“Osama Bin Laden Is Dead” - Robert J. O’Neill TELLS ALL: SEAL Team Six | PBD Podcast | Ep. 646

Patrick Bet-David sits down with former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill, the man who shot Osama Bin Laden, to tell all about the historic SEAL Team Six mission, the aftermath, and what really happened the night Bin Laden was killed. ------ Ⓜ️ CONNECT WITH ROBERT J. O'NEILL ON MINNECT: https://bit.ly/4nvGs4W 🍋 ZEST IT FORWARD: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7 📰 VTNEWS. AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:56Speaker 02

  Osama bin Laden's dead.

• 0:57Speaker 03

  So that one you know for a fact because you looked at his face?

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I looked at him and then killed him. I looked at his dead face. And then when the picture that was taken that wasn't released, those are my gloves holding his head together.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Was there an initial shock like, oh shit, we actually found him? Was there like boom, boom, boom, boom?

• 1:09Speaker 02

  No, he went this way. I turned here. Here's bin Laden standing. I see him, I blast him. Shoot him again because with a suicide bomber, especially as a sniper, you aim for the mouth, aim for the forehead. You gotta cut him down. And that's just what I did with him. And then moved the wife out of the way. And I looked down and his two-year-old son Hussein was there. And I'm a father. My first thought was this poor kid has nothing to do with this.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Who is the current Osama bin Laden?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Well, I think the current Osama bin Laden is actually Hamza bin Laden.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Well, you hear about the fact that he was killed in 2019, right?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  We said we killed him. I don't think he's dead. I think he's running camps in Afghanistan now. It's just sort of one of the things we don't really want to talk about because of the withdrawal and how bad it was in 2021.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Then why would the president announce that he was taken out in 2019?

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Well, that I don't understand either.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Do we know where he's at?

• 1:52Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Do you think Mossad knows where he's at? Because Mossad seems to know where everybody's at.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Mossad surprises me because I think they know everything. They've proven it with the thing with the pagers. It's in their interest to know it. And then you gotta figure, is it in their interest to tell us where they are? At first, you have to admit he's still alive.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  You're saying he's not dead. You still think he's alive?

• 2:10Speaker 02

  As far as I know, he's alive. It just kind of sucks that 25 years later, we're right back where we started.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signs, right here.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  You are a one of one?

• 2:44Speaker 04

  My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Wrong missy.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  The wrong missy.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  That's a good one. David Spade's in that. It's a...

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Wrong missy.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  The wrong missy.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Comedy?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yes. Ridiculous comedy. And he met a really annoying missy, and then he met a really hot missy, and then they were texting, but he was the wrong one. He took her on a retreat to Hawaii for his company, but it was the wrong one.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Have you seen this, Rob?

• 3:09Speaker 05

  I have.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Is it good?

• 3:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's pretty funny. She's really good, the actress.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Oh, she's incredible.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Can you text it to me?

• 3:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, because last night, the kids are like, can we watch, what is the hangover version for the girls? Jennifer said...

• 3:20Speaker 05

  Bridesmaids?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Bridesmaids.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Oh, that's excellent.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  We open up the movie in the first 10 seconds. I'm like, babe, what kind of a movie are you recommending?

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  It's the opening. Do you know the opening scene?

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it starts out pretty dirty.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  You've got kids sitting here watching. I forgot it starts like this. Anyways, good shout out to the wife for recommending Bridesmaids. Anyways, it's great to have you here, man.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I appreciate having you.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Thank you for your service.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  An honor.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  And at the highest level. And, you know, for the folks who know you, they know who you are. For those who don't, you are famous for taking out Osama bin Laden with your team, you know, SEAL Team Six. So, let's start off with a basic question. Who is the current Osama bin Laden? Today's?

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Well, I think the current Osama bin Laden is actually Hamza bin Laden. We said we killed him in, you know, obviously before the bin Laden raid.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  I don't think he's dead. I think he's running camps in Afghanistan now. I think there's 27 camps that he's running in cahoots with pretty much everybody. I mean, even over there, when they say, well, it's ISIS, it's pretty much the same dudes. They're just saying they're ISIS now, waving the new flag. But because of the withdrawal and how bad it was in 2021, they've got a lot of camps there. And I think Hamza's alive. I think he's running it. I think he's in cahoots with the Haqqani network. And it's just sort of one of the things we don't really want to talk about because, you know, Afghanistan is one of those things that we, I think we had it won after Operation Anaconda, pretty much after Tora Bora, where they all ran to Pakistan. And we were really good at keeping people there and watching the border.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  So eventually, you know, we'd run sources in and out, try to find out where Bin Laden is, because they're all in Pakistan. And the whole thing with you're either with us or you're with the terrorists was wrong because Afghanistan was fine. When I was there in 2005, living in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in a safe house, which would be unheard of now, we had a small airfield that the Russians built, and there was even some Hind helicopters still that had been shot down with American-made Stingers. You could drive a motorbike out in town and eat the local food. You could buy rugs from local vendors, and it was okay, but there was no such thing as IEDs, no suicide bombers, until we decided to surge, the first surge, which was under George Bush. And we were even saying to them, why would you surge now? And that's just the broad brush stroke of how to win anything.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  And we were even, as operators on the ground, explaining to them, this is going to be bad because right now, we can go out in town and we get along with the locals and with our safe house. We're hiring local plumbers, electricians, local security. There's safety and security here, but if you move us out of here and build a big base, bring in thousands of troops, the only ones going outside are scared 20-year-olds driving MRAPs, running over people. You only let in five vendors instead of the rest of them, they're going to get rich by raising their prices by 800%. They're not. What do you think's going to happen? And they didn't buy it. And their answer was, well, no, there's no suicide bombers here, there's no IEDs. And what happened, happened. So I don't think a lot of senior leaders, they're more political than want to know what's actually going on.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  So I think right now, because of what we did and how we're, we're probably still funding the Taliban, and we're funding their camps. So I think it's Hamza, but short answer is Hamza bin Laden.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Hamza bin Laden. And do we know where he's at?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  I don't. And I think it's been tough because we don't have very good human intelligence there. We have Signal, sort of, everywhere, but it's hard to get there.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Do you think Mossad knows where he's at? Because Mossad seems to know where everybody's at.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Mossad surprises me because I think they know everything. Uh, you know, they've proven it with putting IEDs in places in Iran where they're meeting, uh, the thing with the, with the pagers. So, yes, I think they do.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Um, it's in their interest to know it. And then you gotta figure what their interest is. Is it in their interest to tell us where they are? And then we have our agencies that probab- I don't, I don't know. Uh, we might, and if we do, I must, at first you have to admit he's still alive. And that we, did we put out counterintelligence, bad intelligence, or is he dead? As far as I know, he's alive. And there, there are people that I still talk to that are sources, but, you know, we're all getting old, so no boots on the ground right now.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  But you hear about the fact that he was killed in 2019, right? So on September 14th, 2019, President Trump announced that he was killed in US counterterrorism operation on Afghanistan, uh, Pakistan border. You're saying he's not dead. You still think he's alive?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Right. And so I might, I might have misspoken. One of the brothers was killed before the raid. We killed one of the brothers on the raid. And then, yeah, 2019, they said Hamza was dead. I was out then, but my sources have said he's still alive. But it's one of the things they don't want to admit. And it's different than right and wrong. It's political at this point because there would be people that say, well, Trump said it, so it's gotta be wrong. Or people that say that Trump said it, so it's gotta be right. Uh, I, I personally, it makes sense that he's alive. It makes sense to have camps. And it, it just kinda sucks that 25 years later, we're right back where we started.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  What is that right? In September 2024, National Mobilization Front, a resisting group fighting against the Afghan Taliban, claimed that Bin Laden was still alive. Bin Laden or Hamza?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Hamza.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Hamza Bin Laden still alive?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Osama Bin Laden's dead.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Okay. So that one, you know for a fact because you looked at his face?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I looked at him and then killed him. I looked at his dead face. And then when the picture that was taken, that wasn't released, those are my gloves holding his head together. So he's, he's gone. But there's, uh, Sarah Adams, I think is her name, is a follow that she knows a lot about it. She's a former agency.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  She's phenomenal. She, she does-

• 8:23Speaker 02

  I don't know if you've had her on here.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  I haven't had her on.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  If you want, she's the one that like, I can pretend I know what I'm talking about because I've listened to her. But, uh, she's the one that would know. And I think she thinks Osama, uh, Hamza's alive still.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  So she also thinks Hamza's alive?

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  And she's, she, has she said that publicly?

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  She, I mean, she screams it from the rooftops publicly.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  So if we know where he's alive, then, then why would the president announce that he was taken out in 2019?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Well, that I don't understand either. Um, it's almost like with the, uh, body double thing. Or we, Seymour Hearst said that we were mutilating Bin Laden's body and we threw him over the Hindu cushion. Then he was never, you know, I, I don't, and President Trump retweeted that. And he said he just retweeted it. To say it's out there yet sitting in that office, a retweet's a lot more, uh, has a lot more leverage than not. So I, for that too, I don't know why, but I think he's alive.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you're talking about, you're talking about, you're, you're, uh, isolate each one of them. Are you talking about a tweet many years ago when President said that Osama bin Laden was ever killed? So that's what you're talking about?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  No, there was something about a Seymour Hearst article that said he, he was dead, but he was mutilated. I'd have to look up the.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  He retweeted, the president retweeted something.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Something, yeah, and I'd have to look that up.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Can you pull that up, Rob?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  I'm looking right now.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  He retweeted something that at the time, they said, you know, President Trump retweeted a QAnon claim that, uh,

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, something like that.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Osama bin Laden, I think it's 2000 and, what year would this be, Rob?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  That would have been.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  12? 12, no, not 12, what year would it be? I want to say October of 12, maybe I'm wrong, so if you can kind of pull up when it.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  No, I think he was president when he tweeted something out, because I was at a pool in Phoenix. And I asked, because they, oh, and it was something along the lines of this, with the SEAL Team Six operators being killed on Extortion 17. Which happened, but it wasn't the bin Laden team, if that makes any sense?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  And I'm kind of mixing this up a little bit too, I'm just, I'm thinking back to it.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  So, so let's, let's, let's isolate it.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Let's, let's kind of focus on each one of us. On one end, you're saying Hamza, the son, is still alive?

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  And President Trump said he died in, you know, in 2019, he says, no, he's still alive. Yours, he died, you're saying he's still alive, okay. Osama bin Laden, that, that whole conversation with that one was a different story because, you know, himself, President Trump, and some others are like, why would he be dead? I had DJ Shipley and Cole Factor, which Cole Factor, I think he said he was there with you on the mission, or uh, one of the 90 guys that was working on the mission?

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Yes, he would have been one of the guy, the guys that don't get credit for being heroes that came in, because SEAL Team Six and the Army rescued SEAL Team Six. And people, people are always caught up around who shot bin Laden, it's like, well, think about the pilots and the air crew that came in. And we went in on stealth helicopters, lost one, imagine the guys coming in on a Chinook that's not stealth. And so Cole would have been one of those guys.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was SEAL Team 10 if I'm not mistaken.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Oh, at the time, well, I think he was six too.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Was he six?

• 11:17Speaker 02

  I'd have to, I'd have to call him.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  You, you, you, you could be right.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Because DJ was at my squadron, he was actually in my team, I was his team.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Shipley?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  So Shipley was, I was his team leader, he was not on the mission, should have been, he was one of the best ever. Um, and then Cole also, I, if. There was a lot of moving parts. We initially started with 23 guys and the two air crews. And just because the, well, President Obama wanted to beef it up, he gave us what's called the guerrilla package. So we had more SEALs on more birds and then we had more Rangers as well, further back to the border and then into a place called FOB Salerno. So Cole probably was there. I can't, I wasn't with him, I don't know.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Okay. So, so, okay, so Cole, it could have been SEAL Team Six, I think he was a SEAL Team Ten, but you know, so he's CIA, we're sitting there talking and I asked him a question. This is my challenge with it. And you're the main guy that can push back on this, so please do so.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  So for me, I sit there and here's how I think about it. We hear about the kidney failure Osama was having back in 02, right? When they're saying these types of kidney failures, you're lucky if you live six to 12 months, best case scenario, five years, the guy lives nine more years. Okay. So there's one camp that says the guy was already dead. Then you have the second camp that says, well, you know, where he was stationed at in Pakistan was .8 miles away from the west point of Pakistan, which they call a KAKUL, or what a K-A-K-U-L, phenomenal name, it's like a military training camp base that they have there. And so that's .8 miles. So Pakistan always knew where he was and that was their

• 12:52Speaker 03

  way of keeping him control and that was intentional. If anybody wanted to take him out, they had him under control and that's the Pakistan. Okay. Third one is when you sit there and think about it and say, all right, we took him out and then we decide to dump him in the middle of the ocean. If we decide to dump him in the middle of the ocean, the history of America, that's never happened. The only place that's ever happened to is in the movie Optimus, where Megatron is dropped, dropped in the middle of the ocean. And I think that movie was like right around the time where that movie, where the whole scene happens. Then while you're talking about all this stuff, which is really the craziest thing, is

• 13:29Speaker 03

  After Osama bin Laden dies, you know, when that event takes place, within eighteen months, Zero Dark Thirty comes out.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Eighteen and a half months, Zero Dark Thirty comes out. So I go in there and I look into Zero Dark Thirty of all the movies that they've done, the producers. It's Anna Purna Production Company. And out of all the movies, they've done Hurt Locker. They've done Fox Catcher, The Wrestler's Story. They've done Her. They've done so many big movies, they can go, American Hustle, There's a Joy. They've done so many great movies. You know, they've also done The Sausage Party, which I don't know if you know what that is. If you do, you have a certain sense of humor.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  I think that's the only one of those I've seen.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Vice is also one. You may have seen Vice as well with Dick Cheney. Do you know, out of all the movies they've ever done, out of all the movies they've ever done, I researched to see what was the fastest movie they ever made. The fastest movie they ever made in eighteen months was Zero Dark Thirty. So Osama bin Laden dies, May of, oh, one, if I'm not mistaken, May, May of 2011. May of 2011, May 2nd, 2011, if I'm not mistaken. Then a movie comes out, December of next year, 2012. So you're talking nineteen months-ish, year and a half. They've never made a movie faster than that. So I sit there and I say, what, what did they know? What, and then there's just too many things for a regular guy like me to question and say, did we really kill this guy? If we did, why would we dump his body in the middle of the ocean?

