Digital Social Hour - Human Trafficking, Sound of Freedom & Epstein Island I Paul Hutchison DSH #364

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

Paul Hutchison comes on the show to talk about human trafficking, Sound of Freedom & Epstein Island. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Je...nna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Hostinger: https://www.hostinger.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXa... Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 We realized, me and some of the other operators realized, if we're ever going to make a difference, we've got to create a movement. And that movement isn't going to happen by just randomly telling people what happened. We have to take them emotionally there as if they had seen what we had seen, that we could truly eradicate child trafficking. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means a lot thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode ladies and gentlemen super excited about this episode we're going to change a lot of lives today paul hutchison
Starting point is 00:00:40 how's it going man i'm doing so. Man, your documentary really changed the world, man. It was awesome. It was an amazing work. It was the first of its kind. What led you to take that step? Because you were fighting against a lot of people. Oh, we were. We were.
Starting point is 00:00:55 Well, yeah, the movie, Sound of Freedom, was loosely tied to a rescue we did about 10 years ago. And that was my first undercover rescue mission. The producer actually plays me in the movie. My part is Pablo in that movie. And we realized, me and some of the other operators realized if we're ever going to make a difference, we've got to create a movement. And that movement isn't going to happen by just randomly telling people what happened. We have to take them emotionally there as if they had seen what we had seen. I knew that if the world saw what I saw and felt what I felt, that we could truly eradicate child trafficking. Wow. That's incredible. And you've been on over
Starting point is 00:01:37 70 missions, right? I have. Yeah. In the last 10 years, I stopped doing undercover work about six months ago. But yeah, I've led or played a key part in over 70 missions in 15 countries over that 10 years. Wow. So walk me through a mission from start to finish. What exactly happens? How long does it take? Yeah. So number one, we're not a bunch of rambos going in, hey, we're going to go save the kids and whatnot.
Starting point is 00:01:59 A lot of times, unfortunately, the demand in second and third world countries for these horrible things comes from guys in first world countries, you know, that, that are wealthy businessmen and whatnot. And so what happens is before a lot of these government agents I worked with, they would kind of butt heads with these other countries and they would say, no, this is our problem, whatever. Now we can come in and say, listen, we as a private organization, we're going to pay for everything. We're going to do the work and we're going to give you the credit. We're going to work under your laws. And we sit down usually with the head of the federal police or the president of the country and lay out this plan. And we identify the darkest, most dangerous places in their country. Say, okay, where are the
Starting point is 00:02:40 cities where the worst things are going on? And then we'll go and say, okay, what's the most dangerous time to be in that area? And then we'll show up there on that beach in this dangerous part of town and whatnot and connect with guys who are selling kids. And sometimes we'll just be confidential informants where we'll identify who has the kids and where they are, turn it over to the federal agents, and then we're gone. Or in a lot of those earlier missions, because the Homeland Security agent that I was working with at the time, he wanted a lot of video footage and whatnot. We would get the traffickers to bring the children to a party or some kind of a thing where they would bring the children there and that sting would happen at that point. And that's what happened with the one that the Sound of
Starting point is 00:03:24 Freedom was made from, is they had operators undercover. They had identified a whole bunch of kids, over 50 children in Cartagena, over a hundred children in the surrounding cities. Dang. And this Homeland Security agent, he called me and I had helped to put some money together
Starting point is 00:03:39 to help to fund some of those things. And he called me and he said, Paul, he said, I think there's more than a hundred kids and we can rescue them all on the same day, but I, I, I'd love your help if you're willing. I said, well, how much, how much do you need? I thought he needed a check. He said, I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days? He said, I have to have somebody who can effectively negotiate a multimillion dollar real estate deal with the, the traffickers. He said, the head trafficker has a piece of property he wants to develop into a child brothel sex resort. He believes he can make
Starting point is 00:04:13 tens of millions of dollars a year selling children to Americans. And I said, well, what do you need me for? He said, you show up. He said, you already have the background because I ran a successful real estate company, right? He said, you come in, negotiate this deal and tell him, listen, the only way I'm going to fund your project is if you can prove to me that you can be successful with it by, I'm going to have a party in a couple of weeks. I'm going to bring down a bunch of my rich friends. And if we like what we see, you bring all your inventory. If we like what we see, then I'll fund your deal. And sure enough, it worked.
Starting point is 00:04:48 Two days later, I'm face-to-face with the most evil people selling children. Jeez. And negotiated this deal. It ended up being, we ended up rescuing over 120 victims. Are you looking to start a new website? Look no further than Hostinger. Hostinger is a top global web hosting and website creation brand where you can generate a full website in seconds using their AI website builder.
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Starting point is 00:05:40 and that also includes a free domain name, which saves you additional money. If you're interested, check out Hostinger.com slash DSH, Hostinger.com slash DSH, and use code DSH to get a discount on your order. Back to the show. Victims in one day. Oh my gosh, how did they get that many kids? Well, they had them from everywhere. You know, a lot of the kids were from a broken foster care program or runaways and whatnot. Some of them were kids that the parents were just duped or whatnot.
Starting point is 00:06:10 In the movie, there was a fake modeling agency that they were going to these towns in South America and telling the parents, oh, your daughter is too pretty to be working in the field. She should be a model and kind of bringing them in that way. So there was kids from all over the place that were being sold. And you mentioned Americans are one of the biggest consumers of child trafficking. Yeah. And unfortunately, the number one producer and consumer of child in the world is the United States. Wow. And it's a huge consumer when it comes to this international stuff. And it happens in your own backyard too.
Starting point is 00:06:47 This isn't just something that happens in Colombia or Ecuador or whatever. It's happening everywhere. And it's something that we all need to be aware of and do something about it. That's insane. So people are basically paying thousands of dollars just to do horrible things.
Starting point is 00:07:02 Wow. I can't believe that. Epstein Island, right? Yeah. The reality is that's why I was recruited. Unfortunately, it was guys like what I was. I was a rich business finance guy at the time. And that's kind of the ego. In fact, what's super interesting, Sean, I thought, okay, I'm going to go see traffickers. They're going to have tattoos down their cheeks and three earrings in their ears and all this stuff, right? The first trafficker I met was a businessman in a polo shirt.
Starting point is 00:07:31 Wow. Just a normal dude. The next one was a beautiful young woman who was running this modeling company. Really? And I realized that the common thread over those 10 years and 70 plus missions, the common thread was arrogance, greed, and lust. That's the common thread. It wasn't they were addicted to whatever, but it was greed to the point where money was more important to them than the sanctity of life or these children, et cetera, where arrogance put them into a place where they truly believed that they were better than another human being because of whatever reason. And so, and then I had to take a step back and say, you know what,
Starting point is 00:08:11 if that's that energy that these traffickers are in, I looked around me, I looked in the mirror, right? I'm like, where, I mean, I'm never going to go down that road and do these horrible things to kids, but how does arrogance and greed play a role in how I treat other people in any way? And how am I affecting the general consciousness of humanity by operating from a place of arrogance and greed in any way? And that was a big change because you were part of a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, right? I was. So you were probably around a lot of that.
Starting point is 00:08:43 I was. I had a probably around a lot of that. I had a basketball court in my basement. Right? I mean, that was the life I lived. I had all the NBA players at my house for parties with hundreds of half-dressed girls. I mean, this was the... It wasn't
Starting point is 00:08:59 illegal, but was it healthy, right? And so as I took a step back after 10 years of undercover, I had to ask myself, I said, Paul, are you really making a difference? Yes, every time we go in, we pull 20 kids out of hell, we're making a powerful impact in their lives. But if not enough was being done to fix the demand, then another 20 children were being sucked back in to this horrible place. And so I had to ask myself, where is it coming from? Where is that coming from to get to the point where you would harm another human being in that way, especially a child?
Starting point is 00:09:38 And if you imagine like these links on a chain, right? The very end link of this chain is the abuse of a child. We never want anybody to get close to that. We want to break this chain way, way back here, right? So we have to ask ourselves, what are the links of the chain that lead to child trafficking, that lead to child abuse, all of these things? And maybe one of those links in those chain might be, you know, child p****. That's a very good chance that, you know, once they start going down that road, then they want to act out on these horrific fantasies.
Starting point is 00:10:10 But what leads to that? You know, and realize this. I'm not going to go there. Everybody who's listening to us today has seen p****. Because you've looked at p****, you're going to become a pedophile. But every one of these guys that we arrested started out with a hardcore addiction, right? And what happens is the very second that you take a woman from a divine feminine to an object, you start going down a dark road. And we have to ask ourselves, as humanity, as a whole, we have to ask ourselves, what is it that I'm doing that in any way contributes to that greed and that arrogance that is negatively affecting these children and everything else?
Starting point is 00:10:50 And I realized that the bigger problem wasn't just the 10 plus million that are being sold in trafficking. The problem is the fact that literally one in every four women that you know has admitted that they were a victim of sexual violence as a child. Wow. In their own homes, most of them. And that's just the ones that admitted it. Many, many of them never say anything. Yeah. And men, it's a little bit less. It's one out of every five sometime in their life have said that they were a victim.
Starting point is 00:11:23 But even those, like 25% of them, it was under the age of 10 years old. So here's what happens, Sean, is God bless them, two-thirds of people who experience that, two-thirds of them grow up to be protectors, right? They're never going to let it pass on. However, one out of every three, if not given the love, the help, the healing that they need, one out of every three end up becoming contact offenders and passing that trauma on in either verbal abuse and physical abuse, or in some cases, the sexual abuse of a child. And so the key is this. People ask me, they say, Paul, how can you go face to face with somebody selling you a child and not have them see the hatred and the anger in your eyes? And my answer is this, I don't hate them.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Now, don't get me wrong. I put my life in danger to ensure they never hurt innocents again. But what I wish more than anything is that we could go back five or 10 years before they ever, ever cross that line and said, okay, what happened to you as a child? What happened? What kind of pain are you dealing with right now? And can we give you the love, the help, the healing that you need to ensure that that trauma is never passed on to the next generation in your own home, et cetera. So these are all things that we can go through in terms of really what liberating humanity is all about. And that's how you can find me everywhere on liberating humanity is on social media and on the website, et cetera,
Starting point is 00:12:57 because that's what it's about is not just liberating the children, but if we liberate the rest of humanity, we will eradicate child trafficking. I love that. You're trying to understand their perspective and trying to treat the root cause rather than just attack them as a person. Exactly. Exactly. Because otherwise we're just fighting fire with fire, you know, and that just creates more fire. Yeah. You know, somehow we need to take a step back and raise global consciousness as a whole and say, how can we come to a place of connection with God, with ourselves, with our higher self, all of these things that need to happen for us to be able to heal so that we never, ever pass that trauma on. I love that. I didn't realize the numbers were
Starting point is 00:13:35 that high, man. That is pretty crazy. It's crazy. And here's what happens too. So the average age of somebody that comes out and says, hey, I was abused as a child, the average age is 52 years old. Wow. So they're holding it in for... That's my age. I got grandkids. You know what I mean? I've built my businesses. I've lived my career, all this stuff. And if people are holding it in for that long, it comes out in low self esteem or anger or depression, anxiety. And like I said, in some cases, trauma transfer and physical and verbal and sexual abuse of somebody else. And so if we can, and what happens is guys, especially, they're like, oh, you know, that thing that happened to
Starting point is 00:14:18 me when I was eight by my uncle, I don't want to say anything because it'll make me less of a man. No, it won't. You were eight, right? That was a horrible thing that happened by somebody who was dealing with a lot of stress and anger and whatever themselves. It doesn't justify what they did, but it doesn't define you today. If you can find ways to release that and realize that everything in you is brand new, every cell in your body is new within the last few years, you're holding on to release that and realize that everything in you is brand new. Every cell in your body is new within the last few years. You're holding on to trauma that doesn't belong to you and teach people
Starting point is 00:14:51 how to release that. We will heal all of humanity. Yeah. What sparked this passion in you to go on this endeavor? I was actually recruited. Now I will say this, that kind of trauma has, the more I really get to know people and their energy and their heart and what they're going through, the more I realize that there are so many people that have this. And it's happened in my own family as well. I've found that, you know, people that I had no idea, I was with them for 20 plus years and didn't realize the pain and the trauma they were holding. But for me, I was involved in a lot of child-related charities. I was on the Make-A-Wish board of directors in our state for about seven years. I was the incoming chairman for Make-A, and it's a beautiful organization helping grant wishes to children who are dealing with very difficult terminal illnesses or life-threatening illnesses, et cetera. And I got a call from our attorney general who said, Paul, I know you've donated a lot of time and money to charities regarding children.
Starting point is 00:16:02 I need to talk to you about something that's really dark. And it's difficult to hear, but it's the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. And good people don't know that it's happening. He said, and the fastest growing, he said, what's that? He said, talk about human trafficking. He said, there's more today. And I'm not talking about just children being abused at home, which is horrible. He says, sold human beings. There's more today than all 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade put together. And so he was the one that introduced me to the Homeland Security agent who Jim Caviezel plays in the movie. I'm the one who halfway
Starting point is 00:16:35 through the film, he's like, oh, he's talking to his wife. If I can get Pablo to come on board to help fund this, I can make it work. I'm Pablo in real life. And so when I got that call, being asked to help fund it wasn't what changed my life. What changed my life forever was physically being there. And when the traffickers brought out some of the children, where there was like 54 children that they had brought to this one party on this island, and one of the traffickers got up and he said, Pablo, I have to show you the gifts that I brought you. And he went in the house where the children are, and immediately we could hear some of the children crying. They were so scared of coming out to meet me, the man who was going to defile them, you know? And finally he
Starting point is 00:17:21 came back out and he had four virgins, super scared. There was three little girls. There was one little boy. This little boy, they gave him that morning because he was so scared it was going to hurt. What kind of monster thinks that that's attractive? Everything in my body wanted to just hug these kids and say, you're going to be fine. You're going to see your parents again. And I couldn't say that.
Starting point is 00:17:42 I'm sitting there on the chair. I'm literally this tall right here sitting down. And this little girl they brought out, 11 years old, a virgin, scared to death. She wasn't much taller than I was. She was standing up and I'm sitting down. And I'm looking at her eye to eye, just like I'm looking at you. And all I could see was fear in her eyes as she was trembling. And I made a commitment to myself, to God, and to that little girl that I was going to dedicate my life to eradicating that evil.
Starting point is 00:18:15 Wow. I couldn't imagine anything worse than an 11-year-old child being sold as a virgin to a stranger on an island in the middle of nowhere. It was horrific. I remember I took her little hands. I said, Comte Amos, what's your name? And she didn't answer. I'm sure it's because her real name wasn't Princess, right? She was trying to figure out what they should say. And I just said, Este bien, it's okay. And the most beautiful moment of my life was after the agents came, stormed the party, arrested everybody. 30 Child Protective Services people came in with the children, and they started laughing and singing. And that sound of freedom was the most beautiful sound that I ever heard.
Starting point is 00:19:02 That's why we named the movie The Sound of Freedom. Wow. Right? Because that sound of them laughing versus the crying just a few minutes before, I started bawling. And I turned to the agent who was with me and I said, I've spent my whole life making rich people richer and making money. I want to make a difference. What can I do? Can I write a check? And he said,
Starting point is 00:19:25 Paul, he said, unfortunately, a large part of the demand for parties like this in these areas come from Jeffrey Epstein type guys, right? He says, it's guys like you. He says, I'm sorry to say it, guys who walk and talk and dress like you. He said, if you're willing to be the bait, I'll change your whole life. So that was the beginning of what is now over 70 missions. And I had no social media, anything until just a few months ago, because I was still undercover and decided now that I, especially with the movie out, I needed to go public and share these stories. That story is incredible, man. Did that girl find her parents after that? She did. She did. In fact, in the movie, there was a little girl, they called her princess in
Starting point is 00:20:10 the movie. And in fact, how the Homeland Security agent convinced me in the movie is he gave a picture of this little girl to my driver, right? And I had already turned him down and he shows me this picture and that's what convinced me in real life. Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life. Click the application link below. And here's the episode guys. I was already there. He had called me and said, Paul, can you be here? I was there face to face with these traffickers. And one of them, he said, Pablo, he says, I have a gift for you. I said,
Starting point is 00:20:50 really, what's your gift? And he hands me his phone and there's a picture of this little 11 year old girl. He said, this is princess. She's still a virgin. We just took delivery of some, and she's my gift for your party. and started talking about horrible things I do to this little girl. And so that galvanized my commitment to do whatever it took to help fund this mission, whatever, to find these kids. Wow. When you were undercover, was there ever any scary moments where your cover was blown? There's a lot of scary moments. Yeah, there's a few that were... I mean, one real quick, we were in Latin America in a beach city area. I had gone in eight different times.
