A Conversation with Ian B. Walters & Brandon Straka

Folks, thanks for joining us for another end of the week episode of CPAC Live. We're going to jump right into it, and we've got one of our friends who's going to tell you about a lot of the great work that he's doing with activists around America, the leader and founder of the walkaway movement, Brandon Strzok. Brandon, how are you this afternoon? Doing great. How are you doing, Ian? You know, between you and me and everybody here watching us, I am exhausted. You just got back from Western Pennsylvania. We're headed to North Carolina next week. You make being on the road and being an organizer look easy. I wish I were able to make it look as easy as you do. But, man, I'll tell you, I am tired. I am run down. I'm giving it 110 percent, and so is all of the staff and leadership at ACU and CPAC. We are knocking ourselves out to get everything done that we can in, what, like 41 days. So it really feels like the homestretch. How are you feeling about the state of the race? Do you feel like the side that we're on is in good shape or that the other side is in better shape? I can't tell from day to day sometimes. OK, well, that was pretty much going to be my answer, too, is that there are little things that come up and happen that make me feel like, OK, we're in really, really good shape here. And then, you know, but a lot of it, I think that the things that make me feel a little bit insecure are, again, I think I just I play into the media sometimes when, you know, they love showing those images of 700,000 Black Lives Matter people bashing windows and then, you know, telling us that, like, you know, these are these guys are all going out and voting and that we're outnumbered and that, you know, and so when you see like these mass demonstrations and stuff, it makes you feel like, wow, there's going to be a lot of people who are out voting for Biden just because it's like a hate vote. It's a rage vote. You know, it's not a vote for America. It's a vote for a rage mob vote. But the truth is, I think I look at my own group, WalkAway, and I see that our numbers have literally doubled since June of this year. We were the original WalkAway group. Now, you know, of course, we're also on Twitter, we're on Instagram, wherever. But I really kind of like base what's happening in that home group on Facebook because that's where the testimonials are. That's where people are telling their stories and making their videos. And we were hovering around just under 250,000 in there in June. And now we're easily going to push half a million within the next week or two. And the majority of these people are leaving the left because of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the violence and the government overreach with the shutdown. So if that little group WalkAway campaign is just even kind of a microcosm of what the rest of the world is thinking, then I think I think we're in pretty good shape. Yeah, I really do trust your gut check more than mine when it comes to how people are feeling in the Democrat Party and on the left, because that's what WalkAway was founded upon, was to become a place for disaffected Democrats, disaffected liberals who recognize the hypocrisy of what's going on. I woke up this morning and I see one report about how fantastic it is that Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic. And then I read another report that says how terrible it is that Amy Comey Barrett is a practicing Catholic. And I, you know, there's absolutely no consistency in any of it. I look forward to, you know, hopefully being the middle of November and being able to turn my television off for a week, to not read the newspapers for a week, to maybe take a social media break just for a few days, because there's this distinct sensation that it is really corrupting a lot of Americans' brains in this moment of lockdowns, of schools being shut down, of businesses having to partially open, if open at all. You've been a big proponent of talking about the ramifications beyond just medical of the coronavirus lockdowns. What do you see going on with people, with all of the Americans that you're interacting with and how they're feeling? I know that when WalkAway and Brandon Strzok comes to town, that that's a burst of energy, a real shot in the arm for a lot of folks. It sure is for us and for our events. But are you sensing that there is something darker underneath that, a sadness, a depression, a fear of a lot of folks being able to go out in the real world and live their lives the way they want to or the way they used to? Certainly. I mean, 100 percent. And there's, you know, I just watched a video yesterday of a woman at a high school football game there to watch her son who got arrested and tased for not wearing a mask in the audience outdoors. And she wasn't, oh, you haven't seen this video yet? Take a look. Yeah, it's trending in like the last 24 hours. Yeah. The police came up to her in the stands and told her they were trying to place her under arrest for not wearing a mask. And she said, you're not going to arrest me. You're not going to arrest me. And they tased her right there in front of all the other parents at the game. Now, you know, you juxtapose that with some of the experiences that I've had firsthand in the last month, traveling around the country, doing these Rescue America rallies. I mean, and I'm talking about things that are caught on video. You know, when I was in Dallas, Texas, several weeks ago, more than 30 Black Lives Matter members chased five of my team and I for five blocks. They stole our property. They broke our phones. They they put their hands on us. They were literally chasing us. This was on camera outside of a police station. No arrests are made. There are no charges pending. But this, you know, high school football mom is being tased and arrested for not wearing a mask in an open stadium while she's not even sitting near anybody. Yeah, people are upset. People are afraid and they're not recognizing the country that they once loved and they felt like they once knew. And I think that when we come around, yeah, we're giving people permission to come out and be amongst their own people and to feel like they're in a safe environment again. It's really, really scary times. I mean, this is more than just rioting or disagreements based off of, you know, I feel this way or you feel that way. I mean, these Black Lives Matter people, you know, yes, I focus on this a lot lately. And I think that's mostly because I'm seeing them on a weekly basis as we're traveling around doing these events. There is it's beyond the double standard. I mean, these people are allowed to show up to events. They're allowed to cause violence. They're allowed to surround people's cars and not allow them to drive through traffic. And if the people try to drive, they'll start bashing out their windows and nothing happens. These people never face charges or crimes. And people are going, what is going on with law and order in our country? And people are upset. But the good news is that I mean, I hate to even phrase it that way because there's nothing good about it. But it's if there is a positive, it is that it is exposing the left to people who weren't getting it before. And it is pushing more moderate, more common sense people away. I watched with great interest and real concern for you, our buddy, what happened outside of the White House when you were in Washington, D.C. and were threatened and harassed by a lot of the protesters who were staying, apparently, in the same hotel that you were staying at. This is all rubbing up very closely to one another. And then I watched with great interest and concern the Dallas videos that you just referred to, where you and Carlin Forsenko and Mikey were literally chased violently by the mob. And I really was afraid that somebody might take a baseball bat or take a brick to one of you guys. You guys had to hustle out of there very quickly, even with your security detail. You mentioned as part of that Dallas experience in the videos that that initially began with all of the local television cameras there. And they failed to sort of cover what your experience was. You know, because I watched it on online, on Twitter, on your Instagram feed, was a riveting, media worthy, television worthy footage that was gathered. What do you think is even down at the local affiliate level? We're not talking about MSNBC National or NBC News National or CNN. We're talking about the local affiliate in Dallas deciding to look the other way in the face of assault and harassment. One, how did that make you feel? And two, how do you think we got to a place where the media is not even turning their cameras on you, but turning away? Well, listen, I'm just going to tell you the truth here. And some people might say that I'm a conspiratorial nut, but I'm just asking those people to trust that I'm on the ground on a weekly basis traveling around cities around the country. I'm seeing this with my own eyes. What I actually believe in my gut is that there is a level of corruption that's happening even on a local basis where it's probably a combination of intimidation. Because as I just stated, these BLM anarchists and Antifa anarchists are able to get away with just about anything, with carte blanche. I'll tell you something, Ian. The reason my team and I showed up at the police station in the first place is because we had a security officer who was arrested from our event that day for simply doing his job, which was apprehending one of these BLM anarchists as they rushed our stage earlier that day at the event. But they arrested my security officer for doing that. When we arrived at the police station, what we found was every local affiliate there and a group of about 40 Black Lives Matter anarchists. And when I asked the local ABC affiliate what's going on, he said, oh, we're about to do a press conference with these guys. And I said, are you interested in getting both sides of the story? Because it was my event. At that moment, my team and I were surrounded by 20 or 25 of them who began threatening us and intimidating us. And I said, this isn't worth it. Let's get out of here. And that's when they started chasing us. I mean, they stole one of my employees' phones and they broke it. They took my shoe off my foot. I was running down the street with one shoe on. I mean, it's crazy. And all of this happened in front of the local media. Some of them even followed us the full five blocks and filmed it. But none of them chose to run the story that night. But they did still run a story showing the press conference that they did with the same people who chased us down the street. Get out of here. Right. So so I'm my point is that either there's a level of fear and intimidation that if they don't do what the mob wants, their houses will be targeted, their property will be targeted. Or I don't think it's I don't think it's unreasonable to say that maybe there are kickbacks that are happening for some of these people in the media or even people within the police department. You know, Black Lives Matter made over a billion dollars in the first couple of months of the summer from donations from people. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that maybe some of these people are being paid to look the other way. Well, there are cases of local reporters now that I think about it getting doxxed. You know, you go out there and you try to do your job. You're there with a cameraman and a producer and you say, hi, I'm I'm Joe Q. Newscaster out here reporting from the riots and the the rioters get very upset if you put their face on camera while they're engaged in criminal activity, when they're breaking a window or throwing the Molotov cocktail or running into the into the auto zone to the destruction of property or steal goods. They get very upset when they're filmed doing that. So they've begun to push back on the reporters, which is which is is just bananas. Yeah, I love that you're on the road. I love I love that you inspire people. We love it because you inspire us. You've been coming to CPAC the past couple of years, and it's just been a great relationship. Tell us where you're going to be over the next next couple of weeks. I know that we're going to get to be together in Minnesota, just northeast of the Twin Cities. I mean, that's a hotbed of protest and rioting activity. And we'll be there with Brandon and with our friend Maj Touré and, of course, Matt Schlapp and Dan Schneider and a lot of our ACU and CPAC family will be there. But what do you have between now and then? I know you've got a big event coming up in Washington, D.C. Yeah, we're very excited and extremely stressed out that we on October 2nd and 3rd, we're putting forward what we're calling the walkaway ultimate American weekend. This is really I can't oversell this enough. This is going to be an incredible, incredible weekend for patriots who have left the left, find themselves in the center, find themselves on the right. So it's a two day weekend. It begins on Friday, a week from today, Friday, October 2nd, is the walkaway American Women's Town Hall. Now, this is actually an outdoor event that we're doing at the Sylvan Theater, which is near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. We have Laura Trump, Diamond and Silk, Shameka Michelle, Katie Hopkins, Senator Marsha Blackburn and and more that will be coming up at this event. And then the next day is the unsilent majority march on Washington. This is going to be a really incredible event. Begins at Freedom Plaza. We're going to march once again to that Sylvan Theater outdoor theater near Washington Monument. And then we're going to do the unsilent rally, which is a really big, huge. We have Dan Crenshaw, Majd Aray, Lorenzo Lamas, Scott Pressler, David Harris, Jr. We have Vernon Jones. We have, did I already say Joy Vila, Brandon Strock, YG Nights, I mean, incredible Chandler Crump. So we're going to have about twenty five incredible speakers. We're going to have music. This is going to be something that makes you feel good. It's going to make you feel inspired. It's going to make you feel energized. One month before the big election, I've been trying to tell people I don't know if this is good marketing or not, but I've been saying it's kind of like Woodstock for MAGA people, maybe a little less of some of the stuff that went on at Woodstock. But, you know, I mean, it's going to be you're going to be around thousands of your own people and you're going to be and we have just to make clear, we have an enormous security detail. We have hired hundreds of ex Green Berets, ex military. We have bikers for Trump and we have police. This is a permitted event. So the D.C. police will be in on this. This is going to be an incredibly safe, incredibly secure event. I don't want people worrying about that. We have all of that security handled from beginning to end. So people are going to be very, very safe. And I really want to encourage as many people to come as possible. If people go to walkaway campaign dot com and click Ultimate American Weekend, they can get a ticket to the women's event. That's tickets are only like fifty dollars for that incredible event. And then the march, of course, is free to come to the march and the rally the next day. We just ask that people register. We currently have over 750 coming to the women's event and we have over seven thousand signed up for the march the next day. I want to get that number to ten thousand by a week from today. And I want to see at least a thousand at that women's event. So if you're watching and you're able to come, especially if you're in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, D.C., Virginia, come out, you guys come out, go to walkaway campaign dot com, click Ultimate American Weekend, sign up and let's see you there. Come be with thousands of your people and let's have the most incredible weekend leading up to the election. One of the reasons we love talking to you and love having you on the show is because you really do have that positive vibe. You've got such a great infectious energy. We want some of that to rub off on us. You're making me feel better about our prospects already. Just getting to hang out, even if it's not in person on our on our digital platform here. Hey, man, what what happens if we don't pull this thing off on November 3rd? What happens if Joe Biden wins? And and these these these destructive forces that are right, literally rioting in the streets, literally shooting up minorities in poor neighborhoods. What what happens if if Joe Biden wins and these sort of these destructive forces are validated? And it says, well, if you want to get your way in the American body, politics, all you got to do is set a couple of fires. All you got to do is tolerate a little bit of death and destruction, and then the the world will submit to Europe your desire. What's at stake and what happens if we don't pull it off? Well, what I would say is that if Joe Biden were to win, if we if we saw some sort of blue wave or or something like that first, the first thing that we're going to have to do is just take a deep breath, because it's going to be it's going to be very disturbing. It's going to be very difficult. It's going to it's going to be tough. And I think that we would have to prepare ourselves for that. It's going to hurt badly. It's going to sting very, very badly. But then we have to get up. We have to lick our wounds. We have to put our big boy pants on and then we just have to begin again. I think that's where the choice really has to be. Is America worth fighting for? Are we going to put our money where our mouth is when we say things like, you know, America's worth fighting for? Freedom is worth fighting for. Well, we we know by looking back at our history, it's not always easy. Sure, it's easy to fight for freedom and fight for America when when there is no tangible threat or, you know, overwhelming threat. But, you know, we have to make it. And we also, I think, have to look at the situation at hand. If we continue to find ourselves in a situation where we're being targeted, we're being physically attacked, we're being intimidated, people are coming and breaking into our communities and and standing outside of our homes with mobs, with weapons. And then we have to look at the situation. We have to say how I mean, what is our next step? How do we organize to fight back against this? Because we do have a right to protect ourselves. We do have a right to our property and our pursuit of happiness and our life and our liberty. And they will not encroach upon that. And I do suggest that people take whatever measures that they need to do, including taking advantage of our Second Amendment to make sure that they're protected, you know, in the most civil possible way. But my hope is that it won't come to that. And even if Biden does win, I hope that we're able to combat them on a ground level. Let's get back into college campuses. Let's get back into minority communities and start educating people, because what we've seen the last, well, four years, but certainly beyond that, is just a mass manipulation and exploitation of minorities, of young people. They're not able to win with the truth. They're only able to win with manipulations, lies and mistruths. And so we have to be more vocal. We have to stand up. We have to fight for this country and we have to be unsilent. That's why we're doing this unsilent majority march on Washington. We can't sit around and complain constantly about why Hispanic people and LGBT people are voting Democrat, why college kids are voting Democrat, if we are not getting out and combating the narratives and fighting the lies and taking an active stance to fight back. So that's what we're going to have to do. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. And I'm up for it. I'll be there every day fighting. Brandon, you are an inspiration to all of us. I know that like us, you're going to be working through the weekend. There are no days off between now and November 3rd. And I want to remind you that the work you do inspires hundreds of thousands of Americans. I know because they come up to us and they email us and they talk to us at CPAC. And what also is the case is that what we do here in America, the world is watching that folks in Hong Kong, folks in both North and South Korea are watching this election with great interest. And there is a real feeling and sensation in Brazil, in Australia, in lots of European countries that with this election, so will go the cause of freedom around the world. So the repercussions could not be more profound. Brandon Strzok, keep up the good work. Thank you for joining us. I know you're working through the weekend. We're going to join you too. We'll see you in a few weeks and best of luck on October 2nd and 3rd for that special two day event. Folks, you want to be there if you're in the Washington, D.C. area or the surrounding states. We'll be right back after this quick video to remind you what's at stake in election 2020. Let's talk about socialism and a lot of famous socialists. He was a socialist, him too. Remember him? Socialist. Socialists like their toys for good reason. When you're busy seizing everybody's property, you usually need to crack a few skulls, about a hundred million of them, in fact. Today, you could ask people in Venezuela about socialism. Venezuela, a rich country blessed with bountiful natural resources, is now a hell hole. Venezuelans have lost weight because they cannot find food. They're ripping through garbage bags outside restaurants and shopping malls and they're starving. People here are eating dog food. These days, you don't need to look too far to find socialism. They're right here in the good old U.S. of A. Is anyone else on the stage concerned about having a democratic socialist at the top of the democratic ticket? I'm not. I would be the most progressive president we've had in a half century. We will not only win this election, we will transform this country. We need fundamental change in the United States of America. What do democratic socialists believe? State ownership of major industries, that would include health care, technology, manufacturing. Some of them explicitly support communism. Make college universally available with free tuition and fees. What do you think of Elizabeth Warren's proposal to, quote, save capitalism? I think it will help to destroy capitalism. I wish I could staple a free college diploma under every one of your chairs. I do. Don't look, it's not there. Socialists have trouble putting any faith in the little guy, you know, the folks who pull themselves up by their bootstraps. You know, this idea and this metaphor of a bootstrap started off as a joke because it's a physical impossibility. Socialism is about one thing only, power for the ruling class. Freshman Congresswoman Omar, who has now exposed her party's all too cozy relationship with virulent anti-Semitism. You wrote, Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. I don't know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish Americans. Your policing policy as mayor, quote, we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. The way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them. If you look at our jails, it's predominantly minorities. If you look at who the perpetrators are, it's virtually all minorities. Sekai told her boss, Michael Bloomberg, she was pregnant. She thought he would be pleased and he said to her, kill it. A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. Stricter gun laws move forward in Virginia. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is unveiling his signature gun control policy. In the spirit of gun control, will you disarm your entire security team? No. We'll get right back to you. How many live in those gated communities? How many can afford private security? How many buy the best and most expensive security systems, but yet they would disarm law-abiding citizens who can only rely on themselves to protect their families? 2020 Democrat candidates taking to the campaign trail to push their plans for climate change while at the same time spending big on private jets in order to do it. Senator, you spent over $300,000 on private jets. Buttigieg spent roughly $300,000 on private jet travel this year. Each of these candidates are total hypocrites. Hunter Biden's firm did work with this company in Ukraine. They were paid $166,000 a month retainer. I think if his name were Hunter Smith, he probably wouldn't have been getting paid. How many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings? Everybody's looked at it, said there's nothing there. Ask the right question. If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the In your state alone in Indiana, seven insurance providers have said we're out. There are a lot of Democrats who say this is not a winning position to tell the average American that they would have to give up their private health insurance, which they might like. Even doubling taxes wouldn't pay for Medicare for all. My father's family left Soviet Russia in fleeing from some of the very same socialist policies that you seem eager to implement in this country. I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Well, Scandinavia tried socialist policies years ago. They then turned away from socialism. When we were in Moscow, for example, most of the people here also were extremely impressed by their public transportation system. Also, I was impressed by the youth programs that they have and cultural programs which go far beyond what we do in this country. I think of communism when I think of Bernie. Now, you could say socialist. At the State of the Union, he said socialism destroys nations. And before the Super Bowl, he joked with Sean Hannity about your honeymoon in Moscow. But you don't necessarily think in terms of marriage, I'm not here to reform some of these systems when we talk about immigration. I'm here because Senator Sanders has actually committed to breaking up ICE. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. Talking about people voting from jail cells. All right, we're talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people. No Trump, no wall, no USA at all. Second thought, let's not talk about socialism. America will never be a socialist country. Let's talk about freedom, faith, rugged individualism, liberty, the stuff that keeps This election is a choice between American freedom and democratic socialism. The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century. African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded. Together, we are taking back our country. We are returning power to you, the American people. It's true. When America's standing tall, some would rather tear it to pieces. They get all kinds of triggered. That's how you separate the winners from the losers. The best is yet to come, because together we will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again and we will make America great again. That's what's at stake in this year's election, folks. America versus socialism. We created that video for CPAC 2020, and it gives me great pleasure to let you guys know that we are in the process of updating it for a more contemporary message to get us between now and November. We look forward to sharing that with you. It's not too late to go to conservative.org, pick up your America versus socialism yard sign, pick up your America versus socialism bumper stickers. Another feature that we have at conservative.org that we want to tell you about is a series called Biden's America. If you want to know what it's going to look like if Joe Biden wins on November 3rd, go check out Biden's America. It's a deep dive on what his record was in the Senate, on what his record was as vice president. It paints a stark picture of where he really stands on the issues. A lot of people try to phrase Joe Biden's record as a moderate record in Congress. He's not Bernie Sanders. He's not AOC. The fact is that he's got a track record of always being radical and wrong. You're not quite sure what he's getting from year to year. He used to be pro-life. Now he's not pro-life. He used to be against flag burning. Now he's okay with flag burning. We're going to figure out over the course of time and try to highlight where he is on the issues for the next five weeks. One of those places where we're headed is North Carolina, where Mitt Romney won that state by 1.5%. President Donald Trump in 2016 actually doubled that Mitt Romney spread to about 3.5% in 2016. He's going to need to build on that again. The Democrats in North Carolina, they went for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016. They are not as far to the left as say your Democrat party in New York or California or Washington or Oregon is. North Carolina is a state where Joe Biden is going to try to come in there and say, hey, I'm right in the middle. I'm the same Joe that you know from 47 years. You can trust me to be a moderate. Trust me to be right down there in the middle. We know that nothing could be further from the truth. Guys, that's why we're going to North Carolina on Saturday, October the 3rd. Finally, go to conservative.org. If you're in the North Carolina area, we'll be in Greensboro at 3 p.m. on October the 3rd talking about the issues that are important to North Carolinians. It's a very interesting state in the sense that they lost a lot of textile and manufacturing jobs over the past 20 years that were shipped over to China. That relationship that the United States has with China is going to be front and center in this election and will be front and center in our programming when we go to Greensboro on October 3rd. I hope that you guys have a great weekend. Thanks to our ACUT staff and leadership for making CPAC Live happen three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3.30 p.m. And we will be back at you on Monday at 3.30 p.m. with another edition of CPAC Live.