Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC
It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and have spent the last few years speaking to organizations and leaders. It has been a journey, and in all honesty, I have no idea where it is going. I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too
info_outline
Are We Living in a Surveillance State? | Negligent Discharge Friday | 7.17.26
07/17/2026
Are We Living in a Surveillance State? | Negligent Discharge Friday | 7.17.26
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: Take the Operator Code Assessment: Today's Sponsors: Tiny Health: Get $50 off your first at-home test kit at Hexclad: Listeners get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/42123760
info_outline
What Happened on the Third Floor | Matt Bissonnette | Ep. 458
07/13/2026
What Happened on the Third Floor | Matt Bissonnette | Ep. 458
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: Join the Cleared Hot newsletter: Take the Operator Code Assessment: Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: BetterHelp: Sign up and get 10% off at
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/42041555
info_outline
Over, Under, Around, or Through | Full Auto Friday | 7.10.2026
07/10/2026
Over, Under, Around, or Through | Full Auto Friday | 7.10.2026
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: Take the Operator Code Assessment: Today's Sponsors: AG1: Firecracker Farm:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/42029375
info_outline
The Cost War Charges Later | JP Dinnell | Ep. 457
07/06/2026
The Cost War Charges Later | JP Dinnell | Ep. 457
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: Take the Operator Code Assessment: Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: Brunt: Right now, for a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41975215
info_outline
Choices Have Consequences | Negligent Discharge Friday | 7.3.2026
07/03/2026
Choices Have Consequences | Negligent Discharge Friday | 7.3.2026
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: Take the Operator Code Assessment: Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to for 20% off Sitewide | 25% off Luxe Mattresses | 30% off Elite Mattresses LMNT:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41947995
info_outline
We're Living in the Gaslit Era | Jennifer Fraser | Ep.456
06/29/2026
We're Living in the Gaslit Era | Jennifer Fraser | Ep.456
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: Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: Firecracker Farm
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41856155
info_outline
The Devil You Know | Full Auto Friday | 6.26.2026
06/26/2026
The Devil You Know | Full Auto Friday | 6.26.2026
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: Today's Sponsors: Ridge: Listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Just head to Spartan Forge:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41811675
info_outline
Ten Years in the SAS - What They Don't Teach You | Jay Morton | Ep. 455
06/24/2026
Ten Years in the SAS - What They Don't Teach You | Jay Morton | Ep. 455
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: Today's Sponsors: Peluva: 10% off and use the following link: Bubs Naturals: For a limited time only, listeners are getting 20% OFF at by using code "clearedhot"
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41789425
info_outline
What Does The Evidence Show? - Is Epstein Alive? | Nic McKinley & Ryan Dalton | Ep. 454
06/22/2026
What Does The Evidence Show? - Is Epstein Alive? | Nic McKinley & Ryan Dalton | Ep. 454
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: LMNT:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41685960
info_outline
One Oh-Shit Unwinds Every Attaboy | Negligent Discharge Friday | 6.19.2026
06/19/2026
One Oh-Shit Unwinds Every Attaboy | Negligent Discharge Friday | 6.19.2026
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 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 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!
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41698740
info_outline
He Scheduled His Suicide for Midnight | Matthew Griffin | Ep. 453
06/15/2026
He Scheduled His Suicide for Midnight | Matthew Griffin | Ep. 453
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: Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: Betterhelp:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41641590
info_outline
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy | Full Auto Friday | 6.12.2026
06/12/2026
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy | Full Auto Friday | 6.12.2026
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: Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm: AG1: Visit to get a FREE AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro welcome kit.
