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0:50
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:54
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:56
Let's get into it.
0:57
All right, guys.
0:58
You've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:59
His name is Nick Freitas, so he is a YouTuber and social media influencer.
1:03
So if you know this guy, you know him because he's normally talking at like a 45 degree
1:07
angle away from the camera.
1:08
And then at the end of his statement that he makes, he has a nice little cup of coffee.
1:11
So for some of you guys, you know exactly what I'm talking about now, but also he's
1:15
a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates and a retired green beret.
1:19
The thing about his YouTube channel, he has over a million subscribers and he also hosts
1:23
the Making the Argument Podcast.
1:25
This guy is, he's a fire brand and he, he's very similar to me in that we find the subject
1:32
that we're passionate about.
1:33
We make sure that we're well versed and well researched on it, but then we give you our
1:36
full throw to opinion as to what we think you should do and how we think you should think
1:40
and how we think you should comport yourself moving forward.
1:42
And so I didn't really do a whole lot of prep for this episode because I'm like, you
1:45
know what, I'm just going to put some, you know, random subject matters on my, on my
1:49
notes and then we're just going to weave in and out.
1:51
And so that's essentially what we did.
1:52
So I talked to him about the coffee mug thing, like where did that whole thing come from?
1:55
I talked to him about why he joined the military, why he ended up going into the army, why he
1:59
ended up going to Special Forces Green Barrese.
2:02
And then also I talked to him about, okay, let's say you were 18 years old in 2025.
2:06
What would you do in terms of joining the military in its current state with kind of
2:10
the DEI and the wokeness inside and he had a very, very interesting answer to that?
2:14
But then we started talking about a lot of different subjects.
2:16
I'm not going to be able to remember them all, but we were talking about the southern border.
2:19
We were talking about the different terrorist threats that we're seeing inside of our own
2:23
country and how we're able to be prepared for a lot of those things.
2:26
And so we talked about, you know, the mandate that was coming from the American public that
2:31
said, look, we're tired of this administration.
2:33
We're tired of the way that things are going.
2:34
So we're giving the Republicans and Donald Trump at the helm a mandate here.
2:38
And so we talked a lot about kind of those first 100 days, what can Trump get done immediately,
2:43
but then maybe in that first year, what can he get done?
2:45
And then really at the two year mark, because that's the only time you're guaranteed to have
2:48
the White House and the Senate and the House of Representatives.
2:51
And so what can you do in that period of time that sets us up for the future in a very positive
2:55
and healthy way?
2:56
But then we transitioned later on this about an hour and a half long interview or so, but
3:01
maybe about an hour in or so we transitioned into talking about masculinity and manhood
3:05
and specifically inside the church in Christianity.
3:08
And that's where, you know, I enjoyed the first hour, but I really love the last 30 minutes
3:11
because we're getting the stuff that's kind of my neck of the woods, my bread and butter.
3:15
We talked about the, you know, how a lot of Christians are, they're really tender, but
3:19
they don't really have the tough part and where do they get those ideas and how is that
3:23
being modeled and how a lot of Christian men don't really focus on being dangerous and
3:27
how that's a really bad idea.
3:28
And at the end, we wrapped up by talking about what it means to be a father, two sons and
3:32
a father, two daughters and what do you model for them and how do we do writes a passage?
3:35
Guys, I really, really enjoyed this.
3:37
So this is a great way to kick off some of the interviews here getting into 2025.
3:41
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
3:45
Nick Freitas, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
3:47
No, thanks very much for having a man excited to be here.
3:50
I am pumped.
3:51
We both have some in years, some new in years going on right now.
3:54
So if you guys go on YouTube, see us messing with our ears, that's what's going on.
3:57
But I guess, you know, there's a lot of things that you and I talked about off air and, you
4:01
know, we can connect and there's a lot of serious topics.
4:03
But there's one topic that I want to start with, which is probably more serious than
4:06
anything that we're going to discuss today.
4:08
And it's this question.
4:09
How many coffee mugs do you own?
4:13
Like, is it like a few?
4:15
Is it like, you know, it's, it's pretty, it's, it's a pretty expansive collection.
4:19
And it keeps expanding because now that's, that's the favorite thing for people to send me.
4:23
And, and no, people, someone just sent someone just sent me a mug actually from
4:27
California.
4:28
It says, think while it's still legal and good plan.
4:33
Yeah, yeah.
4:34
Everyone's well, though.
4:34
People will send me one.
4:35
I'm like, yeah, I kind of got a family friendly show and a while I appreciate the
4:40
humor.
4:41
Yeah.
4:42
Yeah.
4:42
Hey, I totally get.
4:42
I'm, I'm rocking this one by field craft survival.
4:45
So shout out to my Glover, uh, you know, SF community and whatnot.
4:48
So we're going to get into the real thing today.
4:50
But I guess on the coffee mug thing, where did that start?
4:53
Because if I'm like, Hey, I'm, I'm talking to Nick Freitas today.
4:55
They're like, wait, who is that?
4:57
And then I'm like, Oh, it's the guy that stands at a 45 degree angle and says really
5:00
pithy things and then drinking.
5:01
They're like, Oh, yeah.
5:01
I totally know that guy's like, where did that come from?
5:04
So it's, it's fun.
5:05
I get the same thing in airports.
5:07
Someone will come up and be like, are, are you the, the coffee mug guy?
5:10
Yeah.
5:11
Yeah.
5:11
Yeah, that's coffee mugging, um, totally by accident.
5:14
That's how it started.
5:15
I was out on my, uh, I was on my porch one day and something showed up in my feed or
5:20
the news or whatnot.
5:21
I can't even remember what it was.
5:22
But I was kind of being my, my typical smart allocate self.
5:27
And so I, I made some little comments and then took a sip of my coffee.
5:31
I was kind of like that Kermit, the frog meme or whatever.
5:34
And, um, and so I did it like one or two times.
5:37
It's just kind of a, cause I was out on the front porch drinking coffee.
5:41
Right.
5:41
It was, it was just, it just happened to coincide.
5:44
And then I, I did the same thing on something else.
5:48
And I, and in the comments, it started loading up like, dude, where's the coffee mug?
5:52
Man, where's the coffee mug?
5:53
Hey, it just doesn't hit the same without the coffee mug.
5:55
And so I was like, okay, I'll, I'll share.
5:57
I'll play along.
5:58
This is, this give the people what they want.
6:00
Right.
6:00
And, um, then flash forward like two years.
6:05
And now I've got like 60 coffee mugs and people send me coffee mugs.
6:08
And I've got coffee mugs for different occasions.
6:11
And then it was, Hey, in fact, Sean Ryan, Sean Ryan was like, dude, are you selling coffee mugs yet?
6:17
I was like, no, because, Oh my gosh, what are you thinking?
6:20
Right.
6:20
Like I had good points.
6:21
So, so now we sell coffee mugs, which means we come up with more coffee mug ideas.
6:25
And, and so it's, it's, it's become a thing.
6:28
And, and, um, it's funny.
6:30
Every once while somebody will be like, you know, what's with the coffee mug?
6:33
I'm like, are you new here?
6:34
This is, this is a four year thing now, dude, or three year thing.
6:38
So that's how it started.
6:39
It's kind of like when people tune into my show and they're like, what's with all the anger?
6:43
And I'm like, do you see my face?
6:44
Like, look at this.
6:45
Like, how could I just be normal?
6:46
I have a red beard.
6:47
I'm a ginger.
6:48
Like I'm a walking recess to gene.
6:50
That's why that's why.
6:51
But hey, we're going to cover a lot of topics today.
6:53
Uh, you know, a lot of stuff that's kind of going on, even new cycle stuff to what's happening right now.
6:58
But anytime I have someone on my show that raised their right hand at some point.
7:01
So they were going to protect this country from enemies, foreign and domestic.
7:05
I always like to know why, because I grew up in Lawton, Fort Sill, and so I was around a lot of that.
7:09
But I went a different track out of scholarship to go to school.
7:11
And so I didn't end up going the military route.
7:13
But for you, why the military, why the army and why eventually SF.
7:17
So, um, the, the, the military was something that, you know, my, my grandfather served in the Navy and World War two.
7:23
And like ran away from home at 16 and joined the, or threatened to run away from home.
7:28
And so his father signed the paperwork.
7:29
Um, my dad had been law enforcement.
7:33
And I had always been really interested in military history.
7:35
I got really, uh, you know, I remember when I saw the Ken Burns Civil War documentary when I was like, you know, 11 or 12.
7:41
And I just, I thought it was fascinating.
7:43
And so, um, so I wanted to serve in the military specifically.
7:47
I wanted to go to West Point, me and me and a buddy of mine, Pat Calloran, we're both going to go to West Point together.
7:52
And he is just incredibly intelligent, great guy, very diligent student.
7:58
And I have other talents. So, so I always tease people that my military career started by West Point, telling me like, your mascot sucked, dude.
8:07
This thing and a half, man.
8:08
So, uh, I, I, but I always wanted to serve, right?
8:11
There was kind of a long tradition of service in, in my family, um, some of the military, some in law enforcement.
8:16
And then my, my mother has been a nurse for over 40 years and done a lot of, she's done missionary work overseas as well.
8:22
And so it was this idea that, you know, service is, is something that you do.
8:26
Um, and it's, it's not the only thing that you can do to, to serve your country or to, uh, kind of test yourself as a man, but it's a pretty good way.
8:33
And so, um, I decided I wanted to be infantry and I wanted to be airborne and I want to go to the 82nd airborne.
8:40
That was my first goal is kind of like, you know, what, what an iconic unit with a really, really interesting history from both World War one and World War two.
8:48
Um, and then since then, obviously, but I got in, it was a peacetime army and I was like, uh, I think I'm done.
8:56
I think I'm done. I'll do respect to painting rocks and stuff like that. I don't want to do this anymore.
9:01
And, um, the only thing going on was there was, you know, the stuff going on in Kosovo.
9:06
And I remember reenlisting, I was going to reenlist to go one battalion over.
9:11
So I was in second of the three, two, five airborne infantry regiment as part of the 82nd.
9:15
I was going to reenlist to go across the street to first battalion three, two, five because they were set for a rotation in Kosovo.
9:23
And I remember my sergeant major getting furious with me and basically saying, I don't care what you do.
9:28
I don't care. You reenlist. You don't reenlist. You don't, you are not going across the street with this battalion has sent you to EMT air assault sniper ranger.
9:38
Like you can either stay here or you can go somewhere else, but you're not going across the street.
9:43
And I remember being kind of furious about that. I was like, fine. I'll get out. I'm going to go be LAPD with my dad. Right.
9:49
And, um, and then my, uh, my wife was like, baby, you know, we really haven't had a game plan to get out of the military.
9:56
It's not like we're living in the lap of luxury here. How about we reenlist one more time?
10:01
We can go someplace that would be cool. We can save up money and then, and then, you know, you can go out and be a cop or whatever.
10:07
And so I said, oh, baby, where do you want to go? Do you want to go to your first reenlistment?
10:11
And this was in cash around 2000. First reenlistment, you got a lot of options on where you're going to go.
10:16
I said, do you want to go to Hawaii or Italy? Because oh, I want to go to Hawaii.
10:20
So I re-enlisted to go to Hawaii about four months after we got there, 9/11 happened.
10:26
And I remember looking at my wife going, well, babe, I know what I'm doing for the next 10 years.
10:31
Yeah. And so, uh, I, I saw all the guys, I saw the SF guys, uh, specifically a lot of fifth group guys and some fifth group guys over in Afghanistan on the early days.
10:40
It was like, man, I want to do what those guys are doing.
10:43
And so I went through the Special Forces qualification course and went over to SF and did a couple of combat tours over there with those guys.
10:51
And I love being, love being an SF, love being in the SF community.
10:55
Um, yeah, it was, it was great. It was great.
10:58
Well, so, uh, you've also talked about that a lot on your show and everything like that. I'm, I'm curious for you though.
11:04
I, because I've talked to a lot of other, uh, top guys, a lot of other special operations guys.
11:11
And these guys, almost to a man have said the same thing. So I'm curious what your take is.
11:15
But if you were 18 years old, uh, in 2025, in this year that we're in right now,
11:23
would you have that same desire to go and fight for this military? Now, well, actually, let me buy that back just a little bit.
11:30
Let's rewind six months. We don't know that Donald Trump is going to win the election.
11:35
Joe Biden is still technically running for office, even though he can't technically spell.
11:40
Yeah. But at that point, you're 18 years old. Yeah.
11:44
And are you still wanting to go into the military and potentially be sent to fight and die by that administration?
11:50
So it's interesting because we were asking ourselves this question, but it wasn't for me. It was for my son.
11:57
Okay. And, um, my son enlisted, signed the paperwork, um, before the election.
12:06
Uh, and he had an 11 Bravo contract. So that's infantry. He had an airborne contract and he had a ranger contract.
12:12
So, you know, when he completes infantry, basic, he'll go right into airborne when he creates,
12:17
completes airborne. He'll go right into what they call RAS, which is the ranger assessment program.
12:21
And then he'll go to the ranger regiment and ranger regiment is part of the special operations community and obviously, uh, you know, one of the premier units in the world.
12:28
And, uh, a unit that usually gets picked pretty quickly to go to dangerous places to do bad things to dangerous people. But, um,
12:37
we, we talked about that. Now, I will say that, uh, I was personally thrilled by the election result, uh, for a variety of reasons, but I'm not going to lie. That was, that was certainly one of them, not because I don't think Donald Trump will utilize military force, um, when appropriate, but because
12:52
I think he is far less likely to get us involved in, uh, conflicts we don't need to be in.
12:58
And when he does get us involved in conflicts, I think he empowers, uh, the people on the ground or the, uh, do the job that they need to do and doesn't have any of these, like,
13:06
you know, conceptions of the, the responsibility of the American military or the American taxpayers is to, you know, I don't know, bomb people in a democracy. Um,
13:16
So that was something we went through. But again, when he signed the paperwork, it was, um, that wasn't, that wasn't a sure thing.
13:24
And, you know, we talked about it. We prayed about it. And one of the, we are, we're people of faith. So we, we believe that if God's calling, if God's, and our kids all have their own relationships,
13:36
with Christ. And if they believe, if they prayed about it, and they believe they're being called into
13:40
something, one of the things I've been very, very adamant about with all of our kids is like, look,
13:45
you know, have goals, have dreams, have ambitions, have passions, you know, you got to be able to
13:49
provide for yourself, you got to be able to provide for your families and things like that. But
13:53
just understand something you're never going to know true joy and peace unless you're
13:57
diligently engaging in the path that God calls you to. Not the one that, you know, is necessarily
14:03
going to make you the most money or give you the most accolades or whatnot, you need to be,
14:06
you need to be pursuing that. So, and he felt very convicted that this was something he needed to do.
14:12
Now, I won't lie, when he was considering what to do, and he made it clear he wanted to go
14:20
infantry because originally I thought he was going to go into something more technical, you know,
14:24
because he likes the idea of, you know, welding and things like that. I said, look, don't do the
14:30
18 x ray program, which is what we call the SF baby program, because that's a six year enlistment.
14:35
I said, you can always volunteer for SF and they got to let you go. So, if you want to do
14:40
something, do Ranger Regiment, that's that's fine. You want to do some special ops do Ranger
14:43
Regiment, they're a great, great unit. But that's a four year enlistment. And then figure out if
14:48
that's really what you want to do, figure out if this was a time of service and testing,
14:52
or if this is something that you're going to do as a career. But all that to say,
14:58
I completely understand people and parents that say I respect the military, I respect our veterans,
15:03
I don't want my kid to serve under administration whether potentially going to get us involved in
15:07
conflicts we don't need to be in completely understand that. By the same token,
15:11
I still believe, and I know this is maybe it's a little bit naive. I still believe that the
15:20
country and service in the military is far bigger than temporary occupants of political office.
15:27
And I always want to be protected by a military that recognizes it for their first
15:36
obligation as the Constitution and are willing to again, go into dangerous places to do dangerous
15:44
things on behalf of our country. So, I hope we will always have people that are willing to
15:51
that see the value in the merit in doing that. But never in my life have I had to worry about
15:56
it as much as I do now. I will say that. I think that we have a political class that has become
16:02
increasingly divorced from their responsibility to our service members. It's not just a rah rah,
16:09
the troops. The best thing that you can do for our service members is not just make sure that
16:13
they're properly trained, properly equipped, properly taken care of, but also only properly
16:18
deployed. And the first thing I will say to this to members of Congress is, if you are not willing
16:23
to cast a vote to go to war, then you don't send anybody. How about that?
16:30
That'd be great. If you want to put your name on the decision, that's one thing,
16:35
but that's the starting thing, right? Because right now the last several,
16:39
last several decades long conflicts we've been in, you show me where the declaration of war was,
16:44
right? There wasn't. Congress was for it when it made sense to be and then abandoned it when
16:49
it didn't, but didn't do any of the necessary things that would have required to actually pull
16:54
people out in the right way. And then what did we end up getting? We get a withdrawn Afghanistan,
16:58
which is a complete betrayal of everyone that we sent over there to fight in that conflict.
17:02
And it's a complete betrayal of the allies that actually served along with us. And so
17:06
that's kind of a long rambling explanation, but it really boils down to this.
17:14
God help us if our military is ever staffed by the same quality of people that Congress is.
17:20
I want it to always be staffed by honorable people that regardless of what situations
17:26
they're put in, conduct themselves with honor and nobility, because I do believe that military
17:30
service is inherently honorable. And regardless of the conflict that you find yourself in,
17:35
you can always do the job. You can always do an honorable job. I have really, really,
17:39
I did two tours in Iraq. I look back now and I'm like, should we have even been there?
17:43
But I never questioned the service that me and my friends that my fellow,
17:47
green berets did on that ODA over there. I don't question that. There was some bad people over
17:53
that we helped stop. And I sleep like a baby. But I do want a higher caliber of people
18:02
representing us in Congress and understand the nature of what that sacrifice means and the long
18:06
term implications of what it means, not only for national security policy and potentially
18:11
destabilizing regions that we really don't want to destabilize, but also what it means
18:15
for the destabilization of the American family when you're sending some of our best and brightest
18:18
to go over and get killed. And now all of a sudden, kids are getting raised without that
18:22
father figure. Wives who never signed up to be widows are now widows as a result of that.
18:28
And vice versa, you have incredibly brave and courageous women that also lost their lives
18:33
over there. And now their kids, their husbands are without that. So I think we need a little bit
18:38
better understanding of what the actual cost is when it comes to when it comes to overseas conflicts.
18:44
Well, certainly the actual cost, I think about that with the conflict in Ukraine,
18:47
because there's a lot of think pieces and a lot of ink that's been spilled thinking through that
18:52
conflict. But I think about the sheer number of 18, 19, 20, 21 year old, I mean, 30 year old
18:58
Ukrainian dudes that don't exist anymore. And what that's going to do to that country long term,
19:03
regardless of if Russia gets to keep a piece, you know what I mean? But I guess going back to
19:07
a comment that you made because you kind of pre bought back your own comment where you said you
19:11
might be a little naive, but you still kind of have this romantic idea about about the military
19:18
and about the country. And when we do send the military out to do things. But I didn't join I
19:23
never joined the military, but my understanding is the military is there to kill people and break
19:27
stuff. And it seems like now the focus is more on, can we get someone who's queer with two mothers
19:34
to join the ranks, because they need the army to do something for them, as opposed to them thinking
19:40
to themselves, what am I doing for my country when I sign on the bottom line? So talk a little bit
19:45
more about that specifically as it pertains to DEI. And yes, we know with, you know, Pete Hexeth
19:49
and with Donald Trump and with different Yeah, it could all be very, very different. But you still
19:53
got some entrenched bureaucratic general types in both administrations at both of the last two
20:00
administrations. I kind of send us down this direction. Well, I don't I don't use the word. It's funny.
20:04
My wife and I have had arguments before because obviously I serve in politics. And so they'll be
20:09
frustrating things that I talk about. And she'll be like, Oh, that person's such a coward. I'm like,
20:12
baby, they're not a coward. They got a different way of looking at it. They got a different approach
20:16
or whatnot. And the reason why I will do that sometimes is because I take the word coward very,
20:22
very seriously. Someone calls me a coward. They better have done it online.
20:27
Right? Because those are those are quite literally fighting words to me. I can't think of a of
20:34
there are very few things that would be worse than calling a man a coward in my opinion.
20:38
I can't be able to say that there's a lot of cowardice within the upper echelons of our of
20:43
our military. And the sort of cowardice I'm referring to is the kind of moral cowardice
20:53
that has been on display where generals are are at bottom of this idea that their job
20:58
is nothing more than to faithfully execute whatever the orders are of a civilian leadership.
21:06
Now, I support civilian leadership of the military. But when civilian leadership orders you to do
21:13
something as a general officer to do something to implement a policy, which you know, or at least
21:18
you should know is fundamentally detrimental to the warfighting capability and the esprita
21:24
core of the United States military. Your appropriate role, your duty at that point is to say,
21:30
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, I am not capable of implementing this policy because I think it would
21:37
be incredibly detrimental to the warfighting capabilities of the country. And so therefore,
21:41
I must step down or resign from this position. How many of them been willing to do that?
21:46
Not very many. I mean, I don't know of many. Like, I can't name one off the top of my head
21:51
right now. I will say this, General Mattis, who I respect, I don't agree with General Mattis
21:56
about everything, but I respect General Mattis because when he got to a point when he didn't feel
22:00
like he could faithfully execute Donald Trump's foreign policy, and I'm a fan of Donald Trump's
22:04
foreign policy in almost every respect. He said, Mr. President, I'm no longer a good choice for
22:10
Secretary of Defense for you. And then he left and they didn't immediately get a job on CNN
22:14
trashing the president or whatnot. He left. This was a respectful disagreement and with respect
22:19
to policy and he left. When did that happen with Joe Biden? You're telling me we didn't have one
22:24
general officer with the intestinal fortitude, right? To tell a sitting president, Mr. President,
22:32
I don't think West Point should be focusing on classes discussing white rage. I think we should
22:38
be focusing on actually unifying the military around universal principles which everyone can
22:43
fight for regardless of ethnicity, regardless of sex, regardless of where they came from originally.
22:50
They should be unifying components within our United States military and focusing on getting
22:54
the job done in order to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and
22:57
domestic. Not one of them. One of them had the guts to do that. And so that's another thing
23:03
where I look at I remember when I got out of the military, I had a sergeant major friend of mine,
23:07
really good guy. And he goes, Nick, this is crap. You're complaining about problems,
23:10
but you're not staying, getting rank and fixing them. And I said, well, you're a sergeant major.
23:14
How many problems you've been able to fix? And I said, too many of our problems are not
23:18
guys in uniform. They're guys in suits. But what I've learned is that in many cases,
23:22
it's guys in suits and guys with stars. Because at some point they cut on to the fact that there's
23:29
a political game to be played. Now, I want to make something very clear. I'm actually being kind
23:34
to the ones that think that there's a political game to be playing and they decided to play it.
23:39
What's even more terrifying is the people that actually believe this crap.
23:43
Yeah. Like if we actually have a senior officer corps that is absolutely convinced
23:47
that critical theory is the appropriate way to explain disparity within society.
23:52
Well, then we've got a much, we've got a much bigger problem within the ranks of our military.
23:58
And I think we started, we need to be very, very careful about the influence of higher ed
24:04
within our officer corps. Sure. Because there's a huge push to get officers to
24:09
go get your master's degree, go be a Rhodes scholar, go to Oxford, do this, do that. And I'm like,
24:13
okay, I get it. I don't have any problem with higher education. I do have a problem with
24:19
institutions of higher education, essentially engaging in overt indoctrination in leftist ideology
24:25
rooted in critical theory and postmodernism. You don't lead armies with guys like that.
24:30
You lead really crappy HR departments. Yeah. And so that's kind of where we're at. I don't know.
24:38
We're going to see, because I think the Senate's going to fight tooth and nail, we're really going
24:42
to see a crisis over the filibuster. I'm going to tell you that right now, that crisis has typically
24:46
been on the left, we're going to see it on the right, because there's going to be so much
24:49
held up in the Senate with respect to presidential appointees, that I don't know what's going to
24:55
happen. I don't know what's going to happen with things like recess appointments.
24:57
But I will tell you this, I am thrilled with the people that he has picked because they are going
25:02
into these organizations with relevant experience, relevant life experience, sometimes relative
25:07
legislative experience in the form of Tulsi Gabbard, relative operational experience,
25:12
relative legal experience with in the case of guys like RFK Jr. And he's sending people who
25:18
are skeptical of the way things have been done into these departments. And that is what we need
25:23
more than anything right now. I don't want somebody that rose through the ranks within these
25:27
these departments, who's now going to be put in charge of it, and not really be not really do
25:32
anything except try to expand budgets and authorities. I want people that are going to go in there
25:36
and actually ask hard questions about what is this organization? What does this department
25:41
exist for? What is our core mission? What are the things we're doing that facilitate that
25:45
core mission? What are the things we're doing that do not facilitate that core mission and need to
25:49
go away? And who are the people that are making it difficult to actually make the appropriate
25:53
reforms? Because you're fired, right? That's what I want to see. And I hope to God, we will, but to
25:59
your point, I think we need one of the biggest things that we're going to have to do is actually
26:04
take a lot of senior leadership that refuse to say anything because they're just going to put their
26:09
head down and play the game. You're gone. You're gone. Go be a CNN freaking military expert. You're
26:15
gone now. We want people that have always recognized this was a problem. I mean, seriously, there used
26:20
to be a joke that back in the good old days you couldn't make sergeant major without an article 15,
26:24
right? It's time to start to look at maybe some of these, these field grade officers,
26:28
the senior field grade, all these kernels, lieutenant kernels that might have gotten
26:31
sidelined by an administration that, you know, they were really good war fighters, but they
26:35
don't like their politics. We need to start tagging some of those guys for senior leadership positions.
26:40
And once again, reinventing the incentive structure within these organizations so that we're creating
26:46
the sort of senior leadership that looks at their duties and responsibilities under the
26:49
Constitution seriously, instead of just looking for what they need to do in order to make the next
26:54
next rank. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you guys are really doing everything you can to
26:59
have a consistent workout routine. But the problem is is you work out at a global gym. And so there's
27:04
17 guys on the bench that you need. And there's people doing bicep curls on the squat rack.
27:08
And the biggest problem is not your schedule. It's actually where you're trying to get your work in.
27:13
How about you guys stop making excuses and build yourself a home gym? And when you do,
27:18
make sure you use Sorenex. So Sorenex is a family owned and operated business
27:23
that build some of the most impressive workout facilities in the entire world. They built gyms
27:27
for teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and even the UFC. They've also built gyms for some of the
27:35
biggest and most successful collegiate and high school athletic programs in the country.
27:39
But in addition to that, they make the highest quality home gym products that I've ever seen on
27:45
the market. In my personal home gym, I have the Sorenex Outfitter rack, the heavy version in military
27:51
green. Also, I have some of their center mass bells. I've got their Nordic glute ham developer and
27:56
their patented landmine attached to my rack. So guys, stop fighting the riffraff at your local gym or
28:02
bench or squat rack or whatever. And if you're going to build out a home gym, you may as well get
28:07
one that will last you and one that you could even pass down to your kids. Begin your build out by
28:12
going to Sorenex.com. That is Sorenex.com. S-O-R-I-N-E-X.com. Take control of where and when you work out
28:22
Sorenex.com. Right. And I think that when you're on this side, I think that's why we saw the mandate
28:28
that we got from the generalized public of the United States when it came to the last general
28:31
election. Because the feel, Nick, going into 2017, first Trump administration versus going into 2025,
28:38
second Trump administration, with a four year gap in the middle, everything feels different.
28:43
I don't remember being excited about his cabinet picks back in 2016 into 2017. And then it leaves
28:50
the headlines and you just don't even know, you don't even realize these people aren't even in those
28:54
jobs because it got held up in the Senate. But now Donald Trump, he kind of knows what the levers
28:58
of power look like and kind of how you can move things around and how you can move chess pieces
29:03
around on the board. And now we're seeing some people that, you know, the RFK is the Tulsi Gabbers,
29:07
the PSS and the list goes on and on to people that you're just like, holy Moses, it's not just
29:12
because, oh, I follow that person on Instagram. It's like, that person is signaling that they're
29:17
going to go in and clean house. But it's because of the mandate that the Republican party,
29:22
not necessarily the RNC, but that the Republican party got from the generalized public, which was,
29:27
we do not believe what the United States mainstream media is telling us anymore about who Donald
29:32
Trump is. We do not believe what any of these other people are saying. But also, we can see with our
29:38
own eyes and hear with our own ears what's currently happening in front of us. And when you have an
29:43
administration that seems to be more concerned about making sure that, you know, trans inmates,
29:48
supposedly trans inmates can be in with other women, or that the southern border can be wide open and
29:53
anybody can really nearly walk their way through the country. It lets people know, it lets everyone
29:58
in power know that this is what the priority of the American public is. And so I guess for you,
30:03
you were just like I was and everybody else was nobody knew what the heck was going to happen in
30:07
the general people that pretended like they knew that that was going to happen. They're out of their
30:11
minds. But it was such an overwhelming victory for the White House and then both houses of Congress,
30:17
not that there aren't going to be issues. What are your thoughts about what that means in terms
30:22
of what Donald Trump's going to try to get done, maybe even in the first 100 days?
30:25
It depends. That sounds like a very political answer. Yeah, can you not give me the think tank
30:33
answer, please? Like there's a lot of people that think, Oh, Trump won, we're done. Yeah, no,
30:38
not by a long shot. It's absolutely not not even close. And there's a lot of people,
30:43
and I'm going to be critical of kind of like my own side on this. There's a lot of people that
30:47
think, well, we put you in power. Why aren't you doing anything about it? Why don't you get it done?
30:51
You don't get to tell me that we need to be teaching better civics in high school. If you don't even
30:59
understand how the American government works, the president is not dictator for four years. The
31:05
president has to go through a process, right? We need, you know, and it's not good enough to just
31:12
have like majorities in Congress, right? Because you can have majority in the house. But if you
31:16
don't have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, well, that's another hurdle that you have to
31:21
overcome. And so understanding how this process works is really important. So you can actually
31:27
formulate the proper expectations. And more specifically, know where you can have an impact
31:33
in that process. Because yes, we have we have given Trump the house, we have given Trump the Senate.
31:39
It's not a filibuster proof Senate, but we've given them the Senate. And then you have things
31:44
like the cabinet level picks he's going to go through. Senate's got to advise and consent on
31:47
that, which means they're not going to get they're not going to be put in there right away. They're
31:51
Democrats are going to try to hold that up as much as possible. Now, if you're sitting there going,
31:55
well, we put Trump in power, it's been a year and nothing's changed. Yes, because this is a long
32:00
process. It was meant to be our founder set up a long difficult process in order to get things
32:07
done because they didn't want to fast track legislation. Now, the question that I get back is,
32:13
well, how come the Democrats always seem to? It's very easy. They're collectivists. We're
32:17
individualists. So we're not individualists in the in the sense that like atomized individualism,
32:22
we're individuals in the sense that we believe in individual liberty, small limited government,
32:27
but we also believe in strong sense of community through family, through church, through other
32:31
institutions. But what it also means is that we're very, very busy with our day to day lives.
32:35
And so the way I put it sometimes is that a lot of people on the right, if you were to ask them
32:40
their priorities, it would go like this, God, family, you know, God, family, country, work,
32:46
politics. And the only reason why they're involved in politics is keep the government out of God,
32:51
family, work, right? Now, if you talk to a woke progressive, they'll say, Oh, I get it. Their
33:00
priority is government. No, no, it's not that their priority is government. If you talk to a lot
33:04
of woke progressives, government is God, family, work, country, right? It's this all encompassing.
33:11
What you, what you use, what you identify with, and what you get your identity from,
33:18
and where you put your faith and your hope in, most of that is completely outside of government
33:23
and politics. And so politics is this thing that you recognize is important and that you engage in,
33:28
but you don't, you don't spend nearly as much time as someone that believes it is the primary
33:33
mechanism for bringing about utopia and justice in the world. Like, if you honestly believe that
33:39
government was the way that you solved all your problems and that you achieved cosmic justice,
33:45
you would invest a lot more time in it. We don't believe that, right? We don't invest that much
33:49
time in it, right? So it's important to understand how the process works, the reason why the
33:53
founders set it up the way it does, and the way it's been manipulated. So here's what I will tell
33:58
everybody. The thing that President Trump can have the two things that he can have the biggest
34:02
impact on immediately, day one, is obviously border security, because he has the Democrats
34:10
claiming that we try to pass a bipartisan border bill. What an absolute lie.
34:16
And if I can interrupt you real quick, Nick, go for it. One of the biggest things,
34:19
because in 2016, I didn't want to vote for Donald Trump, because I didn't think he was going to be
34:23
sufficiently conservative. And I was wrong about that. He governed conservatively, even though I
34:27
don't believe he's a conservative in his heart. But Senator James Langford was the guy that I was
34:31
going to write in to be president of the United States, but you're not allowed to write in
34:34
for president in the state of Oklahoma. But I was mortified at how easily played James Langford
34:41
was during that entire process, because he became the conservative ginger figurehead
34:46
of, no, this is actually a good thing. Why are you so mean? Why don't you understand it? Have you
34:51
read the bill? And it's like, well, you read the bill, and then you ask the same questions because
34:55
it's the same data. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It was billions of dollars going to Ukraine,
35:00
going to foreign aid, doing this, all the stuff packed into an immigration bill. And the question
35:05
I asked Democrats who would bring this up, I was like, can you please tell me what new authorities
35:11
or funding this administration needs to do the exact same thing the previous administration was
35:18
doing with the current authorities and funding. You don't need anything extra. You don't need
35:23
anything extra you're pretending to. And then you're putting a poison pill in a bill so that when it
35:28
gets voted down, you can say, Oh my gosh, Republicans killed a bipartisan border security bill because
35:34
they don't care about the issue. What an absolute lie. So the first thing Trump needs to go in there,
35:40
use the existing authorities and funding that he has in order to secure the border. And then
35:44
Congress should actually be assisting with with additional funding to be able to do more down
35:48
there because a lot more is needed. That's that's one of the first things that he can do that he has
35:52
authority on. Same thing with certain immigration policies as well. The second thing, and this is
35:56
the one that's a little not quite as known by people. And it's what we call schedule F.
36:00
So most people have this idea that the president is in charge of the federal government. And that
36:07
is technically true, but practically not. And the reason why is because we have something called
36:13
civil service laws. Now civil service laws were implemented at the federal level in order to
36:18
prevent what we used to call the spoils system. So way back when when the federal government was
36:23
far smaller than it is today, people would run for president. And one of the way that they would
36:27
bribe people to vote for them or bribe people to work for them is they would promise them jobs
36:31
within the federal government. Because the president had broad sweeping authority on who served in
36:36
what position. Now again, when the best you can do is like handing out positions in the postal
36:40
service, that's not as big a deal. When you now have a massive federal bureaucracy,
36:45
which was never envisioned by the Constitution or the founders, that's a very different game. And
36:50
so what the argument was is that look, we don't need someone running for president being able to
36:55
hand out tens of thousands of government jobs in order to bribe people to vote for them. And I
37:01
think most of us would look at that and be like, Oh, that makes some sense. Yeah, that makes some
37:04
sense. And so what they said was is that okay, for like these low mid level, you know, positions,
37:09
we're going to call those civil service positions. And the president doesn't hire or fire those
37:14
people, they go through an entirely different process. The result has been is that more and
37:19
more people have fallen within that civil service category. And what we've discovered is the bureaucracies
37:25
have agendas of their own. And those bureaucracies are not always there to let's say diligently fulfill
37:31
the duties and responsibilities associated for why the organization was sold to the American
37:36
people in the first place. They have their own ideological interests. They have their own professional
37:41
interests. And so the typical bureaucracy always wants to expand authority and expand its budget.
37:47
Always, because that's the measure of moving on to an exposition is, Oh, I manage this position and
37:53
have this many people and I have this much money that we spent. It's not really based off of what
37:58
did you actually accomplish? It's based off of what did you control? And so there's this perverse
38:03
incentive for bureaucracy to increase. Schedule F essentially was this designation within civil
38:11
service, which we said, okay, these employees are just civil servants and they don't get impacted
38:17
by who's president. But these people who set policy, they're the ones that can get hired and
38:22
fired by the president because they're responsible for actually implementing this this process.
38:27
The problem is, is we found out that the bureaucracy actually has a tremendous amount of power to
38:34
slow role or subvert policy if they don't agree with it. And the left has made a concerted effort
38:42
in conjunction with higher education and everything else to create a left wing bureaucratic state.
38:48
So regardless of who's president, regardless of who controls Congress, if the people responsible
38:53
for implementing the policy don't want to, there's a thousand ways that they can screw that up and
38:59
never get fired. Right. So now the trick here is this. Schedule F can be very, very broadly
39:08
interpreted. So if President Trump shows up on day one and says, guess what? 90% of the federal
39:14
workforce is now schedule F because you have some role in implementing or carrying out policy,
39:19
you now work at the at will, at the pleasure of the president. Okay, well, now you can fire
39:26
wide swaths of the bureaucracy without a single law having to be passed. And honestly, on some
39:32
level, we need to recognize that. Well, one of the one of the underlying objects of the Constitution
39:41
and the American political experiment is to prevent the centralization of power. There's also a problem
39:46
with too much decentralization in certain areas. And by that, what I mean, because believe me,
39:52
I'm a big decentralization of power guy. If you're going to put somebody in charge of something,
39:57
they have to actually be in charge of it. You can't put them in charge of it, take away 80% of their
40:02
authority, and then blame them when they can't get anything done. If the thing that's holding
40:07
them up is the 80%, they don't control. Right. And so there needs to be reform in this.
40:13
I think the president should should broadly interpret schedule F. I'm sure he'll end up in court,
40:18
fire them anyways, fire fire the beer, fire the beer, the necessary bureaucrats anyways.
40:24
Only keep the ones that are necessary in order to carry out the core functions. Whenever we hear
40:28
nonessential government employees, that's a good place to start. And maybe people that don't need
40:32
to be collecting a paycheck based off of the work and labor of taxpayers. So those are two things
40:38
that I am really looking forward to see within the first six months of the presidency. The border
40:42
I want to say like with the first 100 days, I think you're just see a lot of emphasis on border
40:46
and immigration policy. But like kind of that broader six month process and in conjunction with
40:51
the doge doing their work and doing their findings. I think what you're going to see is, in fact,
40:55
we're planning to do a whole separate show on just the doge for 2025 and and 2026 where we go over
41:02
what they should do, what they are doing, what they're what they're analyzing,
41:06
and then taking that information and then utilizing a broad interpretation of schedule F
41:11
to significantly diminish the size of these bureaucracies. Ultimately, when it comes to actually
41:16
getting rid of certain departments, certain agencies engaging in consolidation, that requires acts of
41:21
Congress. And the big hang up there is going to be in two places, one that's going to be the Senate
41:26
with the filibuster being regularly utilized. The other thing is going to be with weak Republicans.
41:31
You're going to have Republicans in areas where they're like, well, this is going to hurt me for
41:35
my reelection or I don't know how I'm going to say right now, I don't care that we have two years,
41:42
two, not four, two, to make the sort of structural changes that are necessary in order to set us
41:50
up for success going forward. And if you are not willing to sacrifice your seat to make those
41:56
structural changes, you don't belong there. That's the bottom line. I understand not wanting
42:02
to throw away a vote on a stupid bill that's not going to do anything that hurts you in your
42:06
district. I get it. I get it. But when you have the opportunity to make important and necessary
42:11
structural changes to once again, re embrace the true intention of the Constitution under article
42:16
one, section eight, as opposed to this massive expansion of federal government, you got the ability
42:20
to do that. You don't because you're afraid of losing your election, you don't deserve to be there.
42:24
Period the end. So I hope we're, I hope we're going to see that. The other thing too, from like
42:31
pieces of legislation that I would love to see that I think are absolutely necessary and would be
42:35
really, really important structural changes. One is one issue per bill. We have this in the Virginia
42:40
Constitution. I'm not allowed to submit a bill in the Virginia General General Assembly that is
42:45
the Save the Puppies Act, which then gives a bunch of money somewhere else or changes regulations in
42:51
a completely different area. If I got to save the Puppies Act bill, that bill has to focus exclusively
42:57
on saving the puppies, right? Congress doesn't have to do that. One issue per bill is something
43:02
that should be implemented as policy. Another really important one is the Reigns Act that Rand
43:06
Paul has always carried. And the Reigns Act does an excellent job of stripping power away from the
43:13
bureaucracy to promulgate all of these regulations. Because this is another thing that most voters
43:18
don't understand is that your representative voted on a bill called the Clean Energy Whatever.
43:25
And it didn't lay out nearly as many specifics as you would think it did on how to implement that
43:31
policy. Instead, what it generally does is they write these broadly based bills that give a massive
43:37
amount of power to an executive branch agency to promulgate regulations, come up with fines,
43:42
come up with fees. And now that executive branch agency has the ability to fundamentally destroy
43:47
your business, rob you of your property rights. And guess how many people voted on those actual
43:52
regulations? None. Zero. So Rand Paul has a really good bill called the Reigns Act that would
43:58
essentially say that anytime you're going to try to allow an executive branch agency to widely
44:03
promulgate regulations. We're not talking about simple internal mechanisms. We're saying
44:08
regulations that have the force of law that are impacting businesses, you have to bring that back
44:13
to the legislature. And then your representatives have to vote on it with the full knowledge
44:20
of how it's going to be implemented. They don't get to vote on a nice sounding idea over here,
44:24
and then come back and say, Oh, gosh, we had no idea would be interpreted that way. And then
44:29
absolve themselves in responsibility. So when issue per bill, the Reigns Act, those are those
44:34
are two pieces of legislation that I would also like to see within the first year that I think
44:38
would just be transformational. Well, a few things I want to double click on. Number one,
44:42
obviously, people need to be very realistic about what can be done. Yes. So that's that's number one,
44:47
what can be done in a short period of time. Number two, yes, we don't have four years. We have two.
44:51
Some people are already looking past this administration wondering if it's going to be
44:55
Vance and Gabbard or, you know, some whatever the combination is going to be for 2028.
44:59
But I want to go back to the border because the border situation has caused major issues. Obviously,
45:05
there's been a lot of time and effort spent on elucidating that topic. There's been no real
45:10
discussion of militarizing the southern border. And so to someone who's not been in the military and
45:15
doesn't understand what it would look like to put the National Guard or even the full and military
45:19
down there like that. That's one thing to say that's another thing to actually see that happening.
45:22
But what we are seeing is at the beginning of this year, we've already seen two terrorist attacks
45:28
in pretty close succession to one another. Now these were both United States citizens.
45:32
And so it's a little bit of a different situation. But we see from a lot of different people that
45:36
know a thing or two is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of terrorists that are in sleeper
45:42
cells in the United States currently. Are they planning an October attack like what happened in
45:47
Israel? Are they planning off a very sophisticated coordinated everybody clacks off their vest at
45:53
the same time type of attack? But this one's in a shopping mall and this one's in a kid's school
45:57
and this one's in a concert venue or something like that. We don't really know. But a lot of it comes
46:03
because we saw these people just walk right through the southern border sometimes with the help of
46:08
some of our other adversaries. And so we can't talk about the specifics of the two attacks that
46:13
just happened because this is going to be released about a week after and we're getting new reports
46:18
every few hours. But just talk about the southern border and not just the economics of having people
46:24
in this country that are not paying taxes, that are suckling from the teeth of the American system
46:29
versus just protecting the homeland in general from the inside. Sure. Well, the first thing to
46:33
understand too about immigration, so there's border security and immigration policy and they're
46:37
obviously connected, but they are. They're also they have unique components to each one that are
46:42
separate. And look, I'm actually if I'm a good immigration policy, which allows people that
46:47
genuinely want to come on and appreciate what America is and be a part of it, is a net advantage
46:53
for the country. There's no there's no question of that. It's not even I mean, Elon Musk is an
46:56
immigrant, right? Like it's it's not a it's not a question. But when you have a bad immigration
47:01
policy that essentially encourages people to come to the United States, you take advantage of a
47:04
massive welfare state to do all those things, that's problematic. But the security side is also
47:10
significantly problematic, both from a criminal and a terrorist perspective. If you want to get
47:15
into the United States, the easiest way to do it is to go somewhere south of the border,
47:19
then come through our southern border. And so you got to ask yourself the question,
47:23
are there terrorist organizations that want to do harm of the United States or at the very least
47:28
want to have the capacity to do harm to the United States? While subverting some of the other security
47:34
measures that have made it more difficult to use what we might call more classical examples of
47:39
tears. Yes, there is. That's not a question. That's not a question. Sean Ryan has had some great
47:43
episodes where he's had guests talk about this in depth. So yes, that that's absolutely the case.
47:47
So how do you deal with that? Well, with people that are already here, that's going to be, you know,
47:53
obviously a law enforcement mechanism, because we have Posse Comatatus, which prevents the United
47:57
States military from being deployed within the United States in order to fulfill a law enforcement
48:01
role. Now, when it comes to securing the border, I think there's a lot more gray area here legally
48:06
with respect to what can be done. I think you can use military because I think you look at it as
48:10
something of an invasion of US soil. And so it's not that the United States military is fulfilling
48:16
a law enforcement role. They are fulfilling a security role with respect to the integrity of
48:21
our border. I think that falls very neatly within the responsibility of the Department of Defense.
48:26
So I think it can be done. You do have to have careful jurisdiction on how it's done.
48:33
Because the only other time that the United States military can essentially be deployed in
48:36
order to put things down, especially if you're talking about active duty, you know, federal
48:40
troops, not just National Guard is the Insurrection Act, right? So when you have legitimate
48:44
insurrections taking place within the United States border, you need to be very, very careful
48:48
about utilizing the military for that purpose. So I would definitely think we can use the military
48:52
to help secure the border to help plug gaps from the terrorism component. There's also the criminal
48:57
component. And I think it's important to understand that when we talk about crime, yes, it's bad
49:03
enough when we talk about fentanyl coming across the country or when we talk about, you know,
49:08
other things that would be potentially dangerous or economically damaging.
49:11
But it's especially insidious when we're talking about human trafficking for labor,
49:17
human trafficking is sex trafficking when we're talking about the amount of impact it has on
49:20
children and how children are utilized to facilitate this process. One of the things I've tried to
49:25
convince my colleagues of, and it almost always falls on deaf ears, is when they say things like,
49:29
oh, but DACA, right? Oh, but unaccompanied minors. Oh, but it's like, wait a second.
49:34
If you provide a legal incentive for unaccompanied minors across the border, cartels, terrorist
49:39
organizations are going to exploit minors and facilitate illicit transfer of not just people,
49:47
but also drugs and other things. So please stop pretending that you are implementing a
49:55
policy that is only going to achieve what you hope it does. You're creating an incentive
49:59
structure that is very easily exploited by terrorist and criminal organizations.
50:03
The cartels are, I don't, I won't say that they're running Mexico, but they are, they are a de facto
50:10
shadow government in Mexico to the point where the Mexican government is clearly incapable of
50:15
keeping them under, you know, under any element of control to the point where they have the ability
50:21
to significantly impact both the politics and the economy of that country. And so the question
50:25
is going to be, is there any sort of military role with respect to degrade the cartels capability?
50:30
Now, a lot of people, and look, I love libertarian philosophy. Sometimes I get a little bit frustrated
50:36
with libertarians, but I love libertarian philosophy. They will say, well, the solution of that is
50:39
you just legalize drugs and that will take care of it. Look, I understand the underlying philosophical
50:46
argument of let people do what they want with their own bodies, providing they're not hurting
50:49
someone else. I don't think that's a realistic thing to do when you have a massive welfare state
50:54
and you have a massive, you know, criminal organization currently in place that you're dealing with.
50:58
So I do believe that there's going to be an appropriate role for both military and law
51:01
enforcement to actively operate in the degrading of cartels capabilities. The problem is, though,
51:06
to the libertarian's point is that, okay, you cut the head off the snake, but you still got,
51:10
you know, a multi billion dollar, a trillion dollar industry worldwide, somebody else is going to be
51:15
willing to take the risk in order to facilitate that. So how do you shut that down? So there's
51:20
going to have to be a combination of both policy and force that's applied in order to secure the
51:25
southern border to protect against both terrorism and to protect against criminal activity.
51:30
And again, I'm using criminal activity to isolate specifically that which we might associate with
51:35
violent criminal activity, illicit drugs, things like that. It's also important to understand that
51:39
crossing the border illegally is itself criminal activity. Correct. Right? I get so frustrated with
51:45
this idea. Well, they haven't broken any laws except when they broke when they came over, right?
51:49
And when they broke that law and came over and then had a child and then enrolled their kids in
51:53
public school and then did those other things, they are now reaping the benefits of subsidization
51:59
that they're not contributing to. And they'll always argue, it's like, Oh, you don't think
52:03
illegal aliens pay taxes. You're nuts. I understand they pay sales taxes. You can't avoid it. I understand
52:08
that they're paying property taxes because when you rent from somebody, even if you do it illegally,
52:13
that's getting passed on because the landlord essentially will pay property taxes.
52:17
So I understand that they're not paying all they're not paying all their income taxes,
52:20
not paying all federal income. That is not that is not a thing. Not to mention the fact that
52:24
there's no way that they're paying as much in taxes as if they're actually consuming with respect
52:28
to public services. So let's just be let's just be common sense about this. Do I think we should
52:37
deploy the military to round up everyone in the country that's here illegally and deport them?
52:41
No, I do not. No, I do not. I don't think anybody wants the 82nd Airborne Division rolling through
52:46
their it's not an appropriate role for the United States military. And it's not the best way to do
52:50
it. What I would love to see is increased military presence in the border in order to plug security
52:55
gaps, increased law enforcement at the border in order to be able to handle a changing of the
53:00
policy with respect to asylum seekers so that they can be in a safe location while they appeal
53:03
for asylum. But they're not led into the interior of the United States. And then what I want to see
53:08
is a policy which says this, if you are currently in the country illegally, and you come forward
53:15
and you self report, we will review your case. I had a case where there was a woman she was brought
53:19
to this country when she was two years old. She's currently 27 married with four kids.
53:24
Should we deport her? Probably not, right? Like I'm a reasonable person. I want border
53:30
secure. I want tougher immigration policy. I'm a reasonable person. No, I don't want to deport
53:33
that woman who's married to an American citizen before kids. But if you're here like, well, I
53:39
crossed the border because I wanted a better life for my family. Great. I complete as a man,
53:42
as a husband, as a father, I completely appreciate that instead of structuring you acting on that.
53:48
Here's what's going to happen next. You're going to have to go back home, and you're going to have
53:52
to get back in line, and you're going to have to follow the process. And if you do that,
53:55
if you do that, we'll forgive this. If you don't do that, and we find you, so you get you get this
54:02
grace period. If you don't do that, and we find you, you will be deported with no chance to ever
54:08
come back to the United States under any circumstances. And so I think that's the story.
54:12
Now you've created the appropriate incentive structure for people to say, gosh, I really
54:16
want to be able to come back to the United States. Either I want to be a citizen or I want to do
54:19
whatever else it is. And if I get picked up, that's it. It's done. I will never be allowed back because
54:25
they've already secured the border. That's really important, right? You've got to secure the border.
54:29
You got to shut off the flow. Then you implement the policy that provides the
54:33
incentive structure for people to self-identify and deport. And then you can provide them a
54:38
mechanism for coming back in when it makes sense for us as a country. Because as much as I sympathize
54:45
with somebody that wants a better life for their family in the United States, I would just point
54:50
out there was a lot of people that wanted a better life for their family in the United States. And
54:53
you know what they did? They made their country better. So I don't think it's too much to ask
54:59
that you go make your country better. Now, if you feel like you're in a position where
55:02
that's completely impossible or you're being hunted by your government, I understand asylum
55:07
speaking or asylum seeking. And maybe it makes sense for you to seek asylum in the United States.
55:12
Or maybe it makes sense for you to seek asylum in one of the seven countries you pass through in
55:17
order to get here. So let's have a common sense approach to this. We can be compassionate.
55:24
But my compassion as an elected official is first and foremost reserved for the American people.
55:31
That's where my emphasis is supposed to be as an elected official. As a Christian,
55:36
I can love and care about somebody and recognize that they're created in the image of God,
55:41
regardless of where they're born or their circumstances. I can voluntarily spend my money or my time
55:47
helping somebody in order to give them a better life. But I have no authorization to utilize
55:56
my constituents money in order to facilitate a policy that doesn't work in the best interest
56:04
of my constituents. And that's where we need to focus in on. And again, structurally,
56:12
we need to remove some of the perverse incentives that exist both within our welfare state.
56:16
Because here's another thing that we need to be honest about, right? The United States has
56:19
a massive welfare state. And that itself operates as a draw for people to come to this country,
56:24
right? Look, I probably have more in common with some young father right now that is working
56:32
themselves to the bone in New Delhi. That just wants an opportunity to be able to work without
56:39
the government or without gangs or without everybody else, hurting them, hurting their kids,
56:43
hurting what I got a lot more in common with that guy than I do with probably some sociology
56:49
majors at Cal Berkeley that hate this country and want to see it turned into a socialist hellscape.
56:54
So that's fine. But the bottom line is, is my obligation as an elected representative
57:01
is to operate within the best interest of American citizens.
57:05
So I don't think that's I don't think that's too much to ask.
57:09
Well, I don't think it's too much to ask. And also you use the word compassion earlier, which is a
57:14
word that is used like a club, depending upon what someone's trying to get through. But there has
57:19
to be some compassion, but there also there has to be logic. So for instance, let's say,
57:24
I don't know, let's say my dad laundered a bunch of money, right? Or somehow or no, he knocks off
57:31
a liquor store and he steals a bunch of money and he shoots the guy on the way out. But then
57:37
I don't know any of that. And he just hands me the money as a gift. Hey, son, I got you an extra
57:41
10 grade for Christmas. Aren't I such a cool dad? Well, whenever the police find out what all
57:45
happened, they find out that the money was given to me. Do I just get to keep that money now?
57:49
Because, Oh, well, I wasn't part of the crime. And so it's like, yes, there is compassion,
57:54
but there is also the other side and the other line. Now Nick, there's one thing I want to I
57:59
want to because the biggest problem here, it's not that those of us who want stronger immigration
58:03
policy lack compassion, to your point, it's that it's where the compassion gets directed first.
58:08
So for instance, I have compassion for children in foreign countries who are struggling. And I'm
58:15
willing to donate my own time and money to assist with that. I have, but I don't have a greater
58:21
obligation to them than I do my own children. If I were allowing my own children to, to, you know,
58:26
starve or to go without in order to do that, I would be neglecting my responsibilities.
58:32
And the problem is, is that we have people right now that are carrying the mantle of compassion and
58:36
altruism, who are not being compassionate and altruistic. They're either being foolishly short
58:42
sighted, or they have a hidden incentive that they're not actually telling you about because
58:48
they believe that there's some sort of benefit that they yield, probably politically, perhaps
58:53
economically, by exploiting this situation to their advantage. And now what they've done is,
58:58
as you've said, they use compassion as a bludgeon against people who are looking at that and going,
59:02
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not being compassionate. You're setting up bad
59:06
in policy. You're setting up bad policy with bad incentive structures that are going to
59:10
yield bad results for our citizens. Right. So no, that's, that doesn't make you compassionate.
59:15
And either makes you devious or makes you ignorant. If you're ignorant, educate yourself. If you're
59:19
devious, correct. Right. I always talk about in two ways. It's like in order for like,
59:25
these Marxists are socialistic or communist ideas to come, you need conscious nefarious actors,
59:30
one, or you need, uh, you need idiots, you basically useful idiots. So you need those two types of
59:37
people in order to get things done. So I want to put a pin in some of the stuff that we're talking
59:41
about in terms of like politics and, you know, all that type of stuff, because I think where a lot
59:46
of this comes from is cultural issues that we're having. Specifically, I think this has been said
59:52
a lot and a lot of different ways. Perhaps you've even said it on your show. Almost every single
59:56
problem we have in this country or in the world is because of bad manhood, lacking manhood,
1:00:03
no fathers, like fatherlessness as an epidemic, not just in this country, not just with certain
1:00:08
racial cohorts, but literally all across the entire globe. And part of the reason I think we're
1:00:13
in this position, Nick, because you've already talked about your man of faith, you follower of
1:00:16
Christ as am I as our most listeners of this podcast, but masculinity and manhood inside of
1:00:22
the church. Right. So let's just call it the capital C church is abysmal. Why does undaunted life
1:00:28
exist? Because I get pitched all the time to have these guys with these other men's ministries come
1:00:33
on my show. And part of me is like, look, if you were better at what you were doing, I wouldn't
1:00:37
have to do what I'm doing. Look, if you were better running your congregation and setting up a man
1:00:42
friendly church, I wouldn't have to scream so much about it from the bottom trying to create a
1:00:46
groundswell of people that are changing things. Because we've gotten this idea that Jesus was this
1:00:51
wispy haired Danish guy that never would have heard a fly. And not that he actually left the
1:00:56
temple when he saw something sinful happening, he wouldn't made a whip of courts and came back.
1:01:00
Now that's not all he did. But it certainly was in the, you know, options of what he could do.
1:01:06
So just in general, I have some other questions, but just in general,
1:01:09
give us your read of the state of manhood or masculinity inside of Jesus's church.
1:01:15
So I was speaking at Liberty University a while back. And I asked the crowd, wait, about a thousand
1:01:21
people there. And I asked the crowd, I said, you know, a nice guy is finished last. So because they
1:01:26
should. Okay, Jesus was not a nice guy. Jesus was not a nice guy. Jesus was honorable. He was loving.
1:01:37
He was committed to justice. He was committed to combat compassion, repentance, restoration.
1:01:43
But he was bold. He was intelligent. He was unapologetic for what he believed.
1:01:49
And obviously I believe that Jesus was not just, you know, a man, but God, right. But it's important
1:01:55
to illustrate this because as you pointed out, we've been, we've been fed this nice guy boy band
1:02:01
version of Jesus. And a lot of men are looking at that going, especially men that don't fully
1:02:07
understand or not yet. Let's say men that are not committed to Christ. Look at this is like,
1:02:11
I could look at that version and be like, that's not accurate. But if you're, if you have never
1:02:16
been, if you've never been shown the actual Jesus, and that's all you've gotten, you should never be
1:02:22
surprised why young men that want to be strong, that want to be competent, that want to be formidable,
1:02:26
that want to be brave would look at that and be like, yeah, this sounds like a really nice hippie
1:02:30
that got beat up and crucified for his troubles. Yeah, not interested. And I understand why they
1:02:36
want to be interested in that heretical form of Jesus Christ. But then you actually look in,
1:02:43
you actually look into to who Jesus was and is, and the way that he responded to situations.
1:02:52
And it's incredible. It's divine, both, both, both, you know, literally. But I tell people like,
1:03:00
if you can go back and you can, you can kind of like, for a moment, just engage in this part where
1:03:05
you kind of separate in your mind, create this compartmentalization, your mind and take everything
1:03:09
that you think you know about Jesus, especially if you, if you have this image of him as this kind
1:03:14
of like weak, hippie version, socialist Jesus, put that in a box for a second, open up a new box,
1:03:20
go into the New Testament and start reading it again. And instead of just like kind of glazing
1:03:26
over the words, I want you to think about the individual situations he was in. Think about the
1:03:30
history of what's going on in the world of that particular time. Think about who are the actual
1:03:34
political authorities who are the military authorities. Think about the, the, the culture that he's
1:03:39
engaging in. Think about the implications. Think about the risks that are being take. Think about
1:03:44
the sacrifice that's being made. Think about the discipline that's being demonstrated. Think about
1:03:48
the intelligence that is being utilized and the way questions are asked and how they're responded
1:03:52
to. And what you find is this incredibly, just this, this incredible man, this incredible individual
1:04:03
with this depth of intelligent and control over one's emotions, and courage and strength and presence.
1:04:10
And the ability to speak, as Ray Comfort was said, to speak mercy to the broken and judgment to the
1:04:19
proud. In a way where it's like he had no political authority to do any of the stuff. It's not as if he
1:04:26
had a bunch of guys, yeah, he had the disciples, but it's not like he had a bunch of guys that were
1:04:30
armed backing him up wherever he went. He was going in places where they knew they wanted to
1:04:34
kill him. He was going anyways, and he was speaking the truth. And if it offended you,
1:04:40
that was on you was the truth of fending you, not his words. And he was willing to do it.
1:04:46
And I'm looking at that as like, my gosh, that is someone I wish. I was as much as I try to emulate
1:04:54
that. I see all the areas where I fail, but I am so grateful for something to be able to emulate
1:05:01
something that is so complete and comprehensive that really demonstrates that my job as a man is
1:05:06
not just to be physically capable and not just to be intellectually competent, but also to have
1:05:15
a sense of tenderness and compassion when it's called for. I mean, my gosh, this is the greatest
1:05:23
story ever told. And I go into our churches and I see some like youth pastor and skinny jeans
1:05:32
talking about Jesus Christ as if he's just a go along to get along super tolerant,
1:05:40
woke progressive socialist. I'm like, you know, no wonder, no wonder the church is in the state it
1:05:47
is in. No wonder we are seeing like this massive heresy within the Protestant church specifically,
1:05:55
and I'm a Protestant. But there's a split in every single one of these churches. And I look at every
1:06:00
single one of these woke progressive churches. And I generally see somebody getting up there.
1:06:04
Sometimes it's a man. Sometimes it's a woman. And you see them claiming Jesus, but then preaching
1:06:09
something that is absolutely heretical. But then I go into a church that's supposed to be doctrinally
1:06:16
sound. And it's like they're afraid of it. They're afraid of what they believe.
1:06:19
So what I would what I would tell pastors and what I would especially tell a lot of youth pastors,
1:06:27
if you're a man and you're going to go into being a youth pastor, will you do me a favor?
1:06:31
Would you actually be a formidable man? Would you be the sort of man that other young men can look
1:06:38
up to? Would you be the other sort of man that young men can look up to and be like,
1:06:42
you know, my son-in-law. My son-in-law does a lot of work in the in the he's a school counselor.
1:06:47
Do six foot six. He's a big guy, right? And look, everyone will tell them his name is Nick too.
1:06:54
Everyone will say Nick is the guy that they can go to. They can sit down. They can talk about
1:06:59
their their, you know, talk about what they're struggling with. They can talk about problems.
1:07:02
They can talk about concerns. And he will listen. He will diligently listen. He will offer good advice.
1:07:07
He will pray for them. But he also doesn't give him excuses.
1:07:12
And they're all pretty sure that Nick can kick their butt.
1:07:15
So yes, that that's what we want. We want men that young men who are trying to,
1:07:23
trying to figure out what it means to be a man can look at other men who they see as being
1:07:27
physically capable, intellectually competent, emotionally controlled, professionally successful,
1:07:34
and spiritually sound and what they believe in the relationship with Christ.
1:07:38
If you are not those things, then this is not the paycheck for you.
1:07:42
Well, and that's, that goes back to why I even started Undaunted Life because Nick,
1:07:46
I became a Christian as a 15 year old. My parents were divorced. My dad wasn't living at the house.
1:07:51
I still had a relationship with him, but he wasn't living there. And so here I am 15 years old.
1:07:55
And at the same time, I'm simultaneously trying to figure out what it means to be a man. Now,
1:07:59
I'm trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian. And the determination I came to is that,
1:08:03
oh, those just aren't the same thing. All the godly men are inside the church doing God stuff
1:08:08
like praying on you, touching you and giving you a limp handshake and wearing khakis and all the
1:08:13
manly dudes that are fighting and shooting and doing all the cool manly stuff, they're outside the
1:08:17
church. There's just no crossover. And I had that thought process until I got into my 20s was really
1:08:22
reading the gospels for myself and thinking to myself, goodness gracious, this Middle Eastern Jewish
1:08:26
construction worker seems like a pretty rough dude. He didn't seem to be too terribly concerned
1:08:30
about how people felt about the things that he was saying, especially because they were true.
1:08:34
It seems like if you talk about Lamb of God, you have to talk about Lion of Judah. If you talk
1:08:41
about grace, you have to talk about truth. And I feel like we've gotten the tender part of Jesus
1:08:46
down, but we don't have the tough part of Jesus enough. No, you were, you were absolutely spot on.
1:08:51
And the biggest, the biggest problem with that is that if you discuss the tenderness without the
1:08:56
justice, without the judgment, without the strength, then you get a, you get a heretical version of
1:09:01
Jesus. It's not that well, we just haven't even no, no, no, no, you are commanded to, to know and
1:09:06
love your God with all of your mind, with all of your spirit, with all of your strength.
1:09:09
And part of that is about understanding everything that he said in the context on which he did it
1:09:15
and why he did it the way he did. And it's to, to reduce some of to make it all one thing and not the
1:09:22
other is to miss the point. It is to misrepresent who Jesus is. And so no, I think you're, I think
1:09:30
you're absolutely spot on on that. And I do think what it's, what it's led to now,
1:09:35
I will say this as well. Part of the reason why that's taken place is because if you look at a
1:09:39
lot of the people that the volunteer and work in the church and I can be guilty of this as well,
1:09:43
you see a lot of women that step up to be able to fulfill those roles. And you've also seen a
1:09:47
feminist movement that has tried to put more women into roles within the church that again, I think
1:09:51
it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's unbiblical for women to play leadership roles within society.
1:09:59
You see that within scripture. But I think it's also important to understand that it's not to the
1:10:04
diminishment of the man's role in society and the man's leadership roles and within society and
1:10:08
within the church. And so we just, we need more, we need more men who are not just professing Jesus
1:10:14
Christ, but to your point, similar situation, my dad was very much involved in my life. I have a
1:10:20
great deal of respect for my dad. LAPD homicide detective, right? I always saw him as a man's man.
1:10:25
He's a Christian, my mom's a Christian, love my mom, great deal of respect for her as well.
1:10:31
But it was a similar situation. School years with my mom, summers with my dad.
1:10:35
And I remember going to churches in the 90s thinking that this was what I sometimes called a very
1:10:43
emotional faith. Because it was a lot of emphasis on compassion. Now, that's not to say that there
1:10:51
weren't people in my life that presented a different view of it. But a lot of times I just didn't
1:10:55
see them as being very manly men. And when I got into the military and I'm in the infantry and
1:11:02
I'm airborne and then I'm going to SF and somebody, I'm around other guides that they drink hard,
1:11:06
they cuss a lot. They, you know, some of them do other things they shouldn't be doing, right? But I
1:11:13
really credit a couple of, I really credit three men in particular. One, I, one was my neighbor,
1:11:19
Anthony Brown, one was a team leader of mine in SF, Ryan Neab, and another was a gentleman I
1:11:24
forgot his name because I went to a school with them. The 18 Fox course was the Special Forces
1:11:29
Intelligence Orange course. And he was just very influential, got me really interested in Christian
1:11:34
apologetics and whatnot. But I'll say this, the reason why all three of those men
1:11:39
were relevant to me and had influence on me was first and foremost because I respected them as men.
1:11:50
They were guys that I saw that had a good, a good presence when it came to fulfilling their
1:11:59
responsibilities as husbands or fathers or expense, fulfilling the responsibilities of being soldiers.
1:12:05
They were the sort of people that I knew I could count on in a fight. That was important. I could
1:12:10
count on them in a fight. I could count them to step up and do dangerous things that they needed
1:12:15
to in order to protect others. So I admired all of those attributes, which are, by the way,
1:12:20
godly attributes, right? Well, the attributes and so I was willing to listen to them on the
1:12:27
spiritual. Right. Well, let me actually come from a guy that already had a foundation on it.
1:12:31
So how much more important is it for somebody that has no foundation on it? How much more
1:12:35
important is for a young men have no foundation on it? Because here's the other thing. I know we're
1:12:39
talking about masculinity now, but if you really want true godly femininity to be able to flourish,
1:12:44
it has to be protected by godly masculinity. And so for a lot of young men right now, they're
1:12:49
saying, yeah, I do all that, but I got no hope of a family. I got no hope of a wife. I got no
1:12:52
hope of that. If you want to, if you want to foster this sort of femininity that you would like to
1:12:57
see within society, start being a godly man and you will be shocked at how it contributes to the
1:13:02
thing that you want. Well, and I think one of the downstream things we're talking about is this
1:13:06
overall idea that Christian men should be dangerous. So Jordan Peterson talks about this as well,
1:13:10
not necessarily in a Christian context, but he talks about men who find virtue in being harmless.
1:13:16
Yeah. And so they're so nice and they're so polite and they wouldn't hurt a fly. And they are saying,
1:13:22
I am virtuous because of those things. But Jordan Peterson rightly points out is like, no, no,
1:13:26
you're not virtuous. You're worthless, actually, because every single moral thing is, or we can
1:13:33
take it this way. Every single threat is at the other end of a gun. So if a police officer says,
1:13:38
sir, can you please step out of your vehicle? And you say, no, that could eventually escalate
1:13:43
to where you are actually fighting now, whether you're using the weapons that are on you or you're
1:13:47
using these two, right? And so I talked to so many Christian men and the number of Christian men
1:13:53
that have started taking the idea of learning how to fight and learning how to be dangerous and
1:13:58
getting concealed carry permits and states that require it and learning jujitsu and moi time,
1:14:02
boxing and all those things. We've had tons of guys do that because of our show. However, Nick,
1:14:07
I still constantly run into men that think, why do I need to do that? I've got a phone that has
1:14:13
911 on it. I can take care of that. And I do everything I can, Nick, to say, look, if help is
1:14:20
minutes away, but the threat is already in the room, that's a major problem. Or these people that
1:14:26
are like, well, I can still carry why would I ever need to know how to fight? These are always fat
1:14:29
guys. But then it's like, okay, well, now you're in a fight at the airport. Or now you're traveling
1:14:34
and you don't have any of your weaponry with you. Now what? You're in a place where you have to use
1:14:39
your body to protect an image bearer of Christ. And that image bearer could actually be you.
1:14:44
And you're not prepared to do that. Certainly not physically. But some guys, Nick are prepared
1:14:48
physically, but not mentally. They know how to fight. But if a fight breaks out, they immediately
1:14:53
cower because they haven't predecided that I am going to jump into the fray without regard for
1:14:58
myself and my safety in order to protect another image bearer. So I think that's another problem
1:15:03
in the church as well as we don't encourage that. I've got a so I got a book that's actually coming
1:15:07
out later this year. In fact, I don't think I've talked about this before. I might be I might be
1:15:12
introducing this on this. Let's go. So I got a book that's coming out next year. And and one of the
1:15:17
chapters is know what you're willing to die for. Because that's that's something you decide long
1:15:23
before the something you should decide long before you actually have to be in that situation. Right.
1:15:27
Because there there's not just the capability for violence. There has to be the capacity for it in
1:15:31
the sense that you are mentally prepared and wise enough to know when to utilize force and when not
1:15:36
to utilize force. I don't believe in this idea of just utilizing force because oh, somebody just
1:15:42
insulted you. It may be appropriate in certain circumstances, right? I'm not saying to be a punching
1:15:47
bag for anybody or to be walked over by anybody. But you got a situation where maybe some kid is
1:15:53
being drunk and stupid and yelling at you or screaming at you. That situation might be there
1:15:58
to just, you know, leave or if you have somebody with you can't get them out of this the area or
1:16:02
whatnot. It may be to intervene depending on whether or not that person poses a threat to somebody
1:16:06
else. So this is not a pride thing. And that's important. Understand this is not about protecting
1:16:11
one's pride. It's about having the mental and physical capability and capacity to properly
1:16:18
assess situations in order to do the honorable thing which is necessitated by that situation.
1:16:23
Maybe it's protecting yourself. Maybe it's protecting others. Maybe it's protecting your family.
1:16:28
There was a there was a meme that was going around for a while.
1:16:31
And I think it illustrates your point when somebody says, why do I need this when I can pick up the
1:16:36
phone and dial 911? And it was a picture of this guy, obviously very, very physically fit.
1:16:44
And another guy in front of him who obviously was not. And they're walking through what is
1:16:50
obviously like a flooded looks like a flooded street area. And the physically fit guy is holding a
1:16:56
woman. And in the meme says, you know, why do I work out? It's like, so I will never be that man.
1:17:04
And he goes, yes, that's his wife. There is a the big physically fit guy is carrying the other
1:17:10
guy's wife for him. Yep. Through a flooded area. I want I want that image to burn in
1:17:17
to the minds of a man to think I'm not expecting you to be, you know, we're both friends with Chad
1:17:22
Robocha, right? Chad Robocha MMA professional MMA fighter for a part of his life, right? So
1:17:28
I'm not expecting every man to be a professional UFC fighter or MMA. I'm not expecting that. I'm
1:17:32
not expecting everyone to be, you know, a tier one operator with them. I'm not expecting that.
1:17:37
But do you really are you really telling me that it is okay in your mind that if there was a
1:17:44
situation for which help was not available, you couldn't do it? Are you really going to tell me
1:17:49
that you want a situation where if your family is in danger, you have to rely on another man
1:17:55
in order to save your family? I'm not saying don't call the cops. By all means,
1:18:02
you should be mentally in tune to say, Oh, there's danger here. I'm going to call the cops, but
1:18:06
I'm also going to grab my side or I'm also going to protect my family because I'm not at their
1:18:10
mercy. I'm calling back up. I'm not calling someone to save me. Yep. Right. But I will never be like
1:18:18
insofar as within my power, right? Obviously, if somebody is, you know, they're disabled or one
1:18:23
they can't do that, that doesn't diminish them as a man. But if you have the physical capability
1:18:28
to be able to do that, and you are refusing to do so because you can pick up a phone,
1:18:31
you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself. And then you should utilize
1:18:37
that very appropriate shame you feel to go get to the gym or to go get yourself in physical condition
1:18:43
to where you can do the things that make you that ensure to your family that they can rely upon you.
1:18:50
I said this once, I was talking to Matt Fradd. And I said, you know,
1:18:55
one time my wife, something happened and I thought it was fairly minor. I thought it was fairly
1:19:00
minor, right? Like we're at dinner. And my youngest daughter at the time started like choking on a
1:19:06
mozzarella stick or something like that. And I'm sitting here talking to somebody,
1:19:10
she goes, Nick, Nick, Nick, and I look over and I grab her and I do the hamburger. She
1:19:13
spits it out. Like, you okay, sweetheart? Like you okay, sweet pea? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.
1:19:17
Are you good? Sure. Okay. And I got my conversation.
1:19:20
And we're driving home and we get home and I mean, it chokes me up to think about this. It's
1:19:30
crazy. And she goes, you make me feel safe. I tell people, dude, I could go a year on that compliment.
1:19:40
That's it. I could go a year on that compliment. So ask yourself this question.
1:19:44
Do you truly make your family feel safe? If the answer is no, you owe them that. You owe them that.
1:19:53
And so start doing the things that are going to put you in a position so where they can look at
1:19:57
you and honestly say, you make me feel safe. Because I am telling you, there is something about,
1:20:02
gosh, there's something specific about that compliment that will just not only will it not
1:20:09
only will it give you this tremendous sense of accomplishment, but it will also give you a
1:20:14
tremendous amount of motivation to continue to develop the necessary skill sets to not only make
1:20:20
them feel safe, but to make them feel secure, to make them feel loved, to make them feel heard,
1:20:24
to do all of the other things that you want to be able to do as a husband, as a father,
1:20:29
as a friend. And so I'll just leave it at that. It was a point in my life that here we are several
1:20:40
years later that I can point back to and I can tell you exactly the situation, how it made me feel,
1:20:45
how she said it, like all of it. So all I can tell, all I can promise you is that all the work you
1:20:49
put into doing those things is, is tremendously worth it. And a part of your duty and responsibility
1:20:55
is a man. And specifically as a godly man, if that's what you want to be duty and responsibility
1:20:59
for sure. And I'm going to coalesce all that into one final question, because I train really,
1:21:04
really hard, Nick, I lift hard, I train Jiu Jitsu hard, like I everything I do in order to be a
1:21:10
physical protector for my family, I train really, really hard to do that. And every now and then I'll
1:21:14
get somebody typically a fatty will pull me aside and be like, Hey, man, why are you doing that?
1:21:19
Hey, you know, the Bible says being physically fit is of some value, right? I was like, well,
1:21:24
yeah, you're putting emphasis on the sum. I don't think the writer of that particular line did,
1:21:29
but go ahead. But their thing is like, what exactly are you training for? And you know,
1:21:34
one of my answers that I've given to that, which I stand by is, well, you know, I want to be physically
1:21:39
ready, regardless of what the situation requires. So if if Nick says, Hey, I just I lost my leg,
1:21:44
it's gone. But there's a five K that needs to be ran tomorrow to help support this military family.
1:21:49
Can you go running for me? Well, yeah, I don't need to train for that. I'm just going to go do it.
1:21:53
Or Oh, there's somebody that's in trouble on a mountainside. And you know, I'm going to ditch
1:21:57
my pack and I'm going to grab two bottles of water. And I'm going to be the one that can run down
1:22:01
the mountain fastest to get that person help great all that. But I have a four year old son and a
1:22:05
two year old son. And James and Eli, if they're ever in a verbal confrontation with somebody on
1:22:12
the playground, and they say, my dad can beat up your dad, it is my responsibility to make sure
1:22:18
that they're not lying. So that is why I trained so hard is so that I can cash a check that one of
1:22:24
my son's rights, if need be okay. So I want to basically put that all up into this last final
1:22:30
question. Because and this is related to everything we're talking about Nick, raising strong sons,
1:22:36
raising strong daughters, and also writes a passage for both. That requires a lot of a man.
1:22:45
But if you don't do that, something or someone else will that something is probably a left wing
1:22:52
atheistic society, which will tell them here are the values we think should be inculcated into
1:22:57
young men. And here are the values we think should be inculcated into young women. And then you have
1:23:01
the problem, which I just saw this yesterday, haven't had a chance to vet it. So I might be
1:23:05
speaking out of my butt. But roughly 10% of Gen Z girls are on only fans performing, right?
1:23:13
And roughly 50% of Gen Z boys, I say boys, men are using only fans. And so you're allowing
1:23:21
something else to inculcate these values into your children, you're allowing society to catechize
1:23:26
them as opposed to to you in the scripture. So how are we as men as fathers as godly
1:23:32
fathers? How are we to approach our fathers and our sons, or sorry, our sons and our daughters
1:23:38
in a way that would not only be honoring to God, but is setting them up for future success
1:23:43
and health? I mean, I think for if you want to if you want your train, if you want to train your
1:23:50
children in the way that they should go, right, which is biblically mandated, then you have to
1:23:56
first look at whether or not you are actually you are actually somebody that they should reasonably
1:24:02
be able to look up to to demonstrate how to do that. So I think the first thing is to remember
1:24:10
that it's important that we say the right things, but it's also important that we do the right things.
1:24:14
Now, sometimes you might fall short of that. And what I one of the most important things I think a
1:24:22
parent can do and I as a father can do for my kids is when I fall short and they see it or they
1:24:29
pointed out, I had one instance where I did not I did not react to a situation. Well, my daughter
1:24:34
very respectfully said, you know, hey, dad, can I talk to you about this? And I had to look at her
1:24:41
and say, you know what, you're right. I'm wrong. I apologize and I appreciate you having the courage
1:24:46
to come in with this. And the reason why I think that's so important, we've been talking a lot
1:24:51
about the physical and that's that's an important component of that. I'll get to that in the second.
1:24:54
But the reason why that is so important is because if you are if you are seeking godliness,
1:25:00
if you're seeking righteousness, that means there's an objective standard for right and wrong.
1:25:06
And the author of that objective standard is God, it's not you. It's not you as the authority figure.
1:25:12
And one of the biggest problems that we have, I think within society in general, but specifically
1:25:16
also within the Christian church is that if you as a parent are telling your kids that something
1:25:22
is right or wrong, and then you're engaging in it, and they catch you in it either way. But if they
1:25:27
catch you in it and you say, this is my house, I make the rules, I'm your father, I'm your mother,
1:25:33
don't talk back to me, whatever it is. What you've just taught them is that no, it's not an objective
1:25:37
standard. It's just about authority. It's arbitrary. Whoever's in charge gets to make the rules.
1:25:42
And you may think that works out fine. And maybe it does work out fine temporarily for when you're
1:25:47
the primary authority figure for your children. What happens when you're not? What happened when
1:25:52
it is the college professor? What happens when it is the abusive boyfriend? What happens when it is?
1:25:57
You know, somebody else with a boss, a friend group, whatever it is that is now leading them
1:26:02
astray and you say, I didn't raise you that way. Yes, you did. You taught them that right and wrong
1:26:09
were completely arbitrary based off of who the authority figure was. They have to believe that
1:26:15
it's truly right and wrong. And if it is, then it applies to you too. And so reinforcing in your
1:26:23
children that the truth is not only objectively the truth, but deserves to be advocated for,
1:26:31
deserves to be fought for. You might be the first authority figure that they have to stand up to
1:26:37
on something when you've fallen a little bit short. Now they should do it respectfully because you
1:26:40
are their parent, right? But when they do, thanking them for it and encouraging for it sets the right
1:26:47
mindset because whether it's your son, whether it's your daughter, all of them need to be able
1:26:53
to one day stand up for what they believe in at great personal cost.
1:26:57
So the first thing that you're actually developing in them is a mindset. It's a worldview built upon
1:27:06
Christ, their relationship with Christ and a commitment, a firm commitment to biblical truth
1:27:13
when it comes to things like right and wrong and the way that you're supposed to interact with other
1:27:17
people, the way that you're supposed to deal with certain situations, you're supposed to teach them
1:27:21
the critical thinking so they can properly analyze things that they're as they're taking place.
1:27:25
You're supposed to teach them how to negotiate difficult situations, whether they be emotionally
1:27:31
difficult or physically difficult or professionally difficult and setting up that first standard of
1:27:36
right and wrong. And so much of that is rooted in that first part, that foundation in Christ.
1:27:41
If they have their identity in Christ, you're going to find a lot easier to teach them to do
1:27:47
all the other things that they need to do. If they find their identity in being strong or being smart
1:27:53
or being kind or being whatever else it is, at some point that's going to fail them.
1:27:58
So they have to, you have to teach them to find their identity in Christ to make their faith their
1:28:03
own, to teach them the requisite skills. So that's the spiritual component. It's the intellectual
1:28:08
component of engaging in conversation with them and letting them work through problems. It's the
1:28:12
emotional component where you're actually teaching them to regulate emotions, not to ignore emotions,
1:28:17
but emotions are an invitation to thought. So when they have an emotion about something,
1:28:21
why? Discuss that. Teach them how to regulate it and utilize it the way God would have them
1:28:25
utilize that emotion. Have them use that emotion as a key to be like, I need to change what I'm
1:28:30
doing here. Or that's not right and something's off about it. And now I'm going to think about
1:28:34
why it's wrong and I'm going to avoid that or whatever it is, but you do it tapping into the
1:28:37
emotion. It's about the physical. It's about being strong. It's about realizing that your body is a
1:28:42
temple of God and that you should develop it to be able to provide for physical safety,
1:28:46
to be able to provide the ability to do things that might need to be done in a dangerous situation.
1:28:51
To be able, this is something too that I look at. My wife and I made a commitment to each other.
1:28:56
We're it. I'm the only guy she gets. She's the only woman I get. I'm happy about that decision.
1:29:01
I want her to be happy about her decision in all aspects of our marriage to include the physical.
1:29:06
So then developing that physical component as well. And then finally, the professional too is
1:29:11
equipping that your children with the idea and the understanding that the way that you
1:29:16
provide for your family is by doing a good job of providing for others, providing the goods and
1:29:20
services that other people want so that you can help them, you can enrich them, and you can also
1:29:25
provide for your own family and developing competency and skill sets, which could be used to both take
1:29:29
care of your family and to also be able to engage in charity. So those are the five areas, the
1:29:35
spiritual, the intellectual, the emotional, the physical and the professional. As you were developing
1:29:40
and that's a constant development process. There's never a point where you're done. You are constantly
1:29:44
developing those skills along that framework of Christ, that framework of scriptural biblical truth.
1:29:50
You're living that out as best you can. You're admitting when you're actually wrong,
1:29:55
but I can't I can't say this. I can't emphasize this point enough.
1:29:59
The greatest testimony that you're going to have for anybody and especially your children is the
1:30:05
way that you live your life. Now you need to articulating it is great, but they want to see what
1:30:11
you're doing. They want to see that you believe it so much that you actually develop not only the
1:30:17
motivation, but the discipline to do the things that you need to do to regiment the things that
1:30:22
you do in order to be constantly working toward those processes. And they are picking up on cues
1:30:28
from you on everything. They're picking up on cues in your marriage that is building the
1:30:33
expectation for them on what they should expect within their own relationships.
1:30:37
You're right. So I know that's kind of again all over the place to answer, but if I could go back to
1:30:43
the most important thing you're going to do is help your kids to realize that their identity
1:30:47
first comes through Christ and the way you have to strut that process is by making sure that your
1:30:51
identity first comes through Christ. And then you develop all of those other skill sets,
1:30:56
not because that makes you who you are, but because you recognize that you are serving a
1:31:02
greater purpose and developing those skill sets allows you to better affect that purpose.
1:31:08
And if you can do that in as an individual, as a husband, as a father, as a friend,
1:31:15
as a member of your community, you are going to be giving them an example that they will not
1:31:22
only want to follow, but also build upon. I desperately want my kids to be better than me.
1:31:33
But that means I have to provide something to aspire to and then to build upon.
1:31:39
And the good news is while it's intimidating at times and while it's frustrating at times when
1:31:44
you fail, it is an incredible source of purpose and motivation. And it's an incredible gift and
1:31:53
responsibility that God gives us, especially as we become parents. So that's probably the best
1:32:00
answer I can give without another hour. Well, hey, Nick, I think you're making the fine point,
1:32:06
which is you don't want to be the dad that's constantly saying, do as I say, not as I do. Like,
1:32:13
you maybe get one of those, you maybe get one of those as you're raising a kid. And that's like,
1:32:17
all right, I'm just going to go ahead and go with this. But if you're not modeling it,
1:32:21
if you're not modeling it, I don't know what you're what you're doing. Because with a lot of kids,
1:32:25
it's it's caught, not taught in a lot of ways. But Nick, I had a feeling it was going to go this
1:32:30
way. But you and I weaved in and out of a bunch of different subjects. And I feel like we could
1:32:33
have gone a full three hours, but you got things to do. I got places to be as well. So that's all
1:32:38
for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, no, I really appreciate the
1:32:42
opportunity. Again, I appreciate what you're doing. I think it's I think it's desperately needed
1:32:47
in a culture that's increasingly tell us the masculinity is toxic. We need to recognize two
1:32:52
things. Part of the reason why they've gotten a rid of that narrative is not because masculinity
1:32:57
is toxic, but because there are certain attributes associated with masculinity that can be used in
1:33:02
toxic ways. And the solution to that, as you pointed out earlier, is not to be weak. It's not to be
1:33:07
passive. It's not to be timid. It's not to be harmless. The purpose and I think our biblical
1:33:13
purpose is to be men of honor, integrity. And in order to really do that where it counts,
1:33:20
you need to be a man of capability. And you need to be a man of conviction. And where you place
1:33:25
that convictions and where you get your identity managers. And when you get it in Christ, you're
1:33:28
going to fall short. But you're always going to have something that's really to aspire to. And the
1:33:33
more you aspire to it, the better off you will be in the process. And the more the people that you
1:33:38
love and care about will benefit from that. So amen. Amen. Thanks, Nick. All right, take care,
1:33:43
brother. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Nick. But before I let you go,
1:33:47
we are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life or mission is equipping men to push
1:33:50
back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience. So I've got two
1:33:55
links for you today. I've got a link to Nick's website. So if you want to go and check out some
1:33:58
of his merch specifically, all of his different coffee mugs, you can go there and also you can
1:34:02
check out his YouTube channel. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to
1:34:06
this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want me to come speak
1:34:10
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1:34:16
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1:34:23
Just go to www.undonton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
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1:34:32
which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description.
1:34:37
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
1:34:43
mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:35:13
[Music]