• 14:55Speaker 03

  I don't know. So what do you say to that?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  I disagreed with that off the bat because they did tell us even before we went on the mission, that was the plan. And again, going back to leaders not really understanding how stuff works. They said they don't want a shrine for Osama bin Laden for people to go worship, not understanding that hardcore Sunni Muslims are not going to go worship a shrine because that's a, you worship Allah. That's it. This way, don't draw pictures of Muhammad.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  And I've read that as well. So I agree with you.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  So I disagree. Uh, we, I didn't dump him and I didn't see him get dumped in. I get asked now, people will say, how do we know his body's not at the agency in a vat of Betadine? I don't know that. When we got, we brought his body to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, we showed Admiral McRaven, who was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command, and the CIA team, especially the woman that Zero Dark Thirty was about, showed them the body there. We had a quick debrief around the body discussing exactly what happened. Then we brought his body up to Boghrum Airfield where the three-letter agencies did their stuff, and then we handed him over to the army. And they were Green Berets, maybe Delta. They took his body. That's the last I saw him. I've been told like everyone else, they dumped his body in the ocean, wasn't there. So, I can't confirm it, but that's, that's what happened there.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Um, with, uh, what, let's see, oh, with, as far as the, uh, the kidney, uh, dialysis stuff,

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Oh, two, oh, two was when the CIA started reporting, he's got kidney issues, he's got maybe five to 10 months. That's counterintelligence. Right. Because sources get paid and they're smart

• 16:18Speaker 02

  enough to know, to tell people enough just to get paid. And I don't want to give too much up because this is my source of income. I come in, I tell them stuff, I get paid, tell them more stuff. If someone comes in and says, yeah, this is definitely Bin Laden, I saw, I saw the dialysis, the target would know, no, you didn't, because he didn't have one. So, he was, his kidneys were fine.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Okay, so the kidneys are fine, and this is report that came from who? What's this one? The Guardian. Guardian, the president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf said yesterday, he thinks Osama Bin Laden had probably died from an untreated kidney disease. I think now frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a patient, kidney patient. General continued to tell CNN, contradicting US intelligence officials that say they do not know if Bin Laden has suffered from kidney problems. He said he knew the Al Qaeda leader had taken two dialysis machines into Afghanistan, one was specifically for his own personal use. I don't know if he has been getting all the treatment in Afghanistan. So, you're saying this isn't true?

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm saying it's counterintelligence. And then again, as we've seen, especially recently, a lot of media outlets are, are just, uh, an extension of intel agencies. So, and again, I, I like to just speak from what I've seen. Um, like, I wasn't on the moon, so I can't say they landed there. I was in Bin Laden's bedroom, there was no dialysis, and he seemed fine, he was walking. when I met him and there you know there was nothing in there to indicate that at all then you start getting into Pakistan they have every reason to because that's the center of the universe in that part of the universe they have every reason to not necessarily piss off al-qaeda too much so being close to the academy yeah I mean the ISI knew he was there parts of it did parts of the intel not all of the military I doubt it but even when we were presented with it we were there was a couple of options to get bin Laden and we

• 17:58Speaker 02

  had the the team they picked in a room when they were naming the options and one of them was a multilateral mission with the pakistanis and we're like yeah try that and he'll be gone before we even get in the helicopters but so Pakistan knows he's there and and again too when people ask about the the response we're that close to their west point you got to figure up in New York if we were invaded near west point it wouldn't be the cadets showing up it would be the local police so the cadets aren't showing up it doesn't I mean yeah they know he's there but there's not going to be an assault force I might be I had a bigger concern going into Abbottabad Pakistan was wasn't dealing with the Pakistan army I didn't want to kill a Pakistani policeman because we're in his country not at war he doesn't know why we're there he's doing his job and I want to I want to be very sensitive

• 18:40Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna go blast some policeman in Pakistan so so many different moving parts a lot of them I have theories on some of them I've seen which is what I believe but the rest is sort of just hearsay

• 18:51Speaker 03

  got it so the Pakistan now was Pakistan working with you guys as a team did they want him to be taken out or no

• 18:59Speaker 02

  I don't know I know one of their colonels was living across like the like couple hundred meters away and I I mean they could have told us I don't even know how the intel worked but he was definitely there and to the point I think the Pakistani intel service was working with him so tight that's why even like Khalid bin Laden was confused on the stairs they heard something in the front yard they're not quite sure who's here is it the Pakistan military coming in to move us maybe maybe not are our tactics that good that we're so quiet that's also true because we were that good but I mean Khalid bin Laden got killed on the stairs because the guy in front of me confused him just whispered to him you know so they're not necessarily like in the guest house guys got shot at then there are other shots but like even going up the stairs Khalid was armed but he wasn't

• 19:42Speaker 02

  shooting down the stairs like a lot of guys have places where I've been in urban combat fighting up in a house is very dangerous and he was kind of waiting not shooting and there was confusion so What they knew, what the Pakistanis knew, and then, I mean, just the way that Pakistan was pissed off and embarrassed, kind of tells you they knew what was happening. And if, I mean, who knows, maybe the Taliban would have given us Bin Laden, even though they said they wouldn't, and Pakistan might have. But there's a lot of stuff going on. I mean, everything from saving face to the military industrial complex, you know, whose, whose pockets aren't getting lined if we kill him in Tora Bora in 2002? As opposed to fighting a 20-year war, you know, there's a lot there that, you know, I'm going to point out, since after COVID and the lockdown, it's like,

• 20:25Speaker 02

  you know, get, get multiple sources before I believe anything.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Okay, so, so you're there, you're walking in, you've said this before, you've said he looked like a coward when he took him out.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Right? I think you said he was a coward, he acted like a coward. It reminds me of the speech President Trump gave after, who was it? Al-Baghdadi.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  He died like a dog.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Died like a dog.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Like a nice little dog, but he was crying, he was doing this, he died like a coward, you know? And he kept going and going and going, right? With this whole, the video that many of us have seen hundreds of times, it's almost comical when they do it, right?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, when they do it side by side.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, when they do, and they say, this is how Obama announced the person died, and this is how Trump, Trump in 48 minutes, Obama went like eight minutes or whatever it was, and he moves on, right? For you, when you're there, I've heard the stories many different times, I've watched, you know, the podcasts that you've done. How much training did you guys do going up into this? Where the preparation of going in was role-played so many times, or because you don't know if the guy's moving that many times, it's a lot of audibles? You have to call last minute.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  It's, it's more audibles reading off of each other. Like, when I get asked, how did you guys clear a compound that big? Because we mastered the basics. If you get really good at the easy stuff, you're going to be fine. There's no need to talk yourself into an ass-kicking. So, when I get asked that question, how'd you do it? I'm like, well, the guy in front of me went left, I went right, and we just did that over and over. So, we were, just because of the combat, when we first started going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we just changed our tactics because... Basically before nine eleven, there was fighting, you know, Grenada and Panama and then a little bit in Desert Storm, but we were using Vietnam tactics. Once we started getting shot at by real people in mountains and deserts, you gotta change everything up. But when we were told, this team who'd been probably 400 combat missions each, but we'd all been working together at least for 10 years each, when they said, when the commanding

• 22:15Speaker 02

  officer of SEAL Team Six had us in a room and finally said, uh, the reason you guys are here, this is, is because this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden. The common answer was cool, are we, can we go right now? We, cause we didn't need to train for it. Like, we're, we're ready to go. We know what we're doing. It's, uh, the, obviously the pilots are gonna need to know the routes, or they're gonna design the routes, they need to know where we're going, what the mountains are. But yeah, we were completely ready for it and it wasn't, we, we trained on the outside. They, they had constructed a compound that looked like the outside so we could get used to seeing what the exterior looked like. But the second anyone tried to say, well, here's what the inside, don't tell me what you think it looks like, cause it won't. Don't tell me how many men, women and children are there, tell me how many people you've seen and I will figure it out when I get there.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  It's like, if you keep telling me, when we go in the front of his house, there's immediately gonna be a left-hand turn, that's probably not the case, it'll be a right-hand turn. I don't want to, don't, I don't wanna get into situations.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  You're saying this right here?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So we, we wanted to know that and that worked out well because we were supposed to drop part of my team off outside on the north end and then we were going to the rooftop, but because of the complications with the weather, with the updraft, our pilot just put us off with the snipers again and we knew from training, off to our left is a double door, we'll just go through there and start the war from here. Uh, but don't, I, I, if, I don't want, uh, um, you to tell, don't assume anything. My tactics are good, my team is great and we'll figure it out when we get there. Uh, but we, you know, we trained a lot and that, that was more of, uh, to show the powers that be, this is what we offer. Cause there were, uh, different kinds of bombing campaigns, there was a thing called a hammer throw, where we've seen a pacer, we can throw one bomb at him and hit him, but you know, that's never gonna work because bombs and grenades aren't like Hollywood

• 23:51Speaker 02

  where one blows up and the whole house comes down and 50 people fly into the ditch. It's like, you're gonna miss, he's gonna run. Uh, so just sent, and even President Obama was so cool, he said, uh, I was never a hundred percent convinced bin Laden was there, but after seeing you, I knew you could show up, find out and come back.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  He told you that?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  He didn't tell me personally, he told us, uh, in, um, in a, in a room before Campbell, Kentucky after the raid. And that was just cool, um, that, that he had that faith, just go find out and come back safely.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  How many people were in that Fort Campbell meeting?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Uh, well, they had the 23 shooters.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  The air crews, most of the cabinet, Hillary Clinton did not show up.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  This is post?

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is after the raid, like a week later.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  A week later, you're all in Fort Campbell, Kentucky?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was kinda awkward, because a lot of these dudes, to this day, will never talk, they'll never hear from them, they wanna live on a farm and whatever. And then, you know, even that night, we're there, and it says SEAL Team Six kills Osama bin Laden. A lot of guys are uncomfortable, and then all of a sudden, we're doing these dog and pony shows, going everywhere to meet politicians and admirals and generals. And we had an award ceremony in Florida, in front of a bunch of people, and guys are kinda like, this isn't good. Yeah, so it was, and then we met President Obama at Fort Campbell, after a unit from the army just got back, probably the 101st up in Campbell. And he, you know, he met with them, talked to them, and secretly, he could come to a room where we were, and that's when he told us that. Which is kinda, I mean, he made some good calls that were, they weren't political at all.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  And he, it wasn't left or right, because like Secretary Gates is Republican, obviously, more Democrats than Republicans. But they made a decision based on what is the right thing to do, and it was before an election. And even though Zero to Dark Thirty was fast, it was after the election. And if we screwed that up, like President Carter did, Desert One, you're not getting elected. And so it wasn't, this was not a political choice.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, listen, the movie is a little too fast to think about how quickly you produce something. Movies take three years, three to five years to make.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  In eighteen, nineteen months, you have it ready to go, and you got clearance from CIA, from everybody, you some of those, you know, stories, who knows what?

• 25:49Speaker 02

  I never, I never thought of that either, that, I mean, did they have stuff in place, they're ready to already, have they recorded it?

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Well, apparently, they'll say it was rewritten, and they had to change the ending, and they were already working on it, and they bumped it up as their number one priority of a movie to make, who knows? It's just, it's a lot of things that makes you question, but walk me through, you know, when you go in the room and you finally see him, okay? Was there an initial shock, like, oh shit, we actually found him, was there like boom, boom, boom, boom?

• 26:15Speaker 02

  No, it was, it started below the last set of stairs. The woman that found bin Laden was a hundred percent right on every single person in there, even though no one at the agency believed her, which is crazy. But we're at the last set, the guy in front of me-

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Who was the woman with CIA?

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, the one that movie was based on. They called her Maya in the movie.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  In real life, her name is not Maya.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I promised I would never describe her or say what her name is, but she was that cool. Like that good, that, um.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Why was she that good?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  I don't know. Uh, when, the best part of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain nailed it. When she sat down to lunch with the director, Liam Panetta, played by James Gandolfini. And he said, what else do you do for us? And she said, nothing. I do this. That, that was just cool. That, that's kind of describes what she was like. She was there.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Did you ever meet her?

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. She was, she was, uh, the first person that we met when they told us it was Bin Laden.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  What was her personality like?

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Uh, serious. Um, I didn't want you guys anywhere. I wanted to bomb this. I know he's there a hundred percent. We, we'd get done training on that site for 12 hours, then we'd go back to our rooms and we'd all stand around a two-scale model that someone had built of Bin Laden's house. We would talk about the perfect plan. We'd discuss contingencies and every night she would say something similar to, okay, guys, uh, right now Osama Bin Laden is on the third floor of this house. Don't understand why we're not going? Have a good night. See you tomorrow.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  She knew it. And it was the whole, uh.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Who told her? What gave her that kind of confidence? Her team? Or was it, was she a one-man show? Was she like a?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  No, it was a team. There was, there was, it was actually a team mostly of women. And, uh, they were working everything from Pakistan, from Afghanistan, from, from the States. Uh, I, I ran a, um, I was running the outstations in Afghanistan. So we had all these stations on the border to run sources. In early of 2011, my 12th deployment, at an agency base, I think the targeting team for Bin Laden was there and I didn't even know they were there. To, we were at a point there, like I would do battlefield interrogations on Al Qaeda guys on target. And in between, like, uh, who were the men in the house? What are their names? What are they doing? Blah, blah, blah. I would just sneak in. Where's Osama Bin Laden? And we would both laugh at each other, both of them, me and a terrorist. Because it's like, no one knows. He's gone. And the agency, women are right there and they know it. They're just not saying anything. Like, it was almost to the point where

• 28:21Speaker 02

  the problem with a lot of these, like SEAL Team Six and, and, and the agency, is that they make too many movies about us making us look cool. We're not that cool. Well, this team was that cool. The, the, the, the agency team, they were that cool. So when we met her, she just, she, every night she would say stuff like that. She wanted to kill him. I, I like, cause if we hit him with the air force's plan, like 22 JDAMs, Joint Direct Action Munitions, 2,000 pound bombs, no one's ever gonna find out. She was like, we don't need the DNA. I'm telling you who's there. We can kill him. And, um, so she, like, she got to the point where the very first day after she was introduced, she had a. PowerPoint brief explaining to us how she and the team found him and it got to the point where like, "Look, we just believe you. I don't need to hear this anymore. He's there." And so we were,

• 29:05Speaker 02

  we were, I was 100% sure. So at the end, going up the last set of stairs with one guy in front of me, it wasn't a bravery thing on my part. It's because the point, the guy in front of me had taken a shot before I got there. And I got there as a two man.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  How many seconds before you heard a shot, you got up there?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Um, oh, seconds. Cause I, when we went up the.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Pow, boom, boom, boom, you go up.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Well, no, he, he, he took the shots before.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  I know what I'm saying is he takes the shot, you're automatically, why is he shooting? Let me go to where he's at.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Uh, the guys behind him, I was about eight back, seven back. They started clearing the second floor. He's, his job is the number one man is pointing up. So he shot before I got to him.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Why did he shoot? What did he shoot at?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  He saw some faces behind a curtain at the top of the stairs. He saw something.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  And you were instructed, if you see it, take the shot.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, if you see Bin Laden, we're gonna shoot. Uh, unless he came out of the shower, hands up like naked. We're gonna kill him. He's a suicide bomber. He's gotta be. So he, I got to him and my job is to, I want more because he, Bin Laden's up there and I want two more dudes. I want four dudes. I'll take two. And I'm ready to squeeze. And he just started saying to me, didn't know it was me, knows it's one of his guys, like, we gotta get up there. Not talking so much, but this movement is because tho- those are the suicide bombers. We got, we can beat them. We gotta go now. And I, for me, it wasn't bravery. It was like, I want to get this over with. I'm fucking tired of thinking about this. And I squeezed him and we went through the stairs and, and he, he ended up tackling two people that he thought were suicide bombers, which to me is amazing.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  Do you see, you're the guy.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  The guy in front of me. So he, uh, he jumped on, I mean, this is Medal of Honor shit right here. He, he, the, cause I know we're gonna blow up in the room. He jumps on people he assumes were putting on vests.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  And because again, left, right, he went this way. I turn here. Here's Bin Laden standing there. And he's holding, he's holding his wife up. She was wounded. And, uh, I, I saw him and I was like, uh, He's taller than I thought. He's skinned. His beard's white. That's his nose. He's not surrendering. And, and all you need to do for, uh, to set off a suicide vest that you're wearing is have the leads right here and just touch them. So you can do the whole, yeah, I surrender. Boom. And it's fast. I've seen suicide bombers. And they're very fast, very permanent and scary and loud. And I'm not dealing with that. Like when I went up there, I was like, let's get it over with. I see him, I blast him. Shoot him again because, again, not like the movies, shooting someone in the chest, they have a will to live and they'll, they might survive. With a suicide bomber, especially as a sniper, you aim for the mouth, aim for the forehead, you gotta cut him down.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  And that's just what I did with him and then moved the, the wife out of the way and Bin Laden's at the, at the, uh, at the bottom of the bed too. And, and even with, you know, I'm kind of going off, uh, off, uh, the story here. I love to talk about the humanity of people everywhere. Uh, most people in a combat zone are not combatants.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  At this moment, after I shot Bin Laden and moved his wife, I looked down and his two-year-old son Hussein was there. And I'm a father and I'm, I remember my first thought in Bin Laden's house was this poor kid has nothing to do with this. You know, it's like, almost like, what is going on here? Then I move them and I, I turn around. I'm going to go back and get the pictures, but I sort of hesitate just for a second because we're going to die, but shit. And one of my guys, the other SEALs, I was the only guy in his room for a, a couple of seconds. Other guys were coming in and one of my guys stopped me and he goes, hey, you good? And I said, uh, what do we do now? And he said, now we find the computers. We do this every night, man. Hundreds of times. I said, you're right. Holy shit. And he goes, yeah, you just killed Osama Bin Laden. Your life just changed. Get to work.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Is he the commander?

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Uh, no.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Were you reporting to him or?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Uh, no, no, no. He was another dude coming in the room. That, so I'm assuming most guys got into the room eventually. So, um, this was one of the guys from my team. Uh, uh, obviously I'm not going to say who, but.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  But he's a SEAL Team Six.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. These were all, at this point, these are all SEAL Team Six guys.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Everybody that went in, you guys are all SEAL Team Six?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Okay. That's the 89, 90 or, or how many, how many people total was that?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  In, on the mission, 23.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  23. And then there's another.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Well, we had one guy that wasn't, and I still don't know who he was, but he spoke fluent Urdu without an accent, which I think is just badass. There here's some dude that he can carry a gun. He's really good. He's a shooter. He speaks Urdu. He's an American. It's like, I want to know who this dude is. Cause that's like, here's a guy that it shouldn't be talking about the guys that killed Bin Laden. That was easy. Go shoot a guy. Who's this dude? That's awesome.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  So you kill him, the wife is not dead yet.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  No, she didn't die.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  She didn't die. The son is how old then?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  He was two. Uh, I think Khalid on the stairs was nineteen or twenty.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Khalid on the stairs were nineteen or twenty. The son is two. That son today is sixteen years old. Do you have nightmares of thinking about that kid coming after you?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  I don't have nightmares about him. I, uh, I honest, and again, this is me being an optimist. I hope he has learned, like, this is not the way to go. Uh, I mean, and again, like, I'm not looking for it. And, you know, if they come looking for me, the next guy I kill will be in my own house. I don't want it to come to that. Uh, but I know how to deal with them. And it's just, it is what it is. Uh, I, I mean, cause I'd heard, again, rumors. I'd heard that Bin Laden was even talking to his, his kids about, don't get into this line of work. I've heard Noor Bin Laden, I think who is his cousin, who said something similar to, uh, well, if you line up ten members of any family, there's gonna be an asshole. He was ours. So I, I don't know. I mean, I, I don't want a Bin Laden showing up in New York, but it is what it is.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  What is, what is the kid's name? The, the two-year-old at the time?

• 34:08Speaker 02

  I think it's Hussein.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Hussein Bin Laden?

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I believe so.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  So Hussein Bin Laden, can you pull him up? Hussein Bin Laden? Uh, uh, he, he is, uh, born in two thousand and eight, which makes sense. Wife, so Hussein Bin Laden, can you go on his account, on his profile? If we go to him, what did the FBI say about him? FBI said nothing. It's just Osama Bin Laden. Family background, Osama Bin Laden was famous, he's known as elder brother or something like that. No, that's a different one. That's, that's a different one. They were talking about the one that was there. Okay, and, and, uh, let me ask, at the time when this happened and you took out Bin Laden,

• 34:45Speaker 03

  is he the first ten people you've killed in New York?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Or you've been there many times?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, a lot. He wasn't the last guy I killed with that gun.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  He wasn't the last?

• 34:53Speaker 02

  No, I, I did another deployment because we, we did the Bin Laden raid on May first, May second, two thousand and eleven. And we, you know, we went through an emotional roller coaster with, hey, we did it, then our names are, not our names, but the SEAL Team Six is out. Then, uh, but it's a high because we chopped the head off the snake. And then in August, Extortion One Seven was shot down. We lost, uh, thirty guys, thirty Americans.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  What was that all about? That's a very weird story.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Right, and that's where the, that's where the conspiracies come in. People, because people don't, it was months apart and they say, well, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had SEAL Team Six killed to shut them up, which is ridiculous.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  But, but, but if you don't mind kind of going through this, because it was, it was, it was, uh, the, the single biggest

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  event of the most, you know, people getting killed, not, uh, tier one.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  You know, soldiers getting killed on an operation and it was, uh, the, the shots fired came down from who?

• 35:47Speaker 02

  The bad guys?

• 35:50Speaker 03

  The resulting killed 38 people.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  And a military working dog on board, including 17 US Navy SEAL, two US Air Force, parrot rescue. And you had a couple combat patrol. I mean, this was

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  This was huge.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Well, I, I talked to some of the guys involved. Actually, we backfilled them at, uh, Fort Operating, Operating Base Shank, where they took off from. And, uh, there was a conversation between, I want to say Jonas Kelsall, who was a commanding officer, and Lou Langlis, who was the master chief. Uh, and, because they're going in on a quick reaction force, which is dangerous. And they knew where they were going in the Tangi Valley and they, they normally have two helicopters, but they said something along the lines of, the second one's definitely going to get shot down. The first one might not. So they put everybody on one helicopter. And it had nothing to do with the bin Laden raid. Uh, but people want to, just because it was SEAL Team Six, everyone from bin Laden raid is still alive. And then these, I'm, but we lost the best guys we had on extortion 17. Like, we look at those dudes, that's a, I mean, not quite a thousand years, but hundreds of years of combat experience, you can't get back.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  And, but, so then anyway, uh, I did go back to back with them with a different squadron and we, I finished up in, in Afghanistan, uh, 2012.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Okay, so, when, when it was Osama bin Laden, I think the government put a $25 million bounty on him. We put another $25 million was on Saddam Hussein, if I'm not mistaken. Trump just announced, President Trump just announced $50 million on Maduro. Why would Maduro be the same as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden combined? Is it just inflation or is he that much more dangerous than those two combined?

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Well, I think that, that President Trump's looking at the, the drugs coming in, the fentanyl coming in. We have new opioids coming in now that, uh, doesn't even respond to any treatment. Uh, people dying from that stuff too. So I'm assuming coming through Maduro, uh, that's got to be something to do with it, the cartels. I think that they're considering a lot of the narco-traffic terrorism and they're, I mean, we'll see if it works. We've never really, it's hard to say what we've never done, but putting political and military pressure on that. There's a lot of, you know, you're stirring the pot with a lot of this stuff too. Everything from international law to, you know, we've got ships down there now, probably subs, or, you know, you gotta be careful, where are we gonna put guys? You know, it's been shifty in the past, but I mean, if they consider

• 38:03Speaker 02

  him a terrorist, just like the cartels, they're gonna be able, they're going to be able to do what they did in Iran and hit him with bombs.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  You think it's gonna be harder to catch him, or harder to catch Osama Bin Laden?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Uh, probably Maduro, probably harder to get him.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Really? Tell me why.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and well, if you wanna hit where he's living, hit him with a bomb, that's probably not that hard, but then you're tiptoeing the line of, okay, his election is not necessarily the cleanest one ever, he's still an elected official in a sovereign nation, right? So can you just go bomb him because you don't like him? We've tried it a lot, and it hasn't ended well. What do we do then, after that? Because we've tried to instill our own guys there too. We've done it before, try to put freedom places that they don't want it. It's, is it our job to do that? You know, stop this shit at the border, which I think they're doing. There's a lot going on. Again, I'm not privy to all of it right now. I know the Secretary of Defense, I know a lot of the guys in the Cabinet, but they haven't asked for my opinion.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  If you were handed ten million dollars to go get him, would you be able to know how to get him? Like, you think you can put a team together to get him?

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Uh, ten million dollars? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I have to get, I'd have to find my best Spanish-speaking friends, and then I'd look at the private sector with some of their stealth submarine technology. You need to find a way to get inside of someone, so you need human intelligence inside, and you gotta get him with a coup, which I think would be, I think that's, is that happening in Iran right now? What are they doing with the...

• 39:26Speaker 03

  That's what they did in seventy-nine. They're trying to do it again.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not something as crazy as the Islamic Revolution, but you're gonna need to get him inside. I mean, even with like, one of the biggest mistakes we made in Iraq was, uh, get rid of the Ba'ath Party. His generals and leadership are not, they don't necessarily believe everything Saddam was doing, but we've seen what Saddam... does to people that that even cross him a little bit. It's like a a vote in North Korea like they're having a competition who can clap their hands the fastest. Uh but I think if you get into spy, if we had the bath party and just kept him in power, there wouldn't have been a lot of the looting and stuff. There certainly would have been that bad of a civil uh war between the Sunni and Shia. But again, we just didn't understand it. So what what do you do in Venezuela? How how uh how do you get a coup in Iran? You don't want to insert the Shah's son, I don't think. You know more about it, obviously than I do.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  But I somehow you got to find the will of the people. But we've shown before that the people will rise up to a point and then we just stop supporting him. We did it in uh early nineties with uh with the Shia in in in Iraq. You just we'll come in, we'll get them out of Kuwait, then we'll march to back. Well, we just backed out. Uh look what we did in Afghanistan. What's leave everything there? We're leaving our allies in central Afghanistan. And you get to the point where who's gonna trust us? Like if they're willing to go and they're all in, are we all in? Have we been all in? So it's I don't ten million dollars. I don't know if it'd be enough.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  You don't think ten million?

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Well, depends on how many guys and and now we're talking about the private sector like Blackwater type shit. They're gonna want to get paid.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  So so if it's dead or alive, if it's dead or alive, you're saying ten million, you don't think you could do it?

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Well, based on the budgets that we spend with the military, I don't think ten million is enough.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  What do you think we take?

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Uh, I'd have to break it down. I don't know. Um. Uh.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  What do you need? Like right off the bat, like?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  You need you need sources.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  So you need like a Maya?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  And sources like that on the private PMC side, how much do they run you?

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't. I wouldn't even know there because they're betting their lives on it. I don't even know what it's worth to them. I think twenty five million was a was short on. Uh and then if you get someone like that too, if you're a true believer, uh are you gonna give it all up for a little bit of money? You need to pay him more. You need to make you need to make it like life altering for their family money. Which I mean ten million, it's a good start. But if you talk about the logistics that go into it, well, how are you gonna do it? I mean, ideally internally without dropping bombs, but if you start dropping bombs, how expensive they are? And do you have a ten million for military operation? Absolutely not. We we wouldn't even get the door closed at the Pentagon for ten million dollars. I mean, toilet seats are seven hundred bucks a piece.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  But I'm telling you, if you started a PMC right now, somebody came in and said, "Look, I'm gonna fund the PMC, I'm gonna run it, you tell me a team to put together, can you get the job done with a $10 million contract? We'll go get some private military guys." You're saying you couldn't do it?

• 42:07Speaker 02

  No, 50 million probably.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  50 million?

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  So then the bounty's right on the point?

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what? That's a great point right there, because I'm sure they did a little bit of math and that's what they came up with.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Well, Eric Prince was on the podcast, I don't know when this was, a year, year and a half ago, and we're talking about Venezuela, and by that time, there was no bounty on him. Is that it, Rob, where it's at?

• 42:28Speaker 05

  I'm still looking for it.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  Okay. And he said, for $40 million, he could topple the regime in Venezuela. That's what Eric Prince is, and Eric Prince is...

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got the background too. He would know more than I do. And if I said 40 million, I'm keeping 10 myself, obviously.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  That's exactly the number. So you're saying 40, 50 million bucks to get the job done in Maduro?

• 42:49Speaker 02

  I mean, how much is it gonna cost to find out where he is? And then you've gotta vet your sources. Is it one guy telling me, or do I have five? And what do they want out of it? Where do they live? Do they know each other? And we need to have confidence in where he's at, so we need proof of life a few times. And then how often does he move? He's not gonna be doing the same patterns, he's not gonna be taking this if anywhere. Like, who are his food tasters? Are they family? You know, what, do you poison them? Do you talk them out of it? Do you make him a source? Probably not, I bet they've tried that.

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• 43:49Speaker 01

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• 44:18Speaker 03

  What do you do if you do that? He's gonna have to come up here and hey, what are you gonna let me live?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  How am I gonna live? You're gonna put me somewhere in the city of DC with all the other informants?

• 44:27Speaker 02

  No, I think we'd offer Dubai at that point. Just because it's nice.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Is that a model? Or is that just a, you know, I think we should offer from Dubai? Have we done this in the past with other people in Dubai?

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just seeing what's happening in Europe and what's happening in parts of the Middle East. They're turning the Middle East into what Europe used to be like.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  And it almost seems like, yeah, don't mess around here now. Like, I would feel safe going to Dubai. I wouldn't go to London.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  No, there's no question. But why not London? What do you not feel safe about London?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Uh, just the, it just seems, well, the first thing would be because of my Twitter handle. Maybe I've said something they don't like about anything from open borders, mass migration to men and girls' sports. We just had a dude arrested at Heathrow for his Twitter. He's a comedian, a Twitter handle, arrested, jailed. Like, they had to bring him to the hospital because of stress levels. I wouldn't go there for that. I don't want to get in a knife fight. That would happen in London.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Easy.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  So, but Dubai, like, Dubai's great because they're not gonna tolerate it.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  It's one of the safest places, by the way.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, and it's beautiful.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful, nothing like it. So, okay, so Maduro 50 million. Not only does the number sound like pretty accurate, but for you, you don't even know the motive of going after a guy like that?

• 45:41Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it's the drugs coming in and out, but there's, I think there's probably different ways of dealing with it. You gotta start with the Mexican government and what are, you know, what are they getting out of it? Why aren't they stopping? I mean, look how quick they shut the border down between open borders to now we're shutting it down. Now, I mean, now we're at a point now, I think even with marijuana, like, we're smuggling it into Mexico now because we're growing better stuff in California. So, I guess you gotta, it's one of those, put yourself in someone else's shoes and what's their motive for being here? Is it because of the drugs? Yeah. Um, is it because of violence? Possibly, but the violence come with the drugs. So, I mean, it's everything from the legalization. You make stuff legal so the demand, uh, uh, there's not a reason to kill each other over it. There's a lot involved with this. And, and

• 46:25Speaker 02

  as we've seen with everything from like USAID, where's the money actually going? What are people's motives?

• 46:30Speaker 03

  How much of your confidence of going and taking him out was in your training preparation? And how much of it was in Maya and her team that was able to tell you, no, I know exactly where he's at. He's here right now, third floor. I don't know why you guys are not going right now. How much of it was that? Because when I asked you to go get him, what would you need? The first thing you said is, how am I gonna get my intel?

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, if we had a team, which they probably do, I'd want to talk to them first. Because like I was saying, months before that, I was joking with terrorists about where's Bin Laden, knowing we're never gonna find him. But they knew. So, right now, someone probably does. It's a question of when you pull the trigger and how. Because, I mean, even with us, I mean, we were told a coup- two, three weeks before, they already had five options they let us know about. Maybe there was more. What else, you know, how else are they gonna do it? Um, so, so there's, there's just so mu- there's so much to consider.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Do you automatically see when they put, if you, if you think about the history of us putting bounty on different people? So far, bounty, we've put on two people at that number, they're gone. Do you think the fact that the US government put 50, this guy's days are numbered, he's gonna be done, out in no time?

• 47:38Speaker 02

  I think the bounty is more of a guys that are close to him and realize they can get the bounty, just for, for information leading to his death. That, I think that's the money-

• 47:47Speaker 03

  So insider turns against them to get the 50?

• 47:49Speaker 02

  We've seen it before with, uh, I think with Uday and, and Qusay Hussein. I think it was a relative that realized there was like 20 million or something like that on both. And they're both in the same place.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  The sons, yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's like, wait a minute, I can just tell them where he is and then I can get both paychecks. And that, and then, you know, if they get some sort of agreement and monetary value, maybe so. Uh, because when you start talking about the, the budget to kill someone, use the military, they don't really care. It's, it's, uh, the, the insider-

• 48:14Speaker 03

  But what would that look like? If, if I'm a, if I'm a guy to him, where I'm sick of it myself, Venezuela, do I find a way through Signal to get a hold of somebody and say, hey, I know where he's at, I'm an insider, what can you guarantee for me to be safe?

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  And then does somebody say, take them out, we'll pay it to you and go, how does that communication work?

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Uh, that's a good one too, because as we've seen, Signal can get, I mean, I don't think anything's really secure when you get down to it. Someone's listening to something, especially with AI now the way it is. I think that you have to get your team inside who's willing to take the spot on the throne. And then we have to discuss, how do we get this out and then what do we do as soon as it's over type stuff? Because, because you're making a big announcement of $50 million, people see that. And then the realization, this is closer than I think. So what can the three of us here do?

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  To take him out and even plausible deniability, but not, but then with them, how do I get a source? Is that a double or triple agent? Who am I talking to about this? And then Maduro, I've never met him, but it strikes me as a guy that you don't want to be in a room with him and his henchmen when he finds out you double crossed.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  No.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  So there's a lot of personal risk there too. And again, it comes back to trust. Who, uh, who do you trust, especially in the US government?

• 49:25Speaker 03

  Who does he trust?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  I mean, you know.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Well, he's paying his guys off too.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  I know, but 50 million, once they announce something like that, you paying your guys that kind of money? I don't think so. They just seized $700 million of his assets. By the way, his plane is 500 yards this way.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  No kidding.

• 49:40Speaker 03

  Now, I'm telling you, 500 yards, this airport right behind you, there's a part where it's about, you know, probably quarter of a mile. All the planes that is there is planes that the government has seized from individuals. They seized $700 million of the guy's assets, multiple private jets, one of them is right here.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  No kidding?

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know he had a lot of assets and it's another thing too with how, how, how much does, oh wow.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  $700 million.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Now, does that put a, uh, put a big damper on what he's got going on because, I mean, when we hear, uh, Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, I, I bet Vladimir Putin has more money than he does.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  You're, you're in that mindset? You think he's got more money?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. There are dudes in Saudi Arabia having, uh, you know, 747 competitions who can buy one for their buddies type. Like there's people with a lot more money than Elon Musk. Is he one of them? He's in the drug trade, he's in the right spot, a country that he, he runs. What's his GDP?

• 50:30Speaker 03

  I guess if, but, but even if he got 700 million.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  That's a chunk of change.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  If they're trying to give $50 million, 700 million is not a lot of money to keep all your guys happy. So if the US government really wanted to divide and conquer, the 50 million creates such a distrust in your team.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  What do you do next?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Well, that's it too. It does. It creates distrust. That's why I guess you gotta keep your, keep your circle small.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  But then who, I mean, who are you dealing with, with the United States? Like, you have a source that tells you they're gonna pay this money or get it to, who are they for? I mean, is it, is it a test of loyalty? And again, that's, that's back to the whole thing of, uh, once we get rid of them, don't necessarily get rid of the entire regime because they do know the, uh, chain of command.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  Rob, how many big bounties has the US government ever put on someone's head? Like, think about the big bounties. I'm actually curious. We know about three of them so far.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  I know, I know Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, uh, I don't think they even put one in Iran, uh, Maduro, and then, I'd have to, I'd have to look that up. I don't know.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Rob, are you, are you looking it up?

• 51:33Speaker 02

  I'm telling Rob this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Rob, and, um, Osama Bin Laden. I'm, I'm actually curious because what I'm trying to find out is, you know, who, who has survived it? Who has made it? You know, who has been able to? Osama had 25, Saddam had 25. Imad Murnehi had 15, Ra's al 25. Ude and Hussein, yeah, Qusay, Hussein, 15 million apiece.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Maduro's got the 50 now. What is the, like, you know, when Khomeini would put a, uh, fatwa on different people, he put on Salman Rushdie.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  When he wrote that book, Satanic Verses, nothing happened to him at the beginning. Later on, he was stabbed in the eye at one event.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  On stage, yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Who's that? Fausto, Isidro Mesa Flores, El Chapo Isidro? Rob, can you check how many of these people are alive?

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Because a lot of them we mentioned were eventually taken out by the military.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I'm thinking. What I'm trying to think is, i- i- the ultimate fatwa is when the US government puts it on you.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  If you think about it, right?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  So, what's the likelihood you're gonna make it?

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the, some of the ones we were there, we were at war in the country or a country nearby. Uh, but again, Ude and Qusay, even Saddam in the hidey hole, like, someone, someone knew he was there so they can get paid. So, the monetary aspect works. And I think with Maduro, it's gonna be different because you, you know, Sid, um, not so much Saddam, but Osama Bin Laden surrounded himself with true believers. So, the money doesn't matter to them and they, you know, they want to be martyrs anyway. So, the money means nothing. Um, but, yeah, with him, I mean...

• 53:18Speaker 02

  It's gonna be the guys around it that want to get paid. It's gonna be that simple, but it's a question of how do we do it?

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  I mean, if we, that, that could be the reason that we have so many milita- not so many, but the, the military assets that we have around South America right now are, are enough to launch.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, but if, if you work for Maduro and you know Maduro's got 700 million dollars of assets that was seized, of taking money away from its people, and you yourself are making three grand a month, and you're kind of like, wait a minute. You, you, you, you stole from the people, and you haven't taken care of me and my family, and I'm working like a slave? Wait a minute, why am I gonna do this for you? You stole. It's not like you made this money the right way. I'm willing to take the 50 million. Handful of people round up, boom, they go in. So, who knows? I don't know what's gonna happen here. By the way, going back to Osama bin Laden. The story about when, I don't know who it was that came out and said, hey, I, I, they went to the government, they said, we'd like you to release the 59 pictures you took of Osama bin Laden and the one video.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  And then they came back and what did they say? There's two reasons why we don't want to release them. One of them is the, what it's gonna do to increase the temperature because that pictures, those pictures are gonna be used to create hate and anger against, and there was another reason why they didn't want to release it. Did you agree with them when they didn't want to release the pictures and the, and the video?

• 54:35Speaker 02

  No, I think they should release them just for the, the argument of, of we didn't kill him, or we killed a body double. And now, I mean, even if we showed people, it's gonna be, well, that's AI generated, so it's fake. People that don't believe aren't, they don't want to believe, and then the, I mean, it is true that it's violent. Like, it's not like a video game, and his face was destroyed. Uh, literally holding it together to get a picture. So, we do have the ones taken from his bedroom, and then we have the professional ones taken after at Bagram Airfield. Um, I, and I don't know why they haven't released them. I don't know why they, like, I said, you should hang them from the Brooklyn Bridge, and let the vultures take care of them. That's, that's the solution. Everybody can look, but they don't want to. They didn't want to. They said about the shrine, but then the videos, as far as I know, I mean, I didn't carry a camera. I don't know anyone, anyone that did. We, we're not big into carrying, uh, video cameras, the same reas- you know,

• 55:21Speaker 02

  for the same reason cops do it. They get busted later. And I've even seen from personal experience with Monday morning quarterbacks who were 5,000 miles away from his bedroom, but they know everything that happened. So it's, uh, it's, it's, we, I would rather not have video than have guys end up in prison if something bad went down that at the time, because you're making life into decisions in the blink of an eye. And if you have months or years to analyze movement, that's, that's the problem. So I don't know anything about the video.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the one right there. Risk of inflaming anti-American sentiment and threats to national security if the photos were used as propaganda by terrorist groups. So as of 2025 photos room and CIA and Pentagon classified archives, and I've never been released to the public and 2012 judicial watch filed the Freedom Act, but nothing happened to it. So when you're there, did you guys have cell phones or no?

• 56:06Speaker 02

  I did not. Um, I, I don't know if anyone did. We, we, I, I did have a camera and it, but it was, you know, 2011. So it was just, it wasn't iPhone. It was a little camera. Other guys had cameras too, as, as far as I know.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Were people taking pictures at the time or not?

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Uh, just the official ones in his bedroom.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  Just the official ones in the bedroom?

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Well, not, they weren't official, but they were from the shooters. Cause a lot of us carried cameras just based on the amount of shooting and killing that we did. They would like pictures, almost like a crime scene. Can you get a picture, please, of what went down when you went in the room, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but fine. Uh, so we all had, and we knew we wanted to get pictures back. God forbid, one of the helicopters with his body gets shot down. We had redundancy with DNA of body and then different pictures were taken.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  How do they know? How would they know that some of you guys didn't keep those pictures yourself?

• 56:49Speaker 02

  We, I don't.

• 56:49Speaker 03

  Oh, no, not, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying, say somebody's like, dude, I'm gonna keep this and one day I'm gonna give it to my grandson, somebody doesn't believe it. I'm gonna keep it. How, how do they know whether, whether some guys didn't take their own pictures? They don't, right?

• 57:01Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it must've been a trust thing, I guess. I know me personally, and I can't speak for everyone, uh, it was more of a get in, get them, and then let's, let's see if we can live. I don't have time for all this other shit. Like I will get the evidence. I will get the body. I will find the intelligence. We got 23 minutes. It took us 47 minutes. We gotta get out of here. We gotta blow up that helicopter. Let's go. I wanna see my kids again. Hey, what is up? This is Robert J. O'Neal, former SEAL Team Six operators. I was fortunate to be on some of the most high-profile missions in our, uh, very long war on terror. But I am now on Minnetonka and you can connect with me there and we can literally talk about anything. Uh, you can, you can text. We can do video calls. I can give you messages and, uh, you know, go to Minnetonka, find me. Literally nothing is off limits. Any crazy questions you have that you may or may not want the answers to, I'm more than happy

• 57:46Speaker 02

  to do it. So find me on Minnetonka. Again, this is Robert J. O'Neal. See you there.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Okay, that's interesting. So, you know, when did you feel comfortable yourself publicly talking about this? Because you know, you know, this isn't the first time you've been asked this, where within the community, especially when you're, you know, SEAL Team Six, to openly come out and talk about it, it's a little bit of a risk you have, not from anybody like us, but it's from your own peers. That may say, hey, Rob, what are you doing? Why are you talking about this?

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, it started immediately with, because some of the guys on the mission weren't in on the third floor, they're on the second floor, first floor, outside rooftops. The first question they got asked, that they asked when they, hey, Geronimo, EK, who got him? And they would say, they would, people said, I got, that I got him. It was actually kind of funny to me. I'm known for like, keeping morale up, telling jokes and stuff like that. And my nickname was actually Nisro, N S R O, stood for Navy SEAL, Rob O'Neil, Nisro. And the most common thing was, Nisro got him. And I guess they would say, shit, we're never gonna hear the end of this. Kind of joking. But that happened. And then, so on the way, you know, people knew, we got picked up, guys on the helicopters, we're asking guys on helicopters, we landed at Bagram, there were aircrew guys, mechanics,

• 59:02Speaker 02

  they're pointing at me, everyone knows, we had, we, we all stood around his body. When we landed, the command, the ground force commander, I won't say his name, he's still in, he went to Admiral McRaven, who was there, said, do you want to meet the guy who killed him? And he said, yes, he brought him over to me in front of the whole team. Admiral McRaven said to me, your life just changed, like that. And it's, and, and then from there, guys got emails, they went home to Virginia Beach, we know guys in DC, New York, and Coronado, guys are calling me because they don't tell anybody but, because they all ask who got him. So now bartenders know, everyone knows, to the point where, to me, it's almost like, look, the team got him. I turned right because of the guy in front of me. I don't need this shit. And it just, it did turn awkward. So, you're not getting the toothpaste back in the tube on this one. And then it just, it slowly just came out,

• 59:46Speaker 02

  even to the point when I did go back to Afghanistan, I did another deployment, got more gunfights. But when, even when I left, it just, I don't, the first time I talked, like, talked about it publicly, was when I donated my, the shirt that I wore and the, the flag that I wore into Bin Laden's bedroom anonymously. Like, it's there at the 9/11 memorial still anonymously. I'm not taking credit for this. Carolyn Maloney, who's a Democrat representative from New York, she helped me get the thing in the museum, but then we went back to a back room and there was thirty so families of people who lost family members on nine eleven. And she asked me just to say a few words. So I told the story of Bin Laden, going into his room, seeing him, killing him. You know, there was even firefighters in there.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  I had the FDNY patch here just so that you're gonna see this if I aim my gun at you. And they just, the response was mainly, there will be no healing, but this is closure having a face with a name. And I was like, you know, my name's already out. I have written journals. I'm gonna try to get it authorized by the Pentagon, which is the way to go. The Pentagon then gives it to the other agencies for the official version and they signed off on it. And I just thought if I can help thirty families with healing, I could help a couple hundred thousand just with a face and a name. So, you know, long, long story short, that's, that's how it came out. But, you know, my, my plan was to stay in the Navy for thirty years, grow a kick ass mustache and be an instructor in Coronado. That's it. But, you know, you wanna make God laugh, tell him what your plan is.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  So it was not like I just, you know, killed him and then got on, got on Fox News and started saying, look at me, everyone.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  The, the book, The Operator, how, how long did the approval process of the book take?

