#67 Eli Crane - Inside Congress: Political Corruption, Uniparty, Border Crisis & Culture Chaos

This week on SRS–Eli Crane is back to tell us about his experience so far in Congress. Crane was recently elected in his home state of Arizona and has already seen how rampant corruption is in the U. S. Government. This episode is an uncensored look at how Congress operates behind closed doors. If you've been wondering "What is going on in D. C.?" This episode is episode will demystify how it all goes down. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://1stphorm.com/srs https://shopify.com/shawn https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://betterhelp.com/shawn Eli Crane Links: Support Eli Crane - https://eliforarizona.com Bottle Breacher - https://bottlebreacher.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/elicrane_ceo Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Shawn Ryan?

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. This week, I have my friend, former Navy SEAL and current Arizona Congressman on the show. He talks about his first six months in Congress, what the experience has been like so far. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a man for the people. He votes for what the people that voted him in want him to vote for, which is something that you can't say about, I don't know, damn near anybody in politics these days. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Eli Crane to the Sean Ryan Show.

• 1:43Shawn Ryan?

  Please leave us a review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Like, subscribe, comment below on the video. We love you. I think you're going to get a lot out of this. And at the end of this, it gets even better. All right. Love you all. Enjoy the show. Cheers.

• 2:08Shawn Ryan?

  Eli Crane, welcome back, man. Thanks for having me back. It's my pleasure. I've been dying to get you back in here. But just a brief introduction for those who don't know. You've been on previously, one of your episodes, we had to put on Rumble, unfortunately, because of censorship. But you're a US representative from Arizona's 2nd Congressional District. You're new, congratulations. I've not had the opportunity to congratulate you in person yet, so congratulations. Thanks, brother. And you're a member of the Republican Party, a former Navy SEAL, joined one week after the 9/11 attacks. You're the, you're an entrepreneur, you co-founded Bottleneck Breacher with your wife? Bottle Breacher.

• 2:53Shawn Ryan?

  Bottle Breacher, excuse me.

• 2:56Shawn Ryan?

  And I just gotta be honest, oh, and you are on three different committees, Committee for Homeland Security, Committee for Small Business, and the Committee for Veterans Affairs. Yep. And we'll be talking about some of that stuff as well, but... I gotta be honest, man, you just, you came here and I'm, I'm really reluctant to talk to political types. Yeah. Because I think they're all full of shit. Yeah.

• 3:25Shawn Ryan?

  But we had a, we had a really good discussion when you were campaigning. And I just, I gotta be honest, man, it's been really nice to see somebody uphold their word. Yeah. And I don't think anybody... Well, I shouldn't say anybody, but, man, you just don't see that very often. You don't see it really on either side of the aisle. You don't see it on the Democratic side, you don't see it on the Republican side. It seems like... Our government is turning into this uniparty.

• 3:59Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 4:00Shawn Ryan?

  And which I want to talk to you about, but man, you just, I mean, for a lack of better words, you got balls of steel, man. You went in there and the first thing that that we saw was the McCarthy stuff. You held your ground.

• 4:15Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Shawn Ryan?

  And you did it again with this debt ceiling stuff and and whether I or anybody else agrees with what you're doing or disagrees, nobody can take the fact that you are doing what the people that voted you in want you to do. And that's exactly what you're supposed to do. And and man, you're just a a great example to anybody coming into politics and people that are in politics. Unfortunately, it looks like most of them have, you know, succumbed to the almighty dollar, although I don't know how almighty that is going to be here for much longer, but.

• 4:50Eli Crane?

  Right, right.

• 4:51Shawn Ryan?

  But really, man, it's an honor to have you and I'm just, I'm just proud to know you, dude.

• 4:57Eli Crane?

  Thank you, brother.

• 4:57Shawn Ryan?

  It's really cool what you're doing.

• 4:59Eli Crane?

  Not meant a lot, you letting me come on your show while I was campaigning. When you're new, when you're new into this world, you've never run for office before.

• 5:09Eli Crane?

  You know, obviously, like what you said, a lot of people,

• 5:14Eli Crane?

  they don't, they don't trust you. Everybody's guarded and rightfully so. I mean, why, why, if if you're not around political types, I think you're kind of a fool. And so the fact that you let me come in here and talk, just talk about my story and why I'm even running in the first place, it was massively helpful. It was cool for me, too, because, you know, we got to talk about some other things that are even more important to me than politics. And so,

• 5:43Eli Crane?

  yeah, man, it was a blessing.

• 5:44Shawn Ryan?

  The Bible.

• 5:45Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 5:46Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we'll talk about that, too, at the end here.

• 5:48Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Shawn Ryan?

  But so you've been in for what, almost a year now?

• 5:54Eli Crane?

  Six months.

• 5:54Shawn Ryan?

  Six months?

• 5:55Eli Crane?

  Yeah, since January.

• 5:56Shawn Ryan?

  And.

• 5:59Shawn Ryan?

  What the hell is going on over there? I mean, everything has just turned into a disaster. It seems like, I mean, some of these people I've had really high expectations for and they've just totally, it seems like they've just totally folded.

• 6:15Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Shawn Ryan?

  And on, honestly, like I said, on both sides of the aisle.

• 6:20Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Shawn Ryan?

  What, what's your first impression of being in, being a congressman and being in the DC mix?

• 6:27Eli Crane?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, a lot of my perceptions, you know, have come to be proven correct. As far as there is a uniparty, it tries to suck you in from the moment that you're elected, the moment you're elected.

• 6:47Shawn Ryan?

  How do they try to suck you in?

• 6:50Eli Crane?

  Well, they, they do it with money. As far as like, hey, you know, we'll help you, we'll help you win this race, but then, you know, I scratched your back, now you need to scratch my back. So there's, there's that part of it. There's the relational side of it, right? You know, come be a part of this, come do this with us. And you, you know how it is, anytime you start running or hanging with people, you're more likely to become like them. So there's, there's, and then, and then there's also, you know, the, the threats as well. If they can't, if they can't get you to acquiesce and come be part of the good old boy club, then the uniparty will just try and get rid of you. That, those are its only two moves, right?

• 7:36Eli Crane?

  Suck you in, make you subservient, or we gotta get rid of this guy, he's a problem.

• 7:41Shawn Ryan?

  Well, well, so we got money, we got buy, we got buying our politicians out, which we know that happens all the time. Peter Schweitzer uncovered that, like. He did a fantastic job.

• 7:54Eli Crane?

  So that's like, so that's more like, I would say that's more like elite capture type stuff. So that's, I think that's a, that's a completely, I was talking about how do they try and suck you in initially.

• 8:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 8:05Eli Crane?

  So I think that that's, that's another bucket. But what I'm talking about is, hey, Sean, so you wanna, you wanna represent this district you live in in Tennessee. So you're gonna need money to do that because the people that you're running against, whether you're running against an incumbent or just somebody else.

• 8:25Eli Crane?

  Now, you're a different story because you have this amazing reach and this amazing podcast. So you already have name ID, right? But that's one of the hardest things for any politician to get is name ID. And it costs a lot of money to do that, running commercials, ads, et cetera. And so that's what a lot of these groups will do, the bigger, the bigger groups, Republicans, Democrats, et cetera. They will help you, they will spend money on your half, they will donate to your campaign so that they help raise your name ID. But then, you know, once you get, once you get elected, it's like, okay, now it's time to pay us back. And we'll start with, uh, who are you, you, you need to vote for so and so for speaker.

• 9:11Eli Crane?

  And then, you know, these bills are gonna be coming up right behind that and we're gonna need you to be on the team.

• 9:16Shawn Ryan?

  So this stuff, this stuff is starting before you ever even stepped foot in the Capitol.

• 9:21Eli Crane?

  So it does, so it doesn't, there, there, and please keep in mind, dude, like I, I can only talk about my, my experience. And also, I would even say in the, in the, you know, in the theme of level setting, I'm an FNG up there. Six months in, there's a, there's so much I don't know. So I'm just giving you perspective from somebody that's been there for six months. But my, that, my experience was there were no asks, um, right, right off the bat. Or I should say there were no asks of me, you know, working my way up. The asks started coming as soon as I got elected.

• 10:05Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:05Eli Crane?

  As soon as I got elected. And it was just like, are you, are you gonna be on the team or not?

• 10:11Shawn Ryan?

  What were some of the asks?

• 10:15Eli Crane?

  Support and I need you to support, I need you to support who the party has chosen for Speaker. So, right off of that, it was, they're talking about funding your campaign to basically vote for McCarthy. Yeah. And so, and that's, that's super, just so you know, that's super normal. Like, what, what America saw in January, from what I'm told, that hadn't happened in over a hundred years. So, usually, that's like SOP. Everybody kind of typically knows who the Speaker's gonna be, and then it's more kind of a formality. Interesting.

• 10:53Eli Crane?

  Several people decided that they didn't want Door A. They didn't want formality. They wanted to shake things up and to change the way the town works. Yeah, that's good. What, what were some other asks?

• 11:08Eli Crane?

  Oh, let's see. Um, so, some of the other stuff you'll see, like, um, I don't know if we talked about this in the last one, but I've been pretty outspoken that I, I don't agree with the, um, how, how we're handling Ukraine.

• 11:28Eli Crane?

  Um, and so, because of my outspokenness on, hey, I don't think, I think we should be trying to usher in peace talks, not sending, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars that we don't even have over there. I don't think we should be sending M1 Abrams tanks or escalating that conflict. I think we should be trying to bring it to a, a close.

• 11:50Eli Crane?

  Um, you know, I was told, hey, some of these committees that you want to be on, no, it's not gonna happen. So, it, there's a lot of that as well. Who, who, how is this, how are these messages delivered? Who do they come from? Um, you know, in, in my experience, some of those messages came from actually more junior people, but were, that are plugged in with leadership, so. Oh, good. Yeah. And it, you know, it's like.

• 12:20Eli Crane?

  In a way, like if I look at the other side of it, it kind of makes sense, right? If you're, if you're the chairman of, you know, foreign affairs or intel or whatever, you know, committee, you're the chairman of, you don't want a rebel rouser. You want somebody that's gonna, you know, fall in line and do what, you know?

• 12:41Shawn Ryan?

  Do what it's told.

• 12:42Eli Crane?

  Do what you want, right? And, and so I can see the, I can see the other side of it. That being said, um, it is disappointing. Like, right now, there's no member of the House Freedom Caucus on intel. In my opinion, that's a massive problem. That's a massive problem.

• 13:01Shawn Ryan?

  What do you mean by that?

• 13:03Eli Crane?

  So there's an intel committee, right? And they get, they get briefed on, you know, anything related, anything and everything related to intel.

• 13:14Shawn Ryan?

  So there's not one?

• 13:15Eli Crane?

  They don't want any rebel rousers on, on that committee. I mean, they, there's a lot of committees they don't want rebel rousers on, right? Or people that say no to the swamp, to the uniparty, the establishment, whatever, whatever word you want to use. But as of right now, there's no member of HFC, um, on, on, on the intel committee. And I, you know, I, I don't, I, that's not a coincidence.

• 13:45Shawn Ryan?

  Where does this money come from? So when you get, can you just run me through one of the approaches? I'm really curious.

• 13:52Eli Crane?

  What approach?

• 13:53Shawn Ryan?

  On the money stuff. Hey, we're gonna donate X amount of dollars to your campaign if you vote for McCarthy. Can you, can you just run me through this scenario? I mean, is it, is it out in the open? Is it, is it?

• 14:07Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, we'll find you at a restaurant and talk to you there?

• 14:09Eli Crane?

  No, no, it's, it, most of it, it's out in the open, man. It's like, and, and by law, it has to be, right? Cause you have to file, you have to file reports very regularly on where your campaign got money from, you know, and all sorts of stuff like that. So now I'm not gonna say that, you know, that there aren't groups and organizations that use, you know, third parties or, um, you know?

• 14:37Eli Crane?

  Or organizations that aren't necessarily connected to them, but you know, secondary tertiary organizations to, you know, do their bidding and, you know, support candidates that that they want to see win. But what I'm, what I'm saying is, is that it was never like for any of the interactions that I saw were never like hush, hush at a bar. Hey, hey, come, come over here. It was always out in the open and it was always on the up and up.

• 15:05Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:06Eli Crane?

  But, um, you know, that, that was definitely something that I experienced right off the bat. Like, all right, it's, it's, it's time. It's time for you to, you know, reciprocate.

• 15:20Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:22Shawn Ryan?

  Changing subjects here, since we're talking about campaign dollars. Did you have any major donors or was it mostly the people that were voting you and donating to your campaign?

• 15:35Eli Crane?

  Yeah, I had some, you know, I had some, I had some, definitely some people that maxed out because there, there are max contributions that you can do. I think last cycle, I want to say it was like fifty, fifty eight hundred dollars, if I remember correctly. So you could do like half during the primary and then if some, and, and if, and then if your candidate makes it to the general, you can do the other half. And I think that max was like fifty eight hundred bucks, if I remember correctly.

• 16:03Shawn Ryan?

  That's it? The max, the max is close to six thousand dollars?

• 16:07Eli Crane?

  Yeah. So that's individual. But then if you have like a, if you have like a leadership PAC and a lot of candidates will set up a leadership PAC, then you can, uh, I, you can, in, investors, donors or donors can put more money into that.

• 16:24Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 16:24Eli Crane?

  There's, there, there are specific rules on, you know, how that, how that money can be used. It's, it's, it's, it's different. But for a guy like me, the vast majority of uh, the funds that we raised were small dollar. Um, just like, you know, digital, online, you know, people, you know, throwing in, you know. Five, ten, fifteen bucks.

• 16:50Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 16:51Eli Crane?

  Which is good. Um, in that you know that you have a, a, a good amount of support.

• 17:01Eli Crane?

  On that note, though, the bad thing is, is when you're raising money digitally. It, you don't keep as much of it as if somebody just writes you a max out check or just a check.

• 17:11Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 17:12Eli Crane?

  Yeah. You got in, in, in that it's kind of one of those things where you gotta spend a little money to make money.

• 17:18Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 17:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, six, fifty eight hundred dollars doesn't seem like it would be enough to buy somebody out. So does that change when you get in to Congress? The max donation?

• 17:34Eli Crane?

  No, it's still, it's still the same, it's still the same thing, but I think that. I think that, um, and again, forgive, you gotta forgive my ignorance here because this isn't something that I have a ton of experience with. But I would imagine if, if you were gonna, um, if you were gonna get sizable donations, it would probably go to the, your leadership pack. Right? Um, and then also other groups can spend money, you know, spend money on, on your behalf. So that's, that's different, right? So you got money that comes directly to you, which you can, you can decide how it's spent. And then outside, one of the big ways that they can promote somebody is through outside groups that just, you know.

• 18:19Eli Crane?

  You do a million dollar ad buyer. One of the things that, um, in my election, I think in the last two weeks of my election, Nancy Pelosi put. I thought it was like one point five million dollars into my race to run ads, basically saying that I was like a white supremacist and a Nazi. Yeah, so I mean, it's just, it's, it's silly, but you know, that's kind of how it works. And, and there's targeted races all over the country, races that both sides think that they can flip. Races that both sides, you know, think they have the advantage in.

• 18:59Eli Crane?

  Um, and then races that they think, yeah, that we probably gotta let this one go just based on the numbers and the data. And so you'll see both sides targeting specific races and, you know.

• 19:14Eli Crane?

  Because I was trying to flip a three-term Democrat. You know, it was one that they still tried to hold on to even though the numbers were decently in my favor.

• 19:26Shawn Ryan?

  And you beat them.

• 19:27Eli Crane?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:31Shawn Ryan?

  So with your, with your limited knowledge.

• 19:34Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Shawn Ryan?

  How, how were these people? How were they flipped later on?

• 19:39Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 19:39Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how, how does? I can't remember what Pelosi's worth, but we'll just bring her up. For example, I mean, she's, isn't she worth like $200 million or something?

• 19:47Eli Crane?

  I've heard that.

• 19:48Shawn Ryan?

  You know, how, how was this money?

• 19:52Shawn Ryan?

  Getting funneled into these people? And I, you know, and another thing, I mean. You know, we just met in DC, had dinner, had a talk. A lot of people that I think. I respected, I think you respect them as well. You know, they're, they're folding. And how is this happening? Are they getting paid off? Is it pressure from, from the establishment? I mean, people, I mean, people that we both know are making lots of money as a congressman. And how was, how was this happening?

• 20:27Eli Crane?

  So I think there's a couple of different things.

• 20:32Eli Crane?

  My perspective is there's a couple, a couple of ways you can play this, right? Like anything you go into. I think a lot of people go into this job with good intentions. I really believe that. Now, I think, I'm sure there's a handful, a bucket of narcissists that just want power. You know? I think a bunch of people go into it with good intentions, but. Their strategy is, well, if I want to make a difference.

• 21:02Eli Crane?

  I have to be on the team. And if I want to make a difference, I have to get on that committee, right? Because you have all these different committees that have oversight and jurisdiction on these areas like. You know, energy and commerce, natural resources, judiciary, intelligence, you know? Foreign affairs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So depending on.

• 21:29Eli Crane?

  Your district and what you want to do and, and you know, where you want to go. A lot of people say, well, I gotta get on this committee. And I just told you, I've already been denied. Hey, I've already been told that, hey, you're not getting on that committee because of who you are and you know, what you're about. Um, so, so that's part of it. And then, you know, if you take that a step further, you'll actually hear members and everybody knows it. You know, it's like, well, if I really want to make a difference, then not only do I need to be on that committee, but I need to work my way up to where I'm the chairman of that committee. Or I'm the chairman of a subcommittee, right? And it's, so it's got its own hierarchy, right?

• 22:14Eli Crane?

  With, within, it's not just the Speaker of the House. I mean, there's a, you know, there's a, there's a hierarchy within. And I think a lot of people with good intentions go there and say, if I want to make a difference, I've got to play the game enough to where I get seniority to where I can actually dictate how things work, what we focus our time on, what's allowed, what's not allowed. You know, who I want on my team, et cetera, et cetera. And so the problem is, is that often it takes multiple terms to get to that point. And I, my opinion is by the time a lot of these people finally achieve that goal, they're comfortable and they don't want to rock the boat.

• 22:59Eli Crane?

  They, you know, they want, they, they, they want to keep doing what they're doing. And I think that a lot, a lot of times we're all good at justifying, right, to ourselves and just, oh, it's, you know, justifying away some of the dumb things we do or the dumb things that we say. Um, and I think that that, that's a part of it as well. So.

• 23:24Shawn Ryan?

  Who, who controls the committees? Would it be Speaker of the House, McCarthy?

• 23:27Eli Crane?

  Well, you know, um, the party leadership control, you know, has a good amount of control over that.

• 23:37Eli Crane?

  So. So they're they're outside of outside of just, you know, your tip, the Speaker of the House is the, you know, the head guy. And then and then you have you have multiple people, you know, underneath that and you have your committee chairs and like I said, it's it's it's a hierarchy and. What what you'll find is is a lot of the a lot of the people that actually I I would say mainstream Americans see as champions in the House. The chances of you ever getting to a level of hierarchy or leadership are pretty pretty slim to none because you didn't play ball, you didn't play the game.

• 24:23Eli Crane?

  And so I think that, you know, expectation management is important. And so I I I went in um with the expectation that I'd never I'd never be in leadership. I'll I'll never be liked up there. And that's okay, man. I didn't go up there to be and I told you that on the first one. I didn't go up there to be liked.

• 24:47Eli Crane?

  But I do want to try to be a part of saving this country. Yeah. There's no, in my opinion, there's. I mean, maybe, maybe, and I think that there's I think that there's members that are way better at it than I am. They're they're are just, you know, they're good at.

• 25:08Eli Crane?

  You know, building those relationships, hustling around, knowing what everybody's doing. And then and and and then even taking stands on stuff. I'm not going to sit here and say like I'm, you know, great at great at anything.

• 25:24Eli Crane?

  But I I know that there are members that are, I would say, are doing a better job than I am of, you know.

• 25:32Eli Crane?

  You know, putting themselves in a position to influence and have more authority or leadership, prospect, opportunity down the road, but still holding the line. So if that makes any sense.

• 25:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it does. I mean, you know, with the, actually, what about blackmail? Is there a lot of blackmail going on? I mean, there's all these traps that they could set. You know, they could, and some people are gonna call me a conspiracy theorist.

• 26:03Eli Crane?

  I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure there, I'm sure there is.

• 26:06Shawn Ryan?

  I mean prostitution, you know?

• 26:09Eli Crane?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there is, man.

• 26:11Shawn Ryan?

  Women, a lot of people think Epstein was a blackmail guy.

• 26:15Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and a very effective one, obviously.

• 26:19Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Shawn Ryan?

  But have you heard or seen any of that stuff going on within Congress as well?

• 26:25Eli Crane?

  I personally haven't, but would I be surprised? Not at all.

• 26:29Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 26:30Eli Crane?

  Not at all.

• 26:31Shawn Ryan?

  All right. Well,

• 26:35Shawn Ryan?

  I forgot to give you your gift, and then we'll change subjects here, but I know this is the only reason you came back.

• 26:41Eli Crane?

  Thank you, dude.

• 26:42Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 26:42Eli Crane?

  Appreciate it. Oh, yeah, gummy bears.

• 26:46Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance lead gummy bears. Hand those out, maybe it'll

• 26:50Eli Crane?

  Thank you.

• 26:51Shawn Ryan?

  It'll make somebody's day over there.

• 26:53Eli Crane?

  That's right.

• 26:54Shawn Ryan?

  But let's just start right at the beginning here. So right when you stepped in, you did not support Kevin McCarthy for the House Speaker in the 15th final round of voting. You voted present.

• 27:08Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 27:09Shawn Ryan?

  From what I understand, you were kicked out of his office.

• 27:14Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how did that go?

• 27:16Eli Crane?

  So,

• 27:18Eli Crane?

  this, I got kicked out of Kevin's office before any of this even, before I was even sworn into Congress, before the voting even started. And, you know, Kevin was doing it, he was doing a checkup on people that didn't vote for him in conference. Before any of that spilled out on the national television, we actually voted in conference for who we wanted to be, who we wanted to be Speaker, and Kevin won. But there were, I think, 36 of us that didn't vote for Kevin.

• 27:45Shawn Ryan?

  Why didn't you vote for him?

• 27:48Eli Crane?

  A couple of reasons. One, Kevin's not a conservative. He's just not. Kevin, you know, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some level setting here. I'm gonna tell you, Kevin's a smart, smart dude. He's a political animal.

• 28:06Eli Crane?

  I know he's worked his tail off to get where he's at.

• 28:10Eli Crane?

  That being said, like I said, he's not, he doesn't, he, he hasn't, he hasn't

• 28:20Eli Crane?

  carried himself in a way in his career that would make me want to see him as speaker because I want to see somebody more conservative, who has a more conservative voting record.

• 28:31Eli Crane?

  And then here's, here's probably even the biggest one. I heard a lot of things when I campaigned. I campaigned for like a year and a half, traveled all over my district, met with people all the time. That was one of the number one things that people told me. Please do not vote for Kevin McCarthy if, if we elect you.

• 28:52Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 28:52Eli Crane?

  Don't do it. Because they're sick. They're sick of the status quo. They're sick of the uniparty. They're sick of career politicians.

• 29:04Eli Crane?

  And that's what, that's exactly what they see when they look at Kevin McCarthy.

• 29:10Shawn Ryan?

  Why don't, why do you say Kevin McCarthy is not a conservative? I mean, I, I just want you to know that, you know, you're, you're completely immersed in this.

• 29:20Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and most Americans, including myself, are not.

• 29:23Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Shawn Ryan?

  And I view him as a conservative. I don't even know why I view him as a conservative.

• 29:29Eli Crane?

  Probably because he's a, probably because he's a Republican. So, um, there's 435 people in Congress, usually. I think we might have 434.

• 29:44Eli Crane?

  But within each, within each conference, I think we have 222 Republicans and then the Democrats, I think have 213 or something like that.

• 29:56Eli Crane?

  Within each group of 200 plus, you have different groups, different factions, right? On the, on the Democrat side of the aisle, you have the Squad. They're, they're, they're, they're their own radical group. And then on our side, the group that I'm a part of, the Freedom Caucus, is considered the radical group.

• 30:17Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 30:18Eli Crane?

  Okay, and so, but what is, what is the ra, what is the radical group, at least on our side? We don't, we don't want to keep spending, spending money we don't have, printing money we don't have.

• 30:31Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:31Eli Crane?

  Um, and, you know, we're the guys that routinely, you, a lot, a lot of, you know, for, depending on how, you know, engaged your viewers are in politics, we're the guys usually fighting against the unit party and trying to pump the brakes and stop what's going, what's consistently going on, the status quo, if you will. Now, there are members of the Freedom, that aren't of the Freedom Caucus, that will routinely jump in and do the same thing, so it's not, it's not as if you have to be a member of the Freedom Caucus to do that.

• 31:13Eli Crane?

  Like, one of the most popular politicians is named Matt Gaetz from Florida. Matt's not a member of the Freedom Caucus. You know, some people love Matt, some people hate him. I think he's one of the smartest guys up there.

• 31:32Eli Crane?

  And I'm glad he's on our side. And he's not afraid to, he's not afraid to, uh, get into a fight. He's not afraid to tell people what he thinks. Um, he's not afraid to piss off his own side. And, you know, Sean.

• 31:50Eli Crane?

  I'm very concerned with the agenda of the Democrats. I'm very concerned with their agenda. But I'm probably more concerned with Republicans.

• 32:01Speaker 00

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• 32:32Speaker 01

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• 33:01Eli Crane?

  Really? Oh, yeah. Because that's the evil I know, right? I'm actually more concerned with Republicans because we should be the ones that are stopping the madness.

• 33:13Eli Crane?

  And often we're not. You know, it's like we had a debt ceiling vote this last week.

• 33:20Eli Crane?

  The, yeah, this last week. And Republicans,

• 33:29Eli Crane?

  under the leadership of Kevin McCarthy, went and made a deal with Democrats. And that was one of the things, as soon as I won my race, I went to a Freedom Caucus boot camp. They do their own little like orientation. And they told, the older guys there told me, hey,

• 33:49Eli Crane?

  If you if if you guys elect Kevin McCarthy, if you're a part of electing him, this is exactly what he's gonna do. Several of them said it. And because this is what this is what he's done for years. He makes, you know, he's gone and made deals with Democrats. And so what did he do? He actually, there was actually more Democrats that voted for that debt ceiling deal than Republicans. I believe he had 165 Democrats and 149 Republicans. And so, um, yeah, that's, to me, that's, that's pretty problematic.

• 34:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, actually, you know, to get into that, I would like to go back and talk about McCarthy, but since we're on the debt ceiling, because it's, you know, it's timely and everybody's, everybody's wondering about it, and you were one of the only guys standing up against it. I don't understand the, I hear people talking about it all the time. Debt ceiling.

• 34:49Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Shawn Ryan?

  This isn't our money. It's, it seems like we have this discussion every year, every other year. It's, it's always a topic of discussion. And it always gets lifted every single time.

• 35:02Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Shawn Ryan?

  Who do we, who, who do we owe this money to? Or do we owe anybody? Are we just printing shit? You know, I mean, I don't understand the, I'm, I'm not for it. I'm not for lifting the debt ceiling. I don't know, I don't, I just know that we don't need to be printing more money because I can see the cost of goods just rising and rising.

• 35:31Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Shawn Ryan?

  And rising and rising.

• 35:33Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's, it's real estate through the roof, you know? Um, everything, the cost of food through the roof. Cost of gasoline was through the roof.

• 35:44Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Shawn Ryan?

  It's still high, but it's not as high as it was. But everything just got inflated, you know, and, and, but I don't know if that's because we're raising the debt ceiling. I don't know what implications we have. I don't know who we owe the money to, you know, if we default on it. Where's this, what are the implications of raising the debt ceiling? Can you, can you walk us through this?

• 36:04Eli Crane?

  Well, first of all, again, I'm not an economist, right? But I know that, I know that this can't continue. I know that no country in the history of the world has been able to continually print money that it didn't have. I think that we're we're able to do it because we've had such economic prowess for a long time. And we still are, the dollar is still the global reserve currency. Okay. Um, and if that if that goes away, we, I think we're gonna be, I think we're gonna be in real trouble. But I, you know, it's like, we just keep spending money faster and faster and faster. And it's always, hey,

• 36:46Eli Crane?

  it's always easier, it's always so easy to spend somebody else's money, right? Mm hmm. And and that's, that's a big part of the problem. But here, let me, let me tell you what happens if you try and make cuts up there. And we we have.

• 37:04Eli Crane?

  When we started talking about making cuts,

• 37:08Eli Crane?

  the Democrats said, oh, first, the first attack that they used is that Republicans are trying to cut social security and Medicare, even though we weren't going after any mandatory spending, and those are considered mandatory programs. Right? Mm hmm. Um, and so thankfully, we all got, we all got on the PR horse. Everybody got out there in unison. Republicans were working together on that, saying, hey, that's not the case. And it wasn't the case. It was never a part of any of the conversations that I was ever in. Okay.

• 37:41Eli Crane?

  Then we started working on, you know, passing our bill out of the House,

• 37:46Eli Crane?

  which actually for Congress and the federal government was a step, a step in the right direction. It still raised the debt ceiling, I think, 1.5 trillion dollars. And it was called the Limit, Save, Grow Act. But in it,

• 38:05Eli Crane?

  we cut the money for the 87,000 IRS agents. We had the Rains Act in there. We put the Rains Act, which is basically, you know, a lot of these bureaucratic institutions, you know, that the American people don't elect can spend, and they do spend a lot of money. And so the Rains Act said that, you know, they had to get permission to Congress if they were going to spend over a certain dollar amount. So that that was a good, that was a good part of it. Um, we also cut the uh student loan bailout money, which Americans were furious about. They were like, why are we, why are we bailing people out for student loans that they, that they took when many Americans have paid their student loans off, right?

• 38:51Eli Crane?

  And then we, we cut the Green New Deal money, or they called it the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act. We cut that money. We took, we were gonna rescind all the COVID money that was still, because there's still a lot of COVID money out there. We were gonna rescind that as well. And so even though it wasn't a perfect bill, it had, actually had cuts in it. And I was talking to guys that have been up there for a long time. And I think there were four or five guys that didn't vote for it.

• 39:26Eli Crane?

  And uh eighty percent of that bill was probably, and this is what I was told, eighty percent of that bill was, um, came out of the House Freedom Caucus, which I'm a part of, which is your, your furthest right, your most conservative people up there. And so it was definitely a step in the right direction, though not great, right? And that got two hundred and eighteen votes, and you need two hundred and eighteen votes. Um, if, basically if everybody shows up to pass a bill in, in Congress. So that was, that was the bill, that was the bill that we ran. And then um,

• 40:05Eli Crane?

  the bill that they just passed, it's gonna probably be at least four trillion dollars. There wasn't even a dollar amount. It was uncapped, um, and it was to January twenty twenty five. And in all, almost all of that stuff that I just talked about, all those cuts, more or less gone. And so that's why there were a lot of us, I think seventy, seventy Republicans, I believe, that voted against it because we're just like, no, man. And, and you know, I'll be honest, um, and I'll even, you know, I'll even, I'll be honest and say, look, I, I understand it. Kevin McCarthy had to go negotiate with a Democrat-controlled Senate,

• 40:47Eli Crane?

  and then also President Biden. I think everybody knew that we weren't gonna be able to. You know, passed the same exact bill, or I shouldn't say that. I should say, I think a lot of us figured that, you know, there would be compromise. But not to the level that, not to the level that we saw. And so that's why a lot of Republicans, you saw a lot of Republicans that weren't even members of the House Freedom Caucus that said, I can't support this. You know, and even on the bill that we passed out of the House that I just told you about that had all those cuts in it. This was an interesting time for me.

• 41:26Eli Crane?

  Because I ended up actually, I think, being the swing vote on that one. Really? Yeah. I, I think I was the last guy to vote. If I wouldn't have, if I wouldn't have voted yes, I think, I'm pretty sure it would have failed. And I was a no, pretty hard no going into that.

