The Megyn Kelly Show - 20220518_uncovering-the-uap-mystery-and-standing-for-your-b
Aired: 2022-05-18
Duration: 01:41:00


=== Historic UFO Hearing Details (15:02) ===

[00:00:30]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
[00:00:41]  Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
[00:00:43]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
[00:00:44]  On Tuesday morning, Congress held the first public hearing on UFOs in half a century.
[00:00:53]  Two Department of Defense officials took questions from members of a House Intelligence Subcommittee.
[00:00:58]  And it turns out, aside from two newly released videos, one of an already identified object, there were few answers in what was supposed to be a moment of transparency for the American people.
[00:01:13]  Years after investigating, we still don't know what they are or where they came from.
[00:01:18]  But does the lack of definitive answers tell us something anyway?
[00:01:22]  There was certainly a lot to discuss in the closed-door hearing that we weren't allowed to hear.
[00:01:28]  So, what's happening?
[00:01:29]  Why aren't there concrete answers?
[00:01:32]  Why can't they be more firm in their pronouncements?
[00:01:36]  Or is it just a matter of being unwilling?
[00:01:39]  Here to discuss the hearing and what's to come is Lou Elizondo, former Pentagon official and former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or ATIP.
[00:01:55]  Welcome back to the show, Lou.
[00:01:56]  How are you?
[00:01:57]  Great, Megan.
[00:01:57]  Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:59]  True pleasure.
[00:01:59]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:02:00]  All right.
[00:02:01]  So, you give us your summary of what, if anything, we learned on Tuesday.
[00:02:05]  Yeah, wow.
[00:02:06]  You're right.
[00:02:07]  First of all, it was historic.
[00:02:09]  This is the first time in over half a century that we had U.S. government officials briefing Congress on UFOs.
[00:02:15]  Of course, now we call them UAPs.
[00:02:18]  There was actually a lot that occurred.
[00:02:21]  And not only was it historic that they were briefed, but before the last time was during Project Blue Book or the closing of Project Blue Book, where senior Air Force personnel had briefed Congress.
[00:02:32]  Now it is senior DOD officials.
[00:02:36]  So even one would argue, even more senior scrutiny is being put on this topic.
[00:02:42]  And I'll tell you, if I may, Megan, I think there was a lot that was said.
[00:02:46]  And I also think, like you say here, there was a lot that remained unsaid.
[00:02:51]  And sometimes you can learn more by what is not said.
[00:02:54]  And so what do I mean by that?
[00:02:56]  Well, besides this being historic and actually a hearing being done, I think it's safe to assume that this is just the beginning.
[00:03:04]  I think it's probably safe to presume at this point there's going to be further hearings with additional people and additional witnesses.
[00:03:12]  A lot of this was pro forma.
[00:03:14]  I think some people were probably expecting some sort of big reveal, like, you know, flying saucers buried under Area 51.
[00:03:22]  Or like an alien that they would hold up and say, we got one.
[00:03:25]  Right.
[00:03:26]  Right.
[00:03:26]  No, this was a little bit more pro forma.
[00:03:29]  And I think to some degree, this hearing would probably equate to that.
[00:03:34]  If you recall, back in June, there was something called the 180-day report that Congress was expecting.
[00:03:42]  And I think a lot of people's expectations initially were that they kind of fell flat.
[00:03:48]  They were disappointed.
[00:03:49]  But in reality, the 180-day report was extremely successful.
[00:03:52]  It achieved and accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do.
[00:03:56]  And in that case, now we have hearings as a result of it.
[00:03:59]  So let's see if maybe during this talk you and I have, we can maybe deconstruct a little bit what was actually said, what wasn't said, and what was some of the meaning in this historic hearing.
[00:04:13]  Okay, yes, let's do that.
[00:04:14]  Let's talk about first the fact that they seem to be nosing around on whether first they asked, like, are we the only ones who ever see them?
[00:04:23]  Is this just a uniquely American thing?
[00:04:25]  And the answer was no.
[00:04:27]  There have been reports from other countries, including China.
[00:04:30]  And then there was a little bit more probing on that.
[00:04:34]  Here is just a bit, just for the audience, it's Representative Brad Wenstrup, Democrat from Ohio, questioning the witnesses about the potential of foreign adversary data on this subject.
[00:04:46]  Listen.
[00:04:46]  There are other people besides the U.S. that have had these experiences and reported them.
[00:04:52]  Is that correct?
[00:04:53]  There are.
[00:04:54]  That's correct.
[00:04:55]  Is it all of our allies or is it allies and adversaries?
[00:05:00]  What have we learned publicly?
[00:05:02]  So some of that, I think, sir, we'll say for closed session.
[00:05:06]  Well, that goes to my next question.
[00:05:07]  Publicly, have others made anything which would not have to be considered closed.
[00:05:13]  So I don't want you to answer what they've said necessarily.
[00:05:17]  Allies have seen these.
[00:05:19]  China has established its own version of a UAP task force.
[00:05:22]  So clearly, a number of countries have observations of things in the airspace that they can't identify.
[00:05:29]  And do we share data with some, with all?
[00:05:33]  Are they sharing with us?
[00:05:37]  We share data with some and some share data with us.
[00:05:40]  But not necessarily all that have publicly reported something.
[00:05:43]  That's correct.
[00:05:45]  My God, it's like pulling teeth.
[00:05:46]  Just tell the story, man.
[00:05:50]  Yeah, unfortunately, it's a little more difficult than that.
[00:05:53]  I can tell you when I was running the ACIP program some years ago, this is certainly nothing new.
[00:06:01]  A lot of times some officials are forced to dance around the topic.
[00:06:06]  I'll tell you, if I may, Megan, what I find so fascinating here along the lines of information sharing.
[00:06:12]  It's now laws.
[00:06:13]  As most people probably know, the bill that was co-sponsored by Senator Jill LeBran and Senator Marco Rubio was pretty historic in itself, truly a bipartisan bill that went forward and is now law.
[00:06:25]  And within that law, it requires, it enjoins the United States of America to work with its friends and allies, international allies, on this topic.
[00:06:34]  It's not a choice.
[00:06:35]  We have to.
[00:06:36]  But here we go into some of the contradictory statements now that I mentioned earlier on.
[00:06:41]  If you listen to the hearing, you have this impression that there's this huge, robust effort underway.
[00:06:47]  We're working with our friends and our allies, and we have analysts on board.
[00:06:50]  We're working with the academic communities.
[00:06:53]  But in reality, that's not quite so accurate.
[00:06:56]  In fact, a couple months ago, the Department of Defense, when asked how many people do you have working on this, they said we have exactly two full-time people working on this topic.
[00:07:06]  So that's problematic, right?
[00:07:08]  There's not a whole lot of analysis and information sharing you can do when you only have two people assigned.
[00:07:13]  Yes, they say all hands on deck, but that's only four hands.
[00:07:17]  That's really not a whole lot.
[00:07:19]  We really need to, yeah, we really need to leverage a lot more.
[00:07:23]  Furthermore, there were some other very interesting things I noted.
[00:07:27]  For example, they talk about one of the questions from the senators.
[00:07:29]  And by the way, let me just say this.
[00:07:32]  Forgive me, the congressmen, the reps, not the senators, the members of the House.
[00:07:37]  The committee members were very, very prepared for this.
[00:07:40]  They obviously knew the right questions to ask.
[00:07:42]  And what they were trying to do, in my opinion, was establish a baseline, or if you will, paint a box around the Department of Defense for this particular hearing, knowing that they can come back time and time again and say, well, you said this, and now we are seeing this and hold them accountable.
[00:08:01]  If I may, I'd like to bring your attention to one of the points that I found interesting.
[00:08:06]  Sure.
[00:08:07]  A question was asked where they said, well, are you familiar with our nuclear assets being interfered with?
[00:08:12]  And what they're referring to is the famous Maelstrom incident where we had an entire flight of our nuclear missiles deactivated by a UFO.
[00:08:21]  And in fact, not only did you have the commander of that flight come out and inform members of Congress, but there was actually intelligence information reports, IIRs, that were written and submitted and have been released through FOIA.
[00:08:37]  The mere fact that the task force members indicated that we have no idea about that and no, we don't have anything but anecdotal information is absolutely shocking to me because that's extremely low-hanging fruit.
[00:08:50]  Anybody right now, even with a computer, can get into Google and pull some of these what were formerly very, very classified reports that have now been released to the public.
[00:08:59]  They're there.
[00:08:59]  They exist.
[00:09:00]  So why isn't this information being incorporated into the new, what we call the AIM office or AOIMSG office?
[00:09:11]  It doesn't seem very smart.
[00:09:13]  You say you're doing...
[00:09:14]  Let me set this up because we have a soundbite.
[00:09:17]  This is Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican from Wisconsin, questioning one of those testifying about Maelstrom Air Force Base in Cascade County, Montana back in 1967.
[00:09:30]  And there's a description of what happened and then what we've gleaned from it.
[00:09:34]  Here it is.
[00:09:35]  One such incident allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base, in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable.
[00:09:42]  At the same time, a glowing red orb was observed overhead.
[00:09:45]  I'm not commenting on the accuracy of this.
[00:09:47]  I'm simply asking you whether you're aware of it and whether you have any comment on the accuracy of that report.
[00:09:52]  Let me pass that to Mr. Bray.
[00:09:53]  You've been looking at the UAPs over the last three years.
[00:09:56]  That data is not within the holdings of the UAP Task Force.
[00:10:00]  Okay, but are you aware of the report or that the data exists somewhere?
[00:10:08]  I have heard stories.
[00:10:10]  I have not seen the official data on that.
[00:10:11]  So you've just seen informal stories, no official assessment that you've done or exists within DOD that you're aware of regarding the Malmstrom incident.
[00:10:22]  All I can think of is, you know, what's within my cognizance of the UAP Task Force, and we have not looked at that incident.
[00:10:28]  Well, I mean, it's a pretty high-profile incident.
[00:10:30]  I don't claim to be an expert on this, but that's out there in the ether.
[00:10:36]  You're the guys investigating it.
[00:10:38]  I mean, who else is doing it?
[00:10:40]  If something was officially brought to our attention, we would look at it.
[00:10:43]  There are many things that are out there in the ether that aren't officially brought to our attention.
[00:10:46]  So how would it have to be officially brought to your attention?
[00:10:49]  I'm bringing it to your attention.
[00:10:50]  This is pretty official.
[00:10:51]  Sure.
[00:10:51]  So we'll go back and take a look at it, but generally there is some authoritative figure that says there is an incident that occurred.
[00:10:58]  We'd like you to look at this.
[00:11:00]  But in terms of just tracking what may be in the media that says that something occurred at this time, at this place, there are probably a lot of leads that we would have to follow up on.
[00:11:08]  I don't think we have a resource to do that right now.
[00:11:11]  Some authority figure.
[00:11:13]  Do I qualify?
[00:11:14]  Please do it.
[00:11:15]  Right.
[00:11:15]  And, you know, something that he says that comes out there through the general public, we'd have to look at, no, this actually, you were the source of it.
[00:11:23]  DOD, this happened to your assets and equities, and you actually wrote an intelligence report and an assessment on this.
[00:11:30]  And to say that it's not part of the calculus is unconscionable.
[00:11:35]  I don't understand how someone can actually say that.
[00:11:39]  Yes, Lou.
[00:11:40]  What's happening there?
[00:11:41]  What do you think is happening there?
[00:11:43]  Well, I think there's some obfuscation.
[00:11:44]  If someone doesn't think that manipulating our nuclear assets and equities is a national security imperative, then you might need to find another job, especially if you're in the national security arena.
[00:11:54]  Furthermore, there's some other interesting notes I picked up.
[00:11:57]  You know, they talk about Blue Force, Blue on Blue.
[00:12:01]  And they say, We're sure this is not our technology, which, by the way, is probably a very accurate.
[00:12:07]  Explain that because we don't know what that is right now.
[00:12:08]  Explain what Blue on Blue.
[00:12:10]  So, Blue Force is the way we say in the vernacular: a friendly technology.
[00:12:14]  If this is a Blue Force technology, this is something we, the United States, or our allies have developed.
[00:12:20]  And so, the three main things you want to look at with the UAP: is it our technology, secret technology that's been maybe tested in a vacuum or in a bubble, and we haven't told everybody else about it?
[00:12:31]  Is it foreign technology or adversarial technology, Russia, China, or is it something else?
[00:12:37]  Now, what I find very interesting during his testimony, they say for the record, well, this is not a blue force technology.
[00:12:44]  This isn't our technology.
[00:12:46]  It's not friendly technology.
[00:12:48]  But then they turn around and they also say, Well, we're pretty sure it's not adversarial technology.
[00:12:54]  Well, we know that because China and Russia have their own UAP programs too.
[00:12:58]  So, if you're telling me it's not our technology and it's not foreign or adversarial technology, then what is it?
[00:13:04]  I mean, it's it's I think it's it's a silly way to dance around the topic.
[00:13:09]  I understand social stigma and taboo, but let's let's call it for what it is.
[00:13:13]  If you don't know what it is, then say you don't know what it is.
[00:13:16]  Um, but let's not try to confuse the topic with Congress by trying to explain away things as a drone or a quadcopter.
[00:13:24]  Let's face it, a quadcopter can't fly at supersonic speeds and at 35,000 feet and fly around and then hover over a warship for three hours.
[00:13:33]  We just don't have that technology yet.
[00:13:35]  Um, these are some of the basic questions that need to be answered because these are some of the basic things we are actually encountering with our military forces.
[00:13:44]  Um, I'll tell you another point: how they're how they're, I see them threading the needle on this very cleverly.
[00:13:50]  One of the questions was asked: Well, do you acknowledge ATIP?
[00:13:54]  Yes, we acknowledge that the fact that ATIP existed, which was my program.
[00:13:58]  And then, of course, they acknowledge Blue Book, Project Blue Book, which occurred back in the 70s and closed sometime in the 70s.
[00:14:06]  But there's no mention of any programs in between.
[00:14:09]  And in fact, when they asked the question, I believe it was Representative Gallader who said, Are you going back and looking at any of the data that may have been obtained through other programs and efforts?
[00:14:18]  The answer was no.
[00:14:20]  Yeah, they said no.
[00:14:20]  Well, yeah, wait a minute.
[00:14:22]  Aren't you the Department of Defense and aren't you in charge of looking back at all the data that we have in our history?
[00:14:29]  Because what we do know for a fact, everybody is aware of the Tic Tac event, the Nimitz event that occurred in 2004 involving two F-18s that went to go do an intercept mission and encountered this flying white Tic-Tac.
[00:14:42]  What most people don't know is that same flying white Tic-Tac was also described in the 50s and 60s as a flying white throat lozenge or a flying white butane tank, all doing the same thing, flying as 13,000 miles and able to conduct right angle turns.
[00:14:58]  So this data is important.
[00:15:01]  What you want to do is collect as much historical data as you can and then compare and contrast that data to the information we have currently and see if we can identify trends and commonalities.
[00:15:12]  That should be order number one, because we spent a lot of your taxpayer money looking at this.
[00:15:19]  It would be nice to know that we're not going to try to reinvent the wheel here and at least pull up that data that you already paid for.
[00:15:25]  And let's see when we want to start doing analysis.
[00:15:28]  What we'd already put into the memory bank, like that, it should be in there for a reason.
[00:15:32]  The Nimitz is a big deal.

=== Admitting Government Withholding Data (14:54) ===

[00:15:33]  We talked about that the first time you came on the show, which I recommend to everybody.
[00:15:37]  We have a little video of that.
[00:15:39]  This is from 2004, taken aboard a Navy fighter jet from the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
[00:15:46]  Watch.
[00:15:52]  There's a whole fleet of them.
[00:15:53]  Look on the ASA.
[00:15:55]  My gosh.
[00:15:58]  They're all going against the wind.
[00:15:59]  The wind's 120 miles to the west.
[00:16:12]  That's not LNS, though, is it?
[00:16:20]  And for the listening audience, Lou, describe what those pilots were seeing.
[00:16:25]  Yeah, sure.
[00:16:26]  That actually was an incident from the USS Roosevelt in around the 2015 timeframe.
[00:16:32]  That is very similar to other eyewitness testimony from the Nimitz and from the USS Kid and the Omaha.
[00:16:38]  So that one was not from the Nimitz that I just played.
[00:16:41]  That one was not.
[00:16:42]  That one was actually from another later incident in 2014, 2015 from the USS Roosevelt, but equally compelling because what it does, it illustrates that there is an, well, first of all, there's both audio and visual.
[00:16:56]  You can hear the pilots talking about something on the ASA.
[00:17:00]  There's a whole fleet of them.
[00:17:01]  Look on the ASA.
[00:17:03]  Now, what we know through eyewitness testimony later on when we conducted an investigation, they actually saw these objects flying in a V formation.
[00:17:11]  So the video that you see is just one object among many, many objects that are being intelligently controlled by someone or something.
[00:17:18]  Furthermore, you hear them say it's going 120 knots against the wind.
[00:17:23]  Well, that kind of alleviates any idea or notion that this could be a balloon because balloons float with the prevailing wind.
[00:17:31]  They do not fly against the wind.
[00:17:33]  Furthermore, this object is over 20,000 feet in altitude and begins to maneuver in a way, turn in a 90-degree angle, which an aircraft would then either lose altitude because it's no longer creating lift under its wings, or it's going to bank.
[00:17:50]  It's going to turn.
[00:17:51]  Those are the only two options in aerodynamics.
[00:17:53]  In fact, I'll give you a case in point here.
[00:17:55]  I have this little model of an airplane here.
[00:17:58]  And when an airplane flies, it's flying like this.
[00:18:01]  It's flying in a, yeah, straight parallel to the ground and creates lift.
[00:18:07]  When an airplane turns like this, there's only two options.
[00:18:12]  Either going to be able to bank or it's going to fall because the wings are no longer creating lift for the aircraft.
[00:18:18]  And so that's why that video is so interesting because the aircraft does not lose altitude and does not bank and yet is still able to maintain altitude.
[00:18:28]  So that video was very helpful.
[00:18:30]  I will also say, Megan, that there's a lot more videos out there and a lot more recent than 2015.
[00:18:37]  In fact, as recently as two weeks ago, videos continued to come into the Department of Defense.
[00:18:43]  Again, why they chose to show those two videos to Congress this morning.
[00:18:49]  Yeah, we'll get it.
[00:18:49]  We'll get to those.
[00:18:51]  I can only imagine that it's probably because one of them was very easy to explain.
[00:18:56]  There's a lot that really aren't that easy to explain.
[00:19:00]  And if I may here, Megan, last little alibi here.
[00:19:03]  I think it's interesting to note that when they asked them the specific question, do you, the task force, have any recovered material?
[00:19:10]  The answer was, we, the task force, don't have any recovered material.
[00:19:15]  Well, that may be true because the task force, again, is only two people around for the last year and a half.
[00:19:24]  The real question is, is the US government in possession of any material, exotic material?
[00:19:30]  That's the question that needs to be asked.
[00:19:32]  And that's the question that needs to be answered.
[00:19:35]  And hopefully at some point we'll get that answer.
[00:19:40]  So your overall theory seems to be UAPs, unidentified aerial projectiles.
[00:19:48]  Is that right?
[00:19:51]  Phenomenon.
[00:19:51]  There we go.
[00:19:52]  Phenomenon.
[00:19:53]  Because we're not sure if they fly.
[00:19:54]  So we're getting rid of flying.
[00:19:56]  So UAPs, they appear to exist.
[00:19:59]  We don't know exactly what they are.
[00:20:03]  And the government is incredibly reluctant to even open the door to the possibility that they're either otherworldly or from some ununderstood force of this world, like something's going on in the earth and has been for a very long time that we're just now coming to see and be able to detect thanks to new technologies and so on.
[00:20:31]  So it doesn't necessarily have to be from outer space, in other words, but they seem so reluctant to keep that door open or to want to lead people there at all.
[00:20:40]  Sure.
[00:20:41]  I think there's a lot of reasons for that.
[00:20:43]  First of all, we have to untangle 70 years of U.S. government involvement in this topic.
[00:20:50]  That is a fairly tangled ball of yarn to try to make sense of.
[00:20:57]  And there's a lot of people who had made statements in the past that frankly weren't accurate.
[00:21:01]  So you have to deal with that at some point and admit to the American people that maybe the government wasn't entirely forthcoming on this topic some time ago.
[00:21:11]  And then two comes some of the more, I think, probably real questions.
[00:21:17]  There are, you know, we pay our government institutions, especially national security, to have solutions.
[00:21:23]  And when you have something that's in controlled U.S. airspace, you don't know what it is, you don't know how it works, you don't know where it's from, you don't know its capabilities, that's a really hard conversation to have with somebody in your chain of command and national security.
[00:21:37]  I faced that myself when I was in ATIP when I was briefing the seniors for the Secretary of Defense.
[00:21:42]  A lot of them did not want to tell the boss what was going on simply because we didn't have any answers yet.
[00:21:50]  And my appeal to them was: look, yes, it's true we don't have any answers yet, but that shouldn't stop you from informing the boss.
[00:21:56]  The boss needs to know this.
[00:21:59]  So there's that.
[00:22:00]  And then you have what was relayed to me about four months ago.
[00:22:04]  And I want to, if I can hear Megan, please let me caveat.
[00:22:07]  I don't agree with this, but I understand it and I can respect the rationale for this reasoning.
[00:22:14]  So imagine it's now 1960s, 1970s for just a moment.
[00:22:19]  And let's go back to where we were, height of the Cold War, winner takes all.
[00:22:22]  We're engaged in proxy wars with Russia and they're engaged with us in a winner-takes-all chess match for world influence.
[00:22:31]  And along comes the things that we have no idea what they are.
[00:22:35]  We know they're not ours.
[00:22:36]  We're pretty sure they're not Russians.
[00:22:37]  But other than that, we really don't know.
[00:22:40]  So the question is basically very simple, very fundamental.
[00:22:43]  There's only three options: either they're here for good reasons, B, they're here for bad reasons, or C, they're neutral, like us.
[00:22:51]  Maybe they're just here to observe.
[00:22:53]  So let's go through the very quick thought exercise, if we can, of this scenario.
[00:23:00]  Well, some people say they're good and they're here to stop us from engaging in our nuclear tests and whatnot.
[00:23:06]  Well, look, in 1945, not to be obscene, but our country vaporized 500,000 human beings as a result of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
[00:23:17]  Nowhere were there UFOs to be found.
[00:23:19]  In fact, nowhere were UFOs when we were testing them in the Nevada desert.
[00:23:22]  They weren't there when Pakistan and India were developing nukes, China, Russia, or anybody else.
[00:23:27]  In fact, when China detonated the largest thermonuclear weapon that mankind had ever devised, Zarobamba, nowhere did the UFO stop it.
[00:23:35]  They did not stop Three Mile Island, Hiroshima, I'm sorry, Fukushima or Chernobyl.
[00:23:43]  In fact, they didn't stop World War II or Vietnam or COVID or world hunger.
[00:23:48]  So to speculate that UAP are here for our benefit, there really isn't a whole lot of evidence to suggest that.
[00:23:56]  Now, what do we see from a military perspective?
[00:23:59]  We do see signs of what we call ISR, which is intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and possibly, possibly IPB, initial preparations in the battlefield.
[00:24:10]  We know that they're interested in our nuclear technology and assets and equities, and we know that they're interested in our military capabilities.
[00:24:16]  So if there is a remote chance, even 10% chance that whatever these are, they're not here for good reasons, maybe there's a plan for these things to come 50 years in the future.
[00:24:28]  Well, what happens the moment that our government acknowledges the reality that these things are real and they're not our technology?
[00:24:37]  Well, inadvertently, you may wind up tipping your hand and predicating an act or an action that we're not ready for yet from a national security perspective.
[00:24:46]  We have a countermeasure.
[00:24:48]  So to admit we have a problem without providing a solution isn't in the best interest sometimes of national security.
[00:24:56]  And by the way, there's a precedent for that.
[00:24:58]  I can tell you a real case scenario, we were flying U-2s in contravention of the treaty we had with Russia.
[00:25:06]  We were conducting surveillance using our U-2 spy aircraft over Russia itself, and Russia didn't say a thing.
[00:25:12]  It was only until they had the capability to actually shoot one down with an SA-2 missile and show the world the wreckage of that and have the pilot, Mr. Powers, on display for all to see, then they admitted we had this capability.
[00:25:30]  But we had conducted many overflights before they shot down that U-2.
[00:25:34]  And it was only when they could shoot it down did they admit there was a problem to begin with.
[00:25:39]  So who would have the knowledge?
[00:25:41]  You know, because when you see these military fighters in the cockpit of these jets having these astonished conversations, it's very clear they're not in on it.
[00:25:49]  And they'd be the ones to run into them, obviously, just based on past experience, because this is where it happens in a certain sort of airspace.
[00:25:56]  We talked about this last time on the East Coast, off of the coast of DC.
[00:26:01]  Who would know?
[00:26:02]  Like who, if under this theory, who's got the info and isn't sharing it?
[00:26:07]  Well, the question is, what programs existed between my program, ATIP, and Blue Book?
[00:26:15]  That's a million-dollar question.
[00:26:17]  And why isn't the Department of Defense prying that open?
[00:26:22]  Maybe we need to provide some sort of amnesty for those individuals involved so those non-disclosure agreements that they're bound to, like I am, are waived.
[00:26:31]  And so they can start having an open conversation, whether it's with the Department of Defense or the intelligence community, or in this case, Congress.
[00:26:37]  There are some necessary steps that need to be taken so we can figure it out.
[00:26:41]  I can tell you, I personally met an individual who was part of the Navy who said he ran a UFO-UAP program back in the 80s for the Department of the Navy.
[00:26:51]  Well, where's the data?
[00:26:53]  Why hasn't that data been brought into this new umbrella called the AOIMSG?
[00:26:59]  This isn't rocket science, really.
[00:27:01]  A lot of this is just common sense.
[00:27:04]  And so herein lies part of the frustration because I think Congress senses they're being told two different things.
[00:27:10]  On one hand, they hear from the pilots, they see the videos from the pilots, and yet on the other hand, the Department of Defense is saying, well, nothing to see here, folks.
[00:27:21]  you know, most of this is air trash and space junk and space debris, and we're going to, we're going to figure this all out.
[00:27:26]  Well, that's not really true because let's not forget we have reports going back to the 40s and 50s long before we ever made it to space.
[00:27:35]  We were just entering the jet age.
[00:27:37]  We had barely broken the sound barrier and we were tracking these things doing 13, 14,000 miles an hour in our low Earth atmosphere.
[00:27:46]  Which is absolutely impossible for one of our jets.
[00:27:50]  We talked about this the last time as well.
[00:27:52]  And this was, I made a note of some of these stats because they were just so stunning how fast that these things went.
[00:28:00]  They were going to spotted by the pilots like on the Nimitz.
[00:28:05]  Normally, let's see.
[00:28:06]  Okay.
[00:28:07]  Okay.
[00:28:08]  Normally takes you six seconds to go one mile if you're going at the supersonic speed of 760 miles an hour, speed of flying, 760 miles per hour would take you six seconds to go one mile.
[00:28:20]  The object that they saw went 60 miles, 60 miles, instead of just the one.
[00:28:28]  And your point is, we are not capable of that.
[00:28:31]  There is nothing we've yet created that can do that.
[00:28:35]  Yeah, you know, let's go back to this little airplane analogy.
[00:28:38]  Forgive me, but it's probably a good way to display it.
[00:28:41]  I think most people are familiar with the SR-71 Blackbird.
[00:28:46]  It was a Lockheed aircraft built by Skunk Works, and it flew at hypersonic speeds, barely Mach 5.
[00:28:52]  And this is an aircraft that when it's flying at 3,200 miles an hour, if it wants to take a right-hand turn, it takes roughly half the state of Ohio to do it.
[00:29:04]  And yet, what we are seeing are aircraft, something that's going much, much faster than that, and somehow can do a right-hand, a right-angle turn instantly.
[00:29:15]  Something well beyond the biological limitations of anything to withstand.
[00:29:18]  And even from a material science perspective, the G-forces on that are astronomical.
[00:29:24]  The USS Nimitz case alone was very interesting because they were reported by our SPY-1 radar, multi-array phased array radar, one of the most sophisticated and capable on the planet at the time.
[00:29:37]  And so you also had the airborne E2 Hawkeye radar, both looking at the same object.
[00:29:44]  And in some cases, these things were seen come from 80,000 feet, which was the upper limit of the envelope at that time for the radar, and within 0.7 seconds, 50 feet over the water, and then popping back up again.
[00:29:57]  So 80,000 feet.
[00:30:00]  0.7 seconds.
[00:30:00]  Wow.
[00:30:01]  In 0.7 seconds, in less than a second.
[00:30:04]  So you're looking at a distance of well over 10 miles in a very, very short period of time.
[00:30:15]  Those type of forces, the energy to do that is incomprehensible.
[00:30:19]  Someone had once estimated it would be all the electrical power of New York City for three years.
[00:30:25]  That's so helpful when you can put it in terms like that.

