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March 14, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
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And a good Thursday to you, everybody, along the Dennis Prager Show family of audience.
It is Thursday, February 9th, 2023. The quicker listeners among you will notice, hey, that's not Dennis.
You are correct about that.
But hey, maybe...
It's the next best thing.
Mark Davis, frequent fill-in host around here.
On this program and others on the Salem Radio Network, I am the happy morning host.
At 6.60 a.m., the answer, Salem's proud property here in thriving Dallas-Fort Worth.
And it works out superbly for me, and I hope it works out well for you.
I'll do my best to make sure that it does.
By that, I mean the very best talk show prep that I can do for doing the Dennis Prager Show is to have just completed my own show here in DFW and everyone listening online.
It continues to be identified as local radio, but there's almost no such thing as local shows anymore because everybody can listen online and I get texts and you throw in Twitter and all the social media nonsense that all the kids are doing these days and we all reach out to everybody.
So having just completed my local, air quotes, DFW morning show here, I'm going to be here.
Here we are across the Salem Radio Network, here for you also, of course, on the Salem News Channel, where it's great to be joining you visually.
So the question quickly arises, what might we do today?
Whenever I'm here, I kind of bring my own vibe of...
I tend to look at things that are going on in the news, tend to look at things going on in the culture, tend to look at things rattling around in my head, and bring them all to you, and then ask you the musical question.
What do you think?
And do you agree or disagree?
And no matter which, it's always welcome here at 1-8-Prager-776, 1-8-Prager-776, and of course DennisPrager.com for all things Dennis.
I believe Dennis is back tomorrow.
I know that I'm just here today, so let's see what we can make of it, shall we?
On those phone lines at 1-8-Prager-776.
There is a residual...
Expectation that I always have and a residual offer that I make to you that if there's something in your head that I don't know about because there's something going on in your community, your head, your life, bring it.
We'll do it all.
1-8 Prager 776. So let's tackle the news items first.
And then I have a couple of broader sort of conceptual things of, you know, the way the country works, the way the world works, the oddities of our day, things like this that I like to bring up for you some in the later segments, in the later hours.
But you are welcome now at 1-8-Prager-776.
And, hey, this is special.
You can reach me directly.
Shoot me a little something-something on Twitter if you wish.
Follow me on Twitter at...
Mark Davis, M-A-R-K-D-A-V-I-S. And I'll take a look at those during the commercial breaks and on the fly and see if there's anything that maybe we can do for each other there in the social media world.
So, I don't know about you, but I'm still reeling from the State of the Union.
As a talk show guy, as a State of the Union approaches...
It always kind of beats me to death because it's such an empty load of pageantry now, even through presidents that I voted for.
I mean, I attended a couple.
It's very cool to attend.
It's very cool to be there.
Watching it on TV is like a tranquilizer dart to the neck.
During Trump, Trump changed everything, certainly made State of the Union a lot more interesting.
But whether it's a Republican president or Democrat president, the template has largely been the same.
And that is, the president says something, the people who are members of his party applaud like it's the greatest thing they've ever heard, and the other party just sits on their hands and ignores it.
That dynamic is changing.
Shall we say?
Now it has turned into Prime Minister's Question Time.
The phenomenon you can see, sometimes they run this on C-SPAN out of the UK, where whoever's Prime Minister of the moment, and boy, who might that be today in Great Britain?
They're moving kind of quickly over there.
The Prime Minister says things, and all the members of the House of Commons yell at him.
Or her, as the case may be.
And then he sometimes gives some snide reply, and it's all delicious political theater, and it's kind of cool.
And there are people who have said, wow, we should do that.
Well, I didn't foresee that this is something that we would do during the State of the Union, where the president says things and people just yell stuff, yell retorts back at him.
We go back to 2009. And this was the famous, I guess this would have been the first Obama State of the Union.
And he was talking about Obamacare.
So surely something deceptive was involved in those lines of the pre-written speech.
And Congressman Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, famously took his opportunity during a pause, during a breath.
During a moment between Barack Obama's sentences to shout out famously, you lie!
It was as if the Earth hurled out of its orbit.
It was a little shocking.
We didn't intend to do that just 14 short years ago.
And it was viewed as a vast violation of decorum.
It was horrible.
It was terrible.
He should be, you know, run out of town on a rail, etc., etc.
But I did get calls the following day from people who said, yeah, Mark, because it wasn't my favorite thing.
I thought, you know, this is going to turn around to bite us.
At some point, we'll have a Republican president again.
Please, God.
And do we want loudmouth Democrats, you know, heckling the president that we voted for?
And interestingly, I got callers who said, why not?
Whatever.
If this is the price we pay for being able to hold a Democrat president accountable in real time, even in the lofty decorum of the State of the Union, so be it.
And I thought, well, okay, if this is the way you want to go.
And so now, so the years pass.
And even in something as raucous as the Trump years, we didn't have a whole lot of yelling back and forth during the Trump presidency.
Maybe Democrats didn't dare because he felt like he would torch them from the podium.
But Tuesday night was just crazy.
President Biden would say various deceitful things, which is just baked in for me.
I mean, I thoroughly expected that.
But then all of a sudden, not just individual folks like Joe Wilson.
Or even individually, like Marjorie Taylor Greene or anybody else like that.
It was just large crowds of people.
President Biden mentioned fentanyl.
And like 30 people went, it's your fault!
It's your fault!
It's your fault!
You know, because of soft borders.
President Biden wove this vast untruth that there are Democrats looking to bring the curtain down on Social Security and Medicare.
And like 30, 40 at least yelled back, no, no, no, it's a lie!
No, you're lying!
And so it was kind of like a group heckle, sort of a safety in numbers concept.
And I'm sitting there watching with my wife, and we said, okay, here we go.
Game on!
And this is what was amazing yesterday.
President Biden, every president takes their State of the Union pronouncements, proclamations, and then they take them out on the road.
It's like, hey, I just said 27 things.
Let me say those same things.
In Biden's case, some swing states, some battleground states, which really makes it look like he's running for president, which we will totally talk about today.
Can that even happen?
And if it does, how will that go?
1-8-breaker-776.
But when President Biden offered up this complete, stunning, gaping lie that Republicans are systemically looking to end...
Social Security and Medicare, all those cries of, no, no, no, no, no!
And then President Biden said, huh?
You're not?
No, no, no!
And then he said, well, okay, then we have a deal.
We have a deal?
They just called you out for lying, sir.
This was not them suddenly agreeing to something expressed simply through the artfulness of your prose and the force of your political will.
It was crazy.
And so in Biden land, it was like, hey, I somehow lassoed, I wrangled, I herded these Republicans into complying with my wish to leave Medicare and Social Security alone.
It was just laughable.
And in the case of this particular State of the Union, we laugh lest we cry.
Because the era of big government is back.
Bill Clinton famously said, the era of big government is over.
That wasn't true, but Clinton was not Obama.
I've often said that Biden makes Obama look thoroughly innocuous at times, and Biden makes Clinton look positively Churchillian.
Everything's relative.
This is by far the worst presidency of my lifetime.
You know, I'm glad Jimmy Carter lived long enough to see a presidency worse than his.
And I'm not giving Carter a break here either.
That was a dreadful presidency, and I lived through that.
I was a young adult through that.
And it meant that the Reagan election in 1908, Reagan saved us from Carter.
Okay, Reagan saved us from Carter.
That was great.
Quite the rescue.
Trump...
Rescued us from Hillary.
You've heard of dodging a bullet?
That was dodging a cannonball.
Some Republican, and it could well be Trump, and it could well be DeSantis, and I guess we'll talk some about that today too, 1-8-Prager-776, is going to save us from more of this.
either Biden 2.0 or President Kamala or President Pete Buttigieg or whoever the Democrats cough up in the contest that awaits them.
So all kinds of things to talk about.
I'm diving into your calls next.
Mark Davis in for Dennis Prager.
The Dennis Prager Show.
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It is the Dennis Prager Show for this Thursday, the ninth day of February 2023. How's the new year going with you?
I think this is our first opportunity to hang out together here in the Prager Show environment.
Always great to be here.
Mark Davis from 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas-Fort Worth.
You know, I went through an entire first segment talking about State of the Union, various things, what lies ahead politically for all of us, etc., etc.
The words Chinese spy balloon did not even leave my lips.
How crazy is that?
Oh, we'll get to that.
I have a thought or two or three or four about all of that.
But let's let some people on the radio.
Let's mix it up a little bit and see what everybody's thinking on this Thursday.
Again, phone number is 1-8-Prager-776.
1-8-Prager-776.
Let us head into Wisconsin.
Chuck, Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you, sir?
How are you doing, Chuck Delvin?
Hi.
I don't watch the addresses anymore.
The last time I watched one was when Donald Trump was honoring Ryan Owen.
He was a member of Steel Team 6 that went in and was killed in a raid.
And not one Democrat stood up and applauded for her.
When you can't stand up and applaud for the widow of a veteran, of a military man that gave his life for our country, that's when our country died.
I'm trying to remember every bit of the film roll of memories from that.
Are you sure that an absolute salute, big tip of the cap to somebody who has that kind of service and there really was a Democrat lack of participation in that moment of applause?
They did not stand up.
Not one.
Not one Democrat stood up.
Okay.
Because I think generally speaking, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, it's funny because there have been some pretty divisive honors given in the gallery.
The day and the occasion of the Medal of Honor given to Rush Limbaugh, for example, meant the world to me.
Let's spend a second on this.
And if you want to, we can delve into this because I had a lot of conversations on and off the air about this, about Tyree Nichols' parents in the gallery.
It seemed like, okay, let me take it in order.
First of all, if, as the gentleman said, if there's something, if a cop, a member of the military, somebody who's suffered some kind of loss, somebody who is, it's heroism, objectively speaking, it's not partisan, it's not something just Democrats should like or just Republicans should like, then that should get a burst of love from everybody in that admittedly divided room.
In the case of the Limbaugh Award, obviously Democrats hated everything Rush stood for, everything that he said.
Was that kind of a one-sided honor?
I guess so.
Of course, he was in the process of dying.
I try to think if there was some Democrat awarded.
I mean, there is no Democrat counterpart.
I mean, who has delighted and...
And entertained and thrilled liberal audiences on radio for 30 years like Rush did for conservatives.
I mean, that was kind of the whole point.
And a lot of people might say, well, maybe those opportunities didn't arise, you know, that conservatives kind of own talk radio.
I mean, the marketplace is what it is.
You remember Air America?
Air America was a bunch of liberal hosts, among them Al Franken, we remember him.
Al was better on the radio than he was in the Senate because Al at least had something resembling a sense of humor then.
And liberal talk shows have not failed because there's no – zero marketplace for them.
The people who have tended to have – and this is not a commentary on countless liberals who may be hosting shows maybe in your town, wherever you're listening.
I am aware of a lot of local liberal hosts who are thoroughly entertaining, who I've listened to.
Over the years.
Yet when they get national gigs, they become these preachy, scoldy, unpleasant souls, and that's why national liberal talk radio failed.
Anyway, though, if there were some liberal icon of, I don't know, Hollywood or something, I don't know, and I'm a Republican congressman and they brought them into the gallery to get, sure, I'm going to show some decency and some grace and some appreciation, whatever.
On the notion of Tyree Nichols' parents there in the gallery, what exactly is that gallery invitation for?
What has it been for?
Usually it is to show the nation's appreciation for something you have done, again, for heroism, for service, for any one of a number of things.
It has not tended to be.
Something we do of the moment because we're really sorry what happened to you.
Because leading up to this, a lot of people ask me, do I mind Tyree Nichols' parents?
Of course not.
Are you kidding me?
I lift them up in prayer.
My heart goes out to them.
And I guess, oddly, it was that persnickety Bill Maher.
On his always intriguing program, especially this past Friday, where he spent the last few minutes comparing the current woke mob to Mao's China, to the re-education camps you can find with the ascendancy of Mao Zedong.
This is Bill Maher, a dyed-in-the-wool, Trump-hating, climate-cultist, pot-loving liberal who still had clarity on that.
I'm kind of a fan of that man's work.
Anyway, though, he was talking about, with his guests, talking about Tyree Nichols' parents being in the audience for the State of the Union.
And he said it struck him as kind of tragedy porn, like just something that was to make a point or to elicit a response or something.
And presidents can invite whoever they want.
I think generally it's a good move to show respect to whoever gets that invitation.
There certainly was not disrespect or any slight shown to Tyree Nichols' parents.
I confess I was uncomfortable.
And I think what made me uncomfortable is these are people whose hearts have just been ripped out of their chests by what had happened to their son.
Hey, listen, nobody forces you to come.
Although, do you really decline that invitation?
President calls.
You know, and I guess you go.
But it was like, I think it's because usually, usually in the State of the Union gallery, there is joy and appreciation for having been invited.
I mean, like a smile of appreciation.
Like, wow, thanks.
Glad I'm here.
And there couldn't be a smile from these folks.
There could be no joy from these folks.
Their hearts had just been broken and dashed against the rocks.
So, I don't know.
It's up to any individual president.
They can do whatever they want.
We're about a minute from the bottom of the hour.
Pause.
So when we come back on the other side of that, we're going to put more people on the radio, talk to them about a wide variety of things.
As I said, headed into the first segment today, that as a talk show guy talking about State of the Unions for many, many years, and I've done this for about 40 years, As a State of the Union approaches, it's like, oh, Lord, here this thing comes again.
And I don't know of what value it is, and I don't even know how much time people spend paying attention to it anymore.
And it kind of depends on whether it's a president you voted for or a president you did not.
And very little news is usually made in the actual speech.
It's not a news-making occasion.
It's a president generally spinning.
The premise that, hey, what I'm doing is great and you should want more of it.
You know, that's whatever.
It's what Republican presidents do.
It's what Democrat presidents do.
And the audience either buys it or they don't.
And the viewing public either agrees with it or they don't.
For this particular occasion, the approaching Biden State of the Union, I actively dreaded it.
Not just through the drudgery of having to watch it, but it's like, ugh.
It's going to beat me down.
He's going to say all kinds of things that I vociferously disagree with.
It's just going to be torture.
And it was.
It was every bit of that.
But a couple of good things come from it.
Number one, you get to judge, give a little grade if you wish, to the Republican response in this particular case, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was awesome.
Let's talk about her some, if you wish, 1-8 Prager 776. And the other is, if the president himself doesn't make news, sometimes the event does.
In this particular case, we had the heckling thumbs up or thumbs down, and also the reactions that people had, you know, etc., etc.
So, all in all, pretty good talk show fodder.
Mark Davison for Dennis Prager, more of you, next.
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800-221-7694 AmericanFederal.com AmericanFederal.com It is the Thursday Dennis Prager Show, this February 9th, 2023. Mark Davis with you today.
Glad to be here.
I'm the happy morning host at 660 AM, The Answer, in Dallas-Fort Worth, where this morning we are all over the place on continuing State of the Union fallout, if you will, Chinese spy balloon aftermath.
Congress will be briefed today on that infernal balloon and what it might have contained.
Some of that will be classified.
Some of it will not.
And let me grab another call or two, and then we'll do a little...
The line of the week, I have to tell you, came from my actual congressman, Dr. Michael Burgess of Texas District 26. I had him on the show.
It was like first thing after State of the Union yesterday morning, in fact.
And I said, so, Doc, how did State of the Union grab you?
He said, well, you know, it was an hour and 20 minutes of painful listening and all kinds of things to disagree with.
He said, but I have to tell you, on the balloon, That he actually did agree with the notion of bringing the balloon down over water, bringing the balloon down over the ocean.
And I reared back in my chair and said, good grief, is the connection okay?
Am I hearing this correctly?
Because the obvious narrative that I've had is it was terrible to let that thing traverse the United States.
It should have been blasted out of the sky way earlier.
And Congressman Burgess said, the problem was they shot it down over the wrong ocean.
A reference to the Pacific, the Aleutian Islands maybe, Alaska, somewhere before it ever got to the continental United States.
Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Alright, 1-8 Prager-776, 1-8 Prager-776.
We are in Atlanta.
Debra, hi.
Mark Davison for Dennis, how are you?
Hey, Mark.
I just wanted to remind you and your listeners that...
I don't know if it was the same state of the union, but in one of the states of the union, Nancy Pelosi ripped up Trump's speech for the whole world to see.
That was amazingly horrible.
And also one of them, I'm not sure if it was the same one, all of the Democrat, the squad and all of them marched in and sat down in all their white clothes and flailed their arms and made faces and were very disrespectful to Trump.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I just wanted to say I'm happy that the Republicans are standing up, showing some initiative and fighting for America.
It's only a handful.
We've still got the swamp and the ones that go along to get along.
And that's the only time people who watch CNN, NBC, All of the other news channels are going to hear the other side of it, and I hope they see that Republicans are fighting to save America.
I appreciate it, and thanks.
Okay, first of all, the Nancy Pelosi tearing up of her copy of the Trump State of the Union is the most disgusting thing I've seen in the State of the Union address ever.
If we're moving the bar...
Where it's okay for Republicans to shout back at the president, then consistency will require that we will be okay with Democrats shouting at President Trump or President DeSantis.
Because face it, I can't see it being anybody else.
That needs to be okay.
We can't go, they're shouting at our guy.
Because we're the ones who said that it's okay for Republicans to shout at Biden.
Then you get to think, well, but Biden is lying like a dog.
And Democrats will shout at Trump for telling the truth.
We'll shout at President DeSantis, if that happens, for telling the truth.
And you can triangulate that all day.
But the yelling, the heckling, is either okay or it's not.
If it is, then it is.
And we've got to take it as well as we give it.
The ripping up.
And as far as what people wear, wearing white or whatever, your behavior is sitting there in the audience, I couldn't care less.
But the ripping up of the speech.
You know, if Democrats themselves had said that that was bad, if Democrats themselves had said that that was a bridge too far, that that was something that no one should ever do while standing behind.
I had somebody call me and say that Kevin McCarthy ought to do the same to President Biden.
I said, no, no, no, please, please, please, please.
Can we keep some level of decorum?
The lady's point right there is the majority view in Republican land, I think, now.
It would be great if everybody was polite on all sides and we just sort of let people say what they're going to say and then we give them holy you-know-what at a press conference afterward.
But that's not America 2023. We want to give our feedback now in real time while the TV cameras are rolling.
Okay, if that's where we are, that's where we are.
And I'm okay with that.
What about you?
1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. Follow me on Twitter at Mark Davis.
In fact, I'm going to go take a look at a couple of those while you listen to this brief pause on The Dennis Prager Show.
Back in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
That it is.
And do stand warned.
If you fire it up visually, you'll say, hey, that guy looks nothing like Dennis Prager.
It's because he is, in fact, not.
I'm Mark Davis.
In from 660 AM, The Answer, Dallas, Fort Worth.
Dennis back tomorrow.
And then when you fire up the Salem News Channel, it'll be, hey, that guy does look like Dennis.
But we're doing a show that features the Dennis Prager audience, which is always a joy.
1-8-PRAGER-776.
A lot of State of the Union fallout.
Where does this leave us?
What are you thinking about?
When you talk about 24, you're really talking about 23. Because this coming year is going to be so action-packed.
I mean, your heads are going to be spinning.
All kinds of people are going to be starting to run for president.
Nikki Haley is apparently going to announce, I think, in about a week.
Number of people excited about that does not strike me as huge.
Mike Pence may throw his hat in at some point.
Number of people excited about that strikes me as not that huge.
Trump is already running.
People excited about that number in the significant millions.
DeSantis may announce that number strikes me as the significant millions.
Which number is bigger?
I don't know.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
And the Democrats are faced with whether or not Joe Biden is going to run again.
Judy Woodruff of PBS interviewed him, and he said, watch me.
It's no joke.
I mean, that's what I told the guy.
I'm serious here.
He said it is his intent to run, but there's been no official decision.
I would be glad to open lines for honest Democrats.
What do you want?
I had a guy who was a Democrat consultant out of Austin, Texas, on the show after State of the Union, just to be bipartisan about this.
And I asked him and said, look, you're a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat.
Do you want Joe Biden to be carrying the baton for your party?
And he said, you know, I've often thought no, he said.
But after that State of the Union, it makes me think Joe's the guy.
Okay.
All right.
Everybody's welcome.
1-8-Prager-776.
1-8-Prager-776.
We're in Seattle.
And Mary, that is you.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you doing?
Hi, Mark.
I'm fine.
Thank you.
Hi.
This will probably never happen, but I wish the president would go back to the previous practice of submitting the State of the Union report to Congress in writing.
I know.
The Constitution doesn't require speech, and it's become such a circus that maybe a year or two of that would tone the silliness down, but it probably won't happen.
Well, no, but here's the...
A, it probably won't happen, and think about America today.
Let's say somebody...
Let's say...
Well, God knows it won't be Trump.
He'll live for State of the Union.
Let's say DeSantis or whoever Republican wins and chooses, you know what?
This State of the Union stuff is a spectacle.
I'm just going to submit something in writing as the Constitution requires.
We're not going to do it on TV.
And let's say that's the case for two or four years.
But let's say his Republican successor or after eight years, hopefully, or a Democrat successor says, nope, I'm going back on TV.
That will be met with the biggest.
It'll be like a pent up demand and desire.
It'll be the first truly interesting State of the Union in years.
It's like a law of physics.
I don't think anything can keep this thing off TV at this point.
Yeah, I wish it just would become a little bit less of an imperial circus, though.
If people are losing the decorum, it kind of misses the point of what the thing is supposed to be doing.
Yes, you can.
And bring those dreams always here to the Dennis Prager Show, whether he's here or I am.
We appreciate your dreams.
This is not where dreams go to die.
I will kill some of them if I think they're completely unrealistic.
No, but I kind of go back to...
To what I said before, as State of the Union approached, that was my mindset.
Oh, Lord, this again?
I have a professional responsibility to watch the infernal thing.
My brain will be leaking out my ears after 30 minutes, I'm sure, and they were, etc., etc., etc.
But then, once it was done, and once we got Biden out of the room, which took forever, there was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whom we would not have heard but for the State of the Union.
And I was grateful for that, because she...
Was awesome.
And also, doesn't it always kind of give us material?
Doesn't it always?
I mean, you know, those of us who are in this line of work, we may dread it going in, but we make hay out of it coming out.
Because I did a whole post-State of the Union show yesterday.
Here we all are again today.
Because it's not so much about the speech.
The speech, however tedious it may become.
It is a touchstone of what the president wants to say at any given moment.
And generally speaking, it's an opportunity for us to talk about things going on in the news and stuff that a president says and things that are happening.
And that's always time well spent, isn't it?
And by the way, you don't have to watch it.
You know, I think I'd rather have it out there and have the pageantry happen and have the heckling happen and have the pushback happen and have the response delivered by whoever it's delivered by and let people pay attention or not to whatever degree they wish.
All right, heading into our final segment of this hour and then working our way toward hour number two.
Phone number again is, of course, 1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. And follow me on Twitter at Mark Davis at M-A-R-K Davis.
You know, the polls have been out for a bit.
Should Biden run for re-election?
Let me give you the overall and then the Democrat voters.
Overall, it's 78-22, no.
78-22.
Let's ask Democrats.
What do Democrats think?
Should Biden run for re-election?
62-37.
62-37, no.
What are they going to do?
Because it reflects back on all of us on how we run as we look at 24. Mark Davison for Dennis.
Be right back.
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Mark Davis in for Dennis Prager.
Dennis back tomorrow.
It is the Thursday, February 9th show.
Glad to be here.
I'm the host of the morning show on 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas-Fort Worth.
And every once in a while on really blessed days, I get to knock out that show.
Come upstairs and do this one.
Not a bad gig.
Glad to be here with you.
1-8 Prager 776. We're pretty wide open from balloons and 2024 tickets and State of the Union aftermaths, a plural, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her future, which was certainly brightened by a superb delivery there during the GOP response.
I will mention something, and I wonder if any of you overanalyzed along with me, because I don't want to overanalyze, I don't want to underanalyze, but there she was telling that wonderful story about going with President Trump.
Trump in Melania to Western Iraq, but she never mentioned him by name.
And I thought, hmm, I mean, you know, it was conspicuous by its absence.
And I don't want to overanalyze, like I said, or read things in that she did not intend.
But then she did on more than one occasion talk about the thirst for a new generation of Republican leadership, which the soon to be 80 year old Donald Trump would not seem to embody.
Just saying, I don't know.
So I don't know.
I don't want to read too much.
All right, let's see what you've got here at 1-8 Prager-776.
1-8 Prager-776.
We are in Ventura, California.
Paul, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How are you?
Hi, Mark.
Good morning.
This is Paul.
Hi.
Hi.
I've been contending for the last couple of years since the election was obviously divorced that the ticket, the strongest ticket, I want to get your take on this.
The strongest ticket wouldn't be a Trump-DeSantis or, you know, dividing them into a Trump versus a DeSantis.
What about a DeSantis-Trump if Donald could take the vaccine?
Well, you just answered your own question.
Trump is not interested.
Having been president and being Donald Trump, he has zero interest in being anybody's running mate.
I would get that.
But could you imagine the power of having DeSantis run interference?
Well, no doubt.
But what is it that makes you – do you hesitate at the inverse of that, of Trump and DeSantis bloody each other during a crazy primary, Trump prevails, and then asks DeSantis to let bygones be bygones, come be my running mate?
No, not at all.
Is that okay?
No, no.
I'm just thinking that – I'm saying to take a look, perhaps a philosophical look, speculative look, at having the converse of that.
But you know it's impossible.
It's like dividing by zero.
It's not mathematically possible.
Trump will not be anybody's running mate.
I'll tell you somebody else who might not be interested in being anybody's running mate.
DeSantis.
It's interesting.
And also a lot of people say, a lot of the people who are very juiced up about Trump right now, and boy, I can totally understand why you would be.
And they kind of want to, since Trump is running, they kind of don't want DeSantis to, partly because they don't want to see these guys who, dirty little secret, which is not a secret at all, virtually everybody in the Trump base loves DeSantis.
It's like, wow, look at this.
You know, this is wonderful.
And they admire him and they love the way he's been governor of Florida.
I would hope that if he were the nominee and winds up beating Trump in a primary, they'd somehow lick their wounds and get over that and be okay with that.
But that's why so many people do not want to see them.
You know, throwing bricks and bats at each other for months and months and months in the primary.
That makes a lot of people say to DeSantis, hey, you nice young man.
You're awesome.
You'll still be awesome in four years.
Let's let Trump have this one.
Let him take his second term to which he is entitled.
And then, since he can't run anymore after that, then your time comes in 2028. Sounds great!
The problem is he won't be governor of Florida then.
He's not going to be governor of Florida in 2028. It's the Barack Obama lesson.
The Barack Obama lesson, you've got to strike while the iron is hot.
And the iron will never be hotter for Governor DeSantis than it is now.
Now, this is not me saying that I somehow totally 100% know that he's going to run.
It will be crazy shocking if he does not.
Listen, I've seen it happen.
I was here in 1994 for the election of George W. Bush as governor of Texas, and then for his re-election in 1998. And every single one of us knew that on his way home from his second inaugural ball in January of 1999 in Austin, that he was totally putting together the campaign to be president of the United States.
And we didn't mind, because everybody that loved Governor Bush thought they'd be on board for President Bush, and that's fine.
So is that...
DeSantis' inaugural address was filled with national-level stories meant to resonate across a national audience.
It looks like one way or the other, we will be treated to this.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
Be right back.
Conducting the show you should be listening to, and obviously are at the moment if you're hearing me say these things.
I'm Mark Davison.
For Dennis, great to have you here.
Our telephone number is 1-8 Prager 776. A broad roundtable has broken out on various things, political, social, cultural, aeronautical, all kinds of things.
And we will continue here on the phone lines.
Next up, we are in Tampa.
Hey, Kathy, Mark Davis, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
How are you?
Fine, fine.
How are you?
Good, thanks.
Good.
Yeah, I love listening to Dennis Prager and I love listening to you.
But I do want to correct you.
Donald Trump is not near 80. He is 76. That's four years away.
You know what?
As somebody who's 65, I don't want to hear that I'm near 70. So here's the deal.
The young lady here is referring to what I was talking about, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and she referred to a new generation of Republican leadership.
And I said, maybe that is meant to exclude the soon-to-be-80 Donald Trump.
He'll be 77 this year.
He will turn 80 the year after the inauguration.
But you know what?
You know the most important thing as we take a look at the calendar is Donald Trump at 80 is more energetic than a lot of people at 40. There's a lot of ways to be 76. I mean, I hope I got the energy when I'm 66 that Trump has now.
So absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, man.
Thank you.
Appreciate it a lot.
And we are next in Seminole, Florida.
Hey, Carmen, how you doing?
Better than I deserve.
Thanks.
Very Dave Ramsey of you.
Yeah.
I'm 85 years old, and I grew up in housing projects in Chicago.
And you want to talk about corruption.
The precinct captain, the Democratic precinct captain, came into the housing projects before an election.
I sat down with my parents at the kitchen table and explained to them how fortunate they were that the Democrats were looking out for the working man and providing these wonderful housing projects for them to live in.
And they should get down and vote and be sure to vote.
And if they had a problem and they got there and they were confused, he'd be happy to step into the polling booth and pull the levers for them.
Some kind of them.
I remember that like it was yesterday, because the last thing he did before he left was he put a $20 bill in front of each one of them.
Now, in 1947, that was a lot of money.
That was some money.
Yes, sir, it was.
That impressed me.
When I was in my late 30s, I was living in a suburb, and a friend of mine was running for office, local office, as a Democrat.
And I went out, and I started banging on doors for him.
And it was a national election coming up, and Mayor Daley decided he wanted a good show in the whole area, not just in Chicago.
So he sent somebody out to help each of us work our precinct.
After I was introduced to this guy, we walked outside.
The first thing he said to me was, how much money do you have?
I said, I don't know, 20 bucks?
You know, what do you need?
Perfect.
We'll take it.
How much money do they give you to work your precinct?
They don't give me anything.
He said, well, they give me $500 when I work my pre-season in Chicago.
I put $200 in my pocket, and the rest I buy for.
You silly, naive man.
Exactly right.
That was a lesson.
Hey, listen, to what degree is this maybe still happening, only with different means of throwing money around in the great city of Chicago?
Thank you, man.
Appreciate it very much.
Gentlemen used a bit of language that was used by an earlier caller that seems fused to...
Democrat messaging then and now.
Let's spend a second on it.
It is the term we want to do something for the working people.
It used to be back in the day, you know, the Democrats are the ones looking out for the working man.
Now, of course, it would be working people because guess what?
Women work too.
We need to put a torpedo through this.
Don't let Democrats offer themselves up as doing something for work.
First of all, what's the definition of working Americans?
Isn't it everybody with a job?
Isn't it people from burger flippers to entrepreneurs, from people making 20 grand to people making 20 billion?
I know there are people sitting on their haunches who don't do much, you know, and they're not chopping rocks for a living.
But they worked in order to get their money, and their money deserves respect, and they deserve not to be robbed.
My point being that when you talk about what I want to do for working people is I want to give them more of their money back.
I want to give them more of their freedom.
I want to give working people their constitutional rights.
I want to give working people their religious freedom.
That's what I want to do for working people.
And none of that has anything to do with labor unions.
None of that has anything to do with a leftist Democrat agenda.
So do not for one minute.
Allow Democrats to walk around claiming that they somehow have the exclusive province, that they somehow have ownership of the notion of doing something, quote-unquote, for working people.
All righty.
We are in Indian Hills, Colorado.
And hi, DeeDee.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you doing?
Hello, Mr. Davis.
D.D. Wagner, former House District 25 candidate.
Pleasure to talk to you.
And I'm running again.
I'm running again.
Congrats.
So I wanted to just talk to you about your comment about President Trump and Ron DeSantis.
Ron DeSantis is an awesome Florida governor.
Florida desperately needs him with all the issues that they are dealing with.
Our country needs him to stay there.
But President Trump has really, really shown what he's capable of doing by holding those crazy world leaders...
Absolutely.
So let me ask you.
So in Trump, I beg pardon?
I don't know that DeSantis can't do it.
How do we know that Trump could do it before we elected him?
And the notion of America needs DeSantis to stay there, that is purely a Trump campaign slogan.
I mean, let's have both of these guys offer up what they offer.
Let's see what we think.
But you are right.
But you are absolutely right that in DeSantis, you have a guy who certainly looks like somebody who could be bold on the world state.
state actually looks like somebody who would would have the right instincts globally toward all these tyrants and all these trouble spots but in Trump you have someone who is a proven proven commodity Mark Davison for Dennis Prager be right back just when you thought it couldn't get any better Mike Lindell with my pillow is launching the my pillow 2.0 when Mike invented my pillow it had everything you could ever want in a pillow now nearly 20 years later he discovered a new technology that makes it even
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Oh, that works well.
On a clear day, interspersed with Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying USA, USA. What she did at the end of a very moving story about visiting the troops in Iraq with, what was that guy's name, yeah?
Oh yeah, President Trump, whom she did not mention by name.
I don't want to overanalyze, don't want to overanalyze.
Alrighty, let's analyze some things that people bring us on the phones.
1-8 Prager 776. Mark Davis in for Dennis.
We are in Glendale, California.
Lily, hey, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How you doing?
Hello.
Hey, how are you?
Good, good.
Mr. Davis, No, he didn't.
Yes, he did.
When did he say that?
My staff is Google and it can be disproved.
Why do you believe that?
What memory do you have of him ever saying that?
I heard it and I heard it on the answer.
Okay, which I... God bless all of our stations, but I don't...
First of all, if that even were remotely true, people would bring it up all the time.
The most anticipated thing, now that Trump is already running, and the DeSantis possibility is looming so large, you'd hear it every day, four times.
Well, if DeSantis decides to run, he'd be going back on what he said.
Nobody says that, because DeSantis didn't say that.
If I may speak now, please.
It's about divide and conquer.
Okay?
I know that President Trump said what he said, and that was wrong in my eyes.
However, this drumming of DeSantis and Trump, it's to divide and it's to conquer.
And the reason DeSantis two years ago, because I remember clearly like it was yesterday.
He did not say that.
We have another hour of show, and if somebody brings me proof of that, then great.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Sir, if someone needs to call Ron DeSantis' office, I lived many, many years in Florida, and DeSantis is not going to abandon Florida.
Also...
It wouldn't be a...
It's not his time.
It's his only time.
He's striking while the iron is hot.
I mean, it will be up to voters.
You know what?
It ain't going to be up to you.
It won't be up to you or me.
It will be up to voters.
Voters will decide whether it is DeSantis' time if and if he chooses to run.
Listen, I'll do some Googling during that because I've got to tell you, I have zero memory of DeSantis ever pledging...
Nikki Haley said...
I don't care.
People get to change their minds.
But did DeSantis ever say he decidedly would not run?
That's a no until somebody proves it otherwise.
So hey, one more hour to go.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Thursday, hour number three of the Dennis Prager Show.
Mark Davison for Dennis, the always convivial morning host at 660 a.m.
The Answer here in Dallas-Fort Worth.
My, we have had the time today.
Lots of talk about the balloon looking back a couple of days.
Lots of talk about the Biden State of the Union, both of which had a deflating effect.
It's just the aftermath of that.
Looking ahead to this amazing political year where we'll get all kinds of people announcing for president.
And, of course, the cataclysmic year 2024 when we will do our best to prevent either Biden 2.0...
Or President Kamala or President Pete or whoever the Democrats choose to cough up.
Speculation runs deliciously rampant on all of those things.
And if there's some other angle, some other story you'd like to bring us, glad to do it.
Mark Davis on Twitter, at Mark Davis, if you want to hit me up there and take a look during the breaks and see any things that people want to offer to us.
But the best way to offer us things is with your phone calls at 1-8 Prager-776.
1-8 Prager-776.
Alright, so last segment, last hour.
This is, I don't want to project motivation on anybody because I'm not a mind reader, but there are, as a fan of the Trump presidency and as someone interested in making sure we follow up this presidency, this nightmare with the most conservative remedy possible.
And we have Trump running and could have DeSantis running.
So the news of the destination seems good.
But the path along the way could feature the spectacle of Trump and DeSantis beating the holy you-know-what out of each other.
And nobody should want that, except Democrats.
If somebody is all in for Trump and has no interest in DeSantis, that's fine.
People suggesting, you know what, Trump's the proven quantity.
We know he can do it.
DeSantis, God love him, seems like a nice young man, good Florida governor, but I just don't know that he can do it.
He says good things, does good things in Florida, but given DeSantis or the real deal in Trump, who has done these things, give me Trump.
That is a thoroughly politically, intellectually honest and principled thing to say.
Here's the weirdness.
There's some folks who are not just, you know, Trump admirers and all other things being equal, you know, don't want the competition of DeSantis.
Maybe that's what's driving it.
But they're making crap up.
I get the occasional call from somebody who says, yeah, Mark, I'm worried that DeSantis is a rhino, that it's kind of a Trojan horse.
What?
And I ask these folks, what evidence in any universe do you have of that?
And they fall curiously silent.
So then they come up with other peripheral arguments.
And one of them is that Trump, first of all, that anybody who cares about this, that DeSantis said he wouldn't run.
Well, Nikki Haley said she wouldn't run.
She's about to start running in about a week.
You get to change your mind.
But the lady said she swore up and down.
She heard DeSantis, like a couple years ago or something, say he would not run if Trump did.
My assertion in reply is that no, he's never said that.
We do hear what we wish to hear.
And sometimes we make stuff up.
To be fair here, I have heard DeSantis wave off speculation.
People have been asking him for two years.
Longer.
Are you going to run for president?
We've heard you're going to run for president.
And he has distanced from that speculation, waved off that speculation.
And in fact, we have audio of that.
Sean, if you got that, here's DeSantis like a year ago, just not wanting to talk about it.
This has nothing to do with any...
All the speculation about me is purely manufactured.
I just do my job, and I hear all this stuff, and honestly, it's nonsense.
So, you know, I don't really know what to say to the rumors.
Ta-da!
So that's him saying nothing to the rumors.
But is it him saying, I won't run if Trump does?
No.
Because, and again...
And here's what we're going to do.
I've got 14 other things to talk about with 25 other callers.
If you can, like, I'll tell you what, shoot me a link of him saying that, because that'll prove it.
Don't just tell me, I'll remember it, because na-na-na.
In the era of Mr. Internet, we don't have to go on that.
Shoot me a link of Trump pledging not to run if Trump does.
Now, here's what lies ahead, I think, for Brother DeSantis in the coming weeks and months.
Tons of people are going to ask him all the time.
Are you running?
Are you going to run?
Are you going to run?
He will say, as George W. Bush did in the early days of 1999, I'm not thinking about that.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm just focused on my job.
Governor of Texas in Bush's case.
Governor of Florida in DeSantis' case.
Well, Bush said that throughout early 1999, and then about 10 minutes later announced for President of the United States.
So the saying you're focused on your current job is not pledging that you won't run.
Saying that the rumors are baseless is not pledging that you won't run.
Now, by the way, let me put a cherry on top of all of this before we start to go back to your calls.
Is it a possibility that DeSantis doesn't run?
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
It would strike me a little weird because it seems like every single thing the guy does seems to be aimed toward a national audience and a pretty hungry national audience at that.
But you don't know until you know.
Know what you don't know is one of the smartest things you can ever do, is to be aware of what you don't know.
And don't think that anything is certain until it actually happens.
Alrighty, we are in New Jersey.
Dean, hey, Mark Davis, welcome.
In for Dennis, nice to have you.
How are you?
Yeah, good to talk to you, Mark.
I listen to you all the time.
Thank you.
You know, it's not going to be Nikki Haley.
It's not going to be Ron DeSantis.
It's not going to be Tim Scott.
You know who it's going to be running against Trump?
Mike Pompeo.
He's got everything those guys got, plus experience.
I'm all for Trump.
I hope Trump goes in, but it's not Pompeo.
So if, so to be honest, I love, this is like, I love the speculation game.
I love it.
Is this your assertion that even if DeSantis runs, that Pompeo will outstrip DeSantis, that the last two guys standing, you know, in May of next year will be Trump and Pompeo rather than Trump and DeSantis?
Without a doubt.
Why?
And I'm a Pompeo fan.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I'm a big Pompeo fan.
Go ahead.
Yeah, here's what it is.
Mike Pompeo has the tact and the smoothness of DeSantis, but he also has the animalistic gut that Trump has.
Nobody has what Trump has.
Correct.
He is unique.
Completely unique.
There's nobody going to be Trump.
Correct.
If you put those guys all together and it's not going to be Trump, It'll be Mike Pompeo.
Do me a favor.
If I'm filling in for Dennis a year and a fraction from now, if this winds up true, call me and say, I am the guy who told you that.
Find me wherever I am.
This is bold stuff, man.
Bold stuff, and I appreciate it.
Here's my book on Pompeo.
If...
If DeSantis were not running, or let's say if Trump...
Here's what Pompeo has.
Pompeo has a unique basket of gifts as well in the following way.
If somebody's ready to turn the page past Trump, but really feels like we need foreign policy chops, there's Pompeo.
Because DeSantis, as awesome as he is in 43 different ways, does not come with a pedigree of foreign policy victories and foreign policy achievements.
All he would have is the right attitude, and that's all Trump had going in.
Trump didn't have foreign policy experience when he started out, but he had the right heart, the right spine, the right brain for doing what he needed to do to keep the world safe.
I sort of feel like DeSantis has that skill set, but I know that Trump does, and I know that DeSantis does.
I know that Pompeo does.
Every time I speak well of Pompeo, and I'll bet here come those calls.
You can still call me, but I may remove the need when I say this.
Pompeo is in love with this Ukraine war.
Man, find you somebody to love you the way Pompeo loves Ukraine.
And I just by that mean he is one of those folks who says, we're going to be in here as long as it takes.
We're going to be in here as long as it takes so that Ukraine can drive Russia out.
And by the way, Ukraine driving Russia out is a lovely thing.
We should all hope for it.
We should all want Ukraine to prevail.
We should all want Russia to be driven out of Ukraine.
How many years?
How many trillions?
You know, I think a lot of Americans, a lot of Republicans are growing weary of the blank checks.
And if you get out there and your foreign policy chops are awesome, but it involves forever wars in Ukraine, that may not work so great.
But to the gentleman's point...
So that's what Pompeo brings.
So Pompeo's foreign policy chops will need to mean more than what DeSantis brings.
And what DeSantis brings is Trump policies without the Trump unforced errors.
Man, is that a strong attraction.
So I don't know.
We'll see.
We will see, won't we?
It appears that we will.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
More of you are next on this.
Balloons.
Anything you like.
It's a busy day on The Dennis Prager Show.
Be right back.
The Dennis Prager Show.
It is the Thursday Dennis Prager Show.
Mark Davis filling in from Texas.
Hope all is well with you.
Our phone number is 1-8-Prager-776.
My tweeter is at Mark Davis.
We want to get a hold of me there.
Alrighty.
1-8-Prager-776 as we hop back to your calls.
And we are in Kentucky.
Scott, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How are you doing?
Happy Thursday.
I'm doing good, Mark.
I just got to say this about Governor DeSantis.
I look at it like this.
The people of Florida just voted for him by, I think, a great majority, if not an overwhelming majority, for him to be their governor for the next four years.
Now, in that, DeSantis has made a commitment to those people to be their governor for the next four years.
And to me...
When you make a commitment, you kind of expect it to fulfill that commitment.
And that commitment, as I see it as a governor, will take your full and undivided attention for that.
It's kind of like, Mr. DeSantis, your next season is four years.
Except he won't be governor then, and his opportunity may have come.
Listen, there's great truth in what you say.
There's great principle in what you say.
But it runs up against the way things work in the real world.
And pretty well everybody's okay with this.
And that is this.
That if somebody runs for governor, and like a couple of months after they win, they say, you know what?
I'm running for president.
People can either like that or not like that.
That's what Bush did here in my Texas in 1999. Nobody minded.
Nobody.
And if you go to Florida right now and find...
Every DeSantis voter.
And say, how many of you don't want him to run for president?
How many are going to say exactly what you're saying?
Oh, no, Ron, we voted for you to run things from Tallahassee.
There would be some.
No doubt about it.
There would be some.
But would it be a majority?
Nowhere close.
Am I still on?
Nowhere close.
Sure, go ahead.
Am I still on?
Of course you are.
Am I still on?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Of course you are.
Go ahead.
I'm not.
I'm not.
Saying he needs to do that.
He can do whatever he wants.
I'm just looking at it from, like, it's kind of a biblical thing, where God expects us, when we make a commitment to someone, we're kind of obligated to...
Listen, I'm going to tell you, if there's some contractual gig, if there's something...
Because what you say is so very, very true.
It's a basic of life.
It is a moral precept.
You're absolutely right.
In politics...
Almost no one expects this.
If he bolted from office to go be a CEO of some company, that might be one thing.
But the reason DeSantis won in Florida is people loved his policies, loved his ideas, and they loved them for their state.
The vast majority of those people would also love to see those policies.
And the President of the United States!
Now, some of the people who voted for DeSantis in Florida may prefer Trump.
That's fine.
The marketplace works.
These guys may offer themselves both up.
Trump already is.
But the notion...
But gone.
It's just gone.
The notion...
And it may never have existed.
That the only people who can run for anything is people who haven't been elected to something they owe the people every day of their four years.
Virtually no one views it that way.
And it's okay.
Yeah.
But...
I just want to turn it off.
Anyway, that's just what I have to say about it.
And you're right.
But it might also be that if you take this four years, and let's just go out on a limb here and say Trump wins.
So he stays governor for the next four years in the state of Florida.
He might get another big-time learning curve here.
Maybe, maybe so.
But he will not be actual governor in 2028. So you've got to strike while the iron is hot.
And look, I've been through this over the years a lot.
And it's the notion that if you run, that you're making a contract with the people, that you will serve every minute of every day.
To an extent, that's true.
Running for office means I will serve in that office.
And there's a very small list of exceptions.
Running for president has always been one of them.
And the number of people who are going to blister to Santa's, you sorry son of a gun, you said you were going to spend four years in Tallahassee, is an incredibly small group.
And honestly, most of them are probably just Trump fans who don't want him to run because they're scared of the competition.
We are in Minneapolis.
Todd, Mark Davis, thanks for hanging on.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
How are you doing?
Hey, Mark.
Thanks for taking the call.
Sure.
So, I was going back to...
Sarah Huckabee Sanders' comment about wanting to get the new generation leadership.
I think she was talking about Mitch McConnell.
Well, maybe.
But the number of people thinking about Mitch, relatively small.
The number of people thinking about the 2024 presidential bid, especially with her on the TV box, is huge.
Maybe so.
I mean, distinctly possible.
But she had to know that that comment might be viewed not as a specific slight to Trump, but as an overall thumbs up for Republicans born well after the Korean War.
Absolutely.
But, okay, so here's the other thing.
When the Republicans said that they were going to take over the House, one of the things that I remember people saying was they were going to defund the IRS agents that Biden wanted to hire.
Right.
And I'm almost positive that I've heard that someplace, that they said they were going to do that.
That bill passed.
It happened.
The House doesn't do anything.
They passed it.
Now we've got a Democrat Senate Democrat President.
So this goes on the list of really great things the Republican House is going to do that probably die.
But the idea is if people want it badly enough, then give us a Republican Senate and a Republican President.
So even though they say they're going to defund it, that won't stop it?
Well, the House doesn't defund anything by itself.
The House and Senate work in concert, and the problem is we have Democrats running the Senate.
And as long as we have Democrats running the Senate, this is going to be the story of the next two years, is the House will do all kinds of really awesome things, and many of them will die because we have Chuck Schumer running the Senate.
And others will die because even if something manages to get through, the Democrat quagmire that is the Senate, Joe Biden is still president.
And every once in a while, he'll manage to lean into the microphone and tell you if idea A or B or C reaches his desk, I will veto it.
I mean, no joke.
I'm not kidding here.
Corn pop.
I mean, I mean, I'm saying the guy, what he said, you know, I got to work on my Biden.
All right.
Working on more of your calls next.
Mark Davison for Dennis Prager.
USA. USA. USA. But just some nice, sweet, grown-up music in the background.
Mark Davison for Dennis Prager.
Hi, hope all's well.
Got to note the passing today of one of the great songwriters of all time.
The great Burt Bacharach passed away today.
The songs of Burt Bacharach and his collaborations with Hal David.
So many incredible records.
Nearly half of them recorded by Dionne Warwick, it appears.
But just some real love and celebration.
Maybe a little Burt Bacharach action coming back from the next break there, Mr. Sean.
Not to produce the music library for you.
Anyway, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
Great to have you here.
1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. Why don't we hop back onto the phones with you?
Follow me.
I will vote for a conservative for one very Trumpian reason.
Yes.
He choked.
What?
He lost.
What's the definition?
Well, did he?
Did he?
That's what he said of everybody else who ever lost before him, Mark.
So let's go with his own rule about everybody.
He lives and dies, but he was president.
If he got cheated, Mark, he was president.
He could have stopped it.
This seems a little juvenile to me, but I'm going to give you a chance at something here.
If you are indeed a conservative, who would you like to have as the Republican nominee?
DeSantis is probably the frontrunner.
I would vote for Pompeo.
I really like that guy.
I will not vote for Pence.
I am borderline on Nikki Haley.
Don't give me any of the rhinos that have popped up.
Well, then I have a final curious question.
A final curious question.
I appreciate you.
I sense actual conservatism, but what is your real gripe with Trump?
Because the one you gave me is obviously phony.
No, no.
And that's Trumpian.
It's Trumpian.
But listen.
And by the way, there's an...
I will explain it to you very easily.
I watched Donald Trump.
I don't know.
And, you know, he didn't have to agree with everything that those people were saying, but you know what?
There were good scientists out there with a conservative viewpoint that he could have had on that stage talking about the science.
He didn't say anything about the wackadoodle stuff happening in New York.
That is true.
I'm glad I asked.
I understand.
They killed people.
I'm glad I asked.
I appreciate it.
The guy beat himself, Mark.
That's a lot of people.
That's a widely shared...
Oh, gosh.
COVID rearview mirror.
COVID rearview mirror is a cruel, cruel exercise in optics.
It's not inappropriate.
I mean, who would have done better?
President Rand Paul?
Probably.
But isn't he about the only guy?
Oh, no, blister.
Well, listen, this is what Trump's going to try to do to DeSantis, is that I'd love to hear what this guy thinks when Trump blisters DeSantis for not having reached COVID clarity quickly enough.
All right.
Hey, breaking news.
We have news about the balloon having been fished out of the water, that it was indeed operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring U.S. communications.
Imagine that.
Let's see here.
Department of Defense reports that we know the PRC used these balloons for surveillance.
High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the balloon was capable of conducting what's called SIGINT, signals intelligence, collection operations.
U.S. officials disclosed new details about the balloon's capabilities.
A lot of it is still underwater and just ain't coming up.
So there we are.
The officials added that understanding the components of the balloon is vital intelligence and could be important pieces of evidence for future criminal charges that could be brought.
No kidding.
Well, if this evidence of the balloon, wouldn't it have been handier to bring it down over land then?
Wouldn't it have been?
I know that it drops onto hard ground or something and kills a cow in Montana or something, but the water damaged a lot of things.
Maybe waiting, that's reason number 20, why waiting was not the smartest thing in the world.
Listening to The Dennis Prager Show is smart, and we appreciate you doing it.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
and I'll be right back.
Thank you.
Just part of the Bert Bacharach catalog.
This amazing songwriter passing away at 94. This right here, B.J. Thomas, and raindrops keep falling on my head, one of, I guess, five actual number ones that Bert Bacharach and Hal David wrote.
Started out in 1968 with Herb Alpert and this guy's in love with you.
Then Raindrop to B.J. Thomas.
Close to you, Carpenters, the following year.
I mean, that's 68, 69, 70. It was about another decade before Bert and Hal had another number one, and it was Christopher Cross with Arthur's theme, Best You Can Do.
And then the other number one is That's What Friends Are For in 1986, which I guess was Dionne Warwick and Elton John and so many people on That's What Friends Are For.
Just an amazing, amazing Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder.
Just amazing work.
And then that's before you even get to Alfie and I'll Never Fall in Love Again, the look of love.
Burt Bacharach saluting him as a great one.
A great one passes away.
All righty.
1-8 Prager 776. All righty.
Dennis Prager Show, Thursday edition.
Mark Davis filling in from 660 AM, the answer.
In the big DFW, if you haven't got something you want to keep a hold of me, on Twitter, at Mark Davis, M-A-R-K Davis.
Appreciate you very, very much.
All righty, we are in Atlanta.
Vincent, that is you, and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
Mark Davis filling in.
Hi.
Hey, Mark.
How are you doing?
Good, thank you.
Yes.
I just want to tell everyone that when you find yourself on the same side as Paul Ryan and the Bill Barras and the Jeb Bushes, we need to really take a look at what we're thinking.
Because these are very serious times.
I mean, they stopped like 120 people on the terrorist watch list at the border.
I mean, 9-11 was carried out by 17, 18 people.
I mean, they found enough fentanyl there to kill all of us.
So we need a very serious, straight-up warrior like Trump.
To get in there.
And we can't be concerned with manners and everything.
This is very serious times.
Well, I don't mind if the president bringing those policies has sharp elbows and a brash tone, and Lord knows Trump had that.
Absolutely.
You've got to, and I think we're sort of seeing this now, at least to some degree, there's a lot of latitude that people are going to give to candidates who are going to bring them the policies they want.
But there's some things, I mean, this is, I don't mean to make too much of this, but I can't make nothing of it either.
The juvenile attacks on DeSantis on the Trump Truth social feed are just, people are bailing.
Now, how many?
Probably not many.
The entire Trump base is not eroding because he's being a jerk to DeSantis.
And by the way, he was a jerk to 15 other people running against him in 2016, especially Ted Cruz, and they all came around.
So it's not like there's nothing that's not healable down the road.
But somebody asked me this.
They asked me a really good question.
Why is everybody all bound up over the Trump versus DeSantis feud that nobody wants to see and nobody minded when Trump was at a feud with more than a dozen rivals in 2016?
It's that this is different because it's probably just one guy.
And in a huge field of 16, conservatives had some places they could go, but not many.
I mean, Chris Christie, please, what are you going to do?
Ted Cruz, I started out as a Ted Cruz guy.
I remained a Ted Cruz guy until Ted left the race.
Then my pivot to Donald Trump took about a millisecond.
I was like, okay, here we are.
Boom.
Never looked back.
This is awesome.
Now, though, we have millions, and I don't know whether it's 1 million or 30 million, or anything in between.
Of people who love the Trump policies, love the Trump results, but they might wonder if it's time to turn the page.
It might be.
We apparently had a call that dropped off.
I actually want to address the point she was going to make.
It was like, dude, get off the fence.
It's like you're sitting there giving all this stuff, stuff you like about Trump, stuff you might not.
Stuff you like about DeSantis, but doubts you might have.
Make up your mind.
Now, now!
Ma'am, it's February.
I'm not going to do any such thing.
Here we go.
Here's my byword.
Let the game come to me.
If you've made up your mind right now that you're all in for Trump, not interested in anybody else.
If you've made up your mind that you're all in for DeSantis, not in for anybody else.
Maybe you've made up your mind that you're all in for Pompeo or Nikki Haley or not interested in anybody else.
That's great.
That is your decision that you get to make on the timing of your choosing.
I'm letting the game come to me.
My choice is to say, okay, Trump, I know what he's got.
Oh, and I love it.
Let's see how this goes.
DeSantis, very promising if I find myself in the mood to turn the page, which I may.
I'm not committing to doing that, but I may.
So let's see what he brings.
And I'll be open to what everybody else brings, too.
But I just have to tell you, can you see anybody else being the nominee?
I mean, there's only one way.
That neither Trump nor DeSantis is the nominee in 2024. You ready?
I will say this in February of 2023. And that is if DeSantis does not run, which seems unlikely, and if Trump commits an unforced error, shoots himself in the foot, not the foot, in the brain, with an error so egregious that the base takes flight.
What's that going to be?
Some would argue if he hadn't done that yet, he's not going to.
And I will tell you, as repelled as I am by these stupid shots at DeSantis on Truth Social, that doesn't amount to that.
I get calls every day from people who go, that's it, I'm done with Trump.
I need 30 million people to do that for his candidacy to end, and I don't think that's going to happen.
So it's a drama yet to be written.
I'm letting the game come to me.
All righty.
1-8 Prager 776. Mark Davis.
Final segment.
Coming up in a moment.
The Dennis Prager Show.
The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup, I say a little prayer for you.
Multiple purposes here, of course, throwing some love to the late Burt Bacharach passing away at 94.
But here's the genius of Sean.
He said, we've got 50 Bacharach songs we can do that everybody knows.
How about I say a little prayer?
Especially since, here at the end of the hosting the Dennis Prager Show.
That is exactly what I often do, offering those of you in the listening audience the same prayer that I offer up to my local audience at the beginning of our exercise, a little after 7 each morning.
So I hope this is of benefit to you.
Lord, guide us and protect us as we face the challenges of each new day and this new year.
We thank you every day for this blessed nation and for your hand in creating it.
Fill our hearts with the energy to protect the freedoms which come from you, which our nation was founded to protect.
Let us navigate these troubling times with a positive spirit, treating others as we would like to be treated.
Lord, these are times of trial and challenge.
So lift us as we follow your word and work for a better America, where our Constitution is honored, our schools are safe, our elections are reliable, our borders work, where we protect the unborn.
And where we fight for the meaning and the intent of the two genders you created.
And where our differences are hashed out with honesty and goodwill.
And our freedoms of speech and worship are protected.
As we face each day's problems, give us the clarity to look around and cherish all of our blessings in our nation, our communities, and our families.
If we follow you, Lord, we know we can get through anything.
And we ask these things in your holy name.
Amen.
All right, speaking of giving thanks, I want to thank the aforementioned Sean.
Thank Rick, Video King, Suzette, for screening your calls.
Appreciate it very, very much.
So I think my inclination with, you know, it's like a minute and a half.
I don't want to give anybody short shrift.
Take it up with me.
Take it up with me personally.
On Twitter, at Mark Davis.
Always appreciate that.
M-A-R-K Davis.
I'll be back whenever they hit the bat signal up there in the sky when they need me to fill in for Dennis because it is always a joy.
Do you realize how valuable Dennis is?
I mean, I just mean, oh, I like the show.
No, I mean, very seriously.
I love the show.
Driving around listening to Dennis is one of my great...
When I ain't hosting the show, I'm listening to it.
But his intellect, his clarity, America is so valuable, and cloning it and spreading it is one of the great things we can do to save America.
His Rational Bible series, every book he's written, Back to Happiness is a Serious Problem, and before that, just the incredible things he has done.
Dennis will be back with you tomorrow.
Do not take this man for granted.
America's salvation lies in his big brain and his big heart.
Mark Davison for Dennis, thanks very, very much.
Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I'll see you next time they ask me to come do this, because it is always a pleasure.
Mark Davison for Dennis, always go to DennisPrager.com for everything you need in Dennis' world.
Have a superb day, and I'll see you soon.
Dennis Prager here.
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