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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1833 - Tim Kennedy

Tim Kennedy is a Special Forces operator, retired UFC fighter, and founder of Sheepdog Response. His new book, "Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself" is available now.  http://www.timkennedy.com/

Tim KennedyguestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 42mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:48

    Austin comedy scene, 6th Street weirdness, and the housing boom

    1. TK

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. TK

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Your comedy, your, uh, standup was the first time that I... First one I've been to in probably 10 years.

    4. JR

      Oh, at the, uh, Vulcan?

    5. TK

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      Yeah. That's a great place, isn't it?

    7. TK

      It was rad.

    8. JR

      Yeah, it's a fun little spot.

    9. TK

      Yeah. The, uh, everybody was cool. It, it's weird that it's on 6th Street, but.

    10. JR

      Yeah. Yeah, my place is too. We up?

    11. TK

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      Um, yeah. It's, uh, 6th Street is a unique spot.

    13. TK

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      It's, uh, they're gett- they're doing some stuff to try to, you know, clean it up a little bit. And they, they got rid of that homeless situation. There was like a crazy homeless encampment that was really close to that.

    15. TK

      Yeah. (laughs)

    16. JR

      They got rid of that, so. Austin's a unique place.

    17. TK

      It is.

    18. JR

      There's a lot of, a lot of wild shit in this town.

    19. TK

      Yeah. Amazing stuff and really weird stuff.

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. TK

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      It's a great combination though, and it's a great size. You know, you were one of the people that early on got me thinking about Austin, because you were always ranting about it.

    23. TK

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      About how great it is here.

    25. TK

      I should've kept my mouth closed.

    26. JR

      Should've kept your mouth shut.

    27. TK

      (laughs)

    28. JR

      'Cause I w-

    29. TK

      When you came here, everybody I just... They're like, "Ah, where's Joe at?" "Oh, he just moved to, to Austin." I was like, "You shut your mouth."

    30. JR

      (laughs)

  2. 2:48 – 4:50

    Training injuries and knee rehab: stem cells, peptides, and knees-over-toes

    1. TK

      You look good.

    2. JR

      Thank you, thank you.

    3. TK

      Healthy?

    4. JR

      Working out, yeah.

    5. TK

      Training?

    6. JR

      Yeah, a lot, yeah. Yeah.

    7. TK

      Grappling?

    8. JR

      No, I'm trying to heal a knee.

    9. TK

      Okay.

    10. JR

      I have a knee issue right now that's, uh... I was, uh, working out and, uh, doing some Muay Thai, and I just... Even though it hurts, I still kick with it.

    11. TK

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      And then it was starting to swell, and so now I've been going to Brigham at Ways2Well and getting it shot up.

    13. TK

      Dude, he's, he's, he's great.

    14. JR

      He's great. Ways2Well is awesome.

    15. TK

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      Right now, it's good. Doesn't hurt at all. So I'm gonna give it a couple of months and really do all the knees-over-toes stuff and try to rehabilitate it without getting an MRI 'cause I don't wanna know what's going on in there.

    17. TK

      I just did six months of that program.

    18. JR

      Yeah?

    19. TK

      Yeah. And, uh, it makes a big difference.

    20. JR

      Oh my God, yeah. Yeah.

    21. TK

      It's not fun though. It's not f-

    22. JR

      What parts not fun?

    23. TK

      Um, it's obviously mobility and you're, you're focusing on circulation into the knee.

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. TK

      Um, so it's not good for the ego. It's not fun for the ego 'cause the weight that you're doing for the squats in that style of squatting to have your knees over your toes is way less than-

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. TK

      ... if I was gonna be a meathead and go and squat. You know, doing the lunges, it's trying to get that deep, deep forward lunge-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. TK

      ... to get the knee all the way over the toe and then all the sled pulls and all the sled pushes.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  3. 4:50 – 6:44

    Austin as a grappling hub: elite gyms, Danaher’s crew, and Tim’s new gym

    1. TK

      Yep. I have, uh, the, the mats that I'm on right now, a level of killer that I've never imagined existing in names that I didn't even know. And, uh-

    2. JR

      Oh, the Danaher Death Squad?

    3. TK

      Oh, yeah.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. TK

      With everybody that came here. The Danaher-

    6. JR

      And everybody's training at ROCA right now mostly too, right?

    7. TK

      That's right. Yeah.

    8. JR

      Which is cool. Shout out to ROCA.

    9. TK

      Yeah, they, uh... Rob's being really rad. Three workouts a day on those mats.

    10. JR

      That's amazing.

    11. TK

      And, um-

    12. JR

      So cool.

    13. TK

      Yeah, s- You know, you have, "Oh, this, this guy's a two-time Olympic gold medalist. What's up?"

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. TK

      You know, "Hey, Satoshi." And, uh, as he mauls me, um... Like, we're in the cage right here on it, and Satoshi is just beating me up, and then Roy MacDonald getting ready to this fight, beat- beating me up. You know, GSP's traveling in and then obviously, like, Gordon and-

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. TK

      ... the Sean Jay Ribeiro team at Six Blades not but three miles away.

