Morning Wire - Pure Joy Patriotism

Starting point is 00:00:00 People have spit at me, people have cursed at me, people have splashed water on me on rainy days. We keep on moving forward. We tell them we love them. And I just love this country. And I'm trying to spread as much love as possible. That was Teague, Pure Joy McCoy, talking about his experience running with the American flag across the country. He and his brother Koston join us today to discuss their movement to reignite love for the American flag. I'm Georgia Howe. It's Monday, July 6th. And this is a special Fourth of July weekend at episode of Morning Wire. Teague and Koston, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us on the shortback. So I love this background. Where are you, where are you joining us from? We're right actually under the Queensboro Bridge in New York. Now, we actually just looked that up

Starting point is 00:00:47 because we're not from New York, but from Florida, but we actually saw a pretty scenic backdrop when we just purchased the flag from Home Depot. So we thought that this would be one of the best places to do it at. Awesome. So tell us, how did you get started with your running with the American flag program? The movement started. I was laying in the bed of my truck one night, and I was looking up at the stars, and I was praying to God for about 45 minutes. And amongst that prayer, I was asking for purpose and direction and for the opportunity to change the lives of not only the world, but specifically the American people. And I had a PVC pipe with a flag mounted to my truck. It was a 2009, Fort EF150. And the next day, I picked the world.

Starting point is 00:01:26 up for 22 miles and my father ruled upon me with the video and it went mega viral and the rest is history. And then shortly following that, we started doing events that were pop-up runs, if you will. And they were pretty uncoordinated, but obviously there were a great time. And that's where Costa just got came in. And we co-founded Unified USA together. So two months later, after he started running with the flag, went viral on social media, I changed it at the idea that we could start a national movement that does a event in every single state in the country to unify the American people one step and smile at a time. Right. And since then we've been traveling state-by-state unifying people with patriotic positivity, regardless of

Starting point is 00:02:05 political affiliation or any opinions that you might have. Just love and positivity. Now, how many states have you done and how many do you still have left to do? Which ones are coming next? We are on state five. We have 45 states to go. Yeah. And tell me what year was it that you started this? We started this about nine months ago. So the organization, It's self-unify USA has been in the making for about just under half a year. But all of this has come amongst the past nine months. So it's been very hectic, although very fortunate, to have rapidly grown so much. We're just trying to put all the pieces together and make sure we can unify as many Americans as possible. Every company seems to be asking the same

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Starting point is 00:04:59 Or how does it work? So essentially, at first it was, just like a flash pop-up, like, What's up, baby? We're over in Bayshore in Tampa, Florida. Come bring a great attitude. We'll hit us a flag. And then eventually, that's where we're doing a bar school in Nashville and having these amazing and blessed vent use that we can, um,

Starting point is 00:05:17 accumulate all these people together and throw actual events instead of just pop-up run. So it's a bit more accommodating and there's a lot more hospitality and the course they go behind it to make it an ultimately better experience for the people to come and enjoy. Well, we have some footage that we're going to run of the run you did in Nashville and we actually, this video features are my producer who's sitting right over there, Brooke. And she actually had the idea to bring you guys on because she enjoyed your run so much. Oh, awesome.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Well, thank you, Ms. Brooke. It's very awesome of you. So tell us about the response that you've been getting from people while you're running with the flag. We say all the time it's majority positive. A lot of people think just based off social media or everything that's pushed to us, that it would be all negative. When we say it's about 90% positive and 10% negative, and we have a quote in Unified USA that says, we tell them, we love them, and we keep it pushing. So even for the 10% that hate on us, we just tell them we love them and we keep it because negativity hasn't worked, so why would we keep doing it?

Starting point is 00:06:14 100%. And I asked all the time to pray for people. And even if they say, no, I go on my own time and I pray for them. So we tell them, we love them. We ask to pray for them and we keep it pushing. Now, what's so special about the American flag to you? Why did you want the American flag to be the symbol for this spiritual project that you have going on? I think that's a great question, Ms. Georgia. And ultimately, the answer to that would be we have four previous generations of active military service. And we saw a lot of people dishonoring and disrespecting our colors. our stars and stripes. And we thought that the absolute bare minimum within this country, not only for patriotism, but for general culture within America is that you should respect our flag. And obviously, I heard a quote the other day that says, you can go to Russia, but you can't be a Russian, you can go to French, but you can't be a Frenchman. Anybody can come to America the right way and be an American. So if you're going to come here,

Starting point is 00:07:04 at least respect our soil and respect and honor the people who fight to protect it day in and day out. For people who are interested in joining your next run, where is the next one? they bring their own American flag and also how fit do you have to be to do this? How far are these runs? We're looking at Washington, D.C., end of July, early August. We don't have an exact day yet. A lot of logistics to be made. We're so excited to bring some freedom in Washington, D.C., our capital for America, too fit. We got to let it cool down a little bit, though. You heard there's like, it's like, it's like half a million people there on the fourth. We do flag giveaways at every single one of our events, so a lot of the time you don't have to bring one,

Starting point is 00:07:42 But if it gets too busy like New York City is, you might have to assemble your own. Yeah, we're going to have a five-foot BBC. We kind of have metal ones right now, but drill two holes in it, attach American flag with zippers, and then you're good to go. Three by five. Three by five-foot American flag. And in USA. And if you can't do that, just wear some patriotic clothing.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Fitness level, that's something that we get a lot. It does not matter the fitness level as we are not a race. And one thing we do is tell them about the American. All right. Okay. Mr. Georgia, have you heard about Indian runs? No. It's where it's essentially a run where you get a squadron, let's just say a group of 10 to 15 people, maybe even more.

Starting point is 00:08:17 And the person from the back sprints to the front. And when they reach the front, the next person from the back goes. Essentially what we do is the exact opposite is everybody from the front turns around and runs back. And the caboose becomes the leader. And as we do that, we scream a chant. I say, who do we leave behind? Nobody. This is an all-inclusive race.

Starting point is 00:08:37 We want to make sure that everybody feels as if they are a part of the year. unification of America. And obviously, to bank back more on the military beliefs is, no soldier left behind. We want to make sure everybody crosses the finish line equally to make sure that they feel like they're apart equally of the unification of America. You can find us at Unify USA official on Instagram, at Unify USA on Facebook. And my personal accounts are Purejoy McCoy and his are Austin McCoy. All right. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on and spreading some patriotism on the show today. Thank you very much for having us, Ms. Georgia. And God bless every single person that's a part of this production.

Starting point is 00:09:15 God bless the American people. God bless our troops. And God bless America, thank you. That was Teague and Coston McCoy, co-founders of Unify USA. And this has been a special Fourth of July weekend episode of Morning Wire.

Morning Wire - Pure Joy Patriotism

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