Church & State - Reclaiming the Culture Through Film with Michael Pack

Spokane Valley could become a sanctuary city of a different kind. Councilman Caleb Collier says that this proposal. I'm proposing that the city of Spokane Valley issue a proclamation stating that our city is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Welcome to the fire. Welcome to the fire. Today on the Caleb Collier Show, Reclaiming the Culture Through Film with Michael Pack. Hello Christian Patriots and welcome to the Caleb Collier Show of Church and State Media, where we drive morality and religion over tolerance and apathy. And I'm your host, Caleb Collier, once again, your favorite far-right shock jock. And the show that talks about politics and religion, Jesus Christ is our referee, so it's always nice and clean. Real quick, go to the website, churchandstate.media. Fill out the form for us, get our newsletter, and I personally call every single one of you who does. Also, check out our most recent episodes. 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And remember, we're getting pitched to be nationally syndicated on AM FM radio. All of that takes money, and we need your support. So please hit the donate button for us. Lastly, if you want to get a hold of us, churchandstate1776 at proton.me. And with that, let's go ahead and bring on our guest. Now, I'm thrilled to bring to you Michael Pack. He's been a filmmaker for a number of years through Palladium Pictures and also through his Manifold Productions projects. He's been the president of Manifold Productions, which he founded in 1977, so he has been at this for quite some time. He's covered films on Clarence Thomas, the dissidents as far as COVID-19 was concerned, covered films on the withdrawal, the abysmal withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the birth of nuclear power. He's done a lot. He also served as the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. which oversees the government's five international broadcasting networks. Michael, you have done a lot in your life, and it is a pleasure to have you on the show. Good to be on with you, Caleb. Thank you very much. Yeah. So number one, and we're going to show one of your trailers for one of your new films here in a minute, but I just right off the bat, I want to ask you how you got into this industry. You know, there's clearly a calling for you and you wanted to tell stories through film. And I think Americans need this because there's so much garbage coming out of Hollywood that it's nice to see something that I can show my kids. It's educational. It's historical. It's covering topics that they're not going to hear anywhere else. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, I got into it a long time ago in my 20s. And I had gone to NYU Film School, and coming out of NYU Film School, I had a lot of colleagues that were on the left making documentaries that I thought were anti-American, anti-business, you know, that were sort of pro-Soviet nuclear freeze, and I wanted to tell the other side of the story. And that is what we've been trying to do. I mean, I think the last five or ten years has seen an explosion of documentaries. They really dominate, or they're huge on Netflix and Amazon and everywhere else. They're like 25% of the product. After drama, they're the second most popular genre. I had a horror, I had a comedy. They're very, very popular, and they almost always have a left-leaning slant. Some are good, some are bad, but they're often left-leaning, and it's easy to understand why. But we in America need to hear both sides of the story at least. So that is what we've endeavored to do. I started Manifold Productions, as you say, way back when, And we recently launched Palladium Pictures to sort of expand our work. Manifault has done mainly long-form documentaries, but we did Palladium to also do shorter documentaries. And we've done a series with the Wall Street Journal opinion section. You mentioned two of those, and I think we're going to talk about some. And we have an incubator program run by my son, Thomas. And that is designed to train another generation of right-of-center, non-woke, you know— you know, non-progressive conservative filmmakers or libertarian filmmakers. And we have four of them a year, and we've been doing it for three or four years. And I suggest that anyone in your audience who's interested can apply. They can go to our website, palladiapictures.com, and click on the incubator, and it's open now. And it's really for people not at the beginning of their career, but people who've done a few films before, but maybe haven't done a documentary. Maybe they've done a corporate video or a video for a nonprofit, but they haven't done what we specialize in, which is storytelling documentaries that are designed to appeal to a general audience, not only a right-wing audience, but a general audience. So we tell what we think are great stories. You mentioned our film about Clarence Thomas. I mean, he has a great story. He came from dire poverty in the segregated South, the highest quarter of the land, his grandfather who raised him was illegitimate. It's an amazing story. But it's not a story that sort of our friends on the progressive left would choose to tell. They'd rather tell the Ruth Bader Ginsburg story. And there have been a host of documentaries and feature films about RBG. But we were the ones that wanted to tell the Clarence Thomas story, and it's still available. It's available on Amazon or findable through our website. But that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to do that and also create another generation of filmmakers who can do it, too. I think that's– I mean, obviously, making these films is wonderful, but spreading that to other individuals who have talent, giving them a venue for them to get on board with and to share their stories, that's how we ensure that what made America great is not lost, that we can continue to cover even the controversial so that individuals that maybe they're in their 20s and they're not exactly sure where they align– They've heard from their liberal college professor where they should align, but maybe they are questioning things, and a documentary can provide a venue for people to explore different thoughts, different concepts, and so I salute you for it, sir. Well, thank you. I think it is very important to do it, and it's important to train another generation to do it. I like to think the media is opening up. You know, there seems to be hunger for more right-of-center documentaries. Melania's documentary did extremely well, and The Ellisons have taken over Paramount and CBS. And so maybe there's an opening, but there have to be people who can create product. I mean, we have friends who do, you know, preaching to the choir kind of conservative propaganda documentaries. And I actually have no problem with that. There are plenty on the left, too. But we specialize in storytelling ones, not ones that advocate but tell a story. stories that are ignored or neglected by the mainstream media, and I want to create another generation that can do that. I mean, the problem really is that, on the left, they have a whole ecosystem to bring up these filmmakers. There are 4,000 universities in America. They all have film schools. So they're graduating, I don't know, tens to hundreds of thousands of wannabe filmmakers a year that are trained in what they often call social justice documentaries. And then they have— You know, there are foundations to fund them and distributors that specialize in those films and film festivals that are really left-leaning. So there's an entire ecosystem supporting these people, and we need to have something comparable on the other side. I mean, I don't want to eliminate those. I just think Americans should hear both sides of the story or both kinds of stories that need to be told. I think that's exactly what we need. And for far too long, we have had only one side. of storytellers. And I actually appreciate the fact you brought up libertarians. I'm a very open libertarian, Christian libertarian, but that is a very libertarian approach to this is we don't want to silence the other side. We just want options on the table. Exactly. You know, I'm confident that when people hear both sides, they'll end up agreeing with me, but maybe not. I do believe in freedom, and we want other people who are liberty-loving to apply to our incubator and make those sort of films. I actually think those ideas are under a lot of attack now from the left and the right, actually. So we really want to make those sort of films. And I'm really happy that my son, Thomas, who runs it, has done a great job. I mean, we've had— I think this is our fourth year, so we have about 16 of these films, and they've all won awards. They're all streamable, and by your listeners and viewers on Real Clear Politics, they're all there, and they're elsewhere as well. They've all won awards, and they're really great films, and they tell a different kind of story, and the filmmakers have a different kind of point of view than the ones that are mainstream in Hollywood that are all on the progressive left. Amen to that I want to take the opportunity to showcase your latest trailer and Chris if we could pull that up for the audience We're going to watch this together, and then obviously we're going to have a conversation about this. But we're also going to have a conversation about a lot of the different films that you've made. And you and I were speaking off camera about some of the ones that really interested me. But let's go ahead and watch this latest trailer. Go ahead, Chris. I've concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. The people woke up in the morning and thought, hey, we need to get out of this country. It was like water pouring over a rock. And it was hand-to-hand fighting. I actually thought that we weren't gonna make it. Get him up! Get up! The mix between the feces, the blood, the decaying bodies. People would beg you to kill them. Some civilians just throwing babies over. It became clear that an attack was imminent. There's a IED, bro. You know, I got to be honest. That makes me angry. I served in the United States Marine Corps, so I am a veteran. And seeing what we did now, you can make the arguments of whether we should even been over there. But we were and we abandoned it. And these people, the desperation from these people was so clear. And I'm so glad that you put it on film because Americans need to wake up to this fact. that we cannot go over to a country under the guise of spreading democracy and then abandon that country to people that are going to kill them, that are going to rape them, that are going to pillage them. And that's exactly what we saw in Afghanistan. It was really horrible. And Americans do want to look away from these images. So this is one of the films we made in partnership with the Wall Street Journal opinion section. It's free. You can get it on YouTube or go to the Wall Street Journal website. There's a page for all of our films, wsj.com slash OpinionDocs. And this one is an hour. The others are a half hour. Yeah, I think— so, we timed it. We initially released it on the fifth anniversary of the withdrawal, and we thought there'd be a lot of attention to the fifth anniversary of the withdrawal. And we were all surprised that there weren't a lot— wasn' t a lot of attention. I mean, this was one of the most consequential things that happened to the American military in a long time. It's a huge defeat, a huge reversal. We need to learn the lessons. And people have largely looked away. So, we wanted to tell the story. And I think that even though people vaguely remember the images, they don't really remember what happened. So, in keeping with what I said earlier, Caleb, that we try to tell a story, we really tell the story of what happened, from Joe Biden's decision to withdraw to zero at a date certain in April, early in his administration, to when the last planes left at the end of August. So, we tell that story in a sort of a straightforward, fact-based manner and leave other people to draw their opinions. But it's really a story of cascading disaster. He decided to go— President Biden decided to go to zero. And then the next thing— and the military advisement to keep some people, 2,500 troops there, you know, try to hold on to some of our assets. But President Biden was determined to go to zero, hence the path to zero. And the next consequential decision. We had to give up Bagram Air Force Base, the biggest air force base in Afghanistan, the center of U.S. operations, strategically important, the nearest air base to China, Iran, Russia. We gave it up. We left equipment behind. And, you know, then we cut off all support for the Afghan military. We cut off their air support. We cut off the special forces advisors. There were no way for them to keep their planes in the air or repair them. So they had this air advantage over the Taliban, and then they had nothing. And everyone in Afghanistan could see America withdrawing and withdrawing its support for the Afghan army. So the Taliban was able to march through Afghanistan with very little opposition, because, you know, they would go to a district leader or a tribal leader, and they would know that the Taliban's decision— victory was inevitable. We were going to leave at a date certain. We had already withdrawn all support from the Afghan military. So, everybody would rather make a deal with the Taliban now than later. So, they were able to sweep through. Then they're on the verge of getting to Kabul at the— mid- August. And then, because the State Department had other plans, they had an idea that the Taliban would tolerate an embassy in Kabul, even after they took over. The State Department did not announce a withdrawal, a NEO, a noncombatant evacuation operation, until mid-August, leaving the military a little more than two weeks, 15 days, to get, you know, 125,000 people out of country, to say nothing, as you mentioned earlier, to the ones we left behind. So, it was chaos. And that's what you saw in some of the images in the trailer. So, The Taliban was entering Kabul, so everybody in Kabul that feared the Taliban, which is most of Kabul, swarmed the airport. They swarmed the airport, desperate to get away. I mean, you can see even in that little teaser of one of those famous images. I mean, they clung to the C-17. They clung to it as it took off, you know, in the fantastical hope that maybe they'd be able to ride in the wheel well until they got to the UAE or somewhere. And you saw them fall into the sky. They were so desperate to not fall into Taliban's clutches that they were willing to not only risk their lives, but really risk certain death. So, the airport is overrun. And the Marines try to clear the airport. And one night and one day, they cannot clear the airport, 24 hours, because those people on the airport felt that if they left the airport, the Taliban would kill them. So, the Marines couldn't get them off. I mean, they'd shoot in the air. They'd hit them with a rifle bust. But why would nonlethal force make you leave to go to what you think is lethal force? So, the second night, the military calls in the Afghan Zero Units, which are Afghan guerrilla units trained and run by the CIA to clear the airport. And as one of their sergeants in the film said, they did in two hours what we, the Marines, could not do in a day and a night. Well, how did they do it, Caleb? They did it by shooting into the crowd and running them over by cars, killing them, innocent civilians. Not just innocent civilians, but our civilians, people who are fleeing the Taliban. But it's logical that that's what it took, because now the zero units are going to kill you, so you might as well leave the airport and hope you'll get back on. They changed the calculus. And as General McKenzie, head of CENTCOM, says in our film, we had no choice. That's the only way to clear the airport. And I actually agree with him. But it doesn't change the fact that under our command, a CIA-run unit shot and ran over innocent civilians. And these Marines we interviewed had to sit and watch and do nothing. So it's a horrible thing, and it's underreported, in my opinion. But then after that, you know, so they get them off the airport, they close the gates— And those thousands of people are now at the gates clamoring to come in, and the Marines at the gate have to decide whether to let them in. And there were times where, in the beginning, it was very restrictive. You needed a U.S. passport or a special immigrant visa, and only you and not your family. So some of these young Marines at the gates would have to take women and children, family members, to the exit gate where the Taliban are watching for possible murder and execution by the Taliban. So these young Marines— then the next day, the State Department says, oops, you know, families can come, too. So these young Marines feel they've taken women and children to be executed for no reason, and they're haunted by that. You know, it's this issue of moral injury, which you are probably familiar with, but I was not, of people who feel they've done something wrong, something that conflicts with their moral values. You know, sending women and children to their death, watching civilians be executed by zero units, and now they have to live with it. So it's really a horrible thing. And it went on for days and days, you know, those two weeks, until finally, you know, there was the horrible Abbey Gate bombing, where an ISIS-K suicide bomber exploded his vest and killed 13 U.S. service members and 150 Afghan civilians and wounding, you know, hundreds more. A horrible tragedy. And, you know, that sealed the gates. And I mean, you could say in the end they got 124,000 people out, a historically large number, but not everybody that worked with us, as you implied earlier. So it was a horrible disaster on many, many levels. And we need to sort of learn from it and, as you said, make sure it doesn't happen again. Yeah, I think this story needs to be front and center for the entire American public, that they can remember this. You know, there's certain events— that collectively that just been burned into our minds. But this wasn't one of them. And it should be because it should be a reminder of what's at stake here. And truly, do we need to go into another country? Because if we abandon them after doing so, in this case, you know, just after a few years, really. what's going to be the end stake for the people that unfortunately still have to live there? And I was wondering if you could tell the audience what the conditions are like in Afghanistan now. Well, as one of the people in our film said, Colonel Krumwich, the situation in Afghanistan is very similar to what it was on September 10th, 2001, the day before September 11th. You know, the Taliban charged, there was a a feeling— and this kind of fantasy comes up a lot in American foreign policy— that Taliban 2.0 were going to be kinder, gentler than Taliban 1.0. But there was no basis for that. They never said they would be. You know, they still have the same ideological and religious commitments, and it's the same. They are implementing Sharia law, and they are not allowing women to go to school, and they are executing and cruelly treating the people they don't agree with, and they're ideological foes and it's not a good place to be um so i mean they're not actually doing well economically and they're not you know they're struggling to figure out how to how to fit in and their end of the geopolitical world but it's not a good place and it's a sad thing with all of our blood and treasure to have not created a change i mean there was a generation of afghan women that did go to school and did learn and want to become doctors and lawyers and teachers and they are largely either fled the country or, you know, denied their opportunities in Afghanistan. Yeah, I can't thank you enough for making this documentary. And I hope the audience will take advantage of watching this, showing it to people that, I mean, even their kids that need to know the truth about what occurred here. And that's something that really, as I examine all the different films that you've been producing, this is something that you've not shied away from the controversial. And I want to bring up another one that to me is just as important, if not more. And this is the one about the medical dissidence and what occurred during COVID-19. And all of us should have memories of this and all of us should have the mentality of never again. But unfortunately, Americans tend to have short-term memory loss. You highlight and showcase the doctors who had questions, who just wanted to treat their patients. And they examined the data. They examined the different medicines that were on the table. And they wanted to treat their patients to make them better. And they became pariahs to the established medical community. That is very true. It's called Lockdown Dissidents. It's also on YouTube or the Wall Street Journal website or Palladium Pictures. It's only a half hour. And we tell their story. And once again, you know, we start with the beginning of COVID, you know, in Wuhan, you know, where that outbreak first occurred. And the Chinese government, because it's a totalitarian government, was able to lock down Wuhan in a way that no Western government could. I mean— Your listeners might remember the images of people being welded into their rooms and rounded up on the streets. And the WHO, the World Health Organization, went to Wuhan and declared it a great success. And these kind of lockdowns then became the model for the world and other reasons as well. But it had never been done that way before. In every other pandemic— They had what our dissidents call focus protection, where you shelter in place the people at risk, and the rest of the people go about their lives. But that was not the case here. And if there was ever a justification for it, it got removed pretty quickly. We focus a lot on Jay Bhattacharya, now the head of the NIH. And so, it was December that the Wuhan outbreak was at least made clear to the world. And by March, Jay had conducted this study in Santa Clara that confirmed that the COVID-19 virus was skewed old. If you're older, people were at great risk, and younger people, hardly at all. And it had widely spread. There were a huge number of asymptomatic carriers. So there was no sense in things like locking down, because it already spread through the population. So he thought everyone would think this was a great idea, but they didn't think it was a great idea. They began to suppress those ideas. And we look at how that happened. We also hear from Scott Atlas, who was another one of these dissidents that President Trump brought into the administration. And we hear about his fights with Anthony Fauci and others, and their desire to suppress this information. You know, by the fall of that year, Jay Bhattacharya and two other very prominent scientists, Martin Koldorf, then of Harvard, and Sinetra Gupta of Oxford, put out this thing called the Great Barrington Declaration— where they recommended this focused protection, and especially opening schools, because children were not much at risk. And even by then— and it was pretty clear by then, that was already the fall, that they were right, but it was suppressed. And Francis Collins, head of the NIH, wrote a famous email to Anthony Fauci saying, we have to— you know, these people are fringe epidemiologists— you know, Harvard, Oxford, And they need to be a devastating takedown of their ideas, not discussed openly, not maybe they're right, but we need to suppress them. And they were suppressed, and they were hounded. They were physically threatened, but more than that, their ideas were suppressed. And we also highlight in the film, I mean, when Elon Musk took over Twitter and invited people to find out what happened, we talked to one of the people who was invited in. And he talks about how Jay Bhattacharya was deplatformed right away, and all these ideas were suppressed on the urging of the government, because they considered them to be misinformation. They already knew the truth. They knew they were wrong, they were right. So, they could suppress the other ideas. That's not how free speech is supposed to work. Nobody knows what the truth is. And you've got to let the ideas fight it out among themselves. But bad as that is for normal speech, it's particularly dangerous in science. Science depends on people disagreeing and coming up with counter-evidence. Otherwise, it can't progress. So it was really a dangerous thing. And as Scott Atlas says, one of the most things we should all remember— is on the government's urging, we all gave up our freedoms. We talked a little about individual freedoms. We all gave them up. You know, the government said, well, it's too dangerous to hold church services, so church is closed. You know, you can't assemble and express your views unless it's about George Floyd and racism. Otherwise, you can't go out and protest. And we all said, fine, except for a small number of other people. You know, we gave up our freedoms, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble. The government just asked, and we gave them up, contrary to the image of Americans as gun-toting, freedom-loving individualists, which is the way I'd like to think of us. But we gave them up, and we might— the government asked, it just declared an emergency, and that was enough, and we should be careful not to do that again. It's another cautionary tale. It certainly is. And a lot of the footage, actually, for my opener of the show is from those years, and I— I was one of those guys that was not going to just take that. And there were a lot of great people around. And I've actually met Dr. Atlas. He's a wonderful man. But there was a group of people that honored their oath to do no harm and to explore different and alternative treatments. But man, it was so hard to watch what happened to these people. And a deep platform, but licenses revoked, not allowed to practice their medicine anymore. And then we were pushed towards one singular cure. And I don't care what it is. The common cold. You'll talk to somebody and they'll say, oh, you got to have the chicken soup. You talk to somebody else. It's no, it's the elderberry syrup. You got to have that. And you know what? People try it and they use whatever works for them. But that was not allowed during this time period. And I got to we're going to come back. I just realized we're at that hard break. But we'll come back. We'll discuss that a little bit more. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State. I'm here to tell you about Hunter's Blend Coffee. I got to tell you, I absolutely love this stuff. I'm all about the dark roast. Hunter's Blend Coffee, black powder. Doesn't that just sound like deliciousness and rebellion? I got to tell you, in America, we don't drink tea. No, we drink coffee. It's the food of the gods, and I endorse and support Hunter's Blend Coffee. I got to tell you. tastes like freedom. So I need you to go over to churchandstate.media, scroll to Hunter's Blend Coffee, and use the promo code churchandstate to help support us. When you go to huntersblendcoffee.com, not only will you be getting a great cup of coffee, but you also, if you use the promo code churchandstate, be supporting Church and State in our dogged pursuit of truth. And we are back. And thank you for staying with us. You're over at churchandstate.media. We're going to go right back to our guests real quick. I do got to plug one of our awesome affiliates, and I'm going over to mark37. com. Ladies and gentlemen, I mean, we were talking about... about COVID, and, you know, the surveillance state is a real thing, and we saw that play out during COVID, but it continues to play out. You can do something about that. You can get a ghost phone and a ghost laptop. That's what I use. The computer that's sitting right in front of me is a ghost laptop. Using Linux or Graphene OS... as the operating system for the phones, get out of the matrix. Stop using your iPhone. Stop using your Google phone. This buys on literally everything that you're doing. And you know this. Why? Because you have a conversation with your wife about needing some product, and all of a sudden you're getting the advertisements for it. Yeah, that's because it's actively listening to you. If you're tired of that, do something about it. Go check out mark37. com. Use the promo code churchandstate. You're going to get a discount. They are running that four-year anniversary offer. So please check them out. And one more time, please hit the donate button to keep this show on the air. All right. With that, let's go back to our guest, Michael Pack. And Michael, I made a statement about, you know, the different treatments, you know, and I brought up the common cold as an example. But that really was not allowed during these years where everybody was in a panic over the pandemic. That is really true. It was really a time where ideas were suppressed, this whole idea of misinformation, disinformation, especially as determined by the government. I mean, we— you know, there has to be what some people have called, you know, epistemic modesty. I mean, we don't know the truth. You know, God knows the truth. We do not. And that is why we need freedom to discuss it, freedom to try different things, but freedom to look at different theories. And in science, those theories are tested against evidence. And you can't start suppressing that evidence. I mean, the school closures, I think, are the greatest example of this. I mean, schools in some states, like California and New York, were shut down for two years. It's even hard to date, because they started open in this hybrid way and all kinds of weird stuff that you may remember. But it was a couple years, and there was really no need for it at all. And an entire generation of students have know, not just lost out on education, but drifted away. Some turned to drug use, suicide, whatever. It was horrible. And it was needless. We knew— we knew by March they should be reopened. And then, in this case, the European schools opened. They opened that summer. And so we knew by three or four months later that they had no problem. So that's like a massive experiment of multiple countries and millions of students. But thanks in part to the teachers' union, our schools didn't open for another couple of years. You know, I mean, so it's not just that they suppressed— I do not believe you should suppress wrong speech. I mean, that's what freedom of speech means. However, in this case, they were suppressing right speech even crazier and suppressing evidence, vast evidence, that pointed in another direction, you know, different from the orthodoxy. And we left this sort of small cabal, especially at the White House, you know, Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx and others, and then maybe repeated at the state level. And you could find out— it' s easy to see the problem. You can look at Florida versus California and see what happened. Scott Atlas makes this point in our film. It was very hard to say, you know, who had more COVID deaths? And what is a COVID death? You know, you go to the hospital, people die of a heart attack. They've had a little bit of COVID. So, well, who knows? But now you can look at what are called excess deaths. How many more people died during COVID than would have been expected in a normal year? It doesn't matter from what. Clearly, those excess deaths are COVID. So you don't have to look at all these other factors. Well, it turns out if you make allowances for age and other things— The excess death levels were similar in Florida and California. They're similar. So, all of the lockdowns and draconian measures that California implemented had no effect on excess deaths. What they did do was shut down businesses, deny children's schools, deny people needed medical attention for fear of going to hospitals, separate people from their dying parents and grandparents. So they had all those negative effects for no positive effect. And now the data is clear. It's more than five years out. So what do we think about that? I mean, oddly enough, you know, the governor of California is going to run for president after, you know, sitting atop a state with a huge COVID disaster. You know, the moment of greatest leadership challenge he'll probably ever face, and he failed. I don't believe that you should go to jail for that, but surely you shouldn't be made president for it. I would completely agree, especially with the video footage of him in Napa Valley enjoying dinner and wine while the rest of the state was locked down. Right, the French Laundry, good advertisement for that restaurant. That's right. Well, because they know. It made it look all cynical. They knew they would not be at risk or they wouldn't risk themselves and their family. So it makes it all look Not just wrong, but cynically wrong. So, as somebody who has done a documentary on this, you've covered this more than, you know, an average American has. Do you think we'll ever get to that point again? Or has America woken up, at least to this, this type of medical tyranny that we'll never allow it to occur again? I wish I could say for certain that we won't, but I'm not sure. I mean, it's possible that, you know... Scott Ellis addresses this in the film, and we are all worried about it. I mean, a different disaster might call upon Americans to give up their freedoms in a different way, and will we recognize it? I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, I think, Caleb, that the rise of democratic socialists of America and socialism in general suggests a large part of the American people who are willing to trust government with a lot of control over their lives. And I think that— One of the big lessons of both films we're discussing is government makes lots of huge and great mistakes. You know, trusting them with— handing them your freedom and trusting them with your lives is not a good— not a good move. I'm not sure if we've learned that. I think the rise of the DSA and these other candidates indicates a countertrend. On the other hand, I think some group of people, probably your listeners, have learned the lesson. So I'll have to see what happens with the next disaster. But I think it's not a sure thing that we learn from it. That's that's the case. I tend to agree with your assessment on this. And I mean, every time I travel, I still see people in masks. There are a whole group of people that still think every time they go outside that they got to be masked up. And it's just I just I honestly I pity them. You know, I don't look at them with anger. Perhaps I used to. But now I just kind of pity them that they are still living in that state of fear. Well, you know, so Scott Atlas tells the story in the film that early on when he was brought into the White House COVID task force, Dr. Fauci said, well, the problem really that we face is the public is not afraid enough. We have to make them more afraid so that they'll listen to us. Scott either said, well, I think that's sort of unethical to make the public afraid. And I think it is. But that's right. There was that fear. And we all did crazy things. Jay talks about one of his favorites. We all have a favorite. But he talks about how we all did this. We went into a restaurant. We wore a mask to go to our table. And then when we sat down, we took the mask off to eat. And then we went to leave. We put the mask on to exit. So what's the theory that the COVID virus knows when you're eating and respects it? It's like helium. It's above us a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it was insane. And everybody did that. I mean, I did it for certain. You know, there were— it was just lots of acts of insanity, and people have to deal with that. But I think you're right. Some have not listened to it. I live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a very liberal, progressive suburb of Washington, D.C. And during the time, we had lots and lots of thank-you Dr. Fauci signs on the lawns of my neighborhood. And I feel pretty confident that my neighbors still think he was a great man. You know, Trump's evil, you know, and Dr. Fauci saved us. They think that. The facts are really very different. I mean, the facts are in. I mean, it's one thing to think that at the time. Now it's five or six years later. And people— it' s not— you know, I'm impressed by Rand Paul's efforts to go after Anthony Fauci, and he has every right to do that. But I'm not thinking— it' s not the punishment of Fauci that I look for. It's understanding what his role was. At least not— let' s not make heroes about them. They— he had— he and Deborah Birx both put out bestselling books talking about how great they are and their work has been. And I think it's crazy. And people have to really come to understand, in a deeper way, how we all— the world went off course, in a way, an unfathomable way, unique in human history. And we should not do it again. And we should try and understand why we did it and kind of get to the bottom of it, which I don't think we've done enough of. I think that's very well said. And perhaps one of the ways that we can is by watching your film. So there we go. A plug for that. I want to highlight, we only got about five more minutes left, but I want to highlight two other things. films that as I was looking through your website here, we've covered some problems. I'm a history major and I love our founding fathers. You've done two films, both called Rediscovering. One is about Alexander Hamilton. The other one is about George Washington. And I'd love for you to highlight that, maybe end on a more of a positive note, perhaps. Absolutely. I mean, this is still the 250th birthday year of the nation. And we were really blessed to have these founding fathers. And these are two films where we try to look, both tell their stories and and look at sort of contemporary reflections of them. For instance, in the Hamilton film, Hamilton was Treasury Secretary during the first fiscal crisis that America went through in the 1790s. And we happened to be shooting that film in 2008 when America was going through another financial crisis. So we talked to Hank Paulson, who was then Treasury Secretary, and asked him what he thought of what Hamilton did and what he thinks Hamilton might have thought of what he did. And similarly, Hamilton died in a duel over honor. And too many of us, perhaps not Marine veterans, don't think about honor very much. And we think, oh, it's stupid to fight over honor. So we talked to former gang members who saw it all differently. They thought there's nothing— they have death before dishonor tattooed on their arm. They think there is nothing more important than honor. So we try to bring these founding fathers back so the people can understand them. And George Washington especially. I have friends who think— would advocate. but I think Washington's greatest American president. He led us through a war, and he was the first president establishing patterns. You know, he gave up power. I mean, George Washington uniquely— he led a revolutionary army to victory. And everyone in history who had done that, from Napoleon to Cromwell to Caesar, then seized power. You know, they had the power, and they seized it. You know, they thought that some had noble intentions and some not. George Washington gave it up. And then he's president. The second term, he gives it up. He could have been president every year under the Constitution, right? There was no limit that poor Donald Trump is suffering from for two terms. He could have had— he could have been elected every year in his life. But he chose to go back to Mount Vernon and establish a pattern. So, it's a kind of greatness that is, you know, important to try to understand and Some people think of George Washington— I mean, all the portraits make him look remote and stiff. But he was the most charismatic person of the age. We try to dramatize this, too. People— when he went in a room, everyone looked at him. He was like a Tom Cruise or a— you know, George Clooney. He was the one that they had— women wanted to dance with. He had that kind of power, which is one of the reasons he's able to have the kind of lead a revolutionary army to victory, but he also had the deep commitment to ideas and the American founding principles to give it up. And that's an important thing to understand. And we were blessed to have these people at the founding of our country. And, you know, the French Revolution a few years later is a tale of what happens without these kind of people. And I would beg your listeners to watch these films with their children or grandchildren, I think it's important to try to understand that and what our principles are and the struggles it took to fight for them in the beginning of the republic. Well, I absolutely love that. And I 100% agree with you. There have been a lot of great presidents. But George Washington, the fact that he gave up power right there sets him apart from everyone else. And so I would agree with you that he is our greatest president. And perhaps that's— It's kind of sad that the first president was the best president. That might show the wrong trajectory for the country. But, sir, I've so enjoyed the opportunity to interview you, to get to know you. I want to highlight both of the websites. The first one, manifoldproductions.com. Chris, if you could bring that up. This is the older one. This is the one you started back in 1977. Actually, before I was even born. I was born in 78. But there's a lot of great films here that you can check out. The other one, this is the newer one that we really want to direct the audience to, palladiumpictures.com. And, sir, if you could just take the opportunity to encourage people to go to both of these websites and just a closing statement for the audience. Well, I do encourage you to go to the websites. In a way, the Palladium one is easiest because it even links back to the Manifold Productions one. We've had over 15 documentaries. They've all been nationally broadcast by PBS. And we particularly, even though we are right of center, we want to reach the middle, and we're happy that PBS allowed us to do that. And these more recent ones are on the Wall Street Journal website, another one that reaches a broader audience. And I would encourage you to go there. And if you know somebody more like in their middle career, 25 to 35, that's a filmmaker, I would encourage them to apply to our incubator. So the films are there. I think it's important to see them. They largely deal with historical subjects or politics or culture, and they often tell a side of the story that's missing. So all the films can be rented or screened from that website. Excellent. Well, once again, I've just so enjoyed the opportunity to have you on the show. I want to thank you for that. And thank you for producing all of these films and putting them out for the public to view. I've got to go ahead and close this out. If you hold on one more minute post-production to say our goodbyes, I'd appreciate it. But again, thank you for coming on Church and State. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure. Absolutely. All right, ladies and gentlemen, there you go. Film can be such a great avenue for us to reach people who may be kind of, honestly, a little bit like sheep. They really have kind of got their heads stuck in the sand. They're not paying attention to things. So go check out these documentaries. As my guest said, share them with your children, your grandchildren. We need more independent thought. Otherwise, honestly... America looks rather bleak. The Caleb Collier Show of Church and State is brought to you in part by Colonial Life Spokane Independent Agents, Finders Insurance, and Mark37. com. I'm Caleb Collier. I was born for a storm. Welcome to the fire. 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