=== Impossible Energy Requirements Explained (14:09) ===

[00:30:28]  More with Lou right after this quick break.
[00:30:35]  So Lou, you're talking about how they say, well, gee, you know, kind of we went dark for a while and we just don't have that information.
[00:30:42]  And, you know, we really don't have that much in the bank is kind of what they're saying.
[00:30:45]  You know, like we're looking into the things that come in.
[00:30:48]  But speaking of the Nimitz, this is kind of what happened with it.
[00:30:52]  The Nimitz had this event where they saw these UAPs and people were very concerned and nobody did anything about it until they brought you in.
[00:31:02]  Harry re-created this program and you were heading it up.
[00:31:06]  And before they knew it, Lou's on the case and you find out this all documented by 60 minutes.
[00:31:12]  You start looking into it and find out this crazy story from November 2004, 2004, right?
[00:31:21]  I think I have that date, right?
[00:31:22]  Yeah, November, yes, ma'am, 2004.
[00:31:24]  Well, actually, my colleagues did a lot of the work.
[00:31:28]  You know, when you are, you probably know this, when you are the manager or the director of a program, it's really, you're just kind of the senior guy, but there's a lot of people that are doing a lot of the work, you know, the hard work.
[00:31:41]  And really the credit goes to them more than it does me because they were the ones actually doing the investigation on the Nimitz.
[00:31:49]  How much time passed from the time the Nimitz happened in 04 to when you and your team swooped in to start asking questions?
[00:31:56]  Well, questions started being asked in 2007 in earnest.
[00:31:59]  It had gotten out that there was an incident there, but our program wasn't created really until 2008.
[00:32:06]  Questions were starting to float around in 2007, and then an earnest investigation was underway.
[00:32:13]  So think about that.
[00:32:14]  You got, just to frame it for the audience, you got these pilots, at least two of them, who experienced these encounters with these UAPs, some of the details of which you mentioned before the break.
[00:32:24]  And they got nobody to talk to.
[00:32:27]  Like no one's coming to knock on their doors to say, yo, what did you see?
[00:32:33]  Like, could you document it?
[00:32:35]  What radar evidence is there?
[00:32:38]  What camera evidence is there?
[00:32:39]  Show us everything that you have.
[00:32:40]  Let us seize the controls of the plane.
[00:32:42]  I don't know, whatever they do.
[00:32:43]  And so for years, these two just went about their lives like, whoa, that was weird.
[00:32:47]  And the way 60 Minutes documented it was, these are two very, very, very respected pilots, by the way.
[00:32:54]  These are not quacks in any way.
[00:32:55]  This is the best of the best.
[00:32:58]  They've never, one of them had never spoken publicly about the encounter until 60 Minutes.
[00:33:02]  USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was training about 100 miles southwest of San Diego for a week.
[00:33:07]  The advanced new radar on a nearby ship, the USS Princeton, had detected what operators called multiple anomalous aerial vehicles over the horizon descending 80,000 feet in less than a second.
[00:33:19]  I mean, Pete, we can relate to that just from when we fly in an airplane.
[00:33:22]  You're up there 30,000 feet.
[00:33:24]  God forbid there's something terrible happens.
[00:33:26]  You know, you know, it's going to take more than a second to get down to the ground from 30,000 feet.
[00:33:31]  So this is 80,000 feet in less than a second.
[00:33:33]  They diverted their plane to investigate, found an area of, this is the creepy part, roiling white water, the size of a 737 in an otherwise calm blue sea.
[00:33:46]  And I want to talk to you about the ocean and all this in a minute.
[00:33:49]  Tic-tac-shaped object, size of an FA-818F with no markings, no wings, no exhaust plumes.
[00:33:56]  And one of the pilots, David Fraver of graduate of Topga Naval Flight School and commander, says, when it gets right in front of me, it just disappears.
[00:34:06]  Seconds later, the USS Princeton reacquires the target 60 miles away, 60 miles.
[00:34:11]  Another crew managed to briefly lock onto it with a targeting camera before it zipped off again.
[00:34:16]  The air crew did file reports.
[00:34:20]  So it's eerie, and you have the most credible witnesses you could ever possibly want, right?
[00:34:26]  This isn't some crackpot in the middle of a field in like Nevada.
[00:34:31]  This is the guys we trust to defend this country.
[00:34:34]  God forbid an attack happens, et cetera.
[00:34:37]  And this is what they find.
[00:34:39]  So do we have any idea whether there are other Nimitzes?
[00:34:44]  We talked about the Roosevelt.
[00:34:46]  Like how many more of those would you suspect there have been?
[00:34:50]  Oh, wow.
[00:34:51]  You know, well, I have to be careful what I can confirm because some of this information is still very sensitive, in some cases, classified.
[00:35:00]  But there's numerous incidents like this.
[00:35:03]  I think most recently, I think the media was made aware of the Roosevelt and the Omaha and the Kid, and now it looks like a couple other carriers as well.
[00:35:12]  There's anecdotal reports going back to some even conventional ones like the USS Boxer in 1998 and even potentially going as far back and interfering potentially, potentially right now.
[00:35:24]  The information is preliminary, but one of our first nuclear carriers in the early 70s.
[00:35:29]  So this information is pervasive.
[00:35:31]  And this is again part of the frustration that I feel with my colleagues because the new effort, the new office needs to be looking at this historical data.
[00:35:41]  It's important.
[00:35:42]  It's relevant.
[00:35:43]  And it's also low-hanging fruit.
[00:35:44]  It's not that hard to get this information.
[00:35:47]  Secondly, one thing that we don't mention is that these pilots were actually ridiculed when they came back.
[00:35:52]  People made fun of them for reporting this.
[00:35:55]  And by the way, you said it correctly.
[00:35:57]  It wasn't just eyewitness testimony that saw it.
[00:36:00]  And by the way, there were four pilots, two F-18 aircrafts, both with a pilot and both with WISOs or special weapons officers in the back.
[00:36:08]  So a back seater as well.
[00:36:09]  All four of them had eyes down on this Tic Tac.
[00:36:13]  Furthermore, it was picked up on gun camera footage.
[00:36:17]  Furthermore, it was picked up by separate, two separate radar systems.
[00:36:21]  So now you have three separate sensor systems all picking up the same information at the same time at the same place under the same circumstances.
[00:36:31]  Now, my background as a former special agent, if we were in a court of law right now, we would be well beyond reasonable doubt.
[00:36:38]  The jury would have no other alternative but to convict.
[00:36:42]  And yet here we are again, where we're dragging our feet.
[00:36:46]  We don't want to talk about it.
[00:36:47]  This is uncomfortable.
[00:36:48]  Well, if you talk about it, we're going to say you're crazy.
[00:36:50]  You're going to lose your flight status despite you being a top gun graduate and an instructor and the skipper for the Nimitz.
[00:36:57]  You know, we're going to maybe put jeopardy your security claims.
[00:37:01]  You know, ask me how I know that because for a while there, they were coming after me when I first broke rank and left the Pentagon.
[00:37:08]  So we have to get rid of the stigma taboo.
[00:37:11]  We have to get rid of the fear of any type of reprisal first and foremost.
[00:37:15]  And anybody who may have been associated with any type of legacy effort the U.S. government was sponsoring needs to have some sort of amnesty, some sort of way where they're not going to be held to their non-disclosure agreement so they can finally tell the authorities what they know.
[00:37:30]  Do you think that'll happen?
[00:37:31]  You know, Marco Rubio is now newly interested in this, as you point out.
[00:37:35]  Do you think, and this is bipartisan, do you think that could happen?
[00:37:40]  I do.
[00:37:40]  And it's not just, you know, Senator Marco Rubio.
[00:37:43]  It's on both sides.
[00:37:44]  You have Senator Gillibrand, you have Senator Marco Rubio, you have Warner, you have other folks on the House side, such as Gallegos and now Gallagher, who's, by the way, asked some fantastic questions.
[00:37:56]  Certainly a man who's very well informed.
[00:37:58]  You have Representative Tim Burchett, who's actually gotten beat up a little bit for taking on this topic.
[00:38:05]  And, you know, good on him for doing it because at the end of the day, you know, he's on the right side of history.
[00:38:11]  These are our elected officials actually doing their job.
[00:38:14]  They really don't care about politics.
[00:38:16]  They just want to get to the truth of the matter.
[00:38:18]  And this is both Democrat and Republican coming together on this topic.
[00:38:23]  Can we spend a minute on the two videos that they did show Tuesday?
[00:38:26]  There's one of an object zipping past a Navy pilot.
[00:38:31]  Let's take a look at that.
[00:38:32]  And I'd love to get your take on it.
[00:38:34]  You can see out an airplane window.
[00:38:38]  That's in many cases.
[00:38:40]  That's all that a report may include.
[00:38:45]  What do we even see there, Lou?
[00:38:47]  Well, if you slow it down, it's not what, well, first of all, there's a couple of things wrong.
[00:38:52]  The fact that a pilot has to use his own personal iPhone instead of the equipment, you know, being able to track it.
[00:39:02]  You know, thankfully, the iPhone worked.
[00:39:04]  The question is: why wasn't the equipment on the aircraft sufficient enough to be used to get you that type of image?
[00:39:12]  Two, what you see here is a still of this thing flying by the aircraft.
[00:39:17]  Keeping in mind, it doesn't have a transponder, it's not squawking, it's not identifying as friend or foe.
[00:39:24]  It is up there at the same altitude of this aircraft, military aircraft, by the way, nonetheless.
[00:39:30]  So, there's an air safety flight issue.
[00:39:33]  There's also the problem that we don't know what's in our own airspace, right?
[00:39:36]  U.S. aerodomain awareness.
[00:39:39]  We have laws on the books that require us to know what's going on in our controlled U.S. airspace, and yet here is proof positive: we don't.
[00:39:49]  And there's no sufficient explanation.
[00:39:51]  When asked, what is the answer?
[00:39:53]  It was very simple: we don't know.
[00:39:56]  That's a problem.
[00:39:57]  That speaks volumes to the very issue that we've been trying to raise the alarm, if you will, sound the alarm over the last four years, because we don't have a good grasp on what's going on.
[00:40:09]  We need to.
[00:40:10]  We need to know.
[00:40:10]  We absolutely do.
[00:40:11]  Imagine being at 30,000 feet in a commercial aircraft with some of your friends.
[00:40:15]  And, you know, the customer, if you will, the passengers are blissfully unaware, drinking a cocktail.
[00:40:21]  But the pilot, meanwhile, and by the way, this is a true story.
[00:40:24]  The pilot is in this white-knuckle, you know, nail-biting scenario where he has a UAP getting closer and closer to his aircraft and is about to take an evasive maneuver because he's got 200 lives at stake.
[00:40:38]  You know, these are the type of stories that I want Congress to hear.
[00:40:42]  These are the ones where I, you know, you want to talk about air trash and whatnot, air junk, fine.
[00:40:48]  But that's not what we're talking about.
[00:40:49]  We're talking about breakaway technology that can do things we simply can't do.
[00:40:53]  And the more we obfuscate, the more the Department of Defense is going to be in a situation here where they're going to have to do some serious explaining.
[00:41:00]  Wait, have you heard stories like the one you just told about the commercial aircraft?
[00:41:04]  Absolutely.
[00:41:05]  Yes, we actually have a reaction recorded on camera.
[00:41:09]  So these are very troubling for me because, again, it's not just a flight safety issue.
[00:41:16]  We're dealing with something that is clearly not a balloon or a drone or a quadcopter or anything like that.
[00:41:21]  And it appears that we've been dealing with this for quite some time.
[00:41:24]  You know what?
[00:41:24]  I'm a nervous flyer as it is, Lou.
[00:41:26]  This is not going to help.
[00:41:29]  Okay.
[00:41:29]  No, it's fine.
[00:41:30]  I can get, I can manage it.
[00:41:32]  Let's show video number two, which are look like triangles.
[00:41:36]  And they seem to be saying these were later identified as drones.
[00:41:40]  We'll play it.
[00:41:42]  I mean, they're ruling this one out.
[00:41:44]  Here it is.
[00:41:45]  In this video, U.S. Navy personnel recorded what appears to be triangles, some flashing, recorded several years ago off the coast of the United States.
[00:41:54]  This was recorded while the U.S. Navy ship observed a number of small unmanned aerial systems in the area.
[00:42:00]  And importantly, the video was taken through night vision goggles with a single lens reflex camera.
[00:42:07]  These remained unresolved for several years.
[00:42:11]  It looks like a magnetile.
[00:42:14]  I don't know if anybody has kids out there, but it looks like a triangular magnetile that's a little mirrored on the one side, just flying through the air.
[00:42:23]  Yeah, so interesting video.
[00:42:25]  This video was obtained, I believe, from the Omaha incident, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:42:31]  I was no longer in ATIP at the time, so I can't speak authoritatively on it.
[00:42:35]  But let me, if I may give you a quick analysis.
[00:42:38]  First of all, there are artifacts on cameras, especially night vision cameras, where there is a limitation on what you can do.
[00:42:48]  There's aperture issues.
[00:42:49]  There's even in some cases, you can have software issues, lens flare issues.
[00:42:55]  And when you see an object that is strobing at a certain, if you will, frequency, could be navigation lights.
[00:43:01]  It could very well be that this is a drone or a manned aircraft flying over.
[00:43:08]  But here's why this is a problem, because I even said it during your testimony.
[00:43:14]  If you have a drone or an unidentified aircraft flying over a fleet of, if you will, of Navy vessels, and no one is doing anything about it, and they're not your technology, right?
[00:43:27]  They're someone's technology.
[00:43:29]  And you're just going to sit there admiring the pretty lights.
[00:43:31]  There's something wrong with that.
[00:43:32]  Because I can tell you myself, when I was in Washington, D.C., I lived on a little island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.
[00:43:40]  And weekends we go out boating.
[00:43:42]  And when the Navy ships would come into Annapolis during graduation, there was this no-go zone.
[00:43:48]  And by the way, it was patrolled.
[00:43:50]  Everybody who had a boat knew if you got within a certain distance of that ship, it was absolutely going to light you up.
[00:43:55]  It was going to use lethal force and it was going to blow you out of the water.
[00:43:59]  So my question is, we have these objects that have been seen over our Navy vessels and continue for days and days and days to conduct what appears to be some sort of surveillance or reconnaissance, perhaps.
[00:44:13]  And yet there's nothing the Navy does.
[00:44:15]  They don't deploy some counter-drone technology, which we have.
[00:44:18]  They don't try to communicate, try to squat with the thing, which by the way, they admitted they don't.
[00:44:23]  They said, no, we don't try to communicate.
[00:44:26]  Well, wait a minute.
[00:44:28]  How is that possible?
[00:44:29]  That's a direct violation of the protocol that the Navy does have.
[00:44:32]  If there's something flying in its airspace or a boat getting too close, they will absolutely communicate with you.

