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48. Analyzing Trump Assassination Attempt W/SEAL Team 6 Operator

Join us for Apologia Radio in which we analyze some footage of the recent assasination attempt of former President, Donald Trump. We are joined by legendary Navy SEAL (DEVGRU/SEAL Team 6) operator, Bill Rapier. Tell someone!

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Duration:
1h 19m
Broadcast on:
19 Jul 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

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Non-rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it Are you gonna bark all day? Little doggy, where are you gonna bite? Right. Delusional, yeah. Delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. It's young habogmen! Yes! Oh my God! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage. Go into all the world and make disciples, not go into the world and make buddies, not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies, disciples. I've got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Master. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say their speaking truth when they're not. [Music] My son, do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. It's Proverbs chapter one, everybody. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. This is the Gospel heard around the world. Very excited to have this episode today. I'm Jeff, the calm of the ninja. That is Zachary Conover. Hey, guys. Director of Communications for End Abortion. Now, very interesting times. Obviously, we're all living in. And so we want to, as we always do at Apologia, we want to address cultural issues from a biblical perspective, a Christ-centered perspective. And I think you're going to get something rather unique today in this particular episode dealing with the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. And so before we get there, I want to point everyone where you can go to get more content from Apologia Studios, go to Apologia Studios.com. All the past episodes, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them from Sheila Logen's, Cultish, Apologia Radio and Provoked are all up there for your listening pleasure, years and years of content there. And I want to also give a big thank you to all of our all access partners in ministry. If you've seen it through Apologia, whether it's the teaching ministry, on the street evangelism, public debates, whatever the case may be. Whatever is coming from Apologia Studios is coming from our partners in ministry. And so I want to say thank you. If you're seeing this right now, you're seeing it because of them. And so I want to thank everybody who's a part of this ministry with us. And I encourage everybody to go and sign up for all access because you get all kinds of extra stuff. We want to bless everybody who's a ministry partner with us in this ministry. And, by the way, I want to make a note that this Friday, we are dropping the new Apologia Academy. There's all kinds of stuff there, collision-full episodes, Apologia Academy, the after-show, Apologia after-show, exclusively over there. Ask me anything once a month, private feed where we can talk to each other. But we're doing Apologia Academy, dropping it tomorrow. Dr. Kenneth Gentry on the book of Revelation, his commentary that's like 40 years in the making finally came out, two volumes, The Divorce of Israel. Book of Revelation, commentary, it's amazing. And Dr. Gentry flew out here to do a series of academies with us on the Book of Revelation. First one drops tomorrow. So enjoy that, everybody who's all access. And if you're not all access, you've got to get on that because it is going to be awesome for sure. Yeah. And a quick word too. If you haven't done it yet, what's wrong with you? Do it as quickly as you can. You don't even need to sell your shoes or your shirt. Go and sign up for your free Bonsen U account. Thousands and thousands of people already have. But if you've been watching this show for any period of time or seeing any content, you don't have the free Bonsen U account. You are missing out on one of the best Christian apologists and teachers and philosophers. And I believe the whole history of the Christian church, Dr. Greg Bonsen, as a gift to you through us, the Bonsen family has delivered to us all of his treasury of teaching, seminary classes, lectures, his teaching as a pastor in churches. So church history, Christian apologetics, Christian philosophy, Christian worldview, law of God stuff, everything. It is top tier seminary level education and you are getting it for free. You just got to get your account and sign up at apologyestudios.com for Bonsen U and get started. It'll bless your life. All right. Here we go. So what were you doing when the assassination attempt happened? Celebrating my firstborn birthday. So we were having a pool party in the backyard and someone was on their phone out by the pool and they were like, "Did you hear like what's going on right now?" And so I was like, "Wow, that's crazy." But we kept swimming and eating pizza. And then afterwards I was like, "Oh, wow, this is like the internet. It's just going crazy." Well, let's go ahead and bring our guest in and talk about where we were and sort of our first thoughts. So a very good friend of ours, man, I have a high regard for and a lot of respect for. He is a legendary Navy SEAL. He is well known in this whole field of – well, if you're a guy and you want to learn how to shoot a weapon and you want to learn how to defend your family and this whole realm of self-defense and defensive and nation, all that stuff. If everyone knows who Bill Rapier is, he was a dev-grew operator that's essentially SEAL Team Six and he's been involved in some very, very important missions and really well known in the community. And so we have today to examine the attempted assassination footage we have with us Bill Rapier. Bill, welcome to Apology Radio, brother. Good afternoon. Thank you guys for having me on. Absolutely. Absolutely. So where were you when you found out what was going on with you when you heard about the assassination attempt? I was in an airplane, probably, I don't know, 25K or so. We were just about to start descending into Spokane and the guy in front of me had it on his screen. Of course, it was CNN. I was reading the captions below and it was saying that there was a loud noise and the president was rushed off the stage. So I pretty quickly switched the screen over to Fox News and was like, "Wow, this is monumental right now." It really was. I was actually coming back from much needed rest with my family, coming back from California. We were driving through the desert. And I had seen the live feed of his rally come up and I was just interested because I want to just be in the know of what's going on right now in the political realm so we can respond to some stuff. And so I click on it and I'm just driving and I got a little bored a couple minutes in and I just turned it to like a worship song or something like that and then immediately started getting messages so I had just missed it live. And so as we're driving, continuing to drive through the desert, Fox News is replaying the famous footage that everyone's seen where you can even hear him saying, "Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes." And then my wife and I kept saying was like, "This doesn't make any sense. Why are even the reporters not understanding what's clearly in front of us? These are gunshots." And even the person we were listening to on Fox News was like loud noises. And you could hear the Secret Service agent saying, "Shooter down, shooter down, shooter down." And they kept asking for an hour. They didn't know what actually had happened. And I was like, "Isn't it obvious?" We all know what we're witnessing. Those are the sounds that we're hearing and all these things. Those are certainly gunshots and there's certainly blood on his face and they're saying, "Shooter down." And so that's how I got into it. And obviously for all of us, these sorts of things allow for so many theories of negligence or some nefarious motive. Someone's involved. People say conspiracy theory. So much went wrong that day. Let's just all admit, so much went wrong that day. It just allows a feast of questions and scenarios and speculation. And of course, we do have a long history in this nation of a corrupt government system and the CIA, like murdering people. Like, that's on record and that can't be denied. And you have, you know, there are people who have done some bad things in government agencies and things you would think would never be done. And they've been done and it's been proven that they've been done. I think the only thing that surprises me is that it didn't happen sooner. Yeah, I mean, so look, my personal view, I'll just put it on the table right away, is I think it's just pure negligence and I think it was mostly that. I'm not saying there's not some nefarious thing going on. I'm not even saying that. I'm saying as a Christian who believes in the law of God who has the standards of evidence and witness, I can't go there yet and make accusations of, you know, this person was involved or this agency was involved until there's enough evidence presented as a Christian. According to the law of God, I can't make those claims. All I can say right now is that they're going to see the most is like this is just absolutely undeniably crazy that this happened. So Bill, I'm going to toss this to you for your initial thoughts. But what I was saying when I first saw it and I came in and told the guys this, I was like, look, this isn't my arena. It's not my field. Like I'm a martial artist, for sure. That's my whole life martial arts and combat and all that stuff. And so like, if I was in the realm of like, you know, hand to hand tactics and those sorts of things, I feel very comfortable arguing in that realm and talking through like failures and all that stuff. But this is not my field in terms of like presidential protection and snipers and like, you know, where you're supposed to be and security and all that stuff, parameters. It's not my field, but I did say this, Bill. I said this. I said, if you gave me 48 hours on that field and said, Hey, it's up to you to make this work, bro. Like you got to here's your team. You're going to make this work. I absolutely 100% guarantee you would have had that building covered for sure. But it would have been the like one thing I would have been like, well, you have to at least have these things covered. Right? He had one job. Yeah. And I don't even know what I'm doing. That's not my arena. I'm ignorant in that arena. So, Bill, I'll kick it over to you. Your first thoughts. Yeah. So, I mean, just right away to dispel. I don't think it was some sort of crazy conspiracy. Yes, bad things do happen sometimes, but, you know, nefarious things happen, but it's just it's pretty hard to keep secrets these days. And so I don't like my initial take is it as it is not that I think it's a, you know, troubled, angry, young man, that has been, you know, unfortunately fed a bunch of lies from the world. And, and thought that this would be a good use of his life to try and, you know, kill the president, which is, you know, super sad that, you know, that that's the point that he came to that that's what he thought he should, you know, spend his life on. But I mean, the obvious thing is just the massive, massive failure on the side of the Secret Service. I mean, that is, you don't have to be a master tactician to realize that, hey, you should probably control every piece of high ground within, within line of sight of where the president or the former president is going to be. I mean, that does not take, you know, a graduate level in tactics to be able to do that. And that was, you know, that was missed, or, or just brushed over. So that would be the first, the first one is just like a huge huge mistake there. And the next one would be comms, I would say, just the fact that so many people were, I mean, and a lot of the stuff we're not going to know exactly, you know, it's going to take several more months to flesh out as far as like what happened at exactly what time and who was aware of it at exactly what time. So, again, I don't want to make, you know, I don't want to be too harsh on people beforehand, but I mean, that's pretty bad when you have, you know, just rally attendees that are waving their arms and yelling that there's a dude with a rifle climbing on a roof. And they're videoing him. I mean, that's the fact that that was not, you know, make you have that information wasn't being disseminated. I would say is another, you know, massive massive fail right there. Absolutely. So let's do this. Let's, let's start to examine some of the footage and we pulled together some great clips for everybody. So I think you're really, you're going to really enjoy this particular episode of apology or radio. Let's take a look at the famous footage that we've all seen of the, I think this is the main shot. I think maybe it came from Fox News. Let's take a look. Here we go. So here's the, here's the video. You want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened. [SOUND] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] I have to say also that the photo is undeniably awesome. However you feel about Trump like you could not have gotten a better picture. No, no, however you feel about him and kudos to that photographer like being right there and going, I know I'm catching a moment here. This is, this is my, my arena. I got to get this shot. Man, that shot is a beautiful shot. It really speaks to a lot. It's very symbolic. And again, no matter how you feel about Trump, the man, someone trying to murder him, it just narrowly missed him. Looked by an inch. If he had just, if he hadn't turned his head to that one second. >> Oh, that's the most remarkable thing to me about this whole thing is the providence. >> Just that. >> The providence of God right there. >> The providence of God. >> The providence of God, the potential. >> Just that, just a look at the screen at that moment. And you know, a lot of guys, a lot of really solid theologians and pastors and things have been saying this. And I think it needs to be said as we go into the next part of the footage here that, you know, a lot of people are saying, when saying like, God really intervened there, God intervened, like God, you know, God stepped down and like in that moment. And it's, it's, it's not accurate in terms of like biblical theology. And like what the Bible says about God's sovereignty, God says he declares the end from the beginning. And God is fully sovereign over all things. And so there are no, there's no happy accidents, there's no molecules, no molecules. God doesn't step down to intervene. Like, oops, let me fix this. Something's bad is about to happen. And I got to really intervene. God decrees what does and doesn't happen in his universe. And it's all for his purposes and for his glory. So before the foundation of the world, God had already decreed that moment of providence exactly as it went down. God's not reacting. My point is, is God, the God of the Bible is not reacting to things in space and time. God has a decree that he's fulfilling in history. He's carrying the universe along to its intended destination. That's Hebrews chapter one. In this case, the king's head was like water in his hands. He turns it where he wills. Just that. Just play it literally. Yeah. Yeah. Think about, think about how every day, all of life, like people have referred to things like the butterfly effect. Like, and you just go look at the butterfly effect into smallest flap of the wings of the butterfly, the kind of impact that it has in the environment in the world. All of life, all of life is on a razor's edge. One move to the left, one move to the right. Change the course of history. Change is the course of history. Like, for example, in my life, what I often say is regarding this whole thing in terms of like life being on a razor's edge is my, I love this story. My, my father was in the Air Force. He was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. And he was at the casino with a bunch of other GIs, young guy, and he decides he's had enough being at the table he was at. And so he wants to go outside for some fresh air. And so he happens at that moment to get tired of being at the table and decides to walk out the door. And as he walks out the door, this young, beautiful looking redhead is walking through the door past him and he stops and looks at her and she starts to pass him and he starts to go back the other direction to go outside. And then something in him gave him the courage to turn around and tap her on the shoulder and start talking to her. Didn't know her from anybody, but he had the courage in that moment. And interested enough to talk to her and which led to me, which led to all this ministry and all the things that have happened. Think about the butterfly effect and the things that have to be ordained. Like, you know, it's not because of me. It's because of the grace of God and what he's done in my life and our lives. But this ministry itself has saved tens of thousands of babies from death. But if my dad did not in that moment have the courage or interest to turn around and tap this girl on the shoulder and say something to her, well, then I don't exist. This ministry wouldn't exist. Like, no saying, I'm saying, like, everything matters. And so my point is, is Providence is a beautiful thing. And if you watch that video and you see his head at that exact moment, turn to look at the screen and then juke right through the ear. God wants that man alive for some reason, at least at this moment, at least till right now. Yeah, till the next attempt. Yeah. So, Providence is important and God is sovereign. He's not reacting to things. He is sovereign over every detail. Okay, so this, I want to play this just briefly. It's many of you guys have already seen this. Oh, I do this. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, guys. You know how much I hate Apple computers. Apple's dumb, guys. Making a lot of people meet in the feed. Mad right now. Apple's really dumb. Play them in the tools. Play them in the tools. Okay, enter full screen. There you go. That's what I asked for the first time. I don't know what's wrong with you, Apple. I can't just, I can't just be like other services and just let me push a button. Anyway, so this is, it can be really important. This is when I'm going to talk to you, Bill, about this, you will, you're going to hear Bill the moment of the speech connected to another person's cell phone where they're over where this is taking place. Actually, let me see here. This is. Let's see. That's it. And guys, I wasn't getting the audio or video on that last one. Oh, you weren't. Hey, Gabe, can you make sure it gets the audio and video for this one? We're going to blame Gabe. We're going to blame Gabe for that for sure. He must be using Apple. It's for sure, Apple. That's what's going on. It's all bad. All bad. Is anything Apple good? I'm making a lot of people mad right now. I'm making a lot of people mad right now. All right. Here we go. This is what I was looking for. All right. So let me pull that up. Let's see if Apple will let me. There you go. Good job, Apple. Thanks to Bill Gates. All right. Here we go. So let's play this. This is plenty of time and opportunity to eliminate the threat. He was doing his job like we can be doing. Look, they're all pointing. Yeah, someone's on top of the roof. Look, Gary is right there. Right there. See him? He's laying down. See him? Yeah, he's laying down. What's happening? Yeah, look, there he is. Because we have millions and millions of people in our country that should be dangerous people. We have criminals. We have criminals. He's laying on the roof. He's laying on the roof. He's laying on the roof. He's laying on the roof. He's laying on the roof. In recorded history with the best border. In fact, if they could ever put up a chart, I don't know if they can do it. Do you guys have access to that chart that I love so much? You don't mind if I go off teleprompter, do you? Because these teleprompters are so damn boring. I try and explain that. Oh, there's a wow. You guys are doing it. They're getting better with time. My guys, take a look at that chart. So you can see Bill, I'm not sure if you catch the audio yet, but if not, you can see we're a minute 15 into those two videos synced up. And you've got people on the ground over literally watching this guy like an inchworm on lookers trying to get the police attention. Yeah, people seeing him with a rifle on the roof doing like an inchworm thing, like crawling towards to get a good shot towards President Trump and, you know, trying to notify officers. You know, I would think I would think Bill at that moment, because you mentioned comms at that moment, that would have been the moment where you like there's a man on the roof with a rifle. Like all things should have shut down immediately. Correct? Absolutely. That should have gone from even even if the local officers did not have the secret security or their frequencies, their bosses should have have it should have had it like some sort of commands network. And then that that should at max have taken, you know, 10 to 15 seconds of just, you know, local officer getting on the radio saying we've got a guy with a rifle on the roof. And as soon as that would have come out to secret service, they should have immediately pulled the press or the former president off because you just can't have. I mean, rifles are rifles are very, very good tools, right? You can, you can put projectiles very far, you know, with them if you if you know what you're doing. And, and I mean, again, you know, just the fact that that guy didn't miss absolutely God's Providence because that was not, you know, that 130 yards. You know, with a rifle is not not a hard shot to make right there. You say it's not a hard shot to make. There's been all kinds of talk on, on, you know, and I'm not sure how much is true or not, but in terms of Thomas Crooks, the murderer, because he did murder somebody and attempted to murder the president or injured others. Not having the proper skill level with a rifle, but like talk about that 130 yards is what how easy a shot is that if you had like say an hour or two hours to train. Yeah, I mean, I could take your kids and teach them how to do that. And, you know, an hour or two of just rifle fundamentals is not very hard to be able to. I mean, the standard for like actual sniper work is, is you'll one minute of angle, which would be an inch at 100 yards. And it's just not if you can actually get supported. It's not that hard to do that, which that dude had a, you know, the murderer had a, he had the, you know, the top of the roof right there so he could have shot supported if he would have, you know, trained for it. Right. Right. So again, just the fact that he, you know, didn't hit it. I didn't hit the former president. I think again just speaks volumes to God's Providence and this guy's ineptitude. Right. Right. Well, that's also one of the things, Bill, I think you and I would agree on this when people are talking about, you know, there's some nefarious things going on here. Maybe somebody in the inside or people that are plotting this, you know, at very high levels to take out the former president, that I'm very suspicious based upon the person who did it and his abilities. Like, I would think if I would think that if you were going to be at a very high level doing some kind of dark dealings like this, you'd probably pick a better shooter. Right. Somebody did it, you know, rather well or was good at what they did. You would think you'd hire the best of the best to do your dirty work for you. This is a 20 year old kid. Couldn't shoot really well is doing everything wide out in the open. He's not secret. He's being seen by everybody. He doesn't know what he's doing. And that's why I'm suspicious when someone says, like, I think it was inside job and all these things. I'm very suspicious about that. I think it's just an absolute complete blowout of what people should know, obviously. And Bill, what does that speak to when you talk about 130 yard shot from top from top of the roof. In terms of if you were running security for this thing, someone with your skills and your background as a Navy SEAL, if you were running security, like, isn't that 130 yards, something that would just be obvious on the face of it. It's 130 yards. If somebody gets up there. It's an easy shot. It's a direct line. Like, isn't that the most obvious thing? Yeah, it is. That's why this whole thing is so embarrassing, because, I mean, that is basic, basic day one stuff. If you're doing a security detail is that, hey, where, where could a shooter station himself. And this wasn't even a hard one. I mean, like, what countersnipers are supposed to look for would be, you know, a loophole, you know, potentially a four or six inch loophole in the roof. And then the guy's hidden back in a shadow. Like, that's, that's what countersnipers are supposed to actually be looking for. The fact that a guy just brought a ladder. You know, there was a ladder there. He climbs up on the side of the roof with a rifle and just starts inchworming his way across. I mean, it's just absolutely insane. That they weren't seeing that. Well, let's talk about that for a second, because that would be an interesting conversation. When you talk about someone with sniper training, specific sniper training. You're talking about, like, I've heard a lot of really great stories of guys that had to go through sniper training as Navy SEALs, that kind of like highly specialized training and having to stalk, learn to stalk properly and get a shot off without being seen in a certain space, having to use shadows and all that stuff. Obviously, I don't know this, this realm, but like a trained sniper, someone that's like special ops, they know what they're doing. And maybe they're on the special, the, I'm sorry, I was so special for secret service, secret service. Like you'd mentioned, like they're supposed to be looking like for something that's like, like specialized, like if there's a real good shooter out there, they're going to be trying to do this. We're not talking about like mall security. Right there, the elite defenders. 130 yards away. It's a kid on top of a roof is right there. Like it should be the most obvious thing, correct? It should be. Yeah, that's the problem. I mean, that's why this, I mean, I think this is going to go down. I mean, for years, this will be studied as a massive massive failure. I mean, like good on the guy for dumping the, you know, the, the murder of, you know, eventually. But yeah, I think it's going to be looked at as just a massive institutional failure. Can I ask you a question? It is about the issue with the sniper and the person, the sniper who took, who took the murder out. You've seen that footage correct of the snipe. Okay. Yes. So one of the things that I was curious about, and we'll play the footage here in a second. I would think as a trained sniper, you have to be ready for moments like that, and you train for moments like that to get shocked and maybe even scared for a second. It looked like, and look, I'm maybe dogging on him in a way I shouldn't be, but I would think it's someone who's actually specializing in this field and is a trained sniper. It looked like as soon as that shot went off, like he lost everything, his gun shot to the sky almost, and he had to re brace it and his gun flopped around as it does that say anything in terms of his training like I mean, or what? What, yes. And again, like I don't want to be, I don't want to be too hard on the guy like I don't know what was going through his mind. I don't know which, I mean, it looked to me like he was actually looking at where the guy was. And I haven't, I haven't read anything from him like I don't, I don't know exactly what was going through his head, but it looked to me like he was on glass right looking through his scope. And then it looked like he looked over the top, like right, you know, over the top of his glass right beforehand, which is a common thing you'll see guys do that for real where they're, you know, they're looking at something maybe they're, you know, maybe they want to see a bigger picture or they don't actually believe what's going on. So he's looking over the top of his glass, and then the shots ring out and he kind of ducks a little bit, which again is not, you know, it's, it's fight or flight. There is some, some human nature involved right there like it is, you know, it took him. It looked like about a second or so to compose himself where he was like, you know, reacted like came off for a second and then good on the guy. He recognized that hey I have a job to do and he got on glass and he finished his job at that point. Right. Yeah, it would have been, I mean, and again without until we actually know from a debrief, you know, after all the investigations are over like what did this guy see. Did he actually see the guy with the rifle point, you know, I think if he was doing that but then again, like, you know, I want to say negligence but again like I don't know what their rules of engagement are, you know, you know, within that. And so he maybe he was hamstrung, or that I don't see how you could possibly, you know that what we call LOT logical order thought does not play out. You cannot let someone else shoot first if your job is to protect the former president or the President of the United States. You, you know, it has to go because you can't, you can't stop it. It's like to go the martial arts route. If I'm inside of your reactionary gap. Right. If I can touch you, well, I can also punch you a well. The only way to stop that is to either create distance or to do something first. That's right. So with a rifle. You know, he's, if he has his rifle lined up and he's laid in on the former president, like you have to stop him now. You have to shoot him. Yeah. Yeah. The only different, you know, the, your own, you're counting on him to miss. If you're in a wait for the other guy to go first. Yeah, which unfortunately is what is what happened here. So, uh, yeah, hopefully they sort this stuff out and because I mean, it's, it's really, it's just embarrassing on a, on a national level. That are because, I mean, the secret service guys that I've worked with have been highly professional dudes. Very, very like in shape. Very serious guys take their job very seriously. You know, so it's just, it's embarrassing when guys do this in every department, you know, every, you know, like my former organization is not exempt from from having its own embarrassments, right? Its own failures and mistakes. So like I get it. This does happen sometimes. I just hope that we can fix it on an institutional level and, and really solidify and disseminate these lessons learned so that this does not ever happen again. But thinking as Christians in logical and moral orders, when you describe a scenario where you're a sniper, you're tasked, you're obligated to protect the life, preserve the life of the former president. You've got the guy on glass. Let's imagine he did see him on glass. He saw that the guy was a threat. Even with, you know, particular rules of engagement, his duty, his duty bound to protect the life, preserve the life of the former president. So if you had that guy on glass like that, you, you're obviously, you have to take them out. You have to take them out first. Yeah. I mean, yes, even, even when it comes to rules of engagements, you know, I have to have permission or someone to say something to me in terms of comms or whatever. You got a guy with a gun pointed in a direct line towards the former president, 130, 130 yard shot, easy shot to make. And, and if there, if there was knowledge ahead of time through glass, I got a shooter on the roof. He's right there. He's got a gun aimed. Like, essentially, the moral responsibility from a Christian perspective is to respond immediately, strike first, protect and preserve human life. Absolutely. No mercy. There's no way. And, and, yeah, I love that. I didn't know. I didn't know. Cobra Kai book a bubble chapter three. Yeah. No mercy. Nice pick up. No, but you, you have to, you have to do that. I mean, just think about, even when we go to like basic law enforcement stuff, what is a cop going to do if you're pointing a gun at, at the police officer, right? He's going to pull his pistol out and shoot you. You know, if you're doing that, I mean, and this is, there is a significantly lower bar for, you know, the president or the former president of the United States. Right. That's exactly right. That's kind of related to what I wanted to ask your opinion about, Bill, like how much of this is owing to a quality assurance issue? Like, we know that even the Secret Service is an exempt from things like DEI hiring, apparently. You know, they're looking to integrate a certain number of employees being a certain gender or whatnot. And so how much of this is owing to kind of a lack of quality control because, you know, you look at the footage and you see number one, the women there, but number two, their inability to do something like holster a weapon. Yeah. So, again, I don't, I don't want to speculate on what's going on there. So I would just speak in terms of, I know, nationally, this is the direction that we're moving. So again, like, I don't want to say that this is because I don't know that for sure this is exactly what they're doing other than, you know, reading some stuff about the head of the Secret Service wanting to get, make sure that there was 30% female, but you just, you know, in today's society, the idea of, you know, having your force, whether it's a police force, a firefighter, professional or, in this case, Secret Service, look like a cross-section of society that briefs very well with today's worldview, right up until the time that your house is on fire. And, and someone needs to save your child. Right. Right. And in which case you want the fastest, strongest, best guy out there to do that. I mean, on the, on the law enforcement side, we see it with, when, when you have, if you don't have the strongest, fittest, like best guys, you end up resorting to a higher level of violence. Right. If you, I mean, think about, you've got the star quarterback that, that ends up getting in a scuffle with a guy. And he's just like, he's looking at this guy that he's fighting with, you know, and he just elbows him in the face a couple times, knocks a guy out and cuffs him. Like that is, that's a better outcome than if it's a, you know, five foot two girl that weighs 110 pounds soaking wet, that doesn't know how to fight. And now she's getting crushed and she ends up shooting the guy and it would be justified by her doing it. Right. The outcome is better if we have, you know, less use of violence. That's right. That's right. So, unfortunately, I think that's the, you know, they're, that may have had something to do that. I mean, there's definitely some one of the gals in the secret service crew is definitely sweeping everyone. One of the ones standing behind the, the former president's vehicle like she had her pistol out and she's just sweeping everyone on her crew and. Yeah, yeah, so sweet, sweeping everyone obviously is a term. Obviously, she's basically has the barrel of her gun pointing and swinging at everybody. Modeling would be another way to say it could go wrong. It's like one of the first rules that you learn in training with a weapon, a handgun or rifle or whatever is, is not to do that. Never point your weapon at anything you are not ready and willing to destroy. That's exactly right. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there's like, you know, day one, first 10 minutes, you're going to learn that. And that's happening there and there shouldn't be happening at that high level of security. Yeah, but, but you brought up a good point in terms of, of the questionable nature of the choices that people are making today with police forces, with military, with secret service, and I would argue women should not be in combat positions. Any kind of combat position that's, that's, that's, that God is clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each gender. And we never want a woman who has her own particular gifts and a glory of the woman to be thrown into a battlefield to fight with other men. And certainly not in a situation like this where you've got this high level of security and need this calm, this need for combat and tactics that should be fulfilled by men. Period. We shouldn't be putting women in those positions. It's not to say that women don't have a role. As you and I were built talk, Bill, when we're talking earlier in terms of women have having roles, particular roles that they can satisfy and do things with the CIA or FBI or whatever the case may be. When it comes to any kind, anything has to do with like tactics and combat and hand hand combat, we don't throw women out into combat. And I think it's a great moral failure. It's to our shame. It is to our shame to take women and to throw them into that responsibility. Honestly, from a Christian perspective, it is an abomination. It's detestable to do something like that to women. But with that, so you brought up that conversation. Let's take a look at this clip here. To expand hiring, they're aiming to have 30% women recruits by 2030 and even allowed YouTube influencer Michelle Carrey to train with agents. But I'm very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women. That workforce will be pivotal for the 2024 campaign season, which for the first time includes a former president who already has lifetime protection. Agents were there when Donald Trump was arraigned in New York. We were able to work out the details ahead of time of how that particular day was going to go. But we will always ensure the safety of all of our protectees that we have. The service has a zero fail mission. Admission officers are training to uphold. Pretending this field is the most famous address in America. Not anymore. Well, I would say if I had my choice and I was going to get a security force or I had a team to go out on a mission, I don't care at all about the diversity of the force. I want the best on the force. I want the most highly trained, trusted men of integrity. Men of integrity, men of skill, I want the best. That's the way we think right now. It's so flawed. It's so unbiblical. It's so illogical. It's happening not only in the Secret Service training and who they're hiring. Let's get a bunch of women because we want to have a diverse force. It's not just happening there right now because we've blurred the beautiful lines. They are beautiful between gender. It's happening now even with airline pilots. The airline industries are lowering standards to make sure they have a more diverse cockpit crew. How does it make you feel to know that there might have been a guy who happened to be white who had way more training, was way more qualified, had a much better track record. He's been doing this for so long, he's so good at what he does, but he doesn't get the job because they want to make sure that they have a female in the cockpit instead. They pick a woman who has far less training, far less experience. Maybe she has a slightly spotty record and there's some flaws that have been in her past. They're going to hire her because they want to have diversity. How does it make you feel about flying in airplanes now? It makes me feel a lot less safe. I don't care the color of the person in the cockpit. I want the most highly trained person in the cockpit. I think that that goes across the board. When you talk about Secret Service, you talk about the military, you want the best force. No one cares about the color. If you care about logic and you care about true protection and a successful mission, no one should care about the color of the skin or what's between the legs. I want to have a bunch of women doing this job and it's like, "Well, how about we have the best people for the job?" In combat, the best people are only men. Only men. Bill? 100%. Yeah, 100% on that. Just from the strength side of things, I just think, what if, instead of former President Trump taking some frag through the ear, what if that was... What if he was actually gravely wounded and had to be carried off? Right. Are those ladies that are, you know, a head shorter than him? Are they going to manhandle him and throw him into the back of his suburban? Yeah, and the answer is no, because there is, I mean, the way God made us, men are stronger overall. Are there some women that are stronger than some men? Yes, absolutely. But the strongest men are always stronger than the strongest women are. That's right. There's no doubt about that. And then the part, when you're just to touch a little bit on women in combat, the part that gets overlooked is just the teamwork dynamic. Anytime you have ladies mixed in with guys, the men act differently. Right. Sometimes that's a good thing, right, with some of the behavior. At dinner. At church, at formal events, that's great. But it, I mean, it's just a natural thing. And then especially when you have single men involved, there starts to be a... I mean, when you're around these girls all the time, the mission can get a little bit blurred. You know, the mission might end up turning into, "I need a girlfriend or I need a future wife." Yeah, you start to have two missions there. One's a primary and it's Jill. And then the other mission becomes secondary, right? Oh, yeah. I still need to make paychecks. That's right. Yeah. And so just, and it gets, no one talks about that. But that is a huge, huge problem right there. I know my wife has brought it up. And while we didn't have women direct in combat, we did on, you know, later on in the war, we did have to bring women with us sometimes for certain aspects of things. And just the, you know, it's bad enough for her with me going away. But then if she's like, "Oh, and he's also going to be around a bunch of ladies," right? It's just, it's another, you know, it's another thing in the back of her mind. Of course, and rightly so, it's a layer of fear put on a wife of a soldier. Yeah. Of a warrior that he's going to be embedded with maybe two or three women. Are they good looking? Are they attractive women? Are they single women? Like, you know, it starts to change, it changes the whole thing. Yeah. It's not healthy. It's just not healthy. I think, you know, and what we know of human nature from scripture and just obvious, you know, natural revelation used to see that men are that way. Men are that way. And how men and women operate together, you know, everyone should see what's obvious. So real quickly, we kind of skipped over it. We talked about, and it's going to come up here. Let's have a discussion about the sloped roof and the snipers and the secret service. Oh, all the memes going around. They're great. By the way, this is made believable. The most delicious memes ever. You know what? I will say, I can't play it. I can't play it on the show, but I've listened to it probably 600 times. And it's like immediately after like two hours after the assassination attempt. And there's some language and I'm sorry, but I was totally amused by it. And just more like, I can't believe technology can do this. Somebody took Donald Trump's voice using AI and they put his voice into a 50 cent song. And it was, it was so gangster. It was like they're trying to take his life. I don't know. I forgot the name of the song. I'll play it for you later. I cannot play it live on the air, but it was just like fascinating that it was like, it really sounds like Trump and it sounds really, really good. Well, 50 Cent was like tweeting out like, oh, yeah, we got something in common now. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it was so, so good. But anyway, yeah, the memes that have come out and things like that have just been so, so entertaining and in the midst of a horrible, horrible tragedy. And okay, so here we go. Here is the, the snipers on the roof. [MUSIC] That's when I left office. That was the lowest point and that comes right from the government services, comes right out of Border Patrol. Take a look at that. So that arrow is the lowest amount of illegal immigration ever in recorded history into our country. And then, and then the worst president in the history of our country took over. And look what happened to our country. Probably 20 million people. And you know, that's a little bit old at chart. That charts a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened. So there's just a clip zone put together there. So the counter sniper team says that they were looking down the scope of their rifles, about 45 seconds prior to the actual shot, shots being fired. And here is the Secret Service Director making comments after the shooting. Director of the United States Secret Service, Kimberly Cheeto speaks exclusively with ABC News, taking responsibility for that stunning breakdown in security. This is an event that should have never happened. Who is most responsible for this habit? What I would say is that the Secret Service is responsible for the protection of the former president. So the buck stops with you? The buck stops with me. I am the Director of the Secret Service. It was unacceptable. And it's something that shouldn't happen again. Minutes after Trump took the stage Saturday in front of thousands of people, (applause) gunman Thomas Mathew cooks wounding the former president and three others, before a Secret Service counter sniper took him out. I'm being told that the shooter was actually identified as a potential person of suspicion. Units started responding to seek that individual out. Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of how things unfolded, by the time that individual was eventually located, they were on the rooftop and were able to fire off at the former president. ABC News now learning that heavily armed local police were actually stationed inside the building. The gunman climbed, but they missed him. Butler town officials confirming that after they became aware of the threat, a local police officer climbed up to the roof and confronted crooks, but did not succeed in stopping him. What was your reaction when you saw the events unfold on Saturday? Shock and then concern, obviously, for the former president. Investigators now trying to determine whether roof access had been properly locked down. The shooter climbing up seemingly unimpeded, about 400 feet from the stage, with a direct line of sight on the former president. Should that roof have been secure, period? That building, in particular, has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside. What a statement. Wow. What a statement. There was a safety issue, so that's why we couldn't. Well, I feel like only a woman would talk like that. It was a safety issue. Might slip off and fall and hurt himself. You're trying to defend somebody's life. It's a risk assessment. I mean, yes. For one, the roof was not very sloped. No. It was a pretty shallow pitch, right? It wouldn't work up in North Idaho. The building would not stand in North Idaho. We need steeper roof pitches. My roof is a very steep pitch, and I can go up there, and I take precautions, and I rope in, and I get my old climbing stuff out in order to go up on a roof. If you are a professional, you need to know how to deal with roofs. That roof, the other guy, you know, the murderer, he was just, he was warming his way around on top of that thing. He wasn't roped up. I mean, it wasn't bad. I mean, everything is a risk assessment, right? Whether you're, you know, where you're going to go with your family for vacation is a risk assessment. Whether you make a shot or not, where you position your people, all that stuff is a risk assessment. What you have to realize is that what is, you know, what is the, what is more dangerous? You know, is it more dangerous to leave a roof with a line of sight on the President? Or on the former President of the United States, unguarded? You know, obviously, completely because they, you know, if they would have, and again, like if you truly were worried about the slope of the roof and it being too dangerous for your people, not hard to rig up ropes. If you can't rig up ropes, you could put a drone over it. You could put fixed cameras in play. I mean, there's so much stuff you could do to mitigate that potential problem instead of just saying, "Oh, we'll just put people inside that can't even see up on the roof." Right. Yeah, I can't imagine like, like in the Navy SEAL operation, you've got a mission and you go back to your heads and you're like, you know, there's just a, there's a slightly sloped roof. I just don't know the very safes or like, you know, I don't think that would fly at all. I was actually thinking about that the other day, just the, I was remembering for whatever reason, like walking from one roof to another roof. And I'm, you know, up there high enough, I don't know, probably 20 feet up. And I'm walking on a mud wall and it's maybe 18 inches wide. So it's not like, if you taped out 18 inches on the ground, you'd be like, no big deal. But then when you're way up there and I'm on nods doing it, I just remember. No, that's one of those except, but again, it's, it's acceptable risk. Right. Right. Yeah, there's potential that I'm going to fall off, but there's also potential that one of my guys gets shot because I'm not providing the proper Overwatch form. Therefore, I'm just going to look at the horizon and walk and not, and not think about it. And do my job and do my job. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. Well, also we should point out the obvious, which I think everybody is already, is probably even saying right now, the obvious, when the head of the Secret Service says like, well, there was, you know, you know, a concern, you know, there's a sloped roof. It's like, well, your other, your shooter who took him out was on a, a sloped roof. Yeah. And the degree of slope was steeper. Steeper. Much greater steeper. Like you probably should like think about what you're going to say publicly before you actually say it because then you'll, you'll look worse. I mean, it already looks bad enough and that just looks much worse. You're just giving, you're just giving away too much to ever want to like, just criticize you. Yeah, that proves too much. It does. It proves too much of just your incompetence. And well, how about should they have gotten him out of there a lot faster than what they did? I mean, they paused for enough time to get that brilliant photo op, but he should have been gone before that, right? Well, no, I think that was probably the right thing to do because they didn't know, right? I would assume that the barricades that they put up are all going to be some sort of bullet proof or bullet resistant material. They were once they hit the deck, they were out of the line of sight, I believe, of the of the of the murder. And so you, you would, especially with having overwatch positions like that, just getting down and waiting for things. You know, that's why they're calling out, shoot her down or, you know, whatever they call, called out like that. They want to make sure that that is the areas secure before they push out, because if if the guy was still up and they just started moving him, if you were, if you actually knew what you were doing, you would just shoot all of them. Right. I mean, like all the Secret Service guys, as you know, that that whole mass, you know, entourage of people moving, they would all get engaged by, by someone that actually knew what they were doing. So that that was the right thing to go down. One of the things that I was, again, not not knowing exactly what their SOPs are, I was concerned with, like, why aren't they looking out as much. And some of that may have just been the, you know, the camera angle, but they were all, all, all as close and guys were focused in on him. They were less focused out. And, you know, just, you know, in the confusion of the moment, you know, had there been some of them. You know, had there been someone closer, that could have been, you know, a big problem. Well, because then if you're a professional and you're there to do a job to kill the president, you would just work your way through the layer of the onions. Everyone's piled on. You just work your way through the layer until you can get to, until you get to what you were there for. So, yeah, yeah, it's probably a great idea. And I did hear, Bill, that that outer ring there at the bottom was armored. They set that up in case of situations like this. Yeah, of course, of course. Well, there was one good strategy thinking ahead. Yeah, make sure we have armor here. But let's leave that wide open so we can for sure use this armor. Yeah, we want to test it out today. I was actually shocked that the, that the counter sniper team didn't have some sort of a box to shoot off of as well. Because, I mean, those dudes are just up there, you know, in a kneeling position off a tripod in full sun. Like that, that gets tiring. And they're fully exposed and, and you can see exactly which way they're looking. Right, so that was somewhat surprising to me that they wouldn't build an actual position. You know, they wouldn't have a like an AR 500 style erector set little firing position that they could be shaded. And still have a good, good overwatch position from. That's really good. That's why I wanted to hear some of what you would have to say. If you, now obviously we're not saying this to take down their dignity or anything like that at all. There's obvious mistakes that are made. But if, if, as you're looking at it, you talked about something like that. Like a strategic way to do that as a, as with a sniper is don't put them in the open sun. Don't make it to where, you know, the enemy can see them in which position they're facing and where they're looking down their glass or whatever. Like, you want to do this sorts of things. So like it, it just gave me like a big picture thing. If, if you were tasked with like protect the president's life in a situation like this, what are some of the things that you would just absolutely make sure had to be in place? What would you do as someone who is a former dev grew Navy Seal operator? What would you do in terms of security and, and the stuff that maybe even is just obvious to you and guys that were on your team? So, so first off, just to, to say why that the whole sun comment came out when I was going through sniper school, one of our final training exercises. We were, you know, we'd walked, you know, a good portion of the night, and then we'd set up on this, you know, enemy radar dish. And we're waiting for, you know, them, them to, you know, to, to do, to a signal basically, and then we would engage. And so we thought that as the sun came up, this would be happening. And we ended up baking in the, you know, South California sun until about one in the afternoon, and we did not build. We didn't have anything overhead. We had, you know, veg we built final fire, final firing positions FFPs with the vegetation going towards where the, you know, where the, where the enemy was, but we didn't build anything over the top. And then, you know, when, when it did finally come time to actually shoot, and then, you know, when it is a, you know, a contact drill, like we were toast. And I remember the debrief point. Our, our training senior chief, he was just like saying, Hey, you guys were not sharp. You guys were, you guys were slow, you guys were, you weren't sharp at the end of the day because we baked in the desert for like six hours. Yeah. So that's something, you know, so it's not just a, it's not a shooter comfort thing. It's, it's like you're, you're actually better by doing that. So down to, to actually answer your question. I mean, you have to control key terrain features. Again, basic, basic stuff. You have to control that. That would be the first thing. The next one would be making sure the comms are right, the, make sure there's interoperability, right, between the different. I think there was at least two different, if not three different law enforcement agencies there, right, between secret service. I believe they had local sheriff's deputies and then also the local town police were there. So that's three separate groups. That was the big post 9/11 thing is that, Hey, we all need to be able to talk on the same frequency. And I get it like you don't, you don't want guys stepping on you. Right. So the highest level law enforcement guys that were there, the secret service guys. So they're not going to want the local sheriff's deputy on their same net. But whoever the next level up is, right, agent in charge or like the next guy up in the chain of command, he should be there. And he's monitoring a command net. So that as soon as a call comes in, right. So if, if I'm the local sheriff's deputy and I see something crazy going on, I should just have to tell my superior. And then, again, it should be a 10 to 15 second comms drill right there to say, Hey, we've got a guy with a rifle on this roof, in which case the president should have left. Um, so the, you know, again, the securing high ground, making sure that your communications that you have the, the interoperability that you need that because that does, when you have the right comms, it does allow you to leverage. Other long for right because the, the resources are not infinite. Right. We can't just have a thousand secret service agents. You know, follow the former president around at all times. Right. There is, you know, logistics are finite. So we do need to leverage those with local law enforcement. And as long as you're working the comms, the communications piece, you can do that. Um, I don't know how much you're using drones, but, but that would be another big one where you can see stuff going on. Um, go ahead. Well, no, I think that that that point right there, I think makes the most sense and probably was one of the greatest or the most dramatic failures in all of this is that when you, if it's true, if it's true, what was reported that you had officers station in the building. This kid was climbing. Um, and then an officer went up to the roof, saw the shooter, and then disengaged, went down. Uh, which, by the way, that all kinds of questions arise in my mind at that point, you know, um, about the statement that I just read from that town. So in reference to that, they were saying that the officer couldn't get up on the roof on his own. And so another officer was helping to pick him up. And so initially he had both hands on the roof. And then he saw the guy. And then the dude started to point out the rifle at him. And then he basically fell off like he wasn't able to like hang out there. Gotcha. So he didn't have a ladder. Okay. That explains. That explains a lot then. Okay. Good. So that answers that question. So however, though, what you're talking about in terms of comms and their ability to communicate, it obviously should have been the case that the moment, the very moment that he sees a shooter on the roof and he falls off or whatever. He's immediately on comms. We got a shooter on the roof. Quick. Get him back. And then someone may meet, makes a phone call or it's not a phone call. Quick comms to the next person in secret service and says we got to shoot in the roof. Get him. Get him away now. Like, how long does that take? 10 seconds. It should take no more. I mean, between the local law enforcement guy doing that, him calling his boss. Hey, we've got a guy with a gun on the roof, you know, within rifle distance of the former president. Yeah, Roger. You know, and then that and then that call. Right. So that's to his superior. And then it just goes from that guy to secret service. And the president should have been whisked away at that point. Immediately. And then the last one is just, like, being clear with the R.O.E.s. And again, like, I don't think we'll know exactly until the actual full, you know, investigation is over and we can actually read the transcripts of what the secret service counter sniper saw. Like, when did he, was he actually staring at the guy through his crosshairs and was just, you know, had some either question of R.O.E. and his rules are, you know, going through his mind or, you know, maybe there was cognitive dissonance going on. Maybe he was going, man, is it like, is it, did, did we happen to station a local sheriff's deputy on the, you know, like, is it, I don't think it was a whole lot of time from the time the guy, you know, if he, if he did see him. You know, if the counter sniper did see the murderer, I don't think he saw him for very long. So there might have been just in that, in that short window. Uh, you know, just enough enough time for him to ask those questions in his mind of going, Hey, I, you know, because again, like he doesn't want to pull the trigger on the wrong guy. Again, just try, you know, trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt for so I would, I would hold off on judgment there until we, until we hear, but I mean, if it does come out that, you know, that the R.O.E. was clear. Hey, shoot, you know, if, if there is, which I can't imagine it not being. Hey, if there is a weapon pointed at the president or the former president, you should engage. And he had cross errors on him like, then again, we've got to go like, who, who are we hiring? Why, why is this going on? Like, why is there a question because, I mean, within our former organization was never a question of whether you would pull the trigger. It was a question of, would you ever get the opportunity to do it? Right. And so it's not this big, you know, if this guy's having a moral conundrum as to whether or not, you know, all of a sudden, oh my gosh, K J V, thou shall not kill. If that's running through his head at the time when the only thing that should be happening is the weapon getting put on fire and focusing on a good trigger squeeze. Um, then obviously that would, that would be another problem that we would have to address is just the willingness piece and like, making sure that our, that our mind isn't at 100%. Yeah. Any more questions there, Zach? I don't think so. No, Bill, you've been great, man. Thank you for this today, dude. Thank you very, very much. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely. Everybody, just before before before we let Bill go, I want to point everybody to my favorite thing with Bill, and that's the blades that he makes. And so I'll let Zach, you talk about it real fast, Bill. It gave you guys are joining us late in the broadcast here, Bill Rapier, legendary Navy Seal, Dev Groove, Seal Team Six, Operator, love him so much, grateful for his life and grateful for his ministry in many ways, but also the great stuff he does to train men to defend their families and their country. It's just fantastic stuff. I would encourage you after this episode, just do a YouTube search of Bill Rapier. You're going to see some great stuff, but we want to point you to one thing in particular. Bill is the lead instructor and owner of AMTAC Blades. Of course, a retired Navy Seal who started out with a vision for a blade that would fit in his front pocket to replace his regular folding knife. After testing, modifying and refining the designs, his initial vision came together and AMTAC Blades was born. They provide fixed blade knives, battle axes, and holsters fit for a Northman. Here's their selection of combat weapons at amtacblades.com. That's where you can get more. Yeah. And I will say that -- Apologia coupon, Jim? Yeah, there's an Apologia coupon. Oh, yeah. Five percent, I believe. What does it -- Bill, you should know this, but I don't even know why it wasn't even on here. Luke said it last week. Luke usually does it. So what's the coupon thing? Is it just Apologia? I think the code is Apologia. Apologia. And they get a discount. And your big supporter of end abortion now, and so all this makes a big circle to save lives and preserve lives. And I will say that though knife fighting wasn't like something that I would say I specialize in for many, many, many years. I did spend many, many years studying knife fighting and doing collie and knife fighting. And the first thing I thought when I got Bill's blade in my hand was the person who made this understands how to knife fight. That's the first thing I thought. I thought this is made by somebody that knows what you would want if you were fighting with a blade and self defense with a blade. And it's just fantastic. It is the best. But I will say also that they are extraordinarily, extraordinarily sharp. And so be careful and don't play games, boys and girls. Don't shave with it. Luke did. When Bill presented a very special battle act to us at man camp this last year, Luke thought he could play around a bit. And so within probably five minutes of getting the battle acts, Luke was bleeding. And it's like mess around, find out. And then pastor Zach, yeah, yeah, I'm going to find out. And then pastor Zach decided to see like is it really that sharp and he's very hairy and he's a very hairy man. And so he like slides it across his arm and like all the hair comes right off the top of his arm. And so they're very sharp. They are great tools. They're great equalizers, great equalizers for women as well. And so if you guys are interested, definitely go. It's going to be the highest quality best you can get. And so Bill, thank you for joining us today, brother. Hey, thanks for having me on, guys. Thank you, brother. I appreciate what you guys do. I appreciate you, brother. All right. So everybody that's still stay tuned with us. We're going to do an aftershoe in a minute here over at apology of studios.com. So if you are all access, we're going to go there, continue the conversation over there. All access private feed just for you guys. And so we'll go over there, finish this up, have a quick conversation. A little bit more about what we're seeing here and wanted to point everyone to a couple more things. I think they'll bless your life. You've heard me talking a lot over the over maybe the last year about NAD. I've encouraged you to go look it up. NAD benefits. Look at the benefits of NAD. This is something they call the Fountain of Youth because it's a chemical. They got put into your system that runs so much. And as you get older, you lose a lot of it. And so what a lot of people are doing for a long time is they've been doing NAD supplements, precursors, and also even injections. And they've been recovering from injury and their training is better. And it just does so much. If you went without NAD in your system for more than 30 seconds, you'd be dead. That's how important this is that God has put this in our system. But it goes down as you get older. So the one thing I've always been afraid of though is one number one, I hate needles with a passion. I get dizzy and I turn into a baby. I just turn into a baby. Like I will stand in front of the biggest guy, the strongest guy on the line ready to fight and there's nothing. Nothing but like I'm just thinking about, okay, let's hear my options. Here's what I'm going to do. No fear whatsoever. A lot of time when being able to get like that, but if you put a needle into my presence and you threaten to poke me in the arm with it, I will turn into an absolute whiny child. And you can ask a family about that. And I know it's all mental. If a nurse comes near me with a needle, all of a sudden, I just can't control it. I know it's in my head. I know, forgive me, we all have flaws. That's a flaw. I realize it. It's ridiculous. Everybody's woozy about something. Everybody says, well, you got tattoos. It's not the same. It's not the same as a big, thick, gauge needle going into your vein. Change. Anyway, so all that to say, like number one, the needles. I'm just like, I don't want to do the needle thing. And then also, everyone knows about the NAD, or the NAD, when you put it into your, when you mainline it and you do that drip over a couple hours, how hard that is, for some reason, it just reacts in your system. You feel a heavy chest, maybe nausea. It's just difficult. But when you get done, you feel like Iron Man. You can run through walls. But I never wanted to do it because needles. But then, ion layer, the guys over at ion layer told me that I can do NAD treatments through a medical patch on your arm. NAD, high dose of NAD goes into your system over 14 hours. It's fantastic. It blessed my family in a big way. My training has been better. Recovery is better. My focus has been better. It's just been fantastic. But also, in particular, my wife, when she started doing it, she had the long COVID symptoms where, like, she couldn't smell certain things. Or certain things, just the taste that altered for years. Coffee tastes like garbage, hot garbage. If she smelled celery, she would vomit because it just smelled just like this horrible smell. So much was altered. And as soon as she started doing the NAD treatments, three days later, all of it came back. She could taste coffee again, all this stuff. That's what happened to her. And so, if you guys want to get in on that and you want to start that and focus on, you know, your longevity and your health and your body and maybe rebooting your system. I'm a big fan. I do it all the time. ionlayer.com, I-O-N, ionlayer.com. Solid dudes over there. They love the Lord. And they've got a great, great thing. And so, ionlayer.com, and you put Apologia in all caps in the coupon code. And you get a discount. And they take care of us with this ministry. So, you're doing a lot of things for yourself and this ministry. Don't forget to go to Apologia Studios Store. We've got some great tracks there. Check them out. Shop.apologiastudios.com. That's right. Great tracks. People use them all over the world. I'm grateful. I mean, there's limited amount of tracks, but like fantastic. They're really great tracks. We use them all the time and evangelism out of the abortion mill. And just what is the good news of God just goes out to everybody. It's fantastic. And you can also get a precip. That is the coffee brand. The best part of waking up is precip in your cup. An epic collaboration between Apologia Radio and Landmark. Roasters, grab a bag and take Dominion for Christ one sip at a time. And link up with Heritage, a defense and Bradley Pierce, our good friend there. It's a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the Kingdom of Christ by protecting and empowering the biblical family. If any three letter agency show up at your door, have peace of mind knowing that an attorney who shares your values is available around the clock to advise and advocate for your family. Contact your household by visiting heritagedefense.org. Heritage Defense. Love those guys. If you are a Christian family living in this culture, you need to have them on standby. It is a phenomenal service with a Christian organization that will defend you. If you post something online, maybe it's called hate speech. Someone shows up at your door or there's different accusations made against you and your family. To have somebody on the phone to say, "Hey, talk to my lawyer." That's an amazing service at such an insanely low cost. And so you need to get that. If you homeschool your kids especially, if you homeschool your kids, you have got to get heritage. You've got to get it. It's good for peace of mind and we know numerous people have had to use it already. And so get on that and everybody meet us over at the aftershowapologyofstudios.com. It's been great to be with you today. Thank you guys. Please pray for us. One last word. Before you go, one last word. Very, very, very important. I'm going to be speaking a lot about this over the next week. I've had to keep it private. If you've heard my New York Times interview, you'll notice in that interview, I told them that we are leading right now and organizing to defeat the ballot measure in Arizona. It is happening across the nation right now. They are trying to essentially legalize abortion in the state constitution and all these different states from fertilization essentially through nine months. That we're about to enter into the most bloody and brutal time since the inception of rovers is weighed. And so row being done is irrelevant at this point. Right now because they are working now to undo this and to put it into the state constitution, not just legislation, into the constitution of the state, guaranteeing the right to murder your child from fertilization to nine months. It's happening across the country. It's already happened in Ohio. It's happening in our state right now. And I think we are going to beat it. We've developed a lot of things. I'm not going to speak about publicly right now that we will be able to share with other churches, Christians and organizations in other states to do exactly what we've done to defeat these ballot measures. We're working hard at around the clock on it right now. I am not going to give you all the details. Again, the New York Times was begging me to give them the details and I wouldn't. I can tell you that having worked with the team for the last couple of days, politics is not a flashy thing. It's a very tedious time consuming, not sexy thing to be involved with. The work that it takes to do this is, like you said, there's guys on the team that are, like you can tell, they're tired. Yeah. They're working hard. We're coming home one in the morning, working from sun up to sundown and beyond. I will tell you this, be encouraged. Somehow the Lord allowed us to be the people who lead in this and have been organizing. We have so many faithful members of Apologia Church who have been on their feet doing things to help defeat the ballot measure. It's all coming together right now. We're coming to near the tail end of it right now. I think we're going to beat it. I think we're going to beat it. That's all I can say right now. Our enemies are listening and just trust me. What has come out of all of this and our church's involvement is we've been able to develop a system that we can deliver to other states to say, here's how you can beat this. We're talking again about the legalization of the murder of children from fertilization through nine months and it's happening across the union right now. Here's my big ask right now. You would be blown away. My wife could not comprehend it or accept it. She's like, that doesn't make any sense. I don't understand that and that sounds ridiculous. I said, you're right. It is, but it's a specialized field. The amount of money that has to go into defeating a ballot measure is obscene. It is obscene. I'm sure the other side knew that. Yeah, they knew that. And so when we entered into this and the responsibility came on us to make this work, to defeat the ballot measure and we started having the numbers thrown at us. You're going to need this organization and their special skills and their software and all these things to go through the ballots and all this things. When the number came back to us, I was like, well, there's no, there's, we don't have that. I mean, but and also I will say this, no help. We're not getting any help for any other major organizations. Even some of your favorites that talk so such big game about, you know, pro life and preserving life. A lot of big game people talk a lot of game, but no help. And so you're looking at an apology at church that's got to find some way to make this work. And we've got another organization we're working with as well that has stepped in. And so we're combining efforts together. But I will tell you this, the amount of money that has to go into defeating a ballot measure is obscene, obscene. My wife yesterday, which is for like 10 minutes, that just doesn't make any sense. That is an obscene amount of money. I don't understand it. I said, yes, but somehow God is allowing us to accomplish it, even cutting corners. It's happening. I will tell you this. We just cut a check this morning from end abortion now. Thank you all for giving towards end abortion. Now we're going to check this morning to help to get further along so that this actually happens to preserve the lives of these children. So all that to say, if we are able to defeat this ballot measure here in Arizona, we will actually be able to duplicate what we're doing here and give it to other states to defeat it there as well. And so with that, I need you to help us financially right now because we weren't ready for this. It's a big ask. If you can do anything to help end abortion now right now because we were right in the midst of defeating this ballot measure, we're going to help other states to do exactly the same. And so we need your financial help. We didn't expect this to happen the way that it did. We didn't expect it to be as successful as we are in doing it. And so with that, if you can give it all right now to end abortion now, go to endabortionnow.com. Please do so. We've got bills coming up in other states this year. We've got a lot that we're doing on top of now defeating a ballot measure in the state of Arizona. And here's what I'm going to say right now, based on what I'm seeing right now, what we've discovered and all that we're able to do, I think we're going to win. I'm trusting the Lord for it. I'm going to believe God for it. I think we're going to win. And so if we do again, we'll be able to duplicate this in other states across the union. So endabortionnow.com. Please go there. Please pray for us as well for our safety. We've got a lot of death threats the last couple of weeks, numerous death threats over the last couple of weeks as well. So be in prayer for us, be in prayer for our families, and we'll catch you over at the apology of radio after show at apology of studios.com.