"I Was Going To Survive For A Reason" | Captain Sam Brown
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Well, folks, there is a very hotly fought race in Nevada for the Senate. It features Captain Sam Brown against Senator Jackie Rosen. That is a very tight state. I had the opportunity to go sit with Sam Brown, talk about his life, talk about what he's going to do for the state of Nevada if he is, in fact, elected senator. Here's what that talk sounded like. All right. Well, thank you all for being here today. And a big thank you to Ben Shapiro for coming out to rally with us.

Obviously, it's an unbelievably important election cycle, and this is one of the most crucial elections in the country. And Republicans need to maintain control of the United States Senate, whether it is President Trump, as we all hope and pray. If he is elected, obviously he needs a Republican Senate to work with. And if, God forbid, he is not elected president of the United States, there has to be a stone wall in the way of the Democratic agenda.

Sam, it's a pleasure to come out here with you. I know today's a really important day for you. It's actually the book release for you, but more importantly, the book is about what day it is. A live day for you. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that for people who don't know. Thanks. It's probably the most important day every year for me because of the significance of it. And today is my 16th Alive Day. For...

For those who are like, Sam, what's an alive day? It's basically, it's the day I was blown up in Afghanistan. And essentially what happened, Ben, is as I was blown up in that vehicle and I was lit on fire from the diesel fuel, there was a point where right before that, I was a 24-year-old young man

as fit as could be, a West Point graduate, a Ranger school graduate, leading troops professionally on top of the world. And in that very next moment, I realized that I was nothing apart from God and his mercy on my life. So I literally threw my arms in the air and I screamed out for God.

And the important thing that happened that day, as I was laying there trying to scoop dirt on top of myself, trying to fight the flames, and I realized I couldn't put them out. I had these three thoughts go through my mind. How long is it gonna take to burn to death? What's the transition from this life to the next gonna be like? And I made the conscious decision to give up the will to live. And in that very next moment, after I've released my life into eternity and was looking forward to the relief from the pain, I heard the voice of one of my soldiers.

And he said, "Sir, I've got you." That was the spark of hope. The place where I'd given up all hope of life. And then I felt him rushing over the top of me and scooping dirt on top of me. And it was his actions coupled with his words that gave me the hope to hang on. And I knew I was going to survive and I knew that I was gonna survive for a reason. And before I even left the battlefield on a helicopter,

I had this impression in my heart, a new life motto, the life I live is not my own. And I've lived that as best I can over these last 16 years. And yes, today on the anniversary of my Alive Day, Amy and I wrote this book together, Alive Day, by Captain Sam Brown with Amy Brown, who I just wanna thank for being here, being a part of my life, for being a major part of my recovery. Thank you.

We've been married for 15 years and we have three incredible children. And I just wanted to gift this to you on today and an appreciation for you being here and everything that you have done. And I hope that in some way it encourages you to just keep pushing and that it may be an encouragement to others as well. I mean, obviously...

You know, it is a miracle. And the story of your relationship too, because what this has led to is not only obviously God saving you, but also he has a purpose for you. He does, not just obviously with your wife, with your family, but I think politically, I mean, you have something to say, you have something important to do. Can you talk a little bit about what the recovery process was like? Because you've said before that, and we were talking backstage, that you spent three years effectively campaigning at this point because you ran in the primary and then you ran again.

But that's nothing compared to obviously what you had to go through in the three years of everything you had to go through in the aftermath of the IED. You know, at the time, I couldn't imagine what it may be preparing me for, but it was an endurance sport. It was a grind. I think our natural instinct as humans is to really just feel fear and anxiety and maybe even some anger about what we're going through.

