The Glenn Beck Program - October 13, 2020


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


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

191.87105

Word Count

6,856

Sentence Count

1

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Join us as we discuss the latest developments in the Brett Brett Brett confirmation hearing. Join us in the latest installment of the blendback program, featuring special guest Ben Sass, who is running for re-election to the U.S. Supreme Court in Nebraska.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 well we welcome uh mr stuber here back uh from his covet experience yes thank you very much uh
00:00:07.320 proud to be positive that's what we say in the community proud to be positive and uh and he's
00:00:12.340 gonna he's promising to french kiss every member of the audience today because he's over it get
00:00:17.900 in line get in line i've got certs it's weird it's a very short in fact there's no one in line
00:00:23.180 so far but it's you know people people are worried about the big build-up at the beginning
00:00:28.180 those show up a little leap right uh we talk a little bit about amy in fact we talk a lot about
00:00:33.160 amy coney barrett and cover uh all of that from all of the different angles ben sass uh is with us
00:00:39.300 he's running for re-election in nebraska uh and we also uh we also talk about what the cern is doing
00:00:48.120 next week opening a black hole you know just under the ground in in europe with all the news that's
00:00:57.020 going on i'm rooting for the black hole uh all that and more on today's podcast
00:01:03.400 you're listening to the best of the blend back program
00:01:13.940 carrie severino is with us she's the president of judicial crisis network and i want to get her
00:01:22.540 opinion on what's happened so far and where we're headed on the barrett confirmation hearing
00:01:29.100 hi carrie how are you good how are you doing then uh very good so yesterday the strategy seemed to be
00:01:37.400 to change the definition of packing the court is that what you took away yesterday from the the tactic
00:01:45.540 of the democrats you know they wanted to talk about anything as long as it wasn't talking about amy coney
00:01:51.600 barrett they did not want to talk about this talented outstanding uh woman sitting before them
00:01:57.380 they tried to return to play politics so you know there were some a lot of the democrats just wanted
00:02:02.340 to talk about obamacare they had pictures up of different people uh you know who had been helped
00:02:07.340 by by by the uh america affordable care act and they were trying to make it seem like her whole purpose
00:02:12.760 in life was to get rid of this that's that's ridiculous it's not even an issue that um she's likely to
00:02:17.640 be the deciding vote on but you know they that seemed to pull well for them and i agree they want
00:02:22.220 to see they they want to make it seem like simply filling seats on the court is somehow illegitimate
00:02:28.200 is court packing which is so ironic because you have joe biden currently refusing to say what he
00:02:34.020 would do with respect to actual court packing which is when you change the number of seats in the supreme
00:02:39.020 court for purely partisan ends like fdr tried to do to get a court that would uphold more of his new
00:02:45.040 deal legislation he said well i'll just add more seats in the court that was rejected by his
00:02:50.100 democratic senate it was rejected by people like ruth bader ginsburg even bertie sanders thinks this is a
00:02:54.720 bad idea guys should be an easy question will you or will you not do this horribly radical thing and
00:03:00.440 undermine the court and they don't want to talk about that they try to change the subject well the
00:03:04.760 question i just had ban sass on he said the question really is going to rely on the senate if i'm not
00:03:10.320 mistaken when fdr tried it he did get 26 of his fellow democrats to vote for it times have changed
00:03:18.120 people don't even pay attention to the constitution anymore uh do you think he could get more than 26
00:03:25.100 votes to pack the court i think if the democrats get control of the house and the senate and the
00:03:31.020 white house i think they absolutely will do that right away if they if they wouldn't they would tell us
00:03:35.860 because yeah i think they recognize this is such a radical thing americans don't want to see it
00:03:40.400 but he's refusing to commit to not doing it that's because he's more interested in in placating his
00:03:48.020 liberal handlers uh than actually doing what the american people want to do or even telling the
00:03:52.800 american people what they frankly do deserve to know and contrary to what biden said is what would
00:03:57.900 the president do with respect to an entire third branch of government here so i would be upset at any
00:04:04.060 conservative that did uh what i think john roberts does uh in favor of conservatives i would be really
