The Megyn Kelly Show - House Kicks off Biden Investigation, FBI and 1/6, and the Life of a Writer, with Andrew Klavan and Doug Brunt | Ep. 437

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by author Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show, to discuss Speaker Pelosi passing the leadership baton, House preparing to investigate Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden, what was once called "conspiracy theories" that turn out to be true, what we know now about FBI embedded with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers before and after the January 6 riot, the absurd January 6 committee show trial, Trump running again and Pence saying we need "better choices," Sam Bankman-Fried coming clean about his woke spin to get better PR, the destruction of our monetary value, Justin Trudeau publicly dressed down by Chairman Xi, and more. Then Doug Brunt, author and host of the "Dedicated" podcast (and husband of Megyn), to talk about what it was like to date and marry Megyn, the origins of their relationship, Doug's career as a writer, his own writing process remaining happy in life, what he learned interviewing other authors, "emotional infidelity," watching himself portrayed in "Bombshell," and more.Find Doug's SiriusXM podcast "Dedicated" here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dedicated-with-doug-brunt/id1650390838Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today is a day of firsts. Later in the show, good old Doug Brunt, the man who married me, will be joining us for the first time. And I married him right back to discuss his new hit podcast dedicated with Doug Brunt. It's doing really well. I'm so proud of him. And maybe we'll take some of your calls. How fun will that be? Yay. Okay, but we're going to start with the news. Nancy Pelosi expected to announce any minute that her plans to pass the torch to the next generation of leadership are in motion.

But instead of retiring, she's going to stay on to help guide Hakeem Jeffries as the Democrats next House leader. So she's no longer going to be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It's official. The Republicans have won the House. And what a moment. It was quite a moment. Meantime, House Republicans held a press conference earlier this morning announcing an investigation into President Joe Biden for his alleged involvement in his son Hunter's foreign business dealings. That took no time at all. It's the first sign of what's to come when the GOP takes over the House in the next session. Plus, there are stories about the Trump raid at Mar-a-Lago, January 6th and how it happened, and the FBI that we are now conveniently learning only that the midterms are over.

Oh, yes, the mainstream media is suddenly interested in reporting on all those things now that we're post the midterms. Joining me now to discuss it all, Andrew Klavan, bestselling author and host of The Andrew Klavan Show. Andrew, welcome back. How are you? Great to see you, Megan. I'm doing good. So let's just take this moment because I know it's been a tough week plus for a lot of Republicans who wanted to see a more sweeping result last Tuesday. But Nancy Pelosi being forced out of the speakership role and having to pass at no baton because she doesn't have the gavel anymore, won't when the new Congress is sworn in. It's quite a moment, right?

She's the left's queen, and it's over for her. Yeah, and look, she was very good at what she did, as her daughter memorably said of her. She could, I think, cut your head off, and you wouldn't even know she'd done it. She was a very talented speaker. Most of her strategy had to do with turning the ratchet. You know, she realized that the leftist ratchet only moves in one direction. So if you could bring in a bunch of, you know, Democrats who look like they might be kind of conservative and then force them to vote with her, they might get voted out the next time. But the programs such as Obamacare and other

things like that were not going to go away. She knows that once you give something for free or supposedly for free to people, they're not going to get rid of it. So she was a really clever leader. It is a big victory to get rid of her. Although at this, her age, I mean, she was going to go eventually anyway. So she's really had a successful career as an evil Bond villain. And I'm glad to see her go, but I'm sorry it didn't happen 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. It is a lucky thing, a lucky thing that the Republicans managed to hold on by a fingernail. And when the red wave essentially turned out to be one guy waving from the house, they had gotten just barely a majority but it's something and hopefully it's going to do more than just start investigations hopefully it's

going to bring uh build back better to a standstill that's funny yes it's like four new yorkers waving from their respective districts that's it hey hey um okay so meanwhile speaking of investigations already we have one um one was announced in detail this morning by Representative Comer and Jim Jordan as well, saying there's a couple of highlights going to play a soundbite. with his son, Hunter. They say Biden told the American people he had nothing to do with and never had conversations with his family, Joe Biden, this is about their business dealings, quote, that was a lie. Joe Biden is, quote, the big guy referenced in these emails that we've seen about their foreign business dealings and cutting him in on a piece of these deals and actually says the evidence that we've seen raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national security risk and about whether he is compromised by

foreign governments. There's a headline for you. Here's a little bit more. Joe Biden told the American people he had nothing to do with and never had conversations with his family about their business dealings. That was a lie. He personally participated in meetings and phone calls. Documents show that he's a partner with access to an office. To be clear, Joe Biden is the big guy. This evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national security risk and about whether he is compromised by foreign government. And the president's participation in enriching his family is, in a word, abuse of the highest order.

This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the president of the United States, and why he lied to the American people. I mean, those are strong. Those are strong words. I realize these are Republicans who don't like Joe Biden, but those are very strong things to say if you have no evidence

and they claim they have whistleblowers on the record. I don't know. Some on the left and even some of the right are like, oh, don't waste the people's time with these investigations. I don't think I agree with that.

I think I really, I would like to know just how involved he is with Ukraine and China and others on Hunter's business deals. You know, investigations can get tiresome. Sometimes you feel like they never go anywhere. Nobody ever gets indicted. Nobody ever gets accused of anything. It's just this endless array of soundbites. But yeah, I agree with you on this one. I mean, one of the things that has been so disturbing in the last two,

three, four years has been the fact that so many conspiracy theories, what sounded like nutbag right-wing conspiracy theories have turned out to be exactly true. You know, where the COVID disease came from, all these things, the Hunter Biden laptop was supposed to be Russian disinformation. We were told this by over 50 former intelligence, high-ranking intelligence officials. You were knocked off. The New York Post was knocked off Twitter, silenced for reporting on it. All turned out to be true. Every single word of it turned out to be true. And all of those intelligence officers, some of whom had been the leaders of the CIA, were lying to us in order to win an election for the Democrats. That's a pretty

big conspiracy. That's a pretty ugly conspiracy, especially when you throw in the fact that Donald Trump was impeached for asking about it, for asking the Ukrainians to look into it when it turns out to be quite factual and really damaging. All of this stuff about Biden being the big guy sounds very, very plausible. The fact that his family has been influence peddling for as long as he has been in office is incredibly plausible. And it does compromise him in his dealings with people overseas, especially with the Chinese and with the Ukrainians. I mean, it really makes us question where his interests lie. And I think it's just at this point, there is almost nothing a right wing crazy person can say that doesn't turn out to be the case because the press is so in the bag for the Democrats that they allow them so many of the things that damage America, you know, when they agree on climate change as being some kind of existential crisis that demands that the United States, but no one else, should hamper their energy, when they agree on transgender issues, that people, that children should be talked into hurting themselves and butchering themselves because this week they feel like they might be the wrong sex.

You know, Biden's interests are not this country's interests, you know, in a broad sense. I'm not saying he is actually trying to undermine the country. I'm saying the things he believes are, in fact, damaging to the country. And it's absolutely fair to ask how many of those things are aligned with his financial interests, especially when we know that Hunter Biden has used him repeatedly, that we know that Biden has attended meetings that had to do with Hunter Biden's interests. And we know what Hunter Biden is. We know he's corrupt. He's not just the kind of drunk, you know, bad boy in the family.

He is part of a central Biden enterprise, which is influence peddling. So at this point, there's been so much censorship. There's been so much, so many lies. The press itself is so corrupt and has backed the Democrats in every lie they've told that there's no conspiracy theory that we can dismiss out of hand. And that's a very, very damaging place for America to be. You know, speaking of the press, okay. And, and conspiracy theories, there is a report out today in the New York. Well, not today. It came out earlier this week in The New York Times. The headline is FBI had informants in Proud Boys.

Court papers suggest this is on the heels of other information that the FBI also had people inside the so-called Oath Keepers. These are two groups accused of planning the January 6th riot. The Democrats would say insurrection, sedition, they use the term. And now it's coming out. It's not to say they did it all. We saw there were, I don't know, thousands of people on Capitol Hill that day. But these are the two groups that they're really going after now in court, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, as having planned this thing. And now it comes out post-election that the FBI had some unknown, as many as eight informants inside the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the storming of the Capitol. So the FBI had eight agents in the

group they now claim in court plotted the January 6th riot. They would say sedition, insurrection, and they did nothing. Why? Why not? They're talking about like the defense lawyers are the ones who are raising this because they're saying that there was no plot to do anything other than march on the Capitol. There was no plot to hurt anybody. And if there had been, the FBI being involved in January 6th, that you were called a conspiracy theorist. You were called a nutcase. And now we find out, again, from The New York Times, at least eight informants were inside the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the strumming of the Capitol. One guy who was about to take the stand at the Oath Keepers trial, that's already underway, another group. They're already being tried for plotting January 6th.

One of the FBI informants was about to get called. His name is Greg McWhorter, by the defense so that he could be asked about this very stuff. On the eve of his planned appearance, he had a heart attack. And now we're not sure whether this guy is going to be able. It's all very strange and it smells bad. And really, there are still a lot more questions to ask and have answered about the FBI's role in this event that the Democrats have been touting over and over and over and over and over again ever since it happened. What do you make of it? Well, you know, you ask a really good question if you use your imagination. First of all, the FBI's reputation has been shreds. I mean,

after the Russian collusion idea, after everything we found out about the lies they told to the FISA court in order to listen in on Americans' conversations, the fact that they knew that the Steele dossier wasn't real, but they continued to push it and investigate it and hold it up. The FBI reputation is in shreds. And the fact that Christopher Wray, who claims that they had nothing to do with the January 6th riots, is still in place is really damaging, I think, to the institution, which used to be, for know, for periods of time has been quite a respectable law enforcement agency. But just use your imagination. You asked the question, why didn't they stop this from happening? If the Proud Boys were actually planning an insurrection, if they actually had plans, and nothing about January 6th was planned to me, but if they had plans, why didn't the FBI stop it before it endangered anybody inside the Capitol? If they didn't stop

it, then we have to sit back and use our imaginations and say they had eight guys. The Proud Boys is not a vast organization. They had eight guys in there. Everybody's saying, oh boy, here we go. We're going to storm the Capitol. What were they saying? What were these eight guys who were pretending to be Proud Boys saying when everybody know, when everybody was saying, let's storm the Capitol? Were they saying, oh, no, let's not? Or were they saying, yes, let's go? In which case, they were inciting a riot. They were actually part of what happened on January 6th.

And everything that happens after that begins to look a lot like entrapment. I want to say I'm not a fan of the Proud Boys. I'm not a fan of street fighting politics. But they are a reactionary group. They tend to react to Antifa. They tend to react to violence that's already going on. And the idea of them actually rubbing their hands together and plotting to invade the Capitol to stop the election from being certified doesn't really fit with their profile. We know from the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy, we know the FBI has a tendency to go in

and incite these guys to do things so they can arrest them. At this point, it's just very suspicious. And again, as I say, given the information crisis that we're in and the way that the Democrats have manipulated that information crisis, no conspiracy theory is beyond belief.

No, I mean, because of the many lies that they tell, it's like if they would be more straightforward, people would be less conspiratorial. That's the same thing with COVID. This guy, McWhorter, who had the heart attack, Greg McWhorter, so he was a government, he was an FBI informant. He was implanted or with the Oath Keepers. He was their vice president, but he was secretly reporting to the FBI. By the way, he's the one who had the heart attack on the way to testify, allegedly only 40 years old. OK, so and no. And this trial is underway. We don't know whether they're going to wrap it up. Are they going to be able to get testimony from this guy? The government did not

call him. Why wouldn't the government call their own informant who was embedded in the group to tell us all about what the group was doing, they were plotting the january 6th insurrection well they didn't it was the defense that called mcwarder and then he had the heart attack on the way to testify it's all very sketchy all right i mean you write crime novels you know this is like this could appear in one of your novels um so the, and he was the second known FBI confidential source. There was another guy named Abdullah Rashid, a former Oath Keeper from West Virginia, who told the jury he became alarmed by the violent language that another Oath Keeper was using prior to the riot and that he provided the FBI with a recording of the call. This guy testified, the more I listened to this call, it sounded like we were going to

go to war against the U.S. government. Officials at the FBI, quoting from The New York Times on November 8th, officials at the FBI did not respond to Mr. Rashid's initial attempts to contact them, only reached out to him after January 6th. After. So it's like, what is the FBI doing? It's going to be very hard for them, I think.

I haven't been paying close attention the day in, day out of this trial. But if their case rests on proving that this was a pre, a plot that was preformed before the day of to go in there and cause an insurrection and storm the Capitol

and use violence against our public officials to stop the certification of the vote. It doesn't line up with, we didn't even bother to return the guy's phone call, our own informant. You know, it's also really disturbing. You mentioned this before, that none of this comes out until after the midterms. You know, none of it, all of that time leading up to the midterms, the Democrats were staging that show trial about January 6th, and it was all one side. Anybody who wanted to disagree with the narrative was actually kicked off the committee. You know, and all of the time that the Russian collusion story was going on, we've heard all of these anonymous sources. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when an anonymous source was something you used only

with cautious care, because it meant that the reader, the consumer of news, couldn't tell what the source's interests were. We couldn't tell if he was lying or had motive to lie. We couldn't tell anything about him. He was just a voice. All through the Russian collusion story, we had all of these FBI sources, these intelligence sources, which we then learned with the Hunter Biden story, were capable of lying in order to support Democrat rule. Now, this story is coming out after the midterms. All of a sudden, all of these right wing conspiracies are in doubt. It's a question of whether these guys were, you know, being egged on by the FBI, by the feds. It's just so disturbing. I mean, the corruption in the press, which

to me is one of the worst things, if not the worst thing that's happening in the country, the utter corruption of the press, the absolute embracing of corruption, the idea that, no, we're not supposed to be objective. We have to tell the higher truth, which is whatever they happen to believe. I think it is just impossible. It is impossible to get the kind of information that citizens need to make good decisions about who is doing what. You know, I have all kinds of, you know, arguments with this Republican or that Republican, but the power, the cultural power of a Democrat party aligned with the FBI, aligned with corporations, aligned with Hollywood, aligned with the media and the academy.

And the intelligence. It's just appalling. Yeah. And the intelligence operation is just appalling. Think about it because they had testimony by the FBI director on Tuesday. Director Chris Wray testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee. And he was questioned about the extent of the FBI's involvement in the January 6th riot. OK, and we have actually a side of this queued up.

Listen to how that went in part. Saw three. Did the FBI have confidential human sources embedded within the January 6th protesters on January 6th of 2021? Well, Congressman, as I'm sure you can appreciate, I have to be very careful about what I can say about when. Even now, because that's what you told us two years ago. May I finish? About when we do and do not and where we have and have not used confidential human sources. But to the extent that there's a suggestion, for example, that the FBI's confidential human sources or FBI employees in some way instigated or orchestrated January 6th, that's categorically

false. Did you have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January the 6th prior to the doors being open? Again, I had to be very careful. It should be a no. Can you not tell the American people? No, we did not have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters positioned inside the Capitol. Gentlemen, you should not read anything into my decision not to share information. Director Ray, gentleman's time has expired. That was Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins. Interesting exchange, right?

Oh, incredible. Especially when you think about poor AOC hiding under the desk in fear of her life. You know, what were these guys doing if they were inside the Capitol? You know, the fact, you know, when they were having those January 6 hearings, I wouldn't even talk about it on my show because I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a news story if you have a trial without a defense. I don't think it's a news story. Yeah. Why would I even echo it? And it's almost impossible. It's just human nature, no matter what you believe, to not say, well, there's no defense, but certain information is

coming out. As far as I was concerned, no information is coming out because if you don't get to cross-question people, you can't get at the truth of things. What you just saw there was, again, that guy should be out on his ear. Not because he has done anything wrong, but because he has presided over this period of obvious corruption and dishonesty among the FBI, and so should be replaced with a reformer leader. You know, something went terribly wrong with the FBI after 9-11, I think, that it was really given a new brief to take it away from crime and to take it into what, I don't know what you'd call it, intelligence terrorism. You know, it was given a sort of new intelligence brief. It kind of became an intelligence instead of a, or at least

mingled intelligence with its law enforcement capabilities. And it's lost its way. It has entirely lost its way. And you have to bring in a new broom to sweep it clean. These are the things that are going to be on the ballot in two years, should have been on the ballot in this last midterm. And it's the kind of stuff, I don't know, for me, it trumps almost everything else. It trumps, you know, inflation and crime. We cannot trust our government anymore. And I really don't believe we can. I'm like the last person.

The reason this is so aggravating for me is I'm the opposite of a conspiracy theory person. You know, I believe Harvey Oswald killed JFK. I'm like the opposite of a conspiracy theorist. But this is a moment when the lies are so intense and the power to spread lies is so vast that I think we all have to be a little bit of conspiracy theorists just to keep abreast of what's going on. You've got to keep questioning. Well, so as I mentioned, the Oathkeeper trial is underway. The Proud Boy trial is about to take place. And what the reason we know about all these informants, as many as eight, again, citing the New York Times, is as follows, quote, the existence of the informants came to light

over the past few days in a flurry of veiled court filings by defense lawyers for five members of the Proud Boys who are set to go on trial next month on seditious conspiracy charges connected to the Capitol attack. In the paper, some of which were heavily redacted, the lawyers claimed that some of the information the confidential sources had provided to the government was favorable to their efforts to defend their clients. This is the defense saying, hey, you, you, government had good information for us and you should have given it to us. And quote, it was improperly withheld by prosecutors until several days ago. The prosecutors responded that information was neither suppressed nor relevant to the case.

Ultimately, it was produced. So I think they did have to concede it was it was relevant. Otherwise, it would not have been produced. And so you've got them not coming clean about the Capitol. This is one of the issues that they're debating on January 6th, where some of these guys in their defense trials and their trials are saying, I was let in. The guy was like waving me in. Who did that? Right. Why would they do that? And on top of all of it, you got this January 6th show trial commission that's been trying only one side of the case. There is no representation for Donald Trump or anybody else. And here's the cherry on top of the sundae, Andrew. Again, post the midterms, we get this report from NBC News, which will shock you not at all. Here's the headline. Jan 6th committee staffers told preliminary plan for final report will focus largely on Trump, not on law enforcement failures, sources say. And they go on to describe that they

had several teams amongst the investigators on the Jan 6th committee. The blue team examined the preparedness and response of law enforcement agencies. The green team investigated fundraising around Jan 6th. The purple team looked at the rise of domestic extremism in the U.S. And then there's the gold team, which focused on, you know who, Donald Trump. Only the gold team is going to get any of its work reflected in the final report, despite the fact that they have reportedly on these these other teams that have looked at for example the capitol police and other law enforcement agencies done over a hundred interviews and depositions with officials from the fbi the department of homeland security the pentagon

the dc and capitol police and other law enforcement agencies the final report notwithstanding seems to be shaping up to be quote all trump all Trump. They have gone in another direction. Some of these committee staffers who spent more than a year on the other pieces of the investigation are reportedly upset, quote, heartbroken and very frustrated that over a year of their work is about to be wasted on what is clearly a political decision. So they're throwing out anything having to do with law enforcement failures that day. They'll only zero in on the man. It's all about Trump. It's just every this is why people really believe when Trump says the whole system's rigged. It's very easy to believe.

I real in shock to hear all this. But I have to say that, you know, this is jet fuel for Trump. What the Democrats have wagered on, they have wagered on the idea that Trump is annoying enough and boorish enough that their charges will override the people's, the people who love Trump, love him because of this. They love him because of his enemies. They love him because they know he's being lied about. They know he's being attacked. They know he's being treated unfairly. And it gives him a certain, you know, aura, a certain glow of being, you know, how can I say it? A truth teller, a fighter for truth who is being put upon by all of same powerful forces who've been telling ordinary Americans for 50, 60 years that their country's garbage, they're racist, they're sexist, they're phobic in this way and that. These are the same people who've been yelling at all these Americans that they're deplorable are now yelling at Trump, which gives Trump the ability to say they're not after me, they're after you, I'm just in the way, which is one of the best, smartest things he ever said. And so that basically, you know, encourages people to vote for Trump, to cling to Trump, to stick with him no matter what he does. And what the Democrats are betting is, yes, they will do that. But he has a ceiling of 40 percent support and 30 to 40 percent support.

And we can get everybody else and win. Now, looking at some of these midterms, I don't think Trump was entirely to blame. We're not going to know who was to blame unless the GOP does an autopsy. And I'm not sure to face inflation. They were ready to face crime. They were ready to face the disorder that happened over the summer of 2020 with the Democrats' support and encouragement and incitement. They were ready to face all that. They just wanted Trump out of the picture. He wasn't even on the ballot, but just the idea that people were going to support his idea that the election had been stolen was enough for some of those candidates to go down. The Democrats had supported those candidates, supported those Republican candidates who were in favor of stop the steal, hoping they would go down and the Democrat strategy worked. So even now, even now, the stuff that they're doing keeps Trump alive.

It keeps him in the picture. It keeps him in the game because the more they attack him, the more he becomes a hero to his people. And their only bet, their only wager is that they can make more people disaffected with Trump than they will make people stick with Trump. In some ways, so far, their strategy, just judging by these midterms, has worked really well. And we can expect to see more of it until it collapses, until people start to go in a different way, which may be DeSantis or maybe something Trump does new. Q, you know, the whole thing's theater, right? So Q, the stage right entry of Mike Pence, who just released a book and is making the rounds this week.

And, you know, I read part of what he said in his book and what he did in his Wall Street Journal piece on the air. And I said publicly that it was kind of heartbreaking for me to listen to him tell the story about going back in and talking with Trump after Jan 6th and him reminding Trump that he was on the Capitol. He was at the Capitol with his wife and his daughter when Trump tweeted out, you know, that stuff about Mike Pence as people were chanting, hang Mike Pence. There's no question Trump behaved terribly that day. And it was sad to me. I don't just the story of their relationship in one of his most loyal soldiers, having his heart a little broken by Trump, who really, let's face it, is loyal to no one. Anyway, so Pence is getting the star treatment now from the left wing media. Why? Because he was the former vice president.

No, because he's ripping on Donald Trump. CNN did a whole town hall with him last night. And here is in part why they did that. Here's a soundbite. I think in the days ahead, whatever role I and my family play in the Republican Party, whether it's as a candidate or simply a part of the cause, I think we'll have better choices than my old running mate. I think America longs to go back to the policies that were working for the American people. But I think it's time for new leadership. You tell me, first of all, whether that's going to move the needle at all in

Republican politics. Well, not really. I mean, you know, I'm actually kind of a fan of Mike Pence in a way. He's not exactly a sparkling personality. He's not, you know, Mr. Charisma or anything like that. But he does have a tendency to say these these kind of, you know, straightforward things. I actually believe he's a man of faith, which I think is different than a lot of politicians. He has a way of saying these kinds of old fashioned things that turn out to be kind of prescient and smart. Like, you know, when he said, I don't go to dinner with women alone and everybody made fun of him. And right on the heels of that came the Me Too movement, where we found out that guys who didn't act that way actually acted in different ways that weren't very good at all. He stood up for

Trump during his administration. He was a loyal vice president. Everybody made fun of him for being oleaginous and being kind of a sock up to Trump. But then when the moment came, when the moment came to do what he had to do, he did it. He actually stood up for the country. And he may, you know, I don't think January 6th was an insurrection, but I think that what Mike Pence did may well have saved the republic. That actually, if he had stopped that certification, that just and legal certification of the election, I think the place would have just gone up in smoke. And I think he was very brave and very principled in doing it. And so I have a lot of respect for him. There ought to be a job.

There's a job of people who have to go and inform, you know, the families of soldiers that their soldier is missing in action. I think there ought to be a job of people who go to politicians and explain to them that they're never going to be president. I don't think Mike Pence is going to be president. I think he does think so and that he's running. And that is the reason, you know, that is ostensibly, arguably the reason why he is now saying that Trump, it's the Trump day is over because he wants the Mike Pence day to begin. I just don't think he has the charisma. I don't think he has

the backing. I don't think he has the flair to become president. He's another one of these guys like Jeb Bush or Tim Pawlenty, who somebody just sort of show up at his door and ring the doorbell and say, I'm sorry to break this to you, you know, Jeb, but you're just not going to be president because you're boring, you know? And I, it's like the reverse of Publishers Clearinghouse, like, hello, you did not win and you can't. Exactly. You know, it's like, you're a great guy and we love you. And you've got risen to the second highest, you know, role. Take the win, take the win and go home. You know, I think that, I think the Pence, like I say, I have a lot of respect for the man. I really do. I just think, you know, we ought to just leave the presidency to those people who have the viciousness and the power and the charisma to win that election.

Well summed up. All right. Stand by. And I'm going to squeeze in a quick break. Much more to discuss, including the latest on this guy, Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX and what he admitted to a Vox reporter last night, which was absolutely stunning. If he has a lawyer, I'm sure that man or woman is apoplectic with this guy at the moment. Stand by and we'll get to it. Can we spend a minute on this guy, SPF, Sam Bankman Freed? This guy, he's in a whole load of trouble, a whole load of trouble. Just for our listeners and our viewers who haven't been keeping up, he ran this company, FTX. It was in the crypto market.

He created his own token, FTT, which was then sold on his exchange, FTX. They used another company he owned called Alameda as like a hedge fund to push and create the market for this FTT token. Anyway, it's all come crashing down. They said the company was worth $32 billion. Turns out he moved $10 billion worth of customer funds from one company to cover losses in the other. A definite legal no, no, hardcore no, no. And he got caught and at least one to two billion dollars are now missing. We don't know where they went. He's kind of blaming it on his on again, off again, ex-girlfriend who bragged about not knowing math, who he put in charge of that hedge fund. It's the whole thing's

a disaster. But he was described as this wunderkind by the left wing media. He donated so much money to left wing causes. And he was so he was celebrated as this ethical guy who was basically going to help get Democrats elected and give all of his money to charity. Well, it turns out he's a disgrace. This guy lost all the money. He's probably going to be arrested soon. He's in the Bahamas, but they're talking about he's going to be shipped like he's a package back to the United States. They're not using the word extradited. We do have an extradition treaty with the Bahamas. So if we say we want him criminally, they're going to ship him back. But it looks like he may be getting shipped back anyway. And now he's been sued.

All these other celebrities who endorsed his product have been sued giselle tom brady um who's the amazing steph curry uh basketball player larry david they all been sued by investors who said you helped him mislead us and then he gives an interview last night to vox one of the many places that did a fawning profile of him okay gives a i don't know if you want to call it an interview. He had an on the record text exchange or DM exchange on Twitter. And the senior writers named Kelsey Piper, they had the following DMs.

All right. Just, just as a, just to give you a sample of what he said. He said, uh, his past conciliatory statements, like when he said last month

that some amount of crypto regulation would be definitely good he told this guy that was just pr f regulators they make everything worse uh then he went on to say well maybe it would be good but regulators can't do it then he says um okay i didn't want to do sketchy stuff. There are huge negative effects from it. And I didn't mean to. So he's kind of admitting he did. But his heart wasn't in it, Andrew. Then Vox says to him, you were very good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers. And this is the money part. This guy, Sam replies, yeah, he, he, I had to be meaning really good about talking about ethics. I had to be, it's what reputations are made of to some extent. I feel bad for those who get effed by it, by this dumb game. We woke Westerners play where we all say the right shibboleths. And so everyone likes us shibboleth meaning some sort of shared value so he's admitting that it was all bs like all of his stuff about his woke causes and how he's just going to give all of his money to the goodness that it was all a bunch of baloney because he knew it's what the

media and others wanted to hear to give him all this money to run a company he apparently had no business running and to be to wind up on the cover of Forbes on the cover of Fortune, still fawning profiles in the New York Times to this day because he gave $10 million to Biden last time around and over $40 million to Democrats this time around. And now he's really doomed, in my opinion, because, you know, when he said that thing about crypto should be regulated, that angered the rest of the crypto community who then began to expose some of the things how quickly the news, the media dumps him and leaves him, hangs him out to dry. If he's not going to be woke or if he's going to expose that woke is what it has always been, a virtue signal that has nothing to do with reality and certainly nothing to do with profits. You know, I find this.

First of all, the guy's 30 years old. He went into meetings and played video games and everybody said, wow, isn't that cool? I thought, no. No. A meeting, you should actually be paying attention to the meeting because maybe somebody's saying something important. The whole thing reminds me of like the bonfire of the vanities on speed. For those who don't remember Tom Wolfe's novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, it was about a stock, a bond trader. And the whole point was that the guy produces nothing. He does nothing. He simply takes bits off everybody, what everybody else is doing.

Peggy Noonan at the time described it as shuffling about a bunch of money around. And when you're done shuffling it, there's somehow more money. And I think now we not only have that, we not only have money detached from any accomplishment or any manufacturer whatsoever, we have money actually detached from money. We have cryptocurrency, which means nothing. It kind of can disappear with the press of a button, as indeed in this case, it seems to have done. I can't help but feel that in the history books, when they go back on this and they think about the great crash of 2024 or 2026 or whenever it comes, they're going to say that it had something to do with the fact that money has become detached from value. We even have modern monetary theory where people say, yeah, we can

print all the money we want. It's not going to have any effect at all. I mean, people are now living in a complete fantasy world when it comes to money. And I think this is the first guy, the first guy who actually sort of understood that he was in that fantasy world, shared the fantasy. Everyone believed it. He supported the right people, said the right things. And now it turns out he was walking on air. It's kind of frightening. And I think one of the things that you're seeing now is all these people taking stock of what it means to have a currency that's attached to nothing, including the American currency. I mean, America lives off the fact that everybody lives on our currency, which is why we managed to survive. But the inflation that's happening is because of printing money that

has no value. The fact that they're having almost twice the inflation in England, it's up to 11% over there, has to do with the fact that nobody uses the pound anymore as the going currency. They use the dollar so we can keep printing for a while. But all of this stuff is this fantasy world we're living in where money has become detached from anything that looks like value. It's one thing to say, well, the gold standard didn't matter, but some standard has to matter. Money has to mean something. It has to represent, symbolize something. And now it doesn't. And so this guy just seems to me to be the first fruit of a very rotten tree, the first fruit of a tree where money just doesn't mean a damn thing. But we keep trading it. We keep talking about how rich people

are when it's just a bunch of blinks on a computer screen that can disappear like that. In some ways, I sympathize with him. He's just the first guy to get caught. Well, and he was funding Vox, the very organization that did the fawning profile on him. And we've seen this over and over. He funded a lot of these left-wing publications that either previously to getting the money did fawning profiles on him or right after getting the money did the fawning profiles on him. And it's all a game.

It's actually, it's kind of cool to hear him admit it. You know, it was all bullshit. It was all bullshit. I'm not woke. I'm just using you losers. Like like good for him. Am I rooting for him? No, I'm not rooting for him. But I appreciate the moment of honesty. and what we're going to look back on and blame. What are we going to look back on when our culture completely implodes? We may be well on the road. Well, one of the things is going to be the removal of all testosterone from our men. I give you Justin Trudeau, who was caught in this amazing moment, right? You've seen this with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Watch this and listen to the translator who's translating with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. Watch this and listen to the translator who's translating for the Chinese president. Everything we discussed has been leaked to the paper. That's not appropriate. Everything's been leaked. It's not appropriate. And that's not all the way the conversation was conducted. It's not the way the conversation was conducted. If there is sincerity on your part, we will continue to look to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on. You will have to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on. Let's create the conditions first. Oh, God.

To the listening audience, you got to go back and watch this on YouTube. And you got to watch Justin Trudeau sort of skulk away. That's sort of a big bottom because I see his big bottom walk out the room. No judgment, same. But in any event, it was emasculating. He emasculated him. You know, you kind of associate testosterone with being a bully, but Trudeau has managed to actually get rid of his manhood, but retain the bully. He's actually still kind of a dictator and a thug. The only problem he has is that she is much better at being a thug than he has. And there's a lot more people to thug around with. You know, that is humiliating, but what can I say? I'm not rooting for either of

those guys. I know. Watching Ferdow get humiliated is just as good. I'd like to see them both humiliated, but I'll take one. It was embarrassing. And it is embarrassing to have these guys. I mean, they have they have no bottom. You know, what was it? The C.S. Lewis and their men without chests, you know, their men without any values whatsoever. They're men who stand nowhere, stand for nothing except their own power. And this kind of weird idea that they have that they are going to manipulate the world and make it a better place. And it's you don't they don't need you or your industry or your business or your choices or your opinions. They're just going to do it all. I mean, Trudeau is a man who actually took money away from people out of their bank accounts for protesting, for exercising free

speech. He has no place to stand. So when another tyrant slaps one tyrant around, to me, it's like Hitler slapping Mussolini. It's like the big tyrant slapping the little tyrant. Who cares? You know, I mean, I kind of enjoy it a little. Right. You're right, because he is a bully because he goes after those who have less power than he does. That's what a bully is. So he's he he can sit there and try to do his little social talk to, you know, the Chinese president, like we believe in open communication. What the Chinese president is saying is you leaked our private conversation. I read it. I read about it in all the press. I had meetings with 12 leaders. Nobody else did that.

And you're a shit. And Trudeau's like, we believe in open communication. It's like, oh, my God. It's like, OK, so in any event, it was emasculating. It was humiliating. And I got to end on this note because I've been dying to get your was emasculating. It was humiliating. And I got to end on this note, because I've been dying to get your thoughts on this news today. That's San Francisco. All right. San Francisco has launched a program to pay trans residents $1,200 a month for 18 months. It's guaranteed.

They call it gift, guaranteed income for transgender people that will provide them with taxpayer dollars, $1,200 a month just for being trans. They will prioritize enrollment, get this, hold on, of transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and intersex people whoolingual Spanish speakers, and those who are legally vulnerable, such as TGI people who are undocumented, engaging in survival sex trades or are formerly incarcerated. So if you've been to jail, you're engaged in the sex trade, you're an illegal immigrant, you are homeless, you have a disability, a chronic illness, you're on the spectrum of non-binary, gender non-conforming trans, and you're also a person of color, you're in at the top of the line. Well, speaking as a woman who's moving to San Francisco, I think that this is totally fair. You know, I'm actually happy to see what's happening in San Francisco. I mean,

it's kind of mean, it's kind of schadenfreude, but look, they get what they voted for you know i mean the city is it was one of the most beautiful cities it was the queen of the western of the west coast it is now an absolute hellhole when do people start to wake up when do they say you know like maybe we should vote for somebody else but they they never do what they do is they vote with their feet all those people are now living in nashville and they're living in uh florida uh all the people who would have changed it. So these guys just keep doing it until it collapses like Detroit. That is an amazing story, an amazing story to pay people to be gender dysphoric, to pay people to be homeless.

But you get what you pay for. You know, I remember researching San Francisco for a book and talking to the cops and they said they won't let us enforce the law. This town is going to go downhill. Everything that they said would happen has happened. It's going to continue to be this way until they start to vote for other people. And as far as I can tell, no requirement that they seek work in the meantime or do any sort of a rehab program if they need it. Nothing. So nothing will change at the end of that 18 month period, except the taxpayers of San Francisco will be a lot poorer. Great job, Andrew Clavin. It's always a pleasure. It's great to see you, Megan. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, you too. Coming up, another pleasure, Doug Brunt. That's going to be fun. And remember, you can call in, too, and you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. And the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel one 11 every weekday at noon East and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast for free. And there you'll find our full archives with more than 430 shows, man, we've been working hard, working hard and we love doing it. Joining me now, Doug Brunt. He is the host of the brand new hit podcast,

Dedicated with Doug Brunt. He's a New York Times bestselling author, a father of three, and he also happens to be my husband. Now his new podcast that's available right now, wherever you get your podcast for free debuted and its debut week at number two in the books podcast, but podcasts about books and dedicated to books. And it's also been consistently in the top 10 every single week since it launched. He's had a ton of well-known guests on the latest that he just taped. That's going to hit soon is with Paulina Porizkova. But he's had tons of top, top number one New York Times bestsellers from Nelson DeMille to Lee Child and so on. Without further ado, Doug Brunt, great to see you. How are you, honey? This is we're making full use of the house today. This is great.

Literally, Doug is downstairs and I am upstairs and we're kind of low tech because I couldn't figure out how to put another person at this desk. How's it going so far? It's going great. Abby and I have been conspiring this morning. So she has something, I think, to drop off for you. Oh, what do you- Oh, it's a cocktail. I feel like I'm undedicated with Doug Rudd.

I've got mine down here. Oh, cheers, babe. That's your Negroni? Cheers. Yeah, exactly. Good. Cheers to you. Okay.

I'll booze it up. It's only one in the afternoon. Who cares? We're like five hours ahead of schedule. Very nice. Do you want to tell the audience what you've made me? I know what it is. Tequila soda with lots of lime. Yeah. It's like scratching an itch. I'm a big tequila fan now. This is what he does in his podcast, Dedicated. He kicks it off with some booze with his guests. And then they talk about, before they get started on the books and the book-to-film deals and the writing process, they pour a cocktail.

And Doug is an amazing mixologist, because you actually do have formal bartending in your past. A couple years out of college, I was actually making cocktails and getting paid for it. Now it's just sort of privately at the home, but used to be a profession briefly. But that's the fun thing. Like you can hear the ice. That's one of the things I like about listening to dedicated. You can hear Doug pour the cocktail and you get to learn about new cocktails and what like people are boozing on, what they like. Some are teetotalers and you can learn what they like. Anyway, that's just one of the many fun things. Before we get to the podcast. Yeah, I've learned some great ones. Jess Walter had the Robert Burns cocktail, which was delicious. Scotch, Benedictine,

and sweet vermouth. Recommend it. I know. Yeah. I don't drink scotch, but it made me want to. Okay. I want to get to Dedicated with Doug Brown in one second, but let's talk about you for a minute. Let's help the audience get to know you. You were not always a writer when I met you way back in 2006. We met in July of 2006. My God, so long ago. You were running an Internet security firm and that's what you were doing when we got married in 2008. And then things took a turn the same way I left the law for journalism. You left running a company for writing. So explain to the audience how that happened.

Yeah, you're kind of an inspiration for that because you were unhappy practicing law. And then you sort of followed a passion and took a leap of faith for something you were fascinated with. And I had seen that happen and play out firsthand. And I was running this technology company. It's based down in Florida. And I was back and forth company. It was based down in Florida. I was back and forth between New York and Florida.

I remember going for a walk with you in Central Park. We had our first... I think Yardley was just a baby then. We were walking the kids in a stroller and everything in Central Park. You're like, honey, you just seem stressed. You're going through a difficult time. By that time time I'd actually been toying around with a novel and you kind of gave me a nudge, like, why don't you, why don't you pursue this? And so long story short, I did find an agent for that and sold the company and, and then got a publishing deal for the first book and have been writing since. Yeah. It was so awkward for me because I didn't know whether you were a good writer and I was really hoping you, I mean, you're smart and you're very

well read, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good writer. So the audience will appreciate the position I was in poor me, where I was like, Oh God, that would have been terrible. If you read the book and thank God you came back with like, well, this doesn't suck. So I'm like, I'll take it. That's a huge win. Doesn't suck. It avoids a very awkward moment in the marriage. I think it's fair to say I'm your number one fan and your harshest critic all in one when I review you. Full pages scratched out with a red X, like boring written in the margins.

I mock because I love, because better you should hear it from me than you hear it from the general public. And I always want to tell the main plus part. Every writer needs that person. Speaking of Ghosts of Manhattan, I pulled this because it's been a long time since I read it. It came out in 11 or 12? 12.

Okay. Came out in 12. And this is Doug's debut novel. And it did make the New York Times bestseller list, which was amazing. And it's an amazing, amazing story of this guy named Nick Farmer, who's a Wall Street bond trader. And I think it's just his struggle to save his soul. That's my summary of it. And what I love about it is the beautiful writing.

It's in the first person. His relationship with his wife, his relationship with his friends, his witty dialogue at dinners and just going from A to B with various characters. But he is such an interesting character. But I pulled this just from and it got all sorts of great reviews from the fancy reviewers like Kirkus and so on. But I just pulled one from from the Amazon writings. Nick Farmer is a bond trader with Bear Stearns in 2005 before the financial meltdown. Brunt paints a picture of the excesses of a bond trader's life as seen through Nick's eyes. He has spent too many years getting drunk by 5 p.m., spending expense money on strippers and drinks.

His marriage is in trouble. His life is a mess. But how can he fix it? He went to Bear Stearns right out of college. He's been doing this too long. He's 35, not 25, makes way too much money, but knows it's all a sham. Brunt does a masterful job of involving the reader into Nick's life. He takes you on a roller coaster of emotions as you feel disgust, fear, hope, and finally learn to like this broken and deeply flawed character. I didn't like Nick in the beginning, but came to care very much about him by the conclusion. This is a very strong first novel. It's written in the first person. It really does involve the reader and I give it five stars and recommend it.

I feel exactly the same way as this lovely reviewer did. Nick Farmer is a character we need to see more of. And why don't you listen to your wife and write A Ghost of Manhattan 2? I did love writing that book. I miss it a little bit. Those characters in that book and it would be fun to revisit them. It's funny, I read all the reviews and

everyone that comes in on Amazon, even the little ones. And I tend to believe only the worst ones, of course. I torture myself over reading all these things. Oh, here's a question for you. I love that review and that was a fun book. So you put yourself through that torture about with nasty comments about you. But do you do that when it comes to me? Do you read comment the comment section and anything about me? Oh, that I go to 60 miles an hour instantly on those.

I read that. I don't believe them. Of course, they just infuriate me more somehow. Oh, Abby's agreeing. Abby and Doug are my chief defenders on anything negative. OK, so Ghost of Manhattan. But before you came out with that novel, and you tried your hand at writing, you were you were not a public figure. And I would submit to the audience, not so interested in becoming one, you were more of a private guy. And this is one

of the things you had to wrestle with. When you decided to propose to me, right? I mean, you understood I was on Fox at the time, though I was a cub reporter. By the time we got married, I had America's Newsroom with Hemmer, so my star was kind of rising a little. So you had to make a decision on whether you wanted to put a toe into public life that way. And it really did require a thoughtful reflection by you. It did. And of course, all worthwhile. We do it all again, obviously, but it does require some thought, but no one can know exactly what they're getting into with that, even you, I'm sure. And there is a lot of good with the bad. The good far outweighs the bad.

I mean, when we go places, almost 99% of the interactions are positive. People coming up and saying, you inspire me, you inspire my daughter. I want my daughter to be like you. It's almost always that. Very few negative ones. There've been moments where we're really peaking on intensity and focus on you that's unpleasant. But for the most part, it brings far more good into our lives than bad. Well, I mean, you came in with very open eyes to this relationship because when we first started dating is when I had that terrible stalking problem in my life. And literally on our first date, well, tell them, tell them what happened, what you had to agree to. I can't remember if it was Cougar or Viper, but your friends had named all the security guards and gave them co-names one poor guy was pooh bear but everyone else had a pretty tough name and uh so we were chaperoned like a couple

of high school sophomores going to the prom and and the one guy was really you know these were these are guys who clearly had experience with weapons and and uh taking people down and uh i did not want to be taken down by anyone and he's like i'm gonna have to see some id of course i'm like reaching into my back pocket like whatever you need sir and he's like, I'm going to have to see some ID, of course. And I'm like, reaching into my back pocket, like, whatever you need, sir. And he's like, no, no, I'm just messing with him. But anyway, our first kiss was also in front of security, which is hard to do. Yeah, it was. It was hard for both of us, but especially me. Yeah, you'd really gotten to know these guys. I think after they dropped me off for many dates, I was dropped off somewhere else at my hotel. uh they'd give you the little quiz about what what's it what's up

with this guy you know do we need to are we going to see him again they approved of you otherwise it wouldn't have worked out you know i mean i trusted their opinions but after that first kiss it was i did not do well audience i i did not i was embarrassed cougar and viper were watching us and uh it was just awkward af as the kids say and so the next day when we went back to pick up Doug at his hotel, I said to Cougar and Viper, stay where you are. I got something I need to do. So I went to the hotel. I pressed the buzzer on Doug's door and he's looking for the security. I'm like, they're not here. I'm like, I can do better. That was not my best effort last night. And of course, Doug was like, right this way. Yeah, it's classic you. It's like, take charge kind of girl. Come on in. I like this. It was only a kiss, as the song says. But things went from there. So it was a crazy beginning. And we did get married. It was a crazy beginning and we did get married and it was a whirlwind romance. It was absolutely, it was, I was mesmerized by you and remain mesmerized by you. Like I, there's a journal entry that I kept at the time that has a picture of you.

You're just in jeans and a t-shirt, but your, your, your hair is kind of messed up and you'd been so kind and such a person of character. And I, and I wrote something to the effect of, is it possible? Is it possible that this guy loves me and isn't a serial killer or gay or a felon of some type? Like, is there something, there's gotta be a shoe to drop here because he's too good. And now I'm happy to say 15 years of marriage later, you're not, it's not fake. You're real. You're just as awesome as I always knew you were, babe. Oh, I am the lucky one.

And it's funny. I just had Anna Quinlan on my show. And at that time in our dating phase, prior to marriage, you'd given me a book by Anna called A Short Guide to a Happy Life. And you wrote a very sweet inscription in which I won't repeat here, but it was a very nice inscription. And I brought it to my interview with Anna to get it signed. Of course I forgot because I was all like thrown by my interview with her, which was so fun and good. Um, but I saved that book going back. And I, I

remember those days when we were first dating. And of course now we have three beautiful kids and everything's been so awesome. I feel like we're just actually hitting, hitting our stride in some ways. Like we're really really hitting a great peak where our kids are fun and they want to be with us. We're doing so much fun stuff, just the two of us. So why do you think it's worked? Because obviously I had a first marriage and I'm still friends with Dan, but that one didn't work out and you had other relationships. And so many marriages struggle. And I'm sure there are a lot of people listening to us right now who are like, A, gag, but B, how are they doing that? Like, what is the, like, I wouldn't mind hearing a couple of things about what makes a relationship work so well like this consistently, you know, even my best friends have blind spots to their behavior and something that in your friends, you're like, listen, nobody's perfect.

I'm going to forgive this person, these kinds of foibles or whatever they are. And I know that you just, you see yourself so clearly and then you do things about it when you find something you think needs work, whether it's a relationship with me or your mom or a sibling or a friend. And you are, you're very proactive about putting in the work. And, you know, I mean, obviously everyone should know it's not all rainbows and unicorns with us. Like we work on things. We have very frank and honest conversations with each other. When we find something annoying, there has not been anything annoying, at least on my half, we'll talk after, but I'm all good right now. But when there's not, and there have been over the years, of course,

there are those moments in every marriage. And we don't let that fester. We just put it on the table and talk it through. And I think we're both honest with ourselves and with each other about it. I think that's right. It's communication. It's just, it's talking about it. And, and even like trying, you can acknowledge, like I'll say to you, I'm irritated.

I'm mad. I don't like what you said or did, but it's not like F you, you know, I'm so effing pissed at you. Like it's, it's done in a sort of a calm, like I am angry and I want to explain why.

And the other person listens. I won't tell what the story is since I story since that's what the whole thing is about. But there is a story. It's part of my bit. I'm telling you, I'm very funny when we go out to these dinners sometimes. And I have this great piece, this story I love to tell about Doug. And one time he was like, stop telling that story about me to people who don't know me. He's like, you can tell that story to people who do know me.

But people who don't know me are going to think I'm an asshole from that story. I was like, what do you mean? It's part of my bit. What are you saying? You can see the look on their faces. They're kind of like, oh, well, that's a good story. And then they're like, oh my gosh, this guy's terrible. But it was a good example of how you were like, honey, I want you to stop saying that.

And I was sad to part with my bit, but it required me to refresh my material. Well, you don't have to part with it. Just wait like a few weeks till we know them a little better. In other words, I'll bring Doug back on this show in three weeks and I'll tell you what we're talking about. All right. So you've been writing books. You've been writing three, you wrote three successful novels, Ghost of Manhattan, we talked about, The Means, which is a political thriller, which I absolutely love. It's about media and politics and a presidential race. I'm going to give you just one review or two from that one because it was fun for me to read the Amazon stuff. Somebody writes, finally, I'm surprised by an ending. Lately, it seems I predict the outcomes of the books I'm reading, and I'm always disappointed that I do so. Not so with The Means. Not once was I able to foretell a character's endgame, and the final sentence blew me away. Kudos to an author that kept me entranced until the end. I love The Means too. The whole book, it moves quickly, and as somebody who's

in politics and media, in a way, I loved it. And then came Trophy Son, which is about what we're doing to our kids and sports. It's a novel about a fictional character named Anton Stratis and his dad, who's like trying to make him into the Trophy Son. So they all do well. But then you make this switch before you get your podcast. You make this big switch over COVID. And I was like, what are you doing?

What are you doing? And what tell us what you were doing and why? Well, I was it started out because I was in between novels and I was searching around for ideas for the next novel. So I was doing search terms like fascinating or mysterious disappearances at sea and things like that. And I came across this one story that was interesting. I thought, oh, maybe this could be the springboard into a book.

And the more I did research on it, the more I found that this has been completely forgotten to history. It's a really important story for the 20th century and beyond. It played a huge role in World War I, and no one really has covered it. The more research I did on it, the more I came to some conclusions about what really did happen. And I decided to treat it as nonfiction, tell it in a narrative nonfiction way, the way Eric Larson is sort of a king of narrative nonfiction these days with books like Devil in the White City and

Dead Wake. And so I just thought it was too good not to do it in a nonfiction way rather than have it be a historical fiction or kind of make up a story based on it. I wanted to actually do it. And so in early COVID, worked on a proposal and it was new to me. I didn't realize how that whole system works with a nonfiction book. You really do like a 30-page treatment or proposal that has all these certain elements that need to be in the proposal. So I put that together with an agent, a new agent who specializes in nonfiction and sold that over COVID. So that was sort of like the COVID project, but we're all quarantined up together. Yeah. that it was so cool. And that is kind of a difference because when you wrote your novels, you just wrote them and then you give it to your

agent and maybe you get feedback or you do some editing and then, you know, you improve it. And then you submit it to the publishing houses and see whether you have any takers. But the nonfiction was a totally different process. Tons of research. So I'd be stacked, stacks of materials around me, different books and going through old newspaper archives. And it was tough during COVID because there were archives in Germany and the UK that I wanted to get into. And you can't, they were closed for like a year. And over time, I established virtual relationships with archivists in these different places who would help me out. They'd go down and they'd scan something for me and they'd email it back over. And so I managed to do it.

The whole world obviously has changed. I sold the whole book. I haven't sat down in a room with my agent except for that random run we had with him in the restaurant out of state. Montana. Everything's happening over Zoom. So the whole auction process for selling the book happened over Zoom. And, and, uh, it's kind of a different world in publishing too. And also you get paid beforehand in nonfiction. That's nice too. Like in the novel, you only, you may or may not get paid at the end of writing the novel,

but in nonfiction, they kind of pay you to write it, which I like that. That's good. Um, so this, I know you're very hinky about releasing to the world too much info about this book. It's been Doug's baby. So I won't, I won't press yet. Cause it's, it's coming out.

It's coming. We think 2023, right? Fall 23. Okay. So when, when he's ready to break that news, he'll,

he'll come on and he'll tell you all about it. And you will love it. It's basically the quarter century prior to world war one. Most of it. But it's, it's great because it sort of gets you in. It's not just about the topic. It's also about life on this planet back then and takes you into sort of the Gilded Age and how people were living.

There's so many things to fall in love with in the book. So anyway, that wasn't enough for you. You decided, I'm like, slowly but surely, as our kids were getting older, you were getting more interested in expanding your professional universe. You'd been writing. You'd had this great book club in Manhattan. But you wanted to do more, more, more. So you expanded into nonfiction, which I think is harder. I think that's harder.

You just work so hard on this book. And then you decided last fall it might be fun to do a podcast about books and with some of these authors who you'd come to know in the book world. So what made you decide to do that? I've thought a lot about that and what the real inspiration was and could I bring it back to a moment. And I think one of the main moments, maybe the main moment was finishing The Gold Coast by nelson demille and putting it down and thinking what i wouldn't give to sit down in a bar with this guy who i don't know but just to get to know him and it's not so much to talk about the book itself why this character did one thing or another but to get to know the writer himself because when you read a novel that's like a 15 hour

experience or so and if the writer is good it powerful, far, far more than just a movie. And you've spent 15 hours in this person's head. And so the opportunity to get to know that person, uh, is something I've always wanted. Whenever you finish a book, it's like, God, I wish I could meet this person and sit down and have a drink. So that's really what the show is. Uh, these great writers, we're getting the best writers in the world come in. It's Jennifer Egan, Lee Child, Nelson DeMille, Anna Quinlan, Amor Tolles come in and we have a drink where they

choose their favorite drink, which we make, uh, on the set. And we get to know the person, um, which is an experience that you really can't find anywhere else. Yes. And what I love about it is you, it's a no politics zone. So unlike when you try to take in entertainment because you're inviting people to come and enjoy themselves in dedicated with Doug Brown, come and enjoy and relax and have a nice 45 minutes to an hour with a figure you may or may not admire or but probably will by the end of the time. So you don't, unlike these people who run the Academy Awards or the Emmys who are always shoving their politics down our throat, you do exactly the opposite. So I could listen to a person and not know anything about their politics. And that's by design. You don't just don't want it to be jarring or unpleasant for half the country. Yeah. I mean, we're a, we're a happy little show, you know, and it's, I want people to be able to, it's audio only. And so you can hear the ice clinking against the tin of the cocktail shaker and close your eyes and just

imagine you're there in the room with this brilliant writer. I mean, these are some of our greatest thinkers and greatest storytellers and hear them tell their own story, how they, how they came up with the ideas for the books or how they got started with writing and the scary moments. Like Lee Child says in the beginning, he got fired from a show. He was a TV producer in London. He got fired. He says his muses were hunger and fear. And that's what drove him to write his first novel and just think about work or I'm out on the street. And 20 some books later, he's hugely successful, but has a million great stories of how it all went on. And they talk about the writing process, which for writers, the only two things writers have in common

are lots of coffee and they read a lot. Everything else is wildly different, you know, from time of day to do they write by hand or they type it in or do they outline ahead of time? Or some writers think that outlining ahead of time takes away something from the novel and their energy they can put into it. So they don't outline it. And there's every variation you can imagine. But you're longhand on legal notepads.

Yeah, that is for all my novels, longhand on a legal notepad. And then I type it in, which is an editing step. And I try to stay away from the computer as much as possible. With nonfiction, I've been typing right into the computer because I'm, I'm constantly needing to access some piece of information or fact check myself, you know, in real time. And so with a nonfiction, I've been typing it directly in more like a, like a journalist might. You do so much homework for the, for the show. It's amazing how you'll read like all the person's books practically. It's incredible. And in the beginning, I would say you were more nervous than you are now because you've already taped, I don't know, like eight or nine of them, maybe more. I can't remember.

But is it getting easier for you? It is getting a little easier, but I'm still doing the same load of work because each person is totally different. And I've branched out into some different types of writers in a way, I would say. So in the beginning, it was writers that I personally knew pretty well, like Lee and Nelson DeMille have been friends for a long time. And so that was more like talking to an old friend. And one thing that was so special about the Jess Walter interview is I didn't know him. And I just shot him a note. I've read his books. I've read Beautiful Ruins and a few of other of his books. And I shot him a note and he was in town for the Brooklyn Book Festival. And I said, hey,

do you want to come in and do this conversation for the show? And he said, sure. And he was in town for the Brooklyn Book Festival. And I said, hey, do you want to come in and do this conversation for the show? And he said, sure. And he came in and he picked a great cocktail. And we just had a great time. Now, it's funny that you should mention Jess Walter. Because before we get to his soundbite, I have some soundbites I want to play for the audience. But I have an important one for you from someone you may know. His name is Yates Brunt. And he had some thoughts for you on this interview. Listen.

Hey, Dad. It's me, Yates. I heard you were going on Mom's show today. I just wanted to wish you good luck, and I've really been enjoying your podcast. I especially enjoyed the story about Jess Walter and the movie Drive-In. That was really funny. Anyway, see ya. Oh, that's going to make me cry in the middle of the show. So he's so sweet. That was a great story from Jess Walter. And you know what? We have it queued up. So here's a little bit of what Yates liked so much about the Jess Walter interview with Sot9. There's a story of your family living next door to a drive-in movie theater. Is that one you could share with us? Yeah um we had this sort of flat roof on our garage and so he put lawn chairs on the on the roof of the garage and we all climbed up there late 1970s so the drive-in was showing

like bad news bears no no if only it was showing like you know house of a thousand pleasures and you know it was like kind of hard R rated semi porn. And so my dad quickly got us kids off the roof and never put the chairs up there again. But my friend and I built a tree fort toward the back of the property, which had slightly better sight lines. And we got binoculars and we would climb up there and watch movies. And I think it's one of the places I fell in love with stories. I would have watched how many novels were. I think how many novels were born out of this period of your life. So they would show like kind of a terrible movie and then they would show Dog Day Afternoon or just these 70s auteurs, Harold and Maude and Woody Allen movies. We had this tunnel underneath the

big aluminum fence and we climbed in and we cut a speaker and my friend wired it up and we unspooled the wire and he's unspooling and I'm covering it with dirt all the way back through the back of the drive-in theater up the aluminum fence into our tree fort. And I look up and there's the theater manager and he's just walking and he can see this mound of dirt straight up to our tree fort. And so we were arrested and our job for the rest of the summer was to pick up all the trash in the theater. That's amazing. He wasn't much of a thief, was he?

No, no. But he can take you there. He's such a good storyteller. You're listening to the story, you can just see the manager pulling this wire up out of the ground, up to the tree forward. And he's great. He is so charming, just like his books. He is a very charming guy.

And his description of his home in Washington state was absolutely amazing, too. It makes me want to move there. That's the thing that's so special about these interviews that I've noticed. Same thing with your book. I was like, I hope I like it. You know, I'm going to have to be honest if I don't like it, but I've been loving it because the discussions are snappy and they're interesting and they're in depth, but these are literally the country's best wordsmiths. And they're, what are they doing? Using more words, sitting across from

you and stitching them together in a way that's just kind of mellifluous. And it's a it's just a sort of an effervescent experience for the listener, because for them, putting beautiful sentences together is is effortless. And you can tell. And for you, too, like the exchanges are really you came home after the first one and I listened to it. And you're like, what do you think? And I was getting ready to give it honest, critical feedback if necessary. And I said, my only complaint is you need to up your conversation level at home. I need to see this version over the dinner table. Right.

Your away game is so strong. Let's let's get this going on around the dinner table. Just kidding. But it's been it's been so fun to listen. All right. We have much more coming up. We're going to get to a couple more sound bites. We're going to get to Strud more soundbites. We're going to get to Strudwick,

and we will be right back. We actually have a call from Sheldon in Massachusetts, who's got a question for you, Duggar. Hey, Sheldon, what's on your mind? Hey, Doug. Megan, nice to talk to you. And Doug, thank you so much for the Nelson DeMille interview. I'm a huge fan. I read Club Island years ago and was hooked instantly and i've read everything since gold coast is probably my favorite but um and and obviously john cory is the hero in that and thank you for asking what john cory looks like now i can't see him any other way than bruce willis a question for you is is nelson demMille anything like John Corey off interview? I didn't hear it in the interview, but I was wondering off interview if he was like John Corey.

He is. It's funny. First, I love talking about Nelson. I just think he's great. He's really sort of like the king of the current thriller. He's influenced so many writers. And the John Corey character is terrific. And he is like that. He has that, you know, Nelson was in the military.

He's friends with a lot of current and former cops who have that sense of humor. And Nelson, when you go out with him, you spend half the night laughing because he has these little one-liners that are just so quick, so clever and observant of like what's happening in the room around you in the moment. And, uh, so he really does have that kind of a sense of humor, which I think is one of Corey's sort of main characteristics of that sort of irreverent humor, irreverent way of looking at the world. He definitely has and a fearlessness, too. I mean, Nelson totally has that. Nelson is a badass. And actually, I want to tell the audience something Doug would not share, which is Nelson actually said to Doug in that interview.

Sheldon, maybe you heard it, that Ghost of Manhattan, he said, is actually better than Bonfire of the Vanities and that they need to make a movie out of it. Yes, I agree. Sheldon, thank you for listening. If you want to call in, again, he was he's extremely famous i mean you point out the interview with him he's no longer measuring the numbers of books sold like once he's passed hundreds of millions you kind of stop counting the crazy success that he's had and his care his most famous character is jack reacher and you asked him about same thing like what did you think jack reacher was going to look like because it it wound up being Tom Cruise. And he got blowback from his fans on that because he and the audience had a different thing in mind. And here's a little bit of that. So to talk about Reacher and how he's he's portrayed in film and TV. I think you've sold the movie rights to all 20 plus books already. In the early days, there were a ton of actors i i

looked this up i know the rock at one point was considered for all this i guess probably the early 2000s maybe before he was such a huge star but will smith russell crowe daniel craig but one time you told me the name of someone who was not an actor but was someone you could years and years ago this is that you could picture in the role. Do you remember the name you mentioned to me? Howie. That's right. Howie was it?

Yeah, what was his second name? Howie Long. Howie Long, right, yeah. He was, I mean, sports people in general, yeah, football players or in Britain, rugby players. I mean, Howie was a good looking guy, you know, which is why. Well, I think the guy that you have currently on the Amazon show, Alan Richson, he looks like a young Howie to me. Yeah, he really does. And that was always the picture I had in my mind of physically large, intimidating, a little less handsome,

probably than Howie, who was, you know, a very good looking guy. Lee Child's got swagger, right? He's got it. He does. I mean, this is not a phrase I have used, but he's like a cool cat, just effortlessly cool. Yeah, he's and you got to listen to the show just to find out how he came up with the name Lee Child, which is not his real name. And Doug gets him to explain how he got there. And it's an amazing story. I remember when you first learned it in our private life, you came home and you're like, you're not going to believe this. And sure enough, I did not believe it. But then I heard him tell it himself on Dedicated. And it was super fun. Well, later in that episode, I say who, sorry, go ahead. No, you go.

Later in the episode, I say to him who, so I do this at the end of every episode, I do a sort of a lightning round of questions. And one of the questions was who would be Reacher's celebrity crush? And, uh, he, you know, he wanted to be polite, so he didn't actually name a name, but he said, well, you know, this former cable news host, uh, you know, might do the, you know, would be very smart and, and he, and she and Reacher might have a uh so after he said like i didn't want to actually say the name but i i thought that would be impolite i it was probably but it's clear but i i appreciate that in any event um then you had on i mean honestly like one of my she's my favorite she's amazing i love everything she writes anna quinlan who you mentioned a minute ago

and um we have a clip of it and she tells, well, as you mentioned at the end, you kind of do quick hits with people like what books are on your nightstand right now? What's the fewest number of people who have ever attended a book signing, a dose of humility? And what life advice do you have? It could be anything. It could be professional. It could be personal. And of course, Anna Quinlan did not disappoint. Here's just a little bit of what she said in Sat 10. One piece of good advice for the listeners. One piece of good advice. Look around.

Really look around. There comes a moment and it comes too soon. Usually when we're maybe 12, 13, 14, when we stop seeing what's around us, we stop seeing the people we I think things get dulled after a while. You know, I mean, all you have to do to realize how important it is, is watch a four year old. I mean, when you watch a four year old looking at an anthill, you suddenly see an anthill in a way you haven't since you were four years old and then the sense is dull and i think one of the ways to understand what a what a privilege is to be alive because it really is um is to really look at the world i love that that's great advice oh that one is yet to be released that's coming still so if you don't see it on the download list that's why it it's coming. But I love her. She doesn't drink, but I will drink to that advice from her. That was she's just awesome. It was great to be here. Yeah, we got to drink. This is what they do on dedicated. And my show, I do require sobriety as a general matter.

Have you yet gotten to the point where you've finished your glass and felt a little, hey, it's getting a little looser, a little more fun? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to like overplay the booze. It's not like we're getting trashed out there. But yes, on two episodes in particular, I was a little buzzed up by the end. And so was the guest. They got out of it like, I've got to go home and take a nap now.

Okay. Well, let's get another caller in. Ruth from Canada. Ruth, how are you doing? Do you have a question for Doug? and I'm right. I'm editing it as I'm listening. And by the way, thank you for being so open and just such a wonderful relationship to share with us and so effervescent and it makes relationships sound really easy, which I know they're not. But I'm just wondering how, Doug,

did you go from fiction, which I find such a joy now after a thousand pages and, you know, 20 chapters with 20 to 30 footnotes. It's like I get so bogged down in the details. Did you go, how did you do that? It really was keyed in on this one story. It's almost like a sliding doors moment. You know, had I not come across this, I'd probably still be writing fiction, which I do love and may go back to, although I have an idea for another nonfiction book after this. But I know what you mean. The fiction, it feels like it has that magic in a way. And when I write it, I have a pad of paper and I can write it anywhere

and it just seems fun. Whereas the nonfiction is also fun fun and i really fell in love with this real character from the from the 19th century but i'm now in the phase of putting together the end notes and that really is like i'm the grind phase of like i gotta cross all the t's on this thing and i'm if i lost misplaced the source material for this one quote i have i'm like oh my god this is gonna be five hours where i try and track down where i got this piece of information. So I'm trying to get all that stuff tied up now. But I don't know, I've loved them both. It really, the change came because of this story. It's a powerful story that I hope I can do justice to it. Yeah, you have. That I'm doing is the background information for what I think I discovered of historical fiction for the first two novels. So it is fun to expose what you've

discovered of a lost story or something that needs to be told. That is sort of the impetus that keeps us going. It's so true. It's a way for the reader, too, to learn about history in a snazzy way, right? You're entertained while you're actually learning real facts about history that might be beneficial to your life. Ruth, thank you. And good luck with your writing, too. Let me squeeze in Wayne from Virginia who's got thoughts. Hey, Wayne, what's on your mind? Hey, Megan, spoke to you a few times before. I just wanted to tell you it's to get away from politics for a day. Thank you. Oh, it's to get away from politics for a day. Thank you. Oh my God. Um, just, you know, and, and to see that, you know, Doug does his sit downs and leaves it out of it. We need to, we need that break every now and then. And, um, I mean, don't get me wrong. I love your, I love your shows. I'm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was probably the best ever, but, um, we a breather, and it was nice to have today in this traffic.

So thanks a lot, and I'm glad you seem like you guys have found a place in life where you're really content with everything, with the kids, with the family. You're unfiltered. You can do as you please, and if the money comes along, that's great. But I got a feeling that if the money wasn't there, it wouldn't matter that much to you. So congrats on getting right to that spot. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. Can I tell you, this reminds me, my team gives me the mailbag, right? And they give me what people have written in. Hold on. I want to see if I can find the one because this is reminding me of one of the emails that one of the viewers sent in, Duggar. And they, let me see if I can find it.

It was about maintaining friends. Oh no. Hold on. I so appreciate, this is from Todd. I so appreciate your insight and ability to remain positive and objective throughout the political process. Any advice on how to do that? I find myself increasingly frustrated with politics and exhausted with the entire situation. And I've also heard, oh, and this is one from Pamela Hall. She writes in, you've said several times that most of your friends are left-leaning. I would love for you to expand on that. It would help me navigate my relationship with my woke daughter and her husband and so on. So I think both of these all Wayne's comment and those two questions, Duggar, they all

come back to the same thing, which is it's easy to do if you shore up your core life, right? Like if you shore up what actually matters and you know what actually matters, you know, your loved ones, your family could be your dear friends. But you're, you know, as I've said before, what's within 15 feet of you, if that's good, it's easy not to get too worked up about politics or your friend's politics because there's so many other places to bond and feel good. That's true. If you're centered in that way, that is step one. But there are more steps to it. And I think you have those as well,

which is that you're open-minded. You see the humanity in people who, you know, have different opinions and you want to hear them. You, you actually do listen and you're really, you know, I, I've had this fun show and he's right. Like, this is a nice, you want to take a break, come on over. This is great, but you're doing the hard work with this show and you're able to do it in a way that actually does have humor and treats people like, you know, with respect, all people with respect and wants to hear from them and debate the issues and have have different perspectives on and hash it out in a way that like we're all on this planet together. Kind of a vibe. And again, like you're probably the funniest person I know. You managed to do all of this difficult stuff with a bit of humor, which is very hard to do. Here's one example.

Here's one example of that. I don't know if this was humorous. This was true. It was somewhat humorous, but it was also kind of true. And it went viral when I made the following comment about our life to Gad Sad, which got a lot of pickup. And I got to ask you about how you responded, Saad 11. When a woman cheats on a guy, it triggers paternity uncertainty

from an evolutionary perspective. Whereas when a man cheats on a woman, it's not quite the same thing. That's why, by the way, if I can just go back to evolutionary psychology, women get more triggered and more angry and more jealous by emotional infidelity rather than sexual infidelity. That doesn't mean that they're happy if their man sleeps around with other women, but if he develops a platonic emotional bond with his coworker, she laughs at his jokes, she understands

his life goals, and they're always chatting with each other and texting, but they've never had sex. That might actually be a greater precursor of them splitting because emotional infidelity is the greatest threat to a woman's interest. So my feeling is that it's not because it's, I'm sorry, say again. I can see that. I can see it. It's like, I'm thinking about my own husband. I'd much rather he have a one night stand with a woman than sit and cry with her. I can see your point. So this, the New York Post ran with that headline, that exact thing I said, and you texted it

to me with the caption, this feels like a trap. I was getting text messages from friends like, Duggar, what a hall pass. This is amazing. She is so cool. Where are we going this weekend? Who? Which friends exactly? Yes, but this is something that I know I don't have to worry about.

You don't have to worry about. One funny thing that we had to endure together was the portrayal of our relationship on the big screen in the movie Bombshell, with which we had nothing to do. And it was like a question of who's going to like who's who's playing Doug? Who's what's going to happen? I had known from the news reports that Charlize Theron was playing me. But they chose a guy who actually did a good job. He doesn't look like you, but he kind of captured your your general essence of like kindness and self-deprecation and smarts. In any event, here's a little clip from that movie. Stand by.

You don't have to worry about Trump. You're tougher than all those guys. OK, you just got to worry about the crazies and a few crazies. Trump will stop once he feels he's won the argument. I feel like he's less interested in winning the argument than just having the argument

with you in public to prove he can take on the establishment. I'm not the establishment. Honey, get real. You are the establishment now. Mommy! Not yet!

You do understand I have to be above this right i have to be an anchor first then you know the entire country is talking about your period right now mommy what there's a man what what darth vader he's right there where is he oh jesus he's got a camera come here honey no no don't open the. They can't tell him if we're inside. Get out. Get out of here. Go. What were you guys doing?

Mommy and Daddy? Um, it was a crossword. Mommy was just taking a quick little nap. Quick one. It wasn't that quick. Honestly, I cannot watch that scene. Every time I see that scene, it makes me tear up honestly i i cannot watch that scene every time i see that scene it makes me tear up every single time because of the yardley moment because that actually did happen and and it was really upsetting and it was part of the craziness

of you know trump and me and that whole that whole time frame of our lives was so tumultuous um it's just one of the many things we've been through, Duggar, in which you've been so supportive of me and had to take a lot of bullshit incoming that you shouldn't have been put through. No, like I said, you know, there's far more good than bad that has come with you being sometimes in the white hot spotlight. You know, it's not just under a microscope. You're under like something beyond that every once in a while, but far more good than bad for sure. And Duplass, I liked him, actually.

I saw on a red carpet thing where he was saying, look, I'm, you know, I'm just playing. I'm not Doug Brown. I'm playing a role and I'm telling the story of an event in history, i've never met him i'm not meant to try to represent who he is as a person um which i thought was the the right way to say it as opposed to someone else i could mention who was like i inhabited her you know i was like oh my god so annoying okay meanwhile she gets like woman of the year from some stupid magazine for pretending to do the things that you did. And meanwhile, they lobbed in a bunch of things that were like negative about you that were not even close to true. So there was another one of those moments where Abby and I were together like, I'm going to kill someone. This is so annoying.

And it's time for another sip of the cocktail. She did not lessen my annoyance. I don't know who he's talking about. Wait, before we go go let's get in Andre from Albany New York I gotta take somebody from my hometown Andre what's on your mind oh Megan good to talk to my favorite Albany law grad

yeah great show guys Doug I had a question for you you talked about earlier and Megan I'll keep my question within the scope of direct Doug you talked about books on tape, right? Versus reading a book. And I prefer to read a book because I find it a little bit more using my imagination as opposed to being lectured to. Do you agree that there's a

component of that in reading that is lost when you're listening to books on tape? I do. And it's almost like a spectrum. And on the one side is the full visual experience of a film, and then book on tape, and then actually reading. And in reading, you're able to do the most to generate what's being evoked by the words. Uh, so yeah, I, I find that, that reading is by far the most stimulating to your imagination. Mm-hmm. Andre, thank you for the question. Go Albany. Duggar, I'm so proud of you. It's an amazing podcast. I've said to the audience before, I don't, I'm not only no longer the only podcaster in the family, but I'm not even the top podcaster. It's, I wouldn't even get to Strudwick. Do you have a parting thought on Strudwick? He's getting slightly better. That'll be my parting thought. I don't know if that's more of a hopeful thought or an actual present day parting shot, but it

feels like he might be getting a little better. Doug also said him getting better is sort of a middle finger to us now that we do a weekly newsletter on it. We include Strudwick's antics. He was like, it's classic Strud to get better. Now he gets better. Oh, fear not. He's actually no better at all. As Doug says to Strudwick, we only have two dogs, Strudwick and Thunder. He says to Strud, you're almost my favorite. Duggar, all the best with it. It's called Dedicated with Doug Brunt, and you can get it wherever you get your podcasts for free. Thanks for joining us today. That was super fun, right? Oh, so nice to have Doug around. And tomorrow we've got a big show too. Tomorrow's my birthday. So the team booked

some of my very favorite guests, Dr. Laura, and then an epic Kelly's Court. I don't think this has ever happened before. Marsha Clark versus Mark Garagos. Boom. A plus lawyering happening on the show tomorrow. We have updates for you in the Alec Baldwin case, John Ramsey, Casey Anthony, all this crazy stuff. These blasts from the past have been in the news this week. So we'll get to all of it. You're going to love it. It's the birthday show and it's going to be fun. We'll see you then. Download the show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify and Stitcher. Also go to youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.