The Bill Martinez Show 09 15 26

0:00 Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, let's do it. Bill Martinez Live, a program about current events, our culture, our values, our politics, and our future. And now, Bill Martinez. Hey, good morning, America. Six minutes after the top of the hour. Glad you could join us. I'm Bill Martinez, and we've got the New York Times bestselling author Brent Hamachek join us. We're going to talk about his brand new book, The Intellect of Charlie Kirk. Brent, welcome back. Good to have you with us. It's been too long, my friend. It has been, it's been a couple of years and maybe I guess I have to write a book to get a chance to talk to you. So, but I think there'll be more of that coming as the good news.

0:41 So that means we'll talk more. Well, of course, this book about Charlie Kirk, we're, you know, remembering one year ago and, you know, we're still grieving, many of us still grieving because of, you know, the generational loss. that we've experienced with Charlie Kirk no longer around, but yet his legacy continues. Well, it does. It'll continue on in large part because of the organization he built. In the postscript to the book, one of the things I share is my thought that everybody wants to, I shouldn't say everybody, but so many people want to focus on the nature and manner of Charlie's death. And we hear the term martyr being, you know, bandied about. And I certainly understand those things, but I, I do not think that Charlie's going to be remembered for how he died. I think he's going to be remembered constantly and ongoing for what he built while he lived. And, you know, that's the turning point USA organization. That's the legacy.

1:55 It's not about trying to somehow or other make something of his death. His death was an insult to the human experience, the way it took place. But let's focus on the real legacy, which is an organization that's ongoing, thriving, and making an impact in young people's lives every day. And this organization was based on common sense, godly principles. I mean, here you served as, I guess, for for all intent and purposes, a bit of a ghostwriter for him. I mean, Charlie was more than a friend for you. I mean, he had to just be, I mean, both of you had to be so connected. You know, I want to say almost metaphysically because, because when you're writing for somebody and you, you get so close to them, you know, you're like that proverbial person that finishes the other person's sentences at times, probably. Well, yeah.

2:55 And I sort of have a personal tendency to avoid the use of the term ghostwriter. And there's no offense taken of you using it or criticism given none of that. But look, we collaborated on creating content. And that collaboration was fun in a number of ways. First of all, for me, somebody going back literally to the summer before my senior year of high school, which as you can tell by looking at me, it was a long time ago. You and me both, Brent. Yeah. I had this dream of getting involved in what I call the world of ideas and trying to make some contribution.

3:39 I thought I was going to go change the world and that didn't work out so well. I just had a successful business career and and didn't do anything in that world into which I wanted to step. And then I meet Charlie, the story of how we met the unlikely. I was going to ask you how you guys met. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. It's in the book and it's most unlikely of stories. But in meeting him and in him spotting something in me that nobody else had ever spotted, that gave me a chance to step into the world of ideas. And what's interesting about us in terms of the content we created over the more than decade that we work together is that early days, you know, you mentioned, uh, I can't remember the term you used, but, uh, talked about turning point, uh, and I'm going to use my own term, uh, being involved in sort of these, these social issues.

4:31 Okay. Uh, early days, uh, Charlie used to tell me, he told everybody turning point was never going to get involved in social issues, right? It was all about free markets and first principles. And, uh, So what happened over time, though, we certainly know, you know, the culture warrior tours and all those things that he did, the reshaping of the focus of Turning Point USA, all of that changed over time. And there's nothing about that that should be viewed critically by people. Some people might not like it. Some people might love it. But what he was responding to was what he perceived as a change in the nation's marketplace and and what he identified as a need to reach consumers with, or a need he had to address. And that need was some sort of clarity and understanding of social, moral, cultural values. So good for him on that. I think that he followed that notion of Andrew Breitbart that politics runs downstream from culture.

5:44 And, uh, it's supposed to, it's supposed to anyway, right now it's reversed, but that's all, that's a whole nother discussion. That's why we've got politics so angry, uh, and malfunctioning is, uh, that it is out of order in my humble opinion. Well, it's, uh, certainly, certainly we, the level of civil discourse in the country is, uh, deteriorated greatly. And, uh, That's why my colleague and I, Felisa Blaszczak, started the Common Ground Campus program a few years ago, which I talked to you about on your show the last time I was here. You know, we're working on trying to get young people to come together and find their voice and express their voice in a creative and constructive manner.

6:29 Our program, by the way, was encouraged by Charlie and approved by Turning Point USA as a program. But in any case... Look, Charlie evolved in his ideas. So did I, by the way. And we did not evolve in the same directions. And so I was asked yesterday by someone on a show that I did, you know, what do you miss the most? Which is an interesting question, right? I haven't really thought about that because you, of course, just miss everything on some level. But in terms of our interactions, what I miss the most were our disagreements. And our disagreements were plentiful. But I would never even use the word spirited to describe them. They were rational and thoughtful and calm. And there's a chapter in the book titled Agreeing to Disagree. And that is a collection of written work we produced together on topics where he and I did not agree on the content that was being produced. But make no mistake. everything in the book is Charlie's opinion, not mine. If you want to know what he thought at the date and time something was written, you can read it. That's what he thought. It is not necessarily what I thought. But those disagreements and our ability to have those conversations the way we did them and the way we were able to work together despite a disagreement, certainly something we're trying to embrace in the

8:00 Common Ground campus program. You know, Brent, what I like about that idea, I mean, the Bible says is as iron sharpens iron. And, you know, these kind of relationships are unique where you can be respectfully associated with somebody where you can have these discussions. I mean, to me, one of the things that I appreciate about Charlie Kirk is walls had been built up and Charlie started knocking down walls to where we could have conversations on the other side of the walls, you know, and be able to have these important discussions. I mean, you know, when you think that here it is, you know, talking about getting back to first principles, this has been core of this show is I felt that we needed to go back to first principles. And when you go back to first principles, you see that our founding fathers embraced the First Amendment, you know, pretty passionately. And there was wisdom in the First Amendment. And whenever that's violated, we pay a big price. You know, we just recently went through COVID. And what happened? Walls got put up.

9:03 We couldn't talk. We couldn't exchange ideas. And I believe more people than necessary died as a result of it. Oh, well, there's no question about that. As you might know, your audience might remember, I mean, I wrote Dr. Zelenko's book with him. That was a dear friend. And we told that story of his journey and the nation's journey through the China flu and Every time in my house where somebody mentions COVID, I'll say, wait, that's the same as the China flu, right? I get confused, simply refuse to use it as a term. But yeah, you know, in the First Amendment, all of those first 10 amendments have interesting history. I mean, I think some people might believe, oh, yeah, that's something the founding fathers, you know, they jumped right in and wanted to do that. They didn't. There was great debate over those. And they were only added at the suggestion of some. against the advice of others who thought they were unnecessary. But those who thought they were necessary made the argument that we haven't gone far enough just by setting up a constitution. We need to come right out and say explicitly what government can't do. And of course, nonetheless, we've been trying to find workarounds on those for over 200 years, and sadly, oftentimes successfully.

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15:43 And for you to have this kind of canvas to work with, you know, associated with Charlie Kirk, like you said, not that you agreed all the time on everything, but to even be in that kind of relationship with someone that you could disagree with. And I got to imagine that as a result of that, both of you became more intelligent in the process. Oh, there's, there's no question about that. Certainly in my case, you know, there was a moment in time in early 2019 where Charlie approached me and asked if I would work through studying political theory and political science with him.

16:24 And again, you know, just about everything I ever did with Charlie, other than the few times I provided some business advice. And other than when early this decade, he asked me to be his weightlifting trainer. Other than those two things, I had no qualifications. Those two, I was okay. But when he asked me to do that, I said, sure. But understand that political theory for me when I was in college, a big area of study, beyond college, a big area of interest in ongoing, you know, sort of citizen study, but oh my goodness, did I have to freshen up. And, uh, you know, we would, we would sit down for over a year and a half. We sat down and had formal regular sessions, you know, starting with, uh, starting with the Greek masters and, uh, ending with, uh, the last topic we covered was the 20th century pragmatists.

17:21 And we covered just about everything in between. And the discipline of having to prepare for those conversations, going back and, you know, rereading John Locke's Second Treatise. Did I know that we needed to study it? Yes. Could I remember it? No. Too many years ago. So I was I was only smart enough to put together a list of I can't remember if it was like 28 or 29 original things that we were going to study. So, and I did that from memory. So I get an A on that. Well, that's great. Good job for memory. But beyond that, it was a lot of work and made me all, I don't know if it made me smarter because I think my level of intelligence tabled off years ago, but it did make me more aware of things with what limited intelligence I have. That's for sure.

18:11 Well, when you scheduled these meetings with Charlie, I mean, uh, did you, did you come in and say, okay, this is, these are the topics this we're going to talk about or, uh, how did that happen? Yeah. Oh, we would, we knew what was coming up next and we would set a date and we would, uh, sit together either in person, uh, sometimes in a coffee shop, sometimes in my office and sometimes over a screen like you and I are doing right now. It all depended upon his schedule and geographic presence. But, uh, But we would come together with pages and pages of notes and walk through it. I've got the collection of our notes is actually with a friend of mine who's retired, who says he's making it his project to digitize them all.

19:00 So good luck with my handwriting. But we'd sometimes have reading assignments in between. So when we worked through Machiavelli, it was a pre-reading assignment to read the prints. We read Locke's Second Treatise. We read excerpts from other writers, pieces from Plato's Republic, for example, and other things. And so there was that. One of the things I like the most is I'm a big Ayn Rand fan. And one of the things we did was Charlie wanted to read Atlas Shrugged. He had great fondness for objectivists and many of their ideas, but of course his Christian background.

19:44 made much of that at odds with arguably the most famous atheist to the 20th century, and certainly one of the most vocal. And in any case, so we would read, he would read Atlas Shrugged, three major sections to the book, and when he would complete one section at a time, we'd go through those sections. So that was, for me, that was sort of a highlight of the process. I enjoyed that very much. And so, yeah, sharpen what little is left of my intellect to work with. Him for sure. Well, Brent, you know, the format of going to campuses and talking to these young people, I'm sure you had a lot of influence in that because of your past experience.

20:28 So how did that come about? Sure. So early, early days, Charlie and I did a lot of work together on preparing for media hits. So again, I had no background. My background to any extent were two things. Number one, I'm a decent communicator. Number two, most of my career I spent working in and around the world of sales. So you come to understand some things. You understand how to assess needs, how to look for opportunities and so on. In the media side of that, what we were trying to do was look for what I termed, what he came to term green space. So if he was going to be on Fox News, for example, and sent along something from the producer about the topic, our goal was to talk ahead of time about how do you approach this topic and not sound like the last 10 guests who are just on talking about the same topic because everybody sounds the same. And so that green space approach started to work. You know, he'd do interviews and he'd get feedback. Wow, Charlie, you know, really, really like that. The host loved your segment, said you were saying things other people aren't saying. And so that was part of it. And that evolved into the notion of persuasive communication. And this relates directly to a sales background, right? So, you know, a good salesperson knows how to speak well,

22:00 but a great salesperson knows how to ask questions and listen. And so what we spent time doing was really studying that Socratic method piece. Right. And it kind of interesting. I get a kick out of this and it comes up all the time. And you can ask somebody about, you know, they'll say, oh, yeah, I believe in the Socratic method. And you'll say, well, what is it? And they say, well, it's asking questions. Well, the truth is we have a name for that. It's called asking questions. It's not the Socratic method. There's no method to asking questions. But. What Charlie and I spent time working on in which he mastered beyond belief was the actual method that has some key elements to it. It starts, it's a very top-down approach. It is a big question down to specific question process. And most importantly, it is driven by the second question, which is asked after directly or clearly listening to the answer of the first question. questions need to be derivative upon response. And so that sort of process, that true Socratic method, uh, became ingrained in him. And again, like I said, he, he mastered it. You know, I, I can watch him do it and, you know, uh, just sort of chuckle to myself and say, wow, I couldn't do it that well, you know? Uh, so what student becoming master or something like that.

23:27 Right. Well, it had to be something that, uh, He worked on even as he slept and probably, you know, was woke up in the middle of the night in refining, you know, this idea. And as you said, he was such a master in doing this and in doing it in such a way that if you had a heart to listen to what he was sharing with you, you were going to be better as a result of that. Every 40 seconds, a child disappears. That's 2,000 children every single day. Find the Children is a non-profit organization fighting to bring them home. But we can't do it without you. Your unwanted car, running or not, can help find missing kids, reunite families, and support the search and rescue efforts that protect children every day. We'll pick it up fast and free with a 24-hour response, and your donation may qualify for a tax deduction. Find the Children provides crucial resources to help locate missing children and educational programs to teach kids how to recognize and avoid predators before it's too late. Together, we can give families hope. and bring children home where they belong. Donate your car today and help bring a child home. Find the children because every child deserves to come home. 800-547-5331 800-547-5331 800-547-5331 This advertisement was paid for in partnership with Cars R Us and Find the Children.

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27:48 Oh, yeah, there's no question. I mean, there was a few years ago, I was at an event where Charlie was speaking and I was sitting next to another person who worked very closely with Charlie. And after his prepared remarks, he took questions, of course, as he always did. And there was a gentleman that stood up first and he was quite animated and you could tell he was far more interested in being provocative than asking a question that got an answer. And I leaned over to the person sitting next to me and I said, watch what's going to happen. I said, in a few minutes, this person is either going to throw up their hands and go back to their seat, or they're going to walk out of the room and everybody is going to clap and Charlie will have not done anything other than ask him questions.

28:33 And so sure enough, within five minutes, that person threw up their hands, walked out of the room, almost right in front of where we were sitting and the audience erupted in applause and Charlie hadn't done anything other than time and knots by asking him questions. And, uh, that wasn't difficult for me to predict because that was exactly the sort of thing that we had worked on. And so he mastered it. It was fun to watch him do it. He understood, by the way, one of the things I point out in the book, and so your audience knows, they might be interested in this, what we're talking about, this whole Socratic piece. Charlie ultimately asked me to teach it to Turning Point students, which I did on a couple of occasions. And that, uh, sort of, uh, seminar, if you will, curriculum is in the book, the whole thing's there. And so the, the term I use in the book is, you know, it's kind of like, so if you want to bend it like Charlie, uh, you know, here, read, read this. This is what, this is what we did together. And, uh, but, um, you know, to the point when he would walk into a crowd, like a protest crowd on the campus and he'd confront the leader, uh, asking them questions, you know, and then these viral videos that got created, you know, uh, People could say, well, that wasn't terribly effective because the person that he was asking the questions of, they weren't converted.

30:05 They didn't come to see it his way. That wasn't his intention. One of the things, and it's in the material in the book, one of the things we talked about was know who your actual audience is. And when you're engaged, understand who it is you're trying to make an impact upon. So when Charlie did those things in a crowd that got filmed, he was not trying to reach the person he was talking to. He was trying to reach the people watching him talk to that person who would then be able to see that other person deconstruct themselves through a failed path of logic. And they would be able to look at that video and say, wow, man, look at the way he asked you those questions and man, she just fell apart. You know what? That didn't make any sense to me either. Right. So the audience is not always the audience that you're standing directly in front of.

31:07 So he had great awareness that when, if it looked like he failed with someone, if you ever saw like that engagement I mentioned at the event I attended, he didn't fail in that engagement. Even though that person walked out of the room, what he was doing was not intended to convert them. He was doing it so that others might see and somehow come to think by that person's reaction. Wasn't it very similar? I mean, I thought and this is the thing that always has been a challenge for me, Brent, is that I didn't ever perceive Charlie as being mean spirited. It was it was a time of exposure. And that person that got exposed had an opportunity to say, OK, maybe I need to ponder this. Maybe I need to reevaluate my standing because the rest of the audience, like you said, who observed it said the same thing. And at times, I mean, this is not to elevate Charlie into some supernatural, you know, Jesus-like figure, but this is what Jesus did.

