Katie Porter Snaps, Pam Bondi's Senate Roast, MTG Gets Praise From CNN, and “Lucky” Leland Vittert

Summary

Next Up with Mark Halperin

Episode: Katie Porter Snaps, Pam Bondi's Senate Roast, MTG Gets Praise From CNN, and “Lucky” Leland Vittert
Date: October 9, 2025

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Overview

In this lively and engaging episode, Mark Halperin delivers his signature blend of political analysis and humor as he tackles the latest eyebrow-raising moments in politics and media. He opens with a monologue highlighting five outrageous and hilarious political happenings—including Katie Porter’s temper, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s unexpected praise from CNN, and Pam Bondi’s Senate smackdown—before turning the spotlight to conversations with two authors: Leland Vittert on his memoir "Born Lucky", a moving story of growing up autistic, and Drew Nieprent, New York restaurateur, on his new book about building world-class restaurants and managing big personalities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Halperin’s Political Monologue: Five Hilarious Recent Moments

(Starts ~00:40)

1. Katie Porter’s Viral On-Camera Blowup

• Context: Katie Porter, former Democratic Congresswoman and now candidate for California governor, snapped at a staffer during a taped interview.
• Implications: Her widely reported temper, especially toward staff, could damage her campaign, especially as old “temper” stories resurface.
• Quote:
  • “Stay out of my fucking shot. I wanted to tell you that that's actually incorrect.” — Katie Porter [06:00]
• Halperin’s Take:
  • “It is a facial expression that anybody who’s worked for a very tough boss has seen before. And it’s getting a lot of attention… I think it dooms her candidacy.” [06:25]

2. Hakeem Jeffries vs. Mike Lawler: Political Showmanship

• A recorded dust-up between Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Republican moderate Mike Lawler at a press conference exemplified performative politics for the camera.
• Quote:
  • “You’re making a show of this to make yourself relevant.” — Mark Halperin, quoting Jeffries [08:31]
  • “You’re embarrassing yourself right now.” — Drew Neeprent, quoting Jeffries [08:33]
• Halperin’s Take: “It’s not a real conversation. It’s like a little movie… they’re both very media savvy, both aware they’re performing for the cameras.” [09:32]

3. Marjorie Taylor Greene Becomes Media Darling (At Least Temporarily)

• MTG sides against Trump and for Obamacare subsidies—Democrats and journalists now embrace her as a sage.
• Quote:
  • “If they’re surprised that I’m willing to be outspoken on basically issues that I think are right and wrong, they just didn’t know me from the beginning.” — Katie Porter, as MTG [12:10]
• Halperin’s Take: “They’re treating her like Joan of Arc… now Marjorie Taylor’s a hero to the dominant media. I find it hilarious.” [12:30]

4. Jimmy Kimmel Would Book Trump (And Trump Might Just Show Up)

• Kimmel, after facing FCC issues, is asked if he’d book Trump. He says yes, tongue-in-cheek, but Halperin speculates Trump actually might go on.
• Quote:
  • “Yeah, I’d love to have Trump on the show. For sure.” — Jimmy Kimmel [14:53]
• Halperin’s Take: “Trump is a showman… if Kimmel really reached out, I think it’s a good possibility he would do it and find that also quite funny.” [15:14]

5. Pam Bondi’s Senate “Dozens”

• Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives on Capitol Hill armed with detailed opposition research, roasting Democratic senators with personal digs during her testimony.
• Quote:
  • “Senator, you’re so ugly that you couldn’t get a date in high school. That’s an exaggeration… But she just had little digs that she was going to unfurl back at these Democratic senators.” — Halperin [around 19:50]
  • “I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.” — Katie Porter, quoting Bondi [20:43]
• Halperin’s Take: “I found it hilarious just how she had all these lines and she delivered them in kind of a rote but nasty way… I love humor. I love comedy. And we all need to do our best to find humor in things.” [21:35]

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Author Interview: Leland Vittert on "Born Lucky"

(Starts ~26:38)

The Book’s Story and Purpose

• Leland Vittert, now chief Washington anchor for News Nation, narrates his journey from a difficult, misunderstood childhood diagnosis to professional success as a national news anchor.
• Central theme: Parental agency and perseverance in the face of an autism spectrum diagnosis.
• Quote:
  • “Born Lucky is hope for every parent who has a kid who’s having a hard time… parents have enormous agency and enormous power to affect how their kid turns out.” — Leland Vittert [30:28]

Key Childhood Experiences

• At age 5, Leland was marked as a “behavior problem”; major IQ spread (genius to “mentally retarded”).
• Pressured to adapt the world to him, Leland’s father insisted instead on teaching Leland to adapt to the world.
• Quote:
  • “My father said, ‘I am not going to adapt the world to my son. I am going to teach my son to adapt to the world.’” — Leland Vittert [28:52]

Parenting Lessons & Broader Messages

• The memoir is intended as a “love letter” to Leland’s dad and an inspiration for other parents facing similar challenges.
• Earned self-esteem through hard work (e.g., daily pushups as a child), guidance at social events, and relentless engagement by his father.
• Not a “cure” book, but a story of hope, parental action, and agency.
• Quote:
  • “Self-esteem is earned, not given. That applies to every kid in the world.” — Leland Vittert [34:36]

Emotional Moments & Notable Exchanges

• Halperin chokes up recounting the emotional impact of the story; Leland explains he learned to suppress emotions as a coping mechanism.
• Quote:
  • “Through high school and through the bullying and isolation… I learned to just sort of turn my emotions off because otherwise they come all pouring out.” — Leland Vittert [36:48]
• Leland recounts stories of everyday struggles with social interaction, the importance of taking responsibility, and never using autism as an excuse for rudeness.

Broader Impact and Reader Response

• The book has sparked a flood of emails and letters from parents—many of whom find hope and practical encouragement in Leland’s experience.
• Leland’s father, though embarrassed by the attention, is gratified by the book’s influence.
• Quote:
  • “He said, ‘I would have read it every week.’” — Leland Vittert, on his father’s reaction if he’d had the book when Leland was young [43:42]

Genre and Takeaway

• Part-memoir, part-parenting guide, part-love-letter.
• Halperin: “A story… that gives everyone a sense of the possibility of human agency and the power to make someone’s life better.” [51:48]

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Author Interview: Drew Nieprent on "I’m Not Trying to Be Difficult"

(Starts ~56:50)

The Restaurateur’s Art: From Nobu to New York Legends

• Drew Nieprent, partner in Nobu NYC (and many other restaurants, with Robert De Niro and others), shares behind-the-scenes war stories of what it takes to create and sustain a groundbreaking restaurant.
• The title comes from misconceptions: “They saw me as the difficult one. But I wasn’t trying to be difficult.” [57:26]

What Makes a Great Restaurateur?

• Not a chef or architect, but more like a movie director: assembling the vision, coordinating the chef, designer, and staff to realize a unique concept.
• Drew’s background: Grew up in restaurants, obsessed with food, planned from youth to work in the industry, benefited from both ‘school of hard knocks’ and formal training at Cornell’s hospitality program.
• Quote:
  • “I approach a restaurant like a director approaches a movie. Everyone is different. The script is different, the chef is different… and it’s your vision.” — Drew Nieprent [59:29]

The Nobu Phenomenon

• How Nobu became the world’s most famous Japanese restaurant brand—by making Japanese cuisine accessible to American tastes but at the same time refined.
• Fun origin tale: A twist of fate and happenstance led Nieprent, De Niro, and Nobu Matsuhisa to bring the concept from LA to New York.
  • Quote: “Like most great things, and Nobu is a great thing… it happened by accident.” [63:05]
• Longevity: In 31 years, the menu hasn’t changed, yet it feels contemporary—Nobu anticipated and created customer taste.

Why Do Most Restaurants Fail?

• Lack of professionalism and practical knowledge.
• Chefs often don’t have the skills or temperament for business demands.
• Execution, consistency, and timing (getting the food out, not just cooking it well) are vital.
• Managing the egos and needs of star chefs is like casting for a Broadway show—getting the right talent in the right situation is everything.

Who Should Read the Book?

