The Eric Metaxas Show - Willie Robertson
Episode Date: February 28, 2024While Eric was at NRB Friend of the program Willie Robertson Stopped by for a conversation. ...
Transcript
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himself, Eric Ma, Texas.
Hey there, folks.
Welcome to the show.
I'm in a hotel room someplace near the Phoenix airport, Phoenix, Arizona.
Chris, the weird thing is you're in the same hotel.
I happen to know you're down the hall from me.
And yet, you look like you have the same background as when you're in New York,
almost as though it's a fake background.
If people are watching, but they're not.
They're listening.
It's a radio program.
We are in Phoenix because,
T-P-U-S-A Faith is having a big conference tonight, the strong church conference at the dream.
What is it?
Dream Church?
I always got to.
In any event, we're here for that.
Tonight they're doing a screening in front.
I mean, last night there were 2,500 people in attendance.
Tons of folks, Jack Gibbs.
I mean, you name it.
It's just an amazing conference.
and we're going to see them all tonight.
But tonight, they're doing a screening of letter to the American Church, the film.
Perhaps we haven't mentioned that film on this program.
But Letter to the American Church is going to be screened tonight in front of 2,500 or however many people are going to be there, maybe more, because it's tonight.
So it's very exciting.
I'm going to do a Q&A afterward.
It's exciting that this is getting traction.
We have something like 200 churches already signed up to do free screenings at their churches.
And this is the part of the program where I say to folks,
you need to go to letter to the American church.com.
There is all kinds of stuff there.
But one of the things that's there is if you want to sign your church up for a free screening,
you can do it.
and obviously I would like you to do it.
We need to make money on this, but the church screenings are free.
So if you want to pay $5 or whatever it is,
we want to encourage you to do that to watch it with your family.
But we want every church in America that cares about America
to screen this film, Letter to the American Church.com.
Yesterday, oh, by the way, today, we have two kind of
big deal guests. Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty. He, I believe, is the CEO of Duck Dynasty. I just
think of him as my friend Willie. He is very funny. I interviewed him a few days ago at the NRB.
And it was, it's just a blast talking to him. It gets a little silly, as you'll see. He is just a lot of
fun to talk to. So Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty. And an hour to today, I don't know what hour
this is you are uh we're talking to michael scott who is the guy behind pure flicks they're creating
all kinds of films uh if you know me you know that culture and entertainment and the arts
are at the heart of of god's calling on my life and i really believe it's how we in the church
have failed miserably uh in feeding the culture in redeeming a broken culture so uh it's one of the
reasons I like Willie Robertson because he's in that world and we're going to be talking to Michael
Scott who is in that world as well.
Either today or tomorrow, I'm going to be talking to my friend Brandon Gill. He is running
for Congress in Texas. This is true. Chris, I don't even know if you remember this, but
Brandon Gill, he's married to Dinesh D'Souza Gill.
That's our friend. I'm sorry, Danielle D'Souza Gil.
it's it's it's my friend denesh de suza's daughter daniel and daniel and brandon when they were dating when they were
engaged they approached me and said they wanted me to perform their wedding no one's ever asked me
that before or since but i was so honored it is just one of those things you just you freeze you think
what an honor that they're asking me to do this so i um i did that and it's about five years ago now
they have a baby. And Brandon is, Danielle, of course, has a show, probably a couple of shows at this
point. And Brandon is running for Congress. So I'm so excited for him. So he'll be on this show,
either today or tomorrow. And what happened yesterday with Letter to the American Church,
I said it on the program, you and I, Chris, we were on the way to the airport. And we got the news.
But Dutch sheets, the great Dutch sheets, in his give him 15, which I recommend to every
If you want to know really where I get some of my encouragement from, Dutch Sheets is one of the main
figures that I look to as a very seasoned man of God and a patriot who understands the inextricable
link between faith and freedom. But Dutch Sheets has a devotional called Give Him 15.
I recommend it. You can watch the video on YouTube or you can get the app and
watch it or you can just read it, but give him 15. But yesterday, the entirety of the devotional
was him essentially talking about letter to the American church. And I'm just so grateful to him
for getting the word out. It led to a lot of churches, you know, wanting to do free screenings
and so on and so forth. But I just thought it's kind of a big deal. And it gives me hope for the
nation that the word is getting out that people need to take seriously what God calls us to do in this
country for his purposes, not for our purposes.
And I also should say that John Zamirac yesterday posted at the stream a Q&A that I did with him,
some of which is pretty funny.
If John Zemirik's involved, you know it's going to be funny.
But I posted it on my social.
media and of course in my um the email blast that we sent out yesterday there were links to the to joe to
john smirak's q and a link to the dutch sheets a devotional from yesterday um before we get to
uh willy robertson or michael scott whoever we're running this hour i want to repeat that
socrates in the city we have an event this thursday in new york city uh they're
Tickets still available with James O'Keefe.
It's going to be, it's just unavoidably going to be a fascinating conversation because
James O'Keefe is absolutely fascinating.
If you can get to New York or know anybody who can get to New York two days from now,
that's the 29th of February.
And remember, 29th of February happens only once every four years.
So don't blow it because you're going to have to wait another four years if you miss it.
So February 29th, Socrates in the city, if you cannot get to the New York.
York event this Thursday, sign up for Socrates Plus. Socrates in the city plus.com,
or you can just go to Socrates in the city.com. But if you sign up, it's less than $5 a month,
you'll be able to live stream the event this Thursday. You have to be signed up in advance.
You can't pay, you know, if you're not signed up for Socrates in the city plus, you can't watch
the live stream. So I want to say that now so people are prepared and they don't say,
I tried to sign up, and how do you sign up?
You got to go to Socrates in the cityplus.com.
If you're a member, if you sign up for whatever, it's less than five bucks a month,
you can do it.
All of the live streams are available to you and, you know, anybody you want to share it with.
So that's this Thursday, Socrates in the city, Socrates and the city plus.com is the website.
And before we get to our guest, we're doing a fundraiser for the Alliance to
Freedom. And we're going to be having some interviews with them in the course of the weeks
ahead. But they are heroes. We had a conversation just last night with some people here in Phoenix.
And what the Alliance Defending Freedom is doing is for free. This is why they need you to donate to
them, is that they are fighting for religious liberty in America at the Supreme Court level
and down. And they win almost all their cases. They are just.
heroes. Without them, think about this, we would lose the country because once you lose
religious liberty, you lose liberty, you lose America. So they are absolute heroes. When people say,
Eric, what can we do? What can we do? How can we get one thing you can do is donate to the
Alliance Defending Freedom. So please go to metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner. This is urgent.
This is serious. Metaxistalk.com. Metaxistococ.com. You'll see the banner. And we ask you humbly
but boldly to donate to the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Again, it is metaxis talk.com.
And we'll be talking about that in the weeks ahead.
But it's very exciting.
All right, we're going to get to our guests.
God bless you for tuning in today.
We'll be right back.
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Legacy pm investments.com. Check it out. Hey folks. I'm here with TBN at the NRB. Nobody knows
what the NRB stands for, but it doesn't matter. TBN stands for Trinity Broadcasting Network.
and I have as my guest today, somebody that I think of as a friend even though he's not.
Willie Robertson.
Willie, how you doing?
What's up?
You know, it's funny.
I didn't know with this conference.
I thought it was a book thing.
You did?
I didn't know until I showed up, so.
So you are, I see in my notes here, this is my, when I get to know somebody, I just think, oh, it's Willie, my friend.
But I read my notes.
My note says, you're the CEO of Duck Commander.
I didn't realize that you had that.
I didn't know that.
Well, you've never watched Duck Dynasty.
So we had a show.
Yeah, I have watched Duck Dynasty.
You know, there's a time of my life.
I would watch Duck Dynasty.
I read me some Shakespeare, and then I watch Duck Dynasty.
So you are the star of Duck Dynasty.
You're an author.
Can we talk about what you're wearing today?
Well, I was going to wear it.
I had a button-up shirt, and I left it.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, a button-up shirt?
What's a button-up shirt?
It's like the shirts you have on that you button up.
A shirt with buttons?
Or we call it a church shirt.
One I would wear the church.
So there's a button-down shirt and a button-up shirt.
It's a button-up shirt.
So it said, I went with the black tea.
This was going to be the undershirt.
So you had been fixing to wear a button-up shirt.
I was fixing to wear the button-up, left it.
I'm only in a T-shirt.
This is very important.
But obviously, I knew you would be dapper as always.
Listen, I've been put on several best-dressed lists, and now I feel like I've got to keep it up.
It's really a burden.
It's become a great burden.
It's become a burden.
That jacket.
I got this jacket off eBay.
Nobody believes that, but it's true.
Here we go.
You got off a cruise ship.
So we are...
I think, you know what?
That kind of humor is inappropriate.
I just want to say this is a double-breasted jacket.
I know they don't have these in the swamp.
But you wear your button-up shirt under.
Yeah, I wore my button-up shirt and tie and everything.
Everything.
Come my hair.
I'm wearing bar grease in my hair.
Hey, this is a real interview.
Slick it down.
This is a real interview now.
Okay, I guess we should talk about something even more interesting than what we wore to the interview.
For example, life surge?
What is this?
Life surge, yeah, that's who I came with.
I just found out it's one of the fastest growing Christian things in America.
It's what they're trying to do is equip people to handle finances,
and so they have classes on real estate, selling online.
It's a bunch of good stuff, and then they have all these speakers,
and we come together, and, God, we're doing them like every two weeks now.
I'm reading this here.
tons of these all over the country.
I was just in Orlando. I was in Houston for that.
We've got Indianapolis coming up.
All over.
But I hadn't heard of life surge.
So I hear about stuff on my own program.
So it says that they produce live national events
with Christian influencers such as Tim Tebow,
Willie Robertson, Chris Tomlin, Nick Voick.
How do you say it?
Vojikovic.
Vojik.
You don't know Nick?
No, no, I know Nick.
I don't know how to pronounce his name.
But Priscilla.
That's how to pronounce.
Priscilla Shearer.
Shire.
See?
Come on, man.
See?
You know what I'm saying?
That's what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
So you...
It's awesome.
I don't know why Tim Tebow's name is first and I'm second.
And I don't know why my name is not even on there.
You should come talk.
You should definitely come talk.
I could do it, but I have to be invited.
They won't let me.
If I just show up and say, can I talk?
I was at the very first one.
It was in Tampa, Florida.
and I was doing this thing called Live Surge.
I didn't know what it was as the first one.
And I tried, like, crazy to get out of it
because I was on another show on Fox called Mask Singer.
Mass Singer?
Masked Singer.
Oh, yeah, I know about that.
It's a big show.
Yeah, I was on there.
Wait a minute.
Really?
Simifinals.
I made it.
Holy cow.
I'm not getting out some, like, legit singers.
I was Mallard.
That was my name.
I'm a nice.
He's six inches tall.
But it was at the same time
Life Search was going on.
And so I'm like, I can't do the Live Surge speech.
And they're like, we've advertised.
You have to come.
So I was going to have to take a Red Eye Fly from L.A. to Tampa.
Yeah.
One of the singers, Jewel, who actually won the competition I was on,
she got COVID.
Shut us down for three days.
I went in, spoke at Live Surge, went back, went to semobops.
So the Lord worked it out by giving Jewel COVID.
God works in mysterious ways.
Wonders to perform.
But we shut down production for three days, and I was able to go sing my song.
I sang four songs.
I didn't know that you were a singer.
I am.
Yeah, we had an album.
I mean, I forgot about that.
But I love to sing.
No, I forgot about that.
You know what?
What part of platinum did you miss?
Since we're in Nashville.
All my friends here were so mad at me because we had the idea, like, a month out, we put an album out.
We sold a million copies.
and my friends were just like, really?
It's pretty disgusting.
But it's kind of like, look, take it from my perspective as a writer, right?
You write a book, and then some Jughead comes out with a horrible book,
but they got a big name, and it just sells because that's, you know,
it's on some level it's a product, you know, and it comes out.
So even a piece of junk, like your music album could go a million copies.
But it wasn't because I remember.
It was fun.
It was fun.
I remember I interviewed the time.
I'm teasing you.
We had some legit singers on there.
George Strait was on there?
What? Get out of here.
Luke Brine?
Really?
Yeah.
I really do love to sing, but I have not, you put out an album.
I've done a couple of songs.
I was like King of the Karaoke, and then when that came out, and then I did mass singer, so I've gotten paid to sing music.
Well, did you know that I did a Christmas special on TBN?
You've never seen it, but your father and mother are in it.
Oh, they're on it?
Oh, yeah.
I did a Christmas special on TBN.
I think the deep state has put it in a vault or something with Dick Cheney, and you can't get at it.
And Phil was on it?
Did Phil, your father and your mother?
The grumpy preaching Santa Claus?
You know what?
Honestly, I love your dad so much.
And I think that, you know, since he's not my dad, I don't get to see the downside.
I only see the upside because, you know, with our own parents, we get to see the downside.
And we go, eh, you know.
But your dad is an amazing man.
I just love him.
And he allowed me.
to, I came down to Monroe, Louisiana, and we filmed, and West Monroe, yeah, for that.
And we, but we filmed on the swamp, and he, I mean, some of it was serious.
You know, he shared the gospel because it was a Christmas special, and it was really
powerful, powerful speaker, your dad, because he keeps it real, and then we did a crazy music
video. I had the idea, I can't believe you don't know this. I had the idea that if I'm
doing a thing with the Duck Dynasty gang, I need to come up like that I am a lost member of the
Duck Dynasty tribe. So I created a character and it was it was kind of crazy. We created a backstory
and your dad was good enough to play along with it. Wow. Yeah. And I think the name of the character
was Gully. They said we found him in a Gully after Storm. Gully? And we adopted him. You were old
gully. And I became Gully. I was Gully. And I was saying, no, no, no, it was totally different. There was no
You weren't all buttoned up.
No, no, I was not, I was not worried up.
Gussied up like you are now.
So I was the character Gully, and the whole idea was that after a storm, they found me in a gully.
We named him Gully, and he became part of the family.
And it's really stupid, but people liked it.
And, but I love your family, and I've been down there hunting.
The only time I ever hunted in my life, one time.
Shocker.
I shoot.
No, no, no.
I grew up in a working class home, Danbury Connecticut, did a lot of fishing and
shooting with guns, but never hunting until I came down to West Monroe, and I hunted with
your uncle Cy and your father, and we shot us...
Did it catch on?
Shot us some ducks.
She didn't just start hunting like great...
No.
No.
No.
There's no hunting in New York.
Did you...
Yeah, there is.
See, the other thing you don't know, not in New York City.
Well, no, not in the city.
But you also don't know that on the Christmas special that we did here on TBN, we filmed a
thing in Central Park, and we had a guy dressed as your dad.
So from the back, it looked like your dad was coming in with me into some...
Park and he pulls out a gun and kills some squirrels and stuff and you hear the cops.
It was fun.
It was on TBN.
It was great.
You have a book coming out.
This is what we're here to talk about.
In case anybody's wondering when we can get to the serious stuff.
It is called Gospeler.
The word gospel.
Gospel.
Well, how do you pronounce it?
Gospelor.
Gospelor?
Like propeller?
Yeah.
But it's the word gospel and ER.
Gospelor turning darkness into light one conversation at a time.
This is your new book.
It's coming out very soon.
What is the word gospeler?
It's an old word that means someone who shares their faith, either publicly or personally.
And so...
Someone who shares the gospel.
So, like, a few hundred years ago, you would find this word a lot.
Yeah.
So people were, they would say they were known gospelers.
They were people who preached the gospel to people.
So preachers were called gospelers.
No, there were preachers and pastors.
This was kind of a non-clergy person.
So this was a layman.
So this would be somebody like Phil.
Phil's not a pastor or preacher.
You call your father, Phil?
I do.
This makes it easier.
That's unacceptable.
It's making it easier.
I know it.
We're from the South, but I don't know where that started.
It started in a pit of hell.
That's where it started.
No, no, no, no.
That's unacceptable.
You need to show him the respect.
And I called K-K.
I was so interested when Bush became president the second.
Because I was, because I'm in this dilemma.
and I was like, what's he going to call his father?
He's going to call him the president.
He's going to call him my father.
And George Bush called him daddy.
He called him daddy?
Or he called him 41?
I've been calling, yeah, I've been calling Phil, Phil.
But yeah, so it's an old word that has just, it's really a dinosaur.
Gospeller.
Gospeller, yeah.
So why did you write a book called Gospelor?
Well, you know.
Now that we figured out the meaning of the title.
Yeah, we've had kind of a knack.
Actually, my wife, she found the word because it was going to be titled something differently and then something different.
And then she came and she said, Willie, I found this word. It's so interesting. It's an old word.
And, man, I started researching the word. And I said, that is awesome. And I feel like the word went out of vogue.
But also, I think actually people preaching the gospel kind of went out probably with it as well.
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So why did you write a book called Gospeler?
Yeah, it's a bunch of stories.
We've always kind of had that knack for sharing our faith.
And then I was so inspired by my dad and mom's story about how they came to faith.
And I was like, and I sit there and I would think, Eric, like, every day I'm thinking, I wouldn't be here right now talking to you.
Had they not changed their lives, that marriage would have ended.
Yep.
They wouldn't have become believers, I guess, at that time.
there would have been no duck commander, there would have been no business.
Remind me the name of the film that came out that tells the story of your...
The blind.
The blind.
The blind, yeah.
The blind tells that story.
It's a dark story, but then, like all good stories, it starts dark, but then Jesus comes in,
God comes in, and there's redemption and whatever.
But it is horrifying to revisit the idea that that's who your father was at the time.
And this gets into the mystery of, you know, God's sovereignty and providence.
You think...
you know, was it preordained or was it, could it have gone the other way?
Because I think about that with my salvation story.
I think what would have happened if I had not met the man who led me to Jesus,
whose name is Ed Tuttle, praise the Lord for him.
But what would have happened?
Right.
Where would I be today?
I don't even want to think about it.
You don't want to think it because it's so nasty.
It's ugly.
But you, I mean, the fact that your father, you know, raised the family of faith.
And that's the second generation.
You're saying yourself, I'm thinking, had my parents.
I mean, same concept.
Because they were, Phil and Kay were split up.
Yeah.
Phil had kicked us out of the home.
We were destined to...
Your mom and dad were split up.
Oh, completely split up.
It was over.
Yeah.
It was over.
It was over.
There would be no Willie Robertson in the world.
The last...
No, I was here.
I'd be talking to an empty chair.
Oh, you were here.
No, no, no.
Little Willie was here.
But he would have been raised a completely different life, and who knows.
Yeah.
And so if it would have just had affected our family, it would have been worth it, right?
So they come to faith.
The family comes to faith.
Yeah.
family comes back together.
But then as you look at, now, once we fast forward, 2024, the movie, the television show,
with the prayer at the end, the podcast, the books, the music albums, everything that we've done
that points people to the gospel, we're talking about hundreds of millions of people.
Yeah.
You know, I can trace all that back to one couple in Southern art.
Arkansas and a preacher going to a bar and preaching to a guy at a bar. It's pretty incredible.
And that guy was your scary at the time father. He was a wild man. Your father was a wild man.
Because I didn't meet him many times. His story, man, he was a scary guy.
Well, that's what I'm saying. So ergo, the book comes out, because I'm thinking it's why I don't
give up on anyone, because you never know what God's got in store. So what I find there is when people
are trying to share their faith, and a lot of people don't, and I started listening to a
not. Like, why, why? Well, I don't know the Bible well enough. I don't know where to start.
That's usually what I hear like. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to get into that.
And so what I did was I just wrote out, this is what I do. This is how I've talked to people.
I put a lot of stories in there about people who came to faith. I've got cow, cow pond baptisms at 15 degrees.
Cal pond. Yeah, cow pond. Yeah, cow pond baptism. Yeah, this old boy, I preached in the gospel as we were going to
deer stand in the truck.
So we pull up and he goes, Willie, I need to get baptized.
Well, I'm looking around.
I'm like, all right, when we get through hunting, go find us some water.
He was going to be a real preacher to get him to say, I need to be baptized before we
climb up into the deer stand.
He pointed at the cow pond and said, what about right there?
And I said, hey, if you're mad enough high, it's 15 degrees in Kansas.
Now, I got a question, and you were in Kansas at the time?
It was in Kansas.
Because I don't think you would tell me the temperature in Kansas unless you were in Kansas.
So you're in Kansas, you're deer hunting, and this guy says, how about I get back?
I thought you would know.
When I said we're deer hunting, you would know that it's cold.
No.
I wouldn't know that.
So I'm putting all this together.
We get him to the cowp—he shucks down to his underwear.
It could be cold, but it doesn't need to be 15 degrees cold.
It's 15 degrees.
That's very cold.
But when you say a cow pond, this is the kind of stuff I'm interested in.
Why is it called a cow pond?
So it's a little pond of water where the cows can drink.
Okay.
The problem is—
So it's that small.
Not only do they drink.
I get it.
Everything's going in there.
It's where they go to the bathroom.
Well, when we get in there for the baptism, I realize the water is only about eight inches.
The rest is mud, manure.
So when I got him down, I thought, I guess this is the baptism he deserves.
I guess he'd lived a rough life.
And I just shoved his face right down in the cow.
Right down in the mud and the blood and the beard.
And he'd look like he had seen the Lord.
It looked like he ran across the water.
When it's 15 degrees and somebody pushes you down in the blood and the mud.
Those kind of stories are in the book.
So this is the book, Gospel.
Gospeller.
Gospeller.
It doesn't matter how you pronounce it.
Turning darkness and light, one conversation at a time.
So you grew up in a family where sharing the faith is very natural.
I mean, your father cannot stop talking about it.
It's all he talks about it.
But what's interesting to me is that, you know, the faith.
what we believe is really at the center of everything.
It's at the center.
You know, Jesus is the truth.
He's not, you know, it's not some little philosophy over here.
It's at the heart of all of reality.
There's not an atom in all of creation that is not, you know,
that the electrons are going around the nucleus.
The Lord is making that happen.
The whole universe is under his authority.
And so it's kind of a funny thing when people act like,
well, you've got your little weird faith.
It's like, well, it's connected to all of reality.
There's nothing that can escape that.
And your father, you know, he kind of gets that.
So it comes out of him very naturally, no matter what you're talking about.
Well, he's done that ever since he became a Christian.
Similar to like Paul, we see like Saul, you know, when he's converted and then bang, you know,
right then the beginning of Acts 9, I guess, is when, and then Paul actually starts teaching.
It was so quickly to the point that everyone was still scared of him.
And then you just never see him stop.
He just kept going all the way until he was killed.
So Phil had that same kind of.
kind of charisma about it.
He just wanted desperately to share his faith with everyone and try to get that good news to people.
Now, how many siblings do you have?
Well, I have three brothers and one half-sister that we didn't find out about until a few years back.
But your three brothers, tell me their names.
Alan?
Yeah, I know Alan.
Jace.
Jace, I've met.
Me, and then Jep.
And Jep?
I don't know if I've met Jeff.
Jep the.
Yep. Jeppico.
That's a great name. That's a biblical name.
Yeah.
Hey, this is Eric Mettaxas.
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So wait, so why did he name?
What's the true story of why you were named Willie?
Because I think I was named after my mom's dad, whose name was Willie.
None of us knew that.
All right.
But you're fine.
See, this is the thing.
We're talking about your dad.
Your dad is so...
Dad didn't even know my mom's dad's name.
Yeah.
Isn't that weird?
Yeah.
But that's probably true.
But I'm sure he met him.
No?
No.
No, he passed away when mom was like, it's in the movie.
When mom's like 13 or 14, that's when her dad passed away.
I need to get me a copy of this movie.
So that's what Big Willie passed away.
I never knew him.
I've only seen like two photos of it.
Yeah.
Well, so you.
Robertsons weren't big on pictures.
No.
Well, you, your dad, I mean, he's such an anomalous figure.
Because on the one hand, you think of him as he's a wild man, right?
On the other hand, he was a, yes, but he was, let's talk about his, he was, let's talk about his, he
who's a school teacher.
You know, you don't expect a wild man to be a school teacher.
He got his degree from the University of Louisiana.
Where?
Degree.
He got his college degree.
Yeah, master's degree.
But I'm saying you don't expect a wild man to get a master's degree.
So your father is a little confusing because you think of him as a, you know, he's a wild man,
but he got his master's degree from.
You know what?
That's nuts.
In English.
I want to talk to him about this.
Yeah.
Is he right here?
You know what he told me one time.
Eric, he said.
said, well, here's the deal.
That sounds like your father.
He goes, well, if you're smart, you can always play dumb.
But if you're dumb, it's really hard playing smart.
Can I tell you?
I live my life by that.
If you're dumb.
I'm like, Mickey Bobby.
You know, that's pretty good.
But a lot of people don't know that story about your father.
I mean, it kind of gets to the issue that you really don't know who people are
because you get an impression.
You know, you see the beard.
There's this kind of character.
But then you think that guy got a master's degree in English from Louisiana Tech.
Like that's just hard to process.
He's a very sharp guy who's kind of playing the O Shucks card, right?
But he's very smart.
And also he played football at Louisiana Tech.
Correct.
And he was first string and Terry Bradshaw was second string.
Now, we're not making that up.
No.
Bradshaw says to this day had failed quit.
He quit the team.
had Phil not quit and they would have been the same age,
Bradshaw says, I would have never played.
I'd have never go on the field.
So we have your father to thank for Terry Bradshaw.
Is that good or bad?
I think that's good.
That's good.
I think they both found where they were what they were meant to do.
But it's unbelievable.
Terry's awesome.
In fact, I'll tell you this.
So we did Doug Dynasty to the show.
We went out and did Jay Leno back when you could still laugh
and watch late night TV.
Remember those days?
Yeah, that was fun days.
Remember Johnny Carson?
So we just did Jay Leno.
We're walking in LAX going back home.
A man comes up and grabs Phil from behind and picks him up.
Now, I rarely ever touch my father.
I still don't, you know.
He's a scary guy.
Because he'll kill you.
Nobody touches this man.
And I'm thinking, who's just grabbed him?
Terry Bradshaw.
And they hadn't seen each other since college.
Right.
And this was like 2013.
So your father didn't.
No, Terry Bradshaw without hair.
No.
He didn't know that, Dave Bradshaw.
He'd seen him, but.
He'd seen pictures.
So these two are talking in the middle of LAX.
I kid you not, I look up, two guys come up and ask for a photo.
It's Joe Montana's kids.
Joe Montana joins the group.
So I'm sitting here watching Phil, Terry Bratshaw, Joe Montana had this conversation about football and life.
It was unbelievable.
Does your father ever travel anymore, or is he just said, I'm doing it?
No, no. We just went to, we just went to Vegas together.
Vegas?
Oh, we did a speech.
So, but not much. He's pretty much, he's at home a lot.
So, yeah, he said, don't ever send me back to Las Vegas.
Can I tell you something?
Las Vegas to me, I would do anything to avoid Las Vegas.
Yeah.
Las Vegas makes New York look like West Monroe in my mind, you know?
Yeah, it's a letter level of plastic and sin that I'm just not interested in, right?
All right.
I have to go because there's things out.
I know. No, no, no, listen, of course.
So I want to say it again.
The book is Gospelor, turning darkness into light, one conversation at time.
So Phil read this book.
Yes, sir.
So, when I get home and if I said, hey, Phil, I met, you know, hey, I talked to Eric,
Matakson.
She ain't like, cool, you know, I could say, you know, I saw whoever, whatever.
I could say I saw Leonard Skinner, you know, like this is, we're getting on a higher level now of humanity.
Yeah.
It would be like, cool.
If I told him, I shared the gospel with somebody, he literally would stop everything.
going, what did he say?
Where'd you go?
What point?
So when he read this book, he was really proud.
He said, hey, he gave me the, this is the feel.
Yes.
He gave me that thumbs up.
He goes, he goes, Will, you said it exactly.
He said, I have not one problem with this book, not one.
He goes, in fact, you said everything, just like I say it.
He goes, except you said it way nicer.
Oh, my gosh.
Which was awesome.
Yeah, it was cool.
Talk about a blessing.
He goes, you were so nice at how you said it.
I was like, yeah, Phil, you get a little on the angry side.
So I kept mine a little bit.
But it's cool.
I did learn it from him.
He certainly was who I watched.
And so I put this together during COVID.
I was teaching a Bible class on how to share your faith at a church.
And I ran to a guy and he said, hey, man, you should put that in a book.
He said, I've never quite seen it like you do it.
And so, yeah, put it down.
So is the story about the cow pond in the book?
That's in there.
All right.
Oh, there's a lot of funny.
There's some cool.
I'm going to get me a copy of this here book.
One of my favorite stories I ain't got time for.
One of the favorite stories that's happened in Midtown, New York, London Hotel.
Yeah.
Or it used to be in London.
I don't know what is now.
Yeah, I had a Bible study there in that hotel.
You can leave us hanging out?
I talked to one, or you got to read the book.
I talked to one person and end up 26 people ended up coming to the Lord over that one person.
Something tells me we're going to have you back to discuss this.
We'll get you back.
In the meantime, Willie Robertson, my friend, God bless you.
Thank you. Congratulations on the new book, Gospeller. Gospeller, hi.
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Hey, the folks, welcome back.
So today my guests are Willie Robertson and Michael Scott of Purefix.
And Brandon Gill, I've talked about him earlier.
He's running for Congress.
He gives me hope for America.
Brandon Gill.
If you are inclined to donate to his campaign, and I hope some of you listening are, he's in Texas, 26th District for Congress,
you can go to Brandon Gill for Congress.com.
If you're in Texas, go to Brandon Gill for Congress.com.
Help him out.
This is crucial.
This is crucial.
It's just important.
We want to reiterate a few things.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, we're doing a campaign with them.
And I have said this in the past, and I'll say it again, we need people to step up.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, they're,
like our first line of defense, or is it the last line of defense? I don't know. They are
fighting for religious liberty at the Supreme Court level. We're going to be having guests on
from the United States Defending Freedom over the weeks ahead. But when you understand what they're
doing, you think if they didn't exist, what would we do when a court case comes up?
Court case after court case after court case. We've talked about them on this program where you think
this is a monstrosity, what they're doing to such and such a person or such and such a business.
if it weren't for the Alliance Defending Freedom,
to step up pro bono, right?
They're not in this for the money.
They do this because they believe in America,
they believe in religious liberty,
and they've got some of the finest lawyers imaginable,
working for them,
fighting for our religious liberties.
And they defend people,
like our friend Jack Phillips of the masterpiece cake shop in Colorado.
He's been put through hell.
And if it weren't for the Alliance Defending Freedom, folks, it could happen to you and your business.
And it will happen to some of you.
And you're going to say, where do I turn?
Well, the Alliance Defending Freedom is there.
They're just heroes.
They're the real deal.
There's no phoniness.
There's nothing in it for them.
They just believe in America.
They believe in liberty.
And we need, if we claim to believe in liberty, we need to step up and help them out.
Please go to our website.
It's metaxis talk.com.
Again, it's just the radio website.
website metaxistalk.com, and you'll see the banner up there. But I've said this often in the past,
if there's anybody that can give $15,000, and I know there's some folks listening, this is as
good a cause as it gets if you care about America, if you care about saving the republic from the
anarcho tyranny, as John Smirak has put it. It's a great cause, the Alliance of Fending Freedom.
It really just doesn't get better. So if you go to Metaxe,
Talk.com, you can donate there. But anybody who's able to give $15,000, and I know that's not many of you, but there are some of you out there. I want to offer myself to spend an evening, to have dinner, whatever context, you get to pick it, you get to figure it out yourself. And I just give my time. Obviously, I don't get anything out of it, except I get to meet people who care enough about the things that I care about. And almost always, that's a huge blessing for me to get to.
spend an evening with people who care about these things.
So I just want to throw that out there.
Anybody who's able to do that, $15,000, of course, is tax deductible.
And it's going to about as important a cause as it gets, the lines of defending freedom.
And you'd have to go to metaxistalk.com, as I say.
But anybody who can give, they're asking people for $100, mataxis talk.com.
Please do that.
We are in a war.
I say this over and over again.
for liberty. And if everybody doesn't put his shoulder to the wheel, every one of you,
we're not going to win. Every one of us has to be involved. It's not like let the other guys do it.
This is it. This is for your family and your future. So go to metaxis talk.com. Let me remind you
you again. We have a Socrates event Thursday. Please go to Socrates in the city.com.
You can live stream it, but you have to be a member of Socrates Plus. Socrates in the city.com.
Sign up for that. It's going to be with James O'Keefe. Very, very exciting.
Anyway, we'll be back with more fun stuff.
