The Eric Metaxas Show - Destry Edwards

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Dear Mr. President: The Letters of Julia Sand is a film by Destry EdwardsThe film tells the dramatic story of how an everyday citizen—who was unable to even vote at the time—influenced the presidency of Chester Arthur, changing his legacy from one of corruption to one of reform.“The story of Chester Arthur and Julia Sand is such an inspirational narrative, and Julia’s legacy encourages us to seek out our own ways to make a difference in our government and in our community. It’s very special to see this film bring more public awareness to this story,” Edwards said.Dear Mr. President: The Letters of Julia Sand is available to stream on SalemNow. To find out more information about the film and its story, please visit CEI.org. If you are interested in helping to organize a screening, please reach out to [e-mail].

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat of The Blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat him. But he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest.

Eric the Texas! Hey there, folks. Folks, this is Wednesday, January 18th, and I got to tell you, Chris, can you hear that hum I got the AC on because it's disgusting in New York today? No, can't hear it. Okay, good, good, good. I just said it's just gross. But I got to tell you, right now, folks, the situation with Iran, I normally don't, you know, do Eric Metaxus's hot take on the situation. But right now I thought, I've got to speak up.

Because what's going on right now, we have to, we've got to thread the needle between two errors. This is between Silla and Chiribdis, to quote or to reference Homer's Odyssey. Silla is this sea serpent's monster, cracking. Chiribdis is this whirlpool, and he has to sail between the two. We would say thread the needle. Right now, President Trump has to sail between Silla and Shribdis. He has to thread the needle. What do we mean by that?

Okay. On the one hand, we have people like Lindsey Graham, the late John McCain, and other rhino neocons in the GOP, who have advocated for forever wars. These are warmongering, bad leaders. So we do not want forever wars. We do not want to be embroiled in wars in the Middle East. We believe in America first. We believe in avoiding foreign entanglements. I agree with Steve Bannon on this.

I agree with George Washington on this. So we know that this globalist neocan project to be at war with the world, to take over Iran, to take over Iraq. and Afghanistan and to turn them all into some kind of, you know, versions of the U.S., like, that would be nice if it could work, but it does not work. And we have to have wisdom. And Trump, when he pushed back against Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential debate, that was a line in the sand that the new Republican Party under the leadership,

the MAGA leadership of Donald Trump is not going to make the mistake of getting involved in foreign wars unnecessarily and committing American blood and treasure in these utopianist escapades on the one hand. On the other hand, there are times when we must take a stand, get involved. We have to have the wisdom to understand when it's prudent to do that and when it actually is in our best interest. And so right now, there's this divide within the MAGA movement. You have people like Tucker Carlson on one side of it who are saying that any involvement

with Israel is a mistake. And sometimes that seems to be tinged with some kind of anti-Semitism or so. I don't know what it is, but it just feels, I don't think Tucker is an anti-Semite. But he seems to open the door to people who might have that inclination. Candice Owens, I can't make head or tail of her, and so I have to ignore her on this subject at this point. You have some people who seem to say that any involvement by the U.S. becomes our entering into huge foreign entanglement

that's going to end up being World War III, whatever. So right now we have to make some determinations as a country, and we have to pray for a president that he has wisdom, how do we navigate this? In other words, we don't want to do what George W. Bush did, what the neocons are advocating for now, that we're going to go in and we're going to get in a war and we're going to wipe out Iran and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have regime change in North Korea. Wouldn't you want it?

Wouldn't I want it? Yes, we would want it. If we could have regime change in China so that all the 100 million Christians in China could be free so that they wouldn't be under this communist yoke, wouldn't we want that? Yes, we would. Sure, we would. If we could have regime change in Iran so that the theocratic lunatic mullahs that are oppressing the Iranian people and have been doing so since 1979 so that they could be thrown out and the people of Iran could govern themselves or have some semblance of freedom, wouldn't we want that? Yes, we will. Question is, when is it right for us to advocate for that?

When is it right for us to do something about that? Clearly, it is not right for us to do something about that in China. Clearly, it's not right for us to do something about that in North Korea. Clearly, until now, it hasn't been right for us to do something in Iran. But what if we had an opportunity to help tip things in the favor of regime change so that the theocrats, the lunatic, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating mullahs could be thrown out. In other words, we have to make, we have to have discernment. We have to have discernment.

What if there is an opportunity, thanks to Israel, who did something dramatic, and again, we have to be clear, they did it because we believe our president believes and the Israelis believe that the Iranians were genuinely on the verge of acquiring the ability to launch nuclear weapons at Israelis believe that the Iranians were genuinely on the verge of acquiring the verge of acquiring the ability to, to launch nuclear weapons at Israel and then potentially at the United States. At some point, you know, you can't let them do that. So Israel and our intelligence forces believed, contrary to what Tucker Carlson has said, that this is true, that they had that ability or they were on the verge of having that ability and we needed to strike. Did we strike? No.

But thank God, Israel did so that we didn't have to. So now we come to this point of asking, would it be right for us to use the technology we have that Israel does not have to break through this mountain with this, I don't know if it's called a bunker buster? It's a kind of a bomb that we have. It's a three-stage detonation bomb that goes through this mountain to take out this nuclear facility. I forget the name of the facility, but there's one facility that is at the heart of their nuclear capabilities that Israel doesn't have the technology to break through this mountain because it's literally tunneled within a mountain. We have that technology. So does it fall to us to do that? Could we do that, but not ever send boots on the ground?

I think President Trump knows that America, would never consent to send our soldiers over there, that we would never do that. And that is not on the table. But we can't say it's not on the table publicly because Iran is listening. And if Iran knows it's not on the table, then they're going to hold out. They have to be worried that we're going to go all out on them. And Trump has done that, I think, very successfully. This is the art of the deal.

No, there's nobody better than Donald Trump at doing this kind of thing, which is to say, keeping them guessing, which gives us the upper hand in terms of negotiating that if you don't do what we're saying, you're going to get it and you better worry about getting it. So this is really threading the needle. And I think we have to trust that the president understands that the people who put him in power, the MAGA movement, will never, ever want to have foreign entanglements, will not want to ever say, you know, we're going to get into a war, whether it's World War III or even a more limited war with Iran. We don't want that. But we trust this president's judgment in figuring out

how do you send the message to Iran that they better straighten up quick or it will be over for them. And I also think if there were an opportunity for regime change, if we, by lending our technology to this effort, could tip the scales so that this wicked regime, would fall and that the people could rise up. How could we not take that? Obviously, you know, Obama and Biden had opportunities to reach out to the Iranian people at some point. They did not do that. We're going to a break. We've got more on this subject and lots more on other subjects. Don't go away. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods, and that's great news for balance of nature. Their method of producing a vibrant nutritional supplement is second to none, while so many

others use chemicals and additives. Balance of nature is made solely from whole food ingredients, while other methods sacrifice nutritional quality for the sake of profits and volume. Balance of nature's advanced vacuum cold process involves freeze drying the fruits and veggies into a fine powder, helping to retain as much nutritional value as possible compared to other inferior methods which cut corners at your expense. Bounce of nature packs a nutritional punch, and that's the whole reason for taking balance of nature, getting the most nutrition for the sake of your health. Use my discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping and their money back guarantee.

You must use my discount code Eric. Call them 800 24668-751. Use discount code Eric or order online at balance of nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping. That's balance of nature.com. As you know, our friend Mike Lindell has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. He didn't stop by simply creating the best pillow.

Mike created the best bed sheets ever. They look and feel great. which means an even better night's sleep for me, which is crucial for my busy schedule. Mike is offering the best deal on his Giza Dreams bed sheets. Any size and any color, just 4998. That's right. You can even get Queens, Kings, split kings and Cal Kings. Any size, any color, just 4998.

Order now because when they're gone, they're gone. Also for a limited time when your order is over $100, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts. Call $1,800, 978. Use the promo code, Eric, or go to mypillow. Make sure you use the promo code Eric for the amazing offer, 4998 on the Giza Dream Sheets, any size, any color of the number. Again, 1,800, 978 3057, 1,800, 3057. The promo code is Eric, or please go to Mypillow.com, my pillow.com.

Use the code, Eric. Hey, the folks, welcome back. I'm told that it's June 18th, Wednesday. We've been talking, I've been talking about the situation in Iran, and I want to say it again. What bothers me, actually I haven't said this, what bothers me is the bomb throwing in the MAGA movement, that you have people who really, they don't seem to appreciate nuance. And if you disagree with them or even begin to lean in the direction of disagreeing with them, they immediately label you. And they say you're not putting America first. These become cliches and slogans.

We have to define what is it. mean to put America first. I think we have to reiterate with clarity, the neocon war mongering past of the GOP is the past. President Trump was elected in 2016 and again in 2020 and again in 2024 to put an end to that kind of globalist, uniparty, war mongering, thing. thinking, period. But what just happened in the Middle East is it's at least intriguing. What's going on? Did Israel strike Iran because they knew and we knew that Iran was on the verge of getting nuclear capabilities? I mean, if that's the case, and I know some people say it's not the case, but if it is the case, then are we not grateful that Israel did that? Are they bloodthirsty?

monsters for having taken out the nuclear capabilities of the Iranians. We have to say, again, the Iranians, we're not talking about the Iranian people anymore than when we're talking about the Chinese Communist Party. We're talking about the Chinese people. We're talking about the Iranian theocratic regime led by the Mullahs. These are as radical lunatic fanatics as ever existed. And we have to take them at their word when they say over and over and over again, they want to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

They have a holy zeal, an unholy zeal to do that. And we would be silly not to take them at their word. It would be like when Hitler says over and over and over, he wants to wipe out the Jews, and people say, well, he's not actually going to do it. Yes, he would and he tried, and he almost did. There's a time you have to take people at their word. So when you're dealing with Iran, it's different than dealing with China. China, even though they're evil, there is rationality at play.

They are not religious fanatics. They are rational. They are evil, atheist, but they're different than the evil of Iran, which it's just completely different. There is no self-interest. It's like when you're dealing with Putin or she. of China, you're dealing with somebody, even though they might be your enemy, there's rationality at play. When you're dealing with Iran, with the Iranian mullahs, they want to bring about, you know, I would say the Antichrist. They would say their Messiah, the Mahdi. You know, this is,

it's a whole other thing. So if they have the ability to acquire nuclear weapons, why would we think that they would not wipe Israel off the face of the map? I'm just fascinated. that there's some people that act like, nah, I just don't believe it. And even Tucker Carlson has said, well, they're not our enemy or what. We're not talking about Vietnam, folks. Not talking about North Vietnam in 1970. We're talking about people who they don't just want to take over the world. They want to wipe Israel and every Jew off the face of the earth.

So that's on the table. And if you have people that have said they want to do that, We've had intelligence that says that they were on the verge of acquiring what we forbad them forever and ever over and over from having what we said to them they cannot have. Somebody had to do something. Now, we didn't do anything, but the Israelis did. Are we not grateful for that? I don't get that. I really don't get that.

And does that not at least touch on American interests? the idea that Israel is some island in the middle of the sea that has nothing to do with us, that's just preposterous. And so I don't, I really don't get the thinking of folks like Tucker Carlson. I think Steve Bannon is more right on. And he is saying we have to be careful about entanglement in foreign wars. And that is correct. And that's what we voted for. But right now, I would say if there is an opportunity, to allow the Iranians to get their country back away from under the theocratic rule of these radical, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating mullahs, it seems to me that we ought to be willing to help them to do that. Now, the question is, what does that mean? And if that means boots on the ground, I would say absolutely not. If it means, you know, getting involved in a hot war that goes on, you know,

more than a couple of weeks, I would say no. But if we have the technology to take out the beating heart of their nuclear capabilities, and we would not use that, I don't understand why. So anyway, I've already said more than I know. Yeah. I mean, I think. I think if we were to, you know, drop the bunker busting bomb that would certainly constitute an act of war legally. So that would be an escalation. And the unintended consequences of that are the things

that I guess we're arguing about. Like what that's okay, that's a good point. The unintended consequences. So if we were to launch a strike, an American strike, as you just mentioned, there are consequences. Do we draw Russia in? Do we draw China in? So clearly that's part of it. But I was just talking to someone last night who said for various reasons, he does not think Russia or China would be foolish enough to come in at this point, that they would kind of let this happen. And I think, again, the question is, would our intelligence understand that? Is our intelligence right about that? But what do you think? Well, I was just thinking back on because I'm trying to understand the situation. So I know that, you know, Israel and B.B. in particular, has been saying for many,

many years that they were close to getting a bomb, many, many years for almost 30 years. And the thing that I didn't realize is that they have actively, whether through sabotage or, you know, limited strikes, they have been the ones that have been rolling back the timer on it, Israel has. So they have reset the proximity of Iran's ability to, you know, create this bomb. And they're saying now that it's gotten close again, And mainly it's all about the enriched uranium. So, you know, I know that BB, apparently before Iraq's test, he was a private citizen at the time, but said that he believed Iraq had dishwasher, you know, I looked this up this morning,

dishwasher size centrifuges, uranium centrifuges, those never materialized. So either he was wrong about that or, you know, you could argue we were misled. But in this case, the level of uranium is over 60 percent. of enrichment, which has no civilian use. And this has been independently verified. So it is a different situation here because anything, you know, over 20%, you could argue, well, Iran is a sovereign country. They should be able to power, you know, hospitals and research reactors and things like that.

That's only 20%. So clearly at 60%, there's no known civilian use for that. And they're clearly playing games, whether it's they want leverage or they're out. actually trying to build the bomb. But apparently the, you know, the uranium is a hard thing to get. And building the bomb is quite easy as we've seen just with their ability to use missiles to hit Israel last week or this week even. So it is, it is significant. But yeah, how we how we work this out, I don't know. There's also a theatrical warfare risks too. Like, you know, Biden led in a lot of people during his administration. We don't know who's here from that. Actually, you know what, Pastor Greg Locke, who we've had on this show many times.

He's a great pastor in the Nashville area. He on X this morning released a video talking about, and this, I think he was saying this prophetically. He had a sense from God that, or unless he had other evidence, it was not clear, but that there are many Iranian sleeper cells in the United States that are about to be activated and that we need to pray. This is really, you know, this is potentially awful, awful stuff. So I think we should be praying for the president that God give him wisdom. And we should be praying for the safety of the United States at this time.

because we're really, I think that we have been, you know, we've been in the safe bubble where we forget what is possible. It's a long time since 9-11, and I think people forget what religious fanatics motivated by Satan, not by God, are capable of. And so this is, this is very serious, and it can affect America. And the funny thing is, you know, you could say, well, it's not our fight. Well, if Iran thinks we're the enemy, then it is our fight. And Iran clearly thinks that our standing with Israel, however we stand with Israel, makes us the great Satan. And they have said that. They clearly hate the West.

They hate the Christian West. They hate the Jews. So, all right. We'll be right back. It's the Erkmatakis show. Don't go away. Hey, folks. Welcome back.

Because I'm just back from Greece, I'm a little out of it. you're waking up at 4 a.m. And just not feeling great, the jet lag. And I think that this cruise that we did, you know, it's funny because I was trying to tell some friends about it yesterday. It was fun, but it's also work. It's also, I mean, I spoke six times. I was having a lot of interaction with a lot of you who were on the cruise.

And in some ways, it's exhilarating. And in other ways, it's exhausting. So, and then, of course, I mean, you know, you're eating food. that you wouldn't be eating necessarily. I have to take care of my health. I'm kind of fragile. So I'm just whacked. I'm wiped out.

I, all of that said, I want to remind you, remind you, tell you that Albin was with us on the cruise, Victoria Jackson was with us on the cruise, and John Zmirak was with us on the cruise. Now, they, evidently, they have more time on their hands than I do. So they decided to hang out in Greece for a little longer. So they're not back yet. I wanted to get them on the program so that we can go over, you know, the details of what it was like being together on the boat and all the craziness of it.

But so we were trying to do that today. We may get them on today. But probably we'll get them on. If not tomorrow or Friday, Monday for sure, we'll get them on. I really want all of you who weren't able to be with us to hear about it because it was fun and we're going to be doing more stuff like this in the future. I think we'll do something every year for sure. But it was such an absolute blessing to me to connect with so many of you. There were, I don't know, as I said, close to 300 of us together.

And such delightful people making new friends. My friends made friends with, you know, Victoria Jackson. And when she comes on, she's going to talk about that. So it was, it was tremendous. I heard officially there was a, there may have been a way in. There was a, you know, you step on the scale before, you know, you go on the cruise. I heard it unofficially. I heard unofficially.

And then. Yeah, I heard that unofficially too. There's a way in. No, it is, it is funny because I, uh, I tried not to, uh, you know, I tried not to eat more than I would normally do. But, um, all right. So somebody just wrote to us. I want to read, I got a bunch of emails from some of you, some questions, some comments. I want to read a couple of those now.

And I'm not sure what's coming up later on on the show. But for now, while we have a minute, Liz Parent writes, thank you so much, Eric, for taking us along with you on your marvelous cruise. Your thoughtful, interesting, and educational videos that you shared online were a delight. The beautiful scenery and historical information were amazing. you always continue to teach us something new. You captured all the highlights, and I felt like I was there with you in your group, seeing new places through your eyes and photo lens.

You brought me great joy in a lovely armchair, vicarious travel experience since your trip was the only vacation I'll have this summer. May the Lord continue to bless you always as you serve him and so many others, gratefully Liz Parent. Liz, God bless you for saying this. And I wanted to do more updates, actually. So if you followed me on Instagram, I did put out some updates, but I really wanted to do more.

But it's not so easy sometimes to do that. So I'm thrilled that Liz was able to feel like she was along the ride with us. Let me see. We have, I've got some Ask Metaxuses. Maybe we'll do that in another segment. I just wanted to read, we got so many comments from people, and I just want to read some of these comments. Yeah, we do get emails from everybody.

Yeah, what do we get here? Oh, this is, I spoke in, oh, you know, I mentioned, like I should mention this again, I'm speaking at King's Church this Sunday, this Sunday in New York City, King's Church. It's on, what is it, 33rd Street. You got to go to King's Church, New York City. David Englehart is the pastor, but I'm speaking there this Sunday at the 11 a.m. service. And I am going to be with Ken Fish in Bethel, Connecticut, at He. his vineyard. If you can possibly get to his vineyard,

it's Two Vale Road, VAIL, two Vale Road, his vineyard, Bethel, Connecticut. I will be there at 6 p.m. this Sunday night with Ken Fish. He is going to be ministering,

doing deliverance and healing and praying for people. If you have ever wanted to meet Kenfish or me, this would be a great opportunity. If you can get to Bethel, Connecticut, I'm sorry, King's Church is on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. in New York City. This is his vineyard in Bethel, Connecticut, 6 p.m. on Sunday night. This Sunday night, that's June 22nd.

But I bring that up just because it reminded me that before I left for Greece, I preached at the Ocean City Tabernacle in New Jersey. And somebody writes and says to me, Eric, it was a great pleasure to hear you speak at Ocean City Tabernacle. I'm the one that tell you about my death experience. I tell you so many of you come up to me in the book line or whatever, tell me these amazing things. It was beautiful to meet so many of you. And this person in particular, John Sabo, he says, your message about protecting and reviving Christianity in America is very needed.

Jonathan Kahn's message is very necessary to. trouble surrounds us and God we trust John Sabo. The, I'm looking through these messages while we're sitting here. Oh, here's one. Linda Leesiar says, I'm on chapter eight of your book, is atheism dead? This is an incredible book. Thank you for doing the great research for us. As you know, we're turning his atheism dead into a streaming TV series.

We're working on it right now. kind of a big deal. All right, we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. Folks, welcome back. You didn't know who my guest was going to be right now because I didn't tell you. One thing I assure you, none of you ever, ever. ever, ever in a million years, expected that I went on this program be discussing the presidency

of U.S. President Chester Arthur. There are many people listening right now who have never heard of U.S. President Chester Arthur. Shame on you. You should know the name of every United States president. And you should know that before Chester Arthur, the president was John Garfield, who was murdered. Yeah.

Did you know that? after Lincoln, Garfield was murdered, McKinley was murdered. I think, you know, Kennedy was murdered. But the reason we're talking, or going to be talking about President, U.S. President Chester Arthur, is because I have with me now, Destry Edwards, the producer and director of a film called Dear Mr. President, the letters of Julius Sand. It's on Salem now. This is so fascinating. Destry, welcome to the program. Hey, Eric, great to be on with you. Can you please tell me how in the world you came to make a documentary film about President Chester, Arthur, which I've just said most Americans are kind of like who? What? Was there a president named Chester Arthur? Yes, there was. What led you? What is your background that led you to this?

Absolutely. As most people in this country, I never had expectations to make a film about it, but Chester Arthur didn't know much about it myself either. several years ago a good friend of mine had just mentioned the general basic stories of Arthur and his interaction with this woman, Julia Sand, and I thought that was interesting, but didn't really know much about it other than a couple sentences. I've been in the DC nonprofit space for several years now doing video work, and two, three years ago I was working on an explainer video that was about the rise of the bureaucratic state and touched upon the Pendleton Act, which was part of Arthur's presidency. And as I was doing research for that video, I came back across this story and Arthur's presidency

in general, how he became president, and the interaction he had with this woman, Julia Sand, who was writing to him these letters during his presidency and how she influenced him, and just this incredible dramatic story. And I just kept doing more and more research on it. It was just fascinated by all of this. And the story was well outside the scope of that explainer video I was doing. But at that point, I was determined that if the opportunity ever came up to focus on this story, in particular, make a documentary on this, that I would take that opportunity.

And eventually that opportunity came. Okay. So just to give people the headline and tell me if I'm wrong, the headline is, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the 19th century, President Garfield is murdered. his vice president, Chester Arthur, who is basically a political hack. Think of Joe Biden, becomes president of the United States. He has been put there, just as Joe Biden was, really to serve the interests of corrupt pigs who don't care about the American people. But in his presidency, Chester Arthur, because of the letters of this woman, Julius Sands,

decides to use his power as president to go against the vested interests, the corrupt figures in the government, and to do the right thing and in a sense to drain the swamp of his day, to go against the deep state of his day. I had never heard this in my life. So is that the gist of the story, Desry Edwards? Is that the gist of the story of what we're talking about? Is that the headline? Am I getting that right? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a big part of all this. Chester Arthur had been a career bureaucrat. He wasn't even an elected official until he became vice president. He was just, you know, part of the bureaucracy. He was a top figure in the bureaucracy. And the big problem they were facing in the bureaucracy at that point was the spoil system that started under Andrew Jackson,

where people just got government jobs not based on their skill. They just got their jobs based on who did you help politically? Whose side were you on politically? What election did you work in? It doesn't matter if you have the skills or the qualifications for the job or even the character for the job. If you are part of our team, we're going to give you a job and just give you that cushion for as long as you can hold it until the next party comes in and takes you out, basically. And Arthur got his political start and his entire political career up until the presidency as part of the president's as part of the president. that system. Okay. So again, we're talking about corruption, folks. We're talking about drifting away

from the founding father's vision. And again, this is only 100 years after the presidency of George Washington. So America had drifted very, very far. So what precipitated Chester Arthur really betraying the corrupt people who put him in power? So as you mentioned, he was the vice president under James Garfield, and he was picked not because of his skill or his ability to be vice president, but because the Republican Party needed both sides of the party, both the reformers, which Garfield represented, as well as the machine that they were reforming against, which was the biggest part of that was in New York State, run by Senator Roscoe Conkling, and Chester Arthur was basically Conkling's top lieutenant.

And so they picked him so that side of the party would vote for the ticket and Garfield could win the presidency. And then as most vice presidents, Arthur could be left in obscurity. But then this person Charles Guteau assassinated President Garfield for the sake of protecting the spoil system that he saw threatened by Garfield and with the intention of putting Arthur in power. And so Arthur comes into this not. not wanting to be president, not expecting to be president, and with the entire country arrayed against him because of his association, not his actual association with the assassin, but the perception that they were both from the same faction of the party and the fact that the assassin wanted him to become president.

I mean, it's kind of an amazing thing that we could forget the circumstances around the assassination of a president of the United States. Most people in America are not aware of James Garfield. And it's a staggering thing to think that in 1865, Lincoln is murdered, 20 years later, Garfield is murdered. 15 years after that, McKinley is murdered. We have three presidents murdered in the space of 35 years in the United States of America. It's just unbelievable to think about that. We've got to go to a break here. Folks, the film, this is important history.

And I think part of the revival and the restoration of America is learning our history. This is an important piece of it. The film is called Dear Mr. President, The Letters of Julius Sand. Dear Mr. President, the Letters of Julius Sand is available at Salem Now. Go to SalemNow.com. Please check it out. SalemNow.com will be right back. Welcome back.

I'm talking to Destry Edwards, who is the man behind a new film called Dear Mr. President, The Letters of Julius Sand telling the same. story amazing we don't know the story of the presidency of chester arthur um so what are the years of his presidency uh he became president in 81 and served through 85 okay unbelievable 188 188 188 okay so the title of the film is dear mr president the letters of julius sand so we still have to get to the bottom of who is julius sand who is the woman and why does she write uh the president in the United States to do the right thing when everybody thinks he's going to do the wrong thing. And why does he listen to Julia Sand?

Who is this woman that has the ear of the president, which is so important at this time in history? Yeah, so Julia Sand at this time, she was a 31-year-old woman in New York City. She lived just a couple blocks from Central Park. She was unmarried. She was fairly ill. We don't know the details of what exactly she had, but she had an illness that kind of kept her fairly reclusive and housebound for a lot of the time. her father had been a German immigrant. Her mother was from the United States.

She had several siblings. She lived with her brother, Theodore, and her family was decently well-off financially. Her brother was a banker, but they didn't have any kind of political connections. They had no political clout. But she, because, I think in part because the fact that she was confined to the house, she was very interested in the outside world.

She was reading the newspapers all the time. and so she was following what was going on in the country and something about this situation with Garfield being assassinated and Arthur being propelled to the presidency apparently clicked with her and she felt compelled to write to Arthur and she said to him in her first letter she says that the people are bowed in grief but not so much because he Garfield is dying but because you were to be his successor

which is kind of a gut punch I think for anyone who could read that realizing that she's kind of right about that. Arthur himself, as far as listening to her, there was no connection between the two. They'd never met, they'd never had, he never knew of her before this. But something I think about is how Arthur had lost his wife a couple years before this,

and his friends were all people in the machine, and those aren't really the kind of people you can talk to in this situation, where everyone's expecting you and the machine of being part of this plot to kill the president. And so he was very isolated. And so you take this guy, he's very isolated in this extreme position and have someone who's reaching out to you.

I think that kind of compelled him to listen to what she had to say. Well, what an amazing thing. But who was she? I mean, was she a woman of faith? What would lead her? to do this extraordinary thing? So it's a good question. I don't know we have all the answers on that.

As far as whether she was a Christian, she does mention God a couple times in her letters, not extensively, and I think only once in really theological terms. I think she might have professed to be a Christian, as most people would have during that time. But as to what specifically drove her, we don't really have strong evidence of that as to what exactly compelled her to do this

other than a concern for her country. So you're a documentary filmmaker and this film is available at SalemNow.com. Is it available anywhere else or right now is it just Salem now.com? As of now is only on Salem. We are putting through film festivals as well. We just won the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival this past week. But as far as to be able to watch it from your home, certainly Salem Now is the exclusive. Okay, well, listen, we are part of Salem, and I'm thrilled that SalemNow.com is the place to see the film.

Folks, check it out at SalemNow.com. There are other films there, but right now we're pushing this one because you need to know American history. It's called Dear Mr. President, The Letters of Julius Sand. Absolutely fascinating. Edwards, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric.