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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone in the studio with us today and this is an enormous honor. Someone who is far more well known to the Salem Media Network listeners than we are, Dennis Prager. Thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted, guys. Thank you for having me. Your voice is already putting both of us to shame. That's a riot. Radio voice. That's really... Well, look, I admit...
It was a gift from God or nature that I have a good voice, a good speaking voice. I have a fair singing voice. I never sing. But in life, you see, you start me and you're ruined. But it's very important to know what you are responsible for, both good and bad. And so I have no responsibility for my voice. That was a 100% gift.
Sort of like a seven-foot center in the NBA. That is exactly right. What he does with it, he gets credit. Exactly. You can be Dikembe Mutombo or Sean Bradley, and there's a big difference between the two. Right. So with your voice, when you were younger, did people say, you need to get on radio? So I remember in about eighth grade, sitting in my living room in my parents' home with my older brother, who was six years older, and both of us imitating as if we were radio hosts.
So I didn't realize wow I have that type of voice, but how many kids do that? Oh the only ones you hear about people like Vince Scully who do play-by-play I mean the sport you hear people who do sports say they used to do it all the time Oh, that's interesting John Miller for the San Francisco Giants said he used to say there and do the games all right transistor radio Yeah, so, you know, you'll love this so when a young person comes over to me and says, you know I'd like to be a talk show host and
How do I know if I could do it? I said, it's very simple. Go into a room, sit alone for three hours and be interesting. And half the time they go, okay, you're right. It's not for me. I mean, think about it. Just no audience. People have to understand that. We don't get any feedback. We're supposed to be interesting, funny, alive, provocative, but there's no facial recognition of what we said.
We did four hours on election night here for the primary election. And afterwards, we were talking, four hours is a grind. I mean, we do an hour. I do three a day. How much time do you have to prepare to do a three-hour show? There's no answer to that because all of my life is preparation. I'm constantly reading.
I have, plus my phenomenal program, what is, what are they called? Director? What are they called? Your producer? Producer. I can't believe that. My producer sends me phenomenal articles as well. So you have to be over-prepared to do a good show. If you got to every subject you were going to talk about, that's not a good sign. Yeah.
Correct. Very, very good. Yeah, absolutely. For us, it's a lot easier because largely we do an interview-based show. So we're talking to folks. Though interviewing runs the gamut from robots to really interesting interviewers. Most TV interviews are robotic interviews.
They have a list the producer gave them. Ask them. You could say, I actually think the world will end tomorrow at 6 p.m., and they'll go on to their next question. I sometimes want to do that. It's like in college one time on a very long answer, I wrote in the middle, Dodgers win 3-0. And I was just curious, would I get an F? The teacher never saw it.
You did graduate work at Columbia. So how did that transfer over to getting, how did you get into radio? You know, this is a sad story, actually. I studied what was called communist affairs. There were seven students in the, I don't know, tens of thousands at Columbia. There were seven who majored in communist affairs. And I was one of those seven.
And I never, ever, ever thought that my studying of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would ever be applicable to America. And it is. We are moving. We're Sovietizing America. The left is doing that. So I just wanted to show how relevant my graduate studies were to my work. I got into radio because a woman in L.A. I moved out from New York when I was 25 to direct a Jewish...
retreat center. My background is very heavily in religion. My first two books were about Judaism. I taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College. So I was brought out to be the director of a retreat center where Jews would learn about Judaism, a beautiful place in Simi Valley and 3,200 acres. And a woman heard me speak.
The head of ABC Radio in L.A. was a good friend of hers and said, you know, we have this super popular show called Religion on the Line. Priest, minister, rabbi each week, different ones each week. I need a new host. So she said, what do you need? I said, well, A, knows how to speak. B, knows religion. C, is not a clergyman. She said, I heard this young kid just recently at this institute in Simi Valley.
Why don't you try him out? He knows how to speak. He knows religion. And he's not a clergyman. And within one hour, the program director slipped me a note and said, tell them you'll be on next week. And the rest is history. That's amazing. It is amazing. Coincidences, right? Yes. So much of life gets driven by seemingly random coincidence, whether you believe in
in faith or destiny or that kind of thing. But I mean, well, that's the old Yogi Berra line. When there's a fork in the road, take it. Well, yeah. I mean, you get opportunities when you're out and about. I mean, if you're just sitting home and complaining and trying to think, overthink everything, those opportunities do not come to us. Well, that's exactly right. And you have to know it's okay to fail. If you are, if you're afraid of failing, you will never succeed. I, I,
It sounds like a cliche. I never actually heard it that way, so it's not a cliche, but it's true. I don't fear failing. I don't feel falling down. But isn't that- I don't know any other way to learn. It's the most important lesson. Totally. Yeah. Isn't the interesting thing, one of the most interesting philosophical divides between the left and right now is the left wants a guarantee. Everything's 100% guarantee now. You hit it on the nose. They want, and there's a reason for that.
They fear pain. Yes. They live in fear. COVID was the perfect example. Conservatives had contempt for lockdowns and contempt for masks. Conservatives were right. The lockdowns were completely injurious, horribly. What was done to children is a form of abuse.
And what was done to small businesses and people's incomes and marriages, the suicide rate among young children is now, adolescence is the highest in American history, as are the depression rates, all from the damn lockdowns. By the way, I just want to say, total brag, 100% I admit it. And it's on the internet. April 2020, one month into the lockdowns, I said the lockdowns are the greatest mistake in world history.
You were probably the very, very first person to say that. I think so. I think that is true. I mean, I know a lot of people who came around a month later, two months later, but I don't know many people at that point. All I did is read and read and follow common sense. You don't quarantine the healthy. Right.
And the healthy were all young. Why are you quarantining a healthy 25-year-old? And destroying the economy, adding to debt. Right. That's correct. Exactly. Well, maybe they wanted to. Well, and you talk about reading. One of the things I've worked with the city of Phoenix, one of the things I read into was all our emergency and disaster planning. At the top of viral outbreak emergency, it said, once an outbreak has been detected, it's too late to stop it.
Oh, really? Yeah. Well, there you go. Because it's broken out with international jet travel. The presumption, the knowledge was that there would be no stopping it at that point because of latency, viral latency. You don't know you're carrying it until you're somewhere else. That was in all the documentation. Are you guys religiously oriented? I am. I am not. Okay. So I'll tell you, I am too. My biggest disappointment were churches and synagogues.
The vast majority went along with irrational secular authority. And if I can't depend on courage from religion, there's no hope for the society. Why do you think that was? Do you think it's because... Because cowardice is...
uh the human given the the default in human nature is to be a coward coward and that holds for rabbis priests and ministers who are i just want to know i am the biggest advocate of religion in secular radio and yet i am also an advocate of telling the truth they failed they failed the test of courage and of being serious religious people
If there's no difference between a church's reaction to irrational secular authority and the New York Times reaction, what the hell do I need religion for?
That's a great question. I helped a group of Hasidic Jews who did stand up to New York. That's right. That's exactly right. They had a wedding. Oh, and some died. And you know what they'll say? It's better to live and risk death than not to live. And then they came out here for their celebrations for the coming year, here to Arizona. Is that right? That's right, yeah. We helped arrange them to come out here and be able to do it here. I love it. I love it. Exactly. And I had...
virtually every evangelical with a big congregation that was open, I had on my radio show. And thank you for doing that. I mean, one of the things that got me, you read into the science too, there's never been any science at all behind cloth and paper masks. None. No. Masks are 100% bad. It's just theater. Well, it's worse. It is. What it did to kids who couldn't see a face of a peer for two years is
This is very bad. I have condemned my whole life the Islamic veil. I said it's dehumanizing. Why wasn't this? I think it goes back to what we were talking about. We had opinion leaders who want to put everybody in bubble wrap. Just do not get hurt. We want this absolute guarantee, and there's no guarantees in this world. So the fascist claim in Nazi Germany was...
Deutschland über alles, Germany above all. 20 years ago, I changed it in American terms, health über alles.
That's our motto, health uber alis. So I will close down all small businesses in the name of health. I will not let children go to school in the name of health. Well, but what we also saw there was the targeting of small business versus big business because big business answers to government and small business does not. That alone was worth my visit. That is correct. That's the whole point. Small business is the largest...
non-governmental institution in America. They hate it. The left hates small businesses. They're big fans of CVS. That's why we have 87,000 new IRS agents. They're not going after CVS. How many visits can Bill Gates is going to be visited? Give me a break. That's right. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back with more from Dennis Prager in just a moment.
Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren in studio with us today. And a great honor, Dennis Prager. Thank you again for joining us. I want to go back for one second, Chuck, because you were talking about your educational background before.
looking at communism, the Soviet Union. Did you ever have a chance to visit the Soviet Union? Oh, I spent a lot of time in communist countries. I learned Russian. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I speak Russian. I read Russian. And it was in order to understand the enemy. I read Pravda almost every day, the Soviet communist newspaper. So here's the sad, again, a repeat of my sad thing. So you learn how to read a communist paper. It's called Between the Lines. You read Between the Lines.
I, it never occurred to me I would read the Washington Post the way I now read Pravda. It just didn't occur to me, but it's now true. I read the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, any of them the way I read Pravda. Where do you go for news? Oh, the good news, and I never make up good news because I don't patronize people or my audience. If they get depressed, they get depressed. They have to control their depression.
But I have to give them the news, good or bad. There is good news. The number of spectacular websites is just – it's the lifeblood of non-leftism. Forget conservatism, of non-leftism. That's why they want to censor us. But there are so many. I hesitate –
to even mention because I always go, oh, why didn't I mention X? I did A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Why didn't I do H? But there are so many. That's where I go. Now, by the way, though, I have a subscription to the New York Times. I read what the liars say. It's important. It is. Yeah. It's interesting because I am a
consummate newsreader, as Sam knows. I am subscription poor. From Miami Herald, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, I mean everything. Chuck sends me 27 links a day I can't access. And it's funny, I posted something on our page and got a bunch of DMs saying, how can you be reading that trash?
And I wrote back and said, well, it's a bad mistake. Yeah. How can you be an active participant in society? Anyway, we want them to read us. Right. Yes. Right. And it's amazing. They think we're trash. So, of course, you have to read the other side. I mean, we have to get out of our bubble and see what they're doing as well. Exactly right.
right. Let's talk about what Sam and I have talked about. There's three entities in our country which the left have really made a concentrated effort. There's others, but there's three. One's higher education, which they have really done for years, taken over. Two is journalism. And three is local schools. And we've talked about what can you do to change the trajectory of America. And Sam and I have been big advocates of that.
Get involved in your school boards. You don't understand the decisions they're making. They have more say over this than you'd think. This is what scares the teachers unions if you get a bunch of children first school board members. Do you see it that way as well? So a few comments. Number one, they've taken over everything. Today on my radio show, I talked about how they've taken over the American Academy of Pediatrics.
There's American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association. That's just in medicine. There's nothing they haven't taken over. And the most important thing an American needs to understand, everything the left touches, it destroys. That's all they do on the left is destroy. They build nothing except government because it gives them power and money. That is the only thing they build.
So, and on schools, there are two options. Either take your kids out or get involved in the schools. Those are your two options. I would push, of course, for people who want the kids to be educated, like learn how to read, learn how to write, learn grammar, learn how to spell it's. Do you know how often I get mail where they get it's wrong? I-T apostrophe S means it is. Why is that hard?
It's not. Yes, right. But apparently for society today. Well, because they're not taught it. Well, they're not writing anymore. They're not handwriting anything anymore. Right. Exactly correct. So I just learned a period is now offensive. That triggers people. Well, men have periods. So men should put a period in, yes. So you get involved in the school board. I'll tell you what I would love to see pushed.
If it's a public school, the public has the right to know what the teacher is saying. Every class should be recorded. I taught at college in the 70s, and kids would come over, Mr. Prager, can I record your class? And I remember thinking, it's so sweet that they asked, why would I say no? Right. I didn't know. I literally, I mean it. I didn't understand why a teacher would say no.
It's my honor that you give this cassette to somebody else. Sure. Which you have started doing quite a bit through PragerU, right? Oh, yeah. Well, PragerU, it's a billion views a year. We're serious. What was the genesis of PragerU? Alan Estrin, the producer of my show and dear friend for many years, came over to me in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a Prager cruise. I've been cruising with listeners for 25 years. I never say COVID until lockdowns.
