Ben Shapiro's Godawful Book: The Final Episode

Robert is joined by Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston for the last reading of Ben Shapiro's terrible novel.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hm true. How is that I knew that the
show had started? Because of that, I'm nothing, nothing to add.
What I love is getting paid my entire salary to

(00:21):
open shows like this, Because it's actually pretty easy to
be an adult if you if you're if you get
a couple of lucky breaks that allow you to just
grunt into a microphone and then Groggy Ley read Been
Shapiro's Terrible book for an hour and a half to
your friends. Which is the career path I recommend for
everyone listening. It's amazing. Uh what success is defined us

(00:45):
these days? But I accept it. Yeah, I accept it too. Um,
how are we? How are we? How are we all
doing today? On the special, very special day. Ah, it's Friday,
it's beautiful. I got a dog in my lap. I apologize,
I have a dog in my lap. He might be
there's two dogs in here. They might be joining in
the conversation. We'll see. I'm good. I'm glad you have

(01:06):
the dogs, Katie, because today isn't it a day where
we're going to all get some emotional closure And like,
you know, we're all world readers here, you know, we're
all fans of storytelling. When you finish a story that
has really grabbed you. It's like it can be like
losing a family member, Like like there's this this moment
of sorrow when you realize it's gone, and we are

(01:28):
about to take our very last trip into the world
of Ben Shapiro's True Allegiance. I know if I'm emotionally
prepared for this. We started this journey like a full
year ago, y'all, it's been a while. I mean, by
the time we're done, he'll have released Alliance True True,
which I just can't wait for. You know, I love

(01:49):
a series of books. You know, I've been, I've been
I I I run one of the largest sub credits
for for True Allegiance fans, and the big the scuttle
butt is that sequel we're finally going to learn Yard's
name crossed, fingers crossed, I don't know, might save that

(02:09):
for the third one. Well, we are going to have
to come up with something else to read because I'm
not ready to say goodbye to this tradition. Now we'll
have to find another book, maybe Steven Seagal's book The
Way of the Shadow Wolves. You had a visceral reaction
to that title, and speaking of visceral reactions. The first

(02:32):
chapter that we're coming back to is we couldn't open
this episode better Brett Hawthorne. Here we go. All right,
We're in New York City with Brett. Brett couldn't stop sweating.
It wasn't that Prescott. Prescott is the terrible president. Prescott's
threat scared him. Not after the public scandal with Diana
Kelly bullshit though. It was not after Afghanistan, not after

(02:54):
I run, not after spending years apart from Ellen. Prescott
would be better off burying the whole situationally avoiding the backlash,
making some payoff to Omari, which is the bin laden.
This would blow over. Brett wasn't sweating for himself. He
was sweating for Hassan. He'd been a fool. He knew
that now he'd been a fool far too often, trusting Prescott,
serving at his administration and then telling Omari that he

(03:15):
knew about Mohammed's association with him. O MARII could backtrack
the story. Okay, so Brett's Brett's feeling bad because he
got his friend, the good Muslim in trouble for telling
him about the bad Muslim who is like running care
basically like we all remember that there's there's there's the
there's the anti Muslim bigotry organization that's a front for

(03:38):
al Qaeda. Um. Because all of the Muslims except for
his friend Hassan are bad guys. Um. And Brett got
his friend in trouble because his friends sent him to
the anti Muslim bigotry people who knuke to New York City.
Because the only reason to be against bigotry against Muslims
as if you're planning to destroy the largest city in
the country. That's basic of any other logical region. Yeah, yeah, Okay,

(04:03):
So he's wondering how Prescott tracked him down. Yeah, because
he got caught by the President and the FEDS. Last
episode or last chapter, whatever you want to call these things. Um. Yeah.
So he's in his hotel room. He's in trouble. He's
worried about his friend. He picks up his phone and
he dials Hassan's number. Hassan picks up on the first ring.
General Hawthorne, he said, Brett picked up the queue right away.

(04:24):
Hassan knew they were listening. Hassan Abdul, I've heard so
much about you. A mutual friend of ours referred me
to you. He said you could answer some questions about
chronic philosophy for an article I'm writing about my experience
as an Afghanistan and Iran. Okay, So he's they're doing
like the the the Koi thing because he doesn't want
to give anything away over the phone because he's being tapped.
YadA YadA, YadA. Um okay, let's let's let's where's that

(04:48):
good Brett Hawthorne action here? Come on, he's getting the
climate like we're getting. Come on, Okay, So he gives
Hassan his address and Hassan comes over, and that's how
they're That's how they're going to have a real conversation.
Brett puts on Joy Behart to drown out whatever listening
devices are in the room. Has been a big joy
Behart fan. I don't think so couldn't be no. Um okay,

(05:15):
so uh the um. So they have twenty minutes of
phony discussion about the Koran Um. We still don't know
what Brett's actually trying to do. Okay. So this whole
conversation they've had is just so that Brett can set
up another secret meeting where they're going to actually have
the real conversation, good writing. We needed these last three

(05:36):
pages where nothing really happened. Um So now he winds
up later, back at Hassan's apartment. Uh sneaking past federal
agents and stuff to have I guess the real meeting.
When Hassan led him in, he immediately held up a
piece of paper to his chest. They stopped here today,
it said the tapes are gone. Brett's face went white.
So they've known all along, and then they'd waited for
Hassan to leave the apartment to ransack it. So of

(05:57):
a bit, he whispered to himself. Then he read the
rest of what Hasan had written. Found your Muhammad. It
read Flatbush blew it an address, So that's the terrorist
who's in the country to set off another bomb. I
guess you could have just this is like nitpicking. We're
getting the nipicky stage. He read the rest. He read

(06:19):
the last. I wouldn'tsh back and say that's not nitpicky.
An overall note. Yeah, you know what say you read
the rest of what this person wrote, like we know
that so far has been written like four pages that
could have been like three paragraphs where he's like, yeah,
we exchanged coded messages until we could actually meet overall. Note,

(06:40):
you need a redundancy at it. You need a redundancy
at it. I mean, that's the thing when you're when
you're writing a piece of fiction, you write it right,
and the first draft is always going to be trash.
Everybody's first draft is bad. Don't publish that one, Ben, Ben.
And then your goal should be to go through a
few more times and make it short. Every time. It

(07:00):
should get a little shorter because you're recognizing, for example,
that you wrote for unnecessary pages that don't convey any
useful information about the progression of the story. Um but
I don't know, just a note, yeah, okay, Um. So
he has to escape from Hassan's apartment. He's dodging federal agents.

(07:22):
We have an action scene I guess where. It takes
way too long, pages and pages of him just running
away from guys and hiding. Um, Ben, I was hoping
for more fun combat General Bret Hawthorne stuff. But okay,
so the agents catch him, he gets he's he finally,
after three pages of very boring running away, he's on

(07:45):
the subway platform. The agents catch him. General shouted, one
of the agents, just come with us. You know, we
have our orders. Brett breathed, heavily, bent down and put
his hands on his knees. He held one finger to them,
all right, just catching my breath, guys, and then looked
up at them. As the noise of the approaching subway
train grew, he he counted down in his head. He
could see the lights approaching down though. I think he's

(08:05):
going to jump on the train. Um, yeah, yeah, he
jumps on the train. Um. And he successfully runs away
from the uh the federal agents. Um. Oh wait, no,
no he doesn't. They run after him. So we're running again.
We're running again. We're running again. This is so many

(08:27):
pages of just Brett Hawthorne trying to avoid federal agents. Um. Okay.
So he find he gets away. He comes out into
New York City. He's walking around Prospect Park. He's looking
for this Mohammed guy. He finds his apartment. Uh. He
had almost no chance of avoiding detection if Mohammed was listening.
He knew the complex, the apartment complex Mohammed's, and just

(08:47):
wasn't big enough. Heavily trafficked enough. Sure enough, a woman
from to Be opened her door cracked to get a
look at him. He cleared at her, and he heard
her shut the door and lock it. His hand felt
in his pocket for a weapon he didn't have. Did
he normally keep his weapons in his pocket? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean he he doesn't have anything, but it's not
like he reached down by his side where his his
trusted side arm was. He doesn't keep his gun in

(09:08):
his pockets. I got what I got? Yeah, I mean, okay,
some of us keep loose knives in our pockets. That's healthy. Um.
Eventually you build up an immunity to getting cut. Really
yeah yeah, it's like strict nine. Um. Okay. So he

(09:32):
finds he gets into Mohammed's apartment, but Mohammed has been
murdered already. He's had his throat cut, so I don't know.
There's some fucking terrorism ship going on here. Um. Oh,
and Brett has arrived just in time to almost catch
the assailant. Um. Okay, so we have an action another
action seen here. Um. He gets attacked by the guys
who just killed this terrorist, um, and he fights them off. Well,

(09:57):
he's in the process of fighting them off. Um. There's
another boring action scene. Uh. And he succeeds in beating
up the guys who killed the other guy and taking
them captive. Um, so yeah, he gets puts a night
to one of their throats and he's out. He's about
to torture one of these guys for information. That's that's
we're leading in the last paragraph of Brett's chapter is

(10:18):
a few minutes later, after subduing Mahmoud, who's the guy
he is about to torture, Brett diald Ellen. Honey, he said,
don't come to New York. I can't stay for certain yet,
just don't come to New York. Something bad is okay?
So you remember three chapters ago when Ellen called him
because she was about to fly to New York on
behalf of the governor and she gets a call from
Brett telling her not to. This is apparently happening contemporaneously

(10:40):
to what happened three chapters ago. That's why Brett was, oh, okay,
So now we're back at that part. Well, because goodtinuously
building but also continuously going back in time in order
to build again, so that there's it's like a zig

(11:00):
especially if that is um a styleistic choice that has
not been introduced earlier in the novel. Yeah, you need
to make it as not clear, as I will say,
one thing that has been introduced in this book so
far is that Brett will change perspectives and shift time
periods at random. Ben, sorry, not Brett. There is that.

(11:24):
So yes, Ben, Brett whomever. Uh yeah, jokes on me
for not paying close enough attention. All right, I'm gonna
skim more this next bit because this is just the
joke is on us for reading this. So our next
chapter is in Ellen chapter, and I guess we're finally
moving forward in time from where Ellen was three chapters
ago before Brett's chapter took us back in time. Um. Good.

(11:47):
So Brett's been missing for more than twenty four hours.
Nobody knows where he is. Um, she's waiting for an
audience with the president. She's in New York City. So
apparently she flew to New York City. Okay, she didn't
get explained to us. Yeah, you know, I'm okay with
that because if if you did, if you did a
bit where you like wrote about her going there, I'd

(12:08):
be like, Man, we don't need this. That's fair. Although
Cody the next page or so is been going back
in time and explaining why she decided to go to
New York. Um. Um, all right, so we have a
little bit about how she expected to be chaotic in
the wake of the terrorist attack. But the militarious gene
a brilliant job of cleaning up the city and opening

(12:31):
up traffic. So that's good. Um okay, uh, there's a
great line here. The dredging of the traffic clogged the
main arteries. The dredging of the Hudson had just come
about come to its conclusion. Although the coast Guards still
patrolled the waters and heavy numbers military men and women
seemed to throng throughout the city, occupying every coffee house,
every restaurant. This, she thought must have been what World

(12:52):
War two felt like. M couldn't agree more. She expresses
that it's calming having armed women and men everywhere, which
if they're in coffee houses and rest like, the military
isn't just let you keep guns when you're off duty.
Like maybe if you were at like a fob in Afghanistan, yeah,
you'd always want to have a gun near you. But
like these guys were sent to a city to assist

(13:14):
in a rescue operation, they're probably not carrying guns as
a rule because they're doing recovery work. They wouldn't have guns.
The army is are gonna be like, yeah, we'll take yours.
We're in New York, take your gun to get coffee.
I'm shocked he got this so wrong. Yeah, I mean,
it's just, uh, it's just been wanting to do his

(13:37):
you know, master banning over the military thing. Aren't things
better when everybody has guns and things better when the army?
I love to feel comfortable when everybody's got guns and occupying.
It's fine. Well, it's one of those things you feel
safe when everyone has guns. Obviously, I you know, I
spent a lot of time around places where everybody has guns.

(13:57):
But I don't feel particularly comfortable when there's a bunch
of armed soldiers everywhere in the middle of a city.
That's not a great sign. Particularly, that's a particularly bad sign.
It's weird because Ben is supposed to be like this
kind of libertarian conservative, but the thing he's celebrating isn't
like a bunch of armed citizens. It's like a military
occupying the largest city in the nation, which isn't a

(14:19):
small government thing. But I guess conservatism left that behind
a while ago. Yeah. Also, she's she she feels safer
in midtown Manhattan and the immediate wake of a terrorist
attack with soldiers everywhere. Then she felt in El Paso,
famous for being one of the safest large cities in
the United States, which been continuously forgets. He just thinks

(14:39):
it's got to be like a dangerous hell hole because
it's close to the border. I'll pass. It was like
a famously safe city. Yeah, he doesn't want to know that. Yes,
but what if in this book it isn't. Yeah, I
mean it clearly isn't because the government has declared war

(15:00):
on Mexico and has invaded from El Paso. Um, but
El Paso is number six in the top ten safest
metro cities in the United States. Um, New York. Uh, well, no,
New York is too, okay, So yeah, fair enough. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, it's gotten. It's it's it's pretty safe,
pretty safe town. So there you go. I guess, fair enough, Ben, Um,

(15:22):
although it's weird that she feels extra safe in the
wake of a terrorist attack that killed thousands there, Um yeah,
but whatever, all right, So she's she calls Ben's friend,
the special forces general who sent him on this question
in the first place, and YadA, YadA, YadA, she calls
somebody else. She's just she's doing a lot of phone calls.
She's walking around New York phone calling people, like a

(15:43):
reverse episode of Seinfeld. Um, okay, now she's buying a sandwich.
We get about a page or so of her talking
to a sandwich fender about how the president is angry
at her husband. Um, I don't know if that's information
she should just be sharing with people. Yeah, I've been

(16:04):
going on. I don't know. They're both eating a sandwich together.
She's some he's some sources of his. In any case,
it's very boring. Um. Yeah, she's just meeting with people,
meeting with people, talking to folks. Honestly. Yeah, I mean,
Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be. She finally, after several pages
of very boring conversations, finds the place that her husband

(16:30):
fought those guys and found the murder dude. Uh, and
I think she let's see. Oh yeah, no, she finds
so the the assassin that her president fought, or that
her her husband fought. Uh, he apparently murdered and he's
been sitting in the apartment ever since. And yeah, so
she's she's she's following in the wake of her husband's

(16:51):
murder spree. I guess, uh that's good. Yeah, that's a
meat cute Okay, so okay, she finally gets you, finally
gets set up with her meeting with the president that
she's supposed to take on behalf of the governor of
Texas who has invaded Mexico. Prescott finally caught Ellen that night.
They met at a conference room in the hotel. Prescott said,
at one end of the long conference table, with Tommy

(17:12):
Bradley at his elbow, they placed her at the opposite end.
She felt like a little girl called into the principal's office.
But realizing that's exactly how Prescott wanted it, she stealed
herself for the confrontation. That's a bad sentence, But realizing
that's exactly how Prescott wanted it. Comma, she stealed herself
for the confrontation. No Ben, that's no Ben. She was
surprised when Prescott grinned her, have you seen your husband yet,

(17:34):
miss Hawthorne? That little repost Ellen quickly figured meant they
were tailing her. Not yet, Mr President, she said, In fact,
I'm not quite sure where he is. She figured Prescott
must already know that otherwise he wouldn't have asked. He
knew better than to ask questions to which he didn't
know the answers, Wait, what did you do? That's okay, okay, Um.

(17:57):
So they're having a conversation about coming to an agreement
on board or security because again her boss has illegally
invaded a sovereign nation. They determined that they're at an impasse. Okay.
The President leans forward, a sudden seriousness coming over his face.
I'm sure you can do better than that. Look, see,
from my perspective, we just faced the most serious a
terror attack in our nation's history. All I'm trying to

(18:17):
do is rebuild. All I need is some time, some
calm in the country. You've seen the situation in Detroit.
The world's on fire. Whose fault is that? Mr? President?
What did you just say? I said, at your fault?
Mr President Ellen couldn't back Okay, truth Hower, I guess
I guess he caused. He caused all this by not
bombing Iran, is what she's saying, or having all of

(18:40):
the Black Lives Matter activists massacred. Yeah, that's that's why
the world's Yeah, not enough violence. We need to listen
to the women more. Yeah, okay, so the President offers, oh, okay,
So the President has Brett. Apparently he got captured. And
after this point and after like they I, they can't

(19:00):
come to an agreement on the border. He brings Brett
in um two secret Service agents ushered in General Bretta Thorne.
His face was bruised, his clothes were filthy. He looked awful.
His hands were gashed and scraped his knuckles bloody. For
a moment, Ellen felt miles away. Her husband blurred through
her tears. Okay. She She ran to him, throwing her
arms around his neck. He stood there awkwardly, then raised

(19:22):
his hands to her head, stroked his ear, she her hair.
She breathed in the smell of him, the wonder of him,
And then he saw Prescott smiling face and came back
to earth. She kissed his cheek. What do they do
to you? She whispered. He gently pushed her back. Then
he turned to the President, his hands open, pleading. Mr President,
He said, you need to call m. M Omari right
now and get some answers. And why is that general?

(19:43):
We've had this conversation before. Okay. So the Brett spent
his day's tracking down leads there's a terrorist attack. Uh,
he's he's warning the president's about to be a nuclear
attack on American soil. I've seen the strategy before in Afghanistan.
They draw you in with one bomb, then used a
second to kill those who helped. I think what happened
to the bridge was the preliminary attack. Prescott paused. He
stroked his chin thoughtfully. Then he said slowly. I don't

(20:05):
believe you. You already knew, Brett mused, enraged. So the
President knows that there's about to be a nuclear attack,
and I guess he's Oh, no, okay, I did. I
did know. And I don't believe your intelligence is better
than my c i A, my FBI, my Department of
Homeland Security. I don't buy this Jack Bower routine you're
putting on. I think you've got the dellusions of grandeur
and that you always did. Okay, So that was a

(20:27):
deliberate twenty four reference when he tortured that guy. That's
nice to see. Yeah, okay, So the president he eddie edda. Uh,
it's just like it's because we've stretched this out over
a year, it is, but like I'm just so not
invested in what's going on? I am I because there's

(20:51):
so many different plots and they're all poorly laid out,
and everything takes twice as long as it ought to.
You're right, Cody, that it might be because we've reached
this out over the course of a year. Yea. Also, No,
it's bad. It is. It's terrible. It's a terrible there's
a reason it's been stretched out. It's because it's awful. Yeah,

(21:12):
we've got we've been putting it off a plot that
doesn't make any sense because we've got both There was
the first bombing, which I guess was covered for the
second bombing using the nukes that Saddam had, but he
hit an Afghanistan. Yeah. And then there's also the evil
Black Lives Matter group and their scheme to replace all

(21:35):
of the cops with black people, which is so far
is what we've got of the scheme of the Black
Lives Matter crew and fundamental misunderstanding I think. Um. And
then of course there's the attack on Mexico. Yeah, and
then there's then there's an invasion of Mexico. Um. That
feels like a good place to take an ad break. Yeah. Yeah,

(22:00):
you know who also would invade Mexico. These sponsors are sponsors. Yeah,
all right, we're back and we're we're just desperately trying

(22:21):
to close out this book that we are now of
the way through taste the President. Okay. So we we
get to the President and and them are having their
talk about, you know, the breat's warning that there's a
nuke that's going to be set off. The President doesn't
believe him because he's got his intelligence. Um yeah, okay,
so um, and he basically threatens like, hey, we've got

(22:45):
your husband around two different murders at this point. Uh,
and if we wanted to, we could have him convicted.
And Ellen asks why the president is doing this and
he says, because miss Hawthorne, your husband forced me into this,
so did you. The President of the United States is
not just a job. It's a high office. The President
of the United States can out look ridiculous. He can't
have a two bit jackass redneck governors spitting in his eye,

(23:06):
and he can't have rogue generals portraying him as a
weekly days after terrorists bro up the damn George Washington Bridge.
So here's my offer. We all walk out of here
as best friends. Ellen, you told the press that we've
reached an agreement and the state of Texas will be
removing its troops from the border. You apologize from the
massacre in Mexico, and just so your board, Bubba has
a fallback position, you can tell them that I've pledged
to offer up the federal support on the border as

(23:26):
soon as possible. As for you, General Hawthorne, you retire
quietly back to Texas with your wife. You keep your
damn mouth shut because I'm tired of hearing it. So
that's the deal they're willing to reach. Um, I don't
know if that's gonna fly. Yeah, that's his best comeback.
You keep your damn mouth shut. Also interesting, you know,
I can't have uh, these governors, you know, mouth and

(23:51):
back to me. I can't have these reports. Every single
president in the history of ever, there's people like you's
always going to be we're talking about you. Yeah, yeah,
I mean and yes, that's everything about this president. Um
is funnier based on how Ben went to bat for
Donald Trump. Like everything he said he writes about this

(24:13):
guy is a lot funnier because the year after he
published this book, he had to start defending President Donald
almost almost a month after the Book of Public it
was so Um. That chapter ends with with Brett and
Ellen deciding whether or not they're going to let America

(24:34):
get news so they can retire in Texas. Um. And
next chapter the end of the beginning. Uh boy, here poetic,
it's poetic. Mark Presscott had gotten his moment, but now
the time had come for the next step, the actual
launch of the Work Freedom Program, which is his The
president is a Nazi because he wants to give people

(24:56):
jobs program. He'd spoken with the Chinese government and they
had confirmed their prior commitment to purchase another massive round
of debt. His advisors had warned him that too much
leverage to the Chinese would place the nation's finances at peril,
but his own economist told him differently. The Chinese, they
shared him, could afford to take a financial hit even
less than the United States by tying the two economies together.
In fact, President Prescott, but we're doing a service to

(25:17):
the financial future of both countries. A little bit of
a little bit of China bating there. Um. Yeah, So
he's he's about to announce his big new works program
He's gonna do with the military as a backdrop. It's
going to have all these soldiers that are in New
York behind him so that conservatives can't yell him. Because
the armies there um. Preparations for the event had begun

(25:38):
nearly a day in advance. The military set up bleachers
to hold thousands of troops from across the country. Prescott
insisted that the most racially diverse troops be placed directly
behind them for the cameras, and all had them all
pre screened for their political sensibilities. So that's okay. Uh yeah,
so Dad, he's getting ready for his big He's gonna
change America. And now we're back to Brett and Ellen

(26:01):
who are sitting in the President's hotel trying to figure
out what they're going to do. Uh. They cry and
cry and cry, and they're talking about Brett is now
explaining to her everything that we saw him do um
in the previous chapters where they weren't together. So that's good. Um,
I'm glad that he can open up. No, yeah, okay,

(26:25):
so um yeah. Brett says that they can't do he
can't abandon things. They have to go about trying to
stop this terrorist attack. They can't retire in Texas. Um,
all right, now we're back to the President's big event.
Everybody's waving signs. Uh yeah, YadA, uh oh, no, no,
this is solo Dad. So Solo Dad is at the

(26:45):
President's big event. I think she's about to do a
terrorist attack. So she's she's going to she's she's slipping
through the crowd. Ricky O'Sullivan, the cop who shot the
dead eyed black boy, is waiting in her car. I
guess he's he's her wheelman. Um oh, she's going to
try to assassinate the president. Um okay. Aiden's death had

(27:08):
changed her, hardened her. She knew she could fob off
the California water. My recollection wasn't aidan. They didn't know
each other that well. I mean, she he was the
He was the fed the swat cop guy who then
got blown up by a drone stick. She met him
the day they escaped, right, yeah, but he killed the

(27:28):
rest of the swat team to help her escape. So
they were But it seems like, um a wild way
to end up. It's a wild path to end up
to killing the president. Killing the president, yes, yes, I
mean death of this person that she'd known for a
short period. I don't know, just a note, Katie, why
would you kill the president? Why would I kill the president?

(27:51):
Would kill the president? Let's all talk about clear into
the microphone. To kill the president, the president, the president, President,
the president. I think he would have to at least

(28:11):
have been she or she in this book. I'm right,
very least had to kill the person if I wanted
to get specific revenge on that president. I don't know.
I wish I had a funny answer. You took me
off guard. Everyone gets taken off guard when presidents get killed.
That was the great lesson of the Suppruter film. You

(28:32):
the start of the film, everybody's having a good times
in me getting arrested in some capacity. I'm not going
to be happy about it. I mean, we do start
every episode by saying that the threats against public figures
that may appear in this episode are in fact legally actionable.

(28:52):
Um officially endorsed by and officially endorsed by I Heart Radio.
That was a call Sophie and I made years ago,
maybe a bad one. I've got the I Heart team
behind me. Yes, yes, I Heart Radio collaborators with Bernard
Sanders and with Okay Loves limping me in on a

(29:16):
crime I you know, the best thing about crimes is
getting other people involved, which is what Sola dad understands.
Great pivot backed, thank you. So apparently she voted for
Mark Prescott the first time. Um, because his promises of
a better America and more caring America appealed to her.

(29:37):
Then it turned out caring was just a cover for control,
very subtle then very subtle dig it liberals. So uh yeah,
she's she's she's in this big crowd, but she's also
thinking about what happened right after Ricky got killed by
a drone. Um. So yeah, they'd spent days hiding in
the woods because everyone thinks that they're dead. Uh yeah, yeah,

(30:00):
uh um. Okay, so she's explaining why Solo adds. So
we start with Sola add in the crowd, and then
we go back in time to after Aiden was killed.
For bid to spend several pages explaining why she decided
to kill the president. That's good, that's good writing, ben Um,
we're just doing another time shift here. Uh, this is great.

(30:20):
Sola Deed felt the handgun in her purse. It was
a three D printed plastic gun. She bought it from
a gun enthusiast in Ohio. He'd been a nutcat obsessed
with weaponry with an industrial grade printer at his garage. Prior,
three D printed guns had been made with a few
key pieces of metal to absorb the explosion of the
gunpowder or bullet, but this guy had perfected a method
of making specialized bullets with a thicker shell that could

(30:41):
absorb the brunt of her What wait a second, Ben,
that's not how guns work. So this is an all
plastic gun, so it won't set off a metal detector.
But it's not all plastic because the reason that the
plastic gun works is that the bullets have extra thick
metal shells. So there's no metal in the gun at all,

(31:01):
just metal in the bullet, and as a result, it
won't set off the metal detector. Uh huh. I don't
think he researched that. I mean, I guess she's unloaded it,
so the bullet is elsewhere and she's just assuming it's well,
she's gonna load it to kill the president, but she's
she's assuming that the metal detector. Number One that in
a place like I've gone through Secret Service checkpoints, they

(31:23):
don't just scan you for metal. They run it through
a thing that lets them see what's in your bag.
They would notice the gun shaped thing. Um. Also, three
D printed guns don't work that way. But why would
I expect Ben to know about one of the things
he in this world? It does. It's just a dumb explanation.

(31:44):
It's just a dumb explanation for how a three D
printed gun would work. Um, because it doesn't make any
sense at all that like the bullets going to absorb
the metal shell of the bullet will absorb the explosion,
but the bullet has to travel down a barrel, and
a plastic rifled barrel is not She's not gonna work
very well. Okay, unless you write it down. He did

(32:07):
write it down. Okay, whatever I guess fiction authors you get,
you get a little thing like this. Even though his
explanations dumb, I'll give it to him. Um. Okay, So
now we're back back to Brett and Ellen. Sola. Dad's
got her gun. She's gonna get close to the president
and kill him. She'd have to get within a few
dozen yards of the president. That's a long range shot
with a real pistol. Then, like, it's hard, it's hard

(32:31):
for most people to hit. Like if you're a good
shott away. Maybe you know, um, you can you can
hit reliably with an actual handgun from twenty or thirty
feet away, a plastic gun with a plastic barrel. You'd
get have to get that. You would have to be
at point blank range. Right. Maybe then if it's like
the kind of thing where you're just gonna shove it
into their face and fire, you're not. You're not hitting

(32:52):
anything with that gun from dozens of yards away. Like okay, Ben,
So thanks to the foot track, think at the heart. Now,
now we're back to Brett and Allen. They're sitting in
a limousine um with the White House Chief of Staff.
He keeps trying to talk to them. Um. Brett turns
to Ellen. I need to go now, sweetheart. They won't
let me go anywhere. Once we get to the airport.

(33:13):
I need to get down to the harbor. But you
listen to me. Whatever you do, you get on the
plane with Prescott. I don't know whether this attack will
come at the event or not, but I want you
out of this city. I'm so sorry for this out.
I'm so sorry for everything we could have had a
life together. She looked at him, dead in the eyes,
Brett Hawthorne, I want you to know this. You are
my hero. God, okay, I just can't even read the
rest of that. Share the screen and one of us

(33:37):
will read it. But she She looked at him, dead
in the eyes. Brett Hawthorne, I want you to know this.
You were my hero. You always were. I am so
proud to be your wife. I wouldn't trade my life
for anyone's. They felt the urge to kiss each other,
then they remembered Bradley in the car and hugged Instead.
Take a bullet for you, babe, he said, take a
bullet for your sweetheart. She answered, Oh god, okay it me.

(34:00):
I know it. Our listeners that a minute. Just because
someone's in the car doesn't mean you can't fucking kiss
your wife. What is this? What kind of weird kiss
shaming is this? You haven't seen her so long and
you haven't kissed her yet. Come on, they're being watched
by the Secret Service and the President's man, but like
they know they're married a secret. Yeah, like of all

(34:26):
the things that are going to be a problem of
the fact that they're like they're doing a quick funk
on the sidewalk. Yeah, Brett's Brett's planning to escape. Um,
like he's planning to flee and run away from the
Secret Service. The fact, yeah they're not close, you can't

(34:48):
see it, but Cody's face is it's so bad, it's
it's I am convinced that Ben has never kissed his
wife as a result of this, because some one might see, Yeah,
someone might see. What if? What if somebody sees it?
They only kiss in the bedroom under the covers. They
hugs fully clothed under the covers. That's I mean, I'm

(35:14):
not going to say that the father of Ben's children
as a Turkey based but I'm not going to say
it's not just based on this chapterally speaking, very possible.
Why didn't like, I know why he thinks bread Hawthorne
is such a cool fucking name. He thinks he did
he thinks name. It's unbelieved. It's like so embarrassing. It's

(35:35):
sad because this is who he desperately wants to be
UM and he's he spent his life wanting to be
an imaginary bear of a man who won't kiss his
wife before going to stop a nuclear attack, unto they
love saying bread Hawthorne, bread Hawthorne Okay, So then reach

(36:00):
pops open the lock and like jumps out into traffic
in order to escape from the vehicles. The Secret Service
can't find him. He sprints around the corner, he loses them. Um,
there's not Secret Service agents on the running boards of
the limousine like they're always are on the president's limo
Um ever since Bernard Sanders one cold nove embery day
changed presidential security forever, um forever. Yeah, Well, he knew

(36:24):
he wanted to be the president one day, so he's like,
I want to feel really really protected, so I gotta
take I gotta do this. So yeah, that was that
was Secret Service was slacking. Yeah, when I'm president, They're
not gonna limos is no top that's a terrible line.

(36:45):
Let me the top of the top one percent of
all car all right that something like that. There's there's
a joke there. We'll figure it out one of these days.
C Brette's running around, he's he's looking to he's trying
to stop this arist attack. He sees um above the
huge throng of people waiting for the president to speak,

(37:05):
a mom omari who's giving an invocation? Um, oh good,
Uh so the president being evil has has has a
Muslim giving the invocation for this terrorist attack. Um, there's
polite of applause. Um. The mom takes a seat, yet
a yeada YadA. Brett gets is almost at the stage,
He's close to the stage. The presidents playing videos of

(37:28):
of of soldiers doing relief work and helping after the disaster.
The crowd's very The crowd roars its approval. It made
Brett queezy. There were no pictures of the falling in
Afghanistan or Iraq, no pictures of the bomb going off
under the bridge. Yeah, okay, um, yeah, it makes sense
that you would have pictures of dead men in Iraq

(37:49):
at a vigil for a terrorist attack in New York.
That would make other people queezy. Mm hmm. I mean,
I don't know. I guess the point that Brett is
making is at all of the men who died in
Iraq and Afghanistan, we're trying to prevent this attack on
New York, which is why we we had to get
Saddam's w m d s that are now back in
America because we invaded Iraq. The point he's making because

(38:16):
we went to war with these countries because Saddam had
these weapons and they still wound up over here, maybe
suggesting that the war was a bad idea. But Ben
doesn't stop to think about that. Um. So the president
starts a speech, My fellow Americans, we stand strong, we
stand together. YadA yadah. He's oh. Okay. The President announces
that he's authorized his air force to strike Syria. Why

(38:38):
that's what? Brett asks? What the hell is in Syria?
Prescott continued. Our intelligence tells us that this vicious terror
attack was masterminded in that war torn country. We felt
the brunt of their rage, and we took there and
they took their best shot. Now they will take ours. Okay.
So he's attacking Syria. Um over this attack that was
using Saddam's weapons from Iran. All right, and he announced

(39:00):
the start of the work Freedom program. Um. He gives,
he gives a speech. He gives a speech. Um, Brett,
notice is a couple of federal agents in the crowd. Um.
The speech continues, God, this is just this, it's just
so boring. Um. Okay, but it was so focused on
Mahmud that he bumped into a smaller woman in front. Okay,
he bumps into Sola Dad and he immediately recognizes by

(39:21):
the way she has her hand in her purse that
she has Yeah, that she's got a gun. He'd seen
that arm angle before. He knew what the person looked like,
before they pulled a gun from concealment. He's good. I mean,
I think it looks the same when you're pulling anything
out of a purse, more or less. But okay, whatever,
that's fine. Brett, He's a combat general, he knows these things. Um.

(39:44):
He responds instinctively by yelling gun and grabbing her hand. Um.
She fires uselessly into the air. The crowd panics, the
Secret Service jumps on the President. They pull him off
the stage. Um. Then Brett gets jumped by the Secret Service. Um. Yeah.
Ellen had watched the proceedings above Air Force One. She
watched the flustered anchors and the major network news try

(40:06):
to get a beat on the story, giving out unverified
information then retracting it. She knew Ben had. Brett had
no cell phone, so she had no one to call. Instead,
she waited. So the President gets back on the plane,
his motorcade arrives. Uh. He's angry at everybody, wondering how
the security fucked up so bad and screwed up his
big moment. He yells at Ellen about her goddamn husband.
She says, my husband's savior life. Here's what I think.

(40:29):
I think your husband should up at that event because
he's got a fixation with the mom. Yeada, YadA dada. Okay,
where's this all heading? Um, So he argues with Ellen. Um,
they're all on Air Force one. Um. She sees like
people going through security as they get ready to take
off to protect the president. She sees a man she
didn't recognize who emerged with his bodyguard from the presidential motorcade.

(40:50):
The bodyguard carried a large defel bag. Next and stood
a Secret Service agent, the same guy who tackled Brett. Um,
I think there's a I think they're gonna blow up
Air Force one with a new Um. Yeah, I think
that's about to happen. Um. So she doesn't. She recognizes
the mm O Mari, who's about to be on the
plane with the president. They're all buckling in. The mom
is talking to his bodyguard in Arabic, which is obviously shady.

(41:12):
The plane takes off, the plane begins to drop. Um,
oh good lord. Okay. Then oddly the plane began to drop.
The buildings in Manhattan grew nearer beneath the plane as
Ellen watched curiously through the window. The voice of the
pilot poured through the speakers. Ladies and gentlemen, don't be concerned.
The President has requested that we descended to a lower
level over the city of New York in order to
take publicity photos. Okay, yeah, I guess they're taking plane

(41:37):
publicity photos. Um. Okay. So that's one thing I really
hate about liberals. Is there their plane publicity photos. Um? Okay.
So the President is having the plane fly low over
New York and at the same time, the m mom
mo mari starts chanting in Arabic. Um. I think it's
it's his death chant because he's getting ready to do

(41:58):
a terrorism um. And Ellen gradually figures out what's happening. Um.
The plane circles lower and lower and lower. Oh god, okay,
so it's the It's obvious that a ten attack is
about to happen because the Arab man is chanting in Arabic.
The other passengers looked around, uncomfortably paralyzed by a peculiar
inability to overcome their political correctness. I know Ellen isn't.

(42:25):
Though she's not, she's not overcome with political correctness. She
unbuckles her seatbelt and walks towards Omari, but she gets
cut off by one of his men, and she shouts
that he has a bomb. Secret Service agents appear, they
pull their guns. Omary holds up his phone. He says
he just wants to negotiate. The Secret Service agents freeze
because Omari has been invited by the President. They think

(42:47):
that it's been a mistake. Something could be worked out.
Um oh God. From the floor of the airplane, Ellen
looked up at Omary. He was lying. She could see it.
He was stalling for time. No more time, Ellen thought
to herself, No more talk, negotiations games. A line from
her past crept into her head for some reason, no
loitering cadet. She almost smiled as she remembered, take a
bullet for you, babe, she whispered to herself, and she

(43:09):
pushed herself, your faces. Uh, if I was butchering a
deer right now, I don't think you would look that disgusted.
And I'm a vegetarian. So she grabs Omari's phone, but

(43:31):
it's not in enough time. Air Force one explodes at
two thousand feet with a nuke um and blows up
Washington Heights in a bunch of New York City. Um so, yeah,
it kills, It kills a lot of people. Ben writes
lovingly about this bomb destroying New York. Yeah. Yeah, obliterated
full blocks of Washington Heights. Why specifically Washington Heights do

(43:52):
we think? I don't know. Ben is clearly he spends
a lot of time talking about New York getting nuked.
I think he's he likes the idea that's what they deserve. Yeah,
because of their political correctness. That's why this happened. Um No,
I just think it's interesting. That's where Cardi bs from.
But it kills a bunch of soldiers too, Yeah, that's
probably it is Cardie B. He's he's this is all

(44:15):
his revenge for that song about vaginas. Yeah. I mean,
these things did not happen in order, but I mean
maybe the song is revenge for this book on behalf
of all of us. Yeah. So Brett doesn't see any
of this because he's sitting in a cell when the
bomb goes off. Uh, he's turned to stare in the distance.
He saw the mushroom cloud rise above the profile of

(44:37):
the New Freedom Tower. Oh no, he whispered, Oh God,
please no. Then he fell to his knees and buried
his head in his hands, screaming silently. All right, now
we're at the epilogue. We're finally here to take a break.
But we do have to take a break. Yeah, I mean,
you know who will also destroy Air Force One? Yeah,

(45:00):
when it's two thousand feet above New York City, MS. Yes,
they absolutely will. God, I love nukes. Is I can't
stop thinking about how Bratt should have just taken that
goddamn kiss. Yell. He should have taken the kiss, right,

(45:23):
but he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of
the White House chief of Staff. He didn't want the
White House Chief of Staff to know that he kissed
his wife. It is, it is. It says a lot
about Ben that he was like, Oh, people in this situation,
knowing they're one of them is about to die, would
wouldn't kiss because they wouldn't want the White House chief
of staff to know that a married couple kisses. Yeah,

(45:44):
they would hug politely. They would hug politely in a
way were leaving forever, and from your perspective, as they hug,
you could think like, oh, are they also kissing? Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's I mean, it's just an emblem. Maddic
of Ben's talent as an author. So the epilogue, I

(46:09):
guess the former governor of Michigan is the acting president.
She's addressing the country from the East Room of the
White House. Hears in her eyes were genuine. She put
forced them down. I know many of you may not
know me. Few Americans bothered to learn the name of
the vice president of the United States. Oh, I think
most generally do. Okay, So the current vice president, not

(46:32):
the current governor. No, okay, she was the former governor
current vice president, which we haven't heard about since then,
since up until now, because most Americans don't know who
the vice president is. The world you don't run with
a vice president on your ticket. That that isn't happen.
I also love that the vice president, now the acting
president after a nuke has been set off in America,

(46:53):
opens her speech by saying, I know none of you
know who I am, because I'm just the vice president.
M very funny. By now, I'm sure you have heard
the news from New York City where a nation's greatest
city has once again been struck by the scourge of terrorism.
I'm also sure that you have heard that the President
of the United States, Mark Prescott, was the target of
that attack, along with hundreds of thousands of the citizens

(47:13):
he loved so much. Her green eyes, hardened by years
in the political limelight, glinted. She had earned the lines
around those eyes, the worry lines around her mouth. Alison
Martin had fought her way to the top of American politics.
Uhda uh we have some description of this person. Um
way too much of a description of this person's backstory
for this moment in the book. Her speaking style was mechanical.

(47:36):
She was unlikable. She did not know she's Hillary Clinton. Okay.
She did not have the charm of Mark Mark Prescott.
She did not inspire. She was, as she liked to herself,
a grinder. Yes she did not. She reminded her subordinates
tolerate losing. I would give my own life to have
preserved Mark Prescott's. YadA YadA. He's a visionary leader. We
will live for him. Okay, So she's talking about this president.

(47:59):
Her voice was in pitch and urgency and tenor mirk
Prescott was always honest with you, and I will be
no less honest. Here's what we know tonight. We know
that there was an assassination attempt on President Prescott today
at New York Harbor. It was thwarted through diligent work
of our security on the ground. We do have a
man in custody. Shortly after the attempted attack on the president,
the President's security team moved him to Air Force One,
where he was accompanied aboard by media and political figures.

(48:21):
That the White House has been a negotiation over the
state of Texas. Over why are we talking about Texas now? Um? Yeah, okay,
we're just going to Texas. Um oh okay. The represent
so they she announces that Ellen Hawthorne is suspected of
having smuggled and detonated a small yield nuclear weapon aboard
Air Force One. Um, and so America is now going

(48:42):
to war with Texas. Okay, that's what what what? What?
What the fuck? Yeah, that's the that's everyone takes Okay, Okay, folks,
we support it, not disunity, and we must steal ourselves

(49:05):
for the battle ahead. There's also no question that America's
capacity for rebuilding his building has been damaged. We've lost
a lot of troops. YadA, YadA. The value of the
dollar is fucked up. Uh. Let me in tonight with
a quote from President Mark Prescott, spoken just a few
weeks ago at the side of the George Washington Bridge
bombing love for each other. The President said, care for
each other, sacrifice. Okay, uh okay. So we're going to

(49:29):
war with and now we're back to leave on Okay.
Finally there's been really no resolution, like none of none
of what has happened with Levin has built to anything.
Um okay. So he's talking. He's on a skype call
or something with the mayors of a bunch of other cities. Um.
Because he's been made Emmissary of peace. Um okay. Um.

(49:52):
So he's talking to the mayor of Detroit. Uh. Where
at war? The war and that wars down south. As
you know, some of the mayor's nodded, a few looked uncomfortable.
He pressed on that means we've got to have order
in our own cities. I know that you're all doing
your breast best. But as you know, and as Mark
Prescott said, police departments across this country of a long
legacy of racial bigotry. With the current shortage of National
Guard and federal military it available, there's bound to be

(50:12):
some unrest. He looks at the governor. So here's what
needs to happen, and here's what President Martin wants to happen.
You're all going to set up civilian oversight commissions. These
will be parallel to your city councils and the real authority,
real public authority. If not, I can guarantee violence will happen.
That's a guarantee. So his evil plan is to set
up civilian oversight commissions over the police. Um okay, which

(50:33):
is how he plans to control the country. I guess,
uh yeah, they no longer ran, the mayor's no longer
run their cities. Leave on Williams did because all of
the oversight commissions report to him. I guess, which is
better than the cops running the cities, which is how
things actually anyway. Uh oh. Now we're at the South China.
See the aircraft carrier set more to the man made

(50:54):
island to top the atolls of the Spratley Islands. The
Chinese government had spent years dredging the coral reefs, turning
them in the military outpost in spite of international fere
the crowd. The crew of the lion Yang, fully two
thousand strong, had been trained aboard the ship and knew
her well. They came accompanied by another seven hundred members
of the air group behind the lion Yang, said a
flotilla of destroyers and frigates. Okay, so we've got the
Chinese military here. I guess they're about to do a

(51:17):
Pearl Harbor um nce in this book. Yeah. Uh wait, no, no, no,
they're not um Okay, they're just there's just the Chinese
military is about to meet a bunch of forces from
the coalition because they're doing uh some sort of um oh,

(51:38):
they're sending the Chinese army is heading to America to
help with the rebuilding building, but really to occupy the country. Okay,
because Hillary Clinton has asked the Chinese military to occupy
the country and help go to war with Texas. Yes, yes,
that's what's happening. Uh. And we end on Austin, while

(52:00):
I don't know if we're ending yet, but we're at nine.
So now we're in Austin, Texas. The impeachment vote against
Governor Bubba Davis is underway. He's in his office, the
room dark. He's thinking about Ellen. Uh. There's no way
that He'd watched the speech from President Martin, disbelieving there
was no way that the federal government, even this federal government,
could actually believe Ellen Hawthorne, responsible for the worst terror
attack in the history of the United States, could believe

(52:21):
him responsible for that attack. But they had said it,
they declared war. His bluff had been called. Unless he
wasn't bluffing, Davis knew that governors all over the country
were waiting, waiting, watching to see what the House would
do today. He'd spoken with the governors of Mississippi. Okay,
so he'd spoke with the governors of all of the
southern states. Um, all of the good style of the
Red States. He's talking, yeah, and he's shared them that

(52:42):
he had nothing to do with the attack. Okay, I
see what's been setting up here the federal military. Yea yeada,
yeada yeada. The thought thought of American men and women
naming guns at each other made Bubba Davis sick to
his stomach. He'd hoped in a way that the House
would go through with it, remove him from office, put
it into all this um that that so he doesn't

(53:03):
get impeached. He knew soon that he will be at
war with the federal government, so that's that's where we're going.
We're going to have another split between red and blue
states and China fighting for the blue states. So we
do have a sequel in the works. Well, I don't
think Ben's going to write the actual sequel, but I
think he and I think his hope was that this
would have been a huge hit and he would write
a series and they would be made into a blockbuster

(53:25):
movie that would convince everyone that liberals are evil. It's
so embarrassing when there's a bad book that's setting himself
up to have legs like, no, bro, you barely made
it through this. He barely made it through this, and
it's not coherent. So okay, I I correct. The last
part we in on his New York City Brett Hawthorne
is in an empty warehouse that the government's put him
in because he's too high profile. He's sad about ellen

(53:48):
um okay. A guy, an officer in full swat regalia,
walks into the room. He was tall, broad shouldered, which
means he's a good guy. Piece by piece, he began
there'sn't much time, sir, you need to put this ship on.
Brett looked at him, What are you talking about? You're leaving? General?
How did you get in here? You want to stick
around here, that's up to you, General, said the officer.
But I have a feeling you'd be better off taking

(54:09):
my advice. Britt stood up and began putting on the
police gears. The officer spoke, General, you're going to walk
out of here. Keep your face toward the wall as
much as possible. Show them this I D. It's federal.
Brett looked at E p A. What do they have
to do with this? The officer left, This I D
serves a purpose. Used to belong to a friend of mine.
When Brett finished suiting up, the officers sat down with
his back against the wall. Only one of us can leave,

(54:30):
He said, I think this is Ricky Sullivan. So Sullivan's
giving himself up so that Brett can escape. Um uh,
So Brett escapes while Ricky takes his place in the
black site. He gets into the car and he sees
Sola Dad Ramirez there. He like yells at their because
the last time he saw her she was trying to
kill the president. Um, you tried to assassinate Prescott. What
do you want with me? Sola dad Took looked at

(54:50):
him seriously. Do you want to stick around? If so,
get out right now. Brett looked at her. You're that terrorist,
I prefer rancher. The government made me a terrorist, No,
said Brett, you made you into a terrorist. You're free
to get out at any time. Brett went silent. She
started the engine. For what it's worth, she said, looking
straight ahead. I'm sorry about your wife, General Hawthorne, I'm
sorry for this country. I'm not sorry what happened to Prescott.

(55:11):
None of that matters. Where are we going? I figure
you're the general you pick, Brett thought for a moment.
Then he looked to the horizon again, to the murky
cloud of ash blotting out the rising stars. He said,
his jaw on to look. Ellen would have recognized him
meet instantly, his unshakable determination. Let's head, let's head west,
he said, I'm going home. Wait a second, there in
like the northeast West, isn't from the northeast, isn't Texas?

(55:35):
So okay? Beautiful, beautiful the northeast Oregon? What are you doing? Wait?
Why is there still smoke because there was a new Yeah,
but we don't know. We don't know how long it's

(55:55):
been because never tells us fair. That's fair. I'll given
that they'd probably be smoked for a while after nuke
was detonated over New York City. Hate this book. It's terrible,
but it is over. It is over. Ben Shapiro's stand
in character is looking west from New York towards Texas,

(56:17):
which is south um in a perfect sign of everything
that this book is. I mean, you know, everybody's got
their different opinions this person, uh, says Ben Shapiro. Sureken Wright.
I didn't expect him to write fiction, but I couldn't
put the book down. Unfortunately, the events described in the
book are possible so great from the recent news, I

(56:38):
hope what's described here will never become reality. Waiting for
the sequel, so you know, yes, maybe he's actually great
that time. What other reviews that right are left ripped,
ripped from the headlines. Who can forget the time White
Obama was killed by a nuke and Hillary Clinton invaded
Texas with China So accurate it's eerie. Yeah, straight from

(57:03):
the straight from the headlines. Ben I am glad it's over.
It's funny because the thing that is made clear over
and over in this book, from Ben's basic lack of
understanding of firearms, to his basic lack of understanding of
the military, to his basic lack of understanding of emergency response,
to his basic lack of understanding of love, and he's

(57:24):
he's a man who's never done anything but right shitty
political screeds like he's just he's just, since he was
a teenager, written bad columns about politics. He has no
life experience. He's never been anywhere or done anything but
been like a rich kid who argues with people on camera. Um.

(57:44):
And it's clear because he can't write about anything. You
have to end like and when his characters speak or
anything's narrated, it sounds like that. It sounds like he's
just doing his little his uh, his town hall columns
or whatever. Yeah, casualties are good, Yeah, they're fine. We
should bomb He's angry because the president wants to bomb Syria,

(58:07):
but we should have been bombing Iran Um oh man. Yeah,
you know. The thing The thing about it is. The
thing about it is you don't have to have had
a lot of you don't have to have had life
experience about something to write about it. But you have
to have had life experience to write. You have to

(58:29):
have like like experienced things in the world to write well.
And Ben is not, and that's made very clear by
the book True Allegiance. Yeah. Yeah, also just like, yeah,
I think there's a this is the larger issue worth
unpacking in the future and many other mediums. But like, yeah, uh,
it's just like if you don't really understand or appreciate art,

(58:52):
then you can't make it. Yes, yeah, that's an interesting Yeah,
it just feels like, yes, he's got a vocabulary. It
feels like a very simplistic and naive and childlike vision
of what is possible. You know, you're not not even possible,
none of it's possible things. But like it's just it's

(59:14):
just immature. It feels like a kid wrote it, except
with a thesaurus, you know. Yeah, it's it's one of
those things where I with a good piece of fiction
as a general rule, especially if you yourself read a
lot and have read some of the same things that
like the author of The Fit, which if you really

(59:35):
like a book, you probably read some of the same
things the author of that book. Right, that's just kind
of the way creativity works. You can often tell with
a really good book, Oh, I'm going to guess this
was a little bit of an inspiration and this was
a little bit of an inspiration. You can kind of see,
like even if you're not really super familiar like with token,
you know, like, oh, this is a guy who spent
his entire life reading like different sort of like old
English myths, and that's that's what he's bringing into this book. Um,

(01:00:00):
you can tell that sort of thing because good, good
writers steal, you know, That's how it works, stealing or
just reading, right, Yeah, lets from the phrases. Good writers borrow,
great writers steal right, you know, Like, but you can
you can see, like, oh, I can see what inspired you.

(01:00:20):
I can see what your influences were. That's usually that's
one of the joys of reading. Um, I don't know
what inspired been. In terms of fiction, I know what
I believe he reads. Yeah, I don't believe he reads.
There's no sign of it in this book. Yeah. Well
I think it's just like stuff right like that. But
it's that stuff. It's just like this, um yeah, uh yeah.

(01:00:47):
Just he reads the scripts for for things. That's it. Yeah,
and like look at the Yeah, the cover even it's
like it reminds you of like a book you'd see
at the airport. Yeah, it does, which is I mean,
the cover design isn't bad. It's a good cover. If
you're trying to get people to buy a book at
an airport, it's fine, exactly. Like the most competent thing

(01:01:09):
about this book is the cover. Yeah. Um, and like
you know, but by it's cover all that kind of stuff.
But like it's like it's just this, uh, it's chasing
an aesthetic and that's it. Yes, there's no like substance.
This is like I want it to be like this
kind of thing with like the flag and like the military,
and there's gonna be like you know, it's just like
this general idea of like what it should should kind

(01:01:32):
of feel like. But even I feel like the word
feel is a little too generous here. Yeah, And you
can tell, like it's it's very clear that he wrote
this because like like he wrote this imagining those scenes
in twenty four where you've got like the timer's ticking
down and like Okay, we gotta do this, we gotta
find the terrorists here in this here and like everything's like,
you know, this attack is happening, We're seeing the people
moving around the area that's about to get bombed, and

(01:01:54):
like this this whole like it's it's scripted. It's written.
I can tell it's written by somebody who wanted this
to be turned into a movie or a TV show,
because it's that's the way it's it's it's it's plotted.
It it's not written like that, it's organized like that.
It's like, oh and then you know, a better writer

(01:02:15):
and like a director and actors will like inject feeling
and suspense into this. Sure sign it's a bad book
because writing for it to be a franchise versus writing
a story. Look, I don't even under there's nothing to
unpack here. It sucks like there's no like eloquent argument

(01:02:35):
to be made. It's just fucking bad. It's just a
terrible it's terrible. Yeah, it's it's it's very we have
but we've we've learned a lot together about about how
not to write a fiction novel. And we've learned even more.
Most of all, we've learned about Ben Shapiro. Yes, a

(01:02:58):
little psyche, Yeah, Comma, yeah, man, the man loves the man,
loves his wife, loves a comma. It is interesting seeing
um the reviews are sort of alongest lines, even if
like I'm a I'm a fan of Ben Sjapiro, but

(01:03:18):
this is not a good or interesting there are a
lot of it is. It's not exciting. It's poorly written.
Characters are pretty stilted, like it's it's there, you know,
they're very honest. Yeah, someone should have been this honest
with him when he was thinking about publishing a book.
If he had a single person in his life who
loved him, Um, they would have put a hand on
his shoulder and said, no, Ben, Ben, you're a millionaire,

(01:03:42):
you're you're influential on the right wing. You you political
leaders within your party have to get your you know,
they have to come and talk to you like you're
you're you're very successful by the standards with with with
which you judge success. This is not for you. This
will only Yeah, this is not for you. You don't
get to do this because oh, but he does. I'm

(01:04:04):
hoping because they're doing movies, and they're doing movies now,
I hope that he writes at least he was probably
demanding that he's I'm sure that's the entire reason. He's.
They're also apparently, uh making a music label. Oh my god,

(01:04:25):
we've finally got to hear. Ben Shapiro's rap album is
going to drop up The Daily Wire Presents Music. Yeah,
none of this is none of this is sitting well
with me. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm I
know they've released that one movie about the school shooting.
I don't think Ben wrote it. That movie was made,

(01:04:46):
and the Daily we'll buy we'll buy that and we'll
release it under our subscription And we haven't released anything
that was written by the team yet. What it seems
like the reason it seems like they did that because
like they like they have money, but they don't of
movie making money. So what they need to do is
get a movie someone else made by it, have a
success that makes a profit so they can get funding

(01:05:07):
to do something and then do their own thing exactly
and like to legitimize themselves with like, oh, it's a
real movie that was made, not like been like writing
truest Allegiance or whatever. And I don't know, I'm sure
Ben will get to have his hands in the pudding
at some point. I don't know that they'll ever be
successful enough for him to get to write a screen
play because number one, this is unfilmable. Um, you could film.

(01:05:31):
You could film a version of it that would probably
be better than the book if you had hundreds of
millions of dollars um, But you don't like you his
his studio is years away from having the money to
film in downtown New York City, let alone have nukes
and tens of thousands of soldiers and go from Afghanist.
I mean, you know it's Caifornia still yea, yeah, it'll

(01:05:54):
have to be like a very uh contained sort of yes. Yes, yeah,
like his screenplay about being in law school exactly. Yeah,
his drama, his dramay. I'm glad we're done. I am
to onto the next same. Yeah, we'll find another book.

(01:06:15):
Hit us up online, tell us what you want us
to read, but it'll probably be the Way of the
Shadow Wolves. Um, Robert's like, give me suggestions. I won't listen,
but go ahead, I might. I might listen. I listen
all the time. Probably you'll at least read them. Yeah,
I'll at least I'll at least read suggestions. Not the book.

(01:06:38):
Katie Cody do you have any plug ables, bro check
out our ship. You know, check out the ship. Katie
though was so cool. You guys know where we are at.
Some more news on Twitter. You know it. You know
that things go on. I've read to the first She's

(01:07:02):
so cool. Ah. This is the out of the podcast
for your babe. Take a bullet, babe. Maybe that should
be new merch. I don't know, we'll think about it. Yeah.
I hey, everybody, Robert Evans here just before you go.

(01:07:22):
I know we've just spent a bunch of time talking
about a terrible novel. But I wrote a novel too, uh,
and it's either terrible or not terrible, depending on your opinion.
But you can find it at a t r book
dot com. That's where the text will be. It will
be both readable online and in an e pub. Every
week we'll publish another three chapters is an e pub
and also every week we're going to be publishing three

(01:07:42):
chapters Monday, Wednesday, Friday on the podcast After the Revolution.
So if you just go look up After the Revolution
wherever you find podcasts, you can find me reading my
new novel, so a t r book dot com and
After the Revolution podcast. Check it out.