I really leaned into some scripture that said, rejoice in your suffering because suffering produces endurance. Endurance leads to increased character and then character hope. And I just, I held onto that because I knew that my life, I should not be alive. And so the fact that I was alive meant that I needed to hold onto the truth of scripture. And so I held onto that. I did build that endurance. I was able to be joyful in that suffering. And what that has led to today is

Has anyone ever seen any ads, negative ads about me out there? Just a couple of you. I've got, and I love you guys. And it's why I'm doing this. I love you to death. And if you ever get mad at those ads, I just want you to know that when I see them, I chuckle.

because I know that is the best they can do. The Democrats are fighting and they are pulling everything they can. And it doesn't lack, I mean, it lacks character, it lacks truth, but they are desperate for power. They are desperate for control. And I guess I was conditioned to be ready for this moment, even though I couldn't have imagined that's what it would be 16 years ago today. And I'm just grateful for all of you for being here and being a part of this mission.

So let's talk about this race. Obviously, this is one of the hottest races in the country. It's a very, very close race.

You've shown me some of the internal pollings a lot closer than a lot of the public polling suggests that the race is. Right now, it's going to get closer, folks, a lot closer before the end of this election cycle. And just my own political analysis from 30,000 feet, not just of the state race, but of the national race, that the race is going to get a lot closer than it is right now. All the talk about how Kamala Harris has tons of momentum and joy, it's all fading. Nate Silver had an analysis today in which he explicitly says that effectively she may have hit her high watermark. And if President Trump performs in the debate, things are going to get

even closer. She's having to spin all of her positions. And that means, as the joy fades, that so will her numbers. And you're going to start to see her come back down to earth. That is the sort of predicted course of events.

It's not just gonna happen on the national level, it's already happening on the state level. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the state of the race as you see it. If we kind of look back over the last few months, since really when the primaries ended, we have been just under a barrage of attacks. Attacks against me, attacks against other Republicans on the ticket. The Democrats have spent $40 million on this race so far. To our side, collectively, has been about $10 million.

So we have been enormously outspent. And what I liken it to is modern day campaign trench warfare. Thank God we've got our side dug in and you guys aren't budging either, right?

But what we effectively have is kind of this no man's land of people who either don't know enough or haven't arrived at having an opinion or sort of a leaning one way or another. That's about 10% of the electorate. A lot of those are independent voters. And so the issues that they are primarily concerned about are around economic issues, personal financial stress issues,

and also border issues are kind of the two major issue sets. Even though we have been massively outspent, the race is still margin of error close on our internal polling. And look, guys, I'm not one of these guys I want to just be told what I want to hear.

That doesn't do me any good. As a battlefield commander, you can't make decisions on bad, you know, fluffy intel, right? And so the team has been shooting me straight. We're just a smidge behind. And so we're now on the offensive and we're getting ready to move through to a victory.

And it would be shocking if she were able to actually increase her favorables, given that she's been in the Senate for nearly a decade and been completely useless that entire time. Obviously, Nevada has lagged behind other states in terms of its unemployment rate, in terms of the turnaround from COVID. Other states recovered quite quickly from COVID. Nevada really lagged, thanks in large part to the then Democratic governor of the state. But when it comes to the state of Nevada, obviously, economic policy matters an awful lot. And Jackie Rosen is going to vote almost immediately.

almost 100% of the time. She has with Joe Biden, and she will with a President Kamala Harris, God forbid. Let's talk about where Jackie Rosen is on economics, as opposed to what your program is for the state of Nevada. Well, the bottom line is, she's going to be wherever Biden was, and she's going to be wherever Harris is, to your point. In fact,

You know, we all know that a lot of the inflationary price rises that we saw over these last couple of years were because of the Biden large spending bills. We're talking about trillions of dollars. And what I think a lot of folks, if they don't follow the politics in and out, what they don't understand is somebody cast a tie-breaking vote that somebody was Kamala Harris on each of those large spending bills.

But our senator, Jackie Rosen, had an opportunity to keep it from being a tie-breaking vote. And so she was the 50th Democrat senator to put that thing into a position where it had to go to a tie-breaking vote and allowed Kamala Harris to vote on it. And so she is so out of touch. She has personally voted to allow for these increases. Our energy policy under this administration is, I call it suicidal. It's a suicidal energy policy. And she has to own every single bit of it.

The other area, obviously, that is very crucial to the people of this state is the issue of immigration. So I used to be from California, and then I fled, like many people in Nevada, actually. But I fled to Florida. So I went as far as I could go. I was like, hey, here's California. Florida's all the way down here. I'm going as far as I can go on the other coast to get the hell away from California. So you like humidity, though? Yeah, exactly. Love the humidity. Mosquitoes, alligators. Alligators. Yeah, exactly. All that kind of good stuff. And some good governance, actually. But, you know, change in sort of

Illegal immigration as an issue in the Southwestern United States, it's had a massive impact on the people who have stayed, who have lived here. I saw it when I was living in California, so I realized what illegal immigration can do to a state because I watched it do it to California. Obviously, it matters a lot to the people of Nevada. Jackie Rosen has been on the wrong side of this issue at every available term. Jackie Rosen sits on Homeland Security Committee. She has, yeah, did you guys know that? So she has, you know, positional oversight issues

She ought to be very in touch with what's happening on the border. And as it has impacted Nevadans, she should have been pushing back against this administration. A leader or a representative of we the people should represent our concerns and our solutions.

And rather than doing that, rather than representing our issues and concerns back to her party in DC, no, she represents the party's wishes, Chuck Schumer's wishes, Joe Biden's wishes, Kamala Harris's wishes, and she comes back to try and justify it to us. In fact,

Over the course of this entire administration, over four years now, she's made one visit to the border. And that was just a few months ago for a little photo op to say, oh, look, I've been to the border. We need to do more, yada, yada. But again, I go back to that same lesson I learned 16 years ago today, which is words alone when somebody is in crisis or there is a crisis, words alone don't solve a problem. It does not give hope.

You have to have action. And Jackie Rosen has failed to act regardless of what she said time and time again.

Well, it's clear that Jackie Rosen answers to the Democratic Party elite. That's where she's raising her money. She's raising her money largely from New York and California as opposed to in-state here in Nevada, which means that she's answerable to the Democratic Party elite on pretty much every score. And even the areas where she supposedly is a moderate, she is not, in fact, a moderate because in the end, she is going to side with the leaders of the Democratic Party. I see that you're wearing a pin over there.

when it comes to foreign policy, Jackie Rosen has made herself out to be more hawkish than the sort of typical Democrat has been. That has not been the case with this Democratic Party. This Democratic Party has been incredibly weak when it comes to foreign policy as a general matter. You know, obviously, given your own personal experiences in Afghanistan, given the fact that the Biden administration presided over what I think is the most humiliating defeat in the history of the United States in terms of the pullout from Afghanistan, I wonder your thoughts about the administration and about the senators who are complicit in that.

Yeah, I think you hit a really important point there. The senators that were complicit in that because this administration has had failed foreign policy from day one. I think we've got to consider our border policy part of foreign policy at this point. And when Joe Biden went into the White House, literally after coming off the steps of the Capitol and started signing executive orders, attacking our border policy, that just started a domino of other things. And this Senate, led by Chuck Schumer,

along with Jackie Rosen, has had opportunities to step up and stop the normalization of relationships or the attempt of with Iran. You know, the literal sending of billions of dollars to Iran, the lifting of sanctions against Iran that has funded more terror than probably anything else over decades. And she wants to talk about how, you know, we need to do more. Again,

Words alone are meaningless in the face of no action that allows for the massacre of so many people in Israel.

the hostages that are still being held. And it goes beyond that to this new coalition that's forming between China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. Our enemies are afoot. They see a weaker United States of America and we need President Trump back in the White House and we need a strong Republican Senate to ensure that we regain our footing as the strongest nation in the world and we can lead again.

