Bestselling author Richard Paul Evans joins Glenn to discuss latest installment of his hit 'Michael Vey' series

Glenn: I want to talk to a friend here, Richard Paul Evans. He is the author of...I don’t know...how many millions of books have you sold, like 20 million?

Richard: Approaching 20 million.

Glenn: Yeah, happens all the time. Twenty million books, and he had a book called Michael Vey, a series, about three or four years ago. And he said, “I got a publisher that is telling me that I should dumb it down.” And I’m like, “Don’t do it.” And it was a young adult series. And we just went into publishing with Mercury, Inc., and so he published the first one with us and all of them with us, and it’s been a great relationship. And this is…the fourth book comes out today, Michael Vey: Hunt for Jade Dragon, and it is tremendous.

Raphe and I read it over the summer, but it is a series that I want to share with you because (a) Raphe loves to read now. He loves books. He didn’t when we first started, and now I can’t get his nose out of books. But it is also a book that I think without trying to teach things is teaching things. It’s teaching kids how to be kids, kids how to be heroes, how to make tough choices, how to love their mom and dad, without ever sounding like that—a tough book to write. How are you?

Richard: I’m well, thank you.

Glenn: Good. Comes out today?

Richard: Comes out today.

Glenn: Got your fingers crossed?

Richard: Uh huh.

Glenn: Yeah. This is one of the few books that has gone number one on the New York Times without a big movie. You know, it’s not Twilight or anything that goes out number one every time. Why? What’s happening?

Richard: I think it’s the message. I think America is hungry for this. And sometimes what you have to do is kind of counterintuitive to the industry. So where this doesn’t have a female protagonist—

Glenn: No vampires.

Richard: It’s not dark, not occult. It’s a story about a good kid, a humble kid who has some interesting challenges. He has Tourette’s syndrome, and he has electricity. And he gets put in difficult circumstances, and he solves the problems.

Glenn: Difficult circumstances is putting it—how many people in the audience have read the book? Have you all read the book? Okay, so a lot of people have read the book. Difficult circumstance might be a little mild. He’s taking on a group of people that want to take over the world. And in the first book, you do such a great job at these kids are offered anything, just do what I tell you to do, and you’ll be richer and more famous than you can possibly ever imagine. And the way the enticement is so evil and so good, and the way it happens in the real world, you know what I mean?

Richard: Uh huh.

Glenn: But then things become a little more difficult to see and easier to give up, you know? At the beginning of this book, they’re kind of tired; they don’t want to go on forever.

Richard: They’re filling their conscience. It’s like there’s…they know what’s right, and they want to do what’s right. And eventually it’s like you can’t buy that. You can’t buy peace of mind and peace of heart, and these kids are making good choices. But through the book, it’s like yeah, it does…are you talking about the good kids?

Glenn: Yeah.

Richard: Yeah, the good kids, it’s like how long do we have to fight this battle? Because they’re real kids. It’s like one of them says, “Why can’t we just go back to where we used to be?”

Glenn: How many adults feel that way about what’s happening? Right, why can’t we just go back? I just want to stop fighting this battle. I just want to go back to the way it used to be to where I believed in things, and things were stable, etc., etc. But you don’t get that opportunity. We were blessed for a long time to live under the illusion that we don’t have to fight that battle. These kids go back and do it. And I don’t want to give any spoilers, but they’re going to have some things they’re dealing with in the next book that are even darker and more difficult as things go on.

You’re getting pushback—you’ve had people tell you…you had a publisher say dumb it down; it’s too smart, which I love, by the way. And then you’ve also had publishers or people tell you you shouldn’t write this because there’s no female…the hero should be Michelle, not Michael. And the other piece is that they wonder why you’re even wasting your time with a young—

Richard: Right.

Glenn: So how do you answer?

Richard: I actually posted a letter. It was a candid response to all my readers and those out there who said, “Why are you wasting your time?” It’s like look, I don’t make as much money writing these books. I can write adult novels and do great. It matters. It matters that our kids have heroes. And if you look at the last successful series, Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, they are all female protagonists.

As a father of four daughters, it’s important that our daughters have heroes, not that Hollywood is producing the kinds of heroes we want, but they need role models and strong role models. But what about our sons? Our sons are being thrown under the bus. They’re failing in school. They’re committing suicide at five times the rate of girls. They’re not getting into college. It’s like they need a hero. And so there is a subculture that is so anti-boy.

So when I created Michael Vey, I’m not surprised I was attacked by making a good kid who’s a hero. You know, there’s strong female characters and heroes in the book, absolutely, but Michael is a humble leader. He is not the swagger. He’s just a kid who wants to do the right thing. He loves his parents. In fact, that’s the number one comment I get from school teachers. It’s like gasp…he loves his parents. As if this is some huge leap of faith that we can’t cross.

Glenn: So we’re going to go to the audience here when we come back, but where does the series go from here? This is book four. You’ve got seven that you have. Where does it go from here? Are you finished with it?

Richard: No. I’m along for the ride, and I’m fascinated by what’s happening, because I’m looking at Hatch, and it’s scary when this thing kind of downloads to me from wherever it comes from, what I’m seeing, because I started seeing more and more relevance with what’s going on in the world. As Hatch figures out how to take over the world, it’s like you can buy the world. It’s like if he’s out there providing clean energy, people will just follow. And he’s actually twisted the truth so the good guys are bad, and the bad guys are good.

Glenn: It’s really amazing, and it’s been a real blessing, because, you know, especially my kids, they don’t want to talk to me sometimes about what’s coming in the world, you know? My older kids, my adult kids, I found out a few years ago, started at eight, started writing down my predictions and charting them and saying is Dad right or wrong about these things? And as they started coming true, they would check them off. So no, and I’m not kidding you, so now my older kids, we sat at the dinner table last Sunday, and they said literally just like this, “So…Dad…so what do you think is coming then?” And it scares the heck out of them, so they don’t necessarily like to ask me those questions.

This was such a great device to be able to say, without talking about politics or anything else, say do you notice how the bad guy here is manipulating? You notice how people are being used here? Look at what he’s just done. Can you think of a way that that would be used on people or could be used on you? And it’s fantastic, so I thank you for that. We’re going to go to the audience here in just a second.

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.

TOP 5 issues that have gotten WORSE since the last State of the Union

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If you saw Biden's State of the Union last week, or Glenn's firey reaction to it, you know that Biden hardly spoke a word that wasn't a flat-out lie.

If you spent the last 12 months in a fallout shelter and Biden's speech was the only media interaction you had since the last State of the Union, you might be tempted to believe that the country has improved in some way over the past year. But the rest of us, who have been living above ground, going to the grocery store, and paying some attention to current events, had only to look around to see that Biden's speech was nothing but hot air.

Here are the TOP 5 issues that have gotten worse since the last State of the Union.

Economy

Biden spent a significant amount of time during the State of the Union boasting about the strength of his economy, but anyone who has checked their bank account lately was left wondering if he was holding his speech upside down. It's not just the cobwebs in your wallet; the numbers show the devastation wrought by "Bidenomics" too. In 2022, American grocery bills increased by 11.4 percent and restaurant bills by 7.7 percent. In 2023 prices only continued to rise, with an additional 1.2 percent increase in food-at-home prices and a 5.1 percent increase in away-from-home prices.

Debt crisis and inflation

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The national debt continues to grow, and Biden managed to add almost 3 trillion dollars in just one year. As of December 2022, the national debt was $31.42 trillion. As of January 2024, the national debt has risen to $34.19 trillion.

Inflation didn't fare much better. While the 2023 annual inflation rate did drop from the horror of 2022, from 6.5 to 3.4 percent, that is still significantly higher than anything we saw before 2021. You also have to remember that it CARRIES year to year, as Glenn explained in his response to Biden's State of the Union: "Yes, it's not as bad as it was, but it's still what it was PLUS what it is now."

Border

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Biden's mismanagement of the southern border has inflamed the border crisis to all-time highs. In 2022 there were a staggering 2.2 million illegal border crossings, but that wasn't enough for Biden apparently, as an additional 2.5 million illegally crossed in 2023. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Biden took office, and the effects are being felt. There has been a surge in crime across the country that is impacting millions of Americans, including the tragic murder of Laken Riley.

Fentanyl

The fentanyl crisis has only continued to worsen as more and more synthetic opioids flood our streets. Between the fiscal year 2021 and 2022, there was a shocking 54 percent increase in fentanyl trafficking offenses as more and more of the narcotic is smuggled across the southern border. We also saw an increase in fentanyl overdose deaths. In 2022 there were approximately 73,654 deaths, which is a significant increase from 70,601 in 2021.

Education and mental health

While the pandemic is long over, the lingering effects of the lockdowns are still being felt. Unsurprisingly, missing years of school has a major impact on the educational development of children. Kids across America are STILL struggling from pandemic-related setbacks, reading scores are still falling, and parents are reporting that their kids are struggling in their studies. The mental health crisis, another symptom of the COVID lockdowns, has also continued to worsen. Tragically, suicides increased by 2.6 percent between 2021 and 2022, marking the continued decline of mental health in America.

TOP FIVE takeaways from Super Tuesday

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The 2024 Presidential Election is taking shape.

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, the single biggest day in the presidential primary season. More than one-third of all delegates needed for a candidate to become the Presidential nominee of their party was up for grabs along with a plethora of state and local elections. In short, yesterday's results will shape the rest of the election season. It was a big deal.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from yesterday's elections:

Haley drops out

Nikki Haley drops out of the 2024 Presidential election.

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After the mass exodus of Republican candidates in January, most commentators agreed that it was only a matter of time before Haley stepped out as well. Haley put up a valiant effort and held out almost two months longer than the other Republican candidates, but after a disappointing turnout on Super Tuesday, she made the call to step back from the race. There was a small victory for Haley fans, however, in that she won Vermont, her first state primary victory following her win in Washington, D.C.

Trump sweeps the board

Trump wins over 1,000 delegates during Super Tuesday.

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While Haley had a disappointing day yesterday, Trump and his team celebrated a huge win. Aside from Vermont, Trump won every state that had a primary. At the time this was written, Trump had picked up a whopping 731 delegates, bringing his total to 1,004, out of the required 1,215 to win the presidential nomination.

Democrats are not committed to Biden

Biden wins big on Super Tuesday, but he is struggling to maintain his Democrat base.

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On paper, Biden had an excellent Super Tuesday, winning every state primary except American Samoa. However, a closer look reveals cracks in his supporter base. Yesterday, a shocking 19 percent of Minnesota Democrats voted for "uncommitted" instead of Biden. While that wasn't enough to change the outcome of the primary, it shows that Biden is walking on shaky ground, even among Democrats.

This phenomenon wasn't limited to Minnesota either. Eight percent of Colorado and Tennessee Democrats voted "uncommitted," and 10 percent of Massachusetts Democrats and 10 percent of North Carolina Democrats voted "no preference." Is this more evidence of a third-quarter bait-and-switch that Glenn has hypothesized?

The search to replace Feinstein continues

Adam Schiff and Steve Harvey compete for Diane Feinstein's Senate seat.

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California is having two Senate elections to replace the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. There is a special election to fill out the remainder of her term and a regular election to fill her seat for the next six years. The results of the Tuesday primaries put Republican and former Los Angeles Dodgers player Steve Garvey and Democrat Adam Schiff as the front runners, and the two of them will be going head-to-head in November. Surprisingly, even in deep blue California, Garvey won more votes than Schiff in the special primary. Does Garvey have a chance?

Ted Cruz is back up for election in Texas

Ted Cruz is up for re-election in 2024

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The Texas senate primaries were also on Tuesday, and Ted Cruz is back up for election in November. Cruz comfortably won the Republican Primaries with 88 percent of Texas Republicans backing him. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas-area congressman won the Democratic primary with a narrower margin of 58 percent. While it's easy for Texans to take their state's red status for granted, it is vital Texans stay vigilant and cast their vote this November.