NPA Podcast with Guest Michael A. Letts, Founder of InVest USA, providing police bullet-proof vests
Hi. This is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith with the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association Podcast. I have a guest today. His resume is about six feet long, and it's pretty extraordinary. We're gonna try and touch on as many things as we can.
Betsy Smith:But first and foremost, of course, we're gonna talk about his experience in law enforcement, but he is so much more than that. Welcome, the founder and president of InVest USA, Michael Letts. Welcome to the show.
Michael Letts:Well, Betsy, it's always a privilege to be with you. Thank you for what you're doing. Our cops more than ever now need the support, and we thank you for it.
Betsy Smith:Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So speaking of that, before we get into anything else, because you're you're an army vet. You're a chaplain.
Betsy Smith:You're a pastor. You're you're so much more. But let's talk about why'd you become a cop?
Michael Letts:Well, I would say it's a funny story, to be honest with you, Betsy. I would say graduate graduated from Liberty University. That's Jerry Falwell, if you recall. Of course, he's deceased now. I actually call him doc.
Michael Letts:I was captain of the weightlifting team. I was a national weightlifting competitor. And as such, I was the ex official of his bodyguard. And so we went all over the country. But you remember the time he was close associates with Ronald Reagan.
Michael Letts:So we were in and out of the White House continuously, and I actually did work with the Secret Service at the same time. And when we left there, I came back to home, which is Columbia, South Carolina. I have a family trust. I'll begin to help the family. And also had my degree in ministry, and so I served as an associate pastor helping a small church.
Michael Letts:Kids were involved with drugs. And so I called sheriff. Said, what are gonna do about it? Because my family had been politically involved for decades. And he said, well, maybe what are we gonna do about it?
Michael Letts:What are you gonna do about it? I said, well, I'm not the cop. You are. He said, we'll fix that real quick. So, in South Carolina, we have state constables appointed to special, orders by the governor.
Michael Letts:Governor was a good friend of mine, Dick Riley. And Dick said, here's your credentials. Now go solve the problem. I haven't been able to find an exit strategy ever since, to be honest with you, Betsy. That was still over thirty two years ago.
Betsy Smith:That is so fantastic. And and, you know, when you when you talk about the Reagan era and and what you know, that's when I was a baby cop and and what we were dealing with then, you know, the war on drugs and and all of that. That really did shape a lot of us. It shaped a lot of policy. And yet here we are, just as an aside, right, still fighting the war on drugs just on on, kind of on a different, on a different, level.
Michael Letts:I think what we've done, Betsy, is we've taken the war on drugs where it needed to go, and that's where it's origination points, cartels, etcetera. That's what's
Betsy Smith:made a difference. Absolutely. I'm sitting here 80 miles from the southern border in Arizona. And, you know, I think that's one of the things that I don't think Americans realize although I think they're starting to based on, what's been happening in the last few weeks. They're starting to really understand the reach and the power that the Mexican drug cartels have that and it's not just Mexico, and it's not just The United States.
Betsy Smith:And they do operate in all 50 states, but they operate, in about 60 different countries. And, and so when we're fighting that war on drugs that we have been fighting for decades and decades, You know, the the reach internationally is extraordinary. And, unfortunately, here in The United States, we do have a population that has an appetite for those drugs.
Michael Letts:No question. I grew up in Mexico. My parents were missionaries. Grew up in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Tilapia. In fact, grew up with the Mexican cartels.
Michael Letts:We played in the streets together, for goodness sake, Minchow and others. And so I know exactly what they they operate, how versed they are, what they control and don't. And if America really understood, you know, they are a fine tuned business organization. They run this as one of the most finely run corporations in the world, and they know exactly who to pay, what to do. And, of course, we've decided that we're gonna take the fight to them, have closed off the borders.
Michael Letts:We're costing them, Betsy, almost a $100,000,000,000 a year. And nobody likes to lose a 100,000,000,000 on their bottom line, and so that's why they're fighting back as hard as they are.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. That that is such a great point. So you get involved in law enforcement, and you're you're at that time, you're an associate pastor. Now you're you're a you're a head pastor, I guess, would we call you?
Michael Letts:Well, the interesting thing, my father is is a minister. You know? I mean, of course, he's got his doctorate. And, when he completed his doctorate degree, he was an associate pastor. I was a youth pastor.
