The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi https://amzn.to/3KxBHGo "A true-crime masterpiece." —Don Winslow From the FBI’s former assistant director, a shocking journey to the dark side of America’s highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative’s hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders–and counting. In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims—often at-risk women—are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve. Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates. Long Haul is a gripping exploration of a violent, disordered world hiding in plain sight, and the heroes racing to end the horror. It will forever unsettle how you travel on the road. About the author Frank Figliuzzi was the FBI's Assistant Director for counterintelligence where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is a national security contributor for NBC News and a columnist for MSNBC Daily. He is the author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence.

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Chris Voss, welcome home. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. The shill lady sings it. The iron lady sings it. That makes it official and gets everyone woken up. It sure puts a sharp ping in my brain. It gets me going down the road. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends.

As always, for 16 years, 2,000 episodes, we've been bringing you the most brilliant people. The CEOs, the billionaires, the White House presidential advisors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the great minds, the people who bring you their stories of life. And of course, we call the stories of life the owner's manual to life, as always. For further to show your family, friends, and relatives, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss, chrisfoss1 on the TikTokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. We have a wonderful returning guest who's been here before.

Frank Fugluzzi joins us on the show. His newest book is out May 28th, 2024. It's called Long Haul, Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. And man, if that doesn't capture your attention, I don't know what will, people. Frank Fuguzi was the FBI's assistant director for counterintelligence, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government he is a national security contributor for nbc news and the columnist for msnbc daily he is the author of the national bestseller the fbi way inside the bureau's code of excellence You can check that show out from a couple years ago.

Welcome to the show, Frank. How are you? I'm Chris, and it's obvious that I am the exception that proves the rule that you have brilliant people. Oh, come on. Come on. None of those folks were available today, but I'm filling it. You were with the FBI for 25 years. I know they have a high code of conduct because I read your book. That's true. Thank you. Yeah, there are dummies over there. I don't know about, I'm not going to make jokes about Space Force. There are good people over there. So, Frank, give us a.com, actually.

We probably want to start off with a.com of where people can find you on the interwebs. Oh, yeah, thanks. So, first, since we're talking about the book, you can buy the book anywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, go online, Books a Million, all of that. It's available now, doing well. But if you really want to know what I'm doing behind the scenes, projects I'm working on, interviews I've done like this one, you want to go to frankfigluzzi.com, sign up for free. You'll get regular alerts of what I've been doing and what I'm up to. There you go. So your new book, Long Haul, Hunting the Highway Killers, and I just want to be clear, I did not do any of it.

Frank, tell us what this new book is up to. Yeah, sure. Look, this is a true crime FBI's highway serial killings initiative. The FBI, the numbers here are staggering. The FBI has identified at least 850 murders of women, mostly sex trafficked women, but not all alongside our nation's highways in just the past few decades. Here's some more staggering numbers. 200 of those 850 cases are considered active and unsolved. The numbers of murders continues to rise. And when I asked the FBI, how many suspects do you have out there in this long haul community for these unsolved murders? The answer was 450. Wow. That is insane. And why has it been easy for this to be happening and hard for the FBI to solve it? Yeah, I dig deeply into this as I drove, you know, I rode 2,000 miles in a big rig to help me research this book.

And I'm sure we'll get into that. I wanted to study the three subcultures involved long haul trucking, sex trafficking, and thirdly, crime analysis. What's it like to live the life in all three categories? But there's 25 longhaul truckers currently in prison for multiple murders, and the FBI is quite confident that we currently have multiple serial killing truckers on our highways. Wow. And is it hard to catch them because they're mobile and they're moving between different states and always on the road? So the number one profession of serial killers is long-haul trucking. No other profession comes even close. So what's happening in these cases, Chris,

is they're exploiting the seams in law enforcement jurisdiction. They will grab their victim in one jurisdiction, murder and or rape her in a second jurisdiction, and dump the body in a third jurisdiction. So this wrecks havoc with police departments and sheriff's offices, all saying, I think it's your case. No, it's your case. We have no identity on the majority of these bodies. It takes decades to even identify the name of the victim, let alone find the killer. The killer's before someone finds this body, which by the way, can be weeks or months later. This trucker is long gone. And then the investigative work, think about this, an investigator going to a trucking company,

