Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - America’s Bio-Terror Blind Spot: Steve Gruber Exposes the Threats

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

What happens when award-winning broadcaster and investigative journalist Steve Gruber digs into the threats no one else is talking about? From Chinese spies at U.S. universities to potential bio-terror weapons targeting our food supply, this episode of The Determined Society pulls no punches. Steve joins Shawn French for a raw conversation on the dangers hiding in plain sight—from crop-destroying fungi to infiltration of agriculture programs, foreign land grabs, and the vulnerabilities of America’s power and water systems. But it’s not just about global threats—it’s also about personal responsibility, family, and the need for real conversation in a distracted society. This episode covers: -How Chinese operatives are targeting America’s food supply and why it matters -The link between foreign money, universities, and stolen intellectual property -Mental health, fatherhood, and the broken systems fueling violence -Why community, family dinners, and simple kindness are acts of resistance -The dangers of distraction in the digital age—and how to reclaim focus If you want truth-telling journalism, eye-opening insights, and a reminder of what’s really at stake, this episode will stop you in your tracks. What determination means to Steve: Telling the truth, even when it’s unpopular, and giving people the facts they need to protect their families. Connect with me : https://link.me/theshawnfrench?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY2s9TipS1cPaEZZ9h692pnV-rlsO-lzvK6LSFGtkKZ53WvtCAYTKY7lmQ_aem_OY08g381oa759QqTr7iPGA Steve Gruber https://www.instagram.com/stevegrubershow/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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We need more dads in America acting like they fucking have a pair and being men. School shootings and these mass shootings, most of them are rumored to be Caucasian that have severe mental issues that are overly medicated. Antidepressants, no dad, bad result. When I was in high school and I graduated in the 80s, mid-80s, we used to take guns to school. The difference between 1980 and 1985, even today is we didn't walk down the hall pulling the trigger.

You go look at these kids that go through and kill their classmates. Oftentimes, they either have a weak or non-existent father figure, so they come from homes that don't have a dad. I want to clarify things for the father's listening that are so busy doing other things with their friends, they're gambling, they're drinking. Just because you live in the house and you come home for work every day doesn't mean you're fucking present. Bingo.

What's up? I'm here with my man, Steve Gruber. What's going on, man? man it is a busy time it's nuts isn't it i mean every place you look is a is a big story blowing up here's a big issue here's a big issue wait we got something bigger over here hold my beer we got more it's it for me i'm in a news junkie since i was a kid uh my my family we used to sit around and watch uh the nightly news with walter cronkite maybe a little before you time maybe not and by my dad that was the deal we'd sit there we watched the nightly news on sunday nights you

watch 60 minutes back when 60 minutes mattered which was a long time ago now but so that was just kind of the way we were raised around information. And there's so much stuff going on right now, whether you're looking at the border or the economy or all these things going on with Russia Gate and Adam Schiff and James Comey. And it's entertaining. I'll tell you that. It's entertaining.

You know, it's wild to me because you talk about Walter Cronkite in these old school newscasters. It's almost like back then you got the actual news for what it was. And sometimes now, you know, depending on what station you listen to, there's a different spin on it. But back in the day, I could be ignorant. But when I was a kid, I felt like the news was the news was the news was the news, man. Yeah. I mean, and that's the way it is, you know.

And that's the way it is. Walter Cronkite, right? And so here's the thing. Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. You couldn't say that about anybody on TV today, I don't think. I don't think anybody would vote anybody that's on the major networks anywhere above 10%. And here's the thing about Walter Cronkite or Mike Wallace over at 60 Minutes and Morley say from those guys.

they were all Democrats, every one of them, but you didn't know it. You didn't have to know it because Walter Cronkite would just get on there, put on his glasses, and he wasn't the, he wasn't the, you know, well-coiffed, you know, looking, he's just an average looking dude. But he gave you the news and he was honestly, and they were compelling. And so somebody like Mike Wallace, University of Michigan guy, would go out and he would just, he just bust the balls of whoever. If he thought you were lying, he'd just crush you.

He would just run. It didn't matter if you were a Democrat, Republican, independent, it didn't matter. he would just smash you for being dishonest or being shady or whatever it was. We need more of that. We just need truth tellers. Just get out there and tell me the damn truth. Don't.

I mean, I'm an opinion guy. But I also try, I try really hard to tell the people the truth. And this is why I have my opinion because it's based on these facts, right? Yeah. And this is the foundation for it. And that's what we do. Yeah, it's a good point, right? Because I enjoy truth tellers, right?

And what we try to do on our show, too, is I, hey, everybody, you can come tell your story. You can give me your opinion. I'm cool with it. You know, all I'm looking for is good conversation. I want neutral platform. No one needs to know where I stand. No one needs to know where somebody else stands.

And you surely don't need to cast stones at somebody because they sit on either side of the aisle. And that's what we have going on in America. It is, you know, I thought COVID was the height of it. Holy shit, man. It's getting worse. It is worse. That was just the, that was the baseline.