Michael Letts:It was all in the same church. Dad said, you know, what else should I do? I said, well, dad, you're still young. He was in his sixties. I said, let's just go start a church.
Michael Letts:If you if you want, I'll help you. And we've started two or three of them since then with schools and the whole nine yards, and I've always been the executive pastor from that point
Betsy Smith:I love it. So you took that, and you did you create a chaplaincy program? Or, you know, because and the reason I ask is this was one of the programs that I ran in my own police agency was our police chaplain program. And, you know, as a as a Christian, I knew the importance of bringing chaplains to cops because, you know, a, cops tend to work on Sundays. And and and cops very often, even when we're raised in a church, we become a police officer, and we kinda get away from it.
Betsy Smith:We get cynical. Sometimes we even get angry at God because we see so many horrible things that happen, and we wonder why why God is all all this happening. Talk about your chaplaincy.
Michael Letts:Well, I would tell you this. We I mentioned to you when I first got involved with law enforcement from a standpoint of dealing with the drug problem that we have with our youth group. And then as I begin to get further and further involved, I begin to realize not only are we attempting to provide justice and make sure we keep prime in check, But the toll it's taking on our law enforcement officers, as you alluded to, you see the worst of the worst twenty four seven. You don't get a break. Not only do you not get a break, you know, Betsy, it's horrible nowadays.
Michael Letts:They don't appreciate what we do. I mean, you get the scorn besides having to put up with everything. What people don't understand is, look, cops are human. That means we experience emotions. We experience frustrations.
Michael Letts:We experience difficulties with our own personal lives. And who do we get to turn to? And so you begin to see that comes out in your performance. It really does. It becomes, you know, evident as to how you're doing your job as a cop.
Michael Letts:And so, really, chaplaincy is a critical component of law enforcement. But you'll notice that's kind of a mixed bag I'm talking about on a national level. Some agencies have chaplains. Some let you create a chaplaincy program. Some actually discourage shockingly, some actually do.
Michael Letts:And so I began to see, look. I will continue to do the law enforcement aspect, but even the bigger need is to make sure we're taking care of our own, which is, of course, one of the reasons why we started InVest to make sure they had the, bulletproof vests and the protection they needed to be able to come home safely to their families. But if you don't take care of your own, Betsy, what do you think you're gonna get? And this is what affects our safety and the future of our children and our grandchildren. You know, if we don't take care of this now, what are we gonna leave as a legacy for the next generation?
Michael Letts:We won't have one. That's why I'm trying to make sure America understands that I realize the mainstream me wants you to think that cops are bad or orgs or, you know, I mean, they're racist or sexist, etcetera, etcetera. But the truth of the matter is they have an agenda behind it. And what is the agenda? When you take a look at what's going on nationally, Betsy, look at the fraud that we're encountering in this country.
Michael Letts:Look at what's going on in Minnesota. Remember, that's just one state. That's just the tip of the iceberg. We're talking about billions of dollars. And what happens with these billions of dollars?
Michael Letts:Well, even the mainstream media is getting paid off. They're getting that money. And this is not my opinion. We have the documentation. We can prove it exactly how much.
Michael Letts:Nobody wants you to take away their money. That's I mean, that's just that's just human nature. Whether I'm stealing it or not, I wanna keep it. I wanna keep it going. And so they view law enforcement as they should as a threat because once we begin to investigate and begin to expose what's going on, that's all gonna come to an end.
Michael Letts:So that's why they're so diligent and desperate to join the leftist liberals to achieve the objective of getting them back in power so they can squelch all these investigations, squelch all these stories that you're doing, Betsy, as well, you know, about, you know, what's really going on, in America. And they can continue to rake in the dough, steal it from you and I till they drive this country bankrupt Once it collapses, then they'll figure out where they're gonna go from there.
Betsy Smith:That is so well said. And and do you see this this current war on ICE agents as a continuation of of the the media and the far left war on cops from from, really, from 2014 and then from 2020 on?
Michael Letts:There's no question, Betsy. And here's how you you frame what you just said. They're so desperate to get back in power, and they've gotta keep law enforcement portrayed as a bad or or they're part of the problem. Because that way, when the investigations start moving forward and the information comes out, they can always say, well, you don't trust those cops anyway. Have you been listening to all the stories on mainstream media?
