Best of The Program | Guests: Nick Rekieta & Frank Siller | 11/11/21

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Great show today.

Right out of the box, we talk about Rittenhouse and go over the trial from

yesterday and all week.

It's an incredible story that the rest of the media seems to be missing.

Also, celebrate Veterans Day.

A couple of really amazing stories to share with you all on today's podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Blenbeck program.

Nick is with us now.

Hi, Nick.

How are you?

Howdy, Glenn.

I'm great.

How are you?

Very good.

Great to have you on.

Thank you so much for joining us.

So, my pleasure.

Let's get your reaction.

I've got several things to play for you, and I think you have the list, so you can call these things out on the things you want to comment on.

But also, I'd like to hear just your

have you ever seen anything like this trial before?

Ever.

No, it's wild, Glenn.

You know, I went into this trial expecting kind of a standard approach by the prosecutor and the defense.

And we've seen just some weird plays by both of them,

which is

the prosecutor is blowing my mind here because he opened up kind of strong with a decent opening statement.

But as the days went on, you could see his narrative crumble.

And I think the big problem for him is that he has to know that the facts on this are on the side of Kyle Rittenhouse, and they always have been.

So,

I mean, he is the guy who decides whether or not this moves forward.

Was it all just political or mob pressure?

I think the political environment plays a big part, a big part in why this case was brought.

But to give Binger a little bit, Binger being the lead prosecutor on the case, he is an assistant district attorney.

So this is delegated down from the district attorney of the county.

But he, I mean, he can refuse it.

He can make some recommendations.

He can look at this and say, hey, boss, you know, I don't know if this is the best case to be bringing.

We might just get raked over the coals here.

So, Nick, do you believe

he knew going in we've got a really weak case?

Do you think that he knew on cross-examination, they would be like, no, I think he feared for his life because I was pointing a gun at him.

I mean, did he know that his own witnesses would take his case apart?

I think he did to some degree.

You have to, right?

We've watched the videos.

And when these videos first came out, you know, I looked at them personally and I said,

that looks a lot like self-defense.

That looks like a really good case of self-defense.

And then when you read the complaint that they filed and you realize that

the first part of the complaint was written based on the eyewitness account of Richie McGinnis, who works for Daily Caller, and you read it and it's like, this looks like this was written by a defense attorney making a self-defense case.

And then we're all just baffled at why would you bring this?

Because you're going to have to call Richie McGinnis.

You're going to have to call Ryan Balch.

You're going to have to call these guys who are out there either on Kyle's side or politically disposed to him.

and their narrative of the case screams self-defense.

I'm blown away by it.

Let me ask you, too.

The other, I think, big thing on the other side is calling Rittenhouse to testify.

I mean, everybody thinks that he was way ahead.

You don't usually do that when you're ahead.

Why did you think the defense call him as a witness, and how do you think he did?

Well, first, I agree.

You typically don't want to call someone

a defendant to the stand.

They have a Fifth Amendment right not to be called.

You can't force them to go.

If they want to go up, they can force themselves onto the stand.

Their attorney can't stop them.

I don't know if this was Kyle's decision or their attorney Mark Richards' decision.

But the one mitigating circumstance really is in a case where you're affirming self you're making an affirmative defense of self-defense because you may have to testify to some facts about your state of mind or things that maybe only you saw.

But in this case, we have so much from all of the other witnesses that basically just on

just based on the prosecution's witnesses alone, you've made the elements of self-defense pretty clear through the evidence that's already there.

So

it was a big gamble to put him on the stand.

Overall, I think he did well.

Let me change that.

Sorry.

I think he did exceptionally well being an 18-year-old kid grilled by an attorney for several hours.

How do you think with a jury did the crying play?

Because

everybody on the left is saying that it was fake.

It did not seem fake to me.

He seemed like...

He seemed like

somebody who just found out their parents had died.

I mean, he seemed

genuine to me.

Do you think the jury felt that way?

I think their preconceptions are going to play pretty heavy into

how they felt.

But it was hard to watch that section of his testimony.

And I agree.

It did not look fake at all.

It's hard to fake the sort of hyperventilative

reaction that he had.

