Oh, wow.

It, yeah, it's...

Now, it's scalable.

Uh, if we had a larger piece of property, we could have done more homes.

Probably not all at once just because of the workload, uh, that it took.

Um, but I know our s- our, our schools would like to continue with something like this in some manner, and it's just a matter of finding another piece of property.

And then also, uh, we were very fortunate because th- this piece of property is adjacent to an apartment complex that the VA manages.

Yeah.

How much of it did you feel standing in the middle of the ring or when you got real close to it?

Yeah.

If you were in the middle of the ring, it wasn't bad, but the closer you got to the flames, the worse that it would get.

It was hard to do false finishes in the match because for that particular match, you won by setting your opponent on fire and you couldn't get too close to the flames because they really were hot.

And then anytime someone would take a bump.

they would time the flames to shoot up when the impact of the match.

But if you think about that match, man, it's one of those where professional wrestling, I remember Chris Jericho had called WWE like the boot camp of entertainment because we had to do so many different things.

talking about the elimination chamber?

Talk to my audience about what that issue is.

It's flat cameras, also known as automated license plate readers.

The flat cameras are a little different than what people might think of when They think of license plate readers.

They're very high tech.

They use AI to not only identify license plates, but also to identify distinguishing features of vehicles, as well as then the information is kept sometimes for up to a month in a searchable database.

And the big issue when it comes to privacy is the fact that when these are deployed in large numbers, The authorities can literally say, okay, this car passes camera at this time, passes camera at this time, passes camera at this time.

In fact, we've already seen that happen.

What prompted you personally to get so enthusiastic about fighting these?

So

I agree with you.

And I often say that, uh, you hear politicians talking about creating jobs and government doesn't create jobs.

The private sector does that.

But what government can do is government can, uh, help nurture an environment where that's possible, uh, and conducive.

And, uh, that is very important.

And, and you can see that, uh, look at what, again, going back to Governor Haslam and what's happened here in Tennessee.

Does that make sense?

yeah

that uh are there to, to talk about, uh, talk about issues, uh, and do so in a manner that's, that is, you know, we're all, I find that people really, for the most part, there are some that's not true, but for the most part, that's what we all want.

Right.

I mean, uh, traveling around the world, I saw that you have different cultures, but what people really want is exactly you said they, they want They want the ability to improve their lives economically, the ability for their kids to have a better life than they had.

That, to me, is what America is.

And sometimes we look at it and we look at the means to getting to the end maybe differently.

But I think in many cases that is the end that many of us want.

How's the

Why?

Well, Peter, first of all, thanks for having me on.

As you said, these are not your typical or conventional license plate readers.

They're a lot more than that.

This debate is framed about law enforcement and public safety versus privacy.

Really, I want law enforcement to have all the tools that they need at the same time those tools have to be constitutional and they have to be safe.

I'm sure you all saw a story just two days ago where a lady in Wisconsin was boxed in by police.

What have the police in your county told you about wanting to have tools to solve crimes like that?

So how is this any different than kind of a Chinese surveillance system?

That's a, that's a great point.

Uh, and what the flock cameras do is they're an active surveillance system.

They're called automated license plate readers, but they do a lot more than that.

License plate reader, when your car goes by, and it's, it's stolen vehicle or AMBER Alert or Silver Alert or whatever, you know, the... drives by a camera, sees this license plate, gets a hit.

The police know it drove by that camera.

They can go.

So, so ancient times in technology terms

And you don't get enough credit for some of the, uh, the things you have done.

Yeah.

Thank- thanks for saying that.

Um, actually, uh, that was, uh, in, in cooperation, uh, with the sheriff.

I don't really have the authority in that case, uh, to pause the deal.

Uh, the sheriff agreed to do that, and, uh, appreciate him and his, uh, dialogue in this situation.

Um, I'm not a fan of the flock cameras.

Yeah, just a scoche.

How much does this affect you in terms of, um, how the elections go?

Yeah, it has a huge effect.

Counties are political subdivisions of the state of Tennessee, so whoever's governor has a big effect on us.

I am supporting Marsha Blackburn.

I'm very active in her campaign.

I've been traveling with her this week.

Tomorrow we will literally cover the entire state.

Yeah.

What are they?

Well, when you look at flock cameras...

They vary quite a bit from earlier license plate readers, okay? That's what they are.

They take a picture of your car when it drives by.

But the old license plate readers just took a picture of your license plate and then it was retained for a short period of time.

That's pretty much it.

These new cameras not only take a picture of your license plate, they take a picture of your entire car, and then they catalog distinguishing features, they call it the car's fingerprint, from make, model, color, even bumper stickers.

what do you want

What are they?

Well, when you look at flock cameras...

They vary quite a bit from earlier license plate readers, okay? That's what they are.

They take a picture of your car when it drives by.

But the old license plate readers just took a picture of your license plate, and then it was retained for a short period of time.

That's pretty much it.

These new cameras not only take a picture of your license plate, but they take a picture of your entire car.

What do you want?

[laughs]

And I'm...

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I'm looking at it, man, this individual in this business that I am trying to, you know, like you said, to break into the big leagues, and I'm sitting at him, and I just have, I guess I'm blank faced.

I'm not, trying not to react.

And then he looks at me like, "Think you'll be great for it." And then he walks out.

And I'm sitting there, man, and I went from like on top of the world to feeling like the world had just fallen on top of me.

But how did that relationship, I know he'd already taken you under his wing, but then all of a sudden you guys got to become pretty close because you're dancing together damn near every night of the week and drawing big money.

Uh-huh.

Hurt my knee very badly.

That was pretty much the end of that.

Then I just kinda fell into professional wrestling.

It was something that I was naturally good at.

Worked hard, and m- my life has been incredible.

I've traveled the world, provided my family with a life that I wouldn't have thought possible.

Yeah.

So tell us about how the coronavirus played in your role as Knox County mayor.

Yeah, so I actually heard about the coronavirus, the SARS-CoV-2, for the first time in December of, I guess, 2019, when we're starting to hear these stories about a novel virus in China.

And China is doing all these different things.

And so I'm talking with our public health people, and they're like, It'll be like bird flu, probably six months, and it'll be a pain.

And then what was funny was someone told me that the WHO, the World Health Organization, was taking a lot of flack because they were praising the Chinese for basically locking down their society.

Verbatim quote.

but we can't do that here because we're not communists.

How did you stand up with the power of the pen?

Sponsored by Chumba Casino.

Casino.I will never fight my own flesh and blood.

I will never fight Kane.

Do you remember, the deal that night was I was supposed to slap you upside the head? [gentle music] Okay, I was just gonna go out, Paul Bearer does his thing, and then I slap The Undertaker.

And I'm like, "Man, there ain't no way I'm going out there.

I'm telling you." I slap The Undertaker.

Okay, so do you remember? And then I ask you in the locker room, I was like, "Man, I need you to slap me, 'cause I can't go out there and slap you."

Kane is no doubt a living, breathing monster.

A trade

...

in the skilled trades.

Yeah, construction, you know.

So what, so what Hero- Operation Heroes Hill will do is it's gonna create a community of 20 tiny homes for veterans who are having a hard time finding housing, as well as the wraparound services.

It'll actually, the VA, in the end, will actually manage the facility.

One of the things that's really cool about it, though, is these homes are being built at our high schools.

Yes.

You can charge more, so you do.

Well yeah, and they're, but they're coming from these blue areas and they're coming in and they're just willing to pay more, we just have more competition for, you know, uh, a supply that hasn't grown as quickly as we would've liked it to.

But what we're trying to do is we're trying to address that, uh, through our zoning regulations and our codes, uh, so that we can make it easier and less expensive to build housing.

Uh, you look at what happened with the fires out in California, you know, those houses are never gonna be rebuilt because it's gonna take so long and be so expensive in places like, uh, Pacific Palisades to do that.

So yes, the, uh, the local, uh, local elected officials have massive impact on things like housing prices.

But again, they'll turn around and just say, "Oh, it's all Trump's fault."

Does it worry you about the Republican Party?

Obviously y- you would like to see unity all across the board.

Let me put my headphones back on.

We have people, you know, who you admire, Elvis, Jim Morrison, you know, [laughs] James Dean, which were all the idols in my life and, and there's something common about the way they all lived their life or whatever.

They were all very rebellious, reckless kind of people.

And it's been glorified a little bit, and maybe it's not right, but the world is full of those kind of people, and I'm one of those people.

Where Shawn Michaels and I are today and where we were at back then on a personal level are [laughs] it's taken a complete 360.

And if Shawn Michaels back then was on fire, I probably wouldn't piss on him to put him out.

It's not like there was a bunch of animosity, it's just we were just two very different personalities.

You know, the backstory and everything that we would eventually find out as we, as we went through all this, I was happy for Kane to, to get that opportunity.

(laughs) You-

I, I, I feel- I, I, I, I feel the reward of being able to do hopefully constructive things in our community.

At the same time, you know, I'm, I'm actually an introvert.

So a lot of these things are kind of- they're, they're- They take a lot of energy from me to do, um, and I'm also (laughs), as weird as this sounds, I'm not a very confrontational person either.

I have to really, you know, I have to get out there and do those things.

Um, but in the end, yes, the service, especially where our country is, and, you know, you're looking at what's happening here in the New York City mayoral race and some of these other things, um, you know, good people have to step up.

Uh, 'cause if, if they don't, I think that our country is really at a- at a tipping point.

So when you talk to Democrats, how many people feel like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Mondale as opposed to the Manchins and the Fetterman's?

Yeah

... before cell phones.

Limo driver drove two hours the wrong way.

So then we have to call the office and say, "Hey, we're wherever the heck we are," you know, and, "Well, you guys gotta get to Fayetteville because, you know, we've been advertised." And so we end up getting to Fayetteville, and I was supposed to be on first, and they're holding the show.

So I get there, I literally get dressed in the limo, run out, meet Leon at the locker room.

We fight out to the ring, you know, fight at, fight in the ring for 30 seconds, roll back out, fight to the back.

I jump back in the car, drive back to Greensboro, get there, and they cancel the rehearsal.

What were you feeling?

Right.

... like we're seeing with, um...

And, and we're both fathers, and we've both been very outspoken that we don't wanna see boys in, in women's sports, and we've seen the change in society, where now Americans across the board are now saying, "Yeah, we all agree." It's even a dead issue at this point.

But you just don't see from the likes of a Tim Walz and them to even acknowledge, uh, what is going on in this country without making it political.

Like, I think what we've seen with the border, uh, is another example, where our border is safer than it has ever been.

We've seen fentanyl, uh, deaths and the murder rate drop significantly as a result of the border being closed, and yet they're still saying that President Trump is an existential threat.

Like, I, I just...

Right.

So what do you have in Knox County?

So, uh, it's actually right outside Knox County, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

It's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is really the home of nuclear energy, uh, and a world leader.

And we, we just, uh, landed the first uranium enrichment facility being built in the US in, like, 20 years.

It's a $6 billion project, largest in the state, uh, economic development project in the state's history.

And we believe that's gonna be an anchor for more and more of the nuclear sector coming to Tennessee.

And if we can become a leader in that, uh, that, that's just a huge deal.

Here we're going.

Well, I'll tell you what, um, when you just heard what Bill Maher said about big crowds and AOC and, uh, and Bernie Sanders, do you think that that means America wants to go socialist? Do you think they're getting the wrong message from that?

No, I, I, I don't think so at all.

Uh, those crowds actually pale in comparison to what Donald Trump pulls when he goes different places [laughs].

And they also have to wonder, how well these people actually bust in because it certainly seems anytime the Democrats do things, uh, that that's one of their strategies.

So definitely, you know, uh, our country is growing apart.

We can see that, uh, you know, with all the di- division and divisiveness going on.

At the same time, I think that, uh, you know, you talk about big crowds, but it's also people being, uh, invested and feeling that they have a connection.

And- and I always admired that a lot about him.

Yeah.

...

he is a masculine dude.

And they have confused style with substance.

They think that just going out and saying those things and acting that way and trying to be tough and trying to be hip by dropping cuss words in formal settings, that's a, you know, that, that makes them have th- they go, go, go, right? It's almost like if someone were to put on a silver and black jersey and say, "Hey, look at me.

I'm the Oakland Raiders," or I guess the Vegas Raiders now.

No.

But second of all, yes, you, you, you don't portray that.

Yeah.

...

he is a masculine dude.

And they have confused style with substance.

They think that just going out and saying those things and acting that way and trying to be tough and trying to be hip by dropping cuss words in formal settings, that's a, you know, that, that makes them have th- that go, go, go, right? It's almost like if someone were to put on a silver and black jersey and say, "Hey, look at me.

I'm the Oakland Raiders," I guess the Vegas Raiders now.

No.

But second of all, yes, you, you, you don't portray that.