Cleared Hot

Ryan Bodenheimer spent eleven years on active duty flying the F-15E, including 70 combat missions over Afghanistan and a stint building strike packages at the air operations center in Qatar. He was selected for the Thunderbirds, flew Thunderbird 2 for two show seasons, and instructed the next team. After the Air Force he flew airliners, then walked away to build Max Afterburner, now one of the largest military aviation channels on YouTube, and to write Take Command. The thread in this conversation is rules and when to break them. He kept a loaded jet at .99 Mach so he'd arrive with something to protect a SEAL, then went down to 100 feet because 500 would have gotten the guy killed. He went off dry on a cleared-hot strafe because he saw kids, and two targets got away. My helicopter instructor put it simply: know the rules and why they exist, then you can break them. We close on Iran, drones, the withdrawal, and the limits of air power. Enjoy. Take Command: https://mysignedcopy.com/en-us/products/take-command?srsltid=AU7gw4XIeBMvDl9pxPZIhD54iTnJC5j74cMg8n-HS_7Cxx5Z4k83omYq Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklimnt.com/clearedhot

I asked a question this week about whether the Fort Hood shooter's execution should be made public, and the emotional response to it surprised me. One video about my post opened by telling me never to defend him. I didn't. He should die, and I spent ten years of my life removing people like him from the planet. The real question is what a public execution gains and what it costs. Deterrence and closure are legitimate arguments. So are martyrdom, the countries that already do this, and what happens when footage reaches people who never went looking for it. I don't have a deep stake in either answer, and the responses on X land much closer to an even split than my own comment section would suggest. That gap is worth paying attention to. Michael and I also get into a YouTuber's RPG-7 test going wrong, flat earthers confronting the 24-hour sun in Antarctica, the reported removal of more than 130 million names from India's voter rolls, and a 94-year-old barrister arrested in the UK over a sign. Enjoy. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Willie's Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95 AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Bill Thompson joined the Army at 17 and spent 22 years there, most of it on the technical and communications side of a special missions unit. He now runs Spartan Forge, an AI-driven hunting app with over 100,000 users, advises high-profile clients on communications security, and is building his own compute network to run AI without feeding anyone else's system. His core argument is that AI as it exists today is training data, matrix math, and human correction. It produces novel output, not novel thought. He argues the companies promising AGI know they cannot deliver it, and that calling for regulation lets them blame the government, guarantee investors a captive market, and shut out the open-weight models anyone can run at home. He is moving his own companies off the closed systems now. Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Better Help: https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot

Traditional Q and A to round out this week: A high school senior sent five questions about American culture for a class assignment, so I answered all of them. The smartphone posture you'll see everywhere the second you look up. Political division and why your neighbor isn't your enemy. Whether Americans can still stand on their own or just push a button and wait. What the toilet paper shortage actually revealed. Being capable of violence and choosing not to use it. Independence as a core American value and what convenience has done to it. Why people born here won the lottery and forgot. A new father who cut off contact with his own dad asks whether there's any benefit to his daughter knowing that story someday. How my parents handled it with my grandfather. The difference between trauma and hardship, and why only one of them builds anything. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code "CLEAREDHOT" at https://cowboycolostrum.com/CLEAREDHOT.

Mike LeBlanc spent 13 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and went on to 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. After getting out he studied his way into Harvard Business School and co-founded Cobalt Robotics, a Sequoia-backed security robot company that put close to a thousand robots into offices on four continents before it sold. He now runs Foundation, which builds full-size humanoid robots for heavy industry and for the battlefield. His book, What If Anger Is the Answer, comes out November 3. We start in Ukraine, where he has walked the front lines. Fiber-optic drones, isolated strongpoints, and a scoring system that awards points per kill. He argues most deaths on both sides now come from drones, and we work through what happens to a generation that kills through a screen. What if anger is the answer: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/What-If-Anger-Is-the-Answer/Mike-LeBlanc/9781637749227 Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Brunt: https://www.bruntworkwear.com For a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at BRUNT when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.

A last-minute Friday episode, because I forgot we didn't have one. Michael worked under pressure. We open with the Roberts Ridge series. The criticism online was valid: I should have asked Mitch and Brian whether they believe John Chapman earned the Medal of Honor, and I should have pushed on why the members of MAKO 30 supported the Navy Cross narrative and then would not sign statements for the Medal of Honor. That gap has to be addressed directly. I also explain where I actually land on the medal, why Pat Tillman is the example of what happens when you lie to protect a legacy, and why I am not a protector of the SEAL brand. The other side of the table is coming on in mid-October. From there, a report that an AI chatbot hallucinated nuclear components on a Chinese cargo ship and had aircraft scrambled before someone caught it. Michael and I argue about whether AI art is art. A judge blocks the White House from pulling press credentials, and I explain why censorship never works and what I would do as press secretary. Lincoln shut down hundreds of newspapers during the Civil War. The last U.S. troops leave Iraq, and we talk contractors, Title 10 versus Title 50, and why Afghanistan still stings. A pilot stabbed his co-pilot on a flight to Tel Aviv and the plane dropped 14,000 feet before passengers got into the cockpit. Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to  ⁠https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT⁠ for 27% off sitewide. AG1: Visit ⁠https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot⁠ to get an AG1 Pro YETI Shaker in your AG1 Pro WelcomeKit.

Matt Brown spent his career inside the national security world without ever wearing a uniform. He came up through grad school and think tank work in DC, earned a TS/SCI clearance, and landed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy working the counter-WMD mission. From there he moved to the State Department. In August 2023 he walked into a Senate committee, signed his real name, and became a whistleblower on UAP. His report on a program called Immaculate Constellation was later entered into the congressional record. Today he co-runs Vanguard Enterprise, a nonprofit built to support the people who came forward after him. This conversation covers what pushed him over the edge. He says he saw transcripts showing the director of the Pentagon's UAP office was not telling senators the truth. He explains how the counter-WMD mission gave him a legitimate reason to see collection on objects around nuclear assets, and what he saw on those systems, from small orbs going in and out of water to a large triangle and a boomerang that disappeared behind its own light. We cover the reality of blowing the whistle inside the IC, the retaliation he describes, and the questions he thinks Congress should be asking now. Today's Sponsors: Toehold: https://www.shoptoehold.com Use code "Andy" for 15% off at checkout Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://www.ethos.com/clearedhot. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of 6/1/2025.

Patrick Montgomery served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2010 to 2014, deploying to Afghanistan the day after the Bin Laden raid. Six weeks into that first deployment, his brother-in-law, also a Ranger, was killed in Paktika. Patrick escorted the body home. He got out, went back to school at Mizzou, and in 2016 founded KC Cattle Company, a farm-to-table Wagyu operation that went from selling steaks out of a pickup to a national brand after Food & Wine named its hot dog the best in America. He now runs Valor Provisions, a membership marketplace connecting American farms and ranches directly to consumers, and writes children's books about historical figures. This one covers the death notification and why clarity matters more than comfort, what it does to a family when a service member does not come back, and the nephew growing up with no memory of his father. From there it turns to business. The 2019 article that dropped half a million people on a website holding 40 packs of hot dogs. The pandemic surge, the inflation crash, and the structural mistakes that cost him. Then the bigger fight: his argument that four companies control most of America's protein, that foreign ownership of our food supply is a national security problem, and that the fix comes from the bottom up. Valor Provisions: https://valorprovisions.us/ Today's Sponsor: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm

Brian Bloom has spent his career in front of and behind the camera as an actor, voice actor, and screenwriter. Mitch Hall served as a Navy SEAL with the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and later worked as a technical advisor and producer in film and television. For more than five years they have run the Ground Truth investigation into what happened on Roberts Ridge. In this last installment, they explain what it took to get back on top of Takur Ghar. They wrote to the Taliban, got permission, and spent a day on the summit testing sight lines and lighting. They also sat with men from the villages below who fought in the battle. From there we worked through the footage, the red-on-red question, and the documents behind the Medal of Honor upgrade. They laid out years of outreach to the Air Force and others who chose not to participate. They also addressed an upcoming feature film based on a version of events they say their findings contradict. The conversation ends on heroism, blame, and why the truth still matters after 25 years. Ground Truth Documentary: https://www.groundtruthdoc.com/ Today's Sponsors: Ridge: One thing to pack, five ways to power! You can find Ridge's Power Bank at Best Buy or our listeners can get 10% off at https://www.Ridge.com by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Spartan Forge: https:www.spartanforge.ai

Josh Walker spent 24 years in uniform. He started as a young team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion, left for Florida State and ROTC, then came back as a signal officer and went on to serve in 7th and 3rd Special Forces Groups, logging close to three years in Afghanistan. Chris Cunningham was working as a chef in Vermont when his brother told him not to sign anything that didn't say Ranger. He listened, and served 22 and a half years. In March 2002, both were part of the Ranger quick reaction force sent to Takur Ghar. Neither had been in a firefight. Josh's helicopter, Razor 01, was supposedly headed to a refueling point. It was shot down on the mountaintop instead. Chris's element on Razor 02 landed below and climbed for more than two hours through deep snow, under mortar fire, to reach them. They walk me through the assault on the bunkers, a Hellfire that had to prove itself before anyone trusted it, the wait for exfil, and washing a friend's blood off his rifle before the younger Rangers got back to camp. I also asked why Rangers so rarely tell these stories and about the importance of people knowing the names of those that didn't come home. Today's Sponsors: Mars Men: For a limited time, listeners get 50% off for life plus Free Shipping AND 3 Free Gifts at https://www.Mengotomars.com Surefire: https://www.surefire.com/

Mitch Hall served in Naval Special Warfare, Brian Bloom came from film and games. Neither of them set out to spend six years on a single morning in March of 2002. They did anyway. Their project, Ground Truth, is built on seventy-five interviews, a trip back to the summit of Takur Ghar, the full unedited Predator and AC-130 footage, the radio traffic, the jock logs, and a forensic team that reconstructed the terrain and every camera orbit down to the inch. Part one of three this week. The episode lays out the uncontested account first. A friendly fire incident that almost ended Operation Anaconda before it started. A reconnaissance element pushed onto the tallest mountain in the valley on a compressed timeline, without the delay it requested, and told the summit was empty. A SEAL out of a helicopter under fire. A crash landing miles off target. A second attempt with no armor, no rucks, and ten minutes of fuel. Four Rangers killed on and around a ramp as the sun came up. Seven Americans dead by the end of the day. What follows is the part that has never been public. The viral video most people cite as proof is nine minutes assembled from an hour and forty-nine minutes of raw footage, out of sequence, with a closing sequence taken from four minutes after everyone agrees the fight was over. The technology credited with reopening the medal case is examined by name. So is the bunker, the two fighters said to be inside it, and the decision to pull air support with the quick reaction force on final. Two Medals of Honor came out of this mountain. So did a feud between two branches that has run for more than twenty years. Ground Truth Documentary: https://www.groundtruthdoc.com/ Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com

I asked for positive news this week. What I got was surveillance, a global humiliation, and a man duct taped to his seat at thirty thousand feet. We open with reporting that Homeland Security has been analyzing the financial data of American citizens, and that some units have used it to steer local police toward pretextual traffic stops. Banks have run keyword filters on transactions. Agencies have swept up bulk records from money transfer services. Credit reports, utility bills and location data get purchased outright from private brokers, which sidesteps the Fourth Amendment entirely. There is a term for where that ends up. Turnkey totalitarianism is a system where every pillar of mass surveillance is built and operational, waiting on one person to connect it. I could not steel man the argument that we are not already there. From there we get into age and capacity in elected office, Apple's attempt to certify that a photograph is real, and why current AI produces novel output but not novel thought. Then it lightens up. A competitive fitness scandal goes worldwide. An actor announces what he would do to people in a fight. A first class passenger gets restrained with zip ties and duct tape between Dallas and Newark. We close with 163 missing children recovered in Florida in four days. Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code CLEAREDHOT for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. Or use the store locator to find Willie's on shelves near you, like your local Total Wine, Specs, ABC or local liquor store AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Dan Rickert graduated from West Point and commissioned into the cavalry, running Bradleys and gun trucks through Iraq in 2008 before going to selection and finishing his nine years in uniform on a Special Forces team with 10th Group. He left the Army in 2015 and spent the next eight years at Palantir, moving from project management to international work and eventually to chief of staff on the defense side. He is now VP of Operations at Air Space Intelligence, the company the FAA selected to rebuild the software that runs the national airspace. Much of this conversation is about what people get wrong about the defense industry. He argues that competition produces a better product for the people using it, that a human has to stay in the loop on any decision that matters, and that skepticism is healthy either way. We also worked through privacy and security, and whether the two actually have to be traded against each other. From there we covered drone warfare and trench fighting in the same conflict, rebuilding an identity after the uniform comes off, and the work of modernizing air traffic control. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Betterhelp: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/clearedhot

This one airs on the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I'm not dedicating the whole episode to it. I don't tell people how to think or how to feel. But I do open with where I land on it now, a quarter century later, and why the reverence fading for people who didn't live it doesn't surprise me anymore. Then the questions. A 27-year-old learns through a DNA test that the man on his birth certificate isn't his father. He wants to know whether to tell the rest of the family. A guy who has run audio at his church for 21 years wants to know how to finally ask to be paid without turning it into an ultimatum. A future Naval Academy midshipman asks what a SEAL officer actually does on target, and whether the enlisted guys respect him. Also covered: why we round the edges off pain as a species, what constant exposure to war footage does to a person, and why describing your own military service as vanilla needs to stop. Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm ⁠https://www.firecracker.farm Hexclad: For a limited time only listeners get 10% off your order with this exclusive link. Just head to ⁠https://www.hexclad.com/clearedhot⁠

Amanda Lindhout grew up in small-town Alberta and waited tables to pay for backpacking trips through Latin America, Asia, and Africa. She taught herself the job along the way and turned into a freelance foreign correspondent, filing from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan with no network behind her and no one responsible for her if it went wrong. In August 2008 she flew into Mogadishu to cover the famine. It was supposed to be a one-week trip. She was ambushed on the road outside the city and held for 460 days. Her memoir about it, A House in the Sky, became a New York Times bestseller. This conversation covers the whole arc. Why she kept choosing more dangerous places, and what she can see now that she couldn't at 27. What captivity actually looked like day to day. The escape attempt and the punishment that followed. We also spend real time on the aftermath, which she says was almost as hard as the captivity. Complex PTSD. Going back to Somalia and why. Coming off the medication. Plant medicine. And why she stopped saying she forgave them. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Brunt: Get $10 off at BRUNT with code "clearedhot" at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/clearedhot and enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win $50,000. No purchase necessary. Ends 9/18/26. Official rules apply.

Michael was tasked with finding something uplifting. He failed. This is what a slow week for good news looks like. We open on the flooding in Nepal and what you can realistically do when you live in terrain that gives you seven minutes of warning. One school got 14 minutes and everyone made it out. Then the part nobody wants to say out loud: reading the news is taking something from you. I talk about how I decide what to let in. National debt past forty trillion. Bonds selling off. Printing money and calling it something else. Blind loyalty to a party instead of judging what is actually being delivered. The Kennedy Center. Roughly 800 wounded U.S. service members in Iran in six months, the classification that kept those numbers quiet, and a reported airstrike on a wedding. The Lindsay Clancy verdict that never came. Cities cancelling Flock camera contracts, 214 jurisdictions pulling them out, officers using the data to track people they should not be tracking. None of it is a reason to quit. Today's Sponsors: Helix: That's https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 27% off sitewide. AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Nick Jones enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18 out of Olathe, Kansas. Mortarman, then scout sniper platoon, then selection and 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, where he came up through element member to element leader. Twelve years, five deployments. On March 8, 2020, his team went into the Qarachogh Mountains in northern Iraq to clear a cave complex and lost their team leader and their team chief. He was shot going back for them and kept fighting until he was pulled off the mountain. Six surgeries and eighteen months later he medically retired as a staff sergeant with a Navy Cross and a Purple Heart. He now runs the Talons Reach Foundation. In 2019 he built a mountain warfare training package for his team in Montana. It got denied. The reason given was that they wouldn't be fighting in the mountains. Ten months later they were. He proposed on top of Lone Peak and told his wife they'd build a family in Montana in ten years. They got there in one. Five years later she broke down on the drive back from Jackson and told him she had no life there. That conversation moved everybody to Wyoming. Talons Reach Foundation: https://www.talonsreachfoundation.org/ Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Hexclad: For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to https://www.hexclad.com/clearedhot

Recorded two of these in one week because when this drops I'll be in Maine at the Origin Immersion BJJ camp. So Michael gets another pass. Nobody knows what he does with his time anyway. First question comes from a firefighter who watched a man beat a woman in a McDonald's parking lot. He called 911 from behind a block wall and did not physically intervene. He's been carrying it ever since. Good and bad is the wrong lens for that. Capability is the right one. What you can actually do under stress, not what you picture yourself doing. Range, training, tools, and why a black belt is not magic. Plugging holes matters as much as making them. Second question is one I've never been asked. A 15-year-old found out his mother has an OnlyFans page because his baseball teammates were passing it around school. Live your life however you want. The consequences didn't stop with her. A police officer who wants out and thinks nothing he does translates. It all translates. He just needs to stop telling himself otherwise. Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time only head to https://www.ridge.com and use code "Clearedhot" at checkout for 10% off your order AND a chance to win Ridge's biggest sweepstakes ever Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai

Casey Stumpf is a nurse practitioner and my sister. Years in emergency medicine and hospice, a stretch inside military medicine at Camp Pendleton, and now her own practice in Montana treating hormones full time — perimenopause, menopause, testosterone for men and women. She is one of roughly 4,100 providers in the country holding the MSCP certification. There are 75 million American women in some phase of menopause. The math does not work. She is back to answer listener questions and to explain why estrogen patches are disappearing. The FDA says there is no shortage. Pharmacists say otherwise. Best estimate on a fix is two to three years. She lays out what the 2002 Women's Health Initiative did to an entire generation of women, and why the black box warning finally came off. Testosterone for women, prescribed off-label because no FDA-approved formulation exists. GLP-1s and what they pull out of you besides fat. Hormone therapy after breast cancer. Vaginal estrogen, UTIs, and hip fractures. The suicide risk in perimenopause that standard screening misses. Contact Casey Here: https://theradiantwelltality.com/ Today's Sponsors: Ethos: Get your free quote at https://www.ethos.com/clearedhot Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://cash.app/ Terms apply. Bitcoin services by Block, Inc. See the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast.

Brandon Spangler did five years in the Marine Corps. He broke his neck, crushed his lower back, and walked out with a VA prescription that turned into eight years of addiction. The last stretch was heroin. He got sober in 2013, started college from zero, and is now a licensed clinical social worker with his own practice for cops and veterans in northwest Montana. Travis Gribble spent 24 years in law enforcement, 16 on SWAT, and retired out of Mesa PD in 2022. He now works for the Boulder Crest Foundation. He walks through the jump from pharmacy to street, detoxing cold turkey three times, and a month and a half living out of a truck in the Blue Mountains waiting on a bed. The second half is the system. Why cops are carrying moral injury more than post-traumatic stress. Why a diagnosis turns into a cage. What five days of training did that years of therapy did not, the 400 to 600 traumatic calls a cop absorbs over a career, why the average officer dies seven years after retiring, and the retainer model that put a therapist inside a sheriff's office. The Boulder Crest Foundation: ⁠https://bouldercrest.org/⁠ Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com⁠ Take the Operator Code Assessment: ⁠https://www.theoperatorcode.com⁠ Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: ⁠https://www.montanaknifecompany.com⁠ Firecracker Farm: ⁠https://www.firecracker.farm⁠

Four questions this week... An F-18 simulator is going into the coffee shop sometime in September. I don't know why either. Carrier landing competition to follow. The opener is about reaching the age where you become the caregiver for your parents. Medical directives, DNRs, wills, trusts, and why the hard conversation needs to happen before you need it. A 33-year-old sold everything, traveled the world for eight months, and came home with no next goal. I never had a plan either. Not knowing what comes next is fine. Being paralyzed by it is not. A guy got promoted over his best friend of 22 years and won't have the conversation that could save that man's career and a large payout. What you allow in your presence is your standard. Someone asked why I haven't covered the killing of Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar. Straight answer on what I make and what I don't. And a listener found out his wife spent a year with a coworker. He is trying to save the marriage. I could not do what he is doing. Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. AG1: https://www.drinnkag1.com/clearedhot\

John Constantine spent almost 23 years in the United States Secret Service. Fifteen of them on the Counter Assault Team — the assaulters who exist for the day everything goes wrong. Team leader. Instructor. Operations supervisor. He stood with a rifle next to four presidential administrations, worked in almost 90 countries, and finished out in the Dignitary Protective Division running foreign heads of state. He wrote a book about the part of it nobody sees. It's called Hallways and Stairwells. He breaks down what actually happened at the Correspondents' Dinner, why the security plan worked even though the magnetometer checkpoint didn't, and how far that guy really was from the President. Butler gets the same treatment. The layers of security people never see. Why hunkering down has never worked, anywhere, ever. Then it goes past tactics. Mission, men, then you. Getting swatted at his own house over a function fire and suspended for it. Refusing to send guys and guns overseas as a favor unless somebody put it in writing. Two thousand eight hundred agents doing the work of ten thousand. And the part that almost killed him. His identity got ripped out with the job. His wife found him on the bathroom floor. He talks about the climb back. Hallways and Stairwells: https://a.co/d/00SrmoEJ Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com

Michael is moving to Missoula, so this one opens with a resignation and gets worse from there. A man in a garbage can is polling at 20% against Nigel Farage in Clacton, and his platform makes more sense than it should. Term limits, and the unelected career staff who actually run the machine. Early access to Truth Social posts for $60,000 to $100,000 a month. Trading firms have already signed up. A president clearing north of two billion in his first year back in office, and why the silence around it is deafening. A California mayor who pleaded guilty to working as an unregistered agent of China. A former Marine home after four years in a Russian prison. What prison is actually for. Punishment, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and where the line sits. A carrier at sea 250 days straight, what that does to 5,000 people with no end date, and the guy I watched grab a fire extinguisher and jump. Also: a four mile run, PT school, and a second wiener dog named Beans. Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farms: https://www.firecracker.farm Tiny Health: https://www.tinyhealth.com/clearedhot

Drew Miller is an Air Force Academy honor graduate with a master's and a PhD from Harvard. His dissertation was on underground nuclear shelters and field fortifications. Thirty years in uniform across active duty, Air Guard, and Reserve. Intelligence officer. Strategic Air Command, the Pentagon, and a DoD think tank. Retired colonel. He founded Fortitude Ranch, a survival community with eight locations, and the Collapse Survival Institute. His new book is Preparing to Survive in the Age of Collapse. His model puts the annual odds of a collapse disaster between 16 and 57 percent. Bioengineered H5N1. The grid going down. The economy stops, and law and order goes with it. We disagreed on a lot of this one. He wants superintelligent AGI outlawed and says he would nuke a data center to enforce it. I don't get there with him. We went back and forth on facts versus assumptions, on what a real fight with China looks like, and on whether this government is salvageable. Also covered: the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, civil war inside states instead of between them, two million prisoners with no power, and surviving an AI takeover by being too boring to kill. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Better Help: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot

Just me today. Michael also dropped some news on me — he's moving on in a few months to go better himself, so there's a change coming to Negligent Discharge Friday. Three questions this week. All of them heavy. A woman facing divorce asks whether military culture makes it easier for a man to disconnect from family life. Military marriages aren't a single lifestyle. They're an independent one. But the five people you spend your time around will pull you one direction or the other. I talk about my own divorce. Nineteen years and eleven months. The writing was on the wall a decade before I made the call. My biggest regret isn't leaving. It's what my kids absorbed while I stayed. They were sitting on the stairs listening the whole time. A 28-year-old with money, milestones, and no mountain left to climb asks how to get motivated again. I tell him he's aiming too low, and that the money trap gets everybody eventually. An 18-year-old just found out about his dad's affair and ships to boot camp next June. Quick to think, slow to act. Fixing his parents' marriage was never his job. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Drownproof Conversation Starters: https://www.shop.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 20% off sitewide AG1: https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot

Mike Glover served 18 years in Army Special Forces, worked as a contractor for the CIA, founded Fieldcraft Survival, and wrote the national bestseller Prepared. He's been on this show before. A lot has happened since. The legal case that consumed the last 18 months is finished. He talks about the week he spent locked up — teaching breathing drills in a holding cell full of hard dudes — what the arrest cost him, and how family and a small circle of friends carried him through. Fieldcraft dissolved. He bought the pieces back. Now he's rebuilding it from the roots. There's also a long stretch on the bin Laden story — O'Neill, Bissonette, the recorded debrief, the point man, and litigation nobody needed. Plus Roberts Ridge, the Jessica Lynch raid, Tillman, and why drama in the special operations community has real downstream consequences. TRT, alcohol, helicopters, faith, veteran suicide, and a tribute to a Green Beret they called Swede. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt: For a limited time listeners can get ten dollars off at BRUNT when you use code "Clearedhot" at checkout. Just head to https://www.BRUNTWorkwear.com, and while you're there, enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win fifty thousand dollars.

No guest. Just Michael, a stack of conversation cards, and whatever the internet served up this week. Opening cards: simple is not the same as easy, and failures are tuition payments, not a definition. A flight instructor in Argentina jumps to his death mid-lesson. His student lands the plane alone. The viral robot gun turret video. Reaction time, technique, and a full review of the dismount. Big announcement: a full F-18 simulator is coming to the coffee shop. Aircraft carrier landing competition. $25 per entry. If you have ever flown an F-18, you are not invited. The Blue Angels' 40-foot pass over Pensacola Beach, and why the investigation should be allowed to happen. The Titan submersible documentaries. Carbon fiber, "seasoning," and 20 milliseconds. Getting fooled by AI images and satire headlines. A public meltdown caught on camera, and what a mental health crisis looks like from the outside. Grab your set of Conversation Starters Here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/ Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time only head to https://www.ridge.com and use code "ClearedHot" at checkout for 10% off your order. Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai

Jack Osbourne grew up with cameras in the house. The Osbourne's made his family the biggest thing on television, and he was earning seven figures by 15. He got sober at 17 and has held that line for over two decades. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 26. Since then he's built his own lane — adventure television, paranormal investigation, two podcasts, and a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. Last July, his father played the biggest farewell show in rock history. Seventeen days later, Ozzy was gone. This conversation carries weight and goes sideways in equal measure. Making serious money as a kid and learning the hard way that the people hired to protect it don't always deserve the trust. Grieving a parent while untangling the business that comes with a famous last name. The final concert — a living wake where his dad got to say goodbye on his own terms — and the week at home together afterward. Then the throttle opens: the UFC card on the White House South Lawn, a month in the Australian jungle on 500 calories a day, ghost stories he can't explain, the Nazca mummies, a plan to buy a decommissioned aircraft carrier, and bringing OzFest back. Today's Sponsors: Peluva: Use code "Clearedhot" for 10% off at ⁠https://www.peluva.com⁠ Bubs Naturals: Listeners are getting 20% OFF at ⁠https://www.BUBSNaturals.com ⁠by using code "clearedhot" at checkout

