Catholic Group Fights for Pro-Trump Billboards

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want to welcome John Yep to the program. John

(00:02):
the CEO of Catholics for Catholics, and this is an
organization which is not an official part of the Roman
Catholic Church, but is made up of individual faithful Catholics.
And they put up some billboards pro Trump billboards. They
had a deal with Lamar Advertising, one of the biggest

(00:26):
billboard companies in the country, to put these billboards up,
and then it went sideways. John, good morning, It's good
to have you with us. Tell us in the background
what happened here?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We did. We had a deal with Lamar, one of
the biggest biller companies in the country. This was part
of our overall billboard campaign that we were doing, which
started really when President Trump had the crazy idea to
say he was going to go back to Butler after
the first assassination attempt and which he's going to be
doing this Saturday. And us as Catholics, you know, we

(00:59):
have a devotion to this Michael from the scriptures, and we
realized we got to get this got some protection really
because he's up against the lot right to both physical
and spiritual evils. So we planted the billboards right there
in Butler so that he would welcome him on his return.
The idea spread like wildfire, and lo and behold, a
few weeks later we had like thirty two up and

(01:19):
across Swing States. Now, one of our contracts was with
Lamar and it was in Wisconsin, and contract was actually approved,
and I guess must have been seen by some upper
level staff. They saw it. They came back, tore up
the contract said Nope, you can't do it. We asked why.
Their exact reasoning was because, quote, this amounts to a

(01:41):
Catholic endorsement of Trump. Obviously that had us like up
in arms, like what are you talking about? So what's
wrong with that? And you know, they do have a
clause in their contract which allows them to nix the
contract if get this it does not meet the community
standards of that local community.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
In other words, they were saying that the local Catholic
community or whatever the community there in Milwaukee would would
be against having this catholicip war Trump, which.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Is insane, no doubt. And what's interesting, uh, And I
gathered from the article about it, John, that the folks
that you dealt with initially were basically making a deal.
And they said fine, and then it got up, it
got up into the C suite, and that's when they decided,
now we can't be doing this. So maybe so maybe

(02:32):
this is so what is as a woke company at
the top Lamar and I think.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
We just potentially suppose that, Look, they're a private company,
we're not necessarily arguing their their right to cancel a contract.
To some degree. However, people got to know. I mean,
if this is your one of your large spilbre companies
in the world, this is the way upper staff thinks.
It's just one more a major, big tech organization which

(03:00):
doesn't think like most of America, and we have to
shift our dollars and uh elsewhere and choose other other companies.
So you know, it was exposed. Now here's the clincher.
On the on the very billboard that we had a
contract with they had sent the current advertiser on that
that they were dealing with. Well, guess book, guess who

(03:20):
was they were renting it out the Democrat National Party. WHOA.
So on one side you're taking dollars from the Democrats, okay,
and then the other side you're rejecting you know, pro
pro Trump messages. So it was it was very earthshocking
and revealing in many ways.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
There was another billboard provider who, after a long relationship,
decided that they would not refuse that they would refuse
to run pro life billboards in Minnesota. We just won't
run them, we won't carry them. So, in other words,
we're not in the We're not in the business of
selling advertising. We're in the business of indoctrination to one

(04:00):
degree or another, if it's anything other than a commercial product.
I want to be clear too, John, are you guys
are not a branch of the Catholic Church itself right now?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
We're not a branch British group of Catholics who you know,
we get behind Catholics or other people who love America
because we see honestly that there's a silence from areas
of leadership that we would traditionally expect it to be.
I mean, we're up against the most anti American, anti
God regime in the United States history, and it's it's

(04:32):
not normal to have this kind of silence coming from church,
pulpits or other areas. And we realize, we're only two
years old, that we got to speak up because what
what the Democrats that put up there as a platform,
Tim Waltz, Kamala Harris, that's no bueno. And if we don't,
we're going to lose this country. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
What did the billboards say? They had the Archangel Michael's
prayer on it? Is that right?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah? We two pictures Saint Michael overlooking that famous image
of President Trump when he was shot. And the words
we had on there were for the words from the
traditional prayer which Catholics have prayed for hundreds of years.
It said defend us in battle. That's it. That's it,
That's what they wanted it.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Next, Well, I appreciate you joining us getting the word
out on this. People need to know. That's John Yep,
CEO Catholics for Catholics won't be putting matt billboard up.
And one of them, as John said, was in Milwaukee,
which is a huge Catholic city and it's a swing
state with some very very tightly contested counties