WarRoom Battleground EP 129： Erik Prince On Bidens Failures; Pennsylvania Once Again Is On The Front Lines For 2022; Fallen Patriot Soldier's Family Sues Alec Baldwin
In this episode of the War Room Podcast, we continue our pre-bottle of Joe Biden as he delivers a speech to the nation on the rise of the neo-fascism movement known as MAGA.
00:33:33.380You guys remember a year ago, August 26th, we did the lead-up for weeks and weeks and weeks of the extraction under fire.
00:33:40.900And we just had Eric Prince on to kick off the show, talked about Eric presented.
00:33:45.220A plan to President Trump that was shot down by McMasters and Madison and all these guys in the spring and summer of 2017 that would have had Americans out before Biden was even around.
00:33:57.780But this embarrassment, humiliation, and 13 American heroes paid for their life on the 26th.
00:34:03.780One of them was Riley McCollum, only 27 years old, a Marine.
00:34:06.700I want to bring in his sister now, Royce McCollum, and her lawyer, Dennis Postolano.
00:34:47.340Yeah, so the lawsuits for $25 million, the rest of her tenant actuals, and 15 impunitive damages.
00:34:54.720Essentially, in a nutshell, what Baldwin did was take a message from Royce on her private Instagram account and broadcast it to his 2.4 million followers with the label that she was quoted insurrectionist.
00:35:08.160You know, in everything that implies, he accused her and, by implication, her family members, her sister Cheyenne and then Lance Corporal McCollum's widow, who has a very small child of damaging government property, responsible for the death of a Capitol officer, and then essentially trying to overthrow the United States government, accused him of treason.
00:35:33.940And as you might imagine, the 2.4 million people that follow Baldwin share his politics and didn't respond very nicely.
00:35:43.100The message is that this family has had to endure in light of the loss of a 20-year-old Marine who died in Afghanistan is astounding to me, and Baldwin has doubled down.
00:35:55.700And so we've sued him for not only defamation because of the lies he's telling about this family, but also for intentional infliction and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
00:36:06.560I'll let Royce speak to some of these messages, but the backlash has been horrible.
00:36:11.060Just to remind you before Royce goes on, you know, the entire population of the state of Wyoming, where they're from, is about 550,000 people.
00:36:19.660Baldwin has 2.2 million followers on Instagram, so you can imagine the level of attack that's been going on for up to nine months now.
00:36:34.740I mean, this is kind of, when I first saw it, it was almost kind of mind-blowing, given the sacrifice your family has made, and particularly Lance Corporal Riley, that, you know, one of these innocent, patriotic young Americans that died at the Abbey Gate.
00:36:47.680And now we know, you know, the Biden regime was warned by the CIA.
00:36:51.600There's all kind of, you know, information coming out that this didn't have to happen.
00:36:56.320Tell me, what were these messages like from Alec Baldwin's, I guess, fans?
00:37:05.200Yeah, the moment that he messaged me and said he was sharing my post to his followers, I was just getting hounded with messages, and they haven't stopped since.
00:37:24.220And I've been harassed in my town, in the grocery store, and, you know, had people stop my sister as well.
00:37:32.100People, you know, have this idea of who I am and who we are now because of his false accusations.
00:37:37.480And not only is it just concerning that someone would make such a claim like that, such a serious accusation, falsely, but to then have so many people now view me that way and harass me and think something of me that just certainly is not true.
00:37:55.440So it's been hard to, like, have my workday, my sleep, my everything interrupted with my phone, just constantly going off and seeing these messages all the time and nasty comments about me and my brother.
00:38:08.460Why would he take a private, on your private network or your private, why would he put that out to the world and to, particularly, he's a pretty rabid, you know, leftist, super hates Trump, hates MAGA.
00:38:26.760And obviously he's got all sorts of other issues we don't even need to get into, but why would he take what you shared privately, why would he put that out to the world and put kind of these snarky comments on it to really trigger his radical fan base?
00:38:42.960After he had donated money to my sister, Moz GoFundMe for my niece, he had ended up following me on Instagram.
00:38:51.420So when I post a picture of me at the Capitol in the anticipation of the one year, he took this just extreme political narrative with that picture.
00:39:09.160And, you know, unfortunately for the people in that picture, like he's causing damage to more than just myself.
00:39:14.880Um, but when he messaged me about it and I had the chance to speak with him and have a conversation about it and say, no, that's not what happened.
00:39:25.300Like I was there protesting, which I am more than allowed to do in this country.
00:39:29.600Um, and he took it and ran with it and, you know, said, good luck.
00:39:33.040As he shared it, he knew exactly what kind of a reaction he was going to get from that.
00:39:36.680What has been the year, particularly, we just came up on the anniversary of, um, of, of your brother's heroic death in service to his country.
00:39:48.060What has it been like for the family in the year since you left, lost Riley?
00:39:55.980Um, we try and go out and do the things to honor Riley and the other 12 that were killed in Afghanistan as much as possible because his death impacted our country.
00:40:06.240And finally, like brought a light on the service members and what they sacrifice and truly what their families do every single year, every single day.
00:40:13.660Um, so we went out and, you know, we've really tried to like remember his name, remember the 13, um, but also bring light to every other service member who's been killed in action and, um, has kind of been forgotten.
00:40:25.680But this last year has been really tough.
00:40:27.900The last month, especially leading up to the one year, um, it's been just emotional for sure.
00:40:34.500It's been hard to just process and, um, grieve and, and it's so public, um, that it really makes it more difficult to kind of find that peace within yourself.
00:40:43.660When you've got hundreds of thousands, millions of people, um, who know about, know about his death and, um, whether they're there to honor and remember with you or they're there to make nasty comments.
00:40:55.500There's just so much noise coming from everywhere.
00:40:57.520So it's been really, a really tough experience, um, this last year.
00:41:03.300How old would your brother be today if he was alive?
00:41:41.240We originally filed in Wyoming and I won't go into all the legalities, but the court kicked it on jurisdictional grounds.
00:41:46.980Basically, uh, Baldwin has never been to Wyoming, doesn't own a business there, doesn't transact business there, doesn't, you know, never made a movie there.
00:41:54.480And so while the, uh, we had a basis for jurisdiction there that we thought was solid, uh, essentially the internet hasn't, uh, you know, kept pace with the law.
00:42:05.400And so we got kicked out of Wyoming, uh, but we're able to refile in New York.
00:42:09.380And that turned out to be, or we believe it'll turn out to be a blessing in disguise, um, because the law is more favorable in New York.
00:42:16.040You've got what's called negligent infliction of emotional distress, which is, uh, frankly, easier to prove than intent.
00:42:21.600Uh, we've also got what's called defamation by implication, meaning that it's not just whether the statement is true or not.
00:42:28.580You can make a perfectly true statement, but the implication in this case is that, uh, Ryle, uh, I'm sorry, uh, Royce and her family are, uh, trying to overthrow the U.S. government.
00:42:40.480Um, and so we believe the law is no more favorable.
00:42:43.120What'll happen now is Baldwin will file an answer.
00:42:45.760Uh, he'll appear, uh, we'll get a scheduling order in place.
00:42:48.960The court will set some deadlines and we'll go into the discovery process.
00:42:52.760Um, there have been talks, um, on the back end of this, uh, in light of Mr. Baldwin's, you know, ongoing legal troubles in other areas, um, in order to streamline this process.
00:43:03.380And, uh, that, that'll have to happen in the background to work through it as far as help.
00:43:07.380I think that the biggest thing that, that I can tell you is that, uh, the family, um, needs something to counteract, uh, what it gets in the form of abuse and Royce kind of undersold this.
00:43:20.680We're talking comments like your brother, you know, deserved what he got, um, awful things that this family's had to endure, uh, that no reasonable person, uh, regardless of politics would consider proper.
00:43:33.380So what I would say to the audience is, uh, you know, just moral support, uh, support for the family and the causes that they support and support for the rest of those service members, family.
00:43:46.440Uh, Royce, how do people get to the site?
00:43:49.700How do we, this audience is known as an activist audience.
00:44:22.580Last question, uh, Royce, I'd like you to answer, but if you, Lori needs to, has Baldwin, when he understood what he had done, has he ever tried to dial it back?
00:44:33.020Did he ever try to apologize to you when he understood what he had triggered here?
00:44:38.440No, actually, after he posted, he actually continued to engage with commenters, um, and double down on his stance about what he said about me and his accusation.
00:44:47.480Um, I've never gotten, uh, even private apology, um, and he has no intention of, of stopping or making, um, anyone else stop.
00:44:58.540And Steve, if I can, after they're making comments, hang on, hang on.
00:45:01.760I just, I just, I just want to make some, after they're making comments that your brother who gave his life and service to his country deserve what he got.
00:45:08.920When these type of comments are made in death threats to the family, you're telling me this guy is, is doubling down.
00:45:16.020Um, yeah, he continued that, that first, um, day or two when the post was still up on his own site, he just continued to, um, go along with his comments saying, you know, this is where she was, this is what she was doing.
00:45:28.800And it's basically public belief that anyone who was there was an insurrectionist.
00:45:32.720Um, and so he continued with his, he eventually deleted the post, um, but has not once asked his followers to stop harassing me or the taken back his statement.
00:45:42.840Um, he's just kind of doubled down, locked down on what he has said.
00:45:49.160Dennis, uh, you had something to say, I'm sorry.
00:45:51.620Yeah, I was going to say to that question, uh, in my first meeting with the family, um, Gigi, who is the widow, um, you know, said quite plainly, you know, if, if you can get on the phone and, uh, you know, get this guy to apologize.
00:46:05.840Uh, you know, privately, then this, this doesn't have to go forward and that didn't happen.
00:46:13.100So, yeah, I just tell you that, uh, you know, uh, he's doubled down.
00:46:25.040Uh, Dennis, how can people get you, you're on social media or how do they follow this case?
00:46:29.360Uh, you know, the, uh, the, the, the pleadings, uh, can be pulled up, uh, you know, my name, Dennis Plistiglione, uh, P-O-S-T-I-G-L-I-O-N-E.