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Speaker 1: M Hi everybody. I'm Robert Evans and this is again

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards. Uh. This is part two of our

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Speaker 1: of our episode on Eric Prince, and with me in

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Speaker 1: the studio today is Miles, how are you doing. I'm good,

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Speaker 1: I am great, and I'm just I'm itching to know

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Speaker 1: more about Eric Prince because the first round, first episode,

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Speaker 1: first part, which was like six months ago. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: I still remember most of it, and I it's it's

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Speaker 1: a testament to the American spirit. That's a thing. It's

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Speaker 1: a testament to that, among other things. It's a testament

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Speaker 1: to being born with hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: testament to all of that stuff. Well, what have you

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Speaker 1: been up to in the last six months? Last six months?

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Speaker 1: I don't really care. What's your guess as to what

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Speaker 1: Eric Prince has been getting up to. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: if I'm a bet gambling man and I like to gamble,

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Speaker 1: I'll go with a safe bet and I'm just gonna say,

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Speaker 1: crimes against humanity, just in general, war crimes, yes, I mean, okay,

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Speaker 1: well absolutely has he has been a part of some

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Speaker 1: more crimes that have been committed recently, which we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about later. But more interestingly, I guess I should be

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Speaker 1: more pointed. Do you want to guess as to what

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Speaker 1: Erik Prince has bought since you and I talked? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so last time he tried to make that his homemade

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Speaker 1: fucking fighters yet Yeah, and that went did not work

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Speaker 1: out well. Uh so what's easier? Probably boats? I mean,

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Speaker 1: I knowing how Betsy Devas loves her yachts, it only

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Speaker 1: makes sense that brother Eric is gonna be like, let

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Speaker 1: me turn this ship up. Just within the last few

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Speaker 1: weeks he purchased or we'll get into what he did later,

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Speaker 1: but he basically purchased quote, three high speed catamarans armed

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Speaker 1: with electronically aimed and fired machine guns and cannon, three

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Speaker 1: trimarans armed with heavy machine guns and cannon, and drones

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Speaker 1: which could be armed. They are equipped with military grade

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Speaker 1: surveillance radars and high speed, semi rigid inflatable boats that

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Speaker 1: can be used to launch commandos and boarding parties from

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Speaker 1: the larger ships. Wow, what was the second kind of

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Speaker 1: boat you said? Trimaran. It's just it's a boat of

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Speaker 1: some sort and it has a lot of guns on it. Right,

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Speaker 1: I don't know much about boats, but he bought two

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Speaker 1: different kinds of boats with a shiploaded guns on them.

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Speaker 1: Can you show me a picture of a catamaran and

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Speaker 1: a trimaran, Sophie, perfect, just so I can wrap my

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Speaker 1: head around, because what's it Isn't a catamar ran? Like

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Speaker 1: when I think of a cataman, I don't think of

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Speaker 1: like a warfaring boat. I assume there are arms. I

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Speaker 1: mean I think by a basic broader definition, it's like

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Speaker 1: a type of boat and they just armored this one

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Speaker 1: and put some guns on it. Yeah, yeah, Eric, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Eric Prince has a okay, so it is the

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Speaker 1: thing with like the three okay, because yeah, the catamaran

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Speaker 1: is like the two piece thing where you see people.

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Speaker 1: It's like we're in Santrope and I'm laying on this

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Speaker 1: net in between. It's the boat equivalent of those spaceships

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Speaker 1: in Cloud City and thanks. Yeah. Yeah, it's like that, right,

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Speaker 1: I think, Uh, which is so funny, Like it's still

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Speaker 1: very like waspy, like old money, like a catamaran except

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Speaker 1: for war. Yeah. Well he in a little bit of

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Speaker 1: defense to Eric. He didn't he didn't just go buying

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Speaker 1: armed catama and he bought the navy of Mozambique uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah great rates over there. Well, yes, because their their

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Speaker 1: economy collapsed recently because their entire country got taken in

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Speaker 1: by a giant con scam thing. Basically, they wanted to

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Speaker 1: modernize their tuna harvesting fleet and needed like a loan

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Speaker 1: for eight hundred million dollars right, which they got in

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Speaker 1: which the people of Mozambique were like, yeah, sure, modernize

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Speaker 1: the tuna harvesting fleet, will all make more money. But

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Speaker 1: the government, working with shadowy foreign interests, secretly took out

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Speaker 1: an extra one point two billion dollars in loans that

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Speaker 1: they used to buy a navy, and they lied about

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Speaker 1: it and so an extra one So the first thing

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Speaker 1: is we need eight hundred million for the tuna. They're like,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a sea bound nation. But

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Speaker 1: you buy then you secretly borrow even more than what

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Speaker 1: you buy a navy. What the fuck? Okay, So they

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Speaker 1: bought this navy secretly and then and lied about it.

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Speaker 1: And but once they bought it, they'd spent all of

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Speaker 1: their money, so they didn't have enough money to man

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Speaker 1: the navy, which they were planning to. They were planning

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Speaker 1: to leave the navy to a private corporation that would

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Speaker 1: then basically be a for profit navy based in Mozambique.

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Speaker 1: So the shipping Airbnb their fucking that was the plan. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just like getting the black on this thing. But they

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Speaker 1: just didn't. They couldn't actually run the navy, and the

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Speaker 1: whole venture sort of collapsed and somehow Eric Prince wound

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Speaker 1: up in control of it. Now it's weird because the

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Speaker 1: first source I found that from was a website that's

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Speaker 1: new to me called Spiked News, which builds itself as

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Speaker 1: an outli for stories that have been buried or crushed

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Speaker 1: by the daily median noise. So I was a little

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Speaker 1: bit like, is this some fake news bullshit? So I

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Speaker 1: looked around and I was able to find other sources

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Speaker 1: on the article that were a little bit less direct

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Speaker 1: than Spiked had been, but said basically the same thing.

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Speaker 1: I'm going a quote from this Bloomberg article called Eric

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Speaker 1: Prince to partner with Mozambiques hidden debt companies, which that

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Speaker 1: sounds above board hidden debt companies, isn't. One of those

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Speaker 1: are the companies that helped members of the government of

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Speaker 1: Mozambique take on more loans in the count it could

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Speaker 1: afford just then bankrupted the nation. Yeah, hidden debt company

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Speaker 1: will always sound terrible to make this. Yeah, and these

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Speaker 1: are the people Eric is working with. So Blackwater Security

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Speaker 1: founder Eric Prince will partner with at least one of

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Speaker 1: the state owned Mozambican companies at the center of a

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Speaker 1: hidden loan scandal that resulted in the country defaulting on

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Speaker 1: its death this year. Prince, chairman of the Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: based Frontier Services Group, is forming a joint venture with

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Speaker 1: the Tuna Fishing Company and Mattam and may extend this

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Speaker 1: to assisting the Southeast African nation with maritime security. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if Eric Prince has a navy now it sounds

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Speaker 1: like sounds like renting as a navy now, Yeah, at

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Speaker 1: least renting and exactly He's like, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: go that. I'm not doing that. Well, I'm I'm renting,

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Speaker 1: I'm leasing a navy and he's he's doing some counter

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Speaker 1: terrorism stuff for the country. So it sounds like he

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Speaker 1: has found a country whatever that Yeah, he's he's doing

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Speaker 1: something shady and Mozambian as a navy. So that's good,

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Speaker 1: that's really nice. Yeah. Um, anyway, we're all caught up.

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Speaker 1: Other than the buttfuck he bought it. It's like we

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Speaker 1: bought a Sue but with war machine. I know he

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Speaker 1: bought a catamaran, a trim Ran with no. Six of them,

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Speaker 1: and plus drones, blessed little skiffs, so you can you

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Speaker 1: can just have boarding camards because Eric print should have

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Speaker 1: more commandos. It worked well. The last the bodies part

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Speaker 1: he can figure out. It's the getting around the international

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Speaker 1: laws that prohibit private people from owning military hardware. He's

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Speaker 1: a master. Yeah, he's he's really is. He's like, he's focused.

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Speaker 1: He's focused. If anything, this is a man who said

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Speaker 1: I will have some kind of my own military army.

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Speaker 1: I want my own military's right, And he's got he's

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Speaker 1: got his, he's got his ground gooms. He's got the

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Speaker 1: ground game worked out. Now he wanted. He couldn't couldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out the skies. Now take him to the sea. Yep, yep.

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Speaker 1: So he's he's in the sea. Yeah, and that's uh,

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Speaker 1: that's where Prince is now. So now that we're all

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Speaker 1: caught up, I would like to talk to you about

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Speaker 1: the book that I just read this week. It's called

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Speaker 1: Civilian Warriors, The Inside Story of Blackwater and the unsung

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Speaker 1: heroes of the War on Terror. First of all, based

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Speaker 1: on everything we're talking about last time to cause some

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Speaker 1: of these people, well, the people who saw their heroics

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Speaker 1: couldn't sing because they were too busy screaming, right because

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Speaker 1: Blackwater was firing grenades into a crowd, and they're like,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, man, I haven't I haven't let this thing

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Speaker 1: off all day. So obviously the author of that book

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Speaker 1: is Eric Prince, um well, and some other guy. Clearly

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Speaker 1: Eric Prince outlined it and some other dude filled out

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Speaker 1: the writing, right, whoever the ghostwriters, he's credited as the author.

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Speaker 1: It's exactly the kind of self serving autobiography you would

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Speaker 1: expect from a billionaire whose companies companies have been tied

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Speaker 1: to more war crimes than several s S battalions. Um So,

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Speaker 1: let's just dive into the introduction. This gives Eric a

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Speaker 1: chance to lay out his beliefs on the War on

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Speaker 1: Terror in brief. So, yeah, Western governments continue to struggle

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Speaker 1: to find real solutions to these crises. They have spent

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Speaker 1: trillions of dollars during that Cold War preparing the mightiest

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Speaker 1: of hammers. But when you have a magnificent hammer, everything

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Speaker 1: looks like a nail. So this is the problem. He's

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Speaker 1: accurately identified the problem the US military has with counterinsurgence, right,

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Speaker 1: because we do have a really great hammer, and we're

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Speaker 1: not dealing with nail problems. You get a penis implant

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Speaker 1: and you're like, how do I not funk with this? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then you wind up in the wall of penis,

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Speaker 1: hall of penises, and so your penis is just useless. Yeah, Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's the situation. That's a fine analogy to the current

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Speaker 1: military strategy and everything is phallic. Yeah, it's it's funny

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Speaker 1: to me that he's he's diagnosing the shortcoming and attributing

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Speaker 1: it to the U. S. Military that their problem is

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Speaker 1: that they have a great hammer and so everything looks

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Speaker 1: like a nail, because all Eric has ever done in

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Speaker 1: his entire life is build hammers um But he he

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Speaker 1: seems to think that what his people do is different

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Speaker 1: and more suited to the war on Terror than what

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Military does because they don't have rules.

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Speaker 1: The hammer of traditional forces lacks the nimbleness and fiscal

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Speaker 1: efficiency either small active duty units are contracted special forces.

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Speaker 1: Even more troubling, traditional forces can inflame the situation instead

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Speaker 1: of pacifying it, instead of pacifying, instead of pacifying it.

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Speaker 1: What colorful language that, Yeah, and I love it because

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Speaker 1: if there's one thing Blackwater absolutely has done everywhere it's operated,

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Speaker 1: it's inflamed the situation, pified it. Well, that's right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would say Army Colonel Peter Mansoor said this about Blackwater.

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Speaker 1: If they push traffic off the roads, or if they

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Speaker 1: shoot up a car that looks suspicious, they may be

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Speaker 1: operating within their contract, but it is to the detriment

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Speaker 1: of the mission, which is to bring people over to

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Speaker 1: our side. Uh. There's also another quote I found in

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Speaker 1: a textbook called US Domestic and International Regimes of Security

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Speaker 1: by Army Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who said arm

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Speaker 1: contractors do harm counterinsurgency efforts. Just ask the troops in Iraq.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of military people who have served

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Speaker 1: alongside Blackwater where like these guys don't help the effort

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Speaker 1: in anyway. It's just like that nepotism, Like suddenly your

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Speaker 1: boss is like nephews shows up to work. It's fucking useless,

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Speaker 1: but it's like the boss had extra money, so it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just give it to this guy. Well, it's a mix

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Speaker 1: of like the boss had extra money, but also like, boy,

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Speaker 1: we only have half as many troops as we need

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Speaker 1: to do the job. And these guys don't count as

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Speaker 1: humans legally, like we don't have to report that they

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Speaker 1: exist or died. It's a whole mess. Ah. So Eric

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Speaker 1: has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder

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Speaker 1: about the fact that, you know, he had to sell

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Speaker 1: his company Blackwater and had to be renamed, and you

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Speaker 1: know there were all those murders sakers, and yeah, here's

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Speaker 1: how he sums that all up. After failing in their

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Speaker 1: multi year effort to win hearts and minds in Iraq,

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Speaker 1: the bureaucrats decided a company that had repeatedly answered this

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Speaker 1: government's please for help was suddenly more valuable as a scapegoat.

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Speaker 1: I was strung up so the politicians could feign indignation

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Speaker 1: and pretend my men hadn't done exactly what they paid

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Speaker 1: us handsomely to do. Oh what a worldview. I love it,

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Speaker 1: because like the major incident that led to him lose

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Speaker 1: in Blackwater was a bunch of his guys firing into

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Speaker 1: a crowd and it was like a protest, right, No,

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Speaker 1: it was just a traffic circle. One of them panicked

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Speaker 1: and they just right and there was like no explanation

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Speaker 1: and there weren't really any weapons, no one coming fire

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Speaker 1: right soever. No, they just massacred fourteen people. And he's like, Ah,

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Speaker 1: that's the politicians trying to make me look bad. Maybe

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Speaker 1: if your people hadn't shot for And then there was

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Speaker 1: that guy who drunkenly shot the vice president of Iraq

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Speaker 1: Security Guard and thean Zone. There's a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Those guys who crashed an armored vehicle because they were drunk,

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Speaker 1: it's just the party crew black Water. Those do sound

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Speaker 1: like some fun parties, I mean in the scariest way

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Speaker 1: where you're like, I mean, these guys know what they're

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Speaker 1: doing with their guns, but I feel like it's going

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Speaker 1: to get weird suddenly. Yeah, they don't sound fun to

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Speaker 1: drink with getting drunk and having an armored vehicle to

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Speaker 1: tool around with. It sounds like, but not in like

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Speaker 1: an environment where there's the possibility that they would have

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Speaker 1: to be like have some kind of like situation nature

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Speaker 1: around you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Uh, if you're a

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Speaker 1: company that makes armored vehicles were open for sponsorships, I

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Speaker 1: would love to just get drunk in your bearcat and

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Speaker 1: write it right into a fucking wall and show how

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Speaker 1: strong it is, how sturdy that armor is. Yeah. Uh

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Speaker 1: So Prince's book is surprisingly anti military. Uh He's very

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Speaker 1: careful about it because obviously he's a conservative dude, and

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Speaker 1: you can't say the military is not heroic. But he

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Speaker 1: he's picked specific officers who have said bad things about

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Speaker 1: his soldiers and tries to discredit them. Um. And he

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Speaker 1: regularly talks about how often the US military screws up

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Speaker 1: and jobs that Blackwater is also present at and usually

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Speaker 1: will like point out how much better the blackwater contractors. Right. Like,

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Speaker 1: there's a picture in his book, like I guess at

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Speaker 1: some point John Kerry and some other congressmen were visiting

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan and their helicopter was like grounded on like a

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Speaker 1: fucking mountain peak or some ship. The picture looks like

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Speaker 1: they're on a mountain peak and they they got head

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Speaker 1: to get rescued, and the team that came in and

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Speaker 1: got them was blackwater stuff. And Eric Prince was like,

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Speaker 1: but he thanked US soldiers and not blackwater contractors. It's like, well,

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Speaker 1: he was probably thanking the U S soldiers who guarded

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Speaker 1: him up on the top of that mountain for hours.

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Speaker 1: Not not the toe truck guys. Whatever anyway, uh so, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Prince's book is surprisingly uh anti military. He also cites

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Speaker 1: the failure in rebuilding Afghanistan and sort of ignores the

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Speaker 1: fact that that effort to rebuild Afghanistan was mainly carried

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Speaker 1: out by private companies. Yeah, well again, yes, uh so.

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Speaker 1: Here's a quote from his his book on Afghanistan that

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Speaker 1: I think is is relevant considering some of his more

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Speaker 1: recent plans for Afghanistan. Witness the totally failed economic development

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Speaker 1: of the Afghan economy. After nearly thirteen years of US

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Speaker 1: special forces on the ground, the AID community spent billions

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Speaker 1: and dead in boondoggles while ignoring the mineral and energy

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Speaker 1: sectors that could make Afghanistan an independent nation instead of

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Speaker 1: a welfare case. Oh wow, what do you think about that?

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Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like there was some stuff to pillage.

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Speaker 1: Whoa you are right on? That sounded like he's like, guys,

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Speaker 1: there's just fucking money in There's there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: money in the ground in Afghanistan. It would be really

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Speaker 1: great if there was like some sort of outside document

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Speaker 1: that we could look at that would give us a

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Speaker 1: better idea of what Eric really meant when he started

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Speaker 1: bringing up Afghanistan's mineral and energy wealth. Oh hey, it

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Speaker 1: turns out it turns out he's been shopping his plan

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Speaker 1: to privatize the war in Afghanistan around d C and

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Speaker 1: BuzzFeed actually got a copy of the power point presentation

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Speaker 1: that Eric's using to try and sell his privatize the

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Speaker 1: war in Afghanistan plan, which is doing quite well, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: Probably probably what I hear in the news constantly. It's

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Speaker 1: like that's always on the horizon and always being you know,

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Speaker 1: promoted at least from the Trump And let's talk about that.

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Speaker 1: His his slide show is titled an Exit Strategy for Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: a test case for the Strategic Economy of Force. Why

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Speaker 1: don't just call it an exit plan for Afghanistan? Just

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Speaker 1: give it to me. Well, there's a reason that he

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Speaker 1: made sure the word economy was in there, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And we're about to get into that. So it turns

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Speaker 1: out there's a whole slide on this slide show about

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Speaker 1: the rare earth minerals that are present in the Helmand Province.

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Speaker 1: And Eric makes a big point of the fact that

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Speaker 1: there's an estimated one trillion dollars in rare earth minerals

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Speaker 1: in the ground, and just this one province of Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't there a lot of fighting in Oh? You bet it?

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Speaker 1: Like I feel like that's the one province you would

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Speaker 1: was like repeatedly referred to. I mean, it's possible at

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Speaker 1: least that one one portion of there's debate between like

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Speaker 1: what the U. S Military says is controlled in Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: and what the Taliban controls and there's debate between that,

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Speaker 1: but they probably there's a good chance they control something

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Speaker 1: like the country right now. Um So anyway, Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: map looks pretty looks pretty juicy. It's interesting that he's

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Speaker 1: really specifying how many rare earth minerals are inside Helman

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Speaker 1: Province in this I wonder what he intends to do

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Speaker 1: these minerals well. In the slide show, he states that

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Speaker 1: he states that under his plan, the military effort in

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan will be quote strategic mineral resource extraction funded. Prince

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Speaker 1: believed that this will break the quote negative security economic

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Speaker 1: cycle of the war in Afghanistan. So so we'll dig

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Speaker 1: up them where earth mindals and self fund while we

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Speaker 1: just destroy the earth there. Yeah, so Eric Prince essentially

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Speaker 1: wants to make Afghanistan, take Afghanistan from an expensive peacekeeping

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Speaker 1: operation by the United States to a profitable, rare earth

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Speaker 1: mineral selling corporate endeavor. Uh, there's no talk or hint

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Speaker 1: about how this might make life better for African people.

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Speaker 1: He's doing like rich war criminal, poor war criminal, where

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Speaker 1: it's like it's about passive income guys. Yeah, a Prince

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Speaker 1: company spokesperson said to BuzzFeed when they asked them about

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Speaker 1: this quote. What is laid out in the slides as

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Speaker 1: a model of an affordable way for the US to

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Speaker 1: stabilize a failed state where we are presently wasting American

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Speaker 1: youth in tens of billions of dollars annually. So they're

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Speaker 1: basically climbing onto the fact that pretty much everyone is like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's dumb that we're still in Afghanistan. Super we're not.

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Speaker 1: And he's like the sane people like, it's done that

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Speaker 1: we're in Afghanistan. We should leave. He's saying, it's done

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Speaker 1: that we're in Afghanistan. You should give it to me

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Speaker 1: so that I can mine it, right exactly, That's all

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Speaker 1: I'm interested in, because like, there is one I can see,

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Speaker 1: like on the face of it, right because since the

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Speaker 1: Iraq War in Afghanistan, like that has just been a

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Speaker 1: money pit that has just been led to the accelerated

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Speaker 1: decline of the American empire, right, Like it's sort of

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Speaker 1: these late what Afghanistan does, baby, but it's like it,

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Speaker 1: but it follows that trend of like all historical empires,

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Speaker 1: like they get into these like glamour wars that end

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Speaker 1: up bankrupting the country or whatever. More often than not,

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Speaker 1: the war is in Afghanistan. Yeah, and then so on

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Speaker 1: one party to go. Yeah, well it is kind of

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Speaker 1: a money pit, and that's all money that could have

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Speaker 1: been spent in the US on thinking like education, but

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Speaker 1: really you some bridges. Yeah right, but you know, let

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Speaker 1: him mind it. He's in mining. He can find a guy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he can find a guy has a fucking navy, so mine.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he can handle some mind if he

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Speaker 1: can make the sea his mistress. Uh so yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, Eric Prince's stated inspiration for his fucking sweet

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Speaker 1: idea seems to be the East India t Company. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal let him write an opinion article

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Speaker 1: in May of two thousand seventeen. The article was titled

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Speaker 1: the MacArthur Model for Afghanistan. But further into the article

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Speaker 1: he cites our favorite corporation, which, if you haven't listened yet,

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Speaker 1: we did an episode on the East India Company. They

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Speaker 1: conquered India in the seventeen hundreds and star of twenty

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Speaker 1: or thirty million people to death through negligence. Uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they also invaded Afghanistan, which is why they went bankrupt.

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Speaker 1: Uh In interesting stuff anyway, here's Eric an East India

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Speaker 1: Company approach would use cheaper private solutions to fill the

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Speaker 1: gaps that plague the Afghan security forces, including reliable logistics

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Speaker 1: and aviation support. So bold bold of Eric Prince to

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Speaker 1: directly cite a company that was destroyed conquering Afghanistan, right right, right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well you know, maybe maybe it'll be different this Maybe

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Speaker 1: it'll be different this time. Okay, run example, like the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Is there something about Afghanistan that makes powerful rich

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Speaker 1: white men with armies stupid? Like? Is there like telling

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Speaker 1: a magical effect that it has? I don't, I don't

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Speaker 1: know because it keeps happening. Did they all know? Did

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Speaker 1: the Soviets know the resources that were there back then. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but that's not even why they Yeah, but that wasn't

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Speaker 1: the motivation to support a government that was socialists. So

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Speaker 1: they lost money there. We lost money there. The British

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Speaker 1: Empire fought three or four wars there and let itself

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Speaker 1: dry there. Like nobody wins in Afghanistan. Afghanistan might just

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Speaker 1: be like where God lives, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: It's like, don't come in here, bro, No, this is

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Speaker 1: my house. Yeah, like watch this, who's next. I'll take

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Speaker 1: all your money? Yeah. Anyway, according to the Atlantic, so

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Speaker 1: Eric hasn't been forthcoming on most of the details of

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Speaker 1: his plan, but according to The Atlantic, in some other sources,

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Speaker 1: we know that he wants a viceroy to run the

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Speaker 1: whole operation. He compares this person to a bankruptcy trustee

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Speaker 1: who would have full control over hiring and firing US

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Speaker 1: personnel and country mentors would be embedded into Afghan units.

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Speaker 1: These would be men from any country, according to Prince

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Speaker 1: quote with a good rugby team, so British, Australians, any

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Speaker 1: country with a good regular that's where he would recruit

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Speaker 1: his mercenaries mentors. Yeah, wait, why why the rugby? I

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Speaker 1: don't know, that's weird, right, Yeah, he's like, I love

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Speaker 1: rugby union. Rugby guys are good at war. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: New Zealand South Africa. New Zealand super good at war famously. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think South Africa is probably he's gonna

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Speaker 1: get a lot of South African guys, some crooks out

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Speaker 1: of there. It's like, but they can also play rugby. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: interestingly enough, Eric Prince also wants a composite air wing

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Speaker 1: to help the Afghan Air Force. In other words, this

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Speaker 1: Viceroy would have his own private air force working alongside

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Speaker 1: the air force. So with his with his proposal, if

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Speaker 1: they were to be like okay, here the Keys, then

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Speaker 1: they would have they would loosen laws to allow this

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Speaker 1: viceroy to then go to have an air force. Of course,

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Speaker 1: of course got to have air superior and so Eric

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Speaker 1: Prince would mind Afghanistan's minerals and use it to buy

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Speaker 1: himself an air force, which he would then use to

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Speaker 1: bomb the Afghan people. It is, it's like a literal

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Speaker 1: parasitic relationships. It's in I'm honestly he's the most respectable

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Speaker 1: person close in the orbit of the Trump administration right now.

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Speaker 1: Because you've got to give one thing to Erik Prince.

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Speaker 1: He is persistent, like he wants an air force and

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Speaker 1: he's really putting in the groundwork to do. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: he's just leasing that Navy just to get over the

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Speaker 1: air force, even though I have that it's about about

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Speaker 1: having an air force. I there's something not respectable, but like, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess objective if you removed all the

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Speaker 1: actual details that made it about war and killing and

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Speaker 1: things like that, and you're just about one person who

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Speaker 1: had is a dream and the you know, just whatever

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Speaker 1: he has to overcome that he's going to do. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's something that that's all I'll say. That is something.

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Speaker 1: It is something that is something at the core of

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Speaker 1: his being that makes him at least interesting. You have

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Speaker 1: a great Erik Prince is my God t shirt on

425
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 1: right now. I wear that a lot. Actually, yeah, I wasn't.

426
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: He's this guy that lives down the street from me

427
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to anyway, he's really good. Run ads, yeah, ads, yeah,

428
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,440
Speaker 1: and we're back. Those are some great ads. The quality

429
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:44,879
Speaker 1: products services also pretty good. Anyway, Let's get back to uh,

430
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,200
Speaker 1: Eric Prince. So, yeah, when we last left Erik Prince,

431
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 1: he's talking about turning Afghanistan into a rare minerals company

432
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 1: that he runs via islands against the Afghan people. So

433
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 1: that's fun. He's not the only guy in DC who's

434
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,919
Speaker 1: shopping around this idea. Stephen Feinberg, who runs Cerberus Capital

435
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: and also the military contractor Din Corp, has been pushing

436
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: a similar plan around Washington. Uh. Feinberg is a close

437
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: friend of President Trump. He was almost given a position

438
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: overseeing an intelligence review this year, but the intel community

439
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 1: recoiled because he has no background in intel or military,

440
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,679
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything. Cerberus and fucking was the other one,

441
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 1: Dine Corp. Dine Corp is one of the military contractors

442
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: that doesn't commit rampant war crimes like black Water. Like

443
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: I'm sure they've got in their history, but they're more

444
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: respectable than black Water, right, which is a low bar.

445
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: And then Cerberus and like Serberus Capital sounds like you're

446
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: the good guys. Yeah, exactly, We're a fucking mythical dog monster. Yeah.

447
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,479
Speaker 1: I do want to praise Eric on something real quickly,

448
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 1: which is his his acumen for this. He's the perfect

449
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,160
Speaker 1: man to take advantage of this time in Republican politics.

450
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 1: And my evidence for that is one of the slides

451
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: in this docket he put together, which again as a

452
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: slide show that's made for President Trump. In the slide show,

453
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 1: he builds the privatization of the war in Afghanistan as

454
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: quote the woman ice rink moment of the Trump administration

455
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: at the name of one of the slides, the woman

456
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: ice sprink moment and the Trump administration. Do you have

457
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 1: any idea what that's a reference to? No, but it's

458
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: probably something very I guarantee you this is one of

459
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: the only things I could reference that President Trump would

460
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: know about and you would not. And that's because back

461
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: in like the nineteen eighties, the woman ice rink in

462
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 1: New York City stopped making ice or in the seventies,

463
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: I guess. In the nineteen eighty the New York Parks

464
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: Department started working to change that. They spent like six

465
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: years and thirteen million dollars trying to fix this ice

466
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: rink and basically had to announce at that point that

467
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: they were gonna have to start all over again. And

468
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 1: so it was like this big famous story of government competence.

469
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:44,719
Speaker 1: They spent millions of dollars. They can't get this ice

470
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,199
Speaker 1: rink going, So Trump starts publicly saying that he can

471
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: do the job like under budget and in less time

472
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: than anybody else, and everybody assumes he's full of ship.

473
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: But he gets the job and he actually does it

474
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: under budget for like three million bucks in like a

475
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: quarter of the times, like the one fucking time he

476
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: did it. The thing that, yeah, he did the thing.

477
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: He got the ice drink working again it made ice

478
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 1: or he didn't. I mean he hired the people who

479
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: did it, but like made ice, Like they just couldn't

480
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: keep the rink at the temperature to keep Yeah, I

481
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 1: don't know whatever, but this is like one failed to

482
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: actually have ice on the ring, yeah, which is important

483
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: for an ice Yeah, and then you have a roller rink.

484
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: So he managed the project that got it fixed, and

485
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: he did it under budget. In anyway, it's a thing

486
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 1: that Trump talked talked about often on the campaign trail

487
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: when he was running for president. Um, he's smart, right, No,

488
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: he's saying that. Yeah, he's saying that Afghanistan is like

489
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: that ice rink back in the nineteen eighties. So the

490
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: government's just not smart enough to fix it. So he

491
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 1: knows how to sell this plan to Donald Trunk, right, um,

492
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 1: and I suspect he'll be successful eventually. I mean, based

493
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: on everything we read all the time in the news,

494
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: it just seems like every day or every story that

495
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: comes out, we inch closer enclosure to the privatization of

496
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: that war. Yeah, which is not the right plant. Just leave,

497
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: Just admit it was a stupid idea, Right, get the

498
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: funk out, Right, say you're sorry, Offer the government some

499
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,439
Speaker 1: aid from moving all the bombs we dropped, Like, just

500
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: get the funk out. But that's what I think. We're

501
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: probably gonna go with Eric's plans. So let's get back

502
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: into the book. This was a long digression because he

503
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: talked about I didn't realize that when this book was

504
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: published back in fourteen, he already had this plan together.

505
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: So this has clearly been on Eric's mind for a while.

506
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: His demo tape that goes around Yeah, and he has

507
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: a real gift for spending his career running a mercenary

508
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 1: empire into personal heroism. In the beginning of his like

509
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:29,120
Speaker 1: in the beginning of his book, he tries to present

510
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: himself as a lifetime servant of both his country and

511
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: of course of God. Uh. He says, since I first

512
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: enrolled in the Naval Academy after high school. My life's

513
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 1: mission has been to serve God, serve my family, and

514
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: serve the United States with honor and integrity. I did

515
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: it first as a midshipment venice a seal, then when

516
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: personal tragedy called me home from the service, as a contractor,

517
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,399
Speaker 1: providing solutions for some of the thorniest problems on Earth.

518
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: The business of war has never been pretty. But I

519
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 1: did my job legally, and I did it completely too well,

520
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: perhaps growing blackwater until it became something resembling its own

521
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 1: branch of the military and their government agencies. It's like

522
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: he's winking the whole time, and I did it. So

523
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna have another digression now because I couldn't let

524
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: the sentence too well, perhaps too well. So I was

525
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: worried when I started doing this, because I was like,

526
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: we talked about a lot of blackwaters, horrible negligence and

527
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: the deaths associated with the last episode, and I was like,

528
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: am I gonna be able to find more examples of

529
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 1: that for this episode with the repeating myself. Turns out

530
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: it just took about a second on Google because I

531
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: just typed in a couple of key phrases. And I

532
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,920
Speaker 1: found a two thousand five Washington Post article about a

533
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: plane crash. Of a crash of a plane in Afghanistan

534
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: piloted by a firm that was a part of Blackwater,

535
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: essentially one of Eric Prince's aviation firms, killing all six

536
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: on board. Uh So, the first army report, which was

537
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: released two weeks later, said that the plane, which again

538
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: is essentially a Blackwater plane, was in violation of numerous

539
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:53,239
Speaker 1: government regulations and contract requirements. Uh So, basically they were

540
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: breaking a bunch of rules. Now, Presidential Airways, which is

541
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: the company that Prince owned, under one of these big

542
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 1: umbrella things. Right, He's got all these funks. But anyway,

543
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: Presidential Airways was essentially accused of pairing pilots and co

544
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: pilots who both didn't have any experience flying in Afghanistan,

545
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: and then not training them properly for flying in Afghanistan,

546
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,719
Speaker 1: and then not supplying them with communications equipment that they

547
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: needed to properly fly in Afghanistan. So two of their

548
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: guys and I think four US soldiers got killed in

549
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: this crash. Uh And so the families sued Eric Prince,

550
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: and Eric Prince gets sued by families quite a lot.

551
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: That's it's my middle name, Eric getting sued families by families.

552
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 1: You're you're almost always the bad guy if whole families

553
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: are And also when your negligence is that like acutely criminal. Yeah,

554
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: you know so. An attorney for the families accused them

555
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: of Presidential Airways of cutting corners. Uh. If they're going

556
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: to outsource to corporation services like flying personnel or in Afghanistan,

557
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: they must do it with corporations that put the safety

558
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: of our men and women in uniform ahead of corporate profits.

559
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: Sadly that wasn't done here. It seems like a reasonable statement.

560
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: Presidential Airways followed with a common Eric Prince tacked, calling

561
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: the army lazy and incompetent. One of Prince's representative said

562
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: in essence that the Army review that made them look

563
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: at fault had been slapped ash and was filled with errors.

564
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: Everyone would need to wait until the National Safety Board

565
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: report came out to really know what had gone wrong

566
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: and if Presidential Airways had done anything wrong. Uh So,

567
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,959
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna read a fun related excerpt from Jeremy

568
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: Scahill's book Blackwater. In two thousand and six. Nearly two

569
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: years after the Army investigators concluded the report, the National

570
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: Transportation Safety Board issued to report of its own. The

571
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: NTSB concluded that Blackwaters pilots were quote behaving unprofessionally and

572
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: we're deliberately flying the non standard route low through the

573
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: valley for fun. Oh yo, the fucking party gang comes back. Yeah,

574
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: it's all. It's the same thing. They're just dumb, fucking

575
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 1: party boys getting people guilt. Fuck that, I guess that

576
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: is the one consistent like with the culture of that company.

577
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: It's sort of like yeah, and also just funk around

578
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: whatever you want, doesn't matter. It's guys who got frustrated

579
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: at all the rules the Army has, some of which

580
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: you're dumb. You talk anyone who served in the Army

581
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: and they'll be able to point out dumb things the

582
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: Army makes you do. But also part of the reason

583
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: the Army has so many dumb rules is so that

584
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: people don't go joy riding planes through valley and killing

585
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: six expensive hardware. Uh. And what's what's usually the background

586
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: of a lot of the guys who end up in

587
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: Black Water. They retired, they like discharge like they're usually

588
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: people who got honorably discharged. I mean it's people who

589
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were in special Forces and

590
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: then we're like, I want to get paid, which, oh

591
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: so then they kind of leave. Yeah, yeah, they like

592
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: there's a better check, right, So, but it's usually people

593
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: who are like seeing the checks that they're cutting over there,

594
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: and because they'll have a buddy who was with the

595
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: service and then got out a year or two ago,

596
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: and then he's like, I made three dollars in a

597
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: rack last year, and we're doing the same ship, right,

598
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: and he's like, can we play this game with this

599
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: fucking plane where get drunk on the plane, puts a

600
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: bottle on his head, and were trying to just knock

601
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: it off into valley. Some guys died last week, but

602
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: it's still fun. Whatever, dude, they didn't know what they

603
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: were doing. Yeah, as you might have noticed from earlier on,

604
00:30:57,720 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: Prince has a real bug up is asked about Blackwater

605
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: knock what he's seen as what he sees as the

606
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: proper recognition that it's owed. He had a statement in

607
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: his book that I found kind of funny. Government agencies

608
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: don't want that spotlight being shown on our work, nor

609
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: to applaud the greatest advantage Blackwater offered them increased capability.

610
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: They only want to increased deniability, which is funny because

611
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: that's the only reason why his company couldn't be fired

612
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: from the war is because they needed deniable assets. Yeah. Anyway,

613
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: that Eric Prince doesn't like being a deniable asset and

614
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: it's never not been in the business of providing them,

615
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: right Jesus. Yeah, that must frustrate him when he wants

616
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: to be the star and he's like, I'm made to

617
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: be the scapegoat. Yeah. Man, that's what you're doing. That's

618
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: your job, your job of getting provide the soldiers that

619
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: the government doesn't have to report to anyone have read,

620
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 1: and you're wasting life and money at the same time.

621
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: That's your whole the whole reason you're a billionaire, other

622
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: than the fact that your dad was right. Yeah. Uh,

623
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: that's the one to being a billionaire. Step one to

624
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: being a billionaire rich dad at the time. Yeah, No,

625
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: move on to squares z or you die for? Yeah,

626
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: where you die for because you don't have enough. You

627
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: can't afford insulin. It's like Oregon Trail. You broke your

628
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: leg and you died, and you died, but Eric Prince

629
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: gets a Navy right, fun world, fun fun world, So

630
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: Princess in his book quote, the true history of Blackwater

631
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: is exhilarating, rewarding, exasperating, and tragic. Don't disagree with that.

632
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: It's the story of men taking bullets to protect the men.

633
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: You take all the credit, a tale of patriots whose

634
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: names became known only when lawyers and politicians needed to

635
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: blame somebody for something, which again is funny because Eric

636
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: is the epitome of the guy who takes all of

637
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: the credit while other people get shot at. He's never

638
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: taken a bullet in his life. He's his like his

639
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: only job, his basically his only job since he was

640
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: thirty has been having other people fight for money that

641
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,479
Speaker 1: he pays them. Right. Yeah, Like he's always taking the credit.

642
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:58,479
Speaker 1: And like his like scorned attitude, Like he sounds like

643
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: Ed Harris and the Rock, like General Hummel. Yeah, it

644
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: was like they don't they don't respect us. You just

645
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: assumed General Hummel saw some ship and he did yeah,

646
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: and he did Bosnia something like that wherever it was,

647
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: which I can think of his wife's tombstone that literally

648
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: just said his wife next to it. It's like, Wow,

649
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: way to give her an identity, Barbara. One of the

650
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: remarkable things about that to me is it was one

651
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: of those few movies made in that era where if

652
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: you needed to have a military character who had seen

653
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: some combat, you had to really stretch to figure out

654
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: where they could have been. Like those two right now,

655
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: it's take your were war in like thirty countries. Well

656
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: at least the ones we acknowledged, you know what I mean,

657
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: No one's going to be there and be like, that's

658
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: a movie ten years from now. So at this point

659
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: in Eric Prince's book, we're just now through the introduction

660
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: um SO. Chapter one opens with Eric claiming to have

661
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: saved several women from a boat explosion when he was thirteen.

662
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: I love how like the intro is just like, man,

663
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: we were spit on, disrespected. We were the ones doing

664
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,720
Speaker 1: the real We're the real patriots. Chapter one, I'm fucking colla.

665
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 1: I saved some ladies when a boat blew up. Yeah,

666
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: And he's specifically notes at the end of this anecdote,

667
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: I never did learn their names or what became of them.

668
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: It's a shame because you're like fucking Spider Man. You

669
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 1: just come through people like sorry, I gotta keep this moving.

670
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: It's a lie. Yeah, it's a lie. Is there a

671
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: detail of what exactly happened? Yeah? Yeah, he taught like

672
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: these ladies they did something bad to their boat and

673
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 1: its engine exploded, and they like jumped in the water

674
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: and he and his friend fished them out of the

675
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: water and drew from the shore, and then there was

676
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 1: an ambulance waiting to take them away or something, which

677
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: maybe a boat exploited. I feel like, at least a

678
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: big part of that story's bullshit. Yeah, I have you know,

679
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: I can see that there were probably people who I

680
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: think a better version is maybe some women who were stranded,

681
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 1: maybe their boat round out of gas or something something.

682
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: They needed a ride to shore. He provided it. If

683
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 1: you were a boat explosion in somewhere time in the

684
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: eighties and Eric Prince rescued you, and you're now a

685
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: listener of this podcast, drop us a line on Twitter

686
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: at Bastard's pod. Let us know what really, Let us

687
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: know what really happened that day. It turns out it

688
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: was his boat that exploded and the women saved him.

689
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: Oh that story is completely reversed. Yeah, man, I whatever,

690
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: if if he saved some ladies on a boat and

691
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: they reach out. I'll make a whole apology track for

692
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: Eric and the ladies. Anyway, Prince moves on to talk

693
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: a little bit about his family history. He uses the

694
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: story of his grandfather's untimely death as a justification for

695
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 1: why welfare is bad. Uh. Quote when Peter died suddenly

696
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: of a heart attack in ninety three, My grandmother's son.

697
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: No government handouts, no charity from the church, not even

698
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,359
Speaker 1: money from family. Edgar, who had two sisters, his dad

699
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: was the man of the house. Now he would provide

700
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: for them. He was twelve. Wait, I'm failing that he

701
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: what is he trying to say that? I mean, how

702
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: is he trying to connect welfare to He's trying to

703
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: talk about how awesome his family is by pointing out

704
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 1: that his grandma didn't take a fucking penny. My grandma

705
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't take any money. She just made my twelve year

706
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: old grand dad at Yeah, he's how cool is my family? Dog?

707
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: Sounds like your family's kind of abusive air. Yeah, it

708
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,800
Speaker 1: sounds like she should have sought for some welfare. Finished

709
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: grade school. Unless that's a lie too. Yeah, unless that's

710
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,760
Speaker 1: a lie too. Who knows. Could you imagine her grandma

711
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: was like the O G. Welfare Queen, the miss school

712
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: where first rolling around in a Bentley. Yeah, and that's

713
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: how my dad became a billion. Yeah. So anyway, Eric

714
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: portrays that as awesome. It's worth noting that his dad

715
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: didn't seem to view this is a good thing, because

716
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: he notes later in the book quote, dad didn't let

717
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: me hold a job during high school on his hard

718
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 1: scrabble youth. He wanted me to enjoy those years. So

719
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 1: up st Eric Prince's dad. He broke a cycle exactly right,

720
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't turn out with a great kid. But no, no, yeah,

721
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 1: they're achieved. I do feel like Eric missed maybe that lesson, oh,

722
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: which was children ought not to work? Yeah, yeah, who knows,

723
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: Maybe that wasn't his dad's lesson. I don't know the

724
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 1: guy I bet you're wondering about Betsy Divos, Eric Prince's sister.

725
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: He only mentions his sister by name once in I

726
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: was hoping you're to be like not one mentioned at all,

727
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: and I have a sister. He mentions her wants to

728
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: talk about the guy she married. Wow, So she only

729
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 1: comes up in the context of her husband yeah, of course.

730
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: I think my sister is referenced a couple of times,

731
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: but Betsy Divas is only named once, as he's introducing

732
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: her husband, and she his only sister. I think, so,

733
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: why why is he creaming his jeans for Mr Devas? Oh?

734
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: Just because he's super rich guy right. I don't remember

735
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: the exact context, but the family died recently, Yeah, the

736
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: only Oh yeah, good. Good because he's the founder of family.

737
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and you still in the Orlando Magic. He

738
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: has three sisters. So the other times when he's referring

739
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 1: to a sister who knows who knows, there's a Betsy

740
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: and then the other ones. I didn't even check on

741
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: the others. But he mentions Betsy DeVos once. He's like,

742
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: but hey, Betsy the best one she married for fucking

743
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: I mean, they were already rich. He doesn't give us

744
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: much detail at all about his childhood, but if you're game,

745
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: I did find one anecdote that I want to kind

746
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,800
Speaker 1: of go down a conspiracy rabbit hole. Okay, it's Eric's

747
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:26,919
Speaker 1: description of his favorite childhood hobby quote. The first group

748
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,359
Speaker 1: of soldiers I ever assembled was made of solid lead,

749
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: two inches high, standing in neat rows on my bedroom

750
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 1: window sill. There were hundreds of them painted to match

751
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: their real life British Frenchian Continent alarmy counterparts. I created

752
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: them from molds I got on trips abroad and forty

753
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: pounds of lead Dad and I melted down into cast

754
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: iron plumber's pod. Wow, he's a little like war miniatures.

755
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: In fairness, this makes I did. That's exactly what I

756
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 1: did when I was a kid. I played fucking like

757
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: Warhammer and other I spent my child, but specifically building models.

758
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,040
Speaker 1: That was my whole child. I had a set of

759
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: like Civil War dudes, and I remember I went as

760
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: far as buying like the fake grass to put like

761
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: to create like a battlefield scene and like fake trees.

762
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: And when I realized, like, because I remember the kid,

763
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: like regular toys weren't quite scratching that itch of like

764
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: what like you know, the like military should look like.

765
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, you know what him do this?

766
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: It was too much work, though, So I commend you

767
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: for even being a hobby. Yeah, man, that's what I

768
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: did as a child. And I remember, it's like the

769
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: most poison you can exposures health to this little kid,

770
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: because your hands are always covered in paints and god

771
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: knows what's in and like this fucking cyano acrylic glue.

772
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: I was always pulling it off of my fingers and stuff.

773
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: But in Eric's case, he was melting lead. And I

774
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: don't know how much let exposure you get doing that thing.

775
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: But we do have a lot of documentation on why

776
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: lead exposure is really bad for children. I'm gonna site

777
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 1: from a study made by the College of Family Physicians

778
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,839
Speaker 1: in Canada. Lead is a developmental neurotoxin. Children are most

779
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: commonly exposed, and they are most vulnerable. Let exposure has

780
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,879
Speaker 1: been associated with many cognitive and motor deficits, as well

781
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 1: as distractability and other characteristics of attention deficit hyperactive disorder.

782
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,840
Speaker 1: Although children's blood lead levels have declined considerably over the

783
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: past three decades with removal of lead from gasoline and paint,

784
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:16,959
Speaker 1: children can still be exposed to lead from lead paint

785
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: and older homes, toys, and other sources. Because post exposure

786
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: treatment cannot reverse the cognitive effects effects of lead exposure,

787
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: preventing lead exposure is essential. One of the things lead

788
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: exposure is most tied to is violence, crime let exposure.

789
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: It's we've seen crime drop for most of the last

790
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: thirty years, and one of the major theories behind it

791
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: is that we got let out of everything and so

792
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: people aren't being born exposed to lead because we know

793
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: that it's one of the biggest correlators with violent crimes.

794
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: That aligned with like like women's ability to have an

795
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,280
Speaker 1: abortion too, because I know it's another one, like people,

796
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: there's probably yeah, it's certainly a mix of things, but

797
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 1: it's very incredible that wait, but how do you fucking

798
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,359
Speaker 1: make your own They just bought a shipload of lead

799
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: and melted in the pot. How do you wait? So

800
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: I don't I've never had the privilege now, but what

801
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: do you do? I don't know. I never did that either,

802
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: because by the time I was collecting model soldiers, they

803
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: were man out of plastic because they realized she shouldn't

804
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: expose children like cast iron like. But it sounds like

805
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: he was getting blocks of lead and melting it and

806
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,879
Speaker 1: pouring it into his own mold, so he was without

807
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: any respiratory and exposing himself to lead fumes and everything.

808
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: And I found a study in South Africa that correlates

809
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: lead exposure to interest in firearms because they found that

810
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: competitive shooters had higher regression and much higher blood lead

811
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: levels than competitive archers, which is an interesting group to

812
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: compare it to. Yeah, so this is just a theory,

813
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: but that's amazing too, because like, right, like lead bullets

814
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: to like the bullet in legs like feedback loop or

815
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: you're not going can get lead bullets. I've been a

816
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: shooter most of my life too. And number one, most

817
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: of the bullet you're gonna but I don't have exposed

818
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: lead on him. Some of them do, but it's usually

819
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: jacketed and something. And number two, you're not getting a

820
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: lot of let exposure shooting firing. But I imagine like

821
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: how often, like how often has the like the actual

822
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: rounds themselves been protected from for people from the lead itself? Oh?

823
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: Not not very long. In fact, if you're looking at

824
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: like the Continental Times, not people are probably melting a

825
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: lot of their own balls, right right, So yeah, we're

826
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: making with pewter obvious like it's definitely fed into violence

827
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: throughout centuries because they've been putting a lot of lead everywhere.

828
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: I just think it's interesting that Erik Prince we see

829
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: in his childhood both this joy of making soldiers and

830
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: also maybe the lead exposures led them to be such

831
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: a fucking violence, literally making soldiers out of the thing

832
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: that would that leads to like additional violent tendencies. It's

833
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: almost poetic. Speaking of poetic, these ads are poems for

834
00:42:50,719 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: your wallet. Oh yeah, go on, here we go and

835
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: we're back, and I'm I'm gonna do a free ad

836
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:06,399
Speaker 1: right now, one of these great unpaid ads, which are

837
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: such a smart thing to do. I'm eating some Tapatio derritos,

838
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: and folks, oh they've appeared. Oh they're so good. I

839
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: don't like. I can't stand flaming hot cheetos. I like.

840
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: I like spicy stuff in general, but not spicy chips

841
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: I've had. I hate spicy chips. Tapatio derritos are fucking phenomenal.

842
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: These are just delightful little smr for you folks at home.

843
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: Oh my god, have you seen the video of the

844
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 1: girl who takes a bite of the chip and her

845
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: eyes roll back in her head. It was like an

846
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: old vine. It's amazing. That's how imagine this when you

847
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:45,879
Speaker 1: hear this, folks, his eyes are rolling back into his head.

848
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: We just saw Miles is d face. Oh yeah, that's

849
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: actually yeah, my derrito face exactly Derito face. There we go,

850
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: there we go, there we got in paign. Yeah, come on, Doritos, Doritos,

851
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: y'all are I'm not even a used profanity. You guys

852
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: are messing You're messing up, and you're missing a massive

853
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: arm Let's be more productive if everybody could get on

854
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: the same hashtag and and in the same tweet Dorito's

855
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: not hashtag Doritos not dictators, and hashtag Doritos because you've

856
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: got a tag or at Doritos, you get a tag

857
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: Doritos in it, and you gotta do hashtag Doritos not dictators.

858
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: If everybody does that, when this episode drops, maybe we'll

859
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: get a sponsorship and I'll get no. You know what

860
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,759
Speaker 1: you do, everybody takes a photo with Doritos and use

861
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: those hashtags, and you do hashtag why I eat Dorritos.

862
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: Oh So they see that and they're like, well, I mean,

863
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: for somehow, this guy has mobilized an army of Doritos eaters.

864
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: You're like the Eric Prince of Doritos. That has always

865
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: been my dream I was gonna and you getting a

866
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: Doritos sponsorship is your air force because I want Doritos

867
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: to pay me to mind Doritos for more common exactly. Wow,

868
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: what a beautiful and now I'm seeing a good spiracy here.

869
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: You heard it here first. This is conspiracy. Has been

870
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: going on since the show began. Yeah, yeah, I've been consistent.

871
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 1: I mean it is a sincere brand loyalty. It is

872
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: a sincere because I love me some derrito's. Yeah, oh

873
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:13,879
Speaker 1: they're good. I'm gonna try these tapetito deritos and cooking

874
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 1: some megas and see how that ship works. Yeah. Almost

875
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: seems sacrilegious, but it is sacrilegious. They're they're bullshit mega's,

876
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: but they're delicious. Yeah. Yeah, anyway out there. Yeah, I'm

877
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: theat that actually does make me want gaspacco though, just

878
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:35,920
Speaker 1: because the names are kind of I could go for

879
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: some of that. You make it, you make a no.

880
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:40,759
Speaker 1: But I have a friend who makes a really good gaspaco.

881
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 1: Go camping with her every now and then, and it's

882
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: the fucking best thing. I only do it for the gaspacco. Yeah,

883
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: like you bring anyway back to Eric Prince. So, Eric

884
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 1: portrays himself in his childhood as a quiet, boring kid.

885
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: I didn't smoke, I didn't drink. Being an athlete, gave

886
00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: me a social network. Yet I didn't have many close

887
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: friends growing up. Maybe it's because you're a sociopath. I

888
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: don't know. From little information we have about his school years,

889
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: he sounds absolutely insufferable. He portrays himself as the living

890
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 1: embodiment of one of those Marine with an atheist professor

891
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 1: in a college class memes that circulates around the internet.

892
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 1: You know the kind wait, what have you ever? You've

893
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,280
Speaker 1: runder one of those? Like now they're it's gone around

894
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: where most of the memes are mocking the original, but

895
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: there would be like this email forward or whatever kind

896
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: of story that your conservative relatives would send you, and

897
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 1: it's about like a college professor talks about how there

898
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: is no God and Marine stands up and gives a

899
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: speech about how he saw God on the battlefield. Yeah,

900
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: one of those kind of stories. Eric tells his version

901
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: of that in this autobiography. This is while he's in

902
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: high school. Once in class, I challenge a teacher who

903
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: called then President Ronald Reagan's Cold War military build up

904
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: a waste of taxpayer dollars. I countered by rattling off

905
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: every strategic defense initiative, weapons system we needed to counter

906
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 1: various Soviet threats. I had analyzed Reagan Star Wars the

907
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: way my classmates picked apart the University of Michigan's football roster. Yeah,

908
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: what's really fun about this to me is that it

909
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: illustrates how bad Eric Prince is it admitting when he's wrong.

910
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 1: Because by the time Eric was eighteen, we knew that

911
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: almost none of the weapons systems that had been talked

912
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: about for the Strategic Defense Initiative we're ever going to work. Uh,

913
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 1: and the few that would the directed energy weapons that

914
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 1: actually did have some potential. In nineteen eighties seven, when

915
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: Eric was eighteen, a government report was released saying that

916
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: essentially these weapons would need to become between one hundred

917
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: and one million times more powerful and more energy efficient

918
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: in order to have a chance at working. So there's

919
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: the railgun count as one of those things. I don't

920
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: think that started out as this take, Okay, I don't.

921
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: That's a futuristic weapon that I've always been obsessed with it.

922
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: Now I've seen that, Yeah, we've got those two Like

923
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: do you see the thing of the Chinese Navy, Like

924
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: they've really figured out the railgun though, and like they've

925
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: look scary, looks scary. I want one well, and I

926
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: feel like the only thing that stops a bad guy

927
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 1: with a rail guns And that's the real that's really

928
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: the message of a racer is yeah, which is a

929
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: good Yeah. Yeah? Will ever be that small? If big

930
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,399
Speaker 1: Railgun wants to get on a sponsorship deal, all I'll

931
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: talk railguns all day is going to be changed. The

932
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: rail Gun Association. Yeah okay, so h Like nearly all

933
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: people born into incredible wealth, Eric has managed to convince

934
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: himself that he never got any handouts. Quote after the

935
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: heart attack, my father his dad had a heart attack,

936
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 1: but he survived the first one. My father was generous

937
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: with his time, but never with handouts. He didn't want

938
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: me relying on the family business. He made it clear

939
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:38,799
Speaker 1: that I've been given every advantage in life and that

940
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: I had no excuse for not making something of myself independently.

941
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: I would not be working for Prince Corporation after college,

942
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: he said, I would receive no trust fund. I had

943
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: to make it on my own. So now do we know,

944
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: can we do we know how true that is? Well,

945
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: he didn't go straight to work for Prince Corporation after

946
00:48:58,040 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: was there no trust fund? Was there no inherited wealth?

947
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there was because after his dad dies. A

948
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 1: few pages later in the book, Eric writes this, just

949
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: over a year after my father's death, my mother's sisters

950
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:10,919
Speaker 1: and I sold the Prince Automotive unit to Milwaukee based

951
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 1: Johnson Controls in for one point three five billion, which

952
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: was split split between a number of dad's business partners,

953
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: employee stockholders, and my mother's sisters and me. Now he

954
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: puts himself last in both of those lists very deliberately.

955
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess he might have gotten more money than

956
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: his dad's employees stockholders. Probably. I like the idea that

957
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: his sister's got a bitterer, bigger cut. That's like dope,

958
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,839
Speaker 1: Like that's his pain, Like with Betsy, he's like fun.

959
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: I hope, so I hope his dad hated him and

960
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 1: cut him out of But depending he still don't know

961
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: how true it is, right, because if if his dad

962
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: was that actually much of a hard asss like, dude,

963
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 1: don't expect to work here, you've been given everything. Yeah,

964
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: there is a version you see that. I doubt that though, Yeah,

965
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: we know he got conservatively a few hundred million dollars, right,

966
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: And also, people who have grown up with privilege I mean,

967
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 1: if you're if you want to live in denial about that,

968
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: that is usually the first thing you say is like, Okay,

969
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: I know I may come from this fan I didn't

970
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 1: get a fucking thing though. Yeah, but we also know

971
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: that like when he became a Navy seal, like the

972
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: when he was going for like the office the OCS class,

973
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 1: and like he had or one of the classes he

974
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: had one of the things he had to do before

975
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: he became a Navy seal. The class was full, and

976
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: his dad pulled some strings to get him in at

977
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,439
Speaker 1: the last moment. So like that I'm getting I'm gonna

978
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: bet that happened to help get him into the Air

979
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: Force Academy too, Like yeah, uh anyway, Yeah, you'll remember

980
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: Eric went for to the the Academy for a hot minute.

981
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 1: At least one instructor thinks he left because it wasn't

982
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: conservative enough, but in Eric's book he blames something else,

983
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,760
Speaker 1: the movie Top Gun. It wasn't long before I realized

984
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: the Academy wasn't the right fit. It was Jeff after

985
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: Top Gun had come out, and the environment was an

986
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: comfortable mix of Tailhook era frat boys on one hand

987
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,879
Speaker 1: and a nonsensical policing of political correctness. On the other

988
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: I felt as if I was expected to learn from

989
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: graduate student instructors who knew a little more, and the

990
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: fact that they've been there longer than I had. I

991
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: quickly began to wonder whether the academy created great leaders

992
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: or if great leaders just enrolled there and dirt it

993
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 1: and made it out. On the other side, Eric did

994
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: not endure it. He quit after you know, like a year, right,

995
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: that sounds like some real college dropout ship. Yeah. He

996
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: opted instead for Hillsdale. Uh, he said, remembers liking it

997
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 1: because everyone there was the same kind of libertarian he was,

998
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: and because they were all rich kids too. Uh, he

999
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: does less diverse than they. He does note proudly that

1000
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 1: the college offered him a full scholarship I'm gonna guess

1001
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: because his dad had been giving them some money, but

1002
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 1: that he turned it down and his dad said, leave

1003
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: it for someone who needs the money. And he he

1004
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 1: portrays this as like a good thing that he did,

1005
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 1: rather than like, no, of course, if your dad is

1006
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: a billionaire, you don't take a free ride to college.

1007
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: That's the human thing to do. Wait, pat yourself in

1008
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: the back for the Bare Minimum. Yeah. Yeah, and but

1009
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: I could almost be the title for this autobiography, Like

1010
00:51:57,719 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 1: I think the working title for the episode is Eric

1011
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 1: Prince axely wrote a book about why he sucks. But

1012
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 1: the title for this book might as well be Eric

1013
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: Prince does the minimum and pretends that hengratulates himself. It's

1014
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 1: it's spectacular. So yeah. He tells stories like how when

1015
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: he was working as a volunteer firefighter, they thought he

1016
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 1: was just some rich kid at first, but then he

1017
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: kept showing up early and doing a real good job

1018
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 1: of cleaning, and he earned their respect. It's like he's

1019
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 1: rewriting the script of his life again. If you worked

1020
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 1: in that firehouse and have anything to say about Eric Prince,

1021
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: positive or negative, drop us a line I'd love to

1022
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: hear from you. He wait his Yeah, Now, most Hillsdale

1023
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: students came from money. The Butcher's painters, He says it

1024
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: as if he's about to say he didn't go now

1025
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: most of them, Yeah, not me. The Butcher's painters and

1026
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: slaughterhouse workers who volunteered or worked at the firehouse initially

1027
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: figured me for a snot nosed college kid. But I

1028
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: showed up at the firehouse early, to change the blades

1029
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: and the kit well rescue saws, and I stayed late

1030
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: to clean the pumps. I handle the heavy canvas hoses

1031
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: and carried the ladders after a call, when the other

1032
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: volunteers sat back and cracked open a drink, I rolled

1033
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: the hoses gradually ironed their respect. It also sounds like

1034
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: the equipment manager on a basketball team who sucks and

1035
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 1: the guys are doing the real work, or like, yeah,

1036
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 1: why don't you just do that? And that is my

1037
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,359
Speaker 1: suspicion is that maybe he didn't. Actually maybe when there

1038
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: was a call, he was never called out because they're like, no,

1039
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 1: that's the fucking that kid. You don't want that kid

1040
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: in a dangerous situation at your back. And we there's

1041
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: hints of that in his Navy Seals experience too, so

1042
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. Whenever Eric is involved in anything

1043
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: sort of cool personally, he writes about it at length,

1044
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 1: Like he repeatedly mentions when Blackwater first showed up in Afghanistan,

1045
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,839
Speaker 1: he was there and he actually did guard duties some

1046
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:43,879
Speaker 1: times because there was so he did guard duty in Afghanistan.

1047
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 1: Nothing ever happened, but he did. In the he talks

1048
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,359
Speaker 1: about it repeatedly that, like, yeah, and I was there

1049
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan doing guard duty. Like so when anything is

1050
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 1: that close to being cool, he talks about it at length.

1051
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess he didn't do anything cool as a firefighter.

1052
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm being an asshole here.

1053
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: I was the first one just to discover the backdraft phenomenon.

1054
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: It was around this time that Eric made the first

1055
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 1: political donation of his life, which we talked about in

1056
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: the first episode of the fifteen thousand dollars he gave

1057
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 1: to the Republican Party. Uh Now, in that episode, we

1058
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: speculated that this may have been an attempt by his

1059
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 1: parents to max out their political donations us and their

1060
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 1: kids as funnels. According to Eric, that's not true. So

1061
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 1: he says that the money was his own and it

1062
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 1: came from quote, investment income from stocks my parents had

1063
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: long ago bought for me, So you didn't take any handouts.

1064
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: But his parents gave him enough stocks that he was

1065
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 1: able to donate fifteen dollars party at age nineteen. I

1066
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,880
Speaker 1: doubt that just be real. That's how these wealthy and

1067
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm pretty sure we talked about that. That's

1068
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: like the standard tactic for wealthy people of just giving

1069
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: as much money. It's like, well, let me max out,

1070
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: make my dog a max out. It's like if you're

1071
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 1: if you're if you're born rich, and you're listening to

1072
00:54:56,960 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: the show, I'm sure someone is like, fine, just own it.

1073
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: Just be like, yeah, I'm a millionaire because my parents

1074
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: are rich. Like, okay, just don't lie about it. Don't

1075
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:07,400
Speaker 1: be like President Trump and be like, we've got a

1076
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: small loan from my dad that was millions of dollars. Yeah,

1077
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: you guys, you had it easier because you were rich,

1078
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:16,919
Speaker 1: except mine. You know, that's the way you didn't ask

1079
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 1: to be born rich. No, No, it's like I have

1080
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: a lot easier because I've never had to deal with

1081
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: like a major chronic illness. Right, makes my life easier.

1082
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: We all have privilege. Just own it. Don't be a

1083
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: dick about Eric Prince. Okay, So yeah, you'll remember that

1084
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 1: after college, Eric wound up briefly in turning for the

1085
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush White House. You recall that he

1086
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:42,840
Speaker 1: wasn't happy there. Uh. He admits in his book that

1087
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: he didn't like the fact that President Bush was bargaining

1088
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:47,760
Speaker 1: with people who wanted to wink and weaken the safety

1089
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: sanctity of marriage, raised taxes, uh, and push environmental policies.

1090
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: So yeah, environmental. Yeah. He admits that he got chewed

1091
00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 1: out by the Deputy Chief of Staff Andrew Card because

1092
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: he wouldn't shut up about his thoughts on how the

1093
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: President ought to do things while he was an intern

1094
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:05,800
Speaker 1: in the White House, which sounds like what would happen

1095
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: if you're being an insufferable dick. After five months, his

1096
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: internship was not renewed, of course, of course not. And

1097
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: that that brings you back to even the firehouse was

1098
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: Actually you guys should probably be cleaning it like this,

1099
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:20,799
Speaker 1: like shut the funk up, Eric and clean boy. Yeah, yeah,

1100
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: you do it, Eric. Fine, let's all have beers since

1101
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 1: we just pulled people out of a fire. Yeah, exactly. Well,

1102
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna switch the K twelve blades off the saws

1103
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: whatever nobody else's We haven't used that song in four

1104
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 1: years and probably blades fine, I don't know, I don't

1105
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 1: know saw blades. I'm sorry firefighters anyway, So you probably

1106
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: remember also that Eric Prince became a Navy seal next

1107
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,840
Speaker 1: using a family connection to get into the school. But

1108
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: Prince did pass Hell week on his own merits, and

1109
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: that's impressive. And when he got back from becoming a

1110
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 1: Navy seal this happened, my parents sent me an extraordinary gift,

1111
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 1: a bronze statue of a cowboy. The artist had inscribed

1112
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 1: in the unwritten loss of the range, the work thick

1113
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 1: still exists. When you sign for an outfit, you ride

1114
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:06,479
Speaker 1: for their brand. True commitment takes no easy way out. Now.

1115
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 1: I think Eric mentioned this because he likes to see

1116
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,320
Speaker 1: himself as a cowboy, and like he and his contractors

1117
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 1: as cowboys. I can't imagine a a quote that does

1118
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: a worse job of describing Eric Prince is worth work

1119
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: ethic than that, because every time he makes a commitment,

1120
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: he weasels out of it every single time. That's the

1121
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: one thing that is true with Eric Prince, and I

1122
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 1: think that's the case with most people who are very

1123
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: insecure with their identity, right like, they try and project

1124
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: something that is the complete opposite of their own their

1125
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 1: truth as a person. And so if you're a cowardly,

1126
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:41,040
Speaker 1: sniveling little brad, you're gonna act like the upstanding guy

1127
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: who like, hey, first guy for a brand, you read

1128
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: for that brand unless it gets hard, then you leave

1129
00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:49,760
Speaker 1: because you had a disagreement, unless it gets hard, in

1130
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: which case that brand was cheating and there was no

1131
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 1: point committing to that brand to begin with. Oh, Eric, Uh, Yeah,

1132
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: So Eric was an a vcal for about two years. Now.

1133
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: It costs it's hard to say, probably somewhere around and

1134
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: a half a million dollars just to train a Navy seal,

1135
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: and as much as a million dollars a year to

1136
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: keep that seal, you know, active and trained up in

1137
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: the field while they're an active duty Navy seal. I'm

1138
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: gonna guess that the government did not get its money's

1139
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: use out of Eric's brief stint in the Navy Seals.

1140
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: You're supposed to do that job more than two years

1141
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: if you commit to it. Uh. He says remarkably little

1142
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: about his time doing one of the coolest jobs in existence.

1143
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: On guests, that's because he didn't do very much. There

1144
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: is one telling paragraph where Eric writes about his experience

1145
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: during the Yugoslavian Civil War. In it, he cleverly excures

1146
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't experience any actual combat or

1147
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 1: real danger during his time there. Did what what what

1148
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: kind of action did you hear, I think you'll pick

1149
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: up on it. Then, in late nineteen is Yugoslavia broke

1150
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: apart in the Warring States, Seal Team eight deployed to

1151
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 1: Bosnia Hurt Sgovina. The shattered buildings in war torn streets

1152
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: where a far cry from the peaceful communities I had

1153
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: once seen there with my wife. We seals were performing

1154
00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: combat search and rescue for down pilots or taking direct

1155
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: action to rate our sights. Not me, Eric Prince, Yeah,

1156
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 1: we see seals seals. Yeah, it's odd that he's able

1157
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 1: to be somewhat truthful in those instances, right, because like

1158
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: it seems like he'll embellish anything, because there's guys who

1159
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 1: like Eric Prince lied about the one third rail. Yeah, now,

1160
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: or those seals. If you were in Navy seal in

1161
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia and you served with Erik Prince and I got

1162
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 1: it wrong or I got it right, I'm sure we

1163
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: could find that. Yeah. I don't know if you can.

1164
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 1: Probably just already think you just republic knowledge. They don't

1165
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: keep it secret. Who right, right, Yeah, we should call

1166
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:40,920
Speaker 1: what's that guy who does like the seal stolen valor stuff?

1167
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:44,840
Speaker 1: Don what's his face? Yeah? The guy who's like the

1168
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: fucking o G seal hunter would be like, hey, can

1169
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: you find his budge? I mean, he was definitely a

1170
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 1: seal not but you want to hear I do want

1171
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,439
Speaker 1: to hear what those guys who are probably like, dude,

1172
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: I was a seal for fifteen years. This guy quit

1173
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 1: after two years. I would like to see what his

1174
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 1: time as a seal was like, because again, every time

1175
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: he does something he's directly involved in something cool he

1176
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:10,280
Speaker 1: talks about right, and he just he weasels again here

1177
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: we'll see. That's then you kind of see the part

1178
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 1: where he is intelligent enough to know how far he

1179
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: can struts the truth because he's like, well, there are

1180
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 1: people who are going to be able to corroborate or

1181
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 1: basically debunk what I say. So let me just say

1182
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 1: I was. I was in the Seals during that time,

1183
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:26,920
Speaker 1: and then that's what we see. Well, I was with

1184
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: the Seals team, and members of this team did that,

1185
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,760
Speaker 1: Seals did act. I was on time out because I

1186
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 1: stole a helicopter and try to race it. Who knows

1187
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 1: what his what his situation was. Eric's time as a

1188
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: Navy seal was cut short. He says it's because his

1189
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: wife got cancer at age twenty nine, and he needed

1190
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 1: to take care of her and his children. And if

1191
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 1: he were a normal dude, of course that would be

1192
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: a good reason stopping. Of course, of course. Uh, and

1193
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 1: he says, my being gone was suddenly impossible. I requested

1194
01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: my discharge from the navy. Uh. Now, here's the thing.

1195
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,840
Speaker 1: Here is the thing you do? You dig something up there? Well,

1196
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,880
Speaker 1: it's just that almost as soon as he gets home

1197
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:08,880
Speaker 1: from being a n A vy seal, he starts Blackwater,

1198
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 1: and he's spending weekends and weeks away from his wife

1199
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: and children, hiking in the woods and shooting snakes and

1200
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:20,360
Speaker 1: getting the land ready for this thing. I don't know

1201
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: exactly how long he waited, but he waited. But yeah,

1202
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: he know it's it's hard to speculate on that, but

1203
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like and it did his wife survive?

1204
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:32,959
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're going to get into how he talks

1205
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: about his wife and some other stuff here. Um. So,

1206
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 1: at one point he mentions that he and his wife

1207
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 1: gave half a million dollars to a clinic in Prague

1208
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:43,840
Speaker 1: so they could fund experimental treatments to try on his wife. Uh.

1209
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 1: In in that passage, he praises his wife's courage and

1210
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 1: then says, and through it all, she seemed more concerned

1211
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 1: about my loss, my impending grief, than her own death. Remember, Eric,

1212
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: you can live without me, as she would say, but

1213
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,520
Speaker 1: you can't live without God. Now Eric starts blackwater, as

1214
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 1: I said, soon after leaving the Seals and spending a

1215
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 1: shipload of time there, and after two thousand one his

1216
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: business ramps up. He starts spending less and less time

1217
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 1: at home, even though that's why he left the Navy.

1218
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:12,880
Speaker 1: By two thousands. Wait, so he left the Seals, and

1219
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 1: then at that point, what was his like wealth at

1220
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions already? I mean, I would say conservatively

1221
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 1: at least like a hundred million right from selling the

1222
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: family and everybody split one point three billions. He did

1223
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 1: not need to work for money. He could have just

1224
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 1: been a dad and been there with his wife in

1225
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: her last years. He probably could have paid guys to, like,

1226
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:36,920
Speaker 1: I'm play war in front of him and actually kill

1227
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: it themselves. If he could have gone shooting every day

1228
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:40,760
Speaker 1: if he wanted to, he could have bought a ranches whatever.

1229
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people listening right now who have

1230
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 1: lost spouses to disease and would have loved to have

1231
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: just been able to not work and spend as much

1232
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 1: time with them as possible. That's not the strategy Eric took.

1233
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 1: He started a very involved business, and then after two

1234
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: thousand and one he starts going over and spending time

1235
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, and you know, the contracting business. She's still

1236
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: battling cancers. Off and on. She's battling cancer. He goes

1237
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 1: in remission for a while, but then it comes back

1238
01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: and in like two thousand three, it's it's really bad

1239
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: quote and not just that's bad, but the marriage is bad.

1240
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 1: By early two thousand three, my wife and I didn't

1241
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: have much time alone together to begin with, and with

1242
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: those stresses, as well as the effects of cancer and

1243
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:23,840
Speaker 1: surgery and chemotherapy, eliminated most of the romance or intimacy.

1244
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 1: When we did, I felt as if all I could

1245
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,280
Speaker 1: do to keep things from spinning completely out of control.

1246
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:29,840
Speaker 1: I felt as if it was all I could do

1247
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:32,240
Speaker 1: to keep things from spinning completely out of control. And

1248
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: I found comfort in the arms of a woman named Joanna,

1249
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:37,440
Speaker 1: who who had worked as our nanny in Michigan. In

1250
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:39,960
Speaker 1: mid two thousand two, when we all moved back to Virginia.

1251
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:42,560
Speaker 1: She was hired to perform administrative functions that are Moyak

1252
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:47,120
Speaker 1: Blackwaters Moyak facilities. She became pregnant before join died. So

1253
01:03:48,440 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 1: now relationships are hard. If a friend who had had

1254
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:54,280
Speaker 1: a spouse die came to me and confessed that they

1255
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 1: had cheated on their spouse while they was dying as cancer,

1256
01:03:57,040 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: I would not view that as a good thing, but

1257
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take it as a condemnation of the person either.

1258
01:04:02,320 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: It's a nightmare. People have needs. We all fall short

1259
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: in difficult time. I mean, I think it's it's always

1260
01:04:10,680 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 1: it's hard to just judge someone's characters solely based on

1261
01:04:13,320 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: that but everything else. Yeah, But I mean at the

1262
01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: same time, based on his prior history, even leading up

1263
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:23,000
Speaker 1: to that. Well, and he portrays himself as a moral

1264
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:26,480
Speaker 1: paragon on every page of this book. But in my opinion,

1265
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 1: this cheating is not just a matter of Eric failing

1266
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: in the face of terrible sorrow and stress and grasping

1267
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:33,760
Speaker 1: for a moment of joy. It's an example, yet another

1268
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: example of his complete inability to to delay his own gratification,

1269
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 1: because that's his thing is he keeps quitting stuff. He

1270
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 1: keeps leaving, he gets bored, He gets bored, he gets bored,

1271
01:04:43,440 --> 01:04:44,920
Speaker 1: or he doesn't want to be told what to do

1272
01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:49,120
Speaker 1: or whatever. Does he have any like regret or like

1273
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:51,480
Speaker 1: does he talk about in the book? Yeah, yeah, in

1274
01:04:51,520 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: a way that well, I'm not going to say in

1275
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: a way that feels believable, but we'll just continue the story. Um.

1276
01:04:57,120 --> 01:04:59,520
Speaker 1: I do like I think that that is a big

1277
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: through line that he cannot stand. Eric left the Air

1278
01:05:03,280 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 1: Force Academy because it was hard and he didn't like

1279
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:07,680
Speaker 1: being exposed to other people's points of view. Uh. He

1280
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:10,200
Speaker 1: liked Hillsdale his college, because it was full of people

1281
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:12,240
Speaker 1: he agreed with. He left the Seals, and I mean,

1282
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 1: a guest, part of that was because he didn't like

1283
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 1: being told what to do. I didn't go into it here,

1284
01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:18,480
Speaker 1: but he spends pages and pages of his book talking

1285
01:05:18,480 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: about everything he thought that was dumb, about how seals

1286
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: had to train and like the way they had to travel,

1287
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 1: and like he sets it up as like, and this

1288
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:28,400
Speaker 1: inspired me to create Blackwater to create a better training

1289
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: environment for seals. But I feel like he's just anyway, Yeah,

1290
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: you had two years and then you're the expert on

1291
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 1: Eric Prince does not have a good record of sticking

1292
01:05:38,240 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: to things. Now Here is the way he concludes his

1293
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 1: story about his wife's death and his infidelity. In March

1294
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,440
Speaker 1: two thousand three, on a ski trip in Vail, Colorado,

1295
01:05:47,560 --> 01:05:49,480
Speaker 1: Joan wrote me a long letter. She left it on

1296
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 1: the dresser in our vacation home. There. My wife understood

1297
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:53,919
Speaker 1: it would likely be her last time visiting a place

1298
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:55,560
Speaker 1: we both loved, and that I would find the letter

1299
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: when I returned at Christmas time nine months later without her.

1300
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: It was the most caring, most awful thing I've ever read.

1301
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:04,360
Speaker 1: She knew everything about everything. With Joanna. I had devastated her,

1302
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: yet and her final months, Joan had found the strength

1303
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 1: to forgive me. There are no excuses for what happened.

1304
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:10,440
Speaker 1: There's not a day that goes by that I don't

1305
01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:12,480
Speaker 1: regret the way I heard her. After years of pain

1306
01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 1: and treatments, on June fourteen three, my beautiful wife surrendered

1307
01:06:15,600 --> 01:06:17,640
Speaker 1: her body to her creator and passed from this life.

1308
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: She was thirty six years old. I cut out a

1309
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 1: small lock of her hair to keep, and I asked

1310
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:24,000
Speaker 1: the doctor for the chemotherapy port that had been implanted

1311
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 1: in her upper chest. Really, the doctor said, that thing

1312
01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:29,360
Speaker 1: was the bane of her existence. That's the closest thing

1313
01:06:29,400 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: to her heart. I said, I've got it to this day.

1314
01:06:33,360 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: So what do you think of that? Or so if

1315
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 1: he looks grossed out, it's just so dark. It's dark

1316
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:43,200
Speaker 1: that it's the thing that she hated. I don't know.

1317
01:06:43,240 --> 01:06:44,920
Speaker 1: I'm not going to criticize that. I don't know. It's

1318
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 1: hard to like, you know, it's like the one terri

1319
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:50,480
Speaker 1: part part of this whole thing where it's hard for

1320
01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:52,920
Speaker 1: me to fully be like, fuck you, gross of it.

1321
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:56,560
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I don't know. Everyone grieves in their own way,

1322
01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't wish for anyone to live

1323
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 1: through that kind of sid awful like Very had to,

1324
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, deal with that. It's just it's an awful office,

1325
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:08,800
Speaker 1: soul destroying and I don't think he had much of

1326
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:10,920
Speaker 1: a soul to begin with. Yeah, but part of me

1327
01:07:11,000 --> 01:07:12,880
Speaker 1: just thinks, like, I don't know if he even really

1328
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: if he's even really had a real relationship with other

1329
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:19,760
Speaker 1: human It's hard to say because there's some more gross

1330
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:22,240
Speaker 1: stuff coming up. So Eric married his former nanny and

1331
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:23,960
Speaker 1: stayed with her for eight years. They divorced in two

1332
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:28,480
Speaker 1: thousand twelve in two thousands. Well in two thousand nine,

1333
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:31,520
Speaker 1: two anonymous individuals who claimed to be ex Blackwater workers

1334
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:34,919
Speaker 1: filed sworn statements and federal court. One of these men

1335
01:07:35,040 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 1: claimed quote Mr Prince knowingly hired two persons who were

1336
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 1: previously involved in the Kosovo sex trafficking ring to serve

1337
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 1: at relatively high levels within his company. Mr Prince's North

1338
01:07:45,240 --> 01:07:48,360
Speaker 1: Carolina Operations had an ongoing wife swapping and sex ring

1339
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 1: which was participated in by many of Mr Prince's top

1340
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 1: executives x E because his company was exy at this time.

1341
01:07:55,600 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 1: Spokeswoman Stacy Duluke denied this and called it obvious slander. Also,

1342
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:08,400
Speaker 1: it's like Stacys now Eric Prince's wife, so that seems

1343
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: clostively sex ring guys. I didn't even there's more to

1344
01:08:14,280 --> 01:08:16,040
Speaker 1: dig into that one. I just didn't have because there's

1345
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:18,680
Speaker 1: so much else to get into. How there's also one

1346
01:08:18,720 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: of the other guys talked about how he's been having

1347
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:23,760
Speaker 1: people assassinated who knew dirt about his company, and like

1348
01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:26,280
Speaker 1: made was willing to make a claim in federal court

1349
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 1: about it. I don't know. I have not gotten in all.

1350
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 1: There will be more episodes about Erik Prince in the

1351
01:08:31,720 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 1: Never Ending there's just too much. You can't even like

1352
01:08:34,960 --> 01:08:38,040
Speaker 1: we we've expanded too probably in the second act of

1353
01:08:38,080 --> 01:08:44,240
Speaker 1: his life. We're in the second chapter of his book, right, okay.

1354
01:08:44,479 --> 01:08:47,120
Speaker 1: Uh so the first third of his book is a

1355
01:08:47,160 --> 01:08:50,320
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward autobiography covering, you know, his life and the

1356
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:55,599
Speaker 1: creation of Blackwater. Uh. But then it stops after around

1357
01:08:55,600 --> 01:08:57,680
Speaker 1: the time that the Iraq War starts. It stops being

1358
01:08:57,680 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 1: a normal autobiography, and every chapter start it's being just

1359
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:05,719
Speaker 1: him defending himself and Blackwater against different allegations of Blackwaters failures,

1360
01:09:05,720 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 1: crimes and massacres and stuff. So how far are we

1361
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:09,760
Speaker 1: in the book until this? About this? About where we

1362
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: are about a third of the way, and the one

1363
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:13,800
Speaker 1: third of the book functions somewhat like a biography, and

1364
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:18,320
Speaker 1: then it's just him defending his company and him horrible crimes. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

1365
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:23,720
Speaker 1: Yeah the whole book, Eric Prince not I'm a hero.

1366
01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:28,720
Speaker 1: I'm so good. Okay, So I'm not going to go

1367
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:30,760
Speaker 1: through all of these chapters because we don't have days

1368
01:09:30,760 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: for this podcast. I am going to talk about a

1369
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:35,000
Speaker 1: couple of cases of him defending himself and if you

1370
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:37,400
Speaker 1: want to read the book yourselves, the bullshit tactics he uses,

1371
01:09:37,400 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: and these will be evident, but don't don't actually pay

1372
01:09:40,320 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: for the book. It's bad. He said that. That's not

1373
01:09:45,479 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: bastards Pods official. Oh yeah, sorry, that it would be.

1374
01:09:50,439 --> 01:09:53,240
Speaker 1: If it's possible to steal a copy of Eric Prince's

1375
01:09:53,280 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 1: book and a person out there in the world did that,

1376
01:09:56,520 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 1: I would not condemn them as a human being for

1377
01:09:58,880 --> 01:10:01,799
Speaker 1: that action, although I would not condone or support their decisions.

1378
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: I will go a step further and say, go to

1379
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: www Dot pirate Bay. You're going to say lime wire.

1380
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:21,720
Speaker 1: You're gonna love it here. Oh boy, we are elderly men. Okay,

1381
01:10:19,960 --> 01:10:24,439
Speaker 1: so let's talk about how Erik Prince justifies. Do you

1382
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:26,600
Speaker 1: remember that funk up in Fellujah where four of his

1383
01:10:26,680 --> 01:10:28,439
Speaker 1: men got murdered and who him got strung up by

1384
01:10:28,439 --> 01:10:30,200
Speaker 1: a bridge and it sparked the Battle of Fallujah that

1385
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 1: killed prinds of thousands or thousands, a lot of people.

1386
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:33,840
Speaker 1: I don't know how many. I don't know. That was

1387
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 1: in the last episode. Let's listen to the last episode.

1388
01:10:35,960 --> 01:10:38,280
Speaker 1: It killed a lot of people. Let me hold on,

1389
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:39,840
Speaker 1: let me listen to the last episode really quick. I'll

1390
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:45,680
Speaker 1: be right back and oh my god. Okay, fuck this guy, right, okay. Now,

1391
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:48,040
Speaker 1: if you remember, Eric Prince had taken up a contract

1392
01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:51,680
Speaker 1: to deliver kitchen supplies or Blackwater hat. Prince describes them

1393
01:10:51,720 --> 01:10:54,439
Speaker 1: as literally pots and pans in the book. Here's how

1394
01:10:54,479 --> 01:10:56,960
Speaker 1: he describes the sweet deal he made with the company

1395
01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:59,599
Speaker 1: to live her their kitchen supplies. We agreed to provide

1396
01:10:59,600 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 1: a squad thirty four men to protect SSS personnel and convoys,

1397
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:05,840
Speaker 1: the convoys of kitchen supplies. Regency was to pay my

1398
01:11:05,880 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: company eleven million dollars for a year of work, just

1399
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:10,599
Speaker 1: shy of a million dollars per month, with an option

1400
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:14,480
Speaker 1: to renew for a second year. Now. Eric describes Blackwater's

1401
01:11:14,560 --> 01:11:16,519
Speaker 1: mindset at the start of the War on Terror as

1402
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:19,760
Speaker 1: say yes first, iron out the details later. And when

1403
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 1: he said yes to this job, some of those missing

1404
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:24,880
Speaker 1: details included the fact that his men didn't have enough

1405
01:11:25,000 --> 01:11:28,120
Speaker 1: armored vehicles machine guns are actual contractors to fulfill the

1406
01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 1: mission details. Do you go to like home depot and

1407
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:34,800
Speaker 1: be like, who has a military experience? If you've if

1408
01:11:34,800 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 1: you've ever talked to a soldier who served in Iraq

1409
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:41,000
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, they'll all agree that armored

1410
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:43,720
Speaker 1: vehicles are a pretty minor detail when you're driving through

1411
01:11:43,720 --> 01:11:46,760
Speaker 1: the streets. Who needs a little bit of armor and

1412
01:11:47,560 --> 01:11:51,320
Speaker 1: guns for what? Come on, it's kitchen equipment. Nothing, Yeah,

1413
01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:56,240
Speaker 1: it's nothing, nothing anyway. Yeah. Eric notes with pride that

1414
01:11:56,360 --> 01:11:59,120
Speaker 1: his company got the cooking equipment contract after another private

1415
01:11:59,120 --> 01:12:02,280
Speaker 1: security form used due to the obvious risk of the route.

1416
01:12:03,000 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 1: Uh So a responsible company was like, we can't safely

1417
01:12:06,320 --> 01:12:09,160
Speaker 1: do this. I'm sorry, Like you're supposed to do so

1418
01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:13,280
Speaker 1: Prince picked up the contract. He blamed. Yeah, he blames

1419
01:12:13,320 --> 01:12:15,360
Speaker 1: the fact that they that they had to send in

1420
01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:17,880
Speaker 1: a smaller team than advertised without the proper equipment, to

1421
01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:20,479
Speaker 1: the actions of another security company that, he says, basically

1422
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 1: forcing them to do the mission before they were ready.

1423
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:25,080
Speaker 1: Because these guys contract they ended it sooner than they

1424
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:27,439
Speaker 1: should have ended it, and we just didn't have enough

1425
01:12:27,439 --> 01:12:29,640
Speaker 1: time to do it. Uh. He also claims that the

1426
01:12:29,680 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 1: extra men and armor and weapons wouldn't have made a

1427
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:35,160
Speaker 1: difference because the ambush was so well set up. Nothing

1428
01:12:35,200 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 1: could have stopped this from happening. In other words, the

1429
01:12:37,880 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 1: fact that blackwaters Men weren't prepared and the escort was

1430
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:42,240
Speaker 1: sent out unable to meet the company's own standards was

1431
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:44,479
Speaker 1: not Eric's fault. There was no other way things could

1432
01:12:44,479 --> 01:12:47,160
Speaker 1: have gone. And obviously they couldn't have canceled the mission

1433
01:12:47,240 --> 01:12:50,160
Speaker 1: because that would have been really bad for them financially.

1434
01:12:50,800 --> 01:12:53,439
Speaker 1: And there's pots and pans and needed delivering anyway. So

1435
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:57,680
Speaker 1: just he knew from the beginning was a wash. Yeah. Yeah.

1436
01:12:57,800 --> 01:13:00,799
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from the Prager Security Internet National textbook

1437
01:13:00,880 --> 01:13:06,000
Speaker 1: Shadow Force private security contractors in Iraq. It was Blackwater Management,

1438
01:13:06,040 --> 01:13:08,640
Speaker 1: not the State Department, that reduced the preparation time for

1439
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: the ill fated security details so that they were dropped

1440
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:12,960
Speaker 1: in place in their first day on the job. It

1441
01:13:13,040 --> 01:13:15,439
Speaker 1: was Blackwater Management that decided to send out a four

1442
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:18,320
Speaker 1: man detail instead of the usual six. It was Blackwater

1443
01:13:18,400 --> 01:13:20,920
Speaker 1: that decided to send the detail and soft skinned instead

1444
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:23,800
Speaker 1: of armored vehicles. It was Blackwater that decided not to

1445
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:26,800
Speaker 1: give the detail but sheet guns as required by contract.

1446
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:31,080
Speaker 1: So reached the kind that just lazy. It's like you

1447
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:33,599
Speaker 1: didn't even fucking follow through on the contract. Yeah, it's

1448
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:35,719
Speaker 1: I'm sure. If there's one thing you could have definitely

1449
01:13:35,800 --> 01:13:38,519
Speaker 1: found in Iraq at that time, it was extra machine guys,

1450
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:40,479
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of them. What do they mean

1451
01:13:40,520 --> 01:13:43,599
Speaker 1: by that like mounted, Like I don't think I think

1452
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 1: I mean anything bigger than like an M four, But

1453
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:46,840
Speaker 1: I think that's all they were armed with. It was

1454
01:13:46,880 --> 01:13:50,240
Speaker 1: just four guys with personal weapons. Oh wow, which you

1455
01:13:50,240 --> 01:13:52,720
Speaker 1: don't want to roll through. It's kind of risky to

1456
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:57,160
Speaker 1: roll through fellution to day that just because he's cheap,

1457
01:13:57,400 --> 01:14:00,920
Speaker 1: Just because he's cheap and he can he can't ever

1458
01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: accept that something could be a failure, Like you might

1459
01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:06,120
Speaker 1: have to say, we can't do the mission right now

1460
01:14:06,479 --> 01:14:09,080
Speaker 1: if the pots and pants, maybe they get stolen, whatever,

1461
01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:12,280
Speaker 1: Like it can't go to better than people losing their lives,

1462
01:14:12,640 --> 01:14:14,760
Speaker 1: you would think if you were a human being. Yeah,

1463
01:14:14,800 --> 01:14:17,360
Speaker 1: when you're looking at eleven million dollar contract, clearly whoever

1464
01:14:17,439 --> 01:14:19,479
Speaker 1: was working with the other security company that said no

1465
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:21,479
Speaker 1: was a human being. It was like, no, people are

1466
01:14:21,479 --> 01:14:23,479
Speaker 1: gonna get killed, and it's not worth it for positive

1467
01:14:23,840 --> 01:14:28,519
Speaker 1: someone with like functional like a basic to be like

1468
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:31,960
Speaker 1: I've been, I've had to deal with that and that's

1469
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:34,600
Speaker 1: not something I want to repeat right Like, this is

1470
01:14:34,600 --> 01:14:37,560
Speaker 1: a bad idea. It cannot be responsibly done. So I

1471
01:14:38,280 --> 01:14:40,600
Speaker 1: have no battlefield experience and I just be like, what

1472
01:14:40,640 --> 01:14:43,040
Speaker 1: are you talking about? It seems like our own rules

1473
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:46,000
Speaker 1: say armored vehicles are necessary and these aren't. I don't

1474
01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:48,960
Speaker 1: even take risks when I play like sid Meyer's Civilization,

1475
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:52,640
Speaker 1: let alone like with real people's lives. Oh boy, So

1476
01:14:52,680 --> 01:14:54,760
Speaker 1: a lot of Eric Prince's book actually serves as not

1477
01:14:54,880 --> 01:14:57,519
Speaker 1: very covert legal defenses against the families of the men

1478
01:14:57,560 --> 01:15:00,000
Speaker 1: who died in this attack, all of whom have since

1479
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:03,160
Speaker 1: sued black Water for negligence. U Prince is very careful.

1480
01:15:03,280 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 1: He provides fawning hagiographies of how wonderful all of the

1481
01:15:07,200 --> 01:15:09,840
Speaker 1: guys who died were, even as he throws shade on

1482
01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: the mission command or a guy named Battlona, for deciding

1483
01:15:12,240 --> 01:15:15,519
Speaker 1: to go in quote No one questioned bat Alona's decision

1484
01:15:15,560 --> 01:15:18,559
Speaker 1: to accept the mission, especially since his insistence on shrinking

1485
01:15:18,560 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: the convoy showed that he was aware of the risks

1486
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:22,920
Speaker 1: because he asked to transport fewer vehicles because there were

1487
01:15:22,920 --> 01:15:26,200
Speaker 1: so few men. But I'm gonna guess bat alone got

1488
01:15:26,200 --> 01:15:29,040
Speaker 1: pressured by somebody to do the mission. No ship. It

1489
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: was probably like, yeah, we'll we'll give you another extra

1490
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:33,120
Speaker 1: blah blah blat it. You know, who knows what they said,

1491
01:15:33,439 --> 01:15:35,759
Speaker 1: and they were all new to the job. He wanted

1492
01:15:35,800 --> 01:15:38,240
Speaker 1: to do a good prove that they were company men,

1493
01:15:38,560 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. Princes unctuously kind of the families in

1494
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:44,000
Speaker 1: his description of them. He listened to tale how he

1495
01:15:44,080 --> 01:15:45,840
Speaker 1: visited all of them and how he invited them to

1496
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:49,080
Speaker 1: a thing at the Blackwater Ranch or whatever. Uh. He

1497
01:15:49,120 --> 01:15:51,519
Speaker 1: talks about how sad he was, and he quotes from

1498
01:15:51,520 --> 01:15:53,880
Speaker 1: thank you letters that the families sent him before it

1499
01:15:53,920 --> 01:15:56,280
Speaker 1: became clear that negligence had been responsible for their loved

1500
01:15:56,320 --> 01:15:58,679
Speaker 1: one stats and sued him. Um so yeah. He quotes

1501
01:15:58,720 --> 01:16:00,960
Speaker 1: from like the letters grieving wife sent him in the

1502
01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:04,120
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of this, before he got ahead of it

1503
01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:07,120
Speaker 1: by being really nice to them, basically try and then

1504
01:16:07,120 --> 01:16:09,120
Speaker 1: they sent him because they were just grateful that he

1505
01:16:09,240 --> 01:16:11,479
Speaker 1: was seemed so caring in this terrible moments, you know,

1506
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:13,439
Speaker 1: because they knew there was danger and then they realized,

1507
01:16:13,640 --> 01:16:20,960
Speaker 1: oh there was myrted your kindness. He makes a huge

1508
01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:23,360
Speaker 1: point about the fact that one of the men's last

1509
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:26,200
Speaker 1: paychecks for nine thousand dollars was held up because he

1510
01:16:26,280 --> 01:16:28,320
Speaker 1: was dead and his wife couldn't cash it. So Prince

1511
01:16:28,360 --> 01:16:31,200
Speaker 1: notes that the company cut her a check directly and says, quote,

1512
01:16:31,640 --> 01:16:33,720
Speaker 1: if the estate comes after us for the money then

1513
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:36,080
Speaker 1: so be it reads one of our internal staff emails

1514
01:16:36,080 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: from the time, it sounds like the kids need the money.

1515
01:16:38,560 --> 01:16:40,000
Speaker 1: So he makes a big show about the fact that

1516
01:16:40,040 --> 01:16:42,519
Speaker 1: he made it slightly easier for them to get nine

1517
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:45,880
Speaker 1: thousand dollars that they were owed. But then, you know,

1518
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:49,479
Speaker 1: didn't fought the families in court over paying them out

1519
01:16:49,479 --> 01:16:51,439
Speaker 1: anything extra, over the fact that they had, you know,

1520
01:16:51,479 --> 01:16:53,680
Speaker 1: sent their loved ones into a dangerous situation without the

1521
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:56,839
Speaker 1: proper equipment, without the equipment that their own company's rules

1522
01:16:56,880 --> 01:16:59,680
Speaker 1: said that was necessary. I think moments like these really

1523
01:16:59,720 --> 01:17:02,640
Speaker 1: review how little Eric Prince believes human beings ought to

1524
01:17:02,640 --> 01:17:04,840
Speaker 1: be expected to do for one another. Like that's one

1525
01:17:04,880 --> 01:17:06,559
Speaker 1: of the things that strikes out to me, Like to

1526
01:17:06,600 --> 01:17:09,439
Speaker 1: a normal person, this is the least suggestion you would

1527
01:17:09,439 --> 01:17:11,320
Speaker 1: expect from a company who had gotten one of your

1528
01:17:11,360 --> 01:17:14,439
Speaker 1: relatives killed. And he actually it's a great humanizing anecdote

1529
01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:18,720
Speaker 1: from the water, it's he's from outer space. One of

1530
01:17:18,720 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 1: the funny through lines for this book is Eric's refusal

1531
01:17:21,080 --> 01:17:24,080
Speaker 1: to call his men mercenaries. He's continuously offended at the

1532
01:17:24,120 --> 01:17:26,160
Speaker 1: mere thought of that, and then he drops in lines

1533
01:17:26,200 --> 01:17:28,160
Speaker 1: like this about the men who died in Fallujah and

1534
01:17:28,200 --> 01:17:31,840
Speaker 1: the legal complications around that. So they weren't combatants, but

1535
01:17:31,880 --> 01:17:36,120
Speaker 1: they weren't non combatants. Batalona, Zovko, Healvins, and Antigue were civilians,

1536
01:17:36,160 --> 01:17:38,760
Speaker 1: but they were armed. Ultimately, behest of the Department of

1537
01:17:38,800 --> 01:17:42,280
Speaker 1: Defense pursuing dangerous missions, the four fell into a glaring

1538
01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:45,240
Speaker 1: gray area of international law that experts in Geneva and

1539
01:17:45,280 --> 01:17:49,479
Speaker 1: beyond I continued to debate for years, what do you

1540
01:17:49,600 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 1: call civilians with guns in a war? Zonetions for money?

1541
01:17:55,320 --> 01:17:58,720
Speaker 1: If only there was a term for that, fucking mercenary?

1542
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 1: What is that? I sorry, hessians, because the only thing

1543
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:05,800
Speaker 1: I would call a mission was like in high school,

1544
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:07,920
Speaker 1: would be like go to seven eleven from blunt wraps

1545
01:18:08,000 --> 01:18:10,360
Speaker 1: or like something like they're like, yo, busting mish. That's

1546
01:18:10,400 --> 01:18:13,559
Speaker 1: only mission as a civilian, you bust. Yeah. Well, I mean,

1547
01:18:13,600 --> 01:18:15,439
Speaker 1: if you'd carry guns in to get those blunt wraps,

1548
01:18:15,479 --> 01:18:16,960
Speaker 1: you would have been seen them as these guys. The

1549
01:18:17,080 --> 01:18:20,880
Speaker 1: value was pretty safe, you know what I mean? Boy? Okay,

1550
01:18:21,080 --> 01:18:22,800
Speaker 1: So we're not gonna take again. We're not gonna take

1551
01:18:22,800 --> 01:18:24,479
Speaker 1: a point by point look at every fund up defense

1552
01:18:24,600 --> 01:18:26,599
Speaker 1: Eric puts together. But we're going to talk a little

1553
01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:29,200
Speaker 1: bit more about the Nissaur Square massacre. Now, this is

1554
01:18:29,240 --> 01:18:32,040
Speaker 1: where several of Eric's employees fired machine guns and grenades

1555
01:18:32,080 --> 01:18:35,280
Speaker 1: into a crowd, killing fourteen and wounding a shipload of people.

1556
01:18:35,760 --> 01:18:37,920
Speaker 1: Uh Their story, and the story Prince tells, is that

1557
01:18:37,960 --> 01:18:41,360
Speaker 1: they were taking heavy incoming fire. Prince repeatedly references incoming

1558
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:43,560
Speaker 1: a K forty seven fire and points out that a

1559
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:46,240
Speaker 1: bullet damaged the coolant line of one of their vehicles.

1560
01:18:46,479 --> 01:18:48,960
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't gell with the testimony of Jeremy Ridgeway,

1561
01:18:48,960 --> 01:18:51,880
Speaker 1: a Blackwater X employee who was at I'm going to

1562
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:54,160
Speaker 1: quote Fox News is summary of it, just so you

1563
01:18:54,160 --> 01:18:56,000
Speaker 1: know I'm not picking out some lefty source to make

1564
01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:57,960
Speaker 1: these guys right. This is the Fox This is probably

1565
01:18:58,000 --> 01:19:00,560
Speaker 1: the most charitable version. Ridgeway told a jury that he

1566
01:19:00,600 --> 01:19:03,439
Speaker 1: didn't see any Iraqi's pointing guns in Nissar Square, and

1567
01:19:03,479 --> 01:19:06,040
Speaker 1: that there were no telltale muzzle flashes in the distance,

1568
01:19:06,080 --> 01:19:07,920
Speaker 1: that there was no incoming fire, and that there was

1569
01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:10,200
Speaker 1: no sound of a K forty seven rounds going off,

1570
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:12,519
Speaker 1: as would be the case if insurgents were shooting at

1571
01:19:12,520 --> 01:19:17,280
Speaker 1: the black Water guards from nearby. Now you'll remember maybe

1572
01:19:17,280 --> 01:19:19,120
Speaker 1: that a lot of these people were shot in the back.

1573
01:19:19,280 --> 01:19:21,479
Speaker 1: The civilians who died were found who have been shot

1574
01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:24,000
Speaker 1: in the back while they were running away, as a

1575
01:19:24,040 --> 01:19:26,920
Speaker 1: normal person would say it. Eric Prince praises, as they

1576
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:30,480
Speaker 1: were shot in the back, presumably mistaken for retreating insurgents.

1577
01:19:31,040 --> 01:19:35,479
Speaker 1: So the military looked over everything, and their experts, who

1578
01:19:35,479 --> 01:19:37,320
Speaker 1: sure as ship had no vested interest in making it

1579
01:19:37,320 --> 01:19:39,400
Speaker 1: look like anyone had committed a war crime in Iraq,

1580
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:42,639
Speaker 1: determined that this had been an excessive shooting. Uh, there

1581
01:19:42,640 --> 01:19:45,599
Speaker 1: had been no sign of incoming fire. Prince summarizes their

1582
01:19:45,680 --> 01:19:48,240
Speaker 1: view of the incident as a one sided shooting rather

1583
01:19:48,280 --> 01:19:50,840
Speaker 1: than a massacre. Then he says it's safe to say

1584
01:19:50,840 --> 01:19:53,799
Speaker 1: that my men and I disagree with that assessment, except

1585
01:19:53,800 --> 01:19:57,000
Speaker 1: for the one that literally the guy who testified it

1586
01:19:57,080 --> 01:19:59,680
Speaker 1: yah in a jury right whatever, Uh, let's just get

1587
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:01,439
Speaker 1: hung up. Let's not get hung up on that now.

1588
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:04,000
Speaker 1: Most of Eric's evidence seems to be that the investigators

1589
01:20:04,520 --> 01:20:06,880
Speaker 1: or that his own investigators later found a bullet in

1590
01:20:06,920 --> 01:20:09,160
Speaker 1: the grill of one of Blackwaters trucks. He says that

1591
01:20:09,200 --> 01:20:11,479
Speaker 1: the vehicles had been shot up in all of the fighting,

1592
01:20:11,560 --> 01:20:13,760
Speaker 1: but that they had to d o d rules said

1593
01:20:13,800 --> 01:20:15,439
Speaker 1: that all of the vehicles had to be in good repair.

1594
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:18,559
Speaker 1: So we were acquired by contract to immediately repair the vehicles.

1595
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:21,599
Speaker 1: And that's why there wasn't right. And we didn't really

1596
01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:24,080
Speaker 1: take pictures either, But they were there. He says they

1597
01:20:24,080 --> 01:20:27,200
Speaker 1: took pictures. He hasn't, but were there where they at

1598
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:29,840
Speaker 1: it was it did I'm gonna guess if he had

1599
01:20:29,880 --> 01:20:31,880
Speaker 1: pictures that went to the army and they did not

1600
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:34,840
Speaker 1: find them compelling. Uh, they did find a bullet in

1601
01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:38,840
Speaker 1: the grill of one of Blackwaters trucks. Um, but it

1602
01:20:38,920 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 1: was just a bullet. We don't know what type of

1603
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:42,599
Speaker 1: bullet it was. It was damaged enough that they could

1604
01:20:42,600 --> 01:20:45,120
Speaker 1: not definitively tie it to any particular kind of weapon.

1605
01:20:45,439 --> 01:20:47,559
Speaker 1: And we know that Black watersmen were shooting like crazy

1606
01:20:47,640 --> 01:20:49,960
Speaker 1: bullets ricochet, you know, you know war zone where people

1607
01:20:50,000 --> 01:20:52,960
Speaker 1: are shooting bullets wind up in weird fucking places. It's

1608
01:20:53,120 --> 01:20:55,679
Speaker 1: entirely possible one of their rounds ricochet and got embedded

1609
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:58,280
Speaker 1: in the grill of this truck. It's no way to

1610
01:20:58,479 --> 01:21:01,439
Speaker 1: no way to say one way there a single bullet

1611
01:21:01,439 --> 01:21:03,200
Speaker 1: in the girl of this truck is thin evidence to

1612
01:21:03,240 --> 01:21:06,160
Speaker 1: hold against the Army when their investigators say nobody was

1613
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:10,080
Speaker 1: shooting at you right, yeah now. In two thousand fourteen,

1614
01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:12,760
Speaker 1: four Prince's men were convicted, three of them from manslaughter

1615
01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:15,280
Speaker 1: in one for first degree murder, but last August two

1616
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:18,519
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, a federal appeals court throughout the convictions for

1617
01:21:18,560 --> 01:21:20,720
Speaker 1: three of them in order to retrial. The man with

1618
01:21:20,760 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 1: the murder conviction, Nicholas Slattin, was a sniper who the

1619
01:21:23,400 --> 01:21:25,840
Speaker 1: government accused of having fired the first shots, but during

1620
01:21:25,840 --> 01:21:28,720
Speaker 1: the trial another mercenary admitted to shooting first, so his

1621
01:21:28,880 --> 01:21:31,599
Speaker 1: conviction was dropped. The other two had their convictions thrown

1622
01:21:31,600 --> 01:21:33,720
Speaker 1: out because the prosecutors had used a u s law

1623
01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:36,679
Speaker 1: made to prosecute domestic criminals to give them extra long

1624
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:39,320
Speaker 1: sentences since they had committed the crime with machine guns.

1625
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:41,560
Speaker 1: Um So basically, if you commit a crime in the

1626
01:21:41,600 --> 01:21:44,439
Speaker 1: use of the machine gun, you get additional sentence. The

1627
01:21:44,520 --> 01:21:47,200
Speaker 1: prosecutors were saying, basically, look at all the people these

1628
01:21:47,200 --> 01:21:49,400
Speaker 1: guys killed, We owe it to those dead civilians to

1629
01:21:49,479 --> 01:21:51,439
Speaker 1: try and get these guys as much time as possible.

1630
01:21:51,479 --> 01:21:54,559
Speaker 1: So they used that law. But the jury rightfully was like,

1631
01:21:55,080 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 1: it was their job to carry machine guns. It is

1632
01:21:57,280 --> 01:21:59,680
Speaker 1: bullshit to give them extra time for them. That's not

1633
01:21:59,760 --> 01:22:04,400
Speaker 1: what wrong. So they didn't get off the case because

1634
01:22:04,400 --> 01:22:08,080
Speaker 1: they were legitimately innocent. It was the prosecutors who are

1635
01:22:08,120 --> 01:22:11,400
Speaker 1: a little over zealous. Yeah, exactly. Uh. Now. Eric ends

1636
01:22:11,439 --> 01:22:13,840
Speaker 1: his book by talking about his charities and making it

1637
01:22:13,840 --> 01:22:16,200
Speaker 1: seem like he's enjoying the peaceful retirement of a true

1638
01:22:16,240 --> 01:22:19,160
Speaker 1: American hero quote, it remains to be seen what my

1639
01:22:19,240 --> 01:22:21,519
Speaker 1: future might hold. Tomorrow was one less day than I've

1640
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:23,720
Speaker 1: gotten now, and only God knows how many more I'll have.

1641
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:26,880
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, I'm enjoying a quieter life. I

1642
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:29,040
Speaker 1: had a small Hoby Cat, which is a type of boat,

1643
01:22:29,280 --> 01:22:32,320
Speaker 1: delivered to our home in Abu Dhabi today, shortly after

1644
01:22:32,320 --> 01:22:34,920
Speaker 1: my family relocated. The kids are still learning their way

1645
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:37,639
Speaker 1: around the fiberglass catamaran the same way I once poked

1646
01:22:37,640 --> 01:22:40,439
Speaker 1: around with our Boston Whaler back in Michigan. But most

1647
01:22:40,479 --> 01:22:42,160
Speaker 1: every day in Abu Dhabi is a good day to

1648
01:22:42,160 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 1: swim across the bay, catching the next gust of wind,

1649
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:46,559
Speaker 1: and teaching my own children to feel at home on

1650
01:22:46,600 --> 01:22:51,479
Speaker 1: the water. Of course, while he was in Abu Dhabi

1651
01:22:51,479 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 1: writing this, he was also teaching an army of Columbian

1652
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:56,400
Speaker 1: mercenaries to fight on behalf of the Immirati government. Dozens

1653
01:22:56,400 --> 01:22:58,320
Speaker 1: of those men, and god knows how many other people

1654
01:22:58,360 --> 01:23:04,360
Speaker 1: are now dead and Yemen, So okay, it's hard linked

1655
01:23:04,400 --> 01:23:07,680
Speaker 1: to now. Yeah, so it's hard to say what the

1656
01:23:07,680 --> 01:23:09,400
Speaker 1: future is going to be for Eric Prince, his new

1657
01:23:09,479 --> 01:23:11,400
Speaker 1: navy and the new air Force. I'm sure he's right

1658
01:23:11,439 --> 01:23:13,479
Speaker 1: around the corner from getting his hands on. I mean

1659
01:23:13,560 --> 01:23:15,519
Speaker 1: to guess, whatever that future is, it's going to involve

1660
01:23:15,560 --> 01:23:21,080
Speaker 1: a lot of bodybags. Wow, Eric, Eric, I'm just living

1661
01:23:21,080 --> 01:23:24,680
Speaker 1: a quiet life now in Abu Dhabi. Yeah, training a

1662
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:29,080
Speaker 1: small mercenary army for repressive theocratic regime exactly like you do.

1663
01:23:29,800 --> 01:23:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like the guys at the end of

1664
01:23:32,720 --> 01:23:35,960
Speaker 1: Shoshank Redemption, but with a mercenary army's going to be

1665
01:23:36,080 --> 01:23:39,840
Speaker 1: used to commit war crimes in Yemen. Hessions that's call ems.

1666
01:23:41,280 --> 01:23:46,080
Speaker 1: Oh well, I it's it's so wild because he really

1667
01:23:46,200 --> 01:23:49,719
Speaker 1: is like the physical manifestation of capitalism in the military

1668
01:23:49,760 --> 01:23:53,920
Speaker 1: industrial complex, like all in one fucking man. It's like

1669
01:23:54,160 --> 01:23:58,520
Speaker 1: the worst parts of all of those things just expressed

1670
01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:02,479
Speaker 1: themselves in the goog turned into Eric Prince. Yeah, it's

1671
01:24:02,520 --> 01:24:06,360
Speaker 1: like the military industrial complex had a baby. And yeah,

1672
01:24:06,640 --> 01:24:09,479
Speaker 1: with late stage capitalism and in there there it is.

1673
01:24:09,520 --> 01:24:13,120
Speaker 1: It's Eric fucking Prince, one of the worst people who's

1674
01:24:13,120 --> 01:24:18,080
Speaker 1: ever lived, A true bastard for true starred. Yeah. In fact,

1675
01:24:18,120 --> 01:24:20,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get I'm gonna bump him above bastard and

1676
01:24:20,439 --> 01:24:23,479
Speaker 1: call him a real piece of ship. Yeah yeah, Eric Prince.

1677
01:24:23,520 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 1: Everybody alright, Miles, you got some plug doubles to plug?

1678
01:24:26,320 --> 01:24:29,720
Speaker 1: Oh let's see well yeah, Glade plug ins guys. Uh,

1679
01:24:29,840 --> 01:24:32,479
Speaker 1: they're available at most supermarkets right now, please take that.

1680
01:24:32,880 --> 01:24:37,799
Speaker 1: Erwick also another plug double I love, but yeah look again,

1681
01:24:37,880 --> 01:24:40,800
Speaker 1: look Glaxo Smith Klein. You know S. C. Johnson wax

1682
01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:43,960
Speaker 1: Please holler at us. Uh. If you are looking for

1683
01:24:44,000 --> 01:24:46,240
Speaker 1: the more podcast route, I'm on the Daily Sight guys

1684
01:24:46,240 --> 01:24:49,679
Speaker 1: with Jack O'Brien. We do that every day, uh, talking

1685
01:24:49,720 --> 01:24:53,920
Speaker 1: news and culture whatever's in the z geist as it were. Uh.

1686
01:24:53,960 --> 01:24:55,920
Speaker 1: And you find me on Twitter and Instagram at Myles

1687
01:24:55,960 --> 01:24:58,840
Speaker 1: with Gray. That's about it. You can find me on

1688
01:24:58,880 --> 01:25:01,280
Speaker 1: Twitter at I Write o. Okay. You can find my

1689
01:25:01,320 --> 01:25:04,919
Speaker 1: book on Amazon, a brief history advice. It's I Recreate

1690
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:07,880
Speaker 1: Weird Ancient Drugs and Damage My Body. You can find

1691
01:25:07,960 --> 01:25:11,160
Speaker 1: this uh podcast on the Internet. Behind the Bastards dot

1692
01:25:11,200 --> 01:25:13,000
Speaker 1: com where you will find all of the sources for

1693
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:16,640
Speaker 1: this episode. Uh. You can also find us on Instagram

1694
01:25:16,640 --> 01:25:19,360
Speaker 1: and Twitter at at Bastards pod so check us out,

1695
01:25:20,160 --> 01:25:23,559
Speaker 1: check us out on te public where we have a store,

1696
01:25:23,680 --> 01:25:25,400
Speaker 1: you know, behind the Bastards. You can buy our T

1697
01:25:25,520 --> 01:25:27,680
Speaker 1: shirts there and some of that money will go to

1698
01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:29,439
Speaker 1: me and I will use that money to buy the

1699
01:25:29,439 --> 01:25:31,839
Speaker 1: liquor that I will use to drink myself into forgetting

1700
01:25:31,840 --> 01:25:35,040
Speaker 1: the Derek Prince exists. So help a brother out with

1701
01:25:35,320 --> 01:25:38,280
Speaker 1: buying T shirts. And uh, also, let's get this Dorrito's

1702
01:25:38,320 --> 01:25:42,200
Speaker 1: campaign one. Let's let's yeah, yeah, tweet why I eat

1703
01:25:42,200 --> 01:25:45,880
Speaker 1: Dorrito's right if you have, Because guys, what we're trying

1704
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:49,280
Speaker 1: to do is connect a action from the consumer to

1705
01:25:49,960 --> 01:25:52,960
Speaker 1: a media source. And this is the this is how

1706
01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:58,360
Speaker 1: capital and in fairness, hundreds of you have already impressed.

1707
01:25:58,360 --> 01:26:00,439
Speaker 1: When I see your guys social media and seeing the

1708
01:26:00,479 --> 01:26:03,200
Speaker 1: amount of people just like posing with Doritos, it's like

1709
01:26:03,240 --> 01:26:05,839
Speaker 1: dozens of weeks. Sometimes part of me gets really upset

1710
01:26:05,880 --> 01:26:10,200
Speaker 1: though that it's this free advertising with no I mean,

1711
01:26:10,600 --> 01:26:13,519
Speaker 1: it's a good product. I am all right with that,

1712
01:26:13,720 --> 01:26:17,720
Speaker 1: but the Stockholm syndrome, You're like, it's fine. One day

1713
01:26:17,760 --> 01:26:20,479
Speaker 1: they'll recognize me, and I do hope one day they will.

1714
01:26:20,600 --> 01:26:23,519
Speaker 1: But these are delicious. Well, if anything, we can say

1715
01:26:23,520 --> 01:26:26,000
Speaker 1: you are the Eric Prince of Doritos. Thank you make

1716
01:26:26,040 --> 01:26:28,920
Speaker 1: me the Eric Prince of Doritos. Tweet why I Love Doritos,

1717
01:26:29,080 --> 01:26:32,920
Speaker 1: hashtag why I eat hashtag why eat Dorritos attached at

1718
01:26:32,960 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 1: the Dorrito's company at this podcast, and we'll see what happens. Yeah,

1719
01:26:37,080 --> 01:26:40,519
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'll get my own catamaran watch with a

1720
01:26:40,560 --> 01:26:43,240
Speaker 1: machine I really hope. So you know what, you know

1721
01:26:43,240 --> 01:26:46,040
Speaker 1: what's actually gonna happen. Dorritos is gonna steal your hashtag

1722
01:26:46,080 --> 01:26:49,479
Speaker 1: into an actual ad campaign for like themselves and put

1723
01:26:49,479 --> 01:26:51,439
Speaker 1: you in the cold. That's how this ship works. If

1724
01:26:51,439 --> 01:26:53,840
Speaker 1: that's what happens, that's what happens. And they hope is

1725
01:26:53,880 --> 01:26:56,679
Speaker 1: that they buy me a catamaran with a machine gun. Yeah,

1726
01:26:56,720 --> 01:27:00,719
Speaker 1: I mean, because that's how this story action is Like, hey, sorry,

1727
01:27:00,720 --> 01:27:02,400
Speaker 1: we can optically, we couldn't get in bed with you

1728
01:27:02,439 --> 01:27:04,839
Speaker 1: with the Doritos thing. Here's a catam ran with machine

1729
01:27:05,400 --> 01:27:07,320
Speaker 1: It is a catam ran with a machine gun. Sorry

1730
01:27:07,320 --> 01:27:10,680
Speaker 1: it's soft skinned. You know, we can't we goggle all

1731
01:27:10,720 --> 01:27:12,720
Speaker 1: the way. I don't plan on delivering kitchen supply. It's

1732
01:27:12,840 --> 01:27:15,800
Speaker 1: much heavier when you have an armored catagory. All right, guys,

1733
01:27:16,520 --> 01:27:23,600
Speaker 1: I love about you and Brian H.