Tyrus calls out Kilmeade for butchering his blurb on the cover of his book

Tyrus is here and it might work.

It might not work. I'm not sure. Tyrus has got a new book coming out. It's just Tyrus, a memoir, and the upcoming book is called Nuff Said, available November 21st. You could pre-order it now. I have not gotten my copy, but all I need is a week. No, you have a copy because you're in the book. So there's a... Is it coming my way?

Yeah. Actually, because I had originally planned, I have it in my office, but I did not want to take away from Teddy and Booker T. I did not want to take away from that. I'm assuming I will see you again before then. So today, I could have shamelessly plugged my book when we're here to talk about your book and I did not do that.

Well, I just think people... But I do have an autographed copy for you as mine was, thank you. All joking aside, man, I love this book.

I absolutely love this book. But you're in the back. Yeah. Oh, we'll get into that later. I have a few issues with that.

It was a little crowded, but it's all good. Those of you who can't see them, these are all blurbs. Now, presumably, in the world of... As I'm learning in the world of authorism and writing, it's supposed to be two, two. And when someone comes to you and asks you to write a blurb for them, it's a prestigious honor.

So you think there's too many? I know I wrote more than this. I thought my paragraph was solid. But a bold retelling of a story of two great leaders with a strong message for modern day Americans.

Tyrus, professional wrestler and author of just Tyrus. It's just... How do you feel about it? Allison, do you feel as though there was anything that I should... It was just very, very vanilla. There was not New York Times best-selling or Fox's, one of Fox's favorite people. I just felt it was a little... It was less, it was just kind of very generic. Your title. Your title on the blurb. This Bret Baier kid, at least I'm above him, author to rescue the Constitution. Currently, Bret doesn't do anything else in his free time or he gets paid.

So I just thought maybe a little more, but I understand there was a long line. Yeah, I saw them, but he got his hit TV show. He didn't say TV show. I just noticed Percy, Master P got a lot of... What about Master P? Don't you think that was good? A successful businessman, worked his way up from the projects? One of the reasons why this book is so cool is... And I'm just gonna be frank with you. Sometimes when... I don't know if you're aware of this or not, when a Caucasian such as yourself writes about African-American history, it can be kind of looked at as like a place...

It could be looked negatively. But your relationships give you street credit to do that. And one of my favorite things, and it's in the beginning of the book, I love your dedication to Jim Brown. I think a lot of people don't... I didn't know because you're not a guy... You're not a name dropper, which you're not.

And I just thought it was one of... It really set the tone for the book because when you think about Jim Brown, his football career was legendary, but him as a civil rights guy, him as a guy who kept it, called it like it was, there was no one better. And during a time when being that way was not easy to do. It's not like today where I can just come on the radio and run my mouth and say anything about anyone with no consequences. There was consequences and repercussions. And the fact that you had such a close relationship with him and that you guys worked together, I just thought it was really...

It was touching and classy and just kind of set the tone. And... And the other thing was he wrote the... Oh, he wrote the preface to my first book, The Games Do Count, because I wanted to prove that the best athlete of the century, that even if you don't achieve greatness, that you can learn a lot from sports. Yeah, absolutely.

That was the premise of the first one. Now, a couple of things. One of the things I thought you did well in this book and was at the plan, you really showed Teddy Roosevelt and Booker T have a lot in common, even though they have nothing in common.

It's just a weird... Like, Booker physically growing up had all the tools, but he needed to... He was forbidden. Reading was forbidden.

Not allowed. He wasn't allowed to read. Played with the white kids, couldn't go to school. He could play with them, but when they went to school, quote, the door closed. And he would ask his mom, why can't I go in there? And she would tell him, like, out of fear that reading was forbidden.

Bad things happened. But there was the grapevine. So he got most of his education, as most slaves did, through the grapevine where they would pass messages to the house.

So that's where his educational pipeline came from. But physically, even though a diet of sweet potatoes and scraps... Same thing every day.

Yeah. No ginger cakes. And I'm not going to give that away. You got to read the book to know what ginger... Sleep it on the floor.

Sleep it on the floor in a room. The house was freezing in the winter. It was hot in the summer. It was a shag.

It was a shanty. And then on the other side of it, Teddy was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. Had every possible advantage you could ask for, but he was physically sick as a child. He was diagnosed with asthma before it was fashionable. He had...

Some type of cholera that killed his intestines. Like, he literally was meek and weak. But he had a great mind.

And at one point, his father says to him, it doesn't matter how smart you are, if your body can't go, it's going to hold you back. So there was two... Did you... Oh, he learned from it. He compensated.

And he... Both did. Both did.

Yeah. He got in the weight room and Booker T got in the classroom. And they both improved upon their weaknesses, which then is... And I don't know if that was the plan. Was that the plan to show that even though they're completely different, but they had the same thirst for improvement and to be better. They both loved the self-made man.

They both... He loved... When he picked up up...

When Teddy picked up up from slavery, he had a pre-copy, pre-release copy, him and Edith read it. We got to meet this guy. Oh, my goodness. We got to meet this guy. And he's going to be in New York. Let's go meet him. And they meet in 1901.

And that's what I think was the immediate attraction. Number two, if you look at Teddy Roosevelt's background, when he was a police commissioner, he was digging out the illegal immigrants who were being these kids who were forced to work as slave labor in New York City. A rich guy would normally, hey, I'm hanging out with you. Look at me. I'm a police commissioner. Instead, he told the cops, get your act together.

Stop drinking. You're going to go to an academy. This is the way you hold your gun.

This is the way you wear your uniform. And then he went with the press to find these illegal immigrants who were being abused in these apartments, in these dwellings by other people. So he had a sense of the little guy the whole time. On October 28th, Matthew Perry, who will forever be remembered for his portrayal of the lovable and wise-cracking Chandler Bing on Friends, was found dead in his Los Angeles area home. Matthew was arguably one of the biggest actors in the late 90s and early 2000s. But his rise to Hollywood stardom was not easy, from struggles with alcohol and drug addiction to feelings of loneliness and isolation. But in the days before his death, Perry was in good spirits. By all accounts, the actor was the happiest he's ever been and had decided to devote his life to helping others. So what happened? We're examining the final moments of Matthew Perry's life in the latest episode of The Last Days podcast.

Last Days, Matthew Perry, available now on Apple, Spotify, and all podcast platforms. Well, another thing is when he went off to become a cowboy. And one of the things I think that this book has a lot to do about their differences, but how they kind of share the same fire. And I think it was his wife had passed and he- Same day as his mom.

Yeah, yeah. Him and Booker both didn't have the best luck with the ladies. Like, I think they're both married three or four times.

Three times and twice for Teddy, three for Booker, but his wife died. Yeah. So he goes off to become a cowboy and he earns the respect of the men because he's doing all the work. He's not just there. And I think that is what makes- Is that what's missing today?

Like when you look at where Booker and Teddy are, you look at their resume, you look at the things they did in between to get where they wanted to go. I think that's the message of this book. I don't think it's a black and white thing because it was never a black and white thing to them. Not to them. Not to them in a time when it should have been.

Not now where I can come and say whatever I want. You did that so well in this book where it's like you get a taste of Booker and you're like, ah, and then all of a sudden it flips to Teddy. And this book, they mirror each other. And I'm a history guy. I never would have put them together the way that you have.

How were you able to do that? Well, number one, reading Booker T. Washington, he starts referencing Teddy Roosevelt a lot. And then I went to Tweed and he was running the LAU Roosevelt Center, and that's a great grandson.

Yeah, I saw that. And he's also a historian and he knew everything about Teddy. And why was Teddy real to him? Well, Teddy's wife, Edith, outlived him by 30 years. He knew her. And he heard Sagamore Hill was not a national park to him.

It was great grandma's house. Right. So I said, listen, am I overstanding? He goes, listen, Teddy Roosevelt said some things that would, that shows he had blind spots about race. He was a man of his times. But for the most part, this was a real relationship.

The respect they had for each other was tangible. And he said, if you want any proof, go to Tuskegee. He's on the board. He's serving on the board. Read his commencement address when he's asked to be down there.

They got the written address and they got the other address. He was so overwhelmed by what he saw, the quality of students that were there, the way they all learned to trade as well as to learn to read, write and to the School of Higher Learning. They said that what you're doing here in the middle of the South, in Alabama at this time is just it's more than I ever could have thought. And then you read the rest of his speech and I go, there's a lot here. And then you find out the way he went up to Ted Booker and he said, I need recommendations. I don't really know anyone in the South. I need judges, postmasters.

Give me the best person. And he did. And they did it before.

And they did it for seven and a half years. Now, you mentioned briefly the Tuskegee, his school. His school, I thought, was amazing because his goal was higher learning. But he also knew at the time that most African-Americans were going to be at best they could be allowed to do with manual labor. You still had that ceiling. And he was able to get through and there was men, but the general consensus was you higher learning, but you've got to have a trade because you've got to do something in between time.

And I feel like that's the biggest message of this book. So it was like for men, it was blacksmithing, it was carpentry, it was architecture, agriculture, women. It was sewing, stitching, things like that.

And then you were getting your ground game together. And that's something I always preach about when people ask me like, what is your... I said, you got to have like, would you let your kid wrestle?

Would you let your son or daughter go into entertainment? They got to give me a piece of paper with something on the ground that if this extra stuff doesn't work out. Well, here's the thing, then it wasn't an option. Like, oh, I'm going to go chase dreams.

You didn't have that option in America at the time. It was, if you want this, you've got to have this in the meantime. You got to be so good. White people have to hire you. Yeah, yeah. And that's it. And when people started getting word, Henry Ford, you know, what are you guys doing down there?

We need their guys. You know, Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie in steel, he's like, you got this is a workforce down here I could have. And then others say, I'm going to go teach. I'm going to start my own. I'm going to start scrambling. I'm going to start. I'm going to move on.

I'm going to go into the military. They became the best sales tool for Tuskegee. So out they go. In come another fifteen hundred, fifteen hundred, fifteen hundred graduating class. Then they go out in the field. Then they come back again. And it just started exponentially growing and unbelievable that they didn't live till past 60, 59 and 60 years old. They're dead. They accomplished all this.

It's stunning. That's and you you see today, you see our education system today. You see where it's a you want to you can put it on the federal. You can put it on bad teachers. But there has to be a fire.

You have to want it. And not everyone's fire starts in the same place. And in this case, Booker T's fire was started just him growing up and he just saw the world differently. He was never swayed by anything, no matter how bad. At one point, he watched one of his uncles get beat within an inch of his life. He saw the separations, but none of that ever deterred him. He was like, I'm going to find a way around this or through this.

There's that fire there. I'd like to compare like I keep telling you this story. These two men's story is so relevant today because I think it magnifies what's lacking and what's going on today. You have this great picture and I love it. In the book, it's chapter 91 and where it's like the with images of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington looking down from the wall above the Blackboard.

Tuskegee students learn American history in their 19, in this 1902 photograph. So you can't see it at home, but I know one camera, whatever, but if we find a way, a vaccination. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got it wrong now. See, we want to rip the pictures down.

Right. Instead of the education. Well, why wouldn't we? Because George West had slaves. Why would you put, why would you put a statue up? In 1902, I think when I could literally name members of my family that were slaves. I probably would have been more angry to see the George Washington picture than I would be today when I'm so far removed from it.

And that's the cop out. It's, I feel like this pulls the blind. I'm so good. You said that because I've been trying to, I was trying to enunciate that and people have asked me, you know, why are we so divided today?

Like what do you, what's your message today? Am I, I'm like, it's an insult. I mean, do I think what happened to George Floyd is terrible? Yeah. But do I think America is inherently racist? No.

Do we have a past that shows a segregationist was a slavery? Absolutely. But it's an insult to the guys that work and the women that work through it. They've got us better. They gave their lives for it.

They've made every effort, not for themselves, but for the masses to move our country forward. Who by the way, Frederick Douglass loved the country. Booker T Washington loved the country.

Every reason not to. They could have stayed in Europe, Frederick Douglass, and lived a life of luxury. He was a celebrity. They have statues of him in Ireland, Frederick Douglass.

That's how much they worshiped him. Booker T Washington goes over there and he's treated unbelievably, but he came back to America. I want to make it better. I'm going to live in the South. I'm not even gonna live in the North. I'm not going to start a school and leave. Like I'm going to go in the South and I'm going to make things better. And I'm going to see the lynchings and the Jim Crow laws and the poll taxes. And I'm going to pick my spots to make it better.

And 1500 at a time, I'm going to graduate people that will prove to anyone there is no difference between the races. It was one of the best colleges at its time out there. And it just goes to show with limited resources or he, and he often talked about how he would get donations with, you know, strings attached, you know, so it wasn't, he was going, and while all this is going on, Theodore Roosevelt is at the same time, he's building. Now he was obsessed with Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was this guy, you know, he put again, he put, did you see the picture of him? Yes. Of the, yeah. And he even, I think it was a quote in the book where he says whenever he makes a decision or he's thinking on something, he would look up at the a picture because he assumed Abe would do the same thing, which made me laugh. Cause if Abe was looking at his own picture, that kind of makes him a jerk, but whatever.

But it was, well, thanks man. When you look, and I know we don't have a lot of time, but there's so much, if this is a book you read with your teenage sons and daughters, this is a book that you read out loud because the message is so strong. But if you read, it's like the history is always the blueprint of what's going on in the future. Right. And I think we can read their stories and look at what's going on today and we can really break it down to one thing.

Americans have become very lazy and spoiled and they will use misinformation to be complacent. I don't want to go to school because George Washington's picture's on the ball. BS.

I got you. George, freed slaves got to pick, we got to pick our last names. Washington, Jefferson.

That's a great one. Abraham Lincoln. And he picked Washington.

And he picked Washington. Tyrus, thanks so much. I look forward to picking up your upcoming book. Enough said, and I assume I'm in it. I hope it's okay. And you're going to interview me Saturday night on One Nation, right? Yep. Yep. All right. So we've got a lot of stuff going on.

But yeah, if you have not, seriously, pick this up. Was this intimidating to see me stand like this? I was more focused on the book. Next time I'll focus on you being intimidating. Last time you hear you rip the microphone off. So I'm glad the violence is so we're getting better. But yeah, you're good man. Listen to the show at free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.