32:10 Well, right. I mean, it's interesting for me that, you know, over time, over the years, I've had different folks ask me, for help, like let's say they're going to start on some kind of a book tour themselves, or all of a sudden they're going to be doing some public appearances, maybe on an issue. And they talk about the concern of being like drawn into something, some particular controversy that might be taking place. And I always say to them in a secular sense, I'll say, look, the very first rule to follow is that you need to embrace your inner Jesus. And, you know, when you're sitting in front of a host that may turn hostile, you need to have that attitude of your words, not mine. And you need to keep in mind that that idea of, you know, when the when the Pharisees were trying to trick him with questions, you know, what's the most important commandment and so on?

33:07 He would not permit himself to be tricked. So he he had that awareness of. You know, and I think one of the things I used to say to Charlie, and I wrote this in Dissonantly Speaking, one of the chapters, you could argue that the two most impactful human beings in all of history, one on the secular side, one on the religious side, were Socrates and Jesus Christ because of what they said in motion. They had two things in common. First of all, they were both executed for their actions. That's not so good. But they also changed the world by asking questions. And and by sharing an appropriate story. And so Christ more so the stories and Socrates more so the questions, but they both use both as we understand, at least from Plato, right? So the point is that if you walk into that hostile crowd, if you step up on stage, or even if you're sitting in your dining room, you know, around a crowded dinner table at Thanksgiving with folks that seem to want to argue, If you can embrace, you know, whether you want to embrace your inner Jesus or your inner Socrates or mix them together, what you can do is find that you'll become a little bit like a delta force operator when the firing starts. Your pulse doesn't go up, it drops. And you'll get a scary sort of calm about you because this is exactly what you prepared for.

34:35 And you're not going to be able to be trapped. So Charlie was extremely good at that. And you're right. He wasn't mean or hostile or nasty. He didn't need to be. When those engagements started, he was in his element. He trained for that. That was the bullets flying as a metaphor. And I know some people get angry that I use the term. You know, I'm not real good at censoring language or metaphors. Everybody knows what I mean. And in any case, he trained for that. And so when those things started, his pulse dropped. He was good. Well, in this book, as we wrap things up, we've got a couple of minutes left here, Brian. This is more than a biography, as you laid out. I mean, you are sharing some of these strategies and things that worked very effectively for Charlie. And again, my hope, I had a mentor when I was in LA Radio. He was just brilliant. And he would always tell us that, you know, when we were on the air, our job was to elicit a positive emotional response. And radio is so personal and so imaginative, it could give you that opportunity to do that very effectively. And again, for people who have ears to hear, I walked away from what Charlie had to say and having that, oh yeah, moment, that opportunity for a positive emotional response to be, a better person, a better version of myself as a result

36:08 of the questions that were being asked. Is that fair? Well, it is fair. And let me just share briefly for your audience so they know what to expect. In the book, you know, at the time of Charlie's death, I had a collection sitting on my computer of 370,000 words of opinion columns and radio show monologues that we created together. And so what I did is I curated from that collection And so it's organized sort of topically by chapter and then by date sequence. For example, there is a chapter dedicated to Charlie's writings over time about President Trump. There is a chapter dedicated to various columns during the pandemic. There's a chapter dedicated to columns about Turning Point USA. One, again, I mentioned earlier, where I say it's agreeing to disagree. And these are content we produced where we didn't agree on what was being produced.

37:08 And then there's also a curation of out of 160 pages of radio show monologues, different ones that I felt were sort of particularly representative of some of his more keen and pressing arguments. I mean, a radio show monologue, you know, is really an argument if you think about it. Charlie knew there were three legs to an argument. Everybody wants to talk about, oh, you've got to have your facts. That's great. Facts are only one leg, and the triangle is equilateral. It is facts, and it is sequence, and it is logic. And so these arguments that are radio show monologues demonstrate Charlie's ability to put together that equilateral triangle, at least I think so. And so that's what you can expect. real historical content produced from over a decade's worth of time. You can watch his thought process evolve.

38:05 I share stories along the way. It's like Springsteen on Broadway. You know, he went up on, did a stage, you know, he talked about being a kid and Freehold, and then he played Growing Up. Then he talked about his mom and he played The Wish. It's like that, right? So stories and content mixed together. Well, Brent Hamachek, congratulations on the book. It's a blessing. I look forward to getting my own copy as well. It's The Intellect of Charlie Kirk, a collection of writings, ideas, and stories from a transformative American. Brent is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most influential voices behind one of America's most consequential conservative leaders, Charlie Kirk. Brent, thank you for being with us. Take care. Be well, my friend.

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42:37 That's 720-660-40 or c60. com. Greska's Carbon 60 for a beautiful you. c60. com. Hey, we're back with you. I'm Bill Martinez. He's Adam Holtz from PluggedIn.com. Mr. Adam, how are we doing? Great. How are you doing? Hey, I'm doing terrific. The anniversary, 9-11, rather. Somber day, 25 years in the rear view mirror. And, uh, you, you wonder, are we better off or worse off? Well, I don't wonder 25 years ago. That's a big question, huh? I don't wonder that much. I feel like we're worse off and I think we're worse off because, um, never forget seems to be a forgotten slogan in many quarters. Um, and, and we've seen obviously just, uh, a sea change in worldview with regard to all kinds of things, you know, related to Islam, to immigration, to those sorts of things that I think certainly are influencing the conversation in a way that maybe they weren't 20, 25 years ago.

43:51 Oh, without a doubt. I mean, it's one thing to say never forget, but it's another thing to say, what are we supposed to remember? Right. That's exactly right. You see, and I think we missed the whole point of 9-11, frankly, in my humble opinion. You and I have talked about this over the years because, you know, I believe, as some do, that that was Judgment Day. Yeah. And we, you know, I think people responded to it. A lot of people went to church. And for three weeks, you know, church was, you know, people were going, tell me what's going on. What happened here? And, you know, Jonathan Cahn wrote a great book, Harbinger, and really, I think, laid out the thesis of what was going on. And even, I mean, it was just unbelievable to think how these things all came together. 9-11, you know, even talking with Bill Federer here recently, 9-11 is a consistent date when it comes to Muslims and why they react on 9-11.

44:52 It's because time and again in the past, you know, centuries ago, they got their head handed to them on 9-11. Yeah. And so they needed to find a way to redeem that day. And so here it is. They go after the world's superpower and bring us down. And here, you know, people of faith responded in the same defiant way, Adam, that the Jews did back when you read Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 10. Yeah. Very defiantly. That's exactly right. And I think, you know, obviously I make this disclaimer fairly frequently. I'm not a political commentator.

45:33 I'm a movie guy. And I think just to segue toward that, you know, there are some movies that I think remind us of the reality. Top of that list is United 93, which came out in 2006. I think Zero Dark Thirty is worth revisiting. And I think World Trade Center, I thought, was a remarkable movie. And there are others, but I think there are opportunities for us to remember. And there was a lot of criticism, especially of World Trade Center and United 93, that it was too soon. It felt like we had barely gotten the smoldering smoke out of the World Trade Center rubble and we were making a movie about it. But in retrospect, I almost feel like the opposite is true. Like it's almost, we need to remember, right? And we have forgotten. And I think, you know, all three of my kids were born since 9-11. And so for them, it's kind of like Pearl Harbor. You know, the difference between a World War II veteran who woke up to that news on December 7th and those of us who only have seen newsreel footage of it, it's different for us. And so it's important for us, I think, to be the living bearers of that legacy and of remembering the importance. And I think that that remembrance goes hand in hand with

47:04 remembering and reminding ourselves of the good things that America is about, right? And how, at its best, America... it stands against all of this sorts of stuff. But also that God is the same yesterday, today, forever. Yes, exactly. And he says, look, you know, you have a choice. You can be blessed, live under the blessing or live under the curse. And, you know, and again, going back and looking at the pattern, which I thought was so uncanny that Jonathan Cahn brought out so clearly in his book, Harbinger. He just went step by step And the pattern that was laid out back then, thousands of years ago, in Isaiah 9-10, we are replicating in 2001, almost word for word, Adam.

47:58 And I mean, politicians were echoing, you know, the words of God, the words in the Bible. And I think they just did it because a speechwriter told them or somebody else or maybe... maybe God in his own way, the Holy Spirit said, no, we're going to put the words of God in your mouth and you're going to put them out. And so for those that have spiritual ears to hear, they're going to, like when Jesus was here and he spoke in parables, those that understood spiritually understood what Jesus was communicating. Well, that's exactly right. And Jesus and elsewhere in scripture talks a great deal about hardness of heart. And I think left to our own devices as sinful humans, we drift from God. In Ephesians 5, 15 through 17, the Apostle Paul says, be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. And the evilness of the days is the world's trajectory on its own bends away from the things of God. And so it's up to us To be intentional. And obviously it's up to God's faithfulness too. I don't want to come across as, you know, I have something sort of works theology here, but, but our responsibility is to remember. Uh, and obviously, you know, we talk about remembering nine 11, but scripture is full

49:28 of admonitions to remember because over and over again, we see God's people forget and become hardened of heart. And these sorts of things are, um, They're watershed moments where we have an opportunity to take stock, right? And I think that we would do well to take stock again as a nation. Yeah, take stock and correct course. Exactly. Course correct. Exactly. And as you say, I believe people who count these things say that there's some form of a remembrance or don't forget. 365 times. Right. Well, that's weird. That's the same number of days as a year. You think, huh? We need that message every day. It's the same with do not be afraid too, right?

50:12 Exactly. These are not accidents. We can live in fear. And I think that as somebody who has wrestled with anxiety, the fruit of anxiety is our hearts get smaller and we close in on ourselves. Exactly. And when we practice... Lifting our gaze to the hills from where our help comes from. Right. Psalm 121, my favorite. When I remember, when I am intentionally focused on gratitude, I don't have that grip of fear on me. It doesn't mean there aren't serious things happening, but I think it frees us to be agents of redemption whom God can use out there in the crazy world.

50:55 You see, you just said something that I, boy, I'll tell you, I gravitate. constantly, you talk about course correcting. I constantly, at least consciously try to do this course correct to freedom. Yes. Right. Because I believe that's God's highest calling. It's why he sent his son. Right. For us to be free. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think I may have shared this with you. When I was an adjunct professor in Southern California, I was teaching these kids and I was sharing with them something that I'd shared with many sales teams and other people that were, when I'd given speeches on And talked about, you know, in terms of, you know, the labor and the fruit of our labor. And here we are just not that far away from Labor Day and that it is God. But that, you know, if you're going to, you know, be working, you should enjoy what you do. I mean, considering that's eight, 10 hours a day. The second thing I said that there should be some level of competence. You know, so that if you're a brain surgeon, you're killing nine out of 10 people, probably not your gig. Right.

51:55 Maybe you'll be a mechanic. Something else, you know, but yeah, this is not good for you. The third thing I said is the giftings and talents that God's blessed you with have to be exercised and grown. What I found was people were easily frustrated when they were a round peg in a square hole. You know what I'm saying? That's right. And all this led to a U.S. labor study that said that approximately only 10% of the US labor force was fulfilled. And so I would go and do this training. And I mean, I did this for years and say, okay, look at the highest calling you could have is to be fulfilled, because that's 10% of the US labor force. So go and be fulfilled. Well, I'm doing this final class of the semester for these kids. And I get to this point where I'm at the denouement. Here we are. They're winding up the pitch. It's about pitch. It's going to be fulfillment, right? And the Holy Spirit stops me and goes, eh, wrong.

52:53 And I'm going, what? And so I had to tell these kids, I go, hey, look, I just got a fresh download. I'm telling you, this is not me. I just got a fresh, I mean, you know how God drops something into you? And that's what he did. He just, God dropped this into me. Holy Spirit says, no, it's not fulfillment. It's freedom. And you should have seen it. When I told the kids that, you should have seen their response, Adam. I mean, it was like the light bulbs went on. It was throughout the whole room. And I said, oh my God, thank you, Lord. Right. Yeah. And with that freedom is the opportunity to point people toward the only one who makes us free, right? That our freedom is not something... Well, there are actually layers to this. I was going to say something that now that I think about it, maybe not true, but there's political freedom. But when we talk about spiritual freedom, Jesus set us free. And I think that is the foundation for all of our other discussions about freedom and culture.

53:57 Because ironically, we have a mainstream and secular culture that thinks the definition of freedom is I can do whatever I want and there are no consequences and that my feelings are what dictate what matters most. Those of us who have lived in that worldview long enough to wake up one morning and say, I don't think this is working, right? And some of us, you know, you and I have talked over the years, Bill, we're kind of knuckleheads, right? We can bang our heads against the wall. But I had a moment in college, I'm like, this is not, this is not working. And I think true freedom comes when we submit our hearts and our will to, to the one who calls us and the one who frees us and the one who redeems us. And that's where that freedom really lies, Bill.

54:50 And when we realize the best version of ourselves. Well, yeah. And that is the best version of ourselves because we're not, we're not driven by selfishness. We're not driven by compulsion. We're not driven by addiction or, We're not driven by the lie of the world. The next little flickering thing we see on our phones is going to make us happy. And I'm guilty of that, right? It's an ongoing spiritual battle, right? Exactly. Welcome to humanity. And we're going to let you chew on that as we wrap things up right now. And Adam's going to tell you where he's from and what he's all about. Yeah, I am from PluggedIn.com. We review movies, music, TV, video games, books, YouTube channels, technology. And we're a ministry of focus on the family. We want to encourage you.

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56:28 800-705-6581 800-705-6581 800-705-6581 That's 800-705-6581. Getting America back on track. Bill Martinez live. Hey, right now, six minutes after the top of the hour, Bill Martinez here. We got Christian Briggs back with us. We had to go after him hard. He's been running. He can hide, but we can catch up to him sooner or later. And we're just glad that he's back.

57:09 He's the CEO of Heart Asset Management and a political and economic strategist. Christian, welcome back. Good to have you with us. Thanks, Bill. Love being here. Hey, lots to catch up on. Well, first of all, let's talk about these flock cameras and, you know, the craziness that that's bringing as if we don't have enough to deal with already, right? Yeah, you know, flock cameras, 117,000 already installed across the United States with another 150,000 expected over the next two years. When you start to look at about 300,000, and that's a pretty good number, but when you start to get to 350,000, 400,000... You're pretty much surveilling about 80% of the people in about 600 of the largest cities in America.

57:54 I mean, think about that. I mean, you know, when you and I were growing up, not a big worry, but we saw the creep. It's a slow creep. But now it's like, it's almost like on the other side of the mountain, you know, gaining momentum, right? Yeah. And remember, Flock Camera is owned by Palantir. Palantir holds more information and data than any other single company from the intelligence communities. So what brought this to bear is that we found out that law enforcement was using this for personal purposes, right? And so then all of a sudden it was like, oh, the shroud is pulled back and we're seeing what's behind the veil. And this is pretty crazy.

58:42 Yeah, so what you have is law enforcement has to have a specific login and password to be able to utilize the systems for identifying anybody that might have gone, mostly traffic violations, red light, running, speeding. But now they're using it for a host of things, including some law enforcement are using it to track their wives or husbands or girlfriends or boyfriends or nieces, nephews, or somebody they just met. And they're doing it in an extremely nefarious way. And what's interesting about it is how many of the law enforcement officers have been charged with felonies for doing this. And in fact, it's gotten so bad that some cities now are talking about banning the cameras altogether.

