Prepare to be riveted as we welcome Denver Riggleman—a former Air Force officer turned congressman, and a staunch warrior against conspiracy theories—to our latest episode. His story isn't just one of political skirmishes; it's about standing firm in the face of adversity and the relentless pursuit of truth within the tumultuous arena of American politics. Riggleman, with his deep-seated knowledge of national security and counterterrorism, offers an insider's perspective on the systemic challenges within our government institutions, particularly in relation to the January 6th committee's findings and the broader implications for our nation's future.
Our conversation takes a stark turn as we uncover the personal cost of integrity in the political sphere. Riggleman recounts the surreal accusations thrown at him by opponents on both extremes of the political spectrum, providing a firsthand account of the dangerous influence of disinformation. The discussion also highlights the isolation that can come from choosing principle over party, and the sobering realization of increased security risks that follow. Denver's experiences underscore the urgency for transparent dialogue and the need for a more informed public discourse to combat the shadows of conspiracy and falsehood.
As the episode draws to a close, we reflect on the more intimate elements that shape our lives. Denver shares how his wife's unwavering support provided him strength amid the whirlwind of political strife and how their shared business venture—a trailblazing mother-daughter distillery—is a testament to their collective resilience. We explore the sense of duty that intensifies with age, and the shared responsibility to wield our talents for the betterment of society. This episode isn't merely a narrative of a political journey; it's an homage to the unyielding human spirit and the profound belief in service above self.
Prepare to be riveted as we welcome Denver Riggleman—a former Air Force officer turned congressman, and a staunch warrior against conspiracy theories—to our latest episode. His story isn't just one of political skirmishes; it's about standing firm in the face of adversity and the relentless pursuit of truth within the tumultuous arena of American politics. Riggleman, with his deep-seated knowledge of national security and counterterrorism, offers an insider's perspective on the systemic challenges within our government institutions, particularly in relation to the January 6th committee's findings and the broader implications for our nation's future.
Our conversation takes a stark turn as we uncover the personal cost of integrity in the political sphere. Riggleman recounts the surreal accusations thrown at him by opponents on both extremes of the political spectrum, providing a firsthand account of the dangerous influence of disinformation. The discussion also highlights the isolation that can come from choosing principle over party, and the sobering realization of increased security risks that follow. Denver's experiences underscore the urgency for transparent dialogue and the need for a more informed public discourse to combat the shadows of conspiracy and falsehood.
As the episode draws to a close, we reflect on the more intimate elements that shape our lives. Denver shares how his wife's unwavering support provided him strength amid the whirlwind of political strife and how their shared business venture—a trailblazing mother-daughter distillery—is a testament to their collective resilience. We explore the sense of duty that intensifies with age, and the shared responsibility to wield our talents for the betterment of society. This episode isn't merely a narrative of a political journey; it's an homage to the unyielding human spirit and the profound belief in service above self.
Welcome to the Jack Hopkins show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins show podcast, jack Hopkins.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins show podcast. I'm your host, Jack Hopkins. You know, in looking at people who have achieved great things in the world or who are currently in the process of achieving great things and are simultaneously making contributions to others around them or the world at large, I've almost always found they've relied very heavily on the power of focus and resilience. And in this podcast we examine those people. We get them to share their stories. You'll hear the stories of the people who lived those stories and you'll find out what beliefs, what mental ideas and strategies and skills they applied to the obstacles they ran into to achieve the things that many of you are possibly experiencing, the benefits from their work, Largely because they were able to overcome and persevere because of their resilience and focus.
Speaker 2:And today I am absolutely honored to present to you former GOP lawmaker and former US representative for Virginia's fifth congressional district, Mr Denver Riggleman. Now I've got to tell you, when I read this guy's bio, it's quite a bio. For example, former Air Force officer and national security contractor, NSA baby, he formed analytics warehouse LLC in 2007. Riggleman is the only Republican listen to this the only Republican to speak on the house of representatives floor against QAnon. He is a co-sponsor of the 2020 US House Resolution 1154 condemning QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories that it promotes. He is also one of the co-authors of the network contagion research institute report called the QAnon Conspiracy destroying families, dividing communities, undermining democracy. Interestingly enough, he wrote this report before January 6. On August 6, 2021, Riggleman was appointed to serve as a senior staffer to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Speaker 2:He is also a bestselling author of the book the Breach a fantastic book, by the way. I've read it twice so far. I've highlighted it in two different colors, one with each reading. Get that book, read it. It's outstanding. Riggleman's wife and daughter operate an award-winning silverback distillery, which happens to be the only mother-daughter distilling duo in the nation, and you can check that out at sbdistillerycom. Denver and I began communicating about a year ago and we very quickly found out that we had a lot of things in common and we just kind of hooked up and said, hey, this is a guy I think I'd enjoy hanging out with Denver's, one of those guys who has crammed 150 years of living into just a little over 50 years.
Speaker 2:He's done it, he's seen it and he knows it, you're in for an exciting show, so I present to you now Mr Denver Riggleman. All right, denver Riggleman. Yes sir. I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this and how anxious I've been to dive in with you face to face, so to speak. We've done a fair amount of communicating through text, but this is kind of our first.
Speaker 3:It is, I feel, like I've known you forever. I'm very honored to be on your first podcast. You know that is really cool and hell you deserve it, man. You've been out there rocking and rolling and swinging the baseball bat, so it's been fun to watch it.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate that, and I have to tell you the number of people when I've announced who my first guest was going to be over and over again, I've seen perfect. I couldn't have picked a better first guest.
Speaker 3:So this is a that's because, they drink whiskey, jack, that's because they like bourbon. It's right. Silverback yeah, probably just a bunch of people have been by the distillery of awesome bourbon or rye whiskey or something like that. I'm flattered, it's fantastic. And again, I've done a lot of podcasts, but when you said you were starting one and you wanted me to be the first guest, I would jump at that. So again, well done and I hope this explodes for you. I hope it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:That's cool, man, and I do appreciate that I do the one thing. When I started looking at your body of work and having you on as a guest, it was obvious to me that you've done a lot of cool stuff that relates to what's going on in our nation right now. You might say, I guess maybe not that you were born for this, but everything that you did in a chronological order of career wise, it's like you knew this was coming and you prepared for it.
