Brandon Straka was once a lifelong Democrat—until he discovered the media had been lying to him. In this eye-opening episode, he shares his journey from being a liberal to founding the #WalkAway movement. Straka reveals how media manipulation, political division, and false narratives led him to rethink everything he believed. He also discusses the challenges of leaving the left, the personal cost of speaking out, and what’s next for the movement. If you’ve ever questioned the mainstream media or felt like something wasn’t adding up, you won’t want to miss this conversation.
Brandon Straka was once a lifelong Democrat—until he discovered the media had been lying to him. In this eye-opening episode, he shares his journey from being a liberal to founding the #WalkAway movement. Straka reveals how media manipulation, political division, and false narratives led him to rethink everything he believed. He also discusses the challenges of leaving the left, the personal cost of speaking out, and what’s next for the movement. If you’ve ever questioned the mainstream media or felt like something wasn’t adding up, you won’t want to miss this conversation.
Twitter/X: @BrandonStraka | @RealWalkAway | @jennybethm
Website: https://www.walkawaycampaign.com/
Brandon Straka (00:00):
But it's hard to put into words how devastating it is psychologically, emotionally, in every way to have to say you did something you didn't do, have your government force you to do it, and that you're now a part of this narrative, that you are a part of an anarchist mob that tried to overthrow the government when in fact, I had up until then spent years trying to make our country a better place. That's what I was trying to do.
Narrator (00:27):
Keeping our republic is on the line, and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom to Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:00):
Today we are joined by Brandon Str with Walkaway. And Brandon, I'm just so excited to have you on the podcast.
Brandon Straka (01:06):
I'm excited to be here.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:07):
When did you become a Republican?
Brandon Straka (01:10):
2017, which would've been about six months before I started walkaway.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:15):
And that was after Trump was elected?
Brandon Straka (01:17):
Yes.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:17):
How did that happen?
Brandon Straka (01:19):
So I voted for Hillary in 2016 after voting for Obama twice and always being a lifelong straight ticket Democrat party voter. And I didn't think Trump would win. And the media that I had trusted my whole life promised to me that he was not going to win and that Hillary was going to win in a landslide. This was supposed to be, remember an extension of the eight scandal free years of Barack Obama's presidency. So it was a natural evolution that we would elect our first woman president and she would continue Barack Obama's legacy. And I was all in for it. I was always a lifelong liberal. And so when the 2016 election turned out the way that it did, I think unexpected for everybody, even Trump supporters, I think were probably a little bit surprised that he took the victory in 2016. I was devastated.
Brandon Straka (02:06):
I was crushed. And I mean, I called out sick to work the next day, and I was on Facebook Live crying. And so I spent about two weeks feeling really in despair, and it was a combination of feeling afraid and angry and confused and all of these things. And so after about two weeks, I made a decision that if I was going to get through this next four years, I needed to find a way to understand what had happened. It was never my intention to be okay with it or to think that I would support Trump or his supporters. I just wanted to understand how did the media that I trusted get it so wrong? I felt also betrayed and deceived. So I went on this journey of research, but the really pivotal moment was in January of 2017, right around the time he was about to take office.
Brandon Straka (02:59):
And I had been lashing out on Facebook for months since he won, and I posted in January of 2017 that I would never be able to understand how or why anybody would vote for a man who was capable of mocking a reporter's disability in front of a cheering crowd. What is wrong with all of you people? And I grew up in Nebraska, so a small town. So I knew that most of my family, people I went to high school with probably all voted for Trump, but I had already forgiven him because he was going to lose. So I was like, okay, let him vote for Trump. She's going to win in a landsite. But when I posted that somebody, actually, my childhood babysitter reached out to me privately and she said, I'm not trying to start a fight with you. I'm just asking, have you seen this?
Brandon Straka (03:44):
She sent me a link to a video entitled Debunking the Trump Mocked the Disabled Reporter. When I first looked at it, I was like, oh, God, more Fox News brainwashing and propaganda. But I watched the video and it showed very clearly. So if anyone doesn't know, it's basically a compilation of footage that shows Donald Trump doing that same voice and gesture when he's kind of like, ah, throughout the years. But it's obvious that this is something he does anytime he's imitating anybody who's flailing because they're caught in a lie. And it showed very clearly and compellingly that he wasn't mocking that reporter's disability. He was making fun of the fact that that reporter who happened to be disabled was caught in a lie. And so for the first time in my whole life, I watched this and I thought, wow, CNN led me to believe something happened that didn't happen, and why did they do this? And how often is this happening? And that's what started kind of this journey of research that ultimately showed me that the media, I'd been trusting my whole life was lying to me.
Jenny Beth Martin (04:48):
It's pretty hard to come to that revelation. I mean, I haven't gone through that, so I can only imagine how difficult it is to go, wait, I trusted all of this and it wasn't what I thought it was.
Brandon Straka (05:04):
Yeah. Well, the worst part about it is when you start to see more of it and see more of it, and that's what was happening. I went back and I started researching all these moments from Trump's camp. Did he really call all Mexicans rapists? Did he really advocate for banning Muslim people from our country? Just all these things that the media was saying. And I was finding time and time again that none of them were true. And in many cases it was almost like the opposite was true and that they spun it completely out of context. But the hardest part was when you get to the point where you see the pattern enough and you realize internally you're starting to have this struggle where you're going, I can't support this anymore. I can't continue to be a part of this, but that means you're going to lose all your friends. You're going to lose the life because you're part of a network of people who all believe this,
Brandon Straka (05:53):
And they all think it, and they hate him so much. I hated him so much. It's not something you can just go and be like, oh, hey, we misunderstood this whole thing. I knew, I actually went through a period of time, literally for months, where I thought I was just going to keep being a liberal. I was going to push aside everything that I had learned and just fake it. I mean, I literally considered this. I was like, I'm going to keep hanging out in the same circles, keep going to the same parties, the same dinners with the same people. And when they start bashing Trump, I'm just going to kind of put my head down and laugh and wait for the subject to change. That was what I considered as a plan for a while. And I was like, I can't do it. It's like living a lie and I can't,
Jenny Beth Martin (06:39):
And you grew up in Nebraska, you're not going to live a lie.