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  That only took about eight months for me. And that was surprising. I thought that, I thought it would still be there. Yeah, cuz it has to get approval from everyone involved. And, and I'm assuming like SEAL Team Six would see it and just throw it right in the trash. Or someone at the agency, but it was, I mean, I think it was well written and, and it wasn't political bias. I started taking my notes because in nineteen ninety-six, when I checked into SEAL training, my father, who thinks I'm involved with everything, he said, take, like even before I got there, he said, there's a picture of drown proofing in Life magazine with these SEAL candidates tied up in a pool. And he goes, see, I, I see the calves on that guy with his back turned. That's you, I can tell. And I'm like, Dad, I'm literally not even in the Navy yet. That is not me. But, uh, he told me-

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Was he a military guy?

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  No, no, no, just, uh, he's, he's my, I grew up playing basketball with him, obviously grew up with him. Uh, but, uh, um-

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  Your dream was to go into college basketball?

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  College and work with him. Yeah. But, uh, um, yeah, it's just, uh, um- He said, "Start writing a journal." Someone's gonna want to read your book. This is back in 96. Start writing a journal, someone's gonna want to read it. And my response to him was, "Who is gonna want to read my book?" No one. But I did that, and so I had a manuscript. And then I just put the extra chapters in. I was like, "You know what? I'll get it edited and we'll just see what happens." And they approved it. The only thing they took out was the letter 6. And they made me say "Special Forces" instead of "Delta."

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  To say what? "And my years as a SEAL Team 6 warrior?"

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  Uh, fine. Uh, it's, yeah, it doesn't, they took SEAL Team 6 off there. "My years as a SEAL Team warrior."

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  And so you'll see-

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  Why did they want that?

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  I don't know, because they had to. Because if you read the book, it says, "Spent eight years at SEAL Team 2, and then at SEAL Team 4, and then eight years at SEAL Team edited." It's like, that's kinda cool, I guess.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  And that was them. That's them telling you this?

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they edited that out, put "Special Forces." And then even my publisher said, "I think we have a book." Like, "This is ready to go."

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  So, so, how, after the book was released, your peers, the guys that were there, the guys that are in the game, the guys from, you know, prior to you, post you, how many of these guys called and were supportive? How many were like, "Dude, what are you doing?"

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it was explained to me when I got, two things were said to me, I'll never forget. The day I checked, checked in, like, so I finished selection, that we call "Green Team," checked into Red Squadron. The two things that were said to me were, "When we all retire and get out, if we all work together, we'll be millionaires." But that's never gonna happen. Didn't make sense to me. And then they also-

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Who said this?

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  My commanding officer at Red Squadron, who's a great guy. I don't want to say his name because he's not here. Great guy, he's out now. I think he retired as an admiral, which is very cool. And then the other thing was, this, you're on a freight train right now that's going 200 miles an hour that way. And you can stay on as long as you like. Once you jump off, it's gonna keep going. So, um, I, there's guys I haven't talked to since. There's guys I've heard from, uh, that are fine, that are supportive. Uh, just because I did it the right way, and, and there are other dudes, not so much, but- Face to face, everyone's been cool. I've had guys say, don't quite understand why you wrote a book, which is cool. And then, you know, my comeback to them is like, well, you know, we don't write books. I'm like, yeah, I saw that. I read that in a bunch of books written by Vietnam SEALs. I've seen it at Barnes and Noble in the military history section. No one writes books. But I'm happy that people, I wish everyone on that raid would write

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  a book, including the air crew. Because I'm very happy that George Washington had a biographer when he crossed the Delaware. I know what happened that night. You know, I doubt he was standing up in the icy conditions, but I want to know that brave men went to do that, to build the nation. And I want to know, like, I, people now are more interested in the training to get there and the helicopter ride in and the helicopter ride out than they are what happened on the target. Because who gives a shit? Bin Laden's dead, the team got him. But what, like I said, the humanity, riding in, one of my best stories is when we're riding in 90 minutes, these pilots have been flying these helicopters for a week and a half. They're the best in the world, thank God, but we don't know if they work. We don't know if there's a private first class in the Pakistani armor looking

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  that way with his finger on a red button, waiting for helicopters instead of watching India. We don't know that. We could get shot down. 90 minutes. We got to live. So don't, if you're worried about something, your worry is not going to affect, you're wasting your energy. So on the ride, I'm with dudes, I've, you know, I've known everything about him. We, we train together, we shoot together, war together, skydiving together, all this stuff together. And I'm looking around the helicopter on the flight in as I'm counting to keep my mind off, counting to the thousand and back. And the funniest, like, I laughed at this. I looked down and one of my guys had put his headphones on, listening to music, and he fell asleep. And my thoughts to him were, you're asleep, literally on the ride to Osama Bin Laden's house. You have eyes in your veins, and I see why women find you attractive. This is just awesome. I remember thinking that and

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  then laughing. I'm like, what the shit are we thinking about? And then we get further in, and I don't know how I remembered it, but I have the tattoo.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  Is he still alive?

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And I said to myself, as I'm counting, 556, 558, freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  And I don't know, that's what President Bush said on 9/11. And that's like the realization, holy shit. This is the team, man. We're gonna kill him. And if we, if we die together tonight, what a fucking ending. But he's gonna die, and we might die with him. But that's, that's why they sent us. Like, there's, I mean, there's no, we're not taking him alive.

• 1:06:29Speaker 00

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• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  If you go like this, you said what?

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, yeah, and it's, well, and my, my joke too is like, uh, if they, SEAL Team Six, we, we were like dropping a, we were like dropping a bomb. We're just gonna tell you that, uh, we're gonna tell you what happened on board. Pretty much everyone's gonna die inside, if they're bad guys. If they, if they want him captured, there are nicer guys in the military than us.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  How many people got killed in that?

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  On our guys or their?

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  Their guys.

• 1:07:52Speaker 02

  Uh, four dudes and one wife. Because, and that was even something weird too, that tells you about rules of engagement and how they're ridiculous. Why would you hamstring, you know, the middle linebacker on the first play on defense? Uh, when I got in, because they dropped us off, we blew a, a door that didn't work, came in through this way. There was already a gunfight in the guesthouse in the front. And one of my guys had shot through from the outside, through, and he killed, um, the courier and his wife. And he's a team leader, like, he's a senior chief in the Navy, very experienced. And I came in and he goes, uh, shit, she just jumped in front of him. Am I in trouble? And I'm like, dude. Forget, why? Let's go find Osama Bin Laden, fuck the rules. It's like she jumped on, she's a martyr, that's a good sign. She's martyring herself. Yes, he's in here, come on.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Why, why, what lawyer told you you should be worried about shooting the wrong person? That's why you don't carry cameras, whatever. We're here to kill Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, I think that's illegal anyway. Like, we're under Title 50 right now.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  Nobody got in trouble, right?

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. And we're really good at... This isn't, okay, I don't want to sound wrong, we are really, really good at compartmentalizing what happens. And I would even tell my guy, my, because you got officers outside and listed inside. And I don't want to put you in a position where you report to your commanding officer, I don't want you to be full of shit either. You tell the truth, but we're gonna tell you what the truth was.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  And, I'm serious. Because I don't want that Monday morning shit coming around. The best, the best example of-

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  They're gonna tell you what the truth was.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  And it's gonna sound exactly the way they're gonna write the movie. Like, three shots on the, on this, on the Somali pirates, sure. But what, one of the, one of the examples I have is Iraq. One of the best summers of my life was 2007 in Iraq, because I'm a young Navy SEAL. SEAL Team Six, I'm here to hunt people, and I want to. So it was, we were, I mean, we were, we were, the gloves were taken off. We're on kill missions to kill Al Qaeda, because they're torturing the Sunnis. Like, they'll show up in town, so we're gonna find them and kill them, and then the Sunnis start helping us. But like, we would do target, target. If we only killed 11 guys in one night, like, why'd we waste our night? Like, there's more out there. But we're on, we would hit a target, it's your target, or not, but you find intelligence, oh shit, the neighbor, he's got that, so you run over there, hit the target, whatever. And we were really good, like, we're not killing everyone, we're...

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  The more latitude, like, when I bring up lawyers, the more latitude you give us, the better we're gonna be. We're gonna play shot, I'm not gonna hurt these people. We're the good guys. Like, the two-year-old son, Al Qaeda wouldn't have done that for us. But we're gonna do this, whatever, but it's so fast, because you, we wanna leave before the sun comes up, with our helicopter pilots can handle it, but I want, I don't wanna put them in danger daytime shit. So, and we would wear our, those like those quarterback things they wear, and we'd keep our masks and shit. And, one of my officers kinda came in, so he's, he's the commanding officer. We're doing our thing, and I was like, hey, we found this here, we're, we're in building 211, I wanna hit building 370. So we're gonna go over there right now, and I look at him, my boss, and I said, "Shit, sir, you know what? You're in charge."

• 1:10:48Speaker 02

  And he looked at me and said, "Oh, make no mistake, I'm not in charge. I'm responsible. You're in charge. Don't fuck me."

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  And then, you know, it's like, I got the macro, you got the micro. So we would do that. And even when he walked.

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  But that's the truth.

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  Yes, because he could get in, like, if we did something, maybe a general would be pissed about.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  I don't want him to know that happened. I will tell them, it was very clean, we went in, boom. Bad guy, here's his gun, there's a picture.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  So i- is it kinda how your kids eventually get to a point where they sit down together and have a meeting and say, look, guys? We're gonna have each other's back. No one's gonna snitch on anybody. And if mom and dad ask what happened, we're all gonna say the same thing. We will solve it together here. But we're not gonna tell them everything that happened. Is it, is it a little bit like that?

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  I think so, and if my kids.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  Depends on kids, I'm just saying, I know some kids, maybe four of them.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  If they, if they were doing it for the right reasons and didn't hurt anybody, I can appreciate their loyalty to each other. Uh, if they hurt someone, I have a problem with that. It's like, it's, you know. Uh, don't just lie to me because you're trying to get, I would rather have, uh, you know, deal with the consequences now because I screwed up and admit it.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  Like, some of the best bosses I've ever had, uh, cuz I, if anyone says they don't screw up every day, they're just lying. I would screw up all the time and every, and my, one, some of my best bosses would, uh, would two, I remember two in particular, they wouldn't come up to fight cuz I'm ready. I'm, I'll get defensive, I'm, I'm gonna defend my position or whatever. They would just say, uh, you're just so much better than that and leave. It's like, oh, I'm never gonna let you down. I'm better than that. Shit, I was ready to fist fight, get my ass kicked too, but you expected more out of me?

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  When's your birthday?

• 1:12:25Speaker 02

  April 10th.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  My dad's April 10th. You're always like, your, your mind is always like this, fast. How did you adjust from that to civilian where everything slows down?

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Oh, really difficult.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  Is that why the whole DMT thing you got on, like, is that's what helps you slow down a little bit, or?

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  No, uh, no, DMT helps with the post-traumatic issues.

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  That's what I'm, because.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  You, but even you, like, there's some SEAL Team guys you talk to, they're not as, you're.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  I just, I talk really fast.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  But that, that's because this is going very fast, right? So that, that translates into this. How do you, how do you slow yourself down? Are you able to, or?

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  Well, I quit drinking, so that helps.

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  You make better choices.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yeah, I've never, you know, what I like about that is I have to apologize less. Like, check my Twitter and then like, I got a bunch of phone calls to make on this one.

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  By the way, you know what Twitter needs to do? They need to almost say every tweet and put your alcohol level next to it.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  I was gonna say that.

• 1:13:23Speaker 03

  Point one eight.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  There were years where I wish I had a breathalyzer on both my, my phone and my, and my steering wheel. Like, okay, we're good. No, the DMT thing, because, again, the humanity, the realization, I'm fortunate that I've never killed anyone on accident. And, and this is weird, too, especially out of the combat. I've never seen one of my friends get wounded or killed in front of me. So I'm fortunate, but I do often wonder about some of the guys I've killed. And, and because as SEAL Team Six, like, the furthest kill that I've ever had was outside, it might have been 20 yards away. The most, most of them were in rooms, and a lot of them were in front of family members. And, like, there is one house in particular, one guy in particular, I think of every day, because I, I remember in Iraq,

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  I think Ramadi, coming into a room is the one man, there's a guy in the, in the main room, blast him, and then I had to do a, I did a one man entry on a room that was open because there's levels of threats. One is an open door, you gotta get the open door, and then there's unknowns and shit like that. So I went in, kind of on a one man entry, which is not, you don't want to do that, you want a buddy, never want to go alone. But I went into a room and there's this dude, um, laying next to his wife, and it's 2:00 in the morning. And I go in there, and he's got an AK-47 right there. And he, you know, he wakes up, he starts throwing these kicks, and I'm thinking, okay, I just woke you up, I'm gonna give you a minute, calm down, okay, come on, whatever. And he starts going for his gun. And I'm saying to him, I don't know if he speaks English, but I'm like, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't go. And he goes for it, blah, I kill

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  him. And his wife sees it, and his kids are there. And I started, so one thing I wonder is, now, did I just kill a terrorist, or did I just make three more? Then I start wondering, well, why did I, and this is later on, this is like, seven years later, it's like, why did I shoot that guy? It's like, well, because he went for his gun, but why did he go for his gun? Well, because I'm in his room at 2:00 in the morning. Why am I in his room at 2:00 in the morning? Well, George Bush decided on a personal vendetta that we should just invade Iraq. Now, he's dead. And then you start to get further into it, if I'd met this dude over coffee somewhere else, in a different country, did he know a joke? Was he cool? Probably not terrorists, but you start, that your mind starts to wonder about shit like that. And then it's like, uh, depression comes with added a little anxiety, sleeplessness. Like I, there were times when I'd have to lay in bed and turn something on or green noise on my phone.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Just I can't let my mind wander into this space. So I got into like DMT and stuff like that. Ibogaine especially because it helps with the PTSD. But PTSD is not like a, uh, I saw, I saw a funny one, uh, um, not funny, but they talk about PTSD like, uh, yeah, fourth of July sucks because it, you know, it reminds me of, you know, my wife had sex with someone else and now I'm afraid of fireworks. It's not the loud bang, but it's the, it's when you get in your own head. And I, I just had two guys go down, we have to go to Mexico for psychedelics because it's not legal in the country because it works. Um, and they went down and like, I'm talking, I had a buddy's wife call me and say, yeah, he's drinking heavily and I need something to happen. Go to, go to Mexico, take Ibogaine, do DMT and then they're just different people.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  So it's the PTSD though is a weird, it's a, it's, it seems for everyone, it's seven years later.

