What was Mike Hayes's role in the Captain Phillips rescue, according to The Shawn Ryan Show?

Mike Hayes told Shawn Ryan that, as a White House fellow on the National Security Council in 2009, he read the hijacking alerts at 3 a.m. and feared the pirates would trade the American hostage to al-Shabaab. He alerted a friend on standby at Red Squadron, then went to the Pentagon's command centre, where the operations director said the military would do nothing. About 20 minutes after getting back, Hayes called him again citing White House guidance to prepare military courses of action, and he went on to run the interagency effort from the Situation Room.

• Hayes held twice-daily secure video calls with Defense, State, Justice and other agencies.
• Hayes asked agencies to plan ahead for live or dead pirates: where to prosecute them, or how to bury them without a strategic loss.
• President Obama later sent Hayes a handwritten note saying he had made a family very happy on Easter.
• Hayes believes the operation built the administration's confidence in special operations ahead of later bold calls.

▸In their words

“I'm calling with White House guidance. The White House needs you to prepare courses of action” Mike Hayes · at 3:09:29 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Shawn Ryan Show (2026-10-22). Read the whole episode summary →

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