A Real American Voice Gives VOICE to Real Americans – with Ed Henry - [Ep. 133]

Linda J. Hansen: Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen. Your host and the author of Prosperity 101® - Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, and the creator of the Breakroom Economics online course. The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on Prosperity101.com. I seek to connect boardroom to breakroom and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs.

My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit Prosperity101.com.

Thank you so much for joining with us today. Today, I have a real American voice. Ed Henry, who is the host of American Sunrise on Real America’s Voice network is with me today. And Ed has been traveling the country and speaking to real Americans, hearing what is on their hearts, what’s on their minds as we look at upcoming elections, and what is truly happening in America today. So, Ed has a rich history as a journalist and is quite experienced in speaking to American people around the country. And so, Ed, thank you so much for joining with us.

Ed Henry: Thanks. And I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. Well, I’d love for the listeners who may not be familiar with you to hear a little bit more about you. So, tell us a little bit about your background. And I know you’ve been a journalist for many years –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – various different networks. And I know that you are now at Real America’s Voice. So, tell us a little bit about you and your journey.

Ed Henry: Well, I grew up on Long Island in New York and went to Siena College, upstate New York. Grew up a Yankees fan and still am. We’ve had a good first half and now second half’s a little rough. So, we’ll see how well that turns out. So, I’m a big baseball fan. I wrote a book about Jackie Robinson actually called 42 Faith. And what distinguishes it is it was a New York Times bestseller because it was about sort of an untapped, unexplored area of Jackie Robinson’s journey, first black player in Major League Baseball, obviously broke the color barrier way back in 1947.

And it’s called 42 Faith because he had a deep Christian faith and most people, you know, they write about, understandably, his trailblazing work as a civil rights leader and as a baseball player, too -- you know, which is less important than civil rights piece, of course, in terms of legacy. But he was a Christian man who grew up in a single-family home out in Pasadena. Actually was born in Georgia and his mom brought him and his siblings, several of them on a train, in the 1920s from Georgia to California.

You can imagine a black family going from Georgia to Pasadena didn’t sit in first class, right? This was a long, painful journey. But she had, I think, was a half-brother, who lived out in Pasadena and said it was halfway to heaven and that stuck with her. She was a Methodist. And she really ingrained this deep Christian faith in Jackie. And Pasadena while not in the Segregated South didn’t really treat Black people well.

His brother, Mack – Jackie’s brother, underreported part of the story was in the Olympics, the so-called Hitler Olympics, when Jesse Owens won the gold. He won the silver. He came back to Pasadena and he thought he was going to get a parade or something. Jackie and the family was listening on a transistor radio. And Mack Robinson didn’t get a parade. He didn’t get much of anything. He finally took pity on him and gave him a job sweeping the streets of Pasadena. This is an Olympic champion, but because he was Black – and it gives me an idea of a journey in America.

And Mack was – what he did was – they would not even let him sweep the streets during the day because of his race. They said, “Do it at night,” because it didn’t – they thought, you know, White people wouldn’t like to see this Black guy going around. So, what he did and I have it in the book is Jackie’s brother wore his Olympic jacket while he swept the streets to say, “You know, I’m more than just a street sweeper.” And I always think about that pride he had.

We all have to pick ourselves up after troubles and focus on the future. The Robinsons weren’t treated very well at all. But Jackie went on to great, great things. And, you know, to button that up, the reason why his Christian faith was so important was, you know, people were shouting the N-word and more, throwing bottles at Jackie on the field – whiskey bottles, threatening his life. You know, people had to protect him way before we had, you know, the Secret Service trailing the president and every – Jackie Robinson’s life was in danger because there were people who do not want him to break the color barrier. They knew this would go far beyond baseball.

So, if you think about it, there’s nothing else that could have gotten them through that. Yes, family, friends – his wife is still alive. She just turned 100 years old.

Linda J. Hansen: Wow.

Ed Henry: So, that’s remarkable and her endurance. So, of course, she played an important role – his family. But it’s his faith, you know, and we got to come up with business or what part of his journalism, even politics, people talk about faith sometimes, but to actually live it, and the ups and downs, Jackie had them, died very early with diabetes. This great hero didn’t really take care of himself, died in 1972. So, his wife’s been around since then without him, has lived longer without him than with him.

And it’s sad, to me, because Jackie Robinson should have seen Barack Obama as the first Black president. He should have seen all the gains we’ve made in America. And that’s why to bring it back to Real America’s Voice. I’m so happy to be here. It’s a very patriotic network, very optimistic. Because I hear so many people tearing America down. I think about Jackie Robinson’s story. You know, the journey is not done. We got a lot more work to do. And you’ll hear people say that, I mean it and I’m not just saying it. I’m not saying everything’s totally equal. We still got a lot of work to do. But we’ve made so much progress.

And I’m so sick and tired of people and the woke culture – when we talk about each one of those things. But that’s what I’m about, is that I think America is a wonderful place. And people have to say that and live that. And I believe that because of my faith. And I really – Jackie’s one of my heroes. I’m a baseball fan, as I said.  But he’s bigger than baseball, right? He is much bigger than baseball because of the Civil Rights piece and because of his faith – his Christian faith.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that’s an amazing story you just shared with me. A lot of things I did not know and I’m sure the listeners didn’t know. Tell us a little bit about your own faith journey.

