Behind the Bastards - A Very Special Election Reading of Ben Shapiro's Unreadable Book
Aired: 2020-11-03
Duration: 01:08:38


=== Money Memo for Everyone (01:33) ===

[00:00:00]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[00:00:02]  Guaranteed human.
[00:00:04]  On a recent episode of the podcast Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budginista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[00:00:15]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[00:00:21]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
[00:00:30]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[00:00:36]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:00:47]  Ernest, what's up?
[00:00:47]  Look, money is something we all deal with, but financial literacy is what helps turn income into real wealth.
[00:00:53]  On each episode of the podcast, Earn Your Leisure, we break down the conversations you need to understand money, investing, and entrepreneurship.
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[00:01:05]  Make financial literacy accessible for everyone.
[00:01:08]  Because when you understand the system, you can start to build within it.
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[00:01:16]  You know the famous author Roald Dahl.
[00:01:18]  He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG.
[00:01:21]  But did you know he was a spy?
[00:01:23]  Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[00:01:30]  All episodes are out now.
[00:01:32]  Was this before he wrote his stories?

=== Reading Benethan Shapiro's Book (02:38) ===

[00:01:33]  It must have been.
[00:01:34]  What?
[00:01:35]  Okay, I don't think that's true.
[00:01:37]  I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
[00:01:38]  Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:01:46]  Readers, Katie's finalists, Publicists.
[00:01:49]  We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys.
[00:01:51]  We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode.
[00:01:55]  They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. video on Demand This Guy's 2 a.m.
[00:01:59]  2 a.m.
[00:02:00]  Whatever time it is.
[00:02:01]  Lizzie McGuire and I'm wild.
[00:02:02]  Wild Bat Sheera.
[00:02:04]  It was like a first closet moment for me where I was like, you're like, I don't feel like she's hot like the rest of them.
[00:02:08]  No, no, no.
[00:02:09]  I was like, she's beautiful, but I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are.
[00:02:13]  I'm not lying.
[00:02:15]  Listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:02:28]  What's distracting us from the election?
[00:02:31]  Yeah, there we go.
[00:02:32]  Welcome, America, to Behind the Bastards, the podcast about terrible people.
[00:02:36]  Normally, this week is not going to be anybody's favorite week ever.
[00:02:40]  Probably.
[00:02:41]  It might be.
[00:02:42]  It's possible, but unlikely.
[00:02:44]  Because of the election, which it is right now.
[00:02:46]  So we're going to try and ease a little bit of that stress and pain by reading another few chapters from Benethan Shapiro's terrible, terrible book, True Allegiance.
[00:02:58]  Our favorite book.
[00:03:00]  Our Bible.
[00:03:01]  Yeah, Cody and I's what I would describe as, I don't know.
[00:03:06]  I was going to make a joke, but then I realized I don't know enough about religion to make a good religion joke.
[00:03:10]  So I don't have a joke.
[00:03:12]  It's just good.
[00:03:12]  It's a good book.
[00:03:13]  Yeah, we go to it for wisdom.
[00:03:14]  Like when I wake up and I don't know what I'm going to do with my day or how to feel, I flip through it and it inspires me.
[00:03:20]  If I am trying to sleep late at night and I'm like stressed out, I read a few pages and I get relaxed.
[00:03:26]  I get, you know, some few nuggets.
[00:03:28]  Star football players have no name.
[00:03:31]  Exactly.
[00:03:31]  And then I feel at peace.
[00:03:34]  I feel at one, you know?
[00:03:38]  And then I do it all again the next day.
[00:03:42]  Yeah.
[00:03:42]  So we're going to be dropping this on Election Day so you can listen to it while you're standing in line and or getting into gunfights with fascist paramilitaries, whatever winds up being our reality.
[00:03:54]  Yeah, whichever you want.
[00:03:55]  Sure, sure, sure.
[00:03:56]  Yeah.
[00:03:57]  So that's that's good.
[00:03:58]  That's great.
[00:03:59]  We're all very happy.
[00:04:00]  Cody, uh, we should also, the elephant in the room, Katie is not here.
[00:04:03]  Her dog is sick, unfortunately.
[00:04:05]  So, our thoughts are with both her and her dog in equal measure, yeah, as she uh is at the dog hospital.

=== Big Jim and the Community (14:27) ===

[00:04:11]  Yes, heart goes out to um Katie and Benny.
[00:04:15]  We love you, Benny and Katie, the good Benny, the good Benny, yeah, as opposed to the author of this book, Ben Shapiro.
[00:04:22]  Yeah, the bad, the bad Benny who wrote the good book, this book, the good book, yeah, the book book.
[00:04:30]  So, when we last left off, we had that fun chapter with uh, with Soledad and her militia, who uh she seemed to be the plot seemed to be piloting rather than her.
[00:04:43]  Because as a woman in Ben's book, she's not allowed to actually make decisions.
[00:04:47]  Yeah, why would she?
[00:04:48]  Yeah, why would you, why would she it's not a it's not a fantasy novel, Robert.
[00:04:52]  Come on, so our next chapter, we're back in Detroit, Michigan for Leva with Levon, or at least we'll be with him for a few paragraphs until Ben randomly switches to another character.
[00:05:03]  Oh, gosh, how many tenses do you think we'll get in this chapter?
[00:05:08]  Levon couldn't believe what he was hearing.
[00:05:10]  Reverend Jim Crawford sat there in the conference room of the MGM Grand.
[00:05:14]  The room had already been scanned for bugs and been found clean in his expensive suit.
[00:05:17]  Wow, that is a sentence right now.
[00:05:19]  Oh my god, Reverend Jim Crawford sat there, comma, in the conference room of the MGM Grand, and then there's an M dash.
[00:05:25]  The room had already been scanned for bugs and been found clean.
[00:05:29]  Second M dash in his expensive suit, comma, explaining why he thought Levon should get his people off the street.
[00:05:35]  One sentence.
[00:05:37]  That's so many clauses.
[00:05:38]  That's so yeah, Ben, use the fucking period.
[00:05:42]  Or like, you don't even like, oh, okay.
[00:05:46]  It's okay to have sentences, ostensibly.
[00:05:50]  Sentences can be short.
[00:05:51]  All you need, you know, you need the subject, you know, you need a little verb, maybe like an object in there.
[00:05:56]  Yeah.
[00:05:57]  But like, even that first one where he was sent, he's, what was it?
[00:06:01]  He's sitting there, comma, in the conference room.
[00:06:05]  No, he was just sitting there in the conference room.
[00:06:08]  Can't read that comma.
[00:06:09]  Yeah, but you're about to have a long M dash clause that is itself an entire sentence.
[00:06:13]  Oh, and here's the best part: after in his expensive suit, comma, explaining why he thought Levon should get his people off the street, the next sentence is just the word now.
[00:06:22]  Oh my God.
[00:06:24]  Oh, the difference, Ben.
[00:06:27]  Oh, my God.
[00:06:28]  Oh, so many extremes.
[00:06:30]  What is this?
[00:06:30]  It's amazing.
[00:06:32]  Like, you couldn't write worse if you tried.
[00:06:36]  It's really something else.
[00:06:37]  Like, presumably, an editor looked at this.
[00:06:41]  I don't know.
[00:06:41]  But I have to.
[00:06:44]  I think he's like Glinton Greenwald.
[00:06:46]  He does not like to be edited.
[00:06:47]  Yeah, if they offer, like, I'm sure they offered to edit it, but Ben was like, no, you're censoring me.
[00:06:51]  And then he quit.
[00:06:52]  You don't edit poetry.
[00:06:54]  I'll publish this myself because I'm an artist, allegedly.
[00:06:59]  Okay.
[00:06:59]  Levon had seen Big Jim's press conference with the mayor the previous week.
[00:07:02]  Period.
[00:07:03]  That's a sentence.
[00:07:04]  The mayor, comma, still sporting a bandage over his gashed forehead, comma, had thanked Big Jim profusely for stopping the violence, comma, for cutting short the possibility of a riot.
[00:07:13]  Okay, okay.
[00:07:14]  Okay, okay.
[00:07:17]  It's a little uneven.
[00:07:18]  That's like my one note.
[00:07:19]  Like, sometimes you nail it in that you write a sentence, and other times it seems like maybe you need to add a word.
[00:07:28]  See, this is the other thing that I read his book for.
[00:07:31]  It gets out the toxins.
[00:07:33]  He made me spit out coffee.
[00:07:36]  God damn it.
[00:07:37]  It's that good.
[00:07:38]  That was fun to watch.
[00:07:39]  Yeah.
[00:07:40]  Sorry.
[00:07:41]  That'll be good for everybody listening to this in line to vote or getting into a gunfight with fascist paramilitaries.
[00:07:49]  Again, either way, it could be both.
[00:07:50]  It could be both.
[00:07:51]  Yeah.
[00:07:52]  Yeah.
[00:07:52]  Multitask.
[00:07:54]  You know, there's a lot going on in 2020.
[00:07:56]  Yeah, they talk about problems of inequality, problems of racial justice.
[00:08:00]  They're talking to the mayor.
[00:08:01]  They're doing a conversation with the mayor about racial justice after this big riot.
[00:08:06]  Mayor Burns nodded along, knowing that he had no choice, dash.
[00:08:11]  He can use the photo with the civil rights icon in his re-election campaign.
[00:08:16]  Newsweek put Big Jim on its cover.
[00:08:18]  The headline, The Peacemaker.
[00:08:20]  The photo framed his head with a halo.
[00:08:22]  In the piece, Big Jim in Detroit said that Detroit would have to pursue a complete makeover of its obviously racist police department.
[00:08:29]  That meant community policing in the truest sense, drawing police officers from the community itself.
[00:08:34]  That didn't mean hiring officers from the outside, the way they'd hired Ricky O'Sullivan.
[00:08:38]  It didn't even mean hiring black cops from outside the city and forcing them to live in the city to get to know the people they protected.
[00:08:43]  It meant hiring longtime residents of the city, even people with backgrounds.
[00:08:46]  America says, Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:49]  It's like this is a horrible idea.
[00:08:52]  Like what Ben's actually saying here, like he's trying to frame this as like this evil black terrorist has a plan to make all of the cops be gangsters by community policing.
[00:09:02]  But what he's actually saying is community policing, like having neighborhoods policed by people who live in those neighborhoods, is a bad idea because blacks are criminals.
[00:09:11]  Like, that's what Ben is actually saying.
[00:09:13]  Oh, my God.
[00:09:14]  People with bad, this is like the phrase people with backgrounds.
[00:09:17]  Like, say what you mean, buddy.
[00:09:20]  What are their backgrounds?
[00:09:21]  But, like, it's as you were reading that, I was like, surely, surely this is actually going to be framed as though it's a bad thing.
[00:09:31]  And he did not disappoint.
[00:09:33]  No, no, no, no.
[00:09:34]  It absolutely did not.
[00:09:36]  He wants like to force people from out of the city to like move there to police the area.
[00:09:40]  They were all of the stuff like there's actually a lot of problems with community policing as it's generally introduced, but but all of the stuff big Jim who is again the devil basically to Ben is saying here is perfectly reasonable.
[00:09:54]  You want to know why our community doesn't trust the police.
[00:09:56]  They don't trust the police because to them the police are strangers and the other way around.
[00:09:59]  And it takes more than a few than living in the community a few months to earn trust.
[00:10:03]  I'll tell you what he told the Newsweek reporter, it takes more than even being a good policeman.
[00:10:06]  It means having been through what these folks have been through.
[00:10:09]  It means knowing that just because somebody got sent up to prison for some stupid drug crime that wouldn't have gotten a white boy six months in the can, that doesn't mean their life should be over.
[00:10:16]  It means understanding that there's a legacy of racism again what these people are engaged in, a plot to overthrow the government.
[00:10:24]  I it is.
[00:10:25]  It is so frustrating hearing this young man write this book like yeah, because it just it makes it clear that he knows.
[00:10:35]  Yeah, like he's making he's, he knows and he's making the argument like that is correct and good.
[00:10:42]  So he know, he knows.
[00:10:43]  He knows what the argument is, but whenever he talks about it, he pretends like he doesn't.
[00:10:48]  I shouldn't have gotten mad at my favorite book.
[00:10:50]  Sorry Ben, it's okay.
[00:10:55]  You, only you, only you know we only hurt the books we love, which you know is why, for example uh, every night I get into a fist fight with a copy of Slaughterhouse Five.
[00:11:06]  Um, you know, it's just.
[00:11:07]  It's just what happens when you're too sad and you're drinking.
[00:11:10]  Exactly, you assault the books that you love.
[00:11:15]  Yeah okay so uh yeah uh, the interview had caused an uproar.
[00:11:20]  They'd even put a leave on in it, Robert, I believe we left off at the m dash there's.
[00:11:25]  There's so many m dashes in this fucking book which I get it right.
[00:11:29]  Like, we all use them, especially like when i'm in stuff that's not for publication.
[00:11:32]  I'll throw them in a lot because it's a helpful way for me to like remember how I plan to read it.
[00:11:36]  Like my script absolutely yeah, like people ask like why I don't push them up?
[00:11:39]  It's because like, they're messy as hell.
[00:11:41]  They're not like they're I write them, they're essays, but they're.
[00:11:43]  They're written well, they're written with your cadence and like exactly, and I would not publish them that way because they wouldn't read well if someone else were reading them, right?
[00:11:51]  Yeah, Ben, like, it is a thing that new writers do.
[00:11:55]  It's fine.
[00:11:55]  Like, if you're using a lot of M dashes, but your goal should be, you know, sentences.
[00:12:00]  That's fine.
[00:12:02]  Yeah.
[00:12:02]  Also, he's not a new writer at this point.
[00:12:04]  He's not a new writer.
[00:12:05]  He's been doing it.
[00:12:05]  It's the only thing he's ever done in his entire life for money.
[00:12:08]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:09]  It's the only thing he's ever done.
[00:12:12]  Yeah.
[00:12:14]  It's literally his one job.
[00:12:18]  And he's killing it.
[00:12:18]  He's nailing it.
[00:12:19]  He's nailing it.
[00:12:20]  Yeah.
[00:12:20]  The interview had caused an uproar.
[00:12:21]  They'd even quoted Levon in it, asking him what he thought of Big Jim's leadership.
[00:12:25]  Levon told them that without Big Jim, the whole street would have gone up in flames.
[00:12:28]  Big Jim, he told them, is standing up for us.
[00:12:30]  So long as he does and so long as we get justice, we can make this city whole again.
[00:12:34]  Now, however, Levon regretted he'd ever laid eyes on Big Jim.
[00:12:36]  He'd been foolish to have trusted the man.
[00:12:38]  He'd figured he could always outplay him.
[00:12:40]  Everybody thought Big Jim was past his prime, that he'd run his course after a youth of rabble rousing and race baiting.
[00:12:44]  He'd entered the mainstream.
[00:12:45]  Yada yada yada.
[00:12:46]  He'd appeared in liquor stores, blah, He's just making the same race baiting, race baiting, race baiting, race baiting, race.
[00:12:51]  So he's, yeah.
[00:12:54]  Big Jim's talking to him about how they've done a lot of good and they're okay, that they've achieved some things and Levon's going to get what he wants.
[00:13:03]  And he should be satisfied with what they've gotten so far and play the cards they've got.
[00:13:09]  Yeah.
[00:13:09]  Okay.
[00:13:10]  So that's what Big Jim's saying.
[00:13:11]  Okay.
[00:13:13]  This is next paragraph in Afghanistan or like no, no, no.
[00:13:17]  It was already packed when he pulled up.
[00:13:18]  And the shop said a slightly, so he leaves the meeting with Big Jim angry because Big Jim is happy with the gains they've made.
[00:13:25]  It was already packed when he pulled up.
[00:13:26]  In the shop said a slightly overweight black woman.
[00:13:28]  Regina Malone clutched a handkerchief to her face.
[00:13:30]  Her every makeup was streaked with tears.
[00:13:32]  She looked like she hadn't stopped crying since she found out about her son, Kendrick.
[00:13:35]  And the truth was, she hadn't.
[00:13:36]  Kendrick had been her youngest boy, a good boy, she told the media, shot to death because of police racism.
[00:13:41]  The president had called her, offer his condolences, and told her he'd stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the case.
[00:13:45]  That's what a president would say.
[00:13:47]  I'm going to get to the bottom of the case.
[00:13:50]  Yeah.
[00:13:50]  I also like that his left-wing rag in this is Newsweek, the magazine that Andy No writes columns for.
[00:13:56]  Also, Ben writes for it.
[00:13:58]  Ben's written for Newsweek.
[00:14:00]  Yeah.
[00:14:00]  The Wayne County prosecutor hadn't been his forthcoming.
[00:14:03]  She'd been elected for a fluke.
[00:14:04]  The entire government in Wayne County sprang from the Democratic Party, but Kim Donahue had lucked into her job.
[00:14:09]  Ah, so she'd, it is a fluke that a competent conservative had become the prosecutor here.
[00:14:15]  Of course.
[00:14:16]  Yeah, she'd been appointed with no opposition, yada, yada, yada.
[00:14:19]  So he's just describing this person who is his ideal human being because she's not going to prosecute cops for shooting a black boy.
[00:14:29]  Yeah.
[00:14:30]  Okay.
[00:14:30]  That's good.
[00:14:31]  Talking about how great this prosecutor is.
[00:14:34]  Okay.
[00:14:35]  Regina Malone, standing next to Big Jim, had called a press conference in which he asked Donahue to recuse herself, given her ties to the police department.
[00:14:41]  Donahue had refused, stating that she would ensure justice was served and implied that if anyone implied her skin color meant that she couldn't be objective, they were racist.
[00:14:48]  The line made national headlines and turned Kim Donahue into one of the most polarizing political figures in America.
[00:14:54]  Levon got out of his car.
[00:14:55]  Regina Malone, what?
[00:14:56]  Who mentioned the skin color?
[00:14:58]  I thought it was because of her relationship with the police.
[00:15:01]  Yeah, I know.
[00:15:02]  Yeah.
[00:15:03]  No one did, it doesn't seem like.
[00:15:05]  Okay.
[00:15:05]  Just making.
[00:15:06]  All right.
[00:15:06]  She's doing the thing that Ben says you shouldn't do.
[00:15:09]  But she likes cops, so Ben's fine with it.
[00:15:13]  Because, yeah, it does sound like she's the one who brought race into it.
[00:15:17]  Then on the television stood Kim Donahue.
[00:15:20]  So we go through a little bit of this, like Levon's talking with the mother of this dead boy, and then the news announces that the DA is not going to charge the police officer who shot the kid, as happens repeatedly.
[00:15:31]  Yeah, so that's cool.
[00:15:33]  She says that she's not doing the agenda of the mob.
[00:15:35]  The evidence doesn't support manslaughter, doesn't support murder.
[00:15:39]  Levon gets angry at this, as you might.
[00:15:43]  One might get angry at that.
[00:15:45]  Yeah.
[00:15:46]  The mayor asks everybody to remain calm.
[00:15:48]  So I think we're going to have, yeah.
[00:15:50]  And Big Jim tells people not to riot.
[00:15:52]  So I think that's what we're going to have here.
[00:15:56]  Very, very subtle foreshadowing, Ben.
[00:15:59]  Yeah.
[00:15:59]  And also the officers getting released from prison the day that they choose not to do charges, which is not how it works.
[00:16:05]  They like charge them and then they generally get out on bail, which is like what's happened every time one of these guys has shot somebody and actually been charged.
[00:16:13]  But whatever.
[00:16:15]  Okay.
[00:16:15]  Administrative leave, paid administrative leave.
[00:16:19]  So Levon is.
[00:16:21]  Surrounded by cameras and like media.
[00:16:24]  After this announcement that they're not charging, the cop comes in and uh, he realizes that uh, he's standing next to the mother of the kid who's just been killed and he has a great opportunity to be a rabble rouser.
[00:16:33]  So the camera zoomed in on Levon.
[00:16:35]  He forced himself to cry.
[00:16:36]  Comma, just a tear semicolon.
[00:16:38]  He looked up at the throw at the brown tiles.
[00:16:41]  He's doing Obama, he's doing Obama.
[00:16:42]  He's doing Obama, Sandy Hook cry.
[00:16:44]  Oh yeah, it's because Obama cried.
[00:16:46]  He cried the one tier, the same.
[00:16:48]  Oh yeah yeah, and the right hates that.
[00:16:50]  He cried that one tier.
[00:16:52]  Yeah, he's literally doing that.
[00:16:54]  You're probably right.
[00:16:55]  Yeah okay yep, definitely.
[00:16:56]  Then he exhaled slowly and looked directly into the camera.
[00:16:59]  Enough dead children.
[00:17:00]  It stops to.
[00:17:02]  Oh my god, he did it.
[00:17:02]  Yeah, he did it.
[00:17:03]  Oh my god, it's so bad.
[00:17:04]  Oh my god, every now and then we'll get to like a chunk, like we just went through where it's kind of dull, and then you get Ben Shapiro, like making the terrorist leader do the exact same thing.
[00:17:14]  Obama did when he was sad that 20 something children got shot to death with an assault rifle at school.
[00:17:20]  Oh my god.
[00:17:22]  Oh, Ben is so good slash, bad at this.
[00:17:25]  It's a.
[00:17:26]  It's amazing, like one of the things that's frustrating is, like I don't like Obama or Biden, but they keep getting attacked by the right for things that, like aren't bad, like I don't think Obama was faking his tears at 20 something children getting shot to death because he's a person.
[00:17:41]  Right, it makes you sad.
[00:17:43]  It's like it's so.
[00:17:44]  It's it.
[00:17:45]  I mean, it's a lot of that stuff just speaks to like their worldview and who they are right like they don't cry or like feel those things.
[00:17:51]  Yeah, Ben didn't give a shit about those kids, so why would Obama?
[00:17:54]  Yeah, exactly like oh, he's.
[00:17:56]  Surely he has to be faking it, because nobody would ever cry at this.
[00:18:01]  Yeah, it can't be that.
[00:18:02]  Like no, he can both like have a callous disregard for the lives of people in Yemen and also like see a bunch of small children shot to pieces with a rifle and be fucked up by it because he's a dad.
[00:18:13]  Like yeah, like those really don't conflict with each other.
[00:18:16]  Um, as much as uh, maybe they should, but like yeah, oh god, and it's, it's the same thing with, like the uh, the paid protester stuff.
[00:18:23]  Yeah, you think that because you would need to get paid to protest something?
[00:18:28]  Yeah, in order to care about people getting harmed who aren't you, you would need money because you're a bad person, unbelievable.
[00:18:35]  I cannot believe he just did that.
[00:18:36]  I can't believe it.
[00:18:38]  I mean, I can't.

=== Eight-Year-Old Precious Moments (04:38) ===

[00:18:39]  Hey okay, and yeah he's, he's okay.
[00:18:43]  So he just says that to the news and then he silently leads a crowd that I guess has formed at this point away from the barber shop uh, towards the Criminal Justice Center.
[00:18:52]  So he's marching with a big protest that i'm sure is going to burn the city down.
[00:18:55]  Yep um, that's the thing that's going to happen next.
[00:18:58]  Yeah, so now we're back to Brett Hawthorne.
[00:19:02]  Yes, there we go.
[00:19:04]  Oh, yeah.
[00:19:05]  Precious.
[00:19:05]  Oh, precious Brett.
[00:19:07]  Fuck it, precious sweet Brett.
[00:19:09]  Get that bear of a man in here.
[00:19:11]  Yeah.
[00:19:12]  Brett surveyed the damage from the top of a nearby parking lot.
[00:19:16]  It stretched before him like a diorama, unreal and miniature, too dramatic for life.
[00:19:21]  Since the attacks, all commercial air travel had been shut down thanks to warnings from the Department of Homeland Security.
[00:19:26]  The terror chatter had actually elevated after the attack.
[00:19:28]  DHS thought the airlines could be targeted again, given the focus on the destruction of the bridge.
[00:19:33]  Brett's homecoming hadn't been much of one.
[00:19:35]  By the time he landed, his rescue, if you could call it that, had been blown off the front pages by the terror attack.
[00:19:40]  His flight back to Texas had been canceled, and he'd been stashed at a local hotel.
[00:19:44]  Oh my god, this sentence.
[00:19:45]  His flight back to Texas had been canceled, comma, and he'd been stashed at a local hotel, comma, with guards on him at nearly all times.
[00:19:52]  M dash.
[00:19:53]  The president was obviously worried he'd talk to the media without handlers nearby.
[00:19:57]  Period.
[00:19:57]  Oh, those first few commas did not need to be there.
[00:20:02]  You could just have written a couple of sentences there, buddy.
[00:20:05]  It's okay to use a period, but like it's okay.
[00:20:09]  It does.
[00:20:10]  And it's also okay to just not use commas and just like keep writing.
[00:20:14]  I kind of want, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:15]  You're in the middle of a sentence.
[00:20:17]  Just keep going.
[00:20:18]  You're almost done with the sentence.
[00:20:20]  I kind of want to get, you know, they have those books.
[00:20:22]  I assume they have these books for little girls about like their first periods.
[00:20:26]  I want to like Photoshop one of those to be for Ben and about like using periods and sentences.
[00:20:31]  It's actually okay.
[00:20:32]  It's okay.
[00:20:34]  Everyone uses periods.
[00:20:35]  Everyone does it.
[00:20:36]  It's totally natural.
[00:20:38]  Very funny.
[00:20:39]  Well, you know, he's pretty afraid of P-words.
[00:20:42]  Yeah, he is.
[00:20:48]  Ellen had hinted via phone that some big move was imminent in Texas from the governor, but he hadn't had time to focus on that.
[00:20:54]  He'd been more focused on helping out Bill Collier.
[00:20:56]  Collier's wife, Jennifer, had been on the bridge.
[00:20:58]  They still hadn't dredged up her body.
[00:21:00]  The day after his arrival, Bill had met Brett at his hotel.
[00:21:02]  He dismissed his security for a few minutes.
[00:21:04]  Brett could see that his friend had aged a century in a day.
[00:21:07]  His face looked craggy, his eyes sunken.
[00:21:09]  Bill had been married to Jennifer for a long time.
[00:21:11]  He'd also lost his daughter in the attack.
[00:21:12]  An eight-year-old he'd called his little trooper.
[00:21:15]  We don't get her name.
[00:21:20]  Why would you give her a name?
[00:21:22]  I do love that that's like this guy losing his eight-year-old daughter as an afterthought.
[00:21:31]  His young child also died.
[00:21:33]  Like, yeah.
[00:21:37]  By the way.
[00:21:37]  Very fun.
[00:21:38]  By the way, his small daughter is dead too.
[00:21:42]  Yada yada yada.
[00:21:43]  They talk about this man who has lost his wife and young child talks with Brett about the fact that he's afraid the president's going to use the terrorist attack to call for a massive spending package on infrastructure and urge further cuts to the military.
[00:21:58]  Yeah.
[00:21:59]  Fucking worst nightmare is an infrastructure bill.
[00:22:02]  Yeah.
[00:22:03]  What the hell?
[00:22:05]  He doesn't know where his eight-year-old's corpse is, but he's concerned about an infrastructure bill.
[00:22:11]  Good.
[00:22:14]  Like a human would, you know?
[00:22:16]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:16]  That's all that I have on my mind.
[00:22:18]  Yeah.
[00:22:19]  Well, you know what I have on my mind, Cody and Robert.
[00:22:22]  Products and services?
[00:22:24]  Perhaps.
[00:22:25]  It is the only thing that can balm the loss of an eight-year-old.
[00:22:29]  It's true.
[00:22:30]  That's true.
[00:22:30]  So if your wife and daughter have died in a terrorist attack on a bridge, please console yourself with these products and services.
[00:22:44]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:22:48]  Rule one: never mess with a country girl.
[00:22:51]  You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:22:54]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:22:58]  We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
[00:23:01]  I'm Anna Sinfield and in this new season of The Girlfriends.
[00:23:05]  Oh my god, this is the same man.
[00:23:07]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:23:12]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:23:14]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:23:16]  The cops didn't seem to care.

=== Talent, Ego, and Modern Moms (02:44) ===

[00:23:18]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:23:21]  I said, oh, hell no.
[00:23:22]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:23:25]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:23:29]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:23:31]  Trust me, babe.
[00:23:32]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:23:42]  What's up, everyone?
[00:23:42]  I'm Ego Modern.
[00:23:44]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Farrell.
[00:23:55]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:23:58]  I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:24:03]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:24:06]  I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place to come look for up and coming talent.
[00:24:10]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:24:14]  Yeah.
[00:24:15]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:24:18]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:24:19]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:24:28]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:24:30]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:24:37]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:24:39]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:24:40]  There's a lot of luck.
[00:24:42]  Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:24:49]  On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budginista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[00:24:59]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[00:25:06]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never, ever taught.
[00:25:16]  Financial education is not always about like, I'm going to get rich.
[00:25:19]  That's great.
[00:25:21]  It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
[00:25:30]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[00:25:36]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:25:47]  I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him and I said, hi, Dad.
[00:25:52]  And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk.
[00:26:00]  This badass convict.

=== Looking for Afghan Descent (16:00) ===

[00:26:02]  Right.
[00:26:03]  Just finished five years.
[00:26:04]  I'm going to have cookies and milk.
[00:26:06]  Yeah, mom.
[00:26:09]  On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption.
[00:26:17]  On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances.
[00:26:25]  The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
[00:26:33]  I'm an alcoholic.
[00:26:35]  And without this program, I'm going to guide.
[00:26:39]  Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the Ceno Show, and listen now.
[00:26:50]  We have back our ripper.
[00:26:54]  We're a single tier for the product services.
[00:26:58]  And we're shedding a tear for products and services.
[00:27:01]  So, this general guy has ordered Brett, orders Brett to New York.
[00:27:06]  Okay, so like we're doing the thing, you know, Ben started us in media rest, and then he's going back in time to explain how Brett arrived in New York City.
[00:27:14]  Yeah, four weeks earlier, whatever.
[00:27:16]  Oh, God, I love it.
[00:27:17]  Yeah.
[00:27:18]  And it's amazing that like they're having this conversation about sending Brett somewhere to thwart the president's plans for an infrastructure bill while this man is grieving.
[00:27:30]  I was like, oh, all the reasons.
[00:27:33]  God, just ignoring, like, I love, yeah, in the middle of the action, we're going to like, it's starting.
[00:27:40]  But like, earlier, let's see, like, how we got here.
[00:27:42]  Let's do all the boring stuff real quick.
[00:27:45]  Instead of summing up the boring stuff in a sentence, you know, Bill had, you know, through a haze of tears, ordered, you know, Brett to New York in order to do this and this.
[00:27:53]  Like, bam, you got it in a sentence.
[00:27:55]  Let's get continue the action.
[00:27:56]  We're going back.
[00:27:58]  And rather than, you know, trying to establish any emotional pathos by lingering on the fact that this man has lost his wife and child, he's just talking like normal about how they need Brett here and how bad it is that the president wants to build up infrastructure.
[00:28:16]  Fuck your daughter.
[00:28:17]  We got to stop the roads.
[00:28:18]  Yeah.
[00:28:19]  Oh, wow.
[00:28:20]  Yeah.
[00:28:20]  So Brett says the president won't like that.
[00:28:22]  And Bill says, tough, my patience for bullshit goes out the window after I watch them search on television for my daughter's body, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
[00:28:31]  I'll make whatever excuses I have to make.
[00:28:33]  I want to know who's responsible for this.
[00:28:35]  And right now, you're my best lead.
[00:28:36]  You're the only person.
[00:28:37]  Yeah.
[00:28:37]  So that Ben really understands how humans deal with grief.
[00:28:40]  Yeah.
[00:28:42]  No, no, he doesn't.
[00:28:44]  You could have just stopped at.
[00:28:45]  Ben doesn't really understand how humans.
[00:28:48]  You could have just stopped it.
[00:28:49]  Yeah.
[00:28:50]  He does also understand tense because you would not say, like, where I saying to you, Cody, that my patience for bullshit goes out the window after I watch them search on television for my daughter's body.
[00:28:59]  That's not what I would say.
[00:29:00]  I would say my patience for bullshit went out the window when I watched them search on television for my daughter's body.
[00:29:06]  Or my patience goes out the window when I see them doing X or Y.
[00:29:11]  Yes.
[00:29:12]  Every way, basically, but the way Ben wrote it would be grammatically appropriate.
[00:29:18]  Yeah.
[00:29:18]  Okay.
[00:29:19]  So I'll need your word that you'll stay away from the media.
[00:29:23]  That's the only thing Prescott cares about.
[00:29:25]  Amazing.
[00:29:25]  Like that.
[00:29:27]  You care about infrastructure and your daughter's body's not even found, guy.
[00:29:30]  Like, come on, dude.
[00:29:32]  Okay.
[00:29:33]  Brett nodded.
[00:29:34]  I'm sorry about your family, Bill.
[00:29:36]  Call your grimest.
[00:29:37]  Yeah, me too.
[00:29:38]  He said, me too.
[00:29:40]  No, go get the pieces of shit who did this so I can bomb them back into the sixth century.
[00:29:46]  God, he's just like writing Independence Day.
[00:29:49]  Yeah.
[00:29:50]  Like bad and worse.
[00:29:52]  Yes.
[00:29:53]  The thing that a man would say after being comforted by a friend for the loss of his wife and daughter, like, I'm sorry about your family.
[00:29:59]  Yeah, me too.
[00:30:00]  Me too.
[00:30:00]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:01]  Hey, hey, you know what?
[00:30:02]  Same.
[00:30:03]  Yeah.
[00:30:04]  Same.
[00:30:04]  Samesies, bro.
[00:30:07]  It's like they're talking about a car that got totaled, right?
[00:30:10]  Like, that's what's like, oh, hey, man, I'm sorry about your car.
[00:30:12]  I know you really like that car.
[00:30:13]  It's like, yeah, me too.
[00:30:14]  You know, it's a bummer.
[00:30:15]  It's a bummer, right?
[00:30:17]  It's like, this is your wife and daughter, dude.
[00:30:21]  Yeah, like I said, it's a bummer.
[00:30:23]  Yeah, it was lame as hell, bro.
[00:30:25]  Todd, I made that very clear how bummed I am.
[00:30:31]  Okay, so now looking at the damage, Brett punished himself for not having been able to warn intelligence sooner.
[00:30:37]  If only he'd used Morse code to tell them something was coming from a chamois.
[00:30:41]  If only he'd blinked the name Mohammed.
[00:30:43]  Yes, if only he'd blinked the most common name in the world.
[00:30:48]  That would have really keen him in.
[00:30:50]  If only I let him know John did it.
[00:30:54]  Okay.
[00:30:55]  Thanks for the info, Ben.
[00:30:56]  Yeah.
[00:30:57]  Oh, it's so good.
[00:30:59]  In his name, in his heart, he knew it wouldn't have helped.
[00:31:01]  Yes, I agree.
[00:31:02]  America had blinded itself in the name of peace.
[00:31:05]  Okay.
[00:31:05]  Okay.
[00:31:06]  And Brett knew that hope wouldn't buy peace anyway.
[00:31:08]  He turned his back on the Hudson, where the sunken bridge still lay slumbering under acres of water, the calm of the surface masking the graves of thousands of Americans.
[00:31:17]  The American public had called the Iraq war too bloody, comma.
[00:31:20]  The Afghanistan war too costly, Simicolon.
[00:31:23]  Combined, America had lost fewer than 7,000 people, period.
[00:31:27]  Now, comma, on one day, they'd lost far more than that.
[00:31:30]  It's funny because Ben is trying to justify the war on terror, and the only way he could do it is by inventing a fake terrorist.
[00:31:38]  It's amazing.
[00:31:39]  It's so beautiful.
[00:31:40]  It's all see in my book, they killed more people than we lost in the wars that we lost.
[00:31:45]  It's like slippery slope, the novel.
[00:31:50]  It's so good.
[00:31:51]  Oh, I love it.
[00:31:53]  But what if?
[00:31:54]  What if?
[00:31:55]  But what if?
[00:31:56]  And then I'm right.
[00:31:57]  Okay, good point.
[00:31:58]  Yeah.
[00:31:59]  I guess then you're right, man.
[00:32:00]  Yeah.
[00:32:00]  Yeah.
[00:32:01]  Then yeah.
[00:32:02]  Yes, Ben.
[00:32:03]  Well, no, you still wouldn't have been right because, again, this terrorist attack was launched by Iran.
[00:32:08]  One of the, yeah, like, okay.
[00:32:11]  Which none of like the actual interplay with the terrorists makes a whole lot of sense in this either, but but still, Ben.
[00:32:17]  Right.
[00:32:18]  I mean, wrong.
[00:32:18]  And then you're just like, oh, wait, no, no, it was one of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
[00:32:22]  Okay, yeah.
[00:32:23]  Oh, right.
[00:32:23]  Yeah.
[00:32:24]  Because they were right.
[00:32:25]  Yeah.
[00:32:26]  Actually, that's why the yeah, yeah.
[00:32:28]  Iraq was justified because in this book, they were right.
[00:32:31]  It wasn't a lie in the book.
[00:32:33]  So it's okay.
[00:32:34]  Saddam's revenge.
[00:32:36]  Unbelievable.
[00:32:37]  Which is normally a term for diarrhea.
[00:32:40]  Yeah, I mean, it was.
[00:32:41]  Yeah.
[00:32:42]  So the airport felt like a mausoleum.
[00:32:44]  He gets sent to the airport, by the way.
[00:32:47]  Completely empty, completely deserted.
[00:32:48]  The planes sit at their terminals like sleeping grasshoppers.
[00:32:52]  What?
[00:32:52]  That's a weird one.
[00:32:54]  That's...
[00:32:55]  Maybe take another pass on that.
[00:32:56]  What are you?
[00:32:57]  Why are you comparing planes to grasshoppers?
[00:33:00]  Sleeping grasshoppers.
[00:33:00]  I mean, they have wings, but so do things that look more like planes.
[00:33:04]  Play right.
[00:33:06]  Okay, Ben.
[00:33:08]  I mean, like, it's in the name.
[00:33:11]  They like they hoped.
[00:33:17]  Dragonflies?
[00:33:18]  I don't know.
[00:33:19]  You also like, just like, don't do the metaphors.
[00:33:21]  Just don't do it.
[00:33:22]  I guess that was a simile, but like, come on, man.
[00:33:25]  So Ben is with Port Authority and security in the closed down airport, looking to see like all the people who have entered the country on all of the flight manifests to see if this terrorist had come into the country.
[00:33:36]  He tells one of the officials, I want access to the customs files.
[00:33:40]  If you don't mind me asking, sir, murmured the official, is there somebody we're looking for particularly?
[00:33:44]  Brett said, yes, an Arabic-looking young man.
[00:33:52]  Which is clearly like he's trying to justify racial profiling, but also like the least useful.
[00:33:58]  Yes, that will narrow it down to thousands.
[00:34:02]  That's and like that's that's the point.
[00:34:06]  Like that's why exactly.
[00:34:08]  That's why it's bad.
[00:34:08]  Why it's bad, but uh, it's there's so too many, it's too many layers.
[00:34:14]  A slightly better hack writer would have had him like accurately describe the man and then had like some histrionic, you know, uh, official be like, that's racial profiling.
[00:34:24]  And being it's not racial profiling, just to point out that he is, you know, that he's an Arab man and he has these features.
[00:34:29]  And like, that's, again, would still be a bad book, but that would be like a competent, shitty writer.
[00:34:35]  Yeah.
[00:34:36]  A better, smarter person.
[00:34:39]  Yeah, a better right-wing grifter author would have done it that way.
[00:34:43]  But Ben is, again, a complete failure of a man.
[00:34:46]  Ben is incapable and capable of anything.
[00:34:49]  It rules, honestly.
[00:34:50]  It's amazing.
[00:34:51]  The best thing about him.
[00:34:53]  Yeah.
[00:34:54]  Yeah.
[00:34:54]  The official complaints that that's racial profiling, which it is, because the only detail Brett gave is that he's Arab.
[00:35:00]  They're looking.
[00:35:02]  Looking.
[00:35:02]  That's.
[00:35:02]  Oh my God.
[00:35:03]  Oh, God.
[00:35:04]  Losing my mind.
[00:35:05]  You're not doing the profiling.
[00:35:06]  I am.
[00:35:07]  Well, now I'm a party to it.
[00:35:08]  Brett stared into his face.
[00:35:10]  I don't care.
[00:35:11]  Just do it.
[00:35:12]  Sir, it's against regulations, though.
[00:35:14]  Look, Brett burst out, losing his patience.
[00:35:16]  I don't give a rat's ass at this point whether it's racial profiling or not.
[00:35:19]  Maybe you're right.
[00:35:20]  Maybe Mohammed is a light-skinned Norwegian woman or a Cherokee elder.
[00:35:24]  Maybe he's a Persian or Arabic, or maybe he's a para.
[00:35:28]  Oh, I feel like I'm listening to him talk right now.
[00:35:30]  I know it's good.
[00:35:31]  It's good.
[00:35:32]  Or maybe he's a Persian or Arabic-looking son of a bitch who hangs out with other Persian or Arabic-looking sons of bitches who look like Ibrahim Hashami, which is, you know, Ben, they're different ethnic groups, Persians and Arabs.
[00:35:49]  I don't care for this.
[00:35:51]  Yeah.
[00:35:52]  It's like being like, yeah, he's a Mexican or an African person, you know?
[00:35:57]  Like, like that, like, it's that level of racist.
[00:35:59]  Like, it's, he's a person from one of two massive landmasses, you know?
[00:36:04]  Again, making the case for why racial profiling is bad.
[00:36:10]  Like, he's doing all of the work for us.
[00:36:12]  It's just incredible.
[00:36:13]  Yeah, I mean, it is, it is like, it's that racist.
[00:36:16]  It's as racist as being like, he's an African-looking person.
[00:36:19]  It's like, well, but that's a giant landmass that includes a wide variety of different ethnic groups.
[00:36:24]  Like, yeah, no, he's Persian or Arabic.
[00:36:25]  Thank you, Ben.
[00:36:26]  That narrows it down.
[00:36:27]  You got it.
[00:36:28]  You got it.
[00:36:28]  You definitely understood what we said.
[00:36:30]  Yeah.
[00:36:31]  And responded accordingly.
[00:36:33]  Yeah.
[00:36:33]  It's great because this is supposed to be like how him explaining like how racial profiling is really necessary to stop terrorism.
[00:36:41]  But all it actually is, is like showing that all Ben wants is racial profiling.
[00:36:46]  He's not saying, like, this isn't, it's usually pointed as like, well, look, you know, if we get a solid tip that like a terrorist is a man of, you know, Afghan descent, you know, we can't, you're saying we can't like look for people who are of Afghan descent who are in the area and like that's wrong.
[00:37:01]  And like, that's, again, is a wrong line of argument, but there's at least more, it's at least more of an argument than Ben, who is saying, like, let's profile all of the Persian or Arabic-looking sons of bitches.
[00:37:13]  Right.
[00:37:13]  Like, he's not, he's not actually saying anything.
[00:37:15]  There's no argument here.
[00:37:17]  He's just saying, I want it.
[00:37:18]  So I'm going to have my character yell about it and be proven right by the circumstances that I write in the book.
[00:37:26]  And also, Ben, again, the lack of research here, one of the things that Brett notes is that there would be hundreds, maybe thousands of possible leads.
[00:37:35]  Men who had flown from the Middle East through some point in the days.
[00:37:38]  There would be 10.
[00:37:40]  The Middle East is large, Ben.
[00:37:42]  There's so many people who come to the U.S. and leave the U.S. toward like heading there.
[00:37:47]  It's every day.
[00:37:48]  It's big.
[00:37:49]  It's very big.
[00:37:50]  So many places.
[00:37:51]  Like, is the Middle East a country to him?
[00:37:54]  Is that like what he like?
[00:37:56]  Yeah, I think it is.
[00:37:57]  I think the Middle East to him is like Idaho.
[00:38:01]  It's a single place as opposed to a massive, again, it's like somebody saying he looks African.
[00:38:06]  It's like, well, okay, does he look like he's from Morocco or look like there's all wide variety of countries and ethnicity?
[00:38:11]  There's thousands of ethnic groups.
[00:38:13]  Like it's a massive area.
[00:38:14]  It's very big continents.
[00:38:17]  Yeah.
[00:38:18]  It's, it's, I mean, of which, you know, the, yeah, it's, it's, it's great.
[00:38:23]  It's, it's very racist.
[00:38:26]  It's everything in this book is so good.
[00:38:30]  And okay, here's the best part.
[00:38:32]  He realizes that there's too many names to search through, point, making the point that everything he's done at this so far is useless.
[00:38:40]  So he calls a contact of his named Hassan Abdul to find a cafe to go meet a contact who presumably is going to know about this guy, which is kind of been maybe making the point that racial profiling doesn't work.
[00:38:56]  It didn't work, right?
[00:38:57]  Because he needed to go contact his people.
[00:38:59]  Because there would be too many people.
[00:39:01]  Instead, you reached out to an individual who had pertinent information, maybe, about an individual who you were looking for, as opposed to, again, looking for Persian or Arabic sons of bitches.
[00:39:12]  So the whole point of that section was just for him to be racist.
[00:39:16]  Right.
[00:39:16]  And then not realize that he's making the case against it.
[00:39:19]  Yeah.
[00:39:21]  Well, he did it.
[00:39:23]  You got to do the racism scene.
[00:39:25]  I guess I mean, one of the many scenes in this.
[00:39:28]  The whole book is a racism scene.
[00:39:31]  Yeah.
[00:39:31]  So he sits down from this guy.
[00:39:33]  Oh, I guess that's his friend from high school, his black friend who I think converted to Islam, the one who taught him how to be funny to the bully with no name.
[00:39:44]  Yeah.
[00:39:45]  The jerseyless football player.
[00:39:47]  Yeah.
[00:39:48]  Just call just call your friend first instead of saying look for an Arab-looking guy.
[00:39:54]  Oh, cool.
[00:39:54]  So Ben's friend, the one positive Muslim person that we've met so far was buddies with Anwar Al-Awlaki, who is like one of the, who's like a fucking very hardcore Islamic preacher who is seen as having an influence on, you know, terrorists.
[00:40:18]  So and then he's he's he's now helping Brett out because on September 11th, he'd seen the, yeah, okay, cool.
[00:40:26]  So so Ben's, Ben's one positive Muslim like character was also friends with a, with a, with an extremist.
[00:40:36]  Yeah, still terrorist, still terrorist, still terrorists.
[00:40:38]  Still terrorist adjacent.
[00:40:40]  Yeah.
[00:40:41]  After September 11th, Hassan spoke to Brett and Brett set up a covert meeting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
[00:40:46]  Hassan Abdul became a mole.
[00:40:48]  His jobs changed over the years, as did his location.
[00:40:51]  His responsibility under the Bush administration had been to provide leads on possible terror suspects attending mosques in prominent urban areas.
[00:40:57]  For the past few years, he'd been stationed in New York City.
[00:40:59]  At the mosque, he posed as a borderline radical.
[00:41:01]  He spoke regularly about the injustices of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:41:05]  But during, okay, so yeah, he's been working with the FBI, yada, yada, yada.
[00:41:11]  Because he found out that all Muslims are terrorists.
[00:41:14]  And then Ben points out that under the election of Mark Prescott, who is White Obama, the FBI no longer monitored mosques and that that is clearly a bad thing.
[00:41:26]  Yep.
[00:41:26]  Cool.
[00:41:27]  Wait, wait.
[00:41:28]  I forget what year was this written?
[00:41:30]  2016 is when it was published.
[00:41:32]  So I guess he probably wrote it 2015.
[00:41:34]  2014, 2015.
[00:41:35]  Or during a weekend in 2016, given the care he gave to editing this.
[00:41:39]  Yeah.
[00:41:40]  Yeah.
[00:41:41]  So he gives the information about this terrorist he's looking to to his contact.
[00:41:45]  Guy says it's not a lot to go on.
[00:41:47]  How do you know he's coming to New York as opposed to some other city?
[00:41:50]  How do you know he wasn't involved in the original attack?
[00:41:52]  Has the government even locked down the bastards who planted the bombs?
[00:41:54]  I don't know, Hassan.
[00:41:55]  All I know is there's something more to this.
[00:41:56]  And I know that he is religious.
[00:41:58]  The way Ashami spoke to him.
[00:41:59]  If he's here, the only way to find him will be through the mosques.

=== Learning a Lot of Life Lessons (04:24) ===

[00:42:03]  That's good.
[00:42:04]  They talk some more.
[00:42:05]  He's got to convince his friend who's angry because the FBI isn't profiling Muslims anymore.
[00:42:10]  This is getting somehow darker.
[00:42:13]  Yeah, it is.
[00:42:13]  I'm going to read the last bit of this because it's very strange writing.
[00:42:17]  You don't need to convince me, white boy.
[00:42:19]  I just need to know why I'm doing this.
[00:42:20]  And it isn't for your president.
[00:42:21]  Believe me, nodded Brett.
[00:42:22]  Neither am I. Hassan nodded.
[00:42:24]  A lot of nodding here.
[00:42:25]  I'll be in touch when I've got something for you.
[00:42:27]  He turned toward the door, then turned back.
[00:42:29]  There's good and bad in everyone, he crooned, a smile suddenly creasing his lips.
[00:42:33]  We learn to live.
[00:42:34]  We learn to give.
[00:42:35]  Brett left each other what we need to survive.
[00:42:37]  Together alive.
[00:42:38]  I think they're singing a song here.
[00:42:41]  I guess it is.
[00:42:42]  It's grimy.
[00:42:43]  Yep, okay.
[00:42:44]  I'm guessing that's a song.
[00:42:46]  Yeah, like a thing that they did together.
[00:42:48]  Like it's an in, it's like a friend thing that they do.
[00:42:52]  Yeah.
[00:42:53]  Yeah.
[00:42:54]  That's that's fine, I guess.
[00:42:55]  Like their like their little spoken handshake, I guess.
[00:42:59]  Yep.
[00:43:00]  Yep.
[00:43:00]  Yeah.
[00:43:01]  Okay.
[00:43:02]  You know, Sophie.
[00:43:03]  You know who won't surveil Muslims pointlessly and because of racism?
[00:43:11]  That's not shit.
[00:43:14]  These product.
[00:43:24]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:43:28]  Rule one: never mess with a country girl.
[00:43:31]  You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:43:34]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:43:37]  We always say, trust your girlfriends.
[00:43:41]  I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends.
[00:43:45]  Oh my God, this is the same man.
[00:43:47]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:43:52]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:43:54]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:43:56]  The cops didn't seem to care.
[00:43:58]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:44:01]  I said, oh, hell no.
[00:44:02]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:44:05]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:44:09]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:44:11]  Trust me, babe.
[00:44:12]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:44:21]  What's up, everyone?
[00:44:22]  I'm Ago Modern.
[00:44:24]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
[00:44:31]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:44:34]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:44:38]  I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:44:43]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:44:45]  I'm working my way up through it.
[00:44:47]  I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
[00:44:49]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:44:54]  Yeah.
[00:44:55]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:44:58]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:44:59]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:45:08]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:45:10]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:45:17]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:45:19]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:45:20]  There's a lot in life.
[00:45:22]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:45:29]  On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budgeta Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[00:45:39]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[00:45:46]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
[00:45:55]  Financial education is not always about like, I'm gonna get rich.
[00:45:59]  That's great.
[00:46:00]  It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
[00:46:10]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[00:46:16]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

=== Rebuilding After Two Days Lost (15:44) ===

[00:46:27]  I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.
[00:46:31]  I said, hi, Dad.
[00:46:32]  And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk.
[00:46:40]  This is this badass convict.
[00:46:42]  Right.
[00:46:42]  Just finished five years.
[00:46:44]  I'm going to have cookies and milk.
[00:46:46]  Come on.
[00:46:49]  On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption.
[00:46:56]  On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances.
[00:47:05]  The entire season two is now available to Benj, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
[00:47:13]  I'm an alcoholic.
[00:47:19]  Open your free iHeart radio app.
[00:47:21]  Search the Ceno Show and listen now.
[00:47:30]  And we're back.
[00:47:33]  Oh, yeah.
[00:47:34]  Ooh, yeah.
[00:47:35]  Yep.
[00:47:36]  All right.
[00:47:37]  You know.
[00:47:38]  I do.
[00:47:39]  You know, you know, Cody.
[00:47:41]  All right.
[00:47:42]  We're back to New York City.
[00:47:43]  I mean, that could have just been like you reading the book.
[00:47:46]  Yeah.
[00:47:46]  You know, comma.
[00:47:47]  You know, dash.
[00:47:48]  You know?
[00:47:49]  So, New York City, President Prescott.
[00:47:52]  Iconic moments.
[00:47:53]  These were the moments that Mark Prescott had always wanted.
[00:47:56]  FDR standing before Congress, declaring war on Japan.
[00:47:59]  John F. Kennedy in Berlin.
[00:48:00]  Reagan at the Berlin Wall.
[00:48:02]  George W. Bush in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
[00:48:05]  And now, Prescott, standing on the precipice of the Hudson.
[00:48:07]  Oh, my God, what a sentence.
[00:48:09]  And now, comma, Prescott, comma, standing on the precipice of the Hudson River, comma, with the Coast Guard still dredging the waters, comma, with the wreckage of one of America's greatest public works projects mangled behind him, period.
[00:48:20]  Ooh, we got there.
[00:48:21]  We got through it.
[00:48:22]  Oh, my goodness.
[00:48:23]  Damn it.
[00:48:24]  What a ride.
[00:48:25]  Wow, Ben.
[00:48:27]  What a sentence.
[00:48:29]  There are a lot of, oh, you could have.
[00:48:31]  Yeah.
[00:48:32]  Just generally, just generally, like, if you like, go, just go through.
[00:48:36]  I know, Ben, you're listening because you're a huge fan and you appreciate feedback.
[00:48:41]  Just go through and remove half the commas and your sentences will be better.
[00:48:46]  I also find it very, very funny that Ben seems really, really hyper-focused on this idea of Obama only wanting these moments, these publicity moments.
[00:48:57]  He's like, I want to look like FDR.
[00:48:58]  I want to look like this.
[00:49:02]  I don't know if you know anything about the current president, Robert.
[00:49:05]  I don't.
[00:49:06]  Do we have, we have a president?
[00:49:07]  We do.
[00:49:08]  We do.
[00:49:09]  He one could argue is like the worst at this exact thing, the most obvious about this exact thing that Ben cannot get out of his mind about President Barack Obama.
[00:49:22]  Sorry, I'm sorry.
[00:49:22]  President Barack Hussein Obama.
[00:49:25]  Barry Sotero.
[00:49:26]  Do you remember that?
[00:49:27]  Do you remember when that was the thing on the right?
[00:49:30]  Wait, no.
[00:49:31]  Oh, boy.
[00:49:32]  Oh, man.
[00:49:33]  Yeah, it used to be like, yeah, they were convinced that that was his, should be his real name for reasons that I don't know.
[00:49:40]  I don't even remember why.
[00:49:42]  Like, yeah, they used to.
[00:49:44]  Yeah, it stopped once everything got so much like worse once Trump became president.
[00:49:49]  But like, that used to be like a whole, if you'd go to like Free Republic, where all of like the really old, like worst fascist Republicans were back before that was the norm in the party, they would all call him Barry Sotero.
[00:50:01]  It was very silly.
[00:50:03]  Yes.
[00:50:03]  And I suspect Ben.
[00:50:06]  Absolutely.
[00:50:09]  That's a tab I'm opening for later.
[00:50:11]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:50:12]  Take a look into that.
[00:50:13]  So the president is obvious, is very excited because a bunch of people are dead.
[00:50:17]  So he gets to give a speech.
[00:50:19]  He's wearing a windbreaker instead of a suit.
[00:50:21]  Like George Bush did, which is like, yeah, as if it's like a ploy as opposed to like, yeah, you're heading to a disaster area.
[00:50:28]  You wouldn't wear a nice suit to like an active disaster.
[00:50:31]  Like, it's one of those things.
[00:50:32]  Like, you don't even, like, I'm not even going to like give Bush shit for that.
[00:50:35]  Like, he wasn't doing it for a look.
[00:50:37]  He was doing it because he was headed to a disaster area, and you're going to wear not a fine suit for that.
[00:50:43]  If he did wear a fine suit, he would be called like a coastal elite fancy man as wearing a suit to a thing he shouldn't have worn a suit to.
[00:50:51]  Nonsense, utter nonsense.
[00:50:54]  Also, Ben capitalizes Windbreaker, which is weird to me.
[00:50:59]  It doesn't seem like a proper noun, but okay.
[00:51:03]  That is weird.
[00:51:04]  That is weird.
[00:51:05]  I'm also super concerned about his editor.
[00:51:09]  I don't think there is one.
[00:51:11]  I really don't think he had one.
[00:51:14]  There's no way he had one.
[00:51:15]  Like, it's like that, that, that would be, I would be, I would be surprised if we would have to hunt his editor down.
[00:51:22]  Um, yeah, that person should be fired.
[00:51:24]  I mean, Ben should be fired, but out of a canon.
[00:51:26]  No, no, no.
[00:51:27]  That person should be comma fired, comma, right, comma, away, comma, period.
[00:51:34]  M- But also, Windbreaker.
[00:51:38]  Windbreaker is not capitalized.
[00:51:40]  Like, unless never, never, ever.
[00:51:43]  Unless it's like the name of a boat, right?
[00:51:45]  Right.
[00:51:46]  Yeah.
[00:51:48]  Or like, like, the brand of, of, of the Windbreaker.
[00:51:52]  Yeah, if it's a Windbreaker Ben brand Windbreaker.
[00:51:55]  Yeah.
[00:51:56]  I don't know why, but that's my favorite part of this book.
[00:52:00]  Yeah.
[00:52:01]  Oh, very cool.
[00:52:02]  Um, yeah, I'm upset that the president didn't wear a suit, I guess, at the thing.
[00:52:07]  Um, and really wants that photo op, the photo op president, Barack Obama, always care about photo ops.
[00:52:13]  No presidents after him cared any more about he's the only president who like who like got his picture taken ever.
[00:52:20]  It never happened again.
[00:52:22]  That was the single time that it occurred.
[00:52:24]  And they would never again like create events just to, just to have these sort of photo opportunities.
[00:52:30]  Yeah, never.
[00:52:32]  Yeah, he would never like have people tear gassed in order to take a picture with the Bible, right?
[00:52:36]  Like that would be bad.
[00:52:37]  That's ridiculous, Robert.
[00:52:39]  Yeah.
[00:52:40]  Like you should be, you should be right fiction.
[00:52:42]  That's an Obama thing.
[00:52:43]  Yeah.
[00:52:43]  Yeah.
[00:52:44]  Classic Obama stuff.
[00:52:47]  Yeah.
[00:52:48]  The president gives his speech.
[00:52:50]  All right.
[00:52:50]  I'm going to read a speech.
[00:52:51]  My fellow Americans, he said, we've experienced the greatest single attack on American soil in our history.
[00:52:55]  Two days ago, we lost thousands of American lives.
[00:52:58]  Men, women, children.
[00:52:59]  But let our enemies hear this.
[00:53:00]  We remain strong.
[00:53:01]  We remain unbowed.
[00:53:02]  We remained unbroken, unwavering, unshaken.
[00:53:04]  We stand together and our unity is our power.
[00:53:06]  Today, our enemies rejoice in our tragedy.
[00:53:07]  Tomorrow, they will see us rebuild from these ashes, restore what was once, what once was, rebuild our America, better, stronger than it was before.
[00:53:15]  They hoped that their destruction would cause us to question ourselves, question our course.
[00:53:18]  They hoped that we would surrender our philosophy, our way of life.
[00:53:20]  They were wrong.
[00:53:21]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:22]  This is a boring that doesn't seem very...
[00:53:26]  Yeah, like, why even write all this out if it's all so okay?
[00:53:30]  So because it's not even saying anything about him president or like anything.
[00:53:35]  It's just like, yeah, the basic president shit.
[00:53:37]  Like, okay.
[00:53:38]  Okay, so he's giving his speech and he's about to hit the big moment that he's been excited for.
[00:53:43]  And then someone in the crowd screams, you did this.
[00:53:46]  Prescott was momentarily startled.
[00:53:47]  Then he began.
[00:53:48]  In times of grief, we do not walk alone.
[00:53:50]  Yada yeah.
[00:53:50]  He continues.
[00:53:51]  Then someone interrupts again and yells, you did this, Mr. President.
[00:53:54]  And suddenly, yeah, he sees a lone protester.
[00:53:57]  It was a woman overweight, wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt with holes in it.
[00:54:01]  Her hair cropped short.
[00:54:03]  You did this, Mr. President.
[00:54:04]  My husband is at the bottom of this river because of you, Mr. President.
[00:54:08]  So, yeah, he gets distracted from this.
[00:54:11]  He tries to continue his speech.
[00:54:13]  She says she owes him all answers.
[00:54:15]  Doesn't really, not really clear why it would be the president's fault.
[00:54:19]  I guess because he pulled out of Afghanistan.
[00:54:23]  Yeah, I've been wondering what they're About what he did other than just like be the president while this happened.
[00:54:33]  Yeah.
[00:54:35]  Or like, is it just like it seems to also just be another like that guy who shouted liar during the State of the Union at Obama, right?
[00:54:42]  Yeah.
[00:54:43]  It seems like that's what he's doing.
[00:54:45]  Yeah.
[00:54:46]  So he lets the woman speak, being the monster that he is.
[00:54:49]  And she's very grief-stricken.
[00:54:52]  And she talks about her husband, who, of course, served in Vietnam and then was a bus driver, I guess.
[00:54:57]  And he just wants to talk about the music.
[00:54:59]  Oh, God, he's doing the Obama thing again.
[00:55:01]  Okay.
[00:55:02]  So she asks him, how could you keep us safe?
[00:55:05]  She stared at him, eyes glowing.
[00:55:06]  And then he suddenly saw a way forward.
[00:55:08]  He leaned forward, let a tear roll down his cheek, and hugged her.
[00:55:11]  She tried to pull away initially.
[00:55:13]  He held her tighter.
[00:55:14]  Finally, he felt her sob against his chest.
[00:55:16]  The tension go out of her body.
[00:55:17]  The cameras flashed around him.
[00:55:18]  The moment.
[00:55:19]  Time stood still.
[00:55:20]  This was the image he'd been seeking ever since his election.
[00:55:22]  Compassionate, caring.
[00:55:24]  Yeah, he does it a second time.
[00:55:26]  We already did.
[00:55:29]  All of the villains in this are Barack Obama.
[00:55:32]  That's what's becoming clear is that Ben wrote a book with multiple bad guys and all of them are Obama.
[00:55:39]  They're all Obama.
[00:55:40]  Oh, my God.
[00:55:41]  And like the worst thing about, they're all Obama and the bad thing about them is that they cry.
[00:55:46]  Yeah.
[00:55:47]  Yeah.
[00:55:47]  They let out a single tear.
[00:55:50]  I cannot believe he did that again with a different person so close to the other time.
[00:55:57]  It has not been that long.
[00:55:58]  Like at least spread them out, you know?
[00:56:01]  Wait a couple of chapters.
[00:56:03]  Don't I would have forgotten we would have we would have forgotten about it.
[00:56:07]  Yeah, because there's so much terrible shit going on.
[00:56:09]  Exactly.
[00:56:11]  Just like spread it out, man.
[00:56:13]  Yeah.
[00:56:13]  And then this president, who is again a monster, admits that he and the government made mistakes.
[00:56:18]  Weak.
[00:56:19]  Weak.
[00:56:20]  Yeah.
[00:56:21]  Yeah.
[00:56:21]  It's it's great.
[00:56:22]  Um, he says that like also some of the mistakes were that we struck out an aggression in the Middle East, which like inspired more anger against us and maybe helped make the attack.
[00:56:32]  We go to war to protect ourselves, but we end up weakening ourselves.
[00:56:35]  An objectively true statement.
[00:56:40]  Just like Ben.
[00:56:42]  Ben, you keep making amazing points.
[00:56:44]  Even the guy you've said you're going to vote for in 2020 for president, Donald J. Trump, says that we weakened ourselves by invading Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:56:54]  Yeah.
[00:56:55]  Part of why he got elected.
[00:56:59]  It's such simple shit.
[00:57:02]  It's amazing, really.
[00:57:03]  Like, I love everything that happens in the world.
[00:57:06]  It's so good.
[00:57:07]  Ben.
[00:57:09]  Keep writing.
[00:57:09]  Ben, write another book.
[00:57:10]  He's bringing a fiction book so I can read it.
[00:57:13]  Yeah.
[00:57:13]  He's got a, he's going to, where America's going to rebuild.
[00:57:16]  We're going to raise this bridge again.
[00:57:18]  Asia's going to be hampered by the past.
[00:57:20]  Our swords will be beaten into plowshares.
[00:57:23]  He motioned over to the thousands of American troops now working along the shoreline.
[00:57:27]  Our bravest and finest men will be put to work rebuilding.
[00:57:29]  No more nation building abroad.
[00:57:30]  Thousands upon thousands of those men and women are coming home to coming to New York to rebuild, to revitalize.
[00:57:35]  It's time to build ourselves up here at home.
[00:57:37]  What a horrible thing.
[00:57:39]  I am.
[00:57:40]  This is it's just this is beautiful art.
[00:57:44]  I can't even.
[00:57:44]  Yeah.
[00:57:46]  Yes, Ben.
[00:57:47]  Good idea.
[00:57:47]  Yeah.
[00:57:48]  Good idea.
[00:57:48]  Yes.
[00:57:49]  Bring them home.
[00:57:49]  The worst thing we could do is stop fucking around in other countries with our army and instead use them to, I don't know, fix the bridges that are falling.
[00:57:57]  Fix things and create stuff for each other.
[00:58:00]  Like, what I, what is the problem?
[00:58:03]  He just wants revenge.
[00:58:04]  It's just weird revenge shit.
[00:58:05]  He wants to, like, it's weird revenge shit.
[00:58:09]  It's also like weirdly, I also think he's making attacks at FDR here for like the works progress administration.
[00:58:15]  Sure, the Nazi stuff.
[00:58:16]  Which one of the best things the government ever did was be like, what if we, what if we took all these starving people and gave them jobs to make parks and roads and shit.
[00:58:27]  Disgusting.
[00:58:27]  It will be usable by all Americans.
[00:58:30]  No.
[00:58:31]  No.
[00:58:31]  Yes, thank you.
[00:58:32]  Make parks and stuff that people still camp in every single day.
[00:58:36]  It's called tyranny.
[00:58:38]  70 or 80 years later.
[00:58:39]  Yeah.
[00:58:40]  It's amazing.
[00:58:42]  Yeah, safety does not come through the fear of a gun or the height of our walls.
[00:58:45]  Safety comes from love.
[00:58:47]  Yes, love for each other.
[00:58:48]  Again, this is the bad guy.
[00:58:54]  I really know it's not going to happen because, of course, it's not.
[00:58:59]  Because I know who wrote this, but like, I'm waiting for the actual evil thing.
[00:59:07]  Right?
[00:59:08]  Like, what's the thing that he does where a normal person would read this and go, oh, that's a villain.
[00:59:16]  Because, like, you did, like, that's like a thing you would do in like a good thing is have this characters like, oh, they seem like pretty good, actually.
[00:59:24]  And then, like, oh, they turned.
[00:59:26]  They were, they're revealed.
[00:59:27]  Here's what they're actually about.
[00:59:28]  He's going to like embezzle all of this money or something from his program and whatnot.
[00:59:33]  Like, but he wants to build bridges.
[00:59:36]  He wants to use U.S. troops to like improve infrastructure at home and not waste money in foreign wars, thus making him the devil.
[00:59:43]  It really doesn't seem like there's going to be a turn.
[00:59:46]  It seems like this is what we get.
[00:59:48]  Like, what chapter is this?
[00:59:49]  I think there's going to be a very sudden turn that makes no sense, but we are like two-thirds of the way through the book at this point.
[00:59:56]  Oh, okay.
[00:59:56]  So the end of the book, there will be like, I actually want to do the genocides or something.
[01:00:01]  Yeah, I'm here to kill all white people or something.
[01:00:04]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:00:06]  Oh, great.
[01:00:07]  So, yeah, the president, next scene is the president relaxing in his hotel room, watching TV.
[01:00:13]  The coverage was nearly universally ecstatic.
[01:00:15]  The one guest commentator on Fox News had the gall to ask whether the president had any leads on the perpetrators.
[01:00:20]  Again, no one would have a problem with that question after a massive terrorist attack.
[01:00:25]  Like, it would be the thing we'd be talking about.
[01:00:28]  Yeah.
[01:00:28]  Ben famously hates presidents that spend all their time watching Fox News.
[01:00:33]  Yes.
[01:00:33]  My God.
[01:00:35]  All right.
[01:00:36]  Yeah.
[01:00:37]  All right.
[01:00:38]  All right.
[01:00:38]  So the president's concern or the president's aide is concerned that Brett Hawthorne is in New York.
[01:00:45]  Yada, yada, yada.
[01:00:46]  The president's like, why should I care?
[01:00:48]  And the aide says, well, he's digging around flight manifest and he's asking to see pictures of Arabs first.
[01:00:54]  Jesus Christ, the president says, racial profiling right after the love speech?
[01:00:58]  And they say the media will probably figure it out pretty soon.
[01:01:01]  I mean, these things have a way of leaking.
[01:01:03]  Yeah, okay.
[01:01:06]  That's also like kudos to Ben for writing that line, which I think is actually like racial profiling after the love speech.
[01:01:15]  Yeah, it's so childish.
[01:01:18]  What a childish way to frame everything.
[01:01:20]  I love it.
[01:01:21]  Yeah.
[01:01:21]  Yeah.
[01:01:22]  It ends on the president watching his speech and like the last line from his speech.
[01:01:26]  Vengeance is God's, we know.
[01:01:28]  Our job is to build.
[01:01:30]  Again, a monster.
[01:01:32]  The literal devil, a guy who wants to rebuild bridges.
[01:01:37]  He must be stopped.
[01:01:37]  We must stop.
[01:01:38]  He must be stopped.
[01:01:40]  If he were allowed to continue on his path of evil, eventually we would choke to death on all of the bridges.
[01:01:48]  That's his evil plan.
[01:01:49]  He wants to make too many bridges.
[01:01:50]  He wants to drown us in bridges.
[01:01:53]  Yeah.
[01:01:53]  He wants to murder us in bridges.
[01:01:56]  He wants to choke us in an endless river of infrastructure that allows us to safely drive without our bridges collapsing.
[01:02:04]  Like the devil would do.
[01:02:06]  Yeah, the devil in the single tier for all the bridges that caused it.
[01:02:10]  I can't even.

=== The Bridge-Building Twist Ending (04:10) ===

[01:02:12]  Yeah.
[01:02:12]  Well, Cody, we're three more chapters in.
[01:02:15]  That was three chapters.
[01:02:18]  Yep.
[01:02:19]  That was the first time.
[01:02:19]  Like, I came to decide if that was too long or too short for three chapters.
[01:02:23]  I feel like I've lived a thousand years.
[01:02:26]  Oh, I'm like, this is an eternity.
[01:02:30]  We're never going to leave.
[01:02:31]  We're stuck here.
[01:02:32]  No, this is.
[01:02:33]  We're stuck in True Allegiance forever.
[01:02:35]  We will never escape True Allegiance.
[01:02:38]  It is the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
[01:02:42]  And like Ben's sentences, it never concludes.
[01:02:45]  It never actually concludes like a sentence should do second M dash, but because Ben doesn't like to use comma periods, comma.
[01:03:00]  Which would conclude that, meanwhile, I can't wait until the president either turns comically way too evil to be believable or continues down this path of just like basic good stuff.
[01:03:15]  You know what I love, Cody?
[01:03:18]  What's that?
[01:03:18]  The written word.
[01:03:20]  I know.
[01:03:20]  I know that about you.
[01:03:21]  Yeah.
[01:03:22]  So have your feelings on Ben's novel changed?
[01:03:25]  We're now 60% of the way through.
[01:03:28]  It's changed in that more of it.
[01:03:32]  Can I just say more of more of it?
[01:03:34]  Yeah.
[01:03:34]  My thoughts, but more.
[01:03:36]  Yeah.
[01:03:36]  It ebbs and flows.
[01:03:38]  It's really something to behold.
[01:03:40]  Because you think it doesn't end.
[01:03:43]  You think it doesn't stop.
[01:03:44]  You think like, oh, surely he can't show his ass anymore.
[01:03:46]  Surely the mask couldn't possibly slip anymore.
[01:03:49]  Surely he couldn't write another just awful, awful sentence.
[01:03:53]  It's amazing.
[01:03:54]  I want to collect and frame all of the bad sentences in this and then send them to Ben Shapiro via a registered courier.
[01:04:02]  And like, here are the sentences you wrote that are not.
[01:04:05]  They're not sentences, Ben, but I wanted to immortalize them.
[01:04:09]  Here are some not sentences for you to check out.
[01:04:12]  Fire your editor or hire an editor.
[01:04:14]  Whichever one you didn't do.
[01:04:16]  Yeah, hire and fire a series of editors until you get someone who's willing to tell you to use a fucking period, Ben.
[01:04:22]  It's okay.
[01:04:22]  That's my message at the end of this.
[01:04:24]  I don't hate Ben Shapiro.
[01:04:25]  I don't want ill to befall him.
[01:04:27]  I want him to know that it's okay, Ben.
[01:04:29]  It's okay to conclude a sentence.
[01:04:33]  You can do it.
[01:04:34]  You can do it.
[01:04:35]  We believe in you.
[01:04:37]  End of sentence.
[01:04:41]  Cody, you got any pluggables to plug?
[01:04:44]  Sure, why not?
[01:04:45]  I got a YouTube channel called Some More News.
[01:04:48]  We got a patreon.com slash some more news and a podcast called Even More News.
[01:04:52]  We also co-host a podcast with Robert Evans.
[01:04:55]  It's called Worst Year Ever.
[01:04:58]  Some More News actually has a movie that we released a couple of days before you listened to this, so check that out.
[01:05:03]  It's fun and about a lot of stuff.
[01:05:06]  And I don't know, Dr. Mr. Cody on Twitter, all that jazz.
[01:05:10]  You know, I do want to make one note before we roll out.
[01:05:13]  There is some evidence that Ben Shapiro has improved in the second half of his novel.
[01:05:17]  He's learning as he's writing.
[01:05:19]  Which is that we went through three whole chapters and he never randomly switched from a perspective character to a completely different character in a wildly jarring transition.
[01:05:28]  That is true.
[01:05:29]  He is growing.
[01:05:30]  That's why he's such a skilled writer because he does it for the first third of the book.
[01:05:35]  So then you expect it to keep happening.
[01:05:37]  You're like, oh, okay, when's this going to happen?
[01:05:38]  And then he doesn't do it.
[01:05:39]  And that's surprising.
[01:05:40]  It's a twist.
[01:05:40]  It surprises me.
[01:05:41]  It's a twist.
[01:05:42]  Exactly.
[01:05:42]  I thought you were even worse as a writer than you are, but you've gotten slightly better.
[01:05:46]  Surprise.
[01:05:48]  Not the worst.
[01:05:49]  Oh, it's good times for everybody.
[01:05:52]  All right.
[01:05:53]  Well, the episode's over.
[01:05:54]  Please continue voting and or engaging in gunfights with fascist paramilitaries.
[01:05:59]  Have a good election day.
[01:06:01]  And remember, a tourniquet should be placed above the bleeding wound and then tighten until the bleeding stops.
[01:06:08]  America's strong.

=== Wanda Bleeding Away (02:15) ===

[01:06:22]  On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budgetista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[01:06:32]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[01:06:39]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
[01:06:48]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[01:06:53]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[01:07:04]  Earners, what's up?
[01:07:05]  Look, money is something we all deal with, but financial literacy is what helps turn income into real wealth.
[01:07:10]  On each episode of the podcast, Earn Your Leisure, we break down the conversations you need to understand money, investing, and entrepreneurship.
[01:07:18]  From stocks and real estate to credit, business, and generational wealth, our goal is simple.
[01:07:23]  Make financial literacy accessible for everyone.
[01:07:26]  Because when you understand the system, you can start to build within it.
[01:07:29]  Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Earn Your Leisure, and listen now.
[01:07:34]  You know the famous author Roald Dahl.
[01:07:36]  He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG.
[01:07:39]  But did you know he was a spy?
[01:07:41]  Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[01:07:48]  All episodes are out now.
[01:07:49]  Was this before he wrote his stories?
[01:07:51]  It must have been.
[01:07:52]  What?
[01:07:53]  Okay, I don't think that's true.
[01:07:54]  I'm telling you, I was a spy.
[01:07:56]  Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[01:07:59]  Now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:08:04]  How much away, Wanda?
[01:08:05]  Right now, I'm about 130.
[01:08:06]  I'm at 183.
[01:08:07]  We should race.
[01:08:08]  No, I want to lead here with my original hips.
[01:08:11]  On the podcast, The Match Up with Aaliyah, I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests.
[01:08:15]  On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ Clarissa Shields and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard, The Art of Trash Talk, and What It Really Means to Be Ladylike.
[01:08:25]  Open your free iHeartRadio app, search The Matchup with Aaliyah, and listen now.
[01:08:29]  Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeartWomen's Sports Network.
[01:08:34]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[01:08:36]  Guaranteed human.