cover of episode #140 Eli Crane & Tim Burchett - Two Things All Americans Want: Accountability and Transparency

#140 Eli Crane & Tim Burchett - Two Things All Americans Want: Accountability and Transparency

2024/10/21
logo of podcast Shawn Ryan Show

Shawn Ryan Show

Chapters

Congressmen Tim Burchett and Eli Crane discuss the two assassination attempts on former President Trump's life. They question the Secret Service's competence and the lack of accountability, highlighting political motivations behind committee selections and the slow pace of investigations.
  • Congressman Crane volunteered for the assassination task force but was rejected.
  • None of the three snipers in Congress were selected for the task force.
  • The Secret Service's explanation for not placing counter-snipers was deemed inadequate.
  • Concerns were raised about the Secret Service's ability to adapt to modern threats.
  • The Secret Service appears to be failing upwards with the new director.
  • The second assassination attempt reveals continued security inadequacies.
  • The lack of drone surveillance during both attempts is questioned.
  • The attempted assassin's lack of training and suspicious financial connections are discussed.

Shownotes Transcript

Four years. That's how long it took Democrats to ruin our economy and plunge our southern border into anarchy. Who helped them hurt us? Ruben Gallego. Washington could have cut taxes for Arizona families, but Ruben blocked the bill. And his fellow Democrats gave a bigger break to the millionaire class in California and New York. They played favorites and cost us billions. And Ruben wasn't done yet.

We'll be right back.

Carrie and the Republicans will secure the border, support our families, and never turn their backs on us. Carrie Lake for Senate. I'm Carrie Lake, candidate for U.S. Senate, and I approve this message. Paid for by Carrie Lake for Senate and the NRSC. Church's original recipe is back. You can never go wrong with original. Still tastes the same like back in the day. Right now, get two pieces of chicken starting at only $2.99 or 10 pieces starting at only $10.99. Church's. Offer valid at participating locations.

Tim Burchett, Eli Kareem, no strangers to the show. Welcome back. We've got a ton to cover. I'm not going to do the typical introduction we've had because you guys have already been on multiple times. But I want to talk to you about Trump assassination. I want to talk to you about, Tim, you've done a ton of work with the Afghanistan stuff. I want to talk about that. And then I think all three of us want to talk about some of the

government corruption in both parties that's going on inside of Congress. And then we'll see what we get into after that. I know you guys both have time constraints, but I just want to say love you guys. Super happy to have you back here in the studio to have this conversation and lots of important stuff happening in the country right now. And so let's just get to the bottom of some of it. But

But, you know, to kick it off, Eli, I know you've done a lot of work investigating what went on with the first assassination attempt on Trump's life. And just yesterday, we had another attempt. And actually—

Before we dive into that, you guys both know we've got a Patreon. It's what enables me to be here, what you guys, enables you guys to be here. There are top supporters, and so I give them the opportunity to ask a question each interview. This question is from John Phillips. Since we're on the topic, will anyone at Secret Service be held accountable for the major snafu in Trump's attempted assassinations? Plural.

I think it's too early to tell yet. I think it's going to largely be based on whether or not Trump becomes president or not. I don't have any faith whatsoever that with the people that we have in Congress now, that anybody will be held accountable. I'm only a freshman, but I've seen the game enough to kind of see how it plays out.

I think if President Trump gets back into office, I do think that there's a really good chance that there will be accountability. But everything is so political up there, as you know. I mean, one of the—and just on that topic, I volunteered to be on the assassination task force. You know, I sent Speaker Johnson a text saying, hey—

I was a NSW sniper. I think I could bring value to this investigation, and I wasn't put on it. Now, I get it. You were not put on it? I was not put on it. Why were you not? Who made that call? Well, it's-

It was better than probably any of the Secret Service snipers out there. Why would they not have somebody with that relevant of experience on the topic inside Congress on the committee? So to be as transparent as I can be,

To my knowledge, there's three snipers in Congress. Myself, Morgan Littrell, and Corey Mills. Not one of us was put on that task force. So, you know, you start asking questions right there. And then what- Who makes the determination? Leadership always makes the determination. Who's the leadership? Mike Johnson is the Speaker of the House right now. So Mike Johnson doesn't want the three most relevant individuals in Congress to be on that committee. So what-

What I was told is that he had to please the entirety of the conference, right? Because it was such a big deal and so many people other than myself volunteered to be on it. He had to make this group over here happy, this group over here happy, this group over here happy. So there's a part of me because I work up there that understands that. But because the selection of that committee was political-

Once you start going down that rabbit hole, you start asking yourself, okay, so are the witnesses that we call, is that going to be political too? Are the findings and what we released to the American people, is that going to be political too? And my answer to that is most likely yes. And that's why a couple of us- So this isn't about, this isn't about, sorry to cut you off, man. I'm just, I'm pissed. So this isn't about-

uncovering anything or getting to the root issue. This is about jerking people off and making people happy. That's Washington. Yeah. I would say that they still want to, they still want to

Do the investigation. And there are a lot of people, whether they were snipers or not, who want to get to the bottom of it. My point is, is they didn't pick the best people for the job and they know it. And that's what bothers me because it doesn't stop there, Sean. Who did they put on them? Every committee that you look at up in Capitol Hill, it's not...

who's the best for the job. It's who has influence, who has money, who can fundraise, who's been here longest. And so you see a lot of the same stuff in other committees as well. And often the higher you go, the more you're willing to play the game and be a yes man. And that's why often I think people like myself are given the Heisman and told, hey, no thanks, man, we're good. Who's on the committee?

Who did they put on there? So you guys actually have a representative, pretty good representative here in Tennessee who's on the committee. Mark Green is on the committee. Chair of Homeland Security. Clay Higgins is on the committee who I think is probably, in my opinion, the best guy on the committee just because Clay. Clay is willing to—

You know, Clay's tough and he was in law enforcement and he was also in military and he's already gone and done his own independent investigation. He's already released that to the public. So I'm glad that Clay got put on there. And I don't know all the other names, Tim. Do you know the other names? Are they, are they?

Utilizing you and the two other congressman's expertise? No, not at this point. But I don't think they've even—I don't even think they've had a hearing yet. So we did our own parallel—we called it a roundtable—

up in Washington, D.C. a couple weeks ago with Eric Prince, Dan Bongino, and then one of the counter snipers who was there. Because I don't know about you, Sean, but I don't have a lot of faith in the federal government to get to the bottom of this. And even if they did get to the bottom of it, I don't have a lot of faith that they would even reveal it to the American people just like we still don't have the Kennedy files, right?

And so that's why some of us were like, okay, well, we might not be on the task force. We might not have subpoena power, but let's do everything that we can within our contacts, you know, and our intelligence, you know, to get to, you know, to get as many answers as we can for the American people. Did you get any answers?

Well, we've gotten some answers. I've actually been to Butler twice now. One of the things that I did a video about, you probably saw it, was one of the first things that Director Cheetah was saying was that we didn't put counter snipers up on that roof because it was too steep.

So myself and other members from the Homeland Security Committee went and got up on that roof and I showed out. We were walking around on it right after me, a 70-year-old man named Carlos Jimenez, who's a representative from Florida, got up on it, walked right up it. No problem at all. You could see the water tower right over my shoulder that nobody got up on top of that would have been a sniper's paradise or a counter sniper's paradise. And nobody got up on that.

One of the things that I broke on with Dan Bongino on his podcast was that these pipe bombs that we were told Thomas Crooks had were built in ammo cans. But some of the other things that we've learned is that – and I know you've talked about it as well with Eric Prince, but the Secret Service is –

incapable of, you know, stopping a 20 year old kid with no military experience from getting 150 yards from the president. What would that look like with, you know, a trained, you know,

like whether it's the Houthis. We had intelligence that said the Iranians were after him. Whatever it is. Hold on. We had intelligence. We have intelligence that said that the – was it the Iranians that were – that had put a hit out on Trump just prior to that? There is – yeah, there is intelligence that that's a very big threat as well. But some of the other things that we've learned, Sean, that's alarming is that

The Secret Service seems to be completely allergic to innovating and adapting to modern warfare, right? Dan Bongino was talking about how when he was there, it took decades for them to even put slings on their primary weapons, right?

Yeah, like their primaries, their M4s or whatever they were carrying. And anybody who's done – whether you're a police officer or you've been in special operations or you're a Marine, you know how important slings are because if you're shooting your primary and you go dry or you have a jam and then you need to transition to your secondary –

what are you going to do with your primary? Are you going to throw it on the ground? Or what if you have to climb a ladder, right? What if you have to do some prisoner handling? You know, what if you have to process some evidence, you know, you can't just be throwing your weapon on the ground. And so he was saying, I mean, the secret service was so backwards that it took decades for them to even get slings. He also said that they didn't want to transition to a higher caliber weapon. Um,

like an AR-style platform that shot something that maybe some of the threats were carrying. And so you couple that with, oh, they didn't have a drone up on site. They even turned down a drone from some of the local authorities. And you just got to wonder, why aren't they forward-thinking at all?

Because our enemies most certainly are. One of the other things that we've learned is that the Secret Service is absolutely not in a better place with the new director. People are just like in every other government institution, they're failing up.

Right. Director Rowe probably, you know, had a lot more say over what security and what personnel and what assets were, you know, on site at Butler on that day than even Director Cheadle did. And so, you know, you know, there's been a lot that we've we've uncovered and we found. But definitely there's still a lot more to uncover. And, you know, for those of us on the outs, it's going to be difficult because we don't have subpoena power.

And let's be honest, the answer to your question is no. And the other question you ask is, why is Eli not on there? He ruffles feathers. He votes his conscience. You know, he and I both voted against McCarthy and, you know, deposing him. And that's what I think's at the bottom of it. That's the base of it. You've got a little leadership cabal that calls the shots on everything. How has there not even been a hearing on it?

I don't know. Have they had a hearing? They put a committee together. Did they go to Butler maybe? I don't know. They did go to Butler, yeah. I mean, it's Washington. You know, they're going to, it's just going to churn it out and then,

Six months later, they're going to issue a report and somebody's going to get a nasty letter in their file. And it's just it's complete Washington to a T. I mean, this isn't about daylight savings time. They tried to assassinate a former sitting president who's running again. So how does this just go? Well, guys, we don't have time. We don't have enough sessions. You got to realize the machine doesn't.

They don't want Trump. If he gets in there and he does what he says he's going to do and starts eliminating two-thirds of the bureaucracy, the machine, the corrupt machine, they always come in and fire the top people or replace the new people, old people. But it's that second, third, fourth tier that are in there for life, that infiltrated our government, that we've allowed to be there. Department of Education, billions of dollars, stays in Washington.

It seems to me it'd be easier to just dismantle the whole department, send that money to the states and let them decide and let the locals have a say so. But no, you've got to, I mean, how many, honestly, how many bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have taught a kid how to, how

how to read in Claiborne County, Tennessee. Zero. But that's part of the machine. That's part of the structure. And that's why every 100 days we had another trillion dollars for the debt, and neither party has a plan to pay it off, and neither party wants to pay it off, because all they're doing is buying votes. So maybe you can help me and the audience understand who makes the determination of when these hearings happen, who...

Ultimately, it's the speaker. Who makes it? The speaker, and they'll appoint a chairman, and the chairman will bring in the legal folks, and then that's part of the problem because part of the problem is the staff machine that's there. You've got great staffers that work, but some of those folks have been there years and years and years and years, and they don't get in any rush. They decide literally immediately.

I mean, I've had chairmen say, I've heard chairmen say before, I can't get that bill to the floor because, you know, my staffers don't really like that bill. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? You know, I had a bill that dealt with, well, for instance, the Chinese, you know, these Ancestry.com, you know, you take a swab, you send it off. Well, they're buying it.

creating a genome that the Chinese are buying it legally from these companies and they're selling it to them and they create a genome for say, say they'd like to come to imagine the Chinese creating a disease that could

you know, disable the entire world, but say they wanted to just take out females of childbearing ages in the United States of America. Well, they could create a genome to do that, and apparently that's what they're attempting to do. I can't even get the Chinese. I couldn't even get a hearing on the bill because...

