The Eric Metaxas Show - #191 - LA Marzulli

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, L.A. Marzulli returns to discuss the strange and controversial subjects he has investigated for decades, including the Nephilim, UFOs, biblical giants, and the alleged Kandahar Giant incident in Afghanistan. Marzulli recounts testimony he says he gathered from multiple witnesses and claims he was later threatened after publicizing the story. He and Eric also discuss UFO disclosure, Genesis 6, the supernatural realm, and why Marzulli believes these subjects connect to the biblical narrative.Later, Chapter CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz joins Eric to discuss Medicare and the challenges seniors face when choosing coverage.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🪙 Grace Precious Metals: https://www.metaxasmetals.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/0:00 L.A. Marzulli Joins3:20 Nephilim And Biblical Giants5:48 The Kandahar Giant Story8:08 Four Alleged Witnesses9:21 Marzulli Says He Was Threatened11:36 UFO Disclosure And Government Secrecy15:34 What Would Full UFO Disclosure Mean?16:54 Genesis 3:15 And The “Seed War”23:34 Why Christians Should Discuss The Supernatural

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Terms apply. Folks, welcome back. It is my joy to say that I have as my guests back on the program, L.A. Marzuli, to talk about all kinds of crazy stuff, except here's the problem. It's not crazy. L.A., welcome back. Great to be here. Thanks for having me on. Well, there's so much that I want to talk with you about.

You've written many books. You've made many films. you've told us on this program in the past that, you know, you saw a UFO or what you thought was a UFO when you were about 12 years old, and that kind of sent you on this path into the new age. And then around age 30, you became a believer in Jesus and started reading the Bible, which actually ends up putting everything together for you. What was it that led you to faith in Jesus before we get into the Nephilim and the UFO? Yeah, I was basically at the end of my rope. It's 1980, Jimmy Carter's president. I have my first and only spec house that I ever built with my friend Kelly Higgins.

And it's on the market, interest rates are 20, 21%. No one's buying anything. It was horrible. And I lost my shirt on that. And I was sort of at the end of my rope. I had been my third eye was open. I was in the new age. I had tried Vision Quest like Carlos Castanata.

I was with a guru for three years, lived in an ashrush. I mean, I did everything to find God. And the reason for this, the impetus was when I was 16 years old, my first girlfriend, Michelle Mincer, she was 14. And so when I was 18, she was 16, she was killed in an automobile accident. And I just, that was it. It's like, why would God allow this? That led me on a quest, which led me into a new age. And so at 30, I'm at the end of my rope.

I tried everything. Nothing's working. I'm the same schmuck I've always been. And so someone hands me a book by David Hunt called The Cult Explosion, and I'm reading this going, yeah, I know that, yeah, I live that. Yeah, I've checked this out. And at the end, there's a little prayer. And I just said, look, I don't know if you're real.

You know, I've tried everything. But if you're real, come into my life and change it. Eric, that was game-changing. A month later, I had this dream, woke up crying, just weeping bitterly because the dam had broke. And then the Lord took me out of the kingdom of darkness, because I was, immersed in the kingdom of darkness completely, and the enemy did not want that to happen. He wanted my soul, but the Lord was stronger and took me out. I was basically in a monastery, self-imposed

monastery lifestyle for about three years. And then the Lord said, go find your wife. And Peggy and I've been married 42 years. But for those three years, it was like boot camp. If the church was open, I was there. I read and reread and reread and reread the Bible. But all the stuff that I had with the new age and all that and UFOs and, you know, the other side of the aisle, essentially, that lay dormant for about eight years. And then the Lord said, now we're start to revisit this. And here we are. So you, I think it's important, you know, to know people's stories.

So I'm grateful for your telling that story. The theories that you talk about, you know, that you talk about all the time. and you've talked about them for decades now, you know, the Seed War, you mentioned. You mentioned different things. Obviously, most of the church doesn't buy this.

They just, they shake their head. They don't really have a great alternative to it. They just kind of, it sounds like they pretty much ignore what you're talking about. So your theory, again, to reprise what you've said on this program in the past,

is that the Canaanites were Nephilim, correct? Correct. Correct. Well, the Canaanians is a very large umbrella for the different Nephilim tribes, but the short answer is yes. Right. And that the Nephilim, again, to restate this, who are the Nephilim? The Nephilim are the progeny of fallen angels, human women, and sexes involved. Spirm, somehow the offspring, the seed of the dragon, the seed of the fallen angels, is creating these hybrid entities. Who was Goliath? You know, people can tap dance around us to the cows come home.

Goliath is a Nephilim, right? I mean, he's like at least 10 feet tall. Well, we don't. I don't know exactly what to say, but we know that he was pretty darn big. And didn't his, didn't they have six fingers and six toes? Some of them did. Not all of them. That is a trait.

Yes, that is a trait. Six fingers, six toes. Correct. Polydactos. And, uh, and, uh, And did Goliath have a family, a wife, perhaps a 14-year-old son that didn't listen? We don't know. That's a really interesting question because we don't know whether the Nephilim could procreate or not.

Some people say yes, but we're not sure. We know Goliath had brothers. We know that. So are the nephalim like mules? They can't procreate? We don't know. I get very confused by this. If they can't procreate, what are they living thousands of years?

I don't really understand. Okay. I'm going to skip over to something really bizarre, all right? We broke the story. Unlike everything we've been talking about, which is just slightly bizarre. Now we're going to get really bizarre. We're going to go right to the deep end of the pool, okay? Right to the deep end of the pool.

We broke the story on something which is called the Kandahar Giant. You mentioned Joe Rogan in our last program. Tim Albarino was a colleague. Was that Joe Rogan's, you know, podcast? and talked about the Kandahar Giant, but we broke the story on it. And Tim Alberino referenced me. We broke the story on the Kandahar Giant.

When? When did you break the story? Oh, wow. Probably 2015, 2014, 2015. And what is the Kandahar Giant? The Kandahar Giant was, in 2001, we went to war in Afghanistan. A patrol was sent out to look for high-value targets in the Kandahar region, very mountainous area, right? And they go missing.

They miss their rally point. They miss both their rally points. So another patrol is sent out. And they start following the trail. So now they're on this cliff area looking down at the valley. It's a large cliff above them as a cave. Out of the cave comes at least a 12-foot red-haired, six-fingers, six-toes, giant, with a loincloth, brandishing a lance.

And everyone just freezes. This is everybody's worst nightmare. There's no doubt about this. One of the guys breaks out of a stupor and starts running and firing his weapon at the giant. And the giant runs with such speed and agility. It takes them all by surprise and spikes this guy, holds them up in the air, shakes him like this, screaming at the top of his lungs. The other men in the patrol wake from their stupor open fire on the giant and kill him. They basically decapitate him on those.

Giant falls to the ground. The stench is unbearable, overwhelming. This particular, the guy, we call him the shooter, it's in our film. He was the shooter. He was there. Which film? This was in, it's in our Watchers series. Watchers number 10.

I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. And so the giant collapses. That's when they see the double rows of teeth, the six fingers, six toes, the red hair, this big jolly green giant helicopter comes in. They net them up, off it goes. They're rescued. They go back to the base in Kandahar.

They write their reports. The powers that be don't like that report. They're told to rewrite it. They're forced to sign NDRs. Can't say anything about this. That's our first witness. The second witness came to Kandahar, exactly the same base.

Two years later, there's rumors going around the base, which you're not supposed to talk about. All of us is in the first. So those are two witnesses. The third witness came to me at a conference where a pastor was debriefing a guy from special forces. And he arranged us, he arranged it so we would sit next to each other. Why? Because he was the special forces that went back into the cave a week later to see if there were more. There was a firefight. One giant was killed, the other two basically vanished. Now, you can do with that what you will. The fourth witness was the grandson of the witch that lived in the Kandahar province, knew about the cave, and would bring sacrifices, goats, lambs to the cave entrance to keep the giant from raiding the village. So I've got four witnesses, four witnesses, no collusion between any of them, all saying the same

story. And, Eric, I was threatened by our government, by a guy from the deep state. I was threatened three different ways. What kind of car do you drive? Well, I drive a whatever. Well, we can fix it so you can have a fiery crash. What kind of cell phone do you? We have an iPhone.

We can fix it. So when we come and arrest you. Why are you talking to this person and how did they approach you? He approached me at a conference and I had a bodyguard with me. He said, I need to speak to you. So I said, okay, I'll be in Dallas at a conference. You can speak to me there. We met in the lobby, 50 people, 60 people all around us.

knowing what was going on, but I had a bodyguard right next to me. He threatened me three different ways. And I've gone public with this. So if I suicide, you know, I didn't suicide. All right? Now, why, I guess the question is, why would somebody in the deep,

why do they not want this to be known? Who doesn't want this to be known? He told me, and I'm telling you what I know. He told me that that's what put me on the radar, the fact that we broke the story on the Kansar Giant. They didn't want that. they didn't want that out. And I can't go down this path,

but how many scientists wind up dead and suicide that are talking about the whole UFO deal? I'll just leave it at that. No comment, but do your homework. How many scientists that have been involved in this? No, I've heard about this. I've heard about this recently. And why do you suppose they're being silenced?

Is it because they don't want, In other words, is it because somebody wants to put out the quote-unquote official narrative when the time comes and they don't want people leaking out information maybe to the contrary? All I can tell you is that the deep state is real. It's real. I didn't need anybody to tell me that. I know that it's real. That's one thing that I have no doubt about it. But I guess I still wonder.

What's that? I just won't go there. No comment. Go where? What do you? I don't understand. Well, I won't answer the question. Why do you think this is happening?

Okay. I just, I don't want to go there. Well, I mean, but you put out the idea that there's going to be this disclosure, right? That there's going to be this moment. You've written a book about it. I read the book where you say that at some point, you know, these creatures are going to appear. They're going to claim to be the aliens, the extraterritorials, who are here to save us from ourselves. This is the narrative we've been hearing for decades and decades.

You're putting a book in front of me. What is that? Just another one on my books. The alien interviews, conversations with people who have experienced UFO. What is that? UFO. Yeah, UFO contacts with people who have experienced UFO contacts. Okay.

All right, well, I don't know where we're going with this or why suddenly you don't want to talk about something. I guess I'm just... Well, I don't want to talk about the missing scientists and the people who go missing and nobody knows why. I don't want to go there because I don't know enough about it. All I can tell you is this. There is pushback. It's like Arrow, one of the government agencies insists that none of this is real. And our congressmen and congresswomen have called, I'm just quoting, the director of Arrow, a liar on the halls of Congress. I think Nancy Mace, Varenna Paulina, called this guy out. You're a liar. You're deliberately obfuscating the truth from the American people.

This is why May 8th of 2026 is so pivotal because that was when our government, the War Department, released, albeit it's fuzzy film, but they're saying that whatever this is, it's real. We don't know what it is. They're not telling us that they're extraterrestrial, but it's real. And this is why, I'm going to show you something, Eric. This is the Combergaz UFO. It's the best UFO footage I've ever seen right there. You're holding something in front of me. It's hard for me to see. what you're holding in front of me. You can see the UFO right there. Yes, vaguely, yeah. It's, yeah. And there are the two beings, the grays in front. Okay. And where's that photo from? That's from Dr. Roger Lear. You're seeing the grays. That's a gray. Okay. That was from the late Dr. Roger Lear. My late business partner who passed away a few years ago, Richard Shaw, Dr. Roger Lear gave him the original footage. Rick went through it frame by frame by frame. Dr. Roger Lear was on Lake Kumburgas in Turkey for hours filming this thing. It just sat there and turned.

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Yeah, you have to send me all this stuff because I need to do my homework so I can more properly have these conversations. So when you talk about the Kandahar Giant, I had heard about that probably an Instagram clip of Joe Rogan. I've never been on Joe Rogan, you've never been on Joe Rogan, but you're the guy who broke the story. We brought the story. Nobody else did. We broke the story. And who brought it to Joe Rogan?

Well, Tim Alberino was being used, or interviewed rather, by Joe Rogan, and somehow the Candahard Giant came up. And, yeah, that's how I was threatened. I was threatened because we broke the story on the Candahard Giant. And interestingly enough, when 2016 happened and Trump became a person, president, everything went away. I haven't been threatened since. I watched my P's and Q's. I don't want to poke the bear because something, but the thing is now that it's, now that the information is out by the ward department, they're showing you UFO footage. I mean, think with it,

what you will. But we haven't had disclosure yet until Donald Trump stands up in the White House and says we're not alone in the universe. That's a game changer. But even then, we don't see this. even then these guys don't show up. They're waiting for a trigger, and we've talked about that of the last show. And that trigger was a nuclear event. Right. Okay, so,

but to go back to what you were saying when you mentioned Goliath or whatever, I mean, there's two things that I don't understand. Number one is, which we've talked about before, how is it possible that these beings can mate with human beings to create Nephilim? That's the puzzle to me. We could put that aside. Then the second question is, if that's possible, why can Nephilim reproduce? I don't have all the answers. Nobody does. I don't know. Are Nephilim like a mule where they're not able to reproduce?

But they're immortal beings. They can't, the bodies were destroyed, but the spirits wander the earth. So it's very complex. Here's something you think about. Genesis 315. Again, if it's allegorical, then you can't figure out the rest of the world. Bible. And this is what, if you were going to keep one thing away from pastors, one, one scripture, and never unpack it in seminary, and never tell them what's going on, guess what? That's the scripture that you keep away. You keep it away from the pastors, you keep it away from the people. So people never hear a sermon on Genesis 315. So when they get to Genesis 6, well, God's this really weird God maniacal. And when they get to Sodom and Gomorrah, they're going, why would he be destroying this. When they get to, you know, the conquest of Canaan, they don't understand

in his genocide. Here's the kicker. When you go to Daniel 243, the angel tells Daniel, steal up the words in the book, Daniel, until the time of the end. Then he tells us what the time of the end will look like. Men and women will run two and four over the face of the earth. That's what's happening right now. Knowledge will increase. Knowledge increases exponentially. We know that. It's basically until Gutenberg's printing press in 1444, it's pretty much flatlined. Nothing really changes. And then Gutenberg, and from that, the Industrial Revolution, here we are. You know, in my studio with lights and we're, you know, knowledge will increase. Then the angel says this, their seed, there's that nasty word again. Their seed will mingle with the seed of men,

but they will not clear to them. Let's unpack that. Who are they? Their seed will mingle with the seed of men. Can't be men. Certainly not a chimpanzee. So who are we talking about? Genesis 315. the seat of the dragon. It's the gateway to the Bible. What is that passage? Genesis 315, the seed of the dragon, the seed of Satan will mingle, will mingle with the seat of the woman. The seat of the woman, the proto-evangelian, the Messiah, will crush the dragon's head. You will bruise his heel.

It's the entire Bible. Understand the, have the right exegesis of that. Understand that it's a seed war. Then when we get to Genesis 6, you go, oh, my gosh, the seed war has just erupted. And the 200 watcher angels, according to the book of Enoch, the Senate of Bades of Jared on Mount Hermone, they take an oath that Steele is in the British Museum. The Steele. Which one is in the British Museum? Say it again.

The Steele is in the British Museum, you know, talking about the angels coming down in the days of Jared, the 200 watcher angels and about to have sex with the women. Why are they doing this? Pollute the genome. Ballute the genome, Messiah can't be born. That's it. Checkmate I win. And that's a three-hour conversation because it's so complex.

And the church never talks about it. And so in the fourth century, you had this knucklehead from Africa, Julius Afrikanus, who invents the sulfite theory. Augustine latches on to it. Why? Because they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. And the whole thing has changed. Scripture becomes allegorical.

Oh, it's really not literal. Well, we really don't understand what that means. I'm a dispensationalist, Eric. I believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. So when it tells me that the seed of the dragon is going to be at war with the seed of the woman, I totally get that. Offspring, and that's exactly what we see.

That's what unfolds in the Bible. When did you first hear of the concept of the seed war? From Dr. Idi-E. Thomas's book, The Omega Conspiracy. That book changed my life, because I had no answers to the flood of the... When did he write that book, The Omega, a conspiracy. I think it was 1987, 86 or 87. So this is all fairly late. I mean, nobody was talking about this much before that. Nobody was, essentially. I mean, you had, this is what cracks me up. People who bag on Darby, oh, Darby just invented us all blah, blah, blah, blah.

Let's look at church history. So in the 4th century, when Julius Afrikanus comes in, and then they get the priesthood over the laity, and then you get the dark ages, if you read the Bible, you know, on penalty of debt. Nobody has the Bible. Then Gutenberg shows up with the printing press. Now the common man can read the Bible, okay? Tindale is burnt at the stake. Not so long ago, folks, for doing what? Translating the Bible in English. These are people that you don't want to have dinner with, definitely. And so all Darby did, like my mentor did, was I have access to the scriptures. He didn't invent the rapture of the church. Well, hold I show them a mystery. Remind us, remind us when Darby lived. He's the one that came up with the rapture theory or who made it popular?

Well, he's the one, all he did is have access to the scripture. And so he reads, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel. The dead in Christ will rise first, that we were alive and remain will be caught up, Harpato in the clouds to greet the Lord in the air. Hallelujah. All he did was read the sentence and go, oh, my gosh, the rapture, the Harpato. That's where it's from.

But until then, you know, people, just like my mentor, Dr. I.D.E. Thomas, with the Omega conspiracy. He looked at the Genesis 315 narrative, Genesis 6, plugged it all in, did the Hebrew study. The couple of sons of God are always Benaiah Elohim in the Hebrew, which always refers to the angelic coast. And then when you read the book of Enoch, pseudopographical book, okay, I get that. My part of our canon, why would you be quoting from the book of Enoch? You don't quote from something 2,000 years ago unless you've read it, studied it, and it's part of your wheelhouse for crying out loud. And Jude is quoting from the book of Enoch. Enoch has found him a Dead Sea Scrolls.

Enoch tells us exactly what's going on. In fact, in the sixth chapter of Enoch, you can overlay that with the sixth chapter of Genesis. It's word for word, except for sons of God is translated, angels of heaven. There it is. But if you were going to keep one thing away from up-and-coming pastors, that's the thing you never. tell them because that opens the book that opens the book it's interesting i think part of what we're talking about is that there's a there are people that want i guess i would call it a sanitized version of christian faith they don't like the supernatural they don't like this stuff they want to steer clear

of this stuff it's too messy it's embarrassing for them in the elite circles in which they travel in which I used to travel. It's very interesting because they want a more sophisticated version of the Christian faith. This stuff is not seeker friendly according to their theory. I agree. It's not secret friendly. But I would argue, of course, the opposite, that it's extremely secret friendly. There are people out there that want to know, hey, what's the story with the world in which we live?

They're interested in this stuff. Just as you were attracted to the new age, people are attracted to the supernatural. they just want to know what's what. And they're just trying to follow their noses, you know, trying to make sense of it. And I think that opening the door to the supernatural, there are so many people that have experiences with the supernatural and they want explanations of what is it.

And to simply say, well, it doesn't exist. You're not really, you're not doing them any favors by simply saying that, just ignore it. There's something there. There's a hidden realm. There's an invisible realm. The question is, What can we know about it?

Let's talk about it. That's what you're doing. And so it is messy because so much of it is speculative. But that's the nature of reality is if you're trying to further a thesis, whether you're a scientist or other, you're going to speculate. You're trying to connect dots. Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you get it wrong.

When you refer, it's fascinating to the Kanda Hart giant, obviously, I'm sure many people immediately think of the cave of the Cyclops in Homer. I mean, that is about. dramatic a parallel as I've heard recently. It sure sounds like it. I guess I'm still fascinated that we don't have hard evidence. You and I have talked about Sasquatch, Bigfoot. The fact that there's no, that there's never been the evidence, it's very frustrating, I think,

and it's why so many people just dismiss this stuff out of hand. Well, it is. And evidence, this is why I've been on a trail. This is why there's 34 films and 16 books, because we're out. in the field. It's just not in the library. I mean, I've done extensive research before the fire. There were 1,500 books in my library, and I'll never be able to replace that. Dog-eared, underline, highlighted. I mean, you know what it's like. You know, when you're into something and you're making notes and that's all, that's all gone. It's all burnt. So now it's here and here.

It's like, that's all I have to go on. We have an artifact, we call the Nephilim lance. The lance is about, it's almost three feet long. And when we discovered this, It was discovered by Bob Shelley on way up in, I think in Michigan, I'm pretty sure it's in Michigan, out in the middle of nowhere, and an abandoned campsite. And we took it back, and I thought it was a sword. Chief Joseph, everyone took one look at it and said, no, that's the Lance. I go, what do you mean?

He goes, the Nephilim, the Giants. See, this is in the Native American oral tradition, which is immediately, you know, oh, we can't believe that because they have no written language. Excuse me, I got this guy telling me this is what he heard from his great grandfather. I mean, how many times we have to hear this before the white guy, you want to talk about racism, if that's not racism, I don't know what it is, but I digress as usual. Chief Joseph took one look at this thing and said, that's a Nephilim lance. I go, what do you mean?

You go, well, the giants used to come in with these lances, and they would skewer, two or three braids. They would just run us through and hold us up like this. And we did testing on it with Christian winners and metallurgis. We did testing on the medal, all right? And what we discovered, this is all in the book, it's all in the film, I'll send it to you. When we discovered that the isotopic ratios appear to be coming from the Middle East. What's that doing?

What's that doing in the middle of nowhere in Michigan? It's bronze. And copper all comes from the Great Lakes. And this is what's so intriguing. All that copper just goes missing during the Bronze Age. And that Nephilim Lance is bronze. It's a bronze object. It's not iron.

It's bronze. And we believe it's thousands of years old. And where is that now? You said, we have it. Who's we? We have it. Chief Joseph actually has the original. He has the original.

Who is Chief Joseph? Where does he live? You will meet him when I send you the film. He's a Tiano War Chief, Peace Chief. And he's in our film and talks about it and talks about the oral tradition of the giants. I mean, Sarah Winnamaka is a Paiute woman who writes about the Sittika, the Sittika of giants that lived in Las Vegas, in the Las Vegas area. Sarah Winnamauga, what is it called, the Lovelock Cave? I've been to the Love Lock Cave.

There was a handprint that nobody had discovered until, what's his name, M.K., not Ultra, M.K. Davis discovered this handprint. It's like this big. and its fingers, the handprints on the cave wall. And when we went there to photograph it and film it, someone had completely erased that. How was it possible? We had pictures of it. It's in the book.

Well, L.A. Marzuli, it's just great to speak with you. We're going to let you go in a minute here. But I just want to make sure when you said, we have it. Who do you mean when you say we have it? And where are you? Okay. In my books, in my films, this is all, in other words, when we're down in Peru and we're filming the taking of the DNA, we show that all on film, you know, the whole process. So when we're talking about Phenephelan lands, it's in the book. You see Van Neffelin Lance.

When I'm out on Catalina Island and I discover that picture, that's in the books. It's in the films. So, you know, we document everything. And that's, that's, you know, that's photojournalism. That's what you mean. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And, um, Well, we'll leave it there. Just really grateful for your time. Thank you, Eric. Always great to see you. Don't go away. Keep your tab open, folks. So we'll be right back. Hey there, folks. Suzanne and I want to invite you to join us for something extraordinary. It is a Socrates in the city cruise on the Mediterranean, August 24th through September 1st, 27.

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Thank you, such for having me. Well, you look way younger than you're supposed to. What's going on with you? I appreciate that. I do look younger than I. I am, but I am not of Medicare age, if that's what you're implying. Neither am I, but I still look older than you. Now, it's, because we're talking about Medicare, I have to start, you know, with the stupid

joke thing. You are, you don't seem like somebody who has navigated the world of Medicare, and yet that's exactly what you're all about. So before I actually let you answer that question, let me ask you, tell a little bit about your story. Where do you live? What do you come from? How did you get to be doing?

what you're doing right now. Yeah, and thank you for having me. I grew up in a very small town in North Carolina, in eastern North Carolina, moved to the suburbs of New York City when I was about eight and grew up there. I currently live in New York. Of New York, Westchester County. Never heard of it. I've heard of it.

Yeah. No, of course. That's, well, it's good to know. So we're basically local as far as I can see then. All right. Keep going. Exactly. I live in New York City now.

love, love the energy of the city. And before starting chapter a few years ago, I really started my career in software at a large technology company building data systems for the U.S. government. So I've been in and around government bureaucracies and government data systems for the better part of a decade now. Wow. So obviously, now there's so many people watching right now who have dealt with the Medicare quagmire as a lot.

I'm calling it. Because it is very complicated. It shouldn't be complicated. And as people, I guess a lot of people until you hit 65, you're not thinking about it. So of course, this is 25 or 30 years in my future. But for those people who are approaching that number, I want them to know about chapter, first of all. So in a minute, I'll tell them how to find you and everything.

But what, do me a favor. For people who aren't yet thinking about this, walk my audience through what happens as you, at 65 or you're approaching 65. What are you facing? What is this? You know, because if you face it, you don't even know that there's a quag fire. That's kind of I want to be proactive in talking about it. Exactly. And as you said, most people don't really engage with Medicare until they have to or if they've seen their parents go through it or grandparents.

And that was my experience. I saw my parents going through the Medicare process. And that's what really opened my eyes to the quagmire that people face as they as they turn 65 or retire. But every single American, when they approach retirement or turn 65, has to deal with Medicare in some way. That might be a decision to not sign up for Medicare if you're still working. But for most people, it's a serious decision to know whether they should sign up for a Medicare plan or not. and if they should sign up for Medicare, which plan? And there are lots of different types of Medicare options. Most people just think, oh, there's Medicare.

It's automatic. It's the government. I've been paying for it my whole career. It must just work. That's unfortunately not the way it works. There are a lot of decisions people have to make. And that's really why I start a chapter to help people make that, make those set of decisions much more simply and with much more confidence.

Now, I guess I want to say up front, the reason I'm talking to you and not to somebody else is because I trust you and I trust chapter, because I should say it's come to my attention that there are lots of companies that purport to do what you're doing, but my guess is they're getting something out of it, and it's a little complicated. So I feel this is a very serious decision for people,

and they need to be able to talk to people that they genuinely trust, that they have their best interests in mind. And so what was it that made you see that this is something that you want to get into, get into? What was it the process of watching your parents navigate this? It really was. I saw my mom in particular worked with a local Medicare broker. As you said, there are a lot of Medicare agents out there.

She got really bad advice and now has to pay lifetime Part D enrollment penalties. So if you sign up too late, the government imposes lifetime penalties on you. so that to incentivize people to sign up at the right time. So there are a lot of consequences to this. And then on top of that, her whole experience was really painful. She had to call the Social Security office numerous times. She had to fax documents. And as someone who works in technology, I just looked at this and I was wondering,

what is going on here? This makes no sense to me. And that's really what opened my eyes to the entire process and how broken it is. And then to your other point, most were really all Medicare advisors in this country. are agents of the insurance carrier. They're not agents of the consumer. What we've done a chapter is that is, yeah, what we've done. That's like, that's the breaking news.

That's the headline. So in other words, people report to be doing what you're doing. Like, oh, we're here to help you navigate. Work for whom exactly? They work for the insurance carrier contractually and legally. Right. And it is, it is the biggest issue in my mind in Medicare today. and I've testified at the Senate about this.

I have been working with Congress to try to pass new regulations that prevent Medicare advisors from representing insurance carriers and force them to represent consumers. But unfortunately, that's not the state of the world today. And unless you have the resources like a company like Chapter has, unless you put consumers first, and unless you build your own data and technology so that you can get access to the data you need to recommend the right plan for each person. It's very challenging, if not impossible, for others to do this. So, and obviously, that's what you've been doing. This is why we're talking to you. I should just tell people, if they're interested now, the website is askchapter.org.org.

ask chapter.org slash metaxis. Askchapter.org slash metaxus. And there's a phone number. I'll give that in just a moment. So I guess my question, a couple of questions. First of all, what are some of the common mistakes? I mean, suddenly, you know, people are facing this thing? What are some of the, you just mentioned, you know, your own family, what they're dealing

with? Suddenly, you sign a piece of paper and, whoops, now you're going to be fine forever. What are some of the common mistakes, other mistakes that people make when they sign up for Medicare? That's something that's not optimal for them and that's dark. The most common is people just don't do anything. They don't realize that they have to take action. And so they either miss their enrollment window or they get defaulted into a plan or into a setup that's not the best for them. So that's definitely the most common.

Second most common is people assume that Medicare Advantage, which is one type of Medicare plan, is really the only type of Medicare plan. And so they sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan, which may or may not be right for them. The reason that Medicare Advantage is so heavily promoted, there are all these ads, is because insurance carriers will pay more for a Medicare Advantage enrollment than for a different type of Medicare enrollment. So last Q4, for example, almost 10,000 ads ran per day trying to get people to sign up for Medicare Advantage plans. And so that creates a lot of misinformation in people's minds for reasonable reasons. And it makes it really hard to know what's going on, who to trust. And then I think the, or go ahead. No, I was going to say, I've looked at, you know, it seems to me from what little I've looked into it, that it is very complicated.

There are, there's almost like an infinite number of options available. And so I guess my first question is, how did it get so complicated? I mean, the whole idea is Medicare's set up a long time ago to help older people. How did it get so complicated so that now we need, you know, seriously good advice or we can get in trouble? Medicare was initially passed in 1965 by LBGA. It was a much simpler system at the time, to your point. Over the last 60, 70 years, the number of options have dramatically increased. And under the Clinton administration, there was this new concept of Medicare Advantage,

which is privately administered but publicly funded Medicare plans. And that's really when the complexity started ballooning. And today, because Medicare is such a large component of our economy, it's almost a trillion dollars a year. That's the amount that the government spends on Medicare. So when you have such a large amount of money and such an important, such an important piece of our health care and our health insurance system, there are going to be a lot of private companies that go in wanting to help and wanting to make a buck. And so

that has created a lot of complexity for individuals. The additional component here is there's not really good regulation, as I said, that puts consumers first here. So people are in these Medicare brokerages and the insurance carriers are incentivized to make things complicated. I'll give you a very simple example. Today, the way the regulatory regime is set up, it is illegal for me to post all the Medicare plan information I have online. Chapter has the best Medicare plan information. One of the common questions we get is why don't we just post it all online.

It is illegal for me to do that. It is illegal. Okay, hold on. We're going to go to a break, and I just want to talk to you more, but let me remind people again. You can go to askchapter.org slash metaxus. ask chapter.org or as phone number 571, 421, 1253. Again, the phone number is the best. 571, 421, 1253, or ask chapter.org slash metaxis. Be right back. I just decided I want to write a book

on the American Revolution because this is extremely important. Unless Americans know our story, We cannot possibly continue to keep the Republic. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free, from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Welcome back. Kobe Blumenthal. Gantz is my guest. He is the CEO of

Chapter, which is a sponsor of this program. These are the folks that help you navigate the confusing quagmire, unfortunately, that Medicare has come. So Kobe, you were just saying that there's these weird rules. Whenever you deal with the government, weird rules, you said that there's a law that you, for example, cannot helpfully post a lot of stuff about this online. That doesn't seem, you would think that transparency would be a good thing. Like, hey, here's some stuff people can read, but they won't let you do that. That's right. It was one of the most surprising things I learned when we started the company.

It is perfectly legal for me to tell someone over the phone all the information about the options in their area, and that's what we do every day. It is not legal for me to post that same information online without getting every single insurance carrier to approve of exactly what I want to post and CMS at the government to approve it. And of course, for me to get all of those approvals is not going to happen because the insurance carriers are not incentivized to make that information transparent. So it's one of these things. The intent of the regulation is to minimize risk so that people don't post deceptive information. So there's, you know, there's some integrated logic to it. But the implication is that it's very hard for consumers to get transparent information.

I mean, I just have to say it's fascinating. This sounds like the definition of bureaucracy. You don't need to read Kafka. Don't read Kafka. I don't recommend it. But it's Kafka-ask. It's labyrinthine. It's confusing. It's dehumanizing. Let's just put it there. That's what bureaucracy tends to. to be dehumanizing. And so it's one of the reasons that I just love the fact that people can pick up the phone and talk to somebody at Chapter. And it's why I'm warmly recommending they do that because, you know, it's one thing to talk to a person on the phone that's nice. But sometimes talking to people on the phone is not so nice. If it's people that you can actually trust. And so obviously, folks, I'm suggesting that if you have questions that you call up

our friends at Chapter, I'll give you the number again. because that's even better than the website. It's 571, 421, 1,253, 571, 421, 421, 1,253. So what is the typical experience that people have? In other words, I assume that your goal is to steer them to a plan that's optimal for them. And so talk us through some of that. Our goal is to make sure people have the right health coverage, whether that's on Medicare or not. So if you are on your employer coverage and that remains the best for you, you're not leaving your job, you're remaining employed, we'll tell you that.

We aren't going to try to switch you to Medicare if that's not appropriate for you. For most people, though, switching onto Medicare is actually the right decision for their health coverage and their wallet. So it's a very simple process. You call up if you're already on a Medicare plan, we'll tell you if there's a better option for you. if it's your first time signing up, we'll walk you through the process. We've built a lot of technology to automate the tedium. So it's very simple and delight. We try to make it delightful, turning a terrible experience into a delightful one. And we'll answer all of your questions that you might have about Medicare, about your health coverage, about your doctors, your prescriptions,

how much it will cost, all of these questions. We'll sign you up. And then importantly, even after we help you enroll in a Medicare plan, if that's the right for you, we'll help you navigate the entire ecosystem throughout the year. So if you need to find a specialist who's in network with your plan, we'll help you with that. If you need to minimize your prescription costs because you got a very expensive prescription, we'll help you with that. If you need to appeal a bill or a claim, you get a bill that doesn't make sense to you. Many health care bills don't make a lot of sense. We'll help you walk through that. And if it's an incorrect bill, we'll help you appeal that. So our goal is really to be your advocate, your navigator throughout this entire journey.

And obviously other companies that do something similar to you claim to do the same thing. So if you don't mind my asking, what is the difference between you and most of them? There are really three core differences. One is we look at every single Medicare option. And that's actually, I think, unique in any insurance market where we have access to every single Medicare plan across every type of Medicare. And we will enroll you in the right Medicare plan for your needs, whether Chapter earns money on that plan or not. All of the financials are hidden from our team. So our Medicare advisors are only incentivized to help each person.

They're not incentivized by the insurance carrier. They don't earn a different amount of money or their chapter makes money or doesn't. And that's a really core difference because if you're not looking at every option, how can you know if you're getting the right plan? So that's one. Two is we've built a lot of technology to make the experience very easy and simple and to catch mistakes because it is such a Byzantine system. There's all these rules and edge cases that can really hurt people if you aren't aware of them.

And so we've built a lot of technology and a lot of oversight so that we know every single person who talks to us is having a great experience in getting accurate information, which is really important. We spend so much time just even looking at, is the accuracy of doctors correct? Do we know which doctors in network with which plan? Do we know exactly what your prescription will cost on a given plan? It's a very hard data problem to solve that we spent a lot of of time solving. And then the last piece is we care that every single person who calls us has an amazing experience. We don't want any variability in that experience. We don't quality to be high for every single interaction. And the only way to do that is to keep a very high bar for who we hire and who we allow to interact with people who call us. And we call them our members. And so I personally interview every single person who works a chapter, every single candidate across our engineers,

across our Medicare advisors, across our Medicare advocates, we accept less than 1% of people who apply to join chapter. So we keep a maniacally high bar for talent, and that is what translates into an exceptional user experience. I think 4% would be maniacally high. 1%. I don't even know. There's no adjective for that.

But it's kind of funny because to me, as I get to know who you are as a company and what you're doing, that that to me is the key, what you've just said. In other words, that you understand that this is the piece, that almost no one else would go to this length. But you understand this is what we deliver, this kind of, I mean, for somebody to, I'm just speaking personally and for my own family, to call up somebody to get somebody who's personable, competent, kind, understand, you know, all of that stuff. it's not easy to find basically.

You often find the opposite of it or some, some variation. So that seems to meet the key to your success to the whole idea and reasons that I'm so warmly recommending chapter. I'll give the website again, folks, if you want to contact them, it's askchapter.org slash metaxus. Askchapter.org slash metactus.

Just got a couple of minutes left, Corey. What else can we say that we are not said? Well, I think one really interesting aspect that is a part of the ethos of chapter and I think relates to what you do and the important work that you do for your audience is that, as a religious scholar, you think about what does the Bible teach us? for us, I grew up as an observant Jew, and just last week, the Torah portion was for the Jewish Bible, was actually about, there was a mention of retirement, and God instructed the Levites to serve in the tabernacle only from ages 25 to 50. After age 50, individuals are

not supposed to do physical work. They're supposed to still mentor and provide their wisdom. And a large part of the ethos of chapter is we want to empower people to share their wisdom and to have the health coverage that they need to live an amazing chapter of their lives. That's why we're called chapter and not, you know, insert name Medicare because we want to help people live the best chapter of their lives. I think there's a lot of wisdom that is currently lost between the older generation and the younger generation. And what we're really trying to do is empower people with the health so that they can share that wisdom with the rest of us and that I actually think it's a very important part to holding the fabric of our society together. And that's really what drives us to

continue to push so hard for an amazing, amazing experience for our members. I knew that biblical wisdom was behind all of this theoretically, but I also knew that it was behind you and what you're doing at chapter. But I wanted you to be the one to talk about it, because to me, that is the key. And it's not, you know, it's not even just wisdom. It is the kindness. It is the kindness. the graciousness that comes out of that whole worldview. So I'm just grateful for you. I'll tell my audience again how to find you all now that they know more about you. The phone number, that's the best thing, folks.

It's 571-421-1253. 571-4-21-1253. The website askchapter.org. Askchapter.org slash. This Kobe blue dog and CEO of a chapter. First of all, congratulations. I've blessed you of what you're doing. And thanks for this time.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-safety. research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.ca.ca.