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm, yeah.

    19. TK

      You have the B-Team with Craig Jones.

    20. JR

      Yep.

    21. TK

      So, like, one through 20-

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. TK

      ... the best grapplers in the planet are in Austin and, uh-

    24. JR

      And the Checkmat guys are here.

    25. TK

      Oh, yeah.

    26. JR

      It's like, this is great.

    27. TK

      Gracie's on the Fite Factory, the-

    28. JR

      This is fucking crazy.

    29. TK

      Tackett kids and-

    30. JR

      It's amazing how many good grapplers are here in this town.

  4. 6:44 – 7:59

    Sheepdog Response: training civilians, teachers, and law enforcement to save lives

    1. JR

      There's enough for everybody. Well, tell me what you're doing with Sheepdog. Like, what is your Sheepdog Response courses? What are those?

    2. TK

      The... In light of everything that's been happening, I mean, I've been screaming from every building I can get on that, you know, we need to prepare America for what is happening now. And, uh, so Sheepdog Response, like, the company mission statement is to train and equip people to preserve and protect human life. With that in mind, we do everything from fighting, shooting, and, uh, medical to try and make sure everybody that comes to those courses, teachers, law enforcement, all of them, get the basic fundamentals of really the things about saving life. And, um, we have been... I mean, Sheepdog Response we have, I think, 180 or 210 courses this year. And if you go to the website right now, it's like, sold out, sold out. So like, I can't... I'm not gonna lower the quality of training, 'cause everybody needs to know the right things. As we look at Uvalde and the lack of training and, uh, the response and the broken systems and all the things that went wrong in there, uh, you know, I'm like, "God, why..." You know, like, I, I literally teach every single day what the answer is to all of this. And, you know, you can only train so many people in a year.

  5. 7:59 – 10:40

    Hardening schools: the “four Ds” and layered security design

    1. JR

      Well, I think it's, it's... You definitely can only train so many people in a year. And it's also taking a long time for people to come to grips with the, the only solution, is like you have to be able to protect yourself.

    2. TK

      Yeah. Well, I mean, there, there's... That's the responsive reactive side of it. Uh, which is really important. You know, we have to make our schools hard targets. We have to get individually... individuals to be responsible and be able to protect themselves. Like, our, our basic entry course for teachers, for everyone, is called Protector. It's Protector I course. And we shoot, we fight, um, how to keep blood in the body, you know, like tourniquets, um, packing wounds, and then, th- like, the biggest part is situational awareness. And that, that's all preventative actions, um, where I see something that could be going wrong. Uh, but I'd, I'd, I'd prefer to go upstream to, like, the root cause of what is causing some of this violence, you know, mental health, and these broken young men, um, and, and try to fix the individual so we don't... We have to do all these things with our schools. You know, I, I, uh, have been writing non-stop since, since these last shootings have been happening. You know, and, like, the four Ds about how to make a school a hard target, um-

    3. JR

      What are the four Ds?

    4. TK

      W- we... You have detection, um, denial entry, you have deterrence, and then you actually have defend. So, of those things, identifying what a problem is, and, uh, you know, trying to deter from the outside. Limited entry, um, you know, how our, our headquarters are set up, it's difficult to get in here. It doesn't look like a place I wanna try and get in. The, you know, the, the bushes are... The landscaping's in a way where I'm not gonna have access to the windows. You know, like, there's... In my building, when you come to the front door and you get let in, you're in a s- a kill box. You know, you, you get wa- let into a lobby, and then that lobby, you can't get past the lobby. And in the lobby, there is somebody that will let you into the next room. And, uh, you're stuck there an- unless somebody lets you in. You know, the defend is obviously, uh, the last course of action, where teachers or law enforcement, um, are gonna be protecting their kids. Uh, there's lots of different solutions to that. They have cameras that can have pepper balls in them, um, you know, lasers that can blind people. But ultimately, it's the individual that has to be trained to be able to protect those children. And in that, like, preventative model of going upstream to fix the problem, we could concurrently... We can do two things at once, right? Like, we can make our school harder targets and we can train teachers, and we can get law enforcement to respond correctly while we start talking really about what is causing these young men to be broken.

  6. 10:40 – 15:34

    Root causes debate: social media algorithms, Hollywood hypocrisy, and violent media

    1. JR

      So, what do you think we can do about that? 'Cause that... Without that... You, you know, people think guns are the problem, and this is the narrative that we keep hearing, "We need gun control." But there, there's more guns than there are people. So, it's not necessarily a gun problem, 'cause the vast majority of people, the vast, vast, vast majority would never fucking do anything like this. It's a very, very, very, very small amount of people that are deranged and broken and would do something like this.

    2. TK

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      So, how do we address that? That is the, the issue. It's a mental health issue.

    4. TK

      Yeah, but it, it's a bunch of things that we, that nobody wants to talk about, you know?

    5. JR

      Like what?

    6. TK

      Are we gonna be throwing, throwing stones? Um, Hollywood, video games, um, social media. You know, it's, it's d- more divisive than ever on social media. You know, you get in this echo chamber with your own ideas, in those echo chambers, and they're crazy ideas sometimes when you're able to curate and editorialize the feed that you get back. So, there are only people... Like, if I'm following... If I'm, if I'm struggling and I'm just following, um, angry hate rhetoric, and that is just building, and so my thoughts are then magnified and, um, and compounded by other people reaffirming my own belief system. And in that a- in, in the algor- algorithms, then they put in something that then enrages me. So, it's like biased confirmation, biased confirmation, biased confirmation. Oh, and then here's something for me to interact with, because they want us to interact. So, you know, the more emotionally driven we are on social media, the more we participate in it and the longer that we're on it. So, those algo- algorithms are really just dangerous. That's one. Hollywood, where, you know, I love Matthew McConaughey and I love his position, and I love him as an actor, and I love what he had to say, and I love that he wants to protect schools and children. You know, but like...... how many movies has he been in where he had people on their knees and he executed them in the face? They're... You know, you, you can't be on this moral high ground and then be a hypocrite. So if Hollywood is perpetuating... You know, I, I've never let my children, um, practice putting somebody (laughs) on their knees and shooting them or watching a movie.

    7. JR

      Has he really done that in a movie?

    8. TK

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      What, what movie has he done that in?

    10. TK

      Um, it was that Guy Ritchie movie. Like-

    11. JR

      Oh, yeah, the, the-

    12. TK

      I mean, that, that was just-

    13. JR

      ... drug dealer movie.

    14. TK

      Yeah, one of many examples.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. TK

      You know, he's, he's an action star and he's a great actor. And, and not... And, and I really love what he had to say and how we all do have to come together and find solutions, you know. But if like Liam Neeson is out there being, you know, "Hey, we should get rid of guns, but I'm gonna take the next $10 million contract for Netflix to be in the next action film and I'm... And my kill count's gonna be 110." Oh, man, I don't-

    17. JR

      Right.

    18. TK

      I don't know if you can be in that position of moral authority to talk to me about what you should be doing with firearms.

    19. JR

      Yeah, you don't hear Keanu Reeves talking about what we should do about firearms.

    20. TK

      No, he's a great example of somebody that, you know, morally and ethically really walks the, the line of, of truth and integrity.

    21. JR

      And he's John Wick.

    22. TK

      Yeah. (laughs)

    23. JR

      I mean, you'd have to shut the fuck up.

    24. TK

      (laughs) Yeah.

    25. JR

      He kills so many people-

    26. TK

      With a pencil. He's like, "Hey, bah!" That was amazing.

    27. JR

      I mean, he's killed people with everything-

    28. TK

      (sighs) Yeah.

    29. JR

      ... in those movies. I mean, those-

    30. TK

      You know, music, um-

  7. 15:34 – 20:11

    Culture wars anecdote: “wife vs partner,” pronouns, and forced compliance

    1. TK

      Oh, man. So I'm in New York last week on book tour. I walk into a coffee shop and, and we're like right off Times Square. And, um, I walk in and I ask the barista for an oat milk cappuccino, which is my favorite beverage. And my wife, I ask if she can have a café au lait with oat milk. And the barista... And I, I say it just like that, "I'll, uh, I'll ha- I'll have a, uh, oat milk cappuccino, please, and my wife would like a café au lait." And, uh, my wife is really shy and, and doesn't even like to talk to people she doesn't know, to include, you know, people at a restaurant. So she oftentimes will be like, "Can we order for me?"

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. TK

      So I got... I wasn't man answering for her-

    4. JR

      I get it. She's, she requested.

    5. TK

      ... as, as a feminist. Yeah, she did.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. TK

      And, uh, the lady corrected me calling her my wife and said, "You mean partner?" I'm, "No, no, this is my wife. This is my wife."

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. TK

      "And uh, she would like a café au lait, please." Just bonkers.

    10. JR

      Imagine how crazy you have to be to talk to a grown man and tell him to not call your wife, your wife.

    11. TK

      Ugh.

    12. JR

      That there is a correct way to announce her.

    13. TK

      (laughs)

    14. JR

      It is partner.

    15. TK

      I don't, I didn't know what to do.

    16. JR

      I think it's partner, so you should do that too, Tim.

    17. TK

      Yeah, I know. Yeah.

    18. JR

      That's so, that's young people today. They're out of their fucking mind. The, that's what I'm worried about. These poor fucks that are stuck in the fog of woke, that are just trapped in these universities and then they get out and they exist in these weird bubbles, like LA or New York in particular. And-

    19. TK

      They're dangerous.

    20. JR

      Well, they're just nuts. They just, they think that that's how you're supposed to be. Ima- I mean, imagine correcting someone if they said, "My partner." Like imagine if you say, "I'll have, uh, a cappuccino and my partner would like a tall black coffee." "Oh, you mean your wife?"

    21. TK

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      Now the f- that's my fucking... I said partner.

