LISTEN: Brian's best interviews of 2025 (so far!)

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It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Speaking of America, this is the United States' birthday, year 249. Happy birthday, America. Really, it was, I think, July 2nd.

They decided to wait for the 4th on the Declaration of Independence. And then we know what happened after. We got ourselves a victory, then we got ourselves a Constitution, then a Constitutional Convention, which was yielded that, yielded a Constitution, and then we just had a country, a civil war. World War I, World War II, throw in Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf War, and we are where we're at today after Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of pride.

I do think these warfighters of this generation are as good as it gets to. This is a big hour for our show. We like to bring back some interviews that really stood out. And this one is especially good because Palantir has a chief technology officer who also found his way into the army. Why?

Because for the first time in my lifetime, especially after 9-11, we have the tech sector, yes, Silicon Valley, working with the Defense Department in order to make us on, put us on the technical edge ahead of China and keeping us safe. Finally, the tech people understand there's a reason to have a military. They know they're in a fight with China on the tech race, but they also know that China wants to make it weaponry. They want to dominate militarily. And if they take Taiwan, by the way, that also affects the tech world.

But you have very patriotic people there. I tend to think the AI. People are more conservative than the social media people, you know, the Zuckerberg era. But they're even coming around.

So, my next guest is Cheyam Shanker. He is Palantir's chief technology officer. He has gotten an offer to join the military. He's going to go through his basic training, but basically, he's going in as an officer while keeping his job because Palantir is a key defense contractor. And his story is really noteworthy.

And he's a proud first, I think, first-generation American. Here's his story. Here's his job. Listen. Thanks for having me, Brian.

First off, congratulations on the position. How long did it take you to get that? How many years in the business? I've been at Palantir more than 19 years now. I joined as the 13th employee, and it's a 20-year overnight success, as they say.

Wow. What role does government contracts play in that and with the defense industry? We're a unique sort of business in the present moment, but it harkens back to America's proud tradition in history. We're 50-50 private sector and Government. And I think that's really important because it allows us to leverage all the private sector innovations that we're developing on the factory floor to help improve our national security.

Palantir was created for what reason? To solve the problems that were revealed after 9-11, we couldn't connect the dots. We had all of the data, but we didn't have privacy-enhancing technologies that enabled agencies to actually share that information. We didn't have the interfaces that allowed ordinary human analysts to make sense of what was going on, to see the enemy faster than they could hurt us. And that really, that's where it started.

I sometimes say, You know, if you want to be cynical, it took something as sexy as James Bond to motivate engineers to work on a problem as boring as data integration. But now the business has grown to be something that, whether you're working on the kill chain or the value chain, it's broadly applicable to American prosperity. See, what's crazy is that that should be the objective of the federal government on some level, it is, but somehow the private sector is much more equipped to make quicker progress. Am I correct?

Well, it's the frontier spirit of America. You know, we forget that who built the arsenal of democracy. You know, we took Bill Knudsen, who was the number two executive at GM. He perfected mass production. We enlisted Henry Kaiser and Kelly Johnson and tons of engineers.

There were more deaths on the factory floor in World War II until 1943 than the deaths in the foxhold outpaced it. There is a powerful tradition of the American industrial base that's far beyond the traditional defense contracting. And that's what it looks like when we're winning. We're leveraging all of America's strengths. Today, that strength is really an AI.

It's not an accident that all those AI labs are. Are American. It is a strategic asset that we have, and we need to enlist it in the national interest. Why should we not fear it? Because AI is going to give American workers superpowers.

You know, we need to be the first to employ it to provide for our national prosperity here. I think there's certainly been a lot of fear-mongering. I understand that response. I think anytime there's a big technology shift, that's a natural first response here. But we should be wielding it and taming it, just like we put a man on the moon, we built the aerospace industry.

The American worker built the 20th century. The American worker is going to build the 21st century. Do you feel as though the last administration, I don't really want to diminish what you do to politics, was not embracing this cutting-edge technology, was not embracing everything from crypto, which has nothing to do with you guys, to stuff like AI. They were trying to keep it at arm's length. You're understating it.

I mean, it was a full-on halt and assault on technological progress. It was doomerism. It was a lack of belief in ourselves and the American spirit. Really, we were doing a lot of hand-wringing around AI safety at the expense of AI efficacy. You know, it's not enough to just have the mirror.

Miracle of this technology. The question is: who's going to be the first to employ it to enhance the prosperity of their nation? How do you characterize this administration's view of AI? Very much on the front foot. I mean, they've got the right ideas, they're charging hard at it.

They know that at the fundamental level, it's about the primacy of people. You know, we have exceptional Americans here. They've come up with this approach. How do you partner with them? How do you enable them?

How do you make sure the benefits accrue to all of America? I think it was about four years ago when Altman came, went on, I think it was on a couple of networks, maybe ABC, and said, here's what AI can do. Worried about the parameters, does think there should be some type of guardrails up, but he let him know that this is just the beginning of a revolutionary technology. That was ChatGPT. What has happened since?

Uh well I I think We've developed a much stronger. If you look at Europe, they're still stuck in the doomerism. They are studying the problem, they're admiring it. If you look at American commercial companies, they have rolled up their sleeves, they have grease on their elbows, they're experimenting with it, they're putting it into production. AI now helps manage more than 30% of hospital beds in the U.S.

You know, American workers are producing more quickly, more efficiently. That's going to help us reindustrialize. At the beginning of World War II, we were the best at mass production. That was our asymmetric advantage. Today, as we look at the threats out there, our adversary is the best at mass production.

What is our strategy? China. China, exactly. What is our strategy for reindustrialization going to be? In this David versus Goliath battle, we need to do it asymmetrically.

What are our strengths? It's software, it's AI. 90% of tech market cap in the world is American. To say we're dominant there understates the case, really.

So how do we leverage the the Innovation base that we have in the country to actually win. When they say open, like for example, famously, Elon Musk and Altman had this huge rift because we wanted to make it nonprofit. Can you describe that? For example, if Palantir comes up with AI, then the nuance, another wrinkle to AI that moves it forward, is it open to other companies? Yeah, our approach is we're really the AI infrastructure.

So we sit on top of the models. We help people actually use the AI to drive business use cases. We've automated AIG's insurance underwriting process. We've automated sepsis monitoring at Tampa General Hospital. And so I think what we really see that's happening out there is that deep-seek moment.

China released their kind of stolen open model as an attack on American AI. And very clearly, there's an important and big role for open models. That's the foundation of the stack, and we need American companies building on American AI.

So you say as CTO, you feel like you joined the Army. You talk about your personal journey. Your dad was in a mud hut in India, and now you sit here at the top of one of the leading companies in the country in Silicon Valley. But what do you mean you're in the Army? I have literally been direct commissioned, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S.

Army Reserve. I helped start a new program, me and three other folks: the CTO of Meta, the Chief Product Officer of OpenAI, and the former Chief Research Officer of OpenAI. We hope we're the first. Four of many. After our commissioning ceremony last Friday, thousands of people in tech reached out.

I've spent the last 20 years building a bridge between tech and DC. And I think to have the next level of impact, I actually had to put on the uniform and cross that bridge to walk many miles in the footsteps of our brave U.S.

soldiers.

So, your brain and your experience got you past boot camp?

Well, yeah, that's right.

Well, I have my fitness test coming up at the end of July. You're fit, by the way. People will watch you on radio. We're on stream, but you're a very fit guy. But it means a lot to you.

You're a patriotic guy. Absolutely. And I think the importance, I took a lot away from my dad's journey. You know, we were living in Nigeria at the time. Dad was very successful at a young age.

There was a horrible armed robbery in the house. They almost executed dad. They killed the dog. We left all of our earthly possessions behind and started over again in Orlando. And dad was never successful again later in life.

And I think that it's kind of a more interesting version of the American dream. But dad always reminded us of the counterfactual. But for the grace of this nation, you'd be dead in a ditch in Lagos. You know, it is about life, liberty, and possibility. What is here could not happen anywhere else.

Yeah, I remember I was doing a speech in Pennsylvania and I got picked up by a guy and we were engaging. We had a 45-minute ride to the airport. And he said, you know, I've come from India here. You know, I have the American dream, but I'm still driving a car. I go, Oh, so I go, What about your family?

He goes, Well, my one son's at West Point's, another one at Indianapolis, the other one's at Yale. And I go, It is the American dream. Exactly. You're doing the hard work. Your kids appreciate it.

They see you. They're going to be successful. That's how it starts. And that we will defend.

So, yeah, so that's really what it is. It's like building up your legacy, appreciating what you have. On a side note, I hear Nigeria is the most successful. A country to come to the U.S. predominantly, when they come here, they usually do better than almost everybody else.

Do you remember the infrastructure there that led to this?

Well, it's a long. That was the early 80s for me.

So I think a lot of it has to do with mindset, you know, grit, determination, a willingness to work hard. Gratitude for the opportunities that are in front of you. And by the way, we're speaking to Sean Shanker. He's Palantir's Chief Technology Officer. One big thing that people are worried about is retaliation from the situation we're in right now.

And one thing that Iran prides themselves on is their cyber attacks, the ability to hack. Should we be worried about this?

Well, we shouldn't underestimate them. I'm really the CTO in the engine room. I view my role as making sure the President re-elected Donald J. Trump for a reason. He's the right man to lead us through this, has all of the information at his fingertips.

He can understand what the adversary is thinking and doing, and has all the options available to him. I think it's clear that the American people and the President have said that Iran should not have a bomb. There are many ways to accomplish that. I think we should be thoughtful. They have tried to hurt the President directly in the past.

So I think it is a very complicated situation. But we're seeing changes that I think no one would have really imagined two years ago. Would uh what I find fascinating is that The whole signal problem where everyone has to use a signal app for security was because over the last four years, China has burrowed into all our communications at the federal level.

So no one can, basically, you can't, we have not been told how you communicate at that highest level. Is there anything you guys can do with Silicon Valley to help us out there? Absolutely. I think that's a big part of the Executive Innovation Corps that we put together with the U.S. Army, which I hope the other services will replicate as well.

Like, we have the talent base to solve many of these problems. It's really about organization and focus. How do we go after these things quickly? How do you protect? I mean, how do you intell how do you protect intellectual property?

We have a large surface area to protect. The way our offense versus defense is very asymmetric. We're very good at offense. We kind of leave a lot of doors open on the defense side. Uh tit To illustrate another example of that, if you look at Operation Spiderweb, Ukraine attacked Russia from Russian soil.

If you look at the first strikes that happened in Iran, it was actually the Israelis built bases on Iranian soil from which they launched those attacks. I think as we think about that offense-defense dialectic there, we need to be thinking about how we protect the homeland and make sure that the land the Chinese are buying near our bases are not weaponized against us. And lastly, big picture question. I heard J.D. Vance describe Silicon Valley as this.

The social media companies, those other companies, they tend to be more left. He goes, these AI companies emerging tend to be a little bit more balanced. Can you shed some light into that? Because these are people not on a page or a bio, these are the people you know. Yeah, you know, there is this emergence of the tech right.

And I think the historical MAGA base is a little skeptical of them. Where did they come from? But there's a belief in American exceptionalism, a belief in being able to do things, a willingness to serve the national interest, a gratitude for everything that America's created. And I think that's the kernel from which Silicon Valley is rebuilding itself. It's a return to the normalcy.

We forget that in the 50s, Lockheed Martin was the largest employer in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley's roots are in defense. That's where the valley came from. But there was a point where around the last years of George Bush, Google and other companies were going, we don't want you to use our technology for the Pentagon or defense. I thought that was unpatriotic.

It was derangement, actually.

So I think that's the deranged period of the Valley. And we're getting back to normalcy and clarity of thought and gratitude for the nation. Have you seen Eric? You were saying that Iran has hacked some of our cameras in the past? Yeah, Israel is warning that Iran can hack our cameras.

I mean, that's how real the technology that you guys are working on are. Absolutely. So you think they're capable? Yo, they're capable. They're very capable.

Uh North Korea too? Yes, North Korea. They you know, they have a whole Bitcoin theft ring that helps them finance their existence. And you know, the the smaller cu cyber is a very asymmetric capability. You don't have to be very big.

You don't have to have a lot of GDP to be able to do it. Um We're not bad at it either as a nation, but defense is much harder than offense. And lastly, Sean, just as an outsider, usually when you have the type of skills that you have, you work for the federal government, it's usually like six figures, $100,000, $200,000. You don't get rich there.

So, how do you attract the best talent? Do you have to have a mindset of this is my service? Absolutely. So this is actually the problem I hope to spend the most time with the U.S. Army on, which is talent, empowering the rebels.

If you look at the, it's always the heretical people who come up with the great. John Boyd was so despised within the Air Force, but he's the guy who built the F-16. He was pushing against the grain. You look at Admiral Rickover, who built the nuclear navy. I mean, he was so hated at the U.S.

Naval Academy. He tore his page out of the yearbook, but he built the nuclear navy, one of our last remaining asymmetric advantages here.

So how do I help empower the heretics that are already there inside of the department? And if I know people who resent you, I know you're doing a great job. Exactly. All right. Shum Shanker, thanks so much.

Palantir is lucky to have you. Thanks so much for sharing it here. And congratulations on joining the Army. Thank you. Back in a moment.

Yeah. This is the best of Brian Killmead. You know that one friend who somehow knows everything about money? Yeah, now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Xperian, your big financial friend.

It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what? It's totally free.

So go on, download the Xperian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead. Hey, in about 10 minutes, we're going to have Jennifer Say on.

She's the founder, you know, she made her name. Really in the clothing business, and she became the CEO, one of the most successful female CEOs in the country. She's had a fantastic job. Then she decides to, okay, I'm not going to retire, but I'll step aside. And then she comes back, and she had all this trouble with the pandemic with not accepting what everybody was saying, and she turned out to be 100% right.

But now she's coming back and the founder of XXXY Athletics because she wants to keep get this men out of women's sports. And she's taken a stand about it. And she knows a lot about sports. She, for a period of time, was one of America's elite gymnasts and decorated gymnasts. Her body was beat up.

The training was non-stop. She was self-motivated. I got it. But you'll find out from her story everything that she did to be successful and how much she learned from it and what sports meant. And also some of the corrupt sides of sports, some of the ugly side of it.

That's it. Also, what it's like trying to find a clothing company. But just thinking of this 4th of July and thinking how special it is this year, but even more special next year. At this time, next year will be the middle of the World Cup. Cup.

We'll be having all these countries from around the world come to our country at a time in which we're starting to like soccer. And I really hope we start playing better and we start really contending for it. At the same time, you got the Olympics just around the corner. And I really think the economy will be hitting full stride. My hope is we have a degree of peace in the Middle East and we stay on the track we are right now.

But I know one thing, you can't predict where any of this global politics is heading. But I am convinced that America is going to build to be strong, swift, fast, and decisive to answer that. That's just how you define Trump. You may not like his decisions, but man, he's going to be definitive. He's going to know exactly where he's going.

And man, one thing is, I assure you, red tape will be cut and energy will be flowing. When we come back to that interview with Jennifer Say on this beautiful 4th of July, keep it here on the Brian Killmeat Show. Living with schizophrenia isn't easy, especially when you're not getting relief from some of your symptoms. It can be hard when you're still dealing with symptoms like hearing voices or seeing things that aren't there. and negative symptoms like feeling unmotivated or avoiding social situations.

If this sounds familiar, It might be time to talk to your healthcare provider and explore a different kind of schizophrenia treatment. Discover your possibilities at treatings.com. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. We are back, and Jennifer Say is our guest, CEO of XXXY Athletics, also an author, filmmaker, outstanding business person, and executive, and retired national champion gymnast.

Jennifer, great to see you. Thanks for having me. Are you surprised, number one, that this is even an issue? If I told you this was going to be an issue, trans men and women's sports 10 years ago, what would you have said to me? Yeah, I would have said you were nuts.

Yeah. I wouldn't have believed it. And in fact, I remember having conversations with Nancy Hogsed, who's an Olympic swimmer, Olympic gold medalist from 1984 in like 2017, and she was already on this. And I was like, I don't know. It's not a big deal.

I don't think it's going to be a huge deal. I get that it's not fair, but it just keeps accelerating. Even since Trump's executive order in February, it's accelerated in Blue States. I think we're going to get to the point where in Blue States, boys win all the track and field gold medals. That's what we're getting close to.

And could you just take a backtrack a little? What does it mean to you? You're a highly successful athlete. Give everybody an idea of your athletic background. Yeah, I had a pretty unusual childhood.

I was a gymnast in the 70s and 80s, seven-time national team member, 1986 national champion.

So, you know, competed at the highest levels of the sport, world championships, all of that. Gymnastics, gymnastics, sorry. No, regular. The four events, beam, vault, bars, and floor. I was an early whistleblower 20 years later about the abuse in the sport, which is a separate story.

I was the very first whistleblower about the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in the sport.

So I'm kind of used to saying true, but inconvenient things. But what I always tell people is at an athlete of that level, you lose a lot. You lose more than you win. I mean, honestly, we don't all win all the time, except Simone. She wins all the time.

She went 10 years without losing a competition that she entered. I mean, can you think of another athlete that's done that? It's not possible. And you get really good at it, and you build resilience, and you get up when you fall down, and you get up when you lose. I I couldn't accept a fight that wasn't fair.

I mean, when I was competing, the Eastern black athletes were using steroids. That was a big deal. And we were tested before every competition. I still remember the Sports Illustrated column with these East German women with backs and necks and like these perfect Vs and acne from all the steroids. Yeah, on the back, back.

Yeah. And so, you know, that would have been difficult, hard to accept. If you don't feel like you have a fair fight in the competition, you want to give up. Why bother? And that's my fear with all of this: is all of the gains for women and girls in sports.

You know, I think a thousand times more girls compete in high school sports than they did in 1972 when Title IX passed. There's so many benefits that come with that. If you know it's not fair, if you don't have a fair shot of making the team possibly winning, You're going to give up and you're not going to do it. Why bother? Why bother?

So I really see it as an existential threat to women's sports.

So, remember, Title IX came into play, and the controversy was: if you're going to have men's sports, you got to have just as many women as men. And it was hard to reconfigure. It still is because football has so many people and women don't play football, but they're solving that too. Because I think women are going into flag, and I think that could help balance things out. But having said that, that was the debate.

I remember doing stories. I used to do all sports with the Women's Sports Foundation over in Eisenhower Park. Yeah. And we used to go over there and we used to talk about the balance and women getting the same opportunities. And then we beat that debate, and it becomes, okay, I get it now.

Let's have equal opportunity and let's try to get the pros balance down. The women's national soccer team, I was there with 101,000 at the Rose Bowl in 99.

So I could truly appreciate it. And all of a sudden, women in sports didn't matter anymore.

Now we're talking about trans men. How dare you challenge a gender-confused person who wants to go beat women in their sport? I thought, wait a second, didn't we have this argument 30 years ago? Yeah, I would. I would argue the minute a male breaches the boundary of women's sports, it's not women's sports anymore.

I mean, the women's category is basically open now. Males who think they're women compete in women's. Women who think they're men compete in women's. Everybody competes in women's, only men compete in men's. And so, I mean, essentially, women's sports is already.

Done for if we don't fix this. And let's be clear: the more boys that enter, the more boys will win. When boys compete in girls' sports, they win. They do. I know.

I mean, can you imagine playing soccer? Field hockey? We've already seen it in field hockey. Field hockey. The girl got her teeth knocked out by a boy in volleyball.

There have been, you know, Peyton McNabb with a traumatic brain injury from being spiked in the face with a ball. But the fact is, and this is what their side uses. They say, well, they don't always win, so that means it's fair. No, it doesn't. They still have male advantage.

They are still bigger, faster, stronger. Just because they were really crappy male athletes and don't win in women's doesn't mean they don't have unfair advantage. Every male that takes steroids doesn't win the Tour de France. Only Lance Armstrong did. He still had unfair advantage.

Every man that took performance enhanced.

So blood doping.

So if you take an elite athlete and you cheat, they just become even better. It's still cheating. Yeah, no one's saying that you're average and become the best ever. That doesn't happen. No, but you get better than you would have been with unfair advantage.

So, Jennifer, just.

Well, how do you handle this argument?

So I had Jason Crow here, a special forces congressman, Democrat. And I just said, well, the one thing we agree on, right, you don't have trans men and women in sports. And he goes, well, that's a fake issue. It almost never happens. And that's an issue that Donald Trump made up in order to win an election.

And that seems to be the Democratic go-to. And you're a former Democrat. Is that a spin you can accept? No, it's false. That's just a line they use.

I don't care how many times you say it, it's still false. This year alone, Over? I think it's about a hundred high school male track and field athletes have won. They've been on the podium. In women's track and field in high school.

That means they're going to get college scholarships in all likelihood if they're winning state competitions. And I'll get to the NCAA in a second.

So they are stealing team bursts, they're robbing girls of the opportunity to stand atop the podium and celebrate their hard work and their win 100 times this year already in track and field alone. That's one sport.

So that's a lie that's not happening. And the thing is, with the folks that claim that, They'd say it's like the minute you point it out, they go, Well, it's a good thing, it's a triumph for civil rights.

So they're all over the place. And then they go to, Well, what do you want? You want genital checks, which is not what would happen. It's a simple cheek swab one time, it's done. It's less invasive than the drug testing that I endured at every single competition.

We had a pee in a cup with someone watching to make sure we weren't taking performance-enhancing drugs. It's less invasive than getting weighed in publicly for wrestling or boxing or all the things.

So they go from one argument to the next. It's ridiculous. It's accelerating, unfortunately, since the executive order was signed because the blue states are leaning in.

So, no, he's wrong. He's incorrect.

So, when Gavin Newsom says, you know, it does seem unfair, he doesn't do anything about it. And Calvo, he got away as if he's enlightened. He's done nothing.

Well, not only is he not doing anything, he's now working against us. He's suing the federal government to continue to allow athletes like A.B. Hernandez as a boy who won two state track and field championships in two events. He's suing the federal government to continue. To allow that to happen.

So he's full of it. He says one thing. He's trying to appear moderate. He doesn't want to take a stand and risk angering the far left in his state and nationally. But he tries to play both sides.

But you got to take a stand here. Have some moral courage and a backbone. Stand up for girls. Why are we, we're telling, this is the part that bugs me the most, upsets me the most. We are telling these young girls that they don't matter, that their opportunities don't matter.

And every time a young girl stands up and says, What about us? She's vilified as a bigot. And so still, oh yeah. I feel like you're getting the momentum back here, or you're getting it for the first time. We're getting some momentum, but I'll tell you, I mean, I talk to almost every girl that stands up, and what they deal with is pretty brutal.

We work with a woman. She's not a high school athlete. She's older. She ran the Boston Marathon in like two hours and 45 minutes, really, really fast. She took a stand because Boston allowed males to run in the women's category this year.

She herself. She just felt female that day. Yeah, exactly. They also have a non-binary category, which guess who wins? Men every time.

She got kicked off her team. Her running club kicked her off. They told her, Don't wear your jersey to run with our team, a team she's been on for 10 years, lost friends. She was stalked and harassed on her running app so people would know where she was on the field. to threaten her and yell at her and throw things at her.

That's a pretty tough situation for someone that really has. I mean, I deal with it all the time. Riley deals with it all the time. But when you're new to it, it's pretty brutal. But you remember when Riley Gaines was forced into, in San Francisco, I think it was.

She was forced into that classroom. Security couldn't get her out. She locked herself or she was forced to stay in there.

Now she's treated, I feel like she's treated more heroically than she was back then, right? She absolutely is. I mean, look at what happened with Simone Biles. You know, Simone attacked her on X. Um, And did not expect, I think, the clap back she got.

I think Simone lives in a world where everybody agrees with her and everybody tells her she's great and that everything. It's like a celebrity world. Yeah, and everything she says is great. And she made this sort of offhand comment. She thought she'd get claps and likes.

And she got. A lot of blowback from women on the left and the right because we support Riley, and 80% of Americans agree that women's sports are for women only. But here's what I'll just tell you, and this is an illustration, I think, of how far we still have to go. Not a single currently competing professional or elite level, Olympic level athlete has spoken out. Crazy.

So we have a ways. You're 100% right about that. And I think we're going to have a huge problem at the Olympics. When they come to Los Angeles with the Olympics, are these men going to try to compete in boxing and other things?

Well, the IOC is pathetic and hasn't, you know, they have a new president, the IOC, a woman named Christy Coventry. She has said in the past that she is for protecting women's sports. She has yet to do anything. The IOC could wave a wand and make it. Right tomorrow.

They could make it right tomorrow. How do you make it right? Like, what do you judge it on? You say only XX, only you must be XX to compete in the women's category. Men's can be open.

Anyone can compete in men's. We're going to do sex testing like we did back in 1999. We ended it with a cheek swab or spit in a cup. You just spit in a cup. It's easy.

One time. Then the record, you don't have to do it more than once. You don't have to do it like way-ins all the time. You don't have drug testing, you have to do it all the time. One-time test.

But the IOC has not done that yet, and they've sort of batted it to the individual governing bodies.

So World Boxing has. Which is what was so fraught in the last Olympics. There's a new governing body for boxing. It's called World Boxing, I believe. They have set a new rule to say you must be XX to compete in women's, and we will sex test.

Well, yeah, I guess we've got to see what happens there.

So, your apparel, this is your business acumen, mixing with your athleticism. That's right.

So, XX, X, Y, men's or women's? Binary. That's it. There's XX, there's XY, that's the truth. Yes, there are chromosomal abnormalities.

They are still either male or female. And it's athletic wear. It's athletic wear. For people that are not watching the stream, you're wearing a sweatsuit, right? Like a tennis outfit.

So let me tell you, this is a special item.

So just yesterday, in honor of Title IX, we released what's called a collab in the fashion world with Riley Gaines, our first ever collab.

So this jacket, a Valore 70s inspired track jacket, Valore, is part of the Riley Gaines collection, which is live now. Very limited edition. That's impressive.

Now, what is your apparel background? I worked at Levi's for 23 years. Before that, I worked at The Gap for three years. 30 plus years as an executive.

Well, 20 plus as an executive. Marketing, product, e-commerce, lots of things, mostly marketing. I was the chief marketing officer at Levi's for eight years, but I was the brand president for two overall product. Wow. So you have that background.

You have. This mission, and you merged them both. I did. And I was part of bringing Levi's back from the brink of bankruptcy in 2011 and taking the company public in 2019 with the IPO. And I feel like my skill is to create content and brands that intersect with culture and move public opinion.

I just felt like there's an opportunity here. Not a single big brand is standing up for women's sports, not one.

So you told me too, I saw we've just mentioned Simone Biles got all this blowback, but you also said that you believe every major brand, if she came out and said, Riley Gaines, you're a hero. I agree with you 100%. Men and women men should play in men's sports, women should play in women's sports. You believe she would have lost all of her endorsements? Even though she got the blowback for saying the opposite.

Well, here, look, I'll talk to her. One of her biggest endorsements, it might be her biggest, is a brand called Athleta.

So it's an athletic apparel company. It's a game. Owned by the Gap. It's in San Francisco. I'll just leave it there.

They live in a bubble. I worked there. They were a mile away from Levi's. I know the people that worked there. They would have been horrified at the half of the criticism at the people who would have said you're a bigot, and they would have let her go and ended her contract.

Very how could a female athlete successful female athlete ever say it's fine with me. Do you know anyone a a successful, active female athlete that actually believes it's okay? A lot of trans men and women's sports?

Well, a lot are saying it. I mean, Megan Rapino is saying it. I don't remember. Yeah, just retired, but I think she would have said it even if she was still competing. I don't understand it, but it's.

This is why the language matters. They've got this dumb language in their head that trans women are women. Trans women are men. They have male bodies, but that insidious language has infiltrated the culture, and we have to take it back. They are not women, they are men.

And so they think it's bigotry. I mean, it's so misguided and stupid. And, you know, I can't even believe we have to have this. I can't believe it. But Jennifer's saying making the most of it.

She is the CEO of EkTech XY Athletics, author, filmmaker. When we come back, Jennifer, just a few, I'd like to get your take on the economy from the business executive perspective, too. And we'll talk more about this. You listen to the Brian Killmeat Show. It's the best of the Brian Killmead Show.

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He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We got a few more minutes.

Just talk about the economy for a second. And no, it's not going to be a big, beautiful bill. We've got a very successful executive, the CEO of XX, XY Athletics, author, filmmaker, business executive, retired national champion, gymnast. Also, Jennifer Say worked at. You worked at Levi's for a while, and prior to that, you worked for?

Gap. But Levi's for two and a half decades.

So. I was talking to somebody that has an apparel company that was making their shirts in Vietnam. And they call panicked. Can you give me an idea what Trump wants to do with Vietnam? What about these trade deals?

Have you felt it as you are manufacturing now your own sportswear line? Yeah, look, it's certainly something we need to pay attention to. We make all of our cotton goods in Peru. We've been okay so far. We do make some performance wear in Vietnam, and we're looking to make more and more in the United States, which is the goal, really.

Now, the challenge in terms of production in the United States is we don't have the skills and capability here. You can't find sewing machine operators. We don't have the fabric innovation. We don't have the factories.

So it's not a solve overnight. But I'm all for bringing more manufacturing to the United States and doing far less in China. We don't produce anything in China because you can't monitor the factories. You can't enter. You don't know the working conditions.

So that's off the table for me. Trevor Burrus: So tell me about the consumer. Does the consumer feel free to spend? Do you feel more for 2025? Do you feel as though they feel good about the economy and when they do, they'll spend?

Well, when they feel optimistic, they'll spend. I think that their key indicators are positive despite the gloom and doom from the mainstream media. The SP, I think, is about to hit an all-time high. Unemployment is low. People feel optimistic and they do spend money.

I know for my company, even if we see goods increase in price a bit, we'll just take a margin hit. We're going to keep our prices. That's what the country's been doing with the tariffs. If the money comes in and it's harder to, it costs a little bit more, they're not making the consumer pay at this point. Right.

And brands out of China are, there's all these fast fashion brands out of China that are selling you $3 t-shirts. You don't want to know the human rights violations.

So everybody's screaming and yelling, even the left-wing press about how the prices for these brands have gone up. Like Timu is one of the brands. Who cares? I don't want people buying. That garbage.

That should be the pushback. Are you happy that slaves are making it, that children are doing it, and that the Uyghurs are forced to do it? Forced labor, exactly.

Well, I'll tell you what, it was great to meet you, Jennifer, in person. Been seeing you on television a lot. Jennifer Say, CEO of XXXY Athletics. Where do we go? We're going to order your stuff.

You go to thetruthfits.com. The truthfits. I love it. Jennifer Say, thanks so much. And thank all of you for listening.

Keep it here. Brian Killmeat Show. Running a business comes with a lot of what-ifs. But luckily, there's a simple answer to them. Shopify.

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Brian Kilmead here on this 4th of July. Thanks so much for listening. Listening to our show all year long, but especially on this holiday, I salute you. And that's why we went to such great lengths to bring back some of the most popular interviews from the past year, from the past few months. And we're going to see Claire Morrell, the author of The Tech Exit, is going to be on with us.

And really, it affects everybody's lives. But now I want you to hear from James Kimmel Jr., author of The Science of Revenge. You will love it. Thank you, Brian. Really a pleasure to be here.

You know, revenge. People can think about their own lives. They could think about big stories, big movies. Revenge is always a part of it. And what made you think this is a perfect subject of a book?

What intrigued you about it?

Well, what really intrigued me about it started with my own life, my own experience of revenge seeking primarily as a litigator, a civil litigator, where I was being hired, right, by my clients to get revenge on their behalf legally against somebody who wronged them. Their lives. Civil suits. Yeah, civil suits, right? And I had actually begun as a prosecutor, so criminal as well.

Moved into civil. And as I did that, the more and more I started to feel these, what you get with revenge is this amazing flash of pleasure when you get a win. And that is extremely pleasurable. You want it more and more and more for some people, not everyone. And I began to wonder: am I becoming addicted to this?

Because I was really getting, you know, kind of off on these wins. And my clients were and were willing to pay me enormous amounts of money, like addicts, to just get these wins over and over and over again for them. And that moved me more towards academics to find out what's happening inside your brain when you've got a grievance, you feel like you've been wronged, and you start to develop this craving. And what we see neurologically now inside the brain is that it activates the addiction and reward circuitry inside your brain, the same circuitry that's active. for uh drug addiction, alcohol and gambling.

Why doesn't it last? I'm sorry? Why doesn't it last? Oh, it doesn't last for the same reason that it doesn't for drugs.

So you get this dopamine high, it floats away rather quickly. Same way with narcotics. And so it's this temporary fix. But it leaves you craving, and that's kind of the goal with all addictions, right? You get this high, it feels great, you want another one and another one.

And the brain doesn't sustain it, it can't sustain dopamine presence for very long inside the brain, it's too intense.

So the brain starts to flush it out. But it leaves behind this lasting effect of, I want this again. Can we see this in public? Can we see it in sports? You certainly see it in sports.

You see it with fans, you see it with athletes. And some percentage, and it's just like with other addictions, only maybe we don't know for sure with revenge addiction, but we know that with substance use addiction, only about 20% of people who try alcohol or narcotics actually become addicted to it. And so it looks like about that percentage, same percentage of people, maybe become addicted to revenge. And I would sort of, we could kind of picture that as the people who are in jail, right? Because this is the, what we know from FBI and Secret Service and public health data from the CDC and behavioral studies around the world is that revenge seeking is the Primary motivation for all forms of intentionally inflicted human suffering and violence.

And that goes from bullying on playgrounds, all the way up through intimate partner violence, street and gang violence, violent extremism, all the way up through genocide, terrorism, and war. Is it ever satisfying in reality? It might be perceived satisfying for you. You got him or her back. But is it really satisfying?

No, it never is because it comes with these negative consequences. And that's really the definition of addiction. The definition of addiction is the inability to resist a desire for something powerful despite knowing the negative consequences.

So you know the negative consequences of retaliating against somebody in a certain situation. You do it anyway because you can't control it. That's compulsive revenge seeking. That's what addiction looks like.

So I want you to hear a certain president. bait another future president. And tell me if this fits your book. No one is happier. No one is prouder.

To put this birth certificate matter to rest, to ban the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing. on the issues that matter. Like Did we fake the moon landing? You know what I mean?

What really happened in Roswell? Yeah. And where are Biggie and Tupac. All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. Um So That humiliation.

At that Washington correspondence dinner, Trump will never say I had anything to do with it. He just shakes it off. I've asked him directly on camera, off camera. But what do you really think really was going on there? That's exactly what's going on in America today on both sides.

The humiliation, the endless shaming of the other, whoever the other is for you, that is intensely gratifying for you. We love, we get. Major dopamine hits from owning the libs, and we own and get major hits from owning the conservatives. That is part of our brain biology. Can't deny it.

We need to move away from it as quickly as possible. It's destructive. It's hugely destructive.

So, is that really the theme, too? You might do this, you understand it, I define it, but it's still destructive. Hugely destructive. And if we want to go, you know, MAGA, make America great again, we'd need to start with a make America forgiving again. Because I also have, and I talk about in the book extensively, there is huge new, amazing neuroscience about the neurology of forgiveness.

And forgiveness undoes. All of this stuff.

So, where you have a grievance that is some sense of humiliation or shame, and that stimulates your revenge desire. Forgiveness, instead of just covering up with a little bit of dopamine the way a revenge hit does, it actually shuts down the pain network in your brain so you don't experience it again. It shuts down the reward and pleasure circuitry of addiction so you're no longer craving revenge, and then it reactivates the prefrontal cortex. That's the you know the area of your mind for self-control, executive function, decision-making. Forgiveness is like a wonder drug that works amazing wonders, and we just don't use it enough.

We think it's weak when it's strength, it is huge self-healing strength. But you have victim statements in courts.

So, you know, you I just saw two days ago this victim's daughter. She was jogging at Randall's Island and she gets beaten by a convicted rapist, never should have been out. And she gets beaten to the point of death. I don't think she's much out of a coma now. But so, by after his conviction, The daughter gets up and speaks.

Would you think it's counterproductive? I understand why the daughter wants him to see her. But do you think for her what's best for her would be to forgive him? Oh, absolutely. If she wants to.

That's the hardest thing ever. It is. And we have the neuroscientists that would show that is the only way she'll heal from the pain. There is no other alternative. We are all hardwired to forgive just as much as we are all hardwired to seek revenge.

It's there. The ancient teachings of Jesus and the Buddha and other people who have talked about forgiveness as not only some sort of a pious way to get into heaven, but it is also a living in the moment way of healing from the wrongs of the past and not hurting yourself further. And you're kind of freeing that person from playing a role in your mind and the rest of your life. That's correct. This is not an example of it.

It's an example of negative behavior. Trump wins an election. No one can accept it. And there becomes a mission among Democrats to diminish the victory and undo it. Here's Adam Schiff.

There's this ample evidence of collusion of the campaign, and it's very much in the public record. Do you have direct evidence of collusion with Russia?

Well, I think there is direct evidence, and there is significant evidence of collusion, and we've set that out time and time again. It never happened, didn't exist. An investigation revealed nothing, but there was no hell to pay for that. But Trump keeps in the back of his mind, never says it, but he clearly. Knows exactly who was out to get him, who tried to put him in jail after he got out.

That's right.

That's right.

Trump. Got elected on the vision. He said, at least, back at CPAC, I am your retribution. I mean, he was willing to say, I will become for a large group of people in this country, the drug that you want. I know you want retribution.

I want retribution. I'll do it. But that is the same thing that is also happening on the liberal side. Nobody is forgiving anything, and that is a disaster. But isn't there a line between Street Smart?

For example, I don't want to be a victim.

So I got to learn. You're out to get me. How many times are you going to stab me in the back in the front before I go, wait a second, I got to get myself some Kevlar and I got to start avoiding those blocks?

So to do that, a lot of times it's an offense. And I'll give you an example. People think he's getting revenge on those law firms. He's neutralizing them because those law firms will weaponize against him and his family.

So even though it's unethical, you guys live in that world, perhaps unethical against the bar to go after law firms and make them basically pay an external. But what we're just doing is clearing the field to make sure for the next four years at least you do not take shots and try to destroy him. Yeah. And we all as humans, though, we need to think about what is revenge versus what is self-defense. My book doesn't talk about self-defense.

Self-defense, that's the fight or flight instinct. We all have it and we all need it. That's forward-looking against a present or near-term future threat. That's versus revenge seeking, which is always punishing people for something that happened in the past, no longer exists. It doesn't exist in this real world.

It only exists inside your head. You've got to heal that and clear that out.

So it's a very slippery slope between punishing a law firm, right, for what they did in the past versus, as you say, clearing the field going forward, right? Where does that line hit? I mean, is he really stopping them? Have they even threatened at all to start coming after him again? No.

But it's true. But the law of the jungle is: okay, I know what you're going to. To do, you got to weaponize yourselves again. But you know what's interesting? One of the things he said is: I want you to take a few, what do they call pro bono cases on causes that, whether it's transgender or some causes dear to the conservative's heart.

So that's almost like a positive, I need your expertise to help out other people that can't afford you for causes that are conservative. It is, it is a less, that is less negative consequences than shutting down the law firm, right? I mean, that he didn't do that, right? He didn't try to say, you're all out of business and I'm making it so. But he has that threat behind it.

So there's a lot of revenge and retaliation. You have to admit, going after the law firms is really about his grievance of feeling like every law firm in the nation had gone after him for the last four to eight years. And now it's time for a little bit of payback. That's really what is the root of that. You sit there at the defense table and you see, then you wait.

And you say, one day, one day, and that day came with a victory. If his win is a victory, that's a retribution. I'm going to show you. I'm going to win. I'm going to get back in power, do the things I was supposed to be doing the last four years.

But when you get in there, you got to make sure you look forward. And I think for the most part, he is. That's my opinion. One person who didn't and ran on it was Letitia James, the Attorney General in New York. Listen to her trying to get elected and re-elected.

I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president when our fundamental rights are at stake. I believe that the president of these United States can be indicted for criminal offenses. Oh, we're going to jump into him. We're going to be a real pain. I don't think you got to know my name personally now.

That man in the White House. Yeah. Who can't go a day uh um Without threatening our fundamental rights. Yes, we need to focus on Donald Trump and his abuses. That's what you ran on.

Elect me because I'm going to go after him. That is correct. That's as true as him saying, I am your retribution, right? Both sides are now going after each other, and it's all about the gratification. You can see with Donald Trump, at least I can see it.

I don't know how you feel, but it looks to me like he enjoys getting the libs. He feels good. I think the libs feel good. And when the libs are finally getting after the conservatives, there's a lot of gratification going on there. There is never, though, there is never anybody that goes, you know what?

I forgive this. We're moving on. I'm going to forgive this. The country needs forgiveness. Make America forgiving again is what needs to happen.

He always has those attributes, just W, George W. Bush. He really does. He's overrated him in Clintons or Friends. The father lost to Bill Clinton.

They end up being best friends. It's a great example, isn't it? It really is. And the other thing would be: I think it started with the impeachment. Yeah.

Was Bill Clinton's behavior terrible? Absolutely. It's been confirmed. But the fact that they went over the top and it got so personal and so graphic, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to win and I'm going to get you back. Oh, yeah, I'm going to get you back.

And then it went with the election mess and Gore Bush. I'm going to get you. I don't think you really won. I won the popular vote. I'm going to get you back.

And that started this cycle along with the unpredictable war. And these shames, shame, humiliation, betrayal, those three are some of the most powerful... painful experiences humans can have. It activates the pain circuitry in the brain. You can see it happening.

And that triggers this desire to retaliate. They can go from fantasy to violence. Here's my last point. And this doesn't really mean revenge. But motivation.

Let's say a couple of people walked up to you in 11th, 12th grade, and whatever you do, you're not, I know you want to be a lawyer, but you're not that smart. You're never going to be successful. And you go okay, I'll show you. And then you use that feel. I'm going to show you, and you use that as motivation.

And it gets you to law school, and you have the successful practice doing well.

Now you're an author, too.

So. Didn't it motivate you in a positive way? In a positive way. And I didn't use it for negative consequences. I used it to better my life.

I didn't attack and harm other people. That's a negative thing as motivation. It's a great way to use that. That desire for revenge to motivate yourself. It's a fantastic way.

And actually, I have that exact experience. I was bullied on a farm as a kid. The bullies came one night, shot and killed our dog. They came back two weeks later, blew up our mailbox. I went after them with a gun, confronted them by cornering them at a barn, and then put the gun down and walked away, thank God, or I wouldn't be here today.

So I know exactly what this is. This is an episode of Yellowstone? When did you grow up in the 19th century? What's happening? Where were you?

Central PA. I was in Central PA, and we were hunters. There were guns. And this thing came out at me.

So this got you, this was an intriguing emotion that you wanted to get through. And I cover this in the book. I mean, it's a really, that's my sort of foundational John Wick story, right? I'm kind of, I had to, it was a beagle. I mean, it was just like John Wick.

It's unbelievable. Wow. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

So, and by the way, when you get there and you prove that person, they don't even remember that they said it to you. Right. But you use his motivation.

So, and the ends justify the means.

Well, I used to start to get, so I thought, I'll go legalize revenge. I'll go into the professional revenge-seeking business by becoming a lawyer where I can get it legally. And lawyers have the only license, right, to manufacture, distribute, prescribe revenge for the entire population. And that's how we make our money. And it is a lot of money, and it's a lot of damage.

So, there's a lot to think about there. It all worked out because it motivates you to great success, and then you write a book about how to solve it. How to solve it, right? It's a win-win story. James Kimball Jr., congratulations on the science of revenge, understanding the world's deadliest addiction, and how to overcome it.

Thanks, James. Thank you, Brian. This is the best of Brian Kilmead. If you used Babel, you would. Babel's conversation-based techniques teach you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

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If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. You know, technically, the war already started. Think about this. 249 years ago, you had Lexington and Concord.

You had the Battle of Bunker Hill. We had the Boston Massacre in 1773. We were on a war footing in 1775. Here we are in 2025.

Next year, everyone's going to be talking about 1776 en route to winning the war by 1783. I got it. But right now, we have a situation where we're celebrating this country, and I think we're getting a sense of how special our country is. Pride is coming back 58% overall. 85% of Republicans feel good about the country in the latest survey.

That number is always going to grow. And sooner or later, a lot of people, independents, are going to say, you know, that's Jake Trump. He seems to be doing the right thing.

Soon it'll be four and done, but coming up next you're gonna hear from Claire Morrell who talks about the tech exit and how to take control of your lives and put the phone down. You're listening to the best of the Brian Kill Me Show. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Well, with the name Your Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. We can change something that needs to be changed, and that is. to find freedom. Freedom from cell phones.

This legislation ensures that every school division adopts a full bell-to-bell policy that removes cell phones from classrooms. And creating a distraction-free learning environment. And that is Governor Glenn Young, one of the best governors in the country, in my view, announcing in Virginia they're trying to get school phones out of schools. And it's happening a lot in a lot of cities, if not the states. With us right now is Claire Morrell.

Couldn't be happier about this new trend. She's a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of his technology and human flourishing project and author of this book out tomorrow called The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. Claire, welcome. Thank you so much for having me on, Brian. What is your reaction to what the governor did of Friday?

This is fantastic. I mean, Virginia has been leading the way. It's one of the states out there from the beginning, saying we need to get these phones out of the hands of kids, particularly protecting the school day from them.

So, this law is codifying an executive order that Governor Yunken signed a year ago, trying to push schools in this direction. But now, signing it into law means all the schools across the state of Virginia bell to. Bell, phones are out of schools.

So, not just classroom time, but the entire school day, which protects the lunch periods, passing periods. It means the whole school day learning and social environment for kids is free of smartphones and social media. All right, so I think that's a great thing, but what made you believe this is the right thing? Because of the effects that we've been seeing of smartphones, what they're the effects they're having on kids, I mean, you just think about the academic environment, they're incredibly distracting. And studies have even shown, even if the phone is in the backpack, it's mentally distracting to a kid because they're thinking about what notifications are on there, who's texted me, what's happened on my phone.

And so it's actually draining their available cognitive capacity because they're exerting self-control to not check the phone.

So even if they're not on it, just having the presence of a smartphone in the classroom in a backpack takes students' attention away from the task.

So how you harvest the phone matters.

So you want to go into a phone locker.

So you might think, who's a big deal? Or you go to, but number one, it's privacy. Number two, it's like you should be able to, if you have to walk to school with a phone, you need to put it somewhere, right? That's exactly right. Studies have shown the further away the phone is from the student, the better.

So they've even done studies to show like the schools that ban phones from the entire school day that don't even Allow them during passing periods or lunchtime. It's in a phone locker or it's in like a yonder pouch, these like synthetic rubber pouches, so the student can't unlock it and take it out. The more impossible it is for the student to access the phone, the better the results in terms of academic improvement. And then also mental health effects. Studies have shown that getting phones out of the school day actually increases students' mental well-being.

So, what exactly is the problem? Is it the fear of missing out, parties you're not invited to, taunting that could happen in the playground, but now it could happen anonymously? What really bothers you about phone use with today's youth? Yeah, I think the problem is that it is it acts on a developing brain. Children's brains aren't fully developed like a highly addictive drug.

The effects that we're seeing from the constant dopamine hits that they're getting through the phone every time they get a new like or a text or a follower. It elicits this dopamine response in the brain, which creates this constant craving to go back for more. And so, what happens is we just see addiction to the phone. Phones. It's impossible for a child to not be drawn back to the phone constantly.

And so, what you see then is kids are hunched down, looking at their phones, not talking to their friends. They're not interacting in person. And so, there's a huge opportunity cost to the phones. They're not developing the in-life, in-person skills that they really need to be successful as adults. And so, it's a complete just detriment to their development and their ability to thrive, especially in adult life.

So, do you find that educating kids, because we talked about social dilemma the first time, I really, I knew phones would be a bad move. I didn't think it was ever going to come out. I just thought it was progress that just happened. But then, when you see how companies go out of their way to manipulate it and to manipulate you and addict you, people get their backup. Screw that.

You're not going to do that to me. If I'm aware of it, I'm not going to let it happen. No, absolutely. And the families I spoke to in writing this book, you know, they had these tech restrictions. They decided proactively we're not giving smartphones and social media to our kids, but they wanted to help their kids.

Understand the rationale behind their decisions. And so they took the time to educate them on the harms, showing them films like the social dilemma, because no teenager wants to be manipulated. But how do you feel about families? For example, well, Cindy gets to keep a phone. Why can't I have a phone?

So, what do you say to parents, especially new parents, like that? They don't want their kids to feel ostracized or not to fit in. And that's been the whole problem: the phones have changed the whole social environment for kids. There is this fear of missing out. I don't want to be the only one not on social media or not on a phone.

And so, what I encourage parents to do in the book is you have to find other families. You need to talk to your friends in your neighborhood, your school, your community, and opt out together. And a big message of the book is that. Parents, it is happening. There are movements growing of this smartphone-free childhood where communities are coming together.

And honestly, the schools passing the bans really helps because you get it out of the school day.

Well, a lot of the private schools, you have school choice. A lot of parents go, I don't need a place that's going to lock away the phones. Yeah. I'm talking to Claire Morrell. She's the author of The Tech Exit Out Tomorrow, a practical guide to freeing kids from teens from smartphones.

So you mentioned there's different types of phones out there that could allow you to get in touch with your kid, but allow them to stay off TikTok and other social media. Yes. And I try to tell parents everywhere I go that the big thing is that, yes, your child may need to get in touch with you, but there are so many other options available. Handing them the smartphone is like handing them a supercomputer in their pocket 24-7. It's impossible for parents to completely lock down and protect their kids from all the harms and dangers that come through social media apps, the internet.

So there are phones like the Bark phone, Gab phone, Light. Phone, Wise Phone, which all allow a parent to stay in touch with their child. They can even text their friends, but there's no internet browser, no social media apps, and no addictive gaming apps, things that suck a child away from the real world.

So, what are the metas of the world? TikTok is evil, should be banned anyway, but what are the metas and the Googles of the world think about this movement to free kids from social media and from tech phones? Oh, I mean, they're fighting it at every possible moment. I mean, I don't know if you recently saw it-popular to fight it, though, is it? Oh, Sam.

Do you think it's popular for Meta to stand up and say, Don't do that, parents?

So I would say what Meta is doing is a softer approach. They keep trying to put out that they have more parental controls available.

Now they're making teen accounts.

Okay, so that you have to kind of dig down into the details, though, and say, well, what exactly is this doing? It is not changing their underlying business model whatsoever. It is not giving parents real control over what's in a child's feed or who they're friending or who they're talking to. It maybe just lets parents set more time limits. And so they're not actually trying to change the problem.

They're trying to look like they're doing something about it while all the same time keeping their business model the same. And that's because teenagers is the future of their business. They recognize if they get children using their products young, they'll stick with that product throughout the rest of their lives. And so it's important to them that they don't want to lose this demographic of teenagers.

So. Right now the trend is to take the The phones away from kids or wait as long as you can to give them. But the parents will come back and say, Well, in case of emergency, I need to know with school shootings in this country, I need to be able to contact my kid and I need that kid to be able to say, I got a shooter in this building. You saw what happened with the Uvalde and all these other places.

So, your thoughts about that. Yeah, and I mean, these are tragic events. I understand parents absolutely want to protect their kids. But what I've seen over and over in the research, and school safety experts will tell you is that kids are actually safest without phones on them. That having access to phones, if every child in the class has access to a phone during an active shooter event, I mean, those phones can be going off, making noises, alerting the shooter to where they are.

Or kids are just texting their parents, they're distracted, they're not listening to instructions from law enforcement or their teacher. And so, I think parents and schools' goals are aligned. We all want to protect our kids, but I think parents' gut reaction is: I want to just be able to get in touch with my child, but what's actually safest for them is to not have access to individual phones.

So, Claire, what do the stats say? Trending to locking the phones out of schools and waiting, kids, waiting for parents to get older. And in fairness to the parents, nobody knew what we were getting into. No. Because I remember when cell phones started, we were fascinated with the car phone.

I remember when cell phones started, we had Blackberries. And people are like, well, you know, I'm never going to be able to watch a video on a Blackberry, so don't worry about that. And we couldn't. It was bad. Remember, Barack Obama didn't want to give his up when he became president, called it a Crackberry.

All right. Now, those days, when you bring up Blackberry, it's like bringing up the Etzel. They're like, what are you talking about? Blackberry.

So now we gradually got more and more social media.

Now it's the video on my phone is as good as what I watch on my television. Yeah. So I. I don't blame parents for getting us here, but now this is the first time in the last 18 months, I think, or two years, where I feel like, okay, now our eyes are open.

Now there's no excuse to not make good decisions. Do you agree? Absolutely. And I don't blame parents either because it was like this huge wave of technology just hit them. But now the research continues to come.

Oh, in AI. And so I keep telling parents, I'm like, listen, this tech exit, this retreat from smartphones and social media for kids has never been more urgent because AI is now getting integrated into all of these technologies. And it's only going to make it more immersive and addictive for a child because it will be highly personalized to them. And children will have a very hard time discerning between what's real and what's not because the AI will feel like a real person to them.

Well, let me tell you something. I'm watching real pictures of stuff online with my coworkers here, you know, because we're on camera all the time and it looks real. I mean, everything looks real. I can't tell you, I'm getting text messages about. My marriage.

I'm getting text messages about my co-hosts getting married. All this. And I'm going, and I look at this, I go, that looks absolutely real. The pictures look real, but it never happened. No, it is, it's really disturbing.

And so I just try to tell parents in this book: listen, it's not too late to reverse course. Even if you've already given your children smartphones or social media, it is possible to detox from them. In fact, summer is a great time. Do you have it? Summer would be a good time because you're out of school.

Exactly. You don't have to be on the screens for school. I walk parents through step by step in the book. Start with 30 days. Block off 30 days on your calendar and saying, We're not doing screens, we're not doing video games, we're not doing tablets or smartphones for 30 days.

And you could even start by going on a vacation together and leave the technology behind.

Well, you have one problem. And that is a lot of people give homework. The summer on the computers on iPads. And you can't, yeah.

So, I mean, do you count? I mean, I would say the exception would be a school-related screen, but try to just take away the smartphone, the video games, any screen entertainment for 30 days. And what you will see is that your children, their habits are actually reshaped. They can actually reset their brain to not have the strong compulsion towards the screen and getting them outside, interacting with real people, serving other people in the family. I've talked to a lot of families.

They tried to teach their kids how to do a new chore each summer and help around the house. And what happens is these kids, when they start focusing on other people and serving others, they are amazingly freed from the anxiety that is so strongly induced by the self-focused screen.

So, if I'm a teacher and I have an app, okay, here's an app. I want you guys to download this because I'm going to be communicating with you. Are there ways to limit the screen to the apps that are just school-related? I mean, so what I would say is a lot of these alternative. Phones have will allow certain apps that might be required by a school or a sports team.

So, I would really encourage parents, don't opt for the smartphone. I know sports teams are now requiring this. And so, I asked a lot of these parents, I'm like, How did you navigate this when the apps were required for things? And they said they just didn't accept that their child needed a smartphone.

So, they would talk to the coach and the teacher: Is there a way for my child to complete in this team or do this assignment without a smartphone? And they were often able to find workarounds or accommodations. But then, nowadays, these phones like the Bark phone or the Wise Phone, they have an app store that you can get access to certain apps a kid might need, but no social media apps, no internet browser, and it's purely tools, not. Games or apps that will be addicted to. And this is a tool, too.

Claire Morella's written it. It's called The Tech Exit Out Tomorrow: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. Get the book anywhere, right? Oh, yeah. Available where all books are sold.

You can pre-order it now. All right, Claire, thanks so much for what you do. Thank you for having me. All right, and check it out. Back in a moment, Brian Kilmicho.

You're listening to the best of Brian Kilmead. Don't MissBlinds.com's 4th of July mega sale happening now. Save up to 50% plus get a free professional measure. Blinds.com invented a better way to shop for window treatments with upfront pricing, no showroom markups, and no salespeople in your home. Choose from classic shutters to outdoor shades and more, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.

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Having watched SNL since I was a wee child, it is so crazy when you do that. It's so fun. I fell in love with it. It took me two years to kind of get it and get all the different toys, I call them, on the carpet and pick them up one at a time. Two years.

Well, because he kept stacking. But look, the first six months, it was just sweet Joe. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Just my dad lost his job. Right in this junk. Not getting around. It's number one, the one part. Number two, what the guy said.

Number three, you know the drill. Come on, folks.

So it was just that. I thought, well, it doesn't have the pop or energy of Trump or even Obama or W. And then I heard him whisper and yell, and I thought, oh, here we go. And then the defiant 50s guy. There's no crisis at the border.

Yeah, but you said. Yeah, I'll get your facts right, Jack. I'll beat the hell out of you. You want to do some push-ups? You're a dog-faced pony soldier.

You know, the 50s guy.

So, Biden eventually was my favorite because he had like 10 hooks. Did he acknowledge it? His staff came to one of the parties, middle of the night. Hey, we just got to say, I think I still have the cards. I got it right here.

We love your Biden. Why don't you probably love it too? Why don't you come down to the White House and have lunch? It never happened, but you know, because they've... He said, What's lunch?

Is that the thing you do before dinner? Just watch him eat a paper bag, and you gotta go. No one says anything, no one says it about you. Yeah, that is so hilarious. And Danny Carvey just was able to nail it, not care about the political correctness of it, and do it.

And the thing is, he wasn't able to, I'm sure that Danny Carvey wouldn't have got traction on that if he was running for reelection, but he's so on the money. Welcome back, everyone, our special 4th of July show. But he's 100% right. I think that Joe Biden will go down. You know, we always hear about Woodrow Wilson.

He had the stroke and his wife covered up for him.

Now, I never looked heavily into it, but I'm sure other people covered up for him. I'm sure he had a chief of staff that says, Why won't you ever open the door? I'm sure there was Secretary of State that says, Really? Can I really do my own thing here? Do I really not have to check with the president?

But we never say anything like this. They always said, Well, if FDR was out today, there's no way people wouldn't be writing about his wheelchair. And if Woodrow Wilson had a stroke today, there's no way he'd be able to get away with that with this press corps. Really? Really?

From what you just saw, You could never ever say that again, because it was a Press Corps that was willing to ridicule you for bringing it up wilt under the pressure from administration who threatened to cut off access, which is a joke because there was nobody with any access. Nobody had any access to this guy. For four years. And every time I see the President Trump walk out and talk by his helicopter and talk by his golf course and uh talk at the Oval Office and have an open air meeting with his Cabinet, which is going to be soon. And the Cabinet says, okay, let's just bring in the press.

What do you think? And they do. you realize what we were we suffered through before. And for Democrats, they didn't care. And I just was struck by, too, what Peter Ducey said the other day.

When he said that the people used to roll their eyes and used to sigh every time I would say, you know, the president is not thinking that well, he seems to forget a lot of things, he muddles his way through the speech, he falls down a lot, everyone would just roll their eyes. And now, Jake Tabra goes, you know, the president really wasn't on his game for four years, and they were insulated, not even by this cabinet, but by his inner, inner circle.

So that's one of the subplots. It's being overwhelmed by the big, beautiful bill: the bombing in Iran, the ongoing IDF against the world. the situation, NATO.

So what we're not paying attention to is what James Comer is doing and Democrats hope we don't. And that is bringing in the people that surrounded Biden and asking them under oath, did he even know what was going on? Did he even know? About the Auto Penn was signing off on thousands of pardons of his evil the evil people and the offshore drilling bans that took place that gummed up all the works for Trump, all the stuff they did.

Now Biden hates Trump and Trump hates Biden. But does he even know it was happening? And when when they're under oath, Are they willing to lie? And if they tell the truth, I think it will expose exactly how complicit the Democrats were and how their future has to be with people not associated with Biden from here on end. Happy July 4th.

You're a lion dogface pony soldier. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. Hey there, it's me, Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast, Kennedy Saves the World. It is five days a week, every week.

Download and listen at FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, giving you opinions and facts with a positive outlook. It's Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone. So glad you're there.

Happy July 4th. And of course, we put together a special show for you on these holidays. Usually your schedules change. Maybe you're catching us for the first time, and you listen to the podcast usually, and you say, wait a second, I didn't know they had an affiliate here.

Well, you do, and we do have them. This hour, we're going to be joined by David Mamet. He's an outstanding director, producer. personality, opinion guy. And columnist.

He wrote a book called The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment. He talks about some of the price he paid for being a conservative in a very liberal occupation. I don't know if you've heard about that, of Hollywood, of Broadway. Not really caring, being extremely upset by the direction of the country, willing to speak out about things that he thought were going wrong, paying a price, but having so much success. You can actually, just like John Voigt.

You can't cancel John Voigt. It's not possible. You can't cancel Sylvester Stallone. It's not possible. In the directing-producing world, you can't cancel David Mammoth.

You could try. But you're never going to shut up and you'll always have a venue and time to talk here.

So when he wrote the book, The Disenlightenment, he was able to pop onto Zoom and we were able to do an interview that I think you'll like.

So he talks about politics today. He talks about what Trump brings to the table, the role of entertainment and how it seemed to go off course. Here's my interview with David Mammon. It's just we have comedy backgrounds, most of us.

So we're just looking for those moments and we're playing that timing. I'm playing us, hopefully, trying to play a spirited version of Shelly, somebody who really, really believes he's about to make his big score. Absolutely has no second thoughts about that. And that is Bob Odenkirk talking about the play that's playing right around the block from us. Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, David Mammets, the award-winning playwright and author of the new book, The Disenlightenment, Politics, Horror, and Entertainment.

David, welcome to Brian Kill Me Chow. Thank you, Brian. Nice to be here.

So do you still go every night to the play? Oh, God, no, no, no. I don't live in the United States. I live in California. And so I'm on the other side of the country.

Okay, but did you get it up and running? No, no, no. It was directed by Patrick Marbury in a terrific production. And after I've done a play once, if I'm not directing a revival, I just say, wait, there's nothing for me to do. I got better things to do with my life.

And they got better things to do with their life than to listen to me to say, that's not the way that we did it when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Oh, in other words, a while ago, you talked about that when the movie came out. You made the role for Alec Baldwin. Here he is talking about it, Cut 43. Only one thing counts in this life.

Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. A B C. A always B B C closing. Always be closing. Always be closing.

AIDA. Attention, interest, decision, action. Attention. Do I have your attention? Interest.

Are you interested? I know you are. You close or you hit the bricks. Decision. Have you made your decision for Christ?

That is all he was great in that, right? And why was he perfect for it? Yeah. What made him perfect for it, David?

Well, I wrote the part for him. I did they were doing this movie. Jamie Foley just died, resting peace, the rick did a spectacular production of the movie Glen Gary Glen Ross Love to Play. And Alec was going to play a part, but he was restricted because some studio had him on hold. For a project which didn't come through.

So someone else played a part and Alec called me up when the studio let him go. We were about to shoot. And he said, I want to be in the movie. What can we do? I said, the part's gone.

He said, write me another part.

So I did. And it was worth it. Also, he's from Massapiqua too, and I had his dad who was a teacher at Massapua High School, so I know the whole family.

So didn't get to know him, though. He was a little bit older.

So, David, let's talk about what your passion for politics comes from. When did it really take root in your life?

Well, I got kicked out of the left about 25 years ago, and I had to stand back and say, wait a second, I'm a lifelong Democrat. My parents were first-generation immigrant Jews. Everybody was a Democrat. We didn't know any Republicans because, as far as we knew, they all lived in the country clubs from which we were restricted, and they all wore white belts and drank Manhattans.

So I didn't know any Republicans, so I didn't understand what conservatism was. And then I got kicked out of the left, and I started. I started researching what the constitutional conservatism was about and. I got very, very interested and very excited about it, and here I am now. How did you get kicked out of the left?

I just done a play on Broadway, Paul, a very funny play called November, about a president of the United States who's about to lose an election because he doesn't have any money, because as they say, his numbers are lower than Gandhi's cholesterol. And the Village Voice said, well, write an article promoting the players called November. And so I wrote an article called Political Civility. I said, we have to be civil to each other. That's what this play is finally about.

It makes fun not of a politician, but of politics. But we have to be civil to each other. I said, I'm not even civil to myself. I even refer to myself as a brain-dead liberal. That's not civil.

Next week, the Village Voice comes out, the whole front page, Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal by David Mammet, and everybody lost my number.

So I have, like Trump, you know, after the 20 election, I had a little bit of time to think about things. And that made you dig in more rather than change. Instead of taking a backstep, you step forward and just reinforced your conservative beliefs? Mm-hmm.

Well, I discovered my conservative beliefs because I discovered everything I thought I believed about the Democratic Party. Was false that the Democratic Party had always been the party of first of slavery and then of segregation, then of Jim Crow, and that affirmative action was just an extension of that. And the Democratic Party was not representing the working people of this country, wasn't representing the actual Americans. It had become a party of the elites. And I started to go back and reread Hayek.

And I was very close, I am very close friends with Shelby Steele, was friends with Tom Sowell, and went back to the original, right? I went back to J.S. Mill and Locke and tried to understand what a constitutional democracy is. And I liked it. I liked it a whole lot, because the whole idea was let's all get together and decide according to the rules which we have enshrined when we were not emotional.

According to those rules, what we're going to do now that we are emotional. Just take a step back. Before I really build on that, I want to just take one step back that I've not got a good answer for. If you are successful in your business as a playwright, as an actor, as an actress, it's all meritocracy. I don't care who you know, you might get a part.

But if you're not good, if you can't produce under pressure, you're not going to do well. Why wouldn't that mindset transfer into the love of capitalism and appreciation for hard work? Why wouldn't there be more David Mammets in that world and less socialists?

Well, that's a very good question. What I saw when I was beginning to understand conservatism was the theater was a complete, at that point, a complete meritocracy. That if you could get the asses in the seats, you could pay the rent on your apartment. And if you could get enough asses on the seats, you could buy a house. And that the audience at that time didn't care what your politics were.

The problem was as... things became very corporatized in uh and Uh things became corporatized in the media, they became homogenized and actors started just like anyone else. Look at Karim Jean-Pierre and uh what's his name, Tapper, all of a sudden came out and they wanted to make more money off of the o off of the horrors which they'd inflicted on us. But personally, by saying, gosh, we didn't know, I get it.

So that actors who were concerned and writers who were concerned about their place. Uh-huh. Wanted to hedge their bets by saying, you know, I'm a liberal too. And it started with in the 60s, doing plays about. diseases, right?

Uh cancer is bad, fighting cancer is good, blah, blah, blah, blindness is bad, fighting blindness is good.

Okay, then it became plays about social consciousness. Black people are people too, gay people are people too, but the problem with that is everybody knows that.

So, that we don't want to come to a theater or a movie to get lectured to, right? Our wives will do that. In order to keep their place. The idea of a meritocracy crumbled in the media because so that so that awards and safety or the illusion of same was awarded to those who could scream loudest, I'm good and I'll tell you who's bad so you can hate them and get it kicked out of bed.

Okay. Got it.

So the disenlightenment, politics, horror, and entertainment. When did we start moving? When did we stop being trying on a path to enlightenment? How did it become disenlightenment?

Well, there's two reasons that everything in life, life is organic. Organic means it's born, it lives, it decays, and it's die, and it dies. And there are two reasons why any organism decays and dies. One is it's unsuccessful. And the other is that it is successful.

So, just as with the tree, if you don't prune the tree, the tree wants to put out more branches, wants to put out more branches to get more light. But if you don't prune the branches once in a while, the branch structure overwhelms the root structure. and the tree gets blown down so the as our country became more and more and more successful, We got people in power Who wanted to double down on building their power? Why not? Right?

They're human beings. The problem is that, for example, in California, if the taxes, the taxes go up, which means that the revenue goes down. As the revenue goes down, the people in the Democratic state know only one way to increase revenue, which is to increase taxes.

Okay?

So that the people that you're taxing away don't add to To what you're doing, they don't add to the revenue stream, so you keep increasing taxes, and the state dies.

So, that's what we've seen in Cal that's what we've seen in California, and in fact, in all in the blue states, that they don't have the capacity to cut, to prune. They don't have the capacity to say, I get it. Yep. But we're going to restrain ourselves. But, David, don't you feel optimistic that as you see the decay in the cities like New York and Chicago and Los Angeles and the lack of being able to rebuild in Pacific Palisades, that people are beginning to realize the model doesn't work.

All we get is more homelessness, higher taxes. People are voting with their feet. Do you feel as though America is self-correcting again?

Well, America is self-correcting it, as we saw in the election. Nationally, it's self-correcting again, and the red states are thriving. The question is: what's going to happen to the other states? And the answer is, I. I don't know.

I mean, my hope for this wonderful state of California, this is the most beautiful spot in the world, is that. The Hispanic population Which super hardworking population and a growing population and a religious population is going to take the Spanish land grants back. and vote us into conservatism again. Yeah, it would be great. I saw, like, I've been watching you doing your press tour.

I saw you out with Bill Maher the other day. I just want to let the audience hear a little of your exchange. Let's watch. I don't have to imagine what he did in 2020, which was never concede the election. I'm not even.

Dude, he didn't have to concede the election. He lost. If somebody is beaten in a prize fight and the other guy gets the belts, the person who's beaten does not have to concede. It's not necessary. He's lost.

Well, it is necessary. The analogy falls down because if a prize fighter loses, it doesn't inspire people to riot. How did he inspire people to riot? By not conceding the election. Oh, come on.

Yeah, cute, huh? Yeah. I liked it. And he went back. One thing, he can have real conversations.

You could disagree with him on his own show. It's great. And you went on to say, yeah, he did not inspire people to riot. And you also went on to say, too, is that Trump called you after your interview with Bill Maher and he said, hey, go the rest of the way and defend me on 2020, right? That's exactly right.

But Steve Bill, who's uh uh uh uh I like him very much. We get along very, very well, but he's in a very difficult position because his rice bowl is playing to To a liberal audience, I get it. And on the other hand, he's capable of thinking clearly from time to time.

So it's, but what he did to me is a perfect example of magical thinking because he said that people, quote, rioted at January 6th because Trump did not say these two words. I can concede. Had Trump said those words, that would have had the power to alter history.

So this is magical thinking exactly on the level of, say, that Jews poison wells. I hear you. And by the way, now, by the way, just to keep people up to date, the President did announce about an hour ago he had a 90-minute conversation with President Xi, at which time they agreed to visit each other's countries and a positive move forward on trade. That's all they talked about. And now the President's meeting with the Chancellor of Germany, and it's always intriguing to see them in the Oval Office.

Final thought, David. As we look at this book, Disenlightened, Politics, Horror, and Entertainment, you're listening. My audience is very into these subjects and you go deep into it. What will we discover in your book in reading it?

Well, here's what I think. I think there are a bunch of essays on various topics, but what I did in the book is at the end, I tried to draw it all together and say, what are we seeing? How are open borders related to queers for Palestine? How are they related to global warming? How are they related to covering up COVID?

And what I came up with was: there's nobody home. It's not that we have an evil administration during the Biden administration. We have no administration.

So the underlings, the cat being away, the underlings played and they sat around a table saying, okay, you can have open borders if I get to pull out of Afghanistan. Susie, what do you want? Oh, I want queers for Palestine.

Okay, you can have that if Bob gets to put drag shows in the high school.

So this, what we're looking at is what was called an open city. For example, Paris in 1944, the Nazis got out of town, the Allies had not yet come in, so you had a bunch of little groups, each with its own depredation and each with its own territory, fighting each other. And in the midst of that, because there was no law, you had people settling scores saying, well, I'm not a communist, I'm not a capitalist, I'm not a resistant, but I got a big grocery bill, I'm gonna shoot the grocer.

So that's what we saw them do. That's what I'm saying in the book. That's the totalitarian. The totality of what I'm trying to say. Yeah, David, I'm just encouraged by, I feel like we're really woken up to a lot of these issues and we're fixing them in real time.

And President Trump is doing it. And I think the majority of the American people who aren't even political understand there's a logic and a common sense to it that I think is back.

So pick up David Mammet's book, Disenlighten, Politics, Horror, and Entertainment. Thanks, David, for your time. Yeah, you're very welcome. It's good talking to you, Brian. Same here.

Back in a moment. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along.

Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.box. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Fry and Kill Me Show. Hey, hey, welcome back, everybody.

Next hour, next half hour, I'm going to be joined by Dean Kane. He'll bring us up to date on what's happening with himself. He's also got a brand new project out, and he's one of these guys that was out in California. And decided because he's a conservative, he's being boxed out of a lot of things. Princeton grad football player who had Superman coming right out of college and had some other major roles.

Became a producer director because he says, I had to hire myself. He knew the stuff because his dad was a producer director, so he knew the business backwards and forwards. And he formed his own company. He's doing it. He's got a brand new project.

So that's great. And on the 4th of July, very few people are more patriotic in Hollywood than him. Even though technically he moved to Las Vegas, he gets more for his money and he gets peace and he doesn't have traffic. That's what he says.

So, next, we interview Dean Kane. Happy 4th of July, everyone. Hope you're having a sensational day and happy 249th birthday, America. Hey, I'm Trey Gaddy, host of the Trey Gaddy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side.

Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcast.com. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. We hope makes you think. Dean Kane joins us now, actor, producer.

You're watching him on the stream. Stream if you can, in Fox Nation. You also get us on YouTube, and I'm sure he's going to make the cut for the podcast. Dean is excited, not only because he sees me again, and that gets him excited. He can't help himself.

He's also the writer and director of a brand new movie called Little Angels, and it involves, he's a soccer player, and it involves soccer.

Now, did you write this knowing that I got to do this for Brian? Because knowing I'm playing since I was five? You were Hofstra? Was it where did you, where'd you play? My brother played in Hofstra.

My brother played in Long Island University. Why did I knew? I knew there was Hofstra in there. No, that was good, though, because you think Long Island. Exactly.

But you think Division I, and I was a Division II player. You look like a Division I player to me. That's right.

I'm pretty sure you.

So, yeah, I wrote this movie for you because I care about you. Just before I hear a clip. Could you set it up? Tell me a little bit about the premise. It's real simple.

It's like a college football coach, like a Nick Saban superstar coach, who says something stupid in the national championship game about female athletes, and he gets suspended for a year and has to do community service in order to save his huge salary. And the community service is coaching under 13-year-old girls' soccer. He doesn't like kids and he doesn't like soccer. And take it from there. It's kind of a mighty ducks feel to it.

Excellent. You wrote it, you produced it, you start it. Do you put yourself through the casting process and do you call other people for the role? Oh, yeah. And pretend there's other contenders here.

I tried to call you to come in, but I would have beat you, Dean. I'm telling you, I wouldn't have to act. I wouldn't know how to. All right, I can use a case myself. Yes, here's a clip from.

Little Angels. You guys speak English? We're girls. Not guys. And I speak English.

Well Good for you and the rest of you girls, you speak English? Who are you? I'm Jake, and I guess I'm your new coach. Yay! I guess we don't care.

What are you reading there? The Bible. Why? Eternal salvation. Duh.

Anybody have a soccer ball? No sock, nothing?

Alright. Here's the deal. I want you guys to all run over to that tree over there. Let's run over there and let me see what kind of athletes you are. Let's go.

Run on over. Go. Don't go at once, but go run now. Go, go, go, go, go. Chop, chop.

Let's go! You say chop chop because I'm Asian? I s I don't have my whistle. Are you on the team? That is awesome.

So the girls are not enthusiastic there. No, not at all. They don't even want to be playing soccer. They don't even care. They're the misfit group.

They're the team to be named later. You know, you get those when you, oh, you're on this team. You're brand new. We formed a new one. And so he has to take this group of misfits and turn them into a real team.

And it's all about team. You know, I love sports. I know you love sports. And it's about that teamwork. You can't do it by yourself.

And you learn humility because I don't care how fast you are. Even if you're Lionel Messi, you need your teammates. And how good you are is somebody's faster, somebody's stronger. On this particular day, you get knocked down. And so I think that teaches so much in life.

And the person who learns the most in this whole thing is myself, the coach. He learns the most from the girls because they're so tough and they become a really close-knit unit. And it's a lot of fun. And I think people will leave the theater with a smile on their face.

So we'll give you the premise for it. Is one of the things that just pops into your head?

Well, you know, you're always thinking about stories and things, and you can't help it. But I was at my goddaughter and my niece were playing. Playing soccer against each other, and they got to the championship game, and each one of them was in the goal, and it was in overtime.

So, how old are they? How old are they? They were at the time, they were 11 when this happened. They were gonna, it was penalty shootout, and they were the goalies, each one on opposite squads.

So, one of them was going to lose, and there was tears for the losing team. It was my goddaughter, but then I took him for ice cream, and then 15 minutes later, it was over. But watching, there were 5,000 girls out there and families. And I thought there's not a lot of there's, and everybody's like, But there's no movies. The last sort of soccer movie for families was Ladybugs back in Rodney Dangerfield time.

And I was like, Well, I got an idea. And so I put it together, and it was a real natural progression into what it became. And I'm super happy with the film. I mean, I made every cut. I wrote everything.

I did everything.

So if you don't like it, if people don't like it out there, blame me. And where do we see it? It's in theaters everywhere starting June 6th. You got to go to littleangelsmovie.com. And then it shows you where the theaters are.

And if they're not in your area, just hit the little demand button. Demand that it be there, Brian.

So, Dean, what is it like now doing a movie and thinking, is this for, do I make the movie and offer it? Mm-hmm.

Do I make the movie for the theater? Do I make the movie for a streamer? Do I try to get the contract first? How do you do it? It's that part of the business.

It's a real business and it's a pain in the tail.

So the biggest thing is finding the money, first of all. And I got someone to invest the money that was great. Then we had some deals and some people didn't see eye to eye and things didn't happen.

So it took a little bit of time to actually get the distribution deal. Theaters, it's a different business now. You know, Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible is out there. You know, Lilo and Stitch, these massive karate kid, these huge, gigantic, very expensive movies. And here we have a smaller film that it's a family film.

We hope it picks up steam and then and then it'll go to the streaming. Why was it better to go theater than stream? Is it just you do both. To get a little bit of a theatrical release is always a good thing. You know, get some eyeballs on it, maybe get some word of mouth because you could always catch fire.

And that's what I'm hoping is that families go and see this and go, man, that was a good time, a good family movie. You can bring your whole family and you know you're not going to get anything untoward. But it's got a couple of Bugs Bunny-like jokes where the kids will hear one part of the joke, but the parents will hear the other part. And then that's the other thing would be the World Cup's coming here. The club championships are this summer.

So I think that the days when, oh, if you don't play soccer, you're going to watch it. I go into these sports bars now, and they're not soccer players. I go, You just watch, you just watch the Premier League, or you just watching for fun. Like, I'm not a football player, but I've watched thousands of games, right? That's accepted.

But it was very rare 10 years ago to see a bunch of people that didn't play. And now I see a bunch of people that just like sports and just watching this.

Well, it's exciting as heck. I especially like World Cup because it's countries. Oh, yeah. And that's super fun. And in Little Angels, we got, so they're all girl players, right?

So he's not a good soccer coach.

So who does he bring in? Brandy Chastain.

So she comes in. Oh, you've got Brandy Chastain? She comes in and gives like a seminar and teaches the coach, you know, how to get the kids together and how to do things and how to kick penalties. How does she? Can she act?

She can act. Man, she. I just go, you know, she's a coach.

So she's a soccer coach now, and obviously she knows more about the game than I'll ever know. And I just had her put a little seminar on for the kids, and she had speeches, she had stuff. I mean, I just, how am I going to write for her how to? Coach soccer, you know, so she just did it all. And then she was a full natural when it came to acting, just a piece of cake.

She has some phony lines in the thing, but you know, she has the greatest World Cup piece. Goal, I think, in all of all time for the United States when they beat China and she scored that final goal. And then she ripped off her shirt, the cover of Sports Illustrated. She had the sports bra underneath, but that was a classic moment of empowerment. In front of 100,000.

Oh, yeah. And that was a classic moment of female empowerment. People are like, I can't believe she did that. Look what every male soccer player has ever done forever. And I thought it was amazing.

And she's in the movie and she's great. And I love it. Quick process question. Because you always hear about Larry David says he doesn't really script stuff out. He gets comedians on there and they just know where they start and where it ends.

With her. Do you just say, I need a speech that means something like this? Or do you say, here's my monologue, memorize it? What do you, what do you mean? Oh, no, for her, because listen, she's not an actor.

Yeah, she's not an actor, but also she knows more about the subject than I do. All right. So I said, and she has this foundation called the Bossy Girls, B-A-W-S-I, and she's a coach. And I said, you know, just give a little motivational speech for these guys. Keep it short, you know, get to the point, you know.

And so she came up with her words there. The only thing I had her do in a scene was, I don't want to give it away, but she has to sort of critique my teammate. And the girls are great and blah, blah, blah. But then she has to give me some realistic expectations for my team, which aren't real. It's kind of bad news bearers.

But she was so good. And I love her to death. And she was so great with the girls. It's unbelievable. You could see how good a coach she is and how knowledgeable.

All right. Can I expand this a little? Yes. Oh what? Ivy League, there's two things.

I got Los Angeles, the shape it's in right now. I know you left it, but it's still burned to the ground and almost nothing's been done, and people want to spin it differently. I know you still have friends there, but I want to tell you what's happened with the Ivy Leagues. You famously went to Princeton, and you starred in football there, played in the Bills for a brief period of time. But I think you lead them all time in tackles, correct?

I lead them all time in interceptions. I was second on the team in tackles for two years in a row, but all-time for interceptions in a single season and all-time for interceptions career. And those are NCAA records. That's all. Do you think they deserve the scrutiny they're getting from this administration?

And could they have gotten the same scrutiny back then, or have they changed dramatically since you graduated in the 80s?

So, fortunately, Princeton's not getting all the heat. It's Harvard getting all the heat. But do they deserve some heat? Because you deserve some heat in the past. And I think for their anti-Semitism got me.

Listen, there were things that I disagreed with when I was at the university, and I never felt like I was being indoctrinated, and I was encouraged to speak out. And you're encouraged to challenge ideas. That sort of has gone away, and I've seen that go away. You know, when we were in college, when I go back and think about my college days and some of the. You know, the social justice things that were going on then, it was just people were just grandstanding and full of baloney, to be honest.

They really were, they had no idea what they were talking about, 95% of the time. And I suspect that some of these kids feel the same way, other than they've been indoctrinated. I've seen what some of the professors have had to say. Even my professors at Princeton, which I disagreed with vehemently.

So I think they're being indoctrinated to some degree. And I think there is a rot throughout the Ivy League. I love the anti-Semitism is the reason it started, but the lack of broad support, 5% of the faculty at Harvard and Princeton, it's thought to be 5% are conservatives. That's wrong. And the president of Harvard at a podcast on NPR came out and said, No, wait, on NPR?

On NPR. He said, you know, there is a problem with people telling me that they're afraid to speak out.

Okay, you admit it.

So you would, this is in a friendly interview, he says they're afraid to speak out.

So that has changed. From the administration point of view, are they right to say keep international students at 15%? Are they right to say hit these marks, you'll lose your aid? Yeah. I think so.

I think so. I mean, look, 27% of Harvard students are foreign. I mean, that's more than a quarter of the students. That's a lot of money for the university. But, you know, everybody from China has to report back to the Chinese government.

It's a law if you're over here studying. I mean, you know what's going on. You've got people coming in here, spending the money, and you're putting administrators' salaries through the roof, but you're not helping American kids.

So I think 15% would be a great cap. I don't know if they or no federal money. Do whatever you want to if you're a private institution. Princeton's private, but if they got federal money, you got to adhere to federal standards.

So I want you to hear the keynote speaker at Harvard's commencement address. He's some esteemed doctor from Stanford, Dr. Abraham Vergees. Listen to what his message is. Cut 20.

A cascade of draconian government measures has already led to so much uncertainty, so much Pain and suffering. in this country and across the globe. And more has been threatened. The outrage you must feel The outrage so many feel. Also must surely lead us.

to a new appreciation. Appreciation for the rule of law and due process, which till now we took for granted.

So he is for the international student, obviously, not for the scrutiny and the pressure. The president's taking $3.5 billion worth of ate away, and it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse. But I love that even his speech, even his manner of speaking, sounds so professorial and learned, if you will. But he says you must feel outraged.

I wouldn't have felt outraged. Why does he assume to think what I feel, you know, as a student or as a person watching? I disagree with his characterization of it all. That's fine. But, you know, it sounds almost globalist.

You know what I mean? It's a globalist view as opposed to an American view, and it's an American university. I just think that they need to be more aware of that. I want to get your take on what this administration is doing a little bit more. And also, Elon Musk has got a big meeting today in the White House.

It's going to be his exit, his speech, his exit speech. He'll probably be back in some way, shape, or form at some point. What you thought about Doge? And I got to get your take on Los Angeles. Dean Kane here, his movie's coming out.

Little Angels is coming out June 6th. June 6th. It's going to be exciting. A way to scramble with the whole family to theaters. Back in a moment.

You're listening to the best of the Brian Kill Me Show. Listen to the all-new Brett Baer podcast, featuring common ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Joe.

So, Dean, I know some people out in, and Dean Kane is with us today. His movie's coming out in a week, Little Angels. But, Dean, I know some people out in Law, California. I lived out there for four years, and I knew when the Pacific Palisades burned to the ground in Altadena, which is the working class area too. I go, just wait.

When it comes to rebuilding, they're going to, I have all my stuff burned in the Malibu fires, by the way, but I had nothing. I just rented an apartment. But these people can't get permits. They can't get their green passes. There's only been 60 issued, but the.

Mayor Bass is taking a bow saying they're on the fast track. What is the reality as you know it? The exact opposite.

So, my sister still lives in Malibu. I left two years ago and moved to Las Vegas. Thank God.

So, I moved out of there and got out of there. But we've been dealing with fires forever. We know how it works. We know what goes on. The Palisades burning down the way it did, Malibu burning down the way it is.

They are. I predicted this. I say, you're going to go through this red tape. You're going to face the government that you voted for, all the regulations and the red tape, and it's going to be strangulating to these people. And I think that it might help it turn purple because it's a very blue-blue area and it's insane.

None of these people are going to be able to rebuild unless they have huge money. I was on Gutfeld last night, so I got to talk to Mr. Wonderful Kevin O'Leary, and he was just asking questions about what it was like people trying to rebuild and what they're doing. All the businesses are dying that are in there. They're getting a permit.

Mayor Bass is so inept. It's ridiculous. She's one of the worst. It's horrific. And so, just for a great, here's a perfect example.

She lost to Rick Caruso, who for mayor. He ran for mayor. She beat Rick Caruso for mayor. She got elected. He did not.

When the fires were coming out, she took off and went to Ghana for a trip. Rick Caruso hired a private firefighting security detail to protect his very expensive mall in Pacific Palisades. Everything else burned down in the Palisades. But Caruso's mall stood solid because he took the preparations, he did the work. She ain't doing anything except for causing trouble.

When it comes to the taxes that actually follow you once you leave, when it comes to the quality of life and the oil and gas, how much is it expensive to fill up your tank with all the fees on it, and you guys don't use your refineries anymore? This is an opportunity. This might be the cataclysmic opportunity for a Republican, which wasn't out. That wasn't crazy. Pete Wilson was a Republican.

Schwarzenegger was a Republican. I remember them both very well. Yeah, it's not crazy. It takes things like this, unfortunately, to wake people up because things were really good. There was a surplus when Newsom first came in.

And now we're $12 billion in the hole.

Well, they are. I left California. I'm not even going to claim it anymore because it drove me out. I'm one of those. Gajillion people who made Gavin Newsome the U-Haul salesperson of the year.

I moved out like so many others who want to. And everybody I talk to says the same thing. It's like, why, man, California sucks. It's beautiful weather, but it sucks. And when I go back there, the homeless problems, the crime problems, it's all just horrible management.

Self-inflicted. 100%.

So there's certain things that happen to happen.

Well, hurricanes hit or floods happen. Yeah. Nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with this. But the other thing that I find maddening is Hollywood.

You probably went out there, coming out of Princeton, football guy, you have an actor, you're an actor, you got to go to Los Angeles. Sure.

Now, what is the business like? What is happening in Los Angeles? The studios, the lots I hear are empty.

So Disney doesn't even want the Fox lot.

Well, the problem is that they drove everybody out and nobody wants to be there. Right now you wouldn't do a movie in California. I would, but I wouldn't like it because, first of all, I live in Nevada now and I'd rather do it in Nevada where there's no state income tax. And are there enhancements to make you want to go there, incentives? There are some, but they're, you know, I'm doing a film in Georgia later in the year.

I'm doing two investments. A lot of incentives there. Tremendous incentives in Georgia and Louisiana and other places you go, okay, this is worthwhile to come out here. Tennessee has them as well. And so when you get back 30%, 40% of your budget, it makes a big deal, especially in these smaller films.

So outside the award shows, is it still the entertainment capital? I think they're losing it. I think they're losing it completely. Everybody I know who can get out is out. And so many people I know film outside the country now.

Oh, yeah. Well, because they make it worth your while. Guys, check out Little Angels. It's a family movie, especially if you're a sports family, soccer family, football family, and think that Dean Kane is really sexy, which I think America believes that. I believe it.

I know you believe it, Dean. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do.

Take the quiz every day at thequiz.box. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz.