Bombshell TWJ Exclusive: An Hour-Long Feature Interview with Gen. Flyn

We’ve heard from Axios, the end of their, kind of, “Off the rails” series is what they were calling it, that — I’m glad you brought up the Sidney Powell legal challenges. They essentially reported that, on Dec. 18, there was an Oval Office meeting where yourself, Miss Powell, [Overstock CEO Patrick] Byrne and [former Trump administration official Emily] Newman essentially went into the Oval Office and there was reportedly a major dispute, pretty heated argument, cursing and some serious back-and-forth over this election fraud case and all these legal challenges — and essentially that the case was brought up to the president by Powell and yourself that he should use every method at his disposal to discover if there was election fraud, and potentially rerun this election.

So, we just want to give you an opportunity to confirm or deny that report, that meeting. Did it happen? Did it go as reported? And can you give it, kind of, from your angle and your perspective?

Flynn: What I would just tell you about, I believe, that article that you’re referring to and the series, I guess — I hadn’t read the whole series. I really didn’t even read the article, because I’m not a big fan of fake news. But I read that article specifically because I know you wanted to talk about it, and I won’t get into all the details. I certainly won’t share, necessarily, all the conversations that we had with the President of the United States. I think those are protected and, in his office, he can personally speak to those who he feels like he should.

There was really two purposes of that meeting and why we went into that meeting. The first purpose was to explain to the president the executive order that he signed in the summer of 2018. And it really goes back to an executive order that [former President] Barack Obama signed in 2015 and then, again, President Trump and his staff, they updated that executive order in 2019 and then they updated it again in 2020 based on foreign interference in our various elections, and especially in the 2018 timeframe. The 2018 executive order actually came out of the 2016 election, with all of the noise about Russia, election interference. So the president, in that 2018 executive order and then subsequent 2019 and 2020, which it was updated. Now, we know that there were reports and there were both Senate Intelligence Committee reports, there were U.S. Intelligence Committee community assessments that stated that there were foreign interference, or foreign countries, interfering in our election processes.

You fast forward to Oct. 30 and Nov. 3 — which was the date of the presidential election — both the FBI and [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] — which is essentially the Homeland Security Cyber Security Agency — they both reported Iranian interference in our election process, to include on the day of the election. Those were FBI and CIA advisory alerts that were published within the U.S. government and they were published for the public. And so, there’s no doubt that there were foreign interference and foreign influence in our election dating back many, many years — all the way back into the Obama administration.

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So, that was really the main purpose, was to ensure that the president understood what that executive order stated and that, then, the subtext of that was to recommend to him that he appoint a special White House counsel — a special White House counsel, because that’s very important to understand — to investigate election fraud. And then to also take a look at five counties within the United States, and those counties are counties that’s in the news today — Maricopa County, for example, or Fulton County, and that’s out in Arizona. Fulton County, down in Georgia, other counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin — and look at, examine the machines that are in those counties and just investigate those machines, much as what was done up in Antrim County, Michigan.

And those are really the two purposes: examine the executive order and, through that executive order, appoint Sidney Powell as special White House counsel to investigate election fraud and, also, take a hard look at five counties worth of these machines, whether they were Dominion or ES&S. — doesn’t matter what machines they were — but to examine them in the way that we were able to do a forensic examination of the machines up in Antrim County, Michigan. And that was it. That was the extent of the purpose of really why we went in there. And while we were in that meeting, we had incredible pushback from three lawyers that were inside the White House. I think the ones mentioned in the article, although I didn’t see any direct quotes from him, he might have said a few things in there. [White House senior adviser Eric] Herschmann was one. I think the other was [White House counsel Pat] Cipollone. And I forget the other lawyer that was in the room.

But I would just say that I thought that, from the president’s perspective, he was gracious. He offered us a good deal of time to be able to explain to him what we were trying to do, what we thought could be done in about a seven-to-ten day period of time. And as one of the members of our team explained, the president probably had about a three-foot putt, instead of a 20-foot putt out of the sand trap to be able to get to the bottom of election fraud in about 10 days or less. So, that was it.

Was there some heated exchanges? Sure, there were some heated exchanges because what we discovered and what we were told and what the president clearly understood, recognized and stated at times was the lack of support that he was getting out of his own team. And we basically said, “Well, look, you know, that’s fine. However they want to operate.” I did stand up at one point in time, and I think it’s stated pretty clearly in Patrick Byrne’s articles that he’s written out of what’s called Deep Capture. I stated I was really quiet during most of the meeting in the Oval Office. I finally stood up and I turned around and I said, “Do any of you guys believe that the president actually won?” And none of them answered that question. Not one. And the president made a comment — and I’ll keep that comment between the group that was in there — and it would be interesting to see if any of those gentlemen that stood there as his lawyers would repeat what he said. I don’t think that they would actually say that to that particular journalist that did that article, because it was directed at them.

So anyway, the number of people in the meeting and when the meeting occurred and how the meeting occurred was not totally true. The timing of the meeting was not totally true in that article. So, I would say as I look at that article — and, again, I read it right before coming on here with you, Andrew — I would say about 75 percent of that article is incorrect. What was correct was the people that attended, certainly from our team. And then, the various interactions were totally, totally false and they came from a person who — or from people, I guess — that didn’t want to really go on the record to be able to say exactly — and not only who was in attendance, but who was in attendance in the Oval Office — the fact that the president then invited us, because of his desire to go upstairs and get into a more relaxed atmosphere, to what they call the Yellow Oval upstairs. He invited all of us to attend, and we went upstairs and did that. And we spent another, probably, two more hours upstairs on the president’s time. And that was really gracious of him to do that.

So in the end, what was reported in that article was an attempt to really change a narrative, to make it sound like there was really no election fraud — which we know there was — and also, basically, you know, call out or accuse those of us that did attend. I mean, they called me all kinds of names in that article and describes me in certain ways, and described Sidney in certain ways, and also describes Patrick Byrne in certain ways. I would say at one point in time where they do — the other individual who is with us and there was a former White House liaison, a superb lawyer, and the way that she was disparaged by one of those lawyers who worked in the White House at that time, disparaged upstairs in the Yellow Oval, was a disgrace. It was condescending and the president, I think, good enough for him — And I won’t say what he said, but he certainly he took it as an affront to the way somebody in his White House, at one time at least, was being accused and treated while we were having this meeting to try to figure out what was the best approach to be able to solve this problem of election fraud and get to the truth.

Sciascia: Now, I think there’s no question — having looked at all the establishment media reports on, essentially, what’s gone on in the last four years, there’s no question that you have absolutely been mistreated in the media. What I really want to get at here is, in that meeting, the one thing that I really want to ensure, sort of, a confirmation or denial on is were there attempts to say that — if you guys were correct and that election fraud was as robust as you say it was, was there a conversation about military capabilities being taken? I know on Newsmax you said, quote, “military capabilities” could be taken. You’ve mentioned rerunning the election and, in that same interview, said that “martial law has been instituted 64 times.” That sounds to me like, at least, a possibility that you guys have put on the table. Was that discussed?

Flynn: No, not in that in that meeting with the president. And that — during that interview with Newsmax, that was really just a laundry list, a menu, of options that the president had at his disposal. I mean, that’s all that I was addressing. In the meeting itself, we talked about securing the machines in those various counties. And I think we talked about five counties. In fact, it was specifically five counties, and it was discussed as to which counties, and where, and how long it would take, and what resources you could use. You could use homeland security. In fact, you would want to do it through Homeland Security. But there’s some of the best resources that we have, clearly, to be able to do an investigation, a forensic investigation of the machines, clearly comes out of our military, particularly our National Guard. So how you do it is really up to the way, if the president had actually decided to examine those.

I will tell you that the outcome of that meeting, the president did decide and, as it was stated in there, that the president had no authority to do anything. It was eventually conceded to by his own lawyers — after they said he did not have the authority to do anything — it was conceded to later on in the evening and during the meeting that, “Yes, in fact, Mr. President, you do have the authority to do everything that these guys want you to do.” So, in order to be able to appoint Sidney Powell as a special White House counsel to investigate election fraud, he had full authority to do that in order to secure various voting machines. Didn’t matter whether, whatever they were called in these in these various counties, he had the authority to do that. They also stated that — and then there was the discussion about clearances. The clearances were really for Sidney Powell, as to be able to operate in and out of the White House. There was no other discussion about clearances for anybody else. That’s total nonsense. And that was — that’s one of those fake news lines. So, what resources to use? Principally, it would be the Department of Homeland Security working with the Department of Defense, as we normally do with interagency operations, to be able to examine — a rapid fashion, properly — the types of forensic audit that was really required. And obviously, that would be working with the states, the proper offices within the states, to be able to do that. But we’re really only talking about a total of five counties.

If you remember, and you probably don’t because you’re so young, Andrew, but many of the people that did that remember back to the year 2000 and the Bush-Gore election. It was one county down in Florida — and I believe it was, if I’m not mistaken, like Boynton Beach or was one of the counties down there, maybe south of Palm County, but it was one county and that was in the year 2000 — and there was a challenge to the presidential election. And we spent, I think it was 36 or 37 days, you know, looking through pieces of paper to discover the outcome, the truthful outcome, of the election at that time — 30, almost 37 or 38 days. And that was one county. And it actually did go to the Supreme Court. And when the Supreme Court reviewed the evidence, instead of just this past Supreme Court, this past election hearings and such, where they said, “No, we’re not going to look at the evidence, we’re just going to say that there’s no merit. There’s no — the plaintiff isn’t right,” or I forget the exact reasoning from the U.S. Supreme Court. It was basically no standing. And so they didn’t look at the evidence.

But that’s 2000. They looked at the evidence and what they said was not who was going to be the the the president, but the Supreme Court said, “Well, you need to do these [elections] following constitutional things. You need to take these following constitutional steps,” back in 2000 and it took 38 days to get to that point. When they did go back to that county in Florida, it overturned the election and George Bush became the president instead of Al Gore. So here we are, with many, many more counties, thousands of counties now in play — and we were only looking to do five counties, we are looking to do five counties in five states and, frankly, we had already plenty of evidence from one county and one state. So, we just wanted to take about seven to 10 days, review the bidding, look for the truth.

And we were fully open to having the entire thing — in fact, one of the points of discussion was to have the entire thing videotaped and livestreamed for the American public and, frankly, the rest of the world to see how we come to the truth — and I still believe that that needs to be the case, and I do believe that, if we don’t do that and if we don’t do this — if we don’t take these steps, the American public will never trust our election system. And that’s a shame. That should not happen. It’s not what I was in the military to do. My time in the military was really all about protecting, defending and protecting our rights as American citizens and as we were sent overseas primarily to do, and by our civilian leaders. And I think that — I know that many in our history, in our nation’s history, millions of people, you know, gave their their life in defense of the freedoms that we all enjoy. And one of those freedoms is the freedom to go vote for whoever we choose to vote for in a free, fair and transparent system. And we clearly don’t have that.

So, if we can do anything at this stage going forward, it’s that we will continue this fight. And really what it will be about is protecting our election system and reforming our election system — and also fighting for those people who want to run for local, state and federal offices, who are willing to stand up and fight for this country through the use of our constitutional means and to not quiver or waver in the face of these ugly, distorted, fake media attacks that we constantly are bombarded by.

And honestly, you know, after Twitter started to censor people — after they shut down the major social media arm of Parler, after they’ve attacked many of us on YouTube, Facebook and some of these other social media outlets — the American people are now moving and they’re moving rapidly to discover the truth. And there’s other platforms — I have found CloutHub, I am an ambassador for CloutHub and I love CloutHub because it gives me an opportunity to continue to get my messages out to people who think that I have something to say. And I appreciate the fact of the thousands, the tens of thousands of people that continue to follow me and trust me for the views that I provide. And I think that that’s the direction that we want to go.

We are about finding the truth. That’s what this is. That’s what this whole thing is about. And anybody that says there was no election fraud, all you have to do is go around to just the states that are in question and look at how many dead voters each of those states actually have. I mean, it’s incredible. You’re talking about thousands and thousands of people, quote-unquote “dead people,” who voted in this last election. And I can tell you that I’ve buried U.S. soldiers who fought and died for this country and they would not appreciate the fact that one, even one, dead person was allowed to vote. And that’s a shame for this country that we have even one. And I remember not too many weeks back a United States senator joking about that.

And I will tell you now, that those members of Congress that have distorted what we know to be the truth — in the upcoming elections — and these are Republicans primarily. In the upcoming elections, they’re going to find themselves primaried, and many of the American people that they think will supported them in the past — many of those people are not going to support them in the future.

Sciascia: Now, I think there are certainly a ton of honest questions being leveled about this election in the American consciousness. You touched on a couple major topics that we’re going to get into from social media and Big Tech tyranny to the Republican infighting that’s going on right now. The last thing I want to touch on with, kind of, that Axios interview — and as we push into the surveillance state and kind of the ongoing impeachment, as it’s going to start, this trial, today in the Senate — I mean, what I want to ask is, you know, the Democrats have a habit of getting a handle on the narrative and the establishment media undoubtedly help them out. What I’m seeing from you today and what I’m hearing from you today is undoubtedly a far more level presentation than they have given you credit for. But from Jan. 6 to this impeachment, the narrative is undoubtedly that, you know, there was some major “coup” that was being staged by the president and by the folks in your camp. And from what I’m hearing from you today, I don’t see that. But I certainly understand how they have drawn from some of the rhetoric, this major narrative. And they’ve taken it and run with it. If you could go back with things like that Newsmax interview and some of the “laundry list” items that you listed for what the president could do, would you change that rhetoric or do you stand by it?

Flynn: No, I wouldn’t change it at all. I stand by it. I mean, the President of United States — and we look at the history of our country, all presidents going back to George Washington, you know, we face what I call these crucible moments in history and time — and so, each president has many, many options that they can choose to be able to, basically, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And each of us, each of us takes an oath, and we understand that and, certainly, the president’s oath is different than all other oaths of office. And it’s rightly so.

So, no. I don’t. I don’t. I’m not going to sit here and say, “Oh, I don’t — I shouldn’t have said this or that.” No, not at all.

The president has many, many options. We represented — we being Sidney Powell’s team — we represented the American people. And we felt that there was a narrative that was being pushed, even like the business about in that article it talks about the tension between Rudy Giuliani and Sydney. There’s always tension between — especially in these in legal fights that we were pursuing. But I will tell you, we worked very, very closely with this team. And throughout — I mean, throughout — there was a decision made that, obviously, Rudy was the president’s lawyer, Sidney Powell was the people’s lawyer and that’s really what it came down to. And we felt and we had spoken to Rudy about it, and he was there in the second half of the meeting with us and he agreed. And so, the president of the United States — doesn’t matter which president it is, you know — they all have a whole range of options to consider and to, at least, get from their staffs — if not their staffs, then others — some analysis of what those options mean, what they should be. But I’ll leave it at what I said earlier about what we went in to see the president about.

And what our overall purpose was at, really, the 60,000-foot level, Andrew, is really to get to the truth.

I don’t care if it’s Democrat or Republican. I mean, I have always said I grew up as a Democrat. Hell, I reasoned when President Trump talked to me about being vice president back in the summer of 2016, he said — well, he said to me that I probably picking a Democrat to be vice president, probably not the right thing to do. So we had a good laugh at that. So I would just say that, at the end of the day, what we have to do and the narrative that we need to have — and this is sort of a shot across the bow at what everybody now calls the mainstream media, what we’ve called the mainstream media for a long time — and I think Mark Levin probably does the best analysis of all of this. And that’s really that these large networks who are generally left-leaning, in some cases extremely left-leaning, who put out all of these news articles — particularly articles that are sourced by anonymous people, and sometimes the sourcing comes from another journalist and they collude with each other. And I’ve seen that happen. And it really didn’t start on Jan. 6.

Where it really started — it started when Donald Trump was chosen to by the Republican Party to be the Republican candidate for the president of the United States of America back in 2016. I mean, his presidency was under attack prior to him even winning the damn election on Nov. 8 in 2016, certainly during his campaign. But that’s to be, you know — that’s noted. That usually happens during campaigns.

But then when he was elected and then became the president, I mean, I lived the persecution. I lived the lies, the innuendos, the false narratives, as well as he and his family. And I put that out of my own statement after my case was dismissed. And then I was persecuted by the judiciary for another six months — a persecution that should have never happened to me and certainly should never happen to any American citizen. And that persecution resulted in what was, really, what is referred to as a pardon of innocence by the President of the United States, because the persecution wasn’t going to end, because the person in question wasn’t going to make a decision until the outcome of a presidential election.

Think about that, Andrew. And to your listeners, that’s pretty scary thought. My thing about this country, my sort of, what’s in my DNA, what’s in my culture and what I believe is to fight for this country. For whatever reason, I have always believed from the time I was a child, I always wanted to serve this country. I served this country. I continue to serve this country, certainly in uniform. And then when I stepped into the political fray, if you will, and I will continue to serve this country in, sort of, new ways. And that’s really to help get to the truth of what we do see as election fraud from this last election, both at, certainly, a state level and federal level.

I mean, I think some of your viewers and listeners ought to go to this congressional seat up in New York District 22. I think the lady’s name is [Claudia] Tenney. I believe I have her name right. And the lawyers that are going against her — so, she’s won now, after all the canvassing. The lawyers that are going against her, that are defending, really, the false narrative, they’re now saying that the machines did it, OK? They’re now saying the machines — that it’s — OK, now, that it’s after Jan. 6 and [the Jan.] 20 inauguration.

We’ve got lawyers that we were fighting against us saying the machines didn’t do it and, now, they’re saying the machines did it.

And good enough for that young lady up in that District 22 in the state of New York. Good for her for continuing to fight, you know. I’m proud of her. I don’t know her, but I’m proud that she stood up toe-to-toe and she continued to get to the truth. And so, now, she will serve the district in New York, District 22. And I’m glad and I think the American public will find somebody in her that is a fighter.

She’s a great example of what we’re all trying to do, which is to get to the truth.

Sciascia: Now, general, you just got at — prior to the congressional conversation right there — a major point that I kind of want to draw out is the way that that narrative has crossed into investigations in the intelligence community and persecution at the judiciary level. I mean, there’s no question that after Jan. 6, that narrative has now crossed into — we’ve seen reports that, you know, phone app data from private companies was handed over to the government to find out who was on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. They have a map with where every cell phone was. And we saw, I think, small-government conservatives like myself, who grew up in that post-9/11, security-state America: We’ve really hated it for lack of a better word. But when did that cross the Rubicon from, you know, being used abroad on America’s enemies — whether you agree or disagree with how it was used — to American citizens being surveilled and narratively destroyed and persecuted? Did the Rubicon get crossed with Crossfire and with your case? Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Flynn: Yeah, sure. And just to give you my, sort of, political view: I am a small-government, really anti-war, unless it’s absolutely necessary to protect and defend the safety and security of the citizens of the United States of America. So, that’s just one point that I want to make sure that I get across, because I’m with you, Andrew. We need a smaller government. God help us if we don’t get there. I’m not sure that’s a solvable problem.

The scarier issue that you are raising, and this is something that needs to be solved. This is going to — this is a problem that must be solved — and that is the partnership between private technology companies and the United States government, especially our law enforcement and intelligence services, our intelligence community and other elements of our government, Department of Justice. I mean, there’s some need to be able to get inside of certain — to be able to listen to somebody’s phones, if it’s a proper warrant and all that for criminal behavior. I understand all that. But what we’re really talking about is a much different relationship — this relationship between Big Tech and big government that now is in every aspect of our lives.

I mean, let’s face it: What we’re using right now. This medium, right now, and where I’m at, where I’m located, what I’m doing, what you’re doing, what all of us are doing is — we’re tracked. I mean, I am a big advocate of innovation and technology, and I used it on the battlefield with the talent of many young men and women in a very innovative way and in an enlightened way. But now, when we start to look at it to get into what is essentially our ability to freely speak our mind, our ability to freely operate as we are legally and lawfully, as we see fit in in the roles that we are in. I mean, what they did to me with no predicate. None. No predicate. And what they did to Carter Page with no predicate, none — and faking it, as we’ve seen in some of the evidence they talk about. I think even in that article it talks about exculpatory evidence. I mean, exculpatory evidence? Give me a break. This — they were doing unlawful things to me. And as I said earlier, I have faced corruption up close and personal. And so, what got me through was my faith in God, and my family and what I call true friends.

But we should be scared as Americans. We should be concerned as Americans about this relationship and what they’re able to do. Just based on what you described about being able to highlight where everybody was at. They were probably looking for where was I? I was trying to get warm-up in my hotel room. And what I would tell you is that that freely giving of information without warrant, without proper warrant — but, even that. When I go back to the FISA court, OK, I think there’s 11 justices and Chief Justice John Roberts is, overall, in charge of all the justices. And it’s certainly in the FISA court system and those judges.

I think the American public just don’t trust it anymore — and that’s not good for our constitutional “republic, if we can keep it,” right, as Benjamin Franklin said.

We have to be very concerned about this when we vote for people. So going forward, there’s 70, 75, 80 million — those are the numbers that have been thrown around that stood in line for Donald Trump. Let’s just say, it’s 75 million. The 75 million people that voted can no longer just go and vote on Election Day. They now have to get involved in their local communities. They have to get involved in their states. They have to get involved in these congressional races, both the House and the Senate.

We can’t keep saying, “Those bums who are the politicians in whatever capital or in Washington, D.C.” Well, guess what? We the people are the ones that voted them in. So we have to take more responsibility for that as we the people — to get out and get involved in our local communities. And I don’t care whether that’s the dogcatcher to the town council, to the parish council, to the sheriff’s department, to a state house position or representative or a state senator or whatever it is.

Volunteer. Go to the training. That’s given. Definitely. We need more and more people to stand as volunteer observers during these elections that we have. And there’s a lot of elections that happen that don’t just happen every four years. There’s elections that happen all the time in various communities.

So, please. I’m pleading. I’m pleading one thing to your audience, and that’s to get involved in the community of America.

If we don’t, if we don’t, I then begin to question whether or not we can keep this republic as we know it today. Because there are many, many people — and not as many as those that want to keep it — but there are many people who are well-funded and well-organized that want to see this country fundamentally change. And that’s not something — you know, when you say, “Well, change to what?” Well, change to maybe a socialist country, maybe a democratic socialist government, maybe a communist government. Those are the ideas and the ideologies that exist inside of this country right now and inside of our government.

So, we have to really understand that. We have to be prepared to do the things that we need to do as American citizens to be able to protect that.

And one way to do that is to get involved in your communities right now.

Sciascia: Yeah. No, absolutely. You’re getting at a topic near and dear to my heart. We’ve written about it many times here at Western Journal, and we’ve talked about it on “WJ Live,” our podcast. I mean, this lack of civic engagement is certainly hurting us. You’re talking about responsibility. I mean, if this apathy persists and the state continues to grow out of control, general, can the American people expect to be treated as you were in 2015, 2016 — and from then on? And if so, I mean, you’ve seen it worse than anyone. Can you tell them what they’re in for?

Flynn: Yeah, I will tell you what you’re in for. If they can treat me the way they treated me — and they obviously feared something because they only treat people and disparage and call names of those who they fear the most. And they fear truth-tellers. I mean, all you can do is look at my whole background. I mean, you don’t get to where I got to because you’re B.S.-ing somebody. You get to where I got to because people trust what you have to say. And I would say, too, the entirety of my life has always been about providing an honest assessment of whatever it is that I’m being asked, you know, given whatever my experiences have been.

So, if they can treat me like that, they can treat any American like that.

And I would just say that as we go forward — and I’ll say it again, as I support Sidney Powell, as I look at America’s future and I look at how we will continue to defend the republic, we will do that in a way that’s free, fair and honest, transparent. We will make sure that we consider everybody who has a challenge out there that we feel we have the resources to take on.

But if they can treat me like they treated me — and everybody watched. Millions and millions of people, not just in this country but around the world. I mean, I’m sitting here and I’ll just show you one stack. I’m sitting here and this is a stack of letters. And I have probably a thousand of these that have come to me from people all over the world that have said, “We’re so concerned about the future of America. Thank you for standing up for our country. Thank you for standing up for us. Thank you for being fearless and in the way that you were treated.”

And that’s what I like to believe that I was. But I only was like that because I have a strong, strong faith in God, I have a terrific family and I had really close, true friends that came to my side, to include millions of American citizens.

So, our goal is to get to the truth. And we should not allow our government, as Sidney likes to say — particularly our Department of Justice — to seek prosecutions or convictions.

What they should seek is the truth.

Sciascia: Now, of all the presidents in the most recent decades, President Trump was unquestionably the strongest on the intelligence community and on the overreach from the federal government and from the judiciary — since JFK, honestly — and that put a target on both of their backs. You know, going forward — I want to kind of get into the topic of futures, now, before we close out. I mean, is Trump the only guy to do it? Do you think– you mentioned the establishment earlier. Do you think that they’re incapable or unwilling to fight that fight? Is Trump the only person to do it? And does that mean he has to come back in 2024? I know there’s been a lot of speculation. What are your thoughts on that?

