← The Riley Gaines Show
The Riley Gaines Show
Was Trump’s Viral AI Image Blasphemy? PLUS Nick Freitas on "The Manbook" | The Riley Gaines Show
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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:33]
B
If you've seen his viral floor speeches or his no holds barred commentary, then you already know why he cuts through the noise like almost nobody else does. Nick. Nick Freitas. He's effective because he's real and he's truthful. And yes, the man is actually really funny while he's doing it. No scripted corporate talking points or no fake outrage. It is just straight talk from a Green Beret combat veteran who refuses to play the game. Today we are diving into everything that's blowing up right now. The Trump tweet. If you don't know the one I'm talking about, that's understandable because there's a lot of them. The Trump posting that wild Jesus image on Truth Social, the brutal attack on journalist Savannah Hernandez while she was just doing her job, filming at an anti ice protest, and the sudden collapse of Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign amid some pretty wild and serious misconduct allegations. All of that and more on today's episod. Well, Nick, thanks for joining the Riley Gaines show, one of my favorite online Internet voices. But of course, really, you're much more than that. Can you give a little background on yourself?
- [01:45]
C
Sure, sure. Well, it's an honor to be on. Yeah. First and foremost, I married my high school sweetheart at 19, right out of high school when I was a young paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. And you know, I was in the military for about 10 years in the 82nd, 25th infantry, then went over to Army Special Forces, kind of better known as Green Berets. Did a couple of combat tours in Iraq. The time I was in the military, my wife and I had three beautiful children who are all now fully grown. My youngest just turned 18 and, you know, we homeschooled all of our kids and after serving in the military, served in the Virginia legislature, was in the Virginia House of delegates for 10 years, which is actually the first time I met you was when I was chairing a subcommittee down there. And now we've just. My wife and I both have been talking a lot about Faith, about family, about biblical masculinity, about restoring the family in America. And that's kind of our full time job at this point, and we love it.
- [02:45]
B
Well, how amazing. You've been out of the legislature now for a few months. Can you kind of compare those two lifestyles? Because I think being involved in the political landscape, especially in the capacity of serving, it's just something that most people can't grasp. And so now that you're out, can you talk about, you know, some of the factors you had to consider in making that decision?
- [03:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is when we first. I actually challenged a Republican incumbent when I first ran for office. I challenged him in the primary. He decided to retire. And when we first went into elected office, we went in with a lot of confidence. We had prayed a lot about it. We really felt like it was what we were supposed to do because my mom especially had always raised me with this idea that it is a privilege to live in the United States. She took me on missionary trips all over the world, and she was very big on saying, you know, when you come home, you need to appreciate that you have something special here. And it's not by accident. It was fought for. It was built up. And you, you have an obligation to want to protect and preserve and send it on for your children to be able to do the same. And so I never thought I'd run for elected office. I just thought I would do my civic duty. And I liked being a soldier. But it was an interesting experience. Ten years in the General Assembly, I learned a lot. It is. It is frustrating in part because there's a lot of expectations for what people think you can accomplish by serving in the legislature. The end result is, is you have one vote. You can carry legislation. You have one vote. In Virginia, I had one vote out of 100 delegates, one vote. You know, the 40 senators and the governor's got to sign it. So you're working very, very hard to try to get things done. But, you know, our government is set up to not work fast for a reason, and it's because we're trying to avoid the centralization of power. But 10 years I fought the good fight. I think I can safely say that I kept my word to my constituents with what I believed. And now that I'm out, I consider it a great honor. But just as confident as we were that it was time to get in, we were also confident it was time to get out.
- [04:44]
B
Do you feel like you ever experienced any sort of like. I don't Know the best way to put it? Maybe like political fatigue, if you will.
- [04:52]
C
Yeah, no, here's where the political fatigue. I'll never forget this conversation my mom had with me when I first ran for office. And she goes, nick, I have no doubt you're gonna be honorable in this position. She goes, the opposition is going to frustrate you, but your own side will break your heart. And that was true. That was true. I was used to the other side coming after me, the media coming after me. That was normal stuff. But it did get frustrating when you would watch your own side say one thing on the campaign trail and do something very differently when they were in office. And it's not because they were all just weak or cowards. It's because the incentive to get reelected and to kind of allow opinion polls to drive what that should look like is overwhelming. And to be, quite frankly, it's rewarded by the electorate. And so part of it was frustration with some of my own colleagues at times, but also part of it was frustration with voters where I would look at them and be like, why did you sit this one out? Well, I just wasn't happy with any of the candidates. And they're all the same. Well, in Virginia, we're learning the hard way that, no, they're not all the same. And so I think it's so important for people to be not just engaged in the fact that they're talking about it on social media or voting, but really understanding how our process works. And one of the most important things. And this was, you know, again, my capacity as subcommittee chairman on higher education. When you came to speak, one of the biggest things people need to understand is that the reason why we're in the problems that we are right now is. Is because the government has way too much control over our children's education, whether it's in elementary school, middle, high school, higher education, and, you know, if we want better elected representatives that are willing to stand strong, well, that starts in the home. And so I got very fatigued with politics because I felt like I was arguing with people that had already made up their minds. But the more I had an opportunity to actually speak with people, like students that were curious about these things and wanted to understand them, the more I felt like I was having a Greater impact.
- [06:50]
B
Yeah, 100%. And I agree. I'm right there with you in speaking to education and having kids of your own. You mentioned you guys homeschool, which I find to be such a sacrifice on your part as parents as well. And now my husband And I, we have our little baby. Granted, she's only, you know, six months old now, so we have time. But you start to consider what, what sort of route do you want to go down? And there's so many different options now. Does Virginia, you guys don't have school choice pass. Am I correct in saying that?
- [07:19]
C
Yeah, that's correct.
- [07:20]
B
Can you kind of explain what school choice is and maybe some, some of the benefits that you have seen from homeschooling?
- [07:27]
C
Yeah. Well, I think our journey into homeschooling was an interesting one because it started off we did it out of necessity. I was leaving the military. We weren't sure where we were going to live next. We had a couple different options. The school year was starting and so we just, you know, we didn't want there to be this big gap. So my wife started homeschooling. And then when we got to where we did in Virginia, we put our kids back in and within a year we had them back out because we thought, oh, we'll move to this nice conservative district and our values will be represented. And that was not the case.
- [07:57]
D
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- [08:27]
C
And, and it wasn't. We had some great teachers, but they weren't the ones selecting the curriculum. They weren't the ones calling the shots. And so we pulled them out because we were concerned about what was going on within the government run school system. But if you asked my wife and I today, why do we homeschool, it's because we loved it. Is it a sacrifice? Yeah, in some ways. But you know what's also a sacrifice? Sending your kids to public school.
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B
Yeah.
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C
You will sacrifice thousands of hours that you would otherwise would have had with them. You will sacrifice them getting exposed to things and concepts and ideas and I don't mean good ones, I mean what some other kid at school is showing them on their smartphone. You will sacrifice a lot about your kids innocence. You will sacrifice again that core relationship that you can build with your kids. So I will say that the as much as it might be a sacrifice, some ways with financially or Things of that nature. It was an absolute blessing. And I love the relationship we have with all three of my adult children. They're all well adjusted, productive members of society that I love hanging out with. And so I think we can't just look at homeschooling as a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice either way. You're gonna choose your sacrifice. But I encourage people to choose the one that gives them the most time with their kids to build that important relationship. When it comes to school choice, some states have really good laws. Some states have really restrictive ones. Typically, school choice is associated with how much control or authority or options do the parents have over their children's education. And a good school choice state might look like one where it's very easy to homeschool with minimal restrictions. It might look like one where dollars follow students. Where now we can say that okay, the state is going to participate in helping educate, but it's going to do so through financing options, not through trying to control the curriculum or the classro room. In other states it shows up in the form of tax credits where it says, look, the government's not going to tell you what to do and we're not going to give you money because we're not going to control it. But we're going to, we're going to relieve your tax burden since you're assuming personal responsibility for educating your children. So there's a lot of different ways that a state can encourage parents to take more of an active role in the education of their children. But whenever the state is really trying to control it, whether whatever they're really trying to say, no, no, the government is going to dictate what your child's looks like. I think you need to be concerned about that. Because having served four years on an education committee in a state that was not especially woke or progressive, certainly not compared to like California or Massachusetts or Illinois, I can tell you the things that were going on in deep rural school districts would blow parents minds. And it was hard to get them to accept that, no, this is happening and you have to be involved and you're going to have to make some hard decisions about what you want for your child. Because if you, if you're not in control, somebody is. And you saw firsthand in the way you got treated at a subcommittee where I had to tell my Democrat colleagues, you will treat all witnesses with respect. It's amazing how they feel like, they feel like they are perfectly morally justified in not only pushing their agenda in the classroom, but denigrating and being disrespectful to anybody that has a different agenda, perspective or worldview.
- [11:42]
B
It is so true. I'll never forget that delegate's name, even Delegate Jeff Bourne. I don't. I don't know if he still serves. I don't know what he's doing now. But testifying in Virginia for the first time, it was my first public testimony. And so just the nerves and the anxiety, and I'd never done something like that before. I didn't know what I was doing or what I was going to say or who you're even really speaking to. And so I'll never forget that. And just. You're right. The hostility that you're met with, and quite frankly, the hypocrisy of it, and you spoke to it, it exists on both sides of the political aisle. I think on our side, you have, like, the campaign taglines of faith, family and freedom that people run on. Yet you have some people who, I mean, their families are in disarray, members of Congress who are having affairs on their wives, Tony Gonzalez being one on our side, or shall I say a person with an R by his name. But then you also have people like Eric Swalwell on the other side of the aisle who just recently suspended his campaign for California governor. Of course, this is amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and assault. Really horrible, horrific things. I wanted to ask you about the timing of these allegations and how they have surfaced in the media. Do you think this is, like, strategic?
- [13:03]
C
Oh, 100%. There is nobody that was confused that Eric Swalwell had these allegations against him. This is not the first time people spoke up about it. It's just the difference was, is that he was on their side, and they looked at him as an effective foil to go after Donald Trump. And then as he started to get within shot of winning the Democratic primary in California, then the concern was is that if the Republicans actually launch a halfway decent campaign and he's the nominee, when we could potentially lose the governorship of California, as bizarre as that sounds to people. So there's a reason why every other investigative journalist, every other mainstream news network, everybody, nobody was interested in this. They were all willing to defend Eric Swalwell. I mean, when the whole thing came down with him sleeping with Chinese spies, it was like just sweeping under the rug. It's not a big deal. It wasn't until that he. His presence on the ticket could potentially hurt Democrats. Then all of a sudden, it was important to them, because what's important is the maintenance of power. It's not about women's issues. If they cared about women's issues, Delegate Born would have been a lot more respectful to you when you testified. But he wasn't. He was incredibly rude. And that's how we see this. If Democrats really cared about women, if they cared about the MeToo movement, well, then they would police their own ranks better. But they don't until it can cost them politically, then it becomes a primary issue. So, no, the timing of all of this is very strategic and intentional.
- [14:25]
B
Yeah. And I think concerning prior to this, the options were Swalwell, again, a man who has multiple sexual misconduct allegations. You're right. Sleeping with the Chinese spy, and Katie Porter, who's like, accused of throwing a pot of boiling hot potatoes on her husband. Quite the state of affairs in the state of California. One more kind of current event I wanted to ask you about, that I saw you comment on online was what happened to independent journalist Savannah Hernandez? She is, I believe, a turning point contributor. She was filming an anti ICE or filming an anti ICE protest outside of an ICE facility, I believe in Minneapolis, when she was physically assaulted by multiple protesters. This girl, we'll have the B roll playing on screen. She's like what appears to be like 100 pounds wet through, and you've got this big man who shoves her into a fence. Quite the coward, wouldn't you say?
- [15:27]
C
Oh, yeah, no. Well, and here's the problem. My wife, when she saw that, she goes, doesn't surprise me at all because my wife actually ran for office once as well, and she was shocked at the outright hostility that liberal men treated her with. They had no problem calling her the C word in public. They had no problem trying to threaten her online. I mean, as a, as her husband. It was a very interesting experience. Nobody ever laid hands on my wife. That would have been very detrimental. But. But it was that overwhelming hostility where Tina would say, I understand why women don't trust men. Because when you hang out with liberal men, when you see them in action, you recognize how much hostility and hatred they actually harbor for women. Because the moment they find one where they think it's morally justified for them to abuse her physically or verbally, they take it. And this was a perfect example of this. This guy runs over you Notice again, when they're hurting, when they, when they go after Republican men, they use a rifle because they like a little offset. Right. But when it's 120lbs soaking wet, female there, they don't mind shoving her down to the ground. And this is all part of how Leftism has. This is all about how leftism has developed. For years, they would inappropriately and inaccurately call anybody that disagreed with them a racist, a sexist, a misogynist. And that was to rob us of our moral legitimacy. But the language has now changed. Now they accuse us of being threats to democracy, of being fascist, of being Nazis, of promoting genocide, whatever ridiculous claim. They're not doing that to moral. To rob us of moral legitimacy. They're doing that to create moral justification for them to use violence against us to include a young woman who wasn't engaging in violence herself. She was sitting there, she was reporting. They came over, they were hitting her in the face with various items and toys. They were pushing, they were spitting. And the moment she moved her hand to push them out of the way because they were obstructing her and assaulting her, Right. This guy runs over and thinks he's perfectly justified to knock her to the ground and then threaten her with further physical violence. Now, what I said online was if local law enforcement doesn't prosecute this, what they are doing is encouraging citizens to start to take justice into their own hands. Because when you refuse to have equal protection before the law, when these left wing mayors and police chiefs or sheriffs or whatever it is, when they refuse to prosecute, when they refuse to go after them, what you're saying is, is that you are giving the left the ability and the freedom to continue to engage in violence. And that is going to be met with a reaction at some point. Now, I don't want it to be that way. I do not, I do not support any sort of anybody engaging in aggressive violence to achieve a political objective. But defending yourself, oh yeah, that's absolutely justified. So the good news is, from what I've heard, the sheriff's department is gonna actively prosecute the people that assaulted Savannah. But the rest of blue America needs to take note of this because conservatives are not gonna continue to put up with this.
- [18:21]
B
No. And we shouldn't have to, quite frankly. But you're right again. In a city like Minneapolis, a state like Minnesota, where you don't see arrests or you don't see people, I guess, jailed for a proper amount of times for the crimes that they're committing, of course it creates these issues. And like you said, I think the FBI is now investigating. I know that Savannah has said that she wants to press charges and so hopefully we see some success there. Last kind of news of the day story I wanted to ask you about. Is this Trump tweet or maybe Trump Truth Social post that he put up over the weekend in, like, the obscure hours of the night, as President Trump does, he posted this AI generated image. I think it's very clear what is happening here. It's a depiction, I believe, of himself as Jesus Christ. He's wearing, you know, the robe and the sash, and he's got, you know, there's a person in the hospital bed, sick person. He's got his hand out. It's assumed that he's healing this person with onlookers, so, you know, nurses and soldiers. What do you make of this? And very quickly, I'll just insert my thoughts, which I posted online. And it's already met with so much pushback, mostly from the MAGA base. And just saying. I think two things, multiple things really can be true here. Number one, I do believe humility would serve President Trump. Number two, God shall not be mocked, and blasphemy is not something to take lightly. And three, I don't regret my vote at all. But this online base, the discourse that exists there, it makes you feel like you're the crazy person for saying those things. And so what's your take on this? This?
- [20:00]
C
Yeah. I think there's three categories that people fall into. There's the people that are using this to bash Trump, because that's what they do. They bash Trump. Then there's the people that are defending this as if this is just. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's perfectly okay. How dare you. You're just distracting. You're just joining the liberals. And then there's the category which I consider to be the common sense one, to be quite blunt, which is, he shouldn't have posted this. It. It's not offensive in the sense that liberals get offended about everything. It's that anybody that is depicting themselves in a picture where they're obviously making some sort of comparison between themselves and Christ is not a good idea. Right. Christ is someone to be venerated. He's certainly someone that we should look up to, and he's certainly someone whose actions and behaviors that we should attempt to emulate in our life. But to draw some sort of image which makes it looks like we are that person is wrong and offensive, and it shouldn't have been done, and I'm glad he took it down. By the same token, do I still support Donald Trump? Yeah, I still support Donald Trump.
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D
Right.
- [21:03]
C
I still want him to have a successful presidency. I. I don't think this means that he's a horrible president. I think it was bad judgment and the thing that I would tell the people on the left is I don't care about their concern, because they don't. They don't venerate Jesus anyways, right? They're only using this. My wife. My wife once said it best. She goes, you know, the left, the left holds up, you know, the Constitution or Jesus, the same way atheists hold up the Bible, right? It's not because they venerate it, it's because we do. And so I don't care what their concerns were with this. I'm not. I'm not the least bit interested. To the people that are eager to defend Trump, I get that. I get the kind of mentality that we've all kind of fostered at this point, where we're so used to Trump being attacked for literally everything that we want to defend him. By the same token, there has to be a standard for truth. That's one of the things that has to distinguish the right from the left. The left has adopted this whole critical theory, tribalism, postmodern view of the world where there's no such thing as truth, there's just your tribe, and you defend them at all costs, and you attack everybody else at all cost. I'm never going to be that. I will never be that. If my own side does something that I think was incorrect, wrong, or immoral, that needs to be called out. That doesn't mean I'm going to throw off everybody or abandon them or completely get rid of them. Right? But it does need to be called out, because the ultimate standard for what the right should stand for is the belief in truth and the dedication to that. And insofar as with it's within our. Our power, we need to be constantly taking our viewpoints and aligning them with truth. And for me, Christianity is the formation of my worldview. There is only one person that has ever walked the earth that gets absolute, complete and total loyalty from me, and that's Jesus Christ. And he needs to be. He needs to hold that special position of honor and veneration, and that should be included in our politics. And we should expect that of the people who claim to be Christian and claim to be on our side.
- [22:54]
B
All right, I know I've told you about my friends over at Y Refi before, but they are doing something that is truly special. Got a question for you. If you are buried under private student loan debt, barely scraping by on those minimum payments, or worse, if you're already in default, I'm talking to you. Listen up. You are not alone. And you don't have to stay stuck. Why Refi? They specialize in refinancing private student loans that other companies turn away. They will sit down with you personally one on one. They will look at your very real situation and they will build you a custom monthly payment plan that you can actually handle. They can slash your monthly bill, they can lower your overall costs and you will get a sloop super low fixed interest rate, the kind that most people can only dream about. And here's the best part. Your credit score does not matter to them. So if private student loan debt is something that has been burdening you, it's been weighing you down, know that it really should not control your life or kill your future plans. Imagine finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and breathing easy again. That's what Y Refi can offer you. Check them out@yrefi.com that's yre f y.com and be sure to tell them that Riley Gaines sent you. Yeah, I love that. It was really so perfectly put. I imagine we'll hopefully see some similar points in your new book. It is called the Man Book, A Point by Point Guide to Sucking it up and Getting the Job Done. It has just dropped okay, tell us what made you decide to write this and who it's really for sure.
- [24:28]
C
I had a couple people ask me if I would consider writing a book. And a lot of it was based off kind of the I call it the what do I get stopped in an airport over. So if somebody sees me in an airport, they recognize me and they come up and they say, hey, I love your content. And then they elaborate. What I found was a lot of what they liked is some of it was the political, but the ones that a lot of the stuff that meant the most to me was when people would say, hey, you know, I love the argument that you made for Christianity, or I love the story you shared about walking your daughter down the aisle or how you and your wife, you know, argue and settle disputes while still remaining respectful and loving toward one another. And so I decided what I was going to do is, okay, I'm just going to write out like 50 or so things that I think is good for men to know. And these are things that I learned oftentimes the hard way. One of the things I try to emphasize in this book is I'm trying to live up to everything I talk about in this because I do believe there's a standard. I believe that standard is biblical masculinity. I believe that God has given us A template for how we as men are supposed to be strong, supposed to be capable, supposed to be honorable. But what for what isn't just to get everything that we want. It's so that we can serve God. It's so that we can be good men, good husbands, good fathers. And so I share a lot of stories and, and some of the stories are things I got right. A lot of the stories are things that I got wrong, but I learned from. And so I figured, well, you know, this would be kind of a good, you know, and somewhat humorous thing in there. You'll see. You know, there'll be a chapter there on how do you defend your faith intellectually. There'll be a chapter in there on how do you pick a good home defense weapon? Because I think men should be able to protect. How should you cook a steak? Because let's face it, if you cook a steak, well done. We need to have a talk. We need to have a serious talk about where you are in life right now and some of the decisions you've made. And then there's also chapters on how do you properly kick in a door? And every once in a while, people like, why do you need a chapter on that? Well, okay, from a. From a funny standpoint, because it looks cool, right. From a serious standpoint, I want you to imagine that you had to get your kid out of a house that was on fire and the door is locked, or there's something else and you need to get through that thing. Why? Want you to. I had to do it in Iraq. I want you to know how to, how to do it properly so you can look cool and you can protect the people that you care about. So it's kind of an eclectic look at the things that men should know to be good men.
- [26:49]
B
Yeah. But it's all encompassing and it's holistic. And of course, this is necessary for especially the younger generation, my generation, Gen Z, and I would argue urgent, quite frankly, because being 25 years old now, this is the point where they're finding their life partner, the person that's going to be the mother of their child. And women. Now, I truthfully believe, despite the online discourse, the videos that go viral, I think young women are desperately seeking for real men. And it sounds like a fantastic gift to get for someone who is graduating either high school or college. It's graduation season. So if you're listening to this, you know a young man in your life who is about to graduate, get them this book. I promise you it will be useful again. It is called the Man. Point by Point Guide to Sucking it up and Getting the Job Done. Nick, we appreciate you a whole bunch, Your service for this country and the legislature, and even now, still continuing to be a voice for common sense, which is. It's seemingly few and far between. So thank you very, very much.
- [27:57]
C
Well, and thank you, Riley, for displaying genuine courage, because courage is what you display when you have other options. And you could have chosen to sit down and be quiet and go along with the flow, but you chose to stand up for something, and it cost you. But I think in that process, you didn't just find your voice, you found your people. And I got to say, it's an honor to fight alongside you.
- [28:21]
B
Yeah, well, bring it on. There's more to fight.
- [28:23]
C
That's right.
- [28:24]
B
Well, thank you, Nick. Thank you guys for watching today's episode of the Riley Gaines Show. I hope you loved it, and if you did, make sure you subscribe. You can do that right here so you never miss an episode. We'll see you guys next week.