RFK Jr. The Defender - US Truck Convoy Leader Brian Brase

The People's Convoy is a group of truckers who are fighting for the rights of American truckers and their families. It started in California and has since grown to millions of people lined up along the interstates and overpasses, and over the bridges. In this episode, my guest, Brian Brazzi, talks about how he got involved with the group and what it means to be a part of it. He also talks about the impact it has had on the trucking industry and the people on the ground who have come together to support the truckers. This episode is sponsored by the People s Convoy and is dedicated to all truckers, their families, and their loved ones who have been affected by the government's anti-vaccine policies. This is a must listen episode to learn more about what it's like to be on the road and to be part of a group that is fighting for our fellow truckers' rights. Thank you so much to everyone who has come out to support this movement, and I can't wait to do it again next week with another episode of the People's Campaign! Thanks to everyone for all the support, stay tuned for the next episode! I'm really proud of all the people who have contributed to this movement and are supporting this movement. I hope you all have a great rest of your day to come back next week! Stay tuned for another episode next Tuesday! - Don't Tell a Friend! Thanks for listening and God bless! Thank You for supporting this Movement! Brian - P.S. - Thank You For Listening and God Blessings, Blessings! - Eternally Grateful! - Blessings - EJ & Blessings. - Kristy & Cheers, Brian - Emanual - Ollie (Alyssa - Thank you for Your Support, EJ - M. M. & Paul - - Paul - E. & P. - B. & D. - R. & R. P. & J. B. - EMAIL - John R. and R. J. & B. . - SONGS - J. OLEK - G. & K. & G. (Thank you for supporting the Movement? - D. & S. G. E.B. & C. & AYO. - S. & M. D.

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 I'm really proud that my guest today is Brian Brazzi, who is one of the truckers, who is one of the key leaders of the People's Convoy, which is now in Washington, D.C., and surrounding the Beltway.

00:00:14.000 Brian has been a long-haul trucker for five years.

00:00:18.000 He's from Pennsylvania, currently residing in Northwest Ohio.

00:00:23.000 He is a second-generation trucker and an owner-operator of a small mom-and-pop company.

00:00:31.000 Brian, welcome to the show.

00:00:33.000 Thanks.

00:00:33.000 Thanks for having me.

00:00:34.000 Appreciate the opportunity.

00:00:37.000 Let's start by just talking about how you got involved in this.

00:00:41.000 Yeah, I opened up my mouth on a Facebook Live video.

00:00:45.000 Basically, I had seen people wanting to put together an American convoy, and I simply did a video that said, don't waste the American people's time and don't waste my time.

00:00:56.000 If you're going to do a convoy like they had in Canada, then do it right and hold the line.

00:01:01.000 And don't give in.

00:01:02.000 And that received like 24 million views overnight and then Facebook ripped it down.

00:01:08.000 But people reached out and said, hey, put your money where your mouth is and we could use some help.

00:01:15.000 So I found a group that I thought was best matched up with my way of thinking and how I like to do things.

00:01:25.000 And I joined up with them and it quickly developed into what you see now.

00:01:30.000 Were you communicating over Facebook, or did you develop other communications lines?

00:01:36.000 Well, I've been involved in trucker advocacy for many years.

00:01:41.000 About the whole time I've been driving, I've been involved in meetings at D.C., lobbying on behalf of truck drivers.

00:01:46.000 So I've made a lot of contacts through that process.

00:01:50.000 And basically, I just utilized those contacts to find the right group.

00:01:54.000 And some of those contacts were involved in the group that eventually became the People's Convoy.

00:02:00.000 And then the convoy started out in California.

00:02:03.000 Did you join in Ohio or did you go out to California?

00:02:07.000 No, I'm actually like the co-organizer of the whole thing.

00:02:11.000 So I ended up starting right out in Atalanto, California.

00:02:15.000 I've been with the convoy every day since.

00:02:17.000 I was planning it three weeks, about a month before it started.

00:02:21.000 I started planning this thing with a group of like-minded individuals.

00:02:24.000 So I've been in it from the very beginning and all the way to today, still in it.

00:02:29.000 Describe for us what it's been like on the convoy from day one and how it's grown and, you know, what you're doing now.

00:02:39.000 Well, it's been an emotional rollercoaster, honestly.

00:02:43.000 It started out in Adelanto, California with maybe a couple hundred people that were supporting us from the local community and has now grown to over millions of people lined up along the interstates and over the overpasses, the bridges.

00:02:57.000 We've had Multiple communities come out everywhere that we've stopped along the way.

00:03:01.000 They've come out by the tens of thousands of people to support us right there on the ground.

00:03:05.000 And now we're here in Hagerstown and we have the community almost every single day coming down.

00:03:10.000 They're helping to feed the drivers.

00:03:12.000 They're donated dumpsters and porta-potties in the shower house.

00:03:16.000 I mean, it's been a total absolute rollercoaster of emotions from excited to sadness because of the stories that you're told about how the vaccine mandate has ruined their career or ruined their lives, whether it be medical issues that have developed or just simply the loss of their income because they decided to stand up for their rights.

00:03:35.000 You know, I receive letters from eight-year-olds that say, thank you for standing up.

00:03:39.000 So those things like that just make you cry.

00:03:41.000 There's a young man that's here on the convoy that just told me the other day that he quit his job and sold off his 401k to fund him being able to be a part of this because he felt it was so important.

00:03:52.000 I mean, the level of commitment and the level of community, that unity, that love, that peace that's here on the ground, I've never seen before in my life.

00:04:01.000 And I don't know that anybody has ever seen this level of a sense of family like what we have here on the ground right now.

00:04:09.000 And it's just been unreal.

00:04:11.000 You know, and it tells us that we're doing the right thing.

00:04:13.000 When you have millions of people supporting you, it tells us that we're on the good side.

00:04:18.000 And the media either tries to ignore you or to portray this event as kind of a right-wing impulse.

00:04:27.000 And how do you react to that?

00:04:29.000 I mean, it's a pretty simple thing.

00:04:30.000 Just one walk around here and you'll see that it's not a far right movement or whatever they're trying to push it as.

00:04:36.000 This isn't a left issue.

00:04:38.000 This isn't a right issue.

00:04:39.000 This is an American issue.

00:04:40.000 And really, it's a human issue.

00:04:42.000 You know, we're standing up for our constitutional rights, you know, trying to stop the vaccine mandates that exist for our healthcare workers, our DOD and such.

00:04:49.000 But on a human scale around the world, this is a violation of your God-given rights.

00:04:55.000 To do this to someone, to demand that you have to put this vaccine into your body.

00:05:01.000 And that's around the world that's happening.

00:05:03.000 And so what we have here is them trying to paint us as one side or the other.

00:05:09.000 But when there's Democrats down here, when there's Republicans down here, there's independents down here, there's libertarians down here, there's constitutionalists, there's people from all spectrums here.

00:05:18.000 We have every race, every religion, every ethnic background is down here right now.

00:05:23.000 It's hard to paint us that way.

00:05:25.000 And the people that are doing so haven't even stepped foot down here to see what we're all about.

00:05:29.000 You know, there's flags that lean to the right, but that's their freedom to put those flags up.

00:05:35.000 They have the right to fly those flags and what they believe in.

00:05:37.000 Just like I wouldn't stop someone on the left flying their flags, I wouldn't stop anybody on the right from flying their flags.

00:05:43.000 I mean, This is about your constitutional rights.

00:05:45.000 This is about your First Amendment.

00:05:46.000 We're exercising our First Amendment to stand up against the vaccine mandates.

00:05:50.000 So they can try to paint it one way or another, but the people here on the ground will tell you that it's just simply not true.

00:05:55.000 We're a community and we've all come together.

00:05:57.000 Whether you're gay, straight, black, white, Yellow or purple, it don't matter.

00:06:02.000 Everybody's welcomed here.

00:06:03.000 I don't care if you're a far right person or you're a far left person.

00:06:07.000 To be a part of this, you should understand what our message is and it affects you.

00:06:12.000 Whether you're far left or far right, this affects you in a positive manner.

00:06:16.000 We're helping to fight for you to continue to have your constitutional freedoms and allows you to be that way.

00:06:22.000 You guys can go back to hating each other when this is all over, but for now, we all need to unite.

00:06:26.000 We need to work together to continue to protect our Constitution, the United States, and our God-given rights.

00:06:33.000 Why did you decide not to go into Washington, D.C.? Well, as you've seen in the past, whether that be January 6th or Ottawa, there's a lot of bad actors that get involved in movements such as this, you know, false flags or people that go down and intentionally try to cause harm or cause mayhem or violence.

00:06:52.000 We didn't want to do that.

00:06:53.000 This is the people's convoy.

00:06:55.000 And with that, we have small children with us.

00:06:57.000 We have families that are here homeschooling so that they can be a part of this.

00:07:00.000 We have people that are peaceful and loving.

00:07:04.000 And we have religious, you know, we have ministers.

00:07:07.000 We have so many different people here, doctors.

00:07:10.000 We just have so many people here that, to put us in downtown D.C., to give them an opportunity to do something that's so negative to us, even though this is so peaceful, we just didn't want to see it.

00:07:21.000 You know, up in Canada, they were busting windows out of the trucks, dragging drivers out into the street, beating them.

00:07:27.000 I couldn't let that happen to us.

00:07:29.000 There's no way I was going to let that happen to us.

00:07:31.000 So we're doing things in a diplomatic way.

00:07:34.000 We're circling the beltway multiple times.

00:07:36.000 And then, of course, all while trying to have dialogue with our legislators from both parties.

00:07:42.000 It's been difficult to bring the Democrats to the table, but I think they're starting to see that this is representing all people.

00:07:48.000 And we just wanted to make sure that we didn't give an opportunity for any bad actors to get involved Have you gotten any media coverage, or has it been largely a blackout?

00:07:59.000 So early on, we had some great network media.

00:08:02.000 We had Fox News and Newsmax, and then it all kind of died off there for a period of time.

00:08:08.000 I think meetings with Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Ron Johnson has helped spark that national media attention again.

00:08:16.000 Local news is everywhere we've gone, have been covering it.

00:08:19.000 And then of course we have dozens of independent journalists that are embedded with us, as well as a couple organizations that have their own team of media that has been embedded with us through this process as well.

00:08:33.000 So we've been getting out there through social media platforms and websites.

00:08:37.000 But as far as the national TV goes, not so much.

00:08:41.000 But it doesn't matter.

00:08:42.000 We still have millions of people supporting us without it ever really being broadcast on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, Fox News or Newsmax or OAN. Now all of these people have covered us a little bit.

00:08:53.000 But some of them more than others.

00:08:55.000 So Newsmax has had us on quite a bit.

00:08:57.000 And OAN, Fox News, just disappeared.

00:09:00.000 Today was the first day that we've seen anything on Fox News.

00:09:03.000 And that was Senator Ron Johnson that was on there.

00:09:06.000 Because of our meeting, he mentioned us.

00:09:09.000 And that was on Fox and Friends this morning.

00:09:11.000 But they've pretty much blacked us out.

00:09:13.000 To me, it just tells me that it doesn't matter if it's a right-wing or left-wing media source.

00:09:19.000 They're all corrupt and they're all bought off by all these big conglomerates that are running them.

00:09:23.000 And if it wasn't true, then they would be down here right now covering the facts, and they're not doing that. 0.87

00:09:28.000 They all work for BlackRock or Vanguard.

00:09:30.000 Ultimately, it's kind of an illusion that they're competing with each other.

00:09:35.000 And I want to point out that CHGTV has been embedded in a convoy.

00:09:40.000 We have two reporters there, two journalists who are actually doing real journalism and who are reporting daily and just beautiful, beautiful and inspiring films of what's happening at all.

00:09:52.000 All of the overpass jammed with people, with supporters, with American flags, peace signs.

00:09:59.000 It's really just an inspiring spectacle.

00:10:03.000 How big is the convoy?

00:10:05.000 All right.

00:10:06.000 Now we're, I mean, we were 64 miles long the first day we hit Beltway and that was single lane.

00:10:13.000 You know, our lead truck ended up coming up, catching up to the last truck.

00:10:17.000 So that's pretty impressive.

00:10:19.000 We had the entire Beltway encircled, which is really amazing.

00:10:23.000 It's a 64 mile length Beltway.

00:10:25.000 So that's pretty awesome.

00:10:27.000 Right now we've had multiple convoys join in.

00:10:31.000 I would estimate that we're around 3,000 vehicles when you include the trucks, the campers, and the cars currently today.

00:10:38.000 Some have come and gone.

00:10:40.000 Some are coming in.

00:10:41.000 Some are leaving.

00:10:42.000 It flexes a lot.

00:10:44.000 It's constantly ebbing and flowing.

00:10:46.000 So there's people that can come down and be a part of this for maybe three or four days and then they got to go home.

00:10:51.000 There's other people that come down here and they're here for the long haul and they've been with us since Adelanto, California.

00:10:57.000 So the numbers change a lot.

00:10:58.000 I would say out of every 10 that join us, about four of them are long-haul people, meaning they're staying with us for the long haul.

00:11:07.000 The others are here for a few days and then go home.

00:11:10.000 Is it mainly owned and operated, Greg?

00:11:13.000 Is there any support from Teamsters Union or other unions?

00:11:18.000 No, they're too wrapped up in their funders to be involved in something like this.

00:11:22.000 and their funders are wrapped up in the medical industry and many other things out there for them not to be able to come out and support us.

00:11:30.000 The thing is, the CEO themselves might be behind what we're doing, but they're too worried about their corporate image or their money that, their customer base and things for who they haul for.

00:11:40.000 So the majority of the people that are down here are owner-operator independents or mom-and-pop small fleet companies.

00:11:46.000 So you've got who you want here anyways.

00:11:51.000 Are most of the truckers vaccinated at this point?

00:11:55.000 Oh, no, no, no, no.

00:11:56.000 We're very independent people.

00:11:58.000 You know, if you wouldn't have mandated it, you probably would have had a lot more vaccinated.

00:12:02.000 The fact that you mandated it told them that something was wrong.

00:12:06.000 What is your objective at this point?

00:12:08.000 What do you want people to do?

00:12:09.000 At this point, what we want people to do is to stand up.

00:12:12.000 If you can't be here with us in the convoy at the federal level, then start standing up at the state level.

00:12:18.000 I don't care if it's a red state or a blue state.

00:12:20.000 No matter what, stand up and help put the pressure on the state governments to put the pressure on the federal governments so that ending the state of emergency can actually hit the House floor because that's where it starts.

00:12:30.000 We have to end that state of emergency because there is no emergency.

00:12:33.000 So we need to end that immediately.

00:12:35.000 That will help us get rid of the vaccine mandates for our healthcare workers and law enforcement that exist out there that have those mandates.

00:12:42.000 The DOD, our federal employees, it will help us end those vaccine mandates.

00:12:46.000 So the best way that we know how to do that right now, especially since a lot in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party won't meet with us at all, but the Republican Party feels defeated in the House.

00:12:56.000 They keep saying things like, well, we're not the majority, nothing we can do.

00:12:59.000 We've got to wait until November.

00:13:00.000 We don't have time to wait till November.

00:13:02.000 So I encourage you to go to your state capitals right now.

00:13:06.000 Start rallying at your state capitals.

00:13:08.000 Put the pressure on the states.

00:13:10.000 Put the pressure on the same way that we're doing here in Washington, D.C. Go to your capitals and don't leave.

00:13:18.000 What's been your relationship with law enforcement along the way?

00:13:21.000 Have you had any kind of contact with state police, with other police departments?

00:13:27.000 Yes.

00:13:28.000 Every agency has worked with us quite well.

00:13:31.000 There was one during the convoy that was difficult.

00:13:33.000 That was the Illinois State Police.

00:13:35.000 But Illinois State Police, in the end, came to bat for us and helped us get across their state with no trouble at all.

00:13:42.000 I think we put a lot of pressure on them when they had said that they were going to come after us for convoy.

00:13:48.000 I'm going through when they had a press release that they had put out that basically said they were going to come after us for unsafe driving conditions, that kind of deal.

00:13:58.000 And once the pressure got put on them through social media, because I speak the truth and I speak from my heart.

00:14:04.000 And if you're going to do something like that, I'm going to call you out for it.

00:14:07.000 I'm going to tell you that you're messing up and that this is wrong.

00:14:09.000 And I'm going to say it out publicly and I'm going to let the public know what you're doing.

00:14:13.000 And of course, I did that with Illinois, and they got a ton of pressure.

00:14:16.000 And the next thing you know, they escorted us all the way across the state.

00:14:18.000 As far as this local area, I work every single day with the Virginia State Police, the Maryland State Police, DC Metro.

00:14:25.000 Every single day, I work with them.

00:14:27.000 And they're not assisting us, but we're letting them know what we're doing.

00:14:31.000 They can't show partial either way.

00:14:34.000 So I let them know what we're doing and I take their advice.

00:14:36.000 So when they counsel good times versus bad times to be traveling, I work with them.

00:14:42.000 It doesn't mean I listen to them all the time, but I'm working with them.

00:14:45.000 And they're working with me in a sense to understand the plan, what we're doing, and how we're going to execute that plan.

00:14:52.000 So we have a great working relationship with the local law enforcement, and we have a lot of dialogue going back to multiple law enforcement agencies down here in Hagerstown in the D.C. metro area.

00:15:03.000 Ryan Brazzi, thank you for your leadership, for your commitment, for the sacrifice that you're making for America, for our values, for our people, for public health, and all the things that we believe in and make us proud to be part of this country.

00:15:19.000 I'll see you on the barricades.

00:15:21.000 Awesome.

RFK Jr. The Defender - March 31, 2022

US Truck Convoy Leader Brian Brase

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