Michael Letts:So they're trying to make this betrayal. What they're doing is to show you how skewed they are and how they've lost total common sense. They now wanna block funding. They're saying I'm blocking it for ICE because we don't like ICE. They're not blocking it for ICE.
Michael Letts:ICE got funded on the big beautiful bill. Who are they blocking? They're blocking border patrol. They're blocking the coast guard. All the key components that bring in the drugs and the human sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, etcetera, they're putting that at risk.
Michael Letts:They're opening that venue back up again. That just shows you how much they don't care about you and I as Americans. They don't care about the fact of us being safe. They care about one thing. That's keeping their objective.
Michael Letts:Their objective is that we need to be back in power so we can keep this cash flow going of stealing money from the US treasury, make bettering ourselves, being in a position that we could tell you what to do. You don't have any choice about it. That's what they're worried about. They don't care about you and I.
Betsy Smith:You know, when Barack Obama was president, he started something called twenty first century policing. And and really what it was was it was the government's attack on the American law enforcement officer. And in that twenty first century report, one of the things that he talked about, and I was really struck by this when I read it, where he was talking about transgender people and how American law enforcement officers were mistreating them. And I was pretty stunned to read this because I just I you know? And and, again, you know, back in the day, you know, you're same thing.
Betsy Smith:You know, we didn't even use that term transgender. We had people that were cross dressers. We had people that were transvestites, and then there was gender dysphoria that really law enforcement officers rarely dealt with. So you look at that, and now you fast forward to transgender is is really part of our national political arguments, part of our vernacular. And and yet in the last several years, we have had multiple transgender or nonbinary, people involved in violence, mass shootings, things like that.
Betsy Smith:Talk about some of your thoughts and your research on that.
Michael Letts:Well, let's take a look at where we're at as of today, Betsy. Just in the last twelve months, I can't even keep track as to how many active shooter situations we've had, school situations, mall situations. When you go back, statistics show roughly 80% of those that were involved were transgender. Oh, you said, wow. I didn't realize the statistic was that high.
Michael Letts:How did it get to that point? Well, you know, when you talk about the days that you and I are involved here, Betsy, crossdressers and all, that was just it was an appearance thing. Okay? But it wasn't a medical issue. The medic medicinal field, drug companies decided to get involved, and they make big money off of the drugs that they provide to help transition.
Michael Letts:Why is that statement so important? What do they provide to help transition? Hormone therapy. Well, I I've used this illustration. Fox always gets upset with me when we do on national TV, but it's something everybody can relate to.
Michael Letts:For the guys that are listening to me right now, we all understand there's a time during the month that you better just go ahead early and come back late. Okay? Or make sure you could duck fast. But I'm not just picking on the on the on the ladies. Let's talk about from the guy's standpoint.
Michael Letts:Remember I told you I was a national weightlifting champion. So I've been around those that use drugs, steroids. It's called roid rage. Okay?
Betsy Smith:Mhmm.
Michael Letts:When you get that kind of hormonal additional or playing with the hormones, you're all over the board, Betsy. See. Now take that back to what we're talking about with transgenders. What do you expect when you're giving these people all these hormones? How do you think they're gonna react?
Michael Letts:You don't know whether they're gonna be smiling at one at you one minute and pulling out a gun the next. And then when they do follow through with what the medication actually helps them to do, which is to lose their lose their mind, we sit back and say, gee. How did that happen? What's wrong with them? But nobody wants to talk about it publicly, Betsy.
Michael Letts:And the reason why is because the pharmaceutical companies, sir, golden calf. They're making a ton of money off the drugs. Pharmaceutical companies, if you'll sit down and watch TV anytime, 50% of the ads are all drug ads. Pharmaceutical companies spend the majority on the media. Nobody wants to touch the golden calf that spends the money, so we just ignore the problem.
Michael Letts:And we sit back and bemoan the fact, I wonder why they're killing people. It's not hard to figure it out. That's if you just follow the logic and follow where the money's at.
Betsy Smith:Well and the media very often actively hides from people, you know, that these shooters have, you know that they are transgender, that they're transitioning, have transitioned. You know, going back to the national covenant school shooting Correct. You know, it took years to get that entire manifesto even though the National Police Association demanded it almost immediately. And, you know, why do you think that is?
Michael Letts:Well, it's very simple. It doesn't help their narrative. They don't want you to have that information because in the next logical remember, they don't have very much logic. But the next logical step is, okay. So what's causing people to react this way?
Michael Letts:When you begin to read their own thoughts as to why they're doing what they do, you realize that it's a mental concern. What would be affecting their brain? Well, it's pretty easy to figure out when you mess when you alter their hormones, This is what you get. And then you begin to say, well, why are we allowing this to occur? Why are we allowing the manipulation of hormonal activity and putting people at risk or death?
Michael Letts:Because the people that are killed by these active shootings are not coming back. So you're hurting the American society. You're hurting America's people by not addressing this issue, but they don't wanna address it because then they have to admit that, well, maybe we made a mistake on this drug. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. We have to give up that drug market.
Michael Letts:That's billions of dollars of revenue that they're not about to touch.
Betsy Smith:Do you think too you know, we we kinda talked about it a few minutes ago, but but there truly is a a war on Christianity as well in this country. And do you see those issues as adjacent?
Michael Letts:Oh, there's no question. We are in an epic battle between good versus evil. Never before in the history of society has this been we've been disengaged. There's a number of of patterns. You take a look at what we are trying to do to destroy America.
Michael Letts:Anybody that hates America, whether that's Islamic jihadists, whether that's the drug cartels, whether that's the leftist liberals, they have all figured out now how to unite and try to utilize their forces for one object. And that objective is this, tell everybody the conservative values upon which this country was built, by the way. You know, we have faith. We have principles. We have values.
Michael Letts:It's amazing what we've done in our education system. I don't wanna take a real quick rabbit trail, but I'll get right off this thing. But we did something in our education system that we decided we're gonna separate God from church I mean, God from education. We didn't realize as Christians was that their definition was anything dealing with religion is separated. So values are part of religion.
Michael Letts:So we can't have values in our school system anymore. It's not wrong to steal. It's not wrong to take life. It's not wrong. It's all circumstantial.
Michael Letts:It only depends on the circumstance. That's where we've got the message we're in today, but that's a whole another story. So you've got these people who are determined to bring evil and have evil prevail, and that's what we're fighting. And, Betsy, if we don't tell people, they say the truth will set you free. If people don't know what's going on, we get to where we're at today.
Betsy Smith:So the boots on the ground for for all of this conflict in The United States is the American law enforcement officer. And already in the first about sixty days of 2026, we have had 63 police officers shot, seven killed. There this war on cops truly continues. Ambushes are up. You know?
Betsy Smith:So that brings me to InVest USA. You know, this is you know, I wore body armor for twenty nine years. I never walked outside of my locker room without it on. What prompted you to create Invest USA and and talk about what that organization does?
Michael Letts:Well, I was at one of the things I've been in public office. I served on council for thirty years. And, during a question and answer session, at a civic group, somebody asked me, what about the vest these guys are wearing? You know? Do all of our cops have them?
Michael Letts:I assumed that they did. I had the sheriff with me, and he said, no. We don't have any. You'll provide them. So I figured, well, that's easy enough done.
Michael Letts:I'm just newly elected. I said, we'll get it at half 1,000,000 in the budget, have this taken care of by the next thirty days. But when I was out of town for third reading, I came back and had all these reporters ask me, what do you think about your colleagues taking it out at the last minute? So I made a statement. You know, most politicians are supposed to think before you speak.
Michael Letts:I didn't do that. I said, well, fine. If that's the way they feel about it, we'll just raise the money ourselves. Betsy, that was thirty three years ago. I haven't found an extra strategy yet.
Michael Letts:Still working on it, but, you know, until every cop has properly protected, we're gonna continue to stay the course.
Betsy Smith:So, you know, thirty three years later, I mean, Body Armor technology has has, as you talked about, has changed greatly. How do how do law enforcement agencies or individual police officers access body armor if if they can't afford it from Invest USA?
Michael Letts:Well, it's all they have to is go to our website. That's investusa.org. It's a charity.org, and they can apply. We we give a well, it used to be first come, first served. Now we have a policy that if your agency has lost an officer in the line of duty, then you take precedent because we wanna make sure that officer and their family are honored.
Michael Letts:We're taking every request that comes in. We're trying to make sure we get it paired up. And if we don't have the funds available, then we go into your area and raise the funds. Usually, what you're gonna find, contrary to what mainstream media is trying to tell you that nobody likes a cop, America loves their first responders. They just don't know how to shoot.
Betsy Smith:You know, that is so right. We have done polling with Rasmussen and found that, indeed, most people love their law enforcement officers. They're concerned about our safety. That was one of the big biggest surprises for me. They're also concerned about our mental health, and, and, you know, they want more cops, not less cops in their in their neighborhoods.
Betsy Smith:I mean, you know, that's one of the biggest things that that, the media wants you to believe that people don't wanna see cops. People really wanna see their cops, don't they?
Michael Letts:There's no question they do. This you know, we established a Bulletproof Vest partnership. In fact, I was a part of that in 1993 with, or 1995, excuse me, with Senator Thurman and and, Ben Campbell and the rest in DC. And, Straumann asked me. He said, we just wanna get a program together where the feds provide vests to every cop.
Michael Letts:I said, senator, with all due respect, that sounds great. But I want this to be a partnership where the people can have the opportunity to feel like they're a part of law enforcement, that they're actually working together and helping provide security and protection. Because I think what it will do to cops across the country when they know that citizens are behind them, it is just irreplaceable what it'll do for their morale. And I think we've been right.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. Absolutely. So, last question. You're you're also an expert in in, national security. You know, you served in the military.
Betsy Smith:We're, again, once again, in a time, where, foreign adversaries want continue to bring the fight here to The United States. And, again, the American law enforcement officer is gonna be on the front lines of that. Talk about that for a few minutes.
Michael Letts:Well, there's no question what you said is accurate. You know, we know that there are over 1,000 sleeper cells in this country, that we've identified. We know or for our intel has shown over the last six, seven days that the Iran at the time had called upon sleeper cells to be activated. We know of a couple of cases here in Austin, Texas being one in the last three days and Cincinnati another and DC another to where there is connection to Islamic jihadist extremism. People ask me.
Michael Letts:They say, well, how come there is that it? Is there a lot more coming? I give them this, reminder that, you know, Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world. However, we've decimated their leadership, And decimated leadership also decimates how they figure out how to get money from one place to the next. So, contrary to what they would tell you, they don't die for their cause because they have nothing else to live for.
Michael Letts:They die for their cause because they're getting paid to. And so when we put a crip on the money for now, it's not as you're not seeing as many sleeper cells activated in the country. That doesn't mean it won't happen in the days ahead. So you're right. It will fall upon our first responders who'll be the first line of defense.
Michael Letts:That's why it's so desperate that we show them that we support them, a. And I tell people this. You can't donate. That's fine. Just tell the cop next time you see.
Michael Letts:Thank you for serving. That's all you have to do. Thank you for your service. If you're able to, even if you could only give a dollar, go and make sure that they have the necessary equipment to come home. And then the final thing, keep them in your prayers.
Michael Letts:Because, folks, this is a different era. It has never been seen in this country before, and we've got some rough times ahead.
Betsy Smith:Incredibly well said. Michael, where can people find you? Where can they find Invest USA? Where can they follow what you're doing? Where can they help out?
Michael Letts:They go to our website. That's investusa.org. It's at cherry.org. They can keep a track of everything that's going on. They can make a contribution.
Michael Letts:We've got books. We've got movies that were that are being produced. We have TV shows that are being done. You can keep track of everything. In fact, I'll put in one little plug or something that's fixing to come out.
Michael Letts:We got the graphic novel. Well, that's new terminology for an old thing I call a comic book. But the reason why we're doing this, Betsy, is because we need to let our young people know contrary to what you see on mainstream media, law enforcement and public service is honorable, is fulfilling, takes a special person to do so, but you just may be the one that has the heart to take care of our future generations. So make sure that you view it in the right light. Thank you for what you're doing.
Michael Letts:Thank you for taking care of America because that's exactly what you are for our future generations. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you, Betsy.
Betsy Smith:Thanks for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
Narrator:Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But they need our help to continue their mission. Activist politicians, progressive prosecutors, the ACLU and the rest of the anti police forces receive millions in donations from extremist pro criminal elements like George Soros and woke corporations. The National Police Association is fighting them in courts around the country including the United States Supreme Court, defending officers who are being attacked for doing their jobs. Additionally, the National Police Association works year round to pass tough on crime legislation to put and keep criminals behind bars.
Narrator:Consider going to nationalpolice.org and donating to keep us in the fight. Together, we can win. That is nationalpolice.org.
