The American Dream with Dr. Ben Carson

head a major division in the hospital's history. In seven he led a seventy member team that performed the first successful surgery to separate conjoined twins connected at the back of the head. And because of his work, he's received numerous honors for his neurosurgery work. He's been named the nation's you know, one of the nation's most foremost physicians and scientists. In his past, I mean, the Library of Congress is named him, you know, living legend. He's received

a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He's written best selling books. He went on to run for president in sixteen and then serve as Trump's secretary of Department of Housing and Urban Development. I mean, the guy has just accomplished a remarkable amount of achievements, and so I just want to get his take on why him right? What did he

do differently? How how is he able to to get out of Detroit and become this remarkable success not just from someone who came from poverty, but just a success period, you know what, And what does he think of today's the state of the country. You know, what can we do as a nation to move forward, to to be better, to build a stronger country. And I want to get his take on school choice. I know education has played

a huge role in his life. He talks about how his mom really instilled that value in him, that she really encouraged him to read books, to go to the library. It was, you know, a prerequisite almost in their house with his mom, and she really valued education and for him because she saw it as an opportunity for upward mobility. You know. So what would something like even school choice in the country do for so many young people that you know, maybe face additional challenges because of the zip

code that they were born into. So we're going to talk about that. He's also been married to his wife for almost fifty years. What's the importance of marriage? You know. He's also previously talked about how God really changed his life, how he grew up really angry and violent, and his religion and his walk with God was life changing for him that it allowed him to become the man that

he is today. So we're gonna talk about all of this and also get into some of the political stuff like the Joe Biden administration and a lot of different things like that. So I think you're really gonna like this one. Dr Ben Carson just a fascinating and extraordinarily accomplished man. So I really hope you love this interview with Dr Ben car said. Oh, and his latest book is Created Equal and it is out just came out, I believe in May, so I wanted to plug that

for him as well. But I hope you love this interview with Dr Ben Carson. Dr Ben Carson, it is such an honor to have you on the show. I was telling you, my mom is such a fan. I told her I was interviewing you, and she was like, what was so excited? So make sure you tell I said, Hi, You've just had such a remarkable life, such a remarkable career. You know, you grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in poverty, and why do you think you were able to get out and turn your life? And is such a success

story when so many we're not well. I always say if everybody had my mother, we wouldn't have any problems. You know, she had less than a third grade education, but she was really committed two idea of getting an education. And when I was a terrible student, she was great distress and she finally figured out what to do. She said, you know, I'm a domestic I'm clearing all these wealthy people's homes. I'm gonna a spy on them and see

what they're doing what makes them successful? And you know, she concluded that it was reading books and not watching a lot of TV. And she came home and imposed that on me and my brother and we were not happy, but we had to do it. And boy did that have a revolution very effect on me as a person as I started reading about all kinds of people of accomplishment, and I began to understand that the person who has the most to do it what happens to you is you,

not someone else. And that is still the case today. You know. You take, for instance, I talked in my newest book, Created Equal, about the wealth gap that so many people talk about in this country side to attend that explex the white and it does exist, there's no question about that. But they say Ghanaians and Nigerians they're black and there's no wealthcap. So what is it about

them that's different. It's not the color of this again, it's that if you go to one of those families and you look, you'll see that a Bansor's degree is the baseline. They put such a premium education and a big premium on family. And interestingly enough, if you take traditional Black American families who have those same values, there's not much as any wealthcap there either. So maybe we're looking at the wrong things when we're looking to blame

everything on racism. And that's not to say that there isn't some racism. But now, as as my mother used to say, if you go into an auditorium full of racists figuring white people, you don't have a problem. They have a problem because they're all going to cringe and wonder if you're going to sit next to them. You can sit any where you want, and you know, basically carrying that philosophy has allowed both me and my brother did very well. And you talked about the importance of

your mother. I mean, I was sort of a handful growing up. I don't know where I would be without my parents just continuously putting me back in the right direction in life. Why do you think as a society we devalue the importance of family, Well, you know, family structure. Even the Marxist who wrote about America years ago state that one of the really strong pillars of America, why it would be so hard to bring it down, was the family structure, because that's where you get your values from,

that's where you get your identity from. And when that begins to break down, you don't have an anchor, and you become very easy to manipulate. And that's why so many of our people today, particularly a lot of our young people, just like blowing like leaves in the wind, whichever way the wind is blowing, that's the way they're going, and they don't have those strong values. You know, that's one of the reasons we created American Cornerstone Institute. Look

at those cornerstone principles that made America great. We didn't get to be great by accident. It was our faith, liberty, community, and I respect for life. Those are key elements. And as we got farther away from them and other things began to infiltrate, then we began to spiral downward. But I don't think it's inexorable. I don't think that it's too late to change it. And that's why we're out there preaching all the time. What was growing up in Detroit? Like,

it was interesting? Um, there were there was, you know, significant areas that were nice areas quite frankly um where there were black people who lived. But there were also

some pretty horrible slummy areas. But nothing they're compared to what I witnessed when we got to Boston because my parents got divorced after my mother discovered her husband was biggness, and we didn't have a home for a while, but some relatives in Boston took us in and it was what you see on television in the tenement, horrible multi family dwellings were boarded up, windows, endorsed, sirens and gangs, wineos murders. Both of my favorite older cousins were killed.

I mean, it was a horrendous place, and yet you could still find good people, you could find good things, You could find libraries, you could find a place where you could read. So even though it wasn't the ideal environment, uh, it was something that you could make something out of. Now, if you determine that you're a victim and then everything is stacked against you, you're likely to react in a

very different way. Instead of looking for opportunities. You're going to have a tendency to be complaining and groaning about things. And let's just not to say that you should not be unhappy when things are not going well, but you're not going to solve that by just groaning and complaining about it. You're going to solve that by making yourself valuable and then utilizing that position of value to improve the situation. And I read that when you were a

fourteen I know you've talked about this before. You almost took the life of another boy that the knife hit the teenager's belt buckle and snapped. Afterwards, you prayed and asked for God's help. How did God change your life? Oh tremendously. You know. I had a horrendous temper and when I would get angry, I just really didn't even care about the consequences. I just wanted to hurt people.

It was terrible. And you know, I had turned things around academically, had become, you know, a top student and pursuing my goal of becoming a physician. But I realized after the incident that you just described that I would never become a physician. I would either be in jail, reform school, or the grave. And I just said, Lord, you know, unless you can change me, I'm domned well.

I was still in the in the midst of praying and contemplating and reading the Bible, it dawned on me that the reason that I was always angry is because I was selfish, because everything was about me, me, my and I. Somebody did this to me. It took my thing. I want this, And I said, if you learn how to take yourself out of the middle of the equation, the anger will dissipate. That was the last day I had an angry out earth. And people who know me now just can't believe that I used to be angry,

because it really completely changed my life. And you know, I have a very strong faith and God, and I think that our country developed so rapidly and so well because we were a country that had faith, and that faith, for instance, taught us how to relate to our fellow man. Aren't you d Christian values say love your neighbor, not cancel your neighbor if they don't agree with you. You know, we're allowing those great principles to be replaced by things

that are antithetical to the principles of success. Well, and you've also been married for I believe forty seven years now, Um is it forty seven years to talk about the importance of marriage. I personally could never have accomplice to think that I did without my wife by my side. She's just a constant support for everything that I've always done. She even learned how to play pool because I love the play pool. She says, if I don't become a good pool player, I won't be to have any quality time.

But she's very good man. But she became a tackler cook, a fantastic mom for my kids. You know. She helps me with with my writing. With the latest book that we did, she did a lot of the research for that book, so I always acknowledge her on the cover of the book. Um. And it just there was a reason that that God fixed us up with the help meet and with a companion for life. Quick commercial break and then back with a great Dr Ben Carson on

the other side. You know, you look at the horrific shooting that just took place, and you've all day Texas. Why do you think as a society we keep turning out, you know, these angry young men that take out their anger on innocent people like that. Well, I think it goes back to what we were talking about before, that family structure where you get your values, where you get your appreciation for life and for the feelings of other people.

And when you don't have that and you have this constant barrage of things that we see in the media and over social media, in particular me first, it's all about me, and it's all about my feelings. And you know, if you don't have something to counter that, it can become pretty malignant pretty quickly. And I think we're seeing that in our society, pure evil that is not being counteracted. And if we don't get a handle on it, this is only the beginning. It's going to get much worse

than this. And I know people are gonna come and say, well, if we can get rid of the guns. Well, all you have to if you're a student of history, you recognize that before dictatorships occurred, they said let's get rid of the guns. And they always have a good reason for it. China, Cambodia, Nazi Germany, Inezuela. You know, the list goes on and on, get rid of the guns and then tyranny. And there's no reason to suspect that

that wouldn't happen in this country too. And you look at the country that had even more guns per capita than leader Switzerland to have a very low incidence of gun violence. But when you turn adult age, you get a gun there and you get training on how to use that gun and when to use that gun. And I think what we're dealing with here is a people problem, it's not a gun problem. And you talk about tyranny, and you know, I admittedly, I mean, I've always been conservative.

I've always believed in liberty and freedom, but I don't think I realized how fleeting it truly is until COVID, and until we saw government try to overtake our lives. As someone who is so renowned in the medical field, what were you thinking throughout COVID and just what's your takeaway from it? Well, you know, I was on the COVID task Force and one of the things that disappointed me tremendously was how the leaders of the task force

quickly dismissed any therapeutics that were brought up. Any It had to be vaccine and vaccine only. And you see where that led us not to a very good place. Uh. No one would even acknowledge the role of natural immunity, which we've known about, you know, since the Civil War and smallpox. It's like natural immunity, what's that? How long is that last? I mean, this is crazy. And you know, anytime something that looked promising, like hydroxychloroquine, uh, it was

immediately bad mouth. The same thing with ivan mactin surrounded or anything that looked good. And yet those things have worked so well in other parts of the world. You look at Western Africa, on the Western Africa coast, there's almost no COVID. Why Well, it seems very likely it's because they take anti malarial called Hydroxychlorkland and uh. In southern India in places they use iver macton, very little

COVID going on there too. Now, if we were smart, we would look at those places and would say, is there something going on there? There's something going on there with these interventions, and we would put a lot of emphasis on that. But instead we have the stupid f DA rules that say you cannot have an emergency youth

authorization if you have another viable treatment. Therefore, in order to get the emergency use authorization for the vaccine, you had to say nothing else is available that works, and that was very unfortunate for hundreds of thousands of people in this country. It seems like the left really try to use COVID to reshape society, oh without question, or you know, you look at what happened with the election.

All of a sudden, you have people who are not supposed to be making election rules because of the COVID situation and the danger to society. All of a sudden, they're changing all kinds of rules, and they're saying signatures don't have to match, addresses don't have to match, it doesn't matter what the date. Uh uh I mean, just crazy stuff that would never be allowed in any other

uh issue. And we just say okay, and Paul Watchers, no, you have to stand twenty five or a hundred feet away, or we have to be outside the building looking in the woman. I mean, just crazy stuff that makes absolutely no sense was pushed through because of COVID. And hopefully all Americans are concerned about this, not just you know, one side or the other side, because we're talking about

the future of our country. We're talking about a democratic republic that cannot exist without integrity and the voting system. And you know, you can't emphasize that enough. If we just sort of take a lazy fair attitudes, it's okay, then we have signed the death warrant for our country. No, I agree with you, sir, and I do think that is incredibly important. I think that's why a lot of people are discouraged, you know, after action and feeling like it was just really unfair. Uh. And there's a lot

of wrong that took place, you know. So I wanted to ask you, So you have operated on babies inside of a mother's womb. If you are operating on them, how can democrats say that human life doesn't begin until birth? Well, and it's pretty crazy mstiment. And why is it? Why is it that if if you murder a woman who's pregnant, you get charged with two counts of murder if if that's not something that's alive. But since I hope that

would make any sense yet, that's why they accepted. So it seems like selected Uh, it's very selective definitions of when something is alive and when it isn't. And obviously, you know, I feel very strong about it because you know, I spent my whole professional career trying to save lives in many cases little babies, sometimes very premature seven weeks gast station um. And interestingly enough, you know, I've been around long enough now, but I sometimes have an opportunity

to see the results. You know, adults, functional, productive adults, wonderful people, and uh, you know it just reef enforces the desire to make sure that people understand that what is inside that mother's womb is not a meaningless bunch of cells. Why do you think the left does that though they try to reduce the value of human life to just a club of cells. I think a lot of it is because they don't really know and they

don't want to know. Um. But you'll notice that the younger generation tends to have a larger number of people who are pro life because they've grown up in a society where we have the technology that actually shows you what's in that mother room, and it becomes much more

difficult to deny that that's a human being. I mean, in eight weeks you can already see the little eyeballs and the nose and the lips and fingers and the toes and the hearts beating, and you know, it's starting to move around, and to say that that's not a living being makes no sense. And it's more sophisticated. That brain is developing so fast, you know, millions and millions

of neurons every single day, billions. In fact, it's much more sophisticated than a snail darter with some of these things that the environmentalists go around trying to say, Um, why aren't they trying to say this baby? I saw that in two You know, you had said at the time you're you're not a member of any political party. Why did you eventually get into politics? What was it about that that in the environment? Then you know, why why did you decide that this is the time to

get into politics? Well, you know, I had no intention of getting into the political arena. And then in I was asked to give the keynote at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, which shocked me because I had given the keynote in when Bill Clinton was president, and I didn't know anybody ever did it twice, but some investigation demonstrated that there was one person who had done it twice, and that was Billy Graham. And I said, well, that's pretty good company.

And uh so I gave the speech. And after the speech, I mean, I was just a non dated with people saying you need to run for president. I said, it was was a ridiculous thing. I said, if I had just anore the that the'll go go away. But it didn't go away. It kept getting worse. Every place I had to go. There were people with plack carts run then run. I had more than five hundred thousand petitions

in my office. I could really get in there, all the boxes and petitions, and you know, I finally said, Lord, are you trying to tell me something? I said, um, you know, I don't want to do this, but I don't have any of the things that people who are un for president have a roll of decks with all the important names, a big war chest of money and organization, any of the stuff. And I said, nor do I intend to develop them. So if you really want me to do this, you have to supply all that stuff.

The next thing I knew had a full organization. They were raising more money than the rn C each one. It was absolutely incredible. And so that's that's how I ended up in the political arena. And then you know, during the y and pain, you know, uh, Donald Trump and I became friends with very very similar philosophies and virtually everything, but very different personalities. And you know, it was easy for me when I dropped out to endorse him, and it's secondarily become a member of the cabinet. Why

do you think he received so much hate him? And we had the media, the left, they try to say he was a racist. They try to say, you know, he was all these terrible things. Why, oh well, it wasn't just from the left. It was from a lot of traditional people on the right too. It was because he absolutely refused to get in the swamp and to play their games and to go along with all the things that you're supposed to do. And that made him a real threat to the Washington establishment and they needed

to get rid of him at all costs. And I suspect I would have had the same problem if I had one. But you know, we have to recognize what we have. It's an amazing country that we have. And after the Constitutional Convention seven was finished and Benjamin Franklin walked out, a woman said, sir, what do we have here? A republic or monarchy? And he said, a republic if we can keep it. And that's probably the biggest threat

that we have right now. We have an entrenched system that is extraordinarily corrupt, and it's going to require people with real fortitude and real courage to really change it and get on the right track again. And you can't be the Land of the Free if you're not at the home of right. You can't just sort of stand in the corner with your head down and hope no one calls you a nasty name. I mean, I think that's so true. And I mean, I hope people's eyes

are opening. I know my eyes have been open. You know, it started with Kavana, then it was COVID, and then it was the treatment of Trump, and then it was the Trump administration, which you're obviously a huge part of. You're really showing us how corrupt our government is, how corrupt how corrupt the media is, how corrupt the left is. I mean, you know, they called Kavana a gang rapist without any evidence. I mean, they were willing to destroy

someone over politics. I mean you saw that up close running What can you tell people about that experience of facing that almost all the cabinet members were accused of horrible snakes. It was ridiculous, um and and many of them left, not because they were horrible corrupt people, but in order to fight these things, you have to hire your own personal lawyers, and the Washington lawyers who deal with that kind of stuff of like nine hundred dollars

an hour. Not everybody could afford that. And uh, it's it's a way of harassing that goes on. You don't see it happening on the other side at all. You don't hear any of these allegations being made. And the

media was right lockstep with those making those allegations. You know, in my case, I said, he's buying this thirty one dollar dining room table while he's trying to slash the budget, uh, which was completely untrue, by the way, But they needed a narrative, they needed something to attack, and the media was all behind it. Carson needs to resign. He's got

ethical problems now. You know, the investigation cost over a million dollars for this allegation of buying a thirty one thousand dollar table, which was completely false, and of course the investigation yielded zero wrongdoing, which of course there was no wrongdoing, so of course that's what it yielded. Um. But that shows the level of corruption that is there no apology from the media, by the way, uh, no acknowledgement that they were completely wrong. And that's one of

the other sad things that's going on. You know, the only business entity protected by our constitution was the press, and it was because they were supposed to disseminate unbiased information to the people so that the people could make a decision, so that the country could be run on the will of the people. That was the great experiment. How can you have a country that is running the will of people, not by some monarch or some central

dictatorial agency. And no one thought it would work, But it has worked for two hundred and fifty years, and it will continue to work if if we the American people, are diligent and understand our responsibility and make sure that the people you vote for people who have your values, not just people who have a name you're familiar with when you go and look in a balance quick break back with Dr Carson on the other side, you talk about the media, and previously you're talking about Democrats desired

to rid Americans of their Second Amendment right. You know, we also have the First Amendment right, and it's first for a reason, because free speech that you know, the free flow of information is incredibly important to have a republic as we do, to to have a society that can thrive to have that transparency. But we're really losing that when you look at the media, I mean they essentially serve as a prob began arm of the left. Oh,

no question about it. People say that we have complete freedom of speech because the government has not imposed the restriction. But if bick tech and social media is able to cancel people with the compliance of the government's exactly the same result as if the government is imposing the restriction itself. And people really need to understand that, and they need to be upset, and they need to make corrections. And you know, this November will be an opportune time for

people to make corrections. And you know, I'm not talking democrats and republics. I'm talking about people who love America, who love our system, who love our constitution, and people who want to fundamentally change it. You know, So you've talked about the importance of education and even just your mom really encouraging that your life. You know, when you look at the issue of school choice, how much of a difference would that make in young people's lives in

this country? Oh, make all the difference in the world. If you can get a good education, it doesn't matter where you start, what your background is, you will end up writing your own ticket and the society. And yet, you know, it's one of the things that we really

do need to address as a nation. A lot of our schools, the public schools, are funded through a millage manner, where the taxes are generated on the basis of the neighborhood in which you live, and if it happens to be an affluent area, there's a lot of tax money that goes into the school system, and if you happen to live in a very poor area, there's very little money that goes into it. So you end up with in serious schools and less opportunity for a good education. Now.

You know, in my own particular case, I was I was able to get around going to schools that were not particularly academically inclined. Uh, because I had such a thirst for education. I would go back to the teachers after class and I would say, what did you intend to teach? Because most of the time they spent the

whole hour discipline people. They didn't get to teach anything. Uh. You know, the biology teacher never got the experiments done, but he hired me as the biology lab assistant, so I got to set up all the experiments, so I got to find out what they were supposed to show. And then I started doing that for the chemistry and also for the physics labs. So I got that education, and I started going downtown to Wayne State University, to the libraries, They're going to the museums, doing all kinds

of things to supplement my my education. And even with all of that, you know, going from Southwestern High School and inner city Detroit to Yale University was still a huge culture shock, but I did eventually adjust to We've seen just indoctrination take place in schools, particularly with the you know, the IVY leagues as well how do we change that in terms of just the doctor, you know,

indoctrination that students are getting. You know, I've I've heard a couple of people mentioned, but it's never really been enacted. But you know, these schools get huge government grants, and uh, you know, I think the government should not be given grants two universities indoctrinate people in either direction. It shouldn't it's it shouldn't happen. There's no reason that taxpayers should be on the hook for indoctrination of our young people.

We've seen an uptick in black conservatives, but why aren't more black voters voting for Republicans. Well, I will say that is encouraging to me. I used to go to conservative gatherings and I would be the only black face there. That's long gone. There is a wild black faces there now.

So I think it is changing, uh pretty quickly, and I think it will change even more, uh when we get another administration in place that takes the attitude of the previous administration before this one, that rising tide liftsaw boats and that's the way things were done, and and that's why there was the lowest black unemployment. Uh, tremendous wage gains, all kinds of opportunities for business development. Um. Those are the kinds of things that people will after

a while. Notice if those kinds of the same kind of games had occurred under the current administration, uh, you know, be heralded from the mountaintop. But since it was the bigious administration, I'll talk about that. Um. But you know that hiding it under the blanket can only last for so long. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up, and that's what encourages me more

than anything else. I see minorities waking up. I see a lot of all Americans from all backgrounds getting involved with the school boards, getting involved with the city councils, recognizing how much is at stake right now. And I do not think Erica is going to go the way of Venezuela in some other places, because I think our people understand what is at stake and they're not willing to treat what we have for socialism. You know, I think about Venezuela. I visited there a number of times

before they turned at wonderful times. They're beautiful resorts and hotels and museums. The thing that the people argued about most was whether or not they were the most beautiful people in the world. And now look look at it. They go from the number one economy in South America to the last with people fleeing there in droves, and it happened almost overnight. And look at how rapidly things are changing in this country. And we cannot take our

freedoms for granted, We absolutely cannot. And you know, that's really the whole point of this podcast. Try to get to the truth of these issues and expose a lot of these issue shoose and have conversations with people like you to get the truth out to the public. And you talked about all the accomplishments that you guys did in the Trump administration, you know, and then now we

have this administration. You know, as as someone who served in the previous administration, you know what's going through your mind as you just watch what's been happening with the Biden administration. Well, you know, it's very sad. Obviously, our system has broken down in the sense that you've got some government who multiple reasons is perhaps not functioning at the highest levels, and you have people managing him who are not elected people and who would never be elected.

People people saw who they were, but they're they're virtually managing the country and doing a horrible job of it. And and the question is, you know, can we survive uh, you know, this complete lack of leadership and incompetency that's going on. I hope we're strong enough to survive it. But everybody's going to have to do their part. And one thing I tell people all the time is you may feel helpless, but there's no one who doesn't have a sphere of influence, and you can use that a

sphere of influence in a very positive way. Treat people the right way again, conversations about what's going on. You know, they say you're not to talk about religion or politics.

I disagree. I think you should engage people in conversation because sometimes that's the only way that they will get to recognize the basis of their beliefs, and a lot of times they recognize that they don't have a bit sister the beliefs, and you can frequently get people to move to more reasonable position, and that's what we really want. We live in a multi, multi variant society. We have people from all kinds of backgrounds, and that's exactly the kind of place where you cannot have a my way

or the highway attitude. You have to be able to engage in conversation with each other, you have to be the fine common ground. You have to be able to work together. That's what community is all about. And that was a very important killer for the development of this country. Fully with it, I don't think he's at the top of his game, um. And you know, I just think it was criminal the way during the election process that

he was stashed away in the basement. I mean, people should have been highly suspicion just at that point and why they try to keep this guy away from people. Um. But again, part of that was the media heralding how great he was and this was going to be the salvation of the world, and you know, they just pushed

that narrative so hard. And you know, I I talked about the media quite a bit and and my new book Created Equal and the role that they have played and some of the good things that they have done in our society, but you know, some of the really bad things. And there is an opportunity for them to recognize why they were the only business entity protected by a Constitution and to rise to the occasion, you know, throw away this ideological bent that they have and do

their job. You've just done so much in your life, it's remarkable. I mean, you were the director of pediatric neuro Surgery at John Hopkins at thirty three years old, the youngest to head in major division in the hospital's history. You have done life changing surgeries, you have been the first to do some of those. You've written best selling books, You've won You've received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I mean, the list goes on and on and on, awards, honors,

you know, all these things. What are you most proud of? Probably the fact that our children and our grandchildren are growing up to be very decent individuals who love our nation and who loved their fellow man, and they're making contributions. And I don't know that there's anything greater that you can do than to raise your children the right way. It's beautiful. I always like to ask the guests before we go, is there anything else you'd like to leave

the audience with. Well, just with the fact that we, the American people, are not each other's enemies, and we cannot do that. Those who want to fundamentally change is convince us that we're enemies and that we should be fighting on the basis of race, income, gender, religion, political affiliation, whatever, because the United States of America is critical to the stability of the world, and if we allow it to go, everything else is going to collapse as well. Sir, it's

been an honor to have you on the show. I thank you so much for your time. Such an honor. Thank you so much, sir, Thank you for being a patriot. Well, that was awesome to have Dr Ben Parson on the show. And what I really appreciate it is, well, guys, it can be challenging right now what we face as a country.

We all know that we are at a crossroads as a nation, that this is a really pivotal time for a country for those of us who believe in liberty, who believe in freedom, who believe on the principles of this nation was founded upon. So I really appreciated his optimism and his wisdom and just what he had to say. So it was an honor to have the conversation with him, and I really appreciated what he said that we can't be the land of the Free without being the Home

of the Brave. So you know, we've got to be brave, we've got to get out there and fight, and so I just really appreciated that conversation that and I hope you did too. You know, we have these every Monday and Thursday. I appreciate you guys tuning in. Please share with friends, family, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And I want to thank my producer, John Cassio for always working hard to to put this show together for you guys. So thanks so much for listening.