Ep. 402 - Andrew Wilkow - SOFREP Radio

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
using enough. You're listening to Software a Gradio Special Operations,
military news and straight talk with the guys and the

(00:28):
community softwarep Radio on time on Target. Um, it's funny,

(01:13):
I was. I was every now and again I mentioned
the theme song, and I think this is Andrew's first
time hearing it live. So my friend John Burns did
it as I mentioned before, and I was like a
very top gun ask and I think everybody notices right away,
because I'll be honest. I sent to John. I was like,
make it sound pretty much like the top gun at them,
but enough that we don't get like a copyright dispute. So, yeah,

(01:35):
how's there anything going man? This is a busy day
for you. Yeah, yes, it's election day. So I did
three hours of my radio program. I'm gonna I'm gonna
work with you guys here on this because we have
a lot to get to with a vet ride in
our broadcast here in Times Square. Gonna do some CRTV tonight,
go back and do nine to one a m. And
then they want me on CRTV back again first thing

(01:55):
in the morning. And they were like, what kind of
guests do you want. I'm like, whoever you think is available,
because I mean, some people are not gonna want to
be talking when a loser draw tomorrow. So you know
that's crazy. Man. Are you pounding like ten red bulls tonight? Uh?
If red bull is beer? Yeah, you know, at some
point we're just gonna just gonna have beers under the

(02:17):
under the table. It's it's you know, it's radio. It's
not like we're really on well Breitbart is gonna be
carrying the feed. But whenever the camera's not on me,
your David web I'm sure there'll be an alcoholic beverage there.
I remember. And by the way, I mean I feel
like a lot of the audience knows you are. Of course,
but Andrew well Cow hosted the Wellcal Majority on Sirius
X and Patriot and well Cow and CRTV, Wellcal Majority
dot com um and by the way, I really do

(02:39):
appreciate coming in hotel. You could be napping and yell.
But but see, but this this forget the election for
a second. This Veterans Day event that we're doing started
literally with me saying to a guy who owns a
bar in Times Square, which by the way, has a
willcal burgrand a Brandon Web sandwich. That's be kind to

(03:00):
become our home away from home. You know, we just
started this by saying we should broadcast from here. You know,
you're two blocks off the parade route. It's Times Square,
it's Veterans Day, and it's morphed into the VET Ride.
And then all of the money that we've been raising
for the charities that are really I think the only

(03:21):
way to call to describe them as grassroots charities. Right,
if you're a Wounded Warrior project, you've got corporate you've
got corporate sponsors. We had uh JW. Cortez from the
Scember five Fund last year, and you know, we we
added him and Cember five Fund late in the game,
so it was only a few hundred dollars they raised
in the bar. But they get their money from the

(03:41):
Johnson and Johnson Family Trust. You know, they're not they're
not tip jard charities that are you know, doing events
at VFW halls. All the charities that we're working with
this year, and and and we made a decision this
year not to do branch specific charities. UM are grassroots charities.
So one of them is UM Operations Chill out. It's

(04:03):
a New Jersey charity that deals with homeless veterans. And uh,
some of the guys are Vietnam veterans and believe it
or not, to this day and Jack probably wouldn't surprise
you at all that there are still homeless veterans from
the Vietnam War. You know, they have been home, many
of them have been homeless all this time, but have
fallen into homelessness. And there are veterans from the current

(04:23):
conflicts that are that are homeless. And this organization, uh
Rachel Leski, the executive director, told me it takes two
to get a veteran off the streets and last year
we I think we handed him seven grand you know,
just in just in the bar um. Yeah. Yeah, And
the NYPD has been so great in helping secure the permits.
One of the other charities a new charity this year's

(04:45):
American Warrior Initiative. That's Sean Parnell's charity. He's been cool. Yeah. Uh.
They are a job placement advocacy group that gets veterans
good jobs. We have Wishes for Warriors, which is an
organization out of I to Hoe that takes physically disabled
veterans back into the field to go hunting. Horses for

(05:05):
Heroes needs no introduction on this program, Rickayannucci. We we've
been over that one a million times. And then of
course there's Stops Soldiers Suicide, and that is I mean,
it actually started with Stop Soldier Suicide and Horses for
Heroes and morphed into a five charity thing. But each
one of the charities is a grassroots charity that does
something different and we're really hoping to raise the money

(05:28):
for them this year by doing this. This is what
we've done. We don't we don't ask people to give
us the money to give it to them. There's no
five one C three, no accountants, no no fancy website.
You buy a T shirt this year, it's a long
sleeve shirt for they look pretty cool, minimum donation bucks.

(05:50):
We give you the shirt, but you write the check
to the charity or do the PayPal to the charity,
and then we just get the infant sending the shirt.
So at no point are we paying for lawyers and
accountants and compliance people. One goes to these grassroots charities.
And I think that's why we've been able to build
such confidence in this because you're not writing, you're not

(06:10):
trusting me with your money. You're not trusting any of
us with your money. It sounds like very uh you know,
NPR tote bag kind of guy to me. But there
is something to be said for like going towards these
smaller organizations and keeping it more like local grassroots. Uh.
You know, as the years have gone on, I'm like
more inclined to give money through like, uh a family

(06:31):
or a soldier that's running like a go fund me campaign,
where like, I know the money is going right to
this guy's family to pay for this soldier's medical bills,
whatever crisis it is he's going through. Um, A much
more inclined to give money to the Rick Eye and
New Cheese of the world and other guys who are
running these smaller charities as opposed to some of the
big ones. And I know we all know a few

(06:52):
of them where they're overhead and their corporate struct where
where the CEO and the executive boarder are pulling down
almost a million dollar or is a year in their
take home pay. Like I'm not interested in donating money
for that. Well. You know, look, I have seen I
have spent my time in music radio. I've watched how
a charity concert goes off and you hear the phrase

(07:14):
partial proceeds, and yeah, wouldn't it be great if could
go to the charity in question. But you know, stage
crews don't work for free. Security guards don't work. You
know that it takes a lot. It takes money to
make money, whether in business or in charity. It's it
is nice to be able to do this with these
charities we've vetted and and almost all of them are

(07:37):
volunteer right, like the like Brian Kinsella and his group.
They're all Wall Street guys, the guys that you know,
we're officers in the military. They don't need to be
doing this stuff. They could be focusing on, you know,
the stock price of whatever stock price they're focusing on.
They've chosen to do this with a network of volunteers.
We're just getting some more money to them to do
what they do. It stops soldiers suicide. And for Rick,

(07:58):
Rick started Stop Horses Heroes in his spare bedroom. Now
they have a sixteen man bunk house. We've watched them
grow with so much of the money that we've given them.
That's why we continue to do this. And and this year,
I think last year. God bless the guys that rode.
It was about twenty degrees in Hope, New Jersey at

(08:19):
the rallying point at a tremonton Harley Davison, and they
had about an hour and a half ride in that
cold and they all they all did it, you know,
and I think maybe or twelve bikes dropped out, and
I think we ended up with like eight or eighty
nine bikes. This year, the NYPD gave us um the
permit for two hundred bikes, so that's two city blocks.
We figured out. I was out there literally the tape

(08:41):
measure and we were walking the street figuring out the winch.
So we came out with one city block equal to
hundred bikes. And when we had the logistics meeting, are
representative with the NYPD said, UM, I think we can
get you two blocks if you want to do two
hundred bikes. And I'm like, the weather better hold up. Uh,
you know, We're gonna have to check with our guys

(09:02):
at the New Jersey State Troopers because this is two
blocks for the boys can pull up, park their bikes
and then I come in and have a beer. Well. Yeah,
they last year what they did was they parked. They
had the entire street between Broadway and Eighth f in
front of em O. Looney's, and we parked the bikes
and pretty much NYPD gave us a parade permit, and
the actually stationed a officer out there. I felt bad,

(09:23):
like is he a rookie garden the bikes, but like
there was an officer who was just walking the line,
you know, making sure the bikes were all right. And
most of the guys that that that came um, that
ate that drank, that got their shirt, they stayed for
the entire three hour broadcast, and even after paying their
fee and even after getting their shirts. A lot of
these guys were police officers and firefighters and veterans themselves

(09:46):
that had bundle checks from other groups of people. So
it wasn't just there their thirty dollars to ride last year.
It was their thirty dollars plus you know, here's some
OREW Department, here's some are you know our group. That's
when the money. When we had the person from the
Harley Davidson dealership volunteer the manager sit there and account
it was like the money was just coming in and

(10:07):
we handed each your organization their big envelope. It was,
you know, here's here's your checks, here's your money. Can
you say about how much money you guys raised last year?
I think, well, I think it was thirty six thousand
in the two weeks leading up and then culminating in
the event. But then people, this is where my structuring
of the charity got a little costly, and I don't

(10:28):
mind donating more. The way we set it up was
we split the cost of making four and fifty shirts
between myself, Emito Loony's, and Tremont and Harley, and then
at the end of it, like, there's no more shirts left.
But then I get a call from John Alvez, a
dirtbag and you guys know him. He's like, uh, we
got more orders coming in. He's like, we got like
another hundred and fifty orders. So I had to fulfill

(10:49):
those orders to to get those shirts sent down. This
is what we figured out last year looking at it.
We put up about thirty six hundred dollars to make
the shirts, maybe a little bit about thirty dollars was
all said and done, and we raised about thirty eight thousand.
So for every dollar we put up to get the shirts,
ten dollars came back in return, and one guy sent

(11:10):
five grand, one guy one shirt five grand. We have
another guy who already put up five grand from one
shirt before we even opened up the link to to donate.
But if you can do one dollar in in a
I guess upfront costs to get ten dollars in return
and on the charities, even if it doesn't sound as

(11:31):
oppressive as a massive concert. Still, when you look at
their overhead and what actually makes it to the actual veterans,
it's pennies on the dollar by the time it actually
gets in the hands of somebody missing a leg or
contemplating suicide. Yeah, I mean it sounds like, really, what
you do is you're opening up this platform that you've built,
you know, your day to day to day radio show

(11:53):
on Sirius XM, and providing that platform for all of
these charities. Well, you know, you know what what I
what I hope happens, you know, and this is our
second year with the motorcycles. This is our sixth year
I believe of the broadcast. My hope is by next
year that if we don't run into any snags with
the financing, with the permit getting um, I could say

(12:14):
this that we didn't pay for the permits. Uh, NYPD
took care of us on the premans. I don't know
what the permits actually cost. I don't want to get
anybody in trouble. But they were very adamant and like, hey,
we want to be a part of this there. Actually
what we said to them was if you can hook
us up, we'll make you a will make you a sponsor.
So of the five charities and the logos of Mind,

(12:35):
the Dealership, and Emmett, we had NYP officially put themselves
on this um. I'm hoping that this could become a
model for other people who want to to do fundraising
for grassroots charities, because you know, to snag a corporate
sponsor is tough, right. I mean you've got pr people

(12:56):
and lawyers and accountants, and you know you don't just
go walking into the ivory tower of a major corporations.
I'd like you to sponsor our charity. And I think
people need to understand that too is like these big charities,
it's not when the money is not getting directly to
the veterans or it's quote unquote wasted. Uh, it's not
corruption necessarily, it's as you said, there is like legitimate

(13:18):
overhead that you have to deal with when you with
these really big organizations. Do you remember, by the way,
I so I was the only person there who knew,
you know, the people for Bred Circle Foundations. So I'm
taking the train back with this envelope of money, and
I think it was Joan Shen from Serious x Emily
was like, yeah, I better not lose that or anything
obviously on the right hands. But it was like just

(13:38):
this giant wad of cash and checks. Well that's what
you thought Brandon would be there. Pop, You're walking up
and just people were walking up and just handing us
wads of cash and paper bags and smartly, smartly. Uh.
The manager of the dealership had brought a receipt book
because she was she was on it. So so anyone
handed with a handed cash off. She wrote what charity

(14:00):
you wanted to go to? Oh, you wanted to go
to Horses of here's okay, fifty bucks, you know, here's
your receipt and she put it in a manilla envelope
marked Horses for Heroes. And at the end of the
event we said, here you go, Horses for Heroes. So
everybody I witnessed us handing off the money. To know
I was representing Red Circle last year. Um this year though,
so many of the charities are all gonna be represented

(14:22):
in house, So this is gonna be the first time
that all five charities are gonna be represented in house
with their guests on the air, and uh, it's gonna
be really cool. And one thing I do love about
this I've never served, you know that is it's very
tribal in the beginning, like the Army guys are over here,
the Marine guys are over here, the araban are over here,
the Navy guys are over here. And then by like

(14:42):
an hour and somebody's like by those by those sailors,
and I love you guys, and you know, we have
all kinds of there's all kinds of camaraderie. And one
of my favorite moments from I think it was three
years ago, was Brandon Busher, who was then the executive
director of Stop Soldier Suicide. He's talking to a guy
in the Air Force and he goes or the Navy
and he says, I think I called an air strike

(15:03):
in with you interact and they start talking, and you know,
that's the amazing thing out the military. Everybody knows by
by unit, by by by squadron whatever it is where
they were, and they were pretty convinced that he had
called in and their strike with him as a best
company marine. I'm like that, that's cool. Yeah. Every year
it just seems to get bigger. I mean I was

(15:24):
working for you the first year that that you did this,
and you know, there wasn't like this huge audience stuff
because it was it was people coming into a bar
and oh there's a broadcast. That's great, and it's also
you know, noon to three. It's not you know, I
know it's a veteran this day, but it's not a
day people might typically be there. And now I've seen
this thing just grows. It also depends on what day

(15:45):
of the week. You're right about that. I mean last
year we got look like the calendar year it was
a Saturday. This is a Sunday. We gotta think next year, like, oh,
it's gonna be a couple of years before it's it's
a weekend. Are we going to be able to get
the riders? You know the first year, right, the first
couple of years, it was whoever was Times Square? Yes,
there were people that knew the radio program a lot
of people were just there because it was a bar

(16:06):
that was opened on Veterans Day, and you know, there
was it looked like something was going on. But yeah,
it has grown and the donations. Now we get a
lot of emails. I wish I could be there, but
here's somebody. You know, the people buy the VET right shirt.
They they're not coming. That's cool and and for people
who are in the area, of course I should give
the information. So this is the VET ride Sunday, November eleven.

(16:27):
So this coming Sunday if you're listening to it now. Uh,
nine am to eleven am is the actual ride from
Harley Davidson in Hope, New Jersey. And you can still
send the railing time. They're gonna be whe They're gonna
be a kickstand they call it kickstands up at eleven.
So they want the riders there at nine signed them in,
They got to sign their waivers. There's all kinds of
insurance with that part of it. Uh, they get their shirt,

(16:48):
there's gonna be coffee and donuts and then they're gonna
be wheels up or kickstands up at eleven and they
should arrive at the venue at ebenel lunis around um
around twelve thirty quarter to one, and you're live. We're
now we're live one to four wonder four okay. And
from what I saw, you could still if you are
a rider, you could still get tickets right right Riden

(17:10):
at gmail dot com and I saw an event bright
dot Yeah, that's that doesn't a end right to Also, yeah,
if you find vet ride, that's an event b r
I t e dot com. I see it on there.
But then if you just want to come for the broadcast,
which I'm doing of course, and I think you're doing,
it's really the hardest thing to organize is the writers.
That's what I do, with what Emmett does organizing the shirts.

(17:32):
It's a pain in the butt answering emails and and
dealing with people's checks. And I thought I ordered a medium,
I need a large um. But it's getting all the bikes.
I mean, a column of a hundred bikes is longer
than a mile. I believe when they're riding wheel to
wheel and they only get one lane on I eight eastbound,
then you have and it gets complicated. You have the

(17:54):
Blue Knights and the New Jersey State Troopers. Then they've
got to hand them off to Port Authority Police, then
run the toll Plaza tunnel, then YEA through the tunnel,
then NYPD. So you've got this column that stretches about,
and I don't know what two hundred bikes looks like.
I don't know if they're gonna go side by side
on this. Just the the column coming down and then

(18:16):
backing those bikes in one by one, was it just
it was so loud. I mean it was like rock
concert loud. You know, those narrow streets with all of
those Harley Davison's It was amazing on a quiet Sunday,
on a quiet Sunday. So it's em LOONI is to
ten West fifty as we always say, not to be
confused with his father's bar. The broadways just elonise Um

(18:40):
and then the charities. It's benefiting Operation Show Out Wishes
for Warriors, Stop Soldiers, Suicide Horses for Heroes and American
Warrior Initiative. I'm excited for a man, just because every
year this thing grows, and I think even though it's
on a Sunday as opposed to Saturday last year, I
think we're gonna see wee. So we we had guys,
you know, the Steve d who is running all the

(19:01):
He's the guy that actually a nswers the vet right
email Steven Salvo Um. He is getting interest from Maine,
Illinois and last year and we think that the guys
are coming back, two guys from South Carolina, Uh, truck
their bikes up and then it turned out it was
gonna be about twenty degrees when they were starting to ride, Like,
we're from South Carolina, we don't have so the dealership
had to like give them like rock bottom prices on

(19:22):
cold weather weather riding gear. But so far, checking the weather,
if it holds up this year, I think we're gonna
have all two hundred bikes. And you know, last year
we saw the registration came in and then about three
days out it's just spikes. So we've been seeing the
spike already. And we pre sold three hundred shirts before
the riders have even gotten their own. So three D

(19:43):
shirts are already out the door. Uh, and they're gonna
be ships soon. So we're kind of starting at five shirts.
And I'm like, I I do pretty well to put
up money up front, but if we started getting into
like shred shirts, I mean I'm gonna have to, like,
you know, say all right, you know, maybe we cut
that offer, look for another, look for someone who wants
to throw some money or a way to make more shirts.
It's a good problem to happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well

(20:04):
it's a good problem with the charities. Yeah. And uh,
and I know that you need an easy pass if
you're going to rise. And that's like the one stipulation. Uh,
you know what I was wondering, is your producer. We
all know Mike Finns is his dad gonna be a
big he's a big biker. Yeah. You know, I haven't
spoken to We haven't really talked about it. He might
be Remember he was a little annoyed last year that

(20:24):
Mike didn't tell him. And Mike's like, I think you'd
actually come all the way from pH From what I
know about Mike's dad, he's like nav that Navy and
a Trump supporting like biker with neck tattoos. Yeah, he
fits in. We're a stereotypical good servative radio show. Here
my misfit shirt. And yes, my producer's father is a
tat tatted up biker. And uh, you know we're watching

(20:47):
the Kiss, you know concert ticket prices. Typical conservative radio show.
Yeah we're talking about that before, which that's so cool.
I think that Gene Simmons was on the show. He's
a big military support, you know, he he you know,
he's one of the band. A lot of bands are
afraid to come out and say like they'll they'll say
those superficial things like I appreciate your service and thank
you for your service. Probably like kids will stop a

(21:08):
show to do like an entire tribute to the whole
event seven fold by the way, Uh stop the show
to do an entire tribute to the military. Yeah, there's
been a few. You know, it's funny. I actually, uh
we can see J ramon obviously, c J aremon I
got comp tickets to poison over the summer. They do
the same thing and bring vets out on stage. So
it's a lot of eighties bands. I guess it gonna

(21:29):
be a little self indulgent with the you got to
hear this story. This is funny for your audio. All right.
So c J. Ramone is a former marine and he's
a Marines marine. He loves he loves the Marine Corps.
He's you know, like most marines. We were at Chiller
Theater and if anyone doesn't know what that is, it's
a it's a comic book, horror movie autograph seeking geek

(21:50):
fest leading up to Halloween. So he was going to
be signing, uh in the room. Vinnie Vincent was like
from there, so, and you had a bunch of old
wrestler in seventies TV stars. Loretta Swift from Mash was there,
Major Hoolahan. So they had a bomb scare at the
Parcippity Hilton and he calls me up. He's like, you know,
don't bother comings a bomb scare. So after about four hours,

(22:13):
they opened the thing back up, and uh, it was
kind of past the time when most people are seeking autographs.
So all the celebrities, if you could call them that
for most of them started coming out and we're sitting
at the bar and I'm sitting there. You know, none
none of us drove. It was fine. My wife was drinking.
I was drinking, My friends were drinking. CJ's drinking. Everyone's drinking,
drinking and drinking drinking. Brian Nobbs from the Nasty Boys

(22:36):
from the comes walking out. He's kind of be in
his like mid to late sixties, you know, he's just
you know, past his prime wrestler, very fat, and some
drunk guy takes a swing at him, you know what,
talking was going on about wrestling, and he takes a
swing at him, and you hear this loud fud and
it's Brian Nobbs on his back and he's screaming. My

(22:58):
shoulders just loocated. The first person off the bench into
the fight with this guy was c J. Ramone, Beer
down off the thing, he's off this table call. I
didn't even react, and then I see Chuck Zito come
running out of the crowd, so Chuck, Chuck. I'm like,
if this guy knew that the two guys about to
grab him, or c J. Ramone and Chuck Zero, he

(23:20):
probably wouldn't knock down one of the Nancy boys. But
it was just when c J sat back down, it
was just like, that's a marine right his his he
heard he heard of the thing. It was so cartoonish
and comical, but he's such a marine that way. He
was off off his bar stool into the fight with
this guy before any of us. My wife and I
were like, what's what's what's happening, what's happening? That's more

(23:42):
eventful than anything else you would have seen there, because
it's really just guys sitting down signing autographs. I mean,
that's the story right there. But it was just so funny,
like it's the it's the geekiest. It's such a geek fest, right,
I mean, like the longest line that I saw when
people were I forgot the guy's name to play Captain
Stooping on the love Boat. But he had like an
hour long wait to sign up for that guy. You know, uh,

(24:03):
you know, there were there was by Ling was there.
There was like all these like a Carbon Electra was there,
but Carbon Electra got a picture with c J. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he was. He was a literal rock star. But it
was just so funny how he was not c J.
Ramone bass player guy. He was c J. Ramone Marine guy.
When this old wrestler got knocked down, it was like

(24:23):
rolling around the floor yelling, um. Just a funny. He's
a really nice guy. You know every time I met him,
you know, we have really good conversation. Well, you know
again just just marine. Wasn't one of the other Ramons
there too, Richie Ramone. Yeah, yeah, he was in the
band for a very short period of time, and didn't
seem very happy about being there. I don't know, just

(24:43):
didn't seem like a very happy guy. Richie did. But Richie,
but yeah, but c J. C J was awesome. We
we I think we left that. We left the bar
a little after one am and he was texting. He
texted me at two thirty AM and I woke up
the next morning. I texted him back to thirty question
Mark and he's like, are you coming back? So I
went back uh to see him and he's like, yeah,

(25:04):
I went back to my room. Some of the other people.
We went through a bottle of Scotch. I'm like, that's hardcore.
He goes, Now, he goes, you want to get me
a beer? So walking in the hospitality guard, they came
back to the table and were sitting there and drinking
beers on a Sunday morning. After Yeah, at the Chiller
last year, Mike Thinn's waited in line. I think like
two hours to get me looks like a woman. If

(25:24):
you're gonna ask, he doesn't look like Vinnie Vincent is
transitioning to a woman. Yes, I really ugly. Anyway, back
onto like stuff. Well, no, I mean I think we
covered a lot of that. I was actually going to
ask you about today's election. I mean, it's funny because
I know, Jack, because you haven't had enough of that yet. No, well,
you know I am. I am optimistic. I think that

(25:47):
you can look. I accept that people do not like
Donald Trump's personalities. Prissella is the tweeting. I think some
people think the rallies are a little over the top,
but you can't. You know, he he is his Whether
or not you like his personality, it's kind of hard
to argue with three point seven percent unemployment and seven

(26:08):
point one four million unfilled jobs. I don't mean to
snap back into my role is the guy on the
Patriot Channel. I do the economy is strong right now,
right and and and I think this was the fate
of Bob Dole. Was that, you know, you had a
Republican House, of Republican Senate, a Democrat president who at
the time was a pretty moderate even conservative Democrat, President
Bill Clinton on on a lot of fiscal issues. UM,

(26:31):
but there was no what was the argument to change
the way things were going back in? Um? Is Bill
Clinton different than Donald Trump? Absolutely? UM? But I think
you'll see I think the Democrats are gonna flip flip
a bunch of seats. I think the Republicans hold it
by one. That's just my prediction. I am not I
am not one of these people that sits around we

(26:53):
are sitting around a glass table, but sits around a
glass table pretending that I can see the future. I
you know, I could be totally naive thinking that everybody's
voting on the economy like like I think they should
or I think I I know I did. I mean,
you were one of the people had it right on
Donald Trump, so you know, well yeah, um but but
anything you find all the hemming and hong, I mean yeah,

(27:14):
I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans hang on to
both Senate and Congress. Yeah, and I think that there
will be a pretty hysterical mental breakdown. Um yeah, that
like we saw in because it's kind of like, oh no,
not again. You know, uh too many of these people
put their faith in these pulsters, who I think their

(27:36):
models are really outdated, and I think for the media,
what keeps them up at night does not keep the
rest of the country up night. Yeah. So you know
what I was gonna say though, is Jack You've said
this often on the podcast that you're like you even
remember back when you were a kid, the I think
you said. It was the Clinton Bush senior election. People

(27:58):
were saying, this is the last election of our lifetime, folks,
you better get up and vote, better, better vote now.
Is there is there any election where it's not like that? Yeah,
let's see I say this. I don't like what people say.
This is a historic election. Every election is. Yeah, so
is there a president who is not history? One of
my conservative friends, uh posting on Facebook yesterday is like
pray for America for the next forty eight hours because

(28:21):
we might not have our freedom anymore. It's like, man,
calm down. So the point I wanted to make though,
is like I don't like to go into the hyperbole
of that. However, I mean for here in New York.
I don't know if you disagree. I mean, I think
Cuomo is going to stay the governor. Unfortunately I voted
against him. But it is what it is. But if
you live in Texas or Florida, personally, I never thought

(28:41):
that you would come this close to possibly seeing a
senator from Texas or Florida whose anti gun and I
mean those are the they don't work down points. I'm not,
I mean, but but what about I mean, your guy
who lived in Florida, for it is one of as
pro gun states. And and you know they're possibly gonna

(29:03):
elect a guy gel him who's dudes strongly anti. Here's
the weird thing about that. You know, he is promoting
this real socialist agenda and he's trying to assure everyone
he's gonna pay for it by just raising the corporate text. Well,
whether it's the income tax or the corporate text, or
he's gonna find out very quickly, like they did in Vermont,

(29:25):
that you can't just offer single payer without doubling your
state budget. The money is going to have to come
from somewhere. And there's a reason why people move their
homes and their businesses to Florida. It's not because they
wanted to be more like New Jersey. Um, you know,
there's always there. It's it's the same thing. There's always
the constant fights over the wages paid at Disney. And

(29:46):
in the end, the state says, you know what, there's
only so far We're gonna push Disney. Now they are they,
like Amazon, likely to pick up a whereas and move out. No,
but when you look at the engine of the economy,
their tourism, agriculture, and you're saying you're going to raise
the corporate tax, Well, that's gonna be paid somehow. That
has to be paid for somehow, just gonna get passed

(30:06):
on the right. And it's it's this, it's this fantasy
that the Democrats throw out there though, well, we're gonna
have to raise taxes on those oil companies. Well you're
not raising taxes on the oil companies. When we go
to the pump, We're gonna pay for that. That's not
me saying that as a conservative voter. That's me saying
that as a basic understanding of basic people who believe

(30:28):
that stuff. For the people who have never had to
run a business before, they don't understand, like tax it's
just something you factor any your cost of doing business
and then whatever it is that goes into the retail
price of your product. You know. You know what I
find I find also funny is that John James, who
I think is a rock star, you know, guy, is
that the media is kind of throwing down the gauntlet

(30:50):
if you're not for Stacy Abrams and you're not for
uh uh Andrew Gillham, you're you're obviously some kind of
a bigot. Right. They'll let Beto Robert O'Rourke run around
kind of trying, you know, speaking Spanish, ignoring the fact
that take Cruz is actually Hispanic. That it's kind of
funny that we the worst thing you could be accused

(31:11):
of is being a racist. So instead of saying I
disagree with you, or let's debate these economic issues, or
let me explain why I think this works, work doesn't
work the meaning the Democrats have kind of thrown down
the gauntlet. If you're not with us, you're this terrible person.
And then you learn that lesson from the deplorable comment.
I think when the books are written on this decade,
political historians are gonna go, you know, the going all

(31:34):
in that everyone I don't like is Hitler was was
was a bad idea. That's a huge mistake. And I
think it's gonna cost them in mid terms. It obviously
cost them in we know that with hindsight. I think
it's going to cost them because they're not changing their ways.
They're just doubling down on the identity politics. And it's
not even identity politics. It's not if you said, we

(31:56):
need to have a more diverse government, we need to
encourage more people to run for office. Okay, more it's
more positive message. Yeah, that's different than saying everyone I
don't like is a Nazi, you know, and even more
bizarre when you say, well, I don't believe in socialism,
you're a nazi. Do you know? The second word in
National Socialist German Workers Party is socialist. It's almost like

(32:19):
you're being called pejoratives by people who don't even know
the pejorative meaning. It's not just reflexive, it's like they
feel like they have to do that. And I think
especially not with mainstream Democrats, but especially people who are
on the far left, the Democratic Socialists and things like that,
those ideas don't have any real mainstream appeals. So I
think they really feel like they have to call you that.

(32:40):
That's like kind of the law of last resort for
them is they have to demonize everyone who doesn't feel
the same way they do as being some sort of fascist.
You know. It's funny is that the people who will
call my program or send me nasty emails are tweets
that you get fascist, racist, you know, you know, all
these things and I'm pretty sure within two lines of

(33:00):
reading the email or thirty seconds of the call, that
you don't really understand what a fascist is. These are
just pejoratives who assigned to people that you don't like
that if you really understood how a fascist or national
socialist or communist economy worked, you wouldn't be saying to
people who lean libertarian that you're a fascist. I don't

(33:21):
think the garments, you're running healthcare, you're a Nazi. Wait
a second. It doesn't work, even even in a more
pragmatic sense. I mean, if you are on the far
far left, you're not gonna win votes. You're not going
to convince people to come over to your side by
constantly calling them fucking Nazis all the time. Like that's
not that's not an effective strategy. You also don't see
and I don't know if you guys, I'm sure you

(33:41):
covered this thing with Dan Crenshaw. I know, well yeah,
the first Now, what I find fascinating is I don't
agree with Tammy Duckworth. I would never, ever, even just
to set it up, I would would I mock her
missing limbs. You know, whether I agree with her politically
or not. That woman gave have of her body to
left half of her body on on the battlefield. That

(34:05):
with that said, my arguments with her would be on
economics or the Constitution or the tenth Amendment. And it
would the idea that when you're dealing and I thought
it was hysterical with John McCain that when John McCain
was running against Barack Obama, he was this god awful person.
But when you know he came into conflict with Trump
and it's like he's a veteran, he was a pow.

(34:26):
That's not what you said before that. But to be fair,
it's also because Trump's comments about McCain were I mean,
they were outright. I think there were worse than It
was funny listening to the people who were defending McCain,
who accused him of being a racist and in a
big years earlier that when you talk it's the same
thing though I'm trying to bring it into the military

(34:46):
that you look at what was said about Dan Crenshawn,
what has been said about conservative veterans. Conservatives would never
tolerate fellow conservatives using those kind of remarks against progressive veterans.
You know, John Kerry, you the anger at John Kerry
came from other veterans. It wasn't you know when you
look at disagreeing with a veteran. I would never mock

(35:08):
a veteran service, especially an injured one. Well, do you
want me to play? Let me play the quips since
we're talking about it. I didn't order to get into
right now, but it might as well. This is kind
of Dan Crenshaw. Come on, man, hold on. You may
be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas
and not a hit man in a porno movie. I

(35:31):
don't think that's that that's the problem by Sarah. That's
exactly said. Whatever. Yeah, let me go back to that.
This was the part. I'm sorry. I know he lost
his eye and war whatever that was really. I agree
said lost his iron war or whatever that that was
really because the first joke would have been a joil.
You know. Yeah, I agree entirely with what you just said.

(35:54):
And you know what, I want to play Dan Crenshaw's
response because I actually appreciated the fact that and Crenshaw
didn't say, like I'm outraged, we need to boycott NBC,
And I think it actually shows that I mean I
don't personally, as someone who is more right leaning and
does vote for more Republicans, I don't want us to

(36:15):
be the language police and the PC police, the way
that the Democrats have said, we can't have a pool
on the Simpsons anymore, you know what I mean. I
do think you have to be consistent in that. And
I like the fact that Dan Crenshaw's response was really classy.
So this is what he said to TMZ. I want
us to get away from this culture where we demand
apologies every time someone misspeaks. I think that would be
a very healthy for our nation to to go in

(36:36):
that direction. Uh. You know, we don't need to be
we don't need to be outwardly outraged. I don't need
to demand apologies from them. They can do whatever they want. Um,
you know, it's they're feeling the heat from around the
country right now, and that's that's fine. Like him and
Saturday Night Live to recognize something, which is that veterans
across the country probably don't as though their wounds they

(37:01):
received in battle should be the subject of a bad
punchline for a bad joke. And here's the real atrocity
of all this. It wasn't even funny. Right, it was
not original, It was not funny. It was just mean spirited.
And that's that. That's how I feel about it. I
laughed at that because that's Crenshaw just being like, bro,

(37:22):
it wasn't even funny, you know, Like you know what,
I'm sure you've seen this when you watch movies that
it was Hollywood. Pete Davidson is not responsible for this,
but Hollywood created the burned out Vietnam veteran. You know,
Hollywood has had a an odd relationship with the veteran community.
On one side, actor so desperately want to play green

(37:43):
berets and Navy seals and pilots. You know, they want
to be an epic films like Saving Private Ryan and
what have you. And then you know when it when
it turns on, you know, you look at the comedy side.
I mean, how many cousin Eddie from the Vacation movies?
You know, you have this these constant movies that that
have the burned out dangerous you know Travis Bickle veteran.

(38:08):
You know that leaves people really believing that veterans really
are dangerous and shouldn't be around your children or your
place of business. Yeah, I mean it's really weird, how
like being a Vietnam veteran was a kind of a
taboo thing socially, and I think it kind of the
first thing I think of actually think of one movie
except The Green Berets, maybe one movie that focused on

(38:30):
the heroism of men who went into the Vietnam. I'm
so out of this, I don't know movie. Well, well,
I think the one that really like popularized or commercialized
that that the notion of it is, um the Lethal
Weapon movies. When mel Gibson played like they they that
movie trying to make Special Forces tattoo. Yeah, they like
romanticized it, you know, being like the burned out, crazy

(38:53):
Vietnam veteran. And I think that kind of started like
a trope, you know in Hollywood. Do you have that
Special Force attenive? You know, the see what I'm talking about,
You're here to arrest Trixie. So I don't know, should
that be throat punch of the week. I I'll be honest,
I wasn't. I'm not a veteran. But at the same time,

(39:16):
I wasn't really ouraged. I know, Pete Dominic kind of
Pete Domin, Pete Davidson, you know because I work I've
worked with you so long that he was always in
our office. Pete Davidson, I know, it's very much like
a kind of over the top comic. I remember when
he would go on Opie and Anthony was he was
very like brutal. It's of comedy about his own father
dying in nine eleven. I you know a lot of comedians.

(39:37):
He was a police officer, right, there's a firefighter. I
feel like for some of these guys, if you can't
afford therapy, you go to open mic night. Like there's
some of these guys say things that you wouldn't say,
even kiddingly to someone who you know you might be
paying by the hour. It's like it's like there's some
weird self loathing thing about many comedians. And I'm not

(40:00):
saying it's all because there's some very funny people out there,
but some of them seemed to be very tortured people,
and like we're kind of laughing at their pain and
like you're not sure that they're kidding sometimes. Well, it's like, uh,
I think ice Cube said about the barber Shop movies.
You know he made it because like in a barber
shop there's things you can say there that you wouldn't
say anywhere else ever, And comedy is kind of the

(40:20):
same way, you know, comedy clubs and that that culture.
But there's there's you know, where's the funny? Where's the
funny here? Like Crenshaw said, the joke wasn't funny. People
laughed uncomfortably at that, you know, and it was he
didn't need to. I think if he just left it
at that first part, it would have been like, all right,
and moved on to some other traffic. But there was

(40:42):
that discomforting, this that unnecessarily and discomforting follow up that
I don't know that I felt the same way. I'm
not worried about by the way. In the end, I
think we're always gonna remember this is what I mean. Personally,
I don't I don't give a ship. And I think,
you know Dan friend Shall, we've had him on the
show before, and I mean, he's a down to earth guy.

(41:03):
It helps him in the end. I bet you there's
probably people who don't was he a medic, because next
time Pete Davison overdoses on some junk, he might need
Terry Shapherd to come rescue him. And I think You're
absolutely right, though, Andrew, like, if they were cracking jokes
on Tammy Duckworth, that would not have been okay with,
Like liberals would have gone, that wouldn't have been okay
with with anyone in your in the community either, right.

(41:25):
I don't, I don't. I think that people can disagree.
But I think if somebody went out there and made
some sick joke about Tammy Duckworth, I think veterans would
be like, whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I think I
think you're correct, um, but yeah, well, and I do
think this will be forgotten at some point. But as

(41:46):
I said, I bet you there's people who don't fother
their local congressional race and they're like, oh, this guy
is a Navy seal, uh, you know, risked his life
in combat. I'm gonna vote for him. I bet you'll
get him some votes. Yeah in Texas. Yeah, Chris Kyle
and Marcus Rail and yeah, I think well, I think, yeah,
is he doing well? By the way, because we had
I have not you know what I have. I have
not been tracking a lot of these house poles because again,

(42:10):
it's so boring to sit there for three hours and
talk about literally four and thirty five races. I realized
not all of them are toss ups. I realized that
some of them are Republican or Democrat are really secure.
But the polling data you're you're talking about a system
whereby which, first of all, it's predicatd up people picking
up the phone and then and then sitting there and

(42:31):
answering a series of questions where you don't even know
the nature of the question. I've I've answered some of
these things, and you know, they'll they'll ask you questions
and you don't even know why they're asking you. They
don't ask you straight questions. You can studer yourself a
liberal or conservative? Do you normally? It's it. They'll ask
you things like do you think health care should be restricted? Uh? No? Uh?

(42:56):
You know I know what you mean, because I I've
answered those political polls at times where they call your
cell phone just for the hell of it, and yeah,
it's a lot of like from one to ten, where
is this stuff like that? The worst is the robot poles,
because who the hell is sitting through I wouldn't care
if I got a robocoll that said hi, I think
Andrew Wilka is the greatest radio show on Earth Press.

(43:17):
Wonder if you agree, I'd be like off. You know,
a lot of these are the robot poles where you're
supposed to say like you said, They ask you a
series of questions from one to ten. Who is answering those?
You can't? Yeah, like little old ladies. You know how
many of them? Okay, I guess by by now they
have cell phones, but for the longest time they were

(43:38):
still relying on landlines. So I think I think the
polling has been so bad lately, and this belief that
some of these prognosticators like Nate Silver can't be wrong.
That guy was dead wrong, and like the and What's
what was really fascinating, um, and I was doing my
own live coverage, was the meaning had gone all in

(44:02):
that this Trump thing was just a show. It was
a joke. His idiot voters were eventually gonna learn their
lesson and we were going to move into the Clinton presidency.
And it almost became like this question of mental health
and well being for for the I'm with her crowd,
not just moderate Democrats are talking about the bumper sticker crowd.
And I feel like they did it again with this election.
They were ju July, they were sure blue wave, blue wave,

(44:26):
blue wave. And even this morning I flipped to I
was slipping the channels like Morning Joe, and there's Joe
Scarborough saying, I don't know, you know, like they're all
sitting there with these like dead pan bases, like like
like you know, you shouldn't you shouldn't go all in
on these things when you don't really know. That's why
I don't. I don't. Well, it's like they're trying to

(44:47):
build the enthusiasm, build a consensus like this is the
right side of history. You need to be with us.
And uh, I know we we've both talked about this before, Andrew,
but I don't know what if you have any additional
thoughts on this that I feel like since the Trump election,
we've seen even the facade of objectivity dropped, Like the

(45:07):
cards seem like they're really on the table media in
a way that they haven't been in the past, like
like this is if they are all in full tilt,
this is the agenda, Like you better get on board.
I think last time I was on with you guys,
we talked about new new media a little bit, and
I think what separates new media from traditional media is

(45:28):
we don't take the audiences intelligence for granted. I think
some of these people still think that this is Walter Cronkite,
it's the It's ninety voice from God, and whatever they
put on television is what it is. You know. Starting
with the Dan rather Dot National Texas Ter National Guard

(45:51):
document scandal, that's not the first time it was happy
it happened. It was the first time someone major got caught.
And I think the media did not say to what's
of you know, we're in a new era. We're in
an era of internet, you know, sleuths and and and
new media and if we lie again, we're gonna get
caught again. A lot more data transparency, a lot. I

(46:14):
think the media consumer is way more savvy today than
they were fifty years ago. And if you're gonna be
an opinion journalist, just say it. You know what people say, Well, Hannity, Hannity,
Ingram and Tucker aren't pretending they're doing the news. They're
pretty clear that what you're watching is an opinion news
talk show. Some of these programs on seeing an MSNBC

(46:35):
where they're trying to pretend they're just doing the news.
And here's what's happening. You can't watch that first thing.
I don't even think their audience believes. I think their
audience is rooting it on, Like give us your opinion,
you know, come on, Rachel Battell, tell us how much
you hate Donald Trump. The phony object You're right, the
phony objectivity is almost insulting at this point. How about

(46:56):
the lack of fact checking. I couldn't believe with the
Gilham race they reviewed as as a random voter. Did
you see the graphic they put up the other night
they put up a victory graphic they had there. They
had the graphic where they had already had Gilham had
the check and it had his percentage and they had
to take it down. What do you think the reason
behind that? I don't. I don't know, I don't. I mean, yeah,

(47:20):
it's like they've already decided who's gonna win and now
they have to manufacture the reality. And it's just kind
of spooky to see all of that that there's not
even a like I said, the facade of objectivity, it
isn't even there. Some of some of these and discredits journalism.
It does, And look, you're a journalism school grad. I'm
a journalism school grad. So I didn't go to journalism school.

(47:40):
I thought you went to Columbia School of Journalism. No,
my wife did. Okay, I was a political science okay,
political Sorry, just were you a journalism minor or? No,
it was radio and policy sign minor. No, well they
ask your wife. Some of these people, you know, reading
teleprompter is it's it's on skill. It's not a tough

(48:01):
thing to develop, but some people are better at it
than others. You notice when some of these anchors, especially
in the daytime programs, veer off the script and start,
you know, giving their own asking their own questions. You
get some real dumb moments, you know, on on on
the news, if you could call it the news, and look,
I get it, it's television. You have to have pretty

(48:22):
people doing these things. But somebody should be telling them
things like this, like Katie Turr, Like there's like the
Free Beacon has a whole montage of like facts she's
gotten wrong, um, screwing up districts, screwing up races, screwing
up amendments to the Constitution. It's kind of the audience
should not inherently no more than you. Yeah, I mean,

(48:43):
I don't think it was on his teleprompter when Don
Lemon said that white males are the biggest terrorists. That's
a perfect example of the doubling down on the stupidity
like that is a failed strategy right there, It doesn't work.
But the truth is, he'll always get behind you. It's crazy,
Like I'm not gonna go in there. I said that

(49:03):
in pazzling in by Radio, So I go, hey, when
it comes to white men, always know this, Don Lemon
is right behind you, Jesus, because you know what, you
can call that a homophobic remark. He could just condemn
an entire group of people for nothing, you know. And
it's interesting how they and that's not dangerous, you know that.
That's that's the funny thing is that when they talk

(49:24):
about dangerous rhetoric and responsibility in media and then they
go out and say things like the most the most
likely terrorists or the most dangerous group of people are
white males, It's like, okay, are you not hearing yourself? Well,
it's like they tell us all the time, and I
agree that not all Muslims are terrorists and we should

(49:44):
not demonize all Muslims like that that the left asks
us to see these nuances and things like like race, um,
like in gender. But then there are these other subjects
like the white male comment, where all the nuances stripped
right out of it and it's just black and white
white men are dangerous terrorists. Well, you know what there's
And I think there's a competition sometimes with progressives and

(50:09):
media who can say the because the most woke thing,
the most woke thing. And you know, if you're a
conservative and media, if you're or you're just an out
conservative in your in your life, you know, there are
some things that if you say it, it's different than

(50:29):
when somebody else says it. Right, Like there are people
that I you know, at work at Serious XM, I
don't breathe if they you know, if I'm in the
coffee room and I'm waiting for my cup of coffee,
I don't breathe. You know, there's there's there's there's no
body language, there's just you know, it's like waiting for
the super good day. I have an idea who they are,

(50:49):
Cafe Bona, you know. And I think the reason why
progressives are able to get away with this is that
they have been shielded, no outlook. It's changed a little
bit in the whole me too thing. Um, but they
have been shielded largely from the demands of their own
their own roommaking. And it's kind of the excuse. It's

(51:11):
okay when it's what, it's okay when we do it.
It's it's the same thing you see with antifa. It's
the same thing you see with some of the violence.
If you had videos of people kicking over campaign signs
or throwing coffee in somebody's face, or ripping hats off
of somebody's head, and they were conservatives, you the media.
One of my favorite things is that, look, I think

(51:32):
you could be an asshole without being a racist. I
think all racists are assholes, but not all assholes are racists.
And and and when you see these videos like, uh,
white woman barrates Asian woman in supermarket, she could be
an asshole without being a racist. You know that's the
but we get these. Yahoo is very good at this,

(51:53):
and so are some of the other clickbait sites, that
this is the social condition of every single we can
derive a social truth. This is a social truth. You know,
this is the list of things black women can't do, unless,
of course your candid. So when somebody throws a drink
in your face and then we don't talk about it.
But we've created now this this sort of like these
unwritten rules where none of us really know what they

(52:15):
are until we're prosecuted under them. And this is a
social condition that we that we have created. And oh look,
here's a YouTube video from some parking lot. You know, hey,
you know what I was going to ask you about that.
We got here from charities. You know, well, I mean
I wanted to get into the election. Oh, I realized
that the radio podcast is a is a well rounded

(52:37):
there's some I realized that Jack Murphy has much dimension.
I'm just saying that we've we've come, We've come far
down this week. We do plenty of jerrymandering up her own.
It's it's so no. You know what I wanted to
ask you though, is I feel like, just working with
you so long, I know almost as much about your
career as you do. Like the majority of your radio
career was spent during the Obama administration, because that was

(52:59):
eight years. I know that we're doing rock radio, you know,
and part of the Bush administration, but I mean that
was eight giant years. You didn't know anybody working for
the Obama administration. And then if you look at this administration,
we know people personally working with us who are there,
Guys like Ryan Zinky you've had on the show plenty
of times are in the administration. Like you've had people
go from serious X, I'm into the administration, Steve Bann

(53:19):
And so what's the difference for you and doing media
with an administration where you know a lot of the
guys there nothing? You know if when Trump and I
don't think he meant it seriously and I know it
wouldn't be possible when he said maybe I'll just change
the fourteenth Amendment, No you can't do that. Yeah, I have.
I have made it very clear that supporting the things

(53:41):
that President Trump does that makes sense the Conservatives does
not include a forgiveness for things he may say or
do that you know, if he says I can change
the Constitution with with an executive order, no you can't.
And the reason why I do that is because I
would say the exact same thing if it were Barack Obama.
That that when we look at things presidents seek the

(54:04):
power to do. If you're if you're a true conservative,
constitutionalist or libertarian, you have to be willing to say
no president can do this. There are crowds on both sides.
Republicans do it as well, that I like it when
my guy does it. I am not an I like
it when my guy does it kind of guy that
if you want to change a piece of legislation, you

(54:25):
want an amendment the constitution, you want to exercise authority,
it has to be within the scope of your enumerated powers.
If it's not, you are you're operating outside the constitution.
But don't you think he says stuff like that just
to dominate the media cycle for like, however seventy two
hours so he can keep them on that he can
just own the media. It avazes me how the media

(54:45):
it's complicit in it. Yeah, they just I mean even
John Stewart has come out and said, you guys are
playing narcissism. That this president's speaking style is so unique
to modern e A presidents that you know, if somebody said,
President Trump, would you just eliminate an amendment? Yeah? Share,

(55:06):
you know, like like you know, he has a whatever whatever,
you know, we'll put these people work camps whatever, whatever. Man. Yeah, Yeah,
putting put putting nuclear weapons on the moon. Yeah, we're
gonna do that, you know, like he he just I yeah,
I don't want to excuse any of that, that reckless
kind of speech. But at the same time, we have

(55:26):
to for our own mental health, we have to start
to understand, like that is not a realistic possibility. He's
just saying stupid ship and tomorrow it's going to be
something different. And I think, you know, his counsel, I
think even I think even his most ardent supporters in
the administration, I think Mike Pence would walk right into
the overlabs. It comes to president, you cannot change the

(55:47):
postitution with with an executive order. Uh. But see, this
is also part of the problem, is that in that
it's okay when my guide does it kind of things.
The meeting the Democrats gave Obama really wide latitude to
do things. Uh. The killing of Anwar al Alawi. Look,
this is this is soft rip. Right. We know the

(56:08):
world is a better place without on War Alacky, but
you can't drone strike an American citizen's son without kid.
They killed his kid, and the media, the media did
did not make that a bone to pick with the administration.
When the media was wire tapped by the administration. Their
response was I love you the beast and furious um.

(56:29):
DOCTA was a fundamental change in how how we look
at immigration with the with with an Article to power,
and because the media gave so much, it was it
was almost amazing to watch the media on day one
of the Trump administration pretend that Article two powers didn't
transfer and that president hadn't been set And this is why, again,

(56:50):
it's not okay when my guy does it. They were
pretending like Trump invented the global War on terror and
Trump invetted the executive where he invented North Korea? Where
the hell have you guys been? This is why consistency
and Obama mocked consistency. You know, I remember Ted Cruz
famously saying, you know, I don't want Obama issuing any

(57:11):
more issuing these executive orders, because I don't think any
president should be issuing these types of executive orders. And
if an executive order is directly related to an Article
to Power a piece of legislation, that's a different story.
But the whole cloth create policy that that circumvents specific
and numerated powers of Congress in Article one, that is

(57:31):
not what a president is supposed to be doing. And
we have tolerated a lot. We have tolerated um case
law President from the Supreme Court, we have we have
tolerated a lot of things big government has done. And
then we get mad when the sea changes and the
other side is in power and they go, oh, oh,
now we can do it too. Instead of saying, you

(57:51):
know what, tenth amendments a good thing, it's a very
cynical approach to politics that you know, we're just gonna
use these things as weapons against our political opponents. But
then when our personal party of Choices in office, we're
going to ignore all of it. If we try to
imagine the cottage industry of activism, both on the legal

(58:13):
side and the street organizing side, if we restricted, let's say,
the Supreme Court to its Article three powers and said no,
no federal policy could come out of the Supreme Court.
They could turn back laws, they could strike down laws,
but they can't replace laws with other laws. So if
Jane Row thinks that, you know, an abortion of federal
ban on abortion or abortion restrictions unfair, will settle this

(58:36):
back in Congress or back in the state where she resides.
Try to imagine if you couldn't get a gay marriage
law of the Supreme Court. You had to fight it
out the state level or fight for a piece of
legislation where marriage is not even mentioned in the constitution.
So it really would be if the the fighting, the
constant fighting over things that the Constitution was not designed

(58:58):
to resolve at the federal went away. You have an
entire industry of people who's entire career is the is
the grievance industry? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,
But isn't the reason why marriage licenses exist wasn't it
to stop interracial marriage? Back it was to stop the undesirables,
which included, yes, interracial marriage. You know they made that

(59:19):
that that movie Loving because that's the Loving case. You know.
It's funny. And I've debated this many times, sometimes with
the gay rights activists, and they'll say, well, you conservatives,
don't you know you wouldn't let blacks and whites marrying,
you don't want gays to marry. And I'll say things like,
but I don't see that in the constitution. I don't
even know why we're talking about the function here. Why

(59:40):
does our government even because if the garden because because
here's my my simple as I'm I'm a human events
kind of person. Okay, you passed a law that says
that says these people can't get married, but how do
you stop them procreating? Right? So clearly, clearly this piece
of paper didn't stop them from doing what you want
them to do, and you have no real way to
police that that that why don't we look at ways

(01:00:01):
to get the government out of things instead of the
government issue? And the more things we get the government into,
the more things we're gonna be fighting over with the government.
If we get government out of more things, we will
be a happier people. And I know that I argue
this all the time that the tenth Amendment, if you
don't want you'll hear people say, well, I hate Betsy Devaz,

(01:00:22):
I don't want her running education, right, So why don't
down to the states? Why don't we kick it down
to the states and you can run education in California,
and Texas will run education, and the Laboratory of Good
Ideas or will will determine which state has made the
right choice, and we'll go forward from there. But there's
this sense that if we aren't doing if it isn't

(01:00:43):
central planning. It's nihilism if we haven't, if we aren't
doing everything from the hub of Washington, it's just some
sort of like Hobbsy and Nightmare where you know, it's
brother against brother in the streets, you know, with lawlessness
and anarchy. Right, And I think, you know, I think
this is one thing I don't like about the academic progressives,
freeing freeing people who just vote Democrat is the fundamental

(01:01:06):
distrust that people can't be trusted to run their own
lives on any level that we need we need. We
We have a school not far from here called the
New School of Social Research, and it's literally the the
Harvard of Social Justice Warrioredom, where these people are trying
to figure out how to run your life for the
moment you you know, born, to the minute you die,
basically like you know, a Soviet state. Yes, I mean

(01:01:28):
that is like a hallmark that I see in the
way we talk about guns and blowing ship up. Just
I do want to do We will get into this, okay,
I mean when we have you an intellectual Jack Murphy,
but tell me something about but you're the talk radio
political we can do this. Yeah, no, I know, but
I think you're right, it's a drinking fighting and fucking

(01:01:50):
do you need me talking about that. I realize there's
sensitive ears in the room, but you've cursed. It's something
with the far left. They're really they don't believe if
that any of us can be trusted with our own
thoughts and ideas and opinions, and we need some ivory
zero of what we're supposed to believe, what we're allowed.
I remember when Brooklyn was this hodgepodge of places you

(01:02:13):
wouldn't go at two o'clock in the morning, and now
the hipsters have taken over absolutely, you know. Actually on
the topic of um, like you know, national security and
all that, something we've talked about a lot on the show,
and I'm wondering your take. Do you think that um
Maddis is being pushed after John Bolton because it's a
very different ideology. I don't know. Um, Well, we're on

(01:02:34):
the sixty minutes interview where he said I think Mattis
is kind of a Democrat. That's it was a weird statement.
I don't know that Maddis is a political guy exactly,
so that's why it was a strange statement. The guy,
I think it's been as a political as you can get.
I think I think that that obviously that if you're
somebody like Maddis, you think differently about war than somebody

(01:02:58):
like Bolton. Um. That's not to say that Bolton doesn't
have good ideas or thoughts or isn't relevant to the
subject matter, but I think there is a different but
different view if you've won the uniform and if you
haven't won the uniform. I think that's that's natural. But
that the National security consultant apparatus is filled with people

(01:03:19):
that I mean, you could watch any given you know program,
and you know, isn't it kind of amazing that you
could have never gone to the to the FBI Academy,
the FBI director. You know that we have We have
experts in the field who have never actually done the work,
they've just been appointed in. Bolton is one of those guys.
He's a draft dodger. He copped out of Vietnam and

(01:03:39):
now he sees the military it's like this plaything that
he can just deploy our troops wherever topple governments and
it's just his little Syrianni idea that we're going to reshape.
I don't share them you know, I I don't share
the military adventurism things. It's it's easy to say, you know,
we should just you know, who's the way, you know,
because because John Bolton and going nowhere, he ain't going

(01:04:01):
he ain't going over. At the same time, the understanding
of foreign policy dictatorial and or dangerous governments, you know,
is something that a civilian can obviously add to the mix.
And look looks must be honest. Trump hasn't proposed getting
isn't in crazy wars. He's actually been pretty restrained. I

(01:04:21):
would say for somebody with such a hot headed personality,
he's really kind of kind of pulled back. And I
know they're gonna be criticism of putting the military on
the border. I mean again, I see what you're saying
with that. Megan was the most conservative president and we
didn't have any big conflicting I mean, Trump has made
those comments about like fire and fury in North Korea,

(01:04:44):
but I see what you're saying. He's he hasn't gone
the opposite way, then he hasn't been His advice on
that came from madness, by the way, about moving ships
into into the you know, the South China Sea, and
so forth. Yeah, well, Maddis is he understands what's going
on in China and he's trying to get us back
in his South China. See. But I I think, man,
it has been pumping the brakes on a lot of
this stupidity. Um, but you're right. Trump has not been

(01:05:06):
going around trying to start World War three like a
lot of us were afraid of him doing. But I think,
I think, but that was the fear with Ronald Reagan.
They they they were afraid that Ronald Reagan was going
to start World War three. And Ronald Reagan did not
get us into any conflict. As a matter of fact,
the more progressive the president, the more likely the conflict
we've gotten into in the past hundred and five. And

(01:05:27):
that's a that's an interesting comment. And I mean, you're
not wrong if you look at what or the Clinton administrations.
He kept us out of war in Europe. We went
FDR in Europe, we went and Japan, Truman in into
Korea because LBJ Inoviet. The more progressive you are ideologically,
the more likely you are to have this belief that

(01:05:48):
we need to spread democracy all over the world and
make the rest of the world look like us. It's
like this ideological fallacy that these presidents and and just
people in general have is that we feel like we
need to make the rest of the world to look
more like America. Um. And that's just one, a facet,
a cornerstone of that ideology. And it's not to say
that they're the only ones. I mean, George W. Bush

(01:06:09):
obviously had his mind captured by those types of people,
which is why, as we've said on the show before,
bringing a John Bolton and this into this administration it
kind of echoes those things of why there was a
huge base of people who weren't big supporters of the
Bush family in general, and they were like, Trump is
going to be different. I thought, is as as you know,

(01:06:31):
status quo as it gets, you're never going to have
an administration that's absent of personalities from previous administrations. Mattis
is so well whited. I don't want to see him
pushed out. No, I haven't been following. I haven't been
following whether or not. I have not seen anything that
says he's, you know, being pushed out. Yeah, we'll see
what happens there. I'm not saying it's not gonna happen

(01:06:52):
I'm just saying I haven't you know, and then I
wanted to get into this article as well. I want
to make sure we talk about this. This is on
the news rep right now, written by stavros Um out
of San Diego, California. I'm gonna read the whole article
because it's really short. A second Navy seal has been
charged with war crimes on the alleged um killing of
an Islamic state prisoner in Iraq last last year. As

(01:07:14):
the ranking officer on the ground, Lieutenant Jacob Jake Portier
is accused of covering up another seal's war crimes. Special
Operations Chief Edward Eddie Gallagher has been accused of stabbing
to death and isis detainee. More specifically, Lieutenant Portier phases
an Article thirty two hearing for dereliction of duty. Although
the seal officer was not president at the alleged execution,

(01:07:37):
he is accused of not reporting Gallagher's actions up the
chain of command. Lieutenant Portier was the platoon leader of
Chief Gallagher. An Article thirty two hearing is a requirement
before a general court martial is adjoined. The hearing determines
whether there is sufficient evidence in proceed to the to
proceed to the next phase. According to investigators from the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Lieutenant Portier in chief Gallagher are

(01:08:02):
not the sole targets of the war crimes probe. It
appears that the n c i S is investigating, um,
more than a dozen seals in the leadership of the
Naval Special Warfare Group one, which was responsible for addressing
any war crime allegations. UM. I guess I don't need
to get into the rest, but I mean you've spoken
about before that this has been a ongoing problem with
the Seals, with specifically Seal Team six. So yeah, I

(01:08:26):
don't have any you know, particular insights or insider knowledge
on this specific case. Um, It'll be interesting to see
how it turns out, though. UM, you know, there was
word leaking out that the investigation was ongoing because they
were thinking of charging additional seals with what had happened
out there. This is number two. Uh, we'll see what

(01:08:46):
else happens though. Uh. I am not just following this story.
I've been wrapped up in this in this mid term election.
It's pretty new too. This is not you know, there's
I don't think there's a whole lot out. Yet there's
the I mean, this is still ongoing. And then the
other one is the alleged murder of Staff Sergeant Melgar
and Molly dev Group operators. Um, and we're waiting on

(01:09:11):
that to go to Nobody wants try that. I only
lightly followed that one. Um. You know, one thing about
my program is if a topic is not a debatable
topic that I have that that I have a an
ability to debate myself, that we're it's not that we
ignore these things on purpose. Is that? What's the debate

(01:09:33):
if if you have something like a you know, seals
are accused of killing a green Berret sergeant. Well, that's
obviously awful. Uh. And I think nobody who's a veteran
or a civilian wants to believe that's something like that
would possibly happen, that that something would happen within the
ranks of the Special Operations community that would lead to

(01:09:54):
a I mean, I know it's a sick term friendly fire,
but not even a friendly fire like it's an a
like a purposeful fragging killing. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that
you know, as more comes out, it will be covered
on the website. So that's at the news rep dot com.
Stab Roast did that article. I'm sure there's gonna be
more that comes out. UM before we get out of here,

(01:10:15):
I do want to, of course mention what we have
going on at Create Club UM. As I've talked about,
people were really anticipating that NFW Watch collaboration, which you
now have. UM that is in the current premium crate.
We have different tiers of membership depending on how prepared
you want to be, and gift options are available as well.
So Scott Whittner from the load out room and the
guys are currently working on bringing you custom products in

(01:10:41):
everything from sunglass cases to E d C bags and
other manly products. It's a club fore men by men.
You can check that all out and manly at Create
Club dot Us. Once again, that's Create Club dot Us.
If you're a dog owner, we have Kuna right now.
UM we have a We've partnered with them. They have
a team of trained canine handlers picking out a box

(01:11:02):
froy dog each month of healthy treats and training aids.
It's custom builds for your dog's size and age, so
it doesn't matter what type of dog you have, it's
custom built for them. The products are US sourced, all natural,
and they not only promote a healthy diet, but they
also promote being active with your dogs. So whether we're
talking to pitbull, it doesn't matter what type of dog,
this is what you're looking for. You can see all

(01:11:24):
of that at Kuna dot Dog. That's c U n
A dot d o G subscribe now. And then, of course,
as I've been mentioning every show the speck Ops channel, um,
you can watch all of those inside the team rooms.
I know some people have been wondering, like where are those?
Those are not? My favorite is inside the team m
rays say that you had a really you had a

(01:11:44):
great host there. That guy was great. He would spot
on And I don't think it's in there. Remember Jim
West's story about us, Yes, and we don't think Jerry
Shepherd because he just said he just said it. Yeah,
I don't. I don't know if. Yeah, I think we
ended up censoring who he taught, who he spoke about,
right enough, But uh, you know there's nonetheless I'll say

(01:12:07):
it right now. It's uh yeah, I wouldn't rescue right now,
but it's uh the spec Ops channel. Uh check that
out right now. Spec ops channel dot com a month.
That's for a limited time off your membership. Um. We
have the app developed by Chris who does all of
our stuff. So we have the SOFTWAUP radio app. Now,
I actually just got an emails checking the emails today

(01:12:28):
of where is the radio show on the news rep app?
We have a SOFTWAREP radio app. And I mean the
show has been getting more listens than ever now that
we're on like Spotify, we're doing these YouTube videos. Um,
it's it's just great to see we're you know, hitting,
we're hitting a larger demo than we ever had before.
I am always checking statistics and uh, you know, especially

(01:12:49):
the Dale Comstock interview not even four hundred the one
before that got like a huge amount of listening. If
you haven't listened to it, the last one with Dale Comstock,
He's like, I hope and he said this in self
so I can say it. He's like, I hope the
next time I'm on with you guys, I'm not live
via skype from a prison cell. Well he's literally and
and you know, I was like, you know, what's the

(01:13:11):
response that we've gotten from that episode? And he was like, well,
you know, my lawyer called me and he was like
shut your mouth, stop talking on podcasts and all this stuff.
So I'm thankful that he's willing to come on with
On that note, about that specific subject, I saw that
the French have filed something with the International Criminal Courts
to charge Australians who have been fighting in Yemen with

(01:13:34):
the Emiratis UM. And one of them is the guy
I mentioned in my article about Yemen, uh my kind
Marsh at least he's mentioned in the in the article
I wrote about the I s c Um that they're
they're specifically looking at all of these Australian dudes who
have gone over there to fight in Yemen um as
contractors or they've been they second to themselves into the

(01:13:56):
Emirati military UM. So it's gonna be interesting to see
how that plays out. And do we have any idea
what the punishment is going to be for these guys.
We don't even know if it's going to go to trial.
And then also forgive my ignorance on this one, you know,
del his explanation was, these are allies of ours? Are
they allies of Australia? I mean they're part of notionally

(01:14:18):
or I guess part of the international coal edition against Icens.
Is that it? Yeah, but I mean I don't know.
I don't think that's going to hold up in court. Yeah,
well we'll see. I mean, I'm I'm looking forward to
more articles on that. But once again, the Vet Ride
is being held this coming Sunday. If you're listening, you know,
I know people listen weeks later, but you're listening this

(01:14:39):
week November eleven, nine am to eleven am at Emmett
Looney's two ten West fifty Street the right. The broadcast
is one to four pm. The ride is rallying up
at from nine eleven. Kickstands up and then they hit
I eighty West three in the Lincoln Tunnel. Yeah, because
actually I'm thinking Elis probably isn't even open at nine,

(01:15:00):
so when should people start getting their noon? Yeah, you know,
eleven o'clock they opened for lunch. And if you're the
unlucky guy that I am, before you've an eat breakfast,
Jim West makes you do two double shots of Jamison
whiskey on an empty stomach and then you have to
go on the air. I've never seen Jim drink hard
before he made me do it. I'll probably be there again.
I mean he's around, So anything else that you want

(01:15:21):
to get to before we wrap something, all right, Well,
thank you and thanks for coming in as always. I mean,
I always appreciate seeing you. It's it's so funny in that, like,
you know, for the audience that doesn't know me, You
Mike been spent pretty much five hours a day with
each other for a good I'm trying to think how long,
six years or so, and uh, I mean, it's just

(01:15:43):
it's been a different dynamic in my life. I'm not
gonna lie. Remember he was a college kid, a girl.
That's true. I met you while I was in college
before the election was really old, and you basically breastfed
this kid, Andrew. You suckled him from I mean, I've
said it before and I definitely don't mind saying it again.

(01:16:04):
When when I was in college, I was you know,
taking radio class and stuff and driving around the parking
lot having to go to um, you know class, and
I would have Andrew shown before I ever met him,
and you know, knew him personally. And I remember like
showing up late for class because I was too captivated
by what he was talking about. It's true. I got
and then when John Mullen who works at w R

(01:16:25):
h U. He was like, we have, um, you know,
two guys coming for the election I covered. He was
like Alex Bennett in this cow Guys something cow like.
Andrew woke out and he was like yeah and and
so I was excited to meet you. And then from there,
like it's just one of those interesting things. Man. I
was working at Serious because I was interning at Fangoria originally,
but like, your show was a show I really wanted

(01:16:46):
to work on, and I made it happen. And I
think it just is one of those things if you
really work hard, it's something you really want to make
something happen, you can make it happen. Like working for you,
getting to do stuff on air with you there was
totally a dream for me. And we get to still
hang out to have you on UM. The website is
welcome Majarity dot com at WelCom and check out the
CRTV show. I haven't I'll be honest. I see the

(01:17:08):
quips that you post on Twitter. I see a lot
of the stuff that you do of what is it
like twenty questions or thirty questions? Nineteen questions were so hip?
We do nineteen and it was, you know, it was
a way I am not somebody in this business that's
so threatened by people trying to do what I do
because you know, it's weird. I remember being the new guy,
and I remember one of my first attempts at getting

(01:17:33):
into radio out of college. I went to my home
radio station, w b A B out in Long Island,
and I was sure, you know, I had been on
this fifty thousand watch station in Florida while I was
in college, you know, not college radio, real radio. And
I went in the hand in my demo tape and
I the woman took it from me, and I could
hear the ping of the garbage can before I even
got out the door. Like I I heard the ping

(01:17:56):
of the studio the like you know, hitting the you know,
the old cassettes, and the I heard it hit the
garbage can before I even walked out the door. And
you know, when I was an intern, even before that,
I remember saying, if I ever get anywhere in this business,
I'm never going to treat people around me like I'm
being treated right now. And that person and I work
together and we've made peace over that, and he's a
nice guy now. But he was in a tough position then. Um.

(01:18:19):
So you know, when it comes to making opportunities for
other people, one of the things I want to do.
A lot of the people at CRTV or brand new
at this and I thought, why not, you know, when
their guests introduced them to when you know, to people
that know me better, and you know, kind of give
the back story on them and get to know them
a little bit better, because you know, look, this business

(01:18:41):
is it's full of egos. There are people that are
threatened by people trying to come up in the business,
even though they came up in the business themselves. They
feel they need to pull the ladder up. Um. I'm
not one of those people. So if I can help
any of the careers of the younger people trying to
do what I was doing fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago,
I'm all about that. And that first job that those

(01:19:01):
kids have working for you has such a big impression
on them for the rest of their No. I mean,
we're talking about some of the younger personalities coming on
my show as a guest, and then I go, we
have a second segment we do called nineteen Questions, and
we just kind of you know, I asked them, you
know a series of you've done some of them with
some high profile people. Um, but we we really really

(01:19:22):
designed it more to get to know some of the
some of the younger people. I mean, Den he has
done it. You know some of the people that you
know from from Fox or formerly. So one of them
was I don't remember that his name, but he kind
of became famous on YouTube and I guess now he's
on CRTV. He's like a big crowter, No, not crowder.
He's kind of seems like a military type dude. I
don't know. Graham Allen and Graham Allen, Graham Allen. Yeah,

(01:19:44):
he started he started ranting on YouTube and they gave
him a show. Um, but what is his backer? To
see a military guy? Yeah, army. Um, I don't know
all about his his background, but I know he was
in the army and I know he deployed. But but
just to the to the business end of it, not
that I'm I don't know how many budding radio or
podcasters you have listening that you know this business. You

(01:20:05):
you've worked at Serious x M, you you've worked in
around terrestrial people. You know that there's a very it's
a very guarded business um. There it is hard to
find people that are encouraging of of others, especially young
people trying to break in. There is a certain level
of feeling. And look, don't get me wrong, there are
times I feel that way, you know, but I feel like,

(01:20:27):
how my God is you know, is the world changing
in my being left behind? Is? You know? Who's all
this new crop of people? But I don't think it
gets you anywhere to be a hindrance to someone else's career.
You know, if you can help them, I think it's
a good thing. Well. The difference to me now with
podcasting is the fact that you don't need that personal
like give you the approval. You're not working for a

(01:20:49):
big company, and there are people who come out of
nowhere and make an audience for themselves and including I'm
forgetting his name you no, no, no, I'm talking. I'm
talking about the guy that you had, the army guy Graham.
Yeah Graham, But he he didn't have He wasn't working
for a company. He just was ranting on Facebook, right YouTube. Yeah,
So all the world has changed, and it definitely has.

(01:21:10):
I mean, I do think there's something to be said
for like learning your craft a little and working for
a bigger company, but I mean podcasting YouTube and it's
it has definitely changed the game. I remember I I
you know, I remember Tommy Larn like before she was
Tommy Larn emailing us for like you to come on
and Brandon to come on. And she was doing it
like a tiny little studio. And now here's here's the

(01:21:32):
day about this. You could put the smartest thing on YouTube, right,
you could sit down if you're a hot chicken. You know,
my my wife is all into this stuff called bar
class now and and and you know, because you know,
she searches out, you know, some of these bar moves
and and things. There are some odd things that have
come up my YouTube feed. I'm like, what is this

(01:21:54):
thing called a bikini hall? And it's like, how does
this girl who's literally just in her bedroom trying on
bathing suits and giving reviews of them getting two million views?
Whereas like, you know, you can have the smartest person
sit down and explain you know, the the the you know,
the origins of the universes, and they get like three
thousand views. So you are up against that if you're

(01:22:15):
trying to stick your claim in the world of YouTube
or or Facebook lives or podcasting. Very true, very true.
All right, well, great to do this as always, man,
and uh wrapping things up here. Check out dot com
for speed. Yeah, like, guys, who lost that love and feeling?
We we originally us we originally we're just using the

(01:22:38):
top gun theme. And I remember being like Brandon, we're
gonna get flagged. We like, we need to just get
rid of this. So John Burns b y r n
e S, it's all gonn play volleyball without our shirts gun.
I was like, just give me something that's pretty much
the top gun theme but different. So that's what this is.
All right, Thanks as always, guys, Thanks and you appreciate it. Man.

(01:23:36):
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Ep. 402 - Andrew Wilkow

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 402 - Andrew Wilkow