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
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Baker, good to see you, my friend. It's good to be seen. Thank you, Mr. Rogan. Thank you. You're taking notes already? I am. He said, good to see you. Yeah, I know. I don't know what I do this.
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?
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.
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