59:23 Well, yeah. I mean, is it too late to put the genie back in the bottle here? Oh, it's way too late. Now, this is all tied into when you go to the airports, you have your digital ID, your biometrics. They actually can see through the front windshield so they can match your biometrics face recognition with your license plate to confirm it was you who was driving. And so if they ever want to use it against you for transportation, no problem. Also, it's all going digital for your wallet here in the next 18 months. We're not going to have much use for cash anymore. So, uh, this sounds a little bit like what they've been doing in Israel in terms of some, you know, uh, concentric, uh, lines of defense that they're doing some preemptive surveilling so that even before you get through the, you know, uh, through customs or even your first contact with any kind of airport personnel, they've got you pretty well profiled to make sure that, uh, you're not, you're not a threat.

1:00:18 Yeah, pretty much. Uh, The biggest thing is, is that what determines a threat? Is it political? Is it physical? Is it retribution? Is it going to be things where bad actors are in control of all the surveillance? And once you have the three elements tied together in the next two years, that's your transportation, your money, and your healthcare, it'll all be at the centralized systems that the government now has built and Palantir and Flock will be the ones that correlate the information. follow you. And if they want, they'll turn your money off, your health care off. I was going to say, I mean, this is like Canada all over again with the trucking, with the trucking incident they had a couple of years back, right?

1:00:59 Yeah, it's 10 times worse, 10 times worse. Because what happens is Canada didn't have the cameras. They had the ability to turn your money off from deprogramming it. And what's interesting about how it's facts tracking here, just think what happened to Europe six months ago. The central bank digital currency, the CBDC with with more flock cameras, with Palantir, with the understanding that e-euro will replace cash within the next 24 months. So they're pretty much going to go 1984 if you've ever read the book. Right, exactly. Yeah, who hasn't? In fact, there's a resurgence of book reading on 1984 because we're living it out. I mean, I remember when I first read that book, it was like, okay, well, this is interesting. I mean, you could see some of the early evidence is of where the trajectory was taking us. But little did we know in such a short period of time, especially after 9-11, right?

1:01:53 Yeah, for sure. After 9-11, no question. The Patriot Act ushered in the entire way the book was written. When you look at the book and the way it was formulated in the 50s, kind of at this futuristic understanding of where we're going to have one world government, one great reset that kind of changes the whole entire world's landscape and centralizes power. Well, when you centralize power, what that means is you're controlling the masses with just a handful of class type people. And those people now have got themselves at a point where they can now just flip a couple of switches. We do a few more pieces of legislation. We remove the balance of cash from society. It's over.

1:02:33 And at that point, people are going to start wondering what just happened when their wealth is confiscated. Look, you don't understand what happened this week in the European Union. They just passed the first phase of to take all the savings of corporations and individuals next year and let the European Union better use your $ 10 trillion in savings, look it up, and then they're going to invest it how they feel necessary or what they feel is the best use of the money. And they'll send you an IOU, they said. Now, that sounds pretty good. They'll send you an IOU, kind of like our government sends us an IOU for Social Security, right? Yeah. Yeah. I did a, I did a report a couple of years ago. You have to live to 156 years old in order to be able to get the value of the money you put in it at just a 5% return.

1:03:18 So God bless if we can, if we can live to 156, we'll be, we'll break even on social security payments. Well, God bless if we could move everybody into Trump accounts, you know, forget about social security. It's already bankrupt. I mean, they're, they're not, they have no, they have no shame. in paying up those IOU chits. And they have the audacity to tell us that it's going bankrupt and it'll be gone. You know, we'll be lucky to have it five years from now. So, all right, let's quit fooling ourselves. Let's empower the people, give them the power to go ahead and open up their own individual brokerage accounts and actually have a retirement account that grows and works in their best interest as opposed to this boondoggle. I mean, what a ruse, social security, the way it was perpetrated upon the people to even give them any kind of false hope, Christian.

1:04:03 False hope. So when Roosevelt came up with this idea, it wasn't a safety net that he knew in the same way that we now know it. He knew then that eventually that would have to be a government run system. And he was hoping for socialist and that's why it's social security. It's a socialist program. But he in his mind, he thought he could just take it very much like what Obama did with the Affordable Care Act. And that is create this absolutely bureaucratic nightmare with red tape, making it so convoluted to maintain private insurance with healthcare that it would collapse. And that's what Roosevelt wanted was the economy to collapse and then go to a socialist communist society.

1:04:48 And then Obama tried to do it with healthcare. And eventually we'll get to a socialized medicine. And then of course you'll have coverage will be for everybody, but you'll have much, much worse medicine. And that's the sad part is that The quality of care goes down dramatically, but the coverage goes to everybody. But then you suffer. Right, of course. Well, it's shared misery. That's the tradition of socialism. Going back to what you were talking about, and especially this latest move by the EU and this movement, I mean, this continues to move forward. And this is this one world government. I mean, all these things are being lined up. The trajectory is right there. And you wonder, at least I do, is saying, is this inevitable? For how long can we push back? I mean, Donald Trump has come into office. He's helping us, you know, to kind of hold back. you know, the insurgence of the European Union, the one world government. And, you know, the Democrats forget it. They hate Trump so much they can't even see it. Well, they're kind of for a one world government anyway, the truth be known. So, you know, that serves their purpose and interest. But it doesn't serve the interest of over 50 percent of America that, you know, still loves their, you know, they still love their jobs.

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1:10:04 People are always searching for ways to relax and feel calm. Some people drink, some people smoke, and others may take an edible to take the edge off. If you prefer a more natural option, it's time to try Hapazen, the new anxiety relief formula from the MAGA Vitamin Company. Hapazen is formulated to help provide relief from mental fatigue. It contains an all-natural blend of high-potency herbs and minerals known for their relaxing qualities. Try Hapazen now and learn how you can get a free bottle with your order. Visit magavitamin.com. That's magavitamin.com. Nutrition for patriots. We're talking with Christian Briggs, the CEO of Hard Asset Management. He's a political economy strategist and congressional advisor. He's also the host of Hard Asset Money Show. So what say you, Christian, on that?

1:10:53 Well, I say this, that if the Democrats sweep the Senate and the House here in the next few months, and then they're successful in 28 to gain back the White House, and you have anybody within the administration... that has the kind of influence that Obama had and a lot of his people that he installed in there and appointed from various positions, not just in the things of which we know from a secretary position, but really behind the scenes, especially in the intelligence community, and they leaned far left, that will be the way of the country. There's no way to reverse how far we've come. One of the senior advisors in the Trump administration here in the last week or so has recently come out and admitted that socialism in America is inevitable. And his timeline was between 28 and 32. And I'm thinking it's going to start to begin the process in 28, because remember, we're going to be completely digital from transportation to healthcare to money. We're not going to have the kind of privacy and the control over our own assets much longer.

1:11:54 So it really doesn't really take much of somebody who leans left, not far left, just left enough where, you know what, we're going to flip that switch. Now all that wealth belongs to the government. We'll give it to you in small incremental payments called grants. That's your universal basic income. And so when you start to think about that, it's like, oh, it all makes sense. We're building massive amounts of multifamily federal housing that Trump's ordered because he knows at some point AI and robotics are going to, at least on a lower level, replace about 25 to 50 million jobs. And that's within five years, five years. Elon Musk went on the record and said they're going to produce a billion robots within 10 years. A billion robots.

1:12:39 The vast majority will be in that G20, which is the largest industrial size of countries in the world. And all of a sudden, that's a billion people. Guess what? They're not working. What are you going to do with them? What are you going to do with these people? And that's the question people need to realize is that they're building a society. That's why Facebook is meta. Okay, Bill, listen to me carefully. It's called the metaverse. You need three things in which to control people. Food, shelter, entertainment. So the Soviets did it very carefully. So we're doing it. We'll give you a universal basic income. Buy your food. We'll give you government housing. You got your shelter. We'll give you metaverse. So you go anywhere in the world, but you'll never leave your living room. There's your entertainment. You can watch movies. You can watch shows. You can go on travel. You can hang out with your friends.

1:13:24 You'll never live outside that government living room. It's amazing because fast forward, I mean, this is like the Roman Empire, you know, and gladiators and that sort of thing for entertainment, right? Now you just get to sit on your couch, pop some popcorn and, you know, be entertained, be amused, right? Yeah. If you want to watch Gladiator 1, Part 2, whatever, I liked one better than two. Two's not bad, but one's better. And if you want to be actually in the movie, you'll be in the movie. You'll be able to pick up your sword. You'll be able to be there and you'll never leave that government house that they provide you for. That's what they said. Remember, give the people entertainment, distract them, give them back. You know that they lower the IQs. The more we watch programs, the more we entertain ourselves with sensual overload, right? Your senses, you're just, you can feel it. They are lowering the IQ.

1:14:17 A recent study came out that showed since 1980 through end of last year, the average human being in the world has lowered their IQ by 23 at a minimum, at a minimum. When people think, well, that doesn't sound like a lot. It does because the average IQ was around 95. Now we're in the 70s, okay, 70s. When you get to 60, you shouldn't even be able to drive a car. We're talking some countries in the world and its continents are in the low 60s, upper 50s. Wow. We're talking about people that can't even sustain a focus. on a business or a focus on doing anything that's going to be super productive. And those are the people they're just going to put in the housing, their goggles on, and Apple's doing it. Look at Apple. They've got that 3D stuff. Meta's got it. And all of them are going to get there eventually because they know that's where the masses are going to be. So give them what they want.

1:15:14 Well, and that's the dream of the politicians. I mean, they've been saying forever and ever, I mean, thank God, you guys are so lucky that we're here doing the job. We're doing your bidding because we're so much smarter than you. It's like a handful of politicians and so-called elites are much smarter than the cumulative intelligence of 350 million people. But if you drop that down to the lowest common denominator and you start losing IQ points along the way, then you're a lot more amenable. Yeah, you are. And that's the funny thing about it is that When you start to look at the pieces individually, you kind of like, okay, I kind of get it, kind of don't. But when you put the pieces together, how do we transform to a cashless society? We've got to go the genius act, the clarity act. You got to go digital first.

1:16:00 Even if the digital system is a little bit more private and less control, it'll get there eventually though. It'll get to full control, but you got to switch at least to do that. It's the way of the horse and buggy. In order to get cars, fundamentally in everyday lives, you got to get rid of the horse and buggy first and do cars. Now the cars are going to be what? Autonomous. You can't even drive them. If they don't want you to go there, they'll turn that thing off. Well, they can control Tiger Woods now in the autonomous car. Tiger's going to be the cab's number one customer here because he got his license suspended for five years is what I read. But when you think about that, why was climate change so important? It was to move us to an electrical grid, an electrical environment, electric cars on and off. Look at what you have with Nest. Nest is a thermostat company that Google overpaid for years ago because it had market penetration. That can be outside tappered with, right?

1:16:54 So Google determines, oh, you're way too much use on your AC. Turn it off. Dial it back, right. Yes. And that's what's happening, Bill. If you look at all of the systems being put into place, it lowers the IQ of it makes people more docile. And number three, it confiscates all of their wealth. Why do you think gold and silver and other commodities is not just about AI data centers build up? Precious metals are going up dramatically for many reasons, including governments do not trust the United States' dollar anymore, nor do they trust our debt. Right, exactly. And you got some socialists suggesting that we should give up the dollar as the petro resolve. And it's like- Are you kidding me? I mean, you just demonstrated that you talk about lowering your IQ. You're not at 30. You really brought it down to 50 real quick.

1:17:46 Oh, 100%. Here's kind of what I think is going to be the factor that really makes everything kind of come together. And that is, once you see the midterms lost, once we legitimately lose the midterms, and we're not talking about fraud or mail-in ballots, this will be legit. You look at that 18% to 36-year-old demographic, 96% now aligned with socialism and or communism ideology, 96%. That's up from 12% 26 years ago. So now when you think about that and how that's going to resonate from local governments to state governments, all the way to that federal level.

1:18:26 And on top of that, you've got 12 million Muslims out there that are voting 100% Democrat by 28 to 32, we don't have that many new Republicans coming in the party to vote and to maintain the growth of conservative values and voting consistency. So now by 28, if not for sure by 32, there's no federal government that's going to be so far left that you don't even need your right hand anymore. It'll be obsolete. Yeah. Speaking of AI data centers, all part and parcel of the formula, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. The data centers was to hold data. It's to hold massive amounts of data. And so when you think about all the data that we have now, think about your phone. You've got music, movies, photos. Data that's been put on there is now in the cloud. You don't even own it anymore. You used to have a SIM card. Remember, you could take your SIM card out. It was all on there. They got rid of that real fast because then you didn't need them. So now you pay monthly for the pleasure of having all this cloud storage space.

1:19:27 So that data center is built for specifically the systems in which we're talking about on today's show. The money, the healthcare, the transportation, biometrics, all the things which is like digital IDs. What a scam, Chris, when you think about it, is that you're paying somebody to surrender your liberties. You're not surrendering. They're taking them. I know, but you're participating in it. It's not like they're necessarily coming in with a mask and a gun. I mean, we're willfully turning it over to them. All the people that put their pictures of their children and themselves and their lives on Facebook and Instagram... I once said, if there was ever any people out there that can prove that walking brain donors exist, talk about the men and women, the moms and dads and the grandparents that put their kids on Facebook for the whole world.

1:20:21 Do you know that 50% of pedophilia is because pedophiles use Facebook posts to find their targets? Yeah, now what they're doing around the world, is they're taking images of your children and grandchildren, and they're putting them in pornographic child movies. So why would anybody put their entire life up? If you don't want privacy, move to North Korea. Go to Cuba. No problem. You got it. There is no privacy. People bitch and complain here. Oh, I want privacy and I want security. You put your whole family on the internet. Are you crazy?

1:21:02 Exactly. Yeah, got to leave it there for now. He's the CEO of Hard Asset Management, political economy strategist, congressional advisor, Christian Briggs. Thank you, Christian. Take care. My pleasure. Thank you, Bill. Have a great day. Do you have Medicare and do you use a CPAP machine? This is a national health care alert regarding your CPAP supplies. Using a clean CPAP mask and clean supplies is important to staying healthy. The best way to make sure your CPAP equipment is clean is to get new supplies. If you have Medicare, we have great news. Medicare will pay for you to have new clean supplies every 90 days. We'll even do all the paperwork for you to make sure that there's little to no out-of-pocket cost to you.

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1:25:11 He builds a multi-billion dollar life settlements business before becoming the target of a federal prosecution. He says was orchestrated by powerful corporate interests and a broken pay-to-play political system. Now, you hear a lot of that these days, pay-to-play, and he's going to explain that and share with us how complicated it became and the cost that he had to pay. Today, Keller is the co-founder of Justice Restoration Foundation. It is a nonpartisan 501c3 dedicated to exposing government overreach and defending constitutional rights for Americans harmed by injustice. Stephen, welcome to the show. Glad you could join us.

1:25:53 Well, thanks for having me and thanks for sharing your space with me. Well, what a story. I mean, this, like I said, this really, I believe, epitomizes some root issues in our government today. How we've lost our way. We're 250 years down the road. And dare I say, our founding fathers could look at the really the vast systemic corruption that has infiltrated this great American idea, sadly. Yes, it is. It's a systemic problem throughout the country. And I view it as a pandemic. I mean, it truly is a pandemic against entrepreneurs, innovators, professionals, doctors in this country. And the playbook that happened to me was years ago. I did not come out with the book because I was fearful of retribution against my life and my kids. And I truly didn't think back then that people would gravitate to the truth of the story. And, you know, once they see what happened with President Trump, whether you like President Trump or not, I mean, they came after the highest leader in the country, which means they could come after you and I at will. So it's something that's got to be addressed. And America needs to wake up.

1:27:11 And we need to start looking at this really hard. Right. And the thing is, is this is not unique to America. I mean, it comes in different forms. I mean, in third world countries where you've got these despots that are running countries, this is how they operate. So here it is. I mean, you think, wait a minute, this is America, the land of the free, home of the brave. How can we be allowing something like this to occur in our country? But this happens, whether we're talking, you know, in your particular case, the things that happened with J6, the lawfare that has been going on in our country that's become more and more evident in the last decade. I mean, you know, reasonable Americans are saying enough of this stuff already. They are. And, you know, when I came out with this book, I was excited to finally come out with the book because it took years to write this book. This book is a, it's called a memoir, but it's really a political thriller. I wrote it like a John Grisham and it's landing like that for people. Uh, so it's, it's not a, uh, watch, watch the paint dry on the wall to tell about this, you know, injustice story. It's about a truly, um, a story that will take you on a ride of your life. And, uh, it, it was, uh, writing along with me, I was fighting for my freedom, and I absconded the country to do so with my ex-wife and two kids at one time through this story.

1:28:27 But my story is unique in the fact that I know who did this to me, and I know who orchestrated the federal government to come after us. Um, and, and, and, you know, when I came out with the book, I was. Excited, uh, to share this story with the world and to show people and to, and to showcase this, uh, this, you know, playbook that's still going on today. Right. And I was, I was confronted with, um, a bunch of white collar, uh, um, It's a support group for white collar people that are going through a similar system today that we didn't have back in my day. So when I got exposed to this and started hearing the stories, it was like a punch in the gut, Bill. It was like, you know, and I realized it's no longer about me. It's no longer about my book. It's something I can do with this story to share how this goes on and the inner workings of D.C. and how this intersects with corporations and for corporate greed to try to take out their competitor, which is still going on today.

1:29:28 And I realized that maybe I was the one to start this movement from this book, which we did. We started the Justice Restoration Foundation to help thousands of people out here and to help people that are going through this now and to try to prevent them from having to go through what I went through, which was eight and a half years of federal prison. That's incredible. You know, Stephen, you know, speaking of the Justice Reformation Foundation that you started, I got to imagine when Trump, you know, got a claim against the government and said, hey, I'm going to put that money towards people that have been unjustly attacked and try to make them whole. And it was amazing how the pushback on that came. Right. I mean, that's quite telling. And I think that plays into your book. and your experience that, you know, when you say this is a systemic issue, this is a systemic and deep, you use the word pandemic, and I guess that's appropriate as well.

1:30:34 Well, you bring up a good point. We've had the Hyde Amendment around for 30 years, and the Hyde Amendment was supposed to recover losses from people that were uh, accused wrongly or, uh, you know, a case that, uh, where the government came in and they ruined somebody's life financially, their business. And they said, I'm sorry. So it was a way to recoup those funds. And the actuality is it's paid out seven people in 30 years. So, uh, president Trump realized that, and that's when he came up with this fund to, uh, make retribution. And it seems like that there was pushback over a political stance. people that were disagreeing with him on the other side about the J6s, they made that a stance on this money without realizing that this had nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans.

1:31:27 It has to do with American citizens. Exactly. Listen, if we're going to be on the same team in this country, we've got to be on the same team. You cannot have a SEAL Team 16 where there's infighting. You've got to have each other's got to cover your back because– when push comes to shove and we're in that foxhole together, we don't care who's Democrat or Republican. We care about who's got our back. And you cannot have these prosecutors out here trying to get career advancements and bonuses or whatever they're doing at the sake of people's lives. They're putting people away for 15, 20 years on lies. It shouldn't happen. They haven't broken the law. And And they're making up these cases, and it's just so wrong. It's incredible. I mean, to me, those are not Americans. Those are terrorists. And that's what we've got here, this mentality. And to think that that is the norm, I mean, we've emboldened ourselves over so long doing this practice against these American citizens, against entrepreneurs and innovators and doctors and professionals.

1:32:35 That we think that's normal. And it's not normal. And we've got to stop it. Well, it is a systemic issue, as you said. We've been reporting on this money that's been captured, assets, these valuables that have been captured from these businesses, people like yourself. I mean, gosh, if we ran the tab on it, I mean, we're definitely in the billions, if not the trillions of dollars that they've captured. And you talk about incentivizing all the wrong behavior. Well, you are incentivizing these agents by giving them 25%. It's like a commission. you're rewarding them to do this so what are they going to do they're going to let go of that bone heck no man they're going to hang on to that for 25 that goes into their their personal pocket but yet you know what people forget okay that's 25 to the agent but 75 is going to the agency right yeah and this is just like what is this like fund.

1:33:29 Money exactly and and i had this conversation with the majority leader after they raided my company uh i i had um I had created a life settlement industry, and it's an industry that's. Alive and well today. It does about $ 30 billion a year today. When we created this, there was pushback from the insurance industry because we were buying life insurance policies from 65 years or older. I created a secondary market where if people needed money for their policy, they could sell their policy and get it, as opposed to letting it lapse, which 99% of the policies at that time were lapsing. So, uh, the insurance companies enjoyed all of those premiums you paid for 10 or 15 years, and then you walk away.

1:34:15 It's almost like your neighbor buying a house, uh, having a mortgage for 15 years and then packing up and moving and giving you the title and saying, here, here's your asset. So it is an asset. And, and we realized that, and, um, the insurance companies didn't like it. Uh, they wanted to put us out of business. They wanted to put the entire industry out of business. And they created this raid and they had a private meeting and got together with this scheme to eradicate our industry and particularly me because I was the largest. And they got the federal government to do it, to act as their hit man. And that same same playbook is going on today. A new study finds a major increase in STEM learning in after-school programs, but gaps remain. Today, 92% of parents with children in after-school say STEM is available, up from 69% a decade ago. That's 6.4 million kids now getting STEM in after-school. Emma Binet, Overdeck Family Foundation.

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1:38:54 With Stephen Keller. He's a former financial CEO and pioneering entrepreneur. He built a multi-billion dollar life settlement business that we're just talking about right now. And eight years plus in jail. They came after him, took his assets. You know, the impact it had on your family. Just devastating. You know, Stephen, it's a wonder, and by God's grace and mercy, that you didn't become a very angry man. You know, I've often told my son the best form of revenge is success. And I guess God's got you on the road to success. And you're getting your revenge that way, right?

1:39:36 I think so, too. And, you know, the anger is not so much stems from what happened to me. Certainly that would make anybody angry. But the stories I still hear today, fill me with anger. And I see the same persecution against innocent citizens, doctors. We've got some doctors we're advocating for now, just horrendous stories where they're trying to destroy these people's lives. I mean, they've spent, you know, decades doing what they do, renowned doctors. And I see other competitors of the doctors using the government the same way that the insurance companies use against me, against them today. And, you know, it starts with what they put in the press. I mean, they will make some outlandish stories to stigmatize a juror. I mean, there's no way you could get a fair trial just from that.

1:40:23 Right. So that's, that's one thing it's got to stop. I mean, that's, you know, when did this become okay? And they did it with me. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your book, pay to play, explain to our audience. When you say pay to play, this may be a new term for them because they're not dealing in that, you know, that level of business that, And level of corruption, thank God. But unfortunately, as I said earlier, this is endemic of a moral issue, a foundational issue that we have operating in our government and in our culture today. True. Okay. So, you know, pay to play is a broad term. And I'll tell you how the book became pay to play.

1:41:04 One year after I got raided by 100 armed agents at my company, I started out trucking my car. And we had roughly 100 employees at the time, so it was almost agent for employee. They came in and they raided our company. They took out 600 banker boxes from 7 o'clock in the morning until almost midnight that day. And one year after this raid, I was sent to D.C., met in a private room in the Capitol. And the chief of staff for the majority leader at that time came in, grinning from ear to ear like he'd won the lottery. And he says, so Steve, have you learned your lesson yet? And I said, what lesson might that be? He said, up here, you got to pay to play. So they were wanting me to hire the Senator's son who was starting the lobbying firm and there's no insurance laws federally. So, uh, we were doing so, uh, and we did so on the behalf of the majority leader to try to stop this madness because, uh, we knew we didn't break a law. Uh, we wrote the law is in our state and hired a lobbyist to pass it. And so, uh, We knew we didn't break the laws we wrote.

1:42:10 We wrote them. Was the majority leader a Democrat or Republican? Well, he just started with the Democrats. It started under the Clintons. The last year that they were in, they left and the Republicans came in. And it just continued on. It's like once this thing gets wound up, they can't stop it. They can't unravel it. And that's what happened. But I also think that we were paying to play. because we were told to pay the play. Right. And I think that the insurance companies were paying a lot more money than I could ever afford behind my back to make sure my day did not go well. Right. Exactly. So, so this is what it came down to. So you had to pay and you ended up hiring, uh, the Senator's son.

1:42:54 Yeah. I mean, this is like, this is like shades and memories of, of recent Joe Biden and other Biden kind of stuff, you know? Oh yeah. Crazy. I mean, the same playbook, uh, So, you know, the growth of my company took me to places I never would have imagined. And on Monday, I was having lunch in the White House, taking care of an administrative problem for one of my bankers. And on Friday, I'm in New York, back up there. I was there three days a week raising monies for these policies that we'd raised and were trying to buy. And I get a call at seven o'clock in the morning from my assistant telling me that my company had been raided or was being raided by, you know, these hundred FBI agents.

1:43:37 And I'm thinking it was a joke. There's no way that this could comprehend that this could happen. And so I realized that at a certain point in time, it was not a joke. And that's how I found this out. Right. And so, and as you've gone through this experience, you're realizing that this industry, I mean, a bit of a shadow industry is what becomes, You know, amazing. I mean, you're talking, you know, billions of dollars in this, you know, federal lobbying scheme. Yes, it is. And then, you know, I'm not faulting the lobbying scheme, but I am faulting the system that's set up. With the DOJ.

1:44:18 And the majority leader came down to my office, he sat across from my desk, and he said, Steve, we know they're a problem, them being the FBI, the DOJ. Not necessarily the FBI, but the DOJ. And I said, and he said, Steve, we don't know what to do about it. And I said, Senator, I do. This is the majority leader telling you this? He didn't know what to do about it? Yeah. Yeah. He said, we don't know what to do about it on Capitol Hill. And I said, Senator, I do. And he said, what's that? And I said, do you ever think our forefathers ever set out to incentivize the police force? Yeah. And he said, what do you mean? I said, it happens from the lower rung all the way to the top.

1:44:58 I said, it starts at the local cops giving quotas at the end of the month for speeding tickets. And then I said, when you get to your level, all the way to the top, it's like you said, Bill. They got incentives for forfeitures. They get 25% of the money. They get job promotions by, you know, rating companies and doing all this. And they take all that cash. I said, Senator, they take all that cash and they put it back in the system and buy more people to attack more Americans. And at that time, I was in Lexington, Kentucky. There was 38 prosecutors in town. And I said, do you think the crime's that bad to have 38 prosecutors here? Really? And he said, well, I don't know. I said, what do you mean? I said, well, when there's not enough crime to justify their job and what you're paying them, they'll make it up.

1:45:43 Yeah, exactly. Well, and then look at, as you point out in your book, you got 98% federal conviction rate? I mean... I mean, listen. If anybody doesn't take exception to that, you need to have your head examined because even casinos don't even have a 98% win rate, you know? Right. So if you've got a 98% in anything, there's corruption. There's something wrong. And that's one of the things that people ask me. They say, well, what is the justice restoration about? Well, I'll tell you what we're about. We're trying to move that needle from 98 down to 50. We're just asking for fairness in this country. Exactly. Right. Well, and the other thing, too, which we saw happen with the J6ers, is the federal cases that are resolved by plea. I mean, they siege work, these people. They really become victims of the system, the rigged system, and they're backed up in a corner, and you've got to just go along. Otherwise, like the J6ers, many of them spent years in solitary confinement because they just wouldn't acquiesce to something that they just believed was untrue.

1:46:52 That's correct. And unless you've been involved in this system, you have no idea how corrupt and how one-sided this thing is. I mean, can you imagine going in trial and not being able to depose your witnesses or people that are going to be used against you? Did you know that goes on today? Yeah. So we've got a Rule 15 right now that has an amendment to it that's going in front of the Criminal Rules Committee in October. to try to get that to where the defense can actually depose witnesses. Because what happens in that scheme, the federal government, they'll call these guys in, cut a deal with them, say, you know, we're going to give you leniency.

1:47:35 We're not going to indict. You if you say this against this defendant. Well, the guy's not motivated to talk to the other side, so he doesn't. There's nothing to invoke him to do that. So this Rule 15 is coming up. Hopefully they'll do the right thing. They'll pass this and enable the defense to actually depose the witnesses. Because what happens, Bill, there's no attorney going to call a witness to stand unless he knows what the answer is going to be. So right now, as it stands, he doesn't know and he won't call him. Nobody gets called. Yeah. So you've prejudiced the case. Absolutely. I mean, as an official of. The court, you've prejudiced the case with impunity.

1:48:18 That's disgusting. It is. And it goes on the same way. And they're using the media to do the same thing. They'll come out with these horrendous stories. It has nothing to do with the indictment in the press. And I'm not saying that the media is at fault alone, but they shouldn't, they should question these and not just take what's coming from the government's mouth as validity. Because it's not. There's another side of this truth and they need to look at it and they need to explore it before they start printing these articles. Let me give you an example. We've got a doctor right now we're advocating for that the prosecutor put something in the paper so bad, so heinous that had nothing to do with his indictment but made the guy look so culpable that that he actually had a militia try to hunt him down to kill him.

1:49:12 Oh, my God. Yeah. This is true. And this just happened. And that's what I'm telling you. I mean, these stories are tilted to ensure that they win the case by tainting the jury. But they've got to look at where this goes beyond that. I mean, when you start printing lies in the paper and it jeopardized somebody's life or their kids, we've got a problem, and we have got to stop this. Yeah. And this has been going on for a while, especially with Donald Trump. When he came on the scene, everything's justified. Oh, he's a king. He's a Nazi. He's Adolf Hitler. All these things. And it's no wonder the assassination attempts that's been put upon him, ICE agents, the way they've been attacked, the increase in attack of law enforcement. Stephen, when you and I were growing up, you would never think in a million years of going after somebody in law enforcement.

1:50:03 And today, it's like, oh, it's just a common act of you know, incivility. It's somehow that's acceptable. It's unbelievable. It is. And that's what I'm telling you. There's nothing normal about it. And to say that the judges and the whole system has accepted this as norm is really sad. And we've got to have a reset. I mean, we've got to wake these people. Up and say, look, you know, enough's enough. We cannot jeopardize people's lives at career advancements. I mean, that's There's nothing right about this. Yeah, this is so messed up on so many levels. And the amount of the cost involved in this, and you point this out, over a trillion dollars is involved in lost GDP, and not to mention the damage this does to the individual families all the way down. The ripple effect is just incredible. Stephen, I got to look forward to having you back. I mean, congratulations on the book, Pay to Play, all that you're doing with the Justice Restoration Foundation. Stephen Keller, the former financial CEO and pioneering entrepreneur.

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