Speaker 1: So remember when CNN was reporting from Kenosha, Wisconsin, as
Speaker 1: the city was being burnt down after the shooting of
Speaker 1: Jacob Blake, who, by the way, it was a justified
Speaker 1: police shooting. But remember the chiron read fiery but mostly
Speaker 1: peaceful as buildings burnt in the background.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk to the author of.
Speaker 1: The book Fiery but mostly Peaceful about the breakdown of
Speaker 1: law and order in the country. He was at the
Speaker 1: front lines of these Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots.
Speaker 1: He followed them on the ground around the country. He's
Speaker 1: also been at the Southern border multiple times, reporting from
Speaker 1: there as well. And he's also a marine, so he
Speaker 1: has been on the front lines in multiple arenas. He
Speaker 1: recently testified before the House Homeland Security Committee. Listen to
Speaker 1: this exchange.
Speaker 3: You're trying to get us a gaslight us up here
Speaker 3: as if Antifa, which mister Rosas apparently the expert now
Speaker 3: in organized terrorist activity, has overruled the FBI director who
Speaker 3: says there's a headline says Antifa is an ideology, not
Speaker 3: an organization. No no, no, let's not listen to the
Speaker 3: FBI director. Let's listen to Sorry, what's your title, senior writer?
Speaker 3: At town Hall, who is going to tell us that
Speaker 3: the FBI director is wrong?
Speaker 4: And I'd like to induce.
Speaker 3: There's no question.
Speaker 4: I think it's funny to be lectured by an heir
Speaker 4: to the Levi Strauss corporation. And honestly, that's probably why
Speaker 4: he doesn't consider property damage to be that big of
Speaker 4: a deal, because not only does he have that, but
Speaker 4: he also has what some would describe an impossibly good
Speaker 4: stock portfolio. But what I can tell you is that
Speaker 4: in these riots that happened three years ago, they yes,
Speaker 4: big corporations did suffer damage in looting such as target
Speaker 4: that would happen in Minneapolis, but a lot of the businesses,
Speaker 4: they were small businesses. They didn't come from a multimillion
Speaker 4: dollar families or corporations.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about his experiences testifying before
Speaker 1: the committee about left wing violence in the country, and
Speaker 1: also just get his thoughts about the breakdown of law
Speaker 1: and order.
Speaker 2: Why is it happening, what has he seen.
Speaker 1: That's all from Julia roseas senior writer for town Hall
Speaker 1: and the author of Fiery but Mostly Peaceful. Stay with us, Julio,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you on my fellow Floridia and
Speaker 1: great to have you on the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's it's a great time to be down
Speaker 4: in Florida.
Speaker 1: It is the life, isn't it. And you left you
Speaker 1: were in the DC area right before.
Speaker 4: Yes, for six years. I'd say four years too many.
Speaker 5: I bet you don't miss it at all.
Speaker 4: No, no, not one. Well, I miss some of the people.
Speaker 4: I will, but overall I'm good with not going back
Speaker 4: for a while.
Speaker 5: You're at the border currently, correct, Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm currently in the Del Rio sector. The one
Speaker 4: of the reasons why that I'm here is because I'm
Speaker 4: speaking of Florida. Governor run DeSantis sent additional law enforcement
Speaker 4: and military personnel to help out the state of Texas
Speaker 4: to address the still ongoing border crisis. And for this region,
Speaker 4: the big problem, and this has been a systemic problem
Speaker 4: down here are the godaways, right. So this is the
Speaker 4: little bit harder to see aspect of the crisis because
Speaker 4: these people aren't necessarily the families, the kids who are
Speaker 4: willingly giving themselves up to border patrol. They are the
Speaker 4: ones who are actively, for one reason or another, trying
Speaker 4: to avoid apprehension and to get into United States one
Speaker 4: and say one hundred percent illegal as opposed to trying
Speaker 4: to you know, with the families and stuff, trying to
Speaker 4: go through the sound court process. So that that's been
Speaker 4: a big issue here for a long time, with going
Speaker 4: through the ranches, going through the countryside, which brings a
Speaker 4: whole host of problems for both the migrants and the
Speaker 4: and the Americans who live down here. And so I
Speaker 4: think it's pretty This is the second time actually that
Speaker 4: Florida has sent law enforcement and military personnel to the border.
Speaker 4: The first time, I believe was in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: near kind of the beginning of everything. So with everything
Speaker 4: that's still going on with this, Texas as great as
Speaker 4: it is, it's just one state and certainly could use
Speaker 4: the help to address this.
Speaker 1: We were told that what Trump was doing on the
Speaker 1: border was inhumane, you know, basically border enforcement was inhumane.
Speaker 1: But what's happening now is not humane. You know, what
Speaker 1: is happening now with you know, encouraging the sexual assaults
Speaker 1: that happen along the way, the amount of people who die,
Speaker 1: and then also it's not humane for Americans when we're
Speaker 1: letting criminals into the country, terrorists into the country.
Speaker 5: I mean, nothing about this is humane.
Speaker 6: No, And that's why I always take, I guess exception
Speaker 6: to people who have criticized, especially you know, particularly people
Speaker 6: in the left.
Speaker 4: People have criticized my reporting is always fear mongering or
Speaker 4: oh it's you know, racist even, and to me, it's like, no,
Speaker 4: Like the reason why I just personally I am against
Speaker 4: the illegal immigration is because I've seen the effects of it,
Speaker 4: and it's not pretty. I mean, I've seen people almost
Speaker 4: drown in the Rio Grande near Eagle Path. I've seen
Speaker 4: I saw women almost die of heat stroke or in
Speaker 4: Uma Arizona. I mean it gets I mean, this is
Speaker 4: we're getting in to the summer, but it's ninety for
Speaker 4: degrees right now. So whenever you're trying to avoid detection
Speaker 4: and not traveling legally, you're going to put yourself in
Speaker 4: a precarious situation. And that's on top of like you
Speaker 4: mentioned the rapes, the sexual assaults that happened to the
Speaker 4: I mean it happens to the women, happens to the kids,
Speaker 4: and yeah, even sometimes the men because because they can.
Speaker 4: The cartel, I mean, the people who do this, they
Speaker 4: do it because they can't. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 4: like the bonus for them on top of extorting them
Speaker 4: when I was in Alpaso for when Title forty two
Speaker 4: was going to expire. I went to a shelter and
Speaker 4: one of the director of communications or I'm sorry, director
Speaker 4: of marketing. She told me that about no less than
Speaker 4: eighty percent of the women who come to the shelter
Speaker 4: have been raped or sexually assaulted in some ways. One
Speaker 4: of the first things that a lot of them ask
Speaker 4: when they get there is for pregnancy tests, so it's
Speaker 4: it's and then the kids get separation anxiety. It takes
Speaker 4: like three or four days. I mean the kids come
Speaker 4: in shell shocked essentially. I mean they just kind of
Speaker 4: keep to themselves, and it takes three or four days
Speaker 4: for them to kind of acclimate to a safe environment
Speaker 4: and then it kind of start going back to start
Speaker 4: acting normally. So I mean, yeah, it's none of it
Speaker 4: has been humane, and it never illegal immigration ever will be.
Speaker 4: And so for the US government to have incentivized illegal
Speaker 4: immigration under this administration is just absolutely disgusting just from
Speaker 4: a humanitarian perspective. And sure, yes, a lot of these
Speaker 4: people have now who I've gotten in since twenty twenty one, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they might be living better lives, and that's that's a
Speaker 4: big GIF the cost that they had to pay for
Speaker 4: that is very is very high, and I just don't
Speaker 4: think that that's the way that a Christian should be done,
Speaker 4: you know, from from a just a human perspective.
Speaker 1: Well, and of course it's you know, not fair for
Speaker 1: Americans either of having to deal with an an influx
Speaker 1: of people. You know, it's not fair for them when
Speaker 1: we already are having so many problems here in the
Speaker 1: United States. You had mentioned the key word the Biden
Speaker 1: administration incentivizing this. Why do you think the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is incentivizing this?
Speaker 4: I think so one, it's just to be the anti
Speaker 4: Trump person, right, I mean, that's what he campaigned on.
Speaker 4: He said, you know, we're not going to build one
Speaker 4: more We're not going to build one more foot of
Speaker 4: the wall. We're going to try it. We're going to
Speaker 4: halt deportations for one hundred days. We're going to give
Speaker 4: everyone for your health care and everything. So it was
Speaker 4: I think it was just the classic reflexive response to
Speaker 4: just try just be the opposite of Trump. It doesn't
Speaker 4: matter what it is, it just whatever he was doing,
Speaker 4: just go the opposite because that's what the voters want.
Speaker 4: But that's but then you know, they have access to
Speaker 4: all this intelligence. They have access to all of this
Speaker 4: things that are much more stuff that we even we
Speaker 4: don't know at a reporting level. Right, they have all
Speaker 4: the human sources intelligence, they have all the assets and everything.
Speaker 4: So they're they're acutely aware that this isn't the right
Speaker 4: way for people to be coming to the United States
Speaker 4: in terms of again like what happens to them and so,
Speaker 4: but and yet and yet they still went ahead and
Speaker 4: you know, try to say, well, Republicans are the ones
Speaker 4: that are to blame for this. It's still Trump's fault,
Speaker 4: which is just absolutely insane, like to hear them say that.
Speaker 4: And so but they're doing it because they see a
Speaker 4: political benefit, right They they see the risk of having
Speaker 4: the Homeland Security secretary being impeached, They see the you know,
Speaker 4: the I mean, this has been one of the worst
Speaker 4: polling issues Biden has pulled at its border and immigration
Speaker 4: since since he's been in office. It's been one of
Speaker 4: his worst. I mean, the economy is still kind of
Speaker 4: number one because obviously that affects everybody, doesn't matter if
Speaker 4: you're an a border say or not. But so, so
Speaker 4: they're willing to weather this because they see a political benefit.
Speaker 4: What that political benefit is, I mean, you kind of
Speaker 4: have carefully to bring it up, but they think that
Speaker 4: there's a new voting block here because if they can
Speaker 4: fast track all these people and give them asylum and
Speaker 4: then give them citizenship, then maybe, you know, because because
Speaker 4: outside of that, I don't, I don't know what the
Speaker 4: answer is, right because again, they they know how bad
Speaker 4: it is, and yet there's they still want to move
Speaker 4: ahead and do it. And so of course with the politics,
Speaker 4: it's all about not getting elected and it's all about
Speaker 4: keeping that power. So that's for me, that's the only
Speaker 4: logical explanation and that and maybe you know, maybe bribery,
Speaker 4: but I don't have evidence for that, so I'm not
Speaker 4: going to list that as a reason, but just logically
Speaker 4: that that's the only thing that I can really.
Speaker 5: Come up with that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And of course it's cruel for border patrol agents because
Speaker 1: you know, we're putting them in an impossible situation. So
Speaker 1: it's sad for them and their families as well.
Speaker 4: And that's one thing that I mean, I've spoken to
Speaker 4: a lot of border patrol agents since this all started,
Speaker 4: and they they it's similar to I mean, just law
Speaker 4: enforcement in general in this country has just taken such
Speaker 4: a brutal beating these past three years. With the border,
Speaker 4: it's obviously a different reason, but it's still the same.
Speaker 4: It's still the same end where you have a lot
Speaker 4: of agents leaving. We had the most suicides within Customs
Speaker 4: and Border Protection last year then since two thousand and nine,
Speaker 4: I think I think it was fourteen, if I'm remembering correctly.
Speaker 4: So they're just demoralized because they they're not able to
Speaker 4: fully do their job. And so, you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of these guys have worked under multiple administrations. A lot
Speaker 4: of these guys know what works right, and so when
Speaker 4: you when they are unable to do that, of course,
Speaker 4: of course they're going to be demoralized. And so so
Speaker 4: that's that's why we've had so many leaks come from
Speaker 4: Borbitual because they're so frustrated and they can't really speak
Speaker 4: out publicly, and so they talk to guys like me
Speaker 4: b millusion Ali Bradley because they are seeing this every
Speaker 4: single day and they want to get the message out
Speaker 4: to the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: Well, and you've covered a lot of these big law
Speaker 1: enforcement issues which have been you know, really at the
Speaker 1: forefront of the country, whether it's at the border, which
Speaker 1: you know you're there now, or it's these riots that
Speaker 1: you know you covered in the summer of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: You've covered a lot of these big issues for town hall,
Speaker 1: and you recently testified before Congress. They believe it is
Speaker 1: the Homeland Security Committee. You know, talk about that hearing,
Speaker 1: the purpose of it, and what your message was that day.
Speaker 4: The hearing was basically to highlight the fact that, yes,
Speaker 4: there's been violence portrated from people in the far right,
Speaker 4: but there has been also plenty of violence being perpetrated
Speaker 4: on the far left. And it was to talk about, look,
Speaker 4: this is what has been happening in the country. And
Speaker 4: what I said is that, you know, if things don't change,
Speaker 4: I think if the judicial system and law enforcement agencies
Speaker 4: are not looking at the far left like they have
Speaker 4: been looking at the far right, and to them, far
Speaker 4: right has been parents at school board meetings and like
Speaker 4: actually peaceful pro life protesters, right, if they're not actually
Speaker 4: trying to take down these these Antifa cells, these you know,
Speaker 4: agitating cells that were that I that I saw in
Speaker 4: action three years ago, things like the twenty twenty four
Speaker 4: presidential election outcome, because like let's say President Trump wins again.
Speaker 4: I mean, I expect to be as busy, if not
Speaker 4: more busy, covering that those type of events again, just
Speaker 4: like I was. I was busy in twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: so that was my message. My message was I saw
Speaker 4: a lot of violence in twenty twenty and a little
Speaker 4: bit into twenty twenty one, being front by people who
Speaker 4: were or Black Lives Matter ANTIFA types, and it's a
Speaker 4: big problem and it can happen again. And so when when,
Speaker 4: I mean even today, uh, Congresswoman Jayapaul from Washington today
Speaker 4: with the whole debt ceiling negotiation, she said that if
Speaker 4: if the Biden administration agrees to spending cuts, there's gonna
Speaker 4: be backlash in the streets. Now, I don't really I
Speaker 4: don't really expect that because I don't think that, you know,
Speaker 4: when it comes to debt ceiling, and you know, I
Speaker 4: don't think a lot of people are gonna be so
Speaker 4: up and arms about that. Maybe I don't know who knows,
Speaker 4: but the fact that she's able to say that and
Speaker 4: does not really think that that would be like an
Speaker 4: incitement of violence, because I mean, if Trump said that,
Speaker 4: it be it would be a complete meltdown, right, you know,
Speaker 4: if I don't get my way, there's there's gonna be
Speaker 4: backlash in the streets. So but so the left constantly
Speaker 4: is able to get away with it because of the
Speaker 4: lopsidedness of anarcho tyranny that I mean, it's just insane
Speaker 4: to see it play out in the country since twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: But it's a big problem, and there's I don't know
Speaker 4: how many different ways to say it other than antifas real.
Speaker 4: They were violent and they can be violent again.
Speaker 1: When you wrote a book about it, fiery but mostly peaceful.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty riots and the gas lighting of America
Speaker 1: obviously off of you know that CNN, the infamous CNN
Speaker 1: report with the chiron reading fiery but mostly peaceful. As
Speaker 1: you know, a building was engulfed in flames behind the reporter,
Speaker 1: just the outright lying to us that the media did
Speaker 1: what actually happened, which it's a beautiful name, that's just perfect,
Speaker 1: but what actually happened from what you saw. Obviously the
Speaker 1: media didn't give us or the mainstream media didn't give
Speaker 1: us the story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, CNN's not great, but they gave him
Speaker 4: the title of my books. So I can't. It can't
Speaker 4: be too harsh on them. I suppose no.
Speaker 5: But I mean, so thank you CNN for that one,
Speaker 5: the one.
Speaker 4: Helpful thing they did, so I think. So that was
Speaker 4: in Kenosha. That was in Knosh, and I really I
Speaker 4: feel so bad for Kenosha. It's it's a it's your
Speaker 4: typical blue collar Midwestern town that has been forgotten with
Speaker 4: this you know, globalization of the economy. So they're already
Speaker 4: kind of down on their luck in some ways. They
Speaker 4: the whole riot was started over this this police shooting
Speaker 4: by Jacob Blake and there was a seven to ten
Speaker 4: second video that went viral, you know, him getting shot
Speaker 4: in the back seven times. And I mean, and so
Speaker 4: we're already, you know, fresh off at George Floyd. There's
Speaker 4: been the more riots that have happened. I mean, Portland
Speaker 4: was kind of the place to be. I mean, I
Speaker 4: was there in July covering those rights at the Federal courthouse,
Speaker 4: and so this was now August and this happens, and
Speaker 4: the video just spreads like wildfire. And I was still
Speaker 4: in DC and so right away I saw that video
Speaker 4: on Sunday evening and I emailed my boss at the
Speaker 4: town hall. I said, hey, we need I need to
Speaker 4: get there. This is a small town between Milwaukee and Chicago.
Speaker 4: They are not going to be ready for what's coming.
Speaker 4: And on behold of that, very night, things got out
Speaker 4: of control. And so the reason and it stayed out
Speaker 4: of control for the next few days. And then of
Speaker 4: course the whole Kyle written house situation was born out
Speaker 4: of that chaos and and and so the reason why
Speaker 4: I like to talk about Kenosha a lot and then
Speaker 4: and then you know, the scene A Kiron was from
Speaker 4: was from Kenosha is because that riot happened because of
Speaker 4: a justified police action. This wasn't just that these weren't
Speaker 4: just cops spreading around and saying, oh, let's just shoot
Speaker 4: this black guy that we just randomly see. No, it
Speaker 4: was the mother of the children who were in the
Speaker 4: backseat of the suv had called the police because he
Speaker 4: was violating the restraining order she had out against him,
Speaker 4: or protective order they had out against him for sexual assault. Uh,
Speaker 4: he was in the process of kidnapping her kids, taking
Speaker 4: away her kids, and he was on with a knife.
Speaker 4: And so but of course you know that that took
Speaker 4: time to figure out. But in that time, fifty at
Speaker 4: least fifty million dollars of damage was done. Some businesses
Speaker 4: were closed primarily, others relocated out of where they were destroyed.
Speaker 4: And then, like I said, you know, the whole Kyle
Speaker 4: Rittenhouse situation was born. And yeah, he shot in self defense,
Speaker 4: but I mean that was just like another kind of
Speaker 4: splinter off that caused you know, another big, great debate
Speaker 4: in the country. And so I'm not saying it could
Speaker 4: have been totally avoided, but it's just that because of
Speaker 4: the environment that we were in where just constant we're
Speaker 4: just going to react first and find out later, a
Speaker 4: lot of bad things can happen. And so when you
Speaker 4: look at the broader picture of you know, when we
Speaker 4: talk about January sixth, and people like to view those
Speaker 4: two two separate things, and they are because you know,
Speaker 4: they happened differently in different ways, but they were still
Speaker 4: the same. It was still the same tangent. Because people
Speaker 4: who wanted to be violent that day saw how people
Speaker 4: on the left were violent for months on end with
Speaker 4: very little repercussions. So of course they're and I'm not
Speaker 4: defending them, but I'm just saying that their logic was, well,
Speaker 4: if they can do it, so can we. And so
Speaker 4: that's why it's dangerous to allow lawlessness to be pervasive
Speaker 4: for so long, because it's not going to always be
Speaker 4: just one side doing it. Obviously, the left was the
Speaker 4: predominant one for twenty twenty, but then January sixth happened,
Speaker 4: and then of course now that's where democrats, that's the
Speaker 4: only thing they want to talk about. But it's this
Speaker 4: kind of it's just this escalation that has now kind
Speaker 4: of simmered. But in my time since then covering crime
Speaker 4: and place like Chicago and in Philadelphia and all these
Speaker 4: other places, the anger is still very palpable, and the
Speaker 4: chaos is it's a low intensity chaos, but people's quality
Speaker 4: of life are still largely are still very much affected
Speaker 4: by what happened three years ago. Because now police forces
Speaker 4: are chronically understaffed, the criminal element, the regular criminal element,
Speaker 4: is more emboldened than ever. I mean, it's insane what
Speaker 4: people are able to just get away with. And it's
Speaker 4: because just this it's just like this apathy. It's a
Speaker 4: small laize that has infected so many of our cities
Speaker 4: where now where all it takes is like in Chicago
Speaker 4: a few weeks ago, all it takes is it to
Speaker 4: be a nice, warm spring day for people to just
Speaker 4: go crazy and have a riot in the heart of
Speaker 4: the downtown. I'm from the Chicago area, I mean the Loop.
Speaker 4: The Loop is historically was always the safest place, and
Speaker 4: now that's no longer the case. So it's all connected
Speaker 4: and we're still dealing with the effects, and we will
Speaker 4: continue to deal with the effects until major changes are made.
Speaker 4: I just don't I just don't see that happening.
Speaker 2: Quick commercial break more with Julio.
Speaker 1: We've reached this point where the left has come to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that you know, you had mentioned a blake
Speaker 1: and ad justified police shooting. We've reached this point where
Speaker 1: to the left, in their eyes, criminals are victims. And
Speaker 1: then if you dare to defend yourself like Daniel Penny did,
Speaker 1: he's the criminal. How did we get here in this
Speaker 1: you know, upside down scenario.
Speaker 4: We got here partly because I mean, the left is
Speaker 4: very good at using the the racism label, because I mean, look,
Speaker 4: I mean from from the time I was little, right,
Speaker 4: we were taught to not be racist, and because obviously
Speaker 4: you know, there's no there's no reason to and so
Speaker 4: but but the problem is that that's been weaponized, and so
Speaker 4: right with with Daniel Penny in that whole case, there's
Speaker 4: there's no there was no indication for racism to have
Speaker 4: played a part in that, and there still isn't. And
Speaker 4: yet it has been used again by the same hustlers
Speaker 4: race hustlers as another example of oh, even though this
Speaker 4: wasn't a cop, you know, this was still a white
Speaker 4: guy taking down a black guy for no reason, which
Speaker 4: of course that's that's not the case at all, and
Speaker 4: you know, the video that was taken shows that, and
Speaker 4: the eyewitnesses say that's not what happened. And also the
Speaker 4: fact that it wasn't just Daniel Penny, it was two
Speaker 4: other people, one of them was black who was restraining neely.
Speaker 4: So we we got here because it's kind of the
Speaker 4: the ultimate culmination of things like critical race theory and
Speaker 4: and wokeness, where it's it races the end all be all,
Speaker 4: and that's the only thing that matters, and we have
Speaker 4: to do these very radical steps and policies to try
Speaker 4: to atone for these things that happened a long time ago,
Speaker 4: even though it doesn't even make any sense, and even
Speaker 4: though people who end up betting hurt by those same
Speaker 4: policies are minorities. I mean, the minority communities within cities
Speaker 4: are being plagued by crime right And as I said
Speaker 4: during my testimony and Capitol Hill, statistically, if I'm in Washington,
Speaker 4: d C. Or Chicago or Philadelphia or New York City,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be attacked, shot or car checked
Speaker 4: by a white supremacist in a maga hat. I mean
Speaker 4: that that's I mean, look, anything can happen, but statistically
Speaker 4: that's not the day to day threats that people are facing,
Speaker 4: especially the minority communities. So we're here because it's people
Speaker 4: just people lost. People really just lost their mind in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty between COVID, the riots, and the presidential election.
Speaker 4: And I that's why I don't see that there's a
Speaker 4: really easy way back to that because it just affected
Speaker 4: so many parts of our lives today, for some for better,
Speaker 4: but mostly for worse. So I'm just I'm really concerned
Speaker 4: about where this country is headed. And I always happened.
Speaker 1: I was thinking when you mentioned the maga hat that
Speaker 1: they're not going to be attacked by a white supremaci
Speaker 1: in the maga hat. I thought of unless you're j
Speaker 1: Just Smollett.
Speaker 4: But it's at three am in the middle of them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that makes a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly why you know, all of this gets to
Speaker 1: this desire and encouraging of lawlessness. And why do you
Speaker 1: think the left desires and encourages lawlessness.
Speaker 4: I think it's just because it's also dealing with the
Speaker 4: fact that they hate the United States as it is.
Speaker 4: And of course, you know, the United States is not
Speaker 4: perfect it never will be. However, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 4: still still one of the better places to live. I mean,
Speaker 4: the whole reason why I have a border crisis is
Speaker 4: because a lot of people want to get in right,
Speaker 4: they want to cut the line. But because it speaks
Speaker 4: to just the fact that a lot of the people
Speaker 4: who are you know, they say that, you know, the
Speaker 4: United States as a whole is irredeemable, and so therefore
Speaker 4: it's kind of we have to just smash everything and
Speaker 4: start completely from scratching these radical ways. And so I
Speaker 4: think they view this as a perfect way to try
Speaker 4: to again and map this sort of because with the
Speaker 4: whole Neely situation, you know, this guy had been arrested
Speaker 4: forty times, and he was mentally unstable, he was violent,
Speaker 4: and yet he was still out on the street. He
Speaker 4: should have been institutionalized, but that didn't happen, and so
Speaker 4: then this whole situation happened. And now the left is saying, aha,
Speaker 4: see because of this, we now need to do X,
Speaker 4: Y and Z. It's like, well, well, hold on, hold on,
Speaker 4: like let's take a step back, like like why why
Speaker 4: did that happen? And and and why was that allowed
Speaker 4: to happen? Because in some ways it was but he
Speaker 4: was failed by people who should have known better, especially
Speaker 4: I mean also his family apparently now was showing up
Speaker 4: even though they didn't show up for him when he
Speaker 4: needed it most. Right, So I think it's because they
Speaker 4: use it to their advantage, right, I mean, rom Man,
Speaker 4: you will let of crisis go to waste the rights
Speaker 4: prove that. The COVID proved that because you know, they
Speaker 4: were able to make so many sweeping changes and you know,
Speaker 4: increases in authority. I mean, you have the CDC halting evictions,
Speaker 4: which is like, you're the CDC, where do you get
Speaker 4: that kind of power? Well, it's COVID, so we have
Speaker 4: it. It's like, well, so I think it's just they want
Speaker 4: to radically transform the United States, including like the criminal
Speaker 4: justice system because again it's systemic and racist, so we
Speaker 4: have to and so we're going to do it this way.
Speaker 4: And so by allowing, you know, people having to be
Speaker 4: put in situations that maybe they shouldn't be in, you're
Speaker 4: going to force these issues. And then they're going to
Speaker 4: take that and run with it, because like, aha, thee racism.
Speaker 1: The only place I would disagree with you is which
Speaker 1: I don't think you're making the direct correlation is just
Speaker 1: with January sixth. Obviously, we're learning more and more about
Speaker 1: the FBI's involvement and potentially orchestrating it and then also
Speaker 1: being there that day, and then we know that the
Speaker 1: FBI intentionally manipulated that data relating to January six to
Speaker 1: paint the picture that domestic terrorism is on the rise
Speaker 1: so they can then spy on more American citizens. And
Speaker 1: we also know recently that the FBI abused their spy
Speaker 1: powers to target the folks involved in January sixth, So
Speaker 1: that would be my to our knowledge, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know the FBI was involved in anything with the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Summer riot, so that would be my only
Speaker 1: but I know that you weren't making that direct comparison,
Speaker 1: But that would be the only thing I would add
Speaker 1: to that about you know, some of the stuff we're
Speaker 1: finding out about the FBI.
Speaker 7: January sixth was just the weirdest ride I had ever covered, right,
Speaker 7: I've covered many and more importantly, January sixth was preventable.
Speaker 7: It's the fact that the Capitol police were so ill
Speaker 7: prepared and the fact that Democrats don't want to ask
Speaker 7: why they were, because again, we're coming off this whole
Speaker 7: season of violence and everyone knew how you know, passionate
Speaker 7: people felt about the twenty twenty election, and so like,
Speaker 7: you wouldn't think you'd be better prepared for crowd control. Instead,
Speaker 7: you're going to run the same playbook of having officers
Speaker 7: in non riot gear behind the easily movable bike racked barricades.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's just from my perspective, it doesn't it
Speaker 7: doesn't make sense. So yeah, no, like, there's a lot
Speaker 7: of weird things about January sixth, for sure, And I'm
Speaker 7: glad you brought that up because I.
Speaker 4: Mean, even I was in the rotunda, that's as far
Speaker 4: as I got in during during that day, and you know,
Speaker 4: a lot, I'm assuming a lot of people didn't even
Speaker 4: want anticipate getting that far. But also too, they weren't
Speaker 4: acting like normal writers in the sense because you know,
Speaker 4: the rotundas are very beautiful part of the of the building.
Speaker 4: That's one of the you know parts where they take tours,
Speaker 4: and so people were just like taking photos of the
Speaker 4: paintings and the statues inside, and you know, taking pictures
Speaker 4: of the of the dome, you know, the inside it.
Speaker 4: In my colleague Rich McGinness, he found two guys smoking
Speaker 4: weedi inside of the rotunda. So it's just like, it
Speaker 4: was like, that's not I mean, in my turn, that's
Speaker 4: just not typical riot or behavior. And actually a colleague
Speaker 4: of mine pointed out, like, you know, if this was
Speaker 4: like Antifa who had done this, they'd be they'd be
Speaker 4: setting things on fire, they'd be tearing out the paintings,
Speaker 4: they'd be like bashing the statues. I'm like, actually, you're right.
Speaker 4: And again that's not to say there wasn't violence. It was,
Speaker 4: but it's just that that was just one of the
Speaker 4: weird things about about that day and looking and I
Speaker 4: was trying to like recount that, you know, as as
Speaker 4: the days went on, I'm i was thinking like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that's kind of weird, like why why did that
Speaker 4: play out the way it did?
Speaker 1: What do you think actually happened that day? Having been there?
Speaker 1: And then also with some of this other stuff we're learning,
Speaker 1: what does your gut tell you, what does your research
Speaker 1: tell you?
Speaker 4: There was definitely provocates inside the crowd because here's the
Speaker 4: thing about Antifa, they are very good at what they'd
Speaker 4: do in terms of hiding their identity, trying to prevent
Speaker 4: people from recording their destructive because of course, if you're
Speaker 4: going to you know, do that and you have you know,
Speaker 4: you have your face identifiable, then police are going to
Speaker 4: come after you. Well, you know, maybe not in Portland,
Speaker 4: but that's that's that's that's what it's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4: So again with with I mean, a lot of the
Speaker 4: people that I saw inside the building, you know, they
Speaker 4: were they weren't wearing masks. They they were live streaming
Speaker 4: on their personal you know, social media pages and and
Speaker 4: I didn't know this until afterwards, but but from what
Speaker 4: I saw, the people who were trying to get in
Speaker 4: were like trying to break in. But we also know
Speaker 4: that a large number of people were also let in
Speaker 4: by the Capital waize they opened the door for them,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people just you know, kind of
Speaker 4: filed in through there. So it's just like what again,
Speaker 4: But you have all this going on, and so you're
Speaker 4: like who gave the order or whose decision it was
Speaker 4: to just open the door again, it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of people who ended up
Speaker 4: in the capital didn't anticipate getting as far as they did.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the first, one of the first
Speaker 4: people who were who was convicted of a felony in
Speaker 4: the aftermath by the you know, charged by DJ and
Speaker 4: all that he wasn't he was. He was charged with
Speaker 4: just trespassing because he he he made it to the
Speaker 4: Senate chamber, so he walked in the Senate chamber and
Speaker 4: then he walked out. I mean, so he wasn't accused
Speaker 4: of committing any violence. He wasn't accused of attacking any
Speaker 4: police officers. The only thing that he was charged with
Speaker 4: was basically trespassing on federal property. But the DJ wanted
Speaker 4: to throw terrorism, like he said, we need the full
Speaker 4: maximum sentence because this was a terrorist at terrorism YadA
Speaker 4: ya YadA. The guy said he was sorry and all that.
Speaker 4: So it's like why, like why would that happen, right,
Speaker 4: and so, and then we look at the video that
Speaker 4: Tucker had had put out. Again that just doesn't make
Speaker 4: sense with Jacob Chansley and kind of narrative that was
Speaker 4: built around him. And so again I'm not trying to
Speaker 4: excuse bad behavior, but when I look at the riots,
Speaker 4: I saw important and the local DSADA office dropped eighty
Speaker 4: percent of the cases that was brought to them during
Speaker 4: that time period. It's just like, it doesn't make any
Speaker 4: either we have an equal justice system or we don't.
Speaker 4: And it's clear what these just just those two examples
Speaker 4: is that we really don't.
Speaker 1: Well we definitely don't at this moment, but we need
Speaker 1: to get it back or we're going to lose our
Speaker 1: country because you know, you can't have a constitutional republic
Speaker 1: when you have an unequal application of the law.
Speaker 5: Just doesn't add up. You're a marine.
Speaker 1: Do you think being a marine, do you think that's
Speaker 1: prepared you for all this coverage? And you know, I
Speaker 1: mean you've really been on the front lines of so
Speaker 1: many important issues in the country.
Speaker 5: Do you think that prepared you for it?
Speaker 4: In some ways? Yeah, obviously there are two different jobs,
Speaker 4: but I mean, just the key is to just remain
Speaker 4: you know, slowest smooth, smooth as fast, because it's very
Speaker 4: easy to be kind of caught up in the moment
Speaker 4: in terms of about with your adrenaline rushing. Things are going,
Speaker 4: things are happening, there's steer guests, there's fireworks, id's or
Speaker 4: you know whatever, things are going off. And so my
Speaker 4: job is in those situations is to one just gathered video,
Speaker 4: you know, get it on video, because that's king for
Speaker 4: right now. And now. Of course AI might have something
Speaker 4: to say about that, but it's obviously you have to
Speaker 4: be able to maintain your cool. And I think I
Speaker 4: definitely think my Marine Corp background helped me with that.
Speaker 4: Although I often joke that I saw more action in
Speaker 4: my capacity as a journalist than as a marine because
Speaker 4: I never deployed. I was just in for for six years.
Speaker 4: But I think it for sure helped me get into
Speaker 4: the mindset of facing adversity. And a common saying that
Speaker 4: we have is you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: And so you know, these were twelve thirteen, fourteen hour
Speaker 4: days with with my plate carrier, my backpack, helmet, gas mask,
Speaker 4: and so it was it was it was grueling. I
Speaker 4: mean it was grueling work and I was happy to
Speaker 4: do it, but I was you know, I'm just exact Austin.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day, and depending on what
Speaker 4: was happening, it's like, Okay, we're gonna have to start
Speaker 4: all over again. And you know, of course it's you know,
Speaker 4: you can cry about it later or whatever, but you know,
Speaker 4: there's there's there's a job that needs to be done,
Speaker 4: and you know people are counting on you to do
Speaker 4: it well. And so that that kind of ethos and
Speaker 4: that kind of work ethic that the Marine Corps is
Speaker 4: stilled in me definitely helped me out in that regard.
Speaker 1: Well, Leo Rosas, you're doing great work. Senior writer for
Speaker 1: town Hall, author of Fiery but Mostly Peaceful. Everyone go
Speaker 1: check that out. Appreciate you taking the time to join
Speaker 1: the show and just talk about some of the experiences
Speaker 1: that you've had on so many of these important issues
Speaker 1: to the people at home.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So that was Julia rose Us with town Hall. He's
Speaker 1: a senior writer for town Hall, also the author of
Speaker 1: Fiery but Mostly Peaceful. Amazing name for a book. Great
Speaker 1: conversation with him. Appreciate him taking the time to join
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you for listening to the show. I
Speaker 1: want to thank John Cassio as well, my producer, for
Speaker 1: putting this together. As always every Monday and Thursday, but
Speaker 1: you can listen throughout the week. Feel free to leave
Speaker 1: us a review on Apple Podcasts. I love reading those
Speaker 1: and seeing the ratings. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Take care,