BEYOND THE NORM WITH STORMY DANIELS

My next on guest on Beyond the Norm is famed cult de-programmer Dr. Steven Hassan. He has spent the past 45 years rescuing people from the clutches of some of this nation's most notorious cults and has of late found himself rescuing those afflicted with Trumpism and its various offshoots from QAnon to various extremist groups. A mental health counselor, Hassan flies around the country to hold interventions with cult victims, enabling them to take back their minds and lives. In 2019, Hassan published The Cult of Trump, a book that laid out what he sees as the former president's cult-leader tendencies and offered advice for the families of Trump extremists. Hassan joins me today as Trump continues to leverage his stranglehold over the GOP for domination while pressuring those who will not bow to his presence to leave the party. This interview is a long time coming and will answer many of your most burning questions of how it's possible for someone to lose their mind to Donald Trump.

My next guest is Dave Schrader who has spent most of his life immersed in the paranormal. He is an experienced paranormal investigator and host of the popular paranormal podcast, The Paranormal 60 with Dave Schrader. You can also see Dave on Travel Channel & Discovery t's hit TV series, The Holzer Files and Ghosts of Devil's Perch. You may also recognize Dave from his appearances on Paranormal State, Ghost Adventures, Ghost Adventures Screaming Room, Paranormal Challenge, Haunted Hospitals, Fright Club and in the ShockDocs; The Curse of Lizzie Borden & Demon in the White House. From an early age, Dave has been surrounded by the strange and anomalous, from haunted homes to creature sightings, UFO encounters and more. Never a casual observer, Dave pushes claims of the paranormal to the limits by investigating them himself and visiting some of the most active and haunted locations in the world.

Stormy discusses the hypocrisy of the American Justice system and how she can be the star witness for the prosecution of Donald J. Trump in NY DA Alvin Bragg's “Hush Money Case,” but her own lawsuit against the former president can be thrown out of court. “They made a moral judgment,” she says. “Because I'm a porn star I don't deserve the same protection under the law.” But Stormy refuses to give up. “I'm a pain in the ass,” she says. Later, Stormy welcomes Kris Goldsmith to the show. The founder of Task Force Butler, Goldsmith is an Iraq veteran who has dedicated his life to hunting NEO NAZIS and helping veterans escape the grasp of right-wing extremism.  Its end result, for Goldsmith, of a hard-lived life. Entering the Army as a teenager, he'd quickly risen to the rank of sergeant. But the horrors of the Iraq War left him with crippling, undiagnosed PTSD. A suicide attempt on the eve of being re-deployed in 2007 got Goldsmith booted from the service with a less-than-honorable discharge. Stripped of his rank, community, and G.I. Bill benefits, Goldsmith entered a dark spiral, which included sinking down rabbit holes of online extremism. With his one remaining lifeline — healthcare through the V.A. — Goldsmith clawed his way back to the surface. He became a veterans advocate, earned a degree from Columbia, and (four appeals later) finally got an upgrade to an honorable discharge. Along the way, helped secure congressional reforms in 2017 that enabled thousands of other vets to get medical help and challenge their own “bad paper.”  During the Trump years, Goldsmith worked as chief investigator for Vietnam Veterans of America where he exposed a sophisticated Russian op that targeted U.S. veterans on Facebook to sow racial and political division. For Goldsmith, that open-source intelligence expertise soon gave him a leg up in exposing domestic threats, including fascist groups targeting American youth like Patriot Front. In the aftermath of the insurrection of Jan. 6, Goldsmith saw a need to give patriotic veterans a positive mission — uncovering extremists and insurrectionists in our midst. Task Force Butler's work centers on exposing the inner workings and public wrongdoing of neo-nazi groups through deep-dive intelligence reports that can give prosecutors the evidence they need to go after the hatemongers in court.  The work takes a toll. Goldsmith has been sued, and doxxed by white supremacists. But he refuses to give up.