Speaker 3:Well, you know it's interesting. A lot of people are like well, demri, you know you were in politics. Did you know what is your political career? Look like I'm like what career? You know I keep talking like I think I was the most successful one term congressman in the history of Congress. But I do tell people congressman was just my cover because I did 20 years of counterterrorism before that.
Speaker 3:And it started kinetically, jack, like I started with targeting of terrorists and equipment and organizations, so that's bombs on foreheads. And then, as I got read into more and more classified programs with NSA and Air Force, special Projects and other agencies, when I started getting read into these projects I started to use data as more of my targeting sort of profile. And then I got read into all these different programs on using, you know, satellite data, telephone data, things like that. So all of a sudden my world expanded and so I went from being really an intel officer that concentrated on using weapons, you know, to go after people, to using data to go after people.
Speaker 3:And you're exactly right To come in at this point with this sort of the mushrooming of conspiracy theories, the whole MAGA movement, me being a Republican and then getting sort of got the boot, you know, as I went to war against my own party and now, after the January 6th committee, I now have my own company doing this again in the artificial intelligence and network space. It's just amazing how this has come full circle. So I don't know if I was born to do it, but I certainly. I don't know what. I don't know if it's a fate or somebody is watching out for me, or you know, if it's just luck, good or bad, but yeah, it just seems weird that at this point I'm in the exact position where I can use all these skill sets to help our fellow men and women in this country. I think.
Speaker 2:Well, I think probably an appropriate term to describe is how well you've embraced it. You know, you realize what tools and skills you had to bring to this, and I have to imagine there are a lot of people out there with similar skills who, for whatever reason, would have shied away from it, maybe particularly because they were a Republican. And then this happens and they're looking at their career and so, yeah, it's been amazing to me how you just stepped forward in a way that clearly demonstrates and that you did not have to say it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 3:It was cool that you knew, I think it is the right thing to do, which you've been leaning pretty far forward too, haven't you, jack? I mean, if you think about it and you know I've been watching you you're not afraid, and you have not been afraid to go after those who are spouting nonsense, regardless of their party affiliation, and I think that takes a lot of courage. And when you said I'm not afraid, I have been afraid, you know, because you are putting yourself out there. And what if? And with all the data analytics that I do and all sort of the fact space insights, I look at what if that one time you're wrong, when you're pushing so far forward, because there's so many lies and misconceptions and conspiracy theories that are pushed out there by the grifters and the nuttiest of us in our country?
Speaker 3:What if that one time you're wrong? That ruins the credibility that you had actually sort of baselineed your whole reputation on. But you have to fight, right, because the people that you're fighting don't care about the reputation. They care about winning grift money and putting out as much lies and sort of a bullshit scatter diagram out there, right, so a bullshit scatter web that you get caught in. So that's the thing that scares me is you know how do I actually make sure that I'm not always telling people I'm 100% correct, because you never are and it's very difficult to be, but at least to give people that, hey, there's a difference between probable and possible. You know, it's possible that aliens abducted you last night, but it's not probable, right? And it's trying to find that balance with people to try to get them to your way of thinking that facts and data are more important than memes, fantasy and people that lie directly to your face in order to profit off of your own ignorance.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, you just said something that really stood out to me. You said the people on the other side don't care about their reputation, and that's significant to me. For this reason, when you are trying to fight the lies and also manage your own reputation and professionalism against those who don't care about their reputation, it puts you out of disadvantage in a fairly significant way, because everything is fair game to them and, as you know better than anyone, a lie will make its way around the world before the truth gets to the next state in terms of the speed at which things move. So it's almost like you know you the thing you are fighting. Currently. They've already moved three lies ahead.
Speaker 3:They always do and people forget. You know it's funny in the same threads and I've seen it with you, jack you'll have people from the left and the right both hate you in the same post, which is really a credit to you, jack. Way to go. And you know, for me it's happened too. But people forget the first real, my first rage came from the far left when I was winning that election back in 2018 and I was accused of big footer Rodica by the far left. I don't know if you remember that. You know, I mean, I was pilloried on Saturday Night Live. I was number one worldwide on Twitter. I think you know people like, of course, this guy has a kinky, loves big foot porn, and that came from a far left opponent. He used my book on disinformation. It was called Bigfoot. It's complicated.
Speaker 3:A book on disinformation was then actually disinformation was used against me in order to characterize me as a Nazi loving Bigfoot porn addict, which makes me smile now because that sounds, you know, interesting. You know, but the far left, in the way that they attacked me, which was ludicrous and alive, made its way around the world very quickly. But you know, the far right hit me far worse. You know the far right. When I officiated the gay wedding in July of 2019, as a Republican, you know I became a pedophile and tool of the Antichrist. So, yeah, the far left hit me with.
Speaker 3:You know Bigfoot porn, but the far right hit me as trying to change the sexual orientation of children. That's a that's a big difference, right, and, but I mean it was awful what happened to me from from a leftist idiot. But the far right are far more violent in their proclivities, you know, when they come after you and and I'm okay with that challenge, jack, but you're right about the lies, right, lies do make themselves more available to people's frontal lobes and the truth, and it is something you got to fight all the time so this is something I was going to get to later, but we've we've kind of entered that zone already, so I'm going to let's go, buddy, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Rock and roll how your life has changed in terms of of the attacks, and then the venom that has come. Let's let's talk about the venom that has come from the right, as you mentioned it's. It's come from everywhere, but let's talk about, like your colleagues and people that you used to work with, and how quickly you found yourself on the opposing side in a way that exceeded where you thought you done yeah, it was immediate.
Speaker 3:Listen, the gay wedding. You know people would real conversation if you're a jack. So I did the wedding. I'm talking to.