• 1:16:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. I had a friend of mine who was Delta when he was, uh, he got my orders. So he ended up doing 20 years. We met at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Missing for 12 years, can't find him, finally find him, he's doing his 20, he's getting out. Hey, let's meet up, what's going on with you? I'm having a really hard time. Where are you? Somewhere in Europe. I'm going to come visit you. I'll go to Europe to visit him. Sitting down, he is really going through it. Good guy. I think he's been married two or three times. Didn't work out. The type of guy that you want as your buddy, like that kind of a guy. Came out, went through it very hard for about four or five years. And eventually was able to find a way to enjoy his life and he's back to being a civilian.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  Doesn't live in the States, he's out, he's completely, he told me something, he says, Pat, anything I saw on the news, I know what we did and we gave the truth. Like I'm there, I'm, I'm, all the major things of what happened. I was involved in many of these things. I don't believe anything the media tells. Were you ever at a point where you're in there and you're seeing how it's being reported to the media? You're like, yeah, that's wrong, that's wrong. They're full of shit. Nope, nope, nope. Okay, great. I don't trust nobody. Did that happen to you?

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did. Um, I wanted to believe, well, I, when I got out too, I, I went, I went and worked for Fox News for a while. I, I was interviewed on major media stations and to be fair, I, I had positive experiences with everyone except PBS. They were horrible. But yeah, now just seeing, just having seen, and I'm not picking on Fox, at all of them. Having seen like the 7 a.m. meetings with the senior producers. Here's the narrative we're gonna push, here's what you're not allowed to say, we are gonna push this and say, whatever, and then even so far up the chain.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  That's what Fox would say.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  No, not Fox. I've been in the meetings, but I've seen similar stuff. I'm not trying to, I just worked there, so I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to pick on anybody. Fox has been great to me. And CNN's been great to me. But they all have those meetings, they all have the agenda, they're all supposed to push something. And a lot of it's not true, a lot of it's political agenda, and why, who's getting paid for what? There are smart people on every network that have said shit that it's like, you know that's not true. What's your agenda? You know, why are you getting paid for that? There's, I mean, you know, everything from the, you know, I was banned from Delta Airlines for not wearing a mask, but you're not allowed to say masks don't work, because, they don't work. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't, a lot of this shit coming out. That's why I'm glad Elon Musk bought X, because that's the fastest breaking news we're gonna get. Is it always true? Probably not. The algorithm's gonna push the agenda that,

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  you know, one minute you're looking at breaking news, and then all of a sudden there's a midget wrestling, whatever, whatever.

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  I mean, some people like that, though.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Midget wrestling's entertaining, for some people.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  Anyone getting in the ring, beating each other up, you gotta, you know, respect.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's a business model for it.

• 1:19:02Speaker 02

  And, but the Delta guys too, like your buddy, when they, they were in some shit over there. They saw the worst of it. So, it is, to hear guys talk about it, though, and just acknowledge the, they asked a lot out of all of us. And it's not even the SEAL Team Six or the Delta guys. Think about the dude that no one knows about, who was an E5 in the Army, and just drove around like Ratt Irish in Iraq. And all you're thinking, you don't even have to have been blown up, but thinking, am I gonna blow up now, or now, or now? Am I gonna blow up now? Like, just the stress on you. And then it happens. I know, I've heard of guys, didn't know, that died leaving the shitter from a mortar.

• 1:19:40Speaker 03

  Wow, what a way to go.

• 1:19:41Speaker 02

  There's no front lines, we're not fighting in trenches. They are now, God forbid, with those drones. But there's so much stress there, too, and I mean, just guys admitting it is incredible. But, like, for me.

• 1:19:51Speaker 03

  Dying like you're in the shitter, you're leaving to get blown up.

• 1:19:53Speaker 02

  Like with a magazine going to the talk, to get a briefing, boom. Just random, random shit.

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  Smelly, everything, and you're going to heaven, it's like, hey.

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  Life can't get any worse.

• 1:20:04Speaker 03

  Let me tell you, am I making it to heaven or no? That's not a way you want to go.

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  Speaking of that, though, going to heaven and psychedelics, the medicine talks to you. It's you talking to you, your brain opens. One of the coolest things, especially 5MEO DMT said to me was, the only people who go to hell are people who think they deserve to. And it sort of told me about healing and forgiveness. Right there, it says, you think you're good, that if you can love yourself and forgive yourself, then you're gonna be okay.

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  Did you see what Trump said recently? He says, if I'm able to broker a peace deal, did you see this one or no?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  Oh, depending.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  You have to see this one, Rob, do you know which one I'm talking about?

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  Was it Ukraine?

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  No, he says, if I'm able to go and break a peace deal between these guys, I think I'm going to heaven. Have you seen this one?

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  No, I love that.

• 1:20:45Speaker 03

  You have to see this, you have to see this. I can't believe he said this. I thought at first it was a joke, but he's being interviewed. Do you have one of those clips saved, Rob?

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  You have it somewhere.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  So he says, look, I think this is gonna lock in a spot for me to go to heaven. If I can broker a peace deal between, you have it somewhere, Rob, is this the one?

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:07Speaker 06

  I want to end it, you know, we're not losing American lives, we're not losing American soldiers, we're losing Russian and Ukrainian, mostly soldiers. Some people, as missiles hit wrong spots or get lobbed into cities like Kiev and towns. But, you know, if I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that's a pretty, I want to try and get to heaven if possible. I'm hearing I'm not doing well. I'm really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons. Well, I think I saved a lot of lives with India.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 06

  Pakistan, they were going at it, the planes were being shot down. That was gonna be maybe a nuclear war if I let that go, and I did that through trade, I was.

• 1:21:49Speaker 03

  His sense of humor.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  He's funny. He, uh, I, he showed me the Lincoln bedroom in his first term. We went to dinner at the White House. It was actually me and Pete Hexeth, my wife Jessica and his wife Jen. And we went, well, it was funny too, because my wife Jessica gets starstruck and I, I like, we found out and I said, hey, pack a bag, we're going to the White House. And she said, uh, oh man, it's, it's gonna be big dinner. And I said, no, intimate. And he goes, she said, am I gonna be sitting near him? I said, you're gonna be sitting right next to him. And she said, oh my God, what do I say? And I said, well, that's the good news. You don't need to say shit because he won't shut up the whole time. Uh, and he's funny, but he said with the Lincoln bedroom, we went up there to see it and, and, uh, that was one of those moments, looking at Lincoln's bed where his son died. Yeah, that's, well, that's before he ran too. That's in, in the tower. There's one in the White House.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  How, what was he like for you? What was the experience?

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  He's awesome. He's, uh, cause I, the first time I met him is when he was judging or running the Miss USA pageants. And I was a judge, so I met him, yeah, weird. My first job was in DC, so I got to see behind the curtain a little bit. Uh, very up and up. I, I wasn't, I wasn't aware of, uh, the filth that goes on there yet. I believe, because I came from a team and I believe this stuff. Yeah. If you look up the White House dinner, it's on there. But, uh, um, no, he's, his sense of humor is awesome. He's just a funny dude. He's big heart. But when we went to Lincoln's bedroom to see Lincoln's bed, Lincoln's desk where he famously wrote those, like he's pissed off, write a letter, but not send it.

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  And then, and then, uh, looking at the south lawn at night, uh, and then there was a desk with, underneath his glass on the desk was the Gettysburg Address, signed by Abe Lincoln. And I'm having this out of body, like I've seen a lot of shit, but this is one of, and I turned around and he said something along the lines of, yeah. He said something along the lines of, uh, you know, not everybody gets to see this, unless of course you donate to the Clinton Foundation. And I'm like, you, you just can't stop. Like you, you can't even live. But it was just funny the way he said it. Yeah. He's, I mean, he's a good dude. He's, look, he didn't need to do this. He, he has a good life. You know, if you like being a billionaire and married to a supermodel, that's a pretty good life.

• 1:23:38Speaker 03

  Did he ask you, did he ask you a question and say, hey, so tell me, did it really happen or not? I don't believe it happened.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  That never was brought up. So what was the occasion? What was the purpose of the dinner?

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  Uh, well.

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  Why did he invite you?

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  I met him at first because he said he was thinking about running for president. So, and I was in Dallas, which is fine. I'm single in Dallas and I'm like, I got nothing going on. I'll fly up to New York and go to Trump Tower. So we met there and then, um, And then he was elected and I knew Pete Hegseth from Fox. We were both working at Fox. And I don't even know, well, it was his first term, so Pete probably wasn't even in consideration for SecDef. So he just said, you want to go to dinner at the White House with Donald Trump? I'm like, well, yeah. I want to go. I'll grab my wife. If she wants to come, I'm coming. I'll be there. And it was, and it was even to the point where-

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  Were you a Trump, were you a supporter of him at the time?

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  Yes. When I, I had just gotten out of the military-

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  I know in 2018, you said something like the parade was bullshit, or-

• 1:24:27Speaker 02

  No, no, yeah, well, there was diff- well, I'm not a yes man. I'm just gonna tell them what I think. Well, the parade, and I said, because you're not, I didn't tell him personally, but my thought was, what you're not considering-

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  Was that one of those breathalyzer tweets?

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  No, this was sober. The breathalyzer tweets usually come with a mugshot.

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  No, it was, it was, what you're not considering, again, is a human element. Because we were, still had guys in Afghanistan, and it's like, now, should these troops, should they be at home with their families? Or do you want them practicing marching for a few weeks? They don't need to do this. Our Abrams tanks were not designed to go down Constitution Avenue. They're designed to invade Iraq. This is a bad idea. Now, the way they did it now was kind of cool with the, I think it was Army's anniversary. It's kind of neat, but again, did those troops want to be there? Even one of my guys, one of my, Green Brad, I went to treatment with. He said, you see how shitty those guys were marching? I'm like, they didn't practice, they don't care. They shouldn't be marching. Just let them go out there and why. And then you stop critiquing them, Master Sergeant, what the-

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  But I mean, at first, yeah, it was a bad, I think it was a bad idea. I still don't agree with that in DC, but-

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  Sitting down with Obama and Fort Campbell, sitting down with the president, what did you notice? A similarity? Any similarities between charisma, charm?

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  Charismatic as hell. Both of them.

• 1:25:44Speaker 03

  Both of them.

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  And, you know, I met, I've met President Bush too. I met President Biden. I met President Biden before President Biden. I met him as a vice president, so he still had his-

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  He had his stuff together.

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  Charisma's cool. To get to that level, you have to have a certain something, a certain aura. President Obama's a lot more polished. And cool, he's just cool. When he, when he came in the room when we were at Campbell, we were all in good moods because we're alive. But just to hear, "Hey, everybody," like President Obama's there with his tie and whatnot, and President Biden is there. That was just cool. Trump is, Trump's different because he's more of a, uh, he's more of a dude. He's, he's, he's more, I mean, not, and I don't, I know President Trump better than President Obama. But like, um, I think you could have a beer with Obama. My buddy Dakota Meyer was Medal of Honor recipient did. Well, I know he finished half because I gotta give a speech. Trump doesn't drink, but he'd be just cool as shit to hang out with. Um, Trump, Trump's a, Trump's a guy's guy.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Can you imagine? The guy doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't do any of that stuff, but he's a guy's guy.

• 1:26:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is.

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  And he really is a guy's guy.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he gets out there like he was playing in the Rose Garden, his new sound system.

• 1:26:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  And he's out there and he's kind of doing the dance up on the rooftop. But my thought was, well, here's a dude that runs these, like, his hotels are the best I've stayed in. Here's a guy that knows what he's talking about. He knows what music to play. He knows the ambiance. He knows everything and just be, and he knows how to troll. Like, the media hates him, but he just always messes with.

• 1:27:01Speaker 03

  He's one of a kind.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Speaker 03

  He's one of a kind. I mean, the, the, the, the, these influencers with what's going on with these military influencers, how do you process that yourself? Where guys are coming out, you know, for the longest time, you're watching Tim Kennedy.

• 1:27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Speaker 03

  And Tim Kennedy fricking, he's a man's man. Whatever they want to say about the

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  Medal of Honor or whatever the, the, the, the challenge was with that. He's a man's man. He fought in the UFC. Any guy that wants to sit there and say you're a tough guy, go ahead and sit up against him, see what he says. But what do you, how, how much, how much criticism and pressure is there from the actual community, the fraternity of guys that went at that level to hold each other accountable and be like, "No, you never got that medal. Why are you saying that? Why are you over-exaggerating? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?" How much, how do you process that yourself?

• 1:27:49Speaker 02

  Well, with Tim, uh, simp, not simply. If you're a black belt in jujitsu and you won fights in the UFC, you're, you're very accomplished. That's badass. His was a Bronze Star. Okay, there's, there's two different Bronze Stars you can get. You can get a Bronze Star as an admin ward. You get a Bronze Star with valor for combat against the enemy. He's got a Bronze Star without valor. And I think on one podcast or two, he, he sort of said he had a Bronze Star with valor, which to me doesn't matter. I have four of those. I don't give a shit. Um, but they, they started making a big deal out of it. He started fighting back and then the book he wrote and other guys. I took him at face value. I've never worked with him. I know him well and I think the world of him. I think he's a great guy with a big heart, family guy, UFC. I'm certainly not going to tell him face to face, hey, you're, you're, you're not a tough guy.

• 1:28:32Speaker 02

  Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I've heard stories that there are dudes that is units saying, hey, you need to just chill out a little bit with this because it seems, I wasn't with him at all. Um, it seems that kind of a fishing story came about, like he's sitting and talking like we are and kind of embellished a little bit and then, you know, you write about in a book to get it approved. And if you're, if guys are telling you, you need to knock it off, you should probably knock it off if you're not telling the truth. So, but the vet on vet hate, I think can be handled with a phone call and a face to face meeting. Instead of, online's a horrible idea to trash each other. I, I think that's the worst thing you can do.

• 1:29:01Speaker 03

  How did, was it, is this the one where maybe I'm mistaken with somebody else? Where three guys sat there, they were calling somebody. Was that one about Kennedy where they said, oh, okay. Yeah, I remember that. So, because I know there's a handful of these guys that, uh, there's one channel just flat out system and calls people out. What's this one say?

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  I don't even want to give them a platform.

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  Former front, don't get called out under investigation for false agreement and planned to receive Bronson. Controversy came to light July 2nd. The military community members scrutinized. Okay, that's the one that we're talking about.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. So these three guys came out and they said he didn't. And I think Kennedy did apologize if I'm not mistaken.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  He apologized. Yeah, he did. But see, that's not enough too. And when you're dealing with vultures like this who have probably survivor's guilt because they never did anything. They're going to do everything they can. It's like the whole, uh, uh, crabs in a pot type thing. You pull one out the wrist, try to drag you down. And I mean, unfortunately, if you're not telling the truth, you gotta remember a bunch of shit. And that just seems the case here. And with these, again. I'm thinking the long term here, whatever, we have a problem like we're 50 year old combat vets. We have our issues. Think about the 16 year old kid who's going to graduate college in a few years and wants to join the military. He sees shit like this online. That's not going to say, oh yeah, I definitely want to be a part of that community. It's like, dude, you don't need to make it public. And certainly just because you're trying to get famous off trashing someone who is famous. That just, it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't register.

• 1:30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, uh, I, I think they've gone after a few guys.

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  They have. I'm one of them.

• 1:30:22Speaker 03

  He's one of them. You're one of them. Uh, Latrell, I believe they did at one point. Which one was that one? That one was, uh, what movie was that?

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  Lone Survivor.

• 1:30:30Speaker 03

  Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg, right? I think it was.

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  And you gotta figure too, the guys that are trashing them, they weren't even in the army yet when, uh, Lone Survivor. I was on the mountain. I was there for that one too. And, uh, simply saying his story is wrong, I would challenge, uh, without a gunfight, you go to the Korengal Valley in the summer, just by yourself like he was. See how you handle it. Is the story not a hundred percent like the movie? Probably not because that's Hollywood. That is a scary place to be and just, Marcus broke his back and was buried alive for two days? Don't say he's a liar if you have no frame of reference. I was, I mean, I wasn't even there with Marcus, but I was there at the time. I was awake for three days looking for him. And that's a hell of a mission.

• 1:31:07Speaker 03

  You were looking for him for three days?

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was actually one of the guys to, to, one of the last guys to see most of those dudes alive. Because I was at, at that safe house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. It says June of 2005. And we had heard that, that SEAL Team 10 and SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 had guys there. They were inserting in the Korengal to look for Ahmad Shah. And my initial reaction as a young shooter is like, well shit, I'm gonna get on this mission. So we drove over, plus I know the guys, they had already inserted the snipers and I remember talking to the team that eventually got killed on turbine 33. I talked to Dan Healy, uh, who's a senior chief at the time. I went to sniper school with him in 1998 and he's from New Hampshire. And we bullshitted, good to see you. Hey, uh, how about Sam Adams? How great is that beer? Shit like that. And we tried to get on the helo, whatever, and, uh, our command said, no, we're not, you get, whatever.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  However, happens, and we took the motorbikes back to the safe house. Have a good fight, guys. We'll see you, uh, later. And then the sun came up. And one of our bosses who was a Ranger major at the time said, hey, your boy just got fucked up. We gotta go find him. And we found out a Hilo was shot down. They don't know if anyone survived. They gave us, they thought Matt Axelson and Marcus Luttrell were alive. We got their cards that have like a picture and three sentences like, uh, my first car was a, a, a Ford pickup that was blue. So that when you see him, he'll can, you were gonna know it's him. And then they wouldn't even fly us in. We had to find vehicles that we could steal, Humvees, donkeys, maybe some water and drive as far as we can, then walk up to the crash site.

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  And so we got up a certain place and it was, I mean, it's hot, it's humid, it's June in Afghanistan and everyone around you wants to kill you. They eventually flew guys into the crash site. We turned around, went to Assataabad, the note came in. Like even talking to the agency, cause we got a note and they said, well, we're not sure this is Luttrell. It might be a setup because he didn't cross the Ts in his name. And we're like, yeah, but he got a social right. This is him, we gotta go back. So we went back in, climbing these mountains that are just ridiculous. Like my only complaint about the movie is the mountains weren't steep enough because you're in New Mexico, not the Western Himalaya. So then we get up to the top, we're going back down, Rangers come in, got Marcus, flew out and we're in a spot like, this is why train, because we still gotta leave.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  And we're, this is why training is so hard because if we wanted to quit right now, where the fuck are we gonna go? We're just here, man. We're just here, this is it. And so, and then to see guys that maybe joined the later three, four years after that criticize him. It's like, why don't we talk about what you did instead of what he didn't? Be proud of yourself. Don't bash this guy. I mean, he's going through enough. His friends died right in front of him. That's a lot.

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a wild story.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  Oh, it's incredible. And no one knows what happened unless you were there.

• 1:33:43Speaker 03

  Right. It's a thing with this, you know, with military, you know, for guys that serve it's, you, you get, you know, you, I remember, um, when I'm talking to, same guy I'm talking to you about, Delta. Like, hey, why don't you, why don't you tell the story? I can't. Why not? I don't even want anybody to know I served. Why? Well, because you know, we made a pact.

• 1:34:04Speaker 02

  Yes, they did.

• 1:34:04Speaker 03

  So you, you don't want, it says, Pat, I'm telling you, nothing. Write a book. No. What if you, you know, you can make some, no, nothing. He didn't want to do anything about it. He didn't want to talk about it. You know, it.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Delta's the best in the world about that. They, I mean.

• 1:34:19Speaker 03

  Why is that though?

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  They, they are just really good. They're very, very prideful um about the, the, their, their, the secrets of their mission and what they do together. They don't want anyone to know.

• 1:34:30Speaker 03

  Why is that?

• 1:34:30Speaker 02

  They're, I don't know. They just respect it. Like, you, I've been to their compound and they've got uh trophy cases and whatnot, but there's, there's um curtains over them. No one can see them unless you're a guest specifically, like from another unit. And then when everything's secure, they'll bring them up and you can see like Saddam's guns and shit like that, stuff they did in Colombia. Uh but then they put the curtains back down. They don't tell anyone anything.

• 1:34:49Speaker 03

  Get out of here.

• 1:34:50Speaker 02

  You know, and even people say to me, they're like, they're like, yeah, silent professional. I'm like, Navy SEALs? No, we're not. Delta is the silent professionals. Not us. We're, you know. I mean, we, granted, there are stuff I, I don't say, but SEALs are not exactly known for being the silent professionals. Delta is. And they're really good about it. And they're very professional.

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• 1:36:03Speaker 03

  Where does that come from though? That has to come from the top in training, right?

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  It's history.

• 1:36:08Speaker 03

  Didn't the founder of Delta write a book about it?

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Charlie Beck with his other name?

• 1:36:13Speaker 03

  Something like that.

• 1:36:14Speaker 02

  Inside Delta Force, yeah, he did.

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  Well, he wrote a book about it, right? So if the founder did that, then the rest of the guys don't. Who at one point said, guys, I don't give the founder? Yeah, I thought he wrote a book about it, if I'm not mistaken.

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he wrote Inside Delta Force.

• 1:36:29Speaker 03

  Didn't he live in Frisco, Texas, or somewhere in Texas? I thought he moved to like Frisco.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  Yep, he died in Austin.

• 1:36:35Speaker 03

  But he used to, did he ever live in Frisco, Texas, or Dallas, Texas? Can you see Dallas, Texas, or Frisco, nothing?

• 1:36:41Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:36:42Speaker 03

  Interesting. Yeah, everybody would talk about how this guy wrote a book. Um, but the Delta guys, you can't get shit out of them.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  They didn't like that. And I mean, to my friends who were at Delta or veterans from Delta, they were not happy with his book. But we've seen it with Richard Marcinco, he founded SEAL Team Six. And he wrote a book, it was, he couldn't get it approved, so he wrote it based on fiction. And he was like, they would say, well, people up top would say bad things about him, but shooters loved him because he got in trouble for doing the right thing for his guys. Getting the guns you need, getting you the plane tickets you need, doing the job you need to do. And he was, he was loved. I don't, I don't really know, well, Delta's so secretive, I don't really know what they think about him either. I'd work with Delta, and they're fantastic.

• 1:37:24Speaker 03

  So what was the biggest thing that you sensed about them? You got Air Force, you got the paratrooper, you got all these other guys. What was about Delta that was different than in the NBA?

• 1:37:32Speaker 02

  My initial, my initial reaction to Delta, this is no bullshit. The first time I worked with them was when I just checked into SEAL Team Six. My initial reaction was, that's Delta, I really hope I meet the guy who eventually kills Osama bin Laden. That would be so cool.

• 1:37:45Speaker 03

  Because you thought it would be a Delta.

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Of course they're gonna get it. It's gonna be in a landlocked country, why would SEAL Team Six get it? Delta's gonna get it. I think we got it because they concentrated on Iraq and we stayed in Afghanistan.

• 1:37:55Speaker 03

  Does everybody know, like, is the consensus, like, you know how in the NBA, you ask the current players, who's the greatest player of all time? Young kids will say LeBron, but a lot of guys will say Michael. Does everybody know tier one that Delta's the way to go?

• 1:38:08Speaker 02

  I probably shouldn't say this, but you can tell Michael Jordan's the best because he's never said he is.

• 1:38:15Speaker 02

  And I'm not saying Delta's the best because they don't say they are because I mean if you ask me right now, we're we're better. Our tactics are better. We operate it better, but pull a Delta guy if you can get him here, he'll tell you the same thing about them. And they were just, I mean, they were awesome.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  But if somebody watches us right now, you're the way you described Deltas, that Delta's better than SEAL Team Six.

• 1:38:30Speaker 02

  No, I didn't say that. No, we're better. But I'm gonna make that clear. Tactics were better. I think I think we're I think we are.

• 1:38:36Speaker 03

  Tactically?

• 1:38:37Speaker 02

  Yes, tactically, but they're gonna they're gonna pick us apart too. Because our tactics were different. We I it's hard to say. They were awesome. Uh, why? And it could it could be jealousy for me because they had this mission called vehicle interdictions. The VIs in Iraq on little birds. And you're just sitting on the like, sitting on a bench on the outside of a helicopter that's so small. When you want to take off, you just put your thumb here and the pilot squeezes it. And then you're hunting people. That's cool. I was jealous. Why don't we get that? Come on, man.

• 1:39:03Speaker 02

  And that's where even some of the animosity, they're not that good. Yeah, they are. But I again, but I mean, even working with him, it was such a good. Even with with Delta and it was SEAL Team Six, what I loved about it was every single day I get to go to work with people who were better than me. And there was no undermining, like, I'm gonna take his position by fucking him. I'm gonna find out, like, even with guys that would outshoot me, which is rare. Uh, I I didn't want to try to screw with him. I I would find out, why did you move that pouch from here to here? What time do you wake up and when do you work out? Do you go to the range first or do you go to the gym? What do you do? What do you eat? When do you go to bed? What's making you shoot faster? Are you concentrating on from here to here and that's slow? Because slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Why are you so fast? And everyone did that. And so, I mean, so we'd work with Delta, have different styles of training, but then we'd cross it and find the better way.

• 1:39:47Speaker 02

  And we were good at, because we're in Eastern Afghanistan, they're in Western Iraq. We would compare, well, here was the standard operating procedures. Al Qaeda knows what we're doing, sort of. How did they adjust and how did you readjust? And I gotta tell my guys, so what's just to be prepared to get there? What what worked, what didn't? Delta got hit really hard because one of our Vietnam tactics was when there's an open door, wide open. Run in there. We gotta solve solve the problem. Al Qaeda knew that from whatever they read. So they would have doors open. Some guys would run in, all of a sudden, there's two PKMs and they're shooting at them. So that then that's when we all figured out, okay, we gotta slow the fuck down.

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  Who was most impressive in that with speed? Who did you see where you're like, holy shit?

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  Well, when I first checked into Red Squad, because we finished selection for SEAL Team Six and close quarters battle was our bread and butter. We're gonna, for us, combat comes down to an entry point. We're gonna go here and we're fighting right there. So, uh, um, we were just, when I, we finished selection, all based on close quarters battle, six, nine months straight. And I thought we were fast, because the way you want to train someone with CQB is, uh, white lights, loud music, fast as you can, because I want to see how you handle stress. You know, can you come to a situation, make a mistake, get over it? And we'll talk about it later, or do you dwell on that and make a bigger mistake? So you do that with speed. But then with speed, you get everyone on point, and, uh, I checked into red squadron. I'm in with the train now with my squadron, and they're gone. And I missed, look, where did, they, they're just going through the house fast, so they were

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  that fast, and by the time I got to work with Delta, we were already that fast. But then, it wasn't a question of who can go faster, it's who can go slower. Who can talk less? Who can, who can effectively communicate without, uh, without talking? Because, I would see guys in house, like, even on, in, uh, when I was training my guys, a Hollywood thing is you put a bomb on the door, "Fire in the hole!", and you blast it. I'm like, "Look, stop yelling, 'Fire in the hole'! If you see an operator put a bomb on the door, I need you to assume it's gonna blow up in three seconds. Stop yelling, why don't you just yell, 'Here we are'?" I had a guy in training one time, he turned a corner, pointed up, and yelled, "Stairwell", and I said, "Look, I'm watching you, and you pointed up, I'm assuming you either ran into a stairwell, or there's a 15-foot Al Qaeda guy, either way, we're going up. Shut up."

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  And we, it's like, uh, when you're done saying what you're saying, stop saying it, get rid of the noise, and just read off each other. Because all that adds to is a confusion, which is good initially, to see how you handle the confusion, then slow down. Uh, and then, we actually started backing off of bullshit. Like, we literally made it easier, made it easier for us. Um, we're gonna stop with the lights, we're gonna, we're gonna go quiet, we have night vision. I would even bring, uh, my guys into our killhouses, when we had like a four-story killhouse, brand new, but they're, they're through selection, so these are the best dudes the Navy has to offer us, and we're gonna train them up. And in order to show them why it's better to go with night vision and quiet, instead of running, because one of the attitudes was, "Well, we're gonna get in a fight anyway, let's get it on." It's like, "All right, you're gonna stand in the middle here, and here's your guy", like, we have simunition, which is like paintball.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  "You guys stay in this room, two teams are gonna come in and get you. You can shoot them whenever you see them. And then, turn the lights off." Now, my guys have night vision. And all of a sudden, ba-ba-ba-boom, they're all dead. It's like, see, that's why we go quiet. You knew they were coming. Now, imagine if you're sleeping. You don't know they're coming. We're gonna get you. This is how we win, so that's your lesson right there. You just got killed, you're dead. Now, go, go do an hour with a tire dregs and come back.

• 1:43:00Speaker 03

  But by the way, was, was the Maya girl our people? Was, was she CIA? Or was she Mossad?

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  She was the CIA.

• 1:43:07Speaker 03

  Did you deal with Mossad when you were out there or not?

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  Uh, not intentionally, so I, maybe. Some of the intel, possibly.

• 1:43:13Speaker 03

  But gather intel, gather intel sharing, like, wasn't it CIA Mossad working?

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Probably, but because we're gonna be the guys, um, going in the house, it's better to not be associated with Israel. That's, well, because even there's a joke for, for messing with guys to make them scared and talk to us. Like, brought up a joke like, hey, can we, like, wear an Israeli flag on this mission? And like, to hear a senior officer go, fuck, no.

