The Eric Metaxas Show - Brian Kilmeade

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Brian Kilmeade from Fox & Friends returns to the studio to highlight important lessons learned from America's past in his new book, "The President and the Freedom Fighter."

to the Eric Mattaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey there, folks. This is the Eric Mataxis show. It's officially named that. We got it because nobody took the name. I happen to be also named Eric Mataxis. And I get to interview people about everything, so we call it the show about everything. As you know, I love history.

And today I get to talk to the author of a book called The President and the Freedom Fighter, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick, Douglas, and their Battle of Save America's Soul. And the author of the book is someone you may know. named Brian Kilmead. Brian, you look very familiar. Eric, thanks to more for your support over the years. Every time I have a book out, you always say come down to this cathedral. And this place is the nicest studio I've ever seen, period. Thank you very much.

Look, this, I think I told you this. And by the way, people, if you're just tuning in, this guy has been on Fox and Friends for how many years now? 25. Well, hold on a second. Did you just say 25? Yeah, I started filling it in 96. You were in junior high school? I thought so.

Yeah, it was crazy. You're playing Pop Warner football and they grabbed you? It took me 12 years to get to Fox. And then once I got there, I realized how great it was, even though no one had heard of it yet. So when it started, I started filling in as a sports guy. And then it evolved. And things started going crazy from the war, from the election mess to the war on terror, to the Iraq war. You mean the first election mess?

Yeah, 2000. Chad, hanging chads. Yes. So you are the youngest living institution in the country. That's pretty, seriously, that's amazing 25 years from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, I knew when I walked into that place who was going to be special. They were all about winning. They were all about substance.

They were all about getting things done, completion-oriented. Every time there would be a negative story out, they would put their headline on the wall. I'm like, wow, they're not running for negative stories. They would laugh at being laughed at. I go, these guys, this is like Bill Parcells and the Giants before they were even 500. Until recently, I'm talking about the Bill Parcells guys. I honestly cannot believe 25 years. Good for you. Well, okay, but you've been writing books, and the new one is about Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, the president and the freedom fighter. I always want to ask people, where did you get the idea to write a book about Lincoln and Frederick Douglass? I mean, I know they knew each other, but talk about the idea behind this. Well, number one, I want to move up in time, and just so you know, I never intended to do this. I did the games do count because I want to.

to be a great athlete and I wasn't. I thought I wasted my time. I go, I can't believe I played from 5 to 22. I end up an average Division 2 soccer player and I wanted to be great. I go, I'm embarrassed. I walked off the field in the mud in an innocuous game at Pace University and I played for Long Island University and I said, what a waste of time that was. And I started on TV and radio. And I just said, okay, I'm going to think about all my friends became all-Americans. I didn't. One division one player, the decade in the Big East, run to run. up to Patrick Ewing. He was a soccer goalie. So all my friends were captains, and I just felt I felt like the ultimate loser, because I poured just as much energy in, and I did not get the

results. So one thing leads to another, but I realized how to help me out is when the rejection started coming in to do what we do, which they pour in. Everybody was just sure I shouldn't be hired. It didn't bother me, because I already failed in soccer. I'm like, I already know what it's like not to achieve your goals. I go, this is not going to stop me here. failure, ladies and gentlemen, you're getting the theme? Failure can be a good thing. In your case, it toughened you up. That's actually, you know, that's important for people to hear that because I actually didn't fail until later in life. And so you can't deal with it as well because you're like, hey, I was always a straight-A student. Everything is great. Everything is great. And then when

suddenly you hit that wall, you have no idea how to respond. So I've spent my adult life responding. But you, you dealt with that early on. and so when you decided to get into broadcasting, did you want to do TV, radio? What was your... I wanted both. What was in your mind? I wanted both because they didn't have a TV studio in college,

but they had radio, and I had this sports knowledge, and I thought that would be the quickest way to be on air. And then I started doing another way, while I'm waiting for the sports job, or to get another job, and I'm remarkably underfinanced in my life. So rather than waiter, I said, wouldn't it be great to do stand-up?

So I started doing stand-up because they can't stop you from doing stand-up. You could go up 5 o'clock in a diner. There's open mics everywhere. So I started doing that. Now, wait a minute. This takes guts, my friend. This takes real guts to do stand up. Where did that come from?

Well, I mean, I've always felt they had a good sense of humor, but it wasn't honed. So I took a couple of classes that ended up and busy, I'm orient, I'm organos. I'm very organized. I'm not artsy. Like those people that can stare in through a window, the Robin Williams of the world and Billy crystals who feel it, I need structure. So I took a couple of those classes. it ended in performance, and then I just took it from there.