Brandon Straka (06:41):
No. Right, right. Yeah. And so slowly, I started planting seeds on social media, and I started by asking questions. I didn't just come out and say like, Hey, I'm starting to change my mind about Trump. I started to just ask questions like, there's 55 or something, Muslim majority countries, only five of them are on the list that Trump has temporarily banned from travel. Is it really a Muslim ban? If it was a Muslim ban, why wouldn't all Muslim countries be banned? And what I started to find is that even a simple question like that, I started getting all these people in the comments that were friends and followers on social media that were like, why are you supporting Trump? Why are you defending him? What are you doing? And I started getting agitated. The more pushback, I'm like, this is a reasonable question that I'm asking. Why can't we talk about this? And so then I started getting kind of defiant and rebellious because I was like, I'm not doing anything wrong and I'm getting attacked for asking legitimate questions. And so I think that that pushback propelled me to dig in my heels more. And then over the course of the next few months, I, I started losing all of my friends. And by the end of 2017, I had lost 90% of my friends.
Jenny Beth Martin (08:01):
When did you start walkaway?
Brandon Straka (08:03):
May of 2018.
Jenny Beth Martin (08:05):
So you had lost all your friends. Yes. And so was basically almost half a year before you started walkaway,
Brandon Straka (08:11):
Right.
Jenny Beth Martin (08:12):
Had you made other friends in conservative circles or Trump supporting circles?
Brandon Straka (08:18):
I just started to, I think that that probably started happening at the end of 2017, was a very lonely year for me. I lost most of my friends. I didn't make that many new friends. And I was living in New York City at the time, too. It's not that easy to find Republicans.
Brandon Straka (08:35):
But I did. I started to meet a couple conservative friends in New York, and they introduced me to a few more people. And one of the friends that I made was still a friend of mine today. His name is Mike Harlow. And we had a very similar story and very similar walkaway journey that happened at almost exactly the same time. And so he and I started sharing information, and we would send posts to each other on social media and be like, oh my God, can you believe we used to be liberals? These people are awful. And it was around April of 2018, about a month before I started walkaway, I knew I wanted to say something very profound about my experience, what I had just
Brandon Straka (09:18):
Gone through. And I was out jogging one day, and I say, I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I kind of heard this phrase in my head once upon a time I was a liberal. And then the script for that video kind of downloaded itself into my brain, and I got really excited, and I ran home and I wrote it all out, and I called my friend Mikey, and I read it to him, and he's like, he's like, this is amazing. This is amazing. And I said, well, I have this idea. I was like, what if I make this video and put it out, and then let's create this hashtag? It was already in my video or the script. I had ended it by saying, so I'm walking away and I encourage all of you to do the same walk away. And I was like, what if I started something and we called it the walkaway campaign and tried to get other people to walk away, use this hashtag and share the videos. And he was like, this is great. This is great. So he actually helped me shoot that first video, which happened just weeks later. And then I edited it together, created the Facebook group, launched the video, and we were off.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:21):
And you grew very quickly, right? Yeah. Kids were other people like you.
Brandon Straka (10:27):
Yeah. You weren't
Jenny Beth Martin (10:27):
The only one who was going through this metamorphosis or whatever we want to call evolution, whatever it was. And so what was your experience at that point?
Brandon Straka (10:39):
Well, okay, so I put the video out, and part of the reason too, you hit the nail on the head of it wasn't just that I wanted to say something profound about my experience, it was that I'd gone through 2017, very, very lonely year, and I kept thinking to myself, there's got to be other people that are having this experience. And I thought, what a shame it is that there's not a community or a network of support for people to come together as they're losing their friends. And some people lost jobs, family members I know from starting walkaway and people joining. We know grandparents who lost access to their grandchildren because their liberal kids wouldn't allow them to see their grandkids anymore. People in their twenties or thirties who their parents won't talk to them anymore. So it's devastating. And I thought, it's really too bad that there's not a community and a network of support.
Brandon Straka (11:32):
I felt in my gut it was a good idea and I felt like it would work, but I didn't know for sure. But I launched the video, created the group, and my instinct was right. A lot of people were feeling that way and they were waiting for someone else to just say like, oh. And that's I think what happened. At first, I think people saw my video and they're like, yes, yes. Oh my God, yes. And so then they started joining and sharing their own stories. And I think the reason why we exploded so much is because that video did very, very well. The first video, and I worked really hard for about five weeks to just keep doing. I said yes to everything, every podcast, every little radio interview. I didn't care if it had 50 listeners. I wanted to share the mission and the idea. And then after five weeks, we caught the attention of Tucker Carlson and he had me on his show, and then it just blew the lid off of everything. Then the nation knew,
Jenny Beth Martin (12:34):
And
Brandon Straka (12:35):
It just exploded from there.
Jenny Beth Martin (12:38):
I know that I reached out to you in those early days. I don't remember if it was before or after Tucker, but when I see things that are happening online, I just reach out and I try to mentor and help out and just go, here's my phone number. Feel free to reach out. Maybe I can help connect you. Or if you are going to start a nonprofit, let me know. I'll try to help you with that because I've been there. I've been there where everything around you is exploding and you don't even know what you need to be doing from a business standpoint.
Brandon Straka (13:10):
Exactly. Right.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:10):
To keep all that other stuff going, because you did start a Facebook group before you began, but it's not like you thought, okay, well now I'm going to completely change my entire life
Brandon Straka (13:21):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (13:22):
Drop everything else that I've been doing my whole life to go do this. And it's a very, it's weird.
Brandon Straka (13:30):
It's overwhelming.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:31):
It is. It's completely overwhelming. It's what happened to me with a tea party movement. I'm going down this one path in life, and now I'm on a completely different path,
Brandon Straka (13:41):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (13:43):
It changed my life, and I don't regret it. I don't have regrets about it. It's just completely different than what I started out thinking at the beginning of 2009.
