The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guest: Mikayla Hedrick | 7/9/26

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Glenn tells the story of how President Trump traveled to Turkey in a fancy new plane, but due to the Iranian threat near the border, Trump had to fly back in an old armored jet with the shades lowered. Glenn discusses the downfall of the once-informative Smithsonian Museum, which he claims has now been captured by self-loathing revisionism that turns American heroes into villains and core values into racial flaws. Glenn Beck producer and co-author of "Chasing Embers" Mikayla Hedrick joins to discuss the release of the audiobook and the production behind it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's show we cover all the news of the day, but we start with something that one of our listeners wrote in at the end of the first hour and said, my stomach is in my throat. I hadn't thought about any of these things. Trump, facing his own mortality, and what he said in the last few days is different than what he has said before. And I explain it and explain also what he's actually trying to do in Iran. started on this yesterday, but it's becoming more and more clear. And if you understand these few things about Donald Trump and about what's happening with the negotiations, you'll feel better. You'll feel better and you won't be so stressed.

Also, Smithsonian is rewriting our history. And I take you through what that means. And, you know, there's been a few countries that have done it before in the past and it doesn't work out well. And Chasing Embers is out. It's the audiobook of the dystopian book that was a New York Times bestseller a couple of summers ago. We made it into an audiobook, and it is a really good, really good, acted out audio book. In fact, we're telling the story today that a lot of the people that were involved, we had to produce it out in Los Angeles, and there were actors that were involved,

and, you know, people that were in the control room and everything else, and nobody wanted to do a Glenn Beck audiobook. And they were kind of like, yeah, just don't put my name on it. By the end, all of them were fans and all of them were like, I'm proud to have done this. It's a great story that can appeal to anybody. I mean, believe me, it's happening to the actors and actresses and the board ops and the techs in Los Angeles. It'll appeal to anybody. And it's a great audiobook that will help you teach your kids.

There is exciting things happening in books. They should read. and the importance of history and what might be coming if we don't pay attention to that. It's a dystopian, futuristic thriller for young adults. It's out today. It's called Chasing Embers. Go get it now, wherever you get your audio.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. You know, in history, there have been a couple of people that have been, you know, world leaders that have... made peace with their death. And Martin Luther King was one of them. I may not join you on the mountaintop. I may not get there with you. And Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln knew he was going to die and made peace with it.

He had dreams and everything else. He just didn't tell his wife about it. But he wrote about it and he talked about it. More obliquely, Donald Trump said something yesterday. And remember, Donald Trump is a guy, if you know anything about him, he speaks things into reality. He does not say things without the understanding of manifesting it. Okay. Like he never will talk to you about an assassination attempt. He will not talk to you about it. However, lately, he's been saying things like he said

yesterday. I want you to listen to this. Do you know why they had us close our window blinds? That was No. Well, yeah, because you're probably on a dangerous way. Because the sleaze bags that we have to deal with it. Anything that Iran was possibly thinking. Well, I mean, if they asked you to close your windows, probably they'd feel that way. They didn't ask me to close mine, but if they did, I would have done it. Now, these are sick people. So I could see something like that. I didn't know they did that, but I could see something. Were you aware of any credible threat by Iran against Air Force One? Well, I haven't read all the time. I'm number one on their list before you.

But if I go, you go. Right? So perhaps someday want to change professions. Now, he also said yesterday, these things like threats of the president, they usually don't work out well. And the way he said it in a way seemed like he was making peace with that. And I will tell you, I've had, I've lived with credit. threats for a long time. And some of them have just been, it's like now, it's just always in the background. But there have been times when I have a serious threat. We know the individual who's

made the threats. They're still out there, you know, or we know a group that's making a credible threat. And so it's different. And the first time I dealt with it, I didn't know how to deal with it. You don't know how to live your life when you know somebody, when you know somebody you could walk up, you know, in a crowd of people and somebody could turn to you and go, hey, Glenn, and then shoot you to death. It's a weird thing. And the way I got through it was, I just imagined the worst that could happen. And I'm not going to get into it. But I just imagine what that would be like and the worst. And so I, I visualized it. And then I went, okay, well, that's the worst that could happen. And then I could move on. And it actually helped me. And I think that's what

Donald Trump is doing. He is finding a way that he can compartmentalize this and go on with his life and be out in public. And, you know, I'm okay with it. If that's what's going to happen, that's what's going to happen. You have to do that. But the lowering of the shades thing had me listen, had me think about several different things. And I want to take you through what was going through my mind. So the president flies to Turkey and he uses his brand new airplane, the gold trim, the red, white, and blue. It's a beautiful plane. It's a flying palace. And it was gifted by Qatar, and he's been showing it off

kind of like, he's just like me. If I have a new truck, I am just driving around and going, look at the truck, man. Is this not a great truck? That's what he was doing. The old one is what he flew home on. Okay. And this is why this reporter asked these questions. It's the baby blue jet.

It's the one that, you know, your grandfather recognizes, you know, and you know, Jackie O. designed. Okay. Before the wheels even left the tarmac in Turkey. The reporters on board, you just heard it, were told to do something they never get told to do. Would you close your window shades? All right. The man who climbed the stairs had just spent two days telling anyone, anyone, you know, with a microphone, with his words, he's the number one kill list in Iran. And that's not bluster. Okay. This spring, a trained operative of Iran's

Revolutionary Guard was convicted in a courtroom here in America. You didn't hear much about this, but it was a murder for hire a plot to kill him. Also, back in February, on the first morning of this war, America and Israel killed the man at the very top of Iran. The regime's security chief went on television and promised to hold Donald Trump responsible and we will kill him. Okay. So there's a reason to think about the window shades. Now here's the part that nobody's really talking about. You know, we've argued about this plane, you know, whether it's a gift or who gets it or the color of the plane, the old jet, the ugly one, that's all armored in places you don't see. Missile warning sensors that watch the sky for the heat of incoming warhead, electronic

countermeasures, you know, to blind whatever's chasing it. Communications hardened so no one can listen in, shielding built so the president can carry through an EMP and a nuclear blast. Decades of quiet, classified engineering, all of it built for exactly one job. Bring him home through hostile air, no matter what it is. The new beautiful one doesn't have any of that stuff.

The retrofit was rushed. Normally it takes years and years, costs billions of dollars squeezed into months. One former CIA official said, it's not ready for prime time overseas. Okay. Let me say it another way. This one should stay at home.

He can fly this plane at home. But we need the big blue one until we get Boeing to finish the very expensive one. So it's not at home. And in fact, if you look at the map, who does Turkey share a border with? Turkey shares a border with Iran. Iran has drones and ballistic missiles. the Shahabs and the Shabibs or the Shaheds or whatever they are. Anyway, some of them can reach 800 miles.

This airport sits inside of that ring. Meanwhile, the gorgeous new plane was sent on ahead, empty of the president to England. England's 2,500 miles away, past the reach of anything in Iran's inventory. So the palace was perfectly safe going there. wasn't safe bringing him home past Iran's front door. The armor, it turns out, is a map problem. And that's why they said put the shades down. He wasn't on the plane. He wasn't on the plane, which would have made me more nervous. Wait a minute, put the shades on. Why am I on this plane? Now, when this happened yesterday, I had just gotten off the air and I saw Ricky's face when her

eyes just went as round as saucers. And she was like, what are you saying? Because I said, if I'm the president, I target every member of that council and I kill them one by one. And I let them know, I'm coming for you next. I might be you next. Might be somebody else on the council next, but you're on the list. And you make them so paranoid that somebody collapses and does what I told you, I think,

what the president's, you know, plan is at the beginning of this hour. Now, if Iran killed Trump, if they used a missile and it was executed by the army, it's not an assassination. What they have been doing, if they bring a guy in out of a uniform and they just have a rocket and they point it up there in Turkey and they pointed up at the sky and they take it out, then it's murder. It's terror and it's an assassination. Okay. And everybody would be wipe them off the face of the earth. Even if they had their military do it, it still would not go. well for them.

Okay. Four months ago at the beginning of this war, American Israel killed the top guy, Supreme Leader. And we called that a strike, an operation, practically a Tuesday. And the president said it out loud that he got Khomeini before Khomeini could get him. Same verb pointed both directions. So is there a difference? Because we've made a promise not to kill leaders.

Our CIA has done it in the past, and it's wrong when we do it. But it's not a question of can you do it. It's a question on whose hand is on the trigger. And there is a difference. In the difference, we made this decision before we were even a country. Civilization spent centuries building walls between two worlds, war and murder. Thou shalt not murder. Well, that doesn't apply to war.

okay it's actually between two men the soldier and the assassin a soldier wears a uniform fights in the open under a flag under a chain of command in a declared fight say what you want about the killing of commande wise or reckless whatever righteous or ruin is whatever it is you decide but it was done by the uniform forces of nations in daylight in a war what iran has tried to do to Trump was hire a man, cash for killing, arranged in the dark, to be carried out by a hired hand who would slip out of the country before the deed was done. Not a soldier, an assassin, not a war, murder. The difference is not about who's stronger. It's about the rule. And I know this sounds crazy in a world where you're talking about war, but there are rules. And the entire point of the

laws of war, the thing that separates us from the pit, is that even killing has limits. Who, how, when, in the open, or in the dark. But that wall is only as strong as our willingness to honor it when it costs us something. The moment we decide decapitating the other side's leadership is just good efficient policy, that the result is worth quietly kicking out the bottom brick by hiring some assassin to go in and do it, then we're in trouble because the other side watches, oh world watches,

and they will hand back our own logic. So if leadership is a target, then our leadership is a target. On the tarmac, if they would have used a military missile, it would not have been an assassination. It would have been war. Okay.

And you can't cheer the decapitation strike and then act stunned when they aim for yours. so we have to be really careful. And that's why I don't want the CIA going in and killing leaders because you're setting that example. The military can do it. Killing the president in the United States is different from killing the leader of a nation at war.

But the difference is thinner than we'd like to believe. And it's held up by nothing sturdier than our own discipline, our own willingness to keep the rule, even when breaking it would feel like win. So when I said yesterday, because this bothered me yesterday, because I kept thinking about Ricky looking at me going, what are you saying? Because what I said was, I don't want boots on the ground. And I believe what the president is doing is looking for an Albert Spear. He's trying to find somebody that wants to live more than, you know, wants to, you know, worship Allah, you know, and the 12th, the mom and the, you know, the Mahadi and bring the world into chaos.

somebody who says, you know what, I just want to live. And the way to do that is to show them you're going to be dead. If you keep down this path, you're going to be dead. And you don't want to kill the Iranians and the Persians. They're good people. You want to kill the bad guys. So target them, but target them militarily. Now, one last thing.

Back to the runway. They're telling people, you know, not to look out the window. Most protected human being alive is not on this plane because he needed the armor. The beautiful one didn't have it and that's the one you're on and you might want to close the shades. Wow. It's interesting that it happened to those people, through the press, okay? Because it was the press that has spent the last year arguing about the gold and the gift and the billion dollars and, you know, it's red, white and blue and it should be, you know, Jackie O. Robin, you know, Robin's egg. know, Tiffany's blue.

They really weren't talking about the missile sensors. You know what I mean? Not until the shades came down. Maybe they should reexamine their priorities. Maybe it's not always about the personality. Maybe it's not about, oh, he really likes gold. Oh, he, you know, is he just trying to get a free plane? Maybe you should narrow that because you're on the same plane.

And when it burst into flames because a missile hit it, nobody's going to care what color it was. And nobody's going to remember your death. So maybe you should focus on the right things. All right, back in just a minute. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. Hello, America. You know we've been fighting every single day.

We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you. Right now, would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast? Give us five stars and lead a comment because every single review helps us break through big tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast.

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This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. And don't forget, rate us on iTunes. So page 6395 wrote in. She just joined Torch, became a member of Torch. She said, Glenn, I have been a listener of yours for many years. I joined tonight because of something my 14-year-old just said to me. She said, Mom, America is not a great country. Look at what they're doing to the immigrants.

No one's illegal on stolen. and land. That's in quotes. We've always been a conservative household. I've discussed many of these things with her. And I'm not even sure where I've gone wrong. I want her to love America and to understand where we came from. I'm hoping to use some of your material to help with this. I don't even know where to start. If you have any advice or where I should start, I would be most grateful. I would start with the American story. That's the first thing I would do is start with the American story. That's a podcast. It's all commercial free. There's going to be 20 episodes. I'm here by the end of the month or hour long, and they are really well done, and they are captivating.

I would start there. But there's many other things. And the great thing is, the torch is a community. We're just talking about that a minute ago during the commercial break. The torch is a community, and they'll help you because we're all working towards the same thing. and I will tell you that I made a decision last night. I'm taking two weeks of vacation, which I never do. I don't take two weeks of vacation. But I'm taking two weeks of vacation because my children who are 19 and 20, or 19 and 21 now, are struggling.

They're college age. One's in college, one's not. But they're both hearing the same thing. It's all coming from social media. and they're coming to me with questions. I spent a few days with them in Washington, and I could see the drift. And they're both fighting to understand,

but they don't know it. In my household, they don't know it. And they have been with me, and they have seen things, and they have history. I mean, they have been in my vault. They've seen the documents. We were just at the National Archives,

in the vault of the National Archives with my kids, looking at documents and explaining history to them. If my kids struggle with this, God help you, what is it like to be a parent in your house? It is overwhelming what's happening to them on social media. So I'm taking my kids to class for a couple of weeks. And I'll explain that later in detail. And I just decided this last night.

Because my wife and I were driving and my wife said, I feel like we failed in so many ways. And I said, honey, I say that to you and you always say to me, stop it. You didn't. We did the best we could. And I said, I want to give you that advice. And she says, it's not helpful. And I said, I just want you to know, that's kind of what I say to you when you say it to me.

But it's true. Do the best you can. The Lord will make up for the difference. But you have to engage in different ways. I was in Washington, D.C., and I went to the Smithsonian. and I have to tell you, I am so glad that next year we are opening the American Journey experience because I went to the Smithsonian and while they have billions, they have everything on the American story, the way they tell it is, A, boring, and B, so skewed now.

I don't even recognize my country. And this is better than it was under Biden. They've made a lot of changes. But I went into the Smithsonian, the American History Museum. It's not even worth going to. It really isn't. It's not worth going to. Because I don't know any kid that's going to connect with it.

And some of the things that they're showing are just, you know, horrible. You know, James Smithson is the guy. He was an English scientist. And he was the illegitimate son of a Duke. in England. He was locked out by the accident of his birth and from the titles and the inheritance in England. And he died in a rented room in 1829. He never come to the United States, ever. He had no American friends. No one in America he could even, he knew or could name, no businesses here. There's no reason. And yet that guy is the guy who left us everything.

there was this strange little clause at the end of his will that if his nephew died without children, his entire fortune would cross the ocean to a country he had never been to to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. What made America different?

well, his nephew died young and childless. So 1838, an American ship comes home to America with 104, 900, I'm sorry, 104,000 $960 gold sovereigns in giant crates. A stranger's whole fortune handed to us when we're barely 50 years old. Here's the amazing thing. You know, we almost threw it out. We almost didn't accept it. John Calhoun rose on the Senate floor and said,

this is beneath the dignity of the United States to accept charity from a foreigner. Others just wanted to sweep it into a general spending and forget the man's wishes entirely. It fell to one man, one of my favorite presidents, John Quincy Adams. Someday I'm going to do a, someday I'll do a quick podcast on John Quincy Adams, because he's one of the most, he's one of the most, most important presidents we've ever had, one of the most important citizens we've ever had. This guy was amazing. Anyway, he's a former president. He's finishing out his life as a congressman. And he is fighting and fighting and he fought for years to keep that gift from being squandered.

To what nobler object could he, you know, ask his colleagues than to take this donation and devote that donation to the spreading of the American secret. He won, and this is the only reason why the Smithsonian exists. A stranger who never saw America, but saw us from afar, believed in her enough to leave everything, and a statesman who believed that the stranger's faith was warranted, because he could see the goodness of America as well. and he defended the pirates, if you will, in his own government. So last week, I'm at the Smithsonian, and I'm seeing some beautiful things, some really

remarkable things. And then I also see some horrible things. And I had told the president, I was in the hall, the, what is it, the portrait hall or portrait museum. And there are parts of it that were beautiful and have all the portraits of, you know, all the presidents and everything else and some really great stuff. But then when I was there for his inauguration, I went there, and it was awful. It was awful.

The things that they were highlighting made no sense, all tearing America down. Well, he took this seriously when he got into office, and the White House Domestic Policy Council has just put out a 162-page report on the crown jewel of that stranger's gift, the National Museum of American History. I was just there. Whatever you make of the messenger, I want you to listen to what is drawn from the museum's own materials. There is an exhibit on Benjamin Franklin.

Now, Benjamin Franklin was adored the world over. They made plates that hung on the walls of homes in Paris with his face on it. Um, they said he was like the Elon Musk, except more mysterious at the time. He was the lightning genius, okay? And when there's this article in, uh, I think it's the New York time, or sorry, the London times from in the, you know, the 1700s, right, right about the time we're starting to break away. And he's coming to town to talk to the, to the, uh, king. And they said, be careful. Everybody in London should leave because he's been messing around with lightning. And we think. that he's bottled it and he's come up with a lightning gun and he tends to burn down the entire city of London. Okay. The guy was a genius and nobody understood him. He was a diplomat. He helped bind France to us to help win the revolution. The exhibit on Ben Franklin gives a fifth of the space

on Ben Franklin to the enslaved. Now, he did own slaves. He did. But at his time, that was normal everywhere in the world. But he evolved and became a massive abolitionist in the end. He fought against slavery. He's, again, a very complicated guy at the time for us to look back because we don't understand this was normal at the time. So as you're going through this, if you're going with a guide, you're seeing, and they focus a fifth of the time on slaves with him, okay?

All the other things he did. No, a fifth of it goes to slaves. Then they ask the question and they just pull it, you know, just pull it out. You know, let me ask you, do you think Ben Franklin ever used enslaved people in his electric experiments? Wait. What? Now, they concede in the text.

There's no evidence. He did any of that. No evidence. There's no hint of that. All of a sudden, he's Dr. Frankenstein. Okay. It's not a fact. Of course not.

I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking questions. Have you heard that before? I'm just asking questions. It's all I'm doing are asking questions. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah.

What is the purpose of your question again? This is a suggestion with nothing underneath it. And your children are walking through. And as they're walking to the water fountain, they're thinking, wow, did he do experiments with electricity on slaves? There's no truth to any of that. Okay. The museum guidance drawn from a document, a sister Smithsonian, hung on its wall in 2020, that files hard work, nuclear family, individualism, and rational thinking under the heading of whiteness. Hard work, the family, the individual, and rational thought.

Those are the, that's the engine underneath every person who ever climbed out of nothing. It's been reclassified as a racial trait, something that should be examined and unlearned. The material that the families, I mean, family's, I mean, family's drive across the country to see this. It's now full of sexual content, gender content, aimed squarely at your child. As you're packing your minivan to go to Washington, you don't expect to find that. I mean, I can get that on social media. I need that from my government. I have said before a nation dies when it forgets who it is. Rome didn't fall in an afternoon because the barbarians

at the gate. It rotted from the inside long before that when it stopped remembering what had made it roam. That's the usual lesson. People forget. But this is worse than forgetting. And let me explain how and why in 60 seconds. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. This was it.

They were going to kill me too now. It was bestseller. I had to do something. I had to fight. The doors opened wider. I was so young, too young to die. But that didn't matter. I was standing on a front porch.

I waved my weapon in the air and yelled at them. Everyone faces on the ground now. Nothing made sense. I had to get out of there. Who, what is happening? This summer experienced the thriller like never before. Chasing Embers, audiobook available now. Michaela Hedrig.

She is a writer and producer for the nationally syndicated radio host, and Blaze and Torch founder, Glenn Beck, and is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Chasing Embers. Michaela, how are you? I'm good. How are you, Glenn? Good. Am I on a speakerphone?

Am I around? You have a party listening to us, or? No, you're in my kitchen. Okay. There are your kitchen? Okay. Listen, Michaela, I came to you with this story, I don't know, a couple, three years ago, and you have taken it and you just made it into just something really, really good. And I've seen the outlines for the future books, and it's riveting.

It's just about to get really good. Tell people who have not heard about it why this is an important book, not only a good book and a fun book for your family and for your young adults, but it's important. You've been saying something lately that's really stuck with me, which is that we don't know our own story anymore. As Americans, as citizens of the West, as descendants of the ideological lineage of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we don't know our story.

And chasing embers is just like this entire summer for Torch is another way to infuse the value, of our culture through stories into the minds of the next generation. And we do that in a way that's not just like sit down and read this history story. Because most kids don't want to do that. We embedded into this really thrilling dystopian story that my favorite review we ever get, Glenn, is my mom handed me this book and I don't want to read it because I don't really like Glenn Beck, but actually it's really cool.

And hopefully at the end, they walk away and they have a love for some of these real stories. like the story of William Tendale, the man who wanted to get the Bible to the world, the story of Squanto, who helped save the American colonist lives. These are the foundational stories of who we are, and now we have a new way to teach them to the TikTok generation, like you said, who's not reading. But now we have a new way with this audiobook, hopefully, to get them into the gateway, like you said. So the stories that, you know, we're embedding history into it because they are searching

for history. And there's this group of these extremists that the corporation is trying to kill. And they live out in the, you know, the wilds. And they are assembling the pieces of our history back together. And nobody really knows the whole story. And so there is this journey of discovery. And the stories that we are telling, the history stories, it's not long and involved. They're just little pieces. And it's really, it's just a little nugget. that we're hoping that your kids will go, wow, that sounds really good. What was that person? And then go and start to do a journey on their own on those people. Explain how you went and picked the stories that are the sub, you know, stories,

the pieces of history and how they were researched to make sure they were accurate. I had the unique privilege of being friends with David and Tim Barton, thanks to you. and everyone at the American Journey Experience so I could walk over and read the Declaration of Independence in an original draft if I wanted to, but I partnered with American Journey experience early on, and we tested out a series of maybe 15 history stories on the age group that the book is written for,

and we put them in a room, and we told them these stories multiple different ways, and we asked them which stories resonate with you and why, what sticks with you in these stories? And we picked the stories that created the most debate, the most discussion. Stories like Raul Wallenberg, who lied to save lives during World War II. There was a hot debate between 12-year-olds and 16-year-old about whether that was the right thing to do. And so we knew, okay, this is a story that's going to resonate.

This is a story that had modern application for these young people. And we picked it. And then we would thoroughly research it. And we would test it at every level on the audience target, which is, starting around age 12, but also we have adults that read the book now and tell us they really love it. It's very much, I mean, our goal was like Harry Potter to where you're an adult and you can read it and you love it, but your kids will love it as well. I mean, it's made for young adults, but we are hoping that the parents, you know, there's something about, you know, kids shows, Disney was great at this. His stories were aimed right for that same age group,

but you could go as an adult and you'd love it. You'd love it. I know. I've had adults come up to me a lot and tell me that as they were reading the story, they were on the edge of their seat. At one time, I was sitting near someone who was reading it, and they were reading it.

So it's probably a 45-year-old. And that's such a high compliment to us. It's thrilling all ages. We're really grateful. So you've got all these kids on TikTok and social media. how do you convince them, you know, a 13-year-old, that the answer to the problems of the digital age, you know, is in a dusty old book that nobody relates to anymore.

This is your genius, Glenn, and the answer was to forbid it. It was to take these stories that are so accessible to us that are being offered to us in so many different ways. You can have a book on your doorstep in four days, want any book in the whole world. And in Chasing Embers, we took all those books that we want everyone to read the stories, want everyone to know, and we made them forbidden. We hid them. We made them something you have to go seek out like a treasure to find, a quest to go on. And at the end, we're these stories. And so they became something worth fighting for instead of something

that we take for granted. And I think that that kind of adventure infused in the idea of a story is the way that we're going to hook this next generation, that they're seeking out something forbidden, something countercultural, something that's going to start the kind of revolution that we want, essentially a revolution back to the founding principles. But that feels cool. Yeah, I will tell you, you know, my kids, they loved, oh, shoot, mocking Jay, what was that? Hunger Games. They loved the Hunger Games. They loved the Hunger Games. They like those kinds of stories. and this is very much kind of in that vein. But it is also, you know, Michaela's genius,

is she is good at taking the things that are happening in the real world and going, okay, AI, how does AI fit 70 years from now? What does that lead us to? You know, we're talking now we have people actually in our own country in the Democratic Party saying we need re-education camps. What does that mean? And what does that lead to a re-education camp? Right.

And the way you've done these sleep camps has been, is remarkable. And it's terrifying in its cleanliness. Yes, it's a scary world. I think one of the secret agendas of this series is to convince us of something that's absolutely true, that these stories from the past have something to teach us about life today and about the future. So Homer and Shakespeare has something to say about AI and that

the Bible has something to say about these issues we're dealing with with gender. They have these issues we're dealing with tyranny, totalitarianism. And all of that is able to transmit into our lives today. And yet, sleep camp is essentially the ultimate nightmare of totalitarianism. And hopefully you read it and you run in the opposite direction in your real life because you don't want your life to look anything like what sleep camps looks like and will continue to be revealed as throughout series. It doesn't. It never says this in the book, but you know, when you're listening to it, I've listened to the audiobook now twice, maybe three times. And it's just really good. And when you're getting to, you know, these things, it never says it in the book, but you can see the

parallels if you're looking for it. You'll see the parallels in today. And you'll see like sleep camp, how it's just made into this really good thing. This is, this is fine. This is a humane thing to do to keep society going. Its ends justify the means. So it's a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the show, but it is geared so you can share this with your kids. And you don't have to focus on any of that spooky stuff.

They just, we did enough testing. Kids like that stuff. And that's the gateway drug to get them into learning history and seeing how important history really is. Yeah. I'm so proud of you. Oh, okay. So I'm saying it's a dystopia you can kind of walk into with your eyes wide open.

That's what we're trying to warn against the book. And I can't tell you how much I enjoy working with you. Michaela, I hired you. I think I read a post of yours on some obscure blog, didn't I? There were two people reading my blog, you and my mom. And then you hired me. And she was talking. I hired her because she wrote a blog about telling stories and how important stories were.

And I didn't have a job for her. She had no experience into anything that what we were doing. And I remember going to Ricky and I'm like, I'm going to hire this girl. And she's like, but she has no. And I'm like, I know, I know. I don't know what exactly she's going to do. But she's going to be really good at it. No, no, I'm not saying that you didn't.

I'm saying that you were, you're a news producer. She had no news. And I'm like, I don't know what she's going to do. But she has become one of our best writers. She is a constant sounding board for me. And she is wildly talented. And I can't wait until we publish it. Is book two coming out next summer?

Do you know? We'll see, Glenn. That's up to you and me and everybody listening. I guess if this does well. And we're very excited about where it can go. And I'm really grateful because people are. always asking me that question, which I think is wonderful. I actually, Glenn, we wanted to tell one story, which was that. Real quick. This book, when we started to work on it, we're working

with a lot of people in the audiobook that are maybe not Glenn Beck fans per se because they might be more liberal because they're actors and they're audio technicians. And some of them were kind of scared to be associated with you. By the time the story was over, they all wanted to be a part of it. And I think that's the power of a story. And so if you have a kid, like that Torch Insider, who's struggling, this is a way to get them in. This is the gateway drug to all the rest of the Torch content, the Glenn Beck content that is accessible to even your liberal teenager that you're wondering how it happened. This book will entertain them and they won't realize that they're going to become a conservative by the end of it. I don't want to stick anybody out because they were so gracious and they were so honest about it.

I wish we could tell you the full story here. But honestly, what she just said is so true. These people were very, very liberal in all category. It was produced out in, I think it was out in L.A. and everything else. And so there was like nobody who was like a big fan. And all of them at the end loved it and were proud of their involvement in it. So this is something that can appeal to anybody. All right.

Michaela, thank you. It's available wherever you get your audio books. Please help it chart so more people can discover it. It's chasing embers. You can get it from Apple or from Audible available now. Chasing Embers.