So I wanted to ask you about this from sort of both sides of the possible aisle. So let's say that, God willing, Donald Trump wins reelection, as I think we all hope and pray that he should. What are the first priorities for you as a senator working with President Trump to accomplish?

one of the first acts as a senator is going to be make sure that we're confirming people into the cabinet. Confirming department heads, agencies, that we get a clean sweep of this Biden administration executives out of the way. Guys, this race is so important because if we win it, we do take the Senate majority. But can you imagine a scenario where if President Trump wins,

but the Democrats find a way to keep the Senate majority. Will he get anything done? And it starts with those confirmations right there on day one.

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And now when you look at the other side of the aisle, this is the part that's truly scary. So let's say President Trump with the Democratic Senate, that's bad. That means there's gridlock. It means that President Trump isn't able to do anything except for some of the executive policies that he can put in place. The really, truly scary possibility, of course, is that now that President Biden is no longer in the race and possibly no longer alive,

It turns out that Kamala Harris, having replaced President Biden in the nomination race, that if she were to win and if she were to gain control of the Senate, if she were to have a Democratic Senate, you're not just talking about bad policy. You're talking about a complete rewrite of the Constitution of the United States.

Almost undoubtedly, the Democrats have already pledged to kill the filibuster when it comes to things like enshrining, for example, ballot harvesting across the United States, loosening security measures with regard to voting, making sure that

Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. are added as two separate Democratic states in the United States Senate, thereby guaranteeing a Senate Democratic majority. They've pledged, Kamala Harris has already pledged, that she is going to try for term limits on the Supreme Court of the United States at the very least. So you're talking about a systemic shift in government if Democrats were to gain even 51 votes. I mean, I don't have to remember when it was a big deal that Democrats took 60 to ram through Obamacare. Now, if they get to 51, they're going to redo everything.

That's right. This really could be the last consequential election of the rest of our lives because all we need to do is take the Democrats at their word. That's it. I'm not asking you to make some sort of leap or some conclusion that you've got to go two or three steps. I mean, they've literally said that they want to do these things. And like, guys, it's not going to be easy. And the battle really kind of, you know, one sense of it, it culminates here on November 5th.

but then we've got to keep working. And there's no guarantee that just because we win these elections that we're able to push that off. One of the things that really has been frustrating, I think is probably the best way to put it, is to see how easily the Democrats will lie. If we look at

I mean, it's kind of funny, but what I'm talking about isn't just like the lies when they were attacking me on something that's just made up whole cloth. I'm talking about when they will take something like President Trump came here, right here to Las Vegas at a rally, and he announced, "I will eliminate taxes on tips." Immediately, I said, "That is a brilliant, brilliant policy. I am all on board." You know what the Democrats here did, including Jackie Rosenstein?

Oh, no, no, no, that's a campaign gimmick. That'll never pass. That'll hurt working class families. It took them about three weeks to hear from Nevadans, to hear from their constituents, and then they flipped on it. Oh, no, no, we're all for no tax on tips too.

In fact, Jackie Rosen has signed on to a bill that Ted Cruz authored. Her and Catherine Cortez Masto, the only two Democrats to sign on to it. So when they are willing to see the policies that we know are real and representative of the solutions that people need, we need to secure the border more. Now you hear them talking about, oh, we gotta secure the border. We gotta do this more. That's what's scary is because so many people aren't able to follow the politics day in and day out. And they are being lied to

and lying is gonna have consequences if they win.

