The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 359: Brian Kilmeade—Teddy and Booker T.

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

The six-time New York Times best-selling author and prolific FNC host drops by to discuss what made President Theodore Roosevelt and civil rights pioneer Booker T. Washington so great and the role Mike played in Brian writing his newest book Teddy and Booker T.   Discussed in this episode:  Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington Arthur Lih of LifeVac.net The River of Doubt by Candice Millard  

Good, Chuck. Welcome them. Welcome, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us. This is episode 359. It's called Teddy and Booker Tee with Brian Kilmead. Almost makes me wonder why you need me for this thing, honestly. Honestly. I'm kidding, of course.

I'm a critical part of the way I heard it, and so are you. Thank you for being here. Chuck is correct. It's episode 359. My guest is the one and only Brian Kilmone. Mead. Although, if you pay attention to all things media, you might wonder if there's somebody else that looks a lot like him, a clone, for instance, because that guy makes me tired. I mean, he's writing books. He's hosting three different shows. He does a radio show. He's constantly doing live appearances.

He's deep, deep, deep into all kinds of historical research. He's a great guest, and he's written another amazing book, and this one we're both pretty excited about. It is called Teddy and Booker Tee, referring, of course, to Teddy Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington and the many extraordinary things that we enjoy today, thanks to their happy, serendipitous, if not coincidental meeting over 125 years ago. Accurate? I suppose so. I don't know how happy everything was, because it was, you know, there was a whole lot of racial strife, you know, very similar to now, actually, but the subtitle is how two American icons blazed a path for racial equality. Yeah.

It's similar to a degree of his previous book, which was the president and the freedom fighter about Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Right. Yeah. So this is another president and another civil rights activist, you know, created basically the Tuskegee School. Is that right? Tuskegee Institute.

Yeah. Yeah. Extraordinary. If you don't know it, you'll learn it in this conversation. But up with slavery was the seminal work of Booker T. I believe it's up from slavery. Key distinction because up with slavery might give one the impression that you like the idea of slavery and you want to bring it up. That's such a good note.

Yeah, that's the thing about prepositions, man. I mean, they really do matter. You get the right one, it's good. You get the wrong one, not so good. Up into slavery? No, no. From, from. Up from slavery.

You know, I learned a lot of prepositions because I had an amazing teacher in the fifth grade who made us memorize most every preposition to the tune of America the Beautiful. Guess what I'm going to ask you to do right now? Go ahead, ask. Let's hear it. Would you like to sing it for us? About above after against a long among around, at before, behind bellow. low beside between by down door ring except for from in into like near of all fawn over through throughout to toward

um to up with within without yeah that's that's impressive dude what grade was that uh fifth it was my second time through fifth grade and a lot so much good stuff stuck uh it's really my second time usually is the second time around yeah this is a conversation of about education, about language, about getting the proper word right, about unions, about carmakers, about presidents, about adversity, about comfort, about strife, about hopes and dreams, and about getting it right and hopefully not making the same mistake again 125 years later. Yeah, Chuck, I use the word happy, not because it was a happy time necessarily, but I grow weary of the criticism of this country that we haven't made progress. And one of the many things in this book that I love

is this historic dinner at the White House when Teddy Roosevelt invites a black man to dine with him, which had never happened before. And here 120 years later, we have a black man in the White House. The progress that's been made is significant, in my opinion. And that's not to say there's not a great deal more of progress that needs to happen. But if you really want to get to know one of the original

gangsters, as it were, one of the OGs of non-victimhood and hard work up from slavery is a cornerstone of the Microw Works Foundation. And when I found out that Brian had written a book motivated by it that combines the many contributions of Teddy Roosevelt with those of Booker T. Washington, and I couldn't wait to read it. I read it. I loved it. He's our guest and he's terrific. It's coming up.

We didn't really break the bank on out-of-the-box creative titles with this one, Chuck. No, we did not. Because the title of the book is pretty good, and it sums up the conversation you're about to hear. Teddy and Booker T. Right after this. Shameless plug. Long before she was Peggy,

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Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. All right. First things first. Arthur Lee, I want to thank you for introducing him to us. He's been a guest on the podcast, as you know. What you might not know is the people in this audience have purchased a bunch of life facts. as a result, eight of them are alive who would otherwise be dead.

We've saved eight lives, dude, on this podcast alone. Well, I mean, it was great of you guys to book him. You had no idea. He said to me, you know, Brian, my goal, what is it? And he goes, I love to meet Mike Rowe. I love to be on his podcast. I go, Arthur, I could try. Next thing you know, he's like, I was on.

It wasn't great. It was unbelievable. I said, wow, that was quick. And then he mentioned to me how well it was going. I mean, the story is exactly like it appears. He sat in his garage, came up with an idea, tired of seeing kids choking. Next to you know, he's just saving lives. And it's unbelievable.

I think he's up to 900 now. Oh, no, it's over that. It's like 1,100. Yeah. Yeah. I told him might have him back on when he hit 1,000. And I said that thinking it would take two years for him to get to a thousand. Like two months later, he's like, hey, I did 1,000.

When am I back? I know. He just wrote me before out of nowhere just to show me with the, wall of saves looks like, which is amazing. It is incredible. And I think what people ought to know, by the way, this is a shameless plug for LifeFAC. It's that device that can save you from choking. It's great for old folks, great for kids, especially kids, but really anybody who's addicted to chewing and swallowing, it's just a matter of time, so you're going to start choking on something. You ought to have one of these lying around. What people don't know, Brian, is that when I go on

your little radio show there, and typically Brian will invite me on, and it's like, okay, we've got 15 minutes and I wind up staying for two hours, right? I just sit there and he just, he won't let me leave. But during the commercials, we have the greatest conversations. And during the commercial break on your show, we've talked about your live shows, we've talked about like all these different ways to kind of function in this crazy business we're in. But during one of those breaks, you said, you know, I got a buddy named Arthur Lee and he created a thing and he's saving lives, like for real, and you'd love him. And when I left your show, I called Chuck, we booked him, he came on.

