Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things hillsdalet Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there and of course a listener to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just google Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale and he'd be graace America.
I'm too, qot. We got a lot of news to get through today. I'm going to start though, by saluting two American originals. Jesse Jackson guy today and I had the great fund of interviewing him in nineteen ninety one. Came to my studio at KFI and was actually very very, very funny and informed. He went full preacher when I said, look, I'm a Republican. He stops. I'm gonna pray over you
right now, Jesus, let's pray over this man. And he was just hilarious, and he was also funny, smart, He had very great negatives and great great positives, and I don't think we will see his like again. The nineteen eighty four campaign was really extraordinary. And then one of my very favorite actors, Robert Duvald died, and I loved him for being Gus McRae in Lonesome Dove, but I loved him in The Apostle probably more than anything else,
for acting, just pure acting. And of course the Godfather not a wartime CONSIGLIORI Tom sorry all the way through, and I'll give his brief a rundown of his filmography. But as I was driving in listening to John pod Ortz talk about him today on the commentary podcast at the Studio, I thought to myself, you know, duplexus cinemas movie theaters now coming in three sizes. There's still an occasional big screen out there, but mostly they come in
three sizes six screens, twelve screens, or twenty screens. And I'm thinking even the six screen theaters because they're showing the same movie three or four times, especially in the twelves in the twenties, like you can go see the Ping Pong movie with Timothy on like five different screens every five minutes of the day. Just take one of those screens and call it the guy screen, just guy screen. You never advertise what's on, but you're just showing movies
of the guys. And I mean, my list is pretty exped start with Duval pretty much. You can put on the Great Santini, you could put on The Godfather, you can put on Open Spaces, you can put on Old Lion, whatever you want. Just Duval, He's great and everything. And then you would add Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, right, Al Pacino, Robertson Niro, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson. You might throw in Richard Rowntree for some diversity. Of course, Samuel L.
Jackson is in there somewhere, Schwarzenegger, maybe Michael Keaton. You might be pushing the upper the lower end of the age. If you go abroad, you can of course add Sean Khan and Michael Kane. And here's prosident. But I mean, just guy flicks and I'll ask Slycs about it later. Just okay, we're not gonna we're not gonna throw anything at you. Doesn't matter what time you come in. Two dollars ticket, you go in, and you sit down, and
you're in the middle of the Godfather. There is an American male over the age of forty who can walk past The Godfather and not sit down and start watching it. No matter except Godfather three. Nobody sits down and watches that but every other and pod Ortz has got a great story about that today, by the way, on the commentary podcast. But Robert Duvall was my guest on the program in twenty ten, and I remember one thing about it.
He was there to promote a different movie before the Oscar, Boaty, So you know he was doing the Hollywood thing out there promoting a movie. It wasn't for.
Himself, it was for his co star.
Here's that cut, cut number two, Robert de Vall, you won the Oscar in nineteen eighty three for portraying this alcoholic country singer Max Sledge and Tender Mercies. And now Jeff Ridges is nominated for Best Actor for playing bad Blake and crazy Heart.
There's another alcoholic country singer.
Did you did you guys compare notes on these two characters and how to how to get smart about you know, an addicted drinker.
No, didn't compare notes at all. No, But he's gonna win the He'll win the Oscar.
I think he shout it's a magnificent role. Do those two characters have much in common?
The best performances this year are him and this and the kid, the young guy in hurt Locker. You see hert Locker?
Yeah, magnificent movie. Yeah, but.
If we won't talk about that one, my movie is a decade, but we won't talk about Okay, but.
What about bad Blake and Max Ledge? Are they are they the same guy or are they different people?
Oh? No, No, they're different, different different music, different guys, different actors, you know, different guys similar similar back. I mean it's like he's saying, is Merle Haggard the same as Waylon Jennings or Wadlly Jennings the same as Johnny Cash that they sing the same kinds of music, but the different guys of an individuals, but somewhat similar journeys in life, you know what I'm saying, especially from a negative aspect, you know, a negative journey?
How did you come? How'd you come by your knowledge of alcoholics? I mean, what, how do you train up to play that?
Or do it?
Play Wayne? In this movie? To play what to play Wayne? The friend?
Is this?
What was interesting about this? He's eighty years old and he doesn't hear very well sixteen years ago, but what I really Jeremy Renner was the guy in Hurt Locker, he said best movie of the decade. Right, so he is He's booked to come on to promote Jeff Bridges in a different movie, and he cannot not promote the hurt Locker because that's who he was. I mean, I've watched pretty much every Robert Duvall movie a couple of times because I just think he's such a fabulous actor.
And he had nothing to do with Hollywood. I learned today he played Stallin twice. I haven't seen those from John pod Ortz. I knew he was an anti communist. I knew he lived in Virginia. He loved horses, he had a farm Mountain, Virginia, and he's kind of he's just not into the Hollywood world. He just did his work. He loved tango dancing. He made a movie about the assassination Tango, which was one of his last flicks. He also made Lay Down with Bill Murray, which is a
hilarious movie if you haven't seen it. But the Great Santini is the one that makes the fetching missus Ui cry because it's about the Marines. And my friend Glenn Viyer's new Pat Conroy a little bit or knew pat Conroy's dad. I can't quite remember it, but that's who the great Santini is about, and it's magnificent. He should have won the Best Actor for that. He wanted for
Tender Mercies. But the very best thing I can recommend to anyone out there is that you watch Lonesome dub If you haven't watched Lonesome Dough with Tom E Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, you haven't watched great television. It's the equal of any television ever made. I think Adam's Bybo is up there. There are a few other series made for television which are fabulous television, but that was early on Lonesome and Blue Duck, Oh Blue Duck. Now, I loved the book, and I always wanted to interview
Larry McMurtry, but Carl wouldn't let me do it. He said, now, you're not up to that, and he's probably right. I've read everything by the late Larry McMurtry and Carl wouldn't let me interview him. But Blue Duck is the greatest villain in villain land. And if you don't know who Blue Duck is, then you haven't read Lonesome Dove. And you ought to read Lonesome Dove. There are two prequels and two sequels to Lonesome Dove. By the way, there are five books in the McMurtry series. But the television
show it was on. When is Lonesome Dove, General Lisimo? Is it the nineties or is it the eighties? Nineties? And I don't know where it's available, if it's available anywhere, but if you can go and get it, go and get it. We will miss Robert Duvall, we will miss Jesse Jackson. Now let's go to the president on Air Force one cut number fifteen.
They're very unhappy that this improvement.
Forget getting voter ID. They want voter I D.
The population ninety eight percent, they want.
Voter I D.
They don't want voter right D because they want to cheat in elections.
They also want other things.
They don't want mail in ballots, they want to end mail in ballots were just corrupt. And one other thing that their insisting owned this proof of citizenship. And the Democrats don't want to give the proof of citizenship.
They don't want to give voter I D.
Think of it. Who would want proof of citizenship?
I ask you stam, Yeah, people want to cheat. Let's just be if it's not close, they can't cheat. Book I wrote in two thousand and four maybe the book that I wrote other than in but not of that's sold the most and was on the New York Times list for the longest because it's just a history of Democratic Party cheating and it's well researched, and I know it, and I know the subject matter. It's in their DNA. They want to cheat, and that's okay, that's sort of
the American drama. But we also need not to let them cheat easily. They got to be smart about it. And this is just too easy to go pick up ballots. They are lying around places. You got to make them work for it. If they're going to cheat. Then on Air Force, when he gets asked about Iran, their foreign mister came out and lied today and said they had a great meeting and we're very close. No, we're not cut number seventeen.
What are you expecting from these Iran talks at Geneva tomorrow? So I'll be involved in those talks indirectly and they'll be very important and we'll see what do happen. It's been typically rants are very tough negotiator. They're good negotiators or bad Togo. I would say they're bad negotiators because we could add a deal instead of sending the B twos into knock out their nuclear potential, and we had to send the b twos.
I hope they're going to be more reasonable.
They want to make a deal. It's ad that a deal is next to impossible.
I think they want to make a deal.
That is. By the way, the great Steve Holland, Steve Vive Holland is with Reuters. I've traveled abroad with him when John Bolton with the NSA. We went abroad with the four other reporters, Carrollly, a couple other people and Vivian. We had a fabulous trip. But Steve Holland is a pros pro. He's absolutely straight up. Listen, listen, let start of that again. Just a straight up question, what.
Are you expecting from these Iran talks at Geneva tomorrow?
Saby?
That is a perfect question. What are you the president expecting from this the Iran talk tomorrow? Meaning they were talking on Monday, not today, Tuesday. And Steve Holland is just a reporter, reporter. He is the brand the gold standard? Just ask the question, get out of the way the answer. Bravo, Steve Holland I'll be right back in architecture.
The bottom line is we into weeks some months in terms of decision making.
If you're writing, people are hanging home. I attended a rally of two.
Hundred and fifty thousand people on me.
That's one of the most satisfying experiences of my professional.
That is Lindsey Graham. I am you Ewan And my guess is Josh Holmes, one of the fellows on the Ruthless podcast, the farthest left on your radio dial as you go left or right. But not politically, mister Holmes, I'm sure you worked with one Lindsey Graham's team and the Senator himself when you're in the Senate when he says that, is he doing wish fulfillment or do you think he's accurately gauging the situation?
Well, I think he sees himself as holding down, you know. I mean, however, you want to brand it the neocon version of the party or whatever, but he has a very specific point of view when it comes to international conflict in America's role in the world, and he's always done that. I mean, look, there's been a lot of iterations Lindsey Graham over the years, but this is one
consistency that he is fulfilled. And I think, honestly, whether or not it plays a hugehuge component into what it is that Trump administration decides to do here remains to be seen, but I think he's he's look, it's a segment of the party.
No, you know, it's my segment of the party. I love Lindsey Graham and I like to By the way, this is in good humor. Lindsay's a political cicada. He shows up every six years when he's running for reelection, does the show a lot, and then he goes away for five years because that's who he is, and so he comes up out of the ground and so he'll be on a lot. But he never stopped talking about national security, and I'm now I'm always impressed by that.
He's been consistent for as long as he's been in the House and the Senate.
Josh Holmes, Yeah, no, I think that's right.
I mean, look, Lindsay is an interesting fit for today's day and age in the Republican Party in that his point of view is not particularly different than it was in the immediate post Iraq war point of view.
He articulates it forcefully, he.
Does it unapologetic, and he invites all comers to critique him on a day to day basis. And so look, I think he plays a valuable role, much in the same way that other elements of the party do too. I think this particular moment in time suggests that there's an awful lot of Trump foreign policy that follows his point of view, and.
I think I hope it continues. Now, Josh, I want to turn to the Senate. I have an article today for Fox Knows, our employer, and it's about the talking filibuster. And the short version is not now, not ever never. It's a terrible idea that a majority leader would lose control of the floor. It would eat up precious floor time. I have no idea if you've talked about this, because I haven't listened to today's show. Yeah, what do you think of the talking Philip? But I love Mike Lee. By
the way, good Man belongs on the Supreme Court. Maybe, but the talking filibuster is a terrible ideas.
It's sort of how I feel about professors versus practitioners in that they're a whole bunch of ideas that would make what you want in this particular moment in time attainable.
But if you look at the longer view.
Of practitioners in the field, I can tell you, as somebody who served the highest levels of senior leadership in the United States Senate between two thousand and eight and twenty fourteen, the amount of horrible ideas.
That have been stopped.
By the United States Senate as a result of the philib You all would have full socialism, we would have nationalized healthcare, we would have open borders codified by a statutory By the way, everything that the left is complaining about that Donald Trump is doing in terms of deportations, they're complaining against statutes written by the Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States.
If not for the filibuster, one of that would exist.
So I find it just incredibly short sighted that you would ever get rid of the filibuster for a fairly modest goal in comparison to what the left would love to get the filibuster done with, in order to remake the American economy and.
Expand the Supreme Court and make Puerto Rico, which would be constitutionally a state. DC cannot constitutionally be made a state, but they would try. Now, Josh, I want to get to one more topic with you. Ruthless podcast has got a gazillion producers because your listeners are producers. You got four hosts, you got four producers, and then you got the fellows behind the cameras who are producers. I still
want to suggest something for you. Did you listen to former President Obama's interview on Saturday Night with Brian Tyler Cohen?
We did one I listened to it, but two more importantly, listen to you and break that down in just the vacuus snake of the entire conversation. I will say Duncan on our team took particular problems with the alien thing, where he's like, hey, do you believe that aliens exist?
And he's like, they do exist?
And then no follow up.
No, like yes, the former president United States says aliens exist, and you don't ask him, well, how do you know the exist?
Where are they?
How do they work? Like no follow up whatsoever. It seems like a pretty big development for something you just.
Sort of like sunk and got to the end of the interview. Then I was on a plane. I was trapped, so I had nothing to do except watch it. It's the worst interview in terms of a professional interviewer I've ever heard. There is no follow up. They don't ask him about thirty five thousand dead Iranians with weapons provided by the billion and a half dollars in Pallette money that we sent him. I only got through fifteen minutes. Josh, have you guys gone deeper?
I think Duncan has.
I like you have a tolerance for this sort of thing, because I've sort of just accepted the fact that it's all vacuous, it's all nonsensical, and it's all about trying to promote your point of view to people who don't do the homework, and that's like the model day Democratic Party.
Well put, if nobody knows anything, Obama sounds pretty good in that interview if they don't know anything about him. Now, I don't know that that's true about AOC. Here's the President of United States on Air Force one yesterday, cut number fourteen.
By the way, I watched AOC answering questions in Munich.
This was not a good look for the United States, but he goes on to say Gavin's not a good look either. What do you make of that display?
She has absolutely not.
The only thing more dangerous than somebody who has absolutely no idea what they're talking about is somebody who doesn't know they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and.
That is AOC.
I think the problem is that she's much more dangerous to your regular American than people think, and that they see her and they think she's just like, she can't tell she doesn't know what she's talking about. All of us sort of dismiss that.
Her whole goal is to.
Try to consolidate people who don't go that far.
They don't think.
About this, this this far, and they try to make these cases that have no historical basis of success whatsoever.
Don't you think stage that the Cowboys didn't come from Spain? Don't you think that.
Stage I would hope, Yeah, no, I would hope. I mean, her name is, last name is Cortes. How do you think that happened? How do you think that happens?
You know?
I love that, I just I can't, I literally can't with this person. But there's so much of the electorate that she's so last.
I had not thought about that until this moment, Josh Holmes. Did you guys talk about that on today's show?
We didn't.
I just thought about that right now on Thursday.
I think you gotta we got to go back and play the tape. It's sort of like a bad Super Bowl, bad interview Josh Holmes, always a pleasure, paulham At Holmes, Josh on X. Listen to the Routhless podcast three.
Days a week.
Her last name is cart Thank you, Josh Day tuned America.
You are starting to see the ascent of the right, even in places like Munich. Marco Rubio's speech was a pure appeal to Western culture. My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain.
I believe the Mexicans and.
Descendants of African.
Slave enslaved people's would like.
To have a word welcome back America. That is the aforementioned AOC. I am joined by David M. Drucker of The Dispatch. David Josh Holmes just said, her last name is Cortez. Why is she missing?
Yeah, I mean talk to the people in New Mexico, because there's a long line of Spanish descendants Americans for many generations over. But look this, this continent has been enriched by people from all over Europe, not to mention people from Central and South America.
So who knows, well, horses aren't native to North and South America. That's been always the rap on the Book of Mormon, right, is that that's got horses in it. There weren't any horses here.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm not aware of that detail, but I'm not just missing it. But like we all know that, we all learned that in grade school. Even if we've forgotten it. You know, I've probably forgotten more than I remember, but when you mention it, it all sounds familiar. AOC is a very good politician. She's very good at connecting with people. She's a very adept populist. But there are many things she does not appear to know.
I think she's going to be their nominee, and I think we would be we being Republicans, not you being a journalist who is nonpartisan, but I being a Republican partisan, We would be well advised not to underestimator, despite the fact she gives us ample reason to do so. David. You are a native southern California, aren't you. I am, okay, so I want to know. You're younger than I am
by a lot. But when you would go to big movies in your teen days, would you go to Westwood or would you go down to Newport Beach to Big Newport?
So you know, I grew up in Malibu and hung out in Santa Monica and West La So I always went to Westwood Village. We had the Man Bruin, We have the Man Village. I think those two big theaters are still there. And then there were a bunch of others in Westwood Village that were very large.
But that's where I grew up seeing movies.
So I learned a couple of weeks ago that Big Newport. I only moved to California in seventy eight, and I started going to movies in Big Newport when I lived in Orange County. But I go to Westwood as well, and those theaters are dinosaurs and they're tearing down Big Newport. I bring it up because Robert Duval died and I think the Godfather on a small screen would not have been the Godfather.
Well, I think one of the things that we're missing just because of innovation and the evolution of the entertainment industry is that movies were big shared cultural phenomenon, right.
I mean, I remember as a kid in kindergarten, which would have been nineteen seventy six ish seventy five seventy six, and Star Wars was the biggest the first Star Wars, the very first, which was you know, technically number three or six or whatever the heck it is in the storyline, was the biggest thing to ever hit movie theaters at that time, and it was such a.
Shared cultural phenomenon.
My parents and actually take me to.
See it, but I just told everybody I saw it because I didn't want to be left out. And you know, you couldn't see movies any other way but in the theater back then, except you waited five or six or seven years, and then you could see with commercials on network television.
So it just I love the way things are.
Star Wars a Newport in the summer of nineteen seventy eight, and I won't ever forget it, But I'm just curious if they had the same experience in Westwood that I did in Big Newport. You know, the lines existed. Yeah, to get in the line, you couldn't reserve a seat, so the lines would be out there for forty five minutes an hour. You would wait and then inevitably someone would cut it in the front and they went to USC.
Was that your experience completely? I saw in nineteen eighty nine I graduated from high school. We went from Santa Monica to Westwood Village and got in line for the midnight showing and it was blocks long, and they ran out of tickets for a midnight showing. That's just how
big of a deal movies were. But you know, obviously it's a company town in LA and in southern California broadly, but again, it shared cultural experiences that are not quite the same now, just given all of the different ways we can see movies first run.
Well, I know you're a bruined, but can you confirm that they had a class at trojan Land where how to cut into line and say I'm from USC? Is that what did they teach that at USC?
I don't doubt it. I mean anything that's uncouth or unethical. They probably talked that's.
It, that's it. And I can't help but that their band doesn't have trumpets. They'd never had trumpets, and people get upset about that. David, would you go to the Rose Bowl for UCLA brewin games? Were you the guy that was there?
Yeah? I was there.
In fact, I grew up.
I never missed almost never missed a home game from but basically my entire childhood.
My father adopted UCLA back.
In the forties when they played at the Coliseum and didn't really have much of a program compared to USC, so we adopt to the underdog, and I grew up first going to the Coliseum and then.
The Rose Ball.
It's really the only thing I really miss about living in southern California is UCLA football and basketball games notwithstanding, and I've not had much cheer about, but I still miss it.
Did you Are you old enough to have gone to see Wooden in his prime?
I'm old enough that I was there for games, but I do not remember them because I'm not old enough to have remembered them.
But I went to his basketball camps.
You dad had very experiences, Oh yeah, and where he coached, I mean, and he was very active at his camps. I would get his autograph, I would eat meals with him. We used to they used to do the basketball camp at cal Lutheran University, and it was at the same time that the Dallas Cowboys were there for training camp. So I was hanging I mean I say hanging out, I mean we'd be in the same mess hall, as Tony Dorr said in All of Them. You know, it was a different world back then.
Very Chargers used to train at UCI. Did John Woodin teach you how to tie your shoes at his camp, because that's how he opens his books.
Double socks, tire shoes And almost everything he taught us was without a basketball. All of the defensive drills, all of the shooting drills, there was no basketball involved. It was all about muscle memory and fundamentals.
Yeah. Help you right about that, David. Because I'm not a California and I'm a transplant. But everyone who's a native had lunch with John Mooton at some point or knew him somewhere because he was ubiquitous. He was also such a good person and lived modestly. I think out in the valley somewhere after he retired, and we'll go to breakfast at the same place every day. Have you ever written about him?
I've never written about him. He never made, if my memory service, he never made more than twenty seven thousand dollars annually as the head coach of the UCLA Bruins men's basketball program. He ended up in Encino. He would go to the same diner or coffee shop every day, and I were forgetting the name. And he ended up making money then later as a sneaker.
But what am I.
Thought, David, if you can stick around, I want to ask you about Jesse Jackson, since you're a political writer and you remember that. So I'm going to get two minutes of David Drucker on the other side about Jesse Jackson. Doesn't go anywhere America. I'm huge it. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett, David Drucker. I asked you to stick around because you've covered Jesse Jackson for a long time. What's his place in American political history?
I mean, he's an iconic democratic politician and social activist, you know. I mean he's one of those politicians or activists that you know in the in the eighties in particular, just for somebody of my age, you know, I knew who the president was, I knew who the governor was and Jesse Jackson is somebody who I knew who he was because he had just a very sort of he was a ubiquitous presence. But you know, he was somebody
who just was a major figure. Now obviously, you know, there are plenty of things he did for conservatives to disagree with, not not Democrats didn't agree with them all the time. He said, sometimes said and did things that were that he shouldn't have said. And that's you know, there was there was the HEIMI toown remark that he
made with anti Semitic overtones. But when you're just looking for an influential figure with longevity and American politics, who was very influential and who Democrats will tell you really you know, in a sense forced them to loosen the rules of the nominating process, which later cleared the way for somebody like Barack Obama to have a shot as an outsider in the Democratic primary. And who was a
mentor to other African American activists, civil rights activists. I mean, I mean, the man's career is hard.
To match, well said, an extraordinary career with its valleys, with its peaks, and a fellow who will be remembered for years and years and years. David M. Drukkernak, thank you for joining me from the dispatch. I wanted someone who covered him to actually condense that, and you did it. Thank you friend. Come back round number two today, as you do. A ship foundation is not then, As Josh Holmes noted in last hour, her last name is Cortes. She ought to know about the Spanish and horses. I'm
joined by Brett Behar, anchor Special Report. Of course he's America as an anchor and you can watch him every night at six on the Fox News Channel. Brett Aoc kind of stepped in it a couple of times in Munich. Any lasting damage in your assessment, I.
Don't think it was good you. I mean, I think if your your purpose was to go over there and show your foreign policy shops, I think you needed to read up on the brief on some of those issues at Taiwan. Is not a surprise question, and one would think that of the things that you got to bone up on Taiwan would be one of them. But listen, this is it lasting damage. I don't think it's it's great, but I'm sure she's going to have a political future minus her Munich performance.
Yeah, Brett Barrett. I asked President Trump about the Triad when he was mister Trump in twenty fifteen, and he didn't really know, and it didn't really matter because he said, I'll learn when I need to know. Is that good enough? In these days, I don't.
Know the nuclear triad and China and Taiwan feel a little different. But I do think, you know, when you get to that point, you bone up and you're ready for a debate. I think there's a bigger question about you know, her experience her. You know, she's clearly a political talent and gets a lot of people fired up. But I'm not sure that the party's going to rally besides the left side of the party of the Democratic Party.
I'm saying now. I talked with President Trump in January and I asked him about AOC and he said, she's quite a talent. She's got a lot of I think I use the word sparkler. He did. But she's never done an interview. This was really the first interview I've seen where she was asked anything. Have you ever had a chance to talk to her? Is she going arms way?
It's been a while, I mean, it's it's probably been let's see, four years. But she came on set on Special Report and it was we spent a lot of time talking about the beginning of COVID and where that was, but we cover a lot of territory. I pressed her on a couple of things. She was savvy, had, you know, a good sense of things, but that was her wheelhouse.
This was taking her out of her wheelhouse of every day and I guess, you know, just thinking about how she's dealt with other things, maybe the bar was a little bit higher.
Yeah. Now, yesterday I spent the first I spent an hour in the show on the first fifteen minutes of the former President Obama's interview released on Saturday Night with Brian Tyler Cohen, and it was it took me an hour to get through fifteen minutes because it was it was vacuous, It was utterly devoid of substance. As I suppose many of my thinkers would say, is presidency was. Have you had a chance to watch that yet.
Brett, Yeah, I did watch it. I watched the whole thing. What did you say, unbelievable as that is, I watched the whole thing besides the alien back and forth and clean up. I was, you know, it felt like Obama of old.
You know.
The first time I sat down with him was three days before Obamacare. The legislation was voted on in the House and I was given thirty minutes in the Blue Room. And then I got there and he said, Okay, Brett, we're going to do twenty minutes. And I said, miss President, whatever time you have is great. And so the first question I asked I was a four minute answer, and the second question was a three minute answer. And there was a White House staff member with an iPhone taking
backwards from twenty minutes in my line of sight. And so it did not surprise me, you know, some of those long, lengthy answers and kind of how he delivers on substance. I think he maybe saved AOC a bit, because you know, the former president speaking out takes a lot of them. You know, it's sort of like a bug zapper in the backyard. It kind of gets all the focus.
All I got from that interview was that he signaled AOC and Gavin Newsom are acceptable. He did not mention Josh Shapiro, He did not mention Governor Basher, he didn't mention anyone on the kind of center left side of the Democratic Party was progressive, progressive, progressive, progressive, and I think he was in that signal. He wasn't there to answer any questions, and they didn't get asked about Iran, which is sort of astonishing. I don't know, mister Cohenie.
Maybe he's new to this game. He's interviewed a lot of Democrats. But you got to ask at least a couple of tough ones, don't you, Brent.
I mean, especially on Iran that is in the middle of negotiations. You know about a nuclear program that you signed a JCPOA and and authorized money going to Iran that arguably a lot of experts say fueled their efforts to fund terrorist proxies. So yeah, I would think there would be a couple more tough ones in there. I agree with you, it was sort of not substance wise. I didn't get a lot out of it.
Yeah, I think he's probably he's thirty five or thirty seven years old and new to it. Brett. Let me go back to your Pentagon days. I think you were there for the build up before Afghanistan. I mean, I know you were there for the build up at the Pentagon before Afghanistan. Were you still there for the build up to a rock invasion in two thousand and three or had you gone over to the Yeah, okay.
No, I was there from one to six.
So you've seen this massive deployment of military resources. Have you seen anything like this other than one for Afghanistan and three for I Rack.
No, Well, we'll keep on focusing on the naval assets. But the Air Force has moved a ton of a ton of equipment over into the region just in the past three days. And yeah, we haven't seen this in a long long time. Now. It doesn't have the same you know, troop compartment that the invasion of Iraq did. I mean I was in Kuwait for all that build up and you know, but it is significant. I mean, it's not to be dismissed. And you don't do that as just a threat. I don't think now.
I don't think you can affect regime. It's been done before, regime changed, done in Serbia with Melosovich via the air, done in Kadathi land via the air. But I don't think you can dig the IRGC out of their holes in Iran. It's ninety two million people. Do you agree with me on that you can't do just an air campaign?
No, I agree with you. There has to be some kind of ground component, But I don't know what the plan is for that, and right now I don't see opposition forces that are unified or under one one leader.
So exit question given the Foreign minister coming out today, and so now we're going to good to go for next week and we're going to get together. And then Channel twelve in Israel reporting that the American that told the Israelis were at a dead end. Where do you say the truth in this chaff and this wilderness of mirrors we're in.
I think that Wikoff and Kushner will be pretty blunt with the President and that if it's a sense that it's not going anywhere, they will say that. I think that the Runian Foreign minister, you saw them on my show, it was like Bagdad, Bob, you know where nothing's happening here as the tanks rolled by to get Saddam Hussein. So I don't think you can take those statements of where the negotiations are as face value. I think that there's going to be an assessment. And while the President
wants a diplomatic solution. I don't think they're going to wait forever.
Her last question in two thousand and three one Sherman Myers did a lot of talking. Ice Chairman Past did a lot of talking. W didn't Who's going to be doing talking if we do? Rumsfeld came out and talked almost every day. Rummy was great. Who's going to be doing the talking on this?
It's a great question. I think probably the President, and I think he's probably going to run point. I don't think it's going to be Secretary of Hegseth and General Kine has kept a low profile, but you're right. I mean back when I covered the Pentagon and bos of those, Afghanistan and Rock it was daytime soap opera when Secretary of Rumsfeld and Armon Myers came out, so it.
Was very illuminating. It was also funny. I'll still remember Meyers saying to Pace, I didn't know Marines had big words like that, but it was great. Brett will be watching tonight for the latest out of Iran. Don't miss special report every night on your TV on the Fox News Channel at six pm Eastern. Thank you, Brett, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, Byron York with the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor Extraordinary Joints Me now follow
him on X at Byron York. Byron, what do you make of the aftermath of the talks in Geneva today with Iran?
Well, they're happening that good. I felt after the first session in which there was you know, there was it was barely face to face at all, uh, that this was never going to go anywhere, And it's still never going to go anywhere without uh, probably the use of American force. And I'm pretty much still there today.
So stuck at dead end. Here's Vice President Vance with Martha McCollum earlier today. Or do we not have it ran Cuba?
Well, I'm obviously not going to make any announcements today. I think the president has a lot of options. We do have a very powerful military. The President's shown a willingness to use it. He also has a remarkable diplomatic team. He's shown a willingness to use that too, And so what the President has been very clear with the Iranians. And actually I just talked to Steve Wookoff and Jared Kushner this morning about some of their negotiations is the
United States has certain red lines. Our primary interest here is we don't want a Ran to get a nuclear weapon. We don't want nuclear proliferation. If it Ran gets a nuclear weapon, there are a lot of other regimes, some friendly, some not so friendly, who would get nuclear weapons after them. That would be a disaster for the American people because then you have these crazy regimes all over the world
with the most dangerous weapons in the world. And that's one of the things the President has said he's going to prevent. Now, we would very much like, as the President has said, to resolve this through a conversation and a diplomatic negotiation. But the President has all options on the table. And you know, one thing about negotiation I will say this morning is you know, in some ways
it went well, they agreed to meet afterwards. But in other way is it was very clear that the President has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through. So we're going to keep on working it. But of course the President reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end, we hope it will get to that point.
But if we do, that'll be the president.
So Byron, I think the vice president is doing his job as a vice president, but he's not willing to acknowledge some of the red lines as well. He didn't say no missiles, he didn't say don't kill your own people. He didn't say stop supporting has Blond. I'm awesome ooties, right, and.
I'm but you get the sense that, you know, when obviously Iran knows that you've got this enormous American armado growing within striking distance, and it doesn't exactly know how to get out of this, but it does though that if you promise to keep talking, maybe you can put it,
put it off until something happens. And you just get the sense that with these these slightly hopeful things that the foreign minister says, the Uranian foreign minister says that it's basically intended to buy them a little time in hopes of something the other. Now on our side, you know, I have to say, I mean, do you think that President Trump is kind of if he takes military action against Iran, do you think he's really prepared the American people for why he would be doing this.
I don't know that he has, but the news media has. In other words, the missile threat is real and growing. The support of Hesbaalah and Hamas is real and enduring, and they murdered thirty five thousand of their own people. So I don't he had not done what WAD did before two thousand and three, two thousand and one, which is worn of casualties. He hasn't on which hw did before ninety one, which is to warn a you know,
one hundred thousand dead. He hadn't done that, But I don't think he believes that that's possible either.
Well, obviously it was a big surprise to people when he did this in Venezuela. Even though he built up an armada down there, he really hadn't prepared for the American people for it actually was going to take. But it was quick, it was very, very sharply focused. This we're still not sure exactly what the United States would be doing, although the every capability to do it quite a lot. And I don't think I would disagree with you in a sense that the media can kind of
prepare the way for this. I think there's nobody who can prepare the way for this except the president of the United States who said we're going to do this, this, and this, or they have to do you know, they have to get rid of their nuclear program, they have to stop killing people, and they have to stop supporting, you know, regional terrorist organizations. And if they don't do it,
we're gonna hit them. I think if those are the United States standards, that has to be articulated by the president.
Well, the president has said the missile program. And to me, Byron, when you were young, did you ever play poker Jack's Open Trip to Win?
No, I don't believe I did.
Okay, Well, Jack's Open Trip to win five card game, and you can't up the annie. You can't bat unless you have at least jacks, and so sometimes everybody falls in. You just re up the annie again. The Urons don't they runnies, don't have jacks. They can't open these negotiates. They've got nothing to give us that doesn't endanger their regime.
You know that.
That's a good point. And now Trumps said, and I think he's direct the United States do pretty grievous damage to their nuclear program, which is not coming back tomorrow. On the other hand, I don't know is is big US military action necessary here?
I think because my perspective that from national security only, is that the missiles are a threat not just to Israel and the UAE and cutter, but to Southern Europe, and eventually they will be a threat to US, and they can make them into dirty bombs. And I do believe that that regime, which can murder thirty five thousand people, would not hesitate a moment to use dirty bombs on our allies and on us. If they could, I think they can hit Camp Bond Steal right now.
Actually, well, I mean, Israel has significant military capabilities on its own, and they had done but you know, before the United States went in with the bunkerbusters and took out the nuclear facilities, they had done. Israel had done significant damage beforehand.
They had, but they didn't. We stopped them from finishing the job.
Byron well that they could finish the job. So I'm just wondering, you know, why it's absolutely necessary? What in president has not made the case depending on how big this military action is if it comes. I mean that's a really important variable here because obviously the president went in, did one bombing run on the military, on the nuclear
facilities and that took care of things. So depending on how big it is, how extensive it is, whether it involves Americans at risk, you have to have a presidential justification and explanation for this, and we just haven't had it from the president.
Not yet. I think it would be as well if he did it, but he can do it after the fact as well, once it's begun. I don't know that we ever had Bill Clinton explain Serbia or Barack Obama explain Libya, and that was a disaster for both of them, by the way. So it's a good point.
Byron.
I hope he does it, Byron York America, follow him on ecceit Byron York, watch him on Fox and as Ridam in the Washington Sandra, I'll be right there, Robert Tavall, you won the Oscar in nineteen eighty three for portraying the alcoholic country singer Max Sledge and Tender Mercies, and now Jeff Bridges is nominated for Best Actor for playing Bad Blake and Crazy Heart.
Who's another alcoholic country singer?
Did you guys compare notes on these two characters and how to get smart about, you know, an addicted drinker?
No, didn't compare notes at all. No, but he's gonna win. He'll win the Oscar.
I think you should it, so welcome back, Oma. That's Robert Duvall from twenty ten when he was on the program with me and I talked about him at the beginning of the show, but I wanted to really talk to Lilax about him, because when anybody dies, Lilac and I are about the same age, and we have about the same impression of people. Usually, Lilax, what do you think of Robert duval.
He was absolutely wonderful.
He was an incredible actual As people have pointed out, and I was saying nothing new. He had an expansive range in which you could be that guy who was incredibly quiet and complex and rich inside but also boisterous and outgoing. And called his brio an actor of an era that we're just not seeing anymore.
We don't see.
Guys that much anymore who have this sort of confident, inhabited masculinity that goes back a couple of generations to an archetype that now we miss because we had to get rid of it.
We had to get rid.
Of it, you know, coincidentally with you know, DeVault came up when he was coming up. The actors of that generation, there would be the ones, you know, you're Alan Aldas who would be more in touch and they're sensitive sides and the rest of it all could if he had to. But he was a throwback, like a lot of these guys were, and we're going to lose them, one after
the other after the other. We're going to see a great culling in the next few years where the great actors and a lot of the great musicians rock musicians that we grew up with are going to die as well. You feel very, very old when somebody who was up there seeing, you know, shake your moody when you were in high school and having a grand old time and feeling the fruits of youth would never wither on the vine.
When they start going out in their seventy seven or they're you know, sixty nine or something like that, that's when times winged Cherriot.
You feel the breath and the horses hot on your neck.
Now I've got an idea which I floated in the first segment of the show. I want to bounce off of you. You know how, there are a lot of theaters around the country with multiplex. They got like twenty screens, and they have one screen that they just dedicate to random movies. I would suggest that they simply assure the moviegoer that the film they're about to see, either as Robert Devald, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, al Pacino, or Robert de Niro in it, that one of these great and
there might be someone else on that list. They don't they don't even tell you what the movie is. You're reading it deval Hackman, Eastwood, Pacino or de Niro, go on and sit down and enjoy. We'll keep playing them all day. Do you think that would work?
I think it would. It'd be great. With de Nio, you're kind of watering the podle a little bit, the twenty years.
Ago me and there you go.
And if you charge the buck fifty, you know you're not going to do this to make enoughul lot of money. And it's not as if they have to recoup the cost in something that was made in nineteen seventy four.
But that would be great.
It would be wonderful, in fact, if you just didn't have more than one theater with those guys, but you had another there with the old great black and white movies somehow, you know, and make it a schooling experience. Kids hate that black and white. They can't figure out
why anybody would want to. But when you expose them to the beauties of a monochrome palette and realize how in the nineteen forties you would watch a movie and when you see it on your television, on your screen, or even god forbid, on your phone, and the whole face is filled with thistle. You know, the whole screen
is this luminescent close up of a glowing face. It doesn't have the impact of sitting in the theater before the silver screen and seeing the entirety of your vision filled up with Ingrid Bergmann and her Liquia's eyes.
I mean that would be an education as well.
And given that these movies just roll in for a week or so and play to fifty sixty people or so, I mean, drop the price, give them free popcorn, and let it be an educational experience in the glories of American culture, which include.
The movie and in a multipi clients don't good at it, you've got it. I mean they're throwing the same movie eight times a day at some of these screens and just the dedicated screen, the black and white. She was tried in LA for years there was a film a movie theater on I can't remember. It's on the west side of LA south of Wiltshire, that showed nothing but the grand old films of the black and white era. I'm just thinking good action picks like The French Connection,
or The Godfather or you name it. The Apostle is my favorite, Denio, or you could even show Lonesome dub. People would just drop in for a couple of hours and get what they wanted, right.
But they would if you presume that mall culture in this place is still healthy, that there's still a lot of guys who are wandering around.
The theater while the white shops or something, you know, in the mall, while the white shops or something, you can only go to so many stories.
You know, Well, I don't have my size of pants there. I guess I'm gonna sit down here by the froyo for a while.
Yeah.
I mean for those.
Guys, it would be great, but it's getting everybody else you do with It's going to be the question the movie going experience seems to the American DNA fractured at some point, something happened in twenty twenty, trying to remember what that might have been that seemed to separate us
from the communal experience of movies. We'll go out to see a Maverick because we know we're going to rock and roll, and you sense around is going to warm, She's going to vibrate our bones, and Tom Cruise will be the last movie star and the rest of it.
Yeah, fly about Duval in that interview, I played you a little bit of He had come on to promote the movie with Jeff Bridges, but he ended up promoting hurt Locker to get the copy more. He really didn't care what he said. He was totally indifferent Hollywood, totally indifferent.
Yeah, I've had interviews like that that have gone that way, my favorite being with William Shatner, which was more work than I've done in my life, and that includes, you know, a stange as a seed salesman in the South. But yeah, I mean you get the sense of the personality right there, and yes, does it come across the screen? Yes, is
it's reach across generations? You'd like to think. So the test is just finding out whether or not it does, whether or not the generations that have grown up on CGI and in huge Marvel movies where nothing really means anything, where people are thrown into walls and get right up, where ninety eight pound women fights two hundred pounds Soviet Russian assassins. So the rest of it, whether or not the vacuity and the emptiness and the frivolity of the movies that we've.
Had lately, whether we can bring people back to some solid stuff.
Now, when you make a good horror film and you make an eight twenty four film, you make a film that reaches a certain modern audience.
They love it and it's great.
So it's still there, but it feels the movie stars in the movie experience feels like a waning experience, and I don't know what it'll take to get us back to it.
Well, it's unfortunate Robert Duvall is not a wartime consigliori. But other than that, he was a very, very fabulous actor. I want to close, but do you have a favorite Duval movie?
No, it is a matter of fact. I think of one and then I think of another.
So close with what you're going to close with, did you enjoy Lonesome Dove. Not a movie, just the greatest television series ever.
Made when it came out. Yes, yes, indeed that's so.
You think Tommy Lee Jones is taking the remains of Bob Duvall Robert Duvall across the country in a wagon.
I hope so, I absolutely, absolutely hope so because Dominie Jones are one of the few that we got left hands.
And it is one of the guys we got left. We also have Lylex left and Hewett and we'll keep doing this once a week for as long as they allow us. Thank you, Lilas. Go find him at James Lylax dot subtact dot com James Lyilex dot subtact dot com. I'll be right back.
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T job.
Boy Marrion, even Grace America. Time for a treat That is Crossroad Blues by Robert Johnson. We are told in the first page of this new novel by C. J. Box, The Crossroads. That's from nineteen thirty six. CJ Box is back, CJ. How do you know about The Crossroads Blues?
I've been a I'm a blues fan, have been a blues fan for a long time.
I think I.
Probably first heard it by Eric Clapton, then found out when the song was actually written and how old it was.
But it's a classic.
Well, I'm not a blues guy, and I appreciate the intro. Gave me the good intro music. Congratulations on the Crossroads. It is a fabulous read. I read it last night in this morning, so it's about an eight hour read. I want people to know that you can blow through it and it's addictive. I also want people to know that it has in it Clarkson's Farm for real, Really, did you like Clarkson's Farm?
I love Clarkson's Farm. Yeah, we're big fans.
I watched about four episodes and I decided it was the same show again and again and again. Second. Oh no, oh, no, okay, maybe we'll go back. Then. I want to know about Mollybox and Prairie Stage Creative. Who's in the acknowledgments. I assume your daughter is running some kind of PR firm.
Well, she's a graphic designer and an artist at a very accomplished artist. And luckily for me, she runs all my social media so I don't have to, and she's.
Much better at it than i'd be anyway.
But because she grew up with the books and reads all the books and gets them before they go to print, she along with her sisters, are great help in all of the all the novels, and I'll give me their notes before I actually send it off to the publisher.
Well, CJ, this is a fabulous book at number twenty six in the Joe Pickett series. Now we have some new affiliates from Florida up to the Upper Midwest that had not heard you before. So CJ has been coming on the program for two decades whenever Joe Pickett novel comes out and occasionally not. And Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game Warden. He's now number ten out of fifty. His badge is pretty high up there.
That's right.
Yeah, he's advancing seniority over the years. That's why it works in real life in Wyoming. With each year and game wardens retire and every other game warden gets advanced one space. So conceivably he could become game Warden number one, But I'm not looking that far ahead.
I don't think that's every something. He's going to get broken in rank for something. Let me ask you, probably, Chuck, this is a movie. I mean it's a standalone movie because it's got a lot of female leads in it, and they could do the backstory pretty easily. Has it been optioned?
No, it has not been.
As an individual that gets complicated you because the rights to the Joe Pickett are still with Paramount Plus, and that's being renegotiated again because of the TV show next year. If they do not develop the show either any further, those will those rights will revert back to us, and then possibly who knows.
Well paramount. Ought to just make this as a standalone again. It's got fabulous roles for women as well as bad guys, and for Joe and for Nate and for everybody else in the Joe Pickett universe. But it's fabulous. I want to ask before I do it. And by the way, Casey Duell crossover, has that ever happened before?
I made him mention earlier?
It gets complicated because Cassie Duell, those books the Highway, one of your favorites. Yeah, I know, those are all with a different publisher, with McMillan, and so doing a.
Crossover is a little risky. I just figured easier.
To apologize and ask permission and wanted to do that.
I'm going to come back to Cassie probably in segment three, but before we go alonger, I want people don't know the twenty sixth Joe Picket books, nine others stand alone thirty six book. Do you ever get tired?
You know what?
I honestly, I enjoy nothing more than writing books, especially the first drafts. I try to do them during the winter because in here where I are a little ranch in Wyoming, there's not a lot going on, and try to get them done by summer, so I can fish and play golf, and I go to work every day just like you do.
Probably not, I don't work as hard as you do, Hugh.
I don't work how I work every day.
Drain doesn't work. I don't work. Harley and Adam work, the rest of us don't. All right, now, you are doing a book tour. I put that on my AX account, but they can find it. What at cjbox dot net or is it net? What's the website?
Cjbox dot net.
Okay, that's correct, and it starts in Colorado on Sunday, my birthday, my seventieth birthday, by the way. I just want to let.
People know, happy birthday.
I know it's my I know you're doing that for me, but I can't be at the tattered book cover or whatever it's called in Denver. But it's all posted on the web and it's fabulous. I want to pick a fight with you though. You bring up the Polaris Ranger, the ATV and I got a few pictures of them that I don't know if Harley was able to find them or not, but you weren't specific enough. This is the one I like. And then there's another one which is blue, and then there's got a little back thing
on the back. Then and then there's this one. Which one are you talking about?
You know, the very first one you showed, the red one, the fourth person with the little dump truck on the back. We own that, So that's what I have in mind when I was writing about it.
So you drive them? You really do drive those?
We take them out almost every day.
Yes, arn't there like personal injury lawyer, get rich, get for card free? Right? Isn't that what those are?
I think they're pretty safe. I have yet to roll it, although I've come close.
So I've got to talk without giving away. I don't even want to give it away. I don't want to give away as much as the blurb gives away over at Amazon dot com, because the blurb gives a little bit away. But I'm not going to give that much away. People have to go and look at the Amazon dot com link to find out. But I do want to bring up a few compliments on sidebars. First of all, I love the coffee checks. I think they should invite Lauren Trumley over to have breakfast with him. What do you think?
I think that's a good idea. Yeah, the coffee Chick. You know, I think we've talked about it before. I give away your name in a CJ box booked all sorts of fundraisers or at Wyoming in the Mountain West, and one of the winners cup last year was a woman, seventy year old woman in Torrington, Wyoming, who said she wants of the Coffee Chicks, her group that gets together every morning and runs the town. And I was trying to figure out how to work that in a book, and it could fill in perfectly.
I thought, Yeah, I thought that was before you gave the names away, and then you decided I have five more. Let's see Cheryl, Betty, Shawna, and Debbie. And they're all names from that generation, right, They're gone now, there aren't any more. Denise's so well played. And I like Lauren Trumpy as well. Is that a giveaway?
No, that I think I made that name up.
That's one of the few I didn't take from the you Know your Name in and and actually from a previous book.
Oh I forgot I forgot names from a previous book. I love by the way the Crossroads. Everything works, every detail in this book. How long does it take to pay for.
This one was a little more complicated than most.
Hopefully readers won't say, oh, this is complicated though the pages will fly, but because we can give a little bit away. I mean, Joe Pickett is nearly injured in the very first pages of the book, and Joe goes into a coma airlifted out. His three daughters. Adult daughters all come together and decide to figure out which of the three ranches that Joe was likely visiting at the crossroads was responsible.
For the ambush.
So that's how it begins, and then there are flashbacks to all.
The events leading up to the ambush.
At the same time the girls are investigating the potential murderers.
You gave away more than I was going would be, so I'm not at fault.
I did it.
All I tell the people is I've got the galley chair. I picked them up, walked out of the studio yesterday Dwayne and Adam and Harley will Levere and said, I got to go home and read Chuck's book. And I asked, Dwayne, is it a one day read? He said, absolutely, It's
a page turner. And it turned out to be. I want to tell people it's you know, you don't have to read the first twenty five, though it might lead you to go back and do it, because it doesn't give away anything about the previous twenty five except in illusion to maybe Nate a little bit. But I just think it's fabulous for people who are starting out and they want to get the first one. You also thank you, saying to my heart, you have two endangered species in here.
You have the it's not really an endangered species. The sagegrouse is protected by Wyoming under a special deal with the nuts at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, not the listed as endangered. And then you've got a spelling bee word to Ptarmigan?
How do I say that Armigan? Just forget the pee and they're just Ptarmigan. Okay, that's another yeah, right, No, they're they're game birds, but they're they're more mountain they're very quick little birds. Tarmagan. You can go Ptarmigan hunting. It's really rough country, usually on the size of rocky hillsides. They're unique to the West and the step.
Pretty sure I've never bagged one.
Chuck, I'm pretty sure you haven't.
No, I don't, I've not gotten it. But it's a great spelling B word. I think people need to go look at a P T A R M I G A N. I asked to fetching missus Sewett last night, what in the world is arm against? Did I know the word? But I don't know what it is? So we both looked up. But you've got the sage grouse and the ptarmagin. And when we come back, we'll talk about other rip from the headline controversies in CJ's brand new book, The Crossroads, the latest in the Joe Pickett
Theater series. Head over to Amazon dot com, get it delivered on Monday, which is publication day it drops, and go see him in Denver. Go over to cjbox dot net to find out the rest of the book signing events. I'll be right back with CJJA two. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett Chuck Box. Do you know what that music is?
It's from The Godfather, Yes, you know what?
And it's from.
Oh isn't it from the uh? Not the funeral? But it's from the parade and got.
It's a hospital scene. Ah okay, And so.
That's pretty clever, well, very.
Clever writing in the book, and people have to read the book to know what I'm talking about. But there are always hospital scenes in CJ. Box thrillers for Joe Pickett, and there's one in this that made me think of a young uh al Pacino going with the Baker to stand in front of the deserted hospital and shy away the gangsters. And I went and rewatched it today. It's a fabulous scene that you set up. By the way, was that on your mind when.
You did it?
Not necessarily some you know, I do outline. I do a lot of pre planning, but sometimes something will just pop up kind of in context of the of the story that I will add in. And that was when I added in, was when yeah, we don't want to talk about the circumstances now, yes, it's very similar.
Now, when did you get interested in brain surgery? Because I learned more about brain surgery in this book, and I mean it really is brain surgery, so not a joke. There's brain surgery in the book. When did you get interested in that?
There is?
You know, I happened to read a book by called gray Matter, by a neurosurgeon called doctor Theodore Schwartz, came out last year I can't Yeah, I can't even remember why I got it, but it was so fascinating because he's.
Not only a renowned surgeon, he's a great writer and described things really well.
And one of the things that fascinated me was how sometimes the personalities of patients people change after brain surgery, after a severe brain damage. How sometimes you know, a lion becomes a lamb, or a lamb becomes a lion, or you know, total personality change. And it fascinated me because it did, you know, went into the depths of brain surgery.
And I wanted to add that in this book.
So I asked doctor Swartz if he would look over the chapters that I wrote about it and fix my errors, and he fixed a few, and so I think it's pretty accurate.
It's amazing. It's a thriller within a thriller because it does plumb. You quote Winston Churchill, tell you about the Soviet Union, which is it's a riddle wrapped inside and mystery inside and enigma. That's the human brain. I thought it was fabulous. Now there's also blue. I want to make sure people understand that we go from brain surgery to blue in the crossroads are you a grandfather. I am.
We have four grandchildren and another one on the way, so I know you are.
I know you're familiar with blue Absolutely anybody our age with grandchildren.
It's a great show.
It is. Daniel Tiger and Blueie have got me out of many a Sunday afternoon.
Jam.
Now, let's talk about saving me rip stuff from the headlines. I made a list. Not only do we have the endangered species I mentioned, we got rare earth. We got fatanyl I military age males coming over the border in division strength. You know, I talked about that last week with a national security person before I read Crossroads, and I don't think many people are aware of that. Check Where did you learn about that?
On the Hugh Hewitt Show?
Like I learned so many things, seriously, maybe not the rare earths, but a lot of the geopolitical issues.
I listen every day, but I get smart. I listened to you.
You you didn't learn about rare earths from me? Because I can't even pronounce the names of these things. I wrote them down in my back flap. We've got dys inmium, terbium, pyrasidimium, dysprosonium. Did I get any of those, right.
I think, so, I'm not sure I can pronounce them. I did a lot of research into that, you know, that's kind of think. Rare earths are not that rare. They're everywhere, But why they're surprised is if they're in huge concentrations, and the biggest problem with with retrieving them is refining them. In the United States, and that's there's a there's a Wild West gold rush going.
On in the Mountain West.
Some of the biggest discoveries of rare earth deposits have been found in the last few years in the state of Wyoming, all over the state. So yeah, people are looking for them all over. They're finding them. They're talking about how many trillion dollars worth of rare earth there are. It's wild.
The technology of finding them, which is described in this book as a subplot, is all new to me. And I has all of Wyoming now been mapped, because that's what I would do at scale. If it's that valuable, you would map all of Wyoming, wouldn't you.
I don't know. I can't say if it's all been mapped.
I know that the areas that are most likely to have those kind of geological formations. There's all kinds of things going on with you know, land men out there, you know, securing rights and so on.
But it gets very complicated. It's hard to say.
From the air.
You can tell that there are rarers, but you don't not sure how deep they are till they start to dig. So it's complicated, it's costly, but it's a boom now.
It's very alarming to me when a lab comes up in the book, and when it first comes up, I'm thinking crystal math because that was a problem in Riverside, San Bernino County for a while when I was practicing law. You never wanted to go onto big empty spaces because you run into someone cooking met here they're cooking ventanyl and I've never read about that. Is that a real problem now in the Mountain West.
I can't say that it's huge, but it has happened. That's where I got the whole idea from that.
It was a small place, a small cabin, not far from the interstate Interstate eighty, so it could be serviced, the.
Chemicals could be brought.
In because ventanyl production has been slowed down, so they're in some cases trying to cook it locally.
Very alarming, and again I would have people read it for this. Then I want to ask you you better not get stopped by any state highway patrolmen because there's an illusion here that they may not all be on the up and out. Chuck. You know that right. They lead books too.
Just like all long haul truckers, all highway troopers are all upstanding citizens.
I want to read page two eight. This is Cassie on interrogation. Cassie said, just talk with them, not to them, and be friendly about it. Ask them about their lives and their interests. Don't judge them overtly. But most of all, keep them talking. If you keep them talking long enough, they'll let something slip. But if you're dominating the conversation or telling them now either clam up or get belligerent, that helps no one take their side. If you can
lend a sympathetic gar to their grievances. If they think of you as an antagonist, you won't learn anything. If they think of you as their friend or ally, they might reveal things that surprise you and help you along. That's how to do interviews. How did you learn that, Chuck, Well, I mean I used to be a journalist.
I have found over the years, I still love to do the research for every book and all the topics we're talking about and talk to people about them. And I've always the dirty little secret is that you know, if you walk up to somebody with an empty notebook, often they just feel they just feel compelled to fill it and tell you everything about that they can think of about their lives, that the work they do. Rarely does anyone ask other people about what they do and
how they do it. So if there's real interest there and it's sincere interests, I've never had anybody ever refuse an interview.
Or not tell me.
Some cases, tell me too much that I can't even don't even want to put in the books.
Has have you used that line before? Because I wrote it down. If you have an open notebook in front of you, people want to fill the page. Have you used that before?
I don't think I've used it. I've used it in talks, but I don't think I've used it in the books.
It's a fabulous line. One more segment Chuck Box. Meanwhile, CEJ Box's brand new book Crossroads. If you're watching on the Salem News Channel, this is a galley, So you can't buy the galley, but you can go get the book and have it delivered on Monday, because it drops on Monday, and you will thank me. And then you go back and you'll start at the beginning. I'm just warning you in advance about the Highway. You won't sleep
for a while when you read it. Don't go It's not a Joe Pickett novel, all right, that's not that's a standalone Stay tuned America. I'll be right back with CJ Box after this booking back in America. That's Brandy by looking Glass, one of the songs in My youth, and I play it because there's a Brandy in this in this book. No eman blinking. I used to say, that's a tripper name, and I don't think it's a stripper name. Throw all the brandies out there, but it's
pretty funny. And I don't know if she's coming back around or not. I do want to point out that a US Senator from Arkansas is on the case of the hedge fund billionaire married to Brandy. Wouldn't know that US senator from Arkansas, I was down on the CCP would be. But they get their shout out on page one ninety one.
Yeah, I forgot about that. Okay, yeah, it's in there.
Let me ask you about billionaires. I've had the opportunity to sit down a few times with billionaires, and they're like sitting down with you, and like sitting down with Dwayne and sitting down with anybody. Dining room table can only be so big. People have only so many stories to tell. Are all your billionaires bad? Have you ever had a good billionaire?
Yeah?
I think I have a couple of books ago there were some tech, high tech billionaires, the tech bros. Yeah, trip, yeah, yeah. And they weren't necessarily bad. They were a little out of their entitled world enailment, but not bad.
No, they were entitled. I just think it's interesting. This guy is a sleeves ball. We'll see if he comes back around again. Is Brandy going to come back around?
Probably if he is, she is, unless she's got some other things on the side, so she may be around.
That's what I mean. That's I don't think she's going to come back around unless she's a missing person in the book. All right, Now, I want to talk about the two more things. Joe is hopelessly behind on his paperwork because he has a new boss who's demanded he do a daily report on what he does. That, by the way, is the bane of many lives, daily reports on what you do? Have they ever been effective? Where did you get that idea? You don't have a daily report to anyone except missus box.
That's right, and I do, I do.
I never missed that one. But no, I just remember talking to a game wardan a few years ago, and I was doing a ride along with him, and he was grousing about the fact that he previously had supervisors who left him alone, who now wanted to be received reports every day, and how miserable that was, and how he would read the same report every single day and the supervisor would never call it out, so we did never know if it was red.
But that's just stuck with me.
It sticks with me too, because it's part of the endless paperwork machine. Then opening Day, I've never thought about opening day on hunting season. Hundreds and hundreds of hunters over thousands of miles. It's not really a day you'd want to work, is it. That's like Elmer Fudddale.
Well, In fact, if you're a game board you have to work it. But for example, where I live in Wyoming, there's a day where the general elk season opens up, and it is it's a parade of headlights in the middle of the night going down the highway. You can't even believe there's that many people there or even in the area, but it's it's like a local holiday. In fact, the kids aren't excused from school because they know they're not going to be there anyway.
Yeah, I was in Hillsdale, Michigan, at the college on the first day of deer season in Michigan, and it's in southern Michigan, and there wasn't a soul to be found except in every coffee shop in town. Before dawn. Everybody was getting breakfast before going out. But they don't go out in the they don't go out in the dark. That's what I hadn't thought about. All those headlights coming up the mountain.
Right and I've been there, I've seen him.
I've just seen, you know, streams of headlights hitted and hopefully if if I don't hunt that much on general elk Day. But when I did as a younger man, I remember thinking, oh, no, they're all coming into my area.
Oh no, but that's just that's the way it is.
I want to close up by referencing Dorn of the Mountains. First of all, I'm the I'm the warden of the Collegiate Peak, so I kind of think he's on my turf, Dorn of the Mountains. Where did you come up with that? Because it's very, very funny.
It's actually a oh not not Louis Lamore, but it's oh the other old Western writers. Western writer Zane Gray wrote a book called Zorn of the Mountains, and several years ago had a book signing a guys whose name was Dorn and can introduce himself as Dorn of the Mountains.
Do you read saying Gray and the other guy?
You know?
Eisenhower got through World War Two reading those?
I was I I couldn't. I cannot really read Zane Gray. I've tried.
The pros is so purplish that I just distracted. But I certainly have read others.
Now. Elmar Leonard wrote a few Westerns in the day, but none of them as good as The Crossroads. CJ Box congratulation now number twenty six for Joe Pickett, number thirty six for overall CJ Box work. I mean, you just work, work, work, So I want people to understand it's a fabulous read. Go out and get it, and go see CJ and Denver on Sunday or go to cjbox dot net and you'll find out where he's going
to be over the next two weeks. Congratulations CJ. Another bestseller, and I appreciate your spending time with me.
Thank you so much to you. I sure appreciate it.
Always, always a pleasure.