    23. TK

      Yeah, got it.

    24. JR

      That's the word I like. I like partner. I'm gonna use that one.

    25. TK

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      Imagine correcting someone there. You'd be just as gross.

    27. TK

      I couldn't imagine.

    28. JR

      It's just so dumb. Like what do you give a fuck what he's call... You know what it is?

    29. TK

      Well-

    30. JR

      It's just, he's married to that lady. He said wife.

  8. 20:11 – 26:56

    Broken young men, masculinity, and America’s comfort vs. Ukraine’s hardening

    1. TK

      Yeah, I mean, back to mental health, I think with shooters, you, you see a reoccurring theme. You know, you see broken nuclear families. These, these young, broken men are misking, missing serious masculine elements of who they are. When you look at them ... And I'm profiling. I am, I am generalizing here. Uh, you see a very similar young man every single time. He's, he's weak, he's frail, and he's broken. And there's nothing more dangerous than a broken, not healthy masculine figure.

    2. JR

      Mm.

    3. TK

      You know, testosterone's a beautiful thing, and one of the, one of the great things about the military is they, you know, they enhance and they build all of this kind of ability to do very efficient violence. You know, but, but they also show you how to control it and how to manage it and, and the vertical of the chain of command and when is appropriate, you know, here's your rules of engagement. So, it's very controlled, and by the, by this process, this arduous refiner's fire of shaping a, um, a human into a weapon, that you have a healthier thing. You have this healthy, beautiful, masculine thing that, uh, is very, very different. If you look at me and all of, you know, my, my friends in the Special Operations community, like, these are healthy, great men that love their wives and they love their children and they love America. And they ... And, like, the, the warrior society and the warrior culture, um, is like this nice balance of, you know, they're, they're fit, they, they get great night's sleep, they are very good at violence. I mean, Jordan Peterson, you know, himself said the, uh, like, "A good man isn't a useless man. A good man is one that is capable and strong and powerful, but knows how to control it."

    4. JR

      Yes.

    5. TK

      And I couldn't agree more, and when you look at these, these young, broken men, you see the same trend over and over again. And they are missing these important moments that shape them as men. And then they have testosterone and they have strength and they have violence, and they've never known how to channel it. You had martial arts. I had martial arts. I had the military. We had really healthy ways to burn that kind of growth and learn, you know, getting our, our asses beat on the mats.

    6. JR

      And learn discipline.

    7. TK

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, the, the incel of the world and the, the people-

    9. TK

      Is that just black coffee?

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. TK

      Oh, yeah.

    12. JR

      The incels and the people that, you know, just never have these experiences where they learn how to channel their aggression and learn how to harness their discipline and learn how to, to be a fucking man. It's an issue. It's a real issue. And this whole, I think, you know, there's like ... It's, it's become a disparaged term, like, to, to be a man.

    13. TK

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      But that's, that's a really important thing to learn how to be. Like, when you see someone who holds their shit together and stays calm under pressure and you ... Like, wow, you, you admire that person.

    15. TK

      Yep.

    16. JR

      That, that ... That's to be admired.

    17. TK

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      It is a thing. It's an important thing. It's just, we are so goddamn comfortable in this country, and we're so accustomed to it, and it's been accentuated by the comfort that people experience from being able to talk shit on social media. So-

    19. TK

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      ... you have this very distorted perception of what's acceptable in terms of how to communicate with other humans.

    21. TK

      It's weird. I was in Ukraine a week ago, and the men there have been hammered for resistance. You know, being on the border of Russia, obviously. (laughs) They've, they've known what was coming for, for a generation. And, um, they have been training relentlessly for the past 20 years. And the young men that ... You can walk down the streets of Kyiv and Mariupol, Dnipro, and there is not a fat human in sight. You know, there is not a, um, compl ... Just a complacent human anywhere to be seen. Every single person there has, is, has been hardened, not just in body, but also in mind. And then, you know, I flew from there to Amsterdam. Amsterdam direct back to LA or back to Austin, which is cool that we have a direct to Amsterdam now. And, uh, I lan- th- the moment the plane lands, I get off. I take five steps out of the, the gate, and I'm like, "Oh, I'm back in America." There's just like f-... weak, soft-

    22. JR

      Sloppy.

    23. TK

      ... people everywhere. God, it's sad.

    24. JR

      So many, so many sloppy people here. And if you, if you bring that up, you're fat shaming. (laughs)

    25. TK

      Yeah, I don't get that either. (laughs)

    26. JR

      It's like shame only ex- listen, there's sh- there's things that you have no control over, like literally no control over. Like, to shame someone for a disability is a horrendous act. It's a horrendous thing to do. But to shame someone for sloven- slovenly behavior, that-

    27. TK

      For things they have a choice about, yeah.

    28. JR

      Yeah. That's actually probably good for them. That's-

    29. TK

      Especially when they're bad feeling.

    30. JR

      It's a bad choice?

  9. 26:56 – 44:16

    Afghanistan evacuation: Save Our Allies, 12,000 rescued, and the chaos outside HKIA

    1. JR

      So, since we've talked last on the podcast, you have been y- well, let's go all the way back to Afghanistan-

    2. TK

      Oh, God.

    3. JR

      ... 'cause you were there-

    4. TK

      Yep.

    5. JR

      Um. Oh, God, indeed. You were there-

    6. TK

      (laughs)

    7. JR

      ... during the worst of it, when the pullout was happening.

    8. TK

      Yep. So, yeah. With 20-something deployments overseas, I've never seen anything like Afghanistan during the fall of Afghanistan. Uh, I don't know who was, at a strategic level, not anticipating that the Taliban, every time that we moved an inch on the ground, that the Taliban would not move an inch on the ground. So, every- my- myself and all of my peers, all my colleagues, uh, fully forecasted what was gonna happen. So, as soon as we started collapsing that ext- that, that ground, there was no doubt in any of our minds that every, every inch of ground that we gave up was ground that the Taliban was going to take. So, when we gave up, you know, Kandahar and Bagram, the two strategic military bases, that means that we just gave up the rest of the country. And, um, we, having been at war there for 20 years and, you know, multiple trips over there, we have lots of friends that deployed with us there. You know, Afghans be- the Afghans have a special operations unit called The Commandos. We worked alongside them. Um, our interpreters are obviously from Afghanistan. So, they live in Afghanistan, but they work for us. The- the- these people have security clearances. They love the idea of democracy and freedom. They love the idea of a free independent, uh, Afghanistan. They- they want their daughters to be educated. And those ideals, that philosophy does not align with the Taliban. So, as Taliban start taking over Afghanistan, our- my phone just starts exploding from all of my friends, and asking me to go, contracting companies saying, "Hey, I'll pay you 10 grand a day to go grab this guy." Um, but none of it was altruistic, you know? Like, none of it was, um, the right call to action. It was lots of people... Yes, I was gonna go- go and save life, but it was, it was for money. And, uh, and, and I was just waiting for... I don't know what I was waiting for. I- I wasted two days trying to figure out what is the right thing to do here, until my phone rang. I was in the middle of writing this- that book, and I was with, uh, Nick Palmisciano, who is my co-author on this book. He's sitting next to me. We're- we're working. My phone rings. Chad Robichaux calls me, and he was a- a Marine special operations guy that, um, had multiple deployments there. And he had a translator named Aziz. And Aziz worked specific, specific to special missions units, like the tip of the spear type units. And Aziz had already been told that they're coming to find him, and Aziz was on the run with his family, and they were very, very explicit about what they were gonna do to his wife and his children in front of him before they kill him. And, um, and then, like, Aziz's friends start being murdered. And, uh, so Chad calls me and says, "Hey, man, I'm gonna go get Aziz. Can you help me?" And I said, "Yes. I'm on my way." At the same moment, next to me, Nick is talking to a young woman named Sarah Verardo. Sarah is this, like, powerhouse. Um, she runs the Independence Fund, which is a vet, uh, a military veteran nonpar- profit that takes care of severely wounded, uh, veterans and give them chairs, like, track, automatic track chairs. Her husband is one of the worst... Uh, this is a weird title to hold, but he is one of the worst wounded veterans, veterans from the Afghan War. That's her husband, and she's the- the provider, and care, and sole care provider. I don't know what the right word is. She takes care of him.... and, uh, he was wounded in Afghanistan, so her heart is, like, just... But she has lots of friends in the government. So, in this moment, we have the right kind of two people. I have a good mission. I h- I know what I'm gonna do. It's morally right and somebody has to do it or, or Aziz and my f- my friend's friend is gonna be murdered. And I have a method. Sarah can get us routes and approval from the government. So, the four of us started this NGO called Save Our Allies. And that, literally, that phone call was the beginning of what is now, you know, what was the most successful NGO movement.

    9. JR

      What's an NGO?

    10. TK

      A non-government organization. A nonprofit. So, Save Our Allies, like that call initiated it. Nick and I were on a plane into the Middle East the next day, and we flew into the UAE. The Crown Prince was, like, the most generous host that you could imagine. Uh, one of our friends used to ride motorcycles with the Crown Prince and he said, "I will give you a C-17 plane. If you can land it, fill it up with a perfect manifest of people, th- and get it out, I'll give you another plane." And that was th- that was the initial promise. And 10 days later, we moved 12,000 people out of Afghanistan. 11% of everybody that left the country during the evacuation, me and three of my friends on the ground, and 12 of us total in the Middle East moved. Um, and, and everybody remembers, you know, people hanging onto the landing gear of aircraft and falling to their death. Like, that, that was peak Afghanistan withdrawal. And that is, uh, that is when we got there. Yeah. It was terrible.

    11. JR

      So, when you say that it was like nothing you had seen in 20 years of being deployed-

    12. TK

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... in what, in what way?

    14. TK

      I mean, Taliban's gonna Taliban. So, they are definitely doing their thing, but it was, it was the, the desperation of the people trying to find a way to live. So, at each of these gates, a NEO operation... It's a non-combat- noncombatant evacuation operation. It's a g- it's a military operation if a NEO takes place. They keep calling it a NEO, but that's if the military ran it. And if the military ran it, you would see, you know, a special forces unit with a big, like the Ranger regiment or 82nd Airborne that come in, that build this huge exterior perimeter, that control the ground strategically. Then it would be like the clockwork of a military operation as planes are coming in and planes are coming out and we're building manifests, we're confirming that everybody that goes on the plane are the right people. This was not a NEO. This was run by the State Department. So, instead of that thi- uh, big strategic military operation, instead thi- the airport became an embassy. And like in the movies, we were running to the embassy and if you get in, you know, like, you're safe and then they'll get you out. That's how they started treating HKIA, the, um, the airport in Kabul, as an embassy. So, the military just secured the perimeter of the embassy, the airport, and anybody that got on the airport was able to get out. Except the military wasn't allowed to go outside of the airport, so all the people in the city of Kabul were stuck. That's where we had to come in. So, we had to go out into Kabul and grab the people and then smuggle them past the Taliban to get them onto planes. And, uh, to answer your question, the... That perimeter of the base where the gates... There's tens of thousands of people that were lining up here and they maybe walked f- a few days. So, by the time they get there, they're dehydrated, they have nothing there. There's no food, there's no water. The Taliban, if there's too many people, they'll just take a, take a magazine and just dump it into the crowd to move them back or to, like, crowd control them. They'll just dump a magazine into a crowd of people. The women, they would, they would float babies like you're at a baseball game with a beach ball. They would float the baby bo- baby towards the g- the gate and then hope, in the hopes that a marine or a soldier would reach down and grab the baby and bring it into safety. And when that didn't work, the moms would take the babies and they'd try to throw them over the walls.

    15. JR

      (exhales)

    16. TK

      Well, guess what's on either side of the wall? Constantina wire. There's fucking constantina wire on both sides of this wall.

    17. JR

      Oh, Jesus Christ.

    18. TK

      So, these babies would land in the, in, in the wire-

    19. JR

      Ugh.

    20. TK

      ... and we're in the middle of moving, you know, hundreds of people at a time, like smuggling them past the Taliban, and I'm stepping over a baby in water or there's, like, a small body that's on fire that was burnt alive by the Taliban. You know, one of the teams is there... They went out into Kabul and they, they, they just missed it by seconds. They were gonna go pick up this woman that was a journalist for, um, the, the Afghan, uh, one of the Afghan news organizations, but the Taliban got to her first. They pull up. The Taliban see these guys in the car. They dro- drop her on the hood of the car and they execute her on the car as they just look at the dudes in the car. There's nothing that they can do. Just execute her.

    21. JR

      (exhales)

    22. TK

      This was every day. So, when I said a level of desperation I've never seen before, this is... I mean, this is like hu- no American, no, no American can imagine that type of desperation. And that was everywhere you looked.

    23. JR

      And how long were you there for while this was happening?

    24. TK

      The... Our ground team, there's myself and three other, um, like personnel recovery experts. Uh, we're there total for 10 days.

    25. JR

      And did it dissipate somewhat? Did the f-

    26. TK

      No.

    27. JR

      No.

    28. TK

      No, it just got more desperate.So, everybody that was watching on television, they saw curated, controlled, um, information. I- it was way worse on the ground. So, what looked like this, a semblance of an assembly line of planes taking off and planes coming in, um, well that is inside a controlled environment, you know. That was in, on the base. Outside, if you, if you know, if you, if you go f- 1,000 meters outside of the wire, it is just chaos, anarchy, apocalyptic-level madness. You know, like, really, really, really total Taliban, uh, experience out there. (exhales)

    29. JR

      Man. And so, when you're leaving 10 days later, what- what are you, how are you feeling?

    30. TK

      One, one of our, one of the guys with us, his- his code name is Sea Spray, he didn't eat in those 10 days. He lost 20-something pounds in- in the 10 days that he was there. And, um, you know, he could like nibble on a cracker and drink water just 'cause he didn't have any enzymes left in his stomach to break- break anything down. You know, when you're running out the wire to grab a family and come ac- come back in, you don't really have time to think about what you're stepping over, but you still see it. And that was, that's the thing that tortures my mind is I still saw it all, but I didn't have the time to address it emotionally, think about this dead body I'm stepping over, 'cause I'm really busy trying to get to this family. And then I get to this family and I confirm... We had to be really judicious in how we confirmed who the people were. You know, if I bring b- if I brought back one person that wasn't the right person to bring back, I- I would consider myself a failure in the whole entire mission, um, if I bring back one radical terrorist that's not escaping, but trying to get to the United States, and everything would be for naught. So, we had a really deliberate Department of State, Department of Defense approved manifest that would go officially through the government. They would submit all of their paperwork. They would have, you know, digital versions of it. So, I would then give them a location on the ground where they would have to meet me, and then once I met up with them, they would have a far recognition signal that would be, uh, not to like give up the trade craft, but they'd- they'd have a way to let me know that that is the right person. And that then would come face to face, and then they'd have another thing, like a secret word that they had to sneak into a sentence, and that's a near recognition signal. And then they have to give me their documents, and the documents have to be real and it has to be the right person, and the same ones that were submitted. "So cool, I got the right person. So come on, I got your family. Why are these other 40 people with you?" They're like, "Oh, it's- it's like, it's my cousin and, you know, and- and her family and it's, um, you know, my brother and his family." And it's like, "They gotta stay."

  10. 44:16 – 1:04:17

    After the blast: who was left behind, covert extractions, and immigration bottlenecks

    1. TK

      force commander, Sea Spray, and Dave, you know, I, I look at them, I, I, I see their s- their eyes just sunken in from not sleeping for six, seven days in a row. And, uh, but they're still going. Like, I, I look at that. You know, I, I look at that 82nd guy, and so I'm like, "Hey man, can you pick up this concertina wire so I can slip, slip underneath here with this little kid?" He's like, "Yeah, bro." Picks up the... Like, that's rad. But when the bomb goes off (sighs) at the end of August, that was what we knew going to be the end of us being able to be eff- be effective and going outside the wi- wire and grab people and bring them back in. Uh, the base just was gonna get locked down. And that's, that, that was starting to hurt. That's when I realized... So our list kept growing, right? I said we moved 12,000 people in 10 days. Like, think, think about twelve thou- you've, you've been to arenas with 12,000 people. In 10 days, we put them... We confirmed who they were, which is a m- miracle in itself. Thank you, Sarah Verardo. So, Save Our Allies found these people, confirmed who they were, got them approved from the government, and then put them on a plane and flew them out in 10 days. But after the bomb happens and we are limited in our ability to be effective, and this list is growing and growing and growing, this, that is when, like, my soul just starts dropping out the bottom 'cause the list grows and my, and we're not bringing anybody else in. So Sean G., our ground force commander, (sighs) you know, listening to him tell Sarah, she's like, "Well, what's the point of us still building, being, making this list?" He's like, "So we know who we left behind." And, uh, and I was just like, "Pfft, man, (laughs) this is dumb. Like, this is, this is really bad."

    2. JR

      How many people got left behind?

    3. TK

      40,000 on our list, I think.

    4. JR

      (exhales) Do we have any idea what happened to them?

    5. TK

      Um, um, we left back Americans, like... Th- they, they are in the control of the Taliban if they're alive. So, we're, we're still actively working. Like, we, we have been... So, we have now moved 17,000 people total out of Afghanistan, so we've moved another 5,000 people since Afghanistan became fully under control of the Taliban. And, um, we-

    6. JR

      H- how do you get 'em out while it's in control of the Taliban?

    7. TK

      We're very sneaky.

    8. JR

      So, it's 5,000 people covertly?

    9. TK

      Yeah. And we have, um... So we, like, lily pad. We, once you get them out, you take them to a place, you know, Qatar, uh, UAE, um, Pakistan, uh, and you stage them there as you work through the Department of State immigration process. And immigration right now is a pretty tough thing to work through. (laughs) Um, Gordan Ryan, you know, i- is a great example. His amazing and wonderful wife, you know, he's trying to get her processed through legally. My best friend, Nick Palmisciano, who wrote that book with me, his wife, it took her two and a half years, and she did everything perfect, two and a half years with a green card to become an American citizen. You know, so we have 5,000 people that are stuck in this process.

    10. JR

      (exhales)

    11. TK

      A little shout-out to some of the senators that are pushing to extend the SIV, uh, application. So, that's the special immigration visa. It's a special visa f- for people coming from war-torn countries. It was gonna end where we, that SIV visa wouldn't, wouldn't be applicable. And, uh, the, some, you know, Mi- Mike Waltz and, um, Senator Tillis and the guys like that are stepping up, being like, "No, no, no." Like, "We have a bunch of allies still that are stuck. Let's, let's figure out how to, what to do with them first."

    12. JR

      How was that not taken into consideration before we pulled out? I just don't understand how anyone in good conscience could've handled it the way they did. And why did they handle it the way they did? Was there a reason?

    13. TK

      Um, there was a, there was a date that was set on the campaign trail that we would be pulling out after 20 years. And, uh, so on S- you know, September 11th, 2021, we, when I say we, America said that we were gonna be leaving Afghanistan, and, uh, to stay true to those campaign promises and, um... You know, we're... And I'm, I'm not, like, against leaving Afghanistan.... you know, I didn't wanna fight in Afghanistan anymore. I don't think anybody else did. And th- the having been there for 20 years, like whether it was a good war, a futile war, um, that, that's for strategic level people to, to argue about. But the way that we left, that, that was really problematic, obviously. Um, (sighs) I don't know.

    14. JR

      Have we ever done anything like this before?

