Secrets Behind Social Media's Most Empowering Platform | Senator Sam Brown DSH #804
53:53 Share

Blessings of my suffering is that I can't hide it. Right. You know, my suffering is very external and we live in a society that wants to, that kind of discourages us from showing our weaknesses or our vulnerabilities, our suffering. And when we do that, when we hide it, we miss an opportunity to be stronger by it and also to encourage others who are maybe going through something similar. Mm-hmm.

Bye.

At Parler, your privacy is always a priority. Your data belongs to you. We're here to empower users, not control them. Whether you're engaging in discussions, sharing news, or just staying connected, Parler is the platform where you are in charge. Ready to take back control? Download the Parler app today on iOS or Android and join the movement. It's your voice, your platform. Let it be heard. Go to the App Store or Google Play Store today. Download Parler now where you have the power.

All right, guys. Today, I got Sam Brown here today with his new book, Alive Day. Thanks for coming on, man. It's good to be here. Yeah, it was a great read for me. Good. Glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, a lot of the times, because I film so many, I don't have time to read the book of the guest, but I made sure I read this one, and dude, it was really inspiring. So thank you for putting that out there. You bet. I mean, the point of the book is...

is to try and inspire people that we all have suffering in life. My form of suffering, at least a big part of it, is very visible in terms of my burns from Afghanistan. But suffering is a universal human experience. And so the purpose is to try and give people

something to hang on to, to get through those challenging times and to know that our suffering doesn't have to negatively define us either. So that's a big part of why I wanted to share the story. And my wife, Amy, also kind of co-authored it with me. And she's got part of her story in the book as well. Right. You were able to turn suffering into a positive thing, right? Right. Absolutely. Into an inspiration. Yeah. Because a lot of people suffer, but some people are too scared to talk about it. But you were very open.

Well, I think in some ways, one of the blessings of my suffering is that I can't hide it. Right. You know, my suffering is very external and we live in a society that wants to

that kind of discourages us from showing our weaknesses or our vulnerabilities, our suffering. And when we do that, when we hide it, we miss an opportunity to be stronger by it and also to encourage others who are maybe going through something similar or something they can relate to and to just give them the hope that we have found. So that's been one of the blessings of it. It's why on the cover there of the book, I've got kind of that –

that, um, you know, just a picture of me from, from before and a picture of me after. Um, and, uh, like at the end of the day, um, we can't, we can't, we shouldn't hide from, from our experiences, um, because they can be a part of who we are in a really positive way. Um, and they can also help others who are in the midst of, of what, uh, what is a really tough time

and a lot of times suffering isolates us too. Absolutely. We need to be connected. Yeah. And I'm sure when you had the burn, you wanted to hide it first, right? Yeah. It's, uh, and, and I was kind of, you know, forced into isolation, you know, in the hospital. Um, but, um, look, losing your identity, whether it's really physical and personal, like it was for me in my face or losing your professional identity. I mean, there's, there's a lot of forms of our identity and, um, it's, uh,

But it doesn't have to be the end of us. Yeah, identity issues. I feel like that's a common thing, especially these days with social media. People are trying to pretend to be people they're not, right? Right. So they're putting on a mask or whatever. Yeah, it's something that we praise in this society. But I'll tell you this, John. Here's kind of an interesting story. I wrote about it in the book because I think it's important.

In a day and age where, you know, we really put a lot of emphasis on, you know, presenting the best and all this. There's, you know, literally you can find, you know, TikTok channels or YouTube channels on putting on a face, literally, if you think about that. But when I was in high school, there was, you know, kind of a pre-spring break, you know, assembly.

and, you know, the principal and, you know, teacher. Don't let allergies keep you up at night. Sambrosa Night Syrup is your more homeopathic solution for a restful night. Blending the sweetness of a honey base with seven organic herbs and a small dose of antihistamine, Sambrosa provides effective relief from allergy symptoms while calming your body for a peaceful night's rest. It's over-the-counter, gentle, and made from the ingredients you trust. Wake up refreshed with Sambrosa Night Syrup. Visit Sambrosa.com today and rest easy tonight.

Teachers and staff were kind of talking about, you know, hey, don't go do anything crazy. And part of the campaign of, you know, encouraging young high school students not to go out and drink and drive and party in that way is they had kind of this video about this young girl who had, you know, some years before gone out on spring break, been drinking and driving, got in a car accident, was burned, severely disfigured.