• 41:45Eli Crane?

  Into that vote, just because I'm like, we just, we can't keep, we can't keep raising the debt limit, right? Even though everybody and their brother told me and everybody else that, hey, if we don't pass something, we'll get something worse. But the night before the vote, I did a little town hall with, you know, I think it was 12, you know, 12 people.

• 42:11Eli Crane?

  That had supported me for a long time and some key people in my district. And I think I asked the question, just like I did for Kevin, the Kevin McCarthy vote. What, what do you guys think? I'm going to put you in the room. I'm going to tell you, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to paint the picture for you as best I can. I'm going to tell you what I think the pros and the cons are. I'm leaning no. But what do you guys think? And on that call, with only 12 people, I think 10 out of the 12 of them said, we want you to do it. We want you to vote for it, which really surprised me. And so I was like, oh, I, I misjudged what I thought my voters would say.

• 42:49Eli Crane?

  So the very next day, I had my team rush out a survey to, you know, all the other counties within my district. And, and I told them, I need you guys to get back to me ASAP. Get as many responses as possible. Same thing. These are the pros. These are the cons. I'm leaning no. And I think we had close to 500 respondents. And I think it was 79.6 of the people that responded told me they wanted me to vote for it.

• 43:18Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 43:19Eli Crane?

  So I was like, even then, I was still the last guy to vote because dude, I was sweating bullets. My gut was telling me, don't do it. But then, you know, I knew that this was one of the best, one of the, according to this more experienced members of the House Freedom Caucus, this was one of the best bills they'd ever seen as far as a debt limit bill because it actually had cuts in it. And then my voters, the vast majority of them that responded to the survey, said they wanted me to vote for it. So I was like, I was torn, man. And I was like, in that situation, you're a representative. You know, you represent this, this amount of people, you're supposed to be their voice there.

• 44:02Eli Crane?

  So what do you do? Right? Do you go with what you, you're pretty confident that people in your district wants you to do? Or do you go with your gut? And I went with what I thought that, you know, they wanted me to do.

• 44:15Shawn Ryan?

  Well, for whatever it's worth, I think you're doing the right thing. I did, I did hear some, I am, I am curious, you know, originally I was completely against the student loan debt relief. I thought it was atrocious.

• 44:31Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Shawn Ryan?

  Then I kind of changed my mind.

• 44:35Eli Crane?

  Okay.

• 44:36Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, and reason being, I see, all I see is just money being fucking pumped into Ukraine, into the, into the, into the wars that we fought in, into Syria, and, you know, and it's none of the fucking money seems to come to our own people. It doesn't go to the border. It doesn't go to. It doesn't seem to go to anything unless, I don't know, maybe the, maybe the LBGTQ plus community, that seems to get a lot of attention, but, you know, and, and we do have, I mean, I, I, I understand your thought process, because that was my original thought process too.

• 45:18Shawn Ryan?

  This is bullshit. If all these other people had to pay for their fucking college, then these people need to pay for it too. Well,

• 45:26Shawn Ryan?

  you know, then I, I started thinking about it and I was like, why not? Why not invest into our own people? What's, why wouldn't we invest into our own people? That's something I would like to see more of is us invest into our own people and quit sending all this money to fucking Ukraine and all, in, in, in everywhere else in the world that has a problem. Every, anybody in the world has a problem, we send them money. We got a problem, there's no money. We got school shootings going on nonstop. Nothing's being done about it on either side. Nobody's shitting out any money for these, for the schools. Nobody's shitting any money out for these, I mean, these kids are, you know, they are, they're, they are drowning in debt.

• 46:08Shawn Ryan?

  And they can't buy a home and, or they think they can't buy a home and, and, and so, I don't know, to me, it's, it's like, you know, it, it would be good to see the US government invest in its own people for once. And so,

• 46:28Shawn Ryan?

  why don't you agree with that?

• 46:30Eli Crane?

  Well, you know, going back to, you know, being fiscally conservative, one, I don't think that's the government's job.

• 46:40Eli Crane?

  To, you know, pay, you know, I mean, what's, that, I think that's a really slippery slope. And secondly, we can't afford it, right? We're 32 trillion dollars in debt. And as of January of, you know, 2025, we're going to be at least 36, probably 37 trillion dollars in debt. So, I just think that, you know, when, and I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna argue that, hey, if you're gonna spend money frivolously and I'm, I'm not gonna argue that that wouldn't be a good, you know, if you're gonna do it anyway. I mean, that, that's a pretty,

• 47:19Eli Crane?

  that would be up there on the list of one of the best ways to do it. I'm just, my point is, it's like,

• 47:27Eli Crane?

  Before you start, you know, giving handouts and, you know, stuff like that, get your house in order.

• 47:34Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 47:35Eli Crane?

  Pay, pay off your debts, right? Quit spending money you don't, quit spending money you don't have. Like, uh, I, you know, and sometimes I like to take big problems and I like to shrink them down. I like to, just for simplicity sake, and I know that they're, they're, you know, it's not always, um, tit for tat, but it's like, if you had, like, if you personally had, you know, three million dollars in debt, right? Or say, you know, say you had three hundred thousand dollars in debt, whatever, whatever it was.

• 48:10Eli Crane?

  And I saw you out, you know, um,

• 48:15Eli Crane?

  take, you know, taking lines of credit or your credit cards and spending them on, you know, uh, somebody else's fam- and, and let's say on top of it, I know that your kids are hungry, right?

• 48:28Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 48:29Eli Crane?

  Um, and I know that, you know, you haven't, you haven't paid that ticket that you owe. Or, you know, I know that, um, you know, just, I, I know things about you that like, you're just not being financially responsible at all. And we all know people like that, but yet I see you take your credit card and, you know, you go buy some, you, you go run up more debt, buying somebody else, uh, you know, food or some, something that we could even say is virtuous. I would say as your friend, hey, I think, I think that that's nice that you did that, but as a brother and somebody who cares about you and cares about your kid and cares about you just personally, you should probably pay off this debt that you owe.

• 49:15Eli Crane?

  Put some, you know, food in your kid's mouth before you start going out and, you know, paying somebody el- you know, buying somebody el- paying somebody else's rent or, does that make any sense?

• 49:25Shawn Ryan?

  It does.

• 49:26Eli Crane?

  That, that's exa- that, that would be my logic behind that.

• 49:29Shawn Ryan?

  You just, you wanna rein it all in. I get it.

• 49:32Eli Crane?

  How, how, how do you, how? What, what other way is there?

• 49:37Shawn Ryan?

  I get it.

• 49:38Eli Crane?

  You know, it's like, it's hard too, Sean, because like, one of the things I saw as we, as we're trying to make these cuts, one of the very effective things that the other side did, um, is, uh,

• 49:53Eli Crane?

  The Veteran Affairs,

• 49:59Eli Crane?

  the head of Veterans Affairs, who used to be Obama's Chief of Staff, basically put out a press release saying that, and you probably saw this, I know a lot of veterans texted me and reached out to me, but he said that we were gonna cut VA spending by 22%, which was completely nonsense.

• 50:17Shawn Ryan?

  I saw that, I know.

• 50:18Eli Crane?

  What they did was, they took a look at the cuts that we were proposing, and they just, you know, took 22% like off the top of everything, even though that's not how we were gonna do it. And I think they knew that.

• 50:36Eli Crane?

  What we were targeting was woke and weaponized spending from the federal government. And I just went through some of the cuts that we were actually going after. Never once was I on a phone call, in a meeting, and keep in mind, I'm part of the group that was proposing a lot of the cuts and trying to pump the brakes. Not one time did anybody say, hey, let's cut VA's budget by 22%. But when they did that, it kicked over a hornet's nest.

• 51:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Eli Crane?

  And that's what they do anytime you start talking about making cuts up on Capitol Hill. They start pulling people's heartstrings.

• 51:20Eli Crane?

  Saying, you know, Sean, you know, Eli doesn't care about, Eli doesn't care about veterans. Eli doesn't care about this, that. And it's effective, because, you know, then your phone starts ringing.

• 51:34Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, backing up real quick, I just wanted to say this. Yeah, I do understand the student loan stuff. I mean, handouts just create entitled, weak people.

• 51:45Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Shawn Ryan?

  It just does.

• 51:46Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Shawn Ryan?

  I do like the fact that, you know, maybe we would have invested into our own people, but with that being said, I do, I mean, you see it. You see it with these social programs.

• 51:55Eli Crane?

  No, you do.

• 51:56Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you see it, they get comfortable, they get used to the free handout, and it creates lazy, weak people.

• 52:06Eli Crane?

  It does.

• 52:07Shawn Ryan?

  Which we have a lot of lazy, weak people.

• 52:09Eli Crane?

  No, it does. Like, if I went into like,

• 52:13Eli Crane?

  I would, you know, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with you about like how you started this amazing business. But I doubt it was, I doubt old Uncle Sam came in here and, you know, gave you a handout. I wish he did, but. But he did not.

• 52:29Eli Crane?

  I think you worked, I think you worked your tail off and were creative and took some risks, you know? And I know that not everybody, I know that we're not all created, you know, the same. I know we have different strengths and weaknesses. And I do think that there's a small role for, you know, government to kind of be a safety net for certain individuals. But I think it's gotten way out of control.

• 52:57Eli Crane?

  And that was, that was another thing that we were trying to cut. It was some,

• 53:02Eli Crane?

  you know, some, you know, it was part of this, part of the SNAP program. People that are able-bodied, you know, individuals that are still on the government, you know, teat, if you will. We're trying to get some of them off and back to work. Right? And so,

• 53:20Eli Crane?

  yeah, man, I just think that you've, we've got to get back to, you know, a, a country that has a little bit more fiscal responsibility. And I, you know, it's like that old, that old adage, you know, you, you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. You teach him how to fish, he eats for the rest of his life. When I look at the spirit of this country and the people that impressed me the most, you know, America does, you know, have a, you know, a level of pioneer entrepreneurial spirit about it, you know, because capitalism is such an amazing thing. And I think it's brought so much prosperity to so many Americans and,

• 54:05Eli Crane?

  you know, I, I want to see that continue to be a thing. And I, and I do believe that their, you know, socialism.

• 54:12Eli Crane?

  Is it's this cancer that continues to metastasize within our culture and our country? And and programs like that, like, hey, yeah, let's just pay people's, let's just pay people's student loan off. I think it's, I think it's a slippery slope. And I think it's a, you know, I think it's a slow, um, slow march to socialism. And I think that's what a lot of people want. I think they want, and it's sad too, Sean, because, you know, it's like when you look at what kids are being taught now in, you know, world history, they're not being taught about, you know, the evils and, and, um, you know, just what socialism

• 54:53Eli Crane?

  has done around the globe. How many hundreds of millions of people, you know, have, have died at the hands of it? That's a bunch of, it's a bunch of promises. And it's like the, the folks at the very, very top get really wealthy. And the folks usually, you know, usually the masses and the, and the people that are supposed to be in taken care of, you know, go, you know, go to Venezuela, go, go to, go to places around the world where, um, you know, socialism has failed. It's the most debunked economic idea of all time. It's never, it's never worked. And what do they tell you every single time you have a conversation with a socialist? Well, it doesn't, it hasn't been done right yet.

• 55:35Eli Crane?

  Right? And it might, I mean, it usually, it usually after about a 20, 20 year period starts to completely unravel. So, I mean, you'll, it'll be okay for a couple of years. But then sooner or later, you, you run out of other people's money.

• 55:50Shawn Ryan?

  That makes sense. Going, going back also with the Veterans Affairs stuff and the, in the, whatever you want to call it, the smear campaign. Everybody knows there's a lot of lying that goes on in politics.

• 56:04Eli Crane?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:05Shawn Ryan?

  And so what I want to ask you is why are there not any consequences to slandering somebody's name or how they voted? Can't, I mean, I'm sure this is a This is a rookie question, but why can't you slap a defamation suit against somebody and sue them?

• 56:24Eli Crane?

  Well, we just tried to do that this week. We tried to censure Adam Schiff. Anna Paulina Luna dropped a a motion to do, you know, that would do just that, a bill that would do just that. And unfortunately, 20 Republicans voted against it for, I think, a variety of different reasons.

• 56:47Shawn Ryan?

  What was this? What was this bill?

• 56:49Eli Crane?

  Um, I don't remember the exact nomenclature or number to it, but Anna Paul, if you go look it up, Anna Paulina Luna.

• 56:58Eli Crane?

  And it was just, I think it was yesterday.

• 57:03Eli Crane?

  Finally got her, her, her bill to the floor that would censure Adam Schiff.

• 57:10Eli Crane?

  Make Ethics, the House Ethics Committee, actually investigate the lies that he told during this whole Russiagate thing. When he was like the chairman of intel knowingly lied to Congress knowingly lied to the American people. Um, I think he wasted, I think it cost the American people $32 million to do like, uh, some of the impeachment investigations, I believe.

• 57:38Eli Crane?

  And I'm, I'm just trying to go off memory here.

• 57:40Shawn Ryan?

  What, what was he lying about? I'm not familiar with all of this.

• 57:43Eli Crane?

  Um, that Trump was colluding with the Russians. You remember that whole Russiagate thing?

• 57:47Shawn Ryan?

  I do.

• 57:47Eli Crane?

  Yeah. And then the, you know, the, the impeach, the impeachment that followed. A lot of that was, uh, Adam Schiff, who's now running for, who's a congressman, a sitting congressman from California, who's now running for Senate. So she tried to censure, um, um, censure, censure Adam Schiff. And then, um, part of what she had in there was that if House Ethics finds him guilty, he can be fined up to $16 million, which would have been half of what the American taxpayers spent on the, all, all the, uh, you know, legal fees.

• 58:28Eli Crane?

  Associated with that whole debacle.

• 58:31Shawn Ryan?

  So he, so, hold on, let me get this straight. So he withheld evidence or he lied?

• 58:37Eli Crane?

  He lied. He knowingly lied.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino Beauty, the iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma Eau de Parfum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black currant, central jasmine, woody cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Womo Born in Roma Eau de Dualette, has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, spicy ginger, and mineral salt. Shop at Macy's.com.

• 59:40Eli Crane?

  He knowingly lied.

• 59:43Eli Crane?

  And so, I'm sure a lot of your viewers are familiar with, oh, I mean, it was wall-to-wall TV several years ago. Trump colluded with the Russians.

• 59:53Shawn Ryan?

  No, I'm bummed, definitely.

• 59:54Eli Crane?

  They trotted out, I think, 50, 51 members of the intelligence committee, or the intelligence agencies, saying that Trump colluded with the Russians. You know, and it was all completely made up. And so, she did try, and we did try. Many of us tried to hold Adam Schiff accountable for his lies. But because we had 20 Republicans vote against it, we weren't able to get it all to finish on it. That being said, she's actually gonna, because she's awesome. And if you guys don't follow her already, I highly suggest you do.

• 1:00:36Eli Crane?

  She's gonna refile him next week, so.

• 1:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, so why does it have to go through Congress to, why can't you just sell them out? I mean,

• 1:00:48Shawn Ryan?

  you know what I mean?

• 1:00:48Eli Crane?

  Yeah, I really, I think there is some insulation, you know.

• 1:00:54Shawn Ryan?

  Special treatment?

• 1:00:56Eli Crane?

  Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know all the legalities of that and I apologize once again. You know, being a, being a freshman, I don't know a ton of things, but you know, I don't know what, I don't know what that would even look like, but I know that Congress, we just try to hold one of our own accountable. And there's, there's members of Congress, you know, being investigated all the time. But I, I think because of the politics involved often, it doesn't really go anywhere.

• 1:01:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's, let's dive into the uniparty.

• 1:01:34Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Shawn Ryan?

  I just want to hear you speak on it.

• 1:01:35Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Shawn Ryan?

  Because it's, it's, it's, it's being brought up more and more and more.

• 1:01:42Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Shawn Ryan?

  And so what, what's going on here with the uniparty?

• 1:01:46Eli Crane?

  Yeah. So, and again, this is just my perspective on it, but

• 1:01:57Eli Crane?

  Washington DC to me seems like this massive,

• 1:02:02Eli Crane?

  massive machine, right? And there's so many, there's so many groups and institutions and special interests and lobbyist groups that benefit from the money that constantly gets pumped out of that place, right?

• 1:02:19Eli Crane?

  And so, um, because a lot of those lobbyists and special interest groups support politicians, um, often, and they'll, they'll support politicians on both sides of the aisle. It really doesn't matter to them. As a matter of fact, if it is bipartisan, if they get bipartisan support, meaning they get Republican support and Democrat support for the same thing, it's often a much better chance that they'll get whatever they're pushing for over the finish line. Okay, so because of that, oftentimes you'll see, um, you'll see like what you just saw last week with it, with it, you know, at least four trillion dollars and 165 Democrats voting

• 1:03:03Eli Crane?

  for a bill and 149 Republicans voting for a bill. And now they don't, because one of the things that we proposed when we were, we were doing our bill was that it would only go to next year. I believe it was March of next year, but they pushed in their bill that they passed this last week, they pushed it out two years so they wouldn't have to deal with it again next year. Right? And so like if you were in, if you were in financial trouble, Sean, or even like, let's say your marriage was in trouble, the marriage coun, you know, you, you'd probably be like, the marriage counselor probably wouldn't be like, hey, come back in two years. He'd probably be like, hey, I want to see you next week. And if it was more, the problem was more intense, hey, I want to see you two or three

• 1:03:48Eli Crane?

  times this week. And so when we passed our bill, we actually wanted it to be kind of a short turnaround period so that we could, what we were saying is take another bite at the apple. We got these, we got these cuts in there on this one. Let's come back here, you know, in, in a few months and do this again. Take another stab at it, get more cuts, right? Have this, keep having this conversation. But what they did, what the uniparty did, uh, is they pushed it out a couple of years. Uh, they, there was no cap on it. And then, but what, what's the result of that? Everybody gets paid for two years. Oh, it wasn't quite two years, but everybody gets paid for a while. We don't

• 1:04:28Eli Crane?

  have to worry about that for a while. So that's, that's a big part of it. And it's always, you know, the same culprit, it's money and power, right? And they kind of work together. And even the, even the media works, even the media works with them. And I, I mean, you knew that, your viewers knew that. But I would, you know, even, you know, and I think that, I think that this is one thing that, you know, even Republicans and conservatives saw, have started to see over the last couple of years.

• 1:05:03Eli Crane?

  Some of the people that you that you watched on TV for many years and trusted

• 1:05:11Eli Crane?

  might not be as might not be as patriotic or as conservative as you think and that's that's tough. That's tough to even say, man. But all I can tell you is in the midst of that speaker fight, when it seems like the weight of the world is bearing down on you, you're wildly outnumbered, 10 to 1 in your own party, and people on television that you've watched for years and listened to on the radio are saying that you're a terrorist and, you know, you're an idiot and you're a moron and what are you doing? You're going to give control to the Democrats? That's something you'll never you never forget. And that's not to say that that's not to say that I don't have grace, because I think

• 1:05:51Eli Crane?

  we all get it wrong from time to time. But that was very I that was a very eye opening experience for me to watch the media give air cover to the uniparty. When what it should have been doing was, in my opinion, covering for the actual conservatives that were fighting for change in that fight, fighting for, you know, a check on the uniparty.

• 1:06:17Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think, I mean, I think I know who you're talking about.

• 1:06:22Eli Crane?

  There's not just one person. There's multiple people.

• 1:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, we just saw Big News Corporation.

• 1:06:30Shawn Ryan?

  You know, when we just saw how controlled they are with the Tucker Carlson thing.

• 1:06:35Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean, it just right there just proved.

• 1:06:39Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 1:06:41Shawn Ryan?

  It proved all of it.

• 1:06:42Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 1:06:42Shawn Ryan?

  You know, now they're what do they slap him with a cease and desist? He's not, I mean.

• 1:06:46Eli Crane?

  I haven't even seen what they slapped him with, but he was their top guy.

• 1:06:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Eli Crane?

  And, you know, I do believe Tucker Carlson's a truth teller, and I believe he has I believe he has more courage than. You know, the vast, vast majority of people in this country, probably on, you know, worldwide, because you know, you've heard that saying, it's always a lot further fall from the top. And even, you know, whether you're in politics, professionally, in the media, etc., not a lot of people have the courage to roll the dice when they've, when they've gotten comfortable and they feel like they've got a lot to lose. But that's one thing that I, whether you agree with Tucker Carlson or not, whether you agree with everything he's said, or, you know, every story he's ever run or not, that guy

• 1:07:32Eli Crane?

  has courage, dude. And that was pretty telling what, you know, Fox did.

• 1:07:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, the ratings are way down. What are some other, what are some other things that the uniparty is involved in?

• 1:07:45Eli Crane?

  Like, one of the things that surprises me, like, is, uh, holding people accountable. Right? That, that's something that I think that there's a strong uniparty current on. One of the, like, you know, raise your hand out there if you're a Republican and you think Secretary Mayorkas is doing a good job. Raise your hand if you think he's derelict in his duties. Raise your hand if you think he should be fired. Right? And this is one of the things that just blows me away. I mean, how much, how much evidence do you have to see before you're like, okay, this guy has to go? And even if you guys are gonna replace him with somebody bad or even worse, we'll deal with that guy when he gets here,

• 1:08:30Eli Crane?

  or that gal when she gets here. But this guy needs to go. Okay? And they'll, they'll, they'll be, they'll be, you know, Democrats and Republicans that, you know, all the Democrats would stop that. But there would be Republicans that wouldn't vote with us either to, to make that happen. And so you'll see, you'll see stuff like that, where Americans are like, they're begging, Sean, they're begging for somebody to be held accountable. Like, it, it makes them sick, it makes it sick to their stomach, dudes, knowing that there, that there's a double standard. One for them and one for people with influence, you know, in high ranking positions. And, uh,

• 1:09:13Eli Crane?

  That that's a that's another that's another area where the uniparty will often, you know, move in lockstep, make deals, cut deals.

• 1:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's let's move into Mallorca and what's going on there. A lot, a lot of I want to, I want to expound on on names because a lot of people don't, you know, I'm one of them. I don't know all the names. I'm not immersed in this stuff. I'm very concerned about the country.

• 1:09:37Eli Crane?

  You're probably a much healthier person that you don't know the names.

• 1:09:40Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, no, I know. I don't know if I would say that because I'm I'm aware of what's going on, you know, down at the border, but I, you know, I I putting all the names together. I mean, there's hundreds of names. And so let's Mallorca's head of Department of Homeland Security, right?

• 1:09:55Eli Crane?

  Secretary Mallorca's.

• 1:09:57Shawn Ryan?

  And what we're getting into is the southern border.

• 1:10:00Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Shawn Ryan?

  So what's going on down there? You've been down there?

• 1:10:03Eli Crane?

  Yeah, it's a I mean, it's a disaster. I I I'm from Arizona. I, you know, I I was born in Tucson, raised in Yuma, right on the southern border. Um, you know, the last, um, the last time I spent a good amount of time down there was a a trip that we did in the Homeland Security Committee. We were actually in Texas. Um, but it's a disaster, man. It's a disaster. And it's a disaster because for a couple of different reasons. One, on day one of this administration, they changed all the policies um that the Trump administration had in place

• 1:10:44Eli Crane?

  to really tighten up the southern border. Um, so you got you got that going on. And then also, it doesn't help when you have a presidential candidate Biden at the time saying during um his campaign, you know, and and I quote it often, you know, to when when I'm in a Homeland Security um Committee hearing, you know, he would, he would say, hey, if if if you want to come here. Come, come, you know, if, and I forgive me for not having the quote memorized, but you, you can go, you can go look up multiple times where he said, you know, hey, if you,

• 1:11:28Eli Crane?

  if you want to come here and you've, you're fleeing oppression or whatever, or you just want to come, come.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  First of all, the idea that Joe Biden said, come, because I, I heard the other day that they're, they're coming because they know I'm a nice guy. Sure, that there is, we immediately surged to the border. All those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That's who we are. Where a nation says, if you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you should come. They're seeking asylum. First time ever, we've told people they can't come to America. That ends, the cages closed. Those who come seeking asylum, we should immediately have the capacity to absorb them, keep them safe until they can be heard.

• 1:12:11Eli Crane?

  There, there, there were even, there have been, you know, folks that were coming here illegally, asked by, you know, reporters, hey, why, why are you coming? They're like, oh, you know, as soon as Biden got elected, we, we knew that's what he said. As a matter of fact, this week I had, uh, we had, uh, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf, um, in, uh, Homeland Security, and then we had Chief of Border Patrol, um, in there, and they were saying the same thing. They, they said as soon as they saw then candidate Biden saying that, they, they knew what it was going to lead to if he did win.

• 1:12:51Eli Crane?

  And then, of course, day one, along with canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, you know, they stopped construction on the wall. You can fly over the southern border right now and see just stacks of steel stacked up that the American taxpayer already paid for, that could be used as a deterrent.

• 1:13:12Eli Crane?

  But isn't, you know, the construction didn't continue to finish that wall. And it was interesting because, I'm trying to think of his name, the chief border patrol guy that was in there this week.

• 1:13:28Eli Crane?

  One of the most interesting, interesting things he said in the hearing this week, he said that he, you know, he'd been in the border patrol for like five different administrations. Republicans, Democrats, Republicans, Democrats alike. And he said, this is the first one he's seen where if him and his colleagues actually brought up deterrence and stopping, whether it was fentanyl, drugs, illegals, uh, gang members.

• 1:13:55Shawn Ryan?

  Human trafficking.

• 1:13:56Eli Crane?

  Anything. If they talked about deterrence, they were shut down immediately.

• 1:14:00Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:14:00Eli Crane?

  Yeah. Didn't even want to, didn't even want to, didn't even want to hear the suggestions.

• 1:14:05Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you, why do you think, what's with the open borders? What are they hoping to accomplish?

• 1:14:12Eli Crane?

  Well, I think, I don't think it's, you know, one simple answer like a lot of things. I think it's complicated, like human beings are complicated. But I think there's a couple of different buckets there, in my opinion. I think, uh, I think there are globalists, um, around the world and within our own country that don't want to see, you know, they don't want to see borders anymore. I think they want to see us all push towards, you know, one world government.

• 1:14:41Eli Crane?

  I also think that there are people, you know, there are people within this country that are literally trying to destroy this country. So they can remake it into whatever, you know, this utopia that, that they think that they can socially engineer. I mean, it's like, you know, a lot of times if you're, if you're gonna, if you want to rebuild a house, but there's already a house there, sometimes it's just easier to tear it down. So I do believe there's an aspect of, of, of that there.

• 1:15:11Eli Crane?

  And I also believe that, um, I do believe that there are some that believe if they continue to bring people into the country, um, they can increase their voting base. Right? So I think that there's a bunch of different things that you're looking at there.

• 1:15:30Eli Crane?

  But yeah, it's, it's, it's concerning because one of the, one of the most, right now, one of the most alarming data points that you can look at is, I think, in the last year, just seventy one thousand fentanyl deaths, over seventy one thousand fentanyl deaths. And that's just one, that's just one drug.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:53Eli Crane?

  Right?

• 1:15:56Eli Crane?

  And I think, I want to say, and forgive me if I, if I get this wrong, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think it was, it's cost, costing like a hundred and eighty billion

• 1:16:11Eli Crane?

  to the American taxpayer since Joe Biden's taken over. Right? Hundred, just no big deal, a hundred and eighty billion. And I think if you break that down per taxpayer, it was like one, one thousand, one hundred dollars. So you're paying for that. And it was interesting because when we went down to Texas, Sean,

• 1:16:30Eli Crane?

  they had these massive white tents. Look, look like something you'd see over in Iraq or Afghanistan or something, like some military tent that we go in and out of all the time.

• 1:16:42Eli Crane?

  And they would, you know, they were holding, holding facilities, right? For some of these folks while they were being processed after they came into the country illegally.

• 1:16:53Eli Crane?

  And, uh,

• 1:16:57Eli Crane?

  and I'm trying to, I think,

• 1:17:00Eli Crane?

  I think each one of them cost, I want to say it was like, Ninety million dollars or something like that.

• 1:17:08Shawn Ryan?

  Ninety million dollars.

• 1:17:10Eli Crane?

  You know what? I'm I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to backtrack on that. I can't remember. I know there there were nine of them. And I've it was a ridiculous amount of money. When I asked Border Patrol, how much does each one of these cost? And I apologize, I don't. But it was like it was an amount of money. I did a social, um, social, uh, media video about it at the time. I can't remember exactly, but it was a staggering tens of millions of dollars for each one of them. Nine of them around the US. Each one took sixty Border Patrol agents off the line from what I was told by Border Patrol. It's just so that they could babysit, you know, move people around, you know, that type of thing. When those guys, so you're taking sixty agents off the line.

• 1:17:56Eli Crane?

  And these guys are already they're already overrun. You know, so it's like every time, every and this was one of the things we talked about in the hearing. You know, it's like, um, the cartels aren't stupid.

• 1:18:11Eli Crane?

  It's like the old misdirection play in football. Hey, we're gonna fake the run this way. And then, you know, we're pitching it to this guy on a reverse over here. And you're everybody's caught with their pants down chasing chasing this over here. And so, um, it's just it's sad, man. It it's it's sad. It's complete dereliction of duty. And these aren't like, like I tell people, these aren't just data points. That's not just the number seven, one, comma, zero, zero, zero on a piece of piece of paper like you have on that table. These are seventy thousand families that have been destroyed just this just this last year. That does and then, you know, it's like you go through and you start go Google

• 1:18:55Eli Crane?

  M S thirteen, you know, M S thirteen violence. Start pulling up the stories from this year alone. And you'll be like, oh, my God, this guy M S thirteen dismembered this guy. Five M S thirteen, you know, gang members killed this kid. You know, it's just like and on and on and on and on. It's like, um,

• 1:19:17Eli Crane?

  it's awful. It really is.

• 1:19:19Shawn Ryan?

  I'm surprised it's not more than seventy one thousand. Have you? I don't know if there's any validity to this and and it came from Fox News that.

• 1:19:31Shawn Ryan?

  The US, the current administration is involved in a human trafficking operation coming out of the southern border. Is there, is there any validity to that, or is that just a hit piece?

• 1:19:43Eli Crane?

  I don't, I don't know that story, man.

• 1:19:45Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. It's, it's, it's tough, man. I mean, you, I don't, it's, you know, I, you see these headlines, you read the stories, most of them are opinion nowadays, and it's, it's really hard to find facts, but I've seen that being kicked around here and there, and I was just wondering if you had any.

• 1:20:03Eli Crane?

  I don't.

• 1:20:04Shawn Ryan?

  Any insight to that? When it comes to, you brought up a, a good point, when it comes to the southern border and the, in the globalization.

• 1:20:13Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:14Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, in these, in these globalists. Let's talk about Biden turning over US sovereignty to the World Health Organization.

• 1:20:24Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:25Shawn Ryan?

  What's going on here? I, I talked about this with a, with a reporter, I think she would be a reporter, name's Morgan Zeggers, about a year ago.

• 1:20:36Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37Shawn Ryan?

  And, and then I actually took that video down because, because I got word from some people I trust that that was bullshit. Now here we are talking about it again.

• 1:20:49Eli Crane?

  Okay, so, and again, I'm not even, you know, I'm not an expert on the World Health Organization. All I can tell you is, is that when we're starting to take marching orders from a global organization that has leaders running it, that aren't elected by US citizens, and have known influence over them by the Chinese Communist Party and others.

• 1:21:18Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:19Eli Crane?

  That's a problem. That's a huge problem. And you saw, you saw even during COVID, where organizations like the WHO.

• 1:21:32Eli Crane?

  Had a say in, you know, how we were conducting ourselves here. That's a massive problem, right? You know, and it's like, at least, at least if the guidance is coming from people that you can hire and fire, that's a good start for the American people. Right? They, they can fire me every two years if they don't like the job that I'm doing. Right? They can fire our president every, every four years. But when you have some bureaucrat, some global bureaucrat that you have no control over

• 1:22:08Eli Crane?

  how long this person stays in that job? Or he doesn't answer, he doesn't answer to any American citizens. Even though the, even though our tax dollars fund a lot of that organization.