The committee's just in total shutdown. And it's, you know, and that's the way Washington works, though. They want to have hearings. They want to issue press releases. But the bottom line in Washington, D.C., is get your ass reelected. It's not fixing the problem. They go home to their MAGA dinners or their left does their Truman dinners.

and they throw out the red meat, how bad the Republicans are, how bad Speaker Pelosi is, how bad Johnson is. They get reelected and they all come 98, 99% of them get reelected and hell, they'll be right back doing the same stuff. And that's part of the problem. As a longtime partner of The Sean Ryan Show, Hoist remains dedicated not only to supporting our show,

but also U.S. military and first responders. Hoist is the real deal. No smoke and mirrors, they're committed to delivering IV-level hydration made right here in the USA. They support our military through various nonprofit organizations and have even developed a product designed specifically for military hydration needs with less sugar and more electrolytes than their competitors. I've mentioned before how I wish I had Hoist during my military career, and I meant that.

For our military and first responders, Hoist offers a special everyday discount when you use your government ID at checkout. And for everybody listening, you can get 15% off at drinkhoist.com by using my discount code SRS. My favorite flavor that Hoist has sent me is strawberry lemonade. Trust me.

it's worth trying finding a solid t-shirt that's good quality and fits right is almost impossible to do online i looked everywhere until i found true classic they make tailor-fit tees and are versatile enough for everything on my agenda this fall true classic sells premium products at an affordable price you can get their best-selling t-shirts hoodies jeans and more in three six and nine packs

All their clothing can be mixed and matched and designed to work with your lifestyle so you can look and feel your best each and every day. True Classic is so committed to their products, they even have a 100% fit guarantee, easy returns, and they are trusted by over 4 million customers worldwide. Fall is here.

It's time to step up your game. Right now, you can unlock big savings when you bundle packs. Just go to my exclusive link at trueclassic.com slash SRS to save. That's trueclassic.com slash SRS. Shop now and elevate your wardrobe today. What are the hearings? Because I had a meeting with McCall's people too. Apparently they can't get Masoud in because there's no time. There's no time.

So what is more- You're rocking the boat, Sean. You're rocking the boat. So my question is, they did agree to a 30-minute Zoom call. Yay. I don't know what the f*** that does. But why- What are the other hearings? And maybe there is stuff that's way more important than the fact that- Yeah, well, every committee- The U.S. government's sending the Taliban millions of dollars, $40 to $87 million every week. I mean, we're literally- Do you know what-

What the government would have done if I would have done a $5 donation to the Taliban 10 years ago? They just admitted $239 million went to them. And it's a lot more than that. A lot more than that. So what are some of the upcoming hearings in Congress that are more important than the Trump assassination attempts and the fact that the U.S. government's funding terrorism? Absolutely none.

None. But that doesn't feed the K Street lobbyists and that in turn— Seriously, though, what are some of the subjects coming up on the plate? I couldn't tell you. It's—

I couldn't even tell you. Could you? I mean, every week there's a hearing on something. You know, you'll bring in, I call them transportation. We'll bring in the railroad people if there's a railroad derailing. You know, it's not sexy, but it's the, and people get, don't understand in government that, you know, these committees of jurisdiction deal with those issues. And I do videos as soon as I walk out of the committee and I tell, because people don't realize that all that other stuff's going on. All they see is,

what's going on, C-SPAN, what's going on on the floor, which is bogus. That's already been decided back in the back rooms. There's never really too many surprises on votes. And it's just the committees of jurisdiction. We'll have, you know, we...

When I asked the question on the Afghanistan issue of the Marine sniper, I said, "Do you have the suicide bomber in your sights that killed the 13 Americans?" Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss. I live on the Ryan Knauss Highway. Every day I drive out, there's his name. And yes, in fact, he had the guy two times in his sights. And we found that out. But what did we do with it? Nothing. Because we don't have the guts to go after anybody. We can't—anyway.

So it's nothing of any substance where you're talking to the railroad people? Well, we developed legislation because of that, allegedly. It goes along that. And then, of course, you've got they bring in the lobbyists from both sides. The Democrats, they're in the majority. So they get two. And then we get the Republicans bring in three witnesses on our side. They have a pro-union and then a pro-business side. And you...

And nothing ever gets done, though. If you pass legislation, it goes to the Senate and Schumer won't bring it up or vice versa. And some of these hearings have been planned months in advance. But to your point, I don't know that any of them are as important as what you're talking about. None are as important. I mean, do you think they would cancel, I don't know, the railroad meeting and bring in the fact that they're trying to kill—

presidential candidate, former president twice. Well, you could still have them going on. Or yeah, I don't know. Maybe do a two-a-day? Yeah. Is that impossible? They're going to assign staff to it and probably hire a lawyer. And they did have, I think they did have what Cheadle in, was it judiciary or oversight? No, we had an oversight. That's where I told her she was a DEI nightmare.

And then that was, and she quit the day after that. So they hit that, they've already hit that one. But as far as this new task force goes, I'm hoping they're just doing, you know,

you know, trying to do as in thorough of an investigation as possible. And honestly, Sean, like even though I didn't get put on the task force, whatever, you know, I'm rooting for him because at the end of the day, it's not about me. It's not about Corey Mills. It's not about any one of us. It's about, okay, how do we make sure that this never happens again, regardless of what the candidate is, right? But what happened yesterday? But they didn't do that.

Because it just happened again. What happened yesterday? We found out once again that the Secret Service, because President Trump isn't the current president, they're not giving him the detail that he needs. So they're defaulting to historical norms instead of actually looking at the threat presence to this guy because he's clearly the most targeted threat.

politician, you know, maybe besides Netanyahu in the world right now. And so it's like, if I was the director of Secret Service, I wouldn't be going off of, you know, historical norms or what we did yesterday. I'd be going off of, hey, who's...

which one of these guys that I'm assigned to protect has the most threats. That's who's going to get the majority of my assets and the majority of my attention. And I'm going to try and do as good of a job as I can across the board, but that's clearly not happening. And politics plays into it. Because Robert Kennedy Jr., I mean, his dad was assassinated. John, I mean, there's no other family that's

Fall into more assassins' bullets than the Kennedys', obviously. I mean, historically in this country, I'm sure there's somewhere. But he was denied Secret Service by the President of the United States. And they made up all this BS. But Obama was given, when he was running, was given Secret Service protection early. And it's at the discretion of the President of the United States. Interesting. So you've got to wonder, and we're...

Trump got shot, you know, there was the talk of Homeland Security was there and said a secret service. You saw people that were too short and they couldn't put their guns in their holsters and they were hiding behind the pile.

Yeah, I mean, Sean, as somebody who's trained, what did you think when you saw one of the Secret Service agents up on that detail that couldn't holster a weapon after like three attempts? Yeah. I mean, I don't honestly, I don't care. I don't care what the sex is, man. I really don't. But at the same time, like, does that look like somebody who's well-trained to you? No. And let me ask you guys this. You got these guys up there that were obviously too short. Yeah.

I mean, you wouldn't have somebody in that iconic picture. That should have never been able to have happened because the only way it was because there was an agent or whoever it was was head and shoulders short. I mean, they have a specific job. I mean, it's to take it's literally take a bullet for Trump or whoever they're guarding. And they they clearly failed at that. And then.

That frontal view was just awful. I mean, that was just, to me, I was shocked that they allowed that. And then if you ever, if you can listen to the audio, he says, we're going to move on my count, three, two, one. And they just stayed there. You know, the thing would be to get him off. If there had been a second shooter, all you do is just start shooting into that pile. From what I've been told, the job is to get his ass off the stage and get him out of there and get him in a secure environment.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they're putting out at Secret Service, but it's against pretty much from everything I saw, it's completely against everything I've ever learned in the SEAL teams or the agency's protective unit. So maybe they're- And I know they play by different roles because I've talked to other Secret Service agents because of the political ramifications of it.

Like I've been told that, uh, you know, these advances can come back with the recommendation that, Hey, let's not hold this rally here. But even then it's up to the campaign. So, you know, if a campaign decides, Hey, we're going to hold a rally here, regardless, um, you know, of what your recommendation was, you know, they're going to hold the rally there. And so that was one of my issues when I went to Butler and, uh,

You know, I was looking at how many threats there were on that site, how many rooftops, how many windows, how many trees. Right. There were a lot of trees that somebody could have easily gotten up into and made like a like a hide site deer stand, you know, and there were way too many threats for the amount of security they had to cover down on. And so that's another thing that we got to get smarter on.

Man, it seemed like a really basic target to me, looking at it from the, I mean, you were there. But I mean, comparative to like, I mean, I remember being in the SEAL teams in 2004. There was a big NATO convention in Istanbul. And we did a ton of sniper overwatch at that NATO convention. And I mean, that was a nightmare. I mean, you're looking at

15, 20 story buildings with windows on every floor completely surrounding the venue and thousands of people. Way too many avenues to cover with the guns that you have. And we felt like we had it covered. And so you take this, which appeared like it was in a rural setting.

you know, mostly farmland. I mean, a thermal imager could have covered those trees like, you know what I mean? Right. And within five seconds. Yeah. And I mean, stuff just doesn't get dropped.

It just, it was impossible. It seemed impossible for anything to be dropped. No drones. That's what I asked about the golf course shooting. Shouldn't there have been a drone? Anytime he's out in the open, I would think there'd be a drone. And I went to a football game in Knoxville this past, I've been, every week I've gone to a football game, they've had multiple drones. I mean, it's just like they could, you can see the part in my hair from up there. I mean, you know, and again, it's,

We said that we needed drones the first time. And then the second time, there's still no freaking drones out on the golf course. Yeah. Well, the other thing too, Sean, is that when you... My perspective and what I know now, and obviously this is a fresh story because it just happened yesterday, but...

When I look at the pictures of his hide site, you know, if that's what it – or his final firing position as we would call it, you know, one of the things I noticed based on this story that I'm hearing is that he was spotted because he put the barrel of his gun through the fence, right? Behind me, you have a picture of a legit –

you know, sniper team on a rooftop. And it looks like somebody blew a loophole or a hole in the wall, which, you know, most snipers want to use. They want to be as far back from, you know, the actual hole they're going to be shooting at. And so I was looking at it and like,

The Secret Service, in my opinion, got lucky again because this guy wasn't trained. And I could tell by if he was trained, he would have had a pair of $20 bolt cutters with him. He would have cut out his loophole or his –

line of sight through that fence and then he would have pushed back into the shady leaves so that he couldn't have been seen. The other thing that I noticed was he had his two ballistic plates up on the fence. What does that create? Well, it's definitely not... It stands out. And one of the first things they teach you in sniper school is there are no straight lines in nature.

Right. And so you got if if a Secret Service agent is just scanning a fence line and he sees a bunch of, you know, leaves and then boom, he sees two like dark, you know, plate looking things that have straight lines, it's going to catch his eye. And so it just showed me once again how lucky we were that the guys right now that are being, you know, that are coming after the president or being sent after the president don't have a lot of training. That's my next question.

After everything that you've dug into, both of you guys, what was this? Is it lone wolves coming after them or is this orchestrated from the left? Yeah. I honestly don't know yet. And one of the things that I still want information on that I think is going to definitely help answer that question is these bank accounts.

and whether or not he did indeed have offshore bank accounts with a lot of money in them. Because based on pattern of life and the type of job that he had and the family that he came from, I think he was just working at a little store. If he did have overseas bank accounts with a good amount of cash in them, that's going to be a massive red flag that he was working with somebody.

And so we don't know yet. But again, without subpoena power, it's tough to get the witnesses, you know, in there that, you know, can answer questions. There's a thing called MK Ultra. They used to say that's, you know, it's bogus, but it's a reality. It's been documented. I think there's been lawsuits because of it. You know, they use...

psychotropic drugs and to influence people and brainwash them. And I think it ended in the 60s, maybe '63 or something. It was a CIA operation. And they took people and just turned them into machines, basically, or tried to. And of course, they said it didn't exist. And then they got popped and then they were forced to make that it did exist.

And to me, that begs the question, is something like that still going on? Because I don't trust them to tell me the truth. So many billions float. The Pentagon right now can't count for a half a billion dollars in assets. I mean, what is that, a battleship? So we're awash with money to do something with, and there's some people in this country

world and this government that are pure evil. And on top of that, though, Sean, I do want to say, to answer your question, I do think that there is, at the very least, I do think there was a desire to weaponize the mainstream media outlets to radicalize

American citizens against the president. I mean, come on, man, you can only call somebody a threat to democracy or he's like a modern day Hitler so many times before somebody feels the moral obligation to do something about it. Yeah, magazine cover of a national publication that has a picture of Trump with a Hitler mustache. Right. And this goes back to my point about MKUltra.

Maybe they're not bringing in somebody off the street and doing this too, but they know if they put enough of this thought process out there, there's enough kids or misfits or something that are going to do something. And this guy, though, he's a North Carolinian, Lannian, lived in Hawaii, but comes down to Florida, sits on a golf course, and he's going to take out Trump.

How does that happen? How does this guy do this? This guy's got all kinds of these international connections. He's been busted before for federal firearms violations. And then they don't even charge him with attempted murder. They charge him with possession of a firearm of a felon and then, I think, altering the serial numbers on the gun.

And so this is what they've just charged him with, apparently. And the reports that I got, they haven't even charged him with murder, attempted murder. So, you know, again— They haven't even charged him with attempted murder? The last report I saw, that could change. And, you know, I don't know jurisdictional. Maybe they can get more of a charge out of an altered firearm federal violation. I don't know. But—and two—

I've always said this, Americans want their pizzas in 30 minutes and that's about our dadgum attention span. And they won't even talk about the first assassination to him. People are allowed to joke about how it was fake and he didn't hit his ear and how does he heal so fast and all this other stuff. And they're allowed to talk about that and joke about it now openly.

And so this one, you know, my local newspaper in Knoxville, it wasn't even apparently wasn't even in it. It wasn't even on the front page of it just this morning. So which I don't take, by the way, I don't take that paper. But they, you know, they just want it gone and move on. Hey, I do want to say something about yesterday, though, in the story, the story that's been put out there, because I know.

A lot of, and I'm sure you're probably in the same boat, probably you too, Tim. A lot of my best friends are in law enforcement, right? And if the story that I heard yesterday was correct, that a Secret Service agent spotted this guy sticking his weapon through the fence, and then he was proactive and actually engaged this guy, I want to give that guy kudos and props. 100%. Because anybody who's ever had to...

Even overseas, I know of instances where guys were shot at and they'd never shot at anybody before. And so there was a pregnant pause and it took them a second to actually do what they were trained to do because-

um you know they knew you know it was so new to them and so it's it would be much different if you have to do that on u.s soiled in like fallujah or you know missoula missoula or whatever it is and so i know that a lot of people you know look at us going after the head shed of the secret service and because um that institution clearly needs a massive overhaul and it it

I just want to say that I know there's a lot of awesome men and women, not only in the Secret Service, but in many of our other institutions who are sick and tired of seeing these institutions become political, become biased.

and not focused on what they're actually supposed to do. And so I want to make sure that that's said and clear, that we do appreciate you guys. Those of you out there that are still trying to do a very difficult job. And, you know, you can help us. You guys can help us, you know, transform these organizations by whistleblowing to us. And I know it's not comfortable. And I know that you're risking a lot when you do it.

And I think you should be selective about who you talk to. But I just want to make sure that that's said because some of the best people— Well, here's a question for you then. Yeah. Because a lot of people probably don't know where to go to blow the whistle. So if they do have information, Secret Service, FBI, CIA, whoever, where do they go to blow the whistle? Where do they go to get your attention?

Yeah, they can. So that they know they will be heard and somebody has their back. Yeah, they can call my office. We also posted a tip line on when we did that hearing up in DC. I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but if they call my office, somebody on my staff will take down their information.

And if they don't have the number to my office, there's an app called Build Blaster and you can get every single senator's, every single member of Congress's information and call them directly in their office.

That's called Bill Blaster. Bill Blaster. And it's a great, you don't have to just use it. Please don't just use it for that. Like if you see a piece of legislation coming up that you're fired up about, or you want us to vote a certain way on, please engage your member of Congress because you'd be surprised, Sean, that actually does work.

It doesn't work if five or 10 people do it, but if a couple thousand people do it and we walk into our office from going from one committee hearing to the other and like, hey, we're getting blown up right now about this CR with the SAVE Act or this FISA bill or whatever it is. And then it's like, okay, well, what are people saying? What are you hearing? There are members of Congress that listen to that.

And for the ones that don't, you can apply enough pressure to where they'll think twice about, you know, selling you out if you get loud enough. And I would caution, though, on the whistleblower, just reiterate what Eli said, be careful who you talk to. Yeah. And I would be careful about leaving messages. And I would face-to-face it if you get the opportunity. Yeah, I would think I'd just be cautious. I've been in Washington. I've, you know, I'm...

I remember I always give the example, my wife and I were doing, a buddy of mine's in the trinket business, you know, whatever, I don't know what you call it, swag. And we were talking about these little solo, red solo cups, had some made out of aluminum.

And I just thought that's the coolest thing in both of us within 30 minutes, what we have on our phone ads for red solo cups. And that's not so much when you call in your Congressman's office, but I, I just think there's ears and eyes everywhere up there. I just don't think, I don't think we, we are scratching the surface. Fabric by Gerber life is term life insurance that you can get done right here online.

right now. You can be covered from your couch in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. Just go to meetfabric.com slash Sean. That's meetfabric.com slash Sean. You've heard me talk about Fabric by Gerber Life for a while now because Fabric by Gerber Life is great term life insurance designed by parents for parents and trusted by millions of families just like yours for over 50 years.

If you're like me, your kid's financial security is your top priority and Fabric has flexible, high quality policies that will fit your family and budget like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day.

It's all online, so apply when it's convenient for you. There's absolutely no risk. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can cancel at any time. Check it out at meetfabric.com slash sean. That's meetfabric.com slash sean. Join me and thousands of parents who trust fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com slash sean. That's meetfabric.com slash sean.

Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states, price is subject to underwriting and health questions. What would you, what kind of accountability would you see, would you like to see for the attempts and who would be held accountable? Yeah, I'd like to see, I would like to see every, everybody in the chain of command that's got caught covering up anything.

I'd like to see, you know, those that made decisions based on where to put the counter snipers. I'd like to see them be, you know, held accountable. And that has very, you know, accountability, whether you're in the military, law enforcement, that can be a myriad of different things depending on the severity of it. You know, I'd also like to see, you know, like whoever may, I think,

Those who made decisions based on – one of the decisions that was – or pieces of guidance put out was, hey, we're not going to send counter snipers anywhere unless they can drive there, right? Decisions like that.

And whoever made the decision – whoever made the decision – What does that even mean? We're not going to send counter snipers unless they can drive there? Yeah, it sounds like a budgetary decision. Like we're not going to pay for our counter snipers and all their gear to get on a plane and fly somewhere, right? If you can – if we can – if they can drive somewhere to a location, then we'll send a counter sniper team, right? Right.

Whoever was denying, you know, whoever made the decision to deny President Trump and his team, you know, the extra assets that they were asking for needs to be held accountable.

I think if you started holding those at the top accountable, I think it would send a trickle-down warning and effect to the rest of the service that, hey, the games that have been going on here, the political games that have been going on here for the last couple of years,

couple decades, they're done. They're over. Our mission is to protect these executives, these individuals. That's what our primary responsibility is going to be. And if you don't do it, you're gone. You're gone, period, point blank. But what keeps happening? The same thing that keeps happening in every other major institution within the federal government. People just keep failing up. I just add one thing very specific, though, is

if it was a leak of how this latest sniper knew to be where he was. Oh, for sure. That guy's whoever leaked that needs to go, needs to go to prison. I mean, and that's, they'll be covering their ass. I mean, it's just a, that's why I say you just never, you'll, you'll never know. We will never know. And the only person new on the first shooting, you know, I got his head split open rightfully so, but still, what do you think he needs to watch out for moving forward?

Well, I think he needs to be very careful about where he holds his rallies. I think that's a big thing. Obviously, risk mitigation needs to be a factor here.

And just, I've gone to rallies in Arizona, you know, out in rural country where it wasn't at an arena or a sports complex. Whereas I'm driving up to it, I'm looking at, you know, rock piles here, this little hill over there. And you know the deal, when you're trained in this stuff, you know, you always think, you know, you always think, and this might sound alarming to people, but you always think if I was going to do this job, how would I do it? Right.

And you start thinking that way. And I think that's why the guidance that Eric Prince put out on your podcast, why you need to send some shooters in on the advanced teams and not necessarily law enforcement guys who tend to be rearward looking is so important. Because if you start sending hitters in there and shooters...

That's how we think. How would I do this job? Where would I be? And then you work backwards from there to start putting deterrence in place to where those spots, you know, those strategies that I would use aren't going to work because of the deterrence that I put in place now. Let me ask you two something. You know, my dad died.

in the Pacific Marine Corps combat. Nothing like you guys, of course, but it was his war, World War II against the Japanese. And he used to tell me, and the media has been critical of me saying this, but he told me this. He said, look, buddy, he said, if somebody's willing to lose their life to take you out, there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do. And you got to stop them out there.

And if you get a suicide situation or somebody's not, you know, how would you protect him in an open situation? I mean, you've got the bomb dogs, you've got this. But, you know, they took down the World Trade Center basically with a couple, allegedly with a couple of box cutters and somebody snuck in the plane. I mean, how do you, you know, I would just think you'd have to isolate the president so far back and have so many bodies between him that knew,

You know, the new mindset that Eli's been talking about. How do you stop that? The other thing I'd do is I would bring in some private guys just so I had, you know, just so I was covering my basis and I had guys that were more loyal to me than they were to an organization that might or might not be, you know, corrupted. A second set of eyes to fact check and look at just, you know,

Look at everything that they're doing with a mandate to report back to me if they see anything that's shady, any practices that are obsolete or not productive. And that's what I'd do if I were him. I'd start bringing in some private guys to augment what's already being going down, not only for the extra presence and deterrence, but also so they could report to me.

You know, I mean, how do you do how do you defend against that? This is how you defend against it. I mean, you have to have a lot of observers, but there's always signs that you're looking for when it comes to a suicide bomber. So profuse sweating. Are they dressed different than everybody else because they're hiding a vest? Right. Are they acting nervous? Are they acting anxious? I mean, all these type of things are things that you would look for as an observer to see.

see who's out there. Are they interacting with other people? It's not somebody that currently thinks the way we think, though. I mean, you've got to have somebody that thinks like y'all do. And on that note, Sean, if he were to do that and bring in private guys to augment...

And let's just say the Secret Service, you know, still hasn't gotten with it and they don't want to fly a drone. Well, that's fine. We're going to fly a drone. Or you guys aren't using thermals. Well, we're going to use thermals. Or you guys aren't taking the radio. You know, we're going to take the radio. And that just a bunch of things like that, you know, whether it's a four-man team, you know, whatever it is. I mean, it can't hurt. Yeah. And then the other thing is, you know, allowing –

bags, purses, things like that. And that way, if they do have some type of a vest or suicide bomb, then it has to be on their person. Right. And you know what I mean? So that's how you would do it. It's fairly simple, to be honest with you. Well, they actually spotted the guy in Afghanistan twice, so they weren't allowed to take him out. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I don't think anybody has...

Well, I guess I can't say anybody, but it seems like confidence in the federal government is just diminishing at a very rapid pace. I saw DeSantis is starting his own investigation. Good. I just wonder how far he's going to get with that because of the egos of his federal government allowing him to move.

move forward, you know, having access to that. So they could shut him down? I think so. I think they'll just shut him down because of, I mean, you used to see that a lot within the agencies, CIA, FBI, Secret Service agencies.

There was always feuds between them that wouldn't allow them. And you saw under Obama's administration, some guy literally scaled the fence of the White House and they caught him inside the freaking White House. And there was some sort of breach in security, obviously, but there was some miscommunication there. And I don't know if that was an instance for that. I mean, you had an instance at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where a

A group of nuns climbed over the fence and were painting a wall inside of a secure nuclear facility type situation. Nobody ever explained that. Somebody went to jail for it. But, you know, there's just I just don't think there's a seamless relationship.

It's not seamless between the agencies. Well, it's not seamless, but I think the good thing about it is when I saw that headline, I was glad to hear it because I think often- Which headline? Even that DeSantis is going to have some independent investigation. I think oftentimes if an agency-

Like the FBI knows that Ron DeSantis is going to fire up a separate parallel investigation. Even the pressure of that and the pride of, hey, if these guys find something and expose it to the American people that you guys didn't or you wouldn't, I think that creates pressure right there because it'll put egg on their face and make them look bad. And that's something they definitely don't want.

So that's why I liked it. One of the reasons I liked it, they're doing that. I mean, sitting in Congress, do you guys see the opposition or whatever you want to call it, the left, the Democrat side? Is anybody concerned about this at all? I think that there is a little bit of concern.

And I think definitely a part of them wants it to be memory hold because –

of the fact that they called Trump Hitler and they called Trump a threat to democracy so much. And so they know there's a possibility that they own a little bit of that, but they're also also elected officials. And so they, you know, some of them see the correlation. Well, if, if this could happen to the former president, it could happen to me too. And so I, I do see a little bit of concern there as well because they're,

There are radical, wacky people on both sides of the aisle. They get death threats just like we get death threats. And so I do believe that there is some concern there. But I also believe that a lot of them would like to see this memory hold.

Because of, I mean, after it happened and Trump survived and had his historic fight, fight, fight, you know, moment, I think that really opened a lot of people's eyes. Because like, let's not forget, I mean, they tried to impeach this guy. They tried to bankrupt this guy. Then they were trying to throw him in jail for 750 years. What's the progression there? We all knew what it was. I mean, they silenced a sitting president.

Yeah. Two guys, you know, and I used to, I told people out on the campaign trail, you know, and people around me, don't be surprised if, you know, they take a shot at this guy. I know Steve Bannon publicly said they were going to try and kill him. I know Dan Bongino said they better tighten up. They're going to go after him again. They're going to go after, and he said it before they went after him the first time. And he said, in our hearing, he said, if you think this is the last time this is going to happen, you're crazy. Yeah.

Right. And so I think people realize that that was the progression and the track that we were on. Right. And so I think that the media and the Democrats know that they have ownership in that just because of how radical they got with, you know, the messaging they were putting out. I mean, if it was a lone, if it was just a lone wolf both times, you know, just the fact that that

The first guy was 20 years old. I mean, we've seen eight, nine years. A year before he got elected, it kind of started, right? Nine years of having that push down your throat. So that guy was, what, 11 years old. Since he was 11 years old, that's all he's heard from the media. Yeah. And so I grew up listening to that. But it's always a lone wolf until we find out later that it wasn't. Yeah. Always. Every one of them. Every one of our...

national, James Earl Ray. I mean, here's a guy that didn't have a pot to pee in. Ended up catching, he drove his brand new, they found his brand new Mustang at the airport, I think, and then they caught him in London, England, making a crazy shot off of a commode in a bathtub through sideways, and you got Saran, what was it? Was it a guy called Bobby Kennedy? Saran, Saran, whatever his name is. You know, he was a lone nut, and then, um,

Oswald, Lone Nut, but there's always the peripheral that you find out about them later. And that's exactly what we're finding out. That's why nobody trusts the government. Kennedy killed 60. I just turned 60 two weeks ago. And he got shot before my birthday, and they're still hiding it. They still won't release the stuff. Yeah, yeah. What do you guys think about the fact that RFK,

We'll have pretty much sounds like free reign to investigate all of the former assassinations and attempts. What do you think is going to come out of that?

I don't know, but I love it. I love the fact that they're bringing that Trump is willing to bring in people, even that he ran against who have the courage to speak out against, you know, the power elites in this country, bring them on the team. And, you know, whether it's Elon Musk, RFK and, you know, let them go to work.

Because obviously we have a ton of unpacking. We have a ton of house cleaning to do. And you're going to need people with that level of courage and strength. I mean, shit's going to come out. If Trump gets in there and RFK gets access to this—

There's going to be some shit that comes out. What does that look like? What does it look like if the American people find out that the government is the one who orchestrated all these assassinations and assassination attempts? What does that look like in daily life? I honestly don't know. But I do know this, if we're going to turn this country around, and I think that's what we all want, it's got to happen, right?

We can't keep having a government that's supposed to represent the people working against the people and trying to take out and silence political opposition and the people themselves. And so it's got to happen. So it could get really, really ugly. Obviously, at the bare minimum, you're going to see trust growing.

that already is really not there, plummet even more. But it could get worse than that. What do you think, Tim? I welcome it. I think you're going to have to tear it down to build it back up because these agencies have a history of this and they have a track record. I mean, we can talk about the UFO stuff all day long, but these assassinations are just, you know, the way they put them together and

The gun that shot, allegedly shot John F. Kennedy was a Mannlicher Italian carbine. It was written up as a gun that never won a war. He could have gone into a Western auto and bought something much more precise. And, you know, every one of these is just too much. And I think it needs to happen. We need a cleaning. And it should have happened years ago. And I think it's also going to put more people's trust in Trump.

Because on both sides, people don't trust the government for good reason. I think that could be a unifying factor. Well, I think so too. I mean, who doesn't want to know what happened to JFK? But where I'm going is if the government is involved, let's say everybody thinks it's CIA, right? Let's say that the CIA is 100% behind any one of those or all of them. What's the next step?

Well, the people that did it are dead, but the channels are still there. The thought process is still there that allows that to occur. It allows them to step outside the Constitution and murder somebody. And so I think that...

That needs to occur before we have a cleansing. Does the organization get dismantled? I think it could. It's going to reemerge as something else. I mean, if it has a vital need, then yeah, it should reemerge. But if it doesn't, then it should be taken down. We didn't have an EPA, and I think Nixon brought the EPA in, Marinal Protection Agency. So it's a Reagan. One of the Republicans did. I'm sorry, I'm losing my chain of thought, but...

Yeah, I think it should. It'll be tough, Sean. I mean, it's like a lot of these things. A lot of it's going to depend to me on the people of this country and whether or not they pay attention and they engage on it, right? Like we were talking at breakfast yesterday.

about just the primary votes that we just had, right? Only a little over 30% of people turned out to vote in our primary election. I was talking to my friend, Corey Mills. He's also been investigating this assassination attempt with myself and others. And he said in his district, it was 19% of people

And so we love, and I'm as guilty as anybody at pointing the finger at politicians, but a lot of it is going to have to do with what they want and how they rise to the occasion. Because if you keep seeing numbers like that, nothing's going to change. And so a lot of it, like you can fire, they can fire me and Tim every two years if they think we're doing a horrible job.

Every two years you can get rid of me. Right. But because people don't pay attention, because they're complacent and because we've had it so good here for so long, you know, there's people in this country are pretty complacent. They're pretty checked out and they don't really pay attention. And so I think that's what it's really going to hinge on is how fired up they get.

If in a hypothetical that this stuff comes out, I think it's going to hinge on them. If they pay attention, if they coalesce together, and if they demand change. Because if we see the same pathetic turnout that we see all the time and just a bunch of people that want to talk about it but not be about it, nothing's going to change. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean...

Like there's millions of Christians that won't vote right now. They won't vote. There's hundreds of thousands of outdoorsmen that won't vote. There's demographics that would usually identify with...

In the two-party system with the Republican side of things that just don't participate and they don't vote and they have their own reasons for it. But to my point, we can sit here and let's do it. I'm all about it. Let's do it. Let's blame politicians, but –

Who keeps sending those politicians to Washington? I'm with you. There's the old saying, Congress has a 10% approval rating and a 90% reelection rate. And that is lazy fucking citizens that can't get off their ass. It was just like when you were doing that survey. You got frustrated, didn't you? I did. And then we got, I think we're getting close to 350,000 signatures now. Thankfully, you stayed after it. Go ahead.

Go ahead, Tim. Yeah, I was going to say when we, my campaign manager, Thomas McAfee, and I, we go out and knock on doors and we use a registered voters list. And you go by a house that's got the don't tread on me, I'm proud American or a Trump flag. I say, pull up that. Why aren't we stopping there? And he'll pull up the list. He'll double check it and triple check it. Ain't nobody there registered to vote.

You know, and you'll see these guys riding down the interstate with an American flag on, which I think is kind of disrespectful, on the back of their pickup truck flapping around all tattered. And you'll say, hey, where do you vote? I don't know. Hell, they don't even vote. And that's, you know, that's the mentality. And the left understands that. And they've got these college campuses feeding into this. And, you know, they've got this life supply of, lifetime supply of voters here.

They just regenerate them every year. And we are very short-sighted on the conservative side, very short-sighted. And we're going to, as my dad would say, I'm afraid we're going to get what we deserve. Yeah. I think talk is cheap, man. Talk is cheap. And there's a lot of talk. But let's move into Afghanistan and the, you know, I'm starting to feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but

I mean, it's important to me. We've fought these people for over 20 years. I don't know how many lives were lost. I don't know how much money was spent, how much equipment. And now we're funding the same people that we were fighting. The Taliban. Upwards $40 million to $87 million a week. IG came out and said, we accidentally gave $239 million to the Taliban. We already know it's much more than that.

Tim, you wrote up a bill. What was that initial bill?

Folks, you know it. America has never been this close to collapse. To make matters worse, we're right around the corner from an unprecedented political powder keg. And folks, the sparks are flying. But smart Americans know this and are fighting back by investing in emergency preparedness now while they still can. And I strongly urge you to do the same by going to preparewithsean.com right now.

At My Patriot Supply, you'll find the best-in-class survival food, critical, potentially life-saving gear like solar generators, biomass stoves, water filters, heirloom seeds, and much, much more. Everything you'll need to deal with what's right around the corner for this country.

MyPatriot Supply is the nation's largest and most trusted emergency preparedness company and has helped over 3 million American families prepare for the unthinkable. Their famous delicious food kits, which are packed in ultra-durable heavy-duty pouches, deliver over 2,000 calories a day and can last up to two and a half decades in storage.

Plus, your essential supplies ship lightning fast, which frankly these days could make all the difference. Order by 3 p.m. and your supplies will ship that same day in discreet, unmarked boxes. Go to preparewithsean.com right now so you can join the ranks of the elite Americans who are ready for what's coming. Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already,

Please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. Listen up. No matter who wins the election, I'm still buying gold and silver. We're $35 trillion in debt, and we have a government that none of us trust.

So try to protect your money while you still can. Go to SeanLikesGold.com. You'll learn about the top-rated precious metals company, Goldco, and how they can help you. They're a great company, top-rated.

over 6,000 five-star reviews and tons of awards, and they support the show. And for my listeners, you can get up to a 10% instant match in bonus silver on qualified orders. So if you're worried about your money losing value, or you just want to buy some precious metals that you can physically hold on to,

something that is real, that's been around for thousands of years, GoldCo can help. So go to SeanLikesGold.com. That's SeanLikesGold.com. Performance may vary. Consult with your tax attorney or financial professional before making an investment decision. You just basically cut off funding to the Taliban, taxpayers' dollars, passed the House.

And it's sitting there. Schumer won't even address it. And I've talked to multiple senators. They're going to try to attach it to this bill, attach it. Now, that should be America should just come unglued. You think that'd be a number one story with the legacy media? You know, they just say, hey, these guys, what are they thinking? The Democrats in the House, they didn't want to touch it. I mean, it went again. It went like they went like Grant through Richmond. You know, they they they it was unanimous. No discussion.

How can they not be concerned that we... I mean, I've said this multiple times. I'll say it again. 9-11 was a $500,000 budget. Now they have $239 million at the minimum to make a move. We already know that the passport office is creating legitimate passports for terrorist after terrorist after terrorist, flying them down into South America, Central America, and to funnel them up through here. We've already caught...

I don't know how many. I know they caught at least eight. Eight terrorists. It's more than that. That the FBI's picked up. They've turned them loose. I think that many they've turned loose and they don't know where they are. They have no idea what's coming. No idea. And so how is anybody, right or left, okay with this? Because it is both parties. Both parties. It's both parties. We're crooked in this deal. It's, again...

to the legacy media addresses it and and and when i was in the state house state legislature here in nashville i voted against the oilers coming up here i think there was probably three people in the house in the senate 100 see uh uh 99 house 99 house members and um i think two of us three of us might have voted against it i had three phone calls from home against it

That was a groundswell of support, you know, and that's why I voted against it. And people just, if they were to light up their senators and say, hey, why aren't we funding the Taliban? Where is that bill? Where's Burchett's bill? That's, you know, what Eli said. You get a couple thousand people call you at lunchtime, man, and you get nervous. And that's what they need. They need to get nervous. This is just the tip of the iceberg. And if it hadn't been for you and Legend and some others—

Scott Mann and Sir Adams. Yeah. If they hadn't have gotten involved with it, it would have not gotten anywhere. Because it's funny. We had that bill filed, and I get a call from leadership. I say, hey, man, what's going on with this bill? I said, I don't know. I'm waiting on you all to do something with it. I said, well, it's up. It's going to be up next week. Get ready. I told my people, and I was like, I remember I got the text. And I thought, well, hell, finally something's moving. Yeah.

So only Schumer can do something about this at the Senate? In the Senate. That's where it's got to go. Another senator needs to address it and put it on one of their bills, but yeah. Well, I spoke with Senator Hagerty. Yeah, he called me. He called me actually from Japan one day and said he was going to get working on it. But we got to get, you know, we got to get the pressure. I mean, he's got to, that bill has to move in the Senate. And the only person that can allow it to move is Schumer. You wrote another bill up.

Did you write another one up? Yeah. What's the next one? The Vienna Protocol or whatever. What we do in government, we duplicate so many things. And what this is, is we're going to identify these other countries that consider the Taliban and those groups terrorist organizations.

And we get together and we unify on the fight because what's happening now, you know, everybody hits one little area, this area, and we don't do anything with it. And this just forces our hand and exposes what we've been doing in the past. And that's where a lot of the discomfort is. But I don't care. We screwed up. We're paying these murderers, literally, American tax dollars. And this—

It formulates that and it keeps us from doing that in the future. And it also is kind of a buddy check with the other countries that they, you know, we sort of

like what NATO was originally intended to do. And it forms that basis for that. It's a lot of bureaucracy. I usually don't like bills like that, but this makes a lot of sense that we start talking to our friends about our enemies. And it cuts the middleman out. And it saves us a lot of money in the long run because we're not duplicating the process somewhere else. We're not just wasting funds or assets. When is that going up?

Well, I filed it, I think, two weeks ago. So we're just waiting. Again, you know, these committee chairmen, it's like moving a freaking glacier. What committee is that going to? Let's see. Where would that go? We put it in the hopper. I haven't even heard back yet. I'll have to let you know. I would suspect it would have to be foreign affairs. I mean, what do you think in there when you found this out? Fought?

those wars? Yeah. I mean, I hate to sound obtuse, but I feel like I've kind of been desensitized to it a little bit. Like I'm not, almost nothing surprises me anymore, you know? So, you know, it's when you just get outraged, you know, hour after hour, day after day, you kind of get desensitized to it. And so it's, for me, it's just kind of like,

Let's try and stop it. And Tim, put me on your bill, you know, but I, there is a level of desensit, you know, desensitivity that takes place when you're up in that place long enough. And, uh, you, you try and fight to, you know, not become that way to where you're so institutionalized that you, you know, quit caring, but you know, uh,

It's definitely a reality, and I try not to get super emotional and just, all right, what's the problem? What's the mission? Who's got the bill? Let's go. Let's get on it. Let's start applying pressure so that we can get this one fixed. Because it does. It feels like we're playing whack-a-mole up there. We're always –

10 steps behind. And we pass some good stuff and it just dies in the Senate and I'm sure vice versa. But Eli will tell you every day you're on the House floor and somebody says, and they always have their little rectangular cards. I might have one right here. And they'll come up and say, hey, my bill is the be kind to mother's bill or something. And it sounds like a good bill. Would you sign on? And you say, sure.

And then you don't ever it never goes anywhere. It just sits in these freaking committees. It's very frustrating because the money changers are in the temple, brother. They are in the temple and they pull the strings. And that's the bottom line. And until we get people that back to Eli's point, until these voters start recognizing that that your your congresspeople are feeding you a load of bull when they come home.

Follow up with them. Find out why they voted for that 2,000-page bill called the transportation bill that only 85% of it had nothing to do with transportation. Say, what is it that I'm mortgaging my grandchildren's future financial well-being that's worth it in that bill? And if they can't give you an answer, vote them out. I don't care what party they're in. How do you educate your constituents on this?

The latest bill, agenda. I do my videos. They're, you know, my redneck ass. I get out there and I'm holding the camera and I'm telling, I tell what it is. That's how it's done. That's how I do it. And I'm seeing a lot of people do it now that's well produced. But I just still just me, you know, because I'm too tight to hire anybody, obviously. There's no, there's no.

...official presentation. Yeah, well, there is. But again, like the SAVE Act, and Eli and I have talked about how frustrating this is. You know, the SAVE Act prevents foreigners from voting in our elections. We already passed that in July. And now they're tacking it onto another bill, a spending bill, you know, forcing Eli and I to vote for terrible funding issues that are Pelosi-Schumer funding levels.

so they can pass this thing again. So we're going to send it over to the Senate and force them to not do anything, to shut the government down. And it just doesn't work because—

We're not putting out a message, unified message. We ought to hold a press conference every day. Every dadgum day, we ought to pass a bill dealing with the border. Maybe the same bill every day. Enforce the Democrats. But we don't. It's about getting reelected, Sean. It's not about what's doing best for the country. And both parties are guilty of it. And that's in lies a lot of the corruption that's within our government.

Well, let's move into... I'm sorry. I was just going to say one of the ways that we do it with our voters, educating them on bills, policy, we do town halls, tele-town halls, social media. I know Tim does all this stuff too. We also do a newsletter. Once a week, we put out everything that we're either voting for, voting against, any bills that we have coming up. But

It is important to make sure that you're staying in communication. Sometimes if I'm torn on a bill because it's got some good stuff in it but some bad stuff in it, sometimes I'll send out a poll to my district like, hey, how do you guys want me to vote on this? That's amazing that you do that. I want to move into government corruption, but real quick, what are some of the most concerning things that—

You guys are seeing up there at the House. What's your primary concerns right now? Go ahead. I'll take this one first. If I was to look at all the issues that we're facing, the number one priority, I think, for us right now is getting President Trump back in office. I think...

That alone alleviates, and it won't happen overnight. It'll take time, but that alleviates and starts to turn back a lot of these horrible policies that are destroying the country. So that's number one. The number one thing I think that is going to stop that is illegals voting in our elections, right? Because if you look at Arizona alone...

In the last election, it was about 10,000 votes difference between Trump and Biden. If you look at nationally, in the five swing states, I think it was a little over 40,000 votes. There was the difference in that election. Sean, they've let in over 10 million people.

And they are trying to register as many of them as they can. And they're also using all the agencies, like even the SBA, we've done a hearing on that.

I just saw a clip of Harriet Hageman and her committee. They're using all of these agencies through executive order to get out into communities largely that vote Democrat and using these agencies to register. They'll hold an event, like a small business event, and at that event, then they'll start registering people to vote.

And so my biggest concern is what, you know, that they're going to have a lot of these illegal aliens voting. That's my biggest concern right now, because I think that's the number one thing. President Trump has never been up in the polls. He's up in the polls now, but in the past, he hasn't been up in the polls. So he's up in the polls. Their candidate sucks.

She just does. She's a Marxist. She's more left than Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. The reason that her campaign has shielded her from press is because they know the moment she opens her mouth and starts talking, this whole false identity that they've tried to create of her being a moderate problem solver goes away.

And I will give her props for the debate the other night because she outperformed what any of us thought she was capable of. But that being said, that's my biggest concern is illegals voting in this next election. Well, I got a question for you. You know, I mean, I just interviewed this guy, Eric Bethel. He was at World Bank. He was our representative at World Bank. And we were talking at dinner yesterday.

And he was talking about the swing states and how these aren't correct numbers, but it's somewhere along these lines. Like Pennsylvania, for example, the RNC has like three offices in Pennsylvania, but the DNC has like 40 offices. How do you, I mean, we're not even...

Take the illegal situation out. It's like the RNC isn't even attempting to win the swing states. They're not deploying anybody in there. They're not expending any resources. I'm going to get myself in trouble for this, but I tell people, if you want to give money to somebody, give it to the individual candidates.

You decide. You look at somebody, you say, man, that guy's getting on the Internet and said that guy's struggling out in Arizona or wherever. But he or she is a great candidate and looks like they're close. I'm going to support that person because what we had in the past with our leadership is that's no longer there. But they they were given money to go after Democrats. And as it turned out, several good Republicans, Anna Polina Lunas, one of them,

They used that money. Greg Stubbe, when he first ran, they claimed they weren't in those races. They're not supposed to get in the middle of primaries. And they went after Thomas Massey, you know, because I was in conference. And Liz Cheney said Thomas is a special case. And that's why he's on my phone now, Thomas Special Case Massey. You know, and the rules don't apply to them. And they've...

And what they did was they went after conservative candidates. Who did? Our leadership did. And they had $17 million. Sorry, I'm pointing. They had $17 million. And that was the money that was used against Eli in his primary. The money they used against Matt Gaetz, they might as well have just thrown that money down a well. The money they used against Nancy Mace. Bob Goode. Bob Goode. They beat Bob Goode. And...

They had a couple of people that I know of. And one, they flew up to D.C. to run against me. And the polling data didn't show that they would fare very well against me. Yeah, and I was telling you, Sean, when we were driving here, that's why a lot of – it's one of the many reasons a lot of Republicans won't –

won't do the right thing, represent their voters and not the Republican Party, right? Because they don't want to get on the wrong side of that machine because that machine has a lot of money and they'll put a hit on you just like they did on me and Tim and

Tim's so popular in his district, they weren't even able to recruit anybody to run against Tim. The same thing happened with Andy Biggs in Arizona. They weren't able to find anybody to primary Andy Biggs because he's beat everybody that's run against him. And nobody was like, I don't want to go tangle with that. But-

For a young freshman like me, they finally found somebody. They're vulnerable. They were willing to jump in there. Thankfully, my voters had my back because I have their back up there. Absolutely. But a lot of politicians don't want to get on the wrong side of that machine. And they want to stay there for a long time and everything that goes with it. And that's why you rarely see people go up there and...

and kick the hornet's nest. Yeah, the old timers will tell you to compromise. That's what we need. And that's what we're $35 trillion in debt. Every 100 days, we add another trillion. Neither party wants to, won't address it. And because of the compromise, the Democrats will never talk compromise when they're in the majority, but they sure are now. What do you find the most concerning thing to be right now? Obviously, on the short term, it's this election, which would have

long-term effects on the future of our country, but the spending, we just keep, we're addicted to it. We cannot address it. Both parties. Both parties. Both parties. The Democrats will, thank you for saying that, Democrats will use it for woke stuff. We'll use it for, you know, missile defense plans or something. And that's why they pass these big, humongous budgets, 3,000 pages. They read down to page 26. Well, my wife or girlfriend or both

is employed by this group that takes care of them and here's my bridge i need i stop reading there's you know two thousand and eighty five more pages of spending and um as long as they get their stuff they're there but if they don't and that's why and and that's why we need single spending in tennessee state we're filming in right now our legislature we have a balanced budget zero debt

single spending bills. If the caption has about dog catchers, there's not going to be a dadgum pay raise in there for state legislators. It has to be about dog catchers all the way through. And that is why they don't want that in Washington. They don't want to pass a budget because if they did, every one of those jugheads up there would have to come down on the House floor and explain why their bill. I can explain the funding in my bill, why we don't need to be funding the Taliban.

And I always want a clean bill. I don't want to attach anything else to it. I don't want any more garbage voted up or down. And eventually, we're either going to go that route or we're going to become a third world country. It's another one of their tricks, Sean. It's another one of the establishment's tricks.

Because we've continually fund the government with CRs or continuing resolutions or omnibus bills that are like Tim said, thousands of pages, right? They got you between a rock and a hard place as a representative because if you vote no on it because you don't want to fund –

you know, whatever agenda it is or some woke and weaponized DEI program. The first bill I had up there, first budget, sorry, I'm going to go back to you. The first budget I had had three different studies on lobsters. And it was in three different ranking member or chairman or leadership people, district, Republican and Democrat districts.

And it just continued. It was the same thing, but it was funding in there. And some of this funding, we've come to find out, the programs don't even exist anymore. Where the hell does this money go? What? So, yeah. Well, you have arms situations that are that way, but still they're funding this. You'll build a military device that's...

outdated or antiquated, but they're still going to get in there. Now all they do is what they call it, mothballing it. And it's just going to sit out in the desert somewhere. And you see this time and time again in government. And yet it just keeps happening. It just keeps happening. And then when you say something like this, when this comes out, you know, I'll get the, Hey, big boy, you better be careful. Talk on the house floor. It's the same old crap every time. Damn. But there's enough of it. There's a few of us that

sit back there on center's row and right back in the back there about 25 or 30 of us are just tired of it and we called it out. I think people are paying attention, but just how long will they pay attention when it starts affecting their sweetheart deal or their family's little junkets or businesses? Let's move into the corruption inside Congress. You'd mentioned something about the whistleblowers and how

they need to be careful with communications and who they communicate with and the calls. So I'm interested to hear how concerned are you guys with your communications to each other, your colleagues, me, anything? Every bit of it. Very bit. Very concerned. I think everything I do and say is at some point tracked, at least the cell phones or whatever.

You know, they gave me a cell phone when I first got to Congress. I said, I don't want it. They gave you a cell phone? They gave us all a cell phone. They gave everybody a cell phone. And I got my own. I still, you know, I'm sure they can, if they want it, they can get it. I'm pretty small potatoes. I'm the 435th most powerful member of Congress. But the real corruption in Congress is in the structure.

And Eli alluded to it very eloquently earlier about the funding, how you have to raise money. You raise money for your conference. You're issued a bill when you get there. Everybody is, the Democrats and the Republicans. Everybody talks about it.

And, you know, they'll tell you, we're going to see how you do on your committee selections if you want to move up, how you do, you know, on your bills and how you're doing and how you do across the street. And what that means is you're not supposed to be technically supposed to make fundraising calls from the office. You have to go across the street to Capitol Hill Club or someplace else. And how much money you raise for the conference. Literally, we've had committee chairmen that have written a personal check and been made chairman of committees.

Personal check. So, you know, I've said this many times that if the NFL was Congress, Peyton Manning would still be waiting to get in.

Wow. Because it's not about putting the best player in. Because if it was, you wouldn't. I always remember this. Steve Cohen crossed the aisle. Don't agree on anything. But he's my friend. He called my mama when my dad died when we were in the state legislature. I remember one time we were looking at each other and this old chairman came up the aisle and he's no longer there. So he came up the aisle and they called for the vote.

And he turned to the little girl that was beside him and said, how am I voting on this? And she says, you're for this, Mr. Chairman. He goes, oh, okay. Puts his card in, hits the green button. I remember I looked at Cohen and we just...

sugar head, because that structure is in place. You got to understand when you're a chairman, I mean, you'll have how many, 25 or 30 people maybe that work under you. And then all those people's jobs require, and they're out whining and dining. They're not supposed to be, but surely they are whining and dining and they go on the junkets and they go on the trips just like you are as the chairman. And

It's just constant. And they raise the money. And to get in that spot, they have to raise the money. And so they keep them in that spot because you're a chairman and you're the one who ultimately decides if your bill is going to have a rough go on your committee or not.

And so it's just a completely corrupted system because of that, because I don't I'm not a billionaire. Eli's not a billionaire and we don't represent a lot of billionaires or millionaires for that matter. And it's just tough on people like us because I don't I can't raise the money that some of these guys can. Not that I'm.

I told my wife the other day, if they begged me to be a chairman of a committee, I don't think I would do it just because of all the nonsense that's involved, all the stuff you're expected to do and the money. What if you had a billionaire to write that check for you? That's what happens. That's how they own you. Well, I think he's saying if you had a billionaire that shared your worldview and wanted you to fight. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Are you that billionaire? I wish I was, Tim. I wish I was. Yeah.

You got a soul. I agree with you that. Yeah, if you had one that shared your values, but

That gets squishy, man. You know, you start, you get that phone call. What does that check look like? I'm just curious. What does the check look like to get you? I think my dues this year are $250,000, $250,000. I'm a low man, I mean, because I'm not in a wealthy. A check for $250,000 gets you in charge of a committee. No, no, that just gets my base dues. That puts me in good standing and that I can continue in the committees I'm in. Probably a committee is probably $500,000.

A million maybe something, three or four million. I don't know. Some of them raise a ton of money. Man, they come in there and they announce. Three to four million dollars buys you a slot. I'm not making you uncomfortable. No, no, no. I talked to one of our friends and he told me that when he first got to Congress, he was told that he needed like, you know, to stroke like a, I think like $150,000 check if he wanted to be on a certain committee. And so he had to call some of his donors, you know, to go.

to fork up so that he could be on that committee. But to Tim's point, it's a big part of the corruption in the structure. And you can get to the bribery and all that other stuff and how people are compromised. And I've talked about that till I'm blue in the face. But it's, and that's a reality too. People have family members that work for. I mean, I'm just thinking as concerned as people seem to be

And none of this is illegal, though. That's the problem. Well, what I'm saying is, yeah, you're right. It's not illegal. But it's immoral. So how do we get you guys a couple of billionaires to fund you to be in charge of a committee? I'm not even fucking around here. I'm being serious. Yeah. That's a good question. Maybe some of them watch SRS, dude. I don't know. Well, maybe that's why we're having this discussion. Even then, you would probably still need leadership to sign off on it, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. And since we've...

So I don't think that's going to happen. Voted against McCarthy, of course. And that upset a lot of the structure because a lot of people had a lot of money invested in that structure. Because that had never happened before, Sean. Never. Not in the history of our country had that ever happened. Yeah. So there's still a lot of butthurt about it. You know what I mean? Because they'd invested a lot in that structure and they could make the call and say, hey, I need some help with this. Can you pick up the phone and move this along? What committee would you want to be on?

It goes back to what I was telling you. It's why I believe you need people that don't want to be up there, right, to go. And I think it's even healthy for me personally. I have this –

I visualize the swamp finally getting me. At some point, I believe they're going to get me. They're going to get rid of me. And that's okay, right? Because it's just like I'm not there to be a career politician. I'm there to try and change the system. And in knowing that, I know that I'm going to face opposition and I'll have a lot of people that don't like me.

But one thing I hope that the example set is going to cause is I hope other people that are better, smarter, more talented than I am see that you can come into Congress immediately and you don't have to fall in line and do what you're told. You can actually represent the people that sent you there and try and change the system. Move on here real quick. I want to, we were talking about the communications and we've had

offline conversations with both of you guys about phones. So these are the ones Prince developed. Prince unplugged phone. So those, you can have all your social media apps on

There's actually a quick menu on there that you can turn on a VPN. You can make it so that those applications on social media, any of the, any applications you can, all it is is you flip a switch and they can't access any of the rest of your phone and suck that data out. Uh, there's a kill switch that actually puts something in between the battery and the phone so that, you know, that's, you probably know this, maybe you do too. Um,

I mean, even when you turn your phone off, they could still listen. But if you separate the battery, then they cannot. And so there's a kill switch on those. Those things are the shit, man. So you can just take it to your provider and.

Get a SIM card put in there. I have to make sure. Good to go. It fits the thing. I mean, I'll be listening to it, too. I'll have to write you a check. We'll probably have to write you a check. Just for the record, we'll have to write you a check on these. We're not allowed to receive gifts. It's probably over the limit. I'll have to find out. If you'll find out what they're worth, and then we'll write you a check for the difference. Another rule. Wow.

They would love to catch him and I in this. It's so crazy how many rules we have, but yet how corrupt the whole system is. Are you fucking with me right now? No. You can't take a gift over $25, isn't it? I don't know. I just don't take anything. That's my rule. They're definitely worth more than $25. We'll find out. I would love to have something like this because this is something I would really love to have.

Yeah, Eric was just up in DC this week doing a foreign policy discussion with Mike Lee. It's pretty cool. I only got to sit in for like 30 minutes of it, but I guess smart. Yes. Yes, he is. Back to corruption.

What else is going on up there? Why is everybody so concerned about reelection? Why are all these congressmen, senators, why are they terrified? The train stops. And they're terrified of people like you because you've hit some crazy nerve across this country. I'm at my Mexican restaurant. Some kid's the mech's on.

Mexican restaurant attached to an Exxon is really not a Mexican. They went up on their prices. Margaritas are like six bucks now. I'm not a drinker, but apparently that's not a very hefty price. But anyway, everybody's talking about you and people like you are a threat to them. I really feel like that because they hope you're a flicker in the pan and I don't think they understand the whole podcast situation. And I was at the ball game yesterday and

one of my biggest supporters' grandson, he's like, "Shalln't run really like that in real life?" And I said, "That's the way he is." And I was at a ball game and some young guy said something. So I think you've really struck a nerve in this country. - Got an answer for that. I think one of the reasons so many people are so worried about reelection is because this has become their identity. I think it's the same reason a lot of guys struggle when they get out of Special Forces or the SEAL teams or the NFL.

Because it's become their identity. It's who they believe they are. And I think anytime you put your identity in something that can be taken from you, you're in trouble. And that's why for me, man, I always try and come back to what is my identity, man?

And I'm an image bearer of God, man. You know, I'm a son of God. I'm a husband. I'm a father. And that's what I try and put my identity in. I'm an American. I love my country. You know, those are things that, you know, those are things that are more foundational. Even some of those things can be, you know, taken from you. But anytime you put your identity in something that can be taken from you, you're in trouble. And I think a lot of these people...

Um, they've never done anything really cool in their life or anything that they're super proud of. Some of them have, but, you know, I think some of them get caught up in the, oh, I'm a Congressman or, oh, I'm a Senator. And, you know, they don't want to lose it. They don't want to go back to just being a, you know, regular old civilian. And they'll compromise everything they got. And I think that's what our founders wanted. I think our founders wanted us to go

you know, into public service and then, you know, go back home and go back to whatever you were doing beforehand and not become a career politician. You know what the worst? You know, Tim, you brought a great point up when you invited me, thank you, by the way, to the State of the Union. You had mentioned at some point, you had mentioned, you know, none of these congressmen go back to their districts. They all hang out here like it's a fucking club and they're not worried about what they're

what their voters want. They just want to be in the social club. And that really resonated with me, and I started paying attention. Eli's 100%. Once again, it is the identity. When I was in the state legislature, I remember guys would leave, and then within six months, they'd be back up there. I mean, people would become sergeant at arms because they just couldn't leave that. And I remember one time a buddy of mine called him,

He called a lobbyist. I knew his name was David McMahon. And he said, David, I lost. He said, what? He said, I lost. He goes, who is this? He told him who he was. He says, I've never heard of you. And he was joking. But the reality is, and David was friends with the guy until he died. But the reality is, is that you don't, you know, you've got to realize that this is,

Everybody likes you up there. Hopefully they like you for the person you are, but you have to sometime realize that it's what you can do for them. And then when you can't do that for them, and I always talk about how when I go back home after the election, I said, you know, I'll probably be mowing a lot of these people's yards. You know, that's how I'll know them. And that'll be the relationship because I won't be their congressman. And I think too many of them don't realize that, and that's why you see them

You know, they slip into depression, alcoholism and everything else after military, you know, NFL or what have you, professional sports or the spotlight that we're in. Because nobody, unless you're a consultant or something, you know, and that's part of the crooked nature of it. But, yeah. Well, you had mentioned the gravy train stops. But I just gave you a cell phone and you told me you're not allowed to take a gift over $25. So what gravy train?

I think going to the front of the line, being invited to the concert, sitting in the nice box. How about the insider trading? Yeah, for sure. How much is that going on? That's prevalent. There's a website, Whales or something. I forget what it's called. You can find it. Get your kids to show you how to find it on the Internet. Google it. But it lists...

It lists all the legislators, you know, and their trades and everything. Heck, Pelosi, everybody rails on her, and she's not even—she's about halfway up. Who's the number one? Forget his name. He's a Democrat. He had a 300 percent return. He left, though. I think he left early, actually.

Shortly after that report came out, but still, I think he'd already had plans. And it's equally divided pretty much between Republicans and Democrats. You know, I want to point the finger. I wished I could. But yeah. And legitimately, some of them have a relationship with their broker where they say, I don't want to know what you're doing and all that. But it's got to enter into it.

And then there was just a Senator that got like busted for having that jacket given to him with gold bars. I mean, that's, that's extreme, but it, even stuff like that happens. I mean, it isn't extreme. You don't know until somebody gets caught and then they write the tell all books and you hear about stuff. I, um, before I got to the legislature, you know, they would have a, um, everybody in Tennessee would, there was a liquor store across the street caddy corner and you'd go by and

And you'd hand them your slip of paper and get your take home for the week, you know, and you could go on trips and it was unlimited. And then they figured out a way to do, I don't know, $50 per person. So I was in high demand because they'd have to, they figured out an average. And since I didn't drink, you know, I'd get like a hamburger and a,

sweet tea or something. Now it would be around six or seven bucks. So bring the average down. So I got invited to every dinner, you know, in the legislature. But I mean, you know, the people that write the laws are the ones that are going to be breaking the laws because they've already figured out a way to get around it. That's why they're paid the big money. And, and we, you know, there's a lifetime retirement after one, after you get elected, that's just not accurate. It's, it's, uh,

It's not anywhere near that. And it's not a lifetime health insurance after one year kind of thing. I mean, how are they getting these guys? Even a lot of the veterans that I had so much confidence in get into Congress. Obviously not you. But, I mean, they just crumble. Here's how it is. And I'll tell you how it was. When I first got elected to the Statehouse, the best thing that ever happened to me growing up was we never had money, but we were around people with money. So it wasn't, you know.

I was a teetotaler. I didn't drink. When they started busting people for DUIs at UT College campus, I was always asked, I was driving somebody's 260Z or their BMW or their Porsche because I get to Smokey Mountain Market and get chili dogs after midnight because they were hammered drunk and they knew I'd be sober and I'd eat for free. So fast forward, I'm in the state legislature. I get elected and all of a sudden the ladies are laughing at my jokes and compliment me on the way I'm dressing.

People tell me how that's a great story, man. Thank you. And invite me to dinner, introducing me to people. I'm told, you know, all these great things. And you just start believing it. And, you know, I've been doing this most of my adult life. And, I mean, I just laugh at it because I see it. Because I've seen people commit suicide, ruin marriages, never talk to their kids again.

I go back to the suicide that's happened more than once of people that I've served with because they got caught up in it and they were going to get popped and they couldn't take the heat. So they took their own lives. And it just you get elected. I was I remember I was I was first elected and I was sitting on the House floor and and these guys were walking in and they're coming to their committee with their entourage.

And, you know, you think once you're elected, you're going to get, you know, you're going to be asked to negotiate a trade deal with North Korea or something by the president. That's just not the reality. But you, but you get this enforcement, reinforcement from the lobbyists and the public and everything. And you just, you start believing your own press releases. And I'm sorry, I've talked too long. Go ahead, Eli. No, I think, uh, we might've discussed this before, but I think the biggest thing with military guys, from my perspective is, um,

We have courage. A lot of us know how to think outside the box, I think, which most of us know how to play on a team. And I think all those things are great skills that could be transitioned well into coaching.

public service and Congress. Um, I think that, I think we're most, a lot of us get caught up is that we're so used to being a part of a chain of command that when we go up to Washington and we see a new chain of command, cause like they have, you know, speaker, you know, leader whip on down, um, they see a new chain of command that they've got to fall into and take orders. And,

And they also start to game plan, well, if I wanna become a subcommittee chairman or then a chairman or then get into leadership, how do I do that, right? So that I can affect the change that I wanna see happen here.

I understand that mindset, but the way I always looked at it was that my chain of ... First of all, that Washington DC is completely busted and broken. Therefore, the chain of command is not doing a good job. Secondly, my chain of command is really the 750,000, 800,000 people back home that sent me there. That's my chain of command. I'm going to work for them. I'm going to try and bust this up as much as I can.

And I just, I think, I don't think that, you know, everybody comes in with that mentality. And I also don't believe that many people, and maybe I'm wrong, Sean, but...

I don't think that everybody comes in with the mentality that a lot of people come in with the mentality of incrementalism. Right? Well, you know, you know, in back to Tim's point on compromise, if we can get one little good thing here, you know, yeah, I might have to vote for a lot of crap over here, but I'm willing to do it if we get, you know, a little win over here. And I've looked at it as in we're in big trouble. We need to make big moves.

And that doesn't go over well in D.C. Not one bit. You know, one thing I've noticed just from talking to you guys and some of the other congressmen and senators and being around a little bit, and I fucking hate politics, by the way, but you always hear that it's the one of the most elite social clubs on the planet. And the observation that I have is that these people get in, they get elected into these social clubs and

And then kind of what you were saying, they buy into their own bullshit. They start thinking they're too important for everybody else except the, in this case, the Congressional Social Club. And even when they know shit is wrong, they refuse to call it out because they don't want to be ostracized from the elite social club that they've just been elected into.

Am I on the right track here? You are. And then there's a step above it. So they don't want to be ostracized from the elite social club. But if they want to be promoted within that elite social club, because I know members that are angling for bigger spots right now. And if...

They got to be very careful politically on not to piss off the wrong person that could cast a vote or even, you know, have a backdoor conversation that would keep them from that position. And they're all working angles. There's a committee that feeds this to the speaker. Yeah.

If that makes sense. And that's sort of the hierarchy. I forget the name of them, but it's what I call the selection committee. Or even if you wanted an appointment that had, you know, took Senate confirmation. Right. A lot of these people are thinking about that. Like if I want that spot where I need to get confirmed by the Senate.

I can't vote against that senator's bill because, you know, that's the one vote that I need to get over the hump. And that's politics. And if somebody dies or somebody gets indicted, man, the ink's not even dry on it. And they're already figuring out a way to get to that position. Seeing how it moves them up, I can be...

I can move up from nothing to be the third assistant to whatever. I forget. They've got all kinds of names, but to me, it's a bunch of BS. And that's not unique to the government. I mean, there are people in corporate America, people in the military. People in church. Deacons Committee. That's our nature to be selfish and to be self-serving, right? But I think it's definitely...

elevated and escalated there just because of the power and the prestige of, you know, working, you know, in, in the federal government at the, at those levels. More people have played professional baseball in this country than, than have been elected to Congress. That tells you how elite or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Is there anything else we're missing? I'm sure, I mean, we could probably talk about this all day long, probably for a week. I just remember the YouTube football game and this chairman ended up getting indicted. I remember he pulled up. I think he parked kind of illegal and he got out of his car and was strutting through the crowd.

and get his tickets to the ball game or whatever. My buddy said, who's that? I said, well, he's a pretty big deal in Nashville. And he said, tell him he ain't in Nashville anymore. He's in Knoxville. He ain't nobody here. And I think sometimes we forget that. I see these guys come out of their district and, you know, I don't know anybody. Nobody knows me in Eli's district. And I think sometimes we forget that, that we're supposed to be back home representing that group.

I do want to bring something back up about when we were talking about biggest threats. And I said getting Trump in and then illegals voting. I don't know if I brought up the fact when we voted on the SAVE Act, which would keep illegals from voting. And I think this is so important. I think it was only five Democrats voted to support it.

Only five Democrats voted to stop illegals from voting in our election. And I think that's so telling and so important because I know you have people on all sides of the spectrum that watch the show. Explain that one to me, right? Explain that one to me. You guys have created and orchestrated a system that has allowed over 10 million people within four years to come into the country. And now your party is fighting to allow them to vote.

And you call us a threat to democracy. And you have the audacity to talk about foreign intervention in elections. Think about that. Do you know who the five were, by chance? I don't. It's public record. Yeah, I'd love to know that. We'll find it out and put it out on screen. Give them a little kudos. Yeah. Wow. You know, I know this is a super touchy subject, obviously, but people talk about it all the time. Civil War. Yeah.

Do you guys think we're headed to a civil war? I think it's possible. I think at the very least, I think we're headed towards civil disobedience. I think that will come first. And I do think we're headed down a track of, you know, towards totalitarian rule. And I said that the other day. I was talking about the Kamala Waltz ticket.

When he talks about, says publicly one man's socialism is another man's neighborliness, and then she regularly talks about equal outcomes, that's the dialect. That's the code. That's the code. That's the dialect of the socialist, the totalitarian 100%. I think I was sharing with you that some reporter asked me, because I was talking about that at an event with Governor Greg Abbott. We were stumping for Trump a couple weeks ago in Arizona, and

She said, what are you talking about, this ticket being totalitarian? And I just looked at her and I said, well, what governments censor their own people? And that was it.

But it's like, it's not even, it's not, they're not even really trying to hide it anymore. No. You know, of all the things that Trump was fact-checked on the other night in the debate, notice how he wasn't fact-checked when he talked about Kamala's dad being a Marxist professor. They got through that quick. Yep. And she didn't, she didn't, she rebutted many things, but she didn't rebut that. And, you know, it's just, it's just telling to me because, you know,

The strategy of Marxism is divide and conquer. Back in the day, it was divide us all up economically, the haves and the have-nots. Now, they've employed, and I think, an even more effective tactic here in the West, and that's divide us all up by race, ethnicity, gender. Dr. Votie Bauckham would call that cultural Marxism. I think it's been very effective here, but-

Instead of trying to unite us around the values that have made this country so great and have created so much opportunity and prosperity for us all, they try and divide us up on all these different metrics and barometers. It just makes it easier for them to conquer us and then to present themselves as the savior, as the solution.

And it blows me away that some people can still be gaslit into thinking that the federal government would ever be the solution for anything. I think the Civil War question is – I think it would be more of a regional thing. I always remembered when Trump was giving a speech at the White House and riots were – remember where Rand Paul got attacked, him and his wife did? Yeah.

And then I was, I guess we were maybe 100 yards behind that. And so we went back the other way. And I remember the police were, I remember Andy Barr from Kentucky, his wife had died. And he had his two precious little girls there in these pretty little matching dresses. And people were just saying filthy stuff. And I'd had enough. And I told those, I asked that one little girl, I said, do you want me to carry you? And she said, no. And I just held her little hand and I'd,

I told her, I said, those people probably just needed Jesus, honey. I said, we pray for them. And it seemed to give her a little comfort. But anyway, we had the girls. Mark Green was with me on one side. And I remembered the police. This town was like boarded up. And I'm not a big city guy. But the blocks on every corner, that's where the cops were.