• New Yorkers, of course, but anyone interested in food, entrepreneurship, team-building, or great stories well-told.
• Lessons transcend the restaurant world: “How do you get the best out of someone who is essential to what you’re doing, without triggering them into negativity?” — Mark Halperin [75:11]

Notable Moments / Tone

• Halperin and Drew trade restaurateur war stories, with Halperin playing the “enthusiastic foodie.”
• Anecdotes about De Niro, surprise three-star reviews, actor partners, and ‘casting chef’ strategies.
• Quote:
  • “Every successful restaurant is a miracle.” — Mark Halperin [75:32]
  • “My first one was five years, but at least is usually 10 years. Tribeca Grill, 35 years. Nobu 31 years. Montrachet 38 years. My restaurants went for a long time. Why? Because they flowed with the times.” — Drew Nieprent [78:23]

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Memorable Quotes with Timestamps

• “Stay out of my fucking shot.” — Katie Porter [06:00]
• “You’re making a show of this to make yourself relevant.” — Mark Halperin, quoting Jeffries [08:31]
• “They’re treating her like Joan of Arc… now Marjorie Taylor’s a hero.” — Mark Halperin [12:30]
• “Yeah, I’d love to have Trump on the show. For sure.” — Jimmy Kimmel [14:53]
• “I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.” — Pam Bondi, per Halperin [20:43]
• “Born Lucky is hope for every parent who has a kid who’s having a hard time.” — Leland Vittert [30:28]
• “Self-esteem is earned, not given.” — Leland Vittert [34:36]
• “I approach a restaurant like a director approaches a movie. Everyone is different. The script is different, the chef is different…” — Drew Nieprent [59:29]
• “Every successful restaurant is a miracle.” — Mark Halperin [75:32]

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Important Timestamps for Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Halperin's Humorous Monologue Begins | 00:40 | | Katie Porter Snaps | 05:36–06:20 | | Jeffries vs. Lawler Fake Confrontation | 08:17–09:32 | | MTG Praised by CNN | 11:51–13:15 | | Jimmy Kimmel on if He'd Book Trump | 14:53–15:14 | | Pam Bondi's Senate Smackdown | 20:43–21:35 | | Leland Vittert Interview Begins | 26:38 | | Drew Nieprent Interview Begins | 56:50 |

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Tone and Style

• Mark Halperin maintains a wry, amused viewpoint, blending insider political analysis with a Mel Brooks-esque attitude that “anything can be funny.”
• Guests Drew Nieprent and Leland Vittert are candid, self-effacing, and open—Drew with New York chutzpah and storytelling verve, Leland with humility and reflective hopefulness.
• Throughout, the show balances substance with humor, drawing larger lessons from political theater and personal stories alike.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Heard the Episode

This episode is an ideal entry point for both regular and new listeners, offering political entertainment, rare candor in personal storytelling, and practical wisdom for parents, entrepreneurs, and anyone fascinated by public life. The episode moves briskly from lampooning the week’s biggest political antics to emotionally resonant conversations that stick with you long after listening. If you enjoy unique perspectives and a blend of substance and levity, this is a must-hear.

Transcript

[Mark Halpern]

Welcome in, Everybody. This is NextUp. It's Thursday. Grateful to you for coming back. All Nexters are welcome here and appreciate how this show is growing with your help. I'm Mark Halpern, editor in chief of the live interactive video platform two Way and the host here of this program. I try to bring you every week my exclusive reporting, analysis, the top news, all the stories that matter most so all of us together can have a good sense of what's coming next. Up next up today, two friends of mine, both of whom have written really good new books. And I'm so excited for them, so proud of them and so eager to share with you their stories. First, Leland Vitter. He's the news nation's chief Washington anchor and the author of a bit of a memoir. It's called Born Lucky, and it's about how he and his family struggled to deal with society, telling him that that his autism would hold him back. And it's an incredible story for any parent who has a kid who struggles in one way or another. I think you'll be inspired by it and I think you'll learn a lot about fortitude and perseverance. And then my friend Drew Neeprent, who is the impresario of 40 restaurants around New York, around the world, including Nobu, New York, one of my favorites. He's the author of a book called I'm Not Trying to Be Difficult. It tells the story of one of the most important industries in the world, the restaurant business. Great war stories and a great way to understand how to build a small business of any type and how to deal with big personalities, which is something in a lot of industries you know how to do. I'm super eager to introduce you to both of my friends and to introduce you to their books. But first, here's my new reported monologue on what's going on right now. Five outrageous and hilarious things that have just happened. This is a tough time. You know, my reported monologue from last episode about Barry Weiss got a lot of attention. I'm grateful for that. I always like my work to get some notice. And mostly I heard from people who were very complimentary, including lots of friends at CBS who said, thank you for speaking the truth, but there's some heavy issues there about the media and about accountability and about what happens to an industry that's so important to our democracy. And then, of course, right now, the two biggest stories that I'm tracking are the Middle east and what's going on with this peace opportunity that President Trump and his advisors to bring about and the government shut down, which is just a kind of a depressing and annoying story and has effect on the real lives of real people. So my general philosophy is to find humor in just about anything, just about anywhere. And sometimes people say, oh, Mark, how can you laugh about that? This is such a serious thing. I'm from the Mel Brooks School. Anything can be funny. And it's important to always laugh and have a sense of humor about things. Now, of course, in this, in the face of true tragedy, that may not be the best posture. But even then, I've always found the humor is great. So I want to share with you five things that are up and about in the news this week. And let's laugh together a little bit about them because each of them comes with a video element that I find funny. So first up is Katie Porter. She's a former Democratic congressman. She's a pretty progressive sort who is running for governor of California. And because Kamala Harris passed on the race, Katie Porter has been considered the front runner. She's got endorsements from groups like Emily's List. She's been ahead in the polls. People are, we're thinking, yeah, she's probably going to be the next governor of California because it'll probably be a Democrat. Well, this week, Katie Porter did an interview with a local reporter in California, very good political reporter, long interview in which at one point you've probably seen this because it was played everywhere. Katie Porter kind of bristled at the questions and threatened to storm off and quit the interview. That raised for a lot of people who know who Katie Porter is and who've known people who've worked with her, this reality that she has got a reputation for being very tough, very temperamental, very quick to anger, including, and especially at her staff, when there are people like that in public life. And I have to say, it happens for whatever reasons, maybe more to women than to men in public life, they take a lot of heat and they're always have to be on guard if they're smart for someone who's worked for them in the past or in the present to leak something that will hurt them and expose them for what privately people say they are. So you talk to members of Congress who served with Katie Porter. You talk to people who've worked on her staff. I've done both this week brought out by this interview. They'll tell you she, she's, she's, she's kind of got a big temper. So everybody said after this interview, well, if Katie Porter has Successful. You're going to see people come out of the woodwork who've worked for her and served with her, who will tell stories about what her temper's like and. And eventually that'll sink her candidacy. That was kind of the chatter in the political class. Well, didn't take more than a day for something to resurface. A video from several years ago where Katie Porter's taping some online conversation and she makes a mistake. She said something that's wrong, and one of her staffers, you know, trying to do the staffer thing was, wants to correct her, but she's in the middle of taping the interview. So this video has gotten a lot of attention to. Story was broken by Politico. Here is Katie Porter taping an interview, and if, if you're, if you're listening on the podcast version, you're not going to see this, but her staffer kind of walks into the shot behind her to get her attention, to tell her, you know, congresswoman, you've made a mistake. I need to correct you so you can fix it in the video. And here's how Katie Porter re reacted.

[Drew Neeprent]

So I'm on the Oversight Committee, you might know.

[Katie Porter]

And that is where we did a study recently, this fall, in September. And what it showed is if we don't electrify our transportation sector, that we're.

[Leland Vitter]

Going to lose more than half a.

[Drew Neeprent]

Million Californians dying prematurely to air pollution and other problems, and the state could lose.

[Katie Porter]

Get out of my fucking shot. I wanted to tell you that that's actually incorrect.

[Leland Vitter]

It's not that it's electric vehicles.

[Katie Porter]

It's that if we don't meet the.

[Drew Neeprent]

Commitments under the Paris climate Report. Okay, it does. Okay.

[Leland Vitter]

You also were in my shot before that.

[Drew Neeprent]

Stay out of my shot. Okay?

[Katie Porter]

I'm going to start again with electric vehicles saving us money.

[Drew Neeprent]

Perfect. Okay.

[Mark Halpern]

Stay out of my effing shot. You know, again, I feel bad for those of you who just listen to the podcast version, because what you didn't see is her facial expression. And it is a facial expression that anybody who's worked for a very tough boss has seen before. And it's getting a lot of attention from people. I think it dooms her candidacy. This a woman who was, and maybe by some standards still is, the front runner to be the next governor of California. A huge job, obviously, 1 7th, 7th biggest economy in the world. One of every seven Americans lives in California. We'll see if I'm right, but I predict that if she continues to stay in the race, if she continues to have success. We're going to hear more stories, we're going to see more videos, but for a lot of Californians, that's the first time they're going to hear of her. And again, I'll say serious issues here about politics and governance, but I find it kind of hilarious. Get out of my effing shop. All right. Another video related to politics came out this week that also I found quite humorous and involves two California or two New York members of Congress. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, who's been, of course, on the front lines of dealing with the shutdown for his party. And then Mike Lawler, someone I interview quite a bit. Very smart guy, Republican from New York, a moderate. He's from one of the, he's one of the very few members of Congress who's a Republican who represents a district that Kamala Harris won. And he is a very media savvy, very aggressive guy. So this video also making the rounds I also find quite funny. Lawler went to a Mike Hakeem Jeffries press conference and he confronted him and he said, join my bill. Join me in saying we're going to extend these health care subsidies for another year, be part of my legislation. Jeffries didn't really love the offer. Here's the exchange of Part of the exchange went on for several minutes. Here's part of the exchange between Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, Republican Mike Lawlor. Feel free to laugh along with me.

[Leland Vitter]

Why don't we sign up? Did your boss, Donald Trump easily extend.

[Mark Halpern]

Your boss, Donald Trump?

[Drew Neeprent]

Yes. He is not.

[Mark Halpern]

And by the way, let me ask you a question.

[Leland Vitter]

Why did you vote to shut down?

[Mark Halpern]

Why did you vote to shut down?

[Drew Neeprent]

Let me ask you a question.

[Mark Halpern]

For years, you always about how we need to keep the government open.

[Drew Neeprent]

You're making a show of this to make yourself relevant.

[Mark Halpern]

It's said you could easily sign on.

[Drew Neeprent]

You're embarrassing yourself right now.

[Leland Vitter]

Sign on to the ceiling.

[Mark Halpern]

You're embarrassing.

[Leland Vitter]

Sign on to the bill.

[Drew Neeprent]

Let me ask you a question.

[Mark Halpern]

You have four Democrats on here.

[Drew Neeprent]

Let me ask you a question.

[Leland Vitter]

It's a, it's a clean session.

[Drew Neeprent]

You voted for the one thing. Correct?

[Leland Vitter]

I voted for a tax cut bill that gave the largest tax cut to Americans in history, including, by the way, the average New Yorker getting a $4,000 tax cut.

[Mark Halpern]

Are you against that? You're embarrassed? Do you want to, you want to.

[Drew Neeprent]

Cut the standard deduction and go to Medicaid in America?

[Mark Halpern]

All right, so what do I find funny about that? First of all, they're standing in, you know, in a. In a room in the Capitol where, where reporters are all around them. And reporters these days, of course, everybody, whatever their job title, has a phone with a video camera. So they're like, in every shot you see of this, you see 10 other cameras, including little phone cameras of people shooting them. So I just love the fact that they're both. They're both very media savvy. They're both aware that they're performing for the cameras.

[Drew Neeprent]

It's.

[Mark Halpern]

It's a. It's not a real conversation. It's like a. It's like a little movie that they're making. So I find that funny. I find it. Jeffries has this expression. He says, you're embarrassing yourself. They use it several times in the exchange. And he says that a lot. He'll say, in this case, saying it directly to Mike Lawler, but he often will say about Republicans, he'll say they're embarrassing themselves for some reason. I find that expression funny. And then lastly, I just love. Mike Lawlor is just so media savvy, and I love his watching his mind work to try to create a little moment where he's going to get the upper hand with Jeffries. And again, serious underlying issues, the government shutdown and health care and all the things that are being discussed. But I find that little vignette to be also pretty funny. All right, here's another one that I find hilarious. Marjorie Taylor Greene, okay? I've always taken her seriously because I see, I've seen since she got to Congress the power that she has to speak to maga. And very media savvy, and has a nose for news, a nose for what issues will click. But here's what I think is funny happening this week. You know, a couple of weeks ago, she took a staked out of position for releasing the Epstein files as she did. She attended the press conference that some of the accusers did on Capitol Hill, and she got a little coverage for that. But now she's been out in front of all Republican House members saying these Obamacare subsidies, the same thing we just heard Hakeem Jeffries and Mike Lawler fighting about that these subsidies should be extended. Okay? And so here's Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I say, again, I say I take her seriously, even though, you know, she says some. Some things sometimes that are a little out there, to say the least. The dominant media has never taken her seriously. But now that she's siding with the Democrats and against Donald Trump, and she's been very outspoken about that on social media saying the Democrats effectively are right, we need to extend these things or, or people are. Their, their premiums are going to go up. She said even her adult kids would be affected by this now. Now all of a sudden, she's the bell of the ball for the dominant media. This is just one of many interviews she's done in the last couple days. This is with Manu Raju of CNN where they're treating her like she's an oracle as opposed to a maga nut. Here it is. Some people may see you've broken with.

[Drew Neeprent]

Your party on the Epstein issue and on Israel, Ukraine, you've been very outspoken on that as well.

[Mark Halpern]

And now on this, too.

[Drew Neeprent]

What do you say to some folks.

[Mark Halpern]

Who'D be surprised in Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[Drew Neeprent]

And breaking from her party on some major issues?

[Katie Porter]

They weren't listening to me from the beginning.

[Drew Neeprent]

What do you mean?

[Katie Porter]

They just didn't know me. I think a lot of people have taken me in other people's framing of me or maybe in short clips. But if they're surprised that I'm willing to be outspoken on basically issues that I think are right and wrong, they just didn't know me from the beginning.

[Mark Halpern]

Okay, so this again just makes me howl with laughter, literally while we're sitting here taping the segment. Segment, I looked down and was watching. I got, I got app, YouTube TV and on the iPad you can do the quad split. So you can see cnn, msnbc, Fox. And then they put the BBC in there. And I saw on CNN Marjorie Taylor Greene once again, I just played for you her on CNN was once again not only on cnn in the Situation Room, sitting with Wolf in the Situation Room. Is there a more august position the dominant media can bestow upon someone? And again, this is not just a Republican member of Congress. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who throughout her time in public life has been treated like a kook and a nut. And now that she's suddenly opposing Donald Trump and the Republican Party on first on Epstein, now on healthcare and the shutdown, now they're treating her like Joan of Arc, Margaret Chase Smith, you know, just a, an apostle of freedom and principle. And, you know, no one's saying, well, why aren't you asking her about the Jewish space lasers? Why aren't you ask her about, you know, this and that? Like all of a sudden, because of the position she's taking. Marjorie Taylor's a hero to the dominant media. I find it hilarious and I love, I also find hilarious the way she's handling it. She's like, playing right along. She's taking, she's taking advantage of this new moment and acting like she is like this great apostle of truth, justice and the American way. Extremely funny to me, just is. Okay, here's Jimmy Kimmel, as you'll recall, has been at war basically with Donald Trump and the FCC over the efforts to get him kicked off the air. And he survived that. Those two big ABC affiliate owners who weren't going to run his show are back running his show. I don't know how long he'll stay on the air, but he came through it to the other side. And, you know, he's booking the show, doing his show. Here he is doing an interview with Bloomberg where the interviewers ask him about who he might book on his show in the future. Take a listen. S4 since you came back, have you asked Trump or Carr to come on? No, I haven't.

[Drew Neeprent]

I wouldn't necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show, but yeah, I'd love to have Trump on the show. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like he knows that he want, I don't know. All right, I'll ask him.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, so Jimmy Kimmel said, yeah, I'd have Trump on the show. And then he laughs and the audience laughs. And I find this hilarious mostly because, you know, I think Trump might go on the show, even though that seems insane and it's funny for me because of this. Trump is extremely, in this moment of, as a warrior against Hollywood, against Harvard, against law firms, against the people who his Justice Department is going after because they were involved in lawfare against him, against the media. Like he is, he is in warrior mode. And, and Karl Rove in his Wall Street Journal column this week and others has said, like, you're picking too many wars. Like, how about the war against Putin? How about the war for, in the tariffs? How about the war, you know, for the government shutdown? Like the, those are really big wars. You're picking all these other wars. Too many wars. Right. And, and, and when you see Trump talk about this stuff, he's ferocious about it. Like, it's not, it appears he's not taking them lightly. And yet the reason I think the Kimmel thing is funny is because the reality is if, if Kimmel invite him on, Trump might go on because Trump is a showman. Trump loves showdowns and he loves drama and he loves late night tv. He loves pop culture. And, and being invited on Kimmel would be, you know, like being, being invited on, you know, Dancing with the Stars or being invited on to make a guest appearance on some sitcom or some, you know, L A Law, whatever, some show that Trump thinks about as a, as a pop cultural touchstone. And I'm sure he thinks about Kimmel that way because it's a late night show, it's shot in Hollywood, so I'm not predicting he'll go on, but it just makes me chuckle when I think about, you know, here's Trump and Brendan Carr, the head of his fcc, basically trying to take Kimmel's job away. I mean, maybe that wasn't their absolute goal, but that's in effect what they were, they were practically doing. And now you've got Kimmel going on saying, yeah, well, sure, I'd have Trump on the show, maybe I'll try to book him. And again, I laugh because I really do think Trump might go on. Maybe not right away, but, but if Kimmel really tries to get him on and if Kimmel, you know, I'm sure they've got like a million mutual friends. If Kimmel really reached out and said, I want Trump on the show, I think it's a good possibility he would do it and find that also quite funny. All right, lastly in the news, Pam Bondi, Attorney General. First of all, I find this funny. I laugh about it every time. Laura Loomer, the opposition researcher, self styled journalist who's very close to President Trump, does not historically like Pam Bondi very much. And she always refers to the Attorney General as Pam Blondie for some reason. I find that funny. Just, you know, she'll put it in a tweet or whatever. Anyway, Pam Bondi testifying on, on the Senate side this week, first time since she was confirmed as Attorney General. Senate Judiciary Committee loaded with very ambitious, very TV focused Democratic senators. And they were, they knew, they, you know, there's a lot of controversy going on. All these questions about the President's personal finances, about Epstein, about the prosecutions of Jim Comey and others, about. It's one other big one, oh, about the head of Tom Homan, the border czar, take, allegedly taking a 50 grand in a paper bag. All these questions, she knew she was going to get them. And most members of the cabinet who are going into a hostile hearing come armed with a strategy. They might war game it out. They might sit with their staff and do what's called a murder board and practice answers. And typically it would be stonewall, you know, or, or change the subject or, you know, say senator, how dare you. But Pam Bondi came with a totally different strategy and she's a. She is an accomplished lawyer. She is a political veteran. Like, she knows. She knows what's what. She knows about how to win a public showdown, because she's been doing it in Florida and in Washington for a long time. So Pam Bondi came into the hearing with a strategy that, again, made me laugh, which is she basically said to her team, or her team said to her, I don't know how they decided to do it, but she came armed with opposition research, like little factoids about all the Democratic senators. And so some of them, I think, were linked up to what she anticipated they might ask her about, but some of them were just like, you know, senator, Democrat, Senator X says, pam Bondi, you know, you took a bribe. And. And she'd say, senator, you're so ugly that you couldn't get a date in high school. That's an exaggeration. But my point is she just had opposition research. She just had little digs that she was going to unfurl back at these Democratic senators to win the fight. Not on point. They wouldn't say, you know, why are you indicting the president's enemies? And she would say, well, let me. Let me cite. When you indicted the president's enemies, they weren't. They weren't directly responsive, but what they were were like the dozens. They were just basically like, you're gonna come after me? Well, guess what? I'm gonna come back after you. The show's not long enough for us to play all the time. She did it. But here are. And again, I'm not siding with Pam Bondi or trivializing the issues the Democratic senators were raising at all. I'm simply saying I find this hilarious. Pam Bondi does the dozens on Democratic senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing. Please roll the hilarious exploits. S5.

[Katie Porter]

I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.

[Mark Halpern]

I am. You lied.

[Leland Vitter]

You admitted you lied.

[Katie Porter]

A US cit.

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah.

[Katie Porter]

Chairman. As you shut down the government. You voted to shut down the government, and you're sitting here. Our law enforcement officers aren't being paid. They're out there working to protect you. I wish. You love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump. If you work for me, you would have been fired. And you're the one who was taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidants. And the senator sitting right next to you tried to block the flight logs from being released. Senator, I don't think a lot of people like that. You were out protesting with antifa, right now clearly you're a jail lawyer. Someone can and cannot accept.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, so part of why I think that's funny, besides those lines are just funny because they're, they're so out there is she came in hard with that. I'm sure the Democratic senators expected her to have comebacks and they war gamed with their strategy, with their staff, how to have a strategy for that. But they couldn't possibly have expected that because I've seen a lot of congressional hearings and I've seen a lot of witnesses come in, cabinet members and others with a strategy that involved pushback, but nothing quite like that. And again, I found it hilarious just how she had all these lines and she delivered them in kind of a rote but nasty way. Right. It wasn't. It was she. She almost wasn't hiding the fact that these were just pre canned lines. It was almost like, yeah, here's my next pre canned line. Let's have at it. I found it hilarious. I did. And, and I'll say again, I'm not citing for against Pam Bondi or for against Democratic senators. I'm citing for the comedy of Congressional hearing theater, which is what that was. I'll say. I love humor. I love comedy. And we all need to do our best to find humor in things. We're headed towards a pretty tumultuous period with the tariffs and China and the implementation of the Middle east deal and what's going to happen with the shutdown. These are serious, serious issues. And when I need to be serious, I will. But when I need some good belly laughs, I'm glad to see the people in politics are happy to provide them. All right, that's my report and monologue for today. And I got a lot of good input from folks. When I said tell me what's happening, that's funny. So thanks for those who helped with that. Tell me what you what you thought of today's report. Send me an email at NextUp Halperin. The program is always available to you and our clips on X Instagram and the TikTok Chicoms make that available to us. Go to NextUp Halperin on any of those platforms and watch the show on YouTube. It'[e-mail] Our page is NextUp Halperin. Love to have you share it and do everything else that could help the show reach a vaster audience of new Nexters. And next up here, my friend Leland Vitter, News Nation chief Washington anchor and the author of a new book that every parent should read called Born Lucky that's next. Up everybody. Now I want to tell you about something called the Vapor Technology Association. It's an organization that was started nearly a decade ago to protect the rights of Americans who choose alternatives to smoking and the small businesses who have made a living using this technology. They support science based policies and the rights of adults to make healthier choices. Did you know many family owned vape shops and manufacturers across the country are now under attack thanks to what are outdated Biden era regulations that threaten to wipe out the entire industry. The Vapor Technology association, also known as vta, says businesses are being destroyed and people are losing their jobs. But the VTA says President Trump now has a clear opportunity to change this and to protect Americans right to make their own choices and to defend small businesses and restore a free and fair marketplace. So head over to VaporTechnology.org now. You can learn more about the organization and why they are leading the charge to support American innovation. And if their mission appeals to you, consider becoming a member of when you get to the Website Again, that's VaporTechnology.org Tell them you heard about all of this on NextUp. Next up, a great new book this morning. I've taken the subway here to the studio and I was the only one on my subway car crying and people were noticing. Why was I crying on the subway this morning? Because two of my friends were talking to each other on TV and I was listening to the interview, watching it. Leland Vitter, News Nation chief Washington anchor, is the author of the new book Born Lucky. It's about how he and his family, particularly his dad, dealt with a early and ambiguous childhood diagnosis about why Leland was having trouble getting along with other people. And he was being interviewed by my friend Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe. And Joe has a son who also has Asperger's. And, and the similarity of their experiences, Leland with his dad, Joe with his son, I knew, I knew would make for a great interview. But it got me emotional because I see this so often with my son's friends and other people. I know parents have kids and they can't quite figure out what's wrong with them. And even though we live in the information age and even though all this technology and unlimited access, parents today still struggle when the teachers and other people say, hey, your kid's got a problem, try this, try that, or we don't know what to try, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for the parents and of course, it's heartbreaking for the kids and the siblings. It's an incredible situation. And the reason why I'm so excited about Leland's book and the reason why Born Lucky is a book you should buy, particularly if you're a parent, although you don't have to be, is because it is a great story with a purpose, which is how can parents help their kids in these situations? So next up, my friend Leland Vitter with the number, currently the number four book on the New York Times bestseller list. From the minute he told me about the book and I read the manuscript, I had no doubt it would be on the New York Times bestseller list. He asked me not to say it publicly to jinx him. I think I slipped up once. Leland, welcome and congratulations.

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah, if we had not made the list, Mark, I was going to blame you for that slip up.

[Mark Halpern]

I get it, I get it. I was confident. So Born Lucky is your story of dealing with autism, which, of course part of the luckiness of the timing of your book is thanks to Secretary Kennedy. Autism and the causes of autism and how widespread it is is as much in the news as it's ever been. And your book is about autism and your struggles with it, but it's about more than that. It's about how your family dealt with it. So what? Walk people through the basics of your story. How were you behaving in a way as a kid that caused your parents to have concern and what did they do about it?

[Leland Vitter]

So five years old, my parents are told, Mark, that they need to have me evaluated by the kindergarten teachers. And you can imagine what any parent hears and feels when that is said. There's all sorts of ranges of emotion and inborn. Lucky. We take you with my parents and me to that little medical testing center where the woman took me back to have all the psychological and behavioral tests. And my parents are sitting there in that linoleum floor, cheap furniture, old magazine, stale coffee, waiting room for a couple of hours. And the woman brings me back and takes us into a conference room. And she looks at my parents and says, we really don't understand what's going on inside his head. I had terrible behavior issues, so that if someone touched me, if another kid touched me, especially in a lunch line or anything like that, I turn around and slug them. I couldn't relate to kids in any way, just the discussion. The ability to relate either emotionally or socially did not exist. And she could see that I had really terrible sensory issues. So if my socks were touching my legs in a different way, I didn't like it. If I had a jacket on that I didn't like it was a meltdown. And then what she also told my parents is that I had the largest spread in an IQ test they had ever seen. An IQ test is two halves, an average together. A learning disability is a 20 point spread. Between the two halves I had a 70 point spread. So from genius to mentally retarded. And my father, like any father who was a very successful businessman at the time, was used to being able to drive things to be what he wanted and have them bend to his will. Said, all right, what do we do and what can we do? And the woman says, not much. And then my dad goes, is there anything we can do? And she says, generally not. And the next message was, you're just going to have to adapt the world to this little five year old blob. Right? More time on tests, special accommodations, just tell everybody he's weird, just leave him the way he is. And Born Lucky is the story of my dad saying, I'm not going to adapt the world of my son. I am going to teach my son to adapt to the world and his and my journey together through those 15 years where for a very long time he was my only friend and still is my best friend.

[Mark Halpern]

So again, the book is rich in description of how you and your father working together did that. Why is this so important for parents to read? Would you say.

[Leland Vitter]

Born Lucky is hope for every parent who has a kid who's having a hard time? Right. It's not just about autism or ADHD or anxiety or kids who are getting bullied at school. This is hope for every parent that their kid can be more and that they as parents, have enormous agency and enormous power to affect how their kid turns out. And parents aren't told that. They're often so often told, you know, just sort of adapt the world to the kid and let's make everything easy. And since Born Lucky's come out, most of the stories I've heard aren't about kids with autism. I had Buck Sexton, now a very successful radio host, tell me the story about how he had a speech impediment and his mom was told, just put him in a special school and you know, that's life. And she said, no, I am going to get my son the help he needs and I'm going to teach him to speak. He's now a radio host, never went to a special ed school. Another mother who talked to me about this book, really speaking to her, I said, how's that possible? Your kid is a rock star. He's an Ivy League athlete, great looking kid, has all sorts of friends. She said, well, my son had a nut allergy and they told me to just pull peanuts out of every single classroom he was going to be in. I said that's not going to work for him the rest of his life. I'm going to try to work to desensitize him to nuts. So by example after example, the born lucky story applies across the parlance of kids, which there's a lot of them. What kid isn't having a hard time right now growing up?

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, and again, it can be, it could be something mild or it could be something pretty severe. But the notion that the parent doesn't accept what the authorities say either. The authorities say there's nothing we can do, which is what your parents were told. How many years ago is that?

[Leland Vitter]

So this would have been about 36, 37 years ago.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, so certainly that was more common. I think more common, more common today is, is not saying there's nothing you can do, it's saying here's what you need to do and, but it's not necessarily right. Take these drugs, switch to this program. Right. To me, the power of your book says the parents have to have the agency, they have to spend the time learning what are our options and not accept no answer, but also not accept the answer that the so called experts are offering. I see that all the time now with kids where the parents are told by the school or by someone else, you know, here's what you need to do, you need to be in this program, you need to take this drug, you need to change your diet this way and maybe it's right. But the parents, as your dad did, has to have the agency to say, my son is going to have a normal life or as normal as possible and I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to spend the time doing it. And that's the next thing I want to talk about, which is parenting is hard, it's time consuming. But your dad put in an enormous amount of time every day over a long period. Explain what he actually did day to day to take you from someone where the school said basically not going to have a normal life to anchoring now a television show on a national network.

[Leland Vitter]

There's a few things there, Mark, I think what, what you also, we also need to add is that even today parents are told to meet their, meet their kids where they're at because it's easier for the parents and it's easier for the schools and the experts and Born Lucky is the story of my dad saying, I'm not meeting my son where he is at. I'm going to push my son every day to be more. He knew that I wasn't going to get along with kids in school, I wouldn't have friends. He knew that I wouldn't be good at school because of the learning disabilities. And he knew I wasn't going to be good at athletics because of coordination issues and some eye issues and other things. So he began at five years old of trying to find ways to have me earn self esteem. And that's one of the themes of Born Lucky. Self esteem is earned, not given. That applies to every kid in the world. At least it should should apply, and it applies to the rules of life. So by five years old or six years old, he was having me do 200 push ups a day, five days a week for three or four months. And if I did that, then I would get some kind of reward. So that would be the first thing he did. Second thing was, is that he said, I realized that you weren't going to have any friends, so I am going to be your friend now. I didn't know any of this until we started writing the book because he didn't even tell me that I had been diagnosed until I was in my 20s and didn't really talk about it until I was in my 40s and we started talking about writing Born Lucky. So he would begin when I was about five or six years old to start teaching me the basic social interactions and emotional connections that come so easily to charming and thoughtful people like yourself. So, for example, I didn't have anything to do on the weekends, obviously because I was alone, never got invited to birthday parties or anything like that. So he would bring me to lunch with his friends and I would have loved nothing more than to go to lunch with Mr. Halperin. Right, because I loved current events, I loved politics, I loved talking about the news. And we would go to lunch and he would sit there and I would just start badgering you to no end. Who are your sources? How do you get him to talk to you? How do you pick the stories for your show? How do you write your monologue? On and on and on. And at some point he would tap his watch and that was my signal to stop talking, but also to bookmark that moment. And as we would drive home, he would say, okay, lucky. So when Mr. Halperin was talking about his weekend in Nantucket, why did you bring up his monologue? I don't know. Dad, I thought it was interesting. Okay, so what do you think you could have brought up that he would have been interested in? How can you connect with him in a way that is what he was thinking about? What would he be interested in talking about? And that. That began trying to teach me the social interaction that is the. The fabric of our everyday lives.

[Mark Halpern]

Why is it that when you and I talk about your book and about your dad, I cry and you act like you're Mr. Spock. Are you not more emotional about this? I'm not being critical, no. Curious about how you're processing it. Is it. Is it because of the autism? Is it because you're just eye of the tiger to sell your book? Like, I can't listen to these stories without getting upset. And you're just like, boom, boom, boom.

[Leland Vitter]

You know, Mark, it's a great question. You're the only one to ask it, which is no surprise given your understanding of the human equation and of human emotion. I, for so long, through high school and through the bullying and isolation of high school, and there's some of those stories in. Born Lucky learned to just sort of turn my emotions off because otherwise they come all pouring out. So if I don't. If I really think about what I'm saying, I couldn't get through any of the interviews. I did the audiobook for Born Lucky. I. I'm the narrator, and there were times I was in the audio booth just sobbing, reliving.

[Mark Halpern]

I hope somebody. I have. Somebody had a camera on that video Now. Now they did that. Big mistake.

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah, probably was, but it was messy. I'm not a pretty crier. So, yeah, that. That. I think I. I learned to just turn off my emotions and to not feel them anymore.

[Mark Halpern]

And I feel fortunate that I wasn't arrested on the B train this morning when I was crying. I feel like somebody could easily have turned me in because I wouldn't have. I would have. Might have had trouble explaining it. So here's the thing I've been wondering about. You must work with people and maybe, you know, are friends with people who didn't know that you. That you. That you have autism. So what have people said to you about that?

[Leland Vitter]

Most people have said, I didn't know which. My response would be, a, my father did a good job, B, you don't know me that well. You know, if you spent extended periods of time with me or we went out to dinner a couple times, you'd see different things. And C, I would tell you that it's an everyday battle. I Write in Born Lucky. This is not a how to cure autism book. This is my story. It's not a prescription, but it also talks about, in a way, I compare autism to alcoholism in that you have to work on it every day. And I think about Mark much more the times that I slip up than the times everything works. A couple of weeks ago, I was at my father in law's golf club. We had just finished a round of golf. I was late to get somewhere, and I'm in the parking lot packing my golf bag into my travel bag, and this very nice older gentleman who we had played golf with walks over to try and talk to me. So I'm down on the ground next to the golf cart, shoving the golf bag in the travel bag, and he starts trying to talk to me. And one of the classic characteristics of autism is that you become really task focused and task intense. And so I'm trying to pack the golf bag and he's trying to talk to me, and I'm completely ignoring him. And I knew in that moment I need to stop packing the golf bag and talk to him because it is phenomenally rude not to. And my dad drilled that into me about being polite to people, and I could not stop. I couldn't stop packing the golf bag and just completely ignored him. I was horribly rude to him and he eventually just walked away because I was being so rude. So I sent him a note about a day or two later via text and just said, I want to apologize to you about how rude I was. I am so sorry. This is awful. Please forgive me. What I didn't say in that is, oh, by the way, I have autism because my dad taught me from a very young age there are no excuses for how you behave. You have to take responsibility from that. And I think it's one of the reasons they never told me that I had autism or anything else, as my parents would later tell me, because they didn't want me to be able to use it as an excuse.

[Mark Halpern]

Have you heard from any kids you grew up with who were mean to you?

[Leland Vitter]

No.

[Mark Halpern]

All right. I want to go find them together. What do you think? Not. Not to confront them, but I'd like to. I'd like to do like a town hall with you and your elementary school class. What do you think?

[Leland Vitter]

Well, you'd have to go find them yourself because I think Mark is, you know, from reading the book, I didn't use the names of anybody who was mean to me, but I didn't use the names of the people who were nice to me. And it was interesting because my co writer and I, Don Yeager, went back and forth on that a couple times. He says, how can you tell these stories about a teacher who said in front of the entire class, 8th grade art class, looked out at you when you didn't like your painting, and to be fair, I wasn't going to become Picasso. And he says, hey, Vitter, if my dog was as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards. So you can imagine if a teacher's saying that to a kid, what the kids are saying to the kid.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah. I'll put the kids in silhouette and alter their voices. I just want that moment of reconciliation.

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, I think they'd be happy for you, maybe.

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah, you. You can do that. What was happy for me was really recognizing the people who were nice to me. And that's why we use their names.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah.

[Leland Vitter]

Was because I wanted people who read the book to realize, even if you're not a parent or you're a parent of a kid who doesn't have these kind of issues, what enormous difference you can make in a kid's life by being kind and by being that person.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah. So you said this is not how to Cure Autism book. How would you describe it? Is it a memoir? Is it an ode to a parent? How would you describe what the book is? What genre?

[Leland Vitter]

I think it's a love letter to my dad. Right.

[Drew Neeprent]

Yeah.

[Leland Vitter]

And I wanted to say thank you to him. He's 78 or nine now, while I still could. And I. I believed that this story could really help people because it would show them and show parents that there is hope that my parents didn't have. And I'll let your. Your viewers, your listeners, mark in on this. Born lucky almost didn't happen. Right. Because my dad never told anybody about this stuff. These are the darkest, most awful times of my life. Going to therapy. As much as I like talking to you, but going to therapy on national television is not that much fun. I never went to therapy as a kid. So here we go. And I was talking to my dad, and as we were starting to write the book and I was interviewing him for it, every time we would get to a story, a really emotional moment, he'd go, well, do we want to tell that story? Do you want to put that in? Are you sure you want to talk about that? And I said to my dad, look, we can't do this. What we're going to do is I'm. You're going to Tell me everything, and we're going to be as raw as we possibly can. I'm going to write the manuscript with Don, and when we're done, we're going to give it to you. And if you don't like it, we won't turn it in. And as a man who's had book contracts, Mark, you understand that I didn't really have a plan if he said, no, you can't turn it in. But when I gave it to him, he had those same concerns about what do I do? And I'm not sure I want this out there. And I said to him, dad, if at that meeting, when that woman said to you, we got no idea, as helpless as you felt and as hopeless as you fought, when she said, you know, just kind of, he is who he is, if instead she had handed you Born Lucky and shown you how much a parent could do, what would you have done? And he said, I would have read it every week. So that, that is why we ended up saying, yeah, all right, let's do this.

[Mark Halpern]

It's a beautiful thing. You know, I've written five books. Two were bestsellers, three were not. You and I both have lots of friends who've written books that aren't successful. And it's always heartbreaking to me when my friends books don't sell. And always a wondrous and delightful thing when they do, like yours, is to get number four in the New York Times bestseller list. To have all this acclaim and recognition is fantastic. But in this case, it's not just because I'm happy for you to have a commercial success and to see your work rewarded. But I really do believe so many people, especially parents, but aunts and uncles and siblings will be and can be and should be inspired by this notion of don't just accept that your child or the kid in your life's fate is sealed by a problem, but proactively figure out what you can do now. Again, your dad was lucky because he was able to spend the amount of time he did, but every minute counts. Every minute counts. And it's so easy for parents to. To be in denial or to turn to something easier or to assume it'll just work out, but that's. That's not in the kid's interest. What's in the kid's interest is to do at least a version of what your dad did, which is to say, I'm not going to accept the fate that that is being laid out. I am going to work with my kid, who I brought into this world to fix it. And it's, it's an incredible story. I'd like to direct the movie. Where are we on the movie rights?

[Leland Vitter]

Available.

[Mark Halpern]

Available. Okay. If you're listening to this now and you have any sense about storytelling, I always say what's for a non fiction book should read like a novel. It should have compelling characters, it should have a really interesting plot, it should have twists in the plot and it should make you feel really invested in what's going to happen. And that's what Born Lucky does. So again, somebody better buy the movie rights quick or I'll be forced to quit all my jobs and purchase it. What has the reaction been from your family to the success of the book and to all this stuff being shared out in public for the first time?

[Leland Vitter]

Yeah, I think there's two parts to that, Mark. One is how completely mortified my dad is that the worst parts of our life and those really intimate moments are, are public. Like most heroes, he doesn't want to be held out as one. And I asked him one time, you know, one of the things that people are going to say about this book is, oh, that's great, Vitter. You know, your dad was in a position where he could step away from his job and do so much for you. Most parents can't. So there. And I asked him about that and he said, you know, I would have just worked the night shift because I knew that your only chance was for me to be there in the morning and at home when you got home from school. So. And he, you know, he gave up a tremendous amount beyond just his job. You know, he, he didn't go to dinner with friends at night. He didn't play golf on the weekends with his, I mean, he, he was there every minute. The thing that has meant the most to my dad is I have forwarded him the dozens, maybe hundreds of emails now I have gotten from complete strangers about what this book has meant for them and the hope that this has provided them. And the 145 star Amazon reviews that we've gotten for the book and that has let him know that doing this has had the effect that he hoped, which is that it would let parents know that there was so much hope and that there was so much that they could do.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, what you just mentioned, the letters you've gotten, the stories. What do you plan to do as a follow on to this? Not in terms of writing another book necessarily, but. But do you have thoughts about how to further help parents to, to, to do at least a version of what your dad did.

[Leland Vitter]

It's a great question. I've given it almost no thought because I haven't had time, number one, but number two, because I am not a parent, this is a book about a parent written by a kid, which makes it very different than any other parenting book because every parenting book is written by parents. So I don't really think I'm in a position to give advice. And I think to me, what's going to be most interesting is listening and hearing what parents take from the book, not what I can offer them. About the book.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah. In my other. In my other platform on two way, I want to get us into parenting. I want to provide a place where parents can come and get advice and share stories, et cetera. And maybe we'll put your book on the syllabus because again, your dad did the hard thing, which is overcome the human tendency of parents to be angry and unproductive or to turn away and to say, this is too hard. And what a lot of parents in my experience do is they just, they just have anxiety over it. They anger, they have anguish. They say, isn't it horrible that our son has autism or Asperger's or is on the spectrum in some way? Or isn't it horrible that our son has a physical or daughter has a physical disability? And, and, and let's just get through every day. And particularly if they're siblings, very difficult to say we're going to devote a lot of attention to this one child and because that comes at the expense, just zero sum in terms of time of our other kid or kids. But it's the right thing to do. And again, one of the profound effects your book has had on me is every time I look at my son, I'm more emotional about it because of my sense of what your dad had, which is an obligation to be everything I can be to my son, to give him the best life he can possibly have.

[Leland Vitter]

Well, I've seen you and your son together, Mark, and I've watched him look at you and you look at him and help him. And that's what this is all about, right? And I'm, I'm, I'm so grateful that if by telling this and talking about this, it, it helps people believe that and see that. And I think you're right that there is so many parents who feel all the things you felt. You know, I was blessed to have a mother who is an angel, a family that stayed together. You know, 80% of kids who have some kind of physical or Mental serious issue. Their parents get divorced. Mine did not. A sister who was able through my parents to sort of be brought into the fold and it was us against the world. I think to a certain extent it still is, is the way we sort of think about ourselves as a family now obviously added in with her husband and my wife. But to your point, that message to parents, that there is so much they can do is what resonates. And my dad wrote the afterword to the book. He hasn't wanted to do interviews or be involved, but he did write the afterword. And I think from today, from the Morning Joe interview, somebody after I got off said those four pages by Mark Vitter are by far the best part of the book. And I think that is 100% true.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, they're incredible. And I cried the first time I read him and I went and reread it where I was a little bit less upset and pretty startling. And I do plan to get the first exclusive interview with your dad. Just so you know. That's my goal. Again, Born Lucky. Still lucky as far as I'm concerned and very fortunate. And we are fortunate to have the opportunity to read a story, a personal family story shared that gives everyone, again not just parents, everyone a sense of the possibility of human agency and the possibility to take the love and concern you feel towards someone and make their life better. It's the oldest story in the world and it's the most important story. And you and your dad have done a great service for everyone who's fortunate enough and smart enough to go buy Born Lucky. If you can't find the hard copy, go buy the E version. Those are, those are available unlimited and unlimited quantities. But it's a great, it's a great book. It's available now everywhere. And Leland, I just, I couldn't be happier for you. And like I said, most of my friends write best selling books and I'm fortunate to have lots of friends who have, you know, they're not helping the world, they're just whatever their books about politics or history and, and they're helping the world because people are enjoying reading them. But your book is a great read. It's also going to help so many people and I just, I couldn't be more proud of you for having done such an important and brave thing. So congratulations.

[Leland Vitter]

Well, Mark, thank you. And thank you for believing in the project from the very beginning. You were one of the very first who understood what this story was about. And I would say to anyone who is listening, if you write A book. You could only be so lucky to have Mark Halperin give you advice and help you along the way with how to think about it and how to make sure it becomes what it can be. So, Mark, this success would not be happening without you.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, I appreciate that. I do not appreciate you touting my book selling abilities, which are vast. I've said before, it's the thing I'm best at. It's helping people sell books. The problem with your saying that is since. Since I first said this a few days ago when you were on two way, I now just besieged with people, friends and strangers sending me emails telling me they want advice how to sell books. I'm flattered. I just don't have time to. It's not my business anymore, so I don't have time. So thank you for the kind words, but unless you want to pay me a lot of money, please don't ask me to help you sell your book. Nexters. It just. I just don't have time right now to do it. But I appreciate the confidence in my abilities. Again, one more time. Born Lucky, available now. Leland Vitter's book. Leland, congratulations. Thank you for making time. And Leland's done a few other interviews, I'll admit, including with Megan. So if you like this interview and you just want to just binge watch all of Leland's performances go on YouTube where most of them are. But I'm glad to have been able to stand in line and get one of the 75 books interviews which have contributed to make you number four in the new York Times bestseller list. So all in service of a good time.

[Leland Vitter]

I think it was about a hundred, but yes.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah. Okay, Leland, thank you.

[Leland Vitter]

Thanks.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, next up, another one of my friends with another great book, Dre Drew Neeprent, about restaurants and about how to succeed in one of the toughest and most important businesses ever. It's called I'm not trying to be difficult. That's next up. Don't go away, Everybody. If you're 64 years old or older, this is an important announcement. The Department of Justice recently sued three major Medicare brokers for claiming that they were unbiased while allegedly pushing people into their plans, the ones that got them the biggest kickbacks. It's true. So many insurance agents, they just cannot be trusted. But you also can't necessarily rely on the government for the right information either. That's why I want to tell you about something called chapter. Chapter was started by people who went through this exact thing personally after their own parents were Pushed into the wrong Medicare plan by an agent who was more focused on commissions than on good care. Chapter's mission, Very simple. To give every American the honest, straightforward Medicare advice that they deserve. And here's what's different about them. They're the only Medicare advisor that compares every plan all across the country, not just a few. That saves their clients an average of, get this, eleven hundred dollars a year. There's no reason not to call. It's quick, it's easy, and they'll review your options in under 20 minutes. If you're already in the correct plan for you, they'll let you know that. But if there's a better plan, they'll help you make the switch. This could be the most important call you make this year. So right now, dial £250 and say chapter Medicare to get peace of mind. Again, that's £52 5 0. And say the words chapter Medicare. It's Cybersecurity awareness month and LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication and report phishing scams. And for comprehensive identity protection, LifeLock is your best choice. LifeLock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, stay safe, and stay protected. With a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com special offer terms apply. All right, next up and joining me now, another friend of mine who's written another great book. Drew Knieperent is the partner here in New York City, Nobu, New York, also London, Nobu, and has opened many other restaurants, especially here in Gotham City, many of which I have loved and love the fact that they're here. He's also the author of the new book, I'm not trying to be Difficult. Drew joins me now. And Drew, let's start with the title of the book. Are you trying to be difficult or are you not trying to be difficult?