Starting point is 00:21:30 I was now doing deep cover stuff. I was connecting with the guys who were two in the morning in downtown Mexico City, other places. We had found 48 children and nine traffickers. And we had set everything up. We had this big sting, this party going on, and I called all the other... I didn't trust any of the local cops because half the time, those guys are... Paid off.
Starting point is 00:21:57 Yeah, exactly. So we had two federal agents we flew in. I called all the traffickers. I said, hey, we're having a party this Saturday, bring all the kids, whatever. One we couldn't get a hold of. Super bad guy. We called him Scarface. He did have a scar on his face, right? And I told him, listen, I can't get a hold of him. We have to go out there. So I went back out in the dark area. I'm looking around and asking people. And all of a sudden, boom, 10 police officers, full automatic weapons on the ground, on the ground, on the ground. I'm like, crap.
Starting point is 00:22:19 Now, I don't know if they're good guys or bad guys, right? We're getting handcuffed hard. In fact, so hard I still have nerve damage on this. I touch right here and my whole thing just tingles, right? So we get handcuffed hard. I'm thinking, okay, they're going to take us to the jail. The two federal agents who are in my hotel room waiting for me, they'll come and say, hey, there's a federal case, get us out.
Starting point is 00:22:39 They don't take us to the jail. They start taking us out of the city, right? We're in one of those pickup trucks with the guys are sitting with automatic guns and whatever that this is where crap goes down, right? Now, honestly, at this point, I'm as scared for them as I am for me, because have you ever heard of Krav Maga? No. So regular martial arts is, you know, bow to your sensei, three points when you kick him in the leg, whatever. Krav Maga is brick to their head, go home to your family. It's Israeli special forces, hand-to-hand combat. It's the most lethal on earth. And every move, they don't breathe,
Starting point is 00:23:09 they don't talk, they don't see. A lot of the things are illegal in the ring to train with other modalities because it's hardcore stuff. Well, my trainer for many, many years is named Joseph. He's bad, right? He was with me on that mission and he had had two, I think three tequilas at dinner that night. Right. He was a little bit tipsy. So when they threw us on the ground, they're handcuffing us. He's like, Oh, if I can kill him, I'm like, bro, you can't kill him. We don't know if they're good cops. Right. So I'm going to kill him. Right. Exactly. And then, then they put us in the pickup truck and they're starting going out of the city. And he's like, he's getting more mad by the minute. So finally they, they pull over and, and this is a dangerous situation. He's mad. These guys are,
Starting point is 00:23:49 and one guy's got his, his baton out. The other guy's got their guns out. This is where crap goes down. And one of them says to me, you, you're out asking for, for Scarface. I'm like, yeah. He said, I arrested him myself for selling children. He said, now you're going to tell me everything. And Joseph's like, I said, I'm glad you said that. That told me they're good cops, right? I said, now I can tell you who I really am. I said, I've got two federal agents in my hotel room. He says, it's going down. And Joseph's like, it's going down. I said, bro, quiet. These are good cops, right? And so finally I said, guys, before anything, I'm handcuffed, right? And inside my undercover pants, it's like those zippers that zip your shorts on and off, you know?
Starting point is 00:24:34 Inside that zipper part, there was a hidden little pocket in there. And in there was a card. It was a laminate with my picture on it, signed by one of the head of the federal police in Spanish. If they don't give me their guns, their knives, their help, they could go to jail, right? It's the best get out of jail free card everywhere. It's like this diplomatic immunity badge type thing, right? So I said, somebody has to unzip that right now. So suddenly somebody did and he looks at it and takes it to the chief of police that's
Starting point is 00:24:59 in the front car letting his goons do all the work and beat us up, right? He comes out shaken. They unhandcuffed us faster than we were handcuffed, all 10 of them. Lo siento, lo siento, we're so sorry, we're so sorry. I said, no, this is how you should treat people who are buying children in your country, right? Now I don't know who to trust though. So nobody can say anything that I just showed you that card. He says, yes, sir, we're so sorry.
Starting point is 00:25:19 So four days later, largest child rescue in Mexico history with the 48 children. So- Anyway, yeah, that was a long story, but that was in Mexico history with the 48 children. So. Amazing. Anyway, yeah, that was, I mean, that's a long story, but that was, that was pretty. Wow, that's scary. And there's a bunch of, bunch of them just like that, that got pretty. Man, but you were willing to take that risk. If that was my nine-year-old, I would give every penny I have to take down the organizations that had her, right?
Starting point is 00:25:46 I'd take a bullet to make sure that they take 10, right? That's what would happen if... And just because the parents of these children don't know where they are or don't have the resources or training that my team has doesn't mean that they love them any less, right? And so, yes, of course, it was worth it to make that happen. Now, though, I believe that sharing these stories of light and hope, I mean, there's such a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel with fixing this problem that it's worth it to take that risk and go public.
Starting point is 00:26:18 And you said there's 10 million of these a year? Oh, there's so many. I mean, the numbers are all over the place. Estimates range anywhere from 8 million to 12 million children that are being sold the average age of 12 years old that they're brought into it. Wow. But the number of children who are abused in our own homes is so much bigger. People leave the movie Sound of Freedom and they'll say, okay, what can I do? I'm going to do something.
Starting point is 00:26:42 How can I help? Well, the worst thing you can do is go be a Rambo and go to Columbia and try to rescue kids. You're going to get shot, right? And you're probably going to get arrested. The best thing you can do is either find a good foundation. One of ours is the Child Liberation Foundation who has teams that are doing some things and we're helping to fund other groups, et cetera. Or one of the best things you can do is go home and hug your kids. People are like, how is that going to help?
Starting point is 00:27:05 Hug my kids? Well, no, it helps a huge. The majority of children that are being sucked into trafficking come from broken homes, from runaways, from a broken foster care program. This is where they're coming from. But even more important than that is that the chances that your kid gets taken and put in a cargo ship and taken to another country, that's pretty slim. The chances that they get abused at school or at a relative's house is very, very high. You need a relationship with your children that is such where they can very comfortably come to you and say, hey, dad, hey, mom. I don't feel good when you make me hug Uncle Harry because, you know,
Starting point is 00:27:47 just how he makes me feel. Or I don't like it when I go to this friend's house because her brother touches me on the bum. Or our babysitter is showing us and says that we should trust her more than you. Or, you know, these are all, these are grooming behaviors that you need a relationship with your kids where even if something does happen, hey, you know, I was at school and recess and the older kids held me down and this is what happened. Being able to comfortably say what happened gives you the opportunity to help them heal through that trauma instead of burying it for 10, 20, 50 years of their life and showing up in all these negative behaviors.
Starting point is 00:28:26 I love that. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of grooming going on with media these days. So I remember watching cartoons growing up and they were innocent. And now when you look at movies and cartoons, you know, they're promoting sexuality at such a young age. Here's the thing, Sean. People ask, why did it take five years for your movie to come out? Let me tell you. It's because we went against what is being force-fed through Hollywood and big media and all this stuff, right? We're getting this mass psychosis, this controlled dialogue that is coming into our families that we sit back and wonder why our children are hypersexualized, why there's a loss of this moral foundation that our parents and grandparents learned and taught, et cetera. It's because of what we've allowed to come in.
Starting point is 00:29:11 We had this movie finished five years ago. Wow. And we're cut off on every single distribution partner we could go in front of. We're killing us, dead in our tracks. In fact, Fox International had the original rights on it and Disney bought them out and had no interest whatsoever in taking this public. So we're like, how do we deal with this, right? So now we have to go through all of these different potential distribution and nobody would turn us... I mean, here's the. I'm just going to – guys like Netflix, right? Netflix says, no, we're not going to take Sound of Freedom. But Netflix brings you a TV series called Cuties, right?
Starting point is 00:29:51 A bunch of 10-year-olds dressed up like strippers. Really. So you have to ask yourself, what is it that's being fed to my children, to my family that is leading them down a road of moral convictions that is different from what we want to teach them. Absolutely. So who eventually took you on? We finally went with a group called Angel Studios. So Angel Studios is an independent group. They're very different than Hollywood. It's like a grassroots movement. In fact, they brought the TV series, The Chosen, which is the life of Jesus, beautifully done. And they have kind of this great social media presence with a lot of podcasts,
Starting point is 00:30:33 a lot of people that are behind them that are pushing what isn't being pushed by big media and by Hollywood. So that's how it finally ended up getting taken out to the world. I love that. And it was a massive success. You've probably been inundated with all sorts of requests after it. Huge. We did over $200 million in box office sales in the US. Wow. Put that into perspective. We only spent $14 million on the film.
Starting point is 00:30:56 Dang. Right? $200 million is massive. It's the number one independent film of the year worldwide. Holy crap. I mean, it's just killing it everywhere. And it's because there's so many good people that are like, no, we don't care what big media and Hollywood, I don't care what they say. I want to figure out what I want to bring in to my family and what,
Starting point is 00:31:17 it's going to be hard to watch, but it's going to be beautiful seeing the rescue and rehabilitation and reuniting of the kids. And this is going to create conversations that we couldn't have two years ago. Two years ago, you couldn't say, oh, this is child trafficking, whatever. You can't talk about that at the dinner table. Now we can say, okay, now I have your attention. Let's talk about this. What needs to happen to keep our kids safe? That's so true.
Starting point is 00:31:42 It's such a taboo topic to bring about in normal conversations back in the day. But now you've normalized it, which is great. That's a great first step, right? It is. It is. And it's the step towards now having that conversation about what's it going to take to keep our kids safe. Having those conversations, the ones like, so your child can very comfortably come to
Starting point is 00:32:01 you and say, hey, this is what happened to uncle Harry's house or my cousin's house or whatever else, and be able to work through that. See, the problem that we have is generational trauma, generational. It's not just the trafficking. Somebody doesn't just grow up and say, oh, I'm going to go to Columbia and go sleep with a 12-year-old. No, it started with trauma in their own home. It started with them probably already abusing children in their own neighborhood, et cetera. And the number is massive. It's massive. So if we're really going to liberate humanity,
Starting point is 00:32:30 if we're really going to free ourselves from all this negative crap that we're holding onto, we've got to start by having those conversations. Yeah. So is the next film going to be centered around that mainly? Well, we have a lot. I mean, we've got some TV series that are coming out and I don't know that it's necessarily going to be film. I'm not a filmmaker. You know, I just invested in this one because that changed my life. You know, I believe that now the next step is exactly what we're doing here. You know, getting on stages, getting on podcasts and saying, okay, now we have your attention. Let's talk about this. How can we change? What do we need to do as humanity to heal this? I believe we can.
Starting point is 00:33:09 I believe that it's possible to eradicate child trafficking in my lifetime. Wow. I believe that it is, but it's going to start on the healing side, healing the children, healing the adults. My job is not going forward, is not to go rescue a 10-year-old from the clutches of a trafficker in Honduras. My job is to help every 20, 30, 40-year-old man or woman go on their own undercover rescue mission and rescue the 10-year-old inside of themselves. I'm not your savior. I'm not going to fix your whatever. I'm not going to do that, but I can help people learn and give them the tools that they need. You can go to liberateachild.org, or you can go to
Starting point is 00:33:51 liberatinghumanity.com, any one of those, and you can get tools that you need to help heal yourself, heal your family, and make it so that you don't end up having this generational transfer of the trauma. I love this so much, Paul. This has been so impactful. Is there anything you want to close off with? Well, I just want to tell you I'm super grateful for you having me on your show. And you using your hard work of building such a beautiful, huge audience of good people.
Starting point is 00:34:21 I will say this. Don't not go to the show to go watch Sound of Freedom because you think it's going to be too dark and too heavy. Yes, take a box of tissues, right? Because it's going to impact your life, but I promise you it will impact it for good. It will impact it for good. And go home, hug your kids, go to liberateachild.org and find ways to get involved, whether physically with the Build-A-Kids program or with the Liberating Wings or donate $25 a month or $50, whatever it is. Or if you want to be a part of healing yourself as an adult, then follow me on Liberating Humanity
Starting point is 00:35:05 on any of the social media, liberating.humanity, and there's a lot of tools that you can get to start helping you heal as an adult. I love that. Thanks so much for coming on, man. Great episode. Really good.
Starting point is 00:35:17 Can't wait to change some lives. Absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys, as always, and I'll see you tomorrow.

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