From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Losing Sight Of The Mission: The Woke Military

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

On this episode, Sean and Rachel are joined by Retired Navy SEAL Senior Chief Derrick Van Orden, to talk about the woke ideology that he says is seeping into the United States military.   Derrick explains the dangers of teaching Critical Race Theory, how he feels the military has veered off course and talks about the values that the military should be teaching. Later, Derrick discusses his tight congressional race in Wisconsin.    Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to primetime dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-served spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, but also my partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy. Hello everyone, and we're back with more conversations from our kitchen table. And today we have another very special guest. We know him. We've actually, you know, lived in Wisconsin,

very close to his district, right next door to Sean's district. It's Derek Van Orden. He's a retired Navy SEAL chief who served five combat deployments across the globe. And he actually is an actor, too, starting the 2012 movie Act of Valor. I didn't know that about you, Derek. And now he's running for Congress in the third district of Wisconsin. I want to hear all about the race, Derek. But first, is that true? That was in my script. Is that true? I didn't know that.

Yeah, I've actually done three feature films. The first one was in 2012. It was called Active Valor. And it was made by the Navy as a recruiting tool. We were having a difficult time getting SEALs in the service. And so it worked very successfully, which is nice. And that movie is a fantastic tribute to, and if you watch that movie,

you'll see all these kind of weird things that take place, these kind of snippets, these little scenarios. And all of those happened to a seal at one time or another after September 11th. So I encourage you guys to watch that and remember that that is a tribute to our fallen. And then I got to do a movie with Jon Voight called Surviving the Wild.

He's been a friend of mine now. What? Six or seven years. I thought we knew each other. What is it? Well, yeah, yeah. That was a fun one. I played a redneck in Kentucky.

And my whole wardrobe was a torn plaid shirt, which I believe I pulled out of Sean's dumpster after he was in Congress. It looked just like it. You did exist. I'll have those ragtag flannel shirts in my bag. So yeah, someone else's, but you look, you look like a guy who looks great in a ragtag flannel shirt. I do. I'm a regular dude. You are a little bit out of central casting, to be honest. I mean, you look like a Navy SEAL. You look like you could be that great character actor. But what's interesting about you is you're the real deal. You're the real deal. And part of why we wanted to bring you on today, and we want

to talk about all the things you want to talk about. I want to talk about your race as well, which I think is exciting because I believe you're going to win. But also your experience as a Navy SEAL in the context of what is going on in the military. Now, I just got back from West Point, where we did our 4th of July special for Fox. And there's just, I mean, first of all, I was very impressed with, you know, these elite cadets. They're obviously the creme de la creme. But I am very concerned about what's happening to our military. We're hearing reports about woke books being, you know, given as required reading, you know, about CRT and so forth. Talk to me about what you're seeing. Yeah, well, I mean, in short, you're absolutely correct.

The Department of Defense is completely off mission. They've lost their way and they're trying to do the social experimentation as opposed to defending the country. And we saw that the apex of that taking place with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan where we abandoned thousands of American citizens to their fate to terrorists. But let me kind of back up because we're talking about race relations in the military. In 1948, President Truman desegregated the military by an executive order immediately following World War II. So we fought Korea and Vietnam as a desegregated military. And that's fantastic. We should have been from the beginning.

We all know the original sin of the United States of slavery and the compromise that was made in order to have the Constitution signed. In 1969, there was some race riots on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 1972, there was on the USS Kitty Hawk, which is an aircraft carrier, there was a race riots on the aircraft carrier at sea. It was really a travesty. And then in 1975, the military stopped the draft. And after that, we've had an all-volunteer force. And with that, the relationships between service members predicated on race has been getting better and better and better because we are looking at each other as American citizens, and that's it. So when General Milley, in his congressional testimony in 2021, it was brought to his attention that they're teaching critical race theory in the

military. And he became very defensive and he actually defended the teaching of critical race theory. In a nutshell, what that does, this critical race theory thing, is it teaches people that due to the color of their skin, they're either an oppressor or they are oppressed. And that is antithetical to the basic understanding of what it means to be in the United States military. Because the only thing that you need to look at somebody in their uniform is the American flag that they're wearing on their shoulder and the rank that they're wearing on their sleeve or their collar. And that is what makes us able to function as the United States military is that we look at each other as American citizens.

We're all putting something above ourselves. And when you teach critical race theory, it's the exact opposite. It makes you look inward and you start thinking that everything is about you. It's not about the mission. And that's travesty. It's also interesting in that you see the brotherhood of those who serve together and it's the brotherhood of the mission and the service to country. It doesn't seem to be divided by race. You're relying on each other for saving each other's lives or dragging each other out of

an area where someone's been injured. I mean, it is truly this bond that happens that is far greater than anyone's color of skin. And to inject that seems to be an injection of poison into the functionality of our military. It really is. So it never occurred to me for a second what the race of the man or woman next to me in the United States military was. It was irrelevant because we're there working together. And this this transcends just the United States military. And we look at our coalition, brothers and sisters. It just depends on what the mission is. That's all you're focused on. So with General Milley and the rest of these geniuses in the Pentagon, they're dragging us back to pre-1948 desegregation. Because what

they're doing is they're pointing out these immutable differences between us. So I can't change the color of my skin and work in anybody else. And when you keep pointing that out, you're actually detracting from the fact or understanding that you're past that. that out, you're actually detracting from the fact or the understanding that you're past that. It seems like it would be dangerous though, Derek. I mean, it's actually, it's dangerous because it makes our military weaker, but even in a combat situation, if you're not looking at rank and brotherhood and you're suspicious of somebody because they're a different race, how does that impact decision-making in the battlefield? Well, hopefully it won't.

And the reason I say hopefully is that I think that these folks have gone so far beyond the pale, these senior military leaders, that folks are looking at this and saying enough is enough. And there are real practical ramifications of this type of woke teaching. The United States military has the lowest recruiting. It's failed to meet its goals for the longest period of time, excuse me, since the Vietnam War. So we had the United States military, the army is only at 40% of its recruiting goals. And that's because people are looking at the leadership of the military. And that extends all the way to the commander in chief. If anybody thinks that President Joe Biden should have the release authority for nuclear weapons, you need to watch a couple of his

speeches, including his cue cards where he's been told to sit down. So people are seeing this and they're understanding that the leadership of the United States military is broken. And here's what's interesting to me. So General Milley probably has, I don't know, three or four master's degree. All these guys are just super duper smart. They're very highly educated people. But when General Milley is saying, we need to teach critical race theory, it's absolutely a foolish statement. You should certainly teach about critical race theory and pointing out the fact that it's a horrible thing, just as you should teach about communism and that it's incompatible with the American system of government. But you don't teach communism. You don't teach critical race theory. You teach about it. So even the way

that these folks are approaching these problem sets, I think is broken. And is there some nefarious intent? It's really hard to say that there isn't at this point because they have gotten so far off mission. And let me give you another real practical example of why this is so incredibly dangerous to our national security. There's a saying that every Marine is a rifleman. That means if you're a cook or a general officer in the Marine Corps, you have to be able to pick up your primary weapon system and fire it accurately to remove an enemy from the battle space. It's a fantastic saying, every Marine is a rifleman. Well, in the Navy, every sailor is a firefighter, because if your ship catches on fire, there's nowhere to go. So every sailor is a firefighter. Well, the Bon Homer Shard, which is an amphibious vessel, there's one of 11, I think, in our fleet

formerly, caught on fire in San Diego Harbor. It was a cardboard fire in a storage area. That's a class alpha fire, the easiest thing to put out. You just put water on it, right? They were incapable of putting out the fire on the Bonhomme Richard, and it burnt to the keel. It was a total loss. It was a naval vessel in harbor burnt to the keel because the sailors couldn't figure out how to fight the fire. And it was in combination reading the after action report with the chain of command, which is the commanding officer and above these folks, they couldn't figure out who should be in charge of fighting this fire. So the sailors didn't know how to fight the fire and the chain of command couldn't figure out how to make sure the right people were there to fight the fire. So from the deck plate, all the way up to the stateroom, the United States Navy in that instance is completely broken. And that removed a strategic platform from the United States military's inventory. Now that type of vessel, you put on landing craft and United States Marines, and it can act as a kind of a mini aircraft carrier.

So you're saying that is what you're saying by telling the story, Derek, that our military is off mission and that we are in real time right now witnessing a decline in standards and preparedness for war. seeing a decline in standards and preparedness for war. That's correct. And this is why, Rachel, that the sailors didn't know how to fight the fire, the commanding officers and the chain of command, the officers didn't know how to delegate the authority to do this sort of stuff. But I guarantee you, every single one of those sailors that did not fight that fire had all of their, it's called personal qualification standards, PQS, and there's GMTs, general military training. I guarantee you every single one of those sailors had all of their woke GMTs and PQS signed up. And you know why? Because you can't get promoted or transferred unless you do. So they could tell you that there's 400 different genders and all these other things,

but they couldn't figure out how to fight. But I can't put a fire out on a ship. all these other things, but they couldn't figure out how to fight. But I can't put a fire out on a ship. So, and that kind of leads to my question, my next question, Derek, you know, so obviously the military is off course. Yeah. They're off mission as you war fighters would say. Is it impossible? Is it hard if with new leadership to get the military back on track, to get this cancer

cut out of the military and back to a mission-based military. And kind of to the point of the firefighting, I believe I read a story, God, was it eight months ago, where the Chinese were talking about how they were afraid of the US military, not because of the might of the US military. They were saying that, and I should say not the military, the Navy, they were concerned that as US ships came in to ports where they were at, that they were afraid of being hit, that we used to be the best sailing force in the world. And the quality of our sailors has gone down. And maybe because, again, they're talking about CRT and transgenderism as opposed to going, listen, the first priority is know how to sail, know how to put out a fire on a ship. the first priority is know how to sail, know how to put out a fire on a ship. After we get all that stuff down, maybe we'll have a conversation about these other issues that we think are important, but that's not the primary mission of the military is CRT.

It should be, you have to know how to sail. You have to know how to put out fires. Right. And the Chinese military is correct. There was a long series of collisions at sea with United States Naval vessels, and they were running into each long series of collisions at sea uh with united states naval vessels and they were running into each other and other or their uh vessels at sea because they didn't know how to navigate um a vessel they didn't understand the rules of the road they're actually called the rules of the road um for when you're you're underway um so that's that's true and it's embarrassing when uh i believe our number one geopolitical foe is tongue in cheek, making fun of us, but it's based in reality. So there's only so many hours in a day that you can

train somebody effectively. You can try to jam all of us in, it just doesn't work out. And prioritizing the defense of the United States, protecting our citizens and our allies has to be job number one. And unfortunately, as we've said, the military is so far off mission with this right now. If you think about it in context, we have not won a war since World War II. And why is that? It's because we've politicized the military. We'll have more of this conversation after this. this episode is brought to you by Miller Lite Miller Lite's all about celebrating friendships especially during fantasy football season and there's no better way to show your friends fantasy league's last place finisher that you love them than Miller Lite's last placements

where you can get their face on a billboard yep a real billboard just go to lastplacements.com to find out how miller light tastes like miller time so derek i know i will we don't have you for for much more time talk to me about your race your district and this is this is the western side of wisconsin along the river um it's it's eau cla, it's La Crosse, a great area of our state, beautiful. Talk to me about your race, but then also talk to me about if you are a member of Congress and a former SEAL,

what you can do as a member of Congress to hopefully rein in, you know, what the military is doing and doing wrong. Okay. Western Wisconsin, we've got 19 whole and partial counties, just over 13,000 square miles. And my wife, Sarah Jane, and I have put over 81,000 miles on the truck driving around the district speaking to people. It's incredibly important to get out and speak to folks. It

was held by Ron Kind for, it'll come up to 26 years. He announced his retirement, which quite frankly is the smartest move that guy's made in over two decades because I was going to beat him. And he did the math and he got that, that it's time for him to sail off into the sunset, which is it's just time. We got named the number one pickup opportunity for all Republican challengers in the country, which is a pretty big honor. There's several different races. I mean, there's 130, I think, up, and about three of them are very competitive. But ours, again, has been named number one.

With that came a $2 million ad buy from Nancy Pelosi's leadership pack. So she doesn't want to give up this seat. But- Is it available to you? Nancy was showing you a lot of love? I think so. It's really interesting

because there's four Democrats in a primary. They don't even know who their candidate is yet. And I don't have a primary. I'm going straight to the general. So it's going to be a fight out here in Western Wisconsin, but we're up for it completely because the Democrat party is so far removed from what people care about here in Western Wisconsin. I think in the nation in general, we're talking about gas, groceries, and grandkids. People can't afford to fill up a gas tank and a grocery cart on the same day. And we're worried about the future of our children and the Democrat parties discussing things like critical race theory, which just doesn't make any sense. So I could use everybody's help to get into office. I'd appreciate it greatly. And we are just cracking,

itself to get into office, I'd appreciate it greatly. We are just cracking, cracking forward from here. And when I get into Congress, knock on wood, Kevin McCarthy came out to the district three weeks ago, he's going to be the next speaker of the house. And I made one ask of him. And he said in public, so I'll share it here. The only thing I asked Kevin McCarthy was to be put on the Agriculture Committee, because this is an agricultural district. We have Ashley Furniture and Quick Trip here, and the rest are medium to small size manufacturing businesses, a lot of service industry. And then also, it's just ag. And I think it's very important for us to have a congressman on the Agriculture Committee from the state of Wisconsin. So that was my one ask.