• 1:43:40Speaker 03

  Why is that?

• 1:43:40Speaker 02

  Just for fun, like.

• 1:43:42Speaker 03

  But what, what would, what would the reaction be from the other side if they see you wearing Israeli flag?

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  Well, Al Qaeda, because they don't know what we're gonna do to them now. Because the Americans, well, I, I scared the shit out of them.

• 1:43:50Speaker 03

  What a way to throw them off if you wear Israeli flag.

• 1:43:52Speaker 02

  That's what I said.

• 1:43:53Speaker 03

  To say that, damn, Mossad's out here?

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what are they gonna do now that they have me? Maybe if I talk, they won't take me to wherever.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Did they fear Mossad like that?

• 1:44:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Well, I've seen it. I've, I've seen it before with cocky terrorists that spoke English. Because the way that I would set it up, when I would do the interrogations, I'd put the guy right here, I'm right in his face, and my interpreter is right here. And we're gonna talk this way. You look at me, listen to him. I don't want you two talking. I don't need some bullshit purport. And I remember talking to one guy, and he, he said in English, dude, I know the deal. This terrorist. And I go, really? What's the deal? He goes, you're gonna arrest me, you're gonna send me to Abu Ghraib. I'm gonna be out in 30 days. I'm gonna kill more people, more of your guys. And so, uh, I said, oh, you've dealt with Americans then before, haven't you? And he said, yes. I go, well, did they look like me? And he kinda looked down. I'm wearing no body armor, short sleeves, tattoos, and a beard.

• 1:44:43Speaker 02

  And he looks at me, and I go, oh, we're not here by accident. I'm here for you. And that scared him. But imagine if I had a Star of David on, that would've been badass.

• 1:44:55Speaker 02

  So just anyway.

• 1:44:55Speaker 03

  Can you imagine just keep it?

• 1:44:57Speaker 02

  Like rip the shirt off and it's just.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  So, so when, when, when you saw the Iran deal, when, when they, when, uh, you know, the B-52 bomber, when they're going out there and, and the three facilities that, that we hit up and by using the intel from Assad, working together, was that a project that Simon, you're like, I don't know if they're gonna get this? Or was that something where it's like, nah, we're gonna be able to get it because working together collectively?

• 1:45:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that was the thing with me. I, I'm, you know, I've been to war and I'm kind of anti-war unless we're serious. Like I don't, you, with them, I, I, it was, I don't wanna see, uh, an invasion of Iran. I don't wanna see troops going into Tehran. If you're gonna hit this regime and their nuclear sites, hit them very, very hard and then tell them, no. Don't do that again. And now let's negotiate. Shit like that. That's how you should have, I think, a war. And then.

• 1:45:49Speaker 03

  Looks like that's what he did though.

• 1:45:50Speaker 02

  Yes. And it looks like it's working because I don't know where the Ayatollah is now. Is he, is he out yet?

• 1:45:54Speaker 03

  He's been missing for a while and a lot of people are saying maybe, you know, the, the IRGC, and I think you commented on this about a, a couple of weeks ago, right?

• 1:46:02Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 1:46:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. What do you think is going on with the missing?

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  Well, I wanna, I wanna say they have that, that silent coup and then they're, they're, the people who are in place and the Iranian people, they, they, I don't think they, they're happy with the Islamic revolution. I think they want what they had in 1978 back. Uh, and so I think that's, hopefully, again, I'm not involved, that is slowly coming about and they just, they have a, a, a democratically elected, uh, government in Iran because it can turn back into what it was. You know, it can be a, a destination. I mean, it's beautiful. Uh, you know, I mean, even hiring contractors, I've had people say, yeah, I went rock climbing. I was in Iran. It was great. I'm like, I mean, it's great, but if they tell you you're a spy, it's a problem. But if you can have that back, get into the rock climbing, get into the, the fishing, the water, the, the, the, the sea, you know, it's like, it's, it's a, it could be a great, I hope that's going on now.

• 1:46:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna be uh.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  I'd love to hear your input on that because you know more about it than me.

• 1:46:56Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the, the reality of it is, so. Who, who would like to see Iran fall? Who doesn't want to see Iran fall? Do they have the person? Who is the person? At least before. Khomeini was a guy from France that was causing a little bit of the ruckus in Middle East, so they can go and. Leverage him and he had so much momentum. In the country, millions of people are going in the streets. Protesting, supporting Khomeini. They're not doing that for anybody right now. Not Reza Pahlavi, they're not doing it for. Any of the major Iranian names. There isn't anybody that's been able to produce that kind of. Loyalty while people are hitting the streets. Then a lot of people are saying. Well, the reason why they're not doing that is because they're, you know, because.

• 1:47:41Speaker 03

  We're telling them not to, but we have 50,000 people on our side. That's not how this works. When people really want a revolution and they're inside of it. You can't stop them. People are gonna go out and they're gonna protest. They're not, you need visually to show. Anti or support for somebody. That is the only thing you're gonna be able to do. If you don't have, well, no, it's not safe for them to do it. I, I just don't think they have the right person right now.

• 1:48:02Speaker 02

  No, they don't.

• 1:48:03Speaker 03

  And no matter how many people, for many years, I've, I've wanted Reza Pahlavi to be the person to do it, but uh. You know, I, I just don't think he's the right guy and I think he's a, I've said this multiple times, he's a very nice guy. A sweet man. But I think he's doing what he's doing to make his mom. Happy and his dad proud, but deep down inside, I don't think he wants the job. So this is a.

• 1:48:28Speaker 03

  This is a very, very nasty job. This isn't for everybody. To be able to get there and get the job. And, and lead certain people, they have to know you're just as capable as. They are to get to certain levels that. You know, they're willing to get to. When Trump got in, people said, there's something wrong with this guy. He is willing to. Push the envelope as much as we can, we believe as threats. Nobody believes, you know, a lot of people's threats right now with Iran. So I, I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. I, I can tell you, Israel probably wants somebody to go out there and do it. Israel tried to help Reza Pahlavi to go out there and get some attention, but the US hasn't yet gotten behind him. And he's gonna need US to get behind him to give some kind of a support, some kind of a retweet, some kind of a thing.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  Hasn't happened. Maybe it's gonna happen next few months. Maybe it's gonna happen, but hasn't happened yet.

• 1:49:17Speaker 02

  Is there an infrastructure in place where they can have elections yet?

• 1:49:20Speaker 03

  Oh, no way.

• 1:49:21Speaker 02

  I didn't think so.

• 1:49:21Speaker 03

  No way. No way. No. What, what's in there right now is, you know, it's, it's a war right now. Who's gonna be replacing the, you know, the spiritual reader, leader, you know, Khomeini and who's gonna take? No. It is a very, very different situation there right now. Very.

• 1:49:36Speaker 02

  Well, cause I mean, I, and I just think from reading and stuff that when the Islamic Revolution started, it sounded great to them until they saw what it actually was. Cause not everyone in, in Iran's Muslim. Is that right?

• 1:49:46Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:49:47Speaker 02

  But I mean, but if you talk to the, like the normal person on the street, they think it's a bunch of jihadis.

• 1:49:50Speaker 03

  Great people, by the way.

• 1:49:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what, that's.

• 1:49:52Speaker 03

  No, great people. Yeah. No, but to me, they're, they're, I had the founder of IRGC here a year ago, nine months ago. He came in here, we, we did an interview. He walked in and they're all like, he's like, what do you wanna talk to me about? I said, what do you think I wanna talk to you about? Like, I'm from Iran, you're the founder of Islamic Revolutionary Guard, right there. Mohsen Sazgar, Sazgarah, right? If you look at the affiliation, he was the founder of IRGC.

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  No kidding?

• 1:50:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, with Khomeini. So he was the guy that would open up all the tapes that he sent to Iran to create the revolution.

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:50:22Speaker 03

  This is one of the guys that caused Iran to fall. This guy. And it was a fascinating conversation.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure it was.

• 1:50:28Speaker 03

  He himself never thought it was gonna get as nasty as he did. And then obviously eventually, till today, a lot of people don't trust the guy saying he's still connected to it.

• 1:50:36Speaker 02

  Well, he's giving him reason not to trust him.

• 1:50:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. But we'll see what's gonna happen. Did you ever work with the IDF or no?

• 1:50:42Speaker 02

  No, no. Uh, no, maybe ones and twos. I know they came to our compound in Virginia Beach a couple of times. I was never there with them.

• 1:50:49Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 1:50:50Speaker 02

  Uh, and just, I mean, some, I've discussed some stuff with them, uh, you know, since I've been out.

• 1:50:54Speaker 03

  Was there any other military or, you know, tier one military unit that you work with that's not US based where you said, holy shit, they got their shit together?

• 1:51:03Speaker 02

  Special Boat Service, SBS in, in, in the UK. Incredible. And I love them because, uh, Well, I mean, they're Royal Marines and then are equivalent of Navy SEALs, so Special Boat Service. What I loved about them was I realized that Brits are, because I'm a huge believer in morale. Keep morale up, have a sense of humor about everything, never lose your sense of humor. And the Brits had the same sense of humor, but just a little different. And I described them as like a piano, they're the sharp keys. Like, I get it, it's a little off, but you're funny. And they were just great, and their tactics were awesome. They, they taught us, they called it fibula, fighting in built up areas. We call it mountain, military operations, urban terrain. But they learned from fighting in Northern Ireland. Tactics of, you know, walking down streets and where you aim and stuff.

• 1:51:47Speaker 02

  Just a shitty fight, obviously, the Irish and Northern Irish and the Brits. And even when I started training at SEAL Team Two, when I first checked in, I didn't understand why one of the SBS guys hated three of us. It was O'Neill, Brennan, and Brennan. And they hated us because we're Irish. I didn't, from my town, like, why would you hate the Irish? But working with them overseas, a lot in Iraq, a lot in southern Afghanistan, in Kandahar, and those dudes just had their shit together. They're excellent, they're just hard as you come.

• 1:52:16Speaker 03

  Serious, humor.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  The humor's great, but they're serious. They're hostage rescue snipers, close quarters battle, the water, they, they're like us, you know, over the beach, over the horizon, shitty cold, misery loves company. And it's like almost Viking shit, when the worse the seas, the more they're laughing. Can't say enough about, I've worked with the Special Air Service as well, and the Australian SAS, great guys. I have a lot, I just have love for the SBS because I worked with them so much. They were my, they were incredible. You know who else is really good is the Norwegian Jaegers. And yeah, they're really good. And, but they don't get to fight a lot because of their government. But we go up there and hang out in Norway, they, skiers, phenomenal, rock climbers, phenomenal, tactics are awesome. And, and what's funny about them-

• 1:52:58Speaker 03

  Are they like super soldiers physically and shape?

• 1:53:00Speaker 02

  Well, physically it was funny because they're, they're from Norway, so they're all tan, blue, like, I'm not gay or anything, but check this dude out. So dude, but it was funny though, they, they came to Virginia Beach to train with us and, and they said, well, you guys have been rolling through Oslo, picking up our chicks. We're in Virginia Beach. It's go time for us.

• 1:53:17Speaker 03

  Revenge. We're gonna come take yours.

• 1:53:19Speaker 02

  But again, that's such a humor and just phenomenal dude. The German comp stormers were great. Combat diapers, the best in the world, probably. But yeah, we're, um, just, yeah, solid, solid, SBS those, but there, I have, there's an affinity for them.

• 1:53:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's, you know, it's, it's always where, you know, like if you look at basketball, these guys are coming from Serbia, you know, these countries that come, you're like, who is Joe? Who is this guy? You're moving that slow, but you're making it look so easy. Now, Joe, uh, Luca, how, why do you guys, the way he goes in so slow.

• 1:53:46Speaker 02

  Have you? Yes.

• 1:53:46Speaker 03

  You're averaging 30 points, 10, 10. How are you doing this? It's just a very different game.

• 1:53:50Speaker 02

  Have you seen the interview when they said, well, were you at all disturbed by the booing? And he says, I played in Serbia, brother. And they show that? My God. It looks like a European football match.

• 1:54:01Speaker 03

  It's the best. It's the best. Anyways, brother, this has been great. I can probably speak to you for another few hours, but I'm getting texts. I got a 3:30. They're waiting for me on the, on the other end. But, uh, I really enjoyed it. I'm glad we did this. And, uh, is there anything you're working on right now that you want the audience to know about?

• 1:54:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, uh, my podcast is called The Operator Podcast, uh, and I put that out usually every week, depending on my travel schedules. And I, I call it The Operator because I'm not calling myself that. What I'm saying is I'm an operator, but so is everyone doing anything to help anyone else that doesn't get credit. Like the, I always bring up the trash man in Manhattan who wakes up at two in the morning. No thanks. He cleans Manhattan. The single mom is an operator. So what I do is I tell you my opinion as an operator and as an operator, I want you to tell me what you think. And unlike a lot of people, if you tell me I'm wrong and I am, I'll admit it. So The Operator Podcast is a big one. Um, in New York, I just started the operator canna company cannabis for, uh, again, sleep, PTSD, cannabis gets a bad rap.

• 1:54:55Speaker 02

  Uh, a lot of psychedelic stuff, but, uh, robertjoneal.com. I have, I just started, uh, The Operators Collective, which is sort of, it's not a speaking agency, but it's presentations. Everything from black belts and jujitsu to seals to, uh, Dakota Meyer, who I mentioned is a Medal of Honor recipient, Marine. Uh, if you just need, uh, uh, someone to show up and motivate or do training or anything like that, we just started it. So we're not even sure what it is.

• 1:55:16Speaker 03

  Are you on MINEC by the way?

• 1:55:17Speaker 02

  I am right now.

• 1:55:18Speaker 03

  You're on MINEC, okay. So MINEC, our audience is definitely gonna reach out to you.

• 1:55:23Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:55:23Speaker 03

  Shipley and Cole got on it and boom, nonstop people.

• 1:55:26Speaker 02

  That's so cool.

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  Reaching out, doing stuff with them, so. But we're gonna put the link below to your website on how to find you. And we're gonna put the link to your podcast as well. By the way, a story just came out that you may wanna. Rob, share the story with them about how trash men in certain jobs are more comfortable with their lives and they're better at pressure, under pressure, because they don't worry about what people think about their jobs. Give it to them afterwards. I think you'll be able to share it with some of the podcasts that you're doing. My man, this was great, brother. Again, thank you for your service. I enjoyed it.

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:55:55Speaker 03

  Take care. Bye bye.

• 1:55:55Speaker 02

  Hey, what is up? This is Robert J. O'Neal, former SEAL Team Six operator. I was fortunate to be on some of the most high-profile missions in our very long War on Terror, but I am now on MINEC. And you can connect with me there and we can literally talk about anything. You can text, we can do video calls, I can give you messages. And, you know, go to MINEC, find me. Literally, nothing is off limits. Any crazy questions you have that you may or may not want the answers to, I'm more than happy to do it. So find me on MINEC. Again, this is Robert J. O'Neal. See you there.

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