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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show

01:22:13

America, the Beautiful

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	Dennis Prager here.
	Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
	To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day, become a member of PragerTopia.
	You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
	Subscribe at PragerTopia.com.
	Hi, everybody.
	Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
	But Dennis Prager will not be your host today.
	Instead, Julie Hartman will.
	Julie and I do a podcast together.
	It's the only time in my life that I have had a co-host.
	And if you watch or listen to our podcast called Dennis and Julie, you will understand why.
	She is a phenomenon.
	And I thank God every day that I have found her.
	And now, I turn over the show to Julie.
	Hello, everyone.
	What a lovely opening from Dennis.
	I have to tell you, yesterday we were recording our podcast and I listened to him give that opening and it meant a lot to me yesterday and it means a lot to me today.
	Thank you, Dennis.
	It is Thursday, July 14, 2022. As Dennis said, I'm Julie Hartman.
	I'm a 22-year-old recent college graduate and I do have a podcast with Dennis Prager.
	Do you know what an honor that is?
	Sometimes I sit across from him and I go, how the heck did I get here?
	How did I get so lucky?
	I want to tell you all my story of how I got into this chair, how I did get so lucky to be here.
	For those of you who know me, I promise you it will be brief.
	But for those of you who don't, you will be shocked to know that just about two years ago, if you asked me what my political leanings were, I would have told you that I was a Democrat, a liberal.
	I grew up in Los Angeles, California, which is obviously a very liberal town.
	I grew up in a mostly liberal, apolitical family.
	I went to liberal schools.
	And what really happened was I came home from college in the summer of 2020. I was sent home due to COVID in March.
	And the summer of 2020, obviously, is when the Black Lives Matter riots happened after the death, the very unfortunate and saddening death of George Floyd.
	That was my red pill, if you will.
	That was what woke me up to the madness in our country.
	As I just mentioned, there's no denying that what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy.
	I think the reaction that I saw afterwards really stunned me.
	The push to defund the police, which overwhelmingly and disproportionately harms minority communities.
	The Maoist self-criticism sessions that I saw many people demanding out of white people that you have to denounce your white privilege as a result of this death.
	How so many schools, not only colleges, but...
	Elementary and high schools change their curriculums to tell young students that there is systemic racism in this country and that African Americans cannot get ahead without the help of white people.
	All of this, it just became so clear to me how ridiculous all of this was.
	And I wanted to seek out a different perspective.
	So I went on to Google and I looked up, what do conservatives have to say about police?
	And I stumbled across PragerU, which is, of course, Dennis Prager's nonprofit organization, and I went down a rabbit hole that evening.
	The first video I watched was actually by Larry Elder, and he was talking about how rare police brutality is.
	I learned that in 2019, 12 unarmed blacks were killed that year by police, and I was stunned.
	I thought the number was 3,000.
	There are many polls today, and people think the number is in the thousands.
	And from there, I watched so many more PragerU videos on a variety of subjects, ranging from foreign policy to economics.
	And I realized, wow, I think I'm a conservative.
	So I ordered Dennis Prager's book, specifically his book, Still the Best Hope, which I highly recommend to all of you.
	I promise you Dennis did not tell me to say this.
	It is the best book I've ever read.
	It is a book about the American value system.
	It's really a...
	Defense of American exceptionalism.
	Do you know the first time I ever heard the term e pluribus unum, which is our national credo, out of many one, was when I read Dennis Prager's book, Still the Best Hope?
	That's pretty incredible.
	In my entire educative experience, I never heard what our national credo was.
	And so Dennis really opened my eyes.
	I likened my quote-unquote political awakening to walking into a dark room and having the light switch turned on.
	I never saw the world the same way again.
	And I emailed him.
	I scoured the internet for all of the Dennis Prager's.
	And in fact, you'll find this to be funny.
	I emailed one Dennis Prager.
	He's, I think, in Kansas or Nebraska.
	And he wrote back to me.
	He must be a liberal.
	He wrote back to me in all caps, I am not the Dennis Prager you want.
	I pity that guy for being named Dennis Prager.
	But luckily, I got to the real deal, the Dennis Prager.
	It's miraculous that he saw my email.
	He was incredibly gracious.
	He responded immediately to me.
	And he said, Julie, I rarely get emails from college students.
	Wow.
	Would you like to come in sometime and listen to my radio show?
	Because I mentioned in the email, of course, that I'm from Los Angeles and he films his radio show out of Glendale.
	And I said, of course.
	So that next week, I go into his radio show.
	I meet him.
	I'm sitting across from him.
	We're talking about my journey.
	We're debating about things.
	And he says to me, you know, Julie, your story's really interesting.
	I think that people may find it to be encouraging.
	Would you want to come on air sometime and talk about it?
	And I said, sure.
	Why don't we schedule a time next week?
	And I'll never forget, he looked at his watch and he goes, you know, actually, we're back from commercial in two minutes.
	You want to go on now?
	So I stepped outside.
	I called my mother, who was very encouraging.
	She said, go for it.
	And I went on to Dennis' show.
	The next day I wake up.
	And by the way, what I talked about was very benign.
	I essentially said that I dislike woke culture.
	And I said just what I said to you now, that PragerU really influenced me and his book really influenced me.
	It was very benign.
	The next day I wake up and the Dennis Prager show is posted on...
	Posted it on YouTube, which of course they have a right to do.
	I agreed to go on the show.
	And it circulated around my college.
	Many people got a hold of it.
	And they gave me a really hard time.
	That was probably the hardest two weeks of my life.
	For 14 straight days, I am not kidding you, I barely ate.
	I barely slept.
	I was frozen.
	I just...
	I couldn't live life the way that I did because I was so scared.
	I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I went on the Dennis Prager Show.
	It's all over YouTube.
	When people look me up, they're going to see this.
	I'm never going to get hired.
	No one's ever going to be my friend.
	I'm never going to get married.
	You know, my mind just spiraled.
	And after two weeks...
	I actually started to get a bit angry.
	I realized, you know, it is so unfair for people to malign me this way.
	I was doing what any college student is supposed to be doing, seeking out different perspectives, challenging my beliefs.
	Aren't these the things that we are told almost every day?
	My freshman year of college, I remember sitting there for our opening ceremony, and the dean said to us that we are going to have a transformative experience.
	If we ask questions and we try to challenge our beliefs, and that's what I was doing, and people were maligning me for it.
	And so from there, I became stronger in my convictions.
	I developed a personal and professional relationship with Dennis Prager.
	That next summer, so last summer, 2021, I actually was a standing weekly guest on his radio show.
	Many of you...
	Everyday listeners know me from that.
	And then at the end of the summer, I guest hosted for him at the age of 21. And the next day, I guest hosted for Mike Gallagher, which was really fun.
	And a year later, I have a podcast with Dennis Prager called Dennis and Julie, which you can find on Apple and Spotify and YouTube.
	I like when people watch it on YouTube because you get to see our reactions and the faces that we make when we learn of a crazy news story.
	Sometimes I just look back at my life and I go, how did this happen to me?
	How am I 22 years old right now, sitting in for one of the most well-known and respected talk show hosts?
	I tell this story a lot, and it's obvious the way that this has affected me professionally, but I rarely talk about how it's affected me personally.
	Coming out, if you will, as a conservative has the effect of weeding out the people in my life who really don't belong there.
	I have lost friends as a result of this media extravaganza that I have partaken in.
	And that's been painful.
	But I've also gained new ones and I've had my friendship strengthened.
	My friends know who I am.
	I know who they are.
	Many of them are liberals and we are stronger as a result.
	And I can't tell you what a blessing that's been.
	The age of 22 to know in your life who's the real deal.
	That's a gift.
	Another thing that this has done for me is that...
	You know, not only just being open about my beliefs every day, but doing it so publicly as I'm doing now has really stripped me to the bone.
	It made me ask myself, what do I really believe in?
	Is this what I really want to do?
	How strong am I in my beliefs?
	That's beneficial too.
	It's made me define my principles.
	And finally, all of this has made me a happier and grateful person.
	It's made me love America.
	And there is so much to love about America.
	I wake up every day thanks to becoming a conservative, and I thank God that I was born in this country.
	We're going to have a great show today.
	Next, we're going to talk about news.
	Thank you all for listening.
	We'll be back.
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	Hello everyone and welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
	I'm Julie Hartman, sitting in for Dennis Prager.
	Here today, I have Mr. Steve Forbes on the line.
	He's the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine.
	I bet you've heard of that.
	He's a former Republican contender for president, and he is the presenter of this week's PragerU video called What is Inflation?
	And boy, what a day to interview him.
	The headline of the Wall Street Journal this morning is Inflation Hurdles to the Highest Since 1981. Mr. Forbes, it's an honor to have you on.
	Thank you for being here.
	Joey, it's good to be with you.
	Thank you.
	So my understanding of inflation, and I'm no economist, so bear with me, my understanding is that it's when a dollar is able to buy less than it could before.
	And I learned a lot from your PragerU video.
	You say that there are two types of inflation.
	There's non-monetary inflation, which is when prices rise due to an external event.
	You said it's when a hurricane may hit the Gulf of Mexico, which temporarily interrupts oil supply.
	And then there's monetary inflation, which is when government policies are causing money to lose value.
	So my question for you is, what are these government policies and how does it work that they decrease the value of a dollar?
	Well, in this case, we're being hit by both kinds, non-monetary and monetary inflation.
	And on the non-monetary side, normally...
	Those things correct themselves over time.
	After World War II, we went from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy.
	It took two and a half years to do it.
	You don't go from making bombers to refrigerators overnight.
	But when left to its own devices, the economy will work its way through.
	Unfortunately, in this case, even though we're working through some of the disruptions of the shutdowns from COVID, this administration, the Biden administration, Has been putting barriers up, whether it's going after the oil and gas industry, which is preposterous at a time like this when we have energy shortages around the world.
	You have the president going to Saudi Arabia.
	Why isn't he going to Texas, Louisiana, or North Dakota to get more production?
	Because it's there.
	And they're also putting a lot of regulations on.
	They've been going after the railroad industry, high-tech, gasoline station owners, meatpackers, you name it.
	They're pointing the finger at them.
	So on the non-monetary inflation, as you point out, with a hurricane, we work our way through.
	It's disruptive, but refineries eventually get open, and the waters recede, and we rebuild, and we move ahead.
	But then you have the monetary kind, which is when the value of the dollar, in this case, goes down in value, usually because the government has been creating too much of it.
	And we're suffering from that.
	The Federal Reserve printed up a lot of money in 2021, even though we recovered from the downturn, from the COVID lockdowns.
	The Fed printed about $2 trillion unnecessarily.
	Part of it was to finance government spending, but part of it they've used gimmicks to try to hold it off the economy, but that's like a...
	A reservoir that's overflowing and the dam's about to break.
	So we're getting hit with both.
	Is there any truth at all to President Biden's argument that the interruption of grain supplies from Ukraine and the restrictions placed on Russian oil and natural gas are causing inflation?
	That's non-monetary, to your point.
	Some of it.
	Some of it.
	But as we all know, prices at the gas pump were going up before.
	Putin invaded Ukraine.
	And food prices were under pressure around the world before Ukraine.
	So the Ukraine wars made things worse.
	But here again, why isn't the administration working, especially with neutral countries, to arrange for shipping to go into the Black Sea and to get some of that grain out of Ukrainian ports?
	Would Vladimir Putin sink shipping from places like...
	Norway or Korea or something like that?
	Don't think so.
	But they're not doing policies that you would expect.
	All right, we have a problem here.
	Let's find a way to deal with it.
	So President Biden, unfortunately, and this is why his trustworthy numbers are so low, just exaggerates.
	So Putin was about 20 percent of it.
	Eighty percent were other factors.
	What are you doing about the other 80?
	Not much.
	And China is still buying oil and natural gas from Russia.
	So, you know, the Biden administration say that these sanctions have had a huge effect, but it seems like they haven't.
	Is that fair to say?
	Well, when sanctions are applied, people who are intended to be hit by them try to find ways around them.
	It increases costs and inefficiencies, but they do try to find ways around them.
	Unfortunately, both India and China have been buying Russian oil.
	And so when we decided to help Ukraine with the sanctions, what they didn't think through was, okay, how do you make the sanctions?
	Hold it right there.
	We'll be right back.
	We'll pick up with Mr. Forbes.
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	Welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show.
	I'm Julie Hartman, and I have Mr. Steve Forbes on the line.
	As you just heard Dennis' voice announce, he is the presenter of the new PragerU video on inflation.
	We had to go to commercial, and I abruptly interrupted Mr. Forbes, which I hate to do to any guest, but especially to you.
	We were talking about China and tariffs when we left off.
	Would you like to finish up on that point before we move on?
	Well, that's another example of what you might call the non-monetary inflation, taxes of whatever kind.
	And obviously with China also misbehaving in terms of lockdowns, their zero lockdown policy is talk about contradicting science.
	That is a prime example of it.
	There's led a lot of unnecessary suffering and death and also been very disruptive.
	Because supply chain is still heavily dependent on the Chinese economy.
	Right.
	How do you think that we can get this under control?
	The conventional thinking is that we should raise interest rates.
	So that way it's harder to borrow money.
	And if people don't borrow money, then they don't buy as many things.
	And if they don't buy as many things, then demand goes down and then prices go down.
	Do you think that's a viable solution?
	It's a solution.
	But it's a bad one and an unnecessary one.
	Prosperity does not cause inflation.
	And the idea of curing inflation by making people poor is preposterous and also has very dangerous political implications, unnecessary economic harm.
	And the way you fight inflation, the way the Fed should fight inflation is, one, let the market set interest rates.
	They shouldn't be trying to manipulate them.
	And two, Have a stable value for the dollar.
	And the economy, again, will sort itself out and will get on an upward path again.
	But when they're deliberately trying to suppress demand, crush demand, that's going to lead to a slow economy, could lead to a full-blown recession.
	And in terms of interest rates, even though mortgage rates have tapered off a little bit, they're still about twice as what they were a few months ago.
	So when people get their resets on their mortgages, which they will in coming months, their monthly payments are going up.
	And already, homebuyers are pulling out of contracts to buy houses because suddenly they're finding the monthly payment has gone up 30%, 40%, 50%.
	Can't pull it off.
	Well, unfortunately, under the Biden administration, I doubt that they would let the market just deal with...
	Interest rates, unfortunately.
	But my question for you is, if we got a Republican Congress in 2022, I hope we do.
	And I also hope we get a Republican president in 2024. Let's say those things happened.
	How long do you think it would take to get inflation under control?
	I think it would be very rapid if they did the right policy.
	Stop trashing the economy.
	Go for tax cuts instead of tax increases.
	When you have more products and services, guess what?
	Prices go down, productivity goes up, and people are able to get more for their money.
	And the Federal Reserve go for a stable currency.
	And it'll take a while for it to get rid of the inflation, but it's like taking an antibiotic.
	Again, taking an antibiotic may take a few days or a few weeks before you get rid of the symptoms.
	But unfortunately, when they see prices rise...
	People like the Biden administration say, ah, they're mistaking symptoms for their cause.
	Prices are going up because of what they've done to the dollar and what they've done to hurt the productive ability of the economy.
	Right.
	And what I learned from you at the beginning of the last segment is that the regulatory measures are probably the biggest contributors to inflation.
	So hopefully if we can get a Republican Congress and then a Republican president, we know that they will decrease regulation and hopefully that will help.
	You know, I read yesterday, I was doing some research on this interview, and I was shocked to learn that the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the 1980s took away food and fuel as part of the way that they calculated inflation because they said that those things are just too variable.
	Isn't that elementally dishonest because that's the way that many people experience inflation?
	Well, yes, and that's why you have to, when you talk about the cost of living, You have to ask, what is the measurement?
	What is your metric?
	And so the CPI still includes food and fuel, but they then have what they call core inflation, as if core inflation is more accurate than regular inflation.
	It's preposterous.
	People feel it at the gas pump.
	They feel it at the grocery store.
	And so the idea, well, we take it out and therefore we have a better fix on what real inflation is.
	No, it isn't.
	It's all one and the same.
	And that's why, again, the games they play are so destructive in terms of trying to make us feel better when we know it's not better.
	And this administration is so guilty of that.
	Hey, the sun is going up.
	Sun rises in the west and goes down in the east.
	No, it does not.
	Well, one of the things I also learned from your video was that President Nixon in the 70s took us off of the gold standard.
	And you said at the end of the PragerU video that that was one of the worst decisions that he ever made.
	Do you think it would help if we went back on the gold standard?
	I mean, is that even a realistic thing that we could do?
	Politically, it's not realistic in the sense that the whole economics profession, you mentioned GOLD. It's like waving a cross in front of a vampire.
	They just go absolutely berserk.
	But it worked for 180 years.
	And one statistic, very, very telling.
	When you have stable money, you get more productive investment over time instead of the disruptions we have today.
	And from the end of World War II to the late 60s, early 70s, before we went off the gold standard, the U.S. average growth rate was 4.2%.
	Since then, it's 2.7.
	That may not sound like much to some people, but you compound that over 50 years and the results are devastating.
	If we'd maintained our historic average of growth, household incomes today would be, remarkably, $30,000 to $40,000 higher.
	Today, the median income household is $67,000.
	Wow.
	It would be $100,000 to $110,000 if we'd maintained our historic growth rates.
	And people, I think, would be a lot happier if we had a stable dollar and people had $30,000 to $40,000 more of income.
	That, over time, is the price you pay for what they do to undermine the integrity of the dollar.
	We'll be back with Mr. Steve Forbes.
	We have a quick segment coming up.
	I want to ask him a question that doesn't have to do with inflation.
	We'll be back after the commercial.
	Hello, everyone.
	Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
	Julie Hartman here.
	I have Mr. Steve Forbes on the line.
	We've been talking a lot about inflation, and I have a personal question for him.
	But before we get to that, we were just talking about the gold standard.
	And just quickly, I want to ask you, it seems like the price of gold is down.
	Why is that?
	The price of gold is down is because the Federal Reserve has been keeping the excess money created off the market.
	It's through a device called reverse repurchase agreements, reverse repos.
	And in fact, what the Fed has done, it creates the money, buys bonds by creating money out of thin air, and then it borrows it back overnight.
	So it's like pouring a bucket of water in one end of a pool and then taking it out of the other end.
	How long they can continue that game is problematical.
	And then they're also paying banks money, reserves, interest on their reserves.
	That is the money that the banks park at the Fed when they're not using it.
	So they're trying to find ways to create the money and then try to put it in a deep freeze.
	And so temporarily gold goes down because the Fed has been doing that.
	But when you get crisis brewing, like with the euro, with the yen, and underdeveloped countries are going into a crisis mode.
	That money is going to start to come out, and we're going to have more problems again.
	And the thing you'll remember after the gold standard is gold is like a yardstick, a ruler.
	It's not money in and of itself, but it keeps a stable value for the dollar.
	So when you see the gold price fluctuate, it's not the value of gold fluctuating.
	It's the value of the dollar and other currencies that are fluctuating.
	Gold is the constant.
	Right.
	It gives us something to anchor our dollar to.
	You know, you should do a PragerU video on the gold standard.
	I know our producer, Alan Estrin, is listening, who also runs PragerU.
	So just want to give a shout out to Alan.
	Tell him that would be a really good video.
	Okay, we have 90 seconds left, so I want to quickly ask you, I mentioned when I was introducing you that you ran for president twice, in 1996 and then in 2000. Can you tell us something about running for president that startled you or that you didn't expect when you went in?
	Well, you expect various things when you go in, but it's quite another to experience them firsthand.
	One is, even then, the media was not what it should have been.
	I was not very popular with the media, but more fundamentally was the basic strength of the country.
	When 2001 happened, the 9-11, where the country rallied, that didn't surprise me.
	There's basic strength in this country, and unfortunately our leaders have not been good at unlocking that.
	But this country is going to come back.
	I don't know when, but it will.
	We always do, and we're going to do it again.
	It struck me seeing firsthand basic strength of this country for all of its diversity.
	I'm not talking about PC. I'm talking about people having different interests, different focus in this country.
	The amazing thing about people being able to do great things happens here more than anywhere else.
	That's a very encouraging message.
	I agree with you, and I hope you're right that we can come roaring back to what we were.
	Mr. Forbes, thank you so much for coming on.
	Everyone, I encourage you to go to PragerU and watch his video, What is Inflation?
	thank you hi everybody welcome to the Dennis Prager show but Dennis Prager will not be your host today in Instead, Julie Hartman will.
	Julie and I do a podcast together.
	It's the only time in my life that I have had a co-host.
	And if you watch or listen to our podcast called Dennis and Julie, you will understand why.
	She is a phenomenon.
	And I thank God every day that I have found her.
	And now I turn over the show to Julie.
	Hello, everyone.
	Welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show.
	I'm Julie Hartman, a recent college graduate.
	I'm 22 years old, and it is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today.
	And the fact that it's also my job, well, that's just about as good as it gets.
	As Dennis just mentioned, we have a podcast together, and I really want to give a shout-out to this.
	We've done about, Sean, what is it?
	We've done 18 episodes so far?
	18 episodes so far.
	It's called Dennis and Julie.
	You can find it on Apple and Spotify, and you can actually watch it on YouTube.
	And I mentioned I really like when people watch it.
	I just think it's a better experience.
	And we're in this beautiful new renovated set that Salem just built for the Dennis Prager show.
	It's great.
	And, you know, for those of you Dennis Prager fans out there, you really do get to see a side of him that you don't see when he's hosting his show.
	When he's hosting, he's talking about the news or he's interviewing other people.
	But really, in this podcast, it's my time to interview him.
	And we talk about his childhood.
	We talk about things that have influenced him.
	The other day, we actually talked about when he met Betty Friedan, who, of course, was the feminist author of the 60s who wrote The Feminine Mystique.
	Dennis told this story about he was on stage with Betty Friedan, and he said something that she didn't like, and Betty Friedan called him a, what was it, Sean?
	A chauvinist piglet.
	I remember piglet.
	It was something bad like that, but definitely I remember piglet.
	And Betty Friedan stormed off of the stage.
	So only on this podcast do you really get to hear Dennis Prager stories like that.
	I also talked to him about when he met Elie Wiesel.
	He's traveled to 131 countries.
	Look, I don't need to tell you how interesting of a guy Dennis Prager is, but my point is this podcast is great because you do get to see a different side of him.
	So I highly encourage you to go check it out on YouTube and listen to it on Apple and Spotify, as I mentioned.
	And you can check me out at my website, julie-hartman.com.
	You can email me at julie at julie-hartman.com.
	I love hearing from listeners with criticism, messages of encouragement, articles, anything.
	I really appreciate it.
	So thank you to those who've written into me and thank you to those who are going to write into me.
	You know, there were two big stories last week that individually got a lot of attention, and they involved prominent conservative politicians.
	Of course, that's the resignation of Boris Johnson, the prime minister of England, and the very unfortunate assassination of Shinzo Abe, who was the longest-serving post-war prime minister in Japan.
	He was assassinated just last week.
	Those of you who have listened to me before know that I love to talk about history.
	I was a history major in college.
	And again, we've talked about these two stories individually, but I think it would be fun to compare these two figures, especially because they're prominent conservative figures.
	And from a great distance, or if you're not really looking closely, These two men may have appeared to occupy a somewhat similar political position in their respective countries, of course, being right of center.
	Both of them had long and prominent political careers.
	They were political survivors.
	They were in the game for a long time.
	Shinzo Abe is the grandson of a former prime minister of Japan, and Boris Johnson was the mayor of London, and then he was in parliament, and then he worked his way up to becoming prime minister.
	But despite these similarities, what I find to be so interesting about these figures is that they really represented two drastically different approaches to the vocation of politics.
	Shinze Abe struck me as a gentleman.
	He was pretty low-key.
	He steered a steady course.
	And one of the things that I admired about him is that he didn't seek to be a celebrity outside of politics.
	That really does stand in stark contrast to Boris Johnson, who loved the camera.
	He loved being interviewed.
	I think it would be fair to say, I think even his supporters would agree with me, that his favorite part of being prime minister was the attention that he got from the media.
	Shinzo Abe also, he remained remarkably consistent throughout his political career.
	Till the day he died, in fact, the speech he was giving when he was assassinated, he was advocating for a change in Japan's constitution to allow the military to play a more prominent role.
	After World War II, of course, Douglas MacArthur, the American general, And because Japan was so horrible during World War II, they really demilitarized it.
	They only said that Japan could be a country of defense.
	And, you know, I think for a time that was certainly warranted.
	But Shinzo Abe wanted to change that.
	And so he wanted to have a more robust military presence in the Pacific.
	He wanted to rival China.
	And he consistently throughout his career advocated for an independent, free Taiwan.
	He was also, of course, a flawed man.
	I was reading yesterday on Wikipedia, of all things, and I know that Wikipedia is probably not the best source, but I fact-checked it five or six times.
	He made this awful comment about comfort women.
	Of course, they were the Japanese women who were forced into sexual labor during World War II. They provide sexual labor to the soldiers.
	And Shinzo Abe had some pretty questionable quotes where he denied the role of government coercion in the recruitment of these comfort women during the war.
	And of course, you know, that's awful.
	End of sentence, that's awful.
	The thing though about Shinzo Abe, when he was right, he was really right.
	When he was wrong, he was really wrong.
	But the thing about him is that whether or not he was right or wrong, you always knew where he stood.
	He did stand on principle consistently throughout his career.
	Boris Johnson, on the other hand, I would say that Nearly every position he took was, it seemed like it was for some kind of political gain.
	And the evidence is that he flip-flopped on so many things.
	I was reading yesterday that Richard Tice, who's the head of the Brexit party, said in 2019 that Boris Johnson flip-flops on many different kinds of issues.
	He actually flip-flopped on Brexit itself.
	I think that he originally...
	He supported it, but then there were these writings that came out where he said that he would vote against it.
	And he's been a bit vague in the media since the Brexit decision about whether or not he supports it.
	And I think it really depended on who was asking him the way that he would answer.
	He also flip-flopped on the climate.
	When he was mayor of London, he was a big proponent of rectifying climate change.
	He said he wanted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
	And then years later, when he was in Parliament, he would take positions that were consistent with being a climate change skeptic or someone who doesn't prioritize climate change.
	For instance, in Parliament, he voted against carbon capture, which is when, of course, you suck the carbon out of the air.
	Are there all of these technological measures that people wanted to get passed to reduce our carbon?
	And he was in favor of taxing renewable energy products.
	And look, again, whether you agree or disagree with his policies, I think it is fair to say that he did flip-flop on many of them unnecessarily.
	Another unfortunate example is the way that he personally handled himself during the COVID lockdowns.
	He imposed pretty severe restrictions on The British people, and yet he was throwing these huge extravagant parties at 10 Downing Street.
	Who does that remind us of?
	You know, a year ago, actually, I think it was about nine months ago, or no, it was a year ago, I guest hosted for Dennis.
	And it was the story I remember I talked about was when...
	President Obama hosted a party, I think it was his 60th birthday party, in Martha's Vineyard.
	And he had this big tent outside and he was partying with all of these Democratic politicians who, of course, were imposing severe restrictions in their own cities and then were flying out to Martha's Vineyard to party with the president.
	So that's what Boris Johnson was doing.
	And again, you know, what startling differences between Shinzo Abe and Boris Johnson?
	I'm not here to pass judgments on them.
	I'm not here to endorse one or the other.
	I'm simply trying to point out that they had such different views of how to handle themselves and how to approach politics.
	And, you know, I think, unfortunately, we're becoming the worst of both of them.
	We take these principled positions that are wrong, like Abe's Comfort Women, but then we're willing to change them and trade them in at a moment's notice when it's convenient.
	More on this when we're back.
	Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
	Julie Hartman here.
	We have Molly Hemingway on the line.
	One of the coolest parts of this job is I get to interview authors who I love, and Molly Hemingway falls into that category.
	She is the author, co-author, actually, of the national bestseller Justice on Trial, The Kavanaugh Confirmation in the Future of the Supreme Court.
	And she just wrote this book that I want to discuss with her today called Rigged, How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.
	She is the senior editor of an online magazine, The Federalist, which she helped launched.
	And she is a contributor to Fox News and a senior journalism fellow at Hillsdale College.
	So she's a busy woman.
	Hello, Molly.
	Thank you so much for coming on.
	It's truly an honor to speak with you today.
	Thank you.
	Happy to be here.
	My God, you outline so many problems in this book, so many improprieties, I should say, that occurred in the 2020 election.
	You talk about polling, how papers like the Washington Post published polls a few days before the election that President Biden would win by a staggering amount.
	Turns out in Wisconsin, they said he'd win by 17 points.
	He won by three.
	You talk about the Russia collusion hoax that was peddled and invented by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.
	You talk about all of the media bias against Trump, how Twitter and Facebook suspended Hunter Biden stories about serving on the board of the Ukrainian company.
	The most damning thing you talk about, in my view, is the role that Mark Zuckerberg played in this election.
	You say that he donated $400 million, over $400 million, that were overwhelmingly given to Democratic states and counties to privatize election procedures.
	Can you please explain to me and to our viewers how that happened?
	So he gave it to nonprofit organizations, such as the Center for Election Innovation and Research, but...
	What did those nonprofits do with that money, and how were they allowed to privatize election procedures?
	Yeah, it was a shocking story when I realized what went on there.
	There were these two left-wing groups, you know, technically nonpartisan, but staffed with hardcore Democrat activists.
	The two groups are the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation Research.
	And those groups were given this nearly $450 million from Mark Zuckerberg to do all sorts of things inside government election offices.
	And they did it in a really brilliant way.
	They targeted the blue areas of swing states to drive up and get, using this private funding in government offices, to drive up Democrat votes.
	And do everything about the election process, whether it was like designing ballots or translating ballots or doing get-out-the-vote drives in Democrat areas of swing states or working on staffing the alleged verification of ballots, working to cure ballots in the Democrat areas of swing states.
	That's where you give voters a chance or people who claim to be voters a chance to correct ballots if they're filled out improperly.
	This had a really significant role in the outcome of the election.
	independent analysts and academics have looked into this.
	And where they spent their money was associated with huge upticks in Democrat votes in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, even in Texas, which was a fairly safe Republican state.
	You know, it's so interesting to me the amount that the left talks about privilege.
	Check your privilege, own your privilege, acknowledge your privilege.
	Then we have the most privileged person in this country, Mark Zuckerberg, giving his own money to thwart the will of the people, really, to try to influence the results of the election.
	I'm done.
	Yeah, I mean, I know it's boring to say, but if anyone on the right had even thought of doing something like this, it would have been front-page news at the New York Times every day from that moment to now.
	But he would be able to do it in part because he said he was doing it to help with COVID relief.
	At the end of the day, it turned out that these times only 1% went to anything associated with COVID. That was one of the most damning parts of the book when you said that he gave that money for COVID relief and almost none of it went to that boy.
	Speaking of COVID, and we do have a minute left, so we may have to pick this up after the commercial break.
	You talk about how Democrats, with the help of the power attorney Mark Elias, used the pandemic to push through changes that they wanted all along, like expanding mail-in voting and watering down or eliminating signature requirements.
	Given that COVID has now gone away, do you think that they will try to find...
	Well, all of these things that were pushed through were dreams of the Democrat Party long before COVID. And some of them were temporary measures, but a lot of them were just permanently instituted.
	They don't even need a pandemic to keep some of these procedures that weaken the integrity of our system.
	Right.
	All right.
	Well, we will be back with Molly Hemingway.
	We're talking about her book, Rigged, about the 2020 election.
	It is certainly a hot topic today.
	We'll be back.
	Julie Hartman here, in for Dennis Prager.
	I have on the line Molly Hemingway.
	She's the author of the book Rigged, about the 2020 election.
	Before the commercial break, I asked her a question about the COVID measures.
	I said, I learned from her book, I should say, that a lot of Democrats used COVID as an excuse, Molly writes, to And the question I asked Molly was,
	now that the pandemic is over, do you think that the Democrats will try to come up with a new thing that will justify these measures?
	Or will these measures carry over because they were implemented in the 2020 election?
	Right.
	And the thing here is, we saw what happened in the 2020 election, which was a coordinated, widespread conspiracy, really, to flood the zone with tens of millions of mail-in ballots.
	That was led, as you noted, by Mark Elias, who's the same Democrat attorney who ran the 2016 election operation to create the false story that Donald Trump was stealing the election by colluding with Russia.
	So he's not a good guy, but he's very effective at messing up elections.
	He worked to change the laws and processes in hundreds of situations in most states to enable this flooding the zone of mail-in ballots.
	Now, prior to 2020, everybody, left and right, acknowledged and admitted that mail-in ballots are the ones most prone to fraud.
	They're difficult.
	They're difficult to detect fraud with them because it's unsupervised voting.
	There are lots of hands in the process.
	There can be lots of corruption involved in the process.
	But it's kind of difficult to determine it.
	And that's why usually good government people try to avoid mail-in balloting or particularly expansive mail-in balloting.
	But once they won the 2020 election and took control of the Senate, in part through these means, they decided that they wanted to try to really...
	Hit the gas pedal on this.
	And so their signature legislative goal was H.R. 1 to federalize elections.
	I also just wrote last week, it's not in the book, but it's something I wrote about at The Federalist, how Joe Biden issued an executive order to get all 600 federal agencies to also start meddling in state elections.
	And so there's a lot that they're still trying to do to do stabilized elections.
	Right.
	I remember learning from your book that Mark Elias did the, or Elias, I should say.
	You said it was Elias, so I'm saying it wrong.
	Mark Elias did the sue and settle strategy, where he would sue actually Democratic secretaries of state or election offices, and he would get them to settle on things because they didn't want to go through a lawsuit.
	So that's how he was able to water down the signature requirements, for instance.
	That was a really illuminating part of your book.
	One of the things that I liked most about your book, Molly, is I thought that you're very fair and precise.
	You know, the book is called Rigged, Not Stolen.
	And I think that's important because so often when we talk about the election, you have people on the far left who are saying nothing happened, it was totally fine, nothing to look at here, no improprieties.
	And then you have people on the far right saying it was 100% stolen.
	And I think both of those views are not conducive to...
	I appreciate your fairness.
	And one of the things that you say is that President Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, made severe mistakes when challenging the results of the election by putting forth dramatic or exaggerated claims about voter fraud and not emphasizing the many improprieties, such as the ones that I mentioned at the start of last segment, you know, how Twitter and Facebook suspended the Hunter Biden story, how...
	Republicans were blocked from viewing vote counting in Democrat counties.
	They didn't really emphasize those things.
	So my question for you is, what do you think they should have done differently?
	And can you say more about your criticisms of President Trump and Giuliani?
	Sure.
	You know, and it's true that the RNC and the Trump campaign actually did put a lot of effort in prior to the election to fight back against some of these changes that were happening in election law.
	They had some success.
	I hate getting involved in elections.
	So when there was this widespread conspiracy to basically overtake our election system, even though Republicans had the better of the argument, they had trouble in the courts because courts hate getting involved, and so they kind of just let this all happen.
	Now, it is also true that the Trump team had a pretty good legal operation going into it, but they didn't know exactly how the campaign would come out or where it would matter.
	It is very difficult to get a handle on something as widespread and coordinated as what the left did to the 2020 election.
	So I'm not unsympathetic to the difficulties.
	But I do tell the story in there about how there was a very good case working its way through Pennsylvania courts about different treatment of voters in different counties.
	And Giuliani took over that case and turned it into a fraud case, which is not what it was.
	And then when the judge was asking for evidence of the fraud, Bush v.
	Gore was not a fraud case.
	But it was successful at the Supreme Court.
	So not all election problems are fraud.
	I think people use that term to mean all election problems, but it's actually a pretty narrow category of the types of ways that an election can be corrupted.
	And so by turning it into something it wasn't, it not only killed that case there, it kind of made people in other states nervous about going forward with their cases, and it was kind of a domino effect.
	What would have been good is if the entire Republican establishment had kind of stuck together and realized the seriousness of the problem.
	But as we saw with just this Wisconsin case last week, the Republicans were vindicated at the Supreme Court level on ballot boxes.
	It took a year and a half, more than a year and a half, to get that vindication.
	It's hard.
	Right.
	We only have about a minute and a half or a minute and 15 in this segment, but I want to quickly talk about these court cases because, you know, when I have debates with people about the election and I'm taking the stance that there were some improprieties that we have to pay attention to, they point to the, what was it, 50 or 60 court cases, and they say, these court rulings say that there were no improprieties.
	But you in your book talk about the issue of standing, that a lot of these cases said that the Trump campaign lacked standing.
	Can you explain for us quickly?
	I'm sorry, we only have a minute.
	Can you explain for us what that means?
	Well, yeah, I mean, there were so many reasons why courts would throw cases out.
	They would say, if you brought a case before the election happened, that the Trump campaign hadn't shown actual harm.
	After the election had happened, they'd say, well, the election already happened, so it's moved.
	They would say that people didn't have standing, you know, if one state was handling its elections in an unconstitutional manner, you know, even the Supreme Court said that other states didn't have standing to complain about that.
	that.
	I think that's actually a very open question.
	And there's a reason why our constitution is clear about state legislatures and not courts managing their own elections.
	Boy, you are such an expert on this.
	I am just astounded by your level of knowledge.
	We will be right back with Molly Hemingway.
	Julie Hartman here.
	This is The Dennis Prager Show.
	Substitute hosting for him today.
	It is quite an honor.
	It is especially an honor to speak with Molly Hemingway, who we have here.
	We were talking about her book, Rigged, about the 2020 election.
	Molly, we don't have that much time, but I want to ask you two questions.
	The first is, if you could identify three examples from your book that people could use to refute the claim that there were no improprieties in the 2020 election, what would be those three examples that you would give to people?
	You know, I think the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that came out just last week showing that the use of ballot boxes and third-party ballot trafficking, which was done in that state and affected many tens of thousands of votes, that's unconstitutional.
	And that means illegal voting, even if it took a year and a half, and there's not much you can do about it after the fact.
	In Pennsylvania, courts changed the law.
	In contradiction to the Constitution on how to operate elections.
	And in Georgia, I tell a story, it's pretty complicated, but I get into that about how there were more than the margin of error of illegal votes in that state because of poor election administration.
	People say there's no example of why.
	Well, technically, you have more than the margin of error of people who voted illegally in that state.
	Thanks to poor election administration, but also because people were moving and voting in old precincts and whatnot.
	So I would just say there are examples piling up in each of these swing states, including in Arizona, where there was lack of ballot control.
	All of the issues that people raised have been vindicated.
	It is not true to say there is no evidence of widespread problems in the 2020 election.
	There's nothing but evidence there.
	It is complicated, and it's not as easy as saying, oh, you know, there was the Venezuela turning a switch on the computer or something like that.
	But it was coordinated, and it was done, and it is good to know your facts so that you can clean up the elections going forward and also to vindicate the people who had very legitimate concerns.
	My final question for you.
	We only have a minute left.
	What has it been like for you writing this book?
	I don't need to tell you that this election causes, you know, a lot of people to get angry on both sides.
	And you're the author of this book that is essentially saying that there were huge improprieties.
	How has your social life been?
	been are you maligned I'm known for saying things that other people don't say in DC I hated that you weren't allowed to just observe that this was a weird election and we didn't know how many ballots were outstanding for weeks in some cases and you weren't allowed to talk about it but I back everything up there as you see you do like hundreds thousands of footnotes So people can go check it out themselves.
	And so I stand behind what I wrote and no one's had a problem with, you know, anything thus far.
	And so I just know, I know that it was a problem and that we can't have a republic if we can't have free and fair elections that we can all have.
	Yes.
	You write that democracy depends on the consent of the losers in your final chapter.
	I thought that was a great line.
	Rigged by Molly Hemingway.
	Yes.
	Please buy this book, everyone.
	one.
	It is a great one.
	Hi, everybody.
	Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
	But Dennis Prager will not be your host today.
	Instead, Julie Hartman will.
	Julie and I do a podcast together.
	It's the only time in my life that I have had a co-host.
	And if you watch or listen to our podcast called Dennis and Julie, you will understand why.
	She is a phenomenon.
	And I thank God every day that I have found her.
	And now, I turn over the show.
	Welcome back to the third hour of The Dennis Prager Show.
	Boy, it flies by.
	It really does.
	You would think two hours of radio would go slow.
	I feel like we just started five minutes ago.
	But I'm having a lot of fun.
	This is the most fun job in the world.
	My first job out of college is guest hosting for Dennis Prager.
	Can you believe that?
	What a nice introduction he gave talking about me.
	Dennis and I have become very close.
	He is a huge role model in my life, a big figure in my life in many different ways.
	I talk to him about politics.
	I talk to him when I need advice.
	And Dennis is the same person off-air as he is on-air.
	That really is true.
	And you get to see that when you watch or listen to our podcast.
	Dennis and Julie, which, again, you can listen to on Apple or Spotify or watch on YouTube.
	I talked about during the last hour how you really get to see a different side of Dennis.
	He, of course, is the same person, again, whether he's on air or off air, but he talks about different things on this podcast than he does on his radio show because it's a long form format and I get to interview him.
	And I want to send you guys to one episode if you're interested.
	It's episode 15 of our podcast.
	It's called Me Isn't Important.
	That's the title.
	And, you know, we talk about politics so much and heavy material, and we thought it would be fun to quiz each other on things.
	And I asked Dennis, who, it's actually his birthday, I believe, next week or the week after.
	It's August 2nd, so I guess it's in two weeks.
	He's turning, I believe he's turning 74 or 75. And I said to Dennis, can you name any of the Kardashians?
	He actually could name two.
	He could name Kim and Kourtney.
	I was stunned.
	And then I said to him, I said, okay, Dennis, good job on that one.
	By the way, he says that he knows those names because he reads the Daily Mail.
	And the Kardashians are in the news in the Daily Mail.
	And then I said, okay, Dennis, so you can name two Kardashians.
	Well done.
	Can you name five female celebrities?
	He could not name one.
	I think he said Jane Fonda.
	And I said, Dennis, can you name...
	Can you name someone who's under the age of 80?
	And it was so funny.
	He goes, oh God, Hill, Hill, what's that woman, Hill?
	And I'm thinking, Dennis, what are you talking about?
	Turns out it was Faith Hill, the country singer.
	In that episode, he actually ended up asking me how many, what is it, Sean, NHL? See, I don't know anything about sports.
	Hockey teams, NHL teams I could name.
	You take a moment, viewer, at home to guess how many I could name.
	I'll tell you, it was one, the LA Kings.
	If you could just see Sean's face right now.
	The producers were petrified.
	They were taking bets.
	I can name more NBA teams because I watched the NBA with my father, but I think I only got to about five with basketball.
	I got to one with hockey.
	Anyway, that's just to say we talk about a variety of things, and I would love if you'd listen to our podcast.
	That's Dennis and Julie.
	And you can find out more about me and the podcast at julie-hartman.com, my website.
	There's an email there that you can write to me, and I love hearing from you.
	You know, I mentioned a few minutes ago when I was talking about the podcast that we talk so much about politics.
	And obviously this is a political talk show.
	We talk about the left, the right, things that are happening in the news.
	For this hour, I'm going to call it the America Hour.
	And I want us to talk not so much about the government, but about the people who inhabit this country.
	I want to talk about our national identity.
	I'm very lucky to have traveled around the world in my life.
	I've actually been to Russia.
	I went to Russia when I was five years old.
	I barely remember it, but I remember we talked about this on the podcast.
	There's this cupcake tower in St. Petersburg.
	Of course, now I'm forgetting the name, but it's a church in St. Petersburg, and the spires look like cupcakes.
	I do remember that.
	I've been to Estonia, been to Italy, France.
	And I have found that people...
	Have a quick answer.
	And a lot of the times when I ask a variety of people, many of them do have similar answers.
	Israelis are tough.
	They're spirited.
	They're gritty.
	They're to the point.
	They're patriotic.
	The Khmer people of Cambodia, that's the 90% of the Cambodians are Khmer.
	They're modest.
	They're resourceful.
	They're traditional.
	They're loyal.
	And I thought to myself, if someone came to America, let's say someone from another country was visiting here and they just walked up to a random person on the street and said, what does it mean to be American?
	I don't know what people would say.
	So I want to ask you, I know that for the past two hours, if you've been listening, I haven't been able to take any phone calls because we've been dealing with news.
	And then I was lucky enough to interview Steve Forbes, who just did a PragerU video on inflation.
	And then I interviewed Molly Hemingway about the 2020 election.
	She wrote this fabulous book about it, Rigged.
	So I haven't had the opportunity to take calls.
	But this third hour, I want to take a lot of calls.
	And I want to pose two questions to you.
	And please only answer, call in and answer these two questions if you will.
	The first one is, when America is at its best, what does it mean to be American?
	What are some traits that you would say characterize United States citizens?
	And then the second question is, what are we at risk of losing?
	Or what do you think that we've lost already?
	This is a question that fascinates me.
	I have to be honest with you.
	At 22 years old, I don't really feel a sense of national identity.
	And that makes me sad.
	I don't know what traits or characteristics I would say.
	And, you know, America, I think, I mean...
	I think it's important for any nation to think about its national identity, the traits and characteristics that make that country and its people what they are.
	But I think America has a special need for that.
	The founders talked about this.
	They said that the American spirit has to be strong in order to make this system of limited government work.
	Also, this nation...
	Isn't, unlike almost any other nation on Earth, the United States is not ethnically, religiously, or historically homogenous.
	It's not really a homogenous nation in those ways.
	So what's holding us together?
	It has to be our national identity.
	Our national credo is E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, out of many people, different backgrounds, different opinions, different religions.
	We are one America.
	Again, the founders emphasized this.
	We have to have something that holds us together, a strong, robust national identity.
	I don't know what it is anymore.
	I'm very lucky to have grown up in a house where my parents tried to preserve that.
	They talked to me about America so much.
	You know, I really credit both of them for my conservative awakening, if you will, that happened a little later for me in life at the age of 20. I remember growing up, a household hero was Lenny Skutnik.
	I don't know how many people my age would know that name.
	Lenny Skutnik was, I think he was a government worker.
	I can't tell you where he worked, but he was in D.C. And in 1982, in January, a plane crashed into the Potomac River.
	And Lenny Skutnik was walking by, and there was a woman in the river who was struggling.
	And Lenny Skutnik dove into the freezing cold Potomac water and saved her life.
	I was taught that Americans put others before themselves, that they are chivalrous, that they are mannered.
	I can't tell you how many times my mom in particular would talk about Lenny Skutnik, and that made a huge impression on me as a 5-, 6-, 7-year-old.
	I thought, wow, how lucky I am to be part of a country that has people like that.
	I'll tell you another thing.
	My uncle said that he used to go to a nearby factory.
	He grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts.
	Shout out to people in Worcester.
	That's where my mom's from.
	He said that almost every day during the summer, my grandmother would take him to a nearby factory where he would watch people lower the American flag.
	How beautiful is that, that that was the activity?
	Again, I don't know if that's the case anymore.
	I was taught Americans were patriotic.
	Are we, still?
	You tell me.
	1-8 Prager-776.
	That's our phone number.
	1-8 Prager-776.
	Two questions.
	When Americans are at their best, what does it mean to be American?
	And what are we at risk of losing?
	Or what have we already lost?
	1-8 Prager-776.
	I'm Julie Hartman.
	We will be back.
	I look forward to taking your calls.
	The Dennis Prager Show.
	Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
	Julie Hartman here.
	This is the America Hour, where I ask you two questions.
	When Americans are at their best, what are traits that define us?
	And what are we at risk of losing?
	Before I take the next call, I want to answer the second question, because the last two segments we've been talking about what makes America great, and I love that.
	I love talking about that because we do hear such negativity all the time now.
	But I do want to tell you this story.
	The other day I was in a grocery store and an elderly woman was walking out and there were these two men who were about 45 years old and they just totally cut her off.
	They did not open the door for her.
	They didn't stand back.
	They didn't ask if they could carry her groceries.
	She was really struggling, kind of hobbling out of there.
	And they just cut her right off.
	And I thought to myself, you know what?
	I remember my mom told me growing up, she said to me, Julie, when you start dating, judge a man based on how he treats the waiter.
	Don't judge the man on how he treats someone who's his quote-unquote equal or quote-unquote superior.
	Of course, everyone is equal, but someone who he could treat poorly.
	Judge him on how he treats those people.
	And I would say that we should judge our society also based on...
	How we treat people who we could treat poorly, and that's the elderly.
	We should judge our society based on how we treat the elderly, and I see it so often the way that older people are just invisible to us.
	We've lost our manners.
	We've lost our civility, and that was such a trait of Americans.
	I'll tell you one other anecdote.
	Everything happens at the grocery store.
	I was walking, I was getting groceries, just a few things in a basket, and this was the other day, and I was walking up to the cash register and there was a guy who was probably four or five years older than I am, 26, 27, walking towards me.
	And we got to the cash register at the exact same time.
	Seriously, if you had a time, they would call it dead even.
	And we both kind of locked eyes and we had this moment like, who's going to go?
	And the guy just went.
	He just looked at me and he just went.
	Look, Sean's laughing.
	He's probably thinking that this is cathartic for me to talk about on the radio.
	If you're listening, fella, I've got your number.
	No, but I'm bringing this up because I think it's important.
	You know, once upon a time, men used to know you let the woman go first.
	Is it a big deal?
	No.
	But again, I don't think young men are being taught that.
	People don't know that.
	We have lost our manners.
	I know what my dad would do because I have seen my dad do it countless times.
	He would go, you go right ahead, ma'am.
	That's what a true gentleman does.
	And unfortunately, we don't have many of them anymore.
	Okay, we are going to go to Debbie in Reseda, California.
	I have traveled all around California, lived in California for my whole life.
	I've never heard of Reseda.
	Debbie, where is Reseda?
	It's in the valley.
	It's in the valley.
	Okay.
	So, Debbie, what's your comment or question?
	Okay, well, I think one thing we have certainly lost is leaders who care about America and about being Americans.
	Right.
	And about Americans in general.
	You know?
	Yes.
	Well, unfortunately, you're right.
	Yep.
	I think it pretty much ended with George W. Bush, in my view.
	That's interesting.
	President Bush was a true gentleman.
	He was a true gentleman, but I'm saying that that ended pretty much with him.
	I don't know if you heard this, but during the last hour I talked about Boris Johnson and Shinzo Abe.
	I compared these two conservative politicians that have been in the news.
	And one of the things I said about Boris Johnson was he would really only take positions as long as it was convenient for him.
	And he flip-flopped on climate change.
	He flip-flopped on Brexit.
	He imposed severe restrictions during COVID on the populace.
	And then he had these extravagant parties at 10 Downing Street.
	And unfortunately, I do agree with you.
	We are seeing, and by the way, I would say on both the right and the left, we are seeing politicians who are using this gig as a gig.
	They're not viewing it as a duty or a service.
	Quite truly viewing it as a gig.
	Yes, that's right.
	And we see how many people flip-flop on issues.
	So I would say that it's more on the left than the right.
	I brought up this example of how many people wanted to defund the police and then all of a sudden when they came up for re-election they backtracked from it.
	You know why this is?
	We are taught that ourselves are important nowadays.
	We are not taught to honor God.
	We are not taught to honor certain values that we are subservient to.
	We are taught to trust ourselves, to value ourselves, and to focus only on our advancement.
	That's why that's happening, Debbie.
	Thanks for your call.
	We'll be back.
	The Dennis Prager Show.
	Welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show.
	This is the third hour of the program.
	I'm calling it America Hour.
	I'm Julie Hartman, the lucky 22-year-old recent college graduate who gets to sit in for the incomparable Dennis Prager today.
	It's an honor.
	We're talking about what makes America great and what we're losing.
	Speaking of which, I would like to take a call from Alan.
	Also from Reseda, California.
	Wow, we...
	Reseda, pardon me.
	Reseda!
	Reseda, I said to Debbie last segment, I had never heard of it, so you've got to forgive me for mispronouncing it.
	Reseda, but Alan, you want to talk about God.
	What a nice segue from the Hillsdale advertisement.
	Yes, I was listening to the little advertisement, and I'm very well aware, maybe you don't know, but C.S. Lewis was Catholic.
	One of his greatest books, I think, is the Screwtape Letters.
	I think that was the name of it.
	And, of course, the Narnia series.
	But anyway, really to the question, of course, the short one, what made America great?
	It's God.
	And what are we losing right now is God.
	When our founding fathers founded America, they understood that our Constitution would only work with a moral society.
	Right.
	They didn't even know themselves how long it would last.
	But we've been losing, and if I was to say, if I was to pinpoint an area, I'll start with the Johnson Amendment.
	Probably a lot of people don't know a lot about the Johnson Amendment.
	It was written back in the 50s.
	That was something to kind of separate the church from being involved with the state.
	And then, of course, in 1960, we had the decision from the Supreme Court where prayer...
	Was no longer allowed in school.
	Right.
	And you're not old enough to actually have lived during the 1960s, but I could tell you this, Reseda was a much nicer community.
	Don't you mean Reseda?
	No, I'm kidding.
	I have to rid myself a little bit.
	Where did you grow up?
	I grew up near Santa Monica, California, so on the coast.
	Yes.
	But, you know, I think you are absolutely right, and this is something that the younger generation has no appreciation for.
	God did make America great.
	You know, on my recent podcast with Dennis Prager, shameless plug, by the way, Dennis and Julie, go on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube to check it out.
	But I recently talked about this, and I said, you know, people my age, and by the way, I totally admit I used to be this person.
	People my age think that religious people are simpletons.
	They don't understand the worth of Judeo- I understand that.
	Tear down and criticize religion all day long.
	And yet you live in a country where the freedoms are predicated based on teachings in the Bible.
	In Genesis, we are taught that humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
	That goes directly with equality that exists under the law in this country.
	I love in our Constitution, it says that...
	Humans are, people are endowed with men.
	What is it?
	Men are endowed with unalienable rights from our creator.
	And that is so important because if we are endowed with these rights by our creator, they cannot be taken away.
	If men give us these rights, they can be taken away.
	This is an extremely important point.
	And one of the things that I want to do, Alan, as I'm entering this conservative media sphere, is I really want to reinvigorate the argument.
	That religion, specifically Judeo-Christian religion, has made America and will sustain America.
	Because I'm telling you, the younger generation does not understand that.
	So thank you so much for your call.
	You know, on this point, I want to tell you all, those of you who have been listening to the podcast, again, shameless plug again, will know that I, alongside C.S. Lewis's book, Mere Christianity, I have been reading G.K. Chesterton's book, Orthodoxy.
	That book is A Defense of Christianity.
	And he has this line in the beginning.
	I love it.
	I actually have it right here in front of me.
	And he's talking about how he came to becoming a Christian.
	And he says, I will not call it my philosophy, you know, on life.
	He's talking about his life philosophy.
	I will not call it my philosophy, for I did not make it.
	God and humanity made it, and it made me.
	I love that.
	You know, I mentioned last segment, we had someone call in who said that leaders don't care anymore about the people.
	I think that's right.
	And it's because we have been taught to value ourselves, not to value God, but to trust ourselves.
	We are the arbiters of good and evil.
	And when that happens, you just really only care about yourself and your own advancement.
	And there is something that is so good about...
	Making yourself subservient, even though that's a touchy word, to certain values, especially those that are in the Bible.
	People think that that's a way of enslaving yourself to some kind of doctrine.
	No.
	You live a wonderful life if you follow the values of the Bible.
	People today want to be their own gods.
	They want to be the center of everything.
	They don't want to follow something.
	That's what's going on.
	Okay, we have our last segment coming up.
	God, it went by fast.
	We'll be back.
	This is the final segment of the America Hour, third hour of the show today.
	This is, of course, the Dennis Prager Show, and I, of course, am not Dennis Prager.
	I'm Julie Hartman, 22-year-old recent college graduate who has a podcast with Dennis Prager, Dennis, and Julie, which you can listen to on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
	We are talking about what makes America great and what we are at risk of losing.
	I'd like to go to Sean in South Carolina.
	Hello, Sean.
	Before you start, I want to tell you, our dear producer, Sean, recommended that I take your call, and I said, oh, please, it's only because you guys have the same name.
	So you have a fan here at the Dennis Prager Show.
	It's a wonderful name.
	It is.
	America is at its best when we're courageous, when we stand in the face of evil and we confront it.
	Generations of Americans have proven that.
	We have always been at our best when young Americans are crawling out of foxholes, charging towards evil to overcome it.
	That's right.
	What we have to lose if we're not of good courage, like we're encouraged in Scripture, what we have to lose is our integrity.
	And if you want to know what that looks like, look at Washington, D.C. When people don't care about doing the right thing...
	There's just no shame no more.
	To have integrity means you do the right thing even when someone's not watching.
	These people lie, they cheat, they steal without shame, without apology.
	And that's what's going to happen if we don't stay people in a society of good courage.
	Right.
	Thank you for your call.
	This courage point is so important.
	You know, I mentioned at the top of this segment that I just graduated from college.
	And one of the realizations I had, especially in the last few months of college, is what is one issue that my peers are willing to publicly oppose the American elite on?
	Seriously, one issue.
	I can't think of one.
	People are so afraid to go against the party line, if you will.
	And it is endlessly ironic to me that these are the same people who want to tear down statues of great American heroes.
	They have no courage nowadays.
	They think that they are the best generation, and yet they won't even stand up to wokeism.
	They won't stand up to anything that is not endorsed by the American elite, and that really paints a sombering picture for our future.
	Thank you so much for that, Sean.
	I can't believe that we are in the final minute, the final 30 seconds I just heard in my ear of the show.
	It has been such an honor to guest host for Dennis Prager.
	I've done it before.
	Hopefully I will do it again.
	And I especially want to thank Dennis, of course, for trusting me with this.
	Alan Estrin, our dear producer here.
	And of course, the incomparable Sean McConnell.
	And everyone who is in the tech booth.
	And Suzette, our lovely call screener.
	It takes a village, and I am so lucky to have this one.
	Take care, everyone.
	Dennis Prager here.
	Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
	To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day.
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