Now, the other things that you're referring to, the House Armed Services Committee, Intel Committee, Foreign Affairs, I have a real holistic understanding of those things. I've worked on two different United States embassies as a Navy SEAL. I've worked on five of the seven continents. I've lived on them. So I think those things will make themselves readily apparent. And I would assume that someone's going to ask me to serve on one of those committees also, but my primary focus and the only thing I've asked of the incoming house leadership is to be on the agriculture committee because I want to make sure that I'm repping the people hard in this district. I'm really looking forward to that opportunity. First of all, I have no doubt that you're going

to win. I am absolutely certain you're going to win. Now, I say that that doesn't mean I want people listening not to send you fundraising because that is the the oil that gets this machine going. But so I hope people support you. But this is a this is a winnable seat for Republicans in this cycle. And I hope you win. And I do hope you get on ag. I do think that's important. I do think that's important. But boy, after this conversation, Derek, I really, really hope that they put you on one of these other committees that can help address this problem with the military. I grew up on an on a military base. I think you know that I'm a military brat. And it's really odd how backwards we've gone. I mean, when I was in the military, one of the shocking things for me getting off a military base was that there was any race consciousness at all, because where I was growing up, nobody talked about race because everyone was mixed. The white soldier was married to a Vietnamese and the Vietnamese was married to an African-American and Hispanics were married to Asians. And it was such

a, it was so ahead of its time in terms of race relations. And it's absolutely a travesty. It's almost, it's a sin what they're doing by injecting CRT and lies about America into the curriculum for, you know, our soldiers, but especially at these elite universities where these are going to be the future leaders. And I guess my question to you, Derek, is as they're injecting all of this curriculum that is race conscious and frankly racist, are the kids that are going through this

for the most part going along to get along? They're doing it because they've already made it this far to the military academy and they got to get through it. Or do you think this is seeping in and that this is going to be part of the future of the military? Well, it is. And these, as you said, these young adults, they've worked, you know, since they were 12 years old to get accepted to a military academy. It is a very prestigious honor even to be able to go to one of these service academies. And if you look at what they're teaching these young people, they're going to have to go along to get along in order to graduate

from these academies. And it's terrible. The problem with that is that it's very insidious. So once you start injecting this curriculum, then you start grading the people on the curriculum. And then if you're grading on this curriculum, it becomes a standard. And then if, in order to meet the standard to get promoted, you have to parrot these things out, it starts working on you. So this stuff just has to stop. As you said, the military is colorblind and it's got to be colorblind. Back from when Truman desegregated us in 1948, we started working diligently to make sure that the only thing you see, again, is that American flag on your shoulder. And for the ruling elite in the military, the senior military officers to try to start re-injecting these things. It's a digressive movement. And again, by teaching, taking time out of the sailors, marine airmen's days to teach them

these critical race theory and all this other junk, we're removing the ability for our United States military to perform its primary function, which is the defense of American citizens and our allies. And it's shameful. And when we get into Congress, I mean, you can't just cherry pick out officers and say, stop doing this or stop doing that. We really need to have strong executive leadership that will remove these officers. I think General Milley should be forced to resign right now. There's a long series of these senior officers that are trying to parrot what they think the current administration wants to hear in order for them to get promoted. So they're putting their own self-promotion above the mission, and that's unforgivable. And let me give you one more example. If you think about this

holistically, how does this affect the service member? And this may sound kind of odd coming from me, but when the response to COVID started taking place in the United States military, before they deployed these sailors and Marines overseas, what they did with the ship's company, those are people that get attached to a ship, and then the folks that are there stationed on the boat, before they deployed them out to the Pacific, they stuck every sailor and Marine in an individual hotel room in San Diego for a three-week period of time to pre-quarantine them before they got on a naval vessel to go do our country's bidding. And you think, oh, that seems practical. Well, it doesn't. And this is why. What this has done is when you're focusing people inward, this is your skin color. This is what you should think. You're an oppressor.

You're oppressed because of who you are, these immutable characteristics. You're putting yourself above the mission. When you lock these young people into these hotel rooms to protect them from COVID, what you're teaching them is that their physical safety is more important than the mission that they're going to go on. Frankly, of all the other things in the military, to me, that is unforgivable because you have to, as a member of the service, be, to me, that is unforgivable. Because you have to, as a member of the service, be willing to stand up and give your life for your brothers and sisters

and arms next to you and for the mission and for the country. We've had over a million American men and women die in uniform protecting our nation. And the nation is more important than the individual. And for the United States military senior leadership to make individual servicemen and women think that their personal safety is more important than the mission and the country, like I said, that's unforgivable. So we've got a lot of room. We need to make sure that we get back this ground from these folks. Get these folks that are a cancer, Sean, you said that that's a perfect word.

The cancer that is the people that are teaching these critical race theory, that socialism is okay, that communism is compatible with the American way of life. It simply isn't. We've got to get them out of uniform and we've got to get ourselves back on track and get the military back on mission. And I tell you what, they gave my family a wonderful, a wonderful upbringing. I spent a lot of time away, but 16 of my 21 years as a SEAL, I spent away from home. But the opportunities that it gave me being raised in abject rural poverty in a broken home

to talking to you guys on this podcast and next year being in Congress, that's because of the opportunities presented to me by the United States military. And that was presented to me just because of merit. It had nothing to do with my skin color, had nothing to do with my background, had nothing to do with my socioeconomics, any of that stuff. It was, I showed up for work every day and I worked my tail off every single day. And I'll do the military. No one cares what color your skin is. Nobody cares what your background is. No one cares what your socioeconomic standing was because you're all equal under that flag on your shoulder. It's got to get back to that. Well, my family is also an American dream military story. My dad was a shoeshine boy from a family that couldn't even afford to buy him underwear. And I look at,

you know, I'm living a life that surpasses any of his dreams. And he's living a life as a retired military man that surpasses his wildest childhood dreams. I want to go back to one thing. I know you have to go, but I can't leave you without this because you touched on something so important. That story you told about COVID really struck me on two levels. One, absolutely what you said, but also weird because the military has young, healthy people who are not even going to probably die statistically from any of this by a long shot. So that struck me. What is the message being sent there? And two, you met my son-in-law, Derek. My son-in-law is, I know he's my son-in-law

and I'm a little bit biased, but he's damn good looking and one of the fittest, buffest, young, healthiest men I know on the planet. And I introduced him to you because he wanted to be a Navy SEAL. And he ended up not going into the SEALs, mostly because they required a vaccination. He had already had COVID and he didn't want to take the vaccine because he was concerned about his health, taking a vaccine after he had already had it and a vaccine that for which there was no long term studies. Now, my question to you is a lot of military have been kicked out because they didn't want to take the vaccine. And now you have a self-selecting, you know, you have people who aren't entering who would otherwise have entered, who would have been great people.

I've had people suggest to me that this is sort of a purge, a self-selected purge of conservatives, of people who don't go along with those kinds of mandates, that there's a type of person that wouldn't. And those are the type of person that the military doesn't want. Tell me your thoughts on that. Am I crazy? Are these people crazy that are telling me this? No, I don't think they're crazy at all. And you really want to look at an issue, a health issue with the United States military. By orders of magnitude, we've had more servicemen and women commit suicide than we have active duty than die of COVID. So you're right, the patient population of the United States military is exactly the patient population that has the least morbidity

from or excuse me, mortality from COVID. So forcing this vaccination on people, I think is inappropriate. And people say, look, you know, I'm an anti-vaxxer. That is junk. I was a corpsman before I was a SEAL. I've given hundreds, if not thousands of vaccinations. I have more shots than I even, I don't even know how many vaccinations I've gotten. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I got vaccinated against rabies. Didn't have to, but I didn't want to get rabies. So I'm not an anti-vaxxer in any way, shape or form, but all of these vaccinations, including the anthrax one, that was a big deal that had been used for over 30 years in England with goat and sheep farmers, because anthrax is endemic in those populations of Cape Irons. But so I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but when you have something that is not tested, there are no long

term studies for this. And how is it going to affect you we don't know this so when people say you know enough i don't want to do this um and they're not giving an out one of the things that i don't know if you're referring to it later but there's a lawsuit that was filed by some navy seals and other naval special warfare operators for a religious exemption against this getting this vaccination and all of them were shut down. So the military has to give you a way to not participate in these things. If you have a firmly held religious belief and they just didn't do that. So the folks that are joining now are willingly submitting to this. And if they want to do that, that's their choice, Rachel.

But the group that you're talking about is saying, I'm not even going to get involved with that. So there are folks that are not joining the military because they don't want to get this vaccination. But on that note, when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed, that was where if you were practicing homosexual, you just didn't bring it up at work and it was fine, which I think really in retrospect is a fantastic policy because you don't want to sit around talking about people's sexual. Is that work? Anyway, it doesn't matter if you're heterosexual or homosexual, inappropriate topic for the workspace, right? So what they did though, after they repealed that is they went back and they scrubbed the records and they found people

that were discharged for being homosexuals and they offered them the ability to get them to do. Well, I think we need to do the same thing with this COVID thing. People are getting discharged. And I talked to a bunch of folks. They get a hold of me all the time. I tell them this. If you're in the military and you don't want to get the COVID vaccination, make them discharge you. Don't quit.

Make them discharge you from the service. Stay in shape. Don't go off the deep end and make sure that you're still eligible to rejoin the military. And that is something that I would like to do in the event of me getting elected to Congress is to make sure that that avenue is open to get these men and women back into the military who are involuntarily separated because they didn't want to get this COVID vaccination. Oh, we got to have you on Fox & Friends to talk about that, Derek. That is such a great issue for you to run on and offer.

I never even knew that that was a possibility. And I didn't even know about the don't ask, don't tell that people were retroactively being brought back in. Amazing, amazing. You know, Derek, as I listened to you, and again, I served nine years in Congress, and it's great to have a Congress that represents all different walks of life, people from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic statuses. You want a montage of America in your Congress. That's really important. in your Congress. That's really important. But it's also important to know that if you want to ask the right questions, hold the right government agencies accountable or the military accountable.

A guy like me coming in, I'll ask all the wrong questions. I didn't serve in the military. I don't know the questions to ask and the follow-up questions. I don't know when I'm being bullsh** by a general in a hearing. Having guys like you there, again, I don't know when I'm being bull by a general in a hearing. Having guys like you there again, I don't want everyone to be a Navy SEAL in the Congress, but I want Navy SEALs. I want guys like you there to ask the right questions, to push the right buttons, to get the right exposure of information. And that's why it's so important. I think your race is. And it's so critical to our national defense. It's so critical at a time when we don't necessarily live in a peaceful world. It's pretty hostile, actually. And making sure

the military is up to the challenge of the day is incredibly important. And guys that can ask those questions make the Congress function really well and do its job of oversight. And so, again, I supported you in your last run for Congress. That was so close. It was so close, Derek. You could have already been in your second year in Congress, but I feel good about this one. But it doesn't happen unless people come out and support and participate in elections. You won't get the results that you think might be coming unless you're an active participant, you know, in the, in the races of the candidates that you support. And if I can just make one last point, you mentioned earlier that you have a lot of great companies in your district. And I agree

with that in a lot of small businesses, a lot of farms, but you mentioned one, which is my, I think my favorite Wisconsin company. I came back from New Jersey. And again, with heavy heart, I moved there for Rachel because I'm Wisconsin through and through. It's like I bleed badger. I got to my first quick trip and I pulled over and I got myself a Karuba house blend coffee. I took a picture. I'm like, home sweet home, baby. I love. They do such a great job. And if you don't,

you're not from, from Wisconsin, Minnesota, parts of Illinois, Iowa, Quick Trip is a, is a, is a Wisconsin based company in Derrick's district. In La Crosse. In La Crosse. That's right. And they, they, they, they, the price, you'll get the cheapest milk, the cheapest bananas. Explain what it is, Sean. You're assuming everybody's from Wisconsin. Okay. This is a gas. So this is a gas station, but it's also a convenience store with a gas station, right? And it is a staple of Wisconsin. And the excitement of a new quick trip coming to town

is like off the hook because they do things so well. They treat their customers so well with prices. They give 40% of their profits back to their employees. I'm not doing an ad for Quick Trip. I don't have anything to do with Quick Trip. I'm wondering why they don't hire you. I just love Quick Trip. I've almost run out of gas, Derek, on the road like you are all the time. Out of gas going like, I can't go to this exit because there's not a Quick Trip here. We got to go another six miles to the next exit where there's a Quick Trip going on fumes because they're just that darn good so you said yeah and ask you for interest i do but i'm telling you what man the so the east coasters

have that wawa yeah i'm like no forget it not totally agree agree with you totally close first of all they're in the east coast so they're generally a little more brusque with you yeah and i'm telling you man uh i don't work for quick trip but you know if this congress thing doesn't work out maybe i will because i love that place i post i got retweeted by quick trip once about cheesy broccoli soup and i'm telling you i don't know if it's unhealthy or not that i have this relationship with cheesy broccoli soup but i mean it'll be 95 degrees outside. I'll get some hot soup because I love it. It's kind of like the Packers.

It's like, it's, it's bipartisan. It's just, we love, we love the Packers and we love quick trip in Wisconsin and our Bronson beer too. But I mean, quick trip is a staple Wisconsin, you know, which is, you forgot to mention curds. Cause that's the best part about on a hot summer day by the lake to have uh uh some cheese curds sean you'll have a beer i'll have a margarita that's wisconsin to me we'll have more of this conversation after this as the world's population grows so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production this is why bhp

is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future by the way uh derrick one of the things sean always said when he was running is he would say to people who didn't live in his district he'd say you can't vote for me but every day i can vote for you um when i'm in congress so you don't have to be in derrick's district in wisconsin to hear somebody who who is so on it, who has such a breadth of knowledge on so many topics. And it can bring, particularly for me, I'm concerned about China.

If you're worried about China, you're worried about this military and you need someone like Derrick in Congress who can bring back our military, make it great again, get rid of these roasters and put our military back on mission. You don't have to be from Derek's district in Wisconsin to support someone who wants to make America's military great. I think that was a great line. You can use that, Derek. It's great because we get a lot of vacationers, right? They're like, I'm from Illinois. I'm from Minnesota. That's okay. You can't vote for me, but every day I'm in Congress, I can vote for you. And it's true. You get to represent the values that are values of America, values of a strong military, values of free enterprise

that you get to go and vote on. And again, you represent your district, which I love you want to be on ag because you have a huge ag district. But what you vote for is issues that affect all of America. And so that's why, again, I can't vote for you because my district was right to the north of yours. But I have been an avid supporter of yours because I think you're a great guy and a true patriot who has served his country and will serve it very well in Congress. I appreciate that greatly. I really do. And what you guys are talking about is I've seen this awakening through Republican Party over the last couple of years, and that we're understanding that this is a team sport. And it really came to light. So I did run

into 2020. Someone sent me a picture of a postcard that they received in the mail. And it said something along the lines of, you know, Ron Kind is going to help you. He supports everybody, blah, blah, blah, right? You know where it was postmarked from? San Francisco. So the Democrat party now for a long time, they understand that a race in Wisconsin affects the national picture. And so we're figuring that out as Republicans. I tell you what, I lost that election. I immediately started working for doing fundraising, recruiting, and motivating and knocking doors for local candidates, school board candidates, county board supervisors. I started getting out there and working hard for them because that's what the Democrat party did about 60 years ago. They started taking over the culture. That's what

we're talking about here with this critical race theory. It's bled its way into the military and our communities. So if you don't want a high tax bill on your house, it's not the IRS. It's your county board that's setting those property taxes. You don't want a high tax bill on your house, it's not the IRS. It's your county board that's setting those property taxes. You don't want your kids to talk critical race theory in school. It's not the Department of Education. It's your school board. So we have seen, I have seen personally, because I've been involved in politics now for three whole years, I guess, two and a half years.

I've seen a sea change. And Republicans now understand that if we don't do this collectively, that means you're supporting a candidate in Arizona, you're supporting a candidate in Florida or in New Jersey. We don't do this collectively, it's not going to work out. We must use the tactics, techniques and procedures of our political adversaries, which is the Democrat Party in this instance, if they're successful. And that's what we're doing. And it's working. So I want everybody to be engaged across the nation. Take a few minutes every day and read the news.

Find a candidate that you share ideological similarities with and support them. Send them a note. Go on their website. Give them a call. Write a postcard for them. Make phone calls for them. Contribute money to their campaigns. Because if Americans collectively, all men and women of good cheer don't stand up right

now in 2022, we're going to have a problem. It is absolutely 100% go time in America, and it's going to take work. But you know what? America is worth the work. It's worth the work. You're working hard. I'd like, I want to give you all the credit for all the, and your supporters, all the credit for how far your campaign has gone. I'm sorry, but Joe Biden has helped you a lot in that he's

really screwed this country up more than any of us thought in the last year. And that has also woken people up. You've worked hard, but boy, Joy, you have to try hard to screw this country up the way Joe Biden has. Derek. Yeah. Hey, listen, I'm so incredibly proud of my team. I have the best team. I don't know how to say it any other way than I'm just incredibly full of gratitude that they've even chosen to work with me. And we've been very successful at it. I asked people, I started about six months ago, and apparently now people are catching up on this, but I was asking folks, if you were trying to torpedo America,

if you were trying to make it more difficult to live in prosperity as an American citizen, if you were trying to make it less safe for you to roam the streets of the United States of America, to not have your kids fall prey to fentanyl overdoses, if you wanted to weaken the United States of America to not have your kids fall prey to fentanyl overdoses, if you wanted to weaken the United States military, what would you do differently than the Biden administration has done? And people chuckle, Rachel, but then you're like, oh, wait a minute.

So at some point, you're like, all right. I mean, it's statistically impossible to do all of these things wrong. I mean, if you're an insurance actuarian, you would never write that policy. So these folks, I think, have a fundamentally different vision for what they want the United States of America to be. And I categorically refute that vision that they have. They want big government to be in your business all the time. They want us to be holding to some international system of governance. I don't want that. I want the United States of America to be what it is. And that's the best country that has ever existed in the history of the world. And for people to not teach American exceptionalism is nearly criminal.

I mean, I know this. I didn't read this in a book or see it in a movie. I've lived and worked on five of the seven continents. And I know absolutely unequivocally that the only reason my story can be told every day in America is because of this nation. Abject rural poverty, broken home in a single generation will be in the highest powers, the highest levels of government in the most powerful country in the world. That only happens in America, Rachel. That's why they call it the American dream.

They don't call it like the English dream, the Venezuelan dream. It's the American dream for a reason. I really believe this. Look at Winston Sears. She came here from. She's the bomb. She's amazing. She's amazing.

And you're right. There are no dreamers in Mexico city clamoring to come in and there's no dreamers in Vietnam. There's no dreamers trying to get into China. The dreamers, um, the, the, the people pouring over the border, risking their lives, doing all that. It's to come here. Yeah, it's great. We got to teach that to our kids. as you mentioned, your governors, your legislatures, and your school board members, all really important to make sure that we have good people who have a great view of America and our future in place to make sure they're voting on policies that actually work for their constituents and for the country. Derek Van Orden, thank you for joining us. Great chat.

Good luck with your race. Keep burning that shoe leather. I hope you, after the 4th of July parades, have a callus on your hands from shaking so many hands. I used to get those. And let's put another 60,000 miles in that truck before Election Day. Can I just say one thing? Yes, ma'am. I can't wait to see Derek debate AOC in Congress. Wouldn't that be amazing? Where would you begin?

But I know I would pay money to see it. So if you want to support Derek, get onto his website. Give us your website, Derek. It's vanordenforcongress.com. We're also on Twitter at Derek Van Orden, on Facebook at Derek Van Van Orden on Truth Social at DVO. And I'd really appreciate your support. Again, this is a team sport. We're either doing this all together collectively as conservatives who love this country or it's not going to work out. So please do me a favor. Get on Van Orden for Congress dot com and lend a hand.

Get on board. Get on the team. As they said, you can vote for the, the, the next since Ronald Reagan, the next actor to lead the Republican party, Derek Van Orden. So thanks Derek. You're a champ. We're rooting for you. You guys are awesome. And congratulations again on the wedding. That's fantastic. God bless you. Appreciate it. Get back out there. Start campaigning. Shake hands. I'm out. Derek. We'll see you later.

Bye Derek. Hey, Sean, maybe, so much appreciate it get back out there start campaigning shake hands very well i'm out derrick we'll see you later bye derrick hey sean maybe maybe derrick will clean up the military and michael will go back into the navy seals as he always wanted we would we would love that so it again he's a fantastic he's a fantastic man wow what a guy country well and um again will uh be uh just a fantastic you know congressman. So we appreciate him joining us and again, laying a little reality down in regard to what's been happening in the military because it's actually shameful and we need to change course quickly if we're going to-

Yeah, we're going to need guys like that to do that, Sean. We're going to need people with that kind of institutional knowledge to turn back our military and just to vote the right way on all kinds of stuff. So what a treat to have them. Sean, I feel really encouraged that there are people like this running in this next cycle.

And I feel like this cycle is probably going to be the best cycle, maybe even better than your cycle in 2010. It could be that that was a great cycle. But here you have people who are, we have this diverse backgrounds of people who are running and they're just, they're dynamic and they're working really hard, which is what matters.

As hard as they work in their campaigns is the kind of work you'll get for them as a member of Congress. And Derek exudes that as he's gone through, this is the second time he's now running. He came within, I think a point and a half in the last election. He's at it again. So, um, again, and again, wants to continue to serve and would serve well. So, uh, it is great to have him and

have his perspective and, uh, listen, we appreciate everyone joining us again around our kitchen table to have a guy like that, you know, sip a cup of coffee with us and have a chat. Oh, you know, we're grateful. He took the time off the campaign trail to do that with us. That's right. So if you like this conversation, you can rate, review, subscribe to this podcast, wherever you do that at. And we hope to see you around the kitchen table next week. Bye, everybody.

Bye-bye. This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.