00:00Hey, good morning guys. How are you? What's going on, buddy? Well, I haven't talked to you in a while.
00:05I hope everything is great. This is just a wild, wild story on Saturday.
00:10And you know, you're hearing all kinds of different perspectives and opinions on why this happened. And of course, it
00:16could have been a lot worse. But I mean, this guy, this guy goes from takes a train from Torrance,
00:23California, all the way to DC checks into the hotel a couple days before the dinner.
00:28Um, and I was reading something about the, the hotel security. There was a guy who was an attendee who
00:37was in the room right next to Cole Allen. And he said, they never checked my bags. They never, there
00:44was no mags. When I checked in, they didn't check, um, IDs more than once. And everyone's kind of looking
00:50at the hotel security going, you have this huge correspondence center with some of the most famous people and the
00:56most, um,
00:58Um, you know, the most famous person in this country, the president of the United States is at this hotel
01:03that night and there are security lapses. And I don't know, I don't want to blame social, uh, secret service
01:09or, or local law enforcement. I just, I'm wondering in your opinion, how can this happen?
01:17Yeah. I mean, these are all really good questions and we're all local. I don't, I don't know if any
01:23of you have been to that hotel or that ballroom, but the hotel is a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. For security.
01:30And I've actually been in the past, uh, to the correspondence dinner, you know, the upstairs of that hotel, it's
01:37a massive hotel. The upstairs of that hotel is where you check in and where you get to the guest
01:42rooms.
01:42And the ballroom is actually downstairs, you know, separate, but connected to the broader hotel. And you get down there
01:49through a, uh, escalator or you can walk in right off the street. And actually, uh, in the downstairs area,
01:56right off the street is where Reagan was shot years ago.
01:59Right. So it's not like this is unprecedented that a president would be targeted. And one of the reasons I
02:05think that the gunman targeted him, I guess we should say the suspected gunman, uh, because he hasn't been, he
02:12hasn't, uh, shown up for trial yet and, uh, been convicted.
02:15But the reason I think is, is it's pretty well known that there isn't great security here. And in fact,
02:22if you read the guy's manifesto and we have a manifesto that he sent to his family right before the
02:28attack, that's been published. He even writes in it, how shocked he is at the lack security. Yeah. So in
02:35this, in this hotel, because there's so many different entrances, there are a lot of people staying there that have
02:41nothing to do with the correspondence dinner.
02:43And there's a restaurant and a bar that anyone can just walk in off the street and go to. They
02:48moved security right up in front of the ballroom. And that is the only place they were checking. They weren't
02:55checking hotel guests, which I think, you know, the secret service could have at least looked into the identities of
03:01everyone staying there.
03:03You know, they weren't checking anyone who checked into the hotel, which is how the guy a day earlier was
03:07able to show up with a shotgun or a pistol and a couple of knives and just get right into
03:14his room.
03:15Yeah. They're only checking. They're only screening right before you walked into the ballroom.
03:20So Eric, that has to be the major security lapse, right? Is that a guest can check in two or
03:26three days before the event at the hotel and their, their luggage isn't screened.
03:30It's not run through any sort of mag. And then they can just spring their attack the day of without
03:37any sort of vetting. Right.
03:38That has to be the thing that, that alarms them the most.
03:43Yeah. I mean, the Hilton's a bad place to be doing this sort of event and it wasn't just the
03:48president. I mean, JD Vance, the vice president was sitting, you know, two seats down from Trump and then you
03:54had his entire cabinet there, you know, including the director of the FBI.
03:58I mean, everybody was in that place. Uh, you know, so if you are a gunman or God forbid, the
04:05guy had run in with a bomb, right? I mean, you know, that, that's not, you take off pretty much
04:11everybody, uh, in the, on the other side of it.
04:15You know, they'd have to buy out the hotel. That's the only way they could have secured that place is
04:21a week before they tell the Hilton we're buying out the hotel. Don't have any guests cancel any reservations.
04:28And, uh, we're going to pay this fee and, you know, have the hotel empty. That's really the only way,
04:34unless they are registered guests coming to the correspondence dinner.
04:38This is the only way they could have really secured it because it isn't easy with all of those different
04:42entrances to the hotel. And there's multiple entrances, not just like there's one point to get in to put magnanimators
04:50or otherwise called metal detectors at every entrance and screen everybody. It's a massive hotel. Thousands of people can stay
04:57there.
04:58So they, uh, you know, and they've never done it in the past. You know, there is one thing that
05:02did stick out. He had some neighbors make some complaints about him.
05:07Yep. Which, you know, went to law enforcement, you know, saying that they were worried about him. If they were
05:14checking, if they were at least doing a screening of the individual staying at the hotel, he might've popped up
05:20on a list.
05:21Yeah. And maybe they could have avoided the entire thing.
05:23Yeah. I think his, uh, his sister had complained or, or, or contacted local law enforcement in California to talk
05:31about some of the things he was writing to them about. Um, I think maybe his brother.
05:35Yeah. So there was definitely some family members that were concerned.
05:39Right. Exactly. And that's typically the number one way that law enforcement learns about what we're assuming is a lone
05:47wolf attacker, gunman, terrorist, call them what you want.
05:52Uh, it's usually family members who are the closest to us who identify this person has a problem. I think
05:57they're going to do something really terrible that could get them killed. And, you know, I want to stop it.
06:03If, if our law enforcement channels were working correctly, something like that could have gotten to the FBI.
06:09And if the secret service was receiving that information and then screening everyone in the hotel and just get a
06:16guest list and then run them through the database, they may have, they might've actually identified. This is a guy
06:23we should look at. They go in this room and they find a bunch of firearms, but that's not how
06:28government works. It's never that efficient. It wasn't when I was undercover operating and it still is not now.
06:34Yeah. I'm sure there's a lot to, that the government has to do. And it's, um, you know, I know
06:40that there was lack of funding or the funding was cut for DHS. So maybe that has something to do
06:45with it. Um, but it's kind of crazy. Let me ask you this. President Trump said he wants to have
06:52this dinner in the next 30 days. First of all, do you think that's going to happen and will they
06:57have, have it at the, at the Hilton in your opinion?
07:01Yeah. I don't, I mean, traditionally it's been at the Hilton. I've always thought that that is a bad place
07:06to do it because it's so big and so difficult to secure. And once again, if they do do it,
07:12I think they got to buy out the whole Hilton.
07:13Right. Yeah. You know, I, he, Trump wanted to have and wanted to continue. He said, we've taken the guy
07:20down. We should continue. And that, that was the wrong call. Uh, and law enforcement did the right thing by
07:26holding the line. Once you take down somebody like that, the entire place becomes an active crime scene.
07:31They interview everybody who was surrounding there. They're looking to see if there's a co-conspirator at that point, the
07:37FBI and the secret service had to be very rapidly trying to assess whether there was a still, still a
07:44threat to the president or the cabinet or anyone else in there, whether this guy acted alone or with other
07:49people. So yeah, that event had to be canceled. I'm sure he wants to do it again. He probably will
07:55do it in the next 30 days.
07:56I hope they don't do it at that Hilton. So tell us about your book, spies, lies, and cybercrime.
08:03It's certainly, it's a, my brand new book. It follows my first book, gray day, which is the story of
08:09going undercover to catch Robert Hanson. And, uh, this book, uh, while gray day talks all about the evolution of
08:16espionage into cyber espionage and what you need to know. This one is very personal to everybody. Uh, it talks
08:24about cybercrime and this wave
08:26of cybercrime that is affecting every single one of us every day. Uh, it's, in fact, it's the fastest growing
08:32business on earth.
08:33The amount of cybercrime that's flowing through the dark web right now surpasses $12 trillion a year, which makes it
08:41the third largest economy on earth, bigger than everything, but the U S and China.
08:46And there's a piece of that coming for all of us. So what the book does is it teaches you
08:52the counter intelligence training that I learned at the FBI Academy, and then out on the street running against Russians
08:59and some of the best in the business to put you in the mindset to identify these attacks, these scams,
09:06before they're able to steal all the money out of your bank account and your identity and everything that really
09:11matters to you online.
09:14And then it gives you the tools to fight back. And it's all through storytelling. So you'll actually, so people
09:20will actually read it and enjoy it. It reads like a spy thriller, but it teaches you what you need
09:25to know to be a spy hunter.
09:26Hmm. Very cool. Great stuff, Eric. Always love having you on good insight and, uh, best of luck with the
09:33book.
09:35Thank you so much. And, uh, always good to be on. Always good to talk to you guys. And maybe
09:39next time I'm into the studio with you. It's so much more fun.
09:42Yeah, definitely. Definitely have to make that happen.
09:44The book is cybercrime, cybersecurity tactics to outsmart hackers and disarm scammers.
09:51I'm sure a lot of people have seen the movie breach, which came out, you know, I know seven is
09:56great. And it holds up today. You're like, well, this pretty damn good.
10:01Even today. And every time I play Westwood country club, which is in Vienna, the one, I think it's like
10:07the seventh tee box right behind the seventh tee box is where Hanson would drop those secrets to the Russians
10:14and pick up the cash.
10:15And every time, every time I'm playing there, I look back and go, that's where he was. Yep. It's incredible.
10:21How do you do on the hole?
10:23Well, some days good. Some days bad. I don't know if it's golf, if it's a hard goal or a
10:28short par five, nice short par five. All right. Coming up next, we're going to back into the commander's draft.
10:34How do you grade what Adam Peters and the commanders did? Sunny styles, number one, they take a receiver in
10:40the third round. We've gone through the whole draft. How do you grade them? Do you feel confident? Do you
10:45like the draft? We'll take your calls next at 1-800-636-1067.
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