Best of The Program | Guests: Rep. Mullin, Bill O'Reilly, & Dave Isay | 9/10/21

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Hey, welcome to the program.

Just a quick update on the Nazarene Fund.

We're in critical time period right now and we could sure use your prayers.

We need prayer coverage on the ground, on all the people involved, and for a couple of miracles to happen this weekend.

And hopefully I'll have more to tell you on Monday, but please pray.

This podcast today is a little bit of,

well, I think it's all a reflection of September 11th.

Where we are today is because of September 11th.

And I remember September 11th, 2001.

And if I would have looked 20 years in the future, I wouldn't have believed this was our nation.

But here we are.

We talk a little bit about the president and his new power through OSHA to regulate all things,

his dismissal and getting rid of, quote, getting them out of the way, our governors, so he can rule.

Also, we have stories you've never heard from the World Trade Center taking places you never even thought about, at least I hadn't.

And Bill O'Reilly with the news of the day, all on today's podcast.

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

There's people over there.

I mean, God, we trust on the money.

Why are we having God we trust?

I know, I think it's a little outdated.

I think it's a little dusty.

I'm thinking, you're not the boss of me.

What do you think?

As our new national motto, you're not a boss of me.

Because that's exactly what the government is trying to do.

They're trying to tell us exactly what to do.

And they're trying to teach people a lesson.

You don't have the authority.

You don't have the power to make a difference.

And I'm here to tell you, yes, you do.

I think actually we should adopt the slogan, the old Barack Obama.

Yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

You can.

You can't control your own body.

Yes, we can.

You can't control your own state.

Yes, we can.

You can't go into Afghanistan and save people we left behind.

Yes, we can.

There's a congressman that has been trying hard to get over to Afghanistan and save people.

Last week,

he was reported missing and very irresponsible, according to the State Department.

Then he popped back up on the radar, and I'm going to have him tell the story.

Congressman

Mark Wayne Mullen is joining us now.

He is the Congressman from Oklahoma.

Hello, sir.

How are you?

Hey, Glenn.

How are you doing?

I got to say, it's a pleasure to

be on your show.

I've

listened to you for years.

In fact, I met you a long time ago when you came into Tulsa to do an event for KFAQ.

That was my vision of politics.

Wow, wow.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

It's an honor to have you on the show.

I'd love for you to tell

the audience exactly what you did and how difficult it was for a U.S.

congressman to go into

Afghanistan and try to save people.

Well, first of all, I just want to make it very clear.

I went in as a citizen, not as a congressman.

I went on a blue passport or so to say, on a blue passport.

Not you need to have a passport to get in Afghanistan right now.

And the State Department literally fought us every way.

And every time I hear the president, I hear Secretary Lincoln, I hear General Milley or General McKenzie go out there and talk about an every American that wanted out, could have got out, and how they were negotiating with the Taliban, which when did we as a nation negotiate with a terrorist organization?

Right.

Saying that they negotiated self-passage.

All that is a flat-out lie.

Even when they go out there and said that they helped poor Americans, Miriam and her three kids, get out of Afghanistan, that's a flat-out lie.

It was my team and I, and really my team, that I was was blessed to be able to work with, because I'm the low man on the tolling pole that worked tirelessly for three weeks to get her out.

And not one time did the State Department help us.

In fact, at one time, they told us that they weren't going to assist me in any way.

And

so

it's a bold-faced lie when they're saying this stuff, and they have to be held accountable.

But what's amazing to me, Glenn, is how many Americans, true Americans,

veterans and non-veterans, and private individuals and

companies and non-profit organizations, including yourself, that have stepped up in a big way.

And I want to thank you because we know you're out there and you're helping.

We know that

you have put finances behind this.

And because we're a small group that's over there working still.

And we know who's over there helping.

And I just want to thank you for what you're doing because you're making a big difference, too.

I mean, you're really poning up and helping in huge ways.

And we've been trying to help you in the backside, too, trying to get some of those flights out of Mezzers Reef.

I know.

And

in fact, we have guys out there that's working on it.

And I don't know if you know this, but I offered to the State Department.

On

one of your planes, we offered to the State Department.

I spoke to them myself.

I said, listen, if you're concerned about the manifest sheet, let me use one.

And I'll put only AMSETS and SIVs.

I'll give you a complete manifest sheet.

I'll tell you everybody that's on it.

I'll give you a copy of their paperwork, a copy of their passport.

We will put people on it, and we will fly back with them and make sure the flight is secure.

And they still wouldn't give us clearance to leave.

And it is disheartening on how that's happened.

I will tell you, last week, I don't know if you've heard this, Congressman, but last week, the State Department openly laughed and mocked us.

They laughed at us and mocked us.

Are you familiar with the story of where they said that, yeah,

we needed a different kind of paperwork?

We said, where do you get that paperwork?

And they said, the embassy.

And we said, there is no embassy.

And they laughed, laughed at us and said, well, you're just just going to have to work on that then, I guess.

What?

Do you know what they told me?

They said, we don't control the airspace over Afghanistan anymore.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, okay.

Well, then

we don't need your permission to leave.

Is that what you're telling me?

No, because you have to enter our airspace.

Well, how do we get to that point?

We can't help you on that.

And it's absolutely absurd.

I mean, why is this administration fighting us so hard to do a job that they failed to do?

Why is it?

Why are they doing this?

Other than just the fact of trying to squash the story and make it go away?

I can't understand it.

There are several reasons, and

I'm not sure what's right, but squash the story to make it go away.

Teach Americans, don't you dare step out of line.

You cannot go around us.

If we say we can't do it, you're not doing it, which is unbelievable to me.

The other is, I mean, then you get down to things like, I don't know, they're evil.

I mean, some of the stuff that's going on is when you're mocking people who are trying to save American lives, as well as the lives of women who have been promised to be brides of the Taliban,

and you are mocking them,

doesn't that kind of fall into the category of evil?

I will be real quick to say it has to be because who could do this?

You know,

we've got four Americans out.

The team that I've been blessed to work with, we're the only ones that's actually got the Americans out so far.

And we had to take her over 300 miles and her three kids across the land through Afghanistan, which isn't easy to do, to finally get her out.

And 3 o'clock in the morning on Labor Day, I'm on the phone with her while the Taliban has threatened to kill her, to kill her if she tried to approach again.

We have guys on the other side of the bridge negotiating with the Taliban, and I hate to say it, but trying to get her release, trying to convince them that they're American citizens and they should release them.

And the State Department said that they did that, which they didn't.

But here's another thing.

Right now, as we speak, we have 23, the team that I'm working with, we have 23 AMSETS, American citizens, in safe houses.

And you know, a safe house in that area is only safe until the first time you use it.

Getting supplies is nearly impossible.

We can't get any type of medication.

I've got a young girl right now.

I've got a mom and two and two young ladies, two young girls.

One of the young girls has severe infections in her legs.

The State Department knows this because she was in Kabul, and we were trying to get the State Department to help us get her through the gate because of her severe medical need.

And they couldn't help us.

We've had to now transport her to another country.

And I'll tell you where she's at.

She's in Cadus.

And we have her up in a safe house, and she can't move anymore.

So we're trying to negotiate a HELO that can go in and get her.

So we've developed a HLZ to land, but we're honestly...

It's expensive, and

we're short on resources.

All right.

You're not anymore.

Hang on after, and we'll get you the resources.

Hello?

You're going to make me emotional, Glenn.

I've literally taken this personal,

and that touches me.

Thank you.

But we've got to get her out.

I mean, she may have already lost her legs, and we can't get the State Department to help us.

And so when you say evil,

how can you not?

Because they know.

We've sent pictures of her legs because they asked us.

We sent pictures of

her passport.

They know who she is.

And their argument is they can't help because her mom has a legal green card.

She's legal to be inside the United States, but she doesn't have a passport because she's only got her green card.

And they're saying they can't help.

But both their daughters have passports.

And I'm like, so you're saying that we got to leave her.

We can take out the girl, but we can't take out the mom?

And they said, no, we can't say that.

Well, so what are we supposed to do here?

And they couldn't give us an answer.

And this kind of stuff stuff has been so disheartening.

We have fought them literally every step of the way.

I know.

And

it shouldn't be this way.

They shouldn't be doing this.

Even the story that they leaked about us by saying that I was lost in Afghanistan.

I was never lost in Afghanistan.

I knew exactly where we were at the whole time.

Oh, they were making you.

We were watching you.

And when you went dark, I knew why you went dark.

But the State Department started leaking things that you were irresponsible and you're lost and probably dead, and this is what happens.

And you're like,

are you rooting for the man to die?

Yeah.

I mean, what ended up happening to me is that I had to immediately get away because all of a sudden my face gets plastered all over international news, and no one knew who I was.

I've never been a showboat member of Congress.

I don't do that.

I'm passionate about what I do, but

I'm not out there trying to grab headlines.

Representative from Oklahoma, Congressman Mark Wayne Mullen,

who just got back from Afghanistan,

helped save American citizens, still trying to help save American citizens.

So they made you,

I saw this line from you.

You said,

it wasn't just me trying to be a cowboy.

And I would just ask you to reconsider that.

I think you are the ultimate cowboy.

And I mean that in a good way.

I trust cowboys.

Cowboys know what honor and integrity is.

Their word is their bond.

They don't leave an animal behind, let alone one of, you know, a person behind.

They do the right thing.

And that is the embodiment of the American spirit.

And so I think you were a cowboy, and I mean it in the best of ways.

Well,

I appreciate that, Glenn.

But listen, I was working with some just great Americans.

I mean, these are veterans.

These are tier one operators.

These guys, when they're not doing what they're doing right now, what their real job is, which they volunteer their time for, is to go get young men and young women out of sex trafficking that have been kidnapped or sold into the rings.

And they do it

all over the world.

And that's what, it's called the Sentinel Foundation, and that's what they do.

And they're non-political.

They don't get involved in it.

But I was blessed enough to be able to work with them.

And so

I couldn't, you know, all I was trying to do is be an asset to these professionals.

It's what they do.

And the idea that I was able to work with them, I'm blessed.

But they are the, you know, people want to say Rambo.

These guys are, they embody that personality.

And there's great people.

I will tell you, I've never seen senators and congressmen as powerless as they are in the government.

The State Department's not afraid of

packs of senators and congressmen working together.

I truly believe the reason why they released that ridiculous story and even said that I was lost in Afghanistan, which wasn't true, was because they wanted to get a headline.

They wanted to put a pressure on me and make me leave because they knew what was going to happen.

They are absolutely trying, but that's what a socialist country is, right?

A socialist country isn't about for the people, by the people.

It's not about the people that are actually elected.

It's about the top few.

And that's what this administration has taken.

And I would have never thought we would be to where we're at.

But, you know, a socialist country, they go in and they start promising people everything.

They start taking care of all their needs.

And what they end up doing is they create a lazy nation.

And then a lazy nation

becomes dependent on the federal government.

And by the federal government, they become dependent on the federal government.

Then they don't care about the elected officials.

It's just the ones that are up top.

That's literally signing the checks.

And

they strip away the power of the people and they take it and they centralize it, which is exactly what this administration is openly trying to do.

I mean, they are embracing socialism, and

they will use anything possible, including the sold-out media.

That is, not you, but the sold-out, you know, the media going to corporate media just do whatever they want to and put out their message.

MSBNBC shouldn't even be on the air.

I will tell you: well, they have a right to free speech.

What's crazy to me is Joe Biden being so bold yesterday saying he will get those those governors like Greg Abbott

out of the people's way on his new vaccine mandate.

You have quite a job ahead of you to

hold tight to the Constitution.

And we have to.

Even them threatening employees that have over 100 employees.

Well, my wife and I, we've been blessed, and

we have well over 100 employees.

And my employees don't want to, I mean, the employees that want to be vaccinated, get vaccinated.

Yeah.

I don't say don't, but you can't force us to do that.

If you don't want it, you shouldn't have to do it.

But that's what the government is saying.

We're going to force you to do it anyways.

Yeah.

Congressman, thank you so much.

Hang on the phone.

I just want to make sure that we have each other's information so we can help you in any way we can.

Representative Mark Wayne Mullen, the congressman from Oklahoma, on his efforts in Afghanistan.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Vec program.

Bill, I want to ask you one more question about the vaccine mandates as it relates to Afghanistan.

You said earlier that

this is clearly just him trying to distract people.

However, I see everything that is going on.

And again, I watch the news differently than most people, but I see things that are going on and the way Afghanistan went.

And everything that they do seems so

minuscule.

We're worried about the kids in the school with the mask.

It seems almost like a farce to me.

Will this

work for Biden?

His approval numbers will come up next week, a little bit,

because it's a

he, his base

wants

as much COVID restriction as possible.

So the progressive movement, very liberal people, they love this.

I don't really know why, but they love it.

And so

the independents that they poll who are liberal, will probably seek, you know, see him better than they did over Afghanistan.

So I expect he'll bump up a little bit on it.

You don't think people are going to see, I'm going to get your governor out of the way?

Well, the conservatives will, and the Republicans will, and the traditional leading independents.

They'll allow you to.

What about all those people that said that Donald Trump was acting like a dictator, and we don't need a dictator?

What about all those people?

Yeah, but we don't need...

a Trump dictator, but we'd love to have a progressive dictator.

See, look, wait, one more point, because this is important.

If you look at the whole world, all right, which I do because that's my job, all right, there has never been a socialist country that has not been run in a fairly totalitarian way.

Sure.

Never.

And in order to get that in America, which is the end game for the progressives, they want socialism, you have to have a strong central government in D.C.

that obliterates states' rights.

And that is the overarch.

All right.

Bill, let me switch to Afghanistan.

I've never seen

our government openly, openly standing on the wrong side of the lives of American citizens

like they are now.

The State Department has crossed the Rubicon into,

I don't even know what.

There are

many,

many Americans that are still trapped there.

And the State Department, by

all accounts, I have not seen anyone that is a private group that is trying to get these people out.

There's no nonprofits, NGOs, not a single one that I have seen says anything other than this White House and the State Department are obstructing us every step of the way.

And I believe that.

I mean, you're in that.

You know that.

The Nazarene Fund is in that.

I believe it.

And I can only guess at why.

And that is they don't want to be embarrassed by these people now coming out because they couldn't get them out.

Right?

So if Biden can't get the Americans out, but Lynn Beck can,

what does that do?

That makes Biden look pretty weak, right?

So that's what you're seeing.

So you think this is all about pride?

It's always that way.

That's the way our federal government works and most states as well.

It's all about CYA.

So Biden made a terrible decision about extricating U.S.

forces from Afghanistan.

There's no question about that.

You know, 9-11 anniversary tomorrow, and I'm doing a lot of interviews, and

the question is, are we safer now?

and I say yeah tomorrow we're safer than we were 20 years ago because the USA was successful in eradicating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and booting the Taliban out so we had some control over that terror haven and then of course we got bin Laden and then al-Qaeda collapsed so yeah right now we're safer than we were the day before 9-11 20 years ago but in six months when ISIS has a uh will reconstitute inside Afghanistan, so will Al-Qaeda.

Training camps will be set up, recruiting camps will be set up.

All of that's going to happen.

Are we going to be as safe six months from now?

And the answer is no.

I mean, is Anthony Blinken going to protect you?

How about General Milley?

You want those guys out front?

How about Joe Biden, the commander-in-chief?

Oh, we'll do it over the horizon.

You know, Mr.

Biden, with all due respect to the office, you went over the horizon decades ago.

You can't even see the horizon anymore.

The Afghan journalists that were beaten for covering a women's protest, there are pictures of these guys.

I don't know if you've seen them, but they're...

I have.

It's

almost, I mean,

you could barely look at these guys.

The bruises and the blood.

They could barely walk.

They were kicked to the ground.

Their heads smashed against concrete repeatedly, beaten with bludgeons.

And

this is the group that the...

Do you think the White House ever believed that the Taliban was going to be possibly different than we all knew they were?

No.

I don't think Biden has any idea who the Taliban is.

And by the way, the Taliban called Putin to get his opinion on how they should handle a journalist.

Those journalists were lucky they weren't beheaded.

And they will beheaded away.

They said that.

They said the Taliban said.

If they do it again, if they do it again, then it's beheading.

This was just a warning.

I mean, people don't understand or don't care, and the latter is Joe Biden.

You know, if you're gay in Afghanistan and they catch you being gay or whatever, they're going to throw you off a roof.

You're dead.

If you steal, you're going to lose your hand.

You get your hand cut off.

If you're a woman and you look sideways, God help you.

And I mean that literally.

So, of course, Biden and all the intel services and the Pentagon and the State Department, of course they knew that.

What do you think?

These guys went to sensitivity camp, woke camp?

in Napa Valley, California.

The Taliban just kind of went over there.

Oh, yeah, now we see we're awoke.

These guys are savages, and they always will be.

So,

are you saying that the people that actually,

you know, the thing I like about David Horowitz

is that he was a radical in the 60s and changed

because he saw what his policies, what he was screaming about, led to the deaths of all of the people, you know,

in the in in the Far East after we pulled out and he saw that and he realized you people don't actually care about anybody do you do you think that there are any women that are looking at this and saying wait a minute I thought you guys believed in something or is it no i don't i mean i'm generalizing now i'm sure there are uh i'm sure there are time's up women and whatever else they're doing But no,

I really believe that people who allow ideology to consume them, and this is on all spectrums,

they lose sight

of what's real, of what actually is happening because they're lost in their ideology trying to justify everything they do.

And so you don't hear women's groups in America saying, oh, the Afghan women, have you heard that?

Have you heard Code Pink?

I don't know.

No.

No.

I mean, none of them.

Where's Alyssa Milano?

I mean, I don't even know who that is, by the way.

Is that a real person?

Alyssa Milano?

Where do you see the name?

Was she in my mother, the car?

What show was she in?

I don't know.

Bill, let me wrap it up with this.

20 years ago, tomorrow, 9-11.

Your reflection on this.

Well, I ran a clip of my report

on Fox News last night on the No Spin News, and I wouldn't change a word of it.

That what I reported on 20 years ago, and people could see what I did.

You know, my town on Long Island, dozens dead.

My children grew up with their children.

If you lose a loved one, a friend, to violent crime, and that's what this is, of course, violent murder, that never, ever goes away.

That pain is there with you your whole life.

And I think that's a central theme of our remembrance.

And obviously, we can't ever let that happen again here in America.

And obviously, the progressive left

is bringing us back to a time where it could happen again.

Bill O'Reilly from billorilly.com.

Make sure you join and see his no spin news every day at billorilly.com.

Thanks, Bill.

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

Dave Icy is a

friend of the program and the guy who started StoryCorps.

How long ago, Dave, did you do this?

Hey, Glenn.

StoryCorps started 17 years ago.

17 years ago.

And

a lot of conservatives aren't aware of StoryCorps because they generally have been carried on NPR.

But it's not a liberal, conservative kind of thing.

It's American stories, and they're all being preserved by the National Archives, and they are fantastic.

And we wanted to concentrate on 9-11, and your archives must be incredible on 9-11.

We do have a lot of stories on 9-11, Glenn.

And you're right about conservatives not knowing about StoryCorps.

But thanks to you, that's starting to change, which is really important to us because, as you said, you know,

we hope to grow into kind of a national treasure, collecting the wisdom of who we are as Americans.

Yes.

Yeah, we've had a bunch of special initiatives, about a dozen through the years at StoryCorps.

And our first one was with the 9-11 Memorial and Museum, and we are working with them to record a story to honor every one of the lives lost on September 11th.

Wow.

So we have lots and lots and lots and lots of stories collected.

You know, just honoring the lot,

they're not so much about what happened on the day of September 11th, but finding out who that person was who was lost on that terrible day.

So I want to end with the ticket counter guy.

Tell me what else you brought to the table today.

Tell me the first story you want to share.

Sure.

So

I'm going to play.

These are tough stories, just a warning to your audience, especially the first one.

This first story was recorded by a retired FDNY fire department captain named John Viggiano.

He had two sons, John, who was a police officer, and Joe, a firefighter like his dad.

They were both killed on the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

John came to StoryCorps with his wife, Jan, to remember the two sons that he lost on that day.

Here it is.

There were a couple of days each year you were allowed to take your children to work.

And Joe loved it.

That was his birthday present that he would spend the night in the firehouse.

We'd have a cake, and the guys I worked with, they would take a milk container, and they'd cut out the facsimile of a building, and they'd put it on the top of the cake, and then they would light it up.

And they would tell Joe to put it out, and he would throw a pot of water on it.

The birthday cake was a little soggy, but this is what he wanted.

Joe started dating a young lady whose father was a police officer.

And he came home one day and he says, I'm taking a police test.

I says, Joe, you're only 17 years old.

He says, no big deal.

On the other side of the room, my son, John, wanted to be the next Donald Trump.

He was going to make a million dollars and take care of his mother and father.

But in 1984, I came down with throat cancer.

He noticed then how my unit took care of us and he says, I'm going to become a fireman.

I said, you're kidding me.

Firemen don't make millions of dollars.

How am I going to live like a king?

But I was very happy, very proud.

My father had been on the fire department and he was the first one to be issued badge number 3436

and they reissued it to my son John.

So the badge was only he was by two.

Both the boys would call me when they were working.

John would always call around 3.34 o'clock.

And that particular night, September 10th,

we spoke for a few minutes.

And I says, I love you.

And he says, I love you.

Joe called me in the morning and told me to turn on the television that a plane just hit the trade center.

He says, I'm heading south on West Street.

This is a big one.

And I just said, be careful.

I love you.

He says, I love you too.

That was it.

We had the boys for John for 36 years, Joe for 34 years.

Ironically, badge number 3436.

I don't have any could have, should have, or would haves.

I wouldn't have changed anything.

There's not many people that the last words they said to their son or daughter was, I love you.

And the last words they heard was, I love you.

So

that makes me sleep at night.

It is

so unnatural to die before your children,

but to lose two of them, the same tragedy on the same day is

in different roles is

just

I can't imagine the pain.

There was a story that you guys did at the ticket counter that we want to play.

And set this up because, you know, as I listened to this before you came on, I've never even thought of this guy.

And what he's been walking around with is

unbelievable.

And I'd like to hear an update on him, if you have one, after we listen to the story.

Can you set this up?

Sure.

And I will say, you know, you and I talk about StoryCorps, you know, collecting the wisdom of humanity.

And on that John and Joe piece, you know, when you hear them say the importance of saying I love you to the people who matter to you, you know, as those of us who are dads and moms, you know, when you hear a story like that, you're never not going to say I love you is the last thing you say to your kids ever again, you know, because it just reminds you what's important.

Yeah, this is so this is this is a story that that's that takes place on September 12th.

It's a guy named Vaughn Alex, who very well may be a listener to this show,

who was working the ticket counter at Dulles Airport.

He checked in two men who arrived late.

He followed all the security protocols.

And the next day, he learned that they were two of the five hijackers who diverted American Airlines Flight 77 to crash into the Pentagon, killing 59 passengers and crew and 125 people at the Pentagon.

So this is Von Alex coming to StoryCorps to talk about

that day.

Listen.

I didn't know what I had done.

It wasn't until the next day, September 12th, that I started finding out what happened.

I came to work and people wouldn't look at me in the eye.

And they handed me the manifest for the flight.

I just stared at it for a second.

And then I looked up.

I go, I did it, didn't I?

I checked in a family.

It was a retiree and his wife.

I had time to talk to them.

There was a student group, and I checked in a lot of those kids and parents, teachers,

and

they were gone.

They were just all gone.

Once it became known,

People didn't talk to me.

And I had this wild kind of thing in my mind that

everything that happened on September 11th was my fault personally,

that I could have changed it.

I felt there was no place for me in the world.

There were all these support groups and I didn't belong there because

how do I sit in a room with people that are

mourning and crying and they're like, you know, what's your role in this whole thing?

Well, I checked in a couple of the hijackers and made sure they got on the flight.

I might go weeks or months and everything would be just going along fine.

And then there'd be something that would trigger it.

I was checking in somebody and

what she said was,

my husband got killed on September 11th.

And what I heard was, you killed my husband on September 11th.

You know, you don't really

move past it.

It's still always there in some form.

But now,

you know, I'm able to talk about it.

I mean, I feel like in some ways I really have come out of a shadow

and I'm back in the light now.

That's Vaughan Alex.

And if you, Vaughn, if you happen to be listening to us,

it would be an honor to talk to you.

Please reach out.

We're going to try to reach out and see if we can get a hold of him.

You know,

I don't think I've ever

recall a story that is as big and profound as this,

where

I didn't even think

of

the

people

at the counter checking in.

maybe around that time,

I might have, in a passing thought, thought, wow, how would it be if you were...

But I never really thought how alone those people were in their grief.

I mean, what are there?

Three?

That is a very small support group.

Yeah, well, I mean,

that's when you have a...

You know, part of what goes on with a tragedy that's as big as this is that we can't conceive all of the, you know, ripples that come off of a tragedy like that.

You know, there's a woman who came to

StoryCorps who was the last person on the last elevator down from the World Trade Center.

The door was closing, and she saw a friend, and she said, hold that door.

And he put his hand in the door, and the door opened, and she walked in, and that was it.

One second later, she would have, you know, she would have been dead.

She actually came in with the guy who opened the door for her.

So there's so many stories like that.

And, you know, part of part of what we try and do, it's so, it's, it's hard for, you know, there's the saying that, you know,

that

one death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is, you know, is a is a statistic.

And what we try and do with Story Corps is

remind people, you know, the sanctity of every single life and of every single story.

Dave,

I can't thank you enough for what you're doing.

I mean, it is,

you know, when societies begin to separate themselves and they no longer see themselves as one,

those societies are headed towards really bad things.

And we've so demonized one another and we have isolated ourselves, even though we have connections like we've never had in the history of all mankind.

And we don't know each other.

And

keeping our humanity is going to mean the difference between

the horrors of what we know man can do

and the great things that we know man can do.

And I think you're playing a big role in that.

Well, you are too.

You know,

what we usually talk about when I come on is one small step, which is this new effort of Storycorps.

You know, we've had 750,000 people who love each other come to Storycore.

And with one small step, we're putting strangers across the political divide together.

And

your show has become the number one referrer for conservatives in the country.

So this is where it starts.

And, you know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about September 12th.

I was in New York, and, you know, this has been talked about a lot, but it was a different world for a couple of days.

And we're not in that world anymore.

You know, is this the country we're going to leave for our kids where we see our neighbors as our most dangerous enemies?

You know, John Viggiano, did he vote for Trump?

Did he vote for Biden?

I don't know.

Don't care.

Does it matter?

No.

Don't care.

So

I hope that people will continue.

We have thousands of people on our waiting list now, thanks to you.

We're going to get through all of them.

We're ramping up.

The idea is to have a conversation with someone who is on the opposite side of the political divides, not about your politics, but just about who you are as a human being so that we can begin to see each other again.

Mother Teresa said, we've forgotten that we belong to each other.

And we can,

you know,

either either we keep going down the path we're going.

And if that, if that happens, the only thing we know for sure is it's not going to end well.

And there is another path.

And I hope that your listeners will help us

lead the country down that other path where it can be like September 12th, where we can begin to see each other again.

And we can, you know, be the greatest.

country that we can possibly be.

How do people reach out to you?

Takeonesmallstep.org.

Come sign up, be a part of this, get to know through a conversation over a secure portal that goes to the Library of Congress, get to know someone on the opposite side of the political divides.

Everybody who's done this has had a good experience.

It always ends with people asking for the phone numbers of the people that they talk to.

In fact, I have to say, the last time I was on, we played a story of a mother and her son, the kid, had Asperger syndrome.

And afterwards, she is a newspaper columnist.

And someone from your show reached out and said, I don't believe,

I don't agree with anything you say in politics, but we agree on the most important things in life, which is about how to raise a family and how to raise our children.

I want to do a one-small step recording with you.

So hopefully, next time I come on, they'll have

to play that.

That'll be great.

Dave, thank you so much.

Takeonesmallstep.org.

Thank you.

God bless.