Unpacking Harris: From Afghanistan to Policy Flip-Flops with Dr. William Walters and David Harsanyi
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio today. So as he has done a few times here before, and we always appreciate it. We have Sean Noble, the host of his own podcast, Light Beer, Dark Money. He is sitting in for Chuck today. So, Sean, thank you once again. Great to be here. Thank you. And as always, we're just going to jump right in with our first guest.

On the line with us, Dr. William Walters, a retired soldier with three combat tours in Iraq, former senior State Department official and founder and executive director of the Salus Development Fund, a not-for-profit organization focused on improving the lives of people in the aftermath of war through the development of commercial aviation and health infrastructure. Dr. Walters, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the program.

Sam and John, thanks for having me. Tell us a little bit, before we jump in, we're going to talk a little bit about the Gold Star family's response to Kamala Harris, the Haitian migrant crisis, and some other stuff related to kind of everything that's in the news right now. But first, tell us a little bit about the Salus Development Fund. How did you get into that? What exactly do you do?

Because this is kind of one of the more interesting descriptions, Sean, of a nonprofit I've read in a while. Thanks for the opportunity. Salas Development Fund was...

sort of spun out of the work that I had done both in the military and at the State Department in reaching out to communities, places like Somalia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere that the development community writ large sort of falls short on.

It's a lot of focus on the Afghan problem and the growing poverty and violence and human rights issues in Afghanistan. And how did you, it seems like an odd mix with aviation and health infrastructure. Is that kind of just the background experience or how did you settle on those two areas and what specifically are they doing in those veins?

I think when you take a place like Somalia, like Afghanistan, that either in the case of Somalia, it doesn't really receive a whole lot of shipping for reasons you can imagine, or Afghanistan that's landlocked. The movement of vaccines, medications, and so forth is really reliant upon

commercial aviation, and that's a linkage that frequently gets overlooked. And so in Afghanistan, SDF has worked with the Taliban because they're the ones running the country now to improve the capacity of the Kabul International Airport and some of the other infrastructure necessary to keep the planes flying and keep the services possible.

What has been your experience in dealing with the Taliban? I mean, obviously, you know, we all have our own views of. And you have to deal with the government in place. There's no. But it seems to me I'll bet people probably don't understand that there is probably a lot of good thing that's good things that are happening as a result of the work that's going on.

So, you know, no one was more surprised than I to find a 30-year soldier working with a sanctioned narco-terrorist organization. And at the end of the day, you know, it is the problem that we're faced, right? When the Biden-Harris administration made the decision to withdraw troops

U.S. troops, they de facto made the decision to withdraw diplomatic support as well. And at the end of the day, there are several million people that are left with the consequences of that decision. Well, and one thing that, you know, I come, Chuck is very much from the neocon wing of our party. I come from a more populist type standpoint. It works on the radio, but one thing I think some of the maybe more populist

and potentially more libertarian type folks don't understand is that if we withdraw and we do not engage on a humanitarian level with the citizens of Afghanistan, if we do not engage on a humanitarian level with the citizens of Somalia and these other places, we are handing them to geopolitical adversaries, right? I mean, this...

This is a matter of our national security to continue to be involved, to show folks that the U.S. cares. You know, Ronald Reagan described the United States as a shining city on a hill. And I think that's right. I think that the American ideals and the American experiment speaks for itself when it's presented to people.

And sometimes you show up and you just set an example. You show up and you deliver clothes before winter. When there's an earthquake in Herat, you send tents and blankets and food. And you do those things without asking them to buy into anything. And when you do that, you set the American example. People notice that.

And even if they don't tell you that, that it's been noticed, it is noticed. People want to come to the United States because of the example that the United States sets on a world stage. Such a great way to put it, because not only is it a shining city on a hill for people to look to as an example, but it's a place that draws people.

And it draws people because of the humility, frankly, that we present when we are helping others without, you know, any expectation of a repercussion. Well, and if you're trying to turn someone, for instance, into a radicalized, you know, terrorist, right? That's a lot harder to do when the country you're telling them to go hate and blow up is someplace that they're like, well, I like those people. They're good to me.

I think that's accurate. And I think when you look at if you compare the way most Afghans hold the United States in positive regard,

to the way that prison gangs from Venezuela come into the United States and immediately look to take advantage or tear it down, I think there are important lessons there.

I think that, you know, 20 years of war was a horrible thing. All of us lost friends and, you know, there was a great deal of sacrifice for an ideal. And it was long enough for Afghans to see that we were willing to make that make that commitment. I juxtapose that with, you know, people from Venezuela or from Honduras or from Haiti, you

um, or from Nicaragua that haven't had that experience, um, and have not made their own commitment, uh, to the United States and to our policies and to our ideals, um, and just find a free ride, uh, and somehow we're surprised when they arrive here and try to continue the same life that they had, uh,

where they came from. Is Haiti an example of a place that maybe is exactly the opposite because of, frankly, what happened after the earthquake and the Clinton Foundation, which took in billions and billions of dollars to help Haiti? The international community, wealthy people around the world, the U.S. government, governments around the world poured huge amounts of money in to help rebuild Haiti after the devastating earthquake there.

And then that money basically just disappeared into the nebulous eaves of the Clinton Foundation and did not deliver any of the promised services. So you had all these great promises being made, and then they watched America just leave them mired in broken dirt. I mean, just destroyed, and nothing was done to help. I think what you can count on

when individuals, when people, set aside the government, those that have access to graft, the people themselves, when they are left without resources, the situation quickly devolves into more

What eventually is a criminal enterprise doesn't mean all Haitians are criminals or not. There's very, very good people in a very, very bad situation. But it quickly becomes a, you know, the might makes right environment and where strong men step up, take over and exploit others.

The problem is when you are indiscriminate as to who you allow to immigrate into the United States and you don't vet them properly, it should be no surprise that they come to a larger pond in which to feed. And you do end up with problems like we're seeing in Aurora, Colorado. Well, and one thing to note, Sean, is that a lot of the people getting to the front of the line, whether it's from Venezuela, from Haiti and other places, they're

are more likely to be those people who are engaged in the criminal ecosystem because they have access to pull the levers behind the scenes to put themselves in that place. Right. Yeah. And it does, in fact, create a situation in which people view illegal immigration not as a humanitarian issue but as a criminal issue.

And yes, it's a crime to come across the border illegally. But the vast majority of people who do it are doing it to save their lives. They're doing it because they have no hope where they are. Whereas some of these instances, these are definitely criminal enterprises coming in to take advantage of the generosity of the United States. And Dr. Walters, doesn't that – what Sean was just talking about, I mean essentially you bring in one hardened Tren de Aragua member from Venezuela –

They're sort of poisoning the well for 100 Venezuelans who would love to come here and work and build a better life.

Because of that, and that gets back to what you were talking about, the importance of vetting. Yeah, I mean, if you compare the Afghan SIV process, right, the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa process, to the CNVH, the Cuban, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Honduras asylum process, right now there are 130,000 Afghans that qualify for

for SIVs still waiting in Afghanistan. In this fiscal year, only 30,000 of them have made it to the United States. And as a comparison, under the CNVH program, 160,000 people entered the United States through that program in FY23. So let's...

Take a look at that. 30,000 people that in order to qualify for the visa that they qualify for had to work with the United States, had to risk their lives and the lives of their family. And are being targeted now. Right. To further the goals of the United States in our longest war, they're going to take two, three, four years to vet. Oh.

Or you could be a prison gang member out of Venezuela, go to the CPP-1 app, pick the same sponsor in the United States that 34,000 other people have listed on their application, wait a few days, and then hop on a flight to Dulles. There is a problem, and it is very difficult to...

to approach that from a coherent policy perspective. And what you're left with in the absence of an obvious answer is an answer that nobody really wants to look at, which is there are other reasons to bring Western Hemisphere immigrants into the United States other than to answer promises. Absolutely right. We're going to be coming back with more in just a moment from Dr. William Walter. Stay tuned. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your Sam Stone in studio with me today. Filling in for Chuck Warren, we have Sean Noble. He's the host of Light Beer, Dark Money. Fantastic podcast. You definitely need to check that out on Substack and elsewhere, wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Spotify, I assume, Sean? Yeah, absolutely. All places. All places. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Before we continue on, we are talking to Dr. William Walters. He is a retired soldier with three combat tours in Iraq, former senior State Department official and founder and executive director of the Salis Development Fund, a not-for-profit organization focused on organizing and improving the lives of people in the aftermath of war through the development of commercial aviation and health infrastructure.

Before we get into that, folks, are you improving your retirement fund right now? I don't know if you are, but I'm certainly not because the stock market has been all over the place in the last few months. And quite frankly, and this is just my opinion, if Kamala Harris gets elected, which I think is increasingly possible, man, watch out. The stock market is not going to like that. The markets are going to take you down. You need to check out our friends with Invest, the letter Y, then REFY.com. Give them a call, 888-

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Folks, go to invest the letter Y then RFY.com right now. Secure your financial future with by investing with Y refi. Well, back to it, Dr. Walters, the we had we had this instance where they're at the anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the terrible thing that happened under the Biden administration, where there are gold star families, you

at Arlington Cemetery and invited Donald Trump to participate in a wreath. Invited both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And there's been a lot of hubbub about that. Give us a little sense of where the Gold Star families are coming from. Yeah. And as a soldier, you sign a check and it's blank and you and it can end. You could fill that check with your life.

And you go to combat with the unit and the people that you know more to protect them and to put forward the ideals than anything else. Soldiers go to combat for the people next to them, and we expect our government, should the worst happen, to remember us and to remember our families.

The Gold Star families, in my opinion, are rightfully upset.

that the current administration whose decisions ultimately led to the chaos at Abbey Gate have done nothing but try to bury that story behind them as a dark point in their legacy that they hope people will forget. Yeah, Dr. Walters and Sean, I've got to say, watching this whole thing play out from the botched withdrawal that resulted in the deaths of our 13 service members, numerous civilians, the response to it afterwards is,

I look at this, this is not just a political indictment of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. It is a moral indictment that is absolutely staggering because, look, they made a mistake. Other commanders in chief have made mistakes that have resulted in lost soldiers' lives before. That's part of the real world of military operations. Sometimes things are going to go badly.

We can look back and absolutely legitimately criticize how they came to that point in the decisions they made. But I would criticize more the moral failing of walking away from these families and from your obligation to honor the sacrifice that their children made for this country. Like you said, Dr. Walters, filling out that check for their life. Yeah.

That to me is in some ways as big a failure as the elements of the withdrawal that could have been done differently and would have prevented this. Where's the compassion? Where's the understanding that you took these kids' lives, you took these people's lives by a bad decision and you need to own it?

Well, there's been so many examples of commanders in chief who have dealt with this in a different way. And I'm going to point to one that most of our listeners probably don't know or remember because it was 1979. And it was with the last time we had a Democrat president who had a foreign policy failure.

Well, we've had others, but a really big one that had impact. And that was when Jimmy Carter approved a plan to try to go rescue the hostages from Iran. And it was a disaster. And we lost, I think it was four or five servicemen. And he went and was a part of, you know, receiving the bodies back. And he saw the families and the image that was seared in my head as a nine-year-old

was Jimmy Carter on his knees hugging two young kids with tears streaming down his face. And I thought, I'm not a fan of Jimmy Carter. I know my parents are not a fan of Jimmy Carter, but he showed real compassion. And that was presidential. And that is something that Joe Biden has never experienced.

It's a huge character issue.

Yeah, from, you know, Operation Eagle Claw in 1979 failed in large part for the same reasons that the withdrawal from Afghanistan failed. When you really dig into it, it was a lack of imagination. It was a lack of planning.

And it was a leadership failure almost at the philosophical level. Congress recently published the most recent study on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I think it's appropriately titled, Willful Blindness. I was at the State Department in the months leading up to the withdrawal, and I'll tell you, that report gets it perfectly. The

When the Taliban, there's much in the press right now that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban and ignored the Republican government. Afghanistan is not true. When the Trump administration and Mike Pompeo started that negotiation, you had two different groups that were at war with each other. It was unrealistic to think you were going to get everybody at a table.

