Secret Service Secrets

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show episode 903.

Tommy: Happy hump day, Gronks. What's happening? What's going on?

Josh: How are we? I, uh, I'm exhausted.

Tommy: Yeah, the, uh, footlong that you ate, too much carbs.

Josh: No, no, it's not the footlong.

Tommy: Sent you to the floor.

Josh: You know, I, I did actually lie down on the floor. We were just recording something, funnily enough. Uh, yeah, we're recording something remotely where you sort of are directing the client and I'm just managing the production, and I had myself on mute, and I noticed that in the course of about 45 minutes I farted twice, and every single time after doing it I panicked and I thought, have I muted myself? Because wouldn't it be annoying midway through production saying, someone Is someone farting in the audio?

Tommy: I can imagine a few, a few more annoying things that you could get done for mid-call. Yeah, like what happened to the New York Times journalist. New York Times. It was a— who was it? It was someone, it was someone at a big media outlet that got caught masturbating on camera, which we have spoken about. No, but I just feel annoyed.

Josh: The, the social All the social stuff at the moment, just being out and about in the real world. I was speaking to Toni from One Trick Toni, she's done too. I was like, mate, I think I'm about to have a meltdown. This is the— I think I'm feeling the most sort of, I don't know if anxious is the word, just exhausted and a bit depressed since all of lockdown. I think this is like, I'm at peak sort of fragility.

Tommy: Well, I think it was mid-lockdown, if anything, that was riding high. Remember when you were dancing for an hour a day? Well, it lasted maybe 4 days, 2 or 3 days, but still you were dancing and going hard. Yeah, it's been a while.

Josh: How obnoxious for people who were struggling in that moment. If fucking Josh Jansen does one more Instagram Live where he dances like a fucking idiot, I'm done.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, it's obnoxious, isn't it? I got a text message from someone, so it was like my brother or something. He's like, what's going on there? Like, just curious, just wanting to know, like, need to understand what's going on.

Josh: Nothing to do.

Tommy: Well, you've got, you've got, uh, the, the election happening right now as we speak. Um, you know, I don't know where— if you go to different news outlets, you're going to have a different version of who's ahead.

Josh: So is, is that the case? They're all doing the same numbers, aren't they?

Tommy: But they're speculating that Trump's coming back right now, others saying he's clearly ahead, 213 to 118, whatever that means. I don't even understand what this all means. And so I can only speak, uh, once it's done to tell you what— who's winning— who's won, sorry. And so it's all very confusing, confusing time. Scooter Derek, he seems worried about the election, highly worried. From his house in Coburg, or, you know, wherever he is, Preston. You know, it's, it's— there's a lot of, lot that people are taking on board for themselves in this time that if they probably decided not to worry about it, it wouldn't— it would be this, you know, that'd be quite light. But that's what media does. That's what sort of being swamped with, with stuff. So this— yeah, yesterday, beautiful, beautiful Beautiful warm day yesterday, wasn't it?

Josh: It was nice.

Tommy: And, um, Brody had a big sleep. Not always ideal, but he fell asleep in the car and then brought him inside, and then he fell asleep on the couch. And I said, this little kid's tuck it out. But I did— the kid just, if, if you promise him something, he does not let up. Just, you think that he's—

Josh: do you think he's remembered the monster truck that I was going to send to you guys?

Tommy: Oh dude, he's been talking about it.

Josh: Has he really?

Tommy: Fucking He wants his remote control monster truck.

Josh: Has he mentioned, has he said Josh said?

Tommy: No, but he just mentions the remote control Gravedigger monster truck. So you better come through.

Josh: Yeah, it's not long, February 14th, not long until his birthday.

Tommy: It's his fourth. And I did promise him that I'd take him to the dirt jumps, which were locked throughout all of lockdown. And so he woke up and he hasn't asked to go to the dirt jumps in a while. So He woke up first thing, Dad, dirt jumps. I was like, mate, let's do it. It was like 6 PM, 6 PM, it was late, but it's summer, so it's, you know, nice and bright still. Took him down to the dirt jumps about 15 minutes away from our joint.

Josh: And 15-minute drive?

