The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW Cheating Death: Three-Time Presidential Secret Service Agent Lives to Tell You How

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

With 24 yrs experience serving under 3 presidents in the Secret Service, Ken Valentine comments on the recent shooting at the Trump event as strange details continue to emerge. In his book "Cheating Death", Ken Valentine talks about lessons he learned in the corridors of wealth and power about the important things in life and what it takes to keep a family of 5 children together in a high pressure job — lessons that applyFind out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

Happiness. We all know what it feels like, but sometimes it doesn't come easy. I'm Garvey Bailey, the host of Happy Enough, a new podcast from The Globe and Mail about our pursuit of happiness. We know people want to live more fulfilling and positive lives, but how do we actually do that? Is there a happiness code to crack? From our relationship with technology to whether money can really buy you happiness, we'll hear from both real people and experts to demystify this thing we're all searching for and hopefully find ways to be happy enough. You can find Happy Enough wherever you listen to podcasts. When you're not weighed down by high interest rates, life lightens up.

MBNA TrueLine MasterCards have low interest rates on balance transfers and purchases to give your finances a lift. Find the credit card that's right for you. Visit mbna.ca slash truelinecards. Give your finances a lift. All right, joining us now is Ken Valentine. He has worked in the Secret Service. He worked under three presidential Secret Service details. We'll find out how many years he worked with him but there was an excellent quote from dan bongino in support of his book i haven't read his book but i wanted to get him on because he wants to talk about his view of life what that gave him uh working in the secret service it's called cheating death dan bongino said this about his book he said there's three people i've met in my life who've had as deep of an impact on me as Secret Service agent Ken Valentine.

His new book, Cheating Death, is a masterpiece about leadership and perspective in a difficult world. His stories from his time in the Secret Service are overlaid with leadership and with life lessons that he learned in a way that readers will embrace and appreciate. So I'm very interested to talk to him, even though I haven't seen the book. So welcome, Ken Valentine. Thank you for joining us. Yes, sir. Proud to be with you. Thank you.

Tell us a little bit about, first of all, how long you were there under three different presidents? How long did you work for the Secret Service? Sure. Well, my career spanned from 1996 to 2020, So 24 years with the service. I was on the president's detail two times for a total of 10 years. Started at the end of Bill Clinton's term. So I was with him for his last year. And then the first four years with President George W. Bush, bounced around the country and headquarters doing different things. And then i was promoted back uh at the start

of the the president obama administration served another five years so that was my tenure i i retired as the special agent in charge of dignitary protective division i won't talk to you about what happened over this last weekend but before we do real quickly that the title cheating death that also got my attention because that is the kind of thing every day that you guys are going to work you never know if there's going to be some kind of a violent attack if you're going to have to take a bullet for the president i guess it's kind of like living with cancer for a very long time isn't it talk about that absolutely and uh and and since that's been in our family my wife uh cheated death beat breast cancer so um cheating death was a term

that we threw around uh when i was on the president's detail among the agents. It was just it was kind of a way to to to prod each other a little bit. It was a good reminder of the importance of the mission and what's going to happen if we don't do our job, if we don't pay attention to detail, if we don't follow through on the methodology, the protocol, but it was also a lighthearted way to just punch each other and a little joking kind of inner circle. The book was close to having another title that wasn't nearly as good, but thankfully we came up with that at the end. Kind of graveyard humor there as you're doing a very difficult job. And as you point out, what can and as you point out what can happen cheating death what can

happen if you don't pay attention to the details now what we saw over the weekend was an astonishing lack of attention to detail nobody can believe uh what was happening with that first of all had the shooter get into the event carrying a gun how did he get onto a roof that was that close to the clear line of sight talk a little bit about your impressions about this yeah you know uh having done this for 24 years and and sort of lived and breathed that um even though that's what we prepared for it was still a bit shocking uh to see someone that that we've been given the mission to protect uh whisked off the stage bleeding from a

gunshot wound. It's just that is not supposed to happen. You've been given a mission. It is an enormous responsibility, but it's a privilege that comes with consequence if you don't do it right. And the Secret Service director came out early this morning. Thankfully, she's, you know, someone that I've known for a long time and encounter as a friend. But it's Tuesday. This happened Saturday. And thankfully, we're taking ownership for that. There's no way around that.

So there were failures. Every time you set up a site, it takes an enormous amount of time, enormous amount of collaboration and effort. And, you know, we're not the know-it-alls. We have a lot of experience in that. But we always lean into other partners, federal, state, and local partnerships to do that. But at the end of the day, the Secret Service has the final say. We sign off on it, and we coordinated that so you've got to take ownership for that i was glad to see her do that this morning yeah because what we saw for the

first several days was finger pointing back and forth uh well that was local uh job they should have done this or done that and they said they were ones running the show they were coordinating everything you know and so yeah so i guess she has finally said something about that uh i saw a quote from a an individual who said i've been to five trump rallies and at four of the five we went through wanding and all kinds of stuff about weapons and everything because not at this one they just waved me through and and so i guess that's my question i you know i mean that kind of thing would catch somebody that's got a concealed pistol or something but how do you get into an event like that carrying a rifle and who knows what else yeah that that doesn't make any sense to somebody like me uh that just does not compute you know weapons and secured events uh this don't come out of the same mouth. So the perimeter was set up, again, it's an

architecture and every single one is different. It's like a painting or something. And so they're all different. If it was cookie cutter, you could easily say, well, what was the security failure? I think in this instance, with the way the security perimeter was drawn and where this building was, obviously the final outcome was failure. But I think the investigation is gonna reveal probably multiple mini steps of failure, but the game of protection is prevention.

And when we don't prevent bullets from flying into what we would call a secured event, the word failure ought to be at the forefront of the confession there because that is just failure. You can't have that. And they did. So, you know, the impressive thing to me was watching, and I know some of these individuals that did react. And, you know, security is made up of layers, and there shouldn't be a single point of failure. So I'll be interested to see what the investigation reveals and how any of those points led to failure. But the reaction by the shift, what we would call the working shift around President Trump, was pretty fast. It was quick. It was coordinated. They did exactly what we were trained to do. The unfortunate part of that is that they were reacting to bullets flying

and President Trump's own reaction to being hit. And most of the time that is just simply too late. And we train for that, but you don't ever want to be in that situation. I would much rather have seen them with that kind of quick reaction, having received verbal, um, you know, information that we have identified a shooter on the roof. We're in the process of neutralizing, but get him out. And that didn't happen. I don't know why that didn't happen. I'll be waiting just like everybody else to see what were the sequence of events here that led to bullets flying into a secured area. And of course, now we're seeing things coming out from local

law enforcement saying that there were reports of him walking around 30 minutes ahead of time but i guess one of the the questions that i have is um why wasn't there wouldn't it be standard procedure for there to be somebody on that roof uh if it's that close or or do they just kind of watch it i mean the other part of it is we saw the guy who was kind of elevated as a sniper, and he seemed to be pointing his gun at that guy. Did he have to have special orders to shoot the guy if he sees somebody laying prone in a position with a rifle? Does he have to have some special permission to take action, or how does that work? Well, I'll address that first.

The Secret Service counter-snipers operate on a green light, so they don't need permission. They need a circumstance that warrants taking the shot. I've heard some of those stories, too, and so all I can say is that the entire time that I was there, the snipers are your best friend. They are your overlord. They are watching way beyond your back, taking care of you. And so that the working shift around the president can maintain their focus a lot closer in. The snipers are incredibly well-trained and disciplined. But like everybody else, I saw the photos and now videos of what

they were looking at. And typically the snipers work in tandem. You have a shooter and a spotter and they both can become shooters. But one person is using the binoculars for, you know, looking around. Sometimes they're both doing that. But as soon as they have a threat identified, then one gets on the rifle, the other maintains spotting, and you coordinate that shot. But it just seemed like there was some kind of delay, and I don't know if that was in acquisition. I don't know, but the delay should not and would not, in my experience, come from any kind of permission because they have the green light to do what needs to be done real time, all the time. Yeah, that's one of the questions that I have. Because I looked at the video. There's a video where he seems like he's acquired the guy.