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41617885
info_outline
The Most Dangerous Man in Vermont | Daniel Banyai | Ep. 452
06/08/2026
The Most Dangerous Man in Vermont | Daniel Banyai | Ep. 452
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: David: David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41567845
info_outline
BUD/S Was Hard, But It Wasn't Real | Full Auto Friday with JP Dinnell | 6.05.2026
06/05/2026
BUD/S Was Hard, But It Wasn't Real | Full Auto Friday with JP Dinnell | 6.05.2026
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: Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to for 20% off sitewide LMNT:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41543985
info_outline
The CIA Tried to Bury It | Rachel Cuda | Ep. 451
06/01/2026
The CIA Tried to Bury It | Rachel Cuda | Ep. 451
Rachel Cuda grew up the daughter of a Navy SEAL, raised on Coronado around the teams. She speaks Russian, Ukrainian, and German. She studied at the University of Tennessee, earned a master's from Georgetown, and wrote software at a startup before moving into defense contracting. At the Pentagon she led the data modeling and analytics line for the military's COVID task force. She married a SEAL officer whose grandfather gave the CIA thirty years as a case officer. In February 2022, Rachel Cuda joined the agency's Directorate of Operations. It was the job she'd wanted her whole life. Two weeks after she started, Russia invaded Ukraine, and her languages put her in the middle of it. Six months in, a colleague strangled her with a scarf in a stairwell at headquarters. Then the agency went to work on her. They told her she couldn't go to the police. They told her she couldn't tell her husband. They warned her that reporting it could put her in prison. So she went to Congress instead. We get into the assault, the run-around, the predators the agency shielded for years, and how one trainee forced the CIA to rewrite its laws in eleven months. Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: Brunt: Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code "Clearedhot" at
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41481235
info_outline
Don't Live in the Rabbit Hole | Full Auto Friday | 5.29.2026
05/29/2026
Don't Live in the Rabbit Hole | Full Auto Friday | 5.29.2026
Two questions this week, plus a video I've been asked about more than anything in recent memory. I break down the paraglider that got hit by a plane and why this stuff almost always lands on pilot error. I answer a man rehabbing from a spinal tumor who can't run, swim, or ruck anymore and is staring down a third surgery. I tell him about my own injuries, the rabbit holes I went down, and what actually got me out. I tell the story of waking up from emergency surgery, sneezing, and being sure no one recovers from this. They put your intestines back by shoving them in. Walking to the end of the block was the whole goal. And I answer a Marine on hazing. What's training and what's just a broken person dumping their baggage on you. Where the line is. Why drunk, angry, and violent isn't preparing anyone for anything. Today's Sponsors: David: David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to AG1: For a limited time only, go to 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!
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41451865
info_outline
Are Police Academies Failing Cops? | Dennis Benigno | Ep. 450
05/27/2026
Are Police Academies Failing Cops? | Dennis Benigno | Ep. 450
Dennis Benigno started in 2001 as a New Jersey corrections officer at nineteen. He moved to the U.S. Park Police in D.C., then to patrol in one of Jersey's largest municipalities. Over fourteen years he made more than 1,500 arrests and ran over 10,000 car stops. He had to self-train to survive the road. When he realized the academies weren't teaching cops what they needed, he started teaching it himself. That became Street Cop Training, one of the biggest police training companies in the country, with hundreds of thousands of officers behind it. He argues that 80% of line-of-duty deaths are training failures. Not bad luck. Failures you can trace back to the academy. We get into why the system box-checks instead of fixing the problem, and who benefits from keeping it that way. He breaks down the passenger-side approach, the traffic stop that ended with a cop executed on camera, and the constitutional gaps most officers never get taught. We also get into the political machine that came after him, what it cost, and who actually showed up when it did. Street Cop Training: Drownproof book and Conversation Starters:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41433445
info_outline
Rewiring the Brain After War | Jonathan Dickinson | Ep. 449
05/25/2026
Rewiring the Brain After War | Jonathan Dickinson | Ep. 449
Jonathan Dickinson is the co-founder and CEO of Ambio Life Sciences, one of the world's leading ibogaine clinics. He's spent more than fifteen years on this — apprenticing in Tijuana clinics, running the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance, and writing the field's first clinical safety guidelines. He's a Mexico-licensed psychologist. He holds the only active export license for iboga root and led the first Nagoya-compliant export out of Gabon, where he was initiated into two Bwiti traditions. His team co-authored the Stanford study in Nature Medicine on ibogaine and veteran traumatic brain injury. Ambio has now treated over 3,000 people. Most of what you think you know about ibogaine is probably wrong. It's not a high. It puts you flat on your back for twelve hours and asks for everything. It resets the body off opioids almost overnight. It seems to repair the brain in ways nobody fully understands yet — MS lesions shrinking, a guy walking in with a cane and leaving it behind. We get into the cardiac risk, the deaths, the Trump executive order, and why the science and the ceremony might not survive being pulled apart. And we talk about the part nobody wants to hear: the medicine doesn't do the work for you. Pick up Jonathan's Book here: Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: LMNT:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41411370
