Brian Kilmeade Show Best of Summer 2026

How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working, in businesses that create more jobs, in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most, in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com/slash impact. Who says Halloween only lasts one day?

With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween Day Corn Now at Wayfair.com. Every style, every home.

All right, everyone. I hope you had a fantastic summer and enjoying Labor Day. Thanks so much for listening to the special edition of the Brian Killmeat Show. We got a big hour coming your way, and especially with my first guest, it's time for me to look back and pull back some of the big interviews and some of the great authors that I've had a chance to interview over the last few months through the summer. And AJ Pescudi is that person, former U.S.

Army combat vet and author of Dark Horse. You'll love the book, love his stories, and he is somebody I think you wanted to hear from, especially as we find ourselves at least in a six-month war with Iran, maybe longer, and what it means for us in the region. He saw it up close and personal. Here's my interview with the author of Dark Horse. Angelo, welcome.

Thank you so much, Brian, for having me.

So, I mean, it's a big book about your life. You would think you were like 60 years old, but you joined the military right after 9-11. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I was a senior in high school when 9-11 happened. Technically, I was 16 at the time.

Had to wait three weeks before I could talk to a recruiter. Was influenced by a high school history teacher who was also a Marine, who introduced me to my first recruiter and then joined right afterwards and then shipped off right after I graduated high school. Why the Marines? You know, they were the toughest I saw. You know, I didn't know the Marine Corps had jobs inside of it.

I thought all of the Marine Corps was just infantry. And, you know, as a young man who had, you know, ideas of self-doubt and self-efficacy issues, I thought that why not try to climb the highest mountain I could. And how'd it go? You know, it went well. I struggled at first a lot, as anybody does.

Paris Island. San Diego.

So Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, because I'm from Northern California originally, and stepped into that and was able to find my footing eventually. But what I wanted to write inside of the book itself was that failure is often the first part of the first step in success. And so I write a lot of my struggles in there to be able to be open. To young men and young women who think that failure is final for them. And so I wrote about that through there.

So, I mean, you had two active wars going on shortly after. I mean, you had Afghanistan within months, and then you had Iraq. They were ramping up for Iraq right after. What was your experience?

So, my experience was when I went into boot camp, there was kind of rumbling.

So, I went into boot camp in July of 2002 so that we knew that Afghanistan was going on, and the rumblings of Iraq began. But we're pretty isolated when we go to boot camp. And then, right after that, I graduated the School of Infantry in December of 2002, arrived to my first unit in January of 2003, and shipped off to Kuwait three weeks later. And then from Kuwait, you were part of the invasion? I was.

I was. I was 18 years old. I was a rifleman in 3rd Battalion 5th Marines, where the book gets its name is Dark Horse.

So, it's kind of a double entendre. Dark Horse is the call sign for 3rd Battalion 5th Marines at Camp Pendleton. And also, Dark Horse is for anyone who feels underestimated, who thinks a little of themselves, and kind of a challenger that people may not expect something from.

So, would you learn in the battle? We know about the Thunder Run with the 3rd Infantry. And where were you guys?

So we run Route 1. Our biggest day of fighting was in a place called Diwania, or a little north of Diwania. It was a Republican Guard training camp. And so also what we had, Fetayin, was their kind of dude. You didn't know anything about Saddam Fetayin, right?

That was bad intel, not knowing that they had guys in plain clothes looking to take you out. And that confuses everyone because, look, at that time frame, we're looking for a conventional military. And so then we're fighting a conventional military. This is the first time. That's exactly right.

First Person Gulf War. Exactly correct. And so then all of a sudden, we see these guys who are in non-standard uniforms who are fighting us. And it started the very beginnings of what would eventually become the insurgency. But the Marine Corps, we fought 2003 on our terms.

It was a maneuver warfare, fast-paced, striking the enemy to prevent their ability to make war. And that was war on our terms. What was the big adjustment from training to actual war? The big adjustment for me, I think, was the gravity of the situation.

So, training, you know, there is a level of understanding of what could be. And then, all of a sudden, once that first bullet snaps by your head, there's this realization of like, this is not a game anymore. And the stakes are pretty real. And I was pretty honest in the book itself. I made a lot of mistakes very, very young.

I tripped over my own rifle, jammed my rifle with mud, and there's chaos and missiles and all kinds of things going on. And I'm trying to figure myself out. I was only studied because of a very strong team leader at the timeframe. And really, what I saw through Dark Horse and the thread that I pull through it is that people, you know, that we were all in this together, right? No one was coming to save us.

And so people looked to be able to help carry my load physically, emotionally, and mentally until I could carry it myself. How long until you could? And how great is it to have a leader that doesn't judge, just fixes, right? That's exactly correct. I really wanted to be able to emphasize that inside of the book.

How long did I feel that? You know, I'm still waiting on that to happen, you know, to feel confident in every decision that we make. And that's really what I wanted to do: inspire. Young men and women to recognize that if you're afraid, if you're uncomfortable, you're growing and to be able to push into that. I eventually moved over into the sniper program as soon as we moved back to Camp Pendleton after OIF-1 and started to move through a sniper in doc and kind of becoming a sniper and struggled with that as well.

And so there's no secrets that I have left in. There's nothing left to hide. I've kind of written all of my failures, but really as a purpose to show people that's progress is part of it. And what did you think about the operation in particular and your role as a sniper?

Well, because you're killing terrorists. Yes. Yes. So specifically, so is it gratifying or was it also taxing?

So the answer to both is yes.

So there is a humanity side that you understand that we are out there and we are killing other human beings. The hard part for us is we also do want to do our job well. The way that we look at ourselves as snipers is yes, we have a bolt rifle. Yes, we have eyes and ears and we can see further and touch farther than a lot of the conventional infantry. We saw ourselves as protectors.

So since we could reach further than conventional infantry could, what we wanted to do was be able to be angels on their shoulders effectively.

So we went into the Battle of Fallujah. I was a sniper in training in a sniper platoon during the Battle of Fallujah. And then eventually after that battle, became a sniper, like a school-trained sniper.

So was it amazing? It's amazing for me as an outsider how underappreciated. The military was in adjusting to the battlefield. We also said, avoid urban warfare.

Well, it happened. Yes. We got to take this town.

Well, how do you do that? You cordoned off the whole thing. You gave people ID cards. You found out who they were, and then you found out who the terrorists were. That's a difficult taxing.

People's lives were lost. I mean, it's amazing what you guys learned on the fly, how you adjusted. I think it's totally underappreciated. I do appreciate that. You know, thank you for saying that.

Really, what we come back to the Marine Corps is: it is, we are the sum of all of our parts. And we come together. Every single person is integral to making sure that specifically with Fallujah, that Fallujah happened the way that it did. No person was more important than the other. And the only thing that mattered was the man and woman to your left and right.

And that really carries us through.

So writing a book, you know, how do you write a memoir without sounding like a narcissist? What we tried to do with Dark Horse was use my story as a through line to tell all of these individual Marine stories through the entirety of the book. Were you taking notes at the time?

So instead of taking notes, So my mother is a plain air pastel and oil painter. And so I grew up with kind of an artistic background.

So instead of writing normal letters like, hey, mom, my feet smell, I'm hungry, I wrote stories of what I witnessed along the way. And being a good mom, what she did, she saved all of my letters. And I've included the majority of my letters from combat in the book. And so you can actually see where I'm at in a mental snapshot at 18 years old in OIF-1, 20 years old in Fallujah, and then 21 on my third tour in Iraq. And what do you think about the operation overall?

So overall, I think what happened was we, in some aspects, what we did was the dog caught the car, right? We did everything that we needed to do to be able to have a military victory. And then I think what happens is I think we kind of lost the plot at some point. It became about nation building, and we ended up kind of being mired into a place where we were no longer fighting the war on our terms. We were fighting it on other people's terms.

Insurgency. Yes, absolutely. Having to push back. But no, it also is underappreciated because the economy collapsed right after was the surge. We had 2008, we had the market crash, but prior to that, Despite all the pushback, General Keene, David Petraeus, a lot of other MVPs came up with a plan.

George Bush greenlighted it and even lost a lot of his party in doing it to combine with the tribes and give them back their country. And it worked to the point where Barack Obama basically said, Why do we even have any troops there? I promised to end this war. Let's just pull everyone out, which ended up being a mistake because in comes ISIS afterwards. But having said that, Do you find that people just want to say, oh, the Iraq war was a mistake, and they don't understand the victories that were there and that they've had, I don't know, 15 elections since?

Correct.

So that's a fantastic question. I write about that as a young man sitting at, you know, the idea for me is democracy. What we wanted to do was provide a fledgling country who was with an autocratic dictator. We wanted to give them the opportunity at democracy. What I always say is that any form of revolution has to be, you know, born from within.

The people have to want it and they have to earn it. We provided the stability. I write a letter in there in 2005 where I'm sitting, I'm sleeping in the election or in the first election site in Iraq in 40 years. They obviously had their fingers up in the air. That's exactly correct.

And the gravity was not lost on me as a 20-year-old. What we were fighting for, what we felt we were dying for, was the opportunity for democracy. At that point, it becomes Iraq's and the Iraqi people's decision of how they want to go. That was our job was to provide them the space, and it was up to them to be able to decide where they were. And they're doing that now.

And now they have a situation where we have a presence. There in the area, and there's no longer Saddam Hussein. When people want to run down the Iraq war, go ahead. But when people say things like stupid war, I think about the people that fought it. And I just ask you, go back to that time.

Go back to 91 and the criticism on Bush 41 for not finishing the job. And Bush 43 finishes the job and they say, great. And all of a sudden, the insurgency happens. They go, but this whole thing was a mistake. And then afterward, you can't have it every way.

And then you got to say, what if we did leave Saddam Hussein in peril? What if we did relieve all the sanctions? Do you think that he would have just wilted into the woodwork? No. He would have been the menace of the Middle East.

And we would have had two. Crazy terroristic powers instead of just one, leading Iran being the other. In 1991, Saddam's military was the fourth largest military in the world, backed largely by the Soviet Union as far as the weapon systems. And so, for me, what I've been able to study through a lot of my own historical research is Desert Storm was a huge success because that was the right type of enemy for the right type of military that the United States had at that time frame. We had professionalized our military since the ending of Vietnam, and 1991 was this perfect opportunity for us to be able to overthrow within four days or 96 hours, take down the fourth largest military in the world and pacify them for a very, very long time.

And then, yes, eventually this thing starts to percolate. And instability is something that we as a nation like to fight. We want to be able to provide an opportunity again for democracy. Iraq is, when we look back on it, it's always easy to look back on with rose-colored glasses or with the clarity of 2020. When you're in the situation, you know, again, I was a young man.

I was a Lance corporal, E3, you know, in all of these things. I was really just trying to be able to save my friends' lives and get out of it alive myself. As we went into Fallujah, you know, there's an old saying that as soon as the first bullet passes by your head, politics goes out the window. And, you know, I write a lot about that in this book. A friend of mine said, this book is deeply, deeply political.

It's nonpartisan. What I do is I show the world that through my experience as a young man fighting for democracy, fighting for his country. You know, I've read a lot of your work and specifically that one of the books that I enjoyed the most was on The Secret Six, right? Nathan Hale, right? You know, my only regret is that I have but one life to give to my country.

The majority of the Americans who join the United States military believe that and they want that and they will that and they're very proud to bring that forward to defend the values that the United States carries forward. Right.

So what leadership lessons did you learn now? You said you're always a learning progress. I understand that. The humility is important, but you've learned a lot, right? Yes.

And you're still young. You're still, how old are you? I'm 41. 41.

So what did you take out of that knowing putting your life on the line? Most of the four or five years, right?

So I ended up doing 21 years inside of the service itself. But in a hot war, how long? Until 2000, my last combat diploma was 2014. I moved into special operations at that timeframe in Afghanistan and North Africa. You know, what I learned was that for me, learning has to be central to your core.

You have to be able to teach an old dog new tricks. But the core message inside of Dark Horse is make them better than you. Here's what I want people to take from the book: I want them to understand young Americans who suffer from their own ideas of self-efficacy. First, you have to be able to do hard things. If you're uncomfortable, you're growing.

Second is that failure is often the first step to success. And the third thing is that when you achieve your own individual success, whatever that looks like in any walk of life, the job, now your obligation is to turn around and make the next generation better than you. I tell people all the time: if you want to know what I learned over 21 years of service, the very last page of the book is called Letter to the Leader. Leader. And I write an open letter to anybody who wants to be a leader from any walk of life.

If you want to know how I learned that or what I did to be able to learn that lesson, those are in the pages of the book itself. Right.

And by the way, Angelo A. It couldn't be, you're all Italian, right? Oh, super Italian. Angelo A.G. Pescudi.

Yes, sir. Okay, I got it right. Marine veteran, speaker, and author of a brand new book, Dark Horse, Harnessing Hidden Potential in War and in Life. Just let me bring it to today before we go. What would you like to see happen in Iran, knowing so many of your people that you serve with were killed by EFPs?

As well as the insurgency, would they help finance and fuel? Yes, great question. You know, I sat and I had a long conversation with Sean Ryan about this. We talked for eight and a half hours, and he asked a lot of these things. Eight and a half hours.

Yes, sir. Is that all online on a podcast? It is. It is. And so you kind of get to understand.

Here's what I say as a service member is that the social contract, when we sign up to join the United States military, we write a blank check to the United States, payable with our lives. What I want to understand, what I want people, politicians, regular everyday Americans to understand, that bond that we share with one another has to be protected. And that sacred bond, it has to be wielded carefully. Whenever we go anywhere in the world to be able to defend the values or be able to stabilize countries for the sake of democracy, we have to have, I would say, clear objectives, a sound mind, and a clear heart before we do that.

So do you not think this is clear enough? In my personal now, I understand I don't have a clearance anymore.

So there's two things. I understand I am no longer the man in the arena, and I'm never going to talk poorly on the men and women who are in the arena. I have turned in my back. But you are more qualified than 97% of the people in the country to comment. That's correct.

That's correct. I do appreciate that. Yes, I think that the objective needs to be clearly laid out. You know, as far as a battle plan, we have to have a North Star, an idea of what we want to accomplish through there. And I think as a regular everyday American now, I don't see those.

Now, I'm never going to argue that Iran is not an issue. I'm never going to argue that they have not fought us through proxies for the last, you know, three to four decades at this point. Never going to argue that. But I think that there are some professional military agencies who have a pretty good idea of what to do. And I think that what I've written in the book is sometimes that our policymakers need to let our military men and women make some of the decisions on the ground and not get in the way.

Right.

So let them finish the job. Yes, sir. Right.

Especially because if you look at the Middle East. You actually have a shot at so many of these countries care about their economy more than their religion. You know, I'm saying I'm more than being a zealot or a fanatic. I look at the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, look at Oman. They're looking to grow their society for the first time maybe in my lifetime.

And it seems like where you turn, Iran just sits in the way. You know, it does, and it is a cultural center for it. And maybe not yes to finish the job. I think that having a very clear outline of what needs to happen and allowing our military makers to work towards that goals. Pick up Dark Horse, Harnessing Hidden Potential in War and in Life.

Angelo, great meeting you.

Sorry, we don't have eight and a half hours, but this has been great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. And thanks for serving. The pleasure was mine.

It was my honor to serve. Back in a moment. Where big stories meet bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Killmeat Show. How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working. Because when businesses can grow, that growth means more jobs for more people and more goods that can go to more restaurants and main streets and schools in the communities we love. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com/slash impact.

Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long.

Shop Halloween Decor Now at Wayfair.com. Every style, every home. Welcome back. Coming up shortly as his special edition of the Brian Killmeat Show moves on on this Labor Day is going to be with Joby Warwick, who covers national security, terrorism, rogue states, and everything else. Got a brand new book out as he talks about this terrorist, Carlos the Jackal.

He went and interviewed him in prison, what it took to find him, what actually made him. A fascinating look, and I thought he'd be an important interview for you guys to hear. Also, got big dates coming up. October 13th, my new book. United the States comes out.

Six crucial moments that forge The American Miracle. And for those people out there patriotic and wants to get a hold of what made this country what it is today and the cre the big decisions and the fantastic leaders that made the country what it looks like today in every way shape or form I think you're gonna love the book I'm gonna be talking about it on stage I'm gonna have special events but also on stage streamed on Fox Nation my Unite in the State show Rambank New Jersey on the 16th Count Basie Theater the next night I'll be in Westbury New York at the Westbury Music Fair and then on the 25th I'll be in Vero Beach. I'll be signing books there at the Vero Beach Center. Be back on stage on November 7th in Clearwater, Florida. You're going to love it at the Ruth Eckard Hall.

Limited seats still available. Jacksonville, Florida, always one of my favorite stops. November 8th at the Florida Theater. And then on November 21st, the last stage show, which brings almost all my books to life and certainly the six chapters. I'll be Chesterfield, Missouri, Think St.

Louis. We'll be back at the factory, one of the nicest venues in the country. Brian Kilmeicho. Joby Wark next. How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working, in businesses that create more jobs, in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most, in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com/slash impact. Who says Halloween only lasts one day?

With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween Decor Now at Wayfair.com. Hey, welcome back.

Joby Warwick is with us now. He's the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of New York Times bestseller on Black Flags, The Definitive Account of the Rise of ISIS. His new book, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super Terrorist, is now out. Joby, welcome. Thank you.

Good to be here. Before we talk about ISIS of today, talk about really where this started. First off, who is the Jackal?

Well, Carlos the Jackal, folks who've lived as long as I have may remember this name from the 70s. He was at one time the most well-known, sort of the most. Charismatic, the most colorful bad guy in the world. He was a terrorist. His most famous crime was hijacking an entire OPEC conference, the oil cartel.

He walked into the headquarters in Vienna in 1975 with some commandos and took the entire thing hostage and was able to get the Viennese to give him an airplane and flew them all off into the desert of North Africa. Kind of crazy, audacious things that might seem more common now, but in those days it was pretty exciting. And his mission is? His mission at the time, he considered himself kind of a Marxist revolutionary. He was originally Venezuelan.

His father was a devout communist. He gets his name. His real name is Ilyich, named after the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Julianov. And so that was his upbringing. Tried to fashion himself and project himself as kind of a Marxist revolutionary.

It turns out he was really for whoever would pay him and, you know, allow him to, you know, to do bad things around the world.

So he became a Palestinian later? He became a Palestinian because he landed in the Middle East. He wanted to get military training.

So he got kicked out of college in Moscow. His dad sent him to Moscow to go to school. He gets kicked out of there. He's got a girlfriend who's pregnant. His life is falling apart.

And so he decides on a whim to move himself to Lebanon to try to join up with the Palestinians. He thinks they're great. They're freedom fighters. He wants to be part of that movement.

So he shows up there in 1970 just as civil war is about to break out and ends up becoming a guerrilla. He gets guerrilla training, he learns how to shoot a gun, build bombs, and they love him. He's international. He speaks five languages. He can live anywhere because he looks Western.

So he becomes the perfect sleeper agent for the Palestinians. And his ego began to get out of control. He saw himself as a rock star before anybody else did.

So his whole point, the reason he was doing this was to try to create some glory for himself. And for a long time, the Palestinians were that ticket. Eventually, the Palestinians got tired of him and thought he's too much of a showboat. It's too much about Carlos and not about our movement.

So they kicked him out, and then he just went on his own. And how is he, in one way, at all, a precursor to some of the terrorism we see in the Middle East today?

Well, a couple of things. I think what's most significant today is he came to represent state-sponsored terrorism as we understand it. Because after the Palestinians kicked him out, he worked for Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator. He worked for the Syrians. He worked for Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Anybody who would pay him money because they wanted to attack an enemy, wanted to attack Israel, wanted to attack the West, but didn't want their fingerprints on it, they would hire Carlos to do the deed for them. And we see that today. In fact, you see, just in the last five, six years, both Russia and the Iranians are really attracted to this idea of hiring proxies, and not the usual ones, not FBE agents or Hezbollah, but criminals in some cases who can be hired on social media platforms and given a few hundred dollars to blow up a synagogue or to assassinate a dissident. And what's he best known for?

So Carlos himself, basically, he's almost like the Paris Hilton of the terrorist world, someone who's kind of famous for being famous. He did some horrific things. He blew up trains in Paris in the 1980s. He went to war against the French government after they arrested his girlfriend and had her in prison. His caper with OPEC in 1975 made him an international celebrity.

And then he managed to stay at large for 20 years. All governments, the French, the Americans, the Israelis, all looking for him. And he managed to stay out of everybody's grasp. Plastic surgery? No plastic.

Well, I want to say no plastic. Plastic surgery. There was always kind of this rumor or this belief that he had kind of changed his appearance. But he did have plastic surgery, but it was very personal. He wanted to, it was breast reduction surgery because all his life he was a little bit chubby.

He was sensitive about his kind of big fleshy man boobs. And so, and then in the early 1980s, he went to found a plastic surgeon and had his breast size reduced.

So now you had a chance to interview him. I did. First off, how did they capture him? Capture was pretty crazy. It was an operation conducted jointly by the French and the American CIA.

But it was the CIA that found him. He had gone into sort of self-imposed exile. He'd been kicked out of this country and that ended up in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. And while he was there, he was kind of living large, as Carlos always did, staying in nice hotels, eating well, drinking well, womanizing, chasing women around the capital. And the CIA station in Khartoum discovered that he was there.

And so they sent their best analysts and their best trackers to kind of watch him day and night to see what he was up to, see who he was meeting with, and eventually hatched a plan to catch him. And they would. And they would. And the crazy, this is a story that I think readers will really enjoy if they see the book. Is how they caught him was they realized, understood that he was going to have surgery.

He had a new wife, this beautiful young Jordanian that he married. They were trying to have a baby. They weren't able to conceive. It turned out he had an issue, a kind of a varicose vein, veins of the testicles, and decided to have surgery while he was in Khartoum. The CIA was aware of the plan and set it up so that once he went under the knife, they had their people in place to catch them and Picked him up, put him on a plane, flew him off to France for trial, and that was the end of Carlos' career.

There you go. And you got to him in prison. I got to him in prison.

So this, you know, rolled the clock forward 30 years.

So he's been in jail for a long time. But it's a rare thing for people to get to sit down with this man. The French don't let him do many interviews. They don't want him to be a celebrity. They don't want him to be a celebrity.

He's kind of milked that, you know, for as long as he possibly could. He killed a lot of French people, including police officers, so they don't want to give him any microphone. I had an opportunity to see him under tight restrictions, but for me, it was a chance to see what he was like, to see what a 75-year-old Carlos was up to. And what's your takeaway? He is a classic criminal narcissist, and people, I think, know the type.

He. Has no empathy, no feeling for other people. All the crimes that he committed, all the people who were innocents that were killed in his terrorist attacks, he doesn't regard as serious. He doesn't see, you know, feel any remorse about that. In fact, he brags about the number of people that he killed, and he talks with remorse about people he should have killed.

I shouldn't have let this guy get away. I should have killed a few more people. Wow.

So the book is the jackal is out now, Joby. Today is the launch day. Wow, congratulations. Just talk about terror in the region. Jared Kushner is sitting down with Hamas, sat down with Hamas yesterday.

You know, he's got that 15-point plan, and they said they've agreed to give up power. They have the indications they are. And number two, they have to disarm. And then an international force has to come in. The Israelis are not optimistic.

Here's Kushner, Cut 33. They said all the right things, but obviously it's very, very hard to trust a terrorist organization that committed these terrible atrocities. But we had a very cordial meeting and they said all the right things. And so we're going to give them a chance to perform, but it's going to have to be based on actions and steps. And I hope it will be true.

The Israelis evidently told Kushner, I'll give you room, but we're not optimistic that they're ever going to do that. They've got to get rid of their tunnels and blow up those tunnels and expose them. What do you think? The skepticism is well deserved. Historically, Hamas has been they fall into a category that you'd call rejectionist.

Are extremists, they're a violent extremist group, but they also don't want to compromise if it involves. recognizing Israeli Speaker. Is there a chance the beating they took over the last two and a half years might change that mindset? You can see a path where it's where eventually the leadership is so decimated and there's such desperation that they are forced to make a compromise. But Would I trust that they're going to hold to their commitments?

Probably not. As long as they are committed Hamas. Terrorists and just true believers, they're going to look for ways to strike back at us. You wrote a book about ISIS, the Rise of ISIS, which is really a sect of Al-Qaeda, same mindset. How damaged is ISIS right now?

Well, ISIS is truly on its back foot, and it's been a long time coming. There was They were able, after the fall of the caliphate and sort of the destruction of the last strongholds in Syria, they had a way of hanging on because. Of their ability to inspire through the internet. And this was a new phenomenon with ISIS. You didn't have to join the group, you just had to commit an act of violence and claim it in the name of ISIS.

So that was their special niche. But their ability to kind of organize anything, it's quite limited. They have cells in Africa that are beginning to gain some strength and are a worry, but in the Middle East, they're just really not what they used to be. What about Al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda is in the same Bucket, I think, but even more diminished.

I think they wiped out two generations of leadership. Exactly. And that was, you must have to say, have to acknowledge, this was the result of an extremely effective and aggressive counterterrorism campaign that a lot of Americans didn't see because it didn't involve bombing cities. It was special ops, it was drone warfare, and it was going after a target and then going after another target the next night and not giving them any space to recover. Did they underestimate the retaliation for 9-11?

I think they did. I think, and Bin Laden's mind. This was going to spark this war between civilizations, that America was probably going to come after the Muslim world, but there was going to be a resilience and a resistance, and eventually America would be defeated. I don't think any of them expected that the campaign against terrorism would be as long and as aggressive as it was, and it worked. Yeah, 25 years later, what are you thinking?

I'm thinking that I see a shift happening. And again, this gets to some of the themes in the book where it's going to be less about religious extremists. We might still see some of that. There might still be some inspired, you know, ISIS-inspired individuals who do things. But I think the terrorism arena is moving back towards state-sponsored terror.

And this is a repeat of what happened in the 60s and 70s, the Carlos generation, where they weren't interested in a religious cause. They were looking to inflict harm against governments they didn't like. And that's what these early terrorist groups are all about. Right.

I mean, almost the good old days is the Cold War, because you knew who our enemy was was somewhat rational, if not, you know, obviously powerful in the Soviet Union. But now I think the president's a little exasperated by the lack of logic with the dealing with that extremist mindset, which you write about. Yeah, and that is true. It's hard for us to get our heads around that level of extremism. And I write about people in this latest book, this Tikarlos book, extremists who were, when asked about a two-state solution, Israelis and Palestinians living side by side, would refuse to accept it if there was a square inch of Israeli territory, even one town or one village, that wouldn't be acceptable.

It was everything or nothing. You know, we in the West to think about a process, a negotiation, some accommodation to other points of view. That doesn't exist in that mindset.

So when you go ahead and do the jackal, It's it's is do you feel like you're You're interviewing more of a criminal, like a almost like a mobster. More than a terrorist, bin Laden type terrorist, Azawahiri, Azar Kawi. In the case of Carlos himself, he's more of a mobster mentality. But the movement that he represents. Remorseless, too, right?

Yeah, remorseless and really just no empathy, no ability to have a moral view. It was just all about himself. But the people that he was around, the people that funded him and sponsored him. You know, they were very much, you know, true terrorists in the modern sense. And they were the first groups that decided that it was okay not just to attack the Israelis because they're our enemy, but to declare war on the world at large, to attack any airport, any airplane, any target of opportunity, just to kind of make our point and to get people to think about it.

Anti-Semitic, anti-Jew, anti-Israeli. Yeah, all that wrapped together. In fact, one of the interesting things that comes out in the book about Carlos is there were. Serious anti-Semites and even former Nazis who are bankrolling some of those Palestinian efforts. There was one, you know, a Nazi banker from Switzerland who becomes sort of the chief financier and even a legal defender of some of the hijackers.

And that's when you studied ISIS, you saw, was it really based on what they thought the Koran read? You have to kill infidels? Was that the fundamental core of it? It was because they were they felt empowered to interpret is is Islam and the Quran in the ways that suited them.

So, the godfather of ISIS is his guy named Zarqawi. He was a Jordanian who moved to Iraq to meet the Americans after the created havoc. Exactly. And he created havoc. He was never even finished school.

So he was just basically a gangster from the street who became a religious zealot. But his whole thing is: I don't need to understand the Quran that well. I just need to get some imam to say that this interpretation is okay. And this interpretation says you can kill innocents, you can kill women, you can kill other Muslims. Whatever we decide is okay, we'll do it.

So, Joe B. Work, our guest, just a couple more minutes here. He wrote Black Flags about the rise of ISIS. And today, The Jackals Out: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super Terrorist.

So When you talk about the extremist mindset, Is Saudi Arabia? A success story in that they went in and they revamped, if I'm to believe it, I haven't been there, the Wahhabism and that curriculum that fomented and gave rise to so many terrorist mindset to learn to grow up and hate the West.

Now, when I see prior to the Iran war, I think about Saudi Arabia, they were about economic expansion and opportunity. Is that showing a focus on revamping the curriculum to make sure the next generation isn't obsessed? With this whole religious fanaticism? I think they're making this realization. Yeah, but I think they were really late to make this realization.

And I think leaders like NBS would acknowledge that. What's been concerning to me as I've investigated terrorist groups around the world was this sort of missionarying that the Saudis were engaged in, sending, you know, Wahhabi. Apostles around the world to kind of convert, to build madrasas in places like Pakistan and the tribal areas in particular, where a whole generation of people are brought up on this really hateful, intolerant religion that is. You know, inconsistent with what a lot of Muslims believe, but it certainly became a fuel for some of the terrorists that we saw bubble up in that part of the world.

Well, we're going to see. If it does bubble up, I know you'll write about it. Joby Warren, congratulations. Everybody, go out there and pick up the jackal. Appreciate it, Joby.

Thank you very much, Brian. Back in a moment. You're listening to the best of Brian Killmead. How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working. Because when businesses can grow, that growth means more jobs for more people and more goods that can go to more restaurants and main streets and schools in the communities we love. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com/slash impact.

Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween Decor Now at Wayfair.com.

Wayfair.com every style, every home. Special edition of the Brian Kilmeat Show as we get through this Labor Day, and I bring back some of the bigger interviews. Hope you enjoyed this hour of it because it's certainly. A time to look back and think about the summer that has now gone by. Many of you are back to school.

If you're in Florida or elsewhere around the country, you went back in August. But for those in the Northeast, you went back this week. And it's going to be a really big week because coming up on the 11th on Friday is 25 years since the 9-11 attacks. We've got a mayor who says, Yeah, 9-11 was bad, but so were the wars that we followed. You know, when we went after bin Laden, this guy is expressing sorrow for the wars and makes it on equal footing with the 9-11 attacks, which is flat out, just shows you New York City, which you're listening here on WABC.

You really elected somebody that's not worthy of that position. I actually put it out on Twitter that he's in the wrong country. But 25 years ago, Tony Snow was doing this radio show, and I was on the air on 9-11 on Fox and Friends when the first plane hit. We were able to describe it, got off the air, kept watching. You know what happened right after 9:03, the second plane hit.

Then I was able to get a crew and go downtown and see everything. Up close and see the horror up close and personal, but it allowed me to tell the story in a way that I wouldn't be able to if I didn't see it. And then the upcoming days, going down, watching the clean out of Ground Zero, talking to so many people, going to the armory where people are trying to find their loved ones by dropping off DNA toothbrushes and combs in order to see if they found their loved ones that happen to be buried underneath, they'd be able to identify them. But sadly, Nobody really made it to the hospital. Either you got out or you got in, or you were in, and that's where you died.

So 25 years later, that's what's going to be coming up at the end of this week. And hope you join us all week long. Keep it here on the Brian Kilmeat Show. How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working, in businesses that create more jobs, in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most, in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com/slash impact. Who says Halloween only lasts one day?

With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween Decor Now at Wayfair.com. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.

Wayfair. Every style, every home. All right, from 48th New 6 in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world, special edition of the Brian Kilmey Show on this Labor Day. It's my chance to bring back some of the interviews you've told me in the past you've liked.

So let's go back and revisit it. Jared Horvath is going to be with us. He talks about education, what works, what doesn't, what the digital revolution has done for those in the classroom. Jared Horvath is a great person to talk to. But coming up now is Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America.

Man, what a vital role they played in bringing the World Cup here to America. And once it was here, to make it the big success it ended up being. But we talked to him in June. Here's my interview with Brian Moynihan. With me in studio is one of the most important people to our economy, the CEO of Bank of America, great guy, Brian Moynihan.

Brian, thanks so much for coming by. We always appreciate having you on. It's great to be here, Brian. Good to see you again. Congratulations on your book being made a movie.

That's terrific. Yeah, so George Washington's Secret Six, John Middleton, and Christian Wallace will be writing the screenplay.

So hopefully it'll be on the big screen shortly. And I know you're a history major and you care about this country on year 250, but you also care about soccer. And let's talk about it first. You know, I'm a soccer guy since I was five years old when the Cosmos were in my town and started playing back then.

So to see Bank of America get behind the World Cup when nobody was getting behind soccer in the 70s and to see what you guys have done. Could you tell everybody the investment you've made? Sure.

So we've made two or three investments.

So with FIFA, we did the Club World Cup last year and the World Cup this year. And there's a lot of attributes that I'll come back to. We also picked up sponsorship of the USA team.

So the whole USA soccer. program, which is a sixty, seventy teams of all the different age groups, men's and women's team, obviously national teams, but then the new training center down in Atlanta, we help with that. But our view is what we're really trying to do through the FIFA work and the work we do with David Beckham and others is he's become an ambassador for all sports for us, but obviously soccer. We're trying to push You know, soccer out deeper in America.

Now, all our kids play.

So, that's the question: the excellence, the accessibility of fields and things and places they aren't. We've done a few fields, we'll keep doing them in partnership with Visa. The ability to give tickets to these veterans that we just announced today: two million, two and a quarter million dollars worth of tickets, two million from us, a quarter million dollars.

So, that's important. That's ticks.

So, one thing about it: it's hard to get tickets, it's very expensive with this World Cup, and there's a lot of reasons for it. But for veterans, you have Vets Tix, and you put $2 million aside to give veterans and first responders access to these games. Exactly. And that was done today as part of the whole world around FIFA. And we also announced we're doing a fan fest on the mall in Washington, D.C.

So this is part of FIFA working with the Trump administration ourselves driving the reward for veterans and first responders. It's very important. And those tickets will be free admission. VetTIX is a veterans-run organization, and it'll go up on our website. Earlier we said go there now.

I'm not sure exactly when they'll be available, but soon, and it'll take place, and the veterans will go there. It already has concert and other tickets that people donate, and this is a big donation for them, and we're happy to do it. And it's part of our commitment to veterans. We just recommitted to hire 10,000 more veterans over the next five years beginning this year. We completed an earlier 10,000 hire.

We have an MSAG group that has I think forty thousand or twenty thousand members in forty chapters around the world. It's just very important. I just did a session with General Petraeus with the KKR Veterans Group and our Veterans Group to talk about the interplay between what they do and what we do. It's very important, but that ticks us And the tickets for this thing are a reward for their service and a thank you for their service.

Well, that's pretty amazing. And it's really important, too. You also do something with the U.S.

Soccer Foundation, right? In order to build fields, make him successful. For the David Beckhams, you know, in his book, he talks about he was such a great player. He gets recruited, goes to Man Yu, and he becomes a Man U player and one of the finest players they've ever had. We know about his career.

He ends up here at 32 years old going to the MLS and becoming internationally famous because he's ridiculously good looking and nice guy.

However, the problem is not for the David Beckhams. It's for the kids that just want to play and be good and just whatever that is. And it turns out it's getting really expensive.

So what are you guys doing about it?

Well, one thing we're offering clinics, we're putting offering, we just did a program in Los Angeles about back in the school system. Remember, a lot of this got done outside the school system. That's where it sort of had to pay for itself. The schools ought to offer deep programs. They do as kids get older, but even in the middle schools and stuff.

And so we're doing schools, soccer and schools. We're doing clinics all over. It's part of our Sports With Us program, which includes Golf With Us that we did that we have will get up to a quarter million kids that can play courses for five dollars. We have the running and so the the My Marathon campaign, which raises millions and millions of dollars in the Boston and Chicago marathons. And then we have soccer, which we're frankly, we're just starting on, and this was the big launch.

And so what it is is about access to places to play in places that didn't have the great fields. That's the fields, school clinics. And ultimately, with the USA, we have to figure out how to get both excellence, broad participation and opportunity for people who'd otherwise not get opportunity.

So we're working on that stuff too. And those will be things that will carry on. This wonderful hundred Super Bowl occurrence will occur over the next forty five days, sixty days, and then America will have to continue on, and our job is to help drive soccer. It's played by a lot, drive the excellence in soccer. And that's what David's interesting.

He sees. His advantage, his possibility was made even more possible by the academy system. And whether we can do all that in America or not, the idea is you got to get the principles more kids, more access, more opportunities. And you also, not to get too deep into it, because you're a rugby guy. But you were saying that coaching's the issue.

And that's what David Beckham noticed. He says, you know, the athletes are the same. We have more kids playing than England. But why is it? Because you guys have, England always had, the world has better coaches.

Yeah. And I think that's getting that coaching deeper and deeper. And frankly, that's a generational thing.

So the people who are having kids now who are 20 years younger than I am. They could have played the game. It wasn't available to me to play where I grew up, and I played football and then played rugby.

So I think that'll change generation a bit. Important that excellence, that academy system where they give broad kids opportunities. Because in David's case, he was sort of picked out of middle school and. Because he was good, and then they developed into being unbelievably good. But it was someone who saw him not because he was in some program, it's just he's played a school and they said, Hey, who's your best players?

And they did it. And then, by the way, the history of Man Yew is kinda interesting because they picked up a lot of them in that era, and that was that new class that ended up winning a bunch of different championships. All of her pretty young. At 17, he starts for Man Yu, a billion fans. We can't fathom that in the United States.

I think the bigger iss bigger interesting thing is at 14, he started playing for him while he finished his school. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing that you brought it up, and they actually need something now because they've been slumping for a while.

So let's talk about something else. I was struck. And we talked about this on TV. That Eric Schmidt is giving a commencement address and other executives giving a commencement address. And every time they brought up AI, college students, graduates were booing it.

There's a fear of AI wiping out jobs in America. Is it a justified fear? I think it every fear is justified because of what people feel. There's no it's an emotion. And so when I ask our young teammates, are you worried about losing a job?

They raise their hands too. Our job as leaders of business is to figure out how to get this amazing productivity and capability Deployed, but at the same time. Think about the human. Being attached to it and training them and reskilling them.

So, if you think about a Bank of America. Yeah, applying technology reduced work is not a new thing. AI will give us more place to do it. Our job is to manage that outcome right.

So, just through natural attrition, which we have a very low attrition rate, 7% to 8% on 200,000 people, that's 14,000 people we have to hire to stay neutral. What we're saying to people is be very careful who you hire, not because you may not need them today, is if we think about over time, and with that, we can manage the headcount.

Now, by the way, we started in 2010, we had 285,000 people. We have 210,000 today. No major layoffs. People leave us. People retire.

People get jobs with other people, that's fine too. We build great careers, we want them all to stay. But at the end of the day, we've got to manage it. Our obligation as managers and CEOs is to balance. shareholders, customers, communities.

And teammates. And you can't forget that you lose trust if you don't think that the teammates are in it for them. And you do want to make an announcement for our audience, too, that you're going to be hiring 4,000, 2,000 jobs and 2,000 interns. 2,000 more jobs and 2,000 interns.

So part of that reaction to college campuses is: kids feel they can't get jobs. We hired just as many summer interns around 2,000, just as many full-time teammates coming in 2,000 this year as we've hired all the other years. We need that young talent. And as we talked earlier, we We Have a program where we just announced 8,000, doubling up our number to 8,000 over five years from community colleges. And what we go to community colleges say, this curriculum is important to us, do it.

And so they can finish their, we get $7,000 a year tuition reburance. If they want to get their bachelor's degree, they can get it on us once they're with us. But we try to do that. And then with the veterans, and then, by the way, we hire a lot of kids from high school. We do programs where kids are learning computer coding and now we'll learn AI skills their sophomore year, their junior year interns with us, and then we hire them at the end in Charlotte.

Fellow named Rick Elias does Road to Hire Great Program. You know, all these programs are built to get us talent earlier and give us, but at the end of the day, it's all about opportunity.

So we don't want college kids at Bank of America to be afraid they're not going to have a great career. They will have a great career, they're the top talent. But at the end of the day, we hire a lot of them, we put them to work, and our job is to manage to make it all happen. And we'll see where this goes. I think people are overwrought about it because I think at the end of the day, if you look at 1969, you're a history buff.

1969, 80 million people work in America. 2019, 50 years later, 160 million. And think about all the technology you and I witnessed our lives from 1969 to now. Every aspect that we use. I never remember technology and advancement more resentment for it.

I didn't feel that with the internet. I don't know what it was like when you went from horses to cars, but it seems like we always just move forward, and now there seems to be reluctance. And people, I worry about politicians getting involved and making this about votes. When we come back, I want to find out what Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, thinks about our economy today and where you think it's heading. After all, we're in right now technically a low-level war with Iran.

We know that's affecting the gas prices. What about what else? And long-term, is this the right move? Don't move. This is the best of Brian Kilmead.

Nearly home. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for Realtor.com, the pro's number one most trusted app. If you're hearing me, I'm going to assume you're awake. And if you aren't, Because while you're snoozing, someone else might be finding your dream home.

That's where realtor.com comes in. With over 500,000 new real listings straight from the pros every month, that's a lot of chances to find the place you've been dreaming of. Whether you're searching for a two-story mid-century with a pool or a little extra space with a spa-inspired bathroom, Realtor.com can help you find it today.

So quit hitting that snooze button. Realtor.com isn't sleeping on finding your dream home, and neither should you. Download the Realtor.com app today, cause you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com. Pro's number one most trusted app based on August 2024 proprietary survey.

Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings, February 2024 through January 2025.

Well, the price of gasoline is something that's coming down, and it's going to come down faster as we get more oil out of the Gulf, which we're doing every day. But gasoline isn't the only story out prices. We just got some really good news from the Dallas Fed that if you throw out the high and the low prices, the inflation rate right now is 2.3 percent. And real wages are up on average about $3,000 since President Trump took office. And so people's incomes are growing faster than their prices, even if you account for what's going on with gas.

So that's Kevin Hazard, economic advisor to President Trump. That's how he feels the economy is doing. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, is still with us. Brian, Woody, how do you think the economy is doing?

So we have a great research team, one of the best in the world. They believe the U.S. will grow about 2.1 this year, the world will grow about 3. Is it because of the war? They had it as high as 2.8 and they brought it back down.

So if you think about the last 12 months, last year was Liberation Day. It's hard to believe it was only that long ago. They went from like mid-two is 2.5 down to 1.5, then back up to 2.8, and now down to 2.1.

So what does that really mean, the ebbs and flows of the sort of geopolitical scene. And so they brought it down.

So taking account the war, taking account gas prices, taking account of resolution of the war probably over the next sixty days, not over the next year and a half, they would say that that's where we are. And frankly, 2% growth is pretty strong because with 3% plus inflation, that's a 5% nominal growth. That's a lot of activity.

So, they think the Fed doesn't cut this year. They think we grow at 2%. The Fed doesn't cut. And then, as you look, In the next year, inflation will move down at the end of next year, and it will start maybe lower rates, two cuts second half of next year. Those came from the first second half of this year to next year.

The key is when you look at what consumers really do, and this is one of the things that I get asked about a lot, is all these surveys are out there saying consumers. You have enthusiasm, constitution, confidence, all-time lows. In our customer base for the month of May 2026 versus May 2025, the consumers moved 5% more money into the economy.

Now, if you look, they spent more on gas.

Some spent less per time they went to the gas station, and people are managing that. You see a little move down to some of the secondhand stores, a little higher growth rate there. You see in the grocery category, you see some movement between the higher-end grocery stores and the bigger grocery stores that offer better. Pricing. And all that moves around.

And by the way, that's not different for anybody. You see, even the higher-income cohorts move a little bit. But the reality is they're still moving 5% more in the country. They spent 13% more on out-of-home entertainment. They spent more money on cruises.

The travel is up about flat on transactions and up on dollar volume because the prices are up.

So they're traveling and they're doing things.

So they're getting on with their life. And why is that true? Unemployment 4.3? Second reason is you look across low, medium, and high segments, the income levels are still growing. You heard Kevin Hassett say that.

They're still growing, even though the growth rate of the Lower third of income earners has slowed down a little bit, and the other ones have sped up a little bit, which is inverse of where it was the last couple of years. They're all growing, which means if people are employed to have income, They will continue to spend. If they continue to spend, the U.S. economy is actually in pretty good shape.

Now, people don't like high gas prices. People don't like high rents. You're seeing rents start to flatten out a little bit. Insurance, which was a big issue twelve months ago, we talked about that's coming down it's flattening out in its growth rate.

So I think with time, this will work through. But right now, people are really concerned about gas prices. They can't see the end of the war. We also saw what happened Here in New York City, where we have a mayor who seemed to vilify wealth and success and now meeting with CEOs. Have you had a chance to meet with the socialist mayor, Mom Dami?

Does he understand math? And does he understand the need for capitalism? And how do you deal with this? Because you have how many employees in New York City? About twelve, fifteen thousand.

Twelve, fifteen thousand. And by the way, we got a lot of people who work just over the border in New Jersey and work out on the island, up in Connecticut.

So they all are New York City-ish in the way they think about life. But look, I think Yep, but I I'm uh all the administrations, all the cities and you know Place around the country, around the world, that I talk to, always try to say, here's what I would do and how to be successful, be safe. You know, make sure the potholes are filled, collect the trash. These are things like mayors have to do because if they don't do them, they don't get done. And I think he cited to me that he filled a lot of potholes and stuff.

But I think on the housing question, it's about building. And I think he's done some programs, but at the end of the day, why do you say it? I'm not saying the government builds it. I'm saying the process to get an approval has to be sped up. And the faster it goes, You know, time value money, the more money will come, and the more assuredness you can get a project through because some of these projects take five, six years in the development phase, and it takes a lot of energy by a developer sit there and saying, Let's stick with it.

And why do I do New York when I could do it so much easier in Florida and Texas? And so, you saw even some towns and cities around New York that you're seeing do it. You see towns that are good at this, but there's housing shortages all over the country. Charlotte's 30,000 units, Boston's similar. New York's a lot more than that.

So, how do you solve that? You just got to build because at the end of the day, it's but I need investors to build. You don't want the government to build. No, no, I'm talking. There's so much private equity.

I just was talking to a uh in San Francisco yesterday. We put in low Affordable housing, low and modern income housing in San Francisco. Over the last year, we did $900 million of financing for private developers to build that kind of housing targeted at median income plus a 1.5 of median income.

So the money is there. Look, people want yield. That investors are there, the equity investor, but they got to know they got a project and they got to know they can charge a fair rent because that's where rent control starts to depress the ability to build. Yeah. So, Brian, let's end where we started.

The World Cup, you could be your major sponsors. Fan Fests, where can we get them? We can see 'em in DC. You're good.

Well, the the DC is on the mall. That's part of the Americas two fifty. But each of the major each of the c host cities, there'll be a fan fest there for the games that we're heavily invested in. And so you can go there. FIFA has one, and we have a component of that.

And then for our customers and clients, when we invite the game, we have a separate component.

So they'll be all over the place. And this will be. This would be fun to see, and I think there's been a lot of discussion about it, but at the end of the day. 6 billion people see this. $17 to $18 billion of economic activity in the United States alone, of incremental activity.

295,000 jobs. We published a research report. It's a big economic impact. And those cities and towns are going to benefit by that, just like they benefit when the marathons are run or other sport of Super Bowl. But think of this going on, you know, literally over and over, and people are forgetting.

People are coming just to see the practice games or see the people practice. Friendly head. He's the CEO of Bank of America and he was a history major, but man, does he know his numbers? Brian Moynihan, thanks so much, and thanks for all you're doing for soccer in the World Cup. Thank you.

See you soon. You might have seen him testify in front of Congress, and you might have heard him on a podcast or seen him on television, but he's with us right now. We're lucky to have Jared Horvath with us. He's a neuroscientist and educator and author of a brand new book out this week, right? Yeah, it just came out Tuesday.

The Digital Delusion. You have to, if anybody who is, whether you're a grandparent, parent, or whether you're a kid wondering why certain teachers at work, certain schools you're doing well, some people doing better than you. This might be a great way to unlock the secrets to success when it comes to education. Jared, first off, great to see you. When did you realize you wanted just, instead of just being an educator, you wanted to figure things out about education?

That was, so probably about 12 years ago was, it was the decade of the brain.

So I was teaching when the brain was just everywhere. Where were you teaching? I was out in California.

So there was a little French. International school.

So they basically, all the French speakers were doing one thing, and all the English speakers were hanging out with me.

So I got to teach math, I got to teach science, I got to teach English, just whatever they needed. And that was when I realized, well, I thought if I knew more about the brain, that will make me a better teacher. Makes sense.

So go back, learn all that stuff. I thought that'd be a year or two of my life, but academia, it's just a black hole. Once you're there, there's always one more project, always one more thing.

So I kind of got stuck in academia. And the tech stuff really didn't come up till I think COVID was kind of the breaking point.

Well, we'd always knew tech and learning weren't best friends, but it was really COVID. Everyone brings tech in to make sure we make it through the lockdowns. Fair enough. Lockdowns ended and everyone's stuck with tech. Rather than ripping that band-aid off and going back to what we know works.

They're like, cool, keep the computers in front of the kids.

So that's when I said, all right, let's figure out what's going on here and whether or not this is a smart move. And nobody, everybody you talk to is concerned about our numbers on standardized tests going down. How many people are reading on grade level? How much have math on grade level? And the answer is everything's going the wrong direction.

And it's not like kids are necessarily lazier or school's getting easier. And the days are getting shorter, it seems like the homework is increasing, right? The days are just as there. It's not that we're ignoring it.

So what's going on? It's just not clicking. This is where you say exactly kids are in school more than we were. Kids have more homework than we did. Yet somehow their scores are now, for fourth graders, lower than it's been all century.

For eighth graders, they're like one point off the lowest it's been all century.

So we got a problem. And so it couldn't have been the schools. It's not the timing. It can't really be the teachers. As much as people like to blame teacher training, that really hasn't changed all that much.

It appears to be the tools we're using to teach within schools. When you look at, and it's not just the US, when you look internationally across any country, as soon as tech goes from peripheral to central in an education system, that education system starts to drop. And that's, I think, my favorite. Can you define that further? Yeah.

So if we, so there are international tests, things like PISA, things like TIMS, things like ISILs, which test literacy, numeracy, science skills, in a standardized way across countries so that we can check kind of what educational systems are thriving, which aren't. And for the longest time, all the thriving educational systems were East Asian countries, Singapore, Japan, China. And everyone knew, oh, it's because they were hyper-rigorous. But everyone assumed they were also hyper-tech because their economies are so tech-based. Turns out, until COVID, they were the least tech-using countries in the world when it came to education.

Singapore never let kids touch tech in schools. It's like they knew these are tools for adults, not for kids learning. China, same thing. They were third least tech-using country in the world. If you had China, Shanghai, Hong Kong was like sixth least using.

It was just all these countries that we assumed their education was so much better. Because they were just drilling kids, which we didn't want to do here. One of the big reasons they were so much better was the way they were doing it. It just was no tech, which could allow us to keep our ideology here for how we want to run schools, just do it better.

So, you want to see our education go back to writing on paper with a pen in your hand, put away. Uh the Chromebooks, the iPads. Obviously, the iPhones.

So I understand there's distraction.

So Jared, if you're talking to me and I have my phone right here, I'm going, obviously, that's what we're seeing now, rudeness. But this has nothing to do with it. That that the phone's away. We woke up to that. But you also want the iPad and the MacBook and the Chromebook away.

Why?

So that is one. Distraction is definitely a thing. Because just because the screen goes from pocket size to desk size doesn't mean it's not the same exact. But you're my teacher. You're in front.

You're telling me about history. You're telling me about it, and I'm taking notes.

Okay. When did Washington, when was he president? When did he win the war? When did the Constitution go?

So I'm typing it. You say that's the problem. I need to be writing it. I need to be listening and writing it with a pen. Why?

What's the difference?

So when we compared, that's a perfect example, note-taking, typing versus handwriting. What happens is a lot of kids can type about as fast as the teacher speaks.

So when kids are typing up notes, what we see are just blocks of verbatim notes, dictation, courtroom stenographer, I get it all in. But if you ever meet a courtroom stenographer who just wrote everything down, ask him, hey, what was that court case about? They'll say, murder. Like, I wasn't paying attention. The only thing of importance when you're typing is the sound and the order of the words.

Did I hear it? Did I write it? When you're writing by hand, no kid can keep up with the speed of your speech.

So now they have to parse meaning. Already they have to think deeply about what matters, what doesn't, how do things fit together. And they have to make decisions about what to write down. In that instance, the note-taking becomes the learning. It's no longer just dictation.

It is an organization of your thoughts and thinking, which is why handwritten notes are so gross. They got lines and arrows. But that's why we always say, look, if you did nothing different in your class but handwritten notes versus typed notes, you will see better learning, deeper comprehension amongst your students. And you thought, you know, you thought to make things better and easier, don't take, don't, those kids don't have to carry around six textbooks. We'll put them online.

Yeah. Right?

So I'll read online.

So I'll open up, open up to your page in your textbook. You don't have to do that anymore. Open up in your textbook on your Chromebook.

So you take that textbook, you open it up on your Chromebook. What's wrong with reading it on my Chromebook?

So one of the big things the Brain loves is three-dimensional locations. We are a three-dimensional being in a three-dimensional world.

So, where in space things occur become a massive part of the memory we form and ultimately determine how we can access those memories.

So, this is why I always say: if you ever go back to like your childhood home or town, memories will start to pop up that you haven't had in decades. Just by being back in the space, your brain's like, I remember this. Do you remember that? Handwritten notes, notebooks, books, textbooks have three-dimensional locations. That's one of the things that makes text tech.

Till that book burns into dust, the same words will be in the same position with relation to each other forever. That becomes part of your memory and what you form. If you go back and look at your handwritten notebooks from school, you'll start to pull up memories. Just you'll be like, I know what's on the next page. That's all in there.

And you're telling me if I went to. If I got notes and open up an article and I cut and paste that, from a year ago. And when I look at that, when I open up that page from a year ago, I'm not going to have the same memories as if I wrote it down. No, because a screen only has two dimensions at most. If you have a scrolling screen, that's even worse.

There is no spatial dimension whatsoever. Everything moves through a screen, left to right, top to bottom. You just figured out in your brain, the brain wants this. Yes. You figured out.

So you wanted to say, why is that that I'm remembering more? You said, okay, let me find out what the brain thinks. Boom. Exactly. And that's where now, so we have all this research that shows read from a book versus read from a screen, you will learn more, comprehend better.

Now we have the mechanism to say it's that spatial aspect of it. The fact that a book literally never changes, whereas a screen is always changing, changes the kind of memories you make from it. Wow.

And I did not know this. I always said with the iPhone, we have a court case going on right now to see if social media tried to lure kids into getting addicted to social media. And we know about depression associated with that and the lack of social skills. But was it done intentional? For example, I want you to, if I make a candy bar, I want you to want that every day, right?

I want to be successful. Am I evil? No. I want to sell that candy bar. Do I know candy's bare for you yet?

Probably. Yeah. But I'm just trying to sell. I work for Hershey's. I'm trying to get you to buy that candy bar.

Now, in social media, did they say, I just want people on Facebook because I'd love for people to use that as a vehicle to meet people in the marketplace? Or were they trying to addict us? And to a point where they knew it was warping the mind. Isn't that what the case is about? Yeah, and they're in there winning those cases because once the documents came out from these companies, it was pretty clear it had nothing to do with socialization, it had nothing to do with learning.

It was all about just addictive marketing. And this is where I get in a lot of trouble: I can't blame a company for trying to sell a product to people. I can blame a company for making it addictive and then giving it to kids, sure. But when it comes to taking tech into schools, They're a company. Like you said, they got to make money.

So I kind of, and I don't blame anyone, but I put a little bit more responsibility on schools for not stopping and saying, wait a second, where is the evidence that this is good for learning? Where is the evidence this is going to help my kids develop? We never asked for that. We just said, okay, it looks good to us.

So when those Chromebooks came into junior high school in my town, you're saying they came in because? How cynical you want to get profit. That's it. The very first one-to-one computer program was Microsoft had built the Chromebook, a very small laptop that they thought businessmen would love because they thought, if you're traveling, take this, you're good. No one bought it, it didn't sell at all.

So, in order to recoup costs, they said, What can we do with it? Why don't we give it to kids in schools at a lower price?

So, from the very beginning, there was no consideration of learning or development. It was just what's another customer base, where can we make some money? But again, I like, what else do we expect? It's a tech company, of course, they're going to try and make money. Why didn't we stop and say, Okay.

What benefit does this show? Where's your research showing this is going to be useful? Jared Horvath is with us now. His book is out called The Digital Delusion. I'll tell you exactly why.

So I don't think they knew. I'm just gonna I'm gonna I'll I'll be naive.

So if I'm an educator or principal or superintendent, Microsoft comes up to me with a representative and said, I can get your kids Chromebooks. I'm going to get you a good discount. I don't like almost when I first saw you testify, I didn't know anything that you were saying. I didn't challenge it either, but everything, almost everything you said caught me by surprise. Yeah, yeah.

So, do you think they did not know that they were retarding education? That is the best case scenario. And I think, yes. For the most part, I give. Teachers, I give administrators the complete benefit of the doubt.

In 2002, that was the very first one-to-one program, so far as we know, in the world, it was in Maine. It would have sounded incredible back then. This is the future. Tech is the future. I think the internet comes along, that must be a part of it.

AI comes along, that must be a part of it. But I think we're now at a stage where we have enough data where we can see that. You can't play the naive card anymore. Bingo.

So now, when you know better, you got to do better.

So, any school that sticks with it has a lot to it.

So, isn't it interesting that way everything's improving and AI is improving? But you're telling everyone that your studies show that. By going back to writing things out, and dare I say, using an opaque projector or the chalkboard, showing people when it comes to the classroom, I'm not looking to mod. You're telling me, Jared, don't modernize. Am I right?

To an extent, yes, you've got to learn the skills. The biggest mistake we made is we confused the tool for the skill. The tool is not the skill, the skill is the skill. Tools are only there to demonstrate the skill you have. And when it comes to kids and learning, they've got to lock the skills down first.

Understand math before you bring in a calculator. Know how to draft an essay before we start considering word processing. We brought the tool in way too early, and now they've never got the skill. And now the scariest thing is AI.

So. What are we doing now?

Now, can it help you? They're talking about robots teaching your kids, right?

So if the robot can learn and looks like a human being, they find a way to make it look like a human being is walking around the classroom and is teaching. Are you okay with that? I think this is where big tech shot themselves in the foot. I think AI was the straw that broke everyone's back and opened their eyes and said, what are we doing here? All the research coming back on AI shows it's bad for learning.

It's just not a learning tool.

Now popular. Because it knows everything. Because there's a, what is it called? The law of least effort, universal law. If I have two paths to get to one spot, I'm always going to take the path that requires least energy.

You as charity or you as a human. You as the universe.

Okay. As stars moving around the galaxy. Whatever requires least energy is where the world goes. Learning requires a lot of energy.

Now, AI comes along and says, You could use me in a way that's going to force you to use a lot of energy, or I could just give you the answer. What do you think 95% of kids do? Give me the answer. That's good.

Now pop that in a humanoid robot and everyone thinks, well, it looks human. One of the biggest drivers of learning we have is what's called an empathetic connection.

So human beings resonate. Our biology can connect. And in those moments, we start thinking like each other. That's when learning gets really good.

Now, if you've ever been at a dinner table and everything is cruising and then somebody pulls out a phone and you almost feel that break where it's like something changed in the room, that's it. You break synchrony.

So if you put AI in a humanoid robot, A, there's no biology to sync with, and B, anytime you recognize it's a robot, that's going to cut any chance of synchrony the kids have. It's just, it's never going to work. It's cute, but it ain't going to happen. Because people want that human connection. I want to win over that teacher.

I want to see if the teacher is frustrated. I want to see if they're enthused that I'm getting it so that you're never going to get that from a robot. It's the same thing. You can't do it. You'll get a lot of, what is it called, kowtowing.

It'll tell you you're a great human being, but you're never going to get that connection. All right. I wouldn't mind. Know the difference. If a robot told me that, I'd accept it either.

Anyway, Jared Horvath, don't move. We got a few more minutes on the other side, but go out and pick up his book. I can't imagine any age not wanting this book. Even if you're not in school, someone you know is. It's called The Digital Delusion.

Back in a moment, you're listening to the best of the Brian Kill Me Show. Everyone, so glad you're there. It's the Brian Kilmead Show on Labor Day closing out the summer. I know it's so relatively sad, but I'm actually looking forward to a wild fall. And of course, the weather is going to be great for the foreseeable future because I think we're going to go right into the midterms.

You got the Iran situation, I think, is coming to an end. And then we find out what the last two years will be like. I always look forward to the launch of the presidential campaign. That really happens after the midterms. The dust settles.

And then we see on both sides, it'll be a wide open election, no incumbents, so it'll be great. I think the president clearly wants JD. I don't know what it's going to mean for everyone on the right. One of the hottest issues for this midterms is data centers. You know how I feel if you've been listening to the show.

I want you to be responsible, generate your own energy, be responsible with water, but you got to be able to build the data centers in a time in which the mom and pop shops and the brick-and-mortar strip malls are going by the board because of Amazon's and mail order, and people don't want to shop these days in malls. You got to be able to build data centers. Why?

Part of it is you get the plumbers, pipe fitters, electricians, you build them like pipelines. I'm not saying they're going to be permanent, but it takes two years or so to build one, depending on the size. And then you move on to the next one. You build pipelines like that. You move to the job.

When there's a surge in housing in New Hampshire or in Florida, you're a construction man or woman, you go to the job.

So that's the nature of that position. It's almost when you think about maritime.

Well, I want to work on tugboats.

Well, where are they hiring? You could live wherever you want, but for one month a year, you're going to go where they're hiring. And maybe it's the Gulf of America or maybe it's right here in New York.

So one of the hottest issues around, great privilege to have with me to talk about that was Dina Powell McCormick, you know, the wife of Senator McCormick, but also Dina Powell is an outstanding executive in her own right. She is now president of Meta.

So she knows communications, she knows business, and she knows the need to get blue-collar workers. They're now training their own workers at Apple. It's insane. And they're having Apple schools essentially, and excuse not Apple, meta-schools where they Apple might be doing it too, where they're actually training their own blue collar workers.

So, the troll trade school thing: if you can't get into a trade school or you want employment, what about if Meta. Put you into a trade school and guaranteed you employment. Here's a sum of my interview of Dina Powell McCormick and Micro. But it's my privilege to bring in two people I respect among the most in the world, Dina Powell McCormick, president now of Meta. And they have a big announcement because she is with Micro, the CEO of Micro Works Foundation, one of the most respected people in the country who doesn't who's never worn a tie, according to reports.

Never worn a tie. Dina, I knew how important Mike, in my opinion, we've known each other for a while. I've never seen you as upbeat as you were in Pennsylvania, I think it was, when you sat on a panel with Senator Dave McCormick and you talked about the need for blue-collar workers and how it's going to interact with the future. That all plays into your big announcement today, right, Dina? It sure does.

And Brian, thank you so much for having us on. It is such a special honor for me to be with Mike.

Someone, as you say, I have admired for so many years. You know, folks today are talking about the American workforce, but it really started with Mike and Microworks Foundation 18 years ago. He has been saying these are American heroes on a different kind of front line, which is building America. And at Meta, we have truly long believed that everyone deserves a pathway to being part of this economic revitalization and transformation. It's just been there are too many barriers.

Today, we need 500,000 new electricians in the United States over the next four years. And yet, awesome people who could be candidates for that just can't make it there right now for a few reasons. If you're a Uber driver, if you are a grocery clerk, if you're a waitress, like how I paid my way through college waiting tables, you can't take a week or two or three or four off to get the training. And so, what America's Workforce Academy does is provide individuals like those extraordinary Americans with paid training. A credential that they'll have for life, and a guaranteed job on a meta-work site.

And we just really believe that during this transformation, no one in America should be left behind, that the future is for everyone. And because of these data centers, especially, right, Mike, that are going to forge meta into AI and everything else, you need electricians, you need plumbers, you need pipe fitters to do that.

So tell me how this program is going to work.

Well, I mean, yeah, the data centers are a big deal. And it's worth saying, too, that it's not like they just popped out of nowhere on account of AI. Data centers have been around for decades, and they're at the root of every form of modern connectivity that we know of. It's just a question of scaling them. And the challenge is to do it yesterday.

We're in a race. China plays for keeps. And this is a really important part of building out. what Larry Fink has described as a $10 trillion Infrastructure. We have the money and we have the will, but we just don't have the skilled labor in place.

And Brian, you know, I'm a broken record on this. We've been talking about it for years. But the thing that's exciting for me is to see consequential companies in the Fortune 500 really paying attention to this. And you'll see leaders emerge in the coming weeks and months. I'm delighted that Meta's doing this because to your point, what they've done is they've taken the friction out of the transaction.

And so. If you're a young man or woman who is honestly trying to figure out if there's a future for you in the skilled trades, but balancing that against transportation costs, training costs, tools, various certifications, it's daunting, you know, and the barrier to entry has always been a problem.

So I think the private sector is going to play an enormous role in correcting that. I think. Meta, whether they intended to or not, has thrown down a gauntlet. There is an on-ramp into these jobs. They've greased the skids.

And I guarantee people are listening to this right now and doing the math and coming to the conclusion that these are opportunities for you.

So, Dina, you launched Level Up. It's a smaller training program focused on fiber installment. In the first seven days, you received 35,000 applications for 1,000 openings.

So demand is not the problem. You also, if I'm right, have put a $115 million commitment into the first year for people to train, knowing that I'm training, instead of hoping to get a job, they will get a job out of it. Absolutely. You know, honestly, Fiber Up is, or excuse me, Level Up is what showed us the real demand. That was a program very focused on an important role on any infrastructure site today, a fiber technician, the woman or man who is actually laying the fiber piping.

In four weeks with Level Up, you got the training on site. And as Mike said, we paid for all the costs. We paid for you to come to the site in Ohio to, we've just launched this to get the on-site training. You graduate with a license as a fiber technician and, as I said earlier, a job at a meta-site. But we understand if you might want to work in a different site too.

You might take that credential and go elsewhere. A thousand we thought was a good number to just really start and test the program when we launched. Brian, we could not believe that we got 35,000 applications. And it really is how we then went to Mark and the leadership at Meta and said, there's something really big here, and we've got to scale it. And America's Workforce Academy.

Is really attempting to do just that, working alongside of a number of partners. But I gotta tell you something that I think will matter a lot to you. Not only do we actually have, as Mike has always said for years, a number of veterans who would like to go into these trades, I think of this in a very, I think, historic way. During World War II, America came together to literally physically build the arsenal that defeated tyranny in the world. And we believe those American heroes are more needed than ever today because if we don't build the AI infrastructure required, we don't win the race in AI and we let other countries take that advantage.

And so we think these are the people that are going to help America win.

So Mike, help me with this. you have all these scholarships and you said for people to go to a trade school and you said I don't have enough people that want to get into the trades.

Now Dean is coming out saying I had 35,000 applications for a thousand openings. What's changing or what about the calculus do I have wrong?

Well Nothing really. It's just that there's not a playbook that's going to resonate in every state, every town, every community, and every zip code all at the same time. Part of what you're asking is a little bit out of my pay grade, but I've mentioned a terrific book to you before called Men Without Work by Nick Eberstadt. He's a great economist. And he'll tell you that right now there are 6.8 million able-bodied men who are not only not working, they're not looking for work.

That's never happened in the history of our country, not in peacetime anyway. And so you've got a giant cohort who's waiting to be persuaded. At least some of them are.

So, you know, how do you talk to that cohort? How do you talk to the kid who's open-minded, but whose parents, God bless them, have it in their heads that the only path for them requires a four-year degree? How do you make that case, right?

So we have to come at this thing from a lot of different angles. The feds have a role to play. Private industry has a role to play. Guidance counselors and parents. What I love.

That What Dina is saying essentially is that we're going to put our thumb on the scale in this direction for once. For once, we're going to say, look, the future does belong to everybody. It's wide and it's vast, and you have options. But this idea. That going in one direction is going to doom you to a life of like turning a wrench or something.

That is over. The color of collars is over. This is a bold new world. Training and certification are on equal playing fields, if not even a little elevated than the traditional four-year rubric. And as you know, Brian, that's near and dear to me.

And finally, too. What these guys are doing is a big part of the solution, but it's not the only way. Trade schools aren't going away, in my estimation. They're going to be apprenticeships and scholarships and fellowships. And the real headline that I hope you guys run with is that.

Is that Meta is essentially challenging every other grown-up company in this country to do in their own way.

Something that rhymes. That's powerful.

Well, and Brian, yes, sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I was just going to say, you know, one of the things that we're really proud of is that it's called America's Workforce Academy because it is bigger than Meta. And yes, we are proud to have launched this initial phase with a number of great partners. We want to have more partners.

We would be honored to work with more companies across the board. And many companies that we work with now have incredible programs, whether it's GM and Ford or BlackRock and Larry Fink and the leadership that he's doing. And so we are really excited to scale this in a big way with anybody that wants to work with us. And the National Urban League and Mark Moriol are going to be a nominating partner.

So we make sure people from all over are able to get into these trades. The women in trades, you know, there's an enormous, what's the percentage, Mike, of women going into these fields? You know, it's funny. We were talking last night at dinner about this. The national average, if you look at women in construction, And it'll vary from vertical to vertical, but in my foundation, and I don't know why this is the case, but we've got maybe 3,500 people we've assisted, and the percentage of women entering the welding trade.

Is shockingly high. We're at like 3x the national average. Don't know why, but to my earlier point, that's another cohort. And I'm telling you, they're ready to go. You just have to meet them where they are and make a more persuasive.

And Tina, you guys got to, you were told me you had to be out right now, so I'm going to keep that in mind. But my last question to you is: how did you do it? I mean, I've known Mike for a much longer, we've never had dinner. And you barely start a partnership. You're having dinner.

You're talking casually, professionally. How did that happen, Dina? Listen, I feel pretty honored and lucky. I've been a girl fan of Mike Rowe for some time. And I will tell you, and I will tell you, one of my daughters was there last night, and I felt so proud to introduce her to Mike because I hope that this generation of young people recognize the honor and dignity of work and recognize how much they need to respect the men and women that are in these fields, in these positions.

And I just think it's really important to what Mike said that there is dignity today in every kind of field. Right.

And Dina, if you do decide to continue to work with Mike and you want him to do your commercial, he'll do it on an iPhone walking in a park.

So he comes very cheap. Watch them do these ads. I don't know how the hell he pulls this off. We are excited to support him. I mean, with.

I'm sorry, he's got a voice for radio and a face for TV, and that's like a pretty special combination.

Well, Brian, listen, man, I got some time later today if you want to hit the In N Out Burger. Mike's fine. That's fine. I'll drive through. Fantastic.

You got it. You better. Thank you, Brian. Dina Pal McCorn. Congratulations on the job, too.

And of course, Mike Rowell is great to have you on. They have a great announcement. America's Workforce Academy. Back in a moment. It's the best of the Brian Kill Me Show.

Welcome back everybody. I love that interview and it's so apropos now that there's this backlash on these data centers. I don't know, I know. Uh Three out of every 10 people listening to me right now disagree with me, or seven out of ten. I'm one of the 30% who say build a data center, show up in the community and get it to show up.

If you're building it or if you're living there, show up, get your town hall, get your questions out, understand that nothing's without risk. You don't want a loud hum. I agree with you. I don't want to take up valuable farmland. Do you feel the same way when they build a golf course?

When it comes to water, they recycle the water in a lot of these new ones, get the latest. Of course, eventually Elon Musk talked about we're going to be putting them into space, which would end all this ridiculous debate. But just understand. You know, when they were going against Trump in 2020, all these so-called bots, I think, put out by the Chinese and North Koreans, were talking about how bad Trump was, how he was killing people with the pandemic. You heard all that, and you got your election result.

After 2016, 2017, same thing. We heard about all these negative things online about what Trump was doing with Russia. And the next thing you know, everyone believes it. Lawmakers are trying to investigate it. It screws up the entire country.

It's happening again with data centers. Do you think Mike Rowe is involved with politics and the bottom line in order to give up his reputation to build something that wasn't going to help the community? And for those people who say data center is not on my watch, then put down your phone, put down your PlayStation, put down your cloud storage. I don't want to hear anything that anything using any electronics. Put down your iPad.

Put down your MacBook. And don't get upset when the prices for storage go up. Because storage in particular has a finite amount. We come back, we're gonna have some fun with Jeff Foxworthy and talk about his brand new special. But here, I love the partnerships.

I love the partnerships with Meta and the Association of Builders and Contractors and the National Urban League.

So if for those people getting out of college and say college is not for me, I hear that a lot. This is the answer. Don't be worried about, well, I got to tell my parents I'm not going to college.

Now you could turn around and say, I'm going to meda school. I'm going to the builders, I'm going to the meta trade school. And guess what? I got a job. Most people worry for four years what are they going to do when they get out.

When you go to school, when you go to these contracting schools, you know exactly and what you're going to get out and what you're going to get paid.

Now you got to get into these places. And what happens is, and I give these companies great credit for this, where are we going to find the shipbuilders? Where are we going to find the mechanics, the welders? All right. You can wait.

for people to choose it. or you can start your own school, recruit them to go there. And then get them to commit to working for you for five years. And I'm not asking you to do something unusual. When I ask you that.

I'm asking you to do something that's very typical of the military, very typical of other jobs, the ROTC. You go ahead, they pay for college, and you got to give a commitment after. That's the same style commitment on the free market. And if you don't want to do it, then you got to pay them back for what they trained you to do. For me personally, my challenge would be.

I'm not a great blue collar guy. I can be a laborer, but I don't have the skills. I think what's underrated, not coming up in this conversation. When they open up the hood, if they teach you how to work on an engine, is it going to come natural? Build a house?

Yeah. I'll learn it, but man, I'm not going to be good at it. I'll be more of a laborer, which pretty much you don't need any training for.

So, that would be the good news.

So, Jeff Foxworthy's here. Why?

Because he wanted to meet me in person. I can't blame him. Comedian actor, host of the new Fox Nation special, Jeff Foxworthy, The Joke's On Me. And, Jeff, I'll tell you what, what I get, and so great to see you again, but what I get is your promos are fantastic. I mean, your name is perfect for what you're doing.

It kind of works, doesn't it?

So, when they approached you on doing a special, were you reluctant? Because they go after people, established comedians like Eddie Murphy, throw all types of money. He's like, No. I'm done. And it is so much work because you have to throw out the material after.

How did you feel about it?

Well, you don't have to.

Well, it was funny because before this, I think I've done like eleven specials if you include like the blue collar comedy movies and all. And so when they said, would you be interested in doing a special? I said, how long do you want it to be? They said, an hour. I said, I'm not interested.

Because, and this is what people don't realize, but for a comedian to do a new hour, it takes a year of hard work. And by, I mean, that's being in clubs on Tuesdays in front of 30 people. And you don't announce that you're there. No, I just walk in with note cards. And hey, is this funny?

Is this funny? And And I had gotten to the point, I said, I'm not interested in doing an hour. I said, but, because I just watched. That thing on the Beatles, that was like 10 hours. And watching them in the studio writing songs.

And it's like, is this the lyrics? Is this the chord? And I was kind of fascinated by that process. And so I said to Fox Nation, I said, bud, if you would let me do a special and you show the process, show me going in, follow me into a little club on a Tuesday night, show me doing things that don't work, things that bomb, show how these ideas evolve into what you see on stage. I said, if you would do that, I would be interested.

And when I hung up the phone, my wife said. All I'm going to tell you in the special before that I had done for Netflix. She said, when you walked off stage after that last special, you looked at me and you said, never again. And I laughed and I said, Yeah, but they're not going to let me do it this way.

So don't worry. I'm not doing another stuff. How long ago was Netflix? Um Well, that came out like twenty twenty Two or three, maybe. I said they're not going to do it.

Nobody. Nobody's going to take a chance because you had seen it with music. You had been behind the scenes with music. Nobody had ever done it with stand-up. And they came back and said, All right, we'll do it.

And I'm like. Oh wow, really? And I have to thank Fox Nation. They were so. open to doing to doing something new.

And we're like, all right, what would this look like? Would you cut it in half? And what we ended up doing was showing me Doing, which ended up, it wasn't 30-30. It was probably 45 minutes of new material because it kept growing. And 15 or 20 of behind the scenes, but we started just Started with the show, and then would cut back to me and the club working on that idea.

And I thought it turned out great because. Once you see the process, you have an appreciation for it. And Like I like people and I like to Learn what they do, but I want to know. Like, if I'm meeting a barista, I'm like, What's the hardest part of your job? You're curious.

I'm curious. What's the easiest part of your job? What do people not know about making coffee that they ought to know? And, you know, what's the hardest part of doing a podcast?

So, Jeff, let me ask him, do you ask that for material or do you ask that as a human being? I ask it as a human being. I don't have to ask. People, there's something, Brian, about being a comedian. People voluntarily tell you things they shouldn't tell their therapists.

I mean, people will come up to me in the grocery store and they're like, hey, Jeff, let me tell you what my brother did this weekend. And A lot of times it's funny. Oh my God. Yeah. And you're like, I don't know if I would have told anybody that, but I'm going to be using that on stage tonight.

So here is a little from the special: Cut 43. If you have ever answered a FaceTime call while sitting on the toilet, Yeah. Who might be a redneck? If the force is Sale sign in your front yard was put there by your neighbors. You might be a redneck.

If the two biggest reasons you love country music is Dolly Pardon. might be a redneck. If you think Hogwarts is your sister-in-law without makeup, You might be a red dad. Right.

So, I mean, you've. Clearly That is never getting old. You know what's so funny about it is it's one-liners. You know, and we live in an age, nobody does one-liners anymore. But.

And I look back, I think it helped me to be a better comedy writer because you had to. Tell the whole joke in one sentence.

So it taught me to be very efficient with words. I had been doing them for 20 years when Rich Scheidner pointed out to me, he said, you do realize. The way you do this, a comic friend of mine, he said. You do the punchline first and the setup second. He said, The setup is you might be a redneck.

Yes, people do. And he said, But you do it in reverse. I said, You're right. I never thought about that. Do you remember how many years it took you to be yourself on stage?

Or did you feel natural right away? No, I didn't film that. It's not a natural thing. And I tell young comics that. I said, look, here's the thing.

Nobody else has your experiences. Nobody else. Has the way you think that so the sooner you can become yourself on stage. The better you're going to be. But it takes a while.

And I think for me, you know, because early on, I d I didn't know Like Stephen Wright, remember Stephen Wright? He had just come out on Carson and But Stephen was that slow monotone drawn out. And I was like, Should I be like that? Should I be I didn't know. And you know, I think Jerry Seinfeld said one night, I think you just do it every night for ten years.

And then you have a style. And I'm like. And it ends up, he was right because later on, I would listen and I would go, why do I? Like hit certain words, and because I'm not aware that I'm doing that, but it became my style. But I think it's when I embraced, because I had people telling me to lose my accent.

People tell, and it's like, no, this is the way I talk. This is where I'm from. These are my experiences. And when I kind of got freed up enough to talk about that stuff. I got better at it.

Um And I did, I was just talking to somebody in the lobby about this. Like when I started, I would come to New York all the time. But in New York, especially for a young comic, somebody starting out. You might only get on stage. Two times a week.

So we used to get a group of guys and like four of us and go, if anybody gets on tonight, you got to promise to buy a big pizza so we can all have dinner. Because you got 20 bucks. You got 20 bucks, yeah. We all four weren't gonna get on, so And so Kind of the idea was you could either stay in New York or LA and you might get on a couple of times a week. But Leno was always a road dog.

And I thought. Kind of the Malcolm Gladwell theory. If you do something for 10,000 hours, you're going to get good at it. And I'm like, I can go play. Des Moines, Iowa, and I can go on stage every night for 30 minutes.

So at the end of the week, You know, I've got 200 new minutes. On stage. Because you've established yourself. Yeah. But as opposed to getting 12 new minutes in New York.

So you were open to traveling? I had. My first eight years of comedy I did over 500 shows a year. Eight years in a row. Wow.

And But I got better at it because I was on station. I was. Yeah. And your wife understood? She did.

She would cherry pick my schedule. She'd look at it and say, okay, you go to Toledo by yourself. I'll go with you to Honolulu. And I'm like, no, I really need you in Toledo. She understood.

Especially when you're not making money in the beginning. Golly. Were you married without making money in the beginning? As an established comedian? She was there the first night I ever went on stage.

A bunch of guys I worked with at IBM entered me in a contest. How old are you? Yeah. Enter me in a contest. I've never been on stage just because I was the funny guy at work.

And it wasn't like an amateur night. It was for working comedians. First night on stage, I won the contest. No way. and I met my wife.

She was in the audience, so she saw me the first time I did it. Um And we started dating, and she was the only person in my life because I had come from a blue-collar town. I thought. You had to get a job that you hated. And she was acting, she was an actress, and she said.

You have all this creativity inside of you. and if you don't find a way to let it out, you're going to have a miserable life. and it had never dawned on me, wait, I could do something creative for a living. And I quit my job at IBM. My mother's first question was: Are you on the dope?

Whatever the dope was. And I said, no, I said, I think I have a gift for this. I think I can do this. Five years later, I was on Johnny Carson, got called five years, got called to the couch, same mother. You know, you wasted all those years at IBM.

And I'm like, but well, and everybody said it was going to take 10 years to be good enough to do Carson, which it. It probably should have, which was why I was doing 500 shows a year, because I knew Johnny wasn't going to stick around for 10 more years. And that was all I wanted to do was be on Johnny Carson. And so I told myself, I'm going to do it in half that time. It took me five years and two months.

And I remember going home that night because you didn't know with Johnny, you didn't know. They told you if at the end of your set, if he just claps, he doesn't like you. If he gives you before. Yeah, if he gives you the okay sign, he liked you. And if he calls you to the couch, he loved you.

Well, So I've been doing 500 shows a year. I get to the end of my six minutes. I'm scared to look because it's like Caesar saying, Do I live or do I die? Did it feel good? Did you think you killed?

I did because I could hear Johnny laughing as I'm going through the set. All right, so then you look. And I look, and he's calling me to the couch and. Literally, it was life-changing. And I have, like, if you go through my home, I don't have a bunch of stuff for my career, but I have a photo.

That somebody gave me like six years ago when I did the Tonight Show. They went back through the archives, and it's me. Sitting in the chair talking to Johnny, and Johnny's got his head back and his mouth wide open, laughing. And I remember going home that night thinking, Oh crap, I don't have a plan. This was my goal.

What do I do after this? But what did you do? And how long did it take you to do that?

Well, it was life-changing because literally the next week. Caesar's Palace is calling, going, Do you want a headline? For no other reason than Johnny Carson called you to the couch. That doesn't happen with Kim Oaks. There's not, no, those days are gone.

There's not, Johnny was a kingmaker. I mean, if he liked you. You had a career. But I'm going to add something to that.

So I was obsessed with late night television. uh senior thesis was on the history of late night television and um And I got Dave Weddick on, who was the one who hired Johnny for the first time. And I got Jack Parr on the phone. Wow.

And I didn't have a recording device at the time, so I just transcribed it. And then I got Letterman because I was interning at NBC and the history of late night. And he was in awe. But like, and then you just Steve Allen. I ended up meeting Steve Allen later.

But just seeing those kinescopes and going to the Museum of Brook and fascinated by it. When you look back, just like when people look back at Michael Jordan, you're never I don't care what happens in the future of basketball, you're never going to look back at Michael Jordan and say, that's the way you look back at Carson. You're not hyping it and saying, wow, what happened? You could watch that now and say, why is he. The best.

He's the best that ever did the job. He could interview the guy from Iowa. That had the weird potato chips, or he could interview Billy Graham, or he could inter, and they were all interesting. Yep. And yet he was the star, but he didn't have to be the star of the conversation.

Well, and he knew that. Carson, like I remember walking from this, as I'm walking to the couch, I'm thinking, what are we going to talk about? And he literally. lobbed him up and let me hit him out of the park. Yeah.

Because he knew the next day at the water cooler, people weren't going to say. Did you see Jeff Foxworthy last night? They were going to say, Did you watch Carson last night? Right.

Hold that thought. More with, do we have time?

Okay, more with Jeff Foxworthy. Got a few minutes at the top of the hour. Got a great special on Fox Nation available now, right? Yes, go with that, Jeff. Back in a moment.

You're listening to the best of Brian Kilmead. There. On the Ride home, she was driving me home. On the ride home, she said to me, I was Googling about anti-venom, and she said, Do you know that the vial they use to give human beings, that the veterinarians use the exact same vial to give to dogs that get bit by poisonous snakes?

So I tell you that Because If I ever get bitten by another snake, I have a bad feeling I'm going to the vet.

So that is some of your special, but I think what Jeff Foxworthy is saying is you see the making of the special, which that's what attracted you back to Fox Nation. I got bitten by a copperhead. And this is the sick thing about being a comedian. As it happened, I'm thinking, I'm going to get a great bet out of this. Most people would be thinking, am I going to die?

I'm thinking, all right, you got to remember everything because this will be a good story on stage. But yeah, most of the things, and people always say, where do you come up with stuff? I was very lucky as a comic because I learned early on what worked for me, and that was. If I thought something, or my wife said something, or my family did something, I was going to trust. Other people were thinking and saying doing the same thing.

Do you write it down or counter it down? Always. I always have note cards in my back pocket or notes on my phone. But that's when you get the response of people coming backstage going, oh my God, I've done that, or oh my God, I've thought that. Is you're finding that commonality no matter where we live.

I mean, the accents change and the scenery changes, but people are the same. And so that's your job to find. You know, everybody has these thoughts or experiences, but comics learn to grab them and go, oh, there's something funny in this. How many times do you have a joke? And it doesn't kill, so you work the joke rather than lose the joke.

A lot. You know, that it's one of those things Most people don't do stand-up as long as I've done it. It's so fascinating to me that after 42 years, I still don't know what people are going to laugh at. Um Because if you laid carpet for 40 years, you would know this is how I do the stairs, this is how I do the corner. I can think something's really funny and go into a club with a note card in my hand and go, what about this?

Nothing. And I'm like, really? That's not funny. And then I have something that I think, well, this is stupid. Throw that out there, and people are beating the table.

And I'm like, really? The crazy thing about comedy. Is that when you start off, it's a horrible situation.

So you're not skilled to handle it. The audience is seven people, they're all comics waiting to get up. And then when you get great at it, these people come to see you and say, oh, just to see you. Yeah, it's kind of not fair. Yeah, but no, it is great.

Just check out his Fox Nation special. Fox, you are Fox worthy. All right. Thanks so much. Oh, man.

Always good to see you.