In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, I sit down with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-VA) to talk about his campaign for Congress, why he decided to run, and why he's running for re-election. He talks about his family's history in the military and the sacrifices they've made. He also talks about why he chose to run for Congress and what it means to be a Black man in a white male-dominated political world. I think you'll find a lot of value in this episode, and I hope you do too! Joe's great-great-grandfather served in the U.S. Army and served in World War II, and was a member of the famed Tuskegee Air Force. He was also a West Point graduate and served as a diplomatic liaison officer in the Middle East. I hope this episode gives you some perspective on what it's like to grow up in a family with a military family and serve in the political system that values hard work and sacrifice. Thank you so much for being a part of this amazing community, and thank you to everyone who has been with me on this journey with me throughout the journey. I can't wait to see what's to come in 2020 and in 2020. -Joe Rogan Podcast -Bye Bye, All Day, All Night! -J.J. Rogan Music: "Train by Day" by Train by Day - "Bye, All By Night" by Haley & Ollie (feat. Roberta) by Haley and Olly (ft. James) by Sondre (featuring ) and & by John ( ) - "Good Morning Joe" by The Good Morning Joe by James ( ) -feat. by (feat ) & , "The Good Morning Morning Joe "By Anyones" by ) by , , and , featuring , & ( ) ( ) featuring . featuring . ( ) and ( ), of , ( ) & ( ) , & ( with , , is featuring ! (c) & podcast, , @ ( ) is featuring the amazing and . . (& ) - interview by . , ( & ) is featured on the Good Morning Coffee Podcast,
00:01:02.000So my dad did 23 years in the Army, retired as a lieutenant colonel.
00:01:07.000My sister went to West Point in my family first.
00:01:10.000So she's 10 years older than me, did 23 years active duty.
00:01:14.000She was a military intelligence officer, deployed to Iraq twice, did a few tours abroad as well.
00:01:20.000I went to West Point in my family second.
00:01:23.000We're 10 years apart, my sister and I, and then graduated West Point in 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.
00:01:42.000My brother, who was 10 months and 8 days my juniors who were Irish twins, he also went to West Point.
00:02:08.000So she stood at home for two months in 2006 while I was flying combat air missions in Baghdad.
00:02:15.000My sister was doing intel in the green zone and my brother was in the Arabian Gulf on a destroy for two months at the same time.
00:02:23.000So even though she didn't serve in the military per se, she served those who served by lending her family.
00:02:29.000So 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.
00:02:38.000So this is just a mindset that you were raised with.
00:03:16.000But it's always my opinion that patriots always step up when our country needs us the most.
00:03:21.000And that's kind of what we're taught to do, to give back to the country that gave us all that we have.
00:03:27.000Now, 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?
00:03:39.000Yeah, 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.
00:03:48.000My great-great-grandfather was a slave.
00:03:51.000His name was Silas Crawford, born on Rose Down Plantation, just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
00:03:57.000Three of his great-great-grandchildren all attended West Point.
00:04:01.000I earned three master's degrees from Cornell University.
00:04:31.000But 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?
00:04:41.000It seems like both things have to be addressed.
00:04:44.000It 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.
00:04:52.000But I think we also have to concentrate on injustice.
00:04:55.000And racial bias and racial injustice and all the problems that we're seeing.
00:04:59.000You know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine.
00:05:02.000We 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...
00:05:19.000That one guy's horrible actions changes everyone's perception of the police.
00:05:24.000But meanwhile, there's millions of interactions that police have with citizens that never go that way, that are positive.
00:07:00.000And 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.
00:07:07.000And if you actually talk to a lot of minority communities, they don't want to defund the police.
00:07:11.000They just want the police to do better.
00:07:43.000So his perception is that what we're dealing with is people that are untrained, Undermotivated, underappreciated, and some of them just bad people.
00:08:27.000I mean, anybody who's ever been in a situation where you need the cops and they show up, there's a great sign of relief when you feel protected.
00:08:36.000And 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.
00:08:43.000This is personal for me too, Joe, because when I got out of West Point in 2004, it was during the Abu Ghraib scandal.
00:08:51.000I don't know if you recall that, but we had a few idiots that treated some prisoners very poorly and posted the pictures up in the world, saw that.
00:08:59.000And I entered the military at a time where that was the perception of military officers and soldiers, and that's not true.
00:11:50.000And, 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.
00:12:49.000And 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.
00:13:09.000Let's not burn the country down because of them.
00:13:12.000Let'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.
00:13:22.000What'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.
00:13:44.000And then they have to, thousands, 600 and how many thousand people, families, have to deal with this every single solitary day.
00:13:54.000And most of them do a really good job.
00:13:57.000So the George Floyd instance, the Breonna Taylor instances, 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.
00:14:11.000When I made mistakes as a kid, my dad didn't just kick me out the house.
00:14:15.000He taught me right from wrong so that I wouldn't make the same mistakes next time so we could all get better together.
00:14:21.000Well, 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.
00:17:21.000And obviously, you've got to give credit to Walter Reed.
00:17:23.000You've 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.
00:20:07.000And I think the way that we responded to this 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.
00:20:24.000Stay home, wear a mask, keep away from people.
00:20:27.000And the beautiful thing about today is we do have, well, at least here we have this rapid response test at the studio.
00:20:34.000I hope they have this rapid response, or not rapid response, but rapid result test everywhere.
00:20:40.000I 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.
00:22:15.000Mind over matter in certain ways is something that I'm a fan of.
00:22:19.000Because when you go into a situation, I've read some studies, you've even heard about cancer, people that have an optimistic outlook actually have a higher chance of beating cancer.
00:22:39.000Sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.
00:22:40.000But there's a reason why the placebo effect 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.
00:22:51.000That's why I think meditation and breath work is very important and people should do that all the time because it just helps alleviate anxiety.
00:22:59.000And I think alleviating anxiety and alleviating a certain amount of stress is probably good for you.
00:23:04.000And then also having as little burden in your life in terms of like...
00:23:09.000Negative relationships, bad friends that you can't trust, people that are weighing you down, all that kind of shit.
00:23:15.000All 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.
00:25:04.000You 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.
00:25:18.000And I think it's important to me that I do something extremely difficult that might suck a little bit every single day.
00:25:33.000He would always say, and he was my Apache instructor, he would always say, you gotta kill something every day, even if it's an ant, no matter how small.
00:26:48.000I'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.
00:27:59.000I 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 increase your ability to do difficult things.
00:28:17.000It increases your overall ability to do difficult things.
00:28:29.000Now, what has the campaign trail been like?
00:28:32.000In general, what do you have to do with this?
00:28:34.000Yeah, so with COVID, things have obviously changed the way that we do things dramatically.
00:28:38.000By 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.
00:29:32.000So I announced, I announced about a year and a half ago.
00:29:35.000And 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.
00:29:43.000And there's avenues in which you can do that.
00:29:45.000So there's broadcast television, there's mail, there's digital, there's knocking on doors, there's person to person stuff.
00:29:52.000What's really lacking because of COVID is the latter, the person to person stuff.
00:29:56.000So you're not really allowed to have big gatherings like you used to be able to do for, you know, fundraisers and meet and greets and things like that.
00:30:04.000This has now evolved into a lot of more zoom calls.
00:30:07.000It's evolved to what we're doing in Houston, some front yard meet and greets that are socially distanced.
00:30:12.000And 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.
00:30:23.000Even meeting you in person at the improv is just way different.
00:30:26.000I've been following you for years, but it's just a different touch when you actually see the person.
00:30:31.000And so that's what the challenge has been.
00:30:33.000So 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.
00:30:44.000So when you say backyard or front yard meet and greets, how do those come about?
00:30:56.000We can get 10, 15, 20 people out here that usually set up some chairs or just stand around.
00:31:02.000I'll come over, meet everybody to 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.
00:31:11.000How can I continue to be their humble servant?
00:31:24.000And I think a lot of people have been very receptive to it, too.
00:31:27.000Now, what other issues do you think are concerns that people have that maybe you have a unique perspective on that you can help?
00:31:38.000What other 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?
00:31:46.000So I'm a Houston boy, born and raised.
00:31:49.000First football game I went to was for the Houston Oilers, back in the Love U Blue days.
00:31:55.000I don't know what the Love U Blue days are.
00:33:27.000Like a lot of millennials, quite frankly, I do believe that human beings can influence the climate.
00:33:34.000But, Houston is known as the energy capital of the world.
00:33:37.000And 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.
00:33:46.000And the narrative that I am seeing about fossil fuels doesn't necessarily jive well with me at all.
00:35:50.000You were talking about oil when I was saying that I escaped Los Angeles.
00:35:54.000One 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.
00:36:08.000And 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?
00:36:15.000And that this is not good for the environment.
00:37:55.000I'm a big fan of the government empowering the private sector to innovate to get to the next...
00:38:01.000You know, affordable, renewable source that's going to happen.
00:38:04.000It'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.
00:38:15.000Now, 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.
00:38:28.000If 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.
00:39:32.000So 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.
00:39:45.000So this is an issue where we have to marry economics, innovation, and of course make sure that we are good stewards of this earth.
00:40:33.000And 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.
00:40:45.000We literally aren't going anywhere for the next few generations.
00:40:48.000What 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 too.
00:40:59.000It's a matter of time until we get there, but let's bring them along with the conversation and not demonize them.
00:41:06.000And 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.
00:41:32.000The 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.
00:42:30.000And so we have to recover from this thing.
00:42:32.000And 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.
00:42:44.000Also, the byproducts of petrochemicals as well.
00:42:47.000This microphone, this mug, your phone.
00:42:53.000The shoes on your feet is all byproducts of the oil and gas industry.
00:42:57.000And 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 is fossil fuels.
00:43:33.000This country is always about innovation and progression.
00:43:36.000We've been doing this for generations.
00:43:39.000Let's continue that progression by enabling, again, the private sector to innovate to the next level.
00:43:45.000If 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.
00:43:55.000Is there, in the Green New Deal, is there a solution for what they deem the problems of the oil and gas industry?
00:44:03.000Do they have a replacement for those resources?
00:44:25.000The US can't turn their lights on for the time being without oil and gas, without the oil and gas industry.
00:44:31.000If we were able to miraculously even attempt to turn this entire country into a renewable source, it's just not possible.
00:44:40.000I 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.
00:45:05.000Because 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.
00:46:05.000You 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.
00:46:14.000Do 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 do this?
00:46:38.000It becomes headline news instead of us saying, wait a minute.
00:46:41.000If 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.
00:46:50.000I mean, look at your Tesla that you drive.
00:46:52.000I mean, that is a technological marvel and advancement in itself.
00:46:57.000And now we're producing it on a mass scale?
00:47:23.000Let'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.
00:47:33.000What 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.
00:47:46.000That they can develop essentially enormous air filters.
00:47:51.000That 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.
00:49:49.000And 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.
00:50:49.000If you don't agree with me, you must be evil.
00:50:51.000Or you must be naive, or you must be foolish.
00:50:55.000These 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.
00:51:36.000Yeah, you have to be able to have these conversations.
00:51:39.000What 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?
00:52:07.000And this is literally part of my problem, and that is if you aren't going to tell me a substantive viable solution, 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.
00:52:20.000And okay, so what's the path to do so?
00:52:23.000What resources are we going to use to get there?
00:52:26.000How are we going to replace these resources?
00:52:32.000I keep saying this over and over again, but nothing's being proposed that's rational and reasonable that's actually addressing global warming.
00:52:42.000It completely leaves out the other countries.
00:53:27.000Are 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?
00:53:38.000It got to the point where at first, when I watched the Corn Pot video, have you seen that one?
00:54:35.000I 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.
00:54:45.000Young and healthy, and she's probably going to be the president.
00:54:49.000If he wins, she will be really pulling the strings.
00:55:10.000As left as you could probably be, if you think about it.
00:55:14.000That's not where the values of Texas are, though.
00:55:17.000And 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.
00:55:28.000And that's just not where I believe Texas or really the nation is.
00:55:32.000I think we are far more centered than that.
00:55:44.000Because if you're in the center, you're not supported by the left, you're not supported by the right.
00:55:47.000And 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.
00:56:41.000During the Civil War, you had West Point classmates that were friends, that would train 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.
00:56:54.000And you had West Point classmates killing each other.
00:57:00.000The 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.
00:58:12.000So I want to add perspective to how far this country has really come.
00:58:17.000And we've got to understand how do we build on these things and also understand that this pendulum shifts back and forth.
00:58:25.000I 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.
00:59:33.000And 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.
00:59:53.000SEALs are uber competitive and they are very intense.
00:59:56.000And they are my most favorite people on the entire planet.
01:00:00.000Because what they do in 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.
01:04:41.000You'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.
01:04:48.000And that means you have to vote a certain way.
01:05:50.000We've kind of got a handle on what this is.
01:05:52.000You can let people open up their businesses.
01:05:54.000You 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 at least get back to some semblance of normality.
01:06:06.000But they don't want to do that for some weird reason.
01:06:07.000And this is the one that drives me crazy.
01:09:11.000Wasn't there a situation where a bunch of kids were getting high and they went into an abandoned house and they found a tiger inside of it?
01:12:44.000He teaches bow hunting and teaches it online.
01:12:47.000He's got this knock-on archery set up.
01:12:49.000They set up bows for people and all this stuff.
01:12:51.000He makes videos of bow hunting, but literally move to Iowa because the best white-tailed deer hunting in the world, arguably, is, you know, it's arguable whether it's Kansas or Illinois or Iowa, but Iowa's in the mix and his place is pretty special.
01:13:07.000Yeah, I went hunting there a couple of years ago.
01:13:09.000Hopefully I'll get to go back here late November.
01:14:47.000It was a funny thing when I was in high school.
01:14:49.000Me and my friend John were on the roof of...
01:14:52.000I 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.
01:15:03.000Because one day the whole street became just like a skating rink.
01:16:36.000Listen, 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.
01:16:44.000They'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.
01:18:00.000What is the motivation behind these policies?
01:18:04.000And how can you just change your mind because people get upset?
01:18:08.000If 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.
01:18:15.000What are you basing it on, and who are you?
01:19:43.000And, you know, 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.
01:19:57.000It's happening, and it's a factor, and it's not a factor that's being talked about.
01:20:01.000You're not seeing charts that track how—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.
01:20:47.000Well, what I want to do with the comedy club is set up like 10 of those.
01:20:51.000And just have everybody say, look, the show's at 8. Get there at 7. You get tested.
01:20:55.000Once you're clean, 15 minutes in, you can go have a drink.
01:20:57.000And the show will start at 8. And this way we could just sit down like humans, like we used to do, just 7, 8 months ago, and have a good old time.
01:21:32.000But if you're a person, like, say 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.
01:21:38.000You should be able to do whatever you want to do.
01:21:40.000And 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.
01:21:52.000We could definitely do this, by the way.
01:21:55.000But it can't be done with over-regulation, 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.
01:22:33.000They're looking at everything with rose-colored glasses, and they keep getting paid.
01:22:36.000And that's part of the problem, is all these politicians keep getting paid.
01:22:39.000And I know Gavin Newsom was at one point in time saying he was going to take a pay cut, but he never did.
01:22:44.000As far as I'm concerned, as far as I know, I don't think he did.
01:22:50.000Well, I love what you said is you brought the Constitution.
01:22:53.000And again, I've used the word liberty multiple times now because that's absolutely real to me.
01:22:57.000I mean, they set this framework up to empower the citizens to have their own religion, to live where they want to live.
01:23:05.000If you don't like your state, you can move as you did and vote with your feet.
01:23:10.000If you don't like the tax rate in one state, you can move somewhere else.
01:23:14.000I mean, we've built this country to allow people to make their own decisions.
01:23:18.000And 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.
01:23:28.000And that's where people like me, for example, you ask why I'm running for Congress, this is why.
01:23:33.000Because we have to get back to empowering citizens to make their own decisions.
01:24:00.000But really, it's about empowering the individual to make their own choices and make their own decisions.
01:24:05.000Federal government is not supposed to tell people what to do and how to live.
01:24:09.000People are fleeing their countries from all over the world to come right here to this country.
01:24:15.000And I just sat with a woman from Taiwan today.
01:24:18.000They are fleeing their countries to come here to live free.
01:24:22.000And then here we are talking about regulation to take that very thing that makes us different away from our citizens.
01:24:29.000My concern is that we're not going to get it back.
01:24:31.000My concern is I understand that they have motivation to reduce these freedoms to contain COVID, but freedoms lost are rarely regained.
01:24:41.000And 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.
01:25:52.000So this is the good thing about information, and we walk around every day with a supercomputer in our hands.
01:25:58.000We're actually one of the first generations to ever be able to do that for the bulk of our lives.
01:26:02.000And 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.
01:26:18.000I 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.
01:26:57.000There's a lot of Trump supporters in Portland, too, that are doing these big parades with American flags and Trump flags and driving their trucks and honking their horns.
01:27:05.000I wonder if that's gonna have an impact.
01:27:16.000And 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, sorry, you're on your own.
01:27:31.000Now, why are they saying you're on your own?
01:27:33.000Because the mayor won't allow them to do anything?
01:27:35.000Well, that's because they are now defunding the police, and then they're setting up areas where they won't allow law enforcement to even enter.
01:28:23.000Saying, no, 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.
01:28:33.000They were beating people up for filming things.
01:33:04.000So when you read an article like that, U.S. Marshals Rescued 72 Missing Children, this is where all the QAnon people get crazy because they think that Donald Trump is secretly working behind the scenes to stop child trafficking and that there's some secret cabal in the government that wants to enable this shit and then Facebook bans QAnon.
01:33:45.000So usually it's local law enforcement that recognizes some abnormalities in the behavior of some of the children.
01:33:53.000Usually it's certain areas, certain shops, certain businesses that are kind of harboring these people.
01:34:00.000A 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.
01:34:46.000If 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.
01:34:58.000Why is this not a bigger story in mainstream news?
01:35:00.000This is one of the things that concerns me.
01:35:03.000I don't understand why you're not seeing this on CNN. Every day.
01:35:06.000Why are we seeing this every day on CNN? That story right there should be leading on primetime news.
01:35:18.000So 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.
01:35:41.000The solution to this, in my opinion, I'll get the answer in a second.
01:35:45.000The 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.
01:35:55.000The other way we're finding out, to answer your question, the other way that we're finding out as to how they're infiltrating 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.
01:36:11.000So if you just kind of hang out around these areas, then you'll see a lot more of it.
01:37:03.000A lot of them come from Asian countries, actually.
01:37:06.000And 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.
01:38:29.000I've also heard communicating through just open email inboxes.
01:38:34.000They 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.
01:38:51.000And 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.
01:39:03.000A guy shows up with a gun looking for kids that are tied up in the basement and everybody's like, oh my god.
01:40:09.000I found an article on Reuters that said that the mainstream media has been reporting on this.
01:40:15.000I'm looking through pages to find out details on different reporting of this.
01:40:21.000All I'm finding this on is local news sites.
01:40:25.000What does that mean, though, that it's not being reported?
01:40:28.000Well, you don't see it on CNN. You're not seeing it as mainstream television news where it's a big subject that gets discussed, that we have a giant problem like this in this country.
01:40:39.000I'm digging through here, and then the human trafficking angle, according to what the U.S. Marshal's done here, it's one in four of these kids.
01:40:47.000So if it was 25 kids picked up, that's six or seven of them were human trafficking.
01:40:51.000The other 20 or so are kids that ran away or kids that were being abused.
01:40:57.000They found them because they were missing.
01:41:00.000Some have been missing for two weeks, some up to two years.
01:41:03.000Not every kid is in a human trafficking situation.
01:41:05.000That's those 72. The 35 though in Georgia, I think those were all the same kind of thing.
01:41:13.000So they're collecting, and then they're like reporting the numbers.
01:41:17.000So they're collecting these 35 kids over a period of time, and then they're reporting, we found 35 kids.
01:41:24.000So it's a month later, they found 35 kids.
01:41:27.000This one from September, which would have been reported five weeks ago, says that they recovered 25 missing and endangered children over the last month.
01:41:34.000One in four was part of what they believe in alleged human trafficking situation.
01:42:23.000What other subjects and what other concerns do you have about the current state of this country?
01:42:30.000Maybe things that we haven't discussed before.
01:42:33.000So, again, we're sitting here talking about the division in the country, which is something that I think it's a very real issue that we've been talking about.
01:42:41.000But I also just kind of want to say, what's the solution to the division in the country?
01:42:46.000We always talk about problems, but then what are we going to do about it?
01:42:49.000And the one thing I got asked a few weeks ago, like, Wesley, what are you going to do when you get into Congress?
01:42:55.000What can you do differently that nobody else has done to try to start to bridge this gap and bridge this divide?
01:43:01.0002018, 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.
01:43:12.000So when I get to Washington is actually what I believe will be my personal mandate is to go find Democrats that are veterans.
01:43:54.000Now, we're all Republicans, but Democrats do as well.
01:43:57.000Because we've taken an oath to defend this country against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
01:44:02.000I think that's the beginning to start to bridge the divide, and it lies with soldiers.
01:44:10.000And 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,
01:44:26.000but still have that bug to continue to serve, still have that itch.
01:44:31.000And I think they need, our country needs more of us than anything else right now.
01:45:15.000Well, when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to decisions of military actions, when it comes to war itself, there's I think it's very important to have people who have actually served that are making those decisions.
01:45:31.000And it's disturbing as hell when people 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.
01:45:46.000They're going to send them overseas to do these actions in a way that they do not personally understand because they don't have any actual experience.
01:45:55.000The 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.
01:46:07.000So, it's personal because I lost 14 of my West Point classmates in a global war on terror.
01:46:13.000And when I think about these brave men, way better men than me, paid the ultimate sacrifice, gave the eulogy.
01:46:19.000This bracelet says David Frazier on it.
01:46:21.000Wear it every day as a reminder as to why we are all here and why we have to continue to serve.
01:46:26.000And 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.
01:46:37.000Regardless of what the cause is, dying for your country is the most noble death anyone can ever have, in my opinion.
01:46:52.000And 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.
01:48:07.000And that's the kind of confidence that you want to have in your leaders, not just the president, but across the board.
01:48:16.000When you've been there, you know what it feels like.
01:48:19.000When you've lost classmates, you know what it feels like.
01:48:24.000And 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.
01:48:33.000They look at me and they say, yes, sir, but if you're sending me, I trust you.
01:48:46.000I 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.
01:49:40.000It'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.
01:49:58.000I got to thinking about this a lot, because my father is my hero, and he is a very, very wise man.
01:50:05.000I got to thinking 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?
01:50:49.000So what is distorting our view so much that gives us the perception that we're way worse off?
01:50:59.000Well, 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.
01:51:10.000They hide behind their posts because they don't actually confront people one-on-one.
01:51:31.000When I was in high school, 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.
01:51:39.000When I compare that to the way I am treated right now, it's very different, actually.
01:52:11.000But 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.
01:52:27.000But you can't just ignore all these problems that exist right now.
01:52:31.000And that's what I refuse to do, which is why I tend to bring up the past and progress.
01:52:37.000So when people ignore it is when they don't talk about their great-great-grandfather who was once a slave.
01:52:43.000You see, I acknowledge that because I want to actually build on it.
01:52:47.000What I don't like are people who just refuse to even mention that.
01:52:51.000What I don't like are people who don't even want to acknowledge our past slavery.
01:52:55.000I actually want to talk about it because when you talk about it, we can fix it.
01:53:00.000What do you think could be done about injustices that are happening currently?
01:53:05.000One 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.
01:53:18.000And they have been forever, and there doesn't seem to be any effort whatsoever to reverse that.
01:53:27.000I 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?
01:53:43.000The strategy of empathy and understanding.
01:53:51.000Not saying that your culture is so messed up and it's your fault.
01:53:58.000Acknowledging 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.
01:54:09.000That's not black people's fault, actually.
01:54:26.000If 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.
01:54:38.000But obviously some physical actions need to take place.
01:54:42.000I can't actually agree more with you on that.
01:54:45.000And physical actions need to actually take place for everybody.
01:54:51.000The issue is that when somebody says, one side says, well, they should do this, but they should do this.
01:54:59.000We're pointing fingers and nothing gets done.
01:55:03.000So 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.
01:55:14.000So we look at the police officers, but then the police officers and other groups can't say, well, that's because, well, there's a higher incidence of crime amongst brown and black people.
01:56:33.000But 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.
01:57:26.000And 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.
01:57:48.000So one of the issues, in my opinion, in Chicago, is the relationship with law enforcement and the citizens of that community.
01:57:58.000We need to be in the business of building relationships with those that protect them and keep them safe, as long as we can again admit that there is a problem on both sides.
01:58:12.000What can I, Wesley Hunt, specifically do?
01:58:15.000You've heard so many different ideas on how to combat this.
01:58:20.000What I say is this, we start off with conversations.
01:58:23.000You have to start off with the community leaders who are, again, who are willing to accept culpability for some of the problems, culturally speaking.
01:58:31.000And 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.
01:58:39.000And it takes one person to do that on either side to systematically fix the community one person at a time.
01:58:48.000You can't take just one big bite of the apple on this thing.
01:58:51.000It's going to take some time and it's going to have to be incremental.
01:58:55.000Quite frankly, it's going to have to be generational as well.
01:59:00.000There's so much distrust on both sides that we can't even have a conversation about it.
01:59:07.000So we have to start small and then go big from there.
01:59:12.000And it starts right at the community level.
01:59:15.000Do you think also an announcing intention...
01:59:22.000To 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,
01:59:38.000to 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.
02:00:29.000One of the things that drives me crazy about social media is this flippant nature, this Way that people think it's fine to just censor people and censor people that disagree with you.
02:00:47.000One of the things is Unity 2020 was something that was created by Brett Weinstein and many other people.
02:00:54.000Brett, who is very liberal, very progressive.
02:00:57.000He was the guy that was the professor at Evergreen State and was run out by these crazy kids that wanted to take over and turn it into a utopia for leftists.
02:01:09.000That's the very paraphrased version of the story.
02:01:13.000But 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.
02:02:21.000And 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.
02:02:55.000It's so important to listen to things that you disagree with to understand why you disagree with them and to understand if maybe there's some knowledge in there that you can acquire.
02:03:03.000Maybe there's a part of their perspective that you do agree with.
02:03:06.000Maybe you see the error in their ways and you can discuss it with them.
02:03:09.000You can say, well, this is where you guys got it wrong.
02:03:27.000If you ban them, why are you letting the flat earthers still have a fucking page?
02:03:31.000Why 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?
02:03:40.000And The problem is you just started down a slippery slope.
02:03:43.000And look, I don't even know what QAnon means.
02:03:47.000I know a lot of people believe in it, but I don't even know what they stand for.
02:03:50.000I just know there's a lot of wacky folks involved.
02:03:53.000I know them personally and they're wacky, so I'm like, ah.
02:03:56.000But the fact that Facebook wants to just ban it.
02:07:22.000And I would talk to people, obviously, 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.
02:07:31.000But we always got to talk and meet up the next week and the next week.
02:07:35.000And they were my classmates and they were my friends.
02:07:37.000And we got to learn how to respect each other.
02:07:39.000One of my classmates, actually, who is a banker up in New York, who was a Bernie bro, very liberal guy, he sent me some money for the campaign and then sent me a note.
02:07:50.000And he said, you know, Wesley, if I was down there, I don't think I'd even vote for you.
02:11:41.000Well, I think Dan Crenshaw actually does a really good job with his social media.
02:11:45.000And again, it's about going direct to consumer is what he does.
02:11:50.000And 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.
02:11:58.000He has built a heck of a brand that actually allows him to speak to people differently.
02:12:06.000Without 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.
02:12:14.000This is how you kind of start to take that back through social media.
02:12:18.000That's actually what I intend on doing too here over the course of the next few years.
02:12:22.000The problem is you can be shadow banned, you can be silenced, your tweets can be deleted.
02:12:42.000It's also, a lot of these people are mentally ill that are doing this.
02:12:48.000Legitimately, 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.
02:13:02.000I 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.
02:13:12.000If you are arguing with people on Twitter, I would say right now you're mentally ill.
02:13:17.000If 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.
02:14:45.000Like, it's a pipeline for communication.
02:14:48.000I understand that they created it, but it's being used by so many people and it's responsible for so much discourse.
02:14:56.000The 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.
02:15:08.000And I think it's terrible for our country.
02:15:10.000It's terrible because it promotes division.
02:15:36.000So 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.
02:15:47.000I think if there were reasonable people that were sitting here no matter where you were from, no No matter where you're from, no matter what race, color, religion, creed, 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,
02:16:03.000you've lived in America for long enough to understand freedom and liberty, you'd hear this conversation and you would say, maybe we should push back on that.
02:16:48.000And we spent the better part of an hour, in my opinion, literally talking about the crux of the problem, which is unconstitutional and against First Amendment and our rights.
02:16:58.000Let's talk about that, what that means.
02:17:01.000And even in my opinion, maybe, I don't know, you know, maybe I see the glass half full.
02:17:08.000Even the most liberal person, if they were sitting here as a human being looking at each other, would say, they have a point.
02:17:13.000I think liberal people that are objective would see the danger in censorship.
02:17:37.000But in this day and age, 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.
02:19:16.000But 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.
02:20:09.000Part of my, I don't know, I believe in serendipity, and I'm just, I don't know how I got here at this time, at this place, but I do think I'm here for a reason, because This is a courageous thing to be able to have these conversations and then take it out to the public,
02:20:27.000specifically in politics and this climate today.
02:20:57.000I'm happy there's guys like you and Dan and many others that are entering into politics.
02:21:02.000And I think people that have experienced the kind of things that you guys have experienced, there's an education that cannot be acquired any other way.
02:24:31.000They'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.
02:24:39.000And also, it eliminates the kind of competition that you can't win.
02:24:42.000If 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.
02:25:15.000They 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 women dismissed them or weren't interested in them or just – it's just – See,
02:25:31.000when you do that, then you don't have a Wesley and a Rendon Hunt because my sister went to West Point first.
02:25:38.000She is a strong woman that actually set quite the example for my brother and I. That's why we all three win.
02:25:45.000So 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?