347: Tim Ballard—Better a Millstone Around Your Neck

What's up, friends? It's me, Mike Rowe, with another episode of The Way I Heard It. This is number 347. It's called Better a Millstone Around Your Neck. Not in the habit of quoting scripture on this podcast, much less referencing Matthew 18 in the title. But I have, for reasons that will soon be apparent. Chuck, thank you for recommending this guest.

You know, I'm sorry we couldn't do it when the movie came out. The movie is The Sound of Freedom. Pretty big deal ever since July 4th. And really interesting to talk to the guy who made it happen. Yeah, well, to the guy who the movie is about, it's kind of his career on the big screen. And as you recall, I saw this movie July 3rd and came out just overwhelmed with emotion.

because it's such a powerful film. It's really, really well done. And it deals with child trafficking, which is our guest Tim Ballard's forte. That's what he did with Homeland Security. And the first thing I did, I thought was, what can I do? And I, of course, called you and said, hey, we should have somebody, Tim Ballard, Jim Caviezel, somebody from this movie on to talk about it, because it's really important.

Well, the bad news is I just couldn't make it happen right away. You gave me a code for the movie. It didn't work. That upset me. And then I realized, you know, in the scheme of things. What with children being abducted and misused, maybe my little frustrations in the tech world were not all that germane. But the good news is the movie was so well-received, it beat the snot.

out of Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible and really every other major Hollywood release, it came out of nowhere. And it has moved the needle in ways that few movies do. And it's got people's attention around a topic that, look, it's difficult to talk about. I mean, there's no bad language in this conversation, but I don't know if you want to listen to it with your kids because we're going to talk pretty candidly.

about the 6 million slaves that are currently in bondage around the world right now, the 85,000 children who have come through the border and are currently lost, many of whom are... the property of some very, very sick creeps who are doing unthinkable things with them and to them every day. Better a millstone around their necks.

than what they're doing to these kids. You know, this is going to make you angry, but I think it's really, really, really important. Tim's lived a big life, and through a strange set of circumstances, we caught him in Washington. He was testifying today, Chuck.

before Congress on the SECURE Act, right? That's correct, yeah, which is the main goal is to find those 85,000 missing children who came across the border, and we have no idea where they are, and to make sure that they are okay and not in. a bad place, which most likely they are. This is the second time in a month that it's made me a little ashamed.

Certainly not to live in this country, but to sit here with the American flag over my shoulder and tell you with a straight face that this country is the leading importer of slaves, sex slaves, children. It's just a fact. And there's a lot of inconvenient truth and a lot of what Tim Ballard has to say. But if we want to turn it around, we have to at least have a conversation about it. And I don't think there's anybody better on the planet to talk to.

especially right now in the wake of this extraordinary movie. We talk about that too, the business of making a film and the business of taking the reverse commute. Tim's done it all. It's a great tale. 347, better a millstone. Around your neck. Right after this. The Way I Heard It is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. Hey, how are you, Mike?

Tim, I'm doing great, but one of us is really underdressed, man, and I'm afraid it might be me. Look, I'm a t-shirt guy, but I'm in D.C. right now, so I got no choice. I'm testifying on the Hill, so... I'm stuck in the monkey suit. Oh, my God. You were in the belly of the beast. I am. How did it go? Tell me about your day. So far, so good. We, uh...

I'm testifying before the House, the Homeland Security Committee tomorrow, and then Thursday, Foreign Affairs. And we're talking about the crisis on the border. And the kids and the... Last week I traveled to Central America, met with the presidents of Honduras and Guatemala on two consecutive days. And, you know, interestingly, one's very socialist, one's very conservative, but they both said the exact same thing.

illustrates to us that this actually isn't political. It actually is about children in a crisis. And they both said, your policies are killing us. Your border policies are killing our people, killing our children, literally. And so I have a pretty strong message for Congress tomorrow. I'm excited about it. Well, I can't wait to get a preview of it. And full disclosure, I want to talk in depth about the border, about your movie.

Really, about everything that's been going on, you've been on such an amazing ride. But before we just jump straight into the slavery and the child trafficking and the rape and whatnot, my gosh, I wonder if we could just, you know, have like maybe 60 seconds of...

How's Utah these days? Is it still as beautiful as I remember? I wish I could answer that. I've been living on an airplane. I haven't been back to Utah in several months, it feels like. So I'll let you know when I get there, when I get back. Well, if it's any consolation, I was in Logan not long ago. Wow. Yeah. It is so beautiful up there, Tim, as I'm sure you know. But I got hooked up with this crazy band of...

Bloody do-gooders who are trying to relocate beavers after they destroy golf courses and basically build dams and run amok and they catch the beavers and they take them high up into the mountains. And then they helped them build dams and then they released them. Oh my gosh. And I'm like, only in Utah. But it was a great dirty job. And I just learned you were...

from there and just wanted to pass on that it still is one of the prettiest places on the planet, as best I can tell. It is beautiful. It is beautiful. When will you get home next? Any idea? Oh, boy. I think a week or two. What has this been like? I've seen the film. It was terrific. Congratulations. How you got it made, the impact it had. We could talk about nothing but that for an hour, I suppose. But you've just been on...

you know, what they used to call Mr. Toad's wild ride. This is unlike really anything I've ever seen, both in show business and in advocacy and do goodery and all of it. You're like at the tip of that spear, it seems. Yeah, it's nuts. You know, I spent 12 years as a special agent, undercover operator for the U.S. government and never dreaming this story would be on the big screen. That wasn't even a thought in my mind. I just knew that.

I was confronted with a pretty serious problem after 12 years in the government, 10 years on the southern border, recognizing that I couldn't get my work done. I mean, I would get these leads and what was going on is... As human slavery, as modern-day slavery, child trafficking, continued to grow, I recognized the problem, which is child trafficking knows no borders and boundaries. Unfortunately, bureaucracies and governments do.

And so they would stop me at every turn like, hey, it has ceased to be a U.S. case. Come home, come home, come home. What you saw in the Sound of Freedom wasn't the first time that it happened. And in fact, if the Sound of Freedom could have been. a five-hour film, you would have seen there was another case that was happening simultaneously in Haiti where we went looking for a little U.S. citizen boy of Haitian descent who had been kidnapped.

And that led us to a trafficking ring. And so we were working, literally, I was working both of those cases simultaneously. And I was told, basically, by the U.S. government, come home on both of them. You have no business there. And I thought, you've got to be kidding me. Like, it's too late. I've already made commitments to the father of the missing child. I've already made commitments to the Colombian government. I've already made myself pretty much indispensable to the operation.

I went to my wife. This was 2013. And I said, what do I do? I said, the only way I could do this operation is if I quit my job. Now, I'll be honest. The film doesn't capture the true cowardice that was in me because I wanted her to say, I wanted her to say with all with everything in my soul, get your ass home because there's no way that I'm going to be a widow.

And I thought that's what she was going to say. I was doing a little virtue signaling and I don't like that, but I was with my wife like, hey, if I just quit my job, okay, say your line, come home. And she said the opposite. She said, don't come home. I said, what are you talking about? And then she caught me. She called my bluff. And she said, if you could rescue those kids in Colombia and Haiti, you can't come home.

And I said, but Catherine, listen, we're going to lose everything. We have like $3,000 in the bank. I'm a federal employee. We had six children at the time. And she said, I don't care if we end up living in a tent. She's like, I will not go home to my maker and tell him that we did nothing in this moment, in this critical moment. That should have been in the film, frankly. But Alejandro Monteverde, they said, Tim, I tried to make it fit. But the problem is.

We only had two hours, and to try to rehabilitate your character from a coward to a decent human being, we didn't have enough time. We didn't have enough time and two hours to do that. So it was more of a direct conversation. But here we are, you know, never dreaming it could be a film. Never dreaming it would be the success it's become. But I plan to utilize the success to save more kids. That's why I'm here in D.C.

But there was a beat in the movie where your wife does kind of call your bluff. I mean, it wasn't played out the way you just described it, but it existed enough. For me to call Chuck, it was Chuck who said, hey man, you got to watch this movie. This all happened back around July 4th when it was just starting to hit. And speaking of cowardice, forgive me, but if I'd had my way, I would have loved to have talked to you that week.

when it felt like it was David versus Goliath. But now I'm starting to realize that you're Goliath, man. I mean, it so dominated the box office. And I was so glad to see it. I heard a top 200 million now. Lori told me that on your team, Tim. Last week it hit 200 million and it's still number one in Latin America and hasn't even gone to Europe barely, just starting to get into Europe. It's incredible.

But Tim, my point is your point, which was my point to Chuck, which is if your wife doesn't call you on your BS... this movie doesn't get made, and X number of lives don't get saved, what are you even up to now? 3,500, 3,800 rescues, something like that? Actually, no, since that first operation in Haiti. I'll tell you this, the Haiti operation, you can watch it. There's a documentary on it.

On Amazon Prime, it's called Operation Toussaint. It'll blow your mind. I think it's a better story than what happened in Columbia. We ended up adopting two of the 28 children we rescued. And in fact, I just posted about it today because it's relevant to the testimony I'm going to give in Congress.

But after those two first operations, we've since done well over 1,000 operations with multiple foundations, the principal one being Operation Underground Railroad, which I founded, and then others as well. But altogether, it's been over 7,000 rescues, children. and women and children and about over 5,000 arrests of child workers and pedophiles that we've assisted on in about 30 different countries. So that's been the last 10 years since what you saw depicted in the film occurred.

And it doesn't happen without your wife. That's my point. Nothing. Nothing would have happened without her. I wanted to come home and just continue my pretty safe life as a federal employee. Incredible.

All right, well, we should probably just kind of set the stage in terms of the totality of this awfulness. I mean, I really hate to drag the listener through it, but I feel like... I can't decide if your movie was a great film or maybe the greatest public service announcement that I've ever seen. It's kind of somewhere in between. But for me, it kind of starts with the simple...

undeniable, incontrovertible fact that there are more slaves on the planet today than there have been at any other time ever. And so... If you could just ruminate on that and specifically with what's happening with child trafficking and the sexual abuse, just to really provide the context, I think people need to understand the totality of the horror.

Yeah, it really is quite astonishing. You know, we read our history books and we said, no, no, no, slavery died. Died with Lincoln. Died with the Civil War. The transatlantic slave trade, it's over. But like you said, Mike, the truth is there's more people enslaved today. than ever before in the history of the world. That's according to State Department, UN.

But here's the other thing. You could add up all the slaves. And this is not to take away from the horrific thing that was the transatlantic slave trade that ended in the late 19th century. Nothing worse. But... The facts are the facts. There are more people alive in slavery today than all of those caught up in slavery over the 350 year period.

called the Transatlantic Slave Traits, to give some perspective. And unfortunately, you know, people in the United States who sit back and say, well, that's a thing far, far away. That's not, has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with us.

Because the United States is the number one consumer of child sex material in the world. We are amongst the number one clients for child sex. We're in the top three year after year, according to the State Department, for destination countries for human trafficking. So when you consider all of that, and then over the last two years under this current administration, 85,000 unaccompanied minors, thousands of them under five years old, have arrived at our southern border.

and were released to whoever came and picked them up. Very little to no vetting, background checks. And that's why I'm here in Congress. I'm like, you guys got to be kidding me that you're letting this happen. that this many children are being abused. I met with, like I said to you earlier, I met with the president of Honduras and Guatemala and, you know, President Castro in Honduras. She's a socialist.

Giamatti in Guatemala is conservative. They don't care. They're saying the same thing. Your border policies are killing our people. It's like this vacuum. You just say, come on, come one, come all. And what that does is causes criminal networks, traffickers, to come and take children, take families, convince them that all is well. You're going to go to the Great North and have your American dream. Not so.

The family said, we can't afford it. Oh, you can pay me later. Yeah, with their bodies, as they sell them along the route, as they rape them along the route, and then the kids end up separated from their parents, and off they go into the belly of the beast.

You know, border enforcement is the only compassionate policy here because it sucks the wind out of the sails of the traffickers. If we don't stop this, the agents, Homeland Security, I was one of them. It's not them. They're sickened by this. The people at Health and Human Services that take the kids after DHS kind of finds them on the border, they're sick of this. But this is the bottom line. Based on the current policies, the United States government...

has become literally a delivery service for child trafficking. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for what would be the final leg. Because they get there and the kids have a name. They give the name to Health and Human Services. They are mandated to call that number. Hey, we got this kid. He says you're supposed to pick him up. Oh, yeah, yeah. Send him to me.

And that's it. No vetting, no verification. Off that kid goes. And then guess what? You call the number later, it's gone. And the kid's gone. So I'm here in Congress right now with Congressman. Yeah, sorry. No, no, man, look. That's crazy. It's just, well, I mean, look, by way of comparison, and tell me if I've got this right, you know, a kid gets lost at Disneyland. Somebody finds him.

Nobody claims him. He's seven years old. What do we do? Eventually, the park is going to call what? Health and Human Services, child welfare. They're going to take that kid in. They're going to contact local law enforcement. Word's going to go out. Somebody's going to show up to claim him. Are they just going to give him the kid? Or is there going to be an interview? Is there going to be maybe, I don't know, maybe some DNA? Is there going to be something? I know the answer.

No, you're not just going to give a kid away like that. That's right. I've been part of that process in law enforcement. And absolutely, they're going to treat this child like the precious child of God that he or she is. And they're not going to deliver that child or give that child to anyone unless they know for a certainty the true guardian. And how ironic. The previous administration has been accused of being so horrible to foreigners or even racist and so forth. Well, what are you doing?

And I posed this question to President Biden for the Capitol and the media, and it got picked up on Fox News a few hours ago, and I stand by it. Mr. President, true or false, American children? are just as valuable in the eyes of God as foreign children. Do you think American children, if found at Disneyland or some city in America, do the foreign children not deserve the same protection? Of course they do. But his actions...

This administration's actions are saying that they don't. Foreign children don't deserve really anything. Let them in. I mean, it's so grotesque. I can't believe I'm even having this conversation.

I can't believe I'm even having to say this right now. But that's the reality of the situation, and we're going to end it. Is it so awful that most decent, honorable people... simply can't bring themselves to look at it with their eyes open how much of our collective head do we have in the sand to what's really going on and again i don't

I don't know what too much detail really means in a situation like this, but I know if people don't understand the existence of what do they call the vacations, it's basically sex vacations. For kids. Sex tourism. If they don't understand the existence of sex tourism, and if they don't understand the nature of the obvious flaw at the border, and if they don't understand the appetite.

that this country has for this. So I just use whatever terminology you want, but I want people to really understand in terms of numbers, how many children right now are being abused and misused in this country. And then... If you've got the data for it globally. Sure. So globally, we know there's about 6 million children in slavery, whether it's labor, sex.

organ harvesting. I've worked all three of those cases around the world. We know that within the United States, there's about 250,000 to 300,000 children who go missing every year. That's inside. That's not counting. Over the last four or five years, there's been over 300,000 unaccompanied minors. These are children, again, thousands of which, according to the CBP data, are under five years old. Show up at the border. How is that possible? Show up at the border.

and are released into the country. 85,000 of those in the last two years, like I said earlier, are gone, disappeared. We have nothing. And that first Haiti case I told you about... that was happening simultaneous to the one in Columbia that's depicted in Santa Freedom, we rescued 28 children, and I adopted two of those kids we rescued. Now, I went through a process. I mean, it took them three years.

home studies, interviews. They had to make sure that me and my wife were a safe place. And I rescued the kids for hell's sake. And I appreciated it. I actually thought, this is good. It's amazing how much effort the U.S. State Department, the U.S. government will make sure that I'm a decent person to take two precious children into my home. So I understand the process. And so then I juxtapose that with what's happening on the border.

And it is sick. Nothing. Mike, let me tell you this. It is more difficult to adopt a cat from a shelter in the United States than it is to go down and take one of these children and claim them. that are sitting at the border. Now, the administration is going to say, but Tim, what do you want us to do? There's so many hundreds of thousands, even millions coming in. Well, yeah, but that's your fault. Congress set up laws.

For many reasons, one of this is to protect children, and those laws say, enforce the damn border. Because when you enforce the border, you suck... The wind out of the cells of traffickers. They don't have the loophole. They don't have the opportunity. They have no interest at that point in kidnapping children in Central America and Mexico and bringing them to the border. Enforce the laws.

Congress set the laws to protect children, and you decided to open up the borders. You're creating this. Biden, Kamala, you're creating this. You're doing this. And it's sick. Children are being hurt. I don't understand why you keep doing it. How did advocates for a wall lose or abdicate the compassion argument that comes along with having it? In other words, how did arguing for a secure border...

become the equivalent of cold, uncaring, uncompassionate. How did that, I mean, you don't lose an argument like that unless you give it away. That's right. Why was that given away? Just rhetorically, why let that go? Want Black Friday prices without the crowds? Lowe's gets it. Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush.

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For those of us who believe in border enforcement, look, I spent 10 years on that border. My master's thesis was on the border. I was so fascinated by it. And I'll tell you this, the Clinton administration. built more of that wall than anyone else. And we all cheered. Every time you build the wall,

and build the enforcement, you save more children. It's very simple. We got our border czar Kamala Harris in 2016 calling it Trump's vanity project. Vanity project? What are you talking about? And then she posted once, I couldn't believe this. She said, look, we don't need walls because most of the seizures are happening at the ports of entry.

Like drugs and children being rescued there. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like two plus two equals four. You do know that. You cannot congratulate the port of entry for a rescue without simultaneously congratulating the wall because... I know it's really hard to understand this, but the wall creates the port of entry. The wall compels the movement into the port. She literally said that, and she's our borders are. She clearly doesn't understand how this works. I've rescued children.

So many children. In fact, I wrote an op-ed for Deseret News and I gave several cases that I worked on because the wall forced that child into his or her last hope. It's their last hope of rescue before entering the world that... or the land that per capita is likely the highest in pedophiles. And so to take that enforcement away is the least compassionate thing you could possibly do for children. They say it's compassionate. It's not. It's horrifically the opposite.

But don't you agree, Tim? I mean, we can't win that argument, though. And when I say we, I don't mean to hop on one side of the political divide. I agree with you. I'm very friendly with a lot of liberal-minded people who vote Democrat. And I've dragged a couple of them to this movie. And when they see it, the politics does wash away. I know in the age of trolling and whatnot, people will just take the devil's advocate.

just because that's what their side does. The beautiful thing about your movie is that it makes it virtually impossible to do that, which is why I keep coming back to this idea of how is your testimony going to move the needle? How is your advocacy going to fundamentally change things until or unless Americans with both eyes open see this thing for what it is? I think of fentanyl.

Right? I mean, that's a word most people had never heard, couldn't pronounce until a couple of years ago. And now most people know, holy crap, man. It's like 130,000 people are dying as a result of that coming over the very same border. But those numbers are tiny compared to the nightmare you're describing. And so too are the stakes, I think.

So what we're doing is we have a plan of action. I'm working with Congressman Chris Smith, amazing individual from New Jersey, and he has proposed a bill. It's called the SECURE Act. And what it does... which is the first step in this, it mandates, one, that we go look for the 85,000 children who got lost into the United States, and two, it holds DHS and HHS accountable if they will not.

Track those children. They have to investigate who's picking them up. They have to put them through some kind of process. They have to track them where they're at. They have to know where they're at. And that's what this new bill is going to do. So that's the beginning phase. But the long term is you've got to start enforcing the border. You can't. I mean, these cartels, according to New York Post, I believe these numbers, the cartels are making 14 million dollars a day.

in moving people and trafficking people. And they're just loving our policies because our policies are making them super rich. Does this all go back to the cartels, Tim? Absolutely. Yeah, so... You know, when I spoke to the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras last week, they said, look, what we're seeing is even people from Latin America are coming through the Darien Strait, through Panama, and there's the Darien jungles in there, the Darien Gap.

By the time we get through it, they're so sickened by the suffering of their children that they'll drop their children off in Honduras, Guatemala, and they can't handle this. And so these kids are left. Parents go on to the United States thinking, we'll come back and get our kids later. We can't handle the suffering anymore. Now these kids are exposed. Traffickers walk in. Hey, you come with me. You come with me. You come with me and off you go. Now, even when we're enforcing the border.

This is important. There's something called the Florida settlement, which seems like a compassionate court ruling, but it was, you know, the traffickers take advantage of it. Basically, it says that if a child shows up with mom and dad or mom or dad, they have to be released into the United States. within 72 hours. Well, so what they decided to do is take all these abandoned children in Central America, pair them up with...

And whoever paid the smuggler to get in, you called this man, daddy, you called her mommy. Okay, you ready? You go in. Now the border patrol starts wrecking. Hey, this kid, this kid keeps coming. I've seen this kid before. They're recycling the kids over and over again to get through the loophole.

And now that doesn't even matter as much because this current administration just says, come on in, everybody. But, you know, we have a problem even when we start enforcing. These traffickers are smarter than we give them credit for. They will find a way to exploit.

And we have to combat that. It starts with border enforcement and it starts with the SECURE Act to go find these children that we left abandoned. 85,000, you reckon? 85,000 children in the last two years. There was a moment in The Godfather, right, where they're sitting down, the heads of these families, the mob, and they're trying to divide up the territory and they're deciding who gets the gambling and who gets the marijuana. But there was like...

I think it was heroin, right? They were like, you know something? We're not going to touch that. We don't want any part of that. It's just too much. Is there anything in the cartel mentality? Are there any cartels? Is there no decency in the cartels, Tim, where they can't look around and go, you know what? Yeah, the fentanyl. Yeah, we're good with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But honestly, honestly, seven-year-old girls and boys being exploited. We don't want any part of that.

That's too much. Actually, Mike, you're on to something. Yes, this does in fact happen. I'm glad you asked this. We find that most of the trafficking cartels of small children stay pretty small. You know, there's even a code amongst thieves, right? Like Jeffrey Dahmer got wasted in a prison, right? I mean, because they said, no, you went too far, bro. You're raping and eating.

kids like you're gonna die here right so what we have found that's the line there's a line there's a line raping and eating babies yeah so So, sorry. There's our title, Chuck. So, I always say, if you don't laugh about it, you're going to cry. So...

You got to do one. Absolutely. So if you don't mind while you're talking about that, I know in like policemen and warriors, you know, out in the field, they have that sort of gallows humor or whatever. Is this a bridge too far? Is this something where you don't laugh at it? No, we do. We do in a way that the public would never understand. I'm embarrassed sometimes when I'm on operations and we're laughing.

You got to understand it's a defense mechanism. Because when you're watching children be abused this way, and it's never about them. It's about the traffickers we make fun of. But we laugh. I'm telling you, this beats you up. I've probably watched a thousand plus hours of children seven years old or younger being raped in every way possible and have to write about it. There's a scene in the movie that breaks my heart. And Jim's crying. That's real for me. And that was my life.

for 12 years, you know, and you got to write it in detail for the judge, for the courts. I throw up. I'll throw up in the middle. Like, I can't believe, how is this happening? It's a very difficult thing to expose yourself to. And, yeah, we definitely, Chuck, we have to laugh our asses off as much as we can, however we can get there. I'm also interested, too, I mean, in that same vein, you know, you can get used to anything.

Sort of, you know, and I've, like Chuck, talked to a lot of people. I remember seeing the Pacific, you know, the Spielberg miniseries and so many vets who... who talked very casually about a level of just unspeakable depravity, tossing dog tags into a skull that was missing the top of the head and keeping track.

You become something almost subhuman, I think, when you're exposed to that with so much relentlessness. But how does that, I mean, you just said that you watched thousands of kids being raped. in every imaginable way. So how do you, and not just by putting it out there in a different part of your brain, but I mean, the first one must have...

You must have processed it differently than the 10th or the 100th or the 500th. How does that work, man? How do you keep that together? Well, it's been a journey. It's a mental health journey, I'll call it. The first time I saw... Child exploitation material. The very first case I did probably 2002 and three little boys, probably seven, five and three years old. And they looked like my kids, blonde, blue eyes. I thought I was going to watch when they put me into this group. I thought child.

What we used to call child porn, right? We call it child exploitation material is more accurate. I thought it was 16 year olds, 17 year olds. My brain couldn't fathom five year olds. And that's why I'm watching this. I fell to my knees under my desk, threw up in the trash can, jumped in my car, raced to my kid's school who were about the same age as those.

three kids check them out I said they had a dentist appointment took them home hugged them sobbed my eyes out and my wife walked over she's like what is going on and I said I don't know this world is this world is hell This world is hell. I just discovered. And then I had to work through that. I didn't want to give up. I had to work through that. And it's just been it's been a journey to get through. And it's, you know, I'll be honest with you. Sound of Freedom probably saved my life because.

I was still doing undercover operations weeks before Sound of Freedom came out. It's hard to get out because you know you can rescue another one and another one. Sound of Freedom put an end to my undercover career.

And God probably saved me through that because now I'm on a new path now, and I've been forced out. There's no way I could go on and off. I can't go. I can't do it anymore. This, to me, Tim, is the main reason that I wanted to talk to you. Because what you're doing is so important and so unpleasant that, you know, I look at most things through the lens of persuasion and advocacy. And years ago in Australia...

I talked to a guy responsible for a campaign that actually really moved the needle. They wanted to really, really, really send the message that drunk driving was really, really, really bad. And they went on the air with... Many movies, like two minutes long, that told the story of a kid with his whole life ahead of him or her that gets hit by a drunk driver.

And that's where we'd ended in this country. But over there, they kept going. All right, so the movie keeps going, and the kid's in traction in the hospital, and he's lost a leg, and then he lost a spleen. And these are true stories, right? And it keeps going, and it keeps going. And you can't turn away. And you nearly drop to your knees as you did and look for a wastebasket in which to puke. Same thing with smoking. They would put pictures on the backs of cigarettes.

of people with tracheotomies, right? I mean, they'd have pictures of diseased lungs taken in full technicolor, right in your face, right? So the shopkeeper hands you the smokes, you've got to look at this. My question is, do we have the belly in this country to show Congress, to show our elected officials, and to see for ourselves the horror?

You just described at watching three five-year-old toe-haired kids be abused like that. If we could bring ourselves to watch it, what would we do as a result? We would end child trafficking. Damn right. You can't. Once I saw that, I was far from quitting. The opposite happened. Like, that's a bell once rung. You can't unring that. It's over. And there's nothing else I could do with my life that would feel purposeful.

after seeing what I'd seen. And so I refused to quit. And that's what we need everybody to do. Now, Sound of Freedom is interesting. I talked to Alejandro Monteverde, the director. I said, listen, I don't really want you to create material that's going to get a pedophile turned on.

So can you do this in a way that punches people in the stomach just enough so they know what it is, bring them to the edge of the bed without pushing them off the bed, right? And he did it. I mean, I feel like he did it. You watch that movie, you know exactly what is going on. You know what's happening to these kids, and yet they don't have to see anything. And so I think we hit a chord.

I think Sound of Freedom is touching millions of hearts around the world and they're waking up to what's happening. They didn't want to look at it before. But Alejandro Monteverde made it so that it's digestible and it compels people into the cause. Ten minutes in, I couldn't look away, but I couldn't sit still. I stood up and I was pacing around the living room.

Because I knew what was going to happen. I knew that father was being conned by that wicked Cruella de Vil, that horrible, that horrible creature. And I knew what was going to happen to that brother and sister. I couldn't just sit there and watch it, but there was nothing I could do, so I got up and paced. I'm just asking Chuck, what did you do? I was in a movie theater with a couple of friends from church, and...

We were all so uncomfortable in our seats in that first scene that went on. We were just so uncomfortable. And I couldn't really stand up and leave. But I just sunk down into my seat and pulled my knees up. And, you know, hoped to God that the director was not going to show me any, you know, too much. And he showed me A and B and C I saw in my mind and I didn't like it.

And I thought that he did a great job with that. Terrific. I mean, really, it's terrific. It was really good. But again, I mean, sorry not to just pretend we don't have a guest here for a minute, but I mean, isn't it crazy, Tim? how the optics of a kid in a cage or something approximating a cage, right? A kid detained at the border, how that became the sum of all fears.

And the absolute visual manifestation of wickedness. And now, knowing what we know about what's happening, you see those same kids and you realize they're the ones who got away. That's right. They're the ones who got lucky. And I called that from day one. I was on Fox news talking about these kids. And first of all, it's not the four seasons, but it's not the, it's not cages. The Obama administration built them and they're fine. I've been there. They're not great.

But you're right, Mike, and that's what I said. Those are the safe houses. Those are the kids that got rescued as they're being trafficked. It's the ones that didn't end up in the institutions, the HHS, DHS institutions. It was so twisted in the beginning. 2016, I think, you know, whatever you, I hate politics. I really do. I just, it's about truth for me.

And I feel like that was the twist. Like it was never partisan until Trump wanted to enforce the border, until Trump wanted to pour $300 million into fighting human trafficking. He was so hated by so many people, right or wrong. I don't really care, but I feel like that's. what happened. If Trump touched it, it must be bad. And that's when it became partisan. It was never partisan. I worked at DHS through two different administrations, Bush and Obama.

Nothing changed. They were equally great at enforcing the border. There was a bill, I was with Congressman Smith today, and he said, geez, just like eight years ago, Everybody signed a border enforcement bill that was all about the same bill we want today. It was never partisan. I don't know what's going on. We've got to rip the politics from this because this is about children.

You know, the lines were clearly drawn. And I'm always amazed when otherwise reasonable people take an unreasonable position. I think I know why it happens. What I'm getting at is I want you to talk about the incredible backlash to this film. And how stunned were you to find people who actually came out and find something to criticize?

about a movie that was simply trying to shine a light on the fact that child trafficking is real and it's on our back step. And as you formulate the answer, when Trump said, make America great again. He did something to the opposition that forced them to respond. And the way they responded was essentially to go as far as they could in the opposite direction.

So they had to say essentially, no, America was never great in the first place. And I don't think they really believe that. I don't know, of course. But it's like, ever since that happened, I see... the pendulum swinging like wider and wider and wider. What in the world happened with this movie to make so many people go, ah, there's no, no, la, la, la, nothing to see here.

I think I have the answer. I'm still figuring out because it's so bizarre. But I do think I have a pretty good answer so far as to what's happening. First of all, they first started out saying it's QAnon. And apparently I'm the leader of QAnon on many websites. I don't even know what the hell. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, I have a secret meeting. I'll send you an email. I don't even know what it is. I don't have time to look into conspiracy theories when I have so many real cases before me.

And that didn't work because they realized, oh, shoot, the film was sitting on the shelf for five years because Disney held it for a year and everybody else turned it down. QAnon came well after the film was done.

So that didn't work. So like, oh, that's not going to work. So then they turned on me. I've been accused of being everything from a trafficker to a pedophile to an adulterer to you name it. You know, my kid cries home calling home. Did you did dad leave you, mom? Because my friend sits all over the news.

that dad has a girlfriend. What the hell is happening? Like, why are you coming after me? Like, I'm the bad guy now in this scenario. And what's interesting is all the media outlets that are reporting these lies. Back in 2014, when we did the operation, whether it's the Guardian, Rolling Stone, CNN, they all said glowing things. They all reported on the very rescue operation that happened on October 11th, 2014, the island raid that you see in the film. They reported on it.

and saying, isn't this amazing that we're getting rid of this problem, we're fighting this? And then, you know, eight years later, the story didn't change. The same kids were still rescued eight years later. In fact, it got better because the kids got through aftercare when they have success stories. And yet something changed. It wasn't the story. It was the media. So why? And this is what I think.

I think they do not wanna have the conversation about, for example, 85,000 children missing in the United States. They don't wanna have a conversation about why. There's an agenda out there to provide what really is pornography to children in the name of sex education. They don't want to talk about 12 and 13 year old kids who are being told that they have the power to consent over their parents.

to have a doctor gender mutilate them. And I'm libertarian. It's not about that issue, like do what you want as an adult. I'm just saying these are very, very sensitive conversations that if the world really saw what was happening to children. In all these instances, they might say something. You know, there's a movement right now. The very same press outlets, they're lying about the film.

They're also peddling this concept. I don't know if you've heard of this. Stop calling them pedophiles. Let's call them minor attracted persons and normalize it. And so this is the conversation these outlets do not want to have. And they know that Sound of Freedom is going to force the conversation down their throat. And so they have to dissuade people from going.

But the problem is it had the opposite effect. I think they only helped because the more they lied and then people would go and come back and say, there's nothing QAnon. There's nothing political. Who's hiding what? I think it helped drive ticket sales.

But more importantly, I think a line's been drawn in the sand, and there's more good people in the world than I dreamed that there were. And I have hope for the first time that we can actually make a difference. I mean, we showed this to Congress. Bipartisan audience. Speaker McCarthy held it.

And three bills came out of it that night, one of which I'm here to testify in Congress. The same thing's happening all through Latin America. Governments are changing. People are changing. This movie will save millions of children. I guarantee you. Want Black Friday prices without the crowds? Lowe's gets it. Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush. $99 is all you need to grab a select 7-foot pre-lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays.

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I believe that. I walked out of the theater and my friends and I looked at each other and said, what can we do? We scanned the QR code in the theater, went to the website, paid it forward, bought a T-shirt. I got a, you know, what is it? God's children are not for sale. God's children are not for sale. Yeah. I mean, you know.

it just made you want to do something. In that sense, the film is really powerful, really, really powerful. And I recommend everybody see it. Thank you. Well, as long as you're putting stuff on t-shirts, I don't know where I read it. I think it was an improvised line that also happened to be a mantra of yours, Tim. Better a millstone be wrapped around your neck and you sunk to the bottom of the sea than to harm any of these children.

That's gangster stuff, man. That is like, I mean, that's not the polite sort of, you know, that's not the Jesus I read about in the New Testament. This is the guy who's saying... I mean, so yeah, get that on a t-shirt. Better a Millstone. Explain the scripture for those who don't know what I'm talking about.

We'll work on it. Matthew 18. It's the scripture I repeat to myself before doing crazy things. Like, what are you doing? You can't go here. You can't walk into this jungle. You can't. And everything in me. But then I say, wait, wait, wait. Listen, Jesus told me where he stands on it. That means he's got my back. I remind people, you know, for years, like, guys, like you just said, Mike, like...

These are violent words. This is beyond flipping tables outside the temple. I mean, this is like, this is like mafioso, like cement shoes kind of crap. So here's Caviezel in that scene where the first pedophile gets arrested in the cafe. True story, I did in fact go undercover as myself, Tim Ballard, special agent and closet pedophile, in order to get this guy, the book. I have the book, everything. It's all real. But what wasn't real, it was that line. I didn't say that in real life.

Neither did the script say that. So here's Caviezel, who's... Just an otherworldly actor, let me say that. So he's sitting there in the scene and he's just supposed to say, you're under arrest for crimes against children. Instead, before he says that line, he leans over the table and he says, he looks at the pedophile actor and he says, He quotes Matthew 18. He says, better than a millstone be hung about your neck.

And so on and so forth. And when you see the actor who's playing the pedophile, these poor actors, you've got to play pedophiles. I mean, these guys, I'm talking. He was terrific, by the way. Credit where it's due. That guy was great. Oh. Great bit of casting. His reaction to Jim's quoting of Matthew 18 was very natural. He said, what does that mean? And he was like laughing.

Because he's like, Jim, you're out of the script, bro. I don't even know how this applies here. But Jim knew how it applied, right? Because at first it's kind of like, what? Oh, I see what you're doing, right? It's my favorite scene in the movie. He had no idea that that was my mantra. That's the thing that kept me alive and kept me going. So to me, it was a very providential move that Caviezel pulled off there. Well, the creep thought for a moment that Jim was commiserating.

with him, right? Saying something that like, hey, we're part of the club with the secret handshake. And it's like, oh, yeah. Can you spell that out for me? It's like, well, it's actually New Testament, bro. And you're going...

Straight to the lake of fire, right? Okay. It was great. That was a great, great scene. Caviezel's laugh was hysterical because he laughs in that moment as well. He does, he does. And laughs through the line, you're under arrest. Yeah, and the bad guy still thinks he's joking.

He's like, you're under arrest. And he's laughing, right. He's like, ha, ha, ha. And all of a sudden, boom, sirens. And yeah, it's a great scene. Yeah. What is that feeling like, Tim, like the level of elation in a moment where you actually get not just a bad guy, but, you know, evil incarnate. You actually get one of these creeps dead to rights and literally save a kid. Where do you put that feeling?

And does it keep you up? I mean, it's like you live a life of extremes, man. It's so extreme. It's so extreme. It makes it all worth it. It makes it all worth it. I'll tell you that when you see that kid and then you find out what happens to them later, you get reports. Oh, they're doing great. They found their parents or, you know, they got adopted. But for me.

The very first operation we ever did as a private entity, even before what you see in Colombia, a few months before, was the takedown of the trafficking organization in Haiti, which you can watch. There's a documentary on this called Operation Two Saint. on Amazon Prime. It's great. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's a great documentary. And those two children, Colleen and Colleen, they've been home for four years. We adopted them. I'm telling you what, they, I will credit them.

for everything that happened since because every day I'm home, I wake up and I see them. These kids are the happiest kids. I mean, Kolei's the number one. Player on his football team scores two or three touchdowns a game. Like this is a happy, happy kid and his sister. And, you know, I have seven biological kids. So and I see how happy they are. And it makes me emotional because I know the trajectory of their lives. If you're in Haiti.

If you're a Haitian orphan, you're not going to make it. You're going to be dead or trafficked by 15 years old. And I know that's where they would have been. Instead, they're these bright, happy, just amazing kids. And what that says to me is if we could do it for them, we could do it for any of them. out there and we've got to do it so it almost becomes like a compulsion like an almost geez almost at the level of addiction and probably for me got unhealthy where i can't stop

I can't stop. I have to go again. I have to go again. I have to go again. With every move deeper and deeper, I go, you know, to the point that I probably would have lost my life were it not for this film that... dislodged me and kicked me out of undercover ops because I can't do it anymore. Is there any greater sense of purpose that you could possibly have than to do the work that you were doing? Never.

Never. I couldn't leave after I started. They offered me, hey, Tim, want to go back into money laundering or drug trafficking? I said, I can't. I might as well go sell real estate with my dad. There's nothing worse. And nothing greater than the success of watching a child be liberated. This is it. I'll die doing this. And I stand by that. What does success look like?

At this point, realistic success, knowing that we're obviously temporary residents in a fallen world and it's never going to be, you know, paradise. What do you hope to accomplish with the innings you've got? Well, it's funny. It's like I see it now as a series of battles.

It used to be just idealistically saying we're going to end child trafficking. And that's still my ultimate goal. But until Jesus comes, I don't think that's not going to happen. This is real. We got to do as best we can before he comes in and cleans house. But in the meantime. How I see it is just there's individual battles. The battle right now is a sad one. It's a sad one. I spent 12 years rescuing children for the United States government, and now I have to rescue children from...

the United States government. And I can't believe I even have to say that. And so right now, my battle is in Congress. My battle's on the Hill. My battle's with getting this legislation and waking up the executive branch into rescuing... and not allowing our departments to become a child trafficking delivery service. We have to wake them up. I think they know. I can't imagine they don't.

I think the people need to get louder to move this thing because there's just nothing more important than helping these kids, these migrant children. I think, again... I have two children who are migrant children. Like, migrant children are close to my heart. And these migrant children deserve every bit of attention and protection as any American child does. I don't care. Borders and boundaries mean nothing. These are children of God.

We got to fix that. So that's my, I'm kind of singularly focused on legislation right now to fix the border. And then I'll find my next battle. You said seven biological kids and two adopted? Yeah. We're crazy. That's a baseball team, dude. It's tough. I live in Utah and I live in an area where there's like

still some of the fragments of polygamy around me and stuff. You know, we have to remind people, no, we're not, we're pure monogs over here. Don't, you know. We're doing it the old fashioned way. The old fashioned way. I told my wife, I said, we got to get one of those big old vans. She's like, no. No, we've got to have just two, three vehicles. We'll just travel in a caravan. I'm not going to get a polygamobile, she calls it. Polygamobile. No, honey, I'm drawn to the line at polygamobile.

I just sometimes you just have to say no. Can you talk a little bit about how'd you get Caviezel? Was it a battle? And what was it like to get the movie funded? The way that it all came to pass, because people who aren't in our industry, I don't know that they understand the totality of the maybe that has something to do with the pushback as well. Maybe this business model just poses a clear and present existential danger to the way...

To the old school. Hollywood makes movies. Absolutely. Yeah, man. Because it's way off the map. It's way outside the box. And I'm outside the box of Hollywood. Look, after this... First operation that happened, we got hit up by several big studios, names you would recognize. And I brought my wife and I said, Catherine, I don't know about this. I hate Hollywood. I don't trust Hollywood. I said, you have veto power.

I remember walking off the set or the studio of one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. He walked off and she said, we're not going to let these guys tell our story. And I was like, I was a little bit bedazzled by like, this is, you know, and she's like, nope, it's a no, it's a no. Six months later, we met Eduardo Verastegui, and he showed us his film Little Boy. And we watched it and sobbed. We cried. My wife cried and said, these guys could tell the story. These guys I can trust.

And that led to a discussion about the film, and it led to eventually, hey, Tim, who do you want to play you? You don't get to choose, but we'll listen to you. And right out of the gate, no questions asked, I said, Jim Caviezel. And they said, well. He's a great actor, but that might not work because the problem we have with Jim is it was already written to the script from day one that where you just morph. They're going to morph my.

the actor's face into my face, and then show real footage. Oh, real footage at the end, yeah. At the end, yeah, real footage. And they said, you've got to have someone that kind of looks like you, like Caviezel's tall, dark, and handsome, and you're everything.

But that. So what are we going to do? And I said, I don't care. You get a good makeup artist. I said, it's got to be Caviezel. I like felt it. And I said, because here's a guy who's first of all, like the kind of Monte Cristo, the past. I mean, this guy. This guy can act. And I told Alejandro, I said, you yourself, Alejandro, you told me whoever plays me has to say more with his eyes than with his mouth because there's too many things you can't say on this theme.

And who does that better than Caviezel? You watch the film, you know what I'm talking about. He says 10,000 times more things with his eyes than he does with his mouth. And most important to me is I'm a Jesus guy unabashedly. I needed someone. Whoever's going to play me must believe and love the Lord. That's the only way I'm going to feel a little bit safe. And I said, Cavisol hits all those. He's the guy. They said, okay. They called him. Three days later, three days later.

He accepted the role. I didn't realize, I didn't know he had adopted three children from China, two of which were he rescued from a trafficking situation. I had no idea. So it resonated with him and that's how he got him. And I don't think they did a bad job in the film. kind of playing with his coloring. No. I think he was okay. Very powerful. Very powerful transition from him to you. Yeah. It was terrific. It worked.

Wow. Okay. So you get your way. Were there auditions for anybody else? Did they float anybody or was that just a hard deal breaker right there? It was pretty much a deal breaker for me. I said, unless he turns it down. I'm not going to get off this one. And it was all within a week. That all happened within one week. And he was signed up that fast. Okay. So where do you get the money to do this thing? How's that work?

So it started as a Fox production. Fox International produced it along with several investors that were friends of Eduardo Verastegui. John Paul DeGioia, he's the patron. John Mitchell. We got Patrick Slim from Mexico invested. Some of the Walton family and then several other investors. And so all together, they worked with Fox International. But then.

Right when the movie finished, Fox gets purchased by Disney. And so now Disney owns the whole thing because that was the deal. Fox was going to own the whole thing. And Disney says, like, just flat out, we're not going to put this on the screen.

Like, what the hell? What do you mean you're not going to put it on the screen? We're not going to put it on the screen. What are you going to do? We're going to just shelve it. Like, how can you? Like, it was frustrating. So for one year. Did they give you a reason for that? No reason. Did they give you a reason? This is not for us. It's not for us. ironically on july 4th we end up beating disney's indiana jones right by a lot right a 300 million dollar budget versus

A $14 million budget. On top of that, Indiana Jones had $300 million in P&A, in marketing. We had $3 million. And still, using the, you know... off the path kind of marketing. And Angel Studios, these guys are brilliant. And they figure out a way to grassroots this thing. But so anyway, for one year, they fought Bob Inouye from Goya Foods.

He saved it. He saved this movie. He came in and said, what does Disney want? What do they need? Everyone's got a price. He paid it. He paid it. Released it from the grips of Disney. And then we had it. But then it was still another two years because everybody turned it down. Netflix, Amazon, they took it to everybody. And I started thinking, this must be a crappy movie. I'm too close to judge. I thought it was good. It must be crappy.

And then Angel Studios watches and says, what? This was just, I mean, Angel Studios picked this thing up 90 days before July 4th. That's how, I mean, they picked it up. They watched it. They said, how is no one picking this up? This thing is a miracle movie. And within five days of them sitting down with Eduardo and the team, five days, they had a deal signed. 90 days later.

We're July 4th. That's how fast this has happened. It's insane. We're on a roller coaster. We can't even I mean, we don't have time to talk to each other. I'm like, hey, guys, are you seeing what I'm like? It's the weirdest thing. You know, it's just like we don't even know. It's just crazy. It's a runaway train, but in a good way.

It's just so exciting. As a couple of reformed actors, we're just sitting here going, man, do you understand how categorically weird, maybe even impossible, all of that is? I mean, you just can't script. I didn't know the piece about Inoue coming there at the last minute and paying off Disney. But look, somebody has to ask, and I'm sure somebody has, but like on the record.

Why doesn't Disney want this movie? What is the issue with this movie? What don't you like about it? They wouldn't tell us. They wouldn't tell us anything, but it's not for us. That's all they would say. Well, look. I mean, in their defense, it's not the happiest place on earth, Tim. No, it's not. Agreed. But think of children. Think of Disney's historical commitment to family and kids.

And why not just scoop this thing up and put it under touchstone or put it under whatever the label is that says, right, this is not where we're going to do the seven dwarves routine.

Anyway, I mean. Walt would have done it. Walt would have done it. Walt would have picked it up. Let's hope. So. Do you have other cinematic plans at this point? Is there some sort of follow-up that you can talk about? Yeah, what's crazy is about two, three years ago, I just had this idea, like, let's just write the script for number two, you know?

Alejandro, the writer, was going back and forth between the Haiti case and the Columbia case. Honestly, I thought Haiti was more interesting, but he ultimately said, Haiti's too unique. We want to touch Latin America. Haiti doesn't really fit into the... It's kind of always just been a, it's kind of an oddball country, right? For so many reasons. But we have this, the script is written. Alejandro, the same writer.

And Rod Barr wrote an amazing script. I think it's better than the first one. It's just been sitting here and wow, now it's an asset that's worth something. It was worth nothing for years, but all of a sudden it's like, where's the next one? We got it. We got it already. We'll be announcing something probably pretty soon here. Things are getting tied up right now, and we're, we hope, I mean, we project by January we could be in full film, well, filming number two.

Oh, man, that's really exciting. I'm so happy for you guys, and I'm so happy that you've, you know, Forrest Gumped your way into Sodom and Gomorrah and figured out a way to use it. Right. For your purposes. I mean, I. Hey, what can you say to people? I mean, you're obviously a man of faith, self-described libertarian, who's also mentioned.

four times that I counted in this conversation that you're not political and that this isn't political. So how can you be true to your own... and at the same time challenge people who might not share your worldview to truly come into the fold and be a part of what you're trying to accomplish both at the border and in the world at large.

I mean, I'm just going to speak truth. That's it. Whether people agree or disagree politically, I'm going to speak truth. I'm going to defend children. I see, I believe in spiritual warfare and I believe that for the first time in our nation's history. Children are the target of the spiritual warfare going on right now.

Again, it's not just the 85,000. It's what our kids are being taught in school, the indoctrination, the sexualization of children, allowing kids to consent to evil things, allowing this... crazy idea that we call it minor attractive persons and normalized pedophilia. I've been hunting pedophiles for Almost 20 years. I know these guys. They have platforms. They have, I mean, there's a documentary that will be coming up probably next year. Mel Gibson's involved with it. Tony Robbins produced.

It's called The Hidden War. It talks about the last big operation I will have ever done last year. It starts in Ukraine. take down this pedophile organization that was trying to traffic kids out of war victims out of Ukraine, child war victims, hitting the leader hiding in Mexico City. Another pedophile contingent part of this political group had a sex hotel selling little boys.

making available boys for sexual activity in Ecuador. Anyway, the point is I studied these guys and they're all about something. They have a political agenda and the political agenda includes sexualized kids. Call them minor attracted persons. Let kids consent to anything and all things, including vote at the age of 12. Have sex with whoever they want. Of course, all these things are, they align with their agenda to have sex with children.

So you start looking at the pedophile agendas, and you're like, holy crap, this looks really familiar. There's a whole agenda of the godless in this country, and that agenda is a mirror image. of what the pedophiles have been trying to get done for decades. And I'm not saying they're colluding. I'm not saying they're, I'm not calling one side or the other side pedophiles, but I am saying that they're peddling a pedophile agenda and anything.

that someone does i don't care what party you are left right up down sideways i don't care who you are i don't care if it's your grandma if they're peddling specific policy agendas that are making pedophiles salivate It's time to push pause and say, what is going on? And that's the reality of the situation right now. And my mission at this point is to tell that story and to fight for children on a front that I never thought I'd have to. But that's where I'm at right now.

How many people on your team don't share your worldview, but who are nevertheless laser focused on the same objective? Whew, that is a good question. You know, we're very open to who the best operators are. I will say it seems to me most of them. the vast majority of them share a similar worldview. If you don't see this through the eyes of spiritual warfare, and it's not denominational by any stretch, but if you don't have...

An idea of that this battle is beyond flesh and bone, that there's something out there. There is actually a spiritual warfare. There's something out there. I don't know how the human body could even put up with it. I mean, you look at these guys' eyes who are selling children. I'm telling you, there's something not even human going on here.

And I'm just being honest, like I'm looking at these people across the table and I'm going, there's something wrong with you. That's beyond something we can even comprehend. So I think if you're going to make it in this work past a few years. you're going to eventually start feeling and seeing and witnessing. There's something, there's a greater battle going on here that we can't understand. The other ones don't seem to make it. They seem to lose faith and run away and despair some.

Well, you know, to your earlier point, you've watched thousands of hours of unwatchable material, and you can't just have all of that put into your random access memory and just sit there and not... have some kind of counterbalance, it seems to me. But look, what can people do? What should people do who would like to support your efforts to be involved, to just be a little bit more aware of what's going on around them? Is there a podcast they should listen to? Yeah, absolutely.

I have a podcast called the Tim Ballard Podcast, but also I advise a new fund that's brand new that we brought out in the wake of Sound of Freedom called the Spear Fund, Tip of the Spirit. It's a unique concept. What's going on is there's so many great organizations out there doing it.

rescue operations now. I've been a part of many of them on the boards, or I've been a CEO of two different ones, founder of one. But this is a fund. It's the spearfund.org. And what we do is we find the best rescuers. We're not a rescue organization. We collect the resources and deploy them rapidly to who we know are the best rescuers for a given child or a given situation. So people want to get involved and help us with.

With the rescue of children, go to thespearfund.org and help us out because we're just getting started with these rescue operations. What about leaning on Congress? What about getting behind the very thing you're involved in right now? What can people do, if anything, to call your elected representative, raise hell? Call them. Raise hell. The SECURE Act is step one.

The SECURE Act will allow the federal government, demand the federal government, go find these 85,000 children that they lost. But on top of that, it's going to hold DHS and HHS accountable at the loss of their own budgets if they do not. take care of these children and track them.

wherever they go. And so this bill, the SECURE Act, is the greatest legislation to protect children in probably a decade. Representative Chris Smith out of New Jersey is sponsoring it. I'm behind him. That's why we're here. So call your representatives. Tell them to vote for the SECURE Act. And keep an eye peeled for the people who aren't. Yes. Great point. Because what in the world, what elected official would look at this data and go, ah.

It's not really my thing. It's like, yeah, I'm with Disney on this one. It's not really my bag. It's not my jam. You must be this tall to get on this ride. And I don't think so. I'm going to sit it out. Exactly. Yeah. Center of Freedom has done that, hasn't it? It's drawn a line and it's exposed a lot of people like, oh, well, I'm glad to know that you're the one.

Aiding and abetting child trafficking networks. It's amazing. They've raised their hands almost surprisingly. Me, me, I'm against. Okay, thank you for. It's good to know who you are. I didn't know where you were, but now I know. Thank you. Well, look, man, it's good to know who you are and it's good to know where you are. I want to thank you really for making the time to talk to us. I know you were crazy busy, but I think you're changing the world in a better way. And it's a privilege to...

to help spread the world. Well, thank you, Mike. I've been a fan for a long time and just honored to be on your show. So thank you. Tell your wife we said hello and to thanks for, you know, being a jagged little pill to keep you honest. I will. I will tell her. That's pretty great. Soundoffreedommovie.com. Soundoffreedommovie.com. If nothing else, people, watch the movie. It's two hours. You're not going to be singing along with a catchy soundtrack, but it's going to stick with you.

In a good way. It's going to stick. Thanks, Tim. All right, guys. Thanks so much. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile. Then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online. and leave us a review.

I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. All you've got to do is leave... Leave a quick five star review. All you've got to do is leave a quick five star review. All you've got to do is leave a quick five star review. All you've got to do is leave a quick five. Even if you hate it.

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