Brandon Straka (13:53):
You're a hundred percent right about that. And I do remember you reaching out, and you and I did talk many times over the course of the next several years, and I appreciate it so much, but I know that you know this too. It's so hard when something like this happens, you're being contacted by so many people and this person will tell you, oh, don't trust that person. Oh, no, you don't want to connect with this. And then this one says, and so you're hearing all this information and you're just trying to learn what's going on and figure it out.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:20):
You don't even know who the people are. You're being warned off of,
Brandon Straka (14:24):
Yeah, I didn't know what a 5 0 1 C3 was. I didn't know what a 5 0 1 C four was, so I had people saying, oh, you've got to make this a pack. No, no, don't make it a pack. You've got to make it a C four. No, don't make it a C four. You've got to make a C3. I'm like, I don't even know what this stuff is, but it does. It takes time to figure it out, learn the ropes, learn who you can trust and who you can't trust. And I'm still figuring that out, and it changes day to day.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:48):
My advice to anyone listening is you can only a very tiny circle.
Brandon Straka (14:52):
Absolutely. Yeah. And post J six taught me that I think I really learned who the good guys are and who your friends are because of the J six experience, which we'll get into, but yeah.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:04):
Yeah. Well, and we will get into that, but in 2024, Trump had so many people supporting him. There were Democrats. I mean, we have Tulsa Gabbard and RFK Junior and other people who were lifelong Democrats. And you have to have been sitting there going, oh, I can relate to what you're going through, and you're, when I see RFK Jr supporting Donald Trump, he ran as a Democrat and then as an independent for president of the United States, no less. His father was assassinated, his uncle was assassinated. His whole identity is tied to the Democratic party, and I can't even imagine emotionally what that had to be like for him.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:53):
But you probably can much more than I can. What I can do is say that those who have been conservative, like lifelong conservatives, we have to have the grace to let people change their mind. You have to let them be able to change their mind. And we also have to be welcoming to the people who are changing their minds. And we may not agree on every single issue, but that isn't, politics makes really weird bedfellows. You find the issues you agree on, you work on those issues together when you don't agree, don't attack each other, just work on the
Brandon Straka (16:30):
Issues separately. And I would argue too, that I would like to see in general, conservatives loosen up a little bit on almost this defensiveness about an unwillingness to at times compromise or reconsider certain things because I think there's such a defensiveness of conservative values, and I understand why. I mean, we're literally conserving. That's what it means to conserve. But when you look at someone like RFK Jr, I remember when he came onto the scene, and a lot of people are like, he's too liberal, don't trust him. And I get that. I have a lot of trust issues with liberals myself. However, I think when Trump started to embrace him, which kind of signaled to a lot of other people that they could open their mind to considering what he has to say, a lot of people, I think have found a new interest in getting more involved in our health system and our food, what we're eating. And these weren't really things we were talking about before. So to me, that's one example. Don't be so resistant to people because they used to be on a different political party that you get into a mindframe where you're not willing to consider anything that they have to say or offer. Because I do actually think that we can learn a lot from each other, even if people used to be on a side that we find opposing to our values.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:50):
Well, and something about that with RFK Jr, that is important. I've met him at one weekend, so I met him maybe more than one time, this particular weekend, it was in 2021, maybe it was 2022 actually, about reopening. The whole country has been shut down now for over a year, and we're trying to get things open. And he did a huge event in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington dc and I went to it with a bunch of the doctors who I've been supporting since 2020 and helping organize. And I met him there. And I was thinking, okay, I don't know about all these other issues and where he stands on all these other issues that I care about, but we agree the country needs to reopen. We agree that these mandates are wrong, and we agree that we need to be looking in the science related to the medicines much more.
Brandon Straka (18:53):
Absolutely.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:55):
And that's what I mean. You find the area where you can agree with people. And maybe I never would've agreed with him on anything more than that if he had not run for president and wound up supporting Trump. But I could even, he was still a Democrat at that point. I could find a way to find agreement with him and be very thankful he was standing with all of us who wanted the country open.
Brandon Straka (19:16):
And I feel like politics, we've gotten so divided, and it's become so contentious that I think everybody's kind of afraid at this point to seed any ground whatsoever because there's sort of this fundamental mistrust to a certain degree. And I think we've lost sight of the idea of what you just said. We can at times seed ground and find common ground. That doesn't mean we're giving up our value system. And I mean, I think we can even set those ground rules at the beginning and say, look, you stand for a lot of things that I'm directly in opposition to, and that's not going to change. I feel strongly about what I feel strongly about, but you've got a good point about this or that or whatever, and I'm willing to change my mind about this or
Jenny Beth Martin (20:03):
That. And in fact, over the years, I've also stood with the A CLU and the NAACP mostly about donor privacy. And these are things, when I first started out, I never really thought I'd be standing with the A CLU on particular issues, but I've found a way and had discussions with them, and I'm like, okay, so I don't agree with, we're not going to talk about any of the other issues. Let's just focus on this area. And sometimes you have to be able to do that. But what you're doing is even more than that because you, you're helping people who have thought about where they actually stand on the issue, what is real with what they're seeing in the media versus what is not, and giving them a place to land after they've learned more.
Brandon Straka (20:48):
Yeah. That's what we have been all about, is trying to provide that support network. And an, so we've had a motto since day one, which is walk away as a journey, not a destination. And what we mean by that is we're not telling people where to go. And this is honestly why I think we had so much success because it was never, despite vast misreporting on both sides, it was never walk away from the Democratic party and become a Republican or walk away and become a Trump supporter, which is what the media says. We just said, we want you to think for yourself. Do your own homework, do your own research, walk away from identity politics, walk away from groupthink, tribal mentality if you're black or brown or LGBT or whatever, stop seeing yourself as your identity and see yourself as an American, that you're a part of the collective whole, and that the American values are there. The American dream is there for anybody who wants to work hard and take advantage of it. And so we've had people in walkaway who left the left and decided that they felt more at home being independents or libertarians or Republicans. Some love Trump, some don't love Trump, and that's fine, frankly. I mean, we just want people thinking for themselves and walking away from a political party that we feel like has been completely co-opted by very dark forces. And I think in the simplest terms, a Marxist agenda, which is anti-American.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:16):
Yeah, it really is. And we can have differences and still be able to say, but we love our country and want what's best for our country.