00:04:12.540 upset if if they would take something and not look at the constitution but instead just start to
00:04:19.300 legislate from the bench and i think john roberts has done that with obamacare uh and and other things
00:04:24.440 um and i don't want that and a constitutional uh a strict constitutionist uh constitutionalist
00:04:32.800 will actually probably piss me off at times because i'll want it to go the other way but i'll be fine
00:04:41.640 with it uh because if the constitution actually says that well then we got to do it right why is it that
00:04:49.520 people don't understand that a strict constitutionalist will give you some wins and some losses
00:04:56.780 and some of your wins will be surprises some of your losses won't be yeah it's a fundamental
00:05:04.440 misunderstanding of the role of a judge and you're hearing in some of the discussion today where
00:05:08.660 you know senator feinstein just got done trying to get uh there to talk about what her personal views
00:05:14.160 are on or on for everything from guns to health care like this is not the question it isn't she's
00:05:18.940 not someone who's going to simply go on the court and say well you know ginsberg was putting her
00:05:22.960 personal views on from the left i'm going to put my personal views on from the right that's not what
00:05:26.900 we want either we don't want i don't want that judicial activists on the court we want constitutionalists
00:05:32.320 on the court and there are aspects of the constitution that actually are you know would fit into what you
00:05:37.200 would call a quote liberal uh paradigm sure strong defendants rights for example there are aspects that
00:05:44.200 you might say are quote conservative like second amendment rights but the constitution isn't a
00:05:49.000 political document it's a legal document and that's the judge's role is to look at it that way so if
00:05:54.800 you're following the law and the constitution sometimes your results are going to look liberal
00:05:58.800 from a political standpoint they might look conservative sometimes from a political standpoint but what's so
00:06:03.240 important is they're legally based it's not someone who's acting themselves to kind of fall to follow
00:06:08.940 their own political goals then it's following the politics of the american people who pass those laws
00:06:13.600 is this what we used to have i mean was there a time when the supreme court was uh just known as
00:06:22.260 just interpreting the law well that's that's always been its job and i think justices have done
00:06:30.520 better or worse jobs of doing that you know obviously through history we've had you know it's not only
00:06:36.720 recently that we've had judges who may have mistaken that role but i think it has become more of an
00:06:41.340 epidemic more of a crisis uh recently because that was just accepted by all of legal academia and the and
00:06:48.000 the and the uh whole um you know practice but what's great is we're seeing a pushback now and this is
00:06:53.880 something that you know justice scalia was kind of on the front end of and now judge barrett is kind of
00:06:59.060 carrying on that mantle of hey here's how we get that politics out we're going to be very faithful
00:07:04.600 to the text as it is written we need to look at what the law meant at the time it was passed not
00:07:10.260 what we think it should mean today not what we wish it meant today and so that's what actually takes
00:07:15.480 that politics out so this is really finally achieving the goal of getting those politics back
00:07:20.580 out and restoring the court to its proper constitutional so we have now uh three judges that donald trump
00:07:28.480 has appointed if he wins a second term how many more judges and will they be clarence thomas or will
00:07:35.980 they be people that will will bring us closer to the constitution do you have any idea who's looking
00:07:42.620 to retire or oh you know that is sort of always a very uh treacherous area to try to speculate i in
00:07:50.080 2016 i was speculated that would be when we were you know justice ginsburg my retire and it was four
00:07:54.780 years later right so uh you i think we don't know but we do know that whoever is elected in 2020 is
00:08:00.460 likely to get seats and remember these are all life-term seats so even if you are replacing someone
00:08:06.240 who has a similar judicial approach it has a generational impact because that means you know
00:08:11.600 for the next 30 i mean justice tennis has almost served for 30 years already uh you know and we have
00:08:16.660 people serving maybe four decades at this point amy coney barris only 48 right she could serve for a long
00:08:21.560 time that is going to have a huge impact going into the future of how our children and our
00:08:26.060 grandchildren a country will be run and how we will understand the constitution they um also are
00:08:32.020 trying to say that donald trump packed the courts by by filling the vacancies in the lower courts
00:08:38.360 um which he he did and obama walked away with a lot of vacancies um that changes things have you
00:08:46.060 looked at all into the the states where we're most likely to have close uh election results and is there
00:08:55.200 an impact on the courts there that uh may play towards the constitution's favor uh well you know so we
00:09:04.320 trump has done really historically impressive jobs filling those seats which is really great a lot of the
00:09:11.720 remaining seats unfortunately are in states where there are democratic senators and they are blocking
00:09:16.980 trump's picks they would rather have no one sitting on the court than have someone that donald trump
00:09:21.700 uh put on the court so you're seeing you're seeing in some of those states real problems with um
00:09:26.660 you know cases backing up and and and judges having a very heavy workload uh so i i'm optimistic that if
00:09:33.620 if we can get some senators who are willing to uh acknowledge that you know these judges are going to be
00:09:40.000 faithful to the law and move forward with those we could have a better situation across the country
00:09:45.580 but i think what's so great is we now have well over 200 judges that trump has put there this is the
00:09:50.820 next generation of outstanding uh legal experts in the country and it's already having an impact
00:09:57.940 in terms of cases being decided according to the law rather than according to politics
00:10:02.060 so wait so so the states can say no to a federal judge
00:10:05.780 well the way the system works there's something called the blue slip and state senators from the
00:10:12.160 state can refuse to turn in their blue slip and traditionally there's no you know there's no rule
00:10:18.800 or or law that says this but traditionally the senate has said if the senators from the state don't both
00:10:24.580 approve of the nominee we won't move forward on it so thankfully there have been many including
00:10:29.540 democrat senators who have compromised with the president and have been able to come up with some judges
00:10:33.820 that they could all agree on um but also there's others uh that you know what they want to have
00:10:38.240 nothing to do with any kind of compromise uh with donald trump uh particularly you know places like
00:10:43.160 california where you've got one of them running for vice president she's not going to compromise with
00:10:46.560 him right right they're they're just willing to hold on and hold on and refuse to nominate
00:10:51.180 refuse to help confirm anyone um let me go back to amy coney barrett uh i know you can never tell
00:10:58.420 and republicans always seem to get to the losing end of this stick you get somebody you think is
00:11:04.220 good and then they start to you know go and and and and side with liberals um i know we can't tell
00:11:12.000 the future but who do who do you think she's most like um or most likely to be like as a justice
00:11:20.820 well you know she's she obviously is a clerk for justice scalia and she describes him as a major
00:11:27.740 mentor in her life so i think her jurisprudence probably will most resemble uh justice scalia's
00:11:33.880 but her it's you know all of these people have a very different personality so she has much
00:11:37.880 you know just watching her today her scalia was known for his his sharp one-liners and as much fun
00:11:44.620 as that is her her style is very different she's just been so um i guess professorial is the right word
00:11:50.340 uh but but kind of kind and explaining she's very good at explaining what these questions are and
00:11:56.380 she's just so she comes across i think she's so genuine and and and careful and thoughtful about
00:12:01.920 the law i think she um is going to be someone on the court who has you know the the jurisprudence of
00:12:07.980 a scalia but maybe a slightly softer uh tone and it's you know who knows maybe that'll be something
00:12:13.440 that even is compelling to some of her uh colleagues on the other side of the bench as well
00:12:18.160 thank you so much for uh watching and uh we'll talk to you hopefully again tomorrow and and get
00:12:24.520 a recap of what's happening today i don't see any trouble for her in the future at least at this
00:12:30.740 point do you agree with that she's knocking it out of the park today in terms of her her hearing and
00:12:37.140 so i just think um it's going to be hard pressed i think for anyone to come up with a good excuse
00:12:41.500 not to confer maybe coney barrett supreme court she's she's gonna be outstanding
00:12:45.260 this is the best of the glenn beck program
00:12:50.480 what is happening to our religious freedom around the country a guy who really can uh help us answer
00:13:06.800 that question who fights it every single day is kelly shackleford he's the president ceo of first
00:13:12.400 liberty institute and uh chief counsel of first liberty institute has been in front of the supreme
00:13:16.680 court over and over again um let me just start with the cases up in in california and in new york
00:13:24.880 about religious freedom kelly uh glenn thanks for having me on yeah we're we're in a real battle
00:13:33.000 um i don't know if everybody remembers back but when this whole thing started with the pandemic we
00:13:38.540 realized this is really going to be a fight because um we've never had any constitutional law in a
00:13:44.460 pandemic right i mean there's no cases and everybody was seeing these pictures of like the guy throwing
00:13:50.920 a baseball with his kids being handcuffed correct children because he was in a park and the guy on
00:13:55.820 the beach coming off all by himself on a surfboard being arrested so we we tried to be really careful
00:14:00.980 about the first case and we wanted it to be the right one because we're getting all kinds of
00:14:05.120 churches calling us saying you won't believe what they're doing to us and we we got what we thought
00:14:09.880 was the right case and that was in louisville it was a uh a church that was trying to do an easter
00:14:15.760 service and they wanted to be together but they wanted to be safe so they did a drive-in service in
00:14:19.860 their cars right and and that was the the mayor of louisville kentucky said that was a crime
00:14:26.300 and the governor said they were going to send police officers to every church on easter sunday
00:14:31.620 to write down the license plate of any car in any church parking lot and those people would be
00:14:36.620 visited by the police and they would be quarantined to their home for 14 days and we went okay this is
00:14:42.060 it this is china you know we this is the case and we filed we got a great judge we got a great decision
00:14:49.560 he said look the constitution is in place in this country this country is built on religious freedom
00:14:54.740 and we started there and we've now had about 10 victories in a row but what happened is a lot of
00:15:00.920 other lawsuits started getting filed that weren't necessarily as thoughtful and they created a lot
00:15:06.440 of precedent and i i you know glenn i've just got to be honest we're in a war right now all across the
00:15:12.440 country of whether the government is going to control our churches and you know until we get something
00:15:17.480 to the supreme court i don't think we're going to have an answer because there are too many bad decisions
00:15:21.920 to join the good decisions that we've won to know what's going to happen that is uh terrifying
00:15:28.960 as somebody who you know goes to church on sunday that that is truly terrifying that we are facing a
00:15:38.060 time when the government can tell you exactly what you can and cannot do at church it is it's uh you
00:15:46.820 know i mean because look if we come out of this and the law is that if a government official declares
00:15:52.720 an emergency then you know your constitution suspended uh while the emergency well you know
00:15:58.620 climate change will be an emergency and i mean everything will be an emergency right you don't
00:16:02.920 really have any freedoms at that point um and and that's not the way the law is supposed to work
00:16:08.720 um you've had the case i know you probably even talked about it the case that came out of
00:16:13.760 nevada where they were letting the casinos open but not the churches right and so you know and they
00:16:20.640 wouldn't take the supreme court wouldn't take the case so i would say two things we've got a great
00:16:26.080 case that we just won uh last week in washington dc the first one on behalf of the church in this case
00:16:32.740 the church uh there they allowed thousands of people the mayor went with them to protest but they
00:16:39.360 wouldn't it was illegal for a church to hold an outdoor church service with over 100 people
00:16:45.600 and so it's just clear hypocrisy and so we actually won a federal injunction on friday of last week
00:16:53.340 and we're hoping we can get that to the supreme court but we've got to get the right case to the
00:16:58.320 supreme court but also if amy coney barrett is on the supreme court i feel very strongly about her on
00:17:04.780 religious freedom i think she we won't have to worry about these close decisions with roberts
00:17:09.240 you know saying that it's okay to open casinos uh not churches uh we'll we'll win these cases and so
00:17:16.900 there's sort of a lot going on at the same time but i think you have to look at the amy coney barrett
00:17:21.940 thing from a religious freedom standpoint in addition to everything else and i i think she will be great
00:17:27.440 on religious freedom which is the timing could not be better so tell me what a what her appointment
00:17:33.820 does to the court and for instance if the the senate and the administration area if they have
00:17:41.600 the house and the senate and the administration they let's just say that's a landslide for the left
00:17:45.640 they are all saying they're going to take guns do we have the votes uh now in the supreme court to hold
00:17:53.000 to the second amendment the first amendment do we i what's it look like i think i think we do for
00:18:00.060 sure i mean she's she's written a just an incredible dissent on the second amendment already on the
00:18:05.260 seventh circuit she's shown her true colors i mean she she is an originalist she's a scalia she's a
00:18:11.520 she's a don't tell me what the country wants that's not my job my job is to say what does the constitution
00:18:18.300 say what did the founders you know put in place what does it mean you look to the original meaning of
00:18:24.080 the text you look to the original meaning of the statute not to the pc or whatever people are in
00:18:29.700 favor of she would say just like scalia if you want to change laws then change laws change the
00:18:35.300 constitution but don't ask me to change the constitution and and she's very and it was in a
00:18:40.280 case actually where it was about um a situation where kind of the the pc position would be oh no you
00:18:46.380 know guy's been in prison so he shouldn't have a right to to uh to have a firearm uh you know once
00:18:52.080 you've been in prison and her approach was wondering what does the constitution say and here
00:18:56.920 she is dissenting uh she's pretty fearless on following the law so i i feel really strongly
00:19:02.940 about where she would be and again roberts has kind of been jumping back and forth on a lot of
00:19:07.780 things recently and has made it sort of a four four with roberts jumping around that would be over
00:19:13.520 uh if she's on the court uh you'd have five conservatives who really believe you go to the original
00:19:19.860 meaning and and that's going to really bring us right back to the constitution and those principles
00:19:24.960 and really the foundations of our country which i think will be a great thing for our country
00:19:28.920 kelly what does it mean um when we're looking at a party who says they're going to get rid of the
00:19:35.460 filibuster they won't deny that they'll pack the court uh what is this election really about
00:19:42.360 it's about i mean if people i don't know if people understand what court packing is but
00:19:48.500 basically it's when you come in you say well you know i don't like the fact that there are more
00:19:53.540 conservatives on the court now than there used to be and therefore i'm going to add three four five
00:19:59.200 seats to the supreme court which you'd have to you'd have to have the house the senate the presidency
00:20:04.000 you'd also have to destroy the filibuster but that's what some of the democrats are talking about
00:20:08.580 doing and of course what biden and harris have not been answering that is a decision people need to
00:20:14.160 understand is that is a decision to destroy the supreme court because if you add people to the
00:20:19.800 supreme court to to have a partisan advantage then the next party that comes in is going to do the
00:20:25.440 same thing so if the republicans come back they'll add five or six seats the court is no longer a legal
00:20:31.060 body at that point it's a political body and you have taken the supreme court and said it's done
00:20:36.520 uh so people need to understand i mean number one biden needs to answer this question uh it it should be
00:20:43.720 required of every voter should say there's no way you even have a chance of being a president unless
00:20:49.100 you answer this question if the answer is i'm going to destroy the supreme court um then unless you're
00:20:54.620 wanting to overthrow the government at least a third of the government uh that's just not a decision you
00:20:59.920 know i would ever make i mean whatever your beliefs are on these things uh the rule of law uh will be
00:21:06.060 incredible damage uh i don't know what will happen in our country but it's taking one of the three
00:21:11.960 branches of government and really uh pretty much putting it underground we're talking to kelly
00:21:16.780 shackleford president and ceo first liberty uh institute kelly there is a story out there's fact
00:21:22.360 two different stories about two different groups uh one of them is shut down dc and they have put out
00:21:30.900 a guide stopping the coup preventing donald trump from stealing the election and remaining in office
00:21:36.200 is likely to take mass sustained disruptive movements all over the country um we need to uh
00:21:43.000 in order to do to really win we need to force some pillars of power business military media and other
00:21:47.880 major institutions to decide to side with the people or at least get out of the way if every if
00:21:52.560 everyday life goes on a despot will not leave power and there will be no incentive for real systematic
00:21:58.040 changes uh you want to think about what it might take to stop business as usual they are
00:22:04.680 they are there are there are these groups that do not believe in the electoral college do not believe
00:22:13.860 in the court system do not believe in the american constitution that i can find and they are saying they want
00:22:23.720 to overthrow these things they want the destruction can you tell me where the legal definition of insurrection
00:22:31.580 kicks in well i mean that's definitely it i mean if those things happened uh i did see the president
00:22:38.760 comment on this and he said those if that happens after the election that will be shut down you know
00:22:45.020 immediately now we'll see i hope so uh the pre we had 21 different presidents uh use you know the the
00:22:52.840 power they have under their insurrection act to to actually do that i think president uh trump has been
00:22:59.760 trying to respect federalism at some sort and also not you know they want to make him a dictator so i
00:23:06.400 didn't think he wants to walk into looking like that so he's been incredibly restrained i think on
00:23:11.020 what he's done uh in these situations like in seattle and all these but uh i i think if it's after the
00:23:18.180 election and that's attempted i think he'll exercise the power that he should and any president should
00:23:22.820 to put any of that down i hope and i pray that it would that nobody in the country really i mean
00:23:28.580 these are this is a lunatic fringe in our country and they shouldn't be allowed to roam free and
00:23:33.380 and engage in violence and looting and all this thing uh i don't think the american people um i think
00:23:39.740 they've had enough of that so much so that the democrats have even a little bit started to back away
00:23:45.300 uh even though that some of their some of their base wants them to not do so kelly thank you so much
00:23:50.720 are you foreseeing any problems with uh barrett's confirmation not yet i mean it's bizarre the
00:23:57.180 approach that is being taken which is to say that she's gonna that if barrett's uh appointed to the
00:24:02.820 court that she's gonna take everybody's health care away it's just it is i just sometimes i'm amazed
00:24:09.100 that do they think people are that stupid um i mean i i i just it's just a bizarre argument i mean
00:24:16.720 the case they're talking about that's up there amy coney barrett hasn't has never talked about any of
00:24:21.560 the issues in that case it's about severability a lot of other things uh the odds are huge that
00:24:26.580 that case won't uh strike down the aca in a non-severable way so all of it's false and it has
00:24:34.940 really nothing to do with her but they've just decided that's their best political issue is the
00:24:40.160 issue of health care and so they're seeing if they can scare people by saying if you allow her on the
00:24:45.440 court you'll all lose your health care and you'll die for the coronavirus and i'm like
00:24:49.100 are do you think people are that stupid i i don't think they are you know i don't think they are
00:24:53.420 either but i'm beginning to wonder i am i you know what we'll find out in november we'll find out on
00:24:59.440 november 3rd thank you so much kelly i appreciate it
00:25:02.280 this is the best of the glenn beck program and we really want to thank you for listening
00:25:15.440 if you want to try to teach your kids about ben franklin and i mean the little kids about ben
00:25:22.800 franklin uh or ann frank there are two new books out by our good friend brad melzer and he joins us
00:25:29.140 now hello brad good to hear your voice my friend good to hear you how are things um nothing going on
00:25:37.460 in the world how about you yeah you know what it's so hard to find things to talk about
00:25:42.660 i you know what's crazy is you know we plan these books two years in advance and here we are
00:25:50.700 talking about you know tearing down a statue of abraham lincoln and and we've got a book on ben
00:25:56.880 franklin and the founders and a report comes out last week that says millennials don't know the basic
00:26:02.700 facts about the holocaust and we have a book on ann frank and i'm like sometimes the universe
00:26:07.260 produces the heroes you need it's not the heroes you want but it's heroes you need yeah it's a it's um
00:26:13.140 it's amazing i i really have found divine providence in some of the stuff that you know we've done i just
00:26:18.460 put out the book arguing with socialists and then this summer hit it's like wow exactly get what you
00:26:26.300 need yeah holy cow uh so brad tell me about tell me about the books um this is part of your
00:26:32.320 xavier riddle and the uh secret museum series um that that's on pbs i wanted to carry that so badly
00:26:38.740 on the blaze but i'm not rich enough for brad melzer's uh programs listen we've done our shows
00:26:44.960 and i love you for it you know as you know i started writing these kids books because i wanted to give my
00:26:50.520 kids better heroes to look up to and give them heroes who could teach them kindness and compassion
00:26:55.100 and character and again look at the world anti-semitism is that it's 40 year high our kids
00:27:02.760 need hope right now and the best way to teach that is with ann frank the little girl who hides from the
00:27:08.520 nazis in an attic and still believes that people are good at heart and i want my kids to know that even
00:27:15.380 in the darkest places you can still find light that's what hope is glenn right it's like a fire that
00:27:21.140 burns within you and when you put it on nothing puts it out and i need my daughter to have that
00:27:25.940 lesson i need my sons to have that lesson so i am ann frank is that illustrated kids book
00:27:30.820 to teach hope for our kids right now and i am benjamin franklin yeah benjamin franklin um we all
00:27:37.840 know the stories of him with electricity great experiments but to me his greatest experiment is
00:27:44.020 the experiments that he does on himself he actually spent his whole life trying to improve himself
00:27:49.140 he even has rules you and i've talked about him privately like him and george washington have
00:27:53.260 rules to live by his rules are one be frugal don't spend money you don't have to tell the truth three
00:27:59.660 work hard and four don't speak badly about other people look at the world right now where they're
00:28:06.220 tearing down the founding fathers you know oh this you know ben franklin owns slaves and i'm like yes but
00:28:11.300 he also at the end of his life was the president of an organization that stood against slavery so how can you
00:28:18.640 say he's bad or is he good or is he just complicated like all of us and our kids need that lesson that
00:28:24.660 rather than pointing fingers at everyone else ben franklin knew if you want to change the world
00:28:29.200 you start with yourself and it moves out from there rippling outward he was phenomenal can you think of
00:28:35.200 anyone alive today i mean i think one of the most impressive people alive today that would fit in the
00:28:41.020 founding era would be maybe elon musk do you know and he would be a breath of ideas a hundred percent
00:28:49.060 like that's the ben franklin i mean you know it was one of the hardest books to write because it's a
00:28:54.500 kid's book obviously we're trying to entertain and educate your kids and give them values but i'm like
00:28:59.280 do i talk about electricity do i talk about his inventions do i talk about the science he does do i talk
00:29:05.340 about the greatest experiment the american experiment he literally edits the declaration of independence
00:29:10.740 and george i mean george russian and thomas jefferson writes the first draft gives it to ben
00:29:15.940 franklin and and we showed this in the book ben franklin is like hmm this part you have here we
00:29:22.140 hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable what if we change it to this we hold these truths to be
00:29:28.300 self-evident that all men are created equal that's benjamin franklin's edit and i need our kids to see
00:29:34.720 that that is how you teach your kids to be great americans i have an 1836 or is it no it might be
00:29:42.720 1826 uh version of the declaration of independence first draft have you ever seen it have you ever
00:29:50.960 seen that you and i when we were to get when we were together last time i almost jumped the desk for
00:29:55.400 the key uh it is telling me that i haven't seen it i have been to the national archives in their secret
00:30:01.180 private room where i saw their copy um so you've seen the first draft have you ever read it in the
00:30:06.740 first draft yes um i could know i couldn't read i mean i've read online the translations of it and
00:30:12.260 you can see the edits that change in there right and the and in the third page i urge you to go back
00:30:17.660 and read the third page the longest usurptation or the longest problem that uh you know they had with
00:30:25.740 the king was his uh treatment of african uh americans and africans as slaves and it is a whole paragraph
00:30:35.200 on it and it's uh thomas jefferson writes it his his handwriting changes he capitalizes uh words like men
00:30:43.300 uh when he's calling you know the and then he puts these men up for auction on the auction block i mean
00:30:50.620 it's phenomenal and completely changes i gotta go back i have to go back i mean and then think about
00:30:56.000 ben franklin is you know when i get my edits back from my editor and i'm always like griping about
00:31:01.240 him like ben franklin's editing thomas jefferson at the height i know i can't complain about that
00:31:07.820 anymore and the thing about the thing about franklin just to go back to elon musk comment
00:31:11.460 is he does it his whole life one of the great stories that my kids reacted to is franklin's a little
00:31:16.680 boy and when benjamin franklin's a little boy he used to love swimming and he realizes if you have
00:31:21.300 bigger hands and bigger feet you can move faster in the water you can paddle faster so he makes these
00:31:25.760 homemade like kind of oven mitts big mitts and they put some on his feet too like flippers and he says
00:31:31.380 flying through the water this is as a little kid and my youngest who's very creative and likes to
00:31:37.220 color and play legos i'm like i need you to see what you can do when you unleash creativity that's
00:31:43.840 what ben franklin gives us there was there a story about him getting in trouble because he was always
00:31:49.120 in trouble i think as a kid um and he was like damming up a river or something he was taking uh
00:31:57.200 rocks and damming up a river and that's when finally his his parents i believe said you're going to work
00:32:03.820 you're going to work and sent him to it depends on the work as a kid the thing that he does also by a
00:32:08.460 river is he runs his he runs his kite by the river and there's a kite again you know what he does later
00:32:13.260 in life with a little boy runs the kite on the river when it goes in the air he jumps in the river
00:32:18.280 ties it around his ways to test the theory that it will pull him across the lake which it does
00:32:23.480 and and as you said soon after that the parents are like this is what a blacksmith is get to work
00:32:28.720 you know like taking him to work but it you know again we we spend so much time as a culture right
00:32:35.460 now arguing about our founding fathers arguing over world war ii arguing over the civil war
00:32:40.500 and we have to remember that our kids see these arguments and we have to remember that if we don't
00:32:45.700 you know it's not your school's job um to teach your kids the values that you want it's your job
00:32:51.060 you got to do it at least the school did it too but we have to be in control of making sure that our
00:32:57.380 kids see the american history and the amazingness and the beauty of it to see the hope of anne frank in
00:33:04.000 the lowest moment in life and still says you know what i believe in good because there is something
00:33:09.560 to that and there is something to each one of these heroes and and i love that this series helps us
00:33:15.520 you build libraries for your kids your grandkids your nieces your nephews at this time when history
00:33:20.340 feels like it's under siege you know i think it really does our kids and injustice to you know i'm a
00:33:27.340 huge fan of winston churchill and uh churchill led this amazing life but if you read the uh biographies
00:33:37.260 of of churchill from the indian perspective he's a pastor he's really yeah he's really a bad guy
00:33:45.780 is he good is he good is he bad or is he complicated like the rest of us right and if we can't just go in
00:33:51.680 and say you know here's my belief if you're looking for perfection everyone fails the only thing
00:33:57.440 perfect is god everyone else take a number right and by not teaching that by not showing our kids
00:34:04.620 that they are flawed individuals we set them up for a life of misery because a hundred percent
00:34:12.580 and then and that's the problem is what we do is we are holy like listen there are voices that have
00:34:18.880 been marginalized that need to be told like you just said look at native americans look at indigenous
00:34:23.640 people look at what winston churchill does that's the bad side does also amazing things yeah but
00:34:29.980 every book we do when we do i am abraham lincoln we show you eight elections that he loses when george
00:34:36.460 washington goes we show you him losing his first election that doesn't show weakness it shows your kid
00:34:41.860 how to get back up again and when you do that for your kid with our i am series that's how you teach
00:34:46.680 your kids to fly brad melter thank you i'm i'm so proud to be a friend of yours and i just am such
00:34:53.480 a big fan and uh and it's always a pleasure to have you on i i i'd like to speak to you off air
00:34:59.360 here in the next couple of days i'm i'm launching an education series and and we're going to have
00:35:03.860 just great teachers teach certain things and i'd love to invite you to be one of the first teachers
00:35:09.380 to i would love it we're doing with sandra day o'connor we're just so connor's organization
00:35:13.260 civics asking kids for their best ideas to change the world you know it's the ordinary people change
00:35:17.540 the world series this is called ordinary kids change the world and uh justice o'connor has been
00:35:22.540 amazing to uh we're doing a an actual a gift to the kids that win to help them change the world so
00:35:28.360 whatever you need an education i'm your man and let me just say this thank you for giving me since
00:35:33.940 the start of my career uh so many chances but to give kids history you've always been the biggest
00:35:38.640 proponent of these books and i can't thank you enough oh brad you're too kind thank you very much
00:35:42.940 you
00:35:43.440 you