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March 26, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
45:29
ICE ON FIRE Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1049
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Coming up, Ice on Fire.
I'm going to show you how sanctuary cities are getting their comeuppance as Ice launches a big raid in Boston and Massachusetts.
I'll celebrate the virtues of Pierre Poilev, make the case for why he's the best choice for Prime Minister in the upcoming Canadian election.
And Representative Marlon Stutzman of Indiana joins me.
We're going to talk about what Congress can do to move the Trump agenda forward this year.
If you're watching on X or YouTube or Rumble, listening on Apple or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
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This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
Music by Ben Thede.
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The, uh, Thumbnail or title for today's podcast, courtesy of Debbie, is Ice on Fire.
So you can see Debbie here is pretty impressed at the interesting contrast between the word ice and the word fire.
She's like, how about ice on fire?
And I was a little dubious.
I was trying to come up with other...
References to ICE, but she is, after all, the producer.
And so finally, I helplessly surrendered to ICE on Fire.
But it's actually a good title because ICE is in full gear.
And it's in full gear and moving quickly.
And what a contrast with ICE under Biden.
Because ICE was essentially paralyzed.
ICE was not even allowed to do its basic job.
ICE was, in fact, rendered the opposite of what it's supposed to do.
It was not about border security.
It was not about enforcement.
It was about non-enforcement.
It was about facilitating non-enforcement.
And not only was ICE having problems with the Biden administration, it was also having problems with these sanctuary cities.
Sanctuary cities in California, where there's more than one of them.
Denver. Boston, and so on.
And so you had this horrible scenario.
I mean, imagine being a Border Patrol guy.
It's kind of like being a cop and being told, not only are you not allowed to go after the criminals, you're supposed to help them.
That's essentially the position that ICE was placed in under Biden.
It was just downright appalling.
And we now have, under Tom Holman, the exact opposite.
And Tom Homan is taking the position, which I agree with, that coming into America unlawfully, that's what makes you a criminal right there.
So the left's premise, which is that you can't deport this guy.
He hasn't committed any crimes.
Well, yes, he has.
He's illegal, isn't he?
So that's the crime right there.
And so one doesn't need to have further crimes.
And, well, you know, he's...
He's a student and he's abided by the law.
Well, what you mean is that he's abided by all the other laws except the immigration law.
Let's remember, immigration itself is a law.
And not only is it a law, but coming to the country illegally is a crime.
I've seen a number of Democratic, in fact, congressmen, I think I heard Jasmine Crockett, I was at AOC, saying coming to the country illegally is not a crime.
Well, hear what you just said.
Coming to the country illegally.
Stop right there.
That is, in fact, that's not a civil offense.
A civil offense is when you owe someone $500 and you haven't paid them and they sue you for the money.
That's a civil offense.
But if you steal $500 out of somebody else's wallet, that's a crime.
You're a thief.
Similarly here, coming to the country illegally falls into that latter category.
Now, that being said, Thomas Holman's priority is not the guy who overstayed his visa.
But rather criminal aliens.
But I think very importantly, he has decided to target the sanctuary cities.
And he's targeting the sanctuary cities because it's one thing to say you've got a guy, let's just say, from Honduras or a guy from Taiwan.
They've come illegally to the country.
They're breaking the law.
That's bad.
But you know what's worse?
The mayor of Denver, praising people who break the law, declaring that he's in solidarity with them, declaring that he will stand and protect them from ICE and from the Trump administration.
And similarly, Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, pretty much taking the same defiant stance.
And so Tom Homan is essentially, when he was speaking at CPAC, he said something very interesting.
He goes, you know...
When you have a sanctuary city, they create an infrastructure, very often made up of illegals, like you have illegal stash houses, you have places where these illegals congregate and live, you have all kinds of social services for these illegals, and Tom Homan is like, well, guess what?
That provides a target of opportunity, because you've got...
Dozens, in some cases, hundreds of these illegals in one place.
Boom! Let's swoop in on them.
And you know what?
Then we're not going to be making distinctions between this guy overstayed his visa, you know, that guy's got, you know, he's got a girlfriend who's a US citizen.
No, these people are illegal.
Once you've established that they don't have a right to be here, the simple fact of it is they can be rounded up.
And so, Boston is now a target.
And ICE Boston has announced that they have just arrested 205 of 370 illegal aliens.
And these are the people who have serious criminal convictions or serious pending criminal charges.
And these are all people wandering the streets of Massachusetts under the protection of the mayor and the infrastructure of Boston.
But look at the kind of people that they are protecting, because this is not your sort of...
Run-of-the-mill, you know, this is a guy who owes some money on child support.
No, let's look at this.
Previously deported Dominican illegal alien charged with fentanyl trafficking.
Previously deported Honduran alien convicted of child rape arrested in Salem, Massachusetts.
Two Brazilians wanted for murder in their home countries arrested in Lowell, Mass.
and Milford, Mass.
Guatemalan alien charged with rape of minor released by New Bedford District Court without the ICE detainer being honored.
This is part of what these sanctuary jurisdictions do, is they act like, listen, the federal government can enforce the federal law, but if it's not...
We in the States don't have to cooperate with that.
That's their job.
That's their problem.
So we're going to be releasing these criminals into the streets because it's not our job to apprehend them.
Dominican alien wanted for homicide arrested in Dorchester.
Brazilian alien charged with manslaughter arrested in Worcester.
Brazilian fugitive who fled serving murder sentence in Brazil arrested in...
Marlboro, previously deported Jamaican alien convicted of armed robbery, possession of a firearm, and an assault arrested in Pittsfield.
And it goes on like this.
Ice Boston says five kilos of fentanyl, which equates to more than two million lethal doses also seized in the operation.
I mean, look, America.
And I mean, look, look, Massachusetts.
Look, Boston.
Do you want these people on your street?
Do you really think you're advancing some noble cause, social justice, harmony, protection of due process?
What principle are you trying to uphold here?
The answer is, the only principle that I can think of is that these sanctuary cities were set up to protect the political scheme of the left and the Biden administration, which is import large numbers of illegals.
And with the long-term goal of converting them into supporters and reliable voters in the Democratic Party.
And everything else is the acceptable level of damage for doing this.
So, not that they want gang members, but they're willing to have them.
Not that they want fentanyl trafficking, but they're willing to put up with it.
Why? Because the overriding goal is the goal of creating a permanent Democratic majority.
What's flustered is Trump has disrupted that larger goal and that goal has nothing to do with social justice and everything to do with protecting the political interests of the Democratic Party.
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I want to speak in praise of the apple-eating guy.
You might wonder, what is Dinesh even talking about?
I'm talking about the guy, the Canadian, the guy who's running for Prime Minister, the leader of the Conservative Party.
His name is Pierre Polev.
And you've surely seen, I hope you've seen, If not look it up, the video where he's confronted by a journalist who is accusing him of being a Trumpster, and he just in a very sardonic but restrained and effective way demolishes the journalist.
It is worth noting that Pierre Poilev is not in fact a Trumpster.
He has certain elements that remind one of Trump, but at the same time he is really more of a conventional Right-winger in Canada.
And let's remember that being a right-winger in Canada is a little different than being a right-winger in the United States.
I would say that in some ways Pierre Poilev is more of a Reaganite in his approach and style.
He's a decorous guy.
He's measured.
He can be whimsical.
He is rhetorically very effective.
He's in his own way, as people would say of Reagan, a great communicator.
But he is also a proud Canadian.
He is somebody who, and I'm now quoting him, puts Canada first.
And he is somebody who supports the very straightforward conservative agenda, which is to say a pro-growth, economic opportunity, tax cuts, entrepreneurship.
He wants Canada to move in a more conservative direction, and he couldn't be a better alternative to the absolutely disastrous Justin Trudeau regime, or this guy Mark Carney, who has been pulled in from England, a nominal Canadian, a poser and a fraud.
And having said all this, I was, I have to admit, getting quite worried about Canada for this reason.
The conservatives were all poised and ready to win the election.
In fact, it didn't seem possible for them to lose.
People were really sick of Justin Trudeau.
And Trump has some pretty belligerent...
Rhetoric about taking over Canada.
They need to be the 51st state.
And so the Canadians get a little riled up about this.
And what happens is that Justin Trudeau stays around and now makes himself the great defender of Canada against the evil influence of...
The United States is trying to somehow usurp the sovereignty of Canada, and Trump wants to put on tariffs, and we Canadians are not going to bend, and we're not going to bow the knee.
And interestingly, we began to see something happen, which is that the fortunes of the Labour Party politically began to improve.
And suddenly, we were looking rather with some dismay and seeing that the Labour Party, the Trudeau Party, Was pulling ahead of the Conservatives, and it looked like Pierre Poilev's chance of becoming the Prime Minister was beginning to diminish.
A good indication of this was the betting site, Pali Market.
I was looking on Pali Market, and I was like, wow, it looks like Poilev is now dropping into the 30s, and it looks like he may have an uphill task when it looked like he had it made.
It looked like it was going to be smooth sailing for him.
Now, I'm happy to see that Canadians have sort of come back to their senses.
I'm looking at the latest numbers from Polymarket.
This is just from a day ago.
Pierre Poilev, 51% chance.
Mark Carney, 49%.
Now, this is really close.
I mean, Poilev is just, you know, you can say a nose ahead.
But let's remember, a week ago, just a week ago, Pierre Poilev, 40% chance.
60%. So Carney, it looked like it was going to win.
And remember, to me, this kind of stuff, these betting markets are better than polls.
They're better than polls for a very simple reason.
When people reply to a poll, they're putting nothing on the line.
They're supposed to say what they think, but sometimes they say what the media wants you to think or what they feel like they ought to think.
It's entirely different when you ask somebody, listen, who do you think is going to win the Canadian election and can you take two $20 bills out of your wallet and put it on the table and you're in a sense making a bet?
So if you're right, you get your money back and then some and if you're wrong, your money gets confiscated.
Well, you find that that kind of approach causes people to pay attention and be very careful in the kind of bets and predictions that they make.
And so as a result, Polymarket has shown that not just in political races, but all kinds of stuff, they're able to quite accurately forecast or call what's going to happen because they are relying on the intelligent assessment of people who have skin in the skin.
So, I take these betting odds as...
Pretty reliable predictors of what's going to happen.
Now, the election is not tomorrow.
It is, if I am not mistaken, at the end of April.
So it's a full month away.
But I think that this all bodes pretty well for Pierre Poilev.
Why? Because the sober assessment of Canada is that there needs to be new leadership.
It has been very poorly run under the Labour government, under Trudeau.
This Carney is no improvement over Trudeau.
In some respects, he...
Maybe better, but in other respects, he is clearly worse.
And Polev is basically the real deal.
Yeah, he's gotten into some skirmishes with Trump.
At one point, Trump somewhat peevishly said, well, I don't care if it's the conservative or it's the labor guy.
Maybe from Trump's point of view, which is looking at it through the tariff lens, Trump is saying, you know, look, in some ways the conservative may be a harder guy to bargain with on tariffs than the labor guy.
So look at it from that perspective alone.
But I'm actually looking at it from a broader perspective, which is to say it's good for Canada to have a conservative government.
And I think long term, it's good for the right globally.
In other words, we want conservative leaders around the world.
We want to get rid of Albanese in Australia and have a, well, they call it a liberal government.
We want to have conservative policies.
We want to avoid the depredations of the left.
We like Giorgio Maloney in Italy.
We obviously like Malay in Argentina.
We like Bukele in El Salvador.
This trend would be fortified if Pierre Poilev made it across the finish line in Canada.
And so regardless of Trump's doubts and ambivalence about it, I certainly hope he does.
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It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
Guys, I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast a new guest, Congressman Marlon Stutzman.
He is the U.S. Congressman for Indiana District 3. And he's, in fact, in his fourth term.
He is a successful entrepreneur in the manufacturing and agricultural and food service spaces.
You can follow him on X at RepStutzman.
And Congressman Stutzman, welcome.
Thank you for joining me.
As I mentioned to you a moment ago, my wife Debbie is high school buddies.
With the Henvys, Rick and Karen Henvey, who are in your district.
And I think you mentioned to me that Rick is going to be dropping by to see you shortly, right?
He is.
He's the CEO of Parkview Health, which is one of the large health care providers in the Fort Wayne area.
And Rick and Karen and their family are wonderful people.
They've been friends for a long time.
So what a small world.
It is a small world.
And then you mentioned to me also that you have crossed paths with my son-in-law, Brandon Gill.
I didn't know.
Congress is a big place with 400 or so members.
I didn't know if you two had any dealings.
But you've met both Brandon and Daniel, right?
Oh, yeah.
Wonderful people.
