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Sept. 25, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:21:07
Operation Atlantic Resolve
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Dennis Prager here.
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Well there!
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
Bob France sitting in, and yeah, you hear the music, you know where I'm coming to you from.
Cleveland, Ohio, the home base.
The ReliefFactor.com studios, if you will.
Our WHK Radio, AM 1420, The Answer here in Cleveland, Ohio.
An honor to be sitting in for Dennis once again.
And, of course, today being Yom Kippur, which is why Dennis is off today, as he has, of course, been celebrating the Holy Days and starting back with Rosh Hashanah, the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
And it's a wonderful thing.
It really is.
You know, I kind of have to familiarize myself, not being Jewish myself, I have to familiarize myself with some of the days and some of the reasons and the explanations for the calendar.
And Yom Kippur is one of the ones that, to me, is the most solemn.
A day of atonement, a day of reflection and looking inside and asking for forgiveness for the shortcomings that perhaps we have and so forth.
And so to Dennis and to everyone who is...
Commemorating and or celebrating and or taking part and participating in the Yom Kippur Day today, this very important Day of Atonement.
God's blessings to you all.
Seriously, really appreciate that.
Meantime, we've got work to do.
We have a lot of very important things to talk about.
And I want you to be a part of the show.
8 Prager 776. That's 877-243-7776.
I want to know, is it acceptable for me To be concerned with the plight of others, but being unwilling to do any more than I have already done.
And yes, if you're wondering, I'm talking about Ukraine.
Yes, if you're wondering, I'm talking about the $113 billion we have already sent to Ukraine to help them ward off the invasion of the Soviet, well, the Russians.
Who are trying to rebuild a Soviet empire, I suppose, if you think that they are going to not stop in Ukraine and then advance to other European nations and so forth.
I don't think so.
I don't think they have the ability to do that any longer.
I don't think they are the fearsome foe they were when the Soviet bloc was, of course, raining havoc on Eastern Europe and raining havoc on the world.
But I want to talk about the Ukrainian situation.
Here's two reasons.
Two reasons why.
The first of which is the fact that in Canada, over the weekend in front of the Canadian Parliament, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, who came to the United States for the second time, had in hand saying, please drop all you can into the hat here so that we can go back and continue our war with Russia.
They came looking for more money, asking for another $25 billion.
And again, I'll get to the point about how I feel about spending that money and how I feel about it going forward in a moment, but he came to the United States and then he went up to Canada.
And he went up to Canada before the Canadian Parliament, and he sat there, and he asked for support and financial remunerations from the Canadians as well.
And the Canadians, of course, listened happily, and, you know, we're all for supporting this.
But what they did after that is something that is quite simply incomprehensible to me.
Canadian Jewish organizations...
Are among those now slamming the Canadian Parliament for giving voice to and a standing ovation to a man who fought for the Nazis during World War II. All because he's Ukrainian.
All because he's Ukrainian.
Video and photos show the Canadian Parliament erupting into cheers on Friday after President Zelensky's visit to the capital of Ottawa, when Canadian lawmakers also honored Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who fought for the 1st Ukrainian Division, according to the Toronto Star, the division, also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, which fought for the Nazis and its paramilitary arm.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement, the fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to, and by the way, this story that I'm starting with this day, this first hour, this story is not because of today being the Jewish Day of Atonement.
This is outrageous.
When it happened is when it happened.
Understand that.
The fact that it is occurring, though that we're talking about this and it just happened during these holy days, is another point entirely.
The fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking.
At a time of rising anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortion, it's incredibly disturbing to see Canada's parliament rise to applaud an individual who was a member of a unit in the Waffen-SS, a Nazi military branch responsible for the murder of Jews and others, and that was a Nazi military branch responsible for the murder of Jews and others, and that was declared a criminal
Some are calling for full-throated apologies from Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and from Ukrainian President Zelensky.
This honor was given to a Ukrainian because everything now has to go Ukraine's way.
Because Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, we have to come up with untold, unlimited amounts of treasure and time for anything having to do with Ukraine.
So they brought a Nazi military fighter, 98-year-old, Nazi fighter in World War II before the Canadian Parliament, and because he's Ukrainian, he got a standing ovation.
That's how beside ourselves I think we've become with this, we have to do anything and everything we can to help Ukraine.
So that's number one.
The second reason, by the way, is we continue to try to make some sense out of the, you know, now that we have the actual official figures confirmed by the White House of $113 billion already spent in support of Ukraine.
In addition to that, they say that our commitment to helping Ukraine has no end and there is no cost limit.
They will do this no matter what the cost for however long it takes.
The problem is, of course, there is no end game in sight.
There's no end to the commitment that has been identified.
When does it end?
What standard would it be to say, no matter how long it takes, to finish the thought?
Chuck Schumer?
Joe Biden?
Mitch McConnell?
I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican.
If you are giving an unending blank check to Ukraine, what does that mean?
What does that look like?
You say, for as long as it takes to...
fill in the blank.
What?
Does every Russian in Ukraine have to retreat back across the border?
Or is that not enough?
Does every Russian have to leave Crimea?
The peninsula that Russia took in 2014 when Obama was president?
Or do they just have to stop bombing and stop the fighting?
What exactly does it mean to say we're going to give this money no matter how long it takes to do what?
Define the endgame.
There isn't one.
And what exactly do you mean as much as it costs?
We've already spent $113 billion.
What if that rises to $500 billion, or half a trillion dollars.
Are you saying to me that at that point a nation, ours, that is $33 trillion in debt and is operating on a roughly $2 trillion budget deficit right now, will go to $500 billion?
Well, you said, no matter the cost.
Would you go to three quarters of a trillion dollars?
$750 billion?
Would you go to a trillion?
Would you go to two trillion?
Exactly what will it take for us to say, we do kind of have to look out for the American people first.
And as concerned as we are about the people who are being harmed by the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian border, when do we start worrying about the invasion that's happening at our border?
Now, I've got a couple of points on that that I want to make.
And number one is this.
Today we mark the 6 millionth illegal border crosser coming across and encountered in the United States since Joe Biden was inaugurated.
That does not account for the 1.5 million gotaways, the known gotaways.
Okay?
It was 1.75, I think, million.
So roughly 7.5 million people have crossed that border since Joe Biden was inaugurated.
At what point do we say that border takes precedent over the Ukrainian border?
That time better come quickly, but it won't, and I'll tell you why as we continue.
I'm Bob France, in for Dennis Prager.
Good to have you aboard on this Monday.
Stay right here.
We'll be back.
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I feel like that bumper music is being directed at me.
Whenever I'm down, I call on you, my friend.
Well, here's France saying, too bad, you can't call on me.
I kind of feel like that was intentional.
Whether it was or wasn't, I don't know.
But I am struggling with this.
When the Ukrainian war started, by the way, welcome back.
Bob France sitting in for Dennis Prager, happily, here on the Dennis Prager Show.
It's 21 minutes past the hour.
We've got a couple of guests we're going to talk about some of this with, including Jim Jordan.
That'll be in the third hour today.
When the Ukrainian conflict first started, and by that I mean let's call it what it is, when the Russian invasion first happened, I spoke with a Ukrainian soldier who was a contact of, there's a pretty strong Ukrainian-American population here in Northeast Ohio where I come to you live from today.
And so a friend of a friend put me in contact with a soldier who was actually fighting for Ukraine.
This is, I want to say, just a few short weeks into the incursion or the invasion, right?
And we talked, and I talked about how our hearts were with them, and our support was for them, and we're going to help supply you with some weapons and so forth.
Because it was just the right thing to do.
It was the right way to feel.
Because, you know, no one should have their...
Their borders, you know, violated, their sovereignty stolen, their people killed and so forth in such an aggressive manner.
That's just how I felt.
And I felt that way for quite some time.
You know, we can help them.
Of course, we can't be alone in helping them.
We have to do some things that are in concert with some of the other actions that are being taken by, let's say, I don't know, some of our NATO allies in Eastern Europe.
The ones who are much, much more directly impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine than we are.
But yeah, we can support.
And as time has gone on, and as the checks continue to flow, you know, the money from my paycheck, and your paycheck, and millions of Americans' paychecks that have money taken out of them every single week by the federal government against our will.
To be used for federal government purposes, many of which we support, and some of which we say, you know, not really sure if I need to have any more of my money taken away from me and given to President Volodymyr Zelensky to be used in whatever ways I don't even know in Ukraine.
I don't know.
As far as I know, that money might be, you know, sent to Ukraine.
And then laundered and circled through, I don't know, one or 20 different shell companies through Ukrainian energy companies and ended up right in the pockets of the entire Biden family.
Because that's a real concern.
That's a real thing.
I don't know.
I want some transparency.
I want some light shed on where the money is going.
So as the time has gone on, and now just literally about a month or so ago, we got confirmation.
From the White House, thanks to the demands put forth by Republicans in control in the House, to find out exactly how much, what's the price tag thus far been?
And we got confirmation that it's $113 billion and growing.
And again, they say, no matter how much, no matter how long it takes.
Which brings me to the second part of my open here.
As the September 30th deadline looms for lawmakers to reach a deal on funding our government, for us, for the American people, the Department of Defense has issued a statement saying that its activities in support of Ukraine would be exempt from any potential shutdown.
You catch that?
Hundreds of thousands of American federal workers are going to be furloughed when the government shuts down.
If the government shuts down, they're going to be furloughed.
Agencies are going to be closed.
Agencies that contract with private companies that employ people that work, they will have to be shut down as well if they work connected to or in contract with the federal government.
America's government will screech to a halt.
Paychecks won't go out.
All of these things are looming on October 1st, just a few days away.
But just so you know that if you as an American worker get shut down, you get furloughed, if your job is put on hold or put in jeopardy, if agencies or government organizations that you need services from Are shuttered because of a government shutdown.
Just know the Ukrainians are still getting their money.
Nothing stops when it comes to Ukraine.
Nothing.
Operation Atlantic Resolve, which is what they call it, is an accepted activity.
Not accepted.
Excepted.
E-X-C-E-P-T. It's an exception to the shutdown rule.
Is an accepted activity under a government lapse in appropriations, said DOD spokesperson Chris Sherwood.
Republicans, at least the ones who are reasonable and sensible, are just lashing out about this.
Obviously upset that we are literally putting Ukrainians first, America last.
Now, this isn't to be drawn into a fight over President Trump versus Joe Biden or anything else.
I saw the poll over the weekend that you saw as well.
When I say America first, it's not the man, it is the movement.
America first has to be you and me.
And America First does not come into the, doesn't factor into the equation of the decisions made by the Biden administration.
They are willing to put Ukrainians first.
Tom Tiffany, a Republican from Wisconsin, said the Biden administration thinks funding, the protection of Ukraine's border is more essential than protecting our own.
He's right.
He's 100% right.
I don't know who the Biden regime is working for, but it's quite obviously not the American people, wrote Texas Representative Michael Cloud.
He's right.
Enough of the insanity, said Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida.
Seems like Biden fell asleep on the train and got off at Ukraine instead of America.
I don't even know if he recognizes which country he's leading.
He's so hell-bent on sending every possible dollar to a country that we have no stake in while our own implodes.
Agreed a thousand percent.
And here's the worst part about this.
I said it a few moments ago.
I started to say it a few moments ago.
While we all sympathize with the Ukrainian people whose nation was invaded by a foreign country, whose border was rendered invisible, and in comes an invading army, right?
Of course we feel bad for them, and of course we want to help them to the extent that we can without hurting ourselves.
Now, our own southern border...
As I said a moment ago, just crossed its 6 millionth illegal alien encounter since Biden took office.
What I would like to suggest to you is to try to imagine for one moment that all of those illegals who have invaded us from the South, you know they don't all come from Mexico or from Central America or from Latin America or from South America.
You do know!
That 165 different countries have been represented in the invasion of our southern border.
I would like you to imagine in your mind's eye that those 165 nations were all one nation.
If 6 million people had come across our border from one country, you'd call it an invasion, wouldn't you?
But because it's spread out over 165 countries, it's not an invasion.
Now it's just a, hey, these are people who need help.
We need to help them.
I've got more for you, and I want to hear from you.
Bob France in for Dennis Prager.
Okay, it is 33 minutes past the hour as we continue on the Dennis Prager Show.
Bob France sitting in Cleveland, Ohio, ReliefFactor.com studios.
At AM 1420, the answer.
Follow me on Twitter if you are so inclined to use social media.
I'm on Twitter.
Just look for my name, Bob France, or the handle France Rants, R-A-N-T-Z. France Rants, R-A-N-T-Z, in both words.
On Facebook at Always Write Radio, on Truth Social at Always Write WHK, and on Rumble at Always Write Radio as well.
I would love to interact with you.
I guess my question to you is, do you, unlike the Biden administration and some on the Republican rhino side of the equation, do you have a limit to the generosity that you are willing to put forth to support the people of Ukraine?
Right now we're at $113 billion.
They say there's no cap.
And there's no time limit either.
As long as it takes.
They don't say to do what?
Are you of the same mindset?
Or do you feel like we have sent enough?
Enough is enough.
Our country is being invaded just as assuredly as Ukraine's has been invaded.
Six million crossers.
Not counting the 1.75 million gotaways.
Known gotaways.
Then there are the unknown gotaways.
That's just since Joe Biden took office.
If all of those individuals wore the same flag on their shirt, if they were all from the same country, you wouldn't just say, well, this is just asylum seekers.
You'd say we're being invaded.
Well, we are being invaded.
And the President of the United States is going around and cutting razor wire that has been put up by Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, they put razor wire all along the border because Texas is taking 75% of the brunt of the illegal crossers.
So they're trying to protect their own citizens, trying to protect their own resources.
They're putting up razor wire, and then Biden is sending feds to go around and clip it and cut it and make it easier for them to come in.
The governor of Texas put buoys, big orange rolling buoys, some of them also outfitted with razor wire to discourage anybody from trying to cross that river into Texas, and Biden filed a lawsuit to get him to remove it.
He is not just not doing anything about the invasion, he is actively fostering it.
He's making it happen.
It's intentional.
And yet, we're going to spend 113...
Billion dollars and counting on Ukraine's border.
So my question is, have you seen enough?
And here's the second question that's much more direct.
The negotiations that are ongoing right now, or that really, quite frankly, have been stalled, the negotiations on the spending bills, the appropriations bills, they're not going to get done by the deadline of September 30th, which means we're going to go into a shutdown on August.
I'm sorry, did I say December?
Excuse me.
If I did, I apologize.
I might say September 30th, which means we're going to shut down on October 1st, unless we pass a CR continuing resolution.
Well, the Democrats and the Ukraine supporters have said any CR that gets passed to fund the government during this period of time in which they continue to waste their time negotiating the issues revolving around the 12 different appropriations bills.
They're including that there is the $25 billion next Ukrainian outlay included.
Some Republicans have said, non-starter, not doing it.
We will not pass a continuing resolution that includes new money on top of the $113 billion for Ukraine, because America's border has to come first.
They're willing to shut down the government over that new outlay in a CR. Do you support that?
I want to find out where we are as a people.
We are compassionate and we are giving, but we cannot be so compassionate for others' plights and we cannot be so giving to others' causes to the point where it sacrifices our own needs.
That's just not sensible.
Let me put it another way.
If you were hungry and you didn't have any money for your table and your next door neighbor was also hungry, right?
And they didn't have money for their table.
And your next door neighbor found their way into some food and some rations.
Would you expect them to come and give it to you first and starve their own kids?
Or would you understand?
They have to take care of themselves first.
Because that's what I expect the Ukrainians to understand.
We need to care for America first.
If we have surplus money, If we're swimming in insolvency and not in a sea of debt, and then we want to go ahead and give to help somebody else, sure.
Charity has to be offered.
It cannot be forced or compelled.
And that's what I hope our elected representatives remember.
Remember, we'll be right back.
Hour number two of the Dennis Prager show is underway.
Six minutes past the top.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Bob France, live in Cleveland, Ohio.
The ReliefFactor.com studios of AM 1420, The Answer.
Sitting in for Dennis as he commemorates Yom Kippur, a very important day, of course, the Day of Atonement.
Dennis should be back tomorrow, and it's my honor to be sitting in for him.
I mention Cleveland, Ohio all the time because, A, that's where I'm from.
B, that's where my local program originates on WHK Radio.
But in this particular case, it's because I'm kind of proud of what I'm about to tell you.
The number one documentary television program in the world today was made right here in Cleveland, Ohio.
It's number one because it's an incredible story.
Now, I told you this before the break.
If you saw any part of or if you binged the Netflix series Making a Murderer back in 2015, 2016 range, you know the story of Stephen Avery.
You may think you know what happened.
You may think that he was railroaded by a corrupt system.
Corrupt police officers, corrupt justice system, or more.
And if you think that, it's because that's what you were supposed to think.
Well, somebody decided to tell the rest of the story, the whole story, maybe the whole truth.
And that is where the number one documentary comes in here.
It's called Convicting a Murderer.
I want you to listen, and if you're watching this show right now on the Salem News Channel, you can watch along.
I'm going to give you the trailer of Convicting a Murderer.
Fire.
This is a collect call from an inmate at the Calumet County Jail.
The man served 18 years in prison until DNA evidence cleared his name.
The Two Rivers man was convicted of sexual assault in 1985, but exonerated with DNA evidence in 2003. So this is the infamous Avery Lott.
Now, two years later, he again finds himself tied to a police investigation.
Accused of murdering Teresa Hallbuck on the Avery property.
Stephen Avery's 16-year-old nephew admitted his involvement in the rape and murder of Teresa Hallbuck.
The car is discovered just around the bend.
It was just this worldwide phenomenon.
I think they've framed this guy.
I think he intended to crush the vehicle, but ran out of time.
Avery thinks the $36 million lawsuit he filed is why he's being targeted in this investigation.
1021 and 24 Main Street.
Do we have Steven Avery in custody?
Netflix made millions of dollars from making a murderer.
But the filmmakers left out very important details.
Mountains of evidence that you have not yet seen.
The blood vial.
The most egregious manipulation from the movie.
Interrogations.
That's when he started beating me because I told him that he's sick.
Cell phones.
And I saw melted plastic parts of a cell phone.
Interviews.
Her arms were pinned behind her head.
They made Stephen Avery look like a victim.
Do you believe your brother's guilty?
I don't know if I'm a suspect.
I'm getting sick and tired of media deception.
Evidence piling up.
Why would they omit so many different things?
Why are you editing my testimony?
I am not going to make the same mistake that the filmmakers did.
Rearranging the testimony.
They delete a portion of it at the end.
How could they claim to care about the truth?
They all know that Stephen Avery committed this crime. - What?
What is your emergency? - The evidence forces me to conclude that you are the most dangerous individual ever to set foot in this courtroom.
So there you have it.
That's the official trailer for Convicting a Murderer, the number one television documentary in the world right now.
Joining us here on the Dennis Prager Show is the director who put that entire thing in motion and put the entire film and ten-part series together, Sean Reck, who is the director of Transition Studios in Cleveland, as well as True Blue Factual Streaming Network.
Sean Reck, so good to talk to you again.
How are you?
Great, Bob.
And I'm happy to be on your show, and I love Dennis Prager, too.
We all do.
We all do.
Dennis is a treasure, and I'm so happy to be sitting in his chair.
And I'm happy to talk to you, too, for a couple of reasons.
Number one, obviously, like so many others, I was fascinated by the Stephen Avery story, and I'm fascinated by the fact that you and your team put together kind of a rebuttal to the Making a Murderer narrative.
But I want to start with this question.
Sean, why?
Why did this matter to you?
You watched it in 2015 like everybody else and you said, oh wow, that's unbelievable.
It seemed like they framed this guy.
Why didn't you just turn off the TV like everybody else did after the last episode and go on about your day?
Something stuck with you and something stuck in your craw.
What was it?
Well, what sticks in my craw now is that a lot of people didn't just turn off the TV. A lot of people mobilized to try and free Stephen Avery with...
You know, having been misinformed.
And I think that it's very important that the factual film industry deliver facts.
And it's easily demonstrable that the filmmakers, and Netflix in this case, did not deliver facts.
And the record needed to be corrected.
If no one else is going to police us, we have to police ourselves.
So that's what I feel like we're doing.
We have to set the record straight.
To preserve our integrity as documentary filmmakers.
That's very well said.
I was interested.
I'll come back to Candace in a moment.
Candace's remark where she said, I'm not going to make the same mistakes, or I wasn't going to make the same mistakes that the filmmakers did.
In making a murderer, but I don't know if that's accurate, Sean.
Let's just follow up on that.
They didn't make mistakes.
It would appear to me, and what you are showing through the first, now five roughly, episodes of convicting a murderer is that it wasn't a mistake.
They intentionally set out to weave a story to tell a tale that wasn't true.
Is that accurate?
I can't.
It's not accurate to say they set out to do it, but it's accurate to say that's what they ended up doing.
And I don't know the reasons.
I don't know if they sunk their life savings into this and then slowly realized, oh gosh, this guy sure looks like he did it, and then left a lot of exculpatory evidence and background information on the cutting room floor.
But for some reason, you know, they were vested in this and they saw it through, even though it became very apparent that, yeah, there were some problems with the paperwork and there's some things that can't be explained, but, you know, it's a pretty...
In my estimation, it's a conviction that hasn't been overturned, and he's got the best appellate attorney in the world in these types of cases, and she hasn't been able to make much happen.
If people knew what was left out, some of them would have made a different determination after watching the original series.
Yeah, I think that's an understatement.
I'll speak for myself then, and you can respond to it if you wish.
The title of the original series, Making a Murderer, indicates to me what they set out to do.
They set out to prove that this guy was made into a murderer, that he was indeed framed, that they had to get this guy, maybe because of the $36 million lawsuit against the state of Illinois, or against the county, rather, for wrongful imprisonment on the case that he was...
You know, wrongly convicted for years before that.
So it sounds to me like they really did come into this with the idea of saying this guy was railroaded and we're going to prove it.
And then, as you say, maybe as they went along, they realized it wasn't true.
So that's when they had to tweak a few things and do the selective editing that you guys feature so much in convicting.
I think that's I think that's probably what happened, Mom.
So so so the documentary, the documentary filmmaking.
Industry, if you will.
You just talked about the integrity of it, that it's important because, and I heard you talk about this before, and in fact, when you and I spoke on the radio before, you talk about people seem to think when there's a documentary, it's a lot more believable than it was, even if it was just a, you know, this film inspired by true events.
Documentaries tend to lend themselves to credibility, don't they?
Well, it's implicit.
When you watch a documentary, you think you're watching facts.
If the documentary was paid for by someone who has a dog in that race, you need to know it.
That's not the case with Making a Murderer, but it's the case with a lot of documentaries.
It's the case where the first documentary ever, Nanook of the North, was paid for by the fur industry, by a fur trader.
So I think that that needs to be disclosed.
If you take a side, you need to say this is an advocacy piece and we took this side.
If you paid your subjects, you need to disclose that you paid your subjects.
We paid some of our subjects.
I'll disclose that right now.
We paid them for exclusivity so they wouldn't do any other project.
You know, these things have to be disclosed.
You can't act as if it's straight news when you actually have an agenda and the agenda is shaping your editing decisions.
And it's very easily proven in this case that it did.
Yeah, and that's a big problem in general in media.
That's something I wanted to bring up anyway, is whether it be a documentary filmmaker or, you know, typical traditional legacy media outlets, it seems as though oftentimes there's too much of an agenda to make news rather than report news and to twist and bend news to fit an agenda that you might have.
And obviously filmmakers are not immune to that.
Yeah, that story is too good to check out.
That's a little joke in the newsroom, you know.
About 20 years ago.
This polarization started, and it's been made much, much worse by social media, okay?
But this polarization started...
I'll tell you what, let me interrupt you on that story, because that's a very important story I think you're about to tell, but I've only got a few seconds left here.
We're going to take a timeout.
We're going to come back.
Sean Reck, the director of the number one documentary in the world right now, it's called Convicting a Murderer, will continue with us on The Dennis Pranger Show.
Okay, 20 minutes past the hour.
Bob France in for Dennis.
Millions and millions of people saw the Netflix series back in 2015, Making a Murderer.
Now millions more are seeing the rest of the story, the rebuttal to the story, if you will.
It's called Convicting a Murderer.
The director of that film, or that 10-part series, which is available now on Daily Wire Plus, is Sean Reck, and he continues with us here on the Dennis Prager Show.
So, Sean...
We were starting to talk about the media's ability and their desire and their agenda to sometimes twist news and make news, and you started to say that you really started to see a shift about 20 years ago, and that's where we left off.
Well, 20 years ago is when we started to see a polarization of newsrooms, and it was pretty obvious that Fox was heading right, MSNBC was heading left, and...
It served their shareholders.
You know, their job, the president's of those news divisions' job is to serve their shareholders, but it stopped becoming news.
If you watched Devin Archer's Hunter Biden testimony a month or two ago, and you watched MSNBC and then you watched Fox, you would see two completely different news stories.
And what happens is that left, it kind of left the truth and the pure story in the middle for someone else to cover.
And that's a golden opportunity for documentary filmmakers to do long-form video journalism.
And we're starting to get paid what we deserve to get paid now because there's so much demand for content like this, in part because of Making a Murderer and what it did for Netflix.
And we can't blow this chance by showing skewed information.
Saying that it's news.
And that's why we're trying to correct the record with this documentary.
And we wanted to issue a call for filmmakers to get together and create a uniform set of documentary filmmaking standards, some ethical standards.
That's a noble cause in and of itself.
You're right, because...
People need to be able to trust what they see and not try to figure out what angle it's coming from, what sort of bias is implicit within it.
So tell me, when you got started with this project, it took you, what, close to six years from start to completion to releasing this just a couple of weeks ago?
Tell me what went into making Convicting a Murderer.
It took over six years, and it was largely the work of the producer we see on screen, Brenda Shuler.
You know, put tens of thousands of hours into research.
She's probably the preeminent subject matter expert on this case.
She has a point of view.
She believes Stephen's guilty, and she makes that plain during the series.
We're transparent about that.
But she put in a ton of work, and then when Daily Wire partnered with us earlier this year, they put in a ton of work, and we reshaped it a bit.
And made it more along Daily Wire's brand and added a layer of commentary with Candice.
And I'm really happy with the finished product.
By the way, Bob, your viewers can, if they don't subscribe to Daily Wire, they can watch it on YouTube.
Episode 1 is on YouTube.
For free.
Yep.
We're going to get there as to how people can see it.
And that's a great point.
The first one will hook you, by the way.
I promise you.
The first one that you can watch for free will hook you.
You're going to want to watch the rest of them because it's an amazing story.
And again, anybody who already watched Making a Murderer, which was millions of people, if you really want the other side of it, and in fact...
Sean, in your interactions in social media with, I guess they're called truthers, Stephen Avery truthers, the ones who believe that he was railroaded and that he was framed, these are people who watch the first time around and they're hypercritical of your film, of your documentary, convicting, saying that you guys are the ones that are twisting the facts.
How do you deal with those folks?
Well, they have, we get into it later in the docuseries, but they have, you know, confirmation bias.
It's almost a cult-like following.
And we have a psychiatrist explain how any time you beat them with an argument in one area, they partition that off, pretend they didn't hear it, and just think about everything else that remains.
And when it's given back to them in an assembly like this, it's kind of hard to do that.
And it's making their heads explode.
And I don't expect to change their minds, because they already know that making a murderer was largely BS. They admit it.
But Making the Murderer is what caused this train to leave the station for them to come up with all these new theories.
And they still come up with new theories and think they find really relevant evidence or, you know, things that don't match up or make sense.
So they're never going to stop.
And, you know, this is probably for the more general viewer who didn't read some of the print articles that pointed out everything that was wrong with Making the Murderer.
They started coming out weeks after it was released.
Yeah, that's a great point.
We're talking to Sean Reck.
He's the director of Convicting a Murderer, which you can watch on the Daily Wire Plus.
And as he just pointed out, just search for Convicting a Murderer Episode 1 on YouTube, and you can watch that first episode for free.
Sean, I want to go back into your history just for a second here, because I want people to know something about you.
And maybe they do, maybe they don't.
In this case, you set out to, in the interest of justice, Prove that the attempts to free this man because of what was presented on Netflix in what might be argued as a fraudulent manner, you want justice to be served insofar as presenting the truth and making sure he stays convicted because he did it.
At least that's the theme.
That's not always been your history.
Your first foray into a feature documentary resulted in the I believe I'm the only filmmaker to have documented three people walking out
of prison.
So in the past, we've shined a light on some Some egregious miscarriages of justice.
I just don't believe this is one of them.
And, you know, yeah, Murder in the Park was our first film.
That was a wrongful conviction.
You can see that on AMC Plus right now or rent it on iTunes or Amazon.
My second film, White Boy, is a documentary about Richard Worshee Jr. That's on Netflix right now, ironically.
And that's about an over-sentencing of a juvenile.
Nonviolent juvenile drug offender.
And there's one coming out in the future that was tentatively titled Wrong Cat about the longest wrongful conviction in U.S. history, a gentleman named Cleve Heidelberg.
And my partner Andrew Hale is finishing up that film.
And that's going to be like a mind-blowing story about Al Story Simon's cellmate who also was wrongfully convicted.
And what are the odds of that?
Wow.
Wow, that's incredible.
And that's why I want people to know that you're interested in, like you said, bringing facts and truth to light.
And the fact that you have played an instrumental role in letting people know about these wrongful convictions, to me, gives you, your team, Daily Wire, and everybody else more credibility when you present the facts of the story.
You are not going on a crusade other than to bring out truth.
And ultimately, that's something that I would hope the criminal justice system wants as well.
But certainly when it comes to the filmmaking industry and documentaries, as you pointed out.
Correcting the mistakes, intentional or otherwise, for making a murderer was paramount in what you're building here.
Yep.
Certainly.
Well, Sean, it's fascinating to watch.
I'm so glad that you made it.
I'm glad you put your faith into it.
Six years later, you're starting to reap the rewards.
Millions of people are watching the number one documentary television series in the world.
It's called Convicting a Murderer.
Episode 1 on YouTube, it's free.
The rest of it on Daily Wire+.
Anything else we need to know, Sean?
We also brought back the Predator programs on WatchTrueBlue.com, Chris Hansen and I. So if anybody wants to see 40 new episodes and a new one every week, you can go to WatchTrueBlue.com.
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a little bit of regret and expressing a little bit of the remorse for some of the things we do, some of the things we have done and to atone for them would be something we can all benefit from regardless of our faith.
But Dennis is off today, and I'm happy to be in with you.
Phone lines are jammed up here.
We're going to go right to your calls.
I've got a lot of things that I still want to talk about.
877-243-7776.
I'm talking about the Senate deciding to lower the standard of dress.
Because of John Fetterman, it's just such a complete...
It's a symbol.
It's an emblem.
It's emblematic of what's wrong with this country as it's currently being led.
It's being led down the path of least resistance.
It's being led into a place of lower expectations.
The bigotry, I think sometimes we talk about a soft bigotry of low expectations, is reality here.
And it's something that I think is going to lead us...
Look, we didn't...
We've become, over the course of nearly 250 years, the greatest civilization in the history of mankind by lowering the bar for ourselves.
We always raised it and then sought to clear that higher bar.
And then when we cleared that one, we raised it again.
Every step of the way, through every revolution and every, you know...
Institution, technological advance, societal gain, everything we have done, we have sought to do better the next time and better and better.
And here we sit now at the pinnacle of the human experience here in the United States of America.
And instead of continuing to set the bar higher, we are starting to lower it.
What other ways are we lowering expectations besides appearance?
At schools across the country, school districts who are more interested in E-equity instead of E-equality, E-equity instead of E-excellence, have stopped grading kids.
You know, those things are so outdated.
You know, we're just going to evaluate you based on...
Because when they evaluate them on objective measures...
They're finding out that not everybody is performing at the same level.
And since we don't want to have inequity in the grading system or in the results, I should say, they have to change the grading system.
So now, if you don't turn an assignment in some districts, if you don't turn in an assignment at all, the lowest they can give you is a 50%.
60, by the way, is passing with a D-.
50 is obviously just below that, but it's still not zero even if you didn't do it.
If they catch you cheating on an assignment, the lowest they can give you, instead of giving you a zero, is 50%.
We're lowering the standards for achievement.
We're lowering the standards for appearance.
We're lowering the standards for becoming exceptional.
And if you don't think that that isn't going to trickle its way, Actually, maybe rather than trickle down, it will be something that rises with the age of these young kids.
Every step up the way, up the ladder to employment, up the ladder to maybe perhaps management and so forth, if you don't understand what lowering the standards does to all of us and to our country as a whole, then you're just not paying attention to it.
It's dangerous.
It's dangerous.
And there are some positions, and like I was starting to say about the Senate situation, do you know that visitors, if you want to go and visit the United States Senate on a tour tomorrow, there is a dress code.
If you aren't dressed properly, you can't visit the United States Senate because of the importance of the place.
But if you work in the United States Senate as a senator, you can go there in a pair of torn-up tennis shoes or sandals and a ripped pair of jeans and a t-shirt and a baseball cap on backwards if you want now.
You can dress however John Fetterman wants to dress.
Think about the insanity of that.
Interns working on Capitol Hill, interns and pages working in the Senate have to wear very specific types of suits and dresses.
And they cannot be, you know, they cannot be changed in any way.
And if you deviate from that at all, you're gone.
But the senators can come there looking like bums.
It's a lowering of the standards.
It's a problem.
Now, that's one story, and then, of course, we're talking about the UAW strike as well.
I did an interview with a UAW local president in Northeast Ohio who told me that their 46% demand for a raise...
By the way, let's round 46 to 50 so that we can say this.
They're demanding half of their current salary on top of their current salary.
Wouldn't you like to have that deal?
I mean, can you imagine that?
I mean, I don't know what you mean.
If you make, say, $40,000 a year, if you make $50,000 a year, how about this?
I want half of that on top of it.
My $40,000 goes from $60,000.
My $50,000 goes to $75,000.
That's the demand of the UAW, and they think that's reasonable.
And oh, by the way, in exchange for that raise, by the way, I want to work eight hours less a week.
I want to work 32, you pay me for 40. It's one of the most outlandish things that I've ever heard of, and I interviewed this morning on my program in Cleveland a union head who said that's fair and that's just because the company's making record profits and the CEOs are making a ton of money, so we should be able to make the same thing they're making.
He said that's been the average of what the CEOs are making is 46% more than they were before, so we should get a 46% raise.
I don't understand how and why it should be expected that the workers make the same amount as the bosses.
You achieve boss-level status by doing some pretty extraordinary things in your career and in your life and in your education.
That's not to say that I disrespect blue-collar work.
I have done my share.
I have worked in factories.
I have dipped radiator heads into a solution called Flux.
And then dipped that fluxed head into molten or pots of molten 750 degree molten lead in order to seal those radiator heads.
And then I had to burp them just so.
And if you burp them wrong, the molten lead comes shooting right out at your face through the tubes.
I've done that work.
I've worked on the loading docks.
Of one of the largest freight companies in America.
I have nothing against blue collar work, nor blue collar workers.
I've been in those unions, and I know exactly before I get into the broadcast career what I'm talking about here.
But I also know that if a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company makes mistakes, the company goes under.
The shareholders lose millions.
The pension funds of all of the retirees are gone.
If the CEO makes a mistake, the company collapses.
If a guy working on the line makes a mistake, they fire him and you replace him with somebody else because it's pretty damned easy to replace a line worker.
That is not an insult.
It's reality.
Like I said, I've done that work, so I know.
My father was a union roofer.
I know what blue-collar hard work is.
And I'm not suggesting that you don't have value, you do.
But if you screw up, you are replaceable.
Demanding 46% because that's what the CEOs, how much more money they made?
Their jobs are so much more difficult to obtain and even more difficult to achieve success in a very, very competitive marketplace than you can even imagine.
And by the way...
The fact that the government of the United States is forcing and mandating this new huge shift over to EVs means all of these plants are going to have to be converted from making the parts that they make for their internal combustion engines.
When they change it over to what they have to do to make the EVs, it's going to cost them billions.
Billions!
And now you come wanting, you know, Lord only knows what that would be over the entirety of the UAW to get 46% pay raises and only 32 hours of work out of 40 hours of pay.
I mean, I can't even imagine it.
I'm looking for reason.
I'm looking for common sense.
And that's my thought in this UAW strike.
And if they continue on the path that they are asking for the most outlandish things you can even imagine.
This isn't going to be settled, and we are all going to be in a very, very precarious place.
Our economy is going to go even further into the dumper than it already is under Joe Biden's leadership, and it will be at the feet of a union that is not looking out for fairness, that is not asking for just the right slice of the pie or the right size piece of the pie.
They're asking for something that is just outlandish and greedy.
And it cannot be.
It cannot be allowed to stand that way.
So if you've got a thought on that, if you've got a dog in that fight, on the union versus the management fight as it pertains to the UAW, or beyond that, we'll take your calls.
877-243-7776.
8Prager776.
I promise, after that monologue, I will go right to your calls next.
I'm Bob Franson for Dennis Prager.
Stay here.
Alright, we're going to go to the phones now as promised.
877-243-7776.
That's 8 Prager-776.
Steve is in Santa Monica, California.
Steve, thanks for waiting.
Bob is in for Dennis.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
You know, I think some of the things you said about the UAW demands are just not true.
My father works for Chrysler.
He worked for former Chrysler.
He was a UAW member.
Right now...
Workers' salaries have not kept pace with inflation in spite of these companies being wildly profitable.
They're asking for a 36% salary increase over the next four years.
They're also asking for cost of living protection.
They're also asking for doing away of the tiered wage system.
Do you know right now how much do you think an assembly worker gets paid?
Top pay.
How much do you think they get paid, Bob?
I know the average pay is $32 an hour.
Yeah, $32 an hour.
$32 an hour is a hell of a wage.
The top factory worker gets paid $32.
That is not a hell of a wage.
No, I said that's the average.
No, no, no, no, no, sir.
Steve, Steve, Steve, you didn't hear me.
I said that's the average.
That means when you take the bottom and the top and find the median, that's the average.
No.
The top worker makes $36 an hour on the factory.
And first of all, you know, when unions ask for demands, of course they ask for more than they're going to eventually get.
But these are very profitable companies, and these workers, their wages have not kept pace with inflation.
Well, two things I would say, two things, Steve.
Steve, hold on a second now.
Steve, hold on a second.
Let's have a nice conversation here.
Two things.
Number one, Number one, let's talk about the pace of inflation.
The pace of inflation has quadrupled under the current administration.
Tell me, who did the UAW vote for?
Who does the UAW support when it comes to their political leadership?
They support Democrats.
They supported Joe Biden.
Joe Biden is responsible for this massive hike in inflation that you're complaining about right now.
When is the UAW going to do something about that?
Let me tell you something.
During the COVID epidemic, poverty lessened considerably with the direct cash payments.
Child poverty went down by 50%.
So I think we do have a poverty problem in the country, and I don't see any...
You're not answering my question at all.
I didn't ask you about childhood poverty, and I didn't ask you about free money, which is not free because it was printed.
Hold on.
You're touting the free cash payments that went to people during COVID. You're touting that as if that's a good thing, as if that money didn't come from somewhere.
That money came from thin air.
They printed it because we don't have it.
And guess what printing money that we don't have and putting it into circulation does, my friend?
It raises inflation to extraordinarily high levels.
That's exactly what you got for that policy.
All the Western economies did it.
We have the lowest inflation rate of any of the Western countries.
We have the best economy of any of the Western countries.
Then why are you complaining that the UAW can't keep up with the cost of inflation?
If we have the lowest inflation rate, I mean, we shouldn't need very much.
You don't need 46% increase to keep up with inflation.
Come on, Steve.
Well, first of all, it's a 36% increase, not a 46%.
I don't know where you got 46%.
From the UAW, Steve.
From the UAW. The UAW made their demands notice.
If they've come down, if they've come down 10%, hold on.
I know it's over four years, so what?
So what?
That's roughly 10% a year.
Who do you know that gets 10% increases a year and is demanding to only have to work 32 hours to get paid for 40?
Tell me how that is anything other than abject greed.
That is not greed.
That's to give them a living wage so that they can have houses, send their kids to school.
You mean you can't buy a house if you make $32 an hour and then not getting another 36%, by the way?
You can't.
No?
No, you cannot.
That's not a living wage for them.
No.
Steve, I'm sorry you feel the way you do, and I'm also sorry that you can't understand the plight of the average worker in this country.
You UAW union workers are getting so much more than the average worker does.
$32 an hour is the average wage.
I talked to a union head about four hours ago on my show, my local show.
Who told me exactly that.
That's the average wage.
$32 an hour.
I don't know anybody that makes $32 an hour.
I don't know anybody that makes $32 an hour.
That is an extraordinary wage.
You're telling me you can't put your kids in school and buy a house on $32 an hour unless you get a 46% wage?
And you're going to tell me that only wanting to work 32 hours while being paid for 40 is not greed?
It's two things.
It's greed and it's laziness.
And you're willing to sell out all of the other middle-class Americans who are going to be hurt by this strike and the cost of their car.
Everybody needs a car to go to work.
You're going to take a $20,000 car.
It's going to be $28,000 in six months.
You're going to take anybody who needs to get their car fixed because they can't afford one of the new cars because of what you guys are doing to the companies, and you're going to make them get their cars fixed, and they can't even get the parts because you make the parts, too.
I know.
My son's car was just in an accident.
He got hit, and the first thing that the insurance claims department said, expect long delays because of the inability to get parts because of the UAW strike.
You're willing to sell out every, and that cost that goes into the new car and the new parts and everything else at such an inflated rate is going to cost everybody more on what food they can put on the table.
You're willing to sell out the entire economy over flat-out greed.
And I'm sorry you don't even know what your union leadership was asking for when you say it was 36%.
Look it up.
46% was their initial demand.
Broadcast everywhere.
If they've dropped it by 10 down to 36, that's a start.
Keep dropping.
Keep dropping.
That's ridiculous.
And when I asked the union head that I talked to today why they did 46%, he said because that's the average of how much more the CEOs have made over the course of the last X number of years.
And so since they got 46% more, we should get 46% more.
Since when should the guy pushing the broom in a garage, in a repair facility, make as much as the owner of the facility?
Well, he got this much of a raise.
I deserve that much of a raise.
No, you're an employee.
You have a role that is X. He has a role that is Y. You are not on the same plane.
Stop it.
We'll be right back.
Okay, 33 minutes past the hour.
You know, I legitimately hate this conversation.
I hate having to be in this situation.
Because, like I said, I was raised by a blue-collar union worker.
I have worked as a blue-collar union worker.
Most of my friends are blue-collar workers.
Maybe not all in unions.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm disparaging the work by those who build things for us every day, those who create, those who repair, those who make things function for us, things that provide us our infrastructure every day, our roads, our bridges, our lives.
I mean, our buildings are all plumbing.
Everything that we have done is thanks to those guys.
I don't disparage them, and I don't begrudge them making good wages.
But good wages?
Ought to be acceptable without demanding the same wages as the bosses, the CEOs.
As I said in a previous segment, CEO fails, the corporation fails, the shareholders fail, the pension funds fail.
Guy on the line fails?
Get a new guy for the line.
It's not hard.
It's not hard.
It's hard work.
It's sometimes hot, sweaty, grueling work, depending on what kind of factory you're into.
But it's not hard to find somebody else who can do it.
That's just reality.
I hate having this conversation.
I want reasonable demands, not outlandish 46% in 32-hour work demands.
And then gaslight me into saying, no, it's not what it is.
It's only 36. Really?
Do I need to send you 15 articles showing that the starting point was 46%?
Diane is in Cleveland, Ohio.
That's my home base.
Diane, you're on the Dennis Prager Show.
Go right ahead.
Well, thank you, Bob.
You know, you did cover some things that I was going to mention, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the local union president that you spoke to claimed that it was social justice for him to be demanding I think he said equal pay for the next guy on the line with him who's a newbie.
That's what he said.
That's exactly what he said.
And when he said social justice, I questioned him.
I said, because when you and I hear social justice in today's America, you think DEI, diversity, inclusion, and equity, and all that kind of crap, and it's racial justice, and it's LGBT justice, and all those kind of things.
But he explained he meant quality of life, that the guy next to me, even if he's new, should be making this great wage instead of a starting wage and work himself up to a higher wage, which is what is normal in most places of employment.
We wanted him to start out at the top like everybody else's so that we're all making the same amount.
And if that's what their idea of social justice is, that's not justice.
Well, Bob, what about his quote-unquote brothers and sisters who are now out of jobs because of the demands that they're making and the places are closed?
How about the people who are, you know, making their morning coffee for them?
Those shops are closing.
They don't have the business.
How about the people who are...
Making them their lunches, the people who are making their pizzas.
I mean, all those workers out of jobs, you know, who are striking, they're putting other people out of work.
And those people aren't necessarily going to reopen, and they're certainly not going to get any kind of, my God, they'll just be scrambling to make up for the weeks and months or whatever it's going to be that they're off work completely.
No, you're exactly right.
There are a lot of ramifications of their actions that they do not want to acknowledge.
Or maybe they don't even see.
They don't care.
They can't see beyond their own paycheck or whatever the case might be.
But it's a very, very frustrating thing to see because there are other people that get hurt by this.
Thank you.
Let's go to Tom in Glendora, California.
Tom, you're on the Dennis Prager Show.
Go ahead.
Hey, thank you, Bob.
I know we're short on time.
I'll keep this to 30 seconds.
You're absolutely right.
The UAW demands 46% pay raise and being paid for a 40-hour week when they work 32?
The word is outrageous.
I've got two letter things.
UAW doesn't stand for United Auto Workers.
It's unbelievably abominable weasels.
Or change the name altogether.
Change UAW to GGW. Greed gone wild.
Tom, thank you for the call.
I appreciate it.
Boy, you did it in less than 30 seconds.
I'm impressed.
I appreciate that call.
And my thing seems to be sticking here.
There it is.
Let's go to Columbus, Ohio, and George.
George, you're on the Dennis Prager Show.
Bob France sitting in.
Go ahead.
Hey, Bob.
I'm a former union worker myself, and I think that these guys are setting themselves up for one of two tricks.
So firstly, under the NUGRI agenda, if they can't make their EV vehicles...
George.
Hey, George.
Hey, George.
George, listen to me.
Listen to me real quick.
I mismanaged my clock here.
My apologies.
I've got to take a break, but I don't want to do that to you.
Hold the line.
You'll be my first caller on the other side of this short time out.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
So we'll go back to Columbus, Ohio and talk to George after this, and we'll take more calls.
I'll stay here on the Dennis Prager Show.
Okay, we've got 17 minutes of Dennis Prager Show left.
Bob France sitting in.
Don't forget, when we're done live, I'd love to continue to interact with you on social media.
Find me on Twitter at France Rants, F-R-A-N-T-Z, R-A-N-T-Z. On Facebook, it's Always Right Radio.
On Truth Social, it's always right, WHK. And on Rumble, it's always right, Radio as well.
We'd love to have you interact.
Let's go back to Columbus, Ohio now.
I promised George.
I didn't want to cut him off there and hang up on him, but he had just started to make his point in the last segment.
So George and Columbus, go right ahead, sir.
Thank you, Bob.
I appreciate that.
So I'll pick up right where I left off.
Under the new green agenda, if they can't produce vehicles at an affordable price, Then they could find new people.
If the contract says something like that in the past, then they could lose that way.
Also, the other way they could be tricked is the same way the 813 Teamsters were tricked by waste management in New York City, was what they did was they implemented a B-list.
So, yes, you will get your 20% pay raise, 46% pay raise as of immediately, but anybody after this hire date will be under a new category of payment.
And then once we get enough...
Yeah, they could be doing that to themselves.
That's a very good point.
And what's interesting, the last caller who was in, thank you for the call, George, and I appreciate you hanging on there from Columbus.
The last caller that I had a little bit of a debate with was talking about, you know, didn't like this two-tiered thing.
Everybody should be paid the same.
Well, it's my understanding that in 2008, 2009, when the new contract was drawn up, they chose and signed and negotiated for the two-tiered payment system.
The two-tiered salary system, which is what it ought to be anyway.
Again, I don't know any other place where somebody can walk in as a newbie and expect to be making the same amount as a 15-year experienced senior worker.
I don't care if you are doing the same job.
Generally speaking, you got to work your way up to higher salaries.
You get rewarded with higher salaries for your longevity, for not making the employer have to keep hiring new people all the time.
Turnover, turnover, turnover.
The fact that you stayed a long time is worth money to them, so they give you more money in retention.
There are a lot of ways to do this.
Demanding 46%, even if they say, well, that's over four years.
Do you know what?
That's still, you know, around what?
Roughly 12% a year.
Nobody gets 12% a year in pay raises.
That's obscene.
Especially working in a position, like I said, where your job and the companies that you work for literally make or break the American economy.
It does.
They do.
And they knew that.
Unions started out as a very good way to protect workers from management abuse.
I support unions for that reason.
But when they crossed over from protecting against abusive treatment and unfair labor practices into abject greed and holding a segment of the economy hostage for greedy purposes, like 32 hours of work for 40 hours worth of pay, I'm sorry.
You lost me there.
And the other thing is when I talked to that other guy that I had to debate with, He's griping about how, you know, we don't even have enough money to battle the cost of inflation.
Well, why are UAWs always, you know, backing, endorsing, and voting for in massive blocks left-wing Democrats that raise inflation, that tax and spend this country to death?
Start looking in the mirror a little bit.
We're going to go to Honolulu.
I don't know that I've taken a call when I sit in for Dennis from Honolulu, but that's where Donald is.
Welcome to the show from Hawaii, Donald.
Go right ahead.
Aloha, my brother.
I hear what you're saying.
I'm a retired boot carter worker, and this is outrageous.
But here's the kicker.
When are we going to hold CEOs accountable?
You remember the bailouts we did for the banks and these...
CEOs that drop the ball?
I do.
And their raises keep going up even though they don't pay back the taxpayers.
So where does that...
And I agree with what you're saying.
Yeah, two things on that.
Number one, I certainly do remember the bailouts, and I do remember, though, the contracts that were signed were intended to make sure that what the unions gave up in that deal, they were supposed to get back.
And unless something has gone wrong in the last 14 years, and they have not made that back, then they got what they signed up for.
And the CEOs who were responsible for the failures at that time were run.
And that's exactly run out of their jobs, I mean.
And that's kind of my point.
The new people who came in and took over leadership are the ones who are responsible for this massive growth now and the profit-making by the big three.
So when they're making profits at big numbers, guess what?
You get rewarded.
When you're not making profits and when you let things collapse, you get fired.
You get gone.
And like I said, that's a big, big impact on the rest of the economy.
Now, as far as taxpayers, You know, this is one of those things, it's kind of like the COVID loans.
We're making COVID loans to businesses that are supposed to be paid back so that they can make their payrolls.
They're never going to collect that money back.
The businesses, the taxpayers, you know, anybody that has promised, you know, the government promises to recoup money from, they're never going to do.
They'll go after the taxpayers.
They will not go after the businesses that they gave those loans to.
And nor should they, by the way.
Thank you.
God bless you and aloha, Donald.
Thank you for the call.
Nor should they, by the way.
Yeah, I think it's important to point that out.
I don't want the government going after every small business that took one of the small business loans that they gave out during COVID because the businesses were forced to close their doors.
It wasn't their fault.
It wasn't their fault they shouldn't have to pay back the loans that kept their doors open because thousands upon thousands of businesses couldn't even stay open.
They're gone forever.
And I'm talking about people who hung their shingle out, they put their name on this business, they invested all of their capital into it, and they were doing well, and then COVID comes and the government says, eh, your business isn't essential, you're closed.
Your employees are laid off.
Some of those businesses never came back.
The ones that did were barely hanging on by a thread, hoping to rebuild.
I don't think they should have to pay that money back, because nobody should have forced them to close in the first place.
That was a government decision.
And I don't want to detract from the issue of the UAW, by the way.
Tell you what I'll do.
I don't have enough time to take another caller right now without cutting them off midpoint, so I will wait.
We'll take a timeout.
I'll come back.
I've got, what, another half dozen calls.
We'll try to get through as many as we can.
We've got one more segment to go.
Understand.
This isn't about good guys and bad guys.
This is about reasonableness.
Reason must prevail here.
All I'm asking for is for the union to say we want reasonable demands to be met.
46% and 32 hours for 40 hours of pay is not reason or reasonable.
That doesn't make them bad guys, but they're unreasonable.
That's how this has to be fixed.
I'll be right back with more calls.
Okay, we've got time for a couple more here before we are done on the Dennis Prager Show.
Bob France live in Cleveland, Ohio.
Thanks for being with us today.
We're going to go to Atlanta.
I'm trying to bebop all around the country and touch as many different places as I can here.
Don in Atlanta, thank you for waiting.
You're on the air.
Go right ahead.
Hi, Bob.
Love when you fill in for Dennis.
I believe the Biden administration is in cahoots with the union because they...
They despise the internal combustion engine, trying to wipe it out, and this is just going to make the car more scarce in the marketplace.
Well, I know Biden is going tomorrow, I guess, to picket with them or at least to talk to them while they're on the picket line.
So he's trying to, you know, present a unified front with them.
And, you know, it's Biden's EV mandates, though, that are going to cost a lot of these guys their jobs because it's going to cost billions for these plants to retrofit and, you know, to be converted into – and thank you for the call, Don – to be converted into EV plants as opposed to regular internal combustion plants.
And they're not going to be able to keep everybody on – On their job at their current pay, the way things are now.
And now on top of that, they want to go ahead and ask for that 46%.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Thank you for the call.
Let's go to where?
Erie, Pennsylvania.
No, I'm sorry.
Not Erie, Pennsylvania.
I beg your pardon.
I want to stay on the UAW topic.
So Chuck is in Hudson, Massachusetts.
Chuck, thanks for waiting.
You're on the air.
Go ahead, sir.
Hey there.
I just wanted to say that you were right, but you sound like a jerk.
And that's why you don't like the conversation the way you're doing it, because what you're not saying is that people's personal worth is unlimited, but the job they do definitely has limits, and that's what needs to be made clear.
That's well said.
And maybe it does sound kind of jerkish to say what I'm saying, that you are replaceable.
And that is a harsh way of saying it, but you are replaceable.
Your job is replaceable by somebody else who can do what you do.
You know, it may be hard work.
In fact, I know it's hard work working in a plant.
Like I said, I've done it.
I know it's hard work, but it's not skilled.
A lot of it is not skilled.
You can find somebody else to do it just as effectively as you do it.
So the job has limitations.
Well said.
You said it better than I did.
And if I sound like a jerk, like I said, it's not the intent.
But I know it comes out that way because I end up saying that the blue-collar guys shouldn't get this massive raise.
You know, in a perfect world, I would love for everybody to get a great raise.
But you cannot expect the quote-unquote, you know, Top wages, enough to buy a new house and buy new cars and pay for college and so on and so forth, with the first wage you get.
They're trying to say that the first wage anybody gets when they go into the UAW to work for one of these plants should be the same thing that the rest of them are getting who have been there for 15-20 years.
Longevity, seniority, committedness, these kinds of things matter.
And the idea that people need to make the same amount at the top is just, it's a mistake.
All right, that's it.
That's all the time that I've got for you.
I really appreciate, last caller said they appreciate when I fill in.
I appreciate this audience.
Whenever I'm asked to sit in for Dennis, I jump at the chance because this is such a great audience.
I appreciate you very much, everybody.
Thanks to the team as well, and thanks to Dennis.
Dennis will be back tomorrow after Yom Kippur today.
God bless you.
Be well, be safe.
See you next time.
Bye-bye.
Dennis Prager here.
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