Transcript/983: Chatting with Robbie Parker

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I'm excited to be joined by a guest to talk about their new book.

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But I felt like one of the things that I took away from reading their book was how important it is

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to be able to present yourself in the way that you would like to in the context

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that you are introduced oftentimes can have an effect on that. So I would like to open the floor and let them

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introduce themselves for the for the audience. Sure. So my name's Robbie Parker. A lot of people

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that know me superficially know that I'm a physician assistant and I work in the newborn intensive care unit.

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Anybody that knows me a little bit deeper knows that.

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My oldest daughter Emily was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

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And so my proudest titles that I'm Emily's dad.

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And another title I picked up recently is that I'm Alex Jones' largest creditor in his $1.5 billion debt to Sanity Hook families.

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So, well, those are a series of definitely interesting credits, I would say.

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I think that I didn't want to start the show and say,

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this is a parent of someone who was killed at Sandy Hook.

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Although, as you say,

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that is your most important defining characteristic

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that you are Emily's father.

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But I felt like if I had said that it would be putting you

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into like, I'm defining you as this.

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This is who you are.

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And I just for some reason felt like that would be unfair.

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Mm hmm.

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No, I appreciate that.

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Yeah, no, it makes total sense because that's something I struggle with too.

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Ever since December 12, 2000, I mean, December 14, 2012, that's that's been a big focus

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of mine and on by other girls too, right? And we had two younger sisters and wanting to make sure that this is a horrific thing and part of our life story, right? But it doesn't define who any of us are. And we're going to be more defined by how we respond to these things versus the event that that impacted us for sure. So I know I appreciate that.

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And so you have a new book that you've written that I mentioned a reference. It's a father's

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fight. It meant that's available now out in the it'll be out November 19th officially. Okay. And

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so talk to me a little bit about the decision to write this book.

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It's obviously partially about your experience after the Sandy Hook shooting.

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And your family's experience very much as a unit everybody's present in terms of the path that you all go down.

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But it's also very much about Alex Jones and the fight that you've had through the courts with him.

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Is there something with the resolution of the case and things coming to a head that made you feel

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like getting your story more fully out there was important?

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Yeah, it's funny how this all unraveled. I mean, first of all, when I started writing anything,

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it wasn't meant to be seen by anybody. This was purely started back in like 2017. I was coming up on

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five years from the shooting and I was really just trying to process my own grief and see like,

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you know, it's been five years have I grown it all? Have I? Where am I? Who am I? And so writing was an outlet for me to try and figure that out and that was just a personal thing.

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That was just my own healing journey and it just kind of snowballed. Like, I started to share some of that with people and they encouraged me to write more and so I wrote more and then I realized that that helped me connect with other people

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and was part of my healing journey.

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And then, but I was always quiet about what I was experiencing from the conspiracists.

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I never talked publicly about conspiracy theories and never talked about publicly about

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Alex Jones.

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My motto at that time was to stay quiet, lay low and not bring attention to myself because

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of everything that was happening to us.

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So I started writing a lot about grief and trauma and ended up picking up an agent along

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the way and she was trying to help me figure out a way to navigate my story in that way.

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And then she found out that I was part of the lawsuit and she didn't get mad but she

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was like, what?

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Like you never told me about this.

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And so she was like,

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why aren't you comfortable talking about that?

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And that just got me thinking.

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And so going through the process of litigation

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and the trial made me realize like,

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I am ready to talk about this.

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And I feel like I need to talk about this.

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So that's how it ended up coming to pass.

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- I think that makes a whole lot of sense

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based on having read the book.

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It has a very much kind of a processing healing

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kind of experience that you're putting on page.

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I would say that it has a vulnerability to it

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that almost comes somewhat unexpected as like reading

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a memoir that is about your flight against Alex Jones or at least partially so.

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And so I can totally see how this would be rooted in some sort of therapeutic process that

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grows into this project. - Right.

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I mean, the easy, it's kind of funny,

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almost the easy story to tell is like, yeah,

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like how I ended up being an adversary of Alex Jones,

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like I could go into that

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and then I can talk about just this epic battle or whatever,

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but that's almost an easier story to tell. Really is, as the process of

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all this writing and healing and processing and things was my internal battle was waging way more.

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The impacts that Alex Jones was having on that and my grief and my healing and all that. My

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relationship with myself, it got really complicated

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really fast.

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Yeah.

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And I think that some of that, how it feels at least intersects a bit with your, you're saying

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you didn't, you know, as you were going through this and your agent was talking to you

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about like, you don't talk about the conspiracists, and you

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don't, you didn't talk about that. And it seems to me, like, obviously that's what a normal person

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might do. You know, it seems like you'd feed the flames and, you know, make things worse by

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arguing with them, maybe. But from reading the book, it's one of the things that I came

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away with that I didn't fully understand is part of that desire to not, you know, fan the flames

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and engage with them is how much it seems like you had a blame for yourself for the harassment that came.

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Do you think that's fair to say?

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Yeah, that was a huge catalyst.

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I mean, I grew up in a pretty high demand religion, so shame has always been a big part

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of my life, right?

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I'm with you on that.

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Yeah.

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And so just thinking everything,

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everything has to go through that filter,

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and everything is about me or because of me or whatever.

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And so, I mean, your listeners are gonna understand

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this better than most people that I might talk to

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is just, so I was the person that gave a press conference

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the day after the shooting.

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I unknowingly to me was the first person,

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the first parent that spoke out publicly.

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The reasons why I went to do that are, in my view, very simple and make a lot of sense,

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like you're saying. And then because I was the first person that stepped out in this,

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and remember, back in 2012, it was a new age, right? Social media, like, we didn't understand a lot

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of the repercussions or how quickly things could spread or whatever. Like, this was kind of a new age, right? Social media, like we didn't understand a lot of the repercussions or how quickly things

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could spread or whatever.

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Like this is kind of a new territory, at least to me at that time.

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So I had no inclination of all of this.

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I just wanted to say something sweet about my daughter and get the media off our backs.

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That was all I wanted to do.

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And because I was the first person out and I did something that Alex Jones was able

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to latch onto, then everything about the whole Sandy Hook conspiracy movement, I put

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on my plate and I put on my shoulders. So the harassment that the other families were getting,

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I felt like was partially my fault and I was to blame for that.

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And and and it's because of split second moments involving that press conference that are taken out of

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context that obviously I think any right-thinking person would see and not think was your fault.

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But that dynamic, it's very easy to understand how you would feel that way. And so engaging with the conspiracy theorists, while you're having

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those feelings has got to be really like, I guess what I'm trying to ask is that blame

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that you had that you misassigned to yourself for the harassment, how present was that

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early on or like how aware of it were you?

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- Right, I mean first it was just,

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I felt like I had done something wrong

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and I put my family in danger, right?

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I'm like in the very, very beginning.

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But as, because when the shooting happened,

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we hadn't been in Newtown very long.

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We hadn't lived there very long.

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We, I didn't know any of the other families.

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And so as I got to know some of them over the next few months

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and then hearing

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what they were experiencing and of course just being online if I was on YouTube at any time,

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seeing videos not just about me that were being posted by conspiracists but other families as well.

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Like so that just started to build and it grew. And we have this tendency as humans early side

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due of creating a narrative and then

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all of a sudden adopting that narrative is truth.

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And then once it's solidified us truth in your mind, whether it is or not, it takes

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through and it holds on tight.

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Yeah.

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So I've watched the documentary that you were interviewed in and read the book. And to me, it really did change

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some of my perceptions of the case as a whole. I think the experience of obviously, you

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know, full disclosure, I was involved with and in contact with the Texas Plain Tips

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Attorneys during that case, but not so much with your case in Connecticut.

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So I got a bit of an inside glimpse of some of the goings on there. But the perspective that I

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you know that I have as a sort of inside outside person is there's a little bit of disappointment with the way things have gone with that case.

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There's a sense of it's not enough. There's a sense of disappointment. But from watching some of

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your interviews and reading your book, it felt to me a lot like there is still something very important

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that has been, I wouldn't say a victory necessarily, but achieved through the cases. And

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I think that's a really important perspective. And I was wondering if you had some thoughts

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around that. Sure. First, I mean, first of all, I love that you said achieved because that that feels

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that feels like the most correct term. I haven't been able to come up with how I would want to describe it.

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So I might use that in the future because, yeah, from what we went through, nothing's going to feel like a victory, right?

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Like, you know, and so, but it was about what it was that we wanted to achieve.

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And like, and I think each plaintiff has their own personal reasons and goals or maybe aspirations of what it was that they wanted to achieve. And I think each plaintiff has their own personal reasons

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and goals or maybe aspirations

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of what it was that they wanted to achieve throughout this.

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I know, I knew what mine were before,

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which kept me from joining the lawsuit.

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I knew what motivated me to finally join the lawsuit

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and then the process of what achievement

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or victory looked like for me at the end.

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So I wanna answer this question,

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but I am curious when you said, you know,

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something about a disappointment. What was it about like the way the trial kind of went or the

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way that things have happened after the verdict? Like what feels kind of disappointing

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to you? Because I know what it feels like for me. And so I'm curious what you think.

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I think that there's a lot of people who have a feeling of justice not being swift enough, not being complete enough.

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I think that an outcome other than Alex having his business kind of crushed and being

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humiliated and sort of forced to be like, all right, this is the way that I handle information. I just say bullshit, you're responsibly and don't care who it hurts.

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Like something short of that feels disappointing, some kind of a, like a

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public spectacle of, all right, here's the game.

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Here's the game I play.

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I did this.

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I didn't care who I heard.

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I didn't care about these people in the moment.

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Like some kind of

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I mean for lack of a better term some sort of a third act

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Crescendo and I think that I think that people are a little bit disappointed that as this is gone

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There hasn't been that cinematic moment or whatever

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Oh totally and like even going through the process right like I Like, I had all these invigements of like, oh, this is how it's going to play out. And this is how I want

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it to go and stuff. And it was constantly disappointed. One just because of just the, you

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know, the, my or of a process that the judicial system is, right? Nothing goes fast. Nothing,

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nothing really crescendos like dramatically. And so, um, so that process was really frustrating for me too.

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And that a lot of disappointment

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because I didn't feel like things were happening fast enough.

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And just the fact that it felt like every step,

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his game play and his his rhetoric,

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like he was still doing it, right?

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He he was lying to the courts.

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He wasn't turning over documents.

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He then would turn around and make himself the victim.

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Like I've never seen any person in my life. Anybody that's been through

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therapy knows about like the drama triangle, like he owns all three aspects of the drama,

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drama triangle, like all the time. He's like the perpetrator, the victim, and the like

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he's trying to turn into like an octagon. He's playing all the roles. Yeah, it's amazing. And so to see

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him just be able to continue to do that,

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well, we had to just kind of just hunker down

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and just pile through this process

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and always maintain the high ground.

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That gets old after a while.

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And there was times where I just wanted to come out

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and just call him out on his bullshit

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and just like, you know, and really couldn't.

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So I hear you on that frustration part,

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but I think we're getting someplace.

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So to answer your question though, like,

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and even I'll even say this to like, even the, um, the default judgment. So because he was such a bad actor in all the preliminary stuff and never

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turning over documents and line of the court, not showing up for depositions and all this kind of stuff. Like the court got so fed up in Texas and Connecticut that both judges put the death sentence thing that you can do

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on somebody and say, just by your actions alone, it proves that you're guilty of every charge that

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they're saying. So we're just going to find you guilty and do this default judgment, which is a

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win. And to be clear, there was every opportunity for that not to happen.

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Along the way there were so many warnings given there was so much you're not cooperating.

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We're put a sanction on you.

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Charge you a little bit for this misbehavior and none of that was able to correct any of the behavior.

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You would get new lawyers whenever it was looking like they were out of options. And so now the

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lawyer, the new lawyers got to get up to speed on the case to drag things out just to

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be because I think a lot of people may be not listening to this, but a lot of people do

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have the perception that like this death penalty sanction thing is like a capricious thing

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that the court did. And that's definitely not the case.

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No, no judge wants to do it. And you're right, like all these tactics, right?

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And what was funny on my side going through it and seeing all these,

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I was seeing that everything that he tried only made things worse for him, right?

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Because he would, he would get these sanctions.

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He even, he appealed one of the sanctions in Connecticut to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

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They took it up and he had a unanimous ruling against him.

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So it just showed that like everything he was doing,

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he just kept making things harder and harder for himself.

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>> Yeah.

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>> That's what was the benefit of doing this too,

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is going through the judicial system is because on social media,

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you have no checks and balances in the court of public opinion where you

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are developing this whole tribe that's behind

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you that just salivates over everything that you say and just, you know, gargles it up like

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they're just, you know, baby birds. Um, you know, like he can puff himself up like that. He's,

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he's the master of his own domain. He was forced to be put in a system where he's not the master

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of anything. And so that in and of itself, I feel like, is a huge achievement because his true colors started

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coming out and it showed that he's a detriment not to me,

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not just to himself, but even to his listeners, right?

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And so-- - I agree with it.

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- Yeah, absolutely.

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I mean, if you wanna talk about people

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that have been victimized by Alex Jones,

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Sandy Hook families are obvious what would come to mind,

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but you think about, for something that makes tens of millions of dollars a year,

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off as listeners,

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building the products that he does and the things that he puts on them,

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they have to accept the fact that all he's given them are supplements,

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that whatever.

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But that really what you've taken in your life is that now he's given

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your reasons to hate people,

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he's given your reasons to hate people. He's given you reasons to distrust people and that's really not a natural human nature thing that we have, right?

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And so he's really done with the service to his own listeners, but I'm not a

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financial tangent too, but.

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Well, I also kind of think that there's a like one of the disservices is that the distrust

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that he creates is unhealthy.

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And I think that there's a healthy kind of distrust that you can have about, you know, even the government or things that happen.

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I think that a certain amount of cynicism is incredibly healthy.

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And I think it's important to, you know, assessing information that we get. But the version that he promotes is this unhealthy version that doesn't allow you to engage

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in that skepticism.

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Yeah, healthy dialogue, healthy debate, challenging the system absolutely.

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And one thing that really opened my eyes to that was I read an opinion piece.

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I can't remember where, so I'm sorry that I don't have a like a, you know, a source to

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give you, but it was

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this writer and she was talking about losing my mother.

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And so I was interested in that because I read a lot of people's grief journeys or whatever.

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And she was talking about how around Y2K, she lived in Austin, Texas.

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Her mother was a big huge Alex Jones band when he was not, you know, he was little Alex

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Jones at that point, but his rhetoric around, you know, the government

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and about what's gonna happen with white 2K

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and that you need to buy this, his ability to create a problem

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and the solution all at the same time.

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And her, she watched as a little girl,

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her mother go through this transformation process

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of how Alex Jones influenced her mother's life,

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the changes in her mom,

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how it influenced their relationship. And she talked Jones influenced her mother's life, the changes in her mom, how it influenced

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their relationship. And she talked about losing her mother, even though her mother, at the

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time of her writing had just recently died, she talked about losing her mother 20 years

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previously to Alex Jones. That's why I can say like the people that listened to him, like

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what that woman gave up, the relationship with her daughter, their victims too, for sure.

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Yeah. And I think the kind of sucks about that is that if it wasn't him, it would probably be

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somebody else.

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Like it's just a, it's just sort of a figure who's really competent at exploiting

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whatever that role is.

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And he happened to be in that place like you're describing, like, you know, in 2012,

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when the internet and social media started moving so much faster

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And so he's positioned in that place to lead people to

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Have early grief

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Yeah, and that transitions really good into your question to about like what I feel like we're able to achieve because there are lots of people that are

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Are like him and want to be like him, right?

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And he happened to be like him, right?

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And he happened to be the one that he just kind of was always figuring things out right

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ahead of time.

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Like, I mean, you have to give him credit for what he was able to accomplish if you want

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to call it that.

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But like, he was always on the cutting edge of things and able to exploit things to his

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benefit better than everybody else.

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And I think I think that some of that honestly is a bit of like we've forgotten the failed

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attempts because there was like an infowars dating site back in the day and he tried to start

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his own social media.

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Like so these things, he's on the cutting edge in a lot of ways because he tries a million

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things.

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And then a lot of it just doesn't work and he gives up on it.

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Right. One thing he has more than a lot of us is his disability be relentless. Right.

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So for sure. Persistent, shameless, moving forward.

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Yeah. I can be relentless with my shame. You're right.

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Like he, without that, gives him like another kind of superpower for sure.

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So when we look at the end of it. so, and the reason I bring up the default judgment

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was because we didn't get a chance in court to prove that his speech was defamatory, right?

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Like, we didn't get the chance to set a precedent from a legal standpoint that like,

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a jury convicting him a defamation because he was always saying

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that no, whatever I say is protected by the First Amendment and we are making an argument

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that know what you were doing isn't, right?

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So we didn't get to set that precedent.

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So that's a huge legal win to get the default verdict if you're suing somebody because

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you're like automatic, you know, just get ahead and go to, you know, go to the end.

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But that would have been a lovely thing to be able to have accomplished, just to set a legal

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precedent that then other people that have to follow us because there's going to be other

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people like Alex Jones.

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That's one thing.

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We are also able to through what we did achieve a lot of getting some information from

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Alex Jones and getting that out into the public sphere. Because of our lawsuit, social media's

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companies started actually paying attention to what we had been complaining

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about for six years. I went for six years to social media companies telling them

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I needed help to get the stuff like that's harming us and our family and doing

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so much damage. They never listened to me. But once it became public

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that they were complicit in proliferating Alex Jones's message, all of a sudden they all banned them,

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right? So without our lawsuit, I can make the argument without our lawsuit that wouldn't have

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happened at that point in time. And so there's... I would argue that probably because of the association with how toxic it is to have been complicit in spreading

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this information, and the profile of the case, it probably led to these social media companies,

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not even just in these specific instances, but taking the idea of what they might be complicit

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in in terms of harassment more seriously, like the complaints you

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were making, maybe someone else making them would have been heard easier

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than they were before.

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I hope so, right?

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And it sucks because the way things are, it wasn't until they realized it

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was going to hurt their brand that they made those changes.

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But I had an opportunity to testify at a Senate hearing

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committee about social media censorship.

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And there's a representative from Twitter there.

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And he came up and found me and apologized.

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And he said, I'm sorry for--

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I know that we at Twitter didn't do enough to protect you.

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And that me saying sorry is too little too late,

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but hopefully we were making changes to make that better.

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- And then Elon took over and it's all down.

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- Yeah, right.

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And so, but like, you know, so like to your point,

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hopefully what we were able to do

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did make something better for somebody else for sure.

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- And then, I was gonna say say even then for the achievement and things

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that we're able to come out of it, there's obviously a lot of personal things too, which

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are at the core of what the suits you ever brought were about. The suits that you brought

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weren't about creating a culmination where you destroy Alex Jones. It's about writing a wrong

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and I think the sense that I took away from

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You know, obviously as you even pointed out and I think it can't be said enough all of you are individuals and

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Though you are co-plaintists together in this suit

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You don't all have the exact same viewpoint,

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but it seemed to me from reading your book and from your interviews that there is a fair amount of

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personal, I keep saying the word achievement, but that seems to be like the part of your journey, your

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healing journey.

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There's something very important about the having the case.

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Is that you think that's fair?

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Oh, no, absolutely.

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And so for me to even join the case, I had overcome a lot of my own fears and insecurities,

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right? I spent years protecting myself and protecting my family from these people. And now I was

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going to, I, everything I had done publicly, every single time I tried to go out and do something

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for good or whatever, every single time I did that, I would get a wave of harassment back at me.

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People followed me across the country. They knew where I lived in Connecticut. They found out

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where I lived in the Pacific Northwest.

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You know, like I couldn't get away from it.

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So to join the lawsuit and to come out publicly like that,

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that took a lot of just personal growth

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and overcoming a lot of things.

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And then so my motivations had to be based off

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of something more personal.

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It wasn't the, the,

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the, him taking responsibility and holding somebody accountable.

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Like, yeah, that's, that sounds great.

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Like, I'm going to hold Alex Jones accountable and make him, you know, make him

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face justice or pay up for the things that he's done.

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But really that is just part of my healing journey, right?

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Like when somebody has wronged you and you're trying to heal from that,

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if they're not willing to

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to seek out forgiveness or apologize or something like that, accountability is a huge part of

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what you need to heal. And if you don't give that to yourself in some form, then you're

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constantly going to be battling that fight internally. So one thing that was really interesting about

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being present for the trial was, so throughout all this, the narrative in my head

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was Alex Jones does these crazy things.

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He's this crazy person out in the ether doing this.

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And I'm experiencing this over here, right?

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And so sitting and watching our lawyers

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just methodically go through,

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this is what Alex Jones did on this day and at this time.

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And this is what Alex Jones did on this day

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and on this time. And then I'm connecting, this is exactly what happened to me this day and at this time and this is what Alex Jones did on this day and on this time and then I'm connecting

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This is exactly what happened to me on that day at this time. This is exactly what happened to me. So it wasn't this

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Crazy lube guy out there just spouting stuff off and then there's ripple effects

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There's a direct correlation between what he did and how it impacted me personally. And so it turned this narrative for me from like, I'm receiving the consequences of what

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Alex Jones does, like just natural consequences to this is how he impacted me directly.

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And that was something that was really emotional in court.

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And, and a list of my wife was with me one day, going through that.

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And she just started bawling and everyone's like, Oh, that must have been really hard for

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you. She goes, I was crying because I remembered what happened with Madeline that day when

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we were in Utah and we went out shopping and what happened with Madeline that day. And that

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was the same day that he was saying the stuff. So it brought that home in more direct and more personal.

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And that's what the trial allowed that I wasn't able to get otherwise.

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Well, that's like, I think what you're touching on a little bit there is like this, like

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seeing him as a flesh and blood person.

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Like, you know, it's pretty abstract to be like this figure on this show said this thing

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that affected me, but you know, you have this,

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you were breathing, you were eating earlier that day, you both, you know, it's you're not that

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different, you're humans. I had a similar kind of experience because I went to Texas for one of

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the depositions. I was assisting with those, with their lawyers. And so I was in the

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deposition room with Alex. I never met him or seen him before. And when he came into the room,

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there was a moment of like, I've been talking shit about this guy for some years now. And

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here he is in person. And that air went out really fast.

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Like there was a moment of that like, "Wop, this cartoon character has come alive."

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But then as soon as he was alive, I was like, "Oh wait, you're going to have to go to the bathroom later.

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You're just sitting here and then I was able to see him more like, this is kind of a bummer.

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You're not able to answer these questions directly because you know the implications of them.

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Like, I know that because you're a person, you know, because we are both just humans,

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I can see you that way.

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Do you feel like that was was something the humanization like in terms of the court?

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- No, totally.

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And like, so one, like I was talking about that,

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like, you know, his, it debunks his argument of like,

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I'm just saying this stuff.

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I never called him, I never did.

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So there is this directing, you did this

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and this impacted me in this way.

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So you can't create, you know, that directness.

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In the court though, me having my own human experience

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with him, like, you know, he walks in and he has this air about him, right?

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There's this energy that follows him wherever he goes. So you feel that and he had some followers in the court and they're all jazzed and stuff like that talking shit and stuff.

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And then you then you look at him and you're like, you're, and I'm not saying this trying to be derogatory, but you watch he's like, bowleg and he's walking funny because he's in pain and he like, you're, and I'm not saying this trying to be derogatory, but you watch, he's like,

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bow leg and he's walking funny because he's in pain and he like, you know, he just looks to

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shovel and he looks worn out and I was just like, he's just this really just pathetic person like

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like, and I developed like this. I was almost kind of mad at myself because I felt compassionate

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before him and I felt this like sense of pity. Like I don't like seeing people suffer.

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I don't like seeing people hurt.

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And you just look at all the stuff that has been wearing

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on him and he looks like crap.

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And then I had that human moment.

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And then he got up on the stand and he did what he did.

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And I'm like, he doesn't have that same thing back for me.

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Right.

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It was like, it was like I offered that to him.

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I offered him that chance to connect with me on a human level.

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Like one last time and I didn't know I was giving it to him.

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And then it wasn't received.

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So, and there's a lot of things I can say too about.

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I talked about these experiences that I had with other families

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from mass shootings, one in particular from a family

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with the Parkland shooting in Florida.

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And me realizing like, I was where they were at six years ago,

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and I have some perspective now that I can fight this

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and I don't want them to fight this.

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I just want them to grieve.

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So it sounds really good to be like,

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I'm gonna join this lawsuit to help other people

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and there's truth in that.

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But, and it sounds great and it makes me sound very, you know,

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like more thoughtful of others than

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I probably am.

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But deep down, it was really about this is something I learned that I needed to do for myself.

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And so.

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And in the way that you're saying about the, you know, these Parkland families that

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you're talking to, what it is that you're responding to is the shared inability to grieve, to grieve that is done by all this harassment and this inability

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to allow you to go through the processes that humans go through. And because of that disruption,

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in many ways, becoming part of the case and having this is not, like, it's part of your grieving process too. Like it's part of you want

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other families to be able to grieve and also yourself. And I think that's kind of an important piece

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that can be lost in the you know the disappointment with the legal system,

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is that those things still happen.

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- Yeah, and that's your right.

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And I don't throw terms like this around like,

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like just flipping me, but like when I say like,

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what he did was evil, that's what I'm kind of getting at.

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I have been through what I've been through

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an understanding and grief,

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and now understand grief to be a very sacred process.

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And those first moments when you are faced with grief and you're coming familiar with this new character that's going to be in your life forever.

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Right? That's the moment, like those first moments after your loved one dies.

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And so for me, first moments after Emily died, you somehow already know that this is the closest you're going to be to her and with her for the rest of your life.

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And every single day that passes your farther and farther away from that.

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So that grieving process of staying close and learning what that means and how that's

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going to be incorporated in your life is really important.

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And so for me and those first days to have that infiltrated by somebody like Alex Jones,

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he stole that from me.

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He stole that ability for me to learn how to grieve in the way that I should have learned naturally from the beginning.

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And there's two parts to that.

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There's a lot of things that he stole or he inflicted on me.

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But because of that process too and what I ended up, how I responded,

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I ended up giving up a lot of that power myself

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I disconnected from my family from the world and from who I am as a person and I gave a lot of my power over to Alex Jones

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So going through this process and using the legal system as it's intended to be used to reclaim some of those things

Unknown Speaker (00:36:20.679)

Yes, it brings about healing it brings about accountability and it brings about kind of

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setting everything back to the way it should have been. Yeah. And I think that something that comes out

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a bit in, in your writing and in the book is that, that feeling of, you know, I gave up this to him

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and I don't, I didn't have to. Or I don't, I don't, I don't have to live that forever. Um, and I don't I didn't have to or you know I don't I don't have to live that

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forever um and I think that

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Something that I was shocked by is how vulnerable that is you know and how

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Even now

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Of you know in a book that you're putting out you know that is in the same way that

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You know addressing blaming yourself for doing this press conference and how, you know, that brought harassment on you or that perception you have.

Unknown Speaker (00:37:11.000)

It's, it's a very, I admirably vulnerable position to take in, and I think that that was something I was very surprised by in a good way. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (00:37:25.960)

No.

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And it was interesting, because even starting out writing the book, I had an idea of what

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it was going to be in the process of writing it started going in directions.

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And I was like, I don't know if I want to go here.

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And my editor that I was working with, she would be like, why did you pull up?

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Why did you start short?

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Like, this is where you dive deep.

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And so even her encouragement helping me get to some of those places, no, absolutely.

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And in talking about grief and this vulnerability thing,

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and the main reason I wanted to end up sharing this

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with so many people was like, yeah,

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this isn't gonna be a John Gristham like legal thriller, right?

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Like we're talking about and there's gonna be this like,

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big aha moment at the end or whatever,'because you already know what the verdict is and all that

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kind of stuff. So what is this process like for somebody and realizing how much it connects to

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what we've all been through either in our own lives or collectively together as a country in the

Unknown Speaker (00:38:16.079)

last 12 years since this has all happened, um, that healing process and, and especially like with grief,

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um, everybody's going to, that's not a group

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that nobody's gonna not be a part of at some point

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in their life, right?

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And one of the biggest things that I took away

Unknown Speaker (00:38:31.239)

from my grief journey was how grief connected me

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to other things in my life that needed healing.

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I needed a heal from Emily's death,

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and I'm gonna be healing from Emily's death forever,

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but grief contacted me and connected me back to things

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from my childhood.

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I was sexually abused by my Mormon bishop when I was a kid.

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And that was something that I had never processed.

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And it was like once I started allowing grief to work in me, all of a sudden it was like

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my body's like, oh, we're processing stuff now.

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Like you're going to deal with things.

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Well, then we need to, you're not gonna take another step in this direction

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until we address this.

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And so again, that whole journey gets convoluted

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and it's a beautiful thing.

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I never realized that by losing them

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as a six year old was gonna connect me

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to my six year old self and give me healing

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that I needed that I'd been carrying for 30 years

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at that point.

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And so again, that whole process

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and how sacred and beautiful grief is for somebody

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to come in and defile it.

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And you know, I talk about what he did to me,

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what he did to Emily's name and Emily's memory.

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That's all evil and that's despicable.

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But what he was doing with the Parkland family

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and other people and his listeners

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like I talk about, it it's really really awful stuff.

Unknown Speaker (00:39:49.599)

I totally agree and I think that there's something really weird

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because we can take a little bit of an external view and I think

Unknown Speaker (00:40:25.760)

it would be hard to say for sure if like he knows that, you know, like I don't think when he got on air this stuff. I don't think he was sitting there thinking, ah, I'm going to disrupt grief or like, or if it even mattered or is even present

Unknown Speaker (00:40:33.920)

in his mind in any way, this effect that, that these, you know, denials of tragedy, denials of,

Unknown Speaker (00:40:47.199)

You know, denials of tragedy, denials of, of, um, like horrific events. I think that it's just a variable that isn't even considered.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:51.159)

No.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:52.159)

No, I agree with you.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:53.159)

There's a lot of, that's the thing about lies, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:40:55.559)

And that's the thing about you don't get to control the consequences.

Unknown Speaker (00:40:59.599)

And so something that I've been applying into my life as a late two was I heard this I think I was watching a show and it was you know every lie incurs a debt to the

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truth and sooner or later that sooner or later that debt will be paid and so

Unknown Speaker (00:41:15.039)

what Alex Jones did that he knew was he knew he was falsifying things he knew

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he was creating a narrative he knew that he was giving his audience something that they wanted.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:26.920)

So he was on air before I even found out that Emily died,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:31.880)

he was on air already sowing doubt.

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Like, look out for mass shootings,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:36.840)

I told you this would be coming.

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They're coming for our guns.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:40.079)

He was saying that before I even received news

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that Emily died.

Unknown Speaker (00:41:43.880)

The night out of my press conference,

Unknown Speaker (00:41:45.599)

this was something we were able to achieve in the court process was we got documentation that

Unknown Speaker (00:41:50.880)

showed that they had a meeting, the info wars personnel had a meeting that night after my press

Unknown Speaker (00:41:56.159)

conference to discuss how can we use this to our advantage. That's shocker I had a meeting.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:01.440)

Yeah, I don't know how that actually looks like. I don't think there was minutes taken or That's a shocker. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:05.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:06.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:07.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:08.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:09.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:10.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:11.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:12.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:13.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:14.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:15.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:16.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:17.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:18.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:19.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:20.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:21.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:22.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:23.000)

You're right.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:24.000)

You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. I want to jump in and interfere with his grief, but he doesn't get to choose what his actions, the consequences and the ripple effect of his actions are. But his motivation was,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:28.880)

we all know, is to booster himself up, make himself be important, and build people for money.

Unknown Speaker (00:42:34.400)

Like, that's obvious, but you're right. I don't think that that was what his intention was,

Unknown Speaker (00:42:38.639)

but he doesn't get to control that. And he had so many opportunities before the lawsuit was filed

Unknown Speaker (00:42:43.360)

to remedy that when he was made aware and he chose not to and

Unknown Speaker (00:42:47.320)

That's that's the kind of thing that I find is almost impossible to deal with

Unknown Speaker (00:42:52.260)

You know even after all of this is has played out through the courts and stuff is that you really can look at this and take like well

Unknown Speaker (00:43:01.760)

Didn't have to go to court

Unknown Speaker (00:43:03.760)

You know like all of this.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:06.239)

He didn't know, like let's say that this was these lies in this bullshit

Unknown Speaker (00:43:11.360)

that he was doing was going to cause the effects that it had.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:14.880)

Yeah, no control of that, but he's, you know, still responsible for actions and

Unknown Speaker (00:43:19.960)

behaviors and everything.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:22.880)

It feels to me like society has lost touch a little bit with the ability

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to take that criticism of an unexpected effect of the thing you did has caused me great pain and

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damage. It feels like he's such a prime example of not being able to hear that

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without defensiveness.

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And that kind of makes me sad.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:52.280)

- Yeah, it is sad.

Unknown Speaker (00:43:53.679)

And so let's boil this down to like a personal level, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:43:56.039)

'Cause what I talked about, like yeah,

Unknown Speaker (00:43:58.320)

that quote of like every lie incurs a debt to the truth,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:02.119)

right?

Unknown Speaker (00:44:02.960)

That's easy to say, like yeah,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:04.440)

and Alex Jones' debt is $1.5 billion to Sandy Hook families. Right.

Unknown Speaker (00:44:08.480)

But that's not really the debt. You've been a lot of that debt.

Unknown Speaker (00:44:12.719)

Right. You know, like the debt that's incurred by lies sometimes the liar doesn't

Unknown Speaker (00:44:16.719)

incur debt. No, no. Yeah, we have a number to put on this for in his case, but like,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:21.199)

so in my life, right. So my, my coping strategies that I developed as a kid,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:27.199)

right? The the things that I used to to try and create safety in my life and to overcome

Unknown Speaker (00:44:32.159)

horrific things, you develop this, these patterns of behaviors, right? For your own survival,

Unknown Speaker (00:44:37.199)

and then you go through life, applying that to every situation in your 30s, and they don't work

Unknown Speaker (00:44:43.599)

anymore. And those things actually hurt people.

Unknown Speaker (00:44:45.960)

So part of my healing journey is me learning

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the ways that I coat and the way that the behaviors

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that I incurred and the lies that I told to people

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that I love and the hurt that that caused them.

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And me having to learn how to take that accountability

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and repay that debt.

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I can look back and say, "Yes, I had these things happen."

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And this was an attachment behavior response or a trauma response.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:13.000)

And those are true, but I'm still responsible for it.

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And I didn't get to pick how it affected people.

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And there's people that I care deeply about that I've heard very, very much.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:24.599)

And it's impacted a lot of my relationships in my healing. I don't want this book to just come across

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like, Robbie Parker comes out and talks about hard things and how he overcame them because

Unknown Speaker (00:45:32.880)

he bats a thousand. I'm well below the Mendoza line on batting average on what's successful in

Unknown Speaker (00:45:39.920)

my healing journey, but it's gotten to me when I am right now. Yeah. And I think that that's something that comes across, you know, is, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:45:48.159)

you're not planning to bat a thousand.

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And those kind of moments too, it's like, I'm sitting there going through the

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child seeing things.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:54.519)

And there's moments, like there's, there's a lot of like,

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oh, shit moments.

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Like I didn't even know that.

Unknown Speaker (00:45:58.719)

Like I didn't know that this was that bad or what Alex Jones did connected to this

Unknown Speaker (00:46:02.400)

thing, but I'm also having a lot of like,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:11.039)

holy shit, I can't believe how much like Alex Jones I am, right? We're talking about the lies that he's telling people. And I'm remembering times at work where somebody saw their aunt post something

Unknown Speaker (00:46:16.880)

on Facebook, right? And they come to me and they're talking about it. And I'm going, yeah,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:21.519)

that doesn't bother me, right? How many lies I told people into myself, right? And so I'm going, yeah, that doesn't bother me. Right? How many lives I told people into myself,

Unknown Speaker (00:46:26.079)

right? And so I'm like, I'm a lot like that too.

Unknown Speaker (00:46:31.039)

That goes there a little different.

Unknown Speaker (00:46:33.199)

Totally. But yeah, I mean, if I'm going to stay here and hold somebody accountable for not

Unknown Speaker (00:46:38.320)

being honest and I'm not being honest with other people and it's, and it is having a negative

Unknown Speaker (00:46:42.800)

impact, right? It's like the person that I like to that I told them like yeah, I'm fine and they're like oh wow Robbie's so strong. I'm like yeah sure I could let them believe that that doesn't really

Unknown Speaker (00:46:52.480)

not going to set them off on some weird course in life but it did have a very strong negative impact on me and my family and people that I care about.

Unknown Speaker (00:46:59.760)

Yeah, sure.

Unknown Speaker (00:47:01.760)

So I wanted to ask a little bit about the,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:09.719)

I guess as somebody who's inside all of this,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:14.480)

intimately in the case and the experience of the harassment

Unknown Speaker (00:47:21.159)

and everything, what do you think is the most like misunderstood aspect of like

Unknown Speaker (00:47:28.480)

in terms of the way that people cover it? Because I try and I try and be as, you know,

Unknown Speaker (00:47:35.039)

fair as I can and try and understand. But I'm sure even the way that I have approached

Unknown Speaker (00:47:42.079)

the case and the whole situation is there's probably been things that have been

Unknown Speaker (00:47:46.559)

like, yeah, you're a little off on this. And I was wondering if there's anything that sticks out to

Unknown Speaker (00:47:51.440)

you the like as the most common or annoying. No, I love that question because when I've, I talked

Unknown Speaker (00:47:59.760)

about my writing process in the beginning and what I really was trying to hit on are what are the

Unknown Speaker (00:48:03.960)

my writing process in the beginning and what I really was trying to hit on are what are the most misunderstood or overlooked aspects of grief.

Unknown Speaker (00:48:09.119)

And so for me in this and how people have covered the trial and everything like you have

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to come into it knowing despite everybody's best, if they're trying hard to overcome their

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biases, still have their biases involved.

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And that's you can, and that's,

Unknown Speaker (00:48:25.679)

you can't deny that. You just have to own that and do your best to overcome that. Some people in

Unknown Speaker (00:48:29.599)

the media can do that better than others. Some are just not, they have no shame about their biases

Unknown Speaker (00:48:33.679)

either. And so, um, so I think what's being missed and overlooked is like the simple way to put

Unknown Speaker (00:48:40.320)

as that human element, like what's really going on here? Like this isn't just about

Unknown Speaker (00:48:46.079)

Alex Jones's bombardment and bombastic personality and you just can't stand the guy and those

Unknown Speaker (00:48:51.599)

poor Sandy Hook families that had to put up with them, right? It's um, what gets over looked

Unknown Speaker (00:48:56.719)

are the things that like you don't know unless you have a personal connection and can share. And so

Unknown Speaker (00:49:00.559)

like you talk about how important vulnerability was in the book and for you to understand

Unknown Speaker (00:49:05.960)

That's that's what was misunderstood right a lot of times people don't know how to make that connection and the reason why I even decided to share this was because

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Again, everybody's gone through something right the worst thing that's happened to you is the worst thing that's happened to you

Unknown Speaker (00:49:20.820)

There's no we're not in a contest here

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So I don't want people to look at my story and be like wow that's happened to you. There's no, we're not in a contest here. So I don't want people to look at my story

Unknown Speaker (00:49:25.119)

and be like, wow, that's so crazy.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:27.280)

What he's been through is way over here,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:28.599)

but I'm just dealing with this, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:49:31.320)

If it's hard for you and it's been traumatic for you

Unknown Speaker (00:49:33.219)

or it's been, you're going through something

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that you've never experienced.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:36.519)

We're all equipped with the same bucket of emotions, right?

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To deal with it.

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And so if I can share what I've shared and be vulnerable,

Unknown Speaker (00:49:46.840)

hopefully that can help somebody else become vulnerable too and tap into that. And now now we can form a connection.

Unknown Speaker (00:49:52.840)

I talk about our paths intersecting like, and so we right now are so focused on all these differences that we have and

Unknown Speaker (00:50:00.920)

healthy. I can't relate to you or you can't relate to me like I think I think about you running a podcast and like, I don't even know where to begin with

Unknown Speaker (00:50:06.239)

that. Right. But like, so we can, we can focus on differences, but what's really interesting

Unknown Speaker (00:50:11.199)

is, is the ways in which we can connect with each other, where we don't think we have them.

Unknown Speaker (00:50:15.559)

And the gaps that we feel like, or these crevasses that we feel like separate us aren't as

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wide as they are. And there's so many more bridges that are there if we go and find them. And so that's, that's what I want to shine a light on, because that's what I want to shine a light on because that's what I feel like is an understood

Unknown Speaker (00:50:27.000)

well or misunderstood and orgies just don't have the knowledge or experience to know how to build

Unknown Speaker (00:50:33.000)

that. Sorry, that's a way long winded answer, but yeah. Oh, no, it was great. And I also think that I think

Unknown Speaker (00:50:40.000)

one of the reasons that a lot of people don't want to,

Unknown Speaker (00:50:46.880)

you know, sort of lead with some sort of, you know, vulnerable response to things is the fear

Unknown Speaker (00:50:52.960)

of being encountered by the worst case scenario. And I think that, you know, your story definitely

Unknown Speaker (00:51:02.400)

involves that. You know, there's a vulnerability and then you run into,

Unknown Speaker (00:51:07.800)

you're running into Alex Jones.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:09.280)

There's a vulnerability of going to the court

Unknown Speaker (00:51:12.639)

and then you run into norm palace.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:15.199)

You could not have a less engaged other side

Unknown Speaker (00:51:22.719)

to be, most people would expect in that situation that you should do is put up

Unknown Speaker (00:51:29.960)

as strong of armor as you possibly can because, you know, ponytailed lawyer might insult

Unknown Speaker (00:51:36.800)

you and to your grief on the on the stand.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:41.039)

An unruly ponytail.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:43.159)

He never combed it.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:44.159)

I don't think he ever brushed his hair during the trial.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:46.880)

And it was his white tennis shoes underneath this suit

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that really like, like struck me as a two as well.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:52.199)

Like, even my daughter came with me,

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my youngest daughter came with me to court one week.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:55.679)

And, uh, and I never said anything.

Unknown Speaker (00:51:58.159)

And she was just like, does he ever comb his ponytail?

Unknown Speaker (00:52:01.000)

And I was like, I have a ponytail.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:03.199)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:04.519)

But like, I think that I think of it a, I see have a ponytail. - Yeah, right. Yeah. - But I think that, I think a little lot of people

Unknown Speaker (00:52:07.039)

had a sort of eye opening experience with him

Unknown Speaker (00:52:11.159)

in the Connecticut court with him.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:14.559)

I believe, I can't remember if it was the opening

Unknown Speaker (00:52:15.920)

or closing argument, making the argument

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that you all exaggerated your grief.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:23.039)

- Exactly.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:23.880)

And we're turning

Unknown Speaker (00:52:26.179)

Money into a motive, right? Yeah, and I think that I think that a lot of people were taken aback by how

Unknown Speaker (00:52:33.940)

Blunt and shitty that was but that's the thing you fear and countering

Unknown Speaker (00:52:39.179)

When you when you don't come in with like a big shield and armor

Unknown Speaker (00:52:43.539)

And that's what I'm trying to get through in the book.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:46.000)

Like, I mean, I tried that armor route.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:47.440)

I tried building up walls.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:49.300)

I tried doing everything to insulate and isolate my family

Unknown Speaker (00:52:52.320)

and keep us protected in this castle, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:52:54.079)

That I'm trying to control.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:55.739)

And it just doesn't work.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:56.960)

It just doesn't work.

Unknown Speaker (00:52:59.440)

And so again, going down to a more personal level too,

Unknown Speaker (00:53:02.880)

when we're talking about these kind of strong emotions,

Unknown Speaker (00:53:04.920)

there were lots of times where

Unknown Speaker (00:53:06.960)

People would come and talk to me about like so what are you going through like you know?

Unknown Speaker (00:53:10.639)

How are you doing and I would open up and this is something that's really hard for me

Unknown Speaker (00:53:14.239)

And there's times where I would say called this this thing happened to me yesterday

Unknown Speaker (00:53:18.039)

And this was really hard and they couldn't meet me there and so I

Unknown Speaker (00:53:23.760)

Expended this emotional energy.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:25.519)

I paid this emotional debt and then it wasn't received.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:29.599)

And that's a hard thing to encounter.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:33.559)

And it makes you feel like it's not safe for me to share

Unknown Speaker (00:53:38.559)

because not that that person did anything wrong.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:40.719)

They can't, you know, I don't expect people to relate

Unknown Speaker (00:53:44.239)

to me on my level all the time.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:46.400)

But it was like, that was a tremendous amount of energy that had to put forth and I didn't

Unknown Speaker (00:53:49.440)

get anything in return.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:51.440)

And so that message can get solidified if you do that.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:56.199)

And that's, and we suffer in silence because of that.

Unknown Speaker (00:53:58.519)

So I'm trying to show people that like when I've shared and been vulnerable, there's been

Unknown Speaker (00:54:03.159)

times where people then felt courageous enough to be vulnerable back with me.

Unknown Speaker (00:54:06.840)

And there's that connection and there's that bridge.

Unknown Speaker (00:54:09.000)

And so if we live our lives in a way where we can step

Unknown Speaker (00:54:13.079)

over that line from comfort into discomfort

Unknown Speaker (00:54:15.800)

and just stay there long enough for just a few minutes

Unknown Speaker (00:54:18.639)

until it's not uncomfortable anymore.

Unknown Speaker (00:54:21.440)

And just listen and or be with somebody in that moment.

Unknown Speaker (00:54:25.199)

And then you can step away from them and go be uncomfortable again because you're like,

Unknown Speaker (00:54:27.880)

holy crap, that was insane what that person just shared with me.

Unknown Speaker (00:54:31.800)

But those those moments of shared vulnerability, it's not just about me having the courage

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to put this into writing and share it with strangers, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:54:39.760)

That's not very vulnerable, but would be more if when somebody's willing to share something

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with me, if I can show up at the same level of vulnerability. But then I also, I also think that,

Unknown Speaker (00:54:50.239)

you know, there's an element of the vulnerability and the openness of the way you present the book.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:01.519)

It seems like you have also created a situation where you could be attacked

Unknown Speaker (00:55:08.480)

by these same lying forces over this. You know, like, I can imagine a nightmare kind of scenario

Unknown Speaker (00:55:17.920)

where the argument now becomes, I'm Alex Jones, I didn't traumatize you. You had this abuse in your childhood.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:27.840)

And that's why you had such a terrible time with, you know, people saying that you might

Unknown Speaker (00:55:34.239)

be an actor. That wasn't about me. You know, I feel like there's a risk that you take on through that. Does that make

Unknown Speaker (00:55:50.320)

sense? No, totally. And it was something I had to think a lot about to join the suit.

Unknown Speaker (00:55:54.699)

I had to go through that process. And so what it shows for me is it shows the arc of my

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healing journey and my path, right? There was times where I would never consider doing

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this, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:06.400)

And now I'm into a place where I feel like I can. And if you look at the narrative of what comes out from people like Alex Jones and his ilk of people that follow him, that doesn't change.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:18.960)

The things that they say about me are the same. You know what I mean? And they might be able to put it in a new context.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:25.760)

Like, oh, now he's writing a book and he's just going to make more money.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:28.159)

And, you know, he's, you know, and they'll just reference.

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Remember that smiling piece of shit crisis actor?

Unknown Speaker (00:56:33.239)

Like, so I've, again, what I've been able to reclaim and what I've been able to take away

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from this journey and especially through the trial was like, I don't need to give them

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that power over me anymore.

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And so I can, I feel like I'm in a place where I can handle that.

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And I know that this is more authentic to who I am.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:48.059)

This is more authentic to really protecting Emily's memory

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and my family and myself.

Unknown Speaker (00:56:52.980)

And so, it's funny that you bring that up

Unknown Speaker (00:56:55.579)

'cause those things that you talked about,

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that's exactly what Norm Paddis did in our deposition.

Unknown Speaker (00:57:00.340)

And that didn't really come out in the trial,

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but he did use all these things

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and tried to use them against me in the deposition.

Unknown Speaker (00:57:06.000)

Like, you know, did Alex Jones ever call you? Like, did he ever write you an email? You know, did Alex Jones abuse you?

Unknown Speaker (00:57:12.500)

Like, how can you tell the difference between your trauma from sexual abuse and the trauma you say that Alex Jones said?

Unknown Speaker (00:57:18.000)

He threw all of that at me and I was able to withstand it. And so that makes me feel like I can withstand it now. - I think that that is such a great and awesome point,

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is that you can withstand it.

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And there's an illustration and demonstration of it

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in your book and in your experience.

Unknown Speaker (00:57:39.199)

And I think that's, you know,

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I don't wanna say a victory,

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but I think that there is,

Unknown Speaker (00:57:47.039)

there is something very beneficial about that, uh, first of all, for you as a person,

Unknown Speaker (00:57:53.039)

and then also as a perspective, uh, as a society that we, we're going to just have to keep dealing with this. The sad reality is obviously you and all of the people in your community in Sandy Hook

Unknown Speaker (00:58:12.320)

were not the only people who have been affected this way and not even just the people

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in Parkland and there will be more people in the future.

Unknown Speaker (00:58:21.800)

Alex obviously can't stop himself and he's not the only person

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who does this. And so it becomes almost like a guess social responsibility that we have

Unknown Speaker (00:58:35.119)

of dealing with the damage that this causes.

Unknown Speaker (00:58:40.280)

Yeah. And part of that comes to not just holding people that do it accountable, but to the people that also help proliferate this, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:58:49.000)

At one point in time, another defendant on the lawsuit was the company that's in charge of all the affiliations that Alex Jones' radio show has across the country, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:59:01.000)

I can't-- - Gee, see that? - Over the term. - It was Genesis communications.

Unknown Speaker (00:59:05.599)

There are the ones that syndicate, like,

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so they're responsible for the proliferation of this.

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Social media companies are responsible

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are crazy and on Facebook as responsible for like,

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so there are areas in which we can do that for ourselves.

Unknown Speaker (00:59:21.840)

And again, but some of the things

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that we were able to take away from this,

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there have been shootings that have happened since.

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Alex Jones doesn't attack those family members, right?

Unknown Speaker (00:59:32.280)

He comes up with different ways

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to try and get his narrative across.

Unknown Speaker (00:59:35.079)

So there's, I can't fix all of society zils in on this topic,

Unknown Speaker (00:59:41.079)

but I feel like doing my part to help push the needles

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in place and somebody else doing that. The next people that want to be like Alex Jones are going to know that they're

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going to have to do it differently than him because they're going to be held responsible. So they're

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going to have to do it in a way that's more responsible. I'm not going to say it's things that we

Unknown Speaker (00:59:57.840)

would approve of what responsibility is, but it's going to be they're going to have to say steps

Unknown Speaker (01:00:01.599)

and measures to do it differently. Well, it's kind of a refinement of how do we live in the world that we've created with social

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media and with information that moves this fast. How do we live in that world while there's free

Unknown Speaker (01:00:16.320)

speech? You know, like it's we can't give up on the fact that there is a right that people have to speech. So how do we adjust? How do we carve out

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dealing with? How fast speech is and how full of shit so much of it is and how profitable that is

Unknown Speaker (01:00:38.480)

to to like I don't know if you ever I've never talked to you about this and I don't know if you ever, I've never talked to you about this. And I don't know if it ever came up in the courts, but like Alex has multiple times said

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that he was drunk when he was saying a lot of this stuff.

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He's, he's said that he just was at a bottle of vodka or whatever.

Unknown Speaker (01:00:58.800)

You know, like, he can't Stop that necessarily.

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We just have to accommodate.

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- And if that was my goal,

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and I know in our opening statement and stuff,

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it was about we need to stop this.

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We need to shut him down.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:17.480)

And so, again, so speaking of my own motivations

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and everything like that, yes, I don't want him

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saying things that hurt people.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:26.000)

Right? Can I take, can I sue him to have his layer next removed? Like, I can't do that.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:33.039)

Right? So it's like, you know, can I, can I sue him just to make an apology and tell his listeners like, I lied to you.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:40.000)

What I said was false. And like, you know, I can't do that. So we had to go through what we went through.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:46.000)

And then so part of that process is now, you know, he's in his bankruptcy,

Unknown Speaker (01:01:54.079)

the bankruptcy courts and going through that whole process.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:56.960)

And again, like, so there's a couple of things with that.

Unknown Speaker (01:01:59.599)

Like, from the bankruptcy point of view and as like the culmination of the whole trial is his,

Unknown Speaker (01:02:05.119)

everything he's built over the 30 years plus of what he's done is being broken down and taken away from him,

Unknown Speaker (01:02:11.519)

right? He doesn't have control over that anymore. He doesn't have control of certain narratives.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:15.760)

But one of the biggest things that I've come to realize lately and it was

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it was actually a New York Times reporter that that shared this with me. She was like,

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like what you were able to accomplish is you're not going to be able to mention Alex Jones's name ever

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without it being associated with Sandy Hook and the lies he told about Sandy Hook and the harm

Unknown Speaker (01:02:35.920)

that he did to people. So whether you still believe Alex Jones or not, I don't know if I've converted

Unknown Speaker (01:02:41.280)

anybody away from Infra Wars or not, but regardless of where you are on that, he's forever going to be associated

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with exactly the type of person that he is and who he was and what he did.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:52.480)

And so he's never going to be able to shake himself from that. So there's a huge victory for me in that.

Unknown Speaker (01:02:57.760)

Yeah. And I think that it's such this interesting

Unknown Speaker (01:03:08.039)

It's such this interesting, um, kind of double edged sword because, you know, I do agree that I think that he'll never be able to disassociate himself from this.

Unknown Speaker (01:03:13.199)

Um, but then he's able to say they want to make me the same deal command and like that's

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all I've ever done.

Unknown Speaker (01:03:19.840)

And like, you know, that is persuasive to some people.

Unknown Speaker (01:03:23.320)

That's compelling.

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I was like, they're trying to make it look like that's my whole career.

Unknown Speaker (01:03:27.960)

And I think that the double edge sword aspect of it is obviously Sandy Hook isn't his

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whole career.

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It's not the biggest thing that he's done necessarily or like he's not, he's not talk

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about the shooting all the time.

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But the behavior that he engaged in is indicative

Unknown Speaker (01:03:46.400)

of how he has dealt with so many different situations throughout the, even like around the

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same time, the Aurora shooting that you bossed in bombing. You know, there's saying he's

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the same to hook guy or having him live with that as part of his legacy properly understood means like

Unknown Speaker (01:04:06.280)

the way that you acted with this is how you acted with so many other things.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:12.079)

Right.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:13.079)

It should be synonymous with this is the type of person that you are.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:17.280)

Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:18.280)

And I agree it's not in he talks about like we only talked about Sandy Hook this percentage

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of the time or whatever.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:23.960)

So yeah, it's definitely not the biggest it wasn't the biggest thing in his career,

Unknown Speaker (01:04:29.440)

but it was by far what we were able to prove was it was the biggest thing for his career.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:34.559)

It I'm not I'm not taking away that it was huge for his career. But yeah, that I just mean

Unknown Speaker (01:04:40.480)

the argument of like that, you know, they filed 20 minutes of video or whatever, you know, like that kind of defense is always going to be compelling for someone who

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wants to believe.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:51.639)

Yes.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:52.639)

And that's, yeah, I can't.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:54.239)

I can't.

Unknown Speaker (01:04:55.239)

Yeah, it is.

