Best of The Program | Guests: Carrie Severino, Kelly Shackelford, & Brad Meltzer | 10/13/20

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Well, we welcome

Mr.

Stubergier back from his COVID experience.

Yes, thank you very much.

Proud to be positive.

That's what we say in the community.

Proud to be positive.

And

he's promising to French kiss every member of the audience today because he's over it.

Get in line.

Get in line.

I've got certs.

It's weird.

It's a very short.

In fact, there's no one in line.

So far.

People are worried about the big buildup at the beginning.

They'll show up a little late.

Right.

We talk a little bit about Amy Coney.

In fact, we talk a lot about Amy Coney Barrett and cover all of that from all of the different angles.

Ben Sasse is with us.

He's running for re-election in Nebraska.

And

we also talk about what the CERN is doing

next week.

Opening a black hole.

You know, just under the ground in Europe.

With all the news that's going on, I'm rooting for the black hole.

All that and more on today's podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Blenbeck program.

Carrie Severino is with us.

She's the president of Judicial Crisis Network, and I want to get her opinion on what's happened so far and where we're headed on the Barrett confirmation hearing.

Hi, Carrie.

How are you?

Good.

How are you doing, Ben?

Very good.

So

yesterday, the strategy seemed to be to change the definition of packing the court.

Is that what you took away yesterday from the tactic of the Democrats?

You know, they wanted to talk about anything as long as it wasn't talking about Amy Coney Barrett.

They did not want to talk about this talented, outstanding woman sitting before them.

They were trying to play top politics.

So, you know, there were some of the, a lot of the Democrats just wanted to talk about Obamacare.

They had pictures up of different people, you know, who had been helped

by the Affordable Care Act, and they were trying to make it seem like her whole purpose in life was to get rid of this.

That's ridiculous.

It's not even an issue that she's likely to be the deciding vote on, but that seemed to pull well for them.

And I agree,

they want to make it seem like simply filling seats in the court is somehow illegitimate, is court packing, which is so ironic because you have Joe Biden currently refusing to say what he would do with respect to actual court packing, which is when you change the number of seats in the Supreme Court for purely partisan ends, like FDR tried to do to get a court that would uphold more of his New Deal legislation.

He said, well, I'll just add more seats in the court.

That was rejected by his Democratic Senate.

It was rejected by people like Ruth Bader-Ginsburg.

Even Bernie Sanders thinks this is a bad idea.

Guys, should be an easy question.

Will you or will you not do this horribly radical radical thing and undermine the court?

And they don't want to talk about that.

They try to change the subject.

Well, the question I just had Ben Sass on, he said the question really is going to rely on the Senate.

If I'm not mistaken, when FDR tried it, he did get 26 of his fellow Democrats to vote for it.

Times have changed.

People don't even pay attention to the Constitution anymore.

Do you think he could get more than 26 votes to pack the court?

I think if the Democrats get control of the House and the Senate and the White House, I think they absolutely will do that right away.

If they wouldn't, they would tell us because

I think they recognize this is such a radical thing.

Americans don't want to see it.

But he's refusing to commit to not doing it.

That's because he's more interested in placating his liberal handlers than actually doing what the American people want to do or even telling the American people what they frankly do deserve to know.

And contrary to what Biden says, is what would the president do with respect to an entire third branch of government here?

So I would be upset at any conservative that did

what I think John Roberts does

in favor of conservatives.

I would be really upset if they would take something and not look at the Constitution, but instead just start to legislate from the bench.

And I think John Roberts has done that with Obamacare and other things.

And I don't want that.

And a constitutional,

a strict constitutionist, a constitutionalist will actually

probably piss me off at times because I'll want it to go the other way, but I'll be fine with it

because if the Constitution actually says that, well, then we got to do it right.

Why is it that people don't understand that a strict constitutionalist will give you some wins and some losses, and some of your wins will be surprises.

Some of your losses won't be.

Yeah, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a judge.

And you're hearing in some of the discussion today where, you know, Senator Feinstein just got done trying to get Sarah to talk about what her personal views were on for everything from guns to health care.

Like, this is not the question.

It isn't.

She's not someone who's going to simply go on the court and say, well, you know, Ginsburg was putting her personal views on from the left.

I'm going to put my personal views on from the right.

That's not what we want either.

We don't want

judicial activists on the court.

We want constitutionalists on the court.

And there are aspects of the Constitution that actually

would fit into what you would call a quote liberal paradigm.

Sure.

View strong defendants' rights, for example.

There are aspects that you might say are quote conservative, like Second Amendment rights.

But the Constitution isn't a political document.

It's a legal document, and that's the judge's role is to look at it that way.

So if you're following a law in the Constitution, sometimes your results are going to look liberal from a political standpoint.

They might look conservative sometimes from a political standpoint.

But what's so important is they're legally based.

It's not someone who's acting themselves to kind of follow their own political goals.

Then it's following the politics of the American people who pass those laws.

Is this what we used to have?

I mean, was there a time when the Supreme Court was

just known as

just interpreting the law?

Well, that's always been its job.

And I think justices have done better or worse jobs of doing that.

Obviously, through history, we've had, you know, it's not only recently that we've had judges who may have mistaken that role, but I think it has become more of an epidemic, more of a crisis recently, because that was just accepted by all of legal academia and

the whole

practice.

But what's great is we're seeing a pushback now.

And this is something that, you know, Justice Scalia was kind of on the front end of.

And now Judge Barrett is kind of carrying on that mantle of: hey, here's how we get that politics out.

We need to be very faithful to the text as it is written.

We need to look at what the law meant at the time it was passed, not what we think it should mean today, not what we wish it meant today.

And so that's what actually takes that politics out.

So this is really finally achieving the goal of getting those politics back out and restoring the court to its proper constitutional.

So we have now

three judges that Donald Trump has appointed.

If he wins a second term, how many more judges and will they be Clarence Thomas or will they be people that will bring us closer to the Constitution?

Do you have any idea who's looking to retire or?

You know, that is sort of always a very treacherous area to try to speculate.

In 2016, I would have speculated that would be when we were, you know, Justice Ginsburg, my retired, and it was four years later, right?

So

I think we don't know, but we do know that whoever is elected in 2020 is likely to get seats.

And remember, these are all life-term seats.

So, even if you are replacing someone who has a similar judicial approach, it has a generational impact because that means, you know, for the next 30, I mean, Justice Tennis has almost served for 30 years already, you know, and we have people serving maybe four decades at this point.

Amy Coney Barris is only 48, right?

She could serve for a long time.

That is going to have a huge impact going into the future of how our children and our grandchildren's country will be run and how we will understand the Constitution

They also are trying to say that Donald Trump packed the courts by filling the vacancies in the lower courts,

which he did, and Obama walked away with a lot of vacancies.

That changes things.

Have you looked at all into the states where we're most likely to have close

election results?

And is there an impact on the courts there that

may play towards the Constitution's favor?

Well, you know, so Trump has done really historically impressive jobs filling those seats, which is really great.

A lot of the remaining seats, unfortunately, are in states where there are Democratic senators and they are blocking Trump's picks.

They would rather have no one sitting on the court than have someone that Donald Trump put on the court.

So

you're seeing in some of those states real problems with

cases backing up and judges having a very heavy workload.

So, I'm optimistic that if we can get some senators who are willing to acknowledge that these judges are going to be faithful to the law and move forward with those, we could have a better situation across the country.

But I think what's so great is we now have well over 200 judges that Trump has put there.

This is the next generation of outstanding legal experts in the country, and it's already having an impact in terms of cases being decided according to the law rather than according to policy.

So wait, so the states can say no to a federal judge?

Well,

the way the system works, there's something called the blue slips, and senators from the state can refuse to turn in their blue slip.

And traditionally,

there's no rule or law that says this, but traditionally, the Senate has said if the senators from the state don't both approve of the nominee, we won't move forward on it.

So thankfully, there have been many, including Democrat senators, who have compromised with the president and have been able to come up with some judges that they could all agree on.

But also, there's others that

want to have nothing to do with any kind of compromise with Donald Trump, particularly places like California, where you've got one of them running for vice president.

She's not going to compromise with him, right?

They're just willing to hold on and hold on and refuse to nominate, refuse to help confirm anyone.

Let me go back to Amy Coney Barrett.

I know you can never tell, and Republicans always seem to get to the losing end of this stick.

You get somebody you think is good, and then they start to go

and side with liberals.

I know we can't tell the future, but

who do you think she's most like

or most likely to be like as a justice?

Well, you know, she obviously is a clerk for Justice Scalia, and she describes him as a major mentor in her life.

So I think her jurisprudence probably will most resemble Justice Scalia's.

But her, you know, all of these people have a very different personality.

So she isn't much, you know, just watching her today, her, Scalia was known for his sharp one-liners.

And as much fun as that is, her style is very different.

She's just been so, I guess, professorial is the right word,

but

kind and explaining.

She's very good at explaining what these questions are.

And she's just so, she comes across, I think, to so genuine and careful and thoughtful about the law.

I think she is going to be someone on the court who has, you know, the jurisprudence of a scalia, but maybe a slightly softer tone.

And, you know, who knows, maybe that'll be something that even is compelling to some of her colleagues on the other side of the bench as well.

Thank you so much for watching.

And we'll talk to you hopefully again tomorrow and get a recap of what's happening today.

I don't see any trouble for her in the future, at least at this point.

Do you agree with that?

She's knocking it out of the park today in terms of her hearing, and so I just think it's going to be hard-pressed, I think, for anyone to come up with a good excuse not to confirm maybe Coney Bear at the Supreme Court.

She's going to be outstanding.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

What What is happening to our religious freedom around the country?

A guy who really can help us answer that question, who fights it every single day, is Kelly Shackelford.

He's the president and CEO of First Liberty Institute and chief counsel of First Liberty Institute.

It's been in front of the Supreme Court over and over again.

Let me just start with the cases up in

California and in New York about religious freedom.

Kelly.

Glenn, thanks for having me on.

Yeah,

we're in a real battle.

I don't know if everybody remembers back, but when this whole thing started with the pandemic, we realized this is really going to be a fight because we've never had any constitutional law in a pandemic, right?

I mean,

there's no cases.

And everybody was seeing these pictures of like the guy throwing a baseball with his kids being handcuffed and killed him because he was in a park and the guy on the beach coming off all by himself on a surfboard being arrested.

So we tried tried to be really careful about the first case, and we wanted it to be the right one because we're getting all kinds of churches calling us saying, you won't believe what they're doing to us.

And we got what we thought was the right case, and that was in Louisville.

It was a church that was trying to do an Easter service, and they wanted to be together, but they wanted to be safe.

So they did a drive-in service in their cars.

Right.

And that was the mayor of...

Louisville, Kentucky said that was a crime.

And the governor said they were going to send police officers to every church on Easter Sunday to write down the license plate of any car in any church parking lot.

And those people would be visited by the police and they would be quarantined to their home for 14 days.

And we went, okay, this is it.

This is China.

You know,

this is the case.

And we filed.

We got a great judge.

We got a great decision.

He said, look, the Constitution is in place in this country.

This country is built on religious freedom.

And we started there.

And we've now had about 10 victories in a row.

But what happened is a lot of other lawsuits started getting filed that weren't necessarily as thoughtful, and they created a lot of precedent.

And, you know, Glenn, I've just got to be honest, we're in a war right now all across the country of whether the government is going to control our churches.

And, you know, until we get something to the Supreme Court, I don't think we're going to have an answer because there are too many bad decisions to join the good decisions that we've won to know what's going to happen.

That is terrifying.

As somebody who

goes to church on Sunday, that is truly terrifying that we are facing a time when the government can tell you exactly what you can and cannot do at church.

It is.

It's, you know, I mean, because look, if we come out of this and the law is that if a government official declares an emergency, then your Constitution is suspended while the emergency, well, you know, climate change will be an emergency, and I mean, everything will be an emergency, right?

You don't really have any freedoms at that point.

And that's not the way the law is supposed to work.

You had the case, I know you probably even talked about it, the case that came out of Nevada where they were letting the casinos open, but not the churches.

And so, you know, and they wouldn't take it.

The Supreme Court wouldn't take the case.

So I would say two things.

We've got a great case that we just won last week in Washington, D.C., the first one on behalf of the church.

In this case, the church,

they allowed thousands of people.

The mayor went with them to protest.

But they would not, it was illegal for a church to hold an outdoor church service with over 100 people.

And so it's just clear hypocrisy.

And so we actually won a federal injunction on Friday of last week.

And we're hoping we can get that to the Supreme Court, but we've got to get the right case to the Supreme Court.

But also, if Amy Coney Barrett is on the Supreme Court, I feel very strongly about her on religious freedom.

I think we won't have to worry about these closed decisions with Roberts saying that it's okay to open casinos but not churches.

We'll win these cases.

And so there's sort of a lot going on at the same time, but I think you have to look at the Amy Coney Barrett thing from a religious freedom standpoint, in addition to everything else.

And I think she will be great on religious freedom, which the timing could not be better.

So tell me

what her appointment does to the court.

And for instance, if the

Senate and the administration, if they have the House and the Senate and the administration, let's just say that's a landslide for the left, they are all saying they're going to take guns.

Do we have the votes

now in the Supreme Court to hold to the Second Amendment, the First Amendment?

What's it look like?

I think we do for sure.

I mean, she's written just an incredible dissent on the Second Amendment already on the Seventh Circuit.

She's shown her true colors.

I mean,

she is an originalist.

She's a Scalia.

She said, don't tell me what the country wants.

That's not my job.

My job is to say, what does the Constitution say?

What did the founders put in place?

What does it mean?

You look to the original meaning of the text.

You look to the original meaning of the statute, not to the PC or whatever people are in favor favor of.

She would say, just like Scalia, if you want to change laws, then change laws, change the Constitution, but don't ask me to change the Constitution.

And she's very, and it was in a case actually where it was about a situation where kind of the PC position would be, oh, no, you know, God's been in prison, so he shouldn't have a right

to have a firearm once you've been in prison.

And her approach was,

what does the Constitution say?

And here she is dissenting.

She's pretty fearless on following the law.

So I feel really strongly about where she would be.

And again, Roberts has kind of been jumping back and forth on a lot of things recently and has made it sort of a 4-4 with Roberts jumping around.

That would be over if she's on the court.

You'd have five conservatives who really believe you go to the original meaning.

And that's going to really bring us right back to the Constitution and those principles and really the foundations of our country, which I think will be a great thing for our country.

Kelly, what does it mean

when we're looking at a party who says they're going to get rid of the filibuster?

They won't deny that they'll pack the court.

What is this election really about?

It's about, I mean, if people, I don't know if people understand what court packing is, but basically it's when you come in, you say, well, you know, I don't like the fact that there are more conservatives on the court now than there used to be.

And therefore, I'm going to add three, four, five seats to the Supreme Court, which

you'd have to have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

You'd also have to destroy the filibuster.

But that's what some of the Democrats are talking about doing.

And of course, what Biden and Harris have not been answering.

That is a decision.

People need to understand this.

That is a decision to destroy the Supreme Court.

Because if you add people to the Supreme Court to have a partisan advantage, then the next party that comes in is going to do the same thing.

So if the Republicans come back, they'll add five or six seats.

The court is no longer a legal body at that point.

It's a political body.

And you have taken the Supreme Court and said it's done.

So people need to understand, I mean, number one, Biden needs to answer this question.

It should be required.

Every voter should say, there's no way you even have a chance of being a president unless you answer this question.

If the answer is I'm going to destroy the Supreme Court,

then unless you're wanting to overthrow the government, at least a third of the government, that's just not a decision I would ever make.

I mean, whatever your beliefs are on these things, the rule of law will be incredible damage.

I don't know what will happen in our country, but it's taking one of the three branches of government and really pretty much putting it underground.

We're talking to Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute.

Kelly, there is a story out.

There's, in fact, two different stories about two different groups.

One of them is Shutdown DC,

and they have put out a guide stopping the coup.

Preventing Donald Trump from stealing the election and remaining in office is likely to take mass, sustained, disruptive movements all over the country.

We need to, in order to really win, we need to force some pillars of power, business, military, media, and other major institutions to decide to side with the people or at least get out of the way.

If everyday life goes on, a despot will not leave power.

There will be no incentive for real systematic changes.

You want to think about what it might take to stop business as usual.

There are these groups that do not believe in the Electoral College, do not believe in the court system, do not believe in the American Constitution that I can find.

And they are saying they want to overthrow these things.

They want the destruction.

Can you tell me where the legal definition of insurrection kicks in?

Well, I mean, that's definitely it.

I mean, if those things happened,

I did see the president comment on this, and he said

if that happens after the election, that will be shut down immediately.

Now, we'll see.

I hope so.

We've had 21 different presidents use

the power they have under the Insurrection Act to actually do that.

I think President Trump has been trying to respect federalism at some sort and also not, you know, they want to make him a dictator, so I didn't think he wants to walk into looking like that.

So he's been incredibly restrained, I think, on what he's done in these situations like in Seattle and all these.

But I think if it's after the election and that's attempted, I think he'll exercise the power that he should, that any president should, to put any of that down.

I hope and I pray that it would.

Nobody in the country really, I mean, these are, this is a lunatic fringe in our country, and they shouldn't be allowed to roam free and engage in violence and looting and all this thing.

I don't think the American people,

I think they've had enough of that, so much so that the Democrats have even a little bit started to back away, even though

some of their base wants them to not do so.

Kelly, thank you so much.

Are you foreseeing any problems with Barrett's confirmation?

Not yet.

I mean, it's bizarre the approach that is being taken, which is to say that she's going to, that if Barrett's appointed to the court, that she's going to take everybody's health care away.

It's just,

you just, I just, sometimes I'm amazed.

Do they think people are that stupid?

I mean,

it's just a bizarre argument.

I mean, the case they're talking about that's up there, Amy Coney Barrett hasn't, has never talked about any of the issues in that case.

It's about severability, a lot of other things.

The odds are huge that that case won't strike down the ACA in a a non-severable way.

So all of it's false, and it has really nothing to do with her, but they've just decided that's their best political issue is the issue of health care.

And so they're seeing if they can scare people by saying if you allow her on the court, you'll all lose your health care and you'll die of the coronavirus.

And I'm like, do you think people are that stupid?

I don't think they are.

You know, I don't think they are either, but I'm beginning to wonder.

You know what?

We'll find out in November.

We'll find out on November 3rd.

Thank you so much, Kelly.

I appreciate it.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.

If you want to try to teach your kids about Ben Franklin, and I mean the little kids, about Ben Franklin, or Ann Frank, there are two new books out by our good friend, Brad Meltzer, and he joins us now.

Hello, Brad.

Good to hear your voice, my friend.

Good to hear you.

How are things?

Nothing going on in the world.

How about you?

You know what?

It's so hard to find things to talk about.

You know, what's crazy is, you know, we plan these books two years in advance.

And here we are talking about, you know, tearing down a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

And we've got a book on Ben Franklin and the founders.

And

a report report comes out last week that says millennials don't know the basic facts about the Holocaust.

And we have a book on Ann Frank.

And I'm like, sometimes the universe produces the heroes you need.

It's not the heroes you want, but it's heroes that you need.

Yeah,

it's amazing.

I really have found divine providence in some of the stuff that we've done.

I just put out the book arguing with socialists, and then this summer hit.

It's like, wow.

Exactly.

I can't get what you need.

Yeah.

Holy cow.

So, Brad,

tell me about the books.

This is part of your Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum series.

That's on PBS.

I wanted to carry that so badly on the blaze, but I'm not rich enough for Brad Meltzer's program.

That's funny.

Listen, we've done our shows, and I love you for it.

As you know, I started writing these kids' books because I wanted to give my kids better heroes to look up to and give them heroes who could teach them kindness and compassion and character.

And again, look at the world.

Anti-Semitism is at its 40-year high.

Our kids need hope right now.

And the best way to teach that is with Anne Frank, the little girl who hides from the Nazis in an attic and still believes that people are good at heart.

And I want my kids to know that even in the darkest places, you can still find light.

That's what hope is, Glenn, right?

It's like a fire that burns within you.

And when you put it on, nothing puts it out.

And I need my daughter to have that lesson.

I need my sons to have that lesson.

So I am Anne Frank is that illustrated kids book to teach hope for our kids right now.

And I am Benjamin Franklin.

Yeah, Benjamin Franklin, we all know the stories of him with electricity, great experiments.

But to me, his greatest experiment is the experiments that he does on himself.

He actually spends his whole life trying to improve himself.

He even has rules.

You and I have talked about him privately, like him and George Washington have rules to live by.

His rules are, one, be frugal.

Don't spend money you don't have.

Two, tell the truth.

Three, work hard.

And four, don't speak badly about other people.

Look at the world right now where they're tearing down the founding fathers.

You know, oh, this, you know, Ben Franklin owns slaves.

And I'm like, yes, but he also at the end of his life was the president of an organization that stood against slavery.

So how do you say he's bad?

Or is he good?

Or is he just complicated like all of us?

And our kids need that lesson that rather than pointing fingers at everyone else, Ben Franklin knew if you want to change the world, you start with yourself and it moves out from there, rippling outward.

He was phenomenal.

Can you think of anyone alive today?

I mean, I think one of the most impressive people alive today that would fit in the founding era would be maybe Elon Musk.

Do you know any and he would be.

That's the breath of ideas, 100%.

Ben Franklin, I mean, you know, it was one of the hardest books to write because it's a kids' book.

Obviously, we're trying to entertain and educate your kids and give them values.

But I'm like, do I talk about electricity?

Do I talk about his inventions?

Do I talk about the science he does?

Do I talk about the greatest experiment, the American experiment?

He literally edits the Declaration of Independence.

And George Washington, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson writes the first draft, gives it to Ben Franklin.

And we showed this in the book.

Ben Franklin is like, hmm, this part you have here, we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.

What if we change it to this?

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all all men are created equal.

That's Benjamin Franklin's edit, and I need our kids to see that.

That is how you teach your kids to be great Americans.

I have an 1836, or is it ⁇ no, it might be 1826 ⁇ version of the Declaration of Independence first draft.

Have you ever seen it?

Have you ever seen that?

You and I, when we were to get one, when we were together last time, I almost jumped the desk for the key.

It is killing me that I haven't seen it.

I have been to the National Archives in their secret private room where I saw their copy.

So you've seen the first draft.

Have you ever read it?

I've seen the first draft.

Yes.

I couldn't, no.

I couldn't read it.

I mean, I've read online the translations of it, and you can see the edits that change in there.

Right.

And

the third page, I urge you to go back and read the third page.

The longest usurpation or the longest

problem that

they had with the king was his treatment of African Americans and Africans as slaves.

And it is a whole paragraph on it.

And it's Thomas Jefferson writes it.

His handwriting changes.

He capitalizes words like men when he's calling, you know, and then he puts these men up for auction on the auction block.

I mean, it's phenomenal and completely changes.

I got to go back.

I have to go back.

I mean, and the thing about Ben Franklin is, you know, when I get my edits back from my editor and I'm always like griping about them, I'm like, Ben Franklin's editing Thomas Jefferson at the height of his powers.

So I can't complain about that anymore.

And the thing about Franklin, just to go back to your Elon Musk comment, is he does it his whole life.

One of the great stories that my kids reacted to is Franklin's a little boy.

And when Benjamin Franklin's a little boy, he used to love swimming.

And he realizes if you have bigger hands and bigger feet, you can move faster in the water.

You can paddle faster.

So he makes these homemade, like kind of oven myths, big myths, and they put them on his feet too, like flippers.

And he starts flying through the water.

This is as a little kid.

And my youngest, who's very creative and likes to color and play Legos, I'm like, I need you to see what you can do when you unleash creativity.

That's what Ben Franklin gives us.

Wasn't there a story about him getting in trouble?

Because he was always in trouble, I think, as a kid.

And he was like

damming up a river or something.

He was taking rocks and damming up a river.

And that's when finally

his parents, I believe, said, you're going to work.

You're going to work.

And sent him to a river.

He sent him to work as a kid.

The thing that he does also by a river is

he runs his kite by the river.

And there's a kite.

Again, you know what he does later in life with a guy, a little boy, runs the kite on the river.

When it goes in the air, he jumps in the river, ties it around his waist to test the theory that it will pull him across the lake, which it does.

And as you said, soon after that, the parents are like, this is what a blacksmith is.

Get to work.

You know, like they started taking them to work.

But it, you know, again, we spend so much time as a culture right now arguing about our founding fathers, arguing over World War II, arguing over the Civil War.

And we have to remember that our kids see these arguments.

And we have to remember that if we don't, you know, it's not your school's job to teach your kids the values that you want.

It's your job.

You got to do it.

I'd wish the school did it too, but we have to be in control of making sure that our kids see the American history and the the amazingness and the beauty of it, to see the hope of Anne Frank in the lowest moment in life and still say, you know what, I believe in good.

Because there is something to that, and there is something to each one of these heroes.

And I love that this series helps us, you build libraries for your kids, your grandkids, your nieces, your nephews at this time when history feels like it's under siege.

You know, I think it really does our kids an injustice to, you know, I'm a huge fan of Winston Churchill.

And

Churchill led this amazing life but if you read the

biographies of Churchill from the Indian perspective he's a bastard he's really

he's really a bad guy is he good is he good is he bad or is he complicated like the rest of us right

and if we can't just go in and say you know here's my belief if you're looking for perfection everyone fails the only thing perfect is god everyone else take a number.

And by not teaching that, by not showing our kids that they are flawed individuals, we set them up for a life of misery because 100%.

And that's the problem is what we do is we are wholly, like, listen, there are voices that have been marginalized that need to be told, like you just said.

Look at Native Americans, look at Indigenous people, look at what Winston Churchill does.

That's the bad side.

Does also amazing things.

But every book we do, when we do I Am Abraham Lincoln, we show you eight elections that he loses.

When George Washington goes, we show you him losing his first election.

That doesn't show weakness.

It shows your kid how to get back up again.

And when you do that for your kid with our I Am series, that's how you teach your kids to fly.

Brad Meltzer thank you.

I'm so proud to be a friend of yours, and I just am such a big fan, and it's always a pleasure to have you on.

I'd like to speak to you off air here in the next next couple of days.

I'm launching an education series, and we're going to have just great teachers teach certain things.

And I'd love to invite you to be one of the first teachers to.

I would love it.

We're doing with Sandra Day O'Connor with Justice O'Connor's organization, iCivics, asking kids for their best ideas to change the world.

You know, it's the Ordinary People Change the World series.

This is called Ordinary Kids Change the World.

And Justice O'Connor has been amazing to doing an actual gift to the kids that win to help them change the world.

So whatever you need in education, I'm your man.

And let me just say this: thank you for giving me, since the start of my career, so many chances, but to give kids history.

You've always been the biggest proponent of these books, and I can't thank you enough.

Oh, Brad, you're too kind.

Thank you very much.

No, no, no, no.