Jesse Kelly Gets Emotional In Interview with Michael Berry, Discussing Grief & His Best-Selling Book
February 8, 2025 • 42 mins
Jesse Kelly became a world famous author with the release of The Anti-Communist Manifesto. Now, there's some new news surrounding the best-selling book. Jesse reveals the news and has the tables turned on him as mentor Michael Berry interviews The Oracle.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, so this is our special on the Anti Communist Manifesto,
and we're going to go to my friend and mentor
Michael Berry and actually syndicated radio host Michael Berry here
in just a couple of minutes that he's going to
interview me. I'm going to be interviewed like I'm super important.
But I probably should explain really quickly before we go
to Michael why I wrote the book at all, because
(00:32):
I am not an author. I need to be clear
about this. I am not an author. I have never
had any desire to be an author. I still don't
want to be an author. There's not going to be
a book series. At least I think there's not going
to be a book series coming out. I'm not going
to do a book a year or anything like that.
I hate to write. I love to talk to you
on TV. I like to talk to you on the radio.
(00:52):
But I despise writing. Is that weird? Probably is like
if you told me I had to sit down and
talk to you for an hour on camera that every day.
I love that. If you told me I had to
write a thousand words about anything, pick a subject, I
would have this not in my stomach. The kind of
not most people get. When they have to speak in
front of people, you realize that that's how much I
(01:13):
hate to write. And so my buddy Chris balf is
my business partner. Really, Chris balf came to me a
couple of years ago and he said, hey, I want
you to write a book. And Chris knows me, he
knows I don't want to write a book. He said,
I want you to write a book. I said, okay,
what about I don't want to write a book. He said,
hear me out the anti Communist Manifesto. Now that, now
(01:38):
that I told him, was a book I just might write.
And so I got with my buddy Nick Rizzuto, my
co author, and what we did was we came up
with a book. I can't believe it's a national bestseller.
Now that's totally weird to me, but we came up
with a book. And what it is is it lays
out the communism here in the United States of America.
It lays out how it got here historically Paris, and
(02:00):
probably most importantly, it lays out things that you can
do about it. You know, it's not just a book
like the normal ones are. I hate these kinds of
books and just tell you, well, this sucks, that sucks,
and that sucks. Best of luck. No lays out what
the problems are and action items for us to do
things about them. That's what I like the most about it.
Don't tell me the problems, tell me the solutions. That's
(02:23):
what the anti Communist Manifesto is is. And of course
maybe there's some jokes in there. Maybe, just maybe you'll
snicker a few times, but hopefully you enjoyed it and
it is safe for your kids. Just like this show,
just like everything else kids cross country have read it
to It's totally fine for kiddos. All right, all right,
So let's see what Michael Berry wants to talk to
me about next. You know, a long time ago, actually
(02:54):
about six and a half years ago, I was not
doing this for a living. I was selling RV's This
is back when I had hair and a lot less
gray in my beard, and I got to know somebody,
big shot, nationally syndicated radio host, Michael Berry. Basically for me,
he was someone I listened to on the radio. And
(03:17):
he sends me a message one day and says, hey,
come on my show. I need to go on the
Michael Berry Show and I'm selling RV's. I'm in the
RV dealership and I go again, I'm on Michael Berry Show.
It was cool, but it was twenty minutes. And then
I hung up and didn't think about it again. And
that night I'm in the Taco Bell drive through and
I get a phone call from Michael Barry calling my cellphone,
(03:39):
just a BS, just to talk about things. And then
we started hanging out. And guess why you get to
watch yours truly here on the first every single day
because Michael Berry told me, you need to give it
a shot, give a media career a shot, and so
here I am. Now you're stuck with me joining me
now somebody who has not only pushed me into this,
has mentor word me every step of the way. My
(04:02):
good friend Michael Berry. Michael, you have such an incredible
eye for talent.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I do. Yes, I recognized the talent that was Jesse
Kelly in our first radio interview, and the rest, as
they say, is history. People call me by different names.
Had a shirt, I mean I had a cap made
about this. Yes, and today is a special day because,
(04:32):
as I hope you've told your viewers, this is the
day that the anti Communist Manifesto hits the shelves in
paperback form. So the production team and I thought would
be a good idea of instead of you talking to everybody,
I interview.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
You.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
First of all, I write this book?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Why? What?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Why write the this book?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well? I don't like to write, you know, I told
you that all the time, because you were always nagging
at me. I gotta write more, I gotta Why are
you not writing more? Because you were always on me
about that. You need to write an article about this.
You need to get your name out there.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I was always complaining and those were good, and so
you clearly have a knack for writing.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, it was for the it was for the Federalist,
and I did do some things for town Hall, and
there's a couple other places I forgot. But I hate
to write. I've tried to explain this to people. I
tried to whine to you about it all the time,
and you were nagging at me about it. I don't
like to write a My wife did the same thing.
She's like, you need to write, you need to write.
I hate writing. I realize people enjoy the things that
(05:46):
I write for some reason, probably because I'm stupid, and
it's easy for everyone to understand. But but I don't
like to write. I hate to write, and I never
wanted to write a book, and I don't ever want
to write another one. The idea of writing an anti
communist manifesto because of my hatred for communists was appealing
to me. It was. It's the only thing that was
(06:06):
appealing to me. Because Chris Balf, my good friend, business partner,
Chris Balf, begged me forever to write a book too,
and I just wouldn't. And finally he's the one who
pitched me on that idea, and I thought, you know,
it was like a light bulb came on as soon
as he said it. I thought to myself, wow, that
that's probably something I could dig into. But even that,
for me was insurmountable. As I told him in the open, Michael,
(06:31):
that that feeling most people get when they when they
have to speak in front of people, and they get
that feeling in the pit of their stomach where you
have a moment where you think I'd rather die than
get up in front of people and speak. It's a
very human thing. You know. You don't have that anymore.
And I don't have that anymore. But it's a very
natural thing. That's what I feel like if I have
to write even a thousand words, If you if we
(06:53):
hung up here and you called me and said you'd
have to write something on the border and get it
turned into the Federalist, and you're all all over me
about it, like I would feel borderline physically sick. That's
how much I hate writing. But this book meant the
concept of this meant enough to me, and I thought
I could maybe do it well. And I thought, well,
(07:13):
screw it, you might as well give it a shot.
And so now I'm a world famous author, Michael world famous.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Indeed, I can't question I thought that the reason for
the book was as a delivery mechanism for your burger recipe.
I thought it was really just a strojan horse, get
the burger recipe into as many hands as you possibly could.
But you know, on that subject, Rush Limbaugh used to
say after he wrote his second book, he said, there
(07:39):
will be no more books. People would ask for more books,
and he said, I don't have an iron butt. And
I've always liked that line. Because we sit, you know,
you sit and do television, You sit and do radio.
When we're done with that, we don't want to sit
and write more. And it's hard. It's hard to imagine,
you know, the brain power that that requires, the tedium
that that requires. Like Carol Markowitz, our mutual friend Karl
(08:02):
mark Witz, I think she could write in her sleep.
It comes very naturally to her. But I think for
us we are communicators by voice and expressive in this
way verbally and not in the written form. So I look,
although all kit in a side, hats off to you
for finishing the damn thing?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You know, isn't that? Don't you find what you just
said kind of weird? Or I find it kind of
weird people like Carol who can just sit down and
just hammer out subject and in fact they love it,
like they enjoy it. I don't get that at all.
But Carol, Dave Marcus is this way. These types just
natural writers can sit down and it just flows from them,
(08:41):
like anyone who listens to your radio show can hear,
it just flows out of you. It's effortless, right. I
can't write like that, you know, I can. You asked
me to sit in time for three hours. I run
my mouth for three hours. I'll talk about cheeseburgers for
three hours. But if you ask me to write it down,
I don't express myself in that way. And people who
have that talent, I'm envious of it. You know, people
(09:02):
watch us through radio and TV and think it's all
fancy or whatnot. But I'm jealous of the people who
can write. If you can sit and write, I wish
I could do that, because that's in my opinion, yes exactly.
I was about to say, it's it's longer lasting. You know,
someone's long after I'm dead and gone. Someone's gonna pick
up the Anti Communist Manifesto. They're not going to download
the Jesse Kelly Show podcast, but they might pick up
(09:25):
the J book.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And Pj's not around anymore, but I can still laugh
at his jokes. You know, songwriters and great artists will
say I've seen them interviewed and they will say that
the greatest compliment they can give to another song is
that they hate the person who wrote it because they
wished they had written it. I have to tell you,
(09:47):
doing what I do, and having done it since long
before you were doing it, when you created the language
around communism for what the left is and started shoehorning
it into that and giving kind of a structure to
You need to understand these people aren't just out there
in the ether operating. This is a redux of what
(10:09):
we've seen before. They are communists. That I hated you
for that, because why couldn't I have thought of that,
because it made it, It made it much more understandable
and accessible, And I hats off to you for that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, well, I study my enemy, right, I mean we
always we all know this, especially dudes. No this that
you study your enemy what works and what doesn't work.
We have we had the Marines working with the Chi
Kongs in before World War two to learn about jungle warfare. Right,
you study your enemy how does he operate? And one
(10:45):
thing that really really hit me as I watched you know,
you watch enough of the news and read enough crap
and you're watching videos on social media, it really hits
you how purposeful the communist is with his language, so
oh incredibly purposeful discipline. He demands the discipline of his
fellow communists. Go ahead and watch a CNN panel where
(11:07):
you have a bunch of Democrats on there, and watch
even one of them call an illegal in illegal well
in illegal. He will be We've all seen it a
million times. He or she will be scolded by his
fellow communists. Well, well, we don't say that word here.
We'd like to use the word undocumented. Why are they
so purposeful about it? Because language leads to mindset, you know,
(11:28):
leads to mindset, and mindset leads to performance. So if
you want the American people to be more accepting of
importing millions of foreign barbarians, you don't call them illegals.
You call them undocumented. And then it sounds like Loupe
tripped over the border to have eighteen kids here instead
of purposely invading the country, which is what she did
to have all of her kids become American citizens. So
(11:50):
they are purposeful with how they speak. And I didn't
like how unpurposeful. I'm sure that's not a word, you know, Michael,
I didn't go to college. I didn't like how unpurpose
is full of the right was because most of us,
obviously it's not a universal, come from a place of honesty. Right,
You want to be honest. We care about the truth
and facts and things like that. So we just speak,
(12:10):
you know, we just talk. But the communist is framing
everything he's framing it, he's labeling it. He's branding everything,
which is something you're always writing me about is branding.
He's branding we're being branded as Nazis, as white supremacist,
as this and that, because he's focused with his language.
And I did not like our lack of focus and
decided to attempt, in my own small way to try
(12:32):
to focus things. That's why the.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Anti Communist Manifesto is out today in paperback, the more
affordable version with Jesse's famous burger recipe at the end.
Tell me what reaction you received from readers, because you
read your emails. We talked about this for a long
time from your TV viewers. You read your emails from
your listeners. What was a reaction to the book that
(12:58):
you received that surprise you or you at least didn't expect.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, you know how we just talked about how I
don't like writing every single thing I ever wrote, you know,
a little article for the Federalists, every single thing I
ever wrote. When I was done writing it, I hated it.
I would read it several times and I would think
that this is a slop. It's not intelligent, it's not entertaining.
And you know, what do you do. You send it
(13:26):
to family, you know, you send it to your mom.
I would, I would send it to my mom, But
what's your mom gonna say. That's the greatest thing I've
ever read in my life. But even still, nothing cured
the fact that I hated it. When Nick Rizzuto and
I wrote this book, when it was finally done, we
did this long weekend meetup where we kind of ripped
up and rewrote this and I didn't like the wording here.
(13:48):
So we're rewriting all this stuff, and we finally we
have the finishing touches on it, and I read through
the entire thing again when it was done. I thought
it sucked. I really genuinely thought it sucked. I thought
the stuff that he did, you know, the research the
facts was so fascinating because I nerd out on that.
But I thought, I really genuinely thought it sucked. And
(14:08):
everyone knows I'm not being fake humble. I'm the least
humble person in the world. I just don't think I
write well. And so I read the book and I thought,
this is garbage. It's garbage. It's going to be another
one of those books that somebody, some conservative rites and
it gets published, but then it disappears into the ether
after a few days because it really kind of freaking sucked.
That really was one hundred percent what I thought was
(14:29):
going to happen. And then boom, it just takes off
and it's national bestseller and people are emailing the show.
It's one of the best books I've ever read. I
bought five copies. I'm handing it to friends and family,
and I to this day it's the most surprised I've
ever been in my six and a half years of
doing media. The most surprised by a mile I've ever
(14:52):
been has been the listener and viewer reaction to the book,
how much it was. It was universal. I don't think
I got one from a listener that said that was
very good, and they just did backflips over the whole thing.
I still don't get it. I still think it sucks.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They're talking about the perpetuity in which a book can
be kept right. That was Ray Bradbury's fen Fahrenheit four
or five to one is burn all the books and
you burn all the knowledge, because that's how we pass
from generation to generation. We can go back and read
him away. We can go back and read Shakespeare, we
can go back into history and read the words of
people that we don't mean. But what's fascinating about a book?
(15:29):
And I think that's why it was important you did this.
I think what makes it so amazing is you and
I and everybody watching you is part of a movement
to take back our country, to improve the lives of
our children and grandchildren, to make America great again. I mean,
that's that really means something, right, That's why Reagan first
came up with it. But the idea of our movement
(15:52):
and how we communicate and educate and share. We have radio.
You and I do radio every evening, and so that's
people while they're dry mostly or you know, they're in
their podcast years. Then we have television and that's mostly
when you're at home and you can watch it on
your TV. But there is in a book, there is
an opportunity to reduce to writing a thought, a concept,
(16:15):
the tenets of the movement in this case, which is
what you set out, and to be able to share
that with people, and to be able to do that
in a way that you can say, Jesse, it's your birthday.
I bought this book from this guy or Billy, it's
your birthday. I bought this book from this guy. Read it.
It's great. And they may not be able to get
them to listen to your your radio show or watch
your television show, but they will share that there's something
(16:38):
kind of cool about that. It's another part of the movement.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like another tool in your tool belt.
I totally agree. And I've always loved quotes, you know,
I've just and everyone does, right, who doesn't love a
great quote? But I have as uneducated and dom as
I am. I have all these quotes from various authors
and historical figures burned into my head because they were
(17:05):
written down. I mean, who doesn't. Who doesn't know the
John Adams quote? I study war and politics so my
sons can study mathematics and philosophy. Like how profound and
freaking awesome is that? And it's a quote that's just
like yeah, and when it's written, it's more meaningful. And
just talking about this, think about this a lot. People
(17:27):
will talk about Rush Limbaugh to this day the goat
the greatest of all time. I miss Rush, I miss Rush.
Rush is the best, and of course he was and
one of the wild things about it is you could
listen to Rush Limbaugh for three hours a day and
you were entertained, and you were informed, and you were
all those things. All that stuff is true. But when
I see Rush Limbaugh quotes, people will still put them
up on Twitter or Facebook or something like that. You'll
(17:49):
you'll read a Rush Limbaugh quote and you'll think, man,
that is profound. That is as profound as any conservative
writing I've ever read in my life. I just didn't.
I guess it didn't make the same impact on me
because I was listening to it at the time, or
maybe I was half listening, you know how it is
(18:09):
with a radio audience to mostly half listening, and so
it didn't make an impact on me when I heard it.
But when I read it, I thought, Man, that is
as deep and wonderful as anything that you can run
writing it down. Yes, yes, ranging it. What did you say?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Because it's been reduced to writing. When you reduce something
to writing, it gives it. It gives it a GRAVI
toss that having been spoken alone. So you mentioned your mom,
and you know that's what moms are for? Are they
cheer for us? So a few months ago I lost
my mom and a matter of days later you lost
your dad. But your dad did get to see the
heartback edition obviously that the paperback is out today. What
(18:52):
was your dad's reaction, because you and your dad have
a very interesting relationship.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
You know, first he texted the group family text the
day the book was published, So you know, Simon and Schuster,
a big shot book publisher. They published the book, and
I'm grateful they did it, and it becomes this national bestseller.
And he's not a big Texter, as you can imagine.
My old man was rough around the edges. And he
texted the group chat and he said, I can't believe
(19:18):
he actually wrote a book after failing algebra three times
in college. So but that was his love language, right,
And other than that, he would he would tell me
he was proud of me occasionally, but most of my
stories from him I would get secondhand because my dad
was not It wasn't the lovey dovey type with me,
(19:41):
so I wouldn't get as much from him, but I
would get all the time from my mom and sister
that he would brag the strangers, total strangers who didn't
give a crap about me or the book he's telling them, well,
my son, Yeah, he wrote a book. It's big, it's
national bestseller. You should go buy it. He bullied perfect
strangers into buying the book, completely proud of the whole thing.
(20:01):
Just didn't tell me that much about it, And that
was that was the way it was. It was. It
was something.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You're a marine. You're a tough guy. Not as tough
as your dad, but tough like your dad, and he's
what made you tough, very very tough man, uh an
oak in the forest. We struggle as men to cope
with grief, right, and we're not as expressive as women.
It's it's a difficult it's a difficult thing. Let's talk
(20:33):
about that. So you get the news that your dad
passed and we've had this conversation. You may be harder
than you would have ever imagined. How did that change you?
What advice do you have for people who go through
these because we're guys, we don't grieve easily or.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, well, I'll tell you it's a process. It's a
process I'm still going through, so I certainly don't want
to pretend like I'm an expert on it. I can
only tell people what I've gone through I'll have For me,
it comes in waves, you know, it comes and it goes.
You know, I'll have I'll wake up one morning it
(21:09):
was this morning, and I feel great. I feel great,
you know, still miss him, but feel great going through
the workday, even talking about him right now, fine, totally fine.
So it's not like that triggers it or something like that.
Talking You're fine, everything's fine. But it could be tomorrow morning.
I may wake up and I don't feel like it
out of bed, and the grief will come and it
(21:31):
will go, and it will come and it will go.
But the difference between, you know, I'm sure this is
a big men and women thing, as you just alluded to,
is the talking about it. I have no problem, you know,
telling all I'm telling my wife when I'm grieving, but
oftentimes I don't tell her. She could just tell. She'll
see it right on my face when I walk home
or whatever, or walk home, when I walk in the door,
(21:52):
or when I wake up in the morning. She can
see it if I'm making breakfast, and then she'll always
ask me, because this is her way, do you want
to talk about it? And occasionally I have one or two,
but for the most part. No. The answer is no,
I don't want to talk about it. And it's not
that I'm trying to bottle everything up. Sometimes men have
to grieve alone. You know, there's nothing I can say.
(22:13):
There's nothing I can say, There's no way I can
convey what I'm thinking or feeling, and frankly, I don't
feel like it. And the best advice I could give
to people if they're going through any grief is that's okay.
If you want to talk about it, that's okay. You
want to gather with friends, that's okay. You want to
go be in a cabin by yourself in the woods
for a couple of weeks while your grief, that's okay.
(22:35):
Everyone grieves differently in their own way, and it's totally fine.
I don't pass judgment on how my friends and family
are grieving. They don't pass it on me. And that's
the best advice I can give. If I want to
be alone, I'll be alone. If I want to take
the day off of work, I will. If I want
to go home and have an extra whiskey, I might.
(22:55):
But grieve in your own way.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So I preach, and I literally preach this almost daily,
that because I have known of people who lose a
loved one. My brother died three years ago. It was
fifty four years old. It was an active duty police officer.
And I get the call and he's passed, and so
we didn't get that last conversation, but we literally talked
(23:21):
every day. And I tell people, you don't know when
you walk out the door and that door slams behind
you and you throw that last zinger, hurt them as
much as you can. That may be the last thing
you ever say to that person. And I've known people
for whom that was the case, and I say, no
matter what happens to my wife and I have a rule,
we do not separate without I love you in a
(23:44):
meaningful way. Because if that's the last thing I ever
say to her, I don't want there to be any
doubt that I worry that she doubted you. And your
dad had a special moment there the last time you talked,
which is almost I mean you talk about odds God's
hand on us. That was sort of a very unique moment. See,
(24:06):
if you're good with it, I think people should hear
that story. I think they should see that side of you.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
All right, let's see if I can get through this.
So my dad, Uh, it's it's just a Kelly thing.
I'm the exact same way. My dad did not stay
in other people's homes when he would visit out of town.
The Kellys don't do that. You don't stay in other
people's homes. Look, I'm not defending it. It was just
our way. You don't stay in other people's homes. You
(24:34):
go visit, you have your dinner, you go then if
you're out of town, you go to a hotel or
you go back home. You don't stay with other people.
And this included me, his son. You know, I have
a we have the two boys. He was the best grandpa.
Just love those boys. But he would come down then
you know, we di have dinner and we dive in
and then he'd go to a hotel with my mom.
They'd go. He wouldn't stay. So I have a theory.
(24:56):
I don't know this, but I have a theory that
my father knew he was. I think a doctor told
him he's not the type who would pass that along,
because the last time I saw him, he came down
to visit us in Texas for a week and he
stayed with us a week my dad won't stay with
you for a night. There were instances where he would
(25:17):
come in, fly in, and they were gonna have to
come stay at the house to stay with the boys,
and he would still go to a hotel for one
night and then get up and come back with us.
But for this week, he said, I'm staying with you.
Never happened. He brought down a couple hunting knives for
the boys. Never happens. My dad doesn't do that sentimental
stuff really, And we went out fishing. We went fishing,
(25:42):
went fishing for red fish one morning, Saturday. It was
Saturday morning. We went fishing for red fish. Got up
me him, the boys went out fishing. Didn't catch much,
but had a blast listening to him yell at the boys,
and everything was great. We finished with that. We go
eat a big cage and meal. Found this cage in
place we love to eat. My dad's just like me
love to eat. Of course I got that from him.
We made pigs of ourselves and that night it was
(26:04):
a playoff baseball. Dodgers were playing somebody. Forget who, maybe
the padre is somebody. Dodgers were playing somebody, and sitting
there on the couch my dad had, of course, taken
over my recliner. He comes in and takes over my
recliner son sitting on the couch, and we're watching the
baseball games, me and him, and I just turned to
(26:25):
him and I told him I loved him. Right, That
was I mean, it was something we said but not often,
not often, just out of the blue, told him I
loved him, turns to me, tells me he loves me too.
That was Saturday night. I hug him, kiss him good night,
say goodbye. I did not get up in time to
see him. The next morning, they were leaving super early.
(26:46):
He got up him, my mom took off. He went
home that night on Sunday night, told my mom that
I had told him I loved him and how much
that meant to him, and then went to bed and
died in a sleep that night. God is good.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There is your reminder to each and every person that
we just don't know when that last moment's going to occur,
and live your life accordingly. Yeah, I mean, that's as
beautiful as it gets. How much of the person you
are politically, I know you're a miniature version of him
(27:29):
in the way you're grumpy and you're not expressive, but
you're tough and you're dutiful and all that. How much
of your politics, looking back now, because he's very much
a self made man as you are, how much of
your politics do you attribute to things you heard him
say or how you watched him live?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh? A lot of it. And what's funny is he
wasn't political. We were not a political family. I didn't
grow up political. The only political conversation I ever remember
remember having with my parents, and I'm kidding, it is
the only one I think. I was in kindergarten, maybe
the first grade. George H. W. Bush was running for president,
(28:10):
and in our class we had a mock election, right,
and there were Democrats and Republicans, and you could, you know,
there was just grade school, stupid grade school stuff. And
I didn't even know what I was or what we were.
So I went home that night and I asked my parents,
are we Democrats? Are Republicans? And I remember my dad
playing his day, turning in and saying, we're Republicans. That
was it. There was no explanation, you know, there was
(28:31):
no deep political philosophy around it. But then you know,
you watch him bust his butt and worked that hard
work and Jess as construction man. We're a construction family.
His dad worked construction. That's what he does. You watch
him bust his butt no matter what. You watch the
guy go to work, no matter what, cold, hot, busting
his weran his whole life, hard work, toughness, no whining.
(28:55):
And you may not have been reading about Ronald Reagan
and Winston Churchill from your dad, but you grow up
one day and you figure out, Wow, that was framing
how you view the world, you know, and his own
way framing how you view the world will take you
to where you need to be politically. If your dad's
a worthless, loser, freeloader and raises you to be that way,
(29:17):
you're probably going to be a Democrat. If your dad
believes in hard work and success, in no whining, you're
going to fall somewhere on the right. Maybe you be
a libertarian or a nationalist or a conservative or something
like that, but you're going to be somewhere on the right.
So there's that and really what I have to politically,
(29:38):
at least as far as my career goes, to thank
him for. Beyond the lessons about hard work, it's being
unapologetic about who you were. He is, my sister said
at his funeral, and it was so true that she'd
never met anybody in her life as unapologetically who he
was as my dad was. And people will say things
to me like, man, you got that was brave. I
(30:02):
can't believe you said that. That took a lot of courage,
which I find to be ridiculous. It's not courageous to
say things on TV and radio. You know, cops are courageous.
Troops are courageous. But to whatever degree you believe that, wow,
that really took guts, Well, it's not that it took guts.
I really genuinely just don't care if you're angry about it.
It's not even that I'm happy you're angry or sad
you're angry. It means nothing to me whatsoever. This is
(30:25):
how I feel, So this is how I talk, and
you can take it or leave it. Really genuinely doesn't
mean anything to me at all. That's the kellyway, and
that's really one of the main things I learned from
m I'd say, do you.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Know who famously said, imagine how much good you can
do in the world if you stop caring what other
people think about you. Me, it's it's all my way,
the only one I expect to be remembered for, if
you'll keep saying it years after I'm gone. I have
said to you jokingly over the years that you're dead inside,
and it is joking part, But I do think there
(30:59):
is a certain skill set to come back to the
any anti communist manifesto, there is a skill set to
taking back our country. Because I hate that people think
that Trump's going to solve all our problems. He's doing
his part. We did our part to help them get elected.
But we're the heads of household, we're the heads of businesses,
we're the parents of kids that are in schools, were out,
(31:22):
we're serving on juries. We're going to have to take
this country back, and part of that means being a
little dead inside to the emotions of other people. We
have to be as you. It comes naturally to you
because you genuinely don't care what other people think. We
have been taught by mommies and school teachers who are
mommies at school for our entire lives that we have
(31:43):
to be nice to everyone. No, no, you've got to
do the right thing. And that's what I like about
the book that the message is understand these beastard, Understand
what you're dealing with, Understand who they are, and you
unapologetically call them that. And now once you understand who
they are, understand we're in a war and how we're
going to win. And I think that is the point.
(32:03):
That that's the real takeaway from this book that I
think it has a chance to make a difference with.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
It's why I wrote the action items. Every single chapter
has a subject with history and everything else, but at
the back end of it it has action items. Things
you can do right. It's not just here's a problem.
That's a problem. That's a problem. It's things you can
do and the boldness to do something is required. And
the reason it look it is a great aid that
(32:29):
I am that way, that I was raised that way.
It is a great aid when fighting communists, because communists
are masterful at using your values and your emotions against you.
It's the you know they're banking on when your liberal
and Peggy walks into your super Bowl party and she
starts bragging about her fifteenth abortion and talking about why
(32:52):
we need all the foreign barbarians in the country. The
normal reaction from the right would be something similar to
what you would expect your wife to say. She'd lean in,
look at you and say, please don't embarrass me. Why
because she wants to maintain peace. Lets everything calm down,
let's just walk away from it. But that is how
(33:12):
the communist wins that please don't embarrass me attitude from us.
That has turned him into the only aggressor in every
single social setting, and so he's moved the culture his
way because liberal and Pegan's the only one screaming no,
no more, don't embarrass me, no more, be nice about it,
no more. Roll your eyes and go to the other room.
(33:34):
No more of that. No, no, no, no no. You put
that kami hag witch in her place right then and
there and tell her if she doesn't like it, she
can pack up her tampons and her cat litter and
she can get back in her suparu outback and never
come back in the house again. Start treating the communists
like the rat, demon vermin that he is, and stop
treating him like just some kind of lost, naive child
(33:56):
who will slowly come around if you're just kind enough
to That does not work with communists. The religious sellings.
They only understand fear and pain, and so you have
to be the one to give that to them.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
You said earlier, know your enemy, and I think what
you do a great job in the book at is
explaining who these people are and understanding you can't wait
on them to stop beating you. You've got to fight back.
You can't roll over and hope they stop what they're doing.
And I love that as part of it, because we
(34:29):
have what I call the nice neighbor problem. We all
want to be the nice neighbor, no matter how loud
the music gets, the gunshots get, the pit bull coming on.
I mean, at some point you have to push back
and say enough is enough. And that's probably my favorite
part is you explaining, and you kind of alluded to
it there that the communist is not things, aren't just
(34:51):
random people who happen to share some ideas In both
the same way, this is a mindset which is a
replacement for religion. They are ze tell us they are committed,
and when you understand what you're up against them, they're
fewer of them, but that's why they win so often.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, well, the problem is when it comes to you know,
people love that old saying it takes two to tango.
But that is not the case when it comes to war,
whether that be actual kinetic war or cultural wars or
political wars, it only takes one side. And you're liberal
and Peggy she believes she's a warrior, and she believes
she's at war. So no matter what you think about that,
(35:28):
you're at war. She has already declared war. She is
fighting a war. She's fighting it as if it's a
war that she must win. And so whether or not
you like that or agree with that means nothing whatsoever.
One side has decided there's going to be a war,
so now you have to fight it as if it
is a war, and she fights it as if she
intends to win it all in all the time. And
(35:52):
that's something I try to get through to people in
the book, is we can't be as lase a fair
about power as we always have been. Sure, we'll show
up and vote for Donald Trump once every four years,
but then local school board election. I'm too busy. I
got soccer practice tonight. I can't be bothered with this.
I can't be bothered with that. That's exactly why you
have these red cities and red areas that are run
(36:14):
by vicious little commie monsters putting trannies in the public
library to shake his penis in front of your child
because you abstain from power, and liberal Peggy did not.
She's not abstaining from anything. She drives around like a
freaking predator looking for choke points of power to seize.
And we have to understand they're around us. They're seizing
(36:34):
these choke points, and we have to take them back.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Your viewers are watching you mostly talk about national issues.
The President Trump the other day signed a bill that
said no more boys in women's sports. Turns out eighty percentage. Technically,
seventy nine percent of Americans do not want boys in
girls of sports. What we're talking about now are local fan, family,
(37:00):
community issues, not national issues. We talked to national issues
on national broadcast. But at the end of the day,
and I will applaud you for this, you have said
get and again, the most important election that you will
participate in is not presidential. It is your local school board.
You should participate all and an understanding that the communist
(37:22):
is most active where the rubber hits a road, in
the local school at the local city government. And I
think that that is another important thing for those who
haven't read the book. That's a point you make again
and again. Get involved locally, not just where you see
the national stories.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Every single person has the ability and should get involved
in some way. If you are not doing any kind
of political activism, you are flat out wrong. And that
doesn't mean you have to run for Congress or standard
or whatever. I went to I live in an extremely
read area of Texas, and I went to a school
board meeting. This is a few months back. It was
a school board forum. There were five school board seats.
(38:00):
We're talking about control of the school board. And I
show up probably one hundred and fifty two hundred people
there this thing, and I'm gabbing with one of the
local elected leaders in the back run of the Republicans.
He knows who I am, and we're there. I'm asking
him about the demographics of the crowd or their political
leadings of the crowd, and he starts laughing and he said,
it's a school board meeting. Probably ninety five percent Democrats. Here.
(38:22):
We are blood red area, MAGA flags everywhere. Trump is
Trump that I love Trump, Go America, woo. But the
school board that's going to determine whether Aiden, Jaden, and
Braden learn that they're gay. In the fifth grade. That
school board completely occupied by commis, and it's commedi's they're
figuring out which commedy they want on the school board
(38:43):
while we sit at home, church, soccer work, ignoring the
real choke points of power and that we cannot do anymore.
We have to go take back everything legally and locally.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well. And that's the point of the anti Communist Manifesto.
That's what I take away from it is understanding how
committed these people are. I really still think, and that's
why I hope people will read the book. I really
still think people are underestimating who these people are. Oh
my sister were just a little different. No, No, you
(39:15):
have to understand. You know, I'm a student of the
Civil War, and I know that's of all the military
activity you follow, it's probably not your top one. It
is for me, and I am in constant shocked at
how the Confederate forces, underfed, undertrained, undermanned were able to
(39:36):
fight so efficiently effectively against the Union army that had
better food, food, weaponry, training, the whole thing. Because the
Southern folks were much more committed. It wasn't about slavery.
It was about protecting their own community. And we can
argue over that all day, but you study these things
and it's like in Jericho in the Bible, they are
fighting with just a viciousness, and it mattered on the battlefield.
(40:00):
These communists in our it might be our sister in law,
it might be our kids teacher. They're fighting with a viciousness.
And you point that out. I think too few people
that do what we do, either understand it or are
willing to say it in that way.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, when you say it, when you allow your mind
to go there, then what you do is you've accepted
the fact that you're at war. And that's the that's
the real hold up for most people. They don't want
to live their life like that. They don't want to
live in constant conflict. They don't want to have to
get involved even locally. They don't want to have to
get screamed at. They don't want to have to they
(40:36):
don't want to have to do these things. People in
America want to just and this is a very natural
human thing. I'm not dogging on Americans. We just want
to exist. Can't I just go to work. Why do
you have to? This stuff shouldn't even be in school?
Why do I have to fight this stuff in school?
What I shouldn't have to? We shouldn't. I shouldn't have.
It's a lot of that I shouldn't have to. I should. Yeah,
(40:57):
you shouldn't have to. But we sat back, laid back
for so long. We let the demons take over everything. Well,
now you have to. It's not an option to not
be involved, but the hesitancy to acknowledge that the pink
haired freak in your child's second grade class with the
Black Lives Matter flag up there, it's hard to just
(41:19):
accept that that is actually a child predator who is
teaching your child for the express purpose of shattering your
child and breaking them away from you. That's a fact, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Since I'm runing the show today, your folks would tell
me we're out of time. I appreciate you, my man.
I love the book. Everybody buy it. It's out in
paperback today. I'm very proud of your woman.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thank you, my brother, as always, thank you for everything.
We'll be back. Well. That was my friend and mentor,
Michael Barrier. As you can tell, we've known each other
for quite sometime and look, you know what this special was.
(42:03):
This is me telling you about the book. Go by it.
If you can't afford it, I've realized that's the case,
talk to a friend, see if a friend has it.
Go down to your local library and request they get it.
We've had many people across the country in the last
year to do that. They've gone down basically demanded their
library order it. So everyone is in a different financial situation.
(42:26):
But I think you'll enjoy it. I think your friends
will enjoy it. Even kids can enjoy it. You will laugh,
you will learn. Jesse kellybook dot com is where you
go buy it. If you want to go buy it there,
Go buy the paperback, enjoy
Okay, so this is our special on the Anti Communist Manifesto,
and we're going to go to my friend and mentor
Michael Berry and actually syndicated radio host Michael Berry here
in just a couple of minutes that he's going to
interview me. I'm going to be interviewed like I'm super important.
But I probably should explain really quickly before we go
to Michael why I wrote the book at all, because
(00:32):
I am not an author. I need to be clear
about this. I am not an author. I have never
had any desire to be an author. I still don't
want to be an author. There's not going to be
a book series. At least I think there's not going
to be a book series coming out. I'm not going
to do a book a year or anything like that.
I hate to write. I love to talk to you
on TV. I like to talk to you on the radio.
(00:52):
But I despise writing. Is that weird? Probably is like
if you told me I had to sit down and
talk to you for an hour on camera that every day.
I love that. If you told me I had to
write a thousand words about anything, pick a subject, I
would have this not in my stomach. The kind of
not most people get. When they have to speak in
front of people, you realize that that's how much I
(01:13):
hate to write. And so my buddy Chris balf is
my business partner. Really, Chris balf came to me a
couple of years ago and he said, hey, I want
you to write a book. And Chris knows me, he
knows I don't want to write a book. He said,
I want you to write a book. I said, okay,
what about I don't want to write a book. He said,
hear me out the anti Communist Manifesto. Now that, now
(01:38):
that I told him, was a book I just might write.
And so I got with my buddy Nick Rizzuto, my
co author, and what we did was we came up
with a book. I can't believe it's a national bestseller.
Now that's totally weird to me, but we came up
with a book. And what it is is it lays
out the communism here in the United States of America.
It lays out how it got here historically Paris, and
(02:00):
probably most importantly, it lays out things that you can
do about it. You know, it's not just a book
like the normal ones are. I hate these kinds of
books and just tell you, well, this sucks, that sucks,
and that sucks. Best of luck. No lays out what
the problems are and action items for us to do
things about them. That's what I like the most about it.
Don't tell me the problems, tell me the solutions. That's
(02:23):
what the anti Communist Manifesto is is. And of course
maybe there's some jokes in there. Maybe, just maybe you'll
snicker a few times, but hopefully you enjoyed it and
it is safe for your kids. Just like this show,
just like everything else kids cross country have read it
to It's totally fine for kiddos. All right, all right,
So let's see what Michael Berry wants to talk to
me about next. You know, a long time ago, actually
(02:54):
about six and a half years ago, I was not
doing this for a living. I was selling RV's This
is back when I had hair and a lot less
gray in my beard, and I got to know somebody,
big shot, nationally syndicated radio host, Michael Berry. Basically for me,
he was someone I listened to on the radio. And
(03:17):
he sends me a message one day and says, hey,
come on my show. I need to go on the
Michael Berry Show and I'm selling RV's. I'm in the
RV dealership and I go again, I'm on Michael Berry Show.
It was cool, but it was twenty minutes. And then
I hung up and didn't think about it again. And
that night I'm in the Taco Bell drive through and
I get a phone call from Michael Barry calling my cellphone,
(03:39):
just a BS, just to talk about things. And then
we started hanging out. And guess why you get to
watch yours truly here on the first every single day
because Michael Berry told me, you need to give it
a shot, give a media career a shot, and so
here I am. Now you're stuck with me joining me
now somebody who has not only pushed me into this,
has mentor word me every step of the way. My
(04:02):
good friend Michael Berry. Michael, you have such an incredible
eye for talent.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I do. Yes, I recognized the talent that was Jesse
Kelly in our first radio interview, and the rest, as
they say, is history. People call me by different names.
Had a shirt, I mean I had a cap made
about this. Yes, and today is a special day because,
(04:32):
as I hope you've told your viewers, this is the
day that the anti Communist Manifesto hits the shelves in
paperback form. So the production team and I thought would
be a good idea of instead of you talking to everybody,
I interview.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
You.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
First of all, I write this book?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Why? What?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Why write the this book?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well? I don't like to write, you know, I told
you that all the time, because you were always nagging
at me. I gotta write more, I gotta Why are
you not writing more? Because you were always on me
about that. You need to write an article about this.
You need to get your name out there.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I was always complaining and those were good, and so
you clearly have a knack for writing.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, it was for the it was for the Federalist,
and I did do some things for town Hall, and
there's a couple other places I forgot. But I hate
to write. I've tried to explain this to people. I
tried to whine to you about it all the time,
and you were nagging at me about it. I don't
like to write a My wife did the same thing.
She's like, you need to write, you need to write.
I hate writing. I realize people enjoy the things that
(05:46):
I write for some reason, probably because I'm stupid, and
it's easy for everyone to understand. But but I don't
like to write. I hate to write, and I never
wanted to write a book, and I don't ever want
to write another one. The idea of writing an anti
communist manifesto because of my hatred for communists was appealing
to me. It was. It's the only thing that was
(06:06):
appealing to me. Because Chris Balf, my good friend, business partner,
Chris Balf, begged me forever to write a book too,
and I just wouldn't. And finally he's the one who
pitched me on that idea, and I thought, you know,
it was like a light bulb came on as soon
as he said it. I thought to myself, wow, that
that's probably something I could dig into. But even that,
for me was insurmountable. As I told him in the open, Michael,
(06:31):
that that feeling most people get when they when they
have to speak in front of people, and they get
that feeling in the pit of their stomach where you
have a moment where you think I'd rather die than
get up in front of people and speak. It's a
very human thing. You know. You don't have that anymore.
And I don't have that anymore. But it's a very
natural thing. That's what I feel like if I have
to write even a thousand words, If you if we
(06:53):
hung up here and you called me and said you'd
have to write something on the border and get it
turned into the Federalist, and you're all all over me
about it, like I would feel borderline physically sick. That's
how much I hate writing. But this book meant the
concept of this meant enough to me, and I thought
I could maybe do it well. And I thought, well,
(07:13):
screw it, you might as well give it a shot.
And so now I'm a world famous author, Michael world famous.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Indeed, I can't question I thought that the reason for
the book was as a delivery mechanism for your burger recipe.
I thought it was really just a strojan horse, get
the burger recipe into as many hands as you possibly could.
But you know, on that subject, Rush Limbaugh used to
say after he wrote his second book, he said, there
(07:39):
will be no more books. People would ask for more books,
and he said, I don't have an iron butt. And
I've always liked that line. Because we sit, you know,
you sit and do television, You sit and do radio.
When we're done with that, we don't want to sit
and write more. And it's hard. It's hard to imagine,
you know, the brain power that that requires, the tedium
that that requires. Like Carol Markowitz, our mutual friend Karl
(08:02):
mark Witz, I think she could write in her sleep.
It comes very naturally to her. But I think for
us we are communicators by voice and expressive in this
way verbally and not in the written form. So I look,
although all kit in a side, hats off to you
for finishing the damn thing?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You know, isn't that? Don't you find what you just
said kind of weird? Or I find it kind of
weird people like Carol who can just sit down and
just hammer out subject and in fact they love it,
like they enjoy it. I don't get that at all.
But Carol, Dave Marcus is this way. These types just
natural writers can sit down and it just flows from them,
(08:41):
like anyone who listens to your radio show can hear,
it just flows out of you. It's effortless, right. I
can't write like that, you know, I can. You asked
me to sit in time for three hours. I run
my mouth for three hours. I'll talk about cheeseburgers for
three hours. But if you ask me to write it down,
I don't express myself in that way. And people who
have that talent, I'm envious of it. You know, people
(09:02):
watch us through radio and TV and think it's all
fancy or whatnot. But I'm jealous of the people who
can write. If you can sit and write, I wish
I could do that, because that's in my opinion, yes exactly.
I was about to say, it's it's longer lasting. You know,
someone's long after I'm dead and gone. Someone's gonna pick
up the Anti Communist Manifesto. They're not going to download
the Jesse Kelly Show podcast, but they might pick up
(09:25):
the J book.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And Pj's not around anymore, but I can still laugh
at his jokes. You know, songwriters and great artists will
say I've seen them interviewed and they will say that
the greatest compliment they can give to another song is
that they hate the person who wrote it because they
wished they had written it. I have to tell you,
(09:47):
doing what I do, and having done it since long
before you were doing it, when you created the language
around communism for what the left is and started shoehorning
it into that and giving kind of a structure to
You need to understand these people aren't just out there
in the ether operating. This is a redux of what
(10:09):
we've seen before. They are communists. That I hated you
for that, because why couldn't I have thought of that,
because it made it, It made it much more understandable
and accessible, And I hats off to you for that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, well, I study my enemy, right, I mean we
always we all know this, especially dudes. No this that
you study your enemy what works and what doesn't work.
We have we had the Marines working with the Chi
Kongs in before World War two to learn about jungle warfare. Right,
you study your enemy how does he operate? And one
(10:45):
thing that really really hit me as I watched you know,
you watch enough of the news and read enough crap
and you're watching videos on social media, it really hits
you how purposeful the communist is with his language, so
oh incredibly purposeful discipline. He demands the discipline of his
fellow communists. Go ahead and watch a CNN panel where
(11:07):
you have a bunch of Democrats on there, and watch
even one of them call an illegal in illegal well
in illegal. He will be We've all seen it a
million times. He or she will be scolded by his
fellow communists. Well, well, we don't say that word here.
We'd like to use the word undocumented. Why are they
so purposeful about it? Because language leads to mindset, you know,
(11:28):
leads to mindset, and mindset leads to performance. So if
you want the American people to be more accepting of
importing millions of foreign barbarians, you don't call them illegals.
You call them undocumented. And then it sounds like Loupe
tripped over the border to have eighteen kids here instead
of purposely invading the country, which is what she did
to have all of her kids become American citizens. So
(11:50):
they are purposeful with how they speak. And I didn't
like how unpurposeful. I'm sure that's not a word, you know, Michael,
I didn't go to college. I didn't like how unpurpose
is full of the right was because most of us,
obviously it's not a universal, come from a place of honesty. Right,
You want to be honest. We care about the truth
and facts and things like that. So we just speak,
(12:10):
you know, we just talk. But the communist is framing
everything he's framing it, he's labeling it. He's branding everything,
which is something you're always writing me about is branding.
He's branding we're being branded as Nazis, as white supremacist,
as this and that, because he's focused with his language.
And I did not like our lack of focus and
decided to attempt, in my own small way to try
(12:32):
to focus things. That's why the.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Anti Communist Manifesto is out today in paperback, the more
affordable version with Jesse's famous burger recipe at the end.
Tell me what reaction you received from readers, because you
read your emails. We talked about this for a long
time from your TV viewers. You read your emails from
your listeners. What was a reaction to the book that
(12:58):
you received that surprise you or you at least didn't expect.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, you know how we just talked about how I
don't like writing every single thing I ever wrote, you know,
a little article for the Federalists, every single thing I
ever wrote. When I was done writing it, I hated it.
I would read it several times and I would think
that this is a slop. It's not intelligent, it's not entertaining.
And you know, what do you do. You send it
(13:26):
to family, you know, you send it to your mom.
I would, I would send it to my mom, But
what's your mom gonna say. That's the greatest thing I've
ever read in my life. But even still, nothing cured
the fact that I hated it. When Nick Rizzuto and
I wrote this book, when it was finally done, we
did this long weekend meetup where we kind of ripped
up and rewrote this and I didn't like the wording here.
(13:48):
So we're rewriting all this stuff, and we finally we
have the finishing touches on it, and I read through
the entire thing again when it was done. I thought
it sucked. I really genuinely thought it sucked. I thought
the stuff that he did, you know, the research the
facts was so fascinating because I nerd out on that.
But I thought, I really genuinely thought it sucked. And
(14:08):
everyone knows I'm not being fake humble. I'm the least
humble person in the world. I just don't think I
write well. And so I read the book and I thought,
this is garbage. It's garbage. It's going to be another
one of those books that somebody, some conservative rites and
it gets published, but then it disappears into the ether
after a few days because it really kind of freaking sucked.
That really was one hundred percent what I thought was
(14:29):
going to happen. And then boom, it just takes off
and it's national bestseller and people are emailing the show.
It's one of the best books I've ever read. I
bought five copies. I'm handing it to friends and family,
and I to this day it's the most surprised I've
ever been in my six and a half years of
doing media. The most surprised by a mile I've ever
(14:52):
been has been the listener and viewer reaction to the book,
how much it was. It was universal. I don't think
I got one from a listener that said that was
very good, and they just did backflips over the whole thing.
I still don't get it. I still think it sucks.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They're talking about the perpetuity in which a book can
be kept right. That was Ray Bradbury's fen Fahrenheit four
or five to one is burn all the books and
you burn all the knowledge, because that's how we pass
from generation to generation. We can go back and read
him away. We can go back and read Shakespeare, we
can go back into history and read the words of
people that we don't mean. But what's fascinating about a book?
(15:29):
And I think that's why it was important you did this.
I think what makes it so amazing is you and
I and everybody watching you is part of a movement
to take back our country, to improve the lives of
our children and grandchildren, to make America great again. I mean,
that's that really means something, right, That's why Reagan first
came up with it. But the idea of our movement
(15:52):
and how we communicate and educate and share. We have radio.
You and I do radio every evening, and so that's
people while they're dry mostly or you know, they're in
their podcast years. Then we have television and that's mostly
when you're at home and you can watch it on
your TV. But there is in a book, there is
an opportunity to reduce to writing a thought, a concept,
(16:15):
the tenets of the movement in this case, which is
what you set out, and to be able to share
that with people, and to be able to do that
in a way that you can say, Jesse, it's your birthday.
I bought this book from this guy or Billy, it's
your birthday. I bought this book from this guy. Read it.
It's great. And they may not be able to get
them to listen to your your radio show or watch
your television show, but they will share that there's something
(16:38):
kind of cool about that. It's another part of the movement.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like another tool in your tool belt.
I totally agree. And I've always loved quotes, you know,
I've just and everyone does, right, who doesn't love a
great quote? But I have as uneducated and dom as
I am. I have all these quotes from various authors
and historical figures burned into my head because they were
(17:05):
written down. I mean, who doesn't. Who doesn't know the
John Adams quote? I study war and politics so my
sons can study mathematics and philosophy. Like how profound and
freaking awesome is that? And it's a quote that's just
like yeah, and when it's written, it's more meaningful. And
just talking about this, think about this a lot. People
(17:27):
will talk about Rush Limbaugh to this day the goat
the greatest of all time. I miss Rush, I miss Rush.
Rush is the best, and of course he was and
one of the wild things about it is you could
listen to Rush Limbaugh for three hours a day and
you were entertained, and you were informed, and you were
all those things. All that stuff is true. But when
I see Rush Limbaugh quotes, people will still put them
up on Twitter or Facebook or something like that. You'll
(17:49):
you'll read a Rush Limbaugh quote and you'll think, man,
that is profound. That is as profound as any conservative
writing I've ever read in my life. I just didn't.
I guess it didn't make the same impact on me
because I was listening to it at the time, or
maybe I was half listening, you know how it is
(18:09):
with a radio audience to mostly half listening, and so
it didn't make an impact on me when I heard it.
But when I read it, I thought, Man, that is
as deep and wonderful as anything that you can run
writing it down. Yes, yes, ranging it. What did you say?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Because it's been reduced to writing. When you reduce something
to writing, it gives it. It gives it a GRAVI
toss that having been spoken alone. So you mentioned your mom,
and you know that's what moms are for? Are they
cheer for us? So a few months ago I lost
my mom and a matter of days later you lost
your dad. But your dad did get to see the
heartback edition obviously that the paperback is out today. What
(18:52):
was your dad's reaction, because you and your dad have
a very interesting relationship.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
You know, first he texted the group family text the
day the book was published, So you know, Simon and Schuster,
a big shot book publisher. They published the book, and
I'm grateful they did it, and it becomes this national bestseller.
And he's not a big Texter, as you can imagine.
My old man was rough around the edges. And he
texted the group chat and he said, I can't believe
(19:18):
he actually wrote a book after failing algebra three times
in college. So but that was his love language, right,
And other than that, he would he would tell me
he was proud of me occasionally, but most of my
stories from him I would get secondhand because my dad
was not It wasn't the lovey dovey type with me,
(19:41):
so I wouldn't get as much from him, but I
would get all the time from my mom and sister
that he would brag the strangers, total strangers who didn't
give a crap about me or the book he's telling them, well,
my son, Yeah, he wrote a book. It's big, it's
national bestseller. You should go buy it. He bullied perfect
strangers into buying the book, completely proud of the whole thing.
(20:01):
Just didn't tell me that much about it, And that
was that was the way it was. It was. It
was something.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You're a marine. You're a tough guy. Not as tough
as your dad, but tough like your dad, and he's
what made you tough, very very tough man, uh an
oak in the forest. We struggle as men to cope
with grief, right, and we're not as expressive as women.
It's it's a difficult it's a difficult thing. Let's talk
(20:33):
about that. So you get the news that your dad
passed and we've had this conversation. You may be harder
than you would have ever imagined. How did that change you?
What advice do you have for people who go through
these because we're guys, we don't grieve easily or.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, well, I'll tell you it's a process. It's a
process I'm still going through, so I certainly don't want
to pretend like I'm an expert on it. I can
only tell people what I've gone through I'll have For me,
it comes in waves, you know, it comes and it goes.
You know, I'll have I'll wake up one morning it
(21:09):
was this morning, and I feel great. I feel great,
you know, still miss him, but feel great going through
the workday, even talking about him right now, fine, totally fine.
So it's not like that triggers it or something like that.
Talking You're fine, everything's fine. But it could be tomorrow morning.
I may wake up and I don't feel like it
out of bed, and the grief will come and it
(21:31):
will go, and it will come and it will go.
But the difference between, you know, I'm sure this is
a big men and women thing, as you just alluded to,
is the talking about it. I have no problem, you know,
telling all I'm telling my wife when I'm grieving, but
oftentimes I don't tell her. She could just tell. She'll
see it right on my face when I walk home
or whatever, or walk home, when I walk in the door,
(21:52):
or when I wake up in the morning. She can
see it if I'm making breakfast, and then she'll always
ask me, because this is her way, do you want
to talk about it? And occasionally I have one or two,
but for the most part. No. The answer is no,
I don't want to talk about it. And it's not
that I'm trying to bottle everything up. Sometimes men have
to grieve alone. You know, there's nothing I can say.
(22:13):
There's nothing I can say, There's no way I can
convey what I'm thinking or feeling, and frankly, I don't
feel like it. And the best advice I could give
to people if they're going through any grief is that's okay.
If you want to talk about it, that's okay. You
want to gather with friends, that's okay. You want to
go be in a cabin by yourself in the woods
for a couple of weeks while your grief, that's okay.
(22:35):
Everyone grieves differently in their own way, and it's totally fine.
I don't pass judgment on how my friends and family
are grieving. They don't pass it on me. And that's
the best advice I can give. If I want to
be alone, I'll be alone. If I want to take
the day off of work, I will. If I want
to go home and have an extra whiskey, I might.
(22:55):
But grieve in your own way.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So I preach, and I literally preach this almost daily,
that because I have known of people who lose a
loved one. My brother died three years ago. It was
fifty four years old. It was an active duty police officer.
And I get the call and he's passed, and so
we didn't get that last conversation, but we literally talked
(23:21):
every day. And I tell people, you don't know when
you walk out the door and that door slams behind
you and you throw that last zinger, hurt them as
much as you can. That may be the last thing
you ever say to that person. And I've known people
for whom that was the case, and I say, no
matter what happens to my wife and I have a rule,
we do not separate without I love you in a
(23:44):
meaningful way. Because if that's the last thing I ever
say to her, I don't want there to be any
doubt that I worry that she doubted you. And your
dad had a special moment there the last time you talked,
which is almost I mean you talk about odds God's
hand on us. That was sort of a very unique moment. See,
(24:06):
if you're good with it, I think people should hear
that story. I think they should see that side of you.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
All right, let's see if I can get through this.
So my dad, Uh, it's it's just a Kelly thing.
I'm the exact same way. My dad did not stay
in other people's homes when he would visit out of town.
The Kellys don't do that. You don't stay in other
people's homes. Look, I'm not defending it. It was just
our way. You don't stay in other people's homes. You
(24:34):
go visit, you have your dinner, you go then if
you're out of town, you go to a hotel or
you go back home. You don't stay with other people.
And this included me, his son. You know, I have
a we have the two boys. He was the best grandpa.
Just love those boys. But he would come down then
you know, we di have dinner and we dive in
and then he'd go to a hotel with my mom.
They'd go. He wouldn't stay. So I have a theory.
(24:56):
I don't know this, but I have a theory that
my father knew he was. I think a doctor told
him he's not the type who would pass that along,
because the last time I saw him, he came down
to visit us in Texas for a week and he
stayed with us a week my dad won't stay with
you for a night. There were instances where he would
(25:17):
come in, fly in, and they were gonna have to
come stay at the house to stay with the boys,
and he would still go to a hotel for one
night and then get up and come back with us.
But for this week, he said, I'm staying with you.
Never happened. He brought down a couple hunting knives for
the boys. Never happens. My dad doesn't do that sentimental
stuff really, And we went out fishing. We went fishing,
(25:42):
went fishing for red fish one morning, Saturday. It was
Saturday morning. We went fishing for red fish. Got up
me him, the boys went out fishing. Didn't catch much,
but had a blast listening to him yell at the boys,
and everything was great. We finished with that. We go
eat a big cage and meal. Found this cage in
place we love to eat. My dad's just like me
love to eat. Of course I got that from him.
We made pigs of ourselves and that night it was
(26:04):
a playoff baseball. Dodgers were playing somebody. Forget who, maybe
the padre is somebody. Dodgers were playing somebody, and sitting
there on the couch my dad had, of course, taken
over my recliner. He comes in and takes over my
recliner son sitting on the couch, and we're watching the
baseball games, me and him, and I just turned to
(26:25):
him and I told him I loved him. Right, That
was I mean, it was something we said but not often,
not often, just out of the blue, told him I
loved him, turns to me, tells me he loves me too.
That was Saturday night. I hug him, kiss him good night,
say goodbye. I did not get up in time to
see him. The next morning, they were leaving super early.
(26:46):
He got up him, my mom took off. He went
home that night on Sunday night, told my mom that
I had told him I loved him and how much
that meant to him, and then went to bed and
died in a sleep that night. God is good.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There is your reminder to each and every person that
we just don't know when that last moment's going to occur,
and live your life accordingly. Yeah, I mean, that's as
beautiful as it gets. How much of the person you
are politically, I know you're a miniature version of him
(27:29):
in the way you're grumpy and you're not expressive, but
you're tough and you're dutiful and all that. How much
of your politics, looking back now, because he's very much
a self made man as you are, how much of
your politics do you attribute to things you heard him
say or how you watched him live?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh? A lot of it. And what's funny is he
wasn't political. We were not a political family. I didn't
grow up political. The only political conversation I ever remember
remember having with my parents, and I'm kidding, it is
the only one I think. I was in kindergarten, maybe
the first grade. George H. W. Bush was running for president,
(28:10):
and in our class we had a mock election, right,
and there were Democrats and Republicans, and you could, you know,
there was just grade school, stupid grade school stuff. And
I didn't even know what I was or what we were.
So I went home that night and I asked my parents,
are we Democrats? Are Republicans? And I remember my dad
playing his day, turning in and saying, we're Republicans. That
was it. There was no explanation, you know, there was
(28:31):
no deep political philosophy around it. But then you know,
you watch him bust his butt and worked that hard
work and Jess as construction man. We're a construction family.
His dad worked construction. That's what he does. You watch
him bust his butt no matter what. You watch the
guy go to work, no matter what, cold, hot, busting
his weran his whole life, hard work, toughness, no whining.
(28:55):
And you may not have been reading about Ronald Reagan
and Winston Churchill from your dad, but you grow up
one day and you figure out, Wow, that was framing
how you view the world, you know, and his own
way framing how you view the world will take you
to where you need to be politically. If your dad's
a worthless, loser, freeloader and raises you to be that way,
(29:17):
you're probably going to be a Democrat. If your dad
believes in hard work and success, in no whining, you're
going to fall somewhere on the right. Maybe you be
a libertarian or a nationalist or a conservative or something
like that, but you're going to be somewhere on the right.
So there's that and really what I have to politically,
(29:38):
at least as far as my career goes, to thank
him for. Beyond the lessons about hard work, it's being
unapologetic about who you were. He is, my sister said
at his funeral, and it was so true that she'd
never met anybody in her life as unapologetically who he
was as my dad was. And people will say things
to me like, man, you got that was brave. I
(30:02):
can't believe you said that. That took a lot of courage,
which I find to be ridiculous. It's not courageous to
say things on TV and radio. You know, cops are courageous.
Troops are courageous. But to whatever degree you believe that, wow,
that really took guts, Well, it's not that it took guts.
I really genuinely just don't care if you're angry about it.
It's not even that I'm happy you're angry or sad
you're angry. It means nothing to me whatsoever. This is
(30:25):
how I feel, So this is how I talk, and
you can take it or leave it. Really genuinely doesn't
mean anything to me at all. That's the kellyway, and
that's really one of the main things I learned from
m I'd say, do you.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Know who famously said, imagine how much good you can
do in the world if you stop caring what other
people think about you. Me, it's it's all my way,
the only one I expect to be remembered for, if
you'll keep saying it years after I'm gone. I have
said to you jokingly over the years that you're dead inside,
and it is joking part, But I do think there
(30:59):
is a certain skill set to come back to the
any anti communist manifesto, there is a skill set to
taking back our country. Because I hate that people think
that Trump's going to solve all our problems. He's doing
his part. We did our part to help them get elected.
But we're the heads of household, we're the heads of businesses,
we're the parents of kids that are in schools, were out,
(31:22):
we're serving on juries. We're going to have to take
this country back, and part of that means being a
little dead inside to the emotions of other people. We
have to be as you. It comes naturally to you
because you genuinely don't care what other people think. We
have been taught by mommies and school teachers who are
mommies at school for our entire lives that we have
(31:43):
to be nice to everyone. No, no, you've got to
do the right thing. And that's what I like about
the book that the message is understand these beastard, Understand
what you're dealing with, Understand who they are, and you
unapologetically call them that. And now once you understand who
they are, understand we're in a war and how we're
going to win. And I think that is the point.
(32:03):
That that's the real takeaway from this book that I
think it has a chance to make a difference with.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
It's why I wrote the action items. Every single chapter
has a subject with history and everything else, but at
the back end of it it has action items. Things
you can do right. It's not just here's a problem.
That's a problem. That's a problem. It's things you can
do and the boldness to do something is required. And
the reason it look it is a great aid that
(32:29):
I am that way, that I was raised that way.
It is a great aid when fighting communists, because communists
are masterful at using your values and your emotions against you.
It's the you know they're banking on when your liberal
and Peggy walks into your super Bowl party and she
starts bragging about her fifteenth abortion and talking about why
(32:52):
we need all the foreign barbarians in the country. The
normal reaction from the right would be something similar to
what you would expect your wife to say. She'd lean in,
look at you and say, please don't embarrass me. Why
because she wants to maintain peace. Lets everything calm down,
let's just walk away from it. But that is how
(33:12):
the communist wins that please don't embarrass me attitude from us.
That has turned him into the only aggressor in every
single social setting, and so he's moved the culture his
way because liberal and Pegan's the only one screaming no,
no more, don't embarrass me, no more, be nice about it,
no more. Roll your eyes and go to the other room.
(33:34):
No more of that. No, no, no, no no. You put
that kami hag witch in her place right then and
there and tell her if she doesn't like it, she
can pack up her tampons and her cat litter and
she can get back in her suparu outback and never
come back in the house again. Start treating the communists
like the rat, demon vermin that he is, and stop
treating him like just some kind of lost, naive child
(33:56):
who will slowly come around if you're just kind enough
to That does not work with communists. The religious sellings.
They only understand fear and pain, and so you have
to be the one to give that to them.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
You said earlier, know your enemy, and I think what
you do a great job in the book at is
explaining who these people are and understanding you can't wait
on them to stop beating you. You've got to fight back.
You can't roll over and hope they stop what they're doing.
And I love that as part of it, because we
(34:29):
have what I call the nice neighbor problem. We all
want to be the nice neighbor, no matter how loud
the music gets, the gunshots get, the pit bull coming on.
I mean, at some point you have to push back
and say enough is enough. And that's probably my favorite
part is you explaining, and you kind of alluded to
it there that the communist is not things, aren't just
(34:51):
random people who happen to share some ideas In both
the same way, this is a mindset which is a
replacement for religion. They are ze tell us they are committed,
and when you understand what you're up against them, they're
fewer of them, but that's why they win so often.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, well, the problem is when it comes to you know,
people love that old saying it takes two to tango.
But that is not the case when it comes to war,
whether that be actual kinetic war or cultural wars or
political wars, it only takes one side. And you're liberal
and Peggy she believes she's a warrior, and she believes
she's at war. So no matter what you think about that,
(35:28):
you're at war. She has already declared war. She is
fighting a war. She's fighting it as if it's a
war that she must win. And so whether or not
you like that or agree with that means nothing whatsoever.
One side has decided there's going to be a war,
so now you have to fight it as if it
is a war, and she fights it as if she
intends to win it all in all the time. And
(35:52):
that's something I try to get through to people in
the book, is we can't be as lase a fair
about power as we always have been. Sure, we'll show
up and vote for Donald Trump once every four years,
but then local school board election. I'm too busy. I
got soccer practice tonight. I can't be bothered with this.
I can't be bothered with that. That's exactly why you
have these red cities and red areas that are run
(36:14):
by vicious little commie monsters putting trannies in the public
library to shake his penis in front of your child
because you abstain from power, and liberal Peggy did not.
She's not abstaining from anything. She drives around like a
freaking predator looking for choke points of power to seize.
And we have to understand they're around us. They're seizing
(36:34):
these choke points, and we have to take them back.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Your viewers are watching you mostly talk about national issues.
The President Trump the other day signed a bill that
said no more boys in women's sports. Turns out eighty percentage. Technically,
seventy nine percent of Americans do not want boys in
girls of sports. What we're talking about now are local fan, family,
(37:00):
community issues, not national issues. We talked to national issues
on national broadcast. But at the end of the day,
and I will applaud you for this, you have said
get and again, the most important election that you will
participate in is not presidential. It is your local school board.
You should participate all and an understanding that the communist
(37:22):
is most active where the rubber hits a road, in
the local school at the local city government. And I
think that that is another important thing for those who
haven't read the book. That's a point you make again
and again. Get involved locally, not just where you see
the national stories.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Every single person has the ability and should get involved
in some way. If you are not doing any kind
of political activism, you are flat out wrong. And that
doesn't mean you have to run for Congress or standard
or whatever. I went to I live in an extremely
read area of Texas, and I went to a school
board meeting. This is a few months back. It was
a school board forum. There were five school board seats.
(38:00):
We're talking about control of the school board. And I
show up probably one hundred and fifty two hundred people
there this thing, and I'm gabbing with one of the
local elected leaders in the back run of the Republicans.
He knows who I am, and we're there. I'm asking
him about the demographics of the crowd or their political
leadings of the crowd, and he starts laughing and he said,
it's a school board meeting. Probably ninety five percent Democrats. Here.
(38:22):
We are blood red area, MAGA flags everywhere. Trump is
Trump that I love Trump, Go America, woo. But the
school board that's going to determine whether Aiden, Jaden, and
Braden learn that they're gay. In the fifth grade. That
school board completely occupied by commis, and it's commedi's they're
figuring out which commedy they want on the school board
(38:43):
while we sit at home, church, soccer work, ignoring the
real choke points of power and that we cannot do anymore.
We have to go take back everything legally and locally.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well. And that's the point of the anti Communist Manifesto.
That's what I take away from it is understanding how
committed these people are. I really still think, and that's
why I hope people will read the book. I really
still think people are underestimating who these people are. Oh
my sister were just a little different. No, No, you
(39:15):
have to understand. You know, I'm a student of the
Civil War, and I know that's of all the military
activity you follow, it's probably not your top one. It
is for me, and I am in constant shocked at
how the Confederate forces, underfed, undertrained, undermanned were able to
(39:36):
fight so efficiently effectively against the Union army that had
better food, food, weaponry, training, the whole thing. Because the
Southern folks were much more committed. It wasn't about slavery.
It was about protecting their own community. And we can
argue over that all day, but you study these things
and it's like in Jericho in the Bible, they are
fighting with just a viciousness, and it mattered on the battlefield.
(40:00):
These communists in our it might be our sister in law,
it might be our kids teacher. They're fighting with a viciousness.
And you point that out. I think too few people
that do what we do, either understand it or are
willing to say it in that way.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, when you say it, when you allow your mind
to go there, then what you do is you've accepted
the fact that you're at war. And that's the that's
the real hold up for most people. They don't want
to live their life like that. They don't want to
live in constant conflict. They don't want to have to
get involved even locally. They don't want to have to
get screamed at. They don't want to have to they
(40:36):
don't want to have to do these things. People in
America want to just and this is a very natural
human thing. I'm not dogging on Americans. We just want
to exist. Can't I just go to work. Why do
you have to? This stuff shouldn't even be in school?
Why do I have to fight this stuff in school?
What I shouldn't have to? We shouldn't. I shouldn't have.
It's a lot of that I shouldn't have to. I should. Yeah,
(40:57):
you shouldn't have to. But we sat back, laid back
for so long. We let the demons take over everything. Well,
now you have to. It's not an option to not
be involved, but the hesitancy to acknowledge that the pink
haired freak in your child's second grade class with the
Black Lives Matter flag up there, it's hard to just
(41:19):
accept that that is actually a child predator who is
teaching your child for the express purpose of shattering your
child and breaking them away from you. That's a fact, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Since I'm runing the show today, your folks would tell
me we're out of time. I appreciate you, my man.
I love the book. Everybody buy it. It's out in
paperback today. I'm very proud of your woman.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thank you, my brother, as always, thank you for everything.
We'll be back. Well. That was my friend and mentor,
Michael Barrier. As you can tell, we've known each other
for quite sometime and look, you know what this special was.
(42:03):
This is me telling you about the book. Go by it.
If you can't afford it, I've realized that's the case,
talk to a friend, see if a friend has it.
Go down to your local library and request they get it.
We've had many people across the country in the last
year to do that. They've gone down basically demanded their
library order it. So everyone is in a different financial situation.
(42:26):
But I think you'll enjoy it. I think your friends
will enjoy it. Even kids can enjoy it. You will laugh,
you will learn. Jesse kellybook dot com is where you
go buy it. If you want to go buy it there,
Go buy the paperback, enjoy
Host
Jesse Kelly
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