Brandon Straka (22:24):
That's right.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:25):
And when we stop loving our country and wanting what's best for our country, our country is going to be in a lot of trouble. And that's what I think a lot of what the left is trying to do is get us to be angry at our own country,
Brandon Straka (22:37):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (22:37):
That's a dangerous place for us.
Brandon Straka (22:39):
Yeah. Well, it's so true. The normalization of hatred and violence and all of this stuff from the left, it's crazy. You need to look no further than just 2020 alone when you have people normalizing and justifying looting, killing, beating, burning, destroying cities, destroying neighborhoods, all of this stuff. And people on the left are just like, well, it's a racial reckoning. This has been coming for, this is hundreds of years of injustice. And it's like, okay, so violence is okay. So theft and destruction is okay. What are you talking about? And certainly they don't have that charitable spirit if the other side does something that's out of hand
Jenny Beth Martin (23:28):
And that violence harms, harms, the very people who they claim to be wanting to help. I have a friend from high school whose business in downtown Atlanta was destroyed or beaten up, had lots of destruction to it, and she put a post-it note on the outside, I'm a black business owner, please don't mess this up. But it didn't matter. They were destroying every
Brandon Straka (23:56):
Business. Well, and we saw those videos too, on social media of people in their homes or their apartments and rocks are coming through the window and they're shouting out, I support you. I support you. I support BLM. And they're still breaking their windows out. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, it was just anarchist, unbridled, thoughtless violence and destruction for the sake of violence and destruction.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:19):
And I always think it's very important. I think that there were people who went out in the daytime in March with BLM for very pure motives. I don't think they were the one, I don't group all of the BLM supporters together, mostly because party years got grouped all together and with a whole bunch of lies. So I understand there was an element of bad people doing things, but you should be able to call out the bad people who are doing the things.
Brandon Straka (24:46):
Yeah, it's funny. It's not funny at all. But when I see you saying that, it's almost like walkaway has now been through so much like Tea Party. It's been through so much. And I see in you when it's almost like this empathy, not to say that you wouldn't have had it anyway, but when you go through something so hard, it does kind of teach you this additional layer of almost that you look at things differently and you're like, I bet there's more to this story, or I want to give them more credit. Because you know how that feels
Jenny Beth Martin (25:21):
When
Brandon Straka (25:22):
You go through something like that to be mislabeled or
Jenny Beth Martin (25:24):
Right. And if they were out saying they don't want racism in America, I don't want racism in America. I think 95% of Americans want, I wish it was a hundred. I am realistic. It probably is not. So I don't fault them for standing up for what they believe in, but at some point, those afternoon protests turned into nighttime violence and that was a problem.
Brandon Straka (25:51):
Well, and I think too, you can certainly have a generous spirit about differentiating the nonviolent and the violent, but I think at a certain point when the whole cause becomes synonymous with violence, if you're one of the nonviolent people, you almost have to step away and be like, okay, this is not the path.
Jenny Beth Martin (26:09):
Right.
Brandon Straka (26:10):
I wish more people would've done that because I didn't see a lot of that in 2020.
Jenny Beth Martin (26:14):
No, not at all. And then in 2020, then we got to January of 2021 and January 6th, you went through a lot. Yes. So do you want to talk about any of that now? Especially now that there's been a part in, it seems like you're probably able to clear the air a little.
Brandon Straka (26:33):
Yeah, yeah. And it means a lot to me to be able to do that, because on January 6th, I was a scheduled speaker for a permitted event on capitol grounds. And when I went there to do my speaking engagement, I was on the east side of the building and I started getting messages from people saying that people were going in the building and that something was happening. And my first instinct was, if something's happening, because everyone kept saying, we're hearing on the news that there's a disruption or something going down, I don't believe anything. The news says I was there. I have a large social media following. I thought if something's happening, I'm going to record it so people can see firsthand if the news is lying to them or not. And I walked up to the building, the barricades were fully open. There were no police officers on the east side of the building when I was there,
Jenny Beth Martin (27:17):
Which is the Supreme Court site.
Brandon Straka (27:19):
That's right. Well, and it's also important for people to know it's the opposite side, is where the riot had happened on the west side of the building. People were breaking windows, fighting with police officers. That wasn't happening where I was. And so I approached the building, walked up an open sidewalk, and when I got to the stairs of the capitol, they were filled with people, and the people were not facing toward the capitol. They weren't trying to get in. They were just standing on the steps of the capitol holding signs. And at the top of the stairs was a man, and he was shouting, they've opened the doors, they're letting us in, we're going inside. This is all in my video. So I went to the top of the stairs, and when I got there, sure enough, the doors on the east side were open, and there were several hundred people at the top of the stairs.
Brandon Straka (27:58):
Some of them were trying to push their way in. The majority were filming. I, I never entered the capitol on January 6th. And I stood outside the building for eight minutes. And after eight minutes, a man came outside, got on a bullhorn, and he shouted, they've cleared Congress, everyone left the building, move out, move out. And I immediately turned around and I told the people behind me, they're saying, to move out, you need to go this way. I uploaded that video to Twitter, and I went back to my hotel room and an hour or two hours later, and when I got back to my hotel room, I turned on my tv. And that's when I started to see for the first time what had happened on the west side of the building or images of what had happened. And I became concerned when I saw the images because I didn't understand it.
Brandon Straka (28:45):
And I thought, did something break out after I left? Is this happening live? Is this, I was just totally confused, and not in a million years did I think that I was in trouble, but I thought it was a good idea to take my video down for PR reasons, because I was like, I don't want my audience to think that if there's a riot happening right now, first of all, I don't want them to worry about me and think that I'm in the middle of it. Second of all, I don't want them to think I'm participating in whatever. So I took the video down, but it had already been copied by Twitter trolls during that couple of hours that it lived on Twitter. And they began reposting it compulsively every day, multiple times a day, and tagging the FBI and tagging the DOJ and saying, Brandon STR was there. He was a part of the insurrection. You need to come get him. All these things. People kept asking me for the next several weeks, are you worried? And I said, no, I'm not worried. I said, I didn't break the law. I don't have anything to worry. But I said, I'm not super comfortable. I don't like this.
Brandon Straka (29:45):
But two and a half weeks after January 6th, on the morning of January 25th, a team of FBI agents in tactical gear, rated my apartment, put me in handcuffs, began stripping my apartment of my phones, computers hard drives, thumb drives clothing, taking my things, putting them in bags. And they took me off to jail. And I sat in jail for several days. And when I got out of jail, I learned that I was being charged. It's so absurd. So I was actually charged with more felonies than most people with January 6th, including everyone who went in the building. So I started out at the gate with two felonies and a misdemeanor, and they had told me that essentially if I decided to go to trial, they were going to add a third felony, the 1512 obstruction of an official proceeding felony, which the Supreme Court later struck down, but numerous people were convicted of and spent years in jail.
Brandon Straka (30:37):
And they told us too, immediately the moment I got out of jail, my attorney told me, I've already been on the phone with the prosecutor. He said, I asked her would they consider dropping these felonies if he pleads guilty to a misdemeanor? And her response exactly was we would be open to that conversation. But you might want to mention to him, we have not yet charged him with the 15, 12 obstruction of an official proceeding. She said, this is a charge we're giving to some of the J Sixers. It carries up to 20 years in prison. And she said, we haven't given it to him yet, but we might. So it felt pretty clear to me this was a shakedown. And I knew on that first day I was going to take a plea deal. I knew in every fiber of my being that I did not commit a crime. I was not guilty of doing anything, but I knew that there was no path forward. That going to trial in DC was not an option,
Jenny Beth Martin (31:31):
No way.
Brandon Straka (31:32):
And mostly because of who I am. I mean, being a Trump supporter in this situation is bad enough. Being the founder of the walkaway campaign in front of a jury of Democrats, a Democrat judge in a district that voted 93% against Trump, no one voted for Biden. They voted against Trump. Forget it. So I told my attorney on day one, I said, I'm going to take a plea deal. I knew immediately
Jenny Beth Martin (31:59):
Well, and financially you would've been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that you probably did not have to lose
Brandon Straka (32:06):
To lose. And he told me that too. He said, we can fight this all the way to the end. He said, it's going to cost you a minimum of $250,000 to get through trial. And he said, in all likelihood, you're going to lose. And he said, if you lose, you're going to be a convicted felon. And he said, you're going to be spending time in prison. It's guaranteed. He said, if you take a misdemeanor plea deal, he said, I'm pretty sure we can get it not having jail time. He was like, it's a first offense, misdemeanor. He said, you already spent a couple of days in jail. Nobody goes to jail on a first offense, misdemeanor. He said, I think we can get the judge to give you time served, which is preposterous in retrospect, but that's what we believed at the time. So I decided to take the misdemeanor plea deal, but what I didn't know is I had no idea at the time how corrupt the system was because my attorney told me, he was like, you'll get a, what did he say?
Brandon Straka (33:00):
A trespassing. He was like, you'll get a misdemeanor trespassing. It'll be like a jaywalking thing. He's like, it's just not a big deal. And I was like, okay, I can live with that, even though I don't think I did it because the barricades were open. And I walked into a crowd of there was no way to know that you weren't allowed to be there. But I thought, okay, fine. Misdemeanor trespass. I'm a political activist. What good political activist doesn't have a misdemeanor on their record for something. But what I didn't know is that when you take a plea deal, you put into the government's hands, they write your confession for you, and you have no choice but to sign it. Whatever they say goes. And so in my case, they came back and they said, Mr. STR stood outside the building and shouted, go to encourage the crowd to enter the building. He witnessed the crowd taking a shield from an officer and shouted, take it, take it to encourage the crowd to take this shield. I did not do these things. I wouldn't do these things. First of all, it doesn't interest me. I mean, I don't care if someone takes a shield from novel, why would I do that?
Brandon Straka (34:04):
But secondly, and I think most importantly, but I couldn't say it at the time until I got pardoned, and because my pardon essentially negates my plea deal. I'm not that stupid. I'm so blessed to have the life that I have. I have this amazing privilege that very few people have where I get paid to tell the truth. Most people in this country have to go to work and go to mandatory DEI training and deal with all these woke policies at work. I get to earn my living, traveling the country and telling the truth. What an amazing privilege. I'm not going to screw that up over something stupid. And I get to do that for a living because I'm supported by conservative donors, people who give money to my organization, who are against violence. They're against anti-police behavior. Even if I lost my mind and went to the capitol and decided to encourage the crowd to attack an officer, why would I film myself doing it and then voluntarily upload that video to Twitter?
Brandon Straka (35:08):
I would literally be destroying my career on purpose. And the thing is, I had no idea anything like that happened. So there was no reason not to upload my video anyway. They wouldn't let that go. And we told them, that's not true. It didn't happen. And the response that we got was, if he feels like it's not true, he's welcome to go to trial. And he's welcome to prove that at trial. And I could cry right now in of 2021, I signed the plea deal. I went into a depression so deep for several weeks that I didn't want to live. And it's not even like I was accused of murder or something, but it's hard to put into words how devastating it is psychologically, emotionally, in every way to have to say, you did something you didn't do, have your government force you to do it. And that you're now a part of this narrative that you were a part of an anarchist mob that tried to overthrow the government when in fact, I had up until then spent years trying to make our country a better place. That's what I was trying to do.
Jenny Beth Martin (36:18):
And you probably also lost even more friends
Brandon Straka (36:21):
During
Jenny Beth Martin (36:22):
That time. So you've already gone through the whole thing that you went through in 2017 where you were losing friends, and then in this time, you lose friends as well. And when you look around and you're like, okay, now I know who really I can trust, and there aren't a lot.
Brandon Straka (36:38):
No, no, there's not a lot. And so a number of people that were my friends who were in media stopped unfollowed me or stopped communicating with me because they didn't want to have me ask them if I could use their platform to try to clear the air about at least some of these things. There were things I couldn't clear the air about because I couldn't overtly negate my plea deal, or I would've violated my probation and then I would've gone to prison. But it's like they didn't even want, and there were so many people that I had on my stage at my events for years, people who from day one when I started walkaway, it's funny because so many people were not super supportive about the success that I was having. And there's, oh, he's such a grifter and he just wants, it's just all about him. And I really contend that it wasn't, I wanted to create an organization and a platform where I could lift other people up. If you look back at the history of my work and what I did with walkaway, I rarely ever did events where I was the only, I mean, it was usually I brought a panel of people and you
Jenny Beth Martin (37:46):
Did.
Brandon Straka (37:46):
And oftentimes it was people that were relatively unknown, and a lot of them launched really great careers based off the exposure they got from walkaway. And some of those people cut me off and wanted nothing to do with
Jenny Beth Martin (37:58):
Me. I've been there.
Brandon Straka (37:59):
Yeah, no, I've been there. It's horrible.
Jenny Beth Martin (38:01):
Yeah, it is.
Brandon Straka (38:02):
It's horrible.
Jenny Beth Martin (38:02):
It is. But you just keep true to yourself and people will see it. Eventually they see it. And if they don't, what can you do? You can't control them. It's annoying, but I don't lose sleep over those people.
Brandon Straka (38:17):
But while you and I are talking, the worst thing that I went through about January 6th and I was criminally charged. I was civilly when I took the plea deal, I was also sued by eight black and brown police officers under the KKK Act alleging that I was a white supremacist who went to the capitol to encourage black and brown officers to be harmed. Took me two and a half years to get through that case, and I think like $150,000 I ended up winning. But it was a nightmare, absolute nightmare. I was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee, but the worst thing of all was in July, I think, of 2022. And I believe firmly that the reason why this happened is because I had just gotten off of house arrest in May of 2022. And the moment that I got off of house arrest, I went back to work, went to Los Angeles, did a walkaway rally.
Brandon Straka (39:07):
The next month I went to Arizona, did a big event with Carrie Lake, started doing media interviews again. Tucker had me on, mark Levin had me on. I was getting myself back out there. And I believe that they were like, oh, no, no, no. How dare he think he can come back. And the point of this was to destroy him. So all of a sudden, one day, the DC courts accidentally unsealed all of the sealed documents in my case for 27 minutes, and they accidentally ended up in the hands of NBC, Huffington Post, all these things. Now, every January 6th, defendant who took a plea deal, a requirement of the plea deal was that you had to sit down with the FBI and the DOJ and answer questions fine. I was happy to do it because I thought to myself, I have no knowledge of anybody committing any crimes.
Brandon Straka (39:50):
I don't believe that there was an organized attempt to overthrow the government. I certainly wasn't a part of it. I don't know anyone who was. And furthermore, I don't have knowledge of anyone committing any crimes not associated with January 6th. It's not even like I know, oh, well, this person stole some money a year ago. I literally know nothing. And so I sat down with the FBI and they had a list of 25 names, and most of them were high profile conservative activists, including you. And they were going through all of these names and asking me questions like, how do you know this person? Is this person your friend or is this person an acquaintance? Have you ever worked with this person? It was just bizarre, innocuous questions like this. And when I got done interviewing with them, we left and I turned to my attorney.
Jenny Beth Martin (40:33):
And it's very clear for everyone to understand. You had to be honest because if you weren't honest with the FBI, then you would've been in more trouble. You can't lie to the FBI. So when they're asking those questions, you either can plead the fifth, or you have to be honest,
Brandon Straka (40:50):
But I didn't even want to plead the fifth.
Jenny Beth Martin (40:51):
Why would you plead the fifth? You're just answering questions about who, and you're not saying they committed crimes.
Brandon Straka (40:56):
Correct. And everyone can have their own opinion about what the right thing to do in that situation is. I know other people that were brought into the FBI to answer questions, and they adamantly were like, I'm pleading the fifth, and they pled the fifth on every question. My opinion was, why would you do that? Because you're making it seem like there's something to hide. There's nothing to hide.
Brandon Straka (41:15):
And just, in my opinion, the best route is be transparent because I have no knowledge that will help them convict anybody in a crime. So they go through this list of names asking me these stupid questions, and I turned to my attorney after it was over and we were alone. And I said, well, that was weird. And he kind of laughed and he said, well, just be glad it was easy. And I was like, good point. Because I was kind of sweating it like, what's going to happen? But it was super easy. What I didn't know is that by answering all these questions, they document all this stuff and then, oops, they accidentally shared this sealed information with the media. And what the media does is publish this list of names and say, STR provided information on these people in order to obtain a plea deal.
Brandon Straka (41:56):
Now that created this narrative that I'd gone in and just threw all these people under the bus so I could get a plea deal when there was nothing to throw people under the bus about. And that was a huge lesson for me too, because thankfully, most of the people on that list reached out to me to offer some sort of word of support. I remember you texted me and you said, hang in there. And it was a really dark time in my life. I mean, it was horrible. I mean, it was so horrible for at least two weeks, every time I opened Twitter, and I'm sure some of it was bots and whatever, there were literally thousands of messages a day that just said, rat, rat, snitch, snitch, snitch, rat, rat, rat. You're a trader. You're done. You're over. MAGA hates you. And I was like, your brain can't even process
Jenny Beth Martin (42:41):
That
Brandon Straka (42:42):
Volume of hatred.
Jenny Beth Martin (42:43):
After January 6th, I had my email address. It's pretty well documented, so it's not hard to find my email address if you want to find it. And I was added to so much spam accounts everywhere, like stuff on the left, stuff on the right, corn stuff, all sorts of stuff. And I just had to go, okay, I'm either going to completely burn the email address so I can no longer get email and communicate with people or go in and create massive filters through Gmail to just filter out all but the things I want to see. But it was insane. I would open my inbox in my email and have 9,000 emails in a day because I had just, somebody must have written a program to add me to accounts everywhere, and Twitter was horrible. I had to go before the J six committee. They asked questions about people as well. I answered,
Brandon Straka (43:47):
Why not?
Jenny Beth Martin (43:48):
I didn't have anything
Brandon Straka (43:49):
To hide.
Jenny Beth Martin (43:50):
I didn't have anything to hide. And I think one of the biggest problems on January 6th is that the entire city of dc, the District of Columbia, was completely shut down. And the mayor shut down from the Washington Monument to the Capitol to shut down everything as if it were a parade route, even though there was no parading permit. So all the people walking, there was nothing to stop them. There were no cars traveling through the area. There was nothing to stop them. So there's just this crush of a million plus people. I think it was probably over 2 million headed towards one building, and they're all going to the same place. And then the businesses were shut down too because of Covid lockdown. So they didn't have anywhere else to go either. They couldn't naturally just peel away and go sit down in a restaurant. And I think that contributed to a lot of the problems because there's just a crush of people.
Brandon Straka (44:58):
Well, and I also think there are a variety of reasons why it happened from
Jenny Beth Martin (45:04):
Moving everyone from the east to the west. I mean, I could go through a list of logistically if things to never do, if you want to avoid this, then they did all the things you should never
Brandon Straka (45:15):
Do. Right. Well, and there wasn't a clear plan.
Jenny Beth Martin (45:17):
And by I just mean people in the government managing an expected crowd. And I've had a lot of permanent events on Capitol grounds. I know what they go through when they're looking at crowd sizes, and I don't understand why I've had to go through all those hoops answering all those questions, if that's the kind of response that they're going to give when there's a crowd. It's just bizarre.
Brandon Straka (45:41):
Well, and it's inexcusable because remember too that we had had two major events previous to that in November and December where huge crowds came to DC to protest the 2020 election where of course no violence took place. Well, Antifa showed up and started attacking people, and then interestingly, they just suddenly didn't show up on January 6th, which is peculiar. But I think people had conditioned in their heads what they were supposed to do. I mean, it was like, well, we're going to March. That's what we're doing. We're doing this, and then we're going to March and we're going to do that. And I think there wasn't clear information about what was supposed to happen, but I also think there were agitators there and there wasn't any National Guard and
Jenny Beth Martin (46:26):
And the event at the ellipse was well run. So there was just a breakdown. But the government wanted it to be chaotic. The employees wanted it to be chaotic because if they didn't want it to be chaotic, they could have been there making sure that it wasn't. And I had been there before. I told the J six committee the weekend that Obamacare passed, within less than four days, we had a crowd of over 50,000 people on the West Lawn. And then they stayed. They wouldn't leave. They wanted to stay overnight and be there the next day. And they gave me an instant permit and on Saturday and said, you've got the permit for Sunday. And they said, just wear that same sweater because it stands out in the crowd. So wear that same sweater again in Mars so we can find you. And you've got the permit, the crowd's listening to you, just make sure that you show up. And so I know they know how to handle a sudden crowd if they want to, if the will is there or if they are allowed to. And I don't know if the will wasn't there or they were not allowed to, or if they truly just misjudge the number of people who are going to show up or a combination of all of it.
Brandon Straka (47:48):
Well, and I can say too that for what I experienced being on the east side for that limited amount of time and that the doors were open and that people were pushing their way in, if anybody, it's hard to believe that the Capitol doesn't have a loudspeaker system that someone could have. Literally, if anyone had
Jenny Beth Martin (48:10):
Said that is the biggest problem that day, there was no sound system to help direct the crowd.
Brandon Straka (48:14):
If anybody had said, everyone, get out of here, you're going to get arrested. They would've left. They would have left. That's how Trump supporters are. I think the majority of people didn't understand that they were in a situation that was as serious as it later became, or would be treated as seriously as it became. And I think even if you look at where I was with the doors open and the people pushing in previous to that day, people who had entered the capitol who weren't supposed to got $50 citations for going in there, that's how that was treated. So even if you were someone who was like, I'm not supposed to be doing this, you didn't think that you were going to be considered to be part of an insurrection later and facing felony charges for an attempt to overthrow the government. I think people are like this cause is important to me, and if I get a citation and if they ask me to leave, I'll leave. I think that's how people felt, but obviously not what happened.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:11):
So you have been pardoned from that.
Brandon Straka (49:14):
That's right.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:14):
And you're able to speak out now fully and tell the truth, which is what you like to be able to do. And now we're headed into the rest of 20 25, 20 26. What are you working on? What is Walkaway doing?
Brandon Straka (49:26):
Yeah, so this year there's two really important governor's races in this country, Virginia and New Jersey. So what I've been asking people, I like to give people simple, attainable goals and things that they can embrace. So two just very simple things that I'm asking people to embrace in 20, well, actually from this point forward, let's say two things. One that every year is an election year. I'll explain that in a moment. And two, that every election is a national election. Here's what I mean. You're an activist, you've been involved, you live this life 365 days a year every year. So I don't need to explain it to you, but there are far too many people on the right who decide to get involved every two years or every four years for a few weeks before November. Not good enough, not good enough. We need to view every single year as just as important as those general election years or the midterm election years because it all matters.
Brandon Straka (50:23):
And the left is building and gaining their momentum. It's a 24 hour, 365 days a year machine that never stops. Our machine can't stop either. But when I say that every election needs to be viewed as a national election, I think that in 2020, we saw very clearly what it means when a few governors, Democrat governors, and a few blue states with the stroke of their pin changed by executive order, their voting laws, their election laws, which ended up contributing to costing us the 2020 election. Because that's first of all, not how you change election law, but also it was manipulated. And by that I mean because of Covid and everything, they manipulated a virus to change laws, which ended up contributing to us losing an election. So it matters very much who the governors are, who the state legislators are, who the Supreme Courts are in every state, not just the states that we live in.