And then he takes his eye off of the eyepiece. And then you hear a bunch of shots. And then whoever's filming it with a phone, they start moving around and you lose any visual of what is happening. What I read was that somebody else then at a further distance, rather than 150 yards, somebody that was about 450 yards and then took him out. I don't know. That's just what I've seen people say. But what seems strange to me was that, you know, he seemed to have acquired him and pull back and took his head and removed his head away from the eyepiece,

and then you hear all the shots happening there. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I think the other question with respect to the counter snipers is how many teams were in place. It's a little unusual, in my experience, to see just one team, because there's a lot of ground to cover. You know, you asked if it was typical or, you know, you would expect this or that. And again, every security venue and event is so different. So the architecture, the infrastructure is going to be different. And so. Happiness. We all know what it feels like, but sometimes it doesn't come easy. I'm Garvey Bailey, the host of Happy Enough, a new podcast from the Globe and Mail about our pursuit of happiness.

We know people want to live more fulfilling and positive lives. But how do we actually do that? Is there a happiness code to crack? From our relationship with technology to whether money can really buy you happiness, we'll hear from both real people and experts to demystify this thing we're all searching for, and hopefully find ways to be happy enough. You can find Happy Enough wherever you listen to podcasts. If that was within their area of responsibility, then they should have been seeing a shooter on the roof. The coordination to your first question about how someone would get access to that roof and wouldn't it be part of the protocol to not allow anyone on the roof? I can tell you in my experience, people get on the roofs all the time and the way we mitigate that uh we we try to prevent people from getting on roofs through locked doors through posting uh police officers and agents and then

you also utilize roving uh counter surveillance and and identification teams that that patrol in those areas and and so it's it's a little hard hard for me to even appreciate the notion that this guy number one, got access, scaled this building without some kind of communication going out. Or number two, the rumors that I've heard is that he was up there for quite a while. So a little hard for me to digest that because it just doesn't square with my experience that this would go. It's certainly not going to be casually dismissed.

Someone's on a roof. That's a direct threat to the security of the venue. So I wish I knew. It'll come out. Certainly more information is coming out on a daily basis. When you said you wish you knew how many sniper teams there were, the reports that the Trump campaign had asked for more coverage and had not received it. And, of course, they denied RFK Jr. any coverage, but now they have changed that for RFK Jr. Do you think that might be something that was in play uh i know it's too

soon to say but uh what might that be a possible explanation for why there wasn't something more done about the venue even though they had people there to screen people they just weren't doing it coming in but you know in terms of the roof or something like that and coverage of the roof there was a personnel maybe i don't know yeah another that's another difficult thing for me to to to get past uh me is the idea that people were coming into the venue that were not being screened for weapons uh that's that's a little hard to take it's a huge crowd it's it's right up against the rnc use of magnetometers you know should have been there so I I've been working under the assumption that they were there and I'm I'm gonna maintain that assumption I'll be very disappointed if people were coming into

that venue without without passing through a magnetometer and being cleaned up there's there's no point in having a perimeter if you're not screening people coming in. That means there really is a lot of them. Yeah, that's right. Well, I think we pretty much covered what happened over the weekend. Let's talk about your experiences. I'm sure you had some very interesting experiences personally over 24, 25 years. I tell you, I loved my career. I had a storybook career and I wouldn't

trade one day of it for anything. I loved it. It's a passion of mine. And when I went back to the president's detail for a second tour, I served as a shift leader. And that's the that's kind of the operational quarterback of the president's detail. And, and that was such, such a fun job. It typically has a one year burnout. I did it for two years and seven months, and they had to throw me out to get me to stop doing it, because I just loved it so much. And, and it's a great mission. It's, it's, it's good. I think it's just part of my DNA to want a mission-driven job. And the fact that you can't fail at anything drives you. It can wear you out. But I still loved it.

What was your background? What got you into it? That's such an unusual job, actually, I think. What got you into that? Not too many people get into becoming a Secret Service agent. Yeah, I'd be glad to tell you that story because my dad and my uncle were both FBI agents. So I broke family tradition. And they talked me into going to law school.

So I went to Purdue undergrad and then Mississippi College for law school. But they finally got me diverted. My dad had the opportunity when in a Ronald Reagan visit to participate in the intelligence aspect of the advance. And, you know, he got to engage with the agents, be brought in to see the culture behind the scenes. And, you know, he was comparing that, the FBI culture to Secret Service culture. Knowing his son, he said, you know, if you just insist on going into federal law enforcement, I'm going to push you to Secret Service. And so he did. I think that was wise.

I enjoyed it. I loved it and wouldn't trade. Now, you know, we all see the presidents all the time, but you get to see them behind the scenes. How different is it seeing them behind the scenes versus their public persona? Well, it really depends on the president. And I don't want to hand anyone up unnecessarily. I can tell you this. Near and dear to my heart, because I spent four years with him, George W. Bush, there was no on-camera persona whatsoever.