Speaker 3:A bunch of people came into my class for a dinner at the Capitol grill. You know, in a private room like Denver, we completely support you, but you know we would lose our election if we came out and support publicly, and you know so that's the first thing you notice that Harry Truman, I think, was right. If you want to friend and politics, get a dog. You know, I think that was Truman. If it's not, I'm sorry. I'll fact check that. You know, fact check that. You people out there, but I think that's what he said and I'll tell you, as soon as I went out against QAnon started about the spring of 2020, summer 2020 I was completely ostracized from the Republican conference and you know, especially when I went after Trump specifically for him retweeting conspiracy memes and tropes. So I knew at that time, jack, it was immediate. So my own people right, and you could put that in quotes they, they're all about their, I would say, it's about survival for themselves in a political way. It's not about what's right or wrong, it's about what polling and fundraising and you know your overlord tells you to do, which of the time was Trump, and so it was immediate.
Speaker 3:Jack, I mean, let me tell you I'm hoping you know I've been trying to hit a thousand death threats. I think I'm there, you know one of those things, and had some very bad things happen to me, very bad threats to my family, but I'm dead. But that just makes me matter and it makes me angry. And you know, especially when you're former military, you know as a bouncer when I was younger I'm old now, jack, for God's sakes, you know that.
Speaker 3:But you know I would rather talk my way out of it than fight my way up anymore. But I'll still do it if I got to, and you know. But you get angry and I'm not gonna back down from any of these. You know mouth-breathing belly crawlers that want to spew that stuff anonymously behind a digital shield. You know, if you really got something to say to me, come say it. But a lot of these people are cowards and you find that out pretty quickly. But it's the people that don't talk that I worry about, jack. You know those are the people that just show up one day, that have never said a thing that was most dangerous.
Speaker 2:I think I've I've said something along those lines before that, while I don't totally disregard the, you know, a death threat or something that I get online, those aren't particularly the people I'm concerned about. I'm more concerned about the guy set up a block and a half away, yeah, with his gear rifle, and I step out on my front porch and I never know what hit me. Yeah, those are the things you know, and so I do know what you mean. I don't want you to reveal specifically what, if anything, you've done differently to safeguard your family, but I just want to ask are there changes that you have made?
Speaker 3:because yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I've always you know I've always owned weapons and things like that, you know has taught to hunt a very young age and pretty good with a weapon, you know, and you know I've got a couple badges in the military for for marksmanship. But you know what? What happened to me? It got to the point we were even given some advice from law enforcement that we should all our whole family should be carrying at that point, when the Q and on stuff got really bad. So I took my daughters out, bought them all weapons. We start teaching them to shoot in a much better way. My wife is very adept with with with hand guns and rifles. So really, what's interesting, you know, is my wife and I got our concealed carry permits and made sure our daughters were trained.
Speaker 3:And think about what I'm telling you, by the way. And this is all based on fantasy. This is based on people who believe that you know I was a tool of the anti-crise. They call me the general, the side of my armies, which is pretty original, and and then they called my wife the spawn of Satan and they accused her of laundering money for George Soros through our distilleries. You know, if you think about how ridiculous that is.
Speaker 3:I know, jack, you're like what it's. It's so insane. These people are so off-kilter. I don't know if they sniff glue their whole lives or you know, we're in a really bad accent where they were dropped on their head as a baby. But I think those are the things that we have right, or those type of people, and my, my family has suffered because of that. So I wanted to make sure that that we had the ability at some point just the fact that law enforcement kind of me to say then you know, congressman, what are we gonna do here? You know you're, you're everywhere and you know a line item back bench or doesn't have any protection. Jack, we don't have any. We don't have anything like that. We don't have security following us around, and I don't think people realize how isolated a congressman can be and that their threat vectors are everywhere and it's very easy to get to a congressional representative who's not in leadership.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you have the same kind of support at home that I have. My wife and I have had these discussions. She's very clear of the increased risk from what I do on social media with the podcast, and at no time has there been any indication from her. Oh then, I want you to stop. She realizes the importance of the work that you and I and so many others are doing and that somebody has to do that work.
Speaker 2:And you know I left last Wednesday, I think, to go to Columbia, missouri, and usually my wife and I we we go someplace, we go together, and I hadn't been away from her for a while. I was in the driveway and she stuck her head out the door and she said do you have your gun? Now, I did, but as I was driving away, I thought, boy, interesting times where I'm leaving for a couple of days and my wife's number one concern is do you have your? So yeah, very interesting times indeed. So now let's back up a little bit. As a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, at what point, when you were analyzing the data, at what point did you say holy shit, yeah, this is bigger, deeper and more coordinated than I would have ever guessed.
Speaker 3:So this might surprise people it came well before the January 6th committee. When January 6th happened, I got a call that night or early in the morning from Liz Cheney. What people don't realize is I put out there an initial report only three days after January 6th. I think people forgotten about it, jack, it was with the Network Intagion Research Institute. We actually posted it and it did quite well, but Liz used that for part of the impeachment process. The holy shit part came when I saw, I believe and I'm trying to remember the number because now it's hard to believe how long ago this is now so three, four years. But when I looked at that first data we saw that there were seven groups attached to white nationalism, white supremacists, that were actually connected to all this, and this was well before the January 6th committee and that kind of stuff. So I think I was pretty well armed intellectually and with data when I went into the January 6th committee.
Speaker 3:But I will tell you the real holy shit moment was, even before we identified all the phone numbers in the Mark Meadows texts was reading the content of those texts before we started the identity resolution process. What that means is the forward and reverse lookups on names and numbers to match every single phone number to name and every name to phone number and validate those individuals. But just to read the content and, by the way, we sort of knew some of those numbers just by content we had to validate those numbers through metadata. But when I see that Rick Perry is signing his crazy text, rick Perry, and then he lies about it later on that it wasn't him, people forget he signed his text. I mean, you know, that's pretty, pretty interesting and you know.
Speaker 3:The other thing too is the Jenny Thomas text. I was pretty sure that was her number from the beginning but I had to validate it. But seeing her forwarded texts from Louis Gomertz, chief of Staff, about this being, you know, the Wrights Omaha Beach, pretty huge, and the conspiracy theories all through this, and what people don't know that, the 2319 texts. First of all, we don't know if that was all the text because we never got Mark Meadows phone records. But the other thing is, jack is this weave of Christian nationalism that was so prevalent in those texts and the insanity surrounding the amount of conspiracy theories in the three months of texts we saw between Meadows and others. It was just the oh shit moment was looking at the content of those Mark Meadows texts back in, good Lord, december of 21,.
Speaker 2:I would say so, speaking of content, was it content that, had you not have had the background that you have and had been exposed to the things that you've been exposed to, both in the military and post-military Just a regular factory working guy, would there have been like deep, deep concern, fear for the average person reading this, knowing it was happening between? Or was there more that needed to be put together before they would have?
Speaker 3:listened to that. It's a great question, jack. Really, I've had a background in racklization and data for 20 plus years. I probably know more about data than everybody in Congress combined, and I'm not even saying that as being arrogant, so I was trying to do so. I think when I saw it too, is our conspiracy.
Speaker 3:Language is its own specific rhythms and its own specific vocabulary. So when I see that Jenny Thomas puts out something about QFS blockchain quantum financial services, blockchain with watermark ballots, that's being pushed by a crazy person the guy's last name is Pechenick, if anybody wants to look him up or they can go see these texts themselves, because I think they were released by newspapers but if you look at those texts, they're actually code, right. The language is specific to those conspiracy theories, as are the acronyms, so it's just like military language or law enforcement language or certain types of professions that use a lot of acronyms. That language is actually a vetting process for these conspiracy theories. So language if I already knew the language. So once you see those certain types of patterns, I'm like this is completely batshit. You're talking about every level of the Republican Party, from the, from the voter all the way to the president and everywhere in between, right In the legislative, judicial now think about this and executive branches in the GOP.
Speaker 3:All of them were completely consumed with conspiracy theories that were so outlandish you'd have to have under 70 IQ to actually believe them. And that's the kind of things that really struck me. And you see professionals that believe this, people that are doctors or neurologists or they're psychiatrists or whatever right, or they're engineers, individuals that are in law enforcement, individuals that are in the national security agency. I just talked to one. There's a person who actually believes that the videos were faked for January 6th and works in NSA. I mean, that's insane. So those are the type of things that I started to see.
Speaker 3:Is that there's that unique language, that unique sort of layering of conspiracy theories is really what pinged me, and I do not think that somebody who just came off the street would say, oh, that's cool. They watermarked the ballots to track people. That's come on. What they're talking about with watermarking ballots is a secret. Trump led plan right to secretly embed this so the National Guard could arrest people and send the Biden family to Gitmo. Yeah, it's insane, but it is cool. I would say, not in a great way, but in a weird way, but it is cool to know those language patterns and what those acronyms mean to conspiracy theorists and that's probably why I had a little bit more insight.
Speaker 2:On the House Select Committee. Then, with the depth of your knowledge and a very specialized area, what challenges, if any, did you have in conveying this to other members of that committee who did not have that background? I'm guessing there was some resistance, at least initially, on some who just didn't have the basis to really latch onto it.
Speaker 3:You know, when you're in that environment, as a former congressional member, to agree to be a senior staffer. First of all and I want to tell you, jack, this, and even the people listening I would never do that again. I would never actually go backwards, and I did that because I thought that's what best for America. I still had my congressional pen, but I still had access. But what happens is the driver of the investigation or the narrative, does not come from the staff Remember, I was a congressman it never does. It comes from the congressional committee itself. And what happens is that nobody knows how call detail records work, or the subtleties of that, or what a link map looks like, or the fact that you need to resource it. And what happens is in this communication, this very compressed timeframe. We never had the resources to do what we needed to do. Number one, because they'd rather hire staff members to do work rather than technology, which was ridiculous. And I said that and I think my bluntness was a challenge to a lot of members of the committee. If I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn't be. I still thought of myself as a congressman that could actually push that narrative, but I wasn't. So it would get very awkward when I wasn't invited to the congressional only meeting as a former congressman because they wanted to. There was actually some optics issues with me, right, how do you treat Denver Riggleman? Right, and I think that was.
Speaker 3:And then I started to get in arguments with the Democratic and Republican committee members on where we should go on the investigation. I think that's really what led to the tension that I had with the committee was that our team simply knew so much more and then they tried to keep us just to the technical portion of it. But we needed to see the narratives to match the data. So now you start to have disconnects, you start to have silos, people working in their own stovepipes and not sharing information because they want credit. Now you have a problem.
Speaker 3:So, as well as the committee did, I think in the future, I don't think Congress has situated well enough to do deep dive technical looks. And you're seeing that with the Hunter Biden stuff, which is Listen, the J6 stuff was done accidentally. If there were any issues, there was nothing purposeful there. I think there was political issues that we had to work through, but I think it was an experience. I just think they weren't prepared for what I had to tell them, based just on data. When you look at the Hunter Biden stuff, you have people who are actually using falsified data or data with no provenance. So it's a big difference. But really what it comes down to, congress is not situated, is not resourced, it doesn't have the experience to do these type of investigations. In a way, I think that would satisfy somebody who's looking at this from a data perspective, to be blunt.
Speaker 2:Would it be fair to say and this may come off as a stupid question, perhaps because it's so obvious, but would it be fair to say that the United States, meaning the United States government, was ill-prepared to be able to rapidly organize a committee or even a department to deal with something as serious as this? And let me add to that, as part of that question, or maybe before the question, was there a realization immediately just how serious it?
Speaker 3:was. That is great. You know there's a realization of people looking at this. If you remember, jack and I know you probably said this at the beginning, but to be the only Republican to speak out against QAnon should have been an indicator to me. But it's very difficult for government agencies to react to something this outside the bounds if they're so caught in their own paradigms. Let me give you you know, when you're looking at funding federal law enforcement, funding huge DHS, local and state law enforcement Now you have also 17 intelligence agencies. So everybody you think there's a lot of information and data sharing, but there's not.
Speaker 3:I'm not blaming this on Congress specifically. We had so many intelligence, law enforcement and operational failures, especially in the logistics and communications portions before January 6, it's mind boggling. And what happens with the tribalism, jack, is people are like oh, it's all Trump's fault. Yeah, yeah, a lot of hell. Yeah, trump is an awful human being, an instigator, a charismatic leader who pushed conspiracy theories and fantasy to provoke violence that day period. But the other side is that you had a Democratic majority in the House that might have been unwilling to see the threat right. Or you might have Capitol Police who are unwilling to see the threat based on the fact it broke the paradigm where you know there's no way there's going to be a bunch of white Trump supporters that are going to attack the Capitol. That's ridiculous. Well, they were self identifying with the data, jack. They were saying they were going to do it. So, to be blunt, just say, hey, here's the data and here's what it said, and they still say, oh, you know, they didn't mean it.
Speaker 3:Okay, and then the example I use is okay, you see, probably a Oathkeeper chats. What if they were Muslim? How would you react to that threat? So that's the kind of stuff, jack. I think it's very difficult unless you have. We're so tribal now, we're so left to right that it's really difficult for somebody who's trying to play it just facts based or databaseed to get in there. Jack, and I think that's the thing that bothers me about what's happening, right? Has it always been like that Sort of? Yeah, I think it's worse now because I think crazy has bloomed, based on social and alternate media, to a place alternative media where it's very hard for us to wrestle that pig.
Speaker 2:I remember one time, while studying meta thinking or meta cognition and one of the examples that they used is just kind of a metaphor as to the importance of being able to jump to those higher logical levels and think about previous thoughts and thinking Said the police never investigate the police. And again, that's been 20 years ago and that was just kind of a metaphor. But I've thought about this so many times, about how we've watched this play out in real time, literally that when you, we go back to Jim Banks, for example, and some of the other Jim Jordan, I think maybe was the other one that they wanted on the committee how do you and I know I'm asking you to speculate, but how do you think that might have played out had a couple of MAGA guys got on the J6 committee?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the first people need to remember when I'm saying this the reason we didn't have a full functioning commission was because the far right blocked it and then blamed the committee for not having enough Republicans after they blocked it, which is, for me, pretty savvy political move to get the far right on. But any sane person is going to see for what it was, how hypocritical and bizarre it was. But, yeah, to investigate yourself. Goodness Jack, I don't know how far you want me to go on this, but it's very difficult, when it comes to the actual internal workings of Congress, to point the finger at yourself. If you're talking about the House Admin Committee, if you're talking about the USC Police Board which I know how that works completely there's so much culpability just with incompetence.
Speaker 3:It's not conspiracy theories, it's not the ridiculousness you see out there, but the fact is it's very difficult for the government to point the finger at themselves. And really I think that's the other thing that I think that was lacking was how much of a security, intelligence and operational failure we had on January 6th, and that goes from law enforcement to our political structures. And again, I was very vocal about that and that wasn't very well received. But you have to have somebody out there who's at least willing to address it. We are not 100% right. I didn't have access to all the data, but we certainly should have looked a lot further into the intelligence failures, even more than we did, and I think that would really serve the American people well if we revisited it. To be honest, with you.
Speaker 2:You know I've had this question in my mind for about a month now, and if you don't want to comment on this, I completely understand. But a question that I've been asking myself when we look at the level of threats, the increasing level of threats and talking about executing journalists and on and on and on that Donald Trump spews at his speaking events, rallies, at what point would we be able to step back and say you know, this might be something that's a UN issue or something that's a CIA issue, because it deals with the potential collapse of our government, a threat to our government. Now, before we go into that, I know that that's getting into tricky ground and the Lord knows that, with the effort that's been put in by Merrick Garwin not to appear, political things like that aren't even on the table. But am I wrong in thinking that we've reached such a threat?
Speaker 3:level. So the one thing we have done well, I think, in not only our constitutional governance but in our authorities and the way that we actually structure law enforcement and the military, is separating between foreign and domestic powers. I would hope we would never have the CIA or UN actually involved in any of our affairs internally. Cia is a foreign element. Right, they deal with foreign elements. The UN, I don't know if they're actually capable. You know, or obviously you don't have the authorities, but the lack of capability in the UN, I think, is palpable.
Speaker 3:So I think what we're looking at here is how do we actually train up local, state and federal law enforcement to recognize or at least to be honest about what the domestic threat is, and I think it really is a database thing.
Speaker 3:You know, there's this comment I say all the time Jack and it's ones and zeros make the best witness. And for me, you know just, we still have to keep in line when it comes to law enforcement, because identifying dangerous groups domestically, we still have to keep with those institutions that are authorized to do domestic activities, which is FBI, dhs, right or ATF, other types of law enforcement. I think if we get into the tricky waters of using CIA, nsa or any combat element or any intelligence element to look at American citizens or to be part of a solution. I think we run into authorities issues, but I also think we run to really tricky waters on how those people are trained and how they would react to that. You know, as far as any domestic issues, I think that would bother me a lot if that were to happen, and I hope it does.
Speaker 2:I have to say, you answered that exactly the way that I thought you would, and I might add that when I would think that through, I come to the same conclusion. But that leads me to my next question. Given that we both feel that, okay, that's not someplace we'd like to see it go, what needs to happen within the framework that we are trying to solve this, to more adequately be able to address these issues? Because I think it's fair to say, without getting into the specifics, nothing like this was ever imagined. Nobody ever contemplated something of this scope. And so, now that we've seen something of this magnitude, what reorganization, if any, would you look to? As you know, if we did this and that boy, it would sure make a lot of this go faster and smoother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you saw an attempt at that, at the really bad rollout of the DGB, the digital governance board. That sounded like some weird do you remember that back in the day and who they chose? And things like that, which really didn't go over very well. Where you're trying to look at disinformation and how it's affecting the American public and how it's affecting people's behaviors, you certainly have private groups doing that. But the issue that you have when you have the First Amendment or you have this type of tribalism is what kind of new group would you make? We have so many funded groups already.
Speaker 3:I don't even know if anybody's heard about foreign disinformation tracking through the GEC, the Global Engagement Center. You notice how many of your listeners know there's a GEC. They're probably going to Google it as soon as I say it. Look at the Global Engagement Center. And when you're looking at disinformation, you're looking at joint task forces for the FBI. You're looking at domestic terrorism. You're looking at the foreign. You look at OFAC, department of Treasury when they're looking at terrorist money flows from foreign governments into the United States. There's so many people doing this stuff, jack, in so many different areas, but they're not really trading information. But identifying domestic terrorism is very difficult, and I don't even know if we have the apparatus to call somebody a domestic terrorist down the line or a domestic terrorist group, and we need to fix that. I think it goes again. Sadly, it goes through maybe our dumbest institution right now Congress, right to redefine what that means. There's the last part of this. I don't want to be too pessimistic, but how far gone are we when we see this type of digital virus or this digital pollution of disinformation that's happening all around us?
Speaker 3:Jack, I think maybe we can touch 3% to 5% of the population, but you know, you have people out there doing pre-bunking and debunking, and I was just in a thing in Georgetown a couple of days ago, jack. They're like, oh well, pre-bunking works in these small areas, but okay, are you going to send pre-bunking videos to the 700,000 people who watch Greg Locke, the MAGA prophet, right, screaming and jumping around on stage that Democrats are possessed by demons? Yeah, probably not going to work. So I think the issue that you have is the only way we can do this is a better education system. So, like you and me, it's people like you know, the people that are brave enough to say, hey, this is what's happening. Do we have the ability to stop it?
Speaker 3:And instead of going back into politics, jack, that's why I started a company doing the same thing I did was can I identify the bad actors domestically using open source intelligence information, and can I drag them into the sunlight, even if it's not on the law enforcement side. At least I'm dragging, I'm letting people know. So, really, my goal is can we affect 3% to 5% of the population to keep our institutions valid? I don't know if I'm pissing in the wind here, jack, I don't know if it's just completely hopeless, but I think that we have the institutions to do. It is to do. They have the will to do it and do they have the expertise? And have we gone so tribal? That truth doesn't matter anyway. And if we're already there, you know, maybe we're arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker 2:Right, I think you explained that so well. Well, thank you. A shorter version of that that I think through my own mind is do I think we have the ability to do this? I think we have the ability, but when I ask the question, do I think it's going to happen, meaning we're successful and we come through this? At this point, if I'm honest, I really don't know the answer to that. I don't know?
Speaker 3:I don't think anybody does. I don't think you're in Everybody's like Denver. You're a data expert. You did counterterrorism. You were in Congress, here in the January 6th committee. You're a best-selling author. You know all this? No, I don't.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty good right With data. I'm pretty good with identifying bad actors and pretty good with identifying conspiracy theories and people with, I would say, nefarious agendas to rip apart the institution of our government. I mean, look at the four horsemen of the grift reverse, right. You're looking at Steve Bannon and Alex Jones and Mike Flynn and Roger Stone, right, those groups. But I'm really good at that. But can I, is it possible for a group, even with all the resources we have in the United States, is it possible to change a belief system that God wants Trump to be president and everything else is okay, to do something or to do things, that the means justify the ends, no matter what? Right, holy crap, jack. And I'm seeing it everywhere and I think there's a small band of the same, a coalition of the same. I think that really needs to stick together to see if we can even Maybe we can turn that three to five percent. I don't know, but I think we got to try. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 2:Regarding our legal system and what we've seen, like you just mentioned, with Bannon Stone and others.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because you can make two opposing statements about the state of our legal system and in my estimation, you can be right about both of them. For example, I hear people say all the time our legal system is so fucked up. Look how long these guys have stayed out of jail. And while I totally get that, you can look at the other side and you can say, wow, our legal system really works, because if you've got the money to get good representation, it's very hard for them to put you in jail. And I think the frustration for the average person is they're thinking but I don't have that kind of money, I couldn't get that kind of representation, so I wouldn't be able to defend myself for more than about a week. I would go to jail. Yes, and in terms of what's the answer there, I don't really think there's an answer other than, I guess, make a lot more money and become wealthy so that you could be one of them and defend yourself, because that's pretty much worse, I laugh the law is not equally applied.
Speaker 3:I mean, as much as I like to see the conviction of a lot of the January 6 Capitol Sackers you got to be kidding me that, really, the individuals behind it there's nothing going to happen to them, not going to happen. And so, yeah, your line item, your worker bees, they got stung up. They got strung up and put in jail, and, yeah, they deserve it. They're dumb, great, they broke the law. But what you have, though, is you have this and thank God for the First Amendment, but, if you like, for instance, trump is still out there saying the election is stolen. It's almost like you know, innocent because he's insane, right, not guilty by reason of insanity, and all these people they rely on it. Hey, we believe this completely. You know it's like, and this is probably I'm probably not being nuanced enough, I'm probably doing too black and white, but look about wire fraud. If I send something out, everybody needs to send me money because I think aliens are coming at us and I send that. That could actually be illegal or legal. It's legal if I actually believe it. It's only illegal if they can prove that. I knew it was wrong and I did it with intent and now I have wire fraud because I knew it was a lie. It's hard to prove. So that's the issue that we have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our legal system works great Going after you know those who you know, the awful human beings you know at the criminal level, and things like that.
Speaker 3:But when you have something this nuanced or this crazy, when you have an insurrection and you said it, jack, can we imagine that there'd be an insurrection on the Capitol based on fantasy, complete conspiracy theories that weren't true at all, because of a president who people believe is God ordained you would actually go, oh my gosh. But the thing when you talk about the law what was legal in Germany before 1933 and after 1933? What was legal in any of these countries? What is the law actually? But a reflection of the values of the people that actually make those laws. And you still have to have integrity. You still have to have people that are willing to look at the law, that it is something that is specific, regardless of who you are or what you are. I don't think that's happening and I think, once you lose integrity in our legal institutions, that is this slow decline of you know a specific nation state, and I think in some respects we have to fight that every step of the way.
Speaker 2:That's one of the most sobering thoughts as bad as you hate to admit it when you think of a lot of the drivel and garbage that Bannon spews on his War Room podcast. Unfortunately, a lot of those strategies have been working Really targeted, for example, school boards, you know, when you get to local levels of government and they really pieced it together well in terms of how to approach this on all levels simultaneously and I think that's what the average person that just kind of reads headlines and maybe the first paragraph of an article I'm not sure that most people understand just how complicated that web is in terms of that strategy Very very effective command and control and, by the way, that multi-flank strategy of taking over local or state government institutions.
Speaker 3:Putting out misinformation, you know, trying to manipulate voting laws in states. Oh, that's pretty legal, that's legal and that's what you know. A lot of people are like, oh, they should be in jail for that. No, no, that actually means that because we have democratic institutions, we're a public you have to have people tough enough to push back against that nonsense and vote and have more votes. They're like, oh, five Christian nationalists won the school board vote. Well, get more votes.
Speaker 3:And yeah, there's some nefarious means, right, suppression of votes, or maybe there's weird things going on. They're trying to disenfranchise people. I get it. Fight Right, Fight back right at that level, with people who are willing to fight back. When you're talking about votes, I'm not talking about physical violence. I'm talking about fighting back through procedures, through laws, through the institutions that we have Now. If it comes that they become violent, that's when you hope that the rule of law steps up right and protects those individuals who are doing things the right way.
Speaker 3:But that's what I don't think people understand. There is no moral boundary, there is no limits. There are no limits to what the far right will do. The left believes and I will say this independence and some center right Republicans too. They all believe we're still in the Marcus the Queensberry rules, right. They don't understand that this is a slug fest. This is guerrilla warfare and the right has no limits because they are driven by a new Christian nationalism message. Trump is their guy, right. This new sort of ultra-nativist stuff that we're saying and we have social media and alternative media to really drive it. You better have a response and again, I don't see that integrity coalition, the same response, a lot of these places that we need to see.
Speaker 2:I agree. As a former Republican myself, as I'm sure you know from following me on social media, I don't approach this like the typical Democrat. I'm not concerned about being politically correct or particularly civil. My question when I post am I going to be effective for the goal that I have? And you called it out perfect.
Speaker 2:The right has no rules and the left seems to fight as long as they fight within the framework of the rules that they hold near and dear to their heart, and I think we long ago crossed over the Rubicon in terms of whether that's effective any longer or not.
Speaker 2:And to be clear, just as you clarified on how we fight, you're not talking about violence, you're talking about attitude, and when I talk about fighting, that's what I'm talking about, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about waking up with that fire in your ass and pissing vinegar and attacking it, attacking the work you do and putting things out with such an attitude that it becomes infectious. Because if you look at what has happened on the right, that's exactly what happened there. It became infectious and it spread like a virus down through the ranks and now there are millions of people, such as a neighbor that I have who's a pharmacist and I think about this guy, and I think here's a guy I know he can think logically and analytically. He took in past higher level chemistry classes, but the guy's flying a Trump flag in his front yard and you say how does this work? Truth is, you and I both know how it works, but the pre-educated Denver Riggleman and Jack Hopkins we still have that part of our brain that goes what the hell, man? You know what I mean. You know that if you step back, we know the psychological underpinnings and how this happens with people, but still on the surface level, you scratch your head and you go. My God.
Speaker 3:Sex is at the back. I mean, you get to be a movie star in your own theatrical release of you're a hero in the battle against good and evil. You know you're your own movie star. You know Trump is my guy because the Democrats are evil, kid eating blood, spilling, pedophiles and they're part of the globalist deep state conspiracy against freedom. Right, they're trying to destroy Christmas. Obama was born in Kenya. Right, 9-11 was an inside job. There's alien abductions, uaps. They have alien body parts in Area 51. Right, the election was stolen by Hugo Chavez. Satan is alive. All this stuff makes you feel part of something bigger than yourself and I think it's really people that are really lost something in their lives. But also, it's sexy. It's not sexy to be sane man. It's not. We're not sexy guys, we're sane. It's not fun, it sucks.
Speaker 2:In terms of the goal that they had in their agenda. They have better stories. Oh, their stories were awful. That's the sad truth behind so much of this is they've got stories that hook people, reel them in, and then they are living stories. So they're not particularly stories that you open it up and there's a beginning and an end. They're stories that invite you to step into them and become one of the characters and live that story perpetually, and I see that time and time again. Well, they hit them straight in the amygdala.
Speaker 3:They hit them in the amygdala and it's emotional stories and I've told people this check Inconsistency in these conspiracies is a feature, not a bug. It doesn't matter if their stories are consistent, it matters how they massage and stroke their amygdala. That's it. It's an emotional based response because they're in a war for the future of America and God told them to do it and that's really what you're fighting sometimes.
Speaker 2:They understand what the casinos understand in a variable reward. If you went to the casino and you pulled the arm and boom $100, boom $100, boom $100. As nutty as it sounds, we know that eventually, man, I've got a job, I've got shit I have to do, I've got to go.
Speaker 2:But the casinos know that when you have a variable reward system where you lose several times in a row and you start to think you know, fuck it, I'm done. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You get a reward, your brain gets flooded with all the good stuff and you say I'm going to stay another hour. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, that's when I look at Matt Gaetz, marjorie Taylor Green, the loons they are like a living one-arm bandit. They will go periods of time where it's kind of flat line and just about the time you think, okay, maybe they're moving. Boom, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They reward MAGA with. Then MAGA says I'm going to stick around another month. This is actually pretty good. It was starting to bore me, but no, and when you've got that going on all over the place, it's like you've got separate one-arm bandits scattered here. So there's always one that's giving a reward, even when the others aren't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that reward seems to be glue fumes, you know, and it keeps killing brain cells, right, it's like gas fumes it smells good, but you smell too much of it. You're going to go across, I don't know where you're at, and I think that's the reward system that they have Kind of starting to wind things down here.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about how you have dealt with the bullshit, the threats, the feeling of being cast out of some form of isolation. What's been your beacon, what's been your North Star and maybe what are some of the beliefs that you've had, going back to the military or even before, that have carried you through and are continuing to carry you through.
Speaker 3:I'm going to be really honest here. People are going to be like, oh my God, this is nuts. But first of all, my North Star has been my wife, christine, who you know we own distilleries. You know she's a master distiller CEO but has always been there for me. But her integrity, her class, her character and always saying, dan, you know you do what you need to do. Now trust me, she actually has a time, so that's enough. And she does try to hold me back on some of the things I want to do, because she is worried about my safety, just like I'm worried about theirs.
Speaker 3:However, I don't think she's as much worried about my physical safety as the mental stress that this happens, that this stuff happens, what happens to me. It does physically affect me and I've had some issues physically. You know, with the kind of stress that you go through. A lot of people say, Denver, you're unflappable, you never feel stress. Are you kidding me? Of course I do. I'm a human being, right? The other thing too. Listen, I haven't been overtly religious for a long time, jack, in a long time, even to the point I'm like, you know, have I gone completely the other way, right beyond diagnostic and atheism. But I will tell you, in the last couple years, if there is something up there that's bigger than us, that we need to serve, that's good, that helps other people. I feel like that. Maybe something has been looking out for me and I'm very, very honest about this stuff, because you're like, well, are you there or not? Well, I try to be, but I'm a facts and database guy, right. But on the other hand, you know, there's been things happen to me lately that like, maybe this is, maybe my calling wasn't to be in politics, maybe it was to go back and use the technical and operational expertise I have, maybe to help with this country and people.
Speaker 3:Because I hate bullies, jack. I hate bullies and we're being bullied on so many levels by really bad people and I know that's a very simple sentence bullied by bad people. Gosh, I'm so brilliant, but you know, the thing is is that it seems my North Star has been a family that I have that love so much my grandkids, what are you fighting for? But also, I feel like, listen, if we are made in an image of something greater than ourselves and there is no help, we all have been given certain gifts. I think that we need to. We need to maximize. So let's max maximize those gifts for good. I mean, heck, even if there isn't something, you know, when we die we're just warm food and there's crickets crawling out of our eye sockets At least we can say that we help those people in our future, right? That maybe we'll have a chance to live free and not under the yoke of idiots or not to be bullied right, or to destroy it for the type of people they are. I think that is really my North Star, and I only have one life, jack. I'm going to be 54 this week, be 54 on Sunday, and you know I have this, I think, one last big run in me to try to make sure that my kids and grandkids live in a better space and to make my wife proud and my friends proud.
Speaker 3:Have I lost a lot of people? Yeah, a lot of friends, a lot of family gone, but on the other hand, I found a lot of new people like you, jack, right that they're out there trying to do the right thing. So me and you are here, right, buddy? And so that's what keeps me going. Is I get to talk to somebody like you on a day like today, somebody who's also leaning forward and hoping they can make a difference, that have been in the Republican Party, like I have, and saying maybe truth and facts, maybe going against bad people is what we're meant to do, so that's it. I know that's not maybe as profound, but it's really. If there's something bigger, I want to be that person and then, anyway, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, I find it interesting how similar our thoughts are in this area. I don't think I could put mine together linguistically as elegantly as you did, but mine, I look at it like this the, the, I'll be 58 next month. I wrote that down last night on the calendar and my wife was sitting to the next right of me and I said my God. I said I know it in my head, but when I see it on paper, listen, man, I don't feel.
Speaker 3:Do you feel 50,? I don't feel 54, right. No. You know, but well. I mean, my joints feel 54 and you know, and you know I'm certainly not going to, you know, be as active as I was on prom night, but I don't feel that old, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like a 25 year old kid, trapped in this 58 year old bond. You know, that's kind of how it goes. But the older I've gotten, the more of a sense of obligation I have to utilize whatever tools I have, my strengths for something good. It's that simple I, when I look at the life that I've lived and that I'm enjoying now and I think, wow, you know to, like you said, wherever it comes from and however it came to be, to be living it and to be enjoying it, there's got to be some form of repayment. And my repayment is, I think, to do what every human being should probably do, and that is give back, do what you can to make society a better place, and you're going to win some and lose some. That's life, but the fact that you're folk trying, amen, brother.
Speaker 3:You know, amen, that's right, I'm with you.
Speaker 3:That is profound, and you know what the sad part is, jack, and I hate to end it this way, but we think we're doing good, we're good people, we're good men.
Speaker 3:You know right, we want, we want to, we want to push that sense of obligation to others to fight, coming full circle. The issue is, on the other side you have people who believing people like us are evil because we're against whatever God ordained mission we have, on the far right also, or on the far left, if we go against that idiocy that happens at time to time, which I saw you push against. That's the problem we have is that if you're trying to look at things from a perspective of facts and sanity, regardless of how people self identify as Republican, democrat or other, it puts you in a very narrow space of the population, and so you had to be prepared to be hit from both sides as you're running through those tackling domains. I think that's. That's really what I'm just sort of I've accepted now, and it's not fun, but we own distilleries, so there you go, I got it now.
Speaker 2:On that note, I want to tell everybody watching or listening, if you go to SB distillery and that's for silverback distillery I love your website, thank you. It's a very informational. It has some great pictures of the family, looks like a really impressive operation and, I might add, an award winning distillery Damn right, fairly prestigious awards. So everybody checked that out. In closing, it was no accident that I chose you as the first guest and let me tell you one of the reasons why we've never met in person at this point. You were just somebody. I had that sense that when we do meet, we're going to like each other, it's going to be good. We already do.
Speaker 3:We've already met, already do like each other, we did it's all good, absolutely, we would.
Speaker 2:So this was just in my mind, it was just kind of meant to be, I think, the timeliness of you bringing your tools, your knowledge, to this first episode. I'll never be able to thank you in a, but I will make a trip to see you sometime in the future and I will tour the facility and maybe sample the product.
Speaker 3:Hey, if that's what we got to do, that's what we got to do, jack, I mean now, what If we got to test the product? You know, we will sacrifice and we will do it. It needs to be done, we will, we will, just to let you know. But I just so, so appreciative. Thank you, jack, and thanks for what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I thank you and if you are open to it sometime down the road, we'll do this again. Damn right, we will.
Speaker 3:All right, my pleasure. Thanks, sir. All right everybody.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time. Hey, I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed that conversation with Denver Riggleman. I'd like to thank you for watching the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. Please be sure to hit the like and subscribe button, and I hope to see you on the next episode of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast.