Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
The Assassination Attempt on President Trump
What if the political landscape as we know it is teetering on the edge of chaos? Join me on this special episode of Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates as we navigate through a momentous day fraught with attempts to silence, ruin, imprison, and even eliminate a key political figure. This episode is a call to move beyond political sides and focus on true leadership, unity, and critical thinking.
We'll delve into the broader implications of Trump's impact on the political power dynamics in Washington D.C., and the disturbing reality that high-profile political assassinations are not unheard of in U.S. history. We also dissect a significant security breach during the rally, questioning how a shooter could bypass extensive measures, and the need for a thorough investigation to understand how close we came to a national tragedy.
Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:
Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance
They tried to silence him and failed. They tried to financially ruin him and they failed. They tried to throw him in prison and they failed. And today they tried to assassinate him, and they have failed. Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously. It's been a historic and truly tragic day.
Travis Yates:I don't generally talk about politics here, and I want to tell you why. First off, there's not many good things about leadership when it comes to politics. It's about the opposite of the leadership we're trying to promote here in that arena, and it just doesn't do a lot of good. And plus, I kind of subscribe to the Michael Jordan quote that Republicans buy sneakers too. When he was asked why he wasn't endorsing a certain political candidate, that was what he said. And there's just no reason to bring up politics when what we're trying to accomplish is the exact opposite of what most politics is. I don't care about left, I don't care about right, I care about what's right, and that's what we try to do here. I also acknowledge that I can tell from the data that many of you are listening to this as soon as it drops. I'm very thankful for that and there, but also some of you that I know, listen to every episode when it drops, and I appreciate that you obviously have subscribed on your favorite platform and you're notified of that because I get those notifications almost immediately when these things go out that you are listening. So I'm thankful and I just wanted to spend a few minutes with you tonight, probably because it is something historically to look back on and what people were saying, to kind of bring you some quick thoughts to this, and I want to discuss the why, the how and the what.
Travis Yates:What happened, how did it happen and why did it happen, and everyone tonight has an opinion. I understand that. I'm going to try to bring some logic to that in really an illogical world. That's kind of the world we're in and that's what we seem to talk about all the time on this show is how insane the world has gotten, but folks, the game is over of time on this show is how insane the world has gotten, but folks, the game is over. It is literally between life and death, with people that don't have the logic and doing what they do.
Travis Yates:We wanted to talk to you about some of that First off. This will be a moment that everyone will know where they were when this occurred. It really is, I really the seminal moment in history. It's hard to describe my feelings right now A mixture of anger, distress and, amongst other things, it's late. It's almost midnight when I'm recording this. I don't think I'll be asleep anytime soon, and I doubt many of you around the country are feeling the same way.
Travis Yates:And this has nothing to do with politics and what side of the aisle you're on. We've become a country to where that seems to matter. It's a team sport, right. If you're on team left or team right, you're down for the cause, no matter what. And that is crazy when you think about it, and it was something that's kind of unique to our country For so many years. Yeah, people had political sides, but they sort of had a brain of right and wrong when it came down to it, and we have gotten in this position. It's a low point in American history and I think it makes sense to discuss it briefly.
Travis Yates:So where was I? I woke up, it was a Saturday morning and I had a great morning. I went on about an hour ruck, we had a church event that we went to, a volunteer event and my wife we're big baseball fans. I'm a big Dodger fan and we found out that Clayton Kershaw, the future Hall of Fame pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was doing a rehab stint in Oklahoma City, a couple hours from me. So we bought the tickets and the whole family was in the car driving to Oklahoma City a couple hours from me. So we bought the tickets and the whole family was in the car driving to Oklahoma City. And we had Sirius Radio. We had Fox on Sirius listening to the Trump rally, and I don't think we would ever do that in the past. But President Trump has brought very interesting dynamics to politics and I'm going to kind of express to you what that is. In the car with me I have my 21-year-old son and my 13-year-old son and they just crack up when they listen to President Trump.
Travis Yates:Now, as a kid, I do not remember ever wanting to watch a president speak, right, whether it's a press conference or a rally or whatever it was. In fact, I don't think I even I know for a fact. I didn't listen to a president speak till I was 19 years old. I remember the first presidential rally. It was actually a vice presidential rally. I went to Dan Quayle. That's a blast from the past. I was 19. It was kind of the first one I ever listened to.
Travis Yates:Oh my, I got young kids but they just think he's funny. They kind of think he's a little bit gangster and he says funny stuff and it's all in fun and they just to them it's not a mess about politics, he's entertaining to them and that's what's intrigued me about the president. It's such a different, out of your box type style that you know some people seem to get really highly offended by, which is weird to me. I see it for what it is. He's a, he's a entertainer, no-transcript. So we had it playing in the car and he was speaking.
Travis Yates:It was early in his speech and all of a sudden he stopped speaking suddenly mid-sentence and I could hear the audio of the rounds going off immediately Sensory. It was pretty insane. I mean I can almost still hear this in my ears because I wasn't watching it. So I didn't have a reference point. But within a second or two of his stop talking like that and hearing what I heard, I obviously recognized the rounds. I looked at my wife. I said get this on TV right now.
Travis Yates:They just tried to kill the president and of course it felt like eternity for her to get on her phone and try to find it, and it didn't take her long, in fact. Of course, my worst fear is because I could then hear the crowd, just people screaming. I could hear the shuffle, I could hear everything, the video that is being seen now. I could just hear that and, man, I can't really describe the feeling. I guess if you were watching it, that was one feeling, but it was even scarier when you didn't have the visual of it, because I thought the worst. And by the time she got it up, it wasn't long. He was actually still down and she says oh my gosh, he's down. And my heart sank because I heard the number of rounds. I didn't know at the time that the second volley was from law enforcement, so I heard the number of rounds. When she said he's down, obviously my worst fears had come true. Now I want to back up a little bit. I told personal friends that this was my fear and let me tell you why. I said that my phone blew up after this, and I'm not the only one that said that.
Travis Yates:Tucker Carlson asked him point blank about it. Hey, they tried to throw you in jail. It didn't work. Lawfare didn't work. What's next? There's only one thing next, and Trump kind of played that off at the time. He talked about how evil people were, but he didn't care about that. But I recognize that for some reason. Well, I know the reason. I think I know why they don't want him in there. It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with he's not them and he threatens the power dynamic in Washington DC. I think you'd have to be an idiot to not understand that. Right, this is not about left or right. It's about the fact he's not them and whatever they've been doing for 50, 60 years in that godforsaken city, he doesn't participate in that.
Travis Yates:And let's not act like we haven't been involved in assassinations before. I mean it's common knowledge. The CIA assassinated John F Kennedy. That may be the first time you heard that. By the way, go look that up. I mean RFK is talking about that. They still sealed the records. It's just almost common knowledge, which is weird. We don't talk about that more.
Travis Yates:So I was my worst, you know. So this was already in the back of my mind. I was already concerned and, by the way, it's not just me. A lot of people have talked about this Tucker Carlson, dan Bongino. I have sources inside the Secret Service that have expressed extreme concerns with me because they were not convinced that the protection was at the level it should have been.
Travis Yates:So in that three or four second time period, I knew that's probably what had occurred and then when he stood up, you know, obviously we were all relieved and once again, I don't care about your politics, regardless of your politics, if you're not relieved when you saw that there's something wrong with you. I doubt you're listening. By the way, you're probably not listening to what I have to say. If that's you, I hope I don't have too many deranged people listen to this. But and of course, you course everybody has seen by now what you saw when he got up, and we'll talk about just the symbolic nature of that. That blows my mind what we saw when he got up from that, and that's where I was.
Travis Yates:And of course we go to the game, we enjoy ourselves, but everybody's on our phone. They do a rendition of God Bless America in one of the innings and a chant of USA goes out in a small minor league field in Oklahoma City. You get a sense that something has changed and shifted right. My gosh, I hope it has. And so everybody. That is what happened. Everybody by now knows what happened. Everybody by now knows what happened. You've seen what happened.
Travis Yates:They tried to blow the head off of a former president live on television and, my friends, they came within centimeters of doing it. If you haven't watched the slow video of him tilting his head slightly, you need to see that I it is chilling to watch because anybody out there I know most of you in law enforcement understand that the the physics of this. When you look at the angle, he tilts his head. That bullet was on its course to kill him and he tilts his head. That bullet was on its course to kill him and he tilts his head just as God's hand seemed to be on it, just slightly right before that occurs. It's just centimeters of a successful assassination of an American president, which I was hopeful could never occur. But I have my doubts. I'm going to tell you why as I talk to you about the how.
Travis Yates:How did A prone shooter with a long gun Get on, get high ground, one hundred and thirty yards from a former president and a current nominee for president? How did that happen, 130 yards away? Folks, I've been around presidential details before that does not happen. You would have a better chance of getting a weapon inside a rally than an exterior 130 yards away. I hope that come Monday the head of the Secret Service, who used to be a protectee for the Cheetos Corporation, is in front of Congress somewhere. How did that happen? I saw a video.
Travis Yates:I don't know the complete context of it, but here's what it appears to me. It appears that because let me just quickly tell you about the exterior of one of these events you don't get to be above the interior. Obviously everybody's going through magnetometers. There's usually some sort of fencing or a blockade in the fence where you can't even see in and out, and then above that, outside folks. Ar has a 600-yard capacity, I mean thousands of yards outside of those events. You don't get above that fencing. For that very reason we learned that obviously in the JFK assassination they had high ground. So how does somebody get up there, 130 yards away above that fencing, with a straight shot which, by the way, with a scope, is not a difficult shot? It's amazing we don't have a dead president as I speak. I'm just blown away by it.
Travis Yates:I don't know how it happened, but we better find out how it happened. It appears that it was a man wearing fatigues, and there's some videos rolling around You've probably seen it where there were civilians that tried to point this out to law enforcement and they claimed that law enforcement didn't do anything. Now, likely what happened? This all happened within seconds. Right, it could have happened within seconds, but here's what I saw that really disturbed me when it comes to how this happened. I saw a video of a law enforcement sniper. It's behind President Trump I'm sure you've seen it and it looks like he has identified the attacker and it looks like when the attacker shoots this sniper sort of jumps. It surprised him and then, obviously, him or someone else ended up engaging about a second and a half or two seconds after that. Likely, there was no question in my mind. They had already identified a threat before that shooting happened, because that is awful quick you got to think about. There was reports that there was as many as 50,000 people at this event.
Travis Yates:If you hear a round, even if you're in law enforcement you hear a round. You don't know where that round is necessarily coming from. In law enforcement, you hear a round. You don't know where that round is necessarily coming from. So the fact that they eliminated that threat so quickly, somebody before that shot had to have identified what was going on there and you may ask yourself well, why didn't they just shoot him?
Travis Yates:I'm going to make some assumptions here because, unlike the mainstream media, I'm not going to lie to you. My assumption is first off, you have to battle psychology a little bit when you're in that position. I was not a sniper. I knew a lot of them, but even the Secret Service folks. There hasn't been an event like this for the Secret Service since the early 80s with Ronald Reagan. I mean, they train it like crazy, but when it never occurs, you know it's that low frequency event we often talk about in law enforcement where there's almost a sense of is this really happening? And of course that takes time.
Travis Yates:And I'm not going to put thoughts in any of law enforcement's mind of why this threat wasn't taken out before the shot happened, because I am almost convinced they saw this guy before those shots went off. Simply because it was such a quick elimination of that threat. Thank God it was. And I don't want to dismiss the heroic acts and the actions of law enforcement because everyone's seen the video knows that was some cool stuff, heroic stuff that you saw. But we have to ask the question how did somebody get 130 yards with a long rifle and miss murdering President Trump by a few centimeters? If we don't ask that question, there's a problem. And when I saw the video of that sniper if that is indeed what I saw, and I believe it is it looked like he had his scope trained on something in that direction. Does not appear that he engaged. The round goes off, trump goes down. Then either he or somebody else engaged.
Travis Yates:Imagine if you're sitting there and you've got comms in your ear and somebody points out this. You know they're laying down, so you're not probably seeing a full picture. They're laying down or pointing a ride, but you're looking at it, but you see fatigues. You're not seeing like. We have the luxury of hindsight of being able to see full videos of this guy at different angles. But you're at this certain angle looking dead on, and you see maybe somebody with a long gun and maybe you see partial clothing behind him and they look like maybe it's fatigue-type clothing.
Travis Yates:What is your first thought? Is that a police sniper? Because there are snipers all over the exterior. And my first thought is well, obviously, if you're 130 yards away, that's got to be a police sniper right Now. Yes, you should have known exactly where all the sniper locations are, but that's got to be the thought, because it's almost seems unbelievable that could occur. So the thoughts going in your head, that could be why we didn't just kill it, to kill this guy before he got a round off, because that's a mistake you can't make. You have to be certain right, and so we need to break that down and understand that. But that's just an explanation and it's a lot of assumptions on my part, but you're not expecting that necessarily. I know you're there for that, but you're not expecting that.
Travis Yates:That hasn't occurred in most of our lifetimes. In fact it hasn't occurred since john f kennedy, I guess, yeah, I guess, bobby kennedy, but I don't believe that was a long. But you know, obviously jf JFK was a uh. That hasn't occurred since the sixties. Others, you know, reagan was a small handgun in a, in a crowd. That just seems so improbable in the United States today, with security we have at these events, that somebody could be 130 yards away with a rifle. We have to get down to the those answers. But from the law enforcement perspective, I have to imagine that's the thought. It's like okay, I'm seeing somebody with a rifle pointed. They're wearing fatigues, they're not very far away. Well, because that law enforcement. So it would be interesting to find out. And I think we saw this target before it happened, because you do not engage and eliminate a target that quick in a crowd that big, unless somebody already had eyes on. Okay, we're going to find out more in the days to come. But let me talk about some more of the house.
Travis Yates:President Trump did not have a full presidential package when it comes to protection. I don't know the details behind that, but I know that's the case. I know for a fact that's the case. There's different packages when it comes to Secret Service details. If you're a nominee, you have a smaller package because you're not the president. When you're an ex-president, you don't have the same package as the current president. And Trump had a package kind of for a Jimmy Carter type package, so to speak, like you're a former president, you don't have all the resources, you don't have all the stuff you need. So he didn't have a full package, and there have been people in previous months that have questioned this Not me, I don't know that much about it it's not my expertise but I know for a fact he did not have a full package when it comes to the Secret Service. We have to ask why, at the same time, robert Kennedy Jr is a presidential contender with you know, it's not insignificant, he's polling 10 or 20%.
Travis Yates:For the first time in history at this point, that nominee has not been given presidential protection, secret Service protection. President Biden has denied it. Rfk said that himself. I have no reason not to believe it. He's pretty well-versed in this, considering his father was murdered right, he understands this. And there have been potential attacks on his life. Someone broke into his house. He's had other death threats and he keeps asking why aren't you protecting me Now? There's a certain point in the year where he has to get protection, but every president before President Biden has provided that protection earlier. Why isn't he getting the protection?
Travis Yates:And then here we have President Trump with not a full package on protection. What's going on there? I don't know what's going on there. It's a derelict of duty of all common sense, because there has been no president in our lifetime with the amount of death threats that President Trump has received. There's been no president in our history with the threats he has received. I know that for a fact from my sources. So with that what's going on? I hope those are answered in the coming days. The threat level against him is the highest in our history. Why doesn't he have a full package Now? Does it mean he didn't have what he needed today? I don't know that, but I know this something went wrong. There is no way, within a half a mile, anybody should be on a high rise building or in a higher level than with a president, a former president or a political candidate or anybody speaking with that level of detail of security.
Travis Yates:I'm going back and forth from anger to I don't know what's going on to what is happening, because don't believe whatever lies some may try to tell you. That does not occur in the United States of America. With the resources and the law enforcement and the training and the tactics that we have, that does not occur. I'm hearing reports that there was literally a ladder on this building where this guy crawled up. I'm hearing of witnesses that saw this. So I'm not so worried about why he wasn't shot first. I sort of told you the psychology behind that. I'm more worried about how it could even happen in the first place. So I certainly you the psychology behind that. I'm more worried about how it could even happen in the first place. So I certainly hope we get those answers.
Travis Yates:Now let's talk about the why we have listened. Now I'm going to have to have you put your big boy pants on for this one, because people get extremely emotional when you talk politics. That's the problem in everything we talk about in leadership all the time, when you make decisions by emotions. So we're going to talk facts. Regardless of which side of this you're on, you better be on the side of America today and every day forward.
Travis Yates:We have listened as a country to hoax after hoax after hoax about President Trump. I'm not making that up, it's a hoax. Go to Snoops if you want to. They'll even tell you. And they're not exactly identified with my politics either. Russia tapes, p tapes, russia collusion Very fine people. White supremacists are fine people. All of this stuff. The president of the United are fine people. All of this stuff.
Travis Yates:The president of the United States Biden, has repeated this stuff constantly and it's a documented hoax. Those are just some of the hoaxes, right? I mean some of the hoaxes, and you've all heard of it. He's a white supremacist, he's a racist, he's Hitler, he's a threat to democracy A guy that's already been president for four years, but he's all of a sudden a threat to democracy, whatever that means. The people saying he's a threat to democracy are actually the same people that are trying to take his name off a ballot, they're trying to throw a political opponent in prison. That are trying to silence you through social media, which is documented. True, all this is rhetoric, right, and that's what we're used to in politics, but it is ramped up to the level it's never been to before. Oh, and don't forget this one Our own FBI director said the biggest threat to our country are right wing extremists.
Travis Yates:Ok, what? We've all taken this because we've gotten used to it. We're used to this nonsense. Right, law enforcement suffered for that. Do I need to remind you that the FBI assault report from 2017 said that one third of all cop killers are doing it because of ideology? Do I have to remind you that Baton Rouge officers were gunned down in 2016, with the suspect saying it's because he was avenging the senseless deaths of blacks around the country by law enforcement? Do I have to remind you of all the law enforcement encounters where they've been attacked, ambushed and killed because the assailant listened to the news that told him how police are just gunning down innocent black men in the street.
Travis Yates:If you're in this profession, you are accustomed to this, and we have sat in here and we've just taken it. It's just become a part of American society that this stuff gets to be said and talked about and we get to accept it. Just this week, president Biden literally said it's time to put President Trump in a bullseye. Now, do I think he meant to kill him? Of course not. But what do you think the other side would say if something like that was said? Oh, we know, because that's what they said about Sarah Palin when she, when that graphic came out, when she started talking about something and the graphic sort of looked like a bullseye, and there was something you know a shooting happened and the media blamed her for it. She filed a defamation lawsuit on that. They got all the way to trial and right before the jury went out, the judge yanked the case right. So we know what they would do. We just sit there and take it.
Travis Yates:Folks, when you point at somebody for years and you call them a white supremacist, you call them Hitler, you call them a threat to democracy. Our very fabric of our nation will be destroyed if this man gets in office. What did you expect would happen? What did you expect? What did you expect? We're used to that rhetoric in politics. You know. Donald Trump caught sufficient heat because he likes to call people names. They're generally funny little names, right? That's not what this is Now.
Travis Yates:I have heard a lot of people mention this today and they always caveat with this. We're not saying they're to blame, but we need to ratchet down the rhetoric. Well, here's what I'm going to tell you they are to blame Because what do you expect? There is a portion in our society that are deranged lunatics. Okay, is it 1%? Is it 0.1%? You in law enforcement know this, you know this. And when you are deranged lunatic and you are told for years that this man is the biggest threat to our country that we've ever seen, it's akin to world war ii, it's akin to hitler did today?
Travis Yates:Did they not think that this was a possibility? Because I did. I've talked about it before. Tucker carlson mentioned it, other people have mentioned it. Did they think this? Oh well, maybe not have mentioned it. Did they think this. Ah well, maybe not right. Maybe it's just they ran some polling and they decided that if we just call him these names, we get more votes, because that's what our researchers and politics tell us. It could be that.
Travis Yates:But what would you say if I told you that the Democratic Party has a bill in DC that wants to take the Secret Service Protection away from President Trump? Would that not freak you out a little bit? Yeah, the bill says that if you're a convicted felon, you don't get Secret Service Protection. They want to take the Secret Service Protection away from him. Now, it's not that bill hasn't passed, but that bill has been presented on the floor of Congress. You may not even have known that. Does that not shock you? I don't care how much you don't like somebody. Why would you do that? I know for a fact this rhetoric does this because it's happened to us in law enforcement. We found the manifestos, okay, the FBI has done the research, they've done the studies. So, yes, rhetoric matters and it's time that this ends Now. I'm a First Amendment guy, okay, but I'll tell you right now. People have responsibilities.
Travis Yates:The media, political figures, by the way. They don't believe it. They don't believe it. You know that right. Think about this. The media knows none of that's true, but it's sensational. It plays to an audience. The politicians know it's true. Heck, the guy was in office for four years. He may not have liked the guy, but he wasn't a threat to our democracy. They know it's not true. Many of the voters, even on the left side, know it's not true. It's just a tactic to try to beat or win an election.
Travis Yates:But you're discounting the fact that you are talking to people that are insane, that believe it. I mean, I've talked to people that I thought were somewhat intelligent that will repeat this to me. You know there's a certain element of people that when things are repeated to them, in the media especially, they just believe it. I mean, I got a friend I will say well, you know that Russia thing was all a hoax. He did a full investigation on it. It was all a dossier from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Travis Yates:And they literally say oh, no, no, no, it's not. I mean doesn't matter what you say and you know this. We talk about this all the time. So what did they expect was going to happen? I doubt anyone's going to take accountability for that. I doubt anyone's going to take accountability for that, and I'm sure everybody's going to be a lot nicer than me and say, oh, that's got nothing to do with it. How does it not? You all know the joke. What would you do if you knew a baby was going to be Hitler? Would you kill the baby? They've called this man Hitler. They say he's a white supremacist. They say he wants to take your freedoms away and throw you in jail. They've said all these insane things.
Travis Yates:That goes beyond politics, folks, and our country needs to reject it. I'm all about the mudslinging in politics. This way it is, this is not mudslinging, but I don't expect that to change. I would hope people would step back and consider that, but I don't expect it to change. And that kind of leads me to where do we go from here? I don't think for one second that anyone's going to change how they're acting. I can't explain why people are acting this way. I don't understand it. You in law enforcement know it's affected, you right? We talk about it all the time. Will they ever return to sanity? I'd like to think they would.
Travis Yates:I'd like to think this is our 9-11 moment, and I can remember 9-11, that politics kind of went out the window and we all kind of came together as a country and it seemed like a different country. After that, tragically, it took that, but it kind of went out the window and we all kind of came together as a country and it seemed like a different country. After that, tragically, you know, it took that, but it kind of seemed like we became America, the United States of America, and of course we've slowly but surely lost that. We're in a worse place today than we've ever been. I'd like to think that this event would make everybody, of all races, of all political affiliations, just kind of go. You know what? What are we doing here? I think we're beyond that.
Travis Yates:Folks, I'm afraid to say I don't think we're going to return to sanity. I know where I'm going to go from here. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. I'm not going to let anybody act this way. You don't have a right to call people names like that. You don't get to do that and just exit stage left. You need to be held accountable. I don't know what that accountability looks like. It's not violence, because that's not what we do. But I'm not going to sit back and act like it's not a big deal anymore Act like it's just rhetoric.
Travis Yates:There needs to be an absolute dismissal and destruction of media outlets to play this game. I don't know how they're making money now or even staying in business, but they should not get the right to do that. I can't really do much about the crazy person on Facebook, but let's face it, there are people when they look at a media outlet, they just believe that Okay, I don't understand why you would. That's just there. There's a segment of the population that if NBC or CBS or Fox or whoever they tell them something, they just go well, that's it. That's the truth. When they don't understand that, every time someone sues those folks for defamation, their first defense in the documentation is well, we're not news, we're opinion. They admit their opinion, but they promote themselves as news. But there's people who don't understand that. I think overall, it's a sad day. I appreciate you listening. I mean, it's a pretty heavy day. So in closing, I wanted to sort of close with this and, by the way, if you're still listening, thank you. There's a lot of smart people on TV today talking about this. You should be listening to them. But if you tuned in to me, thank you.
Travis Yates:Tonight, trump became my president. Tonight he's my president. Let me explain why I was always intrigued by President Trump before tonight. Not necessarily politically I sort of try to just see politics for what it is right but I was always intrigued by his style, his brand, how he has this sort of you know, whatever they do to him, he doesn't seem to bother him, right, the resilience that seems to be in him. I know some people that knowing I have some inside scoop on him. I know for a fact he legitimately is for law enforcement. I know for a fact I have, I have friends before he was president that were around him before he was president, that were around him, and they would tell me stories of how genuine he always was with them. So I know that in the back of my mind. So he generally is a pro law enforcement, but I was always, before tonight, just intrigued by just just this, what he did to sort of you know cause he's so unique and so different, like I said earlier, and how he he's always seems to be on brand and on message and everything he does is it's snapshots, right, it's just snapshots, like you have these images of him. He does it very, very good and that's from his background before this right, but tonight, after tonight, he's my president. He became a symbol. Tonight it will be seared in my mind, him lifting that fist up after an assassination attempt. Do you understand what that, historically, is going to be? I think you probably do that photograph and you've all seen it by now where he was just grazed in the head, centimeters from death, in an assassination attempt, and he rises up and lifts his fist in the air and says fight. And then, before he gets in the car, he boasts his fist in the air to the crowd as they start chanting.
Travis Yates:The symbolic nature of that made him the next president of the United States tonight and made him my guy forever. It made me go public because I was sort of afar from this stuff, and it's not just me that did that too. If you have a soul, I don't know how that did not move you. I've seen law enforcement officers in straight up street combat folks that didn't act like that. I'm blown away by what I saw tonight and if you can because I'm sure I'm talking to some people that aren't Trump fans, or maybe they're on the other political aisle, that's fine Try to remove the emotional stuff and just think of that as the symbolic thing that it actually was.
Travis Yates:In a hundred years, that poster will be on the walls of patriots in this country. That will be the most famous photograph of a generation. It will be a symbol for Americans. It'll be a symbol for people around the world of what resilience and freedom is. You cannot like him, you cannot vote for him, but you can't deny that that's going to represent certain things for a lot of people in this country and around the world.
Travis Yates:I'm a little emotional. I think you probably are too. You should be, okay. I know there are, you know I don't know segment of the population. They just hate Trump. Right, I get that. I think that hate's a pretty strong word. Right, you could not like a political person or whatever, but I think you have to step back from that if you're honest and see this for what it was. There'll be lots talking about the next few days.
Travis Yates:I never thought that in this country in 2024, something like this could occur to a figure like that, right, with all of the resources around. I pray we figure out why it happened and I pray that the adults in the room will learn from this. Shut your mouth and be an adult. Tell just part of the truth. I don't expect a politician to be completely honest, but just stop it. They should be ashamed. The media has no shame, so they don't know what that means. But if you pay attention to the media, then you should be ashamed. That's over with for me. I will not give them one ounce of energy ever again. There will be tomorrow, folks. There's hope. Pray for our country, pray for your family and understand. We will learn from this, we will understand more in the coming days and we will lead and we will be courageous and your fist will stay high, God bless.