Tommy: Yeah, 15-minute drive, too far to walk. And so I opened the boot to get his bike out, and I was like, oh, fuck it, yes, in the boot. Was some camp chairs that I'd taken to Mr. 97's 21st birthday, episode 900. I was like, mate, this is genius. And so I got the camp chair out and I'm sitting next to the dirt jumps while he's fanging around. I'm, I'm looking at the election. I'm just like, what's going on? I'm just watching some live videos on YouTube, you know. Yesterday it's, you know, it's more confusing than today. At least they're counting votes at the moment. The polls hadn't even opened then, but I was still curious. And hanging out there. We spent like hours there, and Bodhi was sweating and he was ready to go home after it. And then I sort of walked over this mound where I didn't realise there was another dad sitting there. He fucking had a camp chair too, and he was on his phone looking at election stuff in the US.

Josh: Did you have a chat?

Tommy: No, no, I actually spoke more to his son His son reminded me a lot of what you would have been like as a kid.

Josh: Really? What was he doing?

Tommy: Just talking shit. What was he saying? He's like, oh, he'd go up to the top of the jump and he'd be like, oh, so usually I don't have this bike, I've got another bike. Like, just entering into conversation, just, I mean, brakes aren't on this one. Yeah, do you want to watch me? Can you watch me jump this? And he was like 7 and he was just getting me to— it was cute. He was getting me to watch him do jumps, and then he came up again. He's like, mate, my birthday next week, I'm getting a— I just feel like you would have entered into long sort of like threaded convos. He's like, next week my birthday, I'm getting a smaller bike, the 32-inch frame. Usually I could jump from here all the way to the flat bit. And at this point I'm like, you're absolutely talking out your ass.

Josh: Did you say that?

Tommy: So no, I was entertained. I ended up getting up and walking with him to watch him jump this fucking jump. But he just had your vibes all over him. It was cute. It was cute, very innocent. But it's just, yeah, it was cute. Annoyingly, we're all the same. We're all in the same basket. There's all the parents, they're all sitting around on the camp chair watching their kid ride their bike while looking at the election. It's tough times.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, um, I did more steps. I had one of my biggest days of steps yesterday. And it's not even the October step challenge anymore.

Tommy: Oh, you wanna talk, now that your steps are up, you wanna talk steps? Let's talk steps, 'cause mine are down.

Josh: How many steps did you do yesterday?

Tommy: I'll give you this, 'cause you wanna, you're probably, who's winning this month?

Josh: Oh yeah, how do you find out month?

Tommy: You just press month.

Josh: Oh yeah, I'm sure.

Tommy: So there's day, week, month.

Josh: Yeah, what's the average?

Tommy: November average, 4,300.

Josh: 7,800.

Tommy: So you're killing it, you're absolutely killing it. Can you swipe across to see the, the average for October?

Josh: October was, uh, 5,096.

Tommy: 5,096, gotcha.

Josh: It's not great, gotcha. Uh, but no, I did, uh, I walked for how many steps? 17,979. Good amount of walking. Big, big day.

Tommy: Got your Melbourne Cup steps in.

Josh: Yeah, we were hanging out with, uh, Sevs and Grace, and then we're like, you haven't really seen Melbourne before, let's go to the, uh, let's walk into— walk past the MCG, go to the CBD, get a Janine's Favorite at Boost Juice at Flinders Street, then walk along, go to South Bank. And then we were there, then I was like We're not that far from Port Melbourne. Do you want to walk to Port Melbourne? Walk to Port Melbourne as well. But I just, I'm terrible at communicating how long things take because I said big, yeah, walk. I said 20 minutes from like CBD, but then as I was walking, I was thinking, I think it took me 45 minutes. I lived in Port Melbourne to go to, um, to, to Envato where I used to work in the city.

Tommy: But it takes 15-20 minutes on a tram, let alone— and I don't do tram.

Josh: They were asking, they were asking bit. There was a lot of sort of references of the tram, but I just couldn't bring myself to, um, to go on it.

Tommy: And so you— there's always the committing, oh, we're almost there, we might as well keep going.

Josh: Yes, yes.

Tommy: But once you're there, then you realise that you're going to come home. Well, we get home, we had to—

Josh: we booked an Uber XL. It's the only way that you can get 4 people into an Uber at the moment because you can't just get your standard, um, Uber, because you can't really— you can't have someone in the front.

