Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer and current CEO of Portman Square Group, a global intelligence and security firm. He’s also the host of the "President’s Daily Brief" podcast: a twice daily news report on critical events happening around the globe available on all podcast platforms. www.portmansquaregroup.com This episode is brought to you by AG1. Take ownership of your health with AG1 and get a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free Travel Packs with your first subscription. Go to drinkag1.com/joerogan Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using dkng.co/rogan or through my promo code ROGAN. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD).21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS).1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $150 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 3/16/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What inspired Mike Baker's Middle East adventure?
So tell everybody what you were doing in the Middle East because it's pretty crazy. Oh, thank you.
Pretty interesting. Yeah, thank you for that. Look, it all started with some colleagues of mine from the UK Special Forces Club. And these guys are tremendous, right? But Howard Ledham and some others who came up with an idea. They said, look, we have to do something to help the benevolent fund, which is for the U.K. Special Forces. It's like wounded warriors here in the States.
And I can say this because I'm a dual citizen with the U.K. The British don't tend to be very good at raising money. or asking for money for very important causes. So here in the U.S. where you've got 100,000 different groups that are advocating for veterans, over there it's not the case, right? But they have the same need, right? And they have all these wonderful people in their families.
So the idea was, what can we do? A big event, something massive that can really help to raise funds and awareness for the Special Forces Benevolent Fund. They came up with this crazy idea at the time, still crazy, to recreate...
A 1917 epic journey that Lawrence of Arabia did through what was considered the impassable deserts of Saudi and Jordan to go from essentially northwest Saudi through these impassable deserts and then into Jordan and then down to Aqaba to route the Turks, who at the time controlled the area.
And with a small Arab army led by several sheikhs and Lawrence, they did this trek of about 1,100 kilometers. It took them several months because they had to stop along the way, plus they were fighting Turks along the way. So we took off in January, mid-January, five riders, 10 camels, and an incredible support team, an incredible support team. Can I just type you there?
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Chapter 2: How did the team handle the challenges of desert trekking?
Is this your first time riding a camel? Well, we went out in December, spent about a week and a half. Howard lives out there, as do one of the other fellows, and- So you had to go through camel riding training? Camel riding training. That's exactly what we did. What is it like riding a camel? It is not comfortable in any fashion. It's not like a horse.
A horse has, you can fall into sort of a rhythm, and a horse has a much smoother gait. So the camel, basically, all you're trying to do, there's the crew. Wonderful guys. Howard, James, myself, Tomo, there's Craig in the back. An amazing crew. I've rarely worked with guys that are just so impressive.
And again, going with the support team, everybody that was on that group, a small group of eight or nine folks. Why does everybody ride with one leg to the side like that? It's essentially a comfort issue. And because you'll notice there's no, they're not really saddles, they're called shaddads that sit on top of the hump. That's a Saudi shaddad. The Omani shaddad is different.
It sits behind the hump and is even less comfortable. And now these things were probably designed some 2,000 years ago and they've never felt the need to improve them. They're basically just some wood, you know, tied together. And then you try to throw a couple of things on top of this piece of wood to make it comfortable.
And I think all the Bedouins and others were laughing at us because we just kept piling blankets on to try to see if we couldn't. Yeah, it was tough. And so ass blisters are a real thing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so anyway, that's what you see there. But there's no stirrups on these things. Like a horse, you know, you're riding on the saddle, you've got stirrups. And it takes the pressure off your legs. You're just hanging on. So you don't want to ride with one leg on either side because it's just not comfortable. So you hitch your leg over the front leg.
And then you kind of put your leg or your foot behind the other leg.
Is it because they're too wide? Is that why you don't want to ride one leg on the other side?
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Chapter 3: What insights does Mike Baker share about geopolitical strategies?
So we're like, no, goddammit. It's sporting, you know, veterans and their families. How tough is that to understand? But, you know, some... You're just taking a difficult trek. It doesn't mean you support colonialism. Yeah. No. Exactly. And by the way, the Arab sheikhs led the way. It was their effort.
Isn't it crazy that you have to look at things through this lens of who in the furthest left, kookiest perspective is going to be offended by this bunch of white people in the desert? Yeah. If anything, it should give you a perspective on how unbelievably brutal the times were back then.
No, absolutely. And you also think that, honestly... It's just look at the cause. Look at the reason for it. Right. But I do think I think that I think we are on the on the on the downhill slope of DEI. Right.
I think that I think the grifters who built up that cottage industry are going to have to be looking for new jobs because I think most companies are starting to think, you know what, let's get off of this thing.
Yes, I think so too. And I also think that if you look at the overall body of work that they've produced, it's very obvious what many of them are doing. I think there's some genuinely good people that are involved in this that really want to do good work. They're very sensitive, kind souls. They probably grew up rich. Probably grew up rich.
Um, but I think there's a lot of, a lot of grifters too, unfortunately. And the grifters, they've, they've been so egregious and obvious that I think it's turned a lot of people up. Even rational, kind, compassionate, progressive people are like enough. This is fucking stupid.
Yeah. Yeah.
Especially when you hear like the, the anti stuff. It's not just like pro whatever you are. It's anti whatever you're not. And then you realize, okay, this is not rational. This is cult-like thinking. And this is a thing where if you don't agree, the punishment is very grave. Like they'll go after you so hard if you don't agree with them. And then you kind of realize what it is.
And then eventually they start to eat their own. Yes. You can never be progressive enough. No, no, no. The mob's always going to turn on no matter who you are and how righteous you pretended to be. And I agree with it. Yeah, good people with good intentions mixed in. But I think a lot of people saw this as a terrific opportunity, right?
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Chapter 4: How does the podcast discuss the complexities of international relations?
Yeah. Everything I know about Khan I learned from Mulan.
Do you know they didn't even fucking know about this whole story until the 1800s? They found a Chinese book, and the Chinese book was written. They thought it was nonsense. They couldn't figure out what it was saying because it was written where the Chinese characters made the Mongol sounds of the words.
And so they had to translate it from Chinese to the Mongolian language, and then they realized this was the history of Mongolia. Genghis Khan and the Khan Empire. It's fucking the secret history of the Mongols. It's fucking amazing. This podcast is fantastic.
Yeah, that does sound great. Because again, I think when you consider how we're all apparently carrying some of his DNA around. Not us. Not us. Not us. Mostly Asians, right? Okay.
Well, I have a little Asian. I mean, I have like 1% Asian. Really? Yeah. Yeah, 1% Asian, close to 2% African. But I'm from Sicily, my ancestors, and so I think those are the ones that got raped by the Moors. That's in the movie True Romance. Remember? Oh, yeah. Remember that scene?
Yeah. Christopher Walken. Christian Slater? No, not Christian Slater. Christopher Walken. Who was it with him? True Romance. There was a whole series of people. Bruce Dern. Right. Who's laying there? No, Dennis Hopper.
Dennis Hopper.
Dennis Hopper. That's right.
Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, right?
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of U.S. foreign policy according to Mike Baker?
pictures of Gaza? Are you telling me there was Hamas, there were Hamas missiles in every single one of those buildings, that that's the entirety of the story, is that Israel just had to blow up this building? Which, by the way, still I don't think would be morally justified. But, like, come on, man.
Look, like, it's just, again, even to Dean's point, I always find this fascinating because somehow Americans could say this about the people in Hamas and go, like, you know, like you said, yeah, I wouldn't like to be kicked out of my neighborhood, but if my government had done October 7th, I'd accept it.
Your government, Dean, destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan. So can you get kicked out of your house now? Is it not ethnic cleansing if we were to kick you out of your neighborhood? This is so ridiculous that we impose these standards on these poor people. that we would never dream of holding ourselves to that standard.
It's just it logically makes absolutely no sense. And it doesn't really matter what Hamas's approval rating is in the same way that it doesn't matter that George W. Bush had record high approval ratings. That doesn't mean that the innocent civilians of the United States of America are fair game. And neither should any other group of civilians. Perfectly said.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, look, if you could do surgical strikes and do nothing but kill Hamas terrorists. Great. Yeah. But, you know, that's not the real world. You know, Dave's talking about a world that we don't exist in. But I would argue like and that's this is where we would differ. I like Dave Smith a lot and I think he's incredibly intelligent.
But, you know, we fundamentally look at things sometimes differently. in a different worldview because of our experiences, right? And my experience has been dealing with a lot of hostile actors who, you know, you may look at and think, okay, well, can't we just... I don't say we'll get along, but they exist and we exist and do we really... That's not the world we work in, right?
And urban combat is really ugly. It's not dismissing, you know, the horrific nature of it and the fact that, yeah, sure, in a perfect world, it's morally repugnant. And it is, you know, but... It's the world that we live in, so I think, okay, on one hand, I get what he's saying, and I don't disagree on that moral side of things, but from my background, I don't tend to live in that world.
I tend to live in sort of the operational side of things, and sometimes you have to do things that are not good.
But even as extreme as that?
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Chapter 6: How does the episode address modern media and misinformation?
I think if you're persistent about it—and I think your timeline is that you mentioned the midterms— That would be my focus. Right. I want to get it well done before the midterm elections. Right. Because I'm be concerned about losing the House. So you've got that runway to work with. Then then go. But don't feel like you got to get it done in the first four weeks.
So there's a lot of messaging that you hear online that, you know, you've got to kind of decipher. And one of them is the price of eggs for whatever reason. The price of eggs is a big one that gets bandied about. People need to understand what the price of eggs is all about. One of the things is they killed a lot of chickens during the Biden administration because of this bird flu thing.
So they killed millions of chickens because the fear is that these chickens are going to hop over to people. And right now I think it's only in geese and ducks. Is that correct? Yeah. Did it move to cattle? I think it has in some cases moved to cattle. But the question is, like, what happens? Is that treatable with antibiotics? Is this overblown?
Like, what is the actual reality of this pandemic, so to speak? This is why egg prices are so high. But then, unfortunately, it becomes a political talking point. And so it's hard to get to the bottom of it because you're just trying to use it to cast blame. So they're trying to blame this administration on the price of eggs. They're fucking up. Regular people are going to starve. Yeah.
Yeah. Look, he's been in office for 23 days. Egg prices haven't come down. You guys were lied to.
Well, guess what? It takes a long time for a chicken to be able to grow from a chick to an egg laying. It takes months. Yeah.
Yeah.
So you're not going to get any discount in eggs anytime soon if they killed millions of chickens, which they definitely did.
Oh, no. Remember the old mad cow disease? years and years ago. Sure, England had a big problem with that. Yeah, beef prices.
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Chapter 7: What are the perspectives on the current political climate?
That's what I was reading through the Wikipedia. There's been multiple times, starting with seven years later, to try to investigate what happened, and I don't know how you would really go about doing that.
Yeah, the most recent article was like there was some recent revelation, some information that was given to them by the tribe's people about what happened.
The first one said that they sent a guy down there, a private investigator, who came back with three skulls, and they said one of them was the skull. So I don't know how they would prove that.
Well, why do they have skulls laying around? Yeah. You know what's going to solve this problem is going to be the newly formed U.S. government agency for the declassification of documents. That's going to solve this problem. Federal Secrets. Which one's that? Federal Secrets.
Is that the JFK UFO one?
Yep, Epstein Files, COVID. Are those hot ladies running it? Anna Polina Cruz. Why is she running it? Because she's hot. I don't know.
I think maybe they should just release the documents. If you're going to release the documents, release the documents to the people on the internet.
They'll figure it out. They don't need you. I know. They've got this new committee, and COVID is also on the table. UFOs, now Michael Rockefeller, I would argue.
I'm hoping that's where the $4.7 trillion went.
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Chapter 8: How does AI technology affect public perception and media?
Well, apparently it's a pet project, no pun intended, of the governor of Colorado's husband. His husband is big on wildlife, which everybody should be.
Who's the governor of Colorado again? I don't remember.
Oh, well, yeah, not important. Not important. It is important if you live in Colorado. But the reality is it's already started. The wolves are there. And they were coming into Colorado anyway. There's Colorado wolves that were moving in from neighboring states. Colorado borders Wyoming, of course. And they don't stop at the border.
It's not like they go, oh, fuck it, it's Colorado.
Oh, they travel hundreds and hundreds of miles. We showed a video on here once of a friend of mine filmed a wolf in Bakersfield, California. And I was like, well, these people that live out there, the ranchers that live out there, talk to me about it. One of my buddies who actually works on a ranch filmed it, filmed this wolf, and we actually played the video.
It's a big black wolf that's in a cattle field in fucking Bakersfield. It's just outside of Bakersfield. It's like off the five. Well, we had Diane Boyd on, who is a wolf reintroduction specialist. She's studied wolves her whole life. And she's not in favor of reintroduction of wolves. She thinks they should reintroduce to areas naturally, and they're going to do that anyway.
They're going to migrate into these areas naturally, and that's the best way to let it happen. But she said they can travel hundreds and hundreds of miles. And that this wolf probably came all the way from Oregon and just made its way down. It probably wasn't even because their fear was that some crazy wildlife group is like, we're going to reintroduce the wolves ourselves.
And they're capturing these wolves and then bringing them to California. Fuck you, rancher. You should be eating soybeans and just release them. She doesn't think that. She thinks those wolves actually probably made it from the wild all the way down there because they really travel insane distances.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I'm glad to hear that she's, after all that experience, she's not in favor of a program. I mean, that shows a lot of common sense.
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