That was over a year ago, and now eight people who would otherwise be dead are alive. And that's why commercials aren't as bad as people say they are. Just to talk about, for example, people go to baby showers. I don't want to go to baby shower. Even people that are great friends. Well, I'd say, what do I get as a gift? every mom's nervous and you want to be there you have a fire extinguishing in your kitchen you don't expect a fire but you want to have it you don't want to say i wish i bought it not that expensive

so if you want to get someone a thoughtful gift you get it for them especially with christmas coming up everyone thanks you like sincerely thanks you uh carlie shimpk it's the latest one she just had a baby i've made sure she had a life back and she's thank you you know out of all the gifts that should be on a registry uh right there and you know the thing is also you know the thing is also you're So you have a reality show there with everyone's ring doorbell. So now, instead of like saying, you know, I save my baby's life, I say, oh, by the way, it was only caught on tape. So if you get out, you see a lot of these people run outside trying to get their kid breathing again,

and then you see all the nature of what happens. And then even on restaurants. Something happens at a restaurant. Why would restaurants not want to have this? He got tired of it. He mailed it out to all the schools. He said, if you write me, I will mail you out for free. because I can't stand that people will choke to death this year.

His CFO is going out of his mind because he's pledged to put a life back, at least one life back in every school. He's in like six or seven thousand now, but there are 100,000 schools in the country. So it's going to cost like six million. Yeah, I mean, it's just a lot. You know, he's just one of those guys who, and you described him perfectly. He's a businessman, but he's on. a mission and the mission is out of control and he's addicted to saving lives and he's got a product that actually does it. It's like if you invented the fire extinguisher or the smoke alarm and all of a sudden

you know, you were just getting video every day of people who were just writing to thank you not for writing a good book, which we'll get to in a moment, but for saving their kids life. It's intoxicating, man, which is a long way of saying thanks for the intro. The other thing is, if you go to his warehouse, so they are there, all Americans, American made, American produced by Americans, actually manufactured everything, A to Z. So then all of a sudden you walk in, you're like, I'm going to take that warehouse, if I get a lease on that warehouse, I'm going to hire all these people, they're going to put it together. We're actually going to put it in a padded envelope, and we're going to mail it out to you. So he's created all these jobs. And I went to his first event where he brought in the families of those saved.

And it brought him into tents. He flew him all out. They all met each other. They all have these great stories. And he said, hey, Brian, you see that kid over there? He was about eight. He goes, he gave his three-year-old brother a piece of candy. He was choking to death.

And the mom came out, saved with Life Act. Can you imagine what that eight-year-old kid's life would have been like had he known, he gave a three-year-old brother candy that killed him. A poison pill. So it was one dramatic situation after another. My foundation is personal to me, but it is built on a couple of books. It's built on ideas, basically, and we've talked about it a bunch. But the Bible, where one of the Bibles in that collection is up from slavery.

When you told me that you were working on a book about Booker T, I knew we were going to have this conversation. In the long history of humanity, I don't personally know of anyone who started with so little, achieved so much, and did it purely through grit, work ethic, delayed gratification, a decent attitude, and just a remorseless refusal to be a victim. And man, congratulations on the book. Why'd you write it? And how did Teddy Roosevelt get sucked into it? Well, you were the first people I told or I couldn't wait to tell you because it all about work ethic and vision and overcoming obstacles. And I think you came in the radio studio and I just said if I could recommend one book to you up from slavery and I'm going to build the book off that. And am I right? When you read it,

you could not stop. And I kept saying to myself, this is Norman Vincent Peel, Napoleon Hill, Anthony Robbins, every inspirational visionary that was out there that found a way to be successful that tried to help other people be successful. He was doing it without having any, for I could tell, mentor, although he had a lot of mentors by the time it was said done. But it was just a guy who willed himself to success. Can you imagine being nine years old

and being called to the big house? And you can remember the plantation house and seeing Union soldiers roll out of form and read it and later he'd find out it was the Emancipation Proclamation that you are free and he watched her mom hug him and his brother and said, we're free and we went back and he goes, now what do we do?

You talk about starting over, if you got hit by a hurricane, if you lost your job, okay? Anything that you could figure out, that's worse. No money, no education, no dad, nothing in the bank, never slept on anything but a floor. You had one outfit, no shoes your entire life, never complained, one meal every day, the same way, his whole time, let's start over.

Never knew his dad. They remember going on, loading up the wagon, heading out to West Virginia, and all he thought about his whole life was an education. I got to learn the alphabet. I want to read. He gets there and says, like, you can't go to school.

You go to the salt mines. We got to make some money. So him and his brother, 10 and 11 years old, are in the salt mines. And he's claustrophobic, by all evidence. And he sits there all day just dreaming about learning to read.

He remembers a sack being dropped off, and it said, now he knows it as 18. He's like, what is that? They goes, those are numbers. What is 1-8 me? That's our number. So that was the first thing he learned. I learned my first number was 1-8.

So that sack that he got, that's what they'd be working with all day. And in vision, I got to learn, I want to read, I want to go to school, you can't go to school, we need the money. So as he's walking back, we always hear this. If you want something bad enough, if you vision it, things just happen. And it might be luck, but you could also bring stuff to you.

So walking down, he hears his friends complaining. What are those friends complaining about? I work for this woman, and she's never satisfied. She's always yelling at me. Everything I do is wrong. Who is he? This is Mrs. Ruffner. Viola Ruffner.

She's getting a rich house, her husband's well-to-do. They need someone to take care of everything. He goes, I want that job. Convinces his parents to let him go there. She goes in there. He realized she's not mean. She just wants things done right. She sees nothing but potential and motivation in this kid.

She teaches him how to walk, teach him how to stand, present himself, greet people, basic hygiene, does everything and more than she ever thought she needed done in a single day. Finally, she says, what do you want? He goes, I'd love to learn and read and write. Because why don't you tell me? So she starts learning the alphabet, working with him. He says, why don't you move in? Move in.

I get to move in. And finally, he gets to go to school. He goes, what if he goes to school? What if he goes to school at night to a class? And he works during the day. So he convinced his parents let him go to school. Finally, he's probably 16. And again, he's starting to go to school.

He hears men talking about, man, if I could only get myself to Hampton College, if you get there, they'll let every black man in. Now, let me ask you, is it luck? Or are you walking around in life if you really want something? And if I look at Mike Rose background, if you really want something and how many people do it, it happens. Now, sometimes you want to be on, you know, you want to be in a billboard, you want to be in Hollywood. Maybe that happens, okay. But maybe you just want your own business. How are you going to do that?

Well, why is it that a mentor will suddenly work in and you'll meet this guy that's 70 years old and wants to feel useful and you start your own business, go, how lucky am I? Well, Booker T. Washington is proving in his story that you can manifest things if you want it for the right reasons. And he finds his way 400 miles to Hampton College.