[Drew Neeprent]

You know, Mark, I actually, I read the audio book as well.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah.

[Drew Neeprent]

And I did not choose that title. And as I'm reading the audiobook, I get why somebody, I really, to this day, I'm not quite sure who chose the title. Somebody chose that title because when you have to work with chefs who are very difficult and partners who want to get their money back and tend to be difficult, they're difficult. But they saw me as the difficult one. But I wasn't trying to be difficult.

[Mark Halpern]

Yes, it's difficult. Yeah. It's difficult not to be difficult when dealing with difficult people.

[Drew Neeprent]

There you Go. There you go. And by the way, so the episodes of my life, for whatever reason, have always been stumbling occasions. In other words, there's always some kind of a problem. Obviously, problems need solutions. They're not always handy. So. It's an apt title. It's a terrific title. But, yeah. No, I always say this, Mark, you cannot have opened 40 restaurants, different restaurants, and be difficult. Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

So you're not a chef and you're not an architect. What makes you a restaurateur?

[Drew Neeprent]

Okay. So I wanted to be a chef. I grew up here in New York City. My father was with the state liquor Authority, New York State licensing restaurants in the 60s. These people were right off the boat. The food at these restaurants was unbelievable, unbelievably authentic. My father had a way of taking the application from the bottom of the pile, putting it on the top of the pile, for which they were forever grateful. And they would invite us to eat on the arm in their restaurants. All kinds of restaurants. French restaurants, Italian restaurants, delicatessens, coffee shops. And I was a kid, and it's like if you have a piano in your house and you're exposed to music and you gravitate to music. I gravitated to food, and I wanted to be a chef. And that was my lifelong dream, actually, to go to Switzerland, to go to Lausanne, learn, study how to be a chef. But I was obsessed with food from an early age, and I was very targeted. This was what I was going to do, and I did it.

[Mark Halpern]

But again, you don't cook right in the restaurants. No, no. What do you do when you want to open a new restaurant? What's the role you play to say, okay, let's have a Lebanese restaurant or let's have a French restaurant. What do you do to say could go from the desire to open a new restaurant to making it a restaurant?

[Drew Neeprent]

Now that's. That's a great question, because most people who get into the restaurant business, it's like, oh, my mother, you know, my mother was a great cook.

[Mark Halpern]

Right.

[Drew Neeprent]

You know, my grandmother. My mother couldn't cook. And so, you know, I learned about cooking by. When I was babysitting, for instance, I would go on people's bookshelf and read. Read their books. But. And. And learning how to cook was the. Probably the most important thing actually, for me to understand that. Because I approach a restaurant like a director approaches a movie. Everyone is different. The script is different, the chef is different. Therefore, he's maybe the lead player the. The front of the house and the back of the house. Are the actors. You have to do things with the lighting and the decoration and you have a budget and so you have to figure out how much money you're going to spend. So, yeah, I'm not a designer, I'm not a chef, but as a restaurateur, you're literally putting the entire package together and it's your vision.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, yeah.

[Drew Neeprent]

Therein lies the problem, because especially if you want to work with really talented chefs, they don't want to be told what to do. So great actors, you know, they might, they might say, oh, the director was fantastic. But I can remember because I've been a partner with a pretty good actor, Robert de Niro, for 35 years. I can remember, you know, all of the director actor controversies. Yet the movie sometimes came out pretty good. My book sort of depicts, you know, several restaurants and every single time the chef was going to be contrary to my vision, but it wasn't my way. The highway, by the way, it wasn't, oh, I'm the owner, so I get my way. I would collaborate, as probably good directors do, and try to get the best performance out of the chef. But even that was difficult.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. So I want to set up a conversation about Nobu, your restaurant, signature, flagship, amazing restaurant in New York. This way. And you mentioned De Niro. You and De Niro, that's amongst the restaurants you two have have been part of together. When people say to Mark, to me, oh, Mark, you're such a foodie, I say, I don't understand people who aren't foodies. We all eat. So do you just want to eat like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or do you want to eat great food? The great food of the world. I've always aspire to eat the great food of the world. And part of what I've been allowed to do in my job and with the privilege I've had, I've traveled all over the world, Pacific a lot, all over the United States, eating at some of the great restaurants. And Nobu is truly my favorite restaurant in the world there, there are Nobu's all over, but the ones in New York are just, they're. They're such an important part of my life. And although there were Japanese restaurants in the United States before Nobu and their proliferation of Japanese restaurants, including many that steal a lot of from all the Nobu innovations. Truly, Nobu was the watershed, I believe, in the Japanese rest food restaurant experience in the United States. And you're responsible for that as much as anyone. Along with Mr. Nobu Matsuhisa explained. You write about in the book, explain why Nobu is such an important element in this story, which is an incredible story of Japanese food being so popular in America that you can literally go to a Piggly Wiggly in South Carolina grocery store and buy sushi. And I believe, I believe that's either your responsibility or your fault.

[Drew Neeprent]

Okay. So you hit on something very important. Because all the time my father and mother would take me out and my brother to restaurants. None were Japanese. We never went to a Japanese restaurant. And why was that? Because the Japanese restaurants, especially in New York, catered just to the Japanese. And you'd sit on the floor and the decoration was very minimal. So my contribution largely is accessibility. In other words, people aren't used to eating raw fish, for instance, sashimi and sushi. So you present it in such a way you make it easier on them. I mean, I can't tell you the number of people, like, who are abject fans of Nobu and they don't eat fish. Yeah. You know Howard Wolfson, your buddy Howard, he doesn't go. He goes to Noble. You know, he was just in London. Okay. Now, like most great things, and Nobu is a great thing. It's 31 years. There's 56 nobles around the world. They're Noble hotels. It happened by accident. It happened by accident. If you read my book, you know, De Niro, it was a no brainer. I ate Nobu's food. It was a no brainer. Really, Bob, the guy lives in California. We're in New York. To open a restaurant is never a no brainer. Takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

[Mark Halpern]

Let me stop you for a second.

[Drew Neeprent]

Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

Nobu Matsuhisa had a restaurant in LA called Matsuhisa.

[Drew Neeprent]

That's right. 87.

[Mark Halpern]

That is a phenomenal restaurant too. It's one of my favorites in California. Yeah. And. And you and Daira had both eaten there.

[Drew Neeprent]

I. Yes, I had eaten there. That's correct.

[Mark Halpern]

And, and, and so what you're saying is De Niro said to you, let's take that concept and open one in New York. Right?

[Drew Neeprent]

No, that's not what he said. What? Listen to this. I had opened Montrache with a $16, three course menu. $16. And I had been working at French restaurants that charged $75, like La Grenuila, Paragord. De Niro came in as a customer because he lived in Tribeca and he had a sassy girlfriend, model Tookie Smith. And she was the one, she goes, bob wants to know if you're Gonna if you would like to open another restaurant in Tribeca. And I go, you talking to me? Because there's nobody else here. And then we walk up the block and we look at the Tribeca Grill, which is a vast warehouse space. Bob, what's your idea? No idea. When we set about opening Tribeca Grill as an American restaurant, he said to me, oh, I have a friend in California, Nobu Machoisa. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, this is bad casting. I mean, you know, we're going to open an American restaurant. The guy's Japanese, but we flew him in. And Noble sees this big space. He had a 40 seat restaurant in La Siena Boulevard. And he goes, you know, maybe one day I open small sushi bar with you. I saw the friendship, I saw the kinship between Bob and Nobu, and I was going to make it happen. Several years after Tribeca Grill already opened, I found the space literally one block up the street. And it had gone at a bankruptcy proceeding, put down $100,000, called Nobu. And guess what? Guess what, Mark? Oh, I didn't tell you. I made another deal. Now you're gonna have to complete the book and everyone's gonna have to buy the book. Because the greatest concept, the greatest restaurant thing of the last 30 years.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah.

[Drew Neeprent]

Came about. It wasn't kismet, it wasn't somebody's vision. It was by accident.

[Mark Halpern]

Yep, a little twist. And again, out of that twist comes history. It is. It's one of my favorite places. Not just favorite restaurants, one of my favorite places, the original location is no more. There are two Nobus here in Manhattan. One in my neighborhood on West 57th street, one downtown. But the concept of Nobu, which, as you said, it's all over the world, if you come to New York City, you should come to one of the two Nobus. If you're not privileged enough to be here, you can go to one of the other ones. They're pretty consistent. I've been to, I think I've been to 40 of the 50, whatever. But again, it's a seminal moment in American restaurant history and I think cultural history, because it brought the Japanese cuisine and the Japanese sensibility to the United States and then around the world as a. As just one of the premier restaurant brands ever and again. So special to me. But I appreciate, I've been to Japan 30 times. I love the food in Japan, but there's something about Nobu that's so special. Not just the accessibility, as you say, but a sensibility of fine dining, but accessible Fine dining.