Flynn: Yeah. I guess, briefly, I think the quote-unquote “establishment” — you do not want to be defined in that bucket any longer.

I think establishment politicians, especially in the Republican Party. Oh, my God. I mean, we sort of know — we know where the Democratic Party stands and we know what they believe in. I mean, it’s hitting us across the head every day, with every executive order that’s signed. Now, all you got to do is go read the titles of them. Never mind trying to read through all the verbiage of each one. I mean, the country is being fundamentally changed by executive order, whether you like it or not, America. So on the Republican side, now, I think the Republican Party needs to really reflect on the direction that it wants to take and how they reach many, many more people.

I mean, I believe — what do I believe? I believe that there was massive election fraud. I talked to many of the people. I’ve read many of the affidavits. I’ve seen many of the filings. I think we still have to get to the truth. I mean, what we had on Jan. 6 by the vote in the Congress, both the House and the Senate — particularly the Senate — we have what we have.

Whether or not Trump will run in 2024, I have no idea. I will tell you that I’ve had many, many conversations in just the last couple of weeks — and certainly over the last couple of years, but certainly the last couple of weeks — about who’s next, you know. Will he or she be viable to be the next president of the United States?

I’m going to tell you what. One of the things that Donald Trump gave the United States of America was authenticity. Donald Trump was an authentic guy.

I used to introduce him at rallies in the 2016 campaign as the most imperfect, and I’ll say that again — as the most imperfect candidate you’re ever going to vote for to be president of the United States. Because Donald Trump is not a perfect guy. He never said he was. What he is, is he’s tough. He’s not an establishment guy. He’s a Washington outsider.

And that’s what the American people wanted then. That’s what they wanted in 2020 and I believe in 2024.

If we are able to have a free, fair and transparent election for the next president of the United States in 2024, clearly we’re going to require some election reform to get there. Now, we have to take a hard look at these machines and definitely have a much better plan to stop foreign interference in our elections.

But I believe that the establishment is not a good place to be. If you’re defined as an establishment candidate in the 2024 presidential election, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. And I actually don’t believe it’s going to happen too much in the 2022 congressional elections. I mean, look at what they just did to Liz Cheney up in Wyoming and for what she did.

And so there’s other examples out there that I can give you — and I would just leave it at this: People want authenticity.

They want honesty. They want the truth. They want to feel as though they are part of our constitutional republic and they still have the freedoms that we that are, in fact, very fragile. Our freedoms are fragile. Our country is a fragile country, as we now know, as we now see, as the American people have awoke to. So they want the future to be where they’re in charge, they have a say and not the media, not the tech titans, not the establishment — the quote-unquote “establishment” in Washington, D.C.

We the people want to have our voices heard. And I believe going forward, that’s going to be the case.

Sciascia: So now, the way I see it from all of this infighting — from, kind of, you mentioned the Cheney-Marjorie Taylor Greene interactions in the last week, the way the party has responded — it seems to me that there is absolutely no question that there is a firm divide in the party. I think that Trump coalition has certainly strengthened, and it is far bigger than the establishment wants to give it credit for. But that establishment wing, that traditionalist conservative wing still exists and still supports its candidates. Whether you like Cheney or not — I’m not particularly a fan — people like Kinzinger. I mean, how does the party draw compromise and go forward? What do we take from this infighting? Is it possible to, kind of, rectify that back-and-forth combat between the establishment wing and the Trump wing? Does the party have to radically transform? What happens going forward?

Flynn: I don’t know — and just in general, Andrew, it’d probably take another hour to discuss that very, very complex question. And I don’t know Liz Cheney. I don’t know Adam Kinzinger. I don’t know some of these people. I mean, I never met him. But I do listen. And I pay attention and I’m watching and, like many millions of average Americans like myself who just want — what we want is we want a safe, secure family environment. We want to be able to go to work every day and do our job. We want to be able to feel like the people that we do elect are being honest and considering us first, before they consider themselves. Instead of being so selfish. There’s so much selfishness in Washington, D.C. My God, that’s clear.

Now, I would say back to Trump. Trump is not the perfect guy, you know. Maybe he’s not going to run in 2024. Maybe he is. Who knows.

But what I do know is what I’m hearing and what I’m listening to — and what I’m watching from the American people is the American people are sick and tired of the political games and the political nonsense that we have faced.

There’s so many more information means by which we can communicate. And the American people are going to go to those meetings. They’re going to go out there and, I do believe, as I said, to get involved — that the American people need to get involved. I do believe that you’re going to see a grassroots shift, particularly in the conservative movement of this country. And when I say the conservative movement, that’s really the middle of this country, and then the both sides of that line that there is, because there’s a lot of Democrats that voted for a Democratic president and they’re like, “Oh, my God. What did I vote for here? What’s happening? This is not necessarily what I vote for.” And there’s a lot of people on the other side saying, “Well, why didn’t I get out there to vote? Because maybe I needed to vote.”

There’s a whole, you know, the whole sort of evolution going on right now in our political lives here in this country, because people are starting to see that not our constitutional republic is just like our Founding Fathers created. They created an experiment in democracy. And this experiment is a fragile experiment. And if you read many of our Founders, their own comments and statements and ledgers — if you look at the history of the things that they were thinking about, we should not fear what our country was built upon. We should not fear that. But what we need to do is we need to understand what those values and principles are, and then we need to espouse those values and principles going forward.

And one of those values is our desire to be free people and to, what I like to say is to, breathe the fresh air of liberty. And in order to do that, we the people must get involved in local politics and our state politics as a primary effort. And then, of course, our federal elections as necessary to be able to choose those people that go into Washington, D.C., and have their fingertips on the purse or the wallet of the American people’s hard-earned tax dollars. I mean, it’s incredible what power exists in that in those quote-unquote “purse strings.”

I think that the American people, like I said, I think they’re just absolutely tired of everything that they’ve seen in our political establishment. And so if you’re defined in the establishment, that will be tied to you in this next set of elections. Certainly in 2022, and then again in 2024.

Sciascia: I think you’re absolutely right. I think — I mean, we’re at a point in this country, you’re talking about the center-right, the conservative movement. I’d like to think that the country is center-right. I think that most of the evidence, culturally, that we have would point to that. But there is a large contingent across the aisle, folks from that, kind of, Bernie Sanders, very progressive coalition that got behind Biden and pushed him into office, that do not buy the principles that you and I are talking about. And that’s a pretty big divide.

We divided to a point, in this country, where we’re divided by the politics of our pillows. I mean, that’s deeply concerning. What is the solution to that divide? Politics can’t always be the answer and, certainly, getting involved in winning those elections changes the face of the country — but how do we win the hearts and minds on the other side and, kind of, move in with those folks and help them start to see what makes this country great, and what makes the conservative faith and morality great?

Flynn: One thing that I would say — and again, I’m going to answer your question with, “I really don’t know.” I’m not an expert on certain aspects of what you’re talking about regarding the dynamics, and what I refer to as the demographics of our country and the voting habits. I have committed to myself over the next few months to becoming an expert on voting habits and demographics because I do not believe that the majority of people espouse what you’re describing when you mention like Bernie Sanders, Sen. Sanders, and I don’t believe that that’s the majority of people. And so, when we look at the demographics of our country and what we know Donald Trump was able to pull off, then I would say that those demographics were pretty, pretty, pretty clear — what, in terms of African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, voters in general. So, I’m going to sort of take a pause on your question and I’m going to go back and do my homework, and study the voting habits and the demographics of our country and how much has shifted in the last, not only four years, but in the last 40 years. Because there has been an enormous shift. And that, to me, is something that I personally want to understand and I think that others around our country need to gain a better understanding of that. Those who are making decisions, those who are leaders in our communities, they need to know when they’re in their communities, how do they push the right buttons to make sure that people are believing, what they’re seeing.

And the last comment that I’d make before I go here, Andrew, is authenticity. People want authentic leadership and leaders do matter. And I do believe that, going forward, they’re going to look for that authenticity in the people that they vote for.

So I just want to say, Andrew, that I appreciate The Western Journal and the platform that you’ve given me here, all you’re doing and all the audience that listens, reads and follows The Western Journal. It’s a terrific publication and very dynamic and very innovative.

Sciascia: Thank you so much, general. We really appreciate your time.

Flynn: Great, Andrew. Thank you. Have me back some time, OK?

Sciascia: Absolutely. We’d love to. Have a good one.

Flynn: God bless.