Discover the insider revelations from political filmmaker extraordinaire, Jason Meath, as he joins us to unravel the emotional and political depth behind creating "King of Bain." This groundbreaking film dissected Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital, leaving an indelible mark on the 2012 presidential campaign. Our collaboration unveiled the complexities of narrative crafting and its potent effect on public opinion. With Jason's expertise, we further explore the burgeoning projects that are set to invigorate the political filmmaking landscape.
The dialogue then ventures into the aftershocks of Mitt Romney's campaign and the emergence of Donald Trump. We dissect the seismic shift within the Republican Party, tracing the roots of America's political reawakening and the palpable desire for change that coursed through the nation's veins. Our conversation highlights the powerful documentary 'Switchers,' which encapsulates the sentiments of lifelong Democrats turned Republicans, and we confront the pressing issue of illegal immigration, peeling back the layers of its impact on the fabric of trust in American leadership.
As we wrap up, the spotlight shifts to the tactical battlefield of political campaigning, voter engagement, and the inception of a super PAC aimed at championing pro-freedom candidates. Reflecting on previous campaign tactics and their effectiveness, we underscore the need for innovation to remain at the forefront of political strategy. And to sweeten the pot, Jason Meath not only adds his voice to our Patreon Games community but promises a synergy of ideas, stirring anticipation for fresh, resonant content that speaks directly to the heart of America. Keep your ears perked and your minds open for what's on the horizon in this ever-changing political saga.
Discover the insider revelations from political filmmaker extraordinaire, Jason Meath, as he joins us to unravel the emotional and political depth behind creating "King of Bain." This groundbreaking film dissected Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital, leaving an indelible mark on the 2012 presidential campaign. Our collaboration unveiled the complexities of narrative crafting and its potent effect on public opinion. With Jason's expertise, we further explore the burgeoning projects that are set to invigorate the political filmmaking landscape.
The dialogue then ventures into the aftershocks of Mitt Romney's campaign and the emergence of Donald Trump. We dissect the seismic shift within the Republican Party, tracing the roots of America's political reawakening and the palpable desire for change that coursed through the nation's veins. Our conversation highlights the powerful documentary 'Switchers,' which encapsulates the sentiments of lifelong Democrats turned Republicans, and we confront the pressing issue of illegal immigration, peeling back the layers of its impact on the fabric of trust in American leadership.
As we wrap up, the spotlight shifts to the tactical battlefield of political campaigning, voter engagement, and the inception of a super PAC aimed at championing pro-freedom candidates. Reflecting on previous campaign tactics and their effectiveness, we underscore the need for innovation to remain at the forefront of political strategy. And to sweeten the pot, Jason Meath not only adds his voice to our Patreon Games community but promises a synergy of ideas, stirring anticipation for fresh, resonant content that speaks directly to the heart of America. Keep your ears perked and your minds open for what's on the horizon in this ever-changing political saga.
No matter where you are, you are being watched. In today's world, no one is off the grid. Existing in the modern world has been forever changed. What's out there? Most people don't want to know, but you are about to get clued in. This is Patriot Games. We'll explore different intelligence techniques, spycraft and the latest cutting-edge technology that will blow your mind. We'll introduce you to pros who've spent careers in the Intel community With incredible stories. We'll expose it all. Welcome to Patriot Games. And now your host, greg Phillips.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, it's Greg Phillips. Welcome back to Patriot Games. I am thrilled today to have not only a good friend and colleague, but somebody who's actually doing great work and moving the needle in the kind of the political film space. That's probably the least of the things that his team actually does, but as far as I'm concerned, I've been working with Jason Meath for gosh since 2012, I guess, and so after 13 or 14 years and watching just the quality of the creations that Jason and his team put together, and then we'll talk a little bit about not just where we are today and some of the things that he's done in the past and I'm going to link to a few videos some of his work that he's done but we also want to talk a little bit about where we're going and what you can expect from the team of Greg, catherine, jason and a handful of others that are getting together to create something, I think, really meaningful in the space. So with that, jason Meath, welcome to Patriot Games.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Greg.
Speaker 2:Great to be here. You know, jason, we first started this. Actually, you created a video for another candidate and we were kind of starting to crank up in Winning Our Future, which was Newt Super PAC. This was late 2011, early 2012. And we got to a place where the Iowa caucuses had already happened, new Hampshire had already happened. So we had Santorum that won the Iowa caucus.