=== Contradictions in Official Testimony (04:38) ===

[00:44:37]  So again, here's part of the contradiction that I see with this testimony.
[00:44:41]  I'm not certainly trying to impugn Secretary Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Moultrie or Scott Bray in any way.
[00:44:52]  But my point being is that a lot of what they said today was really contradictory, either by the evidence or what has been previously said before by the Department of Defense.
[00:45:02]  So it doesn't help their credibility in an effort to try to be fair and transparent.
[00:45:08]  I think the opposite has occurred with this hearing.
[00:45:11]  I think Congress is now more confused and more baffled than ever before.
[00:45:16]  And that's a shame because we had an opportunity to hopefully clear things up to some degree.
[00:45:22]  And for this reason, I think we're going to have more hearings.
[00:45:25]  I hope we hope we do.
[00:45:27]  All right, quick question for you on this program, ATIP, that you've been mentioning, because there was a New York Post report kind of raising questions about this program and your role in it recently.
[00:45:38]  And they released a video claiming that this program, ATIP, was actually, that was just a nickname for a program called OSWAP or something like that, A-A-W-S-C-P, OSAP, and that it wasn't really a program you led until after the funding had been cut.
[00:45:54]  And that this program, this OSAP, was kind of out there, that they were investigating something called the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, known for paranormal type activities.
[00:46:08]  And they were basically trying to suggest, I think, that the Skinwalker Ranch is not quite as exciting as the projects you've been discussing and maybe wasn't quite as legitimate and that you kind of are overstating your role to legitimize UFOs.
[00:46:27]  How do you respond to that?
[00:46:28]  Well, yeah, I would say, first of all, you know, if you're into tabloid news and read the tabloids, I rather get it from the source.
[00:46:35]  So in front of me, I have a letter.
[00:46:37]  Show your audience.
[00:46:38]  It is from Senator Harry Reid, who was the actual sponsor of this program with his official letterhead, as you can see here.
[00:46:47]  And I'll just read just a short portion for you, and then I'll let you decide.
[00:46:51]  As one of the original sponsors of ATIP, I can state as a matter of record Lou Elizondo's involvement and leadership role in this program.
[00:46:58]  Mr. Elizondo is a former intelligence officer, has spent his career working tirelessly in the shadows on sensitive national security matters, including investigating UAPs as a head of ATIP.
[00:47:09]  He performed these duties admirably.
[00:47:12]  This is the guy who owned a program.
[00:47:14]  So this is the gentleman who is April 26, 2021.
[00:47:21]  And I'll tell you what, I'm just going to hold it up for you so you can see it.
[00:47:24]  And I don't know if that helps, but sign Harry Reed.
[00:47:29]  Sure.
[00:47:30]  Well, and I have to say that Politico came out and the reporter there said that there's no surprise.
[00:47:39]  They said that you've never lied.
[00:47:40]  I still consider him a credible source and says maybe we should have asked more questions about the origin of this group, ATIP.
[00:47:47]  But that's Megan, look, you have been subject to, I'm sure, the same level of scrutiny as I have.
[00:47:53]  You know, once you become a public figure, you have people out there that are frankly unhinged and they are going to do whatever they can to just, unfortunately, and they're going to try what they can to discredit you.
[00:48:05]  At the end of the day, look, the truth prevails and we have to continue to do the right thing here.
[00:48:11]  I lost almost everything coming out to have this conversation to include retribution against me by certain elements in the U.S. government.
[00:48:21]  I'm not surprised.
[00:48:22]  Some of these people are being fed misinformation.
[00:48:25]  I don't think they are willfully trying to discredit me.
[00:48:28]  I think they simply are just going off half-baked information.
[00:48:32]  And I think their sources are very questionable.
[00:48:34]  And so now what you have is in this Twitterverse, some individuals who are very opinionated and don't have all the facts.
[00:48:43]  And unfortunately, that's the world we live in.
[00:48:46]  Well, you check out.
[00:48:48]  You definitely, I mean, that Harry Reid letter we've seen and we understand.
[00:48:51]  And we talked about some of this the last time too.
[00:48:53]  So, all right, the next time we're going to get into what the hell is in the water?
[00:48:59]  And is it not otherworldly, but earthly?
[00:49:03]  And what do we make of that?
[00:49:05]  All right.
[00:49:05]  So that's a good tease for the next time you come on, Lou.
[00:49:07]  Always a pleasure.
[00:49:08]  Thank you so much for being here.
[00:49:10]  Megan, an honor and privilege.
[00:49:12]  Thank you so much.
[00:49:12]  And thank you for what you do.
[00:49:14]  Really appreciate it.
[00:49:15]  You bet.
[00:49:15]  Okay.

=== Finding Love Beyond Performance (07:51) ===

[00:49:16]  And don't go away because we're going to be right back with NBA player Jonathan Isaac, who took a stand literally and metaphorically for what he believes in.
[00:49:27]  And he'll explain why next.
[00:49:32]  How far would you go to stand up for what you believe in?
[00:49:36]  Would you risk public criticism, the loss of family and friends?
[00:49:40]  Would you risk your hard-earned career?
[00:49:43]  Well, on July 31st, 2020, NBA player Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic did exactly that, all of it.
[00:49:49]  He risked everything when he chose to literally stand for what he believes in.
[00:49:54]  In front of millions of basketball fans around the world, Jonathan was the lone NBA player not to kneel during the national anthem in a league-wide demonstration of support for Black Lives Matter.
[00:50:08]  Why did he do it?
[00:50:09]  Jonathan's new book, Why I Stand, out now from our pals at Daily Wire Books, answers this question and much more, including how divine interventions transformed Jonathan's life.
[00:50:23]  Here to discuss it all is the man himself.
[00:50:26]  Jonathan Isaac, welcome.
[00:50:27]  Thank you so much for having me, Megan.
[00:50:29]  I'm excited.
[00:50:30]  I'm excited too.
[00:50:31]  It's a thrill to meet you.
[00:50:33]  I want to get into all of that.
[00:50:35]  We got to get into all of that because we covered it here, you know, as a show.
[00:50:39]  So it's fun to talk to the person behind all those decisions.
[00:50:42]  But your backstory is inspirational.
[00:50:45]  So we're going to start there, if that's okay with you.
[00:50:48]  Just tell us a little bit about, you grew up in the Bronx before you moved to Florida.
[00:50:52]  And I love the story about how hardworking your parents were and where you sometimes spent your overnights as a result as a kid.
[00:50:59]  Yeah, so I grew up in Bronx, New York.
[00:51:01]  Again, thank you so much for having me.
[00:51:03]  My mom, my dad, and I had four brothers and one sister.
[00:51:07]  Actually, three brothers and one sister.
[00:51:08]  My little brother, Jeremiah, didn't come just yet.
[00:51:10]  But yeah, I grew up there and everything was great, honestly.
[00:51:14]  We went to church all the time.
[00:51:15]  One thing that I noted in the book was church was just, it was just tradition for us.
[00:51:20]  We went all the time.
[00:51:21]  And then when I was about 10 years old, my parents split up.
[00:51:24]  And that's when the kind of everything started to go wrong in my life in a sense, where my mom took us kids and left my dad in New York.
[00:51:32]  And my dad was huge to me.
[00:51:33]  He was like, he was like Superman to me.
[00:51:35]  I loved him so much.
[00:51:36]  And I really felt special to him in a way that I didn't feel like my other siblings got to experience with him.
[00:51:42]  But when we split up and I went to Naples, Florida, that's when everything kind of got chaotic because I went from black New York to white Naples, Florida.
[00:51:51]  And I really struggled with fitting in and making friends and kind of getting adjusted to everything.
[00:51:56]  And so I really developed a sense of self-consciousness that I never experienced before, a sense of anxiety and fear about getting my peers to like me.
[00:52:05]  And in the book, there's several stories about how badly I failed at that.
[00:52:09]  But I found basketball and basketball pretty much became my identity because it got me everything that I thought I ever wanted.
[00:52:15]  The girls liked me now.
[00:52:17]  The guys wanted to play ball with me.
[00:52:18]  So I started to have a sense of belonging, but I still struggle with that anxiety and fear behind the scenes because I always felt like I was going to be the one to get it, to mess it all up.
[00:52:27]  And, you know, people would reject me like I felt like happened with my family and the early experiences that I had in Naples, Florida.
[00:52:33]  And but I just, I continued to move forward with basketball, went to Florida State for a year, then to the NBA and all leading up to the stand.
[00:52:42]  It's amazing because you, you write about your childhood.
[00:52:45]  You weren't like some basketball prodigy when you were young, when you were in the Bronx and your dad was working the overnight shift at the McDonald's and your mom was working an overnight shift.
[00:52:53]  And so it's basically who can take the kids at the most safe place overnight.
[00:52:56]  And your dad said, it should probably be maybe McDonald's.
[00:52:58]  You were sleeping overnight at the McDonald's, which is every child's dream.
[00:53:04]  And but like, it's not like, okay, then you would wake up and you'd go to school and you would just wow everybody with your hoop skills.
[00:53:10]  He was like, eh, you're okay.
[00:53:12]  But so when did the magic start?
[00:53:14]  Like when, when was it, when did it click?
[00:53:16]  Well, it didn't, honestly, I wouldn't say it ever clicked until like my last year in high school.
[00:53:23]  But leading up to, again, I always felt like this imposter syndrome.
[00:53:27]  So when I first started playing basketball, I was just okay at it.
[00:53:30]  But the more that I kind of dove into it and again, started getting the recognition and praise from other people, the more I gave myself to it.
[00:53:38]  But I always felt like I was going to mess it all up or that I didn't really belong here.
[00:53:42]  So as everybody was telling me how great I was and how far I could go with this thing, I never really believed that I could pretty much until I got here.
[00:53:49]  So I get drafted and I'm in the NBA and then I'm like, wow, it actually did happen.
[00:53:53]  It worked.
[00:53:54]  But again, it was because of so many different people that guided me.
[00:53:56]  Coach Gates in the book was a huge part of getting me to where I am today.
[00:54:00]  And so, yeah.
[00:54:01]  He's the Florida, the Florida coach, right?
[00:54:02]  The assistant coach who came down and recruited you.
[00:54:05]  Yes.
[00:54:06]  Yeah, there are great stories about him.
[00:54:08]  So speaking about your move to Florida when you were still a young guy, you write in the book, Ma was really a New Yorker from the islands.
[00:54:16]  She wanted me to be the most aggressive and strong kid out there.
[00:54:18]  And she was perplexed when I just couldn't do it.
[00:54:21]  She couldn't begin to know any of the things that were affecting me internally.
[00:54:24]  It wasn't her fault.
[00:54:26]  I just wouldn't share.
[00:54:27]  I'd quietly cry in the back of the minivan as she lectured me on not being weak or afraid.
[00:54:33]  So what was happening?
[00:54:34]  What were you going through?
[00:54:35]  Now, just expand on what you were touching on a moment ago.
[00:54:39]  Well, you would have to go back to those earlier stories.
[00:54:42]  And when I first got to Naples, there was a big story about me, you know, getting sent to the principal's office because I was rough housing with a lot of the kids.
[00:54:49]  And my mom, you know, showed up and, you know, is having this conversation with the principal.
[00:54:53]  And the principal is like scared for these kids' lives because this, you know, new kid from New York showed up and he's, he's beating them up in a sense of, but I was just horseplaying.
[00:55:01]  It was normal to me.
[00:55:03]  But that was the first time that I became like very self-conscious where I was like, you know, these people don't see me as I wanted them to see me at first.
[00:55:10]  And so it just developed that fear and anxiety of rejection from other people.
[00:55:15]  And so when I would, when I took on basketball, I never wanted to do something that would make somebody else dislike me.
[00:55:21]  And so I didn't want to show aggression.
[00:55:23]  I didn't want to hurt anybody.
[00:55:24]  I didn't want to, I just didn't want to put anybody else down.
[00:55:27]  So I never trash talked.
[00:55:28]  I just played in silence, really.
[00:55:30]  And so my mom, again, this, this tough island, you know, from the islands to New York, she's always like, you need to dominate.
[00:55:37]  And I would have, I would have moments of playing really, really well.
[00:55:40]  And she'd be like, you're the, you're great.
[00:55:42]  And then when I would play poorly or I'd be all in my head thinking about what other people were thinking, or if I was going to lose her love from playing badly, you know, she just, she didn't know any of that was going on in my head.
[00:55:52]  So she just saw it as you're not playing up to your potential or you're not, you're being weak.
[00:55:57]  This is a lot to think about as a mom, you know, like messaging with your kid and when knowing when to push him and when to comfort him.
[00:56:05]  Like that's the, that's part of the tricky, the tricky part of being a parent, right?
[00:56:09]  Like you got to get to know your kid and try to judge it.
[00:56:11]  And invariably we all screw it up.
[00:56:14]  Right.
[00:56:14]  And I think the biggest thing that, you know, I wanted at the time was almost to feel that love and encouragement when I, when I didn't do well, and because I was so used to already at such a young age, and not because of her fault or my parents' fault at all, it was what I had developed behind the scenes because of these different instances.
[00:56:33]  But I always felt like I was performing for attention, performing for love.
[00:56:37]  And so when I didn't perform well and I didn't get it, that was when it reaffirmed the fact that the only way that I can get love and attention is to perform well.
[00:56:46]  That makes sense because you write about how much you love your wife in the book and about how once you made it to the NBA, it didn't matter.
[00:56:53]  She didn't care whether, I mean, you met her through church circles.
[00:56:57]  You know, I met her.
[00:56:57]  She wasn't like an NBA fan.
[00:56:59]  But you write about how no matter how you played, no matter what the scoreboard read, she would find something to compliment you about, make you feel good.

=== Faith Guiding the NBA Draft (09:20) ===

[00:57:07]  And it's all sort of resonating now.
[00:57:08]  It's like, I can see how it all came together and why that was so important for you.
[00:57:13]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:57:14]  And so she plays a huge role in that.
[00:57:16]  Doc plays a huge role in the book as well.
[00:57:18]  Doc's a star.
[00:57:20]  And Doc is almost pretty much the star of the book.
[00:57:24]  And that really is ultimately where my relationship with Christ comes in, because the biggest thing for me and not getting into the weeds of the story was just coming to the realization that God loves me for me.
[00:57:35]  Like I don't have to perform for his love.
[00:57:37]  I don't have to be perfect for his love.
[00:57:39]  And that was the first time that I had this sense of calm and peace.
[00:57:43]  And I could then progress in becoming who he's called me to be and progress in my sport.
[00:57:47]  But I believe that God uses people.
[00:57:49]  And in my story, God definitely used people.
[00:57:51]  He used Doc.
[00:57:52]  He used my wife.
[00:57:53]  He used my church family.
[00:57:55]  He used my family to kind of help foster that in me and teach me what the love of God was like on a personal level.
[00:58:02]  And so having bad games in the league and still being encouraged, still being affirmed, you know, I would play bad and come home and there'd be a cake on my cake on my desk from Doc and his family saying, you know, how great I am and all these different things.
[00:58:14]  That was the that was the turning tide for me and kind of waking up to the realization, you know, of a relationship with Christ.
[00:58:20]  Wow.
[00:58:21]  That's, I'm going to try harder when my husband loses the little flag football games that he coaches for my son.
[00:58:28]  I'm going to bake a cake.
[00:58:30]  Before Doc came along, because I do want to get to him, you mentioned Coach Gates.
[00:58:34]  So you are in high school and you're playing well, but you're not in any way thinking, I'm going to go to the NBA.
[00:58:39]  You're just not thinking like that.
[00:58:41]  And then they say out of nowhere, the head coach at Florida State tells his assistant, Coach Gates, to go fly down and check out this kid.
[00:58:50]  So your coach there had said, told them, you got to see this kid.
[00:58:54]  Coach Gates comes down there and you write in the book, one of the first things he said to me was, young man, I want to offer you a scholarship after he'd watched you.
[00:59:01]  And I want to let you know that although they don't know who you are right now, the world will know who you are.
[00:59:06]  I'm telling you, I can see you being in the top five players in the country in your graduating class.
[00:59:12]  And sure enough, you wound up going to Florida on a scholarship and you wound up from there becoming the second player in Florida State history to enter the draft after only one season.
[00:59:28]  And you write for as for where I was slated to go in the draft, I could be the highest draft pick for Florida State in some 47 years.
[00:59:36]  So man, you had it.
[00:59:37]  You had self-confidence issues, but you had no problems in the talent department.
[00:59:42]  Yeah, I really was talented.
[00:59:44]  And maybe, you know, not to brag, but it speaks to, you know, how talented I was and kind of am because I was dealing with all these things in the background and still was able to, you know, produce in a way.
[00:59:54]  But yeah, Coach Gates was absolutely huge for me.
[00:59:57]  And just, you know, believing in me before I believed in myself.
[00:59:59]  Same thing with Doc, same thing with my wife.
[01:00:02]  And ultimately, the same thing with God.
[01:00:04]  And so, you know, having him there and having him to just off a cuff, he saw me for one workout and told me that I could be the top five player in my class.
[01:00:12]  I'm like, that's blasphemy.
[01:00:13]  That doesn't make any sense.
[01:00:14]  You have no idea who I am.
[01:00:16]  And again, those are just the things that I'm dealing with.
[01:00:18]  And so there's a big kind of idea in the book that says, as it is in life, so as it is on the court, so is it in life where you take you everywhere you go.
[01:00:29]  So all these people see me as this great basketball player, but nothing is going to click until I see it for myself.
[01:00:35]  And so, so yeah, so Coach Gates was huge in me getting to where I am today.
[01:00:40]  So then you find out that you are going to be the sixth pick in the 2017 NBA draft.
[01:00:46]  The Orlando Magic selects you from Florida State.
[01:00:49]  And you write, at the end of the night, I knew I couldn't go to sleep without thanking God.
[01:00:54]  Even if I was out here sinning, he was somewhere up in all of this.
[01:00:58]  I got on my knees.
[01:01:00]  Thank you, God.
[01:01:01]  That was done.
[01:01:02]  I made it.
[01:01:04]  I made it.
[01:01:04]  There's that moment, that moment, right?
[01:01:07]  Like, that's got to be something where it's like the number of hours, the hard work, the sacrifice.
[01:01:12]  And you get picked number six in the NBA draft.
[01:01:14]  And yeah, you look at your creator and you say, thank you.
[01:01:19]  Yeah, well, it was just super surreal.
[01:01:21]  And as you go farther in the book, you can learn that I wasn't all the way there with God.
[01:01:26]  I had my understanding of him as a traditional level because of how I grew up.
[01:01:32]  And so, you know, even in that moment, I'm thinking, you know, listen, I'm not out here doing everything that I know I should be doing.
[01:01:37]  You know, I'm messing up in a whole lot of ways, but you have to be somewhere in all of this for me to be, you know, at this current moment.
[01:01:44]  But your parents had laid the foundation and made you memorize Psalms and so on.
[01:01:48]  And that's where Doc comes in.
[01:01:49]  So you move to Florida.
[01:01:52]  Well, I guess you've been raised in Florida, but you go to Orlando and it's your apartment building where there's some guy who breaks the cardinal rule of like, you don't talk in the elevator.
[01:02:03]  You don't make comments to people in the elevator.
[01:02:04]  You certainly don't make comments to an NBA star because they're going to think you're a freaky fan, right?
[01:02:09]  But Doc did not follow those rules and tell us who he was and how the relationship started.
[01:02:15]  Well, he didn't follow the rules, one, because that's just how he is.
[01:02:17]  And two, because he didn't know who I was.
[01:02:20]  And so this guy stops me on an elevator and he says, I can tell you how to be great.
[01:02:26]  And I'm like, great.
[01:02:26]  Like in the back of my head, like, I'm the sixth pick in the NBA draft.
[01:02:29]  What do you mean, great?
[01:02:30]  And so he says, I can tell you how to be great.
[01:02:33]  And I say, tell me.
[01:02:34]  And he says, you have to know Jesus.
[01:02:36]  And I'm like, geez.
[01:02:37]  And I'm saying this in the back of my head.
[01:02:38]  I say, you know, I am Jesus.
[01:02:40]  I know Jesus.
[01:02:40]  I'm Christian and kind of just move on from there.
[01:02:43]  And, but what's so profound and again about how ultimately God was in the middle of this connection and ultimately took it to where he wanted it to go was that Doc didn't know anything about what I was going with behind the scenes or anything that I was struggling with.
[01:02:58]  He just saw this guy on the elevator and said that, but God knew.
[01:03:01]  And so I see him on the elevator and that exchange happens.
[01:03:04]  And I don't want to give too much away of the story.
[01:03:06]  But from then on, my life honestly just gets flipped upside down.
[01:03:10]  And I start to see God make himself real to me in a matter of coincidences and leading me in different places and just seeing all these different puzzle connections work.
[01:03:20]  And I was able to take a step back.
[01:03:22]  And again, Doc was a huge part of that, but I don't want to give too much away.
[01:03:25]  But I was able to take a step back and say, wow, like, God, you really do love me.
[01:03:29]  Like, I'm not out here.
[01:03:31]  I was hell-bent on experiencing everything that the NBA had to offer.
[01:03:34]  So I was having fun.
[01:03:35]  I was doing my thing.
[01:03:36]  And there's a God that's out there searching for me in order to help me heal these things that I'm dealing with.
[01:03:41]  And ultimately, because he wants to be in a relationship with me and because he loves me.
[01:03:45]  And so I have this kind of, you know, epiphany moment where I say, no, this is, this is too crazy.
[01:03:51]  This is real.
[01:03:53]  You know, and I remembered a prayer that I prayed in youth group when I was a little kid.
[01:03:56]  It's like, you know, Jesus, be Lord of my life, come into my heart and be Lord of my life.
[01:04:01]  So I prayed that on the side of my bed.
[01:04:02]  And from that moment on, it was just the start of the journey to me getting to where I am today.
[01:04:07]  You know, I started going to the church.
[01:04:08]  Dr. Hepburn was actually a pastor and I didn't know about it.
[01:04:11]  And I found out about it later.
[01:04:13]  And it's just, it was just perfect.
[01:04:15]  And I love the way that the story is written.
[01:04:17]  And I love the way, you know, that my story is just, it just is.
[01:04:20]  Well, you know what I see in it?
[01:04:21]  You know, they say we've talked about this on the show: courage is, it's built.
[01:04:25]  You know, it's not like you just are courageous or you're not.
[01:04:28]  It's built.
[01:04:29]  And you get it by taking small, courageous steps that one day will eventually become large, courageous steps because you'll just be more, you'll be less risk averse and you'll be a little bit more bold and you'll just get to know yourself better and what you can handle.
[01:04:45]  And you can see that very clearly in the course of this book.
[01:04:49]  And some are small examples and some are big, but when I, when I read it, I realized how you got to be the guy who stood.
[01:04:56]  It was very clear how you got to be the guy who stood.
[01:04:58]  And it wasn't just your connection with God and your beliefs.
[01:05:01]  It was a lifetime of taking these little steps of like, but this is what I believe in, but I'm going to try to stand up for what I believe in, even if it's hard.
[01:05:10]  You stood up, Doc asked you to give a sermon in church and you were like, what?
[01:05:15]  Right.
[01:05:16]  So like, that's scary.
[01:05:17]  Public speaking is people's number one fear above death.
[01:05:20]  Above death.
[01:05:21]  So you did it, right?
[01:05:23]  And that had some blowback that was unfortunate and unfair.
[01:05:27]  And not to cut you off, but it wasn't even the fact that just that I did it.
[01:05:32]  It was because of I was the kind of person that would never have done it, you know, ever, because of the different things that I, the anxiety and the fear that I struggled with growing up.
[01:05:41]  So it was really an example and a testament to me growing in my faith and that what I was doing at the moment with, you know, having a real relationship with Christ, was like, I was changing and I was growing and I was becoming better and I was, I was becoming the man that God, you know, wants me to become, and i'm still on that journey to becoming.
[01:05:59]  And so uh, you know, once you, like you said, once you get to that bubble moment, it's like you can look back down the line and say this isn't the Jonathan Isaac that was just that day.
[01:06:07]  This Jonathan Isaac was born and grow, grew over a period of time and facing these different challenges, and but I grew in faith, I grew in trust that God had me and each step that I took I was like God, you're real, your word is true, and that thing.
[01:06:21]  That is what gave me the boldness and courage to stand up and and ultimately declare his word.

=== Trusting God on the Court (04:11) ===

[01:06:28]  Um and honestly, you have to read the book to hear the whole story but grew in some cynicism when it comes to the media and misrepresentation of what actually happens in life, because that sermon was on youtube and it was misrepresented as some sort of a knock on his teammates, which it wasn't at all.
[01:06:42]  But that's what the media does, you know.
[01:06:43]  They twist and they obfuscate and they they like to misrepresent and create controversy and acrimony, which is exactly the opposite of what god wants for us um, so you, you navigate through that.
[01:06:54]  Now there was another moment I wanted to ask you about, because I didn't realize that when you're a rookie player in the Nba, it's like being a rookie Supreme Court justice in a way where I don't think they had Amy Coney Barrett do what your guy had you do in the NBA.
[01:07:08]  You know your senior uh, I think they just have her refill the water jug.
[01:07:11]  But um, can you tell us that story about how the you're sort of the the Gopher, when you're the first year the rookie guy, and what was your task and and what happened there?
[01:07:21]  Yeah every, every team is different and they're every guy in the league is different um, but when I got to the, when I got to the NB and I was a rookie, you know you have your vet and uh, my job at the time was, you know, whenever I get that, you know that text, that call whatever I would go to the store when we first get to a new city, I would go to the store and I would buy some condoms and I would be the one who would, you know, pass them out and and and give them to a guy and and kind of just leave it at that, um.
[01:07:46]  But this is all happening around the time that again, i'm growing in faith and i'm saying, you know what God like, I want to start doing things your way and living your way.
[01:07:54]  So I started to examine my life and find different places where I knew, you know, couldn't have been pleasing to go, and that was one of them.
[01:08:01]  And so again, having this moment of facing fear and anxiety I um, with Docs uh, with Doc's guidance, you know decided to actually go and speak to this teammate.
[01:08:11]  Um, but what I, what I really wanted to shine through in the book was that I wasn't judging him.
[01:08:16]  And when I had the conversation with him, I said, you know, you know, i've been really trying to get right with God lately and so it's not a knock on you, i'm not.
[01:08:24]  I'm not, you know, condemning you or thinking you're a bad person.
[01:08:26]  I understand how hard it is to be in the NBA and and and do what we do, but you know this is where i'm at, and and you know I can't do this for you anymore, and so that's where that conversation went.
[01:08:35]  But I really wanted him to know that I don't think i'm any better than him, or um, or anything like that.
[01:08:40]  We all are in need of grace, we all make mistakes, we all sin at the end of the day, and he was cool about it.
[01:08:46]  He was.
[01:08:47]  He was, I mean, like it's good, because sometimes those small steps of courage can be rewarded and sometimes not so much and uh, how it turns out can affect whether you take the next one.
[01:08:57]  So that one worked out okay.
[01:08:59]  So okay, now you're playing in the Nba and I don't know anything about sports.
[01:09:03]  I mean truly, I know very little But, as I understand it, you are very good.
[01:09:09]  I can do my thing.
[01:09:11]  Okay.
[01:09:11]  So I'm just talking about your rookie season now because I'm building up to 2020, summer of 2020.
[01:09:16]  But you got injured, but like when you were playing and you were uninjured, you seemed to me like you were on fire.
[01:09:24]  I was doing okay.
[01:09:25]  And I've gotten what was what's been interesting to me is I've gotten better every year.
[01:09:32]  And honestly, I haven't played a whole lot.
[01:09:33]  So I've been, I've been injured, you know, pretty much each season, except for my, I'd say my second year, I played the majority of the season.
[01:09:40]  This, the third one, I got, you know, injured and missed the fourth one and missed the fifth one.
[01:09:45]  But, but I grew as an individual.
[01:09:48]  And so again, talking about as it is on the court, so is it in life.
[01:09:52]  Like I grew in life.
[01:09:54]  I grew as a man.
[01:09:55]  I grew in my confidence.
[01:09:56]  I grew in my boldness.
[01:09:57]  I grew in understanding of who I am.
[01:09:59]  And it translated to the basketball court.
[01:10:01]  And so the fear and the anxiety that I would play with my rookie year was starting to dwindle down and down and down as I began to learn how to trust God on the basketball court because I was trusting him, you know, in my everyday life.
[01:10:13]  And so it was, it was a, it was a nice mirror.
[01:10:16]  I think, I think it's a mirror in everybody's life, you know, ultimately.
[01:10:19]  What was the rookie year?
[01:10:21]  Like what two years did it span?
[01:10:24]  The rookie year was 2017.
[01:10:27]  And I had injured my ankle to start the season and then came back and injured it right away again.
[01:10:33]  And then pretty much finished the season by being on limited minutes.
[01:10:37]  And then they just had me sit.

=== Growing Boldness as a Man (15:06) ===

[01:10:39]  Okay.
[01:10:39]  Okay.
[01:10:40]  So now let's flash forward to the summer of 2020.
[01:10:44]  We're in the pandemic and in May of 2020, we see the death of George Floyd.
[01:10:53]  And that was a videotape that a lot of people found too disturbing to watch.
[01:10:57]  Anybody who did watch it found it just awful.
[01:11:01]  But you're a black man in America who's obviously had some racist experience in the past.
[01:11:05]  I mean, I know because I've seen the book and I just know it's the truth.
[01:11:10]  And how does that affect you?
[01:11:13]  So what happened to George Floyd was obviously tragic.
[01:11:16]  And, you know, what's happened in our world and is happening right now is obviously tragic.
[01:11:21]  What I tried my best to do was to take a step back and say, what is the right way for me to respond in a way that can bring the most change?
[01:11:32]  The same way that people who decided to kneel or disagree with me made a decision for themselves about what they wanted to do, which was kneel for the national anthem and wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt.
[01:11:42]  For me, it wasn't.
[01:11:43]  In that moment, looking at my life and saying, the love of Jesus Christ is the thing that has changed me, that has helped me and has me where I am today.
[01:11:51]  I couldn't think of a better, a greater message or antidote for the problems that we see, the racism and all the different things that ultimately plague the hearts of men.
[01:12:02]  I couldn't see a better antidote for it.
[01:12:04]  And so I decided to not step into a fight, not step into a political moment, not step into the craziness of what was happening at the moment and say, I have an opportunity to be a mouthpiece of hope and what I ultimately believe is going to change this country if we can choose to see it that way.
[01:12:22]  And so I decided to stand up and give the gospel.
[01:12:25]  What do you mean?
[01:12:26]  What do you mean?
[01:12:27]  To live the gospel?
[01:12:28]  Or was there a moment where you actually preached the gospel with the team?
[01:12:31]  Well, in the press conference right after.
[01:12:34]  And so once.
[01:12:35]  Okay, so now we're getting ahead of ourselves.
[01:12:37]  Stand by.
[01:12:38]  Stand by.
[01:12:38]  We'll go back.
[01:12:40]  No, that's okay.
[01:12:40]  It's good.
[01:12:41]  Your story works chronologically.
[01:12:42]  So that's the way I'm doing it.
[01:12:43]  So July 31st, 2020 comes.
[01:12:46]  And the team behind the scenes says, we've got to do something.
[01:12:51]  Like this is where you all go into the bubble.
[01:12:53]  All the teams are playing in the bubble.
[01:12:55]  And, you know, we're still, we don't have COVID figured out.
[01:12:57]  We don't know what we're doing.
[01:12:58]  And people are upset and decide we got to do something.
[01:13:03]  And so how did that come about?
[01:13:04]  Like the team and you're sitting there and they're talking about their plan and you're thinking something else.
[01:13:09]  So take us to that moment.
[01:13:11]  So after it all happened, there were murmurs of, you know, the players deciding to kneel and wear the t-shirt, but it wasn't confirmed.
[01:13:21]  I think the only thing that was confirmed was that they were going to have Black Lives Matter t-shirts as the warm-up T-shirts.
[01:13:27]  But the kneeling wasn't confirmed until the first team did it.
[01:13:31]  So I don't exactly remember what team it was, but the first team had did it in the bubble and then one more team did it.
[01:13:37]  And now it was like the next day was coming and we were set to play.
[01:13:41]  And so now we have this team meeting and they're like, yo, we don't have a choice.
[01:13:45]  You know, there is no conversation here.
[01:13:47]  We have to kneel.
[01:13:48]  And, you know, granted, there were plenty of guys who wanted to kneel, but definitely the sentiment in the room was like, there's no need to have this conversation because this is just what it has to be.
[01:13:57]  We can't be the only team not to kneel.
[01:13:59]  And then that's when the question was passed to me.
[01:14:02]  And I think, you know, knowingly, because they know who I am.
[01:14:05]  And somebody asked me, you know, Jonathan, what are you going to do?
[01:14:08]  And I said, listen, fellas, I'm not going to kneel and I'm not going to put that t-shirt on.
[01:14:12]  And that's when, you know, chaos ensues.
[01:14:16]  And we kind of just leave the meeting with everybody, just do what you want because, you know, this thing is going to be crazy.
[01:14:22]  And then we get to the next day and it happens.
[01:14:26]  So before we get to the video, why?
[01:14:29]  Why did you stand?
[01:14:30]  Why did you refuse to kneel?
[01:14:32]  Well, again, I just, I couldn't see, you know, seeing all the things that were going on at the moment, I'm thinking for myself, what is the answer?
[01:14:42]  And for me, I didn't see what was going on with kneeling, you know, kneeling for the national anthem and wearing a t-shirt or, you know, the Black Lives Matter organization as the answer, not only for that moment, but for the world at large.
[01:14:55]  And so as I looked at my own life and said, I know what has changed me.
[01:14:58]  I know what has helped me.
[01:14:59]  I know what has helped countless people.
[01:15:01]  And ultimately, what is going to be the thing that changes the world?
[01:15:05]  And that's the gospel and that's the love of Jesus Christ if we're willing to show it and share it.
[01:15:10]  And so that's why I decided to stand.
[01:15:13]  I had a conversation with my pastor the night before and ultimately said, listen, it's bigger than skin color.
[01:15:18]  It's the hearts of men that need to be changed.
[01:15:20]  And racism is not the only thing that plagues the hearts of men.
[01:15:23]  But I know that the gospel changes the hearts of men.
[01:15:26]  And so, so yeah, so we had a conversation.
[01:15:28]  It was like, look, this thing is going to be crazy.
[01:15:30]  It's not going to be something that I just do and it just blows over.
[01:15:33]  I'm going to get a lot of backlash and attack for it.
[01:15:35]  And he was like, look, you may be standing alone in that bubble, but I'm standing right there with you.
[01:15:40]  And my, you know, my girlfriend at the time was, you know, is now my wife.
[01:15:44]  She said the same thing.
[01:15:45]  I'm with you.
[01:15:47]  I know you're going to be standing out there alone, but I'm standing right there with you.
[01:15:50]  And, you know, the sentiment that came out of it was a whole lot of encouragement from other Christians and people who understood my perspective.
[01:15:56]  And then, you know, the next day it happened.
[01:15:58]  All right.
[01:15:59]  We've got video of it and of a reporter asking you a question about it.
[01:16:06]  Let's watch.
[01:16:07]  So you didn't kneel during the anthem, but you also didn't wear a Black Lives Matter shirt.
[01:16:12]  Do you believe that Black Lives Matter?
[01:16:15]  Absolutely.
[01:16:15]  I believe that Black Lives Matter.
[01:16:18]  A lot went into my decision.
[01:16:20]  And part of it is, first off, is my thought that, you know, kneeling or wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt don't go hand in hand with supporting Black Lives.
[01:16:30]  And so I felt like just me personally, what it is that I believe in standing on the stats, that I do believe that Black Lives Matter, but I just felt like it was a decision that I had to make.
[01:16:42]  And I didn't feel like putting that shirt on and kneeling went hand in hand with supporting Black Lives Matter.
[01:16:53]  Did you ever think you as a Black man would have to justify whether you believe that Black Lives Matter just because you wouldn't put on a T-shirt and take a knee?
[01:17:01]  No, I didn't.
[01:17:02]  And the question definitely threw me off, but it was already a very like tense, tense moment.
[01:17:07]  And, you know, if I had to answer that question again, my first answer would be, of course, I'm Black.
[01:17:13]  And, but yeah, and part of the problem for me was that it was an order.
[01:17:19]  It was made to seem as though the only way that you could support Black lives in this moment was to do what we tell you, and that is to kneel for the national anthem and wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt.
[01:17:29]  And if you didn't do that, then you were. immediately a bad person, an evil person, and you didn't care anything about Black lives.
[01:17:35]  But again, looking at my own life and, you know, I've been involved in ministry for four years now.
[01:17:41]  And during that time, you know, I was involved in ministry and I've seen countless lives changed, black, white, and indifferent through the gospel.
[01:17:47]  And so I had evidence for myself that that wasn't the only way to support Black lives.
[01:17:52]  And I knew a greater way to support Black lives than that demonstration.
[01:17:56]  And so that went into my decision not to be a part of it.
[01:18:00]  What did you think was non-gospel-like about the T-shirt and the kneeling gesture?
[01:18:07]  Well, non-gospel.
[01:18:09]  Like it was the tone of the message to a degree.
[01:18:13]  It was definitely an angry moment and an emotional moment.
[01:18:17]  And it was equating everybody on that side, every white person, every white person to the actions of one person.
[01:18:29]  And I didn't think that that was right.
[01:18:30]  And ultimately, my answer was that, look, we all fall short of the glory of God.
[01:18:34]  We all sin.
[01:18:35]  We all make mistakes.
[01:18:36]  And Jesus said, he who is without sin, cast the first stone.
[01:18:40]  And so ultimately, I believe that if we can love and forgive the way that God loves and forgives us, which is in spite of our faults, in spite of our sin, then we could have change.
[01:18:51]  And so looking at the Black Lives Matter organization and movement, I never felt comfortable in it stating, you know, yeah, I see what's going on, but I believe that Jesus is the answer.
[01:19:00]  I never felt comfortable in that sphere saying that.
[01:19:03]  And so, you know, that's why, you know, and I'm pretty sure that the Black Lives Matter organization on that side is, you know, antithetical to, you know, Christ.
[01:19:11]  Wow.
[01:19:12]  You're an extraordinary person, Jonathan Isaac.
[01:19:15]  Let me squeeze in a quick break and we will definitely come back with more of your story.
[01:19:22]  So after the stand, after the stand, there definitely was fallout.
[01:19:28]  And you write about how the very next day you were on board the team bus and everybody gets a text saying players only meeting, like ASAP.
[01:19:37]  And that meeting was about what?
[01:19:39]  That meeting was about me.
[01:19:41]  And so we get to the hotel and we go into this players only meeting.
[01:19:46]  And again, that kind of chaos ensues of, you know, guys are emotional, guys are angry about, you know, what they're having to face as well.
[01:19:54]  So with me standing, you know, people are going at them for kneeling.
[01:19:57]  They're having to answer questions in the media about, you know, what do they think about me standing?
[01:20:02]  And they feel they feel betrayed.
[01:20:04]  And so, you know, guys are saying that, you know, I'm hijacking the movement and I'm making it about me.
[01:20:10]  And, but, you know, that wasn't the feeling of every single guy in there, but, you know, that was the, you know, consensus.
[01:20:15]  And so we kind of ended with agreeing to disagree.
[01:20:18]  As I said, listen, y'all, like, I respected your decision to kneel.
[01:20:21]  You guys are men.
[01:20:22]  You guys made your decision.
[01:20:23]  And I only ask for that same respect in return.
[01:20:26]  I'm not standing in protest to your protest.
[01:20:29]  I'm standing because this is what I believe in is ultimately going to change the world.
[01:20:32]  Like I see what you see.
[01:20:35]  I'm not discounting what happened to George Floyd as tragic.
[01:20:37]  I'm not saying that it's not a bad thing.
[01:20:40]  I'm saying that what we're doing right now with kneeling and wearing that t-shirt is not giving, it's not the answer.
[01:20:46]  It's not going to be the thing that saves not only our community, but the world.
[01:20:50]  And so, you know, that's kind of where we left it at.
[01:20:52]  It must have been very challenging for you, given all you've told us about your history of wanting to be liked, of not wanting to misstep, of, you know, wanting to do the right thing so you can fit in and then having an experience where you didn't feel like you fit in and completely blamed yourself.
[01:21:09]  You know, like the lifetime that brought you to that moment was extraordinary and was wonderful and gave you the courage to do it.
[01:21:16]  But those demons were still there, I'm sure, and must have made it a very, I don't know, somewhat of a scary choice.
[01:21:24]  Yeah, absolutely.
[01:21:25]  It was tough.
[01:21:26]  And, you know, like I said, a lot of thought went into it.
[01:21:29]  And a lot of the thought went into it in terms of what was going to happen afterwards.
[01:21:33]  And, you know, I almost had to gear myself up for, you know, the backlash and the people that are called friends and, you know, mates to not like me anymore or think I was against them or, you know, all the name calls and everything that has happened over the time.
[01:21:50]  But again, I do believe in what I stood for.
[01:21:53]  And I knew that I wasn't standing alone.
[01:21:55]  And so, yes, there was a ton of negativity, but there was so much positivity as well.
[01:22:00]  And people who were encouraged and found their boldness in me standing there.
[01:22:05]  I believe that same message and I'm going to be willing to stand up and declare it no matter if I'm liked or disliked.
[01:22:12]  People within the NBA?
[01:22:14]  Well, I mean, just Christians at large.
[01:22:17]  But, you know, I did even have conversations with different athletes in the NBA and soccer and kind of all over the country who said, listen, I want to do the same thing because I believe what you believe, but I'm terrified about what's going to happen.
[01:22:32]  And so, you know, I told them the same thing that my pastor told me the night before.
[01:22:36]  He said, you cannot stand for God and God not stand for you.
[01:22:39]  You know, I wasn't standing for a political movement or a side or anything like that.
[01:22:44]  I was standing because I believe that Christ is the answer.
[01:22:46]  And so he said, if you do that, then God has to keep you.
[01:22:49]  And so that's the message that I told to those other guys.
[01:22:51]  And, you know, we had a player right here in Orlando who plays for the soccer team MLS.
[01:22:56]  And this is a white guy.
[01:22:57]  And so for him, you know, you could say it was even harder for him to do it.
[01:23:00]  But after having a conversation, he went on and did it.
[01:23:03]  And then he's okay.
[01:23:05]  I wonder if it's harder for a white guy.
[01:23:07]  I don't, because the black men and women who have heterodox views on this issue get it so bad.
[01:23:16]  I mean, they just get harassed and called the worst names.
[01:23:20]  So it just seems like, I mean, I've had so many black thinkers, intellectuals, thought leaders, athletes, you name it on this show who they just, they get excoriated when they don't march to the party line.
[01:23:34]  And it's painful.
[01:23:36]  Yeah, it's definitely not easy.
[01:23:38]  It definitely takes a bit of courage and boldness.
[01:23:41]  And again, just believing in what you believe in.
[01:23:44]  And even the people who do say those things, I don't hate those people.
[01:23:48]  I don't wish bad upon them.
[01:23:50]  I'm open to having a conversation with anyone.
[01:23:53]  And so if someone's not willing to have a conversation with me and just wants to call me names, then that's them.
[01:23:58]  But I know what it is that I believe in.
[01:24:01]  You're such a good person.
[01:24:02]  I'll spew some of my hate over on them.
[01:24:04]  No, just kidding.
[01:24:05]  I know that's not what you want.
[01:24:07]  I'm not as involved as you are, Jonathan.
[01:24:09]  I'm working on it.
[01:24:10]  Okay.
[01:24:10]  So you write this in the book.
[01:24:13]  Oh, I love Doc.
[01:24:15]  You write, one of the guys barked.
[01:24:20]  Hold on a second.
[01:24:21]  Okay.
[01:24:22]  He says, well, I refuse to kneel next to him, meaning you.
[01:24:26]  Next game during the anthem, I'm going to stay in the locker room.
[01:24:29]  No, man, another player objected.
[01:24:31]  We can't change what we're doing.
[01:24:32]  Everyone has to do the same thing or it's just going to be a bigger story.
[01:24:35]  Are you going to stand again?
[01:24:36]  They say to you.
[01:24:37]  Yeah, I say after a deep exhale.
[01:24:40]  And that's that.
[01:24:41]  Everything stays the same.
[01:24:43]  Another slow walk to my hotel room.
[01:24:45]  I broke down crying on the phone with Doc as I recounted what had happened.
[01:24:50]  He quieted me and said, they knelt for what they believe in, and you stood for what you believe in.
[01:24:56]  That's so perfect.
[01:24:57]  That's so, he's like an angel on your shoulder.
[01:25:01]  He is, right?
[01:25:03]  Doc is the man.
[01:25:04]  And I would not be able to do any of the things that I've done if it wasn't for, you know, having him in my ear and in my corner.
[01:25:11]  But yeah, and even in that moment of breaking down, it was like, you know, me being a little kid all over again of like, I did something wrong.
[01:25:18]  And I don't know if I handled that situation the right way.
[01:25:21]  And should I have said something differently?
[01:25:22]  But ultimately, you know, in that moment, as heated as it was, nothing that I was going to be able to say was going to win any of them in that moment.
[01:25:30]  But, you know, he kind of just, you know, dropped the mic.
[01:25:33]  You know, they did do what they what they ultimately believed in and you did what you believed in.
[01:25:37]  And, you know, you let the cards fall where they may.
[01:25:40]  And what happened after that?
[01:25:41]  Because there was kneeling every night, you know, for until everything got shut down.

=== Purpose Behind Injury and Pain (03:56) ===

[01:25:46]  So what happened after?
[01:25:48]  So the story takes a big turn when the next game, after I decided to stand in the bubble, so I stood for a second time that game, I tear my ACL.
[01:25:58]  And so this, you know, sets off another rampage of comments and, you know, people saying a knee for a knee and God did that and all these different things.
[01:26:07]  And so it was a, it was a really tough moment because even in myself, I'm thinking, why?
[01:26:13]  Like, why, why let this happen?
[01:26:16]  Why now?
[01:26:17]  You know, I knew I stood for you.
[01:26:18]  Like, why would you allow this?
[01:26:21]  But over time, I found, I found clarity and I found purpose in it because if I didn't get injured, there wouldn't be a book.
[01:26:28]  There wouldn't be, you know, my story of people being able to grab it and for it to live on forever and for people to be encouraged and find the courage in Christ to stand up for what they believe in because of this book.
[01:26:40]  And so I know that ultimately God always has a purpose for everything.
[01:26:44]  And I had to learn that.
[01:26:46]  It wasn't something I just grabbed overnight and I'm like, everything is okay.
[01:26:48]  It was tough, you know, in the moment, but being able to step back and start the rehab process and even being able to identify with other players that are injured right now and being able to talk to them and call them when they go through the different things, I can see the purpose of God in it all.
[01:27:04]  Wow.
[01:27:04]  That had to be tough, right?
[01:27:06]  You could see the pain on your face in that video of the injury.
[01:27:09]  And I mean, I know you were taken off in a wheelchair and the crying was open.
[01:27:13]  It would have to be on that kind of an injury after that much stress.
[01:27:16]  My gosh, right.
[01:27:17]  So it's like, but you really do have the perspective of everything is a gift, you know, and it's sort of driving you.
[01:27:23]  If you have that connection to God and you nurture it and you reflect on what each of these moments in your life means, you can find the connection, right?
[01:27:32]  It's there.
[01:27:32]  And it's not just looking on the bright side.
[01:27:34]  It's trying to find meaning in the events of your life.
[01:27:37]  Right.
[01:27:37]  And again, it's not something that happens overnight.
[01:27:40]  Like I was distraught when it first happened.
[01:27:43]  But as I've been able to kind of go through the process and look back, I say, wow, like I can see why, I can see why you allowed it.
[01:27:50]  I can see why we're here, especially as I'm writing this book.
[01:27:53]  And I know it's going to encourage people.
[01:27:55]  I know it's going to point people to what's ultimately going to change people is the gospel is Jesus Christ.
[01:28:00]  And so I'm like, I get it.
[01:28:02]  I get it.
[01:28:03]  So you see, I mean, I'm curious because that was the same summer that we saw people get with the protests and the violent protests against cops and some people disturbing folks at restaurants outside, making them raise the fist.
[01:28:18]  I mean, it was just disturbing and alarming stuff we watched that summer.
[01:28:21]  You're watching all of that.
[01:28:23]  And what are you thinking?
[01:28:25]  Well, I'm thinking, you know, that's a part of the reason why, you know, what that organization has is not sufficient for the salvation of the community they're wanting to save.
[01:28:36]  And, you know, ultimately the world for that matter.
[01:28:39]  And so, you know, that's just what I thought.
[01:28:41]  It's almost like it didn't surprise me because there was so much anger.
[01:28:46]  There was so much hate for the other side being spewed and just anger.
[01:28:51]  And anger only begets anger and hate only begets hate.
[01:28:55]  And ultimately, love is the only way that you can change that.
[01:28:58]  And so I think that was a moment for love, but it's something that's extremely hard to do.
[01:29:03]  And the only reason that I want to love in these times and these situations is because of the way that God has loved me.
[01:29:10]  And so if you haven't experienced what it is to be loved past your faults, it's going to be hard to love someone past their faults.
[01:29:16]  And so, yeah.
[01:29:19]  Black Lives Matter has been, its status as a charitable organization has been shut down in several states now.
[01:29:24]  They've been accused of activities that certainly seem to amount to a potential fraud.
[01:29:29]  Patrice Cullers has admitted using donations for her personal use and enjoyment.
[01:29:34]  She's got three multi-million dollar homes.
[01:29:36]  The person who co-founded Black Lives Matter.
[01:29:38]  Do you feel given all that in a way, do you feel vindicated?

=== Loving Past Political Faults (07:34) ===

[01:29:42]  No, I mean, because at the end of the day, that's terrible.
[01:29:47]  It's tragic.
[01:29:48]  It's, you know, people, there are so many people who, you know, if you put the organization aside, there are people who believed in, you know, fighting for the, you know, the rights of, you know, African Americans in this country.
[01:30:01]  And so, you know, for them, I, I, I, I'm sure there's a feeling of anger and, you know, betrayal by what's going on.
[01:30:08]  And so, you know, I wouldn't take that as a moment to kind of glory in it.
[01:30:12]  I feel terrible.
[01:30:12]  And it's not something that I would say I'm surprised by.
[01:30:17]  And again, I just, you know, people and, you know, legislation and all these different things is not going to be the thing that saves, you know, an individual's heart.
[01:30:26]  And so, you know, that's why I just continue to walk and kind of, you know, share my message.
[01:30:31]  Well, never wanted to shy away from a fight.
[01:30:33]  You had another one coming your way.
[01:30:35]  And that was over the COVID vaccine.
[01:30:39]  And we covered that on this show, too.
[01:30:40]  You're basically a co-cast member with me.
[01:30:42]  You were covering me and I didn't even, I didn't even know, Megan.
[01:30:45]  No, you didn't.
[01:30:46]  You had other more important things to do.
[01:30:48]  So you had some doubts about the COVID vaccine and whether you needed it.
[01:30:52]  And you had had COVID, right?
[01:30:55]  You had natural immunity and you knew that.
[01:30:57]  And I just remember somebody getting in your face and asking you, and you just gave such a thoughtful answer on, you know, all the places you've been intellectually thinking about it and why you decided it really wasn't for you.
[01:31:09]  And the headlines in the papers were, oh, he said he watched some Trump rallies and decided not to take the vaccine.
[01:31:16]  It was like completely misleading, fake news.
[01:31:19]  And they're trying to paint you as some like MAGA guy who just has the cat, the cap on and is like, screw the vaccine.
[01:31:27]  So what was the truth about all that?
[01:31:30]  For me, that was definitely the first time that I kind of was like, oh, fake, fake news really is a thing.
[01:31:36]  But yeah, so, you know, when COVID first started, you know, off and, you know, everybody is so gripped with fear, you know, everywhere.
[01:31:44]  And, you know, understandably so with the, you know, the pictures that were coming out of China and all these different things that were going on.
[01:31:50]  It's like people were terrified.
[01:31:52]  And as I just begin to kind of, you know, first it started off with Trump and, you know, he, he was, he was, um, he was talking about, you know, getting a vaccine and all these different things.
[01:32:01]  And everyone was like, heck no, I would never trust that thing in a million years.
[01:32:06]  And then with the turn of the presidency, everything just flipped.
[01:32:09]  And it was like, you know, this, this thing is going to be mandatory and all these different things.
[01:32:13]  So for me, it was, it was kind of easy for me kind of just looking out to just take a step back.
[01:32:18]  And I'm like, okay, let's think about this thing.
[01:32:20]  What are the people saying?
[01:32:21]  They're saying that, you know, right now there's a 99.97 survival rate.
[01:32:26]  You know, I can see, you know, on Twitter and different things that even the conversation around natural immunity is being shot down.
[01:32:32]  They're not talking about it.
[01:32:35]  You know, just the craziness on Twitter and people being upset and demeaning people who are hesitant and all these different things.
[01:32:42]  So in taking my step back, I said, look, okay, I am, I'm healthy.
[01:32:47]  I've, one, I've already had COVID.
[01:32:48]  I had already done some research.
[01:32:50]  I actually connected with a doctor out at UCLA who was, you know, getting in trouble because he wouldn't take it and then ended up getting fired.
[01:32:58]  And so I was asking him a lot of questions and learning on my own.
[01:33:00]  And so I said, look, I'm healthy.
[01:33:02]  I'm in the best shape of my life.
[01:33:03]  I don't have any comorbidities.
[01:33:05]  I've already had COVID.
[01:33:06]  I have a level of natural immunity.
[01:33:09]  I'm okay.
[01:33:10]  And I said, you know what?
[01:33:12]  For me, I don't see the wisdom in opening myself up to the possibility, albeit rare, of having a severe reaction to the vaccine and still possibly catching COVID and passing it on anyway.
[01:33:24]  And so that was my synopsis.
[01:33:28]  And I kind of was just like, to me, that's fair.
[01:33:30]  And if anybody else is scared or worried about their health, then they should go get the vaccine and more power to them.
[01:33:37]  But I don't think this is right for me.
[01:33:39]  And then also seeing people's religious and medical exemptions being denied, it was just distasteful.
[01:33:45]  And people getting fired and all those things.
[01:33:48]  So I just said, you know what, this is not for me.
[01:33:50]  And then that's when the Rolling Stone article dropped where the team had reached out and said, there's this reporter for the Rolling Stone.
[01:33:58]  He wants to interview.
[01:33:59]  And we have a great interview.
[01:34:00]  Like, this guy loves me.
[01:34:02]  Like, we're cool.
[01:34:04]  We're chatting it up.
[01:34:04]  He's like, oh, I agree with you.
[01:34:06]  All these different things.
[01:34:06]  Just a real, I'm thinking a genuine conversation.
[01:34:09]  And I share with him the same things that I just shared with you.
[01:34:12]  And the article drops and it says, Jonathan Isaac came to his, you know, vaccine hesitancy by watching Donald Trump press conferences and studying Black History Month.
[01:34:24]  And then I waited for people to die to make my decision.
[01:34:26]  And I'm like, what?
[01:34:28]  That's literally what it says.
[01:34:31]  I was so angry, exactly.
[01:34:33]  I was so angry.
[01:34:34]  And I was like, how is this even possible?
[01:34:37]  How is this even fair?
[01:34:38]  And that's when, again, like another veil of like, oh man, this is bigger than a vaccine.
[01:34:43]  This is, you know, this is obviously political.
[01:34:45]  This is obviously biased.
[01:34:46]  This is obviously about protecting an agenda.
[01:34:49]  And that's when I'm like, okay, full stop.
[01:34:51]  Like, this is bad.
[01:34:52]  And so I'm on the phone with my pastor, with Doc that night.
[01:34:56]  And I'm like, people are on Twitter calling me crazy and stupid.
[01:35:00]  And I sound stupid based on this article.
[01:35:02]  And he's like, well, you have an opportunity because the next day was media day with the team.
[01:35:07]  So he's like, you have an opportunity to clear the air.
[01:35:09]  If they ask you about it, then just share.
[01:35:11]  And so that's what I did.
[01:35:12]  And the video goes viral, has like 8 million views in a week.
[01:35:15]  And people are like, oh, he sounds reasonable.
[01:35:18]  And I'm like, yeah, thank you.
[01:35:20]  So can I tell you that that's such an empowering moment because you have a microphone too.
[01:35:24]  You have more power than this reporter whose name nobody knows at Rolling Stone.
[01:35:29]  And this is what drives me nuts when powerful athletes or movie stars or what have you start crying about what victims they are when the press does what the press does.
[01:35:38]  And I realize the press is terrible.
[01:35:40]  Trust me.
[01:35:40]  I realize.
[01:35:41]  But it's like, you have a microphone.
[01:35:44]  You're not some, forgive the term, but nobody, some no name in the middle of the country who cannot get on CNN every night or who cannot get to a microphone.
[01:35:53]  You have power.
[01:35:54]  And so I have very little tolerance for athletes who are like, oh, the media is meaner.
[01:35:58]  I don't want to deal with the media.
[01:35:59]  It's like, use it.
[01:36:01]  Humiliate them.
[01:36:02]  Set the record straight.
[01:36:04]  You don't have to let them bully you.
[01:36:05]  That's why I love it.
[01:36:06]  It's like yet another empowering moment for you.
[01:36:08]  And it mattered.
[01:36:09]  That's what we saw.
[01:36:10]  That's what we ran.
[01:36:11]  You setting the record straight on the fake news reporting, which by the way, wasn't only anti, you know, you because of your vaccine position, but made sure to point out that you were proudly Christian, right?
[01:36:23]  Like deeply religious.
[01:36:24]  Oh, deeply, deeply religious and proudly unvaccinated.
[01:36:28]  My God, horrible.
[01:36:30]  That's not okay for the writers at Rolling Stone.
[01:36:32]  So let me ask you this.
[01:36:33]  And that doesn't even sound like me anyway.
[01:36:35]  And so when I saw the whole proudly unvaccinated, I'm like, that doesn't even sound like me.
[01:36:39]  So go ahead.
[01:36:40]  Sorry.
[01:36:41]  So you are Christian.
[01:36:43]  You are courageous.
[01:36:44]  You kind of sound conservative.
[01:36:46]  So politically, where are you?
[01:36:51]  What I've tried my best to do is to let my Christianity guide me on, you know, voting and different things.
[01:36:59]  And, you know, so what I've stood for, what I haven't stood for, I think it, you know, you let people pick from that what they may.
[01:37:07]  I like that.
[01:37:08]  I like that answer.
[01:37:09]  You're sort of, you know, it's like smart because, you know, the old Michael Jordan's Republicans buy sneakers too.
[01:37:13]  There's no reason to declare your partisanship or what have you.

=== Buying the Book Tomorrow (03:43) ===

[01:37:17]  There's no reason yet.
[01:37:19]  But the NBA cannot last forever.
[01:37:21]  And there could be, there could be, you know, you could preach.
[01:37:25]  You've done some of that.
[01:37:26]  I know you're ordained now, but you could also run for office.
[01:37:31]  And I wonder whether you've given any thought to that.
[01:37:34]  You know, I have heard that comment a lot.
[01:37:38]  And I don't even know.
[01:37:40]  Like, you know, when I see what people have to go through, you know, today on that political, it's like, I don't know if I would be, you know, up for subjecting myself to something like that.
[01:37:51]  But at the same time, I see the need for, you know, leaders who are that are willing to speak and, you know, can speak and can be vocal and have a moral compass and courage and all of that.
[01:38:12]  And so and so I would say it's not something that I would throw away.
[01:38:16]  But right now, I'm just playing ball and I'm just trying my best to walk out my Christianity the best I know how.
[01:38:22]  I want people to get this book and kind of learn more about who I am and how I got into this position and kind of go from there.
[01:38:29]  You're still with the magic?
[01:38:31]  Yes.
[01:38:32]  Okay.
[01:38:32]  And is there any, again, I know nothing about basketball.
[01:38:35]  Is there any talk about trading you?
[01:38:38]  I saw some article like, maybe they'll trade him.
[01:38:40]  Is that within your control?
[01:38:41]  And would you want to be traded?
[01:38:44]  Not within my control.
[01:38:45]  I've definitely seen a lot of it, but honestly, it could be the least of my worries.
[01:38:50]  You know, I love Orlando.
[01:38:51]  I love playing here.
[01:38:52]  I love the team.
[01:38:54]  You know, if it comes down to me going somewhere else, because that's what they want, then that's what they want.
[01:38:58]  But I haven't gotten any inclination that I'm going anywhere.
[01:39:01]  So I'm ready to gear up for next season.
[01:39:03]  Oh, man.
[01:39:04]  Well, you're lucky you're in Florida from the vaccine standpoint and for a lot of reasons.
[01:39:08]  So hopefully they'll keep you.
[01:39:10]  I was very much in Florida.
[01:39:12]  Yes.
[01:39:13]  All right.
[01:39:13]  Last question.
[01:39:14]  How about like a family?
[01:39:16]  How's your, you know, what's happening at the home life?
[01:39:18]  Because we need more upstanding, lovely, courageous Christians with their messages.
[01:39:25]  So we've been married seven months now.
[01:39:27]  And so no, no, no baby on the way yet, but you know, it's definitely in the talk.
[01:39:32]  So we're excited, but we're excited to enjoy marriage for, you know, a quick second as well.
[01:39:36]  And so, you know, definitely, definitely talking about it.
[01:39:40]  That's smart.
[01:39:41]  And if you stay in Orlando, Disney World is just a stone's throw away.
[01:39:43]  And as soon as we un-wokify them, you can go.
[01:39:48]  Sounds good.
[01:39:49]  Jonathan, good luck with the book.
[01:39:51]  Again, for our audience, it's called Why I Stand.
[01:39:54]  Support him.
[01:39:55]  Support his courage, his family, and our pals at the Daily Wire and their mission by buying this book.
[01:39:59]  You check a lot of good boxes by buying this book.
[01:40:02]  I'm going to buy it too for a bunch of people.
[01:40:04]  Thank you again and good luck with it.
[01:40:06]  I got it right here too.
[01:40:07]  So thank you so much, Michael.
[01:40:08]  Yeah, it's got a good cover.
[01:40:09]  I like it.
[01:40:10]  Stands out.
[01:40:11]  All the best.
[01:40:12]  Oh, did you love Jonathan Isaac?
[01:40:14]  I mean, he's extraordinary.
[01:40:18]  Just a privilege to be able to bring you people like that.
[01:40:20]  Buy his book, buy it, buy it, buy it.
[01:40:22]  And then tomorrow, don't miss the show because Glenn Lowry, he's back by popular demand, including my own.
[01:40:27]  Remember the Glenn Lowry speech on America, on America and our role in the world and why it matters and pushing back on the narratives that have been spread around about our country.
[01:40:38]  We have a very exciting topic for him tomorrow.
[01:40:40]  So don't forget to download the show, okay?
[01:40:42]  Because that way you won't miss it.
[01:40:43]  Download the Megan Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher.
[01:40:47]  Also go to youtube.com slash MeganKelly and subscribe.
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[01:40:52]  Thanks, everyone, for listening.
[01:40:56]  Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
[01:40:58]  No BS, no agenda, and no