The problem is he's a mess. And he looks up, she looks like, because you're a mess. She goes, well, I just need to go to college. He goes, just come back. He sleeps in between the brakes and a sidewalk. And the next day he comes back again, and they just said, what do you want? Because we have no openings right now. So he realizes he works a little bit, goes back again, cleans himself up.

She goes, well, what do you want? He goes, well, why don't you just show me what you can do? Why don't you clean a classroom? Well, guess who taught him how to clean? Mrs. Ruffner. Guess who taught him unbelievably conscientious how to clean? She comes in, she checks out, goes, who helped you with this? Nobody.

I want to watch you clean the next room. She watches him. Who helped you with this? I can't believe. I'm going to, let's clean this whole school. They clean it together. And they basically say, you're my janitor. You can go at school at night. So she goes to school at night. They realize this is my best student. Then they said, hey, now that you graduate, would you be a teacher? And General Armstrong, by the way, when he writes, he never writes, Mrs. Ruffner was white. And General Armstrong, who ran the school, was white.

I had to go look them up and see their pictures because he didn't see black and white in a time in which he was a slave, for goodness sakes. General Armstrong says, I love this guy, and he gets a letter. He says, you run a great job at Hampton College. I finally fined a deal to open up a historically black college in Alabama. Who's your best person? He goes, I got a kid's Bookerty, Washington. He goes, I need a white guy. He goes, no, you're going to want this guy.

He goes, oh, you need a white guy. He goes, finally, he's 24 years old. You don't want this guy. He shows up. They got Booker T. Washington. And Booker T. Washington's got nothing. He's got a shack, a broken-down shack with holes in the roof. He's got to finally get a class going in two weeks,

or else they lose the financing because they deliver the black vote for these rich guys. They deliver the financing or they lose the financing for the college. He goes around, knock it on doors, gets 30 students, and then he realizes these guys can't just go to school. They've got to learn a trade because white people are going to hire them. And they're not white people going to hire them. So I'm going to learn a trade.

I'm going to be invaluable. That's what I'm thinking, Mike Roe will be my first interview. And if Mike Roe says I read the book and I don't like it, And you go, he learns a trade. You will go to school during the day, and you will learn to trade at night. You want to be a blacksmith. You're going to agriculture. You want to get a construction.

Whatever it is, you've got to do a trade. And guess what you're doing? Karate kid style. You'll build my school. So they build the school. They expand the school. The black parents were unhappy. They said, I want my kid not working with his hands.

I want my kid to be a scholar. He goes, your kid's not going to get hired, especially in the South. You've got to be invaluable. You're all going to learn a trade to live on your own. And he told him. him how to brush their teeth, hold themselves, present themselves, and people for generations who thought blacks were less than whites turned around and said, what's going on at Tuskegee College? Do do do do do do do do do.

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Pure talk. Soft skills. Soft skills too, Brian. Right? It's like, yes, they're teaching skills. They're teaching practical hands-on skills. But what made him transformational both then and today, if he were around, was the soft skills.

teaching the things you just said from hygiene to appearance to manners, all the stuff an employer would hope to find in an applicant. But I'm sorry, keep going. And get me to the White House because after Tuskegee, that's an incredible dinner. So just so you know, there's people out there that are born to situations where their parents grew up and there was difference between color, skins, efficities. We've seen it now with anti-Semitism. Maybe they grew up in a house where, like, I don't like Catholics.

I don't like Jews. I don't like black, whatever. But then all of a sudden, you look around and go, well, whatever I thought about blacks, I'm wrong. Why? Because I just met 2000. And they're the kindest, most productive people ever. I'm looking to hire them.

And all he did was impress people like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Rosenwald, from Sears, the founder of Sears. And guess what? Fundamentally, people don't want to be racist. They want to help out. They knew the evils of slavery. And they said, this is my opportunity. This guy, Bookerty, Washington,

She just asked me to help grow his school to help African Americans get a higher education to help America. And even in 1880, 1905, they say, we got to turn this country around. So I felt good about that. So with Teddy Roosevelt grew up with a Confederate mom, his brother's fought for the South, and the dad that wanted to fight. But the mom says, listen, you can't fight against my family. So he paid for someone to fight for him. And as much as Teddy Roosevelt worshipped his dad, his dad's biggest regret was, I never should have done that. Biggest regret in my life.

It looks like a rich guy paid off, but it was really a deal with his mom. Having said that, Teddy Roosevelt grew up barely, he almost died. He was about 80 pounds, which he looks like of 15 to 16 years old. So his dad says, you know, they were so afraid from his asthma and his terrible eyesight. This guy was going to be infirm to his whole life. He said, you've got to build up your mind. You've got to find a way to build up your body. And once he got to grow out of the asthma to a degree, which killed most kids, he started building up his body.

and he had that sense of overcoming, of overcoming preconceived notions about this skinny kid who was bullied. By the time he gets to Harvard, he's never been to public school. He had to be homeschooled. He gets in there, learns to socialize, and he still has in the back of his head,

what does it take to make him push America forward? He wanted to get this race relations thing solved. He had a sense of the South and a sense of the Midwest because after the death of his mom and wife on the same day, he said, I need a break, headed out to the Midwest, who he knew what the Midwest was like. He knew what the South was like.

He obviously knew what the North was right. He knew what was like to be poor because when he became police chief, he started working the corners of the New York City and started reforming the city and seeing the way immigrants live. So this rich guy was anything but affluent in any way except for money, he knew what the American experience was like.

He picked up up from slavery, a pre-release copy. Him and his wife read it and said, I got to meet this guy. And they met April 1st, It's 1901 in New York City. Yeah. Yeah.

Can we talk? He goes, listen, I'm vice president now. My goal is to be president. How can I help? He goes, I know the people in the South that are ascendant. I know the judges that are there. We can start being an example to other people, but let's work together. He goes, you got it.

McKinley gets shot the day that he was supposed to head to South to Tis Huskigi for the first time. He writes a letter. Sorry, I'm president now. I'm going to have to put up our visit. They finally do work out their visit. They meet a couple of times. They work out some judges' recommendations. He understands the South, the black vote, as well as to put blacks on the path of ascendancy.

But don't give me somebody by the color of their skin. Tell me who the best is for the postmaster job, the judge position, head of the docks, whatever it is. So one day, he finds out that Booker T. Washington is in Washington. So he sends him a letter and says, why don't you come over for dinner? Booker T. Washington said, hesitate for a second, says, President of the United States, just sent a messenger over, asking me over for dinner.

I got to go. And he goes and has dinner with his family. And then afterwards, they talked until about 11 o'clock at night, then they went home on different ideas. Someone checked the guest book and saw who the visitors was.

It was Booker T. Washington. By the next day, it was blazing headlines. In the South, the most horrendous headlines you've ever seen in your life. Basically, Teddy Roosevelt had sold out his race, and Booker T. Washington

didn't have the good sense not to appear on a family event with the president's family now what a black's going to think people are the reactionary position in the south they're going to think they're equal to whites

how dare you in the north there wasn't not a big deal but they realized from that moment there was books written about this it was referred to and I put it in my special by John McCain after he lost to Barack Obama

he said there was a time when there was a national scandal when Booker T. Washington came as a guest because he was black and now a black man will be hosting those parties look how far

America has come. But it was a setback in a sobering moment, guys, because in the north, it wasn't that big of a deal. But in the South, they realized they had to bring their high-profile relationship down a notch. They had to do a lot of their work behind the scenes, which I thought that's what made I thought this book worthy. And I talked to Tweed Roosevelt, his great-grandson, and Sarah Rush, his great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington. I wanted Tuskegee and talk to them made sure this synergy was real. And I thought, what, instead of just doing a bio on one that Booker did a better job than I'd ever do? And Teddy Roosevelt wrote his own biography, what am I going to bring to it, that all these other legends did? What if I talked to America,

which is still wrestling with race, how these two guys did it in a much more difficult time? And they used each other out of mutual respect, but to raise the country and raise their own product. He was about Tuskegee. He's like raising the most amount of black people. possible to do that. I got to let Washington know I matter and I can deliver a black vote too and you got to come visit my school. So McKinley, Grover, Cleveland and most of both Teddy Roosevelt, who would later serve on his board. We have his speech that he gave that day. And it looked like he was overcome with emotion by the time he arrived to Tuskegee to see what was there. If I could paraphrase, he was so much more than I ever thought possible for any one man to put together

something that's changing lives. And the best example is he was tired of paying for bricks. So Booker T.WRSA goes, why don't I buy my own kiln? The problem is, I don't much money. He had to buy four. The fourth one worked. He had to cash in his watch in order to get money to buy kiln. But he ended up making the best bricks in Alabama

and then donating them to the town. And they would say, donate it by Tuskegee. So anyone with these racist ideas of inequality go, honey, they just gave us more bricks. I could build that shed. I could build that patio. I could build my house. These are great people. So to me, his legacy is so much more than we could ever know because he educated the masses combined with Roosevelt to roll out these other schools. And you could not graduate from hitting of his schools without a skill. And I regret to this day is that I cannot fix anything. I cannot build anything. You know, I cannot do that. You know, I took shop and I still

have the bowls I made, and the napkin holder, everyone's embarrassed to put out. Yeah. I still have a sconce that my grandfather said looked like a paramecium. The band saw remains a great mystery. But look, man, I'm impressed because a lot of guys our age really don't like to admit that. And it's particularly difficult for me because people just assume I run a foundation that elevates the skilled trades. And I hosted a show that celebrated the skilled trades. but I'm much more like you. You know, the handy gene is recessive. My pop had it.

I didn't. But an appreciation for the work is a fundamental requirement that I think everybody in our country ought to have. And if they have it, to our earlier conversation, the debates between unions and big companies would feel different. And the debates about the minimum wage would feel different because work would not have been categorized as the, enemy. You should talk to Mike Easter at some point. He wrote a book called The Comfort Crisis. Okay. Yeah. It basically looks at success through the lens of people who are willing to be uncomfortable. And do the hard thing. That's why I like your book so much. Teddy Roosevelt's whole life, he lived the strenuous life. Yeah. He was deeply suspicious of anything that was comfortable.

And Booker, as I understand him, didn't even even, even really think in terms of comfortable or uncomfortable. He was so motivated by curiosity and the desire to better himself, that it didn't even factor. And so that these two guys came together, you know, my question for you is, when you consider both of their legacies as individual men who left a huge footprint in history, who needed the other more in order to leave that kind of impact on us two, three generations later. Wow. I think for him to win re-election, he had to impress the South as a rich guy from the North that would have been tough. So I think maybe Teddy needed a book or more. So I'm going to amend what you said a little bit,

Mike. This is what they said. I think that Booker T. Washington was all about Tuskegee, not him. You could write a brutal letter, say how bad he was. He's a sellout. It doesn't matter. How does it help Tuskegee? He had to look the other way at lynchings and not speak out. Because if he became a heretic and Al Sharpton-like activist, William E.B. Du Bois activist. He might alienate people that would have supported Tuskegee. And today, people are on him saying, I don't want that Booker T. Washington model because he acquiesced. No, he looked at the reality.

How do I move the most people forward possible in the time in which I lived? not the time in which I wanted to live or the ideal place in which you're thinking of. So he could not exist if he didn't care about something more than himself. And Tony Roosevelt, yeah, he had a big ego and famously Mark Twain never liked him and thought he was too much showboat and couldn't shine the shoes of Booker T. Washington.

I get it. I know he was definitely an ego, but you know what he cared about most? He cared about the country most, elevating the most people. And if you could judge a man by how much they help people, they could do nothing for them. Teddy Roosevelt grades pretty high because, yeah, he was affluent,

but the guy was in the jungles, learning how to shoot. He was out in the Midwest, learning how to be a rancher and a cowboy. You have to be very humble and tough to be able to grind that out. He knew what it was like to be a cop because, I don't know, he was one. He knew what it was like to be an immigrant because he helped them, the underclass of this world, rise up in New York City, which they were just invisible. And he worked with a photographer to come out and take pictures to bring this forward and horrify the average American. So yeah, he had an ego,

but a lot of times ego leaves you to greatness and you need some of that. I would like to bring up one other element to this. Booker T. Washington right now, a lot of people aren't happy, and the book is just out now. When I was doing the book, a lot of people, I talked to a lot of people in the black community,

they go, well, yeah, that's not really the message I want. Yeah, they just gave in, they said, that's the reality, because he would give speeches and say, I know a lot of you people don't trust me think I'm less that's fine. I know a lot of you don't know much yet, have any black friends, that's fine. But I want to tell you that we are two great people. We're better when we work together. But just let us work, help each other out the best you can, and we'll come together when we can. Rather than I demand America change right now.

He wanted to do it through action. He wanted people to be impressed. They realized how much better this country was. And when people would come in and they said, this is my new workforce. They'd come in and say, I'm going to deal with Tuskegee. I'm getting all these guys. jobs. All these guys are handy and smart. I'm hiring them all. So they were thinking for themselves. Teddy Roosevelt was thinking for himself. I need the South. And then Booker T. Washington was thinking for himself. I need to say this school is so special. I got presidents offering my commencement address. And he made that a goal. So he died of faith. Believe it or not, before 60, they both died at 60, 59 and 60 years old, which is nuts. Is there a corollary today in the educational

space that somehow rhymes with Tuskegee? Can you think of anything going on that is as groundbreaking, bold, outrageous? I think that the promise of nothing as. Also, that's one of the things about being the first, like they'll never be another George Washington, right? But I just think some of these charter schools should give us great hope. They demand more from the kids. They work harder, they work longer, they teach more about the whole person and more about the books. So I think that a lot of people are leaning towards that. The good thing coming out of the pandemic, people are reevaluating their education. I see a lot of states saying, I'll take that $8,000, I hope they didn't reverse it in Arizona yet. I'll take that $8,000 I was going to give that

kid every year, and I'm going to give it to the family and tell them to spend it on the school that they want. So then it becomes competition in the school sector. I love that. And then all of a Why is that public school got nobody in it? Why is everyone in the charter school? Well, because it's not performing. Well, I'm going to get a principal in there. It's going to change that around. And now all of a sudden, the public school can compete in the charter school.

So I think that could happen. I think that we've got to go back to skills, back to patriotism, back to civics and schools. No one really would push back. If you tell people the American story, it's a great story, warts and all, you've got to start putting that back into schools and start right away. Don't tell me how bad the country is. We've got to start learning about it. our history. We got to still learn about the Constitution in detail. I didn't really learn that, and we got to get back to putting shop in the public schools. We've got to learn a skill. I didn't

necessarily have the skill. I mean, my dad dying when I was in ninth grade, he would be putting together. He put together a house. He would have three cars apart and put one together to decide which one he went to work with. But if I had a chance to see that through my high school, I would have been competent at least. But I think what you have is what I have in sports. So I wanted to be a great athlete and I wasn't. But I put the effort in, got the train, did the best I could, would take out books and I had to increase my speed,

work hard and was average. But you know how much better I was as a sports reporter because I would go into those locker rooms and I would understand what it took, the talent they took and the dedication they had to be there? I had to bring myself down a little bit because I wanted to do that. but I didn't get close to what they accomplished.

And I especially love the lacrosse players that never got any money, but yet went to the top of their game but didn't have the fans or the fame, but yet they had excellence. Let me say the same thing a slightly different way. You're a fan. That to me is a distinguishing characteristic of you, both in news and in comedy and in history and in the trades. If you can come at a thing, not as an extra,

expert, but as a curious ombudsman, a fan of the talent, a fan of the skill, right, with enough curiosity and humility to say, hey, man, how did you do that? Can you show me? Then, I mean, not to blow too much sunshine, but that's what we need now in our news. That's what we need in journalism. We need it in politics. We need it in medicine. We need humility. It's also backwards, And I want your thought on this because I just talked to Travis Mills, who's another guy who should be in your orbit, one of the first quadruple amputees to make it back from Afghanistan 12 years ago. No arms, no legs. He runs a foundation today up in Maine that is doing great things for the families of people who have been that wounded.

His attitude is like Booker T's. There's not an ounce of self-pity in this quadruple amputee. As a result, his presence, his existence on the earth does one of two things. It makes people either incredibly grateful and engaged in their own life and more determined to play the cards they've got as best they can, or it pisses them off to no end. Really? And my question is, what is it? What is the fault in our stars that allows us to look at somebody like Teddy or Booker?

Two men of equal curiosity and passion, one rich, one poor. But why does so many people feel so threatened by their success? The very story that you find inspirational, so many other people today look at and dismiss as either an anomaly or a freak of nature or something ugly instead of what I think is a truly noble thing. Yeah, I mean, I think you're talking more Booker Tee than probably Teddy. It's interesting. I can't speak for the black community, but they feel as though if one guy was able to persevere, overcome it in a much more difficult situation, what excuse do I have?

And I'm fighting for which right. He didn't fight for which right. He goes, no, what he did is he did in the South. He could have lived in the North. and I'm not saying the all South was racist. There weren't. And not everyone in the North was colorblind. They weren't.

But he could have lived in the North and lived in an affluent life and lived in the city and give speeches his whole life. It was unbelievable what a great speaker he was. But he said, let me go in the South and make people's lives better. I really don't care what people think of me. And he helped a lot of people.

I mean, if you were caught, if a black guy got called dating a white guy, you're going to get hanged if they could find you and vice versa. So he was dealing with it. He was helping people. He was paying for their legal fees, but he wouldn't stand up and say,

that's wrong, that's wrong, and this better change or else, because it would have blown up his whole legacy. It would have blown up Tuskegee and has thrown in the Black College. So I think that people look at that and say, if he could overcome it, and I don't, what's wrong with me? So what's easier? He looked the other way.

He had no guts. He had no stealing his spine. He didn't stand up for what's right. No, no. He changed a generation. After he died, there's still a Tuskegee. I was there, it's unbelievable. The professors, the students, the statue of him right there,

the old buildings that were built when he left it, it is immaculate. I mean, you think that they're mowing it every hour, the whole school. It's just such a tribute to him. So you'll get his life in a hole, and I think that's it. I think people get jealous. And if you see somebody doing more than you with less, I think it strikes at your self-esteem.

Yeah, of course. And I'll give you an example. This is the latest thing. This is like one of your questions lead to something else. That's the same thing with me. I like knowing enough to ask a good question. I don't need to know more than my guest. It doesn't bother me.

Wait a second. I just read your book. Walter Russell Mead. So a deep thinker, international politics and relations. All right, I read his book. I know where he's come from. But I'm not looking to impress him with statements. I can ask him a question.

And if people end the segment and care more about him than me, I'm okay with that. So, Tim Green was the number one draft pick of the Atlanta Falcons. He's on the side of the carrier dome with Jim Brown and Floyd Little and Paul Warfield. He went to Syracuse. He has movie store looks, 6-3, 250, solid muscle. And he was adopted as a kid, overcame it all, was on Oprah, best-selling author, like a Matt Christopher type books.

He wrote big books, small books, guys are unbelievable productive and a lawyer. Well, I see him a few years then when my son went to Syracuse. he looked him up and found out he was having a tough time adjusting. He invited him to his box in Syracuse just to help him out, right? They end up being friends for four years and he met his sons. So our families became friends. Tim Green has ALS. Tim Green now has to write his books with his eyes.

Look at a letter L, look at a letter R, and communicate. And then it comes out with his voice from his books on tape. They were able to take his voice from his books on tape and put it out. He writes me, he's assistant write me, and I think he was able to write me sometimes with his eyes. I hate bothering him, but we keep in touch. Like, how are you doing? I saw you on the air. And then I go, how are you doing, Tim?

He says, I cannot believe how lucky I am to have all the things I have in life. I sat there. I was just like, I was just flabbergasted. So if you're having a bad day, like Tim who had everything, six kids, he's got a vet, he's got these all these, one kid's a vet, one kid's one step on the next. And then you're a broadcaster and writer, an unbelievable law firm, an investor in real estate,

and then you get ALS, and you're 59 years old, and you think you're the luckiest man, you can't believe how lucky you are. If you are at all complaining, it just straightens you out. You know, some people attribute it to a Buddhist kind of approach where suffering is a gift, suffering is the thing upon which the steel is tempered, right? adversity, comfort.

It's another version of all of those things, but fundamentally it's a choice. And the choices that these men made throughout their lives that come out in your book, they are both inspiring and threatening. Because every page is really a very subtle reminder. And I don't know if you did it on purpose or not, but it's a reminder that we could all be better. I love stories. like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician. He had zero interest in running a food company, but he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed and labeled

as domestic and decided to fix the problem. The result was a company called Good Ranchers. It's a completely honest, totally transparent meat company that deals directly with American farms and ranches and promises to deliver high-quality American-grown meat for a fair price. Today, That promise, and Ben's absolute determination to keep it, has not only propelled good ranchers into the top tier of meat delivery companies, it's fueled enormous awareness among meat eaters like me that we have all been affirmatively deceived by policies that allow imported meat to be marketed as domestic. That's the reason I switch to good ranchers. If I'm being honest, though, I doubt that I would have stayed this long had the quality not been so exceptional. Every single cut I've devoured from Good Ranchers has been straight up delicious,

and every morsel was raised on a small American farm or ranch. Give them a try. Subscriptions are affordable and flexible. In fact, if you start your plan today, you'll get free meat for life and $40 off your first order. Just use code mic at good ranchers.com. Free meat for life, $40 off your first order. Good Ranchers.com. American meat delivered.

If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch, get good ranchers now. And you know what? You have to be open to that. And let me tell you, Brian, the other thing I really liked about your book, I liked the way it forces you to think differently about the language and about the way things change over time. I'm like, I love that we just talked about the U.S.

AWW and the automakers. Because, you know, Teddy, he was the trust buster, right? He was a progressive in the very early 1900s who went after big business, the big railroads, all of the big holding things. He was on the side of the union. And I don't believe he would be today. And isn't it weird and interesting? How the language around us can completely become so reconfigured that the words, the words just don't mean what they used to mean, man.

I know. They simply don't. When I think of unions now, I think of guys making a lot of money in union management and how much are they actually helping out the worker. And are we trying to maximize the worker to get the product better? I don't want to see anyone abused at all. I don't want to see child labor. I love that we have child labor laws. But you would think Teddy Roosevelt, born into wealth, when all around him was wealthy people,

the Roosevelt's some of the richest around. He's like, no, no, I see more eye to eye with the everyday worker. And I don't like that the rich people are more powerful than the government. And let's break it up. What do you mean break it up? Yeah, I'm going to break it up now that I'm president. Well, you're never going to get reelect me. That's why they wanted to kick him out as governor.

They're like, this guy's changing everything. He's to make more demands on us. He's changing all the rules. So let's recommend him for vice president. That's a job where careers die. Well, not if the president dies. Not if the president gets shot. So all of a sudden, the worst job in the world became the most important job

and it happened to be his goal. And he went in there and blew things up again. You couldn't give this guy a job that didn't matter. One time they just, one of the jobs that I forgot the name of it was, just to streamline the bureaucracy. He went into a backwards job in government. He gave all these people incentives. He thinned out the office.

And they ended up when, Grover Cleveland won back to presidency, he goes, I'm leaving Roosevelt there. This guy's unbelievable. So even though he was on the other party, then his wife's like, hey, listen, I hate Washington. I'm out of here. So he ended up giving up that job and going back and it was one thing after another. He didn't care about the critics. People were making fun of him.

They thought he was a joke. A little bit like Trump. I'm not saying that Trump is in Taylor's category. But just like Andrew Jackson, he's not one of us. He's not a little... They didn't go to the Ivy League school, even though this guy did, but he doesn't act like us. He boxes when he has free time. He shoots tigers.

Swims the Potomac every morning. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. The maniac. He was a health maniac, and he was an adventurer and an explorer. And if you haven't read the River of Doubt, you have to read it. He and Kermit go down. I mean, it's like the great adventure of all adventures, and it happens after San Juan.

after the presidency, after the trust bus, after everything. Yeah. Listen to this. And so he loses the presidency because he divided the party. He got more votes than Taft, but not more than Woodrow Wilson. Who was a raging racist, by the way? Took great pride the fact that no black kids want to Princeton when he was president. Isn't that great?

Told Bigotty Washington to go jump in a lake, don't even try to come in here. And I don't think women should vote. Besides that, I thought he was excellent. Yeah, real, yeah, yeah. Great leader. Yeah, but whatever. I'm not saying take his name off the school, but you might want to think about it. So, Teddy Roosevelt, I did not know this, but his great grandson, Tweed, told me this,

who remembers playing in the yard when Teddy Roosevelt's wife was lied at Sagmore Hill, which is incredible. So he said to me, do you know he was queuing up to run again? And the Republican Party forgave him and was going to let him run. He would have been president when he came back had he not died and really destroyed his system in the Nile when he told Kermit, leave me, just leave me here. I'm dead weight. You save yourself. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, quick sidebar, folks, but this book we're talking about really is also worth your time, not just Bryans, but the river of doubt. And I mean, if you like a real adventure with a figure at the center of it who you already kind of know, you're just not going to find a better read. It's remarkable. I'm going to pray to it,

I do feel guilty, though. When I read about Teddy Roosevelt and all he did, I'm like, what am I doing? I'm sitting here reading about him and I'm exhausted. There's that great line by Tom Lear who he says, you know, it's a sobering thought when I realized that when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead for six years. That is great. Well, speaking of like Mozart's ability is not a thing that most people can relate to. Even real fans of music, real lovers just scratch their head when they look at the output. And we scratch our head when we think about.

what Beethoven did after he lost his ability to hear. It boggles the mind. Well, so too does Teddy Roosevelt's relationship with reading. He was the first real speed reader that we know of. He read a book every day. He published 38 books. He read Anna Karenina while he was escorting boat thieves to Dickinson, somewhere in North Dakota to stand trial for stealing his boat.

Right? I mean, the guy, it's just a story after story after story, but single-handedly with three desperadoes sitting up all night long, reading Anna Corinina while keeping a gun on these guys so he could take him to hang. I mean, he could have hung him. He had every right to do it, but no, no, he's Teddy Roosevelt. He's not. They got to be tried first. They got to be tried. He doesn't care about being comfortable or uncomfortable. He just does what he does because he's freaking Teddy Roosevelt. My question, Brian, is, as you. you were doing your research for all this stuff, were you struck by Booker's incredible burning desire to learn how to read? And Teddy's incontrovertible passion for reading at a speed, most people can't even contemplate. I would think the passion to remind me of Frederick Douglass. I was saying to myself a couple of times I got because I was studying both at the same time. I don't know if you know this, Mike, but I was actually read up for slavery before Douglas.

I wanted to jump. And then they said, you should back up and read David Blytsbrook about Frederick Douglas. I go, okay, that might be better. But having said that, the thirst to read and write and just to be successful is what it's all about. I almost feel bad for people that have this stuff coming to them. When you get up in the morning, you know, at four years old you're going to go to preschool, and five-year-old is going to go to. It's all set up.

But there's something about if you have to scrape and scrap, For the littlest thing, you have such an appreciation for it that no one has to tell you because you know exactly what life was like without it. So the drive to learn to read and write and get the basics is almost like a blessing. Like they always say the second generation after someone comes from nowhere. Like those kids have trouble. Like Bookerty Washington's kids couldn't possibly have the thirst of success that he'd add. Frederick Douglass's kids had it so much better than Frederick Douglass.

Abraham Lincoln actually had it worse than his father, but that whole, I have to do whatever could be successful, just knocks out any obstacle for the rest of your life. And it just makes me really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking, speaking of unintended consequences, right, the easier a thing becomes and the more accessible it becomes to the most people, well, that typically is cause for a celebration, more opportunity for more people. Like right now, 99% of all the known information in the world is right here. If you have an internet hookup, you now have access to everything.

So we look at that and we go, high five, right? This is great. This is progress. But when I was a kid, I think I was 11, I got my first library card. And we had like a little celebration at my house because my folks taught public school. And this was a very big deal. And it was very important. They gave me the card.

And they said, Mike, you now have access to all of the books at the Rosdale Public Library, which was two miles away, which I was invited to walk to whenever I felt like. Can you imagine? You walk to the library. You sit down. You walk through the stacks. You find a book. You check it out.

You bring it home. You possess it. It's yours for two weeks. Right? And, you know, when you think about the difficulty of getting a, you know, a book. Let's say, oh, I don't know, Teddy and Booker T at your local library, or going to Amazon and downloading it, which takes about a fraction of the time, or going to Audible and listen to somebody read it. I really wonder if the ease of access doesn't come with some weird

unintended consequence of making it less meaningful. I know. I agree. I don't think that that's adjustable, though. I'll say you one thing. To your point, I download everything. Why? Because if Micro's coming in, I got to interview them, I have to highlight notes. And I take a note. So even when you come in two years from now,

I go back to your book and I go, okay, I remember this, this, this. So I use it as notes. It's just much more convenient. Plus, I'm going back and forth to Long Island. I don't want to carry four books around. You know, so I'm like, give me my iPad. I got 20 books in there.

Now I got 250 books in there. And I keep going. So like also with Booker T. So while you're studying, I'm reading his book. I'm reading larger education. I'm reading that, and I have notes. So I go back six months later and go, wait a second, where's that quote?

So I need it for practical purposes. And I also download newspapers. So all my newspapers are online too. I know so many people tell me I will never download a book. I need to hold it. And a lot of people at Barnes & Noble, when e-books became hot, they panicked. And they said, we're over. Bookstores are over.

They're very successful now. Because people still need to hold a book. So I don't know how you're old school like that. No, well, look, I mean, I got books for sure, but you're talking about a thing, if I remember it right, I think it's called the displacement theory. It's widely held, and it's just one of those collective illusions, I think, that most people have. But it's the idea that radio was going to completely eliminate newspapers. And film, especially talkies, was going to eliminate radio. And TV was going to eliminate film.

and CDs were going to eliminate A-Tracks, which did happen, right? And then MP4s are going to eliminate CDs, which did happen, but music is still music. Yeah. And people are now going back to vinyl, taking a step backwards, you know, because of the purity of the sound. So there's disruption all the time in all verticals, but the idea that one form of communication is going to completely displace the other. that almost never happens unless you're talking about lost technologies, which is a whole different conversation. The thing that motivated Booker and Teddy, 125, 140 years ago, are the same basic

things that motivate us today. The love of Mozart, the love for Beethoven, the ability to be a fan that's still within anybody's reach. If there's a question in this, it's why and where did your enthusiasm come from. Not your interest. A lot of people are interested in history. A lot of people, we get it. As Santa Ana said, we don't understand the past. We're doomed to repeat it. But Brian, your enthusiasm for this is weird. You could talk for an hour. I wouldn't even have to ask a question. So when in your life did you start giving a crap about the past to this degree? You know, I don't know when I didn't. I remember my grandfather was an optometrist,

and he used to fit Grace Kelly's glasses and Tuscanyi's glasses. He passed away like in 68, so I was only like three or four. But they used to keep all his celebrity stuff around. I used to be amazed when he said, I can't believe Tuscanini, which I'm not a big classical music person, but he was on television, and they would show me video of how they have to grab his nose. My grandfather used to sit in the audience. scared to death because if those glasses flew off, it was on him.

And just to think of these historical figures that he touched and Grace Kelly was still alive until the car crashed and like, I thought, I'm like, man, this is unbelievable. And then you see this George Washington and Mount Vernon. I remember going there as a kid and thinking, do these historic figures actually live and walk? I was just always fascinated by people that were walking in the same spot as you, just thousands of years ago. And when they died, their story died. And I always thought, man, why is that? These people are so special. Why don't we keep that alive? And I was always on the receiving end. And when it stopped,

I just, I felt like a gap. The first time I started realizing how much I miss history was Dave McCullough's book on Harry S. Truman. And the second one was Harry Truman. And when I opened up that book and they said, John Adams is pulling into New York City. Why is everyone so rude here and in a rush? I go, what? Are you kidding me? It's the same New York that he thought. And I'm like, where exactly is he?

And I was in the, like, I can't believe this. And then Harry Truman wrote this book. I might have told you this already. But he was fascinated by history. And he loved Jefferson. He has all these guys. He has nine people that he wrote. His daughter Margaret published it because he took notes on all these people.

And he talked about Jefferson being serious. one with freckles and red hair. He talked about Washington being self-conscious about his teeth. He talked about all these personal things about these men, how sickly James Madison was, how often he thought that he was going to die with the epilepsy that we found out later, the doctors prescribed later. So I'm like, these were human beings. So that's what brought me to the story.

I've always said to myself, if I found something that was underserved, I'd like to bring it forward. So that's what I do. I tried to take a slice of what happened, and if you like it, go run for the George Washington biography by John Meacham. If you like about the spies, well, this is probably the best about the spies, but you love Jefferson. There's so many Jefferson books, but you don't hear a lot about what he did with the Tripoli Pirates, because even Jefferson can make sense to that.

Another thing that got me excited about War of 1812 is when people can show me it, and George W. Bush is touring me through the White House, and he shows me the burn marks over the bowling alley, and he said, that's what's left of where the British burned the White House. And I said, why do you think they left it there? He goes to my opinion, to let us know how fragile democracy is. So I'm like, I got to go back and learn more about the burning of the White House. So, you know, and I put down the news,

that would be my relaxation from getting out of the, whatever the five big news stories of the day were. And it also helped me here because it gives me a perspective on everything. If you know history, you get a perspective. You know, wow, we've never been so divided. Excuse me, I can remember a time. By the way, oh, yeah, we're always protages. I think the 60s are a little worse than the 1860s were a little turbulent.

Let me go back and check. So it gives me a perspective. I guess that was a long answer. I don't remember we're not. I also remember if someone who I think is intelligent says something like, who was in World War II, I realize I'm like, holy crap. How do you not know? like Sarah Palin.

When they told Sarah Palin, when they realized she didn't know who won World War II, and they had to sit down and tutor her about that. I'm not putting her down. It's just a fact. I go, wow, there's gaps with people.

It's not only the elite that know more, the scholars that are so intelligent. What if I approached it from the blue collar perspective? Here's the fundamentals, and they're all right. You might want to go to detail.

That's great. But I'll give you the fundamentals of these stories. I watched the way people look at me when I would explain stuff among my friends. And the questions they would ask, I'm like, wow, I can't believe this. They actually did not know what I just told them.

It just sticks. A lot of stuff doesn't stick, but this stuff sticks in my head. You're lucky. You're lucky to have found a passion, and you're lucky to have a platform, you know, where you can scratch that it. That's the key.

It's been really fun to watch, you know, from my perspective. As one chronic freelancer to another, I know what you're doing, and I can see that you're coming at this from a lot of different sides. And my favorite aspect of your career is the curiosity you have for our shared past. And you've written a bunch of fun books, but this one is super terrific. My final thought with this conversation and about your book was, I mean, I really wonder where we'd be as a country today if everybody understood, really understood, what Booker T. If there was one book

that was mandatory to read, I think up from slavery and possibly yours, would literally transform the debates that we're having today on almost every issue.

Well, I would rather you say I'd rather people read mine up dead rather than up from slavery because it helps out my family and my legacy. So I really, don't give Booker T's watching too much credit. capitalist. Yeah, real man of the people.

I wanted to share the one quote that I gave you, that I don't know if you remember. From Booker? Yeah, from Booker. That I told you. I remember. Well, while you're looking for that, let me just mention that the book is called Teddy and Booker T. How to American icons blazed a path for racial equality. And you can find out where the best place is to buy it,

I guess, at Briankillmead.com. Yeah. Do that. Go get the book. You get a sign. It goes to my local Barnes & Noble, and I got a whole bunch of appearances. How about this? Booker T. Washington. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. He also has a silver lining in the black laborer demonstrating his reliability and rigor.

And of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength and confidence that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race. Doesn't that sum up our conversation? Not as good as this one. The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do. Okay, you beat me. Of course I beat you. It's my podcast.

Hey, man, congratulations. It's a great book. What are you doing next? Exactly what hallway do you run down and what chair do you sit in and what host do you impersonate at this point in your day? I got my normal day today. Tomorrow I'm doing the five. Then I start every weekend just going out on different tour, different events.

I got the Patriot Awards, I guess. So you're not going to be there this year? You know, I didn't get invited because I don't think we're in production for the show that I'm currently doing right now. And, you know, things like, apparently money's tight over there. There have been some cutbacks. I don't know if you've seen the headlines, but, you know, stuff. Yeah, it's been an interesting time, right? But, and then we'll talk offline just about this story in particular, I think, of the Israeli world.

or reaffirms what makes Fox great because we understand who the good guys are. Unfortunately, people don't. So I think people are rediscovering what they discovered when we started. This is a whole other topic. And if we get into it, I'm going to talk for an hour because I've had a shocking couple of weeks. And I'm sure you have as well. But that's where we land the plane. We land the plane with the understanding that what we're going through right now,

no matter how disjointed it feels, no matter how new or fresh it feels. This species has been there and done that. A lot of what we're seeing right now we saw in the late 30s. And you know what? We saw it before that and we saw it before that and we're going to see it again. So you have got yourself a front row seat to all of it. And I agree the reporting that your network has done has been great. So tell everybody I know over there.

said howdy and tell Gutfeld to forget about that 20 bucks he owes me. Right. He'll never forget about it. Speaking of Gutfeld, what is the deal with you in Gutfeld? He really lays into you a lot. Is it good-natured at the core or does he really despise you? I think so. I miss a lot of it because I have to sleep at some point.

But I get along with him. I get that more than any other question probably. What's with Gutfeld? So he's got a mental illness and a hit show. It's a good combination. Those two go together a lot. I don't think so. Hey, man, buy the book.

Brian Kilmead, Teddy and Booker T. It's awesome. I mean, for a pop-up, it really is something else. That's not true. It's a pop-up. How dare you? Hey, don't hang up yet, but I'm saying goodbye, but don't hang up. Goodbye.

Goodbye. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, But if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go on life and leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge.

But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a book. bunch just a lighter too. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

Definitely not too. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you got to do is leave a quick. Even if you hate it. Five-star. Especially if you hear it. Thank you.

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