The Eric Metaxas Show - #221 - Brian Kilmeade

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Brian Kilmeade joins Eric on the release day of his new book, Uniting the States, to tell six moments that he believes forged the American miracle. They include John Adams defending the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre, a mysterious fog that let Washington's army escape Brooklyn, Shays' Rebellion, the War of 1812, the Louisiana Purchase, and John Quincy Adams' crusade against slavery in Congress, with a young Abraham Lincoln sitting nearby.Then filmmaker Dimas Salaberrios, author of Street God, shares how he went from New York drug kingpin to follower of Christ. He says that right after his conversion, a friend put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger again and again, and it never fired. He turned himself in, and a judge did something she'd never done before.Dimas also talks about his new thriller Fettered, written and directed by him and starring his daughter, which warns young people about drugged drinks and trafficking, and his documentary Chicago: America's Hidden War.Eric also marks his and Suzanne's 30th wedding anniversary.⭐ 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/☀️ Chapter -- Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/🦅 Patriot Mobile -- America's ONLY Christian Conservative Wireless Provider: https://patriotmobile.com/partners/metaxas🏛️ Socrates in the City CRUISE: https://socratesinthecity.com/cruise/00:00 Eric and Suzanne's 30th Anniversary05:59 Brian Kilmeade: Uniting the States08:01 John Adams Defends the Boston Massacre Soldiers11:20 The Fog That Saved Washington's Army12:40 Shays' Rebellion and the War of 181216:09 The Louisiana Purchase: Pennies an Acre20:01 John Quincy Adams, Slavery and Young Lincoln27:31 Dimas Salaberrios and His New Film, Fettered32:09 A Gun to His Head That Wouldn't Fire35:03 Street God, Chicago and Why Miracles Are Real- - -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.

My right league goalie says he plays for the love of the game. You gave up six goals last week, Steve. Maybe play to win, huh? Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes out big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. Steve, Bet365, the home of winning early. Must be 19 and older.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. Or call 1-866-5-1-2-6-600. Terms and conditions apply. Hey there folks, welcome the program. Chris Himes, you're the producer, so I'm not going to welcome you, but welcome.

Thank you. Happy anniversary. Yes, yesterday, this was a big deal, folks. Yesterday, Columbus Day, by the way, Columbus was a hero. In case you didn't know that, you're wrong. He was a hero. Yesterday, Columbus Day, October 12th, 2026, Suzanne and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary yesterday.

How did we celebrate you ask? How? I'll tell you how. Suzanne was sick. I wasn't feeling so great. And we did nothing. Actually, we didn't do nothing. I took my mom out to the local diner for dinner.

That's how I celebrated. It was because we're up in Connecticut. And so Suzanne and I did nothing. tomorrow we're going to celebrate. And this weekend I will be, we will both be at the Broadmoor, the beautiful Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. So we will celebrate there.

But yes, that's a nice thing, Eric, being married 30 years, you have the emotional maturity that it doesn't, it's okay if you didn't do it on the date as long as you end up celebrating at a, you know, somewhat, somewhat, you know, a date down the road that's nearby.

I was going to say 30 years in, you're kind of like, eh, No, actually, it's kind of funny because there is an element of truth to that where you both, you know, you think like, hey, we're in this from the long haul. Like, nothing's bad is going to happen like if we don't have champagne today. So, but it is, it's such a milestone that it really is a little staggering to me. Because the question is, how can somebody as young as I am possibly conceivably be married 30? It doesn't make any sense. Suzanne and I must have been in junior high school.

And then you look at the actual facts and that's not true. So it really is, it is, it's an amazing, it's an amazing thing, I have to say. Yeah, I think in this day and age, the gift for 30 years, according to our culture, is a tandem suicide capsule. I think that's what, that's the new, that's the new 30 years. That's sick. That's sick. I don't know what that means. But yeah, so it's, it's weird.

We've been Connecticut for a couple days and people don't know this side of me. But I, the other day, I had to go get a chainsaw. sharpened. Actually, I got two of them sharpened. Had to take care of some, we had some, some tree trouble here because of the big storm from a few weeks ago. And so I had a, you know, how to chop up the wood, drag the brush, all the stuff that people wouldn't think of me as doing. Yeah. We had some loose spleen. That's like Paul Bunyan. That's all bono activity. You got to ox? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We had some, we had some loose slates out here the house. I had to go get, you know, some kind of cement to deal. The people don't think of me as

doing that. And the reason for that is typically I don't do that kind of stuff. I'm a bookish sort, very, very bookish. But anyway, okay, so our guests today, I believe in a moment, I'm going to have Fox and Friends is Brian Kilmead. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Brian Kilmead is talking about his book on the American Revolution. Not to be confused with my book on the American Revolution.

Obviously, my book is better. I would never say that to Brian's face. But you know and I know, hey. But seriously, I love talking about the American Revolution, and I've talked to lots of people have written books in the American Revolution. It's always a joy. So we're going to be talking about that in just a moment.

If you have not yet bought my book, ladies and gentlemen i don't know what you're waiting for the price couldn't be lower it's at amazon's 35% off uh it makes a great gift to people you love and um i just want to say that uh i i feel i always have to say this chris there people kind of like well i i don't i'm not much of a reader but i listen to the audio book well that's the equivalent of reading like it's no there's no difference so if you prefer to read the listen to the audio book by all means you know while you're kayaking or or or hang gliding you can listen to me read it to you like this there's no problem with that um okay so in a moment we've got brine camy now we also may be talking to my friend demis

salabarios he's amazing he is just amazing if we don't talk to him at the end of the program today we'll talk to him uh in the days ahead uh just another amazing uh friend and um i think i think we'll leave it there. We'll be right back. You've often heard me talk about the golden triangle of freedom, that intersection of faith, virtue, and liberty. And for that triangle to hold, we need access to the truth. Unfortunately, the Medicare system often feels designed to obscure the truth, leaving millions on plans that don't actually fit their needs. That's why I want you to know about Chapter. Chapter is a rare breed in the healthcare world, the completely independent advisor that puts your interests first. They help you understand your enrollment options.

and ensure you're getting the benefits you're entitled to without the typical high-pressure sales tactics. One chapter member, Gary, said he spent countless hours trying to understand it all and was just left more confused until he called them. Their service is free and has saved seniors an average of $1,100 per year. If you want to ensure your coverage is based on facts, not marketing, call chapter at 571-4-21-1253. That's 571, 421, 1253. It's time to find the clarity you deserve. Folks, as promised, Brian Kilmead, star of Fox and Friends, bestselling author and all-around, nice guy, author of a brand new book, Uniting the States, which comes out, Brian, am I right, and saying it comes out today?

Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Just a few hours ago. Fox Nation special dropped two hours ago. It's been shooting that for the last year, and you love history. and you're kind enough to have me on, Eric. But yeah, it dropped today. And then I went right from Fox and Friends to the radio show. And then the minute it ended, I hopped on with you.

So thank you. Wow. Well, listen, I love this country, and I think it's important that people understand the stories. If you understand it, which most of us haven't, or we kind of missed it or whatever, or we got some woke version or, you know, you can't possibly love this country unless you really understand what, made it great, why it's great. So you have to know the history. So you've written so many books on this on this. So what is the new, what is the gist of uniting the States? See, Eric, I can't do what you do and just like do the definitive biography of, you know, Andrew Jackson, the history of

the Revolutionary War. I don't, I can't do it. I don't have the time. I don't have the staff. But what I try to do is grab a slice, whether it's a relationship or it's a period of time. And in doing what made America great on Fox Nation, those are 45. minute documentaries, did 72 of them about great men and great moments in American history. But I thought, what do I do for 250? And that's why I came up with United States, the six crucial moments that forge the American miracle. And I just said, how these all played into who we are. And I'm not going from battle to battle from Bunker Hill to the Battle of Trenton. And I said, well, how do I do that? So I just said the things that astounded me most that can't

be explained, the fortuitous things that happened that allowed America to survive and survive and become dominant for the last 80 years. So, and if you want, I can tell you the six. I want to hear the six. Yes. I want to know the six. Yes. Our Fantasy Commission says for him it's all about the friendships. Cute, Kevin. But I disagree. Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. No hard feelings, Kevin.

Just faster payouts from Bet365. The home of winning her. Must be 19 and older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca or call 1-866-5-3-1-2,600. Terms and conditions apply. So I did the Boston Massacre, and people say, well, of course you did the Boston Massacre.

So that helped ignite the revolution. True, but not really. The reason why he did it is because a guy named John Adams, who was a member of the Sons of Liberty, and I know, Eric, I'm speaking to the choir when I tell you this stuff, when he was a member of Sons of Liberty, he was a young lawyer.

And when the shots rang out and eight people were shot and five would die, these soldiers were arrested. And these soldiers were arrested, but they had a right of a presumption of innocence. And they had a right to a trial. And why was that important? Because if America was going to have a revolution and be born, we have to be a nation of loss. And if there was a presumption of innocence, then if everyone has presumption of innocence, they needed an attorney. Nobody wanted to represent the soldiers. The soldiers were in response

to a group of colonies that said, you're taxing us to death. The Stamp Act, which taxed everything from mortgages to paperwork to licenses, you're hitting with the T-Tax and the Townsend Acts. You're trying to get rich off us without representation, and it was fomenting unrest. Do you know what Britain's answer was? If you don't like it, we're sending soldiers in to reinforce it. That was putting kerosene on a fire that was raging. It culminated men in many ways in 1770 with the eruption of this violence called the Boston Massacre, a murder on King Street. And as much as John Adams saw necessary that we were going to need a revolution and our autonomy, he says it doesn't matter. We got to find out if these men are guilty of killing people, including Christmas addicts, in cold

blood. And the trial took place rapidly. The jury was made up of eyewitnesses. And in the end, there was a sense of that these guys could not be proven innocent, that there was a sense of plausible deniability that they shot anybody on purpose. And therefore, in the end, John Adams made the hard choice, stood up to his cousin and everybody else, and represented them, was vilified for it, but they knew in America were going to be a nation of laws. That's why that made the cut. I mean, John Adams knew it. That's why, to me, he's one of the heroes of my book Revolution, because I thought, people don't appreciate him sufficiently. Everybody says, oh, I know John Adams. No, you don't know. He deserves, apart from Washington, there is nobody that stands taller.

He is just an amazing hero. And this is one of the classic examples of what made him great. They think that OJ gave us reasonable doubt. It was that trial that gave us reasonable doubt because we didn't know if Captain Preston ordered fire or was he hit in the head and responded or who shot who. And because of that, five were exonerated and two got tattoos on their fingers and allowed to let go. And I agree with you because, you know, he is a guy with problems too. He had a son. There was an alcoholic.

He had another daughter die near childbirth. and John Quincy Adams ends up being one of the most qualified presidents ever, and he's in my book at the end for what he did for the abolitionist movement, but he ends up being mentored by Jefferson and by Washington and Benjamin Franklin and had an extraordinary career. But that's why I put that in the book. And then I said, George Washington, in the middle of war, Eric Hugh wrote and talked about it on my radio show. He squares over the British, almost loses in the battle in New York, his entire army.

It wasn't for a mysterious fog that rolled in, out of nowhere that allowed him to continue his evacuation across the East River in the middle of the night in Brooklyn and scurried through Manhattan and get out. If that sun came up and exposed their exit, they all would have been killed and this war would have been over. But a fog rolled in so thick you could not see the fingers on your outstretched hand. Not my words. Words of Benjamin Talmadge in his book, 82 pages, he was by Washington side the entire time. And they said, what was this mystical fog that rolled in, could America actually be a blessed nation? This would happen over and over again. But then he said, I could win by not losing. I'm going to lengthen this war. I'm going to

protract this war. I'm going to pick my spots. I'm going to form a spying. And I'm going to decide when to fight. And I'm going to wear these guys out. And he did it, the first time Battle of Trenton, the next time the Battle of Princeton. And in the end, it would culminate with the Battle of Yorktown and the French coming in and us winning. If Washington doesn't change his ways of fighting in chapter two, we don't win. And he never fought like that before. He was trained by the British. But he also learned for the American Indian, which brings me to another great moment in time.

And that was after that war, Shea's Rebellion. And essentially, Daniel Shea's was a war hero. And he was such a war hero that Lafayette said, man, you fight like a stud. Here's my sword. I always remember fighting with you. He was just a farmer. and he goes back in Massachusetts and he realized quickly

that our 13 states were 13 separate countries. We had no interest in talking to each other and it was not working and it culminated with Daniel Shea's getting together with some other farmers and asking for representation and storming the courts

to get some of our guys out of debtors prison they were called the regulators and then when Henry Cox Knox assembled a counter-milicia and pushed back Daniel Shays and forced them out. Two would die. Two would be hanged. The rest would be forced to be signing an oath of allegiance back to the country.

If it wasn't for them, Madison wouldn't have visited Washington along with Henry Knox and said, Mr. General, we got to form a constitution. This is not working. And in fact, I have a quote from James Madison saying that no one's done more to push forward with the Constitutional Convention than the rebellion of Daniel Chase. So that's why that made the cut. So those are the first three. We'll keep going. This is great. So Madison, we get to the War of 1812 era, and we have a situation where the British never got over the loss. 37 years later, they're interrupting our trade routes.

They're taking our guys off our merchant ships. They're putting them into their Navy. They're paying off the pro-British, India, the anti-American Indian tribes to foment unrest in the Midwest and stop our settlers from continuing to expand. And then we're just having a doing everything possible from what they would do. and also in the Middle East to stop our ships from being able to get over through the Mediterranean.

It got to the point where Madison was given an ultimatum by the time he took over for Jefferson. You know, you got to fight this war. And John Armstrong, his Secretary of War says, we got to fight these British and stand up for ourselves once and for all. He puts into a vote. It passes in the House and Senate. We got ourselves a war. What's the problem, Eric? We are not ready to fight a war.

We got no really standing army. we have a competent but small navy and we're going against the most lethal fighting force in the world thirsting for revenge. And then we send what we have of an army into Canada go fight the British and the British come down and start terrorizing the eastern seaboard until they got to Washington and burned the whole thing to the ground.

So I thought I include this because anyone who thinks, wow, America is so divided in 2026, we're never going to come together. Well, they were divided on that war. and the North didn't even want to fight it. And in the end, we would rally, win the Battle of Baltimore, Fort McHenry. The flag was still there, blowing in the air. We would continue to fight.

Andrew Jackson would be called on to fight, replaced, would be Armstrong with this guy named James Madison, the Marco Rubio of his day, who got another job along the Secretary of State. They changed their tactics and ultimately fight to a standstill while winning the decisive battle in the battle of New Orleans. We would never be invaded again. and around the world, America, people would say, what's with these Americans,

including Wellington himself, and said, I don't promise any army much success fighting America. So that's why that Washington made the cut, which brings me to the Louisiana purchase. And if I could set the scene, if you want me to, is that all right? Yeah, please, absolutely.

At the time, we're so involved in the Strait of Pramuz and the Strait over in the Red Sea, how about the Strait of Mississippi? Mississippi is our life flood. And by the time Thomas Jefferson becomes president, he recognizes, man, that port is so vital in New Orleans. And I don't have a problem with the Spanish habit. They're a country that's weakening. They're on the decline.

And we can deal with them. But when they decide to flip it to Napoleon and France, he said they could choke us to death. I'm not convinced this guy's going to be an ally. We got to tell Napoleon we need. I need the battle. I need New Orleans. And we're willing to buy it. Napoleon said, no thanks.

So we said Livingston over. And for 18 months, he tried. He tried to convince Napoleon just to sell us New Orleans and say that we're going to have to take a military alternative if we don't. That's how determined he was and worried he was that we'd never be able to have commerce if the French want to cut us off. And then something happens. He summons big James Monroe to the White House, Mr. Marco Rubio of his day. And he says, I need you to do what Livingston can't convince Napoleon that he needs to sell us New Orleans. But then a couple of things happened.

There's a slave rebellion that we now know is Haiti, which is Santa Domingo. And they wipe out thousands of French troops and really deplete a lot of his Navy. Then there's word that British wants to start a fight again. He wants Austria. He has his eyes on Russia. And he said, man, I don't know if I can afford these colonies. By the time Monroe gets there, he expects the fight of his life. Instead, Napoleon says, all right, ask me if you want it.

You can have it. But you got to take the whole area. I'm not going to tell you where it is because I'm not really sure what I own. But you got it. I'm done with the colonies. And what I didn't know until I started this is that Napoleon wanted somebody else to fight the British. And he said that if I give America, Louisiana, that's going to be a formidable adversary. And I'm not worried about them fighting us. I want him to deal with the British because I'm tired of fighting him on my own. So when Monroe gets back, he says he's got $4 million to buy on a loan. He comes back and says it's going to cost us $15 million.

and I got the whole area. Then Jefferson says, great, but how do we convince Congress? Because after all, they were trying to build the ballroom. We're having trouble with that. How do we convince Congress to do it now? And he does, overwhelmingly. The guy that stands in his way, Alexander Hamilton. He did not want to be a big country.

But thank goodness Jefferson had that vision. I would argue, Eric, and you could argue back probably effectively because he did so much, this is Thomas Jefferson's greatest move. I'm not one of the biggest fans of Thomas Jefferson. I mean, I have nothing against him, but I think sometimes he gets too much credit. I think John Adams should be way more famous than Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, of course, happened to be there when this happened, right? I mean, he happened to be president.

It wasn't like he was the mastermind of this. But it was his idea to get it. Well, yeah, I don't want to take all credit from him, but I'm saying like the idea that we got this land, it really does seem. you can understand why people have this idea of manifest destiny. I mean, how astonishing that suddenly we would get something so huge. I mean, I don't remember the size of it or, you know, how to even describe the size of it? 500,000, 500,000 acres. Wow.

Yeah. Okay. Comes out to four cents an acre. Four cents an acre for the Louisiana. Yeah, bad time to kill the penny. It is unbelievable. unbelievable that that suddenly boom our size is what doubled i mean i can't even remember almost tripled almost triple so even yeah i mean there was a sense that we got texas too and and

janeer jacks says no texas is in this deal john quincey adams says oh let's just secure florida and that oh they never got along those two but uh so we tripled the size of the country without firing a shot and that you know and it led to the 1812 and um and the other the other big moment that I wanted to bring up and not many people thought about it. I wanted to do something to talk about our original son, which is slavery. I never want to duck it. That's why I did Teddy and Booker Tee, and that's why I did Douglas and Lincoln, because it's a problem. And the guy that realizes it's a problem with the Adams family, again, back to your guy. And John Quincy Adams was not only upset of his servitude, but he says, the South are getting their way because

they count slaves as a portion of their population for the house, but they don't let them vote and they don't give them any rights. So he would, when he loses the presidency to Jackson, he's like, I'm done. And then the people in Massachusetts says, can you go back to Congress and represent us? So yeah, I'm not going to do it, but I'm not going to campaign. He didn't need it. So for six straight terms, he was there. You know what he did almost the entire time? They called him old man eloquence, but he just harangued the South to drop, to drop slavery. To the point where they passed the gag rule to stop. To stop. him from bringing up the word anymore. But it didn't stop him from doing it. And in the end,

a 15-year-old, Frederick Douglass, said he was 15 at the time. He used to read. He was a slave. He used to read the speeches because he taught himself to read. The speeches by John Quincy Adams and says, how much hope it gave the slave population knowing that there's a former president, this esteemed man who was fighting for our freedom and determined to get rid of our original sin. and Eric, I know you know this, but sitting diagonally behind John Quincy Adams, it's marked on the floor, is this tall guy named Abraham Lincoln.

And John Quincy Adams literally died in the chamber. The couch still remains today. It's on the special, the same exact couch. And Lincoln learned so much about how to make the argument, understood the complexity of the argument, ultimately lead to the revolution. But I thought, what if I didn't give you recount, make you recount the Civil War?

but talk to you about the civil discourse towards ending that. That's an unbelievable story. I just was in the Capitol weeks ago, and the great Tim Barton of Wall Builders was telling the story in the room where it happened, pointing to the plaque on the floor. This is where John Quincy Adams' desk was, where he gave his speeches. That is where this kid named Abraham Lincoln, this freshman congressman. The history of this country, and this is why I'm so excited for you writing all these books about it, it is more fascinating than anybody would realize. The more you know about it, the more fascinating is, and the more you think, how did I not know this?

This is so extraordinary. But that story, John Quincy Adams, he is one of the great heroes. And when we think that he was a kid during the revolution, you know, they are finally getting a monument, you know, because obviously there's, there's no memorial, there's the Washington monument, this is Jefferson Memorial, there's no Adams. So finally getting one made in D.C., but it is high time. When you think of the debt we owe to the Adams family, it's, it really is astonishing. And so I'm glad that you write about that. Exactly sixth or the fifth in your book. Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendships.

Cute, Kevin, but I disagree. Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. No hard feelings, Kevin. Just faster payouts from Bet365. The home of winning early. Must be 19 and older.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. Or call 1866-5-1-2600. Terms and conditions apply. That's the six. And what I want to add this,

Let's think about this resume. So at 10 years old, he goes over to Europe. And when he's not with his dad, he's with this guy named Benjamin Franklin. All he does is learn, at which time when he's there, he learns to speak German and he learns to speak French. At 15 years old, he goes to Russia to be an aide to the ambassador to Russia. Not bad. He later becomes an ambassador to Holland. He later becomes a secretary of state.

He becomes a senator, obviously. And he's somebody that was mentored by Jefferson. I know you're, you know how smart Jefferson was, but he said he considered Jefferson a second father. And then Benjamin Franklin always looked at as a grandfather figure. And the one that looked up to, he looked up to most was George Washington. What John Adams didn't have, everyone's got weaknesses. John Adams, James, James, James wasn't a great leader, a great thinker.

He ends up trying to rise to the occasion effectively in War of 1812. But John Quincy Adams evidently was a dour personality, a deep thinker, not a great communicator. So when he became president, he made some bad decisions, but didn't mean they were bad because he didn't think him out. And just bad because he ends up being bad. And one was being involved with Henry Clay. The other great one he did is he really was the writer of the Monroe doctrine. When James Monroe was president, it's his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, who says, man, let's just make this a doctrine. Let's get foreign powers out of our hemisphere. That's John Quincy Adams. Wow. See, I knew I knew I would learn at least one thing that I had no clue about.

That's just, I love it. This is why history is so fascinating. It's endless. Okay, we're at a time. The book is new today, uniting the States. And is there anything else we need to know, Brian? Yeah. So what I did is, you know, with me and Eric, with being with a great corporation like News Corp, there's certain things. I can't do speeches. in a lot of places. So I said, what have I created my own events? So for the last five years, I've been going around the country with different events talking about my books in a fun, entertaining way, because I'll take skits and we'll bring them to life on the stage. I revamped the entire shelf for this with these six stories. And then I also go back on my two sports books for the inspirational part. And I'm going to be bringing them to life. And I'll be in Clearwater,

November 7th, and on the 8th in Jacksonville, the 21st in St. Louis, but more importantly, Friday night in Red Bank, New Jersey, the Count Basie Studio, does my first time on stage with this brand new show, and then Saturday at Westbury Music Fair, which is in the round, which is going to be kind of cool, and we'll take certain elements and we'll bring in life in a fun, entertaining way.

So hopefully people will even love the country more at the end. To me, this is it. This is our 250th year. This is the year for everybody to get on the same page. Congratulations to you on the book and on this new show, Brian Kilmead today, the book is out, Uniting the States. Congratulations. Thanks again for coming on, and thanks for all you do for this country.

God bless you. And you're a great book and coming on our show. Eric, thanks so much for your loyalty. We truly appreciate it. Thank you. Today's show is brought to you by Grace Precious Metals. In an industry that can be confusing, Grace believes in doing business differently with Christian values, transparent pricing and a focus on straightforward gold and silver bullion, not high markup

collectible coins. They even publish their spreads directly on their website so you can see the numbers before speaking with anyone. Learn whether physical precious metals may fit your financial plans at metaxismetals.com. That's metaxis metals.com. Hey there, folks. My guest right now is an old friend. He's not that old. His name is Dimas Salabarius. at least I think that's how he pronounces it. He's a filmmaker. He's a brother in Christ, a friend. Dimas, it's just great to see you.

Welcome back. So great to see you, looking healthy, strong, taking the world like you've been doing. Good to see you, man. Well, if I could fool you, that's my goal. I want to fool people into thinking. You know, sometimes you don't see somebody for six months. They whole appearance change, but you stay on your game, which I appreciate it. It's possible.

just shaved an incredibly gigantic. It's just a hard to believe. No, I want to, listen, you are a filmmaker. You've made a number of films. We've talked about them, but you have a brand new film out called Fettered. Talk about this. What made you decide to tell, first of all, tell what's the story behind Fettered. It's an amazing story. So Fettered is a story that I wrote and directed with an amazing team, the same team, production team Steven Spielberg uses Martin Scorsese great incredible

production team because I love excellence and it was kind of based off a few friends who's girls who sent their girls to college or they went to the prom and

someone did something to their drink and and horrible things happen to them. At least in our story, thank God, it's not the horrific horrors that happen to these other people, but just still, you know,

I want to make young people aware. I have a golden rule. I'll know about you. If I walk away from my drink and I come back and I'm not talking about alcohol, I'm talking about any drink, I don't pick it back up. I just toss it.

Unless it's my wife or Eric Mataxis, everybody else, I'm tossing. I'm not going to drink it. And, you know, that inspired me to make this film because it's a girl in the Bronx at a prom event. And she ends up in the woods. And that's to figure out how to get out of this situation. And she meets an incredible, credible actor who recently passed away John Capodici. from Wall Street, from speed, from so many Sydney Lament movies. He is just an incredible actor, and he's a mafia guy on the run,

and he shares with her. He says, tell me your story. I'll find out who set you up. And he really lived through that. So it's one of those stories that goes back in the earlier portion of the day, and she has to figure out everything that's, going on. So this is a thriller. It's exciting. It's on it's on Tobe right now, the 2B network,

and it's going to be on Amazon Prime premiering this weekend. So that's the story of Feddered. My daughter is the lead, actually, who's in the woods, and she's at Carnegie Mellon. She beat out everybody in New York in acting. This is not nepotism. The girl is absolutely amazing. And so,

so this is not Sophia Coppola in Godfather 3. This is, this is an actress who actually can act. Absolutely. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. Absolutely.

Because all for nepotter 3 is my biggest disappointment. That's, Godfather 3 should not even be named as Godfather 3. It's just like it never happened. Let's not talk about it. What a horrible film.

All right, let's not talk about that. But so the film is fettered, Amazon Prime, this weekend. Now, Deimos, again, you've done a lot. Tell a little bit about your story and what led you to this moment because you really have an amazing background. It's hard to believe where you've come from. Because when I first had you on the program, you told your story. What was the title of your book?

Street God. Street God is still doing very, very well. you know i mean give me give me the 30 second story what that because that's such an amazing that your story is so amazing to get you to the point where you are today from where you are it's unbelievable yeah i i uh i came up in a good family uh mother father present strong um and um i got caught up in the drug world at age 11 uh i went to a predominantly white school people think there's Only drugs in black communities wake up. They're everywhere.

And made a connection there which led me into the drug world, became a kingpin drug dealer in my early, around 18, 19 years old. And I had a friend set me up and put a contract hit on me right as I was coming to Jesus. I just got converted to Christ. And my friend thought, you become a Christian, you're weak. you're not the same. Let's kill the boss, basically what it was. And he knocked on my door, was walking me into the backyard. And I had a feeling I knew something wasn't right,

but I had locked the door with my people inside because I didn't want them to do like a home invasion. And when I got to the backyard, my worst enemy was there, pulled the gun, my friend pulled the gun to my head, and he was supposed to kill me in front of his friend. And at that time, I just prayed. I said, God, only you, not out loud, but I said, Jesus, you got to get me through this.

You get me through this? I will follow you for the rest of my life. And every time he pulled the trigger, it was it three to eight, it went tink, and he clicked it to try to fix it, and tinked it. I'm literally watching somebody try to blow my head off. And then eventually they were in shock and they took off running.

And I stayed in that backyard and I said to Jesus, whatever you want me to do, wherever you want me to go, if you make it clear that issue, I will follow you all the days of my life. And I turned myself in. I was facing seven years in prison. The judge asked me, why did I turn myself in? I said, because I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. She took me out the courtroom, brought me back in and said, I'm going to do something I've never done before. She said, I'm going to release you, and I'm going to tell you why. Says, you look so different than every mugshot in front of me.

And you sound so different. And I'm scared if I send you back to jail, you'll become who you used to be. And I love what I'm seeing now. And just for context, this was the New York crack epidemic. More bodies, the morgues were overflowing, overflowing. Eric, I know you remember those days. All of us remember those days. They were horrible, horrible days.

But so much knowledge came from that, which then there's another movie, Eric, I'm releasing this week as well, called Chicago, America's Hidden War. Our friend John Petitucci did the music for it, an amazing, amazing person, and that's about the horrors in Chicago. Denzel Washington came on as executive producer, and that's on Amazon Prime. And it's unbelievable.

You'll see how the church hits the streets, and the homicides in Chicago dropped, significantly, I mean, by 20%. And we're trying to encourage people to get back out there. Wow. So we're talking about two films. But first of all, just to go back, your story, it is so amazing that sometimes, I mean, what you just described, you know and I know, I know you, you're not making this up, it was nothing but a miracle, that the gun does not fire again and again.

when does that happen? What is that? It's a miracle of God to design by God to let you know you should be dead. I let you live. I want you to serve me and I want you to remember this. I mean, it's it's incomprehensible unless you understand miracles can happen. They do happen. Eric, I want to tell you this. I bumped into one of my friends that tried to kill me on another. occasion. And, you know, we put it past us. We're laughing. We're talking on the phone. And I said to him, I said, you know, that time he shot at me, how many bullets did you have in the gun? Because I thought he had a few bullets. Because me and my friend were sitting there, snap, snap, snap. And this is another time I took off running went boom. And my friend said, Demos, this was a 357 nickel-plated revolver. I'm looking. looking at in the car sticking towards me.

He said, it wasn't your time. He said, it had every bullet in it. It just was not, it wasn't firing until you got almost out of the way. So supernatural miracles do happen. And I try to live my life every day, Eric, to make it worthy. You know, I was mentored by Tim Keller. I was mentored by A.L. Bernard. I knew you for a number of years, a lot of great men that I've been around. If I do nothing great with my life, what a waste and shame. And you know, we've been radically blessed. You've spoken along Tim Keller on so many occasions. I see you preach and speak. Then Tim will come up and speak and hosting. And we were given a gift. We were given a gift. So I used. use Tim Keller's sermons how I do my movie. So when you're watching Fettered, it's a thinking

person's movie. I want you to be figuring out fettered is F-E-T-T-E-R-E-D. Some people think I say feathered. No, it's fettered, which means ball and chain. If you listen to Eric Metax, you're a smart person. I'm sure you get it. And it's a thinking person's movie. Chicago, America's Hidden War, a thinking person's. movie. You're going to get insight on what's going on in that horrible, ravaged city. It's a great city, but it's sad what's going on there. And this is not a woke movie. Let me say that. I get, Eric, it's so weird. I'm just being me. And I get emails coming in, people writing. I'm so happy. It's not a woke movie. It's not a woke movie. It's not a woke. I'm like,

yeah, I grew up. You just make a movie. You just make a movie. movie. You know, right is right, wrong is wrong. I'm not sticking in stuff. That doesn't belong there, which is sad on what's going on today and a lot of films in Hollywood, unfortunately. Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendships. Cute, Kevin, but I disagree. Like with about 365, I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends.

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Or call 18665 through 1.2600. Terms and conditions apply. Well, yeah. But, you know, when you have survived death at the end of a 357 nickel-plated, you know, God gives us this strength to be different, to be courageous. God gives us that strength, right? If not for him, I don't want to know where we'd be. You'd be dead.

It really is amazing. But I think it's important, Deimos, to underscore miracles are real, folks. You can't pretend you live in a world where there's no God, nothing matters. Everything matters. God sees you. He wants to walk with you. He wants to lead you and guide you. Sometimes it will be very dramatic.

My conversion was very. dramatic. Your story, just what you've shared, very dramatic. It's not always very dramatic, but God is with us. God is wanting to lead us and guide us dramatically in our lives. Very important that we live in a world where, that we talk about this, because there's so many people just drifting along. Yeah, I don't know. Well, so the film, though, thettered. This is not about the conversion to, you know, the Republican Party of John Federman. No, folks. Not be confused.

This is a film about now what you just said, though, your daughter stars in the film as the lead character. What you're talking about happens. I know two people who have had children, girls, something like this happened to them. they were they were sex traffic it's so horrible because i know these people so this is this is obviously happening um you know in in both cases uh it ends up being redemptive but oh my gosh so this is real and your your story tells it so again it's called fettered it's uh this weekend on amazon prime um is there anything more we need to know about about that story before we uh before we move on fettered yeah yeah you know i i would

say what I love is in movies when men are being courageous, men are being strong. We have in there Al Sapienza. He's from oh God, Gotham,

the Big Short, the Sopranos. We have leads in it, Sean Ringel from family business, notorious, B.I.G. and many other movies. We had a phenomenal, incredible cast of young, diverse people.

I mean, black, white, Asian, you know, that just come to the Latino and Asian. Because that's New York City. That was my every day. So we don't have to like force diversity in this movie. It just lives and breathes. All these kids that are acting together, went to the same acting schools,

were friends for many, many years. So the chemistry that you're going to get from it. And then I'll tell you this, three girls or two girls make a crazy decision. And that is they use the app Life 360 and they found out where three sex traffickers live. And they start to investigate those houses themselves. So this is a movie that's going to have you on edge. You're going to be rooting. You're going to be cheering.

You're going to have a great time. And it's from a number of a combination of, of real stories because one of my dear friends has happened to his daughter, and unfortunately she was fully raped. And first time drinking, hanging out in college. They say, hey, go lay down for a second to feel better. And a guy goes into her room.

And she has never been the same. The sweetness, the beauty, the joy that used to be is just gone. So this is a warning. as well as a very entertaining movie, the bad guy. You know, it's a lot of awesome stuff. I don't want to give it all the way. Well, you're working with a lot of... Lifting up your hands and cheering and really having a great night.

You work with a lot of amazing people, DeMis, really, when you say, you know, Denzel want to come on to co-produce Chicago and when you meant the names that you mentioned. And so you're working at a very high level, which is important. People need to understand. This is not just some little film made by a friend of mine. Folks, but this is important. This is important that people understand that. So the film is fettered.

You have the other film, Chicago, America's Hidden War. Yes. And just in case people want your story, you wrote the book, tell us again the title of your story. It's so unbelievable. My story is called, That a Street, D.S. God. Street God. It's everywhere books are sold carried by Tyndale, who's one of the still 100% own Christian publishing companies. So Tyndale Publishing Carries it. It's one of the number, it's been translated three languages. It's in every inmate's pocket in Amsterdam. If you have a

loved one going through, send it to them. We have a extremely high conversion rate from people reading Street God. And what's interesting is, you would think intellectual people get saved by reading other intellectuals. Sometimes they get saved more by a radical story. Like Dr. A. R. Bernard got converted by Nikki Cruz. I have so many stories like that where they just get hit another way. but it is extremely well done, well written, Tyndale, the process they take you through, you can't believe. And anybody knows about book writing is Eric Matasas. Yeah, yeah.

Well, okay, so the book, your book is Street God. Highly recommended, folks. Highly recommended Street God. It's a true, amazing story of faith, of God, miraculously moving in someone's life. We need to know these stories. That's why. I do what I do on this program in the books that I write. We need to know not just the truth, but the radical truth of who God is.

It's real. If you don't know it, you're living in half measures, not the way to live. Dimas, my friend, congratulations on Federed and on Chicago, America's Hidden War. And I hope people will get street God. God bless you, my friend. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

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