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Aug. 24, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:19:04
Trump v. the Others
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Dennis Prager here.
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We'll be right back.
I got some oceanfront property in Arizona.
I'm not going to say that George Strait automatically means that I'm here, but it's a good signal.
Mark Davis, in for Dennis, a certain Texas twang, coming from George, if not from me, but a certain Texas flavor when I am here, and it is always a joy to be here.
Mark Davis from 660 AM, The Answer, where I am the happy morning host.
And boy, was I happy to be here this morning.
Happy being a relative term.
It was demanding for everybody, because I'm here in Central Time, talking to the West Coast crew out there in Pragerland, where everybody was working really late between radio and the Salem News Channel.
Just fantastic coverage last night, post-debate, all kinds of opinions flying thick and fast.
So I'm just really enormously pleased to be here in one of my frequent fill-ins.
It's always a joy to be here for Dennis.
And you can follow me on Twitter or X or Guacamole or whatever they're calling that thing these days.
At Mark Davis, M-A-R-K Davis.
And the best way to get a hold of us, of course, is the phone lines that are used in the show every day.
1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. Again, I'm Mark Davis here in the big bustling DFW. And wherever you are, I have some things I need to know from you.
You ready?
And what I'm going to do is put some of it in question form.
Most of my obvious offering is to get your thoughts and ask the blanket question, what did you think of the two big things that you could see last night?
One of them was the debate on a stage in Milwaukee, and the other one was seen by perhaps ten times more people.
I mean, are we at 200 million?
At some point, everyone in America, if not around the world, will have seen Trump on Tucker.
And we'll talk a little bit about whether...
It was smart for Trump to do Tucker instead of the debate.
It certainly wasn't dumb.
It certainly didn't hurt him, because after all, as we've learned by now, nothing hurts him, at least not yet.
And by the way, every candidate on the stage last night, every candidate on the stage last night dreams of having a bump, having a boost, like Trump will get today.
From another arraignment, this time under the aggressive thumb of Fonnie Willis in Fulton County in Atlanta, Georgia.
He will turn himself in at some point, and you will then almost be able to palpably sense the fundraising boost, the poll boost.
Here is the truth of the Trump poll numbers.
There's something we know, but there's something numerical we don't know.
Again, 1-8 Prager-776, 1-8 Prager-776.
We'll talk about Trump's decision not to be on that debate stage, and then we'll talk about everybody that was on that debate stage, because it was a fascinating night for Vivek, a so-so night for DeSantis, a really good night for Tim Scott, a surprisingly...
momentarily at least interesting night for Mike Pence.
Nikki Haley did great, but did she get enough Mike time?
Chris Christie, that New Jersey bully boy thing, that just gets really old really fast.
And Doug Bergam and Asa Hutchinson were there as well.
I've got nothing bad to say about these guys.
I've got nothing bad to say about these guys.
Hutchinson was an okay governor of Arkansas.
Really needs to be awakened on some of the gender clarity necessities.
Doug Burgum seems like a wonderful guy.
And what a tough nut!
Keyword nut.
Who plays basketball the night before a debate?
Who does something that has even a remote injury risk?
My colleague Mike Gallagher and I were talking, and he said, if I'm on the debate stage the following day, I'm putting myself in lockdown.
I'm going to be in bed in some type of pneumatic bubble.
Nothing will get to me so that I don't rip open my Achilles tendon, which he did, so he had to crutch himself onto the stage.
And I don't want to be cynical enough.
To say that this strikes me as debate theater and that it was faked, I don't believe that.
I don't want to be that guy.
I don't want to be that cynical.
But I will be this judgmental.
How dumb is it to do something the night before a debate that can hurt you?
So, of course, I know driving on the highway can hurt you.
So I have all kinds of hot takes on how I think everybody did.
I'm going to frame it in terms of what I expected versus...
How they did.
And then we'll talk about what I expected from Trump on Tucker.
I expected it to be stratospherically good, and it was.
So we have specific Trump on Tucker observations, and we have specific debate participation observations, and it all takes place against this glorious, fascinating backdrop of late August 2024. Here we are.
We are still, September, October, November, we're still four and a half months before anybody votes for anything.
Change is still possible, but how plausible is it?
How many times have you heard people say, yeah, in this particular year, by this point, Newt Gingrich was in the lead.
Yeah, in this particular year, Rudy Giuliani was in the lead.
Well, guess what was not going on when Newt, obviously, neither gentleman ever became president, or ever will, it seems, for multiple reasons.
There was no Trump.
Nobody had a 50-point lead.
It was just wide open.
It was 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 or 14 or 17 people all running now.
Trump is the alpha dog, the king of the hill.
There is nothing that has dented his support.
Yet, I will tell you the one thing, I wouldn't even say might.
I'd say the only thing that can.
The only thing that can.
And I'll do that here in a second.
In fact, probably ought to get to that first.
1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. And again, my name is Mark Davis.
Follow me on Twitter.
X, whatever you want to call it.
I can't say X. It's Twitter to me.
I don't know.
I'm an old fart.
What can I tell you?
At Mark Davis.
And I'll take a look at those during the break.
But the best way to get a hold of us, of course, with your thoughts, 1-8 Prager 776. Okay.
I do have a fresh column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
I'm proud to write for the Star-Telegram and the McClatchy newspaper chain and Newsweek and Town Hall.
But the thing I did an immediate, I pretty well do mean immediate, turnaround reaction column for was the Star-Telegram.
So if you go to star-telegram.com and look at opinions, find me, Mark Davis.
There is my column that talks about how Vivek and Pence and Tim Scott...
Help themselves.
I mean, the only people who did, but they did.
But the enduring question, the enduring question is, can anybody catch Trump?
Is that even possible?
So if we start with the premise that they say anything is possible, not anything, okay?
Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, or Will Hurd winning the nomination.
is as close to not possible as the English language permits.
But let's just say that in these turbulent times where almost everything seems volatile, it was volatility that kind of lofted Trump in 2016. There were a lot of frustrations.
There he was.
He seemed anti-establishment.
He caught the wind of that in the sails of so many Americans.
The timing was just perfect for Trump.
Now, eight years.
Next month, wow, can you believe this?
Next month, September, is eight years since he and Melania came down the...
The golden escalator at Trump Tower.
In a way, it seems like yesterday.
In a way, it seems like 100 years ago.
But anyway, everybody knows him now.
And the love for him and the hatred of him are both baked in so solid, so two things are true at the same time.
With Trump as the nominee, you're going to get two things, guaranteed two things.
The love for him and the devotion to him and the desire to flip a huge middle finger to the establishment that now, That will be on fire with energy.
The other thing that's going to be on fire with energy, every Democrat, if Biden could be actually dead and on the ticket, and Democrats will crawl on broken glass and walk through fire to deliver another loss to Trump.
So that will be in furious force.
So which of those forces, which of those phenomena, Is greater?
I don't know.
And neither do you.
Are there risks to making Trump your nominee?
There sure are.
But are there risks that a whole lot of people seem totally willing to take?
Yes, indeedy.
So what is the one thing that might erode Trump's support?
And I'm not saying it will, but it's the only thing that can.
I'll tell you next and take your calls next.
1-8-Prager-776.
Mark Davis in for Dennis.
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So, whether you are watching or listening or both, we appreciate it.
Mark Davison for Dennis here on debate night, the morning after, depending on your time zone, the day after.
What do we think?
I'm going to take some calls here and sort of intermingle my specific thoughts about how each candidate did.
And of course, the short part is how Trump did with Tucker, simply superb.
It was just vintage Trump for 47 minutes, and it was awesome.
It was just a reminder of how great he is and why everybody wants him back, or nearly everybody wants him back.
I will tell you, not to be a curmudgeon about this, But I still think he should have been on the debate stage.
I totally understand his logic.
Why should I? There are 50 points behind me.
I don't need to show up for this.
I totally get it.
He's right about that.
It did not hurt him to not be there.
But it was a missed opportunity.
There are millions of people for whom the last ten times they heard Trump talk, it was all about Jack Smith and Fonnie Willis and Alvin Bragg and this persecution and that lawsuit and this vendetta and that witch hunt, all of which is true.
But it just, it can be fatiguing to some folks who are not a junkie for this.
And this would have been an opportunity for Trump with a bunch of rivals and a bunch of pretenders, to be sure, and a bunch of people at 0.5%.
And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
But it would have been him talking about borders.
It would have been him talking about crime.
It would have been him talking about climate.
Which, by the way, he did with Tucker.
But he could have done that too.
Not to get greedy, but why not do the debate and then sit down with Tucker tonight?
Wouldn't that have worked?
But it was a statement.
I understand it was a statement.
It was a positioning statement that says I don't even need to be on that stage as they all run for who's going to be the last person left when there are two candidates left standing.
That is, by the way, what last night's debate was about.
It's what the entire campaign is about for everybody not named Trump.
At some point in the spring, there will be two candidates left.
One of them will be named Donald Trump, and the other one will not.
And everybody wants to be that other person.
And forever it looked obvious that it was going to be DeSantis.
It doesn't look that way so much right now.
Now it could really be Vivek.
Will that sustain?
Is this kind of a flash in the summer pan?
I don't know.
Your thoughts are welcome.
1-8 Prager 776. As I get ready to go to the phones, here's the thing.
Everybody, I get asked this all the time.
Is there anything that could change the calculus?
Anything where Trump just doesn't have that 50-point lead anymore?
Because while we're talking math, here's what's undeniably true.
Trump can win the nomination, can breeze to the nomination, without poaching one single supporter from anybody on that stage last night.
Obviously, he could do it tomorrow.
DeSantis, just to pick somebody, or Vivek, let's go with DeSantis for the moment.
He needs to poach half of the Trump poll numbers.
He's got to go get half of those people.
Half of the people saying we want Trump, half of the 50-some percent, if not more, who say we want Trump, who say that now in August, have to stop saying that by the time people are really voting in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Nevada, et cetera, et cetera.
So what is the one way that happens?
And this is a half-court shot, maybe a full-court shot.
And that is that some of the poll emotions right now, some of it, most of it, is we want this guy to be president.
We loved him then, we love him now, we want this guy to be president.
You know, the usual earth logic that people use in expressing support for a candidate.
But some of it, and it'll have to be a lot of it, and I don't know that it is, but certain X percentage of it has to be folks who may or may not.
They require Trump to be their next president, but they are furious at what's being done to him.
It is a show of support.
I mean, why do you think the poll numbers will go up after he is arraigned today in Atlanta?
Is it because a bunch of people will just look at issues around America and decide, oh, he is my guy?
Some may, but most of the poll bursts and the fundraising bursts that happen after each continuing litany of indictments is people saying, oh, hell no.
It's what I call the Jason Whitlock effect.
Jason Whitlock is the wonderful broadcaster, blogger who was on with Tucker.
I think it might have been after the first indictment or the second one.
I lose track.
Jason Whitlock was on with Tucker when Tucker was on Fox and said, I don't even know what I think about Trump.
I'm halfway with him, halfway not.
I like some of what he does, some of it not.
I don't know.
But tonight, I'm hardcore MAGA. Tucker, tonight I am hardcore MAGA, Jason Whitlock said.
And it was as a statement of revulsion at what was being done to him.
Now, if that's a bunch of Trump support, because here it is in one nutshell.
By the time we go through Christmas, we go through the holidays, everybody digests their holiday...
Meals, and then we all get rolling in January of 2024, and millions of Republicans go, whoa, okay, now, now, it's, it's, it's, it's always been serious.
But now it's time.
Time with a capital T. It's not about whether we don't like Jack Smith, or whether we, you know, think 2020 was rigged, or whether we're, it's not about anything else.
It's other than, it's about one thing.
One thing.
Who beats Biden?
Who gives us the best chance of beating Biden?
And if the similar numbers of people who think so today think that that's Trump, and by the way, it may well be, then nothing will change.
All these campaigns, all the DeSantis's, all the Vivek's, all the everybody's, I don't want to say it'll be for naught, but it will not bear fruit.
It will not bear fruit.
If, however, and it's funny because right now we've got sort of the fresh angst, the renewed emotion and determination of what will happen after Trump is dragged before yet another tribunal for yet another non-crime.
We can talk about this some today if you want.
There's really only one thing.
Out of every single one of these stupid persecution prosecutions, all these indictments, all these things, really, they only got him on one thing.
There's one thing that he just really should have done differently, and that's the handling of those stupid documents.
Give back the stupid documents.
If you do that, then that's not even a problem.
But all this election-related stuff...
Is insane.
He thinks he got screwed.
And guess what?
So do I. Guess what?
So do most of you.
We don't get to believe that.
And if we're him, we don't get to act on that and make phone calls and secure meeting space and tweet to somebody to watch a TV show, all of which has been criminalized by these lunatic prosecutors.
But in January of 2024, it's not going to be about that anymore, no matter how we feel about that.
No matter how we feel and no matter how resentful we are of that and how much we want to stick with him and, I mean, in that regard, if millions of people say, God bless you, sir, God bless you, we loved your presidency, we want those policies back, but the damage seems to have been done.
Voters seem tired, and we've got to beat Biden.
We've got to.
And we think that to get your policies back, it might take DeSantis to do it.
It might take Vivek to do it.
Now, that's a huge if.
It's a massive if.
But that's the only way that the poll numbers change.
Your call's next.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
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And hey, Dennis, let me piggyback on that for you.
Because August is a big fundraising month for PragerU.
Donate today, and your gift will be triple matched.
Holy cow, how does that happen?
A $50 donation is really a $150 donation.
$100 is $300.
And $610 is really $1,830.
I could go on.
How did I even...
Yeah, I knew I was going to mess that up.
PragerU.com, PragerU.com or 833-PRAGERU. Let's make it a big, big, big banner month for PragerU, teaching what isn't taught.
And by the way, PragerU in the news everywhere.
Have you seen how people are freaking out in 12 languages?
That PragerU is allowed, not forced, it's not mandated.
Teachers can use PragerU videos in Florida.
And here in my great state of Texas, there is a desire for them as well.
Ha ha ha.
Meaning that...
The liberals, and we do indeed have liberals in Texas, we just don't let them run the place at the moment.
And so there's a lot of back and forth about whether PragerU videos are going to be in Texas classrooms.
Classrooms just get better.
When PragerU videos are there.
They just do.
It's a point of view and a perspective on history and climate and culture and 14 other things that just is not usually there as a result of the curricula that are in place.
So there you go.
Okay, look.
1-8 Prager776.
Let's talk to some folks on the radio and then I will intersperse some of my individual thoughts about the individual candidates and various other things.
I got two and a half more hours.
Y'all are moving and grooving through your day, and I am grateful.
We are in Anaheim.
Joey, Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you?
I am just great, and I'm so glad you're on, Mark.
I always enjoy listening to you.
You're very kind.
Well, I'm very honest, actually.
I watched the debate, and I watched the Tucker Carlson interview with Donald John Trump afterwards.
My take on the interview was that it was excellent, and the thing I liked best about it was that my president was very low-key, very calm, low-key, and he didn't say anything radical or crazy.
And so I really, really enjoyed that.
And he is, of course, my candidate.
But to get to the debate, I think that two people should be taken off, Asa Hutchison and...
Doug Burgum?
No, Christy.
So Doug Burgum survives, but Chris Christie's got to go.
Gee, I wonder why.
Because those two, they promised that they would vote for whoever was president, including Trump.
The loyalty pledge.
Yes, ma'am.
They didn't keep their promise already in the debate.
So they're out for more reasons, but that's one.
And then I thought, unlike many others, I thought that the governor of Florida did really, really well.
I was very impressed with him, and I don't know why everybody says, oh, he's low-key, he doesn't connect, he doesn't...
It's weird.
I've been formulating an answer to that, and I appreciate the view, because people can feel however they wish.
And a lot of people who really love Trump don't like DeSantis at all, probably because they view him as something like a threat.
It's weird because it seems like a lot of people expected, with so much anticipation about DeSantis, that when he announced, and he announced like the third week of May, that instantly he was going to be equal to Trump or halfway to Trump or have 30% or something like that.
Nobody should have expected that.
It's going to take that phenomenon that I was just talking about.
It's almost going to take until January.
And then it's a huge if where people go, we love Trump policies, but only somebody else can bring them to us.
So they'll pivot to DeSantis or Vivek if they do that.
That's a huge if.
And so he's been dogged.
It's like the bar was set so high.
It's like, well, he's not that stellar.
He's not that great.
He's been doing it.
And he did fine on the debate stage last night.
It wasn't a bunch of home runs.
I think Vivek did better.
I think Tim Scott and Mike Pence probably helped themselves more.
But DeSantis was fine.
Slow and steady.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
I think Vivek also should be off the stage.
He's not qualified to be president.
Dude!
Based on what?
If you don't like him, that's fine.
But based on what?
What makes him not qualified?
He could sell anybody a vacuum cleaner.
But I think that Haley really pointed out that he has no foreign...
He just doesn't have experience.
How much experience did Donald John Trump have?
A lot.
Really?
Not at being president, he didn't.
I know what you mean.
He had life experience and wisdom and business experience.
Absolutely.
But Vivek just, you know, he acts like he knows it all and that he has all these foreign policies towards Ukraine, towards Taiwan, towards Israel.
And I disagree with all of them.
Really?
Okay, let me carry that forward.
I am so grateful, because I think he was 100% right on Ukraine, but maybe not on some other stuff.
We'll be right back.
It is the Dennis Prager Show for Thursday, August 24th, debate night, the day after.
Mark Davis filling in from Texas, taking your calls, mixing your thoughts and mine.
So, all right.
I mentioned on my show this morning locally, and I'll mention it, and I may have already touched on it here, so many debate reactions are going to be filtered through what you think of everybody, which is fine, and I'm not immune to that.
I try to resist it, and I hope I'm a worthy tour guide through this because I love Trump.
Do I know that he's our best shot versus Biden?
Nope.
I respect DeSantis.
Is the hype, is the reality going to live up to the hype?
I don't know.
I'm impressed by Vivek.
I got hesitations about Vivek.
I'm just paying attention.
I'm letting the game come to me.
For many of you who have totally made up your mind, which you're completely entitled to do, if you just love Trump, then for many of you, DeSantis is a bum.
And the last lady, God bless her, Vivek is unqualified.
Let me give you a definition of qualified.
Qualified is a weird word.
First of all, the Constitution makes it clear.
You've got to be 35 natural born American citizens.
That's about it.
But I know that conversationally we say qualified and we mean that you seem to have a body of experience in your past, in your brain, in your heart.
You seem to have...
A life that lends itself to being President of the United States.
But if you come after Vivek and say, well, you don't have like foreign policy experience.
How much foreign policy experience did Trump have?
And he was great on foreign policy.
I literally, I don't know how many of you agree with me on this.
I don't know how much I care about experience anymore at all.
Because there are people with loads of experience who are terrible.
One of them is President of the United States right now.
And there are plenty of people who have very little experience, none in elected office, who are awesome.
Trump, the prime example.
Talk about learning.
Talk about on-the-job learning.
He certainly did it.
Now, Vivek being 38. I was talking to the great Kurt Schlichter, who writes for Town Hall and who's just great in everything he does.
Kurt is a take-no-prisoners conservative.
He is an admitted DeSantis fan, a great respecter of and fan of everything Trump did, but it's his belief that the only way to get those policies back, it ain't Trump, it's DeSantis, and so that's where his heart lies.
But he gave me a quote about Vivek that I probably have cited 15 times since.
He said, we just can't have a commander-in-chief who first heard Nirvana on a classic rock station.
I love that so much.
And I don't want to be ageist.
And I don't want to be the old coot in my yard shaking my fist in a cloud telling the kids to get out of my yard.
I'm 65. I like to think I'm a youthful 65. So do we all.
But it's not like Vivek is 20. He's 38!
But today, we ain't growing 38-year-olds.
We ain't growing 19-year-olds like we used to or folks who are double that age.
See, more math.
So it's not like I think he's going to wig out and do weird millennial things.
But maybe I'm looking for a certain seasoning, a certain measured approach that he just doesn't have yet, which is not harsh criticism because I think the guy is truly remarkable.
Here's a little chunk of him from last night.
See what I mean.
Roll it.
This primary is this.
Do you want a super PAC puppet or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth?
Do you want incremental reform?
Which is what you're hearing about.
Or do you want revolution?
Okay.
And I stand on the side of the American revolution.
We're going to take control.
See, this is the energy he brings.
And that was actually a moment where he said, he's kind of funny.
He says, 90% of the stuff he says is awesome.
Okay, 80% is awesome.
15% is really great.
And 5% was dumb.
I'm the only candidate up here who's not bought and paid for.
What kind of a weird slap was that?
But the guy is great on TV. He's very telegenic.
He's very smart.
He's very sharp.
His ten truths, there are two genders.
God is real.
The Constitution is the greatest guarantor of freedom in world history.
We have three branches of government, not four, which is, I guess, a slap at the media and whatever, however many more, the other six.
They're all great.
He's great in a bunch of ways.
Does he need to be the nominee?
I don't know.
Does he need to be the running mate?
I don't know, especially if it's Trump.
And listen, Trump's going to outlive all of us.
He'll be 120 eating a cheeseburger and going, I told you.
But if that is not in the cards, Vivek a heartbeat away from the presidency.
He has a future, as a friend of mine has often said.
He has a future.
I don't know when that future is.
He certainly has a future in this race.
I think he'll be one of the last, certainly one of the last three or four standing.
Let me hit some more calls here, and then we'll talk a little bit about some of the individual performances that were of note.
We are in Detroit.
Mike, hey, Mark Davis sitting in for Dennis.
How are you doing?
You know, these debates are fine, but people need to remember that part of the Democratic strategy is always divide and conquer.
And, you know, it's almost like, what is there to debate?
You know, we're watching the Democratic Party dismantle and destroy our republic.
You know, before our very eyes, you know, the political violence that they've inflicted on this country is just unprecedented.
And you can, with the political corruption, you can start with the bedwetting narrative to the military occupation.
You know, people need to remember this.
The military occupation under a false narrative, under false pretenses by the Democratic Party.
As a former officer, I can tell you 99% of the officer car would have refused that order as illegal.
What order are you talking about?
The order that Pelosi gave to Milley to occupy our nation's capital.
But aside from that...
Hey, Mike, can I be really frank and speak with love?
I'm wide open about all kinds of things, but we're kind of doing something here, and these are platitudes.
They're good, high-quality platitudes, but not really what I'm doing.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
So as you're listening to a show, and if it seems to be doing something, if somebody says, hey, Constitution to apple pie recipes, call me, that's great.
But here's something, a suggestion with love.
If there's kind of something we're doing here, and you've got six index cards in front of you, sit tight with them and wait for another day.
Okay, and I say that with a huge amount of love.
All right, 1-8-Prager-776, 1-8-Prager-776.
Let's do as follows.
When we come back, more of your calls.
Focus, people.
Focus.
And by the way, there are a hundred different things you can say about the debate, about the race, about our country, about Trump and Tucker.
I'm all about that.
So we'll be back in just a moment on The Dennis Prager Show.
Always a good idea.
Mark Davis in for Dennis.
Arnie, we are in West L.A. Steve, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How are you, sir?
Oh, good, Mark.
Two things that stuck to me last night.
We have these lying activists at ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS, and others, of course CNN, that allow the abortion topic to destroy conservative America.
We need them to start sticking mics in front of the left-wing congresspeople and senators and say, when should abortion be not allowed?
What are your limits, exactly?
The second thing I have to say is Asa Hutchinson calling Jan 6th an insurrection is a disgrace.
He needs to get the F out of this race.
It's a disgrace to the Republican Party.
Voters will take care of that very soon.
I know.
How do you overthrow the biggest government in the world without any weapons?
It wasn't an insurrection.
He was horrible.
And the marketplace will take care of him.
The thing is, what have we got to wait for?
Iowa?
New Hampshire?
What?
And listen, I would say this about some people who I don't hold in that high regard, like Asa Hutchinson.
People who I do hold in pretty high regard, like Doug Burgum.
Somebody who I used to hold in high regard before he became a Trump hate monger, Will Hurd.
But I would ask of all three guys, why are you running?
What exactly are you thinking?
Is this an ego trip?
Is it a vanity project?
And I'm going to make a point here.
Because there's somebody else who's at about 1% in the polls.
There's a strong reason for him to be running.
His name is Larry Elder.
It's not just because he's a talk show guy, not just because he's my friend and my former colleague.
It's because Larry has things to say that nobody else would have said on that stage list.
There's a reason for him to be running.
There's a narrative that only he can tell.
There's something truly unique about him.
And the RNC screwed him, and that's not good.
And I wish him well in his action against the RNC and through the FEC. I hope that works out.
All righty, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
Stick around.
We've got one hour down, two to go.
All kinds of things happening.
Grab a line at 1-8-Prager-776.
We'll be right with you.
Portions of the Dennis Prager Show are brought to you by Sierra Pacific Mortgage.
Everybody knows that the days are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guy's lost.
It is the Thursday, August 24th, Dennis Prager Show.
Mark Davis filling in from 660 AM, The Answer, here in bustling Dallas, Fort Worth, where the best show prep I can ever do for filling in for Dennis Prager is my own actual hot happening show in Morning Drive.
And boy, boy, was that an adventure because I got a bunch of calls from people on the exact same things that I'm seeking calls about from you.
How did the debate strike you?
How did Trump versus Trump and Tucker very much conjoined in their quest to attract attention to some issues and themselves?
And they both enormously succeeded.
Is that thing up to 200 million views already, Tucker and Trump?
So we've talked a little bit on should Trump have been on the debate stage?
There's an argument for yes.
Certainly an argument for no.
It's the argument that he makes.
My thought is, is you can have it all.
That he could have done Tucker tonight and gotten the exact same number of hundreds of millions of views and could have been on the debate stage last night talking about something, please, anything other than this continuing litany of arraignments and persecutions, the next of which happens today.
In Atlanta, how's that going to go?
Well, A, you know how it's going to go.
In terms of fundraising and poll numbers, it will probably expand his lead because he garners very deserved and righteous empathy from people who just want to flip a massive bird toward the prosecutorial cabal that is out to get him.
So, phone number is 1-8 Prager 776. 1-8 Prager 776. Let me do the lightning.
Round through how I think everybody did versus what I expected them to do.
And then you can do the same.
Pick and choose.
Do whatever you want to do.
Again, 1-8 Prager 776. And follow me on x slash Twitter or whatever you want to call it at Mark Davis, M-A-R-K Davis.
Vivek, he was great.
He was vintage Vivek.
It's kind of funny.
I said this morning, is there such a thing as vintage anybody when you've only been around in our public consciousness for about 15 minutes?
I guess there is.
His is a recognizable act now.
And I don't say act dismissively.
There's a Vivek way to do things.
There's a way that he phrases things.
There's a way that he comes at them.
And the audience last night pretty well loved it until they didn't.
He got a little snotty and a little millennial short and peakish with people.
I'm the only candidate up here that's not bought and paid for.
Shut up.
But generally speaking, his points were great.
His style was compelling.
And I think, by and large, he did a really good job.
The greatest compliment is paid, not by me or anybody, even on his own staff.
The greatest compliment is last night, the storyline wasn't even what a lot of people thought it was going to be.
Because as everybody's running to be second in the polls, because that's all last night was about.
Who's going to be second in the polls?
Because we know who's first.
The buzz was that folks were going to be gunning for DeSantis.
That they were going to be trying to, you know, put some dings in the armor of DeSantis.
Nope.
They all came for Vivek.
Christy came for Vivek with that.
Dumb!
I'm tired of somebody who talks like ChatGPT.
Shut up, Jersey boy!
The last time somebody talked about being skinny with a funny last name, it was Obama.
He's right about that, by the way.
I think we're in danger of the same kind of amateurish...
What is the reason for the Chris Christie candidacy other than Trump hatred?
And what is the reason for the Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum candidacies at all?
Miracles happen.
Not like this.
I'm teasing.
Anything truly is possible.
But there is zero reason to believe that somebody at zero or one percent is actually going to be the nominee.
It's a free country.
You get to run.
And if you meet the debate criteria, you get to be on the stage.
Unless you're Larry Elder.
Larry got absolutely hosed by Ronald McDaniel and the RNC. And I wish him well in his actions against them.
Meanwhile, I wish all of you well here on this Thursday as the month of August flies by.
It's funny, time is moving quickly and slowly at the same time.
And by that I mean, where did summer go?
I mean, I know there's plenty of it left, especially here in Texas, where it's, let me look outside, it may be 108 degrees by now.
But also, we do truly have a lot of time.
There is, we have all of September, all of October, all of November, all of December.
And we get into January before any human beings actually vote.
Before anybody actually votes, is there room for all kinds of things to change?
There is.
Does that mean they will?
Nope, not necessarily.
So what do you think of what happened last night, and what do you think moving forward?
Okay.
1-8 Prager 776. We are in Orlando.
Hi, Petra.
Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How are you?
I am very well.
Thank you.
My comment is basically why was abortion even brought up by the commentators?
Because this issue has been resolved right now.
It has gone back to the states.
And they are not running for governor.
They are running for the president.
I know, but here's the answer to your question.
The reason it was brought up and the reason it's important for the candidates to weigh in is now that Roe v.
Wade has been overturned, and thank goodness, because it was a constitutional fiction, and now that right now, right now it's all in the hands of the states, meaning my state of Texas can protect the unborn and other states can be ghoulishly permissive about it.
That's where we are now.
The question now, the fork in the road is, Do we need to, as pro-lifers, seek a federal law of some type, which we totally can do, we don't have to, but we can, that creates, let's say, a nationwide 15-week standard?
That's a thoroughly valid question, and clearly on the stage last night, there were people who wanted to do it and people who didn't, so the question is completely valid.
Okay, well, I did not think, maybe not for the first debate.
You know, there are so many others in terms of, well, because of the Immigration Reduction Act, we're at the anniversary of Afghanistan, you know, with PAC and Discipline Court, all that.
There are a lot more people walking around right now caring about abortion than there are who are caring about Afghanistan.
Trust me on that one.
And I know part of the angst is that it gets us in trouble.
It gets us into uncomfortable.
I'll tell you where there's abject fear right now, and I do not have this fear.
I am not afraid.
I am pro-life.
I want a federal 15-week, for starters.
For starters.
Was the overturning of Roe v.
Wade enough for me?
Nope.
I call it a good first step toward a country, a country that actually...
Steps up to prevent babies from the carnage of abortion.
Now, I also know that you can't have everything you want right now.
There's a national freakout going on because of the Dobbs decision.
There are people running their cars off the road still because Roe v.
Wade was overturned.
And there's a perception that this hurts us.
There have been some election results that show that people are recoiling about this, and with all of these choices being left to the individual states, there are some folks, some of them Republicans, stepping forward to say, you know, I don't know how pro-life I want to be.
Which, by the way, is the choice of every American.
Everybody's entitled to feel the way they feel about every issue.
But I am, unapologetically...
Pro-life.
That means I want laws that protect babies from the Holocaust of abortion.
And I'm unapologetic about it.
And I'm in no ways tired.
And I will never grow tired of having those views.
I know full well that I may not convince enough of America to have this in my lifetime.
Took 50 years to get rid of stinking Roe v.
Wade.
How long will this take?
I don't know.
Maybe the ball's rolling a little quicker now.
There are hearts to be changed, minds to be changed, and I'm all about that.
I'm all about the patience and diligence and discipline and skill needed to change hearts and minds on the truth of what abortion is.
And so the overturning of Roe v.
Wade was great.
Well, we're done now.
It's left to the states.
What, like I'm supposed to be okay?
That California is a killing field for unborn babies?
I'll never be okay with that.
Never.
Now, the one thing you can do is move to a pro-choice state, move to a pro-abort state and try to change their policies.
By the way, go do that.
Absolutely.
All about that.
Or, or maybe and or, because these don't have to be binary, one or the other, we can work on a federal law that would protect life.
At 15 weeks.
And I mean, that's for starters.
In Texas, we have a heartbeat bill.
I would love that nationwide.
Now, I know we're a thousand miles from that.
But you know what you got to do when you got to travel a thousand miles?
You get in the car and you drive that first mile.
And you drive that first hundred.
And you drive that first five hundred.
And eventually you get to a thousand.
I don't know how long it'll take.
And I don't know how long it'll take for us to get 60 votes in the Senate and the majority of the House to make such a federal law to protect unborn babies, but that is what I'm going to advocate, and I want my presidential candidates to advocate it too.
Nikki Haley doesn't want to do that.
I understand there's a lot of good things about Nikki Haley.
She is not pro-life enough for me on that issue.
Tim Scott appears to be.
Listen, I know DeSantis is.
I got a question or two about Trump.
Didn't Trump call the heartbeat bill a bit extreme?
Uh-oh!
But that's one of many issues.
I have a lot of moving parts in my consideration on some of this.
I know you do too.
So grab a line.
1-8-Prager-776.
1-8-Prager-776.
Mark Davis in for Dennis.
Stick around.
On your bed, man, we'll disclose what everybody knows.
Any way that you can consume Dennis Prager content is a good use of your time.
Hopefully equally rewarding, or at least almost as much, when the fill-in guys are here.
Mark Davis from here in DFW on 660 AM. The answer each morning.
And then usually my habit is to get out, run some errands, and listen to Dennis, except the days when I'm doing the show, and this is one of those days which I'm very, very grateful for.
1-8-Prager-776 and get ready to go back to your calls.
It's obviously one big night of issues, from the debate stage to Trump sitting down with Tucker, but 50 issues come pouring off of both, which makes it a multi-layered thing.
Glad to be here with you to cover all of it.
Two really quick things, like 30 seconds apiece.
Of some pretty huge international news stories this week.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead.
Who's that?
He's the Wagner Group guy?
And if all this sort of makes your brain leak out your ears, who's that?
Are they pro-Putin?
Are they anti-Putin?
Are they his strongmen?
Mercenary force?
What even are they?
Well, this was the guy who apparently grew sufficiently frustrated with the way the Ukraine war was going that he mounted...
Remember when the caravan of tanks and stuff was rolling toward Moscow and it was like going to be a coup against Putin?
And then it...
Stopped.
And then Putin, people thought, oh, surely this guy's dead by dinnertime.
But he wasn't.
And there was this couple of days where Putin seemed to be making nice with him, healing up the relationship.
Yevgeny, don't worry.
It'll be okay.
Don't worry about the thing.
Yeah, Yevgeny got blowed up in a plane yesterday at like 20-some thousand feet.
Well, I said got blown up.
Whoops!
Freudian slip.
Something happened to his plane.
Nothing suspicious about this at all.
The other story involves India.
Huge props to India.
How thrilled was all the 10 billion people they have in that country?
China, India, nobody else is close.
That's a lot of happy people.
As their moon lander, the Chandrion 3, didn't just land on the moon, landed on the south pole of the moon, which carries some excitement because there's apparently like some frozen something or other down there.
Might be ice, might be water.
If that's the case, you got hydrogen, you got oxygen, oxygen for breathing, hydrogen for power.
This could be pretty cool.
And listen, I'm total space dork if you haven't picked that up.
Earlier I revealed that at 65, that means I'm 11 for the human footprints on the moon.
Couldn't be more thrilled that astronaut Reid Wiseman will lead a NASA crew back to orbit the moon right after we win back the White House in late 2024, and then more human footprints on the moon in late 2025. And I just love that additional generations of people, not just kids, but people of all ages, can maybe have the wonder that I had.
At the time of this being man's nature to explore, and as Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott said there in his first steps on the moon, this is exploration at its greatest.
So it's unmanned, but listen, and you ever hear people say, you know, launching something toward the moon at 238,000 miles away is like going out in the backyard with a baseball and then fill in the blanks.
You know what it's like?
Landing a craft on the moon.
At a specific place, a quarter million miles away, is like going out in your backyard with a baseball and throwing it and hitting something a quarter million miles away.
I mean, there's just no need for the proportionality of it.
God bless them.
It's incredible.
Way to go, India.
Oh, by the way, speaking of Russia, tough week for them all around.
The Luna, what was it, the Luna 25?
Yeah, they were going to land a couple of days ago.
Uh-oh!
That did not happen.
That thing...
That thing crashed and burned like the Will Heard campaign.
So there you go.
All right.
1-8 Prager-776.
1-8 Prager-776.
And we are in Orlando.
And Dennis, that is you.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in.
How are you?
Oh, very good.
Thanks so much for taking the call.
Sure.
Yes, sir.
I'm very interested to know if...
There's a chance that a third-party candidate can become president under this current environment with the proper steps to get their name and information that perhaps is not being spoken.
Something like Larry Elder.
Yeah, the short answer is no.
The short answer is no.
The dirty little secret about third parties is there's a reason why they usually get between zero and one and two percent.
Ross Perot in 1992 was a wild outlier at 19 percent.
I don't know if anybody will ever do that again in my lifetime.
The dirty little secret is that everybody bags on the two-party system.
But most people find a way to become comfortable with it.
The vast majority of people are either going to vote for the Republican or the Democrat.
And the number of people left over...
Listen, in a...
A country of 330 million, if it's 5 or 10 percent of everybody that's miffed at the two-party system, that's still millions of people.
So is there room for a Cornel West, for a Joe Manchin, RFK Jr., when it becomes clear to him that he's not going to be the Democrat nominee?
Could that be something of consequence?
You ask, could that person win?
That's a hard no.
But as Ross Perot did, he can sure make sure somebody else wins.
Because Ross Perot, and God bless Mr. Perot, wonderful man, wonderful Texan, wonderful American, he gave us Clinton because he took votes right away from George H.W. Bush.
I love Larry, but I don't want him running third party because he'd take votes away from the Republican.
There may be some enthusiasm for having a Joe Manchin or a Cornel West, RFK Jr., as a third party candidate because that would probably take away from Democrats.
What are your thoughts?
Yes.
Well, I'm a candidate for president.
I'm Dennis Andrew Ball.
Great.
I hope I delivered the bad news to you with some level of skill and love.
Good grief.
Good grief.
I gotta tell you.
That was a long...
I should almost give the guy's website at this point.
So, anyway.
All right, because that's, I got to tell you, sir, you got a gift.
You are instantly at least as interesting in your presidential campaign as Asa Hutchinson is.
And you may, in fact, get more votes.
All righty, 1-8 Prager-776.
Let us roll to Prescott, Arizona.
Neil, hey, Mark Davison for Dennis, how are you?
And are you, in fact, on the ballot anywhere?
I had an eye operation, so I see clearly now.
I found out...
Johnny Nash!
We'll roll it out for you.
Johnny Cash was a customer.
The whole idea of abortion is sickening.
I took a girlfriend to an abortion.
She almost died.
It wasn't mine after all, she said, but it still hurts.
I find the left, since I was in the farm's business, the left tells us, don't shoot the rapist.
We'll get you the abortion later.
But don't execute the rapist that murdered your unborn baby.
Now, Putin might have made a situation on that airplane post-birth abortion to his enemies.
Yeah, there is a certain danger to running afoul of Putin.
And I can't sit here and say that I absolutely know that he had Prigozhin killed.
But, as Joe Biden himself might say in a lucid moment, come on, man.
All right.
Here comes the bottom of the hour break.
We'll come back, take some more of your thoughts about the Republicans on stage last night.
The one Republican who was not on stage but was sitting there with Tucker doing a great job in that broadcast.
And a number of other things.
Lying ahead.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
stick around we have all kinds of things for you to read and see and do I've got to tell you, we Salem Media Group people, we will keep you busy.
Talk shows, books, and Regnery is awesome.
They saw fit to print a couple of my books.
I ought to crank out another one at some point when I get a minute.
It was Lone Star America in 2014, How Texas Can Save Our Country.
Every word's still true.
In 2016, I wrote Upside Down, How the Left Turned Right Into Wrong, Truth Into Lies, Good Into Bad.
That's a long subtitle.
Just do Mark Davis Upside Down on Amazon and grab that and let me know what you think.
Real interested in knowing what you think right now at 1-8 Prager 776 as we do debate the day after and talking also about Trump and Tucker the day after because a lot of folks got some words in.
In the evening's pursuits that did them some good.
The surprises for me, and debates don't tend to yield a lot of surprises.
You pretty well know what people are.
DeSantis could have had a better night.
It was okay.
It wasn't crippling.
But he really needs to kind of gear up.
He needs to keep pace with Vivek's energy now.
Mike Pence, who has bored me greatly for months, and he's a good man, a good father, a good...
Husband, a good Christian, a good conservative.
He's a good vice president.
But I just didn't see any groundswell of people wanting him to be president.
I still don't.
But he stepped up and defended himself in some ways and did some things that were of value.
Nikki Haley did.
Tim Scott really did.
I don't think Brother Scott is getting enough love.
I think that amid some of the sniping, Vivek versus Christie and everybody versus everybody else, that gave Tim Scott some moments.
To sort of be the above-it-all grown-up, just saying some good, bedrock, valuable things, he's not going to be the nominee either, but I think that he, to me at least, enjoys the inside track for running mate.
Don't you think?
1-8 Prager-776.
We are in Arlington, Virginia, there in the Washington Burbs.
Lucy Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you?
I'm fine, thank you.
I wanted to disagree with you about Trump being at the debate.
I don't think he should have been there.
He shouldn't have been there because they would have just beat the hell out of him on J6 or any of these indictments.
You think?
You think he couldn't handle that?
Don't you think it would have been masterful to see him beat back those attempted attacks?
Yes, I do.
I agree with that.
I know what you mean.
I want the other guys to hear.
I want to hear their views because in 2016 Trump was like number 10 or 12 for me.
I had so many people ahead of him.
But at the last time when it was all over and done with, when no one was left standing but him, I knew I wasn't going to vote for no one but whomever the Republican candidate is.
So it gave me a chance to hear all these other guys' views.
And if he had been there, I wouldn't have heard those views.
So I want to rate them.
I want to hear what they say so I can rate them.
Because I don't want to do and I don't want the voters outside to do what I did.
I made the mistake.
When McCain and Romney were running against Obama, I couldn't hold my nose and vote for either one of them.
And I regret it.
I know, it's okay.
I regret it because I have put Obama in office.
And I don't want to do that again.
This time, I would probably have to hold my nose and vote for...
So far, I can see I'd have to hold my nose and vote for Pence.
But I will do it.
And that's wisdom.
And that's called getting smarter.
And I'm so grateful to you.
And you've got a lot of company, too, because that's nothing but smart.
Because if you don't get exactly the person you want, if you have any Republican, any conservative, any kind of that DNA in you, you've got to ask, okay, is four more years of Biden okay?
And if it's not, you've got to vote for whoever the Republican is.
Period.
Paragraph.
End of story.
Correct.
And I do hope our side is doing something.
They better be mirroring every single thing that demon rats are doing because those guys are evil geniuses.
So, hey, with about 60 seconds, who would you like, right now, knowing everybody as you do, who would you like the Republican nominee to be right now?
Who would be your choice?
Trump.
Trump.
Gotcha.
I know what the man did.
I know what he will do again.
And this time, I think he has learned his lesson with the personnel that he put in there the last time.
He has learned his doggone lesson this time.
He is not going to put Fatty Boy in there.
He's not going to listen to Chris Christian anymore.
From Scaramucci to John Kelly.
He is on it.
Yeah, I completely agree with you, Lizzie.
Thank you.
I so, I value, thank you, thank you, thank you.
And this was a lady who was a Trump skeptic.
What'd she say?
He was 10th on the list?
You know how many people for whom he was 10th on the list, 5th on the list, 3rd on the list?
For me, he was 2nd on the list.
I was a Ted Cruz guy.
Stuck with him until Trump beat Ted in Indiana, May of 2016. Well, that's the end of that.
Amount of time it took me to pivot to Trump?
One millisecond.
Never looked back.
That was great.
Worked out superbly.
She knows it.
I know it.
Do you know it?
Mark Davison for Dennis.
Stick around.
Stick around.
And that's Dennis Prager's show, hour number three on this Thursday, 24th of August at It is debate night, the day after.
Your reactions, we've all slept on it.
I assume we have.
I did.
It was late night because I had to log the debate and then watch all 40-some minutes of Trump and Tucker.
And Trump and Tucker was fantastic.
I'll have some excerpts from that here a little later on this hour if you missed that.
And that's the thing, is Trump and Tucker was something you could watch any time.
You could watch it last night, you could watch it today.
I mean, that's the nature of dropping your shows on Twitter or anywhere online.
You can watch them any time, it's on demand.
The debate was happening.
I know there's such a thing as the DVR. There are people who watched the debate this morning, and that's fine too, but it was kind of happening as a live broadcast, and so you could do it all, and that's what led me.
To believe that Trump could have done it all.
He could have had the huge impact, the 200 million or so views of sitting down with Tucker Carlson while at the same time showing up on a debate stage and reminding anybody who needed to be reminded not just what a great president he was, but what a great candidate he can be.
Because listen, we've learned that today.
I've heard from some folks who say, listen, I love the president's policies.
I wish he could win again, but I just don't think he can.
That is a nagging doubt that some people have.
And to have him on a stage duking it out, not just over 2020 rigging or the continuing mountain of prosecutions, but on the border, on the economy.
Climate insanity.
The reason on battling the woke agenda.
Does anybody believe that Trump remains kind of tight-lipped on wokeness because that's kind of DeSantis' baby?
I'd like not to think so because every time DeSantis goes after Disney, every time DeSantis goes after Bud Light, every time DeSantis goes after critical race theory, every time DeSantis goes after gender lunatics.
You know Trump agrees.
You know he does.
Please!
But he doesn't talk about it as much because he may be concerned that people will go, that's Trump agreeing with DeSantis.
And Trump doesn't want to be seen as being second to the dinner table on anything.
But he's not.
Trump was talking about much of this stuff during his first term, so I just...
It's a crazy dynamic these days, and we're obviously analyzing that dynamic this morning.
Join us this morning.
Listen to me.
I'm doing the West Coast vibe since it's the Prager Show, because it is indeed just after lunchtime here in Central Time.
No matter what time zone you are in, glad you are here.
And of course, I'm used to saying good morning, because that's the show that I host here on 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas-Fort Worth.
So look.
Oh, hang on a second.
We've got an interesting...
So there are huge developments in Georgia today.
Number one, Trump shows up to be arraigned, fingerprinted, booked, mugshotted.
I don't know, they've got to throw him in a holding cell?
I don't think so, but any wacky thing is possible.
So there's big number one.
Number two is House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has announced he is going to probe.
The DA's motivations, District Attorney Fannie Willis there in Fulton County, in a search for political motivation.
And the other bit of news is from Ms. Willis herself, who has recommended a trial date on the Georgia charges, when you think it is.
Usually, a lot of these things move at a glacier's pace, right?
And there's been a lot of talk about, well, what's it going to be like if some Trump trial is like in the spring of 2024?
Like, you know, right after Super Tuesday or right before Super Tuesday or something like that, what will it be like if there are like two or three people left in the race and it's Trump and DeSantis and Vivek, and all of a sudden, he's got a trial he's got to go to in April or May of 2024?
Well, DA Ms. Willis wants no part of that.
She wants a trial a couple of months from now.
October of this year.
Meaning, one of two things happens.
Either Trump carries the stain of a conviction, if it is indeed a stain, or the booster shot of a conviction, that's probably a bad usage in the era of COVID, the wind in his sails, the benefit of a conviction, or the sting, or depending on how you look at it, of a conviction, or he's vindicated.
Or we find a jury, even in Trump-hating Atlanta, that at least has the clarity to recognize that he didn't do anything illegal.
That he broke no law in his vigorous, righteous attempt to get to a correct result in 2020's results when he thought that the ones that had been arrived at were flawed.
And we're suspicious.
And we're unacceptable.
And he's completely entitled to that view.
As was Al Gore in Florida in 2000. Do we remember Bush v.
Gore in 2000?
I think we do.
And that was a hotly contested, very close race.
And Gore had a slate of alternate electors.
Nobody ever called them fake electors, though.
Gee, I wonder why.
Gore had a slate of alternate electors just in case he was awarded the state of Florida through the court battles.
And by the way, that's exactly what he should have done.
I gave Al Gore all kinds of holy you-know-what during that campaign before and after.
But was he entitled to have a slate of electors ready to go if his team prevailed in Florida?
Of course he did, as was Trump so justified in Georgia in 2020. All righty.
Here we are in 23, looking at 24, and I'm looking at your calls.
Here you go.
1-8 Prager-776.
1-8 Prager-776.
We are in Westminster, California.
And George, that is you.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Mark.
Hi.
I'm a Trump supporter because I think he's the only one that will be able to stand up to what the deep state has been doing to him.
And we'll do to our next president if he's a Republican.
So there's no doubt that Trump has that skill set.
I have a feeling that DeSantis says the right things and that Vivek says the right things about that, but being unproven, they have not swayed you, correct?
That's right.
And that concerns me.
But I do feel that any of the Republicans is better than any of the Democrats.
Well, you are correct about that, and thank you for the clarity on that.
Listen, if Trump is the nominee, and you are one of the Republicans who is not just thinking we need to turn the page, but you just don't want him anymore, he was never your cup of tea.
I get that.
Everybody's entitled to their personal tastes.
But I had these talk shows in 2016 where people had, you know, they were big Trumpophobes.
They had a problem with Trump because they were hardcore Ted Cruz or hardcore Marco Rubio or if anybody was hardcore Marco Rubio or whatever.
They wanted somebody else.
And they said, well, I don't know if I can vote for Trump.
And I would tell them person after person, caller after caller after caller after caller.
I tell them, so a Hillary presidency is okay with you?
And they go, oh no!
I go, yes it is.
Yes it is.
If you refuse to show up and vote for Trump, that means a Hillary presidency is acceptable to you.
And if it's not acceptable to you, then you've got to get over yourself and get in there and vote for Trump.
We're in Greenville, South Carolina.
Mark.
Hey, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How you doing?
Hey, very well.
Thank you.
And I'm so glad you're in.
I love Dennis Prager because he talked about the most valuable and rarest of character qualities is courage.
And that's what Donald John Trump has.
Even DeSantis doesn't, to the extent...
Now, he did many courageous things in Florida, but I'm so thrilled with what Donald Trump is.
But specifically, I wanted to talk about Mike Pence.
When the topic comes up about his failing to hold strong on January 6th, I cannot overturn the election.
That's not the question.
He is straw-manning the question.
All he was asked to do was pause the process so that we could examine what had happened.
You're completely right about that.
To certify the election.
And he keeps mischaracterizing it.
And I think he's a great deceiver in that regard.
Because he's got his own reputation to protect.
And the other thing that he says, and this is one of his favorite lines, and I don't know who he thinks this attracts.
Maybe a disgruntled Chris Christie voter.
He said, you know, Donald Trump asked me to choose between him and the Constitution.
No, Mike.
No, he did not.
No, he did not.
All righty.
Well, I'm going to choose between many of your calls, and it's a delightful choice to make.
And place more of them, please, at 1-8-Prager-776.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
And we will be right back on this Thursday post-debate, post-Trump on Tucker, pre-2024 type of talk show.
Stick around.
Thank you, Dennis.
Mark Davison for Dennis Prager.
Today, Thursday, August 24th, debate night, the morning after Trump and Tucker, the morning after.
The summer before the fall, before the winter, before the spring, when all kinds of voting takes place leading to the fall that really matters, the fall of 24. All righty.
We are in Columbus, Ohio.
Cameron, Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you?
Happy Thursday.
I'm good.
How are you, Mark?
Good.
Thank you.
Hey, listen.
This is mostly to the hardcore Trump voter.
These people aren't playing on the left.
This isn't like Trump saying, hey, I'm going to lock her up, lock her up, and not do it.
They will do it.
These are hardcore leftists.
They will put him in jail.
There are states that will keep him off the ballot, and it will go to the courts, and it's completely unconstitutional, but they don't care.
They don't care about the Constitution.
And by the time it gets litigated to the Supreme Court, there's three good justices out of the six conservatives.
Three of them will not reverse this election.
So if they want to keep their guy out of jail, they better start opening their eyes and look to a different candidate than Trump because they are going to put him in jail and they are going to keep him off the ballot.
Well, I have a question, because you said it doesn't look like you feel that they can keep him out of jail.
It seems that you feel that him winning is impossible.
So is this a call from you for people to have a hard look in the mirror, a hard look at the circumstances, lay down your arms, plan to win, and bail off a Trump and go find you somebody else?
Is that your general message?
Yeah, that's exactly right, because I would vote for him.
If he's on the ballot, I'll vote for him, no doubt in my mind.
There are probably six blue states, and you know which ones they are, that are going to keep him off the ballot.
And it is completely wrong.
I don't know if they're going to be able to keep him off the ballot.
But let me ask you from that perspective.
Well, I know nothing should surprise us.
Who do you think is our best bet to beat Biden?
Who do you like?
Oh, I think Ron DeSantis, hands down.
He actually did MAGA. He did MAGA. I know.
I know.
I know.
That's exactly...
These guys, Trump and DeSantis, are cut from such similar cloth, and it is only the vicissitudes and oddities of...
Of the way a presidential campaign is going to go that has them at odds with each other.
We are in Oregon.
Hi, Cindy.
Mark Davison for Dennis.
How are you doing?
Hi.
All right.
Glad I could talk with you.
Thank you.
I think we all need to stand back a little and stop looking at life like a game show.
The debates right now are politics as usual.
And Trump is actually laying his...
Life on the line in real life for the freedom of America and has been for some time.
What do you mean by politics as usual?
Because with eight people on stage, there are some who I would say that about.
I don't think Vivek is politics as usual.
I don't think DeSantis is.
The debates are good and necessary, but where the real fight is going on is with the courts.
This is not about they don't...
I know.
Oh, I know.
He's promoting America, and he's not listening to them, and he's willing to lay his life on the line.
Nobody else has shown that.
Well, nobody else has had to.
DeSantis was in the military, so I would give him a little bit of credit for that.
All right, we are in Idaho.
Preston, hey, Mark Davis in for Dennis.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Mark.
Can you hear me?
I can indeed.
Okay, great.
My comment was, if they say Trump committed a crime by asking Mike Pence to hold back a bit and review the electors, and this is some kind of a crime, why would not the legislators that asked Pence to hold back?
And send the electors back to their state legislature to be reviewed.
Why would those people not be guilty also of trying to subvert the Constitution?
Well played.
And you know, listen, that is superbly put.
And if we want to extrapolate further, if there is such a thing as an illegal thought, an illegal motivation, an illegal wish...
Why aren't they coming to get me for doing this radio show and the radio show that I do, which has proclaimed from every mountaintop I can find that the 2020 result was flawed, that there were doubts, proper, righteous concerns about the accuracy of the vote, and that a pursuit of the truth, not to overturn something or to subvert anything or to terrorize anything or to thwart constitutional democracy or blah, blah, blah, blah, not any of those things, just to ask those questions.
Why isn't the show that I do illegal?
Why isn't your call to me something that could get you arrested?
I know that sounds like I'm writing a new Orwellian novel, but this is what the left is up to right now.
This is what they are about.
We are long past the days of simple debate where I say something and somebody else says something else.
Trump says something and some other candidate says something else.
A Republican says something and then a Democrat says something else.
Those were good days.
How I miss them.
Both doing what I do for a living and just as an American.
We are now at the point where if you thwart what the left says, you are a hater, you are a terrible person, you are stupid, and we may lock you up.
Because from your belief that...
There are only two genders is something that is being driven from the public square by these people.
Your belief that the 2020 result was not as pure as the driven snoo is something that is being driven from the public square.
It is silenced in our media culture.
It is sidelined by elites and authoritarians in power.
And it is a deeply, deeply troubling and concerning road that we are on.
The road we're on for the show takes us through this break and on the other side to more of your calls.
I look forward to that.
Mark Davis in for Dennis Prager.
Stick around.
Dennis Prager here.
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