April 19, 2025 • 11 mins
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor and host Kelly Tshibaka share parallel journeys of pivotal life choices—Taylor abandoning his Air Force dreams for law, and Kelly fighting for 9/11 detainees against institutional resistance. Their conversation explores how following convictions at critical moments shapes character and destiny.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to Stand .
We're on our last segment.
You're with Kelly and NikkiChewbacca.
That was an amazing interview.
We just had with Treg Taylor,our current Attorney General for
the state of Alaska.
The part of the interview thatstood out to me the most, or
that had the biggest impact onme, was when he told his story
about that big sacrifice he madeat the beginning of his journey
(00:25):
, when he gave up on hislifelong dream to go into the
Air Force and instead pivotedand became a lawyer and in a
sense you know he followed hisdream and has become a fighter
for all Alaskans and hasactually stood up for all
Americans in joining theselawsuits against the Biden
administration that are going tocontinue to play out into the
(00:46):
Trump administration's tenure,as we set precedent for law
across the country.
But it was a really harddecision to have to sit there
without any cause but followwhat he really felt like the
Lord was telling him to do andwalk away from that dream.
And we saw how much emotion hehas, even all these decades
later, of giving up on a dreamlike that.
How did that affect you?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You know, it was just a really stirring reminder of
the importance of courage tofollow through on our
convictions and that when we dothat, good things happen.
It doesn't necessarily meanlife is easy, but we can lay our
heads on our pillows and ourconsciences can be at peace
(01:33):
about it.
And I really appreciated thisin particular about it.
I appreciated General Taylor'svulnerability, his transparency
and, of course, the courage heshowed in that decision, because
we are all benefiting rightfrom that decision.
All these years later I willnot say decades, because,
(01:54):
general Taylor, you are not thatold but I will say all of these
years later, alaskans arebenefiting from the courage of
that decision and in addition tothat, you know when we make
those little in this case it wasa big choice but those
decisions to follow ourconscience, to follow what we
believe we're being led to doand to do what's right it
(02:19):
becomes a pattern in our livesand eventually becomes our
character and ultimately becomesour destiny.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I think we heard that in General Taylor's story
because, like you said, he wentfrom, he always had that fight
in him, right where he wanted todo something to serve his
country to serve his fellow man,and it was like God just
redirected him and said this iswhere I want you to go and this
is what I want you to do.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And he's been doing it ever since, and we just heard
about the amazing work that heand the Department of Law have
been doing, along with otherattorneys general across the
country, to not only undo whatthe Biden administration has
done to really unravel thefabric of our democracy in a lot
of ways and harm Alaska, butalso to take more of a proactive
(03:11):
stance, I think, going forwardwith the Trump administration.
We have an administration nowthat is you can say whatever you
think of it, whether you likeit or not.
One thing you can say aboutthis administration is they are
taking incredibly strong, bold,proactive moves to establish the
vision that Trump has forAmerica and America's future and
(03:34):
that we all voted him intooffice to execute.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Those are all hard decisions.
I was curious if you had astory about a time you had to
make a decision like GeneralTaylor did.
I know I have two stories Ithought would be interesting to
share and I imagine that youhave a story or two as well,
having shared life with you.
I remember at the beginning ofour marriage I was accepted to
Oxford, which at the time hadbeen my lifelong dream, similar
(04:02):
to what Trey Taylor shared withus.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, I was going to say that was my first major
courageous decision was choosingto ask you to marry me.
That took a lot of courage.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Actually, that might be a really good story to share.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I will not share that publicly.
Yet Go ahead, our engagementstory, our engagement story,
that's a really great story.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
For another time, maybe?
Yeah.
So, having gotten into the PhDprogram at Oxford, we faced a
decision where we could havebeen separated for several years
, while Nikki started his lawcareer and I pursued the PhD, or
we could have chosen to do whatwas best for our marriage, and
instead I made the choice to dowhat was best for our marriage,
and that required laying downthis big dream, and the big
(04:42):
dream would have been to havehad a PhD in theology and got
accepted to one of the collegesat Oxford, and that was all in
the bag.
But then, all these years later, as Nikki knows, we ended up
planting and pastoring a church,and we've now been doing that
for 19 years, and so we have allthe benefits that would have
(05:03):
come with the seminary degree,but without having sacrificed
our marriage.
So, in the same way that TreyTaylor's story worked out, he
ends up fighting for Alaskansand Americans, but in a
different way than he thoughthis path would originally go.
And another one that I thoughtthat came to mind was just about
how, in my first job out of lawschool, I worked for the
(05:25):
Department of Justice and myboss brought a case to me where
he asked me to reinvestigate aninvestigation that had been done
by our inspector general'soffice.
I was supposed to just edit itand finalize it, make sure it's
good for publication.
The investigators had lookedinto allegations that there had
been physical abuse by guards ata prison in New York against
(05:47):
inmates that had been arrestedafter September 11th on
suspicion that they'd beeninvolved.
They hadn't been involved, butthey said there had been no
abuse and the inspector generalthought that there were some
holes in the case, so he askedme to reinvestigate it.
I was just out of law schooland there were some things I
thought really needed to bepressed in on and I just you
(06:08):
know, like you said, nikki, withthat dogged determination, that
there was just something herethat didn't seem right.
I ended up really digging intothe case and not letting go
until I got to the bottom of it,including finding hundreds of
videotapes that the heads of theDepartment of Justice had said
had been destroyed, but theyhadn't been, and they showed
evidence that the guards badlyabused these detainees.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Was this the Department of Justice or the
Bureau of Prisons that said theywere destroyed?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The Department of Justice had said they were
destroyed, as well as the Bureauof Prisons.
But the BOP is in theDepartment of Justice and this
case involved the FBI, the DOJ,the BOP and people even at the
head of the Department ofJustice, and so it goes all the
way up to the US Supreme Courtbecause of what we found in this
investigation that I did and itends up.
I just recently realized ittook 20 years for them to
(06:56):
resolve and finalize this entirecase.
Several of the guards ended upgetting terminated.
Later one of the guards, one ofthe prison captain, ends up
going to jail and they ended uppaying out the detainees over a
(07:17):
million dollars who were thedefendants in the case or who
brought the case.
So I thought that was aninteresting example as well Just
things early in my career ofyou know, taking a stand and
taking courage and saying youknow there's something here
worth fighting for and notbacking down.
What's a story you have?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, I mean I, you know.
I mean I don't like to talkabout my stories too much, so
I'd like to actually, like Isaid, my biggest one is and my
best and wonderful, mostcourageous decision was marrying
.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Most courageous.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That was terrifying, and it takes courage every day
to walk along this side, thisformidable and amazing woman.
But I wanted to get to GeneralTaylor's work as an attorney
general.
He talked about education beingan incredibly important thing.
(08:03):
That's near and dear to hisheart.
Near and dear to the hearts of,I know, of all of us Alaskans
and, of course, across thecountry, because right now we're
seeing a huge sea change and aseismic tectonic shift in how
education is being handled now,with the Department of Education
, effectively, from a practicalstandpoint, essentially being
wound down Right.
(08:25):
And such, so that the federalmonies can actually be placed in
the hands of our states, ourstate leaders, because we're the
ones who know best how to takecare of and educate our kids.
We have a very diverse systemacross this country, very
diverse communities strugglingwith different kinds of things,
(08:47):
and so to have one size fits allkinds of approaches coming up
from the federal government hasnever been the best way.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And I agree that we will do a better job with
determining that if everybody'sinvolved.
I'm very concerned aboutdecisions that are being made at
the local level in education inAlaska when we have dropped so
substantially from rankingpretty high when I was in public
school here to now being oftennumber 51 in a United States of
50 states in terms of educationscores.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, no, that's, that's.
But what I was really gratifiedand encouraged to hear was
General Taylor's passion forthat subject and seeing what we
can do, you know, from a policystandpoint, what are the things
that he can do in his positionand in working with the governor
and working with the Trumpadministration to really up our
(09:36):
game, because we're denying ourkids the future that they all
deserve to have when we don'tmeet our basic responsibilities
of just teaching them how toread and do math Rather than
some of the other.
I'm not even going to get intoit, but the other things that we
seem to have been focusing ongetting back to the basics and
(09:56):
the foundations of what are thethings that they need to know in
order to flourish Succeed.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
The things needed for human flourishing, and reading
and writing and arithmetic hasalways been at least a basic
foundation of that.
Leave the values to the parents.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Focus on the basics of what they need to feed their
brains.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I think that's a wonderful example of how well
this attorney general has foughtfor the values and rights of
Alaskans and I appreciate, likeyou said, the courage that Trey
Taylor has demonstrated intaking on the fight with the
Biden administration and theoverreach of government in
Alaska and the overreach ofgovernment in Alaska and on
(10:36):
behalf of Alaskans, and inpartnering with other attorney
generals across the UnitedStates in order to protect and
preserve the rights of allAmericans.
We are so grateful that TregTaylor came on the episode.
Thank you, treg, and we arelooking forward to having
another amazing episode of Stand.
You were with Kelly and NikkiChewbacca and we are hoping to
make courage contagious.
You can find all of ourepisodes at stanshoworg and we
(11:01):
will be happy to see you on ournext show.
Stand by and stand strong andstand firm.
Welcome back to Stand .
We're on our last segment.
You're with Kelly and NikkiChewbacca.
That was an amazing interview.
We just had with Treg Taylor,our current Attorney General for
the state of Alaska.
The part of the interview thatstood out to me the most, or
that had the biggest impact onme, was when he told his story
about that big sacrifice he madeat the beginning of his journey
(00:25):
, when he gave up on hislifelong dream to go into the
Air Force and instead pivotedand became a lawyer and in a
sense you know he followed hisdream and has become a fighter
for all Alaskans and hasactually stood up for all
Americans in joining theselawsuits against the Biden
administration that are going tocontinue to play out into the
(00:46):
Trump administration's tenure,as we set precedent for law
across the country.
But it was a really harddecision to have to sit there
without any cause but followwhat he really felt like the
Lord was telling him to do andwalk away from that dream.
And we saw how much emotion hehas, even all these decades
later, of giving up on a dreamlike that.
How did that affect you?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You know, it was just a really stirring reminder of
the importance of courage tofollow through on our
convictions and that when we dothat, good things happen.
It doesn't necessarily meanlife is easy, but we can lay our
heads on our pillows and ourconsciences can be at peace
(01:33):
about it.
And I really appreciated thisin particular about it.
I appreciated General Taylor'svulnerability, his transparency
and, of course, the courage heshowed in that decision, because
we are all benefiting rightfrom that decision.
All these years later I willnot say decades, because,
(01:54):
general Taylor, you are not thatold but I will say all of these
years later, alaskans arebenefiting from the courage of
that decision and in addition tothat, you know when we make
those little in this case it wasa big choice but those
decisions to follow ourconscience, to follow what we
believe we're being led to doand to do what's right it
(02:19):
becomes a pattern in our livesand eventually becomes our
character and ultimately becomesour destiny.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I think we heard that in General Taylor's story
because, like you said, he wentfrom, he always had that fight
in him, right where he wanted todo something to serve his
country to serve his fellow man,and it was like God just
redirected him and said this iswhere I want you to go and this
is what I want you to do.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And he's been doing it ever since, and we just heard
about the amazing work that heand the Department of Law have
been doing, along with otherattorneys general across the
country, to not only undo whatthe Biden administration has
done to really unravel thefabric of our democracy in a lot
of ways and harm Alaska, butalso to take more of a proactive
(03:11):
stance, I think, going forwardwith the Trump administration.
We have an administration nowthat is you can say whatever you
think of it, whether you likeit or not.
One thing you can say aboutthis administration is they are
taking incredibly strong, bold,proactive moves to establish the
vision that Trump has forAmerica and America's future and
(03:34):
that we all voted him intooffice to execute.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Those are all hard decisions.
I was curious if you had astory about a time you had to
make a decision like GeneralTaylor did.
I know I have two stories Ithought would be interesting to
share and I imagine that youhave a story or two as well,
having shared life with you.
I remember at the beginning ofour marriage I was accepted to
Oxford, which at the time hadbeen my lifelong dream, similar
(04:02):
to what Trey Taylor shared withus.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, I was going to say that was my first major
courageous decision was choosingto ask you to marry me.
That took a lot of courage.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Actually, that might be a really good story to share.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I will not share that publicly.
Yet Go ahead, our engagementstory, our engagement story,
that's a really great story.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
For another time, maybe?
Yeah.
So, having gotten into the PhDprogram at Oxford, we faced a
decision where we could havebeen separated for several years
, while Nikki started his lawcareer and I pursued the PhD, or
we could have chosen to do whatwas best for our marriage, and
instead I made the choice to dowhat was best for our marriage,
and that required laying downthis big dream, and the big
(04:42):
dream would have been to havehad a PhD in theology and got
accepted to one of the collegesat Oxford, and that was all in
the bag.
But then, all these years later, as Nikki knows, we ended up
planting and pastoring a church,and we've now been doing that
for 19 years, and so we have allthe benefits that would have
(05:03):
come with the seminary degree,but without having sacrificed
our marriage.
So, in the same way that TreyTaylor's story worked out, he
ends up fighting for Alaskansand Americans, but in a
different way than he thoughthis path would originally go.
And another one that I thoughtthat came to mind was just about
how, in my first job out of lawschool, I worked for the
(05:25):
Department of Justice and myboss brought a case to me where
he asked me to reinvestigate aninvestigation that had been done
by our inspector general'soffice.
I was supposed to just edit itand finalize it, make sure it's
good for publication.
The investigators had lookedinto allegations that there had
been physical abuse by guards ata prison in New York against
(05:47):
inmates that had been arrestedafter September 11th on
suspicion that they'd beeninvolved.
They hadn't been involved, butthey said there had been no
abuse and the inspector generalthought that there were some
holes in the case, so he askedme to reinvestigate it.
I was just out of law schooland there were some things I
thought really needed to bepressed in on and I just you
(06:08):
know, like you said, nikki, withthat dogged determination, that
there was just something herethat didn't seem right.
I ended up really digging intothe case and not letting go
until I got to the bottom of it,including finding hundreds of
videotapes that the heads of theDepartment of Justice had said
had been destroyed, but theyhadn't been, and they showed
evidence that the guards badlyabused these detainees.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Was this the Department of Justice or the
Bureau of Prisons that said theywere destroyed?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The Department of Justice had said they were
destroyed, as well as the Bureauof Prisons.
But the BOP is in theDepartment of Justice and this
case involved the FBI, the DOJ,the BOP and people even at the
head of the Department ofJustice, and so it goes all the
way up to the US Supreme Courtbecause of what we found in this
investigation that I did and itends up.
I just recently realized ittook 20 years for them to
(06:56):
resolve and finalize this entirecase.
Several of the guards ended upgetting terminated.
Later one of the guards, one ofthe prison captain, ends up
going to jail and they ended uppaying out the detainees over a
(07:17):
million dollars who were thedefendants in the case or who
brought the case.
So I thought that was aninteresting example as well Just
things early in my career ofyou know, taking a stand and
taking courage and saying youknow there's something here
worth fighting for and notbacking down.
What's a story you have?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, I mean I, you know.
I mean I don't like to talkabout my stories too much, so
I'd like to actually, like Isaid, my biggest one is and my
best and wonderful, mostcourageous decision was marrying
.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Most courageous.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That was terrifying, and it takes courage every day
to walk along this side, thisformidable and amazing woman.
But I wanted to get to GeneralTaylor's work as an attorney
general.
He talked about education beingan incredibly important thing.
(08:03):
That's near and dear to hisheart.
Near and dear to the hearts of,I know, of all of us Alaskans
and, of course, across thecountry, because right now we're
seeing a huge sea change and aseismic tectonic shift in how
education is being handled now,with the Department of Education
, effectively, from a practicalstandpoint, essentially being
wound down Right.
(08:25):
And such, so that the federalmonies can actually be placed in
the hands of our states, ourstate leaders, because we're the
ones who know best how to takecare of and educate our kids.
We have a very diverse systemacross this country, very
diverse communities strugglingwith different kinds of things,
(08:47):
and so to have one size fits allkinds of approaches coming up
from the federal government hasnever been the best way.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And I agree that we will do a better job with
determining that if everybody'sinvolved.
I'm very concerned aboutdecisions that are being made at
the local level in education inAlaska when we have dropped so
substantially from rankingpretty high when I was in public
school here to now being oftennumber 51 in a United States of
50 states in terms of educationscores.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, no, that's, that's.
But what I was really gratifiedand encouraged to hear was
General Taylor's passion forthat subject and seeing what we
can do, you know, from a policystandpoint, what are the things
that he can do in his positionand in working with the governor
and working with the Trumpadministration to really up our
(09:36):
game, because we're denying ourkids the future that they all
deserve to have when we don'tmeet our basic responsibilities
of just teaching them how toread and do math Rather than
some of the other.
I'm not even going to get intoit, but the other things that we
seem to have been focusing ongetting back to the basics and
(09:56):
the foundations of what are thethings that they need to know in
order to flourish Succeed.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
The things needed for human flourishing, and reading
and writing and arithmetic hasalways been at least a basic
foundation of that.
Leave the values to the parents.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Focus on the basics of what they need to feed their
brains.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I think that's a wonderful example of how well
this attorney general has foughtfor the values and rights of
Alaskans and I appreciate, likeyou said, the courage that Trey
Taylor has demonstrated intaking on the fight with the
Biden administration and theoverreach of government in
Alaska and the overreach ofgovernment in Alaska and on
(10:36):
behalf of Alaskans, and inpartnering with other attorney
generals across the UnitedStates in order to protect and
preserve the rights of allAmericans.
We are so grateful that TregTaylor came on the episode.
Thank you, treg, and we arelooking forward to having
another amazing episode of Stand.
You were with Kelly and NikkiChewbacca and we are hoping to
make courage contagious.
You can find all of ourepisodes at stanshoworg and we
(11:01):
will be happy to see you on ournext show.
Stand by and stand strong andstand firm.
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