    15. TK

      Yeah. I mean, it happened in Saigon, uh, at the end of the Vietnam War. You know, we have, uh... I mean, I mean, you go all the way back to Sun Tzu. He tells you how to, to, to retreat. Um, you know, if, uh... You, you can see other instances where we did it poorly, like Dunkirk. Like, had th- the, the Englishmen not stood up and hopped on private-owned boats and crossed the channel, you know, there's a good chance that all of Great Britain would've fallen to the Nazis. You know, that, that was a bad plan.

    16. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    17. TK

      Um, so yeah, it, it's happened multiple times. But, uh, I don't know why we just don't seem to learn from history, and, uh, then we just bury history intentionally. It's bonkers.

    18. JR

      Yeah, it is bonkers. It, it's gotta be a strange feeling to be you, to have experienced so many of the things you've experienced and then to come back here and see all these people that are just blissfully ignorant-

    19. TK

      (sighs)

    20. JR

      ... of what's going on in the world while they're stuffing their face with Krispy Kreme donuts.

    21. TK

      (laughs) Yeah. It's kind of, uh, insulting a little bit. You know, Memorial Day just happened, and, uh, and I, I think about all of, all of the amazing men and women that have fought so bravely for this country, and I'm like, "Ah, so what are we doing to make sure their sacrifice was worth it?" Right? Are, are we really moving forward the ideals that it is to be an American? And I think being an American is a beautiful thing, and the ideals that this country were founded on are beautiful, powerful things. And, uh... But then it, uh, it's not appreciated and totally taken for, taken for granted.

    22. JR

      Yeah, completely. And I don't think there's any way to really educate people on what's happening. Uh, uh, unless you physically expose them to it or unless they make a concerted effort to educate themselves. I don't... So many people just, they don't... Now, like, we pulled out of Afghanistan. There was some noise in the media for, like, a few weeks.

    23. TK

      It was like 45 days.

    24. JR

      Yeah, and then (snaps fingers) gone.

    25. TK

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      And then it, it drifted off, and I w- I was well aware that there were still people left behind there. And I'm like, "Well, what happens to those people?" And it's just the discussion just ended. And then, you know, they're mad at somebody for doing something on TV-

    27. TK

      (laughs)

    28. JR

      ... or somebody did something here or some-

    29. TK

      Jo- Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are getting a divorce.

    30. JR

      Yeah, something. There's something. There's always some distraction. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock-

  11. 1:04:17 – 1:19:12

    COVID-era politics and mental health: suicide spikes, red-flag concerns, and online manipulation

    1. JR

      And this is, I think, one of the things that happened during COVID, is that people were sort of alarmed by the way some of the governments handled things. Particularly the way Canada handled things-

    2. TK

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... the way some of the states handled things, and it made people lean towards whatever side was going to impose less restrictions on them and respect freedom more. Florida grew.

    4. TK

      Florida. Texas.

    5. JR

      Texas grew. Yeah, Arizona grew. Places, uh, Nevada grew. P- people got the fuck out of California because they're like, "I don't like where this is going."

    6. TK

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      "And I need to g- I need to be some place where I feel like I'm not gonna be restricted in my actions by a government that really doesn't have a good idea on how to protect me anyway. And they, they wanna infantilize me in some sort of a way."

    8. TK

      Yeah. W- I, I just released this documentary called No Help Is Coming, and, uh, you know, it addresses that specifically. You know, their, um ... Like, it's all up to you. You know, as, as Trudeau and, and Gavin Newsom just landed in California and had a thing last week, and there's, like, pictures of them together. And you're looking at, like, the draconian level legislation that is happening in Canada and, and Cana- and California similarly, and then the number of people that are just running for their lives-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. TK

      ... t- to get away from those type of thi- And you look at Australia and you're like, "That is Australia? They had concentration camps in Australia?" (laughs) You know? Like, "Is this real? Is this 2022? I guess it is." And-

    11. JR

      Well, they were quarantine camps.

    12. TK

      Quarantine camps. And-

    13. JR

      They concentrated people there.

    14. TK

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      But they weren't concentration camps-

    16. TK

      But they were just-

    17. JR

      ... they were quarantine camps.

    18. TK

      Quarantine camps.

    19. JR

      And even, even if you've had COVID and gotten over it, and even if you only have it mildly, you have to be in a camp.

    20. TK

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      Even though it's a respiratory disease and there's no history ever of being able to control a respiratory disease. Anything that spreads the way COVID spread, particularly that one, which is one of the most contagious diseases we've ever experienced.

    22. TK

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Especially Omicron. So fucking contagious. Like, c- good ... You're not con- you're not containing that.

    24. TK

      No. I just really like freedom.

    25. JR

      I think it's super important. And, uh, I've always thought it was important, but I realize how important it is once I moved to Texas because it's not just that Texas gave you more freedom. It changed the way people behaved during the pandemic. As opposed to California, where people are still afraid. They're still terrified. I mean-

    26. TK

      People are traumatized.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. TK

      They're, they're, they're not healthy.

    29. JR

      No.

    30. TK

      Uh-

Episode duration: 2:42:04

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