BRAD THOR | Fiction Born from Reality (Ep. 877)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys. We got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Brad Thor. He's the number one New York Times bestselling thriller writer of 25 different thrillers. Like this guy has been so prolific in this space. He sold millions and millions of copies of his book and he was a very very interesting interview. You never know when you're talking to a fiction writer like okay what exactly am I going to get? Is he going to be super cerebral in his own head? No, I could tell even in the interactions off air before we got started that this thing was going to be awesome and it was. And so we did talk about okay what made you want to become a writer? What was kind of that point where you knew like this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life? He had some very interesting stories about interactions with his wife during his honeymoon. That kind of led him to be like, "Okay, I don't want to live a life of regret. If I have something that I desire to do, I want to go ahead and go in that direction." But then we talked about his writing process, you know, research and how he kind of has to live in the four walls of reality. He can't just go into sci-fi land to kind of like wrap up one of his thrillers. And we talked specifically about how that leads to him basically having fiction that is born from reality and those types of things. But then in addition to that, we looked at several political topics because like the first half of the interview was mainly stuff about writing and kind of where he's going and where he sees writing and how his process works. But then we got into some different political topics. We talked about geopolitical threats. We talked about domestic threats. We talked about people protesting on the street. He's obviously he's a very right-wing guy. He's been a part of a couple of political candidacies and he's been a parts of some different things like the Tea Party movement and things like that. And so how does that extrapolate out? And you can even tell like to toward the end of the interview, we we didn't see eye to eye on certain things within kind of the cultural zeitgeist or what's going on politically, but we're still coming at it from a position where it's like I'm trying to understand him, he's trying to understand me, and we both have our opinions about how things should be operating from everything from how we deal with political enemies to immigration into this this country, what we're supposed to do with illegal immigrants that are here and how that all works out. But then at the end, we do talk about the brand new thriller, which is a standalone thriller called Cold Zero. guys, if you're listening to this podcast on time, that is out right now. It is a standalone. So, this is not something where it's like, okay, you got to read 10 stories, you know, to basically understand what's going on on this one. It's all wrapped up in one nice little tight bow. And I actually listen to it because I know for a lot of you guys, you know, reading and I've told you about, you know, I really struggle with reading fiction. It's hard for me to keep everything straight. But if you listen to it, it's absolutely spectacular. But guys, really enjoyed my time with Brad Thor. So, without further ado, let's get into it. Brad Thor, welcome to Undone to Life of Man's podcast. Yeah, it's great to be with you. Thanks for having me. >> Now, I got to give people a little uh peak behind the curtain here from the beginning. When you first popped up on the screen over your left shoulder, there was a very offensive flag that our founding fathers would not be appreciative of, and it was on a pillow. So, I'm throwing you under the bus from the beginning, but you have to tell my audience what you did to your shame. Let's go. Two 250 year anniversary of our uh separation from the lousy. Listen, the Brits are a fantastic NATO ally. They are one of our best allies in the world. I have uh I have a couple pillows in my office. I have American flags uh often times and those pillows I had to get cleaned cuz I had a couple buddies over and uh we got we got wild watching a little sports and there may have been some bourbon that hit a couple of pillows. So I swapped them out and then I was like, "Oh, wait a second. I can't be on this podcast with uh with those terrible British pillows in the background, those Brit flag pillows." So there you go. You threw me under the bus. >> We do have >> It was nice being with you. Thanks for having me on today. See you later, guys. Don't buy his books. They're awful. No, but hey, we we do have uh Brits in this audience. We're very appreciative for them. They're very concerned about their country. Maybe we'll circle back to uh what's going on currently in the UK. But you are a professional writer. We should probably start there. But my understanding is since you were a little boy that you kind of had, you know, this this dream of maybe becoming a writer and maybe seeing what that would look like if you extrapolated out to your entire life. So I guess where did that hunger for being a writer, not just consuming literature, where did that come from? >> You know, I got to tell you, I I think it's something you're born with. It is what's interesting for me is I always wanted to do it and I worked in college renting apartments in Los Angeles and I saved all my money and um I had a friend who had an extra room in a place overseas and I decided I would go over there and I would write and I got a couple chapters into after I graduated college. I went right over uh and I got a couple chapters into a novel and I ended up it was a thriller and I ended up deciding I don't want to do this and I'm going to ship I ship my laptop home and use the money I had saved to travel in Europe uh backpack that whole thing and I think what I learned was is I I said to myself, "Oh, this is such a solitary profession and and it's so lonely." But what was really kind of biting at the back of my mind was what if your book sucks? What if nobody likes it? What if you can't get it sold? What an embarrassment that would be. And boy, I bet it would be better to just avoid the embarrassment in total by not even writing the book anymore. So, when I was growing up, um there was a uh there was a foundation called the United Negro College Fund. And every time you were a kid and you were watching TV, whether it was kind of after school on the weekdays or over the weekends, you would end up seeing a commercial and their the the ad agency that they worked with had come up with a tagline for their foundation to raise money for the foundation, which is a mind is a terrible thing to waste. And that's that's a very powerful slogan. I took it and I chopped it up and I said, "A mind is a terrible thing." And then put the period in there because I realized that I had given up on my life's dream because of my fear. And what I learned was is I think that which we are most destined to do in life, we are often the most afraid of that what you want, and you've probably heard this, you've had so many interesting guests, Kyle, you probably heard this before, but the thing that you want most often lies on the other side of fear. >> That's right. And if you can get through that fear, you can get to what you want in life. So, it wasn't until I was on my honeymoon. And my wife asked me a great question, which is probably a question that should be asked before you get married, which is, "What would you regret on your deathbed never having done?" >> Um, and and I said, "Writing a book and getting it published." I I didn't even think. It just tumbled out of my mouth. And my wife said, "Great. When we get home from the honeymoon, you need to start figuring out how you're going to get two hours protected time every day to make that happen." And with that time, I ended up writing my my first book because here I am, young man, newly married. I couldn't look my wife in the eye and say,"I don't have the courage to do this. I'm afraid of failure." So, I was very fortunate in that my wife encouraged me to do that. And, you know, I was a man. I was man enough that I knew I could not sit across the table or pass her in the hallway and kind of hang my head in shame and admit it beat me. I wasn't going to let it beat me. And so, that's that's how I got my start. Well, Brad, I feel like uh God orchestrates your life in a way to where we we all seem to have that burn the ships moment. I was just asked about this yesterday, like, "Hey, when did when did Undaunted Life when was that like a thing thing?" Like, you knew it. And I was like, there wasn't really that lightning bolt moment. But there was just a point where I'm like, "Okay, we've got to burn the ships now to see if this is a thing, right? To see if this is like what I'm supposed to be doing." >> But then God will help you understand when you're over the X, right? And when you're over the X, like in a military context, you're dropping payload or dropping bombs or whatever, >> isn't there going to be some turbulence? Isn't there going to be is it's not going to be a safe easy ride there? >> I'll go you one better that I've heard for that exact analogy, which is if you're taking flack, you're probably over the right target. >> Oh man. >> Right. So, if that's mental flak, emotional flak, uh there are some times where you're going to take flak and it means you're over the right target. Doesn't mean you're doing the right thing over the target because you're taking flak from your buddies or your boss or your wife or your family. Maybe you're over the right target doing the wrong thing. But that it's a yes, that's a great analogy. I agree. >> Well, the the Jim Collins thing I'm remind everyone talks about being on the right bus. It's like no, no, no, no. You need to be in the right seat on the right bus because you could be on the right bus in the wrong seat and you just feel like you're banging your head against the wall. And look, like some people are made to to do work and to do ministry in a cubicle farm. And other people, if you put them in a cubicle, you might as well put them in a cage cuz they will just like resist it and want to kind of get out of there. But for for all guys, Brad, there seems to be even when they're pursuing God's path for their life, there seems to be that time when they crest over the hill and then it's like, okay, I know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing for the rest of my life or until God calls me home or calls me to a different, you know, different path or something like that. So for you in your career, okay, you burn the ships, you decide, okay, I'm not going to, you know, avoid fear or things like that because it could lead to regret. When was that moment where you're like, "Okay, I'm in now." Was it, you know, a particular number of sales? Was it a list you came on? >> No, I'm gonna back up with you. I'm gonna back right back up to my honeymoon. So, this is interesting. So, we talk about having eyes to see and ears to hear, right? >> So, you you need I I really believe that if you can just open your eyes, just open your ears, open your mind, open your heart, you are going to see signs that God puts in front of you. So, back to my honeymoon, right? I tell my wife, uh, I want to write this book. And what's very interesting is up to that point, uh, so I told you I was in Europe. I decided to to give up, to quit on writing a book, and I shipped my laptop home. I traveled through Europe with a backpack. Well, I saw all these other kids like me that were traveling with backpacks. And I thought, "Wow, you know, travel has made me a better American, seeing my country from abroad and realizing how incredibly fortunate I am. I'm a better American for this experience. I'd love to do a TV show to encourage young Americans to travel, to not wait until they're retired to see the world. You should see it now and to truly appreciate how good you have at the United States. You should leave the United States. And so when I got home, uh I had had that idea for a while. And when I met my wife, I was actually doing a TV show. I should So that's not connected to the honeymoon. That was my job when I met my wife is I had a travel series on public television called Traveling Light. I was the producer, the writer, the host. Uh the show did very, very well. But it was me running away from the thing that I knew I was most supposed to do in life, which was to be an author. So, like I said, met my wife. Uh we're on our honeymoon. What would you do on your what would you regret on your deathbed never having done? I say, "Writing a book, getting it published." She says, "Okay, we go home. You're going to start working on that two hours a day." Great. So, we had uh my sponsor for that travel show at that time. So, this is how God works. Okay. So, I had told my wife, I'm going to do I'm going to write a book. This is what I want to do. That's my dream. So, at the time my television show was airing, one of our sponsors or our key sponsor was a group called Rail Europe Group. And they sell the rail passes that you can buy where you can use the passes anywhere in Europe. And as a wedding gift, they had given me all these overnight train rides, rail passes for me and Trish, and then all these overnight train compartments. So, the very last leg of our honeymoon was going to be from uh Munich and Oktoberfest to Amsterdam. And it was a shared compartment. not very romantic on your honeymoon to have to share it with two other people. And I kept trying to change the reservation. Any place we went in Europe that had a train station, I would go in and say, "Hey, do you have a private room available on this train?" My wife said eventually, "You are spending so much time in train stations trying to change this one reservation. You need to knock it off. You're ruining our honeymoon." And she said, "You're the one that always tells his friends everything happens for a reason and it all works out for the best. Why don't you allow that to happen?" So, I finally gave it up. We got to the train uh after a crazy night in October Fest. I had a I had a barbariansized hangover when I got to the train and I was convinced we would be in there with two terrible terrible characters. I was convinced I'd have to sleep with one eye open all night long and everything. It turned out to be a lovely brother and sister from Atlanta, Georgia, who loved to travel together. They were fans of my TV show. They recognized me right away. We had a lovely evening. Trish went to sleep, the brother went to sleep, and the sister and I, her name was Cindy Jackson. We talked about books all night long. We have the shared love of books. And books are, if you're a reader, it's a really nice thing because you can have it's a shared language you can have with someone else. Well, so how God works. We pull into the station in um in Amsterdam the next morning and we go to trade uh contact information. And uh as we were as we were talking overnight, she'd said, "Are you going to go make more of your TV show and everything?" And I said, "No, actually, I'm going to I'm going to I told my wife, I've always had this dream of writing a book. I'm going to sit down and write a book when I get home." So, when we go to trade contact information the next morning, she's a sales rep for Simon and Schustster. And she hands me her business card and says, "If you write that book, I want to read it." >> So, uh, fast forward a couple minutes, we get off the train, it's pouring down rain in Amsterdam, we can't get a cab, we have to drag our bags to the We walk to the hotel, we go in, the room's not ready. Uh the manager says, "Hey, there's a little cafe around the corner. Why don't you and your wife go get a sandwich, a coffee, come back, and uh and your room will be ready." And so we go around the corner, we sit down. My wife is like the old western writer Louis Lamore in that she always has a paperback with her. She's always reading. I have nothing. I look around. Uh there's a newspaper sitting close by and it's an English language newspaper. I pick it up. I find this little intelligence brief that's been written in there about a Swiss army officer who embezzled all this money from the Swiss government to train a shadow militia high in the Alps with high-tech weapons from his own private arsenal. That then became the story for my very first book. So it it wasn't a window closed and a door open. It was door after door after door open. All I had to do is put myself in the right place and let God do the rest of the work. >> Yeah. But it's affirmation after affirmation after affirmation. This is what I tell people. I'm like, if God showed you the whole picture, you would melt. Like, that's just that's just how this would go. It's like, and what is the word? The word is a lamp unto our feet, but we don't want a lamp, do we, Brad? We want a flood light. We want to know. But it's like, no, you think you want to know the next 57 steps. No, brother, you need to know the next step. And I tell people all the time, cuz people ask me, "What's your 5 to 10 year goal with what you're doing and all this kind of stuff." I'm like, "Brother, my goal is to make take the next right step." And that's the standard I've set in my brain is I want to be a guy that takes the next right step. pray, guess, go. Yes, Lord. Is this where you want me to go? Okay, cool. Let's keep going. And so for you, that that kind of gives us a window into your research process because with a lot of your books, uh, obviously a very prolific writer at this point. I mean, it's it's fiction, but it's born from reality, right? So, it's not like a whole bunch of sci-fi and, you know, >> action is what we call it where you don't know where the facts end and the fiction begins. Yeah, >> that's that's right. Now, that's more interesting to me because I'm drawn to stuff that could really happen. like I'm not really into the the stuff that's kind of like otherworldly or whatever, but like kind of explain your your research process because when you're doing research, I'm sure you come across information. Maybe it's classified information in some way and you don't want to give away trade craft somehow, but you do want to make it look, feel, and seem as you're bringing the reader into your world, into your ecosystem, you want to make it seem real and not too fantastical. I'm sure that goes all the way back to your research process. Yeah. So, the bedrock of a of a good thriller are the details. You need to get the details right. Nothing ticks me off more than reading somebody's book and then they've got a manual safety on a Glock and I'm like, "Oh, I'm out." You're either too lazy uh to have done the research or you just don't care enough about your readers to have done the research. There isn't a manual safety on a Glock. So, that right away is a telltale sign. Uh, and it drives a little bit of a side trail off that drives my wife crazy when we're watching TV and you see people who are armed for their living and they go in to either serve a warrant or to grab a high value target. And Hollywood loves at that moment right before they were going in, everybody racks their weapon, everybody charges their weapon, makes their weapon hot and it's ridiculous. Um, so I pride myself the some of the greatest emails in social media posts I get are people who are active law enforcement, active military, active in the intelligence community, and they say, "Wow, you really got it right. Thank you for taking the time to get the details correct. This is exactly the issue we're dealing with. This is the gear we carry. That same thing that happened to your character happened to us and Ramani or whatever it may be." And so I really pride myself. I probably I have people that work with me that say, you know, you're constantly with like this jeweler screwdriver making these adjustments to your writing and all that kind of stuff and your readers may never notice. And I said, it doesn't make a difference. I notice. It's not for them to notice. I don't need them to notice. I need them to have a flawless, absolutely fantastic white knuckle throw ride with the books. And I'm I'm that kind of person. my dad, uh, US Marine. My dad raised us to be, even if you're a broom pusher, you'd be the best damn broom pusher in the world. So, I take my work very seriously. I'm currently writing my 25th novel with this protagonist. And by the way, for anybody that's watching this that's never read a Brad Thor book before. I tell people my books are like the James Bond movies. Doesn't matter if you start in the middle, you start at the beginning, you start at the end. Even though it's the same guy, you get a great book no matter where you pick them up. Because the last thing I want is somebody to walk into a Barnes & Noble while they're in Myrtle Beach on vacation and they can only find book 10 from me. And book one's not in the store. You pick up book 10, you're going to have a you're going to have a great time. So, it's so important for me to be the best >> at everything I do. And best doesn't mean I'm better than anybody else. Best is a is a mental level set with me where I know I put in everything I could. I didn't cut corners. and that I can sit down when I turn that project in and say I did a damn good job and I gave it my all. That's what being the best at what I do means to me. Well, and also it means that you have to push through your own flack. And so I'm always curious with authors, especially writers of fiction when writer's block or something happens. So, here you are. You're doing research, you've got information, you've got facts, but then you've also got storyline. You've got this well-developed at this point protagonist with a varying number of differing antagonists. And so, like, when you hit that mental wall, what do you do to break through? >> All right. So, it's so funny. So, back to God. So, I I I cite God all the time in this exact example. Tiger Woods is an amazing golfer. Okay. M God does not sit around on a Tuesday going, "You know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to reach down and grab some of Tiger Woods talent and take it away for the next week and a half. Tiger Woods, it is not something God gives, but God does not take that talent away from Tiger Woods. He gets in his own head. He gets too too much in his own way." And that's what happens. I I think and I I struggle with writer's block. It happens. It seems the older I get, the more often I encounter it, which is very interesting. I didn't you you would think the more you do a certain job that the easier it would get. And what I found is my job gets harder because I'm putting my protagonist in different situations. I'm trying to do different things. Um but I'm a perfectionist at heart. And so I think that's where a lot of the writer's block comes from is wanting to have the perfect sentence, wanting to craft the perfect scene. So nothing no matter how many times you do it, it's it's never good enough and you want to keep redoing it. And it is it is a fear. So writer's block is a fear-based thing where you're you're worried about your performance and probably and I'm actually glad you raised that cuz I'm I'm dealing with some writer's block right now and I just forgot the piece of advice that I'm going to give to you. So, I appreciate you being in my life today to reflect back to me what I'm going to say to you, which I desperately needed to hear this morning, which is the best piece of advice for writer's block I ever got was give yourself permission to write a crummy first draft. >> Because if you have any talent whatsoever, the draft's not going to be crummy. But even if it is crummy, you can't edit what hasn't been written, >> right? >> Can't edit a blank page. So I need to at this very moment I need to I I needed to hear myself say that. What do we what do we say the teacher teaches most what uh the teacher teaches what they they most need to learn I think is the way that old phrase goes. So, well, the interesting thing about that, Brad, so I was I was really thinking through this yesterday and I just had this this thing hit me and I'm like, I can't wait to ask Brad this because in terms of the authors that we have on the show, 97% of them are non-fiction, right? But on the fiction side, it's Gregitz and Jack Carr and Steven Presfield, and we've had all fabulous. Yeah. >> Yeah. And we've had them all on several times. And a lot of the stuff that you're saying is the same thing from them. I mean, Presfield's a big one. It's like, can you do your damn job? Can you sit down and write? You're a writer, so you can't write if you're not writing. Like, you're not a writer if you don't write. Like, you can't be writer adjacent. You have to be writer direct, right? Those types. >> And dentists don't get dental block. >> Mechanics don't get mechanics block. You know, Presfield wrote that great book, The War of Art, which if I stepped off camera and walked to the corner of my office, I could grab the book cuz I own it. And and Presfield talks a lot about we're back to kind of our being over the X, right? And it's so funny you talk about being over the X because all the guys I work with talk about getting off the X as soon as possible. Uh so Presfield talks about if you're meeting resistance it means you're on the right track. So if you're hitting resistance it's because again it's like if you're taking flak you're over the right target. So yeah all all good kind of military references to pushing through. >> Yeah. The audience is going to eat it up. And so the the thing about the thing that kind of hit me is when you're reading someone's work that's non-fiction, whether it's a a memoir or whether it's some sort of a research project, they're in there. So you're you're going to get the I, me, my, you're going to get their perspective, you're going to get their worldview, you're going to be able to like kind of parse that out, right? >> But as a fiction author, you can kind of hide, right? So when you read a when you read a, you know, Jack Carr novel, Yeah. like his 20 years with naval special warfare is going to come out like his, you know, when you're reading Presfield, you're going to kind of get his, you know, interest in ancient battle and in history and all those different things, >> but you can still kind of hide, right? You can kind of hide behind fiction. And so, it's almost like Brad Thor is a known entity as a thriller writer, but then when someone's like, "But hey, I don't know Brad Thor." And so I'm I'm wondering what that's like for you because when when you're writing like you're you're kind of in there because you're the main storyteller, but at the same time you you're kind of like separated from your your main character or even your main narrative. Does that make sense? It >> it does. Um one of the things that you do have to be careful about because it is kind of your universe that you're creating. So you're in charge of every thought a character has, every word they say, every thing they encounter on the street and how they visually or how they mentally process that. So um I learned very very early on in my career that I don't want to write anything that certain people wouldn't want to read. I I don't want to be exclusionary. I always want to have a process of addition rather than subtraction. So, I say that you'd be insane to open uh a Delicatestant and have a sign on the door that says, "We're open. Welcome." Except for this group of people, this group of people, this group of people, you'll be out of business. And that's just you'll be out of business. It's not a smart business move. Um so, there's a lot of things though in the world that I write about. I I joke about Stephen King and I say I'm not going to say Stephen King has got it easier than me, but in some senses Stephen King has it a lot easier than me because Stephen King makes up his own rules. You know, your daughter's cat dies, he can take it to the the the creepy cemetery down the street and plant the cat and the cat's back by dinner time. Now, the cat's a little messed up, but the cat's back, right? So, I can't have Navy Seals jump out of a spaceship armed with laser guns and come in and save the day. I have four walls that are around the stuff that I write. So I have to function within that and inherent to to the rules kind of the the the universe the real life universe that I have to I have to obey inherent in that is the understanding that I have a social contract with my readers right they are agreeing to suspend their disbelief they're agreeing to go along for the ride so my job is not to mentally give them something they bump on that takes them out so back to the you know somebody puts a manual safety on a Glock I'm like no that's it my wife is got My wife is, she'll finish a book unless it's terrible. I won't. So the So when you when you talk about what the characters think about, what they say, all this kind of stuff. Um I I know that some people their own personal politics, politics is an interesting thing because politics can really take over. Uh they talk about characters taking over and I don't see that as much as I do politics. And I have a very defined world view and I I I've worked on political campaigns. I am a political animal. I always joke politics is my baseball. I would rather talk politics and look at politics more than go to a baseball game any day of the week. I just I love that stuff. Um but I also know uh I'm from Chicago, right? So we had Michael Jordan and people asked Michael Jordan why he wasn't more involved in politics and he whatever he said I can't remember if he said listen Republicans and Democrats both Yeah. Republicans buy sneakers too. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Whatever that line was. But I thought that was a that was a great line. But there is a certain amount of tension politically within the world of the people who I write about and it tends to fall on certain things fall on both sides of the aisle. There tend to be some people that are interested in projecting American force abroad and some people who aren't and they fall into distinct political camps in Washington. There are some politicians, they can be from either side of the aisle who are only out for their own good and they want to feather their own nest and they don't care who anybody get who gets hurt in the process. So the the big task for me as an author is how do I balance all that stuff so that somebody who commits to reading my book and it's a big deal to read a book. It's not only your time, it's your money. You can make more money. Okay? You can you can figure out a way to squeeze in an extra podcast interview today that you can monetize. The one thing you can't make more of is your time. That's time. It's going to take away time from your family, from your church, from your community, all that kind of stuff. Time is finite. So I always see it is I'm incumbent it's incumbent upon me to give you the best p book possible the best book I am capable of. So, I try to be careful to to actually highlight certain things that go on for the characters, real life things, because you talk about the faction where you don't know where the facts end and the fiction begins, but it is a it is a highwire act. Like I did a I did a book uh my most recent Scott Harvath thriller called Edge of Honor. And ever like the last couple of presidential terms, I have not set any discussions in the Oval Office in my books because I didn't want people saying, "Oh, that's Trump. Oh, that's Biden. you're you're knocking Trump or you're knocking Biden. I didn't want to do that. And this book that I did this summer, Edge of Honor, I really needed some back and forth in the Oval Office. And so I was sitting around with some some of my friends and I said, "What should I do?" And they said, "How about you make it a young president? We've only had old presidents. Pick a president that's the youngest one since Kennedy." And I went, "Oh my god, that's brilliant. Then it's definitely not Biden and it's definitely not Trump." And they said, "That solves your problem." that because I never assign a political party to the president. I just say this is the president. They said just make it the youngest president we've had since Kennedy and you're off the hook. And it was so simple. I couldn't believe it. And that's that's what I did. And then people are like, "Were you talking about Trump? Are you talking about Biden?" I said, "It's fiction, guys. It's fiction. Just enjoy the ride. Not everything has to be tribal. Not every I'm trying to give you a break from politics. Actually, I'm I'm I kind of push the political stuff in the book, black and white, as to here's what's wrong in Washington, and here's what we should aspire to. This is the nobility and the um the uh the nobility of performing well in politics, of putting your your uh constituents first and so on so forth. So, mine is oftentimes the morality of politics more than just the basics of politics that in the real world we live in. I I don't want to I I got enough of it. I The best part about writing is I get to turn off the TV for a little while. Hey guys, real quick. So, I remember back in high school, I was training with these guys and they all got super jacked. But they were training and using these supplements that they were buying online and a lot of them had crazy side effects. These were not good things. There's no telling what all was in these supplements. And so, I've always kind of been scared about what supplements I'm going to put in my body. And I decided when I do start taking supplements, I want to make sure I'm using products that are certifiably clean and also using only high quality ingredients. And that's why I want to remind you guys that I have started taking and that we are partnered with Jaco Fuel. So Jako Fuel is Jaco Willink's Americanbased supplement company. So what are they known for and what are some of my favorite products that they make? They make a lot of whey protein powder. Their cookies and cream flavor is ridiculously good, especially with milk. And if you want to make some like peanut butter protein snack balls that a lot of people are making out there, that is a key ingredient. Also, they make the cleanest energy drinks that I've ever found and my new favorite flavor is actually their latest flavor, which is nitro pop, guys. It's incredible. They also have Jaco hydrate drinks that are awesome because they are electrolyte drinks that aren't full of added sugar and artificial coloring and dyes and things like that. They also have the best tasting greens powder that I've ever had in my entire life. So, you guys definitely have to check that out. But I also use their Creole oil. I use their fish oil, creatine, vitamin D, magnesium, joint warfare, and their sleep aids. And they have new stuff coming out all the time. Guys, if you take your health and wellness seriously, then you simply cannot afford to put cheap and inconsistent and dirty supplements inside your body. Try Joo Fuel out today by going to jofuel.com. That's jofuel.com. Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Again, that's jofuel.com. promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Well, and you you keep talking about the real world. I mean, the four walls that you're uh constricted to because you can't take the early Stephen King approach, which is do a lot of cocaine, drink a lot of Jack Daniels, and then write Kujo. Like, you can't just approach it that way, obviously. Like, that's not going to be >> Well, let's be fair, Kyle. I can do anything I set my mind to. I could do that. I don't think my wife and my kids would like that. >> Yeah. I'm not sure they'd be a huge fan of the guy you would turn into if uh that's how you approach it. But, yeah, to each their own. win in Rome, I guess. But like for you, like let's kind of get into the world of the political because everything is political now. Everything is tinged politically and you could point to a million different reasons for that. The 24-hour news cycle, mainstream media, ubiquity, you know, social media, the algorithm, all the things. >> But for you, we'll kind of step into the world of politics and then we'll get back to to cold zero or we'll get to cold zero here in a second. But like for you, I mean, you've been a part of the Department of Homeland Security's analytic red or analytic red cell unit. That's kind of Yeah. contrarian analysis group. So you're trying to give like scenarios of like who's who are the rising geopolitical threats and how are they going to rise and what will they do to, you know, automatize parts of their economy so that they can fight war here or something like that. So, as you look out on the world, when you when you get beyond the the bought and paid for mainstream media, whether it's, you know, Fox News or MS Now or whatever they're calling it, like what do you see as you look at the landscape? Because a lot can be made about, okay, what do we do with Maduro and Venezuela? Okay, what's Iran actually planning? Are they a paper tiger? Are they, you know, are they a formidable force? And then what, you know, Putin, what's that going to end up looking like? Okay, China is just sitting there like ready for their moment to shine so that they can go take Taiwan and you're not going to be able to do anything to stop it. There seems to be a lot going on, but I feel like we're maybe getting kind of lost a little bit in the kurfuffle. >> Yeah. Well, let's let's start with this and I'm going to ask everybody who's listening to stay with us through this conversation because what you're going to see from me and Kyle is a very very interesting and honest discussion I think of where we are culturally, where we are politically, where we are as a nation, and then kind of how that fits into a larger geopolitical uh viewpoint. So, if any of your ideas whatever contradict with this, I I tell everybody the mind's like a parachute. got to be open to work. Stick stick with us on this because I think you'll you'll leave this discussion uh smarter at the end of it. So, um you know, my dad, United States Marine, uh the Marine Corps was his ticket out of the south side of Chicago. He got to go to school on the GI Bill. My mom was a flight attendant um from kind of a southwest suburb, uh TWWA. She they both got to see the world through their careers and and come back. They were they were both very very patriotic Americans who were very appreciative of how good we have it in this country. Um I blurbed a book a non-fiction book by a uh conservative writer and pundit named Jonah Goldberg. Jonah was at the Weekly Standard for a long time. Jonah's got a thing with Steve Hayes now called the uh Dispatch. He and Steve Hayes walked away from their Fox News contracts when Tucker Carlson had done that whole multi-part series that had testicle tanning and all this other kind of crazy stuff. And January January 6 was definitely a government setup and the black helicopters are going to come get you and all this stuff and they just said, you know, we can't do that anymore. Um, I've worked on two presidential primary campaigns for two very good, very religious men. I work for Rick Santorum when he ran for uh president and I work for uh Governor Rick Perry, secretary of energy in the first Trump administration. Two very very good men. Um I have stayed at the governor's mansion in Austin, Texas with uh Governor Perry and his family. And I during the Obama administration and every time we ate when we said grace, he asked God to protect President Obama and to make President Obama the best president we've ever had. that had a profound impact on me that even as a conservative republic and in in Santorm was also extremely extremely good and a godly man that way as well of being able to rise above tribalism and partisan politics. We are in a very interesting place right now. I am a I'm a capitalist but I'm not a capitalist I've realized at all costs. And what happened in the United States was you know starting kind of in the in the late 70s but definitely roaring into the 80s is we we People will put it in the 90s with Milton Friedman, but we really had this maximize shareholder value, which means have companies cut costs as much as they can so that the people own the stock got the stock value went up and they got dividends. Well, what we ended up happening was offshoring and this gets to national security. I will get there. I promise you and I promise everybody watching and listening is we had American companies realize that they could produce goods cheaper overseas and they felt that their number one goal, their only goal was to their shareholders into maximizing that profit, maximizing shareholder value with again Brad Thor, capitalist, I'm all for profit. Um, but nobody stopped while any of this was happening to say, "Okay, that mill in South Carolina or that factory in West Virginia, people have been working there for generations." You've got citizens, America, your fellow American men and women saying, "My grandfather worked here. My father worked here. When I get out of high school, I'm going to work there, too." And then all of a sudden that factory, that mill, it closes because those things are being made in Bangladesh or they're being made in India or obviously China. And so what we ended up doing in this country was focusing so hard on profit. And I don't want to I'm not a Bernie Sanders guy. I'm not a socialist. I am a big-time conservative and I believe in government staying out of business's way. I like a small smallest government possible. But we fell down on the job. particularly those of us in the Republican party, those of us who say that they're conservatives, by focusing only on profit, we lost sight of our fellow citizens. So what happens? We do not have the get up and go, the wherewithal that people might have had like in the 30s and the Dust Bowl where you like Jed Clampet and the Beverly Hillbillies. You tie everything to your truck and you drive out out west until you can finally get someplace where there's jobs. You pick oranges and orange groves. We don't we don't have that. That kind of mobility as mobile as we are, that doesn't exist anymore. So what happens? We have social safety nets and people are getting just enough money to barely get by. You know what that does to a man in particular? The idea that you're just making enough to get by. Men don't want to just get by. Men want to significantly provide for their families. We identify so much as men by what we can go out and kill and drag home. That meat we bring back to the cave for our family. So now there's no jobs in these communities because the the the mill or the factory has closed. we are giving these people barely a subsistence existence. So now we're seeing addiction rates climb up and people wonder why the and this is a political term why populism has increased why we have a populist movement and I remember Trump saying you know the Republican party is not the conservative party uh he was redefining it and I agree with that I think conservatives found a home in the Republican party but the Republican party gets to be whatever a majority of its voters decide it's going to be. So that's what happened at home. And as these as we had Americans who were not being seen to I I was a big guy during the Tea Party movement. I had never been to a protest rally in my life. And when the Obama administration was going to nationalize one six of our economy and do Obamacare, I went to every Tea Party rally I could go to. I had a sign that said uh I don't know if you remember, you're you're younger than I am, Kyle, but I don't know if you remember Joe the plumber, this guy in Ohio, and he cornered Obama when Obama was handshaking and everything and he said, you know, I don't want you to spread my wealth around. And Obama said to him, I think it's good when we spread the wealth around. My sign at all the Tea Party rallies was, don't spread my wealth, spread my work ethic. >> Um, and that's what that's what I carried at all the Tea Party rallies. So, you know, I was a Tea Party guy. I I believe in small limited government, but I wanted to stop and say where did where did Trump come from? Where did the MAGA movement come from? Because you might not agree with everything he does. And you don't have to, but I think you're you're not being a good fellow American if you're not looking at the legitimate complaints of the people within the movement. What it takes a lot to get off your couch and get into the streets. That's a big effing deal. So, you have to look at what's motivating your fellow American men and women, whether you agree or not, and say, "How would I feel in their shoes?" And how would where would I go from that point? What what would I be motivated to do? So, now we we pull out on a national security issue. And um there's a lot of stuff that that Trump does that I'm not fond of. I I I'm a big supporter of NATO. I think NATO is the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. I mean, we have not had another world war in 80 years. I think there's a lot to be said for that. I think there's a lot of misinformation. This is where we get to the national security standpoint because I think social media is the greatest [ __ ] the greatest kind of ripple in our national security armor where the bad guys can get us. So when you look at NATO, there's a lot of disinformation that flies around the United States. We don't all like kick in x amount of dollars every every month into NATO. NATO is a commitment. There's some there's some stuff that we have to do to provide for the headquarters in NATO and that's kind of based on the size of your country, what what your monthly dues are there. But NATO is all based on spending. So if you're Denmark, spending 2.5% of your GDP on your nation's defense, that's what that is. You agree to spend a certain amount of your gross domestic product on defense. So if if you have a country that misses their 2.5% uh threshold, that's a promise that you've made. We don't step in and pay for it. We don't step in and write a check. the American taxpayer is not stepping up and doing that. So I think there's a lot of disinformation here, but a lot of that is pushed by our enemies, China, Iran, North Korea, and the Russians. So they love to push on things on social media in particular. One of the worst places, and I hate to do this, and my apologies to any of your viewers who are older than me, and I'm 56, but I've seen this with members of my family who particularly spend way too much time in Facebook groups. What ends up happening is you go into a Facebook group, you're with like-minded people. You think everybody thinks like you. Guess what happens? Your guard comes down. And that's where the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and the Chinese come in and push disinformation because you're so trusting of everybody in your Facebook group. You are in this silo and you are vulnerable to misinformation. And this is where our enemies like to get us. So they love that we're fighting over NATO. They love that we're fighting over this or that. They love the 2020 election was stolen stuff. Anything that gets us at each other's throats. Vaccines. Oh my god, we're about to lose our status as having defeated measles. My wife is a family doctor who was in public health before she became family doctor. We cannot believe that measles was gone and now it's back. And guess who loves the fact that measles is sweeping through the United States? The Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and the Chinese. Anything that makes us sicker, weaker, and more embittered towards each other, is better for our enemies. And yet, we march into it like a buzzsaw, face first every day, because we're all so [inaudible] off that all we want to do is fight with our own countrymen and women over dumb stuff while our enemies are laughing, just rubbing their hands together and waiting for their moment. Well, Brad, you talk about dumb stuff. So, when we bring the guard down, and you're exactly right, especially it's in and older folks are especially susceptible to this because they don't even know how algorithms work. They don't know how curated content works. Everyone's kind of in their own individual silo. Like people have pointed this out. Like there are people that could have millions of followers on Instagram and you come across their profile and you're like, I've never heard of this person. How are they this famous? But they're this famous in a silo, right? In in a one vertical, right? There's there's not this like kind of shared reality. But I talked about this a lot because at the beginning of every year, I do an episode how called How to Avoid Being a Crappy Man. And I give, hey, this year here's a list of 17 things, 20 things, 18 things, whatever the year is. The number one thing I put on there for this year was hold your purveyors of truth to a high evidentiary standard. And so the person I had in mind most when I was talking through this was Candace Owens because her behavior in the things she was presenting publicly after the, you know, public assassination of Charlie Kirk, I thought was egregious. Right. That's insane. It's insane. >> Yeah. Charlie Kirk. And and the the thing with the the murder of Charlie Kirk is when you say things that are so fantastical, you at least have to provide a modocum of evidence. Like your your level of evidence doesn't always have to equal the level of your claim. >> Just one thing, just one thing, right? And the thing can't be well I well I know I mean I mean you know I know but because I know and I have this dream or uh you know if you knew what I knew like those types of things. It's like everybody's waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it doesn't ever happen. But what happens is people are so blinded by what they want to be true that they stop looking for what is true. It's the same type of phenomenon where you'll have people that are trying to figure out what is the significance of the the book of Enoch, but they won't read Romans. And so, at the same time, it's like, wait, wait. Here's what we know to be true. What we we know the authorship. We know why it's in the biblical cannon, and you're worried about whether or not the Nephilim are still on this planet. And I'm like, okay, it's interesting to think through. It's a nice thought experiment, but it's like, where did we get to this point where we were completely okay with our public voices, our purveyors of truth, not having an evidentiary standard? And people always like to go back to Walter Kronhite, but he was a political animal as well. He was a leftist. But at the same time, like if someone's going to make a claim, at least back it up with evidence. And if we're if we're in the world of opinion, at least provide some scaffolding under which you hold that opinion right? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, there's Listen, I if you've got a bad media diet, that's on you. If you are not holding your if you're not holding the people who are giving you your information the same standard you'd hold a family member, like, where'd you hear that? Well, wait a second. Where where'd you get that? So, yeah, I I I'm going to quote something that I bet you never in a million years thought you'd hear from me. So, here we go. >> All right, let's go. >> All right. I I just and it's because I stumbled upon it on on YouTube. Um, so there was uh of all people from uh from the Obama administration, Van Jones was on Bill Maher and Van Jones, this would be the one and only time I ever quote Van Jones, but he was so right on the money. He said, "Yes, we're divided as a nation." He said, "But we are being divided." And then he went into the algorithms and all this kind of stuff. So, um, your media diet is so important. I think Candace Owens is an absolute whack job. Um, I don't know that I've known Ben Shapiro for a long, long time. I Ben wrote a thriller years ago. It was a really good thriller and I blurbed it for him. Um, and so I've known Ben many, many years. I don't know what any of the background was at the Daily Wire. There's been so much. It's interesting. You've seen this rise of those of us right of center used to complain that you know basically the media ecos media ecosystem was cut off to the rest of us that we couldn't get through there that it was totally dominated by the left and we've now seen how incredible uh the incredible success that the right has had particularly because of the internet with uh different platforms the ability to do podcasts so on so forth and then um now we're starting to see them crack up there's all these uh all these fights and people are fighting against each other and all that kind of stuff which is which is part of the eb and flow of politics and things like that. Movements will fracture and people will fight. But you are so right about and I agree with you. There's got to be at least one piece of evidence that you base your argument on. Uh I it's my opinion. I think Candace Owens is just insane. The stuff about Reje Mar being a man and I mean to me that stuff is just nonsense. It's silly. If you're getting your information from people like that, that's on you. that that's you know that's you've got a bad media diet. But I think we would be better served as Americans if we demanded more. I agree with you. I think if we had people who you know you've got um Kronhite yes Kronhite was a left to center guy all that kind of stuff. I do believe that there were journalistic ethics. There was integrity. There were standards. If you made a mistake you own the mistake. You ran things to ground. I think today we're more concerned with being first than we are with being right. Right. Everything is everything is driven by clicks. Not everything. Obviously, this podcast is definitely uh not part of that. But what gets people to click and what gets people to spend time? Anger. So, the more ticked off you can make somebody, the more likely they're going to share that content with people uh that they think the same uh they're aligned thought-wise with, they're going to they're going to and the more they click on the stuff that makes them angry, the more the algorithm is going to serve that to them. So, right. >> Yeah. Brad, >> it's even beyond that because it's okay now, how can this anger be weaponized? >> Yes. >> And let's push performative outrage. And so, right now, as you and I are kind of talking through this, obviously there's uh people that are opposing what immigrations and customs enforcement is doing from a federal law enforcement perspective. >> And you have these very well-paid agitators, right, that are being paid by leftist sources, which all roads kind of seem to go back to George Soros. Like it's just kind of one of those things. >> Do you do now back to having a evidence to set it on, do we? Because I've I've heard this before. >> Do we know that the people who are coming out of Minnesota aren't Minneapolis residents that they are actually being bust in or paid? I mean, can we can we actually say can we have a little grace and save a little space for these people that they may honestly believe that this is >> not okay and that these are legit protesters. We just just we may disagree politically with them, but immediately say they're paid for. It's like saying everybody at January 6th was paid for and busted by somebody who's anti-Trump >> to make Trump look bad. I mean, >> well, so to get back to the original point of weaponized anger, I assume that probably the plurality of people that are in the streets of Minnesota are so I think in order for those types of ideologies to take root, you need two kinds of people. You need conscious nefarious actors. So these are the people that are fmenting this outrage through the algorithms or paying or whatever. But then you need useful idiots. You need people that have a bad media diet that are being convinced that ICE agents are the modern-day Gestapo and that Trump is a total totalitarian dictator. And if we don't go out in the streets and scream and blow whistles and ring bells and and kind try to intercede, then this country is going to be taken over by this fascistic dictator. Um, and the the issue that we have is that so many people can be so easily enraptured by an ideology or a worldview that doesn't actually exist in reality that these people are like, "Wait a minute." Like, if if Trump cuz you know, Don Lemon is arrested recently and it's like, "Trump's arresting all the journalists." It's like, >> well, no, he's arresting a journalist that broke the law. Like, there's there's kind of a difference. He's because how many journalists are on the ground in Minnesota right now? A whole bunch. And I think we've had one that's been arrested so far, but it's just you have the the media. >> There were a couple that were in that group. Yeah. I Well, let me ask you this. >> Was I a useful idiot because I came out on the streets protesting with the Tea Party? Was I subjected to bad information? Could a leftist say that about me? The same argument that we're we're making about ICE protesters. I was protesting. Never protested before in my life. and I saw enough that I didn't like about Obamacare and the taking over the nationalizing of the American healthare system. >> Could the same argument >> play out on the other side? I'm I'm trying to I want to give credit to my I am so sick of uh of being not you you're not turning me against my fellow Americans, but I want mind as a parachute has to be open to work. And so I always try to flip the argument because I will tell you this as a conservative, as somebody who's gone through uh I went through the police academy in Illinois. uh did not end up doing uh my field completing my field training exercises and going out on the street as a as a cop. I was going to be a reserve patrol officer with a small department. We ended up moving to Nashville. So, that ended my police kind of uh side career as a police officer, but I did go through the police academy. Um and I know what we were taught and I know what we learned about threats and deescalation and all this kind of stuff. I will tell you this that I don't like as a conservative, as somebody who worked on Republican campaigns for president, I don't like masked federal agents. I don't like that. I don't like federal It's the same reason that every time till this effing day that I see a Department of Homeland Security squad car that says police on the side, I will go up to whoever's driving that car and say, "Hey, dude, somebody to face the side of your car." And they'll always look. They'll be like, "What are you talking about?" I go, "Somebody painted police on there. We don't have a federal police force. You know, that that [inaudible] some of them off, but I'm like, we don't have federal police. You're not a police officer. You may be a law enforcement. You're not We don't have a federal police force in the United States. That's not the way we work. So, I don't like that these ICE officers are masked. I don't like that there is no name tape on there. There's not even an ID number. When you mask and don't make people accountable for their actions, it invites corruption. Not everybody's corrupt, but you open the door for corruption. And I don't like that. I The reason I don't like that, Kyle, is we empower our police officers with one of the greatest responsibilities in our country, and that is the ability to proceed up the continuum, the use of force continuum, and to take life. So when you are granted those incredible powers, you have an even higher degree of responsibility and accountability. So that's number one. Number two, Obama. And I am not an Obama guy. Again, Tea Party guy who was out in the streets protesting against Obama. I Obama kicked more. He deported more people than Trump ever has. And guess what? Obama did it without announcing on Fox, Newsmax, and O. Tomorrow morning at 8:00, we're surging 3,000 people into Minneapolis. Come on. You can't Trump is a showman. Trump is a TV guy. We He loves spectacle. Okay. Obama kicked out so many more people without announcing it on Fox, surging 3,000 people and [inaudible] the people of those communities off. And Obama took heat from the left. The the hardcore leftist hated Obama. Deporterin chief. Deorter and chief. And he still did it because he realized the Westfailian nation state. We need borders. I love that Trump has closed the border. I was always a Dennis Miller guy that said, "We need immigration to stay strong and to keep replenishing our population. Just come in through the front door. Sign the guest book. Come in with an invitation. Don't overstay." So, the idea I think a lot of people miss that Trump and particularly Steven Miller, they like this. They like the outrage. They like that there's protests and that these protesters giving him a reason to push back hard and all this kind of stuff. I as a as a small government conservative American, I don't like masked agents in the streets of any city. And come on, they're going to blue cities because they want to [inaudible] the progressives off. I mean, let's be fair here. They're not in, you know, they're they're not in other red cities. And I know that some red state governors, like my governor here, has invited Trump to come down to Memphis. Guess what? They're not having that problem. Well, actually, as as of right now, more illegal immigrant criminals have been deported from red cities than blue cities because they are getting the cooperation of the local federal government. And also, you mentioned Obama. I think it's funny that did people not realize that Tom Hman worked for him? Like, he made Tomal. He got a medal. He got a medal for doing his work. But like going back to the mass agent thing, because the reason why I'm sensitive to that is because the reason why these men are masked is because if their image gets out on the internet, their entire life is ruined. their families, the places of business where their families work, their kids won't be able to go to school anymore. Terrible. Agree. >> But I'm also okay with something that I heard literally this morning, which they are going to across the board be getting these ICE agents uh you know, cameras on their bodies. Like obviously I don't know why that wasn't done from the beginning. But even backing up all the way to the protesters that are on the streets in in Minnesota for me I don't look at them as as much as my enemy as much as I pity them because the scaffolding again of why they are screeching and shrieking in the streets. It doesn't go to bedrock to something that's real. Because for you could a leftist have made the the claim that you were just a useful idiot. The issue is is you were basing your outrage and you were expressing your voice as a as a law-abiding protester in public based on things that were actually happening, not an an exaggerated version of something that's not happening. Does that make sense? It >> it does. Here's here's where I think the important there's an important added element here that is you and I are having this very respectful uh open discussion about this. Trump told us he's going to get rid of the worst of the worst, right? that we've got all these rapists and I I want anybody who is a criminal and is in this country illegally that we can get rid of. Let's get them out right away. That's what I want. Okay, that I am totally good with walking down the street and stopping somebody who's brown and saying, "Were you born here?" Whatever. [ __ ] you. And I knew I I'm sorry you can bleep that. That's wrong. The idea that we would stop people just on how they sound when they speak or how they look, that is a step too far. And I think that's where the Trump administration is [inaudible] people off. If you were just targeting, we know that guy's a child rapist. We're going to his house and we're going to go grab him and we've got masked agents. They're going to go in. They're going to grab him and they're gone. That's great. But this stuff of walking around neighborhoods and stopping people who look like they might be an immigrant, we don't do that in this country. That's that's the line for me. I have no problem with you IDing people going to the jails where these people already are. Grab them and then you know they get their rights to a deportation hearing. I did not like loading. None of this is happening in a vacuum. So when Trump was sending people to that SECOT without even running them by a panel to assess whether is this person legally in the United States or not? Do they have a right to be here? Heck, even people we suspected of being Nazis in the 30s and 40s, we put them in front of a review panel before we got rid of them, before we kicked them out of the country. So to pretend like all of a sudden, and I'm not saying you're pretending, I'm saying we in general, we can't just pretend that people of Minneapolis just boom, the first day I showed up, they they jumped out on the streets. There is a whole buildup here that's happened that includes sending like what was that guy the gay hairdresser that was never supposed to go back to El Salvador uh cuz he was afraid for his life and the gangs. Oh no, that was that was that Garcia was the one that the immigration judge said it's dangerous father. >> Yeah. That we'll never send him back. Whatever. >> But they sent him back and then they pretended like oh well we didn't tell the guy and the flight took off and all this. Come on. You know what? All this is a nation of law. And if we don't, we can't just say that we only want the law to work when it works for us and people we agree with. The time that we have to get behind the rule of law, it's like free speech. I might not agree what you're what you're saying, but I will fight to the death to protect your right to say it. It's when it's hard, when it's inconvenient, when it [inaudible] you off. That's when you need to double down on rights. It's when your political opponents are enjoying their use of rights and it [inaudible] you off. That's when you need to say, "I might not agree with where they come from politically, but man, if the shoe is on the other foot, I would want them to rush to the barricades to protect my civil liberties, my right to free speech, my right to the Second Amendment, all that kind of stuff." So, that's where I am on this. I I think a lot of it is theater, and I think Trump loves theater. He loves TV. Um, and I I just think that if you were really intent on grabbing a bunch of criminal aliens, you wouldn't you wouldn't rush in and announce it a couple days in advance. You're going to let them flee and stuff. I just think we need to leave space for the fact that this has not been handled as well as it could. Um, all for getting rid of the criminals. I'm all for getting rid of the criminals. And then I'm all for getting rid of people who are not supposed to be here. I don't think just because you snuck in and stayed for a certain amount of time, you ought to be able to stay. But I also don't I I think you need probable cause in the way somebody looks on the street or sounds when they speak. I don't want to be Nazi Germany where you have to constantly have ID paper on you. I I don't want that. I don't I think it's a slippery slope. And I'm not saying that ICE and Trump are Nazis, but I am saying that to stop people on an American sidewalk because they are a certain skin color or when they speak they have a certain accent, I I I just don't think that's who we are as a people. I I I just don't I don't think that is following the rule of law and I'm so >> well I would certain I would certainly echo that there's a theatrical point to this that obviously there's been some serious mistakes like I think everyone on both sides is really not impressed with how Chrissy Gnome has comported herself and at some point we got to take a hard left turn to Cold Zero. We'll do that in just a second. The thing that the uh that is why I forgot why you're here. Yeah, I forgot why we're here for a second. >> You put a QUARTER IN THE SLOT AND you let me go, Kyle. I'll take the whole hour. I'll take the whole hour. Hey, we can we can go over time. I mean, I'm just, you know, living on a dream here. But like I think the one thing that is very interesting is people are trying to um how should I say this? They're trying to break down pieces of what is trying to be done here into the parts that are most and least digestible. But interestingly enough, regardless of who is doing the polling, whether it's a leftwing rag or some some right-wing conservative thing, pollingwise, the American populace is not really doing a lot of delineation between the illegal aliens that are here in terms of, okay, are these illegal alien criminals and their crime is that they came here illegally or they've overstayed a visa or whatever, all of which are are criminal acts or once they got here they did additional criminal acts like killing women, raping children, driving drunk, and killing an entire family in their minivan. I think for most everyday Americans, even going back to, you know, those blueco collar rust belt guys that used to be solid blue that are now solid red because, you know, Trump basically spoke directly to to their concerns and in their heart, the American public is like, wait a minute, there's a generalized understanding of fairness. And if there is a line, if there is a cue, if you cut in line, we didn't accept that in kindergarten. And so why are we going to do that as a country? And so it's like, hey, we would love for you to come back, especially if you're smart, especially if you're a hard worker, but brother, you got to go to the back of the line. Like, your family's got to go to the back of the line. You know what I mean? >> True. Yes. No. No. That's that's very very true. And we do have an innate sense of fairness. And that's right. We don't want anybody cutting the line. I don't want I don't want that either. What ends up happening uh from kind of a global macro scale, Kyle, and we saw this in the first Trump administration. So, if I had been advising Trump in Trump uh admin one, you know, the first thing he did was the Muslim ban, right? That was the first that was the first stroke. You know, Trump's done a lot of stuff. >> He hasn't done it through Congress. Everything's been an executive order that can get reversed. That is not a strong president. That is a power of the presidency. A strong president works with Congress and gets legislation. >> Yeah. Biden did the same thing and none of us liked it. Right. >> Right. Executive orders. And Obama's the guy that coined the term, I got a phone and I got a pen. So, I don't like EOS because I think it I think it allows the president to do too much stuff. Uh, we can get into the tariffs if you want to, which as a as a small government guy is a something that should be kept. It's a power that should be kept by Congress, but ever since Richard Nixon, Congress has been seeding more and more power to the executive. So, I've got a big beef that goes back to the 1970s with Congress. And I could do a whole show with you about what I think's wrong with that. >> We could just talk about the gold standard for the next hour. There you go. >> Oh, sure. Bretton Woods, the whole the whole deal. So, this idea of fairness, I agree with you 100%. Dennis Miller, come in through the front door, sign the guest book. I'm a big believer in that. That first thing that Trump did in the in the Trump administration where they did the Muslim ban, I think they missed out on a real messaging opportunity because what they said was is we're banning all these Muslim countries. What I would have called it was the Obama Muslim ban because what Trump got was a list of six countries that were unable to properly vet people before they got on airplanes. Correct. And Trump added one more country to it. >> I would have said brand new in the job. President Obama left me a list of these countries. Uh the Obama administration was concerned enough with this. I'm adding one more. And until we get to the bottom of this, these countries will not be able to send people into the United States. Would have been brilliant. would have dropped it in Obama's lap, but they went for the real frothy headlines. You know, they just went for Muslim ban and everything and I think they shot themselves in the foot with it. And that's where the whole immigration thing really kicked off and Trump won. So my bigger global macro thing is what ends up happening is when >> we we end up losing potentially good immigrants coming here, people who do want to come through the front door who now look at this. I look at listen I think it's insane that Kennedy that nutcase who's been hooked on heroin he's had a brainworm all this kind of stuff he's an environmental lawyer uh he runs HHS he is not a doctor and he has been dismantling all these grants do you know the amount of scientists we are losing people that will not stay here that will go and conduct their research work in other countries and the anti-immigrant sentiment I get it illegal immigrants don't want But we do need immigration here. But we have now the rest of the world, whether we like it or not, how we're viewed by the rest of the world, impacts us here. And if we are missing out on getting top tier talent that wants to come here, either because they think the United States is um not receptive of them as an immigrant or if there's just not research grants here because people like Kennedy have slashed all the medical stuff, that hurts us in the long run. you know, we're we're scratching this populist itch that feels really good, but we're we have a we have leadership in the United States that's not parsing this effectively, not saying this is important. We want to get rid of illegal immigrants, but please, if you are a law-abiding immigrant that wants to come here to do research, we want to make it, you know, we're charging $100,000 for these new certain visas and everything. I mean, it's it's crazy. We I think we should retool and retrain these people that we talked about who worked at the mills and the factories and all that kind of stuff because we didn't you and I didn't discuss what would a solution be for these people that now don't have a job in their towns in the Carolinas or in West Virginia. That's a whole other conversation we should have. But we are not going to get those people skilled up in time to move them into Silicon Valley and places like that. If we want to stay on the cutting edge and be the world's superpower and stay three steps ahead of the Chinese, we need to have good people who know what they're doing that have talent and have skills and a lot of times that stuff comes from overseas. They're not stealing jobs from Americans when they come and work for Google and things like that. They did. There's a lot of jobs we need done here. And we need to keep our minds and our hearts open to people from outside the United States because that truly makes America great. when we leap forward with technology, when we leap forward in medicine and things like that, and I'm I'm worried we're shutting the door on some some brilliant leaps by by making it people unwelcome here. Well, and I think part of the thing that a lot of the left leftwing media wants to do is they want to conflate when rep Republicans or conservatives talk about illegal immigration with immigration in total because I remember working at a tech company a long time ago and there were these fantastic uh software developers that were from India and I mean these were guys that went to college here, they they got married here, they're starting families here, they're starting side businesses here and then I heard about the H-1B visa lottery and I'm like explain that to me. They're like, "Well, we have to, you know, apply for this lottery, and if our if our ticket gets called, then we get to stay, but if we don't, we got to go home." And I'm like, "Time out. Hold up. Wait a minute." It's like, you already have your degree. You already have your master's degree. You're already working a job where you started out making 80K a year. We should be Yeah. So, it's like, "Hey, let's get rid of that stupid lottery system. Like, let's kick out the people that are wasting their time and everybody's money on these college campuses studying lesbian dance theory. a green card TO THEIR DIPLOMA. YOU GRADUATE FROM A United States university and you fill a certain kind of job we need here. >> And congratulations. >> And Brad, there's a tacid assumption that before we even let you come here, we we looked at your social media. We looked at your background. We saw if you had any ties to, you know, al-Qaeda or Boo Haram or something like that. Yeah. But at the same time, the the good thing that I think for America, even in the in the face of people that are maybe bucking against the populism a little bit, which even makes me a little bit squishy and uncomfortable, is there's not a great secondary landing spot. Like the best engineers in India are not like, well, United States is my first choice, but you know, China is just as good. They're like, wait a minute, no, I don't want to go work in China. I don't want to like be a part of what's going on there. They're certainly not going to go to Pakistan and work with all of like the, you know, the the the blood, uh, you know, rivals that they've been for that length of time. But >> everything Brad, >> we got a blinking neon sign right now that says at some point we have to talk about the new book because we're already overtime. We're already working in overtime. SO, HERE WE GO. I'm yanking the wheel. We got to talk about >> those of you still tuned in and listening, we appreciate you. Thank you for hanging in for this conversation. That's why I record that's why I record the intro outro later so I can actually do my business and you know not have to like waste time with that. But you do have a standalone thriller which guys if you are listening to this on time it is out today right now. You can go to the show notes where you can pick it up for yourself but it's a thriller that you wrote with Ward Larson. The thing that's interesting about this is as I've already mentioned several times it's a standalone thriller. It's not part of a series or anything like that. And so I guess for you, where did the idea come from to do a standalone thriller? Why with a co-author that a listed co-author, not just a ghostriter or something like that? And then how do you approach that where hey, we don't have seven thrillers of backstory that will lead to why you obviously know that the protagonist acted in this way. It's all got to be wrapped up in one tight little package. >> All right. So, uh, one of the things that I'm super excited about, and I will start with this, is that Cold Zero has also been picked up by Netflix. They're turning it into a massive big black, uh, big blockbuster action movie. They're saying it's going to be bigger, bolder, and more badass than The Hunt for Red October. >> So, I've had this idea forever that there's a Chinese scientist that invents a game-changing piece of technology and wants to defect to the United States. And so a CIA team is responsible for getting them out of China and getting them back to America. Now, I really think it's cool that we are starting to fly more and more commercial aircraft over the top of the world, over the North Pole. We have never lost a commercial aircraft up in the Arctic. And I thought, how the hell do you save a plane full of passengers that goes down in the Arctic? And I thought, that would be a really cool thriller, but how do you dial it up a notch? and you put a piece of tech on that plane that the Russians want, the Americans want, and the Chinese want, and that plane goes down and there is a rush from those three powers to get up into the Arctic, to get to the North Pole, to get to that wreckage first and uh and get it because whoever gets there first and gets this piece of tech, it will be a gamecher. They will be the world's uh number one power. And so that was the idea behind uh Cold Zero. Uh I do my Scott Harvath books as we talked about earlier. It's my books are like the James Bond movies. You can jump in at any point in a Brad Thor book. Cold zero standalone book. Uh it really is wallto-wall action. So the the task is, and you're right, how do you give information about the characters, their backstory, uh and keep the tension going and keep the action moving? Uh Elmore Leonard, the great crime writer, uh his two pieces of advice for young writers always uh his two pieces of advice were don't start with the weather. It was a dark and stormy night. Don't do that. And number two, skip the parts that people or uh leave out the parts that people skip. So my dad used to swear that Tom Clancy was paid by the word because his books were so thick. And you know, Clancy could give you 15 pages about how a guidance system on a missile worked. I don't care about that stuff. You've got two special forces operatives in a hide and they are lasing a target and that's how the missile finds the side of the bad guy's house is because this laser that's invisible to the human eye is painting the side of the house and boom, the missile hits it and everybody goes home happy except for the guys living in the house. Uh so the the idea with Cold Zero was to to keep people in these short crisp cinematic chapters like potato chips. Like you can't stop eating them. Like you keep turning those pages. keep turning those pages and with each chapter to ratchet the tension up higher, which often means that you think it's going this way, something happens and now it's going that way. >> So, uh, when we found out that Netflix was going to do this, it was actually Pete Berg, who is a great producer, director, and so Pete did >> Lone Survivor. Pete did one of my favorite action movies, The Kingdom from 2007 with Jamie Fox. >> He did American Prime Evil of Western buddy. Both my kids were born in uh in Salt Lake City. Uh and my wife was a doc for the ski team in Park City. So to see a series like it's a great series, but then to see the Mormons as the bad guys and I was like this is intense. And apparently Pete had gone to visit the temple in Salt Lake City and bought the book about the Indian wars that the Mormon u militias had and he bought it in the gift store in Salt Lake City and that gave him the idea for American primeval. So apparently very early on he got push back from the LDS church and he's like >> I bought the book and you're a gift shop. This is where I got the idea was from from from the gift shop. So Pete's great. Ezra Emanuel uh is a fabulous producer. He's on this and then I'm so thrilled because I said to Pete I said, "Okay, well who's going to be our screenwriter?" And Pete goes, "I got a guy. I've been wanting to work with him forever. Everybody wants him in Hollywood. Let's send him Cold Zero. And if he likes it as much as I did, by the way, Pete was making a movie in Australia. And his partners read Cold Zero First and they said, "Pete, you got to read this." And he goes, "Guys, I don't read stuff while I'm making a movie." And they said, "Pete, if you don't read this new Brad Thor book now, somebody else is going to beat us to it and they're going to buy it. You need to read it." And he started it and he said he couldn't stop reading it. And he's like, "Do it. Get it. Get Thor on the phone and tell him we want to make this movie." So our writer is going to be Nick Pelatto. So Nick adapted uh Magnificent 7 so with Chris Pratt and all that kind of stuff but his real super crazy claim to fame is he created True Detective on HBO that first season Matthew McConna >> second season with Colin Frell was off the off the hook. It was so good. So Pelato is an amazing writer. So, we've just got this awesome A team and now Nick is uh Nick's writing the script and then Netflix will say fix this, fix that, and then we'll go into pre-production on it. So, I hope this summer we'll be in pre-production. >> Well, without any spoilers at the end of Cold Zero, the the ending is is open, right? So, it's it's it's tied up in a bow, but the ending is open. But, uh so can we expect a follow-up to Cold Zero, or is this just a truncate, you know, an encapsulated story that just had an open-ended, you know, ending? >> I don't know. We left it open. We'll see what kind of Listen, the reviews, Kyle, have been fantastic. It's exciting that as this airs, this is the day the book comes out. The reviews have been fantastic. I mean, starred Reviews and Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, all the book bloggers. It's We're really, really excited for this book and it's a fun, fast read. Men and women are going to like this book because we've got a male hero and a female hero. Uh, and it's funny because Ward Larson, Ward Scandinavian, I joke that it was my own version of DEI, Scandinavian, DEI. I had to hire the guy with the Scandinavian name. So, people are like, "Well, uh, who do you want to be in in the movie?" And I'm like, "Well, I haven't gone through the the like the Actors Guild list of Scandinavian people." I'm like, "I'm going to keep this I'm going to keep this Swedish Norwegian, Danish train running here." So, we'll see. We'll see what happens. I don't get to pick the actors, but I like to make the jokes that it fun to have more Scandinavians. >> We will make this the last question of the day because I had one huge problem with the book, Brad. >> Okay. Okay. And I I'll be as generic as possible so there's no spoilers. Okay. >> We got a rifle. We have the proper ammunition. >> We have someone that can shoot. >> And then we got a polar bear. And we're shooting warning shots. Brad, are we shooting warning shots at this freak beast that's walking around? >> Uh-uh. No. Um, and I'm trying to remember which so the pol like I don't want to talk about where we see the polar bear in there. And listen, I'm a real I'm a real gun guy. I think that was I'm going to say that was Ward's chapter and that was Ward's responsibility. So, I'm going to toss him under the bus. Listen, you threw me under the bus for my damn pillow in the beginning of this thing. So, Ward's not here to defend himself. So, that's the great time to attack when your opponent can't even defend himself. So, I'm going to throw Ward under the bus. Uh, with that, all I can all I can think of is I don't know. Was the polar bear too close to any uh innocence that if you didn't uh Yeah. >> No, the first time we saw him where we're shooting warning shots and I'm sorry. That is America's trash uh compactor and I'm not going anywhere near that thing. >> You're not a you're not a fan. I actually don't know what policy is like. I've seen them I've seen some warning shots go like in Swalbard, but that might be because the Norwegians make him. So, but in a survival situation, I I agree with you. What do you care if it's if you're going to waste if you're if you're there and you only have a certain amount of ammo, why waste it? I mean, he'll hear the shot. If it hits him, it hits him. Great. If it doesn't hit him, but he hears it and he runs away. I agree with you. That's it. >> These dad Scandinavians, come on. >> I'll talk to Larson. I'll talk to him. I'm sorry. >> We'll figure it out. We'll get him on the horn. It's okay. You don't have to apologize to me. You have to apologize to everyone. That's kind of why we're here today. But hey, we've gone everywhere in this conversation. It's been fantastic. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No. Listen, I I've really enjoyed this interview and I just want to say thank you for sharing me with your audience and introducing me to them and um I appreciate what you do. All right, we'll talk again soon, Brad. Thanks. All right, there you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Brad Thor. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, I've got links to Brad's website where you can check out everything he's doing and all of his old books and also an Amazon link to where you can pick up your copy of Cold Zero. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undantton.life. That's info@undon.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpeta, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.