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And I wish I could, you know, hold group sessions with, you know, people that are on the

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fence about info wars and help them see the light and

Unknown Speaker (01:05:05.519)

bring them over to the side. Right. I'm not out to convert people who have that mentality to

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believe because they believe for the reasons that they believe. You know, we look at somebody who we

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call like crazy, right? But really, everything comes down to what's logical for them.

Unknown Speaker (01:05:25.000)

So I read this story about this man who he was in this,

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and was back in the day, he was in this insane asylum,

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and he kept trying to break the windows, right?

Unknown Speaker (01:05:33.860)

So they would have to tie him down and one guy finally went and talked to him and asked him,

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why are you wanting to break the windows?

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And he said, because they're putting gas in here,

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trying to

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kill us with gas and I can't breathe. So once you understood what it was that in his world

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made sense to him. And so if you can't, if you feel like you can't breathe and you're

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being gassed, you're going to want to go break a window so that you can breathe, right?

Unknown Speaker (01:06:00.880)

So it was a logical and it wasn't based in reality, but if you put yourself in his

Unknown Speaker (01:06:10.400)

in his perspective, it's logical. Right. Yeah. So a lot of the people. Like, like believing so many of the things that are unbelievable that he puts out are

Unknown Speaker (01:06:17.199)

understandable. If you, you know, you feel powerless over the way the government operates and,

Unknown Speaker (01:06:22.639)

you know, so many of these things make sense that

Unknown Speaker (01:06:25.360)

that kernel of the, um, you know, the healthy cynicism, healthy skepticism that gets, that gets

Unknown Speaker (01:06:31.440)

mutated by, by him into this unhealthy version. And they look at me as though I'm just as

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illogical and I'm just as crazy, right? And an evil and stuff like that. So I would love for

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there to be a way for us to find that way to connect on some level.

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So we can start breaking some of those misconceptions

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down and everything.

Unknown Speaker (01:06:52.719)

Yeah. And so I can do what I can

Unknown Speaker (01:06:54.920)

and as far as that goes and go from here.

Unknown Speaker (01:06:59.079)

- Yeah. And I think that that's people's journey too.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:03.840)

'Cause the unfortunate thing is there's no like, um,

Unknown Speaker (01:07:06.400)

there's no like holy water or anything like you know, just in the case of with you in the lawsuit, like if you all were just desperately

Unknown Speaker (01:07:16.039)

going for all of his money, you would say they just want money. And because there's been a, you know, a desire to get concessions, like you won't bring

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up Sandy Hook ever again. Um, that kind of that he's now able to say, you don't want money.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:34.800)

You know, like what, either way you go, there's, you know, a way for him to make you the villain.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:43.000)

to make you the villain. And so I don't know, it's sort of the people

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who take in the content.

Unknown Speaker (01:07:49.320)

I think it's, you know, there's an,

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if you can't see that no matter what the same story

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is going to be told,

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then it's very difficult to argue

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unless there, you know, someone's ready.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:04.079)

I guess to hear. - Exactly. And that's, again, and that's exactly're, you know, someone's ready. I guess to hear exactly.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:05.880)

And that's again, and that's exactly why, you know, I, I put his listeners in, in the realm

Unknown Speaker (01:08:10.599)

of victims of Alex Jones too, because he knows what he's doing and why he's doing it.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:15.639)

And you're right.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:16.159)

He doesn't, he doesn't look at it as though he's victimizing them, right?

Unknown Speaker (01:08:19.880)

But, but he is in those, and that's, that is on him.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:23.760)

So

Unknown Speaker (01:08:24.720)

And in the same way that he doesn't look at it

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as victimizing you to say you're an actor

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and all this, oh, doesn't care.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:32.920)

I think that there's the same lack of care

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with the audience probably.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:37.520)

- Yeah, I mean, yeah, why would you,

Unknown Speaker (01:08:40.079)

why would you take away that fountain of what it is

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you're seeking, right?

Unknown Speaker (01:08:43.920)

And just again, and just even just points to everything that he's sought in his life

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to fill whatever it is that he feels like needs to be healed or or reconciled or whatever.

Unknown Speaker (01:08:55.560)

Like I was saying in the in the trial or in the litigation process, everything he did actually went against him.

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And everything, whatever pain or hole it is that he has

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in his heart that makes him unable to feel,

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every way that he's gone about trying to compensate

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for that hasn't worked either.

Unknown Speaker (01:09:14.479)

And it's been at the cost of a lot of people.

Unknown Speaker (01:09:18.000)

- Well, one of the things I think didn't come up nearly

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enough in the trial is how much he believes he's fighting

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the literal devil and that God has

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sent him on the campaign that he's on since childhood by giving him prophetic visions and all of this

Unknown Speaker (01:09:33.199)

stuff, which I mean, you know, that makes up for a lot of, you know, like obviously you or I or someone else would see like,

Unknown Speaker (01:09:46.399)

I you can't feel and you're not attached to this at all. You're not attached to reality and what other

Unknown Speaker (01:09:52.720)

people are experiencing. But for him, he's attached to the ultimate reality, which is that he's

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facing up against a giant horned demon being at every time that there's some sort of consequence like the default

Unknown Speaker (01:10:08.159)

judgment or the bankruptcy or any of this stuff, it's just proof that he's that much more dangerous

Unknown Speaker (01:10:14.560)

to the devil. You know? Yeah. So when you say everything went against him, all of these things went

Unknown Speaker (01:10:21.920)

against him, that is true from our perspective, but he's

Unknown Speaker (01:10:26.680)

created a world where he can turn consequence into virtue. And so maybe you protect yourself

Unknown Speaker (01:10:33.720)

that way a little bit. No, yeah, no, totally. And it is. It's a hard nut to crack. And

Unknown Speaker (01:10:38.239)

you see that in lots of realms in life, right? You look at cult leaders and you look at

Unknown Speaker (01:10:42.880)

even mainstream religions. I talked about being raised in a very high demand religion and that is every time you feel

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persecuted, it's just more like zeal for you to be like that's proof that I'm on the right

Unknown Speaker (01:10:54.319)

track and God's looking out for me because why would people attack me if you know for doing

Unknown Speaker (01:10:58.880)

the right thing like yeah it's hard and in your right like what you're saying is somehow

Unknown Speaker (01:11:04.159)

creating just at least a

Unknown Speaker (01:11:05.439)

little bit of separation or distance just to be able to get, turn your like, you know, can't see

Unknown Speaker (01:11:11.199)

the force for the trees, your one foot view on the world and just to get at least 100 foot

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perspective can do wonders. And so yeah.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:20.000)

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your time. And we should probably wrap this up.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:26.399)

- Sure.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:27.239)

- 'Cause I don't wanna keep you all day.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:28.079)

But before we go, is there anything else

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that's front of mind for you that you'd like to

Unknown Speaker (01:11:34.960)

talk about anything we didn't get to?

Unknown Speaker (01:11:39.119)

- Yeah, I mean, again, the real reason of me

Unknown Speaker (01:11:42.800)

putting this book out there is because, again, I know that

Unknown Speaker (01:11:45.680)

there's a lot of people who went through something very similar to me as far as bad things

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happen and you suffer in silence and it's hard to find connection or hope again.

Unknown Speaker (01:11:58.399)

That just like that's out there and that's available for you and to do that and connect

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with yourself and don't

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lose track of that. And that sounds very generic and kind of just, you know, kumbayage,

Unknown Speaker (01:12:11.359)

but it's been the world of difference for me and I've seen it affect other people well

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as well. And that's really what this is about is we're all sharing this, our one chance

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at life together and we're all sharing either this time and history

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together or on this planet together.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:29.760)

So let's really work hard on making it the best we can

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for each other.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:33.239)

- Yeah, I think that's a great message.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:36.119)

And I appreciate you sharing it

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and getting to chat with you about it.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:42.039)

So thank you again.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:43.199)

And people can find your book. It's Father's

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fight. Is the name of it, right? A father's fight, taking on Alex Jones and reclaiming the truth

Unknown Speaker (01:12:52.079)

about Sandy Hook. People should check that out. And thank you. Thank you. Noah has been a pleasure.

Unknown Speaker (01:12:58.319)

Appreciate it.