The John-Henry Westen Show - What REALLY Happened In Maui？ Media Blackout Is Suspicious

00:00:00.640 Ave Maria Mutual Funds, seeking the moral high ground for 20 years.

00:00:10.500 Pro-life, pro-family, and Catholic values have guided us to the top.

00:00:22.440 Pro-life, pro-life, pro-life, pro-life, pro-life, pro-life, pro-life.

00:00:29.500 There's the story of the father who was told his son was already evacuated.

00:00:34.360 He didn't need to go in and get him.

00:00:36.100 And then only to find out that his son had died hiding under his bed with his dog.

00:00:40.520 Hey my friends, Maui, the disaster there is still unfolding and it's really untold.

00:00:55.480 You've seen the images.

00:00:56.860 I know many of you want to help, want to reach out, but it's very hard to know who you can

00:01:02.940 work with, who is not going to rip you off, who's going to not use the funds that you're

00:01:07.660 going to send there to do something else.

00:01:10.900 Well, we've got something for you.

00:01:12.180 That's why we developed LifeFunder to work with only good groups that we vet first and

00:01:17.780 therefore you can make good use of your charitable donations.

00:01:22.580 There's no one I can recommend to you hire than someone we've worked with here at LifeSite

00:01:27.900 for years, in fact, decades.

00:01:30.200 His name is Jason Jones.

00:01:31.480 He runs many things, but one of them is the Vulnerable People Project, which does this outreach

00:01:36.900 work.

00:01:37.180 Jason Jones has been absolutely stunning in using the talents that God gave him, both

00:01:43.860 as a soldier and then as a great advocate for life, to work to save countless people,

00:01:51.620 unborn and born.

00:01:54.660 He's got details for us of what's going on in Maui, where he has been already and is going

00:02:01.400 to again, and it's absolutely stunning.

00:02:05.040 When you hear what's going on on the ground, when you hear unfiltered what's happening

00:02:10.040 there, you're not only going to want to reach deep into your wallet to help out those poor

00:02:14.940 people there, you're going to be assured that those funds will be used in an incredible

00:02:18.940 way to help families from the best possible way.

00:02:23.040 This is an evangelizer for life, for faith, and for family.

00:02:27.040 Jason Jones, welcome back to the program.

00:02:29.140 John Henry, it's good to see you, brother.

00:02:31.660 My friend, I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, but this too needs to be said.

00:02:36.340 But let's begin as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:02:38.760 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

00:02:44.500 Amen.

00:02:46.760 Jason, if you wouldn't mind, I know a lot of people have heard something about Maui.

00:02:52.640 Can you take us through, start to finish, as you know the story right now, of what exactly

00:02:58.260 happened and what's going on now?

00:02:59.580 Yeah, John Henry, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do that.

00:03:02.840 What's really tragic is, you know, my organization, I founded, it's the Human Rights Education and

00:03:08.420 Relief Organization.

00:03:09.400 We have two main programs, Movie to Movement and the Vulnerable People Project.

00:03:13.460 And I founded the organization in 2002 in Hawaii to advocate for the most vulnerable people in

00:03:20.500 the world when the world is turned against them.

00:03:22.580 And that's from the child in the womb to communities facing democide, genocide, war, and disaster.

00:03:27.660 And I got this idea in college when my pro-life club would be the club that stood up for other

00:03:36.540 communities facing genocide when no one else was paying attention.

00:03:39.600 And I thought, what if we did this on the world stage?

00:03:42.320 And so here we are to be advocating for the people of Lahaina, of Hawaii, where my organization

00:03:49.240 was founded, to me, is heartbreaking and uncanny.

00:03:53.840 I was in Washington, D.C.

00:03:58.040 The day the fire broke out, actually advocating for Catholics in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

00:04:05.440 And I saw the media reports and I was busy working and I had a lot of, I had an EWTN interview

00:04:14.400 and I had other, Sebastian Gorka's show and I was meeting with Congressman Chris Smith, a hero.

00:04:19.460 And I just had a lot of meetings and a lot of tasks to do that day.

00:04:23.860 So I didn't want to look at the news because I knew that once I did, I would break.

00:04:28.760 So at the end of the workday, I called a good friend of mine, Dallas Carter.

00:04:32.960 He's a native Hawaiian.

00:04:34.420 He's a Steubenville graduate.

00:04:36.200 He's the founder and principal of a Catholic school in Hawaii.

00:04:38.760 And he also is a founder of an organization called Epic Ministries.

00:04:43.480 It's a native Hawaiian Catholic organization on all the Hawaiian islands.

00:04:50.500 So I called him at the end of the day and I said, Dallas, I'm a little embarrassed that

00:04:55.160 I don't know what's happening in Maui.

00:04:57.000 Can you give me a briefing?

00:04:59.280 And he said, Jason, don't be embarrassed.

00:05:01.520 None of us on Oahu know.

00:05:03.400 And we're hearing rumors and we're trying to wrap our mind around what we're hearing.

00:05:10.080 And so this was day one.

00:05:11.680 So day one, the rumors that we were hearing really were just too awful to want to believe.

00:05:18.440 And we were hearing that Lahaina was gone.

00:05:23.440 Gone.

00:05:24.480 We were hearing that the private schools weren't in session yet, but the public schools were

00:05:29.460 and the children were home alone.

00:05:30.660 We were hearing they were either sent home alone or they were told not to come to school,

00:05:35.040 but either way, they were home alone.

00:05:36.080 We were hearing, we heard that the water wasn't on.

00:05:38.760 We heard that the electric lines weren't de-energized.

00:05:42.680 We heard the police were blocking people in.

00:05:45.520 And we were hearing even rumors more bizarre than that.

00:05:49.000 And what's sad is, John Henry, everything I'm telling you now happened.

00:05:55.620 Those rumors were true. 1.00

00:05:57.020 Lahaina's gone.

00:05:57.840 You know, right now, we just don't know.

00:06:02.060 There are 115 identified, 380, I believe, that the state says is missing.

00:06:13.080 But the numbers I've heard from the FBI were 1,200.

00:06:16.580 The lowest numbers I've heard are 380.

00:06:19.160 And I would like to believe the lowest numbers.

00:06:21.280 I did happen to fly with somebody next to FEMA, someone from FEMA on my way home.

00:06:28.600 And when I had said to her that I heard, you know, what are the casualty numbers?

00:06:32.200 And she, I said, I, you know, they're reporting only 115.

00:06:34.760 And she turned to me and looked at me like I was crazy. 0.99

00:06:37.220 She said, you know, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dead.

00:06:40.500 And just yesterday, a friend of mine said that she personally counted 380 body bags at one location.

00:06:48.500 So, you know, that was day one.

00:06:50.880 John Henry, so here, I know folks, if you're watching the show, you're really well informed.

00:06:56.040 And I think it was, was it Aldous Huxley who said, we have two choices in this life to be uninformed or misinformed.

00:07:05.280 So, there's a lot of information flying around and a lot of speculation.

00:07:09.580 And because I want to be sensitive to the communities that have been affected, I've really tried to only talk about what we know.

00:07:18.860 But here's what we know.

00:07:19.960 What we know is really horrible.

00:07:21.420 We do know that the police blockaded people in and did not let them leave.

00:07:28.840 And those people who were turned around died and those who ignored the police lived.

00:07:35.680 We do know the water was shut off.

00:07:38.940 There's conflicting reports.

00:07:41.580 Now, Hawaiian Electric is suing Maui County and Maui County is suing Hawaiian Electric.

00:07:46.160 Hawaiian Electric says they have definitive proof that they deep energize those lines eight hours before the fires broke.

00:07:55.880 Now, if that's true, then that leads to some of the stranger conspiracy theories.

00:08:00.900 And I've heard firsthand testimony to some very strange things that people witnessed.

00:08:06.040 It is worth noting, I think, that BlackRock owns 8% of Hawaiian Electric.

00:08:12.380 There were rumors that there were no brakes.

00:08:14.540 But what I was told by a county official is that there were fire brakes, but they weren't maintained and they were overgrown.

00:08:20.600 Also, it's been reported that Hawaiian Electric didn't bury those power lines because they didn't want to waste money on old energy, that they would rather use money for green energy.

00:08:33.700 And so those power lines in a windy, dry area, by the way, an area that was made dry over a century of overdevelopment.

00:08:41.600 So it was a very lush area before, but because of the plantations and then development, it's very dry.

00:08:52.040 So they chose not to bury those power lines because of environmentalism.

00:08:56.860 So at the very least, when I hear the word now green energy, it makes me sick to my stomach.

00:09:02.580 Because this idea of green energy not only has young boys working to death in Africa, mining rare earth elements that are necessary for the batteries in these electric cars, it's led to famine and it's led to the decimation of Lahaina.

00:09:20.740 And at the very least, we have a bureaucratic blunder and we have social justice virtue signaling and the climate lobby, the green lobby, effectively stopping progress.

00:09:35.420 Forest fires have been down by 20% in the past 20 years, but yet we've had these catastrophes and these catastrophes are man-made.

00:09:43.700 They're caused by not maintaining breaks or not doing fire breaks, where you burn areas to prevent the spread of a wildfire around inhabited areas, the not burying of power lines.

00:09:59.160 People talk about why are the wealthy areas in Maui undamaged?

00:10:04.420 And there are these theories of lasers or high energy weapons or heat energy weapons.

00:10:09.660 I think just the fact that in those wealthy neighborhoods, the power lines were buried and they're allowed to water and they have lush, you know, they're allowed to water their yards and their water wasn't being turned off.

00:10:25.860 But where the working class and the poor, the Hawaiians and the Kama'aina, the, the, you know, the, something else to know about Lahaina is it's, you know, it was first settled in 400 BC.

00:10:38.340 So you've had Hawaiians there long before contact.

00:10:41.800 It was the, it was the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom and it was where the gospel first landed and spread from in the Hawaiian Islands.

00:10:49.000 Um, it's, it's, it was a very important town in the whaling industry.

00:10:54.080 Lahaina is just this historic town, but the ethnic breakdown is native Hawaiian and Kama'aina.

00:11:01.400 And what that means is it actually goes back to the kingdom of Hawaii days where, um, you had the, um, the Hawaiians, but you also, you didn't have to be an ethnically Hawaiian to be a citizen of the Hawaiian kingdom.

00:11:15.300 You had Okinawans and Filipinos and Portuguese and Mexicans, yet all sorts of ethnicities, um, coming to Hawaii.

00:11:24.580 Our cowboys or the Paniolos came from Mexican.

00:11:27.400 They Paniolo, which is Hawaiian word for cowboy is Espanolo, Espanolo, those who spoke Spanish.

00:11:33.620 Those were the cowboys.

00:11:35.420 Um, we had, uh, big ranches, like the largest ranch in the world until recently Parker ranches on the big island of Hawaii.

00:11:42.140 So it was very ethnically diverse, the Hawaiian kingdom, uh, by the end of the 19th century.

00:11:47.800 So, and then with the plantation industry, of course, they brought in a lot of Filipinos, especially unlike the rest of the United States, um, where they might be Tagalog or Visayan, they're Ilocano. 0.73

00:12:00.860 They come from a Locos Norte and a Locos Sur.

00:12:03.340 They were brought to work on the plantations.

00:12:05.180 So you have a lot of Kama Aina, they're intermarried. 1.00

00:12:08.580 So they're Filipino, Chinese, Portuguese, all mixed up and then native Hawaiian.

00:12:13.400 But of course, in all healthy communities, uh, and the Hawaiian islands have had a very vibrant, faith-filled, healthy community, um, where your family ends and where one ethnic community ends.

00:12:25.120 And the rest of it begins, it's kind of blurred.

00:12:27.440 So, so everyone's intermarried.

00:12:29.540 So Kama Aina, Hawaiian, it's really just one community.

00:12:32.720 So those Kama Aina and Hawaiians, it's very important that they keep their land.

00:12:36.840 Because as sure, as you know, John Henry, it's been reported in the news.

00:12:41.000 And this also is true that they have been bombarded with, by vultures, trying to buy their land in the midst of this crisis.

00:12:49.120 So you have desperate people who maybe had a home that had been in the family for generations.

00:12:56.160 And that's all they have.

00:12:57.900 They might be sitting at a home.

00:12:59.220 If you went and looked on Zillow, you'd say, oh, their home was worth $2.4 million.

00:13:04.200 But maybe you had seven yet.

00:13:06.560 In Hawaii, we have a lot of aunties, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, kids, cousins, all living in one house because the cost of living is so high.

00:13:13.740 And so it took seven incomes just to maintain that home with a house that's been in the family for generations.

00:13:20.880 So that's another rumor that's actually true.

00:13:24.780 These vultures have descended on Lahaina.

00:13:28.540 And they haven't even identified the vast majority of the bodies yet.

00:13:31.820 And they're trying to buy these people's land right out from underneath them. 0.59

00:13:35.300 And thank God for the alternative press, because we have a catastrophe that is really at the level of Katrina or a 9-11 in its catastrophic scale.

00:13:46.200 But it's not getting any kind of media.

00:13:49.740 And what's very strange to me is Mark Zuckerberg lives on Maui, but you can't even do a frame.

00:13:55.140 You know how they have these causes that they do for every other cause under the sun?

00:13:59.680 You can't do a Maui strong or stand with Lahaina frame on Facebook.

00:14:05.460 So the dissembling from the media, the misinformation, shutting off of the water, the locking people in, the lack of transparency and arrogance of the state and local government officials.

00:14:18.680 Joe Biden's bizarre performance every step of the way on Lahaina, from I have no comment to going and telling silly stories about almost losing his car in a fire and then falling asleep at a Native Hawaiian town hall.

00:14:34.320 It's just all been staggeringly disrespectful and unthoughtful.

00:14:39.300 So here's where we have it.

00:14:40.720 And now our organization, which is this Catholic apostolate, we've had three missions in all of this, which was to care for the living, honor and bury the dead, and to help keep Lahaina local.

00:14:53.180 So we are committed to helping every family.

00:14:57.100 You know, we want to honor the living by burying the dead.

00:14:59.900 We want to honor the dead by caring for those who've survived.

00:15:02.420 And then we want to tell the story about what really happened to Lahaina and make sure we stand with the people of Lahaina as they protect their homes, so many of them Catholics.

00:15:13.220 So you had this Lanikila Church, which the whole world is talking about.

00:15:17.260 The one thing, the sign of hope, is this Catholic church was left unscathed. 0.99

00:15:22.600 And in fact, it's someone from the church, the parish committee that's become our VPP's liaison with the community for the funerals.

00:15:29.960 So we're working very closely with that parish community, and we're working with and through.

00:15:35.400 And that's something that VPP does around the world.

00:15:37.400 We work with and through the communities we serve.

00:15:40.060 So we don't have to descend with an army of do-gooders into a community that has a lot of people that are more than capable of caring for themselves.

00:15:48.100 So we're working with the local community, especially the Catholic community, Epic Ministries, the Knights of Columbus, and the local parishes there.

00:15:57.600 Beautiful.

00:15:58.040 Tell us some of these stories.

00:16:00.300 One of the—let me start with—tell us some of the stories of the families that you've already helped, that you've been involved with already, and what's been the reaction there.

00:16:12.300 Hey, my friends, now is the time to stand up and fight.

00:16:15.600 We are just about to have the Synod on Synodality, and everything that you've seen indicates that it's going to be an absolute disaster.

00:16:24.440 We have Fr. James Martin as a personal appointee of the Pope speaking at it.

00:16:30.580 We've got Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Tobin.

00:16:33.840 These picks of the Pope to engage in this Synod are indicative of where we're going.

00:16:40.220 We're going into heresy, and at these times of great crisis, the Church, especially those called in the laity to work for the glory of Christ and His Church, are called to gather and strategize.

00:16:56.580 Back in 2014, LifeSite launched something called Rome Life Forum.

00:17:00.160 It was a gathering at that point of some 75 life and family leaders from all around the world to strategize as to what we could do.

00:17:09.000 And when we gathered, the majority of people were most concerned about what?

00:17:13.340 About Pope Francis, about what was going on in Rome.

00:17:17.040 But this was 2014.

00:17:19.220 But the life and family leaders saw it first.

00:17:22.360 Now, a decade on, we are confronted with some of the most severe challenges the Church has ever faced.

00:17:31.000 And so, our tradition at LifeSite is to continue with Rome Life Forum, which has continued every year until we had to take a break over COVID because we weren't permitted.

00:17:40.360 But we're starting it up again.

00:17:41.660 And then, please come, if you feel so called, to Rome, October 31st and November 1st, the very end of the Synod on Synodality.

00:17:52.500 And we'll be there to strategize with His Eminence, with His Excellency, and with many life and family leaders from around the world.

00:18:01.820 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston.

00:18:04.040 And may God bless you.

00:18:04.740 Well, you know, the saddest story.

00:18:08.500 Once the word got out that we were paying for funerals, John Henry, it was really, it was a bit overwhelming because my phone didn't stop ringing.

00:18:17.760 And families would say, you know, would you pay for my father, even though we don't even have ashes and we don't think we'll even be able to identify?

00:18:26.520 Will you help us do some sort of memorial or some sort of headstone?

00:18:30.700 And we're like, of course, we, you know, we, there's the story of the father who was told his son was already evacuated.

00:18:38.900 He didn't need to go in and get him.

00:18:40.640 And then only to find out that his son had died under hiding under his bed with his dog.

00:18:47.080 There's, I've been told that if you're not from Hawaii or have a lot of friends from Hawaii, you're not seeing this in your social media feeds.

00:18:52.580 But I can tell you, my Instagram has been just flooded with the most tragic scenes.

00:19:00.020 Countless live streams that people are live streaming as they were trying to escape.

00:19:07.000 And it's live streaming and you're watching them die.

00:19:11.820 Someone just sent me, I didn't even mean to click on it.

00:19:15.060 You know, I, someone sent me one today.

00:19:16.540 I'm like, what's this?

00:19:17.240 And I'm watching it and then hoping they escaped.

00:19:19.660 And you realize they didn't, there was another one where these three young sisters were kind of giggling, like, take a left, take a right.

00:19:26.000 Okay.

00:19:26.240 Go this way.

00:19:27.300 Within a minute, it went from like nervous laughter to, um, before it goes black, you just hear the girl saying, dear God, no, dear God, no.

00:19:38.640 Send your angels to protect me.

00:19:40.080 Why do I have to die like this?

00:19:41.360 Not like this.

00:19:42.080 And then it goes black.

00:19:44.120 Why the world isn't paying attention to this?

00:19:46.340 I don't know.

00:19:48.160 It's unbelievable to me.

00:19:51.140 It is, uh, you know, maybe it does strike close to home to me, but I have to imagine that if in Orange County or in Santa Barbara, hundreds and hundreds of, you know, and look, we're conservatives.

00:20:05.240 And people get mad at me for bringing this up and maybe because my kids are mixed race and maybe it's because I'm from Hawaii.

00:20:11.520 I do believe there's structural racism.

00:20:13.800 And I think the liberal media is the largest, is, is, is the most responsible for the structures of racism.

00:20:20.460 And number one way is they don't allow a diversity of opinions to come from different ethnic communities.

00:20:27.680 Um, that's the number one way I think there's a structure of racism, but, but I do think they don't value the lives of these Hawaiians and these Kama'ina. 0.65

00:20:35.580 For the life of me, I just can't imagine if there were hundreds of children from Santa Barbara missing that this wouldn't be the number one new story in America.

00:20:43.380 Am I wrong there, John Henry?

00:20:44.760 I mean, you're absolutely right.

00:20:46.220 It's funny looking in the situation from Canada, even as close to America as Canada.

00:20:52.720 It's almost like America is considering Hawaii is not part of America.

00:20:58.680 Because I know you having lived there for so long and, and your, your, uh, your wife is from Hawaii and your kids therefore have whatever, but you get it.

00:21:10.080 But it, it really does seem like it's a different country.

00:21:12.960 Yes, it's far away, but it's still part of America.

00:21:15.120 And yet it's being treated as if it's not, that that's the only thing I can make of it as a foreigner looking in thinking, they obviously don't think this is a big deal.

00:21:23.480 It must be a foreign, like maybe they think it's like a colony or something they don't need to care about. 0.50

00:21:28.820 It's really weird.

00:21:30.040 This is America, folks.

00:21:31.660 These are Americans who've died. 1.00

00:21:33.180 And yet it's not being covered by the mainstream.

00:21:37.160 Is the mainstream that bad?

00:21:40.380 I hate to say it, but I think the answer is yes.

00:21:42.040 Yeah, I think the neoliberal, I hope this doesn't offend your audience. 0.97

00:21:46.680 I think neoliberal white people are just racists. 0.67

00:21:50.060 I just really, I do. 0.97

00:21:51.760 They just, for all of their talk on race and equality and justice, they're, they're talking to themselves. 0.51

00:21:58.540 They're fighting an internal war, I guess.

00:22:00.540 And they're outwardly virtue signaling because of some internal battle.

00:22:04.180 Because why there is no Maui strong Facebook, you know, meme, why are we not being inundated with memes and they're not offering frames to stand with the people of Lahaina?

00:22:15.740 I think it's either intentional and malicious and part of some grander conspiracy, which a lot of Native Hawaiians can come on. 0.99

00:22:25.160 And people are arguing that this is a massive land grab, which I'm fully open to the possibility of that.

00:22:31.300 And it's, it's, it's, it's there by design, trying not to foment empathy for the people of Lahaina who are about to have their homes poached from them.

00:22:39.360 Or what to me seems more likely is it's just some subtle bias.

00:22:44.360 As you said, it's disgusting as it is to hear that they don't see them as Americans.

00:22:50.200 But we've seen that from this administration.

00:22:52.180 I mean, I don't want to bring politics into this again, because probably most of the, you know, it's Hawaii's a, you know, I don't want to, it's, it's, I don't want to bring politics into a catastrophe.

00:23:01.560 But, you know, you have a Democrat president who said no comment in the face of a great catastrophe.

00:23:12.640 You have a Democrat mayor of Maui County and a Democrat governor who held press conferences saying, effectively, we're open for business.

00:23:22.000 The state is still open for business.

00:23:23.480 This is a small part of Maui.

00:23:24.920 And I'm not saying that it's not important to keep the economy going to support the local community and the small business owners and all of that.

00:23:31.580 But could you imagine if Rudy Giuliani and 9-11 went out there and said, you know, hey, we still have great Broadway shows.

00:23:41.160 We have great restaurants.

00:23:42.340 New York is still for business.

00:23:44.020 When you look at the amount of people missing from Lahaina, a town of 13,000, is the equivalent of 800,000 New Yorkers dying or missing after 9-11.

00:23:52.860 So how many people in New York, I think we all have friends from New York who can tell you a story about their, their roommate from college or their old neighbor or the kid they used to play Little League with who they lost on September 11th.

00:24:06.060 Well, New York's a huge city and you had 3,000 deaths, not to diminish those.

00:24:11.220 But when you're looking at over 1,000 dead or missing in Maui County, in Maui County, they lose about 1,000 people, 1,100 people a year or so die of all causes in a year.

00:24:24.680 So you're looking at approximately dead and or missing about the same number of folks that die in an average year in the entire county of all causes.

00:24:39.460 This is a massive catastrophe.

00:24:41.600 And so to see the media not paying attention to it, social media not saying, you remember when Russia invaded Ukraine, we could all make the little Ukraine flag memes and you could all have, we stand with Ukraine.

00:24:57.780 And we remember after Katrina, that was the biggest news story in the world, as it should have been.

00:25:06.140 We were all paying attention to it.

00:25:07.660 But, John Henry, I never thought of it the way you put it.

00:25:11.320 It's as if they don't think of these people as Americans.

00:25:14.880 Oh, and I wanted to bring this up.

00:25:16.220 This was my original point.

00:25:17.960 You look at what the United States did in Afghanistan and in Sudan.

00:25:22.520 So my organization was involved in both the evacuations of American citizens from Afghanistan two years ago.

00:25:29.660 And we were involved this year in evacuating American citizens and Christians and nuns and others from Khartoum when the Civil War broke out in Sudan.

00:25:40.080 What, you know, the Afghan Americans with blue passports were pulled to the back of the line in Afghanistan.

00:25:49.340 For other Americans that look like me to go to the front.

00:25:55.280 The same thing happened in Sudan.

00:25:57.340 They closed the embassy when the Civil War kicked off.

00:26:00.900 And Sudanese Americans that were home there visiting family or working with their businesses or whatever it was they were doing.

00:26:06.920 And the embassy door was shut in their face.

00:26:10.600 And I know conservatives, we have a natural revulsion to this idea of structural racism or bigotry.

00:26:18.480 But I really think it's the left and it's the neoliberal elite that they don't see Afghan Americans as Americans.

00:26:24.720 So they abandoned them and left them in Afghanistan without looking back. 0.97

00:26:28.360 They did the same thing in Sudan.

00:26:29.760 And now here we have Lahaina, an American town, wiped from the face of the earth.

00:26:37.280 And it's quickly moved to page B17.

00:26:42.400 What accounts for this?

00:26:44.520 You know, I might do a documentary on this because I want to know.

00:26:47.580 I want to know why this fire happened.

00:26:49.480 I want to know why this response was so ham-fisted.

00:26:52.560 And I want to know why the mainstream media in the United States didn't make this the biggest news story in the world.

00:26:58.140 Because to me, as an American, it's one of the biggest news stories.

00:27:02.440 And I have to think if Santa Monica or Santa Barbara was wiped from the face of the earth, it would be a bigger story than they're making out of Lahaina. 0.98

00:27:11.880 There's so many questions.

00:27:13.200 I don't know that you have answers to them, but I've got to ask a few.

00:27:15.760 So the thing with the children, we're being told that the children were off, out of school, parents didn't know, and they were at home, and many, many died.

00:27:28.320 But there's not really clarity on that.

00:27:30.760 We've got the story from you about the one dad who thought his kid was safe but was found, remains found, holding his dog under his bed.

00:27:40.460 Horrible.

00:27:40.900 But is that story repeated more, or is that an isolated case?

00:27:45.400 Well, here's the sad thing.

00:27:47.060 They're only telling us about 115 of those bodies.

00:27:51.440 There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more unaccounted for.

00:27:54.920 The good news is that I will tell you the private Catholic schools were not in session.

00:27:59.140 And the Vulnerable People Project, together with Epic Ministries, we brought over by plane what we call pop-up schools, so they relocated the school.

00:28:09.720 And 100% of the Catholic school children are accounted for, so they didn't lose a single child.

00:28:15.720 And so that's – yeah, God is great, and that is a beautiful story.

00:28:18.940 But talking with locals, you hear –

00:28:23.700 Just before you continue there, I just want to delve on that for a second.

00:28:27.580 So part of the funds that you're using that hopefully you get from LifeFunder as well is to provide interim education for these kids while their school is burned down.

00:28:38.080 What have you done there exactly?

00:28:39.060 Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, John Henry, because we haven't even announced this yet.

00:28:43.040 So just talking with Tanada, the principal of the school, we – it was – you know when you feel helpless?

00:28:52.220 When a tragedy happens, the only thing that takes away that sort of anxiety is to work.

00:28:57.180 And so it was great that we, together with Epic Ministries and the Knights of Columbus, we funded a charter plane filled with basically what we call pop-up school.

00:29:06.740 Then we met at the airport, we unloaded into trucks, and I had my own truck, and we drove our truck to Lahaina to Sacred Hearts Mission Church, where we then erected this pop-up school.

00:29:21.240 And to be a part of unloading the planes and loading the trucks and unloading the trucks.

00:29:26.360 So we're doing that.

00:29:28.200 The school is up.

00:29:29.780 And, John Henry, I can send you offline.

00:29:31.560 I don't know if I can publicize it yet, but the very first day of school started today.

00:29:35.360 And so all the students were there at the pop-up school, and I can send that to you.

00:29:41.260 And hopefully we can share with you folks.

00:29:42.780 I know people are sensitive with their kids.

00:29:44.240 I want to get permission first.

00:29:46.600 Also, just today they asked us if we would help with tuition costs.

00:29:54.560 So these families are left destitute.

00:29:57.080 They lost their homes.

00:29:58.740 Basically, Maui shut down.

00:30:00.220 There's no jobs.

00:30:01.200 There's no business.

00:30:02.020 There's no work.

00:30:03.620 There's nothing left.

00:30:04.680 We were talking today about opening up a bank account nearby.

00:30:07.320 All the banks burned down.

00:30:08.760 I mean, everything's gone.

00:30:10.740 So, yeah, we're going to be paying for funerals at this point, and we're going to be paying for Catholic education.

00:30:18.320 So we're going to create up a structure of a scholarship fund.

00:30:22.000 I made a proposal to them if rather than paying a semester of tuition, because we basically have to build a bridge as we're running across it,

00:30:29.500 I asked the school, can we pay month to month for all the students?

00:30:34.380 So instead of saying we're going to pay for these many students for the whole semester, if we can just pay month to month for all the students to make sure every student has the opportunity to go to school.

00:30:45.160 And, of course, it's greatly reduced.

00:30:47.680 You have a school now where all the teachers, the principal, and all the students are homeless.

00:30:55.460 How is this not the biggest news story?

00:30:57.620 Well, John Henry, and I will tell you when – I don't know if you saw the footage of us.

00:31:00.820 We had boats coming from all the outer islands, and they weren't letting us dock.

00:31:06.260 So we would drop anchor, and we used jet skis.

00:31:09.040 And I'll send you the video of this.

00:31:10.100 You can watch this.

00:31:11.160 Then jet skis shuttled the goods from the boats to near the beach, where then we were in the ocean, taking it from the jet skis, and we did a bucket brigade all the way up to the trucks.

00:31:21.040 It reminded me of what I saw during World War II in the Solomon Islands and other places.

00:31:24.820 You know, we were just – you know, we were unloading ship after ship through jet skis and bucket brigades.

00:31:33.740 And then I – the hard part was, and it was also a grace, but I have the privilege of I drove to all the families, and we, you know, we delivered them the supplies of life.

00:31:48.040 Now, being a Catholic apostolate, I can – you know, I like to make people smile.

00:31:51.940 So I got – I bought coolers, and I filled coolers after coolers with ice on the other side of the island.

00:32:00.280 And every family got – in each cooler, they were allowed one treat per family.

00:32:06.140 They got one – two treats.

00:32:07.920 One treat was for the adults, and one treat was for the kids.

00:32:10.480 But they had an ice-cold beer.

00:32:13.660 They could get one bottle per family and an ice cream bar.

00:32:17.120 And, you know, my staff thought I was nuts.

00:32:21.120 I said, look, I'm doing this just for them to smile.

00:32:25.040 You know, you hand them an ice cream bar.

00:32:28.880 Each kid gets one bite, you know.

00:32:31.100 And – but it's just for the smile.

00:32:34.000 And it was nice.

00:32:36.680 You know, all the hard work we do in fundraising and media and logistics with planes and boats, you know, that's where you're getting work done.

00:32:44.080 But you don't feel it.

00:32:46.040 And so for me, to be able to – to be the – also the last guy at the very end of the supply chain, driving around Maui, delivering supplies to families, that was very rewarding.

00:32:57.180 And to be able to see the smiles crack, you know, or they just would giggle that they couldn't believe this knucklehead brought a cooler full of beer, you know.

00:33:07.680 So it was just worth it to see that – you're a Canadian, so you appreciate it.

00:33:12.080 But just to see that – I showed it to the Red Cross guys.

00:33:14.480 I'm like, Red Cross isn't delivering beer.

00:33:17.060 They go, no, we're not.

00:33:18.000 We're not doing that.

00:33:21.300 That's a – you know, it's a beautiful thing about you, Jason. 0.66

00:33:23.700 You're crazy enough to be involved on both ends.

00:33:26.980 And it's just great. 0.78

00:33:31.200 You watch the project that you design to the end and are there at the end.

00:33:37.160 It's gorgeous.

00:33:38.600 We've loved to – we've been honored to partner with you in the many, many different projects you've undertaken.

00:33:47.900 Tell us about this police blockading people in so they can't get out and they die because of it.

00:33:54.580 That doesn't make any sense.

00:33:56.440 What is that?

00:33:57.880 Okay.

00:33:58.300 So I always start with the benefit of the doubt.

00:34:00.920 And first of all, you have to know these police are Hawaiians.

00:34:04.820 These police are Kama'aina.

00:34:06.020 These police are from this community, their family, their friends.

00:34:09.180 So I know for a fact that these police officers would never do anything that they thought in any way would jeopardize the safety of those people.

00:34:18.460 So just – I'm trying to wrap my mind around what were they doing.

00:34:23.040 And obviously it was a catastrophic decision.

00:34:26.440 I suspect they were afraid that they were down power lines in that direction or they were worried about which way the wind would blow.

00:34:34.780 But again, at the very least, this is – and it's perfect rhyme.

00:34:41.620 It's a perfect meter.

00:34:43.380 Afghanistan is the greatest disaster, military blunder, since the Trojans wheeled that Greek horse. 1.00

00:34:55.100 You know, it was a massive blunder.

00:35:01.060 And it was the greatest military disaster in the history of the United States.

00:35:06.000 Unprecedented.

00:35:06.720 $88 billion in weapons left to the Taliban.

00:35:09.260 That's the equivalent of all military aid from the United States to Israel from 1949 to 2020.

00:35:14.400 It's a lot of weapons.

00:35:16.340 American citizens abandoned.

00:35:17.860 180,000 SIVs abandoned.

00:35:20.340 That were Afghan allies' promised visas.

00:35:22.920 Nothing like it in American history.

00:35:25.200 Embarrassing, catastrophic.

00:35:27.260 Well, this is the greatest civil defense blunder in American history.

00:35:30.980 It was a perfect storm of catastrophe.

00:35:34.260 The sirens didn't go off.

00:35:36.680 They have a reason for that.

00:35:38.100 They said, well, we were afraid if we released the sirens that they would think it's for a tsunami or a hurricane and they would run up into the hills. 0.94

00:35:47.800 And I heard one Hawaiian lady say they thought we were so stupid that we would run into a wall of flames because we heard a siren. 0.93

00:35:56.820 But that was their reasoning. 1.00

00:35:58.880 Maybe that's the truth.

00:36:01.220 Maybe, you know.

00:36:01.860 But they didn't even use the cell phone.

00:36:04.260 So we were in touch with people who were there and they didn't use the cell phone alerts either.

00:36:09.580 Those amber alerts that everybody gets to warn them of tornadoes or storms or children missing or whatever.

00:36:17.880 There were all sorts of children missing.

00:36:19.340 There was everything missing.

00:36:20.520 There was fire everywhere and they're not warning people.

00:36:22.860 How is that?

00:36:24.760 You know, this is what I mean.

00:36:26.040 There were mistakes made at every step.

00:36:30.100 And then the mistakes continued.

00:36:32.360 The mistakes continue still.

00:36:34.640 The lack of transparency and the arrogance of our government officials.

00:36:38.660 And that's been the problem of Hawaii for a very long time.

00:36:41.680 In fact, why my family moved.

00:36:43.400 We moved eight weeks into the first COVID lockdown.

00:36:46.800 They were not letting us care for the homeless.

00:36:48.780 They were arresting us for delivering food to the homeless.

00:36:52.300 They were arresting us for holding peaceful protests.

00:36:55.520 There were seven mile long lines for food. 0.98

00:36:58.500 Suicide numbers in Hawaii were catastrophic because we had the most ham-fisted, ignorant, arrogant lockdown in the United States. 0.96

00:37:05.780 Only New Zealand and Australia in the Anglosphere and maybe Canada had tougher lockdowns. 0.94

00:37:13.860 But I don't even think Canada. 0.73

00:37:15.640 So, you know, they're arrogant.

00:37:17.340 They're responsive to ideology and not their constituents.

00:37:20.640 And we see in this catastrophe, in a catastrophe, when you have elected officials that are trained to respond to ideology and outside interests rather than their community interest, this is what you're going to get.

00:37:38.480 Catastrophe.

00:37:39.160 You know, the problem with the state of Hawaii is the greatest mistake in American political history is the direct election of the senators.

00:37:49.060 Our senators used to be elected by the state legislatures, believe the state house.

00:37:53.500 So when the state house would elect the U.S. Senate, that made the states, the Senate was responsive to the interests of the state.

00:38:00.820 And it made it impossible for special interests to lock them up.

00:38:06.580 Only the only special interest to lock them up was the state house.

00:38:10.300 You can't have a special interest control 10,000 state representatives is what you'd have to do.

00:38:18.080 But to control 51 senators, it's quite easy.

00:38:20.640 And when you have small states like Hawaii or Delaware, where our president comes from, you basically have the perfect storm, a state without a lot of money and special interests come in and they own your senators.

00:38:35.380 So our senators are not responsive at all to the people of Hawaii.

00:38:39.720 Even our governor, it sounds like he's more interested in the green lobby than he is about the needs of his own people. 0.96

00:38:47.000 They're very arrogant. 0.74

00:38:47.840 And so here's where we are. 0.99

00:38:51.160 They dissemble.

00:38:51.840 They don't tell the truth.

00:38:53.380 John Henry, and I'm sure it's the same in Canada.

00:38:56.180 When did this start that our elected officials and those civil servants that work for our bureaucracies, when did it start that they felt it was their job to hide the truth from us, that it was their job to dissemble, to lie when there's no even reason to lie?

00:39:12.720 You know, when Joe Biden said no comment, the reason he didn't have a comment was because he knew that there was a party line that he needed to tell and he didn't have it memorized yet.

00:39:23.220 Because just common sense would have said, when you're asked about a great catastrophe in one of these United States, what you would say is, my heart goes out for the people of Maui and Lahaina.

00:39:34.340 We're praying for them, and I, as President of the United States, will make sure that the federal government working with your local and state governments and NGOs will do everything we can to support you.

00:39:44.540 Our prayers are with you.

00:39:45.460 He couldn't even say that.

00:39:46.860 He looked at the camera and said no comment.

00:39:48.520 Why?

00:39:49.400 Because he knew that there was massive smoke screens being laid down, and he didn't want to contradict anything, any of the party line that was coming out, and it's still coming out.

00:40:03.040 And so you're hearing things that people are suspicious about for no reason.

00:40:06.220 And now a lot of people are talking about, why are they putting up this black cloth, blocking out Lahaina?

00:40:11.960 I suspect it's to keep toxic chemicals and waste from blowing all over the island.

00:40:16.900 But people's first response is, what are they doing?

00:40:20.060 What are they hiding?

00:40:20.920 Well, the reason they're afraid, they're wondering, well, what are people hiding?

00:40:23.900 It's because they've been hiding quite a bit.

00:40:25.640 And, John Henry, I'll tell you, something I've been kind of poo-pooing is this idea of these weird lights in the sky.

00:40:32.060 People said they saw these blue lights coming down and fires starting, and I thought, that's just far-fetched.

00:40:37.140 And I said so on Steve Bannon's show, and I said so on Alex Jones's show.

00:40:40.460 But my last day in Maui, I was with some folks who, until yesterday, didn't have Wi-Fi, and they didn't have cell service.

00:40:54.260 And they were asking me what the strange blue lights that they saw were.

00:41:00.220 And I said, what are you talking about?

00:41:01.440 And they said, well, there were these strange blue lights.

00:41:04.000 What were those?

00:41:05.240 Do you have any idea what those were?

00:41:06.340 And I'm like, are you guys following stuff on the internet?

00:41:08.680 Or what do you, like, no, we haven't had cell service.

00:41:12.600 And I'm like, well, people are saying that there were direct energy weapons.

00:41:16.560 And I found that far-fetched.

00:41:18.500 They go, I don't know, but we just saw these blue lights.

00:41:20.980 And so what was that?

00:41:22.580 I don't know.

00:41:23.380 I mean, I don't know.

00:41:25.080 It was pitch, it was very dark.

00:41:26.500 It looked like almost night.

00:41:27.500 Was it just the sun coming through the smoke?

00:41:30.700 And I don't know what it was.

00:41:32.340 But I just know that when you have mistake after mistake after mistake, the county and

00:41:38.980 Hawaiian Electric not owning up to anything, but just trying to protect their liability,

00:41:43.420 not being transparent with the people of Hawaii, the mayor and the governor being arrogant

00:41:47.520 and lacking transparency, you know, people are going to start, there's going to be a lot

00:41:54.920 of speculation going on.

00:41:56.040 And, but what can we do as Catholics?

00:41:59.640 Even apart from speculation, though, what's with the water?

00:42:03.040 The water was turned off, apparently.

00:42:04.380 What is that?

00:42:05.840 Well, that's ideology.

00:42:07.280 That's environmentalism.

00:42:09.000 That is this idea that they had the guy that was, I guess he's an Obama friend, and they

00:42:14.540 have video of him saying water is sacred and water is holy and water we preserve.

00:42:18.880 You know, it was to, I guess, preserve the water.

00:42:24.280 And this is what creates a lot of hostility between some of the Hawaiian and Kama'ina community

00:42:29.560 and the tour and the travel industry, because they wonder, well, why are the golf courses

00:42:34.740 perfectly green and the resorts perfectly green, but we didn't have water to be able to put

00:42:39.620 out our own fires?

00:42:41.520 You know, people start to ask these questions and they seem like, to me, very reasonable

00:42:44.820 questions.

00:42:45.480 But explain this to us.

00:42:48.060 I don't think, first of all, America's free with their water.

00:42:53.120 So how could it be that they don't have water?

00:42:55.160 What does that even mean?

00:42:56.700 Yeah, I don't know.

00:42:58.540 You know, I guess they were putting limits on the amount of water people could use because

00:43:01.580 of the drought.

00:43:03.740 And so limits by turning off water to the houses?

00:43:08.760 That's what the people are reporting.

00:43:12.100 That's what people are reporting.

00:43:13.260 And I have not seen anyone contradict that report.

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00:43:59.020 They've contradicted the reports.

00:44:02.340 Were kids sent home?

00:44:03.240 Were kids not sent home?

00:44:04.300 How many kids were home?

00:44:05.960 But when it comes, no one is contradicting that the police blocked people in, and no one

00:44:10.220 is contradicting that the water was shut off.

00:44:12.900 There are people, you know, Hawaiian Electric is saying they powered down their lines, but

00:44:16.240 I have seen video of lines falling and starting fires.

00:44:21.960 When in the day that happened?

00:44:23.260 Or were those from days earlier?

00:44:24.800 Because there have been a lot of fires.

00:44:25.880 I don't know, and I always want to be very careful, right?

00:44:29.440 And the reason especially I want to be careful is we don't want to create division in a broken

00:44:35.860 community, and I don't want to exploit a community for a political goal, especially when, you know,

00:44:43.320 obviously, I'm from Hawaii.

00:44:45.160 I'm a conservative Republican from Hawaii, and I've watched the Democrats stomp the state

00:44:50.600 into the ground.

00:44:52.940 So, but I don't want to take advantage of this.

00:44:55.160 So I've been very careful.

00:44:57.000 But here's what I'll say.

00:44:58.320 What we know is this was a bureaucratic, at the very least, this was a bureaucratic ideological

00:45:03.880 blunder.

00:45:05.420 It was a bureaucracy that was thoughtless and unresponsive to the needs of the people they

00:45:11.740 are there to serve.

00:45:13.200 You had politicians that are obsessed with ideology.

00:45:17.180 The first thing they did was to blame this on climate change, which is absolute nonsense.

00:45:21.520 It is really disrespectful.

00:45:22.760 When I hear the word after walking through Lahaina, and I hear the words green energy, it makes

00:45:27.920 my skin crawl, that the green energy disgusts me, because I know what green energy really

00:45:33.440 means.

00:45:34.200 What green energy really means is you have children in Africa working to death to get rare earth 1.00

00:45:42.100 elements for electric batteries.

00:45:44.860 You have staples like corn and sugar being used for fuel instead of food.

00:45:52.060 Land that can be growing food is growing fuel, which is driving up food costs, which is pushing

00:45:57.820 the people around the world and the margins into hunger.

00:46:00.160 50% of Afghanistan lives in acute hunger.

00:46:04.180 So from the war in Ukraine, to the climate change nonsense, to the absurdities they're

00:46:09.920 doing in farms in Northwestern Europe now, which is unbelievable, to the burning down of

00:46:16.440 Lahaina.

00:46:17.560 We have to say what it is.

00:46:19.500 We have to say what it is.

00:46:21.140 And at the very least, what we see in Lahaina is a catastrophe caused by ideology, and it

00:46:27.900 is the ideology of the climate cult.

00:46:30.600 And children are dead.

00:46:32.180 Fathers are dead.

00:46:33.080 Families are dead.

00:46:33.960 Town is gone because of a climate cult, an anti-human climate cult.

00:46:39.520 And that's the truth.

00:46:42.200 At the very least, that is the truth.

00:46:45.880 And you have large conglomerates swooping in like vultures trying to buy up the land before

00:46:53.700 they've even found their children's bodies.

00:46:57.140 Do you have any evidence of who they are, who is doing the buying up of the land?

00:47:01.460 Because I mean, is some of that public yet? 0.97

00:47:03.040 Because that really is, you know, a vulturous, pathetic act. 0.76

00:47:07.980 I'm sure they're going to say, oh, we're just trying to provide for people or whatever. 0.93

00:47:10.540 But unreal.

00:47:12.220 Yeah, there's a local realtor on Maui that's been gathering this information.

00:47:15.440 When I go back to Maui next week, I'm going back actually to set up the funeral fund.

00:47:19.760 We want it to be completely transparent.

00:47:22.460 And so when people donate at the Life Fund, that's going to go for funerals and Catholic 0.99

00:47:25.260 education.

00:47:26.320 We provided the food and the necessities of life for the first two weeks.

00:47:29.400 But now as these big lumbering NGOs get set up, we think they're going to be able to handle

00:47:33.980 that.

00:47:34.960 It's the first two weeks they struggle.

00:47:36.400 And we're shifting now to Catholic education and funerals.

00:47:39.360 But I'm also going to try to meet with this realtor in Maui because as a filmmaker, I'm

00:47:44.220 actually shooting a movie, a Christmas film in Hawaii in December and January.

00:47:49.440 And so I'm already going to be there.

00:47:50.940 And I think, you know what?

00:47:51.800 We need to do a documentary to get to the bottom of this.

00:47:55.680 I want to know what happened.

00:47:57.240 I want to know what were these strange blue lights that people were seeing?

00:48:00.220 What were the orders that the police officers were given?

00:48:02.500 And why was the water shut off?

00:48:06.060 Is Hawaiian Electric telling the truth?

00:48:08.040 Were the power lines de-energized?

00:48:09.880 If they were, then what started the fires?

00:48:12.800 Why weren't those lines buried?

00:48:14.840 You know you're in a poor neighborhood when the power lines are above ground, right?

00:48:20.460 You know you're in a middle class, upper middle class or wealthy neighborhood when those power

00:48:24.400 lines are underground.

00:48:25.260 You know, and so the fact that you had historic Lahaina at the mercy of above ground power

00:48:33.320 lines in a state that gets pummeled by hurricanes is absolutely unbelievable.

00:48:38.560 And I hope that this wakes the people of Hawaii up.

00:48:41.080 I hope this wakes the government up and they start to make real changes to protect the people

00:48:46.160 of Hawaii from these catastrophes that were perfectly preventable.

00:48:49.180 But there's a lot of questions.

00:48:50.680 I mean, mistakes were made every step of the way.

00:48:53.120 Why weren't the sirens sounded?

00:48:54.680 Why didn't the alerts go off?

00:48:57.180 You remember, John Henry.

00:48:59.060 I think I wrote it for LifeSite News.

00:49:00.620 It was like the most read article I've ever written, which was actually just a stream of

00:49:04.300 consciousness I wrote on Facebook when we got the false alarm for 36 minutes.

00:49:11.460 Everyone in Hawaii thought we were under a nuclear missile attack so we could get false

00:49:14.860 alarms that literally push people into panic and despair.

00:49:18.700 I took my family into a cave and other families climbed into sewers.

00:49:23.720 Father Altman was there at the time and he basically said how he called his mom, thought

00:49:29.420 he was going to die.

00:49:31.140 You know, my daughter called me as we were racing to the cave and she was in Waikiki.

00:49:35.740 And I remember thinking this is the last time I'm going to hear my daughter's voice.

00:49:38.960 I told her to get into Diamond Head Crater. 0.99

00:49:40.400 I didn't think that would do her any good.

00:49:43.440 And so I had had a plan.

00:49:46.100 You know, when you live in Hawaii, you expect one day to get attacked saying that there's

00:49:51.580 an incoming nuclear missile.

00:49:52.860 It's just something you expect.

00:49:54.040 So when I saw it, I told my family knew we got 12 minutes to put the YNA mountain range

00:49:59.140 between us and Pearl Harbor in 17 minutes to get to this little cave that I knew.

00:50:03.920 And so we were dashing to this cave and my daughter called me and said what to do.

00:50:08.960 And I said, Princess, go into Diamond Head Crater. 1.00

00:50:12.140 And for me, you know, I just wanted to give her some hope.

00:50:16.620 And I thought that's the last time I'm going to hear my daughter's voice.

00:50:20.140 The poor people of Hawaii have been suffered so much under a bad government, horrible bureaucracy 0.98

00:50:25.800 from the insane COVID policies to that stupid missile alert to now this catastrophe. 0.99

00:50:33.360 I mean, every family in Lahaina was touched. 0.99

00:50:36.020 Every family in Maui was touched.

00:50:37.380 And all these families across the Hawaiian Islands are interconnected.

00:50:40.400 So the whole state has been impacted by this.

00:50:44.140 There's one more piece I want to address before we end here.

00:50:47.980 This thing with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

00:50:52.340 Okay, I'm down on him anyway, because he's blocked all news in Canada.

00:50:57.260 And we can only share like puppy pictures and stuff.

00:51:00.120 It's driving us insane.

00:51:02.020 And they blocked LifeSite years ago.

00:51:04.440 But nonetheless, what in the world is going on

00:51:08.880 when they're not allowing people to share about what's going on in Lahaina, in Hawaii?

00:51:15.560 What's going on?

00:51:16.300 First of all, tell us the specifics of what's going on.

00:51:18.900 And is there any reason at all?

00:51:21.280 Even something you can fathom?

00:51:24.820 Nothing that I can fathom.

00:51:26.580 No, nothing that I can fathom.

00:51:28.400 You know, you can't pay to boost a story on the Uyghur genocide on Facebook.

00:51:32.520 You cannot pay to boost a story.

00:51:34.900 I've tried to boost New York Times stories on organ harvesting in East Turkestan, Xinjiang by the CCP.

00:51:42.220 Facebook will not let you boost it.

00:51:44.180 That makes sense.

00:51:45.780 China, they don't want to tick off China.

00:51:48.060 China is a lot of money for them.

00:51:49.840 Okay, I get that.

00:51:50.740 But the only thing that makes sense, which to me is so bizarre, is that people say Mark Zuckerberg wants to take a lot of this land.

00:52:01.380 And that's what people are saying from day one.

00:52:03.520 He has a home in Maui.

00:52:05.360 And this is a land grab from the rich sort of transplants in Maui, which to me seems really far-fetched.

00:52:12.040 You know, when I hear that these land speculators are swooping in, I figure there's like a formula.

00:52:19.260 They see a crisis somewhere, and they get the leads really quick, and then they just start working the phones.

00:52:25.580 It's just something they do.

00:52:26.840 It's banal, even.

00:52:27.820 It's just, it's what they do.

00:52:31.320 But with this decision by Facebook not to allow frames for Maui, you know, I was on Alex Jones' show, and I know that Elon Musk loves that show.

00:52:42.160 And so I said, Elon, you know, you need to tweet out to Mark Zuckerberg.

00:52:47.240 You need to tweet out Investigate Hawaii.

00:52:49.760 Stand against Mark Zuckerberg and his friends.

00:52:51.380 And within 48 hours, Elon Musk tweeted that out.

00:52:54.680 So I don't know if it was me asking him to do it on the Alex Jones show or not, but it's just so bizarre.

00:53:00.860 John Henry, the world's becoming very strange.

00:53:05.000 The world's just become very strange.

00:53:07.940 And when you try to wrap your mind around it, it just becomes impossible.

00:53:12.320 And that's why through my organization, the Vulnerable People Project, it's just a very simple, our job is to stand with the most vulnerable people in the world when the world is left.

00:53:21.360 You wouldn't think Lahaina would fit that.

00:53:24.860 You'd think that the world would be paying attention.

00:53:28.200 And they're not.

00:53:29.940 And it's striking.

00:53:32.420 It was striking to be on the ground where you hear all this that the Red Cross is doing, and they're doing this, and they're doing that.

00:53:38.140 And I saw two old guys in a Walmart with a shopping cart with Red Cross vests on.

00:53:43.820 That's all I saw of them.

00:53:45.060 I saw one truck that had FEMA taped to the window.

00:53:47.980 That's all I saw of them.

00:53:49.820 People said they were camped up on the catastrophe site.

00:53:52.480 Maybe.

00:53:53.320 But that's not where the people were.

00:53:54.700 So when I was traveling around and visiting the people, I didn't see the Red Cross.

00:54:01.940 I didn't see FEMA.

00:54:04.940 You know, I met a lot of people who weren't getting the relief that they needed, the aid that they needed.

00:54:11.040 Locals that were told to shut down their aid distribution sites that they created themselves.

00:54:15.420 I will say Elon Musk providing those Starlinks was just a great blessing.

00:54:23.660 And Starlinks, for me and my work, whether it's working with Christian communities in Ukraine or in.

00:54:43.220 Amazing.

00:54:45.420 Indeed, indeed.

00:54:49.120 Well, here's what people can do.

00:54:50.760 If you go to lifefunder.com slash hopeforhawaii, you'll be able to donate to Jason Jones's great work there.

00:55:00.460 I know you're heading back there very soon.

00:55:03.800 What final words do you have for us?

00:55:06.880 You know, I think I've always said this, that the Catholic apostolate is the cross.

00:55:11.900 There's Palm Sunday, where the whole town shows up.

00:55:16.120 I want to be with the vulnerable when the world is not there.

00:55:19.580 I think that is very Marian.

00:55:22.580 That's very Catholic.

00:55:23.920 And I think that is our role.

00:55:26.580 Did I ever think that Lahaina would fit into the work of the Vulnerable People Project?

00:55:31.320 It's mind-numbing to me to think that that's it.

00:55:33.560 But I am very grateful.

00:55:35.980 And I'm thankful to you again.

00:55:37.460 You guys set up this lifefunder again, just like in Afghanistan, without us asking for you. 1.00

00:55:41.460 100% of this money will be going directly into account in a first Hawaiian bank account.

00:55:45.760 It's the closest bank that didn't burn down near Lahaina.

00:55:50.260 We'll be working with the parish council there at Lanakila Church.

00:55:53.940 And 100% of this will go to funerals and Catholic education.

00:55:59.560 Nothing will go to administrative costs.

00:56:01.860 So when you donate to the site, you know.

00:56:04.320 And there'll be complete transparency.

00:56:05.760 We're going to put it up on the website.

00:56:07.540 You'll see every funeral we paid for, all the tuition that we paid for.

00:56:10.900 And it is a real privilege that we have as being in the mystical body of Christ in a sad and lonely and broken world.

00:56:18.200 That we get to be there for people when no one else will.

00:56:21.600 And I think it's also a great opportunity for us to evangelize.

00:56:24.920 That people know, like, who is with us?

00:56:27.800 These Christians were with us.

00:56:28.820 These Catholics were with us.

00:56:30.300 We see that a lot in Afghanistan, with my work in Afghanistan.

00:56:33.400 Clearly, we can't evangelize with people when they're there.

00:56:37.000 Because to do that would be to put their life in jeopardy.

00:56:39.500 But they will so often message me.

00:56:41.220 How do I get baptized?

00:56:42.380 How do I become a Christian?

00:56:43.660 How do I become a Catholic?

00:56:45.420 And so when you stand with people, when the world is turned away from them, well, we know it's not us standing with them.

00:56:53.140 It's Christ in us.

00:56:54.860 And they see that.

00:56:56.180 They especially see that in me.

00:56:57.260 Because John Henry, you know I'm not the best guy on earth.

00:57:00.220 Cut me off in traffic.

00:57:01.460 You'll go, ah, that's Jason Jones.

00:57:03.440 So it's Christ in us.

00:57:06.280 And it's God's grace.

00:57:07.520 And it's a privilege to be a part of the church.

00:57:09.500 And as everything becomes confusing, to me, the simple thing for me to do as a lay Catholic man is stand with the child in the womb, stand with the Uyghur in Chinese Occupied East Turkestan, stand with that translator in a safe house in Afghanistan.

00:57:26.180 And to stand with those the world has forgotten or hates that they're easy to find.

00:57:33.900 And so that's the job.

00:57:36.520 And I want to thank you, John Henry, and everyone for supporting this because, A, it's the work of our apostolate.

00:57:43.300 But to me, it's very personal.

00:57:44.680 I moved to Hawaii as a 17-year-old boy, a broken kid, an atheist kid. 1.00

00:57:50.020 It was the Catholics, the Knights of Columbus of Council 5000 that led this pro-life atheist into the Catholic Church.

00:57:56.740 It's my family that I made there and my friends that kind of watched this broken Haole kid from Chicago that tripped into Hawaii at 17 and had patience with me and mentored me and befriended me and made me parts of their family. 0.99

00:58:12.880 My kids are now, you know, Hawaiian, Filipino, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Chinese, and me, Kama'aina.

00:58:19.080 And so I personally am grateful.

00:58:22.800 And we are committing to every funeral.

00:58:26.300 The LDS Church is doing all the LDS funerals.

00:58:30.240 And VPP is committing to every funeral.

00:58:33.000 And so we would definitely appreciate your support.

00:58:35.960 And why the funerals to me are so important, I even had a very prominent Catholic person tell me to let God take care of the dead, that I should focus on the living.

00:58:45.440 And I said, well, no, I'm going to honor the living by burying their dead and remind the living that they have an eternal destiny.

00:58:54.740 And when we treat the dead with respect, we're reminding people that we were created for an eternal life with our creator.

00:59:03.720 And that's what we're reminding people.

00:59:06.160 We're also telling the people of Lahaina that there's hope, not to despair.

00:59:11.100 And we're helping to give them closure.

00:59:14.300 These things are very important to the healing of a community.

00:59:17.820 So we're taking the lead on this.

00:59:21.180 And I'm so grateful that Lanakila Church has asked to partner with us in this.

00:59:26.440 And so they're our partner with Epic Ministries.

00:59:29.460 And with you, LifeSite News, and all of your donors, you guys helped us save about 30,000 Afghan lives.

00:59:35.440 We still have 170 SIVs and safe houses in Afghanistan.

00:59:39.680 I'm actually going to D.C. tomorrow on some Afghan work that we all started together.

00:59:46.240 So I don't let go either.

00:59:47.840 When I make a commitment to stand with people, I'm with them.

00:59:50.020 And I'm with these Afghans until they're resettled. 1.00

00:59:52.220 And we're with the people of Lahaina until they're safe, their loved ones have been buried and honored,

01:00:01.100 and that the vultures have been chased away and Lahaina stays with the families of Lahaina.

01:00:07.360 Beautiful.

01:00:08.060 Remember, it's one of the corporal works of mercy to bury the dead. 0.61

01:00:10.900 So whoever's telling you that let God take care of whatever ridiculous he's told his people to take care of it.

01:00:17.200 And you're doing just that.

01:00:18.300 It's awesome that you're able to give back to a community that's given you so much.

01:00:23.960 And especially where your faith grew.

01:00:28.180 That's beautiful.

01:00:29.660 God works in mysterious ways.

01:00:32.000 And he puts us in places specifically so that he can carry out his work through us.

01:00:36.900 Thank you for being faithful to his call, Jason.

01:00:39.140 Thank you, John.

01:00:39.840 What an honor to work with you.

01:00:41.820 Ditto.

01:00:42.020 And God bless all of you, my friends.

01:00:44.180 Go again to lifefunder.com slash hopeforhawaii.

01:00:49.800 God bless you all.

01:00:51.060 And we'll see you next time.

01:00:51.820 Hi, everyone.

01:01:00.400 This is John Henry Weston.

01:01:01.540 We hope you enjoyed this program.

01:01:03.140 To see more like it, be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News.

01:01:08.700 Check the links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can stay up to date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news.

01:01:17.000 Thanks for watching.

01:01:17.960 And may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - September 04, 2023

What REALLY Happened In Maui？ Media Blackout Is Suspicious

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