And they weren't allowed to go within the city, within the block. They were told where to be. And I just thought, this is what civil war looks like. I mean, this is, and I think it'll be a regional type situation where people will move out of the, the people who can will get out and they'll come to places like Tennessee, refugees, so to speak. And then they will end up, when they leave their states, though, they will turn them over to,

to the cabal or whatever, the corrupt far left machine. And that's what we will. And I think you'll see two Americas emerge more so than we have now. And also, but, you know, I'm at these gun shows. I hear these guys talking tough, you know, and I said this at breakfast to y'all that they're going to, you know, if a tank rolls down the street, they're going to, hands will go up. You guys will know how to handle that. But people like me will not know how to handle that. I just can't see that

I see somebody shoots a couple shots and they get them fired back and they're throwing the white flag up. So I just, I don't know how you would, what that would look like. I think about it all the time. And I mean, I don't think it looks like how traditional civil wars look. I mean, look, we saw a 17-year-old kid and an entire city of riots with what, three bullets? Done.

Immediately stopped. I don't think that's what it looks like. I think it's like what you're talking about. And I think it's already starting. I mean, you see, you see, there's a massive migration happening in the US right now. You see,

red states going farther red, you see blue states going farther blue. I think that some of that, I mean, like let's, for example, and I'm not asking what your guys' stance is on it or anything, but abortion, for example, like my, personally, I think it's a little, a little out there to be hunting women down that have had an abortion and throwing them in prison.

Um, but I don't think that's actually going to happen. I think that that is a deterrent from getting lefties to move into the state. I think that some of these other things that are far left are deterrents for people on the right to move into the state. And I think it's dividing right now. On top of that, you see these governors starting to align. I mean, um,

That event that we went to in Nashville a couple weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago. It was what the governor of Louisiana and governor of Tennessee talking about how they are aligning on all these issues and sending in the National Guard to help on the Texan border. I mean, this is kind of how it starts.

It's kind of how it's... It's not kind of how it starts. This is how it starts. Yeah, 15% of the population voting, too. So, you know, the war, who's going to notice almost kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, is there talk about this up in Congress? Not really. I don't hear a lot of talk about it. Maybe a joke here or there, but...

I do think there's a level of detachment up there, clearly, and just not representatives picking up on the frustration of the American people and the frustration of the continuance of the status quo. Do you think – I mean, what would it look like, right?

You guys seem like pretty forward thinkers. Well, of course. What does it look like? We lose our firearms. We fooled him. He thinks that we're forward thinkers. I know. Our evil plot has worked. Good job, Tim. Thanks. I worry about, makes a lot of people uneasy, but Kamala Harris has said that she'd like to get the guns. What does that look like? How do you get the guns? Mm-hmm.

I mean, I think that's the start of it. You got a Second Amendment and then without a Second Amendment, it was clearly put in there for a reason. Clearly, people abuse it. There's no question there. But it's... Do you feel like state government's becoming more important than federal? I think it originally was designed that was separate national defense. That was it. I think it's I think that's important.

Unfortunately, not a lot of people pay attention on the federal level or the state level, but I think you're seeing now, especially...

post-COVID, how important it is to have a strong state government. So many people benefited by being in a red state. Many people fled out of blue states to go live in red states just because they could still have some level of freedom. It goes back to something I was talking about earlier, how important it is that people actually pay attention and do the bare minimum to

you know, of what it, what it means to be a citizen and be engaged, be educated, you know, vote, be an activist. There's so many, there's so many ways you can participate in this government, but what, here's the key. What happens when you don't, you're seeing it right now. It's all, there's always a vacuum and that vacuum is filled by something. And what's it being filled by right now?

Bob Dylan had a song. He became a Christian for a while. I'm not sure if he still is or not. I don't know what his faith is, but it was called You Gotta Serve Somebody. And it was in the line, you gotta serve somebody, be the devil or the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody. And what I think he was saying was, if you're not filling that gap,

The other side is. It's just a vacuum. There is no vacuum in politics. It's either at the table or you're on the dadgum menu. And right now, America is on the menu because the fat cats are getting fatter. And all they're concerned about is keeping in power and keeping that cash machine rolling. How much do you think the states can shelter its citizens from the federal government?

It depends on who's in the White House. Yeah. And...

Up to this point, I think quite a bit, when you look at just going back to COVID, what life was like when you had a governor who wasn't enforcing any of the mandates that other states were enforcing. Even in Texas right now, you have a governor that's willing to actually, if the federal government won't protect the people, which is one of its primary responsibility from the invasion coming over our southern border-

That governor there has actually erected walls, barriers, Constantine wire to protect his own citizens. And so up to this point, I think they have been able to play a very big role on the prosperity and safety of their citizens.

To Tim's point, though, how long does that continue based on where we're headed and the type of candidates that we have now that are running on the other side of the ticket who are way too cozy with totalitarianism? And one of the things you've got to realize, too, with the illegals is that who supports that?

Who supports that issue? The National Chambers of Commerce do. The National Chamber of Commerce did. Every time there's a bill, they're always mucking it up. You know, you got to remember, they're your little local chamber of commerce. Well, they give 1% or something to the National Chamber of Commerce. But you got to realize, they endorsed, about the first time I ran six years ago, about 14 or 15 of Pelosi's closest allies.

And they kept the Democrats in power. And that was obviously against small business. But large business loves it. They love the fact they have some guy on their roof, your roof, that doesn't speak English. And when he falls off, he's not going to do anything because he's afraid he's going to get deported. They're going to take him down to the emergency room and then you and I are going to pay for it. And the big boys, they're still going to be making money.

They're cut. And the working class people are going to suffer. And they continue to rise. My daddy used to always tell me, I said, why would they be for communism? They said, because they're the ones that will be in power. They will be in power. Well. What's the answer? What's the answer? I'll tell you what the answer is. Revival. That's right.

As a Christian, that's got to be at the first and foremost. I think we've got to realize where we are as a nation, and preachers have got to start preaching the gospel again and not be afraid of it. Be bold. I spoke to a group of preachers a couple weeks ago. I said, y'all just got to be bold. Quit being afraid. Your calling is bigger than the United States government, and I think we've allowed them to get in their comfort zones too much.

We've got to call them out, and that's where it's got to start in my opinion. There's other areas, of course, people are going to say, oh, but I'm an atheist or whatever. But as a Christian, I think that's where it's got to happen. We have failed, we have turned from God, and we've allowed this transgender thing. I mean, good gosh, we're allowing kids to permanently—

scar their bodies, their testicles removed, little boys, little girls getting their breasts removed. And we're celebrating that. On that note, Sean, there's a... You might want to edit all that out. I apologize. I don't care. There's a scripture in 2 Corinthians and it says, I don't know it by heart, but it says something to the effect of, if my people who hear my voice will humble themselves and pray and repent...

Call upon my name. Then I will heal them and I will hear them and I will heal their land. Like I think that is the biggest, most important thing going on here. I think everything that you see –

It's just a ramification of, like Tim said, pushing God out of everything. And I think that you're seeing God, you know, be like, okay, you don't want me? Okay. Well, and I think that's the key, you know, a people that have turned their back on God. And every time that happens throughout the scriptures, right?

It's always the same cycle. It's always the same cycle. And it never ends well until it gets so bad that people finally are willing to humble themselves and turn back to God. And so I hope we do it. I hope we do it before it gets much worse. But based on what I'm seeing in the culture, I'm not, I'm concerned. I don't think Trump's the Messiah. I don't think he's

I was asked on the BBC, they were making fun of something I said about God's will. And I said, yeah, I'm a Christian. I believe the scripture says a sparrow falls from the sky. I know it. I know how many hairs are on your head. Of course, on yours, there are a few less than are on mine and Eli's. But my point was, is that, you know, we have, every time God puts his hand out, we've swatted it away. It's the old adage, you know, this old saying,

redneck farmer's on a roof on his ladder and he starts falling. He says, Lord, help me. And then a nail catches his pant leg or his overalls. And he says, nevermind, Lord, I got it. Well, in mine and Eli's and your minds, God put that nail there.

And I'm a big believer in that. When I was county mayor, I used to ride around in these snow trucks when they'd go out and salt the roads there in Knoxville, Knox County. And we hit this black ice spot. I'll never forget it. It just almost went slow motion, and we were just sliding. I looked over, and we were going off a cliff. I looked down there, and there was a dead deer carcass. I thought, how ironic is that?

And that thing, that truck goes like this. It just goes, and it just stopped. And there was one tree there. And the press asked me about that, what I think about that. I said, God planted that tree.

60 years ago, knowing that my dumb ass was going to, would have died probably. I could have, we literally, cause it was, and I'd probably end up with a jack stand impaled in my head or something. But, you know, continuously in this country, we swatted away when Trump, that bullet and what they were making the point was, what I said, that was God's will that,

Trump missed. I don't think he's – I don't even know if he's a Christian or not, but I know what he'll do if he's in power. King David, for instance, terrible guy. I mean, he sleeps with Bathsheba, his best general, his best buddy's old lady, has the general killed.

Sends him out in this area, and then he pulls everybody back and leaves him in there, and he gets killed. But God had favor on him, and he led the Jews through it all. And to this day, he's remembered as one of the greatest. As a matter of fact, I think he's one of the only non-American who's in the Capitol there. He's got his face up on the wall up there. And so he's not a perfect vessel. Trump isn't.

But I think for some reason he is our best choice right now. Mm-hmm. Man. Well, it's funny you mention that because me and Eli were talking about that on the way over here, too, that I think the left versus right thing is it's not working. No, it's not. I mean, but also it keeps the big boys in power. You don't think that they're not just laughing. I mean, at the end of session, they'll head back.

A lot of the head boys in both parties, they're up at Kennebunkport or someplace drinking an expensive glass of wine or something, toasting each other, laughing at us. And I think we've got to realize that these parties are leaving us, man. But to that point, that's why I love, even though I know this title, the America First Movement, I know it's been hijacked and turned into some like

white supremacy, like nonsensical thing. But I love that the movement, because it puts Americans of all political parties of every color first. And I think that's what we've been missing. That's what the uniparty, that's what the cartel, the establishment, whatever you want to call it,

That's what it fails to do on a daily basis. And that's why I love that movement, because regardless of whether you're talking energy policy or border policy, that movement is based on putting, you know, Democrat, Democrats, Republicans, independents first, if they're American citizens. And that would be nice. It would be. That would be nice. But, um, well, gents, I know you guys are on a time crunch, so I'm going to wrap this up. But, uh,

I just want to say, you know, we talked about the voting. Only 15% of the people vote. Most people are too lazy. I would say just grab a buddy, drag their ass to the poll, and make them vote. If we all did that, then we'd get double the numbers. So on that note, I just want to say once again, it's an honor to have you guys. There's not very many people in Congress that...

still have control of their soul and uh i think you guys do and and i just i just really appreciate both of you you know with the afghanistan stuff with the brad geary stuff all i mean you guys are just always doing the right thing and uh at least it appears to me and it's an honor for me to be here with you two guys y'all served our country and that in my family that goes

a long ways. And I'm always, it's an honor for me to call you two guys my friends, because I'm in public a lot and people ask me about you all. And I don't tell you that enough, that how much I appreciate you guys, because it really is an honor for somebody that, because you know, my dad served and my mama flew an airplane and

My wife's deceased husband, the biological father of my child, served, you know, and I never did. My brother-in-law's a Marine sniper. I never served my dad-gum country, and you guys did. You weren't drafted. You chose, and you were called on to do incredible things, and I'm in honor. I'm in awe of you guys, and it is an incredible honor to call you guys my friends, and I appreciate it. And y'all let me hang out and...

Say stupid stuff and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. It's a good note. All right, brother. God bless. Check out the podcast that inspired Taylor Sheridan's latest series.

Land man. There's a stretch of road in a real rich region of West Texas. This region of West Texas, known as the Permian Basin, is in the midst of the biggest oil boom in history. This is a story of roughnecks, billionaire wildcatters, and wannabe dreamers. My name is Christian Wallace. From Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment, this is Boomtown. Boomtown. Wherever you listen.