A (14:51)

But accept that if we extrapolate nationally the J report on Rotherham and other reports on Telford and Oxford, there appear to have been upwards of 250,000 young white girls raped in this century, very largely by Muslim men. And given these girls are usually raped several times a day for years. So my lords, what is the government's answer to the Chief Constable of Northumberland, of Northumbria, who has just said that there is every likelihood that these grooming gangs are operating in every one of our major cities? So my lords, what is the government doing to prosecute those in authority who turned a blind eye to all this because they were afraid of being Islamophobic and so on? And what is it doing to compensate and help these victims mentally?

B (15:49)

Virginia is at a reckoning point and I think most of the country, when they hear this a are shocked because the mainstream media certainly isn't covering any of this. All eyes have been on Minneapolis as the hub of leftist craziness the last couple of weeks, even though extremely loud protests and the mostly peaceful thing. By the way, it's come to my attention that the city of Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their non violent response to ice. Welcome to the Upside down that we all live in. That has been the focal point under the microscope of extreme left wing insanity. No one is paying attention to Virginia. The loud protests and the screaming and the lighting things on fire and the smashing in of police windows, all of those things are crazy, but they're not quite as dangerous as the legislation that's being introduced under the radar and probably will pass more often than not to become the law of the land in places like Virginia. This is what we must expose and bring this darkness into the light. Because make no mistake about it, this is a testing ground, a laboratory experiment for what the left can accomplish at the national level if we don't draw the line in the sand and say absolutely not. Not here in Virginia or any other state across the country, and certainly not in the United States of America at large. I am a new resident of Virginia. I won't call myself a Virginian. I am a Coloradan at heart. That's how I grew up. But I do have a lot of friends who have been here for a very long time and have seen the writing on the wall for what on earth is possibly happening for years or even decades. And one person in mind, one person came to mind in particular, that we knew we had to have on the show today to explain how the heck we got here and who these people introducing these bills really are behind the scenes to warn America that this is the playbook for the rest of the country and the nation at large. Our friend Nick Freitas, who you may be following on social media, he's got some amazing hot take. Instagram reels with his cup of coffee in hand and a podcast himself as well. Used to be a member of the Virginia legislature. He actually ran against Abigail Spanberger once upon a time, who is now the governor of Virginia. And I have been dying to pick his brain for a very long time on all of this. So we sat down with him yesterday to get a full bird's eye view of what's going on in the Virginia state legislature and his warning to America. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming Nick to the show. One of my favorite people in the universe joins us on the show today. Despite his amazing career, he does have a shaded past having been in the Virginia legislature. I wish he was still there dealing with some of this nonsense. Nick Freitas, my friend, thank you for being with us on the Isabel Brown show today.

A (18:44)

Such a proud institution being decimated by the current occupants. Yeah, no, it's. It's great. Great to be. Great to be here with you. Wish it was under better circumstances.

B (18:58)

Amen. Amen to that. So our viewers heard me kind of go off on a tirade last week about some of these insane proposals put forward by the Democrats in the Virginia legislature. Many of them look like they are going to be turned into laws, and there's a lot inside politics about all of this that I'm excited to get into with you today. But in case you guys maybe didn't hear me talk about that, we're gonna start by just unpacking what the heck is going on in the state of Virginia. The national media attention seems to be focused on California and New York or even my home state of Colorado more often than not. And everything happening here in Virginia is going under the radar. But basically, we just had a major election. The Dems now control the entire state legislature and the executive branch of the governor's mansion and. And, Nick, walk us through what they're trying to do between reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing for child pornography, rape, and manslaughter to wanting to tax every time you have An Amazon delivery to your house and everything in between.

A (20:03)

Yeah, yeah. I don't know how much time you have to go through this much ridiculousness, but yeah, it's something like 51 new things they want to tax. We got to back up a little bit. So Democrat. It turns out when Democrats were running for office in Virginia, they did not run on the. We're the party that wants to reduce mandatory minimums for child pornographers. That made it into. No commercials, no debates, no mailers that you may have received in your home. No, no. Everything was about affordability. Affordability, a return to civility. The Democrats are the people that stuck up for marginalized populations. Okay, well, if by marginalized populations they mean child pornographers, people in the country or they are in the Commonwealth illegally, maybe someone that's accidentally committed multiple murders. Right. The Democrats are all about trying to stick up for you. If you are the victims of any of these people, well, you're a bad person that probably doesn't score enough, high enough on the intersectional pyramid for them to take notice. So you're the ones. If you're, if you're a law abiding, gun owning, taxpaying Virginian, you are to now be punished. You are now to be punished for your existence. And they will be raising your taxes every which way they possibly can while trying to deny you basic civil liberties. Confiscating your property, perhaps maybe throwing you in jail for insisting on owning your property, all in order to give it to other people, like government employees, because they now want to buy houses for government employees. So it will be more affordable. Like for instance, if you have ever committed a violent assault. If you're a government, if you're a bureaucrat, if you're, if you're receiving welfare. Right. The Virginians, Virginia Democrats definitely plan to make life more affordable for you and at the expense of everyone, you know, just trying to make it through life and pay taxes. But you know, you already mentioned one of the most ridiculous ones. Delegate Ray Cousins. I know, Ray. Trying to remove mandatory minimums for, you know, again, if you wanted to remove mandatory minimums for certain things, I think you could probably find some people to be like, okay, you know, if a 19 year old steals a Coke from 7 11, sure, maybe, maybe we should have a mandatory minimum for certain things. But in this case, it's rape, it's, it's assault, it's the, the possession and distribution of child pornography. If you're someone that has committed multiple felonies, we can't even have a Mandatory minimum. Like if you are a repeat offender, we can't even have a mandatory minimum the next time you get in trouble. And, and if that wasn't all bad enough, like that's all pretty bad. There's actually one before the, the criminal subcommittee today in Virginia. I think it's going to be, I don't know if both are going to be through, one in the Senate, one in the House, but there's two bills going before today. One of them is Senate Bill 634 and then the House companion is HB 853. That's called the Second look bill. And who could be, I mean Isabel, what sort of a horrible human being would it be in favor of us just taking a second look at some of these criminal convictions to try to determine whether or not that maybe just a little bit too much pressure was applied? Maybe the sentence was a little bit too harsh. Right. That's how this is advertised. Let's talk about how it works in reality. In reality, what will happen now is that essentially everybody in Virginia that's been convicted of anything will now potentially be eligible for a second look. So let's say that a nine year old girl was brutally assaulted and raped. Okay. And so that person was arrested, tried and convicted and now they've been sentenced and they are serving their time. Well now out of the blue, this nine year old girl who is now grown up, who may have moved out of state, who may have a family of her own, if she's lucky, she gets a notice from the Commonwealth of Virginia that the person who attacked and raped her is now going to be eligible to have their sentence reevaluated by a brand new board that will almost definitely be selected by some sort of liberal governor. And then if she would like to say something about that, she is welcome to get on a plane, fly back to Virginia and then relive the most horrific experience of her life in order to justify why the person that was already tried and convicted should have to serve out the rest of his sentence.

B (24:27)

Right.

A (24:28)

This is what's being debated on today in committee. And by the way, not the first time this bill came forward. So I don't want to hear any Democrats tell me nobody wants to do this because the last time this happened, Delegate Watts, who damn well should know better because she's been there long enough, was the chair of the criminal subcommittee. And thank God for Delegate Amanda Batten, who by the way lost her seat to a TikTok star that likes to pee on the woods on live camera. Okay, Amanda Batten was the only one standing there in their subcommittee. Amanda Bannon was the only one sitting in that subcommittee because they were trying to cut off testimony from victims. They gave plenty of time for the advocates of the Second look bill to come forward and talk about this was about justice and compassion and rehabilitation. And of course, if you opposed it, you were a racist or a sexist or a bigot or some sort of cruel individual. And then when it came time for the victims to share their story, delegate wants. Wants to cut off testimony quickly. And Amanda Batten was like, are you kidding me right now? We just listened to all the advocates, we just listened to the criminals and their families. You don't wanna give ample time for the victims that had to drive hours to get here in order to share their stories. Like, this is what is going on right now, today in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And the point is, is I wish. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not anymore. And I'm just. I don't know what to tell people because I'm not making this up. This is. This is all real. You can verify it. You can check the bills yourself. You can listen to the testimony. You can do all of it. It's just that a lot of people won't. They'll just sit there and say, well, Nick, I'm sure it can't be that bad. Nobody wants to. I'm tired of hearing nobody wants when it's very, very clear that somebody wants because they keep submitting legislation. They didn't do it by accident. They were all informed that this was a potential consequence. And yet here we are.

B (26:20)

I'm pulling up a tweet from our friend Greg Price about this because he has covered this maybe more than anybody else, maybe except for the account Nova. Nova Elections, I think it is on X is covering this really well. But you're right. You keep saying this, this can't possibly be real, this can't possibly be real thing to yourself. Every time I see one of these headlines, I am genuinely convinced that it is a Babylon B headline. And then I keep reading it over and over and over again like, wait, this is an actual bill that was actually suggested and probably is going to be signed into law in the state in which I live. Oh, I gotta try to find this tweet. I'll find it later. But Greg put together a really long list of. In the first 48 hours after Abigail Spanberger was inaugurated into office as the governor here, the immediate bills that these people put forward and Some of them were reducing mandatory minimum sentencing for stuff like child pornography. But also just the most insane things you could ever wrap your head around. Basically a complete firearms ban for any weapon whose magazine has the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds, which, as a gun aficionado yourself, is pretty much every gun ever. You can verify for us. And there's no grandfather clause for that. They want to tax everything that you possibly could own with your personal property, including every time you watch Netflix or every time you have doordash lunch delivered to your house and extra dog walking, beyond the sales tax that you are already paying for that dog walking. I'm glad you brought that one up, because my mom said that to me, saying, there's no way this is real, right? No. The state government in Virginia wants to tax dog walking. And every time you get your dog groomed, a new dry cleaning tax, a new tax on storage facilities. For those of us that live closer to D.C. we all have these little narrow houses, we all have storage units, which is just a necessity based on where we live. They want to put a new personal property tax on electric leaf blowers. And they say electric because they want to ban your gas powered leaf leaf blowers. And this one was really interesting to me that they introduced right away a residential home repair or maintenance tax. This is real. You guys listening to this? The state government in Virginia wants to tax you every time you perform maintenance on your own home that you already own, including for carpentry, painting, plumbing, electrical and H vac work, when the work performed does not require a state or local permit and is paid for by a resident or homeowner. So every time you have to call the plumber when your toilet's not working, every time you want to paint the exterior of your house, you owe the government more money. Someone did the math based on this bill, by the way, and said, we just improved our kitchen. We just renovated our kitchen. The home improvement tax would have cost us $18,000 in taxes on our kitchen renovation. Why the county electrical inspector had to come two times to each for about 12 minutes. And this is all coming from the party that ran on affordability and this affordability crisis that especially young people are facing all over the country. And yet now they're going to tax us every time we breathe, every time we take our dog for a walk, every time I use the bathroom. I mean, I won't even be surprised when that is introduced in the state legislature. Do you remember it being this bad when you were involved day to day there, Nick?

A (29:46)

We got A glimpse of it in 2020. And the reason why we had a glimpse of it then was because it was the first time in like two decades where they had, had captured all three. They had the House, the Senate, the Governor, the Attorney General and the Lieutenant Governor. And they came in that year and they had some radical stuff, but they only controlled the House by about three seats, the Senate by one. And it was the first time in a long time. And so they all looked at it as, okay, this is the Trump response, but this is our opportunity to do big things. So they did things like the Virginia Clean Economy act, which one of the reasons why all of your power bills are skyrocketing is because of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. And they want to pretend like, oh, this is creating job. No, it isn't. Yeah, it is creating certain jobs in certain areas while destroying jobs in other areas and making all of our, all of our lives more expensive as a result, because energy is tied to everything. They did that. They tried to do a big gun confiscation bill that year and 30,000 Virginians descended on the Capitol, not to mention the tens of thousands that came to their boards of supervisors meetings and everything else. And so at that point, they recognized that there were certain things they set up structurally like the Virginia Clean Economy act that they knew was going to be this, like, permanent bureaucracy. It was going to be this thing that they could leverage and utilize and push in order to get funds where they wanted it, in order to try to take power from localities. And they've largely done that. And the problem was, is because the Senate elections were offset from the Governor and House elections, we were able to take back the House and the governorship and the AG and the Lieutenant Governor, but we couldn't take back the Senate. They had a one seat majority in the Senate and they killed every single legislative proposal that we did to try to roll back what they did in the 2020, 2021 timeframe. Because they changed all of our election laws. They changed us to some of the most ridiculous election laws you could imagine. And so we got this taste of it, but they were still a little bit hesitant because they'd been out of power so long and they were trying to hedge their bets, but they still went too far. We took back the House, however, because we couldn't legislatively change what they did when they came back. This time now they're not ahead by three seats in the House, they're ahead by 16. So they have a 64 seat majority in the House of Delegates with 100 seats. They still only have a one seat majority in the Senate. But it doesn't matter because the way the lines are drawn, they're more likely to pick up another seat than we are to gain it back. And then the important part that people need to understand this is the inside baseball, right? Because everyone is talking about how ridiculous are these bills and everyone else is talking about like, oh, what are they actually going to do? I'm not talking about people I don't know, right. I know every single one of the top five personally. I know Speaker Don Scott, I know Senator Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, I know Abigail, Governor Abigail Spanberger, I know Lieutenant Governor Hashmi, I know Delegate Jay Jones, I served with two of them in the House of Delegates. Jay Jones and Don Scott, obviously I, Louise Lucanus and I had an interesting, interesting set of sparring matches in the General Assembly. And here's what it comes down to. It's worse than what it actually looks like. And the reason why it's worse than what it actually looks like is because I can tell you which one of these bills are probably not likely to pass. And the average voter is going to look at that and say, oh, okay, well, see, see, they are reasonable. Yeah, they have some crazies. But, but those bills didn't pass. Okay, here's how this process is going to work. Don Scott is going to go out to industry and you look at all of these taxes, you look at all of these regulations, all of these rules and some of them are going, some of them are passing because Democrats have run on it in the whole deal. The other ones he's not going to allow die before he has a really hard conversation with industry. And industry is going to learn very, very quickly from their lobbyists that hey, if you don't start donating correctly, if you don't hire the right people on your corporate boards, if you don't do the, if you don't play ball, a lot of these bills are going to go into effect. But if you do, if you're one of the good guys, if you're one of the people that's supporting the Democrats as they seek to make Virginia better, well then you get a seat at the table and maybe not all of these things go away, but maybe, maybe we do a special carve out for your business. You remember California, where they raised the minimum wage drastically and it was hurting all these businesses. But Panera some, oh, I'm sorry, not Panera. Anyone that happened to bake bread on the premises got a special carve out for the minimum wage. Because we all know how those two things are linked, right? Oh no, what was linked was Panera gives lots of money to Gavin Newsom. So Panera got to be one of the good guys. Well, we're going to have our version of the Panera's here in Virginia. They're going to be the guys that go up and they kiss the ring to Don Scott, they kiss the ring to Louise Lucas, not Abigail Spanberger, mind you, Don Scott and Louise Lucas. And when they play ball, well then they're going to get access maybe to subsidies or favorable regulations or maybe they have to pay a little bit more in taxes. But the same thing that they just have to pay a little bit more in crushes their competition. So they get to expand market share. And now the Democrats have a loyal member of industry which is doing what they're saying and being rewarded, but donates to them. Right? So that's what's going to happen with some of the more crazy ones. But each year it'll be the same thing. It'll be like, oh, you don't want this bad bill to come into effect. I guess you better play ball, better pony up right now. That's just what'll go through the legislature. That's just what'll die in the legislature. Then what'll happen is Don Scott and Louise Lucas are going to have a nice little conversation with Abigail Spamberger who thinks she's running things. Because Abigail Spamberger doesn't want to be governor of Virginia. She wants to be president of the United States. And we have one term governorships in Virginia. You can't serve two consecutive terms as governor in Virginia. So every governor of Virginia is always looking at what their next job is going to be. And there is no world where Abigail Spamberger gets to move on to the next level without the approval of Don Scott and Louise Lucas. Because if the first ever black speaker of the House and the first ever female black Senate pro tempore decide they're supporting someone else for president, that's going to look really bad for Abigail Spanberger. So here's the deal, Abigail. We know that you need to veto some bills because you need to demonstrate to everybody what a moderate you are. And so here's the deal. You're going to have a slate of bills and you may, you may want to veto 10 of them, but we're going to give you six or we're going to give you seven. Whatever it is, we'll decide ahead of time. And the patron of the bill is going to know, and they're not going to fuss too much. We're going to talk about working together in order to get it right next time around. But you're going to veto these four or five bills and you're going to get to go and say what a moderate you are. And the media is going to diligently line up and do its job. They're going to spend weeks highlighting the bills that the Democrat bills the Democrat governor, Abigail Spamberger, vetoed. And isn't this a demonstration of what a moderate she is and why. Why wouldn't she be a good presidential candidate one day? Because she's proven that she can win in a swing state like Virginia and that she can govern as a moderate. Like, I'm watching all this going, this is so easily predictable. But by the same token, this stuff works. This stuff works. And as. And as irritating it as it is and as frustrating to watch what is going to happen to Virginia over the next two to four years. I am also. I'm also. The thing I'm most terrified of is they're going to pull it off. They're going to pull it off because enough people are not going to be paying attention to how this game is played, and they're playing it very well right now.

B (37:28)

Back to the destruction of Virginia in just a second. But first, I want to take a few moments and share with you guys something that's hit me really hard. After becoming a mom, I have realized that every decision I make about my health is not just about me anymore. It's about showing up for my daughter, Isla, being present for all of her milestones, and having the energy to keep up with her for decades to come. And that is a totally different kind of motivation. But we have a problem in America. Our healthcare system is built to be reactive. You wait until something goes very wrong, and then you try to fix it. So when you want to take a proactive approach, it can be really hard to know where to even start. That is exactly why I have been partnering with our friends at Jevoty. They make proactive health easier than ever. Jevoty offers you different membership tiers so that you can choose what fits your specific health needs. You get comprehensive at home blood draws that test over 100 different health markers way, way, way beyond what your standard checkup will ever cover. And then they give you a personalized health plan with custom supplement protocols. You get access to specialists on functional longevity for ongoing guidance, plus additional discounts on any other supplements you might need to buy in the future and specialty testing. This process was so, so easy for me and my family. They sent a phlebotomist here to our house. They drew my blood and instead of waiting weeks like you normally do for the doctor, within like 48 hours, I had a perfect blueprint of everything that was going on in my body. Things that were working well, things that weren't hormone levels and so, so, so much more. It was amazing and I totally feel like I have a better understanding of how my body is functioning and what I need to give it to thrive. Jevity is something that you can incorporate into your life too, because it is now available in 47 states across the country. So if you are ready to be there for the people you love, not just today, but for decades to come, you guys can use Code Isabel at the link in today's show, notes for 20 off because investing in your health right now, now means so much more time with the people who matter the most. The hard part for me too is that this game starts at the local and state level. But clearly this is being used as like a testing ground, laboratory, experiment, opportunity for what happens nationally too. I grew up in Colorado. I watched this exact same blueprint play out in Colorado when they wanted to become the next California or New York. In fact, there's a great book out there called the Blueprint about how Democrats took over Colorado and completely transformed a society. I could never move back there with my children. Now, even though it's the same beautiful physical place that I grew up in, the Colorado mountains, culturally, it will never be the same again. I'm now seeing that start to play out here in Virginia and it does seem to me like there is a long game associated with some of this from both the political side, what you're not necessarily seeing covered in the mainstream media and the PR side. They're already trotting out Abigail Spanberger on like Stephen Colbert and all of the late night shows to make her what I think is probably the new Hillary Clinton. There's no pedigree there. There's no political advantage to her necessarily. It's just someone that they can mold into the right person. You mentioned in 2020 when the Dems took control of the state government, they tried to pass a bunch of election laws and I expect Abigail Spanberger will veto some of these crazier things like a dog walking tax or whatever to appear more moderate and generally reasonable palatable to voters. But they're also trying to shove through some election laws right now that are getting no coverage in the mainstream media whatsoever, including making it illegal in the state of Virginia to hand count a ballot with your hands that could theoretically be read by a machine. I don't know how that impacts potential recounts or any allegations of voter fraud. But between that and trying to now other pass another law that would allow people to vote by proxy through the Internet, what could possibly go wrong in Virginia? It seems to me like they're trying to cement a permanent change that prohibits any sort of political disagreement from ever being elected into office again. And if they can do that at the state level, of course they'll be able to pass something like this through Congress. Of course they'll be able to make sure this happens when the next Democrat president is sitting in the oval office down the street, because all these people live in Northern Virginia. What does that spark in terms of your experience in the state legislature for you and now being very involved on the federal side in politics? Are you worried about that with the next election?

A (41:52)

Oh yeah. I was just talking to Pastor Joe Rigby the other day, or Rigney the other day and he was talking about the three step process that they use to, to basically cement permanent power. One is massive expansion of the bureaucracy which gives them the ability to reward jobs, hand out money and things like that. The other has to do with the mass importation of people which they can then turn into clients of the state that they, the bureaucracy that they manage. And then the third is lax voting laws. And, and I think he's absolutely right. And if you look at. So I ran against Abigail Spamberger when she was still in Congress in 2020. Right. When they changed all the voting laws. And I remember we did our analysis of, of how many votes we had to, to get in order to win and we far exceeded that. But look, that's just an analysis. We could have gotten it wrong. But here was what was interesting us into a special session. We didn't even do. We did not change all the voting laws in the regular session. They pulled us into a special session and changed all the voting laws. And the, the reason was Covid. And they did it in a way that was horribly inappropriate. In fact, I believe a state judge later came back and said, yeah, you shouldn't have done it that way. Oh great. And what were the consequences of them doing it wrongly or illegally? Nothing. But the end, the end result was is they expanded election day to 45 days. They allowed all sorts of things with respect to, you know, mail in ballots and same day voter registration. Certain things took effect at different Times. But here was the. Here was the practical effect of this. So I ran against Abigail Spamberger during COVID Abigail's. Abigail Spamberger is famous for not wanting to debate. We were three weeks into when voting had already started, before she agreed to her first forum. It wasn't even a debate, and that was it. That's all she would do.

B (43:30)

Do.

A (43:32)

And then we go through. We're doing everything. Obviously, it's during COVID We can't do the typical sort of campaigning. We're having to do more online. And then on election night, we're winning. We're winning. And we're winning pretty handily.

B (43:43)

Right?

A (43:43)

We knew. It's. We know when the early votes come in and stuff like that, that's going to significantly reduce the lead. But we're winning handily. And the next morning, we're winning. The morning after the election, we're winning. Now, keep in mind, most of the votes were cast early, but for some reason, we couldn't count those first. We counted the votes on election day first. And then all of a sudden, a couple of things happened that were a little bit odd. First of all, thousands of absentee ballots that were never requested were returned. That's interesting. And then a thumb drive that had been mislabeled in Henrico county, which was the bluest county in the district, showed up with 15,000 votes. And all of a sudden, our leave was eroded and we lost by less than two points. And what was fascinating is I had a lot of people just furious with me, like, why didn't you do more? Why didn't you challenge it in court? I said, you don't understand. We went through the numbers. We looked at the voter IDs. It's not as if they were lying about voter IDs. They were there. It's just there was no chain of custody. We don't know who had this. We don't know if anything was manipulated. And then because they had changed the law, a lot of what they did wasn't illegal. So how do I have standing when I can't prove a crime has taken place? And then how do I find a favorable judge? And then how do I keep getting all the money for all of this in order to keep doing the legal fee? That's what people don't understand is like, look, if you're not independently wealthy, how am I supposed to keep doing this? How am I supposed to keep fighting this? They create the sort of laws where fraud becomes easy, hard to identify, and then they can just wait. You out on the legal proceedings or they can claim you don't have standing because what are you basing your claim on? You haven't, you haven't, you've shown stuff that's kind of suspicious, but that's not necessarily wrongdoing. How do you do it? And, and the, the issue is.

B (45:36)

People.

A (45:36)

Would say, well, you got to change it. Okay, well we, well, why didn't you change it when you had Glenn Youngkin in charge? Because we had the governor and the House, we didn't have the Senate. And so everything we tried to change died because of a one vote majority in the Senate. You see, the work they had done in 2020 is what set them up for success in these follow on elections. And now we're at a point where we don't have much hope of getting back significant enough majorities to actually change the voting laws in Virginia at the same time that they're doing all of this other stuff.

B (46:10)

Stuff.

A (46:11)

And, and this is part about understanding how they operate because you're right, Colorado used to be the blueprint for how to take a red state or a reddish state and turn it into a deep blue state. And they've just. Virginia is the new plan.

B (46:27)

Yep. And I think Virginia in many ways will be the new microcosm for the country. Very few people are thinking about it that way. But you talk about how they changed all of these voter laws laws in the midst of a crisis when we desperately needed to change all of the voter laws, which was Covid in 2020. Virginia wasn't the only state doing that at the time, but they are now the only state really that I'm seeing trying to dramatically change election laws all over again in the midst of some new crises. We can't blame it on a pandemic. But my big concern is the overreach of government and the specific attack of conservatives and right wing individuals that I think we're going to see on a new crisis that they're manufacturing out of the state government right now of Islamophobia. I don't know if you heard about this yet, Nick, but they just introduced last month a new bill, SB2, 26, 24. Rather, it's a bill aimed at incorporating a formal definition of Islamophobia into the existing assault and battery laws here in Virginia. So they're making it abundantly clear they're going to go after anyone who is remotely critical of Islam living in the state of Virginia. Probably because our lieutenant governor was just sworn in a few weeks ago on the Quran for the Very first time. And there are several members of the state legislature who are Muslims. The bill does this. It defines Islamophobia as, quote, malicious prejudice or hatred directed toward Islam or Muslims. This applies even if the victim isn't actually Muslim, as long as the perpetrator targeted them based on a perceived connection to the faith. Faith. And has some interesting carve outs of religious convictions and protection for that. That seems to apply to Islam but not to Christianity. I don't know how they're going to navigate this because they're reducing mandatory sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing for some violent crimes. But now they want to tell you that being rightfully fearful of an ideology that's taking the lives of Christians all over the world is somehow on par with battery and assault. So they'll probably lock you up for that. Do you think your gun rights away.

A (48:34)

Maybe your voting rights away?

B (48:37)

Yes, literally they'll take all of them away. But. But speak to that next step then. Not just of taking your personal property or a fair election away from you, then going after the ideological perceived minority in this state to target you as like an enemy of the state.

A (48:53)

Yeah. You know, one of the things I like to point out is the UK gave up their guns and within 30 years they were being arrested for mean tweets. And the same people, because Senator, State, Senator Saddam Aslan Saleem is the one that has this bill. He also has one of the bills to take your guns away. One of the most egregious ones, if I remember correctly. And yeah, this idea that malicious prejudice or hatred. Okay, great. What's the legal code for malicious prejudice or hatred? How am I supposed to do. What do you mean? Prejudge? I got news for Senator Saleem. My. Let's just say my skepticism of Islam is not a phobia, because a phobia is an irrational fear or dislike for something. I don't think it's irrational at all. I seem to recall fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq after other Islamic terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. And I don't think there was anything phobic about understanding what the capabilities were within radicalized Islam.

B (49:57)

But again, Virginia as well. For the record, we seem to be forgetting about that part literally here in.

A (50:03)

Virginia, right in the Pentagon. But again, this is. They won't. They won't see any contradiction in this. Now we all see it because it's obvious. It's like, well, wait a second. You. If, if Islamophobia is just malicious prejudice, we'll go look on. On X with people on the left talking about Christianity. I mean, you, you have a mountain of what could be considered malicious prejudice or hatred directed at Christians. So would this apply there? And their attitude would be, well, no, because Christians are an oppressor. They, they don't, they don't fall anywhere within the intersectional periodic, you know, pyramid of grief and victimhood. And so you don't get the same consideration because you're either an oppressor or you're oppressed. And in their world, Muslims are oppressed. And so they need special consideration from the law in order to level the playing field against you. You mean evil Christians in the west who treat them poorly. And so what they're going to do is they're going. And again, the left loves vague language when it comes to the sort of the laws they put into effect. Because if they control the Attorney General's office, they get to decide what malicious prejudice and hatred is. Right? If they control the judgeships, they choose what malicious prejudice and hatred is. And what might be considered hatred toward Christians? Well, no, no, that's just freedom of speech. Oh, but you directed it toward a Muslim. Oh, well, that's different because they vote for us. Well, again, they vote, they vote for them until they get a critical mass, and then when they take over, the laws end up changing a little bit. If you don't believe that, go look at what's happening in the UK right now. I do find it a little bit comical that all the Labor Party politicians that welcomed in Islamic migration are now watching as once the critical mass is reached in some of these localities, the first thing the Muslims do is rip down the pride flags and say, not in our city. So it's just, again, stuff like this is set up and who knows what'll happen with this at the end of the day, but stuff like this is floated and seriously considered by the left and the rest of us are going, wait a second, wait a second. There's a major contradiction here with respect to religious freedom, freedom of speech, and everything else. You need to understand. They don't care about the contradiction because you don't factor in. You're a bad guy. Right? You, I mean, nobody cares what Hitler's opinion is, and you're Hitler. And now I don't need to prove that you're a bad guy. It's already been determined based off of my worldview, which prioritizes oppressor, oppressed political power dynamics. Right? And then I look at the intersectionality score and I figure out, do you have any victim points on the intersectionality scale? If you Don't. You must be an oppressor, and therefore we don't have to consider your viewpoint. And. And that's how this makes perfect sense to them. So for all the Republicans that sat this one out because they didn't think, you know, Winston Sears was their perfect candidate, or they didn't think that, you know, they. They got everything they wanted. Okay, well, now this is what you get.

B (53:07)

Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the Attorney General, because we, like, briefly talked about it for five seconds on the blip of conservative commentary last election cycle in November. But for those that didn't hear this or thought about it for two seconds and then moved on, our current Attorney General here in Virginia is a whack job, for lack of a better term. I should be careful. That's probably a hate speech. They'll throw me in the gulag. But he genuinely was caught texting people that he knew, saying that the only way to get conservatives to change their mind on some things is to be okay with the violent murder of their children. I mean, Josh, a true psychopath through and through, and this person is now in charge of the law enforcement in the state of Virginia between this Islamophobia bill and him being in charge at the AG's office. Nick, do you have a concern about the growing political rift and the weaponization of the justice system at the state level being played out here in Virginia, escalating kind of back to what we saw under Biden at the national level if conservatives don't act preemptively now?

A (54:15)

Yeah. Because when most of these laws go into effect in July 1, Jay Jones is going to have a field day targeting people that he thinks he can get with this. So, for instance, if some of this gun legislation passes and am I safe where I live right now? Right. Because again, it's not like he's going to go out and use law enforcement to go after everybody right off the bat. They're going to go after their list of political enemies. Who has them off the most. I'm on that list somewhere. I don't know to what degree, but I'm on that list somewhere. And so we're the ones that get targeted first, right? We're the ones that get targeted first. Because you make an example. Now, the important thing to understand about Jay Jones, there's only one thing I'm going to disagree with you on here, and that's the idea of him being like a psychopath. And now I know what you mean. Right. You're talking about the statements that he Made were just psychopathic and totally true. Here's the scarier part, though. I remember when Jay Jones came into the Virginia House of Delegates as a.

B (55:11)

Freshman.

A (55:14)

And at that point, it was 4,951. 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats. And after that first session of serving with Jay Jones, if you had asked me which Democrat on the other side of the aisle I thought was one of the more reasonable, he would have been in my top five. If you would have asked me, if you would have shown me those text messages and you would have said, hey, Nick, which person from our Democrat caucus do you think was talking about children dying in their mother's arms? He probably wouldn't have. He would have been the bottom five of Democrats I would have picked to have said something like that. And this is the part that people need to really understand. It would be easy to say, oh, well, he's one of the crazy ones. But he wasn't. We actually made a joke at one point that we were gonna make him the honorary 52nd Republican in the. In the House of Delegates because he was the one where we. If we needed to go and talk to somebody and be like, look, is there any way we can work something out?

B (56:15)

He.

A (56:16)

He was the reasonable guy. You could sit down and talk to him. Oh, yeah, you know, we can do this or maybe this over here, or, yeah, I could vote for it if we. If we could change this. Reasonable guy. Reasonable guy. So that's the part that's kind of scary, is that someone that could be just perceived as a total rational human being, you know, different. Different worldviews, different opinions. But Jay Jones is one of the guys that I would have said, yeah, yeah, these. These were the sort of Democrats I recognized. But here's the other part that you need to understand, and this is the part where it gets to be psychopathic. It is one thing. So, for instance, when Jay Jones said, if I had Hitler, Pol Pot, and Todd Gilbert in a building and I had two bullets, I'd shoot Todd Gilbert twice. Now, maybe you could say, you know what? He's just making that same. It's that Michael Scott joke from the office. You know, that's what's going on here. He's just being flippant, right? It's dark humor. Okay? But then when he got challenged on the whole statement that, like, maybe. Maybe if Todd Gilbert, you know, saw his children die in his mother's arms, he would understand what it's like to be a black man in this country. And then it's the going back. It's like, you know, Jay, what are you doing? Please stop this. Like, no, no, I'm serious. I'm serious. Sometimes Jay Jones was not talking about people he didn't know. He wasn't making a flippant joke. There's people that joke about me dying on X, right? But it's someone that's never met me. They don't know me. We've never sat down or had a conversation. It's easy to talk that way about people you've never. I should say that shouldn't be easy. But it's easier to talk about that way, about people that you haven't met when you're having a rant or you're being flippant. J. Jones knows Todd Gilbert. He knows Jennifer. J. Jones knows their kids. One of the things when. When Todd Kilbert got sworn in as speaker, his young children were there. And. And. And one of his kids, it was kind of cute, kind of got away from mom. It was kind of running around the assembly and going up there. And here's Todd Gilbert giving his speech, accepting the. The vote to become speaker of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the House of Delegates. And his son's kind of up there, like, grabbing onto his leg, kind of looking out, waving at us as he's talking, right? Doing kind of all the cute, like, little kids stuff, stuff. And J. Jones saw all that and still thought that this was an appropriate remark to make. And this is the part that I can't seem to get people to understand. It's like, yeah, because Todd's the bad guy, Jennifer's the bad guy, and his kids are just future bad guys. And so when they say these things about us, it's almost like they're not even talking about people. And then the amazing part is when we point that out, that you don't even treat us like people. Forget fellow Americans. Forget fellow Virginians. Fellow. You don't even treat us like people. Like, how dare you say. How dare you say something so divisive. I had a delegate come up to me on the floor, and she goes, nick, you're a hypocrite. You talk about. You. You. You talk about civil discourse. But then when Charlie Kirk was murdered, you talked about a war of diametrically opposed worldviews. Yes, because we just did. We just did a memorial resolution for the former speaker in Minnesota that was murdered. And every Republican stood up. Every. Every Republican stood up for a moment of silence for her. Why? Because we recognize that regardless of what our political differences were, for the former speaker of Minnesota. She shouldn't have been murdered. And then when I did the same thing for Charlie Kirk, half of you left the floor and a bunch of you stayed seated. But I'm the hypocrite for pointing out that this is the difference in worldviews. I'm not at war with you as a human being, but I am at war with your ideology. That's what this comes down to. And you don't get to pretend like this isn't going on when Charlie Kerr gets murdered on stage and you all celebrate. And those of you who don't celebrate don't even have the common decency to say, yeah, we're going to stand up for a moment of silence for a man that shouldn't have been murdered. So this is where we're at. And, and, and again, people, people hold on to this idea of, no, no, no, my neighbor. My neighbor's a Democrat, and they're a nice per. Fine, fine. But the people, they've elected to represent them. These are the things they want. These are the. These are the degrees to which they are willing to go. This is the language that they use. And you don't get to gaslight me into believing it's not real.

B (60:37)

Yep. Yeah, it feels to me, and I know you've got a crazy, busy schedule, so I want to let you go, but it feels to me that Virginia seems to be experiencing this internal turmoil that is a microcosm of what we've been inching towards nationally for the past decade or so. And there's a lot of people who say that's going to lead to a national divorce that might lead to, God forbid, a civil war. I like how you just articulated this, though. I'm not at war with you. I'm at war with your worldview. And as we navigate this moving forward, I think you're right. There are many people who would say we live in two different Americas. No better example of that than how people are responding to what's happening in Minneapolis, certainly in the media side, but I think on the government side, there is no better example of that than what we're watching play out in Virginia right now versus a state like Florida or Wyoming or North Dakota that's doing the exact opposite thing. What is your message to America at large? Not to take their eyes off of what's happening in Virginia. And as a warning sign for what could happen nationally if we don't have the courage to try to reinstate some real civil discourse and just general American values to redefine what that means. Versus this civil war of diametrically opposed worldviews.

A (62:00)

I think the most important thing that people need to understand right now. The people that maybe are not that involved in politics, maybe they, maybe they consider themselves center. Right. Right. But they don't like some of the stuff Donald Trump tweets, or they certainly don't like how ICE operations in Minneapolis look on tv. And so now what they're doing is they're taking on this idea of, okay, look, I support the border, and, yeah, I want. I know we need to deport some people, but this, this just doesn't. This isn't what I signed on for. I'm not comfortable with this. What you need to understand is that there is no amount of lowering the temperature that you can do that. I can do that. The right can do that, Trump can do that will ever satisfy them. And the reason why is because this is a tactic. Escalation is a tactic. I'm not making this up. Go look at Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. He says it right in there. Our action is their reaction. So what do I mean by that? I mean that ICE right now is all over the country conducting arrests. They're conducting something like 10 times the arrests in Houston, Texas, than they are in Minneapolis. And yet nobody's getting shot, no massive riots, nothing. Why? Because Minneapolis is where they've decided to escalate. And they've decided that for a couple of good reasons. One, billions of dollars of fraud was uncovered in a very, very public light that was destroying the political career of their governor. They also have an entrenched voting demographic there that was willing to actually fight and do something and escalate to the degree that they needed. And so they needed an escalation that included violence. ICE could have gone in there. They could have been nice, they could have been polite, they could have done everything that you wanted them to do, and they would have kept pushing until they got the response. Because once they get the response, that's how they. That is what they use to then fuel the narrative that they're the victim. They're the victims, and they're trying to defend the innocence against these evil, mean, jackbooted thugs. And the moment you give in to that narrative, the moment you give into that narrative for the sake of peace, you have just told them it works, so do it everywhere. You. They have no incentive that then de. Escalate on their side. They have no incentive to come to the table and compromise with us. Everything is about escalating to the point where people on the center, right, that are uncomfortable with the escalation, tell our side, you need to stand down because this is not what I, this is not what I signed up for. It. It is the screaming kid in the, in the toy aisle of the, of the store. And you're watching this kid just lose his mind because mom will not get him the toy he wants. And then dad steps in about ready to spank the kid. No, no, no, don't do that. Here's the toy. Here's the toy. What sort of kid are you going to get? You're going to get a spoiled brat that knows that every time they need to do scream, flail, fight, escalate until you get what you want so somebody else comes in and protects your behavior from the person that was about to bring order. And that's where we're at right now. And, and what the right doesn't understand is that we've been able to get away with this. The left has been able to get away with this kind of incremental escalation process where they escalate to a certain level, get half of what they want, we get nothing. That's what every compromise is. They get 50% of what they want, we get nothing. And then that's the new normal.

B (65:21)

Normal.

A (65:21)

And then they escalate to the next level. And the demands never stop. There will never be a point where they say, oh good, now we're happy. You will always be the bad guy because they need you as the constant enemy to escalate to the next level. So if you don't take the opportunity right now, with the Trump administration, with the House, with control of the House and Senate, if you say, I'm going to sit out the midterms to teach a lesson that I don't like, how mean this has gotten. It only gets worse. It only gets worse. Minneapolis will be the new baseline, right? The baseline was started with BLM riots. This will be the new baseline and it only gets worse from there. So I am sorry that this looks. I don't, I don't want anyone to be comfortable with what is being, what's going on in Minneapolis right now. You shouldn't be comfortable with it. But can I ask an honest question, just an honest, logical, reasonable question? When the Democrats spent decades letting tens of millions of people into our country illegally, when they lax the voting laws, when they started letting violent offenders out of jail early, when they started pushing all this crap within our schools, to where now teachers unions are more interested in kids leaving class to protest than they are learning how to read. What did you think the enforcement was gonna look like when we finally had a chance to correct for some of this? Did you think that the same people that have perpetuated all this were just gonna sit quietly and be like, well, we lost the last election. No, they're going to fight. And if you don't fight back at this particular point, it only gets worse from here. And then we start to get into real questions about national divorce. Then we start to get into real questions about violence. Because I can tell you this much, there are three things that I look at with respect to a state, on whether or not I can live there or not. I look at will you allow me the ability to be able to feed my family and take care of my family without taxing and regulating me out of existence? Will you provide me the mechanism to be be able to defend myself and my family because I know the police can't always be there? And will you provide me the mechanism to actually worship God and raise my kids in the way that they should go without constant state interference? And if you won't allow me to do that, if you won't provide space for me to be able to do those things, then you compel me to fight and I'm going to go to the place that allows me to fight the best, to be able to defend the things that I love. But if you think I'm just going to roll over for this, if you think all of us are just going to roll over for this, it isn't going to happen sometimes. So you have an opportunity to take a stand right now. And maybe, maybe if we take that stand, there'll be a new generation of the left that is more like Bill Maher where yeah, we don't agree on policy, but he doesn't think logic is a tool of the patriarchy. He doesn't think women can become men by saying so. He doesn't want violence in the streets in order to get what he wants. Maybe if you stand up to him we can reset this and we can actually start the trend in a different direction. But if you don't, it will end in violence and there will be no stopping it.

B (68:24)

May we all have the same courage that you have, my friend. Thank you for your insiders insight into everything happening here in Virginia. I know I saw you a couple weeks ago and we joked about buying some massive piece of land in like Montana or something. So that may have to be our potential future. But we will keep fighting as, as we are still here and I'm so, so grateful for your voice, inspiring so many Virginians to do just that. Where can people find you, support you, support your show and anything exciting on the horizon for you in 2026?

A (68:57)

Well, no, thank you very much. It is always an honor. Isabel. I remember, I remember the first time we finally got to meet. It was actually at an event in America Fest, I think with Liberty University. And I thought, oh my gosh, I know her, she's famous. But I've always been a huge fan of your work and your willingness to go into, to go into places and actually speak the truth, where you actually paid a price, physical price, a couple times for being willing to do that. And so I've always admired your courage and the courage of your family. We made it easy. It's just Nick J. Freitas across all platforms. So we've got our regular show Making the Argument Monday through Friday. Usually drops at 5pm the wine minutes. And then of course, all of my little coffee mug stuff that we do on Instagram and YouTube shorts, my faves. Yeah, yeah. But we're going to be doing a lot of work with Young Emergency America's Foundation. We've actually got a lot of tabling events that are going to go on with Turning Point this year in March and April that we're looking forward to that. So hopefully we'll be able to have some good conversations on college campuses. I'm actually, I'm actually pretty, I'm actually pretty bullish on the the Next Generation, but we'll see.

B (70:03)

Me too. And I, I have some good hope for them saving all of these crazy states, Colorado and Virginia included. I hope to see you soon, my friend. Thanks again for joining us today.

A (70:13)

Thank you.

B (70:14)

Huge thank you again to Nick for joining us on the show and for giving us a deeper insight into everything that's happening in Virginia. And by the way, he's absolutely right. I think the takeaway message from this episode today that I am so encouraging all of you to drill into your brains and to shout from the rooftops is a what can someone like me do? I can draw the line in the sand and never sit out another election. I will never stop voting again against these people, even if the person I'm voting for may not be 100% of what I'm looking for in a politician. And I will keep spreading the word in my own spheres of influence that this is unacceptable and will never be tolerated as the law of the land in my community. Whether that's posting on my own social media, sharing episodes like this, going to school board meetings, having conversations with your friends over a cup of coffee. Just make people aware that this is going on in the first place. Because Lord knows, knows Fox News and CNN and Newsmax, they're not covering this really with beyond like a 5 minute segment maybe in one of the commentary shows. This certainly isn't covered in the news media, which is why it's so important that we are the new media apparatus that is willing to tell the truth when the media isn't. And B, we need to demand accountability from our elected officials that when we have opportunities to govern, when the right has governor's mansions and both chambers of state legislatures, when we have both houses of Congress and the White House, we cannot be afraid. I'm so in like Gen Z language world because of Kamala's announcement this morning. We're talking Gen Z today. We cannot be afraid to lock in and stand on business, okay? Because then we will cook. When we have the courage to conserve our values, when we have the courage to govern on offense, not just to stop the craziness from the left, but to actually take back ground in the culture war by passing conservative legislation reforming our education system, protecting rights of free religion and free speech, and codifying those things into law, that is how we effectively fight back. If your elected officials are not courageous, are not governing on offense, I think that tells you something and maybe means that this first group of the A we were talking about, you need to step into the arena over here and have the courage to do something about it. Whether that's demanding more from the person that you voted for or running for office yourself. I can't wait to see how that all pans out with the midterm elections later this year. And I think we're going to have have a very interesting picture and glimpse into what 2028 is going to look like after November of this year. So we will be following what's happening in places like Virginia, Colorado, New York and California very, very closely. But we'll also do our very best to shed some light on what Wyoming and Idaho and Florida are doing to govern on offense because the world needs to see a whole lot more of that. We're back tomorrow for more of the Isabel Brown Show. Happy almost back Valentine's Day. How cute is this sweatshirt my mom sent me in the mail? Hi mom. Thanks for the sweatshirt. We love you guys. We'll see you then.