And some of the people on our panel were suggesting that it looks a lot like post-traumatic stress.

You know, big time.

You could see it.

And it built up over several minutes before he actually broke down.

So if he faked it, I mean, Hollywood needs to hire this kid immediately.

Exactly.

I don't think it was fake at all.

And for the first time, at least my reaction was,

this kid's gone through hell.

And

it's one thing to think about what the media has put him through and everything else.

But for the first time, I really felt the fear that he felt and the

effect after the event that it still plays on him of being surrounded by a crowd, all of them saying, get him, kill him.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know,

I've talked to some people that have had some closer ties to this case.

Attorney Robert Barnes, who has also been on the panel as we've been watching along, and he suggested, you know, Kyle,

for the first couple weeks as he's in jail, you know, he's having vomiting issues.

He's clearly did not do well with this incident.

And who would, right?

You're being chased by a maniac amidst a riot.

He's screaming at you, trying to take your gun.

And

that that came through on the testimony, I think, as well.

You can hear him.

He tried to take my gun.

I didn't want to kill him.

Why did he try to take my gun?

I just wanted to get away.

Here's a play cut six here.

Here he is.

I never wanted to shoot him.

Listen.

If I would have let Mr.

Rosenbaum get my gun, he would have killed me.

But you had already pointed your gun at him.

Yes, because he was chasing me.

Did you want him to think that you were going to shoot him?

No, I never never wanted to shoot Mr.

Rosenbaum.

Why'd you point it at him if you didn't have any intention of shooting?

He was chasing me.

I was alone.

He threatened to kill me earlier in that night.

I didn't want to have to shoot him.

But you understand

how dangerous it is to point a gun at someone, don't you?

I pointed it at him because he kept running at me, and I didn't want him to chase me.

This is an amazing thing because, you know, if you've taken any classes on shooting, you never point a gun at somebody unless you intend on shooting and killing them.

However, I've always found that to be counterintuitive because if you don't want to shoot somebody, you do want to show them that you might, you know, you want them to feel like he could shoot me.

He's willing to do it.

And so you like, back off, put the gun up, back off.

And

this prosecutor is,

I guess, just trying to make everybody believe that you would never point.

It's unreasonable to point a gun without shooting.

Yeah, and

they train that way in carry classes and self-defense classes because you have to be prepared to pull the trigger.

Correct.

But most people don't want to ever pull the trigger.

I mean,

one, even if you're a cold, you know, just rationale-based person, you're going to say, if I pull this trigger, I'm going going to have to go through what Kyle's going through.

Correct.

And that would be very inconvenient.

For a sociopathic point of view, that's what you've got.

But most people,

they don't ever fathom themselves killing someone.

And so the typical response is, you know, you have the display of the gun either in a holster or you reach for it, then you brandish, and that is the threat.

We're talking about

the Rittenhouse trial.

And before we went to break, I said that

at least I felt there was multi, multiple times that Rittenhouse credibly said, well, no,

I didn't shoot him at that point because he wasn't threatening me.

It has hands up or he was, you know, they backed off, which I thought showed that he was not out just to kill people.

He was only shooting at people who were a threat to him.

Yeah, Glenn, that's, I mean, it's a great great point.

It's

ironically a point the prosecution has made several times throughout the case,

pointing out

pointing out all these times that this kid showed remarkable restraint.

And

even with the very first encounter with Joseph Rosenbaum,

who has thrown a bag at him, and the prosecution is trying really hard to make sure, you know, there was definitely nothing deadly in the bag, as if Kyle would know this at this point, and as if that actually matters.

He's thrown a bag at him.

He's running full speed.

Kyle turns around with the gun and Rosenbaum kind of almost takes a little bit of a pause.

He stutters steps, but then he proceeds on.

Kyle, instead of just shooting, which he may have even been justified in doing at that point, he turns around and runs until he can run no further and Rosenbaum has caught up to him.

And that's at the point when he shoots.

It was remarkable restraint.

Right.

And he said, even when he was surrounded by the crowd and some of them were advancing, he held up his gun.

And if they put their hands up and stopped, he didn't shoot.