You know, it has been amusing to watch Kamala Harris in real time morph into Donald Trump. I mean, like, actually grow out her hair in bizarre, in different ways, and she's kind of taken on different affects. We know that she can code switch depending on where she's speaking. So she's taken on a bit of a Trumpian affect as she adopts all of his positions. She cut an ad the other day in which she's walking right next to the border wall as she explains that she's going to be solid on border security after, of course, declaring... Wait, she's been to the border or was it Europe? LAUGHTER

In 2019, she said that border wall is a medieval structure, which, I mean, by the way, walls actually predate the medieval era, believe it or not. They go pretty much all the way back. We've had walls for a super long time in human history, but she's walking along the wall now and pretending that she built the thing, of course. She has adopted the no tax on tips. One of the things that was funny about that, you mentioned the media briefly there. The media coverage between when Trump said it and when she said it is 180. So when Trump said it was, look at all the terrible costs that are going to attach in terms of taxpayer benefits

and revenue to the federal government if you get rid of tax on tips. It'll just be all costs. And the minute she says it, it's like, look at this massive, incredible benefit that will be available to all these people who receive tips. How on a personal level? I mean, obviously, I've been in the center of a bunch of media fights, but I'm not running for office. You're a human being, obviously. How do you deal on a personal, how does your family deal with being the victim of not only $40 million in attack ads, but also a media that is either lying about you or ignoring you? Those seem to be the two modes.

I think a lot of this is kind of derived back again, and I don't mean to harp on it. It's just like literally my alive day was the most consequential day of my life. You know, it is sort of cast the die on who I am. And so I'm at this place, Ben, where I spend time thinking, contemplating, or worrying, if you will, about things I can control. Things I can't control, I just have to let it go. But it has been absurd,

the way that the media has covered this race and the way that social media too, by the way, has covered me. Some of you may remember when I was kicked off of

which is now known as X, about three years ago because I posted a picture of me saluting the flag and my face was scarred. It was before I had more surgery than a Kardashian. And they kicked me off because they said it was a sensitive image and all this stuff. But even recently, I did an interview with Michael Knowles from the Daily Wire. Did anyone see that interview?

Only a couple of you. It's okay. Tap and applause for Michael Mulls is totally on par. Here's the amazing thing. It was a great interview. I thought it was a fantastic interview. Really enjoyed it. And I was looking at his kind of YouTube history and he sent me a screenshot. He said, Sam, I don't know what's going on here. He's like, I'm used to being kind of throttled by the social media companies. He said, I get almost nothing below 500,000 views. A lot of times I'm getting up to a million or more views on his YouTube stuff.

on the screenshot he sent to me, 30,000 views. He's like, I don't know what you did, but they are keeping this from being seen by anybody. So if you haven't seen it, which was about four of you who did, go check it out. I mean, it was a great, great interview, but at the end of the day, I can't control what they do. Now, I do think

When I become a senator, maybe someone ought to start asking some questions and we start to dig into a little bit about what these social media companies are doing. It is very weird how the errors in Alexa or YouTube, they always cut one way, right? It's always an accident. That's what you hear from the companies afterward. Well, you know, we didn't mean for it to happen, but the accident is never Alexa explaining why Donald Trump should be elected, right? It's always the accident explaining why Kamala Harris should be elected. And oversight is going to be a key function when you're in the United States Senate. I mean, there's so many factors

relationships that exist between the Democratic Party, people in government, and, for example, social media. One of the things that we've seen as a company, again, that's sort of throttling. We do see that all the time. We have to constantly censor ourselves on issues as simple as, for example, describing geography. If you describe the geography of, say, the Philadelphia Corridor, which is the area between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, rather,

If you describe that geography, they will ding you. They will downgrade your videos so that information is not readily available to the public. It's going to require a significant amount of pushback from Republicans in the Senate. Because again, one of the things I think that is so frustrating for all of us, it's been frustrating for me for years. I think this is the story of conservatives in the country. It feels like all the institutions of power in the United States have been wrested away.

And that's what it feels like. And it feels like the only way to regain power is going to be to reinvigorate those institutions with some form of conservatism, starting with the United States Senate. But that requires people who actually understand things like business. I want to ask you, you know, you obviously were in the business world. So what are some of the lessons from the business world that you're going to bring to the job that, say, Jackie Rosen will not?

The business world has to deal with so much regulations, so much friction that is created by the government that even I wasn't smart enough to go calculate this on my own. So fortunately, a University of Chicago professor did a study, just completed a study not that long ago, who looked at the cost of regulations on the average American over the course of three years. So they looked at President Trump's first three years in office.

They estimated the average American was saving $10,000 over those three years. Conversely, Joe Biden, his first three years, this Biden-Harris administration, an additional cost of $20,000 per person. So regulations is something that all businesses have to deal with. We have to be on the lookout also for really sneaky things. And this was unfortunately passed by a bipartisan vote.

through both houses, something called the Corporate Transparency Act. Have you heard of this? - I have not. - Okay. So Vivek's got a reputation for like, "Hey, I'm gonna go attack these things about the government overreach too far." He didn't know about this either. But by the end of this year, if you own a business, if you have a 10% stake in a business,

You have got to register with the federal government by your name, by the business, and it is going to be their information to get. And if you don't do it by the end of this year, you're going to have to pay fines. And if you stay delinquent on it, you could be assessed criminal penalties and become a felon. Who knew about that in this room? Just a couple of you.

That is the scary thing about this government. It is always seeking to find ways to come in and just stifle business. You know, one of the things that I've talked to some folks about on like the no tax on tips is another sort of business thing is people say, well, the businesses have to pay a part of the tax on that, you know, payroll tax. Well, if we're going to eliminate the taxation for the individual server or whoever's providing that service,

The businesses shouldn't have to pay that either. By the way, the Trump era tax cuts, anyone benefit from that? Those are gonna expire at the end of 25 if we don't have President Trump back in the White House and Republicans in the Senate to pass that thing through. We've gotta extend those or make them permanent.

The economic proposals, obviously, that have been put forward, or at least floated. I won't say put forward because Kamala Harris hasn't actually put forward any positions. It's been all vibes and joy. She's had her campaign float a bunch of trial balloons, and then like a Chinese spy balloon, every so often they're shot down late, belatedly. And then they just put up another trial balloon. But I mean, some of the trial balloons that she's put up, like a 25% tax on unearned capital gains, is a complete economy destroyer. I mean, for folks who don't understand how insane that is, that's the equivalent of

Yeah, it's for people who have supposedly over $100 million in assets, but the problem is there's no way to really evaluate, for instance, private assets. If you own a private company, how much is the company actually worth when the company's never been on the market? But the easiest way to sort of understand it on an individual level is you buy a house, you don't sell the house, they just tax you on the upside of the house since you bought the house every year based on the upside of the house. I mean, that's effectively what she's attempting to do, but for businesses, and she has claimed that this is

A great idea. I mean, again, these are people who have never run a business. They've never had to do anything in the business world. They've never had to make payroll. They've never had to ensure that their workers get their paycheck. They've never had to do any of those things. And so it's very easy for them to waste other people's money. It really is an astonishing act of arrogance, the way that we are governed when it comes to the economy. And, you know, Jackie Rosen is disconnected from a lot of this stuff.

We have got to find a way. A lot of this, I think, can happen as President Trump brings in a new administration. And again, the importance of the Senate. You've got to be able to confirm these people. And one of the other things, just kind of look back at my history as both a military guy and a business guy, is our military has gotten so slow at responding to the adaptation of warfare.

And the military contractors out there that really have kind of a grip on all of the contracts, all the major contracts and the processes and what we're preparing for,

they're bogged down by their own bureaucracy. And we're not just talking about federal bureaucracy, we're talking about the contractor's bureaucracy. And it really drives prices up. We pay for it as taxpayers. And by the way, we end up creating systems that are for yesterday's war instead of tomorrow's war. - The lack of innovation in the military sector is a massive looming problem for the United States military. For people who have not been watching the kind of stuff that the US military is focused on building, a lot of it is necessary, a lot of it is great.

