The Eric Metaxas Show - #210 - Larry Taunton

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

An undercover investigation in Mexico City leads to an extraordinary claim about a new way of getting into the United States.Larry Taunton joins Eric to share what he says his investigators recently discovered while looking into changing migrant routes after the U.S. border crackdown. Taunton says an undercover operative was told he could obtain an authentic U.S. biometric visa for $3,000 in just three days and even pay after the visa was issued. Taunton explains why he stopped the operation before putting his source at greater risk and says he intends to pass the information to the State Department for investigation.Eric and Larry also discuss migrant camps in Mexico, Venezuela, Taunton’s field reporting in Israel and Gaza, an invitation to embed with Jerusalem police, October 7, Charlie Kirk’s memorial, and the danger of accepting sensational conspiracy claims without evidence.⭐ 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 Eric’s Week Ahead And Revolution Update16:08 Larry Taunton Joins17:42 What Changed Along The Migrant Route21:50 The Alleged New Cartel Workaround24:01 Sending An Operative Undercover25:01 The $3,000 Three-Day Visa Claim31:06 Why Taunton Stopped The Sting40:16 Venezuela And Migrants Returning Home47:08 Gaza, October 7 And Islam55:28 Jerusalem Police And Conspiracy Claims- - -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ericmetaxas#EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

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Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Hey there, folks. Welcome to what I like to call Monday, September 28th. I hope you like to call it Monday, September 28th as well, because as I check, that's objectively what it is. Chris Himes, what are you calling it?

I'm calling it happy the storm is over day. is the storm over it's still raining i see i still see i still see rain there's limbs down i'm here in connecticut i was shocked trees that have been there since i was a little boy uh two gigantic branches came down i thought what is happening what is what is going on like these trees don't break in half um anyway uh i survived but uh it is it yeah it's it's it's strange it is it is it is strange it is it is how weather affects you. Oh, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, before I go on and on about all kinds of stuff,

let me say my guest in this hour will be our friend Larry Taunton. Larry Taunton is an extraordinary hero. You, I hardly think you will, you'll be challenged even to believe what he does in the conversation we have. He embeds himself with cartels. He has done this for something.

several years to figure out how people are sneaking into the country. The whole thing is unbelievable. I'm going to talk to him about that in just a couple of minutes. But before we get to my heroic friend, my dear friend, Larry Taunton, I just want to say what I'm doing. And I, Chris, I don't even know if you know this. Tomorrow, I'm going to, well, this is very important. First, I'm going to pack for my trip to Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids.

I'm going to Cornerstone University again. I'm going to be at Cornerstone University this week doing a whole bunch of stuff. There's a big wisdom conversation that they're having October 1st in the evening. I will be a part of that. If you're anywhere near Grand Rapids, you need to look into this. I think you can find it on my website, Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, their website. I'm also speaking at the chapel this Wednesday morning. You can come to that.

I will be speaking on the American Revolution. I will be signing books after the chapel. I'm teaching a class that afternoon. You can't come to that. It's just for the kids. But I love Cornerstone University. I am a distinguished presidential fellow. They got a lot of presidential fellows,

but only a couple of distinguished presidential fellows. And I think I'm two or three of them, actually, if you look on a map. But seriously, folks. So you do use pronouns. You do use pronouns. Yes. Well, no, that was an adjective.

wasn't it? Okay, so here we go. So here we go. So I'm going to several adjectives just to ask my wife. But anyway, continue. Tomorrow, wise guy, tomorrow I'm flying to Grand Rapids. But before that I got a pack. And then after that, I got to get a haircut. You can't

tell because I'm using so much product. You'd have no idea that I've got dreadlocks. But then this is really why I wanted to tell you what I'm doing tomorrow. I'm then going, are you ready for this? I'm going before I go to Grand Rapids, before I go to the airport, I'm going to Staten Island.

Why would I go to Staten Island? You ask. Ladies and gentlemen, this is kind of crazy. If you've read my book on the American Revolution, now, by the way, I don't care if you've read the book, but it wouldn't kill you to buy two or three copies, and you understand what I'm saying. The price is rock bottom at Amazon.

It actually is. They dropped it. I don't know why they waited until now, but they dropped it 35%. So if you go to Amazon, it is by far the best price. it tomorrow. And I recommend it for many reasons, not principally because I wrote it, but for many reasons, because we need to know our history. We need to be inspired. We need to reset. Everybody in the

country, or as many people as possible, need to know where we come from, how we came into existence. We need to know the whole story. Some of it is very entertaining. So if you have not yet bought a copy, consider this my plea for the week to go to Amazon, get a copy of my Revolution book. But if you've already read the book, then you know there is a bizarre place in the book. And it happened in September, 250 years ago this month, two founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams traveled from Philadelphia. North all the way through New Jersey, they spent a night together in an inn in the same bed. It's like one of the craziest stories in the book.

They argued like an old married couple about should we keep the window open or closed because John Adams, and it fits their personalities, right? John Adams is the Felix Unger of the odd couple. And he says, you know, we'll catch cold. And Benjamin Franklin, more the Oscar Madison figure says, no, no, no, it's good for us. We need fresh air. I mean, it's really crazy. And John Adams writes about it in his die. It's all quoted in my book. It's just one of the cutest,

most fascinating, revealing stories of that period. So that's what happened as they're making their way. It also reminds me, Eric, sorry to interrupt, but the planes, trains, and automobile scene, the very famous Steve Martin and John Candy, where they're forced to share a bed together. I forgot about it. I don't know if you know that one. I did. I did forget. I did forget. about that. I forgot. Well, there you go. Yeah, Steve Martin says to John Candy. Where are your hands right now? And John Candy says, oh, just between two pillows. And then I might be mixing up, but Steve Martin goes, those aren't pillows, you know, or something like that. That is very, very inappropriate for this audience. Thank you, though. Thank you.

Now, so listen, ladies and gentlemen. It's a classic screen moment. It's a classic screen moment. But actually, no joke, right? Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, they spent a night together, in a bed in a small room with one window. Anyway, it's a crazy story, and they're on their way. The next day, the next day, they got married. Just kidding. The next day, they went a little farther, I'm speaking literally geographically, to the channel where they had to get in a ferry and go to Staten Island.

When they got to Staten Island, they went into a magnificent house owned by, some loyalist, right, some British loyalist, to meet with Admiral Howe. He and his brother, General Howe, they were the men running the war, you know, sent to America to be the George Washington figures. They went to meet with Admiral Howe in this house. It's called the Billup Something House in Staten Island, 250 years ago, this month. Tomorrow, I'm going to that house. why am I going to that house, you ask.

I'm going to that house. The house is still standing, of course. It's just an amazing place. I can't believe it's still there. And that I can go into the very room where Admiral Howe met with Ben Franklin and John. I mean, it's amazing. I'm doing this tomorrow. Why?

Because I am going to be interviewing, what's his name? I have written down. Oh, sorry. This is a revolutionary scholar. He's British. His name is Andrew O'Sharrow. honesty. He's a big deal. He's written a lot of books. And I'm going to be talking to him about the revolution in the very room in case I've mentioned it, where Admiral Howe met with

Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. I still, I still can't believe I'm going to get to be there, but I'm going to be there tomorrow. And I want to tell you about this, I want to remind you again, if you haven't bought the book, ladies and gentlemen, Amazon, I don't know why they've depressed the price so that it's 35% off, but I would take advantage of it. It's a good book. When you read it, You'll see, oh, yeah, I should buy a copy for so and so and so and so. This would be a good book for so and so and so. Trust me, you want to buy multiple copies when the price is 35% off. So please go to Amazon.com and get your copies.

But I'm very excited that I'm doing that tomorrow. As I mentioned, after that, I'm going, it's a Cornerstone University. You'll be there for a while. Next week, I'm going to be in Lynchburg, Virginia at Liberty. There aren't many great universities, okay? Cornerstone in Grand Rapids is one. Liberty in Lynchburg, of course, is you probably know about Liberty.

They are fantastic. I'm speaking at their convocation in front of 10,000 students. What is that? That's Wednesday, October 7th. October 7th is a day that will live in infamy. We have to remember what happened on that day three years ago, and I'll be touching on that.

After that, I'm going to Colorado Springs. I'm going to be at an event at the Broadmoor. I'm going to be in Fort Lauderdale. I am, as usual, busy. And we're adding a lot of stuff on top of that. But just so you know, if you want to know where I'll be, go to erikmetaxis.com. We've always updated with events. There's a lot of Socrates and city book clubs.

I was just, Chris, I think you know this. I was just in Nashville. I did two events in Nashville, one for the Eagle Forum, which is Phyllis Schlafly's organization. I spoke for the Eagle Forum, which was fantastic. Laura Osniss, who sang the Star Spangled Banner on May 18th, on the mall in D.C. When I introduced her, she's a Broadway star, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She sang at the event, the Eagle Forum.

Before that, I was interviewed by Rich Lowry of National Review about the American Revolution. Before that, I was in Detroit at a TPSA faith event with all our friends. Seth Dillon was there, Lucas Miles, Ryan Helfenbine, the whole gang of crazies. It was just delightful. And before that, I was in Dana Point, California. I probably already have updated everybody in this. But I've just been, you know, traveling a lot. And so all this stuff is happening.

I guess I want to make sure that everybody is reminded. If you're not signed up for the Socrates in the city website to get the emails, we are launching book clubs all over the country. We have 25 already running and another 25 about to launch all over this country. Folks, if there's not one near you, you can start one. These are just show up book clubs. It's just, it's great. You don't have to do the reading.

You just show up, just show up. And the reading is done there. So you just show up. People say, do the homework? And everybody goes, nope, correct. There is no homework. You just sit there and then somebody like me live reads or it's the voice of the narrator from the audio book.

You sit there. Everybody reads along. You get free books. You get the book for free. Who? What? This is real? Yeah.

It's amazing. And then there's food. It's just great. So go to Socrates and city. com. You need to know about this, folks. And there's a lot of Socrates and City events happening. I'm on November 15.

In New York City, I'm interviewing Ignat Solzhenitsyn. That's the son of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Kind of a big deal. That's in New York City, November 15th. In December, I'm interviewing Frank Turrick, our friend Frank Turich. We're doing a Soxiezen City event in New York City with Frank Turrick. Also, we have our gala December 9th, I think. That is always magnificent.

It's, you just, it's kind of like old New York. It's like going back in time when we, have these gals we have like a band everybody's wearing tuxedos it's spectacular that's the summer night so go to the soxies and city website sign up for all this stuff and then i guess chris i um before i go i i always until now i always forget to mention we have this big deal cruise happening next it's it's late august of next year so of course it's less than a year away um on the sea cloud too this is a very exclusive thing the ship only takes like barely over 100 people.

So it's very exclusive luxury kind of thing, but it is selling out. So if you're one of these people, you think, oh, I'd like to do that, you know, a cruise around Sardinia and Corsica with Oz Guinness and Eric Metaxis. And I'm trying to get Pat Boone to come, trying to get Frank Turrick to come.

But trust me, it's going to be spectacular on every level. If you want to do it, you need to jump in, because already a couple of the cabin classes are gone. So you need to, you want to, you want to jump in. I mean, if you want to jump in, you should jump in. So go to Socratesandcity.com. That's the Ccloud cruise for next year, all kinds of other stuff. I don't want to take too much more time.

But I will say that this week, so in a minute I have Larry Taunton. It doesn't get better than Larry. We're going to be talking to my friend, Joe LaCante. I did a great interview with him about all kinds of stuff. You know Joe LaConte. say he's a hero. We have an interview with a new, with a new guest on the program,

Steve Kent talking about C.S. Lewis and all kinds of great stuff. Pat Boone, we just recorded a great conversation with Pat. We'll air that this week. And then we have somebody who does a ministry to people who've escaped North Korea. It's a heavy conversation, an important conversation. So we got a lot to look forward.

to this week. And a lot of stuff I haven't even mentioned, but I won't. Why should I mention it? Chris, if I forgot anything, oh, one thing I should say, we had in the past planned to relaunch the Bonhofer film

on October 7th, October 3rd, 4th, 7th, whatever, for many reasons, we pulled the plug on that because there was so much else happening that week. So the new date is January 27th. Once I get the details on that, I will never stop reminding you that we want to buy out theaters. You want to get your church to buy out theaters.

January 27th, that's Holocaust Memorial Remembrance Day. The film is great. If you want to see the film right now, you can see it on Amazon Prime and other places. But anyway, that's the update from Lake Wobagon. And I think we better get to Larry Taunton. All right, here it is. Go.

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The hotel room is in Detroit. Oddly enough, I'm not in Detroit. But the hotel room is in Detroit. I guess technically I'm also in Detroit. But the hotel room is on the 63rd floor. When the woman gave me my room key, I said, what? She said the 63rd floor. evidently, I'm in the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere.

It's not that exciting, frankly. I'd rather be in another hotel. But you can hear laughing, my friend Larry Taunton, who is my guest? Larry, I think you're closer to Earth than I am, and I'm glad to speak with you. Because I want to, you know, I want to stay in touch with the people on the ground. How are you? I'm doing very well. You know, when I hear 63rd floor, I think in terms of, you know, you remember all those

disaster movies of the 1970s. I think of towering inferno. Oh, I hardly need reminding. When I got up here, that's exactly what I thought of. I thought of towering inferno. I thought of earthquake incense around all those disaster 70s movies like, hey. But in Detroit, they're not known for their earthquakes. They try to keep them hush, hush.

So, but listen, you, my friend, you travel the world and you have been on the southern border. doing some investigating. Would you like to talk about that? What do you want to talk about? Yeah, I really have quite the story for you, Eric, and it's a complicated story, but the simple part of it is this. As you know, as members of your audience probably know, I was following these migrant caravans from about 2018, 2019, all the way up to Trump's election. So prior to this trip of a week or two ago down to Mexico City, my last trip down there was in November of 2024, which was right after Trump's election victory. So it was just, you know, right then. And you see what was happening is that USAID was working with the DeGolfo cartel of Columbia and moving people by the millions into.

the United States during the Biden administration. Okay, now I always have to interrupt and people are going to be annoyed, but I need clarification because it sounds like what you just said is that our tax dollars, USAID, were being used to work with the demonic ultra-violent cartels, some of the most bloodthirsty monsters on the planet. You're telling me that that is the case. That's absolutely the case. But here's the really nice thing as it relates to that, Eric. And here's just a little bit of backstory for you. I had been kind of screaming about USAID and what USID was doing before Musk, you know, took over Doge and a Musk right after Trump's inauguration in January 2025, you'll recall that USID suddenly became big news. And a lot of Americans had never even heard of USAID, a $50 billion a year agency that's involved, is supposed to be like the governmental equivalent of Samarita's purse, but was in fact

engaged in all kinds of nefarious activities. And when Musk was revealing where a lot of these monies were going, you know, naked twister in Kenya and transgender surgeries and Keele and, you know, this kind of thing. I texted Steve Bannon and I said, Steve, they, they don't know the half of it. The fact is that USA and ID is running a massive human trafficking operation and working with the cartels. So I go on his show in right after Trump's inauguration, and I'm explaining this. And guess what? President Trump just happened to be watching. So he text Bannon during the commercial break and says, hey, tell, tell Larry Taunton to give me more of this information and, you know, I'll obliterate USAID, which of course is exactly what he did. He ended up,

you know, shutting that down. And there were a lot of other people involved. We're like those, those little people trying to bring down those, that giant, you know, elephant in the Lord of the Rings movie. We're all just, you know, trying to lasso the legs. And finally that happened. And When I went down to Mexico City, what I discovered was right after Trump's election, that the migrant caravans, the, um, 10 cities, cardboard cities, which they established, where there are thousands of these people, they were empty. And that's because the messaging of the Trump administration had changed from that of the Biden administration. And it was, A, we don't want you. And B, we are going to defend the border and we are going to deport. you. So these people, you know, a lot of them turned around and they tried to integrate into

life in Mexico City. So I get, you know, messages from my, my fixer. That is, you know, the people that I have all over the world who kind of keep me informed of what's going on in various countries and said, look, Larry, you got to get down here because now the cartels are finding a workaround. They know that taking people the old way, which is where, you know, these, these illegals pay somebody a few hundred dollars, a coyote, you know, takes some north and, you know, cuts a hole in a fence and, you know, lets them get through, that, that method of doing that, mass human trafficking like that was not going to work particularly well anymore. So now they found a workaround, and that workaround involves obtaining. Now get this, this is the explosive part,

obtaining authentic U.S. biometric visas from the United States Embassy in Mexico City. And you may be saying, how in the world could that possibly be? Well, let's just say you're a Mexican national and you want to come to the United States legally. What you do is you go online with the embassy, which kicks you over to the State Department, where you have to establish an account, an account. and where you establish a profile and you enter in your information, who you are, your Mexican passport number, why you want to go, all that, and you get in line, you know, kind of a virtual line for an interview.

Interviews are required for visas to the United States. And the wait line for Mexico City is 720 days. 720 days. So that's just to get the interview. There's no guarantee that the two, three-minute interview. that you get from a U.S. citizen working for the State Department, working for the U.S. embassy, who interviews you is going to say yes and issue you that foil, that, that biometric visa that gets you into the United States. There's no guarantee of that. But now we were hearing

rumors from these, what remains of these migrant communities that you could still get in, but now, instead of a few hundred dollars, it's going to cost you a few thousand dollars to get into. to the United States. So I put one of my spies, one of my Latin spies, I'm obviously a gringo. I'm, you know, there's no way that I can do this kind of undercover work. I put my guy into the process and goes to the migrant communities that says, look, you know, I've been deported by ice. My family is still in the United States. I've got to get back in. I say, well, hey, Go to Plaza Santa Domingo, which is in the historical heart of Mexico City, go to Plaza Santa Domingo, and there you will find cartel guys who will tell you the cost of getting you an actual visa. We can't do it because we don't have enough money, but maybe you do.

So he goes there, and I'm watching, you know, from afar to make sure that he's safe and is not taken off into, you know, some science. alley and shot in the head and says, look, you know, I'm a Mexican, I need to get into Colombian, I need to get into the United States. And they say, well, we can give you a, you know, a visa that's good for visual inspection. But what you're talking about is an authentic biometric visa that's issued from the U.S. Embassy. We can get it for you. But it'll be $3,000. How fast can you get it? Three days. Three days. And they said, we can guarantee you, A, the interview at the U.S. Embassy and the guaranteed approval of, you know, after that interview and that you will get the visa.

Now, Eric, just so you'll understand, so the audience will understand, this is federal offense. Like, you go to jail for a long time for issuing their authentic visas, but they're fraudulently being issued if, in fact, this is what's happening. And so my guy was told, show up at this particular door at the U.S. Embassy, bring the right amount of money, bring your authentic Mexican or Colombian passport, and you will be met by a U.S. Embassy worker who will take you inside, photograph you, process that visa and issue it to you. So my guy is given a WhatsApp number to contact. And my guy is, using a burner phone so that, you know, they don't know his authentic name and they don't know as authentic number. And I said, you know, text them and ask them. I said, this will tell us of

whether or not this is real or not. Text them and ask them if they'll let you pay after once the visa is issued. Because if they want all the money up front, it's probably a scam, they disappear. They text back and say, yeah, sure, you can pay us after. So in other words, when you come out of the U.S. Embassy, we'll be waiting there. You pay us. Boom, you go. Now, That is astonishing stuff if that's real because that means this is the way, see, right now, we're not talking garden variety Latin Americans who are getting into the United States via these means. They don't have the money for it. The Colombians, the Venezuelans, the Peruvians, they don't have money for it. So who does have money for it? The Indians, the Chinese, some of the some of those coming from Muslim countries do. And you said, but hey, they can't get a visa. issued at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City if they're from another country. They can if they've established resident status in Mexico, and many of them have. And so you have a lot of these people coming into the U.S., and I'll add this,

era, while I was there making huge national news in Mexico, and I just want you to tell me if on the 63rd floor of a hotel in Detroit, if this news reached you in your lofty place, inside the United States, making huge national news in Mexico, front page news, was that the U.S. Border Patrol had uncovered an enormous tunnel from Tijuana to San Diego. It's well lit, it's air-conditioned, it's the 100th tunnel that's been discovered. And, you know, I asked Grock this. I said, Grock, did this make news anywhere in the United States? So Grot came back and said there was a small article about it in the Los Angeles Times.

That's it. Ignored by CNN, ignored by the New York Times, by all of them. What news makes it to me has nothing to do with what makes it to the mainstream because I, of course, am looking for stuff like this. And I follow people like Larry Taunton on Instagram. And so what you said about the three-day visa, I already knew that before you broke it on this show. I think you said it on your own program on Instagram or someplace. So I heard about it. And I had heard about this that they're using drug tunnels, you know, to smuggle people.

Repurposing them. What's that? I said repurposing them for moving human traffic now. Repurposing them, right. So the thing is that, you know, I hear this kind of stuff. And it's just what you said. Who cares if you know or I know? Who cares?

The point is, does the public know? Does the president know? Are they dealing with this? Because I'll tell you something. First of all, it makes me a little happy that it now costs $3,000, you know, so that means fewer people are able to get in. So there's a tiny bit of progress. But the level of illegality, the level of horror to Americans that this is going on, the

horror that it takes someone like you, my intrepid friend. to discover this, to talk about it, that CNN and the New York Times do not give a damn about this kind of thing. That is disturbing to me. So I'm at least glad you're breaking it on this program, but who will see it, who will hear it, what will we do about it? I mean, this is the kind of thing, Larry, where, you know, it's one thing to stop something. It's one thing, for example, to say, okay, AID or USAID, the money's gone, and you can no long. do the evil you were doing. That's one step. The second step is, are we going to prosecute the people who were doing it? Are we in the process of prosecuting these people who are using

American taxpayer money to do evil things? Is that happening? I mean, those are my questions. Well, not enough. I'm a little concerned about the fact that there's been, you know, very little move by the Justice Department, it appears to me, to move on these people doing everything from, you know, insider trading, you know, Nancy Pelosi to election rigging to, you know, you name it. But there has been a much more aggressive posture on the border. And of course, we know about many of the deportations of illegals inside our own country. I hope there is the right people. There need to be, you know, deportations, mass deportations in places like Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, for instance. But what's alarming as it relates to this, Eric, is that if this is true, and see, the only way I could know it with absolute certainty was for my guy to show up at the visa, excuse me, show up at the State Department, you know, as instructed with the money and so forth.

And my guy's very, very brave, very bold, gung-ho, like, let's do it. And I'm like, no, no, no. Because this means you would have to show up with your real passport, which means they will know your actual name, address, and so on. And they will photograph you. And they will know certainly that you're an investigative journalist. And that can have a very bad outcome. So, no, we're not going to do that.

I think we've gone far enough with this, and we can push this up to the State Department, which aggressively, you know, investigates this kind of fraud. But you see, the way the visas are issued so that people understand, because I've had people on Twitter say things like, well, the Chinese can fake them and stuff like that. Well, no, they can't, because it's not about the ability to simply counterfeit what they call a foil, you know, the actual visa that goes on, those visas leave a digital trail. And they are attached to your visa, for instance, if you're up, say, a Mexican coming in the United States, when they scan it in the United States, it's attached to an actual identity in the State Department

website. So those have to match. All of that has to match. Furthermore, visa denials and issuance are reviewed. So it's not just a single person who sits there and says yes or no and somebody hacking a computer and changing an end to a Y, you know, it's nothing like that. It's far more complicated than that. But what makes me think that this might be real is, A, the willingness to take money after the fact. That's a real thing. That doesn't prove it, but it means that there's something significant happening. there. The second thing is that we know that the deep state is real. And those people who are listening here may go, ah, you know, the deep state. When we're talking deep state, at least when I'm talking

deep state, and I think when Eric is talking deep state, what we mean by it is this. We mean a permanently embedded, unelected bureaucracy which resists the will of the people. They survive through, you know, administration after administration, seeing people in the same places who just say, hey, we'll ride Trump out. You know, we will just resist his will as it relates to these things, which is what's happening on the economy and a variety of, you know, other things. And to be clear, it's not his will. It is our will. We elected Donald Trump. He didn't elect himself. We elected him. Americans elected him. So this is the will of the American people being thwarted, which is to say our very sovereignty is being choked and thwarted. That's what's going on. Absolutely.

Very well said, my friend. And so that's what we're talking about. So is it possible that this is being done? It could only be done if there is a significant network of people within the embassy who are playing a role with this. It would require the assistance of at least one American, but a lot of people don't realize that most embassies abroad, you probably know this, but a lot of people don't. When you go into your average embassy, U.S. Embassy anywhere in the world or consulate, you see there are nine consulates around Mexico in addition to the one embassy in Mexico City, the run-of-the-mill stuff, day-to-day stuff is being done by Mexican nationals or in Colombia by Colombians or in, the UK by UK citizens. Now, the higher level stuff, the approval of visas, that all has to be done by U.S. citizens. But the people who are meeting you at the door, the security, the

the ones that you're going to see most of time in line, that's going to be locals who do that. So could there be something like that nefarious happening at the U.S. Embassy? Yes, I think so. And if people think, well, no big deal, so it's a smaller number of people, get into the country. My good friend Steve Cortez has been reporting on, you know, a surge in crime in places like Wisconsin and murders, you know, that are taking place, mostly at the hands of Muslims. And you see, it's people like this who are getting into the country. And the people who have this kind of money, this is the way you get terrorists into the country. This is a way you get sleeper cells into the country, which is just another name for terrorists. This is the way

you get all sorts of nefarious elements into the country who are getting what I call concierge, you know, service here to find their way in. In other words, somebody's going to pay this kind of money to get in. I don't think they're just coming here to just simply open a business in Manhattan or, you know, L.A. It's they have something else on their mind because they're already people are probably succeeding in life wherever they're from. 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. That's a year from now. We'll spend eight glorious nights aboard the magnificent sea cloud spirit sailing under full canvas through Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba. But this is not your typical cruise. Throughout the voyage, I'll host special Socrates in the city conversations with world-class thinkers about faith, meaning civilization, and, of course, the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. And because this is an intimate ship, we'll have real

time for questions, meals together, and the kind of friendships you simply cannot create at a crowded conference. The cruise is selling quickly. The veranda suites and superior state rooms are already sold out in all remaining prices increase by 10% on October 1st. So do sign up today at Socrates, the city.com slash cruise. That's Socrates in the city.com slash cruise. Come sail the Mediterranean with us. This is, I mean, look, this is a level of corruption. Folks, we're not just talking about money. This is, money is the least of it. This is national security. We are being sold out by people making a buck who don't care about right or wrong, who probably hate Trump, who probably hate America.

And the question is, as I always ask and already asked, what will be done about it? I mean, the fact that you, Larry Taunton, could figure this out. Theoretically, we have news organizations that would be on this. Clearly, the New York Times doesn't care. Does the Wall Street Journal care?

I don't know. Does Fox News care? I don't know. I don't hear them talking about this. I know you well enough. You're not making this up. So that's what horrifies me in a way, is that you have a breakdown of culture

when the institutions are not working. If you don't have journalists doing the job of journalism, if you don't have people in the State Department and elsewhere who actually care about this, Department of Justice, who are actually saying we have to do something about, who are actually doing something about this. That to me is the horror,

that we could have elected President Trump, but that under him, as you've just said, there's a deep state that is not only not doing what he, and we the people elected him to do, but that they're working counter to it. The idea that we have a journalistic class that are, they think of themselves as the resistance. They don't think of themselves as objective journalists.

They think that's for suckers, that's for the past. Now we've got to be part of some, you know, resistance movement. That's to me, that's the big news here. And I really do wonder whether President Trump is aware of this. I think we're going to get it to him. I think we'll be in touch with the State Department very soon to report this, allow them to investigate it. I do want to give some good news as it relates to this Eric. We have time for that.

Of course. I have maintained all along, long before Trump invaded Venezuela, I was hoping he would. I was urging him to do it. And it was because this is America first. And a lot of people may be thinking, well, how does anything overseas translate? into America first. Well, to go back to where we started the conversation, I was following these migrant caravans all over South America to the dairy and gap through Central America, straight up to Mexico City. And a plurality, if not a majority of them, were Venezuelans

who were fleeing what was once the wealthiest country in South America's oil rich. But it was absolutely cratered by Marxism. It was cratered by Maduro and, you know, his socialist lot, and people were fleeing there. I would have fled there because the composite sketch of people who were leaving that country, and I interviewed loads of them, and the stories, you know, it's like talking to Holocaust survivors. People haven't even met each other, but their stories are kind of the same. And that's what you discovered with Venezuelans. They were telling you stories about how life was good, you know, 10, 15 years ago,

and you had a one-income family and a mother at home with the kids, and then she has to go to work, and then the parents are skipping meals so that the kids can eat, and then the kids are having to skip meals. And finally, Dad says, I have to try to find work for us in a life for us in Columbia, or maybe we can to get to the United States, and they all begin the journey.

That's what that looked like. Well, having just been down there again, and having gone to the places where I know the migrants. And, you know, we say illegals. To be clear, these people are illegals in every country they pass through. Now, I know as one of my Venezuelan friends likes to joke to me with me, he says, to Americans, everything south of Texas is Mexico. And it's funny, but there's some truth to that.

But there's actually quite a lot of nuance in these cultures. The Colombians don't want the Venezuelans. And the Panamanians don't want the Colombians or Venezuelans. And the Costa Ricans don't want the Panamanians, don't want the Colombians. They're all Americas that way. You know, this is the thing. And then in Mexico, you run into the same thing. A lot of people, you know, they don't want these people.

They don't want them there. And so they tell them, yeah, you know, you're going to the United States, you know, get out of here, go that way. Well, see, what has happened is with Trump's invasion, two things, with his election and the closing of the border, and then secondly, with the invasion of Venezuela, a lot of these Venezuelans are turning around and going home. And see, and that's why I say that it's America first, because I argued for a very long time, Eric, that the only way to solve the migrant problem, the illegals problem, was by making life in their own countries livable. A lot of them want to stay in their countries. But what you were hearing from CNN, it was reported by CNN, reported by the New York Times, reported by BBC, that this crisis of millions of people surging on our border was due to, you know what? You know what they said?

Climate change. Absolutely laughable. None of them reported that it was due to socialist policies that were destroyed. economies all over South and Central America. So that prior to Trump's election, during the Biden years, we had seen either then or prior to it, the fall of Colombia to Marxists, Venezuela, of course, prior to that, to Marxist, Chile, the most stable democracy in South America to Marxist, Honduras to Marxist, Peru to Marxist, and Brazil to Marxist. So those economies start doing this. And people, when that happens, people scatter in order to find work and stability for their families. We can't fault them for that.

And then you add that to that. The Biden administration basically issued messaging that sort of said America was a free-for-all. It's Disney World. It's a giant Black Friday sale, line up at the door and trample over each other on your way in here. That's what happened. And Trump changed that. And then with the invasion of Venezuela, those Venezuelans, not all of them, but many of them are like, you know what, I think my country's got a chance to be great again. So that is America first. The only way you solve the problem is by making these countries livable.

Iran, I'm not sure. Well, Ukraine, we need to get out of Ukraine. But Venezuela, that's America first. Well, it is amazing. I mean, there's so much that President Trump has done. you really can't keep up with a tenth of it. I mean, what happened with Maduro, just the other day I thought to myself, Maduro, is he sitting in a cell in Brooklyn? I mean, I live in New York City. Is he in a cell in Brooklyn sitting there?

What is going on? I don't know. Do you know? I have no idea. I mean, think about it, right? He's taken out. I don't know who we put in there. There's still wicked people in there,

but I guess they have to play ball with the United States. Well, there's a deep state there too. Well, of course. I mean, it's not like it was, you know, taken over by all good guys. But the point is that they have to play ball with us. I guess they have to guarantee actual elections at some point. So it's a longer game than most of us would like. You know, most of us would like instant regime change.

But I think we've learned, you know, in the last 20 years that that's not a good idea. And so what's happening there, what might happen in Iran, I had the privilege of meeting with Crown Prince Riza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, who would be, you know, a spectacular choice to head up an interim, stable interim government in Iran if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard should fall. When did you do that? That was in Franklin, Tennessee just a few weeks ago. And it was a private meeting. I don't know how I got on the list, but a pastor friend invited me. And I got to sit there and, you know, but I, you think, well, this would be great.

Is this happening? Is our government teeing this up? Or is somebody arming the people in Iran so they can overthrow their satanic, theocratic mullah captors? I don't know. Yeah. Well, you know, Iran. Wow, that's a whole different thing. And one that I, excuse me, haven't studied as thoroughly as others.

but on a related topic, and it's worth throwing this out, you know, that I was, you know, as in Israel, I went with the IDF down to Gaza earlier this year. And the propaganda, Eric, I've just been thinking on this, as we approach, you know, October 7th, the anniversary of that, the third anniversary of October 7th, that's been on my mind because of what I saw, what I heard, the people I interviewed. and, of course, my own firsthand knowledge of Islam. And I got to tell you, the deception, the misinformation, disinformation, the way the left likes to say it, on this topic has been absolutely incredible that the Israelis are portrayed as somehow they're the villains. When Hamas can end this at any time that they want to,

They absolutely can. But what happened on October 7th was it was an act of war. But more than that, the attackers, you know, they carried Korans with them to reassure them. Well, maybe passages from the Quran to reassure them that the rapes they committed, the putting babies in ovens, the beheading of children, the mutilation of bodies, the kidnapping. All of that was part of Allah's will. I was absolutely fueled by one of the things I don't like when we start talking about say the ottomans or we talk about Hamas is that can in the minds of a lot of people remove Islam from the equation you're just talking about a political party or you know a government and so we talk about for instance the um the arminian genocide and the ottomans and their involvement always remind people we're talking about the muslims It was the Muslims who did that, who raped, who murdered, who slaughtered millions, you know, of people.

I gave an address on September 11th to a group. And I titled my talk, The Cross and the Quran. And so I was addressing this very issue. And a book that I'm trying to get, I'm trying to revive Eric. I'm trying to get as many people as possible to read because I'm asked all the time, what's a good book on Islam that I can read? And so I did kind of a small study of the literature to see how I could best answer that question, you know, rather than just saying, I go read the Quran, which is complete nonsense.

And a lot of the books that I came across, very scholarly books, but the problem with them was that they saw Islam strictly in political terms, or maybe strictly in quote-unquote religious terms. And they didn't seem to have any firsthand, you know, experience with what Islam really was. And so the October 7th, the Armenian genocide type of events were completely lost on them. They just saw it as a political ideology that was, you know, that had a history of conquest and things of this nature. I finally came across this book by an Armenian woman. She died, I think, in the 1970s. Armenian.

Armenian. Yeah. Not Armenian, Armenian, like she had bad theology, but Armenian. She was, her name was Aurora Mardaghanian, Aurora Mardaghanian. And the book is called Ravished, Ravished Armenia. Ravished Armenia. Eric is about 100 pages. It's very thin.

It was published in 1916, and it is her personal account as a Christian woman living in Armenia and then the Ottomans, the Muslims, coming, killing her family and taking her off into sex slavery and selling her repeatedly in the slave markets. And the story ultimately ends in her escape. But her story is the, rather than the Pacific Ocean with Unbroken is kind of the Muslim version of Unbroken. Like it just seems like one tragedy after another follows. But it's her firsthand account where she's describing things that are still very real today. So that when the Rupert Lowe report, Rupert Lowe, Member of Parliament, released his report in May of this year, stating that a quarter of a million British white girls, because according to Islam, they're fair game.

They're non-Muslims, usually, have been raped in the UK. Those girls, a lot of them would say, when they're raping us, they're quoting from the Quran. Well, what you'll find is Aurora Mardiagnan tells the same kinds of things. Like, it's identical. And her story is bare-knuckled. It is brutal, but it is unflinching in recounting what Islam is.

And that's what October 7th, was as well. That's what's happening and will happen with greater regularity in the United States, and it's happening all over the West. But I would encourage everyone, 799. I bought 90 copies of that book just to hand out to just everyone who walks through my door. Please read this book. It is the best book on Islam that you will read. You'll be riveted by it. It won't take you that long to read it. It is hard reading in the sense that it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a, a, a rough story that has redemption at the end of it. But you need to read it the same way you need to know about the Holocaust. You need to be aware of this because it is ongoing and I'm determined

to resurrect this little book. $7.99 on Amazon, ravished Armenia. I'm so grateful for you and to you, Larry, because all of these things are so important. It's so hard for so many of us to process everything that's happening. I confess that I have been staggered by the propaganda around October 7th. How many people, many of whom are Christian, who believe that all the bad stuff on October 7th is Jewish propaganda. They believe that it's all a myth about what happened. Most of it is not true.

They seem actually to believe this, that these things are made up by the Jews. and they seem to believe that the Jews are, you know, committing war crimes. I have to say, I mean, I almost wish that that were true. It would be easier to live in a world where you could just say, yeah, you know, it's the Jews and we need to stand up for the quote-unquote Palestinians. But you know and I know that the truth of October 7th, it's so horrible. and the Israelis have been, I can't imagine being measured. Only the United States of America and Israel feel the need to be measured in their response to satanic evil and brutality, to warn civilians, to do the kinds of things that most of the

countries wouldn't bother doing. We do that. We have done that. Israel does that. And they're still attacked. That's kind of where we are. That's exactly where we are. And, you know, Eric, I'm sure you've had your haters.

I've had mine. And at least in that case, there are people who dislike you or dislike me because of an opinion you hold or that they think you hold. What we're talking about with anti-Semitism is we're talking about people who hate another people for an immutable characteristic because they're Jews. For no other reason, not because they've done them any harm personally or anything like that. It is for an immutable characteristic. And here's some minor breaking news, you know, here, and I don't want to share too many details at this point, but I received an unexpected invitation yesterday from the Israelis to embed with Jerusalem police as they're policing the Arab districts of Jerusalem. And so I intend to take advantage of that. Every opportunity that I get to go to places

like Gaza, to go to places like Speaker's Corner and Hyde Park in London to go to Nigeria, all those places, anything I can do to increase my understanding, not just of the war, but of Islam and general, I take advantage of those opportunities so that I can better inform other influencers, commentators, people like you, but also audiences. I'm your guy in the field. I go out and do my best to gain information that is useful and insightful on topics where people are being misled. And what you just said, I think, is so true that on issues, let's just take Erica Kirk, for example, if I may. We were, in fact, it was you. You tweeted yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, but it was a picture of you, like in an empty arena for the Charlie Kirk.

I'm not sure what you were standing in front of. Was it across? It was the memorial. Yeah, I was in front of a cross, and it's a year ago. I was at the Charlie Kirk Memorial in Phoenix. You know, everybody was there for the memorial. We told to dress up red, white, and blue festive. So it's a rare opportunity for me to wear my red pants.

And it was one of the most moving experiences of my life to be in that arena. That was probably what, five, six hours, that whole thing. Yeah. I listened to all of it while I was riding a tractor. every moment of it. And at times, I had tears coming down my face. I would stop and like, yes, you know, like I'm so I'm so glad. And coming out of that, Eric, and of course, you were there, so you felt the chills of all of that. I told Lori, I felt like we may be on the verge of a third great awakening. Oh, no, no, no. That's exactly, I'm telling you, that day I thought,

this is it. This was why the Lord allowed Charlie to be murdered. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. We're going to have an explosion. To some extent, I think that is still true. But go ahead. Well, the point I was going to make as it relates to this is that I think that I don't profess to have any inside information on this, but I think the Candace Owens's of the world were deployed with a single agenda, and that is to derail this by planting seeds of doubt and the weak-minded. Scripture speaks of the weak-minded, that the weak-minded will start believing it, that Erica Kirk was behind it or Trump, USA, you know, wanted to do this, or turning point, you know, all this kind of stuff. and that the shooter was paid by this, all this nonsense.

And that's to derail a movement, a mass movement, and of course because she's a narcissist and wants to draw as much attention to herself. The same kind of tactics were used with October 7th. Yes. So that you've got all these bots, you have all these paid influencers by Arabs, by others, who are deployed to plant seeds by saying,

Netanyahu knew or there was a stand-down order or Shimbet or Massad knew this was going to happen before it happened and they wanted it to happen or they paid Hamas, you know, all total, total garbage. And the evil of that, Eric, in both of those instances, is first of all the evil, evil done to Erica Kirk. I don't know Erica Kirk. I've never met her. Bless her soul. What she has been forced to suffer, not just in the loss of her husband, but by being attacked by evil people so that she's not really even allowed to mourn the loss of her husband. That, and then the evil of people, you know, I as a human being, what I can offer you and your own suffering, is it what I would want, which is to share it with you, to take some of it away from you, that I could shoulder some of it.

I can't do that. That's not possible. What I can do, though, Eric, in your suffering or that of someone else's suffering is I can offer them real compassion. I can offer them love. I can offer that. That's the least I can do. And when you're talking about people who have lost loved ones, loved ones who are murdered, who were tortured, who are beheaded, all that you've taken into captivity and raped multiple times, that you not only have. deny them that, but you say it's all fake. I mean, hell cannot be hot enough for people like that. And that's what we're talking about, both in the case of coming after, you know, the memorial service, and then we're talking about October 7th. That's what's been done. And I want to say to people

who are listening, be wary of all of these outrageous clank. When it comes to conspiracy theories, historian. I'm not going to say there aren't actual conspiracies. There are. But I tend to follow a dictum of Benjamin Franklin, and that's this. Three can keep a secret if two are dead. The idea that thousands of people can be involved in some, some, you know, vast conspiracy, and no one says anything, is sheer nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. And I was talking a few days ago to a Palestinian. A guy I like, by the way. He's actually a Christian. He's a Christian Palestinian, but he does not like Israel and the Israelis. He's, you know, he's been, he's been raised in that. And he was telling me, well, he's asking me about my trip to Gaza. And he said, you know, that was all carried out that they, that, the 95% of the people in Gaza are not guilty of anything.

And I said to him, I mean, you're aware that pretty much every kidnapped victim who has come back from Gaza has said they got no sympathy from anyone in Gaza. They have said that there are no innocent people there. But more than that, before the October 7th attacks, I mean, everyone more or less knew those attacks were coming. And the only way those attacks could have been carried out successfully is if the people of Gaza were themselves involved. They had to be involved. We're not talking about a Charlie Hebdo-style attack or there were a dozen or a half-dozen terrorists. We're talking 7,000 Hamas terrorists penetrating the so-called wall of iron, the fence, the frontier fence, in more than 100 locations. everyone knew those attacks were coming in Gaza.

They were all complicit in that. But you see, he's prepared to believe buy into the nonsense as it relates to that. And that's because he has an emotional commitment to believe that the Israel. And facts don't penetrate that. He has an emotional commitment to believe that all Jews are evil and should be wiped out. I'm sorry we're out of time. but Larry, it's just a privilege to call you friend and a privilege to have you on this program.

All of the that you've discussed is so important. I hope people will follow you at Larry Aleks Taunton.com. Larry, thank you. Hey, great. And Eric, I would be remiss not to congratulate you on your book. Great job, my friend. Thank you so much. I know there are people out there that still haven't bought a copy.

I urge them to go to Amazon. The price is rock bottom. It's 35% off. And the fact that friends like you think as well as you seem to of it is deeply gratifying. So thank you so much. Well, it's very timely and all the kudos are well deserved. Take care, brother. Today's show is brought to you by Grace Precious Metals.

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