March 11, 2026

Will we continue to embrace true justice, peace and a path to prosperity?

I believe that America's best days can still be ahead.

And I want to lead us forward.

Join me now in the Read Revolution.

Take a very, very good Wednesday morning to you.

I'm John Reed.

You're with me here on the Read Revolution.

A broadcast, a podcast, and a ledger with us.

Hope you're following us on text and Facebook and Rumble and YouTube.

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with the video element of your listening later.

If you're following us and spread the word,

this is one of the few places you're going to hear in Central Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic.

There's a lot of news that's being missed everywhere else.

This morning, I am in Northern Virginia.

I'm in Springfield.

I was just in Tyson's corner speaking to a group of business people about gerrymandering in Virginia

and the threat that that poses to the voices of a lot of people who live in rural Virginia.

But also, it means if this proposal goes through between now and April 21st,

the Virginia Democrats have come up with the scheme that they've put in place to seize power.

It means that the business community will not be represented.

Everyone will be a social justice warrior.

And if you need evidence that the modern Democrat Party does not give a damn about the business community,

about jobs, about working people, just look at the proposals that they have pushed through

in the Virginia General Assembly since they took over in January.

Just yesterday, the State Senate of Virginia, aided by the little Ayatollah, Lieutenant Governor,

Gazala Hashmi, she actually broke the tie vote to tax sleep.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like they have run out of things they can tax.

Now they're taxing sleep.

So the little Ayatollah there, you see her, Gazala Hashmi, such a pleasant person.

She's a little taller than that, not much, but a little taller than that.

The little Ayatollah broke the tie vote about whether we're going to tax every mattress in Virginia.

Seriously, no kidding.

Every new mattress, every old mattress, every mattress you're about to throw away.

Democrats are so desperate to tax everything that this is where they've gone now.

I'm one would think, one would think that when they unveiled their initial 51 taxes,

everything from gym memberships to Uber Eats deliveries to dog walkers and dog groomers,

3.8% tax on wealth increase in the tax on everybody's income in Virginia.

You would think that they would have heard from the business community and from working class people

who would tell them, what was the deal?

You ran last year talking about affordability, making my life better,

putting more money in my pocket, or at least keeping more money in my pocket,

and everything they have done in this first couple of months of their rule,

of their reign, of their, you know, the queen, Abigail Spanberger's governor,

has been about raising taxes for the Commonwealth.

And it'd be one thing, seriously, if we were in the red,

if Virginia had been mismanaged by Glenn Youngkin and Republicans over the last four years,

but the exact opposite is true.

Glenn Youngkin left Abigail Spanberger with a surplus,

and they're still raising taxes.

So you tell me, if you've gotten to the place where you're taxing mattresses,

I think we've got a big problem on our hands.

Here it is, another new Democrat tax, this time on every mattress in Virginia.

And there, the little Iatola, of course, this is artificial intelligence.

I want to be very clear for those of you who think that the lieutenant governor put on her,

a Muslim Iatola outfit laid on a nasty mattress.

That's not really what she did.

This is artificial intelligence for the dummies and the crowd who can't figure it out.

But here she is throwing money around.

What kind of a dummy? Seriously, I don't mean to be totally insulting,

but what kind of a fool is running for governor of Virginia,

which is what the little Iatola is doing now,

votes to break the tie in favor of attacks on mattresses.

Come on.

How stupid can you possibly be?

How disrespectful to the people of Virginia can you possibly be?

But this is the type of arrogant leadership that we're getting

from the little Iatola Gazala Hashmi and her Democrat colleagues.

It's really disgusting.

So I don't want to hear anybody complain about artificial intelligence.

The insult here is taxing you on your mattress while you're sleeping in Virginia.

That's the insult.

Don't get it twisted.

Don't be distracted.

Democrats are going to tax the hell out of you on everything.

And we should say no.

I mean, when I was sharing that with people this morning, they couldn't believe it.

They thought I wasn't telling the truth.

And I showed them the articles about it.

This is the kind of craziness that you're getting.

Well, we go from the little Iatola here in Virginia, Gazala Hashmi,

who marched with Hamas and doesn't seem to have met an Islamic radical

that she doesn't embrace to the big Iatola, the new Iatola in Iran,

who I hope this person's days are numbered.

I think that it's appropriate for...

After 47 years of dealing with Iranian terror,

I think it's very appropriate for us to finally go and root out these people

and kill them on the other side of the planet.

I know that that's controversial for some people who don't really understand how the world works,

but you have a choice.

Do we survive or do they survive?

And I'm not going to apologize if it comes down to that choice

and I think that's where we are, Americans are the ones who should survive.

I'm not confused about that.

And if you are, you belong nowhere near a leadership role on state level or on the federal level.

America has to survive.

And we've kind of put up with a lot of violence and a lot of killing of innocent people

before we've taken this action.

I'd say that almost five decades is enough.

So here's President Trump on the new Iatola.

Take a listen to what he had to say.

You have to take him out.

Does he have a target on his back?

You mean the new Supreme Leader?

You mean the Sun?

How can there be an Iran?

Well, I don't want to say that.

But, you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country.

So I was disappointed to see their choice.

You have called him an unacceptable choice.

So does he have a target on his back?

And how can you say that?

I don't want to say whether or not he does because that would be inappropriate.

But hey, look, I had a target on my back because as you people wrote pretty well, they caught the assassin that was after me.

So we just got them first, but they caught the assassin.

They have him now in custody.

Those after me.

So, you know, but people don't like to mention that, but they did catch him.

And I'd like to congratulate our military, secret service FBI.

All of the people that worked on that, but they did.

Yeah, please.

You know, there is a reality check that everybody needs to have here.

This is not a nice engagement.

This isn't some tour of the Middle East where you go and you look at the palaces and you appreciate the history of the past.

We're dealing with cutthroat savage people who are determined to murder Americans up to and including the president of the United States, whoever it is.

I mean, you may hate Donald Trump.

I don't know what to say to you.

If you have Trump derangements in the room and you hate him, okay, I'm not going to argue with you, but I got news for you.

It's not just about Donald Trump.

It's whoever is in the White House, Republican or Democrat, the Iranians have been trying to assassinate and kill American leaders.

And when I was working in the Middle East, there was a target on my back as an American business person,

where there was a reward offered for the kidnapping of American business people.

And, you know, until you've lived with that type of threat, I'm not sure you appreciate how nefarious that is and how important it is that we say no to that going forward.

We should not tolerate it.

We should not put up with it.

And Trump has had, from what I am told, and I assume this is verified, two individual assassination attempts, not just the ones that we're aware of, but behind the scenes where Iran has been funding assassination teams to try to take the president out.

That cannot be acceptable in the United States.

And I would say the same thing if it was Barack Obama, you know, the former presidents are on that list too.

You know, we've put up with this long enough.

And if you're confused, it's only because you haven't been paying attention.

And if you haven't been paying attention for the last year or the last 47 years, you really don't need to be involved in this ugly situation that has to be resolved.

It's not going to be nice, you know.

This is not a situation where we're going to have people have conversations at the United Nations and somehow forge an agreement.

Because every agreement that the Iranians have made in the last several decades, they have lied and they have broken it.

And at some point, somebody has to be strong enough to say no more of this.

And I, for one, am very glad that Donald Trump has done that.

Let's take a look at some of the images that are circulating around about President Trump and this issue in particular.

I find this to be, well, wait a second.

I find this to be kind of shocking here that a former Congressman Bob Good from Virginia has decided that he's going to come out and trash President Trump, saying that Trump is the problem.

Look, I know that Trump didn't endorse Bob Good when he was running for Congress.

President Trump endorsed the incumbent Republican Congressman John McGuire.

Believe me, I understand what it's like to feel like you've been betrayed by people in your own party.

Having said that, though, is this the moment to go out and trash your own President, even if you have had a falling out with him?

I mean, first of all, I don't know why anybody is really interested in what Bob Good has to say at this moment.

That's weird.

I mean, someone explained to me why we're going to Bob Good to get his opinion at this moment, other than the press that wants to use a Republican attacking another Republican.

But here's the quote in a scathing review of President Donald Trump's endorsement track record.

Former Representative Bob Good suggested the President's picks would be better used to know which candidates not to support an election contest.

Truth they said Trump is the problem, he says, not his advisors that he picks because they say nice things about him on TV.

Trump himself, you would literally do better by using Trump's endorsement to know who not to vote for the former lawmaker wrote on Acts on Tuesday.

Look, I understand that Bob Good is mad with Trump and I understand that Bob Good is disappointed and angry that he's not back in Congress.

And that Congressman McGuire is there and you know, there's certainly a lot to unpack about how all that went down.

But it is odd that when we're in a war and when Democrats are coming after the President and coming after Republicans trying to destroy every opportunity for conservative voices to be heard,

Bob Good chooses to do an interview like this. Isn't that, isn't that problematic?

I mean, you know, Bob Good certainly entitled to his opinion, but when you win and where and how you share that opinion is pretty important and it's instructive, I would say to you, that's one reason why Bob Good isn't in the Congress right now.

Because a reasonable conservative would recognize that this isn't the moment to go after your own president.

I mean, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with Trump for another two and a half plus years.

I mean, assuming the guy is healthy enough to stay in office and it looks like he is to me.

And if you watch this press conferences, he is really, he is really on it.

He's not fading. He's not decrepit like Joe Biden.

So why would you take a pot shot right now? What are you trying to accomplish?

And just, you know, for the Trump voters who told Bob Good, hey, you know, the president endorsed John McGuire.

So I'm sorry I'm not voting for you. Do you think you're winning them back by saying these types of things?

I mean, I get it. I understand why you're bitter. I understand why you're angry.

Okay, but what is the deal? Why would you do that right now? That seems like not a smart thing to do.

Even if you think you're right, it's just kind of not a smart thing to do. I'm very puzzled by that.

And so I bring it up just to share with you, there's a time and a place for everything.

And there are more than enough people who are attacking Donald Trump.

I really don't think it needs to come from Republicans at this moment.

Believe me, if Donald Trump makes a mistake or there's the perception that he's made a mistake,

do you think that there are a lack of people? There's a lack of people out there pointing that out trying to go after him?

I don't think so.

So I would suggest that every Republican, and I just said this here in Tyson's corner,

to people, you know, some people who were in the room who did support me as Lieutenant Governor,

but weren't on board at the beginning when I was running against a Northern Virginia guy,

who, you know, I patched everything up, I think, with him these days.

If you've got a disagreement with people, if you're mad about something,

and, you know, to be quite frank, I think I have, I think I've got a whole long list of reasons to be mad

with different people in the Republican Party.

If I wanted to go down that list, that doesn't do anybody any good right now.

You know, every Republican in Virginia, everybody who wants fairness in Virginia,

everybody who wants to uphold the Constitution of the state,

and make sure that the voices of different people are heard, and that there's not a power grab by a cynical,

use of Democrats, you kind of have to put all your other problems aside,

and all the other things that might divide you aside, what, for a month and a couple of days,

at least till April 21st, could you possibly have the personal and political discipline to do that?

And let's focus on making sure that the voters of Virginia understand what's at stake here.

I mean, you've got a current situation in Virginia, where there are six Democrats in the United States House of Representatives,

representing Democrat voices and Democrat opinions, and you have five Republicans.

And when you look at the presidential race, when you look at the governor's race,

when you look at the last decade in Virginia, that's probably kind of where we are.

I mean, I wish that it was the inverse. I wish there were more Republicans here,

but there have been so many people who have left us to have left the Northeast.

You know, they ruined their home state in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut.

The taxes are too high. They can't find a house that they want to be in.

They don't want their retirement income taxed.

So they move to the South, and then they still vote for stupid Democrats,

who are going to do the same thing here that drove them out of the Northeast.

I am trying to point that out and hope that maybe there'll be some sobriety here,

where, you know, if you come to Virginia, welcome to Virginia, glad to have you here,

but you should probably recalibrate if you were unhappy in a place where Democrats ran everything.

Maybe you don't put the same idiots in office here to do the same thing to you on the back end of your life

that they did on the front end of your life. Maybe, is that unreasonable for me to say?

I don't think so.

We all need to show political and personal discipline and focus on the issue in hand,

which is whether we're going to be fair with each other, whether we're going to honor the Constitution,

and whether we're going to convince people who are undecided that voting no

is the correct and appropriate thing to do, assuming that you want to uphold the standards

that Virginia voters set five years ago, and keep the Constitution in place,

and tell the politicians you don't get to make these decisions.

I think that's important.

You know, some money has come in, and I think I mentioned yesterday that I was at the Republican Party of Virginia headquarters the other day,

talking to some of the folks there, and there is national money coming into Virginia.

It's a little late, if I'm being honest with you, I think it's 30 or 60 days,

certainly later than the Democrat money from Hakeem Jeffries, but there is national money coming into Virginia

to try to at least have a fair chance to share this message with undecided voters

all across the Commonwealth, and make sure that people who supported Donald Trump,

who kind of thought, eh, I'm a vote for Trump, and he's got it.

He'll take care of everything.

You should be very, very much on the record now that Trump can't control the craziness in Virginia.

There are new ads that you will see if you use YouTube, if you use some of the streaming services,

if you're online, and let's play one of them every day for the next couple of days.

I'm going to play one of these ads. Here's one of the ads that's out there now.

Here in Richmond, our freedoms are under attack.

The Democrats are ramming through a redistricting referendum, redrawing the congressional maps that shift a fair,

six to five representation to 10 to one in their favor.

Rush the head of this November's election, it's a clear power grab.

Your vote know is important.

Virginia, we can't afford to sit this one out.

So by April 21st, get out and vote no for fair representation.

Vote no to defend freedom.

I think that's a pretty good ad.

And you know, it's a young woman who's sharing her opinion on this.

I am told, and the data seems to indicate that young college educated women are rejecting Republicans.

I think that's very unfortunate for a variety of reasons.

And it's inconsistent with logical thought that you would empower people who constantly talk about how important representative democracy is.

But then seize power and try to stomp on representative democracy.

I mean, the truth is Virginia is not 90% Democrat.

I'm sure Democrats wish it was.

I wish it was 90% conservative Republican.

It's not.

And that's why as a candidate and as a talk show host and as a citizen, I'm happy to engage with people who may not agree with me.

It's completely fine.

But in fact, I should issue this invitation.

If you're one of the people who has standing, you've got some insight and you'd like to come on the program and talk to me, debate this, discuss it.

I don't have to be hostile.

Send me a note at the read revolution at gmail.com.

I would be interested in hearing what you have to say.

I'm not interested is the hypocrisy of individuals who talk incessantly about no kings.

But then want to stand up for tyrants in Iran and are very upset when we remove essentially a king from Iran, who's using a very, very harmful theology that oppresses women and gays and all the minorities that left us to claim to care about.

They want to stand up for the guys who are throwing gay people off the roofs of buildings, hanging them in the public square, beating women, forcing them to cover their faces and bodies so they become a nameless shapes that just move across the country and have no voice in the society.

That's who you're standing up for these days.

You say no kings, but then you stand up for the tyrants, explain that to me, explain how you can justify that.

I'll wait because I don't think there's an explanation that's real other than you hate Donald Trump and you despise the West potentially.

Come on, let's be honest, that's what it is, right?

You despise Western civilization, you've been brainwashed and convinced that somehow we're the problem and the radical Islamists who are slaughtering innocent people aren't the problem.

I got news for you. I'm not going to accept your version of the world where I have to live every day wondering whether I'm going to be murdered.

No, I will not accept that from you and you are wrong and that's not going to be acceptable.

These young women, and I want to be respectful, but you go out and you march every day talking about how representative democracy is so important.

This is what democracy looks like. That's the constant chant.

You're going to stand up for democracy.

You think Donald Trump is destroying democracy, but then as soon as your party takes control in a state like Virginia, what do you do?

You try to silence the voice of almost half the people in the state so that they don't have a representative in Congress and you don't do it with normal legislative parameters and maps.

You bastardize the entire system. I mean, there's no one who can look at the maps that the Democrats have proposed and say, yeah, that makes sense.

They are not compact. They are not groups and geographical areas with common interest.

They're spread out very deliberately to gerrymandered the state and take large pockets of Democrat voters and pair them with a minority of conservative voters in order to oppress and suppress the conservative vision in Virginia and in Washington.

So this is really one of those moments where you're being called, called out for being total hypocrites, and I'm more than happy to do it.

More than happy to point out the total hypocrisy that's on display here.

And that's why I'm spending the next month traveling around the state in hotels like this one, talking to groups, hopefully not just Republican groups, to say that the only responsible vote here, the only fair vote here.

Fair to everybody because fairness means treating people you disagree with with fairness. I don't know if everybody gets that. If you're being fair, it doesn't mean you win everything.

It means you give other people at least the chance to articulate their position and have a voice in the Congress and a seat at the table.

Right. This hypocrisy is stunning and the only fair vote is a no vote between now and April 21st.

All right. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the next Virginia forum and some of the gun bills that have been passing through the Virginia General Assembly.

I mean, the Democrats are really intent not unlocking up the criminals, not on stopping the bad guys from slaughtering innocent people, stabbing innocent people, not locking up the crazy people who've indicated that they're violent.

Their intent on stopping you from having a weapon and we'll get more details on that when we continue here on the re revolution.

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Back on this Wednesday morning on the re revolution. I'm John Reed and I am in northern Virginia today. We're early this morning. I was speaking to a group of business people about the gerrymandering effort. You'll see the sign behind me vote no on April 21st.

The election day is actually April 21st, but we've got 45 days foolishly, foolishly, Democrats have forced 45 days of early voting. Then they don't even want to obey their own rules.

I mean, they chose 45 days of voting, but then they decided that the rules that they wrote didn't count. Sure, they're still going to have the 45 days, but they're not going to obey the calendar requirements that they put in place.

Unfortunately, the courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia have been so corrupted now and are so filled with weak people who won't actually read the law and enforce the law that we're now having in a legal election.

I wish there was something I can do about it other than point it out, but I'm stuck.

So I'm going to call out the bad behavior in our courts. I'm going to call out the hypocrisy and the lies from Democrats, but I'm also going to accept the reality that the only way to stop this gerrymandering scheme that silences almost half the state is to go out and vote.

And to vote now, don't wait till April 21st.

Bank your vote. When I get back to Richmond, at some point tonight, I'm hoping that my mail-in ballot, the absentee ballot, because I'm on the permanent absentee ballot list, as Governor Duncan asked me to sign up for a couple of years ago, I'm hoping that ballot will be there.

And tomorrow on the show, I'll be able to share with you the actual ballot and how I'm voting. And I want to encourage you to cast your vote early so that we can save the precious dollars that the Republican party has and really focus on the people who need to be moved in in messaging and made aware of this threat to get out to vote between now and April 21st.

Democrats have $20 million. Maybe if we're lucky, Republicans will have $5 million. Maybe if we're lucky. So this is a, this is a David versus Goliath situation. And we better rise to the occasion where we're in big trouble.

I want to welcome to the program, David Arsani, with the Washington Examiner. He is going to be the keynote speaker at the next Virginia Forum, sponsored by the Virginia Council. Let's coming up on April 1st at the Glenn Allen Cultural Arts Center.

And David, thank you very much for coming on. I guess you have been tracking what's been happening at the state capital of Virginia with this Democrat takeover in their efforts to ban all types of weapons.

And, and turn law-biting citizens into criminals. What's your take and good morning to you.

Oh, good morning. And thanks for having me. The AR ban that is now in the desk of Abigail's Bamberger, I think is unconstitutional obviously.

I mean, heller is clear that the, that weapons and common use by law-biting citizens are legal to have.

AR, I think, is the best-selling rifle in America. It is certainly in common use. And law-biting citizens have them. They, they account for a very small fraction of criminality in America.

And then there's the magazine ban as well, the capacity magazine ban. I'm just using their language because I don't think 18 rounds is actually as scary as it sounds. But that too, I think we'll be unconstitutional one day.

They keep pushing this in states. Virginia is the latest. At some point, the Supreme Court has to take it up.

You know, because it just undermines our ability to defend ourselves in the way that the Constitution first saw.

Yeah. Is there an organized pushback on this? You know, I know the NRA has been around a long time. But Virginia's citizens defense league is organizing. There is a protest at the state capital coming up this weekend to try to make sure that legislators know

that not everybody's on board with it. But is any of this organized and effective, you think?

It's always been a problem, I think, for conservatives in general to be activated or be activists. They're busy at home with their families running business. They're not. They don't have a kind of professional activist class that like gun banners have.

You know, but there are groups that that challenge these things. Even even the Heller decision was basically brought forward by kind of a Racktag bunch of lawyers from the Kato Institute libertarians.

So it's always been difficult. But yes, I mean, NRA is out there. And obviously, I think gun owners are very passionate about about their Second Amendment right, rightfully.

So hopefully they'll make some noise. I don't know. I'm kind of new to Virginia in a way. And I'm not sure what with this new government, how much that's going to matter. Unfortunately, it might have to be.

There may need to be legal recourse, I think.

Well, fortunately there do seem to be some people who are willing to take it into the courts and tie this up a little bit and push back.

You know, walk with me through your history on this particular issue. I know you're speaking on April 1st. I'm really excited to meet you in person at the Virginia Forum in Henrico County at the Glenn Allen Cultural Arts Center as a part of the Virginia Forum.

But you've done extensive research on these issues. Walk through with me how you became involved in this debate.

Well, I grew up in a place where I didn't know anyone who had a gun. I grew up in New York City area.

And well, I shouldn't say that. Many people had guns, just criminals had guns. Regular people didn't have guns.

We didn't, we weren't mugged by reality there. We were just mugged, you know, my people, other people. But so, but I always had a, because of probably because of my parents escaping from communism, I always had sort of a

theological or philosophical inclination to support the right of people to defend themselves against the whims of the state, for instance, or against criminality to protect their property and their families.

And then as I grew older and had a career, I lived in places where it was almost impossible to get a gun, like Washington, D.C. And in essence, just ignores the Constitution even after Heller.

I think they make it virtually impossible for a normal person to have a firearm, or it's very difficult, too difficult.

But then I started thinking not just about the ideological aspects of this or the constitutional ones, but the culture. Why? Why do guns have this special place in American culture?

So I wrote a book called First Freedom About It, where it's not just a defense of the Second Amendment. I think it is because I told a story of guns in America, but it's not an explicitly so.

I talk about the innovators, you know, Sam Cole, Browning. I mean, there are so many incredible people who change the way America works that I don't think we talk about enough because they're associated with guns. And there are a lot of people in this country who find guns icky, you know.

But when I moved to places where you could have guns, finally, in my life, I met a lot of gun owners, and they were the most sober and serious people about that right.

They're not a bunch of slack job, yokels, shooting off guns. They're really serious about safety. They're serious about their rights. And I think people were more, I wish that more, or I was propelled by wanting to tell the story to other people so that they would understand why guns matter.

It's not just some kind of irrational need to blow things up and shoot things. There's a long history behind it, and it's not just philosophical, it's cultural as well.

Well, your perspective is somebody who grew up in New York when the gun laws were really tight there, and there was a tremendous amount of violence, and I hate to say it.

I think with the new mayor and his hostility towards police officers and, you know, law and order, we're probably about to backslide into that situation once again.

That's the cycle of New York, I suppose. What do you say to the hypothetical moderate voter who's a woman who has been voting Democrat of late because they're horrified when they cut on the news,

and they see what one of our listeners just talked about, six people shot down at the Virginia Beach Ocean front two weeks ago in the city of Richmond, my home city.

There were nine people shot, two of them killed at three o'clock in the morning outside of a club in downtown Richmond.

What do you say to someone who is horrified by that, and the only thing they can think of to solve the problem is to disarm the population.

To be honest with you, it's a difficult argument to make in an emotional, or there's an emotional appeal that the gun grabbers can deploy because it is scary.

And obviously, a lot of people do bad things with guns. We can't pretend that that doesn't happen, and that isn't part of this.

And you know this, the thing is that the bad people always have guns, and the only people stopped from having weapons are going to be law abiding people.

So I've struggled to make this argument to people I know.

I think the best way, weirdly, to convince them that guns aren't that scary is to actually take them shooting.

Once you go shooting to a range, once you pick up a weapon, and you use it, it's kind of addictive, right?

I mean, I think anyone who has guns knows that, and it's a lot of fun to do, obviously, you know, at a range.

And so that's one way to do it. But I think to, you know, I think it's important just to keep stressing.

And I think that a lot of people in New York, where I grew up, or other urban liberal areas, they don't understand how many people actually have weapons in their homes.

Like to them, it's this crazy idea, but I think something like 47% of households have at least one gun in their home. That's a lot.

And I have to tell you, studying all the polling that's done, where you ask people, you know, how many guns they have, do they have weapons.

You know, as well as I do, that gun owners are not the most forthcoming about that kind of thing.

So they're not going to tell you how many guns they have, or if they even have guns.

So I think the numbers even higher. I think you'd say around half the country, probably, or more, has a firearm.

It's a normal thing in America in small towns where there isn't criminality.

So pointing out that juxtaposition, where you have great communities where lots of people have weapons in Texas or Florida or Virginia.

And very low crime rates. So I think that just appealing to that kind of rational thinking about reality.

And frankly, the reality is you're never going to be able to ban guns.

There are far more many more guns in America than people.

So it's an irrational thing to try to ban weapons.

Like I see people want to ban all semi-automatic weapons.

Like that is just an insane thing to even think you could ever accomplish.

You'd have to go house by house and take it away from American citizens. It's not going to happen.

So what can we do to stop criminality?

Well, like you say in New York, they figured it out.

It's a broken windows.

I mean, you start with the smallest criminality and you work your way up.

And you create a culture in a society that we have police that uphold the law where you have people respectful of each other because that's the culture you've created and that happened relatively quickly in New York.

And when I grew up in the 70s and 80s, it was even in the 90s.

It was a terribly dangerous place Manhattan in certain areas of New York City.

And by the time I left there, it was like one of the very low crime rates and you felt safe even at night.

So it can be done.

And I think you're right.

It is reverting again because of the leadership there.

Yeah, gosh, I was just in Times Square a weekend ago for a series of meetings.

And the storefronts are empty.

The TV studios have left. No one has replaced them.

They're more thugs who are out kind of hassling people, homeless people who are hassling people in Times Square.

And if you can't keep that major tourist destination, pristine and functioning, that indicates to me that the gangrene spread is probably really bad when you get three or four blocks over into the former hell's kitchen and some other parts of the community that tourists normally don't visit.

You know, another thing, David, that I think is interesting.

We're talking to you at a time where we're watching a revolution in Iran.

And it's puzzling to me how many people don't see the connection between a disarmed populace being oppressed and murdered by an aggressive government.

You know, we can strip out the name of the Islamic revolutionaries and replace it with, let's just say conservative Republicans.

If you want to get people's attention, I'm not interested in being disarmed regardless of who is in authority, whether it's my guys or your guys.

And there doesn't seem to be a connection, but a to be with a lot of these people who want to disarm the population that this is how tyrannical regimes take power and hold power.

Now, absolutely. And that is the core idea of the Second Amendment. It's not hunting. It's not even to defend your home, though that's part of it.

It is to defend your country and your innate natural right to live freely.

People or I would say liberals recoil from the idea if I say and I have said that my people back in Europe, you know, it might have been a little hard for the Nazis to just kill them or send them out in trains if they all had weapons.

It would be difficult. I'm not saying that it would have perhaps changed things tremendously, but it certainly would have made people think twice about what they would do.

If someone's about to kill you. Yeah, the Warsaw ghetto, they had only a few rifles and they held out for a month.

So the idea that you can't because when when I say tell say this to people, they their reaction is, well, what are you going to fight the US government?

Well, no, not right now. I'm not. I, you know, but maybe in the future, I might have to. I don't know. If the US government becomes tyrannical and we have history books, we know that things happen. I'm not saying it's going to happen here in any time soon.

I might not like what's going on. I don't think we're there or anything advocating for violence.

A lot of Democrats seem to think Donald Trump's the worst thing that ever happened to the country. So that's another reason I'm like, if you think Donald Trump really is this horrible tyrant who wants to murder everybody,

then what are you doing? Try to disarm yourself for you?

That's right. That's right.

Here's Hitler and let's give me your guns. No, I mean, if the here's Hitler, I want my guns, right? And that's right.

But of course, that's not true. That's just hysterics and hyperbole. But there are dangers out there and governments do turn on their people.

If they do that, they won't be a con we won't be a constitutional republic anymore. But it is the key.

The first thing tyrants do anywhere in the Islamic world elsewhere is take people's weapons away from them.

That's how they can ensure that you won't fight back and can't fight back.

Now, that doesn't mean everyone grabs a Kalishnikov somewhere as a good guy. I don't not saying that.

But I think the American people are the good guys. So I think they can and should be armed. That's the difference. I'm not a moral relativist here.

But I think these rights work for us. I think that's why I call my book First Freedom without the right to a gun.

There's nothing else really would matter, right?

So yeah, I'm with you. I don't understand how people can argue that tyranny is on the horizon, but yet I want to disarm you.

I think the people want to disarm you are the tyrants on the horizon, frankly, but yeah.

It's a nefarious trick that's being played on people. Give us your guns. We'll protect you.

When, in fact, they won't protect us from the people who are killing innocent folks in the streets right now.

Story after story day after day with illegal immigrants who are out of their minds or murderous.

And they won't get these people off the streets.

Our own citizens who behave badly that they won't lock up. So don't tell me that my giving up my last mode of defense is going to cause me to be safer when you won't take those actions.

And also we can't always depend on the police, right? It's not minority report here. They can't preemptively come to your house and make sure that you're safe, but you can have a weapon in your house and make sure that your family, your wife, your kids are safer.

It doesn't always work. I'm not saying that you can always stop criminality, but you should have a chance to do it.

And I think that's the very least you should be able to do. And people who go out and buy a gun legally are not criminals. They shouldn't be treated as criminals.

Guns are the only, I think the only sort of product, let's say, that there are just people want to blanket ban, not go after criminals, but take people who have never broken the law in their lives with own guns for decades.

Take that right away from them. I mean, it is just clearly authoritarian.

Well, I'm looking forward to talking to you on April 1st. I'm glad you're watching to an examiner your life would be held in and around DC.

How do you navigate this position, which seems to be so unpopular with so many people in northern Virginia and the city of Washington DC?

Well, I have to tell you I've lived my whole life in places where everyone disagreed with me and I kind of like it, but I moved away. I'm now in Williamsburg, Virginia.

And yeah, and because I honestly, after when COVID happened, I just couldn't be in sort of, honestly, again, an authoritarian place where people ignored the Constitution and individuals' rights to impose things on them that they shouldn't.

So I feel better, but now it looks like they're here also, so they're in Richmond as well. So I don't know where, you know, they're, I'm not going to retreat from here. This is it.

Yeah. Well, we're glad you're in the cradle of American freedom in Williamsburg. And hopefully the situation that we find ourselves in is temporary and we can restore freedom to the people here very soon.

I want to encourage folks to come out and meet you in person at the Virginia Forum, a long line of a right of center conservative thought leaders across the country who have been the speakers at the Virginia Forum.

A David speech forged in freedom, a history of American guns and personal freedom will be at the Glenn Allen Cultural Arts Center coming up on April 1st.

And you get your tickets right now at the Virginia Council dot org, the Virginia Council dot org. We'd love to have you join us for the reception, meet David.

And then here's remarks. And then you and I will get to do something similar to this where we'll talk about this along with a couple of other advocates in Virginia on stage in Western and Reiko County.

David, I appreciate it very much. I look forward to it and thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming on.

And then we come back. We're going to take a look at the best and worst of the internet today, producer Dan will join us.

And then we're going to talk to former Virginia governor Bob McDonald, who is back with it. What does he think?

He was around when Virginians were choosing Republicans pretty regularly. And now we've got this backlash that's happening right now.

And the gerrymandering proposal that everybody's voting on will hear from the former Virginia governor Bob McDonald when we return on this Wednesday on the read revolution.

All right, we are back and producer Dan is with us today to talk about the best and worst of of the internet.

Some of the other issues. I really hope I will see a lot of people on April 1st.

This gun issue is really divisive. It has been for a long time, but I'm not sure that the average person who's scared of guns.

And I don't blame if you're scared of guns. If you've never shot one, you didn't grow up like I did.

As a cup scout, a boy scout learning gun safety and how to shoot. I can understand that you're concerned.

But the solution here isn't for you to give up your rights. And I think David's going to make some pretty potent arguments that.

We like James among the first at the Virginia forum.

I John did we lose you? Well, folks, let me see if I don't know what's going on here. If John's feed just died on us or what?

But let me see if we can go to break see if I can get him back. Hold on just a second. I'm not sure what's going on here.

We will return in just a moment. I hope with more of the read revolution one way or the other. We'll figure this out. All right.

Well, we are back. And now we have governor Bob McDonald joining us too. But this is an interesting situation.

Let's talk about what's going on in the last few minutes here on the show. First, we hear from you. You're telling me that you're having a bit of trouble getting on.

John is on with our previous guest David Harshani talking about his appearance at the Virginia Council coming up in the next month here April 1st, not an April Fool's joke. He's really going to be there.

But I'm trying to juggle all these hats. And in the process of getting you on, we seem to have lost the main man himself, John.

What doesn't she's you and me too bad for that? It's the two of us unless, unless John finds a way to get back on. He's up in North of Virginia. He had a breakfast in a speech this morning.

And we've had some, I'll be just totally transparent. We've had some trouble with the broadcast when we've had to do it in some capacity remotely. But how are you? What's been going on with you?

Well, man, thanks for asking. I've got my plate full. I'm practicing love running a small little consulting business kitchen at three different universities law and government and a full plate with eight grandchildren.

So God is good. Plenty to do and lots of love in my life with with my grandkids and getting married in a couple months.

Well, congratulations. I knew that there was there was a new special somebody in your life for a few years here. But yeah, well, will any details there that you care to share?

Well, young lady, I've known for a long time and got to know through public service and a little bit through government. She and her late husband used to fly me around.

So I keep getting her. I never know what she looked like. I only saw the back of her head for about 10 years in an airplane. Anyway, she's business later down here at Hampton Road Cheryl McCluskey and we've become best friends and I'm very blessed.

Oh, congratulations. I think John, we have we've managed to get John back.

Hope so.

He's asked the governor how much he's been paying attention to everything going on in the session this this winter. So yeah.

Hey, sorry about that. You know, Northern Virginia is weird. Almost everywhere I'm gone. We have these little issues, but we're we're making it through. I appreciate you joining us today.

Good. Welcome to the podcast world.

Yeah, yeah, there's always always some curve balls.

Yeah, I'm radio to politics to to podcasts.

Is that moving up in the world or backlining? I'm not. You'll have to tell me, John.

We'll see if we get we get the Joe Rogan checks coming in. Maybe that will get that will be an improvement.

I don't know what you and Dan have already covered, but you know, I'm covered everything today talking about these issues related to the gerrymandering situation and this push by Democrats to steal and stop the votes and the voice of almost half of the Commonwealth.

What's your reaction to this? Are you surprised?

No, because the power grabs to some degree by both parties, but more so with the far left, it will do anything to gain gain control in a short run because they're they're vitriolic hatred for our president is so palpable.

They'll do anything to stop this last two years, but in the long term, I think they realized with all these mass exodus from blue states.

Johnny, see what's happening from California, all the west coast to Texas, Florida, freedom, loving states like that. They know they better do something, I think.

So it's it's not surprising, but the boldness and the audacity and the falsehoods and the hypocrisy with the way they're doing it is stunning.

Let me just say when I was governor, that's why we're running to me saying we need bipartisan redistricting commissions.

We've got to have the people drawing the lines, not the politicians sub long trajectory in 2020.

The issue went to the people of Virginia and overwhelmingly, I think two to one, they passed a referendum saying, OK, a bipartisan redistricting commission draws the lines for the congressional for the congressional seats in Virginia.

We don't want that. We need to draw the lines and so we're taking the power away from the people who just decided they wanted it and we're now going to give it back to the politician.

So it's it's boldface. And then the question, of course, Johnny, you've read is a big boldface lie. The purpose is to restore fairness. Well, that's a complete joke. There's no restoring fairness.

There's nothing to restore. Virginia's generally had reasonable lines that look the power and party is always drawn the lines, but it's been nothing like this power grab where personally every congressional district now has to have a piece of Fairfax or Arlington or Alexandria or Northern Virginia.

And here's really the biggest lion of all of it, John. I use those words intentionally because it's it's making something that's not true. They're claiming this is a response to Donald Trump or response to what happened in Texas.

Well, there's about eight states, John, that have zero Republican members of Congress. And the reason for that is these states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and others. They've been drawing these lines in a gerrymandered fashion for years and years to preserve single party democratic rule in those in those states.

So some of those states have 30 40% of their population votes Republican and they had zero Republican seats in Congress. So I'm done with this, this boldface lying rhetoric that it's a response to Texas when democratic states have been doing it for for decades.

I think the judge Jack Hurley out in the western part of the state was right when he threw out these

throughout the lawsuits that I mean, or you know, the election that said that that the Democrats did not do this correctly. They did not have a intervening election between the, between the vote on this redistricting amendment.

Therefore, they haven't properly amended the Constitution. I think it's a little curious that the Supreme Court is allowing the referendum to go forward. Now, that's not a decision on the merits. They're just essentially saying, well, we don't have time to get to the merits and we'll do it sometime after April 21.

I think their, their hope may be that the citizens defeated and then it's moved and they don't have to worry about it. I'm that may be their, their, their employment one way or the other. I think it's either unconstitutional because they didn't get on the ballot right.

Or some constitutional because they haven't respected communities of interest. They haven't respected the contiguous land mass issues and some of these things. So either way, I think they're on very thin statutory and constitutional ice and they're either likely to lose in court or they're likely to lose.

Because if you look at the early polls, because the people are going to reject this paragraph and say, no, what we told you six years ago when we voted is really how we feel we want to bipartisan redistricting commission.

Let me ask you as a former attorney general, not just as a governor, a former member of the House of delegates, you've been around this for decades. Why would the state Supreme Court punt here? You know, what other right or or a numerated obligation.

Privileged and right and obligation would a court say, hey, we'll let, we'll let the vote go on. The people can choose to suppress other citizens. I mean, it seems odd to me that they would walk away from this, I think, kind of basic obligation that they've got in their role.

I mean, I'm losing faith in the court system in Virginia. It seems like case after case after case, whether it's the Robert E. Lee statue and the covenant that was agreed to there, that didn't matter during COVID, the courts allowed the government to run all over the private rights of the citizens.

And in this case, they won't even adjudicate the rule book that the Democrats themselves put in. I mean, what is the point if the courts aren't going to engage here?

Well, let me say, I'm not concluding that there's anything nefarious on its face. First number one, it's a slightly right to center court, if you look at who appointed the Supreme Court of Virginia. Secondly, there could be a very practical reason for one, I mentioned that maybe the people will throw it out on January 21st of April, then they don't have to get to the mayor.

But there's a more practical one, John, and that has to do with the fact that we start voting now, 45 days in advance. So I think they thought, well, we really can't get to a briefing on the mayor's oral argument and a final ruling by us, nine justices on the Virginia Supreme Court before early voting started.

I mean, I just voted two days ago. And so it's, we're in the 45 day period right now where you can actually go to the poll and vote on this redistricting amendment. So I think that was the real deadline, not, not then.

And so that means that means the manipulators, the deviance control the calendar and the system and the courts are kind of impotent to push back on that. I hate that. I mean, that may be true. But boy, I hate that explanation because it means somebody can play the system and still push forward with something that shouldn't be transpiring.

Well, I blame it on the legislature, John, because the legislature absolutely jammed the court. They didn't have, by the time these lawsuits got filed and the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of what happened out in Teswell County, they were, the court was completely jammed. I mean, within a couple of days after they got that initial ruling, they either would have had a rule on the merits, which means brief oral argument and decision, which I think was really impractical that they could do.

All of that, that quickly and do a good job on a big constitutional question, or they had to say, look, we're going to just let the, let the election happen and will have a normal process of brief oral argument and then ultimately decide.

In other words, they don't have any free judged view of how this is going to turn out because they're important constitutional questions that have never been raised before on this issue and they want to, they want to seriously consider it.

So I'm not really blaming the court. I'm blaming with a legislature did to jam the court and set the election on the 21st, knowing that the 45 days before that in March, the early voting starts.

And they just really couldn't do a good job. So it's all the Democrat power brokers that desperately wanted to take four seats away from the Republicans.

Stop Donald Trump. They claim it's Texas, but it's BS. They could do it Indiana and another Republican state. I think South Carolina said, we're not playing that game.

We're going to be principled. We're not going to do something and say it's only for one term, knowing that the Democrats could turn around and do it if the war remember turn and they take over those states.

And I think then if this was successful, the Democrats will rue this day when they thought it was a good idea to do this with all the population centers that they're losing Republicans can turn around.

They can redistrict every two years if they want to do based the world and read this. This is just bad government. It's arrogant. It's selfish. It's disingenuous and it's all about power.

Yeah. Well, I sure hope that the average voter that may pay attention once a year right around the start of November, that we can get their attention and explain this to between April 21st.

Let me give you your reaction to what's been happening at the Capitol. You know, politicians run your, you've run a number of times. You've been around this stuff. You always want to sell an aspirational idea, especially if you're running statewide.

Let me tell you how I'm going to make your life better. Abigail Spanberger successfully told Virginians that she would make things more affordable for them.

Yeah, nothing that she has done. I don't think at this point and that her party has proposed will actually cut costs for the average Virginian.

In fact, it looks to me like they're going to raise costs on your energy bill. Certainly your tax bill, the 51 tax proposals that are out there. What's your reaction to this?

Well, you've quickly broken the curve, John. It's nice to, it's nice to wrap yourself in the flag or, or the mantra of affordability, but it's not what you say. It's what you do.

And there have been a lot of tax increases and I will give them credit at least in the Senate. It doesn't look like a lot of those tax increases have passed.

But there's still a ways to go and there's still the decision of what what the governor is going to do. Now, the Senate is repealing a tax break that I signed that has been wildly successful.

And that is a tax break for data centers. So we can keep the cost of the information technology age low where the data center capital of the world in Virginian.

Because it's worked so well and incentivizing people to make multi billion dollar capital investments in Virginia and the jobs that go with it and the local governments love it because it's a, it's a.

Property tax boom for the billions and cat backs many invested in their community. So that's a joke. I mean, a billion dollar repeal of a tax credit is a tax increase. That's the only way you can skin that that cat.

And the other thing.

John is the thing that the Democratic Party doesn't understand and you'll get this right away is corporations don't really pay taxes.

If you tax and regulate a corporation, they simply pass it on in the price of the goods and services to the customer.

And so all those other let's call it hidden taxes that they're doing for the regulatory structure.

Those are still there all the voluntary taxes by every form of gambling known to man is now coming into Virginia.

This year eye gaming skill gaming you name it, baby, you're going to have it even in Northern Virginia.

A new casino with a local people don't want to the local legislators don't want to they're forcing that down the front.

So the bottom line out of all this.

And they'll be independent people that will do this at the end of the session.

The things that Abigail Spanberger will sign into law that hurt parties pushing and the costs of that to real people and the middle class people.

I guarantee there are going to be an increase in the cost of living in Virginia and the affordability mantra will turn out to be a hoax.

And the the onion will be peeled back and it's too bad.

But that's what's going to happen.

I didn't think they could get worse than taxing gym memberships and dog grooming and your uber eats delivery.

But because I was just broke the tie in the Senate yesterday to tax sleeping to tax every mattress in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

That seems like a total betrayal of what these folks ran on and I hope people are paying attention or mad about it.

They should be.

Yeah, that hurt right there.

Very good picture.

That's right.

Artificial intelligence just in the interest of folks that's closer.

But I think it makes a point that the little eye atola is on the march.

Try to press the people of Virginia.

But here's the other thing too.

And you know this.

Glenn Youngkin left this day in excellent fiscal condition.

I mean, excellent.

I was fortunate during my four years.

We had a surplus every year.

But my total surpluses over four years was two billion.

That was real money in 2014 when I left office.

But Glenn Youngkin has left billions a year on average in surpluses.

Now, a lot.

Some of that was from the, you know, a lot of the COVID money flowing from DC, et cetera.

But he was very conservative in budget.

Yeah, he brought in about 160 billion dollars of new capital investment in Virginia.

It's starting to pay dividends.

Now he cut taxes on the military.

X is on the average working family.

And it's created an economic growth.

You know, a little over three percent unemployment now in Virginia.

So there was no need to raise any taxes.

The rainy day fund all time high.

About 15% of the total budget of Virginia has now took away in the rainy day fund.

Unprecedented and fiscal strength.

Triple A bond rating.

We didn't need the money.

But Democrats have a love affair with your money, your tax revenue.

And they're going to take as much because then they can roll it out to their union friends.

They're pro abortion friends.

Everybody that gives them tax money.

The, I mean, gives them the political contributions at election time.

That's the cabal is more money to your friends.

They support you during the election.

You win more elections and the power grab continues.

That's what's going on, Joe.

Yeah.

Listen, I want to ask your reaction of the national scene.

President Trump's name causes very visceral reactions for people.

They're loving in some parts of the state or up here where I am today in northern Virginia.

There's, there seems to be a lot of hostility towards President Trump.

How do you think this plays out both in the midterms, regardless of how the maps are drawn in Virginia?

And ongoing for the last two years of the Trump administration.

President Trump is a complicated figure.

The billionaire New Yorker that wins two elections and increases the Republican vote from the Hispanic and young black male community.

It's so hard.

He's an enigma of sorts.

And look, for a guy like me, you know how the style is that I govern.

John, the one that you have and the way you deal with people.

I don't like the bravada, the arrogance, the bullying.

I don't, I don't like that from the president.

And I think it hurts him badly in the Tom being displayed above the other main middle class voters.

So there's a political price.

John, you know in a normal year, the president's party loses seats in the midterm.

That's almost a staple of American politics from the beginning of the republic.

I think it's going to be exacerbated this year.

The impact of the tariffs still that were unpopular.

The war that is ongoing and we don't really know what's going to happen and what the after plan.

The after action plans really are in Venezuela and Iran.

You know, it's been a career growing years on the army.

I hate war.

I detest it, but it's necessary because there are people, people in the world and the region.

Iran regime is at the top of the list.

And people are making independent decisions about really was this a necessary war?

Were we an imminent threat from an Iran republic of attack or with them,

evidently having a nuclear weapon?

I don't think we really know the average person probably confusing facts of the different political parties.

Whether at his particular moment that diplomacy had been run to the run its course and worn out and nothing was going to happen.

Or whether we needed to go to war now.

What I will say is the incredible firepower and discipline and absolute excellence and patriotism of the United States military.

You know, it makes me want to cry.

These folks are so good and so well trained apart from what you think about the policy.

When we decided to go to war, this is a military now that we'll go to war to fight.

We're not having political arms tied behind our back.

And when I was in the army, we learned on day one, the goal of the military is to kill people and break things for the good of the country.

And we're doing that.

And it's the tactical action.

So I think we'll at some point have a pretty decisive military victory.

But John, then the question is what then what is the new government look like?

We got the Anatolus son who just lost his wife and his kid.

I mean, he's not going to be a peacemaker as far as I can see.

So I don't know.

The bottom line is this is the question that voters will decide that they like going wars.

I mean, President Trump stopped about eight of them.

And then now he's involved with two or three new ones.

If you count the North Korean terrorism war in Latin America.

So people who make that decision on that, the terrorists.

And really, are you better off now than you were at 9% inflation with Joe Biden?

Are things really more affordable under Donald Trump?

I think you got to say, yes.

So it's still too soon to tell.

Seven months till the election is still a long time for both for enemies and inflation and terrorists.

So it's not fully baked in yet, John.

And I think it's still too close to call.

The former governor of Virginia, former attorney general, Bob McDonald.

I really appreciate the chance to talk to you.

Thank you.

Thanks, John, for having me on.

Best wishes with your new podcast.

Thank you very much, sir.

All right, let's take that quick break.

And we will come back and produce her, Dan.

We'll rejoin us in just a moment.

Here on The Read Revolution.

Hey there.

Hello.

How are you doing?

I'm doing okay.

One might say the things have gone sideways today.

Yes, so do we look okay here?

Is that?

Well, you're you're coming in sideways.

And I don't know.

I don't think I can adjust that.

No, have we has the whole thing been that way?

Not the whole thing, but just just since the last segment, but yeah,

well, it's better to have the sideways you than know you.

So that's that that works.

That's better.

There we go.

I was trying to know that that was the case.

I would have just turned the phone.

I was I was text, I was texting you.

It's or at least writing you in our in our in our studio chassis.

John, you're your your sideways.

Well, that's unfortunate.

I wish I had let anyone.

It adds some it adds some fun.

Some humor.

I'm all about the fun and the humor of things like.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, let's continue on with the best of the Internet.

Maybe we'll make the worst of the Internet with tomorrow morning.

Yeah.

Be a very self-referential.

I can't see the chat.

What you got?

Oh, it'd be a very self-referential version of the read revolution tomorrow.

Yeah.

Well, we are we are on punch watch.

Of course.

So, you know, Ian, this is this is this is you with punch punch the monkey.

Always to punch the monkey update.

You know, we have.

And I love that picture for the two or three really obnoxious women who didn't like it.

I don't care.

I like that picture.

I may get it framed and hanging on the wall behind me in studio.

I'll travel with you to your.

Just your locations.

Just to really annoy those those those those two ladies who were berserk about it.

But anyway, punch the monkey says vote no between now and April 21st.

We go back and forth between punch the monkey having found friends at the zoo in Japan and him being abused.

Yeah.

And we're kind of back to the to the ladder as of this morning.

This is a little tough to watch here.

Punch having a little trouble with his with his compatriots here.

But he's there he is.

Walking around and trying to make his way in this world like the rest of us, I guess.

Yeah.

Some of these folks just.

No.

Yeah, they're dunking them in the water.

What did they do?

They're trying to drown?

I don't know.

Yeah.

And there's another angle over here.

The poor punch.

Why in the world?

Just don't get it.

What is this monkey?

Done that they just all abuse him that way.

It's it's weird to me.

You know, I suggested my theory that maybe he's just a little too cute and too popular for the other monkeys to like him.

But I don't know.

I don't know.

It's it could just be could be tall poppy disease of sorts.

And that way that was that was a contemporary video.

Yeah, that I think that was just from from yesterday.

Yeah.

What in the world is going on?

Well, I will tell you, there've been two stories that I've been tracking very closely.

One is the Nancy Guthrie case, which doesn't seem to have broken in any way.

God, that makes me sick to think about that poor lady and being kidnapped and who knows what's happened to her.

It just makes me so sad and angry.

I mean, the people who aren't angry about it.

What is wrong with you?

And if you don't have a sense of pending vengeance against whoever has done this to that poor lady, then I, I don't question your question.

You're well, he was talking about Nancy Guthrie there.

I don't know.

I'm going to be able to get John back.

And then this punge the monkey case is really something else that is just stuck with me.

And we'll keep following what we get from Japan every day.

I just cannot imagine at this point that that Nancy Guthrie story is going to have a happy ending.

I know.

I know.

I mean, they wanted, they wanted a ransom.

Why not turn her in for the ransom unless there's no live person to turn in.

That's the only thing I can come to.

And I'm sorry to say that with the Guthrie family in mind, but I just, I can't imagine that she's made it.

I think she had some heart problems and all sorts of things.

We, we as a society need to decide that this kind of garbage, this kind of behavior is not going to be okay.

And we keep allowing stuff to happen that I swear to God 10 or 15 years ago,

men, especially in the society would have said, oh, hell no, this is not okay.

And I just keep, I keep coming back to where are you?

You don't want to stand up to protect your daughters from being

Google that or my left right in bathrooms by men,

delusional, mentally ill men who are wearing dresses.

You won't stand up to protect your daughters.

I don't get it.

I don't even have a daughter and I'm outraged by it.

And I'm gay and I'm outraged by it.

I think this is insanity.

Then you have situations like the Nancy Guthrie thing that nobody can do anything about,

except make it very clear that we're not going to tolerate it.

But then when you get a case of, you know, this illegal up here in Northern Virginia

who killed the 41 year old mother with a stabbing or that poor woman from Ukraine

who was stabbed on the train.

Yeah, in Charlottesworth, Carolina.

And their story after story after story where young women are being brutally murdered,

raped and murdered.

And nobody has a sense of outrage.

I mean, really, we should be going to the other extreme like if you even touch someone

with the intent to harm them.

We are going to hammer the hell out of you.

And everyone is just so passive.

I don't understand why you're not angry.

This is not the society that I want to live in.

I don't know if you've got the video, Dan, of Richmond where normally we're broadcasting,

where you are right now, a very nice neighborhood taken over,

apparently for the last two nights, by a bunch of street thugs from the city of Richmond

who've decided they're just going to run races down the road and do donuts and spin out

and behave really badly in the middle of a nice neighborhood.

The mayor of Richmond, who unfortunately is the Democrat.

I like the guy personally just fine, but he's the Democrat.

I mean, he should be out there telling everybody if we catch you doing this,

you're going to jail.

But the prosecutor who is a black Democrat woman who apparently just can't bear the thought

of locking anybody up in jail or prison doesn't seem to want to prosecute people.

I mean, I just don't understand this passive.

Let your society go to hell and don't do anything about it.

I don't get it.

Yeah, I will have those videos tomorrow for sure.

Let's play them.

But yeah, I mean, with the case of the one for those who aren't familiar with the Richmond area,

it was at the corner of Libyan Patterson, which is literally right in front of the restaurant

that we ate at prior to going to the Richmond forum several weeks ago.

Is it?

Yeah.

Right there.

There are houses that are worth $800,000, $800,000 right there.

Condos that are worth almost $1,000,000.

It's actually the part of town you wouldn't have expected to have bad behavior from anybody.

I mean, the worst thing might have been a cat burglar or a drunk driver.

And now you've got people coming from the city of Richmond who are just taking over parts of the town

and nobody wants to do anything about it.

This is not just about Richmond.

If you're watching and you're not from Richmond, I know you could easily say,

well, I don't care about that.

But it is indicative of what happens in Democrat-controlled parts of Virginia and cities across the country.

And somebody has to be tough enough to say we're not going to tolerate that anymore.

And when the reflexive Euro-racist mantra comes at us, we have to tell people to stick it.

You can call me whatever you want.

I'm going to enforce the law to protect everybody.

White, black, young, old, male, female, single family.

It doesn't matter to me who you are.

We're going to protect you from the street thugs.

And it doesn't matter to me what color they are.

And I just don't understand why we have been so neutered in this society that we don't uphold those standards anymore.

And are bold enough to tell people that that's what we're going to do.

Yeah, I don't get it.

What you permit, you promote.

And we have sent the message loud and clear that we will tolerate this.

And the people we are tolerating have received the message loud and clear in one video that I'll play tomorrow.

Another video different than the one that we're talking about.

They're basically running the police off.

It's like, get out of here.

Get out of here. We don't want you.

Get lost.

The criminals, the crooks are telling the police what to do instead of the other way around.

We know they know they're in charge.

And that can't continue.

And, you know, I mean, if your daughter gets raped, your house gets broken into, you know,

it's a minor thing in the lexicon of crime.

But if your car is damaged, if your house is damaged, I think at that point maybe we'll get your attention.

I don't want it to get to that place.

All right.

So what else you got before we wrap up here today?

Well, speaking of the contrast of kings to no kings or no kings to kings,

I saw this short little video about the transition that's happened since the operation epic fury took place.

No kings, no kings, no kings.

The next day.

Stop killing dictators.

Stop killing dictators.

Stop killing dictators.

So yeah, I mean, it's just comical that on the one hand, they're obsessed with the idea of not having a king here.

But as long as it's on the other side of the world, oh, it's totally fine.

It's lottable even.

Yeah.

The hypocrisy is truly stunning that everybody is willing to accept the abuse of other people on the other side of the planet

that they are making up things about Donald Trump and elected officials here while they're tolerating slavery on the other side of the planet,

the abuse of women, the abuse of gays, the abuse of children, and nobody calls them out on it.

Well, we've got to hold these people accountable.

And quite frankly, I don't think you can kill enough of the leadership of Iran to make me happy.

50 years of abuse from these people where they have targeted innocent civilians.

And they have caused billions of dollars in damage.

They have disrupted the economies of peaceful countries around the world.

And I'm supposed to feel bad for them.

Heck no, I'm glad Donald Trump has taken them out.

We're just going to have to ride this thing to what I hope will be a better future.

But I have a difficult time believing it's going to be worse than what we've dealt with for the last 47 years.

And if it look, if bystanders of civilians, innocent third parties get caught in the crossfire, the blood of their hands is on the hands of the brutal dictator, not us.

We're not the aggressor, we're the retaliator.

We're the ones who've been threatened, who've been saying death to America.

They've been preaching and pursuing that for a half century.

We're entitled to our own self-defense.

There are lots of people who hear death to America and think, yeah, we deserve it.

I don't think that at all.

No.

I don't think that at all.

I don't think we deserve it at all.

And if we could get rid of the people who are oppressing the rights of individual citizens and abusing women and threatening the world,

I think we will all be better off.

If you have been brainwashed and given this line that somehow the United States is the problem in the world, you are mistaken.

And you need to go back and do your own independent reading instead of just believing what some communists at your college or university or high school taught you.

Because it's just not true.

And I've seen it up close.

I don't know what everybody else has been doing with their life.

You know, if all you did is play video games or maybe you just hung out in Richmond or you hung out in New York.

Good for you.

That's your life.

I've gone to these places.

It's not nice.

It's bad.

It's dangerous.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to let these people continue.

If I have anything to say about it, and certainly not allow them to bring that to this country and threaten us on our own shores.

That's what we're fighting to stop, right?

And goodness knows, we've talked about this.

If you think that America is so bad, you have thought 200 some other countries to choose from on the planet.

I mean, John, if I thought that any country on earth were a better sanctuary for my personal attitude for liberty than here, I'd be gone.

My loyalty is to my rights.

My loyalty is to my liberty.

I'm where I think is the best place to be.

And I, you know, it's unfortunate.

I don't think it's headed in the right direction, but I'm where I think that my rights stand the best chance of being upheld and defended.

If you don't like America, if you don't, if you think America is so bad, why aren't you trying to get somewhere else anywhere else?

And of course, I would call out your hypocrisy.

I think the truth of the matter is you know in your heart of hearts that you're full of it.

And that this is a great place, and you just want to make noise and be a rabble rouser.

Like our governor used to be at Dave Brad Town Halls, but yeah, so.

All right.

Well, let's wrap things up.

We will pick this back up tomorrow.

And I will be back in Richmond tomorrow instead of here in the hotel on Northern Virginia.

Maybe that'll bring us some stability, but I'm always happy to see you, producer Dan.

Thank you.

Yep.

And I hope you will follow us on both of our pages on Facebook, on Rumble, on YouTube, and follow the podcast.

Give us a big like and a follow on all of those platforms.

That's going to do it for us today.

We'll see you tomorrow morning.

I'm John Reed, the Reed Revolution.

Thank you.