Well, here's the concern. I had a guy on today on the program this morning from the UK. My God, he says they're getting arrested every day, 12, 15, 20 people a day for what they post on Facebook or X or wherever. Because what they said, not that it did offend somebody, that it might offend somebody. I'm like, holy shit. How is that even possible? Because we sit here in America and we have this illusion and it's wrong. We have this illusion that the whole world, the Western world, UK, France,

Germany, whatever, have freedom of speech. They don't. They don't. They're being arrested for what they put on social media, not because it did offend somebody or threaten somebody, but they might be offended by something. They said, like, hey, I'm a Christian and I don't want, you know, these folks taking over my block to do the chat at five in the morning. Oh, well, that's offensive to these Muslims over here to jail you go. They'll pound on your door at three in the morning and whisk you out to jail. So I'm asked the guy, I said, is that real? He goes, oh, it's real. Happens every single day. And I'm like, holy shit. Just frightening to me. Because, Because to me, same thing, what you just said, Sean, is exactly right.

I believe in conversation. I had a young man here on the program. He's got a couple million followers. He's a far left guy. He's a Gen Z guy and he hates Donald Trump. And that's fine. I said, come on the program. We'll talk about it because I'll take all comers, all comers.

Anybody wants to talk about a conversation. And at the end, he puts it up on YouTube and he gets, you know, a few hundred thousand views of the post interview that I did live. and he says, I was surprised. He invited me back. We had a conversation and basically found common ground. Because if you actually talk to people and don't polarize yourself and don't say, I don't want to hear what you have to say and plug your ears and do that nonsense, you might learn something. If you listen once in a while, you might learn something. I think the best conversations and there can be peace, you know, not complete peace in the world, but just peace inside everybody if you just listen a little bit.

Yeah. You know, God gave me two years in one mouth. Somebody told me a long time ago. So listen twice as much as you talk. And then here I am talking for a living and so are you. But still, the point applies. We need to listen to each other more. This whole idea that, well, I voted for Trump.

I didn't vote for Trump. I hate you. I don't like you. Trump can do nothing right. Trump does everything right. Come on. It can't be that way. You know, he does, look, you might agree with some things,

don't agree with other things. That's true of any politician. I don't agree with anybody 100% of the time. I'm not even sure I agree with myself 100% of the time. Sometimes I don't know if I agree with myself, right? Exactly. It's one of those things. It's like, look, guys, you can love them, hate them.

Somewhere in the middle is the truth. But no one's searching for that middle, that common ground. Everybody wants to be so polarized. And you mentioned something earlier that struck up a thought of some of the things that you've been covering lately. There's a lot of scary things going on in this world. Oh, there are. Most recently, you know, beginning of June, there was some people arrested from China

from bringing in this potential bio weapon, you know, to the United States of America that could wipe out up to maybe half of our crops. Like, this is some serious implications. And we're going to take a quick break to hear from our powered by sponsor. We're proud to announce a partnership between White Sands, Treatment Centers, and the Determined Society. With multiple locations across Florida, White Sands provides luxury, top-rated addiction treatment from medical detox and inpatient care to outpatient support and long-term aftercare. Their resort-style campuses, expert clinicians, and holistic programs create real lasting recovery. Together, we're committed to bringing hope, resources, and healing to those who need it most,

White Sands Treatment Centers. This is crazy stuff. So University of Michigan has had two major events the last six months, and I want to touch on both of them. The first one happened. Five Chinese students that were attending University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, not too far from where I'm sitting here, were caught up at Camp Grayling. And for anybody doesn't know what Camp Grayling is, it is the biggest military training camp in America. I mean, when I grew up in Southern Michigan here, you would see the convoy streaming north every summer. They'd come in from Georgia and Florida and Texas, wherever.

They all come up here to do training and so on and so forth. So here a few months ago, the Taiwanese Army was here doing training with American military personnel. So five students at the University of Mission get arrested up there. They're up there taking pictures and all this. And they said, well, we're journalists. They weren't journalists. They were spies. And very simple, they were spies.

And they're up there taking pictures of Taiwan and an American military operations and exercise and so forth. So that's pretty chilling right there. That's scary shit, right? Right there. That's enough. That right there is enough to scare the shit out of me, dude. And it should.

And so then you fast forward to what you just mentioned here just a few weeks ago. not once, not twice, but three different occasions, apparently, these Chinese students coming, returning from China to Ann Arbor to University of Michigan, caught with bio-weapons, one of them being a fungus. Now, when you talk about agriculture in America, corn, beans, rice, whatever you're talking about, fungicide is out there. These funguses are already out there. But what happens and what they were concerned about,

and what we should be very concerned about, and Brooke Rawlings, the Ag Secretary and all the rest, should be very concerned about. They take a fungus from Michigan. They return to China. They work on it there. They tinker with it, if you will. Then they bring it back and maybe it becomes fungicide resistant. And I talked to farmers. I think you saw a part of this piece that we did with John Solomon. The farmer's concern is this. If our fungicide has been neutralized to some extent, you could lose half your corn crop, half your bean crop, half your rice, half your sorghum, half all of your grain crops get halved. And he said, we can survive that for, but you know who would pay the price,

though? First, it wouldn't be America. It'd be sub-Saharan Africa. Those countries rely on the food that we send them, despite all the people. America's a bad place. America is not a bad place. It's a wonderful place. We feed the world. We feed Namibia and South Africa and Botswana and in all those places, right? And if we got hit, we would keep the grain to ourselves. Those places would suffer first. But one of the farmers, I wanted to talk to these farmers out in the field. And they said, look, if you can knock down the American grain supply by half or more,

and it went on for a couple years, you would have famine in America. And I go back to Zimbabwe, mid-1980s, right? The big change and apartheid went away. that's not the point. Up to that point, that country fed most of sub-Saharan Africa. They had a bunch of political upheaval and so on and so forth. Suddenly they had a famine of five million people in the late 80s, early 90s. People died. Can you imagine if the cornfields of Iowa and Illinois and Nebraska and Michigan and Ohio were destroyed? Good God. But if you want to control me, this is the oldest, this is the oldest play in the political book. You want to take over a group of people? Take their food away.

control the food supply, control the people. Right? I mean, that's it. So here's where I come to on this. The Chinese Communist Party, which, by the way, only represents about 10% of the people in China. You would think it was the whole thing. No, it's only about 10%. 60 to 100 million people, roughly. The rest of the place, not party members.

But if they can control the food supply here, that would be a way to get into America. We know they have 400, 500,000 acres of land here, really not real big, could come in, they wouldn't have to go to Bob Jones farm down the street and plant this fuggins. They could do it in their own farms. And then, of course, the air currents would take it downwind and it would spread. But here's so many problems with China that I have. So you look at the infiltration to the universities, because it's not just University of Michigan. Michigan State. It's University

of Texas. It's Florida State. It's Arkansas. It's all of them. Texas A&M. Every state has a land-grant institution and focuses on agriculture, and every one of those sons of bitches needs the money because they're all, they've all become addicted to the money and the Chinese pay top dollar to bring non-residents here to go to school, to steal our ideas, to take them back. That's not paranoid. That's what's happening. China has no respect for intellectual property. They have no respect for rules and regulation, which is why we keep having these things. The kids up there taking picture of the Taiwanese military exercises are bringing in these funguses. Or the, the bio labs that were unlicensed and unregulated that made the news a year ago in California.

I mean, it's just one thing. And that's just what you hear about, Sean. What about the things you don't hear about? Right. But these universities are so addicted to that money. I mean, a lot of these universities are kind of in trouble because enrollments dropped. So that Chinese money, oh, both kind of look the other way. Don't look the other way, please. Pay attention because this is really important stuff. And I know we have a lot to worry about these days, but this infiltration into agriculture is of great concern. We had Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on. We had Brooke Rollins on. John Solomon speaks for himself at just the news. Those incredible investigative work. And I worked with him on this to put it all together. We did great work together.

And there's a lot to be concerned with because of the infiltration of these people who have, let's be honest, political motives. There's a saying in China in Mandarin that I don't speak Mandarin. I'm sorry to disappoint you. But there is a... I bet you at least can say one thing. You're about to. I can't. My wife would be upset if I actually said it.

Ivy, be upset? Hi, Ivy. But they have the saying everything under heaven, right? So we hear about how they think that Taiwan is a rogue province. Pretty common knowledge. Right? People know that. What they don't realize is that they think the United States is a rogue province.

And so is Canada. And so is Argentina. And so is Malta. And so is every country under the sun. They think it's all China. It's just a matter of. a time and you know unless we get our act together maybe they're not wrong and that is frightening what's frightening is this is happening under our noses it's happening in our university system

it's happening in america where there's spies coming over and everybody listening right now looks at you know russia and ukraine and go wow man thank god we live here because we're safe are we you you don't know what's going on on the back on the back end underneath the carpet it, even something that was highly publicized as this, this fungus that they're bringing in, I don't have a lot of people in my circle talking about it. And quite honestly, until I came in contact with you, I was like, wait a second, I heard about this, but it's almost like, are they silencing this thing? And what is the government actually doing about this?

Well, you wonder, look, I'm not going to, I'm not to pick on any particular group, but you look, there's several politicians that have really close time. to China, both Turin and former. Look, they're getting paid too. There's money here. A lot of money. And again, I'm going back to the university system and the Confucius Institutes, which are all over this country. That's nothing more than a pipeline to bring in Chinese doctrine. However you want to look at that, maybe you think it's good, maybe you think it's bad. I think it's probably more bad than good because they're delivering Chinese doctrine. I mean, look at the guy running for mayor in New York City. Look, he's an outright communist. He is. He would fit right in with that.

the Chinese document, not my, not my flavor. I like America. I like free enterprise. I like free people, right? I do. And so you've got this pipeline in. We should try to figure out how to get it fixed. But my concern is, whether it's in the university systems like University of Michigan or wherever you might be there and whatever university closest to your house, they look the other way because if they show up with $10 million, $15 million, $20 million, $100 million, oh, we're going to invest in this new facility, in this new lab you're building by gosh we're partners you're never really partners with these folks it's always transactional to them what can they get out of it where do they come out ahead on this deal and from where i stand they come out ahead on a lot of different places and and you're right

it's not in the headlines and i don't know that it's intentional but there's you know any given day there's this this bomb went off this bombs shall happen you know this happened whatever it is and you take that and couple it with one-on-on-reve-one and you take that and couple it with one-on- other thing, this thing. You got one of these? Oh, oh, those are you. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, right. How much time do you spend? Because here's what we also have. We have an entertainment society. Oh, you know, I'd be worried about that Chinese thing. But, you know, the big game's on at 8 o'clock tonight. I'm going to watch the football. Yeah.

And then I'm, oh, wait, I'm going to get three and a half points on that game. So I'm going to focus on. Oh, there's a new movie. Oh, I'm going to binge watch this new show. I hear it's really good. And it probably is. Whatever. I mean, shows like Landman, love it.

I can sit there. I'd watch it. I think it's great. But people live in a distracted society where they're not paying, first of all, they don't pay attention to their kids enough. They don't pay attention to their spouses enough of a lot of people, not true of everybody. They're distracted by the football game, the new video, the TikTok, which, by the way, is another Chinese thing, and all of this. And they're not, we're not paying attention, son, where we're distracted all the damn time.

And trust me, my ADD has had me distracted since I was three years old, but it's worse for a lot folks. I mean, ADD is kind of my secret weapon because I can do a different thing. It's my superpower, man. Exactly. Because I share that with you, right? And there's times where my ADHD is so bad, but I can hyperfocus on certain things. Yeah. Like building this business, I can hyper focus on it. I can hyper focus in an interview. And it never used to be that way. I remember when I first started, I would have to like, oh my gosh, I forgot what they just said, right? But I can, I can always turn myself back. I only laugh because I could, I can, I can totally identify with that.

Man, I'd be in college. I told Ivy this a number of down. I'd be in college and I'd have a textbook and I'd sit there and I'd read the book or whatever, you know, and I'd go, man, I know I just, I know I just read that page and I don't know what is. You know what, I'll read it again. I'll read it again. And I get done and go, now I know I've read it twice and I have no, because my brain's

a thousand other places and I'm, you know, and that's long before we had cell phones and nonsense, right? The complicating factor now is you've got, you know, laptops and cell phones and your car talks to you and everybody's talking. You're just messaging all the time, right? You know, it's interesting because you talk about a distracted society. It's like, I'm not going to sit here and claim that, you know, Steve Jobs' his idea was to distract society. I'm not going to say that Zuckerberg, when he started Facebook and then eventually bought Instagram and made it a part of meta was the common goal just to distract society so other people can come and infiltrate America.

but can it not be a product of that? Can we make the argument that like we're so freaking distracted, not even paying attention to our own kids and our and our spouses to where we're buried in the phone, you know, searching like you said, the TikTok or the Instagram or the Facebook or the threads or the X worrying about all these other things, then what is actually going on that could potentially freaking kill generations? Well, I mean, think about this. For example, our electrical grid is in terrible shape.

Nobody ever talks about it. It would take one good, you know, smoking of a couple of stations. Boom, we'd be real problems there. You look at our municipal water supplies, and I'm not trying to give anybody ideas, vulnerable because most of them are wide open. I'm not giving you a prim around this. I'm just saying, you know, municipal water supply. You want to drop 10,000 fentanyl pills in a municipal water supply?

What does that do? Or 100, because this stuff's still coming in by the truckload, like it did. We're slowing it down, but it's still here. We're vulnerable. I mean, what happens if one of these crazy madmen, like the guy that went into, uh, into Manhattan here, into the NFL building here a couple weeks ago and opens. When's the wrong building? When's the wrong office? Yeah. But what if, what if he shows up at a, you know, at a football game, at a major university, right? And even though, yeah, you can't get into the, you can't get into the facility itself, but all the way around, tailgators and all this stuff. Rinse takes your

laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. Said you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. So update on Dave.

It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rince. It's time to be great. I mean, I'm sorry, Sean. Would you be surprised if that happened on the first Saturday of college football? No, nobody would be surprised. That's a sad damn thing. Yeah, you know, it's the thing. It's like, you know, there's there's a difference, right? Being surprised versus being really upset about it.

I would be very upset and sad that that happened, obviously. And so would you. Absolutely. To say that I'm like to say like, I can't believe that just freaking happened. Like, come on, man. come on. There's been stuff like this going on, you know, constantly. It's not too far from the guy. It's just a couple of weeks ago. Just not too far from me, Traverse City, Michigan. People are at Walmart. Some guy starts randomly stabbing people at the

Walmart. A 94-year-old woman gets stabbed. Is that what was going on? Yeah. At the Walmart, the guy, thank God he only had a three and a half inch knife. He was a mental patient because we've destroyed our mental health in this country. That's a whole different conversation. But we have no place to put people. And we should. So this guy's roaming the streets And he starts randomly stabbing people And thankfully he just had a folding pocket knife And not something more effective

Thank God because those people would have died They all lived unbelievably all 11 of them survived Including a 94 year old woman I'm just going to Walmart to buy some shit Would you leave me alone? I mean honestly I don't need that kind of pressure Who does?

I guess stick to Tarje You know what I mean? Like hell man I don't know what to say It's crazy. The French clothing store. Yeah. But hey, here's what's nuts. I was in, when you said Traverse, Michigan, I was in Traverse, like maybe, gosh, what was

it, July? So it's, what month? Traverse City. You said you had some friends in Michigan, yeah. Well, I was there for an event. Yeah. With Eric Thomas, I was up there. We were hanging out at an event he did for Glover U, a big real estate conference.

He was a speaker there. So we were hanging out. But that is the most. I mean, the sleeping bear dunes are there, Lake Michigan, all these beautiful size. Can you say Traverse Michigan? I'm like, wait, what happened? Like, that way. There's a reason that Kid Rock's saying about Northern Michigan.

There is no better place on the planet from today through the middle of October. There's no better place in the planet. You've got Lake Michigan. You've got the big lakes. You've got nice little towns, great little bars and restaurants and stuff all over the place. You've got the Sleeping Bear Dunes. You've got a little Traverse Bay. you got Traverse City, Michigan, you've got Potoski and Charlottoy and Bay Harbor and all these

wonderful places, you know, and there's a reason that, you know, Kid Rock is up there. Nice house he has, by the way. Yeah, it's a cool place. He's on Lake Charlotte, way, 18,000 acre lake that leads into Lake Michigan. It's just a wonderful place. And so this is not where you expect some guy to start whipping out a dagger and stabbing, you know, look, they're at Walmart for God's sake. I mean, they're just trying to get by, mind their own business. We don't, and these totally random crimes, right? Random. And then I see this, on that same note,

these poor people that got their heads kicked in in Cincinnati. Good Lord, what? They're leaving a jazz festival and they've had a couple of drinks. They get mouting. They get beaten into, you know, almost, you know, almost fatal beatings. Why are we doing this, people? Why is this happening? I mean, you got to ask you.

So why are we doing this? Well, I think, you know, your point, Steve, it goes back to the mental health, right? The mental health capacity, or the situation we have. And I think a lot of it is driven. I don't want to blame it on social media, but I think it makes things worse for some people that don't have the coping mechanisms. Some people that are potentially overly medicated. Is it true? And I don't know, I mean, I know you and I are both men of opinions, right? And so I don't want the fact checkers and the trolls to come out here and say that we're two idiots. And, you know, so if you're going to listen.

Yeah, they will. Fine. Fucking bring it. Whatever. We're Teflon. We have, we have thick skin. Is, you know, for these different types, I mean, we're talking, you know, like school shootings and these mass shootings, most of them are are rumored to be Caucasian that have severe mental issues that are overly medicated. A lot of truth to that. I don't know if it's true, but. Here's something. Here's one of the common denominators that I've found looking at, school shooters. And look, when I was in high school, I graduated in the 80s, mid-80s. We used to take guns to school, but we'd go out after school and go deer hunting or duck hunting

or whatever. You know, we'd hunt a little bit after school. The difference between 1980 and 85 and today is we didn't walk down the hall pulling the trigger. And I don't know. I don't honestly know what changed between there and Columbine, right? Because Columbine changed everything. But I think you're right on the money about social media. I don't know if it cause it, but I think it amplifies mental illness oftentimes because people get on there say the craziest stuff and then the next guy gets angry and he wants to get even and they're amped up all the time and their stress levels or their dopamine's out of whack all the time. Maybe you wonder.

That's why we're the magic ring by the way so I can keep track of my stress level. So my new thing. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you got the ring? I got the magic ring. Yeah. Okay. That's cool.

That's cool. You get the magic ring? Is that your magic ring? Yeah. Anyhow, it keeps my stress. But I think that there's a mental health issue in America. It goes back to the 1950s because that's when we started dismantling the mental hospitals in America. Part of it was because they didn't want to label people, right?

They didn't want to label people. And the ACLU was part of the impetus. And you can do them. Go back and check this. They didn't want to, you know, give people this stigma. Oh, you know, they got this problem. Bob's weird. Bob's got to the mental hospital.

So they started taking that away. Well, what do we got now? You have mental people walking the streets or living in homeless encampments from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco and every point in between because we don't have a solution at the moment. And I don't know that we're going to, but there's solutions. Oh, take more drugs. I don't think that's working. Oh, I know I was going to say, back to the school shooters.

I just wanted to make this point. Common denominator. Most of these are white males, not all of them, but a good, a disproportionate. portion number with no father figure with no father figure in the house you go look at these kids that go through and kill their classmates oftentimes either have a weak or non-existent father figure so they come from homes that don't have a dad we need more dads in america that's a fact you need more real dads acting like dads uh you know being what dads need to be mom and dad have different roles in the household and generally speaking kids benefit great

greatly from having both. If you don't have dads in the house, those schools should, oh, and they also, uh, antidepressants, no dad, bad result. Yeah. I mean, wow. That, that, that's true. I mean, you know, I, I'm just, I'm thinking of all the people right now that are, that are so mad at that.

So mad at the truth. Dads are freaking important. Matt me right now? I don't give a fuck. Look, we need more fathers in America. It's the fact. It's the fact. We need more dads in America.

acting like they fucking have a pair and being men. Be real men. All right. Stand up. Have a pair. Be a dad. Talk to your kids. Tell them when they're wrong.

And I'm not very good. Ivy says, you know, you weren't kind of easy on them. She does that too. And she might be right. I'm a little soft to my kids sometimes. But I'm present.

But you're there. Right. And I want to clarify things for the father's listening that are so busy in their business, so busy doing other things with their friends, they're gambling, they're drinking. Just because you live in the house and you come, home for work every day doesn't mean you're fucking present bingo you're fucking right there's a

difference to me being pre i mean like dude hey non-negotiables in our house man non-negotiables there's no screen time during the week there's never screen time at restaurants looking at iPads or what the fuck is that you know what the funny thing about that is it's my middle daughter that implemented that rule we're at dinner no phone i pick up my phone love her yeah my middle daughter no phones at dinner and we don't do it as much as we should we should do it more dinner i mean family family dinners are important that's where you learn what's going on who you see and how school going what's that we need to return to that nuclear family having that nuclear dinner whenever possible it's incredibly important and i'm guilty of not doing it enough i get it but it's incredibly important

every meal we eat in the house except mornings it's very helter-skelter morning i'll make the kids breakfast i'll make the kids breakfast and they'll sit at the the island, the three of them, and they'll eat together. And I'm there on the other side of the island. I'm on the other side of the island drinking my coffee, talking to them, right? Yeah. Wife is getting ready for work and we're doing all that. But the thing is with every other meal, like if it's a weekend and we're eating lunch,

we're sitting down at the table. See, that should that, you know, I think that that should be the gold standard. You know what? I'm going to try to follow that because we do see each other in the morning. And we have a 13-year-old. So we see him every morning. But see, I'm on the air at that time. So I'll see him for about 10 minutes because I come up, you know, during the top of the hour break.

And I'll talk to a little bit, what he got going on at school and how are things going? When's football? Start that sort of thing. It's contact. And he knows I'm there. I mean, and so we connect. But then we have longer conversation in the evening. But you're right about we need more of that.

I think America needs more of that because what we come back to, we bring this full circle again, we need more conversations with our families, with the people that live next door, with the guy that I see at the grocery. store. You know, here's something else. I've kind of noticed this. Walk through a store. I don't know how I like going to grocery stores. I always have because I feel like it's the epitome of what's great about America. Go to a big place where you can buy tires and toothbrushes and meat and steak and batteries all in the same damn building. I mean, that's America to me, right? But when you walk through, let's say Costco. Well, you say as an example. I like Costco. Okay. See a guy walking at you. Look at him. Look him in there. They won't look you in the eye.

Most guys are like doing this whole thing. No, man, look a guy on the eye. How you doing? And you know what? Open the door for the woman. Oh, I don't know. Open the door. Say thank you.

It tells somebody today, hey, you know what? You're doing a good job. You can change somebody's whole day. You might change them more than you realize. I really appreciate it. You're doing a great job today. Tell somebody that. I mean, you got to because we don't do that enough.

I open the doors for strangers all the time. I see somebody, depending on the situation or what's going on, if I see somebody broken down the road, a woman looks like she was an old woman, I'd wheel in. If I had time, I'd go change your tire, whatever's got to be done, help people out. We need to do that sort of thing. It's called community, and that's what binds us together. We lost it. Everybody's so worried about getting to their next destination, the next task, the next thing

to do that's only about them. It's so funny because the grocery store, I love going. to the damn grocery store. I try to go every day. I try to go every day. I forget shit. Yeah. I forget shit so I could go back later that day or or the next day because I love the interactions that I can potentially have with either also other patrons that are buying stuff from there or the dude and the meat, the meat, here's a good point. Here's, oh, Corey. His name's Corey. Corey. I'm telling you, his name is Corey. And the manager's name is Sean, spelled the same. way as mine. And whenever they see me, standing at the glass, they come out and go,

we don't have any tri-tip today, man. They know what I want. They know what I want because I've built that relationship. They get excited to see me. Like, well, they see me if I don't stop. They'll come out and they go, hey, hey, hey, Sean. I go, what's up, man? Hey, I've got four back there. How many do you want? I go, give me two. I'll see you in 10 minutes. Right. But you don't, when you have those interactions, like, I'm going to tell you, most people listening right, I'm like, well, okay, great. They know what you want to eat. Cool. Who gives a shit?

No, that's not what it's about. They feel the value that they hold and they feel good about that because they know that they have what you want. And so it's an exchange of energy, right? You're paying for the steak. You're giving them good conversation. You're respecting them because not enough customers respect the people that are working in the grocery stores or anywhere in general, anywhere in general.

We think we're above all these people. but they get so happy when they see me go, oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah, I'm going to grill that thing up tonight because, dude, that's human interaction, man. That is human interaction. And it's establishing that relationship with somebody in your neighborhood. You know, and so, you know, over, I don't know how much time it took them to know your first name or you there. But it took a period of time. There was a get-to-know-you dance somewhere in there where they figured out the tri-tip was your number one thing now.

And then maybe you buy a rib-eye, but try-tips what you want right now. I think that's beautiful and it's part of the neighborhood. And in a way, I think that's another casualty of all the electronics. We've lost that neighborhood feeling a lot of times. I say hi to my neighbors some. I don't live in a tight neighborhood. We've got, you know, bigger lots on a street here. But we know our neighbors.

We say hi. And I feel like that's lost a lot of time because people are just doing this. You know, it's like, hey, man, look up here. Like Sidney, Sweeney would say, eyes up. And, you know, and say, hey. Okay, that's a different reference. But yeah, but say, hey, say hi to something. And again, you have no idea the power of telling somebody what a good job they're doing.

And if I can impress on people anything today, just say, man, I appreciate you. Because you can change somebody's whole day, which can change their whole next day, which can change. These things have a ripple effect. They really do. positive interaction, holding a door for somebody, hey, can I help you with that bag of groceries, ma'am, it looks like, yeah, you know, whatever it might be. I use the grocery stores an example because it's so easy.

You can help somebody open the door. Hey, how you doing? You're doing a great job. Because nobody tells anybody anymore. So I think the term, you know, self-absorbed, self-absorbed. And am I guilty of it? Yeah, sometimes. Sure, I get all, you know, sure.

But we can do better. There's pressure, right, in everybody's life, right? especially the, you know, what we do. We're speaking about, we're on camera a lot. And, you know, there's a certain amount of pressure, welcome pressure, and self-inflicting pressure, right? All that. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that we can't go out there and spread a little ripple

of kindness. And, you know, I should mention that for the people that put the shit in my inbox, you know, who are the debate, I laughed there only because the debate here a week or two ago was you know, gruber colors his hair. People I don't color my damn hair. I can add anybody in the room. I'm just, I'm blessed genetically. I don't, but they were saying,

and there are all these people just getting nasty in my end by. Hey, business owners. We know, you know the importance of maximizing every dollar. With the Delta Sky Miles Reserve Business American Express card, you can make your expenses work just as hard as you. From afternoon coffee runs to stocking office supplies and even team dinners, you can earn miles on all your business expenses. Plus, you can earn 125.

thousand bonus miles for a limited time through October 29th. The Delta Sky Miles Reserve Business Card. If you travel, you know. Minimum spending requirements in terms apply. Offer ends October 29th 2025. Yes, you do. You look like you put shoe polish in your hair. I'm like, is this really how you spend your day?

I mean, you think about who's sending you, who's taking time to send an email? Tell me that over my hair. You do have nice hair. I think you. I mean, it's like not one strand is out of place and it's perfectly colored. News anchor hair.

You know, huh? What's that? News anchor hair, you know. News anchor hair. Good Lord Almighty. Well, I mean, I'm turning gray everywhere, you know, and I'm 46. But, hey, you know, I guess it is what it is.

Well, I'm reasonable. I'm 59. And I don't color my hair. So that would be, but I, it is. And I, and I, this way, the whole family was that way. But the fact that anybody would sit there and argue and take shots at me and take the time to send me an email or in one case, one lady sent me repeated emails. It was rapid fire.

Go see, easy. I mean, that's, oh, shit, yeah, it was bizarre. It was. Oh, you got to love the inbox, Steve. You got to love the inbox. You got to talk to them. Yeah. Same thing.

You got to talk to them because, and I put my email out there every day. I'll get piles of them every day. And most of them are asking questions or could you cover this story? Oh, I like what you did here. Like it. But every now and then you just get this crack. pot that just wants to talk about some of them I'm like I think I should call 911 because I think you're having issues yeah probably should get you hooked up with a professional you know you know back

by the way there's those people back to that mental illness thing there is one state that I think that has done it well and that's Florida I do think where you live um the Baker act which has been around for like 35 years I think the Baker Act is by Ivy's from Florida and and Sister Sarah's from Florida. So I'm surrounded by, you know, Florida people. And so we go there a fair amount because they have family. So I've gotten into the Baker Act, they can just basically impound you without arresting. You just impound you for up to... So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text. But which you do you listen to? Is it... We could buy a house in Touloum. Get optioning those options.

We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research. Get your head in the trade. and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more at FINRA.org slash trade smart. Three days, sort things out, pat you on the back and say, hey, do better, hope things work out. Without having to create an arrest record or not only, I think for 35 years, it should be a model for other states around the country. I seriously think that. I think the Baker Act has been polished up and improved enough that I think it's a really good

model for other states so you don't have to arrest somebody who's you know just out of sorts out of whack you know angry having a having a tantrum or whatever it might be and so you know you're there in florida i think the big is a great piece of a legislation i've seen it work real time not on me but someone very very close to me right and it's very humane um the only thing at the time i didn't like i wasn't able to talk to that person like that day but then i got to go see them but you know it was it was in and out. And it's all done for safety, right? So I just think it's super important. They can go there. They can evaluate these individuals, right? And they can get them the support that they need. I really also, I do feel Florida's done right. I really truly do. You know, nothing is perfect.

We saw some crackpots here, like you'd say. But at the same time, that if you have a family member in Florida that's threatening to do something themselves and you speak up, that person is, you know, ushered off and they go and they evaluate them. Yeah. And honestly, in other states, you might hesitate because you're like, well, damn, if I do that, they're going to get arrested. Then they're going to be in jail and it's going to compound the issue and make it worse. Not in Florida.

If they can settle the situation down and sort it out and just kind of, like I say, put them on the off ramp a couple of days, three days. I think three days is the max. You can improve the situation, right? And they don't put them in like this. And for the listeners that they don't live in Florida, they don't put them in this, you know, mental ward like you would see and girl interrupted way back in the day with what was it, was it, was it, was it Bernie Murphy or Angelina Jolie? I, I probably got all of them wrong. One floor was white.

Not like that. Yeah, or something like it's nothing crazy. Like it's, it's a section of the actual hospital, right? They're, they're in, you know, they're inpatient. It's at a hospital, right? Well, the big hospital. So it's not like they throw them in. this room where they're, you know, in a straight jacket and, you know, padded walls and,

you know, people being mean to it, man, is there for people to support them? Yeah. Not a bad thing. No, it's not a bad thing. And I think it should be a model for other states. And I've said that for many years. I've said it on my program. I mean, you look at, look, that was one of the reasons we have states. I mean, one of the driving reasons we have states is so that you can say, well, for example, in Mississippi right now, they've done exceptionally well. in improving their educational system. Mississippi used to be the laughing stock of the world when it came to education.

Not anymore. They call it the Mississippi miracle. Well, if that's working in Mississippi, maybe it'll work in Montana or Massachusetts. Maybe we should look at these things because that's how it's supposed to work. If it's working in Florida, maybe we should try it in Nevada or Michigan.

I mean, that's the point. You have states that try different things and improve and make them work. And yet, again, it's like the states have ADD. They don't pay attention. Oh, we're doing our own. thing. We got this over here. We don't care what you do down there. Oh, that's a red state. That's a blue state.

We can never do what they're doing. Come on. Get your head out of your ass. These are people's lives. Who gives a shit what color state it is? It's America. If it's working, implement that. Oh, it's Florida. We can never do anything in Florida's doing. You know, that's Ron DeSantis and blah blah. Stop it.

If the Baker Act works there, it'll work in Massachusetts. And the governor there, whatever her name is, I can't think. anyhow, it'll work. These are all good points, but it makes too much sense, Steve. Makes too much sense. We try. We can't do anything that makes too much sense.

We got to give people a little bit of anxiety about what the hell is going on in their, in their current community and their surroundings. So that's not doable. Scare the shit out of them a little bit, man, you know? Everything's fine, except for monkey pox. I mean, stop it. There's always something. There's always something.

you hear it all the time now. But look, man, I really do appreciate you coming on, have this conversation with me and, you know, in bringing your amazing personality and your wisdom and your opinions to the show. It was freaking awesome, man. Sean, it is, honestly, it's been an honor. I really appreciate the opportunity. It's been an honor and I, and I'd love doing it. So thank you. Yeah, man. Well, listen, I can't wait for more interaction with you. Can't wait to see you on Friday. And, hey, next time you're in Florida, let me know. Let's link up. All right. Thank you.

All right. All right, guys. You heard it from my boy, Steve. Check him out on America's voice now. Always doing amazing pieces and really trying to stay neutral, give his opinion, and help America be truly great. And so go check them out and share this episode with someone you know, love and trust. And until next time, stay determined. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way.

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