And just kind of unrecognizable and had kind of pictures of her up there. And I remember thinking at that time, if that ever happened to me, I would just, I'd kill myself. Whoa. Because like who would want to live that way? And when it happened to me, totally different set of circumstances, I was in Afghanistan, fighting for our country. What I discovered is,

Our identity isn't really in our flesh. It's in our heart. It's in our soul. Wow. And life is worth living even when we've lost that sort of outer physical identity. That's deep, man. I appreciate that message because there's people probably struggling with confidence issues with how they look, you know, whether it's from a burn or acne or whatever it is, right? And that message is deep. So thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And like, I mean, the purpose of the book, again, is to just is to encourage people. And so if anyone wants to wants to get it, it's on Amazon, you know, paperback, hardback, audible. Yeah, it's all there. Kendall. Yeah, I got a few questions about the book that stood out to me. I really related with the JV rowing story. Okay, because I played a lot of sports growing up. And I was never the best leading in like starting off soccer, basketball, tennis, I was always one of the worst. But by the end of the season, I would be the best.

And in every sport, I started realizing that I just had that drive that other people didn't. And now thinking about it as I'm older, it was from trauma. You know what I mean? I wanted to prove people wrong. So was that similar with you when you were playing sports? It was. And so the story I kind of tell about in the book is I had knee surgery that took me out for a half season in rowing.

right at kind of the beginning of my sophomore year, which was a critical year where you're transitioning from kind of the novice team to the JV or varsity boat. And I didn't know if I was going to be able to stay on the team. And so I worked really hard. The blessing of it was that while I wasn't able to work on my strength while I was recovering from that surgery, I was able to work on my technique.

And I don't know about for you and some of the different sports that you've played, but I think in some ways focusing on technique, and this can be true in other things in life, is really important. And we can sort of offset our lack of strength in an area if we have better technique and

And so, yeah, just the first goal was to make the team. And then I've always just been kind of an underdog kind of guy. I feel more comfortable with the more pressure and the lower the expectations. And so there was a time where I'd kind of come back from the surgery. I was on the JV boat. We were the last race of the season. JV boat never beats varsity, but we beat the varsity boat in the final race of the season.

I thought, okay, this is going to be kind of my springboard to move up to the next boat, to be on the varsity boat. And, you know, fast forward, I didn't get picked to be on varsity boat. And our coach, you know, took us out. It was in our spring training right before we get into the spring season of my junior year. And, you know, it has the boat set. You got your JV boat, varsity boat, side by side, take off for a race. Well, we beat them again. Yeah.

And we lined it up again. We beat them three times in a row. And I was just, you know, couldn't understand why these guys who technically on an individual basis were not as strong, not as technically good a rower as the guys in the varsity boat and why we were winning and the coach wasn't moving anyone. And we get through that next weekend and he says,

Sam, you're now in the varsity boat. You're going to be stroking the varsity boat. And that was an important moment for me to be able to see that you can work hard. You'll have setbacks in life. You can work hard, though. You can focus on what you can control. Yeah.

Don't stress the things you can't control. And at the end of the day, work as hard as you can with the team, with the folks that you've got. Absolutely. And you can excel and beat those who are

theoretically better than you. Yep. Yeah, technique's so important. I was a distance runner too in high school and I remember going to Princeton track camp and they would take videos of our form. I thought it was so stupid at the time, but they were helping your technique with running and then the next season I was one of the best in the state. Oh, that's amazing. And it was all just technique rather than just training. Right. Not worried about your running form.

now you could fix a few things and run way faster. So probably similar with rowing, right? Right, absolutely. Absolutely. And then from there, how far after college did you join the military?

So, I mean, I went to West Point. It was the military academy for the Army. And so it was literally the day I graduated was the day I was, you know, commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army. So the whole, you know, four years was about training. It was about preparing to be a leader in the military. There was no sort of other expectation that I would be anything else but in the military. And so I started right after 9-11.

It was the following summer. So our country was in Afghanistan. We had troops in Iraq by the time I graduated in 06. So I knew that there was going to be what I call kind of a rendezvous with destiny was me being overseas leading troops in combat. So your mindset was set pretty early on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was. I mean, I was.