Ed Henry: Yeah. Well, I grew up Catholic on Long Island, where I mentioned. I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes like everyone. And I think that it’s about what you do. You know, how do you atone? How do you fix it? How do you move forward? How do you pick yourself up? And, you know, so I was fired by Fox News in 2020 and it was painful. Some people lied about me. I’m fighting back. I’ve sued Fox and I’ll leave that for the courtroom. But I’m standing up for own truth to clear my name, number one. But number two, Real America’s Voice, I mean, I’ll get into it in more detail.

I really believe God put me on a path. You know, it’s like a blessing in disguise. When you first get fired, you’re like, “Oh, this is awful.” And it’s not positive. You’re not happy about it. But when you sort through it, I know God put me on a path where I’ve got a much better job with the interaction we have with real American voice that you’re talking about. It was because of my experience at Fox and CNN before that. I had worked at Roll Call newspaper on Capitol Hill. I worked for Jack Anderson, the Muckraking columnist, who won the Pulitzer Prize during the Nixon administration for his investigative work.

So, I had some really great people I worked with and worked for who trained me. And so, now it’s almost like God took me to this place where all of that experience could be put to even better use, where I don’t really work for a whole bunch of people. I – this whole show that we’ve done has been organic. My co-host Karyn Turk is phenomenal. She gets the credit because she kept pressing me to join her in a morning show. She said, “We should do a morning show.”

And I was still figuring out what I wanted to do next. And I didn’t really want to jump into it. And we could talk about that from an entrepreneurial and business standpoint, and what you do after you leave, whether you get fired, whether you quit, whether, you know, there’s the great resignation that’s going on now after COVID, where people want to kind of rethink their lives. You know, I was fired in the middle of COVID. So, you know, people were on lockdown still. And, you know, it’s a dark time in American history. And so, a lot of people were trying to figure out what they want to do next, not just me. It’s much bigger than me.

But now, you know, you figure out that there’s this whole big wide world and when you’re in this job, whether it’s at Fox or, you know, playing second base for the Brooklyn Dodgers back in the day, you get so in a tunnel like that’s your thing. And now, here we are in Wisconsin. I probably – if I still were at Fox would be in an anchor desk in New York today. Here, talking to the same people via satellite, the same people in New York, and not hearing real American voices.

And so, the show, Karyn gets the credit for saying we should do a show. I resisted and then realized, “Okay. This could be really interesting.” And then we basically went to CPAC in February in Orlando. And our boss basically just said, “Go.” And he’s a visionary at Real America's Voice. He likes to stay behind the scenes, so I won’t get into details. But he basically said, “Just go.” He said, “You know, get back on the bike.” And I’ve created all the segments, all the different – and we have all these interactive features with viewers.

And we come here to walk – people are showing up at a diner, Daddy O’s, and saying, “We watch every day.” Because you never know. You go – you do a podcast. You do a TV show, radio show. You don’t know who’s out there. Do I have five people, a million people? What’s going on? And fast forward before this trip, CPAC in Orlando in February, we launched. Show has been growing like mad, went from an hour to two hours. We may even expand it some more because we’re getting so much feedback from people.

And so we went to CPAC Texas, a week or so ago, in Dallas because CPAC now has two a year, Florida and Texas. And at the first one, people were like, “Oh, aren’t you still on Fox?” Now, people – thousands of people came up to me in Texas, “I’m glad you’re not at Fox. You know, I watch Real America’s Voice.” And I’d ask them questions to see if they were – “Oh, yeah. You’re at Benny’s on the beach.” Because we do the show at this restaurant that my friend owns on the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, and it gives it a different vibe, different feel. No other morning show does that.

We have real people showing up. We’ve had people drive from South Dakota, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, you name the state, all the way down to South Florida because they see that we’re giving people literally a voice. We mean it, you know. And I think, you know, we could talk about all the layers of this. But that’s part of the rise of Donald Trump. And maybe the re-rise, the comeback, which is that he gave people a voice, too, where people felt like the forgotten man and woman he talked about in 2016 in this economy. And we can debate all day, Trump good, bad, this policy, that policy. But most of his policies were America first and were working.

And now, you look at what the Biden administration is doing to our economy. They’ve dismantled it in many ways. We’re in a recession, obviously. They don’t even want to admit that. And so, these real American voices now are turning to us. And they watch us we stream on Roku, Apple TV, our app. Real America’s Voice you can find in the Apple iTunes Store and all that. And it’s just exhilarating. I never thought I’d have this opportunity. So, leaving Fox was the best thing that ever happened. At the time, I didn’t think that. But with time, you get perspective.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. And it makes me think of the scripture verse, you know, Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good for them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

Ed Henry: Absolutely.

Linda J. Hansen: You know, a lot of times, I think all of us have had times in our life where we’ve thought, “Are you kidding, God?” You know –

Ed Henry: Yeah. What now?

Linda J. Hansen: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up and said, “Seriously?” You know – but I know he’s always got a plan. And when I just trust that and follow that, beautiful things begin to happen. And I see that that’s happened with you. And I’m sure even doing the research for the book –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – with Jackie Robinson has influenced your faith and helped you have a steady base, basically, when you are facing crises in your own life.

Ed Henry: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because that’s where your faith – I mean, I remember over the years, just having people say, “You know, you can’t just use faith as a fire engine.” You know, right? Yeah, certainly help helps you in crises, but you have to have sort of this even keel with your faith where it’s there in good times and bad.

Linda J. Hansen:  Exactly.

Ed Henry: You know, it can’t just be the fire engine, “Whoa, let’s go race and fix this. And oh, God, you know, I won’t do that again. And okay, we’re good.” You know – and you move on. You have to figure out long-term that your faith is at the center of your life or it isn’t.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right. Well, and it’s actually a relationship. I tell people it’s a relationship with Jesus Christ. So, if you want to have a relationship with a family member or friend, you don’t just call them once a year when you’re in trouble.

Ed Henry: You got to work on that.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah. You have to work at it. You have to keep that relationship going. And so, it’s a wonderful opportunity that we have, especially in America, we still have the freedom to exercise faith, whether you’re a Christian or any other faith that you choose.

Ed Henry: For now, we do.

Linda J. Hansen:  For now, we do.

Ed Henry: Yeah. But people, we only say that half-jokingly because – I mean, you think about this raid of Donald Trump’s home that, you know –

Linda J. Hansen:  Yes.

Ed Henry: – while you and I were traveling here in Wisconsin, we – that played out in Florida at Mar-a-Lago. And, you know, it’s – it seems like a big government overreach. We’ll see. We’ll see what they found. But my point is that it’s really alarming people and rightly so that our free speech is very much on the line, our privacy, breaking in basically with 30 or more – I can’t remember how many FBI agents. Now, they are hiring 80,000 or so IRS agents.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. There’s going to be more IRS agents than there are Border Patrol agents –

Ed Henry: This is that –

Linda J. Hansen: – as the southern border is wide open and bringing into terrorists and human traffickers, drug traffickers.

Ed Henry: It’s despicable.

Linda J. Hansen: It’s despicable.

Ed Henry: And there you go.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right.

Ed Henry: And that’s where their priorities are in the Biden administration. Let’s collect more tax money. Let’s, you know, go after American citizens, maybe for their political piece. People are looking at this raid of Mar-a-Lago. And Donald Trump said for a long time on the campaign trail, “They’re not really after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the middle.” And –

Linda J. Hansen:  It’s so true. It’s so true. And whether you like Donald Trump or you don’t like Donald Trump, if you’re listening, you have to admit that his policies put America on a better track.

Ed Henry: Absolutely.

Linda J. Hansen:  You know, our –

Ed Henry: And you have to admit that he’s been persecuted beyond anyone. And, you know, again, like you said, some people don’t like him and, you know, there’s a big divide in this country. We don’t have to spend all day talking politics. But enough – at some point, it’s enough that you’re going after a man’s family. Now, you’re in his private home. They go into his safe, you know.

Linda J. Hansen: But they haven’t done anything with Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Ed Henry: Where’s that?

Linda J. Hansen: So, there’s another thing. Yes.

Ed Henry: And with 33,000 e-mails that Hillary Clinton had.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right.

Ed Henry: And the FBI director at the time, James Comey, since fired, of course, is on record as saying that she lied, basically – let’s just say it – about whether there was classified information in those e-mails. So, if you’re going after Donald Trump over classified information now, why didn’t the FBI do anything about Hillary Clinton? I never saw them raid her house.

And I certainly haven’t seen them raid Hunter Biden’s house, despite a laptop that the FBI has had for a couple of years with potentially child pornography, in addition to potential fraud, whether it’s tax fraud, whether it’s various business fraud, you know, influence peddling in terms of business deals that Hunter was doing in Ukraine, Russia, China, and that the current President Joe Biden has said many times to the American people and I think lied, “I had nothing to do with those business dealings,” when in fact, the emails in that laptop suggest otherwise. Most famously or infamously, “Let’s leave 10% for the big guy,” which many people believe was Joe Biden.

Linda J. Hansen: Right.

Ed Henry: He was cut in.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, and you talked about the free speech being limited in America, too, and that’s why I love the fact that like Real America’s Voice is this emerging network.

Ed Henry: There are these alternatives.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. There are these alternatives. There’s Gather. There’s –

Ed Henry: Truth Social.

Linda J. Hansen:  – Truth Social, social, and we see these other networks like Real America’s Voice rising, where real American people are able to not only hear more truth, but they are being able to participate in the conversation.

Ed Henry: That was the word I was going to use.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah.

Ed Henry: Yeah, because it is a conversation. And look, when I was at CNN, when I was at Fox, we would talk about – I’d say it’s a conversation. It’s about you. I don’t really believe a lot of the big networks truly have that mission. You kind of say that to kind of reach out to viewers, make them feel part of the process. We actually mean it. And I think others in the streaming world, too, because streaming is, in many ways, not just the future but the present.

You know, Fox is doing their Fox Nation. Everybody during the pandemic was, in terms of entertainment, Netflix and Hulu, and all of these things. We're already part of the scene but only exploded more as people were working from home and whatnot. And I know a lot of people predicted a few years ago the demise of cable and it didn’t really happen. Some people say because of Donald Trump because people were glued to what the next step in this drama.

Now, nobody’s really watching cable, and they’re cutting the cord again because Biden is a heck of a lot more boring than Trump, number one. But number two, we’re a lot more interesting than what’s happening on cable, whether it’s Real America’s Voice, Right Side Broadcasting. I want to give them credit, too. There’s others out there in the streaming world that are doing a darn good job. And I think people are rewarding us. Our numbers are off the charts in terms of people watching and streaming.

Linda J. Hansen:  It’s exciting. And my former boss, Herman Cain –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – who also –

Ed Henry: Knew him well.

Linda J. Hansen: – yeah, and that’s where you and I first got to know each other.

Ed Henry: And I met you there. Yes, that was in Fox.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes, in the green rooms at Fox. And but – I remember him saying that streaming was the future. Streaming television, streaming content was the future. And, unfortunately, he’s not with us –

Ed Henry: Yeah. He passed.

Linda J. Hansen: – any longer to be featured on streaming networks. But I know if he was here, right now, he would say, “Yes. This is the way to the future.”

Ed Henry: Yeah. He knew it was coming. And –

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah. He was a great visionary. And, you know, we were talking before about Donald Trump’s rise and how he gave a voice to the people. And I would say, too, when Herman Cain, like – for those who may be listening to this for the first time and don’t know anything about me, I was Herman Cain’s Deputy Chief of Staff –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – for his presidential campaign and really was one of two people who encouraged him to run because we could see America wanted a Herman Cain. They wanted a businessman in the White House, somebody who understood what it’s like to sign the front of a check, not just the back.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And –

Ed Henry: Correct. And there’s nobody in the Biden administration practically, certainly not the president but, you know, the government doled his whole career in Joe Biden as a teacher. They haven’t met a payroll. They haven’t hired a single person. And I think that really matters because they don’t know anything about taxes and regulations. And they just want to pile more and more on small businesses. And you know better than I that that’s not the formula.

And you know what’s interesting if you take a step back, I was just reading a book about Steve Bannon who’s obviously a big force in this alternative media and he also has a – he has a show right after us on Real America’s Voice. We’re from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Time on American sunrise, Real America’s Voice. American Sunrise is the name of the show. And then War Room, the name of Bannon’s show is right after us from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern, streaming on Real America’s Voice.

And I think his name is Joshua – Josh Green from Bloomberg in the Atlantic, wrote a biography on Bannon pretty fascinating, among other things. I’ll quickly mention is that he kind of – has the premise that it was Bannon who first saw this America First move. He was a visionary.

And you know him and you could jump in here in a second because I just want to complete the thought that it was Bannon who was working on and I think did a documentary in about 2011 on Sarah Palin after her 2008 vice-presidential run, that he thought she might be the vessel. And then for the America First movement, kind of fizzled out now. She’s running for Congress many years later. Maybe she’ll make a comeback. But I would pause it that maybe Herman Cain – and I’d love to hear your thoughts – it was 2012 that he ran, right?

Linda J. Hansen: Yes.

Ed Henry: He was really almost running on that America First agenda.

Linda J. Hansen:  Oh, we definitely were. That was the message and it was really bringing out people, individuals from – throughout the country. Now, you mentioned Bannon being, you know, the leader of this American first movement. I would say, Andrew Breitbart.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: You know, for those of us who knew Andrew Breitbart and I did. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him. And I mean, he was such a visionary.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And such as sparkplug.

Ed Henry: And Bannon eventually took over when he passed away so early which is so tragic.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right. Right. And so – yeah, it was horrible and – but Herman Cain, like he could understand the pulse of the people. I remember, you know, traveling with him all the time during the campaign and even after the campaign, but during the campaign, we would be at airports and TSA agents, you know, I’m talking like TSA agents. I specifically remember this one that just startled me, but also told me this is a bigger story than I know.

This young black TSA agent. He had dreads down to his waist. He was a handsome young man. He literally left his post, jumped over like three or four different, you know –

Ed Henry: Lanes.

Linda J. Hansen: Lanes, I should say, and Herman Cain’s hand –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And said, “Mr. Cain, you’re my man. You’re my man. All my friends are voting for you. You are my man.” And I knew right then that we had increased the black vote in, you know, just immeasurably. And when Herman Cain’s polling numbers exceeded those of Barack Obama’s, that’s when the whole takedowns started and things.

Ed Henry: Then they came after him. Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: Then they came after him with lies, you know, because that’s what they do. But the politics of personal destruction, but it was so gratifying to travel the country and hear from people here, what was on their hearts, what was on their minds, that they could see through what was happening.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And now you are doing that with American Sunrise.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: I mean, they’re putting you out on location –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – with all these people all across the country.

Ed Henry: Yeah. I want to talk about that because –

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, which is exciting.

Ed Henry: – just to see complete the thought. I think Herman Cain maybe opened the door for, say, a Ben Carson, you know, as a black conservative –

Linda J. Hansen: Yes.

Ed Henry: – and do very well. And then a Donald Trump, who actually won –

Linda J. Hansen:  Right.

Ed Henry: – and Carson didn’t, but Carson wound up in the cabinet.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah. We often say that we set the table for Donald Trump.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And they were good friends. They – you know, we – I feel –

Ed Henry: Old businessmen, outsiders –

Linda J. Hansen: Right. Right. That outsider campaign, that outsider ability to connect with people –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – I think is just immeasurable. And not everyone can do that. I mean, you may have a really great person. You may have a person who could be a good candidate in a way, but they can’t connect with the people in that same way.

Ed Henry: Right.

Linda J. Hansen: They don’t have that charisma. They don’t have that ability to read the people, to read the crowd. And that was something that I think we were able to do very, very well with Herman Cain.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And most people don’t know but we were really organized down to the precinct level in like 50 states.

Ed Henry: Wow.

Linda J. Hansen: I mean, not every precinct, not every word, you know, not every –

Ed Henry: Sure.

Linda J. Hansen: – but we were deep. And we just did that, built that –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – very grassroots without any paid advertising.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: So, it was an amazing movement. And when we had 15,000 people at Centennial Olympic Park for his announcement rally –

Ed Henry: Wow.

Linda J. Hansen: – that was like, I think, at that time, the largest political rally in America’s history at that time.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And that was May 21 of 2011. CNN headquarters was across the street, right?

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And I think they said we had like several 100 or something.

Ed Henry: Yeah, right. Well, there you go.

Linda J. Hansen: You know, I mean, it was ridiculous, but we knew then, too, that there is a movement brewing in America. And now going back to your show –

Ed Henry: Yeah, I want –

Linda J. Hansen: – in American Sunrise and what you’re doing, like that you’re hearing this –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – what’s brewing with the American people?

Ed Henry: Yeah. And they’re still mad and the sort of mini-revolution that elected Donald Trump in 2016, it hasn’t gone away. It’s bubbling. It’s still there. It might be even hotter, particularly after this FBI raid. People are furious. They’re fed up. They – and I think it – also Fauci, the mandates, the vaccines. People just – they were already not believing of the federal government. Now, they’re apoplectic at the idea that they just can’t trust almost anything. And you can’t trust much of the media.

But I don’t want to just focus on the negative. What we try to do is be sunny. That’s why we call it American Sunrise – optimistic. And I’ll tell you a couple of little secrets. One is our vision of the show and why we called it American Sunrise is I kept saying, “Look, if we do this morning show, it’s going to be pretty dark because Biden administration, we’re bringing in more conservative viewers on this streaming platform and they’re going to get tired of just hearing about the latest dumb thing that Biden did.” So, we got to mix that in with forward-looking, optimistic things. And my model, frankly, was Ronald Reagan, 1984, Morning in America. That’s why we call it American Sunrise.

Linda J. Hansen:  I love it.

Ed Henry: It’s like, we have to talk about a comeback, right? And you know, this from the entrepreneurial business world. You can’t just dwell on the negative. You can’t just wallow in what’s going wrong. Let’s fix it. Let’s move forward. What are the positive, optimistic things? And it’s hard to have hope right now. That’s why people are leaning on their faith. We start the show off – number one, with a devotional from Jesus Calling. And we always say we’re not proselytizing. We are not preaching. We’re not ministers. We’re not telling people how to pray. But we just think a little devotion at the top of the show is a great way to start today. And we – the feedback we’ve gotten is, wow, that’s one of the things that people really – that really sticks with them.

Linda J. Hansen: I’ve heard that and it’s great that you do that. And it does give people hope. And I think when we cannot only give people hope, but as Bannon often says, “Action, action, action,” I think that’s the theme of –

Ed Henry: Signal, not noise.

Linda J. Hansen:  Yeah. Signal, not noise. I actually did a podcast titled, Signal Versus Noise.

Ed Henry: That’s what’s coming out of the table.

Linda J. Hansen: It’s so important.

Ed Henry: Yeah. Focus on what matters.

Linda J. Hansen:  It’s so important for people. Yes.

Ed Henry: The noise. Getting back to cable, not just to dump on them, but so many of the segments on cable are just shout fest. We pretty much – I can’t even think of any time in the last six months of this show that we’ve had a Democrat and Republican on, or two Republicans, you know, more RINO versus America First. We don’t do debates like that.

It’s more let’s have conversations. Enough of this, like, obviously, this person on the Left is going to say nasty things about Trump. And this person on the Right is going to say nasty things about Biden. And then we all go home. What is that? It’s an entertainment thing. It’s BS. Let me tell you something positive. Let me just not be negative.

Linda J. Hansen: [Laughs].

Ed Henry: And give you some – like example, like, “Oh, yeah, you really talk to real Americans.” So, Karyn and I, went Donald Trump was having a rally in Nebraska a couple of months ago and we set it up, and that we were going to do the morning show out of a bar, Buck's Bar & Grill, I think, it is. They have live music. It’s really great. But as you can imagine, at 8:00 or 7:00 in the morning there, Omaha time. It’s right outside Omaha. There’s nobody at the bar.

But Buck was kind enough to open it up and we did an interview with him. And we set it up so that there was going to be a young couple with a couple of kids and they wanted to bring – they were like friends of the owner, their kids dressed up as cowboys or something. It was, “Oh, that’d be great. It would just be a fun little thing.” And then as it turned out, they never showed up. And we’re a two-hour show and about halfway through someone said, “Whatever happened to the kids?” Like, “I don’t know. They didn’t show up.” And I think they – the parents were struggling to get the kids out of bed and get dressed. And you’ve been through this with your kids and my kids. I’ve been through – and then like with about a half hour left of the show, they showed up.

And Karyn said, “Oh, you’re the lady with the –” “Yeah.” So, this young mom comes and we say, “Hey, you’re a real American voice. We want to hear what you think.” And we’re thinking we’re talking about Trump. We’re talking about Biden. And we said, “What’s going on here? What’s happening in Nebraska?” I mean, that’s simple and put a microphone in front of her. And no one had ever interviewed her. And she said, “I can’t get baby formula right now.” What?

Linda J. Hansen:  Whoa.

Ed Henry: And she said, “Yeah. I’m on this Facebook group with all these moms. And it’s not just me. A whole bunch of moms are saying we can’t get baby formula.” I had never heard this not a single mainstream media outlet had reported on it that I saw. And Joe Biden certainly hadn’t done anything about it hadn’t talked about it. So, this is – you can’t – I’ve got to think back, was it March? Was it – 

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, I think.

Ed Henry: It was around the time that Trump was having a rally in Nebraska. So, long story short, we’re like, “Wow.” Stack of Bibles the next day, Axios, which is an insider publication had a story saying, “Baby formula crisis seems to be growing out there.” And so it was bubbling. And since then, the administration’s dissembled about when they knew about it and what they’ve done about it, then they flew some baby formula in from Europe and said, “We fixed it.” And then now people are saying, “No, you haven’t.” 

And we’ve been airing the Republican National Committee puts through puts together local newscasts, Alabama, Ohio, where moms are saying it’s still not fixed. And I don’t know if these moms are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, but all I know is that they don’t believe the Biden administration is fighting for them or delivering for them literally and figuratively. And so, I didn’t know about the baby formula crisis until I got out of a studio in Florida where I’m now. If I was still in a studio in New York with Fox, I would have heard about the baby formula crisis when the Biden administration finally admitted it was a problem.

I heard it from a mom because we went out in the country. And that’s one small example. But it really matters. More people in the media should get out. And then I’m struck. I met you. So, we met at Fox years ago. But we re-met in Nashville because Karyn and I took the show to the Faith and Freedom Coalition event and you happen to be there. And you said, “Oh, remember we met.” Oh, yeah. Herman Cain, we started talking and we put you on. And we said, “Hey. You’re a real American voice. We want to know what you think.”

Well, I just want to tell you, the amount of people who kept coming to our – oh, you’re talking to real people, let’s talk. And it just struck me that, you know, we’re having this conversation. We’re listening to people. And yet, I saw other networks, who shall remain unnamed, who sent reporters because Donald Trump was speaking at this conference in Nashville. I saw them sitting on chairs, then they’d stand up and do their live shot back to New York and the rest of the country. And then they’d sit back down, then they go get their lunch. They go to their hotel.

They didn’t talk, I don’t think they talked to a real American. And they were at this conference for two or three days. I won’t embarrass, but I know somebody I used to work with. And I must have talked to 500 real Americans. You saw me.

Linda J. Hansen: I did. I did.

Ed Henry: And I learned a lot more than I would have by sitting and talking to the same old people in Washington or New York.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. And that’s what I love and that’s what grassroots is. You know, I talked to so many people that don’t understand grassroots, whether you’re a candidate, a campaign, or you’re part of the consultant industrial class. You know, grassroots is getting down with the people, understanding what’s going on in their homes in their communities. And you mentioned the baby formula. Well, for those that might not know and maybe didn’t follow this too much at the time that it happened, but the Biden administration had baby formula pallets –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – stacked up at the border for illegal immigrants. So, our tax dollars are paying for –

Ed Henry: Yet another example of the priority being off.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. Yes. And while mothers across the country, mothers and fathers, you know, are traveling all over trying to find their baby formula and they’re finding every breast –

Ed Henry: They go to five different supermarkets.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes, or across state lines, everything trying to find it. And I know breastfeeding moms were trying to, you know, help other moms –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – who needed to feed their babies. I mean, it was really a crisis. And I think it’s not in the news now as much, but it’s not necessarily a non-crisis for a lot of families.

Ed Henry: Right.

Linda J. Hansen: And we see these things. The news cycle, you know, is so entertainment-based like you mentioned. When you get out and you hear from the people, you hear exactly what’s going on in their lives and that’s what’s so important.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And our time is short. But I know one of the things I wanted you to share, too, is since you know this podcast is for any listener, of course –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – I hope to educate anyone, but I do like to make a focus on employers, educating employees –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  – or employees educating their employers about these issues. So, if you could say, you know, one or two things that you would suggest for employers or employees –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – in terms of communication in the workplace to help understanding – to go about all of these issues, what would you say?

Ed Henry: Well, one thing I see is the woke culture has taken over some of these companies. And I get the pressure you feel but for employers – and when I talk to employees in the form of real American voices we put on the show, they’re sort of like, whether – you know, we were just talking to a mechanic here in Wisconsin, was on the show, and it’s like, “Whoa, let me be a mechanic. Let me fix the brakes on a car instead of sending me to some training about how I’m going to be more sensitive to trans rights or so.”

And that’s what I see is that some of these companies are really getting into trouble because they’re getting off their main mission, which is like how we’re going to make money for our shareholders, how we’re going to treat our employees well in the process. Let’s not make it slave labor like we see in other countries. Let’s make sure that we’re treating our employees well. I’m all for that. I think conservatives get unfairly tarnished. Oh, they’re just making the almighty buck. But these businesses are in business to make money.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. When have you ever had a job from a poor person?

Ed Henry: Right. And they’re the ones who hire you.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right.

Ed Henry: You know, Mitt Romney said this very clumsily in 2012 and you must have chuckled because Cain was a – but, you know, he was not very good at communicating, but whatever he said about peoples or people or corporations, and the media crushed him because they’re very biased. And I don’t – he didn’t say it artfully maybe, but if you think about it now, gosh, what is it now? So, it’s 10 years later, right? 2022. He was saying that people are the ones who make up the corporations and their the sweat and the labor and – but it was painted by the media as being a very callous statement.

I would argue that, you know, for employers, you know, employees should understand that these employers are faced – are being crushed by taxes and regulations. So, don’t push more mandates. Don’t jump on this woke, you know, minimum wage and all that. That end because –

Linda J. Hansen:  It’s an unfunded mandate.

Ed Henry: Yeah. It’s an unfunded mandate for the employer and then you as an employee are going to be less likely to get an actual raise down the road on the merits, and you may even lose your job because that mandate is going to force the employer to make some tough decisions of, “Well, if I’m going to have to pay all these people this much that’s demanded by the government and mandated by the government, then all of a sudden I might have to do that with six employees instead of eight.” So, those six will make more, but then what does that do for the two who lose their jobs at that hardware store or whatever it is, so –

Linda J. Hansen:  Exactly.

Ed Henry: But having said that, the employers have to pay a fair wage and we have to get to a point in this country where we don’t need, you know, the government doesn’t even – get out of the way. Get out of the way.

Linda J. Hansen: Get out of the way.

Ed Henry: You know, because they know what to do these employers, but please treat them fairly, like don’t just focus on the almighty buck, I think we can say that, too.

Linda J. Hansen: Right.

Ed Henry: People should be treated fairly.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, and I think that people need to realize, like you said, that these unfunded mandates, you know, a higher minimum wage – actually, one of the lessons I have in my online course and I also talk about it in the book, that’s – all things are available on my website, Prosperity101.com.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: But one of the lessons is will a higher minimum wage help me?

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And it really just walks people through, helps them ask questions of themselves and, you know, what’s going on, but also helping them realize it doesn’t help you in the long run.

Ed Henry: Right.

Linda J. Hansen: It really doesn’t. And all of these mandates and things, you know, it comes from the pockets of the individuals. So, the governmental promise, you know, the moon, the stars, and everything else, and where does the money come from?

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: That hardworking mechanic you just mentioned –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – who really just wants to fix cars.

Ed Henry: Right.

Linda J. Hansen: Doesn’t want to go to woke ideology training.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And he just wants to make money, provide for his family, and –

Ed Henry: Get a fair wage.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. And the government makes it very difficult to do that.

Ed Henry: They do.

Linda J. Hansen: So, the more that employers can actually speak up about that and be bold about it, I think the better because it’s not just the woke employers who should have a voice.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  Real American employers –

Ed Henry: Right, real --

Linda J. Hansen: – should have a real American voice, right?

Ed Henry: Yes.

Linda J. Hansen:  And speak up –

Ed Henry: But it’s hard to get that voice of fairness, because if you’re an employer and you speak out against the Biden administration, regulations, or taxes, you’re going to get blackballed in some way. You’re afraid maybe the IRS is coming after me next. This is where – that’s where we kind of started this conversation –

Linda J. Hansen:  Right.

Ed Henry: – to bring it full circle. The employees don’t have an easy, you know, they – but you know, you should get off the couch and not just be on the government dole, and work hard. And I think while there are some of the government dole and the country has been in tough shape over that, there are a lot of hardworking Americans, those real American voices who do work their butts off, and the employer should recognize it. But I just think that these employers are getting crushed by regulation and taxes. And that’s – it’s time for that to end. This bill they just passed.

Linda J. Hansen:  Oh, it’s horrible.

Ed Henry: Seven hundred billion more in federal spending taxes, taxes, taxes, what you said about the 80,000 IRS agents, what are they there for? They’re just about, you know, terrorizing some and shaking people down for more money. And if the government was spending it wisely, I’d say okay, “Well, here’s –” but it’s just going to go to AOC and the Green New Deal, and look, we’re just piling on debt. How much money we’re spending in Ukraine?