Ross Schneiderman spent his career as a reporter and editor. Newsweek, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN. He covered mixed martial arts, then ran a foreign desk working alongside Afghan and Pakistani correspondents. In 2016 he wrote a Newsweek cover story about Mohammad Gulab, the Afghan villager who sheltered Marcus Luttrell. He never went to Afghanistan. He never covered a war. He spent six years piecing this one together anyway. For twenty years, Operation Red Wings has been told one way. Lone Survivor turned it into a legend. He FOIA'd the documents. He read the MERC chat, the debriefs, the after-action reports. He interviewed SEALs, Green Berets, and Afghan sources who were there. What he found doesn't match the movie. We go through it in order. The comms that were supposedly never made, and the records that say otherwise. The vote that never happened. The phone call, and who really made it. The stinger missile that wasn't. And why a story meant to honor four men became a recruiting tool built on things that weren't true. This isn't about tearing anyone down. Many men died doing the best they could in a terrible spot and situation. This is about what happens when an institution picks the myth over the truth. Politico Article: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/20/operation-red-wings-lone-survivor-luttrell-00833548 Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm

Every other Friday it's just me and the inbox. This week the emails came in heavy, so we cover a lot of ground. Two people in law enforcement, both strong personalities, trying to build a relationship that works. Where confidence stops and ego starts, and how to tell you've crossed the line. Why the toughest guy in the room still needs a place to put the shield down. The difference between the Jewish faith and the Israeli government, and why we've lost the ability to talk about either one without painting with a broom. Being able to criticize your own team without getting thrown off it. Moving a family across the country and a 15-year-old who won't sign off on it. When you engage your kids in the decision, and when you just have to be the father and make the call. Twenty years of sustained conflict and what it actually did to our capability. Real reps, the word "sacrifice," and how warfare is changing. Drownproof Conversation Starters: ⁠https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/⁠ Take the Operator Code Assessment: ⁠https://www.theoperatorcode.com⁠ Today's Sponsors: Willie's Remedies: Order now at ⁠https://www.drinkwillies.com⁠ and use code CLEAREDHOT for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95. AG1: ⁠https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot ⁠to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Kyle Morgan spent over twenty years in the Army. Infantry, then Green Beret, then more than a decade in the nation's premier special missions unit running hostage rescue. In 2015 he was advising the U.S. Embassy in Mali when terrorists took the Radisson Blu hotel. He built a team on the fly and went in. The award for that was the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor. Today he runs Blu Bearing, trains police and civilians, and serves on the board of Frontline Healing Foundation. When the job ends the machine has already forgotten about you, and he'll tell you that isn't cruel because it has to forget you to keep moving. The guys who come apart are the ones still trying to replace something that can't be replaced. He didn't leave the way he wanted to. There was addiction, a DUI he hid, and an overdose that nearly ended it, and his old command circled the wagons around him more than once before he finally made it out. Sobriety and faith are what brought him back, almost five years of it now, and he spends his time pointing at the cost so the next guy doesn't pay it blind. He'll tell you he's more proud of the husband and father he is today than anything he ever did downrange. Blu Bearing Solutions: ⁠https://blubearing.com/⁠ Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: ⁠https://www.clearedhot.com⁠ Take the Operator Code Assessment: ⁠https://www.theoperatorcode.com⁠ Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: ⁠https://www.blackriflecoffee.com⁠ LMNT: ⁠https://www.drinklmnt.com

No guest today. Just me and Michael running through the week. Conor McGregor goes down in 19 seconds, and why I can respect the athlete and have zero respect for the man. Paddy Pimblett's submission of the night. A man in Yellowstone launched ten feet in the air by a bison, and why you never treat a wild animal the size of a small SUV like a pet. The hot springs that have killed at least 22 people since 1890. E. Jean Carroll collects her judgment against Trump, and the difference between criticizing an action and vilifying a person. The war in Iran, the cost, and the fact that nobody can tell you what we're actually trying to accomplish. Social media as the greatest propaganda machine ever built. A Georgia family selling their home so power lines can feed an AI data center. Flock cameras and how close the surveillance key is to being turned. And Ben Franklin, who we've apparently been misquoting this whole time. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Tiny Health: Get $50 off your first at-home test kit at https://www.tinyhealth.com/clearedhot Hexclad: Listeners get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to https://www.hexclad.com/clearedhot

Matt Bissonnette grew up in a remote Alaskan village, read every SEAL book he could find, and made it all the way to SEAL Team 6. Fourteen years in the Navy, 13 straight combat deployments, team leader at the command, and one of the operators on the third floor of the bin Laden compound. In 2012, writing as Mark Owen, he published No Easy Day — and spent the next decade paying for it. The DOJ came after him for skipping pre-publication review, took every penny the book made, and left him on a 15-year payment plan. We get into what he actually saw that night in Abbottabad, the audio-recorded debrief, and why the competing narratives don't hold up tactically. Then the aftermath: 10-hour DOJ interrogations, being cut off from his own community, and getting to the point of putting a gun to his head. We also cover the hypocrisy of leadership selling their own stories, the award system, funerals he couldn't attend, and why he's now raising Wagyu cattle and self-publishing his third book, No Easy Way. No Easy Way: https://mattbissonnette.com/ Join the Cleared Hot newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com BetterHelp: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/clearedhot

No guest this week. Just me and the questions you sent in. A guy 23 years into a marriage gets served divorce papers and wants to know how you start over at 43. I walk through the process itself — mediation over a courtroom, staying amicable, treating your ex like the person you fell in love with. Then the harder part. You've never been alone. You don't know who you are yet. Lean into that instead of running from it. A question about the humor I use when a conversation gets heavy. Is it calculated or is it just how I talk. Answer: mostly the second one. But I get into when it works, when it doesn't, and the line between letting steam out of the pressure cooker and making things worse. Demonstration parachute jumps. Somebody watched a jumper come in with a flag, catch a tree, and eat a controlled face plant in front of a crowd. I break down what actually changes when you add drag and weight, why the pro rating exists, and why you never fly over something you don't intend to land on. And a 26-year-old who thinks he's falling behind. He isn't. Two things can be true — keep your foot on the gas, and stop robbing yourself of the success already behind you. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: AG1: https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm

JP Dinnell spent nearly a decade in the SEAL Teams. Three combat deployments. In 2006 he went to Ramadi with Task Unit Bruiser as point man, machine gunner, and lead sniper for Delta Platoon. Chris Kyle was in Charlie Platoon. He came home with a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars with Valor, and an Army Commendation with Valor. Task Unit Bruiser became the most decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War. Then he went back to work for Jocko as an instructor at Training Detachment. Now he's Chief Training Officer at Echelon Front. This one is about the part nobody talks about. Twenty years after Ramadi, his platoon sat down together for the first time. Montana. Fly fishing, blacksmithing, and the conversations they never had. He watched men he looked up to carry weight he never knew was there. Their medic is fighting terminal cancer from a burn pit next to the building they slept in. We get into the difference between the price and the cost. The price is what you pay up front. The cost comes due decades later, in marriages, in kids, in the men around you. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt: Right now, for a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at https://www.BRUNTworkwear.com when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.

Most of this one comes down to one thing. Choices have consequences, and you own them. It starts with an email. A listener says the veteran community runs on lies and has an integrity problem, then sends it from an address that bounces. Transmit only. I read the whole thing and my response. A host who platforms a guest isn't endorsing them, and the size of an audience tells you nothing about the truth. Then the news. Dustin Poirier gets arrested at an airport and threatens the officers, and we talk about how knowing a man's capabilities changes everything for the cop standing in front of him. An Air Force major gets himself arrested at the Capitol. Own it. A pastor beats down a man who threatened his family, broken down like a fight — job title doesn't cancel your right to defend your people. A streamer provokes the wrong guy and gets dropped. And in Ukraine, low tech meets high tech: a rifle out the back of a Yak-52, hunting drones. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://theoperatorcode.com/ Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 20% off Sitewide | 25% off Luxe Mattresses | 30% off Elite Mattresses LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot

My guest has a PhD from the University of Toronto. She taught at the university level, then at two prep schools for years. In 2017 she walked away from education after the system covered up the abuse of one of her students. She turned whistleblower, went public, and started digging into the brain science of what had happened. That work became two books, The Bullied Brain and The Gaslit Brain, and a long-running column for Psychology Today. Jennifer Fraser studies abuse cultures for a living. We get into gaslighting and what it actually does to your brain. She lays out the dark tetrad — narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism — and the mask these people wear so well it fools the experts. How they read you, isolate you, and make you doubt your own memory. We cover the lie that abuse is the price of greatness. Coaches who don't want to win — they want to hurt the kids. Why refusing a bad order is the real test of leadership. And the part that matters most: the brain is wired to repair. The Gaslit Brain: https://a.co/d/018Vlq2z Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Firecracker Farm https://www.firecracker.farm

Four questions this week. Two about relationships. Two that aren't. -A friend wants another shot with an ex after a long marriage. I've watched four couples try this. Two made it. Two didn't. The merry-go-round of unresolved issues, and why you do the work up front or you do it later when everything is breaking. -Dating someone from your BJJ gym. What to weigh before you start it, and what Leah has seen when it ends. Starting over later in life. The narrative that all the good ones are already taken is wrong. -June 28th is the anniversary of Operation Red Wings. How to explain that day to young people now that the story carries controversy. The sacrifice still stands. -Last one comes from a civilian who thinks military pay is a joke, the VA fails everyone, and nobody should enlist. I had a lot to say about that. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter Here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Ridge: Listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Just head to https://www.Ridge.com Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai

Fourteen years in uniform. Four with the Parachute Regiment, a decade in the SAS. Patrol medic and qualified mountain guide. Afghanistan, Iraq, and covert deployments. Jay Morton left in 2018 and went straight up the world's biggest mountains — two Everest summits, one of them solo. Everest comes up, and it isn't pretty. He stood on the summit alone in 2017. Now it's a queue of paying clients short-roped to the top, garbage stacked at Camp 4, two hundred grand for the VIP package. Nobody walks out anymore. They fly — on some of the sketchiest helicopter rides you'll ever hear described. We get into what nobody warns you about: leaving. In the unit, everything is built around you. Someone books the flight. You wake up knowing exactly where to be. Then it's gone, and you're staring in the mirror looking for the guy who used to handle all of it. We talk about chasing a bigger number in a bank account, then realizing a month later you didn't care about the thing you bought. Status versus utility. What his sister, a hospice nurse, heard people say at the end — and what they never said. Also in here: the reality TV machine, the hypocrisy of the silent-professional crowd, twelve coffees in a day, and where AI stops being useful. Concept Expeditions: ⁠https://www.conceptexpeditions.com/⁠ Today's Sponsors: Peluva: 10% off and use the following link: ⁠https://checkout.peluva.com/CLEAREDHOT⁠ Bubs Naturals: For a limited time only, listeners are getting 20% OFF at ⁠https://www.bubsnaturals.com⁠ by using code "clearedhot"

