← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
The TRUTH About Emanuel Nobel, Russia's Communism Rise, and Tom Brady's Viral Catwalk Debut, with Doug Brunt | Ep. 1320
01:42:32
Megyn Kelly is joined by Doug Brunt, author of "The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel," to discuss the real story behind Brunt’s new book, the history of the oil industry in Russia, the story of good vs. evil and the live of Emanuel Nobel, the real story of Rasputin, how the Bolsheviks rose to power, Nobel's accomplishments, the shocking story of the various members of the Nobel family, the rise of Stalin and Lenin, Communism in Russia, how Brunt is already working on his third book, Tom Brady’s all-leather look as he made his catwalk debut during the Gucci fashion show, whether he's had plastic surgery, Stephen Colbert’s inappropriate comments about guests he’s found attractive, Meghan Markle giving a speech no one showed up to after her cringe mirror selfie with her daughter Lilibet, and more. Get Doug Brunt's new book here - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Empire-Emanuel-Nobel-Revolutionaries/dp/1668074745 The Wellness Company: Don’t let a sudden illness derail your summer—secure your...
Loading summary
Transcript436 lines
- [00:00]
Megyn Kelly
What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation.
- [00:06]
Doug Brunt
Another pina colada?
- [00:07]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, please. Open a new retail location with 36% more square feet.
- [00:11]
Doug Brunt
Fantastic.
- [00:12]
Megyn Kelly
Hire 36% more help.
- [00:14]
Doug Brunt
You're hired and you're hired.
- [00:16]
Megyn Kelly
Shopify has the world's best converting checkout up to 36% better than other e commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sales is up to you. Switch to Shopify today@shopify.com setup and get a $1 trial. Shopify.com setup I need a kid. School's almost out. And at Abercrombie Kids, new warm weather staples are in. It's a one stop shop for everything on their checklist like tees, shorts and swim. So planning what they'll wear is a breeze. For outfits that keep up with them and easier mornings for you, stop by Abercrombie Kids shop in the app, online and in stores. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Oh, do we have a fun show for you today with a special special guest happens to be my spouse, Doug Brunt. He is here to discuss his new book and some of the latest culture headlines as well, including Meghan Markle's big speech over the weekend with zero crowd. I mean, literally almost no one was there. It was amazing. And the reaction from the people in the background speak for us all. And Doug's also got thoughts on Tom Brady's all leather look on the Gucci cruise Runway show. What he was wearing would never be worn by any man on any cruise anywhere. But we'll get Doug's take on it. He's got a very interesting opinion on Tom Brady, shall we say? Joining me now, Doug Brunt. He's author of the brand new book out today called the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel Romanov's Revolutionaries and the Forgotten Titan who fueled the World. If you are heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, you're taking a risk most people don't think about until it's too late. Summer colds linger and can turn into sinus infections that last for weeks. Can I tell you, my friends family member just had one of these that got out of control. Actually dangerous. You do have to stay on top of sinus infections. Getting sick right before vacation can derail everything. And when you're traveling, finding a doctor and pharmacy is stressful. But let me tell you about the medical emergency kit from the wellness company. It's like an urgent care and a pharmacy right at home. It includes essential prescriptions like amoxicillin and generic Z packs to treat a wide range of common and serious illnesses. No waiting for your doctor, no hours of urgent care, no pharmacy lines, no co pays. Just match your symptoms to the right prescription in your guidebook or call their telemed doctor standing by, starting your meds sooner and feel better faster. Order yours online in minutes and it is shipped to your door. And save 45 bucks with my promo code MK@urgentcarekit.com MK that's promo code MK. Go to urgentcarekit.com MK Duggar. Hi.
- [03:26]
Doug Brunt
It's great to be here.
- [03:27]
Megyn Kelly
It's great to have you fix your earpiece there.
- [03:29]
Doug Brunt
Thank you. Thank you.
- [03:31]
Megyn Kelly
How's it going?
- [03:32]
Doug Brunt
Great.
- [03:32]
Megyn Kelly
Congrats.
- [03:33]
Doug Brunt
Congrats.
- [03:33]
Megyn Kelly
Here's the big book. I love the COVID The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. I have to say, every single word was poured over. And I really like who fueled the world. The forgotten titan who fueled the world, as opposed to ruled the world. But he literally did fuel, fuel the world.
- [03:52]
Doug Brunt
He built an oil enterprise that was the largest in the world. By the time the Great War started, World War I started. His oil enterprise was larger than Rockefeller. He essentially pioneered the Russian oil industry down by the Caspian Sea in Baku, which is now Azerbaijan, but at the time was part of the Russian empire. And he took the whole oil market by storm. They pioneered the very first oil tanker. So they started distributing oil around the world and shocked even Rockefeller.
- [04:19]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, before we get into the details of how he did it and what happened to him, because it, like his, basically, the book revolves around two central figures. There's a young man named Emanuel Nobel, and it starts even before Emmanuel was born with his grand grandfather, who's also. He's Immanuel, like Emanuel, but spelled with an I. And we start to hear about this guy in Sweden and his multiple sons. And the one son that I, Manuel, had was Ludwig. And then Ludwig had Emanuel, our star.
- [04:52]
Doug Brunt
Right.
- [04:53]
Megyn Kelly
But at the same time, eventually our star Emmanuel was coming up, so was another little boy in Georgia. Right, Right off of Russia.
- [05:02]
Doug Brunt
Yep. In southern. In southern Russia, in the country of Georgia, right by the Caspian Sea, where Emmanuel Nobel is building his oil empire is this, you know, young Georgian who becomes Joseph Stalin.
- [05:14]
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
- [05:14]
Doug Brunt
And so he's right by. He's just adjacent to this whole oil empire. And he actually worked in the oil fields of Nobel and the other large Russian oil company at the time was run by the Rothschilds. And so Stalin as a youth worked in the oil fields for the Rothschilds and the Nobels, which is crazy.
- [05:32]
Megyn Kelly
So, like, when he was young and coming up, Stalin, he was nothing like he was. Nobody ever thought he was destined for greatness. He had no connections to power whatsoever. He was like a working class kid. That. And then what the book is basically about is the rise of these two titans and the pending clash between them that the reader can see coming, but neither man can see coming. And it's almost, you know, a battle of good and evil. Not to boil it down too simply, but it kind of is, you know, one who wanted to do things in a way that would be very familiar to most Americans and build his fortune and work hard and treat people right and, you know, foster a capitalist approach to the world that could benefit everybody. And one who, with brute force, wanted to steal all of that for himself and eventually his country.
- [06:17]
Doug Brunt
Zibby Owens, who does a lot in the book world, she had a great review of the book where she was really making it. She took it as like a family drama because it is generations of the Nobels, and Emanuel Nobel is the nephew of Alfred Nobel. That's the Nobel that we all know about in the West. What happened in Russia to Emmanuel Nobel and his father has been buried from the West. What we'll get to this, I guess, a little bit more later. But what Joseph Stalin and the Communists did to Emmanuel Nobel was the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984. You know, the scene in 1984 where they talk about they changed the street names, they tore down the statues, and they rewrote the history. That's exactly what Stalin and the Communists did to Emmanuel Nobel and his oil enterprise. He also in the north, by St. Petersburg, had the empire's largest munitions and machine factory. He was the largest manufacturer of diesel engines. He built rifles and no bounds at all. Nobel did all this. Stalin and the Communists took it all. And the practice of what the Communists did during that takeover after the Bolshevik Revolution was Orwell's inspiration. So that whole story is insane. We'll get to that.
- [07:23]
Megyn Kelly
It's crazy that it's real that it actually happened. So, yeah, but I was going to
- [07:26]
Doug Brunt
say Zibi sort of took it as like a family drama. Like, so we get this broad canvas, huge events of World War I and the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, but we experience it through this family and through this individual. And halfway through the book, then you realize, oh, my gosh, this guy, Emmanuel Nobel that I've never even heard of was the most powerful industrialist in the world. And the only reason I don't know about him is what Stalin did. He took over these businesses.
- [07:49]
Megyn Kelly
Everybody knows the name John D. Rockefeller. I mean, Rockefeller is ubiquitous across the world as a super famous guy. Nobel. We know about the Nobel Prizes. That's what we know. Nobel Prizes. And that's Alfred Nobel, who's this guy's uncle. He's. Alfred's the brother of Ludwig, Emanuel's dad. And that's what people know, and I don't think most people don't even know beyond that, that Alfred basically invented dynamite and that the family was big into munitions. I mean, if you're over in Sweden, you know that, but here in America, you just kind of know the Nobel Prizes. I don't know what it is, but this guy Emmanuel, who was the nephew of Alfred, was the biggest Nobel of all and was greater in power and success than the Rockefellers. And for a long time, he built it, he considered it, he founded it, he refined it. He is the reason that John McCain
- [08:37]
Doug Brunt
famously said, Russia is an oil gas station or oil company masquerading as a country.
- [08:42]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. So it's because of Emmanuel.
- [08:44]
Doug Brunt
Nobel pioneered all, all of that, but
- [08:46]
Megyn Kelly
nobody knows about him because of a man named Joseph Stalin.
- [08:49]
Doug Brunt
During World War I, they did. Everyone was going for Nobel's oil. World War I was our first mechanized war. We had tanks and trucks and planes and ships running on fuel oil. So all of a sudden, we needed petroleum more than any other conflict in the past. Suddenly, petroleum is more important than food for these armies and navies. And everyone was coming for Nobel's oil. And toward the end of World War I, Russia had already pulled out. They'd had the revolution. They're in the midst of a civil war in the middle of World War I, still happening. Everyone needs oil to fuel their armies. They're all coming for Nobel's oil. In Baku, in southern Russia, the Red army, the Communists, are fighting their civil war. They're trying to get to the oil to stay alive. Now, Emmanuel is sort of a refugee at this time, but he's writing letters to the British Foreign Secretary Balfour, who's in Versailles, sort of concluding the peace terms of World War I. And he says, Stalin is coming for the oil in Baku. Baku's presently held by about a thousand British troops, which is nowhere near enough to defend it. And he writes to Balfour and he says in the spring of 1919, and he's saying, if by August, Lenin and Stalin and the Reds haven't gotten here to Baku to take the oil. They're done. They will choke out for lack of oil, but they're coming and you don't have enough people here to defend it. You need to reinforce with more British troops. Balfour basically says, we have no appetite for that. We've just fought this four year war. We haven't spent anything on social programs in four years. It's been all for the war. I can't muster a hundred thousand troops, which is what Churchill says. Churchill and Nobel are saying the same thing. Churchill says if we get 100,000 troops in there, we nip communism in the bud. Stalin and Lenin are done and they don't send the troops and everything happens exactly as Emmanuel Nobel predicted. The troops came down by August, they took Baku, they got the oil and the Reds won the civil war.
- [10:34]
Megyn Kelly
It was like communism could have died in its crib.
- [10:36]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [10:37]
Megyn Kelly
And the British didn't take the opportunity, even though people like Winston Churchill were jumping up and down saying you should, you need to. And Nobel jumping up and down saying we, we should because if they ran out of oil, then the Bolsheviks, which is what the Communist Party was used to be called, would fall. And, and what the book makes clear is that when, when there was this revolution, because like the revolution happened in 1917. First there was one in 1905, but really this one got underway in 17. And for like a little while there, there was a hope of a capitalist future in Russia. And the reason that didn't happen is basically Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky, right, who had their own ideas about what Russia's future should look like. But it wasn't going to be easy. Easy. And no one took them seriously because it was like this weird band of rebels and brute thugs and they didn't think they could do it. So no outside country was like, we should help these more capitalist like Russians stop the takeover. Because they were like, look at these losers. They're never going to be able to take over and Russia's in good hands. And that turned out to be totally wrong.
- [11:43]
Doug Brunt
Totally wrong. Yeah. No one thought Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky did never run anything in their lives, let alone this crazy huge empire. So the British and others thought, well, we don't even need to send troops in there because these guys are going to fall on their faces in a few months anyway. No one predicted the Bolsheviks, who had very little support. They had far less support than the Mensheviks or other parties.
- [12:01]
Megyn Kelly
Now the Mensheviks, as I understand, because I Learned this from your book. They were more like. They were also socialist, but they were more. Less radical than the Bolsheviks.
- [12:12]
Doug Brunt
A little bit. Like, if they got concessions, they would take it. Whereas the Bolsheviks didn't want concessions. They wanted only war and blood and revolution. They're not looking to Bolsheviks represent, in
- [12:21]
Megyn Kelly
my mind, exactly what I think of when I think of Stalin.
- [12:23]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [12:24]
Megyn Kelly
Just brute force.
- [12:25]
Doug Brunt
Brute force.
- [12:25]
Megyn Kelly
You don't want anything to do with them. And it's true communism.
- [12:29]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [12:29]
Megyn Kelly
Like Lenin, Marx, Stalin, and the book,
- [12:31]
Doug Brunt
it goes back to, you know, the czarist era as well, because Russia has had this cycle of reform repress, reform, repress, over and over. Like Tsar Alexander ii, He's the one who freed the serfs two years before Lincoln freed the slaves in America. He was almost a sort of model for what Lincoln ended up doing. You know, he was an autocratic czar, which.
- [12:51]
Megyn Kelly
It was like 20 million of them. Right. It was some huge number of slaves.
- [12:55]
Doug Brunt
And he tried other liberal reforms around freedom of assembly and freedom of press. And then, you know, the sort of subversive groups did organize and come together, and then they assassinated him. So then his son comes in and is like, we're rolling back all those liberal reforms. He comes in with a very oppressive regime. It's the same kind of cycle that we got from, you know, Gorbachev into Lenin into. Into Putin.
- [13:18]
Megyn Kelly
So. But before we would get there, it would happen again in the early 1900s where you had a weak czar, Nicholas II, who was in power. And our audience may know this guy Nicholas ii, because this was the last tsar. And his death has been portrayed over and over and over again in modern movies, modern TV shows, and modern literature, because it was so brutal. So he was, like, teetering before we get to his death and the death and the murder of Nicholas II and his wife and his family. Let's just step back one second. Because he came to power and he wasn't ever very strong. Right. Wasn't ever very strong. And it was his wife that befriended Rasputin.
- [14:02]
Doug Brunt
Yes.
- [14:02]
Megyn Kelly
And that's another name that I'm like, how do I know that? I know that. What does Rasputin do? But I would say he is one of the most, if not the most colorful character in the book. Again, we're speaking to Douglas Brunt on his new book, the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel by it today. Your copy can be in the mail today because it just hit the publishing circuit today. And the audio is read by Doug, if you prefer an audiobook. But let's spend A minute on Rasputin, because we gotta set the stage for what's gonna happen. We had Emmanuel. He's growing up. He's still, you know, at this point. He's got his oil business and it's flourishing in Russia, but there's government turmoil because this czar is kind of weak. He's tied in well with the government, which you had to be. But this czar is kind of weak sauce. And his wife is kind of weird, and she befriends somebody even weirder, Rasputin, who would actually prove to be very important to what's about to happen in Russia.
- [14:55]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, so Rasputin, he comes from Eastern Siberia. I mean, he's so far away from Petrograd and Moscow. And Petrograd is St. Petersburg. They had a change the name in World War I, so. And he makes it all the way out there. And he's sort of this charming, weird. You know, there was questions about whether he was even literate in his early years, but he's just got that, like, cult leader personality where he just manages to charm himself into every room. He charms himself all the way into the Winter palace, where he meets the Tsar and Tsarina, that's in St. Petersburg. And their kid, the only male potential heir, has the. Oh, my gosh, what's the disease that Queen Victoria?
- [15:33]
Megyn Kelly
Hemophilia.
- [15:34]
Doug Brunt
He's a hemophiliac, which every monarchy around Europe has it because Queen Victoria had the gene and she's the grandmother of Europe. So all these monarchs all over Europe are hemophiliacs, including Roger Ailes had that. I was just about to say, I wonder if he had any lineage to Queen Victoria. Yeah, maybe there is a. There's a. So he is known as a healer. So he comes in and when the tsarevich is having a bout of pain, the prince, like, basically is the tsar to be, is suffering from a terrible bout of it. You know, you bump yourself a little bit and the bruise won't stop bleeding internally, and you're in terrible pain and your joints ache. And he comes in and he says he's gonna be fine. And the next morning, he is fine. He sort of talks soothingly to the boy and heals him. So then the Tsarina is convinced that Rasputin is a healer and that her son needs to have him. So he's got sort of like a, you know, a green light to be in the palace at all times. And he comes to be, you know, a person of huge influence. They think of him as a man of God and they Trust his advice not just on their son, but on politics and military issues.
- [16:35]
Megyn Kelly
But you write in the book, so he's like 6 foot 6 and that he smelled like a goat. Yeah, I remember that line.
- [16:41]
Doug Brunt
Stringy, greasy beard and weird and smelled terrible. But he was having sex with half of the aristocrats in Russia.
- [16:46]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, okay.
- [16:47]
Doug Brunt
And he was having sex with her.
- [16:50]
Megyn Kelly
There's a line of the book from Rasputin to the effect of how, how can we seek redemption if we have not sinned?
- [16:58]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [16:58]
Megyn Kelly
He was a bit of a poet.
- [16:59]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, so.
- [17:01]
Megyn Kelly
But she loved him. I get it. If they, if you get this weird guy who smells like a goat who you think has cured your child of a devastating disease or of near death experiences that he's over and over, you want that guy around all the time. And so he won the favor of the Tsarina and therefore of the Tsar as well.
- [17:17]
Doug Brunt
But the rest of the aristocracy and the government ministers like, I can't believe that this lunatic charlatan monk is influencing the Tsar. And it really destabilizes the government. And this is why it's important for the Nobel story. Like it's the context of how even Lenin said, if it weren't for the feckless leadership of Nicholas II and Rasputin, who destabilized the monarchy even further, there could have been no revolution. Wow. And that's in the story of Emmanuel Nobel, who was, you know, basically thriving beyond anyone's imagination in the Russian Empire with his munitions and machine factory and his oil empire. How that the only way that could collapse is if communism, which doesn't exist anywhere in the world, somehow enters the Russian Empire. And so this kind of context in telling Nobel story, the context is the story in a way, like you can't understand what happened to Nobel without understanding Rasputin and Nicholas II and you know, the czars that came before it all sort of folds together into how Stalin and Lenin and the communists are introduced into the empire as well, that is
- [18:21]
Megyn Kelly
like incredibly bad luck for poor Emmanuel. Like of all things, imagine building an oil business bigger than Rockefellers and it's lost through no fault of your own because you happen to live in Russia and Joseph Stalin took over, who wants your entire business and that of every private industry and to like to bring
- [18:40]
Doug Brunt
it to present day stuff like the more things change, the more they stay the same because the, the effort to capture the sources of energy is the story of our times. You open up the newspaper today to almost any section of the newspaper. And that's part of A story in one way or another. The price of gas, the price of milk, the price of a book, you know, to ship around the Strait of Hormuz, Venezuela. It's all capturing our sources of energy. And this story, this is like the first oil war.
- [19:08]
Megyn Kelly
Look at their. Look at. They're arguing over right now in the Strait of Hormuz.
- [19:11]
Doug Brunt
Right.
- [19:11]
Megyn Kelly
It's like oil. That's really what we're upset about. The Iranians want to ship it. We don't want to let them. We're blocking their ports. They know if they can stop others from going through that same strait and exporting their oil, they hold all the cards. We're still arguing over it.
- [19:23]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. And Baku has been the most abundant source of it, you know, for the first half of the. Of the 20th century, even in World War II.
- [19:29]
Megyn Kelly
And explain what Baku is again. Where is it? Is it. That's not part of Georgia. It's like part of.
- [19:34]
Doug Brunt
It's southern Russia, Azerbaijan. Right on the coast of the Caspian Sea, the west coast of the Caspian.
- [19:39]
Megyn Kelly
That doesn't help me.
- [19:39]
Doug Brunt
I don't know, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.
- [19:41]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. You know, but southern Russia, Southern Russia, Okay.
- [19:44]
Doug Brunt
I mean, it's not Russia anymore, it's Azerbaijan. But it was the Russian Empire then.
- [19:48]
Megyn Kelly
And that's where Nobel built his oil fortune in Baku.
- [19:52]
Doug Brunt
Oil fields all around Baku and the Caspian Sea. So from the Caspian Sea, you could take the Volga river north into Russia, or you could take. They built a train that could go from the Caspian to the Black Sea. And from the Black Sea, you could get out into the Mediterranean and the rest of the world. But Baku has been sought after not only in Emmanuel Nobel's time, but in World War II. Hitler was trying to get down to Baku to get the oil. He's like, my Nazi army needs oil. The only way to get it is to get down into southern Russia and get that oil. So when he was what we now know as the Battle of Stalingrad, where the Nazis actually stalled out, they were on their way to Baku. The battle for Stalingrad is sometimes called. Really, it was the battle for Baku because that's where Hitler was going to get there.
- [20:33]
Megyn Kelly
Staling. What was Stalingrad? Wasn't that also.
- [20:36]
Doug Brunt
Same Zaritson? It was. Everything's been renamed.
- [20:39]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, Yeah, I know it's hard to keep track.
- [20:41]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [20:42]
Megyn Kelly
But Leningrad was also St. Petersburg, wasn't it?
- [20:44]
Doug Brunt
Yes.
- [20:45]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. I can't keep track. But St. Petersburg has been named everything Petrograd and Leningrad. And it's St. Petersburg now, and it's got the Winter palace, where I actually have been. I actually had the team tee this up. I went to Russia a couple times to interview Putin. The first time was in 2017. And that. And I met him at a different palace that's used by the royals or used to be and now is used by heads of state. And that's where I met both Putin and Prime Minister Modi of India. Here's a little bit, a quick look at where we met. This is in St. Petersburg. Steps from the royal, from the winter.
- [21:18]
Doug Brunt
Good evening.
- [21:19]
Megyn Kelly
Very nice to meet you. It's an honor. Hi. Very nice to meet you. Megan Kelly.
- [21:23]
Doug Brunt
I saw your feet.
- [21:25]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, yes. Twitter. Are you at Twitter?
- [21:29]
Doug Brunt
Yes.
- [21:33]
Megyn Kelly
Vladimir. Vladimir,
- [21:38]
Doug Brunt
You'll kind of grill us with questions.
- [21:40]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. I'm looking forward to that. Are you ready for me? Okay. So that was just sort of like a basement entrance to this big palace where Putin stays in St. Petersburg. But it's where he was born. It's where he feels, like, closest to. That's the city in Russia that's the nearest and dearest to his heart. It's where the Winter palace is. And the Winter palace would be used by Catherine the Great and all these Russian rulers, including, ultimately Stalin and others. And also in Moscow, not too far away is where the Kremlin is. And. And Stalin also lived there. I actually looked that up.
- [22:19]
Doug Brunt
Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg in around seven, early 1700s, and then he made it the capital, and it was the capital all the way through until Lenin took over. And he actually moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow because he was worried about the German army coming to get them in St. Petersburg. So he shifted the.
- [22:34]
Megyn Kelly
You're right. On the coast there, on St. Petersburg. It's actually beautiful. It's like a mixture between, like, Paris and all the bridges and the Seine and, I don't know, maybe Florence. It's just got a ton of charm. It's actually very sad to me that you can't go there, obviously, given the war, and it would have been dicey even before that, but someday maybe.
- [22:53]
Doug Brunt
It is beautiful and charming. Actually reminds me of a cool part of the book, because there's some fun. You know, the whole book isn't about war and petroleum and communism. It's a lot of it. And also the American interests to sort of dive into Russia after all the chaos of the civil war for our sort of Wall street economic interests. But there are some charming detours in the book, particularly around, like, St. Petersburg. Nobel was the largest customer of Faberge and So when he had a big banquet, he'd have all these dignitaries. One event in 1911, he was having 50 dignitaries to host in St. Petersburg. And so he went to Faberge, and he had. You know, he'd been a customer of Peter Carlage for years, and he said, I want to get a piece of jewelry. When for all these dignitaries and their spouses, he wanted to put for every woman coming a piece of jewelry in their napkin. So he goes over there, and they have this meeting. And Peter, Carl Faberge's greatest designer, is this young woman named Alma Peale. She's 22 years old. She's already identified as the star jewelry designer. And he says, I want to give a piece of jewelry to them that sort of reflects the spirit of St. Petersburg. So they have this big meeting. He leaves. Alma Peale sits down at her drafting table with her sketch pad as the sun's coming up. It's a freezing February morning in St. Petersburg. The window is frosted with ice crystals. The sun hits it, and she's like, that's it. The sun's, like, glintering through the thing. So she designs this winter motif that becomes the main design that they're going to use. And she makes these little pieces of jewelry out of diamonds and platinum and so. Amazing. Yeah. And every napkin gets one.
- [24:24]
Megyn Kelly
It's unbelievable.
- [24:25]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. And then. So then they have. And there's a photo of it in the book. There's some really cool photos in the book. One of the Nobel ice eggs. So the Romanov did these imperial eggs, Easter eggs that they would give away, these famous, you know, priceless things, and they're a handful. That's it there. Yeah. And it's in the book, too. They're a handful that are considered.
- [24:45]
Megyn Kelly
What are we seeing there? One looks like a silver football. And then there's something.
- [24:48]
Doug Brunt
The egg is on the left, and it's, you know, on a pedestal there. And then on the right is a surprise pendant watch. And the surprise is that that fits inside the egg. And so there are a few imperial eggs and others that are considered imperial quality. The Nobel ice egg is so. That's so. It's really beautiful. It has this winter motif that because Nobel contracted with Faberge for it, he owns the motif. Czar Nicholas II was like, emmanuel, this is so beautiful. Like, do you mind? And so he's like, sure, Czar. And so Tsar Nicholas II also made a winter imperial egg for his wife.
- [25:20]
Megyn Kelly
But imagine showing up at a dinner party. And by the way, the genuine general custom is you bring the Host a gift. The host doesn't give you a gift, but instead you get a gift from Faberge and it's some exorbitant platinum. Yeah. From one of the richest men, if not the richest man in the world, Emmanuel Nobel. And these things must be out there somewhere because it's actually very interesting. Vladimir Putin gave me a couple of gifts when I went over to Russia.
- [25:47]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [25:47]
Megyn Kelly
And one of them was a caviar dispenser which we still have, which has these beautiful designs on it and these knives, these.
- [25:55]
Doug Brunt
In the design of an egg.
- [25:57]
Megyn Kelly
In the design of an egg, which is very Russian and like an homage almost I guess to like some of the history There's. But this was like this Faberge thing was huge with Emmanuel. He loved it. He loved giving people gifts and he had money coming out of his ears.
- [26:13]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, yeah.
- [26:14]
Megyn Kelly
I mean he truly was he the richest man in the world?
- [26:16]
Doug Brunt
It's hard to know because sort of pulling together the financial documents of Czarist Russia and then into the. Into the revolution is really hard to know. But certainly one of, if not the. He was probably the richest in Russia outside the Tsar and could have been one of the richest in the world.
- [26:32]
Megyn Kelly
So let's take a step.
- [26:33]
Doug Brunt
He controlled more than half of Russian oil at the time of World War I. It's insane. And that was the biggest supply in the world.
- [26:39]
Megyn Kelly
Again, we're talking to Douglas Brunt about his new book, the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. Let's take a step back and talk a bit about how he got there. Because the family Nobel is very interesting. It's like they had a bunch of overachievers. I talked about Emanuel, who's the. His. Emanuel's grand grandpa. He had these three sons who you write about. There's Robert, there was Ludwig, who's Emmanuel's dad, and there was Alfred, who we know about from the dynamite and the Nobel Prizes. But Robert plays a critical role in the birth of the oil fortune too. He was sort of the curmudgeonly ne' er do well. I mean like he was smart, but he was his own worst enemy. I don't know, I think he might have had Asperger's. Like he didn't do well socially.
- [27:23]
Doug Brunt
He did not. He's sort of. He rubbed everybody the wrong way. But he was this adventurous, free spirited guy. And so I. Immanuel, the grandfather came over. He was sort of this inventive genius tinkerer. He designed undersea mines and he was a chemist and dealt with explosives. So it kind of Got the family started down that track, but he had been bankrupt.
- [27:42]
Megyn Kelly
Like he didn't start off with a lot of.
- [27:43]
Doug Brunt
He escaped bankruptcy in Sweden and went alone to the Russian empire in the 1840s and left his family behind. And then once he got a contract selling undersea mines to the Tsar, sent for the rest of the family and they all come over to Russia near St. Petersburg as emigrants from Sweden. And then he goes bankrupt again after the Crimean War. You know, they, they actually are using the mines in the Crimean War. They mine the Baltic Sea to, to fight. But then the Russian Russians lose the war and all the contracts that Nobel had with the Czar are not honored. And so he goes bankrupt again and he returns to Sweden. But his son Ludwig and Robert stay and they rebuild ammunitions factory and an engine factory and they get another contract. So now Europe, of course, is rearming again. By the 1860s, you know, it's like it's off and on again. And they get a contract for 100,000 rifles. And so Ludwig, who's the boss, sends his brother Robert down to the Caucasus by the Caspian Sea where these huge walnut trees because they need wood for the shoulder stocks of the rifles. So Robert goes down there with 20,000 silver rubles to buy a bunch of wood. And he gets down there and he gets into this area along the Caspian Sea that is also. It's like the, the land of the eternal flame, where natural gas is seeping through fissures and rocks and ignites and has an eternal flame there. There's so much oil in the ground that it's puddling up on the surface of the ground and people just skim it. There's no drilling, there's no technology. They just skim the oil off the surface. There's.
- [29:09]
Megyn Kelly
Did they know it was liquid gold at that time?
- [29:11]
Doug Brunt
They used it for like a lubricant or a salve or something like that. But they weren't really, you know, drilling or refining it in any big way. And Robert gets down, there's like, oh my God, like, forget the trees, I'm buying land for oil. Which he does. He takes the 20,000 without telling his brother, doesn't buy the wood, buys land and a refinery and the Nobels who are building engines and, you know, they have tons of technology and resources, they come down. This is 1873, so three years after Standard Oil was founded in America. They take the American playbook and they put it into play in Baku.
- [29:46]
Megyn Kelly
But I love, just. Sorry to interrupt, but I love it in the book because it's called the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. You write about how Robert's down there and again he's, he's sort of the ne' er do well brother of the three. And he's been given this mission, he's been entrusted by Ludwig, who does know what he's doing. And instead of doing the one thing he was told to do, which is you get the, get the wood, the walnut for the shoulder stocks, he blows the whole fortune on oil, which is not the family business yet. No, it hasn't been approved. They can't text, they can't call. A letter would take six to eight weeks. There's just no way to get an approval. So he's like, I'm doing it, I'm making an executive decision. And at first they're like, you did what?
- [30:28]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. He gets back up north and Ludwig's like, you did what? He's like, my God, my crazy brother, can you do anything right? And then he starts looking at a little, he's like, wait a minute, this may be like a crazy stroke of luck through my wild brother. I don't know if you have the photo of that mule cart where they we'll put it in or, you know, delivering the oil in that way, but literally there was no drilling, was just people digging with shovels and skimming and putting the oil in wooden crates and dragging around by mules.
- [30:54]
Megyn Kelly
It looks like something at a Little House on the Prairie.
- [30:55]
Doug Brunt
So it still looks like ancient times when the Nobels get there.
- [30:58]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. And then that's how people were collecting oil at the time.
- [31:01]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, they'd put it in a barrel and put it on a back of a mule cart like that and wheel it around and then you get your. And you know, the wooden barrels are leaky or they just break altogether. So the Nobels come down with money and technology and expertise and suddenly they're on the map as one of the major oil companies in the world because there's just such abundant reserves of oil
- [31:19]
Megyn Kelly
in the ground and not that many people are doing it. So they figure out how to refine it.
- [31:22]
Doug Brunt
The laws of the czar were really backward then. Like you couldn't actually own the land. It was a four year lease system. So no one's going to build a bunch of infrastructure on land that they may or may not be able to renew the lease in four years. And in 1873.
- [31:33]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, the irony.
- [31:35]
Doug Brunt
In 1873, just as the Nobels arrived, they changed that law and they're really trying to encourage business and infrastructure Building. So they buy the land and they own it, and then they really invest and build a great enterprise.
- [31:46]
Megyn Kelly
So it takes off, and Emmanuel really is the one who winds up. I mean, Alfred and the other Nobels are doing it, but Emmanuel winds up being the one to really expand it and make it a huge thing and take it next level. And part of his story. It's not unlike Rudolph Diesel, who's the star of your last book, which is huge New York Times bestseller, thanks to all of you guys listening. In part, it did so, so well. And that was about the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel, who is the guy behind the diesel engine. Most people don't even know that it's a proper name. Diesel gas is spelled with a lower D still at the gas station. But that came from Rudolph Diesel, a man who invented the engine. And the reason I say they're similar, Rudy D. Rudy D. And Emanuel is they were both good men. Like, they actually cared about the product they were investing in or inventing in Rudy's case. And the workers who would come work for them, like, this was something in a country in which, you know, Lenin and Stalin would push the workers, like, we need a revolt, burn it all down. F the man, you know, all power to the Soviet whatever. It was hard to sell that to the workers who were in the employ of Emmanuel Nobel, who loved him.
- [33:05]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, yeah. God, there's so much amazing stuff packed in this book. I wish I could, like, go into all of it, but that's exactly right. The people who worked for Nobel. Baku in general was a terrible, dangerous place to work. People who would get lowered into the oil mines. Half the time you're not coming back out. It was very dangerous. When they hit a gusher, it was like an explosion. People working the rig would go deaf. The concussion was so big, you could go permanently deaf. It would blast sand and rock hundreds of feet into the air, and the oil would. Would shoot up for weeks sometimes before they could contain it. If it. If there was even a spark, the whole thing just turned into a firebomb and killed many people. So it was a very dangerous place to work. Beyond that, the living conditions in Baku were terrible. You know, there's dirt floors and crime and. And violent crime. But Nobel was different. He built factory or he built employee housing, schools, hospitals. He built, you know, things for leisure, pastime, play. You know, like, it wasn't called bowling, but it's sort of like bowling. He had a bunch of those kinds of things for people, libraries. And so the employees proudly called themselves Nobel Lights. It was the place you wanted to work. It was. It was. Had a reputation as a benevolent place to be. And so when you mentioned the 1905 revolution, when there was insurgency or, you know, when there was worker agitation, often done by Stalin personally in Baku, he was constantly agitating the workers in southern Russia. Nobel got off easy because the workers say, actually he's not the capitalist pig. He's not the one we want to go after. He's actually a good guy.
- [34:38]
Megyn Kelly
I like my boss.
- [34:39]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. And the people who got it worse with the Rothschilds are Jewish. They got it the worst.
- [34:45]
Megyn Kelly
But because of anti Semitism, you mean.
- [34:46]
Doug Brunt
Antisemitism was terrible throughout Europe. In Russia, it was particularly bad. I mean, laws on the books making it hard for Jewish businesses at that time. So it was a bad time to be running a business as a. As a Jewish person. The Rothschilds were so influential, they could sometimes overcome that a little bit, but it was pretty uphill for them, even. But then, you know, when the. When the real things hit the fan there in 1917 and the Revolution, when they were literally dragging capitalist business owners out, throwing them some kangaroo court and then hanging them or imprisoning them, Nobel's workers were protecting him. You know, they were like, this is not the guy to go after. You know, we feel loyalty to him. And they really helped him in that period.
- [35:29]
Megyn Kelly
So this, I mean, he really. He was both noble and Nobel, to quote Karine Jean Pierre. He was. He was a good man. And he actually was trying to do things the right way, and he did everything right. He. He worked with the Russian government. This is czarist. The czarist government before Stalin and Lenin and all that, and got a government title eventually. He was Swedish, but he eventually became a Russian citizen. He was trying to, like, you know, lean in to his new community and take care of the people, and really did not see this particular threat coming his way, which who could? But the other half of the book we learn all about Emmanuel and the Nobels is we learn all about little. Little Joey Stalin and what a terrible man he was in so many ways and for so much of his life. Now, I will say there was one thing, couple of things that jumped out. Like, you did a good job of humanizing him in the ways that were available. And I thought it was very interesting
- [36:27]
Doug Brunt
that even the greatest villains of the 20th century were little boys at one time. And you learn about his really brutal
- [36:33]
Megyn Kelly
childhood and his genuine love for his first wife. Like, he was crazy about his first wife, like, genuinely in love and also a poet. What was it? He was into the arts in some way, I'm trying to remember.
- [36:45]
Doug Brunt
I mean, he was a big reader, he was a singer. So he. A lot came out about Stalin. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 91, some archives became more available. So we learned a little more about the young Stalin years. In fact, there's a book called Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which is very good. And he grew up in these hard scrabble streets of the country of Georgia. He was basically in a street gang. He was getting his butt kicked almost daily coming home from school. He injured his arms. He had one arm that was kind of a little withered and smaller than the other arm. Not good if you're getting to street fights every day. And then he was, of all things, Stalin was studying to be a priest for many years. He was studying to be a priest and he was a big reader and he was singing in like the choir. But in those years he also did get access to Marxist thinking and writings. And as he was leaving, he abandoned the priesthood as a path. And just as he did that, he started writing for a Marxist paper and he stayed in southern Georgia and he. He essentially became like a gangster. He would run protection racket schemes and he would rob, you know, payroll wagons, going to banks and things like that so that he could take that money and send it up to. To Lenin and fund the Bolshevik party. And he became Lenin's sort of like gangster, his main henchman in southern Russia. So he was the guy in the Baku area.
- [38:12]
Megyn Kelly
Can you give us a little bit on Lenin just for people who don't. We all know that name. But like, how did he emerge and become the future leader? He was the first leader before Stalin of. Well, it would become the Soviets.
- [38:25]
Doug Brunt
But, you know, it came from like hardscrabble background. His mother was a sometimes prostitute to pay the bills. His dad was a. This is all Stalin. His dad was an abusive alcoholic. Lenin came from a much better His. His parents were more academic and like, not exactly nobles, but close noble adjacent, I guess. But his older brother was a rev. You know, just as Alexander II was, you know, introducing these reforms. His brother was one of those people who was an insurgent who was organizing and taking advantage of free assembly and free press to write revolutionary, you know, doctrine and sort of follow, you know, this sort of like urban overthrow the czar movement. And he did attempt to assassinate the
- [39:13]
Megyn Kelly
brother or Lennon, Lenin's older brother.
- [39:16]
Doug Brunt
Lenin's older brother. And he was caught in. In an assassination attempt. And he was hung. They hanged. Hanged, hanged.
- [39:22]
Megyn Kelly
Thank you. Yeah. One of my pet peeves.
- [39:25]
Doug Brunt
And so as a young boy, Vladimir Lenin watched his older brother get hanged. And so that kind of sent him on a very radicalized path.
- [39:35]
Megyn Kelly
And then he started reading Karl Marx.
- [39:37]
Doug Brunt
Yep. And he became a disciple of Marxist doctrine and founded the Bolshevik party.
- [39:44]
Megyn Kelly
So when Lenin started getting political, was it, like, was his goal from the beginning to turn Russia Communist? Was that the goal? Like, I want to get rid of the monarchy. I want there to be a revolution, and I want communism here and worldwide. That's my goal.
- [39:58]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. Yeah. The international play was. Was big, like. And that was one of the knocks on them. After the October Revolution, there were. Some people are saying, you know, it's almost like today, it's like, is it Russia first or Communism first? And a lot of people were saying, look, let's. They're using Russia as just sort of a stepping stone for. It was called the Communist International Comintern because they were trying to foment revolution in Germany and Britain and America. There was a communist.
- [40:27]
Megyn Kelly
And you're saying, these Russian citizens are like, I. I want to take a vacation. I want to put food on my table. Can we worry about Russia first?
- [40:33]
Doug Brunt
Like, let's.
- [40:34]
Megyn Kelly
Let's do communism here. If you say that's going to work better, but can we worry about Russia?
- [40:37]
Doug Brunt
Exactly.
- [40:38]
Megyn Kelly
And they. They had bigger goals.
- [40:40]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [40:41]
Megyn Kelly
And they did get their literature into American universities. You point this out in the book the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel.
- [40:47]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. Yeah. There was a. There was a whole communist sort of office set up here in New York City. The New York. The NYPD raided it and, like, took the. Took the files out. But, yeah, it was very much of an international movement in those early days, which is why everyone around Europe was like, oh, my God, these Communists are a nightmare. Like, it's why. It's also why. And this is covered a little bit in the crown, but it's why the British monarchy didn't rescue Nicholas ii. You know, they had the same Braveheart thing.
- [41:12]
Megyn Kelly
Like, that could be my. Let's set that up. So Nicholas ii, again, just because there's so many names, that's the guy who was the last tsar, who was married to the tsarina, who was fascinated with Rasputin, who had the hemophiliac son. He was the last czar of Russia. When he went down, he wound up advocating because he was pushed out. Like, they were like, you're. You're done. No one respects you. You're going to have to go. So he went. And then that was 1917, in the context of the revolution.
- [41:36]
Doug Brunt
And then he doesn't escape Russia. He sort of.
- [41:38]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, they went to, like, exile.
- [41:40]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [41:40]
Megyn Kelly
And then in 1918, some very bad came his way. So he's like, out of power. It's not going to happen for him. These Bolsheviks, you know, they're going to be Soviets, are taking over Russia. You know, it's not going to happen for your hemophiliac son or for you. If you can get out of this thing alive, it's going to be a miracle. And so there's like, basically in the basement of a castle, like, well, this sucks. Now what? And he gets an idea. He's like, I have a card to play. I've got a very famous, powerful cousin.
- [42:12]
Doug Brunt
Yes, there are cousins. Kaiser Wilhelm ii, Nicholas II and King George iv. Fourth, fifth. Fifth are cousins.
- [42:23]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. They're all cousins.
- [42:24]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [42:25]
Megyn Kelly
That's great. That's. What a wonderful family tree. So I don't have to stay in this basement. I'm going to write King George a letter saying, could you please get me and my family out of here, because I'm not sure what these rising guys are going to do if they get their hands on me, because I'm still, you know, I abdicated, but I still have a lot of power and that. This is all portrayed in the Crown. And we've managed to pull the scene so that.
- [42:47]
Doug Brunt
Oh, you did. Oh, that's so great.
- [42:48]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. So we can show the audience. So here's first, we're going to show you the fictional portrayal of King George receiving the letter from the exiled Tsar, who is very scared for his life. Your Majesty.
- [43:02]
Doug Brunt
Your Royal Highness, a letter from the Prime Minister. Can't it wait? Concerning Their Imperial Majesties, the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, the government is willing
- [43:14]
Megyn Kelly
to send a ship to bring the
- [43:16]
Doug Brunt
Romanovs to safety here in England. The Prime Minister does not wish to do so without your support, public perception and so forth. The war. Shall I go back with a yes
- [43:45]
Megyn Kelly
to their rescue?
- [43:52]
Doug Brunt
Show it to your mother.
- [43:55]
Megyn Kelly
Her judgment is unfailingly better than mine. The Queen's having a look at the letter, begging for their help.
- [44:08]
Doug Brunt
What say you, my love?
- [44:12]
Megyn Kelly
Do we send the ship? No. Shaking her head no, she was born, might come to regret it. So they say no.
- [44:29]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. I mean, the Czar was so unpopular at this time, and they knew it was going to be an unpopular move domestically and jeopardize them. Everyone was worried about worker uprisings and, you know, the quote, unquote proletariat. And they just were worried about the PR of rescuing this enormously unpopular autocrat.
- [44:48]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. And then. Okay, so viewer warning. We pulled the second scene. I. I actually just watched this. I told my Tina, pull it. And then I looked it online in my office, and I. I feel the need to give you a viewer warning because it's. I didn't realize the Crown really went that explicit. But it's a very explicit portrayal of what then happened not long thereafter to the Tsar, the Tsarina and their children. It wasn't good. It was absolutely brutal. And viewer warning. It's portrayed here in this second scene from the Crown. So who is this Dugger doing the killings?
- [45:27]
Doug Brunt
These are Communist guards.
- [45:30]
Megyn Kelly
You can see the children. You can see the family sitting there looking. In view of the fact that your relatives in Europe continue to attack Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has sentenced you to death. This is for the workers, for the revolution.
- [45:52]
Doug Brunt
And Lenin was forced to do this because the Tsar could be a rallying point for the White army in the Civil War. The Russian Civil War is happening as this is all going on.
- [46:02]
Megyn Kelly
It's the Red army and the White army, and the White army is the establishment. It's the.
- [46:07]
Doug Brunt
It's basically. They're only united by hating Communism. Some want the Czar back. Some want more of a democratic government. It was a little disorganized, which is why they didn't win, really. But they all hated the Reds, the White Army.
- [46:19]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, and you were saying Lenin was forced to do this. Why?
- [46:21]
Doug Brunt
Because the Czech Legion was coming in from. From the East. They were where the Czar was being held prisoner. The Czech Legion, who opposed Communist.
- [46:29]
Megyn Kelly
The Czech Legion, it's a.
- [46:30]
Doug Brunt
It's a military outfit from Czechoslovakia that was still fighting from World War I, and they hated the Communists too. And if they got to where the Tsar was being held, he could have been freed. And so as they started getting closer, Lenin just put in the kill order. You know, you gotta take him out, because if he gets free, then it's gonna rally the whites, and then we're gonna be in a much worse shape.
- [46:50]
Megyn Kelly
Geez. I wonder whether the King of England had any second thoughts about his decision. I mean, reportedly he did.
- [46:55]
Doug Brunt
He did. I think, because he then, you know, he was actually advised. So he's sort of advised not to save the Tsar. And then after the Czar was killed, they held a public ceremony in London to honor the Czar, and he was advised not to attend, but he did attend anyway.
- [47:10]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, sweet. What a guy.
- [47:12]
Doug Brunt
Really stuck his neck out.
- [47:13]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, my gosh. It's crazy. What the. How the crowd portrayed it is. It was very brutal. They not only shot all the family, but they bayoneted them.
- [47:21]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, yeah. And then throw them in, like, stab thingy. Throw them in a pit and pour gasoline. You know, it's like burn them.
- [47:27]
Megyn Kelly
They were really determined to make sure that they were good and dead and it was not ambiguous.
- [47:33]
Doug Brunt
And meanwhile, Emmanuel Nobel, all that's happening while Emmanuel Nobel is a refugee trying to hang onto his oil empire and preserve it from the Red army as well.
- [47:43]
Megyn Kelly
So he and some other. More like of the Russian elite go take exile. They're not leaving. They're not out of Russia. But what's the. It's a very difficult.
- [47:52]
Doug Brunt
I had to learn this for the audiobook. Kislovodsky.
- [47:55]
Megyn Kelly
They go to Kislovodsky, and he's hanging out there because, again, no one really thinks these Bolsheviks are going to be able to hold on to power. It's been quite a revolution. We get it. Lenin and Stalin have got a bunch of tricks. We underestimated them, but there's no way these street thugs and bank robbers and so on are going to be able to actually govern Russia. So we'll bite our time, they'll fall apart, and we'll return to the way things used to be.
- [48:21]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. And so he's hanging out in this resort refugee town where there are other members of aristocracy and industrialists. They're all sort of buffered by a little bit of the White army there in this southwestern part of Russia, and they run out of rubles. And so Nobel sort of takes over and says, all right, well, we need another currency because they're all running around with, like, diamonds and stocks and hard assets, but you. They need to buy, like, eggs and things from the things. You can't just put a bag of diamonds on the table for your eggs. So he comes up with this idea of Nobel notes with. It's what the town calls it. He comes up with a new currency, and they call it Nobel Notes in honor of him. So they develop a new currency so that they can actually sort of live and transact there in this town, because it goes on for a while. And Lenin is up in the new capital, Moscow, and Stalin saying, we got to nationalize, take over the oil. And so he's in Lenin's ear saying that they need to do this. Lenin hesitates doing it because he's like, well, look, we can take it over, but there's no one in the Communist government who knows how to run an oil business.
- [49:16]
Megyn Kelly
This is like you and I taking over. Actually you now could run an oil business after writing this book. But yeah, they're like, well, I don't know how to run an oil business. You.
- [49:23]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. So they'd have to secure the cooperation of Nobel to. In order to do this.
- [49:28]
Megyn Kelly
And he's sitting in kibbles of. It's like, I'm not sure I want to go there given what just happened to the Tsar and the tsarina.
- [49:35]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. So he gets summoned. They send a note to citizen Nobel, you know, please come to Moscow so we can talk about how we're going to run the oil business after we take it over. And the Nobels are all. There's a great line from them like they're asking us to drive the hearse at our own third class funeral. So it's.
- [49:50]
Megyn Kelly
They were too smart for that.
- [49:51]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. Nobel. He's like, there's no way I'm going to Moscow.
- [49:53]
Megyn Kelly
But that would begin the next phase of a very, very powerful dance that Nobel and Stalin would do. All documented in Douglas Brunt's the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. The subtitle is Romanovs. Like that's what the Tsar was last name. His last name was Romanov, as had been the. All the czars prior to him for I don't know how long.
- [50:15]
Doug Brunt
300 years.
- [50:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Romanov's revolutionaries and the forgotten titan who fueled the world. Fueled, not ruled. That's Emmanuel Nobel. That one of the. This is jug specialty. Like famous people whose names you know, but whose story you don't. You and Mike Rowe bonded over an affinity for these kinds of stories. He tells them on his podcast and his shows and you tell them longer form in your books. And this one is so fascinating. You learn so much about Russia, about our world, about communism and how it came to be. It's still influencing unfortunately young American radicals to this day and how there was this brief window where we might have stopped it and we didn't. The consequences of that. And all about these historical figures like Stalin, like Lenin, like Marx, like Trotsky. I didn't. I mean I knew that name, but I didn't know anything about him and the Nobels.
- [51:05]
Doug Brunt
And it replays today like the epigraph of the book, that line by the playwright Eugene o'. Neill. There is no present or future, only the past happening over and over.
- [51:15]
Megyn Kelly
That is so perfect.
- [51:16]
Doug Brunt
The parallels to this, the. The effort to capture our sources of energy plays out again and again. You read this and you're like, oh my God, it's happening again today.
- [51:25]
Megyn Kelly
Well, not only that, I, I know you're gonna go on Jesse Kelly's show, but when I first read the Lost Empire of Emanuel Noel, I thought about Jesse Kelly like every other page because he's constantly calling the very far leftist base in this country communists. And he's done a lot of study on communism and communists and it's all over every page of this book. Like what they want, this true revolution. Like burn it down, seize the means of production. It really is explained in this book how they got that way, what they really do want, what the end goal is. And it's no bueno. All right, stand by. We gotta take a quick break. We will be back on the opposite side with Douglas Brunt, the author of the brand new book the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. Order yours now on Amazon or you can download the audio and hear Doug read it. Ever been in a bad relationship? You know the kind, it just wears you down. You settle in, even though deep down you know this is not how it's supposed to be. That's what daily aches and pains can feel like. You stop expecting to feel good. You start thinking, maybe this is just my life now. But it doesn't have to be. With Relief Factor, you can break up with pain just like Anthony did. He wrote, quote, I was dealing with debilitating pain and fatigue. I've been taking Relief factor for about two months and now I'm back to running my business, fishing, gardening, doing the things that really matter to me. Maybe it's your back pain, knee issues or stiffness that's slowing you down. Relief Factor might help give you your mobility back. Relief factor is 100% drug free. It targets the inflammation that causes pain, helping you move better, feel better, and actually enjoy life again. Try the three week quick start for just $19.95. Go to relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief. Break up with pain and get back to what matters. Parents, have you heard your kids say I'm not a math kid? Well, with Mathnasium, every kid can be a math kid. They customize their math instruction so kids who are struggling are able to catch up and get ahead. And advanced kids are challenged to reach higher. Mathnasium makes math fun, so kids learn to love it. Parents say that Mathnasium has not only improved their kids grades, it's given them a new level of confidence in math and in school overall. Visit mathnasium.com to find a location near you. Back with me Now, Doug Brunt, he is host of Dedicated with Doug Brunt, which is a podcast he does with other authors. And he. He is the author of the brand new book out today, the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. Yes, there it is on your screens. The lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel, Romanov's revolutionaries, and the forgotten titan who fueled the world. And in the meantime, in our break, honey, our staff has gone gotten a little Prosecco to toast Pub day for your novel. Not your novel, your book, which is nonfiction. Thank you. Here's to our new friend, Nobi.
- [54:19]
Doug Brunt
Cheers. Thanks, honey.
- [54:20]
Megyn Kelly
Cheers, honey.
- [54:22]
Doug Brunt
Now, now I feel right now we're talking.
- [54:24]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. I mean, it really is like. It is like giving birth to a baby in a way.
- [54:28]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [54:28]
Megyn Kelly
You know, it's.
- [54:29]
Doug Brunt
I mean, there are many little milestones along the way. You finish the rough draft and send it in, you get the galley. But getting the hardcover and pub Day, like, that's. That's the big. That's the big money day.
- [54:40]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, it's a sweet thing, too. Like when we got the first galley, which is the soft coffee where Simon Schuster just sends you. Here's your book with the mocked up cover. But it's got. It doesn't look official yet, but it's the closest thing.
- [54:52]
Doug Brunt
And that's what goes out to press and reviews and things.
- [54:54]
Megyn Kelly
So that when you got that, we opened it and the kids got to see it, we had a moment. And then when this hardcover came, you know, we get it, obviously before the population gets it, that's another moment. Like holding it up with the kids. It's so great for them to see because they, like. I have lived with you while you. While this was just an idea, while you were kicking around. Diesel was a huge success. Yeah.
- [55:15]
Doug Brunt
Like our trip to Sweden when I was in the archives in Sweden, as we were there as a family. But I took a day out and did a bunch of stuff.
- [55:21]
Megyn Kelly
You should show that, actually. Here's. There's a picture of Doug that I took when we were in Sweden and explain what they're seeing here that's relevant to Nobel.
- [55:28]
Doug Brunt
On photo left with the green roof, that's the original Grand Hotel in Stockholm. That's owned by the Wallenberg family, investor ab. It's just this incredibly successful Swedish family. The building just behind my head is the Belinder Palace. It was the Royal Auto Club for many years, for like 50 years, but that's now also part of the Grand Hotel. And when we stayed there, we stayed in a room that's like right behind my head. My head's actually blocking the windows of the room we stayed in. And then the red roof all the way over my left shoulder on photo right is the Bermanska palace, which is also now part of the Grand Hotel. So the entire thing now is the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. They host every Nobel laureate since 1901, the first year, the prices, they've all stayed there. It's an incredible, beautiful hotel.
- [56:10]
Megyn Kelly
And Nobel was there? Arnobel?
- [56:12]
Doug Brunt
Well, yeah, I mean, we don't want to. Like he did. We won't say exactly when because like a huge chunk of the book is this wild scenario of what plays out with Nobel and Stalin. But Nobel did actually stay in the red roof part of the Grand Hotel, the Bermanska palace, which is now part of the main hotel. And you can stay there if you go to Stockholm. You should totally stay there.
- [56:31]
Megyn Kelly
It's so cool, though. It's like when we. When you were riding diesel, we went to France and we found in Paris and we found this little tiny plaque with like graffiti nearby.
- [56:43]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [56:43]
Megyn Kelly
And that was kind of all the homage to Rudolph Diesel. This guy who, you know, as you explained, and has become so relevant with our gas price and our diesel prices so up right now, fueled the world that. That guy as well, you know, he created this amazing engine which won the World's Fair in 1900 and to this
- [56:59]
Doug Brunt
day powers everything around the globe. Every cargo ship, you know, any. Anything on the road larger than a passenger car.
- [57:05]
Megyn Kelly
That's all diesel, but like, forgotten. Forgotten. And Doug's first book, first nonfiction, explains why that happened to Diesel. And now this one with. With another homage to another world figure who's. Whose name, not just Nobel, because that's Nobel Prizes and it's Alfred, but this guy, Emmanuel Nobel, should be known the way Rockefeller is known. And that the last third of the book really explains why.
- [57:31]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. And that's not the case together in the. It's. It's. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's the original oil war that we've seen it play out a hundred times through the century. This is where it started.
- [57:43]
Megyn Kelly
I feel like these dead titans at. Somewhere out in the ether. Duggar, are going to be grateful to you for like, setting the record straight about who they were, what they did, and remembering them in the way they would have wanted.
- [57:55]
Doug Brunt
I hope so. I feel like they're kind of buddies now. I've spent five years with Diesel, several years with Nobel, and also, you know, Nobel's part of the Diesel story too, and was how I came across Nobel And I do feel a connection to them. So.
- [58:07]
Megyn Kelly
So now you. We're not going to say what the. You're working on a third in this trilogy.
- [58:12]
Doug Brunt
Yes.
- [58:13]
Megyn Kelly
Right now there is a third character who's just like these guys in a way.
- [58:17]
Doug Brunt
Yes. And it'll be. And that'll sort of complete it in my. In my mind. But it's. It's like I'm thinking of it as the turn of the century trilogy because it's this really charming. It's a brutal time to live, of course, with World War I, but this quarter century leading up to and then including World War I is this amazing kind of charming time to live. It's like Downton Abbey, the early years. The world lived in a totally different way. There were all these empires that crumbled as a. As a result of World War I. The Russian Empire, German Empire, Austrian Empire, Ottoman Empire. It's all different afterwards. And it's a fascinating hinge point in history that World War I completely disrupted. And then just as we're starting as a, as a, you know, as a, as like a human species to sort of look back on what happened there, World War II comes along and it just gets paved over. So there's so much about that time period that's really unexplored.
- [59:11]
Megyn Kelly
I want to tell the author or the audience that one of the people who blurbed this book and loved this book is somebody. It was the first thing Tucker texted me about when he saw your book. And it's the thing you were so proud of when this guy agreed to read it and blurb it. And our learned audience, yes, our learned audience may know the name Daniel Jurgen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of the Prize, the Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power and the New Map, Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations. Okay, so Doug asked this guy if he would blurb the book, read the book, and boy, did he ever. He loved it. And he wrote the following. Douglas Brunt tells the extraordinary story of the Nobels. Not Alfred of the Nobel Prize, but his brother Ludwig and nephew Emmanuel, who built one of the world's greatest industrial enterprises of the 19th century century and a giant oil company that rivaled Rockefeller's, only to see it all shattered in their fatal collision with Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution. A haunting elegy for a very different Russia that might have been. So every man I've talked to the two about this that seemed that the Daniel Jurgen blurb and the fact that he got involved in this, Duggar has been so impressed. Why do you love Daniel Jurgen. So much. And why did that mean so much to you?
- [60:28]
Doug Brunt
That book, the Prize came out, I think, in 1991, and I studied it in college. I had a course that was dedicated to the prize, which is the epic quest for oil. And so I love that book. I've kept it on my bookshelf ever since. And then when that blurb for the book came in that he, you know, and he. And I, my first email to him was like, Dear Mr. Jurgen, you know, and he. So now. But now it's Dan. All right, nice email, Dan and Doug now. So that's huge, though, to come from a college student studying a Pulitzer Prize winning book by Daniel Jurgen to now, like having an emailing relationship with him where he loved the book and he got it too. It is a haunting elegy of a. Of Russia that might have been. Yeah, it's a. It's maybe the craziest. What, you know, what happens with Stalin and Emmanuel Nobel is maybe the craziest sliding doors moment in history.
- [61:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [61:16]
Doug Brunt
Imagine a 20th century in which there's no communist Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, none of it.
- [61:22]
Megyn Kelly
Wow.
- [61:22]
Doug Brunt
It would have been a totally different thing. And it's only by like, you know, the eye of a needle that Lenin and Stalin got through there.
- [61:28]
Megyn Kelly
And what you see after, you know, we've set up the conflict for you in our. In our preview of the book, the Lost Empire, Emmanuel Nobel. But what you see is sort of at the precipice where Emmanuel's getting called by Stalin to, you know, go meet. And he's got a choice to make, and both men have choices to make, and those choices will wind up affecting the world. It will wind up affecting the world that you live in right today. Like, what they decided to do and what would happen to both men would truly change the course of history. It's documented in Doug's book, and I don't want to give it all away.
- [62:00]
Doug Brunt
And of course, like Morgan and Rockefeller and Wall street interests also play a huge part in how that all plays out.
- [62:07]
Megyn Kelly
It's like very dramatic conclusion for lack of a better term. But I will tell a funny story. So you were very excited about the Daniel Jurgen blurb. And actually one morning we were getting ready in our bathroom and we have dual sinks. So you were at yours and I was at mine. And you were like, oh, all the other oil historians are gonna love this. And I looked and just kind of laughed at you. Like the.
- [62:36]
Doug Brunt
All the other story.
- [62:39]
Megyn Kelly
It's very difficult.
- [62:40]
Doug Brunt
Ties into another. Very nice endorsement and review. I got from this organization called History Nerds United. Who. I'm my. They're my compadres now. It's like people like you are why we had to unite in the first place.
- [62:55]
Megyn Kelly
Because I mocked you and I bullied you. That's so wrong. So wrong.
- [62:58]
Doug Brunt
Got my posse. We're good.
- [63:03]
Megyn Kelly
I love that. All the other oil historians are gonna love that. Sure. Those four guys are gonna. They're gonna run to. Not walk to the nearest store. Sorry. So mean. But it's not just for oil historians, however. The oil historians are united in their love for the book.
- [63:22]
Doug Brunt
Because all history nerds are excited, all
- [63:24]
Megyn Kelly
of them and those of us who just dabble.
- [63:26]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [63:27]
Megyn Kelly
This is a pivot. Started with Diesel. This is the second nonfiction from fiction, which you did for your first three books. And how. How have you been enjoying that?
- [63:36]
Doug Brunt
I actually prefer narrative. This is narrative history. It's sort of like an Erik Larson style book. So it's history, but told in a novelistic way.
- [63:44]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [63:44]
Doug Brunt
Which is what? Like, getting back to what Zibby Owens said about it, it's a. It's also like a family saga, and it needs to be told as a story. And when you experience it as a story, it's actually indelible in that way. History textbooks are brutal. Like, we know from our kids. It can be tough. It's not interesting. It's like just an itinerary of events.
- [64:04]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. Right.
- [64:05]
Doug Brunt
That's not meaningful unless you understand how did it change day to day? Like, if you're looking at a person who's on the streets of St. Petersburg after the October Revolution, like, well, what was happening on the streets? How did their lives change Monday to Tuesday as that happened? Are there people, like, standing on the sideboards of cars that they've taken over with rifles and pitchforks and they're in the streets, there's blood in the streets. Crazy stuff is happening when you hear it. Like reading the memoirs of the ambassadors who were in St. Petersburg when that was going on. They'll have little details that aren't things that would show up in a history textbook. Again, just the itinerary. They're like, this happened on this date. Like, okay, this is something I need to memorize. But when you experience it through a person or a family and you get the narrative of what happens, you're like, oh, my God, I'm there. The page comes to life. And that's what I'm trying to do here is like, bring it to life on the page and then you never forget it. It's that Rudyard Kipling quote that I love, that if history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten. And this is. This is the way to get history.
- [65:02]
Megyn Kelly
I feel like when I read it and then reread. I've read it many times now, but I wished that I had had the opportunity to read it before I went and met with Putin. I wish that I had had all that knowledge in my head, because I do think it helps you understand Vladimir Putin a lot better. It's not about Vladimir Putin. He gets one mention in the book, but I think. But not much. But you come to understand exactly why he rules, the way he rules, who he's like in history, who might be his mentors. The style of leadership, what about it, is attractive to him and to the Russian people. Here. This is. They're showing a picture of me sitting across from Putin. That actually is in Kaliningrad, where we had a very long sit down, which is where they keep their nukes. But we also went to Moscow, which is absolutely stunning. I have to tell you. Like, again, if this war ever resolves and we get back to somewhat normal relations with them, Russia is a place everybody should go if they can. It's. The Russian people are absolutely lovely. You know, I'm not making any excuses for Putin and what's happening in Ukraine, but the Russian people are absolutely lovely. They love America. They love Americans. I was in the streets of Moscow. Here I am freezing my ass off. It's like 30 below zero here. But that's Red Square. And it's just. Every place you go there is stunning. The architecture is absolutely beautiful. I went, I gave my team some pictures of inside the Kremlin, and you can see the ornate chandeliers and the. The wall on the. The art on the. On the walls, and just no detail was spared. This is just a couple of shots as I got ready for a live shot. But in the listening audience, you can check this out at 12 after the hour. But look at this. I mean, like, the Kremlin is like a spectacular castle where I also interview Putin here, and it's got such history in it. That's why I looked up to see, did Stalin live in the Kremlin? And indeed he did. He did for a time. And then eventually he wanted to live in his Dhaka, which is like summer house kind of where they go. But look at this. This is just some random room not being used at all.
- [67:01]
Doug Brunt
That's the life Nobel was leading, that kind of gilded, amazing life.
- [67:06]
Megyn Kelly
And the. And the street Thug that was robbing banks. Stalin eventually was, too.
- [67:11]
Doug Brunt
But, you know, to your point about understanding the Russian people and the style of leadership there, Russia is sort of this weird combination of east and West. You know, the czar is much more like a Eastern, you know, Japanese emperor, where they're sort of a deity on earth. That's how the tsar was. He was. He was the. You know, the Eastern Orthodox Church, but he was God's deputy on. On earth. And there's a great line from Nicholas I was teaching Alexander ii. This is going back a few czars, but he was talking about Napoleon, and he's saying, you know, Napoleon, and he's. He says, you know, to rule, sometimes you are kind and you're. You're helpful, and you give. And then other times, you're the lion, you know, and he was saying to his son, he was advising him about how to become the czar. He was saying, that works in Western Europe, but in Russia, you can be only the lion. And it kind of plays out because every time a Russian leader has tried liberalizing reforms, you know, a couple of years later, someone tries to assassinate them. It's like, you know, the advice that Nicholas I gave to Alexander II kind of made some sense. You can be only the lion in Russia.
- [68:15]
Megyn Kelly
And it also does like. Like, the Russian people like a strong leader. Yeah, they. They like a strong leader, especially the women. They like. A lot of the women love Vladimir Putin, and they're very attracted to him riding the horse. I mean, I asked him that when I interviewed him in the Kremlin. I said, what's with all the shirtless photos? And he said, I give the people what they want. I was like, oh, wow. But they love a strong leader. So it's like, so often we impose.
- [68:39]
Doug Brunt
He should try the Tom Beatty leather outfit.
- [68:41]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, we'll get to him. But we impose our own value judgments on foreign countries, whether it's Russia or Iran or what have you. And it's like, no, no, no, no. They don't want some soft, you know, overly feminized new leftist version of American leadership. You know, imagine speak of Barack Obama or Pete Buttigieg, like, never. They would never want that. That person would be eaten alive if they were ever elevated. So it's like, you know, a couple years ago, we were talking about regime changing Putin out of there. Or, like, could somebody assassinate him after the Ukraine war was started? It's like, careful what you wish for. Because the reason we have Vladimir Putin is because the people wanted a Vladimir Putin. I always use the example of Jeb Bartlett. There's no Jeb Bartlett in the wings, nor do they want that. You know, I don't think the Iranian people want that. I don't think the Russian people want that. That's an American judgment that we.
- [69:34]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, we're looking at it through a Western lens when we see that. I mean, the czar was basically a demigod, and that's a 20th century thing. You know, Nicholas II was the. Was the sort of semi godlike figure of ruling Russia all the way into 1917. So it's like 100 years ago. They still thought of it that way.
- [69:52]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, you could have had it.
- [69:53]
Doug Brunt
Level of autocracy.
- [69:54]
Megyn Kelly
Ye. Um, okay, so. Well, you mentioned Tom Brady, so that's a good. That's this a good place. Yeah. Before we do, don't forget to go and buy your copy of the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel by Douglas Brunt. You will not be sorry you did. You will be entertained and you will learn something. And it's actually stuff that's very relevant to everything that's going on in the news today. Not necessarily Tom Brady, but maybe. I mean, you kind of made the connection. So maybe it is. Maybe we can make the case. Tom Brady, who. Who we've met a few times. I don't think he's a bad guy. I don't think you think he's a bad guy. However, there is something weird about Tom Brady. Something is happening. And we've also talked about this many times in our private life. What's happening with his looks? Okay, we. We're not sure, but he recently walked the Runway at the Gucci Cruise fashion show in New York. It's all leather.
- [70:45]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [70:46]
Megyn Kelly
It doesn't look like anything any man would want to wear on a cruise. I don't understand what man would wear head to toe leather on any sort of a cruise. No, that seems off to me. And it has led to the following comments online. Why is he walking like robocop? Why is he walking like the Tin Man? He appears to be in some physical pain. Just walking. Did he learn nothing from Giselle? And on and on it goes. I would say something else jumped out to both you and me about him not having to do with the leather. Care to take it from there?
- [71:17]
Doug Brunt
You know, so we. I remember meeting him one time that there was that period where this was a very brief intersection in time where the Met Gala people would invite you and you were in a period where you would be willing to go. Yeah, it's like a nanosecond intersection in time where those two things actually met and overlapped. So we did go. And it was a year when he was hosting with Anna Winter. So he's like up there greeting everyone who comes in along with, like, Federer and a few other people. I think. Yeah, maybe Taylor Swift. I think that year, too. It was like an amazing year of hosting. And he was so gracious and charming. Like, he's got the it factor, but this is 10 years ago. And he was handsome like, I. He should have, like, held right there. I don't know what is. I don't know what we're seeing here. And I'm a fan of Tom Brady. I got. He's not the greatest athlete, but he's a great athlete. But he's always gotten better results than anyone because he's like, I will outwork you. And he's mentally tough and all this stuff. So I'm a fan, but I don't know what is going on here. It's like, kind. I hate to say it because I'm a fan, but I'm getting Caitlyn Jenner vibes. Nobody. I hate to say it. I don't know why no one's saying it, though. Like, am I the only one seeing that or is everyone seeing it and everyone's not saying, go ahead and write
- [72:30]
Megyn Kelly
in and let us know. Answer Doug's question. You can email me meganagyankelley.com his face. Somebody online put the two side by side. Tom Brady, like, at the beginning of his career and Tom Brady now. And look, maybe he just lost a lot of weight. I don't think so. I think. And I actually asked one of my dermatologists about this and he too said, I see feminization surgery going on. Like it's some. Some sort of choice.
- [72:58]
Doug Brunt
That's a category of thing.
- [72:59]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Well, I mean, he hasn't examined Tom Brady. For the record, this is just his. His armchair opinion and looking at the differences. But, but look at, look, look. Everything is sharper, more angled. And there is a question about whether that's just weight loss and a difference in, like, workout routine or whether there's some, you know, professional surgery involved there to try to make him look just a little more feminine. Slash looks maxi. I don't know. But I don't think Tom Brady is a stranger to the plastic surgeon's office. That's just my own armchair belief. I don't think that evolution we're watching there happens naturally.
- [73:38]
Doug Brunt
It's a lot. Yeah, he doesn't need to do that.
- [73:40]
Megyn Kelly
It's a lot. You and I have been. It's hard for us to watch TV because we just don't have a lot of time. And then we make the mistake of starting a TV show with our kids, and then we're dead because it's like
- [73:53]
Doug Brunt
getting all of us together is impossible.
- [73:54]
Megyn Kelly
It's so hard. Like, you can't watch a series with the kids anymore. It's just so hard between everybody's schedule. But one of the ones we gave a shot to, we did watch Yellowstone.
- [74:03]
Doug Brunt
Yep.
- [74:03]
Megyn Kelly
Not all of it.
- [74:04]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [74:04]
Megyn Kelly
But a lot of it.
- [74:07]
Doug Brunt
Wait, were the kids doing.
- [74:08]
Megyn Kelly
No, no, they weren't. They were not. That was not appropriate for the kids. And. And that would become relevant in your other job, which is hosting Dedicated with Doug Brunt, where you have on very famous authors. It's like been. All of the most famous authors on earth have swung by, except for Stephen King, because he's weird and probably too far left.
- [74:27]
Doug Brunt
He's welcome.
- [74:27]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, he probably looked googled you and was like, it's a no.
- [74:31]
Doug Brunt
I don't know if he leaves Maine or he's Florida. I don't know. He probably has a compound. He doesn't leave much.
- [74:35]
Megyn Kelly
Although you get. You get lefty authors. You get. Right. Yeah. It doesn't like.
- [74:38]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. It's not a political show.
- [74:39]
Megyn Kelly
It's not a political show. So on Dedicated with Doug Brunt, which you guys should download. That's his podcast. They have a cocktail. They have the writers whose Doug. Doug is hosting their favorite cocktail, and they talk about maybe that author's book and maybe just the process by which they wrote it and write their books in general and what their life is like. So, like, if you're a fan of James Patterson or, let's say, or Lee
- [75:00]
Doug Brunt
Child, it's like sitting in a bar next to him and having a conversation and learning all about them.
- [75:04]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. So do you want to set up this clip?
- [75:06]
Doug Brunt
Is this C.J. box?
- [75:08]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [75:08]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. So C.J. box, great writer. He writes these Joe Pickett novels where Joe Pickett is a park ranger, kind of heroic figure out. And C.J. box also lives in Wyoming, but that's largely where the books take place on these ranches and parks out west. And so he's in. We're having cocktails, I guess we're like,
- [75:29]
Megyn Kelly
this episode's coming out this. This Tuesday, a week from today.
- [75:32]
Doug Brunt
A week from today.
- [75:33]
Megyn Kelly
Sorry. Keep going.
- [75:34]
Doug Brunt
But we just recorded it in New York. And so we're a couple bourbons in and we're talking about, you know, things in the genre generally of which the Taylor Sheridan shows are. Are you gonna show some of the clips? Yeah, but yeah, so the idea of Taylor Sheridan and those shows comes up which are very much in the wheelhouse of these number one best selling books that C.J. box writes.
- [75:56]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, let's take a look at this clip from Dedicated with Doug Brunt. Sought one.
- [76:00]
Doug Brunt
What do you think of all the Taylor Sheridan stuff? Is that accurate? The Yellowstone and 1938. I don't know how accurate it all is. It's certainly popular. I mean everybody we know watches all the shows. I have trouble with some of it and some of the renderings ranch stuff that you know is not really true, but it also has to suspend disbelief. And one thing Taylor Sheridan has done is reintroduce modern westerns to modern audiences. And you know, it's wildly popular. Yeah, so I guess that's good. I find after about episode five, I'm like, I think I've seen enough. It's starting to feel the same to me. But I love the first few. Like even with Landman, I kind of. I tapped out after about five episodes because some of the particularly the female characters are like caricatures of themselves and they're just, wow, they're so ridiculous. Every scene it's like, okay, it's starting to. It was so amped up all the time. That amped up has now felt kind of flat. I mean, I echo everything you said. I was kind of holding back earlier, but I agree with what I thought you were going to say. And here's my friend Taylor over here. Oh no, no. Some of those are. We have the same thing. I can't say we got hate watch them, but we watch enough so that we can talk to our friends about it because they're always talking about it. Yeah, yeah. I mean at some point you start enough with it. You've got like nine shows going at one time. It's like, well, whatever. I'm sure you know, I do enjoy the first five episodes and I do find. Okay. And I find some of his themes pretty derivative of my books at times. And I know that he's been a reader, but you know, that's just one of those things. Go ahead and option the damn thing. That's right.
- [77:44]
Megyn Kelly
Those shots fired. He had something he wanted to get off his chest about Taylor Sheridan there. And you tapped into it.
- [77:50]
Doug Brunt
I have to say he was the nicest guy. His wife was in studio with us as well and she said she's watched every dedicated episode, which is great. So she loves all the authors who've come through. And he said, I've watched about half, so I'll take it because he's a big star and a busy guy writing lots of books. But he was so nice and he also has the reputation. So I, I, Everyone comes through. So whether it's, you know, Lee Child or Michael Connelly or, you know, all the folks have come through. And CJ's Chuck, as he goes by off the off the book title, has a reputation for being the nicest guy. Everyone says, you gotta have CJ box in here. He is the nicest, best guy and a very talented writer. So anyways. But yeah, he's, he's sounds like he's had it with Taylor Shannon.
- [78:33]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, good for him for, for being honest about it, because I, I don't blame him. And I bet it is derivative. It funny because you've become. We actually have become friends with a fair amount of the authors who have swung by your podcast, and one of them was just here. You went on your show. You went on our show. Went on a lot of shows. Jack Carr.
- [78:50]
Doug Brunt
Yes. And that's great.
- [78:51]
Megyn Kelly
So after he was here, and the audience may remember this, he came on the show and we had a great exchange. You guys went to the Hamptons together, and when you came back, I think both you and Jack were hurting severely from having very wrongly been overserved by your host out there.
- [79:08]
Doug Brunt
Hamptons has Uber. Yeah, we went out to the American Hotel and, and did not make the mistake of driving ourselves around like Justin Timberlake. And yeah, hopped in an Uber. Yeah, we shut down the American Hotel. I think they're out of bourbon.
- [79:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [79:20]
Doug Brunt
And. And then staggered back and then we had to do event the next. We may also made the mistake, though, of doing that before the event. So I got up on stage with Jack and I was just like, people could smell us in the front row.
- [79:30]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, God. See, he's a Navy seal, babe. You don't, you shouldn't try to keep up with him. No, that's, that's, you know, it's wrong. It's the wrong standard. Elliot Ackerman is another dear friend of ours. He and his wife, Lee Carpenter, and he interviewed you on your show for this book.
- [79:47]
Doug Brunt
Yes. He did a great job, too. I mean, he also former Special Forces, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, great guy.
- [79:53]
Megyn Kelly
He's got it all.
- [79:53]
Doug Brunt
And a very talented writer. And yeah, so he turned the table. So he was the host and made the cocktails, and I was the guest and we talked about Emmanuel Nobel, everything
- [80:04]
Megyn Kelly
Is working out so well for you. Yeah, that's. I think that's today in your new writing career. You know, it's like when we met. When we Met back in 2006, you were running an Internet security company. I was a very young reporter at fox news. I had no money. You were doing very well. You had to pay for my down payment, my first and last month's rent. When I moved to New York, that
- [80:29]
Doug Brunt
was the best investment I've ever made.
- [80:31]
Megyn Kelly
But it was like life was so different then. You were. You were. You enjoyed your job, but it was much more stressful, and there was a lot of tumult going on at, like, the board level and stuff was happening there. But, like, you had been working on this novel for stress relief.
- [80:45]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [80:45]
Megyn Kelly
And it wasn't until after yeardley was born. We got married. We met in 2006. We got married in 2008, and Yardley was. Yeats came in 09 and Yards came in 11. And it wasn't until I was pregnant with yeardley. I think so was someplace in the
- [80:58]
Doug Brunt
1011 range, that walk in central Park. I just did an interview recently where someone was asking about the switch from running a company to writing full time. And I told that story and how you read the rough draft of what would be the first novel, and you're like, this is actually pretty good. You should pursue this and get an agent. So I told that story, and he said, what if the feedback had been different? Like, what if she said, this is not good? You know, she didn't like it? Like, would you have been a writer at all? I'm like, that's actually. No one's ever posed it that way. I don't know what would have happened. But you always are the first feedback on each of the books, Fiction and nonfiction. And great. I mean, your judgment for story and, you know, what's compelling is always so good that you're always the sort of first stop for feedback in all these books.
- [81:45]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I feel like I'm your common man because I. You're so well read. Doug is so well read, and I spend most of my time reading the news. I have to be honest. I'm not. I don't consider myself well read when it comes to the world of literature, though. Doug gives me great recommendations, and I pick them up. But you've read everything. You. You've read it all. And I think you can't be a great writer unless you are a great reader and you love it, so it comes naturally to you. But I'm your everyman. Because I can read it. I mean, like, how many times do we go back and forth about some of the terms in the book? You know, like, what were we referring to the oil rigs as? And I was like, stop saying that. I don't remember what they're called.
- [82:22]
Doug Brunt
Russia. That's another thing.
- [82:23]
Megyn Kelly
I can't stand. Prussia. I can't say. I'm like, every time you say pressure, you have to explain that that was like a German province before we had a Germany. Nobody knows that.
- [82:30]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, yeah. So reading is definitely a key to writing. Well, the other one, I'll tell a really quick story if we have a minute. The other is writing. So one of the other guests that came on Dedicated was Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the Outlander series, which became a huge show. And so she would be on the set of the show and everyone loves the books. The books are amazing. The show is amazing. And the cast, the actors in the show would come over to her. And then of course, all the read the books themselves and they say, I love the books. Like, how do you write? Like, what's the secret? What advice can you give me? And she would say, here's what we're going to do for the next 10 days. You're going to go write for 20 minutes every day, and at the end of 10 days, come back and we'll talk. And guess what happened?
- [83:11]
Megyn Kelly
What?
- [83:11]
Doug Brunt
No one ever came back.
- [83:13]
Megyn Kelly
What?
- [83:13]
Doug Brunt
That's the hard part. Like, just the act of writing is hard enough. Like they. No one can do it. So if you want to write just as a quick piece of advice, read. And you have to write. You actually have to put pen to paper. And it sounds like simple advice and it doesn't connect with most people. They're just like, oh, whatever. But you actually have to do it. Whether it's a journal entry or a letter or, you know, a short story or the beginning of novel, you have to write every day.
- [83:39]
Megyn Kelly
And I know you try to write the beginning of the first line of the next section before you close up your notebook for the night.
- [83:48]
Doug Brunt
Yes. Which is like a famous old Hemingway trick, like trying to leave yourself something to grab the next day, you know, leave off with that.
- [83:55]
Megyn Kelly
You write longhand with a fiction.
- [83:58]
Doug Brunt
Yes. With a non fiction, I've done more just keying it in on the keyboard.
- [84:01]
Megyn Kelly
You write in our dining room, not in your office. I mean, a little of both.
- [84:05]
Doug Brunt
A little both.
- [84:06]
Megyn Kelly
But the dining room's a lot brighter.
- [84:07]
Doug Brunt
It's brighter. And the huge table, because especially with the Non fiction. I'm really spread out. I've got all these source material. Notes are all over me. So I'm like writing like. Although I'm drowning in paper and books.
- [84:17]
Megyn Kelly
No, you look like Claire Danes from what was it on Showtime?
- [84:21]
Doug Brunt
Oh, that show. Oh yeah.
- [84:23]
Megyn Kelly
With the number of post its everywhere and the lines connecting.
- [84:26]
Doug Brunt
Having a psychotic break as I write.
- [84:28]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. As you once joked, God forbid somebody ever go in there with a leaf blower. Everything would be lost. And then you do your own editing on the computer. It's another way to think through. And then this time you read. You read the book, which you did not do for Diesel. And how was that?
- [84:42]
Doug Brunt
That was a fun experience. I mean it's relentless. You know this. You got to go through all these, you know, it's 90,000 words and there are many retakes. The crazy thing that was happening to me and I think it was happening to you a little bit. But I would have coffee when I'd get there and then my stomach was doing flips like gurgling. So I'd read and the guy in the sound was like, your stomach? I kind of heard that. Let's do it again. And so, you know, I had to do many, many retakes and finally just grabbed a big pillow which they had there. Like I'm not the only person this happens to. They said grab the pillow. So I grabbed the pillow, put it over my lap and it sort of muffles my stomach sounds.
- [85:17]
Megyn Kelly
So people can picture Doug holding his little lovey pillow while he does the read for the lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel out today in a store near you. We're going to be right back. We're going to take a quick break. Don't go away. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and that now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack. And that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more@guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card when there are supply constraints on commodities prices surge. You see it with fuel prices with everything happening in the Strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity? Gold. They mine it out of the ground and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more of it. And that's why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with Gold. If you've been thinking about it for years but have still never moved some of your savings into physical gold, consider Birch Gold Group. Now through May 29th, Birch Gold is giving first time gold buyers a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. For details and a free information kit on diversifying into Gold, text MK to the number 989898. Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401K into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold. Text MK to the number 989890 to see if you qualify for a a first time gold buyer rebate of up to $10,000. School's almost out and at Abercrombie kids new warm weather staples are in. It's a one stop shop for everything on their checklist like tees, shorts and swim, so planning what they'll wear is a breeze. For outfits that keep up with them and easier mornings for you, stop by Abercrombie Kids shop in the app, online and in stores. Parents, have you heard your kids say I'm not a math kid? Well, with Mathnasium every kid can be a math kid. They customize their math instruction so kids who are struggling are able to catch up and get ahead. And advanced kids are challenged to reach higher. Mathnesium makes math so kids learn to love it. Parents say that Mathnasium has not only improved their kids grades, it's given them a new level of confidence in math and in school overall. Visit mathnasium.com to find a location near you. Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren Maureen Callahan, Emily jasinsky, Jesse Kelly, RealClear Politics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the Sirius XM app. Doug Brunt is back with me. He's the author of the brand new book the Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel out today. Go and get it now. It also will make a great gift as we go into the Father's and Mother's Day season. So check it out and possibly buy it for somebody who you love. And speaking of loving people, I heard the most outrageous set of sound bites on my pal Maureen Callahan's show, the Nerve on Friday, which is a great show. You should go and subscribe. She actually took the time to listen to this weird new podcast that I don't know if it's a real thing or if they just did the one time, but it's these obnoxious, insufferable late night hosts sitting around patting themselves on the back. And what they decided to talk about, you know, as all married men want to, is which female guest they've had on their shows, who they want to sleep with, which woman would they like to fit. Honestly, this is so inappropriate on so many different levels. And here is Stephen Colbert in SOT10.
- [89:59]
Doug Brunt
Has there been a guest who was so attractive that you found it distracting? I'll tell you who I did not expect to be wildly attracted to. Like, I didn't know what to do with myself is that I did not. Cause I don't. I don't. I like this person's work. But I never thought of him as like a bombshell. I could not. I didn't know what to do with my eyeballs. When Michelle Williams was on for the first time, she sat down across to me and I went, fuck, what is wrong with my head? I cannot. I better not look directly at her. For this entire interview. There was something about her, her vibe, her face, everything.
- [90:33]
Megyn Kelly
That is so disgusting. That's so gross. I can't imagine watching my husband sitting out there talking like that where he couldn't even concentrate. You couldn't. All you could do is like you were stunned with this person's beauty. And he doubled down moments later. SOT 11.
- [90:48]
Doug Brunt
I used to have a Rachel Weisz problem. I've recovered, okay? When Rachel Weisz would be on the Daily Show, I would leave the building for fear that I would say something stupid to her. Even though I feel like I was afraid, I would stand in the hallway and go, hi. You were great in the Constant Stephen, you were great in the Constant Gardener.
- [91:05]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so he was married then, he's married now, his wife's not flashy. And somebody asked him, first of all, he was bragging about having his hall pass. You know how some men talk about they've got a hall pass to, like, sleep with somebody who's not their wife. And here's what he said about that. Saw 12.
- [91:24]
Doug Brunt
We're going around the table once at dinner with some friends of mine, and these guys are going like, so, who's your hall pass? Whatever. Like that. And the guy next to me in front goes Paulina Porizkova. And I. This was the. Midway through the Colbert Report, I pulled up my phone, opened the People magazine app on phone, and I was Paulina Porizkova's hall pass. Oh, my God. That's nice.
- [91:42]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [91:44]
Doug Brunt
A flex that I've never, ever been able to match.
- [91:47]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, I just threw up in my mouth. That is so weird and gross. And as Maureen pointed out, not. Not the brag. He thinks it is.
- [91:55]
Doug Brunt
Not the flex with Rick O. Kasich. Yeah, yeah.
- [91:58]
Megyn Kelly
Not real.
- [92:00]
Doug Brunt
That's like a political comment where she's like, you know, there's no way she's.
- [92:03]
Megyn Kelly
And there's no way that he actually just opened up the People magazine app on his phone. You know, he has that at the ready, like, in his saved photos.
- [92:10]
Doug Brunt
These are. This is. It's very weird. These are like grown men around my age. I don't think I've had a conversation like that since college.
- [92:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. Yes.
- [92:17]
Doug Brunt
No one I know. No guy I know, especially no married guy, sits around talking about the hall pass conversation.
- [92:23]
Megyn Kelly
Are they all gay? You know how, like, you've explained to me many times that the people who talk like this are gay?
- [92:28]
Doug Brunt
I don't know. I don't know.
- [92:30]
Megyn Kelly
Like, a gay man's idea of how a straight man.
- [92:33]
Doug Brunt
There is that for sure. Like, we. We've discussed several incidents of that. I don't know if this is a gay thing or just a loser thing or what. But no, no normal guy I know
- [92:43]
Megyn Kelly
talks like that or publicly about how you could barely function in the face of this other woman's beauty that you definitely want to sleep with. That's the topic as it was delivered to you. And then, okay, there's the hall pass thing. And listen to. This is the worst one of all. I won't set it up. Just watch. 13.
- [93:01]
Doug Brunt
Debbie knows all this. Who was hurt? Abby doesn't have a TV show.
- [93:05]
Megyn Kelly
I guess I needed to set it up. They were asked who. They were asked about his wife Evie, and who's her hall pass. And he said, evie doesn't have a TV show.
- [93:15]
Doug Brunt
Oh, my God.
- [93:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. What in the absolute f. She better get one.
- [93:22]
Doug Brunt
That's like the Lawrence Taylor quote when we better put that in coach. She better go get a TV show, and then she's off and running.
- [93:28]
Megyn Kelly
Can you believe that?
- [93:30]
Doug Brunt
Wow. That's. That's. Someone needs to get a comment from her about this.
- [93:34]
Megyn Kelly
I feel like, tell me you have a loveless marriage without telling me you have a loveless marriage. That's what that whole exchange ought to be labeled.
- [93:40]
Doug Brunt
Yeah.
- [93:41]
Megyn Kelly
Pathetic and not entertaining. This is their excuse for entertainment as they sit around licking their wounds at everyone's show either got canceled or almost canceled and nobody's got the ratings that they used to have. And so on. Which leads me to Meghan Markle. Doug. She traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to give some speech about the dangers of social media. She posted on social media before she went. A picture of herself surrounded by designer clothing and Lilibet down at her feet, staring up at her mother. Here you can see it. It's just me. It's me admiring me as my daughter admires me in my closet of designer clothes. This is how I want you to understand how relatable I am. And then she went all the way over to Geneva from Los Angeles, California, or wherever they are, just north of la, and gave this speech. You know, she wants to be taken seriously. She's humanitarian. She started Archewell foundation, which already closed. She flies all the way over there. And would you take a look? Look at the crowd that showed up or didn't stand by. Okay? We sped it up just so you can see, like, literally nobody is on the side. They have all the ropes up to protect her from crowds coming. There's one woman in the background. No one is there. You just keep watching because we. We panned the camera. We found the shots to show, like, okay, were there tons of people in front of her? There were not. Were there tons of people on the other side? No. It reads, no child lost to social media. No one is listening to her. We have video of a woman behind her who basically is, like, putting the jacket on or off, like, taking a yawning stretching. This is. This is the crowd. Doug. The guy in Central park we've seen blow those enormous bubbles. It gets a way bigger crowd than this.
- [95:38]
Doug Brunt
It's lost even the train wreck appeal. She's already had about 10 train wrecks. So now, you know, you think, oh,
- [95:43]
Megyn Kelly
sorry, here's jacket lady. Look at her. She looks riveted, doesn't she? She's like, I'm near a princess.
- [95:48]
Doug Brunt
Oh, boy.
- [95:49]
Megyn Kelly
No, she couldn't care less. She's not interested. And it's the public's verdict on we don't give a shit about you. Shut up and go live. Your life and stop bothering us with your fake profundities and fake title.
- [96:03]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, yeah, she's, she's lost all appeal. It could be like the, the train wreck thing would happen here and there and that could still get some audience. But she's had a few of those already. Even that's not interesting from her anymore.
- [96:13]
Megyn Kelly
Look at her. Like no one cares. It's like a, it's smattering. You know how they say smattering of applause? This is a smattering of audience members. It's officially over. Over now. You and I spent the weekend doing something really fun and interesting, I thought, which was we watched our oldest child, Yates, who's 16, engage in a tennis tournament with his classmates. And it was some of the most riveting, stressful, fun, nail biting time that we have had in recent memory.
- [96:47]
Doug Brunt
Match points all over the place, going both ways. You know, tiebreakers. It was kind of. You get a workout, getting a full body workout as you're sort of like jerking along to each shot of the match.
- [96:57]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. And I asked you because you play tennis. I don't play tennis. But you do and our kids do. Is it worth to be the guy in that situation? Cause I've watched you in a lot of these matches too, where it's like point, point, point, counterpoint, back and forth, back and forth. Nobody can really get the leg up. And then like, who could win? It could go either way. And it's very, very stressful for the watcher. And I was asking, which do you prefer? Do you prefer to be the player in that moment who's like, gotta perform with all these people watching you and like titles on the line? Or do you prefer to be the, the dad watching somebody else do it, you know, like our son do it
- [97:30]
Doug Brunt
way prefer to be playing. It's much easier to be the one on the court because you're sort of in control then and you can, you can, you know, control the moment when you're watching up there and you're watching your kid or even like a good friend. It's. I can't even watch it. I have to, I have to walk away sometimes. I can't even stay there for it.
- [97:46]
Megyn Kelly
It is so stressful now. I feel like you understand my world. So I've watched you play in these tournaments. One of which wound up in the movie Bombshell is actually quite funny. But you do play tennis. I've watched you play in a lot of these tight, tight games. And it is very stressful. It's. Any parent out there can Relate or spouse, if you're. If your spouse is athletic, to watching your loved one put it all on the line. And it could go one way or the other. You just pray to God that it works out. It's like gotta. All the self talk I had to do. I prayed, I prayed to God. Then I did deep breathing. I'm like, this is. I gotta calm down. This is like a high school tennis match.
- [98:21]
Doug Brunt
Unfortunately, Yates is so mentally tough. All three of our kids really are. So you, you kind of have that sense, like he's got this, he is going to do it and then he does, and it's easy. But like the other day when we were watching that lacrosse game and you saw you were standing next to the couple whose son ended up scoring the last second goal to win it. And they were tearing up. They're really wonderful moments. And we were so happy over the weekend watching.
- [98:43]
Megyn Kelly
It was so beautiful, that lacrosse. So our school also had a lacrosse game and we went just to support our friends. And it was one of these things. There's overtime. It was double overtime. And in lacrosse, that sudden death and could have gone either way. Same thing. The other team was excellent, but a guy on our team shot the winning goal. And we did have the privilege of just so happening, happening. It just so happened that we were standing right by that kid's parents. He was a senior. And the mom and the dad were right in front of us. And the mom was like a couple steps down from the dad. We were like on the bleachers. She was a couple steps down. And so you had the moment you could. You could see the mom had her hands over her face like. You know how you do when you're overwhelmed with emotion. And the dad had his hands, like on his head, which can signal relief or despair or I can't believe it. But in this circumstance, it had to be like, relief. And I can't believe it. And she turned around to look at her husband and she had tears in her eyes and he did too. And they just had this moment about their. Their son. I could tear up now. Who scored the winning goal. It's like it doesn't matter who you are in this world. That moment can dwarf all the moments,
- [99:55]
Doug Brunt
those pure moments in sports that are always still there. I mean, there's so much perversion around sports with money and how you get into college and things that are screwing it all up. But it survives because sports still delivers those moments. Yes, it's really awesome.
- [100:07]
Megyn Kelly
And don't you think, you know, I don't play tennis, but I do think tennis, and I'm sure a lot of these other sports. And now I know tennis better than a lot of the other sports since I know nothing about the others. It's. It's such an opportunity for growth and character development for these kids. Like, that's what I've seen. You know, I looked at Yates and these other boys, too, out there. You are alone on that court.
- [100:29]
Doug Brunt
Tennis is tough.
- [100:30]
Megyn Kelly
Like, it is just you and all the eyes are on you. You will make or break your own fortune. Your adversary. This is like the finals of this thing. So it's like, he's going to be amazing. You're not gonna get any passes. It takes such temerity for these kids to go out there. And do I think the same when we go to, like, the plays. Yeardley likes to do the plays. Doesn't matter whether Yardley's on stage or somebody else is on stage. As soon as that curtain goes up, I start crying because it's like these young girls and young guys putting it on the line, risking embarrassment. You know, they could fall on their faces, but they do it. They say the lines, they sing. I had to just bring something up in me of, like, the zest of life and risking taking risks. Risks. And hopefully getting a huge payoff.
- [101:13]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, it's great to see. I mean, that's what I love about high school. There's so many different things. You can sort of get into a lane behind. Whether it's drama or different sports or even if it's like, I don't know, a debate team. You know, you get out there and you. You put your best self forward and you compete.
- [101:29]
Megyn Kelly
You never did drama?
- [101:31]
Doug Brunt
No, No, I didn't do drama.
- [101:34]
Megyn Kelly
I never did drama either. In my school.
- [101:36]
Doug Brunt
Like, it's. It's cooler now. It's definitely cooler in high school if you did drama. That was. It was like. That was.
- [101:42]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. In my school, you were called a creamy. You were. The creamies did the drama. No offense to the creamies out there. You guys were great. I loved it. And I tried to be a creamy. The truth is, I tried. I auditioned for the show, and I didn't make it.
- [101:51]
Doug Brunt
I wish I did it.
- [101:52]
Megyn Kelly
Didn't make any of it.
- [101:53]
Doug Brunt
I should have done it.
- [101:53]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I was triggered. Remember, Yardley had to sing Somewhere over the Rainbow to try out for this music group, and I was like, trigger. That was the song I had to sing. I did not.
- [102:03]
Doug Brunt
They gave you the hook.
- [102:04]
Megyn Kelly
I didn't make the chorus. I didn't make A lead role. I made nothing. They were like, we don't want you in this play.
- [102:10]
Doug Brunt
Back to cheerleading.
- [102:11]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. That's basically what happened. But I still admire them, so. And just, like, the raw display of talent, you know, tomorrow, Patrick McEnroe is coming on the show.
- [102:19]
Doug Brunt
Awesome.
- [102:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. The brother of John McEnroe, and he's been railing about.
- [102:22]
Doug Brunt
He's been running USA Tennis for a long time.
- [102:25]
Megyn Kelly
He's raising a really good point. We are letting in all these foreigners into our colleges who are taking all the spots of the Americans.
- [102:34]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. It's hard to develop our American tennis program. Yes. If there's. If we're, you know, icing out half of the spots in American colleges.
- [102:41]
Megyn Kelly
It's true in tennis. It's true in other sports, too. It's like. And now we got President Trump talking about let in 500,000 more Chinese in the universities. Okay. It's like, Chinese is Chinese. American is one thing. Chinese is a totally different thing. So I really hope that the president changes his mind on that, and I hope Patrick McEnroe can make him. In any event. We'll see. See. What else. Did you feel like it went well today? Yeah.
- [103:05]
Doug Brunt
Yes. I was thrilled to be able to chat about my buddy, Emmanuel Nobel.
- [103:09]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right.
- [103:10]
Doug Brunt
And it's like 50. 50, actually. As I talk to people, they're like, Emanuel Noble. I'm like. I'm like, so the nephew of Alfred Nobel. And then they, you know, they get it.
- [103:19]
Megyn Kelly
Like Karine Jean Pierre.
- [103:20]
Doug Brunt
Yeah, exactly.
- [103:20]
Megyn Kelly
The Noble Prize. It's very noble. If you can win it, you're noble. Oh, my God. It's so humiliating. No, I learned a lot. And I think the audience. Audience is gonna love it. The lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel. You were saying this morning, you went on with Rosanna Scotto, who's amazing.
- [103:33]
Doug Brunt
She is awesome. She's the best and second best.
- [103:36]
Megyn Kelly
And people from Simon and Schuster showed up.
- [103:38]
Doug Brunt
Yep.
- [103:39]
Megyn Kelly
And how'd that go?
- [103:40]
Doug Brunt
It was great. They were doing all the blocking and tackling for me. You know, you don't always get, you know, a team from the publicists group when you go out to do these things. But we went into the green room. Like, this green room. It's not nice enough for Doug. We need to find another green room. I'm like, no, no, no. This is. This is good. I'm very happy to be here. Don't need a nicer green room.
- [103:57]
Megyn Kelly
Let's not be those people.
- [103:58]
Doug Brunt
Black was down the hall, you know, the country music guy. And basically the same Green room. So I was good.
- [104:03]
Megyn Kelly
Were you satisfied with your green room here?
- [104:05]
Doug Brunt
Yes, actually it was. Coffee, water, champagne.
- [104:07]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Did you get the star treatment from everybody?
- [104:10]
Doug Brunt
Yeah. Your green room budget is higher than Fox tv.
- [104:12]
Megyn Kelly
You know, I told them to roll out the red carpet outside the red studio for you, babe. Well, honey, I'm really proud of you. Cheers again.
- [104:19]
Doug Brunt
Cheers.
- [104:19]
Megyn Kelly
It's like the birth of a baby. I love you too. Love the book. I'm really proud of you. You drinking our Prosecco at 2 in the afternoon. Thanks to all of you so much. You supported Doug in his first book and we're both very grateful. And I think you're gonna love this one too. Again, it's out today. The lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel Romanov's revolutionaries and the forgotten titan who fueled the world. Duggar. Thank you. We're back tomorrow with Patrick McEnroe and others. Now our friends from RCP will be your as well. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear. School's almost out, and at Abercrombie Kids, new warm weather staples are in. It's a one stop shop for everything on their checklist, like tees, shorts and swim. So planning with aware is a breeze. For outfits that keep up with them and easier mornings for you, stop by Abercrombie Kids, shop in the app, online and in stores.
- [105:30]
Doug Brunt
Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away
- [105:38]
Megyn Kelly
the perfect hire skills first.
- [105:40]
Doug Brunt
Hiring helps you see talent others miss. Like more than 70 million stars skilled
- [105:44]
Megyn Kelly
through alternative routes, let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage.
- [105:49]
Doug Brunt
Because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Hire skills first. Learn why at tearthepaperceiling. Org, brought to you by opportunity at work and the ad council.