• 1:22:21Eli Crane?

  You know, some of the guidance, you know, coming out of some of these global groups during, during COVID.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 1:23:00Eli Crane?

  Sorry, man. It, it wasn't, it wasn't good. And it didn't maintain our sovereignty. And that's a, that's a problem.

• 1:23:10Shawn Ryan?

  What does this open us up to? How, how are they giving our sovereignty up to the, how is the Biden administration giving up our sovereignty to the World Health Organization?

• 1:23:21Eli Crane?

  How are they giving our sovereignty?

• 1:23:22Shawn Ryan?

  What is, what is the, what are the specifics? How, what are the? How do they come in?

• 1:23:27Eli Crane?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know the backstory on it. I just know that, I just know that there's a, I know that there's a push. Um, and I know that there's, you know, and I apologize. I know that there's plenty of reporters that have really dug into this, but I know that their influence is growing way too strong. And I know that there are folks in our own country that, um, are perfectly fine with the WHO having a, a pretty, pretty big say in how we do things during like times of crisis, pandemic, et cetera. And that's not, that's not okay with the American people.

• 1:24:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's not okay with me either. I mean, I, I did this and then, like I said, I got from, I, I did this piece on it about a year ago. I think it was about a year ago and, uh, and I pulled it because I had all these reliable sources telling me, hey, you're wrong about this. That's not happening. And the last thing I want to do is, is mislead my audience.

• 1:24:27Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Shawn Ryan?

  So if, if I make a mistake, I will, I'll pull it.

• 1:24:32Eli Crane?

  And I think that, that, I think that that speaks to your credibility, man. And I think, I think that that's good. And, you know,

• 1:24:39Eli Crane?

  I, you know, I think that should be a goal for each and every one of us if we're, um, you know, if we find out that we're putting out bad gouge or even misinformed, I think it, I think it really speaks to who you are, who you are, if you're willing to walk, walk it back and take ownership of it. But even then, that's why they're, you know, I'll, I'll straight up tell you, hey, man, I don't, I don't know the answer to that.

• 1:25:03Shawn Ryan?

  I don't appreciate it.

• 1:25:04Eli Crane?

  I, I'm not an expert. I really don't think I'm an expert in anything. But, you know, I know I love my country. I know I'm concerned about the direction of it. And, um, I know there's a lot of shady stuff going on. And, uh, you know, I, I think, I think our instincts are often, um,

• 1:25:27Eli Crane?

  And I hate to say, I hate, I hate to say that when we're talking about like, you know, the World Health Organization, but I, I know there is a push to give them authorities over, you know, how we do things during, um, you know, global pandemics. And, you know, you hear, you hear a lot of these guys talking about, oh, you know, that, you know, there's, there's more coming down the pipe and, you know, that was just a test run and, and like, I, I don't know exactly what, what these guys' plans are. All I know is, is that I don't think most American citizens would be okay with that in the slightest. They want the guidance that they're having to live under, whether they're wearing a

• 1:26:12Eli Crane?

  mask, whether their business is closed down. They want to actually be able to go talk to the people that are making those decisions or have some type of representation or communication with those people so that they can voice their concerns. And, you know, that's, that's how it's supposed to be done in this country. It just, it's, I mean, I think most Americans sense that.

• 1:26:36Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break.

• 1:26:40Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 1:27:01Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Eli, we're back from the break and I gotta be honest, I got a bunch of questions for you, but let's talk about what you want to talk about. So what do you think some of the most concerning things in the country are right now that we're facing today? I know there's a lot of them. I have a lot of concerns. What are your top concerns?

• 1:27:24Eli Crane?

  I think the, for me, the, the biggest concern is just the cultural depravity, that the cultural rot, destruction, whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it. Um, because, you know, it's like, uh,

• 1:27:43Eli Crane?

  What, you know, I'm in, I'm in politics, but Andrew Breitbart said a long time ago, he said, "Politics is always downstream of culture." So you often won't see anything, you won't often see legislation or any bills floating around Congress until years after it's been bouncing around in culture, right? Media, entertainment, et cetera, and just people's day-to-day lives. And that's, and, and because I'm a Christian and because I, I read the Bible, I, you know, I do, I do believe in good and evil. Um, and a lot of this stuff I see, you know, I just, I have no other context for it than,

• 1:28:27Eli Crane?

  you know, this stuff is, this stuff is wrong, this stuff is wicked. Um, and even, you know, even when I talk about culture, not all, you know, and, and a lot of it, you know, to me has a, you know, a spiritual foundation, right? And then a lot of the stuff that we see in the headlines are just manifestations or a byproduct of that, you know, the, the spiritual side of things. And I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, what are you talking about? You're cra- you're crazy." That's okay. Um, I don't need everybody, I don't need to, for everybody to believe everything or agree with everything I say. I'm just gonna tell people what I, what I really think.

• 1:29:05Eli Crane?

  Um, but even outside of the, you know, the spiritual aspect of our cultural unraveling, um, there's also the, the cultural side, um, like the totalitarian bent, the communist bent, the socialist bent within our culture, right? Um, if you go, like, if, if your viewers go, um, start studying up on cultural Marxism, right, if, if they go start watching Yuri, Yuri Bezmanov, have you ever watched Yuri Bezmanov videos? The ex-KGB professor? I've watched a couple.

• 1:29:48Eli Crane?

  Okay, he talks about ideological subversion, he talks about the steps of it, how long it takes, you know?

• 1:29:57Eli Crane?

  I believe that a lot of, you know, a lot of what's going on in America right now. It's the, it's the old basic, a house divided cannot stand, right? Let's, let's divide these guys up every which way possible. And then, and then let's start picking them apart. Let's start turning them against each other. And that's what I see, that's what I see. I think that's the biggest problem because I think that if we were more united as Americans and less divided, I think that there's nothing that we couldn't, that we couldn't overcome or defeat. But because we've fallen prey to some of this, you know, this cultural Marxism.

• 1:30:41Eli Crane?

  And there are a bunch, there are several words for it. You know, that's, you know, I think that's one of the most, at least in my opinion, accurate depictions of it. There's a guy named Dr. Vody Bockum. He doesn't look anything like me. Big black preacher. Was gonna play pro football, but then, you know, he got influenced and ended up going into ministry. Went to like Oxford. A bunch of, you know, very impressive schools, very impressive resume. And he, he's actually one of the few preachers that I've heard talk about cultural issues.

• 1:31:26Eli Crane?

  And in, in one of the interviews I heard him give, he talked about how he was invited on CNN one time when Obama was president. And they asked him, you think the, now that there's a, you know, finally a black president, you think that the, the culture's gonna be more united? And he said, absolutely not. And they were blown away because he's a black guy. And he's like, because Barack Obama is a cultural Marxist, like many of his teachers before him. And I think he mentioned Jeremiah Wright, one of the pastors that Obama sat under for a long time. And so.

• 1:32:07Eli Crane?

  When you, when you start to, when you start to look at Marxism, um, traditional Marxism, they divide us up by economics, the haves, the have-nots, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, right? And they try and divide us up based on the, the rich and the poor. That didn't work here in the West because of capitalism. And even the guy that was considered, you know, low, you know, lower or middle class felt like, hey, I'm doing okay, man. I can, you know, I can buy a house. I can buy a car if I, if I make wise choices and I can provide for my family. I'm, I'm doing okay. Um, so that traditional Marxism didn't work here

• 1:32:49Eli Crane?

  in the U S. What has worked is cultural Marxism. So you start, you just start manipulating the ingredients, right? You take the economics out of it and that's still there a little bit, but it's not, it's not really as effective. You'll see little doses of it here and there, but what you'll really see with cultural Marxism is you start making it about dividing us up via race and ethnicity. Boom. Now we got them.

• 1:33:16Shawn Ryan?

  Sexuality.

• 1:33:17Eli Crane?

  A lot, a lot. Yeah. And just, right. And, and you can go really deep into this. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of folks that talk about this, you know, Ben Shapiro will talk about it, intersectionality, Charlie, you know, Charlie Kirk's, there's, you, you can go listen to a bunch of, you know, this cultural division and its origins from many different people. And I've listened to a bunch of it, but that's my, that's one of my biggest concerns because I know that that's even in the military, that's one of the, you know, the tactics that we use divide and conquer, right? Split them up.

• 1:33:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Eli Crane?

  And then they're easier, they're easier to attack.

• 1:33:58Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I've talked about this several times and, and, and the thing that I can't ever get to the bottom of is where is this shit coming from? I mean, cause you're right, it's, it's, it's, it's right versus left. It's rich versus poor. It's black versus white. It's, it's.

• 1:34:16Shawn Ryan?

  Gay and not gay, trans and not trans. I mean, it's, it's, there's more. I can't, I just can't think of them all. But it's, it's, it's literally-

• 1:34:26Eli Crane?

  Native born, foreign born, you know, there, there's, you know, there's so, there's so many ways that you can divide us up. And that's, that's what, that's what's being done to our culture. And it's, you know, it, it's, like I said, I think it's, besides the, the, the spiritual rot, which I think is the foundation of it all.

• 1:34:52Eli Crane?

  You know?

• 1:34:54Shawn Ryan?

  Where's this shit coming from? Is this, is this from foreign influence? Is this internal influence? Is it both? I mean, where is this coming from? And, and I'll, I'll stop there. I want, I want, I got more I want to say, but we'll stop there. Where do you think this is coming from? Where's the influence?

• 1:35:13Eli Crane?

  Well, I think, I think a lot of it started foreign.

• 1:35:19Eli Crane?

  But I think it started to, you know, like a lot of things, it started to spring up its own roots here. And then, you know, metastasize.

• 1:35:29Shawn Ryan?

  Well, there were definitely seeds planted.

• 1:35:31Eli Crane?

  Right. So, um, Dr. Vody Bakum, if you go, if you just go Google Dr. Vody Bakum, cultural Marxism, he, he does a sermon on it. And, you know, he goes through, he goes through the history of it. Um, he goes through, you know, goes back to Marx. Then he goes, you know, to the Frankfurt School and how a lot of this stuff then started getting, you know, piped into the West. And, uh, you know, how destructive it is. And he, he gives a very articulate educational breakdown of its origins. And, you know, what it's designed to do. Um, and so I highly suggest that, you know, your, your viewers go, you know,

• 1:36:10Eli Crane?

  Google that or, you know, and then you, you start, you start watching some of Yuri Besmanov's stuff, right? I'm not sure what your take is on, on Yuri Besmanov, but, um, ex-KGB defector, right? Came to the West and started doing interviews, I think in the eighties.

• 1:36:33Eli Crane?

  And, you know, talking about ideological subversion and, you know, some of the, I, I think your viewers should watch that as well. But one of the things that I remember from, you know, the videos I was watching of him, he says, you know, you, you, you Americans, you think that in the KGB, we spent a lot of our money, our, our resources on the fancy James Bond espionage stuff, like spy, spy gadgets, like that, that type of stuff. He's like, no. He said, I've talked with other pretty high ranking members of the KGB that defected like I did. And he said, uh, he said, we, we all agreed that probably closer to 15% of our budget was spent on espionage and that type of stuff. But he said, the

• 1:37:15Eli Crane?

  vast majority of our budget went into ideological subversion, into your schools, into your media, into your media, right into Hollywood and into destroying you, use, using your own code, your own culture. And so, and he goes, he actually, if you go watch those videos, he goes through the, I think the four stages of it. I think the first one is like demoralization. Um, and he go, and he actually tell, he actually tells you how long each stage is supposed to take. And so I think that, I think we're seeing the, the, definitely the latter stages because even when he was shooting those videos back in. What are the latter stages? The first one's demoralization?

• 1:37:59Eli Crane?

  I can't, I can't remember. Okay. But, um, but, uh, it, they're fascinating. And even, even when he was making these videos and they must've been in the eighties, maybe early nineties, you know, just you could tell by the picture quality. Um, he was like, and we're, we're, it's already, it's already complete. That, that was the scary thing. Even back then, it was like, he's like, we couldn't even, we couldn't even believe how quickly it took off here in the West. You know, so I think that's, I think that's, uh, I think that's a part of it. So you think?

• 1:38:35Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think this is coming from Russia? Do you think it's coming from China?

• 1:38:38Eli Crane?

  I think it's coming from, I think it's coming from multiple places. And I think that, um, like if you, you know, if you go, if you go back and, you know, study, you know, Vody Bakum and, and some of his history, I think you'll see, you know, it, it comes even from, you know, Karl Marx and some of those, those ideologies as well. But I think a lot of it does come from, uh, some, some of our enemies that basically want to destroy us by dividing us.

• 1:39:11Shawn Ryan?

  That make, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Do you, do you think they're paying everybody? We already know they're paying people off.

• 1:39:19Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:20Shawn Ryan?

  Are they paying people off to push these agendas?

• 1:39:24Eli Crane?

  I think, yeah, I think, I think that it's, I think it's a lot, many different buckets. But, you know, you had Schweitzer on your show, right? From, um, what was his book called?

• 1:39:38Shawn Ryan?

  Red Handed.

• 1:39:38Eli Crane?

  Red Handed, Red, Red Handed, right?

• 1:39:42Eli Crane?

  This is one of the things that I'll often, you know, talk to and ask people about at Homeland Security that I've learned from his books and others, like the whole elite capture, right? You know, you, you watch some of these things go on and it's like, how is this Chinese spy balloon allowed to fly over the U S for a week?

• 1:40:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:01Eli Crane?

  How is, how is, how are the Chinese able to actually set up police stations here? Why are we allowing the Chinese to buy up farmland near military installations, right?

• 1:40:16Shawn Ryan?

  And why are we buying our power grid transformers from China when they can shut them off just like that?

• 1:40:23Eli Crane?

  Why are we pushing towards, why are we pushing towards all electric vehicles by 2030, knowing that the, the, you know, the components and the ingredients that go into making those, you know, those batteries come from China controlled, um,

• 1:40:44Eli Crane?

  land, right? So, I mean, there, there's a lot, there's a lot of these things going on that doesn't make any sense.

• 1:40:54Eli Crane?

  Without the explanation of corruption, people are bought and paid for. And I'm glad that guys like Peter, writing books like that and to inform the American people. I just wish, Sean, that more Americans actually looked into this stuff because what I've noticed, and this was something that I talked to people a lot about is the complacency that Americans have. We, and even often my own colleagues, and I know that a lot of them think that I'm this, you know, wacko tinfoil hat wearing guy, but this can't, this can't continue forever, man.

• 1:41:34Shawn Ryan?

  They don't look into stuff.

• 1:41:35Eli Crane?

  And

• 1:41:38Shawn Ryan?

  So many, so many conspiracies have been proven true by now, like,

• 1:41:45Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:45Shawn Ryan?

  It's, no, I'm sorry. There's no more tinfoil hat shit. It's cats out of the bag, you know? Every, so much has been exposed.

• 1:41:55Eli Crane?

  Yeah. I still think there's some tinfoil hat stuff and some, some craziness out there. But that being said, to your point, there have been a lot of things that were conspiracies that have been proven true. And I think that it is important that we look into things and, and try and get a good grasp on them. But man, I tell you what, there's no way that some of the stuff that's been going on in this country could be going on unless, you know, some of our people were bought and paid for.

• 1:42:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Let me rephrase that. Yes, I do believe there's tinfoil hat stuff. I, but

• 1:42:32Eli Crane?

  I know, I knew where you were, I knew where you were going with that.

• 1:42:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, there, there was definitely some far out there shit, but, but the stuff you're talking about, I don't, I know.

• 1:42:41Eli Crane?

  No.

• 1:42:41Shawn Ryan?

  That's not tinfoil hat stuff anymore.

• 1:42:44Eli Crane?

  No, it's not.

• 1:42:45Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and, but I, I am going to say something though. Do you, we see all these agendas being shoved down everybody's throat, whether it's, whether it's the, it's racism or the big one right now. You know, it's, it's the LGBTQ plus community. A lot of pedophilia stuff is starting to get pushed, renaming pedophiles, MAPS,

• 1:43:08Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:08Shawn Ryan?

  minor attracted person. We're starting to see laws being passed in, in different states.

• 1:43:16Shawn Ryan?

  But you know, I go, I go out and I, I see these being pushed, push, push, push, push, push. It's everywhere in the media. It's all over social media. You know, I was just in Washington last weekend and, uh, and we met and, and I see,

• 1:43:34Shawn Ryan?

  I see LGBTQ plus flags everywhere.

• 1:43:40Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:41Shawn Ryan?

  Everywhere I look.

• 1:43:42Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:43Shawn Ryan?

  You know, on some of the government buildings, I don't even see an American flag. I just see, I mean, we're talking flags the size that, that, that, that fired ladder trucks hang. You know, the American flag at a, in an, in an event or something. I mean, huge.

• 1:44:00Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:02Shawn Ryan?

  I, I don't see massive amounts of people celebrating. I see like a little, a dumb party in the White House lawn where, uh, some dude shaking his boobs around, you know, making a, um, class is gone.

• 1:44:20Eli Crane?

  Yes.

• 1:44:21Shawn Ryan?

  But what I'm saying is it, I guess what I'm trying to get at is the propaganda is so strong. It makes you think that everybody is into this, everybody. I mean, we talked about that at dinner. But then you go and it's, you see, you see all the party supplies, but you don't see any people. You know, and, and, and, and I just want to say this because I think a lot, I think a lot of people in this country are losing hope because all they see are these agendas shoved in their face. You see it at Target, you see it at Bud Light, you see it.

• 1:44:56Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Shawn Ryan?

  You see it everywhere. And I'm not saying that everybody even has a problem with any of this stuff. I think that people are just tired of it being shoved in their face everywhere they go.

• 1:45:07Eli Crane?

  I think most Americans are, are pretty accepting as far as, hey, if you, you live your life however you want to live your life, just don't shove it down my throat and definitely don't shove it down my kid's throat. I think that's where Americans get the most pissed off.

• 1:45:21Shawn Ryan?

  That's, that's all I'm saying, but, but, but you don't see, you don't see, you see all this propaganda, but then there's nowhere to be, there's no one to be found, you know, that's. I don't know anybody that's really supporting this kind of stuff. And, and, and, and I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to bring a little bit of hope is to people by saying,

• 1:45:50Shawn Ryan?

  this is just a media front. I don't, I don't think this agenda is as big as the media is making it appear and, and, and even though you see it everywhere, you don't see massive amounts of support.

• 1:46:05Eli Crane?

  I think the media is definitely, I think, you know, Hollywood, the media, that the usual suspects are definitely in full promotion mode. And, you know, it just, I don't know, man.

• 1:46:23Eli Crane?

  It's, uh, the, the, these are crazy times. And, and like I said personally, like, um, I have my own beliefs.

• 1:46:36Eli Crane?

  And I'm, if you, you live your life how you want to live your life, man. Just don't push it down my throat and, and, and don't, you know, especially don't expose my kids to it. Those are, those are things that, those are things that, um, I think should be, you know, and, and you're starting to see a lot of fights brew up around the country with parental rights. Right. And just what kids are allowed to be taught at schools, like there, there's, you could argue in many places, in, in a lot of these schools, there's, our kids are being exposed to pornography without, you know, the, the consent of parents. And then if, if parents say something about it, you know, they're, they're attacked for wanting to, you know, burn books

• 1:47:21Eli Crane?

  and, and censor. You know, and it's, it's just like, it's, it's nonsense. And I think you're, you know, again, I, even that divides us, you know, so much more. But I've noticed that a lot of people are looking for answers. I know that, I know that I'm always looking for answers, man. I'm always like, ah, what is this? Like what, what's going on? What's, what's really going on? And, uh, you know, I think that one of the places that I'll often go when I'm, when I'm trying to like do the math.

• 1:48:02Eli Crane?

  Is I'll go read Matthew 24.

• 1:48:07Eli Crane?

  Matthew 24.

• 1:48:12Eli Crane?

  Jesus disciples asked him. When are you coming back? And what will the signs be? And he goes through this long list, boom, boom, boom. One after another, after another, after another. It's one of the, it's one of the longest answers Jesus ever gives in the, in the Bible. And it's prophetic, like it's gonna happen in the future. And one of the key. One of the key statements in there is lawlessness will abound, hearts will grow cold. It's one of the things I see happening globally right now, like you just see lawlessness everywhere. You know, was last time you turned on the TV, you just saw kids rushing into, you know, stores. Running out with stuff.

• 1:48:58Eli Crane?

  People are so upset and pissed off at each other that people's hearts are growing cold. It's getting harder and harder to love your neighbor, right?

• 1:49:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Eli Crane?

  And so, um, but Matthew 24, go read it for your viewers, go, go read Matthew 24.

• 1:49:15Shawn Ryan?

  I will.

• 1:49:16Eli Crane?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a good one.

• 1:49:19Shawn Ryan?

  What else does it say?

• 1:49:21Eli Crane?

  So first he tells his disciples, do not be deceived.

• 1:49:27Eli Crane?

  He will, and then he says, many will come in my name and say that they are the Christ. So you have, you know, false. You'll have frauds or people saying that they're the Christ, right? And then he says, there will be wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, pestilence, which is disease.

• 1:49:48Eli Crane?

  And, and famines and, you know, don't be alarmed, these things must be, take place. These things are just the beginning. These are the beginning of birth pains. He actually used that, that phrase, that terminology, which is interesting because what happens in birth pains? What happens when, you know, a woman's getting ready to give birth? It starts slow, right? Contractions aren't that bad and then they get more painful. And they get more frequent and more frequent and painful and more frequent. And I think that, and I know a lot of people are gonna say, ah, this guy, he, he's kooky, he's a nut. But I believe that, that, that's what I believe we're starting to see on the earth.

• 1:50:29Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think that many people are gonna be like that, man. There's a lot of people reading the Bible these days.

• 1:50:33Eli Crane?

  Yeah, well, I tell you what, man. I tell you what.

• 1:50:38Eli Crane?

  That's a pretty good place. When, when things start spinning out of control, in my opinion, that's one place that it never hurts to go back to and have, have your foundation. You know, of all the things that I've done in my life, of all the things I've screwed up, that's been one thing that's been, one of the only things that's been consistent.

• 1:50:59Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean,

• 1:51:02Shawn Ryan?

  you know, I'm new at it, so I've been diving in and, and, and what brought me to that was just looking around and seeing. I mean, I'm just gonna be honest, man. Every, it just got to the point. Every fucking place I looked.

• 1:51:18Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:19Shawn Ryan?

  I hate what I see. I hate seeing.

• 1:51:22Eli Crane?

  Hearts growing cold.

• 1:51:24Shawn Ryan?

  I hate seeing.

• 1:51:27Shawn Ryan?

  There's nothing, I look at the southern border, I'm disgusted. I look at the amount of money we're sending to Ukraine that we could be spending on our own infrastructure, power grid, active shooters.

• 1:51:39Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:40Shawn Ryan?

  Harden, you know, hardening up schools. The, the, the, the fentanyl epidemic that we got going on, the, whatever, I could go on and on.

• 1:51:52Eli Crane?

  DOJ, the FBI.

• 1:51:53Shawn Ryan?

  DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the, the,

• 1:51:58Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:58Shawn Ryan?

  All of it, just everything. The, the, the LGBTQ agenda being forced down everybody's throats. The pedophilia being normalized.

• 1:52:07Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 1:52:08Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean.

• 1:52:08Eli Crane?

  That'll be the, that'll be the next big one, dude.

• 1:52:11Shawn Ryan?

  I know this is.

• 1:52:12Eli Crane?

  You already, you already see, you already see it happening and it's just like.

• 1:52:15Shawn Ryan?

  In Washington, now they can, if your eight-year-old kid doesn't, if your eight-year-old kid wants to switch genders and you as the parent don't want that to happen, state can confiscate your kid.

• 1:52:27Eli Crane?

  Was that California or Washington?

• 1:52:29Shawn Ryan?

  That is Washington. California now has, I think, three, three bills up and there's a.

• 1:52:38Shawn Ryan?

  I can't remember if they're a congressman or a senator, but he's saying if you love your kids, you need to leave California right now. Yeah. Because same type of stuff going on. Also in California, they just passed a bill that, you know, I got a lot of flack with on this with a previous episode, but I don't give a shit because this is what it is. They're normalizing pedophilia. Yeah. The way they're doing it is now it's a, there's a 10 year spread. The spread, the, the biggest spread could be now a judge, basically what this is, is a judge now has the power to decide if you're a, if you're a pedophile that's going to wind up on the sex offender list or not.

• 1:53:19Shawn Ryan?

  So the argument here is, oh no, they're just trying to normalize it because a 19 year old should be able to have sex with a 17 year old. Okay. I'm not going to argue that. Yeah. Okay. They went to high school together. I get it. That's how it starts. But you know what? A fucking 24 year old should not be able to fuck a 14 year old. I'm sorry. Like a 24 year old man having sex with a 14 year old girl is not okay. And there's a 10 year spread. And so for anybody that's going to sit here and fucking tell me that it's okay. This is, no, that's, that's not what it is. It's an 18 year old and a 17 year old, or a 19 year old and a 17 year old, or 18 year old and a 16 year old. Fuck you.

• 1:54:02Shawn Ryan?

  If that's what it was, it would be a three, maybe four year spread, not a 10 year spread so that a teacher can have sex with their student. Yeah. You know, they're doing this shit is in, is it Minnesota? Colorado just passed something. I, as soon as I found out about the thing in California, I said, this is going to spread. It's already spread to three different states. Yeah. You know, and, and this, and, and then there's the, oh, let's call them the minor attracted person now because pedophile, pedophile, that's offensive, Eli. Yep. That's offensive. That's what they do. They start changing the definition. You know, but I don't, I don't know that many people that are, that are for this.

• 1:54:48Shawn Ryan?

  And, and, and just in his example, I mean, look at, just.

• 1:54:55Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not, this podcast hit number four in 58 episodes out of all podcasts.

• 1:55:02Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:02Shawn Ryan?

  That shit does not happen. It doesn't happen. And so, we talk about this kinda stuff on this podcast.

• 1:55:08Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:09Shawn Ryan?

  The reason this podcast hit number four is we're one of the only podcasts out that are talking about this kinda shit. And so, that shows you, that right there shows you how many people do not stand for this. Regardless of what you see when you walk into Target, regardless of what you see when you flip on the news, when you flip on your sporting event. And that's all they're talking about. When you look at Hollywood and that's all they're talking about. It's bullshit. It's a front. It's not even fucking real. And that's, that's why, that's why things like this are, that's why Tucker Carlson's numbers are insane.

• 1:55:47Eli Crane?

  100%.

• 1:55:48Shawn Ryan?

  You know, is because the majority of people are not into this.

• 1:55:53Eli Crane?

  I agree, and I'm glad you are, Sean. I'm glad you're talking about it. And in many ways, I'm glad that a lot of people just quit watching mainstream media on both sides of the aisle. Because I think, and I'm glad, in many ways, even though I often think technology is a big part of the problem in this country. I think it can also be a great thing. And that you can go get alternate viewpoints, opinions, hear, you know, alternative voices, etc. And, you know, I think your show is one, one example of that.

• 1:56:31Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 1:56:33Shawn Ryan?

  The point I was getting to, before I went off on all these tangents, is everywhere I look, I can't stand what I'm seeing happening. And it drew me to, it drew me to, to God.

• 1:56:47Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:47Shawn Ryan?

  It was, nothing makes any sense anymore. Nothing makes sense. Everywhere I look.

• 1:56:54Eli Crane?

  No, you're right. And it's funny because without God, there is, there's really no, there's no intelligent design. There's no structure at all. And what you, what you end up with is complete moral relativism, right? Well, I think, you know, there's no, there's no right or wrong anymore. It's just like, well, I don't, you know, that's not, those aren't, that's, those aren't my morals. That's not what I think. And so therefore, anything, you, you basically, over a long enough timeline, you run into this, you know, ideology that anything goes. And we're definitely seeing that in the West and in, in America. And that was one of the reasons that I said, when you asked me, what's the biggest, what do you, what do I think the biggest problem?

• 1:57:34Eli Crane?

  I think the biggest problem is the spiritual decline of, you know, of this country. The fact that a lot of people have turned away from God. We've pushed God out of everything. We've allowed God to be pushed out of everything. And even, you know, there's a, you know, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of preachers out there, a lot of pastors out there that won't, they won't tackle the tough issues.

• 1:58:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Eli Crane?

  You know, they won't talk about them. They're scared because they don't want to be canceled. They don't want to be labeled. And I mean, just like, you know, you and me having this conversation right now. How many, there's not a lot of people in, in my, there's not a lot of people that do what I do that would come and have a three, four hour conversation where, hey, let's, let's, let's, let's go, let's talk about real stuff. But the cool thing is, is because not a lot of people have the courage to do it.

• 1:58:36Eli Crane?

  It separates the men from the boys really quick.

• 1:58:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:39Eli Crane?

  Really quickly. And, and one of the tattoos I have on my arm says, evil triumphs when good men do nothing. It's not just good men, it's good men and women. But evil triumphs when good men and women do nothing. And there's too much of it. There's too much complacency. There's too much cowardice. And, you know, and, and, you know, I think it's one of the reasons that you see the just depravity. And like, you look, like you, you were saying, I look around and there's nothing I see that I like.

• 1:59:14Shawn Ryan?

  There's a lot of us. Let's move into spiritual warfare. We talked about this a little bit at dinner. So what are some of the things you talked a lot about? Actually, I think I cut you off at dinner because I wanted to talk about this here today. What are some of the other things that you see that are congruent with the Bible that's happening right now?

• 1:59:35Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:36Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of people are talking about sexuality.

• 1:59:38Eli Crane?

  Yeah. So I think that, you know,

• 1:59:43Eli Crane?

  it's interesting because, and there's so many different perspectives. There's so many different perspectives on, you know, the Bible, but roughly 25% of your Bible is prophetic or stuff that's supposed to take place in the future, or some people call it eschatology. And, you know, regardless of how many different viewpoints there is, and there's a lot of viewpoints out there, and I'm not an expert on any of them, but there is a consensus amongst many viewpoints that a lot of what's going to happen in the end of days is going to go down in the Middle East,

• 2:00:23Eli Crane?

  in Jerusalem, Israel-centric, etc. The Bible is a Jerusalem-centric, Israel-centric book. It just is. When you go, you go throughout and you read it, Israel, Judah,

• 2:00:37Eli Crane?

  and then all the other, and then all the other nations often mentioned around, you know, Israel. If you go look them up, where, where, where are these, what are these, what are these countries now called? You'll find out that most of the Bible, that's, that's where it centers around. And so it's just interesting when you watch some of the changes even going on in the Middle East.

• 2:00:59Eli Crane?

  When you watch the fact that the US is now pulled, you know, pulling out of the Middle East, it, it, it creates a vacuum. And there's a lot of movement going on in the Middle East right now, and I think people need to keep their eyes on the Middle East, Jerusalem, Israel, because I think that when you say what's going down in the world that, you know, parallels with what the Bible says, I think that that's one thing that, that people can look at.

• 2:01:31Shawn Ryan?

  What is going on over there that we need to know about? It's can, it's parallel with the Bible.

• 2:01:37Eli Crane?

  So, um, like if, like if you go, if you go open your Bible right now and you read, you start reading Ezekiel thirty eight, thirty nine.

• 2:01:47Eli Crane?

  Um, and, and, and like I said, there's many perspectives. Um, you know, I, I take a, you know, a, a perspective that this, you know, th- this is gonna happen in the future. Ezekiel thirty eight, and Ezekiel was a Old Testament prophet. And, uh, he, he, he goes into pretty, pretty great detail about how, um, a leader from the north and called Gog. Gog from the land of Magog is gonna come, basically come down into Israel, um, and lead like a ten nation coalition, um, of Middle Eastern countries and North African countries against Israel.

• 2:02:31Eli Crane?

  And, uh, and, and do a lot of damer, a lot of damage to Israel. And so it's interesting when you, when you, when you watch what, what's going on in the Middle East, because as the, the US is one of, is Israel's biggest ally, right? And it's interesting as I see us pull out of the Middle East, but I also see a very dangerous rise of antisemitism in the United States and even in, even in Congress.

• 2:03:03Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 2:03:03Eli Crane?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can go, you can go look into that. But, um, it's just, it's, it's just interesting. It, it seems of, as if, you know, the pieces are being moved on the board for some of this biblical prophecy to start being fulfilled.

• 2:03:24Eli Crane?

  But go read Ezekiel thirty eight and thirty nine. And, you know, um, you know, if, when you, if you read, if you like read all the way through it, it has conclusive language at the end. You know, God says, you know, at the end, as he's prophesying through Ezekiel, I will never allow my name to be blasphemed again. Right. And so it has conclusive languages because the Bible, a lot of the Western church focuses on the fact that Christ came and he died for our sins and the atonement of his blood. And if we accept him into, you know, as our Lord and Savior, then one day, you know, we will, we will live with him and we will be with him. Right.

• 2:04:11Eli Crane?

  But that's, that's only part of the good news. That's a big part of the good news, but the, the, the second half, and I think that even more hopeful half is the Meronotha message, and that is the Lord came and the Lord is coming again. Right. And he came as, he came as a, he came as a sacrificial lamb the last time, but that's not how he's coming back. The Bible is very clear that when he comes back, he's going to come back and he's going to come back

• 2:04:43Eli Crane?

  with a vengeance. And, and at that point, we will finally see justice. And so if you believe in the Bible, if you take it, if you take, if you take it literally, that to me, all this social engineering that we do, like, I'm a congressman, you know, and it's like, you know, people ask me all the time, can we, can we turn this thing around? I was gonna ask that. Right. Can we turn this thing around? Is it possible? Is it salvageable?

• 2:05:13Eli Crane?

  I'll tell you, I don't know. Is it, is it possible? It is possible. Is it likely?

• 2:05:20Eli Crane?

  I'm, I'm not super optimistic with what I see. But that my hope is not in making America great again. Even though I love that, I love that slogan and I know it's been bastardized and demonized. Make America great again, MAGA, you know, whatever. I think make, I, I think, you know, regardless of what country you're from, you would want, make Spain great again. Make Italy great again. I think if I'm a citizen of those countries, yeah, I want my country to be great. So I don't, I don't buy into any of that crap. But all I'm saying is my hope is not in the United States of America. My hope isn't in a political leader. It's not in a political party, even though I do think politics is important.

• 2:06:04Eli Crane?

  And it does affect my life, it affects the life of my kids, which is why, and it hopefully, it will affect the lives of future generations. And I hope, I hope one day I'm a, I hope one day I have grandkids. And I hope, and I hope my kids and my grandkids get to have, get to grow up with some of the freedoms that you and I did. Which is why I do what I do. But what I'm telling you, brother, is that my hope isn't in government.

• 2:06:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:30Eli Crane?

  My hope isn't in some earthly utopia. My hope is when the king of kings returns, man. That's when you, that's when you see real, that's when you see real justice. And, and for all of you people out there, regardless of what you believe, man, I love you. I'm no better than anybody. I know that.

• 2:06:53Eli Crane?

  But this is, this, it's one of the only, it's one, it's, it's like the only real hope I have, Sean, which is why I share it with people. Because I love people and I care about people. And if the, if the Bible is right, and it, and if it is accurate, accurate, you will get in eternity what you wanted while you lived on this earth. If you didn't want anything to do with God, that's exactly what you're gonna get in eternity. And that's scary. Yeah, I don't want to see anybody, if the Bible is right, and I do believe it is, I don't want to see anybody wind up in hell. I, I don't. How could, how could I? Right?

• 2:07:34Eli Crane?

  So, that, that's why I talk about stuff like this, because to me, this is, this is so much, it's so much more important than Democrat, Republican, Kevin McCarthy, the Freedom Caucus. This is where it's at, man.

• 2:07:48Shawn Ryan?

  No, I'm a hundred percent with you. I mean, that, that's,

• 2:07:52Shawn Ryan?

  I let politics get in the way of my life for...

• 2:07:59Shawn Ryan?

  Quite a while now. And, um, and, uh, and I shouldn't have. I feel foolish. I still let it get it. I still let it get to me. And, uh, and every time I do let it get to me, I feel foolish afterwards. And because of my interviews and diving deep into different subjects, politics, sex trafficking, border, elite capture, all of these different topics, I'm very well read in on a lot of the shit that's going on in the world and, and, and from these, my, my conclusion is if you want to win,

• 2:08:42Shawn Ryan?

  you gotta bring people together somehow and you, and, and you are not going to bring them together through politics. And I think the only hope that we have left is to bring people to the Bible.

• 2:08:57Eli Crane?

  Yeah. Here's the interesting thing on that, too.

• 2:09:02Eli Crane?

  You know, Christianity in the United States and in the West has this like, I would say this

• 2:09:11Eli Crane?

  is often cloaked in this falsified veneer that, well, if, if, if God is love and I'm a Christian, then everybody's gonna, then everybody, you know, is gonna love me. And if anybody has a problem with me, then I'm not being a Christian. That, that's something that's pretty common in Christianity here in America. The Bible actually says, "They will hate you because they hated me first."

• 2:09:40Eli Crane?

  And that we're supposed to pick up our cross and follow Him. What does that, what does that mean?

• 2:09:47Eli Crane?

  A lot of us, myself included, like, I don't want to, I don't want to be judged. I don't want to be labeled. I, you know, it's, it's weird, Sean, because it's like, you know, some people know me because of my job or things that I've said or say publicly.

• 2:10:04Eli Crane?

  The people that know me personally and know my heart, know, know that I love, I love people. And does it bother me if your worldview or your politics affect, negatively affects my life or the future of my kids? Yeah, it bothers me. But do I try and look past it and see the humanity in you? Yeah. The Bible tells me that we are all image bearers of God. We're all created in His image. That means every single one of us has intrinsic value. Right? And so it's like,

• 2:10:43Eli Crane?

  politics and, and I'm, I've been guilty of this so many ti- too many times to count where politics will, for me, get in the way and, and take, take over and, and we, we both shoot pistols. Front sight focus, right? You get so front sight focus on, you know, on, on politics or what's right in front of your face. And oftentimes I forget to take a step back and, and remember that there's bigger things at play here. Not only from a spiritual warfare aspect, but from an eternity aspect. And, and yeah, admittedly, I fail at that all the time. I fail all the time.

• 2:11:27Eli Crane?

  I think it, being a good representative of my Lord and Savior because of my pride, because of my ego, because of my own foolishness, whatever it is. And that, you know, but thank God that it's not my works

• 2:11:46Eli Crane?

  that are gonna allow me hopefully to spend eternity with my King and my Lord and Savior. It's because I've accepted Him as my Lord and Savior and that's, it's grace. It's, you know, it, it's faith, it's grace and it's, it's, it's an amazing thing, but it takes a certain humbleness, especially for guys like us to say, to realize that I'm not in charge of anything. I'm not, I, I'm, I'm like, I'm like this in the timeline of history, in the timeline of eternity, my life, what, nobody, you know, I'm not a big deal. I'm not a big deal. But I'll tell you who is a big deal.

• 2:12:32Eli Crane?

  I'll tell you who's coming back. And when he comes back, I hope, I hope that he says, well done, good and faithful servant. That and, and, and that's something that I always try and, you know, I always try and go back to, even though I screw it up constantly, man. So anyway, but, and that's, you know, that was one of the coolest things when I saw that you had accepted Christ. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is so amazing. Somebody, and, and I, I don't believe in coincidence, dude. I think, um, I think it's Revelation 320 says, I stand at the door and I knock.

• 2:13:12Eli Crane?

  And whoever hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. And it's basically just talking, you know, God's, God wants to have a relationship with every single one of us. But often we just like, you know, we push him away. I don't, I don't need you. I got this. And then, you know, you go through life and you get beat down. And I think if, if you have a certain level of wisdom, you get to a point where you're like, I don't have this. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't. All these things that I've chased around, whether it's the, you know, whether it's money or, or fame or notoriety or affirmation,

• 2:13:54Eli Crane?

  sex, drugs, whatever it is, where does it always lead? It always leads to the same place, dude. Yeah. And the Bible talks about that. It says that sin is pleasurable for a season. The Bible literally tells you sin is pleasurable for a season. So when people are out there, why wouldn't I do this? This feels good. But where do you wind up every time? That's, you know, that, that after so many times, the word says that we're like dogs that return to our own vomit. Man, does that resonate? Yeah. You know, and then it's like, at some point, you get tired of eating that vomit and you're like, there's gotta be something better than this.

• 2:14:37Eli Crane?

  I think that's why you see so many celebrities, you know, kill themselves. Because they they have everything that the world has told them will make them happy. And when they when they get it, they're and they're they're still miserable. But yet they feel awful because it's like, I have everything. People would kill to live my life and I'm miserable. What's the point?

• 2:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:02Eli Crane?

  I've done it all. I've achieved it all and I'm miserable. And so it's like, you know, we've both achieved some cool things in our life. But did it ever fulfill you? I mean, you know, it's like if it did fulfill you, you wouldn't look around and hate everything that you see.

• 2:15:22Shawn Ryan?

  It was temporary.

• 2:15:23Eli Crane?

  Yeah, and if and if it fulfilled me, I wouldn't still be I still wouldn't be looking for answers and I don't get me wrong. I'm still looking for answers. All I'm saying is is that's the only that that's the only like hope I have, dude. That's the only real hope I have is, uh,

• 2:15:46Eli Crane?

  you know, that that that one day I'm gonna get to meet my maker. And I think it's gonna be a terrifying day in many ways. I think it's gonna be an exciting day. I think it's gonna be a terrifying and I think, you know, I think often, you know, in in religion and whatnot, we have this this image of, you know, Jesus holding the little lamb. He's like this Caucasian surfer looking dude, holding this little lamb. And he's like this, you know, this pacifist little looking little dude. But I think, you know, every time in the scriptures that a human being encounters an angel, they're terrified. If you go throughout scripture and study like,

• 2:16:30Eli Crane?

  you know, when people encounter angels, even angels, which are which are lower, right? They're they're terrified because they're these magnificent. They're these magnificent beings and they're beautiful, but they're terrifying at the same time. And all I'm saying is, man, um.

• 2:16:52Eli Crane?

  It's cool that, you know, to come and be able to talk to you about real stuff because there are people watching right now. So many people watching right now that they don't have the answer. They're law and they're lost, dude. And it's like, whether I ever get, whether I ever get elected again, even if they kick me out tomorrow, and I think the conversations are probably already started.

• 2:17:19Shawn Ryan?

  Ah.

• 2:17:20Eli Crane?

  Dude, if, if, if, if one person accepts Christ and, and starts looking somewhere else because of this conversation that we had, so worth it.

• 2:17:31Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, there's gonna be.

• 2:17:32Eli Crane?

  So worth it, dude.

• 2:17:33Shawn Ryan?

  There's gonna be. You know, I mean, it's just, it's for me, and I'm, I'm new with this, you know, I've only read one book so far.

• 2:17:41Eli Crane?

  Yeah, and that's, that's okay, man. And here's, here's the other cool thing, and it's like, it's so, it's so cool when, when I meet Christians of all walks because it's like, um, like even, even Paul, did you know that Paul like wrote like a major, I think a majority of the New Testament, or a, a really good portion of it, he, he was, he was persecuting Christians. He was, he was, he was killing Christians. And he was imprisoning Christians. And God took that guy and he said, Paul, why are you persecuting me? He got a hold of him. And Paul became like this, like this, one of the most influential Christians

• 2:18:25Eli Crane?

  of all times. And it's so cool because it's like there are people watching your show that are probably like, God couldn't use me like that. I, I've done too much. You don't know what, you don't know what I've done, Sean. You don't know what I've done, Eli. Yeah.

• 2:18:42Eli Crane?

  God, God, God can get a hold of anybody. God can use, God can use anybody. It's like, and, and you know, it's like even, even when Christ was on the cross, there were two guys hanging there with him, I believe, according to the scriptures and one, both of them deserved to be there. And one of them was mocking Christ. And the other was like, why are you mocking him? You know, we deserve to be here. And he said, he says to Jesus, he says, please remember me today when, when you're, when, when you're in heaven. And Christ looks at him and he says, you know, I truly I say unto you, you will be with me in paradise, because he believed that he was God and that he was going

• 2:19:26Eli Crane?

  to heaven. And it's just cool, Sean, because like that's, that's another, I think, misnomer is that a lot of us believe, well, well, I don't, I don't know if I have enough time to go make up for all the, all the bad stuff I've done. That guy didn't have any time. He was, he was gonna die there on the cross. That maybe, maybe minutes, maybe an hour? He didn't have time to climb off the cross and go do more good things than he did bad things. And that's, that's one of the cool things is that, you know, if, if you're willing to relinquish that control and be like, I'm broken. I got, I got nothing. I got, I got nothing. But I believe you got something, Lord, and I want it. I, I, I'm willing to

• 2:20:07Eli Crane?

  give that a shot and I'm, and I want to make you my Lord and Savior, man. It's game, game changer. Game changer.

• 2:20:18Shawn Ryan?

  It's helping me, man.

• 2:20:19Eli Crane?

  It's like, it's one of the, it's like one of the only things I get fired up about anymore because I'm like you, man. I look, I look out at the landscape and I'm just like, oh my God.

• 2:20:28Shawn Ryan?

  Nothing makes any sense.

• 2:20:29Eli Crane?

  Oh my God, dude. Nothing makes, nothing makes any sense anymore.

• 2:20:33Shawn Ryan?

  This is what's turned into my moral compass, you know, and it's, it's, it's really weird. You know, I haven't even, I haven't even read half of it yet. And, uh, but I'll tell you this, it's given me the courage to, to have these discussions. It's given me the courage to go, you know what? I don't really fucking care if I get canceled anymore. Because I'm, I'm, I know I'm, I'm standing up for what I believe in.

• 2:21:03Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and.

• 2:21:08Shawn Ryan?

  It's

• 2:21:11Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't mastered this yet by any means, but forgiveness is the hardest thing I think that I'm gonna encounter. But I'm starting to learn, you know, how to forgive and how to look past some of the flaws, especially with the politics shit, you know, and, um, and I, I think this, like I said, I mean, I mean, look at all the division we've seen, you know, since,

• 2:21:40Shawn Ryan?

  for me, I guess, since the war started, and it's just been progressively getting worse and worse and worse, and then, you know, I don't care what anybody thinks, and then, and, but I'm just gonna say it, then Trump came in and you really saw it. When he entered that presidential election, you really saw divisions start setting, and I remember watching people, uh, throw eggs in women's faces that were, that were gonna vote for him, and, and then we saw the rise of BLM and Antifa, and, and, and, look, I'm, I'm just, the, the division is on both sides.

• 2:22:13Eli Crane?

  For sure.

• 2:22:13Shawn Ryan?

  There's, there's,

• 2:22:14Eli Crane?

  For sure.

• 2:22:15Shawn Ryan?

  It looks like a shit show, no matter, you know, we got

• 2:22:21Shawn Ryan?

  Nazi flags and Confederate flags and, you know, that's what the, the, the right is being portrayed as, and then on the left, you've got LGBTQ and, and Antifa and BLM, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, where did, where, why is this hap-? Nothing makes any sense, you know, and it's, it's, that's what drew me to it, and that's now my moral compass, and, and it is, man, it's given me a lot of courage, it's, it's, it's a guide. It will guide you, if you let it, and...

• 2:22:57Eli Crane?

  That's why the scripture says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," because it's dark out there, man. It's dark, bro. And it's, it's, doesn't it seem like it's just getting

• 2:23:10Shawn Ryan?

  Darker.

• 2:23:11Eli Crane?

  darker and darker, and like, so, my, you know, my, my advice to those folks out there that feel like, sometimes I even feel like, oh my God, it, it, like, it, nothing makes sense, it's so dark out there. Everywhere I look, I see wickedness, evil, you know, just like, um...

• 2:23:34Eli Crane?

  Division. That's, that's the only place, man, for me. That's the only place to go where you use the word compass, right? And I, I think that's one of the, I think that's one of the, I've, I've, I've, I've listened to your show, heard you say some wise things. That's the wisest thing I've ever heard you say.

• 2:23:56Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:57Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 2:23:57Eli Crane?

  Yeah. You know, because it's like,

• 2:24:04Eli Crane?

  nothing else, nothing else even comes, comes close, dude.

• 2:24:09Eli Crane?

  And let's say, let's say we're wrong. Let's say I'm wrong. Let's say I'm wrong. Let's, let's say God does, let's say God doesn't even exist. Let's say this Bible that I believe in is completely wrong. So, you know, I, so I read some stuff that doesn't end up happening. I'm taught to love my neighbor. I'm taught to repent of my, you know, repent of my sin. Um, you know, and

• 2:24:41Eli Crane?

  I think you're gonna live a better life.

• 2:24:44Eli Crane?

  No matter, no matter what, whether it's right or, right or wrong, right? I mean, just prac, just practically. And I do believe 100% it's right. All I'm saying is like, even if, you know, it's like, even if I'm, even if I'm wrong,

• 2:24:59Eli Crane?

  in my opinion, and I know not everybody agrees with this, but you know, the teachings of the Bible call me to, you know, love my enemy.

• 2:25:09Eli Crane?

  Right? Love my, you know, love my neighbor.

• 2:25:13Eli Crane?

  Right? And so, man, how tough is that?

• 2:25:17Shawn Ryan?

  Real tough these days.

• 2:25:18Eli Crane?

  That's, that's super tough, man.

• 2:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:24Eli Crane?

  And man.

• 2:25:26Eli Crane?

  I'm glad I don't have to be, I'm glad I don't have to be the judge at the end of this whole thing and sort it out. Eli's not gonna be anybody's judge. Neither is Sean Ryan. But there is, I do believe there, I do believe there is one righteous judge that is gonna come back and separate us like the sheep and the goats. And that's, that's what the word says. And I really hope I'm on the right side of that, man.

• 2:25:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, me too.

• 2:25:54Eli Crane?

  And Lord knows I've got, you know, plenty, plenty of my own sin and plenty of my own failure, plenty of my own embarrassment and, and on and on and on and on. But like I said, that's like, at 43 years old, that's like one of the only things that gets me excited. Yeah.

• 2:26:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's a good thing to get excited about.

• 2:26:21Eli Crane?

  That's right.

• 2:26:22Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, well, man, I'm gonna be honest, this took a way different turn than I was expecting, but I like.

• 2:26:28Eli Crane?

  Way better.

• 2:26:29Shawn Ryan?

  I like it. I like how it ended up.

• 2:26:33Eli Crane?

  I don't think, yeah, I don't think when we meet God, he's gonna be like, so you were registered a Republican, right?

• 2:26:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:44Eli Crane?

  I don't think, I do think he, I do think he's gonna care how we, how we lived our life and what we did with what he blessed us with. I do believe that. You know, but I am glad this, I am glad it took this turn, man, because so much more important than any of that other stuff we were talking about.

• 2:27:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, man, I just, I really appreciate you coming out here. I know you're a busy man, you have family. I know this, being a congressman's taken a toll on you and your family. And, uh, and, uh, man, I, I feel weird saying it, but I, I got to, man. I'm just really proud of you, dude.

• 2:27:29Eli Crane?

  Thank you.

• 2:27:29Shawn Ryan?

  To watch you stand your ground.

• 2:27:31Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:32Shawn Ryan?

  And.

• 2:27:32Eli Crane?

  Thank you, dude.

• 2:27:33Shawn Ryan?

  And do what your voters want you to do.

• 2:27:39Eli Crane?

  You know what's weird, Sean?

• 2:27:42Eli Crane?

  Is it, um, I was actually asked to consider running for Congress. I don't know if I told you that. And, uh, but anyway, I was confused. And I was like, oh, man, I don't know. That sounds, I'm very interested in politics. I find it, I find it fascinating, but more importantly, the mission side of it. Trying to, trying to fight, fight for my country again. Go, go serve my country again. Like that, that, that's just core to who I am. And it was weird because I was talking to my wife and I was like, babe. She was like, after like a week, uh, after we, we, we talked to, uh, an individual who does this type of stuff for a living.

• 2:28:27Eli Crane?

  And she, and, uh, she's like, Eli, no, why aren't you jumping at this opportunity? Normally, if you got asked to do something like that, like you'd be all over it. Because I've always been like a risk taker, swing for the fences, fail a bunch of times. Every once in a while, you hit one out of the park, right? But I was like, you know, babe, um, I feel confused. Because I felt like God was calling me into ministry. And I, I actually, I actually told my friends that. I feel like God's calling me into ministry. And, uh, it was so cool, Sean. Cause my wife, she looks at me and she says, she says, Eli, do you not think God can use you in Washington DC?

• 2:29:09Eli Crane?

  Do you not think that God can use you in whatever, whatever path he calls you into? You don't have to, you know, basically she's saying, you don't, you don't have to be a preacher. You don't have to lead some men's men. This right here, I would have never met you. I would have never got to come on your show. And this is kind of cool because I'm all, I'm putting this to get, kind of putting this together right now. And this isn't the first time, but it's kind of cool, Sean, because God's using the Sean Ryan Show right now for ministry. And even though like, you know, Eli went into politics, my wife was right. God can use you wherever you're at. And I think that's something that I know I've got wrong. But it doesn't matter if you're watching this show from a tool booth in Philadelphia.

• 2:29:55Eli Crane?

  It doesn't matter where you're at. Like you can, you can use like the good news and you can love on other people in probably the most righteous way you ever can or will by sharing the gospel with other people, no matter where you're at. And that's been, even as I sit in this chair, dude, like it, it was crazy how everything just kind of came full circle to me. No joke. When you and I were talking about this show, like this isn't what we were really talking about. We didn't like, we were talking about more politics. Give us the after action hot wash on first six months of Congress. That's where we were headed. But it's just so cool that not only was my wife right,

• 2:30:36Eli Crane?

  but that, you know, once again, you see that no matter what you're doing in a godless, pretty godless, uh, profession like politics, you know, God can use you there too, man.

• 2:30:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man. I'm right there with you. I mean, you know, dinner, we had a discussion because I, people have been.

• 2:30:58Eli Crane?

  And I've, I've seen some.

• 2:31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Pushing me.

• 2:31:01Eli Crane?

  I saw Eddie, I saw, I listened to some of your Eddie Penny. Uh, that was, that was pretty rad too, man.

• 2:31:08Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, you know, with, but I was gonna wrap it up here, but we'll go on, but I'll tell you, man. You came on, you talked about the Bible. Justin Hughes came on, he talked about the Bible. I know you guys are friends. Justin actually helped me find the church that I've been going to here.

• 2:31:27Eli Crane?

  That's awesome.

• 2:31:27Shawn Ryan?

  Cause he was like, well, are you ready to go to church? And I was like, no.

• 2:31:33Shawn Ryan?

  And he was like, all right. And he's like, do you want me to help you find one? And I was like, yes. But I don't think there's gonna be one. And, uh, and he found one and I've been going, I've gone every week since then, except for, uh, when we had, when we met in DC last week, but, but you had an impact on me, man. You did. You know, you came here, you talked about the Bible. Justin Hughes talked about the Bible. Kyle Morgan talked about the Bible. And I had the, all these sporadic people who ironically at first were all.

• 2:32:09Shawn Ryan?

  Soft operator types.

• 2:32:12Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:12Shawn Ryan?

  Then Eddie Penny came on.

• 2:32:14Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 2:32:15Shawn Ryan?

  And he really hit it out of the park with it.

• 2:32:17Eli Crane?

  Yep.

• 2:32:18Shawn Ryan?

  And ever since then, every single person that's come on this show has talked about the Bible. Doesn't matter. I mean, we've had doctors on, we've, we've had everybody on.

• 2:32:29Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:30Shawn Ryan?

  And they're all talking about it. My whole, everybody I know, almost everybody I know, is either going back to it or going to it for the first time.

• 2:32:43Shawn Ryan?

  And it's, um, it's interesting. And, and, and with what you just said, God can use you where you are.

• 2:32:52Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:52Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I've been, I've had a lot of people reach out wanting me to get involved in politics. Run for Congress, run for Senate, something. I don't know. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

• 2:33:03Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:04Shawn Ryan?

  But I, and we had this discussion at dinner.

• 2:33:07Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:07Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I think, I honestly believe that my biggest impact that I can make is sitting right here in this chair, talking to people like you, talking about the discussion that we just had. I think that's going to reach a hell of a lot more people and send a, a louder message.

• 2:33:27Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:27Shawn Ryan?

  For me than going into politics. And, um, as much as I want to go, I, I don't, I mean, I got, that's a tough decision, but.

• 2:33:38Eli Crane?

  And that, but I'm glad you said that, man, because I think once, once you get that, once we get that right, once you get that right, once you get that right as even a culture, everything changes. Everything change, everything starts to just organically change. People, you know, you know, it's, it's like a lot of the insanity that you see out there. If, if, if there was a revival in the land and it, I think it's even in, I think it's second chronicles. Um, it talks about this. If, if my people will repent from their sin and turn back to me, I will heal, heal their land. And I'm paraphr, like, I didn't have it completely memorized, but that's basically what the Lord says.

• 2:34:19Eli Crane?

  And so, you know, it's just so cool that you said that, man, because like, uh, there are a few people, Sean, there are a few, there are a few pastors out there. That can have the impact that you can have for the kingdom and for him with this this Sean Ryan show that never started out to even be anything like that, right? Yeah. And that's, dude, that is so rad. And it's so cool, too, because it's like,

• 2:34:48Eli Crane?

  and it can't, we can't, we can't let it get twisted. God will use even dummies like us. That's the thing that, that's the thing that we have to remember, remember and humble ourselves because, you know, it's like, we, we can't let ourselves, you, you, you can't get a big head, you can't get a big head and forget like, who's actually you belong to and, and who the glory and honor belongs to. And it's not, it's not us, it's not the Sean Ryan show. I mean, it's cool that the Lord will allow his sons and his servants to do his work, but he doesn't need us.

• 2:35:26Eli Crane?

  He just allows us to, you know, partner with him in, in his work to go after every lost sheep out there. And, and, you know, it's just like, you know, I haven't got, I've been pretty down lately, man. Really? Yeah, I have. I've, I've been struggling. I, and I've been struggling because

• 2:35:48Eli Crane?

  I get so frustrated up there. I get so frustrated. And even I, I have so many good friends that'll just send me like encouraging messages, scripture, whatever it is. And, uh, and sometimes I'm like, man, I'm away from my, I'm away from my family. Am I, am I becoming a, you know, am I a deadbeat dad? Like, am I, you know, by trying to say, by trying to fight for my kid's future, am I, am I losing my family in the process? And just, you know, when, when you're away from your family, you're getting your tail whipped. You're in this, you're in the minority, you're fighting this behemoth of a uniparty swamp. But it's just cool, man, because, uh, this show right here and just being able to talk about,

• 2:36:32Eli Crane?

  talk about that kind of lifted my spirits, dude, it really did because none of that stuff, none of it scratches the surface, none of it comes close to the importance of what, what we just talked about for forty-five minutes, an hour.

• 2:36:50Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I was gonna ask how you're doing, you know, I know that's gonna be tough.

• 2:36:54Eli Crane?

  No, I, I do, man. I, I, I struggle because it's just like, and it's, it's hard too, man, because like, when people that you know and love,

• 2:37:08Eli Crane?

  and, and everybody has their own perspective, but people that I know and love,

• 2:37:15Eli Crane?

  I, I feel like have, you know, just

• 2:37:21Eli Crane?

  been devoured by the system, the swamp, the uniparty. That's, that's hard. It's hard. Because it's like, like if, if, if it were to happen to you and I love you and I care about you, like I, I, you know, I might say something like initially, like, what are you doing? But then I'd, I'd let you do your thing because I, I respect your, your individuality. I respect the relationship you have with your voters. You're there to represent them, not me, right? And so, but, you know, it's, it's just been, it's been hard, man, because I feel like we play whack-a-mole up there. I really do. And it's just like, this is, this is, this wheel's falling off over here. This wheel's falling off over here.

• 2:38:06Eli Crane?

  Voters are like, you know, what are you, are, are you gonna, are you gonna turn this thing around already? And I'm like, oh, God, I, I'm trying, brother. I, I'm trying. And I'm getting my tail whipped. And I wish, one of the hardest things for me, Sean, is to go back to my district and, and, and meet with constituents. And it's not because they're not amazing to me. They, they're so amazing. They're so encouraging, but I feel like I'm constantly the bearer of bad news. Because I'm not the rah rah rah cheerleading politician that, and a lot of people do that, like, we're gonna make, you know, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that. And, you know, it's like, some people actually try and execute on that stuff, but I think there's so many promises that politicians make that are, you know,

• 2:38:50Eli Crane?

  maybe not completely out of their control. They have a little bit of control, but you only control so much, you know, and it, anyway.

• 2:38:59Shawn Ryan?

  I, you're doing the right thing, man.

• 2:39:01Eli Crane?

  It's just, it's just been, it's been ama-

• 2:39:06Eli Crane?

  I'm even disappointed in myself for letting myself get to that point of frustration because I I knew what I was walking into, man. It's not like I thought that I was gonna come up here, kick open the door and be like, things are changing because I'm here. You know, I knew I knew better, but just watching it and knowing, you know, watching it happen and watching the complacency and and just everything that goes on up there and then, uh, you know, getting your tail whooped and and and being and and being, you know, hated in that town. I mean, it, you know, for actually trying to change it and

• 2:39:51Eli Crane?

  do good, that it gets it gets to it gets.

• 2:39:55Shawn Ryan?

  Pissing a lot of people off.

• 2:39:56Eli Crane?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:58Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, man, I just. Whether I agree with what you're doing or whether I don't, and probably ninety nine, I don't know everything you're doing. Probably ninety nine percent I agree with.

• 2:40:11Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:11Shawn Ryan?

  You know, but the the point is, I just respect you, man. You know, I I think a lot of people go in there and it's to get rich quick or build a social media following, do the rah rah rah, empty promise, bullshit.

• 2:40:32Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:32Shawn Ryan?

  Be fake. You're none of that.

• 2:40:35Eli Crane?

  Yeah, good.

• 2:40:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you you don't come across like that at all. You don't seem fame hungry. I don't I I don't see you doing twenty million posts a day on Twitter and Instagram, you know, like, like most of the politicians.

• 2:40:49Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:49Shawn Ryan?

  They are. You know, that's what they're they they're they're fucking influencers.

• 2:40:53Eli Crane?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:54Shawn Ryan?

  And you're not doing that. And and I mean, just the fact that you've.

• 2:40:59Shawn Ryan?

  You voted on something that went against what you believe in because your voters who voted you in wanted that. I mean, that speaks volumes. You never hear that.

• 2:41:09Eli Crane?

  Yeah, yeah, man. That was so tough. It was funny. I was walking off the floor and there were a couple of the older guys that I respect and kind of have been teammates and mentors. And they could tell like that I was distraught, man. Like I was like, it got to me, man. I was like, oh, my God, dude, this is a big, this is a big vote. This is a big deal. And a couple of them are like, Eli, it's gonna be okay, man. It's gonna be okay, dude. You know, but and I'm grateful, man. I'm grateful that God surrounded me with some awesome guys up there. Some awesome, just awesome people. I feel blessed to be there. It is difficult,

• 2:41:51Eli Crane?

  but it's kind of cool because even six months in, you know, even just sitting down to do a podcast with you where I thought I was going to be talking about politics most was probably one of the healthiest things that I've done in a long, in a while, just because it kind of brought me back to reality. Like, what's really important, man? What's really? If you could say one thing to somebody on the other side of that screen, somebody who's lost, hurting, in pain, and who sees what we see, what would that one thing be, man? And I'm glad we got to talk about it, dude.

• 2:42:31Shawn Ryan?

  Me too. Me too. Well, man, don't be so hard on yourself. You're doing a hell of a job.

• 2:42:38Eli Crane?

  Oh, thanks, Bill. I appreciate it.

• 2:42:40Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks for coming.

• 2:42:42Eli Crane?

  Thank you, dude.