Nic McKinley went from Air Force pararescue to the CIA, then founded DeliverFund to fight trafficking with intelligence tools. Ryan Dalton was a trafficking attorney and federal agent at the State Department before launching Closed Horizon, a platform that crowdsources rewards to surface hard answers. Different roads, same fight. Skip the spy-novel version of Epstein. The simpler read: a guy who moved money for people who needed it moved, and collected leverage doing it. That access is what kept him protected. From there it runs downhill. How intelligence operations actually get funded. Why a broker like that turns useful, then disposable. What a criminal trial would have forced into the open. And why a dead defendant solves that problem. It also hits the harder one. It's an era where anything can be faked and attention gets steered on purpose. Getting to the truth is its own job now. I went in skeptical. I'm still skeptical. The corruption underneath is harder to wave off. Look at the evidence and decide for yourself. Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot

Michael's in the studio and we're working through the week. We start with two Pasadena officers horsing around with loaded guns. One of them ends up shooting the other through the windshield of the cruiser. We talk about the accountability that comes with carrying a badge. One oh-shit can unwind a career of attaboys. From there we get into the aircraft gifted by Qatar and whether it belongs in service as Air Force One. We cover the new Iran framework, what it cost, and how it stacks up against the deal that came before it. We talk about being able to disagree with your own side without burning the whole thing down. Then there's the UFC event on the White House lawn — the timing, the optics, and fighter bonuses paid out in crypto. We close with the beagle raid at Ridgeland Farms, where the line sits between legal and moral, and what we're willing to do in the name of science. Enjoy Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code CLEAREDHOT for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country AG1: Go to https://www.DRINKAG1.com/CLEAREDHOT to get their best offer… get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Matthew spent six years in the Navy as a Search and Rescue swimmer. Then fifteen years as a cop — Virginia Beach, then undercover narcotics in New Hampshire during the opioid epidemic. He worked under a different name for years. He wrote a book, The Journey to Midnight, about the night he planned to kill himself. Now he talks to cops and veterans about it. This one covers why suicide is so high in law enforcement and the military. Trauma stacks up and you never get the time to process it. The "unfit for duty" label that ends careers, so nobody asks for help. A fatal wreck on Route 101. A man who shot himself three feet away. A two-and-a-half-year-old, a blind cord, and thirty seconds in a car that Matt still hasn't let go of. His chief checked on him one day, then went home and killed himself two hours later. What he did with that is most of this conversation. The Journey to Midnight: https://a.co/d/03SCujlF Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https:www.montanaknifecompany.com Betterhelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot

Five questions this week. No real through-line, which is usually how these go. -A reader four years sober wants to rebuild the friendships he burned while drinking. -A father of two wants the kind of relationship with his kids he never had with his own dad. -A high school junior writes in about his 13-year-old sister and an eating disorder serious enough to put her in front of doctors. -A guy three months into jujitsu can't get out from under bigger training partners. Size matters. Mat time matters more. -And a sailor stuck under a former SEAL who got booted from the Teams and now leads by intimidation. I get into why he probably got kicked out, and how to manage two more years. Enjoy. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter Here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm AG1: Visit https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro welcome kit.

He was called the most dangerous man in Vermont. The governor said it on television. The truth is more boring and more alarming. Daniel Banyai is a former protection contractor and a Seventh-day Adventist who built a firearms training school called Slate Ridge in West Pawlet. He did it by the book. Federal firearms license. Explosives permits. Zoning. A school classification the town had handed out for 200 years. He welcomed anyone who'd show up and shoot straight. Then it came apart. Neighbors who'd missed their window found a clause and reopened it. The town pulled the permit it had already granted. He fought to the state Supreme Court and lost. They demolished the buildings while he was locked up and made sure the materials couldn't be reused. We talk about the year inside. Isolation. The shot caller. Getting beaten during the arrest that became a felony. We argue restrictions, religion, and a two-tiered system he says protects some and not others. The throughline is simple. Weaponized zoning can erase anyone. He happened to pick guns. Since we recorded, a jury acquitted him of the assault charge in forty minutes. His words after: the system did not fail him here. Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com David: David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to https://www.davidprotein.com/CLEAREDHOT

Usually Full Auto Friday is just me and the questions. Not this one. JP Dinnell is in the seat — former SEAL, came up through Ramadi, now chief training officer at Echelon Front — and Michael is running the stories. We start where it counts. Whether anything in BUD/S ever matched the field. It didn't. BUD/S is hard. It's also a controlled environment with a safety net. The real cost came later, with the guys who didn't come home. Then Michael started pulling things off the internet. A Texas plea deal that put a child predator back on the street in a day. A paraglider clipped by a Cessna over the Alps. A man in flip-flops trying to kick in a stranger's door. My son stepping up in at a grocery store. JP's daughter waiting around a corner with a bat. A gate agent getting screamed at, and what it takes to step into that. A bank hostage standoff that ended the way those always end. And the Bitcoin I didn't buy at fifty cents. The through-line is simple. Crazy exists. Have a plan. Be capable. Enjoy. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 20% off sitewide LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot