go on forever.

    29. JR

      So, you, you were saying that don't, i- if you get a message through WhatsApp. But what if you don't get a message through WhatsApp? Is that executable of just a blank text message comes your way and you don't open it?

    30. GB

      Less than that, unfortunately. You can get nothing at all with Pegasus 2. You can get nothing at all. They can enter a telephone number and they can get into your phone.

  10. 51:55 – 1:01:33

    Privacy vs power: encryption, surveillance, and the historical playbook of control

    1. GB

      I think it will expand to where, uh, motivated people, and not governments, could get access to other people's data. And, you know, there are even laws, uh, there's some in the UK where, you know, why should people be able to have a secret encrypted communication? What are they trying to hide? Government is challenged by it, right?

    2. JR

      Yeah, I've seen those.

    3. GB

      People in power are challenged by that stuff. And so, well, because we, we might wanna have a communication that the government isn't part of. That would be the reason. But, uh, uh, but people in power don't like it. And so slowly, it will erode that way as well.

    4. JR

      Well, those are some of the dumbest arguments ever. Like, why would you want encrypted communication? And th- there was... D- during, um... After January 6th in particular, there was, uh, a lot of talk of the dangers of encrypted-

    5. GB

      Yes.

    6. JR

      ... peer-to-peer messages and, and applications, which I thought was hilarious.

    7. GB

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      Like, just because there's a few nuts that, you know, stormed the Capitol, you, you want to have all encrypted messages illegal? Or enc- encrypted messages apps? You think they're a problem because a, a tiny fraction of the people that use it are up to nefarious actions?

    9. GB

      Yeah. Well, it's a goofy... You know, the government equation, uh, throughout human history is always to, uh, uh, protect its power as much as possible. And the absolute wet dream of every government on Earth is, uh, is the internet and the way we engage with it, right? I mean, if you read 1984, still a fantastic book by the way. Interesting thing, it, it's 70 years old, that book, and uh, year before last, the... 2020, um, it was the 17th best-selling book in the country. It was a top 20 best-selling book.

    10. JR

      Wow.

    11. GB

      Isn't that encouraging, though, about people having their head screwed on right? In other words, that they were aware that some of what they're seeing is not just pandemic or is not just politics. It is also a, a s- you know, profound gathering of power.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. GB

      And, uh, there's never been a day in human history, not a moment, that there weren't well-funded people close to people in power working on the best new weapon, uh, and, uh, or the best new method for controlling other people.

    14. JR

      Why was MBS trying to get into Jeff Bezos's phone?

    15. GB

      Hard always to predict what someone else... you know, what's going on in their heads. I can just tell you the circumstances at the time, uh, included that, uh, that the Saudi government was negotiating a multi-billion dollar deal, uh, with Amazon. And so, uh, that's one. Uh, I think the far more likely one is that Jeff was the owner of the, uh, Washington Post-

    16. JR

      Hmm.

    17. GB

      ... and the Washington Post was employing, uh-

    18. JR

      Jamal Khashoggi.

    19. GB

      Jamal Khashoggi. And he was just really ramping up his communications that were making MBS crazy. We had sources inside the, the Royal Palace and the family, and who said that, uh, MBS's first thing every morning was to open the Washington Post, uh, website and look at what was in there. He was very stressed by it, and, uh, as you may have heard, he became so stressed that he, uh, you know, ordered the killing of Khashoggi.

    20. JR

      Yeah. I, uh, followed that very closely and I had Bryan Fogle on when he was promoting The Dissident.

    21. GB

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      And that documentary is terrifying.

    23. GB

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      And the response by the world, the world stage, is terrifying too, because they kind of just waited to see how much outrage was out there and then sort of accepted-

    25. GB

      Yes.

    26. JR

      ... the fact that this head of state killed a journalist and had him dismembered in a consulate.

    27. GB

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      I mean, the whole story is beyond crazy. I mean, he flew a hit team with a coroner-

    29. GB

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      ... amongst them. I mean, there's audio recordings apparently.

  11. 1:01:33 – 1:27:15

    Trusted News Initiative, censorship dynamics, and the COVID-era narrative battles

    1. GB

      permanent state of affairs. It definitely won't last forever. And I, I say to people who wanna change, uh, any amendment, w- wanna make an amendment to the amendments, eh, eh, you know, in the Constitution, you almost don't have to, because major media companies have done it anyway. Right? Major media companies, uh, New York Times, CNN, etc., etc. Something your listeners might not know about called, uh, the Trusted News Initiative that's run by BBC, which is a whole collection of major media companies from all over the world who decide together on how to handle certain stories. And that's how you get, uh, you know, 5,000 headlines that say, uh, "Ivermectin is a, is a horse paste." Uh, Ivermectin is a, uh, an animal drug in the same way that, uh, antibiotics are an animal drug, meaning we have a shared biology with other animals and, uh, uh, a- and it can be given to all kinds of, of beings, but of course it's a people drug. Won the Nobel Prize as a people drug. Uh, given billions of times as a people drug. But when you looked at what happened with you, you had a monolithic approach in media, where everybody said the same thing.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. GB

      Horse paste. Horse paste. And that's because of, uh, a monolithic approach in corporate media right now.

    4. JR

      And so who's at the helm of that?

    5. GB

      Well, the, the BBC Trusted News Initiative is certainly the most organized version that we're aware of, but I think in any of these things like what we're experiencing for the last two years, people wanna find a single villain. You know, it's Klaus Schwab, it's Bill Gates, it's pharma companies, whatever it may be, because it's a simpler narrative. And, and unfortunately it's not a simple narrative. What happens is this. Many, many people have competing incentives to exploit a new thing. So for example, when 9/11 happened, and, uh, you know, airplanes flown into buildings, there came up companies that reinforced the concrete on government buildings, as if they could stop a fucking airliner. Ridiculous. But the government spent millions of dollars on it, on reinforcing windows and reinforcing, you know, the outsides of buildings. My point being that for, in our current world, if you used to make perfume, now you make hand sanitizer. If you used to make bumper stickers, now you make stickers that say, "Stand six feet apart," that are on the, you know, the floor of the supermarket. Uh, if you used to make, uh, uh, you know, fabric, uh, scarves, now you make masks. And so everybody is inclined by the momentum of, uh, of commerce to jump onto anything that has everyone's attention.

    6. JR

      Right.

    7. GB

      In, in attention there is money to be made, in the area of attention. So, when governments of the world say, uh, y- you know, "There's a virus, and i- if you're over 60, it'll kill you," that was the first, you know, that was the original information. And when that gets etched on the tablet, it's very hard to change people's minds after that, even though we learned that it was far more, uh, you know, you were far more vulnerable if you were older, if you were frail, if you were... I mean, s- look at, look at Canada. 70% of the people who died in Canada whose deaths are attributed to COVID were nursing home residents, meaning w- what do you go to a nursing home for, by the way?

    8. JR

      You're dying.

    9. GB

      That's it.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. GB

      I- in Los Angeles County, the average stay in a, in a nursing home, uh, uh, a, uh, a Medicare nursing home is six months. Right?

    12. JR

      You have six months to live.

    13. GB

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. GB

      So, so when we learned, I- myself included, I heard about the pandemic and thought, "Oh, shit, over 60, you get it, you die." So, all kinds of, uh, cautions and care and concern. Then I got that first report that came out of Italy which showed that 94% of the people had 2.7 fatal comorbidities, meaning they already had other diseases that could kill them. I didn't. And they already were elderly. I wasn't. They were, uh, in many cases overweight, all variety of problems. And the point being that it was highly age stratified. It, it, it... This disease is highly age and health stratified. And so, uh, young people, you know, a, a kid in college, y- y- you don't have a challenge from this disease. Now, quickly, if, uh, if, uh, Dr. Fauci were in my pocket right now, he would be climbing up here to yell at me, "Oh, yeah? But we've got a lot of young people who, who are killed and di-" Uh, first of all, it's not a lot, relative to anything. And, uh, and secondly, w- you know, people get killed in car accidents. Life is a sexually transmitted, always fatal, communicable disease. That is what life is, right? It is a condition that is sexually transmitted, always fatal, and communicable. We, we cannot eliminate all risk, and government always pretends they can. After 9/11, the color codes. It's a, it's a-

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. GB

      ... red day, it's a yellow day.

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. GB

      The UK is using the color codes i- uh, in this pandemic and it looks like comedy when you see it. You know, this is a yellow day. And what, what do I do? Duck? Not breathe? Uh, you know, stay under the kitchen counter? What do I do with this information? And then you see how do people actually die. Overweight, heart disease, diabetes, etc., etc., etc., etc. And, uh, that was a little diatribe you just heard.

    20. JR

      So this Trusted News Network, like, in the, in this, the instance of COVID and, uh, in my recovery in particular, they concentrated on one thing, and that one thing was ivermectin. And it was one of many things that I listed. I r- listed, uh, Z-Pak. I listed, uh, prednisone. I listed monoclonal antibodies, and I said also ivermectin. And I said IV vitamin drips and NAD as well I think.... but the, all they concentrated on was ivermectin. And then there was all these stories, like all over the world, about me taking horse dewormer.

    21. GB

      Mm.

    22. JR

      And it was very specific, it was horse dewormer.

    23. GB

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      Even though ivermectin, by the way, I found some stuff in my cabinet that was heartworm medication for my dog-

    25. GB

      Mm.

    26. JR

      ... that was ivermectin.

    27. GB

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      And, uh, I was like, "I wonder what's in this?" And I was like, "I wonder if this is ivermectin?" This is all after the fact.

    29. GB

      Mm.

    30. JR

      And, and I was like, "Holy shit, this is ivermectin too." But they had come up with one narrative, one narrative that they all stuck to-

Episode duration: 2:51:58

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