--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to an extra edition of Morning Wire. I'm John Bickley, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, and I'm joined by my co-host Georgia Howe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Today, we're talking about the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel, and the efforts of a private group that's been rescuing thousands of civilians from these conflict zones.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right. Joining us to discuss this is the founder of Project Dynamo, a rescue and evacuation nonprofit team. He's a multiple-tour Army and Navy combat veteran. Welcome to the show.
--:-- Brian Stern: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: So, Brian, tell us about Project Dynamo. How did it come into existence?
--:-- Brian Stern: We're a veteran-led, donor-funded, Florida-based international rescue organization. The best way to think about Dynamo is we work where the U.S. government is not, for whatever the reasons are. Either if they left, like in Afghanistan, and that's where we started, or if they're never going to come, like in Ukraine, we're never going to send a SEAL team into Ukraine to rescue somebody. We're not going to do that. Or until they get there, in the case of Hurricane Ian and Maui, and then to a recent example in Israel and Gaza, where it took a minute, it took about a week for them to figure out how to rescue Americans that were stuck. We kind of fill that gap. So we're not supplemental, we're in lieu of. If the government is there, we're generally speaking not there.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's fascinating. You started as a result of the failed evacuation of Afghanistan. Can you walk us through how that happened?
--:-- Brian Stern: Yeah. We knew people were getting left behind. We had a lot of people reaching out to us. Lots of different veteran groups were trying to figure out what to do. I was a 9-11 first responder. I was in both collapses. I'm an Afghan vet myself. Like many veterans, I was trying to figure out what do I do and whatever. Then I saw the breaking news of the C-17, the big military plane at Kabul with Afghans jumping to their deaths. And it shocked me like it shocked so many. But for me, it was a little bit different. It brought me right back to 9-11. It rubbed me raw, set a fire off in me.
--:-- John Bickley: That must have been incredibly difficult to see. What did you do next?
--:-- Brian Stern: We packed our stuff. I got some guys together. And we packed our stuff and we deployed forward. And that's a big difference between Dynamo and all the other groups out there, is that we know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. We actually do operations. We actually are on the street. If you go to any of our social media, what you see is me and my team in all these places with thousands and thousands of people that we rescued.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's amazing. Since you started in August 2021, to date, you've completed over 600 rescue missions, and that turns into just under 7,000 people. Can you walk us through some of the specific missions you've been on?
--:-- Brian Stern: Yeah. We've done everything from Americans left behind in Afghanistan to we've rescued 68 American babies under the age of a month old from the war in Ukraine. We've broken Americans out of jail from inside Russia. We've landed airplanes in Sudan. We were in Gaza, where we are in Gaza, and we started doing Israel. So somewhere in there, we did the fires in Maui and also Hurricane Ian, too.
--:-- John Bickley: That's incredible. One of the things that's really stood out to us is the work you've been doing in Israel and Gaza. Can you tell us more about that?
--:-- Brian Stern: Yeah. So, from Israel, we're over 300 people that we've personally touched. We've coordinated an extra 400 or so, but we didn't meet those. So we're very careful when we give numbers out. We're very careful to say what we've personally done and what we've assisted with. How many trips? We don't like to really give that out. What I'll say is that I was in Israel the day after. We went wheels up. I went wheels up the night of the 7th, night of the 7th, and then got to Tel Aviv pretty quickly thereafter.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's really impressive. One of the things that's come up in our research is that you're not just doing evacuations, but you're also doing hostage rescue operations. Can you tell us more about that?
--:-- Brian Stern: Yeah. We have four lines of effort in Israel-Gaza. As a whole, that portfolio is called promised land. And under it, we have four lines of effort. One is called Moses. Those are the big flights that you've seen on TV, and that's part of what Florida paid for. We have another line of effort called Noah. And Noah are people who are stuck in Gaza, who are trapped in Gaza. They're not hostages, but they're stuck there nonetheless. We have another line of effort called David. David are true hostages, people that are in captivity, held by Hamas or the Pidge or what are the other fringe groups? And we have another program called Genesis, which is kind of an outlier. Genesis is our humanitarian aid program which if we have the opportunity to bring things into the war effort, tourniquets, diapers, food, that kind of stuff, we have a whole line of effort just for that too.
--:-- John Bickley: That's really interesting. One of the things that's come up in our research is that you have a complicated relationship with the U.S. government. Can you tell us more about that?
--:-- Brian Stern: We have a complicated relationship with the U.S. government, is how I would characterize it. Not good, not bad, but generally speaking, good. And you got to remember that more or less, where we work, they're not there. So we really can't be friction. At the institutional level, there's sometimes challenges. But at the individual level, from very senior leadership all the way down to more junior people, there's a lot of admiration. I mean, I get resumes constantly from people who are government who are like, yeah, I'm going to retire real soon. Can I come work for you?
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's really interesting. One of the things that's come up in our research is that you're a private entity, and you're doing operations that are typically done by the government. Can you tell us more about how you're able to do that?
--:-- Brian Stern: We are creative. I don't answer to anybody. I have one customer and one customer alone. That's the people that we're rescuing and their families. And that's it. So if you talk to an ambassador of a country that we're working in, that ambassador, to no fault of his own, it's not a negative reflection on the ambassador, but he's got a number of priorities. Many priorities from world opinion to answering to the president, to answering to the minister of foreign affairs of the country, to weapons sales, to trade deals, all kinds of things. We are singular in focus. So it's one of the reasons why we're so successful, because we really don't have other things to distract us.
--:-- John Bickley: That makes a lot of sense. One of the things that's come up in our research is that you're dependent on donations. Can you tell us more about how you maintain transparency with your donors?
--:-- Brian Stern: Sure. From a transparency perspective, one of the best things to do is go to our social media or just Google us. There's a lot of different nonprofits out there. Many of them are very, very, very good and legitimate. Many, many, many, I would argue even more of them, are not. And what I always tell people is, is if you're considering donating to a rescue cause, go to their social media, figure out who you're talking to and look. And if you don't see lots and lots of pictures of people doing the work, not locals, the actual people, then maybe you should reconsider.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's really helpful advice. One of the things that's come up in our research is that you're facing a lot of challenges in terms of fundraising. Can you tell us more about that?
--:-- Brian Stern: Yeah. Philanthropy in America is down 47%. My donors are extremely loyal, but the reality is, is Israel-Gaza is the seventh time in 26 months that I've had to go to them and beg for money. Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, Hurricane Ian, Maui, and now Israel and Gaza. That's seven full-scale deployments in 25 months. They're tired.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. It's been really enlightening to learn more about the work that you're doing.
--:-- Brian Stern: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to this extra edition of Morning Wire. If you want to learn more about Project Dynamo and the work that they're doing, you can visit their website at [website URL].