Tommy: And how big is this thing? What is this?

Josh: 30-something bucks. It was just like a four-wheel drive, but it had a back— a backpack, as we used to say as kids. Backpack. Did you say backpack?

Tommy: Oh, get in the back. The backpack. The small back seats. Yeah, like, is that—

Josh: and so Bree went in the backpack, and then we, you know, split a— split an Uber. Uh, so, so that was— so that was nice. But, um, but I'm feeling— definitely feeling it today. I learned something interesting, uh, last night when I was watching YouTube. COVID, right? Do you either have COVID or you don't have COVID, or are there varying levels of having COVID?

Tommy: Um, can I lock in C, varying levels of COVID Correct.

Josh: That would be B, I think.

Tommy: Oh yeah, I couldn't tell how many you'd gone through.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Tommy: You have COVID or you don't have COVID.

Josh: Yeah, so it's two options. You can either— It's the on-off switch or it's a varying amount of COVID Yeah, varying amount, but then which is throughout the whole time.

Tommy: So, that's where they're saying you have X amount of virus, which I don't understand. It's like, did someone do a half sneeze and you only got half of this?

Josh: Well, this is why the video was saying that masks are effective because it actually can control how much, like, even if you get the virus, how much virus you get. But I thought that that was interesting. So, what I thought was how much, how many symptoms you had or like how severe your symptoms were. Were just based on like your response of the virus versus it's actually to do with how much virus you have as well.

Tommy: And so what were you watching? How did you watch that YouTube video?

Josh: Also watched, uh, so before we went to the city, uh, and we were just at home in the aircon, we were watching, uh, videos of the Secret Service.

Tommy: Oh, love some of my favourite Some of my favorite— I'm obsessed at the moment, like, looking at Trump's Instagram where he does more of the behind-the-scenes stuff of like him walking in his plane, or like, I just love the idea of like what's going on in that plane where he's in a room, right? But then there's other people in there that aren't really friends with him. They're probably just guards, but the Secret Service is fascinating. So he'll— even if he doesn't win tomorrow he still will have Secret Service assigned to him for quite some time. Did they reveal that in the doco?

Josh: So, well, uh, all ex-presidents have Secret Service.

Tommy: Not only that, but then it varies. It's almost covert how much Secret Service do you have.

Josh: Did you know that there's a special, uh, water-based Secret Service team?

Tommy: Really?

Josh: So if there's anything to do with the water, if the president is on a lake or on a boat, there is a special Secret Service team that specialises in water-based activities, which I thought was interesting. The other interesting thing, so President going to an event, so you sort of, uh, they work out where the closest hospital is. That's not too crazy. But then it's the job of the Secret Service to go to the hospital and understand, uh, get to know everyone that's at the hospital who's working. So in case of an emergency, they're completely across everyone at the hospital.

Tommy: I'm pretty sure there is someone stationed there during the event.

Josh: Yes, like there's an agent that stays there. It's— man, they, they have, um, oh, there's, there's so many things.

Tommy: I know you don't like movies, but, um, London Has Fallen. It's got Gerard Butler. Yes, yes, it is. London has— yes, it is. London Has Fallen is— there's a few of them. There's Olympus Has Fallen, um, and London Has Fallen. Gerard Butler, nice action film. It's got Morgan Freeman in it, um, Aron Eckhart, and Uh, Gerard Butler is a Secret Service agent, but I, I was obsessed with it for a while after watching that, just understanding, like, just seeing the security, but then even like looking at how they transport the vehicles. Like, no wonder the ego of Trump is, you know, run rampant. Like, imagine the reality of you have cars being shipped with you when you're traveling. It's like, I fucking can't even buy extra luggage. You don't have enough money.

Josh: He's got it.

Tommy: He's got an armoured vehicle on it, on some kind of cargo copter.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, they, uh, they stopped doing open-air cars like convertibles after JFK. Oh, being shot in the head. But, um, yeah, there was— I learned so many things, I've forgotten most of them, but it was interesting. Yeah.

Tommy: I learned something, but I forgot it. That's the motto.