I mean, it shows that he was thinking all the way through, which, you know, he talked about almost tunnel vision at the end.

That guy was under incredible stress, and yet he was still functioning,

you know, and

doing the right thing.

Nick,

there was a back and forth I wanted to get your thoughts on on because I didn't even understand a couple times where the prosecution was even going with some of these lines of questioning.

At one point, they asked Rittenhouse, do you think the protesters were hostile to you?

And he says, no, they generally weren't.

Then he said, why did you bring your gun then?

And he said, well, I mean, I wanted to protect myself in case someone was going to attack me.

And then they'd follow up.

Well, why did you think they were going to attack you specifically?

And he would say,

I didn't think they were going to attack me specifically, but I wanted to be protected.

Well, well, then why did you bring your gun if you didn't think think that they were going to protect you or attack you specifically?

And it's like, you know, I don't think I'm going to get into a car accident every day, but I still get car insurance in case.

I think, I think they were trying to get Rittenhouse, a 17, 18-year-old kid, to go, well, because I was white.

I think they were trying to get him to say something that could turn race into that.

I could be wrong, Nick.

Well,

I think there's a couple angles here.

And one of them, it goes back to the bad facts for the prosecution.

I think you might be,

the race thing could be in there for sure.

Just general politicizing, polarizing statements

would maybe prejudice Kyle in the eyes of some of the jury members.

From a legal perspective, what they're trying, and you have to put yourself in the mind of a dishonest person.

Thank God I'm a lawyer and can do this.

But

you have to be able to

do this under Wisconsin self-defense law, and generally speaking, this is kind of a rule in self-defense.

But if you provoke the encounter and use that as an excuse to use self-defense, then it'll defeat your ability to invoke that.

So what I think Binger is trying to do here is get Kyle to say, I knew the crowd was hostile, and then paint the narrative that he wanted to go out there knowing they would attack him.

So he's got the gun, he's walking around, and that this somehow

invokes the provocation that would defeat his self-defense claim.

Typically, provocation requires an act rather than just a presence with a gun, but Binger is trying to paint that, and I think we're going to see him try and use that in his closing argument to say, you know, he was out there provoking.

He put out fires.

He was providing medical aid, and other people didn't want that.

It's a ludicrous position, but I think that's where he's going with it.

So how has the judge been?

Because I actually like him.

I think he's been very no-nonsense.

The left hates him.

If you're looking at political and not necessarily, if you're looking for social justice and not actual justice, you don't like this guy.

Which is right?

Is he a hard ass that just has

a point of view, or is he really towing the line on the law?

He's been pretty fair and consistent.

And for me, when I think about a judge, what I want is someone who is fair and consistent.

You know, even if they're consistently bad.

In this case, I think this judge is phenomenal.

He's going to the actual

statutes.

He's pulled out commentary books and read them to make sure he gets his rulings right.

This guy is being very, very careful

on his rulings and how he manages his courtroom.

And if anybody thinks he's being biased in a particular way, it's because the attorney on that side has been acting in a particularly egregious manner.

I think you played a clip right at the beginning of the show where the judge was dressing down Binger for flagrantly violating Kyle's constitutional rights.

Which one and how?

His Fifth Amendment right to not speak.

One of the first things Binger did when he he got Kyle on cross-examination is that he stood up and said, you know, you had the opportunity to speak before this.

And that is a huge note.

Every prosecutor knows you cannot go down this line because you cannot draw any inference from a person exercising their constitutional right to remain silent.

And him trying to elicit that in front of the jury bordered on having the case thrown out immediately.

And

he also tried to introduce things that the judge said he couldn't introduce, right?

Right.

They had some pretrial motions.

They're called motions in Limine.

And

they excluded

these two incidents that Kyle was involved in prior to the event and one meeting at a bar that Kyle was photographed at after the event.

The latter one, because it has no relevance on what Kyle's state of mind was at the time, because it was four months later.

The other two on similar grounds,

but the judge didn't want those two acts, which are not directly related, to prejudice the jury's opinion of Kyle.

And he ruled that they could not bring them in.

Now, the prosecutor claims that he thought that they had opened the door to that with other testimony.

And the judge said, I've ruled on this.

If you wanted to bring it up, you needed to come to me and ask the court for permission before trying to prejudice him in front of the jury.

So how does this end, Nick?

Well,

there's two ways.

You know, it can either go all the way to the the jury decision

or the judge can make a ruling on the case.

The defense is in the process of filing a motion to dismiss and or a motion for a mistrial and asking for a dismissal with prejudice.

I believe they will also file a motion to dismiss at the close of the case based on the fact that the the the prosecution simply hasn't made the case for any of the any of the major charges

so if the judge rules on it and dismisses it with prejudice it's gone it's done Kyle cannot be brought back into court for these charges if the jury goes they can either render one of basically one of three verdicts you've either got not guilty which is a unanimous decision or you've got guilty which is unanimous or you have a mix of votes which will result in a mistrial.

And in that case, theoretically, the state could bring the charges back against him.

So if he is, if the judge dismisses it, it's done.

But can't they dismiss it with prejudice?

Can't he call for a mistrial with prejudice?

Yes, yes.

And

that's what they're gunning for.

And it's based on that constitutional violation.

And they've got some good stuff on the record.

The judge said to Binger, he says, when you said you brought this in good faith, I don't believe you.

And

a finding of bad faith is one of the prongs of the test to have a dismissal with prejudice under Wisconsin law in criminal court.

If you were the judge, how would you rule?

What would you do?

I would have dismissed this

cases already and certainly would have would be the the constitutional violations to me if if they don't don't merit dismissal they merit sanctions for uh for binger i mean this is something again every prosecutor knows this they know you can't do this and and he did it in um flagrant violation of the court and then he tried to weasel his way out of it oh judge i'm so sorry right i didn't mean it in this oh his tone was so

grating

okay i can't have an attorney on that uh is in minnesota and not ask hey how's keith Ellison working out for you guys?

Oh, he's just a joy, man.

What a nightmare.

What a nightmare he has been.

Ben.

Well, we'll leave it at that.

Oh, go ahead, sir.

No, no, no.

That's good.

Nick, I'd love to have you on again.

Thank you so much for coming on and

all that you do.

You have big fans here at the studios.

Oh, thank you guys.

you have a big fan here, actually.

So you're pioneering with Blaze TV.

You know, it was one of the inspirations for me venturing out on my own to start a show as well.

Good for you.

Well, we should talk sometime.

Good to talk to you, Nick.

Thank you so much.

That is.

Thank you, Glenn.

Have a good one.

You bet.

That's Nick Riketa.

He is

now a YouTube commentator.

And he gets, you know, fellow attorneys and other people on just to comment on these live trials.

And

they're quite entertaining.

Quite entertaining.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

And we really want to thank you for listening.

The truth.

is extraordinarily dangerous.

The truth shall set you free.

Yes, it can.

The truth shall set you free, but it will make you miserable at first.

And what does that mean?

It means when you tell the truth, you have a decision to make.

If you are truly seeking the truth,

it's going to show you things that you may not like.

For instance, if you were honestly seeking the truth with the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, you would now say, wow, and seeing the testimony testimony and seeing the prosecution,

it's not what we thought it was.

But that would make people miserable.

And here's what I mean by that.

If you've been on television saying this guy is a racist, racist, racist, racist, racist, he was just a brazen, wanton killer.

Now you would have to go on the air and say, crap,

I was wrong.

In today's atmosphere, if you changed your mind, changed your opinion based on the facts, and you're on that side, and sometimes on the right,

you're in trouble because now everyone will reject you because they won't listen to the facts, because the facts don't matter anymore.

It's the agenda.

not the facts.

That's not the scientific method.

That's not the American method.

And so we all have a choice every day when we hear news and it's different than what we believe.

Are we going to pursue that to see if there's any truth in that?

And if there is, will we be able and willing to embrace that truth?

That's the problem with our society.

Everybody wants to be right.

Both sides demand

that they are right and the other is wrong.

We can't live like that.

You can't live like that.

Not on everything.

I mean, there is truth.

There is truth.

And it's not my truth because if it was a society based on my truth, then they would embrace me saying you're a bunch of idiots that believe that there's 99 different genders.

They don't accept my truth, but that's okay because

I understand and will embrace the truth.

And if some new information based in reason and science

would show me there are 99 genders,

I would then have to, if I'm looking for truth, I'd have to say, crap, I hate saying this, but I've been wrong.

There are 99 genders.

Not going to happen.

But

at least I would be a slave to the truth, not a slave to someone's agenda.

When you're armed with the truth, you can empower others to enact change.

And let me tell you something.

Everyone is looking for the truth.

The vast majority of people are tired of this.

And they're just looking for something solid.

You can't build your house on an economy that is centrally planned and the government is

picking winners and losers, not based on anything other than what their agenda is, because you don't know.

I'm convinced Bitcoin would be at $150,000 per coin right now

if you trusted that the government wasn't going to try to put it out of business.

More people would invest in Bitcoin right now because it's working.

It's shown itself to be relatively stable.

It's not going away unless the government shuts it down.

You can't build anything

truly lasting if you don't know that the laws and reason is stable.

That's why there's so much chaos.

Everything is up in the air.

What you believe today may be something that you can't say tomorrow and literally tomorrow.

How many times in the last five, ten years have we all gotten up in the morning and went, wait, what's that new word?

What is that?

And we all had to learn it.

And we all have to live by it.

Why?

Because the mob says so.

The draconian measures that our government is now, and the private sector,

government, education, and big, powerful, connected to the government private sector.

They are shoving things down our throats, and it's got to stop.

And it will the minute we stand up and go, nah, I'm not going to do that.

You don't have to fight back with guns or anything else.

You just have to stand up and say, nah, not going to do that.

Well, we're going to fire you.

Okay.

My soul's more important than this job.

And when there's enough of us saying that, we will begin to connect with each other and we'll start to work with each other.

Now, I don't like this truly because it's self-segregation.

We're never going to get anywhere if we're segregating, but they are already segregating us.

They are already deeming us idiots, morons, dangers, and people that are just so dangerous, you can't even work there.

So I don't want to work with them if that's the way they are.

I want to work, I mean, I hire very liberal people on my staff for very important positions, not editorial positions, but positions to where I can ask them, where do we have this wrong?

How do you see this?

Is this fair?

What we're doing?

I think that's really important.

Really important.

I like working with diverse minds.

That's the way you find truth.

But we have to

stand up because we need power of numbers.

And there's only one way to amass numbers.

And it is by, one by one, enlightening millions of people who have blindly marched in lockstep.

Or those inform those who are afraid to step out of line to question what is really going on in our society.

The truth will make you miserable at first because it is so powerful.

That's why big tech platforms, anyone who dares question, last night I

did the setup for next week's two-hour live special commercial free on COVID.

I have five pages of rules that social media says we cannot violate.

There's probably two pages of that that will probably be violated.

And we're not violating them because I'm not going on and going, you know what?

There's another horse medicine out there.

Not doing that.

I'm showing you documents

from the same sources that say, trust me.

I'm showing you the documents

of how this started, where this came from, and what they did.

Crimes or a cover-up,

but they're not telling you the truth.

You can't do that.

Have you noticed how in lockstep,

ask Stephen, do we have, do we have,

from

last night's show, I played the

two prescription drug ads.

I don't even remember what, it was a, it was for a blood thinner.

And let me just ask you this.

Every time you've seen a commercial, every time

they're like, you could be impotent, you might have a heart attack, your head might explode.

Ask your doctor for details.

Okay.

There's no chance,

literally, no chance any of those things are going to happen to the average person.

Maybe one in every six million people, right?

But the government insists that you know about it.

So we have ads like this.

While taking Zarelto, you may bruise more easily, and it may take longer for bleeding to stop.

Zarelto may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines.

Zarelto can cause serious bleeding and in rare cases may be fatal.

Get help right away if you develop unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling.

If you have had spinal anesthesia while on Zarelto, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle related signs or symptoms.

Yeah, okay, all right, okay, I got it, I got it.

And when you don't, when you're not this clear and you're using a new drug,

sometimes there's another commercial that comes a few years later and it sounds like this.

Attention.

Zarelto and Prodaxa has been linked to internal bleeding.

If you you were hospitalized for internal bleeding,

why is it?

Why is it the government insists on telling us things?

In that case, looks like there was probably more of a chance of internal bleeding than they expected.

But they insist on telling us that if you take no dose, you might go impotent when probably

not.

We have a few cases of people

that are getting sick from the vaccine.

I can't remember which one it is, but there's six people, six people that got sick from the well,

that's about the kind of thing that they usually put a warning label on.

But I can't even talk about that on social media without being labeled, giving you misinformation.

No,

I'll tell you, there were six people that had this reaction.

Take this drug and you could go impotent or you could bleed to death.

Okay?

Most likely you're not going to.

But why is the media in lock step?

Why is everyone in lock step?

This is perfectly safe.

Nothing's going to happen.

Well, wait a minute.

There's some pilots that have been having some heart palpitations and that's causing them to lose their job.

That's ridiculous.

That's ridiculous.

No, okay, I know it's a handful of people, but

don't we care about the handful of people?

Shouldn't we at least talk about

the impotency?

I'm just saying.

Shouldn't we at least have that information?

That's the truth.

That's the truth.

And that's what we're used to in America.

In fact, we are, when it comes to drugs, we are used to the exact opposite of what we're doing now.

We all hate the commercials where it's 30 seconds of, you might die tomorrow.

You're like, yeah, but you wouldn't be selling it if it was a good shot.

We're all going to die tomorrow from taking this.

The truth shall set you free,

but not in this country anymore.

Can we truly be a free country?

If we remain in the grips of lies and fear of telling the truth.

I can tell you right now,

we cannot survive.

And I mean that as the Glenn Beck program and Blaze TV.

We will not survive

unless we have you.

We need you.

When I come in every day,

I work really hard and I pray on the show.

I do everything I possibly can to not waste your time and not give you stories to entertain you.

Believe me,

I mean, if anybody used to listen to the show in the old days,

believe it or not, this show was very, very funny.

The Times call for, hey, you need to understand this.

And I ask you to pass on the clips.

Right now, we are being so throttled by YouTube,

by Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all of it.

I mean

literally, literally, the audience, you catching something or YouTube, you check out a Glenn Beck video on YouTube and it suggests another Glenn Beck video, highly unlikely.

We need you.

Join the chorus of voices that are speaking out.

Share the truth.

And free the Americans that are living in prison.

Honestly, fear concocted in a lab spread by the government and perpetuated by the media.

You see, the truth is kind of like a virus.

Once the truth is out, it can't be stopped.

It is contagious.

It could be spread from one person to the next until everyone is exposed and we have herd immunity.

Next week, on next Wednesday night's Glen Beck program, two hours commercial-free solid wall-to-wall truth that will set you free.

I would like to ask you to watch it, but I'm telling you this early because I want you to also invite some friends over.

It's two hours and then a discussion, a panel led by Steve Dace, after just going over and answering questions

from the audience.

I would ask that you would invite some friends over next Wednesday night and watch it together.

Tell your friends and join us at the Blaze.

Go to Blazetv.com slash Glenn

and

use the promo code Fauci Lied

for $25 off your year subscription.

So that's a quarter off,

25% off of your subscription.

We need you to be a part of the family.

By the way, the special starts at 8 p.m.

Eastern time.

It's usually 9 p.m.

This is 8 p.m.

Eastern, an hour early, two hours live commercial free.

You're listening to the best of the Glendeck program.

Curtis Donald, Vice Chair.

Sergeant Gregory DeWenis Feyeron.

Captain Arthur Lejeune Felder.

Specialist.

I don't know.

I mean, how long does it take you to read 7,000 names?

Specialist

James Feldhouse.

I'm not sure if anything has ever been done like this before.

And

to my knowledge,

and to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation's knowledge, this is the first time it's been done for the war on terror, for sure.

Frank Siller is with us.

He's the chairman and CEO for Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Frank, how are you, sir?

I'm good, Glenn.

Thanks for having me on today.

And I couldn't be more proud as the chairman of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation to take on this responsibility.

I feel like it's an obligation and something that we're very proud to read.

All 7,070, 7,070 names that gave their lives to our country since the war on terror started in 2001, where I lost my brother on September 11, 2001, where he ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Glenn.

He was a firefighter.

He strapped 60 pounds of gear on his back and ran through that tunnel up West Street into the South Tower, up those stairs.

And while saving other people's lives, he gave up his own.

And we started a foundation in his honor and all those who perished that day.

And to do this work here today, we couldn't be more proud.

I tell you, Frank, you guys are remarkable.

You're one of the best charities out there, I think.

What you do for veterans and everybody else

because of all of those who died in the World Trade Center.

As you were talking,

I am actually grateful that I was alive

to see the way America was, at least for about a month after the World Trade Center.

I mean, it's remarkable where we are now, where our police get no respect.

They're villains.

Everybody seems to be a villain now.

When we went from, man, and they were true heroes like your brother who ran up the stairs when everyone else was running down.

I miss that respect for real heroes.

Well, I couldn't agree with you more, but I will say that

being here and watching the reaction that we're getting from so many great Americans who love this country

is really moving.

I walked this year for the 20th anniversary to honor my brother.

I walked from the Pentagon to Shanksville to Ground Zero, 537 miles.

And while I was doing it, I walked through a lot of small towns.

And it was beautiful to watch all the families coming out and different parades that we had and see young kids being taught in the stories of 9-11 and the stories of all these great heroes that died ever since.

So I saw an America that gave me great hope that most of the people in America still love America and are willing to die for it.

And all too often they do die for it, let it be our first responders or our military.

And today we're going to make sure that we recognize all 7,070.

And Glenn, you know, today we thought it was so important.

Our foundation does a lot of good work, but today we delivered 35 mortgage-free homes to Gold Star families today, on this day.

So we're proud that we built some of these homes and some we paid off the mortgages, but to deliver 35 of them on a day like today, we felt like it was an important day to

not just to honor them, but to do good work.

Frank,

is there any way I would love to partner with you guys?

I would love to be a part of what you do.

I love the fact that you're giving these houses away.

I mean, really, you guys are salt of the earth.

right mindset and you do it right.

If there's anything I can do to ever help or be involved, I would love to be involved with you guys.

Well, you're doing it today, but we could do it more often.

But here, look, we get it done.

The fire department says many hands makes light work.

We ask people to donate as little as $11

a month.

And that $11 a month adds up.

And that's why, you know, we delivered $35 today, but we did 200, 200 mortgage-free homes this year.

200.

That costs a lot of money.

And thank God we have a lot of people who joined us on this mission.

But they know their money's going to this.

I don't get paid.

We do over 93 cents of every every dollar goes to our programs.

And people, you know, trust us.

The foundation bears my brother's image and his name, and we'll all always hold it to the highest standards.

And today, you know, I know he's smiling down at heaven saying, Frank, thank you for remembering all these 7,000 men and women that joined.

Many of them joined our military because of what happened on 9-11.

And now we're paying tribute and honoring them here today.

Frank, if you don't mind, I want to play a couple of people who you have changed their lives.

Tunnel to Towers have changed their lives.

This is the Jenny Taylor family.

Listen to this.

My dad was really, really special, and I love my dad a lot.

I'm proud of him, and that even though he isn't here with us, but he died as a true hero.

I miss everything about him.

In the moment that the officers and I had to come see the children, my biggest reaction was,

I don't have seven arms.

I have seven children who just lost their father and I don't have seven arms to wrap around them.

I'm Frank Sulla, chairman of the Stephen Silla Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Our foundation is committed to delivering mortgage-free homes to fallen military and first responders who die in the line of duty.

To not have to worry financially is a huge peace of mind.

It means a lot to know that this is our same home, that we have all the memories in here.

You can donate to tunnels, then the number two, towers, tunnels to towers.org.

I mean, do you have the best job out there, Frank?

Yeah.

I mean, that must just be great.

So, Jenny Taylor, you just heard, she was the first one to read her husband's name today.

As a matter of fact, one of her seven children read their father's name

today.

So, the one that you just heard there.

So, you know,

so people know they can go to tthenumber2t.org, make it a little bit easier than tunnel to towers.

So t the number two t.

T2t.org.

Okay.

That's it.

t2t.org.

And yes, I couldn't be more proud to be the chairman of this foundation.

But we're just a conduit of doing good.

St.

Francis of Assisi said, brothers and sisters, while we are here, while we have time, let us do good.

That's the whole premise of our foundation.

We're not going to waste any time.

There's so much work that has to be done.

We better get out there and take care of all these families.

We did it today, but there's a lot more work that has to be done.

I want you to hear Richard Urosh.

September 1st, 2006, my Bradley fighting vehicle that I was riding in was hit with an IED while we were driving down a road in Iraq.

The IED went through the bottom of my vehicle and hit our fuel tank.

And the fuel tank basically was inches away from where I was sitting and covered me and my buddies who were in the vehicle with me in fuel and instantly on fire.

I lost my leg because when I escaped out of the top of the vehicle, I jumped off and couldn't see anything around me because my face was on fire.

So when I landed, 10-foot jump, I couldn't brace myself for the landing.

So when I hit, my leg broke.

And I snapped my leg and I ended up with an amputation below my right knee.

And then I, crazy thing, I rolled into a canal that was there that I didn't know was there.

And it put the fire out.

I can't even believe my eyes.

So beautiful.

Oh my gosh.

Thank you.

This is insane.

My life's going to be changed in the way that I'm going to have more independence in general.

It's going to come to the point where I'm not even thinking about things anymore.

I'm just doing them.

Where now you have to think about what you're going to do, how you're going to do it.

And eventually I think I'm going to get to the point where I don't have to think about those things.

I'm just going to be able to do those things.

He read the names today of some of the fallen soldiers, right?

Some of the buddies.

Yeah, some of the buddies that he lost, even though he survived, he lost other men and women around him.

And so, yeah, you were listening to the day we gave him his smart home.

We built mortgage-free,

specially adapted smart homes for our country's most catastrophically injured service members.

We've done over 100 of them all around the country.

But these are guys that have paid, given multiple limbs, paraplegics, quadriplegics.

Just looking at injury.

But I mean, just looking at Richard, do you think

he is?

I mean, he gave everything.

He gave everything.

Everything.

And he's got the best attitude in the world.

But he helps us.

He goes all over the United States and helps us because he wants to help the next family and the next

hero that has paid a big price for our freedom.

So he's a tremendous human being.

And most of these widows and Gold Star families and these heroes that catastrophically injured service members, they all join us and they want to pay it forward to

the next family.

So we are really blessed that we bring all these people together.

And, you know, in a day like today and Veterans Day, I mean, thank God for all our veterans.

They're willing to die for us every single day.

And all too often they do.

And when they do, the Tunnels of Towers Foundation is going to be there for their families that are left behind.

That is our promise.

As God is my judge,

any family that serves our country and you die and you leave behind a young family, we're going to take care of your family that's left behind.

And we do it because of the generosity of Americans.

I know Americans are the most generous, just most

of the people in the world.

Greatest country in the world, but the most generous of people in the world.

And together, we're going to take care of all these families.

That is our promise.

And we do it for fallen first responders.

You started the whole, one of the questions was the police officers are not, you know,

spitting on them.

We should kiss the freaking ground they walk on.

But we're going to take care of every single police officer or first responder that die in the line of duty that leave young kids behind, also.

So that's our promise at the Tunnel of the Towers Foundation.

And we pray that people just join us and we can get this done together.

Frankly, do me a favor.

Please include me on a list of allies.

I want to help you raise money.

I want to help you do what you do.

What did you do before this?

What was your job?

I was a bit of an entrepreneur.

I built houses.

I was a spot builder.

I never really made money at it, to be quite frank with you,

because I also put too many extras into the house because I was a soft touch for the reason I was filming the board.

But the truth of the matter is, I think the man upstairs was preparing me to make sure he built these houses

all over America.

So

we're blessed.

But I was also into retail, so I have a bit of a business background.

Well,

you are right.

God prepared you for this calling, and it is an amazing calling.

Thank you so much, Frank.

God bless you, and everybody that is involved.

Thank you.