EITM interviews Brad Meltzer

EITM interviews Brad Meltzer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, sir, Hello, how are you. I am. I'm doing well.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm When you're on book tour, the thing you want
is you don't want any news getting in the way
of your book, right, So there's the perfect week to launch.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
We think, just absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
There's nothing like saying, hey, go buy a book while
the world is on fire. That's what they're suffering out
in California. And you're just like, oh my gosh, so yeah,
it's perfect, just perfect week.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
How was I know you were out in Columbia last night?
How to go Columbia was amazing good?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I was at a Books a Million. We went to
Books a Million headquarters. They said to us, hey, do you.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Want a million is headquartered in Columbia?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
No, No.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
The headquarters of Books a Million said to us, we
want you to go to one of our stores. Oh okay,
and we said anywhere you want? Tell me where to go,
and they were like, Columbia, Maryland. I was like, that's
what you picked a great tipe. You still live in Maryland,
Let's go. And I thought they were going to put
me in like who knows where, like Poughkeepsie or whatever,
and they picked right and in our home like far,
not far from our hometown.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
The place was amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
They had I had a woman who came from I
worked in a law firm for like ten seconds one
summer and this woman came from thirty years ago, and
she's like, you don't know me. I'm like, your name
is Stacy. You had a Michigan poster in your law firm.
And she's like, oh my gosh. I'm like, I don't remember.
I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
God, I remembered.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I was so side and I knew I was going
to get and I saw her and I was like,
I'm going to get it. But they were great, and
obviously a lot of your listeners were out there was
also great, awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, they were super. So the book has been out.
I know it came out yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yesterday, and in the front row there was I didn't
say this because they want to embarrass him, but there
was a soldier, a military guy who wrote me privately
said I can't afford a ticket, and Marilyn actually had
a ticket. Tonight's free, but yesterday I had a ticket.
I was like, come as my guests. So the guy comes.
The book came out yesterday. He's in the front row
and he finished the book and I'm one of like, thanks,

(01:51):
that was two freaking years of my life. You finished
in like nine hours.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
You know, I'm like, what do you do? And he was.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
His first question was like about the end of the book.
I'm like, you cannot ruin this book right now?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Ah. It was great, that's awesome, But I do I
love the book.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
I love it took me longer than a couple hours
to real Oh well, let me back up a step.
For people that have read it, do you are you
Are you getting the feedback that you that you would
hope for?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, because everyone everyone is like expecting, like, you know,
it's JFK. So but there it's the Jackie part of
it that people are really responding to.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
And it's also the humanity of JFK. Right, we've returned.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
We turned the Kennedy's into you know, they've got it
all and they're handsome, and they're beautiful and the perfect
wife and the perfect life and the perfect hair, and
they got the houses. And I think what this book
does is humanize them and show you who they totally are.
And that's what people are responding to.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
So the two things that I like, Number One is.
I love these conspiracy books. I love the story because
it's stories that nobody knows. I've never heard it, and
but I like that it's written. And I do like
history and I like learning things, but I like when
it's done in a way where you feel like you're
reading a novel, like we're like a thriller, like it's.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
The the And that's a credit to you.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
The writing is so good, Like I would have loved
history class so much more if you felt like you
were reading an action story and not just somebody going
on with detail after detail, and there's a ton of
details in there, but it reads like an action story.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, well listen, I'm a thriller writer, right right, So
so Josh Manshew, you know, full credit to him, Who's
who I write with, and I adore and he's my,
you know, one of my dearest friends. And you know,
we still let's just paint the picture for everyone so
they have it.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's a beautiful sunny day on a Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida,
and it's right after JFK gets elected. This is three
years before Lee Harvey Oswald, right, and JFK is going
to church and as he did, you.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Say, he's he's the president elected. He's a president elected.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
He's almost exactly where we are now, just a few
days before that, like a month before that, and basically
he's going to church. What he doesn't know is waiting
outside for him is a retired disgruntled postal worker named
Richard Pavlick who wants to kill him, right, and has
packed his car with seven sticks of dynamite.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
And this guy puts.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
The word postal in postal worker, right, And what JFK
has no idea as he's walking outside is that this
guy wants to murder him. And basically, as he steps outside,
all this guy, Richard Pavlick has to do is hit
the little trigger mechanism that he's built and boom goes
to the dynamite.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
And I won't ruin what saves JFK's life, But what
saves his life has to do with Jackie, right, And
it's the start of one of the craziest JFK stories
you've never heard in your life. And I was like that,
I also just ruined chapter one of the book, right,
But like that's chapter one and where I start there,
like put the bomb under the train and now tell
me the story. And now you know that Richard Pavlick

(04:48):
is and they say the Secret Service. Ay, at the time,
it's the closest that a sitting president has ever gotten
to being killed. Right, And that's where we begin, right,
And I.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Love the you know for me. Have you been to
that house? Have you you? Of course, of.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Course I went out there, but you know, I mean
I went out there to the Yeah, well you want
to buy it now?

Speaker 1 (05:06):
No, no, but just to see like what it looks like.
And it's been changed.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
But they this house, I mean, the Kennedy's obviously had
a place. And let's talk about the reason why Pablic
picks Palm Beach, Florida. The Kennedies obviously have a place
in Massachusetts. They have a Georgetown, they have a place
in Georgetown here. But he's like, you know what, I
went to see them all and Palm Beach, Florida, that's
where his security is the weakest, right, And he's right

(05:31):
about that, yes, And and the thing that's crazy is
Pablic all he's got to do is just hit the
little button that he's built. And it's so awesome when
you realize in the irony of what saves him that day,
and we were like, when we were looking for stories,
we're like, this is the story, and no book has
ever been written on it, right, And the only reason
we have it is because some really great reporters did

(05:54):
a Foyer request and said, we want the documents from
the Secret Service that showed the investigation. And once we
had that, we had all the real time investigation and
we were like, we gotta do it in real time.
It happens quickly and I unfolded in a couple of days,
and so it's really this ticking clock book about JFK.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
But you know what, you know what's crazy is you
would go you would think like there was news back then.
It wasn't like news didn't exist. Is when that happened,
when all of that was going on. The reason it
doesn't get covered is because of a plane crash, two
planes colliding over New York and like debris raining down
on like Staten Island in Brooklyn, and that's where everybody's

(06:32):
focus went was there was a mid air collision of
planes over New York. So this attempted assassination, which obviously
doesn't happen, but wouldn't get covered because everybody was focused
on two planes colliding in mid air.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
And not only that, everyone dies on the planes. No
one kid survived. Yeah, and he's the sole survivor. And
I and everyone is like obsessed with this kid. I
was obsessed with the kid. I'm like, what happened to
the kid?

Speaker 1 (06:59):
We know, I was.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
I'm researching the book and I'm like, wait, that kid's
pretty interesting. And it takes this JFK story from the
front page the day it's about to break and puts
it in the middle section in the newspaper, and it
becomes a footnote to history, right until Josh and I
come and say, wait a minute, this story is fascinating.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Let's pull it back to the front page. Do you
want to ruin the what happens to the kid? The
kid dies? Yeah? Four hours? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, if you're in a in a mid air
colle I love you're laughing at the mid air collision,
You're laughing at the Staten Island part.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I know.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
But like I mean, because it literally says it's like
Brooklyn gets hit and say, oh you know what last night,
a woman in line in Maryland, She's like when the
planes went down the plane hit my old school. Are
you serious? She was there last night. She's like, my
mom used to tell me the story about this plane.
I'm like, are you in Stanton Island to Brooklyn? She
was in Brooklyn, right, and yeah. I mean this is

(07:51):
just it became the biggest story in the whole country,
and the JFK story, you know, went by the wayside,
and I was just like, let's bring it back.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Baby. The other thing, I like you you wrote in
the notes.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Hold on one second, here we go, missus Ellen Sherman.
You're eleventh grade history teacher wheeled a TV end of
the classroom and showed you your first movie about the
actual assassination of JFK. And from that, that's where you
kind of became a JFK guy.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
That's why I became a history guy.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I mean, you know those days when your teacher wheels
in you know, the projector and great day, Yes, right,
it's like that in an assembly, the two great days
for anyone going to school, and she wheels it in
and I'm like, oh, Gray, some stupid thing I'm wen't
have to pay attention to. And she puts on a
JFK assassination film. That wasn't a kooky, crazy one that
says everybody's trying to murder him. But it was one

(08:40):
of those ones that asked the really good still on
answer questions, what is Lee Harvey Oswall doing in Russia
at the height of the Cold War? Right, that's a
good question to this day, right, And I remember watching
that and going, oh, the government doesn't tell you something sometimes,
and it really I know it sounds silly and obvious now,

(09:00):
but it just like shook the foundations of my brain.
And that's why I was like, JFK became my first
kind of thing to be obsessed with.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I still speak to that teacher.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
She's, in fact the one who we found a kidney
for when she was looking for.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
A Wow that was great. So I got that we
got to save her life with our Facebook page. But
she was the one who unlocked that in me.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
But you know the thing that I like is like,
I'm not I'm not a JFK guy. I mean, I know,
the the kind of the broad strokes of right exactly,
you know, mister Handsome, mister Camelot and Jackie. Oh, but
I don't know. I don't know anything about JFK. And
so when I was reading, I was glad you put

(09:42):
it in there to kind of set up who he is.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
His like what the whole military thing, Yeah, let's talk
about getting.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Did you know that I knew of Dan like the
Kennedy's commanding p T one O nine, but I didn't
know the depths and how extensive that the I had
no idea, I had no cue of any other story.
I didn't know that story. The thing about that's embarrassing Bred.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
You're a JFK guy, I know, but I'm alost so
focused on him dying that I never focused on him living.
And so what was fascinating is that PT one on
nine story, Right, the guy is stationed in World War
two and a Japanese destroyer comes up Rex's boat.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
All of his men in half. There's nothing left.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
There's like splinters and like you know, barely a couple
of things floating, and they're all like, we gotta swim.
There's one guy who's clearly unconscious and JFK's like, put
him on my back. I'm the best swimmer. You're like,
pretty impressive. Guy swims a couple of miles to an island.
They get to the island and Basically, they know there's
no food there, there's barely there's no drinkable water. They're like,
if we stay on this island, we're gonna be dead.

(10:44):
JFK is like, let me find another island, swims a
couple of miles, finds the other island, swims back a
couple miles like, I found a spot, and by the way,
put the guy on my back again. I'm gonna take
him again. Takes the guys holding like a rope in
his strap in his teeth while swimming right if miles
for miles with a guy on his back, and saves

(11:04):
his life, obviously, And here's the key part. When he's done,
they're like, you know what you can be Discharge me army.
We're gonna give you a medal. You get to go
home now when you swim with people on your back
and your teeth. And his dad's of course got enough
strings to pull that. He's like, I'll get you out.
We're done now, we're done song. Time to come home
and we'll all be safe. And JFK has like, no dad,

(11:25):
unlike some presidents we know. He's like, I'm going back
to fight. World War two needs me, and we got
to defeat the bad guys and I'm going back. And
he goes back and continues to fight in World War Two,
and I'm like, this guy's amazing, right, And at the
same time, you have this guy who you know, we
don't pull our punches on JFK either. We document his
affairs with Jackie. You know that he cheats on Jackie.

(11:48):
You know when they get engaged. One of JFK's friends
goes up to Jackie and basically says to her, listen,
jack really likes women. Says to her face, he's gonna
cheat on you, right, And you know she's trying to
hold this together. When she's hemorrhaging, she gives birth and
she's hemorrhaging. Jfk' is nowhere to be found. He's on
a plane to Florida. Do you know what would happened

(12:10):
to me if my wife was giving birth and hemorrhaging
and I was on a plane to Florida, Like, I
wouldn't be here right now because.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
I'd be dead. She would kill me.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
And she know the person who gets to the hospital
first is her secret service agent, gets there before JFK does.
And this woman's holding it all together, and you got
you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
does that mean JFK Is a really great, amazing person
because he's saved these people in World War two and
you know, took us to the moon and unleashed all

(12:39):
this hope. Or is he a reckless horrible husband or
is he a little bit of both? And of course
he's both. And that's what the whole book is about,
is showing the humanity and not just making everything perfect
for them.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Just going back to the part where he's in the
water and he's swimming back and forth and getting everybody rescued.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Two things.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
How awesome is it writing on the the coconut is
how they end up getting rescued.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's like a Gilligan.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm literally like the skipper and the Professor Marian like,
if that's all that's missing. I mean, he's literally if
he took a coconut and put a string on it,
and then the skipper was on the other store a
guy who can't read. He has a guy who can't read,
doesn't speak English, and he's like, I'm gonna take this coconut.
I'm gonna put a message on this, Take this coconut
to your leaders. I'm like, this is never working, and
it works and saves everyone, and you're like, he sent

(13:28):
a message via a coconut.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's the greatest rescue mission ever. And then I like
to and you'll tell me if this is right.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Every so often I like to find the part where
I go, I know Brad's personality, I know this doesn't
matter at all to the story. But because Brad at
Hard is a teenage boy who can't help himself, did
this go in because of that? That it was important
to you to point out the warning that Kennedy had
received about the water where you made sure you put

(13:54):
in that Barracudas could eat his testicles.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I mean when John is like, this is part about
the barracu his testicles, I'm like in the book, in
the book that's like anything that has like sixty nine
in it, and like barrack whut iseat your testicles makes
it into the history book, Like that's our measure, Like
Doris curs Goodwin has like.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Well how many foot what footnote is that? And where
like can the barrack could eat your testicles?

Speaker 3 (14:19):
So so let's get so let's get back to the story, right,
So like you said, there's this disgruntled postal worker who's
up in up in uh up in North Hampshire, New Hampshire, right, Belmont,
New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
And he starts he actually, before that lives in Massachusetts.
That's why he hates the Kennedy's in the beginning, he
thinks they bought their way into power, right, and then
he lives in New Hamptire.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
He's Catholic, He's everything that it hasn't been. And I guess, listen,
I don't. I don't know when he ran for office.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
I don't. I don't know anything about him.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
I didn't realize until you go back and read between
he and Nixon, is they I mean, it may as
well be today.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Well, that's why we hated each other, and.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
The country could not been more divided until twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
I mean, listen, I know it's titilating for me to
come on here and say we found a secret plot
to kill JFK that nobody knows about before Oswald. But
what Josh and I always do is say, why are
we writing this book now? Why we tell the story?
Because history. It's not just here's a cool story from
the past. It's like why is it important today? And
if you look at the election in nineteen sixty, the
country is split in half. Whether you like Nick Sonoy,

(15:25):
whether you like Kennedy, you are it's the closest election
in the twentieth century. And whatever side you're on, you
think the other side are complete and utter morons. Right,
does that sound familiar to you? Right where we are now?
And not only that, but it's a moment where the
venom and hatred that's going out. We think this is
where in the special time which we are make no mistake,

(15:48):
but it is the venom that's going to Kennedy because
he's Catholic. Was staggering to me. So you have these,
you have two things going on. You have one side
of these. Really you know, Reverend Norman Vincent Peel, who
wrote The Power of Positive Thinking, and the Reverend Billy
Graham's like famous, well known religious leaders hate Kennedy because

(16:08):
he's Catholic. Right, they're Protestant, And I know it sounds
almost silly now, but they're like, this Catholic will not
be loyal to the United States.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
He's going to be loyal to the pope, and we
got to.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Make sure it doesn't reach the White House, and they
do everything in their power to make sure that everyone
knows you can't trust that Catholic guy. At the same time,
you got the ku Klux Klan. The Klan is back, right,
we know the KKK of course from the Civil War.
They hate the black community, but they realize in the
twenties that they can make more money and get more
dues by increasing that circle of hate. Right, and they

(16:40):
start including new wonderful groups like the Jews and immigrants.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
They're like, there are and it works, right. They surge
in the twenties. By the sixties, they're like they're a surgeon.
And the only thing that they hate that they want
to make sure happens is you can't. They see jfk
as an immigrant, right, they hate immigrants, and he's an
Irish Catholic immigrant in their eyes. His family came over
on the boat, and we cannot let an immigrant be president.

(17:05):
And you have these two groups telling you over and over,
don't trust the Catholic guy. He's the you know, the
first guy who's really getting that close. He's the second
guy who ever runs, who's Catholic. But Richard Pavlick is
listening and when you unleash that kind of venom and hatred,
people get activated. You can't be surprised when someone's activated.

(17:25):
And it's the same thing with Trump. Now, you know,
the two people took a crack at them. I'm sad
to say, like, I think it's going to happen again,
because when you're out there and you're screaming that you're
the best fighter, you can't be shocked when someone wants
to swing a punch back at you. Right, And that's
where the country was in nineteen sixty, ready to fight.
And that's what happens, is people get ready to fight.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
I was happy to learn that, not because of how
bad it was and how nasty it was and how
much vitriol and like you said, the Klan and churches
and everybody, but it was.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
It was.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
It's like different reasons, but it's like reading about now.
The only thing that made me happy about reading that.
And you look at now and you go, like, how
do you recover from this?

Speaker 1 (18:08):
We did? After that? We do, right?

Speaker 2 (18:09):
I Mean that's the thing is America's been through it.
You know, it's always a new kind of death trap
that we put ourselves into. But we you know, America
is also pretty resilient, and that's what that's, of course
why we picked this time to write about.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
So let me get to somebody else in the book,
a secret service agent by the name of Clint Hill.
This dude is so, he's working for Eisenhower. He's on
Eisenhower's detail, and Kennedy gets elected and they all know
that they're going to get new jobs, like everybody's are.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Going to and he gets the word. He's like, you're
gonna go to the White House. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
He's like, I got it made in the shade. I'm
going to guard the president. I'm gonna hold the football.
It's gonna be the best. And they say, nope, you're
getting the first lady. And he's like, he's like, I'm
going to tea parties. This is a downgrade. I mean,
he thinks it sucks. He thinks it's he got the worst,
He got the worst job. And then he gets assigned

(19:02):
to Jackie Kennedy and the lottery is won by Clint Hill.
And full credit, I will say Clint Hill, Iowa. Thank
you to Clint Hill and Lisa mccubben wrote this great
book that they let us use their first hand account
and you know, we'll talk about it later, but you
see these stories of him and the first lady, and
obviously we had never seen it, even even the assassination
that we do at the end, the real assassination. We

(19:25):
show you Jackie's view of it, and it's thanks to
Clint Hill, who is smart enough to write it down
when it's happening.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Is he like, what does he do now? He's just
really old. He's ninety three. Yeah, he's really old. He's
I mean, and that's what he does.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
I mean, he's he just came out with a book
with Lisa, and she's written a couple of books with
a couple other agents.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
But he's amazing.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
And Clint Hill when he's a sign, you know, they
pick him because he's got young kids and Jackie's about
to have another young child, and they think, okay, you're
gonna get along, right, And Jackie wants no part of
this nonsense.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Oh she hates she's like, he hates it.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
And I always tell my kids, if you think it's cool,
it's cool. And because there's nothing cooler than someone who
doesn't care about being cool. And the more that the
press wants to like talk to Jackie the more she's like,
go f yourself, like she wants no part of the
fame of any of that nonsense. So of course we're
even more obsessed with her. And she goes on a walk.
She likes to go on these long walks. Clint Hill

(20:18):
has to follow her. He's like, this is the worst job.
She's not talking to him.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
I walk the streets of Georgetown half a block behind her,
and slowly he's now a quarter of a block of virus.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
And then slowly she says, Hey, what do you think
of this? What do you think of that? And this
friendship develops. That's awesome. Yeah, and Mary tell he's so
protective of her, and it's not like he is, you know,
when she goes into labor, you'd think his own wife
went into labor, and he is rushing there because he knows.
And one of my favorite scenes in the whole book

(20:51):
is when Jackie basically you know, she gives birth. She
goes through the christening. Everything's a disaster, like, you know,
she's memorrhaged. JFK finally gets back. They're like, Okay, we're
gonna have the Christine in the hospital and then you're
gonna get out that day, and we're gonna go to Florida.
And by the way, that's the only day where Missus
Eisenhower can meet you.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
So first Lady can meet first Lady. What a real treat,
Amy is? Amie eyes?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So like when when Jackie Kennedy's coming up in the
White House, I feel like it's like that moment when
you meet Hannibal Lecter for the first time, right the
door's open, and like there's Mamie Eisenhower, like Lecter and
all it's missing is like the kyanti and the fava beans,
right like she and because Jackie's like, you know, pale
as could be right, she kim, she's just given birth

(21:38):
right And they're like, remember the day your wife came
home with your newborn child and they said, let let's
go to public event, honey, right like, let's stay in
my house, right like, and they're like, you're going to
the White House. Obviously, First Lady's supposed to be the tour.
You see what it's like where you're gonna live. She
can barely walk. She's like, I need a wheelchair. And again,

(22:00):
I won't ruin the scene, but let's just say what
She's not get that wheelchair and maybe Eisenhower is like
for a woman that you've never probably thought much about,
you're gonna hate so quickly. Oh my god, it's the
craziest story, right like and you're and I'm like, and
Clinn Hill, you can tell, just feels so terrible and
he's so protective of her. And again it's one of

(22:23):
those things where you're like, this is the White House
as it's all they're all human beings, they're all people,
and and and they all come to life.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
And the the other thing just talking about Clint Hill
and like him always being there with her, like you
mentioned like she's giving birth and and and you know
he's got to fly back when when when she has
the stillborn the JFK's on the yacht and like his
friends have to go.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
You should really go back. And he's like, I'm.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Getting ready to get laid, and they're like, no, jack ass,
get back. Your wife's given birth to a stillborn baby.
You should go home. And he's debate, like we were
giving the book, Josh had all I'm not joking and
because he was just trying to like not be delicious
about it, and I think it's important, but he had
this whole kind of chapter of all of his affairs,

(23:10):
like all the affairs JFK had. And when I got
to the chapter, when I was looking at I'm like,
this isn't a chapter. This there's so much here. And
you see we've obviously turned into multiple chapters because they're
each one of them, each of those stories. Right, You're
on a yacht, your wife has a stillborn child, and
and someone says, first he's like, should I go back?

(23:31):
Like and you're like uh, And then they got to
say you need to go back, dude, you're not gonna
survive this one. And again that recklessness that he has,
I don't know if it's because he's just he's JFK.
And he just thinks like, man, I'm the best, or
you know what, like I didn't die in World War two,
I'm pretty bulletproof. Nazi's gonna kill me, Japanese canna kill me,

(23:52):
like I'm gonna live forever. And he thinks he's gonna
shout fame, you know, like, but he just that level
of what he's bringing to this.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
He just likes the goon like I loves loves it,
doesn't like it, clearly loves it right and good at
it like there's a section of the book that talks
about how good he is with women, and you have
and we got all these women who say like, I've
never had anyone who looked at me, and all I
wanted to do is look back in this man's eyes.

(24:21):
R right. And you're just like people who are like
I hated it, hate with him, and you're like, no surprise.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
And when you read it, you're like, he is kind
of hot, you know, he's just like you start getting
wrapped up in it, and you know there's a there's
that he's got the Kovorka. He just does and we
were like, we got to put these scenes in so
you see what Jackie's contending with.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
I also like that nobody in the for as rich
as they are, nobody in the Kennedy family carries cash.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh that's the best, right, there's no And not only that,
but his secret service is borrowing.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Hey, hey, Hill, do you got any cass They go
up to him and she's in the hospital.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
He's like, I don't have my purse and they're laying
out money for them, and I'm just like, does anyone
write that down? Like there's no ATM, Like, what do
you do? And and they don't care. They're just like
and and I love the JFK. You know, listen, when
Eisenhower used to get off the plane, they say, sir,
you're gonna get off the plane. You're gonna get in
the car. And that's the schedule says that. So Eisenhower
gets off the plane, gets in the car. JFK gets

(25:17):
off the plane. You know, he's not the fifties. He
represents the sixties. So he gets off the plane and
he sees all these people who are waiting for him
at the airport.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
They're all waving at the fence. So what does JFK do?

Speaker 2 (25:28):
There are people there baby his babies, to kiss his babies,
to sign whatever you do with babies.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
I'm gonna go do it.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
And he's he b lines to right to the fans,
and the secrets are is like, oh crap, what what
what do we do now? And they're like, well, go
protect him. And you know, he's a different mold than
Eisenhower is. In fact, when they get to Florida, you know,
the Secret Service or guarding him and they're you know,
they're in the Florida heat, so they're sweating, and JFK
looks at them and he's like, uh, what what what

(25:55):
size shirt do you? Goes into his house, brings out
like a short sleeve Hawaiian shirt and these guys haven't
been guarding him for like twenty four hours and they're
wearing his clothes.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Like, the guy's a charmer, right, you like him whether
you even when you're mad, and you're like, man, he's
cheating on his wife. He's full of charm and he's
just not your dad's president, which is why people love him.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Hey, the other the other thing, And again I don't
want to give away the attempted assassination that the first one, right, yep,
But the and that story is amazing in and of itself.
But I mean, obviously it's not successful because we know
about right, we know what.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Happens, what Pablic does right after that.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Holy, that's a that's a massive story.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
And and here's the other thing that pablic is interesting
because again I don't want to ruin every like that part,
but Pablic that you know, you think like you're the
guy who's walking around with seven sticks of dynamite, like
you're the bad guy, which is legal, right, which is
legal as is now you don't. We don't let people
buy seven sticks of dynamite without because of that. It's well,
it is because of Oklahoma City. We report you because

(27:03):
of that. But but yes, part of it is this is,
you know, they see him buy and sticks a dynamite
and they're like, wow, you bought one yesterday and you
just bought another.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
What are you doing with those?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
And he's like, well, I'm exploding tree stumps because apparently
that's how you get rid of tree stumps. If you
can't dig him out, you blow him up. And he's
like they when you look at the dynamite that he needs,
it's like he could take out a forest, right, And
they're just like, well, I guess he's got a lot
of tree stumps back. Then you know, let him go,
and you're just like, who's like watching things?

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Right?

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But what's crazy is the last thing he does before
he heads to Florida to kill JFK.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
And you think this is the bad guy.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
He's gonna twirl the mustache and unleash the lasers or sharks,
but the last thing he does is he donates his
home to like kids who are needy and need the
money and you're like, that's a kind act and it's
just so complicated, right, Like you want to hate the
guy with every five year being, but like he's like,
I know I'm gonna die, I'm going to my death,

(28:00):
I'm giving it all up. My house is useless, so
let me make sure the right people have it. And
you're just like, again, the humanity just shows itself in
places where you least expect it.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
And what he does, and again I don't want to
give this part away, what he does when he gets
out of jail.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
But also let's oh, I can say why he gets
out of jail. He gets out of jail because he's
obviously a little you know, he's crazy and they're trying
to figure out what do you do with crazy people.
He's in jail for three years.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
The reason he gets out eventually is because of a
bill that JFK signs to be nicer on crazy people.
So the guy who he tries to murder passes the
bill of why he gets out of jail, and you
got to fit and you know he still wants to
kill JFK.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
You know, you know it comes out and.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
He's like, you know, someone said to me yesterday one
of the Q and a's and they were like, do
you think that, Uh, how do you think he felt
when JFK died? I'm like, I don't think he was crying,
you know, like not in a bit Like this guy
still wants to kill JFK.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
He hate it a lot, a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
He hates everyone, especially people who are the reason he
got caught.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
And the thing is when we when we research.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
This, like I speak to the Secret Service, I always
talk to them and try and get a sense of this.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
And this was, you know, years ago when they taught
me this. But when they when they.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Look at people who kill the president, they fit in
the two categories.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
There are hunters and there are howlers. And a howler
makes a lot of noise. A howler is like, I'm
coming to kill you. I hate you, I'm coming to
get you so out loud.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
I had.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Those guys and but they rarely take action. Howler those
very different than a hunter. A hunter makes no noise,
it's quiet, they don't tell you they're coming. But that's
who both the trigger and if you look through history
at the fore men of successfully killed presidents, from Abraham
Lincoln to JFK. All four of them are hunters, hunters,
and Richard Pavlick thinks he's a hunter, but obviously he

(29:55):
has part you know, Howler in him, and he has
a big fat mouth and he opens his mouth and
again Wan ruin it.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
But that's why he gets caught. It's gonna take that
mouth that he loves to write.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
But the guy loves telling people what he's doing, like
telling people your evil plan, monologue, that whole thing out baby,
keep it going, right. But the guy loves the monologue
and he is I mean, that's the thing about what's
so fascined to watch. And again you see in real
time and and it's not just one attempt, right, like
when if the first one gets worn, Like yeah, he's like, you.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Know what I'm gonna do? The book? Does it end?

Speaker 2 (30:26):
When he goes, well, I'm not going to push the button.
Oh yeah, let's start the car and here we go.
He it's and that's the thing is it keeps going.
He's like, I got another shot and another shot, and uh,
I that's why we love this story.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
We're like it's perfect. Oh it's under and again turns
into the so creepy when he gets out, so can
we talk about Jackie, because Jackie to me is like
she's the well, let me let me do that, let
me do this, let me do this, let me take
a quick break. Brad Melter is.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
With us The JFK Conspiracy, the secret plot to kill
Kennedy and why it failed.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
It's out and available now.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Brad will be at Barne to Noble Fair Lakes tonight
seven o'clock, not a ticketed event to no Free Right.
So you can go out and you can see Brad.
The book The JFK Conspiracy is out now. Quick break
more with Brad Melter.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Next Elliott in the morning. I learned where the whole
Camelot came from. Learned that in the booklet me.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
So the whole time we're researching the book, I keep
you know, you got these all these affairs. Jackie's being
cheated on, you know, she's hemorrhaging and going the hospital.
JFK's nowhere to be found, and I'm like, why do
they call this place Camelot? Right, Like that's the perfect place.
And I kept looking saying where does camelot enter the lexicon?
Like where does it come from? And then I discovered

(31:37):
this is camelot doesn't start getting used until after JFK dies.
It's after the assassin, the real assassination that kills him
with Lee rb Oswald. After that happens, Jackie Grant's one interview,
she has this reporter from Life magazine come to her
house late at night. She he's there until after midnight.
She's writing the thing with him, and she tells him

(31:59):
this exclusive story, and she says, when JFK was alive
and they were in the White House and his back
was hurting him and he's in all this pain that
the one way she'd calm him down is play that
song you just heard about his favorite place. She go
to the record player and put on this record about
a place called Camelot. And Jackie, at the start of

(32:19):
her career, was a reporter, so she was a member
of the press. She was hounded by the press. But
make the mistake, she's a master of the press. She's
the one who put it in the lexicon. She's the
one who started using the word camelot, trying to write
JFK's legacy before anyone else could. And that's why we
call it Camelot. And to me, you know, I think

(32:39):
as I look at it Jfking Jackie. They're a first
celebrity president and first lady. The first and I don't
mean famous like Abraham Lincoln's famous and waves off the
train and Harry trumple all these presidents are well known,
of course, but I'm talking about like Hollywood celebrity where
you've got that you.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Didn't think, You didn't think maybe.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Eisenhower it was maybe Eisenhower was really she was cutting
a rug. And so you have these you know, suddenly
this you know, like fame and money and power and beauty,
like that's the thing that Hollywood sells us, and that's
what we bought. And you know, for some people, we
I really do think we've been chasing it ever since.
So for some people it's Reagan they thought that was

(33:17):
the return of it, or for some it's the Obamas,
for some it's even Trump. But all of those people
are just cosplaying JFK and Jackie right. And to me,
when I look at that pursuit, it's a hollow pursuit.
It's a nonsense pursuit because Camblot didn't exist, It wasn't real.
It was shiny on the outside, but it was nonsense.

(33:37):
And to me, the only thing that JFK I think
did really beautifully and correctly.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I will say what the best thing he did. He
did give us hope, right right.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
He came into that moment and we can say, like,
if he didn't die, you know, with civil rights have
moved forward fast with LBJ, or would the Bay of
Pigs not happen? You can argue about all those sliding
door scenarios and who knows what would have happened.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
But boy, this guy came.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
In after Eysenhower leaves and the fifties become turned into
the sixties, and he just is like, we're in this
together and we can do this, and hope is something
that works. And that's a beautiful idea and that's to
me what we should be chasing, rather than the celebrity
culture that we now currently chase.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
I'll tell you the I'm glad that you do even
though the book is about the failed assassination attempt. I'm
glad that you do right about the actual assassination because
you learn stuff in there.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
And it's a great view.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
I mean, it's the view of Jackie right, it really is,
and it is and I love that was my first
entry point. Is the real assassination of JFK. And I'm like,
you know when you end. When we did the first
conspiracy about the secret plots to kill George Washington, we
know how to end, right, We win the Revolutionary War.
When we did the Lincoln conspiracy about a plot to
kill Lincoln again, we won the Civil War. We don't

(34:54):
even though he died, that's not his end. Winning the
Civil War is not to conspiracy. We beat the Nazis.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
That's the ending. We win.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
But for the Kennedy conspiracy, you can't talk about Kennedy
and his beginnings without talking about his end. His end
is so brutal, and it's so transformative that we knew
we had to do the real assassination and give people
a real look at it. And to me, it's one
of the crazy I didn't I'd never seen Jackie's point
of view, and it has details in there that are unbelievable,

(35:24):
like forget it is grim, and it is her first
hand account of what happens when her husband's brain is
spattered all across her beautiful pink suit. It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
And by the way, I mean, yes, that part's horrible,
that's not even the worst part.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, no, no, that's not it's in the hospital when
she's in the hospital and she's pulling those gloves off
in the ring and those scenes are her climbing on
the trunk I mean literally to I mean again, I
don't want to ruin it because you've got to feel
the whole. It's unreal, really, it's unreal. And again thanks
to Clint Hill that we have that point of view

(35:59):
that we can tell this story and and it is
worth telling because we've turned it into this cliche, right,
we've turned it into this thing we just accept and
the brutality of it is is amazing and and it
also especially when you look at what this woman, Jackie
was holding together literally holding together in in that metaphorical sense,
in her marriage and then physically at the end of

(36:20):
her husband's life.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
And I don't, like I said, I'm not a big
Kennedy guy. I don't buy into all the conspiracy theories
about he got shot.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
I mean least that's what I would he got shot,
he got shot, make a mistake. It's not controversial. Don't know,
it's covered in the book.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
The so like that part, but what is the and
I don't think it's part of the conspiracy theory of
how many gunmen and all that. Is there a bizarre
story with his brain though, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Not only but we are the ones who brought I mean,
we found this out when we were doing Lost History
of our TV show on History Channel. And this is
true after they when when he shot. They obviously have
the body, but they take his brain out of his
head in the autopsy and they put it in a
metal container. And then they take that metal container and
it goes to the National Archives, where I sit as

(37:12):
a board member. Yeah right, okay, And I can tell
you that it was sitting there until Bobby Kennedy requests
it and his secretary comes and then takes it out
of the National Arty. Like again, there are great things
to check, you know. If people think of the National
Archives like a library, like I will take one copy
of the Declaration of Independence please, as if you'd like
take that.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Home with you.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
But can you imagine going in and being like, I'm
here for JFK's brain, right, like that's the craziest library
of all you've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
And she takes it out and then no one knows
what happens to it, and the brain missing.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Literally the attendant goes and gets the silver bucket, the
home Depot bucket, and here's your brother's brain.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
And the thing is is you think, like, what does
he do with making a Frankenstein monster? But the reality is,
and what I do believe is true, is the rumors
he took it, put it in a helicopter, flew over the ocean,
through it in the ocean. And the reason he did
that is because he didn't want people experiment on his brother. Right,
He's protecting his brother, Like your brother just died and

(38:10):
you don't want them exploiting his body parts for whatever
stupid reason you're going to have. And you know what,
I believe that if gofa bid something happened to my sister,
I do everything in my power to make sure you
are not messing with her or anything that has to
do with her. But it's a crazy story, right, The
story's unbelievable. I never heard that before. Well, And the
thing is, I mean, except obviously when I watched your

(38:31):
show that other time. But to me, the Kennedy stuff
is all of it is you know, it's so, it's
so the stories are wild. But if you want to
know who killed Kennedy, because let's talk about it for
a moment.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Like what I love.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
About it is if you look in the sixties and
you want who actually killed Kennedy is we looked is
to high the Cold War? So who killed Kennedy? We
blamed our great enemies at the time, it was the
Soviet Union did it. The Cubans did it.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
So people thought that in Alice that it was the Russian.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
First people, the first ones, right, that was the first
thing we pointed the finger out. And in the seventies,
as Watergate happens and Richard Nixon is blamed and we start,
you know, mistrusting government and distrusting it at New Heights,
who killed Kennedy? Then we're like government inside job, Government
did it, Cia did it, LBJ did it. In the eighties,
the Godfather movies peak who killed Kennedy? Mafia, the mob,

(39:24):
the mob did it? Right, So if you want to
know who chill Kennedy, you know, I think did it.
But if you want to know who killed Kennedy, it's
decade by decade whoever America is most afraid of at
that moment in time, right, and the Kennedy's All conspiracy
theories are like this, but especially the Kennedy. They are
mirrors and we hold them up and they show us
our fears, and they show us our hopes, and they
show us what we want. And that's why the Kennedy

(39:45):
story is always worth telling, because it's not just the Oh,
here's a salicious story that has all these affairs and
this giant murder, which I'm sure we love it because
of that, because we are just a cruel you know people,
but also because it is us that is, you know, sadly,
what we chase to and aspire to, and what we're
what we push back and fight against. But it's all

(40:06):
there in one little three year window.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Has anybody do you know this is anybody from the
Kennedy family read the book.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I don't know yet. I know someone from who works
close with LBJ. I'm going to see her on Thursday
and I can't wait to see her. Her dad was
a big shot in the ken administration. And she's like,
can't wait to see you, and I know that, Oh yeah,
and she loves our you know.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
She's Yeah, I was gonna say to Kenny's.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think will be fine, like they you know, we
we do them, But yeah, I don't think Mamie Eisenhower's
kids or maybe listen, maybe if you deny someone a
wheelchair like I can't. I'm trying to protect you, mamie,
but you know there's only so much you could do.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
All right now, A couple of a couple of other things,
A couple of other things. The and I don't want
to rush past this one. It's brad, it is so good.
And again I'm not a JFK guy at all, but
it is so good. Are you going to do another
conspiracy book?

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yes, we're doing them so Josh and I will not
do it together simply because he is doing his own
book now and I want and I want him to
promote his own books. So we'll probably we may do
another one one day. I love him where he is,
my dear. I just saw him on Monday when we
launched the book tour. Wait, so were you doing it
with somebody else? Yeah, I'm going to do with someone
else rhymes with smellie it.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
What are you contributing? I was just gonna say, Dan,
can you imagine the blood?

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I would say right now, go on my Twitter account
or on Facebook where the blank conspiracy is me and Elliott?
What goes into black that's the capturing contest for the day,
right like that, it just fill it in you.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
But I want to be a part. I want to
be a part.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Like I read like all the thank you so you're like,
oh my dear friend mentioned, I love him.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
I'd be like, his name is mentioned. I know.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
That's the only reason I mean this. When they said
what about Mensch, I'm like, I don't hired. It's the greatest.
I mean, it's perfect.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
I don't know. I'm not good at researching things. I'm
not good at reading forever to read the book. I
appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
That's your upfront about that part, right, perfect way to
get hired. But but but to do the book, like
I'll even go on tour with you and just be like, Brad,
you take that, yeah, take that one.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Does anybody have any hockey questions, Like.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
For example, if we were going no, if we were
going tonight, like we did the book together at Pere Legs,
because I know where that store is. While you do that,
I am at the other end of the of the center.
There's a nothing bunt cakes down there. Cakes right at
the other end of the center. Those will be eaten tonight.
But that's what I would build it. His killer could
be like, oh, you did the book with Elliott. Yeah,

(42:42):
he's getting a couple of mines and that's what we're.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
But yeah, so we are what you're doing. We do
know what we're doing. And you're not gonna you're not
gonna tell me. I'll tell you off the air. But
but you know, I'm not good at secrets. I know,
I know. But so I would have given away the
whole end of the book. I would have given out
that you were good about that. Yeah, because I read it,
and I want to prove to you I read it well.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I knew because you were texting me. I love when
you text me when when you're reading Jackie gets so mad.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I love that though.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
I love that because I because don't forget when you
text me. No one's ready yet except for like my
wife and the proof readers. And so I love that
I can see in real time what's working.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
You're like, oh, I just got to this part of
the JFK conspiracy. Oh I can't believe that.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
I'm like, oh, that part worked, and I get to
this part. And I love getting those texts. I can
see in real time what's working because I hate to
break it to most readers don't text me as they're reading.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
No, but that's what Jackie says. Jackie's like, you realize
you're being an a hole, Like people don't.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Think I want to do that. Like in the beginning,
when you start, all your friends text you. But when
you're in your twenty fifty year doing this, your friends
are like, go scratch yourself. I'm not buying the books anymore,
you know, like they're just and I love the fact
you do that.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
That's what well I'm gonna tell Jackie.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Ye, people don't text the author while you're while you're
reading the book.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
But the thing is, it's just that you loved it,
and I love how I text you again.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's like four days later and I'm only two pages
for You're like, I love page one on nine.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Two years later, page one ten is a killer.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
All right, So there's gonna be another conspiracy. Now, Like
you said, you're a novel writer. I saw you just
posted a picture. The first draft of the next novel
is done?

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, done, So let's talk about it's coming next. So
next novel is done, first draft is done. It's the
new zigg and Nola, Right, So follows up Escape Artists
Last Lightning Rod. Yes, two and a half years. It'll
be three years by the time it comes out.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
So I gotta go back and read that again just
to remember what happened.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
I mean, I do a little recap, so you get
a little recap in the beginning, because you always have to.
Because even even Corey, my wife, is literally like, what
happened again, And I'm like, thanks, honey, I can really
appreciate we've had three children together, that you're so interested
in my work.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
But but it's hard. Three years, we're middle aged. I
don't remember anything.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
But but again, if you read like Harry Potter, she
always like, resets the table, and that's what I do.
We always reset it so you don't have to worry
about that. But yes, so Zig and Nola come back,
and I of that we're doing next month is the
new kid's book we're doing I Am Sally Ride, which
I love that we're doing. And Sally Rides significant other
helped us with the book, and I sent her the

(45:12):
book and she said it made her cry and that
you know when you have you serious, which makes me
cry of course when I get that, because it's the
person you know it's the person closest to Sally Ride
in her whole life, and she's sobbing while reading the book,
which makes me so happy.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
And then in.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
March, so we're doing three books in three months, which
we've never attempted, which is silliness eight pages. I know
that's true, but then so yeah, so JFK Conspiracy. Now
in three weeks I am Sally Ride. And then a
month after that in March is the I give the
graduation commencement address at Michigan this year, and when it
was it was all about making magic, and so it

(45:51):
was about there are only four types of magic tricks
in the world, and if you take out escapes and illusions,
there's four tricks. There's one you make something appear, you
make something disappear, three you make two things switch places,
and four you turn one thing into something else, the
hardest trick of all, which is transformation. Right, And I
gave this speech at Michigan seventy thousand people, which is

(46:13):
what you two played to like when you know when
they're at Wembley Stadium and I'm focused on one. My
son is in the fourteenth throw graduating, and I wrote
this speech just for him, and I can tell you
that you know there were protesters there that they're not
for me, but obviously it was you know Palestinian. You know,
protesters were coming on the field and they were marching

(46:35):
towards the stage, and you know, the president university looks
at me and says, why isn't security pushing them back?
And I'm like, you're the president, why you asking me
what to do? And but you're not going to say
you did a speech for your kids. I'm doing a
speech for my son. I have nothing to do with
these people, you know, anything that's going on. And basically
it's a disaster. Eight minutes before I go on, it'to

(46:57):
a disaster. And then security winds up. They get push
back to eighty yards away from me, to the end zone.
The clouds that are in the sky part and the
sun comes out. My sister while I'm on the stage,
text me. She takes a picture of the sky and
text me and says, mom and Dad are looking out
for you right now. And everything that was going wrong,
all the dominoes headed the wrong way. A flip over
and they go the right way. I give this speech

(47:19):
about making magic, and I never in my whole life.
Have more people write to me through the website, through Facebook, Instagram,
the can I have a copy of that speech. I
want to give it, print it out. I want to
give it to my son. I want to give it
to my grants. I want to give it to my
kid who was just born. I want to save it
for them. I mean, I've written books for twenty five years.
No one's asked me like they have for this speech.

(47:39):
So publishers started calling me. The thing went viral when
they put it online. And so we're doing a book,
make Magic, the little Book of inspiration you never know
you needed.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh that's cool.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
And so they're taking the speech and turn it into
a book for graduation. So three books in three months
and make Magic. If you have a graduate or someone
who needs inspiration, order it. It is one of my
favorite things I've ever written.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Then what is the I know that we talked about
it last time. I think we did on the air.
Oh yeah, we get about that. Yeah, so so but
the book after that? No, that's good.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
If I just blew that.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
No, I love you whispered as if it's just us now, right,
But yeah, so we're doing after I am Sally Ride
is our first in the I AM series, the first
we are we're doing we are the Beatles, the Beatles, right,
And I will say, of all the books we've researched
for for the I AM Series, I don't think there's
one I've had more fun researching. And you know, when
we do I Am Sally Ride or I Am Stephen

(48:30):
Hawking or I Am Abraham Lincoln, they're always drawn the same.
They're drawn like a little kid, and that's the inspiration.
But the Beatles evolve, which means every page there is
a different version of the Beatles. Chris Alliopolis are amazing
artist on it is like I want to be on
the book. He's like, I'm gonna my amazing, my amazing.

(48:51):
But Chris is literally like I'm going to kill you.
Like there's so there's one spread in the book because
I'm like, well, you know, you want to show the yeah, yeah, yeah, Beatles.
But then you got to show Sergeant Pepper's you got
to show when they're taking drugs. You got to show
them with a sitar. You got to show them yellow Submarine.
It can't leave that out. Revolvers come and Abbey Road.
We got to show that, make the beards come and

(49:11):
Chris is literally like you're a dead man, like you
making me draw so much nonsense in this book?

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Are they as kids crossing Abbey Road?

Speaker 2 (49:19):
They have an you think, I mean you have to pick.
I mean we had to pick what they They're on
the cover of the book. They're standing on Abbey Road, right,
and then the end that's the end scene. Of course
it's Abbey Road. And you know the book is you know,
it's one of my favorites we've ever done because the
stories are amazing and and you know, it's all about

(49:39):
what the cunt.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
I always see these books as what what the culture
is looking for and what I want for the for
our culture. So you know, sometimes it's about mental health
or it's about empathy. And this book has come together
right right, it's just what we need to do right now.
So that's what we are. The Beatles is about. And
and the thing that's great about it is have you
met either of the remaining So I reach I got

(50:01):
in touch with both of them and I to try
and get them the proof it. And what was interesting
is Paul he was McCartney. McCartney, yes, dropping that name there,
name drop bomb, but he was so nice about it. Again,
I didn't speak to him about it, but he was like,
you know, I'm sure the project's great, but he won't
do anything with the Beatles. Not because he doesn't want
to do it or he doesn't love it, but he's like,

(50:21):
when I do anything with it, it just creates headache
for everyone else, and out of like a courtesy that
it just he doesn't need the headache.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
They don't. They don't do it. But I will tell you.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Ringo Starr called you, Yes, is coming is coming to
my is coming.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
To where I live.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
He's coming to your house, not to my house, but
I'm going to try and get him to my house.
But he's he's he's literally performing ten minutes from where
I live, and I am going to do everything in
my power to have that book backstage for him. I'm
just like, I'm calling in every favor I got.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Okay, So you haven't talked to him yet, not yet, dude,
how awesome is So we did have.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
The lead, I mean, we did have the lead.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
The leading person who has written the autobiography the biographies
of the Beatles, right is this amazing guy who proved
the book for us because you know, I don't. I
can't hold myself as the expert. We find the best
expert that's out there and say, and he was like, again,
this book really moved me. Man, It's like these stories,
it's not me. It's that you know Paul and Ring
and John that their stories are amazing. George is amazing.

(51:17):
It was Willberry, it was Willberry was traveling. But we
when we tell these stories, you realize you love these
people for a reason. And it's not just because you
like the songs, but because it's you. You want a
part of what they stand for in your life. There's
an emotional component and and boy does the world need
to come together right now? Right so we are the

(51:38):
Beatles way to see, I think of all the kids
books we've done, I think you're really gonna know which way.
I know you like, you like Jackie Robinson, and I
know it is the best one.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Well.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
The thing is the thing for me about it is
that Jackie Robinson's daughter proofed it and and you know
the Dodgers they read it every year on Jackie Robinson Day. Awesome,
and I have a video of like his grandson and
his son reading our book to like kids in the
inner City and you're just like, you know, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Can you get Showhey to autograph one again?

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Right on that That's why I wrote the books, just
to get The funny part was is there was who
was it? It was like there was some famous quarterback
who was like contacted us. I'm trying to remember who
it was. I'll remember this. And my son is literally like,
you know, unimpressed with anything I do. But some big giant,
you know, star was like, oh I love the kids
books and my kid. My son is like are you kidding? Dad?

(52:35):
Like he was like I'm like, well you mad, and
like this is a good moment for you.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
All right.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Brad Meltzer's The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to Kill
Kennedy and Why it failed.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
It is out and available now. The book is great.
It really is.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Tonight at Barnes and Noble and then afterwards at Nothing
BUTNT Cakes starting at seven o'clock, free event, no tickets needed.
You can go out and see Brad. Brad always, I
appreciate it. Thank you, my friend, Love you.