Exploring a Father's Love with Richard Paul Evans and Senator Marsha Blackburn on Safeguarding America
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Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

Folks, returning to the program today, and we're very excited to talk to him again. One of the most amazing people I've ever met or had on the program here, Richard Paul Evans. He is the author of 41 bestselling novels, including The Christmas Box. He has a new book out right now. It looks fantastic. My Son Lives in a Tree.

is a humorous and poignant look at the love between parents and children. Richard, I'm just going to jump right in. Thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome back to the program. I'm glad to be back. Thank you. So what was the inspiration behind this book?

So actually, this is a book I waited 18 years to write. And people go, really? Yeah, wait, my jaw's on the floor because there's like 39 books in between. Well, I've actually written 46 bestselling novels. So the thing is I wanted for my son, who I wrote it for, I wanted him to be old enough to get his permission to publish it.

So I literally waited 18 years. It's been sitting on my computer for that long. What happened is when my son was seven years old, he was really struggling and he had some mental health issues that were just horrible. It's very difficult. And at the age of seven, it got to be too much for us around the house. His counselor said, you know, he needs to be taken home, taken from the home for a while. He was becoming violent and

It was just such a horrible experience. We took him up to this residential treatment, and I was up there. He turned to me and said, Dad, am I in jail? I said, no, son. He said, it feels like jail. As a parent, you just feel sick. And I literally was. When I walked out, I threw up. It was my summer of tears. I cried every day. Every day I went to see him, sometimes twice a day.

And we had this little routine that he would lean against the window because his window looked over the parking lot, and I would drive around honking my horn like a fool, at least twice to say goodbye to him. And then one day I'm driving up to see him, and it's in the east bench of Salt Lake. We go past Immigration Canyon where the zoo is, the Hogle Zoo. And so I'm driving by that, and all of a sudden this poem comes to me. The entire poem comes to me in one grasp, and I just –

I was blown away. And it's like, and usually I forget these things, but it stuck with me. And it was a few weeks later, I shared it with my daughter, Jenna, who's also a best-selling writer. And she goes, Dad, that poem's about Michael.

and about what you were going through at the time with him. So that's where the poem came from. And so to me it was a very moving thing, but I wanted to wait till he was older and when he could actually say, "Yeah, it's okay to publish this." And he did. I'm glad for that because it's really about a father's love. How was that conversation with him? You've waited 18 years.

you had this time which left this very indelible impression on you, obviously, to this day when you and I talked about it at my house. You were still emotional about it, as you would be. How was that conversation with him when you said, I'm going to do this? It was really straightforward because that's the way Michael communicates. And I knew that was a really hard time in his life, probably harder for him than it was for us, maybe. And...

And so when I asked Michael, I've waited on this, and you can say no. I don't need to do it. I want to do it. And I love this story, and I love this about us, but it's up to you. And I let him read it, and he looked at me and said, it's okay, Dad. Go ahead. Michael was a straightforward guy, and so that's where we start getting everything in motion.

We're with Richard Paul Evans, world-famous author, New York Times bestselling author 46 times. He's written a children's book called My Son Lives in a Tree. You can buy this book at richardpaulevans.com or amazon.com. Richard, let's talk about why you're self-publishing this book. I think it's a story people need to hear, why we're doing it and why we're, you know, it seems like you've stepped back after all this acclaimed,

35 million plus books sold, 18 different languages, and now you're self-publishing again like you did Christmas Box. So tell us why we're self-publishing. Well, it might make sense. Would you like to hear the poem first? Yeah, please. Yeah, please. Then your readers, so readers or listeners, you can judge what you think when I tell you why and see if you're shocked or not. So this is the poem. A week ago, or maybe two, I took my family to the zoo.

The day was nice. The sky was blue. It seemed to me the thing to do. No sooner there I heard a shout. Someone's let a monkey out. I looked to see who caused this fuss. The shouter pointed right at us.

And then the keeper of the zoo did what it is that keepers do. He grabbed my son, that rotten louse, and locked him in the monkey house. And though I stomped and yelled with rage, he would not let him from the cage. Go ahead and turn the page. Hashtag free the boy, I wrote online. You cannot have this son of mine. I'll call my lawyer and the news. Grown boys do not belong in zoos. But

But though I fought both tooth and nail to free him from that monkey gel, nothing I did seemed to help. I left a bad review on Yelp. So every day I went to see my son up in that monkey tree, hoping that I'd get a glimpse of my boy among those hairy chimps. And then one day my son dropped by swinging wildly from the sky. To my surprise, he looked just fine, clinging to that ropey vine. Don't worry, Dad, my son did say. It's not so bad. I want to stay. Inhale.

And here I do just as I please. I spend my days up in the trees and swinging with the hairy bunch. We eat bananas for lunch. No mom or dad, not anymore. They tell me not to slam the door, wipe my feet, or eat my peas. For snacks my friends pick out my fleas. No where's your homework? How's those grades? No going out till beds are made. So thank you dad, but I'm just fine. I gotta go. Here comes the vine.

That is how it came to be, my son now living in a tree. I still don't know when he'll come home, and that is why I wrote this poem. But though he says it's lots of fun, it's not for me. I miss my son. How long ago did you write that poem? That was 18 years ago. Did you edit it at all when you did the book finally? Did you have more clarity on it? I added the Yelp line. I was going to say, there's a couple of references in there that had to be more recent. But that's great because...

It connects with a modern audience. Richard, what did you... Look, there's a lot of people out there who have struggles with a child. What did you learn from this? What is the hope you can give our listeners as someone who went through this very emotional experience and has a wonderful relationship with your son, but I'm sure, like all things, it's not perfect? What can you tell them? What's the message of hope we can give? You know, I...

I mean, I was in a business meeting. Sometimes I get a call, and it's a school saying, come get your son. And I said, I got to go. I stand up, and the guy next to me laughs. And I was furious. Furious. And I went to take care of my son. And the next day I saw him, I go, I can't believe you laughed. I go, I'm just... And he goes, Rick, I know where you're coming from. And he said, I was actually... He was actually a mission president. And when...

He said, "The missionaries came in, my son threw a chair through the window at them." And he had struggled. He goes, "So I know." He goes, "It was...one day he just punched me." You know, just like you tell these horrible stories. And he goes, "My son was my greatest teacher." He goes, "My son is now happily married. He graduated from Wheaton, you know, the top business school in America." Oh wow, yeah. And is doing, you know, just doing extremely well.

And I was just like, he's just like, you know, just hang in there and have faith and things will be all right. And, and you know, that's exactly what happened. So it really, to me, it's really a story about hope. And, and it's also about our own education because through the process, I've learned to be much more compassionate, compassionate,

You know, I know sometimes people are like, yeah, these parents must be horrible parents. Like, no, we're not horrible parents. It's like, do you want to see my other four straight-A students, top-person daughters? It's like, no, he has his struggles. And he's, you know, I love him, and he's amazing. And he said to me once, he goes, Dad, how do I compare? My oldest sister is an international best-selling author.

My next sister's a doctor. The next has worked in Hollywood, and the fourth is going to be a pharmacist doctor. I had to compare, and I said, Michael, you've done more than all of them. You know, you've just had a different trajectory. You've climbed a different mountain, but your mountain is bigger than theirs. And so don't think for a second what you're less proud of you. And so it's a matter of adjusting, I think, your expectations,

And I think that's the important thing in building hope. Are his sisters protective of him? Are his sisters really protective of him? They are. You know, it's really what we watch. He was pretty hard on some of them. He has a sister who he adopted from China who's the same age.

She was always this, she brought so much peace. The person could always talk to him. He was always older. And when he's really bad about the world, I said, now look at your sisters. Not everyone's hard, not everyone's bad, you know? Right. So Chuck, you asked a question about why I'm self-publishing. Yes.

Want me to jump into that? Yeah, please. We have just about two and a half minutes left before we go to break. Tee it up, and then we'll carry over to the next episode, but tee it up. Okay, so what happened is after 18 years, I gave it to my agent and said, take it for sure. And she comes back a few days later and says that I rejected it. I go, what? I go, I've sold 36 million books. I've rejected my book. And they said they can't publish it because it's racist. What? What?

I said, what? He said, no, no, no. You can't talk about children and monkeys because you're referring to black people. And I said, that is the most racist thing I've ever heard.

That's horrific. And they'd say, well, let me explain. I said, you know what? You drank the woke Kool-Aid. You've lost your mind. In 10 years, you'll admit it. But right now, it's like, I don't want you to explain it because you'll lose all respect. So I said, tell you what. During my book's rejection, the first was the Christmas box. It sold 8 million copies. You lost those 30 million. Second was Michael Bay. It sold 3.5 million copies just in the U.S. And now this one's rejected. This is a good sign. So that's fine. I'm going to self-publish this book.

And I'm going to give away 100 percent of my royalties to help abuse children. That's brilliant. It's really shocking, Richard, with your history that they would turn you down. And on that basis, I mean, you're a known quantity. You have shown not one hint of racism throughout a lengthy career. And this is the connection they make. That's just insane. Yeah.

Well, it is insane. The world's got got insane. And I mean, I send out to my black readers and said, Okay, am I missing something here? And the first one that came back, I think was really telling. She's a TV show host. And she goes, I adore this poem. I'd like to use it on my show. I said, Absolutely. And I said, You know, it's racist. What? It's like, what? I said, Yeah. And then she said something really telling. She goes, Wait,

did a black person tell you it's racist or a white person? And I said, a white person. And she's just going, yeah, I thought so. Because it's like white people telling you it's racist. Like, I'm too dumb to figure it out. You guys are so incredibly patronizing. That's insanity. We're with Richard Paul Evans. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back after this commercial break. Thanks a million.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Continuing on the line with us in just a moment, Richard Paul Evans, bestselling author. You can check out his new book, My Son Lives in a Tree. It's an amazing story about how Richard wrote this book. You can find that folks at Amazon.com or at RichardPaulEvans.com. But first, if you are looking for a way to secure your family's financial future, you need to check out our friends at YRefi.com.

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Richard, I want to talk a little bit more about just the initial reaction, why you had a self-publish. Have you talked to other authors about this and what the response was? I mean, again, the thing when you told me the story, you mentioned it here, is you've sold 35 billion books. I mean, you just sort of think, I mean, I've read the book. I have it. Thank you for my copy. You just sort of think they're going to say, yeah, we'll do this for you. Unless you write Mein Kampf, your publisher pretty much should be producing this. It's weird. What did other authors that you talked to about this think about it?

I haven't talked to other authors. The only person I talked to, one other author, was Glenn Beck. Okay. And when I shared it with Glenn, Glenn actually, he actually kind of teared up a little bit at the end of it. He said, I understand. He's a father. Right. We've had our moments. And it was actually pretty beautiful. And he said, so Simon & Schuster published it. I said, no, they're not. He said they were publishing it. And he actually said, he goes, because they thought it was racist.

Yeah. Yes, actually, he goes, it's insanity. It's just complete insanity. I said, you know, they're I mean, when they start like, you know, banning Dr. Seuss and all this was going on, everyone was and the men in the old hat. What is that monkey? It's like they start banning. Oh, curious, George. And it's like they just got terrified. And it's like it's such a knee jerk reaction.

There's nothing wrong with this book. It's a beautiful book. It's a beautiful thought. And it just shows that they're not looking at things the same way. Well, it's also it's a sad cultural story because if you look historically, the publishing industry has been one of the bulwarks of free speech throughout most of history. Plenty of books have been published and produced historically.

by Simon & Schuster and plenty of others that were highly controversial in their time. And defending the right of authors to do things that are controversial, I think is important. This doesn't even seem like it's that. This is just a knee-jerk terror. That's actually a pretty brilliant observation. That's exactly right. It used to be that that's where the world was changed. I mean, books start revolution.

And so to see that, it's like, well, we're just afraid. And it's just, everyone's afraid of being called to something, you know, being called racist. And that's just, that's what's happened with our culture. And it's a sad thing, and we have lost freedom, and more than I ever thought I would see in my lifetime. No, it's come with a rapid pace.

We're with Richard Paul Evans. He is a world-renowned author, sold 46 bestsellers, 35 million books. He has just come out with a self-published children's book, My Son Lives in a Tree. You can buy this at richardpaulevans.com. All the royalties will go to the Christmas Box International, which has helped abuse, trafficked, and neglected children. To date, 125,000 children have been helped through the Christmas Box International. All right, Christmas Box International, KMU.

came after the actual book christmas box and this year is it the 30th anniversary this year 30th anniversary yes um and so are your publishers people going to do big anniversary celebration what's going to happen since mariah carey this morning came out with a tweet that's announced it's christmas season which is everybody go to critter and find that but now it's christmas season halloween's gone what what are they going to do to celebrate this this moment

Well, they've actually produced a really beautiful edition, a 30th anniversary edition. I wrote a forward for it. And they actually asked me not to do a Christmas book this year, the first time in 30 years. And so we're getting behind this book. There's a whole new generation. Right. Newsweek magazine called it, you know, the most popular tell since Tiny Tim.

Maybe that's Time magazine. And it's like, I think the world needs it. You know, when it first came out, USA Today said on the front page, said, you know, in a time of fractured families, this is one about love in a family. And so I think it's still very relevant. I think what's also amazing is just what's come from the book. You know, the Bible says in small things, God will confound the wise and the mighty.

And it's like, this is a case of that. This simple little Christmas story I wrote for my two daughters has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. It's, it responds to the charity that has helped enough abused, neglected, and trafficked children to fill Madison Square Garden seven times.

And that's just something to think about. I saw that in New York. My publisher, you know, like, are you kidding? Seven times you could fill that up. That's a lot of children. It's a beautiful thing. But also from that has come these angel statues. The book is based around this angel statue where a woman has lost a child. There's now more than 150 of these monuments around the world.

where tens of thousands of people gather every year who have lost children. So this little book has spurred on so many miracles, and I mean it's only 16,000 words, yet in some ways it's changed the world. It even changed the publishing world, because the year after it came out, there were more than 300 imitations of it. Some even read my great writer David Mamet, it's like they had him write one.

It was insane to see. The New York Times article was, it's beginning to look a lot like the Christmas box. And so all of a sudden, self-published books were being looked at again. I mean, it's the most successful self-published book in history. You know, CBS News calls me the godfather of self-publishing.

So the book did so many things that to me it was just a simple miracle that came from a father's love for his daughters. I just wanted to capture something that my daughters could someday read and understand the depth of my love for them.

In all the years since that's come out, has there been one person or, you know, a parent come up to you and tell you a story tied to that that just, you know, that really pulled at your heartstrings? What is the like the most memorable reaction you've gotten from someone who read that book and potentially read it with their children? You know, I think the most interesting one came in prison.

I mean, I've had thousands of stories, and it's hard to even keep track. But I was talking to—I was speaking in prison, and one of the inmates got permission, this woman, to talk to me afterwards. And she said, Mr. Evans, your book saved my life. And I asked how, and she said, when I was raped and got pregnant, they made me abort the baby.

She said, I just, I felt such a sickness about it all that after several years, I decided I was going to take my life. And so I got a gun and I knew I was going to end my life and borrow

I borrowed my cousin's van and as I was driving out, she goes, wait a second. She goes, yeah, I thought you might like this book. And she gave her the crystal spot. Oh, wow. And she said, I drove up to the lake and I'm sitting there. And she said, I put the gun in my mouth and she goes, I swear to God, I heard a voice that said very clearly, read the book. Wow. And she looked around to see who she was talking to her and she looked down and there was the book sitting there. And she said, how does Glove about it? She goes, what's going on? And she picked up the book. She read the entire book.

And she goes, I had this sense that I would be with a child again. Oh, it's fantastic. It's amazing. I apologize, folks. We're going to have to cut off the interview here. Richard Paul Evans. Check him out, richardpaulevans.com or find his works at amazon.com. Highly encourage you to go out and get the new book, My Son Lives in a Tree. Richard, thank you again so much for joining us. We really appreciate having you on the program and look forward to having you back again in the future.

Thank you. It's always a pleasure. Have a great day, Richard. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back in a minute. We'll be back in a minute.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on on our next segment. One you don't want to miss, folks, Senator Marsha Blackburn, an unbelievably accomplished and bright woman and one of the really leading lights in a Senate that appears to be discombobulated is the best word I can come up with it right now. They really have seemed to struggle in this

this Joe Biden era. But folks, a lot of people are struggling in this Joe Biden era, which is why we encourage you to check out our friends at investwirefi.com.

because the market is just totally – it's in flummox right now. It's all over the place. And the reason is simple. This administration and their policies is absolutely tearing this economy and the world economy apart. So you need alternative investments that are going to create a good opportunity, a reliable return for you and your family. So go to check out our friends at investwirefi.com. You can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return.

Or give them a call at 888-Y-REFY24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. So, Sam, there's an interesting trend happening. We've heard about the dangers of TikTok. This week, Axios did a fantastic investigative story on it. It's a really good piece. Yeah, kudos to Axios, right? We'll have it up on Breaking Battlegrounds on our Twitter. You need to check this out, folks. But the headline is by Sarah Fisher on TikTok, Views of Pro-Palestine Posts Far Surpassed Views of Pro-Israel Posts.

Now, Sam, I'm going to have you talk a little bit about the algorithms, why that's happening. Just so you know, though, now folks realize.

For the generation 30, 35 years of age and younger, this is where they get their news. Okay? They're not watching Fox. They're not watching CNN. They're not even watching the broadcast news, right? This is where they're getting their views of the world. The number one source of news for people 34 and under is TikTok. The number one. 50%. 50% get it from TikTok, right? So from October 23rd through October 30th, the hashtag StandWithPalestine,

got 285 million views on 87,000 posts. Hashtag StandWithIsrael got 64 million views on 9,000 posts. Yes. So when you see these college campuses erupting on pro-Palestinian, realize that most of these geniuses, and I'm using air quotes because they are not geniuses, are getting their information from a Chinese government entity called

who, what's funny is Democrats tried so hard to say Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. Russia got Trump elected. Various studies, no study has shown that to be true ever. But they literally are changing the course of debate and causing contention within our country and other democracies in the world today.

by pushing a group of people who do not believe Israel or the Jewish people have a right to exist. Well, OK, let's break that down. I mean, the Chinese Communist Party, it's not about Israel. It's about the U.S. No, it's about detention here. We've seen how they treat their own Muslim population. They're literally committing genocide against their own Muslim population. And yet they push this anti-Israel hegemony.

hate out. Why? Because they see it weaken us. And frankly, at this point, why we have not banned TikTok entirely from this country and every other Chinese based operation of a similar type, it is a poison.

on the minds of our young people and it is completely false and these algorithms you know first it's all these bot farms that are just producing this and pushing this out and it's oil money that is doing it but secondly you have this worldwide network of Wahhabist education for Muslims worldwide that has come out of Saudi Arabia it is the most pernicious version of Islam that is imaginable and at the end of the day this

There are vastly more people who have been indoctrinated to that point of view around the world than have been paying attention to what Israel has to say about their situation. And these kids, their heads are full of lies. Well, according to TikTok's data, hashtag stand with Palestine hashtag is most popular in Malaysia, followed by Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar. Stand with Israel hashtag is in Israel, followed by Greece, Lithuania, and Croatia.

Greece, Lithuania, and Croatia, for people who don't know, are places where there are still fairly large Jewish populations. Right, right. According to TikTok's data, 87% of the audience makeup of hashtag StandWithPalestine posts are under the age of 35. Okay? Compared to 66% of the audience makeup of StandWithIsrael posts. TikTok says they have 1 billion monthly active users. The app is banned in certain countries like India.

It should be banned everywhere. It is a Chinese government psyop. 100%. People think, look, you don't have to destroy a country with missiles. They understand that. Look, most of these countries understand that, right? They can get as big as they want militarily. This is not an easy take-take in the United States. We are at war. Yes, and they're doing it. They're not doing it with bullets. It's asymmetrical warfare. 100%. 100%. Absolutely. Folks,

Stay tuned. We are going to continue on here in the big segment coming up with Senator Marsha Blackburn. Really looking forward to talking about that. We're going to be talking about the Israel conflict in the Middle East a little bit, her kids' online safety act, which ties into this, and want to touch on housing affordability, which obviously is a huge issue heading into this election cycle. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Up next, and we are very pleased to have on the line U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018. She's currently serving her first term representing the state of Tennessee. Before her election to the Senate, Marsha represented Tennessee's 7th Congressional District. Senator Blackburn, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program. I'm delighted to join you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator.

Right now, look, we have low unemployment in this country. Biden keeps pushing this issue. And the press who always covers for him says we have this great economy. Now, I'm glad we have jobs. Don't get me wrong, even though there's a lot of government jobs being created on this as well. But I think one thing people don't understand is we have a real crisis in America for middle class people.

even the upper middle income, that they can't even buy homes. You know, we go around and we talk about all these jobs, but you can't go every mile or two and not see a dollar store. I mean, people are obviously pinching pennies to get by every month. Since Biden's been elected, average household costs have increased $700 a month. That's for nothing new, just to cover what they had before. What is the solution on this tightness that Americans are experiencing, especially in getting into a home now?

Yes. And of course, overall, when you look at the issue of inflation, getting down government spending, because we're at $33.6 trillion, Joe Biden has added well over $6 trillion.

Since he took office, he is going to add more this fiscal year. So that is one thing, and that helps get inflation down. When it comes to the issue of housing, there are some of us that are trying. We've got legislation that would increase the affordable housing, the low-income housing tax credit.

and would increase the number of slots that each state gets, and would increase that by 50%. So that is one thing that Congress can do when you look at low-income housing that would

That's a tangible effort and a tangible effect that would end up making it easier for people to afford housing. And as you were saying, many of those middle-income workers, hardworking taxpayers that are needing that break,

to get into a house. That would help with that situation. And, of course, the interest rates are such that so many people have been knocked out of the housing market. I was getting ready for a finance committee hearing that we're doing tomorrow, and I was looking today at what has happened with average monthly income.

mortgage. And the median in that had been $970 at the end of President Trump's term, $970 a month. And now it has more than doubled. It is over $2,000 a month for that medium house

house payment. And for a lot of people, that is unaffordable. They're blocked out of the market. Absolutely. Senator, you brought up the LIHTC. I worked at the city of Phoenix, and there are a lot of barriers to increasing affordable housing and subsidized housing. But one of the big barriers is

And I'm wondering if you all are looking at this at all or if there's consideration. But whether it's LIHTC or the HUD home loans and all of these things, the conditions that are placed on the construction of this new housing drive up the cost dramatically. And then when you add local restrictions – and there is some pushback finally on those –

We're spending literally here in Phoenix, we're building some new affordable housing. City of Phoenix, it costs over $500,000 per unit to build these apartments. The most expensive private apartments ever built in the history of Phoenix cost $270,000 per unit. I mean, we have to start. How do we start getting into some of these government regulations that are a barrier to our intended goals? Yeah.

Yes, and what you're talking about is the energy efficiency type regulations that have come about as a part of the Green New Deal, requiring specific types of insulation, specific types of wallboard and flooring and construction materials. And when you put

that type of mandate, which I've talked to some folks in the construction industry and they say basically it's an earmark for some of these companies that sell these specific types of products. And when you demand and require that to be used in order to get that government contract

All of a sudden, what is to be affordable housing is too expensive to afford. It's just got to change. Switching topics, why does the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mayorkas, have a job still? I mean, he's horrible. It is beyond me. The way he conducted himself on the Hill yesterday and could not...

say with assurance that the border is secure, which of course everybody knows the border is not secure. And the way he would not answer with specificity about the employee that had put up such egregious tweets in support of Hamas, in support of a terrorist organization, the governmental entity of which you...

you work with has recognized this group as a terrorist organization and you're tweeting in support of them, you know, this person should have been fired immediately. But instead, she is still on the payroll. She is still drawing a check.

and she has been placed on administrative leave. How pleasant for her. How many children are missing? 85,000 are missing from the Department of Homeland Security, and

from Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. And I have asked both Secretary Mayorkas and Secretary Becerra about this. And Secretary Mayorkas said, "Well, that Health and Human Services issue, I don't know anything about missing children." And

Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra said he was unfamiliar with the issue, and I should talk to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. So I talked in a hearing last week to Ms. Marcos, and she herself didn't want to give me a straight answer and never gave me a straight answer about where they are, about what they're doing to find these children, about what is transpiring as they move

look at other children that they have in their care. I can't believe the woman still has a job. Is the biggest problem with the Biden administration ultimately that the buck stops nowhere?

Like, it doesn't seem like any department head, the president, anybody has actual responsibility for what's going on in their area of responsibility. Well, nobody wants to be responsible in that administration. They all continue to act like it is somebody else's problem, but it's not their problem.

and we hear that and witness that repeatedly. And look, you've got an administration that

They're very intentional in what they are trying to do. They believe in America the ordinary, not America the extraordinary. And they believe we're one of many, not the best of many.

And I think our world views are very different. So they take a different approach to their job. If they get it done today, that's okay. If it's going to be tomorrow, well, you know, that's okay, too. And we're seeing this play out in Israel. We're seeing it play out with the 500 or so Americans who are in Gaza that Hamas is now not letting go.

Think about that. And other countries have been able to get their people out through the Rafi Gate and into Egypt. And very few Americans, I think we've got a total of five Americans that have been let out. And some of these are aid workers. Some of these are civilians that are there visiting Palestinian family members. But these people need to be out. And the administration should demand today that

that these individuals be released and be allowed to move out of harm's way. 100%. The Homeland Security Secretary also stated that he admitted there's 600,000 illegal gotaways that crossed the border in 23. What concerns... That they know of. That they know of. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point, right? They didn't catch them, so they don't know. What concerns you about... What should concern our listeners? What should concern the voters of Tennessee about...

that there's 600,000 gotaways, probably more, probably you can even double it probably. What's your concern about this? Yeah, and look at this. You've got total about 8 million people that have come across that border on Joe Biden's watch. It'll be 10 million before we get to the end of the year. We had 155,000 just this month.

And you mentioned the gotaways, the 600,000. Border Patrol will tell you that is the known gotaways. That's the ones they can see on surveillance. They can't get to them. They're also the unknown gotaways in California.

These are the ones when they're out patrolling the next day, like you're in Cochise County, and you're down there on the border and you're out patrolling and you find where they've dropped carpet shoes and camo clothing and water bottles and things of that nature.

And that is your unknown gotaways. What should concern everybody listening to your program tonight is that we have apprehended this year 151 individuals that are on the terrorist watch list.

We have thousands of people that are deemed persons of interest that have come across the border and they have been granted asylum and they're going to be in the United States. But

Just as we are not sending these terrorists we've apprehended to Gitmo, we don't have a plan for following and monitoring these people that are from countries of interest or people that are people of interest that are coming here. And this is – we need to be doing this because –

If you look at what we have apprehended, how many terrorists are in the known gotaways or the unknown gotaways? I mean, these are the really bad people. Yeah, it has to be a lot. But I think what a lot of folks don't know, I mean, from here in Arizona, maybe people understand this a little bit more, but nobody crosses the border anymore without the cartel's involvement.

And the cartel travel agents are giving people scripts. So if you have any ability to claim asylum, you just show up at the border, you read the script they handed to you. You're not a gotaway. Every gotaway is someone trying to do something very nefarious.

That's right. The gotaways don't want you to find them. And that's why they're gotaways. So these are the really bad guys. Senator, I apologize. I want to get one last issue in. We got a little over a minute here. But you are sponsoring and have helped write the Kids Online Safety Act. Tell us what that is, because I think that's critically important right now.

It is so critically important, and it is completely bipartisan. Senator Blumenthal and I have done this. We have about 50 senators that are on this bill with us. What it would do is put a duty of care on big tech about what they're exposing our children to online when it comes to cyberbullying.

It is dealing with suicide, eating disorders, exposing children to pornography, to drug dealers, and to pedophiles. It would put that duty of care, it would bring transparency, they would have to reveal their algorithms and submit to independent audits to make certain that they are doing everything they should do in order to keep our children safe online.

I think that's absolutely fantastic. We want to thank Senator Marsha Blackburn. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Look forward to having you back again here in the future. As we talked about, as Chuck and I are going to be talking about in our podcast segment, a lot of what she was talking about there with the kids' online safety relates to what's going on with TikTok.

and the Israel-Hamas conflict right now. So you're going to want to stay tuned for that, folks. And again, thank you to Senator Blackburn, and thank you to our other guest today, Richard Paul Evans. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week.

The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds, the podcast edition where you find all your extras like Kylie's Corner.

And Sam and I are going to discuss various issues we've wanted to talk about this week. Yeah, and thank you to both of our guests, Richard Paul Evans, the maniac, maniac writer. How does he do that? 41 bestsellers. 41. It's unbelievable. It's insane. And Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator, can't thank her enough for giving us her time today. No, it was fantastic. That's phenomenal. But there's something else going on in Arizona we should probably touch on. What's going on? You know, we may, by the time this airs,

You and I may be crying. It's good that we're recording this before the game tonight. Because for folks who don't know, we prerecord. We're prerecording a little bit early this week on a Wednesday. The Diamondbacks are facing elimination at home tonight.

And for Chuck and I, this could be like one of those life-altering, you're crying. You don't drink beer, so you're going to be crying in your beer event. I'm not even upset if they lose. Remember, you and I talked, and all the prognosticators, if they are playing meaningful games in September, it is a successful season. I think the bothersome point about this is that they had the lead in the first game. They should have came here 2-0.

And that's a whole different vibe, right? And again, it's a good life lesson. Life's about inches. It's about those simple things, right? It's about that third game they lost 3-1 and Christian Walker ran past the third base coach. They said, I don't think the third base coach did a good job. Or in the game last night, what, four or five runs after a two-out error. Yeah, and they put Castro in and he immediately knew that was done because he's horrible. But –

Our folks don't get it. So anyway –

We kind of knew we were just going to lose game seven. Yeah. So you didn't make winning the World Series like the end-all, be-all. You had to win the title to have a good season. And I feel like increasingly in sports there's this attitude that everything short of a title is a failure. Yeah, and I think it's wrong. I think that's wrong, especially for this team. I mean, this team's got a bunch of 23-year-olds. They weren't supposed to be here. They're a Cinderella team. I think they've re-energized themselves.

So Kylie and I were talking to one of the head executives there last night, and they said the sales tickets have jumped tremendously. And so, you know, look, they brought some life out. It's a team that's going to be good for a while. They're exciting. My guess is I could be wrong. My guess is they win tonight. My guess is Kelly goes win game six and they lose game seven. That's my prediction right now. All right. You heard it here first. But, you know, I mean.

The thing of it is, you're right. This is a great season for them regardless. You've got 30 teams more or less in every sport, right? I guess what NFL is 28? I don't know. Is that 32? Whatever. So realistically, you only have, you know, once every 30 years that, you know, you should win a title.

If that's your marker, then that's a really bad marker. Like I remember there's plenty of seasons when your team gets to 500 and you feel really good about it. Well, I mean, look, let's use the World Series example. If it was easy to go to, the Yankees and the Dodgers would have bought themselves five or six each the past 12 years.

which I would probably have committed suicide by now. But that's the point. That's why it's so difficult and why it needs to be celebrated in many ways. Now, look, I want him to win. We're season ticket holders. But, you know, sometimes it just doesn't happen. And little things happen and you go from there. So you do what you're going to do. So the FBI is reporting that anti-Semitic threats are reaching historic levels in the United States.

In yesterday's Senate hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, for a group that represents only 2.4% of the American public, they account for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes. My comment about that is, two years ago, it was all white supremacy. Right. Right-wing white supremacy. And that's the narrative some on the left are still trying to push. Well, they're still trying to push. This 60% of all religious hate crimes towards Americans

our Jewish friends, 90% from the left. Oh, yeah. At least. At least. And I mean, you watch what's happening on these campuses. It would get 10 times the coverage if this was happening at Liberty University, BYU, any smaller Christian college. But it's not happening there. It's happening supposedly at our elite colleges. Harvard, Yale. Harvard, Yale. And the anti-Semitism is real.

Kyla and I were talking about this this week. I think something has been interesting. We've had two, you know, we've had some traumatic experiences in the world lately. COVID, for all the negatives, did put a spotlight on the poor state of American education and public schools. And it woke people up, right? From tragedy, from the ashes rose, right? What this has done

Because donors have funded this. Unwittingly, I don't know. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. No, I think it's absolutely been unwittingly. But they have been funding these moronic professors, these moronic DIA administrators, these moronic college presidents.

who have gone in and built this hysteria, this anti-Semitism, this pure bigotry, this anti-First Amendment diatribe they're in there now. This has woken up these donors, and I think you may start seeing some changes at some colleges, not all of them, but some. But there needs to be punishment for this. I agree 100 percent. I was also heartened today. There was a tweet that I retweeted, and folks, you can find that at SamLapal, P-O-L. But –

From a college professor who said a year ago he started to see the first signs of this sort of wokester DEI cancel culture narrative dying because the kids in his writing class at the university died.

All of a sudden, a year ago, the incoming class stopped caring about these things they've been told they had to care about and had to have a specific opinion on. Interesting. And he said they just were over it. All of a sudden, literally from one class to the second, totally different dynamic. And if you look at the timing, those are the kids whose junior and senior years were disrupted by COVID. They were at home. Right. And they weren't fully indoctrinated.

Right, right, right. No, it's a great point. Also this week, something of interest here. So everybody has – when it first happened on October 7th, the terrorist attack by Hamas.

People said, what happened to this vaunted Israeli intelligence you hear about? Right. And then, of course, America gets lumped into this for some reason, like Gaza is our problem. Right. So it's a you know, it's it's our it's our responsibility. It was a failure. Yeah, for sure. I don't. Yeah. I don't. But what's interesting, the Wall Street Journal had an article that's.

undercover that U.S. intelligence quit spying on Hamas and delegated the task to Israeli intelligence in order to prioritize other threats that posed a more direct threat to the United States. This happened after 9-11.

So we were looking at al-Qaeda, ISIS, things of that nature. Current and former officials said U.S. intelligence agencies, principally the CIA, had a handful of analysis tracking the events at Gaza but relied on Israel to penetrate Hamas with human sources. And clearly the Israeli intent, Mossad, failed miserably. Well, I think what it is, I think Israel...

fell into this comfort zone. Yeah, absolutely. And we have this great border patrol. We have all this technology. It's not a wall. It's a fence. But I feel like they felt this false sense of security. And what's sad about it is they'll be on high alert about it now.

But everybody gets comfortable after a little bit of time. Time makes us all comfortable, right? Also, as our guest from last week mentioned, their focus had been primarily on the West Bank and not Gaza because that's where they had had a bunch of conflicts between settlers.

Israeli settlers and Palestinians there. So it was a shift in focus. They weren't paying enough attention. I will say this. I don't know, Chuck. Did you see the thing with the leader of Hamas today speaking from Qatar? He's on TV saying there would be another one of these every –

When a leadership of a group just says, look, our objective is to kill you. Yeah. There's no peace here. You know, this is one of those moments when I miss Donald Trump because the proper ending to that interview was a Patriot missile. 100%. 100%. You know, the other thing that stood out from this attack on Israel is Israel has a pretty strict gun control in their country. And about only 2% of U.S. citizens own a personal weapon.

Israeli citizens. Israeli citizens. Could you see if the roles reverse as much as people like to complain about all the guns in the United States? There would never have been 1,300 people killed in the United States on that.

No. There have been people killed. No, there would have been. Yeah, absolutely. There have been people killed. A couple hundred probably. Yes. But there have been a lot of dead Hamas terrorists that day. Yes, there absolutely would have been. And that is a very fundamental difference. It's one of the things like you hear Joe Biden say, well, we can take these guns away. What are people going to do? This whole idea that they're going to fight back against some kind of organized tyranny or an attack like this isn't real. Well, then explain Afghanistan to me.

Well, I mean, explain how a bunch of guys with rifles and homemade bombs fought off the world's most powerful military for 15 years. Well, as you and I have talked in the morning, we had these morning talks. We have this – folks, we have this thread of some consultants and some are very pro, pro, pro Second Amendment. I'm a Second Amendment guy, but I think Sam would probably call me right of center. I'm not right, right of center of it. Yeah, no. I believe in some regulations. So, for example, folks, I believe if you're –

under care of a doctor and taking antidepressants or bipolar medication, things of that nature, you should not be able to have a gun. I just I don't think you should have it. They knew he had issues. I mean, you know, so. So, yeah, that being said, but the other thing COVID highlighted and you saw the polls of Democrats saying, you know, 40 percent would take your children away. You know, all these crazy things we've talked about. I posted a lot. I posted all the time. That's another reason I just say you're not going to take anybody's gun. I don't trust you people.

I really felt like one way or another, the whole gun grabber thing died with COVID. I agree. I mean, I think and I think there's been like this event since and other things that have hardened that. But there's no way that's ever going to happen here anytime soon. But I do think you're right in that Republicans have a electoral issue with this.

That is a problem. And they need to be proactive. They need to push some major resources into mental health. They need to do something like I just talked about. If you're on certain medications and you're under the care of a doctor or just on the prescriptions, you should not be able to have a gun. Yeah, I agree. And I mean, I agree. The other thing that I look at to me, I don't believe anyone should be carrying or using a firearm who hasn't had proper training. I agree. I agree on that as well. And so...

So I oppose the idea of a gun registry, but I'm not opposed to the idea of something along the lines of a driver's license that allows me – Yeah, to take a test. Yeah. I agree. So you're not tracking what weapons I own, but I as a citizen can go and pass this test and then I'm qualified. Look, I go once a year and spend four hours. I spend a half a Saturday at the range with an instructor –

Do two sessions, usually two hours each. As everybody should. And we do a standard set shooting. Then we go over safety. Then we do a tactical shooting scenario. I do all of those because at the end of the day, if anything ever would happen – and I tend to carry – if anything ever would happen –

I don't want to be the one that starts killing innocent civilians because I don't know how to handle a firearm. Well, they are deadly instruments. Do we have a Kylie corner today? We absolutely do. What do we have? Okay. So there is, I have been waiting to talk about this one because I was hoping something turned up. However, it is a missing woman's case. Oh my goodness. Chelsea Grimm. She's 32 years old. She was driving from San Diego to Connecticut for a wedding.

And the reason she told her parents that she was going to make that drive was because she wanted to bring her

bearded dragon with her and you apparently can't fly with bearded dragons. Was this bearded dragon like a support animal or just a buddy? What is this? I think it was a support animal. Have you had a bearded dragon before? I don't like reptiles, so no. Okay. All right. All right. Anyway, to each their own. Reptiles smell, Chuck. Have you ever been in someone's house and it's one of those things? They stink. Well, that's because they don't keep it clean. So on September 27th,

She meets up with a friend in Phoenix and calls her parents. So she went from San Diego to Phoenix, calls her parents on September 27th and says, this drive is taking longer than I thought. I'm going to skip the wedding. So she made it to Arizona and was like, I'm not going to the wedding anymore. End of story. I'm going to go back to San Diego. So her parents said, OK, fine, whatever's going on.

September 28th, she gets pulled over by a police officer in not pulled over. I'm sorry. Backtrack on that. She was at a cemetery in Williams, Arizona, and someone called for suspicious activity. So an officer went over there and basically confronted her and said, hey, what's going on? And he said, there's body cam footage that was then released.

And she said that she was working on, she's a photographer, working on a photography project of a lost soldier. And she just got really tired and started crying. And so she was going to wait there and then start driving once she calmed down. So the officer said, why don't you stay the night and go sleep at the truck stop? No one will bother you there. It's pretty safe. Whatever. So she said, okay, I'm going to do that.

So this was the day after she spoke with her parents. No one had heard from her up until October 4th. So her parents reported her missing to the Phoenix police because that was the last place they knew that she was. So they opened an investigation and a wood chipper comes out and says, I spoke to her on September 30th and she was still in Williams, Arizona, and she was still working on said project. But she seemed in good spirits, was fine. Yeah.

Whatever. But she hasn't been seen since the body cam footage September 27th. And on October 5th, some hunters found her car abandoned up in Williams, Arizona, kind of closer. It looked like she was heading towards the Grand Canyon. So her car was abandoned, but it was locked.

Nothing was broken into. She had her camera in there, so they released some footage of her most recent projects that she was working on in Arizona. The bearded dragon's missing. She's missing. It's been a month, and no one can find her. There's just so much desert in Arizona and New Mexico and elsewhere. I mean, I just...

One of the things— I can't imagine having a loved one disappear like that. Years ago, my youngest, Parker, we took him to a baseball game. He was probably six or five, I forget, maybe younger. And they had this playground in the left field, and it was all fenced, right? So I'm there, I'm watching him, keeping—he's going to do the various toys and stuff. All of a sudden, I can't find him. Well, there happens to be a big hole in the fence.

And this happened right after the big disappearance of the girl. I forget what's her name, the blonde gal that disappeared. She became, they found her eventually. Oh, Elizabeth Smart? Yeah. So it happened like within that year, right? I'll never forget the Salt Lake Bees. They just shut it down. No one was leaving that stadium. Nothing. It was shut down. I'll never forget. Today, it's still tangible, the feeling of utter despair. Mm-hmm.

Fortunately, Parker decided to go behind home plate and try to get a popcorn by himself. But besides that point, I'll never forget that. So I can't imagine what the loved ones of this woman is going through. Yeah. So it says the car was found with two flat tires, but her phone, her wallet, all her clothes, her sleeping bag and pet bearded dragon were not in the car. So maybe she got flat tires, was like, I'm going to start walking somewhere and hopefully someone finds me. I don't know.

I love they keep mentioning the bearded dragon. Well, that's the whole reason she was on this road trip. Like he's a witness to the whole thing. It's Roxy. I'm assuming maybe it's a female. I mean, for folks out there who don't understand, and I didn't, I mean, growing up initially in the Northeast, we moved out here when I was about 16. The environment out here will kill you in a hurry in a whole lot of different ways that it does not in most places. It is just too dangerous. Yeah.

It is too dangerous here. I mean, there's just so much land out here. You do not need, especially if you're not familiar with the area, it's so easy. Yeah. You have to have someone with you when you go off the road or off a known trail. Especially if you're not aware of it. Well, folks, thank you for joining this week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend, and we'll look forward to talking to you next week. Visit us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great weekend.