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July 9, 2023 - Huckabee Today
49:43
FBI Whistleblower SPEAKS OUT | FULL EPISODE | Huckabee
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Tonight on Huckabee, FBI whistleblower Stephen Brand, Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation Sean McClellan, speed painter Rick Alonzo, Christian rocker John Schlitt.
That's Trey Corley and the Music City Connection.
And I'm your announcer Keith Bilbrey.
- Ah, here's Mike Huckabee! - Oh, we have we have one of the best studio audiences we've had in a long time here tonight.
We're going to have a great show, and we're so glad that you have joined us.
Now, if you watched a few weeks ago, we enjoyed a comedian on this show named Ross Bennett who talked about aging, and he made this observation.
If I do any kind of work around the house, I make two noises.
I'll show you.
You'll get it.
You'll get it.
Watch it.
Ah!
Ah!
That's it.
That's the whole joke.
Boy, I'll tell you, can many of us identify with that?
I believe we can.
I mean, it was one of the funniest, albeit sad realities of reaching that age in which aches and pains are a part of every bodily movement.
I mean, it was evident that a bunch of people in our studio audience knew it all too well by the combination of gut-busting laughter and sighs of accepting that Very description as a new normal for their lives.
Now, to all of us who too clearly identify with the physical challenges of getting older, there are some serious upsides.
Experiences of life tend to make us less excitable, and we don't panic at the first notice of a health, financial, or a personal crisis.
I mean, we've got decades of perspective, and we realize that the things happening now are probably not the worst who ever happened to us.
And we've lived through those, and we will live through these too.
We may be a little slower in the stride, but mentally, we're better prepared to analyze our challenges and put them into a lifetime of context, usually meaning that we just shrug our shoulders and we power through.
Birthdays, Christmases, and occasions like Father's Day, they don't fill us with the anticipation that we're about to receive the equivalent of the newest Star Wars toy anymore.
No, if we want it or we need it, we probably already have it.
I mean, why wait for months for something that's gonna sit in the closet, then get wrapped in paper, placed under an artificial tree for two more months when we can have it right now and get the use of it while we're still on this side of the dirt?
There you go.
There is a certain level of wisdom that comes from getting bounced around and beaten up by life's challenges.
It's like watching my cousin Vinny 12 times.
I mean, we pretty much know what's coming next.
We're prepared for it, and we still think it's funny.
Identical.
I mean, we've made some dumb mistakes when we were young that we pay for now, like playing our music in the 60s and 70s louder than a four-engine jumbo jet, or drinking old-school Southern-style sweet tea that was one-part tea and four-part sugar.
Are sitting in the sun in the summer without sunscreen?
Are even the awareness that it mattered?
Okay, so now we're deaf, slightly diabetic, and we see the dermatologist twice a year.
And we have 20 spots frozen from our face from sitting around the pool when we were 16. By gosh, we know how to sew a button on our shirt.
We can boil an egg without consulting Google.
And we know how to find Philippians in the Bible, and we don't call it Philippines.
And we could change a tire if somehow we couldn't find our AAA card and get somebody else to do it for us.
We know which fork to use.
We know how to make coffee in an old-fashioned percolator.
And we know how to read a paper map.
And best of all, we really do know the difference between a man and a woman.
Yeah!
How about that?
We somehow were able to get old without having helmets when we rode bicycles.
We can still walk even though we fell off metal monkey bars on hard ground at the school playground at age six.
And we thought it was fun to ride behind the Mosquito Fogger in summer.
There were some other people in our audience who did that too, right?
We grew up when seat belts were first just kind of offered, then they were suggested.
And eventually they were required.
But on our long car trips, man, we rode in the bed of a pickup truck and the dogs rode up in the cab.
I mean, those of us who are a little slower in our walk and a little more sure in our talk, we may be ridiculed by those in their 20s and 30s, but we get the last laugh because while they're trying to figure out how to pay rent and their monthly smartphone plan, We're out spending what would have been their inheritance, doing trips and cruises, buying RVs and high-end music systems, eating in nice restaurants, and giving away more money to church than we ever thought we'd even make.
So if I say, when I move, followed by, just remember that one day when we're gone and you are faced with more boxes of our stuff than Joe Biden had sitting in his garage by the Corvette, It's all yours to go through and get rid of.
And I say that makes us old, but a whole lot smarter than you thought we were.
Yeah.
We've got a jam packed show for you tonight.
So sit back and let us entertain you.
Keith, what's in store for these folks tonight?
Well, coming up, Unmasking the Truth with FBI agent turned whistleblower Stephen Friend.
And later, Grammy Award winner John Schlitt performs.
All ahead on Huckabee.
Go to MikeHuckabee.com and sign up for his free newsletter and follow AdGum Mike Huckabee on Twitter.
Thank you.
Welcome back.
Stephen Friend is a former FBI special agent turned whistleblower.
He testified to Congress that the agency he worked for was manipulating cases and data, and a lot of it in the wake of the January 6th Capitol riot, sometimes to make it look like domestic terrorists are around every corner in America.
He spoke to Congress and he told them, that's just not so.
And the conservative Americans are being unfairly targeted.
I want you to welcome to our show in Nashville, a true hero and a voice of courage, Stephen Friend.
Give him a big welcome.
Steve, I'm honored to have you here.
You've written a spellbinding book that really goes into this.
It's called True Blue.
It's your story.
But it doesn't start with all of your time at the FBI, but it really starts, you were a kid growing up, you went to the military, you served with honor, you were a cop for a while in the local area, ended up getting to the FBI, which for most police officers is kind of like the pinnacle.
Then some things started happening that you knew weren't the way they were supposed to be.
When was the first inkling that something wasn't quite the way it's supposed to go?
You know, after I transferred to Florida in 2021, and I took the transfer to work on child pornography cases, and for a few months, my executive management reassigned me to work on domestic terrorism, and I was concerned about the cases I was working.
And they said that those were going to be a local matter and no longer resourced.
And that to me was a watershed moment because the priorities of the FBI and for law enforcement in general, I think that crimes against children should always be paramount.
I think all of us would agree with that, but there are people at the top levels of the FBI that decided that they were going to pursue and prosecute every single person they could find who just attended the rally on the Capitol, January 6th.
And you personally saw some people that were targeted That did nothing wrong.
They were waved in by a Capitol Police officer.
They didn't steal anything.
They didn't hurt anyone.
They didn't break anything.
They walked in, looked around, and they walked out because they were told that they could, but they were still targeted.
Was that what kind of bugged you to see that?
Yes, I think that the FBI has now embraced this mindset.
The process is the punishment for so many people.
And in the case you're talking about, this was a gentleman who had gone to President Trump's speech.
He'd walked over to the Capitol.
He'd asked for permission to walk into the people's house.
The police gave him that permission.
And here we were interviewing him, and we couldn't even tell him what his fate would be because it was out of our hands.
And that, to me, is not in keeping with the tradition of law enforcement.
Stephen, there was another thing, and you talk about it in your book, and I thought it was very concerning.
There were times when the FBI used SWAT teams to go and make arrests for people who had committed what turned out to be a misdemeanor.
You were on the SWAT team, and you challenged this thinking to your superiors and were told, maybe you don't belong here.
Yes, I was a SWAT team member for five years.
It's certainly a legitimate law enforcement tool, and I think that it has its time and its place.
But for this case, this was a gentleman who had pledged to be cooperative.
And I honestly felt like I was the person the day before Waco or the day before Ruby Ridge in that office saying, I've got to throw the flag on this, guys.
And the response that I got from then was just woeful ignorance.
And it was a situation that they'd never even considered anything bad could possibly happen.
And they said to me, "Steve, you have a really great reputation, career in front of you.
Are you sure you want to sacrifice it for this?" But you did have the courage to challenge some of the things that were being done because you knew it didn't go to the way you had been trained as an FBI agent.
It was an over-the-top use of force that wasn't necessary, and as you said, could be dangerous.
Somebody could get hurt when a SWAT team shows up.
They don't know why.
No, and here's the thing.
We received training in the FBI Academy.
We go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
We go to the MLK Memorial.
And the purpose of that is to hammer home that those sort of civil rights violations and genocide and atrocities can only occur if law enforcement just follows orders and goes along and nobody's willing to throw the flag, raise the alarm, and say, are we the bad guys here?
You know, when you were a child, you wrote about this and I thought it was very, very poignant.
You were the target of some bullies in your elementary school.
And one day you decided to fight back and you got hammered pretty hard by the principal.
And you know, you learned, I guess the hard way that sometimes the bullies win.
And in your case, it looks like at times the bully is winning here.
It's disturbing to me.
And I think to a lot of other Americans, what can we do?
You know, I think there's a lot of reforms that could be proposed, but I think at all that we have to look back to our history.
And the history is small, our republicanism localized.
Don't think of it as defunding the police.
We need to empower the local police.
And those mechanisms exist...
I think that is a very good thing because when you have a federal agency whose political leadership has become very political and very biased, and then they weaponize the power of government to go after only certain people who have a point of view they don't agree with.
I mean, that is a dangerous threat.
When I hear people talking about a threat to democracy, I don't know of anything more dangerous than the government becoming Some type of ogre going after people because they don't agree with the position of the people in power.
That's frightening.
Yeah, and you have two main threats.
You have the ideological component, where the FBI is now this weaponized political apparatchik for this far-left government.
And then you have the statistical portion, which I've tried to raise attention to, and that's a quota system that the FBI operates under for the certain number of arrests they have to make and cases they have to open.
And as a result of that, their budgets get boosted and individuals, senior executives in the FBI, make between $30,000 and $50,000 in bonuses every year because their subordinates make a certain number of arrests.
That is also disturbing.
Now you came to a place where you couldn't deal with it anymore.
They asked for your gun and your badge.
You became a whistleblower.
Now, normally in federal government, a whistleblower is supposed to be protected.
How protected have you been?
I think anything other than that.
You know, I came forward, and I don't have to be right.
The law says I just have to be reasonable.
And as a result of me coming forward, the FBI contrived a way to suspend me from service.
And in my case, they said that I improperly looked at the employee handbook, not blowing the whistle.
I looked at the handbook improperly.
What's been the reaction from rank and file agents and other people that have seen what you have stood for?
I've gotten some very positive feedback, especially from retired agents who said that I kind of represent the old school agent mindset that they had.
But I think I was most impressed in the immediate aftermath of the hearing that we set up a give-send-go for the two gentlemen that sat at my sides who had been out of work for, in Marcus's case, a year and a half.
Garrett's case had been about nine months.
And we received about 10,000 to 11,000 small donations.
From the American population and raised about a half million dollars to them in a week.
Wow.
And that's a wonderful way to say these aren't rich guys.
They were just doing law enforcement duty.
They stood up and they cried foul when they knew it was happening.
And for that, they got punished.
But the American people have started coming through for folks like you and the others.
And I think it's high time that we start realizing that your voices of courage telling us what's really going on, the only way this gets fixed.
Stephen, your book is fantastic.
I really do hope that if people want to know from a first-hand perspective, not what somebody has heard, but what somebody has lived, this book tells a true blue, and I highly recommend it.
It's got some great insights, and the story that you tell is just compelling.
I want to say, once again, on behalf of all of us here, both watching by television and in this room, Thank you for your courage.
God bless you, my friend.
Thank you.
I hope you will go and pick up this new book.
It's powerful.
True Blue, my journey from beat pop to suspended FDI whistleblower.
It's available now, and we've got the links to get it on Huckabee.tv.
Right now, Keith Bilbrey has a scoop on the rest of the show, so Keith, go ahead and spill the beans.
Love to.
TBN host and visionary author Joel Rosenberg is next, and later, Rick Alonzo beats the clock with his high-speed arse.
You're watching Huckabee.
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Well, earlier today, I had the chance to catch up with TBN's own Joel Rosenberg and discuss his newest novel.
It is the fifth book in the popular Marcus Riker thriller series.
This one's titled, The Libyan Diversion.
Take a look.
Joel, great to have you back on the show.
17 novels.
I mean, that's a lot of writing.
And this is the latest in the series that you've been doing with Marcus Stryker.
So let's first of all set the stage.
What is unique and really maybe cutting edge about the Libyan diversion?
The Libyan Diversion, what makes it unique is it's my first political thriller in which I deal with this worst-case scenario.
What if radical Islamist terrorists from this part of the world, the Middle East, where I am, try to enter your part of the world through the Mexican border?
What if they try to not only enter to bring off 9-11 magnitude attacks, but even a nuclear 9-11 by smuggling into the United States via Mexico radiological nuclear dirty bombs?
This is a worst case scenario.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised this question with me a few years ago.
He didn't think I was looking for An idea for a book.
I just asked him, what worries you?
What keeps you up at night?
And he said this, and I thought, oh my gosh, that's a horrible thought.
Let me write a novel about it.
And that's the centerpiece of the Libyan diversion.
Let's pray it doesn't come true.
So this novel, though it's fiction, could very well be the worst kind of possible thing that could happen in real life.
I think that's right, Governor, because after 9-11, everyone said, wow, we never could have imagined people hijacking planes and turning them into missiles, right?
I mean, I'd been writing a novel about that, but that novel wasn't out yet.
It didn't come out for a few more months.
But everyone else was saying, how is this possible?
But I really don't think that the American people will forgive the A president or a political party that just throws the borders open, does almost nothing about it, if there is some type of horrible, horrific, cataclysmic attack, and we then find out that these terrorists came in.
And they don't have to be Middle Eastern.
They could be Chinese.
They could be North Korean.
I mean, pick your enemy.
But they come in through Mexico, right?
They can't fly in anymore, right?
We've sealed up every other opportunity for a terrorist to attack the U.S. in any way we've known in the past.
But under President Biden, he's just thrown those borders open on the southern side.
More than 6 million people have flowed in.
And just this year, as you and I record this, about 83 people on the FBI terror watch list have been arrested trying to illegally enter the That's the 83 that we know of.
But who do we not know of, and what are they plotting?
I can't imagine.
Well, the book is called The Libyan Diversion, an exciting, almost too possibly true to be anything other than frightening.
Joel Rosenberg has had a wonderful success of producing these novels, and I know you're going to love this one.
Joel, great to be with you, and thank you for joining us from Israel today.
It's an honor always to be on Huckabee.
The Libyan Diversion is at all major booksellers right now, or you can go to Huckabee.tv to find it.
And be sure to watch The Rosenberg Report, Thursdays at 9 p.m.
Eastern right here on TBM.
Well like a moose barging into a movie theater we're gonna stop the show with the week's wildest news on in case you missed it.
Our first story tonight is a senior prank Some students at Meade High School in Maryland put their school up for sale on the real estate website Zillow.
I love it.
That is awesome.
This is brilliant.
Why didn't I think of it?
I don't know.
I wish I'd have thought of it.
Nobody would have ever bought my school.
Anyway, they described it as a half-working jail.
They should know!
And they said it came complete with a spacious kitchen and dining room, private basketball court, complimentary trash-scented air freshener and water issues, and 15 bathrooms, one for each gender.
And the asking price, just a mere $42,069.
That's a steal.
Oh, man.
I mean, kids, do you really have a lot to learn about inflation?
You can't sell that school for $42,000.
Anyway, school officials said that the ad was incredibly creative, but that people should have known it was just a joke.
The kids described it as a jail, and it doesn't even have a revolving door.
Wow.
What kind of jail is that, huh?
Anyway, next stop, Louisville, Kentucky, where Huck's criminal mastermind Clifton Williams was arrested for allegedly shooting his roommate in the rear end.
Ooh!
You know what it was for, Keith?
I can only guess, but I want to hear.
Well, here's why.
He ate his last Hot Pocket.
Justified.
Yep.
That's my ruling.
There you go.
The roommate told police that Williams got mad and started throwing tiles at him.
He tried to fight back, but Williams fetched a pistol, and as he was trying to flee, Williams shot him in the seat of the pants.
Now that will give you a Hot Pocket right there.
Yes, it will.
Luckily for the roommate, you can eat Hot Pockets standing up.
And if you think government officials in America abuse their power, well, you're right.
But there's a bureaucrat in India who's giving them a run for their rupees.
He was picnicking by a reservoir and trying to take a selfie when he dropped his smartphone into the water.
First, he tried to get some police divers to look for it, claiming that it had sensitive government information on it.
He must have bought it from Hillary Clinton, I think.
But the diver suggested that he go jump in the lake.
So despite India suffering a serious water shortage, he ordered in diesel pumps and had the entire reservoir drained.
No.
Half a million gallons of water gone.
But here's the good news.
He found his phone.
The bad news, it was waterlogged and wouldn't start anymore.
Well, at least nobody will have that problem ever again, because as you might imagine, this official is not too popular with local citizens, but I'd still trade Kamala Harris for him, I tell you.
Well, from India, the land of snake charmers, we next go to Cornwall, England, the land of worm charmers.
And Trey, I'm not talking about gummy worms, by the way.
Worm charmers.
Worm charmers.
Cornwall recently held his third annual Worm Charming Championships.
I don't know if you knew this or not, but vibrations will make worms come to the surface.
Oh, I can't wait to try it.
Yeah.
Each team gets a two meter square of grass and they have 30 minutes to stomp, play music, and do the worm dance or whatever it is they can do to get as many worms as they can to the surface.
Some people read love letters to the worms.
Some played the tuba.
No bagpipes though.
That's considered cruelty to worms.
Harmonic, is it?
Yeah.
Accordion.
One team prayed to the worm gods, but that just made Adam Schiff appear.
That was the worst part.
Anyway.
Wow.
This year's winner flushed out 20 worms, but that is so far below the world record.
That was set in 2009 by 10-year-old Sophie Smith, who charmed 567 worms out of the ground.
What kind of worms are these?
Does it say?
Well, all I know is this.
Later that day, she won the Cornwall Fishing Tournament.
That's what happened.
There you go.
I've heard that being able to charm the birds out of the trees, but I guess if you can charm the worms out of the ground, the birds will follow.
Finally, this may sound like a joke, but there is a moose who walks into a movie theater.
No, really, it happened in Kenai, Alaska.
I heard about that.
Yeah.
I'm guessing there it happens a lot.
I don't know.
Let's watch.
I see the moose coming into the theater, walking right there.
The moose just walked right into the theater.
He got some popcorn, but he left without watching a movie.
You know why?
Why?
Because he couldn't afford the ticket after he paid for the popcorn.
That's why.
Amen, brother.
Yeah.
Anyway, at least a male moose with a huge rack of antlers didn't come into the theater.
Because if it had, do you know what would have happened?
It would have sat right in front of me.
Oh, no doubt about it.
And put on a cowboy hat.
There you go.
Well, before that moose shows up and eats all of Keith's raisinettes, we're going to end this bit.
But until next time, remember, we read the news.
Well, after the break, Sean McClellan takes outdoor education and wildlife conservation for our youth.
That's next on Huckery!
*music*
*music* And welcome back!
Now, we all agree that kids need to turn off their devices and go outdoors.
My next guest is making that happen.
He's a former Olympic ski shooter and executive director for Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation, which teaches outdoor education and wildlife conservation to over 100,000 students.
What a pleasure to welcome Sean McClellan.
Thank you, Sean.
Thank you so much for having me.
You know, it's kind of frightening.
I heard from your organization that kids spend three times as much time on their phones and games than they do outdoors.
That's disturbing.
It's just tragic.
So with our outdoor education program called Outdoor Adventures, we're all about getting kids off devices in the classroom and introducing them to as many outdoor skills as possible.
And we really call this a two-for-one program.
So being an in-school program, this is probably one of the best parts of what we do.
So, once they're in the class learning all these incredible outdoor skills, they're able to take that home to their parents.
And let's say if you're in a single parent scenario or if you're in an urban environment, you're on the concrete, you just do devices and concrete, and you're never going to get outside.
So in this two-for-one program, the kids learn it in the classroom and then take it home to the parents.
Give parents the opportunity to take them to the outdoors and do something as simple as fishing, hunting, really anything outdoors and change their life.
You know, I think a lot of us take for granted we grew up in rural parts of America where we went hunting, we went fishing, we went hiking because we didn't have cars or our bicycle had a flat.
So there were a lot of outdoor things that we did growing up, but kids today, they sit and they watch the screen, they look at a phone, they talk to friends on the phone, or they game and all, and they're not going outside.
How hard is it to get them interested in these outdoor activities?
It's not hard at all.
So, outdoor adventures, when you pull a class anywhere around the country, and we're operating right now in 48 states, when you pull the classroom, and you pull actually the entire student body, after the first year, we are the number one most popular class, not surprising, over math and science and some other things, but- That's pretty cool.
Outdoor skills are a lot of fun.
Something like this integrates them from the classroom to the outdoors.
And some of these kids are living in the inner city.
How hard is it for them to be able to find something that is doable, Accessible and fun for them.
Oh, it's incredibly difficult.
You know, and one of the parts about this program is that the outdoors has no bias.
It doesn't matter how tall you are, how short you are, or your socioeconomic situation.
If you can get outdoors and you have the skills to get outdoors, there's a place for you.
And even in urban environments.
So we even operate, can you believe this, in New York City.
So there are parks, there are ponds, there are places where you can go learn about the outdoors.
Even if you wouldn't think in an urban environment, you wouldn't have the opportunity to do so.
So not everybody wants to go hunting or fishing.
I mean, those are the things I love to do, but not everybody wants to do that.
What are some other outdoor activities that these kids can connect to that turns them on and makes them excited about what God has made?
You know, the first 20 hours of this program in most states is hunter education.
And when you poll classrooms, one of the most interesting parts is that kids say, well, I'm probably never going to go hunting.
But at some point, those kids are going to vote.
So if they're learning about wildlife conservation and the North American model of wildlife conservation, they learn to respect wildlife, respect the wild places, and they know how sustainable use works and where their food comes from, where their vegetables come from.
That's a critical change, especially in a young person's life.
I'm so glad because there are a lot of kids.
There was a survey done in New York City schools.
I said, where does milk come from?
And over 60% of the kids said from the store.
And they had no idea.
This is not a joke.
I mean, they had no idea that a cow was involved in getting milk To their school and to their home.
That concerns me that a lot of kids in the city who don't have rural America roots don't understand the joys of walking in the woods and hearing the sounds of the owl, the coyote, the turkey gobbling in the spring and all the sounds of nature and become fascinated by this incredible creation and then want to take care of it, be good stewards of it, preserve it and pass it on to the next generation.
I mean, that's really the goal.
I'm an avid outdoorsman.
I have been my entire life.
But in so many of the urban areas, something that I take for granted, and it's one of my favorite parts of our program, is actually outdoor cooking with cast iron and Dutch ovens.
And it's actually, in a lot of schools around the country, their final exam is actually cooking a meal for the class out of cast iron.
And it's one of the really special parts of something that, in an urban environment, they're never going to learn about the old ways.
You were an Olympic champion skeet shooter.
When did you start competitive shooting?
And when did you first put a shotgun or a rifle or some type of weapon in your hand as a kid?
I was so fortunate to have parents that from a very early age, and they weren't outdoors people in their early childhood.
They actually started getting to go outside and do things together when actually after they got married.
But as my brother and I were growing up, they introduced us to firearms and safety very early on.
And a myriad of outdoor activities.
But friends at school actually joined a 4-H club, also doing scouting as well, and invited me along to shoot sporting clays and ski for the very first time with a shotgun.
And that ignited a passion for me from a competitive side and then wanting to take that on once I found out that it was an Olympic sport.
I'm glad you were a great Olympian, but I'm even more excited about what you're doing with 48 states getting conservation education into kids.
Sean, keep it up, my friend.
You may save a lot of these kids from the disasters of never knowing anything but a screen in their face.
And Lord knows we need more people to get out and enjoy this great world God has made for us to enjoy.
Thank you very much.
And...
If you want to learn how you can support Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation, maybe bring their curriculum to your school, which would be fantastic if you don't already have it.
If you go to Huckabee.tv, we will hook you up.
Now, don't go outdoors just yet because Keith Bilbrey has something pretty special lined up to tell you about.
Well, coming up next, Rick Alonzo defies time with his remarkable speed painting.
Then, the legendary voice that has rocked stages around the world on Huckabee.
Go to Huckabee.tv and get your very own Made in the USA.
Huckabee loves T-shirts and more.
Welcome back.
Rick Alonzo was born in the Philippines.
He came to America at the age of 12. And for over 26 years, he has traveled with a unique ministry, using his amazing painting talents to share the gospel of Christ with people all over the world.
Here to give us all an inspiring demonstration, please welcome Rick Alonzo.
Thank you.
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Outstanding.
There.
So you've been doing this a long time.
Well, I've had a love for art and a love for martial art, but I just didn't know how to use it until the Lord called me in 1992. So I traveled wherever God would lead me, and my audiences are normally gang members, prisons, you name it, the lost.
We love it.
We've had a great time getting to watch, and thank you for coming to be here.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
To learn more about Rick Alonzo Ministries, you can invite Rick to bring his amazing and inspiring talents to your event or to your church.
Just visit Huckabee.tv.
Right now, Keith is going to use his talent for painting word pictures to tell us what we still get to see.
Well, get ready for a captivating performance by Christian rocker John Schlitt.
That's next on Huckabee. .
Next week, Dr. Phil talks about his early days, And columnist Ron Hart injects some humor into the 2024 presidential race.
And welcome back.
You know, one of the reasons we love doing this show, the fantastic music, and a lot of that is because of Trey Corley and the Music City Connection.
Give them a big hand.
Well, John Schlitt was the powerful voice of the rock group Head East until drug and alcohol abuse got him fired.
He was on the verge of suicide, but then his wife's faith led him to Christ.
Clean and sober, he joined the Christian rock group Petra that we all know, and now he has a shelf full of million-selling albums and four Grammy Awards.
Give a warm welcome to the incredible voice, John Schlitt.
John, great having you here.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, guys.
You started with a teenage band called Vinegar Hills Hometown Band.
Where in the world did you come up with the name Vinegar Hills Hometown Band?
Okay, I came from a little town called Mt.
Pulaski, Illinois.
During the prohibition, it had a train station, came from Chicago, stopped there, and the square It was all nothing but taverns.
And so the mobsters would come down, spend their weekend there, and it was called Vinegar Hills.
So my mom told me that, and the band was actually called Something Different.
So I said, well, it's Vinegar Hills Hometown Band, Something Different.
So the longest title of any band I've ever been in.
You know, John, I've got to tell you something, and I told you this before the show, and I really meant it.
Honestly, I think Paul Rogers, who is a renowned rock singer, is the only other person I know that is even close to being as good as you are as a vocalist.
You're one of the most amazing voices that I've ever heard in contemporary music, and you just keep getting better.
I mean, how do you get better than where you've been?
But it's astounding, and I'm so honored to have you here.
I'm speechless on that.
Thank you very much.
I just get a chance to do what I do.
And especially after becoming a Christian, God allowed me to still have my voice after all the garbage I did.
Although I loved the band Head East.
The crowd was great.
But backstage, I just fell for everything.
And really, I shouldn't be here today, but for some reason, Christ gave me a second chance.
And so I used that just something that God gave me and to try to be a tool.
Well, I thank you that you've been faithful to the gospel that you came to encounter, and you've continued to use your voice.
You have reached people that maybe would never be reached by classic church hymns or by church music.
Nothing wrong with that, but you're reaching people that are listening to the music of the day, but you're giving them the lyrics that take them right to the cross, and that's powerful.
Thank you.
That was our vision.
That was Petra's vision.
That was my vision when I got a chance to be part of Petra.
That was the biggest Christian rock band in the world at the time.
And I thank God for it because I said, Lord, thank you for giving me a second chance.
Well, he did.
He did.
And I'm glad he did.
And one of the ways in which we're going to prove that he really has the stuff, John's going to get ready to sing, and Keith Bilbrey is going to tell you how you can get his great music from Hatties to Petra and all his solo albums.
There's a reason this guy has won four Grammys.
Keith, take it away.
To find all of John's music, tour dates, and more, and to see an exclusive performance of Never Been Any Reason, just go to Huckabee.tv.
Now, performing Feel It with Trey Corley and the Music City Connection and mic on bass, here's John Schlitt!
*Cheering* Feels like I can't take it anymore.
Here it comes again, and I'm riding the way.
I ain't laying down, I got something to say.
Now the whole blast, outlast, take back all that.
Everything will take it All you gotta do when you feel this way is have a little faith.
Can you feel it?
Feel it.
Don't belong till you believe it.
Let it take you away to a place that you've never been.
So believe it.
Believe it.
It's not so hard to see it.
Standing right before you.
Give me all you got.
I ain't going nowhere.
We're in a better place and I'm already there.
I found one way, no doubt, no fear.
Turns out, the sun is shining down on me.
All you gotta do when you feel this way is have a little faith.
Can't you feel it?
Feel it?
Hoping on till you believe it.
Let it take you away to a place that you've never been.
Believe it.
It's not so hard to see it.
Standing ready for you Feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it in my grave Feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it every Monday.
Can you feel it now?
Can you feel it now?
Can you feel it now?
Can you feel it, can you feel it, can you feel it, feel it now?
Can you feel it, can you feel it, can you feel it, feel it now?
Wow!
Wow!
Oh, that's it, yeah!
Can you feel it, feel it, feel it, won't be long till you believe it, let won't be long till you believe it, let it take you away to a place that you've never been.
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