The Chris Cuomo Project - James Patterson

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

In this week’s episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, bestselling author James Patterson (“Along Came a Spider,” “Women’s Murder Club,” “Count Down”) joins Chris to discuss his decision to leave behind an advertising career to become a full-time author, the experience of having books banned in both Florida and Russia, whether the mood of the country informs the stories he writes, his experience with writer’s block, the friendship he’s developed with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and much more. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Visit Indeed.com/CCP to start hiring now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

how does one writer wind up being completely dominant in a space that seems saturated with talent, especially when you're talking fiction? James Patterson, how does he do it? Why does he do it? Why does it keep working? Why is he so much more successful? How does he see the world?

Good questions, if I could only get some answers. And I will. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you so much for being here How does he see the world? Good questions. If I could only get some answers. And I will. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you so much for being here for another episode of the Chris Cuomo Project. Love the enthusiasm you guys have for the project. Love that we're in it together. Keep subscribing.

Keep following. Please spread the word. Love the organic growth. Yes, I am pushing the free agent merch. to you know take the money and have us kind of crowdsource some contributions but i want you to wear your independence i know the answer for us to fix this poison political environment we have is for you guys to leave the parties become independent make them come to you make them tell you how they'll fix how they'll collaborate how they'll solve not just play'll collaborate, how they'll solve,

not just play this stupid cultural reduction game of who's worse, who's scarier, who's more hideous. Takes me to James Patterson. How does he see the world? How is he so prolific? Has he ever had writer's block? Why doesn't he write more about like what seems that we're all determined to die from in our culture? a really interesting talk, not about how did I get to be so successful? Because, you know, he's sold so many millions of books that you literally have to combine the next few places on the list to equal why he's so far and away number one.

Fiction, nonfiction, kids, adults, you know, so much. The collaborations, TV, he's doing more and more. He'll tell us about it. But I really wanted you to get into his process. So here it is. So, Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Sundays. Now, we got a problem in the Cuomo house. We got three dogs who now like Sundays better than the other food that I was giving them.

Sundays is healthy dog food. easy to store, okay? Very tasty, very nutritious, because Sundaes is fresh dog food made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. No, not humans, human-grade. Sundaes was co-founded by Dr. Tori Waxman, practicing vet, tests and formulates every version of each recipe.

No, the doctor doesn't eat it. They test it for pets. What is wrong with you? So I got this stuff and I like that it's kibble, man, because I gotta tell you, I've tried other foods that are wet foods and you gotta have a whole refrigerator for them. This, you store it just like all the other kibble.

And I gotta tell you, they loved it. All right. I got these three savage rescues. They eat an incredible amount of food. And I actually had to get a special bowl for one of them because he was eating the sundaes too fast. And if you're a dog owner, you know that that can go sideways on you. And I love it because it makes me feel like I'm doing them right. So, get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to sundaysfordogs.com slash chris or use the code chris at checkout.

We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo. It's embarrassing. But it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS. And it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment.

And it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments, and you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever,

and it's up to like 95% cheaper, and there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized

ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. James Patterson, what an honor to have you on the show. You check so many boxes of good that I don't even know where to start. No, thanks.

I hope I keep checking them. I get a birthday coming up, which we're not going to talk about because we don't talk about birthdays at my age. Off the record, off the record, no birthdays. So here is something that'll be a little refreshing for you. While very familiar with your work,

I am not here to do what I've read in so many other interviews where people just pour over details of different stories that you've told for insights from you about why you made certain narrative choices and whether it's following cross or whatever it is. I want to talk to you all about what impresses me about your success. And I want to start with what gave you the determination to leave a good career in 1996 and start doing something where almost no one succeeds, which is to go into the writing business. Well, that's the funny thing about writers, because sometimes I'm brought in and they ask me to talk to schools and whatever.

And honestly, your chances of making it as a successful writer, you have a better chance of making it to the NFL as a football player. There just aren't a lot of writers out there who are making a decent living. And it's getting harder and harder and harder. But it wasn't quite as bad when i was younger and um i um i was very lucky because when i was 26 i published a novel didn't make a lot of money got turned down by 31 publishers at that one and edgar is the best first mystery so i was encouraged by that and somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do, and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. And at a certain point, people were paying me to do it. And so it wasn't that hard. Although it's weird because I remember it was a summer day. I had to

go back to advertising. I was down at the Jersey Shore, and I hated it. This was Sunday. And I'm heading back to New York, and I'm on the Jersey Turnpike in the car it's got like seven miles an hour going north on the Jersey Turnpike and this is really a turning point in terms of of a message from the gods or whatever and on the other side of the Turnpike about every 15 seconds a car would go by okay whoosh who. And I'm on this other side. And finally, it occurs to me that I'm on the wrong side of the damn road. My life is on the wrong side of the road. I'm making the wrong journey. I'm going in the wrong direction. And I made that decision to get on the other side of the road, write novels, go out and

look for someone, too, that I could love and that would love me back. And I just changed my life literally on the Jersey Turnpike that day and within a couple of months I had I told Thompson J Walter Thompson that I that I was moving out I was just going to write novels but it was just that object lesson of sitting there and going like I'm on the wrong side of the road and and and I should I that should have dawned on me. Well, I don't know that it should have dawned on you because people are risk averse. We play safe. And you were lucky enough. Actually, I really don't even believe in luck. You busted your butt. You got into a good school. You did great in college.

You got a job. You had a boss who believed in you. And yet you still chose to do something that was very high risk, no matter what you believed about your talent at the time. What did Mr. Thompson say when you told him, I'm going to write novels? By the group. There's no Mr. Thompson, but yeah. Well, I think they, once again, I was doing well when I left. I had already had bestsellers. I was making more. Burt Manning was a guy who actually ran Topson at the time.

And I told him, I said, I can't afford to be here anymore. And at least that's what he said. I said, I'm not sure. So it wasn't a massive risk at that point. um so it wasn't a massive risk at that point and i mean no matter what i i had enough money at that point to to at worst be a struggling author then why were you still there uh safety habit uh it was somewhat somewhat comfortable a bestseller working in a separate business yeah i thought you were rare before things about it that I liked a lot. You're making these little movies. You're making these little soundtracks. You're working with good artists. You're working with good singers. Michael Bolton used to sing jingles and

a lot of better singers, but people that were interesting to work with. And I would only hire one kind of person, talented and nice to be around. And they were all liberal arts people. They were smart and fun. And we were making these little films, and it was okay. So it wasn't a horror show. Next thing that I find very interesting. Next thing that I find very interesting, you have been so wildly prolific.

I was just talking to my producer about measuring your success, and literally you have to do it as taking numbers two, three, and four and combining them. How do you see such wild outsized success in terms of how many sales you've had for so long? I don't think about it. I don't think about, I'm not terribly competitive that way. I like to golf, but I'm just, I'm not competitive. I just, it's, I don't know. It just doesn't. I wouldn't be competitive either if nobody could beat me. I would be very uncompetitive. I wouldn't think about competition at all. I never lose. That could be it. But I, it just doesn't, it doesn't, I don't care if I'm second or third or whatever. It's kind of irrelevant. And when I, at this stage, I want to do things where at the end of it, I feel, I'm going to say a happy idea that I do these nonfiction books. I started with The Walk in My Combat Boots and a friend of mine down here,

I started with the walk in my combat boots. And a friend of mine down here, Matt Eversman, he was the actual sergeant portrayed in Black Hawk Down. And I saw him doing some interviews. And I said, boy, this guy can really get people to talk about stuff that they wouldn't normally. And in this case, it was combat people. And so we did that walk in the combat boots. And our mission was, if you had been there, you'll say, Everson and Patterson got it right. And if you're one of these people that think that you know what you're talking about because you know a little bit, which are a lot of people, especially in New York,

you'd say, I didn't understand the military at all. Then we did ER nurses, which is similar in the sense that all nurses, people have no idea what ER nurses do. It's unbelievable. It's just stunning. I don't understand how people can do it. God bless them. They should be treated for PTSD.

And I think most of them probably have it. And then we just did Walk the Blue Line, which is about cops. And it's not pro-cop. It's not anti-cop. It's just cop. And similarly, and I think it's really important that people understand cops at this stage. Because one of the curious things about that, of course, Fox, they were all over it. They wanted to take all the interviews I wanted.

Jake Tapper finally did one. I like Jake, and Jake's a friend. But CNN, MSNBC, they wouldn't, you know, just because they have the signal, oh, it's cops, it must be pro-cop. It's not pro-cop. It's listen to what's going on. It's a dangerous, dangerous job. It does not excuse what happened in Memphis. But the bigger story about Memphis isn't that particular thing. It's what was happening in

Memphis. What's the Memphis story? We did interviews. When we did the book, we didn't do any cops in Memphis, but a lot of the Southern cops said Memphis is an unbelievable mess. You know, and, you know, when we have Mogadishu or Kabul or Baghdad, we don't blame the soldiers for the situation. And all of a sudden they're in these terrible situations. They didn't create them. And it's just a mess. And somebody's going, you know, and so if we can't get the neighborhoods and the cops to talk, we got a problem. And part of it is the cops need to listen to the neighborhoods and neighborhoods need to listen to the cops a little bit.

At any rate, but I love the projects. Fiction versus nonfiction. both obviously later in the success curve, you, as you are describing right now, had a renewed interest in doing nonfiction. What's the difference in terms of our value? You can't make stuff up. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it.

Same problem in my business. I have a big imagination and I have to constantly, I did King Tut and I didn't want him to die. He was too young to die, but you can't do that. But what's the draw for you from fiction to nonfiction? Well, what I particularly like are these three books that I mentioned. We're going to do a Medal of Honor winners, which is interesting, and we're going to do teachers. And teachers really, my mother was a teacher for 55 years or whatever. And so that really interests me.

It's so difficult right now being a teacher. You got the left on you. You got the right on you. You have the middle on you. You got the school boards on you. You got everybody telling you how you do your job. You have the kids sort of semi out of control in a lot of cases. And it's really, really hard. And I don't think people appreciate they go, oh, they got the summers off, you know? Well, yeah, I know. Yeah, they do. But that's not enough. What is wrong with being pro-cop? Shouldn't that be our disposition? Well, I think the discipline, you know, when I was in college, Vietnam or whatever, everybody was really down on soldiers. That's changed somewhat. It's a little more realistic now.

Maybe we're praising a little more. It's a mixed bag with soldiers now, but it's balanced. That's what it needs to be, I think, with cops. It just needs to be balanced. We don't approve of what happened in Memphis. We don't approve of what happened in Minneapolis, that stuff. However, I did a ride along, Matt Eversverson and I did a ride along down here. And even in this county that past year, there had been one million one hundred thousand calls for help.

That is a lot of volume, man. And every time you go out, they're wearing their vests and everything. And you just don't know you're not going to do it. You don't know what's going to happen. There was a there's one scene in the book. And what I. And what we do with the books is there's about 60 police. Matt will do the interviews. They're 50 pages long. And Matt and I will then turn them into five or six pages. So they're very readable. One of them was a brand new detective woman.

They do a drug bust. It's the middle of the day. It didn't seem like it's going to be that dangerous. She walks towards the garage. Two guys pop out, and they start shooting at her. She's been a detective for like two weeks. She kills both of them and she gets hit 10 times. So you just don't know what's going to happen. Now, she's been a cop after that for 17 years. So she stayed with it, even though that first experience had been horrifying. But it is very dangerous. And one of the things that the sheriff said is when they have those things where they'll teach police

how to deal with, you have to decide whether you're going to shoot in two or three seconds. When they put civilians through that, they go, oh my God, I had no idea. That is so hard. How do you even do it? Because your life is in jeopardy, you as a policeman, if people go, oh, you should just get shot. Well, no, that's not what the job should be, nor should you shoot somebody, you know, indiscriminately. Certainly, somebody running away, you should not shoot them in the back. That doesn't work. A couple of things I've come to learn covering it over 25 years, is one, of course, you have bad cops. You have bad everything. If anything, you have a lower index of malevolent presence within their ranks,

even though you'd think with the gun and the power and the violence and the access, you'd have more than you do in most both professions. But you do have bad men and sometimes women on the access, you'd have more than you do in most both professions. But you do have bad men and sometimes women on the job, but few. Almost invariably, the problem is culture. You mentioned Memphis. That is about a diseased culture of policing. And people will say, well, wait a minute.

You got the mayor. You got the chief. Everybody now is a minority. How can it still be culture? Well, because you change a couple of things in your diet and your body doesn't change overnight. It takes time. And those cops, even though they were all minorities, as I recall, in the most recent abusive force case, they'll say, well, first of all, talk to people of color and they'll say, I don't care if a cop is black. I don't even care if a cop is black. And from the neighborhood that they're policing, which was supposed to be panaceas 20 years ago, it's all about the culture and what they think they can

get away with and what they think is okay and not okay. So you got culture. There is one exception to that though, and it's not a panacea, but in almost all the tape that I've reviewed of bad arrests, there is an obvious lack of know-how on the part of the officer to physically fight with somebody. And that's because they don't get trained on it very often. So what I'm saying is, if it goes sideways, they almost have to go to the taser and then to the weapon because they don't have the ability to take you on and take you down definitively and with relative ease. And I feel like, yes, it's still culture. Yes, it's about what you want to do and what you don't want to do. But in terms of how, the how matters.

And it is clear that the officers aren't getting the training. And I think that would make a difference. If you can actually train them. I mean, one of the issues is you're going to run up against relatively young athletic dudes too. And that's a problem. It is if you're going to chase them or get into a pull-up contest with them. But if it is, I am in a closed space. Like I I've been studying this stuff for 20 years and i am way past uh my prime of physical excellence if you're aren't you trained in i don't know what yes something but that's my point is that if i get my hands on you and i want you on the ground and i'm going to cuff you it's going to

happen uh and now if you're better trained than me then it's not going to happen. And now, if you're better trained than me, then it's not going to happen. But that's not usually the case. And it's been really interesting to me to see how shy my industry is, the police are, and politicians are to entertain that. It's very interesting. And they say to me, well, you're like asking to make them more violent. You're asking to make them worse. No, I'm not. If you know what to do, you have to use less force. That's my point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I have not come up against that as an argument, but that's an interesting one. Yeah. But I really believe the policing as an issue, it's just like everything else we're dealing with in the

polity right now, where it's not the numbers, it's the feel. The numbers are very impressive. And of course, your starting point is one too many when someone loses a life. But in terms of the number of contacts and the number of times they go sideways and what the outcomes are of when they go sideways, the rates are very low if you compare it even to other major forces in other places. But we don't care. It's about feel. And it's another issue where we can divide people. And I ask you that not to go down the road of politics with you, but in terms of your choices, in terms of what stories to tell, how does the zeitgeist,

the tension of the moment, the condition of the country inform what kind of stories, narratives, scenarios you decide to go with? I don't know that I'm always, I certainly think about that with the kids' books, although I don't like to go up and preach at people. The heroes that I have in some of the thrillers, I mean, Alice Cross is a good guy. He's a family person. He's not perfect. He makes mistakes. We're actually shooting with Amazon now, a new series.

So there's a new Alex coming. I was just talking to Morgan Freeman about that. Aldous Hodge, who was, he's good. We'll see, we'll see how it works out. But,

but I like the idea. And once again, I don't do, especially in the thrillers, it's not realism. It's, it's larger than life. And I'll say that it's like opera.

It's, you know, no cop would ever deal with all the stuff that Alice Cross does. But it has had an effect on him. And on some level, and I think people like this, a lot of us have the conflict between work and our families. And certainly what Alex does in a big way. I mean, his work is over the top dangerous.

And he has his family. And he's very close to the family, ranging from his grandmother to the kids. And I think we can identify with that. And I think that's why a lot of people stay with that series. Women's Murder Club, similarly interesting group. When I was in advertising, I noticed that people will say this is sexist, but my observation was that women were better at solving a lot of kinds of problems because they would listen. You'd have sessions and it'd be, if I was in there with three or four women, they would be

listening to everybody. If it was four guys, everybody would want to have the floor and they would always, I've got it, I got it, they got it. And with the Women's Murder Club, it is four women and they're from different, you know, one is an assistant district attorney, one's a cop, one's a medical examiner, et cetera, newspaper person. And they just, they try to think the things through and listen to one another. And that's a little different. So that's, I mean, and part of it is just, you know, I think people deserve a little escape in their lives. And if you, at the end of the day, you sit down and you spend an hour with the book, that's okay. Uh, I, I'm not, I'm, I don't believe anybody should be guilty about, you know, guilty pleasures. You're reading. It's good by me.

We actually, an interesting thing that happened this past week, I have a kid series maximum ride and it was banned in the county north of us in Florida. And, you know, that just has to do with, you know, the governor has just made it, opened it up to, you know, if it's pornography or what was the other pornography, you know, that's like the Supreme Court justice going like, I know it when I see it. But the other thing, it was very, very judgmental. I can't remember what the hell it was, but it opened it up. So in the case of this book, one woman came in and she said there's nothing useful in these Maximum Ride books. And she hadn't read them.

She hadn't read them. And yet the county banned the books from elementary school. So, and my thing there is like, if you're going to say that kids 12 and under can't read the book, then they can't go to any Marvel movies either, you know. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online.

HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments. And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers.

So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMns dot com slash ccp prescriptions you need an online consultation with a health care provider and they will determine if

appropriate restrictions apply you see the website you'll get details and important safety information you're going to need a subscription it's required, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either, but Cozy Earth sheets breathe. And here's what I love about them. Cozy Earth's best-selling sheet is a bamboo set, okay? Temperature regulating gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you. All right.

Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code Chris, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com and the code is Chris. is Chris. How did that feel to be censored? The last time was actually, it was a book, and it was banned in Russia. That's the last time I was banned, which is kind of ironic and humorous. They must have lost then in the book. So it was, you know, it's comedic in the sense of this is insane that one woman can go in there who hasn't read the books. So that part of me, I have to like laugh a little bit. And it's not the end of the world. I mean, they also banned a couple of pretty serious books too. And that's where it gets tragic.

But the whole area where you can set up a system where people can go in and individuals can basically get books banned, that's just hideous. I think there probably could be a time when a certain book, and you go, okay, the school board really, they're okay banning that book because it's just hideous about, I don't know, Nazis or whatever, just some hideous way, and you go, okay, I see why they're banning it.

But it'd already be a big deal if they ban a book. They shouldn't be able to walk in and ban 80 books. Toni Morrison, you know, they banned Toni Morrison's book. Yeah, that was crazy. It's all, look, to me, it's all crazy. Even the Nazi books, I'm not saying that you put in how-to guides out there, but I really believe that America has forgotten that the best idea is supposed to win. And on the left and the right,

I see this mainly because both sides right now in this binary zero-sum toxic twosome, each is controlled by its fringe. So that's why it's not so shocking to see a similarity because extreme is extreme. They're just in different directions. And they don't want the best idea to win anymore. It's that, okay, I know Patterson has a book. And mine is better because he is a commie. And I heard he kicked a dog the other day down there in palm beach and uh he's just a hates america i don't deck it out the point is it's not going to be read my book

here's what it is here's why it's better i just need you to lose and that's what i see in the book burning that or the banning that let's just say something's bad. But also that people want to get up on the stage. I mean, don't take this as a pro-Trump thing because it isn't, but people want to get up on the stage, and this gives him more. He gets up on the stage again with these trials because people, they want to get up on the stage. Look, we're going to get him on this thing,

which, you know, as crimes go, it's pretty minor and not worth it to put him on the stage again, in my opinion. A seven-year-old misdemeanor. Yeah, pretty minor. For something that I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for,

pretty minor. It might be Donald on the phone there. And that's right. He's like, hey, I heard you talking about me. I like that. You're back. All your books are back. Look, here's what's pro-Trump.

Pro-Trump is he knows how to harness the fear and the disaffection of a big group of people in this country. You know, someone was coming after me yesterday. I gave a talk for my wife out where I live. First one I've done since I got shit canned. So it was actually kind of interesting. You know, I kind of forgot that, oh God, I haven't stood in front of a group of people in a while.

So that was interesting. And somebody came up to me and said, you know, Trump got his ass kicked by Biden. And, you know, so I don't understand why you keep talking about him being formidable and this and that. I said, well, I think I have a lot of reasons that I'm right, but there's only one that matters, which is, yeah, Biden beat Trump by a decent amount of votes. Trump got the second most votes anyone has ever gotten for president. Now, part of that is a specious statistic because the country's getting bigger,

so the vote totals will go up. And Biden was the first, right? But certainly Biden is not our most popular president that we've ever had. So what does it tell us? Democrats have an enormous registration advantage. You should not be in a close race with a Republican in a national contest.

You should be whooping them on the basis of registration, but you're not, and you're not for two reasons. One, and when I say you, I don't mean you, Jim. I'm saying the Democrats. Two reasons. One, electoral college. So you have about half of the government where the governance is done by a third of the

population because of how the electoral college split goes in every state, getting two senators, et cetera, et cetera. But the other reason is fear. And there is a lot of the majority that won't tell people like me in my official capacity, you know, I got to tell you, I'm kind of tired of being hunted. And I don't think my white kids in their suburban high school where they're getting 90s and they're on the captains of sports and they're doing the key club. I don't like that they're not getting into the colleges anymore because of this diversity push. And I don't like that every time I got to hire somebody at the place where I work, they tell me it's got to be a diversity candidate. And I don't like that every time I say something about, well, that's a little weird. All of a sudden they want to take my job.

They won't say it to me as a reporter because they're afraid. But they believe it. And the left looks at that and says, well, that's pathetic. And I'm laughing at you because you don't get the irony that you were fine when it was okay for you. But now you're upset. Here's the problem with that. You win the argument, you lose the election. And that is why trump was successful he is an agent of that fear and it's not the most it's not the hardest thing in the

world to sit there and lay out all the problems that the question is do you have any solutions yes we can't have open borders what can we have when and then and they just stop it we can't have open so it's just, yeah, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong, but no solutions. But I'm not going to bother myself with solutions when I just need you to be worse. So all I need is for you to be a socialist. All I need is for you to be open borders. As long as you are in this very, very, as to use your word, hideous thing. Yeah. I'm just, you know, it's like the old joke, you know, how do you outrun a bear?

You got to be faster than the other guy. You know, that's it. It's a low bar. And the people who want power look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you have debates when everybody is afraid to say anything? Nobody will speak for you. How can you have a debate? Also, the other thing is I'm afraid that debating is not something that the president needs to do. That's not a skill of the president

needs. So why are we doing seven debates or eight debates a night and judging people and throwing people out because they didn't do well in a debate? Who cares? It's not important. I agree. It plays to the horse race. I don't know if Lyndon Johnson would have been a good debater. I don't know. He might have been on some level, but people wouldn't have liked him, so he would have got thrown out. I would like to see the format change. And I think that, well, look, I think there's a plus minus. You're identifying the minus. The plus is it would be nice to see these men and women The plus is it would be nice to see these men and women pushed to reveal what they're about and what they're not about on things that matter.

Maybe the format could be a little bit different. Maybe it is better to have it one-on-one, but it's not a you get to speak the whole time and then I'll just ask you another open-ended question. Maybe it's a little bit more combative in the interview, but I do think the more the voters are exposed to people who are pushed to explain how they make it better, to your point, the better for them because the negative is addictive and it's an easy proxy for insight. Oh, it is. It is. And it always has been. It always has been. And people, they don't want to dig deep. I always felt one of the things is greatest strength is greatest weakness. My greatest strength is, as you say, prolific. I'm very quick. I do things. I can write a story

really fast. And that's a strength and a weakness. The strength is that I can keep you turning the pages. The weakness is I don't dig deep enough sometimes. Have you ever had writer's block? No. Well, yes. I was with a woman for seven years or so. She developed a brain. We were in our 30s.

And after she died, I couldn't write for a year and a half or so. But that was the only time. That was a mess mess but that was grief you were in mourning well whatever but i couldn't i just couldn't i could not write i couldn't uh yeah so i was blocked whatever you want to call it but that's other than that no and part of the reason is you know in this office here you can't see it but there are i don't know 30 some projects and if i'm not working i mean I'll just go to the next project. So I don't, you know, and if I'm doing a manuscript and I get to a chapter and it's not happening,

I just say, you know, get it on the next draft. I just move on. That's a mistake people make. They'll just sit there and they'll start beating their heads against the wall if they're stuck on something. Move it on. What is your process in terms of the percolation of scenarios? Do they come when you're walking on the beach with the dog?

Do you have to sit and think? You know, for better or worse, I could do something on the two of us. I could figure out some story about this kind of thing. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's good or it's bad. But actually, somewhere in here,, actually it's over there. You can see that one ad, not an ad. We can get our kids reading.

And somewhere in there, there's a box and it has the clever title Ideas on it. And it's about this thick. And it's just idea after idea after idea for for stories or books or movies uh and i'm constantly having sometimes just be a title or whatever the heck it is and and i'll just put it in there and give me a title i probably could write uh probably could write something i i have so many that i had to go to audible and i'm doing these podcasts now just because i i can't put it out I can't put out more books. There's too many.

So I do podcasts now, but that's a cool idea. What are some of your, what's this one? 10 Rules for the Perfect Murder. I'd read that as a book, but I can't fit it in. So I'm doing a podcast, whatever. Why don't you, I've never really seen you as a regular on television talking about true crime. It came up.

I didn't want to do it. It came up with what's a true crime channel, the discovery idea, whatever. Yeah. They want it. And I just, my life is good. I enjoy what I'm doing. I'm here. I love my wife, love her son, her son why don't you like zoom in

now thanks to the pandemic everybody can be on tv just the way we are right now like you don't have to go into the studio you don't need to just it comes up i mean every once in a while somebody say why don't you why don't you serious and what you know i i don't i i have enough i have more than enough to do as it is and the other thing of it is, Chris, is if I'm going to do it, I really throw, I'm doing now, Michael Crichton started a book. He was about 70 pages in and I'm completing the book. His widow and the estate came to me and they said, would you like to? I said, well, let me read it because some of, there were a couple of projects that were done after he died and i didn't think the books were very good and um and i read the 70 page i said this is a really cool idea it's

about a volcano that's about to take over and wipe out the island hawaii and there's something else that's happening on the island which is even more tragic and ridiculous than that and i said yes i would like to write this and i like the challenge, because his books have a lot of science in them and yet they keep you reading. And I haven't done that. So I like that challenge and I like his widow. So I really, and I'm doing the best I can possibly do to make it a terrific book. I have a speech I have to deliver down here a couple of days and I've done like nine drafts on it. So that's a problem. I mean, I try to do it. If I'm going to do it, if I commit to it, I'm going to do it as best I can. When you give speeches, what do you like to speak about? Story after story after story. I can remember a long time ago,

I got up and the woman that was before me, it was a New York Times thing. I forget what the heck it was. And she was hilarious. I think she might have been, you know, tipsy at 10 in the morning. But she was really, really great. She just told a lot of stories. And I got up and read from the book. And people didn't boo, but it was close.

And, you know, I learned from that just to do story after story. And so I'll do a lot of stories. And they're usually coming to just sort of one point that holds the whole thing together. And, and, and, and what, I mean, the thing I'm going to do tomorrow or the next day here has to do with change is coming. I mean, even down here, it's, it's happening. It's a change is all over the place. And. And so what we need to do is not just, you know, bury our heads in the sand. We have to learn to manage change as best we can. So that's the point of the thing, ultimately. It's going to come. Don't be afraid of it.

You can't just yell and scream. It's going to happen. It's just happening in this area, in this state, certainly. And how do you manage it intelligently, sanely? What kind of people do you like to have a drink with or eat with or spend your time with when you're not working? Down to earth. I'm very lucky in that I grew up in Newburgh, New York, and I still see the world through the eyes of a kid from Newburgh. I consider I'm very lucky. I wanted to do this because I loved your show. Sue and I did. We would watch it most nights, many nights. And so I was just curious what it'd be like to talk to you now. And I'm lucky and I'm lucky to have done a couple of

books with Clinton. Don't write a book about me. They all end badly. Not necessarily. This could be the beginning of something even better than whatever you had but the clinton thing i mean that's a cool thing we've become friends with with he and and hillary which is nice uh i really enjoy her a lot she's not the first time we went out to dinner with them one of the one thing that happened was about three hours up in up in the Chappaqua area. And during the meal, three or four times during the meal, they were holding hands under the table. And people don't think of them that way. They don't have a human view of them or of a lot of people and celebrities, whatever.

That was one piece of it. I don't remember what the other piece was. Oh, it was no in in looking at her and listening to her she's very well i mean you've obviously met her a lot she's very down to earth she's very funny she's tough but uh uh but she's a really really really really human when you see her in that context and whoever was running her marketing and it's her fault they didn't get that they didn't get that they and anytime she does those little phony phony waves and stuff somebody needed to taser her don't do that

because it comes off as phony and you're not phony but it comes off that way my pop um was uh a completely authentic individual uh who he was publicly was who he was privately, which made him a real stiff to be around in private. But as a public figure, he was good. Some of these people, and I believe the secretary falls into this category and her husband does not, they have hardwired into their psyche how they think they're supposed to be when they're out in the public. And even if someone who is an intimate says to them, boy, James or Hillary or whoever, if you were more like this when you were out there, If you were more like this when you were out there, that's not how they see how they should play the game.

And I remember this with Al Gore. I remember who I believe was a very exaggerated case of this. And I remember it with President George W. Bush. with President George W. Bush. I remember seeing him come to a stop with a bass boat behind a truck and he was like, yeah, we're going to just make a quick stop in here and I just want to say this and that and this and that and this and that and then we're going to go here, we're going to do it and I really do want somebody to tell me here which one of these three spoons I want to use because I'm getting too much and I don't have enough time and i said to my brother you've got an effing problem here right now because he was with gore and i was like gore is a great guy to be around in private he is stiff as a board in public because he thinks that's the way you're supposed to be hillary has the same thing i said

and this guy this guy doesn't care. Another guy like that. Who was it? I remember Dole. Oh, Dole, yes. May he rest in peace. He did a thing with Clinton after they were both out of office. He's hilarious. Yeah.

He's witty. He's funny. He's charming. But, ooh, put him on stage. Stiff. Now, his wit was a little, you know one of the things that clinton has going for him is he's got uh different gears of funny and charming dole was my kind of funny he was acerbic he was there was a sharpness that can get you in trouble sometimes in politics i understand why

people would choose reserve um but you know sometimes that's just what it is, is that that's the way they think that they need to be. But I will agree with you about this. I've read so much about it. I've thought so much about it. I do believe that Hillary Clinton lost that election. Trump didn't win it. However, however, what did win out the day is this same nagging disconnect we have that people will not address. We just had the Dilbert guy bring it up in ham-fisted, stupid fashion where he thought he could get away with saying things that were hyperbolically obnoxious and bigoted, and it would be okay because it would be provocative of a conversation.

Yeah. and bigoted, and it would be okay because it would be provocative of a conversation. Yeah. DeSantis is doing what he's doing down there, because if you are a white, financially stressed, or financially concerned individual, it feels right. Yeah, let's get back to what we know and what's okay. Let's get back to that. One of the interesting things down here with DeSantis is, I mean, things like the six-week

abortion and the people carrying guns without a license, et cetera, 70-some percent of Floridians do not want that. You know, people who are good with guns, they do not want unlicensed people running around with handguns. I agree. They don't want that. I people running around with handguns. I agree. That's the curious, what I don't understand. We just went, I told you the book banning thing, but people don't want that. He's playing to the primary. See, I don't know who he's playing. But that's, I'm telling you, I know who he's, I know who is, I know who is advising him. And I

know what the calculus is. And a primary is a really different animal than a general. And especially in that party right now, and especially with a monster in terms of the ability to control and do damage to you within that base, which is former President Trump, DeSantis is going to have his hands full because there's a little secret about your governor that people are just waking up to,

which is really smart, really good on paper, does not like confrontation, and is not comfortable one-on-one. And that's a problem in retail politics. And Trump knows this and is dying to get into the ring with the guy. But look, we're a long way from that. Here's a second shot at this question. Here's a second shot at this question. This does not bleed into your work. As many different storyboards as you have to come up with or you choose to come up with,

you have found a way to not become someone who apes the reality and the strains and the problems and dealing with fact or fiction and which is stranger. So how do you do that? How do you look at what's happening around you culturally right now and then decide what to say? I grew up in a small town. Then when I worked in a mental hospital where I saw a different, a good one, McLean Hospital up in Belmont,

and that showed me a different kind of class of quality of people, class of people. Went down to Vanderbilt, so I spent time in Tennessee. So I've seen a lot of stuff, and I'm not too judgy about things, and I'm pretty open to, okay, that's one of the strengths of Clinton. Clinton wants to, you know, where are you coming from? He wants to hear. And I'm kind of there. I kind of get the cop side. I get the neighborhood side within reason. I get the pro-life.

I get both sides of that argument a bit. So I'm not going to sit there and take a strong stand on some of these things. I'm a little bit more open about, I don't know, just human behavior, where people come from. Yeah, unless they push it so far that it just pushes my buttons. One other thing I need to know. When you watch us covering murder investigations, do you know if they're going to be guilty or not guilty before we do? No. No, I didn't.

I don't watch it too much. It parted with me. I mean, it's a little get to that point where the people in charge, including a police chief who seems to be a pretty good human being, where they felt they had to do this Hail Mary? That to me is more interesting, but it doesn't happen. When I did the Epstein book and I didn't know that much about Epstein. I'd done a little movie down here with a friend of mine called Murder of a Small Town. It was about Belle Glade down here with a friend of mine uh called murder of a small town it was about belgrade down here which at that point i don't know these rankings it was ranked the most the most violent small town in america and newberg was ranked sixth at that point i don't know if those rankings mean anything but we wanted to do something that would say there are a lot of really

good people in these towns so don't just you know, don't sit there and act like everybody in this town is a killer or whatever the hell. And we did this little thing. And interestingly, we bid it out. We had an LA and a New York, and they bid like $750,000. We went and shot it for $51,000. And it won two Emmys. And, you know, so I don't know what that is with the people not understanding

how to do things at a you know for a reasonable price um and then and then this guy uh tim malloy and i who used to be a news guy and a journalist and a study used to be on wpix and we said let's do something else he told me about the epstein thing and i wasn't really familiar with the story and he wanted he wanted to do another movie. And I said, I want to do a book on this because this is amazing. Did the book. This is back in 2016. I take it around because I'm going, this story is a mind-blower. And I didn't know. Here is this billionaire. He's grabbed these hundreds, hundreds of young girls, as young as 14 years old. He gets this 13-month sentence. He's out in 11 or whatever hell it

is this is an unbelievable story i take it to cnn i take it to fox i take it to everybody nobody wants to cover it the the wall street journal and miami herald covered it come 2018 2019 the lawyer for a lot of these these girls some of them are a little bit grown up to other women they want a big settlement for Epstein. So he takes it to the Miami Herald and he says, these women will talk to you now. So they do a series. They get some coverage. But what breaks the story is Acosta had been the – who was responsible for the 13 – essentially responsible for the 13-month, essentially responsible for the 13-month...

The sentence. Yeah, sentence. And at that point, Trump had appointed him to the cabinet. That's what broke the story. People are going, oh, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Most people didn't care. It's true. But that's why that story got big.

Then Epstein became a vehicle of convenience to see if you could play political gotcha, who you could connect to him. That became a big deal. You know, I had two private investigators and, you know, I didn't want, but we investigated with President Clinton because of the plane stuff, most of which were in Africa. Like you don't go to parties and, you know, and every, when they went from country to country, it was another flight. And that was that plane, you know, but nobody, you're not going down there during age to have parties, whatever. And then, and then with Trump, I was on a plane going, I don't know, back of somewhere, either to Florida or back, whatever. And the woman I was sitting with, it turned out she had run the spa at Mar-a-Lago. And I said, when you were there,

did you know this guy Epstein? And she said, oh, yes. She said he was not a member, but he would come to the spa and he was inappropriate with the young girls there. She said, I went to Mr. Trump at the point when he was Mr. Trump at that point. And Trump banished him from the club that day, banished him. And then they would see these stories in the New York Times. And in the second paragraph, they would go, Epstein, who was friendly with President Trump and President Clinton, I'm going like, dudes, if you got something on that, that's your headline. If you don't, don't put it in the second paragraph, because that's just bad journalism, in my opinion.

Yeah, they put it in the second paragraph because that's just bad journalism, in my opinion. Yeah, they put it in the second paragraph because neither Clinton nor Trump can sue and win because of the public figure exemption. That's just – that's so beneath. That's why they do it. That's crazy. That's why they do it. I have every – the reason I'm spending all this blood and treasure on my litigation with CNN is not because I hate CNN. I certainly don't. I think they're the best news organization in the world.

But I can't have, you can say that I got shit canned by CNN because I did. You can say that I got shit canned from CNN for helping my brother because I did. But right now what the media likes to say is I got fired because an investigation revealed I lied about how I was helping my brother go after his accusers and manipulate the media.

That's not true. And now I'm in the position of I can prove it's not true. So that's the only way I can get it out of the media. If I don't go through with this litigation and then be able to pay someone else to send cease and desist letters to people when they write it that way, it'll never go away. So we have a very interesting bar here for better and worse. Do you believe Epstein hanged himself or do you get a little flavor of that conspiracy? You know, if I really want to stretch things, I go, there probably are some people that want it in bed. Uh, cause he did, I think he did know some, he did have some stories, especially in terms of trafficking, which is massive.

The story on trafficking hasn't been written yet either because it's so much bigger than people think it is. So that leads me a little bit that way, but I have no way to – I mean, doctors who I know say that they didn't think if he hung himself that – I don't know, that the bones would have broken that way. I don't know. Well, look, James Patterson, I know you're busy because you just told me you have dozens of unfinished products.

I love that you have taken it in so many different directions and collaborations. I know that's a little controversial in your world, but I love that you collaborate. That's crazy. Sistine Chapel, collaboration. Yes. Vaccine, collaboration. If we're going to saveistine Chapel, collaboration. Vaccine, collaboration.

If we're going to save this planet, it's going to be collaboration. Almost every television show you watch, writer's room, nine writers, collaboration. I'm with you. It really isn't. People look at it like it's some big mystery. It isn't. It's very common. Well, I love it, and I'm one of the beneficiaries of it. Thank you so much for what you do for us and the stories you tell. Thank you. It was good talking to you, and good luck. You deserve it. I hate what happened.

I think it's ridiculous. Well, I'll save that out so you don't lose any readers. I don't care. Let them go. If they don't want the truth, I don't want them. Tell her to check out News Nation. Let me know what you think. Okay, will do.

God bless and be well, and thank you. You too. Bye-bye, Chris. Man, that James Patterson. Now I get why he's so successful. That guy's mind is always working and he sees things like us, but in a way that maybe most of us either miss or don't take the time to see it that way. Or maybe we just don't love it all

the way he does in his head and heart. And that's why he's our storyteller and we're the reader. Thank you so much again for being here with the Chris Cuomo Project. Subscribe, follow. Don't forget the free agent merch. Don't forget News Nation, 8, 11 p.m. Eastern. Even Patterson didn't know where I am now on TV.

And he's been watching me on CNN for years. So what does that mean about everybody else? It means I need to do some more advertising. I'll see you soon.