Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 668 | Wanna Take A Ride | Guest: Brad Thor

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Bezos Blue Origin went to space… Space tix soon like lunar shuttle tix… Sex in space / #SpaceBidness Will Space flight be like Airplane flight? RIP Robby Steinhardt… Ghost Cattle Scheme… Subscribe to the YouTube Channel… Email to [e-mail] Subscribe www.blazetv.com/jeffy Promo code jeffy… Ghislaine wants Cosby treatment… McAfee wife doesn’t believe it, or is she in on it?  New mom and dad names… Interview Brad Thor / ‘Black Ice’ https://bradthor.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was 10 minutes and 10 seconds. Yes, 10 minutes and 10 seconds that Jeff Bezos wasn't the richest man on the planet. 9.5. 4. Command engine start. 2.1. We have liftoff. Jeff Bezos and his three crewmates are now headed to space. Yeah, baby. Not outer space, though. Just space. But as they rocketed into space at two minutes and 29 seconds into the flight, they were over 2,000 miles an hour.

It would be so cool to be on that flight. No question. One of them, we found out, we had talked a lot about it this morning during Pat Gray Unleashed, filling in for Pat this week, the Blaze Radio and Television Network. and we talked about the one ticket holder who bid $28 million. And I didn't realize, and I hadn't seen it anywhere until a few minutes ago, actually, before we started recording this show, that the 18-year-old, the youngest person to go to space, Oliver Damon,

it was his dad who had a scheduling conflict. So I think, you know, originally I thought maybe it was somewhat, who didn't like Jeff Bezos or Bezos didn't like him, but he just wanted his son to go. So pretty incredible of Oliver's dad to let him go. 28 million bucks for 10 minutes and 10 seconds. It was obviously more than that with the buildup and everything following. But for the ride itself, 28 million bucks.

Woof. That's a tough one to take. Now, you, you are going to be able to go into space on Blue Origin. Tickets are up and running for sale. They didn't say how much the tickets were yet. So, okay, you have to email Blue Origin. You're instructed to email Astronauts at Blue Origin.com. So go ahead.

Send an email and see the reply. No problem, that'll be $250,000. I'm guessing that's got to be at least that. For that rocket, I mean, it was pretty cool to watch. If you didn't watch it, it's an opportunity to go watch it. You watch the rocket booster come back to Earth and Land, and you watch the capsule come back to Earth and Land after being in space. So really cool that we now have space tourism

up and running and you just have to hope that there's not a cloud in the sky on the day that you're chosen to go to space we did find out too wally funk's the oldest person to go to space she laid down 200,000 to fly on Virgin Galactic and then that got canceled so she still has her deposit to fly on Virgin Galactic and she said that she was going to still go on that flight whenever it takes off. But Jeff said, ah, come on. You can come on. You can come here on Blue Origin.

And no problem. I got you covered. That's my understanding. I don't think Wally played a pay to any kind of money to fly on Blue Origin. So it also, just so you know, today was a special day as well. Because, you know, they entitled it, the New Shepherd. after, you know, the first man to walk on the moon. And it was also the anniversary today of the Apollo 11 moon landing,

the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. So kind of cool. And everybody, you know, is that in about the back. And he's got word from Branson. And, you know, Bezos believes his was the only one that went into actual space. Branson's didn't go in. We've been all through that. So we had the flight today, and space tourism is now officially up and running.

Welcome. Welcome to Chewing the Fat. All right, before we get into the meat of chewing the fat today, let's get into real meat with Moinkbox. I know, Moinkbox. With Moink, you're going to get the highest quality meat you've ever tasted while supporting real family farm. Restaurant quality steaks can't be bought at a store. That's why you need Moinkbox.com. You should go to Moinkbox.com slash jeffy right now.

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Bacon for a year, one year of the best bacon you're going to ever taste, but it is for a limited time. So, M-O-I-N-K, box.com slash jeffy. Moinkbox.com slash jeffy. Okay, so I can't stop thinking about going into space today. You've got the Virgin Galactic, and you've got Blue Origin. And I was thinking about, remember the stupid movie airplane? way back in the 80s, early 80s, too, I think. And there was a scene in it that I've replayed in my head a bunch of times.

And the guy is lunar shuttle tickets. I got smoking. I got non-smoking. Thank you, my man. And he's selling, he's selling, you know, bootleg lunar shuttle tickets. And because then I, I, found the scene. So this is what could be happening at

Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin very soon. Oh, I'm afraid there haven't been any available seat on that shuttle for weeks now, sir. Wow. The Pan Am side behind. I got seven. Take them out, y'all. $400. Loonie shuttle ticket. Check them out. Lunar shuttle. Smoking.

What do you got? Loonish shuttle tickets, $400. I got smoking, non-smoking, first class, coach, economy. By the aisle, by the window. Take it easy, my man. That ticket is Lunar shuttle tickets. Lunar shuttle tickets. 40 bucks, too.

That's a heck of a price. People are, you know, bidding $28 million. Back in 1982, they're paying 40 bucks for lunar shuttle tickets. I got smoking. I got Nile Smokin. I got by the window, by the aisle. Thank you, my man. That's what could be happening soon.

Plus, I was thinking, how about When is the first time that we're going to have someone have a conjugal visit in space? So if you have a conjugal visit, I'm being nice now. I know. When you're taking care of a little space business, what is it called? Because if it's in an airplane, right, that's the mile high club. but if you're in space, what do you call it? I mean, space business?

I mean, I want to start selling space business. Yes. And now I was wondering if we've had space business before. Now, there was a story about a book written back in 2000 that talked about, yes, there was actual a study done. between NASA and the Russians about space business. And they talked about all these different positions and how it couldn't be done without gravity

and some positions couldn't be. And now, and they're saying both NASA and the Russians have denied that this study ever took place and that there was, no, now this guy, this writer, this Kohler claimed that there was proof, that he had proof. And not just a fake, you know, he had. he had actual document for the proof.

I don't know that those have ever been shown. So they think that the whole thing was just a hoax or it was based on a fake document that, you know, he had, but it wasn't real. But so as of now, without, I don't know, without any documentation, space bidness has not happened. Although I find that hard to believe. We've been up in space for quite some time now.

We had mirror up there. We've got the ISS. Very, very, very, very strange if we haven't had space business going on. Plus, what do you call it? Plus, who's going to be the first one? Are you filming? Is it Blue Origin? Blue Origin space business?

Virgin. Virgin. Oh, yes. Virgin Galactic Business. Oh, yes. I love it. I want that now. Easy. I'm just saying about, you know, I want to see the reports on it.

Virgin Galactic business. Plus, I don't know what you call it. I've got to think about that for a little bit. Space business. You can email me, Chewing the Fat at the Blaze.com. And let me know what you think we should call it. I couldn't find just with a quick, you know, quick search. If it's, if there's any kind of, you know, modern name for it,

But for now, it's just hashtag space business. And I think that's what I'm going to go with for right now. Hashtag space business. And one last thought on space flight and space tourism. Are we going to have it regulated like the airlines now? So I noticed today and on the Branson flight with Virgin Galactic, nobody was wearing masks. Now, I'm sure that they were all vaccinated.

I believe that they all were. I don't know that. But who's going to regulate it? Are they going to make people wear masks? Are they going to start telling people like American Airlines, oh, you can't get on the plane because you're not wearing enough clothes? No, you can't wear that. We don't want you looking like that.

You're going to have to wear a mask. Or do you get the suit? Do you have to buy the suit when you do the space flight? I don't know. I'm just asking. I saw wear Bezos today. You know, he had his cowboy hat on most of the time until he board. the rocket or the capsule and I thought he gave his hat to his do-boy which he did on the on the walkway there on the bridge but when he landed his hat was inside the capsule because he put it on when he had it on when he came out of the capsule after he landed so he just gave it to somebody to bring on board with him he didn't he just wanted to you know be photographed going into the capsule without his head on really strange I just want to know who reggae

I'm guessing since that's getting the go ahead from the FAA they're going to try to take control of it. I don't know is the space agency. Is that a separate agency? Is the space force oversee that? I'm just asking. I'm just wondering. So we've got space business got to happen. We've got who's going to regulate the tourists for space flights.

There's some things to go over. So call me. I'm here for you. if you need to talk about it. All right, let's go to the break room. I need something cold to drink desperately. Oh, yes. So did you see where Robbie Stinehart passed away?

Very sad. The Kansas founding member, the violinist, Robbie Steinhart, you know, carry on my wayward, son. Yeah, he dies 71 complications from acute pancreatitis. I actually met Robbie a couple of times and he was a really, really nice man. And it was very sad news that he passed away. So rest in peace, Robbie Steinhard. You know, I was looking at a story about ghost cattle.

And I wondered, what is ghost cattle? So this guy, it all stemmed from a story that the headline was, An investment company with ties to the Mormon church has bid for land that belonged to the now bankrupt Easter Day farms and Easter Day ranches. So the second highest bidder was Bill Gates. And this farm is, you know, this Easter Day farms and Easter Day ranches, the bid was $209 million. So that goes to show you what kind of, you know, what kind of extensive ranch and cattle they have. So anyway, Tyson Foods filed a lawsuit against him, and he pled guilty in this ghost cattle scheme. He was billing Tyson Foods for costs of buying and feeding as many as 200,000 cattle that didn't exist.