I learned how to write jokes that reflect my belief, and I just went for it and helped me memorization, because when you were out in the field memorizing reports, it was terrible at it. So I looked some copy, and it would be somebody else's copy, and I was struggling with it. I said, well, if I can memorize a 15-minute set with maybe if I brought a list out, it would be bullet points or a word. I go, that'll help me, and it did.

Also being on stage, and doing radio, help me without a script, and then when I'm doing as a talk show host without a script, it never bothered me when things went down. Anybody who does stand up, you don't need a script, so if things go down, he yields electricity, they tell you this, Mike is out, your guest didn't show up, but you're going live. Eric, doesn't bother you, right?

Because you're used to it, because I don't see any papers in front of you. It's amazing to me now because people think that I always did what I do. Now I love being in front of a crowd, and it's kind of like when Johnny Carson, when they wouldn't laugh, he would make something out of that. And I feel like I'm at that point. where I have a level of confidence that I can enjoy whatever is thrown at me. I'm almost eager for something to go wrong or something.

But just the fact that you did that early on. And what other show would people come on, except the Eric McIntack Show, to know? I can't believe I'm hearing you share this stuff because I never would have guessed knowing you that you had this background and all of this stuff. It's kind of cool. And until I'm actually answering your question in a roundabout way. So after I started doing sports for a while, when people come up to me, what do they talk to the sports guy about? Sports.

So I would always reverse and would you play? You know, Kevin Sorbo walks in. The Rock comes in, where you're lucky enough to the CEO, Jack Welch comes in. I see how competitive he goes, did you play sports? He goes, yeah, I was a baseball player, and I was a hockey player. And I go, it was great, ninth, great, terrible, and 12th. I go, why? He goes, I never grew.

And I go, wow, okay. And I said, there's a book here. Yeah. And I wrote the games to do count. I interviewed 72 people about what they did in sports. But if they were pro and successful, I didn't want them. I wanted people that were successful in other things. that credit sports, which also the stories were in some way failure of falling short.

I mean, even John Stewart, when he was talking to me, and we were talking to each other, he told me that, you know, he was a kid that got divorced, his family was divorced. He used to kick the ball around by himself as a soccer player, and he was kind of struggling, making friends, and it was tough time, but he always found success in the soccer field. He ends up being a very good player, captain at William and Mary, and he said, but on the Maccabee team, and he ended up having the success. I go, would you think about going pro? He goes, no, I knew I capped out. I knew I couldn't go any further,

but that whole attitude of soccer being undersized and being successful playing Division I, much better than I ever would, help me with stand-up. So I go, that's in the book. So I did, that book ended up being successful. And when was that? That was in 2003, probably. Then I did Italian play the game to prove, even if you're Joe Montana or Steve Young, if you don't learn values and ethics along the way. And I asked, asking to bring me to the moments where you learned it. Well, Montana said in eighth grade, he walked up to his dad and said, I don't like football. I'm done. And he's like, what do you mean? He goes, the coach doesn't really talk to me. I want to play quarterback. He won't put me in.

He goes, give me one more season. He goes, really? I rather do, I rather do Boy Scouts. And his dad's like, give me one more season. And that was the next season where he got the right coach that saw his talent. He ends up going to Notre Dame and being the best, arguably the best quarterback ever. And you just go through life and he use sports as the vehicle. It's how you play the game, not whether you're going to lose. The games do count you're not wasting your time. And then that led me to the other passion I had, which was history. And then for 20 years, I've been just looking into this spy ring on Long Allen because it was a big mystery and it was factual. And Bill O'Reilly's urging after he started doing his history books, I told him the story. He goes,

I live there. I don't know about it. Do it. I'll help you. And he would look at my pages along the way and help me think I could do a history book because I don't go to Yale. I don't write the history books. Hey, let me correct you. Going to Yale is not a positive. Let me just put it right there. It is definitely a positive. Are you kidding? No, it's a positive in people's heads.

And when I was first asked to write a biography of William Wolberforce, I felt the same way. I thought, I'm not a historian. How am I going to write a biography? How am I going to do this? So it is a weird thing. But I actually think that if you're not an academic, you bring a fresh perspective and an ability to communicate to see things, academics are, you know, they're trying to make it a, they're trying to impress other academics.

So I'm so glad Bill O'Reilly encourage you. We're going to go to a break. Folks, talking to Brian Kilmead. You may know him from Fox and Friends. You need to know him as the author of many books. The new one is The President and the Freedom Fighter. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor

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It works. I'm talking to Brian Kilmead. You may know him from Fox and Friends, but he's written a lot of books. This one is called The President and the Freedom Fighter, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, in their battle to save America's Soul. America's soul could use a little saving right now, but we're not going to talk about that. What made you want to write a book combining these two figures? I was looking for, last time I was here, you were kind enough to interview me about Sam Houston,

the Alamo Avengers, so I try to find an angle not plowed, and the Alamo is, but San Jensinto isn't. Nine months later, he ends up taking him out as San Jensinto beating Santa Ana in 17 minutes, because Texans know it, but the rest of the world. So what's next? The Mexican War, I didn't think, had enough. my opinion. I'm sure there's a lot there with Lee and the quartermaster Grant and the fact that these generals fought on the

same side and then years later they'd be trying to kill each other and a lot of them successfully. I said, all right, the Civil War, what could I do this, not plowed ground from Ken Burns' series to the remarkable book David Blight wrote about Frederick Douglass, I think the book of the year, five years ago

and then what about Lincoln? Literally you and I have the same situation. We get books about Lincoln to our desks all the time and they're all great. I went for a It's almost nobody who's been written about more. There's like maybe three people who've written about, like Napoleon, Jesus, Lincoln. I mean, I don't know how many books have been written about Lincoln.

So, yeah, what do you do for a fresh angle on the Civil War? So what I wanted to do is also, I didn't mind tackling race, but I wanted to do it through quotes and our opinion. And race has never left the news. Black Lives Matter is raging at the time. And then you have a situation where, as late as, Condoleezza on Rice, Connoisse on the view, having to defend herself growing up in a Jim Crow South, who knew all about racism, but grew up as his conservative and said, don't ever let it be an excuse.

So I said, what have I talked about their parallel lives to the degree in which they read a lot of the same books, that they overcame incredible obstacles, nothing like Frederick Douglass. I get it. The guy was enslaved until he was at 20 years old. Two tries, got out in the second time. Within seven years has a biography. It's a bestseller and then starts a world tour and becomes famous in Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and England. This guy was a slave 10 years before, but decides to come back to America because it's 4 million enslaved,

350,000 slave owners, and he sees potential in this guy Lincoln and the Republican Party that we're finally ready to do something. Now, look, I didn't see, I didn't know this. People are always amazed at what I don't know. I don't know almost everything. And when I hear something like this, I say, wow, I did not know that Frederick Douglas was thinking this way and that he saw something in Lincoln. What year was it that he kind of notices Lincoln? I think he notices him in the 50s. And he gets to really see him and read about him in the Douglas, Lincoln Douglas debates.

And what I was fascinated, Eric, is we're broadcasters and everything changed in broadcasting since we got in. It used to be the network news and cable. Nobody wants cable. Now cable is streaming. And then who knows, everyone's got a show in a network. But back then it was give a speech, make sure that speech gets in every newspaper. So the Cooper Union speech and the Douglas debates. Yeah, they had big crowds, but it was the transcription of the debates that made them famous.

I have to say if you passed a few days ago, a few weeks ago, I drove past Cooper Union. And you look at the building, this is here in New York, and you think, how is it possible that a speech that Lincoln gave in this? that building, was it 1860, I guess? I don't remember what it was. 1859. Okay. And I've been to the Great Hall. I've spoken in the Great Hall and you think, how is it possible that that changed the course of his career, the course of American history, a speech? It's, it is amazing. And you're telling, you're saying that it happened because the wires pick it up. Suddenly this is, the whole country is able to read what he said. And he knew it. And as, even though he was born to two illiterate parents and his mom dies at nine years old and he's living in a rural agricultural

life physically he's a specimen and he has no push to get educated but another theme about today's news that makes it easy to talk about it on fox is that education is what we're talking about race is what we're talking about history is what we're talking about our heritage is what we're talking about so lincoln says i'm going to matter and he would take long trips just to pick up a book as you know, and that he would sit there and talk and interact with people intellectually, while the same time physically, he was working the land with a dad

that said, put down the books. We don't want any more learning. You've got to work for a living. But he had a mom and a stepmom that's pushed him towards that direction. Becomes a lawyer, gets out on his own, determined a matter, starts running for office, has some success. If you want

to study Lincoln, every speech is written except for the law speech, which they found a transcript of the law So even that's there. You see how this man evolves and how we think. The only thing I know about Lincoln, worth mentioning at least, he was 28 years old when he gave a speech at the, I guess what's called the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield. It is a magnificent Lincoln-esque speech. He was 28 years old. I mean, it makes no sense. You think how brilliant was this guy that he's not able to just to give a good speech. but what he's saying in that speech is as powerful today to us. And so we forget that this raw-boned, you know, rail splitter,

he was a genius. Like we shouldn't forget. He was a genius. Right. And just because it's so unlikely and he had a rumpled, everyone talks about how different he looked and how all the questions about his appearance wipe away as soon as he starts talking.

And they listen to the substance of the man. You know, he had to go get fitted and he had to sit for a painting and sit for a picture. and he knew this picture was going to make or break him, and he worked for the best photographer in order to do it because he knew his looks were something they were going to matter because he wants to get the nomination. But to get invited to Cooper Union is fascinated too.

They see potential in this new party, the Republican Party, and this nominee, this one-term congressman, who was a very respected lawyer. And they don't want Seward. He's the governor of New York, and they say, this guy's an institutional man, we want to take a look at somebody else. So the power brokers sit down in Cooper Union,

and they invite him. Originally, he's going to speak in a church, He's got a very biblical type speech. And then they go, no, we're going to move it to Cooper Union. He said, okay. And he hit the books. You know what he did? He looked up the founding fathers.

And he said, we're going to debate slavery. We're going to debate what they really thought as America expanded. And he brought it with him, he was armed with Jefferson's views, Madison's views, Washington's views. And he took on this issue and said, I'm not going to break away. I'm going to do what they said. They knew how bad it was. They knew how wrong it was. They didn't know how to get out of it.

And one of the quotes I put in the introduction is Jefferson. He said, with slavery, we had a wolf by the ear, and we didn't know how to let it go. Because guess what? You let it go, and it kills you. You don't hold on to it, and it's untenable. That's the analogy in my definition of it. Wow. And then he talks about getting rid of it.

And to fast forward quick, Douglas has a newspaper. So what made this interesting to study is I read Douglas's North Star, and he could read what he said in the Liberator under William Lloyd Garrison. And it's not, Brian Kilme, it interpreted, no, no, read his words. And I'll put the quotes in. Read what he said, and don't tell me any different. Now, Lincoln says some stuff that we'll find racially more than insensitive. I believe everyone should have liberty.

I believe slavery's wrong, but I don't think blacks and whites are equal. Really? Well, that's, he's a person of his times. He would evolve. By the time he's done, Frederick Douglass, the minute he sees him, all those statements that made his hair curl, which would melt away when he saw this man who's sitting there in the White House when he goes to see him too big for his chair, sprawled out in a rumpled suit,

and all he saw was honesty and integrity. And they engaged in a conversation, and he realized he was dealing with a great man, and that they could work together. So they didn't actually meet, meet until Lincoln was president. Until Lincoln's president. And Lincoln never wrote about it. Douglas, but was clearly everybody was aware of Douglas, one of the most famous man in the world.

Yeah, no question about it. So Douglas was, you call him a freedom fighter, because the title of the book is the president and the freedom fighter. So what did he think of as his role during the war? Because obviously they were friends during the war. They didn't meet before the war. What did he feel that he was able to do? Was he, was he one of those encouraging Lincoln to write the Emancipation Proclamation, for example? Yes. I love that question. So what he thought for the war is, it's like saying, hey, I'd like to give you a gift, and then I'm saying, I want more.

I want one bigger, and I want it faster. So he's saying, okay, you know, you ran, you said the slave states can't exist, two countries can't exist. You wanted to get, you watched seven states leave before you got there. You got no, literally no votes in the South. 40% of the country voted for him. The rest didn't. Stephen Douglas was supposed to win, but the Democratic vote got divided. and this one time congressman becomes president, obviously the perfect man at the perfect time.

But this is what drove Douglas crazy. So the first thing he says is I need the seven states back. So I got to do an inaugural. And to get them back, I am going to say, hey, guys, keep your slaves. I'll make it the 13th Amendment you can keep your slaves. We just got to get the country back together. Now, Douglas feels like he's been deceived. Are you kidding me?

What are you talking about? Acquiescing to this type of behavior? You know it's unacceptable. You ran that it's unacceptable, although he was never an abolitionist. You knew it was unacceptable, but you'd do it. And then later, to fast forward, when it times to dedicate the statue after Lincoln's assassination, 10 years later, with a statue that was raised by freed slaves for him. It is Douglas that asked to give the speech, not the sitting president of Lizzie S. Grant in that speech.

He talked about what I just said, but he also said, and being as a statesman, he was not slow. He was quick. He was direct. and he was driven to freeing the slaves because he had a country to keep together. He didn't have a mission. He had a country was his mission. This is the trick. This is what it is to be a leader. And it's amazing. We're going to be right back. Continuing the conversation with Brian Kilmead.

The book is The President and the Freedom Fighter. Hey, folks, Eric Mattaxas here. Joe Biden and the Democrats have laid out the most socialist agenda our country has ever seen. Instead of following President Trump's blueprint that had the economy booming, the Dems are going to raise taxes, increased regulations, and skyrocket an already outrageous national debt. If your retirement is in traditional investments, it is in jeopardy. Americans should be diversifying their investments with gold and precious metals. Gold gives you control over your wealth and protects you from market volatility, inflation, and a weakening dollar. When investing in gold, I turn to legacy precious metals.

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just shared something that I really was, I never thought about this. So when Lincoln is elected in 1860, a number of states had seceded. First South Carolina, six more. Okay. And so that's before his inauguration. Before he gets to the White House. Okay. So he's elected. They secede. Yep. And then he's on the assumption he's going to free the slaves and they're not going to deal with it. Uh-huh. And he says to get them back into the union, he says, you can have your slaves. 13th Amendment. it could be yours. Okay, so instead of the freed slaves,

you could be enslaved. And so exactly how did that go? So obviously you said that Frederick Douglass feels betrayed. So it took him some time. I mean, it's kind of funny because you get this with Lincoln.

Like he ticks off everybody at some point, right? And, you know, a real conservative today would say suspending habeas corpus. I don't know. You know, it's like it's very interesting that real leadership

will do that. It will tick off everybody in a way. But so for a while, it seems to me, that Frederick Douglass must have not been very pleased with him. Absolutely not. And then when he brings up colonization to solve the problem of the African Americans in America, he said, listen, we made a big mistake. It happened before we were born. So can we send you back? So he invites newspapers, all the press with him, like selected members of the press, and he brings in African American leaders, doesn't invite Douglas. And he says, made a big mistake. Obviously, blacks and whites can't live together, and it's part of the reason this is the reason for the war. So I would like to make you an offer, give you plenty of money to go back

to Central and South America or wherever you want to go. Douglas, Central and South America or Africa? Africa, too. He said, you could go, you know, wherever you wanted to go, we will send you. So we will free you and let you go out of the country. Out of the country. And this bothered Douglas. Beyond, beyond. Beyond, he said, I'm an American. I don't want to go anywhere. Where are I born? I'm born here. You're going to send me elsewhere? Since when can blacks and whites get together? Remember, and I haven't brought this up yet, but they have another similarity.

They both read this book called The Columbian Orator. The Columbian Orator teaches how to speak publicly, teach how to hold yourself, and also has great essays from these people like Cicero, Socrates, George Washington, people in our past, and they're thinking big and grandiose. So you wonder why that speech worked at 28? Lincoln's been reading every day since seven. That's right. And envisioning himself.

on that level without the cockiness and ego, with the humility to know that maybe what he's capable of. So when he brings up colonization, there's a theory, and I subscribe to it, that Lincoln was trying to show everyone, I tried everything. We have to learn to live together. That's why he brought the press to hear that offer. And that's why he didn't bring Douglas in by far the most famous and respected African-American black leader in the country at the time. That's a theory. Now, people will push back on that. Good luck. You go interview Lincoln. We'll never find out for sure. So that makes, to me, makes more sense because since when is he welcoming the press to take down something so controversial? So when that appears, you see his rebuttal, you see Douglas's

rebuttal in the North Star. It's kind of funny because Lincoln really does come across as like real, like a, like a canny backwoods thinker, like somebody who just, he's playing 3D chess, he's playing with his opponents, he's playing with their expectations. I mean, it's fascinating that he would do that because that's part of leadership. And I think that that's difficult, especially when you're dealing with something as visceral as the issue of slavery, you know, to play that game politically. Did Frederick Douglass – well, so what happened with the Emancipation Proclamation with regard to Frederick Douglas? Oh, it's one of the greatest moments he was told to expect it. And when it finally expects it, he chronicles in the speech he gave afterwards and the emotion that they feel as a

comes down, delayed for a day, and then when it finally comes down, it's the moment. But he didn't free the slaves in the border states. Why, Eric? Not because he thought less of them, but if he loses Maryland and Delaware, and they flip to the other side, then he's suddenly outnumbered by the Confederate states of America. So he's got to play it smart. Does he care? Of course not. But I have to deal with. This is what I'm dealing with. This is my neighborhood right now. I'm going to fix the neighborhood when I can fix the neighborhood. Well, but this gets right back to the founders. I mean, you just said that Lincoln read their books.

He knew what they thought. But today we know that the founders wanted to get rid of slavery, at least most of them did, and they couldn't. And they had to make this devil's bargain to create the new country, to create the Constitution. And they don't get any credit for that in the same way that a lot of times people are today tearing down Lincoln's statues. They don't understand that real leadership makes you do things sometimes that, you know, you're not happy to do it. You just feel it's the best of two bad options. I mean, we've seen as parents. You know, you've got to push back and you've got to steal your kids for things that are coming down the line.

You maybe feel reluctant, but you know in the big picture you're doing the right thing because it's about outcome while having integrity. But to your point, when this – there's so much that you can learn about this. Number one, as a country we evolve, you see in this book, both men evolve. In the beginning, Frederick Dougas gets out, William Wood Garrison is his mentor, and they agree that the Constitution is flawed. It's got to be torn down to this country's got to be remade. Wow. He gradually moves away from that and said, by the way, he was also into nonviolence. Frederick Douglass is getting attacked in certain areas.

The things he's saying is provocative, William Lloyd Garrison mentors him. He becomes his first speaking agent, puts him in different places as a legitimate slave with tremendous intellect and natural gifts in front of people. He's half Malcolm X, half Muhammad Ali, and half Martin Luther King. He's everything. He's got that type of talent and smarts. And he's going around speaking. And he, because he's always reading and learning, next thing you know, he meets Garrett Smith. And Garrett Smith believes the Constitution is great and we are not living up to it. Did he evolve? Did he change? Was he wrong? Was he bad? Isn't that life? But that question is also alive today. The question of the Constitution, the founders, do we throw it away? We'll be

right back talking to Brian Kill Me. The book is the president and the freedom fighter. Hey folks, all of you out there know that My Pillow doesn't have box stores or any shopping channels. They've been part of this canceled culture and they want to pass the savings on directly to you. So you can get the lowest price in the history of My Pillow for the classic standard My Pillow regularly 69.98, now only 1998 with promo code Eric. They also have queen size, regularly 79.98, now 2498 with promo code Eric or King Size regularly 89.998, only 2998 with promo code Eric. My pillow is not just pillows. They've got over 150 products, everything from sleepwear to slippers and dog beds, you name it. My promo code Eric also works on MyStore.com. You can get my books and Frankspeech.com. Go to MyPillow.com or call 1,800-9783057. Use promo code Eric to take advantage of Mike's special.

offer on his standard MyPillow. That's MyPillow.com promo code Eric or 1-800-978-3057. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Brian Kilmead, formerly of Fox and Friends. Actually, he's still with Fox and Friends. But right now, he's in this studio talking

as an author of a new book, The President of Freedom Fight, him, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and their Battle of Save America's Soul. So you were just sharing something, and this is so instructive that Lincoln and, Douglas, and at that time, people are actually debating what many people are debating today. I mean, this is a debate that goes on in who we pick for the Supreme Court.

Is the Constitution valid today, or do we need to throw it away, start over again? We have more woke values. I mean, I'm fascinated to hear that there were people then, like Douglas, you said, and Garrison, I guess, who thought that we need to get rid of the Constitution. Absolutely, because they saw what kind of. How could this be the land of the free of four million are enslaved? Yeah. They had a huge problem.

With only 1% of the black population in the north, you can live and die and not fully understand what was going on in the South. Back to your point earlier, there were compromises made to get 13 states together that believed absolutely different things. Rhode Island wanted a lot different than South Carolina. And if you got rid of the slaves at that time, which, by the way, was going on in every continent on the planet, including Europe, all right? If you get rid of them at that time, you lose South Carolina. The thought was Virginia would have gotten rid of them. But South Carolina and South, no, they're going to keep it. So do you want to get this country together or not?

You lace it together. You give compromises. Are we bad people for allowing that? In retrospect, idealistically, in 2021, why did we? I don't know. Let's go back to 1776 and 1783. And then 1789. Do you want this Constitution signed or what?

You've got to bring Washington out in that six-year period to save the country he just fought for. and we were constantly being tested. And I'm just used the word evolved. In 2008, Barack Obama said marriage is being a man and a woman. In 2012, he ran on same-sex marriage, and today most people accept it. If a politician came out and said, I'm against gay marriage, they probably wouldn't get a vote,

certainly not the nomination. Was he a terrible person in 2008? Was he a better person in 2012? I don't know, depending on your view, but he changed. I think he's a terrible person who evolved on that issue. But actually, seriously, this issue, so no question about it. But this issue, like, this is a big thing because this is where we are right now. You have people saying tear it all down, burn it all down.

But people like Martin Luther King Jr., he said that the, and you mentioned this earlier, that, you know, our founding documents were promissory notes. In other words, that if we didn't get them, if we didn't start the country with these compromises, we would never get to a place where we would abolish slavery. We'd never get to a place where we would abolish Jim Crow. And you can never win that game in the sense that there's always going to be somebody saying it wasn't worth it. It was an evil compromise. And it's not like they don't have a point.

Evil compromise. But I would take America along the way compared to the rest of the countries doing simultaneous things. That's right. And I look at 1619 Project. I know they're rolling out a book, and I welcome the debate on that. And I was just reading it down. It's New York Times. Nice of them to announce.

We had a book coming out on this that America fought their revolution for it to keep their slaves. And they point to the Somerset Agreement that freed the slaves in 1760 in England. Fine. But you kept them everywhere else in all your colonies, including the Caribbean, remember? So we had no interest in fighting England for slaves. Do you hear of the things taxation without representation? Do you ever hear about soldiers being billeted against their wills and the oppressive rules of the king? So, I mean, now all of a sudden they want to revamp.

and they wonder, they say, why are you so defensive? Because the foundation of the country and the sanctity of our beliefs is being questioned. You have no business doing that. There is not, look, there's no question to my... You're a better man than I because, I mean, a lot of times if I'm watching Fox or something, and people are talking about this,

I've got to turn it off because the idea of something like the 1619 project, it's so ridiculous. I know that they are 95% gaslighting. Now, there's the idea of getting into an actual debate, I would say, I'm not going to debate somebody who's playing head games.

I think they're playing head games. You don't even believe they believe it. No. Or if they believe it, they're crazy. Crazy people believe crazy stuff. But the 1619 project is so beyond beyond, so ridiculous. Tons of black historians have rebutted it. I mean, but they have an axe to grind, and they simply don't care.

They're making some political hay. It's, I mean, it's flat out ridiculous from an historical point of view. But even if you go beyond that, slavery existed since the beginning of humanity. There's no such thing as slavery having anything to do with racism. Slavery is people enslaving, weaker people, if they can. And then those weaker people will enslave the people than enslaved them. This has been going on since the beginning of time. I need to tell you it's still happening.

Well, of course it is. And we know that the black Africans were selling their black brothers and sisters into slavery to other blacks and then to the white men and stuff. So the idea that they want to go back and make it a racial issue in that way, I just think it's disingenuous. I think it goes along with the cultural Marxist kind of program of dividing, dividing, dividing. So I don't have the temperance to debate people on that because I just think it's crazy. Well, yeah, but the thing, the reason why we have to is because it won from a series that wins awards because they give awards to each other and to a curriculum. And that's why.

Yeah. And that's why I said, well, I'm going to wait for that. that to go away. Yeah. And it didn't go away. Right. Because people are putting it in. But what I love so much is what's in the news right now, parents standing up and being

upset at getting mad at their school board. And they act like, well, that's the Republicans. That's the Republicans. Have you met the Republicans? They could never organize protest at school board meetings in small towns in America, let alone Loudoun County, which went by 20 or 30 points to a Democrat. But it's also comedic to me when Terry McCa... Sometimes I'm astonished at what adult...

politicians say, I guess it was Senator Feinstein said something when she was talking to Amy Coney Barrett, when she was getting on the federal appeals court or whatever. It's like they don't understand the basics of America. The situation with Feinstein, she said something. It's like she never heard of religious liberty. Then you have Terry McCalliff saying that parents shouldn't have anything to say with what their kids. You're like, how do you not understand that we the people, we're the government, we can teach our kids whatever we want. We choose to send them to public schools with our tax money because we don't have time to teach them. So of course we're going to tell you what we want them to learn.

It's kind of basic. It's called representation for our taxation. So the idea that a guy like Terry McCullough could be that out of touch that he would say something like that, it's hard for me not to be astonished by it. Well, how about this guy sends all but one of his kids to private school and says, my public schools, raise my kids, and then we should not have a say. Well, you did have a say. You moved them out of public school, and you want everyone else to deal with it, just like what's going on in Glasgow. You want us to ruin our lives, pay double the amount for gas, pay double

the amount to heat our homes. While you fly over in a private jet to go to your yacht, what is powered by solar panels? I don't think so. The audacity is unbelievable. You're listening to you talk. I'm thinking there's probably a spot for you at Fox News. I think he's good, Albin. He's ready to go professional. We're going to be right back talking to Brian, kill Don't go away. Folks, I'm still talking to Brian Kilmead. Hey, he's right here. Yes, what's going on around here?

No, it's a joy to have the time to get into this stuff. The president and the freedom fighter is the book. Okay, you say that these two figures, even though they interacted dramatically over the years, they only actually met in person three times. Supposed to be four, but evidently Dougas had a speech, couldn't make it. So we did a show, an hour show. Fox was kind enough to put it on 10 o'clock on. on November 7th, and it's now on Fox Nation.

So over the last four months, it was tough with the pandemic because a lot of people, everything's closed. But I went to Rochester, went to Indiana, where Lincoln spent the bulk of his childhood, obviously went to Washington. One of the places I went to is the White House, where Frederick Douglass decided, I am going to meet Abraham Lincoln.

We're at the point in the war where the South was doing extremely well, and it was at the point in the war where Lincoln couldn't afford anymore to pretend as if we didn't need African Americans to fight for their own freedom, And he said, Seward said, been pushing him to do it, Secretary of State. And he said, Mr. President, don't do it now. Do it after a big win. And Antietam, as bloody as it was, was a win.

And Douglas knows, and he goes to visit him, and he's about to do it. And he let blacks, African Americans are fighting. And they formed the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, which is famous and depicted in glory. A movie Glory. And, by the way, you know who fought in there? Two of Douglas' sons. So he wasn't asking, while he recruits, he is not asking anyone to do what his sons aren't doing. both his sons in that unit, one got wounded.

So he goes to see Lincoln, and he doesn't know. In Lincoln, he knows he's been critical of Lincoln. So they say, go down there. He sees the Secretary of War. It went well. He said, listen, if you can recruit for me, I'd love it. And if you want to be an officer, I'll do it. And he puts a form out.

He goes, I want to make this guy an officer. He goes, I'm going to go see the president now. He goes, good. Tell him we met. So he lines up. So, Eric, you could line up outside the White House in the middle of the Civil War with the enemy 20 miles away, with no guards, and you wait. So you wait.

He waited all five minutes to go, excuse me, sir, what do you want to do? I'm Frederick Douglass. You have a card. Here's your card. Five minutes. He sends for Douglas. He walks past sitting congressmen. He walks past the richest people in the world, sitting senators.

And he goes, Frederick Douglas. And as soon as he looked across the way, he saw all the problems he had with Lincoln melt away. Not that he was all of him. He said there was something pure about him. And one of the things, if I could paraphrase, he says, I realize I was looking at a man that truly embodied the phrase, honest Abe. And they sit there and talk, but not platitudes. They talk in substance. And he says, listen, you got your black fighters, but you're not paying them the same. Pay them the same. Why can't they be officers? Number two, when they're caught by the Confederates, they're being butchered,

that's got to stop. Why do they have different rules and your rules? Why don't we? He's like, Frederick, we're going to get there. We're going to do it. They have images of the war. What's going to happen after the war? He said, first things first, I got to get reelected. If I don't get reelected, there's not another candidate that wants to finish this war. They just want to have a peace treaty. He's got it. So he understood, I can't do what Douglas wants if I alienate the rest of the North who might see things differently. This is agony. I mean, leadership of this kind and being a father can be this way, it's agony. When you think that you have to make this decision knowing that it's going to be that people are going to suffer,

but it's the only, it's the best decision. But you can't do it flippantly like, hey, I mean, it aided him. You get that impression that he was just a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, aided him. real soul. We're just about out of time. They both did. My gosh. Oh, no, clearly. I guess I want to just say thanks for writing this book. When you describe that scene of, you know, the card, him getting in and walking past all these people. It's Douglas's words, by the way. That's clearly a scene out of a movie. And I'm sure people are talking to you about movies with some of your books. But this one seems like one that we need. It would be a beautiful movie, especially at a time like this. Well, it looks like,

Barack Obama bought the rights to David Blight's book, so he's going to bring it up. Maybe that is some of the reason I had a hard time getting into some buildings. So he is doing a movie on Frederick Douglass. Get out. Yeah. So, yeah, Brockville, he's a pretty famous guy, and I'm sure he's going to get it done. He has an... He's pretty famous.

He can get it done. Right. Oh, my gosh. Well, Brian Kilmead, congrats on another wonderful book and on all you do. Folks, the President and the Freedom Fighter. Grab a copy. Brian, thank you. Thank you very much.

One man, man.