Richie McGinniss was 13 minutes behind Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha when the shots went off. He tried to save Joseph Rosenbaum’s life on the way to the hospital. He was at January 6th, hearing pistols cocked on the other side of the House chamber doors. He published a book called Riot Diet about all of it. And now the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled him a “Christian supremacist.”
In this full episode of Disturbing the Peace, John sits down with two guests for a wide-ranging conversation about what’s actually happening in America right now.
First, conservative commentator and grassroots strategist Tony Ortiz joins to break down Pride Month in the Hispanic community, New York Mayor Mom Donny’s $15 million pledge to gender-affirming care, Pixar’s introduction of the “Pride Boots” character, what parents are finally doing at school board meetings, the Karmelo Anthony verdict and his family’s GoFundMe and gated-community grift, the Dominique Alexander campaign trying to capitalize on the moment, and the viral clip of a Black father with five sons asking “what do you want us to do?”
Then journalist and documentary filmmaker Richie McGinniss — founder of Pigeon Press, author of Riot Diet, eyewitness to some of the most consequential moments of the last six years — sits down to walk through his journey from Georgetown Arabic studies to MSNBC to conservative media to Christian conversion. He shares the moment that changed everything: watching his father pass away peacefully in 2017, then watching Joseph Rosenbaum die violently in front of him in 2020. Richie says he saw his father go “up” and Rosenbaum go “down” — and that experience drew him to Christ.
They go through the explosive recent SPLC congressional hearing, where the president of the organization was unable to name a single Islamic hate group on their map, was unable to defend the labeling of pro-lifers as “white supremacists,” and could not answer Representative Gill’s pointed question: “How many Black babies are aborted in the United States?” The answer — 40 percent — is the kind of fact the SPLC won’t engage with.