going to all trucking companies, mom and pop shops, medium size and the big ones and saying, can you give me all of your truckers that have passed through this state, you know, or this rest stop in the past year, the past six months? It is monumental. Add to this one more factor, at least, no one is demanding justice for this victim, meaning the family members don't even know, in most of these cases, that their trafficking victim loved one is missing, let alone dead. And you know the squeaky wheel gets the grease at the police department. So you've got no one championing the cause. And quite frankly, these cases often drop to the bottom of the pile in priority, in part because once the police learn that this someone was being trafficked, was in the sex trade,

the attitude seems to change. Wow, that's unfortunate. But you know, a lot of these people, sometimes they either don't have family or aren't in touch with their family. And it's like you say, their family may never know that they've disappeared. Don Winslow, he's been on the show. He's a wonderful gentleman. He built it a true crime masterpiece. So there you go. I got the plug in there.

Frank, we'll round back to the book, but give us your background. How did you grow up? What shaped you? What motivated you to become an FBI agent and go through the service and then eventually move to book writing? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I can recall my parents and family members when I told them I was going to major in English literature as an undergrad saying, what in God's name are you going to do with that?

And I, sadly, my parents did not live to see me write two books, including a national. But that got me to law school. I was raised in a family where there was good and evil presented, right? You know, the world is filled with good people and not so good people. You better make sure you're on the right side of justice and fairness. So that was a strong value in my family. I also grew up in Southern Connecticut, which is part of the New York metropolitan media market. What does that mean? It means that we were

watching the news at night where the FBI was taking down mob families. And I thought, man, this is pretty cool. These guys use brainpower to take down organized crime. So at age 11, and I tell the story in my first book, The FBI Way, at age 11, I write a letter to the head of the FBI in Connecticut. And I say, hey, I'm an 11 year old kid, and I want to be an FBI agent. Well, son of a gun, he wrote me back personally, and said, here's what you need to do. Get back to me in 14 or 15 years. And I did it. That is awesome. I mean, you know, most people can't figure out what they want to do as a kid.

I mean, I remember when I was that age, I was like, I don't know, I'll just be an astronaut or a lawyer. I mean, I think there was like 50 things you'd go through, and I, of course, grew up to be none of them. Hey, that's the way it goes there you go most of us so you join the the fbi and they have a rigorous process to vet people you can't just you know like i don't i don't think they take me i'm i'm kind of not i got one eye that's kind of bad with keratoconus so they probably like you're half blind i don't think you're gonna make the cut you know and and you're not the most brightest i person in the world. Oh my, yes, it's rigorous, but I will, I say this, look,

there's a thousand jobs in the FBI. I'm exaggerating, but it's something more like 400 job descriptions. Everybody, everybody seems to focus on the gun and badge special agents. That's the smallest group. Yeah. We're looking at a total population of about 38,000 employees and only 14,000 special agents. So we've got PhDs, scientists, linguists, surveillance specialists, you name it, they've got it. And people who think I've got some physical issue or whatever, I say, look, there's lots to do in the FBI.

Yeah, maybe I can clean toilets over there or something i know you have to be fit too i think when you usually you have to be pretty fit don't you have to do the jogging and stuff like that for the special agent position it's extremely rigorous to qualify and then to go through the academy there's those physical tests physical tests and races and long distance and obstacle courses and shooting and defensive tactics, learning how to arrest somebody who doesn't want to be arrested, which is most of the people you're trying to handcuff. I can remember one academy experience

where they were teaching you to handcuff somebody under street fight conditions, and they put us literally in a cage like the MMA and gave one of us a pair of handcuffs. And two of us were agents, and one was a bad guy. And we weren't coming out of the cage until somebody was handcuffed, hopefully the bad guy. Hey, guys, I got a new idea for when we have HR issues here at the office, how we're going to resolve it. This sounds great, an MMA cage. Yes, indeed.

But look, I never lost, even after the FBI, 25 years. I am an investigator at heart. I'm the kid who would always read the mystery books. And so when I heard about the Highway Serial Killings Initiative and these staggering numbers, I had to learn for myself. The FBI could only tell me so much about pending cases, right? And they're not even, technically, they're not even the FBI cases. These are state and local and county cases. They're murders. The FBI's role is to connect the dots, do the behavioral analysis, the crime analysis with this computer system that's been set up. So I wanted to get out there

on the street and I did 2000 miles in a big rig. I can tell you, I can tell you it's not the Ritz Carlton in that, in that sleeper berth. I am the top bunk. And we, you know, we did almost everything in that truck. I won't get graphic, but let's just say you fill a lot of gallon jugs. That's true. You got to keep rolling. You got to keep rolling there. And you got to eat a lot of that road food, man. Those diners. In all seriousness, I do go into this in the book in terms of numerous medical studies of long haul truckers. And it's not pretty, as you can imagine, it's very difficult to eat healthy on the road. We tried, we certainly tried we cooked,

we cooked some of the food in our in our, in our truck. Thank God, the driver that was gracious enough to let me annoy him for 2000 miles. He was a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He had worked as a chef. He left being a chef to get even more money as a driver, because nowadays a good driver is making six figures. And thank God he cooked some very healthy meals for us. And then the exercise thing. Look, it's a sedentary position. Your legs start going numb after the first day. And, you know, you're standing up in the rig trying to get some exercise, but I did anyway.

But thank God we drove flatbed. We drove flatbed. Yeah, Chris, it wasn't the driver who was standing up and walking around. Yeah. But, you know, I drove flatbed. And what that means is we were very physically engaged with the load, a different load every day that you are required to professionally figure out on how to do this.

How many chains or straps? Do I chain it? Do I strap it? How do I tarp it? The tarps weigh 100 pounds rolled up. You flip them up onto the top of the trailer. Then you flip them up over the big load and drape them down. We had very complicated loads including a suicide

coil which is a you'll you've seen these on the road the rolled steel that is oh gosh our rolled seal was probably 47 000 pounds and they call it a suicide coil because if you don't properly chain it down, you will have that visiting you in your cab. It will roll off and hit someone on the street. So we had drywall. Our first load delivery was to pick up at a gypsum factory, a huge stack of drywall made from gypsum and delivered to a housing industry, which was really excited to see us after COVID. We had aluminum rods we picked up from an aluminum factory. And when I researched our delivery location, I found that it was a Department of Defense munitions factory. And that aluminum was going to become part of shell casings for the military. So it's brokers are an essential part of our of our economy. Eight hundred seventy billion dollars in gross freight revenue last year.

Grocery stores would stop three days if trucking stopped. But Chris, this book is also about the dark side and the dark side is very dark with lots of serial killing and surveys and research of truckers that tell us things like 10% of truckers drink alcohol every day, 20% of truckers binge drink five drinks or more at a time, 44% of long haul truckers are exhibiting symptoms of major depression there you go and i mean it's it's a tough road it's it's isolating being on the road for all those hours i've known people that have families that are truckers and you know they're gone sometimes for quite a quite a long ways not for months but you kind of experience with the big cabs they have you know

there's the bunk beds or whatever setup they have in their cabs. It's very probably easy to stash a body or to have someone enslaved back there or whatever. And they usually stop at very rural places. I mean, when I go on the road between Utah and Vegas, there's lots of truck stops that are just, there's no service there. You just pull off in its woods. So you're right about the ease with which you can abduct and even torture and rape a victim across the various jurisdictions. I feature in my book the most heinous long-haul trucker killers in history and including modern day cases. So for example, I start off describing Robert Ben Rhodes. Robert Ben Rhodes is good for about 50 murders of men and women. He was finally caught when an

Arizona state trooper saw him pulled over with his hazard lights flashing. The trooper strolls up to the rig and hears a woman screaming. He looks in the truck and she is shackled naked from the ceiling, screaming, which started unraveling the whole Robert Ben Rhodes case, which included his kidnap of a 14-year-old girl who was hitchhiking outside her neighborhood near Houston, Texas. He proceeds to kill her boyfriend that's accompanying her because he's a speed bump. He then takes her and tortures and rapes her. In a torture chamber, he's rigged up, including hanging her from fish hooks in the back of his rig. And she's raped and tortured for weeks until she is finally killed in an abandoned farmhouse in Illinois.

And I'll tell you this. I have seen some grisly blood and gore crime scenes in my career. But there's a haunting image of Regina. It's not because it's bloody. It's not because of the content of the photo, but rather the context of the photo. This is the last photo of Regina alive. It was taken by Rhodes. And in it, when you know the context, she is clothed in a black dress that he had her wear and high heels that he bought for her.

Her hair is cut short into a bob that he did. In fact, he was cruel enough to call her father and say, I've made some changes. I cut her hair. And that photo, in that photo, her arms are outstretched, her hands toward Rhodes, and the look on her face is abject horror as she's pleading for her life. That's an image that won't go away quickly. And finally, when they caught up, they found her body decomposing. The FBI agent who worked that scene said he finally found the signature of the killer he was looking for. And that signature was that Regina's pubic hair had been shaved before death and so he was able to trace the dna he was there was dna match and then there was also

the signature that particular shaving thing was other subjects other other victims okay they began to match i get deep in the book into victimology and crime scenes you know you're was other subjects, other victims. Okay. I get deep in the book into victimology and crime scenes. You're looking at even the knots that are used to choke someone. Were they choked with their own clothing or a rope? Were they shot, stabbed, or strangled? Were they naked or not? Were they raped to be fucked or death?

All of that is part of the book and part of crime analysis. And the patterns of the killers and what they do and why they do things their certain way that can identify them. That's pretty wild. You know, people really don't understand you know, the FBI gets thrown a lot of crap politically, especially

in the last eight years, seven years, but they really don't understand how much the folks in the FBI stand between us and a lot of the monsters in the world. And they don't hear about the daily stuff that goes on. And sometimes we don't hear about things because maybe we shouldn't hear about what's going on in the world, but we don't hear about the monsters in the world so much and the daily protection that we have. And people really

don't think about it. They don't. And I appreciate you saying that because during my career, I often pondered how much I knew that was going on just under the noses of American citizens. And I began to look at it like we were there to take that on and not burden the American people with that, many of whom their heads would explode if they knew what was going on. I had early in my career, there was an assistant director at headquarters. I got called into his office one time to brief him on a very sensitive case. And I'm a young kid at the time, and I've never been in the AD's office. We're done with the briefing. I turn around and I see on the back of his door a poster that I had never seen before and it said, America is at peace because the FBI is at war. And that is true. It's true.

That would make a great book title, man. Hey, co-author. There you go. I like that. I like that. That would be a great book title, man. Hey, co-author. There you go. I like that. I like that. That would be a really good thing. I'm working on my book on leadership, and we're going to be interviewing some people from the government on leadership. And the military branches do amazing leadership stuff like Hermes.

Yeah, they do. Marines particularly and great, great programs at West Point for officers. We've had somebody who teaches at West Point, the main leadership program up there on the show for his book. I forget his name, but just great stuff. So you go through this journey. You know, you imagine you saw the lot lizards, they call them, I think, kind of a derogatory term on the, you the that there's these these women who do the sex trade you can see with the flying jays and the different truck stops and stuff i imagine that also gives it makes it easier for that these serial killers to pick up victims and stuff

yeah there's been an evolution here that's very interesting like the rest of our society things have gone online and so very few lot lizards today are prowling, usually under the watchful eye of a pimp, the parking lot of a truck stop. The big companies have cleaned up the act. Years ago, it was certainly the sense of many that the big companies looked the other way when that was happening on their lots because they felt like the truckers might want this service. And then there was tremendous pressure from citizen groups and social groups to tamp this down. And so the good news is there's less of that physically taking place in the truck lots. However, comma, things have moved online, not surprising. And even as I drove

through very rural small towns, I would get online and see what was happening. And I indeed saw advertising aimed at truckers. You know, this is the kind of advertising that years ago would have taken place on a CB radio. Literally, the women, the woman would get on the CB radio and say, you know, anybody wants some commercial? That was code for sex for money. And a trucker would respond, yeah, I'm at the Flying J. I'm in the red house, the red truck in the back of the corner there. Today, almost all online advertising targeting truckers. And where does it happen? So sometimes you'll see ads that say, I come to you, which means it's going to happen in that cab. But increasingly, it's off campus, it's off the lot. So it's in a nearby seedy motel or massage parlor. And this makes things really dangerous,

even more so for the victim, because now she's really alone. When it was happening in the truck lots, I've got many stories of women kicking, screaming, you know, breaking out window of the truck. If this is happening now with a killer trucker in the massage parlor or the seedy motel, law enforcement has no idea who did this. There'll be a dead body found the next morning and they've got no clue who did this. There'll be a dead body found the next morning, and they've got no clue who did this. And usually, I mean, imagine truck lots have cameras everywhere, but if they're going to some seedy place, there's probably, by intention, no cameras there.

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, that just makes an advantage. I won't be hitchhiking anytime soon after reading your book, Frank. I appreciate that. There are some tips about staying safe in there, particularly for women who travel long distances. Particularly, I hope there's increased awareness and vigilance, like not using the truck stop for fuel. Stay fueled up. Use only the car portion and even just a gas station without any room for trucks is preferable.

If you get an uneasy feeling on the road like I am being followed, this guy is stopping when I stop. This guy keeps following me. Call 911 and be situationally aware. They're going to ask you, where are you? You know, I'm on mile marker seven on I-75 north. You know, here's the truck. And they'll stay with you. They'll catch up to the truck. But

trust your gut on that. If you're gassing up, put your key fob in your pocket, lock the doors, keep your wallet in your pocket, all of that. Just be aware of what's going on around you. And I ask a couple of key questions in the book book chris which kind of trucker in which kind of truck is more willing to kill second question which kind of trafficked victim with which work style because there's three work styles pimp control renegade, and outlaw. And there's two kinds of pimps, gorilla pimp, finesse pimp. Which kind of victim is more likely to fall prey to a trucker? Wow.

Those are the kinds of questions we ask in the book. Wow. You know, I drive a lot between Utah and Vegas. And, you know, I'm old now. You know, there's a lot of stops for the number one, and there's a few stops I know that don't have services. They don't have anything. They're actually kind of like U-turn stops, it seems, or something, or they have some sort of farm road that goes back, but I always pull off those stops, and there's always trucks

sitting there, and I just don't think anything. I just kind of go off in the woods there a little bit and whatever, i won't be doing that anymore no we'll be stopping there i might yeah well you know i will i will tell you there's there's sex transactions happening at those remote rest stops so really the woman will walk the woman will often get driven there by the pimp oh wow and it's true i talked to i talked to two women as part of my research who were trafficked to truckers and survived violent encounters with truckers. Both of those women now helping to run resource centers for women like them who need to escape and decided to escape. starfish place doing phenomenal things with survivors of trafficking who themselves have young children fantastic program and research going on there but the you know the rest stops vegas the vegas area is one of the few in the country where you're still physically going to see

women plying the trade at truck stops. Yeah, that's Vegas for you. Especially out in Pahrump, I guess, where it's legal technically. On your book, The FBI Way, you were here in 2022 about that. And we talked kind of at length at some of the different, you know, we've had people like Peter Strzok on the show and different folks from the FBI. I think we had some Justice Department people on recently. They weren't in the criminal division, or they were, I think they were in the business criminal division.

But, you know, we talked at that time about the kind of some of the abuse the FBI had taken politically from the Trump administration, let's just put it frankly. And it seems like that's still going on. You know, recently they accused the FBI of trying to kill Trump. Trying to kill him. Trying to assassinate him when he was a thousand miles away. Yeah, yeah, conveniently arranged with the Secret Service. So how do you feel like the FBI's image has recovered or the abuse of the FBI's image has recovered since the Trump administration, have things gotten better? Is things, you know, the image that, I mean, it just, I mean, between James Comey, you

know, getting beat up by Donald Trump and stuff. I mean, is it, do you think it's recovered and it's kind of returned more to a healthier sort of respect for the FBI? So it's recovered, period. You know, I think that it's in recovery. I think, you know, this is almost like, you know, how we would talk about an alcoholic or a drug addict, you're always in recovery. I think this is going to take a generation to restore the credibility in our institutions, if we ever do it.

I say institutions, plural, because, you know, very few people are now saying that the Supreme Court is credible. The center, you know, of all people are now saying that the Supreme Court is credible. The center, you know, of all places, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you know, half of America is going, yeah, I don't know if I believe anything they say. You know, we're in this rabbit hole of disinformation and propaganda where, you know, people think, you know, yesterday on the Hill, Attorney General Merrick Garland was castigated about, you know, you're in charge of the New York State DA case.

It's all being driven from, and he kept, you know, he kept having to say, this is Matt Gaetz, he was, you know, talking. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Congressman Gaetz, we don't control the Manhattan DA's office. You know, you're out of your mind. I'm still wondering how Matt Gaetz wormed out of all those charges in that case. Some of the top journalists I know are still working that question. How was a declination

of prosecution filed in his particular case? We may never know. And where's the ethics case in Congress? I know McCarthy startedvin mccarthy where is it yeah yeah it's it's really interesting i just i that seemed like an open shot case i was following it a lot and reading it and that seemed like a really simple easy case i mean the one guy went away for a long time but you know and you you traffic in underage kids i mean that's like Epstein level sort of stuff. My only guess, and it's conjecture, having worked in my FBI career, I supervised for a year, a crimes against children squad in San Francisco. That was an ugly year.

But, you know, proving that you had the knowledge that this young lady was truly underage particularly if you're telling your buddy who's setting this up for you that i don't want to know yeah it's crazy yeah all the text messages i don't want to imply that there's legal consent if you're underage because there's never but if you've got a victim who's going, yeah, I signed up for sugar daddy and I lied about my age and whatever and all of this, now the prosecutors who always like things tied up in a neat little bow are going to go, nah, I don't like to lose. So I don't know about this. That could be happening. Yeah. Director James Comey was on the news and of course he was predicting the outcome of the trump trial which he did really well he nailed it you know he was he was he was

plugging his book too we should probably get a plug in for that and you know he was talking about if trump does win in 2024 i mean they're very clear what they're going to do they're going to carve out the institutions and i'm sure the f FBI and the Justice Department are number one on their list to interfere with the rule of law. And of course, probably eliminate the January 6th criminal trial, the classified documents. It's just astounding to me

that that thing is not gone to court officially yet. Don't forget that judge,ileen Cannon down in Florida, she will guarantee you she'll be quickly promoted by Trump if he wins to the appellate court and ultimately to a Supreme Court role, which she appears to be auditioning for. Yes, I don't want to hear anybody say that they're shocked and amazed when Trump wins and he starts dismantling government institutions, the FBI, the DOJ, putting his own people in at lower levels. Right. Because one of the one of the things they seem to be working on is doing away with civil service protections for career employees. So imagine this. Imagine that the head of every field office in the FBI, everywhere across the states, has to take a loyalty pledge to Trump, and he's handpicked. No longer necessarily career people either in those

positions. Then imagine the folks who prosecute federally, every U.S. attorney is now taking a loyalty pledge. Now try to get a corruption case done against anybody who's not, you know, who's not a, who is a Republican. You'll put a case against Russia or China. Nope, probably not. The DNI will be a Trump loyalist. The attorney general will be somebody like, God help us. I don't know, Sidney Powell.

I mean, you know, it's going to get ridiculous. And I don't want to hear anybody say that they're shocked and amazed by what happens. And it's just amazing to me that people just think it's kind of, oh, whatever, I'm sure it'll be fine. You know, you read about, I believe it's the Heritage Projects, Project 2025. Yes. Have you read about this yet? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. There's names of people being submitted and drafted as cabinet secretaries and below people being talked to right now.

You know, you've got people. It's interesting. You've got a couple of different kinds of Trump supporters. Those who say, yeah, yeah, I've heard all this. I've heard it. I don't think it's going to happen. I think he'll rise to the occasion with total nonsense. And I'm not that worried about it. Come on. Some of that is non-constitutional. And then you've got other people who go, yeah, I'm hearing about it and I'm good with it. Excuse me? You're good with what?

You're good with doing away with civil service protection. You're good with what? You're good with doing away with civil service protection. You're good with telling the intelligence community that they can't even collect on certain topics. Certain cases can't be worked at FBI. Really? Are we going to get Mike Flynn as Secretary of Defense? Jesus. A convicted felon again, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah. They want to recruit 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal servants. And so it's basically a fascist authoritarian-style government. Yeah, it's about as close as you can get. They're going to disable all the checks and balances. You know, and it's funny. Everybody around Trump has now been prosecuted as a felon, pretty much. Including his lawyers. Yeah, including his lawyers.

I mean, what does that tell you? And just, you know, some of these Americans that are just like, oh, you know, I'm sure it'll be fine. I don't know. You know, the economy is kind of, there's some inflation that's high because of COVID. Yeah, maybe we should retry that Trump thing again. You know, I mentioned in my book, Long Haul, that there are many trucking companies who are part of a second chance program for convicted felons. They hire. Yeah, yeah.

Like Western Express is a second chance company and they're permitted. The government permits them to do hiring for convicted felons. They hire. Really? Yeah, yeah. Like Western Express is a second chance company, and they're permitted. The government permits them to do hiring for convicted felons. I think if Trump wins, we're going to be looking at his administration as the largest employer of convicted felons in the history of the United States. And Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell and all these other people will be a part of the administration, not to mention the president himself, if he wins. It's just extraordinary to me. I'm just holding on to faith. The middle part of America pulls us through this one, and people hold on.

I just got to believe. I always have that voice in my head like the being of Godfather. I believe in America. I'm head like the being of Godfather. I believe in America. I'm believing in the good people of America. I still have hope. I still believe the majority of Americans will turn out and do the right thing. Democracy can end in instance. To preserve democracy. What I think is so disturbing, Chris, is that there is a significant portion of Americans who actually are rethinking whether we should or should not be a democracy.

That's the scary part. Yeah, you see the interviews on TikTok. There's a couple of these guys that do these interviews on TikTok and at different social channels, and they go out with mics. And a lot of these MAGA people, they're like, yeah, I think it's time we gave up that democracy thing. Yeah, we need a king. We need somebody to put this country into shape. Yeah, they think it's time we gave up that democracy thing. Yeah, we need a king. We need somebody to put this country into shape. Yeah, they're thinking, I mean, look, some of this I get. I'm not going to pretend that I don't understand where they're coming from.

This concept that three equal branches of government, you know, doesn't really get anything done. So I like the idea of a strong president, an authoritarian president to kick some ass they have no knowledge by the way of how that would happen legally they don't he put boots on the ground and american soil and start shooting shoplifters what and and so it can't it can't get done but the fact that you think that's cool and you don't want any checks or balances on a leader, understand that's a dictator. Yeah. And the economy goes to hell too

because they start putting their fingers on it. I mean, I watched Venezuela 20, 30 years ago and what was its name came into power and just started fucking up one of the richest oil countries in the world. Yeah, Chavez. He started mucking with everything and you could just see it.

I watched him slowly take it apart and drive that country in the ground world yeah chavez he started mucking with everything and you could just see it i watched him slowly take it apart and drive that country in the ground because he kept wanting to put his finger on his thumb on the scale and and you know i mean that they tried a little bit of that the last time but yeah so hopefully we can survive all this to come out the other side it's it's i i i don't know what it's going to take to have the MAGA Trump thing. I mean, maybe he has to have a heart attack or something, and it just has to kind of end that way, and maybe the country wakes up. I've heard some people, I don't adhere to this,

but I've heard some people suggest that maybe the only thing that makes this go away is four more years where everybody realizes this is a total disaster. And then you'll see him gone. My concern, of course, is what damage is done in those four years. Yeah. Silvio Brescoloni, the head of Italy, I remember he had two terms. And between his first and second term, they didn't prosecute him for any of his things or deal with any of the issues he created in the first term.

He came back in the second term and was far worse. Exactly. Yeah. I remember when Donald Trump won office, they actually put two female journalists from Italy on. And they're like, you guys just elected Silvio Brescoloni. That's what you did. It's true. You elected a madman.

And have fun with that. Yeah. And they were right. Frank, it's been wonderful to have you on. It's true. You elected a madman, and have fun with that. Yeah, and they were right. Frank, it's been wonderful to have you on. Anything new you're working on? Is there a book upcoming maybe you want to tease out? Boy, I'm so glad to be in the middle of promoting this book that I can't even think of a next one. But I'll tell you this, we're getting strong interest

from production companies for long haul. It could be sold soon for a movie or limited TV series. We'll see about that. I have a new YouTube show called Frankly, a hard look at America's soft spots. We've had people like Adam Kinzinger on, a really good interview of a really good person. Check that out. That usually drops every Monday. And again, the website frankfugluzzi.com buy the book long haul even the audio version i read myself three days of non-stop reading which was wonderful for my voice and get get in touch with me through twitter or through instagram or through my website there you go thank you very much again frank for coming on the on the show we'd love to have you

again in the future keep coming on back show. We'd love to have you again in the future. Keep coming on back. Stay safe, everybody. All right. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss1, the TikTokity, all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.

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