So, you know, I can safely say that he didn't have a different persona at all. There was no, oh, the cameras are on, you know, let me, you know, let me change because he was just that genuine. So I did appreciate that. He, you know, we had an incident, several where he saved us. So we, you know, he was very much dear to me and appreciated his, his demeanor toward us. And, you know, we certainly weren't friends. It didn't like that. But the only time he called me by my name was when my family came in for a departure photo when my time was up. So it was a very professional relationship. That's great. And he didn't have a dog that bit you either, right?

He had dogs. And I remember one time I had to pick. I can't remember which dog it was. Probably Barney up and carry the dog to him. And, you know, some of my colleagues are like, pick, it was, I can't remember which dog it was, probably Barney, uh, up and carry the dog to him. And, you know, some of my colleagues are like, really, dude, you're, you're, you're carrying the dog. And I'm like, look, uh, if I don't pick this dog up and carry the dog to him, he's going to stop, come back and get the dog. I said, this is just quicker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, talk a little bit about, uh, what you saw in terms of insights you got in terms of leadership and integrity and things like that.

Can you talk about that in a general way? Yeah, yeah. That's part of my heartbeat now. It's part of what I'm doing. I serve on the board at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at the Well House and on another technology company called Base Molecular Resonance Technology. And leadership is what I'm teaching and preaching. In fact, I'm in Pittsburgh. This is my glorious studio, is my hotel room here.

But I'm at the International Conference of Police Chaplains to speak to them about leadership. And I serve as a point man leadership institute teacher and so we're going to talk about leadership even amongst chaplains and my you know leadership mantra that's that i lead with in the book is is to keep it simple and and continue a direction over perfection and so i i talk about, the importance of vision, discipline, and integrity. And those are my big three. I feel like all the other attributes of leadership can fit somehow into one of those three categories. And if you major on the major with those three, then it's a little hard to go wrong. Vision and integrity. What was the third one that you

mentioned? Discipline. Discipline. Let's talk about that vision thing, because that's something that George W's father talked about. But how would you define vision for people? You know, sometimes vision has to do more with faith than it does with sight. In,

in the book, I talk about vision and I, and I talk about an outing with President Obama and with Tiger Woods. And we came up to the 18th hole at the Floridian and it had been a long day. Tiger Woods was enjoying talking to me a lot more than President Obama for some reason. It was very uncomfortable. But President Obama got up to the 18th hole and I'm not a golfer, but the fairway was off to the right and then it jutted back to the left to the green. He hit a nice shot almost to that clearing.

Tiger Woods gets up to hit his shot. And I talk about the importance of being able to see differently than everybody else. And so I said it's sometimes it's more about faith than sight. Tiger Woods didn't hit the ball to the right. He didn't go straight for the green. And we've been talking about the collaborative nature of the Secret Service and our security infrastructure. And I pointed out the Coast Guard boat out on the water to the left and the Coast Guard helicopter up above. And we had agents on the boat and agents in the helicopter

Tiger Woods launches the ball out to the left out over the water and I really thought for a second he was trying to give the Coast Guard and the agent out there a souvenir but the ball took off and kept rising rising rising and then it started slicing back to the right coming back to earth lands on the the left edge of the green rolling toward the the hole and it's slicing back to the right coming back to earth lands on the the left edge of the green rolling toward the the hole and it's just like well tiger woods looked at this problem and saw it differently than than everybody else out there he had some skills he had some tools experience and know-how that that gave him a vision for for getting this ball in this hole different than than other people and when when I was about a year into the

president's detail, you had to pick a specialty and they selected for me because I wanted to do other stuff. But they put me in the transportation section and that's the folks who drive the limousine and work out the motorcade routes and all that planning. You have to pass the protective operations driving course. And it's not an easy thing, but that's where you learn all those cool driving maneuvers and learn to go fast and to steer and brake and do the crazy turns and all that stuff. But, you know, to stay in the transportation section, you had to pass protective operations driving course. And to pass, you had to make it through the obstacle course in a certain amount of time without hitting cones. And every cone you hit took time off of your score. And, you know, we're approaching the end and nobody's passing. And our instructor finally said, do you want to know the secret to managing the obstacle course?

Of course, we all did. And he said, we've taught you how to break. We've taught you how to use the accelerator and the steering wheel, but the key to navigating the obstacle course is your eyes. And if you look at the cones, you will hit the cones. But if you look to where your goal is, the, the little bitty opening at the very end of this big banana curve, you'll hit that. And so your, your hands and your eyes work together when you've got good vision. And so you have to lift your gaze. And I,

you know, I point to scripture saying that, you know, he, he wants us to fix our eyes upon him. He wants us to lift our gaze off the problems and the troubles of life. When we look down, we see problems. We get bog of life. When we look down, we see problems.

We get bogged down. When we look up and lift our gaze, then we tend to hit where we're gazing. So that's, for me, that's a little nutshell about vision and something that I enjoy talking about. Yeah, that's a great lesson. And, you know, in the middle of talking a lot about um uh money and its effect and it's and how we treat it christ said you know if the light of the eye is darkness how

dark is it on the inside of your body it's what you're looking at right well what are you focused are you looking as you pointed out are you looking at the problems are you looking at the things that you want that you don't have and that type of thing if you do you're going to miss the goal it's going to become your master uh that that's a very important lesson i really like that but i can't go away from the driving thing without finding out you know how to do uh rockford turns oh yes yes that's uh that's one of the things they teach you we call them a j turn yeah and you have to master the j turn you can't make it through because it's part of the obstacle course. You have to, you know, drive down into a dead end and then and then do the J turn and you have to do it fast. In a limousine, no less, not a sports car. That's the key thing.

And I've seen pictures of them navigating a cone thing backwards. Is that part of it as well? It is. Wow. Wow. That's very impressive. Yeah, that is really impressive driving skills there. Talk a little bit about how it affected your family life. Well, there's a huge impact on the family life. And that's another thing that I do talk about in Cheating Death is the impact on the family. And I'm very thankful to have a wife who was, uh, not only supportive, but, uh, encouraged me to get out there and do that. And, and so in the, I, I, I have a chapter in there about decision-making and,

and I talk about the importance of including, uh, you know, your, your spouse in the decision-making process. But, you know, what I found is that if the two of us are one and we're seeking him, then those decisions tend to come out better than if I just go on my own strength and my own understanding and then inform her. I have some examples in the book where I did that, and they don't come out very well. So I learned the value of seeking her advice, her counsel and agreement in making these decisions and then navigating a job that is not family friendly. It just isn't. So I took on focus on the family because they put out an article about a Secret Service agent who quit and they hold him up as the example of what you must do if you're going to be a good husband and a true father to your children.

And I said, I'm not sure about that. I can't find a biblical example of anyone that God told you lay up because I've got someone else to do this mission for you. I see plenty of examples of men in particular who were told, you know, go out and do, as I say, leave your home. But it's, you know, this career wouldn't have been much of a career without her support, without her so much of the time taking care of the family. And, you know, that carries forward to today. My mother is in the hospital having open-heart surgery tomorrow. My mother said, you must go. Just go.

I'll be fine. My wife said, I got it, and I want you to go slay the dragon. So here I am in Pittsburgh doing what I had planned to do, but not without tremendous support from the family. That's such a great example. A difficult career, constantly traveling, often away from your family. That's such a great example. A difficult career, constantly traveling, often away from your family, a situation where your life really is in danger frequently, more so than in many other law enforcement jobs, perhaps. And so it is, I think, probably going to be one of the more interesting parts of your book like i said i

haven't um had a chance to read it yet but i think to see what those family dynamics are there and and how a family can work you know we have lost sight of that in america haven't we we have indeed and uh you know it's just such a tragedy that we have so many homes that don't have a solid foundation they don't have the infrastructure foundation. They don't have the infrastructure. You know, in the Point Man Leadership Institute, we talk about these 10 foundational principles and then the eight character traits that flow from that. And so many homes don't have grandparents or two parents to give guidance to share those principles with children. And so I fear for, so I, I, I fear for

the future with a generation, generations to come that haven't had that infrastructure. They haven't had that teaching and that training. So where do you turn, uh, what's right from wrong and, and, uh, you know, where are we going to go from here? But, uh, we, we do have five children and, uh, we're, we're, you know, so blessed to, to so blessed to have two girls and three boys. And that was the audience for the book originally. It was just trying to pass that legacy of faith and leadership, of decision-making, even when it gets hard, on to the next generation. That's really important.

As you're talking about family, we don't have, because everybody is so mobile, because people follow careers around and you know even in engineering that I was in we would you know people would frequently advance their career by going to work for another company and that might be a move across the country that's so common today that we've lost the multi-generational family that used to have when we were more of an agrarian society and people would know their grandparents maybe even their great-grandparents. Then it got reduced to a nuclear family, just a mom and dad and the kids.

And now with divorce that's become so common, we do have split that atom, I guess. So the nuclear family has kind of gone through a real radical fission. I think your experience and being able to hold this together in a very high-pressure job like that, there's a lot for you job like that, there's a lot for you to tell people, I think, about that. Tell us a little bit about, well, I got another question. When you said you had to take on focus on the family, was there a report about a guy who was in this high pressure job and he quit it so that he could work with his family?

Was that what they were talking about? Yeah, that was the article. It was about a very young Secret Service agent that lived in Washington and was supporting the full-time details on probably a part-time basis. But yeah, it talked about how he missed birthdays and he missed this and that and, he just gave that up so that he could spend more time with the family. And, and I, you know, what I was trying to do was give my kids an example of how to go about making a hard decision. And I said, I, I don't think that's the, that's the most important factor. Um, I, I, because I just can't find a biblical example where it says, you know, if it's easy, that must be the right way. It just like, uh, God has a, has a grander plan and it's easy, that must be the right way. It just seems like God has a grander plan, and it's not quite that simple.

So I lay out what, for me, has been a good way to go about making decisions. And so you pray, you seek wise counsel, you dive into Scripture, and then you wait. You know, Psalm 37 says, trust, delight, commit, and then be still, and wait for the Lord and see what He says. And that's been a good model for me to follow. It's not the only way to go about making a decision, but certainly when they tried to say that if it impacts your family negatively, then it must be wrong uh it seemed like a poor working model for how to make a decision and and again i just finding that biblical example of that was a little tough meanwhile a lot of examples of of uh biblical figures who are told to go and do hard things

and god will be with you as you do hard things so that's right yeah that's right yeah but again a part of it i guess is trying to figure out what it is that god is calling you to do maybe that guy that wasn't his calling maybe that wasn't something that's really a good fit with him because he couldn't figure out how to manage it you know you you were able to manage a very difficult uh thing that uh you know most people would really struggle with, because you really were called to do that, I think. And I'm a huge supporter of Focus on the Family, and when I talk about that in the book, that is exactly what I say, is this, obviously God's will was done in this fellow's life,

and praise God for that. He found another job and pursued that. But what I took issue with was the working model of how to make a good decision, which didn't seem to square for me. And so that's what I was trying to provide my kids. And now the audience of Cheating Death was a working model of how to make a good decision.

And I think that in our society, we've lost the idea that we should try to do the hard thing. I think that's a really important thing that has been lost. And so I think that's another aspect of your experience that's very valuable. So you talk a little bit about faith and how that plays a role in terms of your prayer, in terms of reading and understanding as well as you can God's will, but then also praying about it and waiting and trying to get direction on that. How did that all play out, and what type of things are you doing now that you have retired from the Secret Service that are a part of your christian faith yeah faith um

you know i i actually didn't become a follower of jesus christ until i was in law school and i was confronted with the gospel i grew up in a christian home with with faithful parents faithful grandparents but uh you know i strayed and wandered through the college years and early law school. And I was confronted with the idea that, that you could know for certain. And, you know, I was caught up in that, the idea that,

that somehow you had to be good enough for, to be saved. And, and so the, the fellow that talked to me asked me if I died tonight, would I go to heaven? And I said, well,

I think so, but I don't know. And he said, he cut, cut through all that and gave me 1 John 5, 13, which says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. And so I really grabbed that and ran with it. I like the fact that you can know for sure that salvation

is yours. And now, how do we get on with the rest of our life? And so that's where I want to live. And so at this point, having retired from the Secret Service, I'm pursuing a number of things. I've got the book, I'm serving on a number of boards and out teaching and training and leadership. And that's one of the things I want to do. One of the boards that I serve on is a is a technology firm called BMRT and and you know unfortunately we were in Florida last week with them looking at technology that that would have alerted the Secret Service to the presence of a of a man with not only an explosive in the car but also a loaded ar-15 magazine well before he got to the building.

