The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Susan Bennett, Jeff Allen & Brad Meltzer | 1/15/19

Episode Date: January 15, 2019

Best of Program | 1/15/19 - Women's March Madness?  - Major Brand goes #MeToo Movement? - Siriously Susan? (w/ Susan Bennett)  - Make Comedy Great Again (w/ Jeff Allen)  - 'The First Conspiracy'? (w/ Brad Meltzer)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, podcasters, today is a great show you don't want to miss. We have Siri. I mean, the actual, the woman whose voice, unbeknownst to her, was Siri. And it's a fascinating story, especially when she's talking to us, a couple things. She says you're like, oh, my gosh, that's Siri. Yeah. It's really weird. It's really cool.

She's really fun. Yeah. We have another update on the Women's March, which happens this weekend. there's a little it's a women's march with a dash of anti-Semitism just a dash well not really

it's more like an anti-Semitic march with a dash of feminism it's a different recipe when you have the when you have the person who created the movement say okay guys I think this is an anti-Semitic organization

you should stop I'm bailing on this yeah I think I'm getting out I think I'm getting now also universal praise from this program on Donald Trump bringing fast food to the White House for Clemson's visit. We freaking loved it. I loved it. I'm now hungry.

Also, Brad Meltzer is going to be joining us. He's got a brand new book out called The First Conspiracy All on today's podcast. And it's a big week this week for Blaze TV because Steve Dase has a book out this week. You can check to catch his podcast anytime as well. And the return of Louder with Crowder is Thursday. Get subscribe now. BlazeTV.com slash Beck. Use the promo code Beck.

New great season of Stephen Crowder. listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Triot Mobile is a phone service that will give you all of the great coverage that you, that you want. They're just not going to take the money from you and then invest that in causes that you don't believe in, like Planned Parenthood. Patriot Mobile actually is going to let you invest your money into the causes that you believe in. But most of these sales could sell companies, they give all kinds of money to crazy, crazy causes that you work hard against.

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PatriotMobil.com slash Blaze or 1-800, a Patriot is the place to go. So, I mean, it's really diverse, the women's movement. It's very, very diverse. If you hate Jews, you're in. If you like Jews, well, it's not that diverse. Not that diverse. Let's not be crazy. Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour, and Bob Bland.

It's that diverse. Bob can be a part. Bob Bland. It's an exciting name. It is. It's hard to be, it's hard to have a sexy. You're not going into like performance. You're not going to be like on American Idol.

Like, that's not your future if you're born Bob Bland. Like you're either an accountant or you're managing some organization. Like the women's movement. Anyway, we've learned about the anti-Semitism and that it is very common among these women. Teresa Shook, who founded the Women's March, has repeatedly asked these people to step down. The co-chairs, quoting, have steered the movement away from its true course. I have waited hoping that they would write the ship, she wrote, but they have not. In opposition to our unity principles, they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-L-L-G-B-L-B-T-Q-Q-I-A sentiment.

Plus two. She didn't include the plus two. And hateful racist rhetoric to become part of the platform by the refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist and hateful beliefs. This is the creator of the movement talking about the leadership of the movement. Tamika Mallory gave us the latest

example. She continues to stand by Lewis Farrakhan. Listen to her response. And Tamika, you came under some fire for your relationship with Lewis Farrakhan and the nation of Islam. Now, he's known

for being anti-Semitic, for being homophobic, but you do attend his events and you posted, I believe, a photo together calling him the goat, which means the greatest of all time. And you are running an organization that says it fights bigotry. Do you understand why your association with him is quite problematic? No, I think it's important to put my attendance, my presence at Savior's Day, which is the highest holy day. for the nation of Islam, in proper context. You know, as a leader, as a black leader, in a country that is still dealing with some very serious unresolved issues

as it relates to the black experience in this country, I go into a lot of difficult spaces. Here's where the real problem is. It's at the end of her nonsensical answer. Listen. But let me push back a little bit. Why call him the greatest of all time? I didn't call him the greatest of all time because of his rhetoric.

I called him the greatest of all time because of what he's done in black community. Ah, okay. Here's a little taste of what he's done in the black community. White folks are going down and Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God's grace, has pulled a cover off of that satanic Jew. And I'm here to say, you're telling you. is up. So, I mean, you know, that's a, that's a quite an accomplishment there. We are going to be looking into the Women's March on Thursday's television broadcast. You don't want to miss that.

You want the truth about, you know, the people who are running the women's March movement. Have at it. The mainstream media won't give you all of this. They're not going to say anything. They will talk about if you're a deplorable how Hitlerite you are. Even though you don't like Hitler, you like the Jews, you support Israel, whatever it is,

they'll still tell you that you're a white supremacist and yada, yada, yada, but Louis Farrakhan can say these things, and they don't mind. We do, and we have the expose coming up on Thursday's television program only on the Blaze TV.

Speaking of television. I, you know, look, no, let me just say this. Jolette, you're dead to me. You're dead to me. And I started watching this with an open mind. And I thought, okay, you know what? I agree with these things. I don't want men to be pigs. I hate. I watched madmen. Did you watch Madman? No. Okay. So I watched Mad Men and it's like, I can't believe. the world was like that. It's not like that. And if you are like that, you're a throwback and you just

don't have any place. The world wasn't like that. People were not that good looking back then. Okay, I'll give you that. All right. So listen to this Gillette ad. The Me Too movement against sexual harassment. Is this the best a man can get? That shows

their commercials. Is it? No. We can't hide for it. It's been going on far too long. We can't laugh it off. What I actually think she's trying to say. Making the same old excuses.

Stop for a second. Stop for a second. It's showing these images of, you know, comedy shows. First of all, it's one of them is from like the 1950s. From the 1950s. You know, we still have that happening with the women ogling the construction guy drinking a diet. at Coke. But, you know, it shows, it shows stuff that we all know. We all look at now and go, ick. Okay. It's showing a lot of Gillette ads from the past, you know, good for them.

Now go ahead. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. But something. It has these boys fighting. Allegations regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment. Okay. And there will be no going back. Stop. So far, I'm like, okay. All right. I mean, please don't preach to me, Gillette.

But, yeah. Okay. I get it. There's nothing you would disagree with in this. And that's what pandering is, right? Like, pandering is something you say that no one can disagree with because you're trying to kiss the butt of your audience, right? Here's where it goes off the rails for me.

Go ahead. Because we, we believe in the best in men. Men need to. hold other men accountable stop stop that is something my father taught me that's so i'm i'm i'm i'm 54 that is something my father taught me so why is this a new idea jillette that men have to be men not boys the problem with men is not men it's boys it's boys it's boys it's boys that in to men. I know what a man is. I was taught what a man is supposed to do. And then I was taught, no, don't do any of those things. No, no, no, no. I was taught by feminists. No, no, no, don't you

hold that door open. Don't you, don't you do that. Don't you stand when a woman comes to the table. No, no, no, they're just like men. Well, a man stands at a table. If a woman would like to stand at a table when I arrive. I don't mind. I think it's unnecessary, but kind. Thank you. Wow. That's, wow. Thank you for honoring me that way. I just, I was just talking to my son this, this weekend. A man stands to shake another man's hand. If you're kind of sprawled out in the couch and somebody comes by and they're like, hey, dude, just want to say hi, they reach to shake you hand. You stand up and shake that man's hand. That's what a man does. It's respect.

Now, I've grown up with that. I think most American men have grown up with that. But let Gillette tell us what it's really like. Come on. To say the right thing. To act the right way. Bro, not cool, not cool. Some already are in ways big.

Young men. And small. I'm strong. Al strong. But some is not enough. So we treat each other, okay? Okay. Because the boys watching today.

Yeah, thank you, Gillette. By the way, Bick, Bick. I will always use Bick. I will never buy another Gillette product. How dare you, how dare you lecture me about bullying? About bullying. It shows two boys. fighting. Well, boys will be boys calling each other names. Well, that's just the way they are. No,

now, because we at this stupid razor company, we want you to know that we're pulling for the ladies, we're pulling for the victims. What the hell do you think the American ethic is? Why do you think our armed military is different than the rest? Because we don't go in and rape people. We go in and we set them free and we try to set things right and we try to show there's respect for people. We go and rescue the Jews. We go and rescue the women. We go and rescue people because that's what men do. Boys do not.

Men do. Shut your pie hole Gillette. Say a razor commercial just in case you were wondering. I know. Isn't that the point? That's part of what pisses me off. It's a razor commercial. You're selling us.

crap, you lousy pieces of crap, you're selling us something. You got around, you sat around in a boardroom and like, well, what can we do to really reach people? I know. We can do, shut up. Stop manipulating us. Oh. Okay. And by the way,

for the people who like this Gillette commercial, all the women who are cheering, aren't you the ones that are telling us about the evil corporations? Huh. You're kind of missing it on this one. aren't you? The best of the Glenn Beck program.

Susan Bennett is her name. Susan Bennett, the original voice of Siri. Welcome to the program. How are you? It is so, first of all, I want to get into your history, but just answer this. You didn't even know you were going to be Siri, did you? Correct. I had no idea.

And when you actually got a phone call from a friend who said, I just got this new Apple iPhone, it sounds just like you. Yes, it was an email and fellow voice actors, so he recognized my voice. And he said, yeah, this sounds just like you. So I went on the Apple side and listened and I said, well, that's because it is me. Isn't that weird? I want to get into this whole story with you. But let's start at the beginning.

You've been a voice actor for a long time, which is, quite honestly, my dream job. you don't have to think. All you have to do is just read the words and just think about how they sound the best. That's fantastic. You don't actually have to come up with like stuff. You can roll in and do it. I'm sure that's not the actual case. No, that's the way I want to believe it is.

Susan, that's the way it is, right? Just say yes. Oh, yes. You can believe that if you'd like. Why do you sound like Siri talking down to me when you say that? Well, yes, Siri does that. Okay. So the original theory did that.

So you were actually working in studios and the voice actor didn't show up and you're like, I can do this, right? No, actually, the Times said, Susan, you don't have an accent. I bet you could read this copy. So I read it and said, oh, yes, I can do that. And as a, you know, a true freelancer, I was excited to find another avenue to pursue to make a living. Because you were a backup singer for Roy Orbison. Correct.

I mean, like, that's like, that's amazing. Ciri was like a backup singer. Oh, and I got to sing a duet with him in concert. I played the Emmy Lou Harris part. Yeah, it was exciting. We traveled all over the world. And Bert Baccarac?

Yes. So like you have serious musical chops. Well, that was really exciting. It was truly a high point. Do you sing anymore? Oh, yes. Yeah, I sing all the time. My husband and I had a band together for close.

to 25 years, I was two when I started. Holy cow. And, yeah, we still play together, and right now, the only consistent thing we do, actually, is we're in a band called, and we play nothing but 60s and 70s rock and soul music. That's cool. And everybody in the band plays by ear, so we take requests, and we even play songs we don't really know, so it's a lot of fun. We should, we, I mean, we have calls for bands from time to time. we do fundraisers and stuff. Are you still for hire?

Oh, absolutely. Are you kidding? Oh, yeah. Are you any good? We're always for hire. Are you guys good? Well, I'm not going to say we're not good. Okay, all right.

All right. All right. So, all right. So you started doing commercials, and can you give us any things that you've said that we might have heard pre-Sy? Dear. Because you did stuff from McDonald's. No, nothing really specific.

It's just, you know, and in the past, when, you know, before technology allowed all voice actors to just work from home, and it's basically up to the engineers to put the commercial together. Back in the day when we would all, it was a lot more fun, and actually, you were talking about the fact that, oh, you just have to show up and read the copy. Well, sometimes that wasn't the case when we all got in the studio together, because sometimes we would, you know, improvise things, and they would actually say, oh, that's better than the script. Let's use that.

So, yeah. So you did, you know, you did the loudspeaker announcements over for Delta Airlines for their gates. You did Macy's McDonald's, Goodyear's, Papa John, IBM, Coca-Cola. You also were you were the voice of a lot of GPS is where you're like at the next, go ahead, say it, at the next safe spot. You get a quarter of a month. Gosh. Oh, my gosh. That is so wild.

So do people ever get into a car with you and just be like, that's weird. That's just weird. It's amazing that some people really, really don't hear as acutely as you might think. Because when they actually altered the original theory voice with the iPhone 5S. And I was one of the few people that really thought that it was different. Most people didn't recognize the change at all. And it turns out that they did not get another actor at that point. they actually just manipulated my voice, you know, with computers and manipulated audiologically

to sound just a little bit different. And finally, the only that is if you ask Siri today, who I am, she will say Susan Bennett is an American voice actor and the original voice of Siri up to, you know, was last year. And now suddenly, yeah, Siri's a millennial now. Okay, so your voice is not being used at all. for Siri now. No, I'm done. I've had my, I've had my stint as Siri. It's over. Wow. So now, this is the, this is the really interesting part to me. Because you didn't, like when you, when you did GPS or you did loosen technologies and, you know, for the operator, press, go ahead,

say one of those things. Right. Okay. All other calls, just hang up. And when you did things for the GPS, like at the next, you know, next light turn, you, you You actually had to say those things? Well, anything that was recorded for the Nuance Company, which is the biggest IBR company in the world and from which Apple got all the Siri voices. And people go, wait a minute, all the Siri voices, well, you have to remember that I do not speak every language in the world. And so they had other voices doing different languages for different.

We didn't, we really had no idea. The recordings were done, my recordings were done in 2005. I've spoken to some other people that started even earlier than that. Wow. We recorded all of these sentences and phrases that were created just to get all the sound combinations in the language. For instance, can you remember any of those? Oh, of course. Cow hoist in the tub hut today.

Wait, wait. Ask Fossa. Ask Fossa. Wait, wait. Say him again? Cow hoist in the tub hut today. Say Fossa. Fossa, Ask Fussy. You could hear from the sound. They were just trying to get the sounds.

Oh, wow. And we read just thousands and thousands of those phrases. And it was actually very, very tedious. And, you know, I think I actually had a little brain damage during that. I bet you did. But you had no idea who was actually on the other end buying this. No, we were sort of told that we were just doing generic phone messaging. We were doing recordings for phone systems.

And, you know, I guess it's a combination of naivete, the desire to do a lot of work that we found ourselves in this position of having our voices used from places, basically without our permission. It's a complicated thing, but the way I look at it is we sort of were in the middle of that transition period between doing, business as usual and doing business with, you know, at the speed of technology. So we really had no idea exactly what we were doing. I will have to say it was a, you know, it was a little troubling at first to realize that. And then it's sort of like anything else in life that you're surprised by, something you don't expect, and you have to figure out a way to deal with it, adapt, adjust, and spin it to the positive for yourself, which is what I've done.

And it's turned out to be really an incredible thing. It's really good fabulous thing for me, especially at this particular time in my life. So I want to talk to you. Take a one minute break, Susan. Then I want to come back. And I want to talk to you about because you didn't record it, you basically handed one thing that is uniquely you, your voice. And it's saying things that you never said and how that plays in a person's head. And also, should there be a law?

Should there be something that says, hey, a voice is unique? I mean, I think this is the future, actors, old actors, anybody. If you don't own the rights to yourself, you can now be manipulated and you could be a movie star, but it's not you. So, Susan, I don't want to talk specifically about Apple. I want to talk about this in theory. you had your voice, you know, you signed the contracts and the personal everything, but you had never thought of this technology and how it could be used. And your voice was in some ways taken from you.

Did that play games with you? Yes, yeah. It is kind of a troubling thing. But I think even more troubling than that is because of just the ability with, technology now. They can basically make you sound like you're saying anything. They can change, you know, the tone, timbre, pacing of your voice. And even recently I put together appearances and speaker events and I wanted to put together a speaker demo. And I was working with a video editor. And all of a sudden he's, well, you're saying this, but we can fix that. I'm

going, what? Oh, no. So you mean we can't, so we can no longer trust anything we hear or see? This is not good. Yeah. So, you know, basically, you know, I try not to take it personally because it's sort of just the way our culture seems to be going. I don't necessarily think it's a good thing. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, as somebody who I watch technology and I've been concerned about deep fakes that are going to be a problem starting, I think, in 2020, real problem. And that is the manipulation of video and audio.

so where you cannot believe your eyes and ears. They can make me say anything, and you won't know. I wouldn't even be able to tell. I mean, like, wait, I never said that. When did I say that? And the deep fakes are getting so good that just changes our whole world, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. I find it quite appalling.

I mean, even to the point where I've done so many interviews, and I appreciate doing a live interview because many times interviewers take a direct quote and just sort of make it their own and end up saying something that I didn't actually say. And, you know, I just really try to not think too much about it because it's, it is very troubling. And I feel very bad for really famous people, you know, the George Colonies and the Jennifer Aniston's of what, you know, people are attributing, you know, things that they're. have said to them that were not true. So, yeah, we're in a very, very strange place in our culture. We are.

That's one of the things deep fakes are doing. They're taking celebrity faces and they're imposing them on, you know, on sex acts and and X-rated videos. And you can't necessarily tell that's not George Clooney. Well, one of the things I think is a problem is that, you know, that a lot of people believe this stuff because I think that too often we've given over our own individuality to just the general culture and to TV and media and, you know, social media, particularly. I think that people, in a way, with all these digital devices that we have, you know,

we just tell Siri or Alexa to do this or do that, and we don't really have to think about it. I think it especially affects children. I have a friend who has grandchildren. She says, oh, my God, she said, they tell Alexa to do everything. She said, these girls don't even know how to turn on a light bulb. You know, they tell Alexa to do it. And I think that we're losing a lot by not going through the process of learning things or the process of doing things. Yeah.

You know, back in the dark ages when I was growing up, you know, you would go to the light. library and you'd look things up. That's right. Now you just ask Siri. There's no, no process of learning when you're doing these things. So I don't know. I think that's kind of scary. Susan, so what's up for you next? What do you hope to do next? Well, I just hope to do more of what I'm already doing, which is Siri appearances and speaker events, which I really enjoy, and it's not something I ever envisioned. I mean, that's something that Siri created for me. So I'm grateful to that very much.

It's a wonderful experience like Croatia to do these speaker events, and so I would just like to do more of those. Well, maybe we should find out have you do some this is the Glenn Beck program

kind of stuff. Oh no, no, no, no. You have to pay for that. No, I know. No, no, no. I mean, that's what I said. We'll have to talk to you about that. I knew Let me give you the number of my agents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm very well aware of that. I don't enough freebies to hear me.

That's very smart. I know. Believe me, I know. Susan, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. You bet. Bye-bye.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. Hi, it's Glenn. If you're a subscriber to the podcast, can you do us a favor and rate us on iTunes? If you're not a subscriber, become one today and listen on your own time. You can subscribe on iTunes. Tunes. Thanks. Jeff Allen is calling in. Hello, Jeff. How are you? Fine, man. How are you guys? Well, you know, I just, I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down and, uh, and this nonsense just doesn't end. Yeah, it doesn't. It keeps going. So I was talking to Tammy. Um, and I realized this all began,

uh, with the 19th amendment. It was the way we could repeal that and start over. The way it started with the 19th amendment and you want it repealed? Yeah. Yeah. If you can, and Tammy said, well, it's probably not going to happen because there's too many women in Congress. Right. Right. By the way, should we say that's a joke? So we should we put that out there's a joke? No, I don't think he is joking.

Did you think he was joking? I heard it. I heard it myself. I don't think he was joking. My gosh. Exactly. You know, I just, isn't that what you taught your son, Jeff? I sat my boys down when they hit that age when they started dating.

And I said, that's somebody's daughter, somebody's future mother. And I said, if you had had a sister, would you want some kid ban handling them in the backseat of a car? And no, it's a, it's a common sense discussion. Right. And there's a difference between. If you're married to a woman, you know. Yeah, the guys who don't do that are still boys. They never grew up.

They're still boys. Men do that. Oh, there's millions of boys who says what I call them. Yeah. And they're out there, but I don't think it's, you know, the majority. So is this? Like you said, I don't need to be lectured by a commercial. I know.

Is Gillette just trying to sell razors, more razors to women? Or do they think this will work for men? Well, most of the men that I know are growing hairy bears, every last one of them. Yeah, I know. There's a reason to grow beard now. And maybe they're going after the transgender. gender that this changeover. I don't know.

Yeah, could be. Jeff Allen is a comedian. He has been out on the road for CRTV and the Blaze on Make Comedy Great Again. How's the tour been going? Well, we're off until February 1st. We're going into New York, February 1st and 2nd. We did. Is this like some sort of sacrificial animal that you guys are that we're just putting you into New York?

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's what I thought that was odd. Go to the Northeast with a tour called Make Comedy Great Again. And it's a non-political tour. So I didn't understand. It's not my job to create the title. Right. Right. Right. Okay.

Okay. Did you see that Tim Allen's show has debuted now? Absolutely. And it's on our cue, man. We recorded every week. See, I didn't even know that it was back on. I just don't watch enough television to get the commercials for all that stuff. I knew that he was going to, but I didn't know it debuted, and it's doing well.

Yes, it should. It's a very good show. And it's funny because it's one of the few sitcoms in history where there's a strong male lead. Back in 2001, I did a pilot for Castle Rock, and one of the reasons they were going to do the pilot with me is because we pitched a strong male lead in a sitcom. And the head of the studio, he was 55 years old at the time. And he said to me, he goes, you know, it's so unusual. And he said it used to, sitcoms used to have strong male leads that he remembered years ago.

I guess he started with all in a family. And that's when things started getting kind of absurd. But, yeah, I said, I can change a diaper. I can do all that other stuff without looking like a bumbling idiot, you know. And obviously it didn't get picked up. Right. But, you know, Tim is one of the guys who is, I mean, you would say almost the, the stereotypical guy that Gillette should be preaching against. His act has been that.

And yet he hasn't been affected by this at all. In fact, if anything, maybe being made stronger. Right. because there's a desire, I guess, a desire for it. I mean, whether they want to come out and publicly admit it. But I think strong men are attractive. I really do. Okay, we have that on tape.

Yeah, you got that on tape. We have that on tape now. Yeah, we have that. I'm attracted to strong men. If I went that way, Mike Roe. Right, right, right, right. Tim or Tim, Jeff, it's great to, no relation to Tim Allen. That's kind of sad, isn't it?

No, I get that all the time. I had a guy get me a job somewhere, and the guy comes over to me, and he goes, so how's your brother Tim doing? I go, what? Who told you that? And he goes, your friend did. And this guy was a pastor. I said, you lied to a pastor.

You'd never deny the reality. Jeff, you just say, yeah, he's doing great. He's doing great. he's thinking about playing here, you know, if you book me a few more times. So I appreciate it. All right. Jeff, great to talk to you. Jeff Allen.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Brad Meltzer. Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Brad is the number one New York Times bestseller of the Inner Circle, the Book of Fate, nine other bestselling thrillers, including 10th Just, the first counsel, the millionaires, the president's shadow. In addition to fiction, he is, one of the only authors ever to have books on the bestseller list for nonfiction, advice,

children's books, and comic books. I think I'm the only one on that list with you except for comic books. You beat me with comic books. You have the love for it, so that counts. Yeah, I know. I didn't until my son. Sure, because you can give your kid that first hero. Yeah.

And it's, and I think in the 90s, it felt like we didn't. need that hero. Well, I think that's what happens is in all times, if you look historically at the time of the Great Depression, the heroes that we look to were heroes that were Tarzan and Flash Gordon were the most popular because they were designed to take us elsewhere. We wanted to escape the Great Depression. And then World War II starts encroaching on our shores and we get scared as a country. And we don't even know how to fight. We're scared. We need someone to come save us and Superman gets invented. Sells a million copies. And nine, and nine, 11, same thing happened. We were once again a country, America. We were scared, worried that

someone's coming after us. And the first movie that broke through the public consciousness was Spider-Man. And right now, even a decade later, 15 years later, we're still a country that's, we're starving for heroes. There's no politics about it, at whatever side you're on. We are looking for a hero. And all times throughout history, it's not just there's a need for hero, that's where they're created to. And so I actually, this is, as you know, my nerd study of it. And I think it's no coincidence why we look to, whether it's Neil Armstrong or Mr. Rogers this year or even George Washington, where once again a culture that's starving for humility, for modesty. All of those three have something in common.

There's a reason why people are looking to them again. We have a need. You've written a new book called The First Conspiracy, the Secret Plot to Kill George Washington. You read enough history to know, for instance, Edison was not a – he was a bad guy. some good things, but also did some bad things. And you can look at people, and you can pretty much find that with almost all of them. And people say, well, I don't believe in any of these heroes, and these people were, you know, actually really good. Because a lot of times history is wrong and only tells one side.

But you can find it if you look. Sure. I cannot find the dark side of George Washington. Yeah, no. that George Washington lives up to the hype. And I always say people will always write to me. Right, one of the few. I mean, every time I do one of the kids' books,

everyone always writes to me, well, this one did this and this one did that, and this one had an affair. And I say, listen, I'm just telling you right now, if you're looking for perfection in people, the only person that's perfect, the only thing that's perfect is God. So there's your standard.

Yeah. And I feel like George Washington sets that standard for us at a different level, which is why the thought of a secret plot to kill him, him begs the craziest question of all is what happens to us if it worked. So tell me that we don't exist for one. I agree. Tell me about the plot because I mean, I've written a book on George Washington.

I love George Washington. I've studied him. Not really familiar with this. Yeah, this is a, I found this story, Glenn, in nearly a decade ago in a footnote where all the great secrets always wind up hiding. And I was like, a secret plot to kill George Washington is this real. Is this fake? Is it internet nonsense? What is it? And I was so struck by it. There was in 1776, just to be clear, let's talk about it up from, a plot to kill Washington. Some say to kidnap him. Some say to kill him. Either way he dies, because back then if you kidnap someone, at the lower level,

we would trade you back to the British, but at his levels, you got hanged. And they caught that guy quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very quickly. And so they round them up. George Washington gets wind of it. They round them up. They build a gallows. They take one of the main co-conspirators. They hang them in front of 20,000 people, the largest public execution at that point in North American history. George Washington brings the hammer down. It's like, do not mess with me. I'm George Washington. I'm going to be on the money one day.

That's an actual historical quote. But what I couldn't shake is, why don't I know this story? And there's two reasons. One, I went to Puele Surprise when an author Joseph Ellis. And I said to him, you know this story? Because I never heard this story. You wrote the biography on him. and he said to me, this is a story about George Washington's spies.

That's why it's secret. That's why you don't know it. He said, you can find the exact number of slaves at Mount Vernon that George Washington owned. You'll never find all his spies. He said, by its nature, Brad, what you're searching for will forever be elusive. And the other reason why you don't know it is because of when the hanging took place. June 28, 1776. Now, guess what else is going on in the world on June 28th?

1776 year, a week away from the Declaration of Independence being signed. June 28th is when the first draft, one of the first drafts is handed in. Correct. The British are literally coming. And with headlines like that, when you're studying that period, this gets obscured. It just becomes a footnote. So his secret, and you make this point in the book, his spies really go on to inspire us, and we don't know anything about them or very little, but they,

go on to inspire even the CIA? Yeah, no, that's my one of my favorite parts is we thought we were investigating this secret plot to kill George Washington. But what we realized is we found something far bigger, which was we found out that George Washington, one of the first things he did is he created his own secret committee. And the secret committee was called, because if you have a secret committee, you've got to give it a cool name, right? So it was originally called the Committee on Intestine Enemies.

That's a terrible name. And then they settled on the far better name, the Committee on Conspiracy. And the Committee on Conspiracies, as you saw in the book, is run eventually by John Jay, becomes eventually at the end of the war, the first Supreme Court justice. But what John Jay does, and is researching this plot, is he slowly, you know, they go in the middle of the night, they're pulling people out of their houses, they're interrogating them, they're shaking them down for information. What they're really doing is they're building America's first counterintelligence agency.

And you ask any historian today, you say, you know, what's the precursor to the CIA? And people say, oh, the OSS. And that's the formal one. But the real precursor to it all is this moment in 1776 in the plot to kill Washington, because that's where it all starts. And they're using civilians, just like the CIA did it. They're using civilians, not always military people, gathering intelligence. Was this uncommon, though?

I mean, weren't kings doing that forever? Yeah, but we weren't. You know, George Washington, when we started, he wanted a good offense, wanted a good military, and he knew we needed a good offense. But what he learned in this period of time, right at the beginning, And this is 1775, 1776. At the start of it, we always think of the end. We think of George Washington 2.0 as the war goes on.

But in the beginning, this is where he realizes that, wait, I just don't need a great offense, I need a great defense. There are people coming at us. We need information to see what's coming that we're not going to see on a battlefield, that there's a whole other battle being fought. It's this moment that inspires his later building the culpring, his later expanding the committee on conspiracies. In fact, right now in Langley, Virginia, at CIA headquarters. To this day, there was a room dedicated to John Jay, who they call the founding father of counterintelligence. It all starts here in this moment. And I so I love, and you see

these parts of things that I, and again, you and I have talked about this offline and on air plenty times, but there were so many parts I didn't know. George Washington had his own private bodyguards, which I never, I'm like, how did I not know this? And what he had done is, he asked all of his top regiments, he said, give me your four best men. And he narrowed it down. He wanted what they called drilled men. And drilled men were the best of the best. They were actually even a certain height, a certain build, a certain moral character, the kind of person you really want on your side, you can trust. George Washington personally narrows it down to about 50 people. And these become what they call the generals guard. They call them the commander's guard. But the name that sticks

are the lifeguards because one of their jobs is guarding George Washington's life. It's also amazingly where we get. Is that where we come from? That's where it comes from. Is that where we get lifeguard? I don't know if that's the official term.

I haven't tried. Trust me, I thought it and I got to look it up. But I honestly do think it may be where the term comes from, but it comes from the lifeguards. They guarded his money. They guarded his papers and they guarded his life.

These are the ones they went home with him. These were the original secret service, but these are the men who turn on him. That four are the men on the lifeguards accept bribes and want money and basically decide we're going to go to the other side. You know, when you have Alexander Hamilton, you kind of can see why he turns. You don't necessarily agree with him, but you can see, oh man, what a stupid mistake that was. What a stupid mistake.

Human error, right. Yeah, just a series of human errors where he turns. Yep. What is, is it Washington's error? No, it's not, you know, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a better. Benedict Arnold, where I feel slighted and I'm going to do it. Did I say Benedict Arnold? I know he meant, though.

I knew he meant, yeah. Benedict Arnold, you know, has this, you see all the slights. And so, you know, it's ego and hubris and all the other things that go along with any great fall. With this one, it's not that at all. It's nothing personal. You know, and I think it's, you know, we in America, as you know, we take our heroes, we dip them in granite. We build statues of them, and we do them a disservice. Because they're not human anymore.

They become these lowercase g-gots. gods, which is horrible. And we're worshipping the wrong thing when we do that. And these people, anyone you look up to, as you know, I've talked many times, whether it's George Washington or Rosa Parks or Dr. King, had a moment, any hero you've ever loved, had a moment where they were scared and they were terrified. They didn't think they could go on. And they keep going forward. They choose to go forward. And what happens in this moment, what we also do with the revolution, as you know, is we tell the story that we all gathered around democracy. We held hands. We forward as one and we beat the greatest fighting force, the British that the world had ever seen

at the time. And again, it's a great story. It's not the real story. It was so much more complex. We weren't, you know, we think we're divided now. We were so divided back then that there were nearly in New York City in 1776. There were nearly as many loyalists on the British side as there were on the Patriot side, on the American side. And it was the same in our own military. Our own military, you had, you know, all these different regiments. So one of my favorite scenes in the book is You have the Massachusetts Regiment, is meeting the Virginia Regiment for the first time. It's in Harvard Yard. George Washington is there.

And, you know, these guys from Massachusetts, they look at the uniform of the Virginians. They have some frilly thing on the uniform. You know, we don't have one uniform that we're fighting. And some guys are showing up in work shirts. And some guys don't even have shoes. So they're not unified. A fight breaks out. And George Washington comes racing him and grabs two of them by the neck.

And he's shaking him and basically saying, stop fighting with each other. We're on the same team. And if ever there were a metaphor for where we are today, there it is. But to me, what you have back then is you have allegiance is always shifting. Because here's the one thing that happens is it's not a sure thing that we're going to win in those early days of the war. In those early battles, we're getting crushed. And in those moments, the one thing that's true them and is true now is no one wants to be on the losing team.

And so you have the governor of New York at the time, a guy named William, try on, who basically is maddie's lost his job as the British governor. He was appointed by the British. He basically starts bribing people and seeing who can he turn. And when you have, as you know, when it looks like America's not going to do well, and you may not pull it out, and you got no gumpowder, you got no shoes, guess what? They go, you know what, I might take that money to switch. And the plot was exactly that. Their big grand plan, when you read the first conspiracy is you'll see their, and we don't know every single detail because, of course, the plot was thwarted, but their plan was they're going to blow up bridges, they were going to steal our cannons,

and they were to come for Washington, and it was all going to happen just as the British arrived in New York. At end that moment, they were going to give whatever the signal was going to be, and, you know, it sounds like something out of episode three of Star Wars, right? But they were literally going to turn and switch, and the people who were on, that we thought were on the Patriot side, were going to be revealed as traitors and kill everyone there. The name of the book is the first conspiracy, the secret plot to kill George Washington, and Brad Meltzer is the author,

and he's going to be doing a podcast with us as well, so you'll be able to hear the story and grab the book. It's available everywhere right now. Brad, thank you so much. The Blaze Radio Network. On Demand.