All Episodes
Previous Next
March 31, 2022 - RFK Jr. The Defender
15:21
US Truck Convoy Leader Brian Brase

Trucker Brian Brase discusses the U.S. truck convoy protests with RFK Jr.

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, everybody.
I'm really proud that my guest today is Brian Brazzi, who is one of the truckers, who is one of the key leaders of the People's Convoy, which is now in Washington, D.C., and surrounding the Beltway.
Brian has been a long-haul trucker for five years.
He's from Pennsylvania, currently residing in Northwest Ohio.
He is a second-generation trucker and an owner-operator of a small mom-and-pop company.
Brian, welcome to the show.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Appreciate the opportunity.
Let's start by just talking about how you got involved in this.
Yeah, I opened up my mouth on a Facebook Live video.
Basically, I had seen people wanting to put together an American convoy, and I simply did a video that said, don't waste the American people's time and don't waste my time.
If you're going to do a convoy like they had in Canada, then do it right and hold the line.
And don't give in.
And that received like 24 million views overnight and then Facebook ripped it down.
But people reached out and said, hey, put your money where your mouth is and we could use some help.
So I found a group that I thought was best matched up with my way of thinking and how I like to do things.
And I joined up with them and it quickly developed into what you see now.
Were you communicating over Facebook, or did you develop other communications lines?
Well, I've been involved in trucker advocacy for many years.
About the whole time I've been driving, I've been involved in meetings at D.C., lobbying on behalf of truck drivers.
So I've made a lot of contacts through that process.
And basically, I just utilized those contacts to find the right group.
And some of those contacts were involved in the group that eventually became the People's Convoy.
And then the convoy started out in California.
Did you join in Ohio or did you go out to California?
No, I'm actually like the co-organizer of the whole thing.
So I ended up starting right out in Atalanto, California.
I've been with the convoy every day since.
I was planning it three weeks, about a month before it started.
I started planning this thing with a group of like-minded individuals.
So I've been in it from the very beginning and all the way to today, still in it.
Describe for us what it's been like on the convoy from day one and how it's grown and, you know, what you're doing now.
Well, it's been an emotional rollercoaster, honestly.
It started out in Adelanto, California with maybe a couple hundred people that were supporting us from the local community and has now grown to over millions of people lined up along the interstates and over the overpasses, the bridges.
We've had Multiple communities come out everywhere that we've stopped along the way.
They've come out by the tens of thousands of people to support us right there on the ground.
And now we're here in Hagerstown and we have the community almost every single day coming down.
They're helping to feed the drivers.
They're donated dumpsters and porta-potties in the shower house.
I mean, it's been a total absolute rollercoaster of emotions from excited to sadness because of the stories that you're told about how the vaccine mandate has ruined their career or ruined their lives, whether it be medical issues that have developed or just simply the loss of their income because they decided to stand up for their rights.
You know, I receive letters from eight-year-olds that say, thank you for standing up.
So those things like that just make you cry.
There's a young man that's here on the convoy that just told me the other day that he quit his job and sold off his 401k to fund him being able to be a part of this because he felt it was so important.
I mean, the level of commitment and the level of community, that unity, that love, that peace that's here on the ground, I've never seen before in my life.
And I don't know that anybody has ever seen this level of a sense of family like what we have here on the ground right now.
And it's just been unreal.
You know, and it tells us that we're doing the right thing.
When you have millions of people supporting you, it tells us that we're on the good side.
And the media either tries to ignore you or to portray this event as kind of a right-wing impulse.
And how do you react to that?
I mean, it's a pretty simple thing.
Just one walk around here and you'll see that it's not a far right movement or whatever they're trying to push it as.
This isn't a left issue.
This isn't a right issue.
This is an American issue.
And really, it's a human issue.
You know, we're standing up for our constitutional rights, you know, trying to stop the vaccine mandates that exist for our healthcare workers, our DOD and such.
But on a human scale around the world, this is a violation of your God-given rights.
To do this to someone, to demand that you have to put this vaccine into your body.
And that's around the world that's happening.
And so what we have here is them trying to paint us as one side or the other.
But when there's Democrats down here, when there's Republicans down here, there's independents down here, there's libertarians down here, there's constitutionalists, there's people from all spectrums here.
We have every race, every religion, every ethnic background is down here right now.
It's hard to paint us that way.
And the people that are doing so haven't even stepped foot down here to see what we're all about.
You know, there's flags that lean to the right, but that's their freedom to put those flags up.
They have the right to fly those flags and what they believe in.
Just like I wouldn't stop someone on the left flying their flags, I wouldn't stop anybody on the right from flying their flags.
I mean, This is about your constitutional rights.
This is about your First Amendment.
We're exercising our First Amendment to stand up against the vaccine mandates.
So they can try to paint it one way or another, but the people here on the ground will tell you that it's just simply not true.
We're a community and we've all come together.
Whether you're gay, straight, black, white, Yellow or purple, it don't matter.
Everybody's welcomed here.
I don't care if you're a far right person or you're a far left person.
To be a part of this, you should understand what our message is and it affects you.
Whether you're far left or far right, this affects you in a positive manner.
We're helping to fight for you to continue to have your constitutional freedoms and allows you to be that way.
You guys can go back to hating each other when this is all over, but for now, we all need to unite.
We need to work together to continue to protect our Constitution, the United States, and our God-given rights.
Why did you decide not to go into Washington, D.C.? Well, as you've seen in the past, whether that be January 6th or Ottawa, there's a lot of bad actors that get involved in movements such as this, you know, false flags or people that go down and intentionally try to cause harm or cause mayhem or violence.
We didn't want to do that.
This is the people's convoy.
And with that, we have small children with us.
We have families that are here homeschooling so that they can be a part of this.
We have people that are peaceful and loving.
And we have religious, you know, we have ministers.
We have so many different people here, doctors.
We just have so many people here that, to put us in downtown D.C., to give them an opportunity to do something that's so negative to us, even though this is so peaceful, we just didn't want to see it.
You know, up in Canada, they were busting windows out of the trucks, dragging drivers out into the street, beating them.
I couldn't let that happen to us.
There's no way I was going to let that happen to us.
So we're doing things in a diplomatic way.
We're circling the beltway multiple times.
And then, of course, all while trying to have dialogue with our legislators from both parties.
It's been difficult to bring the Democrats to the table, but I think they're starting to see that this is representing all people.
And we just wanted to make sure that we didn't give an opportunity for any bad actors to get involved Have you gotten any media coverage, or has it been largely a blackout?
So early on, we had some great network media.
We had Fox News and Newsmax, and then it all kind of died off there for a period of time.
I think meetings with Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Ron Johnson has helped spark that national media attention again.
Local news is everywhere we've gone, have been covering it.
And then of course we have dozens of independent journalists that are embedded with us, as well as a couple organizations that have their own team of media that has been embedded with us through this process as well.
So we've been getting out there through social media platforms and websites.
But as far as the national TV goes, not so much.
But it doesn't matter.
We still have millions of people supporting us without it ever really being broadcast on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, Fox News or Newsmax or OAN. Now all of these people have covered us a little bit.
But some of them more than others.
So Newsmax has had us on quite a bit.
And OAN, Fox News, just disappeared.
Today was the first day that we've seen anything on Fox News.
And that was Senator Ron Johnson that was on there.
Because of our meeting, he mentioned us.
And that was on Fox and Friends this morning.
But they've pretty much blacked us out.
To me, it just tells me that it doesn't matter if it's a right-wing or left-wing media source.
They're all corrupt and they're all bought off by all these big conglomerates that are running them.
And if it wasn't true, then they would be down here right now covering the facts, and they're not doing that.
They all work for BlackRock or Vanguard.
Ultimately, it's kind of an illusion that they're competing with each other.
And I want to point out that CHGTV has been embedded in a convoy.
We have two reporters there, two journalists who are actually doing real journalism and who are reporting daily and just beautiful, beautiful and inspiring films of what's happening at all.
All of the overpass jammed with people, with supporters, with American flags, peace signs.
It's really just an inspiring spectacle.
How big is the convoy?
All right.
Now we're, I mean, we were 64 miles long the first day we hit Beltway and that was single lane.
You know, our lead truck ended up coming up, catching up to the last truck.
So that's pretty impressive.
We had the entire Beltway encircled, which is really amazing.
It's a 64 mile length Beltway.
So that's pretty awesome.
Right now we've had multiple convoys join in.
I would estimate that we're around 3,000 vehicles when you include the trucks, the campers, and the cars currently today.
Some have come and gone.
Some are coming in.
Some are leaving.
It flexes a lot.
It's constantly ebbing and flowing.
So there's people that can come down and be a part of this for maybe three or four days and then they got to go home.
There's other people that come down here and they're here for the long haul and they've been with us since Adelanto, California.
So the numbers change a lot.
I would say out of every 10 that join us, about four of them are long-haul people, meaning they're staying with us for the long haul.
The others are here for a few days and then go home.
Is it mainly owned and operated, Greg?
Is there any support from Teamsters Union or other unions?
No, they're too wrapped up in their funders to be involved in something like this.
and their funders are wrapped up in the medical industry and many other things out there for them not to be able to come out and support us.
The thing is, the CEO themselves might be behind what we're doing, but they're too worried about their corporate image or their money that, their customer base and things for who they haul for.
So the majority of the people that are down here are owner-operator independents or mom-and-pop small fleet companies.
So you've got who you want here anyways.
Are most of the truckers vaccinated at this point?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
We're very independent people.
You know, if you wouldn't have mandated it, you probably would have had a lot more vaccinated.
The fact that you mandated it told them that something was wrong.
What is your objective at this point?
What do you want people to do?
At this point, what we want people to do is to stand up.
If you can't be here with us in the convoy at the federal level, then start standing up at the state level.
I don't care if it's a red state or a blue state.
No matter what, stand up and help put the pressure on the state governments to put the pressure on the federal governments so that ending the state of emergency can actually hit the House floor because that's where it starts.
We have to end that state of emergency because there is no emergency.
So we need to end that immediately.
That will help us get rid of the vaccine mandates for our healthcare workers and law enforcement that exist out there that have those mandates.
The DOD, our federal employees, it will help us end those vaccine mandates.
So the best way that we know how to do that right now, especially since a lot in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party won't meet with us at all, but the Republican Party feels defeated in the House.
They keep saying things like, well, we're not the majority, nothing we can do.
We've got to wait until November.
We don't have time to wait till November.
So I encourage you to go to your state capitals right now.
Start rallying at your state capitals.
Put the pressure on the states.
Put the pressure on the same way that we're doing here in Washington, D.C. Go to your capitals and don't leave.
What's been your relationship with law enforcement along the way?
Have you had any kind of contact with state police, with other police departments?
Yes.
Every agency has worked with us quite well.
There was one during the convoy that was difficult.
That was the Illinois State Police.
But Illinois State Police, in the end, came to bat for us and helped us get across their state with no trouble at all.
I think we put a lot of pressure on them when they had said that they were going to come after us for convoy.
I'm going through when they had a press release that they had put out that basically said they were going to come after us for unsafe driving conditions, that kind of deal.
And once the pressure got put on them through social media, because I speak the truth and I speak from my heart.
And if you're going to do something like that, I'm going to call you out for it.
I'm going to tell you that you're messing up and that this is wrong.
And I'm going to say it out publicly and I'm going to let the public know what you're doing.
And of course, I did that with Illinois, and they got a ton of pressure.
And the next thing you know, they escorted us all the way across the state.
As far as this local area, I work every single day with the Virginia State Police, the Maryland State Police, DC Metro.
Every single day, I work with them.
And they're not assisting us, but we're letting them know what we're doing.
They can't show partial either way.
So I let them know what we're doing and I take their advice.
So when they counsel good times versus bad times to be traveling, I work with them.
It doesn't mean I listen to them all the time, but I'm working with them.
And they're working with me in a sense to understand the plan, what we're doing, and how we're going to execute that plan.
So we have a great working relationship with the local law enforcement, and we have a lot of dialogue going back to multiple law enforcement agencies down here in Hagerstown in the D.C. metro area.
Ryan Brazzi, thank you for your leadership, for your commitment, for the sacrifice that you're making for America, for our values, for our people, for public health, and all the things that we believe in and make us proud to be part of this country.
I'll see you on the barricades.
Awesome.
▲
Export Selection