Willie Robertson: The Unlikely Origin of Duck Dynasty, Willie’s New Show, & Why Trump Won

Yeah, I was on The Five.

I remember.

No, I was on Over, what do they call it? What was the one with the women? Oh, Outnumbered. Outnumbered.
And I was up there. They used to bring me up there all the time because Doug and I was just so popular.
With our viewers, it was popular. Yeah, and the girls, the girls on that show, they were laughing.
They said, oh, this guy, Donald Trump says he's running for president and all that. And they're laughing and they're kind of, you know, making like it's a joke.
And they came and they said, what say you, Willie? And I said, tell you what, I think he's resonating with a lot of people. And you could just see him like, oh.
Like they thought I was going to laugh and be joking. I said, don't underestimate the power of celebrity because I was like, I'm just new to it.
But man, when everybody knows who you are,

it's a big advantage because...

The thing about Kamala Harris, she was a vice president for three and a half years. No one you need to know and do it honestly check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com.
Here's the episode. When they got elected or whatever it was in 2020, I totally by accident, I pronounced her, I called her Kamala.
Yeah. Which is what I thought her name was.
And the White House press secretary attacked me as racist. Which, okay, fine, but it really was, I would admit it, was totally accidental.
Right. And so this kid on our staff found tape of her calling herself Kamala and then Kamala.
And I just thought, like, who can't pronounce her own first name? Yeah, that's... If you were like, I'm Willie Robertson or I'm Will A.
Robertson, you know what I mean? It would be kind of weird, right? Hello, I'm Wiley Robertson. No, I mean, I think it's fair to settle on a pronunciation of your own first name.
So one of the things I've never hunted with you before, you've become famous for bird hunting, you're an excellent shot. I just want to confirm that for people watching.
It's not fake.

I've got to make my dad and brothers watch this.

It's true. No, it's true.
You are.

But you're not...

You become famous from television.

I just want

to get right to it. You've written this book,

Goss Speller,

which is not about hunting.

It's... Kind of.
What's it about? Hunting for people. Hunting for people.
Fishing for people, perhaps. Turning darkness into light one conversation at a time.
Yeah, that's kind of this book this year. And this was kind of the one I wanted to write.
You know, it was like, before I die, I want to write this book. And it's really about my faith, the faith that was passed down.
The first chapter's my mom and dad's story about how they got their faith. We put out a movie last year called The Blind, which was their journey in faith, shot in the late 60s, 70s.
Dad was a a bad, he was a bad guy.

In what way?

Oh, he's just, well, he called himself a heathen.

He was just a bad dude, you know, just into everything he shouldn't have been into.

He's married.

He's got this young family.

He's drunk all the time.

He loses his job.

He ends up running a bar, and all hope literally was over. He had kicked us out of the home.
He's a bad dad. He's a bad husband.
What do you mean he kicked you out of the home? He kicked mom and us out of the house or out of the trailer. Really? Yeah.
Yeah. And the one person who didn't give up on him was my aunt, Jan, his younger sister.
And she'd go up to this bar he was running. Dad has like a master's degree.
Could have went professional quarterback. He played ahead of Bradshaw in college at Louisiana Tech.
Gifted athlete. Had everything ahead of him and just pretty much throws it all away.
And so my aunt would go up there and pass out a little Bible tract. She was a very charismatic Christian, and he hated it.
He was like, stay out of here. And she begged this preacher to go preach the gospel to her brother.
And I write in the book, I can just imagine this conversation, because the preacher's in Louisiana, the bar's in Arkansas. And I'm sure it was like, can you share the gospel with my brother? He's wayward.
And he probably was like, yeah, tell him to come to church. We'll meet after.
He's not coming to church. And you'll have to go see him.
What does he do? He runs a bar. In Arkansas.
Yeah, which one in town? It's not even in the state, you know. And this guy gets in his car and drives to a bar, walks in.
Where was the bar? With his Bible. It was in Junction City, Arkansas.
And it was rough, you know, it was a rough, rough spot. Yeah, that goes back.
That goes back. And it was adversarial.
Like, the guy goes in. Phil does not want to hear it.

He's not even invited in there.

And I knew the preacher up until he passed away.

And he says, your dad's sitting there.

He said, he's got a pistol in his belt and a giant Budweiser.

He's about half lit. And the dad looks at him and says, what you selling, preacher man?

And so the guy sits down. And nothing happensil doesn't there's no there's no conversion there's no just as i am uh bar baptism bill just said i'll keep that in mind and so he leaves and then and phil's life even goes more in the tank he ends up um the state police showed up to arrest him he goes and lives in the woods for six months, I think.
Like, he was that guy. What were they arresting him for? He had put two people in ICU, beat him up over a bar dispute.
He just takes all. Lives in the woods.
Says, I'm on my own. And out there is when he got really sick.
And nobody, you know, out where he was. He's got a wife and kids at this point, too.
Well, then they let mom end up moving to Louisiana. And we're pretty much like, hope he doesn't die.
But it's over. He's already kicked us out.
And then he comes dragging back up into that town. And he pulls up to where my mom was working.
She has a new job and trying to move on with her life. And she's like, call the police.
Like, oh, no, he's, you know, he's living in the woods. And he pulls up, and he's crying.
He said, where's that preacher? I need to talk to him. And that's when Phil became a believer right there.
So that's the first chapter in the book. So how long did it take your mom to take him back? She took him right back.
It was amazing. You know, I always said if it weren't for dad changing his life, but also if it wasn't for mom forgiving him.
Yeah, it's easier to change your life than to forgive someone who's abandoned. Especially you're just saying it yeah and who knows you know i'm sure there probably wasn't the counseling that we had you know they just yeah no yeah she but she needed help i mean she's got three young boys and at the time three and um i was the youngest at the time so in the movie i'm portrayed i was very particular who played me in the movie at two years old i mean you, you got to get that part right.
Oh, yeah. It's got to be a handsome toddler, wasn't it? So it was my grandson played me.
My grandson played me about his great-grandfather. It was awesome.
That's fine. It's fun to watch that movie.
It's a hard movie to watch. And Dad didn't even want to do it.
It was tough for him to go back, you know, and relive that, you know, just pull all those. But we said, dad and mom too, both, we just said, I think this can help a lot of people, you know, a lot of people who are in similar situations.
And so, yeah, they stayed together. And so the first chapter of the book is that.
And so if you think about it like this, like 50 years ago, that happened, if that doesn't happen, this family does not stay together. If the family doesn't stay together, there's no Duck Commander.
There's no Duck Commander. There's no Duck Dynasty.
There's no podcast. I don't know where I would be.
My whole life would look completely different. And so part of the reason for us being still so excited about our faith is because we feel like we owe everything we have to our faith.
Had it not been for faith, it would have been over. You know, marriage was over.
You know, who knows? So, I mean, do you remember a time before your father was a Christian? Do your brothers? They do. They do.
I don't really. Everything I remember was great.
And he went from, you know, darkness to light. I mean, he literally, it's kind of like Saul and Paul in the Bible.
You know, it was like this old person, and then he just turned and just went, I mean, just full blaze. And he just wanted to share the gospel with everybody he knew, you know.
Because I guess he had lived, and he said, I live so bad, now and I got to go help these people. And so he became known, he became a known gospeller of just known for preaching the gospel to everybody.
A gospeller is someone who preaches the gospel. It is.
It's a, it's a real word. It's not, it's an old word.
Had you ever heard of it? No, never. I'd never heard of it either.
So I'm writing this book. It's 2020, you know, COVID.
I was like, I want to write this book. And so it was about sharing your faith.
And my wife, who's way smarter than I am, she comes in because I couldn't figure out what to call it. And she goes, Willie, I found this word.
It's called gospeller. And it used to be very commonplace.
And it was not necessarily pastoral. It was just like common folk who were just known for sharing the gospel.
And it simply means somebody who shares the gospel with people either publicly or personally. And it didn't fall short on me that the word is literally a dinosaur.
No one's ever heard of it. But at one point in America, in Europe, this was a common word.
And they were called known gospelers. I found a law.
I want to say it was up in the Northeast where it was like, nobody can stop a priest or a known gospeler from preaching on the town square. It was actually in a law.
Like that word was in a law. Amazing.
Isn't that cool? Yeah, so she found the word. So how did you grow up? Like you grew up in a world where Christianity was at the center of? Oh, yeah, for sure.
Number one. Number one, no doubt about it.
So, it wasn't like, oh, we should try to go to church. It wasn't, it was, you know, every, and we had so many Bible studies that it just really went all week.
Like, because what happened, we would, once you're kind of known for that so people would bring people down to the house for phil to talk to there and there was the most wayward people it was like murderers on you like the craziest people ever and i would just and dad would just go no matter who they were he would just sit there on the couch and he'd feed them supper and then he would jump into the bow and just i mean it was Fridays, Tuesdays. Really? All the time.
Yeah, all the time. And then Dad started teaching Bible classes.
So he would teach his Bible class on Sunday mornings. But he would just study like crazy, like just crazy person.
And my father's never owned a computer. He's never owned a cell phone.
He doesn't have a cell phone?

Mm-mm.

How do you text him?

You don't.

I just like saying that.

You go find him.

So I call, and I'm like, there's a dude.

There's a dude down there near.

So you call him, but you got to go find him.

And he's like in the woods, you know.

And if you want to track him down, you got to go find him.

Does Cecil Hunt? Oh, yeah. was but yeah the dad would just read and study and you know he was just um just thirsting for knowledge he loved the knowledge but then he loved trying to to share that and that's kind of the point of the book is just turning darkness into like one conversation at a time and that that the tagline comes from from, it's funny how my business mixed with my faith.
So we have some new products for deer. And it's this feature where you click a button.
So right at that time where it's real dark, you know, it's getting a little dim, still legal shooting hours. And it just, boom, it just goes, turns it into, it's daylight.
It's crazy. How? What is it? It's pulling light.
Whatever ambient light is, it's pulling in. Right.
It's amazing. So we had this new product, so I'm looking at all the marketing material, and they had on there, Turn Dark into Light.
And when I saw that, I went, that's the tagline for my book, Turning Darkness into Light, One Conversation a time. So through a conversation, meaning had the guy not gone and shared with that, you know, he was the one that actually planted the seed or shared with that.
And boom, that's where it started, just that conversation. And then I watched, you know, hundreds and hundreds of other people just through a conversation lead to a life change.
And so what I wanted to do was go through the book and go through kind of how to do that because a lot of people, they're so intimidated, they don't know what to say. And they like the idea of it.
And they're like, well, I hope somebody tells somebody about their faith or about Jesus, but it ain't me. And I don't know how to do that.
It's like, I don't know where to start. I don't know the Bible enough.
And so we kind of disqualify ourselves from a lot of those, for a lot of those reasons. And so I just tried to go through and tell stories.
And I'll pull stories from the New Testament, just conversations, like, especially conversations, like, especially in the book of Acts. Like, that's where you're really seeing kind of the church meet with the world.
And just pull the conversations like, this is what they said, and this is how you could share with others. So your family, despite living in a very rural area, you've got a duck call business and you're seriously Christian, you wind up in television.
Yeah. Which is like the opposite of all of that.
Yeah. So how do you have the, so the crew comes in for wherever, you're meeting with the studio executives from wherever, but not from West Monroe, Louisiana.
No. How do you begin a conversation about your faith with someone like that? Well, it was obvious.
I mean, I think the faith just comes through in every, it was going to be hard to separate that, separate the faith. But I understood television enough to know that, you know, it can't just be a sermon, you know, it's got to, you know.
Right. And we live our lives.
We understood television enough to know that, you know,

it can't just be a sermon, you know, it's got to, you know, and we live our lives. We're not seeing the people who run television, I have noticed from spending a lifetime there,

not super receptive to the message.

They weren't as, you know, a lot of people ask me that, like we ended every show with a prayer.

And I get, I almost get this like weekly, it it's like i bet they didn't want that prayer and but that wasn't the case they they're like that's cool you know like good for them yeah it wasn't a wasn't a battle at all it's just a good way to end the show that new faith was important to us and um and that's how they well that's how we ended every show was with that prayer. But there wasn't a lot of resistance at all from that.
But I think people, they thought that was the case or wanted to. No, I love sharing that it's not.
Yeah, it really wasn't. And then once it works, and once it's the biggest show ever in reality TV,'re just like, oh, we love that prayer.

That was our idea.

No, it worked.

And so once we talked about how to do it, and my father, he was so funny with the show.

So when I went down to tell him, I said, Dad, we got this idea of doing this television show.

And he hated it.

He's like, I don't want to do it.

Where did the idea come from? I said, it's a way to get the gospel out to more people. And literally, that's what I told him.
And he sits in his chair and goes, hmm, I never thought about that. He goes, you think it can? I said, I don't see why not.
He gives a thumbs up and he's like, all right, we'll do the TV show. If he can get the gospel out to more people.
So you do a show like that, what are the mechanics of it? Because it seems like it would take over your life completely it does so like how does it work it's a lot of well we didn't know when we started like we had no idea um i get a i get an email uh this is so we had done a another television show on the outdoor channel and in the same way like it was my wife's idea. Corey said, Corey watched reality television.
Is she from West Monroe? She's from West Monroe as well. She's from the city.
I'm from the sticks. So she says, she's watching all this reality television.
And she said, Willie, I think your family needs to have a reality TV show. And I'm like.
That's not a compliment. Well.
When your wife says your family needs a reality TV show. Well, that's what I said.
I said. That's usually an attack.
Well, that's why I didn't realize it. And I said, Corey, we're just normal people.
And she goes, Willie, y'all ain't normal. And so what? She was like, you guys are like.
She goes, I've been with you for a long time. Where'd you meet her, by the way? Summer camp, fifth grade.
Wow. Camp Chioka.
Camp Chioka. Yeah, her, yeah, I saw her sitting on the swing.
So her grandfather and father were business guys, very successful business guys. And part of their charity work, they'd built this summer camp.
And so now that we're new believers, my parents are, that was a new thing. Like now we're going to church summer camp, you know, and we'd never been to church.
And we couldn't even afford it. So when we would pull up to the camp, my mother had no money and she would be, and so we would have our bags packed, like we're ready.
And she was like, all right, here's the deal. Y'all stay here.
Let me go see if I can trade working in the kitchen for you guys to come. If they say yes, you're in.
If they say no, we're going back to the house, and we're just like, please say yes. What's funny is it was my wife's parents who were making the decision.
As it turns out in life, I later married their daughter who ran the camp. It was the same camp I was hoping to get into.
That's amazing. So every time they said yes, and so we would go, and I see this girl.
She's on a swing, so I can see her to this day. And she's got this big giant, you know, 1980s hand.
I'm like, who is that girl? And I said, ah, it's Corey Howard. You know, her dad and them, they're the ones who run the camp.
And so I went over and talked to her. I invited her on the Moonlight Hike.
And she said yes. And we went on the Moonlight Hike in fifth grade.
And we didn't keep dating. And we didn't get married that year.
But we waited. How old were you when you got married, 18.
You were 19 and she was 18?

Correct.

I proposed to her when she was 17 and I was 18.

What did her dad say?

He didn't like it.

I bet he didn't.

He didn't like the idea of that.

He wasn't a fan.

They were very well off.

They lived in the neighborhoods.

And I pull up in this neighborhood, and I'm looking around it's like mowed grass you know sprinkler systems I'm just like whoa man this is crazy I'm looking around there's not one visible burn pile anywhere and I'm going like what do these people do with their garbage i didn't know there was another way so we're gonna have the talk right so he's like we got and i know that like we went to church so i knew her family and uh but he just was like oh y'all need to wait and you're too young and and we're just dead set we're like no we're getting married so he gets so when we have a meeting and he's such a he's a smart business guy and um he's got all these papers he's got statistics and papers and files you know i'm just sitting there white t-shirt like he's blowing me away he's making me so mad you know because i'm like giving him i'm i'm pitching vision man you know what was your vision well christianity like we're brothers like come on man it's gonna be great and he's like you haven't thought about all these things in life and finally he just goes he's getting so mad he's like i thought he's gonna hit me yeah's like leading up on me. He said, where exactly do you plan on living with my

daughter?

I said,

I reckon I'll pull a trailer up

in the back of Phil's house and just live there for free.

That was your vision?

Not the answer the dude

wanted to.

And we'll burn our garbage in the yard like normal people do. But it worked out.
So last fall, I was out in Las Vegas and I ran into Theo Vaughn, who's hilarious. And I wind up doing a podcast with Theo Vaughn.
And I have a tin of Zen on the set with me. And he says, what's that? And I started joking about product nicotine pouches.
And I say, in effect, this is a cure for erectile dysfunction. Totally joking.
Of course, not serious, not a doctor, never even think about making medical claims. I have no idea if that's true.
I'm totally kidding. It's what we call a joke in the business.
It's a joke. It's not serious.
So I get home and there is a letter from the general counsel of Zinn written in the most supercilious, nasty, to whom it may concern, Mr. Carlson or representative thereof.
It has come to our attention that on a broadcast with a nationally known comedian, you made an inaccurate health claim about our product. I'm like, what is this? What did I do? You should know that there's no medical study that suggests that our product is an effective ED cure.
And I'm like, are you kidding? I made a boner joke and you're sending me a nasty lawyer letter? It was the dumbest, most humorless thing I've ever seen. And it was instantly recognizable to me as someone who has worked at big companies most of my life.
It was the product of HR lawyer culture. Only like a pronoun company could issue a letter like this.
And it was like somewhere on this planet, somebody is laughing. We must make them stop.
Call the general counsel. Issue a nasty letter.
And I thought to myself, I cannot believe I'm buying their product. I have nothing in common with these people.
They can't take a joke. They're stupid.
And they hate me. And they hate humor.
And they hate joy. And I thought to myself, I'm going to create an alternative because there's no way I'm going to spend another dollar on a product made by people like this.
And so we created an alternative. Alppouch.com.
Usher in tomorrow a brand new world of nicotine pouches. The American Lip Pillow on sale now.
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That's 1-800-780-8888. Wait, so how long did it take? 32 years later, we're still married.
That's amazing. And we're great.
I mean, so her parents' house and my house literally, it's like a – I know you don't play golf.

It's a pigeon wedge away from me, and we were just right beside each other.

Now?

Yeah, I see them every day.

And I learned – most of what I learned in business, I learned from him.

How many grandkids did you give them?

Eight.

Eight so far.

You have eight.

I have eight.

So he has

eight great-grandchildren.

How many kids

did you have

with his daughter?

How many kids do you have?

Oh, how many kids

do I have?

Six.

Six.

He's got to be pretty psyched.

It's just the way

you ask him. Sorry.
I asked him backwards. backwards i mean just start again i have six children eight grandchildren so yeah amazing uh but yeah they're great and so we live they're on the and we all live right there we're just all connected and live beside each other how long did it take you to to win a yes from your father-in-law? I mean, it was after that night.

He wanted me to come over to their house.

And so Corey was, she was in college.

So she wasn't even there when all this happened.

She was in college.

I wasn't going to college.

I was going to seminary.

I was going to be a preacher.

And so Corey calls and says,

Dad wants you to come over. And I said And he's going to come pick you up and take you over to their house.
I said, no. She said, why not? And I said, I'll have to walk home.
She goes, what do you mean? I said, oh, it's going to go bad. And I don't have a ride.
I'm going to have to walk all the way back to my house. It's like seven miles.
I said, no, I'm not.

Time to come over here.

So he comes over to where I was staying.

And I was living with my brother at the time.

And it was he and his mom and me.

We were on the couch together.

And my mother-in-law, she was in between us.

But I did.

I thought, man, I think he may punch me.

And I was ready.

I may have three brothers. And so I was like, we just got to fight.

Let's just fight.

I was like, let's go, you know.

But then it was after that night, they said, okay.

And then I think just six months later, we got married.

And we were driving to the wedding, and he said, you know what?

I said what I said, and that's the way I felt.

But now we're good, and I literally never heard another word about it. Really? Yeah, he was great.
So it was your wife that came up with the idea for Duck Dynasty. Yep.
Then I had to go tell Phil, because originally it was on the Outdoor Channel. Yeah.
And I was approached by Benelli Shotguns at SHOT Show. Have you been to SHOT Show? Yeah.
Yeah. So I was approached by Benelli Shotguns at SHOT Show.

Have you been to SHOT Show?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was approached by them right after she said that.

And they were like, hey, are you guys interested in doing a reality TV show with the shotguns? And I was like, Corey just said we should do a reality TV show.

And he goes, well, let's have a meeting.

And so we sat down, and they said, hey, we'll pay for production. You guys will be on the show.
Thankfully, they had two guys that came in that they had just hired who they came out of reality television. So we'd hire them for their in-house, all their commercials and stuff that they do.
And we love Benelli, and we love the shotgun so uh it was like yeah and so we're going through the deals and um so right at the end corey says uh she's she's such a smart business person and i'm excited i'm like hey this is our business gonna go up so i go to phil i'm like phil he's like oh it's a terrible idea and i'm like dad we'll sell more duck calls like we'll be on the outdoor channel like plus free shotguns plus frees. I was like, plus free other stuff.
I was like, this is the smoking deal. And so Corey says, so we're going to go up to Maryland.
I think that's where they're at, Maryland. And we're going to have this meeting.
And Corey, she'd been reading these books. And she goes, well, I think they should pay off a talent fee.
I'd never heard that word. I said, what is talent fee? She goes, like, they should pay y'all to be on the show.
I said, Corey, Corey, Corey, don't get greedy. Like, this is a gift.
They're paying for production. For shotguns.
Yeah. And she's like, well, it won't hurt to ask.
And I said, what? Okay. But I said, here's the deal.
When you ask, if you get any weird sense, abort the mission, get out of it. Do not screw this.
I was like, this is our big chance. You're going to ruin it by asking for too much.
So we go in the meeting. The guy's going through.
He said, okay, we'll start production here. We'll do this and that.
And he goes, I think we're about ready to go. And Corey's like, oh, one more thing.
And I'm like, oh, God. And she's like, we're thinking you should pay the guy's talent fee.
And he was like, oh, what were you thinking? And she said, we were thinking $30,000 a piece was to be for the whole season. And I'm making $28,000 a year.
That's my salary. What were you doing? That was my job.
I made $28,000. But what was your job? Oh, at the duck call company.
That was my whole yearly job. I made $28,000.
She just asked for $30,000 to do this thing, which would essentially double my pay. When she said $30,000, I'm like that's way too much and the guy literally just goes yeah okay no problem and i'm like crap we should have said 50 we should have said 50 she said 30 so then and here's what kind of ceo i am so we were excited so we go back to the house i go back to dad's house.
Jason's there. We're all in the house and they're waiting to hear what happened with the TV show.
And I walk in. I'm like, well, boys, we're fixing to do us a television show on the outdoor channel.
And guess what else I got us? $30,000 a piece. I act like it was my idea.
And we were like, we did it. It's over.
We finally figured out. We got free shotguns.
We doubled our pay. We have to do a TV show.
We have no idea what we're doing. And we launched into that show.
What year was that? This would have been probably 08. Yeah.
Somewhere in 08. So we launched into the show.
We were able to cut our teeth. So we'd been making DVDs and hunting videos.
Now we go on this TV with these boys from reality TV were there. So we really learned how to do television, you know, how to do, you know, what was going to become ultimately Duck Dynasty.
It was a different show. Like half of it was just like hardcore guns, you know, and all that.
They were showing their products. But the other half was just like silly reality stuff that we just came up.
And I kind of focused on that. My brother and dad and them, they did the hardcore hunting.
And then I was over there doing the, hey, we can show this. And we can do this wild, crazy stuff we were doing and uh and the show was super popular like in in that world everybody loved it and uh we won awards and uh our sales went up more people were buying duck calls and our t-shirts so it was like hey we did it man and uh i had to sell the part of the deal was i had to sell half the advertisers so because then that one, you get your commercial, then you have to go sell them.
So Benelli would sell half, and I sold half of them. And it was so funny.
It was hard selling, but ultimately it was going to be ducked out. It was hard selling an ad for this thing.
I ended up selling all mine. I would sell my ads, and that was part of the deal I had to do.
So then we get an email. I get a generic email, information at Duck Commander.
And there's no time how many of these just never even get looked at. Of course.
It's a dude. He said, I'm a producer in Los Angeles.
I've watched the show on Outdoor Channel. He saw that show.
I think you guys have a really big show. Give me a call.
Left his number. Secretary comes in and says, I got this email.
Somebody's saying they're from Los Angeles. She said, do you want me to throw it away or do you want me to respond? I looked at it and I said, I'll respond.
I respond, hey, this is Willie. What are you thinking? I get on the call with him, and man, he's a fast talker.
He's LA. He's like, Willie, I'm telling you, this is going to be the biggest show.
I mean, I'm telling you, I've got something this big. And like, you have a really big show.
Like, we got to take this thing bigger. This is on cable.
This is on, and I'm thinking, this guy's full of crap. I like i said you think so and he's like he said willie you will not be able to walk down the street without people everybody recognizing who you are and i thought yeah this guy like he's laying it on thick you know and so uh i said so what do we need to do if we were to do that he said we'll make a sizzle reel.
And unfortunately, we had just done like three seasons of this show. So we took three minutes.
And then he started pitching around the networks. And there was a lot of interest.
You got to remember, this is the time Louisiana, the tax credits were big. Like before Georgia had it.
Louisiana was kind of the hotbed. And there was tons of shows.
I mean, our state is like, there's so much culture and just fun people in our state anyway. And so you had Billy the Exterminator, Swamp People, Sons of Guns.
All these are Louisiana shows. Buy You Billionaires.
There was tons of shows being shot there. So if you had anything in Louisiana, because they knew they could go, say, 40%, you know, in this state.
And he saw it, and we were on the Outdoor Channel, he saw it. And then I know where it comes A&E.
A&E, I didn't really know anything about A&E. I didn't watch, even know what it was.
And he said, A&E is interested in two pilots. And I'm like, what does that mean? And he says, well, if they pick it up,

that's where we want to be.

It's a good mixed audience.

Men and women watch A&E.

Big company.

Combined with History Channel, ABC,

Disney, all this.

And ESPN.

And so he said,

the problem is if they pass on his dad.

Because then everybody would just say,

oh, they passed on him. And so we shot two pilots pilots for a and they had no idea what we were doing and then the film crew got giant you know they sent down this huge crew and and we had no idea and we just kind of went into it and i really know what we were doing so what's it and didn't know if it was good or and i didn't know you know and and so what was interesting was they didn't know they didn't know what exactly they were getting so if you if you kind of looked at a picture of us you'd be like i think they thought we like grunted and like you know and i couldn't speak english so they didn't i think they thought and they thought it was gonna be like danger like alligators are coming out of the water, you know.
So they come down and so, so we shot the bios and we sent it off and so they come and we're like, well, we have good news and bad news. The bad news is this is not the show we were ordering like at all.
We were all shocked and we're like, uh-oh. They said, the good news is it's way better than what we thought we were getting and they were like this is a family show because nobody had put us in any category of family show even though we're a family but it was like they just didn't i think they thought kind of like we're gonna laugh at these but you know these are they just totally didn't it was a honey boo thing they said right they didn't realize right that um because some of their ideas initially It was like honey boo boo thing.
Right. They didn't realize, right, that – because some of their ideas, initially, it was like the women folk are out, you know, getting the possums, you know, and skinning them out.
My wife's like, these women folk do not – we don't even go in the woods, you know. But they saw – and then there was this comedy, this real – because the we did on outdoor channel wasn't really funny and once we saw this kind of comedic thing come out that's what i mean that was what really i think set it apart was it's funny it's a fun you know something you can laugh you know it's a funny show what's the i mean what's the process of filming it um well you said You said your house got descended on by a swarm of producers.
It was, yeah. So we shot in all our houses, especially mine.
Especially my miles was kind of the, because the show was kind of, we didn't know any of this going in because we didn't know what we were doing but it was kind of shot through my eyes and so you would have like willie's dad willie's wife so you're watching that as a viewer you're watching it through my so i was supposed to be the normal i'm the normal person and then everybody else is is crazy you know this chaos is happening and they to some extent they are crazy and so uh so you had some people they're just kind of like themselves like like my father just he dad never understood what exactly we were doing like he he never understood the show he never liked it he never understood he he told me early on he was like well tell him we need more preaching on the show i said dad there's another robertson family with a show like that it's the 700 we're not that show like this is this is not that are you related to them by the way he was like uh i'm not no i'm not not that uh they haven't asked me for money so i guess i'm not everybody related to me has asked me for money so you're like an nba player um so yeah he never quite understood the show he um so my dad got to this one so my dad got so mad one time he said he was saying they just didn't understand he thought it was so goofy and we were just being stupid and uh so we sit down this is my favorite thing that ever happened to gnosti that never got shown so we had this dinner scene every time, you know. And so we're on

like episode 80, you know.

And, you know, the part of TV is

you got these kids,

they come in from LA, they're 25 years

old, and they're telling you what to do.

You don't look right.

It's kind of weird when you become

the CEO of your company and you're doing this.

Now you're listening to

people you don't know, and they're telling you what to do. And so I think my dad had gotten a little past the point of that at this point.
I missed pretty quickly. So we're setting all the table up, and we're just sitting there.
We've done this a thousand times. And Jim's on the table, and they're like, okay, everybody ready? And some little young producers are like, okay.
And Mr. Phil, you'll pray action.

So we bow our heads.

And Phil said, Father, I pray for these bunch of heathens from Los Angeles, California,

with their latte coffees and their filthy language.

I pray you don't burn them all in hell for their sinfulness. Amen.
We were laughing so hard because none of us knew that was coming. None of us realized.
And so we all look up and we're just like, look around and go, what was that? And this young producer, he never missed a beat. He was like, thank you, Mr.
Phil. Now can we do another prayer that we could actually put on television? That never aired.
Never aired. Never aired.
It was so funny. So, yeah, Dad didn't quite understand the way they were doing it.
But, I mean, these cameras are in your house for, what, months? They are, but you know, well, it was like walking into here.

Yeah.

We're filming in here.

Oh, that's a good point.

Obviously, you know.

And we're in a pheasant camp in South Dakota.

We are in a pheasant camp.

I was a little worried, too, about that.

I thought we did a bad idea.

So we stayed up too late last night.

That's true.

We were telling the story.

It was so fun.

That's true. And I'm glad we did.
So we get up this morning. We go shoot tons of birds.
Quite a few birds. Walked around.
And then we go. I think I ate two pounds of meatloaf.
At least. Yeah.
You said at least I ate that? No, I did. Okay, you did as well.
I didn't look at your plate. Yeah, a lot.
And I thought, that's not a good recipe for doing a long podcast. I was like.
Not at four in the afternoon after hunting in a big one. Oh, man.
But that was part of my demands, though. Because I've heard recently about people in their podcasts and demands.
Yeah, contract writers, yeah. And I said, I demand we have to fly to another state, shoot birds that morning.

This should be every podcast.

And it was literally in the contract that you signed with us where you demanded lemon squares after.

And I thought, that's a little much.

Yeah.

No, I said, let's just go.

We have to go find somewhere to.

Actually, this was your idea.

And so thank you.

It was my idea.

I was going to go to Maine. Yeah, but we don't have any pheasants in maine no this was a better this is a way this was a way better idea if you could i don't know how many birds we shot this morning but if you could shoot two grouse a day in maine you're the best grouse hunter in maine really you're a good shot too i'm telling your audience i would hope so i'm telling your audience you're a good shot't surprised.
I mean, I knew you hunted a lot. I'm not half as good as I should be after all the practice I've had.
I'll tell you that. But no, it's actually, I missed a bird.
The bird got too aggressive with me and it intimidated me. And I always think, you know, when you're bird hunting, you're the pursuer.
You're the aggressor. You're the predator.
And when the bird turns it around and tries to fly up your nose, I just, I freeze and miss the bird. Wow.
And you had the gun. Because it's unnatural.
I was here a month ago doing this pheasant hunting. I didn't grow up pheasant hunting, so we were poor.
I have a pheasant come. He literally is coming at my face.
Yeah. And I did know what to do.
And I took the shotgun and I went back like I was going to hit it like a baseball bat. And if I had a little more cojones, I wouldn't.
Because the guide said, you should have done it. Oh, it was that close.
It was that close. I think he'd been hit.
So he's coming down and he's'm like he was just so close and i there's a picture and you see me kind of like this but and he just goes right and then i thought why didn't i can you imagine if you just grab presence of mind that's what separates the yeah most out to that one the just grab that sucker out of the air would have been that's an

Aaron Rodgers move and I blew it and I one day I'm gonna now I'm gonna schedule like I was months of pheasant hunting do I can get that same scenario to happen again I watched my father get hit right in the chest on a driven peg shoot for pheasant when I was a kid and it knocked him right down he was turning talking to someone and the pheasant just came and hit him right and just and bam, and he's a big man.

Did you grow up pheasant on him?

Yeah.

Oh, you did?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You're sh**. knocked him right down he was turning talking to someone and the pheasant just came and hit him right and just bam and he's a big man did you grow up pheasant yeah oh you did oh yeah yeah it used to be only crazy people thought they were being watched all the time surveilled the guy mumbling next to you on the bus but now anyone who knows what's going on thinks that because it's true your phones are listening to you tech companies tracking all your online activity in order to profit off of what ought to be private information.
Governments are watching too. It's a corrupt system.
It's frightening. And the worst part is it's all legal.
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We were poor. We were poor too.
Yeah, we were really poor. Oh, yeah, we were super poor.
You were middle class too. Oh, yeah.
How did you get off on McDonald's to go work and do your fuzz? I've come a long way. Just bootstrapping it.
So, did you, like, what was it like to go from being maybe locally famous to nationally famous? Yeah, night and day. But it was, man, I'm so appreciative.
So, it was like we did just enough to get comfortable enough to figure out what it is that you're doing. And I love the, you know, the progression.
You know, I think zero to, you know, just like nothing to something. But it was just enough.
Like we knew just enough TV. And then we had done some, you know, stuff to work.
If we went in Bass Pro Shop or, you know, it was like, oh, there's Duck Commander guys. But just enough.
But then once we hit the really really national spotlight especially to the level our show was it was crazy it was just crazy it's not good for you no it wasn't good no in many ways business it's not because business went crazy and it trying to do everything you know because you're still trying you have you have a business you're trying to run your business and and then uh ours was really unique because the nature of the show looked like we were goofing off or everybody in the well then i'm getting you know 50,000 orders well we can't fill them and then i got people emailing me i just saw y'all were goofing off i watched the show. It was like, that's really what we were doing.
Go build some more Duck Colts. So then, yeah, I had to go do a video going, hey, guys, look, Willie from Duck Nasty.
We really are working. It's not everything you see on the TV show is what exactly happened that day, you know, exactly that day.
So it was crazy. The first holidays, we crashed our computer, I think, three times.
it was it was crazy it was we the first holidays we crashed our computer i think three times um it was so bad because they ordered their product so we got their money and then it crashed but we didn't know what they ordered so we have your money what'd you do just try to put out saying hey call call us and so they call and be be like i didn't get my order and be like why don't you tell us what you ordered well uh just just generalize whatever you think you know spitball it you know we'll get as close as we can we're just trying to ship stuff out oh people are like those are good problems to have and i'm like no they're not they're not. They're terrible problems to have.
Just really overwhelmed, just wasn't ready. And to think that when we did this show, we had this meeting, and my wife, Corey, says, do you think we should order more duck calls? And I said, no, no, nobody's going to order a duck call.
You know, even if you like the show, why would you need a duck call? I mean, if you're not a duck hunter, what do you— Oh, was I wrong? Really? People were buying decorative duck calls? People were just buying any duck call. Like, they just wanted that— What do they do? I mean, unless you have a duck.
Put it on a shelf. Well, it was just the—they wanted a piece of the show, and that was the piece they wanted.
How many duck calls did you sell? Oh, man, like a million and a half or something crazy. Duck calls? Yeah.
In the year before, we'd done 50,000. So 50,000 to 1.5 million.
That's crazy. It's insane.
It's insane. We were working 24 hours a day.
I had crews. I had everybody who could possibly.
How much child labor? Not much child labor, except for ours.

We made ours work. What did your kids think of the whole thing?

That's what I was, I mean, I think that's your big fear.

I mean, your fear is how's it going to, how does it play with them?

Yeah.

I always say this, you know, in life I've been able to do a lot of things.

And most of the things my kids are going to do or have done, I done you know college have children get married you know move what i mean uh the only thing i had zero experience with was being famous at a young age yeah i understood it at 40 because i was 40 when when the show came out um but being 16, I had no idea. And also, you've got the beginning of social media, too.
And so that's new as well. And so, yeah, I think they probably struggled with some of it.
Certainly, some aspects of it understood the good of it and figured out a way how to use it, use what it was for the good, and then ditch the stuff that was the best. So they're not mad about it now? No, they're not.
How many are married? Four. Five.
Five. How do you get your kids to get married so young? I don't know.
I didn't encourage it. You didn't? Well, that was the day I told you about Corey's parents.
You know, her dad's mad. You're too young.
This is what made him mad. I said, how old were y'all? 1918.
Same age. I was like, you're the same age we were

when we got married

so it was interesting

that

because he couldn't say

oh we waited

and

but no

they wanted to get

you know

they got

around the same age

and they got married as well

but it's not like I said

here's how we do it

around these parts

you know

not at all

they just

I don't know

you find the right one

and then

make a commitment

and go

it's pretty great

yeah

Thank you. Not at all.
They just, I don't know. You find the right one and then make a commitment and go.

It's pretty great.

Yeah.

It really is great.

Well, it's great because then you're young.

I got eight grandkids.

I'm a young grandparent.

I mean, it's fine when you're younger.

You know, you're not.

So how long did the show go five years 130 episodes wow why'd they end it um there were a lot of reasons i think one it gets more expensive it just keeps getting more expensive yeah you know everything goes up you know it's like goes up. Not just ours, everybody.
Production, everybody's going, hey, if this keeps generating income. I'm assuming, I mean, I think it's probably like a baseball player.
You're paying a guy $10 million at first base. He hits 25 home runs.
pay a guy five or a thousand maybe he'll hit maybe we hit 12 home runs and good enough we'll save them yeah and so i'm sure they're like we could make other shows um and some of it just played out i mean it like you just kind of run out of it like what's what are we doing that you know it's like you had you still have more kids and stuff. It's like you've done so many.
I mean, 130 episodes with two storylines is 260 stories. That's a lot of stories, you know? Yeah.
We were certainly ready. I mean, we were ready for a break.
It was a lot of work, man. I mean, the first year, man, we filmed 10 months that year.
Yeah, this is not some couple of month deal you know and this is not like how many days a week the first year we did six days a week and we did even some sundays sunday afternoons just getting it man we were just that's great it was hard months six days a week it was hard it was hard there's a lot but we were just you know at that point we're like figured out and then they were just it became so popular it must have gotten close they wanted more everything was like we need more we need more we need more and so it's like keep making them keep making them and so finally we're like time out you know renegotiate and so part of that we went to um monday through thursday schedules gives a day off, at least a day to go to the hospital. I mean, to go to the doctor, to go to stuff you need to do.
Because it's not like you worked every day, but you're on the schedule for that long. So some days you may not be on that afternoon, but you won't know until it comes out on the schedule kind of where you're at.
Did you ever feel misrepresented by the show? No, because I kind of played a part. I had a part that I played on the show, and it was kind of consistent.
It just kept me—it was authentic. I mean, it was like, I'm the CEO.
I'm the head guy. And so I think in order to make some of it work, you know, you kind of had to have a bad guy, you know.
Yeah. And I mean, it's kind of the sort of comedy comes from.
You know, it's like, you think about like the stories you think about in school or in church growing up, you know, one of the funniest things. It's when you're going to get in trouble, right? Of course.
It's like, it's so funny, you can't stop laughing. So some of that was kind of like that, you know, let them do stuff.
And then I'd be like, this is so stupid, you know, because it was stupid. So I just kind of, you know, so for my role in it, and then I was also the guy that narrated you through the show.
So I had to keep you up on what was going on because because people get confused they get and if you get confused and if you don't if you can't figure a show out you'll just change the channel of course because it makes you feel dumb yeah and you're like oh i can't watch this you know because i can't figure it out did you watch the shows we did i did i don't i never liked watching really myself and i don't like watching speeches

or other stuff but we watched that one together because half of the show i never knew what

happened because it wasn't the parts i was in right to be like meanwhile down at the river

and so i didn't see that stuff and it was hilarious i'd be watching it go and this is so funny because

i didn't know what i was watching with everybody else in the world and so it was so. I'd been watching it going, this is so funny, because I didn't know what that was.
I was watching it with everybody else in the world, and so it was so funny. I would get so tickled at some of the stuff they would do.
So we'd watch it together. Like my family would all get together, and the kids were younger, so it was cool for them to be able to kind of see themselves on TV.
How were they treated at school because of it? Different. I mean, everybody's treated different.
But they were – it was probably good and bad. They didn't go to school as much as – like they were out of school a lot.
So we had a teacher there on set just because it was a lot of days. So they weren't, they just had to do a lot of the school.
Sadie did a ton of school from the house just because that's what she had to do. But they were in a Christian school, and they were pretty lenient.
I mean, not on the grades. They were just lenient on, they let them play sports, and they could still participate and stuff like that, you know, even though they were kind of doing school from afar.
What year did it end, the show? 12 to 17, maybe. It would have to end at 17.
I mean, at some point, you're going to run into the political problem, right? A show like that. Yeah.
When you say political problem. i mean i don't know you know you you live in louisiana you run a hunting related company and you're christian so you're probably going to reach a different political conclusion you're probably to be pro-trump i mean just judging by all that that is true yeah that was trump yeah most of the show was President Obama.
That was, he was the president. And yeah, Trump was right there.
Did you address it on the show? I don't remember that, Trump. No.
No, we didn't. We didn't.
Because it kind of wasn't that kind of, it wasn't like really reality like that. It wasn't, like you didn't see stuff from the, like I remember we would be filming at a grocery store we'd have to turn the magazines around because we would be on the cover of the magazine when we're filming the show around they'd be like hey it's two fourth wall yeah it was a little uh it was a little but yeah trump was uh no that was right when trump yeah i kind of that's i stick my toe in the water a little bit on that one.
On the air you did? No, just in life, yeah, just with Trump. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a different world now, though, right? I mean.
Well, in my mind, I was a little naive. I just thought, well, this is cool, you know.
I like Trump. I like, when I first heard about it, I thought, oh, that's what we need.
We need a business guy. We need, we got to get away with these politicians.
We need a bit. That's exactly who we need.
And he had a reality TV show. So I was like, hey, he's like, so, yeah.
And so I meet him. You probably never heard the story.
So first I met him. I was doing, I was in Oklahoma City.
My son was speaking at something. I went to hear him speak.
We had been elk hunting. Not my son, but me and a buddy.
We're elk hunting, and the dude has a plane. I said, hey, can we stop in here? My son's giving a speech.
Yeah, cool. So we go in there and see him.
We're at lunch. And this guy said, hey, guess who's in town? I said, who? He said, Trump.
He's doing one of his rallies. This is back 15.
And, you know, he's doing these rallies. He was at the Oklahoma State Fair.
And I was like, oh, we got to go. We got to go.
This is awesome, you know. And I had just met Don Jr., who's a hunter.
And that's how we met each other. We just met and talked.
So I emailed him or texted him and said, hey, your dad's doing this rally. I was going to go check it out.
And he's like, cool, I'll set it up. And I remember I got a police officer because I was like, there's no way I can go to this Oklahoma State.
But like, I'm going to get mobbed at this place, you know. And I may be more recognizable than Donald Trump in Oklahoma City in 2015.
And so I show, I have this cop with me. I get, there's an RV in the back.
So it's like a outdoor, you know, giant crap, you know. It's an outdoor thing.
get there's an rv in the back so it's like a outdoor you know there's a giant you know it's outdoor thing there's an rv so i get on this rv me and my buddies and uh and my cop friend and there's these other people in there there's like cater person there's a few people and this this is funny story there's a dude on there and he comes up to me he's got an earpiece but he's like got beach shorts you know oh who is this guy i said what do you he said can i get a picture i said yeah i said what do you do because i didn't know who worked for trump trump's not there yet you know and he goes, oh, I do all kind of stuff, you know. He said, do you want to see my gun? Now, you've been around enough.
Has any security person ever asked you, do you want to see my gun? No. That's not a thing.
And I'm looking at this cat going, what in the world? So I take a picture, and Corey Lewandowski gets on the bus. He goes, if you ain't with Willie, get off the bus.
And so all these people started getting off the bus, right? And so here comes the whole entourage, you know, and Trump gets on. First time I met him, he's like, Willie, Willie, did you say the crowd is huge?

He goes, even for you, it's huge, right?

I mean, this is a huge crowd for somebody like you.

And so I'm kind of laughing.

My buddies are just like, this is the funniest thing ever.

I look back on the, you guys score this story.

I look back.

That dude who said he had a gun is talking to Trump.

He didn't get off the bus. And he's got like his book or something.
And I could see like Trump does, he just looks. And that's back when he had those like giant security guards, you know, this is, he wasn't the president.
You know, he used to have those like six foot nine guys. So Trump just gives us a look.
There's a look here. They come to me and go, is that dude with you? I said, no, he's not with me.
I said, and he said he had a gun. And when I said that, oh, they grabbed this guy like by the back and just threw him off the bus.
And Trump said, there's spies everywhere. And so I was like, and they're all looking.
I could tell, man. And I looked up and I said, what kind of operations are y'all running here? Well, then that really made it bad because then I'm making fun of their security.
But it was a true story. Like this dude.
Who was he? Thankfully, I had the cop. It was a detective from Oklahoma City.
So later, a week later, he calls me. He says, Willie.
me and says, Willie, I found out about that guy. He brought the porta-potties in to the fair.
And he tells the fair director, anything else I can help you with, I'll do. Well, they start putting him to work.
He has an earpiece because they're telling him his whole thing was he wanted to get trump signed his book he did the whole thing he goes he didn't even know you were going to be there you were a bonus because he was excited he got the picture of me you know well that's amazing so so i'm on the bus so um so trump's fixing to go speak well when i went to this deal my wife i said I said, look, Trump's speaking. We're going to go over and check it out.
She says, Willie, do not, do not get on that stage. And I said, don't worry.
I'm out of this. I'm not getting involved.
Bobby Jindal was running. He was a friend of mine.
I was like, no, no, no, I ain't doing any of that stuff. And so before he gets off the bat, he goes, Willie, did you want to get up and say anything to the crowd and i said no no no it was trump i'm good man i'm good i'm i'm you go ahead you know but i thought uh you know i thought these politicians you know but i thought well he's not a politician so maybe he won't do it so i go out there and i'm like he gets on the stage and i thought if he's gonna do he's gonna do it right off the bat and so there's a stairwell, and so I'm out there I'm like he gets on the stage and I thought if he's going to do it he's going to do it right off the bat and so there's a stairwell and so I'm kind of hiding in this because I don't want to I don't really want to be seen at this point you know I'm like somebody would be like there's Willie Robertson I'm like no no I look like him you know and I'm kind of like leaning in the stairwell and I'm thinking right off the bat he's going to go like hey guess who's here you know nothing trump just goes

into a speech he's china he's there he's 30 minutes deep by this time i'm we're okay we're laughing we're like this is the funnest thing ever you know i never dreamed it'd be the first i was like this is cool to see you know and uh and trump 30 minutes deep he just stops he looks right and goes

where's Willie

and my heart stopped

I went 30 minutes deep he just stops he looks around he goes where's willie and my heart stopped out went oh my gosh please tell me he knows another guy named willie at the oklahoma state fair and he just starts walking down the street he goes where the hell's willie at where's he at yeah and nobody knows who he's talking about everybody's going who's willie and my buddy's going willie you got there. And I said, I can't.
I can't go up there. I'm not prepared to go up on the stage.
He's like, he's calling for you on the stage. So I pop up on the stage.
Well, everybody goes crazy. It was like, oh, my gosh.
So I walk over. I'm like waving to the crowd.
And so I shook his ass. I said, hey, good job, Mr.
Trump. Kill it, man.
It was awesome. And I go to pull away.
He doesn't let go of my hand. He just holds it.
And I'm like, you're in the Trump trap. And I'm going, uh-oh.
And he's holding it. He goes, hey, hey, hey.
He goes, hey, I got something. He said, do y'all know who this is? And everybody goes, this is the biggest television star in america everybody's going crazy you know he said here's a willy robert duck dialer stay out he said i got one question for willy and i'm like yeah and i'm like oh please he goes do you love? And just hands me the microphone.

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Don't ever. Tucker, my brain is going so fast.
I'm like, because here's the situation. We've got 10,000 people here.
They're all there to see him. They're all there to see me.
And now he's asked me this super awkward question. I'm like, I've already endorsed Bobby Jindal.
I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And so I lean up to the mic and I go, yeah. Yeah, I do like me some Trump.
And everybody cheers, you know. And I said, and Trump's behind me with his hands on my shoulder.

He's ready

to like that. If I say the wrong

things, throw me away.

And I said, here's the deal.

Me and Mr. Trump have three things

in common.

We both had successful television

shows. We both were successful at

business. And we both married people that look way better than we do.
Thank you, Oklahoma City. I'm out here.
And so I walk off to the deal. And I'm still just like literally kind of shaking from the whole experience.
And I get in the stairway and my buddy's going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that just happened. and my phone just immediately starts going crazy just buzzing buzzing and so i'm looking at it and i'm like oh no you know what have i started now it's all my buddies going oh my gosh we just saw you on tv oh my god you're on tv and when i'm sending a screenshot trump's behind me with a sign you know and he's behind me like this and then there's's my wife's.
And I went, oh, no. And she said, did you just endorse Donald Trump for president? And so I just screenshot the picture with Trump.
I sent it to her and I said, no, why would you say that? She was like, do not get on stage. And there I am on the stage.
And the next day, I got in an Uber car in Oklahoma city to go to the airport. I'm sitting right beside this driver, little old guy.
He looks at me, he goes, what'd you fellas do last night? And I said, we went to the Oklahoma state fair. He goes, so did I.
He goes, I went to see Donald Trump. I said, did you? He goes, he's going to be the next president of the United States.
I said, you think so? He said, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
We believe in him. He's going to be the president.
I said, do you see that dude that got up in the middle of the speech? I missed part of his face. He goes, you know who that was? Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty.
He flew in just to endorse Donald Trump for president.

And I said, really?

He goes, oh yeah, he's a huge fan of Mr. Trump.

Yeah, he's a big television guy.

And I said, sir, do you know who I am?

He looks at me and goes, no idea.

I said, I'm that dude.

I was on the stage.

And I thought he was going to freak out. He goes, you had a different bandana on.
I said, I did have a different bandana. He goes, yeah, yeah, I didn't recognize you with that other bandana on.
That's how I met Trimble. Have you ever met him again? I have, yeah.
I saw him a couple more times. He did, well, Don Jr.
came to the house and hunted. That one we set up.
We set up Phil. Well, Phil made me so mad, my dad.
So, Dad, I go, so Don Jr. is going to come duck hunt with us.
He goes, I'm coming down. Let's duck hunt.
It's perfect. We set it up.
Well, I'm going to Mexico for my anniversary. Four days.
Four days I'm in Mexico. So I go to Mexico.
Yeah, and your phones are all jacked up down there. You know, it's like numbers come in.
So I'm leaving the Mexico airport, coming to America. I get this call.
But it doesn't say who it is. I answer it.
This dude is talking so fast. I'm like, he is nowhere within a thousand miles of where I live in the South.
It was a Northern accent. He is.
And I'm like, now I'm like, who is this? He goes, it's Don Jr. I said, Hey, what's up? I said, we all know Don.
He goes, I don't know if I can come. I don't know.
I don't know. We're still, we've got to figure out.
I said, oh, what happened? He was like, because of what your dad did. I'm like, I've been gone for four days.
I'm like, four days. Who has he offended? What has he done? And I can't understand this about my dad.
He lives on the end of a dead end street, does not have a cell phone, does not have a computer. But somehow he can get messages out all over the world, like instant.
It's amazing how he can do this. I'm like, what did he do? He said, he endorsed Ted Cruz.
I said, no. I was like, where did that come from? He goes, there's commercials.
I said, there's commercials. In four days, he has met Ted Cruz, and he has endorsed Ted Cruz.
And there's commercials. He goes, yes, they're playing right now.
So I pull up the commercial. Phil's in the duck blind.
So it's Ted Cruz. And they've all got a face, but Ted Cruz has got this face.
But he doesn't look like he's in play. He's like, he looks scared to death.
Everyone's like, got shoes in their back, you know, spits come out of their mouth, and then there's Ted Cruz, like the two smiles on a face paint. And so Phil in the question goes, we're voting for Ted Cruz.
He's a brother in Christ. We're all voting for him.
And it insinuates, like, we're all. Like, the whole Duck Dicey crew is voting for him.
I'm not there, obviously. I'm in Mexico.
I went, oh, my gosh. So I call the house.
Mom answers the phone. I said, Mom, where's Phil? He's in the woods.
I said, well, crap, I got to talk to him. She goes, hey, you can go try to find him.
She goes, what's wrong with you? I said, he just made a commercial with Ted Cruz. These are things you have to tell me.
You have to let me in on. And she goes, oh, no, he knew he was going to be mad over that.
He knew you liked Trump. But Ted Cruz showed up with a bunch of TV cameras.
I don't know. The next thing I know, I said, well, Mom, he said we're all voting for him.
We're not all voting. She goes, no, no, no.
He didn't mean all you boys. He meant all the Christians.
I said, Mom, I'm a Christian. Well, you know know what i mean so okay so we so we set up so we set up uh so don jr finally kind of he's like all right i'm because he was like i'm not coming down there if you're endorsing you know it was it was awkward so i said oh we're gonna we're gonna set up that good so we're gonna burn him on this one Don Jujan comes down, Doug hunts.
And, you know, he lights out. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I knew it. oh, we're going to set up dad good, so we're going to burn him on this one.
Don Jr. comes down, duck hunts.

And, you know, he's lights out.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I knew it.

So, you know, his hood's on now.

So dad's blown away.

That's good.

By what a good shot Don is.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And so I reached out to Hannity.

I said, Hannity, I said, put me and Phil on the show.

I'm backing Trump. He's backing Cruz, apparently.
And I said, I'm going to set that sucker up. So we get on the show.
Dad and I are going after it. And I said, hang on.
I said, I got one question to ask Phil since we're on the show. I said, Phil recently went duck hunting with Ted Cruz.
And he also went hunting with Trump. I just said Trump.
I didn't say Doug. I just said Trump.
I said, Dad, who exactly is the better hunter? Phil said, ain't a doubt about it. That cat from New York can shoot, son.
So I got him saying that Cruz wasn't a good duck. Because I asked Dad, he said, oh, yeah, he couldn't hit the broad side of a bar.
And finally,

Cruz dropped out, thank goodness.

And so then

Phil came on board.

Has he been on board ever since? He has been.

He has been.

I mean, is there anyone in the world

that, I mean, I think things have changed

since then, of course. But like the world

that you live in is probably pretty much 100% Trump at this point. Yeah, I mean, down there, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, well, now it is for sure. Did you have a lot of friends voting Kamala Harris? Yeah, I mean, just because I know a lot of people outside of Louisiana.
No, I mean in Louisiana. Yeah, all my TV friends.
I mean, yeah, I've done tons of TV. I mean, just because I know a lot of people outside of Louisiana.

No, I mean in Louisiana.

Yeah, all my TV friends. I mean, yeah, I've done tons of TV.

I mean, so, yeah, I've got friends all over who were, and we had great debates, but it's the way it should be. Like, we debate.
We love each other. We're friends.
And I can certainly look at Trump and call them like, that doesn't make sense, or that's not how I feel, or that's not what I would say, or that's ugly, or that's unkind, or whatever it is. And this year I was staying out of it.
I really was, because of the book. Because when I wrote this book and I said, I don't want to get pulled in.
I want this message to come out. I want the mess of the gospel.
And I don't want it to get gummed up with and i understand you know because i was involved i was the first speaker in the 2016 convention i was the first you were you don't remember no that powerful message that i gave golly tucker where were you i think i was just in a cloud of euphoria i was the first speaker and you and now you gotta remember 16 when i went out there they were like all right look we don't know how this is gonna go remember because they were fighting they were they didn't know whether they're gonna walk off or oh yeah so they were like good luck willie because i was the first guy out like i was the first guy on the stage and don jr called now he said hey my father wants you to speak at the convention i was like and i i was gathering my breath to say no because i was just going to be like no because in my mind i thought it was like 45 minutes i was like i don't have 45 minutes in me on politics you know and i'm going and i said uh i said let me check my schedule that's what i said let me check my schedule and, check your schedule, and they'll get back with you. So, like, the next day, someone calls, some lady calls and says, hey, so we've got you scheduled.
You're the first speaker. And I'm fixing to tell her, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I didn't say yes, you know? And she goes, you're the first one up. You go for three minutes.
And I went, three minutes? That's a commercial break. Yeah, of course I'll do three minutes, you know? And so I was, yeah, I was the first speaker in the 16th.
What'd you say? I can't even remember. I mean, it was nothing.
It was like, I really don't. Did you think he was going to win that year? I did.
Did you think he was going to win this year? I did. Why? Well, I thought he had a really good i mean i was a little i called it at 8 33 central time that night when i saw virginia north carolina i said it's over virginia was close i was like it's over yeah i mean that i just i wasn't sure about north carolina that was the only state that confuses me sometimes but virginia i mean i think he was winning like you know yeah like early on I was like oh it's a I wasn't sure about North Carolina.
That was the only state that confuses me sometimes. But Virginia, I think he was winning.
Early on, I was like, oh. And I told my family, I texted my friends, I said, Trump wins.
It's over. But yeah, I had a good sense about it.
It felt like it did in 16. I was just kind of looking at the culture and looking at what people were saying i was like he's got a lot of people that are you know because it wasn't as it wasn't as weird as it was before like that was kind of cool it was like people you weren't ostracized as much i mean 16 i mean there was it was people did not like him in 20 oh my gosh but you.
But you had that COVID. I mean, the whole COVID.
And I said that year, probably earlier that year, somebody asked me who I thought was going to win. I said, oh, Trump.
I said, Trump's got this. There's no way he can lose.
The economy's strong. We're safe.
We're not in a war. I said, that's it.
That's game over. I said, unless something really weird happens.
I said that. Like they manufacture a virus in China.
And then the weird thing happened. And there you go.
And. But.
I went to bed last time thinking. I went to bed in 20 thinking.
I was like oh it's over. So you fell asleep before they shut down.
Yeah I woke up and I was like uh oh. The polling places.
And I was like uh oh. So here's a question you shouldn't have to think about, but probably do.
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you should do it we have

did anyone in the you know in Louisiana have questions about that election?

2020.

All of them.

It's kind of what I thought.

We've all got questions.

But I don't understand what it is.

I've listened to people over time.

There's tons of people who question that stuff.

Always.

They question, was it done right? I didn't realize it was a crime to question just to make sure, hey, did everything, did I do that right?

Because it seemed strange. Maybe it wasn't, but it was strange.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think the people in Louisiana are all like, hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, it was pretty awkward. Got a few cities were waiting.
We'll let you know tomorrow. How much are we behind? Yeah.
They had to tally the number of votes they needed. So what's the new show? Yeah, we are getting back into production.
It's kind of like the next generation of Duck Dynasty. So my kids are older.
Well, so since 2017, 2024, yeah, a lot's happened. The cast has grown up.
And then everybody else is still around. And so, yeah, so back with A&E, we met, and they said, hey, you guys interested in kind of redoing the show? And felt like the time was right.
Met with the family, prayed about it, was like, I think so. The kids were excited and said, yeah, let's show.
You know, realized know realize tucker what um you know we talk about it's a long show and it's like it's hard work whatever you know um i mean it's a lot but man when you talk to people and they tell you like how much that meant to them and how much i can't tell you how many people just like it was what my dad and i watched together yeah my. Yeah.
When my mom passed away, it was like the only thing that we could laugh at together. And we watched as a family.
And I have, like, 25-year-olds. Even here, I mean, these kids are like, you know, when I was 18, I watched every show y'all had.
And it was just, you know, watching the prayer at the end. Just watching our family be positive with our, you know, the roles were correct.
And it wasn't a lot of, you know, just darkness and stuff that people watch. And it wasn't just a train wreck.
And so it's really inspiring. You're like, oh, man, you know, it's good to make something, especially when it came out originally.
You know, it was pretty much a little bright light amongst a lot of, you know, some dark stuff out there, some dark TV. So I think when you can do that and you can provide that for people.
There's no pressure at all from your corporate masters to change anything or make it different. No, I mean, to be honest with you, I feel stronger now than I would then because they know who we are.
Yeah. I mean, they know what we're all about.
It's not like, I mean, back then they didn't know. They were like, I think they're religious.
I think, you know. Yeah.
But now, obviously, over the past, well, crap, since the last 12 years, you know where we stand. You know what our morals are.
You know what's important to us. And we have a lot of followers.
You know what I'm saying? Like, we have social media for Sadie has millions of people. You know, my kids have followers.
They, you know, so a lot of people are interested in that. And they're interested in, I think, they want to be entertained, but they also, you know, I think they learn stuff.
I think they can watch and learn, you know. A lot of people that watch our show are like, we never prayed.
We never prayed before a meal. We didn't even know.
And we started trying that. Probably more often than not, even the praying, they rarely ever sat down and even ate together anymore.
That's a gone. That's the saddest thing.
They were like, we never even had dinner. Everybody's just grabbing it and going, you know, meet you there, meet you at the deal, go to the ballpark, you know.
And so this whole idea of just sitting down and just spending time with each other at dinner was becoming a foreign concept. And so I think people can learn and they can be like, oh, that's, you know, maybe they can't, they don't have the family we do.
Maybe they don't have, maybe everybody doesn't live there like that.

But they can kind of live through that and kind of, you know, start their own, you know, traditions or doing something more as a family and realizing, you know, the importance of it.

And then also just taking a break and not, you know, I think what I love about Dagnostic was we didn't take ourselves too seriously.

We had fun.

We laughed. And, oh, God, I mean, do we need that? I mean, we need some, you know, everybody's so serious.
I think if you had written this book 10 years ago, it would have seemed pretty weird. You know, why is the reality TV show writing a book about spreading the gospel? Right.
It does not seem weird now. Do you think the country's changed? I think it's changing.
Yeah, I think it's certainly changing. I think people are looking for answers.
That's why I wrote the book. I think we get so lethargic, and some of this was even in churches.
They just get lethargic, and they get off. You've got to know what your goal is and kind of what you're here for and what's your mission, you know, what's your mission in life.
Well, and I take my mission from Matthew 28, which is labeled as the Great Commission. And Jesus says, go out and make disciples of all nations, baptize people, teach people.
Three things, three specific ideas. Make disciples, baptize people, teach people.
So those are the last things he said before he left, like make sure you do this. So when that's your mission, you just think about what you've got to do to accomplish those three things.
You're probably going to have to have conversations with people. If you're going to make a disciple out of them, if you're going to baptize them, if you're going to teach them, you're going to have to have some sort of conversation.
And so what I find is people, if your mission in life is, as a Christian, if you're like, well, I try to go to church as often as I can. I try to be a good person.
Nothing in and of itself wrong with that. That's not a mission.
And what happens is the mission becomes a little self. I go to church so I can listen, so I can learn, so I can try to get through my week, you know, and everything becomes inward.
Those three things Jesus said were outward. It's out, out, out.
Other people, other people, other people, not just you. It's other people.
And again, back to my father who was sitting at a bar, the guy drives up there. Why? Why? He's not going to be a member of his church.
He doesn't have any money. He's a reprobate, you know, who's got a terrible reputation.
What drove him to drive up there, that hour drive, walk into that bar? What drove him to do that? It was just for him. Just for that guy.
And I thought, wow. I don't know if I would, would I try? But he did that.
It literally changed my life. It changed my whole family's life.
And if that would have been it, I'm not a big prosperity guy. And look what God has done.
Look at what he gave us. It paid off.
It didn't matter. If it just changed our life and kept our family together, worth it.

Nobody knows if we aren't worth it.

I got to see my dad and grow up with two parents, worth it.

And you look over time as then dad took that and then never went about this for money or fame or anything.

In fact, really pushed that away more than embraced it. Even when I told you the show.
And he's like, no, you know. And that was a little different, too, with us.
Like, we didn't go. An email was sent to us.
A company came to us. The network came to us.
We weren't trying to go become famous. And so you see a lot today, you know, people are like, I'll do whatever it takes to get famous, you know.

And so there's no authenticity there.

It's like, we want you to do this.

Fine, I'll do it.

Will I be famous?

Yes, then I'll do it, you know.

Why would you want to be famous?

Why would who?

Anyone.

Oh.

I don't know.

It seems like a lot of people, I mean, from social media.

Yeah, people do. Yeah, people want to be famous.
What do you think of it? You are famous. What do you think of it? It has its good parts about it.
What are those? The people I've been able to meet. Yeah.
I wouldn't know you if I wasn't. Yeah.
You wouldn't have invited me on this podcast had I not had a TV show. I don't know, I ran into you in an elevator in Nashville.
That's true. But you thought I was a homeless guy.
I did, yeah. You put money in my coffee cup.
Which was filled with dip spit. I did.
I spit in my cup and you said, you looked at me and you said, did you spin your cup? First word you said to me, you said, did you spin that cup? Anyone who dips in an elevator is a potential friend of mine.

That's how I feel about it.

And you started doing your little maniacal laugh, and you started laughing so hard.

And it was so funny, because of all the people I was expecting to see, it wasn't you.

Catch you do.

I didn't expect to catch Willie Robertson dipping in an elevator, but that was it.

I was headed to my room. I had been promoting book and uh and you happened to be there as well which is how this all ended up and i think god you know i don't know i think god works like that i think he puts people together and you know just seems too weird to me not so i think there's those opportunities that people have and they meet and some you take advantage of some you don't some you miss, some of you miss, some of you're like, oh, crap, you know.
And, but I just, I don't know. I mean, well, he did that in the Bible, you know.
Yeah. There was things moving around.
And so it could be for that person, could be for someone else, could be for something completely different, you know, some situation that maybe needs to get out. And so, but it was interesting that I had written this book.
I had decided this year I'm not jumping in this book, even though it was so tempting. Everybody tried to get me to, you know, let's go, you know.
And I'd really just said, no, I'm not. And I'm just going to promote this book.
And then I meet you, and then you said, hey, you should come on the podcast, and it was scheduled for a few months ago. And I went, I'm going to get pulled into the politics.
I was like, I said, I'm going to get pulled into this thing. And then as it turned around and spun around, we still did podcasts after the election, and then, you know, and that was kind of the commitment I made.
Just don't get so involved. Because I didn't want the message.
I don't care what. I really don't care.
Like, if it's the gospel or some political agenda, I'm going with the gospel every time. Because this is the power.
This is, you know, if we can change people's, you know, I just saw it. I mean, it changed me, but it like somebody like my father can change people's lives and turn them into completely different people.

And so that's what I want to get to people, you know.

Politics turns people into completely different people, too, but rarely for the better.

Right.

I mean, it has its place and it, you know, and I'm not casting aspersions on people who want our country to be a great country. But I'm not even one that says we have to, everything's got to be, like you have to have Christians in every position.
I mean, no, that's okay. I mean, we can work together and figure that out.
Let the gospel do what it does and let politics do what it does and let government, you know. So almost like render under Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God.
Exactly. Where do you get that? Yeah.
Because, and that's the thing, back to mission. So I'm into that mission.
Make disciples, baptize people, teach people. Not to, you know, I think if Jesus wanted us to just make sure your government is, he would have talked about it, right? Yeah.
When I said, let's lay out a plan and all that. Because it was, you know, under these governmental things that he was going to end up being crucified anyway.

So, and those things are, they're of the world.

I mean, they're, you know, they're here and they come and they die and they go away and they change and, you know, stuff happens.

And, you know, I was like, if we, if that's where we end up, and I do think there's a lot of darkness for sure.

But they need the gospel. They don't need a better program from D.C., you know, and that's what will change it.
Oh, look, now families are staying together, and, you know, it's not going to be that way, and it's going to be when the church wakes up and decides to go out and have that kind of mission, you know, is to go after. But we can't hate each other.
That's the problem. We can't hate each other.
Because that's the deal, man. I can't.
And I saw that so much in this one. God, I got roasted.
I mean, people would get in my face. And if I said the wrong, like if I said, oh, I'm not, I'm writing this book and I'm not doing as much with, and people would just be like, what? This country, we're not going to have a country tomorrow.
But what I don't like about the thing, it's like my fault. It's like they're telling me it's my fault that I'm like, how's it my fault, you know? And that's where we got to.
And then it was just bullying everybody. Everybody's just bullying everybody.
I mean, you certainly saw that with, you know, the Democrats being bullied. You better vote this way.
You know, like, we're telling you what to do. And I'm just not good at people telling me what to do.
I'm like, don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me, you know, vote for, but now it's like, no, you've got to do more.
You know, you've got to go out and, you know, and do all this. I understand they're passionate and all that, but we've got to let people.
And some of that's their job is to win the vote. You know what I'm saying? But it doesn't answer the deepest questions, like what happens when you die.
Right. It doesn't address that.
When you die, yeah. Yeah, when you die.
When you die. So my last question is if, I do think a lot of people are all of a sudden wondering, like, is there something beyond what we can see, hear, feel, and taste?

I mean, is there, you know, is there a spiritual realm?

Is there a God?

And people all around me are asking those questions.

What would you recommend to them?

Like, how to pursue that?

Something stirs in you and you think, wow, maybe I should learn more. Right.
I mean, I found those answers in the Bible and particularly in the New Testament. You know, that's where I found those answers.
It comes down to the faith. Like, you've got to have this faith and you're going to have to jump and believe something that you can't see.
It's interesting how people can't do that. I remember I was talking to a guy one time.
I was having one of these conversations. I don't know if this story's in the book, but there's a lot in there.
We're having this story, and he's like, I don't believe in faith. I don't see it.
I don't believe it, you know? And he had just gotten married, and we're at a hunting camp.

And I said, where's your wife right now?

And he's like, she's at home.

I said, I bet she's with another guy.

And he said, no, she's.

I love how you proselytize.

Yeah.

And he said, no, she's not.

And he gets, I can tell he's mad.

He's like, well, yeah.

He's been married like six months. I said, oh, no, for sure.
She's with another guy, like, no doubt. And he goes, no, she's not.
You know, what are you doing? I said, how do you know she's not? He goes, because I trust her. And I said, so you do have faith in something that you can't see.

And he went, I've never thought about it that way.

He was an atheist.

He said, I'm an atheist.

I don't believe in any of this stuff.

So it was just a small move, though.

We moved him off of that position.

Now we have moved him to there are some things that even though I can't see it, I have faith and I trust it. Why do more preachers not start with that? I bet your wife's sleeping with somebody else.
That works. Maybe they don't go to enough hunting camps.
I mean, for me, though, what else? I mean, like, he's an atheist. What else do I say? Okay, good luck with that.
Let me know how that works for you, you know. I mean, I'm trying to think of, Paul says in the New Testament, Paul who knew the gospel better than anybody who's a writer, and he says, pray for me that the mystery of the gospel can come out of my mouth more clearly.
He's praying that it can come out more clearly. And my question is, why? Why is he, he knows this stuff.
Like he wrote it. You know, he's writing because some weren't obeying it.
Some weren't getting it. He's going, hmm.
So you have to keep coming at, like, keep asking more questions. Maybe I'm not asking the right questions.
I did that. There's a story in the book, a beautiful story of a guy that I just kept, I kept trying to, he had problems with his brain.
Like he had lesions on his, I thought he was going to die. And I was like, he's going to die.
And I don't think he's a Christian. I don't think he's a believer.
And so I'm just like, hey man, have you thought about heaven? He would say the same thing every time to me. Well, he who had not sinned cast the first stone.
That's what he he would say he was quoting a scripture and i knew what that meant that's that's redneck for i don't want to hear what you gotta say yeah i'm not interested and i was like so i could have thought well i tried you know i get to heaven i tried remember i told you four times and every time he would just divert divert divert wall and so finally we're in a car we're in New York City working on a business deal we're talking about money he's super rich guy we're talking about money he's over at him smoking he's like we're gonna make so much money I was just like it was just like he was so excited about it you know I look at him and I asked I said how I said how And he said, I'm 58 years old. And I said, I bet you're going to be dead in 14 years.
He just looks back. He goes, what? I said, I bet you're going to be dead in 14 years.
He goes, why would you say that? And I said, the way you live? I said, but you're, I mean, I'm just guessing, but I said, have you ever thought about that? Like, what's going to happen then? What happens then? I said, we just did an investment. Are you investing anything beyond here or just here? He goes, I've never thought about that before.
You know what he didn't say? He who had not sinned cast the first stone. We got past that.
Yeah, you did. We finally got past that.
And I was like, if we get past that. And so we get to the hotel.
We're in Manhattan. And then he goes, can you come up and tell me more about that? I said, yeah.
So to my room i'll get my bible i go to his room i sit down and that's the very i got like seven verses it's not it's not a lot just and i just start reading them to him he just stands up in the hotel round i forget it and he yells his wife she's in bed he goes i'm getting baptized and's midnight. We're like, we're in Central Park.
I don't know where, I got to go find some water here, you know, which I was ready. I was like, we'll go find some.
And I said, well, let's go, I guess, we're in a hotel in New York City. I said, we'll go find some water.
And he said, no, no, I got to tell everybody I know that what's fixing to happen. This is the same guy I've been working on for years.
And he's like, and now he's saying, and he emailed everybody he knows. Everybody.
So finally, a month later, I show up to his house. The big house.
There's people everywhere. People from New York, people from LA, Florida.
People have shown up because he said, I'm getting baptized. Come watch this.
So I get there and I walk up and everybody gabs around and goes, Willie, tell them what you told me of that hotel room that night. I said, yeah, no problem.
So I go through that. So his wife gets baptized.
Daughter gets baptized.

He gets baptized.

He's anybody else.

They just start streaming in the blue jeans, taking their boots off.

Just over and over and over.

Just like what's happened in the Bible.

You see that in the book of Acts.

It's like 25 people that night over that conversation. But I didn't stop that conversation.
When you don't hear it, you just keep on. And plus, I'm still there.
Sometimes it takes 20 minutes. Sometimes it takes two hours.
Sometimes it takes 20 years because I don't give up on anybody because they didn't give up on dad. I would have given up on Phil a long time ago.
said forget that sucker he needs to go to jail you know but that dude didn't give up his sister didn't give up on him that guy went up there and talked to him and it changed my whole life and so i never give up on anybody you never know you never know when that time is and they're like oh no and they're ready and they're like so we're just really planting, Tucker. I'm just planting the seeds, because I'm ready.
I want to make disciples. I want to baptize people.
I want to teach people. That's what I'm doing.
So everything I look at in life, where does it fall in that category? This book does. The TV show does.
The stuff that my kids do. The family stuff.
All of it can fall through there, and that's where I want it. It's way more than going to church and, you know, having some look and being a Christian.

Way more than that.

That's like an hour a week.

That's nothing.

Like, I'm like, how about this?

You take your hour.

Don't go to church.

I want you for the other six days.

And we'll go change the world, you know.

But people got a bad idea on that.

They're thinking, isn't it just like you show up an hour? I mean, try that in your marriage. Try that with your kid.
Try to see him an hour, you know, and see if that gets you enough to get through. And so it's just a bigger idea and it's a bigger concept.
And then when you're in that moment, when you're there with people and you watch their lives change, and then you watch the fruit of that come out of it, it's a good, it's like a high. I mean, you're just like, that's what it's all about.
That's the kind of stuff to where you're then going, there is hope. And so I live my life based on there's hope in something beyond.
If it's not, it's not. And I've hopefully lived a great life.
I have great friends. I've, you know, my faith and the principles of the Bible has probably kept me out of a lot of misery and hell and, you know, bad stuff.
But I'm thinking that there is. I see evidence everywhere.
I see evidence everywhere, you know. Like what? I mean, I just, I can see it in people's lives.
I can, you know, If Jesus lives in us, the Holy Spirit lives in us, I can see it in their lives. I can see this.
I can see people doing this. I'm like, why would you do that? Like, why? Like, there's no advantage.
It's not financial advantage. I'm seeing them share and do things and sacrifice.
And I see that. For each other.
Yeah, for each other, for other people. And for, you know, I can see it.

I can feel it.

Like I can, at times I feel stuff too.

I feel, you know, like it just seems like,

I'm like, wow, that's a lot of,

I can't help but think

something was going on with Trump.

Like there was a lot of weird,

turn your head the right way. We were shooting birds today.
How close is that? Too close. I mean, to who knows what would happen.
Who knows what today would look like. You know what I'm saying? Like, who knows? So it just, you know, I'm not, I'm just saying it looked like God was doing something there.
I don't know. I don't know what it is.
I don't know. You know, but that's the faith part.
I think sometimes, Tucker, I think we think our goal is to try to figure it out. No.
Like we're like, we have to know.

We got to read the signs.

And we got to, everybody was wanting to know like what's going to happen.

Even with our country, like where will we be in 20 years?

It's like we want to know.

But there's too many factors.

Like you have to have faith.

It's impossible.

You can't figure that out.

You got to live.

I can always look back and it makes sense.

I'm like, oh, wow, that made sense.

But looking forward, that's the, and if,, that's the message that I'm going to.

But somebody's been sharing this message for 2,000 years.

We're halfway around the globe from where it happened and still talking about it.

True.

They had no money.

They had no fame.

They weren't soldiers.

They didn't even speak the same language.

We're speaking a different language.

We are sitting here today halfway across the globe, and we're still talking about it.

I'm still writing books about it, living our lives on it, and professing it. It just, that's a big deal.
I haven't seen that with anything else. Everything else 2,000 years ago, we don't even know what it is.
They're gone.

It's just gone. We don't know their names.

Not at all.

Willie Robertson, thank you very much.

Awesome.

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