And I thought, okay, okay, do I like this guy? or is he a criminal? Well, of course, I mean, he's a criminal. Stop it. But he got sued. He played guilty. He played a deal. Now he's, apparently,

he was dealing in the commodities market and lost a couple hundred million dollars. So to make up for it, he was ghost cattling, billing Tyson for these ghost cattels. And they were, you know, foot in the bill for. for his commodity market losses.

So now they've got all kinds of things going on between the Securities and Exchange Commission, the misappropriation of company funds, and they were, you know, looking at all of this. It's just he screwed up a whole bunch of stuff. But apparently, he, you know, his deal with the government is he, he, gets sentenced in August of this year.

And he also, there can't be any more charges against him than what they already have. This is a big old farm, though. I mean, they've got, uh, they bought it for 66.7 million dollars, which, I mean, they bought it, you know, quite a while ago. Uh, the company formed in 2019. So they purchased it, you know, two or three years ago for 66 million. And it just sold for a couple hundred million. That's a pretty good deal.

Although, you know, he only owes, I don't know, 209 million to Tyson. So he was not going to get much. But according to this, they operate and farm with 28,300 cattle. According to one story, the farming operations include more than 18,000 acres of potatoes, onions, corn, and wheat. The grain products are used to feed the cattle in the Easter Day ranch's feed lots, and they have the capacity of about 70,000 head, which we heard that they have just under 30,000 head. So it was conceivable that Tyson would believe this fraud scheme, which is why it worked for quite a while. Now, he pled guilty, and it went before the judge, and they said that they weren't going to charge him anymore.

We already covered all that. I just found it fascinating that, you know, this guy was a scamming Tyson from his ghost cattle scheme to cover his other debts in the commodity markets in the futures. And finally, somebody said, hey, you know, it doesn't look like he's got that many head of cattle, and something isn't right. He's losing all this money and this over here. And now we've got to take a look at this. So he's defrauded a couple of different places. So everybody's going to have to be looking at their books because of this case. But he gets sentenced in August.

I don't know how many years you get for that. I'm guessing it'll be a few. As long as we're on criminals, we might as well talk about a couple of people that were, you know, that are kind of criminals. Jeline Maxwell, you know, the helper of Jeffrey Epstein, she says that because of how they took care of Bill Cosby, yeah, she needs to be released from prison as well. So she has got some similar technicality now as well. we'll see if that is allowed to happen. I'm not sure that it will, but we'll be hearing more about that very soon. And John McAfee, who was found dead in the Barcelona jail cell in the end of June last month, almost a month ago now, his wife said that I do not accept the suicide story

that has been spread by the malignant cancer that is the MSM. They are they, they and their unnamed sources are not to be trusted. Wow. She said that John should have never spent a day in prison, let alone nearly nine months. She said she spoke with John twice on the morning that he died. And in their last conversation that she spoke to him about the court's decision to extradite him to the U.S., we had a plan of action in place to begin the appeal process, and we decided, discussed plans for the next stages of his legal fight. So she said that he told her to stay strong and not worry. Now, could this all be part of the plan and that he did kill himself and she is in on the deal?

Sure, absolutely, most definitely. Is it? I don't know. I don't know. I want to believe that the man wouldn't kill himself. He always said he wouldn't. He said that if he did, someone else killed him. I don't know.

It's sad the whole thing. And I'm sorry that she lost her husband. But it would also be fitting that he did kill himself. She knew that he was going to kill himself. And she is carrying on the John would never kill himself. and he told me to stay strong, and we had a plan in place to fight the extradition, when in fact they didn't.

So, you know, we'll see if, I don't know where we're at with that. I mean, really, it's over. It's sad. And I think we're done with that now, right? And I don't know that the U.S. government can milk any money out of the McAfee Foundation. But if they can, they certainly will try.

You can count on that. And they will probably. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece?

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Okay, there was a TikTok post that is on Twitter. I've been following this Twitter account of Libs of TikTok at Libs of TikTok. And it's a little frightening, actually, but it's a fun follow. And this particular post was she wants to call your mom and dad pom-pom. and it's about using, you know, changing the typical mom and dad parent titles. So we played this this morning on Pat Grey Unleashed. Today is the 20th of July, 2021, if you're listening live,

to this broadcast of Chewing the Fat. And I wanted to play it again and break down each thing that she mentioned in her rambling of, calling mom and dad different names. And I'll let her tell you what it is and then we can break it down. Instead of using the typical mom and dad parent titles, there's actually gender neutral and non-binary parent titles that exist. It can be hard for parents within the LGBTQIA plus community

to find a word that they feel comfortable being addressed as by their children. So here are some examples. Dama, Mada, Madi. Madi, Mapa, Nini, Nopa, Nopa, Norei, Opa. I like Opa. Pere, Pompom, Zaza, and Zizi. You can find more examples on the website listed above.

All right, cool, same-sexparents.com. We're going to have to check that out. Okay, this is a same-sex parents online platform providing support, relevant information, and safe space for same-sex parents from all over the world to connect with one another, while bringing visibility to the LGBTQIA plus families and give them a voice.

Although I added the QIA here on this website, they just say LGBT plus families. So I thought it was, we were being all-inclusive, and I thought it was LGBTQIA plus, I guess not. Now, it said here, I got to go here for more information. But I'm here and I see home about resources, your stories, projects. The blog economy is under the blogs. Yep, it's under their blogs.

And it's the special gender neutral non-binary parent titles. Oh, that's so special. I know. So they've put together a list of 26 gender neutral titles that non-binary parents could go by. And if you'd like to suggest any others, they'd be happy, more than happy to add it to the list. How about dad? How about mom? No, we can't have that anymore.

That's old school dumb thinking. You are not thinking about the LGBTQIA plus people. So Baba means dad in some languages and grandmother in others. Baba. Dama. Okay. That's Dada and Mama intertwined. Mada, Mama and Dada intertwined.

Maddie or Madi, Mom and Daddy, Daddy intertwined. Makua, Hawaiian for parent. Mapa, Mama and Papa, intertwined Matua Eastern Polynesian for parent Madi

Mommy and Daddy Daddy intertwined Mopa Moppa or Moppa PPA or Moppa Moppa intertwined Neri N-A-R-I

or N-A-R-Y taken from non-binary Nibbiased from non-binary so they're just taking the word and they've come up with a couple of words out, you know, with the letters from non-binary.

Okay, so you got Neri and Neri, Niby, N-N-I-N-N-E-N-E, N-A-R-E, and N-D-E. They've just taken the letters out of non-binary and put them into a name. Okay. Wow, this is a lot of them. Hold on, non-binary. So let's go back. we've got Neri, N-A-R-I or N-A-R-Y, Nibby, N-N-A-N-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E, N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-R-E. Okay, those are all the letters mixed and matched from non-binary to what you could call your parents.

Obie can also mean heart when translated. It's Yoruba, African. for parent. Opa, abbreviation for other parent. That's what I want Opa. I want Opa. I want Opa.

That's what I just call me Opa. I'm good to go. Call me Opa. It's all good. Pama. Papa and Mama intertwined. Parre or parre? Pari, Perry, P-A-R-E.

It means parent. Catalan for parent. P-A-R-E. Okay. P-P-P-P-P-P. Oh, I like P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P. Papa and Mom intertwined. This is a little kid who can't say Papa and Mommy.

Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa, Z-R-I-R-I or Z-A-R-Y, pronouns for non-binary intertwined, Z-Z-Zer. Zaza is a mash-up of Mama, Dad, Dada, Papa, and the gender-neutral pronouns, Z-Zer. And Z-Z-Z, taken from the gender-neutral pronoun, Z and Zr. So they've taken ZZZer and just mismatched the letters to create some words. I like Zizi. I like Zaza. I like Zaza better than Zaza and Opa. Okay, so Zizi, taken from the

gentle neutral pronouns Zer, and Opa, abbreviation for other parent. I like that. I want to be Opa. That's just me. That's just me, though. I just want to be Opa. Okay. So if you have any other ideas for the LGBTQIA plus parents that are struggling to for their non-binary parent name, you can help them out with this particular list of 26 gender neutral titles. Or you can come up with your own because apparently you just have to pick a word and then put the letters mix and mash the letters together and come up with something that you like and it works. So I'm okay with that.

You know, whatever. You want to be called Opa. You want to be called Zsa. Okay. There was a Zsa? No, I think it was ZZ, right? That's what it was the end. It was what I like.

ZZZ? Yeah, Z E, Z, E. I want Z. Now, it's from the gender neutral pronoun Zzer, but it doesn't say whether, so ZZ could be dad or mom because it's just a name, ZZ. It doesn't mean anything.

And Opa apparently actually means other parent. So only one of you could be Opa, right? But any of you could be Zizi. So yeah, there, take that. All right, I've been looking forward to this next segment. It is with Brad Thor, author of his latest book. Well, he's author of a whole bunch of books, but his latest book is Black Ice and it is out today. So I'm looking forward to talking to Brad Thor. Today is the day. Brad Thor and his latest book,

Black Ice, which I have in my grubby little hands as we speak, hits the bookshelves. It's out there. Everyone can grab it. You don't even have to pre-order it now, although you could go to bradthor.com or go to Amazon.com and get the copy. Set direct to your home. But you could just go to the bookstore. any other place that carries your favorite books, and Black Ice would be on the shelves. Brad Thor, thanks for joining you on Chewing the Fat Today. How are you, sir? I'm doing well, Jeff. It's great to see you.

Good to be seen. Good to be heard. So the latest book, Black Ice, I did finish it. There was, I found a copy laying around at the studios. And I thought, oh, I got to read the whole thing then. I don't have to wait. All right. I'm happy.

And there's another fun ride for Scott Harvath. this is what number 20 for Scott? 20 in that Scott Harvatt series. Yep, 21 overall for me, but 20 in the Harvettes series. Yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned the other day when we talked, which the other day was yesterday, as a matter of fact, on the morning show, that you have four more coming.

I know we'll talk about black guys. I know we're here to promote the new book, but we have four more coming, right? Is that right? Right, exactly. Just signed a new contract. Because at the end, of this one, I thought, well, he's probably got at least one, right?

I mean, you've got to have at least one after this one because he finished up his business and the country's business. And I'm assuming that he's on his way back to Norway, but I'm not writing the next book. And so we have four more. So he's definitely, unless he's doing work under retirement, he's definitely not retired. No, no, not according to Simon & Schuster, nor my agent. He's definitely coming back, four more books, at least. So this book, really fascinating.

I know you, yeah, you sold over 15 million books and you're Mr. Bestseller. You know, we've got you penned as a faction world-class author now. But this book was really eye-opening on a couple of different places for me between Russia. and China. And when you get in it and you read, well, one of the things that really kind of I went, is that true? When you were talking about our icebreakers in the north, is that information that's in the book actually true? Yeah. So technically, we have two icebreakers, but one caught fire.

So now we only have one that's in service, and it's meant to service our research station in the Southern Hemisphere in Antarctica. So we have one. The Chinese have two. Russia has 30 or 40, 30. They're building three more right now, and they have a plan for 12 more over the next 10 years. So it's interesting because the Biden administration wanted to flex its muscles against Russia and do what's called a freedom of navigation operation, sail through the Northern Sea route over the top of Russia. And the Navy said, you can't do it. We've got one icebreaker. And if it breaks down, and if it breaks down, you know, it's going to go from us flexing our muscles to us begging the Russians to tow the thing in to pull. That would go over well. It wouldn't go over well. So one of the things, I'm buddies, I've known them since college, we were actually neighbors, Robert O'Brien, the former National Security Advisor in the Trump administration is a really good friend of mine. And he saw this with Mike Pompeo as such a serious issue that they not only helped move money through Congress to

start building more icebreakers for the United States, but they also leased a couple through some orange Coast Guard paint on there, some 50-cown machine guns, and a couple of skiffs where they could deal with sensitive information so that they can get these out and up into the Arctic because it really is the new Cold War up there. The Russians have opened more than 50 shuttered Soviet Cold War era bases. There's a lot of stuff. And the fact that China popped up and declared itself, quote unquote, a near Arctic state. I love that so much. I mean, that's a great, I mean, actually is, you know, a devastating move for us, but it's a good move on their part. And it's the Seinfeld of diplomatic terms. It means absolutely nothing because the nearest Chinese

settlement, Hamlet, Berger village is 800 miles away of the Arctic Circle. But it is the Chinese are funneling soldiers up there disguised as scientists. And it's been this area that was always kind of open for scientific research and all of this sort of thing. And now the Chinese are forcing us to gun up a lot more up there. It's becoming an issue. So to set a thriller against that seem like a fun idea. Yeah, no kidding. And due to some of the ice melting, and I don't know that it's actually, you know,

we'll call it climate change, but we'll just say due to weather, you know, we have ice that's actually melting. So it's opening up, you know, miles, if not thousands of miles of coast that wasn't available. And so when we made the rules saying that, yeah, anybody could be up there, no problem, don't worry about it, it's fine. We hadn't counted on actually opening up and getting resources from up there. Right. And so that's what the Chinese are trying to do now by keeping an icebreaker up there. They want to make themselves indispensable.

So they want to help any ships that get stuck. And they've also, so the Chinese, I make it's not really a joke, it's actually true in Black Ice, that the Chinese have as many forms of diplomacy as the Eskimo have words for snow. So China has this thing called the Belt and Road Initiative where they're trying to stretch their tentacles around the world and connect all these countries with China by investing in infrastructure and different sorts of things. They're heavily invested in a liquefied natural gas plant in the Yama Peninsula and Russia, a pipeline that runs LNG from Russia to China. The Chinese actually love this pipeline. And the word at the Politburo is it's the best pipeline in the world because it's the only way to ship gas that can't be interdicted by the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Treasury Department. Wow. Yeah, it's a very tongue-and-cheek joke with the Politburo.

Yeah, no kidding. It's a little scary, actually. But it is scary. So there's a lot going on up there. And China's trying to buy influence. So they tried to buy a Canadian mining operation in the Arctic. And the Canadian said, not just no, but hell no. And then they used a cutout a Chinese businessman, a real estate developer, to try to buy all this

property in northern Norway. And the Norwegian government said, not just no, but hell no. And they swept in and bought it because what the Chinese want to do is get not even a footprint, but just a toehold. because once they can establish themselves in the Arctic, they're going to start flexing their muscle and challenging us to push them out. So what do you see as, you know, not just as a, you know, I know this is black ice, but when we have now canceled some pipeline and some infrastructure deals with Canada who said hell no not long ago, that does open up some diplomatic takes. for China to come in and say, the U.S. said no. We're saying yes. Yeah. So that is a possibility. China went into Greenland and overimprove their diplomatic

facilities there, putting a lot of construction workers to work. And there's all these clever ways that they either invest or refuse to invest. The other thing that I talk about in the book is when China, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee, not, not, so Norway does. stuff and Sweden does stuff, but particularly Norway nominated and then awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed Chinese dissident over a decade ago. And China freaked out. Right. They were not happy about it at all. Chinese Communist Party was pissed. And so they decided that they would do something called coercive diplomacy where they told Chinese citizens, you cannot go to Norway. So no tourism. And we're going to stop importing Norwegian salmon. And God bless the Norwegian. They're tough. They're like, fuck us. Fuck you. I have a lot of respect for the Norwegians.

But it hurt them. They're a very wealthy country because of the North Sea and the gas and everything. The oil and gas they pull out of there. But the Chinese are very, very aggressive. And I think it's only recently that the U.S. is really waking up to the strategic threat that China poses. Well, I hope we wake up a little bit more. And it seems like we may not. if you take a look at the administration that we have an office. But that is another issue for another day. I noticed that, I mean, this story is all throughout Norway. And it just makes me want to go there and drink coffee with Scott in Norway. Have you spent time there as well?

I mean, you're going to say yes and I'm going to hate you for this. So go ahead. Have you spent time there? Yes. Yes, I have. I was actually going to go up above the Arctic Circle in Norway and then up to their archipelago that's halfway between Norway and North Pole, and then COVID happened. And because they've got such tight control of the archipelago, they shut it down immediately,

trying to basically quarantine it so that no COVID could manifest there. So I pivoted and do what I do when there's parts of the world that I can't get into. You know, I've been to Afghanistan. I've been to Egypt, other spots. But when there's a place like, I don't know, Libya that I'm definitely not interested in setting foot in. I want to talk to other people who have been there. The successful outcome of their mission was dependent upon, paying attention to all the details. So I luckily was able to network into a real expert on this part of the Arctic who had pictures and all this information about

what the Russians were doing up there. It turned out to be really, really good material for the book. So Scott Harrod's your character. One of his favorite little sayings, at least in this book, and was the have a smile for everyone and next have a plan to kill them. Yep. That seems to be a motto that your character lives by throughout all the series. Yeah, it is. It's funny. That actually comes from a wild firearms instructor at the DEA training facility at Quantico.

And I went out to the FBI training. Yeah, it really, really neat guy. and he said, you know, he gave me that term. And I'm like, can I use that in the book? He's like, absolutely. And it was just, you know, have a smile for everyone you meet and a plan to kill him. That is, you know, you can always, it's always good to have a plan B. So that's where I got that from, neat, neat guy.

So when you spent time there, did you spend time in a lot of, I mean, all the places that your character spends time in and enjoys, you know, the life? of a Norwegian when you were there or were you more of just the tourist guy? No, Hartman did a lot of the stuff that I do, the cafes and the restaurants and stuff. And so that one of my favorite spots is the Thief Hotel in Oslo, which is really cool because it's on this little island called Thief Island, which is basically where the pirates and the prostitutes used to hang out like hundreds of years ago. So the thief. Yeah, there definitely isn't any thieves or prostitutes.

It's hanging out now. It's all been gentrified and it's, well, I guess it's, there's a lot of bankers that own homes there. So maybe if you want to classify the poor bankers as thieves, but it is a beautiful, beautiful area. And the hotel was built by this really cool billionaire. And the hotel acts as kind of an additional wing for the modern art museum. So they've these great pieces there.

And the deck on top is what I love, this rooftop restaurant in bar, and the hotel, and the the views out over the fjord. I've set a couple of scenes. Not only this book, but the last book, I set up on the roof of the Thief Hotel. And it's, it's pretty, it's, it's absolutely stunning. It's one of my favorite places in all of Oslo. So the book is Black Ice. It's the latest edition, the book that you can see behind Brad now.

And it's a definitely a fun read. And it's actually a quick read. I was really, there you go. Yeah, follow the finger. And no, not that one. And the, it's definitely a fun ride. I have a lot of fun, and it's an easy, quick read, which, you know, I'm sure is no mistake. And, you know, I really enjoyed it.

The next Scott Harwath is he headed using Blue Origin and flying up into space the next time? You know, I'm going to tell you, I was watching that thing this morning. I'm like, don't blow up, don't blow up. I got a ton of it. It blows up. It's going to talk me out. me out of the news cycle. You know, that was interesting.

They said that thing cost, what, $550 million a minute to run that? Only guys like you could do that. Hell, I would have given a big dose a couple of bucks just to climb out of the of the Capitol, hold up Black Ice by new book, the way Clancy's book was held up by Rayke getting on Marine One helicopter. Right. That would have been great. Yes, it would have been.

So you still didn't answer my question. Now, you know what? It would be, I suppose it would be interesting, but when you and I last talked about this, I told my daughter that I had been talking to you, and she's like, oh, you were totally slamming Fast and Furious Nine sending the car to outer space with Jeff. I'm like, yes, I was. Yes, I was. So I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit, what's the word I'm looking for?

I'm off the space race. They soured me that Fast and Furious Nine. Great movie until the Pontiac Fierro went to out. outer space with these two chuckleheads and dive helmets. You know? It was too funny. So, good. Yet so bad. I know. So I'm really looking forward to, I'm really looking forward to the next ones.

But one of the things that I noticed in this book, I had to wait. And I forget now, as I'm talking to you, the exact page with the first Black Ice mention happens. Because I sat down and I went, all right, I'm going to read until I get to Black Ice. to find out what the hell it is. And it was like 70 or 80 pages in. Really ticking me off, Brad. We got to make, we got to up that a little bit.

Okay, I got to get the explanation of the title has to come closer to the page one. Yeah, absolutely. It was really funny because I did. I actually sat down, all right, I'll sit down. I'm going to read until Black Ice and that's it. It was like, never ending. So is there something similar in your travels, and studies to what Scott was trying to prevent.

Yes. So there's... But I mean, he stopped it. Yeah, yeah. So there's a couple of pieces of technology. We have an interesting piece of... And I don't want to give any spoilers for anyone I hasn't read it yet. So we have a piece of technology that is like straight out of Star Trek.

Like you'd see it on a Klingon vessel. I mean, it's pretty wild. It is absolutely stunning. And look, that's what we're... where we need to be, right? I mean, even at least the former administration got, you know, Space Force up and running and saw at least a little bit of the future of where we needed to be. China is absolutely building their own space station now and taking trips back and forth from their own space station and trying to get ahead of us. I mean, we've been hitchhiking to space for

the past how many every years. And, you know, now we have, we're trying to get the space tourism business up and running a little bit. I don't know that we're actually ready for actual space travel yet. When we can get on a rocket and not have to wait for prior weather, there's a cloud. We're not going to go ahead and be able to take off yet. There's a cloud going over. When we can just get on it and take off, then we're ready for space travel. But that's just me. Can you imagine what that's going to be like? Some jackass next to you takes his shoes off. He's got bare feet in the capsule. I know. We haven't talked about who's going to, I was talking about that today.

As a matter of fact, a little bit earlier in this show about who's going to control that. And are they going to have to wear masks? Are they going to have to take that? Are you going to be told you can't wear that to get on this flight for 10 minutes and 10 seconds? Are you kidding me? Well, and you know, the neat thing is, is the idea, as far as I know it with space travel in what they're talking about, is if you could go up and start turning a little bit and use the turn. turn of the earth underneath you to come down in another city, like to launch from outside Chicago and come down in Tokyo.

Okay. That idea of space travel, not necessarily further out into the solar system, but just up straight and come down and to just be there like that is kind of a real idea. Actually go to the space line and then come back. Yeah, yeah. So your destination would be different than your takeoff point. That would be great. Exactly.

All for that. That'd be a really cool, fun, fast way to track. I would spend $28 million of your money to do that, right? No problem, I would do that. I wouldn't spend it in mind because I don't even have anything close to. I don't need to get to Tokyo that fast. No, I do not. That's a lot of, that's a lot of cabbage.

That's what the old line is, you know, everything is, everything's in walking distance as long as you have the time. So, yeah, good point. So the latest book, Black Ice, really a fun ride, and I really appreciate, appreciate your time. When do we, I mean, how many whiteboards do you have up for the next series? Are you all right? I mean, you've got to have, there's got to be a whiteboard for each storyline already. You know what? It's funny.

I'm very organic, Jeff. I'm not a big outliner. My pal Dan Brown, who wrote the DaVinci Code, is an incredible outliner. In fact, he shared after DaVinci came out, we have the same agent, and she's like, oh, you always stress over your books and what's going to happen. She said, you should outline and maybe Dan will share Da Vinci with you. And he did. And I got to see not only what was in the book, which I read and loved, but what got left out. And it's amazing how much ended up on the cutting room floor. Dan's a genius. And I tried to write a book where I had outlined the whole thing. And it just

took the passion right out of me because I want to have the experience writing it that you do reading it. So when you're going, what's going to happen next? Believe me, I've already had the experiences the writer going, oh, what's going to happen next as I'm typing? Right. So I collect articles. I'll have three by five cards that I'll make notes on, post-it notes. It's very much, I'd like to say it's whiteboards and it looks really nice. It's more like a beautiful mind, you know, with pieces of yarn and weird things and the grassy

knoll and all that kind of stuff. Right. And how much stuff has over the years, how much stuff has been hit the cutting room floor and then made it to the next one or made it to two down the. road? Anything or are you just, are you done with it? I'm super lean. The only reason something gets clipped and taken out is my wife is my first reader, and I call her Zorro. She's got this very special red pen in this bejeweled case that only comes out when she's reading the first draft. And she'll and cut stuff out only if I'm repeating

myself. So I'm very lean. The books as you read them are basically right on the way I wrote them in the first draft. So what gets fixed is if there's any grammatical errors, typos, or if my editor in particular comes back and says, I need a little more meat on the bone with this character. So if anything, I may add a little, I don't necessarily take out. So that's a little peek behind. So I don't have any whiteboard, but I've got like a jumble of stuff on the wall, like post-it notes and things like that. And what I'm in search of is that really cool, as Glenn calls at that faction idea, that piece of real world that I'm going to wrap with a fiction. Everything else around it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, there's plenty of that to grab onto. There'll be plenty of that, especially in the next year or so for sure. I think so. There's already stuff playing out just in the news this week. And so the challenge for me is picking out what we're all going to be talking about this time next summer. What's the big thing?

How do I, how do I time it so it lands on your door? step the day after you read my book. And you're like, oh my gosh, I just read this. It happened. It happened. That's my goal. Well, you've been superb so far. The latest is Black Ice by Brad Thor available today everywhere.

Wherever, every time you go into a store, you turn around. There it is. Bradthor, Black Ice. And if you don't have it, get it. Brad, thank you so much. Thanks, Jeff. I really appreciate it. It's good to see you.

And I'd be remiss if I don't tell you hello from my wife before this interview ends. She was really bummed that she didn't get a chance to see you or talk to you. She even left a little note here that said, Hi, Brad, love Amber. Oh, so. Give her my best. You know, I used to bump into her on social media all the time. And I've kind of taken a mental health break from Twitter.

And it's been fantastic. Really? Yeah, my entertainment attorney had a great line. I asked him why he wasn't on. And he said, because when you get into arguments with people, it triggers the fight or flight response. And the problem in particular with Twitter is the fight's never over. He said, so you're constantly churning cortisol and all this bad stuff.

And you're waking up in the middle of the night to see if some Marmy guy jumped into the thread. And, you know, are you getting dragged? You know, I know people that have woke, that have gotten up at three in the morning just to check to make sure the mob wasn't dragging them. And I'm like, it's just not worth it. Right. Well, you know, tomorrow it will be. Brad Thor. Thanks.

It's good to see it. Thanks for joining me on chewing the fat today. Don't forget, Black Ice available everywhere. Brad, thank you. You too, my friend. Bye-bye.