[Drew Neeprent]

Yeah. And you hit on it earlier. You know, you said you called yourself a foodie. There are some people, they absolutely don't give too. I. They don't care about food. But people like you, it's like, it fits into your daily regimen. Like, where am I gonna.

[Mark Halpern]

What am I next gonna get to go to Nobu?

[Drew Neeprent]

Yeah, there you go. Now. Now, the. The thing is, you have to understand this, though. So I had already opened two restaurants, so the Nobu thing I was largely doing because I saw how De Niro had interacted with Nobu. But it's not easy to run things from one coast to the other. The success of Nobu, and this is going to be interesting for you. From 1994, when we opened to today, guess what? The menu has never changed.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah.

[Drew Neeprent]

So think about it. How contemporary could it have been 30 years ago that it's still contemporary today and it's healthy? But here's the big thing. Americans weren't eating raw fish. Now, generationally, my customers in 94, their kids are all our customers. We've literally transcended the generations, and that's the way you run a successful race.

[Mark Halpern]

My son is starting to appreciate Nobo. Don't have him fully hooked yet, but he agrees to go. Restaurants are hard to keep open. I've seen statistics over the years on how accurate there. But most restaurants fail within a year. Very difficult to do. What. What accounts for restaurant failure? Is it. Is it the food's not good? Is it. Is it the. The people don't know how to run a business? Why do so many restaurants fail? And the inverse of that is, why have you had so much success?

[Drew Neeprent]

Right. But let's. Let's say this. There's the school of hard knocks, where you work and you learn things, and then there's the school, Cornell School of Hotel Administration, which I went to. Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

So based in the country to learn how to do hospitality.

[Drew Neeprent]

That's the reputation. Anyway, I learned both. I learned both. But here's the most important thing. This is a business. You need knowledge. You need to know what you're talking about. You need. You need to know how to cook. You need to know what good food is. You need to know the difference between lousy food and good food, quite frankly, I worked in the best restaurants. I worked on cruise ships. I saw great food. But to translate it yourself, you need the practitioner, which is the chef. And you have to identify that that chef is talented and can purvey. Not only that, but guess what? They can cook, but can they get the food out of the kitchen because it's a commercial enterprise. I worked at Tavern on the green. We served 3,000 people a night, and sometimes very horribly, because food couldn't come out of the kitchen with any sense of timing. People don't want to sit in an environment and not get their food after they order. I would say 15, 20 minutes. I mean, the food has to come out now. Why do most places fail? Because there's no cycle. The people don't have that knowledge. They don't have that profound professional knowledge. So they're allowing the chef to improvise and do whatever the chef wants to do. It's a little like the inmates running the institution. Even in the front of the house, you know, people do what they want to do. And restaurants become very idiosyncratic. It's the customer and the way the customer eats that's idiosyncratic. What we do is try to figure out what one size fits all. In other words, let's try to do things uniformly, but go with the flow. But the only way you know this is if you have professional knowledge.

[Mark Halpern]

Everybody should be interested in restaurants or restaurants throughout human history. There are restaurants in every country of the world, of course, and they're a huge part of our economy, a huge part of our culture. So I don't understand, as I said, people who don't. Aren't interested in the topic, aren't interested in food. Tell people who would be interested in this book, not just people who own restaurants, obviously. What's. What would be the profile of your ideal reader for this book?

[Drew Neeprent]

Well, that's really a good, good, good question. I mean, the book I wrote in March of last year and today there's another respiratory New York who wrote a similar book, but vastly different than my book Experiences. There's a Respiratory in Chicago, wrote a book, again, vastly different than my experiences. There's a restaurateur in London, great restaurants in London, Jeremy King, who wrote a book, again, vastly different than my experience. So what, what makes my experience so amazing, New York centric, because I grew up here, went to Stuyvesant High School. I do the hamburgers at Madison Square Garden for the last 12 years. That sort of comes out at the end. But that's amazing because I worked at McDonald's in 1972. I think a New Yorker who loves food would be extremely interested in the career path I took because I worked on cruise ships, I worked at French restaurants, I worked at the iconic Tavern on the Green and Maxwell's Plum and Then with no money, opened my own restaurant. And guess What? It got three stars. And then had a career from. For about 40 years of owning restaurants, all diversified, all different, all unusual. And who was my partner in the second one? Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Bill Murray, Mikhail Barishnoff, Lou Donovan Phillips, Christopher Walker. Have I dropped enough names?

[Mark Halpern]

You have this.

[Drew Neeprent]

This story is amazing. It's an amazing story.

[Mark Halpern]

I'll tell you. I see three kinds of people who I think would be interested in the book. Number one, people who love great stories, well told, because your story is. You're just. The arc of your life is such an incredible story. Two is people who are interested in not just the restaurant business, but how to build a small business. The luck involved, the skill involved, the twists and turns, but also just sort of the fundamentals of what works. And then finally, and this is not a small group, people who have to deal with building a team, particularly when you've got a star. And I can't tell you the number of restaurants I go to, including some of yours, where I'll say, you know, could you leave the Brussels sprouts off? And they'll say, I need to check with chef. Right, not the chef. I need to check with Chef. The chefs are like. They're like hosts of podcasts, video podcasts. They're temperamental, they're egotistical, they're demanding. And. And the job of managing them to get the best out of them without letting them destroy the business is. Is an incredible story that has applicability to life and applicability to. Particularly if you're trying to run an operation, like an impresario, like a movie director. As you said, let's.

[Drew Neeprent]

When are we going on the road together? That was perfect.

[Mark Halpern]

Bring me in, Coach. I know how to sell books.

[Drew Neeprent]

But.

[Mark Halpern]

But I just. I'm so taken by. I'm so taken by your storytelling. And again, I love restaurants. So maybe I'm not your absolutely typical reader, but. But the capacity to manage your chefs. You've 40 restaurants, 40 more than 40 chefs, because sometimes there's turnover.

[Drew Neeprent]

That's an.

[Mark Halpern]

That's an incredible human story. How do you get the best? And it applies to somebody with their kids. How do you get the best out of somebody who's got not just potential, but is essential to what you're doing without triggering them into negativity, without making them feel disrespected. And, And I say about TV shows, about video podcasts, everyone's a miracle. Everyone. Every episode's a miracle. It's the same with every restaurant that's successful. It's a miracle that you say, okay, now we're into Lebanese, and, okay, now we're going to buy furniture, and we're going to hire an architect, we're going to hire a chef, we're going to hire wait staff, we're going to set a price point, we're going to print the menus. This is. This is a complicated thing, like putting on a Broadway show or, as you said, making a movie. Everyone's different. And everyone that succeeds, including all of yours, is a miracle, right?

[Drew Neeprent]

100%. I mean, the one thing. My mother was an actress as a child and later became a casting director. So what does a casting director, you know, do? They. They have to find an actor that fits a role, and it has to be a perfect fit. And they go through hundreds of, usually hundreds of actors to do that. So I always write down the names, let's just say, of 10 chefs, and I choose one. And usually it worked out very successfully, but later I would revisit the list, and the other nine were all fantastic. They all landed well. So it proved to me that I really could pinpoint, you know, the right talent in the right situation. And that's. That's totally key. If you miss or let's just say you hit a home run, you get three stars. Which I did in my first restaurant and subsequently did in San Francisco, I did in a number of restaurants. Guess what? The chef wants to go across the street, put the three stars in his bag, and tell you to go yourself. You know, so. So. So now you just built this Broadway production, you know, and. And then Nathan Lane is leaving the producers, and guess what happens then? You know, it's like the same show, but sometimes somehow. And food writers, critics back then were very powerful. And even something like Zagat, which was just a survey, they would reference in your own review since the departure of Chef Ba Ba Ba.

[Mark Halpern]

Right.

[Drew Neeprent]

And then reference where Ba Ba Ba went. So basically saying, go to his restaurant. You don't have to go to Drew's restaurant. So we were always up against it with the press. And therefore, part of the book is explaining how, you know, adept you have to be to read the critics and to get, you know, a good. Good notices.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah.

[Drew Neeprent]

And that's all part of it.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah. All right. Yeah, go ahead.

[Drew Neeprent]

No, I was just gonna say a lease is usually, if you're lucky. My first one was five years, but at least is usually 10 years. Tribeca Grill, 35 years. Nobu 31 years. Montrachet 38 years. I mean, my restaurants went for a long time. Why? Because they were. They flowed with the times and they went with the flow.

[Mark Halpern]

This is a story. It's a great American story, a great American success story. A story about one of the most important businesses ever in the history of businesses, the restaurant business. The book is called I'm Not Trying to be Difficult. It's by my friend, whom I congratulate very much, Drew Niper. It's an incredible story. I'm not trying to be difficult. Available now. And I guarantee you you will be delighted by the twists and turns. Drew, thank you. Congratulations.

[Drew Neeprent]

Appreciate it. Mark, thank you very much.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, thank you all for watching. That's it for today's program. Glad to be able to introduce you to two books, both of which you should go by now. We'll be back next Tuesday, another brand new episode. Make sure always we'd like you to be part of the nexter community. Subscribe and download nextup wherever you get your podcasts and watch us on YouTube and tell all your friends, if they want to know like you do, what's coming next up.