The Joe Rogan Experience - #1550 - Wesley Hunt

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Wesley Hunt is a candidate for Texas's 7th Congressional District. A Republican, he is running against Democratic incumbent Lizzie Fletcher. Hunt is a veteran of the Iraq war and former AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter pilot. When he's not busy with his family or work, Hunt volunteers his time as a youth mentor and serves on the board of trustees for the Harris County Center for Mental Health.

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day mr hunt welcome aboard happy to be here thanks to have uh thanks for being here i really appreciate it friend of dan crenshaw's is a friend of mine all of them so um congress yeah running for congress yeah this is what i want my congressman to look like jacked veterans i mean that's wouldn't the world be a better place i agree i think so i mean it really would be yeah um so tell me what this has been like running for congress is this the first office you've run for this is the first time thank god what what started this i know you're friends with dan who's also a congressman. But what started this journey?

Yes, great question. And thank you so much for having me on. My pleasure. This is awesome. Really appreciate you. And what started this was really just my family and how can we continue service just in a different capacity. I come from a military family. So my dad did 23 years in the army, retired as a

lieutenant colonel. My sister went to West Point in my family first. So she's 10 years older than me, did 23 years active duty. She was a military intelligence officer, deployed to Iraq twice, did a few tours, were brought as well. I went to West Point in my family second. We're 10 years apart, my sister and I, and then graduated West Point in the class of 2004, flew Apaches in Iraq for eight, was actually active duty eight years, deployed to Iraq, did 55 combat air missions in Baghdad, and then did two tours of duty in Saudi Arabia as a diplomatic liaison officer. as a diplomatic liaison officer. My brother, who was 10 months and eight days my junior, so we're Irish twins, he also went to West Point and he did five years in the Navy. Went to Harvard Business School for his graduate degree

and now lives in Houston with his family. There's about 60 years worth of military service just in my immediate family. Wow, respect. Thank you, sir. That's a lot. Thank you. That's a serious, serious military family. It is, my Thank you, sir. That's a lot. Thank you. That's a serious,

serious military family. It is. My mom's the best of us. So she stood at home for two months in 2006 while I was flying combat air missions in Baghdad. My sister was doing intel in the green zone and my brother was in the Arabian Gulf on a destroyer for two months at the same time. So even though she didn't serve in the military per se, she served those who served by lending her family. So when people ask me why am I running for Congress, I always lead with that because that's the kind of service and sacrifice it takes for us to live in this free country.

So this is just a mindset that you were raised with. Absolutely. And what made you make the leap so there's a lot of things going on in the country that we're seeing right now really i thought everything was fine a few things going on in the country right now and my dad always taught us leadership is not about when it's convenient for you it's about when your country needs you and our country needs us i think in this in this which seems to be a dark time we've had some dark times in the past i'm sure we'll get into that but it's always my opinion that patriots always step up when our country needs us the most and that's kind of what

we were taught to do to give back to the country that gave us all that we have. Now, to all the things that are going on in the country right now, what stands out to you as something that you feel like you can contribute and possibly help correct or at least get on the right track? Yeah. So there's a lot of talk of a lot of racial injustices of the past. And this is something that I think I'm uniquely positioned to talk about. My great-great-grandfather was a slave. His name was Silas Crawford, born on Rosedown Plantation, just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three of his great-great-grandchildren all attended West Point. I earned three master's degrees from Cornell University.

Brother went to Harvard. Sister has her advanced degree in applied mathematics. We've had the honor of serving our country. We've had the honor to live in a free country. We are standing on the backs and on the shoulders of absolute giants. And while we have a ways to go, by God, that's some serious progress. And I like the idea of focusing on the future and not the past. And I think as a black man in this country, I get some of the hardships. Trust me on that. But how can we begin to heal by focusing on the good that we have done

and building on that instead of standing by idling and watching the country burn? It seems like both things have to be addressed. It seems like you have to concentrate on the good things and have to concentrate on the people like yourself that have made incredible progress in your life. But I think we also have to concentrate on injustice. Absolutely. And racial bias and racial injustice

and all the problems that we're seeing. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and we were talking about police and how important the police are, but also how important it is to, if you see something like the George Floyd situation, you see that video, and then that one guy's horrible actions

changes everyone's perception of the police. But meanwhile, there's millions of the police yeah but meanwhile there's millions of interactions that police have with citizens that never go that way that are positive there's millions of great cops i don't know how many i don't know there's millions of cops i don't even know how many cops are how many cops are there in the country oh that's a good question that is a good question how many police officers are there in the country let's find out but either way most of them i feel first of all it's an insanely difficult job yes it is and when you you don't the the good altercations they don't go viral

of course you know so we have this distorted perception of what happens when cops meet people people here it goes in 2019 there's 697 195 000 full-time law enforcement officers 697 000 wow okay so it's not millions but i would say that they're that you're right there are actually millions of interactions with our citizens every year yes millions and most of them don't go viral because they're fairly normal license registration here you registration, here you go. You were speeding. I'm sorry. Here's a citation or here's a warning or whatever the fuck the situation is. That's right. Those problems like the George Floyd thing, they have to be addressed. We can't have those anymore, especially when they can go viral because it's not just this one moment the problem is this one moment can change everyone's perceptions of cops exactly right and then you have all this crazy talk like we need to defund the police right yeah you lifted your hands like please stop that

because that's that's ridiculous and the people who end up suffering the most when you defund the police are actually minority communities with people that look like me in them. And if you actually talk to a lot of minority communities, they don't want to defund the police. They just want the police to do better. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And that's where the problem lies because, you know, I was talking to Jocko, Jocko Willink on the podcast about that. And Jocko was like, this defund the police talk is the wrong answer the right answer is more funding and more training he said I think they should be doing 20 percent of their time training will he do the training he would yeah Jocko would do it would be awesome yeah I mean

he he's a that's a leader you know I mean he's a guy who he bona fide leader 100 yeah undeniable so his his perception is that what we're dealing with is people that are untrained, uh, under motivated, underappreciated, and some of them just bad people. That's right. Like the,

the, the guy in the George Floyd case, whatever the fuck is Derek. It's a bad actor. Yeah, exactly. Bad human being that probably had been bad for a long time, had several instances on his record that were similar.

A guy who's been probably, you know, whether he's fucked up because of the job or before the job or a combination of both things, we got to figure out a way to weed those people out. He's got to go. That should be like, this is,

this is the poster boy for what's wrong with the system. It's not the system. You don't throw the whole fucking system out. That's right. I mean, anybody who's ever been in a situation where you need the cops and they show up, it's a great sign of relief and you feel protected. That's right.

And law enforcement. And if that's ever happened to you, and I hope it never does, but if it has ever happened to anybody listening, then you'll appreciate the police. This is personal for me too, Joe, because when I got out of West Point in 2004, it was during the Abu Ghraib scandal. I don't know if you recall that. I recall it, yeah.

We had a few idiots that treated some prisoners very poorly and posted the pictures up in the world, saw that. And I entered the military at a time where that was the perception of military officers and soldiers. And that's not true. Right. Exactly. I would never, most of us would never behave that way. And we condemn those actions. We condemn that behavior. After the George Floyd event, I actually went down to the Houston police union to go talk to some of the police officers. 100% of them, all of them were disgusted with how George Floyd was treated. So I don't think that's it.

That's not even an issue. It's just that how do we then work with law enforcement to empower them to get rid of the people that we know are idiots? Yes, yes. Yeah, that should be the conversation. But the problem is that conversation doesn't work on social media. It's too nuanced. There's too many layers to it.

There's too much talking that has to be done. When you write defund the police, it's and clean yes you know it's three words easy and everybody goes yes headline and if you go along with it you're on the right side like yeah you're a good person you know and you're like no we need cops oh you fucking piece of shit it's ridiculous yeah you see where Charles Barclay said a few few weeks back yeah he followed that yeah his logic is actually quite sound especially even in Texas, where a lot of the affluent areas, see, they have their own police that are paid for by their own taxes that they pay in their own community. So if you're talking about defunding the police, again, you're not taking away the safety of those communities.

You're taking away the safety of black and brown people. Yes. And he said that, and he got crucified for it. Yeah. And that's the problem we have right now, Joe. Like we could have both conversations. Well, I think the problem is like he said something and then there's a lot of people that want to respond to that. Yeah.

Right. And they don't get a chance to. So they just attack him on social media and it's like the louder their voices are most and especially if you're someone of prominence if you have a platform you can attack him and you get a lot of credit for it you know and then people like you and this is this is one of the problems with social media is that people say things not just because it's their opinion they say things because they want to get a reaction that's right they say things for likes they say things for for retweets right and they hide behind it. Yeah.

Yeah. And, well, it's easy to do. It's an easy time to snipe at people. It is. And, you know, I don't know. First of all, that Breonna Taylor situation, tragic, horrific. And complicated. Complicated.

Here's the big problem. The war on drugs. That's the big problem. The big drugs that's the big problem the big problem is you're having these no knock raids for i mean what was he supposed to be selling marijuana right i think he was selling marijuana that was the idea that he was selling i don't even know if he was but this was so you're you're breaking down a door or someone is that what it was about i believe so which is fucking insane yeah right insane yeah that's insane period to break down doors for that i agree insane this is how it all i mean when you have no knock raids yeah and you know if you're a person

who's a homeowner and you believe in the second amendment and you have a firearm and you hear someone kicking down your door you have a right to defend yourself that's right so this guy shooting at the cops is a rational response to something he He has no idea what's going on, assumedly. And if someone says, open up, it's the cops, and kicks down the door, it turns out to not be a cop. It turns out to be a rival drug dealer or just a thief. Right. Is that what the investigation revealed? Was it really, they really didn't knock at all?

I don't believe they did. I've heard, I've seen both. I've heard that there was a knock, that certain neighbors did hear, and then i've heard that it wasn't no knock i don't know what they did or didn't but here's the problem if you're a person that is alone in your home at night and someone says they're police how the fuck do you know it's really the police that's true too how do you know that's true too like if i was gonna kill somebody and i wanted to open the door and say i'm the police. Yeah, open up.

It's the police. I mean, it's 100% been done before. It's logical, yeah. And if you're at home and you don't know, and also if you're a black guy and you're paying attention to the news and you hear it's the police, that doesn't put you at ease. Right? Right. Right. It's a horrible story.

It is. It is. And I think these are the kind of anecdotal stories that we need to build and grow on. Yes. Right. Right. It's a horrible story. It is. It is. And I think these are the kind of anecdotal stories that we need to build and grow on. Yes. Right. Let's not burn the country down because of them. Let's figure out how to write this and then change our doctrine and then train our forces better so that they can better serve our communities and we can better serve them. Yeah.

What's really important to me is I heard a story when I went to go visit the police union and there was a spouse that was there and she told me, you know, Wesley, the best thing that I could hear every day is the sound of Velcro. I said, what do you mean? He said, at the end of the day, when I hear Velcro at night, it means that my spouse made it home alive. So he's taking off his vest. He's taking off his vest.

alive so he's taking off his face he's taking off his vest and then they have the thousands 600 and how many thousand people families have to deal with this every single solitary day yeah and most of them do a really good job yeah so so so the george floyd instance the brianna taylor instances i i want to use those to build and grow, but I want to really hug our law enforcement officers and tell them, hey, you're doing a good job. Let's build and grow together. When I made mistakes as a kid, my dad didn't just kick me out the house. He taught me right from wrong so that I wouldn't make the same mistakes next time so we could all get better together. Well, if you talk to anyone who has this defund the police narrative, I mean, and there have been conversations with these people,

there's no real answer. There's no real answer. Well, what do you do about violent crime? And if you look at what happened in New York City, murders have gone up some insane number. I don't know what the – I watched a breakdown of the numbers, of robberies have gone up, murders have gone up. It's fucking insane.

And communities are calling for the police to be reinstated in these areas. That's right. And this is what happens when you have this online activist perspective and you apply it to the real world. You have this defund the police. And everybody's like yeah

Yes, do it and then you go and do it. Yes, and then what happens violence? That's right. You you have to have the fucking police right? Yeah when Trump Trump tweets law and order in all caps It's one of the rare times I go. Yeah Great tweet raid the other night after they juiced him up with steroids and let him out of the hospital. It was fuck. I get all of them. Made me laugh. It was funny.

I love the video. He's like, maybe I'm immune. I don't know. Maybe I'm immune. Maybe. Shit. I laughed. I laughed.

He was like, this is the best I've felt in 20 years. I was like, this guy. He's a savage. 74, fat, and eats nothing but McDonald's fries. And he beat it. Kicks COVID in a couple of days. And people are like, yeah, but he's getting savage 74 fat and eats nothing but mcdonald fries and he beat it kicks covid in a couple of days and people like yeah but he's getting the right treatment like blah blah blah but the treatment's available can everybody get this treatment is this treatment in a fucking gold mine in india somewhere and you have to you know send a guy on a llama down into a cave to get it no it seems like it's pretty common it's not and as somebody and i you know we were talking

about earlier i had you had it yeah my whole family had it but No, it seems like it's pretty common. It's not. And as somebody, and we were talking about it earlier, I had COVID. You had it. Yeah, my whole family had it. But you had it like that. That's right. In and out. That's right.

Never asymptomatic, never had an issue. But my wife and daughter, my wife had some symptoms as we talked about. My daughter, who's 20 months old, no symptoms. Yeah, little kids generally

seem to have zero problem with it. There's obviously exceptions. But young folks like yourself seem to be able to just get through the breeze. And healthy people. Healthy people. Yeah. This is the big thing. Obviously, your fitness.

Yeah. Where you have a strong body, strong immune system, healthy. I'm sure you eat well. Yes, I do. Yeah. I mean, that is what's wrong with this country we have a lot of people that are metabolically unhealthy and then when something happens any body can't respond to it exactly exactly especially something new and weird like this

covid 19 that's right meanwhile trump has all those things wrong with him and the medication still fixed that's what's crazy doesn't work out he thinks his body's a battery and working out would like drain some of the battery i heard him explain that it was like i saw that what in the fuck are you talking about that's not how that works that's literally not how it works but meanwhile he's okay and obviously you got to give credit to walter reed you got to give credit to Walter Reed. You got to give credit to the hospital and all the doctors and all the amazing researchers that have put in the work to create those treatments. But here's a thought. He has been one of the people that has been pushing for those experimental treatments.

And there's been a lot of resistance to that. Yes. And I think he's probably now one of the best arguments for those experimental treatments at this point 74 yes i got an email from a guy today he's like he's still five percent a good person that i respect yeah still five percent likely to die i'm like what are you talking about yeah fucking guy's doing speeches he looks great by the way when you're 74 you got a 30 likelihood of dying anyway period like what is the average age people die? I think it's like 76.

I saw this the other night. The median age is 78. Yeah, okay. So he's already 50% likely to die. Is that what that means? So what's the median age of our life expectancy in the U.S.? It's not high. It's about 78.

Yeah, so which would be his second term right when it ends? Right when it ends. It would be Joe It's not high. It's about 78. Which would be his second term, right when it ends. It would be Joe Biden's first term. Jamie, what are you doing? What were you about to play? I was looking at something talking out there. I've seen this being passed around online.

Some people are comparing his timeline of COVID diagnosis or COVID to Herman herman canes because he passed away after going to a rally i have it on screen okay there was a time period when he said he was feeling good and the doctors all said he was great and then he died like a week later a week later so i've just seen this getting passed around a lot just for conversational purposes. Test positive, 7.2. Says he's improving, 7.8. So that's eight days later.

And then does it 28 days? Yeah. So 13 days later, doctor says he seems happy. And then 12 days after that. Before he died, he says he's really getting better. That's interesting. 12 days after that. How old before he died, he says he's really getting better. Yeah. 12 days after that. How old was Herman Cain?

Good question. The thing about anyone, it's what else do you have going on? That's right. Do you have diabetes? Do you have- COPD. Yeah. There's a lot of different factors.

And even obesity. Yeah. 75, I guess. 75. So he's in the neighborhood right there with Trump because he easily, I mean, who knows what kind of treatment he got, though? Maybe Herman Cain didn't get the same treatment that Trump got. I wonder what remedies they gave him.

Either way, not good for 70-year-old people to get it. It is not. Also not good for 70-year-old people to get the flu.'s not not good for them to get anything it's not i think the way that we responded to this is is a bit overkill because i think there is a way for us to make sure that we keep the people who are at risk to get this virus and could potentially die from it like my parents who are alive and well 71 72 years old they should probably stay home. Yes. Stay home, wear a mask, keep away from people. And the beautiful thing about today is we do have, well, at least here we have this rapid response test at the studio.

I hope they have this rapid response, or not rapid response, but rapid result test everywhere. I mean, if we can get to a point where we can, I believe they're working on, I'd read some saliva test where you lick a swab and you can find out within minutes. Within minutes, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we can get to that point where you have a 100% accurate test, we can keep people away from sick people. And that's the remedy to this whole thing is the more testing we can do, the better.

Yes. The more knowledge we have, the better. The more we can track it, the better. There's nothing wrong with that. I think we thought it was going to be way worse than it is. I think that's what I thought. I mean, look, obviously, I'm a moron and I'm not a doctor. But when March was rolling around and everything was shutting down, I was very nervous.

I was very nervous. I was nervous for my family. I was nervous for my mother and my father. And I was nervous for older friends that I have. And I was nervous for older friends that I have. And I was nervous for my obese friends. I was like, fuck, this is not good. And I was worried we were going to lose people. Looking this up, I forgot.

He was a cancer survivor in 2006. Is this Herman Cain, right? Yeah, 30% chance of surviving stage 4 colon cancer that started to his liver. Oh, Jesus. He did maybe have a pre-existing condition. Oh, for sure. The CDC came out and they said 6% of those who did pass from COVID were COVID-only deaths. Right.

Which is kind of something to point out too. We're talking about our health and being healthy people and the obesity issue that we even have in America. And there's a piece of also staying physically fit, staying mentally fit as well. They coincide with each other. Beating this virus, I think a lot of it as well is your overall mentality. How do you feel about yourself? Mind over matter in certain ways is something that I'm a fan of.

Because when you go into a situation, I've read some studies, you even hear about cancer. People that have an optimistic outlook actually have a higher chance of beating cancer that's interesting yeah um i would agree with that tentatively yeah right because i think some diseases just fuck you up you got it sometimes sometimes there's nothing you can do about it but there's a reason why the placebo effect works works and it's because states of mind do have a profound effect on the human body in a way that we don't totally understand you know that's why uh i think meditation and breath work is very important and people should do that all the time because it just helps alleviate anxiety and i think alleviating

anxiety and alleviating a certain amount of stress is probably good for you. And then also having as little burden in your life in terms of like negative relationships, bad friends that you can't trust, people that are weighing you down, all that kind of shit. All that stuff compounds and has an effect on your immune system, has an effect on your psyche, has an effect on your self-esteem, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about the world. We have to work on all those things. But we don't hear any of that. All we hear about is wear a mask, stay home. That's right.

We've got to shut down restaurants. That's right. Shut down gyms. Gyms are the craziest one. That's the place where everybody should go. Yes, to improve your body, to be able to fight and ward off these kinds of viruses and diseases. That's the best part about it.

Yeah, what they should do is put these big, we got that air filter down there on the ground that's supposed to filter out all the bad whatever. We got it. It's too loud. The problem is too loud while we're, is it on? It's on very low.

It's on very low. But when we crank it up to like full blast, it sounds like there's a fucking airplane in the room. But you can have those at the gym. You could have those all over the place at the gym they're not that expensive yeah and to keep people outside of the gym you are now compounding all those other things that's right you're you're giving people uh you're taking away this avenue that they have to alleviate stress which for me is gigantic i'm a different human i'm i'm two different people yes i'm the guy who doesn't work out and the guy works out and you want to hang out with the guy works out all the time i'm super friendly i hug everybody the guy who doesn't

work out it's cranky he he's quick to judge things quick to say fuck that guy that's right like all that all those you know what i mean like all those negative aspects it's right. Like all that, all those, you know what I mean? Like all those negative aspects. I don't like that. I don't want to be that way, you know? And I don't think anybody does. And I think the best way to alleviate that is to clear the body of stress. And when you tell people they can't go to the gym,

like, come on, man. Like in New Jersey, they were shutting down people working out in the parking lot. That's right. Which is just bananas. You know, and the best thing for me, and even running for office has been very busy with an 11-day-old daughter, 20-month-old daughter, and just running for Congress in general, and that is you have to carve out time to work out.

And I think it's important to me that I do something extremely difficult that might suck a little bit every single day. It just keeps the mental edge. It keeps the mental acuity up. I had an instructor in flight school. He would always say, and he was my Apache instructor, he would always say,

you got to kill something every day, even if it's an ant, no matter how small, just to keep the edge, right? That guy's a fucking psycho. But that's the guy you want. That's the break glass

in case of war, dude. You gotta kill something every day even if it's an ant. No matter how small. Holy shit. Just to keep the edge. Jesus. And I feel the same way about working out. You gotta keep the edge. You gotta challenge your mind. You gotta challenge your body every day. When you force yourself to do it, 100% of the time, don't you feel better after you've worked out?

100%. 100%. Now, going into it, you're like, this is not the day that I really want to do this right now. Well, the beautiful thing about, like, this is Sober October for me. And one of the things that I pledge is that during Sober October, I'm going to work out. I'm doing something every single day. So when I know I have to, but when I know I have to, and then I do it, I get it done. But I always work out.

But I take days off. But now I'm wondering, do I take too many days off? Maybe I'm being a bitch. Maybe when I take two days off a week, I really only need one, and that other one is just a bitch day. I'm not sure. I'm not sure because it's kind of amazing when you have a set schedule, when you have to do something, that you get it done and you realize you can get it done when you require more of your body. That's right. And then your body responds to stress and stimulus much better in other aspects that

you don't even think about even if it's just you got to do 100 push-ups and 100 body weight squats that'll take 10 minutes that's not that much time to accomplish something but you can do it you can do that in 10 minutes yes i mean it can be done you do push-ups and sets of 20 and in between you do sets of 20 body weight squats and just bang them out left and right left right you'll be tired as fuck yep yeah and so like I only have 10 minutes good go to work do that and you can do that and then you also feel like you think you've also accomplished something yes and also like the idea of what I just did something or if you do this I did something that actually, how many

people would have actually just chosen to do this for 10 minutes? Right. That makes me different, actually. It gives you an edge. It gives you the edge. It gives you an edge. And it makes you feel better about yourself. Of course.

Like you did what you needed to do. That's right. Yeah. I think that that's a great message that we can get out there to the world and I've been promoting that message for a long time is that when you challenge your mind and you force your body to do things you you increase your ability to do difficult things it increases your overall ability to do difficult things that's right yeah that's right the days the days that are the roughest for me on the campaign trail are the days that I didn't work out i'm sure and my campaign manager knows it too he could tell

now what has the campaign trail been like what is in general what do you have to goodness yeah so with covet things have obviously changed the way that we do things dramatically by the way if everyone is noticing that both me and wesley are sweating The fucking AC in this room is shit out on us, and it's now, it doesn't even say. Yeah, the thermostat's broken. It was 78 degrees when we walked in here with all this equipment and then all this intense talking. Here's the thing, but we work out, so we can handle it.

Yes. It's a slow sweat. We can do it. Yes, but I mean, if people are like, what's going on? These guys have a fever. They're just sitting there. Why are they sweating? They're talking about working out, and they guys have a fever. They're just sitting there. Why are they sweating? It's all about working out.

They're not doing anything. They're sweating. I can open the door and get some air flow. Don't worry about it. We're good. So tell me about the campaign trail. What does it entail? And how long have you been doing it?

When I met you in Houston was what, July? That's right. That's right. I met you with Dan Crenshaw at the Houston Improv. Great spot. With Willie D from the Ghetto Boys. Great job, by the way. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Great job. When did it start and what does it entail? What do you have to do? So I announced about a year and a half ago. And what you have to do is basically work every day tirelessly to try to reach as many voters in the district as possible and as efficiently as you can. And there's avenues in which you can do that. So there's broadcast television, there's mail, there's digital, there's knocking on doors, there's person-to-person stuff. What's really lacking because of COVID is

the latter, the person-to-person stuff. So you're not really allowed to have big gatherings like you used to be able to do for fundraisers and meet and greets and things like that. So you have to get creative. This has now evolved into a lot of more Zoom calls. It's evolved to what we're doing in Houston, some front yard meet and greets that are socially distanced. And we make sure that we keep everybody safe and everyone's wearing a mask. But we are still out in the community actually talking to people because there's absolutely nothing like meeting someone in person.

Yeah. Even meeting you in person at the improv. It's just way different. I've been following you for years, but like, it's just a different touch when you actually see the person. And so that's what the challenge has been. So what we are doing is just lining up as many front yard, backyard meet and greets throughout the district as possible.

And I think we've done a pretty good job at getting out in the community. So when you say backyard or front yard meet and greets, how do those come about? What do you do? Well, we have people that will reach out to us, and they'll say, hey, look, we have a community here. People want to meet you. We can get 10, 15, 20 people out here that usually set up some chairs or just stand around.

I'll come over, meet everybody to the best of my ability, give them kind of my talk, answer questions that they would have with me on how they want to see government run for the future. How can I continue to be their humble servant? What can we do to save our country? What can we do to kind of quell a lot of the division that we're seeing right now? And then I go off to the next one. It's very efficient. It's very good. And I think a lot of people have been very receptive to it too. Now, what other issues do you think are concerns that people have that maybe you have a unique perspective on that you can help? What are the big issues do you see in the country that you think that need to be addressed in a way that you are not seeing being addressed currently so i'm a houston boy uh born born and raised first football game i went to was

for the houston oilers back in the back in the love you blue days and i don't know what the love you blue days are get out of here it's the houston oilers i don't have their life luke oh my goodness i'm a sports commentator professionally i know nothing about sports it's embarrassing it's embarrassing jamie makes fun of me all the time it's like i don't know shit jamie knows tell me what what is it i saw warren moon play on his birthday did you when i was a kid did you really yeah that's awesome browns i don't remember who won the game i was only like eight but oh yeah that's awesome i've been to an oilers game too that's awesome there you go yeah so they're playing the astrodome i've never seen a football game live.

You're making that up. Nope. You're dead serious. No. I've only watched the Super Bowl like twice ever. That's it. It's the only football games I've ever seen. So you've watched it.

You didn't go to the Super Bowl. No, no. I've never been to a football game live ever. Do you plan on doing it? No. No. Is there a reason for this? I mean, it's a great sport and everything but i got shit to do

i'm the wrong guy man i know i get it people they're like what the fuck is wrong i've had arty lang yelled at me he yelled at me what do you mean he yelled at me i don't know anything about sports he's like what the fuck is wrong with you i'm like hey man i mean he asked me want to ask me some shit about fighting i know a lot of shit about muay thai a lot of shit about jujitsu i know a lot of shit about the ufc yeah but that's it that's it i'm sorry i'm a one-trick pony that's too funny well oilers i basically call it houston oil okay and you know this is an oil and gas town. And I am not a climate denier. Like a lot of millennials, quite frankly, I do believe that human beings can influence the climate. But Houston is known as the energy capital of the world. And encompassed in the energy capital of the world is the Energy District of the World, which is Congressional District 7, where I am running in in Houston. And the narrative that I am seeing about fossil fuels doesn't necessarily jive well with me at all.

Let's talk about that. I'd love to talk to you about that. Yeah. California recently, the state that I escaped. I want to ask you about that, too, after this, actually. Escaped! I feel so happy. Welcome to Texas, too, by the way.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Yeah, when I saw you was uh right around the time that i made the decision yeah um tom papa my buddy who was just here yesterday sent me a picture of uh los angeles and obviously this is because of the fires but also what the fuck is that come Come on. Look at that. Look at that. It's massive traffic. Unbelievable. And the sky is a weird shade of gray and brown. And he said, you've poisoned my LA mind with that picture. And I said, you're in the wrong place, my brother. Now you know.

He's in the wrong place. He knows where to go. Listen, Texas, I've always loved Texas. I filmed one of my specials here. I did one of my CDs here back in 99. The first CD I ever did, I filmed at the Houston Lab Stop in 1999, the one on River Oaks. I know the one.

Yeah. It's not there anymore. It was one of the best spots in the country. I love Texas. I've always loved Texas. And it was one of the places where when I thought about getting out of LA, I was like, there's only a couple of places I'm interested in. I'm interested in Montana because of the beauty and just the wildness. And I want to live in a place with grizzly bears. And Colorado, I love that. Weed, legal mushrooms now too. And then Texas. I just love people from Texas. I love the attitude. People are super friendly. They have a distorted perception of what Texas is.

I think Texas, in a lot of ways, is what other people think of when they think of America. Think of wild motherfuckers with guns and tigers in their backyard. And big trucks. And big trucks. And big trucks. And barbecue. I mean, that is Texas in a lot of ways. But so let's get back to what we were saying, though.

Yeah. You were talking about oil when I was saying that I escaped Los Angeles. One of the things that's going on is Gavin Newsom has passed this new law saying that they will sell no cars that run on gasoline that are new after 2035. And a lot of people are freaking out. And one of the things they're freaking out about is, do you know how much lithium you're going to have to pull out of the fucking ground to make the batteries for all these electric cars, and that this is not good for the environment?

That's right. Yeah, the lithium mines, like mining. There's a great meat-eater podcast. I want to encourage everybody to listen to my friend Steve Rinella's podcast, and it's going on right now. It's episode 241, Half-Life of Never, and it's all about the – I think it's called the Pebble Mine or the Pebble Beach Mine. What is the mine that's going on that there's a project in Alaska

that they're going to do? I think it's called the Pebble Mine. It's either the Pebble Mine – but Pebble Beach is like a golf course, right? Yes, it is. I think it's called the Pebble Mine. It's either the Pebble Mine, but Pebble Beach is like a golf course, right? Yes, it is. I think it's called the Pebble Mine. Is that what it is? But it's a crazy copper and gold mine that they're proposing, one of the biggest mines in the world in Alaska.

And it's near Bristol Bay, which is like, which one is it? You're right. Pebble Mine. Pebble Mine. which is like which one is it pebble mine pebble mines um it's near bristol bay which is the number one salmon fishing resource and salmon resource on planet earth and they're saying it will destroy everything and these people want to do that to to pull minerals and and to pull gold and copper out of the ground it's going to devastate the environment and sulfur as well you're gonna have to get through a shitload of sulfur and then move and distribute but

that the podcast is eye-opening it's really fascinating but you got a mine to get lithium this is not good for the environment this is I mean and I'm the person with an electric car I have a Tesla I love it got it got it but it's not this is not like one is awesome and perfect and the other one is terrible for everybody. It's a combination of everything. And that needs to be the solution for the future. I'm also not a big fan of the government saying when an industry is supposed to end. Yes.

I'm a big fan of the government empowering the private sector to innovate to get to the next, you know, affordable, renewable source that's going to happen. It's my opinion, if Jeff Bezos doesn't get there first, the first trillionaire, in my opinion, who's already born, is going to be the person that comes up with an abundant renewable source for the future that everyone can't afford. Now, I get the Green New Deal and the tenets of it, what they're trying to do, but what's not addressed in that is global warming and the operative word being global. If we don't get India and China and Russia and Africa and South America to reduce their carbon footprint with us, you can literally destroy the oil and gas industry here in the US at no gain to the globe. That doesn't make sense to me. That is such an important point.

That's so important. Nobody's talking about the other countries. So China and India are building four coal plants per month. And it's not a case of if we build it, they will come. That's not how this works. In fact, our energy independence is also an issue of national security as well. We're energy independent. Why? Because of fracking that, quite frankly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually want to do away with by 2035 as well. It's actually a national agenda. And so we are reducing our carbon footprint because of fracking,

because natural gas burns cleaner. But most importantly, Joe, 20 years ago, we would kill a bad guy in the Middle East and then we have to turn around and ask these same countries for resources and oil. That's a conflict of interest, if you can imagine. Of course.

So we don't have to do that anymore. So when we kill Qasem Soleimani outside of Baghdad airport, who was a bad guy responsible for actually killing some West Point graduates actually in Iraq, we don't have to ask them for oil. actually in Iraq, we don't have to ask them for oil. So this is an issue where we have to marry economics, innovation, and of course, make sure that we are good stewards of this earth. Right. But right now, there's roughly 1 billion, with a B, roughly 1 billion light trucks and

vehicles in the world today that are gas powered. And over the course of the next 20 years, the world today that are gas powered. And over the course of the next 20 years, the world is going to add another billion vehicles. And of that billion, 750 million of them are going to be gas powered. Again, it's not a California problem. It's a global issue that we have to take a look at. From a defense standpoint, I flew Apache helicopters, and we have a joke in the Army, how do you know if somebody flew Apaches? We will tell you.

We always do. And what's funny about the Apache and about destroyers and about F-22s, and that's you can't fuel them on solar and wind. We literally aren't going anywhere for the next few generations. What I want to hear the conversation shift to is more of the idea of us working with these oil and gas companies to innovate for the future. And they want it to. It's a matter of time until we get there. But let's bring them along with the conversation and not demonize them.

And as somebody that's Houston born and bred, this is the conversation that's near and dear to my heart because, again, it's the energy capital of the world. And I am all for solar. I am all for wind. I am all for renewables. I get it. But it's a combination of all of the above, not an or conversation. Now, what is the Green New Deal? Can you lay that out for us?

Yes. What are they looking to do? To this of the Green New Deal, one big thing that Joe Biden talks about and what Bernie Sanders was talking about as well is being carbon neutral by 2035, which effectively is an end to the oil and gas industry in the United States. That's one tenet of it. Another one is fracking bans. And again, as I just articulated, this is the very technology that's actually reducing our carbon footprint. Also, just more restrictions on oil and gas companies to be able to drill and find resources as well. to drill and find resources as well. And it is a job killer in Houston, Texas, particularly as we recover from COVID-19. And we've been hit pretty hard because if you notice, the oil and gas

industry has been hit pretty hard too. Started off with just obviously a shortage of demand because people just stopped driving. And that really drove costs down tremendously. And so we have to recover from this thing. And the way to do it is not to employ more restrictions on an already hurting industry that, quite frankly, has got to be around, whether you like it or not. Also, the byproducts of petrochemicals as well. This microphone, this mug,

your phone, it's hydrocarbons. The shoes on your feet is all byproducts of the oil and gas industry. And so what people don't realize is that the chairs that they sit in, the silverware that they eat off of, where they eat, sleep, breathe, and live,

the mattress that they're sleeping on, it's fossil fuels. We literally aren't going anywhere. I understand the benevolence of the Green New Deal. It's always good in theory. I got it. I think if we could magically snap our fingers and the world could be just carbon neutral,

that sounds great. That sounds great. That sounds great. But that's not how this works. We are always about progression. This country is always about innovation and progression. We've been doing this for generations. Let's continue that progression by enabling, again, the private sector to innovate to the next level. If you're paying attention to what the Green New Deal says, it basically just demonizes an entire industry. And I think for lack of understanding what the industry does for the world. Is there, in the Green New Deal, is there a solution for what they deem the problems

of the oil and gas industry? Do they have a replacement for those resources? So therein lies the point. Hydrocarbons are a storable energy that have a lot of power in them. And that's actually the reason why the world uses them. Bottom line is, is this, you can't turn your lights on, the world can't turn their lights on, the world can't turn their lights on. The U.S. can't turn their lights on for the time being without oil and gas, without the oil and gas industry. If we were able to miraculously even attempt to turn this entire country into a renewable source, it's just not possible. I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but we would actually only be able to fuel less than, last I read, 8% of the United States' energy demands if we were able to completely transform to renewable resources. So that's just wind and solar?

Yeah, wind, solar, and battery, lithium ion, these kinds of things. But they also require something to charge them. Yes. What about nuclear? Because one of the things that is really uncomfortable for people is that nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of power that we know of. It's just we know about disasters. That's right. We know about Fukushima. We know about Three Mile Island.

We know about Chernobyl. Chernobyl, yeah. We know about these disasters, which in many cases are indicative of old technology. Yes. Like Fukushima. They really didn't know how to shut it down. Yes. Which is fucking bananas that they decided to build it anyway.

Mind boggling. They're like, we'll figure it out eventually. We'll worry about it later. But there's ways of doing nuclear right where you have very little environmental damage. That's right. But you just bring up nuclear power and everybody's like, we're going to die. That's right. Everybody freaks out.

Yeah. And they think Chernobyl. What do you think about nuclear? So this is, again, the importance of innovation. You brought up an excellent point. You see, in past technologies, we didn't have the ability to be able to really create something without understanding what the worst outcomes could possibly be. Do you think over the course of the last 50 years, we've actually advanced to know more and to be able to do better and to be more effective with how we, how we do this? Of course we have, right?

But it kind of goes back to the oil and gas industry as well. When you have the over demonization of an energy source, people just, as we were talking about, they just shut it off. It becomes a headline. That's it. I don't want anything else to do with it. Oh no, we saw a bad incident.

That's it. It becomes headline news instead of us saying, wait a minute. If you're going to try to tell me that 2020 was the same as the 70s and the 60s and the 50s from a technological standpoint, it's ridiculous. I mean, look at your Tesla that you drive. I mean, that is a technological marvel and advancement in itself. And now we're producing it on a mass scale?

Thank you, Elon Musk. And again, even the production of the Tesla, that doesn't mean we do away with the oil and gas industry. We could have both. Let's continue to do both. So from a nuclear standpoint, I also think that that's gotten demonized as well because of some incidences. And we need to realize that from a technological standpoint, we are certainly further along than we were before. Let's pursue this. further along than we were before.

Let's pursue this. Let's empower these companies to come up with a safe way of building these plants and also making sure that everybody can stay safe in the future. What I've actually heard discussed that's kind of fascinating

is technologies that could be on the horizon that can actually pull carbon and pull particles from the atmosphere. Yes. That they can develop essentially enormous air filters. Yes.

That can be used in high pollution areas and cities and urban centers. And they actually can pull pollution out of the air and potentially use that carbon and it can actually be a resource. That's exactly right. Right. So tell me. Think about that. Pretty crazy.

That's awesome. But it kind of makes sense, right? Like, if you can put it out there, then it's there. Well, if you can push it out, can you extract it? Yeah. It seems like you should be able to. I mean, we extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, right? I mean, that's how they make a lot of fertilizer.

That's right. There's got to be a way to take that carbon out. Of course there is. And again, people want to look at where we are right now. Maybe we aren't there now. Right. But we can easily be there in the not so distant future. Sure.

About 150 years ago, we were riding horses. Thank you. Yeah. And think about what you just said. That wasn't that long ago, by the way. That's pretty recent. That's crazy recent. I mean, in World War I, they were still using livestock.

Yeah. Yeah. Bananas. I mean, think about that. I know. Yeah. And now we're flying Apaches. It's hard for people to, once they have it in their mind, that they are doing a good thing.

Like the proponents of the Green New Deal, they are doing a good thing. This is the way. And anyone who opposes that or anyone who even has debate about it is on the wrong side. You are on the side of the fossil fuel industry. You've been paid off. You're a shill. You don't care about the environment. You don't care about our children.

And then they'll propose it this way, that this person does not care about the future of this country. We're going to burn. Look what's happening in California This is Trump's fault. This is like we were discussing this in the podcast yesterday. It didn't matter who Became president in 2016 the exact same conditions would be in place here. This battleship is an enormous thing It's hard to turn around You think that somehow or another if Hillary Clinton was president that California wouldn't be on fire right now?

Of course the exact same thing would be happening. Of course it would be. 100%. There's no other way around it. And what I always say to people that I have to have this conversation with, and again, I have two kids at the house, and it is my opinion at this point with two baby girls that it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we hand them a better world than we inherited. We were, like, again, you know, the birth of a better world than we inherited. Yes. Again, the birth of a child is a spiritual thing. We were saying this before the podcast.

It's a spiritual moment. You're talking about your youngest and how crazy it is. It's crazy. It's life-changing. My youngest is 10, but still, I think back. And there's times when I'm alone where I just go, I can't even believe I have children. I can't even believe that it's a thing, that a person who comes out of your own DNA is now walking and talking and hanging out with you.

Yes, yes. And destroying our living room. We live and breathe. Yeah, for sure. So of course I care about them. And of course I care about the environment. I just want to take a pragmatic approach to making sure that. Yeah.

Well, we're so polarized today. If you don't agree with me, you must be evil. And this is our perspective. Or you must be naive or you must be foolish. These are the perspectives that are the narrative that you see on social media today, which is where so many people are forming their opinions and then arguing them. And it's insanity. where so many people are forming their opinions and then arguing them,

and it's insanity. It's such a crazy time where people want people. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine today. They were talking about this new social media platform where this person was arguing, don't hear people's opinions. What we need to do is deplatform them. That's insane. So everybody has to agree with you, and I don't even know if you're right. You don't even know if you're right. You don't even know if you're right.

The way you find out if you're right. You don't even know if you're right. Right. You got to talk to other people. Right. There's a lot of times I've talked to people and I went, huh, okay, yeah, I'm wrong. Okay. Yeah.

That's important. That's the whole point. Yeah, you have to be able to have these conversations. Yeah. What the proponents of the Green New Deal, what are they proposing in terms of replacing fossil fuels and these things that we're relying on currently to power everything and have the country running exactly how it's running now? And therein lies the problem. They're not. They're not.

So what are they saying, though, when they're questioning this? Like, what are we going to do in 2035 in terms of, like, how are we going to keep the lights on? I have no idea. Really? And this is, and this is literally, this is literally part of my problem. And that is,

if you aren't going to tell me a substantive viable solution by, so, so if you want to say that's it, snap my fingers like Thanos, that's it. We're going to be carbon neutral here. And okay. Okay.

So what's the path to do? So what resources are we going to use to get there how are we going to replace these resources and again i'm not a climate denier i keep saying this over and over again but but nothing's being proposed that's rational and reasonable that's actually addressing global warming it completely leaves out the other countries it completely leaves out the globe and that's problematic to me yes yeah what they so they're not even discussing it at all no they're just conveniently it sounds good it's it sounds good yeah and it does sound good it sounds amazing well get me wrong it sounds great but it's not like the name of it green new deal who doesn't

like green things it's beautiful but biden says he doesn't believe in the green new deal though right he was no he so first he said so first he said he did and then he backed or walked that back ever so slightly and said well no no no not the green new deal this entirety tenets of the green new deal did he describe which tenants translation to me. It's the Green New Deal. Are you troubled by the fact that the Democrats have this gentleman running for president that seems, at the very least, like his better days are behind him? It got to the point for where, at first, when I watched the Corn Pot video. Have you seen that one?

Yes. The Corn Pot one. What in the fuck is that video? It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. How about all the kids behind him talking? They didn't even pay attention to this guy. It was the weirdest thing. It was really literally the weirdest guy I've ever seen. And I sent it to my brother, Rendon, because he's my best friend.

We talk like four times a day. I sent it to Rendon, and he's just like, is this even real? I got hairy legs. There say it to Rendon. He's just like, is this even real? I got hairy legs. There's so many of those. The blonde. It was really weird. That was back in December. And I thought it was funny.

And then now, I don't think it's very funny anymore, actually. And this is very dangerous, I think, for the country. And we need to be very careful with who we put forward. There is a clear decline in Mr. Biden. I think we can all agree with that. I think we can all say that the reason why Kamala Harris was chosen was probably to make sure that someone of a sounder mind can actually run the country.

Yeah. And we're seeing it. Young and healthy, and she's probably going to be the president. I mean, if he wins, she will be really pulling the strings. Now, you just came from California. Yeah. And again, politics, Democrat, Republican, this is Texas. Democrats, Republicans in Texas, that's fine.

You understand this. Do you know how left and how liberal you have to be to be a senator from California? How left? Extremely. As left as you could probably be, if you think about it. That's not where the values of Texas are, though. And so what we have to be very careful is in the idea of making sure that if she's going to be running the country, you do understand that those values are going to be the issues that are going to be running Texas as well.

And that's just not where I believe Texas or really the nation is. I think we are far more center than that. Yeah, I agree. And I think the center is probably where the rational discussions are taking place. But everyone's scared to be in the center. Because if you're in the center, you're not supported're in the center you're not supported by the left you're not supported by the right and that's the problem with this country right now is that we're so divided and people seek comfort in being connected to a certain ideology whether you're full-on liberal or full-on conservative this is so another

reason why i'm running is because i always like to add perspective and add color to the history of this country. That's why I bring in my great-great-grandfather. And I always talk about the Civil War. So one of my favorite stories about West Point is there is a monument. It's called Trophy Point. It's actually one of the most prominent pieces at West Point at one point. It was the largest single piece of granite in the history of the world, and in the world at the time, that was in a monument.

It's beautiful. It overlooks the Hudson River. Surrounding Trophy Point are Civil War-era cannons that are buried into the ground, muzzle first. Why? Why? During the Civil War, you had West Point classmates that were friends, that were trained together, that were in class together, that would graduate. And depending on where you were from geographically, some would go and fight for the North and others would go and fight for the South. And you had West Point classmates killing each other.

The reason why Trophy Point or Battle Monument was created and the reason why those cannons are surrounding it buried into the ground muzzle first is to commemorate the notion of never aiming our cannons at our fellow countrymen again. That's division. When I think about the Vietnam era, when you had soldiers that were drafted, by the way, not volunteer, they were drafted, they would go off to war to do our country's biddings, and they would lose limbs and, most importantly, pieces of their mind because of PTSD that they would never get back for the rest of their natural lives. And they would come back home, they'd get off a plane, and they would be spat on by fellow Americans. Joe, I came home to a hero's welcome,

and the first thing people tell me all day every day is, thank you for your service. That's division. My parents who are alive and well today, they're in their 70s, as I was telling you earlier. My dad was born in 1949. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. So he spent a lot of his teenage years in a segregated South. He's seen the back of buses and he has seen colored only water fountains. He's alive and well today. That's division. So I want to add perspective to how far this country has really come. And we've got to understand how do we build on these things and also understand that this pendulum shifts back and forth? I think people like Dan Crenshaw are people that want to make sure that we bring this

pendulum back this way by just being reasonable human beings. Yes. That's it. We could disagree politically. Yeah. How could we be reasonable people? That's one of his best qualities. It is.

He's so measured and so rational and reasonable. And when he talks he says things that make sense yes he's logical and uh i mean as well trying to tell him run for president how old is he now 36 36 so that's how old you have to be right 36 yeah yeah he'd be he'd be a great one i tell people this all the time people are like how about you two together oh my goodness no No, Dan. You know how SEALs are. No, tell me.

I got to ask this. I got to ask this the other day. I got to ask. What's the issue? I have an issue with the country. And Wesley, I'm concerned about where we're going to be in 10 years. And I retorted, why? Dan Kershaw could be the president.

And I think that would be an excellent thing, to be honest with you. Yeah. To have a leader like that as president. I would vote for him. I would vote for him myself. And so I always look at Americans like him that get into the breach when it seems like it's dark, it seems like it's bad. We are the ones that step in and pull that pendulum back by just being reasonable people. That's why he's here. what's wrong with seals seals are seals are intense oh yeah seals are intense seals are uber competitive and they are very intense and they are my most

favorite people on the entire planet because what they do and their dedication to service, sacrifice, and if you ask a Navy SEAL to give their life for this country tomorrow, they don't even think about it. They don't think twice about it. They'll do it. I kind of say that tongue-in-cheek because, quite frankly, I love them, but that level of intensity is why America is always so different. It's that passion. It's that passion.

It's that love. It's that camaraderie that SEALs have. You've been around quite a few of them. I mean, I have too. And it is hilarious to watch them compete against each other. It's awesome. Yeah. But I love it too because I think that's kind of the American warrior ethos

that's somewhere in all of us. They are just at the tip of the spear when it comes to exemplifying it. And that's why when Dan Crenshaw calls me up and says, hey, man, I got an idea for a video. You in? And I was like, okay, tell me more. He goes, well, first I'm going to jump out of an airplane. And I'm like, sign me up. Sign me up.

That video is crazy. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's great. Can we play it? Sure. You know the video, Jamie? Yeah. Sure.

The text is reloaded. Jamie will find it. I don't think we'll get in trouble. Oh. Well, we'll let them know i mean it's yeah it's not gonna hurt it's only gonna help oh yeah um so i made it so can i okay yeah i think probably owns it i think somebody own it dan will like this dan will let it go for sure um so anyway so keep going so he tells you he's gonna jump out of an airplane let it go for sure so anyway so keep going

so he tells you he's going to jump out of an airplane and then he's like do you want to be in it and my next question was can I wear my flight suit it's four minutes long too we can't play the whole thing do you want to watch the whole thing for four minutes is that bad

I'm asking probably the problem is there's not a lot of talking yep yeah crenshaw command center this is fun too it's also kind of ridiculous like you can see thing with its bionic eye by the way they're probably about three years away from giving him one of those. Oh, yeah. After this? Yeah. Save Texas.

Save Texas. Dun, dun, dun. Well, people are genuinely worried about Texas going blue, right? This is why we're running. And there's a lot of people that are using this hashtag, turn Texas blue, as if that's going to fix things. There you go. Wesley Hunt. And he's on the plane right now.

And that's him live, too. Oh, yeah. Of course it is. There he goes. That crazy fuck. He's probably so excited to risk his life. He's like, yay, something exciting. This is great.

Oh, look at the landing. The superhero landing. The superhero landing, and then all of a sudden he's got a suit on. It's so silly. It's great. It's so silly and awesome at the same time. Look at you. Do you know how to fly one of these things?

Dan Crenshaw. I'm putting a team together, Wesley. You guys are terrible actors. You know I wouldn't miss this for the world, right? He shows all your credentials. I think August is going to want to come, too. That's me, August Pfluger. He's running out here, too.

Awesome guy. August Pfluger is running for... What is he running for? He's running for a seat up in District 11. He's an Air Force Academy guy, F-22 pilot, amazing guy. man why you gotta jump out of your airplane because it's cooler to jump never mind we get the point you get the point you get the point people can watch it it's available on is it on dan's youtube page or yeah it's the texas reloaded.com okay there you go texas reloaded.com it's on youtube it's on his instagram it's all over the place. There you go. Save Texas.

Yeah, people are really worried about all folks like me moving from California. Yeah. Worried. They're worried about me. You know what's funny is that we come one, come all. Give me your tired, your poor. Come on to Texas. But you got to understand something.

Yeah. You're coming here because of low taxes and low regulation. And you want to live your life in liberty and make sure that you can protect yourself and protect your family and that means you have to you have to vote a certain way and that's why we kind of are texas don't turn this place into what you fled that's exactly right yeah that's what matthew mcconaughey was telling me that's exactly right and we have to kind of put that out there to people and i understand people have their different views and whatnot but you're here for a reason yeah well the thing is you can be socially liberal yes you can but also understand that there's

there's certain things that are just not wise yes and a lot of those things are ruining california that's right there's there's over regulation in california that's taxes off the fucking chart the taxes are so crazy there and they're trying to raise them up to 16.8 and then what are you going to do with that money fuck it up worse you're gonna have more money to fuck things up i just don't understand their logic of of opening and not opening things and especially now when you look at the deaths like when they want to talk about covid cases the cases are low they're not that high and the deaths are very low it's like we it's we've kind of got a handle on what this is you can let people open up their businesses yes you can let people

wear masks and be careful and take care of themselves and take vitamin d and zinc and vitamin c and we can we can at least get back to some semblance of normality. But they don't want to do that for some weird reason. And this is the one that drives me crazy. They keep saying, after the election. They're not even trying to hide the fact that they're politicizing this. They won't let kids go back to school in California

until after the election. What the fuck does the election have to do with anything? How is that scientific? How is November with anything? How is that scientific? How is November 3rd? How is that your science point? It's not. Again, this is what makes Texas, Texas.

We just believe in liberty. We believe in allowing and empowering the citizens to make your own personal informed decisions for your own life. Yes. If you want to take the risk, then we allow you to do so. Go buy a tiger. How'd you know I was going to say that? Do you know the statistic about tigers here? What? There's more tigers in captivity in Texas than all of the wild of the world.

I did not know that. There's more tigers in private collections in Texas. Captivity in Texas. In Texas than all of the wild of the planet Earth. Sometimes a little bit too much freedom can cause problems. That's legit. I had a whole bit about it in my 2016 Netflix special. Yeah, that's a legit statistic. I guess I'm not getting a dog. I'm buying a tiger.

16 Netflix special. Yeah, that's a legit statistic. I guess I'm not getting a dog. I'm buying a tiger. I had Mike Tyson on, and he was explaining to me his tiger. Here it is. Estimates. How many tigers? 2,000 to 5,000 tigers living in the southern state of the United States.

That's unbelievable. So what's even more incredible is 2,000 to 5,000. That's a pretty big gap. Could be more tigers. Meanwhile, they don't know. That means there could be like 3,000 unacc,000. That's a pretty big gap. Could be more tigers. Meanwhile, they don't know. That means there could be like 3,000 unaccounted for tigers. That we don't even know about. Yeah, so there's roughly 3,800 tigers living in the world globally.

There's as many as 5,000 tigers living just in Texas. Just in Texas, yeah. And I'm sure that picked up after the Tiger King got... Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure people are like, hey, I didn't know I could get a tiger. I was appalled at how easy it was to get a tiger. It's fucking easy. And not only that, how cheap it was to get a tiger.

How much does a tiger cost? I think it was like, was it like 600 bucks? It wasn't, yeah. It was puppies. There are puppies that are more expensive. I remember, right? Oh, for sure. I believe i paid more than that for my dog yeah i thought i thought for sure this would be i mean thousands of minimum thousands of dollars i would thought like a hundred thousand dollars for a fucking walk he's walking around with these little tiger cubs and

it's just like yeah like 500 bucks a piece i'm like are you kidding me jamie's got something here oh my goodness 500 $500. $500. You could buy an orange Bengal tiger and tie it up in your yard. No questions asked. A white tiger will cost you $5,000. It's all perfectly legal in Texas. The exotic animal trade is a billion-dollar industry. Wow.

That's nuts. They're endangered. But you can buy them for $500. That's right. That's bonkers. I mean, what kind of regulation do they have on the size of your yard oh my gosh i don't wasn't there a situation where kids a bunch of kids were getting high and they went into an abandoned house and they found a tiger inside of it i thought yeah like i'm like that's the most texas shit i've ever heard you're like a move to texas after you saw that that's it no that's not why but that is one of the most texas things i've ever fucking heard it is you're in an abandoned

house it just happens to have a tiger in it that's that's that's absolutely what does it say what's the title cannabis smoker finds tiger in abandoned house in texas what'd you do if you saw a tiger? Well, you would hope it's been eating. Right? Hope that motherfucker's full. Your lunch is what that turns into. I mean, you ever seen those ligers? It's a tiger. That is the most weird shit ever.

They're massive, too. Yeah, apparently the gene... I don't remember if it's from the male or the female, which has to be which. I think it has to be like a male lion and a female tiger. And then for whatever reason, the genes for growth regulation don't exist. Right. So you have this thing that can be like 15 feet long. Massive.

It's so big. Massive. But they're pretty chill. That's the other thing. They don't necessarily attack people any more than like a regular tiger so let me get this let me get this right joe you're gonna buy a liger no no no you're gonna buy a liger bro i got a golden retriever that's it i have the calmest dog of all time look at the size of that thing in the upper left gosh look at that thing look at that what in

the fuck god damn that's big click on that jamie yeah what what that's unbelievable yeah that's big Click on that Jamie Yeah What What That's unbelievable Yeah that's the dude from the movie Look at the size of that thing My lord That is so big That doesn't even look real That's unbelievable

That lady's just feeding it a bottle Yeah right That's like giving it a shot You give it a shot of milk A shot glass of milk Yeah Texas has got some wacky laws Yeah But again You give it a shot of milk, a shot glass of milk. Yeah. Texas has got some wacky laws.

Yeah. But again, freedom, liberty, these are just tenets that we have here that we just adhere to. And also friendliness. Yeah. Like people go out of their way to be nice here. Like drivers are more polite, I noticed. They cut you off less. They generally let you in the lane easier.

It's like, there's a, it's a more polite society. And the thing about, uh, Austin that I really enjoy is it's just not that many people too. There's, there's something about enormous populations where you kind of like lose your appreciation of people.

Cause there's too many of them. They become a problem. Like, Oh, these people on the highway, all these people at the mall, these people like you don't appreciate them people at the mall. All these people. You don't appreciate them as much.

And so another place that I find similar to Texas is actually Iowa. So my wife is from Iowa. And I have the most amazing mother-in-law ever. She's great. And when you go to Iowa, people are just flat out kind to you. They're just nice. Well, it gets so fucking

cold in the winter. They got to stick together. They got to stick together. Yeah, I got a good buddy of mine lives in Iowa. Shout out to you. Yeah. They're just nice. Well, it gets so fucking cold in the winter. They got to stick together. You have to be nice. They got to stick together. Yeah, I got a good buddy of mine who lives in Iowa. Shout out to John Dudley. Okay, there you go. Yeah, he lives in Iowa. He's,

his reasons are the most nutty ever. He's a deer hunter. Okay. And he has an enormous lease. Like, well, he owns land and he leases land. So all together, he's got like more than 700 acres,

I believe, in Iowa. What part? Just for deer hunting. I don't think I want to say. land and he leases land so all together he's got like more than 700 acres i believe in in iowa just for deer hunting uh i don't think i want to say i don't want to give out his spot but he's uh he's gotcha yeah but he's um he's uh he's a rare dude he's he's a very famous bow hunter okay and so his he teaches archery teaches bow hunting, and teaches it online. He's got this knock-on archery set up. They set up bows for people and all this stuff. He makes videos of bow hunting, but literally moved to Iowa

because the best whitetail deer hunting in the world, arguably, it's arguable whether it's Kansas or Illinois or Iowa, but Iowa's in the mix and his place is pretty special i went hunting there a couple years ago hopefully i'll be i'll get to go back here late november it's pretty awesome it's it's it's amazing yeah it's pretty awesome it's amazing when you drive down the road you better go slow because those they're everywhere they're just darting everywhere all over the place yeah and they will destroy your vehicle they will destroy your vehicle they he he gets some big deer there in his place because he cultivates it only for bow hunting.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, and he knows what he's doing. He puts up food plots and stuff. It's a part of the culture there that if you don't live in an area that has a culture that revolves around deer hunting, whether it's Wisconsin has it, other parts of the world have it, but it's different. It's different there. That's right. Yeah.

It's absolutely incredible. And I believe the state's actually buckshot only. Oh, really? Is it? You can't use a rifle? Nope. That's how Massachusetts was when I was growing up. Challenging.

It's like shooting a cannonball, but... Yeah, those slugs. Those are kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah. a cannonball but yeah those slugs those are kind of crazy yeah yeah it's um it's just it is though in that way like you get a lot of farmers a lot of hard-working people yes we do and generally very nice they wave to you on the roads and and again not that many people it's a smaller population of people so my wife she moved down here and it kind of she fits in seamlessly

she'll always say the kind of values of Iowa are like kind of the values of Texas. Yeah, but without the black ice. Right. That's the worst, dude. It's insane. When you don't know, and then all of a sudden your car is like, whee! And you're spinning around in circles. Yeah, on the highway.

Yeah, I grew up in Boston. So I experienced a lot of snow and a lot of black ice. That's the weirdest one because it just rains a little bit and then it freezes over. And then I was on the – it was a funny thing when I was in high school. Me and my friend John were on the roof of – I lived on a hill. And we were on the roof of the garage drinking, watching people slide down the street and slamming the curbs and bounce off of each other. Because one day the whole street became just like a skating rink yeah just all black ice and we sat up on that roof for hours

just watching people slide so we called the cops i'm really hanging out people keep slamming into somebody so the cops did it they came sliding down and they slammed into the curb and they bounced off the it was so terrible like my bad i didn't do the same thing we try to tell you guys you don't fucking look yeah we got it no you don't bang clearly you don't yeah but that's a you know if you live in anywhere where it gets that cold that's a common yes i was i was in grad school at cornell up in ithaca so i mean it was just it was just the same yeah it got to the point i just stayed off the road the one thing i do like, though, is it makes everybody go mellow. Everybody mellows out.

It chills you out. Just drive slowly. If you got good tires and a four-wheel drive. You'll be all right. You'll be all right. Yeah. It also makes you feel more comfortable. You huddle up in the home.

You appreciate the fire. You appreciate the heat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the weird thing is the eerie quiet outside yeah when you go outside and snow because the snow acts as like a sound deadening for everything so if you got 12 inches of snow on the ground and it's snowing outside you don't hear a fucking thing it's just for your steps as you crunch into the snow that's all you hear yeah but the quiet it's really really awesome. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, but that's the problem with Iowa is the cold. It's it. And it's flat as fuck. It's a lot of corn, too. Yeah. It's a lot of corn. But I love it. Yeah, there's good things. Yeah.

A lot of people are exiting California, and they're trying to find places to go. And they're going to Bozeman, Montana, and they're going to Arizona. They're going all find places to go. And they're going to Bozeman, Montana. And they're going to Arizona. They're going all over the place. And they're realizing that this situation, this COVID situation that we're in that's terrible, it's being handled differently. Yes. In different places in the country. Yeah.

I have friends that come from California. And they come out here and they're like, holy shit. It's like, everyone's normal. That's right. I'm like, yeah, you could be normal, man. That's right. Wear a mask. yeah, you could be normal, man. That's right. Wear a mask. Don't be an asshole.

Yes. Yeah, you could go to a restaurant. So the good thing about Houston is obviously we took it very seriously as we should. And I would never tell anybody not to. But you're starting to see glimpses of life again. You're starting to see people kind of starting to go out. There's restaurant rules. So if you're walking around, you're wearing a mask. But if you're starting to see people kind of starting to go out there's restaurant rules so if you're walking around you're wearing a mask but if you're sitting down it's okay california they want you to put your mask on in between bites now it's just that's a

new thing i mean think about it shut the fuck up about what you just said think about what you just said so if you're outside you have to eat outside anyway do you have to do it outside is that what the new rule is outside you have to put your mask on in between bites come on it's just so stupid come on they just want to control people in some weird way like they were trying to tell kids they can't go to halloween they can't go trick-or-treating yeah and then everybody freaked out and like okay we change our mind like what kind of policies do you have like what what is what's what's the what is the motivation behind these policies and how can you just change your mind because people get upset? If it's so important that you really think children should stay inside on Halloween,

and then everybody freaks out, so you go, okay, we changed our mind. Like, what are you basing it on, and who are you? That's right. And why do you get to choose? That's right. This is not what the Constitution was supposed to be enabling. No, it is not. And my other concerning thing, especially when it comes to young people and kids, and that's we don't have these kids in school.

And the problem is that when you are young, when you're 18 years old, one year means a lot. Yes. And I'm not talking about academics. I am talking about social growth and social development. Yes. We are stunting the social growth and social development. We are stunting the social growth and social development of these kids. Unquestionably. Because when you are around groups of people, that's how you grow. That's how your personality is formed. And we're robbing them

of that for roughly a year. And I just feel like there's a way to do it to make sure that the kids are safe, which is our number one priority. If there are instructors that are at risk, how do we keep them away? And then allow the teachers, a lot of them that I speak with, who actually really want to get back to work and teach these kids because that's their passion. And they're willing to take that risk because that's what they signed up for. And that's what they told me. And I feel like there is a way where we could accomplish all of the above, but we don't want to have a conversation about it.

After the election, Wesley. Oh, God. Let's just wait until after the election. I don't know why you're rushing now. You're going to put people at risk, people's lives. Someone died. These kids, we're hurting the kids. Unquestionably.

And the other thing that people don't want to take into consideration or even don't want to discuss is how many people are dying during this COVID crisis because of depression, because of suicide, because they lost their business, they lost their income, they lost their livelihood, they lost their home. It's devastating. It's happening. And it's a factor. And it's not a factor that's being talked about. You're not seeing charts that track how many, the suicides have gone up so high. I have a friend who talked to a sheriff in Los Angeles who said we used to see one suicide every week or so.

Now we see five a day. That's exactly right. And you're like, this is crazy. And it's crazy because we have the technology to fix this and actually handle it. I mean, for example, case in point, came to your studio, awesome studio, by the way. It's good to see you in person. Walk in, what do you do? You your studio, awesome studio, by the way. It's a good seat in person.

Walk in, what do you do? You text me, hey, there's a nurse. You're going to get COVID tests. It takes 15 minutes. Great. We all find out we're negative and we can get on with our day. Do you know how easy that is? Yeah.

Well, it's not readily available everywhere yet. Yet. But it can be. It can be. That's the Yet. But it can be. It can be. That's the argument, that it can be. Well, what I want to do with the comedy club is set up like 10 of those and just have everybody say, look, the show's at 8. Get there at 7.

You get tested. Once you're clean, 15 minutes in, you can go have a drink and the show will start at 8. And this way we could just sit down like humans, like we used to do. Yes. Just seven, eight months ago and have a good old time. We can still do that, I think. Yes, it can be done. And I think more importantly, you have to let people take risks. If you let people take risks, like Dan Crenshaw jumping out of airplanes for a fucking video.

We're letting people. And I understand that you're putting other people at risk. I do understand that, by the way. That's not lost on me. Yes – that's not lost on me. Yes, it's not lost on me either. But I do think that we need to take precautions about that. That needs to be – but if you're a person like – so if you're a 24-year-old and you live with another 24-year-old and you want to go out but you can't go out, that's bullshit. You should be able to do whatever you want to do. And just, it's up to you. And we should really highlight your responsibility to get tested

and not expose yourself to other people that are at risk, that are high risk or that are vulnerable. We could definitely do this, by the way. Yes, it can be done. But it can't be done with overregulation. And it can't be done with the kind of attitude that they have in California, where they think they could just shut everything down. And this is why I left. I don't see this getting better anytime soon. I saw it as being a thing where they weren't addressing the negative aspects of locking things down for right now we're at six, seven months. What is it going to be?

Is it a year? Is it a year and a half? How are you going to deal with the negative aspects, the negative social, the economic, that just the way people feel about the city, how are you going to deal with all that? Is there a strategy in place? Seems to be none.

It seems to be none. They're looking at everything with rose colored glasses and they keep getting paid. And that's part of the problem is all these politicians keep getting paid. And I know Gavin Newsom was at one point in time saying he was going to take a pay cut, but he never did. As far as I'm concerned, as far as I'm, as far as I know, I don't think he did.

I think, well, I love that you said you brought up the Constitution. Yeah. And again, I've used the word liberty multiple times now because that's absolutely real to me. I mean, they set this framework up to empower the citizens to have their own religion, to live where they want to live. If you don't like your state, you can move as you did and vote with your feet.

If you don't like the tax rate in one state, you can move somewhere else. I mean, we've built this country to allow people to make their own decisions. And the second we start to erode that and take that away from people is when we're getting in trouble and that completely flies in the face of what the construct of this country was supposed to be originally. And that's from people is when we're getting in trouble and that completely flies in the face

of what the construct of this country was supposed to be originally. And that's where people like me, for example, you ask why I run for Congress, this is why. Because we have to get back to empowering citizens to make their own decisions. Spent eight years in the army, four years at West Point. That's 12 years total in the military.

Love the military. Thank God I did it. Best decision I've ever made. But we don't need more federal government and more regulation. We need as little regulation as possible. I understand the human condition every now and again can have some nefarious intent. I understand that. But really, it's about empowering the individual to make their own choices and make their own decisions. Federal government is not supposed to tell people what to do and how to live. People are fleeing their countries from all over the world to come right here to this country. And I just sat with a woman from Taiwan today. They are fleeing their countries to come here to live free.

And then here we are talking about regulation to take that very thing that makes us different away from our citizens. My concern is that we're not going to get it back. My concern is I understand that they have motivation to reduce these freedoms to contain COVID, but freedoms lost are rarely regained. Yes. And my concern is that they're going to find other excuses to keep people locked down, other excuses to try to exercise these powers that they've learned how to use.

This is what's weird about this. It's like you've let a genie out of the bottle. You've let people like that Mayor Garcetti guy in LA tell people what they can and can't do. They're shutting off electricity and water if you have a party at your house. Yeah. Like of shit is like that's supposed to be those are essentials yes like when did when are you allowed to do that like since when can you do that and everybody's like oh because of covid well how do you get that back does it have to be what if covid is a returning

thing what if covid is like the common cold and people are just going to get it from now on like the flu or like the flu right so what what do you are we giving up enormous amounts of power to the government now so are we losing all of our liberties because because of this disease that we're all dealing with and we're going to put our faith in the hands of people who are elected yeah that we never intended them to have these powers in the first place. And now we're seeing these powers are used very differently in different parts of the country. Yeah.

So this is the good thing about information. And we walk around every day with a supercomputer in our hands. We're actually one of the first generations to ever be able to do that for the bulk of our lives. to ever be able to do that for the bulk of our lives. And I think that people wake up and they realize that, so no, I don't want to be over-regulated. So I'm going to go somewhere where I am not over-regulated.

So I'm going to move. Exhibit A, right? I think that people are awakened by stuff like this, particularly when government overplays their hand and a particular population where they're like, no, we're not going to take it. And then what happens? People either A, move, or they put somebody else and they elect somebody else and they fire the person who's in charge. We're seeing a lot of what's happening in Portland and in Seattle, and it's kind of interesting. I'm very curious to see how those elections go in the future, because those local leaders failed their

people. They failed their citizens. I think that area is so liberal that they're not going to learn their lesson. We'll see. We will see. There's a lot of Trump supporters in Portland, too, that they're doing these big parades with American flags and Trump flags and driving their trucks and honking their horns. I wonder if that's going to have an impact. I think it will because the number one role of the federal government is to keep her citizens safe. That's the number one goal. And when in Portland you have a police chief that says to small business owners who are losing their businesses because they're getting rioted and looted,

and the police chief says this, you're on your own well you have now failed now why are they saying you're on your own because the mayor won't allow them to do anything well well that was because they are now defunding they're defunding the police and then they're setting up areas where they won't allow law enforcement to even enter like Like Seattle. Like a Chaz zone. Yes. And then now the citizens are actually not as safe. Well, that one was bonkers where the mayor was on television saying, maybe it's the summer of love. What the fuck are you talking about?

You found out. The whole idea behind it is so, my take on it was you're doing something that has never been done before. You're taking over blocks. You're putting up boundaries and you're doing something that has never been done before. You're taking over blocks. You're putting up boundaries, and you're deciding it's yours. But you set a precedent now because you didn't earn any of that space. You didn't earn that land. You didn't earn those buildings.

You took it by force. Right. You set a precedent, and what's to stop someone from taking that from you? That's right. With the same strategy, saying, no, I i think i'm right so i'm going to come in with bigger guns and more people and we're going to shut out all these businesses and we're going to put up bigger barriers and we're going to have more stringent policing they were beating people up for filming unbelievable it's just it's so dumb like you embodied the worst aspect of a

dictatorship in a six block thing and you did it quick you became the worst country in america i mean if that's an independent country and that it's in the continental united states you became the worst version of what america is that's right that's right can't agree with you and people see this by the way people see it i think they do people see it i think they do i think there's a lot of people that are seeing it there are a lot of people that are seeing that these idealistic portrayals of what government can be you know like this idealistic we need to defund the police and put all the money into social programs like yes with no long-term solution you see oh jesus look

what happens that's right oh this is terrible that's right we don't we don't want that no it's a wake-up call for a lot of people it is a wake-up call yeah um and then the mayor of portland i mean he's he's hilarious like he goes outside they're like fuck you resign he's like about that he is the most progressive guy he got canceled yeah the most think about that not enough not good enough bitch never like the price is wrong they try to light his apartment building on fire it's it's just amazing that the literally the most progressive mayor in america and they're like not enough not enough resign sir it's not good enough so where does it stop where does it end i don't know they want a hundred percent defund the police they want to give these people a year to that was their demands give them a year to find uh alternative meaningful employment and then no

more police yeah okay come on down we need you come on down here to texas yeah congratulations folks you just fucked up your entire city you're welcome what are you gonna do with that what do you how do you plan on working that out with no police what happens if your car gets stolen you gonna call a social worker? What are you going to do if someone breaks into your house? What are you going to call? Yeah. What are you going to do about murder?

What are you going to do about rape? These things happen, by the way. They just don't miraculously go away. Right. Yeah. Well, it's just these idealistic views of what the future should be and the way you think you're going to implement them today, currently. There's bad cops. We've got to get rid of all the future should be and the way you think you're going to implement them today currently. And we just need to get,

well, there's bad cops. We've got to get rid of all the cops. Well, there's bad protesters too. Should we get rid of all protests? Of course not. Of course not.

Yeah. When you see people smash buildings and smash windows, no one's saying you can't protest anymore. No one's saying there's no more. Well, obviously that's a part of protesting because you got bad people And when you have a group that anyone can join in on like anyone can join most of these groups You you're gonna get a bunch of assholes. That's right

Unquestionable happens. Yeah, that's that's life. Yeah, and you need law and order. Yes, you do fix that Yeah, you need consequences for unlawful acts and the best way to do that is with the police and they choose to do it too by the way these people choose to get up in the morning and they choose to protect people they do and i always say this they don't always get it right we know this we i recognize that yeah but this is not the answer either well they're human you know and when you get a bunch of humans together look you get a hundred people in a room one of them's gonna be a fucking idiot that's right there's no way around it if you get a bunch of cops one of them's gonna be incompetent if you're lucky one of them if you're lucky and here's the other deal like how many of those poor folks are running around with ptsd untreated a large percentage of them they're seeing what

they've seen murders and violence and car accidents and you name it. Child abuse and all this stuff. You name it. You name it. All the horrors of humanity. Yes. They see it on a daily basis. It's a part of their life.

Human trafficking. That's another thing that we don't talk about. Yes. That is another thing that just goes in and out of the news. We were talking about on the podcast the 39 or 35 kids that were rescued in Georgia. Yeah. And it was a blip in the news like how and but meanwhile i saw a thousand articles on how mean ellen is yes ellen's mean she's so mean

meanwhile there's like people are out there risking their life to stop human trafficking they're rescuing children yes from human trafficking yes what is What is this? U.S. Marshals. Wow, 72 million missing children. Excuse me. 72, did I say million? 72 missing children across Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia in the past several weeks. In the past several weeks. So what is, this is where these,

so when you read an article like that u.s marshals rescued 72 missing children you this is where like all the q anon people get crazy because they think that donald trump is secretly working behind the scenes to stop child trafficking and that the there's like some secret cabal in the government that wants to enable this shit and then facebook bans q anon and they. Everyone's going crazy now. This child trafficking thing is real. It has always existed. Did you know that Houston is actually one of the hubs for child trafficking in the U.S.?

Really? Yes, it is. Now, how do they find out about child trafficking? How do they find out about child trafficking? How do they infiltrate? So usually it's local law enforcement that recognizes some abnormalities in the behavior of some of the children. Usually it's certain areas, certain shops, certain businesses that are kind of harboring these people. A lot of them just get stopped because, I mean, it's kind of really odd if you're in a van or an 18-wheeler and then there's like 20 kids in it. It's weird.

And we, as a culture, have got to work with local law enforcement to start to curb this thing because that's where the rubber meets the road. I don't know if you saw the story. I don't know if you could pull it up, sir. But if you saw the story about the flight attendant that helped out. Yes, the girl. That recognized the abnormality of a girl on a flight by herself and saved her life. Yes. And they had the authorities on the ground when the plane landed. Waiting.

Yeah. We have got to see more of that. And so this is how we talk about the Army. You got to police your own troops. We got to police our own. If we are just acutely aware of the abnormalities and the behavior of young children who clearly are under duress, we cannot turn a blind eye to it. Why is this not a bigger story in mainstream news? This is one of the things that concerns me.

I don't understand why you're not seeing this on CNN. This is not... Every day. Why are we seeing this every day on CNN? That story right there should be leading... Everything.

...on primetime news. Everything. That should be leading. 72 missing children rescued. Yes. So how are they... It can't be just that they're randomly discovering

these kids in a truck or they see a kid on a plane acting weird and that's how they catch everybody. How are they infiltrating? Because there's also a bunch of guys that are former spec ops guys that are working to fight child trafficking. How are they doing this? So the solution to this, in my opinion, I'll get to your answer in a second. The solution is, in my opinion, is actually, and I would be in huge favor of this, of literally starting a separate task force to address this in known hotspots. trading is really if you go to hubs of the world like Houston, you go to coastal cities where people are actually bringing people into the country, that's exactly where you're going to find a lot

of it. So if you just kind of hang out around these areas, then you'll see a lot more of it. You'll discover a lot more of it. And so Houston has become kind of one of those hubs because of its geographic locations. It's actually near a port city. And obviously people are coming through port cities at a higher rate. Cargo is coming through at a higher rate. And so we're actually able to track that at a better rate if you just kind of hang around the hoop. You'll find it. So how are these people communicating?

Oh, my goodness. It seems like if the government can use programs like Edward Snowden revealed, how are they organizing these things and where are they getting these kids from? They get these kids from actually all over the world. A lot of them are coming from impoverished communities. A lot of them are coming from impoverished countries and they're shipping them in. A lot of them come from Asian countries, actually. And a lot of them come from right here in the U.S. And this is something that dawned on me, particularly with having two girls now, and that is it's

also my job to continue to protect them and all of these young people. And it's actually young boys as well. It's not just young ladies. It's actually incumbent upon them to keep them safe. If we can't keep them safe, then what are we doing here? Literally. Like that's our role now, you know, as fathers and as responsible human beings is keeping our young people safe. And the biggest thing is this.

There clearly is an appetite and there clearly is a culture for it. The biggest thing is this. There clearly is an appetite and there clearly is a culture for it. What I want to do is how do we place extreme punishment on those who behave in this and partake in this behavior? I'll tell you what. It could be happening right next door to you to somebody that seems to be a normal human being. But we have got to stop them. We have to stop the predator from feasting on our children.

Yeah. And it's got to be demonized. Let's demonize that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. How are these people communicating, though? Yes. Are they doing it through the dark web? Are they doing it through forums?

Are they doing it through, are they using code? how are they doing this i've heard all the above yeah i've also heard communicating through just open email inboxes right they don't hit send but they have the password for multiple emails and they'll just go in get the message and then never open or close it so it's impossible basically to track it's's just like a draft. Oh, I see. And so other people have the login to the account and they check it out through the draft. Oh, that makes sense. And it's funny because this subject, because of things like Pizzagate,

the subject became so taboo that no one wants to talk about it because it sounds preposterous because Pizzagate was so preposterous. A guy shows up with a gun looking for kids that are tied up in the basement. Everybody's like, oh my God. There's nobody here.

Everyone's wacky. These child sex trafficking fanatics that are interested in this and that are trying to stop this. They're all crazy people. But that's not really the case. Right. The problem with something like Pizzagate

is that it confuses everybody. And you start thinking that all this stuff is nonsense but then these stories they they make it to these websites and you see that this is a real thing these are real news stories but then they don't get talked about in mainstream but and then we lose track of who the real enemy is yeah that's a real enemy not Ellen and that's dangerous you're right not Ellen mean to her assistant. Just fuck. It's a little ridiculous. Just what we care about is so bizarre.

It's such a symptom of how sick we are as a culture and that our priorities are so skewed and that this is sort of accentuated by our addiction to social media and that people are concentrating so much on things that are trivial and nonsensical what's up buddy I I found an article on Reuters that said that like the mainstream media is been reporting on this so like that I'm looking through pages to find out details on different reporting of this I'm all I'm finding this on is like local news yeah right so how like what does that mean though that it's not being reported well you don't see it on cnn you're not seeing it as like mainstream television news where it's a big subject that gets discussed that we have a

giant problem like this in this country that's what i'm saying i'm digging through here and then like the human trafficking angle according to what like the u.s marshal has done here it's one in four of these kids so if it was 25 kids picked up that's six or seven of them were human trafficking the other 25 20 or so are like kids that ran away or kids that were being abused and they found them because they were missing so some of them missing for two weeks i'm up to two years well it's not not every kid is in a human traffic that's those 72 that's that that's everything the ones the 35 though in georgia i think those are all it's all the same thing yeah same kind of thing so they're collecting and then they're like reporting the number so they're getting they're collecting

these 35 kids over a period of time and then they're reporting we found 35 because like it's a month later they found 35 kids so it gets a month later they found 35 kids one from uh september which would have been reported five weeks ago says that they recovered 25 missing and endangered children over the last month one and four was part of what they believe in alleged human trafficking situation obviously one is too many obviously obviously obviously but so it seems like there's all they like they're finding missing kids and a percentage of them happen to be a part of human trafficking. And now here's the question. How many of the kids that are being human trafficked actually get discovered?

We're finding this five here, six here. But how many actually are there? How many of them actually are there? Do we know? We don't, right? We don't. Just the fact that it's a real thing is spooky as fuck. It is.

And it's dangerous. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's terrifying for fathers and mothers. It is. You know, it's like the fact that, or brothers and sisters, the fact that it could be someone close to you. Yes.

What other subjects and what other concerns do you have about the current state of this country? Maybe things that we haven't discussed before. So again, we always, we're sitting here talking about the division in the country, which is something that I think it's, it's a very real issue that we've been talking about. But I also just kind of want to say, what's the solution to the division in the country? We're always talking about problems, but then what are we going to do about it? And the one thing I got asked a few weeks ago, like, Wesley, what are you going to do when you get in the Congress? What can you do differently that nobody else has done to try to start to bridge this gap and bridge this divide? 2018, we had the fewest number of veterans in Congress and in the Senate since roughly World

War II. And I think that's actually a part of the issue and a part of the problem. So when I get to Washington is actually what I believe will be my personal mandate is to go find Democrats that are veterans. And let's have a conversation. And it actually won't be about policy or politics. It will actually be more about where'd you serve? What did you do? Who do you know? What circles did you run? And maybe we have a common bond there.

Because people that are willing to give their lives for this country just view the world a little bit differently. So I want to be a part of that contingent that actually tries to bring military people to the table and to be a part of that. You look at me, you look at Dan Crenshaw, you look at August Pfluger, we're all military guys. We all get each other on that point. Now, we're all Republicans, but Democrats do as well because we've taken an oath to defend this country against all enemies,

both foreign and domestic. I think that's the beginning to start to bridge the divide and it lies with soldiers. And again, you look at this time period, this is the time for soldiers that are, you know, Operation Iraqi Freedom, OEF, Enduring Freedom, you know, folks that actually have gone into private sector, gone and gotten, you know, a further education, but still have that bug to continue to serve, still have that itch. And I think they need, our country needs more of us than anything else right now. I think that's where it starts. I, Wesley Hunt, I'm going to be one of 435 congressmen and women that are currently serving this country today.

I'm one person. One person can't change the entire system. going to be one of 435 congressmen and women that are currently serving this country today. One person. One person can't change the entire system. But two, three, four, five, six, ten, twenty can. But you can't get to two unless you have one. Can't get to three unless you have two can't get to four yeah and so even if i'm two or three or four i am i represent the continuance of the coalition building it's going to take some time well when it comes to foreign policy when it comes to decisions of military actions when it comes to war itself there's i think of it's very important to have people who have actually served that are making those decisions. And it's disturbing as hell when people are making those decisions

that have never served, don't understand it, never been in the military, and they're making decisions that are going to put our veterans at risk. They're going to send them overseas to do these actions and in a way that they do not personally understand because they don't have any actual experience. The people like you, the people like Dan Crenshaw, Tulsi Gabbard, people that have served, these are the people that, in my opinion, should be the ones that we listen to. So it's personal because I lost 14 of my West Point classmates in the global war on terror.

And when I think about these brave men, way better men than me, paid the ultimate sacrifice, gave the eulogy. This is a bracelet. It says David Frazier on it. Wear it every day as a reminder as to why we are all here and why we have to continue to serve. And we have to make sure that when we ask somebody to go die for their country, we got to make sure that we know exactly what we're doing and how we're doing it. Regardless of what the cause is, dying for your country is the most noble death anyone can ever have, in my opinion. I don't care what the war was. I don't care what the reason was. Those brave men died a noble death. And moving forward, if we're going to ask somebody to pay that sacrifice,

we as lawmakers and we as leaders better make sure it's for a reason that is the most high and most noble. The one thing that I do see about President Trump and his doctrine is the idea of getting us out of these decade long wars. I tend to agree with that, actually. That region of the world is actually diametrically opposed to the way that we view the world here in this country. way that we view the world here in this country. It is. And there are ways through technology to continue to be an effective fighting force, the most effective fighting force in the world, without having brigades worth of soldiers in the Middle East in perpetuity. So I like that. I like using special ops. I like using small teams. I like using our brains and our technology.

I like all that. I think President Trump is spot on on that. And I do think that he's actually valuing the life of every individual soldier by making this decision. And then when you do that, you build credibility. Because when you do send people in harm's way, we get it. We get it. This guy is sending us here for this cause. It's a worthy cause. Get it up. Let's go. And that's the kind of that's the kind of confidence that you want to have in your leaders, not just the president, but across the board. When you've been there, you know what it feels like when you've lost classmates, you know what it feels like. lost classmates, you know what it feels like. And as a congressman, when we choose to send someone to war, and I look at that brave young man or that brave young woman, and I say,

look, this might be it for you. They look at me and they say, yes, sir. But if you're sending me, I trust you. We've got to get that back. The only way you're going to get that back is people like you. Thank you, sir. I really believe that. I don't think anybody who's never served is going to be able to make those decisions and have the respect of the people that are going to be sent over there. Yep.

Yep. What are the things we need to cover here? I was going to talk a little bit even about social media a little bit. Okay. That's a good subject. What makes this a very interesting topic for me is that while we are divided, I don't think it's as bad as everyone thinks it is. It's not as bad if you get people in a room together.

It's not. At all, actually. Right. It's not a talk. It's not bad at all. Twenty years ago, something would happen. Something bad would happen and you turn on the evening news and you might see it twice.

That's it. You might see it on the news. You might see it in a newspaper. That's it. Something bad happens today. Your phone blows up. It's on Twitter. It's on IG. It's on Facebook. And then it's on CNN app, your Fox News app. Then it's on Fox News cable, then it's on local TV.

So we have now seen the same incident like eight times on eight different platforms, which gives the perception that it's worse than it really is. I got to thinking about this a lot because my father, my father is my hero and he is And he is a very, very wise man. I like to think about this because he goes, son, do you really think it's harder to be a black man today than it was when I was growing up? That was rhetorical. The answer is absolutely not. But it got me thinking about it because it gives the perception that it is given all that we're seeing. But quite frankly, we've always gotten better. My brother and I always joke about America. He's like, what's the best time to be an American? Tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Am I better off being in America right now than I was when I graduated high school in 2000? Absolutely. So what is distorting our view so much that gives us the perception that we're way worse off? Over the course of the past 15 years, we have developed this social media system that, quite frankly, sends out just negative information and people then hide behind their words. They hide behind their posts because they don't actually confront people one on one. But is it really worse, Joe? Really worse in what way? So like so so.

Let's just let's just let's just go back to the racial issues in this country. Okay. Let's just go back to that. When I was in high school, you know, I thought about some of the language that was used, some of the language that was said, some of the ways that I was treated. When I compare that to the way I am treated right now, it's very different, actually. It's way better. Again, I'm actually running for Congress in a predominantly white district, overwhelmingly white district. Would that have been the case 30 years ago?

Would they have nominated me? Would they have elected me? I'm not quite sure. But now they have overwhelmingly, and they don't even care that i'm black i think what people would push back on is for sure things are getting better yes but what they would say is there's massive amounts of room for improvement and many many many things that need to be done to correct the way things are wrong in this country right now of course that's why people have a hard time when people look at the bright side of things. Okay. They look at the bright side of things and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

But you can't just ignore all these problems that exist right now. And that's what I refuse to do, which is why I tend to bring up the past and progress. Yeah. So when people ignore it is when they don't talk about their great, great grandfather who was once a slave. You see, I acknowledge that because I want to actually build on it. What I don't like are people who just refuse to even mention that. What I don't like are people who don't even want to acknowledge our past slavery. I actually want to talk about it because when you talk about it, we can fix it. What do you think could be done about injustices that are happening currently like

one of the things that i've discussed in this podcast many times is there are parts of this country whether it's baltimore or detroit or south side of chicago that are almost perpetually engulfed in crime yes and they have been forever and it doesn't seem to be any effort whatsoever to reverse that. How can you fix those? I understand you're becoming congressman in a specific district, but when you look at the country as an overall and you look at these particular bad spots,

what strategies can be used that aren't being used to fix this? The strategy of empathy and understanding, not yelling at each other, not demonizing each other, not saying that your culture is so messed up and it's your fault. Acknowledging that particularly in the black community, the welfare state was created. And that's actually what has caused a lot of the consternation in our culture today. That's not black people's fault, actually. It's actually the system's fault. Black people also have to take some responsibility for some of the cultural issues that we have as well.

It's not all white people's fault, actually. We have to accept some of this too. If both sides can accept and take on the culpability, some of it, on the problems that we see today, and we can admit it, and we can talk about it, then that's how we can begin to heal. But obviously some physical actions need to take place. I can't actually agree more with you on that. And physical actions need to be need to take place i can't i can't actually agree more with you on that and physical actions need to actually take place for everybody the issue is that when somebody says one side says well they should do this but they should do this well you should do that

we're pointing fingers and nothing and nothing gets done so the police are brutalizing us and a black person has a two and a half more higher chance of dying at the hands of police than a white person. That's actually a fact. It's actually a fact. So look at the police officers, but then the police officers and other groups can't say, well, that's because there's a higher incidence of crime

amongst brown and black people. What did that accomplish? Nothing. Right. Because nobody wants to assume responsibility that both are issues. Right, both are issues. Both are problems. This is where someone like me is actually uniquely positioned.

Look, I have been discriminated against. I have been profiled. I get it. I have been treated poorly by white people. I have been treated poorly by white people. I've been treated poorly by black people and vice versa. I understand all this. So what? What are we going to do to actually solve the problem?

And this is where it takes real tough leadership. Because what happens is you start getting in a circular firing squad and everybody's firing on you from all sides. And it gets tough for someone like me every now and again, who's kind of stuck and caught in the middle. But I always joke around and I say, well, I've also been in combat and I've been shot at before.

I can deal with it. But somebody has got to take this on. Instead of pointing the fingers at each other, who's going to bring both sides to the table? And again, can Wesley Hunt do it by myself? No. But what I hope in my candidacy and in conversations like this, thank you so much, is that what I hope, what I hope is that people can hear the message and then say, ah, okay, I get that tone. I accept this responsibility.

So now what can we do about it? That's where we start. And right now we are way over here. I recognize that. But we have to work incrementally to get us back together. I am confident that this country can do it because just like I've said before We've been way worse

We've been at war with each other and we were able to overcome that we can overcome this too It's just gonna take some work Joe What would you do? Like if you I know I understand you're running for Congress. You're not running to be King of the country, right? But if you if you had a magic wand and someone could say, Wesley Hunt, what would you do about, let's just say, south side of Chicago, which is just one of the most murderous places in this country right now.

Yes. Terrible. Yes. What would you do? I give you the power. Like, Wesley, you fix this. like Wesley you fix this how would you fix that so one of the issues

in my opinion in Chicago is the relationship with law enforcement and the citizens of that community we need to be in the business of building relationships with those that protect them and keep them safe

as long as as long as we can again admit that there is a problem on both sides what can i wesley hunt specifically do i you've heard all you've heard so many different ideas on how to how to combat this what i say is this we start off with. You have to start off with the community leaders who are, again, who are willing to accept culpability for some of the problems and culturally speaking. And then you start with the law enforcement officers that are willing to admit that we actually want to be a part of the solution and not be a part of the problem. And it takes one person to do that on either side to systematically fix the community one person at a time. You can't take just one big bite of the apple on this thing. It's going to take some time.

It's going to have to be incremental. Quite frankly, it's going to have to be generational as well because there's so much distrust. There's so much distrust on both sides that we can't even have a conversation about it. So we have to start small and then go big from there. And it starts right at the community level. Do you think also an announcing intention to specifically work on this and having this be a big conversation that takes place publicly that law enforcement does want to communicate with community leaders and

that there's a direct effort to try to improve these places to let people know we care we know it's a problem even though it's been ignored for so long it will be ignored no longer that's it that's it that's that's where you start that's where you start and it's i agree with you that is a it's a long process yes sir the frustrating thing is that it just hasn't really hasn't been addressed that much sadly and i always said if you want to make america great you really want less losers that's right so you want more people with an opportunity to get past the situation they're currently in. And so many people are trapped. They're trapped in these crime-ridden, gang-ridden, drug-ridden neighborhoods where it's normal for people to be in and out of jail.

And this is what they grow accustomed to because they grow up with it. Right. And that's no way to grow up. Yeah social media let's get back to that there one of the things that drives me crazy about social media is this flippant nature uh this this way that people think it's fine to just censor people and censor people that disagree with you one of the things is unity 2020 was something that was created by brett weinstein and many other people brett who is very liberal very progressive uh he was the guy that was the professor at evergreen state was run out by these crazy kids that wanted to take over and turn it into a utopia um for leftists uh it's that's the very the very paraphrased version of the story but he created this thing

called unity 2020 and he wanted to have conversations between the left and the right and have these people talk and try to come up with someone who's a better solution to run this country than what we're currently being offered twitter banned the account yeah i mean it was the most reasonable i don't know if they got it back see if they got unity 2020 back but the most reasonable and their their take on it was say no to biden say no to trump and let's come up with a better solution that this can be done. And Twitter's like, no. That's ridiculous. It's completely ridiculous.

But the question is, the First Amendment, what is this here? Suspended. Articles of Unity. Is that what it is? Articles of Unity? Is that the same thing as Unity 2020? Same thing? That's from Brett. Yeah. the official account articles of unity yeah

banned so they banned it and why why because they don't agree with the sentiment they think that maybe perhaps we should all fall in line and vote for joe biden because this is what they want yes and if you are a progressive and you're a liberal, you just have to accept the differences that you have with Biden and Kamala Harris and their perspectives, and you need to just fall in line. And there's no other third party. And the idea that you're fucking carrying water for the two-party system in 2020 is bonkers.

And that freedom of speech is supposed to be the freedom to discuss ideas. This is not an enormous percentage of the population that's going along with this guy. He's offering an educated perspective. It's our constitution. It is our constitution. It's also, it's so important to listen to things that you disagree with to understand why you disagree with them. Right.

And to understand if maybe there's some knowledge in there that you can acquire. Maybe there's a part of their perspective that you do agree with. Maybe you see the error in their ways and you can discuss it with them. You can say, well, this is where you guys got it wrong. And that happens on this fucking show all the time. So improve it. You can improve it. Yes.

I mean, discussing things. It's fucking critical. But whether it's Facebook, whether it's Twitter, Facebook banning QAnon. Look, I'm not a QAnon fan. But how could you ban that? Here's the problem. If you ban them, why are you letting the Flat Earthers still have a fucking page? Why are you letting the JFK people, the people that think the assassination was caused by aliens?

Where do you draw the line on what's true and what's not? And the problem is you just started down a slippery slope. And look, I don't even know what QAnon means. I know a lot of people believe in it, but I don't even know what they stand for. I just know there's a lot of wacky folks involved. I know them personally and they're wacky. So I'm like, ah. But the fact that Facebook wants to just ban it.

It's ridiculous. I just don't think they should have that kind of editorial power. the power to decide what gets discussed and what doesn't get discussed. amended to include social media and that social media should be treated as a utility a utility that everybody should be able to enjoy interesting that look you can't do things like dox people or or call for people's death or you know incite violence obviously yeah yes but or threaten people but express opinions come. You can't express opinions. I mean, you can get banned on Twitter for some of the most preposterous things. Yeah. You know, for a while it was like learn to code.

You say learn to code, you would get banned. You'd be banned. Yeah, because they were saying, this was in response to people like coal miners, what are they going to do when they get out of there? Someone said learn to code. And so then whenever anybody would get fired for any other reason, someone would say learn to code. They'd be like, you're banned for life. Come on.

It's nuts. Come on. But it is this thing where you're allowing people to censor people's voices. And I think you should let all the nuts talk. Let them all talk. It's called freedom of speech, as long as you're not threatening somebody. Yes. And the question is, people say, the they're harmful and their opinions sway

people in a certain way sway who sway you is it swaying you are they making you think the earth is flat are they making you no no you know it's swaying morons so what do we do we're going to regulate to stop morons from believing stupid shit is that what we're doing it's impossible it's impossible and it's also un-american to stop expression even expression that you don't agree with is un-american it's it's the wrong way to approach it yes it is but there's so many people that believe in de-platforming and that that's the way to handle these things i think they're wrong i think the more conversation and the more discussion no matter what the better because it teaches you about the world the problem is you have that switch and you can

just pop them just pop that switch and now they're off twitter forever fuck what'd you say unity what fuck you click that's it done next and it's not again it's not even people harassing people it's not people threatening people it's just people expressing opinions that you don't enjoy. What do you think should be done about this? And why haven't they done something? I mean, I know the president's discussed this. Yes. But what can be done about this?

So this topic is near and dear to my heart because you could imagine somebody like me going to Ithaca, New York at Cornell. Okay. I am a Texan. I've come from an energy capital of the world. I am a veteran. And in Ithaca, you would kind of solve the world's problems in coffee shops. And I'd walk in wearing something like this and boots and a hat. I'm a conservative guy and I'm black. I don't know anything about Ithaca other than John Jones is from Ithaca. Ithaca is a really liberal city. Very liberal.

College town? Yes, it is. It's Cornell and Ithaca College. It's a college town. And great place, by the way. Love it. A lovely place. Love my time there, actually.

And I would talk to people, obviously, that were very liberal and we would meet up on weekends all the time and we would talk to people obviously that were that were very liberal and we would meet up on weekends all the time and we would just talk and you could probably imagine that we didn't see the world the same way but but we always got to talk and meet up the next week and the next week and they were my classmates and they were my friends and they and we got to learn how to respect each other one of my classmates actually who is a banker up in up in New York who is a was a Bernieernie bro very liberal guy he sent me some money for the campaign and then sent me a note and he said you know wesley

if i was down there i don't think i'd even vote for you i said thanks man and then he goes but but i hope you win because i know you're a good guy and I know that you believe in this country. Why wouldn't he vote for you then? Well, because – How conflicted. Probably. He's helping you, but he doesn't want you to win, but he wants you to win. But he wouldn't vote for you.

But here's some money to win. I'm so confused. I don't know how to feel about that. But it's complicated, right? It's complicated. He may not vote, but does want me to win and so that's where we're we're actually missing that element of we might disagree politically but i respect you as a person enough to hear you out this is why we have to stop canceling people this is why we have to stop quelling just opinions, because it's actually a form of

disrespect to the very fiber of someone's human being. We've got to get to the point where we start respecting each other again, and this has to stop. And President Trump tweets a lot, as we see. And it's dawned on me that he does a lot because that's his way to get his point across, to circumvent everything else. Now, do I agree with all of it? No. Do I disagree sometimes? Sure. Do I agree with some of it? I absolutely do. But the whole point is this, that's an attempt to go direct to the people with his voice and his opinion. Whether you like it or disagree with it or not, that's actually beside the point. This is where we start to break that down because everybody should have the leeway to do just that.

So we have to lead by example. And when I see stuff like this, it's actually infuriating to me. Because if it's a very liberal opinion, knock yourself out. In fact, I want to hear it. I want to hear more about it. But if it's a conservative opinion or if it's different from my opinion, then

we ban it and it gets cancelled? Do you only fact check the more conservative points and opinions and not fact check the others because they disagree with you right or agree with you this is a very dangerous place to be in this is a valuable conversation to have because this is where legislators need to have a conversation about this what is freedom of speech right What is freedom of speech? Right. What is freedom of assembly? What is it? Like, really, what is it?

And I think our founding fathers intended it, intended it for it to be exactly what you're talking about right now. They never anticipated something like social media. No. And I think that social media represents the current town center where people can get together and talk about ideas. It does. They just never anticipated one person be able to reach thousands and thousands of people with one individual opinion. With one phrase or with one tweet or with one.

Millions of people. But to stop that from happening because you disagree with it. Is just, it's unconstitutional. Particularly if it's just political. It's unconstitutional. It's's also it's abusive yes you didn't no one anticipated that social media was ever going to be what it is now that's true that that it would be this town center of discussion it was at you know the beginning it was just people putting up pictures of their dog or something you know it was normal stuff but what it is now is it's the battleground for global communication it is and the fact that it's

being run almost entirely by left-wing people is very problematic especially with their penchant for censorship right right well i think dan crenshaw actually does a really good job with his social media. And again, it's about going direct to consumer is what he does. And even with, again, with the video and his Instagram account that has millions of followers on it, that's actually the way to combat this. that actually allows him to speak to people without worrying about whether or not he's going to be censored or not because it's his opinion that he is putting on his brand on his page. This is how you kind of start to take that back through social media.

And that's actually what I intend on doing too here over the course of the next few years. The problem is you can be shadow banned, you can be silenced, your tweets can be deleted and that's the problem yeah and the fact that this has become a viable solution to a lot of people on the left they think it's a wise thing to do yes it's cancel people yeah it's just not it's not acceptable it's also a lot of these people are mentally ill that are doing this that's like legitimately mental and when i say mentally ill i mean overridden with anxiety and depression and spending hours and hours and hours a day getting in fights online that's an ill person right i mean look we want to talk about mental health, and this

is something where people would push back against this, but I want you to consider this. Peace of mind, like clarity. If you are arguing with people on Twitter, I would say right now you're mentally ill. If you're spending hours and hours every day, which a lot of these people are,

just arguing and shitting on people all day long, you're probably ill. That's not optimal. That's not healthy. It's not a great way of communicating. But these social media networks, they facilitate mental illness in a lot of ways in a lot of these people. People that don't understand the negative consequences of engaging constantly constantly in conflict and negativity yes and negativity it's not wise it's just not wise and a lot of them are depressed i've talked to people who uh you know i've talked to them after they've gotten off of these like twitter binges and they're like dude i gotta stay off twitter man i get depressed i can't sleep at

this i mean why don't you delete it like why don't you stop think about that i can't sleep they get up in the middle of the night to pee and they check their twitter they check to see if people are agreeing or disagreeing with them they check to see who's who's angry at them and who's who's tweeting them because neurotic oh they go crazy yeah and it's just so unhealthy and then these people are the ones that think it's okay to silence other people to disagree with them wrong answer it's a wrong answer it's a wrong answer but i think it needs to be we need to figure out a way to regulate this like we regulate utilities i really do i don't think interesting i don't think you could call so i don't think you could say oh it's a private company

they can do whatever they want it's a private company that reaches billions of people. That's right. Like it's a pipeline for communication. I understand that they created it, but it's being used by so many people, and it's responsible for so much discourse. The argument should be made, I think, that this is one of the main forms of communication. And to deny people because of their political ideology, the access to this, I think is devastating. And I think it's terrible for our country.

It's terrible because it promotes division. It promotes more of the people on the right that are getting censored. They're going to hate the people on the left even more. And it creates that friction. It creates more friction. What can be done about this? It's a tough one. It's a tough one. What can be done about it is, again a tough one. It's a tough one. What can be done

about it is, again, what I always retort and go back to, that's conversations like this. So who's actually having conversations like this, by the way, about this topic? Not that many people. Not very many people. So what can be done about it is we have to increase the conversations like this with what I believe can be reasonable people from all walks of life on both sides of the aisle. We have to talk about this. I think if there were reasonable people that were sitting here, no matter where you're from, no matter where you're from, no matter what race, color, religion, creed, a political affiliation, if you're sitting here listening to this conversation and you've read the Constitution and you've been in this country for the bulk of your life, not even for

the bulk of your life, you've lived in America for long enough to understand freedom and liberty, you'd hear this conversation, you would say, maybe we should push back on that. Yeah. Maybe we should. So this is what you're doing, honestly, as a leader, by just even having these conversations. And we just need more of it.

And we need to have conversations with leaders in politics and in the entertainment industry. We have to have conversations with foreign countries and other leaders. This is how we start with leaders in industry and CEOs. We have to have these conversations.

I feel like we're at a time right now where we've just flat out stopped. We're just yelling at each other. And we spent the better part of an hour, in my opinion, literally talking about the crux of the problem, which is unconstitutional and against the First Amendment and our rights. Let's talk about that, what that means. And even in my opinion, maybe, I don't know, you know, maybe I, I look,

I see the glass half full. Even the most liberal person, if they were sitting here as a human being, looking at each other would say they have a point. I think liberal people that are objective would see the danger in censorship. Yes. And if they didn't, I don't know how they'd call themselves liberal.

How are you going to call yourself progressive when you are anti communication it's the antithesis of being liberal yes by not wanting to hear other people's opinion because it doesn't agree with yours is actually opposite of the word liberalism yeah it really is but in this day and age it's really it's become so tribal that these people they form these groups and then they live in these thought bubbles, and they only want to communicate with people that agree with their ideology. Yes.

And they want it to be confirmed. They want confirmation bias. That's what they want. They want to be surrounded by people that think the same way they do, and that we're more polarized now than ever. It's so disheartening. I always push back on

people that ask me that start a question off like this wesley how could you wrong let me let me just stop you right there what do they say that about the question lots of things give me one how could how could you how could you be a black republican oh that's an interesting one. How could you? Yeah. Just the wrong question to ask anybody. Right. The question is, why are you or why do you? Yeah. Either you're seeking to condemn or you're seeking to understand. If you're seeking to understand, you're asking the question why, because you want to learn something. Yes. If you're asking how do you or how could you, you've already made your mind up. Right. You're casting judgment with your question. You've already done it.

Yeah. How much grief do you get for being black and being Republican at the same time? I wouldn't say grief. I do get a lot of pushback. I get a lot of pushback on social media, as you could probably imagine, until somebody sits down and actually have a conversation with me. Right. And then all of a sudden. You're reasonable. Then all of a sudden. Well, I can't imagine anybody listening to this conversation not thinking you're reasonable.

Right. But if you look at a tweet or sound bites, you look at a brief thing, and you try to categorize someone, The absence of nuance is very dangerous. Yes, it is. And eliminating nuance from clearly nuanced discussions. That's right. Human beings are nuanced. Yes, we are.

Yeah. I mean, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We are complicated. Super. So accept that. Right. And to try to boil someone down to a quote or to a demographic or to any simplistic interpretation of a person. It's impossible to do that.

It's not wise. Yes, sir. And when people do it, they're being disingenuous and they're being sneaky. Yeah. Yeah, but that's more often now than not. It is. That's the problem. It is.

And we accept it. And if it goes along with our belief system or idea our ideology like yeah we roll with it fuck him yeah yeah part of my i don't know i i believe in serendipity and i'm just i don't know how i got here at this time at this place and and but but i do think i'm here for a reason because this is a courageous thing to be able to have these conversations and take it out to the public, specifically in politics in this climate today. But it's kind of my mandate. I have to do it. Because if Dan doesn't do it and if I don't do it, then literally nobody's going to do it.

Well, I'm very excited about the entrance of all these veterans getting into politics thank you i think it's very important it is and i think it's something that's been missing and lacking people with real world experience on these subjects that we discuss yes yes i agree i'm happy there's guys like you and dan and and many others that are entering into politics and i think the people that have experienced it, the kind of things that you guys have experienced, there's an education that cannot be acquired any other way. That's right.

Literally trial by fire. Yeah, literally. I'm just glad that no one censored podcasts yet. I don't think you let that happen, brother. I'll try not to, but fuck, man. People get crazy depending upon who gets into comedy. Or comedy. Depending upon who gets into politics or who gets into power.

Yeah. I mean, look, there are dictatorships that are currently going on in this world. The idea that that could never happen here is preposterous. Oh, ick it. in this world. The idea that that could never happen here is preposterous. Human beings can fall into all sorts of traps and they have throughout history. We are aware of those traps and we think, well, that won't happen to us. We're always one generation away. Or one tragedy away. Or one decision that we make

to give up rights in order to have safety. And then boom, next thing you know, guess what we've lost someone's checking all your emails yep guess what you can't express an opinion or guess what you can't talk shit like men like to get together and talk shit we like yeah and we say a bunch of shit that we probably don't even really mean but it's funny to say right especially soldiers dude i've been around so many yeah seals have the most fucked up sense of humor oh my god some of these guys work security for me

holy shit they're hilarious but funny but if you took some of that shit and put it in a quote lock that person away that person's terrible this is what they're planning that's not what he's planning

he's talking shit don't you know what talking shit is especially with alcohol involved oh my god and everyone talking shit knows it's talking shit and that's why everybody's laughing that's right we are all in on the joke

talking shit is a very important part of human beings it's a very important part of men men and discourse if a man can't talk shit with me i can't talk to them i can't because you can't talk shit come on man yeah you can't talk a little shit it's fun like the the half smile while you're saying things and i'm smiling you know what you're looking at you know you both we both know what we're doing we're talking shit yeah i think talking shit is very important that's okay it gets demonized so much and it becomes a part of this whole narrative of toxic toxic masculinity and listen if it wasn't for toxic masculinity we'd all be speaking german

so shut the fuck up exactly right yeah that's exactly right because because it was toxic it was toxic masculinity that stormed the beaches of normandy yeah it's not toxic in a barrage of machine gun fire it's just masculinity and by the way here's the dirty secret women love masculine men sorry guys sorry dorks you're not gonna fix that you're not gonna fix you're not going to fix that. You're not going to fix that. You're not going to change that. That's just how it is. We're animals. Human beings are animals.

That's right. We are animals. Yeah, we're complicated, though. We are complicated animals. Yeah, and you can't boil us down to some fucking ridiculous Disney-fied narrative that you'd like us to fall into. But there's an inclination to do that today. Roy Jones Jr. talked about it on the podcast.

He's like, they're trying to neuter men. That's right. And that is how it feels. They're trying to socially neuter men to get them to fall into a pattern that they would like because it's easier to control people in that way. And also, it eliminates the kind of competition that you can't win.

If you're a nerdy feminine man and you view toxic masculinity you view men who are very masculine as something you could never be you want to try to eliminate that or you want to try to control that and you see a lot of that you see a lot of it from people that have had bad interactions with men there's a way to be tactful and there's a way to be respectful and still maintain your masculinity yes but you also i was going to get to you see a lot of shitty men that want to neuter women they want to assert yeah they want they don't like strong women they don't like power because they've had bad relationships with women or they've had women that didn't like them or that

they feel bad about their relationships with them because the the women dismissed them or that they feel bad about their relationships with them because the women dismissed them or weren't interested in them or, you know, or just, it's just. See, when you do that, so then you don't have a Wesleyan or Rendon Hunt because my sister went to West Point first. She is a strong woman that actually set quite the example for my brother and I. That's why we all three went. Yes. So why would I want to take away her strength and her power and her individuality to actually lead men and women and also be a good example for her brothers?

Yes. Who are two masculine guys. But here's the thing. Strong people. Yes. Appreciate strong people. Period. Weak people don't like strong people.

That's where it comes down to. The masculine-feminine thing, that's a trap. There's a lot of strong women who love masculine men. There's a lot of strong men who love powerful women. They don't fear it because they're not weak right a few days ago i got to meet nikki haley in person she is remarkable she's a strong leader i don't know who nikki haley nikki haley uh she's the former governor of south carolina un ambassador under president Unbelievable. You could tell she's strong. She is

level-headed. She is extremely shrewd. She is extremely smart. She's amazing. And I'm sitting at the table with her and it's me and her and my wife and Dan and Tara Crenshaw. And we're sitting there and I'm looking at Dan. Dan's looking at me. I'm like, she is incredible. That has nothing to do with her being a woman or me flying Apaches or Dan being a SEAL. She is a strong person. She's a strong woman. She is a leader.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. That's what we need to get to. And that's what we need to get to. Yes, that's what we need to get to. We need to celebrate powerful people. That's right. People who are strong, people who are leaders. And who understand for something.

Yes. People who exemplify what we enjoy seeing in others. That's right. Great character, great intelligence, integrity. Right. Someone who's interesting. Mental strength. Yes.

Yes. All those things. Yes. We should really reinforce that. Celebrate those things. Yes. Don't demonize them. Celebrate those things.

Celebrate it. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. What else? What other subjects you think we need to cover? I think you made

an awesome point today. I really do. I think we covered it all. I hope these motherfuckers vote for it. I really do. Yeah, me too. I hope they get out.

Yeah, me too. I hope they get out. I hope we get the word out and they see this podcast and they go, oh, okay. Me too. Me too.

We're working hard at it. And again, I just want to say always, always, always, I am in American First, and I'm proud of it. You can't tell me this is not the greatest experiment in the history of this world, and I'm just blessed to be a part of it. You can't tell me that either. You cannot tell me otherwise. No. No, I love it. I love it.

I love it, and I love the guys like you are out there trying to represent, brother. Trying to represent America correctly. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. Thank you. My pleasure. Tell people one more time, what district, how to get after it. Sure. It's Houston, Texas, Congressional District 7. My website is WesleyForTexas.com. Wesley for Texas. Thank you, sir. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it very much. Awesome. Thank you. Wesley Hunt, ladies and gentlemen, you know what to do.

Get out there. Vote for him. Bye, everybody.