So they negotiated separately and brought those two groups closer and closer together. But in April of 2021, when the Taliban refused to show up to talks in Istanbul, the Biden administration knew or should have known that the deal was done. And there was plenty of time to shut it off. But right after that, Joe Biden made the decision to go to zero. And when he made that decision to go to zero, knowing that the Taliban were backing out on the deal,

He created the conditions that made Abbey Gate inevitable. Yeah, well said. Absolutely. We have just one minute left. We want to thank Dr. William Walters for joining us today. Dr. Walters, we really appreciate you taking the time. How do people follow you and your work and stay in touch with everything you're doing?

You know, because of the places that we work and the things that we do, it's, you know, we try to stay out of the press. But but here's what I would say to your listeners that, you know, leadership matters and the choice in this election matters.

as much to me in being able to deliver services and help people in places like Afghanistan or Libya or Somalia or in the future Gaza as any other American. We all have a stake in this election. To make it easier to deliver services in hard places, you've got to... We need steady leadership. Thank you so much, Dr. Walters. We appreciate you breaking battlegrounds. Coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, folks. Stop big tech from tracking your every move. Experience true freedom with 4FreedomMobile. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com. That is the number 4. 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage, digital security, and total freedom. Use code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. You get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month. After that, again, that's called BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit them 4FreedomMobile.com today. All right. We're continuing on with our next interview.

repeat guest and someone whose work we really appreciate here at Breaking Battlegrounds, David Harsanyi, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. He is the author of The Rise of Blue Anon, How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists. You can follow him on Twitter at David Harsanyi. David, thank you so much for joining us once again, and welcome back to the program.

Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Most I would guess that most people would believe that true conspiracy theorists are mostly on the right. But as you point out in this book so aptly that really the radical conspiracy theories are coming from the left. Give us a little idea of what you have learned in your writing about.

Well, I think conspiracy theories are have always been popular since the beginning of the history and probably before. Right. So who was the guy who had the overnight show for like 20 years on the radio? Oh, was it Art Bell? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. So they're popular because people are always searching for answers. And so.

sometimes the simple explanation is not good enough for them, you know, so they look for other answers. And sometimes conspiracy theories are used by people in power or people in power call conspiracy theories that because they want to hide the truth. That happens as well, there's no doubt about it. Many things recently maybe that we thought were conspiracies turned out to be true. But what I thought about was that, you know, the right does have conspiracy theories. They're usually...

you know, raving on some social media or whatever. But the right, they kind of launder their conspiracy theories through media. They polish it up. It's well produced. It's calibrated to be more plausible in a way. You know, experts come out and tell you that they're true. You know, think about the Russia collusion stuff. So,

It is much more dangerous because it is much more mainstreamed and believed. So I thought about that. And then the more I thought about the left, especially the contemporary left, the more I thought,

Boy, they believed a lot of crazy things, you know, and I thought I would lay it out, you know, from the environment, for instance, very unscientific beliefs about human ingenuity and all that. And, you know, through, you know, other topics, language and just plain old politics. What was the conspiracy theory that was embraced by, you know, a large number of people on the left that you were you thought, OK, this is just...

Like, this is where they have gone into their... There's a sex dungeon in the basement of the pizza parlor area there. Well, that... It's not like that. I mean, it is like that. I mean, there are plenty of people on the left who, you know, believe...

really outlandish things. But that's the point in a way. I don't know that people realize that after 9-11, polls showed this. I don't trust polls usually, but it gives you some idea of what's going on. Over 50% of people, or Democrats, I mean, believe that someone was behind 9-11, that George Bush had something to do with 9-11. So that is a

that's a crazy thing to believe and then you know this comes after the 2000 you know election where you know the left believed it was stolen they believed you know all kinds of crazy things there as well so um i i don't know that it's like one thing like i believe in in you you know ufos landed in my backyard though there's plenty of that but more so

The world's going to end in five years if we don't all take bicycles to work, that kind of thing. In some ways, we have only about a minute and a half left in this segment. But in some ways, those things are more dangerous because one of the things you point out in your book is that these conspiracy theories on the right tend to be limited to a real fringe of the right. Like, I don't know.

Many people, you know, the left thinks very poorly of the MAGA movement, but I don't know many people in the MAGA movement that subscribe to these QAnon theories and this kind of stuff. But I know a lot of people on the left who believe that.

Oh, that's for sure, yeah. And, you know, think about, you know, I don't know anything about... I mean, I only know about QAnon from what I've read.

research on this book. I've never actually met anyone in the real world who knows or believes that stuff that I know of. But I met and debated many people who thought that Donald Trump was an asset of the Russian government when he became president. There's Jonathan Shade, a journalist, wrote a long piece, I think it was 7,000 words, in New York Magazine, making the argument that it is very possible that Donald Trump was recruited in the 1980s

to take over the presidency of the United States. That is an insane conspiracy theory, and it is mainstream. This is wild. We're going to be coming back with more from David Harsanyi in just a moment. Stay tuned. Hi, folks. This is Chuck Warren of Breaking Battlegrounds. Do you want to prepare for a secure retirement? Grab a pen and paper right now and write down 877-80-INVEST. As our loyal listeners know, Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by YREFI.

If you are concerned about your financial future and looking for a good return for your retirement, then you need to call YRefi at 877-80-INVEST. There you can earn a strong, fixed rate of return of up to 10.25%, pay no fees, and have no attack on your principal if you ever need your money back.

Just go to investyrefi.com. That's invest, the letter Y, then R-E-F-Y.com or call 877-880-INVEST. I personally invest my own money with Y Refi. I recommend you give it a serious look for your future.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your Sam Stone. Joining me in studio today, Sean Noble is our guest host. Filling in for Chuck, who's off in the great blue yonder. I think he's in Florida. He's enjoying better weather than we have today. But folks, before we jump back into that...

the stock market's been up, the stock market's been down, but if you were invested with YRefi, your investment would just keep growing day after day, year after year. By investing with YRefi, you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on a secure collateralized portfolio. You can choose to take your interest payments in cash. You can choose to compound them. You can kind of

Do a mix of them. It is total freedom for how you want to control your investments. So check them out. Invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 888-Y-REFY24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. David Harsanyi is with us. Great to have you, David. Talking about your book, The Rise of Blue and On, I wanted to get into...

the idea of the Holocaust denial aspect. You know, obviously we have some folks on the right who have been anti-Semitic and denying of the Holocaust, but that really is a movement that is owned by the left for the most part, right? Well, these days it's definitely growing there in a more mainstream way. So again, there are, I think, plenty of anti-Semitism isn't a

you know, all ideologies. And I think it's indicative usually of the kind of extremism and radicalism that they're usually anti-Semites, but, um, it's been a main part of leftist communist idea, you know, uh, uh, ideology from the start. I mean, Karl Marx himself was anti-Semitic and on and on. Um, so I think it's a big part of the progressive movement. And then now basically you have Israel, if you're anti-Israel, sometimes that leads to, uh,

uh, anti-Semitic ideas. And I think it grows, especially now with social media where lies can spread so quickly. So, yeah, I mean, I, in the book, I detail the rise of this anti-Semitism. And again, there are people on the right, you know, influencers, whatever, who are anti-Semites, but on the left, they're in Congress. I mean, the squad is in, you know, they're, they're making laws, you know, they're trying, they're stopping, uh, they're trying to stop Congress from sending our allies defensive weapons. So, um,

And also, you know, they spread all kinds of ugly what I call blood libel. I mean, I think it's blood libel to say that Jews go around killing people on purpose, which is what they're constantly spreading. So calling it apartheid is blood libel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah.

Is there a difference? One of the things I've kind of come to is a lot of these conspiracy theories, like what people think of as the traditional conspiracy theories, right? People, flat earthers, or you have people who don't believe the moon landing was real. Those things really have no effect on society. Like people believing in that. What does that matter at the end? As long as it's not the, you know, the person teaching your, your kids at school, who cares? But,

Yeah.

I think that's a great point. And again, my book is about conspiracy theories, but it's also about paranoia. So paranoia that you've been convinced that the world is going to end in a few years, that drives policies that will destroy society.

technology, destroy our lives, make our world a worse place. Or you're paranoid because you think that your political opponent, because he's pro-life, wants to create handmaid's tale. That is a paranoia that leads you to act in ways and make policies that are sometimes, in my view, again, kind of insane. So it also destroys our ability to have a democracy or a

you know, to debate in ways a healthy democracy does. So for instance, I've noticed, I write about this in the book that when I started out years ago, I would debate people on the left all the time. Nowadays, people on the left don't debate you. They just accuse you. They accuse you of things. They accuse you of being a racist or they accuse you of being bought by someone big, this big grocery, big oil, you know, whatever. So,

it's changed that kind of paranoia where everything you say, they're always just looking to see if there's some racist intent behind it or homophobic intent or whatever it is, is a kind of paranoia that has,

And I think it's asymmetrical, honestly, has created a very, how can I say, divisive, I guess, place, but not in a good way. Not divisive in that we're debating all the time, divisive in that we're just accusing each other of things. Well, that's the thing is that, I mean, we've gotten to the point where there isn't really debate. It's just screaming.

And it's hurling these invectives about basically shutting you down because, oh, you are associated with this person or you're paid by that person or, you know, like you said, the big whatever, big oil. Two groups standing on either side of a wall lobbing bombs at each other who never even see each other. I mean, it's really –

Go ahead. The problem, the problem I think is in some sense is that one side has a lot of the power right now in the world. So it used to be a mutually assured destruction in a way, you know, so you wouldn't do certain things because you knew the other side would do it to you. But I think the left, you know, most institutions in American life are run by the left right now. There's more paranoia and conspiracies on the

on Ivy League campuses than there are in a rural town somewhere in a diner. You know what I mean? It is, it is there. It's not the same. And those people are the ones who teach, you know, not everyone, but they teach the people who end up in the state department. They teach the people who end up in law firms, you know, and top law firms and things like that. So it's, the whole thing is backwards. You think,

oh, if you're more educated, then you're more rational and you're more skeptical of things. But in the end, it doesn't seem that way when we see what kind of protests are going on on college campuses anymore. I think the nuts are on campus. So that's also a problem. Well, and you also see that, and this has been a very interesting demographic shift from the standpoint of it used to be if you were college educated, you were more likely to vote Republican.

Now it's just the opposite. It's that, you know, if you're college educated, the higher up you go, and maybe the PhDs were the exception back in the 70s and 80s. But now...

Education attainment is actually the best indicator of how you're going to vote. You're going to – the more education you have, the more liberal. And access to top-level education is largely being driven – the reason they're stepping away from like using the SAT and other empirical measures to allow people in is because they focus on these essays, which are essentially political purity tests, right? Yeah.

David, one thing, you brought up this panic over the Handmaid's Tale scenarios that you see on the left. You see this on the college campuses. You see that in a lot of their protests and things like this. Is that only – it strikes me as particularly odd given the reality that the US today is probably the most free country.

in the history of the world for women? I mean, if it's not at the top, it's darn close. Is this kind of panic only really possible when you don't have real concerns to deal with in this area? I think about that often because I would say this. I would say that no one on Earth has ever lived freer or better than people in the United States right now and richer, far richer than anyone. When I point out that

I actually wrote a book about this. But when I point out to people that Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita per family by a lot than Britain, for instance, they don't believe you. So, you know, we are incredibly –

free and incredibly powerful. Now, I don't think there aren't problems here. I'm not saying there aren't certain people who are suffering, and I'm not saying that everything's great. I'm just saying nothing's ever going to always be great. And when you think about it in that way, we are better off than almost anyone ever. And yet people are unhappier, it seems to me, than ever. And a lot of it is driven by concerns that aren't true. Now, again, I bring up the

You know, environmentalism, I'm not saying you can't be worried about climate change or something like that. But when you want to shut down all fossil fuels, as many Democrats say they do, and make our lives immeasurably worse, you know,

That's driven by a paranoia that's created in universities by so-called experts who know that you can't actually get that done, but who push it anyway. And it creates a world where you have a lot of anxiety by people who aren't even having children sometimes because they're worried about this. And it creates or makes a world, this paranoia makes our world worse.

our country, you know, a worse place. Well, I think that the conspiracy of climate change, the way I look at it, is the one that's gotten by far the most cross-cultural attention when you look at popular media, movies, TV shows. I mean, the, you know, apocalyptic, how do you say it?

The apocalyptic nature of these things that mankind destroyed the earth and so they're trying to rebuild or whatever. I mean it's interesting storytelling but there's an agenda there because they're trying to –

push this point of view that can't be pushed from a rational argument. It has to be, it has to be packaged. And it is, it is crazy when you think about people who are like, Oh, I can't have kids because we can't bring them into this world. It will destroy the earth is, is just the opposite of what the truth is. Yeah. And you know,

just, this isn't about my book, but just separately to mention, you know, when you look at socialistic places or communist places, they're the worst places for the environment. Capitalistic nations are far better for the environment, far better placed up children and far better for our planet. You know,

you know, in the long run. But it speaks to another thing, the economic ideas, the economic paranoia that goes on. And this is certainly nothing new, but people think about the world in a zero-sum way. They think if one person's poor, that means someone's stealing for them or taking from them to get rich. Not that everyone can grow and an economy can grow. We've become

You know, people talk about inequality, and I'm not saying there isn't inequality. I'm saying, though, that still the people on the wrong side of that equation are still richer than, you know, anyone has ever been on Earth. They live lives of luxury that would have been inaccessible to the billionaires by those dollars in those days, whatever. But the wealthiest people on Earth. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, if you're anywhere in the middle class, you're living a better life than Rockefeller did, and that's just true. And yes, some people have tons more money than other people, but when you think about the things that we have in life, our homes are so much better and bigger, our cars, they're not – that disparity of how you live is –

Listen, you're never going to – there are millionaires that live great lives, but the disparity between a middle-class person and a rich person isn't as big as it used to be. But anyway, that's my least popular position. No one likes to hear that from me. No, but it's absolutely correct. I mean –

You know, global poverty has gone way, way down. If you look at every measure of well-being, not only here in this country, but around the planet, we are substantially better off than people were 40, 50, 100 years ago and certainly at any time before that, which is why I find it so difficult to understand all the doomsayings.

I know. I'm the same way. I mean, you would think that we're living through the worst time in human history right now. People talking about even war. I'm not saying there aren't wars going on, but if you look at any decade in history in the past, there's a lot more war going on. There's a lot more suffering going on than right now.

But yet people always think they're living in the worst of times. And I don't think there's any remedy for that. I think they're always going to think that every election is the most important election of all time, which I guess is true because it's the one happening. But in a larger historical sense, it's not probably true. In fact, very little on policy actually really even happens anymore. That's why I think a lot of these elections.

agencies and so on, they unilaterally want to do things because there's really no policy changes. We can't agree on anything, which I'm not

I think it's great, actually. Oh, yeah, it's fantastic. Gridlock in Washington is my greatest desire, most politically. I mean, come on. Yeah, absolutely. But people don't see it that way. Politicians are always promising things, and they always fail, and they always will. It's a terrible religion to have, and your faith in politics doesn't work.

And anyway, so I think all of that stems, or at least writing this book, I thought about it a lot, and a lot of it stems from paranoia about our opponents and our neighbors and what they want to do and the world itself. That's just, it doesn't really line up with...

with, you know, it's just not reality. But yet, you know, it propels a lot of our debates and politics. David Harsanyi, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Folks, definitely check out his new book, The Rise of Blue Anon, available for presale right now. David, how else can people follow you and stay up with your work and what you're doing? Because we are big fans of yours on this program.

Well, I appreciate that. They can follow me on Twitter at David Harsanyi, or they can read me at the Washington Examiner and sometimes in other places where I write. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today. We always love having you on the program. Folks, stay tuned. We do not have we don't have a Kylie's Corner today, do we? No, no. I'm asking Jenna. She's shaking her head, which is great radio.

But still, you need to download and be subscribed and stay tuned for the podcast segment. It's going to have some good stuff. Sean and I got some stuff to talk about. We've got a sunshine moment. Breaking Battlegrounds back in the air next week. Hey, folks. This is Chuck Warren of Breaking Battlegrounds. Do you want to prepare for a secure retirement? Grab a pen and paper right now and write down 877-80-INVEST. As our loyal listeners know, Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by YREFI.

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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. All right, welcome to the podcast portion of Breaking Battlegrounds where we eat no cats. We don't eat cats here. No. Are they eating cats in Springfield?

You know, here's the thing. I don't think anyone could say for sure, but actually I would think it's more likely than not. And the reason being that in Haiti, the primary religion is voodoo. Right. And the sacrifice of cats in eating them has two sort of backgrounds there. One is just simple desperation that when you're starving, you might eat a cat. Right.

I know that sounds really messed up to everyone in this country, but around the world, that's not that uncommon. Like there are plenty of places in Asia where you can go and have a cat dinner. And I'm not talking about what I serve out of the cans every night. So there's that. And then cats are one of the primary, the top choices for ritual sacrifice in voodoo. Right? So because they're predators...

Goats have a central role in voodoo sacrifice because they are associated with the devil. Cats likewise have historical associations in many societies with the devil or with evil, and they are predators. So there is – I don't know if it's happening. I would say probably nobody has actual real proof right now, and Donald Trump was an idiot to bring it up at the debate.

I also don't think it's something you can fact check by calling the city manager of Springfield. Right. And here's why. My experience working with the city of Phoenix and working with the other local governments around Arizona taught me one thing. City managers do not work for the people of their community. They do not work for the city council or the board or commission that is overseeing them.

City managers work for the employees of that city. Right. They are the representative of all the unions and the city permanent staff leadership. Yeah. And their only real politics is money. Anyone who gives them more money to spend, they're happy to support for any reason and nothing else matters. Right.

Now, here we have a city manager whose city has taken in millions and millions and millions of dollars that it didn't have before, that they're spreading to all of their friends in the local NGO community and all of this stuff. And they're spreading out and they're adding positions in the city government and they're expanding. This is the fantasy. Yeah.

of every city manager in America is what's happening to Springfield. They don't care about the carnage. They don't care about the traffic accidents. They don't care if ducks are being eaten. They don't care if cats are being eaten. They don't care if dogs are being eaten. None of that matters because suddenly there's huge amounts of money and they can hire a lot of people. Their budget has exploded. Right. So I'm not taking his word for it either, but let's not take random internet. I mean, I know there's this video that's been going around that lots of people have seen of a woman –

It is in Ohio somewhere because we have it. It says Ohio body cam on the cop's body cam thing. Happened to be Canton, Ohio. It's in Canton, Ohio. Okay. And this woman was mentally ill and not an immigrant. Right. See, okay. Now you've got the details that I hadn't even really bothered to dig for.

because she's just some nut job who ate a cat right well she killed it and the question was whether she was eating it or not she was accused of that but that that actually isn't even clear no but but this whole this this internet meme explosion which some of these memes are hilarious there are they're funny some of the little videos and memes are hilarious I mean who doesn't love a cute cat right you

The videos of people's cats and dogs watching the debate and then running away, fantastic. I had the same reaction watching it. Yeah. I wanted to run away too. Right. It's awful. For a different reason. I mean, it strikes me as just an example of...

Trump losing the forest for the trees. Yes. Because the immigration issue is one of his best issues because of the complete failure. It is his single best issue. And he has turned it into a laughingstock and something that doesn't seem serious because I really appreciate in that vein. J.D. Vance, when they followed up and tried to pin him on it, him just turning it right back. Right. Yeah.

I mean, I'm looking forward to the vice presidential debate because I feel like that's going to be more substantive. Look, I think Trump's best chance to win right now would be to go play golf for the next 50 days or whatever it is. Put his phone away. And put his phone away. Just get out. Just get out of the public eye and let J.D. Vance handle the interviews because he's better at not –

Trump is good at firing up his base. He's also really good at putting his foot in his mouth. Yeah. The base is fired up. You don't need to. The base is there. At this point, I mean, I don't even, I actually don't think the rallies are useful at this point. Oh, God, no. I was thinking that because we had one in Tucson. We're recording this on Friday the 13th.

Speaking of voodoo. And actually, if you have a Krispy Kreme, they're selling donuts today for 13 cents, which no one will hear because this is coming out. I guess some people will hear this. We do put the podcast out and all that today. A lot of people are going to be hearing this on the air and you're going to have missed your 13 cent Krispy Kremes. But, you know, looking at this right now, this race, I don't think Trump killed himself at the debate.

I don't think that was possible. Right. But he held a rally yesterday, Tuesday, Thursday, the 12th in Tucson, Arizona. There's nobody, nobody who went to that rally who wasn't already voting for Donald Trump. Unless they're voting for Kamala and they went because she said, hey, you ought to go to a Trump rally. I mean, literally, there's no one that's persuadable. Right. There is no no vote you get from that. No.

Donald Trump could have, honestly, here's what I would do if I were Trump. If I wanted to go work a city like Tucson today, I would not hold a rally or do anything like that. I would spend my day driving from diner to diner. I would walk into every low-end Americana diner in that town and I would shake the hand of everyone in there who was willing to shake my hand. And I would pat them on the back and say, I love you all, and I would walk out.

And you would get way more votes in a day doing that than you do holding another rally. Well, because you'd actually be adding votes. Yes. Because the rally isn't adding votes. It has the risk of losing votes because you'll say something stupid. Right. Right. Because you're in this adoring crowd and get yourself all whipped up. And this is a trap. Not only Donald Trump, but lots of politicians. You and I have been in this business a long time. We've worked with a lot of politicians.

But this is a trap a lot of them fall into when something worked at one point. They can't let it go. And the rallies worked for Trump in the Republican presidential primary in 2016 and in the general election in 2016 because it was brand new. And everywhere he was going, people were coming out who had never been to a political rally before. They had...

And so it created this energy. It created this momentum. It created all this outreach. It was a very successful approach in the 2016 election. Right. It has not been a valuable approach since then. Exactly. I mean, honestly, and boy, I'm going to get in trouble for this, Sean, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Say it. The most positive thing that has happened to Donald Trump from any one of his rallies since 2016 was getting shot. Yeah.

That is true. I mean, it is morbid, but it is true. It is morbid, but that was literally the one thing that saved those from being totally useless, every single one of them between 2016 and now. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's just it's crazy. And it really I mean, it makes no sense for him to do them anymore. You're exactly right. Go go to the local TV station. Give them an exclusive or, you know, give you do a sit down. Let them ask their questions. You're going to be on local news that night. That's what.

Swing voters are watching. Go into the diners, go into the taco shop, whatever. Shake a hand. Say, hey, I'd love to have your vote. Yep. Way more likely to gain votes. And actually and because every person who's in that that diner who shakes his hand or even just sees him is going to be talking about that. Right. Everybody. Right. Right. No, absolutely. This is once again, we have seen I thought.

For all the criticisms, I thought his campaign actually did a pretty good job in 2016. And when you look at everything in terms of the functionality of the campaign, where their messaging was, all this kind of thing. Yes, he rambles. That's Donald Trump. Right. But he was rambling on positive focus on the future. Right. Everything was we're going to make America great again. And it's it was new. It was fresh. Right.

But it was also he was backing it up, talking about, OK, we're going to get these trade deals fixed. We're going to stop getting hosed on trade. We're going to stop, you know, these forever wars and we're going to find our way out of them. We're going to stop invading other countries. We're not going to go into Syria. We're not going to go into Lebanon. We're not going to do this other stuff. And people were people were very excited to have a candidate who spoke like a normal human. Yeah. But ever since then.

I cannot credit his campaign. And this is trouble. Look, I don't want to get us in trouble. Everyone knows I'm on the Kerry Lake team. We've done – we all do work with all the Republicans, including at the presidential level. But man –

Start doing stuff that wins votes. Start doing stuff. I'm so sick of watching this. These shows that get put on. And the same thing. Look, it's not just Trump. Right now Kamala's running around the country with a freaking army of buses following her to try to fill arenas on her behalf. Right.

I mean... Again, just, you know, wasting time, wasting money. There's not one vote she's getting out of those either. Exactly. I mean... It's so true. This is... I mean...

It is surprising to me how little work is being done by either a campaign to actually add votes. I'm not sure who's ahead. But the one thing I'm 100 percent certain of based on the polling data at this point in that race is that there are three percent or less of the population that are still persuadable. Right. Right. So if I'm heading up either of those campaigns, I have only two things I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to narrowly focus and get my candidate personally in front of those three to percent as much as I possibly can. And then I'm trying to go outside my base and get people trying to make sure this is a campaign function, not a candidate function, that I turn out all the low propensity voters in my universe. Right. Right? Like those are the only two things left that matter. Exactly. Yeah.

And what, 55 days out. Right. That's it. And neither campaign is doing either of those things. Right.

I mean, thank God Kamala's not. I mean, thank God her campaign is perfectly emblematic of her career in politics. It is turning into an infighting mess. She can't run anything. She has never been. She was a terrible AG in California. All this talk about her prosecuting people. She didn't prosecute anybody. She had people who worked for her who prosecuted people. But nobody was going to risk their case letting her argue it. No, no.

So this is just embarrassing. Before we wrap up today and we get to the sunshine moment, I wanted to talk about something we've been doing on Breaking Battlegrounds every day. And it'll be a little late today on the Friday when we record this because I'm here in studio recording this instead of writing. But we're doing a deep dive fact check on Kamala Harris. You know, the ultimate Kamala Harris fact check from the debate.

So I started – now, I'm not checking every word because a lot of it is just platitudes. If it's some empty platitude, I'm not – but if it's a claim of fact or it's a policy position, a statement of position, we're fact-checking every word of those top to bottom. So it took me like 2,000 words to just fact-check the back and forth on the economy that was the first 20, 30 minutes of the thing. And the reason is –

There's an old axiom in the Intel community that if you're running a PSI op on another country, you're running an information op on another country. And for instance, like you have a double agent or you've turned one of their spies or something like that, you're trying to feed information up.

You give them two parts truth and one part lie. Right. Because those two parts of truth, they can verify and fact check those. And then they swallow the lie because they go, oh, well, this agent gave us this and this. We can prove that. So we're going to assume this element three is accurate also.

And the last, I would say legitimately, the last 10, 15 years of Democrat politicians, that's pretty much what they've been doing to us. If you think of like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, there was always about two thirds of what they were talking about was politics.

Right.

That sentence is a lie. This next sentence behind it's a lie. The third sentence after that, that's a lie also. Where's the truth? Put this down. The fourth one is like it's sort of true, sort of. But like one of the things she's talking about, and this is going to be in the fact check that will come out later today. We were talking about this off air a little bit.

But one of the things that she said was she pointed – I don't think she actually pointed to the woman, but she used this woman's story. There's some woman that's going around the country right now. I forget her name, but she came out of Texas. And she had a miscarriage. And it was a big story in the Dallas Morning News. Now they're flying around the country to say Republicans are trying – won't even let a woman have a miscarriage be medically dealt with at that point. And they're –

Putting women in danger. Women can go into septic shock and die. There's all this stuff. Okay. So Kamala Harris uses this in the debate, right? Couple of points. There is not one state, not one, where there's any restriction at all on medical treatment of a miscarriage. Right. Period. Yeah. There is no state, no state in which if the baby is dead in the womb or not viable at all, you know, cannot live.

There's no state that prevents medical professionals to address that situation. This woman, her story, which, again, someone's paying her to go all over the country and hold big rallies on this. I remember reading it. This was maybe a year ago when it came out. And as I was reading the article, which was very long, you know, how Governor Abbott and Donald Trump almost killed me, you know, she named the two places that she went after her.

She began this process of having a miscarriage. And as I was reading it, I had to stop myself and go back because it occurred to me as I'm going through. I'm like, wait a minute. Those don't sound like hospitals. Hospitals have certain naming conventions like Memorial. Yeah. You know, or hospital hospital. Yeah. I mean, they're they're pretty straightforward. It's not usually things like San Pedro Corner, you know, medical. Yeah. Right. I forget the name of the two.

But I then went and looked them up. They were urgent care facilities that offer no surgical services whatsoever. Right. And so then she has a recording of herself calling one of them and saying, can you perform an abortion to remove this fetus that I'm miscarrying? And the person says, I'm sorry, we don't perform any of those type of services. Now, what the person is saying is we don't have a surgical surgical service. Yeah. We don't have a surgical suite.

It's not it's not part of what we have. It's not part of what we do. So this entire narrative on the left coming out of this, you know, basically coming from this woman is garbage. Yeah, it's absolutely used in every state and especially in states where there is. She has been in The New York Times. She has been in The Washington Post. She has been on CNN, MSNBC. I mean, you know, they are carrying her and her story and her her stuff on every major leftist network.

Well, and they're using that example here in Arizona. We have the abortion issue on the ballot. They're saying that here, which is fundamentally not true because it's in law that if the fetus is not viable or dead, it's a miscarriage. It doesn't even count as –

And that's the other part of it. So Harris pointed in the debate to 18 states that allow no abortion. OK, that's not true. There's two that have blanket no abortion laws. Now, again, in both of those, they have allowance for a miscarriage type situation. Again, both of those.

So that's not true. It's not 18. There's 18 that are at six weeks or less. And most of them, six weeks is deceptive. It's not actually six weeks. It's fetal heartbeat. Most of them have, if there is a heartbeat, you're past that point. That can be anywhere from six to generally eight weeks-ish.

I would say that's probably too restrictive from my personal point of view. But people who are probably true. Most most Americans. Right. People who are pro-life would disagree. People who are pro-abortion would disagree in the other direction. Right. But the dishonesty, if it goes back to what David Harsanyi was talking about, this sort of conspiracy theorizing coming from the left, which is being mainstreamed. Like here's a woman whose story takes two minutes to fact check and prove that it's garbage. Right.

And yet she's being treated as if it is 100 percent legitimate by 90 percent of the major media in this country. And that every Republican wants that to be able to have. Right. That wants that to have. Right. Which is absurd. It's absurd. It's nuts. I mean, I happen to be the father of a lot of children, eight living, and have gone through three miscarriages. I haven't, but my spouse. And the idea that...

Anyone would not want to have services for a woman who was going through that. It's just it is a conspiracy because it's so outlandish to think. But they really try to put this as this is what it is. I bet if you went, for instance, right now to Harvard or Columbia or Yale or any of these schools and you ask the kids on the campus, have you heard this? Is this true?

I bet 80 plus percent would say, oh, yeah, that's for sure true. And if you follow it up to your point, if you follow it up and say, is this something all Republicans believe that this is the right thing? 80 percent again would say yes. Yeah. One hundred percent of them would be wrong. Right. I mean, it's it's just crazy. We have one of the differences I find these days. Sean, tell me if you disagree.

We have major disagreements within the Republican Party on a range of policies, right? Like Chuck and I are totally different on foreign conquest. We do more or less align on the death penalty. He's a little more dramatic than I am about it. Chuck is ready to strap everyone to the chair. I'm a little more strained. But there is – if you go in any area of policy, man, we have fights. Yeah.

We have fights. Can you name an area of policy where Democrats disagree anymore with each other? It is so – it is such a small tent from the standpoint of an issue set, right? I mean we really are the big tent when it comes to a party. When it comes to ideas. Yeah. And the broad spectrum of whether it's neocons versus –

isolationist versus whatever. I mean, that's just one aspect of it. I mean, there's a lot of things. And abortion is a great one, actually. Right. We have a wide range of beliefs and thoughts on the abortion issue within the party. Democrat Party is very, very narrow. Yeah. It's kind of astounding, frankly. It really is. All right. Before we wrap up,

Let's bring... Because we just brought everyone down with this discussion. Oh my gosh, as usual. Yeah. Gloom and doom and breaking battlegrounds coming right back. All right, Jeremy, Jenna, what do we got? Do we have some sunshine today? Yeah, I have a sunshine story about a man named Jason Brown who he had it all. He was a...

lineman for the NFL Baltimore Ravens. He had a wife, a growing family, but a call in his heart told him to leave his career behind, and it totally changed his life. So he...

This is a story from Woman's World, and he says that he was looking at his mirror one morning on his 27th birthday, and he was wondering why he wasn't happy. And he had one of the highest paying careers in the NFL. He had...

Like, you know, his wife. He was he was a really, really good lineman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And his his wife is awesome. And she's a dentist. And, you know, they were they just bought a mansion in St. Louis. And, you know, he was kind of wondering why. Why am I not feeling fulfilled? What's going on here? Yeah.

So he thought back to his older brother who had died in Iraq in 2003, serving the country. And at that time, Jason had been diving into his career and diving into Ravens. It takes a pretty significant focus to become a pro NFL player. Yeah. I don't blame people for not being like Rhodes Scholars while you're doing that. No, it's a full-time career. And it's

um, you know, the, the drive these people have is, is like, is really incredible. But, um, yeah. And so he, he, he did that and he's had this successful career with, with, um, uh, the Ravens, but he decided that he wanted to, to take a different track and, and, you know, feel, feel something else that, you know, maybe was missing in his heart. So, um, he told his wife, um,

I feel like God has laid it on my heart to go home to North Carolina and start a farm. And, you know, she was surprised. She was like, we don't know how to farm. How, you know, how are we going to do this? And,

But they decided to take that step. And so he's a very faithful guy. And, you know, he was saying, you know, God, whatever land you bless us with, we're, you know, we're going to do it. And we're going to bring fruits to other people and try to help other people with what we do. So they set up a farm. They taught themselves how to grow sweet potatoes, cucumbers, and corn. And they started giving it to food banks and interfaith pantries in the area. Wow. I love that. Yeah.

I love that. Now, look, I will tell you this from growing up on a farm.

Sweet potatoes are not as easy as they seem like they should be. That's right. There's like every animal, every bug in the world likes eating sweet potatoes. Man, they are all over those things. Corn is pretty easy. Yeah, corn, zucchini. Corn, zucchini, pretty easy. Sweet potatoes are not. Not easy. No. Regular potatoes are much easier than sweet potatoes when you're dealing with them. Less appealing to the...

I assume less sugar, right? Yeah, because it's all starch. I mean, less appealing in general. I mean, we all like sweet potatoes. Who doesn't like a sweet potato? Seriously. You know my...

It's one of those things. A real sweet potato pie with the marshmallow topping and the crumble on it. Oh, my God. That is so good. Very good. I'm going to expose my California girl or like valley girl kind of vibe. But I love the sweet potato fries as well. Those are great. I love everything sweet potato. Yeah. Exactly. And they're very easy. Like, by the way, for your home.

Yeah. Super easy to cook. I mean, you know, wrap them, wrap them in some foil, rub them down with some oil and salt, wrap them in some foil, toss them in the oven. You're good to go. And that's so great. I wonder if they were thinking about that when they chose sweet potatoes to give away. Cause I mean, if they're harder to grow in their first year, they were able to give away a hundred, a hundred thousand pounds of food. So I, I hate to say that this is one of the, the sort of secrets. And we dealt with this a bunch at the city of Phoenix. Um,

with food banks. Here's what I would tell people. If you have a food bank in your neighborhood and you're going to cook like a big dinner that night for your family and you're not, you know, you're not struggling. You just, you would normally just go to the store, go to the food bank and offer to buy produce. If you want to do something really good for the food bank, go to, because they throw away a huge amount of produce. First, the grocery stores all give them their near expiry produce, right? And then they

But secondly, and this is not the greatest commentary on our society, but produce is like the last thing that gets taken off food bank shelves. Yeah. It's the one thing they have like every time I've got a friend who struggles a little bit when she goes to the food bank because she's a big vegetable eater. They literally are like, no, no, please take more, take more, take more. Because she's like got a bag of vegetables and nobody else in line does. Right. Right.

So there's one thing you can do that doesn't cost you anything. And it's actually cheaper because they'll sell it to you for a lot less. I mean, you can fill a whole bag for like 10 bucks and they're thrilled because then they can go buy some spaghetti with your 10 bucks. But that's actually a great thing. I do fairly frequently. I have a food bank, small one near my house. And if I'm cooking like a vegetable stew, particularly, I will go over there and buy the vegetables from them. And they're thrilled. Yeah.

That's great. That's great advice. Not so great that everyone's eating that much processed crap. Oh, that's right. All right. Yeah. Great. And small farms can help with that. And they donated over a million pounds this past year. That's amazing. That's a lot of food. That's a big farm. That's not a small farm. No, that is not a small farm. All right, folks.

Enough of us rambling. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We appreciate you as always. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air with Chuck Warren next week to tell us who we should invade next.