Killing Dad: The Crystal Howell Story - S2 Ep11: CHECK OUT STORMY DANIEL'S NEW PODCAST

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Stormy Daniel's has a brand new podcast called Beyond The Norm.  Subscribe here so you never miss an episode, http://apple.co/stormydaniels

This is Stormy Daniels. Each week here I will give you a top secret peak into my world and my ongoing battles. But I'm also going talk to a sort of people who live their lives beyond the norm. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Obviously, things have been next level crazy since I am set to testify. And at this point in time, March, obviously,

that can change any moment. In the hushush money case, which sitting here in this moment at this very second and time is very confusing and difficult for me because you know, it's common knowledge that I I was not sued by Trump. Everybody thinks that he sued me and he won, and I was a liar and I testified in court. I have yet, I've never been in court. I was not found guilty.

I was not found to be a liar. I went, Michael Avinati, without my permission, I'm gonna add, sued Trump for defamation about some tweets that he put up about me calling me a liar. And I simply lost that defamation case. They said that he was entitled to tweets because of hyperbole because he was a famous person. Basically, let's be real.

They were afraid to go after a sitting president, especially given that I was a porn star. There was no, that had never been done before. They didn't know how to handle it. But I'm a pain in the ass and I'm stubborn. So I kept fighting and took it all away. Supreme courts thinking, fine, like justice will happen for me. I believed in our political system. And it breaks my heart and pains me to sit here to say at this very moment, I don't feel that way anymore. I feel extremely betrayed and failed by the US Justice System because I am telling the

truth and I have proved it over and over. And the real slap in the face is there's two things that just I can't even find the words to describe how it makes me feel. One, if I lost this defamation case, if I lost it over and over and they wouldn't even hear it, they wouldn't even take my case. How am I the star witness in that case? Like, so you wouldn't find,

you know, him guilty of defamation and lying about me. I lost over here, but you want me to for the exact same thing to be your star witness over here. Like it doesn't make sense to me. Like how, like you want to use me to your advantage, but you won't help me. So it leaves me very disenchanted with our justice system to be truthful. You know, I would look at Michael Cohen. You know, he was found guilty for whatever crimes he committed,

but the person who committed the worst crime that he was ordered by didn't, wasn't punished. That's just not fair. And the other big slap in the face for me was the E. Jean Carroll thing. And good for her, I'm excited for her, but to be blunt, just take this simple thing and wrap your head around it. She was awarded five million dollars based on three things. He called her a liar, a whack job, and a con artist. She was given five million dollars.

Those are the same three things that I went after him for defamation and lost 600,000. So for the same three sentences, you give one woman five million dollars, good for her. I'm not saying she shouldn't have it. And another woman, me, lose 600,000. Can you explain to me how that is fair? It's because you're a part of stuff. Exactly. It's a judgment on your moral character, right? I mean, I would assume. But it's just like, wait, it's not even, it's literally the exact same three Senate things. And her thing happened a long time ago, and I'm not saying it didn't happen, I absolutely believe it did, because I know, you know, the monster

revealing with, but I have more evidence, more proof, more everything, and I still lost. She got five million, I lost over half a million. And now you want me to go and be your star witness. Why? Why should I help you? What happened with your house? Trump was trying to take your house at one point? So, okay, I mean, because your voice won't get in. So, in regards to that judgment for the $600,000, which by the way, is attorney's fees.

It's not damages to him. So I get these tweets thousands a day saying, pay Donald Trump the money you owe him. I don't owe him anything. It's attorney's fees. He wasn't the attorney. He gets nothing. When my attorney wins attorney's fees,

I don't get a dime. That's not how attorney's fees work. He wasn't awarded damages. He was awarded attorney's fees, I don't get a dime. That's not how attorney's fees work. He wasn't awarded damages. He was awarded attorney's fees. So part of that is that recently, my husband Barrett was served papers for the house that he owns. First of all, I never owned this house. I never bought it.

In the paperwork, it's completely wrong. It says that I owned it and. And the paperwork is completely wrong. It says that I owned it and transferred it to him to hide assets. I don't own this house. I never owned it. As a matter of fact, Barrett doesn't own it. It's a mortgage, the bank owns it. And he paid for it with his own money

before we were married. It's completely ludicrous. It's just a pattern of that side or Trump or whatever, trying to intimidate and going after people, because even though he's completely on the right, Barrett, I mean, this house, not mine, not community property, nothing, right? He still had to hire a lawyer. He still had to spend several thousand dollars to defend himself, and a lot of instances, people can't afford that. It's left me completely,

with this taste for the judicial system, because it's not fair and it's set up for people to not win. And so I feel like they back down all the time. And the only reason that I haven't back down, because they've tried to bury me financially, is that I've been so, to use the word I'm blessed is because I've been so blessed to have Clark Brister in my life who's a phenomenal attorney and hasn't built me because I would okay more zeros than I have

than I could ever imagine. Okay guys let's meet today's guest, Christopher Goldsmith. This guy, he's the real deal. He's an American hero. He's an army vet who has dedicated his life to hunting neo-Nazis and helping veterans escape the grasp of right-wing extremism. This is the end result for Goldsmith of a hard-lived life. He entered the army as a teenager and quickly rose to the rank of Sargeet, but the horrors that he witnessed in the Iraq War left him with crippling, yet also

undiagnosed PTSD. A suicide attempt on the eve of being redeployed in 2007 got Goldsmith booted from the service and earned him, well, a less than honorable discharge. Stripped of his rank, community, and GI bill benefits, Goldsmith then entered a dark spiral, which included going down rabbit holes of online extremism. With his one remaining lifeline, healthcare through the VA, Goldsmith managed to claw his way back to the surface. He became a veterans advocate, earned a degree from Columbia and, four pills later, finally got an upgrade to an honorable discharge. I am so excited to welcome Chris Goldsmith to Beyond the Norm. Hi Chris, how are you?

Great, great. Awesome to meet you. Nice to meet you too. You're very cute. Thank you. And I'm very inappropriate. Here we go. All right, so we don't have a ton of time. You're very cute. Thank you. And I'm very inappropriate. Here we go.

All right. So we don't have a ton of time. So if it's okay with you, we're just going to jump into the questions. I mean, All right. Yeah. But before you do that, I just want to say, like, I'm so impressed and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, hey, like seriously, I know you didn't ever seek a life of getting into what you've been involved in the last six years, but I appreciate all the stuff you've been doing. I mean the way that you handle trolls is I think pretty inspiring for a lot of folks. Thank you My family's for yeah, yeah, and I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if people's appreciation ever comes through on Twitter. It's always the bad shit that pops up to the top of the feed. But there's a lot of people out there who really appreciate your willingness to put yourself

out there and fight back. Yeah. I don't really have a choice. I guess. So I have to do it. And you know what? I do get a lot of positive stuff. Those, and I've been asked a lot, like why don't you ever respond to those people?

Why don't you ever retweet those? And it's not that I'm not seeing them or I'm not grateful or whatever, but if I like someone's comment who's supportive or positive or retweet them, they get attacks. You know what I mean? And it's just, I can't do that to them.

So sometimes I'll be like, why didn't you comment back to me? And I can't even comment's just, I can't do that to them. So sometimes I'll be like, why didn't you comment back to me? And I can't even comment back to why I didn't comment back because it just opens them up to the firing squad. It makes them a target. And a lot of these people aren't so careful with their social media. And I learned that the hard way because I did actually say thanks and stuff a lot in the beginning.

They would get targeted and they would go, these trolls would go through their Twitter feed and figure out like, because they would have pictures of their kids or where they worked and they would just, you know, hunt them down basically. And I just, I saw, I stopped. And I'm really glad you asked me about that and hopefully this makes it in because that's the answer to that question and why I only respond to the negativity. And it's not that I only, to that question or why I only respond to the negativity. And it's not that I only, I want to, I, the opposite as a matter of fact,

don't feed the trolls, but I can't even say thank you to the people that help because it makes them a target. I'm sure, I mean, you have the same issue. You don't want to out the good guys, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, so, just, let's get going. You've dedicated your life and your existence now to stopping these ex-service members from becoming domestic violence extremists. Give me a little background, walk me through how you came to do that, what inspired you to do that, who you are, tell us who you are. Sure, so my name is Chris Goldsmith,

I am the founder and CEO of Task Force Butler Institute. And as of last week, a new nonprofit, parallel nonprofit called Veterans Fighting Fascism. We've already been using it in our branding, figured might as well, make it official. So now we've got two nonprofits where I train veterans to engage in open-source intelligence techniques to hunt down

and impose legal social and economic costs on neo-nazi's racists and other violent extremists who are trying to destroy our democracy. So a little bit of my background, I'm a veteran served in Iraq in 2005. More recently, I've worked for major veteran service organizations on things like Forever GI Bill, healthcare and that type of thing. And I became an investigator of any kind, working at Vietnam Veterans America

when I found what turned out to be a Russian intelligence operation that was imitating my employer, and they had like half a million followers, which was more than five times what we had. So long story short, I spent years investigating what the Russians were doing to my community, targeting troops veterans and our families with disinformation, with racist and xenophobic messages. And now, you know, kind of the natural result is, we've seen a ton of veterans and Americans more broadly, completely radicalized. So now, Task Force Butler Institute and Veterans Fighting Fascism, we are concerned with the immediate threat. And that is, those have been radicalized

and who are prone to going out and doing real physical, emotional, and economic harm to vulnerable communities. I mean, talk about, like, I mean, matter of fact, what you just spoke about this past weekend and Jacksonville, Florida, there was a shooting at a dollar general store. By a neo-nazi, he just, he opened fire and killed these three people.

It was found that he had swastikas on his gun and left behind as a hate-filled manifesto. For, if intended for his parents, I believe, you know, explain to me in your opinion, walk me through how this 20-year-old something man becomes so radicalized that he goes on a shooting spree and kills innocent people. Like, most of us can't fathom, especially family members, you know, this, this man who committed this crime was someone's son, possibly someone's father.

Like, how does that happen? Like, walk me through how someone can become so radicalized that they that they do something like this. So nobody gets radicalized in a vacuum. People are radicalized by other people. So while this neo-Nazi has no known as at this time, no known

affiliations with other like organized neo-Nazi organizations, it's still early. People have only been investigating this for a few days. It might come out that he was a member of some extremist group. But there are tons of extremist groups in this country that are pushing racist and anti-Jewish rhetoric. That is all they do. That's the reason why they exist. And what they're hoping to do is to inspire acts of terrorism,

like what just happened. So the shooter in Texas who shot up the Walmart, the shooter in New York, in Buffalo who shot up a shopping center, this most recent one, they have all been radicalized online by people who are luring in people who might fall to any kind of conspiracy theory. And then they're finding ways to deplace blame on others

for why this person's life sucks or is hard or why they hate themselves, right? So my last name is Goldsmith, right? I've been dealing with anti-Jewish hate my entire life. A lot of these neo-nazis, you know, here to last name Goldsmith and just assume like, oh, I'm Jewish and that means I'm part of this like secret cabal that's controlling the world, right? That type of conspiracy theory, these neo-Nazi types really latch on to. And when you have someone like Trump who normalized the idea of like, we need to take out the deep state, the secret group that's controlling the country, you know, who's more powerful

than the elected politicians. That idea gets very easily translated from the mainstream, well, I mean, you can't call Trump mainstream, he's crazy. But from the Republican base believes that conspiracy theory, it's really easy to get them to adopt that from the deep state is a secret cabal to the Jews control everything and the Jews must be stopped. And they have space lasers. Yeah.

I mean, let me just tell you real quick, like I have firsthand, like if you were just telling me this, it's to those of us who are rational, semi-intelligent in any aspect, it just sounds so far-fetched that this could happen. But I have seen it with my own eyes, and I'll give you an example real quick, like when the first story about me broke, back in 2018, I got so much hate. Like, it was just crazy,

but the number, the frequency is the same now as it was then, but back then people, they would do it anonymously. You know, they would set up fake accounts or whatever, and it was basically like, you're a whore, you're a gold digger, you're a liar. Those are still like not true and hurtful, but they're kind of benign, right? This time around, the frequency and the number of these hate messages and things are the same. But back then I would say one in a hundred was like a actual physical, scary, detailed threat. And I am not joking, Chris. It has completely flipped. And now they're not like slut, liar,

horror, like who cares about that? You know what I mean? Now they are, I attribute them, or akin them to suicide bombers. Now they are literally blaming me for the fall of the democracy and being anti-American and to patriots and they truly believe that I'm gonna cause the end of our country and that it is their patriotic duty to kill me.

And I think that what happened on January 6, sort of made it okay for them. Like they, you know, before somebody might be like, God, I wish I could kill that bitch. Now they're like, I'm gonna kill that bitch and get away with it. And they're gonna give me a parade because Trump said so.

And I've watched, I've watched them change. And it is absolutely baffling and terrifying. And not only are what they saying very specific and targeted and they're passionate about it. And they truly believe, I mean, I don't know, I hate to use the word brainwash, but maybe it's the correct term. But they showed in their heart and their soul that they are doing God's work. And that they are doing the right thing. Back then, they were just angry and their soul that they are doing God's work and that they are doing the right thing. Back then they were just angry and might said that stuff, but deep down they know it's

not right to kill somebody. You know what I mean? It's like the people who kill abortion doctors that are anti-murder. You don't want to kill babies, but you're going to kill somebody else. How do you, they're rationalizing it in that way? And it is completely crazy. And I have, you know, I've seen it. I've experienced it is, you know, firsthand and it's it's so I can't I don't understand how it happens, but it absolutely does. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have seen the normalization of violent rhetoric in our mainstream politics. You know, Ron the Santas, who wants to be Trump 2.0. He just a couple of weeks ago, talked about how on day one, he was gonna come in and slip throats, right? Like he was talking about firing public servants, but using the phrase, I'm gonna come in and slip throats,

normalizes the idea of like, public'm going to come in and slit throats, normalizes the idea of like, Slitting problems need to be killed. And what that, you know, what that means to me is like, listen, something like a quarter of all public servants in the federal government are veterans. Ron DeSantis himself, he's a vet. So when he says that, when he uses that kind of rhetoric, he's talking about his brothers and sisters and arms who just went through 20 years of wars, right? He's

talking about people who've served their country, not just in uniform, but now throughout all of the federal agencies that are absolutely necessary to do things like make sure our drugs and our food are safe, right? And the idea that we treat these people like they're disposable is what makes the threats that you and I get so okay in the minds of their followers. Yeah, and it's like they've taken it to such an extreme that the truth and facts don't even matter. And this is kind of a silly example,

but just recently how Trump lied about his weight. That's such an insignificant little thing like who cares? I mean, all girls lie about their weight, but like, why do that? And if you're willing to lie about something that doesn't matter, it's not like he can't be president because he weighs a certain thing. There's no weight limit on president,

being able to run. I don't fucking care how much the president weighs as long as he's not insane and does a good job. But the fact that he was willing to lie about something that is so easily disproven makes you know, like he's willing to do anything and people just blindly believe it.

You know, if a rational person would be, okay, well, does he weigh this or not? Take a picture of video of you standing on a scale. You know what I mean? So they just don't care about facts anymore. And in my case, one of the craziest rumors I've heard about me that is also so easily disproven that they keep feeding it to make these people

feel justified in coming after me is that I was part of this like sex cult pedophile next-yam thing and that my tattoo on my stomach is covering a brand. Maybe you could say that about somebody else, but me, you forget that I am fucking naked on video and stages for 20 years and they claimed I got branded in 2017.

Go look at any of my porn movies from 2011 through now. It's not there. And I even went so far as to be like, I got the tattoo on my stomach to cover scars from having my daughter. And the tattoo artist I took before and after pictures, I should have to post a private scar of my stomach online to prove that I'm not part of a child sex ring. But the media and these people who are forcing these these ideas to radicalize people are used in antidecification. So these people at home, they're listening to it and don't do their due diligence and research and just blindly believe that someone is in power. Oh yeah, I'm justified in and getting rid of stormy Daniels because I'm

protecting children. Yep. And the note where you ended that the protecting children thing, that is a huge driver for violence right now in this country. That is what the proud boys, all of these neo-Nazi organizations and figures like Rhonda Santis and the neo-Nazis who he hires on his campaign to make campaign videos for them. They have been targeting the LGBTQ community saying that they're predators towards children, right? When neo-nazis actually, and I've done videos on this explaining like neo-nazis have a pedophile problem, they keep getting convicted. These small groups of like 20 individuals, like when two of them on average out of 20 or are getting convicted of being pedophiles, like that's a fucking problem. But I've been to a Q and on conference before

and let me tell you, it is, I feel like every American should have to be exposed to that because that is the only way, and I do this for a living. But I don't think that there's any other way than actually being there and being surrounded by 6,000 people who have been completely brainwashed for you to truly understand how some Americans will hang on every word that is said from that stage.

I mean, when I went to this QAnon conference last November, it was so organized by disgraced, you know, former general Michael Flynn that convicted felon. There are people who go up and literally pretend to be speaking in God's voice. Oh my God. And thousands of people in this stadium are crying, are just hands up, like worshiping.

That's how lost these people are. And this, you know, Mike Flynn's traveling circus, they sell out everywhere that they go. Like they, there are in seen, like thousands and thousands and thousands of insane people all around the country who have, but who, you know, when presented facts, like you doing a before and after photo,

they'll just say, oh, well, that's, you know, that's your clone. Like that is straight faced, that is their answer. They're like, oh, well, you know, I'm gonna believe what I believe. The other photo is from your clone. Right. I mean, I wish I had a clone.

It made my life a lot easier. I would even have a hard time believing what you're saying if it wasn't a fact that I've experienced it. And I think that most people, just like you said, they should be required because they just don't have a concept of that. And people talk about this radicalization pipeline, you know, how this happens, that sucks these ordinary people in. And I don't believe that it's just that there's no way that these thousands of people are

truly insane. They're just maybe lost or open to suggestion. And when, you know, if one person says it's, this is a fact, you're not going to believe it. If two people say it's a fact, I'm going to believe it. But if you have an estate, and like you say, with thousands of people, then you start to question yourself, like, oh, maybe this is real. Like all these people can't be wrong about something. So can you just walk me through how this worked from that first contact with an extremist, like from first contact to final worst case scenario, like someone that was in the January 6th riot, like

how does somebody get to that point? And I asked this question if you could also explain not only this how this pipeline works from first contact to the capital riot of an individual, what somebody close to an individual might look for, like, you know, if you're a parent, and how would you know if someone close to you is getting groomed, basically, this, you know. Yeah, I really think, well, let me start with the end there. The adoption of conspiracy theories is like the number one sign. Like if someone starts to talk to you about, you know, we joke like Jewish space lasers on the way and, right? But when people are coming up with crazy conspiracy theories like, you're all the slack, you know.

Yeah. Like once they've said one crazy conspiracy theory, that means that they've got a conspiratorial mindset and they're likely to adopt other conspiracies. Conspiracy theories. So, you know, if you believe that the world is flat, you're open to suggestion. And, you know, like we said, with all of Trump's followers, believing that there's a secret deep state that he's been, you know a war against, right? It's really easy if you believe that, to believe that the conspiracy theory about Jews being that secret group, like the real deep state, right? So that is the number one thing. If someone in your family is starting to spout off

crazy conspiracy theories, like they might be in the radicalization pipeline. Now, Task Force Butler and veterans fighting fascism coming into this, we have a pretty good understanding of what the radicalization pipeline looks like because some of us, myself included, have been close to falling into it. And others have, we've watched our friends

over in the last couple of decades since social media has become so popular. We've watched our friends who we know and love and served in combat with become someone else and become these conspiratorial people who just want to watch the world burn and who are filled with hate and anger. So for me, like what made me vulnerable back in 2007, 2008, I was a hardcore Republican. I was libertarian. I was a wrong Paul guy, so like as libertarian as it gets,

which is actually where the oath keepers were started. Like Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the guy who got convicted for seditious conspiracy, he is a vet, he went to Yale Law School, and he shows up, you know, to a Ron Paul rally or, you know, anything in DC, he's got the eye patch, people assume he's a war hero, actually, he shot himself in the face at a range because he's an idiot. Yeah. Not a war hero. He's that was self-inflicted. So people see him and they go, Yale Law School, War Hero, I'll follow.

