America Is Not A Lost Cause With Brandon Straka & Chase Geiser
The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement, founded by former liberal, Brandon Straka, dedicated to providing a place to share #WalkAway testimonials and personal journeys to freedom. It is inspiring, exciting, heart-wrenching, and extraordinary to watch and read the stories of the individuals who no longer accept the current ideology of the political left, what it has become, and are now bravely sharing their stories with the world.
Some of us left long ago, while many have only recently begun to question the narratives of the left. Some people have wanted to #WalkAway for some time now, but have feared the consequences they may endure from friends or family if they were to #WalkAway.
The #WalkAway Campaign encourages and supports those on the Left to walk away from the divisive tenets endorsed and mandated by the Democratic Party of today. Today’s leftist pseudo-liberalism is more committed to expanding the scope of government and pushing us into collectivism.
The Democratic Party of today has adopted a destructive belief system, separating people into groups based on identity and organizing them into camps of victims and oppressors. If you are a person of color, an LGBT person, a woman, or an American immigrant; the Democratic Party wants you to know that you are a victim and destined to stay that way. #WalkAway is the movement fighting back against Democrat exploitation of minority communities.
The Left has become so extreme and relentless that it is now the time for us to stand up and defend the inherent goodness of America and her people.
The #WalkAway Campaign is a movement of Patriots from all walks of life – men, women, black, brown, white, straight, LGBTQ, religious, and non-believers – who share something very important in common.
WE ARE ALL AMERICANS, and we will not surrender our country.
It's One American Podcast Live with Brandon Strzok.
It's an honor and a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for coming on, man.
Thanks for having me.
So to be here.
I've been following you for a long time.
I was not part of the walk away movement because I was never part of the Democratic movement, but I always supported the Democratic movement, or excuse me, the walkaway movement rather.
And, you know, I think it's really important the work that you've been doing, that you've done and that you will continue to do.
And I did do a little bit of a debrief to try to catch up with your story a little bit.
I watched your live stream from six days ago.
I haven't watched the Mark Levin interview yet, but I've heard that's very good.
I'm sorry that they didn't air it on Fox for you.
I do.
What I want to start by asking you, man, and we'll get into all the January 6th, post-January 6th stuff, but I want to start by asking you, what happened on Jan, what was your January 5th like?
Last day my life was happy and normal.
No, I so January 5th, I was in DC.
If I recall correctly, I think I had flown in the night of January 4th.
So I'd probably gotten in late, gone to bed, and then I woke up on the 5th and I was told that, excuse me, I would be speaking at Freedom Plaza.
So, and it's hard to even remember anymore, but I think I probably knew a few days before the 5th that I was going to be speaking because there was, from what I understood, there were like a bunch of different groups that had kind of come together to put up a stage and do an event in Freedom Plaza.
So, I think that around 3 o'clock p.m., I went to Freedom Plaza and I went out and I took the stage and I gave a five-minute kind of fiery speech talking about how we, the out loud and proud conservative movement,
were a big problem for the liberal media and that we were a problem for the Democrats and that we were a problem for the rhinos who didn't support us and didn't support President Trump.
And I was like on the stage shouting phrases like, I think I started the speech by saying, Welcome to the revolution, which is something that I used to say in 2000 in 2019 when I did the, I did a college campus tour and it was called the Walkaway Thought Revolution College Campus Tour.
And I would open each speech at the colleges by saying, Welcome to the revolution.
So it was kind of a nod to that.
And so I gave my speech.
I got done.
I don't remember.
I think I probably spent the rest of the day going back to the hotel and just kind of hanging out and chilling.
I've been sober for more than seven years.
So I don't congratulations.
Well, thank you.
I don't really like go out and drink and party and stuff like that.
So my life is pretty lame.
I probably, I would imagine, went to bed pretty early.
Oh, well, I'm sure I did because the sixth, we had to get up so early.
I mean, I think we had to get up at like four in the morning to be to the ellipse and because there were so many people.
So yeah, I mean, my fifth was just kind of, I did that speech and I probably hung out in my hotel and everything was pretty calm.
And honestly, everything was pretty calm on the sixth as well for me because I wasn't really witnessing any of the extreme craziness that you've seen on the news.
And it was happening on the other side of the building, the west side.
It was happening on the other side of the building.
And I just didn't, I mean, even verbally, like being told, I didn't really hear even from anybody that that had happened.
I don't think anybody where I was had any clue that that was going on.
And it wasn't until many hours later that I went back to my hotel and turned on my TV and started seeing on TV that what was going on.
And so, I mean, it's kind of like in that way, it's almost just like doubly tragic, the everything that I've gone through in the last year and what I'm still going through, because I honestly am, I'm probably one of the last people in the country who knew what had happened on that day.
You know what I mean?
Because most people were at home, saw on TV much earlier than I did.
And so to know that this has just been so destructive and that it's caught, it's cost me so much.
It's just, it's, it's almost, you know, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be kind of funny because it's like, wow, I mean, I, I probably knew less about what was going on than most people in the country.
Sure.
Well, and the reason that I wanted to ask you about the fifth is because in the context of all the bullshit media coverage of January 6th, I think people forget what the sentiment was, what the zeitgeist was, and what the purpose of the Stop the Steel rally was.
It was supposed to be a group of Trump supporters and conservatives coming together and making a show of support for looking into the election, right?
Regardless of what you think, it wasn't, regardless of what you think about election integrity, it was literally just a protest of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe even over a million, some estimates, I don't know, people just wanted to show up and protest, a lot of them with their families.
Most of them went home fairly quickly.
And I just think people have forgotten that it was just a standard sort of like Trump rally thing before, you know, a few, you know, several dozen or however many hundreds of people lost their cool, right?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it was definitely a perfectly legal, peaceful First Amendment protected event.
There was nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
And it wasn't called Stop the Steel for the record.
I know that public.
No, it's okay.
No, I know that the media loves to report that because, you know, the media loves to create these like dog whistles to their audience on the left.
And they're doing it now using words, just common words like patriots or revolution or whatever.
But stop the steel has become a phrase that the left has like made so toxic that it's almost like a dog whistle now that like if you say stop the steel, they equate it with, you know, white supremacy and like a insurrectionist.
Yeah, insurrection.
Yeah, but it's, it's like a white supremacist insurrection and all of this stuff.
And which of course, that's never what stop the steel ever meant or ever was.
But also that is not what the event was called, either of it.
Neither was the event on the sixth.
So the event on the sixth was actually called the March to Save America.
And the reason why they don't want you to know that is because they want you to believe that Trump told everyone to storm the Capitol.
Like as if there was never, I mean, my God, if you just look at the stage that he's speaking on, there are signs all over the stage that say Save America March.
And so the event was called March to Save America, but they had signs all over the stage that said Save America March.
And but now suddenly, you know, it's like, oh, you know, there was this event at the ellipse and he told everyone to storm and then everyone stormed.
And then it's like, no, it was a march.
I mean, it literally was always supposed to be March.
And so that bothers me.
And then the event, I don't know what the event on the fifth was called, but I know it wasn't called Stop the Steel because it was like a coalition of different groups who came together.
And I know it was like American Freedom Rally or something like that.
Yeah.
And so I know that people can hear your entire story about January 6th on the million interviews.
And I know that people can follow your stream, which I recommend that they do, to hear your story about being arrested.
I think it was on January 25th and what that experience was like.
What I'd like to try to do is have this conversation geared toward some feedback or input that maybe they haven't heard from you or in other interviews, just so that I can provide value to my audience and learn.
Because I follow you and I'm going to consume your content.
I'm going to continue to follow you and consume your content.
So I want this conversation to be special, Brandon.
So what I want to ask you, and forgive me if I'm covering stuff that I just don't know that you've already covered, but when you went dark and I saw that, I think you went private on Twitter right after this all happened.
My original visceral emotional response was, holy shit.
Like it just felt like, oh, they're like, they're coming after us now, you know?
And I'm not an insurrectionist.
I'm not a criminal.
I don't, I generally speaking, don't believe in revolutions.
You know, I believe the 1776 revolution was the right thing to do, but I'm not advocating revolution now, not yet.
And when they start coming for normies, then it gets really scary, right?
When they start shutting down bank accounts for truckers, then it gets a little scary, right?
So what was your what was your year like what did you learn from your experience last year that you didn't already know?
Well, a lot.
And I mean, maybe in time, I'll be able to kind of come forward with a more soon, hopeful, and positive message about what I learned.
But it's like, right now, I feel like the majority of what I learned is kind of dark and scary and frightening and alarming.
I mean, I, Because when you asked me that question, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I learned that the left and the government are capable of taking a pretty well-known and well-loved political figure and making him disappear.
And that when he disappears, the conservative media will not say anything about it.
And other conservative influencers will not say anything about it.
And, you know, I have to imagine there are other people.
I mean, it doesn't make me feel very good, but I mean, I would hope that there are people that the right cares enough about that they would say something.
I mean, because I ask myself that question sometimes.
I'm like, what if what happened to me happened to, you know, any number of people who, you know, either maybe they're Fox News personalities or, you know, maybe they're relatives of the president, President Trump, or, you know, or maybe just have a much bigger following than I do.
Or what, I mean, could this have happened to anybody?
Or was it just sort of like the perfect storm for me that it was like, do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, you were big enough for them to make an example out of you, but small enough that you wouldn't have a tremendous amount of support from the establishment, right?
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah.
I kind of think that, like, what if it was like Tommy Larin?
Like, like, if they arrested Tommy Larin issue, like, would anyone say anything?
Because I feel like they would, but I don't know.
I mean, because I really would have thought people would have said something about me.
And it's not, to be clear, yeah, it's hurtful.
I'm not going to lie.
Like, it hurts badly.
But the point isn't really so much how I feel about it or, you know, if I'm like butt hurt or if it, you know, how it feels.
The point is that it can happen.
That's the point.
You know, and it's like, if it can happen to me, there's a lot of other people it can happen to.
And certainly somebody who's not in the public eye so much.
I mean, I really, on the one hand, I want to completely move on from January 6th.
I like, I never want to look back on that day again.
I, I, I hate it.
I hate that there's ever any connection between me and that day in any way, shape, or form.
And I never want to think about it again.
But on the other hand, part of me feels this almost obligation to start reaching out to unknown people who got arrested, who have nonviolent charges, people who have nonviolent misdemeanors for either like trespassing or parading in the Capitol, which by the way, just means that they went into the Capitol.
They may have walked in through an open door.
You know, I don't know that whether I know some people like crawled and crawled in through a broken window and things like that.
And obviously that's not great.
And if you did that, you clearly knew you were doing something wrong when you did that.
But I think a lot of people just walked in through a door and then ended up getting charged and like labeled an insurrectionist and their lives have been ruined, you know, because it's all over the news that they're a mega writer or an insurrectionist.
People have lost their jobs.
People are now like unemployable in their communities.
And I almost feel this obligation in a way to reach out to those people because I'm like, I know what this has done to me.
And I can only imagine what it's done to other people who don't have the support system I have from, you know, like a fan base and a following base from coast to coast.
And I know how expensive it is.
I mean, it is, it's been devastating financially.
And a lot of these people probably were living hand to mouth.
So it's, it's horrible.
You didn't actually enter the Capitol, though, did you?
You just got in trouble being on the wrong on the steps.
Yes, I never went inside.
I was on the East Side Capitol steps for eight minutes.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they've got you in an ankle bracelet and they then they had the FBI arrest you with a SWAT team for that.
SWAT team came to my apartment, presented me with a search warrant, said that they were going to search and seize my property and started taking my computer phone, hard drives.
Did they get that back?
No, I haven't gotten it back yet.
I was told I will get it back.
The prosecutor told my attorney that I will get those things back, but I have no idea when and I'll have to keep trying.
But as of now, no.
Yeah.
And they came and they took me to jail and I spent days in jail.
And then that's what just sort of started this nightmare.
Interesting that they arrested you just five days after the presidential administration switched hands.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
And it sure made things extra terrifying.
That's so for sure.
So, um, I don't want to name names and throw anybody under the bus, but if you could name people who were particularly supportive that you're grateful for, who are some people that come to mind that really stood up for you in a public-facing way, uh, Dinesh T'Souza,
uh, David Harris Jr., Mike Huckabee, Sebastian Gorka, Katie Hopkins, uh, uh, and then people on kind of like the walkaway family, like Shamika Michelle, uh, Mikey Harlow, Carlin Borisinko.
Um, there were, I mean, it was, it wasn't a lot.
I mean, oh, Greg Kelly, Greg Kelly, he was very supportive.
Julie Kelly, um, uh, how could I forget them?
Those are two of the two of the top supporters, but I'd say like that group of people is probably the most supportive people on a public level.
And Mike Huckabee actually really touched my heart because he sent an email out to his subscribers and didn't tell me he was doing it.
I actually found out because people read it and then sent it to me.
But it was just an email that he sent out saying that he had been reading in the news about me being arrested and what I was being accused of and what the basically the government narrative was about me.
And he just said, this is not the Brandon Strzok that I know.
And I don't believe this.
I don't think this story is true.
And I mean, it really, it was, it was really wonderful because it was one of the only times that anybody in a public way, like not only said that they support me, but also said that they didn't believe what was being said about me.
So have all your charges been settled?
Yes.
So the well, thank you.
I was originally charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, and the felonies were dropped.
And the misdemeanor I pled guilty to.
I mean, that was kind of the deal.
Plead guilty to the misdemeanor.
Felonies get dropped.
So that's what I did.
And so now I'm, I'm, I'm, what is the word?
House arrest.
Well, no, no.
What are you doing?
Serving.
I'm serving my sentence right now.
So I'm in the process of serving.
I have three months of house arrest and then three years of probation and community service and fines and restitution and things like that.
Can you count walkaway hours toward community service since it's a 501c3?
What a great idea.
I'll ask my probation officer.
That's what I would do.
That'd be badass.
I work like 18 hours a day, so we'll just bang that out in like three days.
Yeah, there you go, man.
That tip is free.
So what's next for you?
Fuck the past.
What are we going to do now?
Well, okay.
So now we're going to begin the process of moving forward and looking to the future.
And what that means is that, so my team and I spent the entire year working on the things that we would roll out this year to relaunch the organization.
So the number one thing that needed to be dealt with was the fact that Facebook canceled our, well, banned the walkaway campaign group on Facebook.
Yeah.
And that was the community.
We had 510,000 people in that community.
We had all of those video and written testimonials, the walkaway stories.
And then we also, of course, had like the community and the state groups and all of those things.
500,000 people and it's astro turfing, by the way.
It's enraging.
I mean, they, so what the left loves to say is either that it's Russian propaganda, Russian bots, that it was paid actors and fake testimony.
I mean, like, where do these people think I'm getting my funding from?
That I'm able to pay hundreds of thousands of people to make up stories.
Well, but then some people say it's all bots.
Some people said it was shutter stock photos and all that.
I mean, it's just, it's so sad because these people are like leftist reporters, they know that their base are like mentally handicapped people.
And so when they put out stories like, you know, it's all Russian bots, whatever, it doesn't matter that the story's not true.
They know that for years to come.
Like when I go into this day, when I say anything about walkaway on Twitter, there are people in the comments sharing stories that are three or four years old saying that walkaway was created by Vladimir Putin.
And I'm like, it's not that deep.
Like I literally, I'm just a guy who made a video.
I told my story.
It resonated with other people.
So they told their stories.
That's like this.
Vladimir Putin, I'm pretty sure, has better things to do than to cook up an American political walkaway movement.
Like it's so stupid, but these people are so stupid.
So when you made that, when you made that video, and I don't mean to interrupt, but this is a question I've wanted to ask you for a long time.
When you made that first walkaway video, did you have any clue that it was going to blow up like it did?
Because basically it was just sort of this like anomalous, like viral video, right?
Yeah.
Well, and I, no, I didn't know for sure what would happen.
It did exactly what I hoped it would do.
You know, I, but I, you know, before I did walk away, I had a lot of experience previous to that as an actor and singer.
I'm really singing a beautiful voice.
Oh, thank you.
I don't know what you heard, but thank you.
You posted a video.
You did a music video like last week.
Oh, that was when Cindy Lopper taken down.
Yeah, it wasn't that nice of her.
Isn't that LGBT positive?
Whatever.
She's got psoriasis.
Forget about it.
Did you say psoriasis?
Yeah, she does those commercials for that psoriasis drug.
That's called karma, Cindy.
Yeah, she's got a rash.
Forget about it.
Don't talk to her.
Yeah, that's what you get.
So my Cindy Lopper voodoo doll is working.
Yeah, so I, as a singer and an actor and performer, there were a number of times throughout my life where I like I would create these little like cabaret shows and stuff.
And I thought that they were kind of funny.
You know, I mean, I have a pretty good sense of humor, I think.
So I would, I would write these shows and I would use like pop music and or really popular songs maybe from musical theater.
And I would kind of stitch together like a narrative and, you know, kind of do some stand up and do jokes and stuff.
And every time I would create something, I was like, this is so good.
I was like, oh my God, I'm going to get so many people to come and everyone's going to love it and whatever.
And then, of course, like 12 people would show up and like nothing would happen and no one would ever know that I did it.
And so, but I would always, every time I would do something, I would dream really big.
Like, oh, this is going to be the thing that's just, oh, everyone's going to see it and they're going to love it.
So I felt the same way when I made the walkaway video.
I felt really proud of it.
I was like, I think this is amazing.
I think it's really tight.
I think it like the cadence and the rhythm is good.
And I think the music is good.
And I think the message is good.
And I was like, this really should resonate with people, but you just, you never know.
But yeah, I definitely had these fantasies that it would go really viral and that people would be really touched by the message and that they would want to do what I was asking them to do, which was to make their own stories and join this community.
And it worked.
It worked.
And so I didn't like, there was no guarantee.
You know, I wasn't like, oh, this is what's going to happen, but it did do what I hoped it would.
And that's the thing.
Like, when I read criticism of you, there's like the, there's like the grifting claim.
There's that, there's the astro turfing claim.
And it's really obvious to anybody who is capable of even like one or two steps of critical thinking that it doesn't make sense that it's astro-turfing or grifting because you made a video before you had any followers.
Right.
And you had no incentive to make that shit up.
If anything, it was a risk to alienate yourself from your friends and community, right?
And so it's like, like, I don't know if he's a grifter now or not.
I certainly don't think so.
Basically, basically now, based on this conversation alone, it's enough for me to know that.
But I don't know if he's a grifter now or not, but he definitely wasn't when he started.
Right.
And so, so it's just a cool thing that you did, man.
Way to go.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know, well, and the other thing, too, is when people accuse me of being a grifter, I always try to tell them there are better ways to get rich than by doing free events for low-income black people in the black community.
Like we raise money, my team and I, we constantly have to raise money because we never have enough.
And then when we get the money, we go and we spend it doing events in Harlem and downtown Los Angeles and Chicago and Atlanta, Georgia, and AOC's District, District 14 in New York City and stuff.
We do these events for the black and Hispanic and LGBT community.
And we do these events because we're trying to get people to show up and listen to what we have to say, think differently, open their minds.
So we do these events for free because we know that like, who's going to pay money to go to an event to listen to people say things that are the opposite of what you believe politically?
It's not a good formula for getting rich, you know?
So I'm just like, I always think I'm like, what is the grift?
Like doing free events in Harlem is like the worst grift anybody could ever come up with.
Yeah, I've been accused of grifting before and I don't even sell anything or ask for money.
They just say fucking grifter.
I think it's because my camera looks nice.
They're like, oh, you must be making money.
Well, I mean, I do sell merchandise and t-shirts and stuff.
And I guess you have to.
Yeah, I guess maybe that's the griff they're talking about.
But even that, I don't like, I don't feel the least bit guilty about that because first of all, of all the t-shirts we've ever sold with walkaway, I've designed nearly all of them.
I'd say at least 85, 90%.
They're my phrases and designs and stuff like that.
And so it's like, if I create something and people want it and they choose to buy, I'm not forcing anyone to buy anything.
I don't get how that's a grift either.
Like, if you want to buy the merch, buy it.
If you don't like me, don't buy it.
Yeah, exactly.
So we were talking about before I so rudely interrupted you.
Thank you for humoring me.
We were talking about what's next for the walkaway movement.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Facebook banned the group.
So we knew that the first thing that we needed to do was get that going again and replace that group, but we have to do it in a very autonomous and safe way.
So we did our research about what it would involve to build our own social platform.
We wanted to base the kind of look and feel and functionality on Facebook and how Facebook operates because what we really ultimately wanted to do was make this as seamless a transition as possible.
So when we tell people, we're calling it Walkaway Social.
And when Walkaway Social launches, we want people to be able to just log on and go, ah, this looks familiar.
Like I know, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I know where I know what to do.
We didn't want to like reinvent the wheel and have people be like, what does that button do?
And what's that word?
And where is, you know, so we hired a development team and we've been working with them for many months to build out this social platform, which will live in its own domain under walkawaycampaign.com.
And we're hosting it on servers that are run by a conservative run company.
And like our security is through a conservative cybersecurity company.
And it's so just like at every level, we're not taking any chances.
You know what I mean?
We're like everyone that we're doing business with in association with this are conservatives.
And not to mention the fact that I actually, I want to support conservatives and conservative companies.
So if we're going to spend a lot of money and work on this big project, I don't want to give it to leftist tech people anymore.
So that's the biggest thing that we're working on and going to be rolling out in this coming year.
But we also have designed this whole sort of activism advocacy program through our PAC, the Walkaway Campaign Pack, which people can go to WACPAC.org to check out the Walkaway Campaign Pack.
And that's going to be really cool because we're providing these very unique tools to people to basically just be able to type in, you know, like their name and address.
And they're instantly going to have access to their congress people, their state and local representatives and politicians.
They're going to have access to information about people who are running for office.
We've created scorecards based off of the walkway values that the people chose.
We did a massive poll asking people what the issues are that are most important to them.
And from those, we chose the top five issues and we ranked them out.
And then we're creating scorecards for every member of Congress and every candidate to see how they rank in upholding the walkaway values, which are things like border security, election integrity, censorship.
Freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech.
First Amendment, second amendment.
Exactly.
Basic shit that we used to like all agree with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And take for granted.
That's, that's for sure.
Okay.
Yeah, exactly.
And so people will be able to, you know, click on certain candidates, see what their score is, and then even kind of look up why they have the score that they have, because we're basically going to list out, you know, various bills that they voted on and things like that.
And if they voted yes or voted no on things that are upholding these values that are important to people.
So we're just going to provide a lot of resources for people to get involved and also, you know, teach people activism, even if they've never done it before, teach them how to register voters and how to knock on doors and how to write to their congress people or how to create petitions and get people to sign them and just all different things that I think a lot of people don't know how to do.
And if someone just showed them, they would love to take that initiative.
And so we're going to teach and show people those things through our pack.
And so I think that that's really exciting.
But and then we're going to just get back out and do what we've been doing, which is doing our minority focused events, doing college campus tours, doing all sorts of things to just engage demographics of people who are traditionally voting Democrat and try to get them to open their mind and rethink that.
So let me ask you this.
And this is this is sort of the place that I, that I am mentally about this.
There's obviously no good reason to be a leftist when you think about it, right?
Other than just sort of emotional naivete, right?
Just thinking you're doing the right thing for your neighbor.
And, you know, so the alternative, of course, is the Republican Party in our two-party system.
I know we have more parties, but we don't.
And, you know, you know, from last year, your experience, that when shit hits the fan, you got people that stick up for you and you got people that don't.
And having experienced too much silence than is reasonable from establishment Republicans and establishment right, with the exceptions that you made, that you mentioned named.
Do you think that the Republican Party is, do you think there's any hope that the Republican Party will actually respond?
Oh, God.
I'm not trying to ask you a question that's going to screw you over, by the way.
I'm just genuinely curious as a concern citizens.
I don't run from any questions.
So, I mean, I think one thing that my followers really like about me is that they feel like I always tell them the truth, even if they don't love what I have to say.
But no, my answer to that question is first and foremost, there has to be an enormous amount of reformation.
We have to get a lot of people out who are ineffective, spineless, cowardly, incapable, incompetent, on an impotent, on and on and on.
And we have to get a lot more people in who have like that kind of fighting spirit, kind of like Donald Trump has, like Ron DeSantis has, like, you know, like Kerry Lake has.
And I think that's part of the first step.
I'm curious to see if we do take back the House and if we take back the Senate, but even if we just take back the House, what kind of difference that will make?
Like, I'm very curious to see if we take back the House, will they continue the January 6th committee, but actually just change the direction of it and start investigating all of the people who need to be investigated who made decisions that contributed to what happened, the security breaches and the security problems that happened on that day.
Like, will that happen?
Or are they going to just go back to playing nice and be like, well, we just want to be good guys.
We want to be nice guys.
So yes, the Democrats are mean and they're fascistic and tyrannical, but that's not the kind of people we want to be.
So let's just be nice.
And then we'll go through two more years of nothing and then they'll take control again.
And then we'll start all getting prison again.
So I don't know.
I mean, I know that the people who are in office right now aren't doing their jobs.
And then there's a lot of blowhards too, who kind of act like they're like the tough guys who are going to change everything.
And I'm like, okay, well then do it.
But I think time will tell.
But I know for sure that a lot of these people have to, we have to get rid of them and then get some new blood in there who are tough.
Well, and my concern is, and this, this could be just my own ignorance.
So I'm not making an accusation here.
Okay.
But when I think about Ted Cruz, this is somebody who I almost always agree with what he says.
But I can't think just as like a regular citizen.
And like I said, this could not be the case, but I can't think of one fucking law he's passed that's protected my rights or done anything that I like.
What is he like, okay, but what have he done?
You know, like, and at least with Rand Paul, who I also have the same problem.
This is also, again, could be my own ignorance of just not being aware of what Congress is doing.
But Rand Paul, at least he got Fauci to perjure himself.
Like, that's something, you know, right?
Right.
But like, like, what are these, you know, Republicans who speak and I agree with them?
I'm like, all right, but what are you doing?
You know, like, what are you doing about freedom of speech?
We have people getting banned and censored right and left, just right, actually.
And are you going to pass any legislation?
Like, even if you proposed a constitutional amendment that expanded the power, the protections under the First Amendment, even if you proposed it with no hope of it ever passing, at least you proposed it.
So like, what are you doing, right?
Like, attention to the issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how do we solve this censorship problem?
Well, first, let's talk about the Ted Cruz problem.
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Well, he's another one that, see, I'm kind of reaching this phase of my journey in the world of politics where I'm not so enamored anymore with just the opportunity to meet certain people and have a relationship with them of some kind.
Like I met Ted Cruz several years ago and I was like, oh, you know, and shook hands and talked.
And he gave me his card with his phone number.
And I thought, oh, this is so great.
And I feel that way.
Yeah.
And then I went to several different events, parties where I ran into him and we talked again and it was all great.
But what I started to notice was that anytime I reached out to him, which was not often, it's not like I wasn't emailing him every day, like, you know, like stalking him.
But I did email him three or four times over the course of several years.
Once when Walkaway campaign got banned on Facebook, once during this last year, when I was going through this utter hell with all of these charges, and he never responded to anything.
And I asked him for representation as an attorney?
No, no.
No, I just, I literally just said, can we talk?
I just said, you know, I'm really being crushed by the might of the federal government.
I'm one person.
I'm just like a guy living in America who has like the federal government and all of the liberal media coming down on me.
I have little to no voices of support on my side of the aisle.
I don't know why.
And can you help?
And nothing, nothing.
And I feel like I'm not the only person who's had that experience.
So I don't know.
I just, it's things like that that I'm like, stop going on television and talking tough and saying all the right words to make people think that you're doing something and that you really care about people when your actions are not reflective of that.
In my experience.
So one of my biggest concerns is someone who's trying to build an audience and have these conversations.
Basically, the only reason I not the only reason, but one of the main reasons I started this podcast is so that I could hang out with people I admire, like yourself.
And I'm getting to that point now, which is pretty cool.
That's one of the most rewarding things about it is being able to develop relationships with people that you could only follow before.
And obviously, that being said, there's a serious concern of censorship, right?
And I know you're building the alternative platform.
I know Getter is an alternative platform.
I know TrueSocial is an alternative platform.
But up until this point, all the alternatives have failed for one reason or another.
What is the solution to this big tech censorship problem that we have?
Because it seems to be very overwhelming.
I don't, first of all, I don't think that they've all failed.
I think that some have failed.
I actually really enjoy using Getter.
We're live on Getter right now, man.
Are we?
Yes, sir.
By the way, you guys, keep watching this podcast.
Don't turn it off.
But when you're done, go follow me if you're not already.
Go hit the follow button.
In the post as well.
Even at my best, like when you know, when I was on Fox News regularly doing interviews, there was no legal problem.
Everything was going really good.
Like my YouTube game was always terrible.
And I kind of came hard.
It is hard.
And I've kind of come to the conclusion that YouTube is one of those that if you didn't get in early, it's really hard to break through.
Because I think like a lot of the people who have hundreds of thousands of subscribers or like million plus subscribers, I think that they started like a decade ago, a lot of them, or like a long time ago when there was a lot of like new audience coming to YouTube.
And, but like now, I feel like people subscribe, people probably subscribe to exactly the number of accounts they want to subscribe to.
They don't want to subscribe to a new account.
And it is.
It's really hard now.
Like even if you're somebody who has a big following and people like you, like my videos get very few, like less than 10,000 views.
And I think my subscribers are like 72,000 or something like that, which is weird because on Twitter, I mean, before I got arrested, I had close to 700,000 followers on Twitter and a very, very active like Twitter engagement and following.
Now I'm just getting back.
You know, I've been off for over a year and I just started tweeting again less than a month ago.
And I think I've, I think I've gained about 20,000 followers in the last month, which is great.
But I can tell my engagement is not where it was before I got arrested.
You know, my tweets are getting like two, 300 retweets.
And it was like in the thousands before.
Well, there was a giant purge too on the platform after you left.
Oh, was there?
Yeah, a lot of the, a lot of the like election fraud accounts, not even the ones that were about it, but if you tweeted about it, they would just purge you.
I think there were like 700,000 users.
They got wiped.
So I bet you lost a lot of your most engaged followers.
Oh, yeah.
And that's probably true.
You're right.
Cause that's why, yeah, I close to 700,000.
And then by the time I got arrested, I think I was down to like 510.
And then over the course of the last year, when I just wasn't on social media at all, working through my case, I lost an additional like 15.
But basically, by the time I started using my Twitter account again about a month ago, I was at like 497,000 or something like that.
And it's slowly building back up.
But, you know, it's, I'm finding that I'm not having fun with it like I did before I got arrested.
And I don't, I don't think it's it, well, it probably is partially because I'm just everything I've been through, but I also just, it's, it's just not fun.
I, I, like, you know, before January 6th, I mean, it was already bad enough when so many conservatives would get banned for saying this or banned for saying that.
But then COVID happened and they started doing all of their crazy, like, you know, this is misinformation about COVID and this is misinformation about election fraud and this is misinformation.
Like that just, it's hard for me to understand how anyone still uses these platforms.
Like I basically, I'm on Twitter right now out of nothing but necessity.
And soon I won't be because I'm not going to continue to put up with it.
I mean, I just, I want to, if they don't ban me over the next year, I guess I'll use that time to try to encourage my followers to follow me somewhere else.
And if they do ban me, then I guess it is what it is.
But it's, it's just, it's not enjoyable.
And I don't, I don't.
That's a good point generally, though.
Like social media just sucks now.
Do you remember how fun Facebook was in 2011?
Yeah.
It was fucking awesome.
Yeah.
It wasn't.
I mean, I was having a blast.
I was scoping out girls I was interested in.
It was funny.
The memes were great.
The videos were like, you know, it was Charlie bit my finger, not, you know, a Veritas video of holy shit, CNN's taking over the world and they're lying about it.
You know, it's like, I want to watch Charlie bit my finger, not some CNN executive being hidden cam's, right?
Because I know that's going to break my heart.
It's true.
Yeah, it's true.
And I think, unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of living in that world anymore because it's, you know, Trump, like Trump running for office, I think, was an amazing thing.
It certainly woke me up and changed my life.
And I think even despite everything I've been through the last year, my life is way better than it was because I know the truth now.
And I'm not like, you know, a member of the sheep mob who's just being manipulated and brainwashed.
And like that is worth everything, having that kind of awakening.
But the problem is that when he became successful and then he ultimately won, it just broke everything.
Like everybody broke.
Kathy Griffin was not the only person who broke.
Like he broke everybody on the left.
And that's what led to, I think, social media going crazy, Twitter, Facebook, you know, those things.
They're not fun anymore because everyone's deranged on the left.
Yeah.
And most people don't make this connection.
But I own a social media advertising business.
So I'm intimately familiar with policies and everything that goes on in terms of platform content.
And people don't understand that the Russian collusion hoax.
And we know without a doubt that it was bullshit.
And we've known for a long time, but it's more and more obvious every day.
Durham just blasted that report about proving that Hillary Clinton was paying contractors to spy.
Due to that hoax, you remember when Trump won along with that Russian hoax was the Cambridge Analytica scandal where Facebook suddenly got accused of leaking data to Russian assets who used that data in order to make advertisements, which by the way, you can download those ads.
Congress uploaded them and they're terrible ads and there's no way they can do it.
Right.
Like Jesus are wrestling Satan and stuff.
Yeah.
So my point that I'm trying to make is the government used the Cambridge Analytica scandal to frighten Facebook into totally revamping their political ads policies, their content policies, because they were terrified that they would be accused of whatever is, whatever law is being broken by leaking data to enemy foreign enemies.
Right.
And so that whole thing wasn't just like, you know, we're going to try to impeach Trump with this Russian hoax thing.
It was also used, it forked to, all right, we're going to leverage this in order to pressure the big tech companies to crack down on content that is harming us in elections.
And that was where it started, in my opinion.
It was with the Cambridge Analytica bullshit lie scandal in the association with Russia and the alleged election fraud of 2016, not 2020, right?
Because remember, the Democrats didn't buy that Trump was a legitimate president.
I think even Hillary said that he wasn't a legitimate president due to that Russian hoax.
And so this was this censorship started happening.
And then we started seeing it started with Alex Jones.
Everybody thought it was going to end with Alex Jones.
And it's gone all the way down to small accounts who just say something that the government doesn't agree with, the narrative doesn't agree with.
Right.
No, I agree with you.
And I, you know, it'll be very, is Truth Social launching next week?
It's supposed to be February sometime, but I don't know if it's going to happen.
There's a lot of delays in tech launches.
Well, because the last I had, what is going on with my screen?
Why did you tell me this?
Hold on.
It just popped up.
Oh, did it?
Okay.
The last I had heard, I thought that they had delayed it till March or the end of March.
But then now everyone's saying like next week.
So I don't know.
But I did just kind of pre-sign up right now and create my account.
It looks pretty good.
Yeah.
I'll give it a shot.
I'll give it a shot.
The thing is with this, like it's really easy to get people out of protest to sign up for your platform.
What's really hard is to get them to come back and keep using it.
So like Gab is a perfect example of this.
Everybody signed up, but when you post on Gab, even if you have tens of thousands of followers, you get like three likes on your post, you know?
And that's a problem, right?
And the engagement's why people keep coming back.
So hopefully, you know, some your alternative or these other alternatives.
I think Getter's doing a good job of it that can figure out how to make people feel that reward when they actually publish content.
Well, and it's, you know, it's unfortunate that there always has to be, I think, kind of some moment, some catalyst that sort of shifts everything and turns everything.
You know, when Joe Rogan announced that he was going over to Getter, it was just like, there was this flood.
And, you know, even my following went up substantially over the course of a few days and stuff.
And then all of a sudden, Joe Rogan became disenchanted with Getter.
And in my opinion, it was over wrong information.
I don't think that what he was upset about was correct.
And so now I don't think he's using it anymore, which really sucks.
But I mean, I think there needs to be a moment like that where there's, you know, some sort of impetus that changes the tide.
And then, you know, and it'll happen because, well, one of two things is going to happen.
Either Twitter, Truth Social is going to launch and it's going to be good and it's going to be really successful and it's going to put a huge dent in Twitter's user base.
And then Twitter's going to realize that they can't just keep banning people willy-nilly because now we have a viable alternative that is becoming more attractive every day.
I don't remember what my other thing is, but I wanted to, yeah, yeah.
Or it just flops, right?
Would be the alternative.
Well, yeah, but that's not the road I was going down.
I was going to say, oh, I think I was going to say, or that Twitter is going to keep banning people and show blatant disregard for their conservative audience.
And then at that, eventually there's going to be a straw that breaks the camel's back where people are finally like, okay, why do we keep coming back to this abusive relationship?
You know, it's time to either go to Getter or Truth Social or whatever it is that's working well.
But again, I like Getter.
I love it too.
Yeah, I don't find it to be buggy or issue-based or like, I don't really have any problems.
They need to add some more features.
It needs private messaging, which they say is coming.
And it needs a few little things here and there, but it's pretty good.
And I think engagement is really good.
The engagement's huge on the live streams.
I think I have almost 6,000 followers on Gitter and the chat and the live streams, it's like flying.
But I've only got, I've got 50,000, over 50,000 followers on Twitter, and there's like nothing, right?
So something's going on that is really working for Getter.
And I'm very, very optimistic about the future of that platform.
Well, and you just brought up another thing about Twitter that's just total crap.
I know people are going to think I have my little tinfoil hat, but it's true.
Like, I believe that Twitter is able to deploy algorithms to mess with your following.
And the reason why I, and it started, for me, it started right around the time of the election, 2020 in November, because my following for like a year and a half, two years, I could count on the number, and it would go up a lot, hundreds, sometimes thousands a day, up, up, up, always going up.
Then all of a sudden, right then, it wasn't, you know, and it wasn't a matter that you could say, like, well, maybe it was the election and then people lost interest in politics.
It was that it was like it was on a loop.
Like it would go up by 200 and down by 200 and up by 200 and down by 200 and up by 200 and down by 200.
And it just like kept doing it so that I was never able to gain any momentum.
And after a while, and sometimes I would like sit there, it sounds like a lunatic, but sometimes I would just like hit refresh just to watch it because it would like it would increase by 10, 15, 20, and I'd hit refresh and it would decrease by 40.
And I'm like, 40 people did not unfollow me in that 10 seconds.
Like that didn't happen.
Especially if you didn't recently tweet.
So if you didn't recently tweet something inflammatory, there's no way 40 people just went to your profile to delete, to unfollow you.
But it's still happening with my account.
Like yesterday or earlier today, 500 followers just dropped off.
It just decreased by 500.
And I'm like, that's literally not possible.
Like it's not possible that at the exact moment, 500 people were like, nope.
And why?
I mean, like, like you said, it's not even, I'm not even like super active right now.
So, I mean, it's not like I said something so egregious, they just had to like unfollow my account.
But see, that kind of thing on Getter, like Getter has far fewer users, but my following is always going up.
Like I always feel like I'm making progress.
Every day, my following goes up.
And like that is the direction it should be headed in.
So I'm in that way, I'm kind of like, whatever it is that Twitter's up to, whatever it is that they're doing, I'm like, why would you even want that look for your platform?
Because it basically makes it look like your platform isn't doing well.
And you've got a new platform that's much smaller than you guys are.
And people who are joining, their followings are going up and up.
It makes it look like there's constantly new users engaging.
It makes it look like it's growing and growing.
And I'm like, Twitter, I feel like if you're a conservative, you just get this feeling that like Twitter's dying kind of.
And then you're like, certainly is for us in terms of how much longer is our user base even going to be allowed on the platform.
So that being said, obviously there's a lot of things to be really concerned about in this country.
And it's easy to get to a place of hopelessness in terms of, hey, this isn't fixable.
It's just going to have to collapse and be rebuilt.
And I fall down that road sometimes, especially if there's like a series of three or four like major bad things that happen in a row in terms of the news and what the government decides to do.
Do you think that there's hope to restore this country?
And what gives you that hope if so?
And why not if you don't?
Yeah, I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't think that.
I mean, I think you can't be the leader of a movement called walkaway and not have named it runaway, by the way.
A lot of people say that.
Yeah.
Run away, like body python.
Diamond and self always say run and run like hell.
Yeah.
I think, you know, I believe, you know, and perhaps I'm a little bit biased, but like I believe that the key to saving this country is walkaway movements like walkaway, because if we put a lot of focus on particularly minor,
like all people, but particularly minorities, getting them to wake up and think for themselves, stop being manipulated, manipulated, stop being brainwashed, it literally fixes every problem that we have.
Number one, the left can no longer manipulate race and racism because non-Caucasians will no longer believe them and they'll see what they're doing.
So the media won't be able to exploit these fake hate crimes and fake stories about race and race this and race that and homophobia this and homophobia that.
And then these people who are voting Democrat because of these manipulations will stop voting Democrat because of these manipulations.
And eventually what will happen is that the whole toxic ideology of identity politics will begin to evaporate and go away too, because what will happen next is that all of these minorities will start to see they're not hated by their political opposites on the other side of the aisle.
And in fact, a lot of them will probably consider joining their political opposites on the other side of the aisle.
And I think at the end of the day, everybody wants to be successful.
Everybody wants to do well.
Everyone wants to feel good about themselves and feel financially secure and what have you.
And the only way to do that is to step into your power and do what it is that you do and make your life work for you.
And no one's ever going to do that if all you ever do is turn on the television and listen to how you're hated by more than half the country and that you can't succeed and you're stuck in a victim complex and in an oppressor complex and that no matter what you do, no one's ever going to let you get ahead.
And, you know, it's once we start breaking people out of that, everything that they're doing begins to crumble and fall.
And so, you know, I'm hoping that going forward, more and more and more and more people will support Walkaway and what we're doing, even if they're not a walkaway themselves, even if they're a lifelong conservative or Republican.
Those are the people that we call hashtag walk with because, you know, we want people to walk with those who walk away and also support the organization, you know, because we could be doing so, so much more if we had the resources to do that.
And so go to walkawaycampaign.com.
Check us out and, you know, support, donate, volunteer, do whatever you can.
But at the very least, go and check out our new website because it's awesome.
We just, we just rolled out a new walkawaycampaign.com.
It's really cool.
It is very cool.
And so what I want to say in closing, because we're coming up on an hour, first thing I want to say, Brandon, is thank you for all that you've done.
I genuinely, genuinely appreciate it.
It was something that you started with only a risk to yourself.
It's something that you perpetuated even though you didn't have to.
And you've overcome more than most Americans have in perhaps decades or centuries even to some extent with what you've been through.
And I am so sorry for what you went through last year in particular.
And if you believe that there is hope for this country, even with that fucking ankle bracelet on, then I believe that there's hope for this country.
So I thank you for inspiring me and we're going to keep fighting the good fight.
Thank you for saying all that.
That really touched my heart and it meant a lot to me.