Linda J. Hansen: When we’re not even protecting our own border. Right.

Ed Henry: And that’s why Donald Trump resonates with real American voices because of those America First policies.

Linda J. Hansen: Those policies. Right. And to end on hope, because you talked about –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – making sure that we aren’t negative, but we always provide hope and some action items as well, there’s more of us than there are of them.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  You know, and we, the people are still in charge of this government. And we have to be reminded of that and we have to empower our employers, employees, and average citizens with the realization that we are actually in charge we do not have to run scared because right now the government –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – seems to have all this overwhelming power and the woke ideologies seem to be winning. But if we all, like you said, get off our butts –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  – [laughs] You know, and we get in the game action, action, action, we can take this country back. And it doesn’t mean everybody has to believe like you do or like I do –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  – or that we have to live the same kind of lifestyle or anything else.

Ed Henry: Right.

Linda J. Hansen: It just means we can be free and American can be free. We can allow for prosperity again and we can allow for the America that allows for prosperity and human flourishing for people of all different backgrounds –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen:  – colors, creeds, ideologies, anything. That’s what America is truly about.

Ed Henry: Well, all I know is when you say -- yeah, there’s more of us than them. If you’ve got a party that’s anti-police, pro-taxes, pro regulation on the small businesses, right? Pro-open borders, we could list all these things, anti-law and order. Look what’s happening in Portland and Seattle. And these –

Linda J. Hansen:  Kenosha here in Wisconsin. Look what happened to Kenosha.

Ed Henry: Is that right? I didn’t even know that.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah. Well, it’s not right now. But remember with Kyle Rittenhouse things and all of that.

Ed Henry: Well, the – remember that, of course.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. I mean, Kenosha was burning.

Ed Henry: Right. BLM and letting them off the hook. So, if you’re going to be, you know, pro-tax, anti-life, pro-BLM, I liked the chances of the party going up against that one because Donald Trump says this at his rallies, he thinks it’s not a 50-50 country. He thinks there’s a lot of stealing of votes because he doesn’t get how the Democrats can win almost any state on the anti-life, pro-crime essentially, I mean, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, go down the list. Democratic cities and they’ve been run into the ground.

In terms of ending on a hopeful optimistic note, we get back to America First policies and we’re going to have to flush this out and build back instead of build back better as Joe Biden says. We got to rebuild that whole thing –

Linda J. Hansen:  Build back strong. Yeah.

Ed Henry: – and build back stronger, I guess, another way to put it.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, America first and when America is strong, the world is strong. So, all of these globalists who, you know, want us to play on the globalist field –

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: – yes, you know, but from a position of strength. You know, peace through strength.

Ed Henry: Yeah. I remember hearing that.

Linda J. Hansen:  Yeah. Peace through strength is what Reagan –

Ed Henry: That goes back to Reagan in Morning in America.

Linda J. Hansen:  Right. Exactly. And Herman –

Ed Henry: That was tough times thinking about it with the Soviet Union.

Linda J. Hansen:  I know.

Ed Henry: But he was optimistic. He was tough, trust but verify, and all that. And he put some – took some risks and sort of being nice and diplomatic, but he was tough when he needed to be. And he was optimistic and forward-looking. And I think America came out a lot better than the country that Russia has with a desperate economy, you know.

Linda J. Hansen:  Exactly.

Ed Henry: We’re in recession right now but I like our chances over Russia. China’s another story because this administration, we could do a whole ‘nother podcast on that.

Linda J. Hansen:  We could do a whole ‘nother podcast.

Ed Henry: That would be the key for another one.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. Yes. We’ll have that back to talk about China.

Ed Henry: But I still America’s chances versus anybody.

Linda J. Hansen:  Yeah. And Herman Cain – our saying for his foreign policy was peace through strength and clarity. 

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: Helping the American people to understand, I think that’s a gift that Herman Cain had, explaining policies in a way that, you know, the average person could understand.

Ed Henry: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: You know, and Donald Trump has done that in the sense that Americans have awakened to the policies and how they affect their daily life. They’ve been able to understand them at a better level. And so – well, thank you so much. How do people – yeah, it’s great. How do people reach you?

Ed Henry: Go to AmericasVoice.news. AmericasVoice.news is where you could stream in on a laptop, our morning show every day 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 Eastern, but also all of our other shows. Steve Bannon right after us. Charlie Kirk is now two hours, 12:00 noon to 2:00 Eastern after Bannon. We’ve got John Solomon and Amanda Head. We got a great team and we’re adding more people. We’re about to make announcements of some big, big talent that you’ve heard of before.

Linda J. Hansen:  It’s exciting, people.

Ed Henry: Because it’s growing.

Linda J. Hansen: Pay attention.

Ed Henry: And so, I’m @edhenry on like Twitter, Getter, True Social, all of those, @edhenrytv on Instagram. So, Linda, thanks for having me. This has been great.

Linda J. Hansen:  Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to have you. Thank you.

Ed Henry: Appreciate it. 

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don’t forget to visit Prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics online course. You can also receive the free e-book, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Paychecks. 

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