Brandon Straka (51:15):
So people should care about the governor's race in Virginia, and they should care about the governor's race in New Jersey because these are two states that are on the brink of being flipped and are basically swing states at this point. If we all work together and work hard, we can make them red states and that's where they should be, and that's where they should stay. So Walkway is going to go into these two states and do what we do, which is talk to the black community, the Hispanic community, LGBT community. And we're also putting, interestingly, so we've been working with a lot of grassroots individuals and organizers in these two states to identify where should we be, who should be talking to and what's important. And we're hearing a lot that there is a large Muslim and Indian community in Virginia that has been voting Democrat basically since the Bush years, because a lot of them used to be Republicans were very turned off by Republican policies after nine 11 in the Bush years. But now they're finding themselves very alienated by woke indoctrination in schools and the education system, what their kids are being taught,
Jenny Beth Martin (52:25):
Because contrary to what they want their kids to be taught,
Brandon Straka (52:27):
A hundred percent, the problem is Republicans too often say this community is a lost cause, or that community is a lost cause. I don't believe any community is a lost cause. I think we just need to talk to them and try to find common ground once again. So we're going to be going into Virginia and talking to all different kinds of groups, but I'm going into April and I'm doing five events in one weekend, all for Muslims and for Indians and for Hispanics. So we're doing five events just that one weekend. But we're going to be spending a lot of time this year talking to a variety of different communities and in New Jersey spending a lot of time talking to the Hispanic communities. And I'm actually tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to be in New Jersey, three events with walkaway. One is with New Jersey Mayors. So we're doing a round table discussion with mayors in New Jersey, we're also getting together people in their twenties to have a conversation about what is worrying, and we need to be listening to these people because it's not like when you and I were in our twenties, you may still be in your twenties.
Brandon Straka (53:32):
I'm not still in my,
Jenny Beth Martin (53:33):
Definitely not in
Brandon Straka (53:33):
My twenties. Okay. Well, I think if you're a person in your twenties today, it's a very daunting thing to look at your future and say, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to own a home, or I don't know, will I be able to retire? Or what will that look like? It's scary. It's scary for us. It's extra scary for them. And so we want to hear what's concerning people in their twenties and what policies would change their mind and get them to consider walking away from what they've been supporting up until this time. And then we're also doing a discussion with moms in New Jersey, so we're going to be out there just busting our butts in those two states. And my heart is always with California too for some reason, so we'll be spending a lot of time in California this year as
Jenny Beth Martin (54:15):
Well. That's good. Well, the Californians will appreciate it. They always feel left out.
Brandon Straka (54:19):
Yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (54:19):
That's very good.
Brandon Straka (54:20):
Well, they do, and I also believe, I love a challenge, and I think there's so many great conservatives in California who know that they should leave, but they won't because they're like, I'm going to stay and fight for my state. And it's like, if you're going to stay and fight for your state, I want to help you. I like being alongside fighters.
Jenny Beth Martin (54:39):
Well, and the Democrats never give up on Texas, so why should we give up on California? Good
Brandon Straka (54:43):
Point. Yeah, that's a great point. I love that. And then in addition to that, we're just going to keep trying to reach people, encourage them to share their walkaway stories, share their walkaway videos as they always have. We went through hell after January 6th, our platform, which had grown to over half a million people and thousands and thousands of videos and shared stories. We were platformed in an instant by Facebook. But I will share with you and your audience something that most people don't know, and I said a little bit in your panel yesterday, we're getting some help with the attorney general in my state, and they're in communication with Facebook right now. I can't say as much as I would like to say, but I will say they're having very serious conversations with us about a settlement, and part of that settlement is that I'm demanding the reinstatement of my group and all of that content that was lost. They're researching to see if that's feasible, but if it is, I think that there's a strong chance we may be
Jenny Beth Martin (55:47):
Reinstated. Very good. Yeah, that would be amazing.
Brandon Straka (55:49):
Yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (55:50):
That would be really amazing.
Brandon Straka (55:52):
Yeah.
Jenny Beth Martin (55:52):
Well, Brandon, how can people get involved? Where can they find you?
Brandon Straka (55:55):
I highly encourage people to go to walkaway campaign.com. They can check out who we are and see more about our movement if they're so willing. There's five steps that I know, I might as well be asking 'em to build a bridge, but they're easy steps. They're easy steps. If people go to walkaway campaign.com/nextt, we have five steps that we ask people to take. Sign up for our email list, sign up for our texting list, join our Facebook group, join our app. And if they feel so to donate to the cause. I know that people don't like to take that many steps, but here's the thing. We are still, even in this new era of Trump, which thank God we're still living in a time where big tech is not on our side all too easily. You can build something amazing and boom, they turn the lights out on you. We need to have as many means to communicate as possible. Yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (56:43):
It's really important that people sign up and they do your email and phone and hopefully zip code so that you can get in touch with 'em and you know where they are. Absolutely. Yeah. It's extremely important, and we do everything we can to get that information. And you're right, it's a big leap, but you're only asking for it so you can communicate. It takes two minutes ate, and if big tech censors you,
Brandon Straka (57:03):
Yeah, it takes two minutes to do those things. And I wish I had taken it more seriously before January 6th because as my Facebook group was growing and growing and growing and growing, always every day we would say one day they might de platform us, but it never felt real. It felt like it could happen, but it probably won't happen to us. And then it did. And when it did, it was like, man, we didn't have backups of all those videos. I mean, we had maybe a thousand backed up, but I mean, we lost thousands of videos. We didn't have email addresses for 75, 80% of the people that had joined the movement and stuff. So our email list was a fraction of what the actual group was. And so in many ways, we're starting over again from scratch. So it's just good to have all of that data.
Jenny Beth Martin (57:49):
Very good. Well, I'm glad you're collecting it now. Walkaway campaign.com.
Brandon Straka (57:52):
Yeah. Slash next slash next to take
Jenny Beth Martin (57:55):
The walkaway campaign.com/next. Brandon, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you.
Narrator (58:00):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (58:20):
If you like this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know, every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow, and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.