info_outline
Foreign Money, Dead Jets, and Criminal Monkeys | Negligent Discharge Friday | 5.22.2026
05/22/2026
Foreign Money, Dead Jets, and Criminal Monkeys | Negligent Discharge Friday | 5.22.2026
Thomas Massie just got primaried out, and it cost the most money ever spent on a primary. $32.6 million in ad buys. A guy hand-picked by Trump comes out of nowhere and takes the seat. Massie voted with the administration 77% of the time. His sin was the Epstein files. So we get into it. We talk about getting that kind of money out of elections, and why the people who could fix it never will. We talk about AIPAC, foreign influence, and whether the question changes if you swap Israel for Egypt or China. Michael walks through where his generation is landing on all of it. Then it gets lighter. Two F-18s mate mid-air and four guys punch out. A man hops a fence at Denver International and walks onto an active runway. A tourist throws rocks at a seal in Hawaii and finds out. And we close on a criminal monkey gang in Bali running a sunglasses-for-snacks racket. Heavy up front. Stupid in the middle. Monkeys at the end. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41390630
info_outline
From Ranger Battalion to the OR | Dr. Mike Simpson | Ep. 448
05/18/2026
From Ranger Battalion to the OR | Dr. Mike Simpson | Ep. 448
"Crike him." That's the call a tactical medic makes when a guy can't breathe and the clock is at zero. Mike Simpson is the doctor on the other end of that radio. He's a former 1st Ranger Battalion anti-tank section leader, a Special Forces engineer turned 18 Delta medic with 7th Group, and a board-certified ER physician who spent his last six years on active duty attached to JMAU providing trauma support to tier one units. He retired in 2016 after 32 years and now runs medical direction for Central Texas Regional SWAT while practicing urgent care. We got into the real mechanics of trauma care — what actually happens between the front door of an ER and the OR, why a hundred tourniquets on paper cuts beats one missed arterial bleed, and the brutal physics of wounds incompatible with life. He walked through his own prostate cancer diagnosis and what every man over 40 needs to know about PSA screening. We also got into his path from corrections officer to medical school, why he's writing fantasy novels now, and the conversation every operator avoids until it's too late — documenting injuries before you're out the door. Enjoy. Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: Better Help: Sign up and get 10% off at
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41323220
info_outline
Don't Let Your Past Be Your Prison | Full Auto Friday | 5.15.026
05/15/2026
Don't Let Your Past Be Your Prison | Full Auto Friday | 5.15.026
A soon-to-be 40-year-old wants to face his fear of skydiving and use it to teach his anxious five-year-old that fear is normal but it doesn't get to run your life. I break down the difference between gambling and accepting calculated risk, what to actually look for in a drop zone, and why pushing yourself smartly and incrementally beats trying to be a badass for an audience that isn't watching. A guy who grew up homeless and couch-surfing wrote in about feeling like he came back from a war he never fought. We talk about why trauma isn't owned by anyone, why your past doesn't have to be your identity, and why if the community you need doesn't exist yet, you might be the one who has to build it. Last question is about discipline. A husband, father, and plant manager who used to run ultras can't find the hours anymore and wonders if he's lost it. He hasn't. His life changed. The goalpost has to move with it. Plus the book hit the Times again, and I'm headed to Virginia Beach. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at 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: For a limited time only, go to 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!
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41303835
info_outline
The Night Stalker They Couldn't Shoot Down | Alan Mack | Ep. 447
05/11/2026
The Night Stalker They Couldn't Shoot Down | Alan Mack | Ep. 447
Alan Mack flew Chinooks for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment for seventeen years. Chief Warrant Officer 5. Senior MH-47 pilot. Flight lead. Instructor. He was the pilot in command of Razor 03 on Takur Ghar — the aircraft shot up trying to insert a SEAL element on top of the mountain that became Roberts Ridge. He has logged over 6,700 flight hours, took rounds through his cockpit on Anaconda, ran fog approaches into walled compounds in Iraq, and helped write the procedures the Night Stalkers still use to land in zero visibility. After retiring, he commanded the flight detachment at West Point and spent a decade running emergency management for a New York county. He is the author of Razor 03 and the upcoming Chinooks in the Dark. We cover the new Medal of Honor awarded to a 160th pilot and what it actually takes to earn one. The Anaconda shoot down — RPG, lost hydraulics, three cans of fluid, and a crew chief pumping a t-handle to keep him in the controls. Why he chose to dive at a Dishka instead of climbing. The myth around Extortion 17 and why the conspiracy doesn't hold up. How the unit trains pilots to fly through real lead. Air refueling at night in the weather. Cutting hoses with rotor blades. And the lessons every pilot — military or civilian — needs to internalize before the aircraft starts shedding systems on them. Enjoy Chinooks in the Dark: Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: David: David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41240835
info_outline
Cruise Ships, Cover-Ups, and Cow Killers | Negligent Discharge Friday | 5.8.2026
05/08/2026
Cruise Ships, Cover-Ups, and Cow Killers | Negligent Discharge Friday | 5.8.2026
Michael and I get into it on this one. Hantavirus headlines, the Doomsday Clock, wind turbines, the Epstein note, and a guy on YouTube paying his bills by getting stung by bugs. I open by confidently passing along bad medical advice from two articles I read. Michael fact-checks me in real time. We agree it's a good exercise in why you should slow down before you repeat anything. From there we get into what Hantavirus actually is, why this isn't going to be another lockdown, and why I think people would push back hard if it were. The Doomsday Clock is at 89 seconds. Not 90. Not 88. Two old guys in suits decided. We talk about why fear-mongering on a quarter clock face stops working at some point, and what's actually happening with all those wind turbines I just flew past for eleven hours that weren't spinning. Then the heavier stuff. The "rape academy" story. Epstein's suicide note. Andrew Mountbottom. Why I don't believe anyone in his orbit is ever going to face accountability in this country, and what that says about a government willing to look away if the math works out for them. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Pick up a copy of Drownproof: Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm: use code CLEAREDHOT for 10% off your first order. LMNT: Head to to pick up your free sample pack
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41212125
info_outline
The Cost of Telling the Truth | John Kiriakou | Ep. 446
05/04/2026
The Cost of Telling the Truth | John Kiriakou | Ep. 446
John Kiriakou spent 14 years at the CIA. He started as an analyst, went operational, and eventually ran counterterrorism work in Pakistan that led to the capture of Abu Zubaydah. He was the first U.S. government official to publicly confirm that the agency was waterboarding prisoners. For that, the Obama administration prosecuted him under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and sent him to federal prison for 23 months. He lost his pension. He lost his career. Most of his kids stopped speaking to him. Today he writes books, hosts a podcast, and teaches a course on the history of terrorism. We get into how the agency really works. Recruiting spies. Breaking into a house in a foreign country to plant a bug. The mentor who told him to walk up to a target's front door and sell him out to his face. Then we get into the part nobody at Langley wants to talk about. Torture. Rendition. The innocent people who got grabbed off planes and buses and never got their lives back. We also cover Section 702, the Patriot Act, Iran, Iraq, and why no agency ever gives the power back. Enjoy. Join the Cleared Hot Podcast Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: Brunt: Right now, for a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41132835
info_outline
Learning To Suffer Well | Full Auto Friday | 5.01.2026
05/01/2026
Learning To Suffer Well | Full Auto Friday | 5.01.2026
Four questions this week. The kind that don't have clean answers. A guy whose father murdered his mother is asking how to get back to who he was before. He's not. A 28-year-old still living at home is watching his mom's cancer come back and trying to figure out how to spend the time he has left. A man in his sixties wants to know how to bring up suicide with three friends he's had for 40 years before it's too late. A 31-year-old in his first long-term relationship doesn't feel anything for the woman he's dating but knows everyone around him likes her. I talk about why the people you see online keeping it together aren't keeping it together. I talk about why the snapshot isn't the whole picture. I talk about why the first therapist who wants to sell you his book isn't the last therapist you'll need to find. I talk about going right at the hard conversation instead of around it. And I talk about why bringing the government into a relationship you're already unsure about is the wrong move. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Helix: Go to for 27 percent off sitewide!
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41091920
info_outline
Bonus Episode - Drownproof Chapter 1 - Be the Author of your Life, not the Victim of it
04/29/2026
Bonus Episode - Drownproof Chapter 1 - Be the Author of your Life, not the Victim of it
Today's "episode" is the audiobook first chapter of my book: Drownproof. Thank you to everyone who helped make the launch such a tremendous success. Hitting all of the "Best Seller" lists, to include the NYT, was quite frankly, incredibly humbling. You all made that happen, not me. For those of you who have read or listened to it already, well, clearly today's episode is not going to be exciting for you! For those that haven't, this chapter is about a very formative experience in my young life that changed how I viewed my self in the world. That change in mindset altered the trajectory of my life. Pickup a copy of Drownproof (Digital or Print) here: Sign up for the Cleared Hot Newsletter here:
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41046620
info_outline
Working for Kanye, Building "Items" for Delta Force | Justin Klahn | Ep. 445
04/27/2026
Working for Kanye, Building "Items" for Delta Force | Justin Klahn | Ep. 445
Justin Klahn is hard to put in a box. Twenty years inside Nike Innovation. Years embedded with JSOC units building gear that had to actually work. Time consulting with three-letter agencies, DARPA, and the Harvard Learning Innovations Laboratory. A run working directly for Kanye West. He calls himself a problem solver, and the resume backs it up. His new book is Innovator's Handbook. We open on the divorce conversation, the kind of failure neither of us wished for, and what it takes to show up for a partner the second time around. From there it gets wide. The competition mindset that separates the top of the JSOC food chain from everyone else. What it's actually like to sit in a room with Kobe, with Tinker, with Kanye. The Nike origin stories most people don't know — the real Jordan re-signing, the Pantry, the relationship between Phil Knight and Steve Jobs. We dig into the supernatural. Faith. Conspiracy and control. How a guy who advises high-stakes operators stays open enough to consider anything but grounded enough to still get the work done. And we end on the AI workflow he used to write a book in two weeks — and what that says about where the world is going. The Innovator's Handbook: Sign up for the Cleared Hot Newsletter Here: Pick up your copy of Drownproof Here: Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: LMNT: Head to to pick up your free sample pack
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/41025335
info_outline
Bladder Control and Geopolitics | Negligent Discharge Friday | 4.24.2026
04/24/2026
Bladder Control and Geopolitics | Negligent Discharge Friday | 4.24.2026
Michael, my dad, and me. Three generations arguing in one room. That's the format today. My dad watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon live at twenty-two years old. He remembers the Iranian hostage crisis when it was happening, not when it was a movie. That perspective matters when we get into where we are now — the rhetoric coming out of the White House, the ceasefire that may or may not hold, a war nobody has explained the objective of. We talked about the leaders we don't seem to produce anymore. Kennedy to the moon in ten years. Hungary voting out a hard-right prime minister by historic margins. Why most good people won't touch politics now — they'll destroy your entire family before you ever reach the ballot. Then the stuff that piles up every week. California's rail to nowhere. AI versus actual brain tissue running video games. ICE changing tactics. Cancer research funding cut by thirty-one percent. Civil War monuments and what you do with history you don't want to celebrate. And yes, my dad tried to break into the neighbor's house. And pissed himself at the rodeo. We get to that too. Enjoy. Pick up a copy of Drownproof here: Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farms: use code CLEAREDHOT for 10% off your first order. AG1: For a limited time only, go to 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!
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/40998510
info_outline
How Fast and Furious Buried an FBI Agent | John Shipley | Ep. 444
04/20/2026
How Fast and Furious Buried an FBI Agent | John Shipley | Ep. 444
John Shipley spent fourteen years carrying an FBI badge. Army aviator first — commissioned by his own father, a retired Vietnam-era lieutenant colonel — until a spinal cord injury at Walter Reed ended his flying career. He walked into Quantico in 1996, drew El Paso, and spent the next decade working narcotics and surveillance on the Mexican border. SWAT. Sniper. Bodyguard details for the FBI Director and the Attorney General. A father of two adopted kids. The kind of agent who refused a $27 million bribe because he didn't want the money — he wanted to keep his oath. And then the government came for him. One Barrett .50 caliber he sold legally to a county deputy years earlier ended up in a Mexican shootout. ATF traced it back. Prosecutors charged him with six felonies. What John didn't know at trial was that the gun store that brokered the final sale was an ATF informant — part of what would later be exposed as Operation Fast and Furious. They let the rifle walk. They knew. And when Mexico asked questions, they handed John up instead. He did two years in federal prison. An entire day of his trial transcript vanished from the record. Presidential executive privilege slammed down on every document that could prove it. John tells the whole story on his own terms — and he's still fighting for the pardon that would give him his rights back. Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: BetterHelp: Sign up and get 10% off at
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/40925015
info_outline
Windshield, Not the Rearview Mirror | Full Auto Friday | 4.17.2026
04/17/2026
Windshield, Not the Rearview Mirror | Full Auto Friday | 4.17.2026
Week one of the book being out in the world, and I still don't have the vocabulary for the support. Thank you. Genuinely. If you read it, an honest Amazon review costs nothing and helps more than you'd think. Then we get into the questions. A 25-year-old lawyer writes in about imposter syndrome and getting put on a pedestal for a job he doesn't feel qualified for yet. My take: keep the imposter syndrome. Just find a response that doesn't escalate or deescalate, and move the conversation to them. Next one hits harder. A Marine turned med student on the "vet bro" archetype, the guy in head-to-toe fatigues at the airport, and the social sandpaper that follows. Why one bad interaction outweighs a hundred good ones. Why comparative service and competitive suffering benefit nobody. And why the best counter is just being a good expression of what you used to be. Also covered: what recovery looked like overseas vs. now, why special operations runs like a professional sports team, and my honest take on TRT, dosage, and chasing health span over lifespan. Enjoy Pick up a copy of Drownproof here: Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedy: Order now at and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. Mando: As a special offer for listeners, new customers get $5 off a Starter Pack with our exclusive code. That equates to over 40% off your Starter Pack Use code "clearedhot" at .
/episode/index/show/clearedhot/id/40905770