00:00This decision to follow your conscience, give us a little backstory. How did that happen?
00:07Without getting too much into detail, I just did a long-form podcast with Tucker,
00:12kind of laid out the entire politics of the issue. But look, after serving 20 years,
00:17mostly deployed to the Middle East, fighting the wars over there, and just seeing how our
00:20country had been lied to and brought down the wrong path in those wars, and that we were
00:26getting sucked into another one, and that the American people didn't have the full story,
00:30and our country did not have a vital national interest in this current fight, I said, hey,
00:35I, in good conscience, can't do this. Because that was a promise I made to myself probably 20-plus
00:40years ago when I was deployed to Iraq. Once I realized after my first couple deployments that
00:44we weren't there for the reasons that our government told us we were there for, I said,
00:48if it's ever my turn, if I'm ever an adult in this situation, and I ever have a position of
00:52responsibility,
00:53I will not, in good conscience, send young men and women off to die on foreign battlefields.
01:03So, we're Catholics here, and I believe you're a baptized Catholic.
01:08We saw, just on Sunday, and this is so great to see, because people are like, why a Catholic champion,
01:13or why are you here? The Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on earth, has been so strong and outspoken
01:19in recent comments talking about what Catholics should be worried about, the innocent people
01:23that are being hurt through all this. He mentioned the Catholic priest that was killed,
01:29Father Pierre, by an attack in Lebanon. Does it help you to have either members of your faith
01:36community or religious leaders speaking up on your behalf? Like, what's it like to have that support
01:41from outside?
01:42It's been huge. I, quite frankly, didn't think when I submitted my resignation, it would get the
01:47traction or the attention that you talked about. But having this support from friends, family,
01:53but really, I've been asked a couple times, was it a hard decision to make? And it's definitely a
01:57decision I didn't make lightly. I put a lot of thought into it, and I'd been thinking about it
02:02for quite some time. But having faith, I think I was able to hear God's voice. I was able to
02:07hear
02:07that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and it was my time to actually take action,
02:11which made taking the action incredibly easy, actually, and actually made me feel very liberated
02:17and like I'm in the right spot.
02:24Do you have hope for America? And if you do, why so?
02:29I have a great deal of hope for America. I think this is a very exciting moment. I think the
02:34fact
02:34that we're seeing people who speak out on behalf of their faith or who are willing to speak truth
02:39to power, and the fact that the people who support them are able to actually have a voice because of
02:43the technology, which obviously can be used for a lot of bad. But in the case of connecting like-minded
02:48people and getting our word out, that technology is a very powerful weapon in our hand. And also the
02:53young people in this country, the young men, the young women, plenty here in this room. I was kind of
02:57overwhelmed when I got here tonight, especially by the young folks that came up and wanted to shake
03:00my hand. And so I have a lot of hope for the next generation. I think as we head into
03:05this midterm season and just as this war advances in the next couple of weeks, I think, like you
03:10said in your open, the most important thing we can do is be on our knees and pray. But once
03:14we're up
03:14from our knees, we need to take action. Our leaders will hear us if we all speak out. We're at
03:19a critical
03:20juncture in the war in Iran. We need to let our leaders hear that we do not support this war.
03:25We do not think there's a vital national security interest. We want to bring our troops home.
03:29We want to work towards peace in that region. We do not want 20 plus more years of bloodletting.
03:35And then as we head into this next election cycle, demand from everyone, from every political party,
03:40go to them, go to your representatives and say, I will not vote for you if you are going to
03:44vote
03:44for the continuation of these wars overseas. And by no means, I don't expect anybody here to be some
03:50kind of a pacifist. If our country is attacked, we will attack. If there's an imminent attack, we will
03:55attack. If there's an actual threat, we will attack and we will fight that. However, we cannot
03:59continue to go down this path. We have to make that clear to our leaders. That's what gives
04:03me hope.
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