And so it was a little hard for me to swallow to watch that and then to realize that this technology, which we're trying hard to get to the forefront, it would actually have, you know, prevented that by virtue of giving them an alert and actionable, you know, item of intel to pursue versus, you know, having wait until he'd crawled up on a roof and gotten ready to squeeze off rounds. So it's been a pleasure to be retired from the Secret Service, to have the freedom to get out, teach and train, and talk about these things that are important to me. And, of course, it always is a concern

whenever we look at ways, whenever we have something that is a disruptive event like that, our first instinct is to clamp down harder. And if we're not careful, that moves us right into a totalitarian society. You know, when we try to make everything completely safe, it's a double-edged sword. We have to be careful with technology.

But I want to talk to you a little bit about the things that you, again, as you're there with a president and you're watching a lot of the most powerful and wealthiest people in the world come all the time, you have a chance to watch these people. And you talk a little bit about what makes life fulfilling, what makes people happy. My question to you is, as you see all these rich and powerful elites coming into the presidency, do they strike you as being happy and content? Is it something that you envied to look at these people? I'm kind of guessing that it wasn't. But I don't know. What was your take on at these people or is it uh i'm kind of guessing that it wasn't but i i don't know what was your take on on seeing uh these people because i've had an opportunity to see a lot of well-known famous people and um i i feel really sorry for a lot of them right frankly i do

too i you know it's amazing to me you if you're around them long enough you can see uh then let their hair down a little bit and you, you know, my contention is, my belief is that we all have about the same number of problems and troubles in life. And they're just different. You know, the rich, the very rich have a different set of problems than the poor have, but probably about the same number of problems. And it doesn't go away. The acquisition of wealth and power and all of this does not eliminate the problems. It just changes them. So you really have to have your North Star set on something besides things of the earth and things of this world. for richer or poorer, my Savior is Jesus Christ, and it's not going to matter to me. It isn't going to affect my happy meter, my contentment, my joy, my peace, the outcome of an election, because that's already set.

That perspective is already rock solid, and it's built on a different kind of rock than the outcome of human elections. So that's my perspective on that. And I see these people, but I don't envy any of them. Yeah, that's right. Nothing can come between you and God, right? Nothing of this. And that's the thing that really is the foundation of our life. And I know you've had this experience as well.

We see people who are rich. We see people who are famous. And I've you've had this experience as well. You know, we see people who are rich. We see people who are famous. And I've dealt with them. I've dealt with, see common people all the time as well. And there's not really any correlation to joy and contentment. As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite. It's usually the people who are not rich and famous who are most content and who have the most joy, even though what's happening to them and their happenstance and their circumstance is not necessarily something that any of us would want.

They seem to often have greater peace and joy because of that Christian faith, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, it is a very interesting book, and I think a great perspective for people from what I can tell. Again, I don't have an advanced copy of it because we wanted to get you on very quickly and talk about what happened over the weekend. But I think when we talk about cheating death, there's really only one way that we're going to cheat death, isn't it?

And that is to have a relationship with the one who defeated death, isn't it? You have to lean into him if you want to cheat death in the end. We would take the president out, we would bring him back, hand him off to another team, and you cheated death for the day, and your reward is that you get to come back tomorrow and do it all again. And that's the hamster wheel that the Secret Service lives on. And so what I tried to do with the book is to say, you know, there's a much bigger picture out there and that we

pass from death to eternal life with Christ if we're hidden in Him. So that's my goal. Well, I think it's a fascinating book. Cheating Death, Three-Time Presidential Secret Service Agent Lives to Tell You How. And I think there's so much in there for people. People are always interested in what is going on at the center of power. But the real center of power is not located in Washington. A lot of it is located in your family. And you got some great advice, I think, in terms of how that operates. Thank you so much for joining us. And, and, uh, is there a website

for people to get it or just, uh, Amazon, uh, to get your book? Yes, sir. It's, it's definitely available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, all that. But, uh, I, I put all the links to that on Kenneth valentine.com and you can, you can order it either way. Okay. Kenneth valentine.com and you can order it either way. Okay. KennethValentine.com. We'll put that in the notes. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for your encouragement to everybody. We're going to take a quick break, folks, and we'll be right back. oh We'll be right back. You're listening to The David Knight Show.