In fact, both Brandon and I, we were supported by the Freedom Fund, the political arm of the Freedom Caucus.
And so Brandon and I got to know each other.
But I'll tell you, Dinesh, first of all, I was...
A big fan of yours for much longer than I knew any of those and appreciated your work.
We saw your documentaries back during the Obama days and all the work that you've done for the conservative cause for many, many years.
And your daughter, Danielle, she's just a sweet lady.
But don't take her.
I've learned not to take her lightly because all of a sudden she's got smarts and wit and a great following and is making an impact as well for the conservative cause.
But I'm really excited to be working with Brandon, just a sharp, sharp Texan, and comes from a similar background from an ag community.
But he went to Dartmouth.
I stayed local, so he's a much smarter guy than I am.
I'm discovering, you know, Marlon, just with the congressman and the family, that this is a kind of a complicated life, right?
Because you typically, you've got to maintain a presence in the district.
At the same time, you're...
You know, quote, working in Washington, D.C. How have you managed to kind of pull that off?
Are you mainly D.C.-based or do you end up trafficking back and forth all the time?
Generally back and forth.
But I was first elected in 2010 with the big Tea Party wave from Northeast Indiana, which my district is...
Basically north and south of Fort Wayne.
It's a wonderful district, wonderful community, God-fearing people, hardworking people, great family values.
So my wife, Christy, and myself, we have two boys, Peyton and Preston, and they were both young.
So when I see Brandon and Danielle with young children, I'm like, we've been there.
And it's a challenge.
And we were here for six years.
And we tried, you know, different ways of making it work.
Because family was our top priority.
And me being a husband and father was a top priority.
And then I eventually ran for the Senate in 2016, and I lost.
But it was kind of one of those situations where I was like, you know what?
God's going to either open the door or He's going to tell us time to go home and be a family man and a businessman.
And that was the opportunity I had for the last eight years.
And I told our family that I wouldn't run again until our boys were out of high school.
Well, our youngest graduated in 2024, and the seat opened back up when Jim Banks ran for the Senate.
So being here with older children is much easier than being here with young children.
So whenever I see Brandon help being a dad and taking care of the kids, if I can carry the diaper bag, I'm always going to offer it to him.
Oh, very nice of you.
Hey, let's talk about Congress because it has the reputation of being this tightly divided and somewhat dysfunctional institution and public approbation of Congress is often very low.
And yet I've actually been impressed in 2025 to see that Mike Johnson has been able to hold the narrow congressional majority together.
It appears like Congress is working much more closely hand-in-hand with the Trump administration than perhaps before.
Is my spectatorial and distant impression correct?
What is your view of what's going on from the inside?
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
And it's been interesting because I came in in 2010 and I served under John Boehner as Speaker of the House.
And then eventually he stepped down.
There was already, you know...
Kind of a push to push him back out because of the frustration that a lot of us had in the negotiations that happened with Obama.
It seemed like Obama always would win, and the American people would always lose.
And then with Paul Ryan, I left when Paul Ryan...
I was here while he was speaker, but I left when President Trump came in the first...
First time in 2017.
And they just never seemed to be on the same page.
And I saw them a couple of times where Speaker Ryan was disagreeing with tactics of President Trump's campaign, but President Trump's tactics worked.
They were successful.
And at some point, I think it's important, like, hey, I may have been wrong, but let's get back on board on the team.
And that didn't seem to happen during Trump.
One administration.
But with Trump, too, I think it's just a different game.
I mean, it's a different makeup.
And I'll give Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson, a ton of credit.
He brings people together.
He listens to all the four corners of the conference.
He takes everybody's perspective.
But then he says, okay, we've got to move forward.
And him and the relationship he has with President Trump is really strong.
And I think that's really what helps Speaker Johnson move the ball forward in the House.
But he's been very strong on spending policy, on fiscal policy, on social policy.
But what I appreciate about Speaker Johnson is...
He lets his faith lead him, and he really is a man of faith, a man of love and patriotism for America, and it comes from a very conservative part of Louisiana.
So that has definitely, I think, been a difference maker in the sense that he's got a strong president and leadership with President Trump, and then he's also got a very strong freshman class.
This freshman class that I just came in with in 2024, Every one of them.
I mean, even from the tight swing seats to the strong Republican seats, everybody understands the threat that we have internally inside America, whether it's woke ideology or whether it's debt and deficits that are out of control.
A lot of them have told me, said, look, I came here to cast tough votes, but don't make me vote for nothing.
You know, don't make me vote for something that doesn't happen.
So I think that with all of that, it's kind of coming to a head.
And then we have outside forces as well.
You know, Elon Musk is talking about debt and deficit and woke ideology.
And today we had Mr. Ray Dalio come in and speak to members of Congress, who's not your typical, you know, person on the Hill.
But he's talking about debt and deficit.
And so I think this is a very unique time, and we've got the right leadership in place to make some huge reforms and changes in Washington that have needed to happen for a long time, as you've spoken about them for many many years as well.
It seems to me like there is a shifting of...
People sometimes use the phrase the Overton window.
I think what they mean by that is that there are topics that were previously off the table that are now on the table and that there are possibilities, things like, well, you can't really cut the size of government or you can't really do anything if you've got career bureaucrats.
They're there to stay.
They've got lifetime appointments.
Get used to it.
And it looks like the new attitude is, well, guess what?
We have a constitutional structure.
We've got to stay within that.
But there's no reason to accept doing things just because that's the way they've been done before.
And to me, Elon Musk, well, not to mention another factor, I'd like your thoughts about this, that, you know, Republicans are used to being castigated by the media.
I'm sure that you experienced this, that, you know, the conservative outlets just don't have the same kind of reach.
But I think a crucial new factor is the X platform.
Because the dismantling of the censorship and the fact that you can now speak freely on it, not to mention Elon Musk himself speaking freely on it, has really changed the rules of the game.
Do you agree?
Has that made its way, is it now felt in Congress like we are not quite to the same degree captives to the ransom of the media?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, what we felt over the last four years during the Biden administration, and we felt it a little bit, you know, maybe during the Obama years, but not to the extent that we felt it during the Biden administration, where this ideology that come about, that if you disagree with me, we are going to cancel you.
We're going to shut you down.
And I know we were all kind of sitting here like, is this what America is going to be like?
We all knew that that's not...
What America was built on.
And the principles and the foundations of the Constitution always protected freedom of speech on both sides.
But what I think has really happened is that the left has moved so far left.
When you have Bill Maher becoming a voice of reason in the Democrat Party and Stephen A. Smith becoming the voice of reason in the Democrat Party.
You know, and the view has just fallen off the edge going to the left.
I think that that's what people are starting to recognize.
And the other thing, too, I mentioned this, Dinesh, is that, you know, during the Biden years, all of the job growth happened primarily in the government sector.
It didn't happen in the private sector.
So in districts like mine, where we don't have a lot of government, you know, employees, everybody's saying, well, You're talking about job employment and growth, but we don't see it.
Where are you talking?
And so it's kind of like we hear what you're saying, but it's not translating into people's everyday lives across the country.
And I think that's what the voters really sensed, is that in the private sector, it's not that strong.
I don't think the economy is that strong today.
I think there's some weaknesses.
People don't have disposable income.
Credit card debt is at all-time highs.
It's going to take some time for Trump policies to take its effect on the economy and help our economy get back on track.
But the damage that was done over the past four years, whether it's a woke ideology or whether it's the terrible regulatory policy from the Biden administration, it has really set America back.
And so I thank God that...
You know, Trump won and that we have a majority in the House, you know, that we've been able to stick together.
And really now the pressure is starting to mount on the Senate to see what the Senate can pass when it comes to the budget and other policies.
But I think Trump's, you know, his presence in Washington, his support across the country is so strong that I believe we're going to get a lot done with his leadership.
What would you say, looking ahead for the nine months that are remaining in 2025, you know, I've got on my plate, there's the border, there's the comprehensive tax plan, including, of course, some of the tariffs.
There is this issue of the runaway and rogue judges that I've been talking about on the podcast.
There's the idea of...
Legislatively consolidating some of the Doge findings with regard to waste and fraud.
So there's a lot on the plate.
But if you had to structure, like, what are the three things that are the most important to you?
And what do you think the Congress can actually get done?
Because it seems like in the past on certain issues people would take positions and pontificate, you know, I'm pro-life and so on, but Congress wasn't really in a position to pass laws because we had Roe v.
Wade in place.
So people would say, well, this is what we need to do, but there was no realistic, we need a balanced budget amendment, but there's no realistic possibility of doing any of that.
So what do you think Congress can accomplish, let's just say in 2025, that will make...
Not just the country in general, but also the Trump supporters out there go, wow, those guys really this time did get something done.
Yeah. Well, you know, with Trump's leadership, I mean, he is moving so fast.
It's incredible.
And that's going to help.
We in Congress have to codify as many of these pieces as we can.
And I think the first step is the reconciliation package that we passed out of the Budget Committee and passed it off the House floor and now it's over in the Senate.
And it is one big, beautiful bill.
And that's what Trump kind of said at the very beginning.
You know, one thing that I've learned is that, you know, Trump is, you know, a lot of people want to depict him like it's his way or the highway.
That's not the case at all.
He really does bring people together and he hears from all sides and says, hey.
What can we get done?
And I think a lot of the pressure was on the House to be able to pass the budget reconciliation package.
And I think a lot of folks didn't think it happened and we got it done.
So now it's on the Senate to do that.
But that's where a lot of these pieces can happen to, you know, on the tax rates, keeping those, extend the tax rates, you know, even make them permanent if possible.
But I think, you know, we have to be realistic as well.
We've got other issues, as you know, with the CBO scoring.
The Congressional Budget Office is not our friend when it comes to scoring our budgets.
But so we've got to take that into context.
But we still need to do the right thing and do what we know is going to help the economy.
I served on the budget committee for several terms back in the 2010s under the Obama administration, and I told Chairman Jody Arrington last night that the budget reconciliation package that we voted for this year Is the most meaningful bill I have ever voted on in Congress.
And because it actually cuts spending.
And that's, you know, back to even Speaker Johnson.
The numbers started, you know, pretty low.
We were all kind of disappointed that we've got to increase these spending cuts from $300 billion.
And we went into committee at one and a half.
And now it's actually pushing $2 trillion.
And we've got to work through the tax rates and what those do as far as what CBO thinks it does to the federal budget.
But I think we're going to get a lot of these policies enacted.
And then the DOGE team is, I believe, one of the greatest pieces of information that Congress could ever have because it gets us closer.
To where the money's actually going.
We've asked these questions, you know, many, many times.
And, you know, under the Obama administration, you know, you ask where this funding's going, and they'll always tell you, these bureaucrats will always tell you what they want you to hear.
They don't tell us what we...
You know, know what we're looking for.
And instinctively, we've known that.
And that's why the work that Doge is doing is incredible, not only for Congress, but for the American people, so we can see where our funding is going.
So I think from a fiscal standpoint, that reconciliation package is really critical.
We've got to grow the economy, cut spending, and then we've already put funding towards the border and towards the military.
But Trump has done just a remarkable job.
Those at Homeland Security and Border Patrol to shutting down this illegal immigration.
And some of the findings that Elon Musk and Doge are finding just simply shows a blatant effort by the Democrat Party to bring illegals into this country to transform America into a socialist country.
And so it's going to be interesting to see what else we find, what they find.
And Congress needs to act on that.
And so there's so much information coming.
We need to move now on the things that we know so that way we can start moving the ball.
But Congress, we need to be busy over the next year to enact as many of these pro-Trump, pro-America policies that we know are right in front of us.
It does seem, based on all you're saying, that we do have some reason for, if not optimism, at least for hope.
Because at one point it looked like...
You know, we're spending three and a half trillion dollars.
I mean, sorry, we're spending close to five trillion dollars.
We're taking in three and a half trillion dollars.
So we have this galloping runaway deficit with no end in sight.
And I take you to be saying, listen, if we have a combination of budget cuts, savings through fraud and waste, and then we have a pro-growth economic policy.
The kind of triangular combination of those three things can, in fact, make real headway in dealing with this problem.
Guys, I've been talking to Representative Marlon Stutzman.
He is a congressman in the 3rd District of Indiana.
Follow him on X at RepStutzman, S-T-U-T-Z-M-A-N.
Marlon, thank you very much for joining me.
Thank you, Dinesh.
Great to be with you today.
My pleasure.
I'm discussing the opening section of my book, Ronald Reagan, How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.
And when we left off yesterday, I was talking about the issue of historical greatness.
And I now want to highlight a few reasons why it is difficult to appreciate that kind of historical greatness, Right in front of you.
And by that, I mean in your own lifetime.
It's kind of easy to look back with the privilege of hindsight and say, oh, Alexander the Great was a great man.
And, oh, you know, Newton was a great man.
And Churchill was a great man.
But that's because the long-term impact of what they did in statesmanship or in science...
is quite undeniable.
So their greatness becomes manifest and not controversial.
But how do you ferret out greatness when it's occurring in your own day and when the full effect of it has not really been seen?
It's hard to do.
And the proof of that would be one Winston Churchill.
Winston Churchill was The great hero of World War II, but you probably know, 1945, he runs for election, and the British people kick him out.
They throw him out of office.
And part of it was that they associated Churchill with the war, with hardship, deprivation, rations, air raids, sirens, bombings.
They're like, you know, we have peace.
We want...
We want something new.
And so they moved him out.
Now, Churchill was, in fact, re-elected later, and he came back for a term later.
But the fact that he was rudely ejected gives you an idea of how people say thank you at the end of World War II.
And in this case, they said thank you by throwing him out of there.
Great leaders are sometimes shortchanged by their contemporaries.
And the reason is that they abolish the very problems that produce their greatness.
So in Churchill's case, it seemed very difficult to believe, certainly in 1939, that the British would be up to fighting the Nazis.
In fact, they really weren't.
But they were able to hold on until America got into the war, and the war turned against the Nazis in Russia.
And so, ultimately, that was Churchill's great strength, is he held the British nation together until help came in from the outside.
But by 1945, the war was over.
The Nazis were gone.
What produced Churchill's greatness, which was that heroic resistance, was no longer, in a sense, needed.
And one could say the same with regard to Reagan, that, you know what, the Cold War's over, and the problems of runaway inflation of the 1970s, those problems are not with us, at least not quite in the same way.
And so suddenly we go, well, what did Reagan really do?
How is he relevant to our time?
That's obstacle number one.
Here's a second obstacle to understanding greatness.
We live in a time that's kind of cynical about greatness.
We're used to seeing the high and mighty kind of pull down and discredited.
And yet, we know that democratic societies...
Are capable of producing great leaders.
I mentioned last time Washington.
I mentioned Lincoln.
We could add people like Churchill.
So these people are not common.
They don't come up all that often.
If you look at the great sweep of American presidents, quite honestly, most of them are, as you would expect, kind of mediocre.
And there are typically in each century, you know, one, two, at most three kind of shining examples of greatness.
Now, a third problem with apprehending greatness is this.
The people who study it apply, you can say, biased or self-interested or arbitrary criteria that make their evaluations suspect or at least incomplete.
Think of it this way.
Who are the people who study greatness?
Well, the answer is, by and large, scholars, intellectuals.
And so intellectuals will typically demand that a great leader be an intellectual.
Even though you have highly intellectual leaders, I mean, Nixon was a very smart guy, but his presidency ended, we have to say, even though he was elected for two terms and he's not without achievements.
But his presidency ended in disgrace, Watergate.
Carter was said to be a nuclear engineer.
I never think of Jimmy Carter as an intellectual, but guess what?
His presidency was also a crash and burn.
And also intellectuals tend to be partisans of government, supporters of big government.
So they tend to view leaders like FDR who expanded the size of government as, oh, that's a great accomplishment.
He expanded the size of government.
That's not, in fact, an accomplishment.
In fact, you could say the opposite.
And then presidents, typically Republican presidents, who either did not expand the size of government or shrunk it, people like Coolidge or Reagan, the progressives who write the history books go, well, that guy was really lethargic.
He was a do-nothing president.
He didn't expand the size of government.
So if that's your criterion, if that's your measuring stick, then you're going to...
Be at least biased in that regard.
Now, conservatives will often demand of a president that he be a man of high character.
And some of the conservative animus toward Bill Clinton was, you know what, he's actually doing a pretty good job.
Yes, he's not doing it quite willingly.
He's being dragged by the Republican Congress, but he is signing welfare reform and he is...
Continuing the policies of privatization and deregulation, and the economy is doing very well.
But you know what?
He's just a shameless, lecherous bad guy.
So character, the character judgment tends to be predominant, right?
The problem with the character assessment per se is that history has a number of examples of people who seem to have, at least in personal life, pretty exemplary character.
Think of Jimmy Carter.
He's married to the same woman the whole life.
He seems to be a family man.
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