He has the credentials that make him appear to be believable. Exactly. And someone like me went to combat was seriously traumatized, was completely unemployable and had very real visceral reasons to be mad at my government. Like, I went to Iraq, and was messed up, and then not taking care of when I came home. It was easy for people like a steward Rhodes to come in and scoop up people like me and say, well, you know, if you think that like this is bad,

it can get worse. Back then, it was Obama's gonna take your guns. And for a lot of folks in the libertarian and conservative world, that's all that they needed to be like, yeah, all right, well, if Obama's gonna take the guns, we should get prepared for him to try to take it. So we're gonna buy all the weapons and ammo that we can.

And 15 years later, Stuart Rhodes has got 35,000 people on his members list for the Oathkeepers, many of them not just veterans, but serving in government who are active duty police officers and sheriffs. And that didn't happen overnight. That was people getting mad at their government for maybe a legitimate reason. And then being surrounded by people who were like,

well, this is actually the secret, the secret cabal controlling government, and you can join us and get ready to fight. Right. Yeah, I mean, and I can kind of understand where you're coming from a little bit as well. You know, like, I thought I did the right thing and I just keep getting pushed in and beat down.

So there's part of me that's, you know, like, well, fuck, you know, and that makes, you know, obviously you're totally different, more extreme case. I mean, you served for our government, you risked your life and you came back and had no support. You know what I mean? Like, I stood up, I tried to do the right thing and I lost everything. Don't tell yourself short.

I mean, what you endured was more traumatic than what the vast majority of Americans will ever go through. I mean, there's- But I don't expect them to understand. But when you're dealing with surplus people who came back and they were traumatized and thought they did the right thing, like you said, you came back and you weren't able to get help

and you didn't have support and you couldn't even get a job. You know what I mean? So that's what makes you susceptible. And in my case, you know, like, it's true. You know, I was threatened. I'm called a liar. I'm not believed. No one's helping me.

I did lose multiple jobs. Obviously, you know, I'm on the hook for a $600,000 judgment for telling the truth for a $600,000 judgment for telling the truth, for doing the right thing, even though I had evidence. And it was just because I didn't have the support and they wouldn't go against the sitting president because there was no protocol for that.

And I was a porn star. Meanwhile, another woman comes forward and gets $5 million. Bless her, good for her. She gets $5 million for the exact same three statements and I lose 600,000 know trying to take my house so I can understand where I of that mentality like to quote you, fuck it, let's watch the world burned. You know here's a plot yeah um so I get it and I kind of understand it but it is it is really scary. I want to talk about your task force.

So with Task Force Butler, you are recruiting former service minors, former service members to fight these extremists, right? And it's your mission. And how many listeners who are in the Armed Forces are a previous server? How can they get involved? What can we do? Basically tell me exactly what your mission is and how that came about and explain

for my listeners what they can do to support. Sure. So Task Force Butlerness, who was founded by a bunch of veterans who were experts in extremism, who, you know, were working for human rights organizations. And we were doing this on the for-profit side. And we wanted to get more veterans involved in this, and the only way to do that is through volunteer work. You know, it's my background is always been a non-profits. I've been working for working for nonprofits pretty much my entire adult life post military. So it's kind of like second nature. We went and started Task Force Butler so that we could train veterans to work as teams so that we could perform research, but not just to understand what these neo-nazis are

up to and these unlawful militias, but so that we could catch them committing crimes or doing harm to people. We gather the evidence, we put it in these long form reports and we provide that to potential plaintiffs or to law enforcement so that these people can be held responsible in the court of law. When a neo-naz, before a neo-naz, he ever picks up a gun and goes and does a mass shooting

They're probably going to engage in low-level criminal conduct first, right? People commit mass shootings are often violent against women first, right? So it's like that The cure killer is start by harming animals and then they progress. Yeah So we get these people yeah, we get these people evidence of them doing of harming animals and then they progress. So we get these people, yeah, we get these people, evidence of them doing of harming people, of committing crimes at this lower level first. Perhaps we can get them put away, you know, if they need to go to jail or on the civil side, if they're doing harm to somebody, say they're spray painting a swastik on a synagogue. If we can prove that they did that and that community comes and soons that person, we can show that there's a price,

like a literal price associated with domestic extremism. So we want to make people, not just the extremists, but those who are falling into the radicalization pipeline, we want to make them understand that being extreme and doing harm to other Americans comes with a cost. And in our case, it's Task Force Butler getting into your chat rooms, you know, pretending to be one of them. Exactly. And we've, you know, we've got a pretty good track record. We've been around for just over a year and a half. We've got at least seven convictions of neo-nazis. We've got two major lawsuits against Patriot Front that are work helped to facilitate.

And I am, I am sure it will take a long time. The legal system is slow as you know. Well, don't get me started. It will take a long time. The legal system is slow as you know well. Don't get me started. It will take a long time. They have failed me immensely. Yeah, but our work over the course of years is going to put more and more Nazis in jail. It's going to impoverish them. And when Nazis don't have money, that means they can't, you know, buy an AR-15, get in their

car and drive 40 miles to pick a target, right? We want to take everything from them so that they're using their resources for shelter and food, because bullets and bombs are not what we want them to be able to afford. Right, and I wanted to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm not saying I'm in either you. We're not saying that veterans are more likely to become radical, radical, as an extremist, but they are targeted. Correct. You know, and I just want to make it clear, we're not, I'm not attacking veterans or

service military, but in neither of you. It's just they are the ones that seem to be the most targeted because, you know, if you want to hire somebody to do something bad with the AR, you probably go for someone who has experience with an AR. So these people, you know, your fellow service members are really targeted. Yeah, and like I said, you know, before I started with studying how the Russians were targeting my veterans, the veterans that were members of the organization that I worked for years ago. And the reason why veterans are targeted by Russians or the far right is the same reason why they're targeted by JPMorgan Chase, because we are valuable members of a team and we ring credibility with us to any organization that we join.

So I mean, at a job hire and fair, everybody's looking for veterans. Why? Because they're great people to add to your team. And that could be a sheriff's department, or it could be a group of neon outsies. So what we do is we grab veterans who want to maintain our oath in the real way, not like the oath keeper way, and continue to protect democracy from your stateside, often from our home

offices, just investigating things online. I have another question that I'm actually kind of scared to even know your opinion. I'm scared to nearly answer this, but in your opinion, with Donald Trump's foreign diamonds and all of his cult following, do you think that the MAGA cults are really gonna do something violent? I mean, are you think that's gearing up? Do you think the fallout for that is going to be

potentially as awful as I think it could potentially be? Do you think that he's basically going to sick his followers? You know, the January 5th resisted, I believe just a taste. Yes. So January 6th shouldn't be looked at as the beginning or the end of something. January 6th was just one chapter in a long story that is going to be these radicalized, mega heads. What is so difficult about what Trump is doing is concept of stochastic terrorism, where he's picking a target and he's creating a permission structure for people to go out and

do harm to that person, whether it's a district attorney or a judge, one of his opponents or you, right? So it is impossible to predict in a country where, I don't know, 30 million Americans are like die hard, like, would give their lives for Trump, which one of them is going to pick up a gun and and start shooting something or plant a bomb somewhere. So, you know, is there definitely going to be one event that that happens? I can't predict, you know, which mega maniac is going to try and kill people, but just because there are so many of them and Trump is going to be lashing out even more when he's eventually convicted and probably put behind bars. Things, things will be dangerous for a long time and that won't go away until America figures out a way

to get rid of the Trump lights know, Trump lights, like the, the Rhonda Santises again, right? Like, using violent language to describe what they're gonna do in office. Until that goes away, this type of threat is going to remain ever present in our society. I was afraid you were gonna say that. And yeah, like I said, I mean, I have personal experience.

I've watched it for myself. Patriot front. You have had success dismantling that for my listeners, because I had never heard of this when myself. But that's just one of these groups. Explain to my listeners what they are and how you had success with that and walk me through that. Because I think it's, first of all, thank you, you know, congratulations on

success with that. And they are just one and that's one I thought of and I thought I was, you know, pretty up to speed on some of these things, you know, just in my own quest to keep myself and my family safe. So tell us about Patriot Front. So most, most listeners are probably most familiar with page right front because they've seen every once in a while a bunch of racists get together and get spy uniforms carrying shields and white masks and they march around DC or Boston or Philadelphia, right? And everyone makes fun of them because they look

like a bunch of idiots. But they get a lot of earned media attention. They're doing this on purpose. Now thankfully, the MAGA heads and their conspiratorial ways, they say, oh, they're all feds, they're all FBI agents. So I'm glad for that. That protruding pipeline has been squeezed pretty tight. But what these guys actually are,

these goofy, best-by-looking idiots are young neo-nazis. And when I was first introduced to a buddy who infiltrated them, another service member and wanted my help taking them down, when he used the term Nazi, I thought he was exaggerating. It wasn't until I was inside Patriotron as a member that I got to learn that they literally read Mein Kampf. They trade in Mussolini's writings, like they are deliberately fascist, stealth described fascists, national socialist Nazis. They immerse themselves in the history of fascist movements and the violence that comes with it.

