Tim Ballard, the focal point of the independent film Sound of Freedom, hit back at critics panning the movie as a "QAnon film."
Sound of Freedom is inspired by Ballard’s experience rescuing trafficked children through Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), which Ballard founded in 2013. The film depicts his previous work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the International Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) and a subsequent 2014 sting operation with O.U.R. in Cartagena, Colombia after leaving DHS.
Ballard formed O.U.R. out of frustration with DHS’ efforts to rescue trafficked children in foreign nations.
Ballard responded to a critic during a Monday appearance on Fox & Friends.
Host Brian Kilmeade played a clip from a Friday CNN segment in which author Mike Rothschild referred to the film's creation as a result of "moral panic."
"They're created out of bogus statistics. They're created out of fear," Rothschild said. "With something like Sound of Freedom, it specifically is looking at QAnon concepts of these child-trafficking rings that are run by the high-level elites. And only people like Tim Ballard, or people only like Jim Caviezel — and by extension, only people like the ticket buyer, can help bring these trafficking rings down."
"I think of the children that are really depicted in that film. I know what happened to them," Ballard said. "Those children were the subjects of child rape videos. Those children were being sold for sex."
Ballard noted in total over 120 children are rescued from traffickers in the film.
"These are real kids. I see them. I'm still friends with them," he continued. "It's embarrassing and frankly grotesque for this guy who knows nothing to start throwing out terms like QAnon connecting it to a real story."
"What are they thinking about?"
Kilmeade suggested critics were in favor of sex trafficking, appearing to defend the industry in criticism of the film.
"That's how it feels to me," Ballard responded. "It feels like there's some other agenda, cause why do this?"
Fellow Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt referenced one scene from Sound of Freedom in which one sexual predator chooses a young boy for purchase asking Ballard if the scene was accurate to real life instances of child sex trafficking.
"This is happening all the time," Ballard said, citing roughly six million children enslaved for sex or organ harvesting according to the Department of Labor. "We've been taking down several organ harvesting rings where they take little babies and ... use them that way."
"We see everything," he continued, noting the film depicts every kind of child trafficking.
“This is the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world, and too often Americans sit back and say this is something far, far away from us, and it is not,” Ballard responded. “Generally speaking, we are the demand for consuming child exploitation material. Often we’re the number one producers. We’re in the top three countries for destination countries.”
He continued:We are the ones pushing these movements about sexualizing kids and calling it sex education. We’re the ones who are wanting, or allowing children who are 13 years old to be able to consent to anything, including body mutilation, which will only lead to consent laws around children being able to consent to have sex with adults. We are the country that allows, in the last two years, 85,000 unaccompanied minors to come to our border and then be let in without any vetting, no background check, and then what do you think is happening in the economy of pedophilia?
“We are the problem, we are the demand, we are creating this.”
