The Highwire with Del Bigtree - HEROES IN THE LINE OF FIRE

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

21-year-veteran of the LAFD, John Knox, discusses his group, “Firefighters 4 Freedom,” and their lawsuits against the city of Los Angeles for laying off hundreds of unvaccinated firemen without pay for standing up to unconstitutional mandates.#Firefighters4Freedom #JohnKnox #LAFDBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This week here in the United States of America, we witnessed one of the worst, most devastating storms of all times. Tornadoes, it seemed like everywhere, tornadoes that touched down and stayed on the ground for over 200 miles passing through multiple states. This is what that looked like in the news. More than 50 people are feared dead after 24 tornadoes ripped through the central U.S. overnight. Large tornado, large tornado. Lots of debris in the air. The death toll rising, at least 88 lives lost across five states after the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in more than a decade. The worst tornado event in the history of our Commonwealth. Pullm after home reduced to piles of wood, trees sheared off, cars thrown everywhere, the entire neighborhood gone.

Maybe weeks before we have final counts on both deaths. and levels of destruction. It was extremely scary and I fell in a very awkward position. My back was against the wall. I did not think I was gonna make it at all. I couldn't move my legs. And with the help of the firemen, we were able to get out. We're grateful to our first responders who were there

all through the evening out in the storm itself, showing incredible heroism. And they are still at work. Just an incredibly horrific scene there. It's hard to imagine what the people, went through that we're experiencing those tornadoes. So our hearts go out to all of those families that are displaced, all of those loved ones that have been lost and a prayer for those that might still be found. But as I was watching that devastation, you know, I thought about

an interview and something that I've actually heard Mr. Rogers say. When we're talking about those firefighters at the end, those frontline, you know, reaction response teams, this is something that Mr. Rogers had to say, I think, is quite perturricular. You know, my mother used to say a long time ago, whenever there would be any really catastrophe that was in the movies or on the air, she would say, always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers, you know, just on the sidelines. That's why I think that if news programs could make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing medical people, anybody who is coming into a place where there's a tragedy, to be sure that they include that, because if you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope.

It's such an important point. In the middle of devastation, there are always those heroes. that rush in, that charge in. I lived in New York City when 9-11 happened and witnessed heroes like I've never seen, and the world witnessed that. I've also had the personal experience of being in multiple fire situations, but most recently, when we lost our home

in the Woolsey fires in California, this was me visiting our home. I evacuated my son, my wife is out of town, just literally minutes. I think my neighbor said that my house was engulfed in flames about 30 minutes after we evacuated our home. So I have some sense of what it is to be in the middle of a destructive situation. I also know what type of heroes they are that charge in to try and rescue your home,

rescue the things that you've lost, the firefighters and the police officers that are there. And so when we think about these moments, when we think about huge storms, the devastation that can take place, and when we think about our next, nation and being one of the greatest nations in the world that we have this incredible system that takes care of us. You know, I thought as I was watching the tornado, are we really taking care of our firefighters that are charging in or are we doing harm? And, you know, as I was just in California, I was talking to some firefighters there whose

jobs are now on the line because they will not comply. First responders face termination as vaccine mandates go into effect. This is so horrifying column to anti-bax firefighters. Bye-bye. Now let's build back better at the LAFD. That's the attitude of a journalist that I'm sure has never charged into a fire to save women and children. I would rather listen to those that have, including our next guest, John Knox. This is his work in the news, trying to defend the position, not just of himself, but many, many firefighters across California.

whose jobs are hanging in the balance. Take a look at this. Hundreds of Los Angeles firefighters and police officers are challenging an ordinance, requiring all city employees to be fully vaccinated by October. Dozens of Los Angeles firefighters protested those vaccine mandates outside City Hall today. Among the crowd today was Los Angeles City firefighter John Knox, a leader for firefighters for freedoms. Why don't you want to get vaccinated? It's not necessarily whether I want to get vaccinated or not.

The point that we're bringing to the table here is that we're, we should have a choice in the matter. This was mandated by the city, and we feel that that's absolutely unconstitutional, both federally and at the state level. But arguably, you already do put some vaccines in your body because in order to become a firefighter to work for the city of Los Angeles,

there are some vaccine requirements. MMR, measles, mumps, rebella, that's what that stands for, of course. So you have those shots. What's the difference between those shots in the COVID-19 vaccine? Those shots, I have, when I was a child. And at this point in my life, as an adult, I have the ability to make that

decision for myself. So it's constitutional for you to get it as a kid and be forced to do that to go to public school, but not to work as an adult? You're forcing me at this point to take an experimental drug. This is under emergency use authorization. There's a hundred and seventy. Pfizer, it's not, the Pfizer vaccine is not under emergency use authorization anymore. Actually it is. Comerity was approved, okay, not biotech and comerity, and it's not manufactured here in the, US. So if you're going to say that, then you need to be correct. And for people who are watching tonight and who say, I am concerned if you come to me and you come to my aid and you aren't vaccinated, you say.

I say for the past 20 months, we've come to you unvaccinated. And now all of a sudden, in the past 30 days, we're so dangerous that you're willing to fire us. Not only is a firefighter. He's obviously very well educated and well spoken on the topic of the community vaccine that is not available in the United States of America, correctly stated. It's my honor and pleasure to be joined it now by John Knox, one of the leading voices for firefighters for freedom. So what is the status now? How long till you risk, you know, not being able to do your job? Well, thanks for having me here, Dale. Super great to see you again. The status currently right now

is that I am not able to do my job. Myself and approximately 200 other firefighters for the city of Los Angeles at this time have been relieved of duty, no pay pending termination at this point for fighting back against these unconstitutional mandates. Wow, that's, that's, it's incredible to hear that. And I think right now, as the news is just reverberating

with, you know, defund the police and now we have crime levels all across the country. I just imagine what we do if we start losing firefighters, we're going to start hearing about more deaths and destruction during cataclysmic events like fires, like hurricanes, like tornadoes. And what, you know, what if any reality are they giving you? I mean, do you have a union that's fighting for you? What, you know, who do you have on your side? Well, we do have a union. and they have made some motions and done some things that so far have not benefited us. So when this whole mandate came down, we created a group, an organization, a foundation called Firefighters for Freedom, and we are the front line at this point.

We have a board of directors of about 11, and we put together a legal team that includes, Scott Street, John Howard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and we filed several suits against the City of Los Angeles, the first being on the unconstitutionality and the poor science of the mandates. And also then after we started getting a lot of pushback, coercion, harassment, intimidation, we also filed a punitive damages suit for $2.1 billion against the city of Los Angeles. Wow. So, you know, they claim. Go ahead.

What's been the response to that? Yep. The response to that, you know, I think that got their attention. And we were originally supposed to be terminated October 20th. That day came and went. And they pushed the date back to December 18th. You know, their original statement that the safest way to protect the public and the workforce was to vaccinate. And we know that that's not correct.

And that's one of the reasons we push back at this. And so since we were such an imminent danger and threat to the public, they pushed that date out two months to December 18th. Since that time, we've been battling against them. And as of December 1st, they put about 200 of us off, leave no pay pending termination. And so that's where we stand now. We have a court case on the 20th. but they're moving forward with termination at this point.

As we all sit and watch the news now, obviously the vaccine apparently is a complete disaster. We're going to get really deep in our show coming up here on Amacron, the fact that it's mostly vaccinated. They're suffering from this. We're moving into third boosters. That may be the mandate within weeks, if not months. Israel's moved into a fourth booster shot. They're just a little bit ahead of us.

I'm sure you are making all of these arguments. How is this conversation amongst other firefighters, those that have been vaccinated? Do you have support or is there a divide now? Because, I mean, firefighters, you're such a brotherhood. You know, what is that like? What is that, you know? It definitely is a brotherhood. And, you know, I've never, in the 21 years that I've been with the Los Angeles City Fire Department,

I've never seen morale as low as I have at this time. You know, we have about 900 members that are in our lawsuit. And we have both vaccinated and unvaccinated in there. You know, we're not a, we're apolitical. This isn't a left versus a right issue. This isn't vaccinated versus unvaccinated issue. What we brought to the table is the fact that this is a human rights, a civil rights issue.

This is about freedom of choice in this country. And whether you're vaccinated or not, if you're vaccinated, you know, we do have members that got vaccinated, whether they wanted to do, it themselves which i applaud them if that's what they want to do that's their choice and they do that but if you were forced under coercion and duress for loss of your job to get that you know that's very frustrating and aggravating a lot of words that i just don't even want to use but to that

point you know even the person that's vaccinated or that got forced to get that vaccination we're standing fighting for their rights as well because as we know, you know, these mandates include all the boosters. And this is a slippery slope. This just will continue to go. And now you're going to get a shot every three months, six months, every month at some point. And if you don't want to do that, you shouldn't have to do that. And so that's what we're fighting for. Is that right? You know, so. You know, there's a lot of us that, you know, have jobs where I don't think, you know, we focus on our health very much. We sit at desks and things like that. But as firefighters, is your health something that you would say you're more

conscious of given that, you know, you have to carry people out of buildings? Or does this tend to be something that no one's paying attention to? Our job is very strenuous. And, you know, so, I mean, most of us are in good shape. We take care of our health. You know, we do 24-hour shifts. So we really have to think about mental health. We have to think about physical health, you know, what we put into our bodies to perform that. I mean, the leading cause of death in firefighters is heart attack, which is pretty crazy when you think about, you know, what has been proven and shown in the science with these shots, you know, that they're forcing us to get these now. And we're seeing, you know, myocarditis, paracarditis, heart attacks, all these things. Yeah. And so why would you take a career of individuals that are generally healthy, look out for themselves, and ask them to subject themselves to an even higher increase in heart attacks, stroke, and neurological issues?

It's a really great point. What is your biggest concern with the vaccine? Why do you find yourself in the position? Is it just a rights issue or, you know, or the slippery slope? What do you think is you, when you talk to a firefighter for the first time asking you why are you involved in this, what is that conversation? How does that start? I mean, I have my own personal beliefs and, you know, I can talk about that for hours. But our organization and our group and what we're really focused on, is the constitutionality of this. Our right to, I mean, in the state of California, we have the strongest constitution of all 50 states. And it outlines in their Article I section one of the California Constitution that we have right to privacy, and that's one of the big issues.

We also have body autonomy issues in there. This state, I mean, has been, the gold standard for this state has been my body, my choice since 1973. You know, and I'm not asking to take a life or do anything like that. I'm just saying, I want the ability to make the choice of what I put into my body. Because, right, I mean, as Americans, as people on this earth, the only thing that we really own is our body. And the minute you abdicate your sovereignty to a mandate and let the bureaucracy or the federal government dictate your health care and what you can and can't do to your body, you own nothing.

You're a slave at that point. So to me, the number one issue is our liberty and maintaining that. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I just want to put out there, you know, not that you're doing a brilliant job in the news, but next time they talk about you putting someone at risk when you're going to save them, I would just throw in there and I think it's important since the news doesn't seem to be covering it, that this vaccine only purports to reduce symptoms.

It does not stop my infection. It does not stop my transmission. Therefore, I do not protect anybody by taking this vaccine. And so an unvaccinated person, firefighters, the same as a vaccinated firefighter when it comes to transmission in people that we're taking care of. I know you know that, but I think it's really important that we slip that into the news because these news anchors seem incapable of wrapping their heads around that concept, even though Tony Fauci and, you know, the rest of them say it over and over again,

obviously filled with a lot of other words. But look, we want to help you with this fight. We have a dedicated audience here. How do we help you? What's the best way to assist you so that we can make sure that you have what you need to win this lawsuit? You know, we have a couple different ways right now. We have, you can go to our webpage at Firefighters, the number for Freedom.org, firefighters for freedom.org.

Okay. There you go. And there's two buttons there. The top one donates to our legal and operational funds. And then we just started a campaign, the hold the line campaign, and all the monies for that, 95% of that plus goes to helping the firefighters that have been placed off duty leave no pay at this point so that they can hold the line and continue to fight, you know, pay their bills. It's the holiday season. It's really a hard time. And we also have gear, you know, on our site as well.

You can go, you know, we have shirts, hats, all kinds of things to support the movement and get it out there and let people know that. We're fighting for them, you know. This is for the freedom of our country, really is. Yeah, you fought for our safety. You're always there. Here it is. This is the fundraising page if you want to go there. Firefighters for freedom on Gifts and Go.

Remember, Gifts Send Go is who we really recommend now, since the other sites are, you know, censoring and blocking funds. Giftsend Go is a great new opportunity. Obviously, you guys are using it. Firefighters for Freedom. look, John, I just want to thank you for all of those lives that you've saved throughout your career and all the lives you're saving by bringing the truth. I know that we will get through this. The people that are pushing these draconian laws and taking away our rights, they will not

age well in history. You, on the other hand, I would like to say not only a hero for the work that you do, but for standing up. And so I want you to know the high wire stands with you. And I hope that those that are watching right now will go out and really take care of these guys. Once again, every win that we have in every sector, whether it's firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors, any employee out there, every win chisels away at this. It's why we're getting more and more exciting headlines showing that the nation is turning on this vaccine mandate. And so we stand with you. And I want to just to thank you for your time, your energy, and keep up the good work. Del, thank you very much.

You guys have a fantastic day, and everybody have a Merry Christmas. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. If you like that clip, then be sure to check out our live broadcast of the High Wire every Thursday morning at 11 a.m. Pacific Time. You can watch it on iTunes and Twitter. We'll see you there.