And they're basically taking this 20th century genocidal ideology and they're applying the Gen Z social media readiness to build a campaign that is radicalizing young white men and Bringing them closer to doing violence so they convince them of these conspiracy theories that you know Magga believes in and and the anti-Jewish hate, you know all all believe in and They radicalize these folks to the point that they're willing to throw away their friends throw away their families these folks to the point that they're willing to throw away their friends, throw away their families, you know, get fired because of these extremist beliefs, and they isolate them. And when they isolate them, because they've got no family, no friends who want to talk to their, you know, friend who became a Nazi all of a sudden, now all that exists is their support structure is that Nazi cult, whether it's Patriot Front.

It's like a game. I mean, that's how, you know, Patriot front. It's like a game. I mean, that's how, you know, in the African American community, you know, these are boys that are recruited when they're lost and have poor, you know, economic situations or whatever, and the game becomes their families.

So it's kind of the same mentality, correct? Am I understanding? Okay. Yeah, yeah, it is very, it is very similar to gang recruiting. And what is different about these neo-nazis is that it's almost entirely done online. So back in the old days, if someone from the KKK wanted to recruit, they had to go stand out on corner with flyers and hope that they don't get punched in the face. Now, neo-Nazis can hang out online anonymously and recruit people into their secret chatroom

and vet them to make sure that they're actually on their side. Or a member of Task Force Butler will pretend that we're one of them and we'll get into their chat and start saving evidence. So, Samedia is really become terrifying because it gives, it gives, there's two, two side, you know, two reasons for that is that you can reach so much more people than standing on a street corner in a local town. You're only going to get the traffic that physically drives past you and they're pick up truck that day and join the KKK.

So you have such a broader reach. You have worldwide now, you know, with social media. And you also have the safety of an, like being anonymous, you know, you're safe behind your computer screen, you know, make the joke all the time that most of the people come after me or, you know, also, pleturing themselves to my movies and their mom's basement, they would never say it to my face. But this is so much more large-scale than that. And it's really scary.

And I just... I can't wrap my head around it. Well, that's why they wear masks. Because ultimately, they would say... Those media is modern and matte. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they wouldn't say it to your face.

You know, these young men who join these neo-nazi organizations, you know, try to present themselves as all tough, but it's like, you know, are you really tough if, you know, one, anyone to know who you are, if you're doing it from behind a mask? No, you're not tough enough to face the consequences of your belief, you're not tough at all. So, you know, these guys, they're all cowards, every single one of them. This is another question that I probably don't want to know the answer to, but just to further drive

home the seriousness of this issue for the listeners, I know you don't have an accurate guess or number, but how many of these radical extremist groups do you believe there are? You know, we talked about the Patreon one and obviously I write us about the PAB boys and this one that. How many of, give me an estimate on the number of these organizations and people just to make it clear for my listeners. I'm terrified of your answer. It's difficult to put a number on it. I would I would say thousands in the United

States of the groups, not members. We're talking millions, pop numbers. Thousands of these groups and tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Americans who are involved in these extremist groups. And while that number might sound crazy, the Oath Keepers, their membership lists leaked. That's just one organization, and that had 35,000 members. That's just one organization. So when you figure, the proud boys

are no longer a really national focused organization. Now they're chapter focused. The city of Miami has two parabois chapters with dozens of members, right? Now multiply that across not just every major city, but you know close to on a county level in a lot of states across the country. Those numbers add up really fast. So we're talking about you know potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans who are part of these

anti-government, anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-LGBTQ, extremist organizations that are willing to do violence because of their hateful beliefs. Right. It's terrifying, aren't you? I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I just I we're fighting for, it's not lost. Our democracy is not lost. Our adversaries, there might be many of them. The average one is an idiot. And they're gonna get caught. We're gonna catch him.

We're gonna hold them responsible. And over time, it's our hope that listeners wanna go to veteranspitingfascism.org or taskforcebutler.org, make donations so that we can expand our team. We're about 30 volunteers, we're as big as we can get without hiring professional staff. Once we're able to hire professional staff, volunteer coordinators, professional, full-time investigators, we're going to be able to expand our team, get more veterans working with us and for us. And we're going to be able to have our organization in every major city around the country,

to hunt these people down and hold them responsible before they heard anyone. Well, I'm trying to get emotional, but you are my hero. You know, like it's tough to keep your head up and keep going when you just keep getting beaten down. You know what I mean? And the days have gotten harder because it just keeps piling up and it just seems so hopeless. Sometimes I'm talking about myself personally and I'm sure that you feel the same way at times. And so I'm going to ask you a very personal question. This is for this is the selfless question. This is for myself like, you know,

and you don't have to answer if you don't want to. But do you have those days where you're just like it's pointless, you know, like, and I was talking to my husband about this the other day, you know, what am I even fighting for anymore? Like these people, you know, they don't even deserve my help. They're not worth saying because they're just, it just keeps, you know, happening. And do you, when you, do you have those days where it just seems so overwhelming and so hopeless? And if you do, like, what inspires you to get up and keep going? This is, this is not in my list of questions. This is not for my listeners. This is, I'm sorry, this is selfish. This is not in my list of questions. This is not for my listeners. This is, I'm sorry, this is selfish.

This is for stormy. Now, no, and this is for other people too, right? So before I was Chris Goldsmith, the professional Nazi hunter, I was most known for surviving the suicide attempt. I am a veteran who came home with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. I was stopped lost, which means the military basically extends your contract beyond what you signed up for.

My job at the age of 19 was to photo document mass graves. Oh, my God. I know what it feels like to be hopeless and to question everything and wonder why, why continue, why keep fighting, and ultimately that resulted in a suicide attempt. And it wasn't just the one time thing. Lasted for a really long time, suffered with depression and suicidality. But before I go any further,

people who are feeling this type of thing, there's help out there. 988, it's the 911 for suicide prevention. 988, right? So people can dial 988 if they're a veteran, they press one, and they can go into a veteran track and they'll get into the VA health care system and VA health care works. We are the only Americans, speaking who are entitled to to healthcare and veterans who are feeling that way ought to use it and ought to do it. The VA is the reason why I'm alive today. But more generally, yeah, everybody feel like that. Depression and suicidal

and these feelings of why go on, this is part of human nature. And we as Americans don't necessarily talk about it, like that, but it is the truth. I mean, it's a historical, it's a human fact. We all struggle with this. What I try to do, and this is why, this is something that military culture bakes into you, not necessarily on purpose.

But you start living for your brother and your sister, the person to your right and to your left. And if you can't live for yourself, do that until you can start living for yourself. Think about the people that you care about. Think about your mom. Like think about the people who are depending on you, who look up to you, who are inspired by you. And if you have to limp along, it doesn't feel great. Like,

go talk to someone, try and get some help. And help. Like there are lots of survivors out there and we know how tough it can be and it's it sounds like empty words so it gets better right there's that it gets better like yeah like and it is like you know it's for someone who has who's feeling that in that moment they'll tell you to go fuck yourself. And for those people who necessarily don't have some money to think of or to live for, and that won't work either. And even in my instance, I don't think my parents, whatever, but I do have a child, I have a daughter.

And in my case, specifically, I go down the rabbit and go like, no, that's not true. She's better off without me so that she can't be targeted for the things that I did or that I spoke on. So here's my secret and it's, I probably shouldn't even fucking say this because it's so terrible. It's not the people that I love that keep me going. It's the people that I am. I am alive some days at a pure fucking spite and pettiness because they would be too happy if I was dead. So what happened?

You know? Yes, no, seriously. I mean, hell, I've used that one before. I was pissed off the guys who were responsible for me getting kicked out of the army because they interpreted my suicide attempt as misconduct. Sometimes I stay alive just to spite those motherfuckers. Exactly.

And you know what? It took 15 years, but I'm the guy who invented the forever part of the forever GI Bill, right? It took a decade and a half, but I ended up in a position where I figured out the budgetary trick so that everyone who's currently serving today will have until the rest of their lifetime to you as their GI bill. It used to run out after. Yeah, so now there's no expiration date. Now I hunt

Nazis for a living. There's no more satisfying job in the world than working with with the veterans of passport spotler going out and making Nazis cry. If you have to- I'm actually jealous. I'm so jealous. I thought there was no other job or satisfying than being a porn star. I mean, the payoff is orgasm. That's the reason of fucking satisfying. But yours is so much cooler.

No, I mean, hey, it's the same thing, right? I find it to be extremely gratifying to get Nazis sued, to see Nazis go to jail, to hell, just to smile at a Nazi who showed up at my mother's house to deliver a death threat. When I see him in court, I smile and wave because that motherfucker has got to face consequences for messing with me for the rest of his life. And if you have to be spiteful to survive,

help hold on to that spite. Like it doesn't make you a bad person. Fuck him. Yeah. Like, you are my hero. I am so inspired by this work you do and impressed by you. And I just wanna to say like, thank you for this enlightening yet also fucking terrifying conversation.

And we're pretty much out of time, but real quick, just drop any where people can find you or they can donate. And I know you're gonna send me one of those shirts, right? Yeah, absolutely, you're definitely. Just let me know what size. So people can go to taskforcebutler.org, veteransfightingfascism.org, just click the donate button.

That is the most important thing for us right now. We can't take any more volunteers. We have to keep our people safe. That is the number one priority. So we can't keep our people safe and expand our team until we hire professional staff. So even if you give a dollar or $5 a month, like that is huge.

If you're more wealthy than that, if you've got some money to spend it on, veterans hunting Nazis, go to taskforcebottler.org, veteransfightingfascism.org, and help us out. Because we're just a little baby nonprofit organization, but we are going to grow into something that is going to have real, serious effects on increasing the cost of radicalization across the United States and we're keeping

communities safe everywhere. I know I'm gonna donate today. Like I said, thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing and enlightening and I'm gonna have nightmares. But I guess I get to dream about you Chris. Oh thank you. I'm sure my wife will be very excited. Thank you. Alright have a good one. Well that's all the time we have today. If you like what you heard please go to Apple Podcast and give us a five star rating and if you have comments or you want to ask me a question in the air go to my Twitter page at Stormy Daniels and use hashtag beyond the norm.

go to my Twitter page at StormyDangles and use hashtag Beyond the Norm.