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Bill Whittle
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Bobby Bones
You know Eddie and I recently stopped by. Yeah, in Nashville. It's an incredible nonprofit empowering kids through music education. Thanks to Hyundai, we recorded a special podcast episode while we were there.
Frank Afney
How do you think learning an instrument
Bobby Bones
helps kids with confidence?
YEAH Representative
Learning an instrument allows them to discover a little bit further of who they are and be comfortable with it and then share a little bit about that with others. And if it's done in an environment that is celebrating and championing them, then that confidence can only go up.
Bobby Bones
The full episode is out now, presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 9. To donate and learn more about Y mission, just visit yahrocks.org Ryan Reynolds here
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Bill Whittle
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Bill Whittle
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Frank Afney
diagnosed with cancer, you crave a semblance
Bill Whittle
of normalcy and control.
Frank Afney
And so work allowed me to be me. So I think it's really important that companies stay flexible. Cancer in a diagnosis can be all consuming, but it doesn't have to be.
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Bill Whittle
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Frank Afney
Welcome to Securing America with me, Frank Afney. The program that's a kind of owner's manual for protecting the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to the glory of God and his kingdom. I have a very special treat in store for you for this full hour, I'm proud to say, friend of many years, not to be confused with an old friend. He's not that old, but he is a man I've been proud to call a friend for quite some time and have admired greatly, have not interacted with as much as I'd like to, frankly, but have admired from afar, especially for his myriad projects, most of which display a degree of, well, grasp of history, of contemporary events, of politics, of the sciences, the science fiction, and a whole host of artistic expressions that are almost unimaginable to me, to be honest with you. You we're going to talk a little bit about some of all of that and much more in the course of this full hour with Bill Whittle. He is a fellow that can be described, I think, as a filmmaker, as an author, as an essayist, notably for the Daily Wire. Along the trail he has produced products for everything from National Review Online to assorted multimedia productions. And he's, in short, a polymath, I guess is the way I would describe him, as well as a man of wonderful humor and great clarity. And we're just going to have a ball with Bill Whittle and I'm so glad to welcome you back, Bill. Thanks for joining us.
Bill Whittle
Sounds like a guy who can't hold down the job to me.
Frank Afney
Well, it could well be. But on the other hand, you've held A lot of jobs. And you've done brilliantly at, I think, all of them. So, Bill, tell us a little bit in your own words, what you believe are your most important attributes. Talents, projects, products, accomplishments and the like.
Bill Whittle
I think, first of all, thank you again for the very kind introduction. I think that probably a couple things that make me relatively unique. One of them is I'm just smart enough to understand some advanced concepts. I don't operate on that level, but I'm smart enough to see the shadows on the back of the cave wall. And I've always been a pretty good storyteller. So I would say probably if I had a unique skill, it would be the ability to try and take complex ideas and. And explain them in simple terms using analogies and maybe historical references and just basic storytelling so that people can get a grasp on things that are. That are really quite complex.
Frank Afney
And you know, Bill, if I could just interject there, the thing that I think is desperately needed, particularly on the right, as I would describe you as
Bill Whittle
being,
Frank Afney
is we generally don't do very well at storytelling.
Bill Whittle
No, we're horrible cells at it. We're absolutely upon need.
Frank Afney
And thank you for. Do your part to fill it.
Bill Whittle
Well, thank you. And I want to come back to that in just a second. And I think probably the other thing that's maybe a little different about me is, was, as you well know, the. The almost President of the United States was just fascinated by Venn diagrams and. And that's a pretty simple.
Frank Afney
Kamala Harris.
Bill Whittle
Yes, yes, yes. I prefer not to say her name. I think it gives her power in some mystical sense. But I would say that one of the things that's a little unique about me is I was going to be a. I saw the Thunderbirds when I was five years old and. And I was determined to be a fighter pilot and an astronaut and. And all of those technical things. And when I failed the vision test for the Air Force Academy, I ended up starting making movies. So I kind of live in this intersection between that kind of gray, highly technical engineering world with a lot of scientific details and rigor and intellectual rigor. And then I've also got this theater kid kind of, you know, as a theater major at the university. A guaranteed path to financial success, by the way, for all of those of you out there. Yeah. If you really want a really solid wait tables, theater is the way to go. But. But I know. I know a fair bit about that stuff too. So that kind of puts me in a unique situation where my friends in college all My science friends asked me to do their humanities homework for them, and all my art friends wanted me to do their, you know, their. Their science homework for them. So that. That's kind of useful. But I'd like to come back to the storytelling thing because we're so shockingly bad at it. Our friend Evan Sayet said that the left has a tremendous amount of rhetorical intelligence. They're not doing so well on the practical intelligence side or logic or history or any of that stuff, but they're tremendously skilled at. At wrapping things. And we've got an incredible message that we just throw out in a greasy Kentucky Fried Chicken bag. And they've got a horrible message that they put in a little Cartier box with, you know, the little handles and the bows and all the rest of it. And to be perfectly honest with you, that is effective. The fact that it's more or less 50, 50 country, given how bad we are at selling our idea, I think ultimately is a reflection of just how sound our message is.
Frank Afney
And to the, you know, sort of opposite poll, the extent to which they are successful at selling really bad ideas contributes, of course, to that 50, 50 thing. And, Bill, if you were to sort of hone in on an idea that you are particularly convinced is important and needs to be persuasively packaged and presented to the American people with whatever creative sort of angles you think are relevant, what would that be?
Bill Whittle
I think that the most important thing that we need to do is to identify and sell the positives. We're kind of known as the no people. You know, you don't like free health care. This is the essence of it. Frank. If somebody said to me, if I was doing a debate with a progressive and somebody said, why are you opposed to free health care? My response would be, I'm not opposed to free health care. I am 100% in favor of free health care. What kind of an. What kind of a horrible monster would I be? No free health care for you. I don't like the way you look. Of course I'm in favor of free health care. The problem is, is that health care isn't free. As a matter of fact, if you start thinking about somebody having cardiac surgery, that's about one of the most expensive things you can find on the planet. If health care were free, of course I'd be in favor of free health care, but it's not free. It's extremely expensive. And so now we have to talk about how we're going to pay for it. And now we are no longer in the, in the simplistic, moral rhetorical world of the left. Now, we've taken the argument out of that by agreeing with them. And I'll give you another one. Choice, right? Freedom of choice. Choice over your own body. So I suppose you're against freedom of choice and bodily. You know, when you get this argument on the abortion side, it's all about choice. No, of course I believe you should have choice over your own body 100%. That's why I'm opposed to mandated vaccines. I am 100 with you. I am as pro choice as you can be. I think you should have absolutely absolute control over your own body. The problem is, is that what you're talking about is not your own body. You're talking about a genetically unique individual that's inside your body, but it's not your DNA. It's oftentimes not even your blood type. It is a separate individual person. And that's why it's not the same thing as clipping your nails or anything else. It is not your body and it didn't get there on its own. It's not something that you grew out of your own body. And so yes, of course I'm in favor of choice. I'm pro choice and I'm pro free health care. When health care is free, I'm 100% in favor of it. And when the choice is limited to your own body, I'm 100% in favor of that too. But just by those two little, those two little concessions, what, what you've done is you have rhetorically destroyed their position by granting them this sleight of hand that they're trying to, to pull off by using terms like that and in
Frank Afney
turn creating sort of the predicate for an alternative narrative that can be positive. Positive in the sense that, you know, you want the best health care we can afford and you want obviously human life to be protected. If it's not your body and somebody else's, you want that life to be protected. And again, Bill, we're going to move into some of the policy spaces that we typically cover in this program that I'm very interested in sort of your narratives about as well. And we'll get into those and much, much more with one of the most fascinating men I know, Bill Whittle, the star of stage and screen. God bless you. We'll be right back. Stay tuned.
Public Podcast Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now Generated Assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com, podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey
Bobby Bones
it's Bobby Bones from the Bobby Bones Show. You know, Eddie and I recently stopped by yeah in Nashville. It's an incredible nonprofit empowering kids through music education. Thanks to Hyundai, we recorded a special podcast episode while we were there. Check it out. What's the dream for yeah in the next few years?
YEAH Representative
We would love to have more consistent programming during the weekend. Our Rock Block program is dependent on funding venues that are available to host band based programming. We would love to extend the camp to a second consecutive week so that kids can go a little bit deeper into what they've created during the first week camp. And we'd love to expand our programming to offer more industry related skills like audio, lighting, production, recording so that kids can be on a track to see where what they may create with an instrument can lead, but also to welcome those that may not want the to be on stage but lack the opportunity at school to have an entry point into music.
Bobby Bones
The full episode is out now, presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 9. To donate and learn more about yeah's mission, just visit yahrocks.org Running a business
Odoo Sponsor
is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything CRM accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com When
Bill Whittle
I was diagnosed, all I wanted to do was get back to work. I wanted to get back to that trajectory that I was on prior to the cancer. I always felt like I had value. I had a place on the team to just be treated with dignity. It means everything.
Odoo Sponsor
Research shows there is a significant connection
Bill Whittle
between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing, learn more and sign the pledge@workingwithcancerpledge.com this episode is brought to you
Mint Mobile / Spreaker Sponsor
by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify in about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today@spreaker.com spreaker because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.
Frank Afney
We're back. And let me just say we are spending this hour with a great free range mind. A creator par excellence as well as a serious thinker about some of the most serious things we need to think about. We're going to talk about some of them with Bill Whittle here in just a moment. He's the creator of Afterburner and Firewall. He has had a wonderful first run with a project he called Eject Eject Eject. It's a blog, as I recall.
Bill Whittle
It was.
Frank Afney
He has been incredibly creative in film and in various other arts, and we're Privileged to have him to talk with us a little bit about, among other things, storytelling. And Bill, you have, you've set this up nicely to pivot to, you know, helping people think through problems that, well, frankly, most of us just as soon not think about at all. And that is that there are monsters in the world. They're not, you know, sci fi monsters, but they are human beings that have taken on monstrous ideas and ideologies and practices. And for some reason, all of them seem to think that in order for them to pursue them, they have to get rid of us. And they're right a little bit about that sort of, you know, status that we enjoy that makes us hated by all the right people. And then we'll get into some of the, you know, specific applications of that.
Bill Whittle
When we look out into the world and we see brutality and totalitarian regimes and warlike aggression and all the rest of it. From our perspective here in America, because of the sacrifices of the men who came before us, we look at this as aberrations. But I think it's a much more illustrative way of thinking about things to realize that we're the aberration.
Frank Afney
Brutality, such an important point, we always
Bill Whittle
lose sight of absolutely. Brutality, conquest, disease, you know, peasants, you know, bowing and scraping as they bring their scrawny potatoes to the feet of the emperor, you know, who allows them to farm his own land for another, you know, generation of misery. That's, that's human history goes all the way back. I believe the United States was created by God as a place for individualism to live on Earth. It's never been tried before. I've done four in depth historical series for Daily Wire. I did one on the space race, one on the Cold War, one on America's forgotten heroes, and the most recent one on the Soviet terror state. And when I look back through history, I find that all of these labels that we use so many times have just been continually morphing. Left and right, for example, didn't that you would know better than me, Frank. Didn't that apply to like the, the German or the Austrian parliament and you know, French parliament? I think, okay, so, so left and right, conservative and liberal. People ask me, why are you a conservative? And I say, I'm trying to conserve classical liberalism. You know, the idea of private property and freedom of speech, those are classical liberal terms. The left has hijacked that word liberal. So all of these terms morph. But the one term, the one divide that I did find is consistent throughout history and works really well, is Individualist versus collectivists that is consistent and solid throughout the whole debate. And so my job and your job is to defend this idea of an individualist society where individual rights are protected. They're not protected by law because God gave us these individual rights. Many people make even many people on the right say that the First Amendment guarantees us freedom of speech, but that's not really how it works. Freedom of speech is inherent in all people at birth. And the First Amendment prohibits. Yes, by God, it is a natural right. And the First Amendment states that the government may not infringe upon that right. The right of self defense is an inherent right. The right to, to unreasonable, avoid reasonable, unreasonable searches and so on. So this is a grand experiment. And the beautiful thing about this experiment is there's not only some data on the table, there's all the data on the table. 5% of the world's population produces 25% of its economic output. 5% of the world's Population has produced probably 80 or 90% of scientific technological innovations. 5% of the world's population has created the most billionaires, dominant military in the history of the world. And it goes on and on. The cultural domination, scientific domination, all of it economic and so on.
Frank Afney
And that has something to do with individual freedom and the opportunity to pursue
Bill Whittle
it has everything God has given you
Frank Afney
the talent to do.
Bill Whittle
Exactly. It has everything to do with that. I saw a study recently actually my friend Scott Ott brought it to me and he said that when they, this was done just a couple of weeks ago. If you ask Gen Z whether they like communism, I'm sorry, socialism versus capitalism, the numbers are really almost even, which is alarming. But if you phrase the question do you prefer socialism or free market? Then it goes heavily in favor of free market. And so one of the problems we face is that this, this nation has been de educated. These are not uneducated people, they're de educated people. They have been, they have been stripped. Not only did they get additional information, but the reliable information that they started with has been removed from them and replaced with this manufactured ideology that is dependent on them being illiterate about numbers, illiterate about history, illiterate about human nature, illiterate about all of these, these things. And can I, can I just ask
Frank Afney
you one question on, on this point? Because it seems to me that it, it's not only a prime example of what we've done to them or allowed to be done to them, but it's also a, you know, a metaphor for the larger, you know, sort of fault line that you're describing, Bill, and that is TikTok. TikTok as a news source, for heaven's sakes, a communist Chinese propaganda machine that is manipulative at its core and brainwashing and weaponized against us would seem to me to be pretty much the antithesis of what we are about as a result of the great gift from God that this country is. And yet it's. It's now, you know, apparently infected half the population of this country.
Bill Whittle
Yeah. TikTok is an interesting example. As a conservative who believes in individual freedom and individual responsibility, I am genetically wired against censorship. Censorship. However, TikTok, many people don't know this TikTok in China. The algorithm in China directs people to mathematical shorts. It directs them towards, you know, science shorts. Here in America, it directs them towards the most divisive, hate inducing, dumbing down. And that is telling me that what you and I both already know. This is a massive psyops campaign by the. By the Communist Party of China. And it needs to be banned. And I say it needs to be banned in the same way that fentanyl needs to be banned because it is destroying this country. And I have no problem with censoring a weapon that is designed to turn Americans against their own belief system. None. And I think President Trump should abandon it. He nearly did. And I think TikTok is about the only one that's in that category. Everything media leans to the left, but Tick Tock is in fact a. A weapon that's being read apart.
Frank Afney
Indeed. And, Bill, I want to talk with you about the Cold War, in which, as you know, I happened to spend a fair amount of my life and, and how the lessons of it, which I think you were very much focused on in your programming on it, have been consigned to the dustbin of history. It wasn't just the Soviet Union on the ashy there. It was lessons that we had to learn and seemingly have forgotten almost entirely or been dissuaded from having in our minds at least. And I'm thinking, particularly Bill, of something I said at the opening of my show, as I do every day. We're here for the purpose of trying to help defend the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And the prospect, I mean, I'm just seized with this concern that we don't understand that enemies domestic is a real thing. We'll talk more about that with Bill Whittle on the other side of this break. Stay tuned.
Public Podcast Sponsor
Support for the show comes from public. The investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey
Bobby Bones
it's Bobby Bones from the Bobby Bones Show. You know, Eddie and I recently stopped by YEAH in Nashville. It's an incredible nonprofit empowering kids through music education. Thanks to Hyundai. We recorded a special podcast episode while we were there. Check it out. What's the dream for? Yeah, in the next few years.
YEAH Representative
We would love to have more consistent programming during the weekend. Our Rock Block program is dependent on funding venues that are available to host band based programming. We would love to extend the camp to a second consecutive week so that kids can go a little bit deeper into what they've created during the first week camp. And we'd love to expand our programming to offer more industry related skills like audio, lighting, production, recording so that kids can be on a track to see where what they may create with an instrument can lead, but also to welcome those that may not want to be on stage but lack the opportunity at school to have an entry point into music.
Bobby Bones
The full episode is out now presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 9. To donate and learn more about yeah's mission, just visit yahrocks.org Running a business
Odoo Sponsor
is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com When
Bill Whittle
I was diagnosed, all I wanted to do was get back to work. I wanted to get back to that trajectory that I was on prior to the cancer. I always felt like I had value. I had a place on the team to just be treated with dignity. It means everything.
Odoo Sponsor
Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery.
Bill Whittle
We can make work a better place
YEAH Representative
for healing, learn more and sign the
Bill Whittle
pledge@workingwithcancerpledge.com this episode is brought to you
Mint Mobile / Spreaker Sponsor
by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify in about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today@spreaker.com spreaker because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.
Frank Afney
Welcome back. We are speaking with Bill Whittle for this entire hour, I'm very pleased to say, and among other things, we're going to be talking a little bit about insights he has gleaned from his study of history and his hard work, much of it with the Daily Wire, including four different specials that he produced that are designed to help the rest of us understand a little bit of our history and what's at stake if we forget it. Bill, I was asking just before the break about this Insight I've taken away from the Cold War when we actually did have to come to grips, albeit in fits and starts and arguably not altogether successfully, with the fact that we had enemies within this country. Some believe that's not any longer the case or possible even. Tell us from your study of history how that works and whether in our own time we are being well, taken down, among others, by enemies within.
Bill Whittle
Well, the enemies within thing is certainly an entire two hour subject right there. But all of the initial accusations that the left made against the conservatives, that the Rosenbergs were innocent and, and his Alger, you know, all of these people that were accused of being spies and left said no, there's no. Well, it turns out they all were. But, but I think the much larger issue about the Cold War lesson that we can learn today is not only are there enemies, domestic, who are much more dangerous because they're well camouflaged, but the thing that I, that I really shocked me really about the Cold War, the 13 episodes on it that was 11 presidents long, that, that, that conflict, half a, half a century conflict. And the only two presidents that really understood the Cold War, really, really understood it, were the first and the last. And when I say the last, it's technically not the last. Technically the last president of the Cold war was George H.W. bush, but I'm referring to Ronald Reagan. Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan were the only two presidents during the Cold War, the beginning and the end, who genuinely understood the fight that we were in, who genuinely understood that it was a fight of fundamental fight between, between good and evil, and that these two systems were not Coke and Pepsi. They weren't two different formulas for the same thing. They were radically opposed to each other. And in fact, the Cold War is the perfect example of the war between individualism in the west and collectivism in the East. Ronald Reagan, when asked what his plan for the Cold War was, the first president during the entire war to say, oh, the plan is we win and they lose. We're not going to continue this. It's not about containment anymore. We've had 50 years of containment and living under this mushroom shadow. We're going to win this war. And the reason he won the war was he took it from the military plateau and moved it onto a moral plateau along with Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul ii. They made it a moral war and that's how we want it. And what's so interesting to me today, Frank, is that we have both looked at the last 50 years of American history, not the Cold War years. Now the most recent 50 years, the struggle against Islam and so on. And it's only now that we have a president who, again, through, I think it was. I think it was 11, eight or nine presidencies, where Donald Trump has simply said, no, Donald Trump is in my lifetime. Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who has actually behaved as if he was the most powerful man in the world. The title most powerful man in the world has been applied to the presidency since I've been a boy. And it's true. But Donald Trump is the first president who's actually been willing to wield that power. And if you look at the geopolitical situation, China gets got a lot of oil from Venezuela. Well, they don't anymore. And they got a lot of oil from Iran. Ninety percent, I think, of Iran's oil exports went to China. So if you want to really isolate and reduce China's militarism without having to fight China, then the way you do it is you remove their power source. And Donald Trump has not only done that, I would be in favor of that because it would be in America's interests anyway, but I'm especially in favor of it because as a very nice side benefit and an indication that we are on the side of the angels. The people who we liberated in Venezuela are out in the streets waving American flags. The people we are liberating in Iran are out in the streets waving American flags. And that's telling me that no matter what the left says, this is not only a strategic win, it is a moral win. I don't think we are obligated to free people around the world. I think we learned some lessons about that. But I do think that if we are going to act decisively against regimes and literally kick their doors in, we had better be sure that the regimes that we would be doing that to are illegitimate regimes that murder their own people, that violate all of the principles of not American civilization, the principles that we talked about before, the natural laws given to us by God. Murder is wrong. Rape is wrong. Suppression is wrong. Killing your own people for demonstration is wrong. And Donald Trump has had the. I was going to say the wisdom, but I don't think it's a question of wisdom. I think it's a question of will to use the forces of good and actually accomplish change. And you know so much more about the international situation than I do, but he has simply reset the board. Yes.
Frank Afney
And you know, Bill, I would add one other adjective to this. Maybe it's a noun. Noun, I guess.
Bill Whittle
Courage. Courage, Yes.
Frank Afney
I think that this presidency has been put on the line by Donald Trump out of an act of courageous vision concerning the evil that previous presidents just stood in my face either ignored or simply facilitate it in important ways. This is something that I think we can hardly overstate the importance of it. And I pray that, you know, staying the course and finishing the job and all of that is going to be the trajectory he continues to pursue. What are the stakes if we falter from that, as you see it, sir?
Bill Whittle
Well, as you said, I'm glad you mentioned courage, because courage is the primary virtue. Without courage, none of the other virtues can ever be put into effect. If, if the, if the leader, if the next regime in Iran is a, is a religious regime, then we've lost. It's just that simple. And Frank, I gotta tell you, and this information is so shocking to me, I'm not even sure it's right, but a couple of weeks ago, I had heard that the population of Iran, that the percentage of Iranians that are Islamic was like 30%. And you could have knocked me over with a feather. I don't know if that's true, but it might be.
Frank Afney
It's in that range, I think.
Bill Whittle
Okay.
Frank Afney
And an awful lot of them have become Christians, no less.
Bill Whittle
Right. And so my point here is, is that this ancient, very high level civilization called Persia was overrun, invaded and, and colonized by Arabs and Islam. It's not native to Iran. It is, it is, it is a foreign presence. I suppose most people in Iran speak Farsi, but it is an Arabic government. And this wedge that we don't recognize in the west, we look at Iran as over Iran as an Islamic republic. Well, it's run by Islamicists, but it's not culturally Islamic. It's not naturally Islamic. And that is an enormous difference in terms of whether or not this can be pulled off successfully in the real world. You're not just talking about, you're not asking these people to change their religion, change their language, change their culture. You're asking them to overthrow this minority that has been sitting on them for hundreds and hundreds of years now and,
Frank Afney
and for the past 47, brutalizing them horrifically and, oh, by the way, lest we forget, threatening us, of course, as well. Bill, so is your bottom line that the president, you think, not only had the courage to get into this, but has the, well, wisdom to stay the course and see this through to the point where those people, those Persians particularly, but you know, people of other ethnicities and, you know, regions and histories will, in the end be able to restore the idea that this is a civilized nation and wants to be and deserves to be in the family of those.
Bill Whittle
Yes, the, you know, we were, we were in the early 2000s, we were laboring under the PAL doctrine, which is if you break it, you buy it. I don't buy that anymore. And, and I don't think it's necessary. I don't believe that we should be putting American troops in the streets of Tehran or anything like that. But yes, this president is going to finish the job and I think he's going to finish the job because our military has become so sophisticated. So far as we record this, we have taken on a global scale campaign against an extremely well armed military. And as we record this, the total losses in this gigantic war have been six American lives lost. Now, if you're the mothers or daughters or fathers of those people lost, they might as well have been killed in Stalingrad or the Somme or Verdun or any other battlefield. So I don't mean to minimize their loss. But what Donald Trump has realized is the power of the United States. And this goes back to the individualism argument, is that we would always trade treasure for lives. These weapons systems are fabulously expensive, but they're not as expensive as the lives of the people that we would put on the ground to affect these changes. So yes, I think that we can finish this job and I think that we have to. And I think we're seeing uprisings in Cuba. I've heard the term freedom fever. I've seen Cuban demonstrators say President Trump, don't wait another month. Come and liberate us from our communist masters. For us to be successful, Frank, I'll just close this aspect of it with this. For America to be successful in international relations and especially international military operations, we have to be on the side of the angels. If we're not on the side of the angels, then we will fail due to our own internal contradictions.
Frank Afney
But aside of the angels, I think is another way of saying, you know, on the side of good and serving the Lord.
Bill Whittle
And this is what we're all. And we are, we are clearly in, in that situation with Iran.
Frank Afney
I believe that's absolutely the case. Bill Whittle is our guest. We're going to talk more about another of the horrible nations out there regimes, I should say the Chinese Communist US Party right after this. Welcome back and once more welcome to Bill Whittle, a remarkable intellect as well as creative mind. And we're going to talk in a moment about some of the fruits of that creative mind. But before I do, I did want to pick that intellect and that brain about one other source of evil in the world. And I say this fully cognizant that there will be people who say, well, the United States isn't perfect. I still that we're not perfect. But are we good and are we aspiring to be better, not least more faithful to our creator? I think the answer to that is yes. Thankfully we have the opportunity to continue to pursue that despite efforts like those of the Iranians, yes, but also the Chinese Communist Party to take us down. Bill Whittle but you've studied these guys closely for a long time. Where are we with China as you see it, especially in the context of this war in which we're taking apart one of their most important allies and surrogates?
Bill Whittle
I think that China is the first thing, I think if you're going to talk about China is to acknowledge the strengths that China has. The they are not infected by this internal self hatred. They're extremely patriotic, extremely nationalistic. Their education system is superb. I've heard that they graduate more engineers than we graduate students of any kind. And our education system is astonishingly damaged. But I also think it's important to understand that it is the nature of Chinese culture, it is the uniformity of culture in China that is what the Chinese perceive to be their great strength, but is in fact actually their great weakness. There's an expression in many collective societies, but applies to China as well, that the nail that stands up is the one that gets hammered down and that works fine in an industrial era where you're dealing with factory workers and so on. But as we are solidly now almost exclusively out of the industrial age and into the infrastructure age, that is not a benefit. It doesn't matter if they graduate 350 million engineers if none of them are allowed to bring these new ideas to fruition. If you look at the United States system, which is our education system, is really shockingly in poor shape. But in the, in America you can have companies like Anduril and these other startups where a couple guys in a garage can say we could do this much more easily, much more. It's inconceivable that that would happen in China. Inconceivable. That would have to come through a design bureau. And then the upper, you know, the upper Communist Party people would, would take it, you know, the credit for it. And then they build something and they'd skip. You get the whole idea. I'm not concerned about China as A military power. Because having spent the day on an American destroyer, I've, I've realized, and especially looking at World War II, that the, the most important thing is not the weapon system, it's the, it's the policy, it's the doctrine. For example, the, the Chinese, not the people, it's the doctrine. How, how are these pieces interconnected? This seems like a trivial example, but it's actually extremely important in my opinion. The Chinese navy official name is the People's Liberation Army. Navy. That's the official Navy title. The army and the Navy don't talk to each other. They hate each other. One of the reasons that the war in the Pacific didn't go on for another two years was because the Imperial Japanese army and the Imperial Japanese Navy hated each other more than they hated the Americans. We had an enormous benefit. Yes, enormous. Here in the United States we see this going on every day. A sergeant in the army can put a laser target designator that goes up to a satellite that's owned by the United States Air Force, which then wires the information to a Navy destroyer and sends a Tomahawk missile, you know, and, and it's completely integrated. I'm not worried about them. What, what I militarily, what China has realized is clear to me, and be clear to you too, Frank, is that they have one or two substandard aircraft carriers. We have 11 nuclear powered carrier strike groups and we know how to use them. We've used them continuously since 1941 and we know how those work. So what China has realized is they will never have the economic means to produce 11 carrier strike groups and they will never have the economic means to catch us in that. And so they have come to the realization that 11 carrier strike groups might as well be at the bottom of the ocean if the people that control them are not willing to use them and not able to use them. If they can destroy the will to use the sword, if they can destroy the ability to hold the sword, then the sword is essentially useless. And so what they have done is a long, long campaign to undermine Americans faith in themselves and especially to undermine their faith in themselves as a moral people. So just to go to that one issue that you mentioned at the beginning of this segment, is America a good country and China a bad country? Well, everybody's got their own opinions on this, but here's, here's some data. At the end Of World War II, the United States produced, had, had control and the ability to manufacture atomic bombs and we had the means to deliver them with the B29 bomber. In 1945 and 1946, the United States of America could have planted the US flag flag in every capital on the face of the earth. And there's nobody could have done a single thing about it. We could have absolutely run the board and had an empire that spanned the world. The Soviets didn't get a nuclear weapon for four more years and we would have just nuked the Soviets into oblivion. And so we simply could have done what the Romans wanted to do and the French wanted to do and the British, we could have done it. But what did we do once we had the monopoly on the nuclear weapons? We took the B29s and cut them up into razor blades. We took our, the most powerful navy the world has ever seen, 600, 700 ship Navy, much more than that actually, and took that steel and turned them into automobiles and we simply went home. And for people who say, well that was a one off in 1991, everybody, oh, America's invaded this country for oil. In the Gulf War, when Iraq evacuated Kuwait, the United States army was sitting on the most valuable oil reserves on the planet and we had won them through conquest. And did we stay there and pump that oil into American tankers? No. We put out the fires and we came home. And this is data. This isn't conjecture. This is history. Empire.
Frank Afney
This is really what again I appreciate so much about you, Bill, is that you are bringing to these analyses an actual command of historical fact and where people will impute to you, you know, conservative or right wing attitude. It's as Dragnet used to say, just the facts, man. And that's why we have to, I think, recognize the vital need for the kind of, well, storytelling.
Bill Whittle
Yes.
Frank Afney
And creative output that you bring to bear. We're going to talk more about it. Several of your current projects as well as perhaps reflecting on some of the glories of the previous ones. Bill Whittle is in the House. We're going to have a fascinating final segment with him right after this. Please stay tuned. Once again. Welcome back. We're finishing up this fascinating conversation with Bill Whittle. There's so much more to address with him and I invite you to check out his various outlets. He'll mention them to you again as we close. But this is a man of considerable intellect. Yes. And creativity. And I wanted to be able to give you a chance to talk a little bit about one of the current projects. I just glimpsed it for the first time today, but I'd love to have you tell us a little bit about the colonies, how that fits into, or oeuvre as they call it.
Bill Whittle
I did an awful lot of public speaking during the Tea Party days when that started. And one of the questions that we got during those Tea party meetings with 2009, 10, 11, somewhere around there, Tea Party people would say, why don't we see more young people here? I got that question live. And I, and I, and I had to deal with it live. And I said, well, if you look around, if you just walked into the room, what would you see? You've got, you've got a guy here in a tricorner hat with, with stockings, and he's holding a musket and, and here's a document written on animal skin with a, with a feather quill. And all of this stuff is 250 years old. And if you just walked in the room and you didn't have any knowledge of what the significance of those things were, all of our iconography and all of our imagery and all of our discussions are talking about things that happened 250 years ago. And for young people, that's simply anathema. And I decided the way to do this would be to tell the story of the founding of The United States 250 years in the future. And so I'm developing a science fiction franchise called the Colonies. And it, it deals with all of the things that had to be dealt with 250 years ago in the past. But we got robots and we got spaceships and we got, you know, laser beams. We all, all of the stuff that's a visual eye candy that makes something watchable for the people who need the message. We don't need the message to go to people who already believe it. We need people to understand it. And that's where I started with it. But as, as time went on, somewhere about six, seven months ago, this AI video technology reached a point where it convinced me that, that I could do video and make projects that were indistinguishable from live action. There's a term out there called AI slop, which is just very lazy AI filmmaking and so on. But, but if you have, if you have the kind of background I do as a writer and director, and you've got the discipline, you can make images that are indistinguishable from, from real world images. And so what happened was the ability to do something once it would have cost me two or $300 million. Now can be done for two or three, $300,000, or maybe even 20, $30,000. And so this was very liberated this year.
Frank Afney
You're talking about video? Yes, specifically.
Bill Whittle
Exactly. So this is extremely liberating to me. And I realized that not just the story of the founding of America, but much more urgently Gen Z, specifically Gen z males between 2020 and 2024 election, they moved 44 points to the right. That's astonishing. That's just as tectonic. They didn't do it because the Republicans gave them something to come to because we don't know how to do that. But they'd certainly walked away from the left. They walked away from the whole toxic masculinity. Boss. Babe, you know, that whole thing. They just had enough of it. Exactly. And the left has also destroyed, intentionally destroyed. Not just stopped, but destroyed, undone the cultural touchstones of Star Trek and Star wars and several other things. They didn't just kill Luke Skywalker, they unmanned him and then they killed him and replaced him with a woman who can do everything better. And so the thing I realized most of all, Frank, is that Americans need a picture of the future that is optimistic. And. And in that future there has to be strong father figures, strong family relationships that are cloaked in science fiction. But it's not about the tech, it's about the people. And so a lot of What I work, 100% it's the faith. The faith you have to work in slowly because if you lead with it, you. You will just. People will just bounce off of it. But what, what young men need more than anything is an image of strong father figures. What they look, they have. Have no clue. And so if you set life on the frontier. Well, yes, and when I. Excuse me. When I was doing some of these tests for the colonists, I had. What came out actually surprised me and I don't know how else to describe. So I'll just tell you. When I finally put this reel together, I looked at it, I said, my God, that's unbelievably heterosexual. You know, you got young men and young women talking to each other. You got fathers and mothers with families and children and all of this stuff. And the first rule of screenwriting, first rule of storytelling, I should say, is don't tell them, show them. And modern young American men have nothing to reference in terms of what they should be. They're wired to be heroes. They want to be heroes. The women have become so promiscuous, so entitled, so materialistic that they've just given up and walked away. And they've got nothing to show them what the natural relationship between men and women should be. And not only do I have an awful lot of fun historical things that I can tell with this medium, the most important thing I can do is show them how fathers are supposed to behave with their sons, how fathers protect their daughters. What's the healthy relationship between a wife and a husband? What's the difference between a woman who's capable and competent versus somebody who is demeaning and. And entitled and emasculating and all the rest? So I think this is going to move into this cultural vacuum, and I think it's going to own it. But the most important aspect of this is, is that you cannot expect people to behave virtuously if they have no idea what virtuous behavior looks like. And we have. Yes. So in this one demo I did, I've got these very beautiful, beautiful, rich people in these sky cities, and everybody's just gorgeous, and everybody's smiling, but nobody's happy. And it's contrasted with these colonists who have a very difficult life, but because their life is difficult, the human connections between them are so real. And the fundamental happiness of watching a father with his wife and his kids is immediately obvious when you compare it to a guy with a perfect jawline and perfect hair with this perfect, perfectly, perfectly beautiful woman. And they might as well be on different sides of the planet. There's no connection there.
Frank Afney
Bill, this sounds fascinating, and I think this is going to be a gap that definitely does need to be filled, and we look forward to you doing so and sharing in what you accomplish in this space. I hope you come back with more of your insights and about, you know, the sorts of things that typically preoccupy us on this program, but also the storytelling that you're doing and the creative way in which you're conveying things that matter to all of us.
Bill Whittle
Thank you, Frank.
Frank Afney
God bless.
Bill Whittle
It's been too long. It's good to see you again.
Frank Afney
We'll look forward to doing again next time. Until then, I hope the rest of you who will join us next time go forth and multiply.
Episode Date: March 14, 2026
Guest: Bill Whittle (essayist, Daily Wire contributor, filmmaker)
Host: Frank Gaffney
Podcast: Real America’s Voice, iHeartPodcasts
This episode, hosted by Frank Gaffney, delves into the importance of American individualism, the art of conservative storytelling, and the defense of American values in a time of ideological and geopolitical conflict. Gaffney is joined for the entire hour by Bill Whittle—a polymath known for his work as a writer, filmmaker, and conservative commentator. Together, they explore both historical context and current threats (foreign and domestic), dissect the failures and opportunities on the cultural battlefield, and preview projects aimed at reinvigorating conservative narratives for younger generations.
(03:43 – 07:30)
(09:23 – 12:30)
(18:14 – 23:10)
(23:16 – 26:34)
(32:42 – 39:15)
(40:01 – 44:03)
(46:01 – 51:43)
(53:34 – 60:11)
“We’re the aberration. Brutality, conquest, disease… that’s human history… The United States was created by God as a place for individualism to live on Earth. It’s never been tried before.”
— Bill Whittle, (19:58)
"Our education system is astonishingly damaged. But in America... it's inconceivable [in China] that a couple guys in a garage could say we could do this much more easily, much more… In America, you can."
— Bill Whittle, (46:33)
“The most important aspect of this is… you cannot expect people to behave virtuously if they have no idea what virtuous behavior looks like.”
— Bill Whittle, (59:17)
"We need people to understand [virtue]. And that's where I started with [‘The Colonies’]."
— Bill Whittle, (54:09)
“If you want to really isolate and reduce China’s militarism without having to fight China, then the way you do it is you remove their power source."
— Bill Whittle, (36:32)
| Timestamp | Topic | | --- | --- | | 03:43 | Gaffney introduces Bill Whittle and his background | | 06:06 | Whittle discusses his approach to simplifying complex issues | | 09:23 | Discussion on reframing rhetoric (healthcare, abortion) | | 18:14 | U.S. as the historical aberration, individualism vs. collectivism | | 23:16 | Gen Z, “de-education,” and TikTok as a psyop | | 32:42 | Cold War history, “enemies within,” and presidential leadership | | 36:12 | Comparing Trump, Reagan, Truman on moral clarity | | 40:06 | Iran as a non-native Islamic regime | | 46:01 | China: strengths, rigid collectivism, and U.S. advantages | | 53:34 | The origins and vision for “The Colonies” project | | 57:06 | Addressing cultural voids for young men in fiction | | 59:17 | The necessity of modeling virtuous behavior |
The episode’s tone is earnest, intellectual, and at times lightly humorous, especially on Whittle’s part. Both host and guest are fiercely critical of left-wing ideology, “de-education,” and foreign adversaries, but also self-critical of the conservative movement’s storytelling failures. Conversations are rooted in historical references, policy analysis, and cultural critique, delivered in an accessible, metaphorical style without academic jargon.
Frank Gaffney and Bill Whittle present a wide-ranging conversation centered on defending American values—intellectually, morally, and culturally—against threats from both within and without. The discussion synthesizes history and present-day challenges, with Whittle’s upcoming “Colonies” project holding out hope for a renaissance in conservative storytelling, one that can shape future generations’ conception of virtue, freedom, and heroism.