November 18, 2025 • 27 mins
In this powerful episode of Stories Worth Hearing, host John Quick sits down with Governor Eric Greitens for one of his most candid and compelling conversations yet. Governor Greitens discusses the current state of the country, the direction of President Trump’s second term, and the real changes happening across America. He breaks down what strong leadership looks like, how morale shifts inside the military, and why foreign policy and veteran services are seeing major improvements. Governor Greitens also reflects on the proudest moments from his time as governor and what true public service demands from all of us.
The conversation becomes deeply personal as Governor Greitens recounts his battle through a politically motivated takedown that would have crushed most people. He shares how faith, fatherhood, and perspective helped him stay grounded through years of attacks and false accusations and how he transformed pain into purpose. He also gives a preview of his upcoming book, the Ultimate Rebellion Handbook, and explains why reclaiming personal strength matters more than ever.
Listeners can learn more at his official site and explore his books on Amazon.
Website: https://ericgreitens.com
Books: https://amzn.to/43B0kMi
Check out the website: https://www.newsmax.com/johnquick/eric-greitens-resilient-leader-missouri/2024/01/24/id/1150829/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to stories worth hearing.
I am your host, John Quick. Today we have a remarkable guest
returning to the show. Governor Eric Greitens is
someone whose life has been defined by service, strength and
resilience. Many of you reached out after
his first appearance and said itwas one of the most powerful
conversations we have ever had on this podcast.
(00:22):
So I knew we had to bring him back.
In this episode, Governor Greitens and I talk about the
state of the country, how President Trump is shaping his
second term, how leadership impacts everything from foreign
policy to military morale, and why the direction of America
still offers a lot of hope. We also dive into some of the
most defining moments of his time as governor and talk openly
(00:46):
about what he went through when political forces tried to take
him out. His perspective on courage,
integrity and faith is somethingyou are going to want to hear,
so settle in. This is a powerful conversation
with Governor Eric Greitens. These are the stories that
matter. These are the stories worth
hearing. Well, Governor, welcome back to
(01:07):
the show. This will be fun to chat with
you. Excited to kind of catch up
here. Absolutely.
It's a pleasure to be back on with you, Jonathan.
Thank you so much for for havingme man.
I really enjoyed our last conversation.
Appreciate what you do. Thanks for thanks for having me
back. I can tell you that the folks
that listen to this podcast really enjoyed our first chat.
(01:29):
It's been maybe a year or so ago.
So it'll be, I think, fun to just kind of jump back in and
hear how you doing, what you think about kind of what's going
on in the US, how you feel like Trump's doing and, and, and give
some hope to folks that maybe are going through some tough
times. But let's first talk about how
do you think the US is doing? I mean, I know you have your
(01:51):
finger on the pulse where you live, but you're also friends
with folks all over the US and, you know, the business world,
the political world. So how do you think we're doing?
How do you think Trump's doing in his second term in office?
Well, I think I think first of all, one of the things that I
always remind people of is people get very focused on the
day-to-day. They're always focused on, you
(02:12):
know, this headline and stuff that happens 48 hours ago feels
like it's old news. I think it's nice sometimes to
pull back and take a little bit more of a, of a wider view of
where we're at. And if you just remind people
that it was Joe Biden was in office.
Joe Biden was the president of the United States of America,
(02:35):
right? And you remember what he kind of
looked like on camera. You remember him dottering
around, right? Like, it feels like, it feels
like it's been a long time, but it hasn't even been, hasn't even
been a year. OK.
And then also when you also think back on what America has
lived through, the harshness, the tragedy of, you know,
(02:57):
thankfully, Trump's put an end to all of the transgender, a
nonsense of like men playing women's sports.
We had all of the COVID craziness that the Biden
administration was pushing so much loss of personal freedoms
for for Americans. And of course, the tremendous
corruption that the Biden administration brought back.
(03:21):
And I mean, still to this day, you know, you have people
claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian
disinformation, right? All of this stuff.
It's just important to remember that, you know, 50 years from
now, when they look back, peoplewere like really like that guy
Joe Biden, that was the president of the United States,
(03:43):
right? So, so, so keep that in mind.
And then when you turn by contrast, I think people are
really appreciative of the energy that President Trump is
brought to his presidency. And I think in particular, one
of the things that I often focuson is you think about the place
that presidents play in history.A lot of it has to do with
(04:05):
foreign affairs. One of the reasons why Ronald
Reagan is so revered was becauseof his role in helping the
United States to win the cold. War.
Right. You look at what President Trump
was able to achieve in his firstterm with the Abraham Accords,
which is really extraordinary with with Israel normalizing
(04:25):
relations with a lot of lot of Arab states.
And then you look at the stridesthat he's taken already to put
an end to the war in Gaza. That's something that the Biden
administration repeatedly failedto do.
It really didn't even take any serious efforts to do so.
All of that happened also because President Trump was able
(04:46):
to take very strong and effective military action
against Iran. All of these things have
actually made the United States safer when you look at the
progress that's been made aroundaround the peace efforts in the
Middle East. So I think that's one piece that
a lot of people don't often see.Another thing, you know, there's
(05:09):
lots of commentary, of course, on lots of political issues.
But the other thing that you that I've found is that
President Trump has also really put in an effort to make sure
that the government is actually delivering on services.
When you talk to veterans, they will tell you that there was a
massive difference in President Trump's first term and how the
(05:31):
VA delivered services. And now that Trump is back in
office, you're hearing from veterans again.
They appreciate what the president has been doing to make
the VA more effective for veterans.
So whether it's foreign policy, domestic policy, lots of
different issues, but these are places where you'll see the
legacy media won't give the president any credit, but I
(05:52):
think he's actually made some some very strong moves.
What is? What is affect, you know, let's
say the Army, Air Force, Marines, all those kinds of
folks who potentially get a new boss every four years, a new
president, Does it affect moralewhen they have a Trump as
opposed to a Biden as their boss?
I think the answer is yes, 100%.It it affects morale and the the
(06:18):
place you can see. You don't have to take my word
for it. Look at the recruiting numbers.
Look at the recruiting numbers. There's a massive recruiting
crisis when Joe Biden was in office.
And then as soon as President Trump comes in office, Army,
Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. I'm not sure about the Space
Force numbers, but they're all of the recruiting numbers.
(06:38):
You saw a massive increase in them when President Trump came
into office. Because young people who are
looking at the prospect of putting their lives on the line
are asking themselves who's the commander in chief?
And we've always had in the United States a non a non
political military who was willing to and able to serve
(07:01):
whoever was elected by the people of the United States of
America. But I will tell you that it
makes a very big difference in terms of morale when people
believe that they have a president who's going to use
American forces wisely and who also honors the United States
military. Yeah, I tend to agree with that.
(07:24):
Let's shift a little bit. I'd love to hear, you know, your
thoughts on being governor. You're you were the governor.
I think during the time. I think a lot of folks in your
state really appreciated and enjoyed you being the governor.
You faced similar things that Trump faces now on a daily basis
where cancer culture comes in. And if there was a poster child
(07:46):
for resilience, your name, your face would be all over that.
But talk to me a little bit about some of those proud
moments you had as governor. What were some of the things
that you're still look back on and say, man, I'm proud that
that got accomplished? You know that there, there are
so many proud moments. I'll, I'll touch on just just a
couple of them. You know, one of the things that
(08:07):
I'm most proud of when I was governor is we built a great
team. We had a fantastic team.
And when I was governor, one of the first things that I did was
a built I built a public safety team.
We have police officers, firefighters, first responders
who all came together because a lot of your listeners will
remember Missouri, Ferguson, MO in 2015 was the home.
(08:32):
It was the birth place of the Black Lives Matter and anti
police movement. That was before I was governor.
And we knew that when I was governor, we knew that they were
going to test us again. And indeed, in 2017, when I was
governor, we had an incident where a white police officer had
shot and killed a black man on duty.
(08:54):
And as the trial progressed, we had activists from Black Lives
Matter and Antifa all over the country came to Missouri.
And they promised, they said, after we're done, you won't even
remember Ferguson. They said we're going to burn
Missouri to the ground. We worked with a fantastic team.
Again, we had police chiefs, we had fire chiefs, we had the
(09:15):
National Guard. We had a great communications
team and we used John, Jonathan what what I call the heart and
the fist. We were extraordinarily clear
with everybody and the message was very simple.
It was number one, that everyonein the United States of America
has the constitutional right to protest.
So anyone who's upset with a verdict that comes out, you will
(09:38):
find that our police officers are out there and they are
protecting everyone who is out there exercising their
constitutional right to protest.We're also very clear that
throwing a brick through a window is not free speech, that
if you assault a police officer,you're going to be arrested.
My predecessor, when he was governor, he told people that he
(09:58):
was giving the rioters a safe space to loot and to burn.
And I said that when I'm governor, if you loot and you
burn, the only safe space you'regoing to have is in a jail cell.
Well, we were, we are extraordinarily clear that
number one, we're going to protect your constitutional
rights. And #2 there's not going to be
(10:20):
any tolerance for, for rioting, for looting, for burning.
And Long story short, Jonathan, after three days and, and our
team ended up making hundreds ofarrests.
After three days, Black Lives Matter and Antifa were defeated.
And we proved that you could be compassionate, you could respect
(10:42):
the Constitution of the United States of America.
And that allowing rioting, allowing looting, allowing
assaults on police officers, that was a choice.
And it was a choice that we werenot going to make when I was
governor in Missouri. And after three days, Antifa and
Black Lives Matter left and theyhad broken a few windows and
(11:02):
turned over some potted plants, and that was it.
And I think that was one of my proudest moments as governor.
Now we also now know that it wasafter we were successful doing
that, the George Soros funded prosecutor in Saint Louis
decided that she was going to make she was going to make up a
charge against me, right? So, so our great one of our
greatest successes also awakenedthis tremendous enemy, which was
(11:27):
George Soros and this this George Soros funded prosecutor.
But you know, some of my other favorite moments.
I will always remember going to release Judy Henderson from
prison. She was a woman who served 36
years in prison for a murder shedid not commit.
The previous governors had all the boards of probation and
(11:50):
parole had all recommended that she be released.
I did a full and complete reviewof her file along with my team.
I remember one of the lawyers onmy team came back after his the
first visit to Judy and he said she's the most amazing woman in
the world. She's fantastic.
And I ended up going up personally, Jonathan before
(12:11):
Christmas and I went to the prison myself on my my very
first year and told her that that she was free and we had
called, we'd called her family, her daughter Angel.
She's written, by the way, she'swritten a wonderful book.
It's called When the Light Findsus.
In fact, you're, as I'm thinkingof it, your, your guests may or
(12:34):
your listeners may enjoy having her her on at some point.
She just did a a wonderful book called When the Light Finds Us.
And it's a real story about her faith and her resilience through
some incredibly hard times. I mean, imagine being in prison
36 years for a murder. You didn't come and she she
still managed to raise her daughter from inside of prison.
(12:58):
She's just an incredibly powerful woman and that was one
of the most important things I think I did as as governor.
That's pretty awesome. I think that those are the
things that, you know, nobody, nobody can ever take those
things away from you, no matter what kind of crap they throw
social media or whatever. It's like those kinds of things
(13:20):
will stick with you forever, which is pretty awesome.
You and I were chatting a littlebit before the interview that
Trump's second term looks way different and is more effective
than Trump was maybe on the first term.
Let's say, you know, not that you're running, but let's say
you get another term as governor.
What do you think you would do different than you did your
first term? Because I think, you know, you
know, our governor, my governor,Governor Dunleavy, his second
(13:43):
term looked way different than his first term had he, you know,
there's a lot of things I think had he known going into blah,
blah, blah, he would have done blah, blah, blah different.
And so is there anything, you know, it's 10 years from now,
you're, you know, governor again, in this hypothetical
situation, what would you do different, you know, going into
it? Well, I think I think one of the
(14:05):
pages that you could take from the Trump second term playbook
is that Trump in the in his first term realized how
entrenched the bureaucracy was and that it was fighting him
every single day when he was president.
And so as he came in in the second term, he appointed people
(14:26):
who he knew were. Loyal.
And he also made sure that he was going to take control of as
much as he could. Look, they're still fighting him
from time to time, right? But in order to drive change,
you really had to control the executive branch.
And I was very proud in our first term.
We brought an incredible people.We had a fantastic cabinet of
(14:48):
very talented people from all over the country.
One of the things that I think Iwould do in the second term is
also one of the things I do in the second term is also make
sure that we're driving change at an even deeper level.
Not just looking at those cabinet positions, but looking
234 levels down in the departments to make sure that we
(15:11):
have the right conservative change agents there.
I actually think that's, I thinkthat's really essential.
Looking back on what happened toyou and you can give a little
brief synopsis here after the after I spit out this question
for folks that have been living under a rock and maybe haven't
heard. But you know, the, the they sent
(15:32):
their team to say, we're going to figure out how to cancel this
governor because he's too freaking effective and there's
too many people that like him. And, and they wanted to probably
put you in a petriot disk to seewhat they could get away with.
Ultimately, they were in the wrong, right?
They were the ones who are now getting convicted or going to
jail or finding that they made-up everything.
Talk to me a little bit about what it was like going through
(15:54):
that. Because it's one thing to go
through something like an attackon yourself and your family.
If you're not in the public lifeand it's only like 5 or 6 people
know about it. It's another thing to do it in
front of the entire United States and having it plaster on
every media outlet out there andknowing I didn't do any of this
(16:17):
and we may not see my point of view, may not be seen for
another four years. And I just kind of got to sit
and wait for this thing to play through.
That's got to just be nuts. So tell me, talk to me a little
bit about that and where you found strength to keep going in
and through all of it. For sure.
Well, I'll just, I'll kind of give you give your listeners
like a brief synopsis of the story and what happened and then
(16:39):
I'll kind of walk back through how, how, how we made it
through. But you know, as we were talking
about earlier, we had an extraordinarily effective term
as governor. We are changing things across
the spectrum and the George Soros organization didn't like
that. We now know that a George Soros
funded prosecutor decided that she was going to come up with a
(17:01):
crime to charge me with. So a few weeks after I had ended
the riots, she literally startedpaperwork.
She wasn't sure what the crime was, but she decided that she
was going to charge me with one.She then hired A corrupt former
FBI agent to make a false case against me.
(17:22):
They then enlisted corrupt journalists, one of whom was a
convicted felon who ended up paying people $120,000 cash to
lie about me. And that's, that's only the
$120,000 in cash that we know about that they paid.
This is how sick and kind of corrupt this operation was.
(17:46):
Well, you Fast forward to today.The corrupt FBI agent and the
George Soros funded prosecutor were charged with eight felonies
for perjury, for evidence tampering, for misuse of public
funds. Both of the prosecutor and the
FBI agent have pled guilty. The prosecutor was found by the
(18:09):
Missouri Supreme Court to have lied over 70 times to the court,
lied to the judge, lied to the grand jury over 70 times.
She was found to have lied. She was admonished.
She was fined by them. She later resigned.
The truth has now come out, but but one of the things that that
(18:29):
you, you have to live through isthe fact that the legacy media,
when we were going through this,when we were going through this,
they published literally Jonathan, millions of negative
false stories about and it wasn't just in the United
States. It was literally worldwide.
(18:50):
This cover, this story was covered around the world.
And I remember somebody sending me a, a, a story from the
Jerusalem Post about this, right?
So they cover the nonsense and they cover the lies in a
worldwide way. But then once you're exonerated,
when the prosecutor pleads guilty, when the FBI agent
(19:11):
pleads guilty, when it all, well, they, they don't cover it.
If they cover it all, they bury it in a, in a paragraph on, on
page 7. So, and it's also one of the
things that is tough as you're going through it, is it now all
of the facts are out now today, people know that I was innocent
(19:33):
and they know that the people who came after me are are
guilty. But at the time they didn't.
And we also had no guarantees that the truth would ever
actually come out. You know, I'm actually very
lucky because there are a lot ofpeople who are falsely accused
and they're they're slaughtered in the media and the truth never
(19:53):
finds its way out. In my case, I was actually
extraordinarily fortunate that that it did.
But that process also took years.
It took years for all the truth to come out.
It took years for the FBI agent and the prosecutor themselves to
get prosecuted and. Even when the story came out, it
(20:14):
came out just as COVID was starting.
So so people people were were thinking about other things.
And I think one of the things that you have to do as you're
going through something like that is that you just have to
have a rock solid sense of personal faith and personal
integrity to know that it reallyat the end of the day, it sounds
(20:37):
so simple, but it doesn't matterwhat other people think.
What matters is what you know and what you what you know to be
true. And the world can turn on people
in a very vicious, difficult way.
That's probably happened to a lot of people who are listening
to this podcast. One of the things that's
happened for me, because I've survived this in the way that I
(20:59):
have, so many people have come to me and it told me their
stories about how they they were, that's not how they were,
they were maligned. It happens, it happens.
And one of the things that I I've noticed is that if you
really stand up for good, the forces of evil will come after
you. And I recently wrote in a, in a
(21:23):
book that'll be coming out. It's the line I wrote.
Is it scars left by the devil mark you as one of God's sons?
So you can, you can actually wear these scarves proudly
because you know that they came to you because you've done
difficult things. And in your own life, you can
(21:43):
try to find a way to take that pain.
And it was really painful, and you turn it into wisdom.
You take that suffering and you turn it into strength.
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I have admired the
most in your story is that in talking with you and some of
your team members, you know, I get to talk to people,
successful people from all over the globe with this podcast, you
(22:05):
know, from elected officials to billionaires and stuff happens
to folks. And you guys have remained super
positive. So I think that that's been
something that I've seen and looked at and it's been
inspiring for me because it's very easy to be bitter.
Something that happened to you. It's and similar things, maybe
more worse or less worse, happento people all the time.
(22:28):
And I think the majority of the time people choose to be angry,
bitter, resentful and negative. What in it?
What's made you not do that? Because there's something
different there than I think most folks.
Is it faith? Is it because you've been to
actual wars and this is all child's play because it's just
kind of words on a paper? Tell me, tell me a little bit
(22:50):
about what's made you decide to turn something that's really
shitty into a positive thing. Yeah, Well, well, thanks, man.
I, I appreciate that. Look, I do think that it, it
helped that, you know, before I ever served in the military, I'd
done a lot of work in humanitarian crises.
So I'd seen terrible situations,you know, people who'd lost
(23:10):
their homes at Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, kids who'd lost limbs
to landmines in Cambodia. I'd seen real hardship and, you
know, poverty and and one of mother traces homes for the
destitute and dying in Calcutta.I'd seen that real hardship.
I think, of course, obviously going through the SEAL teams,
you know, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, the
(23:31):
Horn of Africa, gives you a perspective on what true pain
is. Though I will often say, I, I, I
will always tell people I'd muchrather fight the Taliban than
than fight journalists and politicians because they're more
honest. The Taliban, they're just trying
to kill you. You know, it's just straight up
(23:52):
right. It's just they're trying to kill
you and they, they, they're not,they're not pretending.
So, so I think that that perspective helped.
But really when you go through something like that, of course
you have moments of anger, Of course you have a moments of
fear. Of course you have moments of,
of bitterness. And I think you always get a
(24:13):
choice in life. I think there's really only two
emotions. There's fear and there's love
and you have to find a way to remember what you love and and
work for it and be part of it. You know, I'm so fortunate
because I have two beautiful sons, Joshua and Jacob.
(24:35):
And, you know, one of the great gifts that's actually been given
to me was that because of stepping out of the schedule and
the demands of public life, I'vebeen able to be an incredible
dad. I'm absolutely incumbent with
that. And that they're 9 and 11 now.
And I know I often think to myself, you know, when I'm on my
(24:59):
deathbed, what's going to be most important to me.
And the fact that I've been ableto spend this much time with
them and have these quality trips and quality conversations
and time going to soccer practice and basketball practice
and all of this, I believe, well, I, I already feel and I
(25:20):
think that at the end of my days, I'll also feel that it,
this was a great gift. I love that.
And I think I think you're goingto look back on that and think,
you know, that there was a purpose for everything and that
maybe that was a part of the bigger purpose.
So you could spend some more time with your kids because Lord
(25:41):
knows if you're in the governor's mansion or a senator
or whatever, you just don't havemuch time for anything outside
of that specific job. So last question to you is this
governor, I want to be mindful of your time.
You have a, you have a book coming out, a new book.
I don't think it's out yet. Can you talk to me a little bit
about that, what people could expect?
What's it about? All those kind of details We'd
(26:01):
love to hear. Yeah, Well, well, what when it
actually comes out, we should come on and I'll, I'll talk,
we'll, we'll have another podcast about the book.
But right now, the working titletitle is The Ultimate Rebellion
Handbook, and it's a book about how a man can take back his soul
from a world and a culture that's trying to take it away.
(26:24):
Everywhere you look today, thereare all of these demands on
people's and the ultimate rebellion today as a man is to
really be master of your own life.
And so that's that's that. That's what the book's all
about. We'll have you back on to chat
about the book once it gets out.First of all, thanks so much for
(26:47):
coming back on. Really appreciate you.
Your stories inspiring. For folks that are listening,
I'm going to link to the governor's website.
He's got a couple books out already that people can go check
out. I want to encourage folks to go
check those out and buy yourselfa copy and I'll link the article
as well that I did in Newsmax kind of about your story.
(27:09):
So really appreciate you coming on, Governor.
You're welcome back anytime and I hope you have a great rest of
your day. Thank you.
Honored to be on with you. Appreciate you.
Welcome to stories worth hearing.
I am your host, John Quick. Today we have a remarkable guest
returning to the show. Governor Eric Greitens is
someone whose life has been defined by service, strength and
resilience. Many of you reached out after
his first appearance and said itwas one of the most powerful
conversations we have ever had on this podcast.
(00:22):
So I knew we had to bring him back.
In this episode, Governor Greitens and I talk about the
state of the country, how President Trump is shaping his
second term, how leadership impacts everything from foreign
policy to military morale, and why the direction of America
still offers a lot of hope. We also dive into some of the
most defining moments of his time as governor and talk openly
(00:46):
about what he went through when political forces tried to take
him out. His perspective on courage,
integrity and faith is somethingyou are going to want to hear,
so settle in. This is a powerful conversation
with Governor Eric Greitens. These are the stories that
matter. These are the stories worth
hearing. Well, Governor, welcome back to
(01:07):
the show. This will be fun to chat with
you. Excited to kind of catch up
here. Absolutely.
It's a pleasure to be back on with you, Jonathan.
Thank you so much for for havingme man.
I really enjoyed our last conversation.
Appreciate what you do. Thanks for thanks for having me
back. I can tell you that the folks
that listen to this podcast really enjoyed our first chat.
(01:29):
It's been maybe a year or so ago.
So it'll be, I think, fun to just kind of jump back in and
hear how you doing, what you think about kind of what's going
on in the US, how you feel like Trump's doing and, and, and give
some hope to folks that maybe are going through some tough
times. But let's first talk about how
do you think the US is doing? I mean, I know you have your
(01:51):
finger on the pulse where you live, but you're also friends
with folks all over the US and, you know, the business world,
the political world. So how do you think we're doing?
How do you think Trump's doing in his second term in office?
Well, I think I think first of all, one of the things that I
always remind people of is people get very focused on the
day-to-day. They're always focused on, you
(02:12):
know, this headline and stuff that happens 48 hours ago feels
like it's old news. I think it's nice sometimes to
pull back and take a little bit more of a, of a wider view of
where we're at. And if you just remind people
that it was Joe Biden was in office.
Joe Biden was the president of the United States of America,
(02:35):
right? And you remember what he kind of
looked like on camera. You remember him dottering
around, right? Like, it feels like, it feels
like it's been a long time, but it hasn't even been, hasn't even
been a year. OK.
And then also when you also think back on what America has
lived through, the harshness, the tragedy of, you know,
(02:57):
thankfully, Trump's put an end to all of the transgender, a
nonsense of like men playing women's sports.
We had all of the COVID craziness that the Biden
administration was pushing so much loss of personal freedoms
for for Americans. And of course, the tremendous
corruption that the Biden administration brought back.
(03:21):
And I mean, still to this day, you know, you have people
claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian
disinformation, right? All of this stuff.
It's just important to remember that, you know, 50 years from
now, when they look back, peoplewere like really like that guy
Joe Biden, that was the president of the United States,
(03:43):
right? So, so, so keep that in mind.
And then when you turn by contrast, I think people are
really appreciative of the energy that President Trump is
brought to his presidency. And I think in particular, one
of the things that I often focuson is you think about the place
that presidents play in history.A lot of it has to do with
(04:05):
foreign affairs. One of the reasons why Ronald
Reagan is so revered was becauseof his role in helping the
United States to win the cold. War.
Right. You look at what President Trump
was able to achieve in his firstterm with the Abraham Accords,
which is really extraordinary with with Israel normalizing
(04:25):
relations with a lot of lot of Arab states.
And then you look at the stridesthat he's taken already to put
an end to the war in Gaza. That's something that the Biden
administration repeatedly failedto do.
It really didn't even take any serious efforts to do so.
All of that happened also because President Trump was able
(04:46):
to take very strong and effective military action
against Iran. All of these things have
actually made the United States safer when you look at the
progress that's been made aroundaround the peace efforts in the
Middle East. So I think that's one piece that
a lot of people don't often see.Another thing, you know, there's
(05:09):
lots of commentary, of course, on lots of political issues.
But the other thing that you that I've found is that
President Trump has also really put in an effort to make sure
that the government is actually delivering on services.
When you talk to veterans, they will tell you that there was a
massive difference in President Trump's first term and how the
(05:31):
VA delivered services. And now that Trump is back in
office, you're hearing from veterans again.
They appreciate what the president has been doing to make
the VA more effective for veterans.
So whether it's foreign policy, domestic policy, lots of
different issues, but these are places where you'll see the
legacy media won't give the president any credit, but I
(05:52):
think he's actually made some some very strong moves.
What is? What is affect, you know, let's
say the Army, Air Force, Marines, all those kinds of
folks who potentially get a new boss every four years, a new
president, Does it affect moralewhen they have a Trump as
opposed to a Biden as their boss?
I think the answer is yes, 100%.It it affects morale and the the
(06:18):
place you can see. You don't have to take my word
for it. Look at the recruiting numbers.
Look at the recruiting numbers. There's a massive recruiting
crisis when Joe Biden was in office.
And then as soon as President Trump comes in office, Army,
Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. I'm not sure about the Space
Force numbers, but they're all of the recruiting numbers.
(06:38):
You saw a massive increase in them when President Trump came
into office. Because young people who are
looking at the prospect of putting their lives on the line
are asking themselves who's the commander in chief?
And we've always had in the United States a non a non
political military who was willing to and able to serve
(07:01):
whoever was elected by the people of the United States of
America. But I will tell you that it
makes a very big difference in terms of morale when people
believe that they have a president who's going to use
American forces wisely and who also honors the United States
military. Yeah, I tend to agree with that.
(07:24):
Let's shift a little bit. I'd love to hear, you know, your
thoughts on being governor. You're you were the governor.
I think during the time. I think a lot of folks in your
state really appreciated and enjoyed you being the governor.
You faced similar things that Trump faces now on a daily basis
where cancer culture comes in. And if there was a poster child
(07:46):
for resilience, your name, your face would be all over that.
But talk to me a little bit about some of those proud
moments you had as governor. What were some of the things
that you're still look back on and say, man, I'm proud that
that got accomplished? You know that there, there are
so many proud moments. I'll, I'll touch on just just a
couple of them. You know, one of the things that
(08:07):
I'm most proud of when I was governor is we built a great
team. We had a fantastic team.
And when I was governor, one of the first things that I did was
a built I built a public safety team.
We have police officers, firefighters, first responders
who all came together because a lot of your listeners will
remember Missouri, Ferguson, MO in 2015 was the home.
(08:32):
It was the birth place of the Black Lives Matter and anti
police movement. That was before I was governor.
And we knew that when I was governor, we knew that they were
going to test us again. And indeed, in 2017, when I was
governor, we had an incident where a white police officer had
shot and killed a black man on duty.
(08:54):
And as the trial progressed, we had activists from Black Lives
Matter and Antifa all over the country came to Missouri.
And they promised, they said, after we're done, you won't even
remember Ferguson. They said we're going to burn
Missouri to the ground. We worked with a fantastic team.
Again, we had police chiefs, we had fire chiefs, we had the
(09:15):
National Guard. We had a great communications
team and we used John, Jonathan what what I call the heart and
the fist. We were extraordinarily clear
with everybody and the message was very simple.
It was number one, that everyonein the United States of America
has the constitutional right to protest.
So anyone who's upset with a verdict that comes out, you will
(09:38):
find that our police officers are out there and they are
protecting everyone who is out there exercising their
constitutional right to protest.We're also very clear that
throwing a brick through a window is not free speech, that
if you assault a police officer,you're going to be arrested.
My predecessor, when he was governor, he told people that he
(09:58):
was giving the rioters a safe space to loot and to burn.
And I said that when I'm governor, if you loot and you
burn, the only safe space you'regoing to have is in a jail cell.
Well, we were, we are extraordinarily clear that
number one, we're going to protect your constitutional
rights. And #2 there's not going to be
(10:20):
any tolerance for, for rioting, for looting, for burning.
And Long story short, Jonathan, after three days and, and our
team ended up making hundreds ofarrests.
After three days, Black Lives Matter and Antifa were defeated.
And we proved that you could be compassionate, you could respect
(10:42):
the Constitution of the United States of America.
And that allowing rioting, allowing looting, allowing
assaults on police officers, that was a choice.
And it was a choice that we werenot going to make when I was
governor in Missouri. And after three days, Antifa and
Black Lives Matter left and theyhad broken a few windows and
(11:02):
turned over some potted plants, and that was it.
And I think that was one of my proudest moments as governor.
Now we also now know that it wasafter we were successful doing
that, the George Soros funded prosecutor in Saint Louis
decided that she was going to make she was going to make up a
charge against me, right? So, so our great one of our
greatest successes also awakenedthis tremendous enemy, which was
(11:27):
George Soros and this this George Soros funded prosecutor.
But you know, some of my other favorite moments.
I will always remember going to release Judy Henderson from
prison. She was a woman who served 36
years in prison for a murder shedid not commit.
The previous governors had all the boards of probation and
(11:50):
parole had all recommended that she be released.
I did a full and complete reviewof her file along with my team.
I remember one of the lawyers onmy team came back after his the
first visit to Judy and he said she's the most amazing woman in
the world. She's fantastic.
And I ended up going up personally, Jonathan before
(12:11):
Christmas and I went to the prison myself on my my very
first year and told her that that she was free and we had
called, we'd called her family, her daughter Angel.
She's written, by the way, she'swritten a wonderful book.
It's called When the Light Findsus.
In fact, you're, as I'm thinkingof it, your, your guests may or
(12:34):
your listeners may enjoy having her her on at some point.
She just did a a wonderful book called When the Light Finds Us.
And it's a real story about her faith and her resilience through
some incredibly hard times. I mean, imagine being in prison
36 years for a murder. You didn't come and she she
still managed to raise her daughter from inside of prison.
(12:58):
She's just an incredibly powerful woman and that was one
of the most important things I think I did as as governor.
That's pretty awesome. I think that those are the
things that, you know, nobody, nobody can ever take those
things away from you, no matter what kind of crap they throw
social media or whatever. It's like those kinds of things
(13:20):
will stick with you forever, which is pretty awesome.
You and I were chatting a littlebit before the interview that
Trump's second term looks way different and is more effective
than Trump was maybe on the first term.
Let's say, you know, not that you're running, but let's say
you get another term as governor.
What do you think you would do different than you did your
first term? Because I think, you know, you
know, our governor, my governor,Governor Dunleavy, his second
(13:43):
term looked way different than his first term had he, you know,
there's a lot of things I think had he known going into blah,
blah, blah, he would have done blah, blah, blah different.
And so is there anything, you know, it's 10 years from now,
you're, you know, governor again, in this hypothetical
situation, what would you do different, you know, going into
it? Well, I think I think one of the
(14:05):
pages that you could take from the Trump second term playbook
is that Trump in the in his first term realized how
entrenched the bureaucracy was and that it was fighting him
every single day when he was president.
And so as he came in in the second term, he appointed people
(14:26):
who he knew were. Loyal.
And he also made sure that he was going to take control of as
much as he could. Look, they're still fighting him
from time to time, right? But in order to drive change,
you really had to control the executive branch.
And I was very proud in our first term.
We brought an incredible people.We had a fantastic cabinet of
(14:48):
very talented people from all over the country.
One of the things that I think Iwould do in the second term is
also one of the things I do in the second term is also make
sure that we're driving change at an even deeper level.
Not just looking at those cabinet positions, but looking
234 levels down in the departments to make sure that we
(15:11):
have the right conservative change agents there.
I actually think that's, I thinkthat's really essential.
Looking back on what happened toyou and you can give a little
brief synopsis here after the after I spit out this question
for folks that have been living under a rock and maybe haven't
heard. But you know, the, the they sent
(15:32):
their team to say, we're going to figure out how to cancel this
governor because he's too freaking effective and there's
too many people that like him. And, and they wanted to probably
put you in a petriot disk to seewhat they could get away with.
Ultimately, they were in the wrong, right?
They were the ones who are now getting convicted or going to
jail or finding that they made-up everything.
Talk to me a little bit about what it was like going through
(15:54):
that. Because it's one thing to go
through something like an attackon yourself and your family.
If you're not in the public lifeand it's only like 5 or 6 people
know about it. It's another thing to do it in
front of the entire United States and having it plaster on
every media outlet out there andknowing I didn't do any of this
(16:17):
and we may not see my point of view, may not be seen for
another four years. And I just kind of got to sit
and wait for this thing to play through.
That's got to just be nuts. So tell me, talk to me a little
bit about that and where you found strength to keep going in
and through all of it. For sure.
Well, I'll just, I'll kind of give you give your listeners
like a brief synopsis of the story and what happened and then
(16:39):
I'll kind of walk back through how, how, how we made it
through. But you know, as we were talking
about earlier, we had an extraordinarily effective term
as governor. We are changing things across
the spectrum and the George Soros organization didn't like
that. We now know that a George Soros
funded prosecutor decided that she was going to come up with a
(17:01):
crime to charge me with. So a few weeks after I had ended
the riots, she literally startedpaperwork.
She wasn't sure what the crime was, but she decided that she
was going to charge me with one.She then hired A corrupt former
FBI agent to make a false case against me.
(17:22):
They then enlisted corrupt journalists, one of whom was a
convicted felon who ended up paying people $120,000 cash to
lie about me. And that's, that's only the
$120,000 in cash that we know about that they paid.
This is how sick and kind of corrupt this operation was.
(17:46):
Well, you Fast forward to today.The corrupt FBI agent and the
George Soros funded prosecutor were charged with eight felonies
for perjury, for evidence tampering, for misuse of public
funds. Both of the prosecutor and the
FBI agent have pled guilty. The prosecutor was found by the
(18:09):
Missouri Supreme Court to have lied over 70 times to the court,
lied to the judge, lied to the grand jury over 70 times.
She was found to have lied. She was admonished.
She was fined by them. She later resigned.
The truth has now come out, but but one of the things that that
(18:29):
you, you have to live through isthe fact that the legacy media,
when we were going through this,when we were going through this,
they published literally Jonathan, millions of negative
false stories about and it wasn't just in the United
States. It was literally worldwide.
(18:50):
This cover, this story was covered around the world.
And I remember somebody sending me a, a, a story from the
Jerusalem Post about this, right?
So they cover the nonsense and they cover the lies in a
worldwide way. But then once you're exonerated,
when the prosecutor pleads guilty, when the FBI agent
(19:11):
pleads guilty, when it all, well, they, they don't cover it.
If they cover it all, they bury it in a, in a paragraph on, on
page 7. So, and it's also one of the
things that is tough as you're going through it, is it now all
of the facts are out now today, people know that I was innocent
(19:33):
and they know that the people who came after me are are
guilty. But at the time they didn't.
And we also had no guarantees that the truth would ever
actually come out. You know, I'm actually very
lucky because there are a lot ofpeople who are falsely accused
and they're they're slaughtered in the media and the truth never
(19:53):
finds its way out. In my case, I was actually
extraordinarily fortunate that that it did.
But that process also took years.
It took years for all the truth to come out.
It took years for the FBI agent and the prosecutor themselves to
get prosecuted and. Even when the story came out, it
(20:14):
came out just as COVID was starting.
So so people people were were thinking about other things.
And I think one of the things that you have to do as you're
going through something like that is that you just have to
have a rock solid sense of personal faith and personal
integrity to know that it reallyat the end of the day, it sounds
(20:37):
so simple, but it doesn't matterwhat other people think.
What matters is what you know and what you what you know to be
true. And the world can turn on people
in a very vicious, difficult way.
That's probably happened to a lot of people who are listening
to this podcast. One of the things that's
happened for me, because I've survived this in the way that I
(20:59):
have, so many people have come to me and it told me their
stories about how they they were, that's not how they were,
they were maligned. It happens, it happens.
And one of the things that I I've noticed is that if you
really stand up for good, the forces of evil will come after
you. And I recently wrote in a, in a
(21:23):
book that'll be coming out. It's the line I wrote.
Is it scars left by the devil mark you as one of God's sons?
So you can, you can actually wear these scarves proudly
because you know that they came to you because you've done
difficult things. And in your own life, you can
(21:43):
try to find a way to take that pain.
And it was really painful, and you turn it into wisdom.
You take that suffering and you turn it into strength.
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I have admired the
most in your story is that in talking with you and some of
your team members, you know, I get to talk to people,
successful people from all over the globe with this podcast, you
(22:05):
know, from elected officials to billionaires and stuff happens
to folks. And you guys have remained super
positive. So I think that that's been
something that I've seen and looked at and it's been
inspiring for me because it's very easy to be bitter.
Something that happened to you. It's and similar things, maybe
more worse or less worse, happento people all the time.
(22:28):
And I think the majority of the time people choose to be angry,
bitter, resentful and negative. What in it?
What's made you not do that? Because there's something
different there than I think most folks.
Is it faith? Is it because you've been to
actual wars and this is all child's play because it's just
kind of words on a paper? Tell me, tell me a little bit
(22:50):
about what's made you decide to turn something that's really
shitty into a positive thing. Yeah, Well, well, thanks, man.
I, I appreciate that. Look, I do think that it, it
helped that, you know, before I ever served in the military, I'd
done a lot of work in humanitarian crises.
So I'd seen terrible situations,you know, people who'd lost
(23:10):
their homes at Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, kids who'd lost limbs
to landmines in Cambodia. I'd seen real hardship and, you
know, poverty and and one of mother traces homes for the
destitute and dying in Calcutta.I'd seen that real hardship.
I think, of course, obviously going through the SEAL teams,
you know, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, the
(23:31):
Horn of Africa, gives you a perspective on what true pain
is. Though I will often say, I, I, I
will always tell people I'd muchrather fight the Taliban than
than fight journalists and politicians because they're more
honest. The Taliban, they're just trying
to kill you. You know, it's just straight up
(23:52):
right. It's just they're trying to kill
you and they, they, they're not,they're not pretending.
So, so I think that that perspective helped.
But really when you go through something like that, of course
you have moments of anger, Of course you have a moments of
fear. Of course you have moments of,
of bitterness. And I think you always get a
(24:13):
choice in life. I think there's really only two
emotions. There's fear and there's love
and you have to find a way to remember what you love and and
work for it and be part of it. You know, I'm so fortunate
because I have two beautiful sons, Joshua and Jacob.
(24:35):
And, you know, one of the great gifts that's actually been given
to me was that because of stepping out of the schedule and
the demands of public life, I'vebeen able to be an incredible
dad. I'm absolutely incumbent with
that. And that they're 9 and 11 now.
And I know I often think to myself, you know, when I'm on my
(24:59):
deathbed, what's going to be most important to me.
And the fact that I've been ableto spend this much time with
them and have these quality trips and quality conversations
and time going to soccer practice and basketball practice
and all of this, I believe, well, I, I already feel and I
(25:20):
think that at the end of my days, I'll also feel that it,
this was a great gift. I love that.
And I think I think you're goingto look back on that and think,
you know, that there was a purpose for everything and that
maybe that was a part of the bigger purpose.
So you could spend some more time with your kids because Lord
(25:41):
knows if you're in the governor's mansion or a senator
or whatever, you just don't havemuch time for anything outside
of that specific job. So last question to you is this
governor, I want to be mindful of your time.
You have a, you have a book coming out, a new book.
I don't think it's out yet. Can you talk to me a little bit
about that, what people could expect?
What's it about? All those kind of details We'd
(26:01):
love to hear. Yeah, Well, well, what when it
actually comes out, we should come on and I'll, I'll talk,
we'll, we'll have another podcast about the book.
But right now, the working titletitle is The Ultimate Rebellion
Handbook, and it's a book about how a man can take back his soul
from a world and a culture that's trying to take it away.
(26:24):
Everywhere you look today, thereare all of these demands on
people's and the ultimate rebellion today as a man is to
really be master of your own life.
And so that's that's that. That's what the book's all
about. We'll have you back on to chat
about the book once it gets out.First of all, thanks so much for
(26:47):
coming back on. Really appreciate you.
Your stories inspiring. For folks that are listening,
I'm going to link to the governor's website.
He's got a couple books out already that people can go check
out. I want to encourage folks to go
check those out and buy yourselfa copy and I'll link the article
as well that I did in Newsmax kind of about your story.
(27:09):
So really appreciate you coming on, Governor.
You're welcome back anytime and I hope you have a great rest of
your day. Thank you.
Honored to be on with you. Appreciate you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.