In this episode of Firebrand, I sit down with the host of the popular conservative podcast Real America, Dan Ball, to discuss how he went from a career in the military to hosting a nationally syndicated conservative talk show, and why we need more congressmen and women in the House of Representatives like Matt Gaetz. I also talk about how he got into politics and why he decided to run for Congress and how he ended up in the position he's in now. Firebrand is hosted by Dan Ball and features some of my good friend and former co-worker, Ron Burgundy, who is also a regular guest on the show. Firebrand has been around for a long time and is a great resource for conservative voices in the media and politics. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode, and if you do, please share it with a friend or family member who needs to hear it! Tweet me and let us know what you thought of this episode! Timestamps: 0:00:00 - What do you think of the episode? 5:30 - What would you like to see more of? 6:00 - What's your favorite part of the podcast? 7:00- How do you feel about the show? 8:15 - What are your thoughts on the episode so far? 9:20 - What is your favorite thing about it? 10:40 - Who do you would like to hear from the host? 11: What kind of things do you'd like me to talk about? 12:00 | What's the biggest thing that you re listening to right now? 13:00 -- What would be your biggest takeaway from this week? 15: What would your answer? 16:30 -- What are you looking for? 17:40 -- What s your favorite piece of advice from someone else? 18:00-- What s the most important thing you re looking forward to listening to? 19:10 -- How would you want me to do next? 21:30-- How do I know you re you re going to do in 2020? 22: What s going to be my next episode on the future? 26:40-- Is there something you dm me? 27: What you d have me listening to me on the next episode? -- Is there anything I d like to do? 25:00 & 27:15 -- Would you want to hear more?
00:00:03.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:00:10.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:00:16.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:00:20.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:00:53.000Thanks so much for joining us on Firebrand.
00:00:56.000We know that the media landscape is a changing one and it's an important one because it contributes greatly to our national discussion and the platforms that exist so that we're able to share ideas and have debate and discussion in different viewpoints.
00:01:09.000DirecTV really changed a lot of the TV landscape.
00:01:11.000They brought people from dozens of channels to hundreds of channels and AT&T realized that there was a limited offering For news and analysis from a conservative perspective.
00:01:22.000While there were plenty of shows and programs that would give you an opportunity to have a liberal perspective, there needed to be more build-out.
00:01:30.000And then we had a real news entrepreneur, Mr. Herring, step forward and build One American News.
00:01:37.000One American News has now grown into a major voice in national politics and discussion.
00:01:42.000And one reason is because they've got one of my very Favorite shows on air, Real America, hosted by Dan Ball, my friend who joins us now on Firebrand.
00:01:51.000Dan, maybe just give us a sense of how you went from the work you were doing in the news industry to hosting this great national show where you get to talk to people all over the country every evening.
00:02:14.000I love the name of your podcast you're doing because, let me tell you, the stuff that you have been fighting for and speaking out against, we need more congressmen and women in that house like you.
00:02:25.000So I want to thank you first and foremost.
00:03:03.000It was for Mary and Sonny Bono's old seat, which after some gerrymandering, the Democrats had flipped that one to a highly registered Democrat seat.
00:03:11.000And I knew what I was up against, but by golly, I felt a need to do it.
00:03:14.000So I ran an 18. And like I said, we lost.
00:03:17.000And so then I tried to get back into the industry that I had at one time loved.
00:03:28.000That's what you get as the local anchorman, the Ron Burgundy of the city you're working in, right?
00:03:32.000I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal.
00:03:38.000It's like you went from the Adrian Cronauer to the Ron Burgundy, right?
00:03:42.000Adrian Cronauer was at my graduation ceremony in the military as a guest speaker when I graduated my technical school in the Air Force to learn to be a journalist.
00:03:52.000And real quick story, that's the reason I went in and chose that job.
00:03:55.000I watched that movie, Good Morning Vietnam, loved it, watched the Gulf War on TV, wanted to serve my country, and went and signed up as a journalist wanting to do that job because of that film.
00:04:09.000So fast forward, after we lost, I attempted for a good solid two years, 19 and 20, applying to get back into the news industry, doing what I knew how to do for 20 some years.
00:04:23.000And I would get the initial phone call.
00:04:30.000Of course, then they start backgrounding you and looking at your social media and nobody ever called back because I had come out of the closet As a conservative, as a Republican, as a, wait for it, Trump supporter, and I ran for Congress.
00:04:43.000We can't hire that guy as a news anchor at our station ever again.
00:04:47.000And so I was never getting any offers.
00:04:49.000And Mr. Herring, who you intro'd so eloquently, our boss here, the boss man, He had contacted me and his son several years before when they first started the operation, and I think 13 or 14, and I had turned down some offers there.
00:05:03.000They were just starting, they didn't have a lot of cash yet, and I was somewhere else.
00:05:07.000So I kept his cell phone number, and I literally called him August 20th of 2020, And I was fed up.
00:05:14.000I was up to here with everything going on politically in the world, and obviously the election and everything looming.
00:05:32.000And so September 14th, right before the election, and this is no thanks to me.
00:05:39.000This is credit to the American people.
00:05:41.000Within two months, we were the number one talk show on the network.
00:05:44.000Within six months, we were the highest rated show the network's ever had since its inception in 2013. And again, that's thanks to Americans seeking One American News out because they wanted truth in reporting.
00:05:56.000And all they get now on CNN and the rest of these monitors up here in my office is a bunch of spewing radical activists lying to them Every single day.
00:06:20.000And a lot of the One America News viewers that I talk to, that is really not just part of the mosaic of news they get.
00:06:26.000That is the principal source of news they get.
00:06:29.000Tell me why you think there are some stories that get special attention or special investigative reporting on One America News that might not on other networks.
00:06:38.000And I think specifically about The Ukraine hoax.
00:06:41.000You know, we've had so many scandals in the Biden administration, we forget what Adam Schiff tried to do to the presidency in the Ukraine hoax.
00:06:47.000And the depth of the investigative reporting on One America News was far and beyond the best that we saw in the country.
00:06:55.000What is it about the philosophy there that might highlight a different lens for the information?
00:07:01.000I think that when our producers and the news director and the H's We're looking at stories that we want to put, say, Pearson Sharp on and do more investigating it, more in depth on.
00:07:12.000We're looking at those ones specifically, too, that the mainstream either ignore or have skewed the narrative so far, the opposite side of the spectrum, that the story is so convoluted you can't make sense of it, or they literally change the narrative.
00:07:26.000So if we're showing you facts and something is white, they're telling you it's black.
00:07:42.000That's all a bunch of bullshit, number one.
00:07:44.000Number two, to your question about the stories, if you have all of the networks for the past five years saying that Donald J. Trump colluded with Russia when the facts have been proven, the dossier was fake, he didn't collude, then yeah, we're going to hit it even harder to try and offset because we're only one network and you've got half a dozen every day that are telling you the opposite and lying.
00:08:05.000So I'd say that's kind of how we pick and make sure that some of those stories that are just being blatantly lied about in the mainstream media Have more attention so people get the facts.
00:08:13.000We don't know what hour they're watching, what show they're watching.
00:08:16.000So sometimes you've got to just keep repeating it so they see it.
00:08:19.000Especially, again, when CNN, MSNBC, I've got them in my office, I'm watching their lies.
00:08:24.000Right now, you know, we've got Navarro getting subpoenaed.
00:08:29.000Peter Navarro that worked for the president, of course, MSNBC with the plot on January 6th.
00:08:34.000We got Giuliani and prosecutors going after Giuliani in New York on CNN. Let's talk about the DOJ for a moment.
00:08:43.000The Department of Justice concerned a lot of parents When they use the domestic terrorism label to try to have a basis to do what they wouldn't otherwise be able to do, and that's categorize people by their politics, to hunt them, to do everything they can to ruin their lives.
00:08:59.000There has been a recent Justice Department pronouncement that people who spread disinformation or misinformation may be labeled as domestic extremists and domestic terrorists.
00:09:11.000Senator Hawley unleashed his wrath at Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco after her boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, issued this unprecedented memorandum.
00:09:20.000It directs, quote, the Federal Bureau of Investigation to facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response.
00:09:36.000Parents waiting sometimes for hours to speak at a local school board meeting to express concerns about critical race theory or the masking of their students, particularly young children.
00:09:49.000Is that, in and of itself, is that harassment and intimidation?
00:09:52.000Is waiting to express one's view at a school board meeting harassment and intimidation?
00:09:57.000As the Attorney General's memorandum made quite clear, spirited debate is welcome, is a hallmark of this country.
00:10:04.000It's something we all should engage in.
00:10:13.000Now, since One America News has falsely had to endure the smears of these labels, do you worry that you and your colleagues at One America News may be labeled domestic terrorists by the Department of Justice?
00:10:41.000So my question is, why are you doing this?
00:10:43.000Well, it's probably because you're either misinformed, blinded by fear, uneducated on the matter, or you simply lack the backbone to stand up to these tyrannical mandates.
00:10:51.000Note I said mandates, not laws, because they are not laws.
00:10:56.000A select few in power in this state and in the federal government lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up to these mandates.
00:11:04.000I've exposed and helped parents there get the recall going for the board members, and I would like to say that those brave parents that have been speaking out for the last year over the mask and vaccine mandates, the CRT, the over-sexual books that are on the shelves in K-8, because parents have taken action with that, just in the schools my kid goes to, I'm proud to announce that the chairman just resigned.
00:11:28.000Now, he took another government job, but at least he's off the school board.
00:11:31.000So if they're going to call me a domestic terrorist because I went to my 14-year-old daughter's school board meeting and said, my daughter feels faint when she has these damn masks on.
00:11:52.000So if parents have to go, speak up, to get these mandates pulled, to get this CRT out of the schools, and you get labeled as a domestic terrorist, so be it, parents.
00:12:02.000Because soon enough, there'll be a reckoning.
00:12:04.000And Matt, let's hope by the grace of God, Republicans take back control this November.
00:12:09.000And come next year, the DOJ is going to have a lot of answering to do.
00:12:13.000And I have a feeling we probably won't see the current AG in his role once Republicans fully take everything back.
00:12:28.000We welcome all in the federal government to watch Firebrand and to watch Real America with Dan Ball.
00:12:34.000Dan, while the Department of Justice is not doing, or while they are doing these very strange things to target Americans, there's important work that the Department of Justice is not doing.
00:12:43.000Particularly in the area of antitrust.
00:12:45.000I'm very concerned that large technology companies and other large businesses in America have gained so much power that they've limited novel and unique voices, novel and unique experiences in the marketplace.
00:12:58.000We've seen that with Google, Facebook, where the DOJ does kind of just enough, but they don't really use antitrust powers.
00:13:04.000Now we see a tremendous amount of power being concentrated in the hands of those who distribute television content, whether that's through satellite, whether that is through coaxial cable.
00:13:16.000Do you believe that the Department of Justice should have further investigation into the power that some companies that have satellite and cable distribution have over the content that is on their platforms?
00:13:30.000This is a slippery slope, so I have to watch how I answer this.
00:13:32.000So first and foremost, I believe in and love capitalism.
00:13:40.000I don't want them stepping in and telling me I can't have an opinion and say what I want and infringe upon my freedom of speech and freedom of the press, because this is what I've been doing for nearly 30 years.
00:13:51.000So with that said, because you have people in power, people of influence, And this woke cancel culture mob all ganging up on what you were just talking about, the providers, whether people that provide the servers or the platform, whether it be digital, satellite, cable, whatever it may be.
00:14:12.000If they are simply silencing people, whether it be on Facebook, on Dish, on whatever, because of political reasons, then whatever happened to political discourse in this country?
00:14:46.000How do you have a healthy discourse if you're allowing just a handful of these major owners of, again, whether it be cable, satellite, Facebook, Instagram, all the social media, that's only a handful of these overlords.
00:15:00.000If they're allowed to pick and choose what's misinformation, what's correct, what's not, where the hell did free speech go?
00:15:06.000Where the hell did Freedom of Press go?
00:15:31.000And when they want to try and say that OAN is misinformation because, and let's be real, the two main things people have hit us on is our coverage of the 2020 election and then also our coverage of the COVID pandemic.
00:15:57.000This is why they say we're misinformation, Matt, for showing the facts.
00:16:02.000Why do you think that so many other news organizations were unwilling to cover instances of fraud or illegal voting or irregularity or whatever synonym they want to use for it?
00:16:13.000Why do you think that OAN seemed to have almost a laser-like focus into those things and they were ignored by other news outlets?
00:16:20.000The other ones ignored it because the corporate tyrant CEOs, like the guy who just got pushed out at CNN, Jeff Zucker, who deserved it, told them to.
00:16:32.000I mean, I know your audience on Firebrand probably follows James O'Keefe and the great work Project Veritas guys.
00:16:38.000Let's talk about those two months of phone calls because a whistleblower was kind enough to give James the phone number and he got to call in and listen to two months of their 9am meeting where it's supposed to be, and you might have been in a newsroom before, an editorial meeting, folks.
00:16:52.000It's supposed to be everybody coming together, the news director, the reporters, photographers, producers, and here's your ideas for stories of the day.
00:17:23.000And that leads to the question of whether or not Trump He himself is a national security threat.
00:17:29.000I just want to re-emphasize that, you know, I think we cannot normalize what has happened here in the last week with Trump and his behavior.
00:17:44.000And I go back to what David said, David Challion said, that this is a president who knows he's losing, who knows he's in trouble, is sick, Maybe is on the aftereffects of steroids or not.
00:18:00.000Like, they're literally, again, spewing the narrative and controlling it.
00:18:31.000That's why people watch, because it's real.
00:18:33.000And CNN is hemorrhaging ratings because it all is so contrived in so many circumstances.
00:18:39.000Now, there was a circumstance a while ago where the head football coach of Oklahoma State University wore a One America News t-shirt while fishing.
00:18:47.000And no offense, Dan, but everybody knows you don't wear your favorite shirt fishing.
00:18:52.000You wear the shirt that you don't mind getting some blood and guts and bait on.
00:18:56.000And he later had to apologize for wearing your network shirt, which I've met a number of the great people who work in your organization from the Herrings all the way to the fine greeters who ensure that everybody has a great experience when they come to your studios there in San Diego.
00:19:12.000And everyone is kind and welcoming and just American.
00:19:17.000And so I'm wondering how it makes the people at OAN feel when the woke mob literally says that someone is a racist for wearing a t-shirt with your logo on it.
00:19:29.000And I don't know if you know because he came out and apologized after and then said, I didn't realize OAN... We stirred up so emotion and hurt feelings and that we provided misinformation and we're racist.
00:19:44.000Our players expressed their feelings as individuals and as team members.
00:19:49.000They helped me see through their eyes how the t-shirt affected their hearts.
00:19:55.000Once I learned how that network felt about Black Lives Matter, I was disgusted and knew it was completely unacceptable to me.
00:20:04.000I want to apologize to all members of our team, former players, and their families for the pain and discomfort that has been caused over the last two days.
00:20:52.000There is just too much that we saw with Joe Rogan apologizing for some past comments.
00:20:57.000I mean, we're supposed to all grow and be better humans, and it would just be nice if everyone was a little more forgiving and that we weren't trying to rip each other off the air or not engage in discussion and discourse with each other.
00:22:12.000But a platform to be able to get truth before people.
00:22:16.000What message would you share with your viewers who are concerned that come May, you might be off the air?
00:22:23.000Anyone that watches the show knows I don't censor myself, or at least I try not to ever censor myself.
00:22:30.000But because there are a couple hundred hard-working employees at the OAM Network, and because of the man and his two sons that are here every single day, eight, nine, ten hours a day running this place, I don't want to see anyone get in trouble or lose anything, okay?
00:22:46.000And so with that said, I have to watch how I comment.
00:22:50.000And a lot of folks have been asking me, hey, Dan, you sent out this all-call.
00:22:55.000Are they going to stay on the carrier?
00:22:58.000I'm not allowed now to mention anything about this situation because I have been threatened by an army of lawyers by a certain large company.
00:23:35.000You sound like Churchill during the tough days of World War II where he said, even if we lose England, even if they cross the channel, we'll go to the British Empire's faraway lands and we'll fight from there as long as we can.
00:23:48.000I know that your voice is an important one, the voice that One American News offers.
00:23:53.000is absolutely critical to our national discourse.
00:23:57.000I'm rooting against the woke mob that tries to cancel everyone that seems to raise a ruckus or raise their voice or raise tough questions like OAN has done about the 2020 election and about the efficacy of these vaccines.
00:24:10.000We should be able to question these things.