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March 20, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:13:07
Bragging
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Dennis Prager here.
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subscribe at prager topia.com hello everybody a good Monday to you I hope you had a good weekend.
I came across a great term from a major thinker named Philip Reif, R-I-E-F-F. There is culture and there is anti-culture, and we live in an anti-culture.
Can't think of a more concise way of putting it.
Whatever tears down the culture, whether it's in the arts, in education, in medicine, politics, anything, is the anti-culture forces, known as the left or progressives or woke.
You pick your term.
What is happening now in New York, a city, the vanguard of the anti-culture, Which is ironic, given how much culture there is in the anti-culture.
Some of you may recall, probably few, because there's so much said.
That's why things need to be repeated, and yet I hesitate to.
What's happening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
Was it the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art?
Is that the name of it?
The Museum of Modern Art.
There you go.
It's not Metro.
Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
I should review that at some point.
Anyway, we have here an example.
It's important to understand.
The idea of setting a precedent involves humility.
That you ask yourself, is what I'm doing hurting the culture?
But that's not a question that anyone on the left asks.
Liberals on occasion might, but tend not to.
But leftists are outright opponents of it.
The ex-president of the United States is alleged to have paid off, and I believe he did, paid a woman money not to publicize their having had a one-night stand.
Something many, many married men who had the money would be happy to do because they don't want to hurt their marriage or their family or whatever reason, all of which would be understandable.
Remember during the Clinton era, we were told constantly, yeah, he lied under oath, but it was about sex?
That was the entire democratic argument.
Incidentally, I did not find that to be a stupid argument.
And for the record, I never came out for his impeachment.
I thought he should resign for the good of the country, but I never came out for his impeachment.
That's in the mists of history, but I thought that you might find that of interest.
I do regard the sexual realm as a unique realm, fraught with danger, fraught with human weakness.
And I try not to capitalize on human weakness when the country is involved.
And so he paid her off, and now he is...
How many years later is this now?
Seven years later?
How many years after the payment is he now being accused of a felony, by the way, because the misdemeanor charge has already expired?
By a man who lives to destroy the country with his hatred of it, and of course his hatred of Republicans, of whites.
The Soros-funded Alvin Bragg.
A man who allows violent criminals out of prison, but wishes to have a mugshot.
That's the aim.
A mugshot to humiliate the former president.
This has never happened in American history.
It happens in corrupt third-world countries.
We are a third-world corrupt country.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but that is what the Democrats have done.
The Democrats have made this indistinguishable from the corrupt banana republics, as some of them were called in Central America.
And elsewhere in the world.
The only difference between the third world corrupt America and the third world corrupt other countries is the fact that we are considerably wealthier.
But morally there is minimal difference.
Going after ex-presidents is A characteristic of the Third World tyrannies and dictatorships that exist.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal summarized it as follows.
It's impossible to overstate Mr. Bragg's bad judgment here.
Perhaps the local Democratic DA has discovered some new proof of criminal behavior.
But based on the public evidence so far, he would be resurrecting, I was right, a seven-year-old case that, by the way, how many of you know this?
Even federal prosecutors refuse to bring to court?
Just remember that.
As we wrote last week, the charge would appear to be falsifying business records to pay the mistress, Stormy Daniels.
That is typically a misdemeanor in New York State.
Though Mr. Bragg might bump it up to a felony by claiming the falsification was to cover up an illegal campaign finance donation of, what, $100,000?
It's a felony.
So he bumps up a misdemeanor for a Republican president, but he bumps down the felonies.
Of people who hurt people in New York City.
He is a scum human being.
In case you didn't know that really bad people exist, he is an example, Alvin Bragg.
And his mentor, the loathsome, anti-culture George Soros.
About as bad and non-violent human being as exists on Earth at this time.
So Mr. Bragg may indict a former president for the first time in American history based on the weakest of charges.
He would subject the country to a trial that would be a media circus for the ages.
We would be laughed at in half this world.
Think it will garner respect?
The ease with which civilization...
Is destroyed.
Is sobering, isn't it?
It's so hard to build and so easy to bring down.
What was this Alvin Bragg before Soros gave him the money to run for DA? Do you know what he was?
Did you ever hear of him before?
And he would do so running the risk that a single juror could block a guilty verdict and validate Mr. Trump's claim that this is a political prosecution.
Well, it is a political prosecution.
He paid off a one-night stand to keep quiet.
Yes, we know in America no one is above the law.
But prosecutors use their discretion every day not to bring charges for any number of reasons.
Mr. Bragg came into office vowing not to charge numerous nonviolent crimes against public order.
Is New York City one of the places where you could steal up to $950 from a store and it's only a misdemeanor?
Is that?
Do you know?
I don't know for sure.
It's worth looking up.
A wise prosecutor must consider the potential harm to confidence in the rule of law.
Confidence in the rule of law?
Dear editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, the Democrats and the left have destroyed that.
They did that in 2020, among other times.
The impunity with which people smashed and burned and hit and hurt and on occasion killed.
The impunity.
The celebration.
All the people in medicine who said, oh, it's fine if you don't wear masks and congregate to protest racism.
That's right.
We make medical decisions based on our political views.
Oh, and by the way, George Floyd was not killed because he was a black.
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For the first time in American history, a former president may be indicted.
And for what?
Purely political ends because he is a woke lefty who hates Trump.
The irony is, as many commentators have pointed out, it may actually ultimately help Trump because there are so many people who are angry.
And I am one of them.
It's not gonna cause me to vote for Trump.
If Trump is nominated, of course, I'll support him vigorously.
I have a lot of comments on my fellow Republicans and conservatives It seems that I would say about half of America's conservatives slash Republicans do not have a clear vision of what needs to be done, and that is destroy the left.
Either America survives or the left survives.
That's just the way it is.
And of course, I'm not talking about shooting or hurting anybody.
I'm talking about destroying leftism.
And that is lost.
The never-Trumpers forgot how damaging the left is, and the only Trumpers have also forgotten how damaging the left is.
They're both preoccupied with Trump.
I'm preoccupied, and you should be with America.
You should be preoccupied with the left.
The Republicans should nominate someone who will win.
That is all that matters, even if you don't like the person.
The sniping at other people in the Ukraine division, I, right now, The pathetic state of so much of conservatism and republicanism makes me wonder if there is even a chance of winning the next presidential election.
There are many Republicans who are so opposed to aiding Ukraine that they loathe Republicans who are for it.
That's astonishing.
I don't loathe the Republicans who are against aiding Ukraine.
They're my allies on every other issue.
Repeat after me.
They're my allies on every other issue.
If you can only win a battle with people with whom you agree on every issue, you will lose every battle.
The older I get, the more I realize how little reason plays A role in most people's thinking.
Passion, emotion are so strong that it is the minority that is rationally governed.
Yeah.
All right, this was the editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
Then they write at the end, Mr. Trump's calls for protests are irresponsible as well as against his self-interest.
I don't know if they're irresponsible.
Peaceful protests?
I don't know what they would...
I don't know what they would accomplish, but they're certainly appropriate.
You don't have to love Trump to loathe what is happening.
The smart play would be to allow the law while claiming his innocence.
If there is violence amid protests, Mr. Trump will get much of the blame.
But Mr. Bragg and his partisan cheerleaders will have touched off the whirlwind.
That's right.
That is correct.
1-8 Prager 776. When I think about what went on in the White House sexually during the John F. Kennedy three-year presidency, And the press kept quiet.
And by the way, I actually supported that.
I mean, I was a child, but I supported in hindsight.
I don't believe I need to know about the sexual sins of a president.
I don't know how it benefits the country.
See, I have an idiosyncratic view of such matters.
How does it help my society is a governing question.
Now, the most important question is, what is truth and what is lie?
Now, I wouldn't want the press to lie about what was happening, but not everything has to be covered by the press.
Was this country better off because we knew about a stained dress in the Clinton era?
I didn't like Mr. Clinton at all, and I don't like Mr. Clinton at all now.
But I did not believe that the country was better off for being preoccupied, and not all of you remember this, but many of you will.
It was preoccupied.
This was the dominant issue.
For months, I didn't cover it at all on my radio show.
At all.
I didn't think that nature or God had given me abilities to speak well, to think clearly, to think morally, in order to preoccupy myself with an extramarital affair of a president.
Then he looked at the country and lied to it.
That was tough.
Well, everybody, I'm taking a moment break here for something optimistic.
PragerU.
March is PragerU fundraising month.
We are making a serious difference.
Do you know that the New York Times writing...
about Elon Musk a few months ago, front page piece, and speaking about his saying things that sounded conservative, said on the front page, it sounds like Elon Musk has been watching PragerU videos.
Didn't feel a need to even identify PragerU, assumed that its readership knew about it.
And that is what it identifies as a person who has changed his mind, or of course, her mind.
They watch PragerU videos.
That was actually one of the great gifts the New York Times gave to PragerU.
We have a number of young people who act as presenters, people who make videos or podcasts or both for PragerU.
One of them is Aldo Batazoni, and you can see Aldo quite frequently in his ad with Amalapunobi, the two of them doing an ad that is aired on Fox News regularly on behalf of PragerU.
Aldo, you're a TV star.
Apparently, how do I look on the big screen, Dennis?
Yeah, no, quite fetching.
So are women sending you love notes?
You know what's funny, Dennis, is I actually get more messages from mothers telling me, hey, this is my eligible daughter.
Let me know if you want her number.
I find that so interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
Parents, well, it's to their credit.
They're worried about their...
A lot of their daughters seem to be disinterested, at least at this time, in finding a man to marry.
Do you find that, by the way?
How old are you?
I'm 23, and you know what?
I just published an op-ed in Fox News this weekend talking about the breakdown in relationships, especially among Gen Z. You know, a new poll came out showed that over 60% of Gen Z men...
We're single.
It's nearly twice that of single young women.
But I definitely find that, especially in my circles, young bachelors, good men are hard for women to find nowadays.
And so when they find one, they're flocking to them.
Well, my message to young women is good men don't grow on trees.
And the earlier you find that good fruit on the tree, pick it.
So anyway, you certainly come across great.
So what are you doing for PragerU now?
You know, we're making social content.
The big show that I've taken over is Will Witt's Man on the Street.
That's been a lot of fun.
I've just shot a documentary for PragerU about masculinity, about the boy crisis in this country.
You know, I'm writing for PragerU, getting the ideas out there.
And yeah, it's been amazing.
I started my career as a freelance independent journalist in Texas, exposing these...
Quote, unquote, family-friendly drag shows.
I know we've talked about it a little bit before, but I'm still doing that investigative journalism and trying to expose a lot of this predation that we're seeing.
So how does one find those videos of you at PragerU or YouTube or wherever?
Yeah, well, you can find them at PragerU.com, of course.
You can go to the App Store and download the PragerU app to get those videos right to you.
And yeah, it's been really exciting.
You know, Dennis, I really am glad that I have the resources and the backing and the team behind me that I do at PragerU because we do have these predatory adults in our society that are coming at our kids.
And so it's really, it feels good to have the team of PragerU behind me.
And like you mentioned, we have a fundraising event going on this month and PragerU donors have committed to...
Triple matching any donation this week.
So if you're thinking about giving to PragerU, now is the time to do it.
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Remember, good people are divided between fighters or among, to be precise.
Among fighters, those who help the fighters, and those who do nothing.
And helping the fighters is as important as the fighting.
Give us an example of one of the Man on the Street videos that you shot.
Well, you know, I actually shot one a couple weeks ago that we're going to be releasing next week.
The WHO came out and they said that they want to evolve into a more bug-based diet.
So I went to Hollywood Boulevard with some crickets and some banana bread and I wanted to find out if people would be done with this bug-based diet.
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I love it.
Let's try to play a little of that.
We'll dig it up.
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Hello, everybody.
Hope you had a good weekend.
I opened up the show last hour, noting, as the Wall Street Journal editorial noted, this has never happened before the arresting or indicting of a previous president.
But for the left, all presidents are shattered, or created, if you will.
Tradition means nothing to the people.
Who believe that they are the wisest, finest, kindest, most moral people who ever lived.
And that's what every leftist believes.
Ask any leftist you know, who is wiser than you who lived over a hundred years ago?
Be a very interesting question to ask them.
They would be hard-pressed to even name people who engaged in the realm of thought over a hundred years ago.
This started in the 60s with that true idiocy, never trust anyone over 30. That was my first inkling.
I was not a leftist.
Since I trusted Moses, for example, and he was 3,200 years old.
So I didn't find that a persuasive argument coming from the morons who made the argument.
I knew they were morons.
So, putting two and two together, Moses wasn't a moron, and they are.
I thought never trust anyone over 30 was truly stupid.
So, it's unprecedented, but it happens in all sorts of corrupt societies.
The left is the source of nearly all our corruption, using the government as a vehicle for politics.
It's exactly weaponizing government, as it's called.
That is what the left is doing in the United States, as was done and continues to be done in many third world countries.
Dividing Americans is their specialty.
Dividing Americans is their specialty.
The despicable human being known as Joe Biden, That there are Americans who still want to lynch blacks.
Just said that a few weeks ago.
The onslaught of hatred against white America is astonishing in its pure, undiluted racism.
Well, that's it.
That's, well, that's not it.
We'll fight back.
But this guy, Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded district attorney, that the woke voters of New York City put into power as he helps ruin New York City, a deserved act of suicide, I must add.
Chicago's committing suicide.
All the major cities are.
San Francisco is beyond the pale.
San Francisco, what are the millions of dollars?
What are they offering now?
What are they debating?
How much in reparations to blacks in San Francisco?
Five million.
Per person?
Yeah.
Five million dollars?
Yeah.
Isn't the city running a deficit?
Homes for one dollar.
And homes for a dollar and so on.
Well, what if you're a wealthy black, though, in San Francisco?
Do you still get $5 million?
Presumably.
And poor whites and poor Hispanics are paying the bill.
Well, I have zero sympathy for any of our major cities that are committing suicide.
The people have voted in people who are ruining it.
They deserve their fates.
The sad part is there is about a third of all those cities that doesn't deserve those fates.
When God said he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah to Abraham, Abraham said, well, what if there are 50 good people there?
And God said, oh, I'll save it.
There are 50, 40, 30, 20. Keeps arguing with God.
And then even 10. Yes, if there are 10 good people there, I won't destroy the cities.
And then Abraham stopped it.
After 10, it became pretty much impossible for good people to have much of an effect if there are fewer than 10. But there are certainly well more than 50 good people in all these cities, and they are the ones who suffer.
Through no fault of their own.
So what is being done to the president, the former president, is anti-America.
It's not just anti-Trump.
You don't have to like Trump.
You have to like civilization to be against this.
He paid off.
A woman to keep quiet over a one-night stand.
But he didn't properly list what expense it was, whether it was a campaign expense or personal.
For that, do you know that there is almost no one in the country who could not be indicted?
You know they have a saying, right?
A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich.
You ever hear that saying?
You ever hear that?
Yeah.
Yes.
By the way, Dennis in Tampa, I know that Clinton was impeached for perjury, not sex relations, but the entire issue that dominated the press was the sex relations.
I agree.
I agree.
That's why I was torn on whether he should be impeached, because he did lie under oath and he was the chief.
Judicial officer of the country, as it were.
I was torn.
I didn't come out for impeachment.
But I completely respected the arguments of those who thought that lying under oath as president was impeachable.
Certainly more impeachable than what Donald Trump was impeached for.
How many times was Donald Trump impeached?
Twice.
And every Democrat is proud of their party.
Well, he was never actually...
No, no, he was impeached.
He wasn't removed from office.
He was impeached.
Right.
So Mark Levin has come out in...
In strong support of aiding Ukraine, I 100% agree.
I have argued very similarly.
Here are some of his arguments as presented in Fox News.
So you have a choice if you are a Republican-slash-Conservative who believes that Ukraine should be allowed to be destroyed and conquered by Russia.
An odd position for a conservative to hold, in my opinion, but nevertheless, a lot of...
Fine people hold that position.
I don't quite get it.
If you want to argue otherwise, please do call in.
But he...
The reason that I'm noting that Mark Levin gave a robust defense of supporting Ukraine...
Is that a lot of conservatives who are against supporting Ukraine strongly admire Mark Levin.
For that matter, I would presume many admire me.
But it's easier for me to talk about Mark Levin than about me in this context, for obvious reasons.
So you at least have to stop this notion that you're not a real conservative if you are for aiding Ukraine.
Theoretically, Mark Levin would argue the opposite.
You're not a real conservative if you believe America should watch a country get destroyed.
A not small country.
Levin said, this is from Fox News, Ukrainians are engaged in a similar fight to that of the United States being aided by France in the Revolutionary War.
We would not have won the American Revolution without the help of the French.
The Ukrainian people are engaged in a similar fight to maintain their independence and their liberty.
They did not attack Russia.
They have not invaded Russia.
They have not set up concentration camps in Ukraine where they're bringing Russian children and women.
They've not entered Russia and have committed acts of systemic torture, which the Russians have to the Ukrainians.
Gang rape, hanging people from ceilings and bridges.
Brutal genital castration and electric shock treatment.
Decapitation, burning people alive, crushing their faces with sledgehammers, mass graves.
This is from a UN report, and the UN is hardly in the back pocket of the United States and Ukraine.
And it just came out.
And of course, the Russians are trying to freeze the Ukrainians by hitting energy sources.
They're trying to level their apartment buildings.
25% of the Ukrainian population has had to flee as refugees.
And as I said, many are being trained in Russia and being enslaved, tortured, and otherwise brutalized.
Ukraine isn't doing any of that.
The Life, Liberty, and Levin host added that when Russia took over Crimea in 2014 on a part of Georgia in 2008, quote, nobody lifted a finger to help.
I'll continue with his argument, 1-8 Prager 7-7-6.
Mark Levin has made a robust defense against some of the prevailing wins in conservatism.
I don't know what percentage of Republicans and conservatives are opposed to giving Ukraine any aid.
They're presumably disappointed in Mark Levin and me and others, and we're disappointed in them, but it doesn't matter.
You're my allies in fighting the left, and that...
In the final analysis is the biggest battle of all.
Not Russia, but the left and America.
There will be no America to aid anybody if the left has its way.
Its shattering of the armed forces with its promoting of woke policies in the armed forces, some of the lowest rates of Application to the armed forces in modern American history.
Everything the left touches, it destroys.
The military is the next victim.
Finland, he points out, which was neutral during, I'm quoting him directly from the Fox News piece.
Finland, which was neutral during most of World War II, is not neutral anymore.
Finland wants to get into NATO and Finland supports the Ukrainians and is providing them with whatever equipment they have.
Why?
Because they know Putin has designs on Finland.
How do they know that?
Because a year and a half ago, Putin said so.
A year and a half ago, he said so.
He also has designs on Poland and Romania and Moldova.
How do we know that?
Because he said so.
Why don't we listen to the man?
He went on.
Two world wars started in Europe and we took no action until it was too late.
We don't have any troops in Ukraine.
We don't have any jet fighters in Ukraine.
All we're doing is providing them with the support.
Kind of the support the French gave us during the Revolutionary War.
However, the French actually did more.
I'm perplexed by those who want you to believe and who believe you are stupid that this is a war here in the United States between the intellectual elites in Washington and everybody else, we the people.
And it's funny that so many people who say this went to private schools and Ivy League schools and they never went to war while they're pointing fingers at everybody else, Levin said.
Levin argued that it would be stupid.
To believe that if the U.S. were to withdraw all aid from Ukraine, suddenly everything would be better in our country.
How stupid is that?
Or suddenly inflation would be reduced?
That's even dumber.
Or suddenly all things bad Biden and Biden Democrats would turn around, but for what we're doing in Ukraine?
Why do people make such arguments?
Okay, just thought I would share that with you.
What bothers me is not that conservatives differ on the subject.
I can live with that.
It bothers me that the people who think we shouldn't be giving Ukraine any aid think that those Republicans and conservatives who do are rhinos, Republicans in name only, or neocons, or some other bad term.
If we start dismissing the decency of conservatives with whom we differ, we will lose every single battle.
And the left will continue to destroy the country while we destroy each other.
That is how I see it.
Okay, let's see here.
Let's go to Detroit and Mark.
Hello, Mark.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I wondered if you could address the parallels here that are just incredible.
You know, we went to Europe during World War I and turned the tide there against the oligarchs and the monarchists, you know, the former colonial powers almost, who we had freed ourselves from during our revolution.
And then we go and we fought, destroyed Germany, Italy, and so on, the fascist powers there.
Then we left hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Europe to prevent another horrendous ideology and system of the communist system from taking over Western Europe.
And I just don't think we can tolerate this kind of land war in Europe.
So you're agreeing with Levin and me?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I understand.
Okay.
All right.
Look, there isn't a single argument that I've heard from a man I deeply admire, Tucker Carlson.
And I try to hear him every, either hear or watch him almost every night.
So I have great admiration for him.
He's done a Prairie View video.
I've been on his show.
But I listen open-minded.
When he has Tulsi Gabbard on, I listen and I... Not a single one of the arguments makes sense to me.
And that troubles me.
We can't protect our border, so we shouldn't protect Ukraine's border is a non sequitur.
We don't protect our border.
That precedes anything, that completely precedes the Russian invasion.
We don't protect our border because the Democrats are intent on destroying this country as we know it.
That's why.
If we didn't give a penny to Ukraine, do you think that we would protect our border?
The argument makes no sense.
It's a completely emotional argument from a completely rational man.
I don't get it.
The United States, the greatest force for good in human history, is going to watch Russia gobble up a country that we promised we would protect if they gave up their nuclear weapons?
Unless it's just maybe truly conservatives have always had a streak of if you don't invade America, we don't bother protecting you.
Or we don't bother protecting those you invade.
I don't believe as a religious person that that is a proper position to take.
Do not stand by the blood of your neighbor as a biblical injunction.
Yes, we are the world's policemen.
Who would you prefer to do it?
China?
Saudi Arabia?
The United Nations?
Russia?
Somebody is going to be the world's policeman.
Who would you like it to be?
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
I cited you some of Mark Levin's comments on his latest show.
On behalf of aiding Ukraine, I only do that because at least those who are opposed to helping Ukraine should not smear Republicans who are for aiding Ukraine as neocons or rhinos, as they have been by some.
They're your fellow conservatives who have a different take on what should be done in Ukraine.
That's how I regard those who are opposed to it.
Tucker Carlson's other major argument that we can't risk nuclear war.
I take that argument very seriously.
And my take is that we should push for negotiations as passionately as we are pushing for aid to Ukraine.
It is impossible to overstate the damage that Joe Biden did by saying that Putin has to be removed from office or is an international war criminal or other such comments.
Biden is a bad human being, a truly bad man.
By supporting our support while he is president, It doesn't negate how bad he is as a human being or president.
However, I guess I should add a however.
So yes, we should be pushing for peace talks and figure out some sort of way to deal with the issue of we have to save Putin's face in order to have peace.
I'm not happy about it.
I don't ask what makes me happy.
I ask what makes me happy in my family life.
Or in what book I'll read next.
But not in what positions I take.
Alright, let's see here.
We have a Finn calling in.
Eric in North Carolina.
Hello.
Hello?
Yes, hello.
Hi there.
Are you first-generation Finnish-American, second-generation?
Yeah, so actually, I was born in Finland.
It doesn't sound like it.
I'll test you.
I'll test you.
you.
How do you say restaurant in Finnish?
Anteeksi.
Kyllä mä puhun suomis aika hyvin.
Restaurant voi sanoa miten halua.
Isn't it ravintola?
Ravintola.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
You kind of got me on the spot.
That's all right.
I believe you're finished.
Don't worry about it.
Go ahead.
Yeah, no worries.
So, yeah, no, I was listening.
It's interesting because, you know, I'm Republican, conservative here in the U.S., considered in the U.S. conservative.
And I have the same feeling, you know, I'm a big Tucker Carlson fan.
I just disagree with the whole premise that we should not be helping the Ukraine.
And that comes from the historical part of knowing the Soviet Union in the past.
I'm sure you know some of the Finnish history from the Winter War to the Continuation War.
My family was part of it.
My mother's side of the family is from Vipuri.
Originally, now Weber, part of Russia, sorry.
I have a tendency to still call it the Soviet Union.
You know, in a different format.
But knowing that history, I just know how they are.
Yes.
Well, look, I use Finland, and for that matter, Sweden, as the examples.
Why do they support aiding Ukraine?
They're more in danger from Russia than we are.
They're right there.
They want to join NATO, they're so scared of Russia.
Are they rhinos?
Are they neocons?
Okay, let's see.
I'll take a few more on this.
Okay, well, I've got to go to a break here.
There are a lot of issues that I want to bring up.
We don't lack for really important issues, do we?
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
I have a very interesting man who just put out a very interesting book, David McCormick, Superpower in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America.
Man, can we use that?
David McCormick served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest global macro-investment firms.
Then he pursued the U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Pennsylvania.
And he was a U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs in the George W. Bush administration.
Anyway, he has a very long and storied history.
He was at the U.S. Military Academy, former Army officer, veteran of the Persian Gulf War, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton.
The only part of his bio that I do hold against him.
By the way, in light of that, David, this is meant seriously.
Princeton's deterioration is very, very sad, and I'm sure even sadder to you as a graduate.
Do you believe, and I'm not looking for an answer, I'm looking for your take.
Do you believe that saying that you went to Princeton has the cachet now that it did 10 years ago?
You know, I think what's happening in Princeton, but also across most of higher education, is a real tragedy in terms of the capacity to have a real open-minded debate around ideas.
And, you know, the University of Chicago, at least in my mind, is an exception with the statement that was put out, the need to embrace an environment where people are made to feel uncomfortable and have a real exchange of ideas.
So I think Princeton and many others have fallen prey.
To a very left progressive ideology, and it's a real concern.
Oh, one that I express almost daily here.
I went to Colombia, and I'm embarrassed, actually.
I truly...
Colombia was voted the least free college in the country.
And by the way...
Most people don't realize it's beyond hypocrisy.
It's almost fraudulent.
They won't celebrate Columbus Day, but they will keep the name of the College and University of Columbia.
Right.
No, these contradictions abound.
These contradictions abound.
I just do want to repeat, though, because this is purely a subjective question.
To say one has a PhD from Princeton, For 250 or 300 years, depending how old Princeton is, that had cachet.
Do you believe that it has deteriorated?
Oh, sure.
I think that, yes, PhDs from places like Princeton, I think, are now held in...
With skepticism because of the very reasonable thing.
So, in effect, my heart goes out to you on that.
I mean, not that you need that cachet.
You've got so much on your curriculum vitae.
But for those who actually worked hard and learned something, and now I have said...
I'm going to obviously get to your book, but it's really part of your book.
I mean, this is the superpower in peril.
This is an example.
That when I hear somebody now is a professor at any university, virtually any, I mean, there are some, Hillsdale and Grove City and some Christian colleges, I assume the person is profoundly foolish.
That's my...
My a priori assumption.
Right.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
It's part of what I talk about in the book, which, you know, the book is essentially saying America is in decline.
Our superpower is in peril.
And decline is not inevitable, but neither is renewal.
And it requires us to act.
This book is about the plan for action.
And in terms of decline, it's just as you said, there's economic decline, unprecedented levels of debt, 40-year high inflation.
The American dream is less and less available to people across our country in terms of the social mobility to move up.
In national security terms, we're challenged by China and the risk it poses as a techno-authoritarian state.
And we're challenged spiritually in terms of the role of the family, but also our institutions, our schools, our institutions of higher learning, our military, our businesses, all falling prey to this progressive ideology, which is undermining some very basic principles about America, what made it so special, so exceptional in the world.
And so that's what the book is about.
The book's a plan to tackle that by educating our people, by confronting China and securing America.
I'm not sure if we're on the same page on this or not, but despite the fact that the title is very ominous, and I believe we're at a very significant breaking point, the book's also optimistic because I believe that the American tradition is to get to the edge of the cliff and pull ourselves back.
And this book outlines a plan to pull ourselves back and save the country and move on in the right direction.
It's funny you said you just don't know if we're on the same page.
You meant the part about how perilous the times were in.
No, we agree on that.
Oh, that's funny.
Okay, you were right.
You're not sure I'm as optimistic as you are.
Well done, my friend.
You got me.
I was sure that it was on the other part.
Well, I'll just tell you in a nutshell, because you're the star of this interview, but I don't have much use for optimism or pessimism because both can stop you from fighting.
The optimist thinks, oh, things will turn out fine, why fight?
The pessimist, things will turn out lousy, why fight?
I just care if you fight.
I don't care if you're an optimist or pessimist.
Yeah.
I think that's a good way to say it because the book is saying two things.
Superpower and Peril is saying two things.
We've got to confront, and I appreciated what she said about emotion in making decisions and generating opinions.
We have to look and stare hard at where we are, and we are in a very precarious position.
And it's based on bad leadership.
It's based on ideas that have hijacked us, taken us in a direction that's really chipping away at all that made America great.
So we have to stare at that, acknowledge it, embrace it.
And then we have to be very tangible about a plan to go forward.
So we have to hold the past accountable.
We have to fight for a future that's going to replace and bring back many of those things that are slipping away.
One of the things that really, to go to our schools, which I know you have a deep expertise in, the history of America that's being taught in our schools.
It really runs counter to the America I know, the idea that America is a nation conceived in sin, as opposed to a nation that's been on a constant path of self-improvement and an exceptional country.
But if you don't believe, if you're not taught America is exceptional, then you don't grow up thinking that you've got to fight to keep it that way.
And that and the way the notions of sexuality and gender are being taught in our schools.
There's a whole generation of things that we saw in COVID, very up close and personal, that are undermining America.
And so one of the chapters in the book is about reforming education, about bringing back skilled workforce in a way that addresses some of the big gaps in our ability to compete with our adversary China.
And also just moving forward on a better understanding of what's required to be a citizen.
So folks, the book is Superpower in Peril.
David McCormick is the author.
I read to you some of his biography.
So here are some of the chapters, and they tell you a lot about what it is.
Part one is decline, renewal, and what comes next.
Decline is not inevitable.
That is a very important point, by the way, because a lot of people say, look, every great power, every great civilization ultimately died.
Obviously, Rome is the most obvious example.
I mean, look at what's happening to Christian civilization.
And I'm a Jew saying this.
I mean, it is...
You know, the European Union...
It created its charter a few years ago and it did not mention the word Christianity.
There would be no Europe without Christianity.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just a big lie.
No, I appreciate this more than any because my wife is a Coptic Christian born in Egypt and had to leave Egypt at the age of five to come to America to be able to practice her faith.
And if we don't fight for that, then around the world and here at home.
It will surely be lost.
You're married to a Coptic Christian.
You white racist, you.
It's just, it's so sick what's going on.
So, all right, we're going to get some of your specific plans.
We've got to take a break, so that's why I wanted to just tell people what we're going to do when we come back.
I want to get some of what you propose.
You're a thoughtful man.
The book is up at DennisPrager.com, Superpower in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America.
Back with David McCormick.
The book is up at my website.
The guest is David McCormick, and he was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania.
And he is a prominent man in finance, went to the U.S. Military Academy, has a doctorate from Princeton.
He's a thoughtful man, despite the Princeton part that I noted earlier.
Or at a time when there were some thoughtful people at Princeton, let's put it that way.
So I... He has this book out, Superpower in Peril.
It just came out last week, A Battle Plan to Renew America, which is exactly what we need.
And I love your chapter, Decline is Not Inevitable.
I think that's very important for people to understand.
Just out of curiosity, and there's no objectively factual answer perhaps, but what is your take?
The vast number of Americans who are working to hurt this country, whether it is in medicine, whether it is the abuse of children in the name of trans ideology, the military becoming woke.
I mean, there is no arena of American life where Americans are not devouring their own country.
Do you have a theory as to how that happened?
I think, first of all, I agree with your assessment in that the progressive ideology, wokeness, however you want to call it, is permeated all of our institutions.
And it runs counter to some basic principles that made America great in terms of merit and the role of America in the world and the need for markets to dictate how...
Capital is allocated as opposed to the government dictating how capital is allocated.
And a progressive social agenda.
And we see it in the schools, as we just talked about.
We see it in the military.
I mean, as an army officer, as a combat vet, you know, one of the things that is shocking to me is that under the Biden administration, the army came out with its climate plan before it came out with its warfighting plan.
And we see it in business where the ESG... Ideology has sort of hijacked the basic allocation of capital and that business was created for serving, first and foremost, shareholders and stakeholders in the sense of employees and customers, but shouldn't be a vehicle by which we're driving a social agenda.
I think it's a combination of misplaced, misconceived ideas, a lack of appreciation for what's made America great and weak.
Weak leadership that's been ineffective at pushing back and making the case for why America's future depends on staying true to some core principles.
One of the things I try to do in the book, Superpower in Peril, is lay out the policies that...
All right, so let's take a specific area.
American education is a farce.
So, forgetting colleges, what would you do about high schools and elementary schools?
Well, the thing that we saw during COVID was parents got a window into the curriculum that's being taught, into the role that teachers are playing in the lives of children, into the inappropriate lines that are being crossed.
And I think it's structural.
I think at the core of this is a monopoly, which is in the form of the public schools and the teachers' unions.
And the only way to overcome that monopoly is to break the back of that.
And that's where the concept of choice for students is something that's been around for a long time.
By the way, it's most advantageous to blue-collar kids like where I grew up or minorities because the well-to-do can afford to pay for schools.
But we have to have choice.
And there's a moment now, I think, post-COVID where you're starting to see governors like DeSantis in Florida, like Sarah Huckabee in Arkansas, take a much more active role at disassembling the education monopoly that exists in our public school systems.
We've been fighting that battle for a long time.
I think this might be the turning point.
Your extended family is Democrat or Republican?
They're all Republicans now, but they were FDR Democrats.
My family grew up in western Pennsylvania, and over time what happened was that The Democratic Party seemed far away from them and the party of Reagan seemed like the party they wanted to be part of.
But they were teachers.
So, you know, I'm pretty tough in my book on the teachers unions and how I think they're undermining America.
And I come from a family of teachers.
And I think the only way we're going to make our education systems better is to unlock teachers from this tedious, terrible jail they're in within the unions and let them play the role they should.
Within a competitive dynamic that allows people to pick schools that are best for their kids.
So your specialty is finance and treasury, etc.
So good.
So I want to tell you, I've never said this actually on the air, and I'm not even sure I've said it privately.
If I had to pinpoint one of my two, three greatest disappointments in my fellow Americans, It would be their opposition to raising the age of Social Security.
There is literally no moral or rational argument for not raising the age.
When it was done, people died at that age.
Now they live 10, 20 years longer, more.
We can't afford it.
We have fewer young people to put into the social system.
It is an utterly stupid, self-destructive, selfish act, and yet for any Republican or Democrat to even suggest it is considered to be writing one's political obituary.
Yeah, so I'd say a couple things on that.
First...
If you look at the social security system, you look at entitlements in general, mathematically it's unsustainable over time.
So I would concede that point to you.
But I disagree on a couple points.
One, the morality point.
So listen, people enter the social security system with a set of promises and expectations that they're paying into.
So one of the things we can't do is break our promises to Agreed.
But I'm talking about 45-year-olds who oppose it.
Yeah.
Hold on.
I want to restate your book.
Thank you.
Yes, with pleasure.
I'm an author.
I know what it's like when the coast doesn't.
Superpower in Peril, a battle plan to renew America.
It's up at DennisPrager.com.
David McCormick, former Army Ranger, former Head Fund CEO, Under Secretary of the Treasury former Head Fund CEO, Under Secretary of the Treasury in the G.W. Bush administration, and much more, and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania.
is the author of Superpower in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America.
So I posed the question of my disappointment in my fellow Americans.
With regard to raising the age of Social Security, and David said, well, we did make a promise to these people, and we have to keep it, and I couldn't agree more, but unless I'm wrong, and I hope I am actually, Americans don't only believe that this should hold true for people, let's say, now 55, but even younger.
But you said it was not solvent.
Our system cannot sustain itself.
People are living 20 years longer than they did when Social Security began.
What is your proposal?
Well, I honestly don't have a proposal on what to do.
I agree with the problem you state, which is that ultimately entitlements, Social Security, and others are going to need to be evaluated and reformed in a way that maintains our promises but also deals with that reality.
My objection...
To the conversation that's being proposed now around entitlement reform is that it's basically how do we solve the deficit problem?
How do we solve the debt problem?
When the thing that looms right in front of us is the enormous excessive spending that's taken place under the Biden administration.
So you've got three huge pieces of legislation that have added $10 trillion.
of incremental spending over the next 10 years.
In two years alone, you have 40% increase in discretionary spending and really restructuring of the US economy around a whole green agenda.
And all of a sudden we're talking about entitlements.
So I'm acknowledging what you're saying, but I think to go now to that misses the point.
Which is that a huge part of our fiscal dilemma is based on a number of choices that have been made, and many of them quite recently.
And I think we have to acknowledge that.
And part of our turmoil right now in the banking industry and so forth is the combination of two things at once.
a very easy money for a prolonged period, particularly over the last two years when there was lots of evidence that we should have been gradually raising rates and this incredible pulse of spending that has created this mismatch, a rise in interest rates and this mismatch between liabilities and assets.
So yeah, I acknowledge it, but it wouldn't be the first thing I'd be talking about right now in terms of getting our economy back on track.
I think I think there's lots of things we've done in recent years beyond the structural problems you described that have put us in this very-- - So what would be one of the first two, first thing you would do?
What would you do to get us back on economic health? - Well, I mean, the spending bills that have, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Bill, and the CHIPS Act, the CHIPS Act is the, I agree with the sentiment of the CHIPS Act, but the way it's now been conceived The Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have been anything but inflation reduction.
They've been inflation-enhancing.
That may be the most Orwellian name of a bill in American history.
Exactly.
It was the Inflation Creation Act.
Exactly.
So what do you do?
I mean, this will sound trite.
You've got to win elections.
You've got to roll back territorial legislation.
And you've got to get a Federal Reserve that's stepping into the situation.
If we had gradually raised interest rates previous to that, I think we've been in a much more manageable position.
We're now in a much more precarious position because of the combination of fiscal and monetary.
So that's the big picture which has created, in my opinion, great instability.
And that's what we have to deal with first.
Well, I want to thank you for writing the book.
I want to thank you for your time.
Superpower in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America.
I hope we hear more from you, David McCormick, and it was a pleasure to have you on.
Thanks for having me, sir.
Good to see you today.
Thank you.
Same here.
As I often say, my dear listeners, let it never be said if America is killed by the progressives, as they are intending to do, it will never be able to be said that there were not very important and eloquent voices warning of what was happening.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
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