Shawn Ryan Show - #176 Andrew Bailey - Suing China for $25 Billion, Abolishing ATF, Fauci and Soros Crimes

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Andrew Bailey is a prominent figure in Missouri politics, currently serving as the state's Attorney General. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and later earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri, where he also participated in the Army ROTC. His professional history includes deployment to Iraq, as well the roles of Assistant Attorney General, General Counsel for the Missouri Department of Corrections, and Deputy Counsel in the Governor's Office. Throughout his career, he has focused on protecting constitutional rights, advocating for victims, and addressing violent crime. Bailey's tenure as Attorney General has been marked by significant legal actions, particularly regarding COVID-19. He led Missouri's lawsuit against the Chinese government for allegedly hoarding personal protective equipment during the pandemic, seeking $25 billion in damages for the state. His office has also actively pursued cases related to consumer protection and First Amendment rights, including recent lawsuits against Starbucks for discrimination and Jackson County for infringing on free speech in counseling settings. As he continues his work, Bailey remains committed to safeguarding Missourians' rights and enhancing community safety. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner http://shopify.com/srs http://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://bunkr.life/ | Use Code SRS https://americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org http://trueclassic.com/srs Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at trueclassic.com/SRS! #trueclassicpod https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/SRS Andrew Bailey Links: Office of the Attorney General - https://ago.mo.gov/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/andrewbaileymo/ X - https://x.com/AndrewBaileyMO Website - https://baileymo.com/ Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrew Bailey, welcome to the show, man. Appreciate you having me on. Appreciate you being here. So this has been, we've been communicating back and forth for a couple months now, and it's just, it's awesome to finally have you in here. Man, it's a privilege to be here. I've been following your show and be able to sit in the same seat

as some really incredible people that with some incredible stories and get to be a part of it, just means a lot to me. Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. And you are doing amazing things as the attorney general for Missouri and really sticking it to the federal government when we needed it.

It seems to me like every state needs a you. So how do we, I appreciate that. How do we make that happen? But, and we'll dig into that, but we got a lot of stuff to cover. Sock it to your team downstairs sounds like you got a Hell of a life story

So I was planning on just going over some policies and some stuff that you're that you're kind of tackling as the Attorney General, but but Let's kick it off with with a life story But everybody starts with a life story. But everybody starts with an intro here. So, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, you are the 44th Attorney General of Missouri, a decorated combat veteran, a prosecutor, and a staunch defender of constitutional rights. You went to college at the University of Missouri on an Army scholarship following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. You're commissioned as an armored

cavalry officer in the Army and later deployed to Iraq. Following your time in the Army, you attended law school and became a prosecutor to fight violent crime and protect Missouri communities. You've handled countless cases in both state and federal courts throughout your career defending our constitutional freedoms and the most vulnerable while delivering justice for victims. You're focused on protecting the constitution, enforcing the laws as written, defending the state,

supporting the counties and training a new generation of service-minded attorneys. I'd like to remind everybody that you have a personal 90% plus conviction rate as a prosecutor and probably more important than any of this stuff, you are a husband, a father of four with three adopted children, and a Christian. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Getting to be a dad is the best thing

that's ever happened to me. And my faith in Christ guides me in everything I do. So it's been a, you know, I always feel like I'm at my own funeral when I hear my bio. It's weird hearing it but yeah it it's been a wild ride I've had some great opportunities and excited about my future in public service you know we I got appointed to this role two years

ago and been charging hard just won re-elections I got at least another four years ahead of me in this role and it's a privilege to get to do it congratulations thanks it's really inspiring what you're doing and I think a lot of people are taking notes. So before we get to in the weeds, got a couple more things. So I have a Patreon account, which is a subscription service. These folks have been with us since the beginning. Without them, I wouldn't be sitting in here, neither would you be. They funded this whole thing when it started in my attic,

at my house, then we moved here. Total upgrade of equipment. They're just awesome supporters. We've turned it into a community, and now we're actually building a studio out the woods that's going to be about three and a half times the size of this one. So hopefully you get to see that. Get your back on it. and now we're actually building a studio out the woods that's gonna be about three and a half times the size of this one.

So hopefully you get to see that, get you back on here. And so one of the things we do is we offer, we offer the community the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Jeff. With platforms like X and Meta easing their approach to content moderation and censorship, what do you see as the biggest emerging threats of free speech in the future?

Yeah, I think corporate censorship remains a problem. I think ever since Elon Musk took over X, he has revitalized and revolutionized the approach to hosting a platform like that. But Meta, Google, YouTube, these are still problematic platforms. And we filed a groundbreaking First Amendment lawsuit in Missouri v. Biden that we took all the way to the United States Supreme Court to stop government censorship on big tech social media platforms. We uncovered the evidence where the Biden administration is yelling and cussing at the executives at Meta demanding that they remove certain content during the COVID pandemic. And

that's a violation of the first amendment. We prosecuted that case, like I said, went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, uncovered so much of that evidence, numerous depositions, thousands of pages of documents, got a preliminary injunction at the trial court level, it was affirmed at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The United States Supreme Court said that, look, censorship occurred, but remanded the case for further discovery because the evidence we had of censorship ended

at a certain period of time. The evidence was cut off because we were moving up towards the Supreme Court. And so we weren't doing discovery. We weren't allowed discovery we weren't allowed to do discovery as the case moved up the process so we were back at the trial court level in november the people elected president donald trump who on day one signed an executive order to dismantle the vast censorship regime that existed in the federal government so that's a huge win

and again so much of it came from that case miss Missouri v. Biden proud of the work We did on that but but corporate censorship remains and so we've got to fight back against that, you know There's such a unique history to the development of the big tech social media marketplace in 1996 Congress passed the section 230 of the Communications Decency Act That is a both a sword and a shield for these big tech social media platforms It's a it's a shield in that they are shielded from civil liability. They're not considered common law publishers so they're not responsible for the content that they publish. But at the same time it's a sword in that the statute explicitly allows them to moderate content. Now the problem is that everyone that works at

these big tech social media firms are like-minded individuals that want to silence voices that dissent to their worldview. And that creates a terrible censorship problem. And I would submit to you, the censorship that's going on today is worse than at any point in human history. When King George shut down a colonial printing press, the world knew he had done it. And he was squelching one medium of communication, the written word. But when a big tech social media oligarch de-emphasizes, de-platforms, shadow bans a user, it's not only the content producers,

First Amendment rights that are violated, their voice that is silenced, but all the listeners as well that may not even know they're being denied access. And the nature of the censorship is so much more multi-dimensional. It's body language, it's imagery, it's spoken word,

it's written word, it's all of the above. And so the censorship is more dangerous than ever before. I think we've got to take a serious approach. Texas and Florida in 2021 both enacted statutes that sought to retool the content moderation formulas in law for the big tech social media platforms. Big tech sued, that case went to the United States

Supreme Court and just in July, that decision came down. It's called the net choice decisions of really fascinating opinion. But what it said was that the states weren't allowed to dictate content because the content moderation itself was expressive and thus protected by the First Amendment from government censorship. So, in Missouri, we've got a new plan.

And I'm proud to announce, just a week or two ago, we are going to use our consumer protection authority, No one would buy a name brand truck if the company said we can only use brand X tires on that truck Mm-hmm, so we wouldn't tolerate that in the auto marketplace or any other marketplace and yet somehow we're tolerating it in the big tech marketplace So by promulgating this algorithmic choice rule Not only will we break up the algorithmic monopoly will protect consumers and reinforce the First Amendment right to free speech and the free fair and open Marketplace of ideas for the competition of ideas will produce the best results. It'll enhance the consumer experience because you'll get to select whichever algorithm you

want to maximize your engagement and time on the product. So break this down a little bit more because this is something I think a lot of creators including myself have dealt with Censorship and stuff stuff like that for for a long time. It's it can be debilitating for business it's And it's demoralizing, you know, it's it's it's me and Joe Rogan talked a little bit about this and and and he you know like when when Google demonetizes a about this and and and he you know like when when google demonetizes a an episode i mean that's you know it's a big income stream for a lot of creators and he says that that's how they do it they they kind of force their creators to not talk about certain things and push them out of that

realm so you'll be able to tackle that i believe so and again i think it's it starts with breaking certain things and push them out of that realm. who's curating that content? How I mean how exactly we do that because of my friend and attorney Tim parlatory I've we've had a lot of chats about this. I'm like, this is ridiculous you know that they'll just pull an episode and it just disappears into thin air and They won't even tell you what's wrong with the episode. They won't they won't even tell you anything and I I can get the demonetization, I guess, but I mean, it pisses me off. But I'm always wondering like, Hey, Tim, do we have a case here? And he's like, well, not really.

Section 230. That's the problem. Yeah. So you so be amending the section 230 law. So it's a really elegant approach. We don't have to deal with section 230 at all. Congress be amending the Section 230 law? So it's a really elegant approach. We don't have to deal with Section 230 at all. Congress would have to amend that. And getting stuff through Congress has proved pretty challenging. And so we leave Section 230, the CDA, in place. We get around the net choice decision, again, by using consumer protection authority to require big tech social media platforms of a certain size to allow when the users first engage, there'll be a screen where you can select your own algorithm.

You can select your own filter. And as a parent, you know, again, I've got four little kids that are just starting to, you know, engage in screen time on different mediums. And so I might have the, you know, my 12 year old this is the the content moderation I want for them to best protect my kids as a second amendment guy. I want to see more gun content And so i'm gonna i'm gonna select a uh, uh an algorithm that's going to promote 2a content, uh, you know, and so again it protects the consumer it supports marketplace competition It gets around section 230 of the cda cda leaves it in place And it doesn't violate the First Amendment rights of the big tech social media platforms either.

So I see a lot of these class action lawsuits going up, and I'm always, every time I see one, I'm like, Tim, why are we jumping in on this? So have they found any success in suing those companies? Yeah, I think antitrust litigation is really the best fount of legal authority. You know, again, it's an oligarchy, almost a monopoly in the sense that the marketplace is failing. It's not functioning. It's not a competitive marketplace.

The startup costs are so great that these oligarchs control everything. And you've seen in the past where they will buy up competitors to avoid having to change that marketplace or compete in that marketplace. And so I think that the best line of attack there is antitrust litigation. That's something that has other States and Missouri have engaged in specific to Google But there's another fount of legal authority that we're going to use in Missouri and that's consumer protection law And so a lot of people don't know what attorneys general do You know

We first of all we have a criminal side of the house where we support our local Prosecutors and prosecute the bad guys catch cops catch them We help lock them up and then we do criminal appeals We support and defend the state's conviction on appeal to make sure the bad guys stay locked up. Then we have a civil side of the house as well. We defend the state agencies when they get sued, and our consumer protection division is charged with ensuring that Missouri consumers aren't defrauded or victims of predatory business practices. And so that authority, again, is a unique line to go after this issue. And we've done that by sending subpoenas to big tech social media platforms when we have

reason to believe that they are lying to consumers. And so, you know, at the end of the day, big tech social media platforms have First Amendment rights of their own, but they don't have the right to lie to consumers. And that's where state AGs can come in with consumer protection law. So when you do these, when you create these efforts, do you, do you get all these other attorney generals to kind of join the charge with you? Yeah, so much is done in consultation with my colleagues. You know, typically the Republicans band together and the Democrats band together and I've got great working

relationships with with my colleagues across the country But what's weird is that every state's laws are different Mm-hmm And that's why Missouri has been a leader on so many issues because Missouri is really uniquely Positioned if you think about just traditional conservative versus liberal ideology Typically, you know, it's government is a zero sum game. More government, less freedom. It's seeming more and more like we're about to hit an inflation cycle like we saw in the 70s.

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I mean, Letitia James in New York has every weapon in her arsenal that her General Assembly can give her to mess with people's lives, to prosecute President Trump, prosecute, you know, take him to court in civil law to try to seize his assets and undervalue those assets. And so, you know, blue states have maximized their ability to interfere with people's lives while red states have taken the opposite approach. Missouri's uniquely positioned because we were so recently a blue state. So it's like a retreating army has left the battlefield and dropped their weapons, and we're picking them up and learning how to use them against them. Wow. Who are your best friends? Come on. What states are always leading the charge with you?

Brenda Bird and I was a good friend. Liz Merle down in Louisiana. Lynn Fitch in Mississippi is a good friend of mine. So many of them. What about Tennessee? Yeah, John Scrumetti's great. And in fact, I called him this morning to let him know I was in his home state. He's great. And John and I have a couple mutual friends.

You know, what's unique is that the way in which attorneys general are put into office changes from state to state. So obviously at the federal level, the attorney general is just a cabinet official appointed by the president confirmed by the united states senate in the progressive era You know usually in about 1900 to 1930 The states started breaking those out and by constitutional amendment at the state level making the attorney general its own independently elected constitutional officer, um in Tennessee your attorney general selected by your state supreme court So different states do it differently. And so, and again, it's hard to compare because different states have different laws and different states select their attorneys general differently. Okay. But in Missouri, you know, by constitution,

I'm my own officer and I'm elected by the people. The only reason I was appointed initially was because my predecessor and friend, Eric Schmidt, was elected to the United States Senate and it created a Vacancy in the middle of a term. So our governor appointed me and it was I just happened to be at the right place at the right time You know, I didn't and it's also liberating. I'm not a politician. Don't like politics. Don't want to be a politician I want to do the work I want to be the attorney general and I realized you got to be a politician and do it but It's liberating because when you're not a politician you're not beholden to interests that might stymie Audacity or you know bold decisive transformative action

Well, you're a damn good pick back to back to the big tech Social media stuff. I mean this tick-tock ban What I'm just curious, what, the narrative or whatever, it seemed to have changed over the years. And I don't know what I think about TikTok. We have a massive TikTok presence, but I mean, it seems like, whenever I bring my intelligence friends on here

and then we talk about it, it is a, it's a spy apparatus for China. And so I'm just, I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on that? I thought it was from a legal perspective. It was really fascinating that Congress passed that divestment bill, basically saying that the owner of TikTok had to sell it under certain conditions

by a certain time and Congress and the president congress and passing the bill the president and signing the bill really made National security decision You know to comport with exactly what you're saying that this as long as it's a Chinese asset They're gathering data and spying on us without our consent and that's dangerous The owner of TikTok challenged the constitutionality of that divestment bill on the eve of the deadline by which he had to sell the asset

and went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and basically argued the same as in the net choice decision that was handed down this summer saying, look, I got a first amendment right to speak on this platform as the owner of this platform. And the court said, no, no, no, no, no. You have a First Amendment right to speak on this platform as the owner of this platform. And the court said, no, no, no, no, no. You have a First Amendment right to speak, but the people's elected representatives

can make a foreign policy decision, a national security decision, and prevent you from speaking on this outlet. In other words, the government can't stop me from sending an email, but the corporation can certainly tell me I can't use this email account. And so it's a really unique legal decision in legal landscape in which that that was done

I am concerned clearly about chinese infiltration into our culture and into big tech social media Companies like tick tock and so I think that uh, Again, I think congress made a sound decision and now president trump's's you know doing his best to navigate that that and I'm confident It is ability to produce a good outcome I mean we have a leader back in the White House that understands that you can't show weakness On the playground if you show weakness the bullies will just keep bullying you and President Trump's not gonna let that happen I mean it seems like China is Using our using our own laws against us, not just with TikTok, but buying farmland,

putting power plants next to military bases. I mean, the list goes on, but you seem to be pretty previous with this. Well, and, Shauna, just this week on Monday, my office went to trial in the first ever lawsuit of its kind in a lawsuit against the Chinese communist government for the harm they inflicted on Missourians during the COVID-19 pandemic. And I think we're going to get a $25 billion with the B dollar judgment against the Chinese Communist government No other state has prosecuted a case like this and we filed it

The trial court initially dismissed it and we took it up to the we appealed it to the 8th circuit Court of Appeals got the Case reinstated and we're just in trial this last Monday We've got a little bit of supplemental briefing to do but I think we'll be submitting a proposed We've got a little bit of supplemental briefing to do, but I think we'll be submitting a proposed judgment that we will likely the judge will sign and then we'll be it'll be up to us to execute that judgment against the Chinese government. But note, we're again, Missouri leading the way on this issue that Missourians are still demanding justice for the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so and look, people say, oh, you know, Bailey's crackpot legal theories.

No, no, no, no. This is the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. It was a statute passed by the people's elected representatives in Congress in 1976 that specifically creates a method by which states can sue foreign entities for damages. And that's what we've used and I think will be successful. Man, that's amazing. When you sue the federal government or the Chinese Communist Party, I mean, this is a question I have because I've seen you sued a lot.

So if you win that case and you get, the state of Missouri gets $25 billion, where does that money go? What's it allocated to? Well, the first thing, and again, this is all part of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. It creates a method by which you can execute a judgment against a foreign entity. We've got to identify and we are working to identify assets that the Chinese Communist government owns in Missouri and elsewhere.

And we will work with the Marshals Service to seize those assets. They will be sold and that money will be returned to the people of the state of Missouri. It'll have to be appropriated by the people's elected representatives in our general assembly. And I keep saying the people's elected representatives because it's a rule of law issue for me. You know, the democratic process means something. It's not, we don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship unlike in China. It's not, we don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship, unlike in China. You know, here, the way we get things done is that the people elect representatives who

then pass laws and then the executive branch, we then enforce those laws. So I realize I'm being repetitive using that term, but it's important for me to emphasize that point because I want folks to understand that, you know, that they've had a voice in this process that has led us to this point. Okay. So whether it's the federal government, whether it's the Chinese Communist Party, whether it's Big Tech, whoever it is, the money gets allocated to the people. That's right.

That's amazing. I'm sure Missouri could use another 25 billion. Yeah. I mean, we've always got roads that are deteriorating or, you know, our law enforcement needs additional assets and resources to shore up our criminal justice system. And so I look forward to continuing to push that case forward to its eventual success. I hope it happens. I hope it happens.

Last thing real quick before we get started here everybody gets a gift Sara vigilance league gummy bears Full of poison toxic guys lots of sugar, but they taste good. They're made here in the USA They're actually made in Michigan. So I appreciate everybody gets one of those. Thank you the doctors. I don't give the doctors those They're always yeah, they don't like food dice. I don't give the doctors those. They're always, yeah. They don't like food dice. I don't either, but those are good.

I like gummy bears. I will make an exception for those. But so let's move in. I want to move into your life story. Yeah. So where did you grow up? Grew up in Columbia, Missouri. It's a college town right there in central Missouri.

You know, at the time in the early 90s that I was a kid, it was a town of about 50, 60,000 people. It's now grown to north of a hundred thousand people. But at the time it was a medium sized town. It had a small town feel and we saw the newspaper boy delivered newspapers at the end of the day, milkman deliver milk in the mornings. But we had a lot of cultural influence because the the state's

flagship university, the University of Missouri, is there in Columbia. So a lot of cultural experiences that other smaller towns maybe wouldn't get exposed to, but a great place to grow up. And you know, I have a brother, a younger brother, who's also now an attorney. And my mom and dad raised us to love the United States of America and love our state and to be patriotic and to why we have a constitution and that the rights in the constitution come from God, not man. The constitution is intended to protect us from the government. The government is supposed to protect our rights. So those are foundational principles that I grew up with in mid-Missouri.

What were you into as a kid? A buddy downstairs who's on your staff says you were you were basically born you were a born Captain America. That might be overselling it a bit. Yeah you know I was a boy scout was an Eagle Scout. I enjoyed fishing, enjoyed hunting, spent a lot of time in the outdoors. You know played different sports but in high school got really into high school Eagle Scout, I enjoyed fishing, enjoyed hunting, spent a lot of time in the outdoors. You know, played different sports, but in high school got really into high school debate, and so I was on the debate team in high school.

And, you know, I grew up, and got a little rowdy in high school maybe, and you know, my mom, I wanted to join the military. Really, what do you mean rowdy? Well, you know, just- You're a partier? I grew up in Missouri, there's not a whole lot to do. There's not a whole lot rowdy? Well, you know, just a... You're a partier? I grew up in Missouri, there's not a whole lot to do. There's not a whole lot to do as a youth, yeah.

Your parents tell you be home at this time and maybe I'm 10 minutes late the first weekend and then 20 minutes late the next weekend until I'm getting yelled at at the front door there. But at the end of the day, I wanted to join the military. My mom was like, yeah, that's probably a good idea. You know, you need a little more growing up and this will be a good institution to instill some discipline.

But she wanted to go to college as well. So she really motivated me to sign up for an Army ROTC scholarship in 1999 when I graduated high school. And I remember I was about to sign the contract with the Army and the major, there was a major there who was the recruitment officer for ROTC. And I was, I looked at him and said, now I'm going to get to go to law school before I go into the Army as a second lieutenant. Yeah, we do deferments all the time.

Won't be a problem. Year later, you know, two years later, 9-11 happens. And I really changed plans at that point. Realized that as much as I wanted to be a JAG attorney and wanted to practice law in the army, there was a war on and again, just my upbringing and kind of my patriotism. When you're graduating from Army ROTC, you list your, you know, the different branches in the army that you're interested in. And so I put armor tanks number one Infantry number two, I think you know field artillery engineer number three and four

So I really wanted to do a combat arms branch and ended up getting my first choice armor So October of 2004 I reported to Fort Knox, Kentucky for armor officer basic course the tank school and was trained on the M1 Abrams main battle tank and graduated in that late late winter early spring in 2005 reported my duty station at Fort Carson, Colorado and Asked to be sent to Iraq my I was assigned to the third armored cavalry regiment Which is the last heavy armored cavalry regiment in the army and they had just deployed to

Nineveh Province, Iraq and so I asked to be deployed. They sent me over to Iraq. Stand by. Move it too fast. Yeah. Where were you when 9-11 happened? What were you doing? I was in college. I was a college kid and actually my buddy James who's here with me today that you met, he and I were roommates in college. I was a college kid and actually my buddy James, who's here with me today that you met, he and I were roommates in college at Mizzou. And I remember his mom called and told him that a plane had crashed in the World Trade Center and he needed to turn on TV.

So he came down to my room, we flipped on the TV and we watched as the second plane hit the other tower and watched that live. And at the time, I'm sure this experience is shared by so many that it's like, well, what is happening? We don't know what's happening, but we know this is intentional. And very quickly, you know, watched President Bush articulate that we were at war with a terrorist organization that was intent on destroying innocent American life.

And that was angry on destroying innocent American life and that Was angry about that mm-hmm and wanted to avenge The people had been killed they want to go to war want to go to war why tanks You know there was I always just grew up admiring George Patton and mounted warfare you know that it's just something that had fascinated me. And so, yeah, that's just where I ended up. All right, so let's move to Iraq. Yeah.

You get into Iraq. Yeah. Well, what was your experience? What was it like when you got on the ground there? So I fell in- As a leader. Yeah, I was a brand new second lieutenant. And I fell in on on and in the armored cavalry

It's uh, it's called a troop not a company same size element But my troop was deployed at a small troop size company-sized ford operating base in bajh iraq up in northwestern iraq And so it's just 180. It was all male 180 american soldiers. We had a Battalion of ira Iraqi army there with us on the separate part of that FOB. We were living in tents. We had the old Vietnam era shower tents where you maybe take a 30 second shower once a week,

but we secured the small base we were on, did patrols in the small town of Baj. We screened the Syrian border and then we trained the Iraqi army, Iraqi police, Iraqi border patrol. And I actually was an armored cavalry scout platoon leader. So in the CAV you have one platoon of tanks, one platoon of Bradleys, another platoon of tanks, another platoon of Bradleys, headquarters, maintenance, and a section of mortars as well and Usually the second lieutenant gets the tank platoon because the tank platoons only four vehicles 16 soldiers You just came from Fort Knox where you're trained on that that platform But they put me as a brand new second lieutenant as a platoon leader of a scout platoon

So I had six Bradley fighting vehicles the military table of organization equipment calls for 30 soldiers. Staffing levels are a bit fluid, but so it's a larger platoon and a different weapon system than I had trained on. And I'd never ridden in a Bradley. And then all of a sudden I'm a platoon leader, but trained on the 25 millimeter main gun there on the Bradley.

And the unique part about what we were doing when we were doing cordon and search operations is that those tanks would move into a neighborhood and form the outer cordon and then we would move the Bradleys in and so I spent as much time on the ground in a stack with my guys kicking in doors and searching houses and setting up traffic control points as I did in the turret directing all of that. What year did you get there? I was there Oh five to six. Oh So we were there together. Yeah, that's what I was there. We did a bunch of work with Brett We used the Bradleys as an insurgent platform. Yeah at times. Yeah to conduct sniper operations

Do you see a lot of combat or so my platoon was a hot time? Yeah Yeah, we and we actually were selected to participate in Operation Restore Rights in Tal Afar, Iraq. Where is that? It's up there in the Nineveh province. It's, you know, one of these ancient cities. I think it's in the- one of the books of kings in the Bible, it's referred to as Tal Asr. So it's one of these ancient biblical cities, but it had been completely overrun by insurgents. They had shot down a Kyla helicopter. Actually, one of my best friends from college had been completely overrun by insurgents. They had shot down a Kyla helicopter. Actually, one of my best friends from college had been killed there a few months before I got there.

And he was kind of a mentor to me and had been trained on tanks, graduated before me, trained on tanks, had deployed, and was in a striker vehicle that was struck by an IED. And it killed him and the rest of the crew in the vehicle. And so I ended up, as part of the offensive operation to retake that town and it got to work with some seals who were there as well You know what team you know, I it escapes me. It'll it'll it'll come back to me later. But those guys were fantastic I mean that we had there was a sniper

Insurgent sniper who, I mean, bad dude. And SEAL sniper team came in and really helped mitigate, you know, running counter sniper operations. We certainly felt a lot safer on the ground, kicking in the doors and doing the support on search operations, knowing that we had that cover. So where does an officer, where are you placed in the formation of a Bradley unit?

So you, the turret of the Bradley holds two individuals and so the vehicle commander of which the second lieutenant is one, rides in the turret in the commander's hatch of the vehicle and then you've got a gunner next to you. You got a driver that's in a separate compartment kind of in the front slope of the vehicle. Then you've, as you know, you've got that crew compartment in the back that can hold six eight 12 if you have to dismounts man, they took some they took some nasties I remember hearing I Was a part of any of that, but I remember hearing

Bradley's getting struck by IDs and the door wouldn't open up in the back and guys burn alive in there. Yeah. Jevonnie? IED strikes that would split the back of the vehicle and you know the first day, one of the first days I was in Talifar on this operation we were doing some battle handover with the unit and the troop commander rides in a M1 Abrams tank, and we're in a column and his tank was right in front of me and the insurgents destroyed the tank. I mean, it was a catastrophic killing of the tank.

You're up against an insurgent force that can take out a 72, 73 ton vehicle. I mean, really quickly, that kind of early 20s sense of invincibility evaporates when you see that the insurgents have those capabilities and you realize okay They can take out a 70 ton vehicle They can take out a 32 ton vehicle that I'm in in the Bradley and so it really set the tone many casualties

Not in that IED strike and in fact my platoon did not suffer any casuals We lost some of the Iraqi soldiers that we were with actually to sniper fire before the the SEAL counter sniper team started got there and was was helping us out, but Blessed to be able to bring my soldiers home after that deployment And you know that that operation really only lasted a couple weeks a month that we were there in Tal Afar And then we were back in our small town of Baj on our small fob there in Talifar and then we were back in our small town of Baj on our small fob To secure the town for the national constitutional referendum any engagements in Bradley?

Yeah. Yeah, I got to use the 25 millimeter a few times You know that you can only shoot the tank can shoot multiple weapon systems at a time but the Bradley you can only really Shoot the 25 millimeter. It's So the weapon systems on the Bradley you've got a 25 millimeter chain gun that can shoot either armor piercing or high explosive rounds You have a coax mounted 240. That's a 7.62 Machine gun, but then you've also got two tube launched optically wire guided missiles and I never got to shoot the toes always wanted to shoot the toe missile but there was an engagement where my gunner had identified that an ID trigger man it was engaging with the 25 millimeter and I was actually I opened up the plenum chamber door that

you used to fix a jam or load more ammunition in the 240 was manually firing the 240 just to you firing the 240 just to. You were? Yeah, just to maximize how much lead we were putting down range. Did you get him? Yeah, I think so. I think so, yeah.

He had a bad day. Good, good, nice, nice. How many deployments did you do? Did two. The first one You know, I got there a little late And so I stayed behind in Kuwait at the Kuwaiti Naval Base to help clean all the vehicles and ship them home And then got home and they moved my unit from Fort Carson, Colorado to Fort Hood, Texas So and I was the only officer that moved with my troops. I signed for all the equipment

Loaded everything up and moved it to Fort Hood, Texas. We drew new equipment, drew all new soldiers. We trained for about a year and then went back to Iraq on a second deployment. In that year, we did an NTC rotation at Fort Irwin, California. We spent, we did gunnery we did traveling we spent 200 days of that year in the field and so it was a You know expedited timeline to refit rearm retrain and get right back over as part of the surge and so Second deployment we were at Key West just south of Mosul and I was an XO and then a troop commander for a little while and

We were there for 15 months 450 five days. So that second deployment was a long one and it as you know, like the the mission had changed significantly from Being actually on the boots on the ground with the Iraqis training them, but also conducting missions ourselves You know the conventional forces by 07 08 09. The role was so much more limited, at least where I was at Key West. Anything significant during that deployment or? You know, just the length. Oh my gosh, it was a long one.

We, we were there really more in a support role for, for the Iraqis. But you know, Did you guys go into Mosul at all? That was just a constant. Yeah. We were there really more in a support role for the Iraqis. Did you guys go into Mosul at all? That was just a constant... Yeah, yeah. That was us. Yeah. That's our...

Full duration. Yeah. Even after we pulled out. It was just agency and a couple of soft teams there. I mean, it was... Mosul was crazy. Yeah. Yeah, and it...

Did you get any time inside? I didn't get, I did not go to Mosul. No, we had, some of our sister units were up there. One of the other elements of the regiment was up there, but we were at Key West and we really, we did some work, you know, pushing out some other smaller FOBs just to try to add some stability so that as the insurgents were being forced out of Mosul, that, you know, that we'd catch them, there would be a net to kind of catch that. But at the end of the day, you know, much more of a support role at that point in the OIF cycles. Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely changed a lot with the Obama administration Why did you leave the army I wanted to go to law school and So when I came home from the first deployment they lined us all up I've been on the ground for like 48 hours and they lined everybody up by rank and said okay You're gonna go meet with an HR representative from the Pentagon to determine what your future is gonna to look like in the military. And I sat down with an individual and told him, you know, wait in line, sat down with an individual. And as you know, you come home from a deployment and you're amped up and kind of the problems

of the civilian world and the, you know, the CONUS world are a little bit muted. And so I was, you know know, pretty pretty charged up and Was like hey send me anywhere on earth. I'll go to Korea. I'll go back to Iraq Go to Afghanistan put me on a mid team or a bit team, you know, put do whatever you want But what's a mid team or a bit team? So those were transition teams. They were kind of cobbled together Teams of different MLS's that were there solely for training, you know, being inserted into Iraqi units and training the Iraqis or Afghan. And so it was just a different, different than being in a line unit like I had been in in the armored cavalry. But I

was like, hey, sit, you know, send me anywhere on earth. I want to be a JAG attorney. And the army has this fully funded legal education program that pays for your law school. And you get to come, you go to law school, then you come back into the army as a JAG attorney. But there's a window of time that you have to apply for it. And it cuts off. And I was like, if you send me to Fort Hood, Texas,

I'm essentially stop lost. And it will prevent me from being able to participate in the FLEP program. And they're like, yeah, we don't care. We're sending you to Texas. So I was not going to be able to, a career as an Army JAG was not really an option for me. And, but I knew I wanted to go to law school. And so got out of the Army after I got home from the second deployment and you know, growing up my grandfather had been a law enforcement officer and as a little kid, he used to take me

to court with him to watch him testify. And so I just kind of grew up thinking, working with cops to lock bad guys up in court was one of the coolest jobs on earth. And so that's really what I wanted to do. And so I really wanted to get to law school. And, uh, so I came home, transitioned out of the army, and I moved to the city of St. Louis. And I lived near the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in the heart of St. Louis, which is always a bit of a rough city, but it's gotten worse in the past few years. But at the time, I was a young guy,

had just gotten out of the army. My buddy that I'd gone to college with got out of the army he was going to the police academy and i was uh i worked as an armed guard at a courthouse in north kind of north city st louis it's a courthouse and the juvenile detention facility is part of the courthouse so i went from carrying an m4 you know as a platoon leader xl company commander for a little while in iraq to wearing a revolver at the front door of a courthouse in North City, St. Louis. No one knows music like Rolling Stone. Senior writer Brian Hyatt talks the biggest music news from the biggest stars. Almost everyone is teaming up on Drake. It's like Drake versus the world. You first met Prince, you were driving for him before you were drumming for him.

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Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform. And did that, you know, for a little while until I could get into law school. Went back to University of Missouri in Columbia for law school and was there for three years and really, you know, wanted to tailor my experience to getting out and becoming a prosecuting attorney based on my kind of experience, you know, growing up in court with my grandpa. What was it like for you going to going back to University of Missouri is a decorated combat veteran It's an experience, you know you I was 30 when I started law school Which is a different age range and kind of the more traditional student and again, you know

Like the the problems of everyday life are very muted After you come home from a deployment and so, you know, you've got a younger generation who is convinced they they know a lot about the world and It's just a little you bring it kind of an older more experienced perspective to things One of my law professors was jock holley who's now a United States Senator, former Attorney General of the state of Missouri and now a United States Senator. So I was trained by the best at Mizzou law by a professor, Josh Hawley and grateful to him. Did you deal with any, did you have a tough time transitioning from combat to civilian

life? You know, it was a challenge. And again, you expect things to move at a certain pace and just the way you, as a leader in the army and a similar experience, the way you talk to your soldiers is just very different than the way civilians communicate with one another. And so getting used to kind of the pace at which things move and the way in which you communicate with people to achieve an objective and how you motivate them

It's very different between the military and the civilian billion world. So that that's always an adjustment Oh, yeah, certainly I was my experience any any any problems with I mean look a lot of guys struggle with booze addiction. Yeah, you know they get on Zoloft They get on benzos the VA's notorious for handing that shit out But did you have did you have to overcome any of that? You know, I'm thankful I didn't and I my heart goes out to the the men and women who do because I know they you know, they're They gave up something to serve a higher purpose and are now still paying for the consequences.

And that hurts. I did not have that experience, so I'm grateful. What do you, you know, so before we move into your career as a prosecuting attorney, since we're on the topic, I wanted to bring this up later, but I mean mean psychedelics are Doing wonders on guys coming home from from combat 20, you know the longest war we've ever been in 20 plus years and I'm one of those experiencers. I did an Ibogaine treatment

It'll be three years this Valentine's Day and I kicked booze. It just totally transformed my life all in positive ways and so you know being the man that you are today you have the ability to make tremendous difference in the state and in the country. I mean what are your thoughts on psychedelic therapy? I think it's absolutely appropriate that different options be made available and that everyone be able to make their own decisions about which option for treatment best suits their needs and produces the best results and I've seen bills move in the Missouri General Assembly last session

I believe will be reintroduced and move again this session to accomplish exactly that You know you talk about the VA and I think the VA has let warriors down. And there have been too many warriors that have not received the treatment they are owed because of bureaucracy and bad decision-making and Apathy and we owe Those who have served in the global war on terror and any other conflict we those who have served we owe them more and VA I again, I'm encouraged that the President Trump has put a renewed emphasis on that and I'm hopeful that they will make available a spectrum of different treatment options to folks so that again if people can make good individual decisions for themselves. Is that something you could help lead the

charge on? Yeah absolutely look we need more veterans in public office I think because of the perspective and because of kind of the the ability to make decisions under the rigors of The situations we've been in and so being a leading voice on this and many other different issues The more veterans we get in public office the better off we're going to be and the more we can have these voices heard the More we can lead on issues like this. Yeah, is that something that's on your radar that you think you'll participate in? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

How would you do it? Well, you know, again, separation of powers matters to me and our general assembly enacts statutes. And we, as the attorney general, then enforce the statutes that are passed. And so helping with technical advice or leadership advice as bills are moving through the legislative process

is one way. Think you'll get loud about it at all? I get loud about most things. Right on. Well, so let's move into your career as a prosecuting attorney. Yep, yep. So, in law school, you know, there's an academic component, but there's also a practical component. And I did what I needed to do on the academic side, but I was really focused on the practical component. Because I graduated tank school, and then months were was a platoon leader in Iraq and I remember I remember at tank school

You know, you've got a bunch of recent college grads or second lieutenants We're kind of smoking a joke and then one of the NCOs came up and was like hey guys Y'all aren't taking this training seriously and you know, there's nothing I can do or say it's gonna motivate you but just know like you're gonna be in a different world in a month and Soldiers lives gonna be on the line so you guys You think about that where you're sitting here smoking a joke and it really caught our attention and you know, that's one of those grab you grab you by the nose and kick you in the rear end kind of moments and

So I wanted to be able to walk out of law school Combat ready ready to go try a case to a jury on day one So I really focused on internships and practical experience of law school combat ready, ready to go try a case to a jury on day one. So I really focused on internships and practical experience. I worked defending the state's convictions on appeal as an intern at the Missouri attorney general's office. So appellate law, which is a unique perspective

because most trial attorneys don't want to write appeals because they're courtroom jockeys, not deep thinking appellate attorneys. Not that they couldn't, that's just their preference. But when you're doing appeals, you're reading trial transcripts. And so you learn to see your voice in written word

in black and white, black ink on white paper. And so you learn how to speak in such a way to develop a record to protect a conviction on appeal. And you see a lot of mistakes. You see what works, you see what doesn appeal. And you see a lot of mistakes. You see what works, you see what doesn't work, you see how people are describing things, you see how evidence is adduced.

So that was a really great experience to learn the law, learn courtroom skills by reading briefs and appeals. I interned at several different county prosecutors offices and got real practical experience. And so it was cool. Graduated, went to work at the Missouri attorney general's office, and I spent about two years there.

And I defended the state's execution methodology in federal court. So the death row inmates had filed an eighth amendment challenge under section 42 USC 1983, the federal civil rights statute, claiming that Missouri's method of execution, lethal chemical, was cruel and unusual. And so the ink still led on my bar card,

I'm in federal court, defending the state's execution methodology so the state could continue to carry out the ultimate punishment. Did special prosecution around the state. Did that hold up? Is there still executions of Missouri? Yep, absolutely absolutely, we won that suit and

we switched from a three drug protocol to a single drug protocol and Have successfully defended that in court and the state ultimate punishment in the state of Missouri is still on the books for prosecutors to use and will defend it at the AG's office what kind of crimes crimes constitute a death sentence? So that is murder in the first grade. And typically, the punishment is either the ultimate punishment or it's life without parole. How many people a year does Missouri execute?

So we have it changes year by year and again, it's it's hard to It's hard to find the to define that data point Because at the time that the state carries out an execution We're usually 10 15 20 30 or more years from when the conviction was obtained. That long. It takes a long time because- Did you say 10 to 30 years? Yeah, absolutely.

The offender is entitled to a direct appeal, motion for post-conviction relief, appeal for most motion for post-conviction relief, state habeas corpus, federal habeas corpus. And so all those different appellate remedies have to be exhausted before the state Supreme Court will issue a warrant to carry out the execution. I mean,

how, I mean, I'm for the death penalty. The thing that, how can you be sure though that they're guilty? You know, I think that Winston Churchill, you know, described democracy as the worst system on earth except for all the other ones. You know, something to that effect. I'm probably butchering the quote. But I look at our trial by jury system the same way. The founding fathers had an experience in colonial America

and English common law and English jurisprudence that then they codified into the United States Constitution and the rights to trial by jury is one of the most sacred rights we have. And it's not the right to serve on a jury used to be a political right. And so you just, there's ample due process safeguards in place and most of the time the juries get it right.

Most of the times the juries get it right. And we trust jurors to make sound decisions in the jury box, just like we trust voters to make sound decisions at the ballot box just like we trust voters to make sound decisions At the ballot box and when you have a fair process You produce good outcomes now. I I stand by the proposition that I would rather a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man Be punished. Uh, but the again our system is designed

But again, our system is designed with ample safeguards in place to protect due process and protect the rights trial by jury and to ensure good outcomes. I mean, how do we, how is the jury selected on something like that? So, because we've all heard the stories about, you know, the jury gets packed with, I mean, we saw with the Eddie Gallagher case,

you know, Tim talks a lot about that. You know, they kind of pack the jury. Yeah. So how can you be... How is the jury selected and how can you be sure that they don't have their own biases? Well, again, you're counting on... It's called a veneer panel. The veneer. Those individuals summoned for jury duty. You're counting on them Answering the questions that the attorneys are asking them and the judge is asking that they're answering those honesty and you have to sometimes ask multiple questions multiple multiple different ways to shake things loose and if if there's any doubt then that Juror gets struck for cause or You know that the judge is going to dismiss them

In death penalty cases, it's a bifurcated trial. So there's really two trials. Number one is the first trial is, did the bad guy do it? Did the defendant commit the crime beyond a reasonable doubt? The state has to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the highest burden of proof in American or English jurisprudence.

Then the second trial, if you get the, if yes, he did it beyond a reasonable doubt, now you move to the second trial. And the second trial poses the question, do the aggravating circumstances outweigh any mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, thereby justifying

Uh in position of the ultimate punishment. Okay, and so there's statutorily enumerated Aggravating and mitigating circumstances that the jury gets to weigh to determine whether or not The death penalty actually appropriate like was the the commission of the crime Vile and wanton, uh, you know was the body mutilated is there a pattern of like Several murders that led us to this point. Uh, you know, how What are the scripts now the and then the defense attorneys get to put on their own mitigating evidence like okay Well, the kid came from a terrible childhood where he was abused and he has this mental health disorder You know again, there are all these safeguards in place and then

after You know, again, there are all these safeguards in place and then after To the extent the jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances And the judge imposes the ultimate punishment based on what the jury has brought back the missouri supreme court Conducts its own Proportionality review and that's unique to capital cases that doesn't happen in other cases like if I just committed an armed robbery and I'm sentenced to 15 years in Missouri Department of Corrections The Supreme Court's not going to do an independent proportionality review

My case may never end up in front of the Missouri Supreme Court but in capital cases they do and so the Court the the seven judges of the Missouri Supreme Court are gonna weigh everything again and Determine like does is the death penalty really justified here? Are we just acting out of anger because something terrible happened? Have you prosecuted anybody that wound up on death row and that was executed? So I have not personally Prosecuted at the trial court level, but I have worked To defend the state's imposition of death penalty for individual cases on in habeas appeals

So I've worked that means so it Appellate laws is unique. Um, so there's a direct appeal That says in your direct appeal if you're the the offender and you're convicted you're in the direct appeal you're saying something Wrong a mistake was made in the trial itself. Like the judge let in hearsay evidence, or the judge denied, overruled an objection he shouldn't have. The jury instructions are wrong. After that, you've got a collateral attack

on the conviction, a separate line of appeal. And it starts as a motion for post-conviction relief, and then it moves over to habeas, but those collateral attacks are really saying there's a constitutional or statutory defect in the conviction. So it's something that outside of the trial itself went wrong.

So like, for instance, one of the most common claims is in 1985, the United States Supreme Court handed down this decision in Strickland v. Washington and said that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to counsel in criminal proceedings Includes the right to effective assistance of counsel So you get a right to an attorney and that comes that that attorney has to be constitutionally effective So offenders will often raise claims that hey

My attorney didn't object because he's constitutionally defective. This was ineffective assistance to counsel. Thus my conviction has a constitutional flaw and the case should be remanded for a new trial. And so that's, those are usually the types of claims you see in motion for post conviction relief proceedings and habeas proceedings. Okay. So there, there are people on death row or that have been executed that you've been a part of the case.

Yeah. In fact one of the offenders that I worked on that case when I was an assistant attorney general he was then executed my first day on the job in January of 2023 when I was sworn in as the Attorney General. What did he do? Murder. He killed his girlfriend and he in fact this is the case the seminal case in Missouri for adoption of what's called the forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine that is an exception to not only the rule against hearsay evidence, but the requirement that criminal defendants be allowed to confront their accusers in open court and it actually stems from Sir Walter Raleigh's case in Elizabethan England when Sir Walter Raleigh was accused of treason against the Crown of England and he shows up to trial and the prosecutors have all these sworn affidavits from people they'd been torturing in the Star Chamber in the Tower of London and

Sir Walter Raleigh said no no no I get to look my accusers in the eye and Question them and the jury then gets to see how they respond to My question to determine whether or not they're being truthful or not And that's where we get that that's why the founders put the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation the confrontation clause in the United States Constitution There's an exception though. You have a right to confront the witnesses unless you procured through wrongdoing that witnesses unavailability You can't go shoot the witness against you and then complain that they didn't show up and you don't get to cross examine them.

And in this instance, the defendant, the offender had murdered his girlfriend and her statements were allowed to come in at trial because he had threatened her in the past and abused her in the past and ultimately murdered her. And that wrongdoing procured her unavailability at trial. Wow. So it's an interesting doctrine.

A bleeding case at the United States Supreme Court that I can think of is Giles v. California. I think Justice Clarence Thomas really articulates the historical justification for that doctrine. And when I later, after I'd left the prosecutor's office and ended up working for the Missouri governor as part of the governor's crime package, we codified a statutory procedure by which prosecutors could use this doctrine. It was all based on my work on this case.

And then on the back end as attorney general, that's the day the state ended up executing that individual. Interesting. How many people have you been a part of sending to death row? You know, as an assistant attorney general at that time in the state's history, there was about an execution a month for a year. Wow. And we only missed, you know, there were several.

There were a few that the court stayed and those didn't move forward. They don't happen with as much frequency now. Going back to your original question, which is like how many happening here? Well it The the missouri supreme court won't issue the execution warrants as quickly anymore Just because it is very taxing on the systems and the people involved in those systems and so uh And again the court wants to give the offender ample time to exhaust all appellate remedies so that no mistakes are made.

Are you notified when these guys are getting executed? Yeah. Does that bother you at all? No, I'm a proponent of the death penalty. I think that there are people who are evil enough and unrepentant enough that have committed exceedingly heinous acts that have punched their ticket. Mm-hmm. Let's move on. So through your journey as a prosecuting attorney, you adopted three kids. Yeah.

How did that happen? Yeah. So, loved my job as an assistant attorney general. It was very fast paced. I was traveling all over the state, not only defending the state's execution protocol, but also doing special prosecution and civilly committing sexually violent predators.

Kind of the worst of the worst sex offenders. Committing them to the Department of Mental Health for treatment for the rest of their lives so that they didn't re-offend and create new victims. Do those guys get the death penalty? They don't, but they end up in Department of Mental Health for treatment for the rest of their lives. That treatment never ends. Why aren't they in...why?

Yeah, I think that the laws need to be amended to expand use of the death penalty for other offenses because other offenses are heinous enough. And when you're perp on kids, man, that's the worst in my mind. I want Missouri to be the safest state in the nation for children. And you can see that in so much of the work we've done

since I took office. But love that in so much of the work we've done since I took office. But loved that job, loved doing the work. I married a gal that I met in Texas when I was stationed down there. She was tired of me being on the road every night. And so a friend of mine was elected prosecutor in one of the counties in the circuit where I'd interned. And I always knew I wanted to end up there there and she offered me a job in Warren County, Missouri So my wife and I I left the AG's office became an assistant prosecutor in Warren County, Missouri Where's Warren County? What's the city? Yeah, Warrenton is the city. Okay the county seat It's right there on the I-70 corridor between st. Louis and Columbia. That's just just west of st

Charles County. So on the fringe the st. Louis metropolitan area Still a very rural jurisdiction great place to raise a family though, man Just west of st. Charles county. So on the fringe the st. Louis metropolitan area Still a very rural jurisdiction great place to raise a family though, man It's we loved it. We settled in the southwest corner of the county. So herman, missouri has really been the closest town That's where we go to church kids go to school, but I worked at the courthouse in warrenton And as an assistant prosecutor in a rural jurisdiction, you end up having a couple different jobs in order to make ends meet So as an assistant prosecutor working with cops jurisdiction, you end up having a couple different jobs in order to make ends meet. So as an assistant prosecutor, working with cops to lock bad guys up, supporting victims' rights, loved that job.

I was also the attorney for the county juvenile office. And so a couple of times a month I'd be in court and all these kids in foster care just killed me, man. Like I remember there was an instance where a juvenile was begging the court to terminate his parents' parental rights because he wanted a home to go to for Christmas. Like, there are kids that don't have homes

to go to for Christmas. So I talked to my wife and we became licensed foster parents under the laws of the state of Missouri and ended up adopting a sibling pair, my oldest two kiddos, and we met them when they were three and two. And so I thought kids come to your potty trained and talking. I didn't know there was this, I didn't know there was this other side to it, but, you know, such a blessing for us to get to

grow our family like that and to get to adopt two wonderful kiddos. I just love them to death and God put us together as a family, you know, and that's something we talk about all the time, that it didn't matter where you came from, or the biology didn't matter. This was always God's plan for us to be a family. And it's really cool. After we had adopted them, the children's division then put a baby in our house,

who's now my six-year-old, and we adopted him as well. And so we went from no kids to two kids overnight to then a third pretty quickly. And you know, so it's a unique experience. And so many foster parents across the United States of America are gonna understand this reference. But like when the children's division shows up with a screaming infant at 2 a.m., you know,

you get dressed and you drive 30 minutes to the nearest Walmart to buy a crib and diapers and bottles and all the things you need for a baby that most normal people just accumulate over a nine month period and So, you know going from having two toddlers should then having a baby and learning to do the baby stuff you know you you learn on the fly really quickly, but Adopted our you know adopted him and he's now our six-year-old just love him to death and again same same deal You know, it's like we were always supposed to be together as a family

After that two years ago, my wife got pregnant and we've had a biological son So I've got a 12 11 6 and 2 year old so we're still doing the diaper thing at home but got four little ones and it's a you know soft Tampa to cover zone defense at the Bailey household, but I Love being a dad man getting to be a dad is the best thing that ever happened to me and my wife and kids and I have a lot of fun. And we still, we live in Montgomery County, Missouri, just west of Warren County. Herman's still the closest town,

so that's where we go to church, kids go to school. When do those conversations start in your family about adoption and how do they go? You know, we have allowed the children to really be the ones to want to start that conversation. And they're going to kill me for telling this story, but my oldest two, the children's division introduced us at a Burger King.

So they think that kids come, they thought that kids come from Burger King. So after we had adopted them, they went down to Texas to visit my in-laws, children's division put this baby in our house. They come home from Texas, walk in the house, see the baby there, say, well, you went to Burger King without us?

So most recently when my wife was pregnant, we had some really interesting conversations about where babies come from and what role Burger King may or may not play in that process but you know we really let the kids kind of drive when they're ready to have those conversations and it's again constantly promoting this idea that that we believe which is that, you know, before we were formed in the womb, before they were formed in the womb, God had a plan for us.

And it was always for us to be together as a family. And they're Bailey's, I'm a Bailey, you know, that's it. So, I mean, what is the, how old were they when they asked? You know, I'm trying to remember and it's, it was really, my oldest two really got curious about it when we were adopting our third child. Because my wife and I were talking about that and there's always a little bit of anxiety

because you've got this legal proceeding that has to happen. And look, they call termination of parental rights. The kid, there has to be a termination of parental rights for the child to then be available for adoption. So the acronym is TPR. And TPR is the death penalty of civil law. The worst thing that can happen to you in criminal court is the ultimate punishment is imposed.

Worst thing that can ever happen to anybody in civil court is your kids get taken away from you. And so those cases are really tough. I mean, it's tough evidence. It's tough on you've got foster parents, you've got biological families, you've got a guardian ad litem, you've got a judge, got to make a tough decision, you got a juvenile officer, you got the children's division. So you got all these folks and they're really really tough decisions have to be made. Evidence has to be adduced and it's reviewed at so many different levels because again you want to make sure that the things are done the right way and people's rights are scrupulously protected.

And uh, but there's a lot of anxiety for foster parents or adoptive families because it's like well, is this going to work? Is this going to go through is the judge going to rule our way? What are we going to have to do? I was familiar with the court process having been in court, but like my wife wasn't and I my heart goes out to so many foster families who are going through that court process for the first time or adopted families who are going through that court process for the first time and it can be intimidating and vexing and

so you but you know wife and I are talking through in that you know the kids overhear those conversations and and So that sparks in that conversation How what was the question? You know, I'm trying to remember now I and I can't recall for the life of me What was the question? You know, I'm trying to remember now, and I can't recall for the life of me exactly how the question was posed or how the conversation went, but it was like, well, how did we become a family?

You know, where did we come from? What's the history there? You know, that's really the line of questions. And it's not a once in time conversation. You know, I'm sure as my kids get older they'll have additional questions and so it's it's kind of an ongoing fluid company and that's got to be a Whatever you're doing we have to stop right now. Yeah and have this conversation. Yeah, is that how it yeah

Yeah, I mean you're absolutely right and and you know with kids Their timing it is not always aligned with what's going on in the house at that moment. And when you've got multiple kids, it's like, okay, well, I got to get the food on the table. I got to get the bags packed for tomorrow. I got to get my stuff ready for tomorrow. I got to, we got to get to soccer practice.

We got to get to baseball. There's stuff going on. And when the kids decide to, when that bubbles up in their minds and they want to have that conversation You're right. Oftentimes it's you you got the the pot on the oven, you know boiling over because hey I need to focus right now on on this serious topic of conversation. Were you guys prepared for that? I don't know that you can ever be fully prepared for it you know, it's something we had certainly thought about and talked through but I

Guess time will tell if we did it correctly or incorrectly. I don't know there's a right answer, you know, yeah Yeah, will there be I mean, I don't know the background of your kids and I'm sure you probably don't want to get into it on air Before adoption unless you do do you know, I mean look I Kids don't end up in the foster system by accident. I was you know speaking broadly. It's just like if Kiddo ends up in the foster system. It's because something terrible happened at home something absolutely terrible and I remember going through the foster training and and In my mind

A kid would come out of you know It would enter the foster system and would end up in our home. And it's like you had parachuted into Disney World. You know, pizza, cool movies, hanging out, hugs, stuffed animals, a warm bed at night, protection, safety, all the things kids covet and crave and need, all humans need. But to a kiddo who's yanked out of their home,

they may be living in a trailer with no electricity and raw sewage on the floor and a doped out parent passed out on the couch. And the sheriff kicks in the door and yanks that kid out of there. But all they know is that was their home. And to the rest of it, it's deplorable. But to a kid who that's all they've ever known,

that's their home and now they're not there anymore. So imagine if, you know, I like to put it in terms of like, if someone dropped me in Cambodia and I don't speak the language and the culture and the way of life and the smells and the way people talk, it's all different. I mean, that's gotta, you know, I think that only touches the surface

of what it must be like for kids to come into the foster system. So kind of recalibrating thinking around that and Understanding that those kids, you know have been through trauma And uh, but if kids end up in the foster systems because something went terribly wrong And we need to find loving homes for those kids and look the ultimate goal of any juvenile case is hopefully reunification with the biological family There are instances in which that can't happen

because of, again, some terrible circumstance. And that's when you start looking at termination of parental rights and adoption. But timing is really critical. We know that outcomes for kids that stay in foster care too long are bad. They end up in the juvenile delinquency system. They end up in the juvenile delinquency system. They end up in the criminal adult criminal system.

And so you know kids need stability and they need loving homes and that needs to happen rapidly. In the state of Missouri really you're looking at the year mark between you know about a 12-month period between when a kid comes into foster care and when the government agents that are now in control in the court need to make a decision to either reunify or terminate parental rights and and find a living home home through adoption With the reality possibility that the The biological parents would reach out to your kids You know in Missouri

There is a registry that kids who have been adopted can sign up for if they want to receive contact and if the parents then the biological families want to interact they can submit through that registry and You know, I think every Everybody has to make their own decisions about that You know at the end of the day I I can't even begin to imagine how challenging That must be for an individual.

But here's what I'm working on, which is making sure my kids know we love them, they're Bailey's, they always will be, and we're their parents and God predestined that. He planned that, not predestination in like a Calvinist, salvation is foreordained situation, but more like God hit his sovereign will, you know, the plan was always for us to be together

as a family. And I want my kids to fully understand that, know that, and that's what we work on every day. And knowing that they've got loving parents that care about them more than anything else. about them more than anything else. Sound like a great dad. Yeah. Advice for fathers from you.

Parenting is tough. Yeah. And I know I constantly make mistakes and my kids are so forgiving and loving and time. I think that it's easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind of, hey, I'm the breadwinner, I'm the patriarch of the family, I've got to be out earning a living and mowing the lawn

and doing the dishes and hustling the activities. And there's, Iling to the activities and There's I got to do and you know Adult adults need their own hobbies And you need downtime too But you know, I think I really try to maximize the time I get to spend with my kids because it's fleeting And you can't ever get it back How do you do that? I mean Your husband father to four kids,

Missouri AG, I mean, I'm sure you're an extremely busy guy. The whole state's dependent on you. I mean, I thought you were gonna be the AG of the country. I really did. And so I don't even, I have no idea what that would entail but I know there were discussions about it and and a lot of people were rooting for you to be in there, but but But I mean, how do you how do you define the balance with all that going on? How do you find the balance? Yeah, it's a constant challenge It's constant you have to be purposeful. You have to be conscious of it, a constant, you have to be purposeful.

You have to be conscious of it. You have to block out time. I mean, there's times where I just, I have to turn my phone off and set it aside. And it's not that I don't care what's going on, I do, but I've got to devote my, I've got to prioritize time with the family. So the weekends, we really prioritize

spending time together on the weekends, going to church together on Sundays. We try during the week to do as many sit down dinners together as possible. And so we, it's, I mean, it's going to sound kind of anachronistic or old school, but this is, I mean, I really value that time. We'll sit down, we'll have a meal,

and then we do a Bible lesson after the meal. And we don't, we're not, you know, seven days a week, it's almost impossible to be consistent across every day of the week with that, but we try to do that as often as possible. Yeah, you know, I struggle with it as an entrepreneur. And I mean, it is, it is tough. And I ask a lot of my guests, you know, who are who are high performers or, or extremely busy people.

And that's pretty much everybody that comes on the show. And nobody seems to have like the key. I always feel a lot of guilt, being a dad, just not being with my kids, we do a lot of traveling. And I think at the end of the day, I just look at it as, are my kids,

are they happy? Are they happy kids? And if they're happy, then you must be doing something right. So that's how I try to gauge it is- It's a good formula. Are my kids happy? And my kids are happy. Although my daughter gets me, whew.

But yeah, so well well let's take a quick break and then uh when we come back we'll get from the break and we're going to get into some of the legal issues and the current battles that you're kind of doing right now. I know that you have a lot of stuff going on. So before we get too in the weeds on this, I need you to, you're at about a level 10. I'm at about a level zero with attorney Tom. I'll dial it whichever way we need to. Like you're talking to a preschool.

But yeah, seriously, let's get into some of the, some of the legal stuff that you're doing right now Some of the current battles. What what is the thing that you're What what would you? What's your top priority right now? You know, we we talked about it protecting free speech protecting a competitive marketplace for ideas where the competition of ideas produces the best results and whether it's protecting free speech from government censorship or protecting free speech from corporate censorship, that's a top priority

and something we're really focused on. And again, I think that the social media platforms have become the modern public square for conversation. So many people today, so many more people receive their information from those outlets because they don't trust legacy media outlets anymore. And I think that the influence of social media platforms

on American culture and discourse is only going to grow in the coming days, weeks, months, years. And so I think that's something we've got to be working on. You have an, don't you have an investigation into Google? We do, yep. What is that, why? Well, look, and this is all reported in the public domain, but Google has historically sent Republican fundraising

emails to spam at a much higher frequency than Democrat fundraising emails. Now, why is that happening? How does this come across your radar? I mean, how did you figure that out? Again, we just, you know, we stay in tune with what we're seeing in the public domain. And two different ways. Number one, we can receive a consumer complaint. So at the Missouri Attorney General's website, we have a complaint form that folks can fill out if they're a consumer who's been defrauded but then we also we we just monitor what's going on in the world and uh, what's and you know,

You look at the fact that President trump was almost assassinated. Mm-hmm, And they shot him in the head. And you couldn't find it on a search engine. Why is that? In the middle of an election cycle. Like we're not talking about right now, there's not really a major elections going on at the present time,

because we're post election inauguration, but that was in an election cycle. Why was it that the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed? You know again, that was evidence we found in our case, Missouri v. Biden. We uncovered that and put that out there in the public domain. That was information American voters deserve to have moving to the ballot box. That was you guys? We helped uncover that. Absolutely. In discovery in Missouri v. Biden. You know, why was it that you couldn't find articles on

the assassination attempt against president trump, why is it that podcasts Popular podcasts that whether president trump appears on are hard to find. Yeah, you know, where do you hide a dead body page? two of a google search and so Again you look at it from a consumer protection angle. There's a potential, you know, antitrust issue there as well that's, you know, part of litigation, but we intend to use the full spectrum of consumer protection law provided in state statute in Missouri to address those issues.

I mean, when it comes to to investigating where do you even start? I mean especially you're not a social media guy yourself. Are you big into tech? I'm learning as I go. So I mean it's got to be I think that's a that's a fear for a lot of people is is and you're doing amazing things but you know when it comes to, especially, I guess what I'm more talking about is when we see the Senate or the Congress, you know, talking about censorship and you got Mark Zuckerberg sitting in front of the Senate having a hearing

and you got people like Mitch McConnell mcconnell who you know Blanks out and has a stroke mid-sentence. I mean these guys don't know what the hell to look for we had Feinstein died in office. I mean you have these dinosaurs that are in there that Probably don't even know how to open a damn email and they're talking to a tech titan. I mean How do you guys, and you seem to be extremely effective at it, so how do you start the investigation? Do you wrap yourself around a team

that is extremely well-versed in tech, in SEO, and all these other, in censorship, and all these other things? Yeah, I think that's right. I think you start there. In Missouri, our, again, consumer protection law allows us to send subpoenas It's called a civil investigatory demand. Mm-hmm has the fact legal effect of a subpoena

So we we start and you start pulling that thread and as you subpoena this information you start putting pieces together realize Okay, there's something else down here. Now. We got a subpoena that now we got more and Oftentimes what will happen is, you know these and again? I'm speaking in broad terms But the corporations will like flood you with discovery and they're just gonna swamp you with discovery They may even churn the discovery so it's like not in sequential order or not in a linear order and they're just dumping Documents on you and trying to drown you in discovery or they'll drown you in vexatious discovery demands and Defenses to your discovery requests if you're actually in litigation and that's really the game in civil law is it's you know, it's the

Battlefield is the discovery process. So they drown you in like with useless information Hope you'll go thousands and thousands and thousands of ages of shit that has nothing to do with what you're looking for. And it takes you forever to sift through all that. Yeah, it's a, what would it be called a Fabian strategy? You know, I think that's what they're trying to do is just wear you out, never become decisively engaged and hope you'll tire out and go away.

But we don't take shots at the Missouri Attorney General's office that we don't intend to hit. We want to put lead on target. And so if we commit to something, we're going to follow through. And relentless execution is part of that process. So if you're successful on this Google thing,

will that only affect Missouri or will that be nationwide? I think it sets up a ripple in the pond effect, a presidential effect for others. And again, you know, what you see, you can, it's a domino effect. It's pulling the thread of a, you know, a fabric. You start to unravel it, you start to take it apart and it's for the benefit of the people of state of missouri

Is why I do my job, but it has a net benefit to people across the united states of america. I like to tell folks In other states that you know, hey I may not be your attorney general, but I can still represent you. Mm-hmm So do you have other states jumping it in with me on the Google thing? We don't on that particular one and again, it's not necessarily out of a lack of desire or motivation on behalf of my colleagues They've got their own cases and investigations going on It's just that the authority that I wield in the consumer protection space is really just unique to the state of Missouri Okay, but we've partnered on so many different lawsuits

With my colleagues and typically over the past two years Those have really been targeted at the Biden-Harris administration their usurpation of power their attack on the United States Constitution They're undermining of the rule of law and so in Missouri We had north of 50 different lawsuits against the Biden-Harris administration and so many of those were in partnership with my colleagues across the country. You mentioned the Hunter Biden laptop. What was on that laptop that really caught your attention? I mean what President Trump described as the laptop from hell, you know, and I don't know that I can pinpoint a single data point

that's like, okay, well, that's the smoking gun. I think you got to take the whole thing. But the point is not, I mean, the point is that the FBI was in possession of that laptop and knew the deep state of the FBI had the laptop and knew of its authenticity, knew it was real And yet they had run table drills with big tech social media oligarchs with increased frequency in the days and weeks leading up to that story breaking during the fall of 2020 in the middle of the election cycle in 2020 and they had conditioned and trained big tech to be prepared

for what they said would be a Russian disinformation story related to Joe Biden's son. And on the eve of that story breaking, there was a communication between agents of the deep state and the FBI and Big Tech, and it was instantly suppressed. What do you mean agents of the deep state? There were people that were working at the FBI and may still work there Their days are probably numbered. Mm-hmm that did not want President Trump in office They saw him as a threat to their power and their control they think they're smarter than the elect the electorate than the the people who voted for President Trump and they wanted to do everything they could to keep him from wielding power. The authority that we, the people, had given him

under our constitutional structure. Are you in contact with Cash Patel? I know Cash, yeah, he's great. And we've been in contact in the past. I haven't talked to him in a while. I know he's going through his confirmation hearing today and I'm excited. He's gonna be a great FBI director.

He's got so much experience in that space and in that that organization and man he he knows how to get the job done. Yeah I'm really looking forward to him getting in there. I mean do you think there's gonna be any I mean by the time this comes out we'll know I think but do you think they'll have run into any snags? I don't think so. I mean I don't. A clean past. Yeah, you know, he's someone who's a proven patriot, someone who's a proven effectiveness on national security issues, on legal issues, and from a law enforcement perspective.

And so I think the Senate would be well-served to get him confirmed and get him on the job. And there's gonna be a lot of work to do, but I know he's up to the task. Yeah. You know, also speaking of the Bidens, what did you think about all the pardons? You know, was it the day before he pardoned Milley,

pardoned, shit, who else did he pardon? He pardoned Milley, pardoned Fauci, pardoned his family, hours before the J-6 committee. Well, here's my question, Sean. Teeny. How can those pardons be legally valid? See, that's what I want to know. So I thought when you pardon somebody,

it had to be for a very specific crime. Well, so it is, I will say this, and the difference between the United States Constitution and the the clemency authority given to the president of the United States and the clemency authority Codified in the Missouri State Constitution given to our governor it changed in I think 1875 in the state of Missouri our the our governor used to have pardon power for state offenses that was parallel to the United States president's power under the federal constitution.

And that changed after the civil war. And in Missouri, the constitution was amended to limit the governor's clemency authority to only after a conviction. President of the United States has the ability, the authority, constitutional authority to pardon before a charge is even filed, before a criminal charge is even filed or a prosecution is commenced, which is unique.

But there is an overbreath issue. Like if you go so broad, it's so vague, like it becomes this like ultimate get out of jail free card. So I think that's a problem, but I think there's a deeper problem think about when The two-tiered justice system that cash patel spoke of sitting in this very chair on your show And how he saw how president trump and president biden were treated differently in instances where they were accused of having secret documents now, I agree with cash patel's, hopefully he'll be director Patel, that

President Trump had the authority to have the documents. This was the most bogus, you know, witch hunt of them all and thank goodness Jack Smith was struck down in court and is no longer employed by DOJ. But think about what happened with Joe Biden. So President Trump, they raid Mar-a-Lago. They put the evidence out to make it look more in culpatory, take pictures of it, rake him over the coals. And with Joe Biden, they say, look, he's an old man. He's too enfeebled. He can't, he doesn't have the mental acuity

to form the mens rea the mental state To commit an intentional act Or an intentional criminal act. That's what Biden's own DOJ said about him Well, if that's true How could he sign a legal document? How could he sign a pardon paper? How could he sign a clemency document? I think a lot of people are wondering that Yeah, if I sign oh if I'm out of my mind and sign a testamentary instrument, a will, that will can be challenged in court. It's not valid because I didn't know what I was doing

when I signed it. Well, his own attorneys at, Biden's own attorneys at DOJ said he wasn't, didn't have the mental faculty to commit a crime. So how could he possibly have the mental faculty to excuse other people from criminal behavior? Now, I mean, I don't know any of this stuff, but I've heard grumblings, I've heard rumors that,

just because that they were pardoned by the federal government, the states could still go after. Is there any truth to that? That's absolutely true. Yeah, the president's clemency authority extends to federal offenses, but the state is its own sovereign,

and those individuals could still be guilty of state offenses. Do you think anybody will go after them? uh clemency authority extends to federal offenses but the state is its own sovereign and uh those individuals could still be guilty of state offenses do you think anybody will go after them yeah I hope so states would what states would have that power you know it's it states any state where an element of an offense was committed within that state so virginia virginia uh certainly is one you know you got to look at everywhere the the biden crime family conducted business, you know, was there a fraudulent transaction And again look, I mean at the end of the day it's about Reciprocity it's about equal protection under law

But it's also about the rule of law and doing it the right way unlike the left who abuses the system to obtain specious convictions. Convictions that are not legally valid by abusing law and perverting law and moving the law beyond its plain text and original understanding. We on the right believe that the rules should be consistent and fair and predictable. I mean, a lot of people want to see these people burn for what they've done, especially Fauci, you know, and so, I mean what

Man I don't even know what I'm trying to ask here But I mean, what would you like to see happen? Could they still investigate? Would it be worth the time for the federal government to investigate Fauci the J six committee? for the federal government to investigate Fauci, the J-6 committee, Milly, I'm not even sure what that's for. The Biden family, which I just interviewed, Colleen Georgescu, he was one of the candidates in Romania that got censored for Russian influence. Again, Russian influence, maybe, maybe not.

I'm sure they're meddling in that election. I mean, you know, we're building, we are, NATO is building the biggest base ever in Romania. He doesn't want it. I'm sure Russia doesn't want it. So, I mean, I could definitely see that, but then it comes out today, up Biden was taking money from Romania.

Yeah. I mean, so I guess what I'm getting at is you can't really, it doesn't sound like the federal government could really go after, you know, these guys, but can they still expose what they've done? Is there, is there any, is there a reason to do that? I mean, I think everybody would like to know, I mean, could you still conduct the investigation and present it to the people and be like, absolutely, this is what happened.

Well, because criminal liability isn't the only liability these people face. I mean, that should absolutely still be on the table, certainly from the state level, but there's professional licensures involved, there's civil liability. You know, like, think about my lawsuit against China again. Like this is a first of its kind where we've sued China

for inflicting the COVID pandemic on the United States of America and then hoarding PPE and depriving Americans and the government of the state of Missouri from being able to access the PPE that we need to respond to the pandemic they caused. What role did Anthony Fauci play in that? We now know based on recently classified documents that the CIA CIA even believes that the COVID-19 came from a lab in China, not, you know, randomly jumping from animal life to human life at some marketplace and move on.

Well, wasn't Fauci helping suppress some of that information? And what was his involvement in that research and in that lab in China? And so is there civil liability there? And again, I think people still demand justice for the wrongs that were perpetrated against the American people, not only by the Chinese government, but by the deep state like Anthony Fauci. And so, I think making that transparent through an investigation and airing that,

it's not a bad thing. It can only be a good thing. And there might be additional liability points beyond the criminal code. I mean, so, you know, picture perfect world. You would like to see the federal government conduct the investigations through all the people that were pardoned and have that information revealed to the American public. I think we have a right to know. And I think that, again, first of all, I have grave concerns about the legal validity of any legal document that Joe Biden signed

after he was determined by his own Department of Justice to lack the mental acuity for an intentional act. So yeah, I think we need to understand what happened there, what went wrong, and are there systems in place to redress grievances that are still available to us? What would you do if you were the AG? Well, let me say this, you know Pam Bondi who is President Trump's nominee who May very well be confirmed at this point Is gonna be a fantastic United States Attorney General. I mean, I got to meet her and just think the world of her. She was the Attorney General of the state of Florida previously.

So she's seen it from the state level. She's an incredibly gifted and talented attorney. She's a great manager and motivator of people. And she's going to have a large organization that she's going to have to not only clean house, eliminate the deep state, but reorganize and reprioritize missions to maximize the role that the DOJ is supposed to play. And so there's gonna be a lot on her plate. She is up to the task and we'll get it done. And you know, I think that I'm asking if you though. Yeah, if you were in there. Yeah

I think that... I'm asking if you though. Yeah. If you were in there, not Pam Bondi, if you were in there, I'm just curious about how you think and what your strategy would be. I think you gotta find resources to address these issues and to again, to investigate these matters and to lay the information in front of the American people.

To do otherwise is a form of censorship of information. And look, censorship is the lazy tool of a weak mind. And it's counterproductive. People don't trust their government if they don't think they're being told the truth. And I think we look back at COVID and what happened and Dr. Anthony Fauci, and we feel like we were deceived and lied to. Would that be a top priority of yours? Absolutely. What would some other top priorities be?

So I think there are three strategic objectives that have to be secured now. I think the top priority has got to be the border. If we don't have a border, we don't have a country. And the Biden and Harris administration not only allowed illegals to cross by refusing to enforce the immigration code, but they actually perverted the immigration code to find legal loopholes to allow people in under the parole process that we've had to file suit against to put a stop to. In the immigration code, there's a provision that allows the government to allow people

in this country for limited time, limited purpose on an individual basis. Well, Biden and Harris said, no, no, we're going to use that to allow in X number of Haitians, X number of Guatemalans, X number of Y number of Hondurans. They created a visa program that was never authorized by Congress. That's a perversion of the law and abuse of the law. It undermines the rule of law. And it hung an open sign. It not only allowed in people who had no legal right to be here, but it hung an open sign that created the poorest border problem that's making Missouri communities and communities across the United States of America less safe. So we've got to secure the border. We've got to deport criminals who have violated the laws of the United States of America. That's got to be strategic objective number one. Strategic objective number two is the right to free speech.

And again, it's dismantling the vast censorship enterprise in the government that was started with the deep state, but was then energized by President Joe Biden. President Trump's already begun doing that with his executive order on day one. But we've got to have a free, fair, and open marketplace of ideas. We've got to have a free fair and open marketplace of ideas We've got to end corporate censorship as well and then really the third strategic objective in my mind is Ending the weaponization of government and we saw that abused and it was counterproductive To the left and I think that's why President Trump delivered this historic

Landslide election and thank goodness the American people saw through that But we've got to end the weaponization of governments I think as attorney generally those have to be the three strategic objectives to be. But we've got to end the weaponization of governments. I think as attorney general, those have to be the three strategic objectives to be secured if we're going to save the country. Do you think those are her top priorities? I'm sure they are. Now she may articulate them differently,

but that's the formula for the make America great again movement that President Trump has started and is continuing on today. What about stuff with Big Pharma? Yeah, I mean, we're relied to there too. I think there's questions that need to be answered. Are we still being lied to about the efficacy of vaccines?

You know, specifically the COVID vaccine that seems to not be a vaccine at all. And so what incentives were in place that caused that to happen? And were there, it's all about holding wrongdoers accountable and putting systems in place to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I mean, there's a lot of talk about There's a lot of talk about you know pulling not have not not enabling or

Taking away the right for Pfizer Johnson and Johnson Moderna to advertise on Media channels and so I mean I'm kind of curious about your thoughts to that. I Don't think it really does anything. I don't either. I like just it's a weird marketplace because just because I see an ad for a vaccine on television doesn't mean I can then go personally

by that there's an intermediary in the form of a medical professional that has to administer prescribe and then administer. I think what I think we're I think where I'm going with this is, because those are some top advertisers, I mean, I just watched, I never watched legacy media. Ever.

I get all my news from interviewing folks like you. And, but me and my wife were in a hotel a couple weeks ago, I did decide, I was like, oh, let's flip it on, let's just see what they talk about. I turned on Fox News. It was like, oh, let's flip it on. Let's just see what they talk about. It turned on Fox News. It was like three out of five ads were pharmaceuticals. And so what I'm kind of getting at is because those are obviously their top advertisers,

then they control the narrative. And it's, if you don't talk about this, then we don't advertise with you. Now, if we make it illegal for them to advertise on legacy media channels, they also have, God knows how many lobbyists, isn't a big pharma has the second biggest, is it the second biggest, I think big oil is number one. Yeah, wouldn't surprise me. It's one of the top three, we'll just say that.

And so, wouldn't they just use their lobbyists to funnel money to the legacy media some other way, some other how, and to continue to influence media channels to, hey, don't talk about this, talk about this, you know, there's, business always finds a way around the law, it seems like. And so, I mean, how do you do it? So I think, and you've done so much work exposing

how taxpayer dollars in the public coffers go to things we don't want them to go to, and it shouldn't be happening, and you've exposed that in some of your shows. How much of that's happening with the medical industry and with big pharma now? And I think those are questions we need to answer. I think that If you actually yeah, I think that Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address is one of the most prophetic and intriguing Speeches ever given in American politics military industrial complex. Everybody remembers it for the military industrial complex. But there was another part of that speech

where President Eisenhower said he expressed concerns about the influence and the relationship and the marriage between federal dollars, big federal dollars and medicine and science and how you would create this elitist culture that would substitute their judgment for ours and would not have dissenting voices to test the veracity of what they're saying. Oh my gosh, he said that in 1960, is that right? Something like that. Yeah, I mean, that's a

close, right? Didn't we see that on full display in 2020? Yeah. And in 2021 and in 2022. And is that going on now? And so like, let's break up that relationship. Let's break that up and let's have a competitive, open marketplace where consumers make their own decisions rather than being spoon-fed based on this elitist culture and group think.

How do you do that though? Yeah, again, I think you got to follow the money. Like what is funding these entities now? Are there federal dollars going to that? Can we cut those off? No, these are decisions that really have to be made in Congress through the budget process, but that's where I would start.

I mean, could the company just, I mean, I'm just spit balling here. I don't really know how it works, but we talk about the lobbyists, we talk about the advertising, they control that space. The company just, I mean, I'm just spit-billing here. We talk about the lobbyists, we talk about the advertising, they control that space, hey, don't talk about this. What if a company just held a lot of CNN stock? Then, hey, we're going to relinquish all the stock if you continue this narrative. I mean, I just don't, there's so many ways

that they could get in there, they're probably doing all of this already. It's not probably not just advertising. And so, you know, in my opinion, I think the only way to actually do it is to, and I don't know how you, it would be like, you just talked about this with Dr. Paul Saladino, you know, I mean, it seems to be like the only way to do that

would be some type of an education program and educate the people, but I still don't know, you know what I mean? Where it's like, hey, you're seeing all these advertisements, we all know legacy media is bullshit, they're all moving towards podcast form,'s ridiculous it's like oh well shit we fucked ourselves up here let's just copy what the podcasters are yeah but I think it's already done but at the same at the same token I think there needs to be

some type of a re-education I hate saying that term because it sounds horrible. Well, counterspeech. Maybe that's another term is the best remedy for disfavored speech is counter speech. So how do we like, can we, yeah, I mean, offer an argument in contradiction to what we're being spoon fed, you know, from a legal perspective. And this is something I'm excited about. You know, I think Vice President Vance has been a big proponent of, again, using antitrust law to break up these unprecedented and dangerous consolidations of power that are manipulating the marketplace and ultimately harming consumers and the American people. I think that's another fount of legal authority. I would think that this administration would reinvigorate the DOJ's antitrust section

of the DOJ to start looking for targets. That was done under President Teddy Roosevelt to great effect after the Sherman Antitrust Act was initially passed into law to break up some of the large trusts and corporations and I think it's time to reinvigorate that body of law. I mean do you think Big Pharma plays a role in... are they the reason that natural medicines like psychedelics aren't hitting the market because it wipes out opiate addiction. It helps wipe out benzos. You know, like I said, I did it, totally cleaned me out. Yeah.

And I mean, how do you, I mean, you can grow that, a lot of this, you can grow this stuff in your house if you want to. It's not, you know what I mean? It's not out of the realm, which would be a huge cut in their income. If that's happening, the legal question, and it stands to reason that it is,

the legal question becomes, have they formed a combination in restraint of trade? Are they buying up outlets that might have been competitive or silencing, buying up outlets that would offer a competitive counterpoint, counter speech? If that's happening, you got an antitrust suit and you're off to the races. Well, the food industry is doing it. I mean, we see it and every time somebody comes out with a new, with a natural deodorant or a natural toothpaste or a food that doesn't have any additives in it, you see Coca-Cola

goes and buys it. You know, Purina goes and buys it. Whoever. You know, they go and they buy the company and use the same marketing and it tricks people into thinking that that particular product is still healthy for the consumer when in reality it's the opposite. They put in the additive so it has a longer shelf life and we're right back to square one trying to find the next thing. And so is that what you're talking about with pharmaceuticals? Yeah. Yeah, look if uh, if corporations There are anti-competitive practices that are defined in

the case law interpreting the sherman antitrust act and that uh, Violate both federal and state law and are the target of antitrust lawsuits and if that's going on then that's that's a great vehicle to fix the problem. Counterspeech, I think I agree with you, is one great option. Consumer awareness, certainly. But antitrust litigation is another option. Okay. Let's move back into your lawsuit against China.

You'd mentioned that they were hoarding PPE equipment. Yeah. I thought it was ridiculous that we have hoarding PPE equipment. Yeah. I thought it was ridiculous that we have a virus that came from China. Everybody's wearing a mask that says made in China. You know, I mean, what other PPE were they hoarding respirators and... All of it. Yeah. It's not just masks.

PPE, as you know, is so many products that they they were producing and holding but isn't that the play? of the communist government to like Create a problem and then manipulate the marketplace that has the solution to the problem and that's what you saw And that was the evidence we put on and looked up that again that recently Declassified CIA document pointing to the lab leak as the most likely source of the pandemic just increases the Chinese communist government's culpability. And it further emphasizes Missouri's need

to execute that $25 billion judgment we intend to obtain. When do you think you'll be awarded that? So the trial court has asked for some additional briefing that we're going to try to complete in the next week Week to two weeks and then I would anticipate within the next 30 days We'll get a judgment and and again a judgment is a piece of paper. Mm-hmm. You got to go execute the judgment. Luckily the foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides a method a procedure by which you can execute that judgment. So what?

a method, a procedure by which you can execute that judgment. So what do you may have just answered this, I'm not sure, but let's say you are awarded in you win the case. What court is that in? Is that in a federal court? Is that in a state court? Yep. Or is that in some type of an international court? We're in a federal court.

It's the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. It's a, that was the best venue because it's a claim under a federal statute against a foreign sovereign. And again, this isn't some crackpot legal theory. It's the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a statute that was passed in 1976, signed into law by the time President Gerald Ford. And so there's a the people's elected representatives in Congress contemplated that states might have lawsuits against foreign entities and created a process. One of the examples, there was an instance in the Falklands War where an Argentine missile struck a commercial merchant vessel and sank sank it and so the corporation then sued Argentina For the destruction of their property and the court identified like look that claim fits under the Foreign Sovereign Immigrants Act

That's one example the Missouri's the first that state that I know of to really raise a claim that Infliction of a pandemic and then hoarding a PPE is a claim that fits under that statute So it's kind of it's in that respect. It's a novel legal argument But it's been again tested all the way up to the eighth circuit court of appeals And I think and again, I think it'll be successful. So do you do honestly do you think if you win this case? Do you think china's going to pay 25 billion? Not at all and I my proof is that they haven't participated in the lawsuit at all. I mean they were granted due process under our laws. They do business in the United States of America.

They know they have to be aware that this statute is on the books that there's that they have some liability under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. They were served with process when we initiated the lawsuit. They're aware of it, but that's how little they think of these United States of America. They couldn't even be bothered to show up to court with $25 billion hanging in the balance. And doesn't that also point to their culpability? If you had a defense, you had an opportunity to show up and put it on and you didn't do it. So what happens then?

Who holds them accountable? How do you get them to pay? We find assets. We find Chinese assets, properties. You didn't mention that. Yeah, and then we take that judgment and we say, hey, federal government sees that property, sell it and we'll take the check

and we'll credit it towards that $25 billion judgment. Does China hold a lot of assets in Missouri There are some and again, we're still in the process of identifying assets But they don't only have to be in Missouri where we can work with any willing partner across the United States of America To seize assets what kind of assets real property are the best assets because they're easily liquefiable But you know Any kind of asset, okay So, how do you how do you find out if the if the state owned if the Chinese state owns?

It'll yeah, you got to search the the registration on those to determine who owns them You know in every state registers property interests differently. You know, the secretary of state's office for business entities, you know, recorder of deeds for real property. I mean, I would imagine it's shell company after shell company after shell company after shell company. And so how do you sift through all that? Yeah, it's going to take time and it's going to take a dedicated team of professionals. But again, you know, we didn't what would be an indicator? Yeah, there's a lot of open source information and so again you start pulling on that bread, okay Okay, let's move into IBM. Yeah, what do you got going on with them?

So we filed a lawsuit under the Missouri Human Rights Act against IBM's DEI program. And so there was this instance in which the president of IBM was on video, you know, threatening his subordinates, threatening his team of executives that if they didn't promote people of certain racial classifications over others, that they would not be eligible for their bonuses. This isn't some mid-level mid-tier office bureaucrat promoting DEI. This is the president of the company on tape. That's just corporate racism and it's never been legal and was never a good idea. But in Missouri under state statute the Missouri Human Rights Act the attorney general's office is given enforcement authority

to prevent those kinds of racist policies from permeating the workplace. And so we filed suit in state court and are moving that suit forward. IBM has filed a motion to dismiss, and I think we're in court in the coming days on that. So we'll see where we go, but look, there are other remedies available.

And at the end of the day, we're gonna use every tool in our arsenal to harpoon the you know the corporate DEI whale because it I'm not sure where we got off track but it should have never ended up like this you know racism has always been wrong America and certainly Missouri are meritocracies people should obtain obtain positions and matriculate through organizations based on their merit and how good they are at their jobs, not based on their skin color. Is IBM headquartered in Missouri? They're not, but they have offices in Missouri.

And so my lawsuit, you know, can only fix the problems for IBM's employees in Missouri. But our hope would be it would be an impetus to dismantle the DEI programs across the corporate spectrum. Do you, so with the IBM case, again, I'm just curious how many other people are jumping on board with you. And so do you do the research to figure out where are all IBM's doing this? What states are involved, contact their attorney general

to see if they want to jump on board with this. Yeah, there's a team of attorneys that are in kind of, it's a network of communication across the states. There are organizations that oftentimes will help facilitate that communication. You know, I'm not sure if other states have taken action against corporate DEI. sure if other states have taken action against corporate DEI.

I know other states have joined us and we've joined other states in going after public DEI programs at the state, federal or local level in government. But this suit is unique. But again, Missouri is unique. Not every state has given their attorney general enforcement authority under their civil rights laws, but Missouri has.

And so when I say again, that we were recently a blue state where the attorney general was empowered and given authority to do things, and now we're a red state. And that's one of the weapons that's been left behind on the battlefield that we're using to fight for Missouri workers.

I mean, think about this. These employees at IBM and Missouri have been subject to this and how many of them missed out on Opportunities because maybe they were the wrong skin color and it's not just Black and white. I mean, that's the other thing like it's people of Asian dissent as well Who were harmed by these some of these DI policies and so we've got to get out of that world And i'm proud of the work we've done in this lawsuit using the authority we have to fight back. Let's talk about Real quick. This just popped in my head all the executive orders that trump just signed and and with the stroke of the pen Just basically eliminated all the biden's executive orders where i'm kind of going with this is And and i've talked about this with my friend,

my attorney Tim Pallatorre several times, talked to Eric Prince about this. It seems to be the pendulum just going farther and farther and farther. And so, yeah, while it's, I think a lot of these executive orders are great that Trump put in, you know, he eliminated everything Biden did. Biden, I'm pretty sure, if I remember right, he eliminated all the executive orders that Trump put into place. And so great for four years. Yeah. All these executive orders. Next guy comes in, he's on the other side. He just immediately with the stroke of a pen eliminates all of those executive orders. I mean, what in your mind, I guess there's a couple questions.

One, is there anything else that could be done other than these executive orders? Two, what's more important? Is it state community law? Is it local, state state and then federal or is it? Should be concentrated on should we be concentrated on federal law? I Think president Trump has exactly the right answer to all of this Okay, first and foremost he is I believe based on what I'm seeing and hearing from him and his team Interesting closing the door behind them that they are building something to last

They're going to make america great again and put the structure in place to keep it great against domestic enemies in the future And there's a lot a lot to unpack there but One of the things he's doing is Reasserting the role that states play, which is the proper constitutional answer to the question. Our founding fathers' experience with a tyrannical monarchy of England taught them that we should have a centralized authority of limited power

diffused over three co-equal branches of government with checks and balances. That's the separation of powers doctrine, you know, that's implicit and textually based in our United States Constitution. And then that states have residual power and states need to be laboratories for the democratic process and be guarantors of individual liberties. And under the Biden administration, Biden and Harris really exponentially grew the administrative state, the bureaucratic agencies, the alphabet soup of bureaucratic agencies, EPA, DOE, Department of Labor, ATF, they grew these agencies.

And those agencies, the statutes that create those agencies give them rulemaking authority to promulgate and put into place administrative rules. And those agencies did that to great effect and it hurt Missourians and it hurt the people of the United States of America and it did damage to our constitutional structure.

The founding fathers were rolling over their graves at the idea that some fourth branch of government not contemplated in our constitution and unaccountable to the electorate can pass rules. Let me give you an example of where that hurt Missourians, for instance, and let me talk about agriculture. So in Missouri, a friend of mine, he farms and he's got a field, row crops, and it's near a it's on the bank of a creek. So the creek kind of creates the boundary for one of his fields. And every year that field erodes into that creek bed

and it just keeps eroding and eroding. Well, his ability to provide for his family and make a profit is diminished with the erosion of that field because there's less tillable land. So what did he do? He crawls into the creek bed. He picks up rocks from the creek bed. He didn't import rock from elsewhere. He used the very He crawls into the creek bed. He picks up rocks from the creek bed. He didn't import rock from elsewhere.

He used the very rocks that are in the creek bed to put them to shore up the bank of that creek to try to prevent further erosion. And the Biden Harris EPA and Army Corps of Engineers comes and says, whoa, you just violated the Clean Water Act under the Waters of the United States rule. You owe a penalty and you gotta go in there and take all those rocks out and put them back And if you don't we're gonna sue you and potentially imprison you Wow, this is insanity. This is absolute insanity

This is government run amok and the little guy his rights are trampled on and if he's gonna fix that problem He's now got to pay for an attorney and fight it in court and he may not win. To make all of that worse, before last summer, from 1985 until the summer of 2024, there was the Chevron decision in place. And the Chevron decision, again, this was the brainchild of I believe Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the 80s, who was looking for some kind of consistent way

in which federal courts could deal with challenges to these administrative agencies and the rules they were making and So he came up with this idea that look federal courts will just defer to an agency's reasonable interpretation of their own statutes Well, that was an abdication of the article 3 authority provided to the federal judiciary in our Constitution. The courts were saying we're not going to do our jobs. We'll just let these bureaucrats do whatever they want. And again, you take my my friend the farmer and this is how it's hurting real people. And last summer the court overturned the chevron decision and said we the courts are no longer going to give the the jump ball to

the federal bureaucrats. So a couple of things have happened. Number one, that's a major sea change in the law that now justifies the president, President Trump and his administration taking a hacksaw to that apparatus of the bureaucracy. Get rid of it, get rid of the rules, get rid of the people enforcing the rules,

we don't need them. And they're no longer to have deference in the United States Supreme Court and return that authority to the people and the states. Interesting. Interesting. Let's talk about the Second Amendment. What do you have going on in Missouri with the Second Amendment? Man, we are energized to protect our right to keep and bear arms. And it's not only in Missouri,

the second amendment to the United States constitution, but it's article one, section 23 of the Missouri constitution, which explicitly protects not only the right to keep and bear firearms, but ammunition and accessories as well. And it preempts local control. So municipalities can't pass burdensome regulations and ordinances to restrict the rights in the constitution. It preempts local control. So municipalities can't pass burdensome regulations

and ordinances to restrict the rights in the constitution. It also says that anything the state does that could be construed as a limitation on these rights is subject to strict scrutiny, which is the highest level of scrutiny under constitutional analysis. And it creates a legal obligation of the state to protect the right to keep and bear arms,

which then gives me standing to go into court and sue when a municipality passes an ordinance that restricts gun owners' rights. So we're full steam ahead on that. And we will go after any locality that violates our state constitution. But we've also got what's called the Second Amendment Preservation Act that the people's elected representatives and our general

assembly passed and our governor signed into law. And it's really as much a codification of the 10th Amendment anti-commandeering doctrine as it is about the Second Amendment. And what it says is that we're not going to let the federal government coerce, cajole, and co-opt state and local law enforcement officials to do unconstitutional gun restrictions. Soon as the governor signed that into law, Biden's Department of Justice sued the state of Missouri. So I've been defending that law, and just last week we asked the United States Supreme Court to review that case. So we have a on file at the United States Supreme Court, a petition for writ of certiorari asking the court to deprive the Biden-Harris Department of Justice of standing to move that lawsuit forward and allow the people of the state of Missouri to speak through their

elected representatives to set that policy position in state statute. Now, how is the federal government able to sue you for state law? Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the whole point we made. You didn't have to entertain that case. I mean... That's the whole point we made in court is that they don't have standing. The law limits state officials, not federal officials. So how are they harmed? They may not like what the law says or the policy position, but that's not a constitutional basis to overturn or to strike down our law. And the question before the courts is do states still matter?

You know, the 10th amendment, people always forget about that one, but the 10th amendment says that any authority not given to the federal government or denied to the states is enjoyed by the states and the people of the states. That's the constitutional basis of the Second Amendment Preservation Act in Missouri state statute And again, it doesn't limit federal officials. So how can they prove standing? How can they prove they're armed? Wow, is Missouri an open carry state? Absolutely. Yeah, is that new? That's been around for a little bit. I mean, hey look, we love our guns in Missouri I mean that that's part of who we are as people and Yeah, I look at the Second Amendment and it says the right to keep in bare arms shall not the rights shall not be infringed

Mm-hmm. I start with the last words shall not be infringed What do you think of the ATF? Get rid of it. You think just get rid of the ATF? Get rid of it. Should people have fully auto weapons? I do not believe that gun restrictions are legal under our Constitution. Let me explain why. And again, I go back to those principles I learned as a kid.

The rights in the Constitution come from God, not man. The Constitution exists to protect us from the government and the government is supposed to exist to protect our rights. And yet, here we are as taxpayers funding the ATF who has a consistent and documented pattern of violating our rights. Wow. Suppressors, class three items, full auto. I mean, in a picture-perfect world. The founding fathers own canons. How does this look? Is there a background check? You know, what would you like to see? Yeah, you know, these are policy decisions that have to be weighed in deliberative legislative bodies. But I think you got to look at the original understanding

of the second amendment. And then you refract it through the prism of the passage and adoption of the 14th amendment. I'm sorry, I get nerdy law technical, but this is important. The bill of Rights originally only restricted the federal government. And it wasn't until after the Civil War

that the 14th Amendment was passed, that then the rights and the Bill of Rights were also, those restrictions were also applied against the states. So what did the Second Amendment mean at the time of founding? And then what did it mean to the drafters and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment? And then what did it mean to the drafters and ratifiers of the 14th amendment? And that's the interpretive methodology.

That's how the United States Supreme Court has read the second amendment, which is great for freedom loving and gun owning Americans because there has to be what's called a historical antecedent to the right being claimed today. You look at what is the right claim today? Is it similar to or dissimilar from the rights that the founders would have understood at the time that they wrote the Second Amendment?

To me, that's where that debate should be taking place is abolishing the DTF. Is that on the table? I don't know, you know, I'm not sure that that's something that's being waiter considered That's my personal policy preference and again I have no interest in funding government agencies that are only intended to deprive us of our constitutional rights Would that fall under the AG? The ATF is a sub component of the Department of Justice. So it does. Yeah, I Hope they abolish it. I totally agree All right, let's I want to move into we had a good conversation at breakfast about George Soros and

all of his Funding all of his funding for DA's How was that I mean this is a huge topic in every state everybody knows it's happening I don't know how he's funding everybody or or But but what what's his goal? What's what's going on here? I know you have fought against this and it fired several DA's the In the city of st. Louis who was unlawfully refusing to do her job and was destroying the criminal justice system in the state of Missouri and did

Unmitigated and immeasurable harm to the city of St. Louis, Eastern Missouri and the state region as a whole. I think that when Soros pays to elect prosecutors who abuse prosecutorial discretion, it is an illegal nullification of the law. In other words, since the time of the founding, prosecutors are provided discretion to determine based on evidence, what charges should be filed,

whether a charge should be filed, what charge should be filed, and ultimately what the disposition in the case should be. So you get a police report, you read the police report, you decide what statute, what law was broken, and then you decide, okay, is this a prison thing or is this like a probation and treatment thing or is this somewhere in between? And those are the decisions that sound exercising a prosecutorial discretion. But what the Soros and his organization, what they're promoting is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

So instead of making individualized decisions based on evidence and police reports, those Soros-backed prosecutors are saying, we're not gonna enforce wide swaths of the criminal code, of criminal law. For instance, I'm not gonna prosecute people for offenses, property offenses, where there's not a human victim that was physically harmed. Well now hold on, you can break into my house and steal all my stuff, but if you don't hurt me in

the process you're not going to charge that offense? And let's see how that played out in the city of St. Louis. This woman was in office from 2016 until 2023. She had a 96% non-prosecution rate, 96% of reported crimes. So at some point people stopped calling the cops because they know nothing's gonna happen. And at some point the cops stop, stop authoring police reports and send them to the prosecutor if they're not gonna get prosecuted.

So I think that 96% non-prosecution rate probably underestimates how little she was actually doing. Of the 4% of cases she was actually charging and getting into court, 35% of those were then subsequently dismissed by the court because she couldn't be bothered to show up to trial. Can you talk about, I mean, I used to live in St. Louis. We talked about this and I mean, I went there

a couple of years ago to meet with our mutual friend, Andy Frazella. I couldn't believe what I saw. I mean, it was like a totally different city. Every part of it, downtown, the outskirts, all of it. It's just, it's gone downhill. It's really sad. It's really gone downhill. And you gave an explanation of how

crime because of because of the soros funded attorney It kind of started in St. Louis proper moved out to the counties moved out to the ex Yeah to the outer counties and can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean like how that affected that city Yes, it's not just st. Louis. Yeah, this is happening all over the country. Yeah, and we're all worse off for it. And I feel terrible for our men and women in law enforcement who are putting their lives on the line every day to try to keep our streets safe and are not getting the support they need from the Soros-backed progressive prosecutors.

But St. Louis is an interesting example because what we learned is that crime doesn't care about jurisdictional lines. It's a regional problem. Crime doesn't care that there's 114 counties plus the city of St. Louis and Missouri. Crime doesn't care that there's 46 different judicial circuits in the state of Missouri. The homicidal murderers that had basically overtaken

the city of St. Louis, because the prosecutor wouldn't do anything about them, then drove out the petty criminals to the county and to the color counties. So we were seeing in Warren County, dopers who were stealing wheels and tires off of cars, and they were doing it in Warren County because they didn't want to get shot doing it

in St. Louis city. They didn't want to live around the homicidal murderers either. And when you drive away all the people, when crime depopulates an area, there's less people to rob. Those robbers are going to go somewhere else. Those thieves are going to go somewhere else. So it was absolutely a regional problem.

And that one woman was completely, the source back prosecutor was completely undermining the criminal justice system for the entire state of Missouri. I took office on January 3rd, 2023 and in less than 45 days in office, I filed the lawsuit that ultimately got rid of her. The legal term, it's a Latin term, it's called the writ of quo warranto and it is a lawsuit intended to demonstrate that the person is unlawfully holding office. And my argument was, she's not doing her job. She's unlawfully refusing to do her job.

And that alone is a basis for removal. That had never been tested in the courts. So again, it was a first of its kind in the nation, bold transformative action, but it worked. She filed, the source back prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss my case saying, this claim is not actionable, is not cognizable under the Cuomo-Loronto statute. And the judge said, no, if the state,

if the attorney general can prove what he's saying that you're not prosecuting cases, that you're not notifying victims, that you're not moving your cases along, that you're not filing new charges, those are enough to remove you. When he denied her motion to dismiss, that's now the imprimatur of law on those claims and it has a ripple in the pond effect because

it gives us precedent to use the Quo Veronto if ever another Soros-backed prosecutor were to appear in Missouri. Is that the only one? Are there more? That's the only one we know of and certainly that is the worst case example I've seen. I know that other states have similar examples, but typically they're in blue states that you see that. Different states have different mechanisms to remove a bad prosecutor. Like for instance in Florida, I know Governor DeSantis has removed Soros back prosecutors under his legal authority under their state laws. But in Missouri, it's the attorney general that has the authority to file the writ of Quo Oronto.

I mean, it sounds like, the way you describe it sounds like a blast radius of criminals. Yeah. And so, I mean, it sounds like, because every state is different, they couldn't take your module and apply it to their specific state. Well, I think what they could absolutely do

is take our definition of what is and isn't prosecutorial discretion and use that as a basis to remove a Soros-backed prosecutor who was refusing to do their job. I think they could absolutely take that and say, well, in Missouri too, let me say this. In Missouri, victims have constitutional and statutory rights.

And when a prosecutor is denying those victims of crime, that every victims have constitutional and statutory rights. And when a prosecutor is denying those victims of crime, their rights, that is also an actionable way to remove a Soros-backed prosecutor. So again, the blueprint, it's not an exact technical diagram that they can replicate, but at least some concepts that could be used in other states.

Man, that really devastated that city. Destroyed, how do you how do you think though? I mean How long is it gonna take to get it back to to what it was under her time in office? More than 500 businesses left downtown st. Louis. That's loss and we look that's something we can measure We'll never be able to measure how many conventions, how many trade shows, how many tourists didn't come to St. Louis and didn't spend their dollars there. How much economic development opportunity did we miss? We'll never know. And look, we can change things.

We can start prosecuting criminals. We can start locking criminals up, getting them off the streets. We can show a decrease in criminal statistics and we can show data points, but they don't matter if the businesses don't feel safe. I'm really excited that our governor, Mike Kehoe, has made fighting crime his number one priority. And he just gave his state of the state address this week and really outlined a detailed plan

to support law enforcement and shore up the criminal justice system, start going after the bad guys. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think they'd have to incentivize the businesses to come back, you know, through tax and all these other things. You think that's on the table? I think so.

Yeah, I think so. I think one of the things that's unique about Missouri, too, is that, you know, in Kansas City and St. Louis, it used to be that those police departments were run by a board of police commissioners that had to be from those places, but that were appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. And that's really a structural mechanism

to take the politics out of policing. And that still exists in Kansas City. And when those police officers are sued in civil law, my office defends them. And so they get consistent indemnification, consistent civil defense, which then empowers them to go do their jobs. The legislature eliminated the board of police commissioners

in St. Louis and returned control of the police department to the mayor. Not a good outcome. Just now politics are back in policing. And it's not the police department to the mayor. Not a good outcome. Just now politics are back in policing. And it's not the men and women in uniform. That's not the problem. It's the politics at city hall that have injected themselves.

And I'm deeply concerned about a lack of consistent representation for the men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line every day on the streets of the city of St. Louis. They need consistent and competent legal representation in civil and I want to provide that one of the governor our current governor Mike, he ho his legislative priorities is to restore that board of police commissioners And I think that's that's a one piece of the puzzle. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow, what what I mean why Soros doing this He hates America I Think? He hates America.

I think he absolutely hates America. He hates what we stand for. He hates the rule of law and this is his way of destroying it from within. It's working. It's absolutely working. Are any other states doing anything like this to reverse it? Again, I you know, I mentioned Florida. Yeah, I think Florida is another example, but it's few and far between. Uh, I'm not sure that there's been another attorney general that's removed a Soros-backed prosecutor. Man. Man. I don't know if we have them in Tennessee, but I hope they're listening to this.

I really hope they're listening to this. But back to the Second Amendment, kind of right to self-protection, right to self-defense. I mean, what are the laws of Missouri when it comes to self-defense, you know in Missouri? It's and I'm again, I apologize man. I nerd out on the law stuff, but it's really interesting to me. So in Missouri If you are charged with a crime and claim self-defense. That is what's called a special negative defense. So in criminal law there's two types of... the defendant never has to take the stand. The defendant doesn't have to say anything,

doesn't have to take stand, the state can't comment on the defendant's right to remain silent. I can't, as a prosecutor, I can't get up and say, hey if he was innocent he'd take the stand and tell you about it. And most attorneys during the jury selection process will ask prospective jurors, are you going to hold it against them if you don't hear from them? To filter out folks that might be predisposed

to require the defendant to violate their own right to not take the stand and present evidence against themselves, self-incriminate. But there are two defenses. One is an affirmative defense. And if the defendant wants to, the defendant, basically it's a legal excuse. Yeah, I did it, but there's this affirmative defense.

There's this legal excuse. And if you use an affirmative defense, the defendant bears proof by preponderance of the evidence. So the lowest burden of proof to show that they're legally excused from criminal behavior because they had this affirmative defense like parental kidnapping if you and your wife are divorced and She's got the kids and the custody agreement says she has the kids this weekend

But you go and get the kids because she's doing something unsafe with them. You may have be guilty of Of you know child kidnap parental kidnapping, but you have this affirmative defense that that gives you an excuse and so you're acquitted. The difference with self-defense is, this is a special negative, which is a stronger defense. And if you, as a defendant, are accused of a crime and you whisper, you inject into the trial in any way, shape or form a self-defense argument, the state then has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

you didn't act in self-defense. How do you prove a prove beyond a reasonable doubt you didn't act in self-defense. How do you prove a negative beyond a reasonable doubt? How do I prove you weren't afraid for your life if you shot somebody? So it's a really strong protection for people to defend themselves, their property and their families. What about like,

do you have the right to defend somebody else's livelihood? Where I'm going with this is New York City, Daniel Penny. That guy stood up for somebody, killed him, they charged him with murder, right? Yeah. So, what is the, how would that have gone in Missouri? You have a right in Missouri to defend yourself or another.

So if you reasonably believe that your life or the life of someone else is imperiled, you have the authority to act. You have the legal authority to act. Now, listen, police may show up, police are going to do an investigation. Prosecutor may or may not decide to file a charge, but just, you know, at the end of the day, you are protected by the statutes of the state of Missouri that create that special negative defense that if you believe you acted in self-defense,

the state would to convict you is gonna have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, you didn't fear for your life or you know, you didn't fear for the safety of some third party. What about property? You have a right to defend property as well. If you remember in St. Louis during some of the riots, the BLM and Antifa nonsense that was going on

in the summer of 2020. Are you talking about the guy in the pink shirt? Mark McCloskey, a friend of mine. Mark and he's a friend of yours? He's a friend of mine, yeah. So Mark McCloskey is an attorney in St. Louis and your audience will remember during the Antifa and BLM rioters broke into a gated neighborhood

and were marching up the street shouting threats and trespassing and in the middle of their you know 4th of July weekend or whatever was their lunch he grabs an AR-15 and stands on his property and didn't do it in an angry or threatening manner he merely did it to demonstrate that he was prepared to defend himself and his property and that enraged Not only the BLM and Antifa protesters But the Soros back prosecutor who was in office who then charged him with unlawful use of a weapon for exercising his constitutional rights Now at the time I worked for our previous governor

Mike Parson and You know, we saw that like that She's violating their rights. And so as soon as they were convicted I drafted the clemency paperwork that the governor signed to Exonerate the McCloskey's because all they did was defend their property from angry rioters So they would have come on his property could he have defended it? Yeah, certainly He has the right to defend himself and his property if he believes his life is imperiled or his wife's life is imperiled

or the lives of a third party are imperiled. So your life has to be in danger. You have to reasonably believe that you're gonna be harmed. Now, to use lethal force, you can use other force, non-lethal force to protect your property. What if they entered his own? Different story. I mean, I think again, that fact,

if somebody's in my house without my permission in an angry and threatening manner, I'm fearful that they're there to do me harm. And that is a fact that goes towards my decision and ultimately my self-defense. Okay. Okay. Covering a lot of ground here. Is there anything else? What else you got going on? You know, we stay pretty busy. Sounds like it.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we like to do the big stuff well, but I also like to do the little stuff well. After we removed the Soros back prosecutor in one year, we increase my office increased criminal prosecution by 133%. Wow. That's on the criminal side. Now on the civil side, consumer protection. The first year I was in office, my consumer protection division collected more than $32 million in settlements and judgments on behalf of defrauded Missouri consumers. That's real money back in the pockets of working Missouri families. My second year in office last year, 2024, we collected north of $400 million in settlements and judgments in our consumer protection division.

So we're setting records, not only on the criminal side, but on the civil side as well. And so just, you know, I want to do the job. I want to do it the right way. I want to deliver results and wins for the people of state of Missouri What do you think your your biggest snags are your biggest hangups your biggest challenges? You know recruitment and retention is always a challenge you've It is tough to find public service minded individuals who are willing to

Work for a lot less work a lot harder and work for a lot less than what they would get in the private sector. But I've got a dedicated team of professionals. We've got about 300 employees at the attorney general's office. We've got offices in Jefferson city at the state Capitol, in St. Louis, Kansas city, Springfield, Cape Girardeau as well.

And we've done a lot. We started a practicum with a university of Missouri law School, just 30 minutes up the road in Columbia. And those law students are provided the opportunity to come work at the AG's office and they get class credit. We kind of get an all hands on deck approach, but it gives us a chance to kind of vet them and see what their interests are and recruit them.

And it's been a great pipeline that's allowed us to staff up. We instituted a, when I took over, I realized we had a lot of, I had a lot of lieutenants and a lot of privates, but not a lot of sergeants. And so that kind of mid three to five year attorney who's tried a few cases and is ready to train that next new attorney, we didn't, we were missing that institutional knowledge and that demographic.

So we instituted a mentorship program where we bring in senior counsel from law firms across the state and they meet with my trial teams and help mentor my trial teams. That's resulted in seven complete defense verdicts in civil defense cases in a 15-month period. That's zero taxpayer dollars paid out to the plaintiffs. And so I can demonstrate that the mentorship program is producing tangible results in the courtroom. It's also reduced our turnover rate. So in 2022, like 67 attorneys left the office,

2023, my first year, 44 attorneys left the office. And I think last year only 20 attorneys left the office. So we're recruiting better, we're retaining better. We've got to, we're training better to deliver better wins. Future aspirations. We've got a we're training better to deliver better wins What future aspirations You know, I I'm so blessed to get to do this, you know It's it if you if you if you don't believe in God you would see it as an accident that I'm here and the part Of the story that you know, we didn't talk about but I think is relevant to answering that question is that

After my wife and I I only is relevant to answering that question is that After my wife and I I only ever wanted to be a prosecuting attorney loved that job was working in warren county Adopted kiddos and when you go from no kids to two kids overnight You started adding up your bills and all of a sudden you realize you can't afford to be in this I couldn't afford to be an assistant prosecuting attorney And so I left that job and went to work for the missouri department ofions on June 1st, 2018, the same day our previous governor took office. And he didn't have a staff when he took office. And he saw me working at DLC and pulled me up to be on his staff. So I was just at the right place at the right time to get a chance to work at the summit

of power in state government. And worked for the governor for several years. And then Eric Schmidt, the sitting attorney general ran for the united state senate was elected and I created an opening that the governor Appointed me to and so it's just being at the right place at the right time It's provided me with these opportunities. And so Who knows where the road leads and you know, what opportunities will be there in the future? but i'm really humbled at the the opportunity to get to do this and It's the show me state results matter and I want to keep fighting winning for Missourians

Well, you're doing a hell of a job if you are to get appointed to a federal position AG maybe FBI. I don't know what else Would you take it yeah You know Would you take it? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think the world of President Trump and his administration, and if those opportunities presented themselves, I think it's absolutely something you do. And it's again about answering the call to service. We're at such a historic and critical juncture in our nation's history. And I'm really excited about the president and his team being in in power and

The people having selected them to wield the authority to make America great again And I'm hopeful and optimistic about the future with him in the White House and his team around him he's got some great folks and they're gonna do a fantastic job and Yeah, you know I Vice president Vance was in Iraq the same time we were in 0506 timeframe and so you've got that kind of next generation you know four years from now and you the hope would be that he would be willing to run for president and would would just Keep the keep the train rolling. So that's that's my my hope right on man. Well, mr. Bailey

It's an honor to interview you and you're just doing Amazing things for the state of Missouri and and for the country because it's once it's a blast radius, you know Blast wave it seems to be going off and you're definitely leading the charge in a lot of positive ways And I just want to say thank you for that and thank you for being here. Hey, thank you my friend appreciate you and and and the And thank you for being here. Hey, thank you, my friend. Appreciate you and your willingness to engage on these issues and cover these important topics

that people might not be able to hear about otherwise. So thank you for what you do. My pleasure. Best of luck to you. Thanks, sir. Are you ready for football? Let's go. Truly ready for football? Yes.

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