And a lot of it is very, very wasteful. And the fact is that right now there's an advantage to some cheaper technologies being utilized against much more expensive technologies. You're seeing this right now in the Red Sea where you have a bunch of ragtag, horrible Islamist terrorists who are firing incredibly cheap weaponry at ships and basically destroying all shipping that is going through the Suez Canal area, like just before it gets into the Suez Canal right now, thus driving up prices and leading to supply chain bottlenecks. If militaries like the US military are not able to deal with that on a technological level,

It's going to be a disaster area. And that disaster becomes significantly worse when you're looking at the ability to project power very far away, say, the Taiwan Strait, as China threatens Taiwan. Yeah, and look, that's just the tip of the iceberg, is dealing with our defense spending. We've got so many other departments and agencies. I mean, I don't remember the exact stat, but there's some large, absurd number of people who are working from home as federal employees.

And where's the accountability? As a business owner, we have things we have to do. There's somebody we have to answer to at the end of the day. And the way that government spending has gone where there's never a moment where the company, the government could go bust because we keep bailing it out has allowed for this massive spending to continue. I think a great place to start, hey, let's go back to pre-COVID levels. Why can't that just be a baseline from day one that we go back to pre-COVID levels and then we continue to push and find efficiencies from there?

So I did want to ask you about a couple of hot button issues that have been in the news. Obviously, you're a veteran of the Afghan war, obviously. And yet we've seen a couple of controversies that have arisen from this on the other side of the aisle. We've seen the controversy in which

Kamala Harris has suggested that President Trump has done something deeply nefarious by visiting Arlington National Cemetery in order to pay homage to the 13 American service people who were murdered by terrorists in the disastrous Afghanistan pullout under Joe Biden, Kamala Harris being the last person in the room. She's very upset with President Trump for having gone to Arlington at the behest of those families. That's issue number one. I want to get your take on the other one, obviously, is the vice presidential candidate, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. He has now been

caught in a series of, shall we say, misstatements, or as he would put it, grammatical errors, with regard to his military service. I wanted to get your take on that. I'll start with Tim Walz, because I appreciate anyone who's going to serve their country. Put the uniform on. And when you do that, there's a chance you could end up literally putting your life in harm's way. What I don't want to do is

is drill down and critique what service he did do. But I will say, we as Americans should expect more from people who are volunteering to lead in a different capacity about being honest and truthful about it. And I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation. I wanna say something about President Trump and what the Democrats are attempting to do. Because I've actually had people try to use me around President Trump and his respect

around veterans. What he did by honoring those families at Arlington, I thought was the right thing to do was to be there at their request. Now, sadly, there are Democrats out there who are so desperate to try and paint President Trump as someone who doesn't respect the military, specifically doesn't respect wounded warriors, and especially doesn't respect or care about disfigured warriors. In fact, there was a moment at the RNC convention

that I was invited to be in President Trump's kind of personal box there. And it was on the night that he was speaking. And so I was sitting there with another Senate candidate. There was a few senators there. I thought I was gonna be cleared out beforehand, but no, President Trump was there, came out and he was shaking hands. And I happened to be, and no one told me where he was gonna be sitting or anything. I happened to be sitting right behind President Trump.

And so as he's shaking hands with people, I knew that people were kind of coming in from the edges. And so I stepped back to allow them to kind of get in and shake his hand. And he just happened to not see me and shake my hand. Well, Democrats are like, oh, see an example of President Trump hating wounded warriors, hating Sam Brown. And sadly, some people will believe that when their reality is like two hours later, as he's standing on the stage, giving his first speech after being shot in Pennsylvania,

He only mentioned one current candidate. In fact, he didn't talk about any other elected. He mentioned me and he said how much he appreciated my service, my sacrifice, and he implored everyone in this country to support me. And I can tell you from... Thank you. I'm going to tell you, but this is also just for the rest of the country. President Trump...

has enormous respect for service members. He understands what the sacrifice is. And I'm not saying this lightly. If anyone who didn't put on a uniform understands the cost and the sacrifice of service, it's President Trump. So Sam, I want to ask you one final question. And then I know there are people who are waiting to ask questions in a Q&A. Final question. Your wife co-authored this book. How'd you meet your wife?

That's a great question. Amy, can you just stand up and give everyone a wave? I'm just so, I am so, so blessed we were able to meet. And so as I got medevaced back to San Antonio, Texas, I was at Brooke Army Medical Center. That's where the Department of Defense burn unit is at. Anyone from all over the world that has a bad enough burn converges there from the military. She met me before I met her. She worked in the ICU as the burn unit dietician.

And Amy was a first lieutenant in the army at the time. And so as I was intubated, I was wrapped up. I looked like a mommy. I mean, literally from head to toe and unconscious, she was part of the care team that was taking care of me. And so by the time I kind of came to and was able to sort of interact with people around me,

She was now working in the background, and I had no idea who she was for several months. And when I finally got a chance to meet her, I was just stunned with her smile. She just exuded enthusiasm and joy. And Ben, I talked about the struggle of recovery. There was only one thing that really mattered.

kind of broke my heart and made me sad. And I didn't know how I was gonna deal with it. And it was the disfigurement of my face. You know, I kind of joke, and I've had more surgery than a Kardashian, and I look a lot better now than I did then. But what that translated into was, I thought as a 24-year-old man, now 25 by the time, you know, by that point, someone who was watching my professional career go up in smoke, quite literally and figuratively, that I wanted to be a husband one day.

I wanted to be a dad one day and I could not reconcile to myself if I was being honest and I looked in the mirror, how would anyone see past these scars and love this man? And Amy Brown saw through the scars and she loved this man. And she was with me for that entire recovery period.

And she even deployed to Iraq herself in service to this country as well. And I'm just so proud for Amy to be my wife, for us to be partners in this campaign. And yes, for those Amy fans out there, Amy wrote a chapter of this book about her life and how we came together. And that's why she's a co-author on it. And I just thank you for noting that, Ben.

It's very frequently said that this is the most important election of our lifetime. And I've lived through a few that actually are not the most important election of my lifetime. And some of the ones that I think are really important are ones that people seem not to care about. This is, in fact, the most important election of our lifetime. Because if the Republicans do not take the Senate, when I say this election, I don't actually mean the presidential. I mean this Senate election. Senate elections like it around the country. The swing state Senate elections. These are the most important elections ever.

happening in the country, even more important than the presidential because they're six years long. They are the bulwark against the radicalism of a Democratic Party that is on the war path to destroy the fundamental institutions of the country and to set in place a radical path that is going to lead to a darker future for the country. I think the wonderful thing about

about Sam. He's a candidate who really does have hope based in some of the worst things that can happen to a human being in his life. And yet he's turned that into a hopeful vision for the future. I know that Sam believes in the country in a deep and profound way. I don't have to speak for him. You've seen it yourself. The fact is that if we don't do all that we can do, then the country will go down the wrong path. But if we do all that we can do, then the hope is going to continue to rise to the surface and into the future. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you all. I just want you to know that this is not my campaign. This is our campaign. This is not my mission. This is our mission.

This is not my country that I served and sacrificed for. This is our country that we will all serve and sacrifice for. And so I invite you to vote for me if you can, to get involved where you can. There's organizations across this state that you can get involved in. If you can't plug into the Senate campaign right here and just know,

that we're all here, just like I learned on my Alive Day, we are all here for a reason and a purpose. And if you need any more motivation than the Democrats and Kamala Harris and Jackie Rosen have given us right now, then come find me, go read my book, go on Amazon and find Alive Day and read it, and you will be inspired and share that hope and share that joy. Yes, we'll use the Democrat word, share your joy with the world and let's change it. Thank you all.