Josh: You learn something, you know, you got to learn, you know, all the different exit signs, all of that sort of stuff. It's good. I do enjoy, uh, the emergency— like, looking at the emergency services. Like, when I was at the fire brigade, they did an anti-terror— what did they call it? Was it anti-terror? Yeah. Um, drills. At, in the, like, uh, the Melbourne Central Underground in, uh, in Melbourne. And so 2 AM, all of the police, fireys, ambulance, that they, they basically ran simulations where they would have fake injured people on the train and they'd have to really sort it all out. Yeah, and I did, I I filmed it.

Tommy: God, I mean, there's anything I just like, I like observing when, say, when the president is walking, you're watching a real live footage of it. I'm always looking to see what the people are doing around, which are all the fake hand or whatever. So what is that? So the fake hand is that they've actually got their hand in their jacket on a gun ready to go.

Josh: Is that even— yeah, there was, there was a secret— there's always the Secret Service agents that then get into, um, writing a book and they end up, you know, in these like—

Tommy: it's a bit bitchy, like you're doing a tell-all.

Josh: Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does seem, seem a little bit, um, tacky. But there was, uh, yeah, there was one guy that was showing how the Secret Service agents get very good. So imagine when Obama was president, he was going into all these different places and people would be hugging him and things like that. And the Secret Service agents learn how to remove the people's arms without the president or the person even realizing, which I feel like is slightly hyperbolic because when you see it, they literally just grab their arm. But the way that he sells it in here, it's like they don't even realize.

Tommy: All right, I found 14. This is called 14 Secrets of Secret Service Agents.

Josh: Right.

Tommy: Number 1, they travel with bags of the president's blood. Number 2, they make sure the president is never alone, even in the bathroom. All right, come on, mate, just fuck it, just want to take a dump. Number 3, they interview potential assassins. Well, so this is a whole thing.

Josh: Do you remember Kathy, Kathy Uh, Griffin, Kathy Griffin, uh, the comedian. Yeah, uh, she had a huge issue because, uh, what did she do? She dressed up, uh, she, she— oh, that's right. So she, she had a severed head of, um, Donald Trump. Yeah, and, uh, it really fucked with her life. Like, she's, um Because after she did it, yeah, uh, there's a whole like, um, anyone that makes a threat to the president gets investigated. That's what they say.

Tommy: Well, it's hard because you're also— the threat was towards the host of, um, The Apprentice. And so it's hard because there's, you know, a bit of column A, bit of column B. Number 4, they can be ordered to protect anyone Number 5, they film the president in case something happens. So like all events are filmed. Number 6, the food is under constant surveillance. Like I've heard and I've seen, there's like Barack Obama coming into a restaurant and you see like there's a burger that looks like he's gonna eat, but he never ate it.

Josh: Yeah, I think you watched the same YouTube doco that I did. 'Cause yeah, they do film that.

Tommy: There's probably one good one that's racked up a whole bunch of views. Yeah. And it's this one, number 7, hotels hate them. When the president travels, the Secret Service kicks into overdrive scouting hotel destinations in an attempt to control a foreign environment. Hotel employees will be in contact with the government entourage are subject to background checks. That's right, yeah.

Josh: If you've ever been to jail, if you've got a criminal record, you're asked to stay home. Also, they get a repair person who, um, like, repairs elevators. That are there on site. So if an elevator dies midway through, they can get it fixed straight away. It's a lot of work. Wow.

Tommy: This one, they tend to pick up new hobbies. Because the president is never without an escort, Secret Service agents are often forced to learn new hobbies. Um, so for instance, like the running.

Josh: Golf, I could imagine. Runs, uh, Trump.

Tommy: There's a lot of time by this Secret Service currently that have spent on a golf course.

Josh: Good fun. I wonder, like, the, um, you're gonna make yourself big if you're, uh, if they're getting shot. Who was the, who was the president that was shot? That, uh, Reagan. Was Reagan shot?

Tommy: He didn't die though.

Josh: No, he didn't die. And so he, um, so when he— so yeah, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley, which was interesting because he— the reason why, uh, Hinckley did it was because he'd watched a film where the protagonist was impressed by a guy who did some sort of political crime. And so anyway, uh, this, this dude was into Jodie Foster, the actress, and he thought that he would impress her And so he shot the president. And so he didn't actually, um, he's like, he served hardly any time, I think, because he was, um, uh, they thought he was insane.

Tommy: He probably was. I mean, you think about it, there hasn't, not that you know of, been an attempt on any of the previous presidents that we've heard about. I mean, it— there's probably been— I mean, there's things like anthrax were sent to the got intercepted going to the White House recently in Trump's administration. I'm sure there's been a bunch of stuff, but you just— it doesn't serve to help. Like, it promotes— once people know that they're getting close to doing something, it, it's almost promoting other people to go, fuck, I'll try that.

Josh: Copycats. I mean, the, the systems and processes that are then developed, like with the Ronald Reagan shooting, what they learned is that you need to keep the limo car door open? Because so if, if the president is near the limo, you'll see that the protocol is the door is always open. And the reason it is is because if someone tries to shoot or something like that, there is an easy way to retreat. Because I believe that with the, the Reagan, uh, the footage I think I saw, that they didn't have it open. And so you know, you're risking valuable minutes there because they're having to, you know, open the door.

Tommy: What would you rather be, a Secret Service agent or a Navy SEAL, elite Navy SEAL?

Josh: As in, do I have the physicality that I have now, or I would take on—

Tommy: No, no, no, no, you wouldn't pass. I would— None of us would pass. This is—

Josh: I mean, no, but the thing is that sometimes you see the classic thing where it's You know, they had to do the beep test, they get in, and then they start eating hot dogs. Um, yeah, what would I prefer to be? Navy SEAL seems cooler. The problem with the service— Secret Service is I feel like it's secret, and so there would be— you wouldn't necessarily get to talk about it that much. Some of them also seem a bit dorky. Those sunglasses they wear, dorky.

Tommy: Well, I think that I can't— you can't tell them apart. That's what— that's probably why.

Josh: Is that what they're doing? Why?

Tommy: Shave their head, a lot of them. They all have a similar vibe, and so they're all just suits, just blending in. But you always know because they've got their hand up to their face, just— yeah, I mean, yeah, you'd probably be you're definitely going to be more likely to be seen as a, um, a Secret Service agent over— I mean, the people that get into it don't want to— most of them don't go on to talk about it.

Josh: It's like, I remember I thought about doing something years ago, going into the Army to do video stuff. Oh yeah, like, I think there'd be something interesting in being the internal media of that type of thing. Like, even when I was at the fire brigade, I got to do a bit of that, going to fire calls, or— And I'm definitely— It is my personality. Think about when the fire— Like, anytime there's sirens, I'm getting my camera out and trying to film something. And I wish that we had that, um, is it called Citizen? I can't remember what the app is in the US where it will, um, I was actually, you know, show all the different emergencies that are around.

Tommy: And I mean, I was listening to a podcast with the, the founder of it. I think it was on This Week in Tech, and, and that app is like, allows people to—

Josh: watching This Week in Tech.

Tommy: Oh, it was a while ago. I was just, I just want— I thought, listen to this, this bloke. And then it was like a recap show, and they had, I think, the person who founded Citizen, or it was like an app where in America you can, if there's a crime, you can report on it in the app. It sort of pulls all the info. People can start videoing. So if there could be like 7 angles of this one crime that then streamed, and so there's more evidence. And, and they started it, seems like a good intention. It actually has helped a lot of, like, a lot of people prove and get police to act in the moment because they see someone like, I'm streaming to this, and then like, oh fuck, we got to do something here. So It's accountability. But no, it could— I mean, people probably also just use it as a, like, a YouTube rabbit hole thing. Oh yeah, it's like, uh, what have we got?

Josh: Instagram, but a little bit more negative, if that's possible. I, I did think— I did really think, how about this, um, Facebook? Can I, can I talk about this? I wonder if I'll get in trouble. Facebook has, completely removed my mate's Facebook Ads account. Completely. So they rely heavily, business, on using Facebook Ads. Just completely delete it, not giving any rate, like giving no reason. It's like, it is really scary when you think about how much these platforms have control over local businesses.

Tommy: They got you by the gonads. It's— I, I got a message from, um, someone who listens to the show, and their friend had their Instagram account removed, their business Instagram account. And she's a wedding celebrant coming into the busy season. Weddings are starting to open back up. That is the business. It's the exact same case as you. It's like, that is her ability to earn money. As an independent, a small— like a small business. And what you're talking about is the, the bizarre thing is it's like, hey, we're up for spending money, we want to give you money, you've actually shut off our ability to hand over cash. And so at that point, they're not worried about a little bit of money from old mate over here.

Josh: Do you know how much, do you know how much, uh, Biden and, uh Trump have spent on Facebook ads in this year, or just like the last 3-month sprint, or just, just this year?

Tommy: Yeah, uh, $10 mil each.

Josh: $100 mil each.

Tommy: $100 million?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So there's something—

Josh: so I was looking at this the other day. There was a great video, uh, by a guy named Noah Kagan. Noah has a site called AppSumo. And he did a deconstruction of the different ads that Joe Biden has done and also Donald Trump, and he sort of compares them. But there's— I'm just looking at it now because I'll cheque it out. There's a thing called, uh, the Ads Library. Do you know about this?

Tommy: The Ads Library? You can see other people's ads that they've run. So you can facebook.com/ads /library.

Josh: So, uh, if you go there, I'm just going to try it now. I didn't try this. So I've typed in Donald. Donald J. Trump comes up, and so you can see a bunch of details there. Tells you the page name. Where is the— where's the price? Where's the amount that's spent?

Tommy: Oh, they tell you how much you spent? Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Issues. Wow. Politics. Facebook. It was interesting. I'm going to try another one. Let's go McDonald's.

Tommy: Man, that's a lot of money. $100 million each.

Josh: They're crazy.

Tommy: Oh God. And then that's the big players. And so then you look at other big players like—

Josh: Oh, that's interesting.

Tommy: Google.

Josh: So it doesn't— So in the Australian stuff it says— this is why I can't see it, I don't think. So McDonald's says spending by this page on ads related to social issues, elections, or politics. We don't have, uh, aggregate spend data for this page in Australia. Changing this country filter may return different results. Okay, so let's try all.

Tommy: US.

Josh: Save. Here you go. Uh, and if we have a look, you can see all different ads that McDonald's are running in different places. But what was really fascinating about it was the, uh it actually shows you where the different, uh, campaigns are being run. So where there's swing states or where, um, you know, they're trying to get more votes, they would be pushing specific ads to those places where they would even change up the content in big ways to be very targeted. But it is an interesting— yeah, the ad library stuff I think could be quite interesting as a way of learning about how different brands are marketing.

Tommy: Oh yeah, I mean, they're, um, I'm just so confused by the, the US election stuff. It's so confusing. Yeah. Do you think, do you think Americans are confused as well, other than just understanding the, the want to get Trump out for a lot of people? It's not even like it's— there's two things going on. There's the, the don't vote for Trump, we want anyone but Trump, and then Biden kind of let— he's, he's been left by the wayside in terms of what he's actually going to do because it's get old mate out at all costs. And so yeah, this is very confusing, very confusing.

Josh: This is fun though anyway, the different, um, different ads.

Tommy: We should wake up tomorrow Australian time and there should be a new president, potentially. No, potentially.

Josh: I think it's very unlikely from what they're saying. Yeah, it could— more than likely it will take weeks, potentially months.

Tommy: Oh no.

Josh: Yeah, so it doesn't have that nice, you know, landing on a decision.

Tommy: It's so annoying.

Josh: Yeah, so that's not ideal, isn't it?

Tommy: Jeez. Anyway, I mean, there's a few live, live podcasts that'll be going for 3 weeks.

Josh: They already— You mentioned the Joe Rogan one, that one's already finished.

Tommy: That's finished.

Josh: Already got over it.

Tommy: I could imagine. I could imagine.

Josh: Send us an email, uh, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. How are you going? How are you going with, uh, if you're in Australia, how are you going with the easing of restrictions? Are you, um, you feeling anxious like me? You're feeling a bit stressed?

Tommy: Victoria?

Josh: Yeah. What about, uh, in England? How are you guys going? Let us know. You're entering into lockdown. France as well. A bunch of different—

Tommy: How you going, France?

Josh: Yeah. Uh, great. All right, well, uh, enjoy the rest of your day, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you guys.