In Hollywood, the Revolution Will Be Televised ft. Isaiah Washington

Michael Knowles. We are in sunny Hollywood, California. Senator. Thank you for flying out here, and also thank you to our guest, a show biz man, not someone usually in politics, Isaiah Washington. But Isaiah, you have become very politically active here, maybe not of your own desire, but because you have contradicted some of the leftist orthodoxies of Hollywood, and they don't take that very well. Yes, yes, I have been

a contradiction in this town for twenty four years. I've said that a lot of checks from a lot of people I did not like, and a lot of people who did not like me for various reasons, and had none of them had anything to do with politics. It had everything to do with microaggressions. You know, back in the nineties, there weren't a lot of people that looked like me and colorism. There were certain people like you know, you may have heard of guy Eddie Murphy Western Side.

She may have heard of those guys my name's sake. I probably noticed this guy named um Denzel Denzel Washington that I was kind of popular, pretty popular time magazine named Arsenio Hall. Oh yeah, you know, don seetle those guys. So I studied them back in nineteen eighty eight, before I became a California in New York in theater, I swore I would never do television because that's not cool. And then you became a big TV star. Oh, I did a commercion and I got a check in the

mailbox and I was completely corrupted. That is what it set me on to study what kind of actor can I be in this town that I know I don't want to be in. So I had to start to figure out the looks of my engineering background in the military. I took ten years to say, what what's missing? How can I fit in? Because they have these great names, these great businesses, and they have these will Smiths, and I know they only pink one at a time for

whatever reason. It's like a pecking order out here. Couldn't take it personally, so I had to take it in a business way to figure out how can I fit in, how can I catch up? I'm starting late in the game. So what drew you to the world of acting? Did you always know it's what you wanted to do or no? I had a midlife crisis twenty three, shortly after a

space shuttle blew up. I was working as a private sector in hern the Virginia with an organization and at the time we had a facts we didn't have an internet nineteen eighty six right, eighty five eighty six, and I was very concerned, a lowly positioned about oll rings. And at the time I was like, you know, we need to take a look at the shelf life of these ole rings that are going out in the world. Now.

I don't know if there was a connection, but I knew there was a problem with the old rings for the space shuttle and it went up anyway, and what I started become really politicized after. Even when I was in the military during the regular years, I started seeing things that I didn't want to see, like why are we putting Christo mcculiff and these people up in the ship when there's some issues, and all I remember were a lot of people around me going, he's got to

go up. It's got to go up because the president ratings are down. We need we need to boost literally where it went up and it blew up. Yeah, I heard a lot of people. We know the story. I think for me, I was clinically depressed because no one I didn't know what to do with the information I had. No one was really listening. But I think at the time, when I look back on it, it's a good question. I think I was clinically depressed but didn't know it. And at that point I left, walked away from my wife,

I walked away from everything. I worked, away from my big screen television back in the eighties, a unit to do like a big old bowling ball, the big red, green look ugly thing. Right, I had to Askott my pipe. I walked away from my cards. Everything ended up homeless, wow, and ended up in Windy's were here, I was Engageburger with there hungry across the street, was sleeping on my lawn solo my furniture. I think I just completely lost it, and I said I'm gonna pretend that I'm gonna eat

this Winnie's burger. That's when they were making a good Winnie's burger, when it was really a big thick square of meat. Is that the sat there, smell the food, pretended that I had eaten and went back. I was no longer hungry, And at that point I felt like, if I can act like I've eaten and I haven't eaten in three days, And I asked, God, if you tell me what I'm supposed to do, I promise you I would be the best at that thing, of whatever it is. The next day, I was given an opportunity

to audition for a play called Can Can. I wasn't a dancer. They wanted me to come and dance. I lied to said I could do a pier. I didn't know what a pier of what was? Then say can you do a pek turn? I didn't know what a pek turn was? So I looked at all the other guys that was doing these new turns and went out there and made a complete food out of myself. So they had fun with me, and they said, Okay, that's

god awful. Can you do a cart wheel? So I did three cart Wheels did not get the job, but I got the attention of another musical director to put me in a play in a church and that was my first play called Frankenbeans, where I played a gay character that was in effect with HIV pot blown as wow. That was my first role. And from there I got to Howard University or Kats who's writing the book now? Who's behind many people from Debbie Allen, Alicia Rashad, A

lot of people went to hire University. She put me on, put me on the New York City Kids original play member for the City Kids Repertoire Theater dealing with kids, the city at risk children. But Lake Yoba came out of that and then did a commercial, got the money, did a little one Life to Live. That'st thing I know.

I'm in LA didn't want to be, but I figured that if I find a role where I can play a thug with a heart, if I can play a thug that looked like he's intelligent, like in Romeo Must Die, then I might be able to work more than everybody else. So that is what I saw was missing. I saw these stereotypes of bad guys, crips, bloods, yea not really much. I said, I need to play a bad guy or a thug that has a little bit more intelligence, and

it worked well. This is an aspect of Hollywood is there are always just boxes and you got to fit into this boxing. Oh, it's only one or two guys that get to fit in that box at a time. Sam Jackson he created his just he worked so much that he just beat them down with his talent. That he just worked so much. That's another way he just became Sam Jackson. But you've you've had a great career in Hollywood. I have. But you know, in a certain sense, you don't fit into a box. No, I hit him.

I'm the kind of person that being at taxing, you try to put me in a box. Still you and I grew up in the same town. Yeah, he's still a family history. They're all dying off. Moved out unfortunately, my mom passing two two thousand and one, same years and Leah, you know, so that was my transition. But I don't have a reason to go back to Houston and go to David Busters anymore. Yeah, or where my boots anymore, where my hats and all that. But I don't have any reason to go back to Houston. But yeah,

you know I was a f a. I roteoed. Uh wow, we did. Uh you know, what we call mule saddling was a big deal. You ever seen the mule cry? It's really sad cry. They crab blood, they cry blood. Literally, it's like, damn one of my treating this mule this way. He doesn't want to move. But that's the Democrats for you, just all right, So that's not a popular statement in Hollywood. What jackass Democrats? Anything about the Democrats that are short of all of the above? Uh huh? So what what's

Hollywood's politics like from the inside. I never really knew until I went to the White House for Trump. So supporting a policy that I believe then that's letting out nine one present of the men that's getting out of federal prison for the first time, fis looked like me. So when Meek Mill didn't want to go because jay Z told him not to go, and I understand that you want to mess with his paper, well you're already

messing with my paper. So I had to figure out how to make paper on my own, right, literally, Well, I like the Federal Reserve. Yeah, I had to figure out how to survive without you. And I've done that for twelve years, and I always say that up to that point, I was twelve years of slave, so you thought. And then I happened, ironically be freed. On a tweet from April Foods Day that I as a tweet of

Ernie saying, look at this. I'm being blown away with this man getting off this teleprompter and helping these returning citizens, letting them out of federal prison. Now we got a man that's sitting here working for Anchorage. The first Orange man supposedly bother said that the biggest cannabist company in the world or is not in the country, selling weed. And here I am being ostracized, and it's created for supporting a policy that's freeing out people that look like

me that was called selling weed. So I made a tweet saying, isn't it funny that I was talking to this guy named a forty four Obama talking about nothing but the black agenda, nothing about Africa where we promise. But here I am watching this man who's supposed to be a racist, freeing people poor people. So that was a big issue for you. That was a big sort

of criminal Justice reform. It still is, and I'm really disturbed because the Left has tricked these useful idiots to the point to turn the First Step Act into not a non secretary but like it never made history. It was never all that fighting that everybody had to get behind in a bipartisan way. Now now you forced this man the Korea a ten year in prison, I think

from ten and down monuments. So now you're gonna take these same people that look like me, most of them not really from here, but still the opjects of you taking these people and now I'm putting them back in federal prison. That doesn't seem like an accident to me. Well, and you know, look the Democrats they had eight years of the White House under Bill Clinton. They had eight years of the White House under Barack Obama. They didn't

pass criminal justice reform. They didn't they didn't do anything. And First Step back, I was a big supporter of it. I was in the Oval Office when the President signed it. And my view, you know, I've been involved in criminal justice a long time. I see a big difference between violent offenders and non violent offenders. Oh what we call survival crimes. Yeah, Look, if you've got a young African American, young Hispanic who gets busted for possession of marijuana and

serves a long prison term. That can really be unjust. And that's a very different crime than someone who's murdered someone, someone who's raped someone. You commit violent crime. The whole purpose of law enforcement is to stop violent criminals and

keep people safe. But I think the First Step Act took a very important step to saying, if it's a non violent crime, you know, some eighteen nineteen year old kid who made a mistake, this may have seemed like the only way out, and it was a mistake, but ruining the kid's whole life is not the right step, and it was It was remarkable that Donald Trump championed that and that we got it done as a bipartisan matter.

Democrats talked about it forever but never did anything on You're absolutely right, you know, Um, I probably committed more felonies in the military than I've ever done in my probate life. Really, I made my problem my first nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars seven weeks in the military in the Philippines. Some of the top biggest officers in the thing. But I had to do it because if you didn't, you could get fragged, literally killed in the

Philippines and Clark every base at this time. This is truth. So it was so bad I went on. I went so deep to survive that my commanding officer brought me into I talked about this on my podcast. So there's no statue limitations. And I don't know whether the bag of money that I buried in Philippines is so don't ask me, don't. But I had to do it because I wanted to live. So I understand how corruptions worked on both sides. We were busily listening to the stars

and stripes every day. The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming. But yet I'm doing these things with other people that have all this metal on their shoulders, and we're all going, like the money that we're getting paid by the taxpayers, it wasn't enough, huh. It wasn't enough, and it didn't stop this behavior of corruption, And it was at nineteen

I was a part of it too, at the highest level. Well, you know, corruption can be at a big issue, can be a big idea. One thing we talk a lot about on the show is the kind of diversity of thought on the right among conservatives. So so we've gotten your kind of acting and professional evolution, but did you have a political evolution. It would seem at one point you would have said you were on the left and then you were on the right. Or maybe not. Maybe

I have that wrong. Well, my acting, like I was saying, started at nineteen. I had to act like I was a decent human beings. As an airman, we all had to act like we were professionals. Now imagine I'm nineteen, but I can't go off the base and drink alcohol because I'm not twenty one. When I got back to hollymand aff a space. My point is the goal to this that I saw so much, seeing so many things that didn't add up coming as a little country boy out of Houston. But you go to church, it was

white and it was black. There was no great it was in between. My point of bringing that up is is that people have to do what they have to do if they didn't have the opportunity to do what they were supposed to do. And what I mean by that, I didn't get the scholarships to the colleges I wanted to go to because there was corruption in high school. All at Willard Ridge High School. The coach decided he's going to get it a kick back to try to send me to a smaller program. Well that was the

first scandal. So I've been a part of scandals since I can remember. I've been part of dealing with things where you go. And I've never really been political until I decided, well who was in power? Well, Reagan was in office, so Reagan is our boss. Didn't get to vote, so whatever Reagan says, Reagan, we have to do. To the point when I finally got in the middle of an element, I'm like, why are we sending f fives to Central America? Why are we sending live ordinance in Thailand?

Only to find out that we were doing things we weren't supposed to do with taxpayers money. Why are we dropping bombs Vietnam? Oh, well, somebody wanted to clear out all the landmines. Well who for what? Not a wartime situation. It's a lot of money. Shut up. Now I find out, Oh, well, there's a big resort being built that you were activity for how long? Four years? That's why I got out, so I buy politics. I became political by saying that I'm working for corporations. I'm not working you or you,

I'm not working for the people. And I found out either from nineteen to twenty one, I want nothing to do with this, and then I jumped into private sector. Reagan needs get a bump. People die. So it seems like I've always been reminded of people that are doing things they shouldn't be doing, but they make it look like it's really cool, this is the right thing to do and it's really great. Tell us about the walk

away movement and what and what what that means to you. Well, a friend of mine h who's a Sirian Leoni and who went to me with the Sirian when I got my do a citizenship and I wanted to see how I can help the most stigmatized country in West Africa that couldn't get any help, to talk to all the senators Senta Obama at the time, about how we can

remove the stigma of this country. She I didn't like how I was treated in the press again to bring up this topsic narrative that wasn't accurate in the first place. Of my exit of this show with mental show right. So at this point I actually got angry after I was a good guy, like, okay, I shouldn't said what I said. The ghost glows I've been drinking. I told the truth, but it wasn't a good place to say that. Okay, you know you don't say the word that everybody's accusing

you or saying it wasn't. I had a good idea, but I told the truth. I'm not a liar. It's truth. So this comes back up again and again. I'm not doing anything wrong. I decide I'm gonna walk away. So she said you need to join the walk Away. I didn't know what it was. I just thought it was a good term. So everything I was tweeting that I was pissed off about and reminding people of my good works.

I used hashtag walk away so much that it got Brandon Stroke's attention and like, dude, that's my brand, Like what are you doing? Are you with me? Or it getst me? Like what's going on? So he hit me. I'm like, who are you? I'm Brandon Strike Striker, he said Struck. So we got together. I got on Varney in Company. We linked up. I supported him and used my platform, and then I started tweeting like craz started tweeting like crazy, and it started driving the Democrats crazy.

Everybody attacked the April Run, everybody rolling mind not crush them. Everybody that came to me Mark labout Hill, I crush them because anybody know me on Twitter, I get very blue. Yeah, I'm not scared. I will cuss you out in some of the most extraordinarily creative ways on Twitter. I'm very entertaining well, and they all blocked me. This is something about Hollywood as in centator. You've spent a lot of

time in Hollywood. I mean, it's kind of like an unknown fact of politics that a lot of Hollywood conservatives have supported you for years and you've known them. And the thing about Hollywood is they're very big characters, very eccentric personalities out here, and yet so it's so weird to me that you got this whole fun place with such wild characters and personalities, and yet when it comes

to politics, they're all exactly the same. They're all identical ideology, and if you disagree with that, you get kicked out. And I found out why why I was talking to a person or we will remain nameless. But I was at an event and he asked me, man, what are you doing. You're hurting me. That's so, what are you talking about. You're killing me. You're on the wrong team. He says. If I don't get this mayor reelected, if we can't get Trump out of here, I'm gonna lose

my access to the bag. And I said, what are you talking about? It's this man, I got great opportunities. I got kids. Man, I want build my foundational wealth. And these people will let me know where all the residential places. I can get all the inside information on how what I can invest in. If I lose them, I don't know anybody in the conservative parties. I don't know any Republicans. They don't like me. I don't have a relationship with them. It has nothing to do with politics.

These people in the Hollywood are fighting for their greed. She's saying, it's it's an establishment, it's it's a personal interest kind of thing. I mean, you see this completely talked about this with China, right, the relationship between Hollywood and China really and as you know, Hollywood is terrified piss off China. They've been broke since two thousand and eight. Yes, China has paid for anything. There's a man named John Lasseter, yeah used to. I think he's still run Will Smith's company.

I got invited to a special little meeting. I felt like I got the little cans. We can hear them, understand the Mandarin. I feel like I was at the un so somehow I don't know why they invited me. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like the big tabletell like I'm the run guy. I know you show up on

podcasts and talk about it, right, so I'm there. John Laster is arrogant, and other people are arrogant, and the Chinese are sitting there talking about the different levels of copyrights, like there's twenty four levels of copyright, Like if you try to sue them on one, it's like, no, you can't because there's I learned so much from these Chinese and all they were asking the special meeting with SAG afterwards, give us some respect. You didn't respect jetly enough, and

you know you didn't make him a star. Just take one of our Chinese people and just actors and make them a huge star, like Tom Cruise, like like Meryl Streep. And they fell asleep the guy fell asleep on the stage. Yeah, said John, I saw you do it. He fell asleep, Arguly, he fell asleep on the stage in front of the Chinese that's paying his bills, all of them, each, one of the major executives. They fell asleep like they had no care. They played the game like, yeah, we're broke. Well,

Hollywood is paying the bill. I mean, China rather is paying the bills for Hollywood. But it seems that there's a political dimension of this as well. It's not just that they're infiltrating top Gun or something. There's an agenda here on the international level. So as you know, I just got sanctioned by the Communist government of China. They announced that I am banned from China. Why because I don't like communists and I criticize them and call them out.

The Communist Government of China. They're murderers, they're torturers. They've got one million wagers in the concentration camps right now. They're censoring and and by the way, among other things, their censorship helped create the coronavirus pandemic because you had

Chinese Trusians they censored. Did you say that the viruses from China eight is from which and the Chinese government is response, did you just say this is a plandemic that this is Do you know that that when the whistleblowers Chinese doctors in December of last year, said hey, we got an outbreak here, this is a problem, the Chinese government arrested them and said, you cannot any responsible government would step in, send health professionals, quarantine the people.

And this this may well have been stopped as a regional outbreak, and all of the death all of the economic shutdown, all of the misery could have been stopped. But the Chinese government didn't do that. And I've been calling them out and so you asked why why they sanctioned me. One of the reasons they sanctioned me is in October, I flew to Taiwan, and I flew to Hong Kong, and I met with the protesters in Hong Kong,

two million people in the streets. I did one of the Sunday shows dressed in all black and solid day with the protesters. Are you asking for it? Oh? You better? But my dad, Wait a minute, I got chill boobs. You're gonna get us all y'all, Y'll check this room. I'm real. I don't like communists, I don't like it doesn't work. And yet know my dad was imprisoned and tortured by Bautista in Cubea. Sonya was in prison and tortured by Fidel Castro, And so when it comes to

standing up to communists, I'm eager to do so. And I gotta tell you, Hollywood is scared to do so. They're not scared. They just don't have a personal interest to protect anyone who's not part of the club. It's about building their foundational wealth. It's about like purge what Ethan Hawk did to the character the one black character that tried to help his dog ass He says, so I'm gonna save you, and I'm gonna help save you, and they still stabbed and almost trying to kill him

in the movie. It's just, you know, a thankless job. Do you think a middle all of this, there's any hope that you're right? I guess it was a crazy premise to begin with. You don't think there's any way that Hollywood's gonna break apart from the leftist consensus. The thing enforce I wanted you to explaining the HR seven forty eight how they became one thing and became a care act. But that's another one. Like one minute was this a lot of people hitting me like wait a minute,

this was done and before he shut down? You know, lu little why is this to build this way? But my thing is no, no, it's not about that. It's about distraction. Huh. No, one's asking the right questions. Why would Bob Eiger step down? Why you gotta Why can you not open up a nation as large as California makes all this money driving cars? Why are you gonna lose all this money when you are a state that has produces thirty of all of the wealth and to this nation. Just just put up the wall and just

say you want to succeed. Just just be I would you know, I wouldn't respect the Democrats and Gavin News and answer Pelosi and Kamlahart. If you say you want to kill us, you want to hurt veterans and bring in illegal immigrants, you don't want to close your borders, Just tell us you want to succeed. Just stop playing at this thing. Don't hurt innocent people. Let's just get it on. Well, Isaiah, I'll make a prediction right now, Please do which is if Joe Biden wins, God forbid,

I don't want him to win. But if he wins, I know what's gonna happen. The day after he wins, they'll declare everything's better. They'll open up the schools, they'll open up the economy. Suddenly, they'll say, everyone go back to work. And you're seeing so many people in politics and the media that just hate the president and they want everything shut down. They want every school, they want every business, they want everything shut down right until election

day because they think it'll change the album. And if they weren't happened, I can sit here and safely tell you that they're all six million people that will be very, very happy to see Biden try to go onto the White House. You will have a civil war and it will be over within six months, guarantee. How do I know?

I know? And the one thing we know too is unfortunately we're not going to We could go on, we could go on for hours, but unfortunately the one thing we do know pertaining to Hollywood is the revolution will be televised or maybe it will be live streamed. I should mention too, Isaiah before before we head out. You have a show on Fox Nation. You've got Kitchen Talk on Fox Nation, which you've got to check out with

Isaiah Washington. And the next time, well, hopefully California does not secede before we can get the Senator back out here, and we'll have to continue the conversation next time. I am Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across

the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.