Shaun Newman Podcast - #822 - Larry Alex Taunton

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Larry Alex Taunton is an American author, columnist, and cultural commentator known for his work in Christian apologetics. He is the founder and former executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation, a nonprofit focused on defending and proclaiming the Gospel in secular contexts. Taunton has authored several books, including The Grace Effect and The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, the latter exploring his friendship with the famous atheist. He is a frequent media guest, appearing on outlets like CNN, Fox News, and BBC, and his columns have been published in The Atlantic, USA Today, and other platforms. We discuss his reporting on the WEF, USAID and an attempt on his life when SWAT showed up to his house. Cornerstone Forum ‘25https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastSilver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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and he's like, your proximity to the Canadian election is like brilliant. I'm like, well, yeah, because that's what I planned out. I had no idea that the Canadian election was going to be April 28th. So one way or another, we're going to have a whole lot to talk about. You want to get it in the same room as all these wonderful people. and, you know, chart a path forward, whether it's Pierre or Carney or Bernier or take your pick, whoever it is. I have my thoughts on it.

I'm sure you do too. And I'm going to want to be in that room to hear the different conversations that are happening. And I hope you'll show up as well. Tickets down in the show notes. That's the Cornerstone Forum heading to Calgary, Alberta, May 10th. The new studios coming along. And if you want to be a part of it, skills, labor, material. money, value for value.

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and cultural commentator known for his work in Christian apologetics. I'm talking about Larry Alex Taunton. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Numa podcast today. I'm joined by Larry Alex Taunton. Thank you, sir, for making some time today. Hey, it's great to be with you, Sean.

You know, I was saying the wife asked me as I was walking out the door this morning. Who are you sitting down with today? I was trying to explain you. And then I'm like, I don't know. I don't know where I stumbled upon you on X, but I did. And then I started following. I'm like, who is this guy? And I'm going to assume a lot of my audience up here in the great white.

White North doesn't know who you are. So I guess I'd just like to start with like, tell us a little boat yourself and who Alex is. Yeah, well, you know, I'm a writer and I, you know, my background is academic. I sometimes make, you know, sort of resist the label of being a journalist just simply because I don't think of myself that way. I deal mainly shot in the realm of big ideas. So it's not really breaking news, you know, or something like that that I do. And I started really focusing about 20 years ago, began making my name, you know, taking on some of the major atheists, you know, guys like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett and also major Muslims. So as a, I'm a Christian and taking that faith very seriously, I felt like, Sean, that

that Christianity had been sort of relative was starting to be treated a lot like smoking. You can do it, but only in the designated areas. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to smoke all over the plate. And the point being that I decided I really wanted to take a muscular Christianity that I believe, biblical Christianity, as C.S. Lewis said, it's a fighting religion. I don't like the Mamby-Pambi, Milt-Tose

you know, the kind of Christianity that we're seeing these days from guys like say a Russell Moore or a David French or, you know, Tim Keller towards the end of his career. And I thought, you know what? And I also don't want to be,

you know, as you see it, when you go into a Christian bookstore, you know, there's the inspiration, so-called section of the bookstore. No, no, no. I'm going to be out in the main. mainstream. And so, you know, I was trained as a writer. I was trained as a historian as an academic. And I just began publishing various articles on a lot of different ideas, a big picture

ideas. And so I found myself in the very much in the mainstream, not alternative media, which really wasn't the thing in those days. So CNN, you know, the Atlantic, writing for, you know, town hall these days, daily wire, you name it. And Fox News, a variety of others. Because I really wanted to take on the cultural bad guys and began pushing back. But I combined that, Sean, with a willingness to investigate the issues that I was talking about. So, hence the reason you'll see a lot of people, you know, who come into my feed and say, oh, you're James Vaughn, you're, you're, you're, you know, Indiana Jones, you know, this,

this sort of thing because they see me all over the world. And there is, from a storefront point of view, there's, there's a little bit of a glamorous aspect to what I do, also a very dangerous, you know, aspect. But the reason I wanted to do that, Sean, is because I feel like these days, particularly on the left, You have, and I know how they work, you know, having moved in their circles, they, you know, get up in the morning, hit the coffee maker, you know, and sitting in their slippers and robe, they watch CNN or something and read a couple of articles in the New York Times, then sit down at their laptop or, you know, go on a TV show and begin to pontificate. And I thought, you know, these people have never really been in places like Red State America or their, you know, they're. telling us about the border crisis, but they never really been there. Or they're explaining to us, you know, how wonderful the ideas of a world economic forum are,

but they've never been downstream of those ideas to see how they're affecting the lives of real people. And I didn't want to be guilty of that. So if I'm talking about the immigration crisis, it's buttressed by the fact that I've, you know, maybe 12 to 15 times been South and Central America straight up to Mexico City. followed these caravans, spoke to these people, seen what USAID is doing and running a massive human trafficking operation. I know what the so-called new atheists think, because I got to know them, and I debated them in major venues and forums.

I know what Muslims believe, because I've taken them on and debated them in major open, you know, this kind of thing. So I don't want to be guilty of if I'm talking about Canada, for example, I want it to come from a background that says I've been there and I know a little bit about it and I've engaged with the people who disagree with it. Well, I find that very refreshing, to be honest. One of the things sitting here, Larry and once again, folks, you know, Larry and I don't know each other from a hole in the ground, right? First time around to getting to sit across from one another is one of the things that, you know, on my journey on the podcast. one of the things I want to get better at is exploring the world.

When I was playing hockey, I got to go explore the world and see that, you know, here in Canada, in Alberta specifically, we look at, and a lot of people look at Quebec and, and detest them for what they get and how their relationship with Canada and everything else. And the fact they speak French, right, and are very protective of their culture. But I've been through Quebec and I've met lovely people there and the Freedom Convoy when we went to Ottawa who was there. Quebec. And you're like, there's more that that brings us together than the opposite that separates us, right? It's this illusion, this grand illusion made by media in particular that tries to separate a whole bunch of humanity, I guess. And so when I watch your stories of where you're going, I'm like, this is fascinating. I was just saying before I walked in here, you know, with you going to watch, going to, sorry, where the Wef, Davos and being in that crowd. And maybe

I'm wrong on this and you can illuminate me. But when I watched your coverage of it, I didn't see a guy trying to get a gotcha moment. I saw a guy go in and just like sit and have some conversations. Whereas when I watch Rebel News here in Canada, they're trying to make inflammatory interviews so they can get millions of views. And I find that fascinating because if you're going to understand your enemy or the other side or the other thought process of the world, you actually have to hear what they're saying to go like, holy crap. That's what they're trying to do. And I don't know, maybe am I right on gauging how you go about your business or, I don't know, feel free to add any thoughts. Well, yes, I think you are. And let me add a little Larry Taun trivia here for you. My mother's Canadian. She's from Vancouver Island. So I spent my summers as a child on Vancouver Island.

And my Canadian side of the family, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, more British than the British. But my Canadian grandfather, who has, you know, died some 30 years ago, but he used to predict, you know, on your, what you just said, he would love, first of all, Donald Trump. But he used to, he hated Quebec. And he would say, I won't live to see it, but you, my boy, will live to see the western provinces join the United States. He says, because we have nothing in common with the eastern provinces. And that was, you know, that was when I was a China. I would hear him say that back in the 70s and in the 80s. But as for my methodology, I think in academic training, at least in the era that I received it,

I don't know about now, but there was kind of a rigorous process whereby you arrived at certain conclusion. And it didn't mean that you didn't have biases. I mean, for instance, if I began a study of the Holocaust, I'd be very big. very foolish not to have a bias that says the Holocaust was evil. But that doesn't mean that I should have a lack of objectivity when look, and this is something I feel like is very misunderstood today. Objectivity, so many people seem to think on social media in news means to be without opinion. Now, that means you're an idiot. If you do not have an opinion, you know, this guy Daryl Cooper,

who is a Holocaust revisionist, who is being, you know, platformed by Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, very disappointingly, they seem to think they're being very objective and by saying, we're approaching the Holocaust really without an opinion to evaluate it fairly. No, that just means you're uneducated. You should have an opinion. You should be, as an adult, you should be beyond the stage of not knowing that the Holocaust. I'm just using that as an example is evil.

But that doesn't mean that you don't look at the evidence objectively. So going to the web, you know, your example. And I bump in the rebel news guys, you know, when they're there. And we're doing, we're going about our work in two very different ways. Not saying mine is superior to theirs. It's just different. They're outside with the cameras, with the mics, waiting for people. come out. I'm there just pretending to be one of the wephers. And it's because what I'm hoping to get

from that, Sean, is to have an honest conversation. I'm not, as you say, I'm not looking for the gotcha moment. I hate it when media, you know, has done that to me and they have. Leftist media does that. I have enough confidence in my worldview and in what I believe that I don't feel like I have to trick you into, you know, or edit you in such a way to make it look like you're saying something that you're not. So, for example, years ago, the film expelled. I don't know if you remember this film, but it was about how atheism had taken over the academy, the universities, and if you believed in God, you were being expelled. You know, Ben Stein was he did put the film together, but at Ben Stein's a,

an amazing guy, but Benstein was the, you know, the host for that. Those guys wanted, and they're on my team. I agree with them. But they wanted a lot of our footage from our debates with Richard Dawkins. And I told him, you can't have it unless I am allowed to see how you're using it. Because I won't let you take Richard Dawkins out of contact.

I don't agree with Richard Dawkins, but I'm not going to allow you. you to make it look like he's saying something. He's not saying. And that to me is very important. So I don't want to, whether it's Daryl Cooper or Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama, people I can't stand. I don't feel like I have to cheat in order to win in the realm of the marketplace of ideas. Does this make sense, Sean? Well, I think it's why I wanted to get you on the podcast, because I agree with you.

I don't like in when you're talking about ideas and you rattle off the names you just did, I don't think you need to take them out of context to make them look like idiots. Honestly, it's like, no, expand on your thought. Let's hear it. And then you just share that with the world. And that should be enough for everybody to be like, holy macana. That's a, that's a crazy way to think, right? And we're seeing it play out in society today.

You know, I always bring it back to Canada with the fact that Mark Carney is now the prime minister. and I mean, I guess we're coming to an election here April 28th, and we're going to find out. But a lot of the things the Liberal Party of Canada believes in, and I might add that the New Democrat Party, because they've propped them up, we're seeing them play out in society right now. Like all their ideas, all their terrible ideas are literally playing up.

So you don't need to have a gotcha moment with them. The entire society right now is a gotcha moment of like, oh my goodness, are we going to go further into this? We're going further into this? Exactly. Right? Exactly. I do not like, I don't like those kind of tactics. So for me, when I'm talking about, say, the world economic form or the new atheist before, I went to get to know them face to face. I wrote a book that made a, you know, a huge splash and became the subject of a lot of controversy about my relationship with the now late atheist Christopher Hitchens. I liked Christopher. We got along very well. He stayed.

hosted me in his home, I hosted him and mine. We could cross swords and disagree while maintaining a genuinely warm friendship and respect for each other. That's gone. That's not there anymore. So for me, I have tried very hard to treat the left. Respectfully is not the way I would want to put it because I don't respect who they are. I don't respect what they've become. But treat them, treat them fairly so that I'm not just I'm not just editing a little clip of Joe Biden or you know of Chuck Schumer or any of these people I want people that go go and watch the full clip and decide for yourself whether or not I'm taking this guy you know or this this woman you know out of out of content so I don't play that game and and when I'm going to

the world economic form I read Klaus Schwab's books I read them I I read what they're about. I did a load of research, wrote a four-part series for Daily Wire and went, and I sit among them and I listen to hear what they're about. I'm not there to start a fight or cause a scene or anything like that. I'm just sitting and listening. And thus relaying it to my own audience and my own podcast ideas have consequences and elsewhere. So to me, that's the more honest. better way of doing it because otherwise we're just adopting the same kind of tactics that they're

adopting. And I was just doing an interview earlier today with Jenna Ellis and, you know, who is a attorney for Donald Trump in his first term. And, you know, she was asked me about my home being swatted. And, you know, there was an attempt on my life in Cairo last month. And, you know, the violence that we're seeing from the left, you know, riots and statue toppling and, you know, provocations on the left. And I just always want to stress to people on our side, we do not want to become what they are. I was horrified. You know, there's enough Canadian in me, Sean, because my mother, my mother has never given up. She's lived in the United States. She's 83. She has lived in the United States since she was 18 years old. she has never given up her Canadian citizen.

She's never become an American citizen. She's a very proud Canadian. And I grew up with that whisper in my ear. You know, is my mother reminding me. She knows, she would say, you know, you're an American through and through. You know, my son is an American through and through. But don't forget that there's a little bit of Canada, you know, that is in you. And so I grew up, you know, always kind of mindful that America wasn't the world, that there was, you know, there was more to the world than just the American perspective.

And I felt, and I still do when I think about it, you just mentioned the, you know, Canadian truckers, the images of those. And I don't use the term casually. I mean in the literal sense, the police officers who are fascists on their, on their, on, their forces stomping women into the ground. And I can recall the look of the arrogance of a couple of those guys kind of enjoying it, grinding them into the ground. I look at that and I feel rage, just rage at the treatment of those decent, the kind of people I know in Canada, decent, honest, hardworking people who are very proud to be Canadians and who have hated to see what's, what's happening to their country. So I want to be a voice for those kinds of people. I want to fight

on their behalf. And that's what I see is, you know, really what I do. You brought up the swatting. And I think that it's funny because like literally I walked through the door and I had another oh, you know, everybody's, everybody's always curious who I'm sitting down with when they run into me. And there's your pop. There's the hero right there's the hero. There's the hero. Well, so I, I, I would, maybe I'm wrong on this, folks, but if you'd ask me for sure five years ago, if I knew what swatting was, I'd be like, what?

Like, are we talking swatting a fly, a mosquito? What are we talking about? And now, I literally just had a conversation, two seconds before I walk in here, and he heard a bit about your story, and he's like, oh, I was just reading about this swatting thing. What a strange thing? And I'm like, how is it the two Canadians in the middle of the tundra

know about swatting now? That's become a thing. You've been now a part of that. Walk us through this story. Yeah, well, this was crazy. And I show you my, this is my German Shepherd Ranger who's traveling with me right now. Ranger is so funny because I feel like I'm just his agent. You know, right now he's garnered lots of national attention because he's saved lives in our slotting incident.

He's a, he's a fourth generation police dog. very typical of the breed, very vigilant. And right now he's taking a nap. But anyway, it's funny. His image is online and he's got 10 million, 10 million views, which is so funny. And CNN and Fox are all praising him. And what happened, Sean, is I had been in Cairo investigating USAID. Now, if people in Canada don't know what that is, it's the United States Agency for International Development.

It's supposed to be like UNICEF or Peace Corps or the governmental equivalent of Samaritans purse. I don't know if Samaritus Purse. Does Samarit's Purse operate in Canada? Good question. I don't know. Well, anyway, if you're not familiar with Samarit's Purse, they're a ministry of Billy Graham that was started by his son, Franklin Graham. And they're very quick to bring truckloads of water and diapers. food and guys to come and help in a natural disaster. They're ministry and they're really incredible the kind of work they do. That's what USAID is supposed to be.

But for the past five or six years, as I have gone south of the border to gain a much deeper understanding of what was causing the immigration crisis, what I began seeing, Sean, was that USAID was working, while taking a very public position that they were doing everything they could to stem the tide of illegal immigration, they're secretly were funding the largest human trafficking operation in modern history. They were moving illegals from around the world to and through the borders of the United States with the purpose of flipping red states to blue state. So this is this is rather well documented. But I kept screaming. A lot of people knew that this kind of thing was going on, but didn't seem that anybody really

was understanding what I was trying to say that USAID is doing it. They're the ones who are doing it. So you got $50 billion, you know, here, here's the flow chart, U.S. taxpayer, U.S. government, U.S. government, USAID, U.S.AID, to 25 different NGOs. Catholic charities that are not especially Catholic. And one in particular, a UN organization called the International Organization for Migration, IOM, sometimes, oh, I, you know. So I'm pointing all of this out, and I didn't really feel like I was getting a lot of traction with that. Sometimes there are topics I'm discussing and they, you know, it feels like they go viral. But then there are others that it just feels like, you know, am I wasting my time here?

nobody seems particularly interested in this and then Elon Musk comes along with Doge and he starts talking about this is maybe two months ago two and a half months ago he starts talking about um USAID what how corrupt this organization is and what they're doing and I saw that as my opportunity Sean because USAID what he was talking about was how they were funding anti-American anti-Trump propaganda around the world and, you know, naked transgender twister in Kenya, you know, and weird stuff like this. And I wanted, I thought now was my opportunity to really bring this to the fore. So I was on Steve Bannon's show and explaining that USAID is way more than that,

that what they were seeing was just the iceberg above the wall. water. Beneath it, there was something much bigger and more sinister that USAID was doing, and human trafficking was and working hand in hand with cartels was part of it. Well, it just so happened, Sean, the president of the United States was watching the interview. So, because he's tight with Vann and he texts Vann and says, tell that guy, and Ben Barclam was on there with me at the same time, tell those guys, I really appreciate the information they provided. And I'm going to take USAID. down. So I go from there. This may be more background than you want, but I go from there to Cairo. Never apologize for giving the story on a podcast that context matters. Well, I think the context

really matters here because I go from South America looking at what USAID is doing to Cairo. And I was in Cairo for a completely different reason, Sean, had nothing to do with USAID. But I saw that USAID had an office there. And I thought, I'll pop over there. and see if I can get an interview and ask them if they're by this time a trumpet issued an executive order stating that USAID was to begin a wind day, you know, closing shop. So I go over to USAID and people can see this, you know, on my podcast ideas have consequences where we show the video of what happened because it was kind of secretly taking video. but what ended up happening there was they they you would think that anyone smart would have said to me

sorry you didn't have an appointment we we can't give you an interview today and lie and say yeah we're shutting down but that's not what they did they panic they summoned the Egyptian secret police who exists to torture and disappear people and I ended up having a three eight of two and a half to three hour standoff with the Egyptian secret police who were trying to disappear me. They were trying to off me in Cairo. So I managed to get out of the country, but just barely. They come to my hotel.

By that time, I'd already skipped out of the country. I was gone. And I published a thread on Twitter that got, I don't know, how many millions of views, but I want to say about 15 million views. explaining this and video of them stopping the car and all this kind of stuff that was going on. So I come back, Sean, and I'm having dinner with my wife. And, you know, we're in rural Alabama, you know, south of Birmingham. And I say to her, or she says to me, gosh, you know, I'm prepared to accept that a lot of what you do is dangerous.

but I mean, you've had several close calls lately. You know, maybe we just dial it back a bit. And I said to her, Sean, I said, you know, trying to downplay it. I said, sweetheart, by the time I come home, I'm ready for board. And my life has enough adventure, enough entry as it is. And you and I are going to enjoy a beautiful dinner tonight, and we're going to go home and enjoy a lovely, peaceful, boring weekend. And within about five hours, a SWAT team shows up on my porch.

And the images, I think those images have 37 million views on X. And others had been swatted, but you'd have stupid people who would say things like, things I don't think they even believe but because they're lefties who are lying they would say oh those are probably your friends in police uniforms and you're making this up but usually the way the images of this would appear was maybe your home is swatted and you you take your phone and video something, you know, in the aftermath. Well, my cameras captured the whole thing. And what you see is it, but my cameras, the time stamp on them is 1.15 in the morning,

police officers with AR-15s, a body armor, they come in silent of the police. So no siren, no headlights. They parked down the street from where I live, and they're coming onto my deck quietly, pointing semi-automatic rifles into my home. Now, you only see in the video three of them, but there were five, two more on the perimeter of my house, and a total of nine cars.

So more at the top, a canine unit, you name it. And thanks to this guy, Ranger, laying right here, I would have been fast asleep, but he wouldn't let me go to sleep. And he was agitated and not fearful. He was vigilant. German shepherds are like that. And he kept trying to alert me to the fact something was going on. And I take his moods like that very seriously.

And I was thinking, do I have a rodent in the house? You know, meaning I didn't think I've got five heavily armed men coming down my driveway. But I got my gun in any one. And I came out into the kitchen into semi-darkness, and I look out onto my porch. I can't see that they're semi-automatic rifles quietly moving around on my dad. And I thought this is about to be a shootout. And thank God it didn't go that way. But I say Ranger really saved lives for this reason, because if I had been asleep and I'm jarred awake by, let's say, his barking, you know, or something like that,

I don't know that I respond as rational. So instead of me going zero to 60, and again, this is a red state America where everybody owns a weapon. So unlike, you know, the laws in your country, instead of me going zero to 60, I went 30 to 60. So I was already a bit on edge. I was armed. I come out. And because they can't see me, I can see them. It gave me just a little bit of time to assess what is going on.

Who are these people? And given what had happened in Cairo, you can imagine what I'm thinking. But then I think I can see the glimmer of a badge. They're using flashlights as they're walking along. And anyway, I turn on the light, and there's not an exchange of gunfire, an exchange of comment that identify themselves as police. I put my weapon down and all's well that ends well. You know, we chatted.

They, I told them they could look in the home. They'd been, they'd received a client. If someone calls, claims to be inside the house that they're swatting. And the term swat, for those who don't know, it's special weapons and tactics. It is, you know, SWAT teams, they're kind of the special forces, if you will, of the police. And this wasn't technically a SWAT scene, but they did come in with special, you know,

weapons that they would not normally carry. So a situation like this. And anyway, somebody calls, claims that they're inside the house, that they've been shot, that there are three masked men going throughout my home, executing everybody, there's blood everywhere. And in several of these cases, the caller in calling 911,

encourages the police to come in the house. They want them to come in your house. You got to come in. You got to come in and save me. So they're trying to create an atmosphere whereby someone gets killed. And it's attempted murder by proxy. That's what it is. It was with the hope that I would be killed.

But if my wife was killed, if I had children in the home, if they were killed, that's fine. Police officers get killed. They don't care. These are really, these are scumbags who are doing these things. And coward. That's a lot. You know, just thinking about that. Any idea, like, do you tie this up to directly to the U.S. AID and, you know, you speaking publicly about that going to Egypt?

Like, do you think it stems from that? Is that where your brain goes or do you know? Well, it's interesting, Sean, because I'm now part of an exclusive group that you don't want to utilize. So we are, all of us who have been swatted, every time somebody swatted, we reach out to them and they join our, you know, information with each other. This is what happened. In my case, pizza deliveries, you know, or something that often precedes these and, you know, listening to the calls, the similarities and trying to find the common thread with all of us. We're all conservatives. We're all conservatives. We're all. so-called alternative media. You know, so in other words, it's not Tucker Carlson or Megan Kelly or Joe Rogan who's being hit. It seems those of us who have certain topics that we've hit and really touched a nerve on.

USAID, Hamas, Israel, Ukraine, those are all common threats. Now, do I think that somebody at the, you know, high up in USAIDs called a SWAT on my house? No, I do not. But do I think that someone who is a beneficiary of those dollars, and that could just be a, you know, fat, bald guy in his mother's basement in Bulgaria, you know, who could be, you know, cashing some of those checks? I think that's very, very possible. There is a feeling that it might be Hamas related,

But to be honest, I don't know for sure. It's very easy to start connecting dots that maybe in reality don't connect. USAID in common. And it doesn't mean you said the same thing about USAID because USAID has their tentacles in Ukraine. They have their tentacles in the Middle East and in Gaza. We know they're funding terrorism. We know, as I've just stated here, that they're funding the invasion of America. So there are a lot of people.

If USAID is this reservoir of cash, there are a lot of spigots from which very corrupt people are drinking. And each of us has been attacking, you know, different spigots, you know, coming out of that reservoir. Are all the people that are in this group, I think you already said it. that are being swatted or have had swatting attempts, all journalists? Oh, let me think about that. I don't know. I think probably like me, they might resist calling themselves journalists. I'm not sure that some of them would, but let's say somebody like Juanita Broderick.

She wouldn't call herself a journalist, I don't think. Juanita has a very large following on Twitter, and she just offers commentary on that. Well, I go, regardless of what you call yourself, I look at you and I see a journalist. Okay. A guy who, a guy. I'll say a lot of these people are. You're digging into things that people don't want you to dig in. People following on apps.

So, you know, my following is not, by any means, the biggest of this group. So you have some who have, you know, a million or more. I have, I don't know, maybe 200,000 or so. And there are someone who have a following of 50,000 in this group. So what's interesting is it seems that the size of the audience isn't the issue. It's that you've touched a nerve in commentary that maybe something you've done here has gone viral. So for instance, my commentary on Ukraine, I wrote a book about corruption and child trafficking in Ukraine. It's published in 2011.

So well before this war. and I've been called on comments on Ukraine and Russia a lot. I've spent a lot of time in both of those countries. I have a degree in the masters in Russian and European history. So I have commented a lot on that. But I've also spent some time in the Middle East. And I'm not friendly to Hamas. So exactly what the common thread is here.

The fact that you and I are one, wondering to me tells me that these are these are bad terrorists they're not only ineffective terrorists but they're just they're just bad terrorists because for terrorism to be effective and this is terrorism it's domestic terrorism I'm trying to use local law enforcement as proxy assassination squad you know that's what they're trying to do for terrorism to be effective the person you're terrorizing needs to know why they're being terrorized. So take, for instance, Charlie Hebdo, you know, 2015, the Charlie Hebdo magazine did a number of, you know, let's say, unflattering cartoons of Muhammad. And their offices were bombed.

Okay, so the connection is clear. We don't want you drawing the meaning pictures of Muhammad. burning of Tesla's, Elon Musk, Doge connection is clear. In this case, we're all kind of going, what is it that you don't like us doing? So not only are you cowardly, but you're also just dumb terrorists. I can't speak to the rest of them. But when I look at you, it's clear to me, you don't call yourself a journalist. And once upon a time, you know, one of my favorites, I just got to ask us the other day, Larry.

Somebody asked what my favorite episode of this podcast was. And I was trying to explain it. It's very hard to explain because it was, you know, this is going to be episode 822, I want to say. And you got to go back to 110. So I had a long time ago. And the lady that I was interviewing said, you're a journalist. And I was like, ah, no, I don't, no. She's like, oh, you're a journalist.

You can say it or you cannot say it. But that's exactly what you are. You're talking to people. And if you search into what journalism is, that's what it is. And I look at you and I go, you can, you can see it. summarize it however you want. I look at you, I see a journalist. And when you go, I don't know why they're terrorizing me, I go, I think it's self-explanatory to a guy sitting on this side. You're digging into things that people don't want you to dig into. And you must be very effective at it

because they aren't doing it to every person on Twitter, right? Not a 10,000 people are being swatted. It's very specific. And when I watch your stuff, I'm like, I get it. Like you are pushing buttons and they don't want you pushing buttons. They don't want you having rational conversations with the other side. No, we're not going to have that. No, we're going to send this guy a clear message. I mean, geez, you're sitting in Cairo, Egypt, and you're literally saying, if you get out of the car, if I may be so bold, you're never returning. And instead of being like, well, you know, we'll just shut it down. I'm good. I'm good. You're like, well, it doesn't, no, I'm going to go back and I'm going to keep talking to people. Well, most people aren't wired that way. So what

happens next? SWAT shows up. And you go, you know, like, well, you know, listen, along this podcast, I've found God, I've talked about it enough. You know, it's been one of the journeys of being on this side. And I look at your dog being, it's a lovely thing about animals, isn't it? And maybe just everything that God can do. He finds a way to de-escalate, almost undescalatable situation. And you're like, well, the hero's the dog. And God's got my back, which I firmly believe. And I look at you and I go, you're not going to stop. You're going to keep going.

And that, my friend, is going to inferiority them even more. It would be my guess. That's just a guess. I'm just throwing out some ideas from a long way away from where you're sitting. But to me, you're a journalist. Don't kid yourself. You call it whatever you want to call it. But that's what journalism is and should be, right?

Is going to the story. I'm presently in South Dakota, so I'm not as far away from you as I normally would be. But yes, I know I accept all of that is true. My point is, yes, there's no doubt. I'm talking about things that this person or these people do not want me talking about. What's not clear is which of those things they don't want me talking about. But what happened in Cairo, is it related? I don't know.

Well, it certainly seems like it's related, doesn't it? I'm sorry. Doesn't it seem like it's related? To me, I'm like, you went to, you went to Davos. I'm like, you're stirring the pot there, right? You're going to the heart of the beast of the current one, at least by my eyes. And then you go to Egypt, they almost throw you, you're like, you're basically saying, if I leave this vehicle, I'm dead, right?

I'm disappeared, whether that's in jail, where that is. And how many days later is it that the swat, you get swatted? Probably about three weeks. Yeah. Because I was at home. I went from Egypt to Europe, and I was in Europe for maybe an additional two weeks, and then I come home, and then the SWAT team is called to my house. My feeling regarding a lot of this, Sean, and I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate

you saying it, the only way that this kind of evil became so entrenched in my culture and yours, the way that Joe Biden's, and Joe Biden was just a, you know, it's just a sock puppet. I mean, an auto pen, for instance, you know, doing so many of these executive orders and, and, uh, pardons and this kind of thing. Trudeau, another sock puppet. Um, perhaps, you know, perhaps some of some of your other politicians, no doubt, many of them are. The way this kind of evil becomes so entrenched is because conservatives, thoughtful people who love their countries, they checked out. And, you know, we've all heard the, you know, the maximum

for evil to triumph. All it takes is for good men to do nothing. And good men did nothing. And part of what I hope to achieve is that I, listen, I don't have the artillery to win this war on my own. But what I can do is by talking to guys like you and to CNN and Jenna Ellis and Eric Mattaxas and Dinesh D'Souza's podcast and Fox News and all the different shows that I do in addition to my own is I hope to provide some kind of model, some kind of encouragement to Christians to say, look, and you don't have to be a Christian, just people who just want justice. They want truth. They want to be free to say, look, you may not have my platform, you may have a bigger one, or you may have none at all. But you need to find your backbone. You need to find some courage. And you need to be willing

to push back against what the Apostle Paul called this present darkness. And that's what I hope to provide so that I hope some people, again, regardless of what people in, in, in, in your audience believe. Let me use a little biblical example, a story that they'll all at least vaguely be aware of. And it's the story of David and Goliath. And the way that story went was like this. The Philistines had a champion whose name was Goliath, and he was much, much big. He was the whole Cogan, you know, of the Bronze Age. And the story goes that each day, so you have the the Israelite army in their trenches, the Philistines,

and theirs, and each day, Goliath would come out and would mock the army of Israel and would say to them, who wants to come out and fight me? And of course, nobody did. They all cowered in the trench. David, well before he was king, was sent by his father to take

supplies, food. And he gets there, and he's a shepherd boy, and he's not particularly big. But he's killed many a lion and bear with his sling, and he sees Goliath come out and do this, and he says to his brother, who is in the army, who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that nobody will, that he defies the armies of the living God, nobody will fight him. And so they say to David, you're arrogant. You're arrogant. David's confidence wasn't in his own strength. It was in that of his own God. And David said, I'll fight him. And they're like,

boy. You're a kid. He says, listen, I've killed many a lion, many a bear. I'd take that guy down. He'll be easier than them. And so he goes out. So, such was the state of morale among the armies of Israel that they were prepared to let a boy, a teenage boy, go out and fight on their behalf. Because they weren't, none of them were willing to do it. And David goes out and he kills Goliah, as we all famously know. And then it says a shout went up from the armies of Israel, and they came out and they pursued the Philistines until sundown. It's the second part of that story that I find myself often focusing on is that sometimes it just requires a spark that somebody says, I can do that. I can push back.

He did that. I can do something. And right now, what we have seen for the past four years, at least, throughout the Biden in eight years, we saw the patriots in Canada and the patriots in America and the patriots throughout South America. This is not just a North American phenomenon. It's all over the world. Patriots in Europe and Britain cowering in their trenches.

And whether it's a Donald Trump or it's a Larry Taunton or it's a Sean Newman or it's someone else, maybe it's all of us together. But we go out and we say, I won't be afraid. I'm going to take these guys on. And I hope that in so doing, it inspires something from other people. The swatting, Sean, and forgive my language here, but I mean, I'm fired up over this. pisses me all. My feeling about that is if you thought that doing that to me was going to make me go silent, you have grossly misjudged it. It's going to make me talk about it more. I'm going to try to grow my platform. I'm going to tweet it and retweet it. I'm going to give every interview that I can. I'm going to try to multiply, amplify my voice on the very topics you don't

want me talking about. I'm going to strice and defect this whole thing so that you are going to regret having swatted me. I'm not afraid of you. My face worse than you. It's not the first time I've had guns in my face. I've had people threaten to kill me, but they were more honest than these people. They just did it directly, which is more manly and frankly, more refreshingly honest. Because some guy sitting in his mother's basement, perhaps in another country, perhaps in this one, who is using a Google proxy service, Wi-Fi phone in order to hide his location and pretend to be in my home. No, I'm not afraid of you people. And I also want to say this to encourage people out there.

These things should encourage. And people may think, what's the term over the target. Where we got that term from is because, you know, World War II. you know, bomber squadrons, if you lost your navigation, you weren't sure where the target was, when the air is filled with flack, you are over it. The anti-aircraft guns are not protecting just anything. They're protecting the target you've come to bomb. And if you're not, if you're, there's no flack in the air, you're not over the target. When you start, you're, experience that turbulence. When you start experiencing severe pushback, that's when you're over the

target. And what this tells me is, I am over the target. Everybody else here who's been swatted, you are over the target. This encourages me. Bring it on because I'm ready for this fight. I want this fight. But I prefer you come out into the open and that you fight like a man. So that's the way I view this. And I hope other people listening to this will know, this is the panic of globalists, not just Democrats. There's rhinos involved in all this. There's Canadians involved in this. There's Brits who are involved in this. Globalists who are absolutely panicked because they have no arguments. They don't want to do this. They don't want to have dialogue. They have no argument. They have no respect for the law, no respect for constitutions.

no respect for democracy no respect for people the only thing they care about is the acquisition and preservation of power and i want to defeat these scumbach well said i don't know if i have much to add to that you know i i when you said strides in effect i was thinking it right it's like um you don't understand what you're doing if you don't succeed right the strides in effect is going to reciprocate all the way back. And, you know, I'm reminded of the picture over my shoulder. Because in a very spiritual sense, when I was in Ottawa at the Freedom Convoy, I can move just a smidge for you.

Is that you, Sean? Yeah, it is. And a photographer captured it, and I didn't realize that was happening. And I always say, when I was there, I was being spiritually attacked like nothing I'd ever realized was even possible. And if they, in fairness, if they had succeeded, I would, I don't know if I'd still be here today, you know, type of thing. And instead, you know, it's led me on a journey on this side where we talk about these things. You know, I was told when I came home, you don't talk about Christianity.

Well, the spiritual realm in general, but that leads into Christianity because they'll deem you crazy and a whole bunch of other things. I kind of chuckled about that. I'm like, well, they already deemed me crazy for COVID. Now let's talk about this. Like, let's get to the bottom of this, because this is taking over my life. Like, there is, you know, you bring up this present darkness. I was very fortunate. It was one of the, one of the, you know, surreal parts being on this side to get to interview

Frank Peretti and actually, like, read it. Well, I'd never even knew what they were, Larry, until I got back. Oh, you got to read them. Well, I stumbled into it. And I started reading. I'm like, what is this? This is literally what I lived. And, you know, the Streisand effect.

You know, I went from not saying the word God on the podcast before I went to, went to Ottawa. I was like, I would never ever do this. that, right? Hockey background, like there's just certain things you don't talk about. Politics and and faith for sure. And now I find it bleeds into the conversation all the time. I think a ton of people understand that, you know, certainly the events playing out on this earth are in the physical realm. No doubt about it. But the influences or the things guiding the back channels are spiritual. It's, it's never been more clear to me than it has since I came back from Ottawa, right? If I'm not in the word and certainly not praying and certainly not doing the things I should be,

that side of the world is, you know, attacking on a daily basis. But once again, you put the right guy beside you, and it all goes away. So, like, to me, the Streisand effect, it's a long way of pointing out the Streisand effect of what you're talking about. It's like, yeah, they got no idea who they're messing with. And I see that playing out across a ton of different commentators, journalists, all these different people that maybe they get knocked down for a hot second but then they step back up and like,

all right, let's go round two because this world isn't going to get better if people don't find your backbone like you were mentioning earlier and start talking about what's actually going on and trying to figure out how we're going to move forward because I can't speak to the United States

but here in Canada, currently what's going on across the board I never thought it, like I used to say it was insane four years ago. Now I'm just like, I mean, like we're just reaching new levels of insanity. And if it keeps going down this road, it's like, well, we all know where we're heading, communism. We might already partially be there. And different people say there's no turning back. I disagree with that.

I think there's always a way to turn back. I've experienced in my life for Pete's sake. It's whether or not you can get society. to turn the corner. That's an interesting, that's a, that's a long conversation. You brought up CS Lewis right at the start.

You know, I, I'd never read any CS Lewis until probably the last two years. And now it's like, man, I, where has that been all my life?

I go read CS Lewis. I'm just like, this is, this guy would have been somebody to have interviewed. Like, wow. You know,

you bring up, debating Dawkins and different people like that. I'm like, I bet you those would be fantastic, to go watch. I assume they're sitting out there somewhere on YouTube. You'll see them on my channel. I didn't debate Dawkins publicly. What I did was I moderated and arranged four of his debates with Oxford University mathematician and the guy I call the CS Lewis of our time, Professor John Lennox,

who was something of a mention of me. And Lennox annihilated him in the first of those debates. I have one of them was never aired it was on PBS um i helped um put that together and then i debated some others but um but certainly across swords with would talk as many times um privately um but let me let me say this sean you're you're you're we're getting to a topic here now that is very near and dear to my heart and um when i'm talking about god i want to be very specific here I would even encourage you to invoke his name, the Lord, Jesus. God can be so generic that nobody really even knows what he's talking about. It can feel very, you know, on the lips of a Christian, you know, what they mean.

But you often see in the culture people, you know, saying, you know, using God in a way that it's, it loses a certain amount of meaning. So in Hebrew thoughts, biblical thought, words are concrete. That is to say they're not abstract. They have absolute definition and meaning. And in Greek thought, words can be very abstract. So just to use as a kind of an example, I'll never forget, when Obama was negotiating some kind of, of, you know, anti-Nuke deal with the Iranians. If you put side by side the Obama administration's

translation into English from Farsi of what the Iranians were saying, the nuke deal said, and then you were to see the translation of what the Iranians were saying, it said. It would go something like this. The State Department translator would say the Iranians agree to deactivate their nuclear program. The Iranian translator would say, we do not agree to shut down our nuclear program. It just kept going and going like that. And I recall Amir Tahrir, who was an Iranian,

who lives in the United States, he said, you need to understand that Farsi is a language that's deliberately ambiguous so that you can extract what meaning from it you want. And there's always kind of plausible denial. Not so in Hebrew thought. So the point that I'm making here is that there's a reason why the God of the Bible said, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

You're not supposed to just toss it around casually, casually, because his name has meaning. And he's saying, when you invoke my name, it better not be because you stub your thumb with a hammer. It better be in reference to me. And I have a very good friend who has very colorful language. And I always say to him, look, I can have pretty colorful language too. But do me this favor. I can tolerate F bombs.

I can tolerate a great many things. But the one that the Bible is. quite specific about thou shalt not do is take the Lord's name and name and name. And to his credit, he said, never do it again. And I said, and that's for your sake. I said, when I hear it, I want to step a few feet away from you because I'm waiting for the lightning bolt. What I'm trying to get at here is that scripture provides an anchor for a worldview, a solid basis for a worldview. So my worldview, for instance, isn't, it isn't all sale, no anchor,

where I'm just kind of blown around by the cultural zeitgeist, you know, the German word meaning spirit of the age, where I lick my finger and then, you know, one minute I'm against homosexuality, and then next I'm for it. From a biblical point of view, there is an absolute timeless, universal, right and wrong. And it doesn't change from the 19th to the 20th century or to the 21st or from the third century to now or from one culture to another. There is an absolute right and wrong. And one of the things I'm at pain to say, pains to say on my own podcast right now is part of what

we're seeing happening in conservatism, at least in the United States, but I think in the Western world in general is that there is on our side of the argument such a virulent hatred for and understandably so the woke mob that sometimes people on our side find themselves attaching themselves to people who are not actually conservative. They're just anti-woke. So for instance, like an Andrew Tate, who I think is a scumbach. but they're all because you can listen to an Andrew Tate and agree with 80, maybe even 90% of what he says, you think he's one of you. And I say, no, no, no, conservatives, he's not one of you.

He's Muslim, which means by definition he's an anti-Semite and a misogynist. And we know he's a misogynist because we've seen the way he treats women, what he thinks of women. I mean, he's a scumbat. I get it that you like the thing. fact that he's anti-woke, but he's not one of you. And in a similar way, we've seen that with, say, a Dave Portnoy, you know, who's another guy who's something of a pig. Now, I can agree with a number of things that he says, but he's not on my team. And I think we have to be clear about that. So for me, my worldview and my mission, what I do for a living isn't, I was doing this long before I was paid for it. I would do it if, you know, if tomorrow I, you know, lost my job.

And I, I would still do this because it's my life's calling. It's my mission. It's a vocation for me. It's not just a job. And that gives me clarity and purpose and how I go about doing the things that I'm doing. So attacking USAID for me isn't about getting clicks. It's because I see, I see people who are doing something that is fundamentally godless and inhumane, their treatment, people they're disregard for people they're disregard for freedom they're arrogance i want to destroy organizations like that and um and so for me i feel like i have absolute clarity when it comes to these kinds of topics and i do because the bible provides that for me and um and i i take a certain measure you know it's funny when i was sitting in that car that you're a

you're referring to that standoff in Cairo, I have this odd piece that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I didn't have a piece necessarily that things were going to work out well for me, because, you know, scripture makes it pretty clear. You shouldn't expect better than your master, and my master was crucified. You know, so I do recognize that God, I'm not a prosperity gospel guy. being a Christian doesn't mean I'm perfect, that I'm sinless. And it certainly doesn't mean that I'm guaranteed wealth and prosperity within this world. It means I'm guaranteed forgiveness. And it means that the Lord thy God goes with me wherever I go.

And when I'm sitting in the front seat of that car, I had a peace. You're right where I want you. This is where I want you in this moment. and no matter what happens, I've got your back here. And when I'm at my house with a SWAT team on my porch, I had a piece, I'm here. I'm here with you in this moment, even now. And that, that animates my worldview, it animates my life. It animates my whole mission.

And it's why I feel like I can say, and I'd want to say to more colorful language, than I want to use on your podcast. But why I feel like I can say these people, they're cowardly. And because they're fundamentally godless, they don't care about people. I mean, think about me sending a SWAT team to your house. Do you have children? I do. Three.

Yeah. I mean, think of that. Guys show up at your house and I'm doing it because I don't like you. I don't like your commentary. And if your kids get killed, so much the better. Your wife, what do I care? If some police officers get killed because you're defending yourself as you want, I don't care.

So much the better, bigger headline. And then I sit back on social media and I'm having some kind of orgasm, you know, watching this. This is the kind of really shitty people we're dealing with here, show. Yeah. It's the darkness of the world. It's, you know, I look at, I mean, I've kind of branded them. Maybe somebody else had called it this, but the Liberal Party here in Canada is our version of the Democrats. I call them Liberal Mafia.

And they just attract bad human beings. The people that want to break the rules, they have no care in the world for what they're breaking. They have no problem skirting the rules, bending the rules. bending the rules, breaking the rules, and they think they know best. And yet, what do you do with that? No, you do what Larry you're doing, right? You continue to expose it. You continue to continue to stand firm in your beliefs, I think,

and allow people to find their courage and stand up beside you. Like, to me, that's one of the things I admire about what you're doing. I knew I was going to enjoy the interview, folks. It's just a, you know, like I was sitting here watching everything that you've been doing, and I just find it utterly fascinating, but not from like, what's the word I'm looking for? From a position of just like, look at this guy go, you know, and if we had more Larry's, which we do. I know we have hundreds, if not thousands of Larry's out there doing this, and maybe it's even more than that. Listen, to make another biblical reference that maybe your audience will or won't appreciate.

Isaiah, you know, the Lord asks rhetorically the question in Isaiah 6, whom shall I send? And Isaiah says, send me. What we need right now are people who just say, send me, send me. That's been a, that's been, if I may, sitting on this side. that's been a very at times confusing question i don't know if that's the right way to say it because i you know if if i may and i don't know if i brought this up on the i don't know if i brought this up on the podcast before but certainly in different conversations with different men i have is like i started out i was a hockey player i was interviewing all the

the high-end hockey people right i love hockey what little i know about it but anyway go ahead Well, then COVID happens. And I drag my feet for some time thinking, like, this is going to end. I just want to talk hockey and, like, perseverance and what make, you know, what kids should hear on. And you want to make it to the top level? This is what you need to do. And then you go into COVID and, you know, I must have woken up for 30 days straight going, like, what am I doing? Now, this is before.

And I'll make sure I take your advice. This is before I found Jesus, right? This is well before I found that. So I wake up, you know, and I just feel like, what am I doing? Like, what am I doing? Okay. So then you fast forward, you go to Ottawa, and then you come back. I was a shell myself.

Then you find Jesus, okay? And then at times I try and grab the wheel, other times I'm like, I'm just going to let you do what you got to do because it seems to be working out quite fine. But it's funny to me, I still get to points, Larry, where I'm like, am I going down that? I don't want to go down that road. I do not want to go down some of the road. roads that I feel like I'm being tugged at. And the question I was trying to figure out was, and once again, I don't know if I know how to ask it, right? It's like, how do you find a direction to know you're going down the right path and not being pulled off?

I love that question. Listen, that sometimes, I think what you're really asking me, and by all means, correct me if I'm wrong, is how do you know God's will? Is that what you're asking me? Yeah, yeah. Is that a fair summary? I think that's a fair summary. Listen, I think when people often think, you know, Christians frequently will think of God's will as, you know, when I was a kid, how old are you, Sean? I'm turning 39 here, folks, in a month. Okay, well, you're still too young. When I was, when I was a kid, there was a TV show, I think it was called Let's Make a Deal. It was a game show. and in it the this aspect of it sort of entered into the popular culture you maybe you've even heard reference to it without even knowing where it came from but they would have this you know

this really tense moment where you had to choose door number one door number two or door number three which behind which door is the prize is the prize and you're you're on edge you know as the person is you know full of anxiety and trying to choose and then, waw, wah, wah, wall, you know, they chose the wrong door and they blew it. I think sometimes people think, a lot of people think of God's will a bit like that. Our God, it's not the way he is. You know, people think of God is, he's following you with a baseball bat. No, he's a loving father.

That's the way scripture, there are some people he's following with a baseball bat. There are some people who behave as though there is no God and there will be no judgment. People like that I fear for because judgment is coming. It is coming. But for his children, those who have called upon his name, who have given their lives to him, he's like you are with your own children. And I think of it a bit like this. When my children were small, I have four.

And when my children were small, my boys in particular would like to come out. This was before I could afford a writing lawnmower. They would like to come out when I'm mowing the grass. And you know how there's the bar up here, but then there's the one down here where you have the crank. Well, they would kind of get up in between those two, and they'd be pushing from that middle bar, and I'm up higher behind them, pushing behind them.

And I always had the illusion, you know, that they're mowing the grass. They're pushing the mower, when the reality is that I'm pushing them on. And I often think that, the way God works with us. The Lord doesn't need you, Sean. He doesn't need me. What he says is, get your plastic lawnmower. Come on out here. Come on. Let's redeem my creation together. Come on. Get out here. Get your plastic hammer. Come on. I mean, would you be irritated if you're, building a deck in the back and your boys come out there with little plastic hammers? Of course not.

come on guys, come on. Do you need them? Of course you don't. But you want them there. And for me, I'm following the Lord with my plastic hammer and with my plastic lawnmower, helping to do my bit in redeeming his creation. And he gives you, you know, if we look, if we look in Genesis, we have Adam naming the animal. And it's like this conversation. between him and the Lord where he says, I don't know, what would you call it? Well, I think that's a duckville platypus. Well, there we go. So the point that I'm trying to make here is that it's not like you make a choice, and it totally screws up God's plan for your life. You chose door number one. Aw, wah, wah, wah, wah, door number three was what I had in mind for you.

if you're faithful to the things that he puts in front of you on a daily base and you just respond to them as he would have you respond to them you will discover they're like breadcrumbs that are going to lead you in the direction he wants you to go and i look back on my own life sean And there were times where I thought, none of this is going the direction I wanted to go. I'm in a PhD program that shut down. I, for a time of waiting tables, I'm driving a semi. I was a security guard. I worked in a chemical plant. I knew the direction I wanted to go, and it felt like I'm not going that way.

I'm going in the other direction. I was a forklift driver. And I now look back and I go, you know what? It was a straight line. And those were, those were years that my experience was being formed. My work ethic was being formed. I was learning something that I needed to know about how the world operated. I was maturing all of those things. And then the next thing I know I'm writing articles that Rush Limbaugh is reading over the air to, you know, his audience of 22 million people. when I talk to a lot of young men who want to do what I do for a living because they see me as a kind of James Bond and it looks very sexy to them.

And when I start talking to them about the work and sacrifice to get where I am, and it's not to say that I'm, you know, Elon Musk, you know, so I enjoy what I do for a living. I'm not rich, but I love what I do. I can see them start to sack because I realize they want the corner office now. And it's just not the real world. What I did was I just faithfully responded, not perfectly. There were times I didn't do that, but where I'm just trying to faithfully respond to the things the Lord put in front of me. And the next thing you know, I'm here. and I saw it as a zigzag it was a straight line.

So I would just say to you, if that's what you're doing on your podcast, you're faithfully discussing things in a way that are pleasing to the Lord, that you are not shying away. It's one thing to steer away from a time. I'll never forget this, Sean. This is something that was very, I taught in a kind of elite preparatory school for many years, kind of a Phillips exeter and

eaten a Harrow type of institution. And I was teaching a Bible study that I'd never, never advertised at the school, never spoke up at the school in my own home that a number of those students attended. And the headmaster found out about it because it was gaining in popularity. But again, I didn't advertise it at school, didn't speak of it at school. There was no quick pro quo with students. And the headmaster, who had named me teacher the year before, now calls me and is telling me that I'm going to be fired if I don't stop teaching that Bible time.

And I'm very young. And I have to think this through. And a verse ran through my head. And that verse was, if you deny me before this Jesus, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father. And I was going, my wife was overseas with my children, so I was sort of batching it. And I go to see a movie one night, and a little boy stops me. And I nearly, you know, run right over it. This is while I'm still processed all that. Am I going to stop doing this and save my job? You'll bend to my headmaster's will, or am I going to keep doing it?

And this little boy stops me. And I say, excuse me, I almost ran into you as I'm going into the theater. And he said, sir, if you died tonight, you know where you would go. He was a 10-year-old, roughly, who was ready to take me to the gates of the kingdom. His voice was flavoring. He was nervous, but he had courage to an adult. And I remember leaning down and saying to him, yes, I do. And you keep doing what you're doing.

But I came away from that. And I thought, you know what? If that little kid can get out here and take on adults, then I can stand my ground to. And so I went to my headmaster and I said, look, it may be that my wife and I stopped doing this Bible study because, you know, we're tired. We just don't have enough time. kids just stopped coming. I don't think the Lord would fault me if I stopped doing it for them. But if I stop doing it because you have pressured me to stop him.

I fear him more than I feared you. And so my answer to you respectfully must be no, I will not stop teaching that Bible. And I went through a real period there what looked like I was going to lose my job. but I felt a real peace that I had given the answer that I knew my God wanted me to give me. And it was during that period of time that he was building me up and preparing me for SWAT teams to show up on my porch. You see what I'm getting at. So I didn't see it as that at a time, but I do now, looking back, it was, it was, I hate to use this analogy these days, but it was like a booster shop.

It was a, it was preparation for something bigger and harder and works that I would go through. But having done it once and then doing it again and then doing it again, it's like a muscle that you, you begin working out and you find your voice and you find your courage. And I would say that to you. I would say that to anybody who's listening. It doesn't require that you go and stand down the whole world and nail a 95

feces on a church door like, like Martin Luther. It might just be in your place of work where you say, I'm sorry, I didn't wear this crucifix to provoke you. That wasn't my intention. But if you're going to fire me for wearing it, you're going to have to do it because I'm not taking it off for that reason. I may take it off one day because it's irritating my skin or maybe because I just that day decided not to, but I won't do it for this. I will not bow down to you and to your idol. I won't play that. And I've enjoyed this conversation.

Appreciate, Larry, you hopping on today and giving me some time. I know we've had our technical difficulties. And I don't know if you ever come. I finally works. Do you ever come up to the Great White North on your travels? You know, I haven't, but it doesn't mean I won't. I have, you know, it's funny enough, I haven't had any invitations to Canada to do any engagements up there. most of my engagements are abroad.

You know, I find myself in Africa. I find myself in Europe, Australia, even New Zealand. But I haven't in Canada. And, you know, Canada is so fiercely secular these days. But a lot of people don't realize it's funny because, you know, I got into it with one guy on Twitter who was trying to betray me as, you know, some sort of backwoods, you know, Southern Redneck. And he was talking about Canadian medicine.

And I said, well, as a matter of fact. You know, you're asking you have ever been to Canada. The answer is yes. And I said, my mother is a Canadian. You know, it's just going to show you how ignorant you actually are. But, you know, I have a soft spot for Canada. And I have a soft spot, by the way, for a clock. When I was a kid, I'll leave you with this.

One of my uncles took me to see the Vancouver Canucks. And I know they're not, you know, world beaters. But it was in the days of Wayne. Gretsky. This is the early 80. And they were playing at the time the Los Angeles Kings. And I, man, did I love it. I was at my first time ever to an NHL game. And as somebody who grew up playing football here in the South, I immediately loved the full contact nature of hockey and just admire the skill, the skating skill of, of, of, you know, those athletes. And if it were big here in the American South, I would definitely have played it.

Larry, thanks for doing this. Hopefully it's not the last time. Be safe on your travels and we'll pay attention. Where can people find you on X? They can find me at Larry Taunton. That's T-A-U-N-T-O-N. They can also find me on YouTube at Ideas Have Consequences. Larry Taunton, Ideas Have Consequences. That is my my podcast. Come to look for us over there. Sean, thanks for having me