Rick Green: 0:11

You found the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Thanks so much for joining us. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's constitution coach. And I'm here with David Barton. He's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton, he's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And you, thank you for listening, appreciate you being a part of the program, appreciate you being a person of action. If you haven't been up until this point, today is the day. if you have, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines. So we're going to ask you to get involved, make a difference, give of your lives, your fortunes and your sacred honor. Your life is your time. Your fortunes, yes, that's your money, absolutely. Your sacred honor, honor, stand up, speak truth, stand for honor in your community, there's so much that you can do. Each and every one of us has a role to play. And we're asking you to participate in that. Couple of ways you can participate today, right there at our website, WallBuildersLive.com. Simply share the program with your friends and family, just take the links and send them out, then you can make a donation. That can be one time or monthly, can be small, it can be big, whatever the Lord puts on your heart, it helps to multiply this program and to amplify its voice and to get to more people and teach them truth and equip and inspire them. So God bless you for being a part of that. All right, David and Tim we got an interesting interview today, and I'm going to tell you guys, for me personally, I finally started paying attention to the issue of the electric grid when I spent four days without power, trying to use my generators and my battery packs and all that stuff to keep the food from spoiling, keep the grandchildren happy, and you know, generally survive for four days without electricity. Not fun. So I cannot imagine these people that had to do it for like two weeks last time. This was just a few weeks ago when this happened to us in Dripping Springs. And then of course, yeah, you know, you've had rolling blackouts and things like that happen once in a while, but most people have never experienced anything like that. So they just, you know, expect the light to come on when they flip the switch, expect the heater to come on, when they you know, and for those who have ever been through what we just went through as a family, you no longer take it for granted. And you start thinking what would the world be like without electricity. And it could happen and there's some people warning that we've got some vulnerability, some real vulnerabilities, you know, to our electric... overall electric grid across the country. So that's our topic today.

Tim Barton: 2:28

Well, and we also could point out, I think it was just a couple of weeks ago, it could have been a month ago at this point. But you know when China had their spy balloon going over the US, and it was going over some of these electric power grid, some of these military sites. And for those who paid attention and remember it was going... the balloon was going between 40,000- 60,000. And at times, it got up to around 100,000 feet. And why that's a big deal is because what the experts are telling us is if you were to release some kind of nuclear detonation in that range up at 100,000 feet, it could cause a mass EMP that could go over much of the nation and it could wipe out power. So this idea of securing an electric grid, it is becoming now more of a reality. There's always been vulnerabilities and weakness for the last several decades. This is something that should have been addressed decades ago. And the more that we find out about it, the more concerned we are that there hasn't been more done to this point. With that being said, now when you're looking at literally just months ago, a month ago, whatever it was there being this Chinese spy balloon going across the US and again, the elevation when it was going up and down, and the reality that if they release some kind of nuclear device, some kind of massive explosion at that level, it can cause an EMP, the grid can go down. If the grid goes down, estimates are that depending on where you live, that a huge swath of the population between 60% to 90% of the population could die within the first four weeks all the way through the first six months. The population could be decimated because of how reliant and dependent we are on the supply chain. And people don't know how to grow their own crops. And especially if you live in the city and you live in the middle of concrete where you don't have access to find necessarily clean drinking water or resources and food, there's a lot of potential for a person or a nation with ill intent to do great damage and significantly harm the population of the US. Just with the power grids alone. Without firing a shot, necessarily. Just taking down the power grid could have catastrophic repercussions on the nation.

David Barton: 4:42

And it's the kind of thing to where that people kind of take for granted what we're used to. And we're used to having electricity, we're used to hitting the switches on the walls and having things come on or plugging things in and having it work and... Texas got a little glimpse of this a couple of years ago, we had what we called Ice-mageddon, which for us it was a lot colder than it's ever been. It was below zero all over the state. And so people are just cranking their electricity to keep it warm inside. And I was talking to a state rep who's on the committee over our Texas power. He said, We came within about two minutes of losing the entire grid. And he said, had it gone down, it would have taken more than six months to recover it and rebuild and get it back up. And so for that many Texans, 30 million Texans, to be sitting there at five or 10 degrees below zero for six months, they have no firewood, they have no idea how to have it. Most houses don't have a fireplace, they wouldn't have had anything and... You know, Tim and I, and Rick you too, we all live out in the country, and so we think well we're great on a ranch out here. Well, yeah, but even at that our vehicles don't work. So you can't go into a grocery store. But you can't get anything, grocery store because there's no delivery because the gas pumps have electricity to have to pump gas to the vehicles. And all the vehicles start with the electric stuff. And so just the electrical side of everything we rely on, if it goes down, man, it is an absolute destruction of our way of life. And Tim, as you mentioned, it could result in up to 90% loss of life. I think there was a book you've talked about called one second after, where a military guy kind of looked at what would happen over the next year after something like this hit. So we're talking about this, because there are three basic power grids in the United States. And Texas is one of those three. And if the Texas power grid goes down, you have what's called cascading. And you saw this in New York City, other places where that when part of it goes down, it puts too much strain on the remaining part, and they close down and just cascades and it shuts down, shuts down, shuts down, shuts down, shuts down. And that's where you had a lot of blackouts on the east coast or the west coast or whatever. So this is just something for people to think about. We're told in Proverbs, that a wise man foresees the danger and takes action to prevent bad stuff. And this is something that's got to get back on our thoughts because we just take it for granted. But our life would be so different, actually so destroyed for many people if they didn't have this electricity. And so this is a political thing. And that's part of what we cover here is looking at what we can do, from a pro family point of view on things like this. So great interview today, it's something people don't think about, something that needs to be back to the top of our awareness.

Rick Green: 7:18

Well, and David even the credit cards, man, I mean, you can't even you can't get your gas, unless you got cash to pay for your gas if the gas station will even stay open. I saw that happen a few weeks ago, when this happened to us, and stores that couldn't use their you know, the merchant processing is what the word I was looking for there. So it's just things we don't even think about that would shut down, and the chaos that would happen as a result. And so yeah, we're going to talk in our interview today specifically about the Texas grid and the ability to secure that one, our guest will tell us why that is the place to start. But this is important for everybody across the country. This is a huge issue, very important for us to pay attention to David Tice, our special guests stay with us we'll be right back on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 8:13

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you've had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a WallBuilders speaker coming to your area you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling. And if you don't click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers bios to events that are already going on. And there's a section where you can request an event. To bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms, go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area. This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Too often today history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding, such as Lemuel Haynes. Haynes, abandoned as a baby pioneered churches across Upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation, to receive an honorary master's degree and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the Congregationalists. He was a soldier during the American Revolution and in his churches on George Washington's birthday, he regularly preached sermons, honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle if necessary to protect America, which he called a sacred Ark. American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes who are largely ignored by mainstream education, today. For more information about pastor Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 10:12

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us, special guests David Tice is with us. I had a chance to get to know him over the last, well, I guess we met about seven or eight months ago, had a great day at the Capitol and a great reception. Just a really important topic, folks for you to pay attention to, David's the one that helped get Soul Surfer produced and done a lot of other movie things as well. But this one may be one of the most important things he's done in his life. David, thanks so much for joining us today, man.

David Tice: 10:38

Glad to be with you, Rick, and all your listeners.

Rick Green: 10:41

Well, GridDownPowerUp.com is the website and we'll have a link so folks can find out more. But you have just been a man on a mission with this, and brought more attention to it than anyone, got Dennis Quaid to be in the new movie that you did. And just you know, the right legislators involved. I mean, you've really been working hard to bring attention to this issue. And of course, our mutual friend, Senator Bob Hall has been at it for a long time trying to get people to pay attention as well. It feels like David, there's progress like they're starting to be, you know, more people are paying attention. I don't know that we're to the tipping point yet, but we're... seems like we're moving the right way for sure.

David Tice: 11:14

Well, it certainly seems like we're getting there, Rick, and we had Dennis Quaid be on Jesse Watters, and Fox News made it their number one alert, and people were getting text messages about it. So a lot of people are hearing about it. And we are making progress inside the Texas Legislature. There's two bills being considered one in the house, one of the Senate. The Senate bill has 25 Senate joint authors. So that's really big.

Rick Green: 11:48

Wow. Yeah, man, that's, that's not easy to do at all. Huge progress. And I don't want to steal thunder from the movie, I want people to go watch it because it is so powerfully done. For those that may think, ah, somebody else will take care of this. I don't have to pay attention to it or it won't affect me, or all those things. Listen, this affects everyone. And everyone admits that we're vulnerable. I don't think there's anybody out there that's saying, oh, this isn't a problem anymore. I think everybody realizes this is a problem. And now it's just getting the political will, and getting the politicians to make the decisions necessary to secure our grid. Tell... Let's back up a little bit. And David, tell us why Texas is so important. And why you pick this as really the main battleground for right now.

David Tice: 12:31

Well, Texas is my state and Texas has their own grid. So there are three grids in the United States of America, the eastern grid, the western grid, and the Texas grid. And therefore, the issue is actually in New York City in 2003, when we had some overgrown foliage up against a power line that caused cascading blackouts that ended up impacting eight states, and including New York City it knocked out the power for about 36 hours, and for many people, many more hours. And therefore in Texas, if we protect our own grid, we will not be at risk from the cascading impact from other states.

Rick Green: 13:23

And that also, I guess, you know, even from a political perspective, it gives you one target, one legislature to work with, one group of decision makers, and one constituency too, you can fire up Texans to say, hey, look, let's be the one state in the union that is protected here and gets this done right. And then they... the rest can learn from us. So it seems... it's a smart political move. And just in terms of strategy and tactics to get this done, it just makes sense. And so you put a real concentrated effort in this session. And we were together a couple of weeks ago at what turned out to be a great, you know, a great day for this movement. And you had Dennis Quaid in he, a lot of people, of course, he draws crowds and people come and listen and that really, I can't remember as you that night that made the comment or Tommy that said, you know, it literally just threw doors open for you and for the movement. So it seems like that was a really successful day and week really.

David Tice: 14:20

Yeah, so we ended up bringing Dennis Quaid to the Capitol. And that opened doors. We ended up having meetings with Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton as well Speaker of the House Dade Phelan and we wouldn't have been able to have all those meetings otherwise. And then we ended up having a group of people, you know, schmooze and take pictures with Dennis Quaid at the Supreme Court chambers, and then we ended up having a cocktail party at the end. And Dennis Quaid was recognized on the Senate floor for his service to Texas.

Rick Green: 15:00

Well, okay, so tell me now what are we asking for? Right? What does it take to strengthen our grid and get to a place where you feel like, okay, we accomplished the goal, like what's a win on this fight?

David Tice: 15:14

Well, there's a few wins, Rick. Right now we have these two bills, and our first win is getting those passed. And then those bills will essentially require a Texas grid security commission to be created, that will essentially set standards for protection of the grid against all threats. And we talk in the movie about the threats of physical attack, and electromagnetic pulse attacks, a cyber attack, and then a geomagnetic disturbance or a solar flare. Essentially, for protection of our grid, it might be better fencing around key nodes, substations that are especially critical, you know, much better fencing than what we have with just our chain link fences. And then there will be some filters on the front end, or surge arresters, or there's other complicated physics terms that can be utilized to protect transformers.

Rick Green: 16:27

Yeah, and you cover this in the film. I was totally ignorant on most of this. And I'm still pretty ignorant about a lot of things, including a lot of this. But the movie made it simple for me, where I began to understand number one, even just the supply of a lot of these key components and how, you know, it's difficult to get many of these things and the length of time that it takes and then how vulnerable some of these key substations are that can create like you were talking about the cascading effect. But also then how easy some of these steps are. Like you're saying, the fencing and even just some of the security. And then the movie also points out the, you know, the attacks that have taken place already, where people... it's literally a terrorist attack whenever they go after these, these substations to try to create chaos and create mayhem, the kind of stuff you think you're, you know, in some dystopian movie, when you talk about this stuff, and that it doesn't happen, or wouldn't happen here. But it does and, you know, plans have already been made by others to do that, and some thwarted, that this is a real deal. And what you're saying is there's real solutions. And this is one of those things that you literally have to pick up the phone and call your legislator and say, hey, please take the steps to help us secure the grid so that we don't end up in a situation that would be far worse than what we experienced with the COVID crackdowns or anything we've experienced in our lifetime here in America.

David Tice: 17:45

Yeah, and to put that into perspective, that most number of people we've ever lost in the United States has been 12,000, which was a lot bigger than what we lost in 911. What we're talking about, and this came from a congressionally mandated EMP commission, that talked about the loss of life that would occur if the power was out nationwide for nine months. And if a number of transformers go out, and in fact, a FERC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission study found that if as few as nine Transformers were out, you know, saved from a physical attack, it could cause a nationwide blackout. Now, that probably wouldn't happen. Wouldn't knock it out for nine months, but if Transformers were knocked out around the country, and it would be difficult to get them back up again, the EMP Commission found that the power could be out for nine months. If that happened, as many as 90% of American citizens could die.

Rick Green: 19:00

And people may think that's an exaggeration, man, we have become so dependent on electricity. And even in the freeze that Texas had, I guess, what, two years ago, year and a half ago, whatever it was, the, you know, I mean, even in that short period of time, the deaths that occurred and the chaos and the mayhem that occurred gave us just a little bitty inkling of an idea of what that would be like for what you're describing nine months that the Commission said, you know, could potentially happen, and the level of of devastation that would happen as a result of that. When you hear those numbers, it makes sense that we would say why not take the simple steps, you know, why not do these easy things. You guys also created a way for people to plug in basically to let their legislators know and to participate in the process. You got the links at the website, GridDownPowerUp.com , GridDownPowerUp.com . You know, a way to spread the word, a way to contact, you know, legislators and the right people and to join the security council that you've created. So it's not like you're just, you know, making a movie and getting people riled up. You've really spent some time on the solutions. I appreciate that, because that doesn't always happen. So thanks for having the follow through options for people to have as well.

David Tice: 20:10

You're welcome. And if I could just amplify on that just a second. So you go to the website, as you've mentioned, and you go to the participate tab, under the participate tab, there's a way... there's actually three different outreaches. And you just have to add your home address, a few clicks of your mouse, so that you can find your correct state legislator and congressional legislator as well as your chairman of your state's Commission, as well as your FERC and NERC, regulators, actually your governor, also your adjutant general, for your state's National Guard, various people, and you have the capability to make phone calls

Rick Green: 20:55

I love it, man. I love it. This is what it takes as well. to make change happen. It's not enough for us to rant and rave about stuff like this. We have to do this blocking and tackling, the steps that actually move policymakers to make these decisions. And, you know I'm... David, listen, I'm not sure people... I mean, it took an effort like this to get people to pay attention and partners like, you know, Senator Hall and others coming alongside you. But I just want to say thank you, man, appreciate you leading this, and getting all these people to be a part of it. Appreciate the persistence that you've had with it. I know, for a lot of our listeners, this is the very first time they've heard anything about this. And so they're going to be looking for ways to get involved in their states as well, especially to our Texas listeners. That's where we can make the biggest difference, the fastest right now, but man, just keep it up. And hopefully coming back, and give us a good report on some of the movement as we continue this fight.

David Tice: 21:49

Great. And again, thanks for your outreach to get your listeners involved. And if each of your listeners like it and do it then if they will share it with 10-20 of their friends. That's how we're going to make this happen. So we need ticked-off mama bears and soccer dads to make this happen.

Rick Green: 22:09

Yeah, yeah, man. Let's get it done. David Tice, God bless you, brother. Thanks for coming on, man.

David Tice: 22:15

God bless you. Take care, Rick.

Rick Green: 22:17

Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We're looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They're crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit and every area of the culture. They're leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation. And now's your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit PatriotAcademy.com for dates and locations, our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at PatriotAcademy.com. We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to David Tice for joining us and Dennis Quaid for doing the movie. I told him that night guys, at the reception I was like, if somebody's famous as you stepping out on a policy issue like this, that takes courage and, you know, I really appreciate him being willing to do that, because you're gonna get criticized anytime you do anything in the political realm, or, you know, push for a particular policy. So I'm glad these guys are leading the way on this and bringing attention to it. You know, we mentioned it earlier, this is initially Texas because of the Texas grid, where the legislative fight is. There's also work right now in DC on the issue to try to get congressmen educated about it. But everybody can play roles, not just our Texas listeners. Everybody else, you as well, go to the website, watch the movie, even if you just... they've got like a pared down like 10 or 12 minute version of it, even if you just watch that one, and send it to your state reps and state legislators, to your members of Congress, get them educated and then get signed up on the list so that when it gets to your state, we can let you know, or when I say we, they at Grid Down Power Up can let you know. So anyway, really interesting interview guys, this is a little different from topics we normally cover, but it does affect everybody.

David Barton: 24:33

It is the thing that does affect everybody. But there's an old axiom that says to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And if you know something might be coming, you can take action for it and prepare for it. So this is a thing that is very tenuous. And again, like I mentioned the beginning, I mean, Texas came within just a couple minutes of having 30 million people without any kind of power for six months, and that would have cascaded because you would have had those other two power grids trying to supply Texas and they couldn't have done that, and they'd start shutting down. So this really is the thing where that legislators can take action to help prepare for this, help prepare their own state. We don't want to get in a situation where we get that, like Tim said, the EMP if that China balloon had come. But we don't want to get in a situation where we lose this power thing. This is just something we take for granted. So there's a lot of action we can do. And Rick, as you said, get legislators to watch that film, know about their own power grid and how to work with them, east and west and Texas side. This is a big deal for every American.

Rick Green: 25:32

Well, friends, we've given you a lot of action items today. You know, first of all, just become a constitution coach, start hosting a Biblical Citizenship in Modern America class, right there in your home, in your living room, bring people over you'll have great fellowship, the videos, I promise you will be encouraging. People will find hope. And they will find action items, things they can do to make a difference. I find that many people today, they realize there's something wrong, they realize the culture is crumbling. They're looking around going okay, now, what do I do to make a difference? And we have the answers. God's word has all the answers for everything we're facing. And including the action steps, how we should act as the church, how we should act as believers. And that's what we teach in those courses. So I encourage you to become a coach, today. You can do that at PatriotAcademy.com . Just sign up to be a coach. It's free, and we give away the classes for free, so your students get to take the class for free as well. It's a great opportunity to build camaraderie, to build community, whether you host a class at your home or your church or wherever. We just encourage you to get a class going. Lots of things you can do. Make sure you get engaged folks, let's save this country. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders.