November 22, 2025 • 24 mins
In today’s episode Brandi Kruse opens up about what finally broke her out of the mainstream-media echo chamber, how living and working in Seattle shaped her perspective, and the pivotal moments that revealed just how deeply dishonest the media ecosystem had become. She shares what red-pilled her, the fallout with friends and family, and why she ultimately pulled the lever for Trump in 2024.
If you’ve ever wondered:
If you’ve ever wondered:
- What really goes on inside Antifa-run “autonomous zones”
- Why left-wing extremism gets a free pass
- How citizen journalists are being targeted
- What it actually takes to shake off TDS
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right podcast. Today,
we have a very special guest. It's Brandy Cruz. She's
host of the Undivided podcast. She is a recovered TEDS sufferer.
Recently she participated in the roundtable at the White House
about Antifa violence. And we'll get to that roundtable in
just a second, but first we want to hear what
(00:22):
cured you of your self described TDS.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Gosh, time, a lot of time. Apparently it took maybe
almost ten years. I didn't come around to President Trump
until about two weeks before the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And I'd been slowly being red pilled, but not like
quite to the extent that I could let go of
my TDS. I mean, I live in Seattle, and I've
I had been a mainstream journalist in Seattle for ten years,
(00:48):
almost ten twelve years, and so I think getting out
of that environment, I decided to quit that job in
TV news in November of twenty twenty one to launch
my independent show. And I think you don't realize the
extent to which you're in this really toxic echo chamber
until you're out of it, and you can start to
sort of think for yourself a little bit. So I
think that helped quite a bit. But there were also
some really pivotal moments for me where I realized how
(01:11):
deeply dishonest the media ecosystem was. The coverage of the
twenty twenty riots and what we saw in Seattle was
pretty bad. To see it downplayed was mind boggling to me. Also,
the coverage of the pandemic, the real inability or lack
of desire to question anything that the government was doing
despite the profound impact it was having on people's lives.
I thought, that's not what our role is supposed to be.
(01:33):
And so as I started to lose faith and trust
in the media, I was able to see through a
lot of what they said about President Trump and it
was like this veil was just ripped off, and I
was like, wow, this is so much more pleasant. I mean,
I'm still critical of him in some areas. I was
critical of him on the show yesterday, but I don't
(01:54):
take him literally anymore. And that was the key. I
had to stop taking the media seriously, and then I
had to stop taking the president literally everything he said,
and life just became a lot better, easier, and really
just more productive for me to not spend so much
time dwelling on the occupant of the White House.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Did people turn on you, like, did you have a
lot of friends that were kind of in the same
camp as you, and then when you decided to start thinking,
you know, just on your own terms, did they reject that?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I mean, I had family members and really clear, I
was never far left. I was never I would I
would never have considered myself a Democratic mad I voted
for Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen, I voted for Joe Jorgensen,
the Libertarian candidate for president in twenty twenty because I
just wanted my freedoms back during the pandemic, and then
voted for Trump in twenty twenty four. So I've always
(02:48):
been right of Seattle Center that might be a cuckoo
liberal and another area. So I was always independent. Mind,
I've always considered myself an independent. But when I went
to the White House, specifically, I mean when I decided
to vote for Donald Trump, certainly I had people who
cancel their subscriptions to our show. Yeah, I wouldn't watch
(03:08):
it anymore, wouldn't pay for it. Nothing. And then after
I went to the White House. I actually had a
pretty significant falling out with family members who questioned my integrity,
questioned you know, thought I was doing it for money
or it was just wild to see, and didn't like
the assertion that if I said I was cured from TDS,
(03:29):
that must mean they still have TDS. And of course
they think that they're absolutely on the right side of
history and Donald Trump can do nothing right. So it's actually,
I mean, between us and your viewers, obviously. I mean,
I spend quite a bit of time after my White
House trip in tears over a fallout with a family
member who I've you know, obviously known for thirty seven
(03:50):
years of my life, and it was really really hard
for me. But I'll also say in this period of time,
the last year, I've learned a lot about how do
I say that, I've learned a lot about how difficult
it probably was to be a Trump supporter all those
years for people. And I think at times I was
very sanctimonious about Donald Trump and probably a little condescending
(04:11):
toward people who supported him, and a little alienating. And
so now I'm getting a little bit of a taste
of my own medicine, and it makes me feel very
bad for how I probably acted all those years.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That's some interesting self reflections though. Yeah, and you know,
we're excited to hear about how you and other citizen
journalists were received in that roundtable and what you think
is going to come of it, Like, were there specific
actions that were outlined that they said, thank you for
what you've said, and here's what's going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. So I will say antifa in left wing violence
is an issue that is incredibly important to me to
raise awareness for. And it was even when I was
in mainstream news Seattle. I always told people, I joked
that my full time job was covering protests and riots.
It's just a thing in Seattle, and and leadership in
the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Portland, they just accept some level
(05:04):
of left wing violence as just a regular course of life.
It's so strange. And this goes back to when I
first came to Seattle as a really young journalist. I
was covering crime and justice and that was around the
time the Occupy movement was taking off. It was pretty
bad here and then that rolled into we had annual
May Day riots along with marches for worker and immigrant rights,
(05:25):
and then of course, the BLM movement, the takeover of
six blocks of the city. I had been assaulted personally
on numerous occasions, watched my crew assaulted. We were mobbed
the night that the Autonomous Zone CHOP as it's been
called in Seattle was formed. Had to seek refuge in
a fire station. More recently, in June, I was attacked.
Somebody tried to blind me with wasp killer outside the
(05:46):
DHS facility in Tequila, south of Seattle. So I've had
a lot of over fifteen years. I was sort of
public enemy number one for ANTIFA in the Pacific Northwest
for a long time. So to be able to go
to the White House and just at the very base level,
have someone as powerful as the President and the head
of the FBI and the head of DHS and dj
(06:07):
cares so much about raising awareness for that issue that
they'll have us there to talk about it was deeply
meaningful to me, and so I appreciate that. Beyond words,
the message I wanted to get across to those gathered
at the White House was basically like, we got three
and a half years. I don't I'm not we weren't there.
I wasn't there to get the media to believe that
(06:28):
Antifa is a real thing. That is a fool's Errand
I wasn't there to convince the American people. Don't care anymore.
I've tried fifteen years to convince, like Seattle people that
this is a real problem. I don't care to do
it anymore. I just want them to come down with
the full weight of the federal government and do anything
we can in three and a half years to fix it.
Have they done that. No. I think that me and
(06:52):
some other participants of the White House panel have been
outspoken Nick Sorder, Julio rosis Andy No, that we'd like
to see a little bit more bite. You know, certainly
there's a base in Texas that they're trying to build
that I think is significant. But I mean Portland continues,
you know, maybe not to the extent it was, but
(07:12):
we still have these factions. You know, I haven't seen
any significant uptick in arrest they have. One of the
things that was requested during the panel that they just
did was declare Antifa a terror organization globally. They should yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
that's something a lot to be done, And you know,
the panel was what more than a half ago.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So maybe right, you know, you say, like you're the
most important thing was wasn't getting people to just recognize
that it's a thing that there are so many people
on the left, like a lot of our leaders that
were saying, oh, no, they don't even exist. You know,
we could show a compilation of those people. But if
you are we know they exist. But if you are
talking to you know, just regular people out there in America,
(07:56):
and what would be the most surprising thing to the
people to like Jane and Joq America about Antifa and
what they're doing and what they continue to do.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, it's not spontaneous. It's not spontaneous in terms of surprising.
I mean the ties to the unions. I mean, I
really believe and I've tried to tread lightly because I
don't want to be sued by by the big unions,
but I really have been consistently shocked by the number
of people who are arrested for riot adjacent crimes who
(08:30):
are members of the teachers' union, the Washington Education Union. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I was going to ask, like who's behind it, Like
who's where's the money coming from, Who's behind it, Who's teacher?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I'm not saying they're funding it directly. But you know,
for instance, one of their favorite things to do here
is blockade things, right, And they've slowly elevated and escalated
that kind of activity over the years because there's no consequence,
Like they're like, Wow, we can block a city street,
none of us get arrested. Okay, great, what's next, Oh,
let's block a bridge that worked. Fine's let's block Interstate
(09:01):
five in downtown Seattle during rush hour for five hours,
no consequences. Let's block the entrance to Seattle Tacoma International
Airport with very few consequences as well. And it always
surprised me the number of people who are unmasked as
public school teachers. And I'm like, that's not a coincidence. Okay,
that's not a coincidence. Yea. Then how do.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
People there not get sick of that when they're obviously
personally impacted.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Why do they tolerate it? Gosh, that is the million
dollar question. In the moment, they don't. In the moment
they're angry about it. You know, for instance, when I
five was blocked, I want to say it was for
five hours, could have been more or less, but it
was around there and people were angry about it, and
there were ambulances that couldn't get through. They were blocking
the area right before the off ramp to the region's
(09:49):
most prominent trauma center where people are brought in life
or death emergencies. God, and you know, I think the
thing is there's twofold citizens usually only know what they hear, right,
and so the media's treatment of these these incidents is
paramount towards shaping the public's understanding of what happened, and
(10:10):
the media just downplays them. I mean, you would never
see them treat these instances in the way they do
if it was right wing. If it were right wing,
like if the Proud Boys showed up and took over
six square blocks of the city of Seattle, patrolled the
area with aar fifteen rifles that were handed to them
out of the trunk of a car by a guy
who dibbed himself the Chop Warlord, and surrounded a police
precinct that it had to be abandoned. How many how
(10:31):
many freaking days do you think that would have been
allowed to? My gosh, one hour and our governor and
the mayor and every member of Congress and the Democratic
side would have had a press conference, they would have
sent in the National Guard in the state police. No here,
because it's left wingers. They let it happen for a
month until people were killed there. Maybe it's maybe it's done.
(10:52):
I mean our mayor called it the summer of love,
like get a grip if anyone can. And this is
the kind of stuff I'm talking about that made my
red pillow is like we had been through six months
in twenty twenty a violent left wing extremism, cop cars
on fire, and downtown Seattle. People might remember this scene
of a guy who turned out to be a security
(11:13):
guard a marine disarming two Antifa riders of stolen police
rifles that they'd taken out of a cop car. That
was my security guard, who like people mind a potted plant.
It was like, stay here, and then comes back with
these two police rifles that he disarmed of these riders,
and they're even downplaying that kind of activity. It was
crazy to me. And then January sixth happened and I
was like, yeah, that's embarrassing. But then the media treated
(11:35):
it so significantly different yeah than what happens Sattle. I'm like,
wait a second, why is that so much different? That
everything that you down even had city council members up
on the front lines in the lead up to Chop
encouraging the violence, and I'm like, now you want me
to be angry about January sixth? It just is crazy.
(11:56):
It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I remember living through all the like the Chaz and
the Chop been making fun of them when we were
on the radio. It was just nuts. So like, is
that do you think that's the most unhinged, Like what
would be the most unhinged Antifa story that you could
tell thus far?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Oh, it has to be chesstop. I don't know how
U is it that one is? Yeah, I mean it has
to be Chaz Chop And there's so many elements of
that that are so you know, hypocritical, from the characterization
from our mayor Jenny Dirk at the time, who went
on CNN and said, who knows, it might be a
summer of love. As they're evacuating a police precinct literally,
you know, I was on Fox thirteen, which is the
(12:33):
local Fox affiliate at the time. I was our political reporter,
and I had sources telling me that police were about
to abandon the East Police Precinct, which is in an
area of the city known as Capitol Hill, very dense
needs a police precinct there because of the crime issues,
and the police department. The mayor's office denied it. No
we're not, No, we're not. An hour later, I get
a call I stand by my reporting. Hour later, I
(12:55):
get a call from my photographer who was on scene
sort of staged in an area. He said, hey, Brandy,
just backed U haul trucks up to the garage of
the East Precinct. They're moving out a bunch of stuff,
including plaques off the wall. They are reporting, and then
they're literally taking out you know, Gonzama, all these things.
They're taking plaques off the wall. An hour off. I mean,
(13:17):
it was it's just insane. I mean. And then they
abandoned the area. They're nowhere to be found, and they
leave this core area of the city completely at the
at the up to the wheel of these far left extremists.
And I mentioned the there was a guy named God
I can't remember his name. He was the Chaz Warlord,
chop Chazz they called it one. I can't remember what
(13:40):
he's like. He pulls up, they pull up this vehicle,
pop the trunk and they're recording this and streaming it
out live. They're proud of it. And he's got all
these air fifteen rifles and keeping mind, our state had
just banned the sale of these, so this had there
had just been along. So you have these democrats who
for years, including at the time our attorney general who's
now our governor, Bob Ferguson, very anti weapon of war,
(14:03):
right and loan the chop warlord, handing them to just strangers.
He'd wave people over, some of them didn't even look eighteen,
and he'd hand them a gun and they'd go around
the Chop and they'd set up barricades with just crap.
They stole bikes and all sorts of stuff, and they'd
sit there with their guns and they'd dictate who could
come and go, Oh my gosh, which is crazy because
(14:25):
you think about what they were there protesting against, you know,
a police state, right, yeah, police use the force. Those
same chop security guards like shot and killed a teenager
and so it's just like, wait a second, you think
police used two force too quickly, yet you murdered someone,
and that it's never been solved.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
But it just makes it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Make it makes sense. You can't, does it? Just make
your head explode.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Then when you hear prominent democrats, I mean I can
think of one off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
JB.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Pritzker just completely denying the existence of Antifa writ large,
like they just won't even acknowledge what we all see
and hear with our own eyes and ears.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, and to a point, I'm like, I don't even
care if you call them antifa, Like, Okay, is that
tripping you up? You know, is that is that a
problem for you that we gave them a name. Okay,
let's not give them a name. Then, let's just call
them left wing extremists, because now they're focusing on that
little thing like, oh, antifa just stands for anti fascists,
Like antifa is just a figment of our imagination. Okay,
(15:29):
let's just set a decide. Okay, let's just call them.
Let's judge them and arrest them and prosecute them, not
based on a label, but based off of their actions.
And I think that's appropriate, right. But you know, even
when we were doing that, they still will find a
way to excuse it in some way and to downplay
in some way. So they just look for whatever convenient
angle they can to deflect in this case, it's oh Antifa,
(15:53):
that's not even a real thing, and so you just
got to keep bringing the issue back to their actual
behavior and their actions. But you know, in Seattle, I
witness firsthand many of these are the same people, and
they're anarchists at their core, right, and maybe we call
them anarchists, and they just want the total like takedown
of the government of any sort of structure. They want anarchy,
(16:14):
and they're at everything, it doesn't matter what it is,
bashing and windows of the Amazon ghost stores because down
to capitalism, like they're there, they're there, they're there. They
just want anarchy and so they're going to show up
whenever there's an opportunity to carry that out. Yeah, and
they travel right like there.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
It's the same people that are going from city to
city just causing chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, I asked That's one of the specific things I
asked the White House at the Antifa roundtable is I
want you to take as many of these cases as possible,
but also to look into the interstate travel aspect of this,
because we have Antifa that they make calls online on
discord channels to come back and forth between Seattle and
Portland and provide basically mutual aid to Antifa, like, hey,
let's go down to Portland, let's come up to Seattle.
(17:01):
And so we've seen an awful lot of that, and
I think it puts their activities squarely in the purview
then of the federal government. But I also think, you know,
one of the things, for instance, and I'm selfish in
this regard, but I want the FEDS to take my
case from the Tequila police department involving a masked individual
who use wasp killer to try to blind me have
(17:21):
an anti ice protest. I don't think local police have
the tools and the frankly the resources to be able
to try to track and identify that individual who cover
their identity so well. But one of the reasons I
want them to do cases like that, we need to
show that putting a mask on is not going to
(17:42):
is not going to guarantee that you don't end up
in prison. And I think, yeah, Central Department, I mean,
look at what they did with January six, right, not
that I you know, look, I think January six was
an embarrassment, and for any conservatives who tried to downplay it,
like if this had been BLM they did the exact
same thing, you would also still be talking about it.
Okally so, but I do believe that those people were
(18:03):
politically prosecuted in the sense that like I've watched left
wing extremists get off the hook with all sorts of
things with maybe a slap on the wrist, and you're
talking to as and so I agree with that. But
if you assaulted a police officer, I don't think you
should have been pardon But when you look at how
they track those people down, they've basically used federal resources,
you know, FBI, DJ and they found who was all
(18:24):
on a cell phone in this vicinity during this time.
They literally years later were tracking down those people, showing
up at their doors, including in Washington State saying, hey,
your cell phone is being used in the vicinity of
the capitol on January six, twenty twenty one. What were
you doing there? And so you're telling me the same
FBI and DOJ can't do that with the people who
were outside the ice facility a t quilla. You're telling
(18:44):
me the FBIDJ can't do that. With what's happening in Portland.
You have the same technology, probably even better now five
years later, you're the same DOJ, the same FBI. So
if you could use those tools to track down years
later every single person in the vicinity of the US capital,
certainly you can do it for the anti ice terrorists.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a matter of do they want
do they want to do that? You know what I mean? Yeah,
So a last thing for me, I don't know. You
may have another questions. Okay, and if at the round table,
I know, you get to meet a lot of really
cool people. Did you meet Trump? And if you did,
what was the most surprising thing about him in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, he was in rare form. He was you know.
One of the coolest things about that moment for me
wasn't even being there for Antitha to talk about it.
That was the day that they had a piece deal
in the Middle East. And so I'm sitting we're in
this U form right. Yeah, cameras are on the President,
but off to my left, I'm on the very end
of the you. So there's these double doors that are open.
(19:45):
If you're not familiar with the White House, Like right
when you come in the main entrance and there's this
long hallway, these double doors are open, and I glance
over and I see Marco Rubio in the double doors,
you know, maybe twenty thirty minutes in, and I'm like,
that's weird. And he looked like he's trying to look
at the President, like trying to get his attention. Go
to the Andy No next to me. I'm like, something
is going on and Andy, oh my gosh. And then
we look back and the vice president has joined him
(20:06):
and they're pacing, and the Vice president's on the phone
and they're pacing, and then all of a sudden, Trump
calls in Marco Rubio and he goes, oh, Marco's here,
come on in Marco. And Mark's like, oh, good god,
this is not not the moment. And so then he
sits down and he whispers. You have that picture where
he's whispering to the president kind of very similar like
George Bush nine to eleven. Yes, right, And I'm like,
(20:28):
what is happening? And they announced basically they got peace deal.
So I shared that just to say that. The President
had to leave the room pretty quickly. We didn't get
time to really mingle with him afterwards, but I did
get and this is, you know, one of the coolest
experiences of my life. People made a lot. The left
wing media made a lot of him calling me very
attractive because I said that I made a joke that
(20:50):
I'm the one who brought up my looks. I made
the joke that getting rid of life is better without tds.
I said something to the fact. Up I'm you know, happier, healthier,
more successful, and I'm might even be a little more attractive.
So he was playing off of you very attractive, and
the left wing media characterized that as creepy or whatever. Okay,
(21:14):
my husbands, like the president of the United States thinks
my wife's very attractive. So he's leaving, right, and I'll
just always remember this. He's leaving and he comes across
our side and he's shaking hands really quick going down,
and he stops and he does the you know how
sometimes with world leaders. He'll pull him in. Yes, takes
my hand. He pulls me in, and then he gives
(21:36):
me one of his shoulder taps. He says, good job,
very good job. I felt like he was a proud
father and sort of you know, creepy vibes that they
were saying. I was like, no, he was proud of me,
you know, And it was a very nice moment, and
so no, just a very And again I think a
year ago I would have been I would have been offended.
(21:58):
You know, I wouldn't have laughed, And that just shows
the sort of change is you really enjoy his personality.
I will also say that, gosh, being a member of
the White House press pool must be just awful, because
if you watch that round table, man, they got it
from all sides. They're doing like a battered group of humans,
and I kind of felt bad for them, but.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Kind of not.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, well that's interesting. The whole story about him calling
you attractive is interesting because it does lead to my
last question, which is totally frivolous.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
And has nothing to do with Antifa. I just want
to know your hair regimen. That's right. It's gorgeous. I know.
I get to meet Scott Presler on Thursday, and I'm
so excited to have a hair off with him so
known for his hair and I'm very known for my hair,
and he's in town and I'm like, we need to
sort this out once and for all. Whose hair is better.
(22:53):
I'm gonna have a hair off. It's amazing, gorgeous. I
always tell people I love my little This is a commercial. Yes,
my my shark curling thing my daughter has that. My
daughter has a shark. Yeah, always always pin it. I
pin my curl until it cools, and then I take
it out. If you don't pin it, the curl's not.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Gonna last get interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Heir advice that I have.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
My daughter has hair like a lot like yours, and
it is that this must be the key and the
shark is the tool.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It is. Yeah, And I just was in TV for
ten years and they made me cut my hair into
a bob and it was long and blonde when I came,
and then they cut up to here. So for my wedding,
I started to grow it out and my husband was
just ecstatic. And I just know and I'm like, I
have no one telling me what to do. I can
cut it again, and so I just let it grow.
But yes, thank you, it's gorgeous. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And so you you're very very attractive, Brandy.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, we know that because the President said so.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Not at all creepy, not at all creepy. Now, we
so appreciate you being with us.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Thank you so much. No oh, I really enjoyed this.
I really enjoyed it. And look at US three blondes
just
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Totally thank you, Brandy, thank you,
Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right podcast. Today,
we have a very special guest. It's Brandy Cruz. She's
host of the Undivided podcast. She is a recovered TEDS sufferer.
Recently she participated in the roundtable at the White House
about Antifa violence. And we'll get to that roundtable in
just a second, but first we want to hear what
(00:22):
cured you of your self described TDS.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Gosh, time, a lot of time. Apparently it took maybe
almost ten years. I didn't come around to President Trump
until about two weeks before the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And I'd been slowly being red pilled, but not like
quite to the extent that I could let go of
my TDS. I mean, I live in Seattle, and I've
I had been a mainstream journalist in Seattle for ten years,
(00:48):
almost ten twelve years, and so I think getting out
of that environment, I decided to quit that job in
TV news in November of twenty twenty one to launch
my independent show. And I think you don't realize the
extent to which you're in this really toxic echo chamber
until you're out of it, and you can start to
sort of think for yourself a little bit. So I
think that helped quite a bit. But there were also
some really pivotal moments for me where I realized how
(01:11):
deeply dishonest the media ecosystem was. The coverage of the
twenty twenty riots and what we saw in Seattle was
pretty bad. To see it downplayed was mind boggling to me. Also,
the coverage of the pandemic, the real inability or lack
of desire to question anything that the government was doing
despite the profound impact it was having on people's lives.
I thought, that's not what our role is supposed to be.
(01:33):
And so as I started to lose faith and trust
in the media, I was able to see through a
lot of what they said about President Trump and it
was like this veil was just ripped off, and I
was like, wow, this is so much more pleasant. I mean,
I'm still critical of him in some areas. I was
critical of him on the show yesterday, but I don't
(01:54):
take him literally anymore. And that was the key. I
had to stop taking the media seriously, and then I
had to stop taking the president literally everything he said,
and life just became a lot better, easier, and really
just more productive for me to not spend so much
time dwelling on the occupant of the White House.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Did people turn on you, like, did you have a
lot of friends that were kind of in the same
camp as you, and then when you decided to start thinking,
you know, just on your own terms, did they reject that?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I mean, I had family members and really clear, I
was never far left. I was never I would I
would never have considered myself a Democratic mad I voted
for Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen, I voted for Joe Jorgensen,
the Libertarian candidate for president in twenty twenty because I
just wanted my freedoms back during the pandemic, and then
voted for Trump in twenty twenty four. So I've always
(02:48):
been right of Seattle Center that might be a cuckoo
liberal and another area. So I was always independent. Mind,
I've always considered myself an independent. But when I went
to the White House, specifically, I mean when I decided
to vote for Donald Trump, certainly I had people who
cancel their subscriptions to our show. Yeah, I wouldn't watch
(03:08):
it anymore, wouldn't pay for it. Nothing. And then after
I went to the White House. I actually had a
pretty significant falling out with family members who questioned my integrity,
questioned you know, thought I was doing it for money
or it was just wild to see, and didn't like
the assertion that if I said I was cured from TDS,
(03:29):
that must mean they still have TDS. And of course
they think that they're absolutely on the right side of
history and Donald Trump can do nothing right. So it's actually,
I mean, between us and your viewers, obviously. I mean,
I spend quite a bit of time after my White
House trip in tears over a fallout with a family
member who I've you know, obviously known for thirty seven
(03:50):
years of my life, and it was really really hard
for me. But I'll also say in this period of time,
the last year, I've learned a lot about how do
I say that, I've learned a lot about how difficult
it probably was to be a Trump supporter all those
years for people. And I think at times I was
very sanctimonious about Donald Trump and probably a little condescending
(04:11):
toward people who supported him, and a little alienating. And
so now I'm getting a little bit of a taste
of my own medicine, and it makes me feel very
bad for how I probably acted all those years.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That's some interesting self reflections though. Yeah, and you know,
we're excited to hear about how you and other citizen
journalists were received in that roundtable and what you think
is going to come of it, Like, were there specific
actions that were outlined that they said, thank you for
what you've said, and here's what's going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. So I will say antifa in left wing violence
is an issue that is incredibly important to me to
raise awareness for. And it was even when I was
in mainstream news Seattle. I always told people, I joked
that my full time job was covering protests and riots.
It's just a thing in Seattle, and and leadership in
the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Portland, they just accept some level
(05:04):
of left wing violence as just a regular course of life.
It's so strange. And this goes back to when I
first came to Seattle as a really young journalist. I
was covering crime and justice and that was around the
time the Occupy movement was taking off. It was pretty
bad here and then that rolled into we had annual
May Day riots along with marches for worker and immigrant rights,
(05:25):
and then of course, the BLM movement, the takeover of
six blocks of the city. I had been assaulted personally
on numerous occasions, watched my crew assaulted. We were mobbed
the night that the Autonomous Zone CHOP as it's been
called in Seattle was formed. Had to seek refuge in
a fire station. More recently, in June, I was attacked.
Somebody tried to blind me with wasp killer outside the
(05:46):
DHS facility in Tequila, south of Seattle. So I've had
a lot of over fifteen years. I was sort of
public enemy number one for ANTIFA in the Pacific Northwest
for a long time. So to be able to go
to the White House and just at the very base level,
have someone as powerful as the President and the head
of the FBI and the head of DHS and dj
(06:07):
cares so much about raising awareness for that issue that
they'll have us there to talk about it was deeply
meaningful to me, and so I appreciate that. Beyond words,
the message I wanted to get across to those gathered
at the White House was basically like, we got three
and a half years. I don't I'm not we weren't there.
I wasn't there to get the media to believe that
(06:28):
Antifa is a real thing. That is a fool's Errand
I wasn't there to convince the American people. Don't care anymore.
I've tried fifteen years to convince, like Seattle people that
this is a real problem. I don't care to do
it anymore. I just want them to come down with
the full weight of the federal government and do anything
we can in three and a half years to fix it.
Have they done that. No. I think that me and
(06:52):
some other participants of the White House panel have been
outspoken Nick Sorder, Julio rosis Andy No, that we'd like
to see a little bit more bite. You know, certainly
there's a base in Texas that they're trying to build
that I think is significant. But I mean Portland continues,
you know, maybe not to the extent it was, but
(07:12):
we still have these factions. You know, I haven't seen
any significant uptick in arrest they have. One of the
things that was requested during the panel that they just
did was declare Antifa a terror organization globally. They should yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
that's something a lot to be done, And you know,
the panel was what more than a half ago.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So maybe right, you know, you say, like you're the
most important thing was wasn't getting people to just recognize
that it's a thing that there are so many people
on the left, like a lot of our leaders that
were saying, oh, no, they don't even exist. You know,
we could show a compilation of those people. But if
you are we know they exist. But if you are
talking to you know, just regular people out there in America,
(07:56):
and what would be the most surprising thing to the
people to like Jane and Joq America about Antifa and
what they're doing and what they continue to do.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, it's not spontaneous. It's not spontaneous in terms of surprising.
I mean the ties to the unions. I mean, I
really believe and I've tried to tread lightly because I
don't want to be sued by by the big unions,
but I really have been consistently shocked by the number
of people who are arrested for riot adjacent crimes who
(08:30):
are members of the teachers' union, the Washington Education Union. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I was going to ask, like who's behind it, Like
who's where's the money coming from, Who's behind it, Who's teacher?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I'm not saying they're funding it directly. But you know,
for instance, one of their favorite things to do here
is blockade things, right, And they've slowly elevated and escalated
that kind of activity over the years because there's no consequence,
Like they're like, Wow, we can block a city street,
none of us get arrested. Okay, great, what's next, Oh,
let's block a bridge that worked. Fine's let's block Interstate
(09:01):
five in downtown Seattle during rush hour for five hours,
no consequences. Let's block the entrance to Seattle Tacoma International
Airport with very few consequences as well. And it always
surprised me the number of people who are unmasked as
public school teachers. And I'm like, that's not a coincidence. Okay,
that's not a coincidence. Yea. Then how do.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
People there not get sick of that when they're obviously
personally impacted.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Why do they tolerate it? Gosh, that is the million
dollar question. In the moment, they don't. In the moment
they're angry about it. You know, for instance, when I
five was blocked, I want to say it was for
five hours, could have been more or less, but it
was around there and people were angry about it, and
there were ambulances that couldn't get through. They were blocking
the area right before the off ramp to the region's
(09:49):
most prominent trauma center where people are brought in life
or death emergencies. God, and you know, I think the
thing is there's twofold citizens usually only know what they hear, right,
and so the media's treatment of these these incidents is
paramount towards shaping the public's understanding of what happened, and
(10:10):
the media just downplays them. I mean, you would never
see them treat these instances in the way they do
if it was right wing. If it were right wing,
like if the Proud Boys showed up and took over
six square blocks of the city of Seattle, patrolled the
area with aar fifteen rifles that were handed to them
out of the trunk of a car by a guy
who dibbed himself the Chop Warlord, and surrounded a police
precinct that it had to be abandoned. How many how
(10:31):
many freaking days do you think that would have been
allowed to? My gosh, one hour and our governor and
the mayor and every member of Congress and the Democratic
side would have had a press conference, they would have
sent in the National Guard in the state police. No here,
because it's left wingers. They let it happen for a
month until people were killed there. Maybe it's maybe it's done.
(10:52):
I mean our mayor called it the summer of love,
like get a grip if anyone can. And this is
the kind of stuff I'm talking about that made my
red pillow is like we had been through six months
in twenty twenty a violent left wing extremism, cop cars
on fire, and downtown Seattle. People might remember this scene
of a guy who turned out to be a security
(11:13):
guard a marine disarming two Antifa riders of stolen police
rifles that they'd taken out of a cop car. That
was my security guard, who like people mind a potted plant.
It was like, stay here, and then comes back with
these two police rifles that he disarmed of these riders,
and they're even downplaying that kind of activity. It was
crazy to me. And then January sixth happened and I
was like, yeah, that's embarrassing. But then the media treated
(11:35):
it so significantly different yeah than what happens Sattle. I'm like,
wait a second, why is that so much different? That
everything that you down even had city council members up
on the front lines in the lead up to Chop
encouraging the violence, and I'm like, now you want me
to be angry about January sixth? It just is crazy.
(11:56):
It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I remember living through all the like the Chaz and
the Chop been making fun of them when we were
on the radio. It was just nuts. So like, is
that do you think that's the most unhinged, Like what
would be the most unhinged Antifa story that you could
tell thus far?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Oh, it has to be chesstop. I don't know how
U is it that one is? Yeah, I mean it has
to be Chaz Chop And there's so many elements of
that that are so you know, hypocritical, from the characterization
from our mayor Jenny Dirk at the time, who went
on CNN and said, who knows, it might be a
summer of love. As they're evacuating a police precinct literally,
you know, I was on Fox thirteen, which is the
(12:33):
local Fox affiliate at the time. I was our political reporter,
and I had sources telling me that police were about
to abandon the East Police Precinct, which is in an
area of the city known as Capitol Hill, very dense
needs a police precinct there because of the crime issues,
and the police department. The mayor's office denied it. No
we're not, No, we're not. An hour later, I get
a call I stand by my reporting. Hour later, I
(12:55):
get a call from my photographer who was on scene
sort of staged in an area. He said, hey, Brandy,
just backed U haul trucks up to the garage of
the East Precinct. They're moving out a bunch of stuff,
including plaques off the wall. They are reporting, and then
they're literally taking out you know, Gonzama, all these things.
They're taking plaques off the wall. An hour off. I mean,
(13:17):
it was it's just insane. I mean. And then they
abandoned the area. They're nowhere to be found, and they
leave this core area of the city completely at the
at the up to the wheel of these far left extremists.
And I mentioned the there was a guy named God
I can't remember his name. He was the Chaz Warlord,
chop Chazz they called it one. I can't remember what
(13:40):
he's like. He pulls up, they pull up this vehicle,
pop the trunk and they're recording this and streaming it
out live. They're proud of it. And he's got all
these air fifteen rifles and keeping mind, our state had
just banned the sale of these, so this had there
had just been along. So you have these democrats who
for years, including at the time our attorney general who's
now our governor, Bob Ferguson, very anti weapon of war,
(14:03):
right and loan the chop warlord, handing them to just strangers.
He'd wave people over, some of them didn't even look eighteen,
and he'd hand them a gun and they'd go around
the Chop and they'd set up barricades with just crap.
They stole bikes and all sorts of stuff, and they'd
sit there with their guns and they'd dictate who could
come and go, Oh my gosh, which is crazy because
(14:25):
you think about what they were there protesting against, you know,
a police state, right, yeah, police use the force. Those
same chop security guards like shot and killed a teenager
and so it's just like, wait a second, you think
police used two force too quickly, yet you murdered someone,
and that it's never been solved.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
But it just makes it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Make it makes sense. You can't, does it? Just make
your head explode.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Then when you hear prominent democrats, I mean I can
think of one off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
JB.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Pritzker just completely denying the existence of Antifa writ large,
like they just won't even acknowledge what we all see
and hear with our own eyes and ears.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, and to a point, I'm like, I don't even
care if you call them antifa, Like, Okay, is that
tripping you up? You know, is that is that a
problem for you that we gave them a name. Okay,
let's not give them a name. Then, let's just call
them left wing extremists, because now they're focusing on that
little thing like, oh, antifa just stands for anti fascists,
Like antifa is just a figment of our imagination. Okay,
(15:29):
let's just set a decide. Okay, let's just call them.
Let's judge them and arrest them and prosecute them, not
based on a label, but based off of their actions.
And I think that's appropriate, right. But you know, even
when we were doing that, they still will find a
way to excuse it in some way and to downplay
in some way. So they just look for whatever convenient
angle they can to deflect in this case, it's oh Antifa,
(15:53):
that's not even a real thing, and so you just
got to keep bringing the issue back to their actual
behavior and their actions. But you know, in Seattle, I
witness firsthand many of these are the same people, and
they're anarchists at their core, right, and maybe we call
them anarchists, and they just want the total like takedown
of the government of any sort of structure. They want anarchy,
(16:14):
and they're at everything, it doesn't matter what it is,
bashing and windows of the Amazon ghost stores because down
to capitalism, like they're there, they're there, they're there. They
just want anarchy and so they're going to show up
whenever there's an opportunity to carry that out. Yeah, and
they travel right like there.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
It's the same people that are going from city to
city just causing chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, I asked That's one of the specific things I
asked the White House at the Antifa roundtable is I
want you to take as many of these cases as possible,
but also to look into the interstate travel aspect of this,
because we have Antifa that they make calls online on
discord channels to come back and forth between Seattle and
Portland and provide basically mutual aid to Antifa, like, hey,
let's go down to Portland, let's come up to Seattle.
(17:01):
And so we've seen an awful lot of that, and
I think it puts their activities squarely in the purview
then of the federal government. But I also think, you know,
one of the things, for instance, and I'm selfish in
this regard, but I want the FEDS to take my
case from the Tequila police department involving a masked individual
who use wasp killer to try to blind me have
(17:21):
an anti ice protest. I don't think local police have
the tools and the frankly the resources to be able
to try to track and identify that individual who cover
their identity so well. But one of the reasons I
want them to do cases like that, we need to
show that putting a mask on is not going to
(17:42):
is not going to guarantee that you don't end up
in prison. And I think, yeah, Central Department, I mean,
look at what they did with January six, right, not
that I you know, look, I think January six was
an embarrassment, and for any conservatives who tried to downplay it,
like if this had been BLM they did the exact
same thing, you would also still be talking about it.
Okally so, but I do believe that those people were
(18:03):
politically prosecuted in the sense that like I've watched left
wing extremists get off the hook with all sorts of
things with maybe a slap on the wrist, and you're
talking to as and so I agree with that. But
if you assaulted a police officer, I don't think you
should have been pardon But when you look at how
they track those people down, they've basically used federal resources,
you know, FBI, DJ and they found who was all
(18:24):
on a cell phone in this vicinity during this time.
They literally years later were tracking down those people, showing
up at their doors, including in Washington State saying, hey,
your cell phone is being used in the vicinity of
the capitol on January six, twenty twenty one. What were
you doing there? And so you're telling me the same
FBI and DOJ can't do that with the people who
were outside the ice facility a t quilla. You're telling
(18:44):
me the FBIDJ can't do that. With what's happening in Portland.
You have the same technology, probably even better now five
years later, you're the same DOJ, the same FBI. So
if you could use those tools to track down years
later every single person in the vicinity of the US capital,
certainly you can do it for the anti ice terrorists.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a matter of do they want
do they want to do that? You know what I mean? Yeah,
So a last thing for me, I don't know. You
may have another questions. Okay, and if at the round table,
I know, you get to meet a lot of really
cool people. Did you meet Trump? And if you did,
what was the most surprising thing about him in your opinion?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, he was in rare form. He was you know.
One of the coolest things about that moment for me
wasn't even being there for Antitha to talk about it.
That was the day that they had a piece deal
in the Middle East. And so I'm sitting we're in
this U form right. Yeah, cameras are on the President,
but off to my left, I'm on the very end
of the you. So there's these double doors that are open.
(19:45):
If you're not familiar with the White House, Like right
when you come in the main entrance and there's this
long hallway, these double doors are open, and I glance
over and I see Marco Rubio in the double doors,
you know, maybe twenty thirty minutes in, and I'm like,
that's weird. And he looked like he's trying to look
at the President, like trying to get his attention. Go
to the Andy No next to me. I'm like, something
is going on and Andy, oh my gosh. And then
we look back and the vice president has joined him
(20:06):
and they're pacing, and the Vice president's on the phone
and they're pacing, and then all of a sudden, Trump
calls in Marco Rubio and he goes, oh, Marco's here,
come on in Marco. And Mark's like, oh, good god,
this is not not the moment. And so then he
sits down and he whispers. You have that picture where
he's whispering to the president kind of very similar like
George Bush nine to eleven. Yes, right, And I'm like,
(20:28):
what is happening? And they announced basically they got peace deal.
So I shared that just to say that. The President
had to leave the room pretty quickly. We didn't get
time to really mingle with him afterwards, but I did
get and this is, you know, one of the coolest
experiences of my life. People made a lot. The left
wing media made a lot of him calling me very
attractive because I said that I made a joke that
(20:50):
I'm the one who brought up my looks. I made
the joke that getting rid of life is better without tds.
I said something to the fact. Up I'm you know, happier, healthier,
more successful, and I'm might even be a little more attractive.
So he was playing off of you very attractive, and
the left wing media characterized that as creepy or whatever. Okay,
(21:14):
my husbands, like the president of the United States thinks
my wife's very attractive. So he's leaving, right, and I'll
just always remember this. He's leaving and he comes across
our side and he's shaking hands really quick going down,
and he stops and he does the you know how
sometimes with world leaders. He'll pull him in. Yes, takes
my hand. He pulls me in, and then he gives
(21:36):
me one of his shoulder taps. He says, good job,
very good job. I felt like he was a proud
father and sort of you know, creepy vibes that they
were saying. I was like, no, he was proud of me,
you know, And it was a very nice moment, and
so no, just a very And again I think a
year ago I would have been I would have been offended.
(21:58):
You know, I wouldn't have laughed, And that just shows
the sort of change is you really enjoy his personality.
I will also say that, gosh, being a member of
the White House press pool must be just awful, because
if you watch that round table, man, they got it
from all sides. They're doing like a battered group of humans,
and I kind of felt bad for them, but.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Kind of not.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, well that's interesting. The whole story about him calling
you attractive is interesting because it does lead to my
last question, which is totally frivolous.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
And has nothing to do with Antifa. I just want
to know your hair regimen. That's right. It's gorgeous. I know.
I get to meet Scott Presler on Thursday, and I'm
so excited to have a hair off with him so
known for his hair and I'm very known for my hair,
and he's in town and I'm like, we need to
sort this out once and for all. Whose hair is better.
(22:53):
I'm gonna have a hair off. It's amazing, gorgeous. I
always tell people I love my little This is a commercial. Yes,
my my shark curling thing my daughter has that. My
daughter has a shark. Yeah, always always pin it. I
pin my curl until it cools, and then I take
it out. If you don't pin it, the curl's not.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Gonna last get interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Heir advice that I have.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
My daughter has hair like a lot like yours, and
it is that this must be the key and the
shark is the tool.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It is. Yeah, And I just was in TV for
ten years and they made me cut my hair into
a bob and it was long and blonde when I came,
and then they cut up to here. So for my wedding,
I started to grow it out and my husband was
just ecstatic. And I just know and I'm like, I
have no one telling me what to do. I can
cut it again, and so I just let it grow.
But yes, thank you, it's gorgeous. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And so you you're very very attractive, Brandy.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, we know that because the President said so.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Not at all creepy, not at all creepy. Now, we
so appreciate you being with us.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Thank you so much. No oh, I really enjoyed this.
I really enjoyed it. And look at US three blondes
just
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Totally thank you, Brandy, thank you,
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