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It is Tuesday, June 13, 2023. My name is Julie Hartman.
I am 23 years old, and I am so honored.
To be with you today.
Dennis, as many of you probably know because he hasn't been hosting the show for a few days, is on a listener cruise somewhere in the world.
The last that I heard he was in Serbia.
Or perhaps it was...
Bulgaria, or another country ending in awe in some faraway land.
But not to worry, he will be back right in this chair tomorrow.
It's amazing the energy that this man possesses.
But in the meantime, I am taking the reins of the show today.
Delighted to do so.
I am the host of Timeless with Julie Hartman, which is a Salem news channel show.
You can also catch it on YouTube every Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays by going on to my Julie Hartman YouTube.
And I'm also the co-host of Dennis and Julie, a show that I have with Dennis that premieres once a week on the Salem News Channel.
You can also catch it every Monday on my YouTube page, which again, if you weren't listening, is the Julie Hartman YouTube page.
A lot to talk about today.
It's a great show.
The first hour, I'm going to focus primarily on domestic news, and there is a lot to cover.
This Trump indictment being at the top of the list.
Of course, I will also cover new evidence that has come out about President Biden and his son Hunter Biden potentially communicating over the phone with a foreign national.
This is a piece of evidence that some individuals in Congress have revealed may be a part of the impending investigation into the Biden family's wrongdoings, including President Biden taking a bribe, a $5 million bribe from a foreign including President Biden taking a bribe, a $5 million bribe from We're going to cover that.
There's also a climate change trial that is going on in the state of Montana where individuals ranging from the age of 2 to 18 are suing the state of Montana's saying...
That apparently Montana is violating the Constitution by allowing fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel, excuse me, drilling.
So there's a lot of domestic news we're going to cover.
Additionally, Hour 2, we are going to talk about international relations, specifically this news that just came out that China actually has a spy base on the neighboring country, neighboring to us, not to China, of Cuba.
And then Hour 3, I usually do a history hour on the show.
I am going to be talking about Friedrich Nietzsche.
He is a, or was, excuse me, a German thinker back in the 19th century.
I like to understand how we got to where we are today.
How leftism and progressivism has infiltrated into every institution in our country, into the thoughts and...
Hearts, if you will, of people in this nation.
And I like to trace thinkers that may have contributed to this, and Friedrich Nietzsche is among them, so we're going to cover that.
But first, let's talk about this Trump indictment.
Today, President Trump, actually this morning, arrived at Miami's International Airport and he is scheduled to appear in federal court in Florida on these charges that he has been indicted on.
An indictment is just a charge of a crime.
It's a fancy word for that phenomena.
He has been indicted on several charges.
I actually read the entire indictment last night with a big cup of coffee next to me.
So that you don't have to, so I can summarize some of the most salient points.
But by the way, I think it is incumbent upon every American to read at least some portions of that indictment.
We should know what is going on with a former president.
Similarly, I believe that it is incumbent upon every American to read the relevant documents pertaining to the House's investigation of the Biden family.
I get it.
These are long documents.
They're confusing.
I'm here to give you a summary, but if you do want to read the indictment, focus especially on pages 10 to 25. Those have the most important information, and I promise you it actually is more palatable and digestible for individuals who are not well-versed in legal jargon.
I'm 23 years old.
I graduated from college a year ago.
Trust me, I'm not very well-versed in legal jargon.
If I could understand it, you can understand it.
Okay, so he's arriving today.
He is going to be officially arraigned, which basically means he's going to make an appearance in court.
They are formally going to present the charges to his face and then allow President Trump and his legal team to enter a plea.
Guilty or not guilty.
Now, what's interesting about this case...
is that this indictment was brought about by a special prosecutor who was appointed by our Attorney General Merrick Garland in order to investigate potential obstruction of justice and mishandling of documents that former President Trump supposedly engaged in.
Now, this special prosecutor gets to decide where to file the indictment.
There are state prosecutors, there are federal prosecutors, but every state has at least one federal district.
So because this is a federal prosecution as opposed to a state prosecution, because President Trump has allegedly committed a federal crime, they are going to choose a federal district to prosecute him.
And the special prosecutor has chosen West Palm Beach, Florida, i.e.
the Southern Federal District of Florida, to prosecute the former president.
Well, they could have chosen Washington, D.C. to be the location where President Trump is going to be prosecuted.
Where an individual is prosecuted, it must, the defendant slash the offense has to have a connection to that location.
Again, so President Trump, he could have been tried in Washington, D.C. because that's where he transferred the documents from, or he could have been tried in Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is, where he possessed these documents.
The location has to have a tie to the crime.
But the prosecutor chose West Palm Beach, Florida over Washington, which is actually a good thing for President Trump because it means that he is more likely to get a jury in Florida that is sympathetic to his case, if you will, than which is actually a good thing for President Trump because it means that he is more likely to get a jury in Florida that is sympathetic It appears that.
That the prosecutor selectively chose the Palm Beach location in order to get the public to accept these charges as more legitimate.
It's actually a smart move on his part.
part.
If he had decided to prosecute President Trump in Washington, D.C., then all of us on the right would be saying, of course, you know, he's doing it there.
Of course, they're going to get a very liberal jury who's going to want to indict or formally charge Donald Trump.
But no, they're doing it in Florida, which is good for Trump, and it does give more of an appearance of being impartial.
Also, Mar-a-Lago is in Palm Beach.
Mar-a-Lago is the site at which he allegedly held these documents, so it makes sense for him to be indicted here.
Okay, so that's the background.
Let's go into this indictment.
As I said, I read it in full.
It's damning.
I'm not going to mince words.
It's really bad.
If this is true, it's terrible.
It is just terrible for a former president to be doing this.
Now, of course, there is a double standard with regard to prosecution.
We're going to get into that.
But two things can be true at once.
It can be true that President Trump mishandled classified top secret important information pertaining to the United States domestic and international security.
That is wrong.
But it can also be true that he is being selectively prosecuted when we see people like former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and indeed our own President Joe Biden possess classified documents and not be prosecuted.
But again, let's go into He is being indicted on a few counts.
First, a violation of the Espionage Act.
The Espionage Act basically says that if someone in the government has possession of classified documents and they willfully communicate and transmit those documents to an individual who is not entitled to receive those documents, then they have violated this law.
Additionally, the Espionage Act says that if this individual fails to deliver these documents to a person who is entitled to receive them, that is also a violation of the law.
These are the first 31 counts, the majority of what President Trump is being indicted on.
More on this case.
In the next segment and throughout this hour, I'm Julie Hartman.
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Hey friends, welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
This morning, Tuesday, June 13th, 2023, we're talking about the Trump indictment.
President Trump landed at Miami International Airport this morning.
He is going to be formally arraigned in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, and he will make a plea guilty or not guilty.
So we're going through this indictment.
I read it in full last night.
I encourage you to read it.
It is not as legal jargony as you may suspect it to be.
Specifically...
Focus on pages 10 to 25. But in case you just don't have enough time or don't want to read it, don't worry.
I did it for you.
We're going through it now.
As I said in the last segment, he is being charged primarily on violating the Espionage Act, which states that an individual who possesses classified documents and shows them to someone who does not have security clearance or fails to hand them over to someone who does is violating that statute.
That, again, is primarily what President...
There are some other charges here.
When the Justice Department asked former President Trump to hand over these documents, he handed over about 30 to 40 of them, but allegedly, according to this indictment, he did not hand over all of them.
That's another count.
And then there are some more that are, quite frankly, a bit legal jargony.
Withholding a document or record.
Isn't that what we just said with the Espionage Act?
That's count 33. Count 34, corruptly concealing a document or record.
Sounds pretty similar to the previous one.
Concealing a document in a federal investigation.
So, this is hard.
This is sad.
Look, what can I say about it?
President Trump was a great president in many ways.
He had fabulous policies.
He's running again.
There's a great chance that he could and perhaps should win.
But this indictment, if it is true, is bad.
It's very damning for him.
We're going to get into the double standard, which I believe is more of the issue than what is at play here.
But nevertheless, let's go through some of these charges.
In the indictment, there are photos.
Of classified documents that President Trump allegedly left around his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida.
There are photos of hundreds of documents in storage bins that are stacked on a stage in the main ballroom at Mar-a-Lago.
There are also photos of documents in the business center at Mar-a-Lago, even in one of the bathrooms, the shower.
Actually, some of these boxes of documents were put in.
So they were moved from the ballroom.
They were moved then to the business center, to the bathroom.
Then they were moved into a...
Storage room, which apparently had pretty easy access to those who were in a pool area.
According to the indictment, there was a door that was almost always left unlocked, and someone could go in and pretty easily go down to the room where these documents were held.
And then some of these other documents were held at President Trump's residence in New Jersey, the Bedminster Club.
So far, as bad as this is, no public official should have classified documents in areas that are not extremely secure.
I think we can all agree.
But so far, these charges are not any different from what we have seen from former Vice President Pence, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or indeed our own President Biden.
They were each over the past few months found to have had possessed documents in places ranging from their lawyers offices to even their garage.
This is President Biden allegedly had documents in his garage.
So, so far, as bad as this is, this is not different from what we have seen.
What makes this different?
It's this next thing I'm about to tell you.
Apparently, in July of 2021, President Trump was at his Bedminster Club in New Jersey and he was meeting with an author who is connected to an upcoming book that President Trump is planning to release.
He's in this room with this writer who's interviewing him about the book and there are two Trump aides who are also in the room.
And there is a recording.
of Trump's conversation with these individuals.
President Trump consented to this recording.
He knew about it.
It's not like someone came in with a wire or something.
He knew about this recording.
So apparently, President Trump was talking to these individuals about a lie that the media had put out about him, that a senior military official, that would be General Mark Milley, reportedly was afraid that President Trump would order an attack on Iran. reportedly was afraid that President Trump would order an attack This was horrible.
All over CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, that Donald Trump was this impulsive figure.
He was going to order this attack on Iran.
But General Mark Milley was advising him not to do it.
So President Trump in this room at the Bedminster Club is talking to his aides and this author about this lie.
Trump then apparently pulls out one of the classified documents.
This is on a recording.
And says to them, and I'm reading...
I'm reading the exact quote from the indictment.
This is Milley's plan of attack.
So essentially, he's showing a document that indicates that, no, it wasn't that President Trump wanted to order an attack on Iran.
It was that General Mark Milley and other senior military officials wanted to order the attack, or at least were considering the attack.
So he's trying to disprove this lie that the media had made up about him, but he's trying to disprove this lie by handing over a classified document.
He goes, quote, This is Milley's plan of attack.
He said, I wanted to attack Iran, but this wasn't done by me.
This was him.
This totally wins my case, you know, President Trump is saying to those in the room.
Except that this is, you know, highly confidential secret information.
By the way, isn't that incredible?
So he's handing over this document.
He's showing that it was actually the military that wanted to order this attack and the idea didn't come from him.
He's showing these people in the room, by the way, isn't it incredible?
This was done by the military and given to me.
I think we can probably declassify it.
And then he pauses and he goes, see, as president, I could have declassified it.
Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.
So look, if this is true, this is according to the indictment, if this is true, that this is on recording of President Trump saying this is really bad for him.
Why?
Because A, he is admitting that he has classified documents in his possession and that he is showing them to individuals who do not have clearance.
He is saying this is top secret information.
This is still a secret.
He says it multiple times.
That is the first thing.
His defense, President Trump's defense, could have claimed ignorance in this situation.
They could have said he had no idea that it was classified documents.
This recording, if it is in fact true, rebuffs that.
It shows that President Trump knew that there were classified documents.
The second part of this quote that makes it really hard for President Trump's defense is that they could have argued that the Presidential Records Act allows President Trump to declassify any documents after he is president.
But here he is in this recording saying, quote, See, as president, I could have declassified it, but now I can't.
Whether you love him or hate him, again, we're going to keep talking about this.
Why in a recording would you admit this information?
More soon.
I'm Julie Hartman.
This is The Dennis Praker Show.
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Welcome back, everyone.
I'm Julie Hartman.
We're going through this Trump indictment, which I read cover to cover.
A quick final note on the specifics of this case, and then I'm going to go to some commentary, my analysis and opinions, if you will, of the matter.
First, though...
Trump is being charged with many different counts of obstruction and mishandling of classified documents.
He is being tried in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It is likely that he will get a jury that is somewhat sympathetic to his case.
Even if not all members of the jury, they will probably at least get some.
Now this is a federal criminal case.
And you know something about federal criminal cases?
This is something that is not well known in the United States.
And by the way, it should be because all we've been hearing over the past three years is that America is a systemically racist place and the justice system is the example.
They go after minority individuals.
They are too hard on criminals, etc.
You know something about federal criminal cases?
there is a rule that all 12 members of the jury have to convict the person in order for that individual to go to jail.
All 12 votes have to be guilty to convict that individual.
You know why that rule exists?
Many argue it shouldn't exist.
And by the way, they have legitimate arguments.
They say it should be a majority or it should be 10 out of 12. You know why that rule exists?
It's because the United States takes the charge of crime so seriously.
They are so actually pro-defendant that they want to make sure, they want to make damn well sure that if someone is convicted for a crime, they really did it.
that's why they have this unanimous rule that all 12 members of the jury have to convict in a federal criminal case why don't you tell that to the left wingers that say that the criminal justice system works against those who are being accused of a crime it is sick it is the biggest lie told about the United States But that's not the issue at hand here.
The issue at hand here is the Trump indictment.
But I thought I would go on a little tirade to tell you that.
But it is relevant here because he is being tried.
This is a federal criminal case.
So, what the Trump defense really needs is at least one member of the jury to vote to not convict.
This is called a hung jury.
And you know what, they may, they will probably, I don't like to get into the realm of predictions, My dear mentor Dennis Prager taught me that because you never know.
But it seems somewhat likely that they will at least get one jury member who will not vote to convict.
So those are the facts of the indictment.
Let's go on to...
What people are saying about it, and what I argue is the greater issue here.
As I said when I opened this show, two things can be true at once.
Number one, that if this indictment is true, President Donald Trump did something bad.
He held classified documents in places where they should not have been held.
He potentially did obstruct the...
Transferance of those documents once the Department of Justice had asked him to transfer them, that can be true.
But what is also true is that this is a classic, egregious example of the double standard that has characterized this country.
Go after Republicans, especially go after Trump, at all costs, and protect Democrats.
There is a caste system that has come to exist in the United States.
I hate to say it, but it's true.
If you are of one political party, You can commit crime.
You can get bribes from foreign nationals.
You can interfere in elections.
And that is totally fine.
But if you're a Republican, you are held to a different standard.
That is absolutely 100% true in this case.
We see examples.
Former Vice President Mike Pence had classified documents in his Indiana home.
Is he being indicted?
No.
Our own president, Joe Biden, was found to have possessed classified documents in his garage at his home in Delaware next to his Corvette, at his Washington think tank, in some of the offices of his lawyers.
Is he being indicted?
No.
The most egregious example, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had 30,000 emails she had on a private server in her basement.
Highly top-secret classified material.
James Comey, the former head of the FBI, launched an investigation into this matter, but then he came out and said, quote, No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Hillary Clinton on these facts.
People are totally right, and I'm one of them, to be outraged by the double standard.
Again, two things can be true at once.
In the next segment, we're going to talk about the Biden family's corruption.
Why aren't they being prosecuted?
That's a big question here.
Again, another example of the double standard based on one's political classification.
We're talking about the double standard that our Department of Justice, or as I like to call them the Department of Injustice, pursues against different members of political parties.
If you're a Democrat, you can get away with a lot more.
I hate to say it, but it is true.
Let me give you an example.
Actually, I can give you many.
Let's turn into the House's investigation into President Biden.
And his corrupt business dealings.
So once the House became Republican majority earlier this year, they replaced the January 6th committee, which, by the way, in all of those January 6th committee hearings, all the videos they showed, they did not show videos that Tucker Carlson actually publicized of the QAnon shaman, who was the guy with the hat and the horns, the face of January 6th, being escorted.
Through the Capitol by nine different Capitol police officers.
In all of their time investigating this event, they did not show that crucial piece of information.
Just a little note for your...
Enrichment.
Intellectual enrichment.
So the House replaced the January 6th Committee with the Weaponization of Government Committee.
And part of that is investigating the Biden family corrupt business dealings and accordingly the government's help or aid in suppressing some of that corruption.
So about two weeks ago, an FBI informant came to the House Oversight Committee head, James Comer, he's a representative from Kentucky, and told him that the FBI has been sitting on information for years that President Biden, when he was vice president under the Obama administration, took a $5 million bribe from a foreign national to, quote, favorably influence policy.
Once Representative Comer heard from this FBI informant, who by the way he said is a very trusted source, has come to Congress with important intelligence information that has been reliable for years.
This is a reliable source, though we don't know his or her name.
Once Comer had heard this piece of information, He used his power of subpoena to ask the FBI to present documents that would reveal this $5 million bribe.
FBI head Christopher Wray Refused to do so.
Stalled it for a long time.
Huh?
Doesn't that seem a little shady to you?
I would think so.
Finally, though, he presented a document, which allegedly has details of this bribe, to the House Oversight Committee, and now this committee is launching a full-scale investigation into this alleged bribe.
What has come out as recently as yesterday, though, is that apparently...
The House Oversight Committee, through this subpoena of FBI information, claims that there are more than a dozen audio recordings of conversations between then-Vice President Joe Biden and this foreign national who allegedly gave a Apparently,
there are 15 recordings of phone calls between this foreign national and Hunter Biden, and there are two audio recordings between the foreign national and Vice President Biden.
So you have to understand, the FBI stalled handing over these documents to the House Oversight Committee.
Actually, allegedly, they had possessed these documents and these recordings since 2020, and it was only because an FBI whistleblower came to James Comer and said, hey, the FBI's got information that they're not telling you.
It was only because of that whistleblower that James Comer subpoenaed the FBI and they finally handed over this information.
If there are any left-wingers listening, by the way, anyone, left, right, center, whoever, Oompa Loompas, I don't care, call into the show, 1-8-Prager-776.
I would love to hear your thoughts on any and all of this.
But if there are any left-wingers listening to the show who are not sympathetic to conservatism or to the Republican Party, let me tell you something.
The reason why conservatives and Republicans are so upset is because there is an egregious double standard.
Can you imagine if the FBI had documents on President Biden that showed that he had allegedly taken a bribe from a foreign national, that he and his son were communicating with this foreign national?
Can you imagine if the FBI held on to this information and then it only came out because a brave informant was willing to expose it?
How would the Democratic Party react to this?
How would people react if this were President Trump?
You know how they would react.
We see they make up stuff about President Trump.
This is what enrages conservatives and Republicans, the double standard.
But when it's President Biden, no, the FBI is there to protect them.
The FBI will go to any and all costs to prevent the House Oversight Committee from seeing these documents.
We saw this back in 2020. Three weeks before the 2020 election, the New York Post released the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story.
Which included correspondences between Hunter and foreign nationals that were not so kosher and actually detailed some bribes that energy tycoons from China gave to Hunter Biden in order to help favorably influence policy.
What happened when that story was exposed?
De-platformed it immediately, saying that they first needed to investigate it to make sure that it was valid.
And then now, later, it has come out that the FBI was colluding with Twitter to suppress this story.
The FBI had weekly meetings with Twitter in order to suppress both the Hunter Biden laptop story and other conservative content.
This is what so enrages conservatives.
And this is what makes this Trump indictment issue so tricky.
Because there are people who are not as willing to acknowledge that President Trump has done wrong in this situation because there have been so many times when he has, A, done nothing wrong and been accused of doing so wrongly, and B, when his opponents have done things that are more egregious and they have been let off.
So the confusion and the bad feelings on both sides in this country can be attributed to the confusion that the mainstream media and that our own government tries to inculcate.
No wonder people are not trusting this indictment.
Final thoughts on this indictment before we move on to international news in the next segment.
See you in a few moments.
Greetings, friends.
It is the final segment of the first hour of the Dennis Prager Show.
I'm Julie Hartman.
We've been talking about the Trump indictment.
You know, when I plan for this show, I think, oh, first segment Trump indictment, second segment other news.
I should know by now that when you're dealing with an issue that is as consequential and controversial as this, it will take the whole first hour.
Some final notes on this really unfortunate situation.
I've reported as objectively as possible the facts of the situation here.
I want to now talk to you as just a human being, as a really conflicted conservative, because I can acknowledge here that just looking at the facts that President Trump has done something wrong, that I would not endorse or expect from a leader of our country.
But at the same time, I can understand how it is so difficult to want to...
To kick him when he's down.
To want to acknowledge that he has done something wrong.
Because we see how egregious the double standard is.
We see how so many of the crimes committed by the other side pale, pale in comparison to what President Trump is alleged to have done.
I mean, all that has come out in the past few years.
The lies upon lies about President Trump.
I mentioned the Hunter Biden laptop story in the previous segment.
Proven email correspondences between Chinese energy tycoons and Hunter Biden.
A Chinese energy tycoon gave Hunter Biden a multi-carat diamond ring after a meeting that Hunter had.
Is that not bribery?
Is it not bribery that the ex-mayor of Moscow's wife transferred $3.5 million to Hunter Biden?
Is it not bribery that while Vice President Joe Biden was head of U.S.-Ukrainian policy at the White House.
His son Hunter was put on the board of Burisma.
Which is a Ukrainian company that paid him a million dollars a year to serve on that board.
Is it not bribery and corruption that President Biden denied knowing about any of his son's business dealings?
And then we see from the laptop there are pictures of him with Chinese and Kazakh and Ukrainian businessmen at Cafe Milano.
They're all meeting in Washington, D.C. I mean...
I get it.
It's really hard because you want to be objective and I believe that I have to pursue the truth.
And I have been trying to communicate this as truthfully as possible, but I get it because the other side does such wrong.
20 shell companies were created while President Biden was vice president in order for foreign nationals to transfer money to his family.
Why are they not prosecuted?
Still, even though there is a double standard, my friends, we still have to report and talk about the truth accurately.
The truth here is that President Trump did something wrong and there is a double standard.
standard.
We'll be back.
Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
It is hour two of the program.
I am Julie Hartman.
I'm 23 years old.
I'm the host of Timeless with Julie Hartman, which premieres on my...
Julie Hartman Show YouTube page every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
I'm also the co-host of Dennis and Julie, a show that I do with our dear Dennis Prager, who is out today and in Bulgaria or Serbia or Romania or somewhere in the world.
But don't worry, he will be back tomorrow.
But I'm manning the ship today.
So be sure to catch Dennis and Julie every Monday on my YouTube show, my YouTube channel, I should say.
And then Timeless Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Those of you who listen to me on Timeless know that I talk a lot about China.
And there is good reason to talk a lot about China, because even though our own president has said, China's going to eat our lunch, come on, man!
Well, they actually are, very sadly, eating our lunch.
There are many examples to include.
Fentanyl is one of them.
Fentanyl is the number one cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 45. The size of a grain of sand of fentanyl can kill you.
It is a hundred times...
Where does that fentanyl come from?
It's made and manufactured in China.
It is sent to Mexican drug cartels who funnel it across our border.
Maybe China is not landing battalions or sending over war ships and planes to invade and kill members of the United States, but this is nevertheless an act of warfare that they are succeeding in.
TikTok, WeChat, hundreds of millions of Americans use these apps, and China uses it to collect personal financial data of those who use it.
Again, there are truly so many examples, and I encourage you to listen to my show, Timeless.
China goes all over the world and tries to industrialize various countries in order to essentially buy them off so that China can have world power.
And the most recent example that should be on the front page of every major newspaper, but it was actually in some of the back pages, is that China has established a spy base on the neighboring country of Cuba.
A spy base, of course, to spy on, guess who?
Us!
The United States.
The United States government has declassified material which shows that China has allegedly had this spy base since 2019. China and Cuba have also agreed in principle, this is according to this new information released by our government, to build an electronic eavesdropping station in Cuba.
In return, China is paying the cash-strapped country of Cuba billions of dollars for this building of the spy base.
But don't worry, everyone.
The White House has said that though China, quote, will keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba, we will keep working to disrupt it.
Boy, does that sound like the rhetoric of a strong person in charge.
And also, this is, I shouldn't be laughing because it's so sinister, but it really is comical.
The Biden administration has said, quote, we think that the People's Republic of China isn't quite where they had hoped to be.
Oh, really, Biden administration?
They're not where they're hoped to be.
Well, they're kind of just in our backyard, developing an eavesdropping station in order to spy on us.
And it is worthy of note that our U.S. Central Command base, which oversees the Middle East and parts of Central and South Asia, American operations there, And the United States Special Operations Command Base are both in Tampa, Florida, which is just a stone's throw from Cuba.
And to boot, the Southern Command Base is also based in Miami.
Let's listen, though, to a recent address that President Biden gave at none other than the State of the Union back in February.
Let's hear how our president characterizes the threat or non-threat as he thinks of China.
Before I came to office, the story was about how the People's Republic of China was increasing its power and America was failing in the world.
Not anymore.
Oh, really?
Not anymore.
He goes on.
Let's listen.
Today, we're in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world.
Anyone else in the world.
I have the perfect person to come on the show to talk about this with.
He is a foreign policy expert and especially a China expert.
I have Brandon Weikert.
He manages the Weikert Report, World News Done Right.
I have been the beneficiary of his expertise and wisdom specifically on this subject.
He is also the author of Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower, The Shadow War, Iran's Quest for Supremacy.
I read that one.
fabulous fabulous very informative book and he just released a book on China called a biohacked China's race to control life he joins us today hello Brandon great to talk with you again oh he's frozen He's frozen.
I'm telling you, it was the Chinese that did it.
They knew we were talking with him about this subject.
And they knew that we were going to do this.
Oh, that is so funny.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
Well, in the meantime, let me tell you a little bit more about some of the things that China is doing.
Because, you know, I mentioned that they have this global reach.
It's not just that they're trying to combat the United States through fentanyl and TikTok and the spy base, but they are going around the world and they are trying to buy off these countries so that it will make them easier.
To combat the United States.
Let me provide some examples.
Hungary.
China is going in, giving billions of dollars to the country of Hungary in order to re-industrialize some of the major cities, also to build a railway line in the capital.
Now, Viktor Orban is the prime minister of Hungary, and he has said that he is very much opposed to foreign interference, specifically foreign immigration in the country.
But nevertheless, he is allowing China to come in and industrialize.
Another example is the country of...
If Colombia and Latin America, actually most of the countries on that continent are the recipients of Chinese help and aid.
In the capital of Bogota, in Colombia, China is building, as I said, a railway line.
They're also re-industrializing the airport in that country.
Iran is another example.
They're re-industrializing the Ayatollah Khomeini International Airport.
Literally, I could give you so many other examples of countries, and it is the same playbook each time.
China goes into these countries.
They promise to give billions of dollars in aid to help industrialize them, and they appear as these countries' friends.
But what they are really doing, as my mom says, nothing in life is for free, what they are really doing...
Is that in exchange for this goodwill, in exchange for this economic development, they are buying off these countries so that then China can overstep its reach globally and those countries can't come out against China's doing so because China has aided them.
Let me provide you an example.
Do you remember when the Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States earlier this year?
It went over most of our country.
Well, what most of us didn't hear is that there was actually a second Chinese spy balloon that traversed over Latin America.
When that second Chinese spy balloon traversed over Latin America, it went over Colombia, it went over Costa Rica, various other countries.
And what did the leaders of those countries do?
They didn't question China.
They didn't come out and say that China may have overstepped by sending a spy balloon into their territory.
They dutifully repeated the lie that it was a weather balloon.
Why did they do this?
Again, because China has bought them off.
So they have very deftly made allies around the world through their economic goodwill so that when they do something that is arguably breaking the norms of international relations, such as setting up a spy base in Cuba, those countries have to remain silent.
We do have our dear guest, Brandon Weikert, back.
I'd like to reintroduce him.
He manages the Weikert Report, which all of you should read.
It's called World News Done Right.
He goes through almost every country, it seems, and analyzes the situation there, specifically pertaining to United States foreign policy.
We're going to have to join Brandon in the next segment because of time, but he is the author of the recently released book, Biohacked, China's Race to Control Life.
So he is certainly the right individual to talk about this very consequential subject with.
We'll be back in just a few moments with Brandon Weikert.
I'm Julie Hartman.
This is The Dennis Prager Show.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show.
I'm Julie Hartman.
We've been talking about this bombshell report, which doesn't seem to many Americans to be a bombshell because there are so many of them all of the time.
That China has established a spy base on our neighboring country of Cuba.
Honored to welcome an expert on foreign policy to the show.
His name is Brandon Weikert.
He is the manager and writer of the Weikert Report, World News Done Right.
He is also a senior editor at 1945.com.
And his recent book is on this very subject at hand.
It is called Biohacked, China's Race to Control Life.
Brandon, welcome so much to the program.
Hi.
Well, thank you for having me.
Chinese attempts to disrupt this momentous interview.
It's such an honor to be here.
You know, we were laughing about it during commercial break, but I actually really think it's true, because right at the moment when I was introducing him, he seemed to have cut out, and he told me that last night during an interview the same thing happened.
We know China has outsized capabilities.
I think they might be able to interfere here.
They're on to us.
They are on to us.
Hopefully you'll stay on.
I will be here.
Yes.
So can you give some more color to this situation?
You know, we've just learned that this spy base exists.
Why Cuba exactly that China is establishing this on?
Well, there's a couple of reasons.
The first is that it's close to home for us.
You know, I live in Florida.
I'm sitting in Florida right now, and I guess you could...
I can see Cuba from my front yard.
But, you know, it's only 90 miles away.
And as you noted in the previous segment, we've got some critical military facilities in the state of Florida.
And also, China wants to have the ability to basically have a permanent presence in our part of the world the way they think we have a permanent presence in their part of the world.
But it's beyond just tit-for-tat.
It's more than that.
This is part of an imperialistic strategy.
John Neersheimer has talked about this a lot.
I spend a lot of time talking about this.
Once China can effectively secure for themselves a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific, that's their part of the world, they're going to then leap off and start dabbling in all parts of the world.
Well, you heard it.
Sorry.
I'm so sorry.
Go on.
Go ahead, please.
No, the Chinese are interfering.
I thought that you had dropped off.
Please continue.
No, no.
And the Chinese are interfering in our part of the world as part of a prelude to something larger, which is their inevitable attempt to conquer the whole world by 2049, which is their 100th year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
This is what...
Xi Jinping refers to as the China dream.
And part of that conquest strategy is taking our part of the world right from underneath our noses.
And, of course, Joe Biden is very much inclined to let them because, as you know, I believe Joe Biden is in some way compromised by China through his son's many years of business dealings in China.
But that's what they're after.
This is about geopolitics, classic geopolitics, taking our part of the world from us while they secure also their part of the world to build a new global empire.
You mentioned something that captured my interest.
You said they believe that we are in their part of the world.
I like to understand, not endorse, but understand the perspective of the enemy.
How do they think that we're in their part of the world?
Well, they look up from Beijing and they think, well, the American Navy operates near our shores.
They have the ability to cut off.
We have been there.
Since at least 1945, the end of the Second World War, we basically built the regional and international order that has existed since that time period.
An order, by the way, that China has benefited greatly from.
They've been able to free ride off of us.
But now they want us out, and the rest of the region doesn't.
And we are there not as an imperial power.
We're there because the rest of the world in that part of the world, the countries there, have invited us to stick around.
And we've been more than happy to oblige them because it's a rising tide lifting all boats type of thing, except for China, which now is no longer content just to get rich by free riding off of our security guarantees.
They now want to be the big dog.
And this is part of a larger strategy on their part to literally dominate the world, to become the sole superpower by 2049.
So if they can secure their part of the world, they are then going to leap off and go into their part of the world to keep us down the way they think we've kept them down, which, of course, we've not kept them down.
If anything, we've given them too much, but that's not how they see it.
That's right.
We have given them too much.
During the Carter administration, President Carter acknowledged the People's Republic of China as the legitimate government of the country instead of the nationalists in Taiwan and handed that UN seat.
Over to the communists, away from the nationalists.
Also, in 2001, the United States admitted China to the World Trade Organization.
You're right.
We have really helped them.
So my question for you here is, you know, I characterized at the beginning of this segment this spy base on Cuba as, quote, a bombshell report.
It seems to me that it is, but alongside so many of the other developments or ways that China is trying to encroach on us, it seems like just another day.
How would you characterize the severity of this establishment of this spy base?
So this is not the first thing that China's done in our part of the world, in the Western Hemisphere, in Latin America, particularly.
In fact, Bill Gertz, my colleague at the Washington Post, he reported about 20 years ago that China took over what was then the largest Soviet listening post in Cuba and was basically modernizing it.
And they've had, in fact, this most recent talk about in China, I mean, in Cuba, the Chinese base.
It's actually the third of China's military bases in Cuba, and they're looking to expand and build even more.
These bases are going to be able, as you note, to spy on our facilities in Florida, but more than that, they will be able to disrupt critical FAA radar and communications between ground-based operators and civilian airline pilots all along the East Coast.
And as you know, that part of their unrestricted warfare strategy against the United States is to target civilian operations to create chaos here in the United States and to disrupt life for you and I. So that it distracts us long enough for China's forces to possibly invade or attack or blockade Taiwan before we could respond.
And so this is part of a larger strategy.
And what I propose, I've been proposing this, and it's not really popular, but when it comes to our part of the world, we have a Monroe Doctrine that forbids any other outside power from trying to use military force to prevent that.
And so I think we should communicate very loudly.
We should communicate very loudly to Cuba and other governments in the region.
If you start allowing for even the smallest Chinese bases to operate, we will use everything, including military force, to prevent those bases from being operationalized.
And we might even seek to change the regime, for instance, in Cuba, which we should have done 60 years ago.
I'm telling you.
I'm telling you.
It is the Chinese.
I'm laughing, but I'm not because Brandon's audio is cutting out.
But it's an important point to end on.
We're going to pick up with Brandon Weikert in the next segment.
Again, he's the author of Biohacked, China's Race to Control Life, the foremost expert on China, I believe, right now here in the United States.
See you in a few moments.
I'm Julie Hartman.
Welcome back, everyone, to The Dennis Prager Show.
I'm Julie Hartman.
I am pleased to have Brandon Weikert on the show.
He is the manager of the Weikert Report, World News Done Right.
He's a senior editor at 1945.com and the author of the newly released book on China called Biohacked, China's Race to Control Life.
I just want to tell you all that I have recently launched a show called Timeless with Julie Hartman.
I talk a lot about China and foreign relations, and I have benefited so much from Brandon's expertise and wisdom.
He is the real deal.
He explains all of this in such a palatable, understandable way.
Thank you so much again for being here, Brandon.
We have been battling some Chinese interference in our interview.
I say it half jokingly, half not, because he's dropped off a few times.
But you were talking about in the next segment something that I think is really important, and that is what to do.
I don't want to paraphrase for you, but you basically said we should make it more clear to China that we're going to combat them.
If you are President Biden right now, and let's say you weren't compromised by China.
He's in a different situation because he is compromised by China.
But if you were the President of the United States and China has established this spy base on Cuba, what would you do?
Well, the first thing I would do is declare that we're not going to let it become operationalized.
And then we would be giving the Cuban government that they have X amount of days to kick the Chinese out, period.
Cuban government's not going to comply.
And so at that point, I would remind them that we have the Monroe Doctrine and we reserve the right to basically use military force to prevent the establishment of any foreign military base.
And so I would, you know, as little as covert operations to disrupt the completion and takeover of the base to even as high as threatening regime change in Cuba, something that we should have done 50 or 60 years ago anyway, because the Cubans keep becoming a huge problem to us.
They were the reasons why the Iranians made a partnership with the Venezuelans in the early 2000s.
Cuba was the intermediary.
Cuba is the reason why the Russians and the Wagner group are crawling all over our part of the world.
They're the reason that China has a role in Latin America, because they were the intermediaries introducing China.
To the different actors in the Latin American part of our world, that's the reason why China's even here, is Cuba has been an intermediary for all of these bad actors.
And so we need to make it very clear to Cuba that we're not going to let the Chinese establish any more of these bases, and we will use military force if necessary, and we easily could.
And that's what I would do.
I feel that on my show, all I try to do is take a big bullhorn and yell out to everyone, pay attention to China.
They are a huge threat.
Obviously, we have so many domestic threats to undermine our country, but as you've said multiple times in this interview, China endeavors to become the leading world, not only hegemon, but if you will, kind of dictator by 2049. What will life look for?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Go on.
No, no.
Go ahead.
I was just saying that you're right.
That's absolutely correct.
So what will life look like for us, as sinister as it may seem, but we need to know this.
If we continue down this route of allowing China to encroach, encroach, encroach, whether it's fentanyl, TikTok, or this spy base, what will life look like for us in 10 to 20 years?
Well, I do believe that the 2020s are the decisive decade that will...
Who's going to basically be the top power in the world, the United States or China?
Right now, the United States is not faring well.
And so a world run by the authoritarianism of China will be one that is anti-American, that seeks to basically do to us what we did to the Soviets.
They will seek to contain us and constrain us.
They will flood our country, even more so than they are now, with fentanyl and other horrible drugs.
They will drain us of brain power.
They will drain us of our best and brightest because they will attract those kinds of people to come to China to do innovative technology research and development.
They will basically destroy our economic dominance, such as it is.
Of course, our government is helping to do that, of course, with our own bad policies.
But they will basically take the United States.
Put us through the shredder, and then piece us back together as a supplicant vassal state that will be second-fiddled and a secondary power that will be paying homage to the Chinese emperor, Xi Jinping.
And that is where this is headed if we do not begin with the stopping of the encroachment.
Encouraging note to end on, but still, it's important to know these things rather than to deny their existence.
More on other international developments in the next segment.
I'm Julie Hartman.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
I'm Julie Hartman.
This is the second hour of the show.
We are talking about international relations.
I have Brandon Weikert on the show.
He's the manager of the Weikert Report.
He is also an author of several books, including Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower, The Shadow War, Iran's Quest for Supremacy, and...
His most recently published book is actually on China, which is the subject that we've been discussing, Biohack, China's Race to Control Life.
Because this is my final segment with Brandon, and because he is a foreign policy expert in many regards just beyond China, I'd like to ask him a bit about the war in Ukraine.
It appears that some of the messaging that we're getting, at least from our media, is a bit confusing.
Sometimes you see Ukraine launch this successful attack.
Other times you see Russia launch this successful attack.
I'd like for you to characterize what's going on to the best of your ability.
But first, I'd like to read what others think, who are not of my political opinion, about our international relations.
Allow me just for a moment to read an editorial.
A segment of an editorial published in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman.
It's an endorsement of President Biden.
And he says, Brandon, is this true?
I find that Tom Friedman, like Paul Krugman, if you are in agreement with them, you're probably on the wrong side of history.
Tom Friedman is completely wrong.
This has not been a masterclass in anything.
We have drained our very essential stocks of heavy weapons, and there's not much replenishment because we don't have an industrial base anymore.
And that is what is giving China this sort of window of opportunity for them to run roughshod over us in other parts of the world.
And also it's giving windows of opportunity to Iran and even North Korea because we're so distracted.
What's going on in Ukraine is...
They're fighting for a stalemate.
There will be no great victory for the Ukrainians.
I'm sorry to say that.
I love my sympathies go out there.
They've been wrong.
But, you know, this is not going to end well for Ukraine.
It's not going to end with Russia, but the Russians are going to get what they want out of this.
They're going to be able to hold eastern Ukraine, most of it, and they're going to be able to hold on to Crimea.
And if they can't, they're going to use nukes, and then that's going to create a whole other bag of problems for us that we are not well suited to handle.
So that's what's going on in Ukraine in a nutshell.
It is not going to be some great victory.
The media has been lying to us from the beginning of this war about how well the Ukrainians are doing.
Since they defended Kiev last year, they have not been winning.
It is at best a stalemate.
Are there any other foreign policy developments that Americans should be aware of besides what we've talked about with China and now the war in Ukraine?
Yeah, well, as you know, I'm watching heavily the Iranians break out of their containment in the Middle East.
It looks like the Biden administration is going to get their big deal with Iran, which is not really a deal so much as it is a Neville Chamberlain-like concession.
And we're losing now our regional partners, notably the Saudis, who Trump had gotten on our side again.
But because Biden hates the leader of Saudi Arabia so much...
They're now moving closely to China's orbit and therefore even moving now to their once enemy in Iran, and that's isolating the Israelis.
And so the Israelis are going to be the odd man out again in the region, which is a terrible position for us because Israel's our closest partner there.
And we need that region to stay open and amenable to America because it's still such an important energy domain and also the high-tech sector that's developing out there.
If China can get...
Saudi Arabia and even Israeli high-tech on their side, we've just lost a big factor, a big benefit for us because we're abandoning the Middle East to our enemies in Iran.
I'd watch that.
I'd also watch North Korea with their nuclear weapons program.
Yes, what has gone on with that?
We've seen recently that North Korean hackers have stolen $600 million in cryptocurrency money to fund their nuclear program.
What's going on there?
Well, the big thing is their nuclear programs vary closely to their ballistic missile program as well as their so-called space program.
All of those things are operating in tandem together, and they've made great strides over the last 15 years in those technology areas.
And what they're trying to do is get a weapon that can threaten reliably the United States' homeland.
So that they force us to stay away when and if North Korea decides to invade South Korea, which they're going to want to do because Biden has alienated Kim Jong-un so badly.
Remember, Trump, the mad bomber, supposedly, was able to keep Kim happy and away from the nuclear hair trigger.
But now Biden has PO'd the North Koreans so much.
That they're moving closer to China, closer to Russia, and I think getting ready to do something big and nasty against South Korea and even Japan.
Is it any coincidence?
And by the way, it may sound like a leading or sarcastic question.
I'm saying it earnestly.
Is there any coincidence that all of this is going on during the Biden administration?
Or is this calculated?
They know that the President Biden is weak.
You're completely correct.
This is calculated.
Not only is Biden compromised because of his financial dealings with all these regimes, notably China, but also he's inherently weak.
He's a weak old man.
He's a doddering fool.
And they know it.
He's our Chernenko.
He's our Konstantin Chernenko.
And this is the last days of America's superpower under him unless we can get the right president back into office in 2024, whether it's Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.
Any of those two will be better than what we have now.
And if we don't get that, then it's the end of America's superpower-dom.
Yes, and it can occur way faster than we all might think it will.
I mean, even to just watch the ascent of China over the past few decades.
I gave a history on the show of China.
60 years ago, Mao Zedong was trying to purposefully cripple China's economic development in order to enact a socialist revolution in the countryside.
Now, China in just 60 years, boy, have they reversed it all.
Thank you so much for being here, Brandon.
Thank you.
Brandon Weikert, he is the manager of the Weikert Report, World News Done Right.
He's also contributed to publications such as the American Spectator and American Greatness.
He is a senior editor at 1945.com, and his most recent book is on China.
It's called Biohacked, China's Race to Control Life.
I am telling you, I have benefited so much from Brandon's wisdom and expertise.
Thank you again, Brandon, for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
In the next hour, we're going to talk about Nietzsche, but there's one segment before the next hour.
Maybe I'll take a call.
1-8-Prager-776.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what we've discussed.
I'm Julie Hartman.
see you in a few moments the Dennis Prager show what doesn't kill you makes you show hey everyone welcome back to the Dennis Prager show It's hour three of the program.
Boy, what fun music to open.
Well, there's a reason for that fun music because we are talking about Frederick Nietzsche today for the third hour of the show.
You're probably thinking, why am I hearing Kelly Clarkson?
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger, as Julie Hartman is saying that she's going to talk about this 19th century German thinker.
Well, there's a reason, my friends, because the very quote, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger, actually didn't come from that famous song that we know and love to bop to, the Kelly Clarkson ballad.
It actually came from Nietzsche himself.
Thank you, Sean.
Isn't it a great song?
Can you imagine if people knew listening to that song?
Oh, that actually came from Nietzsche.
This old guy back in German history and not Kelly Clarkson.
Well, I want to alert you to that today as well as some other lines of thought that Nietzsche pursued.
Indeed, it is the Nietzsche hour of the Dennis Prager Show.
I bet you in all of the history of the Dennis Prager Show there has never been a Nietzsche hour on this show whenever I guest host.
I mean, I have talked about, my gosh, I've talked about Woodrow Wilson.
I've talked about Einstein, Ukraine, India's history, Iran.
I did literature hour last time.
I'm like throwing all this fun stuff at you for you to learn.
But you know what?
There's a through line.
It's all interesting and it's all important and it makes the world understandable.
Everything that I tell you.
I endeavor to put into the context of how we got to where we are today.
So I'm focusing on this guy whose name is hard to spell, whose words and fun quotes we hear all the time and don't even recognize.
Indeed, Friedrich Nietzsche of the 19th century in Germany.
It is an amazing place this country has come to, and I don't mean amazing in a good way.
I mean amazing as in inspires amazement, where so many of our institutions, whether it's our media, our TV shows, our government, our education system, has been infiltrated by this moral relativism.
What used to make America the place...
That it was the superpower that it became into, the beacon of light and hope for the rest of the world, is that we were a Judeo-Christian country.
Even if you did not subscribe to Judaism or Christianity, you understood that Judeo-Christian values formed the basis of our country, and you subscribed to them.
That merit is the most important thing in determining the worth of an individual as far as whether they should get into college, whether they should get a job.
That there are certain moral standards that you place higher than yourself, that informs your conduct at all times, regardless if it personally or professionally advantages you.
The Ten Commandments, you do not lie, you do not steal, you do not covet.
You honor your mother and father.
You honor people around you.
This was the glue that held our country together.
Again, actually, I mean, it has everything to do with religion and nothing to do with religion.
It has everything to do with religion in the sense that these are Judeo-Christian values, but it has nothing to do with religion in the sense that you can adopt this worldview even if you do not subscribe to that particular religion.
That was the secret sauce of America.
Now we live in a society, as I say, that has succumbed to moral relativism.
How often do we hear this term, speak your truth?
It's so asinine, isn't it?
There's no such thing as your truth or my truth.
There is your opinion or my opinion, your perspective and experience or my perspective and experience, but there is one Universal, eternal truth, which stands above all of us.
It's not yours or mine.
It is the truth.
But here we say, oh, well, it's their truth.
It's my truth.
There's this weird moral relativism.
And so I like to look at this situation and understand not just the nature of the beast, but where the beast came from.
And there are so many reasons why this moral relativism has sprung up.
Many thinkers, many historical developments that have influenced this.
I talked about Woodrow Wilson on previous shows, Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein's scientific theory of relativism, that time and space are relative, contributed to this moral relativism.
People thought, oh my gosh, if what I knew about time and space was different than how I thought, maybe what I know about morality is different than what I thought.
Paradoxically or weirdly Albert Einstein's scientific contributions Actually spurred this weird moral revolution.
Woodrow Wilson is another example.
He was the progenitor of this big government we see today.
He was the guy who created the deep administrative state.
He said famously that he didn't want to be tethered to the Constitution.
He thought that the president should have different, more extreme.
powers because the president was elected by all people, and the president shouldn't be beholded to this one institution.
The point is, I go through all these thinkers, I try to understand where different phenomena come from.
But this moral relativism, I think in part, can be attributed to the man of the hour, Friedrich Nietzsche.
He has written Many books, the book that I read in college and am most acquainted with is Beyond Good and Evil.
You even see in that title, Beyond Good and Evil, it indicates that he's talking about this alternative framework or worldview of morality that he is encouraging his listeners to subscribe to.
So for the final hour, we're going to dive in to what this individual said, how he influenced history.
And what parts of him we should agree with and what parts of him maybe we shouldn't agree with.
You don't have to have read Friedrich Nietzsche in order to appreciate or engage in this hour.
In fact, I welcome your reactions, your thoughts on it.
1-8-Prager-776.
1-8-Prager-776.
You can call in and talk to me about whatever impressions made the biggest impact on you.
Friedrich Nietzsche, to give a little background on his philosophy, if I can, in the next three and a half minutes of this opening segment, he thought that those who subscribed to a religion were slaves.
He essentially said, if you believe in a worldview or a morality that you haven't come up with, you are by definition a slave.
You are following someone else's idea of ethics and of the way of life that you haven't come up with yourself and you are just a follower, is what he said.
That obviously is something that I disagree with.
I think that we need this tethering together.
We need guardrails, a shared sense of values that we all subscribe to in order to make society work.
But there were some elements that Nietzsche identified.
of religion that he says that modern society has abused or has taken to an extreme and turned in a way to make society worse.
And bear with me here.
It's complicated, but bear with me because I think he may have some points here.
I disagree that he says that religion is the source and the problem that has produced these pathologies.
I say that it is other individuals who have taken these religious doctrines and spun them.
But still, some of his diagnoses are actually legitimate.
He says, for instance, that modern society, and again, he's writing back in the 1800s.
Can you imagine what he would say today in 2023?
He says that society has succumbed to a victimhood mentality.
Right.
I think we can all agree.
There's the oppression Olympics nowadays.
People look and they think the smallest thing is a microaggression.
We can all agree.
Nietzsche was right.
He was indeed ahead of his time in identifying this victimhood mentality.
He says that we have taken equality to the extreme so as to enact this kind of equity, not just equality in opportunities, but equality in outcomes.
What he is identifying here is totally right, but he blames religion, which is where I depart from him, as the source.
He essentially says that the Judeo-Christian tradition Celebrates a kind of suffering.
Celebrates a kind of equality taken to the extreme, which has legitimized and encouraged these victimhood equity pathologies that we see in modern society today.
Read Nietzsche or ever heard of Nietzsche in order to call in to talk with me about this subject.
I am focusing on Friedrich Nietzsche, the German thinker of the 19th century today, because I like to make the world understandable.
I like to get why we have come to this place in the United States of such intense wokeism, which is really rooted in moral relativism.
That there aren't...
Let's look at the gender confusion.
No, there isn't an unchanging eternal fixed standard that there are men and there are women.
There are multiple genders.
There's demisexual, bisexual, unisexual, potato-sexual, whatever the hell sexual they come up with.
That is an undermining of a universal standard.
Look at this idea of equity.
We used to have a universal standard that we should endeavor, at least, to afford equality in opportunities and equality in judgment.
Now, people are saying, no, we have to upend that.
We have to get away from that universal standard, and instead of affirming equality in opportunity and judgment, we need to affirm equality in outcome.
There are so many ways against the universal standard is being tarnished.
And I like to understand where that's coming from.
And in part, I attribute that to the thoughts of Nietzsche, which is why he is such an important thinker.
I want to tell you about him.
I want to make his works palatable and understandable.
I spent a long time studying him in college and after college.
And I want to bring his ideas to you so that you can understand.
He has essentially said that subscribing to any universal standard of conduct makes you a slave, makes you a buy-off.
You aren't determining your own morality.
You are following someone else's.
That makes you a follower, a weak person, Nietzsche says.
If you look at Marx, Marx divided the individual based on economics, the bourgeoisie and the rebelling class.
Viktor Frankl, my hero, divides the world as far as character.
He says there are only two races, the decent and the indecent.
Friedrich Nietzsche divides the world into two categories as well, like Marx, like Viktor Frankl.
He says there's the strong and the weak.
The weak follow.
A Judeo-Christian worldview.
The weak follow a worldview that is uniform and that a lot of people subscribe to.
The strong, the ubermensch, he says, determine their own morality that they chart out for themselves.
He says that's what makes a truly strong individual.
Religion may be a nice little philosophy.
It may be flowers.
It may be a garnish on top of a dish.
Something that makes something look pretty.
But it's not actually a way of life.
It's not a way of enacting your true potential.
This is what Nietzsche says.
And he gives some examples in the Judeo-Christian religion that he says contributes to pathologies that undermine the potential of human beings rather than amplify and bring out their potential.
It's an unsettling line, he says, but look, this is important for us to know.
He says that God on the cross, Christ on the cross, is, quote, a paradoxical symbol, a terrible symbol, Nietzsche says.
He says, what kind of God would make himself into human form and put himself on a cross?
Why would a good, just, all-knowing, all-powerful God make himself so meek in that way?
Amplify his suffering, his ability to be sabotaged by human beings.
What kind of God would do that, Nietzsche argues?
He thinks that this victimhood complex that we see today is because Judeo-Christian religion has celebrated suffering.
The very crucifix, he says, is the symbol of a celebration of suffering that has taken hold, where instead of people wanting to overcome their suffering or leave their suffering behind, they internalize it and make it the entire essence of their being.
My response to Nietzsche would be that if you view suffering that way, that's on you.
But what Christianity does, or what the Judeo-Christian religion does that is so revolutionary and so helpful, is that God is not weak by coming down and making himself a victim, making himself go on the crucifix.
He is trying to establish a fidelity with human beings.
He's trying to establish a bond with them, saying, you suffer unjustly.
I love you so much that I will come down in human form and I will suffer unjustly.
And I will show you the transformative power of suffering.
That you can, if not literally, figuratively be resurrected.
You can overcome whatever suffering that you face.
You can use it as an ennobling or character-enriching opportunity.
That is what Nietzsche, in my view, and I welcome your views, 1-8-Prager-7-7-6, that is what Nietzsche misses to me.
God on the cross as this symbol celebrating weakness.
What he misses is that God on the cross is intended to be an ennobling symbol that you can overcome your suffering.
That's a great part of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, a book that I reference often.
A woman, Hester Prynne, engages in an adulterous relationship.
She is quite literally branded.
She has to wear an A on adulterous on her clothes.
And by the end of the book, the townspeople forget that the A on her breast stands for adulterous.
They think it stands for able.
Because she has so transformed herself.
She put her head down.
She was treated unjustly, but she worked hard.
She opened a seamstress business.
She raised her child.
She dealt with her burden gracefully.
And people forgot that it was her burden.
It was her suffering.
They thought it actually was an ennobling characteristic of Hester Prynne.
That, to me, is a Judeo-Christian idea.
That is God on the cross.
That is, you can transform yourself through your suffering.
But the point is, again, because I'm trying to trace lines of thought for you to today, Nietzsche says this has contributed to the victimhood complex, the celebration of suffering that he says religion has legitimized.
Let's look at another pathology of the modern day, equity, equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity.
Nietzsche says, well, of course, this is an outgrowth of Christianity.
Christianity affirms the inherent worth, the inherent equality of all individuals.
All of us are created in the image and likeness of God.
No wonder we have equity.
If we're all created in the image and likeness of God, Nietzsche says, then we should all be able to be afforded the same outcomes because we are all inherently equal.
Nietzsche rejects this idea of equality.
He says, no, we're not all equal.
And saying we're all equal makes us herd animals, makes us people who don't realize our full potential because we subscribe to this invisible idea of having a filial connection with one another.
More on Nietzsche all this hour.
Dennis Prager here.
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