Mark Houck: An Update | Ep 231

Take a look behind the curtain with a real whistleblower, an American patriot. Prepare to embrace the uncomfortable truth, because this program has no time for comforting lies. Here is civil liberties enthusiast, Second Amendment defender, and recovering FBI agent Kyle Serif. Well, hello my friends, and welcome to the Kyle Seraphin Show. Today is Tuesday. It is January the 30th, coming to the end of this month, and what a way to end it.

We're going to be bringing on a friend of this program, a friend of this country, and a man who has stood up a suspendable 100% who looked down the barrel of the justice system, was offered a deal to get out of whatever punishment might be coming his way. And he said, Nope, I'm not guilty and trusted both in God and in the jury of his peers. Something that's kind of difficult to do, honestly, having a lot of faith in our judicial system.

That's why we kind of trust in God and not in man. Anyhow, we're going to be bringing on Mark out very shortly. You guys are going to really enjoy this interview. I think you were going to learn something. I every time I speak to Mark, I've learned just a little bit and very much. Looking forward to that and sharing it with you. Now before we do that, let's talk to a couple of our sponsors. Let's say thanks to them real quickly. Let's do this one.

And there it is. It is patriotcoolers.com. Our great OG sponsor started from the beginning and we can appreciate their support. Guys, you can go to patriotcoolers.com. Again, that's Patriot coolers.com. Use the promo code Kyle. Kyle will save you 10%. Kyle is the promo code that you can use if you spend 50 bucks or more, especially if you buy one of the big ticket items. Big ticket equals, I don't know, $200 or so, you're going to get free shipping.

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house. Let's see. Let's also talk about our other buddies or Patriots. We're kind of have a theme here. You guys might notice this. We kind of love this country over at the Kyle Sarovan Show. Why don't you guys check out the number 4 Patriots fourpatriots.com/kyle. Again, fourpatriots.com/kyle. Use the promo code Kyle. If you are just clicking through on any of the social media, they've done a great marketing blitz. You guys can get yourself some

emergency food. You can get prepared, and that way you can get yourself some emergency power, right? Not just power for your body, but power for your devices, power for your lights. They've got a solar generator. You're seeing that going on. Every time I see this video in the background where the guy is like throwing the thing in the water, I always cringe. Not because I don't think he can handle the water, but because I hate putting my hand in icy

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And then lastly, and certainly not least, I want to say thanks to the folks that kind of introduced me to Mark's story and then also gave his family the award for Catholic year of the year last year, 2022, which we're probably going to be talking about in just a minute here. This is my buddies over at Catholic Vote. If you are not getting the loop every morning, you are missing out on probably the best one minute e-mail that you will get.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I think you guys are really going to enjoy this. I've been looking forward to it, mostly because I'm holding on to his award. It's sitting on my desk. We're going to bring on my Catholic Hero of the Year 2023 Mark out. And we're going to have a little conversation about his run for Congress. We're going to talk about who he is. If you missed our previous episode, we'll catch you all the way up. Don't fear. And here he is, the man, the myth, the legend. Mark out.

Welcome to the Kyle Seraphin Show. Hey, Kyle, it's good to be back with you on the show. I am looking forward to this quite a bit and as I said, I've got your trophy right here buddy. So they they sent me this thing feels like it should say Mark, it says Kyle. But if you guys, you know, if you're in Texas, it's yours. Look, I'll tell you, we beat Lila Rose in the semi finals. That was like that. That was enough for me. So I was happy to that was give

you the the final victory there. I had a tougher bracket up front because I was going against a professional baseball player. Not that he did something so big, but his name. But lap against Lyle Rose, that was a that was a solid bracket. I thought she was going to wipe me out. But at that point I that was like I I couldn't believe it. I my people were exhausted after that. I thinking, you know, no, you you deserve it, brother.

You deserve it. Well let me let me tell you why I think it was it was always your your year last year because what what you did was a bigger and and I told this to the people at Catholic vote you. So we stood up in front of it. First of all, I credit my wife and I was like, look, without a wife. And I think you might agree as well, if you don't have somebody in your corner, it's not going

to happen. And and it being doing the right thing when you need to do it, it's very hard to be a man standing alone, especially if your house is divided. But you know, we lost the house, we lost a job. Those are all replaceable pretty easily. What you were looking down the barrel of to me was the biggest because you were looking at basically losing your freedom.

And if you're looking at losing your freedom and you will to go up against what we know is a corrupt justice system, that's way scarier to me. That was that was my argument to my audience. Like I said, they let me down. I'm a little disappointed in them. But that being said, why don't you tell people a little bit about what that looked like? Let's tell people why they know your name. Then we're going to talk a little bit about more who you are and run for Congress.

Sure. So you know we're we're coming upon the anniversary of the acquittal. So this is the week I was in trial. Last year. I was before a federal court jury of my peers. Suppose the jury of my peers in Philadelphia, facing 11 years in prison, $350,000 in fines, and three years supervised probation against a Justice Department that does not lose at the federal level, 98% conviction rate. Hopefully preparing my heart to go to prison for the life of freeborn children and and the

pro-life movement. And yeah we we were coming upon a decision that would be my defining moment essentially in my life and the government gave us a plea deal on January 6th of all dates where we can walk away. We could walk away and you know just go under a rock and hide and be safe and and and not have any entanglements with the the government. But we say we can't do that.

I I can't do that. I can't let down fellow Americans, fellow First Amendment right holders, pro lifers, all the things that this case law was, was was going to kind of in Japan. And we said no, we have to do it. We have to be all in. We can't abandoned ship. And so we risked everything and like you said, my wife was fully behind that and she said you go do what you have to do. We got this. And she said if you're going to take that free deal, don't even

bother coming home brother. That's what she told me. So she empowered me. She emboldened me and we just said we're all in. And so that was where we're at at this time last year. It took two full days for the jury to deliberate, but it was a full acquittal, unanimous decision had to be that way. Otherwise we we would had a hung jury and they would have tried this again. If I took that plea deal, as you know I get a felony charge, they would have put me away even longer the next time.

So that's kind of a catch 22 there, right? And sounds like a good deal. But in reality they're going to keep you on their watch list. They're going to come after you again. And then Gus, if I'm going to keep fighting the the good fight, I would have you know myself in the crosshairs. If the Biden administration gets re elected, you know they're going to keep coming after us as pro-life 1st and 1st amendment right holders. So we said we got to do this. We got to get case law on the

books. We got it. Help versus the United States of America is now case law. We can use it to protect sidewalk counseling, Pro-life America. And you know, that was huge.

And then this year that we've been on, we decided that we needed to take the fight to the government and now we sued them and in November of this year for prosecutorial misconduct for everything they did the the collusion with the state of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and all that was involved there, that that put me in an indictment. So that is a a big deal and we're going to hold the government accountable for the good of America.

What did that deal look like that they dangled in front of you and you know, you said that your your wife was behind you. You didn't have to ever consider taking it, but what did it look like and and how tempting it might have been to someone else? Extremely tempting. In fact, my own lawyers told me to take it. It's that it was that sweetheart of a deal. It was no time. I wasn't going to go to prison. It was no fine.

I was facing $350,000 in fines, 11 years in prison, and the probation was zero to six months. So I was facing three years supervised probation. So essentially no time, no fine, no probation, just plead guilty to the assault charge. And I said, well, I'm innocent and I'm, I'm not guilty of this. I'm not going to say I'm guilty

when I'm not guilty. But I'll tell you, it's one of those deals that the government was shocked that we didn't take because everybody takes that deal because that's the deal you want. You want to get out of jail free and you want to go back to your life. And you know what we said? You know what? We're in this because, you know, we know that following Christ, and this is, I'm a believer, right?

I'm a, I'm a faithful man that, that we are going to be persecuted when you follow Jesus, right. So to me, it wasn't a shock and I would, I would kind of somewhat rejoice a little bit in my heart that I could suffer for

him. And so if you put me in prison, not that I'm going to be happy about it, but there's a degree of like spiritual joy that I would have knowing that I would be suffering for Christ in a similar way as Saint Paul, Saint Thomas, you know, St. Titus today, Saint Timothy, the feast day where this interview, you know, Saint Peter, like these are guys that that are my heroes.

So, you know, if I can walk that walk with them and and be a part of that in solidarity, You know, I I was going to embrace that. Again, I didn't want that, but I knew that my family would be OK and that God would take care of. So my audience has slowly been introduced to the concept and and I was introduced as I started getting into the space about white martyrdom versus red martyrdom. And I think it's such a, it's a really important concept that has maybe lost a lot of

traction. People haven't seen it, but now they're starting to understand it and we started seeing in the last couple years. Do you want to talk about the distinction there And and you know if you're not going to be a white martyr, you're sure as heck not going to be a red martyr, right. And maybe we can kind of break that down for people and it's the small steps that kind of win these little victories. Well, that's for sure. The white martyrdom is, is, is dying to self.

And and that can be done every day. You know, in your marriage as a family man, as an employee, you die to what you want, right? So there's this degree of just white martyrdom that that comes just on the everyday grind of life and offering up uniting our suffering with Christ. But in a in a more specific way, white martyrdom comes when you're persecuted, you know, unjustly. That's, that's really what we're talking about here.

When you're being calumniated, which is a big word, which means when people lie about you to purposely ruin your reputation, when you're unjustly persecuted because you're of your faith. And now they say that martyrdom, the grace of martyrdom comes when the moment of martyrdom comes. You know that you'll be, God will give you that grace, especially for the red Marta. But in truth, you have to be working towards that every day of your life.

In other words, you just can't go about your life and be like, Oh yeah, God will give me the grace whenever it's time to die, you know, whether red or white. That's not true. You, you have to be saying yes every day to that. For 20 years I was saying yes. That's so when the FBI banged on my door, that was a white martyr moment, and it could have been a

red martyr moment, frankly. But when they banged on the door, I was able to say yes to what that invitation was and not freak out and not be angry, but in some ways have a peace and a calm that says, OK, you know, I'm here if you want to take me, take me, in other words, this white martyr and became this opportunity to become more like Christ, to become more like the Saints. And again, that's that's definitely a an interesting nuance because it's it's different than daily self denial.

It's it's I'm choosing to suffer for Christ intentionally. And that way I if I went to prison, you know, that would be my choice. And that that plea deal was a way to avoid that white martyrdom, the red martyrdom. Look, anything could have happened that day.

If I had a, if I had a gun, if I had a a airsoft gun, if one of my kids had an airsoft gun, if as I would have come to the door with something like that, knowing an intruder is there who did not announce themselves, Yeah, I would have been shot and then they'd be, they would be saying I was a a red martyr. But you know what? That didn't happen by the grace of God. And, you know, we didn't have to suffer that. But you know that I'm not saying that that's not in my future either, right?

I mean, that could be in all of our futures. As Bishop Strickland said, we need to be 1st century Christians in the 21st century. So we better be preparing ourselves for these persecutions because it's coming and more of it's coming, you know, and especially in this election cycle, if we continue to choose what we're choosing, more of this persecution is coming. Let's talk about that day. Many people have seen the movie police state, especially my audience is probably familiar with it.

So Dinesh D'souza made a movie that basically did the historical context where they said, you know, what is, what does this burgeoning police state, what is it that we are living through look like? And so we we talked about Muslims that basically face the the front end of the federal government. And then we ended up talking about how it moved on to movements that essentially just

included everyday conservatives. And you got a like a front row seat of what it looks like when the police state comes and bangs on your door and you got an opportunity to have that trauma which it is traumatic. And now you got to live with

that every day. Because when I, I have to imagine that when the door knocks and and it's early in the morning or if somebody comes to drop the parcel off or something or the ring doorbell goes off, there's always going to be that little tinge because you've experienced it. So let's let's take people through that day.

And then maybe, even if you don't mind adding to it, the fact that you had already had this thing come up and it looked like it was already settled at the state level where this should have been in the 1st place. Let's kind of give people why you had the Maybe you were lulled into some belief that this was all over when it wasn't. Yeah, April 22nd, everything was

dismissed at the state level. In fact, they didn't even show up for court after four or five efforts to to mediate and come to some sort of private criminal complaint conclusion. So five days later, I'm served a target letter. So This is why, you know, the federal government was watching this case because five days later I'm served a potential indictment target letter saying I'm of a target of a federal grand jury investigation under the FACE Act for two FACE Act

violations. So in that regard, you, you see it and that's there. And you have your attorneys contact and we contacted the Eastern District in Pennsylvania, the FBI, Justice Department and said, you know, we will come in, we're peaceful. Just call us, we will come to you. So that was our plan all along. If you're going to indict us, you know we'll come to you. Don't. No need to bring an agent out to his house. These are the words of my attorney. No need to bring an agent out to

his house. So Fast forward to September. We had the Dobbs decision in June. This is April 22 when I got my indictment target letter. Then the Dobbs decision, then pro lifer start getting arrested, Mar a Lago happens and then we're in August and my attorney contacts me of 2022 and says have you heard from the assistant assistant US attorney? And I said, well no, why would I have heard from her? He said, well, she's not returning my phone calls. So basically we're thinking it's

a done case, it's over. They're not interested anymore. There's no case here. There's case law on their own district against indicting me. So we're moving forward. So when the bank comes on the door on September 23rd, I am not expecting FBII wasn't thinking target letter. I was totally shocked that they were there. And so to your question, to your point about the trauma of that day, we still live that to this day because all nine of us have PTSD. And that's that's not a

diagnosis. We know it because when unannounced people come on our property, there's an alarm and an internal alarm that we're all feeling, especially when it's a police officer that might be pulling into our driveway. They banged on the door and didn't announce themselves. When we were doing some campaign videos, which we'll get into my campaign production, people had like simulated red, blue and white lights. My wife says you got to turn those off. We are all freaking out in this

house. So you know that the trauma was pretty darn severe. My wife had a panic attack when a priest came onto the property unannounced. She didn't know it was a priest. She had a panic attack. M16 guns greeted my children as they came down the stairs and when the FBI put their M sixteens in the threshold of my home, a little 4 year old, 6 year old seeing on the barrel of a gun pointed at them after they just woke up from a night's

rest. I mean I don't know the long term damage or something like that, but that's got to be pretty darn significant and and frankly we're monitoring that every single day. So the audience needs to know that you know, we are still affected by this even though you know, one was hurt that day miraculously.

So there are long term effects that when a assistant US attorney or Kristen Clark at the Justice Department says let's go indict this guy, let's get the arrest warrant signed, they're not thinking about how this arrest is going to affect the people for the rest of their lives. If they would have just said, hey, this might be better to bring this guy in on his own recognizance and spare his children. They're not thinking about the long term effects of these children and how they're going

to deal with this trauma. And in fact I had a a lawyer confirm that with me that my story in sharing my story said, you know what, we don't even think about this when we sign these papers to to for these arrest warrants. We don't think how these children and these people are going to be affected for the rest of their lives.

It's just one day for us. Yeah, it's business as usual and I've been on that side and I'm and I'm kind of hopefully not going to experience the the other side of it, but there's always that possibility. But you know, you just don't know what. Here's something that that I think that people need to grasp. You're talking about a four year old looking at the barrel of a gun. I know that you got good people. You're not in trouble with any law. Cops are your friends.

That's what you're teaching your children. We teach the kids the same thing, right? When I was a little kid, I grew up in the 80s and it's like if anything bad ever happens, you get lost at the mall. Where do you go? You go find a police officer, that person's going to help you. And now what we've done is we've done this 180° reversal. We're now we're looking at that law enforcement officer who's supposed to be the good guy. In our mind, the way we teach our kids, they are now a

potential threat. And that's what, to me, the word I always use is betrayal. It's when you have because because nobody can betray you if you don't trust them to begin with, right. And so when you're dealing with that, with your family, betrayal looks like this is an institution, an organization, law enforcement in general, that we would otherwise want to be able to say, yes, we trust.

And now your wife has anxiety attacks and panic attacks when she sees the lights that indicate law enforcement is there. That's right.

How, how else do you even quantify that and and how do you even move forward with it particularly when you already knew that the state level which was can you talk about the political environment where you live and whether or not we think that was was going to be a like a real right wing kind of group that was looking at indicting you there for the state level

charges? Look, yeah, I mean this is part of the prosecutorial misconduct complaint that we filed and there are so many parties and levels to this, not only the sheriff in my county, not only the the governor of Pennsylvania who had to approve the the, the state troopers being used. But to your point, the trust like, yeah, I mean the children see a police officer and and they're reticent just by virtue of what happened to them and and that's not good.

And we have told them that, you know most of these guys are good people but we do tell them just like the Nazis just like the the the people who work the concentration camps. You know, they had a choice to make. You know just following orders is not acceptable.

You know this is not acceptable and This is why the complaint is so necessary and that the the it's so egregious that we have to move forward in filing and we will file again in April, Kyle, you know a punitive damage suit against the Justice Department because the government needs to be punished. A11 time gross negligence kind of thing is not enough. You have to punish them. You need a jury to say the government needs to be punished for what they did.

And so the players that be are many. All of those agents are listed on that complaint that were there that day. Christian Clark is on that list. You know, the the people, the sheriff, these people, they're all on the list because all need to be held accountable because you can't just say, well, I was just following orders, that's not right. Those, all of those agents had a choice that day. And the state troopers who were invited to be on that rate, they all had a choice to make that

day. And I think you know, sadly, most of them made the wrong choice. It's it's really important that we don't take away the agency that those people had in making that decision. I I hear that just following orders routine or there's good people on the front lines and your your example is such a great it's such a great reminder to people you had agents who were just like me who just had the same training as me. They're in the same age bracket as me that knew what right and

wrong was in theory. And they were, you know, they had a good background where they could pass the security background check and they had top secret clearances like like I did. And then the real question is this, someone's going to come and have you do something on one day. And if you're not willing to throw it all away, that's why we created this brand.

In fact, that's what this means, that the suspendables brand, which we've given you one of the pins and I got another one for you now, I've actually got a limited edition one that you can't buy, you can only earn. And you guys definitely earned it. So you let me know how many you want for the family and I'll send them out to you.

But you can only do that when you know that you're going to basically take that job knowing that you could lose that job any day for the right reason and the right reason, as you told me, to do something illegal, immoral or unethical. And I'm not going to do it. And as you mentioned every single one of those agents and the prosecutors and all the people that Co signed on this, I keep calling them good Americans, you know, and it's so sad that you and I have both

come to this. We we never talked about this before and we we independently realized this is what the Nazis were able to exploit that comfort, that addiction to comfort to just do what's easy and worldly, you know. And that's why every single person that wears this badge is a Christian. Every single one of them is without fail. And I mean, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on if that preparation, if that's the only

thing or is there more to it? Is there an American piece to it, or is it literally just that Christian belief that allows people to do the right thing when it comes up? Look, you bring up some important realities, and then you think of people who are serving our country. In the military, you know you have a duty to follow the orders that you're given. However, when it's an unethical, immoral order, you have a duty, a sacred duty to reject it.

Now if you are forced to carry forward and someone makes you do that order, that becomes a moral injury right? And that is hard to process and deal with. We need people of integrity like you and have the courage to say no when this comes. We know people that were state troopers that were invited to that raid that day who said I'm not doing that, that's not right, I'm not doing that. Thanks to be to God. They had that courage.

So yes, these folks that that are engaged in this, I I think if they're not a believer or someone, a person of faith, it would probably be hard to come to that conclusion. Not because faith gives us, you know, the exact answers all the time. However, it is an objective truth that you know when we deal with God and people and loving our neighbor that we do that checklist. If I'm just an agnostic guy or someone who's not really, you know, walking the walk, I get an order.

It's just a job. I'm just doing my job and I think you know people like you who have a conscience, a well formed conscience, not a malformed conscience. Sadly we have many today that just you know, faith is not that important to them. And I think you know our country was founded on faith. We need people. We need our leaders to be you know walking the walk and and from the White House Down we we we see people who it's a nominal thing for them. It's not anything that actually

influences their life. It is just there as as just an add on what. Do you think about this recent push? There's a Rob Reiner movie that's out there and they're pushing against the concept of Christian nationalism. You just talked about our founding being, you know, Christian people. That's what that's that's who came here.

They came for that freedom. Whether, you know, the fact that they were Protestants and they just were waiting to become Catholics later on, later, that's a different animal, right? But they came here and they founded this nation for religious freedom and then we

want to just rewrite history. What do you think that plays into the sort of embrace of moral relativism, which is what I kind of see this, this is like a an outgrowth of the 80s and the 90s where people just kind of said, yeah, let's just, you know, it's right for me. I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. That kind of movement, which I just talked about earlier, thoughts on that and and kind of the effect that it has on our politics.

Sure. Ethical realism is is been around, as you said for since the 80s and even beyond that. So yeah, what's right for me is right for me and who am I to judge and all this stuff. So look, it plays a huge role in all of this. If you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for anything, right. You know, So, you know, we, we, we recognize that the culture in the schools, we took God out of

the schools. We took prayer out of the schools and and and this was the beginning so we're going way back and then and then we you know we be continue continue to Rd. faith this Christian notion of Christian nationalist. That's what I am right. That's what you are. This is the way to to really attack, you know, not activists, but to really go after people of faith, to go after and identify them. And this is really, really where

the rubber hits the road now. We've established that the last bigotry, the last bias in our in our world is against Christians, Catholics in a in a particular way as part of that Christian family. So this is the last acceptable bias and it it from the top down. Again we now see that Christian nationalists like you and I are domestic terrorists, right. This is this is in your memo that you you essentially exposed. So let's. Here, we don't want to take

credit for that memo. All we did was expose it. Zero of the year. Oh my God, so, so, but, but let's kind of dig in. I see a broader plot here. And and perhaps you do as well, the way that came after you that the that the FBI came after you. You gave me the opportunity. You said, look I'm. I'm willing to turn myself in if this is a real issue. Like I'll, I'll come and present myself. We refer to that as a summons in the law enforcement world. So a summons is mark out.

You must present yourself on this day to the court at this time and we'll see you then. And if you don't, then we're going to end up having an arrest warrant and you probably end up as a fugitive from justice. They'll come find you. But they didn't give you that opportunity. My understanding is did they file a criminal complaint first? Was that the first move they did with you? Are you? Are you aware a private criminal complaint was done by the man who I had the original incident

with? He did his own criminal complaint, Sure. The government did not file a criminal complaint against me. He did and that put me into the the state court system in Philadelphia and and that was to be mediated and ultimately was dismissed. So there was never a verdict, there was never a a ruling. It was just a dismissal, which I think opened the door for the federal government to indict because I think I could be

wrong. If there was a ruling then there might be this double jeopardy thing going on so. One of the ways that they've been doing a lot of this stuff where they go if they went and got an indictment and they got an arrest warrant out of that, there's something truly troubling about the way that means that grand jury was able to end that judge in particular was allowing it because generally speaking, they would say, oh, well, you've already been in contact with the attorney.

This has already been handled at a state level. Why don't you issue in a summons? That would be like, why do you need an arrest warrant? So generally speaking, that becomes really problematic. And I may do a little deeper research on this to find out if we can find it. And if so, we'll add it in post.

No big deal. But the way that they basically did your case and the fact that they decided to come and make what we call the process, the punishment you guys want to you want to kind of reflect on, you know, it's not just punishment against you and maybe how you represent sort of as a figurehead to to others. So other people might be warned about that behavior that you were engaged in? Yeah, you know, I've used that term. I've heard Steve friends say that as well.

And and I use it because I I see it. I see that the way they treated me and and the way that it all went down in light of my former federal prosecutor who knows the routine, knows how this is done, my own judge said that the the grand jury was a collection of hearsay. It it doesn't have to be factual. You just kind of find people that are going to say the right things to get the indictment. So, you know, this collection of hearsay, we're bringing people into a room.

We're going to say, yeah, this guy's a bad actor. Yeah, this guy has a reputation for this. Look, I was a target and have been a target for a number of years, not necessarily from the federal government, but from a local standpoint with Planned Parenthood. So Dobbs is overturned and now we have a weaponized government.

We have President Joe Biden giving the marching orders to Merrick Garland down to Kristen Clark, to all of you guys at the East, at the at the regional level to now go after domestic terrorists, enemies of the state, people of faith, people like me and and people who are activists, people who are effective at what they do. They didn't care about a conviction. I don't believe that they wanted to punish me, humiliate me and make me scared.

And you know, frankly, my children were scared, but, you know, my wife was scared. But frankly, I I think it backfired on them when it comes to me because I recognize it as a gift. When I was sitting in that holding facility in the federal building in Philadelphia, 100 yards from Independence Hall, chained to a table, belly shackled, ankle shackled, when I'm in their custody, I rejoiced. I saw it as a gift. I was at the foot of the of the cross. I was at Calvary. I was a Golgotha.

I I felt peace. I felt joy. And I believe, as a Catholic Christian, that my will and God's will were perfectly united. So what happened for me it was just an invitation to to be to grow into into that, you know, image of Christ that is, you know, we're invited to to participate. As Paul says, I make up for what is lacking in Christ suffering. So I was now suffering for the salvation of souls. So to me, it was a wonderful opportunity.

And you know, frankly again I can't embrace that if I'm not walking that walk for 20 years and then they keep me in belly shackle ankle shackles and carry my in my wrist, you know, down to the US Marshals. I'm being released. Why do you need to keep me in shackles down six flights of stairs just to just if you just don't want to just humiliate me if that's the only point is just to humiliate me And and frankly

I think it was. I mean, again, maybe that's protocol, but I mean, I'm being released and I'm not even found guilty yet. So I'm being released and you're still you're still reminding me, Like, don't don't do this any further. This is what's it's going to get worse. Let's leave this as a permanent reminder to you. I still got the scars on my ankles from the the the ankle shackles. Yeah, Those are not very comfortable.

They're not really made to be comfortable and they're not made to really walk in. They're kind of the opposite of that. They're supposed to make it a struggle to get somewhere on purpose. Like like you were going to go running off, you know, with with all the kids you got back home and all that.

Like, what are you going to do? That being said, you're a pretty good sized guy and you're you're in this moment where they're basically looking and they're like, OK, we got this, this this violent offender who involved like who basically pushed somebody, which by the way the FBI Academy is full of training that is significantly more aggressive than the action that you took on that day. So none of these agents should

have been scared of that. And then you were praying is is what you told me the last time we spoke. I remember you saying that that was the that's where your mind went. And without that preparation you say 20 plus years on the walk you're not going to end up there. You're going to end up, you know, asking what's going on and and I don't know, I just, I find that example I know when my father heard it.

My dad's older than both of us and he's sitting there and he's listening and he's just like, you know, what a, what a bro. There it is. Yeah. What are they? What are they? They even did. They did entire pieces, hit pieces in the leftist media about the idea that the rosaries are now sort of like the rosary and the AR15 are the two symbols of resistance in this country. You know, they've got to draw it

in there. But it's spiritual battle and I guess physical battle, although we're not there yet. It's it's so interesting that was where your mind went that the first thing you thought was is I'm not angry at these people. Did you see any of the the agents look at you and think I'm the bad guy now? Did anybody have that look on their face? Look, when I was at the door and the second bang came and they announced finally that it was the FBI and it was you're.

In a bathrobe, right? Am I right? Am I remembering this? I'm in. I'm in shorts, T-shirts and a flip flop. OK, at 6:30 in the morning when they announced the second time when I said declare who you are and they said was the FBI open up. Bang, bang, bang. Doorbell. Doorbell. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. I said something that I think put them all on their heels. I said stay calm. I could tell they were very anxious. Stay calm. I have seven babies in here.

When I say that word, baby, I think it's just for any man. It's like, wait a second, there's a baby in the house. There's babies in there. I just, I don't know why I said it. I just said it. That's what I call it. My kids, right? Yeah. I Holy Spirit. When I came out they were on their heels. They, you know I, I think a warrant supposed to be presented nothing. They didn't even say like we're taking you down to they just they they they patted me down.

But they just kind of stood there and looked at me and I said, what are you doing here? So much so they didn't even. I had to find out what they were doing there. And they said, well, you know why we're here. I said, well, I know, oh, you're here, 'cause I rescue babies is what I said. And they didn't say anything to that. So then I'm standing there, my arms up, right, 'cause I'm totally compliant. Land to the slaughter. Do what you will.

I said you wouldn't be here if the Trump administration was in the White House. First thing came to my mind, and they didn't. They just looked at me. I felt like it was Gethsemane and the Sanhedrin soldiers are coming for Jesus. We're here for Jesus and Nazarea. I am he. And they kind of they fall to the ground. Well, these agents didn't follow the ground. They just stood there, watched me. Then my wife comes down and says, who are you looking for?

Because she thought they were at the wrong house. Him. What's his name again? I'm sure this isn't protocol typically in the FBI handbook, but usually you announce what you're doing. And he said, Mark, how OK do you have a warrant for his arrest? The my wife says to them, well we're taking him with or without a warrant, so. So this is like the disposition of of the lead agent and he was the one that was speaking. The rest of them, they weren't saying anything.

When I got in the car and I said why so many of you? They said, well we know nothing about you. We come prepared for anything. I said really. Two battering Rams, 20 plus federal agents, the state troopers, swat guys at my back door. Really. You know nothing about me. OK. I find that really hard to believe. You know what's? That was it. They probably knew nothing about you and and I don't know if we talked about this the last time the. Other. Agents, right. Well, most of the agents

probably knew nothing. So the goofiest thing is this. This is the saddest part of it. This is the really the banality of evil. And This is why that that Nazi analogy is so important. The way the FBI works is that every single new agent they have to, they are required to check off X number of arrests. They have to be at a certain number of arrests and it's usually five. That's the number. I think that's the magic number. You got to participate in some way, shape or form.

Sometimes if you have like a very non active squad, you'll literally watch one on TV where you're sitting, you know you're sitting in a room and they come in and they're interviewing you and they're going to put cuffs on you. And I watched you do that. I can sign that off as an arrest. I was participating but everybody wants to get in on the arrest. None of them probably knew what was going on.

And so all of that, you know, it's a cultural failure and it's and it's truly evil because shouldn't you be asking the number one question? I was asked when they asked me to go do something. It's like, what are my authorities? What are we doing? Why? But that only comes from a fundamental distrust, which I think anybody who spent enough time around the government should have. We're not, we're not hiring those people today.

And so they're going to come and knock on the door and they're going to come and they're going to be put off guard by somebody who says I've got 7 babies and they're like babies. We don't go to places where there are babies, you know, And then you then you brought in politics to it, which is obvious to anybody sitting on the outside of it. But none of those people thought they were doing something political. I'm sure of it. They were just doing their job. What about the lead agent,

though? He knew. Oh, for sure. Oh yeah, he's the only guy that had the knowledge. Well, and the other thing is this, and everybody has a misconception. One of the things I like to do in this program is educate just a little bit. And it's like nobody's going to show you a warrant from the FBI. They're not going to show you a search warrant until after. When they do that, until they get the house secure and clear, they're not going to do that. And so we have this expectation from TV.

It's like, you know, come to the door, we got a warrant. They're going to hold the paper up. No, nobody's holding the paper up. They're holding the shield up. And so that is a fundamental misconception that we have in the media and at least a really possible dangerous outcomes like you say possible red martyrdom because people are expecting a certain thing and the FB is reputation is built on garbage TV, it's not real as you saw. So the 4th Amendment protects a man in his home, right?

And so in order to be able to arrest a man, you you got to produce a warrant though, right? You can't search and seize a home without a warrant, correct? But what it says is that there must be a warrant, but it doesn't say that you get to see it beforehand. And that, I think, is the scariest thing for guys like you and even guys like me. No doubt about it. I don't think it's a good policy. I'm just wanting people to know. That they have to announce that they have a warrant though,

that's the way that. Yeah, no, that's the way I was trained. So bang, bang, bang, probably like 3 bangs, bang, bang, bang, FBI search warrant, FBI warrant. We may not say what kind of warrant it might be an arrest warrant, but usually it's a search warrant. And if they have all those things, as long as they've confirmed it with the judge, then they'll go into your home and you may never see it. And that I think that actually

is bad. I think that's bad as a people that are presumed innocent because did you feel like you were being presumed innocent during that that arrest? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I I I felt like guilty and damned where I stood as I came out of my home. And again a man in the 4th Amendment you know should have the security of his own home.

This he he should be secured that that that the sanctity of his home the safety of his home that that would be protected and preserved under the the Bill of Rights and and frankly that's part of our our federal complaint against the FBI is that they violated my 4th and my amendment right. So no. Absolutely not. I I my kids were in danger. I felt in danger. In fact that's why I went with them because I wanted to protect my children. I wasn't going to resist because

I didn't. I wanted to get them as away from my house as quickly as possible. You know, like traditional masculinity, your job is to protect. You want to talk about the other things because it was actually really impactful When we spoke first spoke, I walked away thinking about the roles of men in society, both as Christian men and as just good Americans. But talk about how we've kind of lost some of this masculinity and what you and how you kind of work in that field.

Yeah. So for 20 years I've been I've been running a men's ministry and and trying to empower men and encourage men and and even in my own walk you know you know you're you're trying to grow in these these areas yourself. So traditionally you know we we look at men and their core nature and we see them to be leaders, protectors and providers and and a lot of men aren't formed in that.

It's something that you know it's probably true to their core being but unless it's enforced or unless someone is there to guide them and mentor them, they will probably be succumbed to the cultural's expectation of them and become extremely passive. A very passive man who's submissive to you know just the will of of anybody in in their in their presence. And so you know a man really needs to know his role. And as Catholic Christian men we we understand that we are head of our homes.

We are Bishop of our homes as Saint Augustine would say. So you know we have that headship by by virtue of our of our role. It doesn't mean we're right on everything and it doesn't mean we get to do everything we want. It's just proper to our nature. Whereas the woman is is the heart of the home and and and that's proper to her nature And

so it's complementarity. And So what we try to do for men is encourage them, give them the skills that they need to really live out these roles and we take them on retreats and we have men's groups all around the country. And so I've been doing that for a number of years. And so when I saw that my children were in danger, right. You know, they're screaming on the steps. My wife has a gun pointed at her. My first instincts are to like, get away from the home and

protect these children, right? So tell me what you want me to do. Put me in whatever. Just get me get, take, get, get away from that. My anxious 79 year old sees the SWAT guys at the back door. To this day, she's still traumatized by just seeing the M sixteens and the and the SWAT guys at the back door traumatizes her little heart because she's extremely sensitive. And so as a dad, your job is to

protect their innocence. And this is the this is the most criminal thing of the FBI and the failure of the system and the failure of the men who were just there to check off the box of the arrests that they're supposed to fulfill so that they can get their full agency recognition. Is this? For 15 years, my wife and I homeschooled our children to preserve and protect their innocence. The Sacred Deposit of the Faith, 100%. But they're innocence.

The government stole that innocence in an instant and didn't think twice about it. And that's the biggest crime in all this. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. And and interestingly enough, you guys were probably ahead of the curve as far as the the modern kind of home homeschooling movement that's been kind of pushing forward. It was slowly creeping on the this is where it went parabolic probably with the the COVID tyranny that everybody kind of experienced. They went like, whoa, what?

What were we not paying attention to right in this? In this walk that you've been on, you've been speaking to men. So you're doing public speaking. You're talking about the proper role of things, which are pretty traditional and, you know, human beings had figured out for thousands of years until recently. We when we forgot how to do everything. Did you ever think that you were going to do this in a political environment, that you were going

to step into that morass? Was that in your heart at all? Absolutely not. I mean look, we we cross pollinate with, you know, with our First Amendment rights as we as we fight pornography and fight abortion and defend traditional marriage. I've done witnesses and demonstrations in front of the White House. So there's a cross pollination whereby, you know, we stand against, but never thought that I would put myself in a position whereby now I would become a potential national leader in a

political realm. I was a faith leader, a ministry leader, apostolate that I LED, right. That's, that's who I am and that's my life's work. However, now I'm in a position whereby, you know, Saint Augustine says if if God gives you a platform like now you've been given Kyle with the role that you have in this country of ours and and you abdicate that platform, you will be held accountable for it. Again.

If you have the power to influence and effect change to save the Republic and you just say, you know what, it's just easier for me to just stay at home and do what I do. You know that there's going to be accountability for that because God has created you for such a time as this. You, Kyle, have been created from the beginning of time to do

what you're doing right now. And as of I and I think we're both in the will of God because we're exposing the injustice and the powers and principalities of this present darkness. The evil one is all around us. We have a duty to be light in that darkness. And so now I find myself in this political realm, not as a as someone who desires it, but someone who's willing to do it because God's asking it up. I always tell people Isaiah 68 was always my favorite.

I don't know if I told you this, but this is my absolute it was my favorite. I don't know why I love the way that it was. But but the answer to you know when, when God calls his name, he doesn't. What is the answer When, when someone says your name, how do people normally respond? They normally say what you know or yeah, or hello. And he said, here I am. And and for whatever reason, that's always stuck with me,

even since I was a kid. I've always answered when you say Kyle, it doesn't matter where you are. If you say it, I'm at the mall, which I don't want to be at the mall. But if I ever am at a mall and you see me say, hey, hey, Kyle, I'll say here I am because I don't know what else to say. It's just stating a fact that I am present in this exact place and for whatever reason that's always been and that's the answer to the call. I have no interest in being a public figure.

I never wanted any of that. In fact, there's a you can, you can prove it. And I'm guessing that you have a similar sort of background. You can go look and find out exactly how political my aspirations were, were my media aspirations by seeing that there was none of it before I got tapped. And one of the things that me and the guys always say is that, you know, you can kind of see God's plan by looking in the rearview mirror, but it's almost impossible to see it when it's happening.

But I'm wondering because you had the presence of mind and you started immediately seeing a lot of these things, your your statement about your mindset as you're actually getting into cops and going in there, you know, praying the rosary and and and making it a moment of devotion. Like, did you have a clearview of what was being asked of you at the exact moment or is that something that you've been able to look back on and kind of fill in the blanks?

Look, I've known for years that I was putting myself in the crosshairs of potential arrest. And as you as a someone who's a student of faith and a student of the of the Bible, right, you, you see this. And so, you know, Martin Luther King, you know someone who's doing something, who knows he's going to put himself in a dangerous situation.

We minister in dangerous places sometimes And, you know, fighting pornography, which I've done for years, You know, you're you're fighting the mob essentially at at the deepest level of that, you know, like it's not a safe place to be. So I knew that, that that the bad people were there. And of course when we deal with abortion, you're dealing with

pure evil. And so, you know when you're going up against Satan and the people themselves are not satanic, some might be, but the buildings, it's infested with evil. When you're going up and you're pushing against this and you are actually being successful and antagonizing the demons, that is going to come back at you in a spiritual, supernatural way. In other words, the blowback from something like that in a spiritual lens is, is is

inevitable. So I knew that Satan would come after me to come after my marriage. He'd come after my children and he'd be prowling around like that, roarling, lying, looking for to devour. So for me, Kyle and I think you, you know this would be good for your audiences. You need to know that when Saint Peter says the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, you need to know that that is really best understood. The old African proverb that a roaring lion catches no prey.

In other words, a roaring lion is a wounded lion. A lion. Orion's don't roar, roar unless they're injured in some way. Because when they hunt their prey, they're stealth, they're quiet, they don't make noise. If they make noise, that means they're wounded. So Satan is wounded. He's permanently wounded. He loses. He knows he's a loser, but he's fighting as best he can to take some some with him.

And so we know that Satan is going to attend in whatever way he can with the third of the angels that fell with him, which are millions upon millions of angels. Billions. And that number is just so a normal you can't eat. There's more angels than there are stars in the sky, and there's more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on the earth. So that third of the angels is beyond our imagination. So these angels, these demons are going to push back.

And so for me, when I got pushed back in the form of people who are cooperating with evil, collaborating with evil, and we could call it what it is, this Nazi soldiers or those that are just saying, yes, the following orders cooperate with that. You're going to experience that. And and so when I was arrested, I knew that without a shadow of a doubt because I knew I was innocent and I was being honest for a righteous cause. So when I got the cuffs on me, I went right to martyrdom.

I went right to Felicity and Perpetua. I went right to, you know, Saint Paul. Right. Maxima and Colby. I went right to those people and I was praying along with them. So was it instant? Probably not instant. But by the time I was shackled and in that little white room in the federal building, I was right there. Yeah. I think that that preparation though most people don't, many people haven't put themselves in that spot. They're busy living their lives.

They're not looking around. I think I said it the other day. It's like so many people were focused on their jobs, 70s, eighties, 90s, they're doing that kind of thing. Then they're focused on their computers at their little office cubicle. Then they're now we're all looking at our phones and we're looking down. Everyone's looking down. Nobody's looking up and saying what is happening around me, #1 and #2, Am I prepared for

whatever is coming? And and that preparation sets you apart, I think, in many ways. And then just the abject ridiculousness of what they were doing, it also helps. So you made a decision at some point. Can you kind of talk us through, you know, maybe some of the kitchen table conversations you must have had with your wife about what that looked like when you decided, hey, we're about to keep this thing going, it's, it's about to get Dumber in this house and probably more

uncomfortable. Well, we spent a year in hell this past year and you know, just journeying and the 4 1/2 months till the trial we go. I looked at the trial as crucifixion date. You know, I I looked at it as, look, I'm preparing to go to prison. So when we were set free and vindicated and the judge, Judge Pappert says Mr. how you are free to go. You don't understand freedom till it's taken from you. We take all our freedoms for granted.

All of us as Americans do, because we're born into it and we don't really appreciate it. So I'm thankful to a degree that I have a greater appreciation of my freedom and that has caused caused me to come to an awareness of protecting others and their freedom. And so as we journeyed this past year and discerningly, you know, people say you should run for office, you should run for politics. I told him no way, I'm not interested in doing that.

But as more people were saying, consider this, Please pray about this. I had to take it to prayer. Ryan Ray and I had to talk about this and say what is the Lord asking of us, Kyle? You know, if we want to grow in our faith, you have to allow yourself to be stretched. If you're not being stretched, you're not growing.

So for me to just go back to business as usual, for me just to go back to my ministry and just to do what I was doing and go back to Planned Parenthood, which I do and not see the bigger picture here would be very myopic in my in me. I I would be very close minded. The Lord has expanded my heart, the Lord has stretched me and now we want to be stretched even further. So running for Congress now is the biggest stretch of my life. I've never done anything so

toxic in my life. And so the only way we can walk this walk is by having a good prayer life and my wife and I being even more united. And the good news about all this, if there is any good, you know, a lot of times I was been doing ministry on my own and my wife was back at home taking care of the kids. But now as we're running for Congress, my wife is actually this is, she's doing it with me. So we're even more united as a couple, which has been a great

grace. So as we talk and discern and we have discern that we will run and we are running for the First District in Pennsylvania, my wife is right alongside with because it wouldn't work if she was.

If she wasn't doing it with me, it would drive a wedge between us. And if she wasn't on board, I wouldn't do it. And she knows that for such a time as this we have been called, and such a time as this, Kyle you've been called, that we're being raised up to be great Saints. And one of the things that maybe your audience would appreciate, I don't know, maybe not. St. Polycarp was a 1st century St. who was a disciple of John. And you know, he was a

theologian. And he said that the Saints at the end times will shine more brightly than the first witnesses to Christ on the earth. And why is that so important? Why would he say such a thing? He said because they didn't have to confront and defeat the accuser. They didn't have to confront and defeat the dragon. Satan, you and I, we are in this, these times where now we have to confront and defeat the

evil. 1. And so Christ is not with us in the way they had him, You know, Polycarp John, they were around with Jesus. We don't have that realm anymore. So in this regard, you know we're being raised up at this time to be a a great light for the world. You said the word you hadn't faced that sort of toxicity before. Let's talk about. Let's talk about what's toxic. Look, I've never seen bad behavior like I've seen it in

politics, even local politics. The disparagement, the the calamony in the slander, the things that have already been said about me that totally untrue. I I just, it's just bad behavior. I don't want to be around it. I don't want to be around gossip. I don't want to be around people who think poorly of other people because what we we are called to think the best of each person that we need until they prove otherwise. Now you got to be shrewd.

You got to be, you know, you got to be calculating and prudential in your judgments. But at the same time you don't presume that everybody's evil that you meet until you they recognize that there is evil there in in their actions. So for me, it's like walking into this land bind where things just blow up right in front of you and and and and you have no say in the matter and you just see like people imploding left and right based upon past behavior.

How about forgiveness? How about redemption? How about we move forward? I've forgiven the government. I've forgiven all those FBI agents. I had compassion in my heart that day. In fact, one FBI agent, and he's the only one that I think totally recognized what was going on. He shook my hand in that federal building and said it was a real pleasure to meet you. And that man knew in front of his peers that this was a good man, that this was wrong.

And he was willing to say in front of his peers, like, hey, I was blessed to meet you today. I couldn't believe it. And I said, hey, it was a joy for me, so. That's such a strange moment. That's kind of what I've been experiencing with this campaign thing. There's some interesting irony in where you're running. You want to talk about that? There is some interesting irony.

And, you know, I've been told that Brian Fitzpatrick, the incumbent who is in my district, is the only former FBI agent in Congress right now. Perhaps there were others in the past, but from what I understand, he's the only one. He's my congressman and and he's been my congressman. This will be his fifth term if he wins. He did not come out and support me. He did not condemn his former employer. I'm his constituent. He did not come to administer to

my family as of my congressman. Say, hey, is there anything we can do for you? Is there anything I can do for you or just on a personal level, not even make a public stage of it? Hey, look. Are you doing OK? You know, I I'm your. I'm your representative here. Let me help you. He had nothing to say. He hasn't said anything to this day. He hasn't condemned this former employer, and that's not why we're running.

But isn't that an interesting narrative that the guy that I'm challenging is an FBI agent and I have the story that I have with the FBI. So I think it's it's just a a God moment for sure. How busy is that primary? Are you one of many? No, it's just me and him. It's a standoff. And I tell you, we had 118 votes in the House right now. This is a huge, This might be the most important election in Pennsylvania outside of the presidential election because of the importance of this seat.

And you know that the Democratic Party is going to go after this seat with everything they have. So once we win the primary, you got to you believe the Soros money, the Clinton Foundation, it's all going to be poured into the seat because they want this seat, they want to get that majority back. And you know what, my congressman, he votes like a Democrat. That's what he does. He, he he, he votes 70% of the time with President Joe Biden. He doesn't vote with the Constitution.

He just voted for FISA. He wants more federal surveillance of of of people. He votes with the Equality Act. He he votes with everything that it goes against, even his own Catholic, Christian faith. So look, it couldn't be more clear how different we are. But you know, yeah, it's just me and him. And you know, may the best man win, Just like you won the Catholic hero vote. The best man won. Don't start with me on that one.

It's so it it's so interesting and like I say, just the the places that you're put in your life to be able to make that moment happen. And now you are going head to head against a former agent who as you said votes a certain way and is a squishy Catholic. The the only thing that continues to make me feel really good about the way the world looks is that the harder and the more firm paths. Continue to attract more feet. Nobody's looking to go walk

through the soft wishy washy. Well, everything's kind of OK thing, you know what I mean? There's just more and more like the the churches that are growing in the Catholic Church, they're all much more traditional. That's what my wife and I went looking for. Nobody wants it easy. Everyone understands that we are in a time where it requires real consistency and real rigor. And I hope that's the case for your.

So I think people are going to be interested in your race specifically people from outside. You said there's going to be Soros money. What can people do to support that and maybe tell us a little bit about what the platform is other than that you're a good man and I think that's that's objectively clear, but what is the platform you're trying to push? Yeah, sure. Well, you remind me of just the, you know, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the

church, right. So Tertullian said that. So as you said, the people seeing like this opportunity for them, it's attractive, good people are stepping forward. A lot of good people are saying, you know what, I can make a difference. And I think this is what our founding fathers wanted was for people, normal people, to be public servants and to serve and get out right. It's not for career politicians and to become multi

millionaires. 80% of Democrats are multi millionaires, 30% of Republicans are multi millionaires. It's a, it's a it's a it's a career for them. But this is not what we intended. So for me, look, I, I, I'm all about term limits, right? I I'm not there to to to stay for the rest of my life. You can go to hulkforcongress.com is our website. HOUCKFOR congress.com. You'll see our platform. But to answer your question, our platform is common sense. Let's start with the

Constitution, right? This is our this is our guide. And so sadly, Congress has not been following the Constitution for a long time. And so it this is what I will be relying on. You know, when we deal with Congress, we deal with immigration, military weights and measures and limit limiting government. That's the four enumerated powers of a Congress person, congressman and woman. So look, that's where we will go. And so when it comes to immigration, we're going to shut down the border.

At least that's what I'm going to support. Because if someone's bleeding and hemorrhaging on the battlefield, you got to stop the bleeding. That's what I would advocate. Now, of course I would love to enforce existing immigration laws, but I don't think that's enough. I think we got to stop the bleeding, get it right. We can only take in 300 to 500,000 legal immigrants a year. That's the most we can take in. We took in that last month alone, so we got a major crisis,

clear and present danger. I think it more important than anything else going on in the world right now. Congress needs to focus on that issue and thankfully some of them are getting getting their heads wrapped around it So that's one of the major issues we're dealing with obviously strong military we got to have we have to have a good military readiness and and and but but for me as a as a man in ministry I I was doing healing retreats for veterans.

You know we have so many vets that are 22 of them a day are committing suicide right coming back after the way we pulled out of the Afghanistan war in total crisis. You know, so it's for for me that I, I got to see the veterans in that lens, even though that may not be a a full constitutional normal power. We can't neglect our heroes.

We can't forget about them. And so of course, you know, when it comes to the economy, my gosh, man, we are funding so many things that are unconstitutional, like the Department of Education, for instance, that has to go right, like that'll put in billions of dollars back into our into our economy, right. And how about, you know, the war that we're the proxy war we're fighting over in Ukraine.

We're just blank checking billions upon billions of dollars for this proxy war that's never ending. We don't even know where that money's going. You know, how about we restore that to the economy? And how about we get back to energy independence again, right? As for, you know, that's that

was where we were closed. Remember at the end of the Trump administration we were paying like $1.98 for gas here on the East Coast, but now it's back up to 5, four, some $7.00 in California. Remember we how close we were getting to being energy independent? Well, all that stuff belongs at the state level. It's actually not a federal problem, but we making it a federal problem. We need to put all this stuff back at the state. We restore all this.

You get some money back into our economy, then we start addressing this inflation issue. So anyhow, this is just some of the the issues that we're dealing with. Of course, my my, the, the incumbent, the congressman I'm fighting against, you know, he wants more government surveillance, right? You can take the FBI agent out of the agency, but you really can't take the agent out of the van. There's one way to do it. Turns out there's one way to do that.

How you do that? You just throw him out and then you attack him aggressively and see what he does. If he's old enough and if he's wise enough and more aggressive. Let me let me throw something at their plate. Kind of a devil's advocate, 'cause I think a lot of the places that that Republicans lose and you're running as a Republican, you're in the primary there against an incumbent Republican, squishy one, but Republican none the

less. One of the areas I feel like we lose is that the left comes in from the the angle of compassion, which would be a very Christian value. And they'll say things like, you know that's these poor people. I just covered it earlier about woman dies on the way across the border and that's why we have to open it up. There were three, there were two children and a woman a 33 year

old. I feel like they take the agency from that, that poor woman who made a terrible decision, but it's all about compassion and heartstrings and you know, it's we always called it the bleeding heart liberal. How do you square that with a man who is deeply rooted in faith and now is also talking about we've got to fix the border? When? When That's the argument. Look I mean you're going to juxtapose that always with what's happening after this border problem is is unchecked, right.

So we're we're losing people in this country through the drugs So we we can't have misplaced compassion. We got to have compassion yes, for that woman who sincerely is seeking asylum or but we also have to see the result of those that are not seeking that that that asylum. I'm not saying we don't allow immigrants into this country.

We we we will. But we got to get control of this with the fentanyl, the IE DS that are coming in that are blowing, they're destined to blow up whatever they're destined to blow up the the human sex trafficking of the chitter. We saw that in police state with that US Marshall talking about that boy being in diapers now coming in as he's being raped coming into this country. So we got to have compassion but we can't have misplaced compassion. We do have compassion for that

that woman. In fact our social justice teaching and our Catholic faith tells us that we must have compassion there but we must also bring her in the right way and and and sadly you know we're going to have to temper that. We're going to have to temper the timing of all that and and we will help them get here, but we're going to have to do it the

right way. And we can't just like, you know, just like say oh, because of that story or these are the stories, you know, we got to allow the 10,000 bad actors coming into this country as well. So I think the only way to do that is to just stop the bleeding in my opinion and then and then fix it, change, change the laws if we have to, but then and then open up the borders again. And I agree with Governor Abbott what he's doing in there. He's he's trying to protect his

people. So whether that's unconstitutional or not for him, he believes it is constitutional for him in the state of Texas. So I think it's a misplaced compassion to just single out those random stories which are true but also not but neglect all the other stories at the same time. It has to be a totality for us and I think that's the way we have to deal with it. Do you think that you can be a Catholic Democrat in 2024? I think, I think they are diametrically opposed to each

other. And there are people who are Democrats who would or who are pro-life, you know, and then there's those that say they're pro-life that aren't. But look, I think the, the policies in the platform are diametrically opposed to to Christianity. Let's just let's just put it that way not even Catholicism to to just being a Christian. They're they're they're not in in conformity there. So I don't know how you in good conscience could be a Democrat and call yourself a Catholic.

I I just don't know how that's possible because when you vote you're voting for intrinsically evil things.

So if I'm a Democrat, the traditional Democratic policy is is for abortion and and and woman's rights as it pertains to healthcare there, as they would say, then that's an intrinsically evil thing that cannot be separated and your choices as a Democrat politician, you cannot separate that Church and state is not meant to keep faith out of Congress. It's meant to protect the church from the state invading the worship space.

It's not meant to be the other way around like we keep church out of in fact we invite church to inform us. Then we had Pope Francis address Congress when he came here in 2015. We invite church to address our political thinking and it helps form our conscience. So it's not the other way around. I don't think they can be. I don't think you can be a Catholic and be a Democrat in good conscience. I don't disagree with you, just curious. I like to, I like to ask people the questions.

You got to take hard statements if you're going to be others. What do you think? What do you think about this recent sort of pushback and if it means anything other than just a stunt? But our friends at Catholic Vote went and and was able to get a Latin Mass said in the US Capitol for the first time in history. Obviously on the anniversary of that document that I pushed out, what what do you think that means? Or it doesn't mean anything at all? How cool is that for you, Mike Johnson?

Yeah, Mike Johnson said yes to that. Mike is a Catholic. You know, I've known Mike for years. I knew him when he was a constitutional lawyer in Louisiana fighting pornography. And so Mike is a good man. He said about Christian, So he said yes to that. I think it was a wonderful thing. I was overjoyed at that. I thought that was great. I mean, you bring the body of Christ into that place. Look, his presence is now there,

right? Like, not in the fullness, but his presence is there because he was there. And we bring our Lord in there as we go into the Capitol building as Catholics, and we bring our Lord. It's a Eucharistic procession in some respects as we bring him into the world. So I rejoiced in that. I thought that was great and we need to do more of it.

And on that date of that anniversary, I thought it was a wonderful way to basically say, look, we support traditional Roman Catholics, those with the support the Latin Mass. And I think it was a great day for for the church and in America. Any message of hope that you want to share. We've got a lot of darkness

around. I I feel like your your line analogy is actually one of the biggest things that's been sitting with me. In fact after our conversation you may not know that but it impacted me in a good way and I walked around with that. I also heard people tell me that the real men make Quiche was one of the most memorable lines. For the first time that we talked the people walked around and I've had people tell me I go yeah we're going to have Mark Haliband they go oh real men make quiche.

And I was like, that's what you walked away with. That's pretty funny. I walked. I walked away. I mean, I I think you're not wrong. That's fine. I'm good with it. I've eaten quiche, too. My wife makes a great quiche. I've never made a quiche. But my my skills are limited. But the the hope piece of it, because I think that's the the thing that most people get They

get waylaid. There's an awful lot of distractions and evil things that are happening in this world and whether they happen to them, happen to you, happen to our families. You know, sometimes it's hard to just get up in the morning and just look and go like, what am I doing? And are we just going to lose this thing? Maybe kind of the position of hope that you come in, especially if you're stepping into a swampy place like Congress, if that's the goal.

Yeah, and look, one man with with courage is a majority, as Andrew Jackson said. So we would just have to see that the good that flows from one man like yourself or or another man who who's willing to step out that like yourself, others will follow. And you know, look, our job isn't to fix all the problems. I have a men's group in Brooklyn. It's kind of funny.

Kingsman group in Brooklyn and you know, it's the only group that we allow the F word to be spoken at because in Brooklyn that's kind of like part of their language. And we say, and this is I'm going on somewhere, somewhere with this. We say that you don't try to fix Brooklyn, you just pray for Brooklyn. So when you wake up in the morning, you're not going to be able to fix every problem, but you can fix what, fix what is in

front of you. And that may be the demon that is in front of you, the alarm clock 1st. And that might be, you know, the desire to not be friendly to your wife or the desire to be, you know, I don't know, inappropriate with your children, abusive emotionally and verbally to them. That may be the first dragon you slay that day. And then as you go to work, then you take the next dragon on, right.

And so for us as Catholics and for me as a Catholic, you know, I kind of subscribe to what hope John the 23rd did. Saint John the 23rd. You know, at the end of the day, here he is, the Pope, and he would go before the Lord and the Tabernacle. He'd say, Lord, I've done the best I can. It's your church.

And I think, you know, there's a nice way to just kind of let go and surrender and say, look, I turn this all over to our Lord and through the through Mary. A lot of us as Catholics, it's always through Mary and and Mary takes it to our Lord. And so we, we just say, you know, I entrust this into your hands, do something good with it. God right straight with crooked lines. You know, we have a nation that's very much now lost in so

many ways. We're on the brink of Scott Perry, Congressman Scott Perry said of losing our Republic. Yet in the midst of all that, there is still a grace that is knowing that we have a new opportunity each and every day to choose life, to choose to protect life and defend life and the behold the dignity of the human person. And I think at the end of the day, if you go a step away from your decision, your choices you make, Did I uphold the dignity

of the human person today? Did I build up the Kingdom of God today? If you can say that you should put your head on the pillow at night and have peace and not be so concerned about all the problems going on in the world, but just that problem that you had, as as Mother Teresa would say, Calcutta is in your home, you don't need to go to Calcutta to find Jesus. So it's in our home. It's in our workplace. It's in, you know the, you know,

Congress, right. And and and if I can influence one person or maybe help to improve the life of one person, you know, at the. I didn't share this with you. When when after we were arrested, the whole world came out upon us and my family in love and support. And one guy reached out to to me about a month or two any cities in the heartland of America. And he said, I'm a lousy Catholic but seeing what's happening to you is bringing me back to church. I thought, you know what?

Save a soul. Save your own soul. I would go through that punishment and persecution just for that guy. That made it all worthwhile. And I think at the end of the day, that's what we're measuring here. It's not macro. It's got to be totally micro. And you know, the Saints that you're raising up and your four children and and the wife that you're helping get to heaven like that is really at the end of the day, the measure of success.

You know, at the end of the day, God's not going to judge me on my on my judgement Day for how well I push forward a bill in Congress, although that might influence a lot of lives. He's going to say, I gave you your wife, I gave you those children and did you tell them about me? Did you teach them about me? And ultimately, that's the my primary judgement is in that realm. And then outside that realm is maybe Congress, and outside that

realm is my neighbors. But if I get that wrong that that helped me, the person that God put in my life to help me get to heaven. And those children, they're in my custody and I didn't teach them about Jesus. That God help you if that. If you fail in that mission, that's the most important mission. I love that story about the guy reaching out to you, because we've had a couple of those people reach out. They can go to the website, they go to kyleseraphin.com.

There's a contact form there. And so I just get all kinds of stuff. Some of it's mental illness and that's really sad and I don't know what else to do about that. But people tell me about the Afghan surveillance teams that are following them and I go, oh God, you can't help that person. But I got I've had a number of people like a like a a decent number of people that have said you know I walked away from the church whatever their church was or whether the Catholic Church.

And I'm taking another look at it because of the example that people like you or that more more often especially when my buddy Garrett O Boyle comes on who is Catholic adjacent. We're working on him still he's going to come in we're we're going to end up winning the the battle there. People don't know that but there's a small little advocacy group happened Garrett went to Marquette and and that's the other thing. A lot of my suspendables Steve friend Catholic adjacent went to Notre Dame.

You know there's there's a piece of that that that has existed. It's very interesting that it's there's a book coming out around that Catholic vote put out that's called Catholics How Catholics Save America and some of it is, is by being targeted which is very weird that the FBI picked I just love that they picked the wrong crew. They just found the wrong people right at the wrong time to start going after that push and and they made an example of people that historically have always

kind of risen to that challenge. Plenty of screw ups in the church over many years, but but not the ideas of it. I think those have always done really well. All right, last good question for you, because I just realized that I'm sitting here staring at Mount Rushmore on your hoodie. Was that a specific choice or was that just what you had on today? You know, it was an accident. It was. But with God, there are no

coincidences, right? I mean, look here, here, we, I didn't even think about it. In fact, when we got on, I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. Look, we have George Washington, who, you know, here's a man who didn't even want to serve his second term and said, no, I need to do it for the good of Republic, right. And then of course, you know you have the assassinated Abraham Lincoln. I it was not by design. But I tell you, these men do inspire me.

And they're not perfect men. They're imperfect men. They're imperfect men and but they're transformed and they had their own journey. And and you know, I love Teddy Roosevelt soon and the man in the arena. I mean, that should be for men. We should, we should put that right on our desk. And that's really our measuring stick. You know, that man, Yeah. I mean, he was shot giving a speech and he continued to finish the speech. Whatever was in his pocket for

saved his life. But he he delivered. He let them know that he was shot and he continued on with this. There's not a man's man. I don't know who is the. Most masculine president, you know, You know he used to do a thing called wolf noodling. Are you familiar with that? No. It's fighting wolves barehanded, but you put on like this leather gauntlet on your wrist so that they can they can bite into it and then you subdue the wolf with your hands.

That was something that he was known for doing. You're like, wait a minute, we had a president that used to go fight wolves barehanded. Just, you know. Yeah, exactly. Great, great examples of of true one masculinity but to a service right, service, service based leadership. Which would be it'd be nice if people knew that in Congress. Maybe you can. Maybe that will be your your your life's work. You didn't even know that you might have a bigger life's work.

If you can get out there and just teach some of them that the purpose is not for the the Congress to serve them, but maybe that they can go back to what they're supposed to do. You know, that's so important. It's such a good point and and I think it needs to be said over and over again.

Look, you know this is, this is we're doing this because we love America. We're doing this because we love the freedoms that we have and and and our founding fathers wanted citizens, normal citizens to serve their community and serve the state and stir serve their government and then be done with it and and this career politicians and the you know you got to be and you got to stick around for a while to get some

stuff done. I get that but you know what it's it's not to become a multi millionaire. I don't think you know politics is designed for that, yet everyone that sticks around is is a multi millionaire. So I I just don't understand that the love of money is the root of all evil. And I'm not saying money is evil. But when we see the type of money that's done and and the and the way this money is is dirty, this this dark money is is moved around just to keep

people in power. It becomes one of the most evil things that that we have in our in our country. And so we have to get to get in, serve and remind people like this is our duty, this is our sacred duty to do this. And it's our honor, it's our honor to be able to serve our people that way. So that's what I'm hoping for.

And I'm I'm hoping that it'll resonate with our voters in the first District in. Pai also do people have asked me if I'm like who I'm endorsing for anything and I I'll endorse Steve Friend if he wants to run for president and I'll endorse you. That's about it. So far it's got it's got to get pretty, pretty down in the weeds for me to get really excited about any political candidates.

But I'm really excited that you've gotten in and and I appreciate you taking on the burden of it which many people will think you know maybe it's it's a popularity contest or fun. I I'm thinking it's probably exactly the opposite, that it sounds awful and and I don't envy you for doing it, but I I am appreciative that you've decided to take on what should be a real burden, and I'm sure it is for you and your family. Yeah.

So look, we're going to take our friends with us, so I'm going to be calling Kyle Seraphin to come and serve in my administration. You're making my nightmare come true right now. That's the worst thing that I can hear. It sounds awful. It. Truly does. But I I look forward to being like having a couple of decent men in in a place that could maybe turn the tide, bring a little bit of point of light into something has been pretty dark.

Let's let people know where they can follow you any, any place you want to plug. By all means, whatever the best place is first and then we'll work them out. Yeah, How for congress.com is the 1st place HOUCKFOR Congress and there's all our social media connected to the campaign. You can also learn more about my ministry at the kingsmen.org and of course that's that's my full time job. And so, you know, Congress is this busy side hustle that doesn't pay me, you know anything.

So go to thekingsmen.org if you want to learn more about our mission there and we continue to do that as well. So those those would be the the main ones. I really appreciate you taking time out of the day. I appreciate you doing an unpaid side hustle. I know a little bit about the side hustle that pays nothing. I told people I was a government transparency activist. The pay is crap, but but the rewards are mediocre because they don't usually work out for your favor anyway.

Mark, you're good, man. You're good. You're good American and you're great Catholic and you're great example. So thanks so much for spending time with us today. Well, thank you, Kyle. And it's always great to be with the Catholic Hero of the Year I. Look, gonna just keep rubbing everything. Another beer with you or another opportunity to to be with you. I just want to take that raise that's coming off you right now and take that myself. We'll do that real soon, buddy.

Thanks so much for joining me. God bless you all right? All right folks, that is it for today's Kyle Sarapich. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I love talking to Mark. Such a good dude 100%. And while we're talking about people that we love, talk about the merch store. You guys can check out the merch store. You can go support GOB Actual, my buddy Garrett O'boyle. Check out the Dash suspendables.com. It's the Dash suspendables.com. Don't forget the Dash. Use the promo code, Kyle.

Why? I don't know. Which is 7010%. It doesn't matter. You don't need to, but you're going to support it and you're going to be able to find all kinds of interesting T-shirts, like this one here. This is the PT shirt. This is for doing your physical training or if you just want to March around and have a nice fitting shirt.

Super comfortable. It's got the stenciled logo in the back and you can wear it with Ranger panties and you'll look almost exactly like what I used to wear when I was active duty in the middle military going through all of the training that I did. It looks good, even with sweat on it. That's actually the best thing about the PT shirt. We talked about those pins. You guys can see them on there. You can get three of those pins at the white ones. Mark out sporting one of them.

We're going to get him one of the limited edition black ones as well. But folks support Garrett O'boyle and the O'boyle family Sweatshop at the Dash suspendables.com. You can use the promo code Kyle to save 10%. That's it for the show. Today we got a five star review in front of you. We really appreciate you guys paying attention and I hope you support Mark help. You can follow him on all the

Twitter pages. We'll throw that in the links that'll be in the show description And until then how about a five star review from one of our wonderful listeners on the Apple podcast system. This is from old Medic 35 says great show, five stars, entertaining and informative as

always. I hope that was the same, the same situation you had listening to Mark and you know even if he's going to give me a hard time about the the Catholic hero thing we're going to we're going to shame the Catholic Catholic vote folks into getting it over there. The the whole hout family won last year. That's what it that's what it came down to. If you guys didn't know. Some of you are new to that story. Let's also let's shut it down. I hope you guys have a great day.

We'll see you again tomorrow and God bless, be safe. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Kyle Serafin Show, streamed live weekdays on rubble.com/kyle Serafin. Follow Kyle on Twitter, True Social, and Instagram at Kyle Serafin.