Speaker 2:You had Mitt Romney, who won New Hampshire and had all the momentum, and I think we felt like at the time that the biggest thing that we could do would be to stop the Romney juggernaut, as it were, in South Carolina, and so that's how I met Jason. So, jason, you want to talk a little bit about King of Bane, one of the at the time, I think, maybe one of the most significant earned media events in the history of presidential elections. But tell everybody a little bit about you, about the company, and let's jump in and talk a little bit about what we did then. Then maybe move on up to 2016 and let's talk a little bit about 2020 and then kind of ease into what we're expecting this year.
Speaker 3:That sounds great. Yeah, it was great working with you and the team back in 2012,. Right, 2012 election we're getting old man.
Speaker 3:But it's hard to believe that Mitt Romney became the nominee of the Republican Party.
Speaker 3:I mean contrast that with Donald Trump and I mean it's almost like it's not even the same party.
Speaker 3:But we had put together I put together a film with Barry Bennett called King of Bane it was called when Mitt Romney came to town originally and we changed it to a much snappier King of Bane and, very simply, we went out to the states and talked to people that worked for some of these companies that Mitt Romney took over during his time as the head of Bane Capital and we found out that really what he had done is he had shipped everybody's jobs overseas and made a killing doing it.
Speaker 3:And we had people whose entire lives, generations of their families, in fact, had worked at some of these factories, had worked at some of these mills and whatnot, and to see it all dry up within a week after he took over some of these businesses and shipped them all overseas. And it was very emotional film and it was a very poignant and moving experience and we captured something on camera that at the time really had not been very had not been done. I mean we released a film out into the middle of the Republican primary that ended up getting run on cable television almost on a loop every day because it was so compelling.
Speaker 2:And man were they mad. The Romney people were absolutely insanely mad at us, right, I mean it turns out we were right again, right, jason?
Speaker 3:Well, sure, I mean, you know, and you know, a little addendum to this story is that I was a former advisor on the Mitt Romney campaign, the first camp, first time he ran against McCain, and I remember cutting ads they wanted me to cut ads for him and they kept telling me that he was this great businessman and he had done all these wonderful things in the private sector. And I kept asking can you please send me the list of all the things that he, these wonderful things that he had done? And they were stonewalling. They wouldn't send me his record and finally I, you know, I kind of realized that he really didn't do very good things in the private sector when it came to the American people, he sold them down the river and so that kind of teed up the entire experience and knowing sort of from the inside that this guy was was a kind of a bad actor, especially when it came to the Republican Party and more patriotic Americans, he did really have much Well, very good, mr Yu, jason and your production team.
Speaker 2:You guys did an amazing job, not just on that, but we did another one shortly after that called Mitt's Blood Money yeah, About a basically a Medicare fraud scam that he and one of his companies had been involved in. I think they ended up paying like a $70 million fine or something like that. And you know people, you know when you have these, these sort of guys like Mick Romney out there, you know they, they, they skate around on the edges of truth all the time and they just never can quite get there. And I think that's one of the things that you and your team have been so successful at at least in my view is is really, you know, scraping at those edges and figuring out where these people actually are and where where the truth is. And you know it's sadly more often than not with people like Mitt Romney. You know the truth is, you know, far more ugly than than their PR team would have you believe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, in looking back at it in 2012, if you did not have a Mitt Romney and people didn't go through that experience in 2012 and get served up another four years of Obama, you never would have had a Donald Trump. And what happened was is that the entire party collapsed after Mitt Romney's loss and really remade itself in a completely different form. That was coalesced around Donald Trump. We had never seen anything quite like that.
Speaker 3:What I think many people who were conservatives, or people that weren't even conservatives, started doing is they started looking at these politicians, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, and they started thinking are these people really on our side? Is Mitt Romney really on my side? Is Barack Obama really on my side? I mean, I now have a bronze plan that isn't worth a piece of paper it's printed on because of Obamacare, and my healthcare costs have gone up like everyone else's healthcare costs have come up because of Barack Obama.
Speaker 3:And then you had, on the other hand, you had this guy, mitt Romney, who had sold everybody's jobs overseas. Every company he ever touched, he killed it. I mean, you know, the list is a long list of those companies that were really beloved companies, american companies. So I think people really kind of did a total re-evaluation of what they wanted in a politician, and when Trump came along, he was speaking our language, he was speaking Americans language, he was saying the things that people wished that their politicians would say, and he was doing the things that they wished their politicians would do.
Speaker 2:You know, it's absolutely amazing. Now, looking back, I mean, there were so few people that really had the foresight to understand what you just described, but with your movie Switchers, can you tell us a little bit about it? I mean, you just kind of described it, but how did it come to be and, in your view, how important was it to the process?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean. Switchers in some ways is almost like a bit of a sequel to King of Bane, because whereas at King of Bane we found that people were upset because of their jobs being sold overseas and whatnot, we went back four years later and we really only talked with traditional Democrats in swing states and it didn't matter what color, what gender or anything they were, they were all saying the same thing. We were going from state to state talking to people that would literally complete the sentences of the people we just talked to in another state. I've never seen anything quite like it. And they all were saying that they needed. We needed to close our borders, we needed to build a wall, we needed to revamp our and bring up the middle class again and we needed to get fentanyl off the streets. And we needed to stand for the American Dream.
Speaker 3:Because the whole premise of the film Switchers was that the majority of Americans, for the first time in 2016, did not believe in the American Dream. They did not think that the American Dream existed, at least for them. And now here we are in 2024 and we have tens of millions of illegal immigrants flooding over the border and filling our neighborhoods with fentanyl and filling our neighborhoods with crime, and they're not the best of the best, and they're literally closing down schools in some areas so that they can house migrants rather than teach our school children. And we say again are these politicians on our side? Certainly doesn't seem like it. They're giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants. They're not giving me free healthcare. They're not giving you free healthcare. So, again, I think we've gone right back to that place that we were in 2016, and even worse, with an American people that are completely been sold down the river and disenfranchised by our leaders, and so that's what we found in switchers, and I believe that sentiment has even blown up since then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100% agree with you. Everybody knows we put out a movie in 2022, 2000 mules, but just prior to that you guys released almost what felt a little bit like in retrospect, a companion piece. It was produced by your team, obviously, and not by Denash and his team, but can you talk a little bit about sort of walking into that 2022 space and what you guys were thinking a little bit about the movie?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I paired with Citizens United. We did a film called Rigged, and it was all about Mark Zuckerberg's giant infusion of hundreds of thousands of dollars into the political process and trying to manipulate the outcome of the vote, rigging the election, and your piece picked up on some of the ways they did that. But at the helm of the entire operation was Obama's ex-chief campaign man, david Pluff, and he was the head strategist with Chan Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2:And guess what, guys? Now he's back in gear again. He just took over the current Biden campaign, let's say. And here we go again. Pluff's involved in what's happening now. He's frightening, but anyway, it's just mind-bending.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3:He's back and these people are the ones that and they get away with it.
Speaker 3:They got away with it Whatever they did in 2020, whether it was mules and rigging votes and going into neighbor but what they did is they know, per to the block in Milwaukee, how many people are there and how many people they can stack ballots in their names and get them to go out or tell them that they'll go out and vote for them or whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3:And they know, street by street, block by block, of every major city, corrupt city like Philadelphia and Atlanta now, where they can mine those names and those votes and those ballots and those checkmarks and whatever else. There are mail-in ballots and votes and so they're back and they're up to their old tricks and we got to. You know, the only hope is to continue to expose what they're doing, continue to go out there and shake the tree and tell people that they ought to be enraged and fuel them to go out and use their voice, because they're not necessarily canceling our voters. They're not necessarily canceling many American voters. What they're doing is they're rigging and stacking votes to diminish our voices, and it just takes every single person to go out there and fight.
Speaker 2:I think everybody can now see, after spending a few minutes with Jason, you know why I'm About to say what I'm about to say. But we are putting together a super PAC. The paperwork's already been filed, we're ready to go, we're starting to raise money here pretty quick. But, most importantly, underpinning all of that, we're bringing back some of Our old teammates, some fighters and some people that really know how to do this, and we've got a, I think, probably the best messaging Person on the planet gonna join us in the new pack. Me, katherine, jason and your team were so excited to have you guys coming back into the mix on this.
Speaker 2:As we sort of Launch into a little bit of unknown here, first of all, just a reminder to everyone there is no path for Nikki Haley. She's not even in on the caucus ballot in in Nevada, for example. She's gonna get killed in in South Carolina if she stays there, and even if she doesn't, florida's gonna kill her and then super Tuesday will would wrap it all up. There is no path to Nikki Haley being in this thing. So, that said, and we start now thinking about where, where are we going and and how do we? How do we do this? I think one of the challenges that that Sort of normal people face in these instances, jason, is, is really Understanding how to put the pieces and parts together, then raising the money and then being willing to play both offense and defense and and I think that the aggressiveness of our repro is really what what separates teams like ours from Maybe others. I understand that DeSantis spent something like a hundred fifty million dollars or something like that of donors money and you know and got absolutely nowhere. I would venture to say that one of the reasons they got nowhere and one of the reasons we failed other than the fact he you know he wasn't very, you know likeable candidate is the, the staff, rather than you know taking the time to.
Speaker 2:You know if they're gonna attack Trump, you don't just do it on social media, right? You don't just go out and say you know, log in to true social and tell all the maga people that you know we hate you and you know Trump's going down and whatever. You know all that was going on on social media. I think that the tactical mistake was certainly there, but but it goes beyond that. I think that that that many people in this space still think kind of old school, in the sense that we're just gonna we're gonna raise a bunch of money, we're gonna spend a bunch of money on ads and our candidate will go out and he'll go to all 99 Counties and we'll do it this way and all the while, I'm gonna have a whole team of people that are just banging on the Trump people on social media.
Speaker 2:It may be one of the single most dumb strategies in the history of modern elections To bang on Trump people on social media. I mean, these people are not just fighters but experts and entangling in this kind of mess a little bit like President Trump. And and I think that you know as a, as a point of reference to us as we start up this new pack, jason, we need to be prepared, you know, to to fight like Donald Trump does. We need to prepare to to Be aggressive in both explaining to when we're doing the presidential side, you know, not just explaining to people. You know why he's the best, which is one side of that but but also kind of what's wrong on the other side.
Speaker 2:We're gonna be supporting Pro-freedom candidates and we're going to be potentially attacking anti-freedom efforts and anti-freedom people, and it isn't just gonna be in the presidential race, we're gonna be looking into Senate races, we're gonna be looking into congressional races and we're gonna be looking into issues. All of these things will roll up into what I think is a a monumental Momentum building capability, and we're just gonna be part of it, obviously. But I'm really excited about this. Do you can you sort of share it? I mean, I know we haven't been talking about this pack for long, but can you just share some ideas with folks on where, where you think, as you know, I think probably one of the best, maybe the best creator on our side, we're where? Do you think we should go with that as sort of a framework? I mean, what can the people look forward to in terms of your creative ideas and your team's ideas?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, trump is someone that we've never seen in politics before in my lifetime. He's somebody who went out there and almost read the minds of people in Michigan, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, and cracked some of the states that no other Republican nominee candidate had ever been able to do. And it's because he has this kind of connection with the American voter in ways that you and I have never seen. And what at least I have done, and what you have done, I think, very, very well, is you have followed in that same tradition the reason why we don't make our films in Washington DC, we don't make our films in New York City, we don't make our films in Los Angeles. We make our films in Indiana, we make our films in Ohio, we make our films in America. We go to Texas, we go to places where real people are, to find out what it is that's on their minds, what it is that drives them, what it is that is moving them. And we hear their stories and we listen. You know we don't dictate, we listen.
Speaker 3:And what we find out in telling, then that's how we can tell their stories. You can't tell somebody's stories from sitting in a building in Washington DC or Los Angeles, and that's where many people just kind of go wrong with this whole approach. When you have the ad makers and the DeSantis folks that controlled everything out of DC and whatever, there's no way they could know that the entire premise of the DeSantis campaign was flawed. I mean he thought that people were upset with Donald Trump and looking for a replacement. They were not. That was very, very clear. It finally became clear to him after one contest.
Speaker 1:Iowa, that was it.
Speaker 3:It's all took. He was just like okay, I get the message, you know. So I mean, but we knew that, we already knew that we could have told him that on day one, but he had to find out the hard way and $150 million later there he is.
Speaker 2:And I think you know there's been a tone of conciliation and reconciliation just in the last 24 hours between the guys and between President Trump and DeSantis, and hopefully that'll bleed down. I know there's a lot of bitter bitterness out there about all of this. I mean, the Trump team had to spend a bunch of money they shouldn't have had to have spent during this situation, but you know it is what it is. This is a primary and this is politics, and politics is, you know, rarely pretty. This time it wasn't, you know, but I don't think anybody really believes that this party and these players are not ultimately going to be able to come back together. I mean, the fact of the matter is, biden is trying to destroy the country from within with his border policies. He's trying to start another war, he's destroyed the economy. He's done all these things that are just almost breathtaking but also are perfect issues for all of our side.
Speaker 3:You know, I know they're going to try to Remember when they used to say that Donald Trump was going to start World War Three. Who's saying that Biden is starting World War Three? You know we don't hear them saying that, but he is. I mean, you know the entire world is far less safe today than it was under Donald Trump. It was at peace. We have four years of peace.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, and American soldiers are being lost. We lost a couple of Navy SEALs here a few weeks ago with, you know, with a ship from Iran that was trying to gun run a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Biden has said nothing about it.
Speaker 2:Nothing, not a word, zero, Nothing. And it's really it's knowing so many of those team guys that, like I do it just, I mean they all feel it and I mean they really are a team or set of teams, and when one is lost, I mean the guys really take it hard. In this case, Unfortunately, they lost two of the guys. And you know, it's just, it's just heartbreaking. And then I pick up the paper, or I picked up the, or turned on the news the other night I think it was Saturday night, and the Iranians are shooting missiles into Iraq and killing a bunch of Americans again. And here we go, Right, I mean it's like this, oh my gosh, this is. You know, everybody's saying it, but now we're like living it.
Speaker 2:Our friend, Michael Yon, has been sending me some videos. He's back in, back in down near the Darien Gap and working a project in Panama right now and and Michael was sending me all these videos and all these photos and stuff and it's, it's really mind blowing at three o'clock in the morning. It's something that's sort of euphemistically called the China camp, which, which, by the way, my orcas and others. We have video of them. Actually, in these camps, 10,000 fighting age Chinese in one week passed through what is what's euphemistically called the China camp and are making their way up here. You've got places like Nicaragua that are clamping down on Christians and taking the churches and and, at the same time, taking $5 billion from the Chinese to build an international airport. So they don't even have to go to Columbia and then come up, or Venezuela and come up through the Darien Gap, one of the most dangerous places on earth. They just want to be able to ship them directly into Central America.
Speaker 2:Hop a train, hop a plane, find some other way to get into America, but they're coming across these, board this border in waves and it's not, it's not, it's not possible for me to believe that that both Republicans and Democrats alike forget just the fact that the Republicans are a little splintered right now because of the primary, assuming they all come back together. I find it hard to believe that that there aren't, you know, maybe half the Democrats who, if they knew, believe this is okay. You know, we're watching things happen on the border and it's like wait, that can't be America. Is this really happening? Is this really happening?
Speaker 2:But that obvius skates the reality that thousands, tens of thousands of terrorists, tens of thousands of Chinese fighting people have been coming across this border and filtering in. You know, thank goodness for the Second Amendment because you know it feels like everybody's going to need their guns, they're going to need ammo, they're going to need to be able to fight back, and it's going to all happen at some point who knows, but during an election year for them not to even be trying to stop it. So I'm going to start a war and then I'm going to try to start a civil war internally, because with all of this and oh, by the way, Chinese, we're going to be really mad at you if you attack Taiwan I just don't believe that the geopolitical sensibilities of all Americans, whether they understand it all or are aware of it all or not, really support this kind of thing that they're trying to, you know, kind of cram down our throat.
Speaker 3:Well, you've got to think that the record that I've never seen a president that has a well, maybe Jimmy Carter, but not even Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter looks good compared to Joe Biden. At least Jimmy Carter could complete a sentence. You know, it's the economies and shambles. The inflation is something very real to most Americans, even though the president continues to say that it's not a problem. Everybody knows that inflation and the cost of living is a huge problem. Nobody can afford to buy a house. If Biden gets back in for another four years, I think it's very safe to assume China will make a move on Taiwan. Then you'll have a war with Russia and Ukraine, You'll have total instability and war in the Middle East and you'll have China at war. So this is what he's leaving us. This is what we're getting from him. I just don't see how in the world you vote for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the legacy of the nonverbal. It's just, it's really, really unfortunate that we find ourselves here. Well, Jason, I can't thank you enough. I'm beyond excited about this year working with you again on some of these projects. Everybody, we're going to post the trailer for Switchers. We'll post that with this episode, but we'll also find a place and figure out a way to post the actual movie Switchers so you can kind of get a reorient yourself with who Jason is and who his team is and how they go about telling the stories. That I think really have the best opportunity for us to be able to move the needle as we move into the balance of 2024. Jason Meath, thank you so much for joining us here on Patreon Games. I look forward to seeing you soon with a whole new set of videos.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to work together, greg. I mean, there's no better two people to work with, especially at a time like this, than you and Catherine, and I'll just tell your listeners to stay tuned, yeah big things are coming, absolutely, jason.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Hang with us here for a second and everybody will see you next week on Patreon Games.
Speaker 1:That and to stay up to date, visit the website at Patreon Gamescom. Until next time, keep your eyes open.