You should never say COVID. I like that. Pre-lockdown, post-lockdown. Love it. COVID didn't kill us. Government killed us. Lockdowns. Exactly. In other words, of course it killed individuals, but the society was killed by the lockdowns, not by COVID. And frankly, probably as many or more people died as a result of ills of the lockdown than
Well, in the world... That's going to continue the next 10 years. Don't start me on that. That's why I posed it in April of 2020. I read how many people will start starving around the world. Anyway, so he comes over to me in the Indy and says, Dennis, we've got to get your ideas to more people, which is all I live for is to get my ideas to more people. So it was the best thing he could say to me. And I go, what do you have in mind? He said, Prager University. Now, since Alan Estrin has not told a joke in 47 years...
I knew he wasn't kidding, but I had no idea what he's talking about. He said, not brick and mortar, the internet. And he had this brilliant second idea. The courses should all be five minutes long. And now we have over 500 of them up. I only give one-tenth of them. 90% are other people. And they're magnificent.
They are, Matt. They are. Yes. Every single... You have no idea how much work we put into every single one. Well, and if you're a parent out there who's looking for an alternative to help educate your kids and give them a different point of view... Or even just educate their kids. Yeah. You could live on the PragerU videos and you'll do well. Yeah. Absolutely. I...
When you do this, I've seen you at a couple of different speaking engagements, that sort of thing. But I get a real sense that your mission, if you define it that way. I have one, yes. Is to expose young people to a brand of ideas that they are being deliberately denied. The only change I would make is drop young people. It is true that there is a greater...
urgency because that's the next generation. But if a 55-year-old says I changed his life, it makes my day. That's phenomenal. That is phenomenal. Chuck, we have about 15, 20 more seconds before we go to break. Tell people quickly before we take a break where they can go to find the Prager University videos. PragerU.com. It's as easy as you can get. What do you get your most views on? Just through YouTube or do you go to Facebook, Twitter? I don't know where we get our most views. We're trying to make people...
choose PragerU rather than YouTube because we don't know when they'll censor us. Yeah, you control it. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. This is a fantastic interview. I wish we had two, three hours today. Do it again one time. You guys are great. Phenomenal. More with Dennis Prager coming right back.
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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. In studio with us today, Dennis Prager. Again, Dennis, thank you so much for joining us. When we went to break, Chuck asked a great question. I'm going to let him ask it. You had a very mysterious smile when he asked you that question. You did? Yes, you did. You did. I didn't know that. Go ahead. The Dennis Prager conservative beliefs are, did you grow up in a conservative family? Is there something you developed on your own? What strengthened them?
My parents were liberal Democrats. I was a liberal Democrat. If you're a Jew in New York, you're a liberal Democrat. In fact, it's on your birth certificate. This is my theory. They can change your sex, but they can't change Democrat. That's permanent. I think if you ask Eric Adams and the New York leadership, they agree with that 100%. Totally, exactly. So...
But it needs to be understood that liberalism is much more in conflict with leftism than with conservatism. Liberals don't vote their values. They vote their fear. They fear the right. But it's the right that preserves liberal values. You know, it's interesting you say that because, like you, I'm Jewish from a very liberal background. My father was chairman of the California Democratic Party. Then we moved to Boston. You know, so that's where I grew up. What a move. Oh.
Oh, God. He tried to buy the Red Sox, so, you know. Really? Yeah. No, really. He had the high bid. Are you a fan of any team? I am a diehard Red Sox fan. Are you a Bruins fan? I am a diehard Bruins fan, Patriots, Celtics. And I root now. I've been in Arizona long enough. I root for the teams here right up until they play anybody from Boston. I understand that. But...
But, yeah, I grew up in the same kind of situation with a very – but he moved over the years, first becoming libertarian, now Republican. Oh, he did? Yeah, because the party abandoned – Totally abandoned. Yeah. It's a left-wing party. It abandoned civil rights and liberal – actual liberal values. Columbia, where I went to graduate school, has an all-black dorm. How could a liberal support that? Ku Klux Klan and Columbia agree with that. Right. Right.
That boggles my mind because the left is literally advocating for a return to segregation. Totally. 100%. That's correct. And how do you just – I still don't understand their justification for that. They want – they would like a racial tension to be a huge issue in America. It wasn't. Most blacks didn't give a damn if you were white. Most whites didn't give a damn if you were black.
And then the Obama administration came in and then Biden, who was, I believe, one of the few evil people to be president. And now we have what we have. I've said this before and some people get a little offended when I say this, but I believe it was Barack Obama's reelection team and Barack Obama who created the divides we're currently seeing because he had failed in his first term as president and they deliberately divided the country to win a second term. Oh, that's correct.
So you asked me, so that's the way I grew up. And I became a Republican. My last Democrat vote was Jimmy Carter in 76. 80, I voted for Reagan. And Reagan said one line. People say, how can you influence people in five minutes with our videos? I say, are you kidding? Reagan did it with one line, three seconds. The government is not the solution. It's the problem.
And that was it. I go, of course. That's what the founders knew. Government is the problem. The whole Constitution and Bill of Rights is dedicated to keeping government small. We were talking to Matthew Continetti on our last show, and he brought up a point, Chuck, I did not know, and that I've shared with a number of people. The federal government number of employees is now larger than the populations of 100 different countries.
100 different. I'm glad Matthew Continetti brought that up. I am. I had him on my show with his book on conservatism. Yeah. Right. I only say that because he is in the world of the non-Trumpers. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
We interview all. Me too. Absolutely. Exactly. I'd like them to have me on. Yeah. Brett Stevens is the only Never Trumper who had a public dialogue with me. Really? Yeah. What do you think is – Chuck and I have discussed this with the Lincoln Project. What is animating these folks beyond grift and graft? The Never Trumpers who are conservative? It depends which group you're talking about. I'm talking about like the Lincoln Project types. Okay.
I, for four years, not once, that's three hours a day radio, not once did I say Trump derangement syndrome, but I now believe it is accurate. They psychologically got unhealthy over Donald Trump. They lost the ability to use reason. It is 100% emotion. They can't stand the man, as if that matters.
I don't give a damn if I like the president. I only care if he does good for America and the world. Politicians are tools. Everybody is a tool. Everybody is. They're here to be used. The number of nice people who do great damage is equal to the number of not nice people who do great good. I don't know why that you need a great sophisticated mind to understand that. And that's the last word for this segment. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.
Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Morin. I'm Sam Stone. In studio with us, Dennis Prager. Been a fascinating interview so far, but I've got to ask. So far. So far. So far. Well, until it's over, it's not over, right? I agree with you. You have no idea. I may blow it. 14 minutes and 30 seconds left, and we just have no idea what's coming, folks. Right. But I've got to ask, because we got into this a little over, what, a year and a half ago or so? A year and a half, yeah. Yeah.
And we've been growing, building into some new markets and all that kind of thing. But what advice would you give people who are looking to get into radio or into the podcasting space? Because you built an amazing career in multimedia. It's not easy to answer, but I can tell you, I just, you'll find it interesting. I write a weekly column. Literally 1,000 of them are up there, 20 years worth.
And this is right now my 40th anniversary in radio. So I have credibility, I think, in saying what works. And this will sound boring, perhaps, ironically, given what I'm going to say. I tell people who enter it, which you guys have already passed, but I just want you to know as a general statement, there's only one thing every single successful talk show host has in common.
They may be, one may be beautiful, the other a disgusting human being. They may be left, they may be right, they may be sports, they may be politics, they may be economics, but there's one thing everyone has in common. They are relentlessly interesting. That is the single most important criterion, not just in talk, in all communication. I conduct orchestras. It's my vocation. Really? Yes, I'm very into music.
And for all of my life, I wondered, why do I prefer this conductor's Beethoven's third to this? It's the same exact notes. How could that be? And I didn't have an answer all of my life or this pianist's Beethoven sonata, same sonata. And then I realized this one held my interest and this one didn't.
It is the single most important thing in all communication. When you had a boring teacher that he could have been discussing sex, you would have fallen asleep. An interesting teacher can make butter entomology interesting. Everything revolves how interesting are you? Do you hold people's attention? And not by gimmicks.
By substance. That's very important. Well, gimmicks only take you so far. That's correct. It's a TikTok culture. And you'll have to out gimmick yourself the next time. It never ends. You have to be authentically interesting. Pretty soon you're on jackass and risking death. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That sounds about right. Yeah. Exactly. So that also a sort of niche that will develop naturally.
What do you provide that a hundred others may not? That's, as I say, it usually evolves naturally, but that's an important factor. And play up who you are. So you're a Christian? Yes. So he's a Jew. That's an interesting combo.
to be a religious Christian, secular Jew, another secular Jew like we need. When you say secular Jew, I feel like, you know, kind of everyone just assumes that's the case. You need to clarify if they actually go to synagogue or not. Oh, then you should have corrected me. Yeah, exactly. You missed your opportunity. Somewhat religious Jew. All right. Let me ask you this. What concerns you about the youth today?
They have been deprived of two of the biggest sources of joy, God and country. They have neither. What do they have? Seriously, what do they have? That's a good question. Anti-racism. That's what they have. Well, and you look. There was a study just came out that said the majority of college students in this country have a mental illness. Yes, that's right. A majority. Well, my theory is...
I'm doing a huge series for The Daily Wire on this. My theory is ultimately, and a lot of conservatives don't know this or even agree with it if they hear it, secularism is the tragedy.
I'm a Jew and I'm telling you the death of Christianity in America is the single greatest source of tragedy in this country. Well, I think people need meaning. And what worries me 100 percent. Secular meaning is wokeness. Right. Save the planet. Well, you're always chasing a ball with secular meaning. There's always some new shiny object to chase because there's not a foundation. And no immutable values. You got it. So you see you're not secular.
Now, I'm secular in as far as I spent my childhood dodging the rabbi on Saturday. That sounds like any teenager to be honest with you. I want to know something. Seriously, if you go to a Red Sox game in Fenway Park, what do you think the ratio of conservative and to liberal fans of the Red Sox is?
You know, that's interesting because I think it's probably still close to 50-50 because I've been to a lot of games. I've talked to people. I was hoping you'd say that, but I didn't know what you would say. So there's no way to know if I meet a diehard Red Sox fan if he's right or left. No, absolutely not. So do you go to games there? I do. Every chance I get. Where do you live?
So I live here in Arizona, but I have family there, so I go back a couple of times a year. I try to get to at least a few games every year. So you're sitting next to a stranger. You're both going crazy when your guy hits a home run, right? Well, if he's not, I start checking his Yankee credentials and whether or not we need to throw him out before the end of the game.
That is a riot. That truly is a riot. Is that the greatest hatred in sports? It is absolutely the greatest. There may be some college football rivalries. There's some college football rivalries.
Michigan, Ohio State, Auburn, Alabama, BYU, Utah. That's pretty bad. No, it is. Those are somewhat though. They don't beat you up. Right. No, I was in the stands. The Yankees will beat up a Red Sox fan. That's true. And they have bats. There's bats readily available. I was in the bleachers one day, 1989, when a very belligerent Yankee fan got dogpiled by about 37 drunk Red Sox fans. So, yeah.
No, it's true. It's true. And you do have bats and balls involved. So, yeah, all things can break out. That truly is a riot. Let me ask you this question. There's there's a power in the name, right? When you used to go overseas, I've traveled quite a bit. Being American meant something. Do you feel we're losing that power of being the name America? We are the most woke society in the world.
Even maybe maybe Canada is an exception. Canada is becoming a police state. Well, so are we but Canada's ahead of us so I'll give you one example in Finland Sweden England now the UK has shut down its biggest transgender center of four kids and
They realize it's child abuse what the Boston Children's Hospital, take Boston, is doing to kids. Mayo Clinic here just put out the same thing as Boston Children's Hospital. Oh, they're all. They're all. The medical profession has become diabolic. Not every doctor, of course. Of course not. But the profession...
And it's truly worthy of crying over. I have a doctor friend who says the biggest cause behind that is the billing changes that came with Obamacare because it's impossible. She had a private practice. Oh, I agree with that. She couldn't maintain it. She had to sell to a hospital because of the billing changes. Doctors are now employees. Yes. Like a postal worker. Yeah. Yeah. No. You follow the line or you're out. Well, look at the hospitals made money on COVID. Right.
Did any of these hospitals go bankrupt during COVID? Oh, well. Did any of these hospitals. You can't talk to your dying mother? Yeah. No. I mean, any of these hospitals. The cruelty in the medical profession blew my mind. Can't talk to your mother. Can't go to a funeral. Can't visit a sick relative. It was inhumane. Inhumane. And any questioning. Any questioning of their orthodoxy. Misinformation. That's right. That's Orwellian. It's misinformation.
Orwellian is the exact right word. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are good. Well, thank Dennis. Let me ask you this question. Are you hopeful for America's future? Are we going to a bad chapter, an ugly chapter going into an ugly chapter? I don't think this is a good one to end with. Only because you said we have this was the final segment. But but it is good to end with because is a very important thought of mine.
I think pessimism is useless. I think optimism is useless. And I don't ever think about hope. So let me explain. I only think about one thing. Will you fight? I don't care if you're hopeless and fight or have a lot of hope and don't fight. It's useless if you don't fight. My analogy is the guys who stormed Normandy Beach. Were they hopeful?
Were they optimistic? They peed in their pants. People with hope and optimism don't pee in their pants, but they fought. I only care if you fight. I don't give a damn. Pessimism says don't fight. It'll turn out crappy. Optimism says don't fight. It'll turn out well. As for hope, I've got to end with this anecdote. Forgive me. You won't. No, no. Yeah. It's dark and hilarious.
So when I was in my 20s, every year I would visit Israel, and I stayed at a mentor of mine, an older guy who's a rabbi, wonderful human being, Pinchas Peli. And one day, I don't know how it happened, maybe I mentioned the word hope. We're at a gas station. He tells me, I speak Hebrew fluently, so he said it in Hebrew, but the English works just as well. He said, so Dennis...
In the early days of Israel, I went to the Ministry of Communications for a phone because it was a social estate in the beginning. And I said to the guy, so when do I get my phone? And the guy said, sir, in about six months. And I said to him, sir, is there any hope that I can get it sooner? And Dennis, the man said to me, sir, there's always hope. There's no chance. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Well, you know, but I think this highlights a bigger problem, something I've talked about. I think 10 years ago I scared the heck out of a bunch of people by saying I was very concerned that within my lifetime the United States would no longer be 50 states. But I've come to believe that is a distinct possibility at this point. Yes. And I think it's certainly not. It's certainly not 50 states in terms of value. No, no, no. It's red American, blue American in terms of values and nothing in common.
And I think the only way we stay as a United States, 50 states as people now recognize it, is a massive return to federalism. That's correct. But how do you accomplish that with a federal government that its main mission is self-replication? That is why there's no moral rationale for voting Democrat. Simple as that. I like that point.
Well, Americans have this very silly notion, I vote for the person, not the party. What the hell are you talking about? So you'll vote for a nice Democrat but a not nice Republican? The Democrats do the damage. They vote 50 and we vote 50.
Are you happy with the bills that the Democrats are passing? Why would you vote for a Democrat? And some of the nicest people in history have been some of the worst leaders. Yes, exactly. Nice is great for a neighbor, not necessary for president. I stress that here a lot because if you're not nice to your neighbor in Phoenix, they can bring our government down on you. They're giving that power. They can bring the government down on you if you are nice to your neighbor. Yeah. Yeah.
That's the tragedy. That is a tragedy. And we've seen that. I've watched neighbors weaponize government against their neighbor for some petty argument. Joe Biden has weaponized the government. Is he as bad as you thought he'd be? I don't think it matters what Democrat you have as president right now. If it was Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff or any of them, would it be any different? No. But he has an extra element of power.
of deception. He'll say anything. Has a history of saying it, of doing it. Yes. Anything. He's not a decent man. He truly is not. Well, and you get the sense at this point that truly his cognition has slipped to the point where... Right. But that could have been a benefit. It didn't turn out that way. Well, I think it's a benefit for his staff who want to use him for their purposes. That's right. Exactly. That's why it's irrelevant.
If God forbid he died tomorrow and Kamala Harris is president, would anything change? No. No. It's irrelevant. We have as many gaffes. We've had the same progressive policies. People should vote ideologically, not personality. You like the candidate? Yeah, but he's going to vote with Democrats. This is what I liked about Trump was he got things done. That's correct. I didn't care if I liked him. No. I don't care if I like my surgeon. Matters not at all. I don't care if he does good surgery.
That's right. No, and he did very good surgery. Yes. He was a great president. Yes. But his entire tenure was torn down by lies. That's correct. As I said, you guys are good. Well, we sure appreciate you coming on today. My pleasure. Thanks a million. Thanks for coming to Phoenix.
I should have an apartment in Phoenix. We need to get you back here in January or February. We can help make that happen. I need to conduct the Phoenix Symphony in a piece. Let's work on that and get you out here. Fantastic. Breaking Battlegrounds back next week.
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