I think a lot of us are kind of shaped by our parents. And my parents really emphasized service to country. My father encouraged me and maybe told me that that was what I needed to do. And I just bought into that as a young kid. Love it. Your father served too? Yeah. Nice. That's cool. And his father too? Not his dad, but on my mother's side, her dad served in World War II. So we've got kind of a history of family service. In fact, two of my younger brothers served

served as well, one in Afghanistan, the other in Iraq. My wife

who I married after I got wounded. I didn't even meet her until after I was wounded, but she served in Iraq. So we've got a lot of service in this family. - Wow, and your story about Afghanistan in the book had me on the tip of my toes, man. So you find this guy with missing fingers and you had to let him go. And typically missing fingers are a sign that they're a bomb maker, right? - Right, right. - And your officer told you to let the guy go. - Yeah, it was a frustrating situation because we're on this mission

And, you know, our vehicle, one of our vehicles, it wasn't mine, but it was in my platoon, had just hit a roadside bomb. And we kind of, thank God no one was hurt or killed in that incident. But we kind of, you know, we spread out. We go looking for, is there anyone in the immediate area? Find this guy. I mean, all the signs point to, you know, he's part of this bomb. And so to be told, you know,

Because we didn't have, we didn't find him with physical evidence on him. You know, he didn't have bomb making material on his, you know, personal possession that we had to let him go. It was just, it was really frustrating. But, you know, you got to follow orders. And then just a couple hours later, my vehicle literally did hit a roadside bomb, probably put in place by him that same day. And because it was just, you know,

Couple of thousand meters up the road. That's crazy lost one of my soldiers and obviously it changed my life and three other guys were wounded in the process So I spent three years recovering from that and probably Had the guy that made that bomb standing right in front of me just a couple hours earlier insanity So, did you feel any hatred or resentment towards the officer that gave you that that signal? No, not hatred I would say

disappointment and a lot of frustration from things that day. There was warning signs that I tried to flag. For instance, the bigger mission that we were on was to provide security for a convoy that was moving through the area. One of the things that

Early on, and, you know, we talk about kind of nation building and, you know, trying to help where we've got troops deployed. So this convoy was moving a turbine equipment to a dam to provide electricity for southern Afghanistan. They needed security to go out in advance and make sure that, you know, there weren't bombs or ambushes along the road. And so there was the convoy out to the dam site, and then it was going to come back about 10 to 14 days later.

Well, you're not supposed to go in one way and out the same way. You're inviting an ambush. And so I flagged that.

And said, you know, to my superior officers and said, like, this is a problem. We're not supposed to be doing this. And was told, you know, hey, that's the way the mission was planned. You just got to go do it. Oh, so this was on your way back when all this happened? It was on the way back. Wow, so they had time to set up the IEDs. That's right. Dang. And, you know, it's just a predictable part of warfare. We're not, and we're supposed to make adjustments because of that. But whoever was planning this at kind of the, you know, the really high up level was,

either didn't take that into account or didn't listen to feedback. Right. And at the end of the day, you got to go execute the mission. Yeah, I can see why you're frustrated because you can't defy those orders. Right. Like you can't make a decision on your own, right? That's right. So that's...

That's a tough situation, man. Because you kind of know there's a chance that something could happen. Right. That's probably in the back of your head the whole time. That's exactly right. Wow. And that's the way it played out. You know, when my vehicle hit the roadside bomb, it's because the friendly forces just north of us got into an ambush. Wow. Again, it was predictable. And so as they needed support and we were driving up to go provide support for them, that's when my vehicle hit the roadside bomb and

And, you know, it changed the rest of my life. Dang. Those bombs are everywhere out there, right? They were at that time. Yeah. Yeah. And the dogs detect those. That's how you were able to. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the dogs do. But, you know, this wasn't a place where we were on foot, you know, able to move with dogs. Yeah.

But there's other ways to either detect them, disable them, or try and get them to go off without causing injury to U.S. personnel. And so one of the techniques is you would put what you call a mine roller on the front of a vehicle. And it's basically heavy tires that roll in front of a vehicle. It's kind of like a plow. And so if that rolls over and one of them sets it off,

It might, you know, cause some damage to the plow, but it's not going to hurt anyone inside the vehicle. Right. And, you know, those vehicles were available too, but were not sent up in advance on this particular road. And, you know, that's just another frustrating thing. But again, I go back to kind of one of the points we were talking about earlier is –

There's things we can control. There's things we can't control. And if we dwell on the things that we can't control that caused pain or hurt or suffering in our life, I don't think it's constructive. We need to find the opportunities to take that injustice, that pain,

And there is a way to make something positive out of it if we'll look for it. And we can either be consumed by hate, anger, fear, frustration, or we can fill ourselves with hope, with light, with grace. But it's a choice. Right. And you're living proof of that. So that was a big reason you got into politics then to inspire people? Yeah, it was. I mean, look, I see a lot of people suffering.

And I know suffering well. And, you know, not just as a military guy, but I mean, I'm a husband, I'm a father, small business owner. I've

Before I started my business, I was working at Amazon Fulfillment Center, 10-hour shifts. It's hard, honest work. And trying to set up my company on nights and weekends and eventually got that going. But look, when I talk to people, people are concerned about do they have enough money to keep a roof over their head, food on the table? I was just at a church recently and answering some questions and there was a lady saying,

The last question of the day, she said, Sam, we've got seven families in our apartment complex that are about to be evicted because they can't pay their rent. Wow. I've talked to people who did all the right things, worked their entire life, retired. They've got Social Security, maybe some other little form of retirement. They're having to go back to work, Sean. It's not right. It's not fair that our politicians have created a situation where so many people are

are put in those positions. You've got parents that are skipping meals so their kids can be fed. You've got people who are having to pick up a second job because their first job that provided well for them for years just isn't cutting it now. The average family here in the state is paying $1,200 a month more now than they were four years ago. Dang. A month. That's a rent payment. That's a mortgage payment for a lot of folks. Mm-hmm.

And so seeing what's happening through politics and the way it's hurting so many people is part of why I'm running, is to be—I understand those challenges because I'm not too far removed from them myself. But I also know what solutions there are. And if I can go through my life and the challenges and the suffering I've had,

I'm hoping in some ways that I can inspire people to hold on. And the message really comes from one of my soldiers, the soldier who got to me. And he, as I was burning and I got to this place of in the midst of that burning, I'm thinking, how long is it going to take to burn to death? What's the transition from this life to the next going to be like? And then I gave up the will to live. And, you know, at 24 years old, prime of my life,

Never thought it was going to end that way. And then I heard his voice and he screamed out, sir, I've got you. But words alone, words alone don't save lives. It's action. And so he came running to me and smothering the flames literally saved my life. And that lesson has stuck with me for the last 16 years. It's one of the reasons I wrote the book was because I can't just take those lessons learned

I can't just be a voice for people. I need to live out what saved my life. It was someone taking action. And so me running for office is me taking action. It's also something that we just see, you know, and...

and biblical figures as well, like Jesus. And that's me coming to the end of myself was kind of me finding God. Jesus didn't just give us words. He sacrificed. He was engaged in the process of providing some sort of hope for us. Wow. So that's when you started going to church? Nice. Yeah, I lived the majority of my youth pretty atheist as well, but now I've found purpose through God or religion, spirituality. Right.

It's helped me a lot, actually, because not having purpose is a lonely road. It is. A lot of people are kind of lost right now, I feel like. I think there's something inside us that is purpose-seeking and a purpose outside of ourselves, too. I mean, if you've got a purpose that is wholly inwardly focused, you can spend time on it. But I don't think it's as fulfilling as when you have a purpose that is to...

to give hope, inspiration,

you know, productivity to others. Absolutely. Yeah. But going back to what you said, I see a lot of elderly people working in grocery stores, you know, wherever. And it makes me sad that these people can barely walk and they're having to work in their last years. Yeah. I've got a, I've got a neighbor. Um, she was, she was retired, you know, when I moved into the neighborhood, you know, rescues chihuahuas. I mean, that's her passion. I mean, literally. And, uh, you know, she's out walking her dogs all the time and got to know her and she's a sweet, sweet lady. And, um, one day, uh,

And I saw her kind of struggling in her driveway with her car. And I went over and said, what's going on? And she said, Sam, I can't get my car started. And I was like, let me try and help you out. And she couldn't afford. It was a little problem, but she couldn't afford a little part. You could just go down to O'Reilly's and buy at the auto parts store. So I went down and got it for her. And then a couple months later, I see her again. And she says, hey, Sam, just so you know,

I'm going to have to go back to work. I can't afford life right now. And so I'm going to the airport a lot early in the morning for early morning flights, as you can imagine. And about any day that I'm up at like 4.30, getting ready to head into the airport for that first flight of the day,

Her garage door is open. She's getting ready to leave. And she's got to go work. She works in a senior care center serving food from like 5 a.m. till 2 p.m. It's not right. She shouldn't have to do that. Right. And Social Security is going to be out in eight years, right? They're going to be out of money. Yeah. I mean, it's a challenge. That's what they're projecting. And one of the sad things, Sean, about politics is people aren't always honest. So one of the things that I've

you know, and running for Senate that my opponent says is like, Oh Sam, she, she tells people I'm going to eliminate social security. Now, not only have I just told you the story about this neighbor lady, who's like dependent on it. Yeah. By the way, social security for many people is not very much money and our costs have gone up. Like I said, $1,200 a month. And the biggest kind of shame or insult in that is when I got medically retired out of the military, I,

I was the beneficiary of Social Security benefits and Medicare. My health care was through Medicare. And so for someone to lie about me to try and scare people to vote for them, it's just, it's a shame. Politics shouldn't be that way. We shouldn't be goading people with fear based on lies.

But that's where politics are. That's a shame. Yeah, it's a dirty game. I get her YouTube ads every day. Like she's raised $31 million. Yeah.

It's insane. It is. I didn't know people were raising that on a city level. Like, that's crazy. Well, that's just what she's raised. There's, you know, she's got super PACs that have spent probably close to $50 million. Wow. Just here in our small state. Crazy. And, you know, similar with Kamala and Trump. Like, she's raised three times his amount, right? That's right. So when you have that much money, you could... I get texts from Kamala's campaign every day. I get newspaper ads from her, radio ads, Spotify. She's everywhere right now.

I think one of the things that going through this process I've learned is you've got to consider what is the motivation or the position of the person who is putting out these ads. And I can take it back to, you know, think about, you know, when we're all in high school, there's someone who doesn't like you in high school. If that person was given the microphone to tell the whole school everything that they wanted to about you,

Would you expect them to tell the truth about you? No. And yet that's what happens in politics. And people buy into it. Like, why should anyone believe my opponent who's fighting for her political future, her definition of who I am? It doesn't make any sense.

And if that same bully in high school got to use the microphone to say what a wonderful person they are, of course they're going to tell all these flattering things and probably even lie about who they are. And yet that's kind of what happens in politics is people who are in a position to tell lies because they have more money do so. And unfortunately, too often people don't think about the perspective of

Should you even believe it? Yeah. That's why I'm excited for your debate with her because it's a one-on-one setting and you can't really weasel your way around that, right? Right. So, I mean, hopefully it's not like the last debate where the media controlled one side, obviously. Right. Yeah, I saw some crazy stats on that. So 96% of the media's news on Trump was negative. The media is not...

is clearly not objective. It's not truth-seeking first. It's agenda-seeking. And that's what, honestly, Sean, I think we're seeing a transition of how media is consumed. And for our generation, I don't even have a TV. And I think there's a lot of people like that. We get to sort of...

Define what our source of news and information is your podcast, for example. And so we're going to see this transition where the corporate media loses effectiveness and impact over time. And, you know, through through things like this podcast, through platforms like X, you know, and tick tock.

People will be able to kind of go find truth. And I think that'll be a healthy transition for media consumption. I agree. I mean, you see Trump going on these podcasts like Dave Ramsey, Theo Vaughn, and they're getting way more views and engagement than him going on a news station. That's right. Plus you see the polls on the news and they just seem off because when you run the same poll on X, it's way different. Right. You know what I mean? Right. It's like night and day difference. So I can't even believe any of these polls. Right. Because it's saying Kamala's projected to win, but...

Well, and how many of your friends, if they get a poll, are going to respond to it if it's by a text from a random number? I mean, again, people in our generation are like, I get a link from a random number on my phone? I get spyware or something like that. I'm not going to click on that link. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, you start looking into all this, and it's really all a show because I was listening to Rogan yesterday. One of Kamala's rallies, 80% of the people were bussed in.

Isn't that crazy? It is crazy, but it's not surprising. Yeah, they're starting to geotrack everyone's phones and they're realizing a lot of the same people at her rallies are the same phones. I mean, there's a manufactured movement there, right? I mean, whether it's media coverage, it's the rallies, it's the influencers that they try and get to sort of project strength or consolidation of agreement. But look, this is...

And I know we hear this often, but this election is important. And one of my concerns is that there's a lot of people, especially when you're younger, you just have a tendency to not understand how important your voice and your vote is. And it's not even necessarily for today. It's for 20 years from now when, you know, for a lot of folks,

you know, if you've just come out of college or, you know, and you're, you're in your twenties or early thirties, you might not be married. You might not even have a family. There's a good chance you will one day. And so our votes today though, are part of the sort of the, the political destiny of our country and its impact it's going to have on your future self, your future family, your future business. And, and people need to understand that. And, and,

and vote today like your life depends on it in 20 years. - I love that, 'cause I agree. When I was younger, I was like, I don't want kids. I never voted before. I thought it was stupid. But I'm voting for the first time this year. - Funny thing about not wanting kids, the first time I went out with my wife,

who, again, I met after I was wounded. She worked in the ICU, and so I kind of got to know her at the hospital a little bit, and finally we went on a date. And the first time I went to go pick her up at her house, and she was kind of finishing getting ready, and there was a picture in her refrigerator of this young family. So I was like, you know, who's this? I'm just trying to make conversation. She's like, oh, that's my cousin and her husband and their kid.

And she said, but don't worry, I'm never getting married and I'm never having kids. Well, now we've been married for 15 years and we've got three kids. I love it. You changed her mind, man. You won her over. I love it. But kids are, you know, I've changed my perspective. I definitely want kids now.

That sense of purpose and just handing off the torch. It's such a game changer. Even just a serious relationship, marriage, it changes your perspective. You've got to live a little bit more cooperatively with someone. You couldn't or shouldn't be as self-consumed. But when you have...

young person who literally depends on you for their life, it's such a game changer and it's such a blessing. Um, that's one of the things that kind of makes me sad is when you see folks who, you know, treat kids like, like it's just a burden. They're missing an opportunity for that too, for being a parent to in the same way that you're, you're, you know, you're training for running or me for rowing or whatever. It's, it's hard. It is, but it's,

if you're willing to lean into that and be sort of refined by it, you're going to come out a better person. I agree. And you see the number of people having kids right now is down a lot. Elon Musk talks about this a lot and it's really concerning actually. It is. It's terribly concerning. And there's kind of a societal discouragement from having kids. Right. And again, we're hardwired.

Um, in the same way, you know, to, to want to need purpose, we're hardwired as human beings to reproduce. And like, it's, it's obviously not for everybody, but for those who can, it's, it's an enormous blessing. Absolutely. Um, what did you think about all this stuff with the New York city mayor going on? I thought that was crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. What's crazy about it is how often do you see someone at, at that level, uh,

uh, actually, you know, getting kind of taken down. It was the first time ever, right? Um, federally, I think, uh, I don't, I don't know a hundred percent about the New York city mayor, but it's just, it's, you gotta believe there's, there's something going on in the, in the background. And I don't know all the details of what he's, you know, the charges and, and, and all that, but it's certainly a flag that something, something seems to be afoot and, and maybe, maybe,

Maybe he's done wrong things. I don't know. But when you see a takedown like that, especially where everything nowadays seems to be just the –

Lawfare with politicians is just an enormous and very intentional thing. Yeah Well, there's always rumblings of politicians getting paid in backdoor deals But this was the first time like I think there's been a serious charge about it, you know, right? But there's always people saying that so I guess we'll see where that one goes. We'll see. Yeah All right. So what else we got here assassination attempts?

Second one, they seem to just brush over it completely. They're saying there's five groups after him now. Where are you at with that whole thing? There's people that don't like President Trump. I can tell you this. President Trump does not need this. He could have a wonderful life outside of politics, out of running for president. And to be struck literally by an assassin's bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, and to get up

And to not cower in that moment was a sign of his strength, of his leadership, but also of his love for country. The easy thing to do would be to kind of cower, to hide from that. It's a tragedy to me that our media does not seem to care about the threat to President Trump's life. There's very little coverage of it.

And you hope that nothing happens again, but it feels like it could. It doesn't seem like they're going to stop trying. No. I mean, they wanted to deny both of them. Well, and here's the reality is it's not just an attack against President Trump. It's an attack against our country because we're talking about someone who tens of millions of people

are less than 40 days out from voting for to be president of the United States. And whether the world likes it or not, the president of the United States is not only the leader of the United States of America, leader of the free world. And a lot that happens internationally happens

happens because of who is the president. And so this has global ramifications on who our next president is. And so these attacks are, again, it's not just an attack against President Trump. It's an attack against the United States of America. It's an attack against what the world could look like depending on who is president. And then again, I just go back to kind of the encouragement earlier.

People today, people have got to vote today like their life depends on it in 20 years or even five years. Think about how quickly things change now. It seems like things change now in a matter of days or weeks that would have taken years before. The fact that Kamala Harris, we have a presidential candidate who never even won a caucus or a primary and is now literally the Democrat nominee for president.

who could have imagined something like that happening 10 years ago, five years ago, but here we are. Here we are. I never realized how many countries followed our lead actually until I had some guests on the show, but I've had people from Canada, from the UK, and they care a lot about politics here because they know how much it impacts them. It's so crazy how much influence the US has on the world. It's enormous. We're the largest influence on NATO and

You know, our support of Israel is huge. And, you know, the destabilization that China, Russia, Iran, North Korea are causing globally is, it would be even more negatively impactful if the United States wasn't here and strong. And unfortunately, we have not been as strong these last couple of years as we were when President Trump was in office. There were no new wars. Right.

Russia did not invade Ukraine when President Trump was in office. We did not have Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran openly attacking Israel. And in fact, we were seeing peace in the Middle East. Remember people talk about, oh, curing cancer, peace in the Middle East. I mean, these are sort of like enormous aspirational, almost impossible things to kind of think about.

But we were literally achieving peace in the Middle East when President Trump was in office and people would accuse, oh, he's going to create new wars and stuff. No, it was quite the opposite. And as someone who has literally gone through war, I mean, this is the face of the consequence of war. And I'm lucky. I'm alive. There's others who are not alive that –

The United States can be strong, should be strong, not only for our sake, but for the world's sake. And that doesn't mean that we have to be in war. Right. And I think just yesterday they announced more funding, right, to war, another $8 billion. Or was it trillions? Something crazy. Yeah, I think it was $8 billion. But, you know, that was, if I'm not mistaken, I think that was for Israel, which, you know, they're being hunted for.

by these Iranian proxies. Yeah, and they're saying Iran wants Trump gone, right? Trump tweeted that out. Right. Well, Iran posted on their... The Ayatollah, the leader of Iran, posted on his website a video of...

Simulating the assassination of President Trump what at Mar-a-Lago? Yeah way. Yes, so they're planning that go go look it up there It was just posted a couple of days ago. That's scary and and the end of the message said effectively there will be vengeance and And it was it was personally it showed clips of Mar-a-Lago President Trump on the golf course and simulated him being taken out Wow, that's nuts

Mean there was just an attempt at golf course, right? So maybe Iran played a role in that who knows who knows and I saw the Florida Governor doesn't want to release that guy right to the feds. Oh, I don't know But it's I think it'd be good for Florida to have their own independent investigation on that. Absolutely. Shout out to Florida So World War three are you thinking about that being a possibility? It is I mean, it's the the conditions are there and

You've got this alignment, again, of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. The cooperation there is already present. You see this kind of sharing of technology, of weapons. But, Sean, here's maybe kind of another way to think about it. We're already in World War III. Mm.

If you think about warfare is not necessarily just where's, you know, their gunfire. You can have economic warfare, energy warfare, cyber warfare, space warfare, you know, social warfare. We're already in a global conflict. Just there's a lot of people that don't recognize it yet. And all of those other forms of global warfare are,

could lead very quickly to what we'd consider kind of classical kinetic, you know, military warfare. Right. Cause we're definitely in cyber warfare. Trump's emails got hacked. All his emails got leaked to the other side. Right. A hundred percent. So, and, and economic warfare too. I mean, what do you, what do you think, what do you think kind of, you know, the, the trade policies of, of China, uh,

are, you know, they're trying to diminish the economic strength of the United States. You know, they are very openly trying to get the U.S. dollar to no longer be the global reserve currency. And look, when you've got leaders, you know, countries that are leaders in the world and those who have to follow those leaders, if the United States loses our sort of economic leadership,

Well, the world will start to look like, other countries will start to look like and reflect the leadership of whatever replaces the United States. That's probably going to be some coalition of China and Russia, which I think most Americans can and should recognize would not be a good sort of global leadership structure. That would not be good at all. They would have way more power than us if they joined forces. Absolutely. You could argue China is already beating us economically.

And they're causing a lot of damage. Now, China's in a weak economic position as well, but they are causing a lot of damage. And unfortunately, our own leadership in this administration is –

is not responding in a good way. It's allowing for our sort of diminished influence. Not at all. You see the dollar dwindling in value. It's actually scary because if it keeps up this trajectory, it's going to put a lot of people on the streets. Right. It already is. It is. So that's scary. And BRICS is looking pretty formidable now. Yeah. Again, the instability you asked about, you know, is World War III possible? Yes. The instability in the world is enormous. This election is...

is critical, not only just for the next 12 months, but what happens now will be felt for decades. Wow. And that's throughout the world, not just the U.S. That's right. Crazy. So back to business. You have a business that helps veterans, right? Yeah. So as I said earlier, you know, I was working at Amazon Fulfillment Center, but had kind of gone back to school after I recovered, got my MBA and

Wanted to start a business that still helped veterans. I mean, like, obviously, I'm a veteran. I care a lot about it. The VA, I get all my health care through the VA. But the VA is not perfect. It doesn't have all of the solutions. And so one of the needs that the VA needed, like kind of an outside company to help solve a problem, was ensuring that veterans could get medication in urgent care situations when they're at VA clinics. Hmm.

And so my company kind of became that conduit to local pharmacies and markets that the VA couldn't get medication to them right away. So same day. So yeah, I founded that company. I actually sold it a little over two years ago. It's still being run. It's still a growing company though. But here's an important kind of example of why that matters. And it's not always...

you know, just easy or clean. But like one day I got a call from a VA clinician saying, Sam, we've, we've got this patient who needs this medication. They went to the pharmacy, the pharmacy said they couldn't fill it. And because the reimbursement to the pharmacy wasn't going to be enough to cover the cost. And so I got on the phone with the pharmacy and said, guys, what's going on here? And they just, they, they were refusing. And, um, and so I,

I just, you know, at the end of the day, like you got to do the right thing. And the right thing that day was to just pay out of my own pocket for this medication for the veteran. Now, I didn't necessarily know what the ailment was. And I just knew that someone needed this medication. They weren't going to get it unless I did that. So I get a call back from the clinician a couple of days later and just thanking me because they heard what happened and

and gave me a little bit more of the background. They said, Sam, this veteran came in, had such a severe eye infection that they needed this specialty compounded pharmaceutical solution that if they didn't get it that day, they were about to go blind. Whoa. And so, you know, that's an example of like something that just kind of the routine part of doing business, doing the right thing in that moment, literally changed someone's life. And that's, you know, it's humbling to be able to kind of have that positive impact. Yeah.

um, in people's lives when you don't even necessarily realize it, that sometimes just doing the right thing literally is life changing. Yeah. That's so inspiring. The American dream right there. Cause a lot of veterans come back home and they, they feel lost. Right. But you started a business, you were able to sell it. That's incredible. Right. So that's, that's hope for the veterans out there. That's right. So cool. I want to end off with the no tax on tips. If that goes through, that's a big deal for Vegas, right? It's a huge deal for Vegas. It's a, it's a huge deal for, you know, a lot of working people. And it, it gives, um,

it's going to provide so much economic relief where, you know, again, we were talking earlier about how many people have had to go get a second job because they can't make ends meet. Now, you know, that's either maybe taking some people out of being able to study, like go to school or, um, you know, maybe they're a parent or they want to be a parent and they don't, you know, they don't think they can afford, you know, a home or can't afford to, you know, can't afford to have the cost of kids. Like,

This policy will be a life-changing policy for people, and it's something that we've got to pass. Absolutely. Sam, it's been an honor. Where can people support you and keep up with you? If people want to follow me in my journey with this campaign running for Senate, they can go to captainsanbrown.com and support me there. This is a grassroots campaign. You talked about how much

is being spent against me. And we're talking about, you know, over $50 million when it's all said and done, it's probably gonna be closer to a hundred million dollars. Um, but we're, we're in this fight. We're, we're in a position to win with, you know, with small dollar support. So captain Sam brown.com for that. And if people want to read the book, you know, I, I, the book is not here for me. It's here for others who need that encouragement, who need to know they're not alone. Um, and you can get it on amazon.com. Again, it's a live day by captain Sam brown.com.

Kindle, Audible, hardback, paperback like that. It's there for everyone. So please share it and leave a review if it was meaningful for you. Absolutely. Check out the book, guys. It was a favorite read of mine. We'll link it below. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for watching, guys. And I'll see you next time.