He Reported Election Fraud — Then Lost Everything | Erik Holt | Ep. 425

Summary

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Cleared Hot Ep. 425: "He Reported Election Fraud — Then Lost Everything"

Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Erik Holt
Date: January 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Andy Stumpf and Erik Holt, a former fire chief whose whistleblowing on local election fraud in Colorado led to a devastating personal and professional fallout. The discussion traces Holt's journey through military and fire service, delves into the complexities of local politics, the risk and cost of standing up for integrity, and explores the broader landscape of American trust in elections and institutions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Holt’s Background and Philosophy on Service

• Military and Firefighting Roots: Holt discusses his military background as a firefighter and transition into federal and community fire service roles.
• Leadership & Culture: Builds a successful fire department by professionalizing and actively recruiting/training volunteers (18:53–21:39).
• Personal Motivation: Centers his ethos on discomfort and growth. "I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too." (Episode Description)

The Incident: Discovering and Reporting Election Fraud

• Board Elections & Irregularities:

  • All five seats on the local fire board unexpectedly came up for election, which is highly irregular and removes stability from governance (79:06).
  • A slate of five ran under “vote for one of us, vote for all of us,” an unusual local political maneuver (81:43).

• First Signs of Fraud:

  • Multiple complaints from community members about poll watchers filming voters, coaching votes, and general impropriety.
  • “One of the poll watchers was in front of me on their phone and they said, 'Did you pay him? Is this the vehicle pulling in right now?' And then I watched them sort of motion people over and heard them tell who to vote for.” — Holt (87:02)

• Holt’s Personal Investigation:

  • As a private citizen, Holt acquires hours of surveillance footage and meticulously reviews for violations, tallying hundreds of instances of illegal activity (91:46–93:15).
  • He discovers a coordinated scheme using poll watchers with electronic devices, track counters, and off-site coordination to guarantee election victory.

  “If there's hundreds of violations of law, it's not an accident. It's got to be something coordinated. But I don't want to find something coordinated.” — Holt (93:14)

Consequences of Speaking Out

• Repercussions from the New Board:
  • Holt becomes a pariah, accused of felony surveillance ‘fraud,’ ostracized and finally fired for being unable to pay an insurance bill—after the board had frozen the district’s bank accounts, effectively disabling operations (110:11–117:11).
• Institutional Barriers:
  • Multiple legal roadblocks, conflicts of interest (the law firm representing the board connected to the DA’s office), and summary judgments against him.
  • “For two and a half years, I've taken the brunt of it. And the people that committed crimes and election fraud have just attacked me non-stop.” — Holt (122:10)
• Personal Fallout:
  • Financial ruin: forced to sell his home, move into a camper, unable to find work in his field.
  • “My livelihood, my career, everything—gone. I live in a camper in my stepdad's backyard in California.” — Holt (119:30)

Reflections on Integrity, Resilience, and the Cost of Principle

• Raising Children by Example:
  • “There ain’t no effing way my two daughters will ever see me quit something because the road is hard.” — Holt (121:40)
• Lessons Learned:
  • The First Amendment and whistleblower protections are insufficient in practice for public officials.
  • “The system is not set up for people like whistleblowers to have any chance of success in courts.”

American Discourse: Elections, Social Media, and Emotional Thinking

• Host and Guest on Emotional vs. Intellectual Responses:
  • “You realize in your answer you just demonstrated the difference between an emotional and an intellectual response... I'm a red-blooded American, let's go. That's emotional.” — Andy (67:50)
• Social Media and Youth:
  • Australia’s approach to banning social media for minors, psychological effects on kids, the role of algorithms, and self-responsibility (51:05–56:08).
• Election Cynicism and Trust in Institutions:
  • “I am at a place where I think politicians have done almost everything they can to erode the trust in those they are supposed to be serving. I need to see it.” — Andy (132:04)
• Notable Comparison:
  • The local election fraud Holt discovered as a microcosm of national election distrust.

On Why Small-Scale Corruption Can Be So Passionate

• Power, Ego, and Status:
  • The five board members appear motivated by ego and status, not monetary gain. (105:08)
  • “Ego is a cancer, man. That's all I can—it's chaos that I had inherited in these, you know, counter parties.” — Holt (129:35)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On professionalization and culture in fire departments (18:53):

  “We always had somebody 24-7 at the station that was an EMT, and started in April 2022... by January of ‘23, we were down to a seven-minute response time, just changing the model.” — Holt

• On discovering evidence of election rigging (97:40):

  “Somebody's off-site coordinating. They would call one of the poll watchers. The poll watcher would walk out, greet people, walk back in, people would get their ballot, go vote. And as they came back ... they were signaling, 'Hey, I complied.' And they would count those.”

• On whistleblowing and fallout (122:10):

  “For two and a half years, I've taken the brunt of it. And the people that committed crimes and election fraud have just attacked me non-stop.”

• On showing one's kids perseverance (121:40):

  “There ain’t no effing way my two daughters will ever see me quit something because the road is hard.” — Holt

• On emotional vs. intellectual national responses (67:50):

  “You realize in your answer you just demonstrated the difference between an emotional and an intellectual response. ... I'm a red-blooded American, let's go. That's emotional.” — Andy

• On how Americans engage online (56:48):

  “I try to, when I engage with people online, I use the elevator principle. I don’t say anything that I wouldn’t say if I wasn’t in an elevator.” — Andy

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Most Important Segments (Timestamps)

• 15:46–22:16 — Building and transforming a rural fire department
• 79:06–101:52 — The tangled small-town board election, reporting, and Holt’s decision to investigate
• 110:09–117:11 — Board strikes back; Holt is fired and the department is shut down
• 119:30–122:10 — The personal cost: legal battles, financial ruin, and the quest for justice
• 127:02–130:35 — The broader meaning of fighting for integrity and the case's legal implications
• 139:10–141:15 — Caution on blaming judges for unfavorable outcomes and on Gold Star status
• 121:36–121:49 — “There ain’t no effing way my two daughters will ever see me quit...” (pivotal quote on grit)

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Final Reflections & Where to Follow Erik Holt

• What Holt Learned:
  “Hardship is how you grow. My primary duty is to raise two respectable human beings... There's value in fighting and in standing up for what you believe.” (153:50–155:19)

• Where to Follow / Support Holt:

  • Facebook: Justice for Holt
  • X/Twitter
  • TikTok, YouTube: “Justice for Holt”
  • Fundraising: GoFundMe, GiveSendGo (links referenced to be provided in show notes)

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Summary

This episode explores not just a whistleblower’s personal and professional devastation after exposing small town election fraud, but also the nuances of courage, the cost of principle, and what ethical resilience means in a world where speaking out is perilous. Andy presses Holt to distinguish emotional reaction from critical thought, unpacks the mechanics and motives of small-town politics, and holds up the universal lesson: Sometimes, doing the right thing means paying an enormous price—and your kids are always watching.

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For listeners seeking further details, refer to Erik Holt’s social media (@JusticeforHolt) for documentary video and legal evidence referenced throughout the episode.

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Transcript

[A]

Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south.

[B]

West of the smoke, west of the smoke.

[A]

Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[B]

Oh, wait a minute. Give it to me.

[A]

I need it. You're cleared hot coffee. Cleared hot. What. What do you do for a living now?

[B]

So I'm the director of emergency services, but I actually just got a job offer, so in next month, I'm gonna be the GM for a hydroelectric company or ho. So you're joint powers authority.

[A]

Okay, so right before in Colorado, you were in the fire service, Right. You were fire chief. So then you went to the director of emergency services, which is a little tangential to water. I don't know much about. Yeah. How did you get that job then?

[B]

Personality, I think.

[A]

Was there not a level of requisite knowledge and experience associated with this job? Like, how does this work?

[B]

They need leadership, you know, they were like, what do you know about water? And I said, I've sprayed probably more than anybody in this room. And they laughed. And we just moved to the next question.

[A]

Like, I drink it every day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Try to keep that about a fist away from you. Pull that sucker.

[B]

I'll lean in once we.

[A]

Where are you going? Oh, where if you want to be.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, look, you got no intro or nothing?

[A]

No, I deal with that later. Look, you get like a weird 45 degree firefighter angle and then mic too. Good.

[B]

Are my curls straight?

[A]

I mean, they're good enough. Are firefighters required to have a mustache also? How does that interface with your breathing apparatus?

[B]

Well, the curls can become a night, you know, because that seals like here.

[A]

Yeah, but so definitely risk life and limb for a mustache.

[B]

Yeah, well, chicks take it.

[A]

So do they, though.

[B]

I mean, the ones I try to hang around do. It's. It's like a tradition thing, you know?

[A]

So where'd it start?

[B]

So back before breathing apparatus, it used to be, you know, wood and actual, like, cotton products that would burn, not fucking petroleum. So they would just literally have these long mustaches and beards, and they dip it in water, kind of fold it up with a handkerchief and go in and fight fire.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. That, I think led to a lot of lung cancer. Probably.

[B]

Probably.

[A]

Wow. Okay. It is one of the. I mean, stereotypical things that holds true for, I'll say 80% of firefighters I know have one.

[B]

Yeah, you gotta earn it, you know, once you do. But the thing is, like, as it gets more curly, like, it's rank driven. So, like, people know if you got the curls, you're in charge.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Not really, but okay.

[A]

I was gonna.

[B]

Pretty close to.

[A]

I have a brother in law's San Diego city fire captain, no mustache.

[B]

Really? Yeah, he probably gets hazed a lot.

[A]

Well, he's the captain at his station, so I don't think so. No, he is working at. He's been at it for a long time. They go on fewer calls than most stations. He's worked his way into a very. My words. Not his luxurious area to work in which I get. I respect it.

[B]

Yeah, those are the high bids, man. It's a young man's game.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. Once he's got those, he has got the time in. He did. I mean, he started off as. I think he was a back of the ambulance. First paramedic, then firefighter, then what do they call the guy drives the engineer, then I think to the cap. Yeah, he's doing all right. He earned his way there.

[B]

Well, he's probably making pretty good money in San Diego too.

[A]

Yeah. A lot of pickleball.

[B]

Yeah, a lot of people. We did a lot of ping pong, a lot of washers or.

[A]

Yeah, that's good use of taxpayer dollars.

[B]

It's. Yeah.

[A]

Let me ask you this.

[B]

We get paid for what we're willing to do, not what we'll do.

[A]

Let's say you blow your knee out playing pickleball. Is that a workman's comp issue?

[B]

Creatively? Yeah. I've known a lot of fire station injuries like that.

[A]

I wasn't playing pickleball. I was training, working out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I would.

[A]

I would limp over to a fire hose and like pretend to be drag. Like, ow.

[B]

That's happened. But I mean, you know, just staying fit for the job. I was doing calisthenics and dynamic movements.

[A]

Let's not use the term pickleball with calisthenics.

[B]

I've never actually played it, but I.

[A]

Played one time my wife's mother. Have you heard this, Michael?

[B]

Maybe, but I'm excited to hear the game. So anything that starts with your wife's mother in athletics, she has as people.

[A]

In her demographic do a lot of time on her hands. She got into pickleball. And by that I mean obsessed, like the auto pickable, like feeding machine that you're just like practicing. We're talking like Forrest Gumping it out in the field, hitting stuff back. So I mean, she's part of leagues. No, plural, not singular. Indoor crew, outdoor crew. And I know nothing about pickleball, but I just started telling her that regardless of how long you play and how good you are, I'm going to destroy you. Yeah. So she finally came out here. We went to a local gym and that's exactly what happened. And she was furious.

[B]

Did you really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Were you just like, ah, oh, I brought everything.

[A]

I was. I didn't know you couldn't charge the net, which is what I did. I hit her so hard, Michael, with the ball one time, which is actually all I was aiming to do. Just whack. Hit her just like right in the stern. Ow. She got so mad and it just warmed every ounce of my heart.

[B]

I think you have to establish dominance with mother in laws.

[A]

I think so too. Then she wanted to play. You know, obviously domination in the first game could have been a fluke. Right. Domination in the second game as well. Then she's like, well, let's just be on the same team and we'll play.

[B]

Other people now we're friends.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People do get obsessed with that though.

[A]

They do. I mean, honestly, there's way worse things for somebody in their late 70s to get obsessed with than an activity where they're at least moving around. And she got a social circle from that as well.

[B]

Yeah. I don't see, you know, 70 year old lady doing jujitsu or nothing. So. I mean you could, but you'd be surprised.

[A]

There's some people out there who do. There is a SPG black belt. She obviously didn't get her black belt in her 70s, but I think she's knocking on the door of that in California, actually near San Francisco is my understanding.

[B]

Yeah, I guess if you've been in it, I mean it's just the general but like starting out, white belt, all like aggressive and you would need to.

[A]

Really pick your training partners. You know what, you need to bring somebody with you from the nursing home to start.

[B]

Yeah, very.

[A]

Yeah. 20 year old versus a 70 year old is going to sound like glass breaking.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah, I, I got to a certain point, I was training and competing. Like I'm sick of going against 18 year old wrestlers coming out of high school and their energy level. Yeah, that's why you got to go.

[A]

Into the masters category.

[B]

Yeah, I'm. I can.

[A]

The distinguished gentleman category. Yeah. How long you been doing jiu jitsu?

[B]

Well, I don't anymore. I did. Yeah, I know I'm one of those, but I did.

[A]

Did you get your blue belt?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Did you quit at blue belt?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

Yeah, I'm one of the.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what they say, the dynamic.

[A]

Perfect blue belts are the Black belts of quitters.

[B]

Yeah. What do you know?

[A]

Black belt.

[B]

Are you?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah. But so my wife coaches and she's just like, they get this blue belt and they just. That is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. Yes. Right. You know who these people are? They're in Montana. They make knives. They're a company. What else need I say about brand? Founded by Josh Smith, the youngest master bladesmith in the history of bladesmiths. Competed twice on Forged in Fire. I will say his blade chipped twice. He really didn't follow my advice when it come to heat cycling, which, you know, you go hot to cold, it's how you make a blade stronger. Very simple things. I'm sure he regrets not listening to my advice. It's not a big deal though. What he's building down in Missoula is unbelievable. I was just down there picking up a bunch of knives that I'm going to be giving to each one of the guests that come in studio. Why? Because they're freaking fantastic. They, it's. It's amazing to see his facility. Everything from the steel that's going to be coming in and to how they are heat treated into sharpened. Put together, the CNC machines, the lasers, it's. I don't have the words to describe it. And then also what does he have out front? A black rifle coffee shop as well. So he is absolutely killing it. What I'll say is this. The knives can be a little bit hard to get ahold of because it's tough to manage the demand for them. It is immense. Head over to montanaknifecompany.com though. And looking at it right now, there is a good amount of knives that are in stock. They're not always there. The best thing I can suggest for you is to sign up for their email and their test text notification list. They drop blades on Thursdays and Saturdays. Those go pretty quick. But you can always go to the website. The blades they do have in stock are going to be there and don't sleep on their apparel as well. I will say this, in about two weeks, one of their jackets is going to be coming out. I may or may not have absconded with one in the helicopter. Holy cow. Unbelievable. Be on the lookout for that in the future. Montanaknifecompany.com Back to the show.

[B]

You know what? I think it was as I moved. So I got. Yeah, I got. I was in a great gym.

[A]

Oh, you were in the only place in the US that did jiu jitsu. That's tough.

[B]

No, it's a terrible excuse. When I moved from Texas, you know, it's your first home kind of thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was training for a while and then I moved like further into the mountains and it was like a 45 minute drive.

[A]

That's tough.

[B]

Then I got fat, so. You know, there's a correlation there for sure.

[A]

Correlation doesn't always equal causation, but sometimes it does.

[B]

Yeah. I miss it. It's fun. It's.

[A]

Get back into it.

[B]

I need to.

[A]

I mean, nobody can do it for you.

[B]

No, I have to actually show up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the game.

[A]

Okay. What. What got you moving from Colorado to California?

[B]

Nothing, I just saw a job opening. Oh, wait, so California. Okay. I was. I joined the army out of high school, so I was dropped off by the army in Fort Hood, Texas.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That's where I got out. I worked there for about 10 years and then just transferred, like on a whim up to Colorado.

[A]

So what did you do in the army?

[B]

Firefighter.

[A]

Okay. As active duty or.

[B]

Yeah, did five active. So I did.

[A]

I didn't know that was one of the moss that was offered.

[B]

It's very small. Yeah. But it also means, like, you don't do firefighting. It's.

[A]

What do you do?

[B]

The canary in the tunnel missions. Right. So I deployed 0506 to Ramadi and it was just like, we need three volunteers, Holt and two others, you know, because that was just non mission essential for my unit, so I got to do everything. I was the armorer, comms guy.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What a weird way to end up like that, though.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it was. I originally enlisted as infantry. I was like, I want to shoot guns. I had an infantry recruiter, he's like, I got the job for you. Forget your 85 as web score. Just sign this, you know, and then.

[A]

Why'd you want to join?

[B]

I always say, man. It was 03 when I graduated high school. We were at war.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was 18. You know, it was kind of a natural transition. My brains weren't going to get me very far, I can tell you that. So.

[A]

So you were a sophomore in High School? 9 11.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Were. Were you in school when it actually happened?

[B]

Yeah, I still, you know, it's like one of those moments in life you never forget. But I up, like right before the first spell. My bud Dan was like, did you guys see like the plane hit in New York or whatever? And we were kind of talking about it. We went to first period when the second plane hit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, however, that time frame works in New York to California, So it works three hours. Three hours? Yeah. So it was 7, 7:30 in the morning when the second plane hit. Right. And so we just sat there and watched it all day. And I literally, like, the recruiters, of course, are at the school the next day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I met him and delayed entry, all that stuff.

[A]

What'd you think it was going to be versus what it was?

[B]

You know, I think I was naive, man. I just wanted to observe. I didn't know about a lot of options. I would have loved to go like a track like you did. Yeah, obviously that's very extreme, but, like, in the. I love the army, so if I would have gone SF or something, I would have, I think, loved that. But I just sort of putzed along. I was nobody special, you know, Went in, did my ait, went through fire school, had a blast. Rah rah, young kid, you know, and then I was stationed over in Germany, you know, Right. When I got there, basically. So it's crazy because my first experience in, like, regular army unit was assigned to post, you know, phone duty. I forget what they call it, but it was the night they raided Fallujah, and my base was Tutu infantry, so they had, like, the north side of Fallujah. And so I'm like, in regular army unit for a week and I'm taking, you know, next of kin notification calls, and I'm like, holy. You know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then we were on deployment order. So like a year later, you know, we did our train up and stuff, and I just went along with it. I mean, I had fun and everything I did, I took everything on with, you know, full passion, but I didn't really know the greater army. I just did. But I was told, did you ever.

[A]

Get to a place where you wanted to explore the greater army or just did your enlistment and realize you wanted to move on to other things?

[B]

Yeah. After deployment, I got to see, like, other units, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So again, I was in Ramadi, so all those guys, you know, SEAL Team Peruser are famous now. But, like, we saw them and they were like gods walking around. So I was interested in it. But as soon as I got back, my, you know, my oldest daughter was conceived and it was like, all right, well, let me be a responsible dad. We PCs to Fort Hood, Texas, and I finally got to, like, see a fire station my last nine months in the Army. So I got out in 08 and started doing firefighting for Fort Hood.

[A]

How does that work? Did you have to go back through a fire academy or did your training in the military. Check that box.

[B]

Yeah, I carried right over. Okay. I literally like ETS out. Came back on Monday in the same assignment, same fire station, so.

[A]

And so at that point you're talking about the federal firefighters, right? I'm familiar with those. Yeah. They. I don't know why, but I found myself over at north island in San Diego on the Coronado Island. I forget what I was doing with them, but it was with the federal firefighter guys.

[B]

Yeah. Fed fire, San Diego. Done that. I got a buddy that works there. Yeah. Loves it.

[A]

Okay, so. And you stayed federal for how long?

[B]

18 years total.

[A]

Wow. In Texas the whole time?

[B]

Texas was like eight years, and then I went to Colorado for the rest, so I kept Fort Carson.

[A]

What was. I mean, what's, what's the average day look like for a federal firefighter on a military base?

[B]

They're little cities, man. I mean, it's, you know, Fort hood was probably 80,000 people a day when I was down there. Fort Carson, probably 50 to 60,000. So you're, you know, it's a little bit different demographics. Obviously. You're dealing with 18 to 25 year old, predominantly. Yeah. People in good shape and plenty of medical issues.

[A]

You run more medical than you do actual. I mean, stuff doesn't catch on fire that often. A military basis.

[B]

No, they don't. I mean, we did, you know, we caught fires here and there, but mostly medical for sure, which is any fire department. Yeah, it's 80 to 90 of the job nowadays, so.

[A]

Do they advertise that at the fire academies?

[B]

No, it's. It's probably like going into, you know, buds and stuff. Right. I've never done that, but they're, it's a, it's a lot of rah, rah, stuff that doesn't, you know. 2:00am I sprained my ankle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Three days ago. Oh, I should call it 3:00am, right?

[A]

That is a valid question that you're probably not allowed to ask while you're there.

[B]

No, but I've seen some grumpy dudes at 3:00am dealing with.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. 3:00am sucks for everybody. Yeah, it really does. And then, okay, so you get out of federal service and that leads you to the job that you got, which you originally reached out about.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So did that switch from federal then to. Because you were a fire chief, right?

[B]

Yeah, I took a fire Chief's job.

[A]

In 2022 and that became, I mean, that's not federal anymore. Is that. So is that just a City job, essentially.

[B]

Special district. Yeah. So, you know, ran by a local board of directors, so.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But that transition happened. I was recovering from an injury and had been off, had like two surgeries and I was coming back in and I had been through a nasty divorce, so were, you know, two and a half years past that, and I get full custody of both my daughters. So at the time, I think they were like 14 and 10, 11 years old.

[A]

It's tough ages. Yeah.

[B]

And it's like, well, it's time to try to be home. You know, 48 hour shifts aren't super conducive to being a single parent. So found the opportunity implied, you know.

[A]

Yeah. What. So you were the chief. What exactly does that rule? Do you oversee all firefighters in that area? You see? Yeah.

[B]

Different, you know, like city. City chiefs have a lot more political arena stuff where they work with city council and things like that. My job was kind of, you know, small town fire chief is lead operations, trained firefighters, manage budget and. And like, I still responded to every call that was kind of my. My favorite because I didn't have to give up operations. I just kind of had to change from being on the nozzle or on a tourniquet or whatever to like instructing people and running a command roll.

[A]

So it's a different optic, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. But I enjoyed it. You know, I took a department that was struggling to really operate. So the metrics I always tell is when I took over, it was like 18 minute response time. So Andy dials nine to one is like, I can't breathe. 18 minutes later, somebody would arrive, and for that particular department of time, you might not even get an EMT that shows up and says, I can help you breathe again.

[A]

Was that a manpower issue?

[B]

I think it was a small town that had a hard time transitioning. Right. And professionalizing. I come from a very professional world. I mean, my guys at Fort Carson are just studs still. Right. I mean, we operated at the. The tip of the spear, I like to say, in firefighting and going into a small town department. I said, I live here too, you know, if my kids need 911 and I'm out of the area, I want the best showing up. And so 18 minutes is a long road to ho. Yeah. Especially like hold your breath, you know what I mean?

[A]

What caused that 18 minutes, though, is this equipment, is this manning? Is this procedure? Is it all of these things?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, so the, you know, the model of volunteer fire department is like, we'll respond from home to the station, from the station, we'll wait for people to get there and then go out. And I kind of changed that model to where we always had somebody 247 at the station that was an EMT. And so, you know, I started in April of 2022 and by January of 23 we were down to a seven minute response time by just changing the model. Right. And bringing on qualified people.

[A]

And this was an all volunteer department.

[B]

When I took over it was okay. I changed that immediately, you know what I mean? I hired some like part time guys. I had two guys that were just my right hand men. One was a, one of my captains was from a local fire department, professional department. So on his off days he would take rotation at the station and like he had a vehicle at home.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When he was on duty. And then my other buddy was a retired SF dude from the army for you know, 20 some odd years. And I loved him. I mean, you know that, that personality, you know, it's just get the mission done. And so he would always stay at the station on his shifts. And so I had three, three captains that rotated, being on duty on call. And then myself was 24 7, 365. So we just changed that. And then as we built a culture, you know, like we had young up and comers, like I'll come stay at the station. And so we started having full crews living at the station 24 7. So they were getting out the door quick. So we went from like four or five responders to 62.

[A]

How do you train those people? Like the young up and comers? It's a volunteer department. They're not going to get paid. They're not going to get paid. So do they go through an academy or is it all ojt?

[B]

Yeah, I mean there's different routes. For sure. We did a lot of OJT because. But I also sent people, you know, so my commitment was I'll pay for fire academy, I'll pay for EMT school.

[A]

What's an academy cost out there?

[B]

There, you know it. To get Firefighter 1. I think it was like 350 bucks at a local academy that a professional department was running. It's more of a time commitment than anything because it's like three months long, two, three nights a week, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's grueling. But we were, we were pushing that and they were going. And so I, I always say like culture is the backbone of everything. Which I'm sure you can appreciate. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

From where you came from. So my vision was to build the culture that people want to be a part of, you know, and then you take young, eager kids, I imagine for your world that would be like some kids fresh out of buds is just raring to go. And you're like, yeah, this is how you actually do this.

[A]

It's their most dangerous point.

[B]

Yeah, I bet. Because you, you know, you have book.

[A]

Knowledge and no street smarts.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's, that's.

[A]

But you are fired up. Yeah. You, you tell a guy in their first platoon, hey, I need you to run through the wall face first. No problem.

[B]

Yeah. I'll do it twice or just until.

[A]

Well, either until the wall or the face doesn't exist.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you get a guy in his 5th Platoon who says he, there's the wall is just a little section. You could just go around it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But that's not what I was told. Like. Yeah, sorry, we meant to say, figure out a way to get around the wall on your own.

[B]

Yeah. Braun goes so far, intelligence gets you, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, I obviously don't understand your world fully, but like, you know, you just, you, you just harness that energy and I mean, we don't know what you don't know. That's, that's the dangerous point.

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

And it's a, it's a, you know, it's not like being shot at, but it is a very risk driven world. I mean, you can, you know, even teaching somebody how to drive lights and sirens is a very dangerous thing because if you floor that thing and you roll it over, everybody dies. Right. So there's a, there's a million haphazard ways that can harm you. And so again, take that energy and say, this is the right way to do this. You know, going a little slower will actually get you there quicker. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you have to remind yourself it's not actually your emergency, which is a tough one.

[B]

It is tough. Yeah. I was probably 30 years old and, you know, 10, 15 years in the fire service before I kind of like that light bulb went off.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know.

[A]

Yeah. I want the guy who is not stopping to smoke a cigarette on the way to the issue, moving at a brisk pace, but he's not running, just cruising, uptaking information on the way in, thinking, you know, nice and smooth, right? Nice and smooth rolls in, has the answer. Yeah, yeah, that's the guy I want, not the dude who runs in. I've seen this so many times, just in small medical issues, like, you know, before the 911 call is made, somebody will have an issue of some kind. And it just detonates everybody around them, chickens with their head running off, screaming, escalation. Like that's a strategy. I'm not here to judge.

[B]

Yeah. Stress is a. Yeah is an option.

[A]

Yeah. Well, it's true for all of us. You can either learn to manage your stress though, or you can manage as you.

[B]

Yeah. So one of our. We have two kind of day one drills and it's put your mask on while you're walking. Right. And you see young kids just as fast as they can move their hands and then they end up in a spider's web of mess. And then like connect a hydrant. Very easy operation. Right. Unscrew the cap, put the hose on.

[A]

Does it operate off the righty tighty, lefty Lucy philosophy?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's very basic. But you can see kids in that stress and that anxiety just trying to impress and trying to rush.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then, you know, somebody like me who's old and decrepit in the fire service, you know, at 40, that's your dinosaur. Yeah. But I can just kind of go through it nice and smooth without invoking any heart rate.

[A]

Jump.

[B]

And I beat you on time. Well, this is why, you know, because I'm not clanking threads and you know, so I'm sure, you know, for you guys, like in a stack. Right. You get that. You were kidding. Ready to breathe, reach something.

[A]

There's enthusiasm. But actually, I mean, by that point, the training, even when I went through, so there was a, there's an additional about 18 month pipeline now called sqt, which I'm not overly familiar with because I didn't go through it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

When I went through was called stt, SEAL tactical training. But you go through buds, get to your team, have to go through stt, then you have to test for your trident at the team level. That's the way that it happened when I was in my understanding now is that everybody gets their triton at the end of sqt. But they, I mean they do, but.

[B]

You'Re two years into training at that point.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. Right. So a lot of, I mean, maybe in sqt, in buds, as an instructor, you definitely see a lot of the, like the rattling, I call it watching people hum. Yeah, you can see the stress. Sqt. I bet you it's starting to go away for some people. You get to the team, you're going to be enthusiastic, nervous, and probably more than anything, maybe a little bit of an imposter syndrome, like a little bit of self doubt. But by that point in the stack. Yeah. If I saw or felt somebody like reach up to give you the squeeze and the shake and I'd be like, what's going on, buddy?

[B]

Take a breath.

[A]

Yeah, what's going on? Paper targets. We're using simunition.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Take it easy.

[B]

Run through the drill. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Those are actually really good trainable and teachable moments.

[B]

Yeah. I think anything in that hyper vigilant state is good, right? Yeah. Retrain your brain to be calm and I, you know, this point in life, I don't get emotional or rattled by anything. It can become a detriment in relationships and like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, raising two daughters is, you.

[A]

Know, how old are they now?

[B]

18 and 14.

[A]

Minus 17. She turns 18 in June. It's like trying to keep a tornado inside of a pillowcase.

[B]

That's a great analogy. But when you're just kind of jaded by life, you're just like, what's the problem here? Yeah. And that doesn't bode well because they want the comforting in there. Yeah.

[A]

You know, I'm divorced as well. My wife doesn't have any kids. We don't have any together. And so she only has the experience of being a child. And we will have conversations because all of my kids, I get really enthusiastic about stuff and very often I just, I don't say anything about the enthusiasm that this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to do this and then I'm going to get this job and then this, this, this. And I'll be talking with my wife Leah and she'll say, why don't you tell them that that's not the way it works. It's like, why do I need to. Yeah, it'll be way more powerful if I am supportive of their enthusiasm. And then life just goes, gah.

[B]

I've always had that parenting philosophy of like, they need that stress in life and they need to fail and they need, you know, if I make everything perfect for them, I think that's a failure we see in American culture these days.

[A]

Well, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer to their hopes and aspirations and ideas either. I don't want to jade them with the negative experiences that I have had in life because I know theirs are just around the corner. So when they come and are pumped, I'm like, awesome. I am not going to say anything. In my head I'm thinking, yeah, it's probably not going to work out like that. This will probably happen first and then that. And that's really going to suck and just like, good job, but let's see how it goes.

[B]

You're going to do great.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, obviously issues of safety and stuff like that. I have a different approach to that. But life's coming for you as it is. Don't rob, don't rob other people of the suffering that they need.

[B]

That's a great, great tagline, you know. And to the. The. My daughter was late to get her license. Right. So that was probably my biggest struggle is letting her just kind of drive off, you know? Cause I've responded to way too many of those.

[A]

Oh yeah. My daughter wrecked two cars in the span of two weeks.

[B]

Yeah, she, I bought her her first car and she's probably got one fender left at this point.

[A]

But she tried to tell me one time that it was the deer's fault, that she had to brush it off to the side of it. Just.

[B]

That's a beautiful thing.

[A]

Yeah. Like, so you, you were not able to change the velocity of the car or the drag.

[B]

She's like, no, no, it's, it's fault.

[A]

It was chasing me down whatever direction.

[B]

And firmly believed that that was the answer was.

[A]

I don't know if she firmly believed it, but she firmly stayed with that line of reasoning. And it's. And then I, I tried to say, no, you've been in three wrecks. The one you got t boned, she had a telephone pole, which she blames on the ice, not her driving on the ice.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then I said, you hit that deer. And she said, no, that doesn't count. And I said, what do you mean it doesn't count? She's like, well, it kind of hit me. I said, you were behind the driver's seat. Don't give me this sovereign citizen bullshit. You were just traveling and all of a sudden a deer came along and tried to impede your rights and you hit the deer. Well, I didn't have to report it to anybody. So it's not an accident. I'm like, you can. Yes. We didn't tell USAA about your journey through decreasing the deer population. But that doesn't mean it's not an accident.

[B]

Yeah. 100. But whatever. You, you know, okay, honey, you know.

[A]

It was the telephone poles fault. Like for what? Existing? Yeah, it was the ice. Like you were the one driving in wintertime on ice in a truck that didn't have anything in the bed to weight it down a little bit. Like what?

[B]

But those are the little lessons, right? The low impact Lessons that, you know, we can laugh at at the end of the day.

[A]

Did you know you pay for a telephone pole if you hit it though?

[B]

I did not know that.

[A]

Yeah, allegedly. They're also allegedly about $3,000.

[B]

So I've heard.

[A]

Right. In the hypothetical world. Yeah.

[B]

I didn't, I mean they put them there, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's weird.

[A]

Yeah, I, I couldn't help myself. I slid through the intersection. It's. I wish I had the telematic telemetric data on your vehicle. I wish I had access to your, how you were doing at that moment.

[B]

Yeah. And at the end of the day it doesn't matter to a company. Right. You damaged our stuff, give us the money for it. Yeah, so.

[A]

So yeah, that sorted itself.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Parent parenting is, is wild. I have two boys and a girl, so it is completely different.

[B]

Yeah. I don't, I mean I just have the two girls, but yeah. You know, each one has their own personality and their own sort of views on things and it's like I, I want them to, but also, you know, I kind of tell them they're not be woke crazies in the house. It's one rule I'll have that you can't be like that but have your views and firmly believe in them.

[A]

What if they believe in being woke? What now, dad?

[B]

Yeah, I mean in today's algorithms, I think, you know, I take a pretty conscious effort to like pick their brain and yeah, you know what, they're fed and try to challenge that and they get.

[A]

Some of the ideas are really sticky.

[B]

They are.

[A]

And they're, they can be packaged. We were having this conversation yesterday. You know the difference between an emotional conversation and an intellectual conversation. All this stuff on our phones there, it's emotionally driven, it's designed to elicit emotion. But some of them can be really sticky. I get the compelling hook. Oftentimes it doesn't survive the scrutiny of the intellectual deep dive. Right. But that's almost impossible to do on these platforms.

[B]

Right. When you, when you've negated attention span down to.

[A]

Yeah, five seconds or they're designed to not really allow two way communication that well. So you can't actually flesh out a more nuanced intellectual conversation. Yeah, yeah, it, it's interesting. I think Australia just banned social media, which I don't know how they're going to get around VPNs and things like that. But I do think my suspicion is just based off my own children. I mean I remember a world pre Internet. I sat down in front of my first computer when I was in high school.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To dial up the whole thing, people.

[B]

Frogger.

[A]

Totally. You're trying to play a game online and somebody picks up the telephone. Get off. I got out.

[B]

Yeah, Been there. I grew up that way, too.

[A]

Totally. And so I remember well before and after, and I. And I. I can see how they consume and engage and interact with the content. I think society would be resoundingly better.

[B]

Without it, I think. You know, I look back fondly on my upbringing where a payphone call, you know, press zero. It's. I'm at the park.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Click right.

[A]

People now take pictures of payphones when they encounter them, if they ever do in their life, as, like, artifacts.

[B]

Oh, yeah. They're like, my kids wouldn't even know what they are. Right. But literally, like, I try to explain to them, I could be gone all summer as long as once a day, I press zero and said, I'm alive, and then hung up.

[A]

And they.

[B]

They heard, all right, well, he's still alive.

[A]

I remember when I was young, too. Hey, come back, you know, before the sun comes down. How could they possibly have known? Now I've got my kids on Life360.

[B]

Oh, gosh.

[A]

It's. Actually, I have spent some time thinking about it. Like, man, you poor bastards.

[B]

Oh, they can't get away with nothing.

[A]

Oh, trust me, they can get away with just about everything. They figure ways around it.

[B]

Well, I want to be naive to that because I think. But it's. I mean, they can give somebody.

[A]

Not that they ever want to be separated from their device, but trust me, they can give other people their devices. Hey, take this to class for me.

[B]

Oh. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[A]

Hypothetically, of course. I haven't.

[B]

We had workarounds, right?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I've never experienced any of these. These with my kids, but, yeah, you know, somebody else has the phone. Oh, my battery died on my phone. Or, you know, you can turn it off. Regardless of the board in front of you, people learn how to play the game.

[B]

I can't imagine it is tougher, though.

[A]

Because they're so tied to the devices. It is tougher from at least a. What potential geographic location are you in? And sometimes that might get a call, which, you know, and the era we grew up in, there's. You're gonna call the payphone in the woods that I happen to be trying to light a fire in. Allegedly.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, of course.

[A]

No, you're not going to. And now, though, that device I'm tracking, like, what are you doing?

[B]

Where are you? Yeah, we used to know.

[A]

We.

[B]

I'm gonna stay the night at so and so's house. And then, you know, somehow we'd relay a call from there. Oh, yeah. We're just watching movies.

[A]

And they can still do that now. But it comes to. You'd either have to figure out a way to mirror your device, the Live360, which is a lot tougher, or they'd have to their most treasured item, their phone, and give it to somebody else for that period of time.

[B]

Yeah. Meanwhile, we were out dying in the woods of alcohol poisoning. You know.

[A]

Yeah. Or doing our best too.

[B]

Yeah. At least. Yeah.

[A]

Good varsity effort on there now, man. They. Yeah. Whatever game you're playing, the. The newer players will start finding the edges on it. And honestly, I appreciate it. Most of the time I let my kid. That I let them get away with far more than they realize that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That I know again. As long as it's not bumping up against safety.

[B]

Of course. Right. And you got to keep that intelligence advantage with them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I know. What you don't know.

[A]

Well, I also don't want to tip my hand on how I know some of the things I know. Yeah.

[B]

My kids thought I was everywhere in town every time, you know. Yeah. Because I would. I would just haphazardly, like, drive by and then that night I'd be like, hey, I saw you with your friend. Who was that kid? You know, they'd be like, how do you know these things?

[A]

I'm like, I got eyes in my off time. I'm Batman.

[B]

Totally lied to them growing up.

[A]

Of course.

[B]

They thought I was all knowing wisdom. Yeah. And that's the way you got to keep it. But.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I think. I mean, I would love to see. Australia is not a great example, especially lately. Right. Well, we had a gun attack. Let's ban guns further. When, you know, I mean, there's some stupidity that goes into those things. But it.

[A]

I think that's a reasonable knee jerk reaction, though.

[B]

Do you?

[A]

I'm not saying it is. No. I'm not saying that. I think that that's the solution. It doesn't surprise me that that's people's first thought, meaning that's where their head initially goes.

[B]

Yeah. They're already. So like, they. It's already outlawed there, right?

[A]

Like, no.

[B]

No private ownership, isn't it?

[A]

There's over a million guns in circulation in Australia, to my understanding. There are licensing requirements, storage requirements, use requirements, but firearms still exist for sure in Australia.

[B]

I thought they took them Away. I thought they did, like a massive buyback.

[A]

They did do a buyback. They did. Michael, can you Google how many guns are in circulation? Australia, I think that's about a million. It's not as if it is impossible to get firearms. And actually one of the reasons I know that is I love this YouTube channel where this guy is out there just crushing feral hogs. Yeah. All the time with a rifle. I mean, that's 4 million legally on firearms in Australia. Wow. I was off by income.75.

[B]

That's still not a lot, though, for a whole continent.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I bet you there's a few hundred thousand in this city. You know what I mean? In America. It's a different.

[A]

In this city.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. We have you guys. Well, you're in California, so you. If you think. If you think about a gun, you'll probably go to jail.

[B]

It's a felony to think about them. Yeah.

[A]

But here will have lifted trucks with like the Punisher skull in the back. And that just means free pistol in the glove box.

[B]

Unsecured, right? Yeah. One in the chamber.

[A]

Steal my Glock 19 that's in the cup holder just sitting there. Yeah. No, what I'm. So I'm saying is when something like that happens, I think it is a natural human reaction. I'm not saying that. I think it is the answer for them to look at the firearm and say, we got to get rid of all these.

[B]

I.

[A]

But again, that's. Well, but that's the difference between an emotional reaction and an intellectual discussion, thought process, for sure. You look at what caused the damage. We have to. Like, if it was apples. If there were. I mean, let's flip this a little bit. If there were, you go into the grocery store and green apples killed 10 people, what's the first thing they're going to look at that. The green app? I'm not saying it's the solution. I'm just saying it's natural, I think, to at least orient the emotional response in that direction.

[B]

I just don't think that that's what I see, though. Because, I mean, to your example, right, we had listeria outbreaks on kale. People still eat kale. Nobody talks about banning kale every time there's a shooting. It's the gun, not the human.

[A]

It's actually the combination of both.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, that's a mechanical object, you.

[A]

Know, it is a mechanical object, but you also have to. I think if you are truly going to have an intellectually honest discussion about firearms, what are they designed for?

[B]

Well, to Stop or kill. Right.

[A]

To take life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And people are hesitant to say that. I don't think it decreases.

[B]

That's what they were invented for.

[A]

It's what they're invented for. It doesn't, it doesn't decrease your, your position on whether or not they should exist. But let's just start with what they honestly were designed for. It's designed to take life. And by doing that, you can protect life because you can stop people because they don't want to get injured or killed.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You can take life. You can do incredible good with them. You could do incredible harm with them. But it takes that tool and the person.

[B]

Right, of course. Right.

[A]

And that, and that's all I'm saying. It's you. It's the combination of the two. No one of those by themselves is going to have that, that end result.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. I just don't see it. You know, And I'm pretty set in my beliefs, for sure.

[A]

Don't get me wrong. I am very pro second amendment. I own quite a few firearms. There's plenty of guns in this room. Yeah, there's plenty. They're all on my side of the table. But I, and I have a unique background. When it comes to me, a gun is like probably what a framer thinks of a hammer.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

So I am not. There is no mystery around firearms. For me. It's not this weird object that's scary to me. I recognize it as a tool as well. Yeah. So I, to me, you know, it has a different meaning. I get why that doesn't have a different meaning. To me, my experience, I view it a little bit differently. There's just no mysticism there. So when people say we have to get rid of guns again, I can understand why emotionally, that's their first reaction. Again, to go back to the apples. Okay, cool. But maybe let's look at other things associated with that as well. Because do you want to get rid of guns from everybody? Do you only want the good guys to have guns? Do you want police? Like, how far does this go?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you can go down the rabbit hole. And people will say, well, you know, we need to have reasonable gun regulations. And I always ask the same question. What would you add to the hundreds of gun laws that already exist? Most of the time you get crickets.

[B]

Right. Because they don't know. Right. They're spoon fed some media tagline.

[A]

Yeah. Well, they're scared of something. They are. I get being scared of guns. I totally get that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And saying I don't Think they should exist. You are free to say that. And then my next. When people say that, I say, what mechanism do you think that that's what we would use for that? There's more guns in circulation in the United States than there are human beings. Of course, what organization is going to round those up? What entity is going to go door to door? Like, what are we talking about here? Like, let's at least keep it in the realm of plausible, realistic.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, anytime you politicize anything, no good ideas come out of Congress. Right.

[A]

I mean, I have to run the math on that. I'm sure in the history of Congress, there's been a few.

[B]

Yeah. Maybe the Continental, you know, back in the day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, you know, I.

[A]

You.

[B]

You made a very good point. At what point does it go to?

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because we've all seen different countries and different legislation and all this stuff. My state in California versus here, we still have quite a bit of crime in California. I don't know.

[A]

And you have it. Yeah. Well, you have an immense amount of gun violence there, too. And guess what? And this is where the whole thing falls apart when it comes to we need more gun laws. Criminals don't really care about the laws. And I base what I'm about to say off of my just understanding with local law enforcement firearms here. And I was only partially tongue in cheek about, hey, steal my Glock from my truck. Because you talk to the local cops, they're like, yeah, people legitimately will put a pistol into a cup holder in plain view, and then they come out of a building and their window is smashed and they want to know where it went. And they're like, I'll tell you where it went. That was probably somebody who didn't even want the gun. They probably had an addiction problem. But they know they can trade that gun upstream as currency for whatever it is they're addicted to. And then that continues to work its way upstream. Guess what? There's no background check involved in that. And where that ends up, guess what? That ends up in the hands of somebody who doesn't want to get a background check because they don't actually care. And it'll be used in the commission of a crime somewhere, maybe potentially in California. So. So the answer to criminals having guns is we're gonna take guns away from the good guys. In air quotes. That argument goes nowhere.

[B]

No, no. My favorite thing in the world is that video of Texas that guy went to shoot, and the guy just pulled out and, like, made the greatest shot in the History of.

[A]

I mean there was a shooting that was stopped in a church in Texas by an armed citizen. Oh, that's right. It probably was. Yeah. I think the guy was coming down on the left hand side.

[B]

He kept him moving in right now.

[A]

And my own hand. Yeah, he's just whap, whap. I'm like, okay, okay, let's play that out. And guess what, by the way, I think churches are generally considered to be gun free zones. But let's play that out. What does that look like if there is nobody armed in that situation? What that looks like is what most often happens, which is a mass shooting.

[B]

Yeah, this, this is, I mean the, the greatest shot.

[A]

I don't know and ever.

[B]

Look, I mean look at that. That guy was sprinting. One shot, one kill.

[A]

Did you notice there was more than one person that pulled a firearm out?

[B]

Oh yeah, that's. I mean it's, yeah, it's called white settlement Texas super racist.

[A]

That's one, two dudes with guns, they just. Oh, he's, they'd already shot him.

[B]

Yeah, he was down quick. Yeah, that, that is the forever going to be the counter argument to you know, that guy wasn't gonna get that shotgun through the means I go to buy a gun.

[A]

No, you know, interestingly enough he concealed a shotgun too. And this is another one, you know, assault rifles which you could go down with people like. Please define what that is. What they generally mean is something that looks like an AR platform.

[B]

Yeah. Magazine fed, right?

[A]

Yeah, totally. And statistically they're used in the minority of shootings. However, when they are used, the fatality and injury rate is generally higher.

[B]

Yeah, it's high velocity rounds. Right.

[A]

High velocity magazine. It can reach out, you know, it's got a high capacity or a larger capacity magazine than most pistols and you can reach out and touch people with that. And it's this like we have to get rid of this particular firearm. My guys. That's also one of the main tools for law enforcement as well. You know, right where I live up here, you know, there are distances where that is actually the appropriate tool. I'm not going to sit here and say I hunt with an AR because I don't. I've shot rodents and stuff with them on my property because I used to.

[B]

Hunt with them in Texas for pigs.

[A]

You know, actually I have hunted with them for a pigs. But, but it's also it, you know, this is the main tool that is used. I actually saw that one posted recently and, and I just put the link to the FBI Crime data. I'm like, it's not. And it was post. It was actually posted by a lawyer, a pro 2. A lawyer that was talking about the legalities. If you are engaged or if you are in a shooting, you know likely what's going to happen. Whether it's.

[B]

I saw that on Twitter or X. I saw. Dude.

[A]

It's the statistical minority. Yes, they can have an outsized amount of damage, but not always. I'm still pretty sure to this day. Michael, can you look this up? That the most deadly mass shooting was at Virginia Tech and it was two pistols.

[B]

Well, I think the Route 91 was. But so I.

[A]

91?

[B]

Yeah. The Nevada one from the MGM.

[A]

I don't think so. I think from an injury perspective, perhaps, but for as far as fatalities.

[B]

Really. Yeah. So I responded to Fort Hood when. And he did that with a 5.7 pistol.

[A]

That was the. That was an active duty guy, wasn't it?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a psychologist. I mean he's still sitting on death row in Kansas, but that was carnage, man. That was 31 gunshot.

[A]

Oh, you're right. Okay. Orlando night. Oh, man. The Pulse nightclub. Holy cow.

[B]

Yeah. So those. Those two are AR style weapons. Yeah, I think Sandy Hooky had one, but I don't think he used it.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. So okay. Las Vegas. Well, I tell you what, for Las Vegas, I mean even need to have an aiming device on that. He had an elevated position. He needed maximum rate of fire.

[B]

Yeah, he just. And it was just.

[A]

And they were all contained. There was no exits. You know, like.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean you want to talk about a fishbowl quite literally, right. You gate people into a concert venue and then give somebody an elevated.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Target. I mean that, you know, there was nothing that could be done.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Hold on a sec. That Luby's one.

[A]

We gotta pause for a second. My dad was calling through. He's going out to her like, this is the beauty. You don't have to turn the recording down so you can see what the fuck my dad wants.

[B]

Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits. They leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores.

[A]

Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the.

[B]

Cost of optional benefits plan features and taxes and fees vary.

[A]

Savings with three plus lines include third.

[B]

Line free via monthly bill, credits, credit.

[A]

Stop if you cancel any lines.

[B]

Qualifying credit required.

[A]

I Have a select group of people that can buzz through the do not disturb.

[B]

Yeah, I gotta actually figure that out. My girlfriend was bugging me about that. Good morning.

[A]

What's going on? What's 1369?

[B]

Okay, let's see if I can get it short.

[A]

Hold on.

[B]

Okay. It's not opening well.

[A]

That's because you're not doing it properly. So there is a little black thing you have to pull down at the top, but at the bottom there's a smaller one. You need to push that down to reset it.

[B]

Okay, push it down to reset.

[A]

There's a little tiny black lever. Yeah, I got it right there. So I pull it that down.

[B]

Then I put the combo in again.

[A]

Try 1, 3, 6, 9. And then you pull on the top little black lever. Got it. Thank you very much.

[B]

All right, Bye. Bye.

[A]

This was. That's my father. Everybody loves him. He's a nightmare. That was him trying to open a keypad.

[B]

That's a beautiful thing, though.

[A]

That's beautiful, Michael. Maybe we leave that in the show. It's hard to say I support leaving. Everybody loves my dad, but that's the bullshit that I have to deal with. I can't make this work. It's not working because I can see him. He went to that house one time. He said, I don't know what to tell you, but the keys were not in the lockbox. And I said, what are you talking about? That's the only set that we have. I go out there.

[B]

They're right there.

[A]

They were right there. Because there's a cover on the outside of the lockbox that he had never seen before because it's generally hanging. I was like, it was empty.

[B]

That's beautiful.

[A]

I was in a mild existential crisis trying to figure out if I needed to get a locksmith out there. And I call him my dad. They're right here. He goes, oh, I just didn't see him.

[B]

It's a beautiful thing.

[A]

Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. No, man, I don't know. I'm not gonna say that I know the answer. I don't think the answer is additional gun laws until we start upholding every single one that we currently have on the books to see if they're gonna make an impact. Yeah.

[B]

Or show me one that is effective in stemming some sort of violence.

[A]

Yeah. You know, humans are gnarly, man.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, that's why we have people like you and your former career that go anywhere on the planet within 24 hours.

[A]

Yeah, but that doesn't work here in.

[B]

The U.S. it doesn't you know, you know, Michael, will you look, will you.

[A]

Google what exactly Australia's plan is to ban social media? How they're going to do that? Because the answer to a lot of this stuff is VPNs. I mean, China bans a lot of stuff too, but people VPN it up.

[B]

Yeah. And North Korea too, right?

[A]

Yeah. Under 16 social media ban by finding platforms.

[B]

Ooh, under 16, that actually makes sense to me.

[A]

Yeah. By finding the platform. That's interesting. So they're going after the actual platform itself. Up to 49.5 million, which is probably a day's profit. Them. Age verification, like. Okay, so photo ID, I guess. Yeah. So a VPN's not going to solve that issue. Oh yeah, because you're still going to have the photo id. That's probably a solvable issue though.

[B]

I mean, my kids would literally just scan my stuff without my knowledge and have their own account. But.

[A]

Yeah, but then how many times would that be able to happen? Because if you've already scanned it as well too.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'm sure they have something that could catch that.

[B]

Yeah, I would, I would hope. Right.

[A]

So key enforcement mechanisms, platform responsibility, heavy fines, age verification methods, regulatory oversight and account closure and appeal. Meta and others are already closing accounts. Users over 16 mistakenly blocked can appeal using ID selfies or bank verification. Scroll down a little bit more. What's covered and what's not. So major platforms including Facebook, Instagram, the Tiki Talk, X, Snapchat, Reddit, Reddit. My wife gets deep down the rabbit hole on Reddit, so I don't use.

[B]

It's dangerous. Yeah, it's a dangerous one.

[A]

YouTube, Twitch and Kick. Not covered messaging apps like WhatsApp, YouTube, kids and platforms like Roblox and Discord. Roblox is adding checks. Interesting. I, I just, I still still think it's going to have a net positive benefit.

[B]

Yeah, I mean I think it makes sense to young, impressionable. Under 16. My kids would lose their minds, but.

[A]

Initially, how long do you think they would lose their minds for, though?

[B]

You know, I actually did this. So my daughter had tick tock for a long time and I started to see effects when she was like 11.

[A]

Yeah. Oh. The data is resoundingly coming back about like self confidence, self image. It's gnarly. Specifically for young women.

[B]

Yeah. And now she's like, you know, she's actually said thanks for like when I would make videos. Not allowing me to show my face.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I now, now at my age, it makes sense to me why you said no, but I Actually got her off of that and probably for a day. And her brain kind of reached out to, you know, like she was playing games instead of scrolling. Right. You know, and the, the best conversation I've had with my 14 year old, she is for sure had the biggest exposure to social media, more than my oldest daughter has. The Charlie Kirk situation. Right. What she believed about Charlie Kirk and all those things. And it was like, well, let's. Your algorithm's not showing you the full conversations. Let's go back and let's do that. And although she won't admit that she agrees with a lot of what he says, she now at least can say, oh, I've been programmed that he's this racist bigot, you know, yada yada. But if I actually listen to him, it seems different.

[A]

Who do you think is doing the programming?

[B]

Foreign countries? That would be my guess.

[A]

I actually think we're wrong when we point to that. You think so your personal algorithm and, and it's, it's an easy scapegoat to point at, but it offloads any responsibility from the user.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's what I, it's.

[A]

What you engage with.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if you and I, I do this on YouTube because something will interest me. So I'll go a little bit deeper down the rabbit hole and the next thing you know. No, not only am I being fed more of those videos, but it will cross platforms as well. And if you continue down that pipeline, are you being programmed by a foreign country or is the app that you're using doing what it's designed to do, which is to try to keep you on the platform so they can at some point in time monetize your attention. But it's not some dude twisting their evil mustache. Yours is, of course useful.

[B]

Hold on a minute.

[A]

Yeah, it would be twisted the other way if it's evil. Yeah, I don't think that's what it is. I think it's. People are being shown more of what they are actually engaging with. Because use Charlie Kirk as an example. If you really deeply engage with the side that says he was a bigot, racist, all of those things, guess what? You're gonna get served more of an aligning opinion of that. But you can actually change your algorithm. If you started deep diving in the other direction, you would be fed more of that. It's just not a complete snapshot of any issue. It just shows you more of what it thinks is going to keep you on the platform.

[B]

Yeah, I, I mean, I 100 agree with that. Yeah, I, I guess content generation is where I would say there's an interest outside of our sure things.

[A]

Do you think that we're doing that as well to other countries?

[B]

Guarantee, yes. I bet we started that technologies.

[A]

But even with that, how effective is it when people realize they're being emotionally manipulated writ large and just say, no, I'm not going to engage with this.

[B]

We would be a much better society.

[A]

I agree. Good luck for that ever happening.

[B]

Right. I mean, and this is one of my favorite hobbies lately is watching you troll people. I screenshot of one yesterday.

[A]

I don't know if I troll people. I am really a middle of the road guy. I have some beliefs that would probably be more left leaning and some beliefs that would be more right leaning. And I think that's the vast majority of Americans, man. And I just, I re, I try to, when I engage with people online, I use the elevator principle. I don't say anything that I wouldn't say if I wasn't in an elevator. And if they want to, you know, go to like what they can attack me for whatever reason they want to or attack other people. I don't respond with it like I'm not going to emotionally escalate with that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it, it prevents me from getting upset about something that. Or someone that I don't know at all. And when. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah. And again, back to the, the way through training you're, you know, I can.

[A]

Provide you plenty of examples of people from my old job that don't take that path.

[B]

Really.

[A]

I don't think, I think for a very narrow bandwidth, the training that we got can make an immense difference in a very specific sector. But it's on the person to find those skills that apply broadly and apply them broadly.

[B]

Really what I was, what I was thinking is like I can engage with anybody on social media on any topic and not get emotional to it. Which is what I think. You know, when I, when I make the joke that I watch you troll. You know, like I, the one I screenshot yesterday was you telling a lady who said America is.

[A]

Yeah. So there's an airport in almost every city.

[B]

Yeah. And it's just a matter of fact reality. But there's no emotion behind that. But I would almost guarantee if that lady read that there's an emotional response.

[A]

Her response to me likely would have been emotional. And I wouldn't have engaged farther than that because that is, I understand, depending on your belief, people can be. There will always be a segment of our society that is going to be frustrated about our current station or what they perceive our current station to be. And you have a choice with that. Are you going to scream at, at. Into the ocean, the abyss of the ocean about how frustrated you are or put your phone down and try to have the most positive impact you can in the world you're actually living in?

[B]

Yeah. I think that what just jumped out to me is people the, the narco boats right now getting obliterated.

[A]

What are your thoughts on that?

[B]

I love it. I love it. They are.

[A]

What do you love about it?

[B]

They are running drugs now, remember? From a first responder platform I've seen. I was just in San Francisco last week watching people with the. The fetty bends. Right. As they call them.

[A]

How do they stay vertical?

[B]

I don't even know. I was so. I was so naive. I drove into the city and I was like, why are these people standing bent over with their underwear out? Like. And then I caught 1, 2, 3, you know, and I was just like, what is happening?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I had to park my car on the street and like I walked by and it clicked and I was like, oh, this is the fentanyl bends that they're talking about. So it's not that I, I love that people are being killed. I value life more than any other thing on this planet.

[A]

You know, those people aren't running fentanyl though, Right.

[B]

What do you.

[A]

Doesn't come from Venezuela.

[B]

What do you think they're cocaine. That makes sense. Yeah. So drugs, right? Yeah, I think, yeah. Once it.

[A]

Please nobody hear me arguing for. Because it's cocaine. It's so much better.

[B]

Right, right. It's a drug. Right?

[A]

It is a drug. It's a different drug. The overdose rate is much different. And again, I am not justifying in any way, but I've heard a ton of people say, yes, we're finally doing something about the fentanyl. Like you need to research where fentanyl comes from. It's not coming from Venezuela.

[B]

Yeah, that's China.

[A]

China, largely through precursor chemicals are showing up in Mexico. They're being offloaded by what would be considered military age males of Chinese descent, probably under the eyes or help of the cartels. Yeah. Then they get put together and funneled north. And it's also happening our northern border and coming south as well too. But. And people can be pro or con. The what's going on in the international waters near Venezuela. But if you're sitting there saying, yes, we're finally doing something about fentanyl, it's like you don't actually know what you're talking about.

[B]

Right? No. It gets to probably Mexico or another Central American country and then for some reason they're mixing fentanyl with cocaine, which makes no sense to me. Because they're opposite spectrum drugs.

[A]

Well, especially from somebody who wants. If you're. If your business model is based on addiction and having as many people using as possible, I don't know why they would do that either.

[B]

Yeah. It makes no sense to me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I guess what I'll go back to is I, I love that something's being done to address the epidemic. Human lies of life is never something I'm a huge fan of. Unless you are 100 guilty and an evil human being, then I think it's fine.

[A]

How do they know that? That those people being killed are 100 guilty and evil?

[B]

I think they have probably pretty good intel down to like who these individuals on these boats are. That would be my guess. What they are carrying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think the intel world is pretty damn good at what they do.

[A]

You'd be surprised.

[B]

My best friend is intel.

[A]

So how would you guess that they're evil?

[B]

I actually don't think that they probably view themselves. I think they are in tough situations trying to make money, money and survive and provide for their families. I think drug lords are employing them. So I'm not who's evil in that situation. This is the American might. Right. We get to dictate who is and eradicate. We can put people on any spot on this earth in 24 hours and say you're a bad guy. Which is something I think I've struggled with post military of like what's the reality in this world? And I think the, the further I mature in life, the more I go go. Let me not go down that path because there isn't a good answer. Again, I'm glad to see it being addressed, but I don't know that it's a great solution because human life is being lost. But I also don't believe they're fishermen.

[A]

Right. What are you talking about? That you definitely fish on a cigarette boat with six 450 horsepower engines.

[B]

Yeah. And 55 gallon drums.

[A]

And international water. Yeah. That's where the tuna run. Run.

[B]

Yeah. The salmon of Capistrano.

[A]

No. And here's the thing. I am glad that something is being done with it as well. My concern is I don't know where it moves the line to because what are your thoughts on this? Right. So it's in international water. Let's say that our intel does confirm that they are trafficking drugs. Let's move that closer to the United States. And they see a vehicle convoy cartel. It is fentanyl.

[B]

Do you strike it like on US soil?

[A]

No, Mexican soil.

[B]

It's a tough one.

[A]

And again, I don't have the answer to that either. And maybe strikes like this have happened in the past, at least for me paying attention to it. This is the first time I've seen something like this happen. It seems to be an escalation. And I'm not here to say it's going to work or not going to work. My initial thought is where does this move the line to? That's just where I think about stuff like that.

[B]

Well, the strikes were, I actually saw something like Schumer is the one that wrote the bill for like the Clinton era. They were, they were striking boats. I have seen that. We can go back to the Obama era when he was droning American citizens in Yemen. It's a tough one, right. I like to just believe my place is not to make those decisions. My place at one point was, you know, we're going to send you here for, for 365 days. Do what you're told. Come home, try to come home. Right. Political machine isn't, is a nasty world. And so, you know, at the end of the day, to protect our way of life, you have to have soldiers, I think naturally when you get out. That's why, that's why most soldiers and airmen and seamen are 18 year olds, right. Young and impressionable. As we grow and mature in life, I think we start to question those things. Things a little more, which I'm sure you know, not to speak for you. You've probably second guessed some missions, right? Like, oh no, good for you, good for you.

[A]

18 and 19 year olds didn't do my job.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

So the job I did was very specific. It was very targeted. I don't question the action, question the actions that I took. I did the best I could with the information I had, but I took my morals and integrity with me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know what I mean? Like I can be directed towards an objective, but you can't force me to do anything.

[B]

I, I love that viewpoint, man. You know, I mean, you know, again, I wasn't in your world, but you know, yesterday being told to meet a seal in the, in the city I've never been to. And yeah, with no power in the dark, my odds weren't good. Right? But you, you could be on any square foot of this earth and do Whatever you felt was the right thing and have a clear conscience. I have a clear conscience too. 100. But I'm not the decision maker at the top end that said, you know, who's the, the guy that out Baghdadi or whatever. Like I think the guys that went and got him knew that was a good mission.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or you know, you go and get Osama. I think that's an easy one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Some of the other ones are, are tough that you hear. But that's such a great viewpoint of like my morals and my. No matter where, where I was put, it was my decision at the end of the day to pull.

[A]

Yeah. Nobody can force me to take action. And the people that I worked with were some of the most intelligent, most disciplined, highest EQ, highest IQ, few people, which I don't think 18 or 19 year olds. I mean there's probably an anomaly. But more laps around the sun is going to favor you in that job because they put you into places that are very difficult and you have to make decisions. You understand the direction you need to go. Right. You're given the guidance on what the overall accomplishment is. But yeah, you still got to maintain your morals and integrity. I mean you don't have to. There's cascading complications from that. That of course, personally and professionally. No, I think it's. Again, trust me, I'm not making an argument for those drug runners. I just wonder where it moved the line. And I would say in the current era it's really easy to label things like These people are 100% guilty and they're evil. Your words, not mine. That doesn't help. That doesn't help at all.

[B]

It's such a narrow line of where it goes. All right. And second and third order effects are something that I don't think you get until you have some life lessons and in maturity in life to go, okay, it might just be a drug boat today. You know, it was just.

[A]

What would your response be if somebody hit a U. S flagged vessel in international water? Another country thought that for whatever reason maybe they're human trafficking towards their country. What would your response to that be?

[B]

I'm a red blood American man. I'll be like, let's go get them. Right.

[A]

Where's that lead?

[B]

War. Right.

[A]

Should be a measure of last resort, man. Yeah, I mean you've been in them 100.

[B]

I mean, where is the answer? Like no, no, I can't make that. Right. I don't have the experience to make that decision and know what tomorrow's outcome will be from that decision, let alone 10 years from now in global economic, political landscapes. But yeah.

[A]

You realize in your answer you just demonstrated the difference between an emotional and an intellectual response. I'm a red blooded American. Let's go. That's emotional.

[B]

Oh, 100.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was trained that way, though.

[A]

No, you weren't. You were never trained to make decisions emotionally, ever.

[B]

No, I was just trained to be. You know, I. I've always said this. I remember basic training in the army. It was just like, you're going to war, boys. And I was like, hell, yeah. Because I didn't know the ramifications of that. Right. And so that's where that comes from. But I also have the hyper, like respect for what life is.

[A]

Yeah. Let me ask you this. In the fire service, is decision making improved or decreased by emotion?

[B]

I think it's across the board. Decreased, right? Yeah, 100%.

[A]

There's no way the military taught you to think emotionally.

[B]

That's good. That's pretty smart at this.

[A]

No, I'm just listening to you.

[B]

It's like a psychology session. I love it.

[A]

It's one of the things I think going on right now is that people are blasting out emotion without thinking. In the long term, there's nothing wrong with taking a knee and taking a breath. If your natural reaction would be, I'm a red blooded American, we need to go get him. What do you think the natural reaction is from Venezuelans?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

They just don't have the means or ability to do so.

[B]

Yeah, we definitely have the luxury of being a bully. Right.

[A]

So does that mean we're better than them? That our judgment and value is somehow more altruistic than theirs? And again, I'm not making an argument that it is. This is just the shit that I think. Think about.

[B]

Yeah, No, I think again, back to the granular level. It's somebody trying to make money to feed their kids. You know, they don't.

[A]

But you said they were pure evil. I'm gonna keep you up with your own words.

[B]

Yeah. Golly. So science. No, I mean, I.

[A]

Well, that's how narratives get out of control, though. That is literally how things become sticky. People repeat that. And I'm not saying that they're not 100 guilty and that they're not pure evil. I'm just saying there's a lot of weight and stickiness to sentences like that and it catches like a snowball rolling downhill.

[B]

Yeah, I don't. I don't even. I don't know that I have the answer. I definitely don't internally, like for my own self. Because I, you know, going back to my days in Iraq, like, bomb makers were getting paid. Here's a hundred bucks. Go make this bomb. Put it here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, if you kill in America, we'll give you a bonus. I wanted them to die. I wanted, I would love to. To be the one that could carry out that justice. Right. To protect the people I was with. But at the end of the day, I'm a father too. And now you know, why I'm here is to share like, a story of doing whatever it takes to feed my kids. So I have a respect for it. Yeah, but we're humans at the end of the day. Like, and that, that tribalism is. Is freaking nasty.

[A]

It is nasty. And I was talking with somebody about this recently. They basically said you must have hated the people that you fought. And maybe it surprises people, but I didn't. There are. I don't care what you believe. There's somebody out there who is your axis. They're going to believe something different than you. Most people, the vast majority of human beings can peacefully disagree and just move on with their own life on the extreme ends of people like the bomb maker, whether they're trying to feed their family or not. And I'm more concerned with the dude who radicalized or was there facilitating it behind the scenes. Right. You get to the radical extremes of that, you know, discourse falls apart. And that's where I'm completely with you. Like, let's just turn this person into gazpacho.

[B]

Yeah. But, yeah, wisdom, impunity, of course.

[A]

Right. But I still don't hate. I hate the ideology, but I have a level of respect for somebody willing to fight for up to the point of losing their life for what they believe. It doesn't mean I respect them or their ideology, but damn, dude, being willing to put your toes on the line. Like, okay, okay, I don't hate you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't agree with anything that you stand for, but I have the respect that you are at least willing to fight for because most people don't fall into that category.

[B]

You're right. And at the end of the day, humanity is. Is delicate. Right. So one of my favorite stories in the world is Bella Wood from World War I. You know that one where they. On Christmas Day, like.

[A]

Oh, yeah, right.

[B]

Ceasefire. And they had an armistice for. For Christmas Day and they ended up playing soccer. And then like. Like, just as humanity does.

[A]

Back at it.

[B]

Right back at it the next morning.

[A]

Like, I wonder if they blew a Whistle to, like, stop it and start it.

[B]

I'd like to think it was like a Wayne's World, like, kid, timeout, time out, and they move the net, you know, but how far back does that go? I think we're. You know, there's got to be some.

[A]

Have been fighting since the inception of humans.

[B]

Right.

[A]

How, however you believe they got there.

[B]

I think that's kind of probably never been a good cause for it. Right. Except for, like, you know, hunter gatherer, maybe.

[A]

How do you qualify beliefs, though? I mean, if somebody believes something with every fiber of their body, and then on the other side of that is somebody who believes something with every fiber in their body, I don't. You know, who's. Who's to say which one is right or wrong?

[B]

Yeah. You know, I'm. Take it to just being back to father in life. Like, anybody that comes into my home, I don't care if they're there to, you know, grab a biscuit off the counter, or they're there to harm my children, I will do what I need to do with zero regret of that. But I still respect your life. Right. And, yeah, you just made a poor decision, and. But they could overcome me too. Right. So I'm. I'm not anyone special in this world. I just feel like if you are entering my space or you pose a risk to me, that's. That's probably where my line is. I think of the. The global stuff of, like, boats. I'll never see those people because I'm not out fishing with them.

[A]

But you did see the cascading consequences of addiction, though, and that's where I get it. I mean. Yeah, yeah, it's. That's another one I don't know if we could solve. Because what's interesting is that the demand still seems very high. Supply is one side of the problem, demands the other.

[B]

Yeah. And here in America, for some reason, we have the most lucrative of demand, I guess. Yeah, it's. Man, that could be a long day of a conversation there of, like, you know, public health and. And social services and stuff. But. Yeah.

[A]

Well, what'd you see in Colorado? Talk me through what led you to reaching out.

[B]

So crazy. Crazy madness. So, as I mentioned, I did DOD services. Firefighter loved doing that. That got full custody of both my daughters in 2022, and an interim position as a fire chief came up. Right. So I got a call on, like, a Saturday morning. I was like, hey, we need you for two weeks if you can do it. Called my fire chief at the time, you know, Kind of gave him the spiel and he's like, yeah, go ahead, man, take some leave. Help help him stabilize. Well, that two week span turned into like five months and just chaos. Right. And so I had never intended to apply for the permanent thing. I thought I was just doing it kind of week to week, but it was where I lived. And so my town had a effed up fire department. I'm a professional fireman and as life works out, I need to be home as much as I can now. So I applied. Yeah.

[A]

Would you say I said win, Win.

[B]

Yeah, for everybody. It all worked.

[A]

Town's gonna benefit. You're look, you got what you're looking for?

[B]

Yeah. Due to that chaos was. I had no board during that interim period. It was insane. So a board is, is the governing body. Just like an HOA or city council. Right. Or special district board like mine was. They are the key holders, if you will, to the tax revenue.

[A]

Okay. So they are the mechanism by. With the tax. Tax revenue can be dispersed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yep. And so they are the fiduciary stewards of, of every dollar that comes in. Right. And at the local level, it is designed to benefit the local level to the max, rather than like a federal entity guiding how you have to do it. And so when I came on, there was one board member who asked me to do it very quickly after in conversation with like the attorney that represented the district was like, oh, I'm not even eligible to be on this board because my voter registration's in a different state. He had, you know, multiple homes. And so he was. He like left and there was nobody. So there's special process where the county commissioners had to hold. You know, basically anybody who wants to apply will interview about. They reconstitute the fire board. That fireboard's number one priority was to put a permanent chief in place. So those people were my board that I worked for as we were just kind of talking about the grand scheme. Like tribalism takes effect and there's always an actual access force. And so I was hired September 2022 to be the fire chief on a permanent basis, which was great for my family, which was working great.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Got to work rebranded this department that I thought that's what needs to take place. Like, it just has this bad funk to it. It needs to be washed and rang out and kind of represented to the community in a. In a higher professional standard. And so got to work doing that. We went recruiting. You know, I told you about my guys. Patch was one and Randy is the Other guy, my captains came on board. They were studs, man. And we just got to work and. And built.

[A]

How big was the city that you guys were serving?

[B]

So the district was 66 square miles.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

A population of between 55 and 6,500, depending on census. Right. So pretty decent sized. I mean, I don't know what the city is, but probably, you know, the greater Kalispell area is close.

[A]

It's tough because there's Kalispear city limits, then there's Evergreen, then there's Whitefish.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then there's Summertime where the population like 10x's.

[B]

Yeah. So that's very similar to how the mountain goes.

[A]

Yeah. I would say the Flathead Valley's probably got 100K is my best guess. But that's Columbia Falls, big four. Kalispell, white. Like all this and everything else in between. The kalispell city, probably 15,000. I don't know.

[B]

Okay. I think it's just pretty close because our Woodland Park, Colorado was just down. It's like 10 to 15,000 people. And that's the big town in the county.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So maybe this is where I'm at. It's more like whitefish.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right. Smaller 5,500 people, higher average. More of a retirement age group. And so I already gave you the metrics earlier, but we went from like 18 minute response time with four or five people that were. Weren't very qualified. Some might have had a fire Cert, but no EMT. It might have been an EMT, might not have had anything. Right. To 62 people by May of 2023. Make sure that math works out.

[A]

Yeah. September 2022 to May of 23.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

About six months.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And so because of that process where I had come in and they had reconstituted that board and hired me just due to the. The statutes of the state, all five board member seats came up for election at the same time. And so there's never supposed to be a full board turnover. You always.

[A]

Is this the fireboard or the board above the fireboard?

[B]

The fire board.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. For the special district.

[A]

Okay. And wow, a full turnover. Potentially.

[B]

It was so five. Five person board. All five seats up for election. You're never supposed to have full turnover.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you have nothing. Taking it from that transition period. There's no stability on a board.

[A]

Yeah. That'll be rough. That'd be a real game of pickup basketball for the people coming in.

[B]

Yeah. Especially if their intentions aren't great. Right. It could be. Which we'll get Into. But so around January 23rd, these kind of counter folks and when I speak of this, I didn't have loyalties to either side. I'm a fire chief, I'm employed to run a fire department and do the operations. The governance and the politics is not my world. I don't elect people. I don't do any of that in the boards. No one individual has any power. That's how their makeup is. So a quorum of the board for my board is three fifths. So nothing can tell me what to do or anything in the, the in the district policy wise without a three fifths vote, which is a great design for a system because you. It's supposed to have impartiality.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm just kind of navigating this. I mean we're grinding out, we're working, we're training hard, we built up this department. So we get to, you know, January is kind of like when we had our high mark that I, I referenced back because September to January is pretty, pretty small time window. But we, we got to work so, so hard so fast that it just blew up. You know, I had, when I came on, I said if we build a culture, people will come. Especially in small town America. You know, if you look at like social clubs after World War II. Right. They were big. That was their heyday. People want to be a part of something that they see as good in their community. And so it worked. I mean it worked beautiful. So we went from 4,5 with an 18 minute response time to 62,7 minute response times, more trained personnel, you know, youth exuberance, all that stuff. And it was going really well. So January comes in and like this counterparty, the axis force in the story declares that they're going to run for the board as a slate of five people, which is weird in politics and this is local politics. Yeah, it gets a little different, but never in my, I've never been hyper political, but to see a slate vote for one of us, vote for all of us was their, their tagline.

[A]

No way. Yeah, it's very three Musketeers. But I guess it'd be the five Musketeers.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And they had some crazy beliefs and ideas and I just, I, I tried to stay out of it as I could. They would always attempt to drag me in, for sure. I have some, you know, screenshots of text and stuff. Like one of the guys that ends up becoming the board president called me a misogynist on like Facebook group or something that I was a misogynistic leader. And I'm like, well, hey man, I'm a single dad of two girls. Maybe keep that rhetoric to yourself or not in the public eye. But also my department is made up of half females that respect me. And, and where are you coming from? You know, and it was just like, oh, it's just political talk. You know, it's one of the sticky.

[A]

Things that can gather weight and velocity real fast.

[B]

Yeah, well. And especially like as a dad, I was like, all right, dude, you know, I already don't like you from the beginning for your rhetoric.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I was not concerned with who, who would ever win. I thought.

[A]

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[B]

I think in any. Any jurisdiction, right. People that have success and a track record as incumbents. Incumbents generally have the advantage anyways because people will go who's there right now? And. And check that box. Right. So.

[A]

So.

[B]

Any who January to. To May. You know, my. My world is just the fire department, but the. The political local stuff is. Is heating up. And so the incumbent board decides to hire a law firm to run the election, which I thought was a good choice. Brings it out of the local. It's like law firm from Denver comes down, administers the election. Whatever the results are, the results are. Because of the contentiousness, I stayed away from it. I didn't vote in it. I didn't. I wasn't there. I was working from home. I end up there on election day a couple times, but one to unlock the building, right here's your. Here's the fire station. Conduct the election to the designated election official. And then I leave. I end up back there for a CPR call. Gentleman was having a difficulty breathing at his home. Rural mountains of Colorado. We call in medevac. That landing site is at the fire station. So as a fire chief, I don't care what's going on there. I'm getting this guy help. So in route from his home to the lady pad, he goes into cardiac arrest. We work him for, you know, like 30 minutes. He does not make it. That's a normal day in my world, right in the fire service. But one of my duties as fire chief is go to go tell family. Like, I know he was alive when we left. He no longer is. I apologize. You know, what can we do for you? And so I end up going back to station, getting my vehicle. And when I am leaving, somebody had just voted, came out and told me something pretty alarming. And I was like, I don't like the sound of that. Let me take you to the election officer to form formally complain or lodge a complaint. Right. Like would they tell you? So the complaint was I was voting and as I was walking out, one of the poll watchers was in front of me on their phone and they said, did you pay him? Is this the vehicle pulling in right now? And then I watched them sort of motion people over and heard them tell who to vote for. And I was like, that's very alarming. That sounds Illegal, but I'm not, I don't have anything to do with the election. So go tell the election.

[A]

So the person was trying to marshal other people and then tell them who to vote for? Essentially, yeah.

[B]

And so that was enough for me. Like, I always talk about this man, like I'm pretty strong in my convictions, right? So it kind of like was kindling to a fire of like, I don't like how this sounds in, in my local community in a lit a fire. And so the election was a 12 hour day. By the end of it, you know, like people are posting results before their official. It was a little bit problematic, but I have to go lock up at the end of the day. So I go there. It's just the election official, she looks like she had just been through a 15 round bile, you know, and like Ali Frazier back in, back in the day, just was beat down. I'm like, all right, you know, she's like, what the hell is this place? And I'm like, you know, get home safe life. And I lock, lock up. And like a day or two later I'm in the grocery store and somebody else comes up to me and they're like, hey man, I need to tell you a complaint. And when I went and voted, like I was being filmed by poll watchers. And I was like, okay, let me put you in contact with the designated election official.

[A]

What is a poll watcher, by the way?

[B]

So this is unique in Colorado. So if you're a candidate for office in Colorado, you can assign a poll watcher. A poll watcher is supposed to sit there quietly and be able to observe an election.

[A]

Okay. They're just looking for anything nefarious or out of order.

[B]

Yeah, okay. That's the, the reasoning there or the, the thought process is like supposed to.

[A]

Be probably a fly on the wall though.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're not supposed to coordinate an election. You're supposed to sit there quietly and if something crazy happens, you are, you know, the representative. Representative that says, hey, red flag here, right? I've gotten two complaints now, right? And I call the attorney and the, in the law firm that ran the. And, and I know them, they represent the fire district. I, I talk to them professionally pretty often, right. For personnel stuff or whatever else. And I call and I'm like, hey, I got another complaint. You know, this person's going to reach out to you. And they're like, we've gotten a couple of others too. Like we're, we're pretty concerned right now. And I'm like, All right, well let me, you know, let me know what you guys come up with. And so just to. I, I kind of skipped over no incumbent that had ran on like the success of building up the department 1. All five of the people that were non incumbents won.

[A]

The musketeers.

[B]

The musketeers. And their vote spread amongst the five of them was probably less than 3%. So you would, you know, which is for five people, kind of a statistical anomaly that jumps out at you because then it went from like those 5 to like a 50 drop in voting. So it was very concentrated. And so after talking to the attorney, I'm like, man, they like, if they're getting all these complaints, there's something wrong. And so go home, like cook dinner, do dad life, right? Tuck my girls in. And, and I'm like, just thinking about this for, you know, like a couple days and I'm like, I don't like this at all. If something went wrong, like I'm the only one that can stand in. I want to see that this was, you know, the proper democratic process. I'll say, right, but what's the risk? If I go find something, it's against my bosses, they by three fifths vote, they can fire me. Me like that. And I don't have a livelihood for these two girls that I'm raising. And so I, I literally sit down one night and talk to, talk to myself out loud, like sitting on the edge of my bed like, hey, dummy, it's not in your best interest. You know, there's two girls down there relying on you. And it was just that fire inside of me, man, that, that whatever you, you call it, that sense of duty that, you know, patriotism, whatever it is, right? And I was just like, all right, man, you got to look into it. Because I can't live with myself if I don't. I don't. And so the next day I go to work, get off, like change and get in my own personal vehicle, my own, you know, civilian clothes, go to Walmart, buy a thumb drive. And I go to this company that owns all the servers and, and like does the, it work for the security system at this fire station. And I was like, hey, I need the, the cameras from May 2, 2023, from 7:00am to 7:00pm you know, here it is. And it's important for people to understand I didn't do that as a fire chief, I did that as a citizen. And I went there and like, didn't say, hey, I'm the fire chief, I need this this is a tax funded building. People would understand it as a foia. Basically, in Colorado, it's a Colorado open records.

[A]

Would anybody off the street have the ability to do exactly what you did.

[B]

If you knew though? Yeah, you could, right? If you knew, knew. Most people would probably go to the fire house and say, hey, I want this footage.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm submitting an open records request. I just knew the game a little better because it was my what I did. Right.

[A]

So I just think they knew you were the fire chief, though.

[B]

Yeah, I'm sure they did.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But I never presented myself as that. Yeah.

[A]

Which you may not need to though, if they know you as Right. I get what you're saying and I'm just curious like, because what'll be if in court they're gonna ask you or anybody else, like, could somebody just off the street who wasn't recognized as the fire chief go in with a thumb drive and leave with the footage?

[B]

The answer to that is yes, they could. But knowing the route to do that, you know, I think comes with some nuance.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

And it does come up in the, in, at the end of the story, in the court stuff. But all I can say is I went there, I paid for it on my own bank card, you know, presented myself as just a normal person. Now in small town America, do people know me? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Just something you can't work around. But like a day or two later they call me and you can come get it. So I go and I pay and I come home with it and I, I don't know what I'm looking for because I, I plug in a thumb drive and it's one hour clip of four different cameras on a 12 hour day.

[A]

So that sounds like hell on earth.

[B]

Yeah. And imagine like again, like I'm a fireman, man. Like I know how to stop people that are bleeding. Or if you can't breathe, I'm decently good at making you breathe again. Right. If it's on fire, I can put it out. When it comes to investigative stuff or election law, I don't know anything. I'm a freaking idiot, man. Especially back then I knew nothing. And so I'm like, what do I look like?

[A]

Floor?

[B]

So I get on my computer and I Google, you know, election laws in the state of Colorado and print them out and I just start like watching the worst TV show you've ever seen. It's like Big Brother with nothing cool. It's just people walking in and out.

[A]

Was it audio as well?

[B]

Or just video, mostly not. So like the main camera had no audio and it was 12 hour, 12 one hour clips. And I'm just walking people, like watching people walk in, walk out, right? And so what I ended up doing is the first thing that jumped out at me was this lady who's at the poll watcher table opens the laptop up and you can see the image on her screen is the image of the room. And the laws are in front of me. And it's like no electronic devices, no recording devices, no tabulating votes, all this stuff. And I'm like, oh, that's. That's a. Against the rules here, I. E. That's illegal legal. So I put a tally mark and I was like, that's what I'll do. I'll just go through. And if it's on these like 15 rules or whatever, I'll just tally. So like 40 hours of footage I'd go through and I do that. So if I saw an electronic device or a recording device or all these things, I just put a tally. And so I get done with it and there's like hundreds of tally marks. And I'm like, that doesn't happen by accident. Damn it, I gotta watch this over again. So I'm like, okay, if there's hundreds of violations of law, it's not an accident. It's gotta be something coordinated. But I don't want to find something coordinated. So I watched it in a way that was. I was trying to find a reason that it was all okay. And so I started watching it again. And I don't have to watch it as intently so I can speed through it. Right? But. But what I end up finding is the scheme. And it was when it jumped out at me, I was like, oh, God. So I had originally, I knew the time that I was at the station and that lady had come up to me, so I went and I looked for that clip. And the outside camera had audio, the inside did not. And so I can go to that timestamp at that time on the. You know, and I catch that pole watcher walking out talking on her phone. And it wasn't her cell phone, it was actually a smartwatch. But you can see her doing this.

[A]

What kind of does that?

[B]

Weirdos.

[A]

I mean, seriously, I couldn't. It's like, take it easy, Batman, you know?

[B]

Oh, there's so much truth in that. And that's like.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's like some spy for spy.

[A]

Yeah. And it's like, nobody. This is like my dad, he every phone Call is on speaker. You could be in the library or at a funeral. Hey, what's going on?

[B]

Like, son of a. I've become that guy though, that does it on speakerphone, I will say. And I.

[A]

He would do his wrist if he could. He just trust me, would never be able to figure out how to sync an iPhone and an Apple watch, even though I think they do it by themselves. He would struggle.

[B]

I just bought an Apple watch and like I stopped wearing it because it was driving me crazy after like three days. So I just spent a bunch of money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For Apple stock to go up, but it's sitting dead on my dresser now.

[A]

Keep it for your biometrics. I found that to be beneficial. You can maybe even just wear it at night if you want to track your sleep and stuff.

[B]

So that has been hugely beneficial actually. The. The sleep scores.

[A]

Yeah. A little scientific approach to it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what was she saying in her Batman watch?

[B]

So literally remember the complaint? I detailed it, what the lady had told me. So the part I couldn't hear because the wind was like the pay part, which is unfortunate because that's like the home run of it. But what I could hear very clearly is, is this, who's pulling into the station right now and she's like, you know, it cuts a little bit. Well, I'm a little concerned about this. And then she motions the people over, gets in like real close to him. I think she might even like fake hugged him, you know, like a bro hug. And you can hear her like telling them who to go in and vote for. And I was like, well that's con. That that aligns pretty well to the complaint. And so now I know two things, that the poll watchers are the ones doing the coordination here. But also she's coordinating with somebody who's on that phone or the watch phone or the bat phone, whatever.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So somebody's off site coordinating something thing. So let me go back to it and I go back to the inside camera. And one thing that I kept jumping out to me but weren't tally marks is people would leave the little voter screens and they would be like super obvious, like tipping their hat. Like I remember one guy was like very dramatic. And then other people would thumbs up, other people would point. Some were like overt about it, others were trying to hide it. And every time they would do that, I could see, see like so the camera's behind the pole watcher table, so you're looking down on them and I could see them kind of. And they would compare and finally I caught the camera angle was they had track counters. And so basically what all those tally marks ended up being was somebody's off site coordinating. They would call one of the pole watchers. The pole watcher would walk out, greet people, walk back in, people would get their ballot, go vote. And as they came back to the, you know, put it in the box, they were signaling, hey, I complied. And they would count those. And I was like, it's all here on high definition video. But is that enough to guarantee an election? Right, Because I'm trying to find a reason to not get involved in this stuff. I go, it's not enough to know the outcome. You can't guarantee an outcome by just knowing who's voted for you video. You could know the total vote and then know we have over half of that. But there's like 12 total candidates too, for five positions. And so the other camera that I had kind of not even paid attention to up until this point was 365 days a year is the engine bay where I parked the fire engine, right? But on this day, the fire engine was moved out. And this is where they set the table up to do official ballot count. So they bring it in. Basically, two election workers would come in with two poll watchers, they would unlock the box, they'd pull the ballots out, and they would sit and count them. So now, you know, the official counts. And in there was the most alarming footage. Like, I'm not accusing, and I never will because of legalities that the election officials were in on this, but I will say very clearly they were content with watching it play out right in front of their eyes. And so the first thing that jumped out at me is an election worker reads like three ballots in a row. It's the same names. And she makes a joke.

[A]

Ha ha.

[B]

This. This election is rigged. But what was the most disturbing is the poll watcher sitting this identical distance from me to you in plain sight, has a track counter. And you can. She would call out names and he'd go click. And I can hear it on the audio. And I can. If you were sitting here with a track counter, I could see that you're doing it. Both are illegal, and the other guy's on his phone, so I surmise he's probably texting the count, right? And so now I was like, well, crap, you can count during the day as people are voting. And then when you know the official ballot count, that's election fraud. You. You are. You're robbing the entire community of the Election process, you are stacking it in your favor and confirming it. And you can stop incentivizing people, people once your numbers are good. And that's exactly what I found on high definition footage. And so I called the attorney back and I go, I found some very alarming stuff. I don't know what to do with it. And she. So we're in that laden dunk, period, post election, right? So the incumbent board is still the board, but it's approaching the time when this transition's supposed to happen. And so the attorney and the incumbent board president been talking. You know, it wasn't my normal day to day to like engage with them. So I called and she's like, yeah, the incumbent board president's filing a court injunction because of all the complaints to try to stay things and let us look at it. She said, I'm going to reach out to the DA's office. This is the attorney. And I'm like, okay, well I want to actually give this what I have, right? So I give, I show them them what I find. I don't make anybody else watch 40 some odd hours of footage. I kind of give them the highlights.

[A]

It's a missed opportunity.

[B]

Yeah, should have watched that, joy. Right? And so the DA is notified by the attorney. I reach out and this is el paso county and my county tell county have like a combined D A district. And so they probably represent three quarters of a million people. It's a pretty big metropolis area.

[A]

You.

[B]

And so I like calling him like, hey, I need to talk to the D A. And they like laughed at me. And I'm like, I need to talk to the D A. You know, and they're like, who are you? What do you want? And so they, you know, I tell them an investigator calls me, I meet with him, I show him, right? And so this guy is a cop. He's a D A investigator. And you know, it started with some, some funny jokes between cops and firemen.

[A]

But I always, as it happens, yeah.

[B]

Yeah, we, we can do that. But cops are like the biggest dorks when it comes to like work mode because they get rigid, right? And they're, they're flat tops, get spiky and they get very, you know, fireman. I, I guess we're just a little more fun loving throughout the, the chaos.

[A]

It's a very broad accusation. Hard to say.

[B]

No proof. Yeah, but he just like, man, we went from chopping it up and like having fun for, you know, like the introduction period to like me showing him foot footage and he's just stiff as a board. And so that lasts for like, probably two hours. Man. I should show him kind of the broad strokes of things. And eventually, you know, I get the investigative thing. He literally, like typed out, like, it is very clear that election violations took place. No doubt about this. So he opens a criminal investigation. And so now the. The prongs of this story developing are you've got these five people elected, right? They're chomping at the bit. The incumbent president filed something in court saying this was a wonky election. We need to stay that until we can investigate it. And now the DA's office launches a criminal investigation to which I am the star witness because I've brought them the evidence. Right? And so how the transition of the board, where you go from like lame duck into like new term is the incumbent board opens a meeting meeting. They literally like pass the gavel, they sign the paperwork, and then the new board closes the meeting. That's the transition process, you know, so that's approaching like May 25th is supposed to happen. Well, because of everything the incumbent presidents, like, you have to notify through public agenda posting what's taking place. Right. So 24 hours before any meeting, you can look at like city council, they post agenda us. So she, the incumbent president posts. Due to an open criminal investigation, we're postponing this meeting until June 10th because the statute said either next regular meeting or 45 days after the election certified, the transition has to happen. So she went with the 45 days. Try to push it out, to give these things kind of time to play out these people. And when I say people, man, you're talking like 60 to 80 year old, you know, community members.

[A]

The five were.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Why so much effort from these five for this, these board seats?

[B]

I've been asked that a lot, a lot of times. And I think, I think tribalism has a status to it. Right. And I think ego comes into play. So if you think you can do something better and it gives you a little status in your local community, these people were, were aligned with like HOAs as well. So, like, if you now have the fire department budget, you can pump it into, you know, protecting your home versus the other neighborhoods.

[A]

Well, what did they. Was there anything that they would personally get out of it? I mean, was it a paid role or was it just an administrative position?

[B]

I think it was like $100 a month stipend. It's nothing that is a motivator who.

[A]

Would go through that level of conspiracy and getting an election watch and like, and all of those, like, why would you do that?

[B]

I. So this is, this is still an answer I don't have. And it's, it's what really blew my mind along this whole process. I was like, this is so stupid. It's a fire department. Why would you want to take over? Why would you want to destroy something just to kind of re. Have to rebuild and be like, see, we did it good. That makes no sense. So all I'm left with is the chaos that I had inherited in these, you know, counter parties, I guess allies and access forces in, in this local community. The ego was so extreme in it that they just boxed themselves in. And that came with winning at all costs. It's the only thing I can surmise at the end of the day because it makes no logical sense.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Otherwise. So when she posts that due to an open criminal investigation, these people find out they're in a criminal investigation.

[A]

Oh, they were unaware up to that point.

[B]

They were unaware.

[A]

Surprise.

[B]

Yeah. So I admit. Yeah. Smile, you're on camera.

[A]

Oh, and by the way.

[B]

Yeah. So I had met with like, like May 19th, May 20th is when I met with a DA so this is like four days later that this gets posted, right. And there's a lot of chatter that happens. I guess my incumbent president had told them directly that like Chief Hope gave them the, the footage, you know. And so I always say this and it's humorous to me. Although the situation has all but destroyed my, my livelihood in life and career, there is humor involved in it. Right. And so like I'm leaving work on May 24 and pulling up our. And this guy Paul and this lady Judy come walking up to me like they are the New York mock job. And they're like, like he's smoking. He's like, you're gonna unlock the building for us? And I was like, no. And so I, I contact the attorney and I like, I typed a memorandum which is kind of in, in the record. Now I'm like, until somebody of legal authority can say who the board is, my only option is to lock everybody out.

[A]

Were those two people part of the new elected five?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Two of the five musketeers tried to muscle you. Yeah.

[B]

And like imagine like, you know, like a bent over like 60 year old man and like this, you know, overweight woman with a speech impediment like she slurred are like trying to bully me in the parking lot, telling me I'll unlock the building for him so they can hold this meeting and self declare themselves in Power. And I was just like, have a wonderful day. I'm gonna go feed my daughters. I'll refer this to the attorney. And so the attorney's like, like, look, I don't really know how to navigate this anymore because I am. Who launched a criminal investigation. You've now testified. I have, like, a severe conflict of interest because we administered the election, but we represent the district.

[A]

Oh, yeah, they're. They're deep in that.

[B]

Yeah. So she just sort of, like, throws her hands up and says, we can't represent the district anymore. I now have an interest in, like, we reported something criminal which outweighs the civil, like, contract we have. So they step away. And so, like, literally May 25, the next day, these people are like, we're in power. And I'm like, cool, like, whatever, you know? And the incumbent board sort of just was like, we're not gonna continue to elevate the temperature here. We're gonna step aside. The criminal investigation or the court thing will play out, and some authority will make this determination, but we're not going to continue the. The chaos here, which I loved, because it allowed me, or so I thought, to focus on running a fire department, because everybody has to remember this is about a fire department. And, like, 911 calls still happen, and we have to go respond and help people. So May 26, I get a phone call from, you know, Smoking Paul, who. My last interaction was him trying to muscle me, was like, hey, I'm the board president, and I froze the bank accounts of the fire district, and I recorded this phone call so, like, people can go to my socials and they can hear all of this stuff, and they can see all these videos that I. So we'll plug those at the end. But he calls, and he's like, I went to the bank and froze the bank accounts. And I'm like.

[A]

Okay, why would anybody do that?

[B]

You answer that for me. Because I don't. There's no logical sense in it.

[A]

I mean, what did you use the bank accounts for operations?

[B]

Paying for fuel, paying for truck repairs?

[A]

Yeah. So why would anybody pause that?

[B]

I didn't understand at the time. I know now because of discovery from court stuff, there was some emails back and forth that says, whoever controls the money is the one with the authority. So it was a power play.

[A]

Yeah, but wouldn't it be just hurting the people that they were just elected to serve?

[B]

100%. And this becomes a strong part of the story here. And I. And I framed it that way because it makes no sense to somebody Removed from the situation. That's like. That's illogical.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

May 26th is a pivotal day, too, because it's Friday going into Memorial Day weekend. What's Memorial Day weekend around here in Kalispell? Imagine you have a flood of city folk coming out. That's what it was the there. So it's one of our busiest weekends of the year. And on Friday at about 4pm, he tells me, bank account's frozen. No access to it. I'm like, okay. So we get through that weekend.

[A]

Tuesday.

[B]

When, you know, you come back from that extended weekend. I'm like, hey, I need you to come in and sign something. Which was our insurance renewal. And there was a form you had to sign. And I had an invoice for him. And so I see him face to face, guys, Some tensions happen with it. It's. It's tertiary. He kind of harassed my secretary on a medical issue. But nonetheless, back to the bank thing, he wasn't even on the bank account. So in the end of the game here, it's bank fraud. He went to. It'd be like me going to your bank account, which maybe is in town here, right? Go in and say, hey, I want to freeze Andy's bank account. And they're like, like, okay, somebody's going to be like, that's probably not smart, right? And so their legal department for the bank caught on pretty rapidly after the. The Memorial Day weekend was like, who's this random dude that said he wants to freeze the bank accounts? He's not on the bank accounts. He's not authorized on it. Activate the fraud protections of banks, right? And they hard freeze the accounts, but nobody tells me that. So basically a week goes by. So we're now in like June 5th time frame. And I get like, it's Monday morning. I think it was June 5th. Like, I start getting phone calls, like, our fuel bill. We have some tanks at the station where we filled the fire trucks. They were like, hey, we can't deliver your fuel because the building, you know, the invoice didn't go through. I'm like, okay. And then the utilities company and then the Internet company on, like, everybody called that first week of the month generally, you know, when all the bills would get paid. And so everybody's calling me as the chief and was like, oh, we're not getting paid. You're gonna have to shut off services and all this. And I'm like, sweet. So I inform him, the board president, and then I get a email on my personal email, and it's from another. This guy Allen, who's another one of the five musketeers in the story. And it's a pro se response to that court injunction that got filed because that's still sort of processing in the court system. And I'm like, immediately, I didn't even open it. I'm like, hey, man, I'm not party to this. Like, don't send it to me. And he fires back, oh, I've implicated you for felony charges. And I'm like, right. So I then I open it, and he's accusing me of committing some sort of, like, surveillance fraud or whatever for accessing the security system system of the fire station. I've never met anybody that's opposed to a security system unless you're doing something unsavory, right? And so he basically was like, well, he accessed this and turned it over, and so I want him charged. And I just kind of laughed it off, you know, like, whatever. But in my contract, there's an indemnification clause. So I, you know, I now have a board member accusing me of felony crimes for, you know, accessing and investigating election fraud. And so I. I tell the board president, like, hey, I need to invoke this clause. I need somebody to, you know, retain me an attorney or I'll do that. I just need the check for it. And they go, that goes in ignored. And so the next day, June 6, is the day all hell breaks loose. But that insurance thing that I had had him come in and sign, he never pays it. And so on June 6, 2023, the insurance company calls and like, hey, you know, we haven't received this $23,000 invoice to renew your insurance, so you're in danger of that being canceled. So I informed them, all hell breaks loose. And so again, through discovery, things are clear two and a half years later. So I can give you guys the time frames of that, but like, like at like 3:11pm is the notification of that. And so he says, hey, I'm sending you money for my personal bank account, $23,000 to pay this bill. And then at like 4:32pm he emails me and says, shut operations out of the fire district. You cannot respond to emergency calls. Which in my world is insanity. Like, what do you mean I can't answer a 911 call. And so I literally have to shut the fire department down. And what I didn't know at the time, that I know now, is he had already paid the bill an hour and a half prior. So in that hour And a half time span, the tactics changed a little bit. And so now they're shutting the fire department down. And they shut the fire department down for four days. And the news comes calling, all this stuff, right? He makes a public statement where he admits fault that he froze the bank account. The bank determined it was illegal. Bills didn't get paid. Right. Now, meanwhile, these folks had hired a new attorney to which they had cut off the access from me. And so as the fire chief, it's pretty normal for me to engage with and work through issues with the attorney to make sure we're doing things proper. They had cut me off from that. And so I'm kind of isolated on an island of trying to make the best decisions I can. So I had like a short news thing where I'm like, I just don't know what's going on. Yes, we had to shut down. This is what I know. And then I'm supposed to be on vacation for a week, spend time with my girls during summer. I do that before I even get through the week, man. I get a notification that I need to show up at a meeting on June 22, and I get the agenda and it says, evaluate my employment. It. We all know it's coming, right? So I go in, they rent a movie theater commercial, popcorn machine and lemonade dispensers like it's a party. And they try to humiliate me. And they blame me for the insurance not being paid.

[A]

This is still 60 to 80 year old people doing this stuff.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Like they're the mob. And it's. It's just wild, man. So, and the bylaws and the policies and my authorizations. I was never on the bank account as a fire chief because that's the board's responsibility. I couldn't cut checks. I had a credit card with a $5,000 max. Yeah. That I could do an emergency to. To pay for things. Right. You know, like a fire engine tire blows out and we need to get the fire engine on. And I have a credit card to do that. This was a $23,000 bill, so I had no way to pay it even if I had access to the system. I wasn't on the bank account to sign it. The policies and bylaws said I couldn't expend more than 5,000. And oh, by the way, they illegally froze the bank account. So on June 22, they fired me for the insurance bill not being paid. You know, in public fashion with like movie popcorn machines popping popcorn in the background. It was. It Was quite a ridiculous situation. And so I file a lawsuit, Mind you, the criminal investigation's still ongoing. The court stuff's still ongoing. They acted with just such haste. I mean, it was 33 days from the day I met with the criminal investigator until I no longer had a job. And so I filed a federal lawsuit. You were pretty keen. And you, you understand there's some things in that of like what capacity were you acting in which a lot of people don't understand up there? Yeah. First Amendment protects you if you're a citizen. It doesn't protect you in employment if you're doing it for what you're paid for. And so I litigate this for two years. And in that two years, I never got to show any of the evidence, like the facts don't matter. It's procedure. File a motion to get rid of this because we don't want to face it, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so I lose my federal case after two years on summary judgment. And the judge made this crazy finding that because I was a fire chief, it was expected that I would investigate that stuff and cooperate with law enforcement, which to a degree I can understand, but it's such a broad view of what the First Amendment protects that it, it basically strips all public officials, who are generally the whistleblowers, of corruption. Right. Because we have access to those things.

[A]

Yeah, you're actually seeing it.

[B]

Yeah. And so I was defeated, man. And this had been over a year, year and a half, I couldn't find a job. They blackballed me so much. I'm now sold my beautiful 3,200 square foot log home in. On 8 acres in the mountains of Colorado. And I'm living in a camper in my stepdad's backyard in California with my girlfriend, my two kids, my Dalmatian, like, life has changed drastically. And then I lose. And I was just like, oh my God, man. Like, how is, how's this the country you live in? And so I finally do land another job, and my buddy, he goes by for Gosa, but he owns a media company called Collecting Heads. He's one of my best friends, man, since like high school days. And he's like, dude, don't give up. Like, you know, fight this. And I'm like, I got nothing left, man. I've. I've paid. I sold my home to pay an attorney, so I don't have anything left left. And I'm like 150 grand in this, and I lose. And the attorney's like, we should appeal it. I think the judge got this wrong. And I'm like, I agree.

[A]

And he's like, well, here's my invoice.

[B]

Yeah. He literally says, all right, you got to give me 50,000, and I'll. And I'm like, oh, yeah, Let me.

[A]

Just go out to my car, right?

[B]

I live in a camper bag.

[A]

I have it in a Doritos bag waiting for you.

[B]

Exactly. And so do you want to talk about. Just, like, I'm defeated, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so he tells me. He's like, just pick up your phone, man, and start recording it and tell people, like, even if you're not going to do this, just don't let it die. And I'm like, all right. So I make the first video I've ever made in my life of recording this ugly mug. And I just decided one night, like, I tell this story of I'm eating dinner with my girlfriend to my right and my two girls sitting across from me. And if you've ever been in a room with teenage girls, it's not generally a quiet room room, but to me, I'm, like, processing all of this stuff, and it's just dead silence, you know? I think, like, when you're. When you're hunting, right? And you. You go to. You don't need earplugs, right? I don't know what that mechanism in your brain is.

[A]

I just use a suppressor because I'm a gentleman.

[B]

That's beautiful.

[A]

Let me guess. Be a felony charge for you guys.

[B]

Oh, just even talk about it. They might arrest me when I get home for that, man. But, yeah, I'm just sitting there, and I was just like, dad, rage hit. And I'm like, there ain't no effing way my two daughters will ever see me quit something. Because the road is hard, right? And so in that moment, I was just like, I'm gonna fight this, and I'm gonna learn how to be less of an idiot and more of being able to read case law and stuff like that.

[A]

And so you get to play their game, man.

[B]

Yeah. And so I literally, that night, I started reading Lane v. Franks and, like, Supreme Court case law and all this stuff. And I'm like, I've got an understanding of this, and I do think the judge got this wrong. And I started and I followed it on my own pro se to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Did all of my briefings. And then another bomb hits in that, man. So when I. I don't know if you've ever litigated, but I had an attorney. Like, I don't look at every document, man. You know what I mean? I look at what they asked me to do. I trust that. I'm paying them really good money, money to do that. Well, now I don't have them. I'm reading thousands of pages of stuff, and I finally know who I'm litigating against. And it's this law firm, Vaughn and demuro, and they're out of Colorado Springs, and so they're the law firm. And then I'm reading thousands of pages of stuff. And the criminal investigation. I happen to be reading all of the supplements from the criminal investigation, which ended very rapidly with them calling me and being like, we're not doing anything by. And I was like, you know, it's on high definition video. How do people get away with this stuff? And the guy that dismissed the case was named Andrew Vaughn. And I was like, I'm dead asleep just after reading this stuff in the middle of night. And I shot up, like, awake. And I was like, I'm litigating Vaughn and demuro and Yvonne, are they. Oh, my God. What? What up? No way. And I just go back to sleep. So I wake up in the morning and I contact this company, Kinetic Investigations. It's like a PI private investigator out of Atlanta, not Atlanta, Georgia. And I'm like, hey, can you run these names? They're spelled the same, and tell me if there's any sort of relationship there. And so the. The principal attorney, the head attorney for the law firm, and the number two at the DA's office are Father and son. And I find this out in my appellate brief. And I'm like, okay, let me go to my timeline. So the investigative report says they're father and son. And I get that report and I go to my timeline. I'm like, okay, I got fired. June 22, I hired an attorney. They filed my lawsuit. July 14, I think they got served July 26, August 1, the sun cancels a criminal investigation for dad's clients within like three to four days of. And I was like, oh, my God, that's how these people got away with it. And so meanwhile, I'm just. I'm telling the story in like 10 minute clips on TikTok and Facebook. And just people are like, starting to follow along, you know, of course, I'm sure, like, when you started out, immediately, like your friends and people you knew were your first supporters, right? And then it started to kind of get a little bigger. And so one of the podcasts I'd done at a Denver area, like connected me to an attorney who was like, call these people. And so now I have Mountain State's legal foundation that represents me in the appellate court. And then I'm in, I'm pro se in the, in the state court still, but I'm still just fighting, man. Like, you know, I have all of the evidence. Like again, people can go to my social media stuff and see the actual like security footage and the actual recorded phone calls and all this stuff. But for two and a half years I've taken the brunt of it. And the people that like committed crimes and election fraud have just like attacked me non stop. And I will say, like, if I wasn't a dad of two girls with like just rage to never see them like suffer or to see me quit, I probably would have given up. The system is not such set up for people like whistleblowers to have any chance of success in courts, I'll tell you that. Because I mean, how many people do you know that has 150 grand laying around to just say here, yeah, totally. I mean, it's impossible. Yeah. But everyday situations happen in America where like people come forward to do the right thing on morality and integrity and the system just cuts them out. And so as I've gotten in, I've tried to stay very like, apolitical. I don't want to get aligned with anything. You know, like, my situation is mine. But I think the election conversation is a bigger topic for sure. I came in post 2020 election when it was all conspiracy theory. Like mine was in 2023. But it clicked one day, man. Like, oh, this is like, this is somewhat normal in local elections. Like people have been saying there's a problem. Where does this happen? It's like school board elections and like these other things and like these weird ideologies come into our kids. Some of the stuff we were talking about earlier. Right. And so it's like, oh, okay, there's a valid fight here. And whatever it costs me, whatever energy it expends, it's worth it for me to fight not only for my kids, but like that there's a greater thing at stake here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, if our elections are like, Colorado election laws are so weak, it's like a misdemeanor to completely cheat an election. I mean, think of that craziness, right.

[A]

That doesn't make any sense. If you do win, what is the desired outcome that you're looking for?

[B]

I think there's enough of like a reward of saying you won something. I'm Popular because more people voted for me than you. And if. If that, then people like me better.

[A]

Better.

[B]

And I'm cooler than you at a local level. I really think that's what it is. In the same county where I was going through my stuff, like, the. The school board elections were so, so much vitriol. Like, they probably spent 10 times the operating budget on lawsuits back and forth at each other that just deprived the kids of, like, what's the purpose here? So mine was a fire department. If you're a school board, you're gonna wait, waste $5 million on lawsuits to say, I was right and you were wrong? Or should you just apply that to the kids? And they're learning.

[A]

I mean, I would hope it'd be.

[B]

Applied to the kids, you would think. But that's not what's happening right now. We're so. We're so segregated. And, like, we're losing again. A fire department. Everybody understands it's a pretty good thing.

[A]

Yeah, but if you win to the five Musketeers or they bounce, like, what happens?

[B]

You mean if they hadn't won the election?

[A]

No, if you're. You have an appeal in right now, right?

[B]

Oh, no, actually. So they. They would be fine because they have insurance that says even if we do wrong. The insurance claim. Yeah, Like, I. I get to depose them, but then they. They don't have any risks.

[A]

When do you get to depose them here?

[B]

Soon I get to for my state case. So they tried to dismiss it three times. So my federal case is a first amendment case. It's. It's first amendment protected speech. So in the state case, it's, you fired me. Breach of contract. You know, you didn't.

[A]

So there would be monetary damages awarded, essentially. So they're going to have their job regardless.

[B]

100%.

[A]

When are they up for reelection?

[B]

Well, so four out of the five aren't even there anymore.

[A]

Did they die of old age?

[B]

No. One of my favorite quotes in the world is Mark Twain. It's, I'll never wish death upon anybody, but someday I'll read obituaries with great pleasure. They're all still alive, but, like, within six months. Like, two of them didn't want to waste their time anymore and so they resigned. Run.

[A]

In the first place.

[B]

Ego is a cancer man. That's all I can. I can.

[A]

I think old people have too much time on their hands.

[B]

That is a huge problem for sure. And if, like, your social circle pumps you up to, like, you know, you gotta do this. If you don't do it, you know, you lose your social circle.

[A]

I guess that's when I turn around and say, why don't you go do it if it's such a good idea. I'll follow you. Yeah, I'll golf clap for you.

[B]

It's great. So now and like they don't even get along anymore.

[A]

Like I can't believe the five musketeers broke up.

[B]

Yeah. When you don't have good intentions, it's gonna stay fret. You know, it's like if you're gonna rob a bank, you do it alone. Right. Yeah. I mean that's so the best you.

[A]

Can hope for at this point. I guess it would be two pronged. One, you could show that the election fraud existed and alert people to how it happened and try to prevent it. And two, hopefully you can make some of your money back that you spent on your legal fees.

[B]

Yeah. So there's a third tier which is the most important one. Yes, I can. If I win a case, there's, there's a monetary damages that can be applied. Right. Everything that I lost to make me whole again. Which you know, hopefully that happens. But the third tier really is case law at this point. So I was a high ranking public official. Right. A fire chief in a local community. If, if the judge's decision that is affirmed by the appellate court, it's now locked in as case law that like any public official who, who's generally the whistleblowers has no protections whatever. Nobody will ever come for it. Yeah.

[A]

That case law would be cited explicitly in situations like that.

[B]

Yeah. So now having it reversed, protecting public officials is, is my number one. The election law conversation is a tertiary to be quite a. On this. Right. It's the constitutional law is the important part of it because it protects other things. I will fight the election integrity stuff on my own by coming here and talking about it. I do think there is a, a problem with it. You know, the, the federal politics right now. It's a very hot topic again. I think Trump just yesterday said, you know, like there's truckloads of evidence coming out about 20, 20, 20, we'll see.

[A]

He says a lot of wild stuff. Yeah, show me the truck. Yeah, that's what I need to see is the actual evidence.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

I am at a place where I think politicians have done almost everything they can to erode the trust and those they are supposed to be serving. So I don't, I, I need to see it. Sorry, sir.

[B]

Yeah, I mean me too, man. I'm, I'm So I have such an objective lifestyle. Right. Like, I need to see it before I believe it kind of thing. I didn't believe in election fraud even existed because I went, I, you know, I voted in 2020. I was like, come on, guys. You know? But then I saw it firsthand. I'm like, oh, it can happen. And this is how it can happen. And if it can happen locally and nobody will be held accountable, then of course it can happen at the state and federal level. And so did you see his pardon of Tina Peters?

[A]

No.

[B]

No. She was a Mesa county election clerk, and so she is in prison now. She was a Navy SEAL mom.

[A]

I knew her son well. Remy, did you. He died in a parachuting accident.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Demonstration with the leapfrogs.

[B]

Yeah. So his mom is in prison in Colorado for imaging. And I wouldn't do it justice, but I'm very closely aligned with her. Her cause.

[A]

Is she in jail for they.

[B]

So she imaged a Dominion voting machine after Jenna Griswold.

[A]

What does that mean? Imaged? Like, took a picture of.

[B]

Ask your IT guy.

[A]

Like, what does that mean, Michael, you're an IT guy. Image means. Well, actually, this.

[B]

Checked it to make sure it was like she preserved.

[A]

What was her first name?

[B]

Tina Peters.

[A]

Tina Peters. Pull it up. I actually saw. I mean, I knew Remy, but I actually saw an article about this within the last few days.

[B]

Yeah, it's a very hot topic right now because Trump just pardoned her federally and she's still in prison, and the state is now saying, well, she's in prison on state charges. So I've actually messaged her in prison, which is what? Yeah, they have, like, text stuff.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so her. Her podcast is called Truth Matters and it's guest hosted, obviously, because she can't do it. And so I really. I had heard about Tina's case case, and originally I thought she had done something crazy bad.

[A]

So. President Donald Trump claimed that he is granting a full pardon to Tina Peters, a former Mesa County, Colorado clerk who's sentenced to nine years on state level charges related to election interference during the 2020 election. So this is why she's still in prison. However, the president does not have jurisdiction over state charges in Colorado. Officials are pushing back, contending that the president's promise of a pardon is unconscious constitutional. Okay, scroll down. Michael, what is. I would like to see.

[B]

So her charges are crazy, though.

[A]

Peters was convicted in August 2024 for giving an individual affiliated with My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell at Trump Ally access to the election software she used for her county screen. What?

[B]

So ABC News isn't going to publish, you know, incinery stuff. So I, I've looked into hers because after I, I, I started looking.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She actually didn't get charged with anything related to election. In fact, the judge denied 41 motions to enter in that she was doing her federally regulated job as an election clerk.

[A]

Well, what is she in prison for then? Scroll down.

[B]

Those are both impersonation and fraud for nine years. Now remind you, Colorado allows like rapists and drug murderers and all this other stuff like like on probation. So you've got a gold star mom who's like survived lung cancer. She's pretty sick right now. They have her in solitary confinement as a 70 year old woman. And so I, I really dug into this after I learned more about her. And this is the, this is the election conspiracy conversation right here. She was an elected election official. Elected election.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Her job is defined in law. And so she the, I think it's 22 months. The federal statute says you have to preserve election records. And so the Secretary of state contacted her and said we're coming down to re image your voting machines. And she was like, well hold on. Federal law says I have to preserve these records for 23 months. And so she got nervous about it from my understanding and she had a tech guy come in and image I, I guess would be like clone what is there now we'll say copy for.

[A]

A word that morons like a misunderstanding.

[B]

Yeah. Let's keep it real simple.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so the Secretary of state came down with her goons and like taped windows up in Tina's office and did stuff to these machines. And so then Tina compared them and there was some really bad findings of like these don't align. And so now you know, and Mike Lindell was the guy that was like going around saying the election was stolen in 2020, yada yada.

[A]

And so the my pillow guy.

[B]

Yeah. And you're talking about a billionaire. Right. So if you align with him, you have a funding source to try to bring in tech people and all this stuff. Okay, but so the fight with Tina is that the state drummed up some charges, denied her a defense of like saying this is federal statute and this is what I did. Like she wasn't even allowed to say that in court. And sentenced to nine years for a non violent first offense ever. When like the guy that planned to murder Justice Kavanaugh in Colorado. Yeah. Got like eight years.

[A]

Yeah. It's probably not a good idea to compare two unrelated things.

[B]

Though I agree. And that's, that's one of the things that keeps happening is they're like, oh, there's this drug czar got six months probation. It's like, well, but you know, it's different. Right. Every courtroom is different.

[A]

Did she go to a jury trial?

[B]

She did. So the, the state kind of narrative right now is that they, it was a republican judge, which I didn't think judges were partisan, and a trial by.

[A]

Her peers put into place by people in political power.

[B]

Yeah. So one of my judge that I had is a foreign born Biden appointee. And I took and I've apologized so many times, but it's something I feel and I want to be honest about. She's a naturalized citizen, but she told me somebody that a natural born.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

U.S. citizen that I don't have a First Amendment. And I always took a grudge to that.

[A]

Why?

[B]

I don't know that that's fair.

[A]

The fair is in Iowa. It has cotton candy and it has a merry go round. I don't think it matters if she was natural born or immigrated to this country or naturalized citizen. Is she correct in her interpretation of the law in regards to your position at the time?

[B]

Time, I will say my, my opinion is biased to the fact that she ruled against me. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it's an easy out for me to say I have a grudge with that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I think, you know, I mean, I, I, I've met many naturalist citizens that are the most patriotic people.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm, I think you're hanging your hat on the wrong thing there. I don't think it matters if you.

[B]

Keep calling me out, Andy, I'm gonna lose my story now. I, that's, it's really awesome that you challenged those thoughts because it is an out for me to say that's an excuse rather than is the law applied. Right. Right.

[A]

And that's, it's an intellectually weak position, if I'm being honest to say, because this person was a naturalized citizen and I was born here, which, by the way, neither of you had control over. She's the one who made the choice to come here, go to the naturalization process. I bet you she knows more about the history of this country than most born u. S. Citizens.

[B]

I would venture to say that's usually accurate. And she is a federal judge, so she's probably pretty good in that.

[A]

Yeah. But do you know you can see better when your head's out of your ass?

[B]

A few people have told me that.

[A]

Yeah. Just let you know, they're usually ex.

[B]

Wives, but I have heard that.

[A]

No, I'm just messing with you.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And so, like, I know.

[B]

God, what a healthy exercise, though, man.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I knew her son. Her son was awesome. Awesome. We used to fly wingsuits together in San Diego. They brought me in to. He was wearing video cameras when he died. They brought me in to take a look at the footage. And so, unfortunately, I've watched it a few times to try to get an understanding of what happened, because the malfunction was with his main parachute, and he attempted to cut away and deploy his reserve. And I'll leave it at that because I don't know where anything stands. It's pretty clear as to what was the cause of. Cause of death. But, I mean, he fought it until impact with the water. So I know a lot about her son, but I know almost nothing about this. So I can't really. I mean, if a jury, your peers, like, you know, is justice blind? Of course it's not. Right. We all have our biases, whether they're explicit or internal. But I'm not an expert in the law, but it's like, okay, 13 count. I mean, do mistakes happen? Yes. Can things be politically influenced? Yes. Does it suck that a Gold Star family member might be in prison? Yes. But I'll be honest with you, I put no weight into the fact that they're a Gold star. That, to me, is two very separate issues. One is a horrific weight to bear for the things that we have in this country. But also, people who have that weight to bear can make horrible choices in their life, too.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

You know what I mean? Yeah. I just don't know enough about it to comment on. On specifically.

[B]

Well, and I only brought this up. This is the election fraud conversation is Tina's case. Right. If. If she was persecuted because she imagined caught the state doing wonky things and she was put in prison, that is the conversation, not my local election caught on video. Right. So that's why I brought her up. And. And this is in the news cycle extremely heavily because last week, Trump pardoned her federally. And. And now it's.

[A]

And that. I mean, if I know nothing about this, let me tell you what I know even less about. Well, the power. I mean, I would think pardon. It's like, well, they just throw the keys and you get a pizza on the way out. I don't know.

[B]

I mean, a pardon's got to be a really cool thing because you go, I'm going to be here for X amount of years. And then all of a sudden you wake up and they're like, hey.

[A]

Yes, Michael. Will you look up, though, if a pardon is also an admission of guilt? If you accept a pardon.

[B]

So there's a difference in clemency and there's a difference. Difference in commuting a sentence. Commuting a sentence. I know is. So I. Victor Marks, who's running for governor right now in Colorado, was on a show, and he said, I would commute her sentence. I wouldn't provide her clemency because she was a. She was found guilty by a jury.

[A]

So we got here. Yes. Accepting a pardon traditionally implies an admission of guilt, as the Supreme Court stated. It carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance. An acceptance of a confession to it. Okay.

[B]

I mean, what a sweet deal, though.

[A]

But, I mean, at the end of the day, if you're get. You're changing your situation in life and you're getting out of prison, I don't think anybody's gonna.

[B]

I would say anything is better than being in prison. So call me what you will, you know, sticking stones. But I'm not in prison.

[A]

Yeah. Who knows? I wish I knew more about it. I mean, there is. There is a lot of talk about election fraud. I. Again, I. I want to see it. You know, in this last election, people were saying Elon Musk was using Starlink to steal the election. And it's like, guys, Starlink is an Internet provider service. Is it possible if the election machines were hooked up to the Internet, which is my understanding, that they're not supposed to be. That they're supposed to be. Yeah, sure, I guess. But also, please show me sincerely, honest with you. These are completely unrelated Topics. I want UFOs to be true. I want them to be.

[B]

Do you? I don't.

[A]

Yeah, I think it would be amazing. Amazing.

[B]

No.

[A]

Well, think about this. What do you think it would do to the entire human race if we all of a sudden had a realization that we were just a hair on the universe's ball sack and that there was a. You know what I mean? Like, we're not alone. We're not. You know what I mean? I actually think it would.

[B]

Independence Day style. Like, we all have that moment.

[A]

Take it easy. I don't want that to be a documentary. I think the realization that we're not alone would round the edges on a lot of the BS discourse. I think it would bring. Yeah, I think it would bring some things together. I could be completely wrong and there could be panic in the streets for all I know, but my issue with everybody who talks about UFOs and these are the programs that I were read. Like, can you show me please, just a piece of the spaceship.

[B]

One of my favorite things on social media was they were gonna storm area 51. Remember that?

[A]

That would not go well.

[B]

No, I was rooting. I was rooting. I was like, go for it.

[A]

It.

[B]

Yeah, some. Solve some problems.

[A]

There was a documentary about that. Then they just changed it to a, a disco party. It was like a DJ party at Area 51, which still didn't go over that well. I want to see it. I don't, I don't believe that election fraud is impossible or even implausible, but just show me the evidence of that. Making a wild salacious claim and then never coming with the dump truck of evidence. I struggle with that.

[B]

Yeah, I do too. And that's this Washington Circle, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, like you forgot the jerk portion of that. Oh my God. Like the Epstein stuff right now. Like it's going to come out. It's going to come out like tomorrow is supposed to be the deadline. Right. And believe it was tomorrow.

[A]

The deadline.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I stopped paying attention because I cuz.

[B]

What, what are we going to.

[A]

You know, I think they're. I think that both sides are wings.

[B]

Of the Same bird, man, 100%. And so we're this back and forth badminton game of like, oh, you're in a picture now. You're in a picture culture. And you know, I think, well, and.

[A]

You can see it in the news. I have plenty of criticisms of every political administration. You know, Trump gets a little wild and loosey goosey with the mouth sometimes.

[B]

Whatever.

[A]

He is what he is. But let's just be honest about what we're putting out because one of the headlines in the major newspaper articles was, you know, Democrats release additional images and information from the Epstein fox. And they used a picture with Trump with women on both side of them. Their faces were Miss Universe. It was from the.

[B]

It's like, God, it was like a newspaper clip.

[A]

Yes. And it's. And I just would like to sit down in a conversation in a room with these people who. They would never allow me to do that or never listen to me anyway. And I would say, listen, do you have any idea why people's trust in you is on an elevator to the lobby? It's because of things like this.

[B]

Yeah. There's this conspiracy.

[A]

What is that picture? What is it aiming for? Emotion or intellect? Oh, it's emotion.

[B]

Yeah. 100. And this is the beauty of the you challenging me in this conversation. Right. In a super respectful way. Why can't people do that? Why is it they can't? It's impossible.

[A]

I bet.

[B]

Maybe because you have guns on your side of the table. You're in a position of power. But I'm also a guest on your position of power.

[A]

I mean, we could race to it if you want to. I'll put it in the middle. No round in the chamber. Michael will count down. Three, two, one, go. And which camera angle would you use for that? Michael, would you go wide?

[B]

Unfortunately we don't have the down the table one anymore. He'd be like, hold on a sec.

[A]

I'm gonna go into a different room.

[B]

Let me walk 10 paces. I'm turning around at nine paces. I tell you that 100%. Yeah.

[A]

Why just let the other guy turn around, blast him right in the back. Yeah, allegedly.

[B]

I'll cheat.

[A]

Well, here's the thing. You can have conversations like that. I bet you I'm gonna find your social media, specifically your ex, and I'm gonna look at the way that you interact with other people online. Especially those who hold opposite political beliefs.

[B]

Good.

[A]

I think it's gonna be colorful language and emotionally based.

[B]

You know, I try to try. Which by the way, tit for tat.

[A]

Why tit for tat? What?

[B]

No, I don't do that.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because it's useless.

[A]

Well, I was gonna say. Yeah, it's if, if it's emotionally based. You're answering your own question as to why people can't have conversations like that. It's because they choose not to.

[B]

You know, you, you, this is a self admission, but I am playing with how to build a social media empire. Like it's easy when you have 200,000 subscribers. I know that that was a hard journey to get to. Right.

[A]

And so it's really easy to lose 200,000 subscribers.

[B]

I bet. Like that. Right. And I, I know that's happen. So I put, I was, I test stuff on X. Cuz that's the one I actually like have full control over.

[A]

Oh, I've heard a word for this. Hold on. It's, it's Italian. Oh, an excuse. What were you trying excuse? Yeah, what were you trying to excuse your behavior away with?

[B]

No, I, I, I'm testing things on.

[A]

X to see what sticks. Don't sit in front of me.

[B]

So there's a guy, Alex. Alex something. He's like a super liberal and I, he was like, you know, he went on this tirade about the, the narco. Yeah. And I was like, only a deranged liberal would stand up for narco terrorists. And like, I've never gotten so much interaction on Twitter. Yeah. Than not. And I was like, I don't actually like this.

[A]

Well, and that's the thing is. And this happens in any type of content creation space. Are you chasing interaction? In a perfect world, you would be yourself in the interaction would follow.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

But in a world where millions of people can be their own creator and you have to in some way. Blast. I was talking with Michael about this. I think yesterday we were talking about for he and I, because we're talking about short form content for he and I to see something on our phones. Given the millions of pieces that are created every hour, what is the volume or our searching of something or our engagement with it? It's like the odds are so statistically improbable that we see something unless it's trending, unless it's been. What would you say yesterday, Michael? You don't see something unless it's got like 10,000 views minimum likes.

[B]

10,000 likes.

[A]

So that means. Okay, like that's. I mean that's a 2x the size of the community that you used to work at, that it has to get through people before it's even suggested to him. And I think that's where there's this Faustian bargain of do I want to be myself or do I want engagement? And I think for some people it naturally comes together. But again, I can only speak for myself. I bet you I could have a larger channel if I just chased engagement or topics that I knew were trending or that would be. But I have to sleep at night. I want to be an example of my kids of a way to conduct yourself regardless of what other people are doing.

[B]

Doing.

[A]

And if that means it's a small channel forever, I don't care.

[B]

Well, I mean, I don't think you have a small channel. But you know, if, if you compare yourself to Rogan. Right? Yeah, he's the top of the mountain. But you're probably in the top 1% of influencers on the Internet.

[A]

I mean, maybe, but I won't do anything that I consider to be immoral to get to the top.

[B]

I think that's what makes you successful. I think that's what's made Rogan and, and Sean like Sean Ryan. Like long form conversations are not my 10 minute videos. My. That I was recording my story on. If I could get five views.

[A]

Right, but those are easier to share though, actually. And that's where the beauty of long form comet content is at least now there's a lot of AI tools that can help you parse it out into smaller stuff. The smaller stuff. So if somebody sends you a four hour clip versus a four minute clip, let me tell you right now which one's getting watched more.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But these are like interactive conversations where you like.

[A]

But the four minute clip can lead you to the four hour one especially if you see something compelling. And that's where I think you can play the game of. Let's say we were talking about Australia. Right. So we could probably create a short form video under 60 seconds, you know, very shareable where they see that we're talking about that that could lead to more engagement that I'm okay with with because that's a legitimate representation of the conversation that we were having. And I would say what we both would agree occurred in the actual conversation. There's other ways where you can get dirty with it. Right. Or you know you just cherry pick topics that you know will or even cherry pick positions that you will take to try to just drive that churn and emotion and anger. I'm not down for that man. And but people who choose to do that stuff like cool, go ahead. I mean again I'm the one who has to now that navigate life through my own skin suit and I have to sleep at night. Right. And so that's all I can control.

[B]

No and I appreciate this platform like first amendment is not a fun like super. You know my 13 year old's not tuning in. Right. 14 year old like woohoo. First amendment. Yeah. But like it's you know it's although dry and boring. Super pivotal in, in what we enjoy as life. Right? Yeah. And, and it's our first first so First Amendment for a reason protected by.

[A]

The second Very, very very much people forget that one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've never seen a. I mean you can hold the Constitution up in front of you and hope it made a difference.

[B]

But I don't think most people know it the Constitution or even the Bill of Rights, man.

[A]

I don't think most people know that the Bill of rights is the first 10amendments to the Constitution.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that by doctrine they can't be changed without literally inextricably be destroying our Constitution.

[B]

Yeah, well it's like a super like 75 of states would have to vote to ratify that.

[A]

Right. I don't know if you get 75% of people to agree on anything at this point.

[B]

You couldn't. We used to Sit in the fire department, you couldn't get 75 of people to vote on a raise.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they would argue about how much. Yeah, right.

[A]

What'd you learn from your experience? I mean, what do you take away from those years and the changes in your life? Selling your house. Downsizing too. A living in a trailer, which honestly. So I've had. I, I lived in a trailer when I. For six months when I started going through the divorce process. It was a toy hauler that somebody had been very fortunately letting me use for a couple years that was branded on the side. That was my home.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, you look back on those experiences and I'm not going to sit there and say I wish that on everybody. But there were some really meaningful things that I, I recognized and realized in myself during that period of time in my life.

[B]

Yeah, man, I. Hard hardship is how you grow. Right. Like, I've been blessed beyond measure as a dad and, and as a human, I'm more open about things. Like I used to be super private. Right. I went through two divorces without anybody ever knowing why. Right. Or this or that or bad talking. So I've embraced like, like opening up and like relying on other people for the first time in my life. But I will say this. My, my, my primary duty on this planet is to raise two respectable human beings to enter society as adults and be good human beings that, that contribute to the grand scheme. Right. And so they, they have got to watch me. And they have been such rock stars, man. They've, you know, know, it went from everybody in town knowing their dad as the fire chief to like, you know, we're living in a trailer, you know, and they, they don't get all the Christmas stuff that they. Right. But I had friends, they don't get.

[A]

All the presents they're going to forget about several days later.

[B]

I mean, they still did. They still did. Because friends. Yeah, the VR thing, like, I bought.

[A]

Two of those for my middle son. I would say combined usage, several hours.

[B]

Yeah. Not much. Right. But man, I, there's something in teaching your kids that like, there's value in fighting and there's value in standing up for what you believe, whatever that is.

[A]

Couldn't agree more.

[B]

And so I will now get to why. And I have my 18 year old is, is quote unquote, an adult, which I would argue against that I'm trying to keep her at home for a.

[A]

Few more years in the eyes of the wash. And you're good. That's the conversation I have with my Kids.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I say, oh, by the way, when you turn. So when you turn 18, you have it dialed, right? And of course, I'd be like, I have it dialed now, and I'm not even 18. So just remember, you may think you're an adult, and in the eyes of the law, you are.

[B]

Yeah, the picture.

[A]

Which changes things if you get in trouble.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But in my own experience in life, boys and girls, mid-20s.

[B]

Yeah, I'd like to keep her home. 21, 22. Honestly, just because I was, like, 15 when I left home, because I. Screw your rules. Mom and dad. Horrible choice. But she. So she is a nationally registered EMT before she graduated high school.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

Works for AMR in a major city now and is just kicking ass in life. And I'm like, man, that's. That's the biggest reward. You know, I could win all my cases. I could be a huge social media influence. Like, none of that means. Means a damn thing to me, man. When I lay in bed at night and being happy with my life is really the only thing. And, like, through hardship, I think you appreciate that so much more. And I've rebuilt life now. Like, I'm. I'm probably better off than I was. Yeah. My career is gone. I don't work in firefighting anymore.

[A]

But you kind of do. You deliver water to the firefighters. And if I were you, I would tell the firefighters that they can't even do their job job without you.

[B]

Touche. I'll rub that in every chance I can.

[A]

You know, you're just delivering my product to the people. You're basically just a mobile penis spraying things out.

[B]

Without you. Without me, you can't do you.

[A]

Yeah. With the police securing the perimeter, you.

[B]

Know, and I get to have some pretty cool conversations. You say that's pretty rewarding, man. Yeah, you know, I just. I just want to be a good human being. That's it.

[A]

Where can people find out? Because I know you got. Got 12:30 is your flight, you said.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, we get to bounce you out of here pretty soon. Where can people. If they want to dig in a little bit more. Do you have a website? Is it just your socials? Where do you want to push people?

[B]

Yeah, we're working on a website. It'll be just for. But go to Facebook. It's probably the most reasonable one to follow me on justice for Holt. I have H O L T. H O L T. Yeah. I have x. I've got TikTok, which I don't. That's how I originally Filmed. I've got a YouTube and I've got Facebook. I got a Gibson go and a GoFundMe. If people want to help, donate to the legal fund.

[A]

I'll put those in the show notes too.

[B]

Okay, awesome. You know, and just follow, you know, a like and a share and help me share the story again. Like, if somebody sees it and they're going through some hardship, life gets better. Whistleblowing is not a fun thing. And. And the journey's not over. And it's. It's been a consuming two and a half, three years of my life by the time of this gets to the next phase. But yeah, it's worth it, man, if you. If you want to have a good planet to live on in a good country community, it's worth fighting.

[A]

I agree. Thank you to the Calaveras Sheriff's department. We didn't FaceTime them, but I got your stuff. It'll go up on the wall. Oh, and swat, too. I mean, yeah, I saw the movie once that you're either SWAT or you're not. It's not a big deal.

[B]

They're gonna geek out that you just said.

[A]

It wasn't a documentary. You don't need to fly a Huey helicopter and fast rope directly onto the roof where hostages are being held. Probably not tactically a good idea, but what do I know that occurred in the movie. I'm not aware of Calavera SWAT doing anything like that.

[B]

I've been trying to get him a helicopter. I think it'd be cool. Good, good, good hometown people. My, my sheriff's awesome. Born and raised in the county. First female sheriff ever. She's a rock star. It's cool. Returning home, man, I would have never gone home if this situation hadn't happened. But now I am there. I just love, love the community I'm in. My. My local high school just won state for the first time in program history. That's a big deal we're about. We're gonna do a parade tomorrow.

[A]

What event do they win in or what sport?

[B]

Football.

[A]

I don't know, Matthew. Ping pong?

[B]

Chess guy? Come on, man. There's football and then there's, you know.

[A]

If there was state. State.

[B]

Chess.

[A]

Chess. Nerd alert.

[B]

So shout out to Calavera's highest football team.

[A]

Yeah, cool.

[B]

But yeah, man, thanks me for having, having me on. It's been awesome.

[A]

Hell yeah. Yeah, we'll get you out to your flight. You got plenty of time. Flight LE in like 2:15. You'll zip through that airport. You'll be good to go?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Cool. Right on, brother.

[B]

Appreciate you.

[A]

Yep.