Willie Robertson: The Unlikely Origin of Duck Dynasty, Willie’s New Show, & Why Trump Won
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 51 minutes
Words per Minute
190.5625
Summary
Willie Robertson is a television host, author, and philanthropist. He grew up in the late 60s and early 70s in the midst of the height of his TV career. He s been married to the same woman for over 30 years and they have three kids together. He is also the author of a new book, Gosspeller, which tells the story of how he and his family got their faith, and how he got to where he is today. In this episode, he talks about growing up in a trailer park in the 1970s and 1980s, how he became a TV host, and what it s like being raised by a religious cult. He also talks about how he was kicked out of the trailer park by his alcoholic father, who kicked him and his siblings out of their trailer, and why he doesn t care what people think of him anymore. Tucker Carlson is a conservative commentator and host of the Tucker Carlson Show on the Fox News Channel's "Fox News Radio" and hosts the conservative political talk show "The Weekly Standard" with Tucker Carlson. He is a regular contributor to Fox News and Fox Business, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, CNN, CBS, NPR, NPR and the Atlantic, and many other media outlets. and is one of the most well-known conservative voices in the country. Check out his book, "The Devil Next Door" which is out now! and watch it on Amazon Prime Video, wherever you get your favorite streaming service. and subscribe to his podcast on the Apple Podcasts and subscribe on Audible. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, wherever else you re listening to this podcast is available. Learn more about you can get the latest episodes of Tucker Carlson's work? or check out his latest podcast, "Tucker Carlson's newest podcast, The Devil Next Week is out there? and more! on the latest episode is available on your favorite podcasting platform, "Noah's Lawyer's Guide to the world's Best Podcasts, Noah s Law and His Story by clicking here: Noah's Story by Tucker's Law and Order is on his podcast is also on the best podcast by clicking HERE. or his new book is on the Oprah Winfrey's podcast is on Netflix, "Law and His Life Story by Noah and His Book is Outtro is Out There on Amazon. Click here. And check out Tucker's YouTube channel.
Transcript
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I remember, no, I was on Over, what do they call it?
00:00:35.780
What was the one with the women and Outnumbered?
00:00:41.340
They used to bring me up there all the time because Doug and I was just so popular.
00:00:46.620
Yeah, and the girls, the girls on that show, they were laughing.
00:00:50.320
And they said, oh, this guy, Donald Trump, you know, says he's running for president and all that.
00:00:54.460
And they're laughing and they're kind of, you know, making it like it's a joke.
00:00:59.840
And they came and they said, what say you, Willie?
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And I said, tell you what, I think he's resonating with a lot of people.
00:01:08.720
Like they thought I was going to laugh and be joking.
00:01:10.600
I said, don't underestimate the power of celebrity because I was like, I'm just new to it.
00:01:16.300
But man, when everybody knows who you are, it's a big advantage because the thing about Kamala Harris,
00:01:23.500
she was a vice president for three and a half years.
00:01:42.800
We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else.
00:01:46.900
And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers.
00:01:49.980
We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly.
00:01:55.420
Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com.
00:01:59.900
When they got elected or whatever it was in 2020, I totally by accident, I pronounced,
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And the White House press secretary attacked me as racist.
00:02:16.080
But it really was, I would admit it, it was totally accidental.
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And so this kid on our staff found tape of her calling herself Kamala and then Kamala.
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If you were like, I'm Willie Robertson, I'm Will A. Robertson.
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No, I mean, I think it's fair to, like, settle on a pronunciation of your own first name.
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So one of the things I was, I've never hunted with you before, you've become famous for bird hunting.
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I just want to confirm that for people watching.
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I've got to make my dad and brothers watch this.
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But you're not, you become famous from television.
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You've written this book, Gosspeller, which is not about hunting.
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Turning darkness into light one conversation at a time.
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Yeah, that's, came up with this book this year.
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And this was kind of the one I wanted to write.
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You know, it was like, before I die, I want to write this book.
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And it's really about my faith, the faith that was passed down, the first chapters, my mom and dad's story about how they got their faith.
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We put out a movie last year called The Blonde, which was their journey in faith, shot in the late 60s, 70s.
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Oh, he's just, well, he called himself a heathen.
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He was just a bad dude, you know, just into everything he shouldn't have been into.
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He's married, he's got this young family, he's drunk all the time, he loses his job, he ends up running a bar, and all hope literally was over.
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What do you mean he kicked you out of the home?
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He kicked mom and us out of the house, or out of the trailer.
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Yeah, and so, and the one person who didn't give up on him was my aunt, Jan, his younger sister, and she'd go up to this bar he was running.
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Dad has like a master's degree, could have went professional, quarterback.
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He played ahead of Bradshaw in college at Louisiana Tech, gifted athlete, had everything, you know, ahead of him and just pretty much throws it all away.
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And so, my aunt would go up there and pass out a little Bible track.
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She was a very charismatic Christian, and he hated it, you know.
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And she begged this preacher to go preach the gospel to her brother.
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And I write in the book, I can just imagine this conversation, like, because the preacher's in Louisiana, the bar's in Arkansas.
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And I'm sure it was like, can you share the gospel with my brother?
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He's wayward, and he probably was like, yeah, tell him to come to church.
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He's not coming to church, and you'll have to go see him.
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And this guy gets in his car and drives to a bar, walks in.
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And I knew the preacher up until he passed away.
00:06:07.140
He said, he's got a pistol in his belt and a giant Budweiser.
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And the dad looks at him and says, what you selling, preacher man?
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He ends up, the state police showed up to arrest him.
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He goes and lives in the woods for six months, I think.
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He had put two people in ICU, beat them up over a bar dispute.
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And nobody, you know, everybody was trying to figure out where he was.
00:07:05.620
And we're pretty much like, I hope he doesn't die.
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And then he comes dragging back up into that town.
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She has a new job and trying to move on with her life.
00:07:34.080
And that's when Phil became a believer right there.
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So how long did it take your mom to take him back?
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You know, I always said if it weren't for dad changing his life,
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Yeah, it's easier to change your life than to forgive someone who's abandoned.
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You know, I'm sure there probably wasn't the counseling that we had.
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I mean, she's got three young boys and at the time three.
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So in the movie I'm portrayed, I was very particular on who played me in the movie at two years old.
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That's got to be a handsome toddler, wasn't it?
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My grandson played me about his great grandfather.
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And it was tough for him to go back, you know, and relive that, you know, just pull all those.
00:08:42.340
We just said, I think this can help a lot of people, you know, a lot of people who are in similar situations.
00:08:52.680
And so if you think about it like this, like 50 years ago that happened.
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If that doesn't happen, this family does not stay together.
00:09:00.500
If the family doesn't stay together, there's no duck commander.
00:09:02.920
If there's no duck commander, there's no duck dynasty.
00:09:11.960
And so part of the reason for us being still so excited about our faith is because we feel like we owe everything we have to our faith.
00:09:19.960
Had it not been for faith, it would have been over.
00:09:24.680
So, I mean, do you remember a time before your father was a Christian?
00:09:40.480
I mean, he literally, it's kind of like Saul and Paul in the Bible.
00:09:44.180
You know, it was like this old person, and then he just turned and just went, I mean, just full blaze.
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And he just wanted to share the gospel with everybody he knew, you know.
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Because I guess he had lived, and he said, I live so bad, now I've got to go help these people.
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He became a known gospeller, just known for preaching the gospel to everybody.
00:10:04.020
A gospeller is someone who preaches the gospel.
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And my wife, who's way smarter than I am, she comes in, because I couldn't figure out what to call it.
00:10:33.060
It was just like common folk who were just known for sharing the gospel.
00:10:37.240
And it simply means somebody who shares the gospel with people, either publicly or personally.
00:10:41.380
And it didn't fall short on me that the word is literally a dinosaur.
00:10:49.240
But at one point in America, in Europe, this was a common word.
00:10:57.080
I want to say it was up in the Northeast, where it was like, nobody can stop a priest or a known gospeller from preaching on the town square.
00:11:12.380
Like, did you grow up in a world where Christianity was at the center of everything?
00:11:20.720
So it wasn't like, oh, we should try to go to church.
00:11:28.520
And we had so many Bible studies that it just really went all week.
00:11:32.700
Like, because what happened, we would, once you're kind of known for that, so people would bring people down to the house for Phil to talk to.
00:11:47.500
And I would just, and Dad would just go, no matter who they were, he would just sit there on the couch, and he'd feed them supper.
00:11:53.120
And then he would jump into the Bible and just, I mean, it was Fridays, Tuesdays.
00:12:03.260
So he would teach his Bible class on Sunday mornings.
00:12:06.840
But he would just study like crazy, like just crazy person.
00:12:11.480
This, you know, and my father's never owned a computer.
00:12:32.880
And you've got to, if you want to track him down, you got to go find him.
00:12:38.960
But it was, but yeah, then Dad would just read and study.
00:12:42.160
And, you know, he was just thirsting for knowledge.
00:12:45.760
You know, he loved the knowledge, but then he loved trying to share that.
00:12:48.980
And that's kind of the point of the book is, is turning darkness into like one conversation at a time.
00:12:54.300
And that, the tagline comes from, it's funny how my business mixed with my faith.
00:13:04.660
And it's this feature where you can, you click a button.
00:13:07.680
So right at that time where it's real dark, you know, it's getting a little dim, still legal shooting hours.
00:13:12.400
And it just, boom, it just goes, turns it into, it's daylight.
00:13:23.680
So I'm looking at all the marketing material and they had on there, turned dark into light.
00:13:30.900
And when I saw that, I went, that's the tagline for my book, turning darkness into light, one conversation at a time.
00:13:36.700
So through a conversation, me, had the guy not gone and shared with that, you know, he was the one that actually planted the seed or shared with that.
00:13:45.140
And boom, that's where it started, just that conversation.
00:13:48.200
And then I watched, you know, hundreds and hundreds of other people just through a conversation lead to a life change.
00:13:54.760
And so what I wanted to do was go through the book and go through kind of how to do that.
00:14:00.440
Because a lot of people, they're so intimidated, they don't know what to say.
00:14:05.340
And they're like, well, I hope somebody tells somebody about their faith or about Jesus.
00:14:12.560
I don't, it's like, I don't know where to start.
00:14:16.220
And so we kind of disqualify ourselves from a lot of those, for a lot of those reasons.
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And so I just tried to go through and tell stories.
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And I'll pull stories from the New Testament, just conversations, like especially conversations, like especially in the book of Acts.
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Like that's where you're really seeing kind of the church meet with the world.
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And just pull the conversations like this is what they said, and this is how you could share with others.
00:14:39.360
So your family, despite living in a very rural area, you've got a duck call business, and you're seriously Christian, you wind up in television.
00:14:52.000
So how do you have the, so the crew comes in for wherever, you're meeting with the studio executives from wherever, but not from West Monroe, Louisiana.
00:15:01.920
How do you begin a conversation about your faith with someone like that?
00:15:07.200
I mean, I think the faith just comes through in every, it was going to be hard to separate that, separate the faith.
00:15:12.220
And so, but I understood television enough to know that, you know, it can't just be a sermon, you know, it's got to, you know.
00:15:20.580
You're not saying the people who run television, I have noticed from spending a lifetime there, not super receptive to the message.
00:15:26.800
They weren't as, you know, a lot of people ask me that, like, we ended every show with a prayer.
00:15:34.040
And I almost get this, like, weekly, it's like, I bet they didn't want that prayer.
00:15:42.780
They were like, oh, that's cool, you know, like.
00:15:51.300
And that's how we ended every show, was with that prayer.
00:15:55.600
But there wasn't a lot of resistance at all from that.
00:16:01.400
But I think people, they thought that was the case or wanted to.
00:16:07.660
It was like, and then once it works and once it's.
00:16:12.380
It was the biggest show, you know, ever in reality TV.
00:16:23.580
And my father was, he was so funny with the show.
00:16:26.460
So when I went down to tell him, I said, dad, we, you know, got this idea of doing this
00:16:37.080
I said, it's a way to get the gospel out to more people.
00:16:42.240
And he sits in the chair and goes, hmm, I've never thought about that.
00:16:47.720
He gives a thumbs up and he's like, all right, we'll do the TV show.
00:16:52.300
So you do a show like that, what are the mechanics of it?
00:16:54.820
Because it seems like it would take over your life completely.
00:16:59.900
It's a lot of, well, we didn't know when we started.
00:17:07.980
This is, so we had done another television show on the Outdoor Channel.
00:17:12.220
And in the same way, like, it was my wife's idea.
00:17:24.980
So she says, she's watching all this reality television.
00:17:29.820
And she said, Willie, I think, I think your family needs to have a reality TV show.
00:17:37.680
When your wife says your family needs a reality TV show.
00:18:03.840
Yeah, her, yeah, I saw her sitting on the swing.
00:18:07.280
So her grandfather and father were business guys, very successful business guys.
00:18:12.100
And part of their charity work, they had built this summer camp.
00:18:15.900
And so now that we're new believers, my parents are, that was a new thing.
00:18:21.180
Like, now we're going to church summer camp, you know.
00:18:28.260
So when we would pull up to the camp, my mother had no money.
00:18:31.420
And she would be, and so we would have our bags packed, like we're ready.
00:18:36.900
Let me go see if I can trade working in the kitchen for you guys to come.
00:18:46.380
What's funny is, it was my wife's parents who were making the decision.
00:18:51.080
As it turns out in life, I later married their daughter, who ran the camp.
00:19:00.240
So every time they said yes, and so we would go, and I see this girl.
00:19:12.180
And they said, ah, it's Corey Howard, you know.
00:19:15.480
Her dad and them, they're the ones who run the camp.
00:19:21.500
And she said yes, and we went on the Moonlight Hike in fifth grade.
00:19:27.880
We didn't get married that year, but we waited.
00:19:37.360
I proposed to her when she was 17, and I was 18.
00:19:51.160
They were, yeah, they lived in the neighborhoods.
00:19:55.400
And I pull up in this neighborhood, and I'm like, looking around.
00:20:07.500
I'm looking around, and there's not one visible burn pile anywhere.
00:20:12.280
And I'm going like, what do these people do with their garbage?
00:20:29.320
Like, we went to church, so I knew we were family.
00:20:32.080
But he just was like, oh, y'all need to wait, and you're too young.
00:20:38.960
So when we have a meeting, and he's a smart business guy,
00:20:45.460
He's got statistics and papers and files, you know.
00:20:48.780
I'm just sitting there, white T-shirt, like he's blowing me away.
00:20:53.360
He's making me so mad, you know, because I'm like giving him,
00:21:05.460
And he's like, you haven't thought about all these things in life?
00:21:08.720
And finally, he just goes, he's getting so mad.
00:21:15.220
He said, where exactly do you plan on living with my daughter, you know?
00:21:21.360
And I said, well, I reckon I'll pull a trailer up on the back of Phil's house
00:21:34.540
And we'll burn our garbage in the yard like normal people do.
00:21:47.280
So last fall, I was out in Las Vegas and I ran into Theo Vaughn, who's hilarious.
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you made an inaccurate health claim about our product.
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You should know that there is no medical study that suggests that our product is an effective
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I made a boner joke and you're sending me a nasty lawyer letter?
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It was the dumbest, most humorless thing I've ever seen.
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And it was instantly recognizable to me as someone who has worked at big companies most
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Only like a pronoun company could issue a letter like this.
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And it was like somewhere on this planet, somebody is laughing.
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They're stupid and they hate me and they hate humor and they hate joy.
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00:27:04.200
I mean, so her parents' house and my house literally, it's like a pitch.
00:27:19.460
And I learned, most of what I learned in business, I learned from him.
00:27:50.340
I have six children and eight grandchildren, so yeah.
00:27:55.660
And so we live, they're on the, and we all live right there.
00:27:57.940
We're just all connected and live beside each other.
00:28:00.640
So how long did it take you to win a yes from your father-in-law?
00:28:03.240
Well, I mean, it was after that night, he wanted me to come over to their house.
00:28:14.520
So she wasn't even there when all this happened.
00:28:22.240
And so Corey calls and says, Dad wants you to come over.
00:28:29.580
And I said, he's going to come pick you up and take you over to their house.
00:28:42.660
I'm going to have to walk all the way back to my house.
00:29:15.400
And then I think just six months later, we got married.
00:29:27.460
And I literally never heard another word about it.
00:29:32.020
So it was your wife that came up with the idea for Duck Dynasty.
00:29:39.540
Because originally, it was on the Outdoor Channel.
00:29:43.040
I was approached by Benelli Shotguns at SHOT Show.
00:29:48.120
So I was approached by them right after she said that.
00:29:52.000
And they were like, hey, are you guys interested in doing a reality TV show with the shotguns?
00:29:56.140
And I was like, Corey just said we should do a reality TV show.
00:30:11.040
So thankfully, they had two guys that came in that they had just hired who they came out of reality television.
00:30:19.080
So he'd hired them for their in-house, all their commercials and stuff that they do.
00:30:29.920
And so right at the end, Corey says, she's such a smart business person.
00:30:51.220
And so Corey says, so we're going to go up to Maryland.
00:31:00.120
And she goes, well, I think they should pay y'all a talent fee.
00:31:09.300
She goes, like, they should pay y'all to be on the show.
00:31:20.740
Yeah, and she's like, well, it won't hurt to ask.
00:31:29.240
When you ask, if you get any weird sense, abort the mission, get out of it.
00:31:37.980
You're going to ruin it by asking for too much.
00:31:51.760
And she's like, we're thinking you should pay the guy's talent fee.
00:31:59.400
And she said, we were thinking $30,000 a piece was going to be for the whole season.
00:32:17.460
So she just asked for $30,000 to do this thing, which would essentially double my pay.
00:32:25.440
And when she said $30,000, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's way too much.
00:32:29.920
And the guy literally just goes, yeah, okay, no problem.
00:32:33.560
And I'm like, crap, we should have said $50,000.
00:32:49.280
And they're waiting to hear what happened with the TV show.
00:32:52.160
I'm like, well, boys, we were fixing to do us a television show on the Outdoor Channel.
00:33:03.920
And everybody just like, we were like, we did it.
00:33:31.560
Now we go on this TV with these boys from reality TV were there.
00:33:40.140
You know, how to do, you know, what was going to become ultimately Duck Dynasty.
00:33:47.360
Like half of it was just like hardcore guns, you know, and all the good.
00:33:53.560
But the other half was just like silly reality stuff that we just came up.
00:33:59.700
My brother and dad and them, they did the hardcore hunting.
00:34:02.100
And then I was over there doing the, hey, we can show this.
00:34:04.620
And we can do this wild, crazy stuff we were doing.
00:34:16.720
More people were buying Duck Hauls and our T-shirts.
00:34:22.340
Part of the deal was I had to sell half the advertisers.
00:34:25.840
So because then that one, you get your commercial, then you have to go sell them.
00:34:30.140
So Benelli would sell half, and I sold half of them.
00:34:36.240
But ultimately, it was going to be Duck Dynasty.
00:34:49.500
Well, information at Duck Commander, and there's no time how many of these just never even get looked at.
00:35:15.440
She said, do you want me to throw it away, or do you want me to respond?
00:35:26.280
And I get on the call with him, and man, he's a fast talker.
00:35:31.240
He's like, Willie, I'm telling you, this is going to be the biggest show.
00:35:34.660
I mean, I'm telling you, I've got something this big.
00:35:44.280
This is on, and I'm thinking, this guy's full of crap.
00:35:49.360
And he's like, he said, Willie, you will not be able to walk down the street without people,
00:35:55.420
And I thought, yeah, this guy, like, he's laying it on thick, you know.
00:35:59.880
And so I said, so what do we need to do if we were to do that?
00:36:05.500
Now, fortunately, we had just done, like, three seasons of this show.
00:36:09.120
So we took three minutes, and then he started pitching around the networks, and there was a lot of interest.
00:36:15.740
You got to remember, this is the time, Louisiana, the tax credits were big, like, before Georgia had it.
00:36:21.520
Louisiana was kind of the hotbed, and there was tons of shows.
00:36:24.660
I mean, our state is, like, there's so much culture and just fun people in our state anyway.
00:36:30.940
And so you had Billy the Exterminator, Swamp People, Sons of Guns.
00:36:42.140
So if you had anything in Louisiana, because they knew they could go, say, 40%, you know, in this state.
00:36:48.160
And he saw it, and we were on the Outdoor Channel.
00:37:04.740
And he says, well, if they pick it up, that's where we want to be.
00:37:08.620
And it's a good mixed audience, like men and women watch A&E, big company, you know, combined with History Channel, ABC, Disney, all this, and ESPN.
00:37:20.540
And so he said, the problem is if they pass on his dad, like, because then everybody would just say, oh, they passed on.
00:37:27.360
And so we shot two pilots for A&E, had no idea what we were doing.
00:37:33.940
You know, they sent down this huge crew, and we had no idea.
00:37:37.900
And we just kind of went into it, and I didn't really know what we were doing.
00:37:41.260
And didn't know if it was good, and I didn't know, you know.
00:37:44.800
And so what was interesting was they didn't know what exactly they were getting.
00:37:50.460
So if you kind of just looked at a picture of us, you'd be like, I think they thought we, like, grunted and, like, you know, and couldn't speak English.
00:38:02.840
So they didn't, I think, they thought it was going to be, like, danger, like, alligators are coming out of the water, you know.
00:38:09.260
So they come down, and so A&E comes, so we shot the pilots, we sent it off, and so they come, we're like, well, we have good news and bad news.
00:38:15.980
Because the bad news is this is not the show we were ordering, like, at all.
00:38:23.180
They said the good news is it's way better than what we thought we were getting.
00:38:30.260
Because nobody had put us in any category of family show, even though we were family.
00:38:36.060
And I think they thought kind of like, we're going to laugh at these, but, you know, these are, they just totally didn't.
00:38:42.980
They said, right, they didn't realize, right, that, because some of their ideas, initially, some of them, it was like, the women folk are out, you know, getting opossums, you know, and skinning them out.
00:38:55.040
And my wife's like, these women folk do not, we don't even go in the woods, you know, so, but they saw, and then there was this comedy, this real, because the first show we did on Outdoor Channel wasn't really funny.
00:39:10.180
And once we saw this kind of comedic thing come out, that's what, I mean, that was what really, I think, set it apart was, it's funny.
00:39:17.580
It's a funny, you know, something you can laugh, you know, it's a funny show.
00:39:21.440
What's the, I mean, what's the process of filming it?
00:39:27.740
You said your house got descended on by a swarm of producers.
00:39:32.900
So, we shot in all our houses, especially mine, especially my miles was kind of the, because the show was kind of, we didn't know any of this going in, because we didn't know what we were doing, but it was kind of shot through miles.
00:39:47.780
And so, you would have, like, Willie's dad, Willie's wife.
00:39:52.240
So, you're watching, as a viewer, you're watching it through my eyes.
00:39:58.480
And then everybody else is crazy, you know, and chaos is happening.
00:40:04.380
And so, you had some people that are just kind of like themselves.
00:40:07.200
Like, my father just, dad never understood what exactly we were doing.
00:40:17.140
He told me early on, he was like, well, tell him we need more preaching on this show.
00:40:22.720
I said, dad, there's another Robertson family with a show like that.
00:40:39.320
Everybody related to me has asked me for money.
00:40:52.700
He said, we were saying, they just didn't understand.
00:40:55.580
He thought it was so goofy and we were just being stupid.
00:40:59.840
This is my favorite thing that ever happened to Doug Nosti that never got shown.
00:41:18.920
It's kind of weird when you become the CEO of your company and you're doing this.
00:41:23.340
Now, you're listening to people you don't know and they're telling you what to do.
00:41:27.140
And so, I think my dad had gotten past the point of that at this point.
00:41:33.400
So, we're setting all the table up and we're just sitting there.
00:41:36.280
You know, we've done this a thousand times, you know, and jibs on the table.
00:41:42.480
And some little young producers are like, okay.
00:41:52.180
And Phil said, Father, I pray for these bunch of heathens from Los Angeles, California,
00:42:00.280
with their latte coffees and their filthy language.
00:42:04.260
I pray you don't burn them all in hell for their sinfulness.
00:42:08.360
And we were laughing so hard because none of us knew that was coming.
00:42:20.300
And so, we all look up and we're just like, look around and go, what was that?
00:42:23.400
And this young producer, he never missed a beat.
00:42:27.120
Now, can we do another prayer that we could actually put on television?
00:42:36.980
So, yeah, Dad didn't quite understand the way we were doing it.
00:42:40.940
But, I mean, these cameras are in your house for, what, months or so?
00:42:43.640
They are, but you know, well, it was like walking into here.
00:43:13.460
And then we go, I think I ate two pounds of meatloaf.
00:43:23.540
And I thought, that's not a good recipe for doing a long podcast.
00:43:36.600
Because I've heard recently about people and their podcasts and demands.
00:43:41.880
And I said, I demand we have to fly to another state, shoot birds that morning.
00:43:50.600
And it was literally in the contract that you signed with us where you demanded lemon squares after.
00:44:07.120
Yeah, but we don't have any pheasants in Maine.
00:44:12.960
If you could, I don't know how many birds we shot this morning, but if you could shoot two grouse a day in Maine, you're the best grouse hunter in Maine.
00:44:28.880
I'm not half as good as I should be after all the practice I've had.
00:44:36.080
The bird got too aggressive with me, and it intimidated me.
00:44:39.580
And I always think, you know, when you're bird hunting, you're the pursuer.
00:44:45.160
And when the bird turns it around and tries to fly up your nose, I just, I freeze and miss the bird.
00:44:53.100
I was here a month ago doing this pheasant hunting.
00:44:56.520
I didn't grow up pheasant hunting, so we were poor.
00:45:05.220
And I did know what to do, and I took the shotgun, and I went back like I was going to hit it, like a baseball bat.
00:45:13.900
And if I had a little more cojones, I wouldn't.
00:45:17.880
Because the guide said, you should have done it.
00:45:23.540
So he's coming down, and I'm like, oh, he was just so close.
00:45:27.620
And there's a picture, and you see me kind of like this.
00:45:39.000
That's what separates most out to that one, the just grab that sucker out of the air.
00:45:47.680
And I blew it, and one day, now I'm going to schedule months of pheasant hunting.
00:45:56.300
I watched my father get hit right in the chest on a driven peg shoot for pheasant when I was a kid, and it knocked him right down.
00:46:02.140
He was turning, talking to someone, and the pheasant just came in and hit him right and just, bam, and he's a big man.
00:46:10.560
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00:46:17.300
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00:49:15.420
Like, what was it like to go from being maybe locally famous to nationally famous?
00:49:26.320
So, it was like we did just enough to get comfortable enough to figure out what it is that you're doing.
00:49:38.080
You know, I think zero to, you know, just like nothing to something.
00:49:44.040
And then we had done some, you know, stuff to work.
00:49:46.860
If we went in Bass Pro Shop or what, you know, it was like, ah, there's documentary guys.
00:49:53.780
But then once we hit the really national spotlight, especially to the level our show was, it was crazy.
00:50:07.360
Business, it's not because business went crazy.
00:50:10.300
And trying to do everything, you know, because you're still trying to, you have a business.
00:50:16.800
And then ours was really unique because the nature of the show looked like we were goofing off.
00:50:23.740
Or everybody in the, well, then I'm getting, you know, 50,000 orders.
00:50:38.860
So then, yeah, I had to go, like, do a video going, hey, guys, look, Willie from Duck Nastia.
00:50:44.440
We're trying to, like, it's not everything you see on the TV show.
00:50:47.700
It's what exactly happened that day, you know, exactly that day.
00:50:53.040
It was the first holidays we crashed our computer, I think, three times.
00:50:58.760
And it was so bad because they ordered their product.
00:51:16.060
So they'd call and be like, I didn't get my order.
00:51:17.620
And we're like, why don't you tell us what you ordered?
00:51:21.080
Well, just generalize whatever you think, you know, spitball it.
00:51:29.760
People are like, those are good problems to have.
00:51:39.040
And to think that when we did this show, we had this meeting, and my wife, Corey, says,
00:51:46.760
And I said, no, no, nobody's going to order a duck call.
00:51:49.320
You know, even if you like the show, why would you need a duck call?
00:51:52.820
I mean, if you're not a duck hunter, what do you?
00:52:05.880
Well, it was just the, they wanted a piece of the show, and that was the piece they wanted.
00:52:11.900
Oh, man, like a million and a half or something crazy.
00:52:40.640
That's what I was, I mean, I think that's your big fear.
00:52:43.040
I mean, your fear is how's it going to, how does it play with them?
00:52:49.060
I always say this, you know, in life, I've been able to do a lot of things.
00:52:52.660
And most of the things my kids are going to do or have done, I've already done.
00:52:56.540
You know, I'm going to college, I have children, get married, you know, move.
00:53:01.080
I mean, the only thing I had zero experience with was being famous at a young age.
00:53:07.780
I understood it at 40, because I was 40 when the show came out.
00:53:16.260
And also, you've got the beginning of social media, too.
00:53:23.700
And so, yeah, I think they probably struggled, you know, with some of it.
00:53:29.740
Certainly, some aspects of it understood the good of it and, you know, figured out a way how to use it.
00:53:36.860
You know, used what it was for the good and then ditched the stuff that was the best.
00:53:49.640
How do you get your kids to get married so young?
00:54:01.960
Well, that was the day I told you about Corey's parents.
00:54:12.900
I was like, you're the same age we were when we got married.
00:54:15.940
So it was interesting that, because he couldn't say, oh, we waited.
00:54:19.000
And, but no, they wanted to get, you know, they got around the same age and they got married
00:54:26.100
But it's not like I said, here's how we do it around these parts, you know.
00:54:33.720
You find the right one and then make a commitment and go.
00:54:48.780
I mean, it's fine when you're younger, you know.
00:55:17.820
Well, not just ours, everybody, you know, production.
00:55:19.860
Everybody's going, hey, if this keeps, you know, generating income.
00:55:28.280
I mean, I think it's probably like a baseball player.
00:55:30.400
Like, you're paying a guy $10 million at first base.
00:55:42.420
And so I'm sure they're like, we could make other shows.
00:55:47.620
I mean, it, like, you just kind of run out of it.
00:55:52.660
You know, it's like, you had, you still have more kids and stuff.
00:55:56.780
I mean, 130 episodes with two storylines is 260 stories.
00:56:15.480
Yeah, this is not some couple of month deal, you know.
00:56:23.900
And we did even some Sundays, Sunday afternoons.
00:56:37.040
But we were just, you know, at that point, we're like, figured it out.
00:56:44.560
They were just like, we need more, we need more, we need more.
00:56:46.320
And so it was like, keep making them, keep making them.
00:56:48.260
And so finally, we're like, time out, you know, renegotiate.
00:56:51.020
And so part of that, we went to Monday through Thursday schedules.
00:56:55.320
It gives us a day off, at least a day to go to the hospital.
00:56:57.600
I mean, to go to the doctor, to go to, you know, stuff you need to do.
00:57:02.740
Because it's not like you worked every day, but you're on the schedule for that long.
00:57:05.880
So some days you may not be, you know, you may not be on that afternoon.
00:57:10.040
But you won't know until it comes out, you know, on the schedule, kind of where you're at.
00:57:17.040
Uh, no, because, you know, I kind of played a part.
00:57:24.600
And it was kind of consistent of, it just kept me, it was authentic.
00:57:32.060
And so I think in order to make some of it work, you know, you kind of had to have a bad guy.
00:57:39.080
You know, somebody that's like, and I mean, it's kind of the sort of comedy comes from.
00:57:43.960
You know, it's like, you think about, like, the stories you think about in school or in church growing up.
00:57:49.440
You know, one of the funniest things, it's when you're going to get in trouble, right?
00:57:52.540
It's like, oh, it's so funny, like, you can't stop laughing.
00:57:56.220
So some of that was kind of like that, you know, let them do stuff.
00:57:59.660
And then I'd be like, this is so stupid, you know, because it was stupid.
00:58:03.980
But so I just kind of, you know, so for my role in it, and then I was also the guy that narrated you through the show.
00:58:11.380
So I had to keep you up on what was going on because people get confused.
00:58:18.200
And if you get confused, and if you don't, if you can't figure a show out, you'll just change the channel.
00:58:26.040
And you're like, oh, I can't watch this, you know, because I can't figure it out.
00:58:32.160
I don't, I never liked watching, really myself, and I don't like watching speeches or other stuff.
00:58:38.040
But we watched that one together because half of the show, I never knew what happened because it wasn't the parts I was in.
00:58:55.500
I was watching it with everybody else in the world.
00:58:59.500
I would get so tickled at some of the stuff they would do.
00:59:08.040
And the kids were younger, so it was cool for them to be able to, you know, kind of see themselves on TV.
00:59:19.020
I mean, everybody's treated different, you know.
00:59:22.060
But they were, it was probably, you know, probably good and bad, you know.
00:59:28.920
They didn't go to school as much as, like they were out of school a lot.
00:59:34.700
So we had a teacher there on set just because it was a lot of days.
00:59:37.860
So they weren't, they just had to do a lot of the school.
00:59:41.280
Sadie did a ton of school from the house just because that's what she had to do.
00:59:44.920
So, but they were, they were in a Christian school and they were pretty lenient.
00:59:49.560
I mean, not on the grades, they were just lenient on, they let them play sports and they could still participate and stuff like that, you know, even though they were kind of doing school from afar.
01:00:07.840
I mean, at some point you're going to run into the political problem, right?
01:00:18.280
You know, you live in Louisiana, you run a hunting related company and you're Christian.
01:00:25.460
So you're probably going to reach a different political conclusion.
01:00:46.420
Because it kind of wasn't that kind of, it wasn't like really reality like that.
01:00:54.860
Like I remember we would be filming at a grocery store.
01:00:56.900
We'd have to turn the magazines around because we would be on the cover of the magazine.
01:01:04.960
It was a little, it was a little, but yeah, Trump was, no, that was right when Trump.
01:01:11.460
I kind of, I stick my toe in the water a little bit on that one.
01:01:20.800
I mean, it's a different world now though, right?
01:01:30.700
I like, when I first heard about it, I thought, oh, that's what we need.
01:01:34.960
We need, we got to get away with these politicians.
01:01:42.140
So I was like, Hey, he's like, uh, so, um, yeah.
01:01:50.380
So first I met him, I was doing, uh, I was in Oklahoma city.
01:02:00.860
We had been elk hunting, uh, not my son, but me and a buddy were elk hunting and the dude
01:02:11.060
So when we go in there and, uh, see him, we're at lunch and this guy said, Hey, guess who's
01:02:19.460
He said, uh, Trump, he's doing one of his rallies.
01:02:38.680
And that's how I certainly, that's how we, we met each other.
01:02:42.620
And, uh, uh, so I, I emailed him or text him and just say, Hey, your dad's doing this
01:02:52.120
And, uh, I remember I got a police officer cause I was like, there's no way I can go to
01:02:56.960
this Oklahoma state, but like, I'm going to get mobbed at this place, you know?
01:03:00.100
And, uh, I may be more recognizable than Donald Trump in Oklahoma city at this, in 2015.
01:03:14.300
So it's like a outdoor, you know, giant, you know, it's outdoor thing.
01:03:20.100
So I get on this RV, me and my buddies and, uh, and my cop friend, and there's these other
01:03:45.180
I said, what do you, he said, can I get a picture?
01:03:55.780
You know, he said, uh, do you want to see my gun?
01:04:01.200
Now I've been around, you've been around enough.
01:04:03.300
Has any security person ever asked you, do you want to see my gun?
01:04:08.720
And I'm looking at this cat going, what in the world?
01:04:10.600
So I take a picture and, uh, Corey Lewandowski gets on the bus.
01:04:17.600
He goes, if you ain't with Willie, get off the bus.
01:04:21.000
And so all these people started getting off the bus.
01:04:23.680
And so here comes the whole entourage, you know, and Trump gets on it.
01:04:30.220
He's like, Willie, Willie, uh, do you see the crowd is huge?
01:04:39.500
I mean, this is a huge crowd for somebody like you, you know?
01:04:43.440
My buddies are just like, this is the funniest thing ever.
01:04:46.020
I look back on the, you guys, Corey, this story.
01:04:48.780
I look back, that dude who said he had a gun is talking to Trump.
01:04:54.500
He didn't get off the bus and he's got like his book or something.
01:04:58.280
Um, and I could see like Trump does, he just looks and that's back when he had those like
01:05:03.840
giant security guards, you know, this is, he wasn't the president, you know, he used
01:05:17.240
And when I said that, oh, they grabbed this guy like by the back and just threw him off
01:05:33.580
And so I was like, and they're all looking, I could tell me.
01:05:36.580
And I looked up and I said, what kind of operations y'all running here?
01:05:40.080
Well, then that really made it bad because then I'm making fun of their security.
01:05:45.740
Like this dude, uh, was he thankfully I had the cop.
01:05:52.100
So later, a week later he calls me, says, Willie, he said, I found out about you, about
01:05:58.300
He brought the, um, um, porta potties in to the fair.
01:06:06.340
And he tells the fair director, anything else I can help you with?
01:06:10.320
Well, they start putting him to work doing all that.
01:06:12.120
He has an earpiece cause they're telling him his whole thing was he wanted to get Trump
01:06:18.140
He goes, he didn't even know you were going to be there.
01:06:30.960
Well, when I went to this deal, my wife, I said, look, Trump speaking, we're going to
01:06:36.840
And she says, Willie, do not, do not get on that stage.
01:06:48.540
I was like, no, no, no, I ain't doing any of that stuff.
01:06:52.060
And so before he gets off the bat, he goes, Willie, did you want to get up and say anything
01:07:02.400
But I thought, uh, you know, I thought these politicians, you know, but I thought, well,
01:07:11.240
I'm like, he gets on the stage and I thought if he's going to do, he's going to do it right
01:07:17.960
And so I'm kind of hiding in this cause I don't want to, I don't really want to be seen
01:07:22.440
You know, I'm like, somebody would be like, there's Willie Robertson.
01:07:25.220
I'm like, no, no, I look like him, you know, and I'm kind of like leaning in the stairwell
01:07:28.940
and I'm thinking right off the bat, he's going to go like, Hey, I guess who's here.
01:07:40.280
By this time, I'm, we're kind of, we're laughing.
01:07:44.460
You know, I never dreamed it'd be the first day.
01:07:58.320
I went, oh my gosh, please tell me he knows another guy named Willie at the Oklahoma State
01:08:13.360
And my buddy's going, Willie, you got to go up there.
01:08:16.920
Like, I can't, I'm not prepared to go up on the stage.
01:08:19.500
And he's like, he's calling for you on the stage.
01:08:21.940
So I pop up on the stage where everybody goes crazy.
01:08:28.780
And so I walk over, I was like, yeah, I'm like waving to the crowd.
01:08:32.840
And so I leaned, I shook his ass and said, hey, good job, Mr. Trump.
01:08:52.920
And everybody goes, he goes, this is the biggest television star in America.
01:09:16.180
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01:09:39.340
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01:10:17.280
The only way this stays a democracy is if the citizenry is informed.
01:10:22.680
You can't fight tyranny if you don't know what's going on.
01:10:55.660
And now he's asked me this super awkward question.
01:11:12.440
And I said, and Trump's behind me with his hands on my shoulder.
01:11:21.000
If I say the wrong things, it'll throw me away.
01:11:24.900
Well, me and Mr. Trump have three things in common.
01:11:34.260
And we both married people that look way better than we do.
01:11:43.840
And I'm still just like literally kind of shaking from the whole experience.
01:11:47.700
And I get in the stairway and my buddy's going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that just happened.
01:11:54.000
And my phone just immediately starts going crazy, just buzzing, buzzing.
01:11:59.020
And so I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh, no, you know, what have I started now?
01:12:04.180
It's all my buddies going, oh, my gosh, we just saw you on TV.
01:12:07.660
And when I'm sending a screenshot, Trump's behind me with a sign, you know, and he's behind me like this.
01:12:16.320
And she said, did you just endorse Donald Trump for president?
01:12:20.400
And so I just screenshot the picture with Trump.
01:12:22.960
I sent it to her and I said, no, why would you say that?
01:12:30.020
And the next day, I got in an Uber car in Oklahoma City to go to the airport.
01:12:37.880
I'm sitting right beside this driver, little old guy.
01:12:41.460
He looks at me, goes, what did you fellas do last night?
01:12:44.780
And I said, we went to the Oklahoma State Fair.
01:12:53.760
He goes, he's going to be the next president of the United States.
01:13:01.200
And I said, do you see that dude that got up in the middle of the speech?
01:13:11.160
He flew in just to endorse Donald Trump for president.
01:13:43.160
I didn't recognize you with that other bandana on.
01:13:52.700
He did, well, Don Jr. came to the house and hunted.
01:14:18.920
Yeah, and your phones are all jacked up down there.
01:14:23.100
So, I'm leaving the Mexico airport, coming to America.
01:14:33.120
I'm like, he is nowhere within a thousand miles of where I live in the south.
01:14:39.540
He is, and I'm like, now, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, slow down.
01:15:08.400
He lives on the end of a dead-end street, does not have a cell phone, does not have a computer.
01:15:12.960
But somehow he can get messages out all over the world, like instant.
01:15:33.400
In four days, he has met Ted Cruz, and he has endorsed Ted Cruz.
01:15:58.000
He's like, everyone's like, got shoes in their back, you know, spits come out of their mouth.
01:16:02.220
And then there's Ted Cruz, like the dude who's smiling at a face button.
01:16:17.280
Like, the whole Duck Dicey crew is voting for him.
01:16:40.980
I said, he just made a commercial with Ted Cruz.
01:16:49.540
And she goes, oh, no, he knew he was going to be mad over that.
01:16:54.280
But, you know, Ted Cruz showed up with a bunch of TV cameras.
01:16:59.680
And I said, well, Mom, he said we're all voting for him.
01:17:24.180
Because he was like, I'm not coming down there if you're endorsing.
01:17:50.200
I said, Hannity, I said, put me and Phil on the show.
01:18:07.940
I said, I got one question to ask Phil since we're on the show.
01:18:12.640
I said, Phil recently went duck hunting with Ted Cruz.
01:18:28.880
So I got him saying that Cruz wasn't a good duck hunter.
01:18:32.540
He said, oh, yeah, he couldn't hit the broadside of a bar.
01:18:48.380
I mean, is there anyone in the world that, I mean, I think things have changed since then, of course.
01:18:53.040
But like the world that you live in is probably pretty much 100% Trump at this point.
01:18:56.380
But, yeah, I mean, down there, yeah, if you're there.
01:19:01.500
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, well, now it is for sure.
01:19:05.840
Like, did you have a lot of friends voting Kamala Harris?
01:19:11.240
I mean, well, just because I know a lot of people outside of Louisiana.
01:19:19.660
I mean, so, yeah, I've got friends all over who were, and we had great debates.
01:19:29.800
And I can certainly look at Trump and call them, like, that doesn't make sense, or that's not how I feel, or that's not what I would say, or that's ugly, or that's unkind, or whatever it is.
01:19:45.820
Because when I wrote this book and I said, I don't want to get pulled in.
01:19:57.000
And I understand, you know, because I was involved.
01:19:58.840
I mean, I was the first speaker in the 2016 convention.
01:20:17.820
When I went out there, they were like, all right, look, we don't know how this is going
01:20:22.880
They didn't know whether they were going to walk off.
01:20:31.380
And Don Jeter called and he said, hey, my father wants you to speak at the convention.
01:20:34.580
And I was like, and I was gathering my breath to say no.
01:20:40.340
Because I was just going to be like, because in my mind, I thought it was like 45 minutes.
01:20:44.720
I was like, I don't have 45 minutes in me on politics, you know.
01:20:48.380
And I'm going, and I said, let me check my schedule.
01:20:54.760
And he goes, okay, well, check your schedule and they'll get back with you.
01:20:57.440
So, like the next day, someone calls, some lady calls and says, hey, so we've got you
01:21:03.020
And I'm fixing to tell her, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't say yes, you know.
01:21:08.600
And she goes, you're the first one up, you go for three minutes.
01:21:14.400
Yeah, of course I'll do three minutes, you know.
01:21:16.740
And so, I was, yeah, I was the first speaker in the 16th.
01:21:33.380
Well, I thought he had a really good, I mean, I was a little, I called it at 8.33 Central
01:21:42.900
When I saw Virginia and North Carolina, I said, it's over.
01:21:49.200
I mean, I just, I wasn't sure about North Carolina.
01:21:51.600
That was the only state that confuses me sometimes.
01:21:53.940
But Virginia, I mean, I think he was winning, like, you know, early on.
01:21:58.460
Well, it's, and I told my family, I texted my friends, and Trump wins.
01:22:04.500
But yeah, I had a good, I had a good sense about it.
01:22:12.880
It felt like, I was just kind of looking at the culture and looking at what people were
01:22:17.020
I was like, he's got a lot of people that are, you know.
01:22:20.040
Because it wasn't as, it wasn't as weird as it was before.
01:22:27.540
I mean, 16, I mean, there was, it was, people did not like him in 20.
01:22:34.340
But you had that COVID, I mean, the whole COVID.
01:22:36.800
And I said that year, probably, earlier that year, somebody asked me who I thought was going
01:22:42.060
I said, Trump's got this, there's no way he can lose.
01:22:57.820
And, but I went to bed last time thinking, I went to bed in 20 thinking, yeah, I was
01:23:11.000
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01:23:13.800
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01:23:23.740
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01:23:41.540
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01:24:03.940
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01:24:09.820
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01:24:12.920
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01:24:22.160
Did anyone in, that you know in Louisiana have questions about that election?
01:24:52.620
Like, I was, like, I've listened to people over time.
01:24:56.400
There's tons of people who question that stuff.
01:25:04.660
Was it, you know, I mean, I didn't realize it was a crime to question just to make sure
01:25:10.900
that, hey, did everything, did y'all do that right?
01:25:20.840
I think the people in Louisiana are all like, hmm.
01:25:32.540
They had to tally the number of votes they needed.
01:25:37.520
We have a, we are getting back into production.
01:25:40.820
It's kind of like the next generation of Duck Dynasty.
01:25:45.140
Or, well, so since 2017, 2024, yeah, a lot's happened.
01:25:58.320
So back with A&E, we met and they said, hey, you guys interested in, you know, kind of redoing
01:26:12.020
The kids were excited and said, yeah, let's show, you know.
01:26:14.840
Realize, Tucker, what, you know, we talk about it's a long show and it's like, it's
01:26:24.200
But, man, when you talk to people and they tell you, like, how much that meant to them
01:26:28.220
and how much, I can't tell you how many people just, like, it was what my dad and I watched
01:26:35.620
And when my mom passed away, it was like the, you know, it was the only thing that we
01:26:44.260
I mean, these kids are like, you know, when I was 18, I watched every show y'all had and
01:26:48.020
was just, you know, watching the prayer at the end and just watching our family be positive
01:26:55.500
And it wasn't a lot of, you know, just darkness and stuff that people watch and it wasn't
01:27:04.060
You're like, oh, man, you know, it's good to make something, especially when it came out
01:27:09.760
You know, it was pretty much a little bright light amongst a lot of, you know, some dark
01:27:16.600
So I think when you can do that and you can provide that for people.
01:27:21.600
There's no pressure at all from your corporate masters to change anything or make it different.
01:27:28.560
No, I mean, I actually, I mean, to be honest with you, I feel stronger now than I would then
01:27:36.340
It's not like, I mean, back then they didn't know.
01:27:40.080
I think, you know, like, but now obviously over the past, well, crap, since 2000, you
01:27:45.980
know, last 12 years, you know, where we stand, you know, what we're, what our morals are,
01:27:52.200
And, uh, and we have a lot of followers, you know what I'm saying?
01:27:55.180
Like we have social media for Sadie has millions of people, you know, my kids have followers
01:27:59.580
that, you know, so a lot of people are interested in that and it's, it's, they're interested in,
01:28:04.760
uh, I think they want to be entertained, but they also, you know, I think they learn stuff.
01:28:09.660
I think they can watch and learn, you know, a lot of people that watched our show are
01:28:13.440
like, well, we never prayed, like we never prayed before a meal.
01:28:17.320
We didn't even know, you know, and we started trying that, you know, probably more often
01:28:22.400
than not, even the praying, they rarely ever sat down and even ate together anymore.
01:28:31.360
They were like, we never even, we never even have dinner.
01:28:34.060
Everybody's just grabbing it and going, you know, meet you there, meet you at the deal,
01:28:37.400
go to the ballpark, get, you know, and so this whole idea of just sitting down and just
01:28:41.880
spending time with each other at dinner was becoming a foreign concept.
01:28:47.180
And so I think people can learn and they can be like, oh, that's, you know, uh, maybe they
01:28:53.780
Maybe they don't have, uh, maybe everybody doesn't live there like that, but they can
01:28:58.040
kind of live through that and kind of, you know, start their own, you know, traditions or
01:29:02.400
doing something more as a family and realizing, you know, the importance of it and, and then
01:29:07.380
also just taking a break and not, you know, I think what I love about diagnostic was we
01:29:13.480
We had fun, we laughed and, oh God, I mean, do we need that?
01:29:17.440
I mean, we need, we need some, you know, everybody's so serious.
01:29:20.200
I think if you had written this book 10 years ago, it would have seemed pretty weird.
01:29:24.440
You know, why is the reality TV show writing a book about spreading the gospel does not
01:29:38.120
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's certainly changing.
01:29:42.940
I think, um, cause I think we get so lethargic and some of this was even like, even in churches,
01:29:48.620
they get, they just get lethargic and they get off the, you know, you got to know what
01:29:53.280
your goal is and what kind of what you're here for and, uh, what's your mission, you
01:29:59.180
Well, and I take my mission from Matthew 28, which is the, it's labeled as the great commission.
01:30:05.860
Then Jesus says, go out and make disciples of all nations, baptize people, teach people
01:30:10.080
three things, three specific ideas, make disciples, baptize people, teach people.
01:30:17.200
So those are the last things he said before he left, like, make sure you do this.
01:30:20.460
So when that's your mission, um, you just think about what you've got to do to accomplish
01:30:28.120
You probably have to have conversations with people.
01:30:30.680
If you're going to make a disciple out of them, if you're going to baptize them, if
01:30:32.980
you're going to teach them, you're going to have to have some sort of conversation.
01:30:36.400
And so what I find is people, if your mission in life is, uh, as a, as a Christian, if you're
01:30:41.440
like, well, I try to go to church as often as I can.
01:30:51.140
And what happens is the mission, because it comes a little self.
01:30:54.540
I go to church so I can listen, so I can learn, so I can try to get through my week, you know,
01:31:04.220
Other people, other people, other people, not just you.
01:31:08.360
And, uh, again, back to my father, who was sitting in a bar, the guy drives out there.
01:31:17.880
He's a reprobate, you know, who's got a terrible reputation.
01:31:22.760
What drove him to drive up there, that hour drive, walk into that bar?
01:31:33.560
And I thought, I thought, wow, I don't know if I would, would I drive up?
01:31:46.080
And if that would have been it, I'm not a big prosperity guy.
01:31:54.020
If it just changed our life and kept our family together, worth it.
01:32:00.640
I got to see my dad and grow up with two parents, worth it, you know?
01:32:04.680
And you look over time as then dad took that and then never went about this for money or fame or anything.
01:32:11.120
In fact, really pushed that away more than embraced it.
01:32:15.880
Even when I told you the show, and he's like, no, you know?
01:32:33.660
And so you see a lot today, you know, people are like, I'll do whatever it takes to get famous, you know?
01:32:52.240
It seems like a lot of people, I mean, from social media.
01:33:07.800
I wouldn't know you if I wasn't, you know, you wouldn't have invited me on this podcast had I not had a TV show, you know?
01:33:14.980
I don't know, I ran into you in an elevator in Nashville.
01:33:24.660
I spit in my cup and you said, you looked at me and you said, did you spin your cup?
01:33:32.440
First word you said to me, you said, did you spin that cup?
01:33:34.660
Anyone who dips in an elevator is a potential friend of mine.
01:33:39.260
And you started doing your little maniacal laugh and you started laughing so hard.
01:33:43.720
And it was so funny because of all the people I was expecting them to see, it wasn't you.
01:33:49.960
I didn't expect to catch Willie Robertson dipping in an elevator, but that was it.
01:33:55.280
I had been promoting this book and you happened to be there as well, which is how this all ended up.
01:34:04.180
I think he puts people together and, you know, just seems too weird to me not.
01:34:09.540
So I think there's those opportunities that people have and they meet and some of you take advantage of, some of you don't, some of you miss, some of you're like, oh, crap, you know.
01:34:18.620
I mean, well, he did that in the Bible, you know, there was, there was things moving around.
01:34:25.540
And so, so it could be for that person, could be for someone else, could be for something completely different, you know, some situation that maybe needs to, to get out.
01:34:34.860
And so, but it was interesting that I had written this book, I had decided this year, I'm not jumping in this book, even though it was so tempting.
01:34:44.140
Everybody tried to get me to, you know, let's go, you know, and, and I'd really just said, no, I'm not.
01:34:53.580
And then, and then I'd meet you and then you said, hey, you should come on the podcast.
01:35:01.840
And I went, I'm going to get pulled into the politics.
01:35:05.520
I was like, I said, I'm going to get pulled into this thing.
01:35:08.680
And, and then as it turned around and spun around, we still did podcasts after the election.
01:35:15.260
And then, you know, and that was kind of the commitment I made.
01:35:21.200
I don't, I don't care what, I don't, I really don't care.
01:35:23.100
Like, if it's the gospel or some political agenda, I'm going with the gospel every time.
01:35:30.140
This is, you know, if we can change people's, you know, I just saw it.
01:35:34.520
I mean, it changed me, but it like somebody like my father can change people's lives and turn them into completely different people.
01:35:42.120
And so that's what I want to get to people, you know.
01:35:45.020
Politics turns people into completely different people too, but rarely for the better.
01:35:49.500
But, I mean, it, it has its place and it, you know, and I, and I'm not casting aspersions on people who, you know, want our country to be, you know, a great country.
01:36:01.540
And, but we're, you know, I'm not even one that says we have, we have to, everything's got to be, like, you have to have Christians in every position.
01:36:17.440
I mean, we can work together and figure that out.
01:36:19.580
Let the gospel do what it does and let politics do what it does and let government, you know.
01:36:24.360
So, almost like render under Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God.
01:36:32.800
Because, and that's the thing, had, back to mission.
01:36:41.120
Not to, you know, I think if Jesus wanted us to just make sure your government is, he would have talked about it, right?
01:36:49.320
When I said, let's lay out a plan and all that because it was, you know, under these governmental things that he was going to end up being crucified anyway.
01:36:58.060
So, and those things are, they're, they're of the world.
01:37:01.640
I mean, they're, you know, they're here and they come and they die and they go away and they change and, you know, stuff happens.
01:37:07.540
And, you know, I was like, if we, if that's where we end up, and I do think there's a lot of darkness for sure, but they need the gospel.
01:37:15.360
They don't need a better program from D.C., you know, and that's what will change it.
01:37:21.740
Oh, wow, look, now families are staying together and, you know, it's not going to be, it's not going to be that way.
01:37:27.980
And it's going to be when the church wakes up and decides to go out and, and have that kind of mission, you know, is to go after.
01:37:39.200
We can't hate each other because that's the deal, man.
01:37:41.400
I can't, uh, and I saw that so much in this one.
01:37:46.080
I mean, people would get my face and if I said the wrong, like if I said, oh, I'm not, I'm writing this book and I'm not doing as much with, and people would just be like, what?
01:37:56.800
This country is, we're not going to have a country tomorrow.
01:38:00.000
And, but what I don't like about the country, it's, it's like my fault.
01:38:05.080
It's like, like they're telling me it's my fault that I'm not, I'm like, how's it my fault, you know?
01:38:14.480
I mean, you certainly saw that with, you know, the Democrats being bullied or you better vote this way, you know, like, like we're telling you what to do.
01:38:21.620
And I'm just not good at people telling me what to do.
01:38:25.760
Don't tell, you know, vote for, but now it's like, no,
01:38:30.820
We, you know, you've got to go out and, you know, and do all this.
01:38:34.360
I understand their, their passion and all that, but we've got to let people.
01:38:38.920
And some of that's the, it's their job is to win the vote.
01:38:51.560
So my last question is if, I do think a lot of people are all of a sudden wondering, like,
01:38:56.920
is there something beyond what we can see, hear, feel, and taste?
01:39:02.340
I mean, is there, you know, is there a spiritual realm?
01:39:07.000
And I, I, people all around me are asking those questions.
01:39:16.180
You, something stirs in you and you think, wow, maybe I should learn more.
01:39:21.220
I mean, I found those answers in the, in the Bible and particularly in the New Testament.
01:39:31.020
Like you've got to have this faith and you're going to have to jump and believe something
01:39:45.020
I don't know if this story's in the book, but there's a lot in there.
01:39:47.460
We're having this story and he's like, I don't, I don't believe in faith.
01:39:53.120
And he was, he had just gotten married and I said, and we're at a, we're at a hunting
01:40:00.800
And she's, I said, I bet she's with another guy.
01:40:29.540
And I said, so you do have faith in something that you can't see.
01:40:35.220
And he went, I've never thought about it that way.
01:40:47.600
Now we have moved him to, there are some things that even though I can't see it, I have faith.
01:41:15.180
You know, I mean, I'm trying to think of, Paul says in the New Testament,
01:41:22.880
Paul knew the gospel better than anybody who's a writer.
01:41:25.220
And he says, pray for me that the mystery of the gospel can come out of my mouth more clearly.
01:41:30.880
He's praying that it can come out more clearly.
01:41:38.060
You know, he's writing because some weren't obeying it.
01:41:44.160
And so you have to keep coming at, like, keep asking more questions.
01:41:48.680
Keep, maybe I'm not asking the right questions.
01:41:50.980
There's a story in the book, a beautiful story of a guy that I just kept, I kept trying to,
01:41:59.560
Like he had lesions on his, I thought he was going to die.
01:42:05.540
And so I'm just like, hey man, have you thought about heaven and how?
01:42:11.100
Well, he, he who had not sinned cast the first stone.
01:42:15.660
It was, he was quoting a scripture and I knew what that meant.
01:42:18.920
That's, that's redneck for, I don't want to hear what you got to say.
01:42:26.120
So I could have thought, well, I tried, you know, I get to heaven.
01:42:28.800
I tried to, remember I told you four times and every time he would just divert, divert,
01:42:36.040
And so finally we're in a car, we're in New York city, working on a business deal.
01:42:47.060
I was just like, it was just like, he was so excited about it, you know.
01:42:50.480
I look at him and I asked, I said, how, I said, how old are you?
01:42:56.440
And I said, I bet you're going to be dead in 14 years.
01:43:10.940
I said, I bet you're going to be dead in 14 years.
01:43:18.600
You know, I said, but you're, I mean, I'm just guessing.
01:43:28.500
I said, what are you, are you investing in anything beyond here or just here?
01:43:50.520
And then he goes, can you come up and tell me more about that?
01:44:17.060
I'm like, I don't know where I got to go find some water here, you know?
01:44:35.060
This is the same guy I've been working on for years.
01:44:39.200
And now he's saying, I got, and he emailed everybody.
01:44:43.500
So finally, like a month later, I show up to his house, the big house.
01:44:47.120
There's people, people from New York, people from LA, Florida.
01:44:52.860
People have shown up because he said, I'm getting baptized.
01:45:03.180
Tell him what you told me of that hotel room that night.
01:45:19.260
And they just start streaming in the blue jeans, taking their boots off.
01:45:32.800
It's like 25 people that night over that one, that conversation.
01:46:21.040
So everything I look at in life, where does it fall in that category?
01:46:32.260
It's way more than going to church and, you know, having some look and being a Christian.
01:46:51.300
They're thinking, isn't it just like you show up an hour?
01:46:58.080
Try to see them an hour, you know, and see if that gets you enough to get through.
01:47:02.080
And so it's just a bigger idea and it's a bigger concept.
01:47:05.020
And then when you're in that moment, when you're there with people and you watch their lives change,
01:47:09.920
and then you watch the fruit of that come out of it, it's a good, it's like a high.
01:47:16.900
I mean, it's like, that's what it's all about, you know.
01:47:20.660
That's the kind of stuff to where you're then going, there is hope.
01:47:24.300
And so I live my life based on there's hope in something beyond.
01:47:32.860
I've, you know, my faith and the principles of the Bible has probably kept me out of a lot of misery and hell and, you know, bad stuff.
01:47:42.240
And, uh, but I'm, I'm thinking that there is, and I'm, I see evidence everywhere.
01:47:51.580
I mean, I just, I can see it in people's lives.
01:47:54.880
I can, you know, if Jesus lives in us, the Holy Spirit lives in us.
01:48:07.580
I'm, I'm seeing them share and do things and sacrifice.
01:48:20.880
I feel, you know, like it just seems like, I'm like, wow, that's a lot of, I can't help but think something was going on with Trump.
01:48:31.240
Like there was a lot of weird, turn your head the right way.
01:48:54.640
So it just, you know, I'm not, I'm just saying it looked like God was doing something there.
01:49:06.000
And I don't know, you know, but that's the faith part.
01:49:08.940
I think sometimes, Tucker, we're out, I think we think our goal is to try to figure it out.
01:49:13.580
Like, we're like, we have to know, we got to read the signs and we got to, everybody was wanting to know, like, what's going to happen.
01:49:19.060
Even with our country, like, where will we be in 20 years?
01:49:21.340
It's like, we want to know, but there's too many factors.
01:49:30.720
But looking forward, that's the, and if, and that's the message that I'm going to, but somebody's been sharing this message for 2000 years.
01:49:39.340
We're halfway around the globe from where it happened and still talking about it.
01:49:49.660
They weren't, you know, they didn't even speak the same language.
01:49:54.440
We are sitting here today, halfway across the globe, and we're still talking about it.
01:49:59.580
I'm still writing books about it, living our lives on it and professing it.
01:50:10.480
Most everything else, 2000 years ago, we don't even know what it is.
01:50:25.700
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