Gala

Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of Prager Utopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at pragertopia.com. Hi everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. As always, on Mondays I I wish you had— I hope you had a good weekend. I'm blessed. We had a very remarkable Saturday night here. PragerU has a few galas around the country in the course of the year, and the annual LA one took place Saturday night, and I had the great privilege of having a long dialogue with Jordan Peterson. I'd like you to ask all of your liberal friends and relatives, did they ever hear of Jordan Peterson? Can they identify that name? And I bet you that 90% of them cannot. If that does not prove how little they know about conservatism and conservatives, nothing will. Is there even a left-wing equivalent to Jordan Peterson? Do you know that Jordan Peterson spoke? Did you know this, that he spoke? He was with us Saturday night, and Friday night he had a speech at a theater. Apparently 6,000 people showed up. Now tell me a left-wing intellectual who has 6,000 people show up. I can't think of any. Maybe there is one. I can't think of any. I'm not sure that— I'm not talking politicians or sports figures or Hollywood. I'm talking about thinkers. The truth is there aren't left-wing thinkers. They're left-wing promoters of left-wing doctrines. I mean, he speaks about how to lead a better life, how to grow up, how to deal with your difficult nature. He speaks a lot now, in fact, about his relatively newfound admiration, and I would venture to say maybe even love, for biblical text. Is there anybody on the left? Well, forget the Bible. They have contempt for the Bible on the left. They have contempt for anything that says that there are rights and wrongs that are not dependent upon your heart coming up with it. If you want to know in part why the elections went as badly as they did, and they did, it's silly to deny it. There were bright spots, obviously, Florida being the obvious exception, and Texas. But if you want to know the ultimate reason, and there are many, and I will get to some of them, but the ultimate reason They don't hear us. They don't read us. They don't know us. They don't study under us. They have never heard— the vast majority, this is true for liberals as well as leftists— they have never heard our arguments or our data. They have only heard the condemnation of our pseudo-fascism. Or as Juan Williams wrote, the Christian nationalism, one of their made-up inventions. And I had him on, to his great credit he came on. The vast majority of left-wing columnists would not come on this show, or any conservative essentially, unless the conservative was a pseudo-conservative who would not differ with them in any fundamental way. It was one of the— do you have that, Sean? Do you have that? That's got to join our Hall of Fame. When I asked Juan Williams about what he considered an example of Christian nationalism, when he said the Ten Commandments— do you see? Do you have that? Yeah, you have all the time in the world. Take it, take it at least 5 minutes. No problem. Were you as shocked as I was? I always think the left can't shock me. The Ten Commandments. Christian nationalism. That's right. There you go. Promoting the Ten Commandments is Christian nationalism. And Juan Williams is more of a liberal than a lefty.

Wow.

Anyway, I had Jordan— we had Jordan Peterson at the, at a major hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and it was, it was really, it was a feast of the mind, a feast for the mind. And I will be reciprocating, going to Florida in January for 8 days to do part 2. 7 of us, including, led by Jordan Peterson, studying the book of Exodus. For those of you who did not read my column a couple of weeks ago explaining conservatism, and God knows I wish you would, and I wish you would send it to everyone you know, it's not exactly fire-breathing, so maybe even your, your Democratic relatives and friends could read it. We want to conserve what is the best and give it to the next generation. Can you think of a more noble ideal than conserving the best of what humans have produced? Music, art, literature, philosophy, religion, morality, and then passing it on to the next generation? Isn't that a debt that we owe to our children? Here is the best. You can graduate high school, you can graduate college, you can get a degree, a BA at UCLA in English, and not have read a single thing by Shakespeare. And you have a degree in English. That's what it— that's what conservatives do. We conserve. Now, what does the left do? It shatters. It's truly the antithesis of conservatism. If it comes from the past, it's a piece of crap because we're better, we're finer, we're smarter, we're kinder. We're wiser. We're everything better than the people who lived before us. That's their belief. They actually believe they're better than Washington, Jefferson, Madison, for that matter Moses. I don't know if they'd say they're better than Jesus. I think they would feel that's a bit risqué. But everybody else. So that was part of my weekend, this wonderful dialogue that we had. Are we going to make that? Is that going to go up, or it's not sure yet?

I'm not sure.

Not sure yet. Well, I hope it does. Let's put it that way. School board candidates who pushed parental rights see mixed results. That's, uh, that's reason for concern. You read that article, right? It's from the Wall Street Journal, and it's very important to remember the Wall Street Journal news department is not the same as the opinion and editorial department. It is, it is quite to the left. I wouldn't say it's left, I would say it's liberal. There is very little in common between the Wall Street Journal editorial page and opinion page and their news pages. On the other hand, the New York Times, the opinion pages and the news pages are identical. Conservative candidates who ran for school board saying they would change what students learn about race, sex, and gender or who opposed COVID protocols saw mixed results in Tuesday's election, according to supporters and a sampling of nationwide results. Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan election site, analyzed 361 races and found that about 36% of candidates who opposed school COVID protocols, diversity initiatives, or the use of gender-neutral learning materials won their elections. Only 1 out of 3? This is about as serious a reason for concern about the American people as I have come across recently. 1 out of 3 people running for school boards who oppose what's happening in our schools, including the lockdowns. Only 1 out of 3 won. They're running against the unions. They're running against the unions. So what? Well, so the unions— Parents, parents don't know what's happening to their children in schools. Oh, maybe you're right. Maybe that's the reason. Maybe parents don't know. You'd think they should. The Fed is unstable. Interest rates could go up at any moment. If you're relocating and need to buy a new home or invest in real estate, get fully underwritten and approved with Andrew Del Rey and Todd Avakian at Sierra Pacific Mortgage before you make an offer. Their fast-track approval process will allow you to compete with cash offers, whether you're buying today, tomorrow, or a year from now. Even though housing prices are stabilizing or coming down, economic uncertainty, supply chain issues, and limited construction means the real estate market is limited and competitive. Go to AndrewandTodd.com, that's AndrewandTodd.com, right now. Get fully approved today and have confidence so that when you're ready to buy, you'll have the money ready to go. Don't wait, go to AndrewandTodd.com, lock in today's still historically low rates. Go to AndrewandTodd.com, that's AndrewandTodd.com. To be personal for a moment, I'm often asked, especially because people interview me, so how many books have you written? And I, and I never feign anything. I, I don't know. I, I assume approximately 10, but I do know exactly how many countries I have visited, which may be a little pathetic that I know that better than I know how many books I've written, but It is what it is. That's very serious. Travel has been always serious to me. Okay, how do you explain— 1-8-Prager-776— how do you explain this? School board candidates who push parental rights, only one-third of them, according to this, if this is accurate, won. So my producer believes that the reason is they don't know what's really happening in the schools. The, the teachers unions just bombard them with, with propaganda, and they believe it. I, I don't know the— I don't know why. If you don't know what they're doing to your children at school, you, you're an incompetent parent. I'm not even apologizing for insulting you. You're an incompetent parent if you do not know the damage that most schools are doing to your children. If you're okay with it or you don't think it's damage, I have no argument. If you think your child should learn about straight and gay and binary and non-binary at the age of 6 and should go to drag queen story hours at the age of 5 then I don't have an argument with you. You, you want your child to experience this, and therefore you have no problem. But most parents do have a problem with this. They should know what is happening. Here's an example just I picked up from a list of columns that I have here in front of me. This is from October before Halloween. Pennsylvania parent rips school district for canceling Halloween parades over inclusivity concerns. A Pennsylvania mom is slamming her local school district for canceling its annual Halloween parades over safety and inclusivity concerns. Administrators in the Lower Merion School District located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania sent emails to families at all 6 of its elementary schools saying the parades, which date back over 50 years, will not happen this year. Somebody was offended. Lower Merion School District parent Linda Joseph told America's Newsroom, somebody was offended, so they're trying to take away our Halloween parade. It's just another thing in this weird cancel culture era that we're living in. Right. She writes, or she says, I don't think it's going to end here. Next year someone is going to be offended by Valentine's Day, and then it's going to be Christmas. So my question is, where does this end? It doesn't end. As I often point out, the left destroys and destroys and destroys. The, the— if an animal represented the left, it would be the shark. It's just an eating machine. So the parents in— was there— I'd like to know, I'm going to look this up, try to look it up anyway. Did anybody run for the school district board in Lower Merion County? Is that what it's called? Or Lower Merion District, I should say, right? Yeah, Lower Merion School District. Did anybody run for school board there. I am curious, if you're a parent, how do you explain the poor showing? If only a third of the parents who worry about what is happening in schools won, how do you explain it? Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the Florida-based education nonprofit Moms for Liberty, Dennis Prager said roughly half of 270 candidates endorsed by a group won their seats. Well, it's better than a third. The group advocates for parental rights to determine rules for their children in matters of COVID precautions and gender identity and has lobbied to curb classroom discussions on gender identity and sex education issues. Esteban Zarate, who defeated conservative opponents Tuesday to win a seat on the Round Rock Independent School District school board outside Austin, Texas, said parents in his community were interested in fostering equity for students and promoting safety in the pandemic. There you go, equity for students. That means that you, at the age of 6, know that there aren't two genders, as they now have redefined sex. That's— that is what equity is about. But apparently he won. Yeah, who defeated conservative opponents. So this is really critical. Austin is a liberal hangout in Texas because it's got a big university there, UT Austin. And so its ideas infect the community. That means that most parents in that area of Texas like the idea that their kids have drag queen story hour. Something to think about. Hey folks, coming together again after 2 years of waiting, I'm going on a listener cruise again. It's called Gems of Southeastern Europe. May 31st to June 13th. 13 days combined land and cruise on AMA Waterways. We are chartering our own ship for you and me. The cruise was just announced. It's already almost sold out. Book today at 800-345-2483. Or click the banner on my website. Go to CoastlineTravel.com. Again, everybody, we're chartering the entire boat. 800-345-2483. It will sell out. Or click the banner on my website. Or go to CoastlineTravel.com. All right, everybody. This is truly fascinating. The Round Rock Independent School District school board outside of Austin, Texas elected Esteban Zarate to win a seat on the Round Rock school board. Said parents in his community were interested in fostering equity for students and promoting safety in the pandemic. Let's take the safety in the pandemic part now. So liberal parents in Austin are at peace, indeed beyond that peace, they're advocative of shutting down schools during COVID No matter how much damage was done to kids not attending school for nearly 2 years, not seeing faces for nearly 2 years because of the idiotic, counterproductive, destructive, un-science-based idea of masking kids. Despite all that, they're for it. Now, does this help explain the— what I call and have for years— the unbridgeable gulf between left and right. You're a parent who thinks that it was a good idea to deprive your child of school for 2 years. You have to be a liberal or a leftist to believe that, but in this case, I think liberals and leftists think identically. Most cases they don't. That's really something. Even when it comes to the most precious thing that people own or have, whatever term you wish to use, a child— own is probably not the best word. We don't own our children. We have our children. It still, it doesn't matter. Still, the gulf is unbridgeable. That's why it's a stupid cliché. Not all clichés are stupid. It's a stupid cliché. We all want the same things. We don't. It used to be that liberals and conservatives generally wanted the same things, but they had somewhat different means of getting there. But it's not true anymore about left and right. We don't even want the same things. I wanted your children to go to school for 2 years, and people on the left didn't. How could you get more different than that? How could you get more different than parents who actually believe it is a good idea to give a vaccine that is not a vaccine to 5-year-olds. That's, that's— these are unbridgeable gulfs. We think that you are more likely to hurt your child by giving your 5-year-old a COVID vaccine than by not doing so. You believe you are more likely to hurt your child by not giving the vaccine. That's a very, very, very big gulf. One of us is really, really, really, really wrong. And same with school shutdowns and masking 2-year-olds on airplanes. The damage done by not seeing a face, not reading— we have documented ill repercussions from children not seeing faces. They, they learn They learn to hear words and see words spoken. They learn to read faces and emotions when they're that young. But if you don't see a face for 2 years, or you only see your parents' faces at home— you think there were any parents who wore masks at home?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, really? In the height of things?

Yeah, in 2020. Right, in 2020. Okay.

Wow.

Well, this is all by way of analyzing the election results with school boards. I'm purposely not right now dealing with, with the Senate the House and gubernatorial races, because this is clearer than that even of the battle that conservatives need to wage. If on the issue of children we cannot even make much headway, we're not going to make much headway on a lot of issues. I think we can. The issue is we have to break through their censorship. That's why they don't want us to be heard. They correctly fear that hearing us or reading us will be detrimental to the cause of leftism. They are right. You all have helped build MyPillow into the incredible company it is today and have trusted in Mike Lindell to give you a great night's sleep. On top of the special available to my listeners on the Percale and Giza Dream bedsheets, marked down as low as $29.98, Mike is now changing the game with his 3-piece towel set. This set is made with USA cotton, making it extremely absorbent yet still providing the soft feel you look for in a towel. This set comes with 1 bath, 1 hand towel, and 1 washcloth, typically retailing for $49.99. For a limited time, you can get this 3-piece towel set for the low price price of $19.98 with the promo code Prager. Don't miss out on these extraordinary offers. There's a limited supply, so be sure to order now. 800-761-6302. Use the promo code Prager or go to mypillow.com, click on the radio listener square, and use the promo code Prager. Hi everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. Hope you had a good weekend. I did, thank God. So there's an interesting piece in the Washington Examiner about the elections, which turned out not to be what many spoke about— a red wave. Maybe I'll address that before I get to this Washington Examiner piece. You, you never heard even a hint from me that there would be a red wave. And it's an interesting question since people that I admire and who I'm aligned with ideologically, idealistically, intellectually said there would be a red wave. Why did they and I didn't? I have a lot of blocks in me against wishful thinking. And a lot of people don't. But it's not just that. It's that it seemed only logical. So in this regard, I sympathize with all those who said there would be a red wave, including, by the way, not just Republicans. There were Democrats who thought there would be a red wave. The country is in terrible condition, overwhelmingly because of the Democratic Party. The reason for inflation is not Putin's invasion of Ukraine. That contributed. That was not the original reason. It is the war against energy waged by the left with its panic, sick panic, irrational panic over the use of fossil fuels, fracking, natural gas. And the proof that they are trying to change civilization rather than trying to save the planet is that they oppose nuclear power. If the environmentalist movement was pro-nuclear power, I would join them. Good, go with nuclear power. But they don't. So it shows their real end is to destroy civilization as we know it, get everybody out of cars and into trains and buses and on bicycles, just as I saw last week in Copenhagen, where the number of bicycles is, is immeasurable. But it's not, it's not a big, big city. It's, it wouldn't be feasible. Bicycles are not feasible where I live in Southern California. Where would you bicycle to? Very little in your life is just a couple of miles away. So looking at what is being done to the society, the inflation, the crime, The, the perversion of youth, the perversion of our schools. Even many Democrats thought there would be a red wave, but there wasn't. It appears that there's no chance for the Senate. And if the Republicans win the House, it will be by very, very few seats, which I admit is somewhat incredible given the state of the country and how much damage Democrats have done. Look, in New York State, they voted for Kathy— is that it? Kathy Hochul? That's really amazing. Or John Fetterman. Fetterman, sorry, Fetterman. Forget, forget the brain damage issue. The man is as radical as anybody. He's as radical as AOC. Does he really represent a majority of the people of Pennsylvania? Okay, so anyway, that's, that was what was predicted and it didn't materialize. Why didn't it? It's a very important discussion. There are any number of reasons that conservatives have offered. I was more interested in this case to read what conservatives said. Because they have every reason to be honest. We lost. Why did we lose? Democrats writing about this were more interested in making points. I understand. So I read more conservatives. Question that I am still not clear on is the role of Donald Trump in the election, the poor showing of Republicans. I say I'm not sure of because I'm not sure. There's evidence that he hurt the party. There's evidence that he helped the party. I would like to see a list of the candidates that he endorsed and see how well they did. And whether the endorsement was a help or had no effect whatsoever, or a hindrance. I don't know the answer, but it's a very important question to be asked. His attacks on Ron DeSantis have not, not been helpful to him. I don't know the overall effect on the Republican Party, but they have not been helpful to him. People like me who have regarded him as the greatest president in the modern period are not happy with his attacks on DeSantis because they— not because they'll hurt DeSantis, I don't think they will. But because they hurt him and, and they are dispiriting in the Republican Party. To call him Ron DeSanctimonious as if he's AOC is not a good idea anyway. Wouldn't you think that if Ron DeSantis won by 20 points, 19 or 20 points in Florida, won Miami-Dade for the first time for a Republican in 20 years, that we might think, whoa, this is presidential material. See, my friends, I have one agenda: defeating the left. It's like if I had cancer, I'd have one agenda, and that is defeating the cancer. Leftism is a cancer in every society on Earth. Not liberalism. Liberalism is generally weak, but it is not leftism. Leftism is cancerous to a society. Tell me an area where leftism has been a moral benefit, has strengthened the institutions that undergird a civilization. You can't. It is the, it is the dark side of human nature that sees in beauty something ugly. I know it's, it's almost impossible for us to understand that, but that is the way it is. I think that the DeSantis's victories What he has done to transform Florida from purple to solid red are— these are worthy of being asked if we really want to win. We meaning those who love this country and its values. But there's a— there are many other reasons. Here's from the Washington Examiner: Democrats have mastered mail balloting. Republicans will pay if they fail to step up. The first thing Allegheny County Republican Chairman Sam DiMarco saw on election night after the polls closed was more than 100,000 votes from his home county that dropped for Democrat John Fetterman through mail-in ballots. Although he wasn't sure just yet that that meant the race was lost, he also knew Republicans needed to fix something in the party's way of doing things going forward. Those initial large dump of voters were mail-in ballots from Democrats, he said of the advanced voting that began in 2020 during the pandemic. Democrats embraced it with gusto, but Republicans shied away. Quote, the biggest takeaway from Tuesday night is that Republican attitudes in regard to mail-in voting needs to change. Right now it's like we're running a 100-yard race against the Democrats and giving them a 45-yard head start. Both parties have limited resources, but while they work during the 50 days of early voting collecting and banking early votes, we're just collecting promises to show up on Election Day. It's not sustainable, and Democrats get better at it every cycle. That's where our belief in American institutions has rendered us less capable of fighting. We believe in Election Day. Well there, everybody. Dennis Prager with you. Before I go on about ballot harvesting, I have to bring this to your attention. British Airways goes gender-neutral. Male pilots and cabin crew told they can wear makeup and carry handbags regardless of gender and sexual identity. British Airways will allow male pilots to wear makeup and carry handbags in an overhaul of the airline's strict uniform rules. Airline bosses reportedly told staff in an internal memo, be bold, be proud, be yourself. Uh, that's bold. Carry a handbag if you're a pilot. Male pilot said they hope the refreshed guidance would be embraced by everyone regardless of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, background, culture, sexual identity, or otherwise. British Airways was said to be nearing the end of a review of its longstanding uniform policy after rival Virgin Atlantic announced it was making its traditional male and female uniform gender-neutral. So now your male flight attendant can wear a skirt, something you definitely want your kids to see. Because we, we are having a real problem in America and Britain with kids, with boys being too masculine. So God forbid that that should happen. Let's show them male models of skirt wearers and mascara wearers and handbag carriers. The war against sexual distinction. My book, my commentary, the third volume of my Bible commentary called The Rational Bible, just came out last month. It's in the fifth of the five books. I have two more to go. I didn't go in order, obviously. It's Deuteronomy, the fifth book, and it's got a law that a man cannot wear women's clothing. Can't get more obvious than that of the conflict between the Bible and the woke. So choose, choose your value system, my friends. When the woke say they have contempt for the Bible, I, I at least respect their honesty. It's the Christian and Jewish clergy who are woke and claim that they're biblical that are the bigger sinners. Its uniform guidelines have been traditionally divided by gender, but recently BA, British Airways, has tried to modernize its image and last year dropped ladies and gentlemen in announcements in a bid to make all customers feel welcome. How many non-binary customers does British Airways have? What does that mean, make all customers comfortable? I'm not comfortable. They're dropping ladies and gentlemen has brought me discomfort. So why is my discomfort of no significance, but the discomfort of the non-binary passengers, of whom there may be zero, or very close to zero, that is dispositive. Why? Because it has nothing to do with comfort. It has to do with shattering the civilization as we know it. This gives people on the left meaning. Destruction brings meaning. Male pilots and cabin crew of BA have been told they can wear a touch of mascara and lip color and false eyelashes and paint their nails. Well, this will, this will draw a lot of masculine men into the profession of pilots. It's really something. Strict rules on hairstyles have also been eased, meaning men may now wear man buns, and all staff may now wear a handbag regardless of their sex or gender identity. But the airline will still keep its ban on visible tattoos. Isn't that an interesting thing? Why would that be? Makes no sense. I'd rather have a visible tattoo than a handbag on the guy, or a skirt. Yeah, even you, right? And you root for NBA teams based on who has the fewest tattoos, which means you don't root for any NBA teams. They will also not make any changes to their physical uniform with male and female gender-specific uniforms. Wait, I thought they're dropping that. Didn't they just say they're dropping that? A BA spokesman told MailOnline, we are proud of all our colleagues at British Airways committed to an inclusive working environment. God, you got to see that. There's a picture here in the Daily Mail of the Virgin Atlantic guy wearing the woman's outfit. Well, I'll be sure to avoid Virgin Atlantic. And if you care about civilization as we know it, you would avoid flying Virgin Atlantic as well. We have worked with our people to create updated guidelines for grooming, beauty, and accessories, allowing our colleagues to bring the best, most authentic version of themselves to work every day. Why is it authentic to wear anything? If you want to be authentic, why not go around in underwear? Clothing is not authentic. Nudity is authentic. Will they make an announcement with regard to deodorant? British Airways flight attendants will no longer be required to wear deodorant because your authentic self smells lousy, and we want you to be authentic to yourself. We'll be back in a moment. I'm Dennis Prager. The Dennis Prager Show. Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. Welcome you back. One more item here on the Virginia Atlantic and the article— Virgin Atlantic, what did I say, Virginia? The Virgin Atlantic. And it's the article in the Daily Mail about British Airways See their rival doing what it's doing and they want to copy it. Virgin Atlantic updated its uniform policy to remove gendered clothing requirements in September. Staff, including plane crew and pilots, may choose which uniform they wear. The company's red option, previously most commonly worn by female flight attendants, or the burgundy option previously worn by male flight attendants. This includes allowing men to wear skirts and women to wear trousers, as well as increasing the uniform options available to non-binary staff members. They are also introducing— did you know this— pronoun badges. Did you know that? Yeah, that's part of it.

Yeah.

In a bid to allow staff to wear uniforms that express their true identity. Oh, that's beautiful. The airline has teamed up with RuPaul's Drag Race star Michelle Visage in a bid to, quote, reflect the diversity of its workforce. And offer its people a fluid approach to its red and burgundy uniforms. Well, I won't be flying Virgin Atlantic. Why would you want your son to see flight attendants or pilots in skirts? Male, male ones. Your son needs a masculine model, not a feminine model of masculinity. It is amazing that what I just said is controversial. It shows you how effective the left has been in destroying norms. That's all one can say. All right, let's see here. Granbury, Texas. Sandra, hello.

Hello.

Hi.

Hi, Dennis. Thank you for taking my call, and thank you. This is the first time I've ever gotten through to you, but thank you also for all the good that God allows you to do for us. We appreciate that.

Thank you.

I called in initially with, with your first segment with regard to Trump, and, and as I told the call screener, this weekend I was sort of lamenting all, all of this, you know, as so many of us are doing, and I do not care for the negative comments that Trump had for DeSantis or, or any other person or situation out there. Who wants that? No one wants that. But one thing that kept coming up to me is how much bullying he's taken, all these lawsuits, the impeachments, Nancy Pelosi tearing up his State of the Union behind him. And I find myself thinking, you know, I don't like those comments, but he's got some restraint and I think he's worthy of forgiveness. And I really would, you You know, the Democrats, you said it best last week when you said, you know, Democrats proved that they will— they always vote for candidates that are the Democrat candidate, as you said, I believe, with regard to Fetterman. They have this knack of circling the wagons. And I think it's time we take a little bit from them and go ahead and forgive Trump. Look at conservative leadership. I personally would love to see Trump with DeSantis in 2024. And I think that might be a little bit of a shock to them. And then we can all move forward and see what happens.

So tell me where you and I might differ. We may not. All I care about is defeating the Democrats and the left. I, I, that is infinitely more important to me than my love of Donald Trump.

Oh, absolutely. I'm with you. Absolutely. And I had this discussion with my husband and my brother and so many people, even though, yeah, we love him, we like him, but it's time to move forward. I, if there's If there's a ticket that does not include RINOs, if there's a ticket that moves conservatives and is pro-American, I'm all for it. I can wish Donald Trump— I deeply appreciate all he's done, but I just feel that, you know, and as you mentioned with this whole red wave, I was— when I first heard that red wave, I immediately— again, maybe because I've listened to you long now— I immediately thought, that's Democrat propaganda.

Oh, how interesting. Well, I'm very touched because you said maybe it's because you're listening to me so long. Yeah, I don't easily get super optimistic. I don't easily get super pessimistic. All right, wonderful call. I thank you. Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. I have on the line a psychiatrist in New York City. I had the delight of meeting her. We were both at a conference in Vermont a few weeks ago. She's one of the stars of Matt Walsh's great documentary, What Is a Woman? Daily Wire put that out. Matt Walsh is with Daily Wire. And on with her is a parent who is losing his daughter to the transgender mania of our time. Dr. Grossman and the dad, and I welcome you both to the Dennis Prager Show. Do we have the dad's name? I see a name up here. Is that a pseudonym or is that a real name? My real name, Charles Smith. Charlie Smith. Where, where do you live, Mr. Smith?

I live in a little town in, uh, Northwest Connecticut, uh, Northfield.

And, okay, in Northwest Connecticut. Connecticut is so small I don't even know that there is a Northwest or a Northeast.

Yeah.

Okay, actually I will tell you because it's a very serious subject, but I'll start with a slightly light note. When I was still living in New York until like the age of 25, and I was already— I already begun lecturing, and I had a speech in Waterbury, and I confused it with Danbury. So you from Connecticut know what trouble I got into. I, I— it was the only speech in my life that I never showed up at. Danbury is right outside of New York and Waterbury is in the far eastern end of Connecticut.

Well, they should have cut you a little bit of slack that you weren't from here, but—

No, well, they cut me some slack, but how much slack can you cut when it's at least another hour drive? Anyway, welcome to the show. So, Dr. Grossman, of course, welcome to you. It was a delight being with you. In Vermont. You're a courageous and powerful voice and deeply appreciated by many of us. So who would like to begin with the story?

I think Charlie should start.

Okay, so, all right, so I'll lead you on with a couple of questions and then you take it away. So how many children do you have?

I have one daughter, Samantha, from my first marriage, who is the daughter in question. I have two younger daughters and I have two older stepdaughters.

Oh, so you, you have five daughters in total.

Okay.

Uh, now who was— who has been raising your first daughter, your ex or you or both?

Well, what happened was Um, when my daughter was 4— my daughter Samantha, the one that's in question with all these things— when she was 4— uh-oh, I found that he does absorb some learning.

Wait a minute, one minute, wait, wait, wait, wait. It cut out, it cut out. Mr. Smith, one sec.

Um, decoding is very good. I don't—

wait, does he hear me? Okay, we have a problem here. I hate when technical problems—

here's somebody else. Sorry.

Yes, something— is that with your phone? Is that what happened?

I just heard somebody else come over the line with me at the same time.

Sean, do you have any idea what's happening? Okay, it's probably your end. So I'm sorry, uh, we— you got to start all over. So this is the, the daughter that, again, you divorced the mother at what age, uh, in, in Samantha's life? Did you divorce?

When she was 4.

Okay, go ahead, continue.

My ex-wife felt like I've got to move on, and I'm like, you're gonna— you're making a mistake. Her being 4, she thought she was just going to take her daughter out of state without having a job, a home, or a car out there. And, uh, I'm like, sorry. And she found it was going to be a long legal process here. She decided just to sign and leave. But before she left, the person or people she was staying with, at one point my own daughter said many years later that the person she was with, one of these people, uh, sexually abused her. And she told me this happened when she was 4, only found out when she was around 12.

You only found out when she was 12?

Yeah.

Right. So again, I'm not fully clear. Whom did she live with, or was it joint custody?

Well, when my ex-wife left, she decided that, uh, she was going to leave, nothing was going to stop her. So what happened was I was given sole legal custody, and at that time she was not quite— just, just a little bit shy of 5.

Did you lose custody at a given point?

Um, just, uh, this February.

Well, that's because of the transgender issue, but yes. So she lived with you while she announced she's a boy?

Uh, she lived with me from when my ex-wife left and I got remarried until 2019.

And during that time, did she say she was a boy?

Well, not originally, no. I mean, when she was younger, she had these ideas that she was to blame for one— for her mother leaving. And I'm like, no, you're not even a teenager yet. I says, your mom was the one who decided to leave. She was the adult. You weren't. You can't blame yourself when you're 4 years old. You can't blame yourself anyhow because you weren't the one who left. She kind of understood it, and we thought it was something that was going to kind of grow in her to understand. And she, uh, for whatever reason, it never fully took a hold. And she— her mind was like, I don't want to grow up to be a woman like my mom. And then, you know, she got about some cutting things and And, you know, she was in hospitalizations for several different things before the transgender thing took effect on her at all.

Where do you think she picked up the transgender thing? Social media? School?

No question, school.

And what exactly do you feel happened at school?

Well, there's definitely a group that, uh, pushes this agenda. Adults. They're in pretty much every school in Connecticut, has an adult that kind of pushes these things.

So you think that some adult— do you, do you have one in mind? I'm not asking for a name, I'm just curious.

I just know that in, in most schools that there's always somebody advocating these things.

All right, so, but somebody has to be receptive. Most of, most of the girls at that school don't think they're boys. Well, what age did your daughter say with any seriousness, I think I'm a boy?

Well, this started happening, you know, after, after the cutting stage. She got out of that, then she got involved in this stage around 12, 13, uh, early 13, maybe, you know, later of the year 12, maybe early.

Were you aware that she was getting reinforcement or, or even encouragement with regard to this at school?

Well, really, no. At the time, I just didn't think that stuff was done— it was really in play as much as you see it enforced now. It was, but it just wasn't really catching on at that point. My daughter is probably the, the first of this curve that probably has had the disastrous results, as I'm— as I will explain.

Dr. Grossman, any thoughts about what was just recounted?

Clarify in case people didn't understand that, um, uh, the mother in this family abandoned them, abandoned her daughter. She suddenly got up and left. And that's a very important point in understanding the later, uh, difficulties that her, uh, that his daughter ran into. So, so that's important. It was an intact family, and when the girl was 4 years old, the mom suddenly got up and, and disappeared.

Right. I would just add, I, I, I totally accept that. Makes perfect sense. However, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 700, 1,000 years ago, if a mother left the daughter wouldn't think she's a boy, correct? So of course, so obviously, obviously that might be what they call the etiology, the, the genesis, but without the surrounding environment, it— this I don't think would have happened because it didn't happen in the past.

Well, of course.

I mean, I want to say first I don't know Charlie's daughter, I never evaluated her, but I have seen many teenagers like her, both boys and girls, and when they assume this new gender identity, they're expressing some sort of emotional distress. And so it's mandatory to explore that. And I think we're going to find, as Charlie tells us more of his story, that she never got that sort of therapy that she needed so badly.

Right. Okay, so we will be back in a moment. By the way, I'm more than happy to announce you have a forthcoming book, Dr. Grossman.

I do. I'm announcing for the first time here, uh, it's called Lost in Transnation. It'll be available for pre-order in a few weeks.

Lost in Transnation. I got the point, I got the double entendre. We'll be back in a moment speaking to a man who's lost, well, we'll find out. Hi everybody, I'm speaking to two people, Dr. Marian Grossman, a prominent psychiatrist in New York City who works a great deal on this transit issue with young people. And a father in Connecticut, Charlie Smith. To review, and if I got any details wrong, it's good that I review because then I get corrected and it becomes completely clear. You were married, had this girl Samantha. When she was 4, your ex-wife decided to leave the marriage. The girl then came to live with you and did for nearly all of her life, as I, uh, as I now understand it, from then till 2019.

Correct.

Okay, so I got it all right, thank God. And, uh, she started saying that she was a boy at around, at around 10, 11, correct?

12.

12.

Okay.

And she was being encouraged in this regard at school by, by a teacher, is that correct as well?

Or, uh, I don't know, a specific teacher, but there's, there's several that they have meetings about these things.

And you did not know about this at the time?

No.

Did you know that— was she telling you that she thinks she's a boy?

Well, she started with that stuff, but I'm like, look, we go to a Bible-believing church, a very small independent Bible-believing church in our hometown. And I'm like, you know, you heard a pastor multiple times, you know, that God made you a girl, turning into a woman. And look, if you don't like turning into a woman, you have to figure out why you don't, because you are still going to be turning into a woman.

And she would say to that, well, it's not true, I know I'm a man, or I know I'm a boy.

Yeah, to that, to the degree she could say it.

Yeah.

Okay, being 12.

All right, what happened next?

Well, she was in and out of several hospitals where, because of— in 2017, our state of Connecticut, uh, the legislature, minus very few and our governor at the time, Malloy, decided to make this thing called the transgender therapy law, which all it did was if a child's in therapy, which she was, a parent like me who does not agree with these things is basically shown the door. We don't want to hear what you're saying, we don't care what you're saying, our arms, our hands are tied, we're going to keep proceeding with this same course. To the point where our school psychologist Dennis Prager just sent St. Vincent's Hospital a letter saying if you continue treating her this way, you're gonna ultimately make this girl worse, not better. So when I said to the hospital, did you get the letter? Yes, we did. I said, did you or will you implement any of the things they said? No. Why? Because we have to go by what the patient wants. I'm like, the patient is 14 with mental illness. It didn't matter. I'm glad you're sitting down.

Yeah, no, no, unfortunately I don't have to be sitting down because I, I've covered this too often. I just haven't had a parent specifically on, which I think this is important. Well, so, so again, I got a review here. So the— there was a law passed in Connecticut that said explicitly what you, you You—

well, it's called the transgender therapy law. And basically, you know, in a nutshell, if you don't agree with it as a parent, this is not going to take anything you say in consideration because basically their, their hands are tied.

Whose hands are tied?

A therapist.

Because of the law?

Yeah. Even if the therapist didn't agree with this, right?

So what did you— what did her therapist say? Did the therapist agree with you?

Well, no, they, they—

so it was irrelevant if the therapist's hands were tied?

Well, when it turned into like a state law, it turned into where, you know, they didn't want to even discuss— they didn't even want to— you didn't have a side, basically.

Okay, so ultimately, was there more and more tension in the house?

Well, yeah, because the hospitals she was in, instead of getting her better because they never worked on my child's original issue They knew that she had issues before this that they never worked on, like her— why her mother left. Even she even said, I don't want to grow up to be a woman like my mom. So I says, you need to investigate and pursue this. That they never got involved with how she was touched as a young child. They didn't want to touch any of these things. It was all about the transgender thing.

Who touched her?

Um, some The people my ex-wife was staying with before she left.

Oh yeah, that's right, you mentioned that.

Okay, this, this is my daughter's own words.

I, I understand. All right, so it came to a head in 2019. What happened?

Well, I, I found a lawyer. Good thing I did, because no matter how good you try to do, you're never going to dot all i's and cross all t's with the state of Connecticut. You're just not going to, no matter how good you you try to do. So, uh, Netrog Hospital was one of several that all at one point just basically— and nobody said this previously to the previous 10 hospitalizations she was at, nothing was said like this. The last two, I was the bad guy because I wasn't agreeing with what my daughter wanted to be. So when she got out of the St. Vincent's, she was placed in this— it's like a step-down plan where you don't go right home, you go to like the step-down place. It's called SFIT. And there, there's a therapist right there. She kept calling my daughter Jaden, kept calling him he. And I said, there's no he there. And she just kept saying the same thing. And I know I'm not— I know what I have. I have a daughter. I do not have a son. But she just kept saying this. So I said to this therapist, in front of my daughter. I said, do you see a physical boy there? I didn't say, do you see a boy there? I said, do you see a physical boy there? Lady looked like she wanted to crawl under her couch. She didn't know how to answer me. She didn't want to answer me until I said it to her again. I said, do you see a physical boy there? Um, well, yes. I says, you need your glasses changed. So what happened was they decided to say that if you don't call your daughter by the name he wants, we're not going to release her to you. So at that point, I had an attorney, Lisa Vincent in Torrington, excellent lady, did everything she could do. And, uh, she got them— she got DCF to admit there was no abuse in the home because they wanted to come to my home. I said fine. I have nothing to hide. You tell me when. And they did. So no abuse in the home, but still they're pushing this agenda about calling her a boy. Uh, at the same time, they— one of their edicts, one of DCF's edicts for me was I have to examine my beliefs, meaning my religious beliefs, and how they affect other people, because they know I go to a Bible-believing church. And I tell her, God made you a girl. God did not make you a boy. God did not make you a vending machine or a helicopter or any of this other nonsense. That's highly offensive to DCF. Their plan for me was I had to examine my religious beliefs and how they affect other people. They wanted to continue to come in my home monthly to interrogate my whole family, my little kids, my stepdaughter, my wife, and me. My lawyer said no.

All right, we'll continue in a moment. Charlie Smith and Dr. Miriam Grossman. Hi everybody, I have a man on whose daughter said she was a boy, says she's a boy. We're not up to date, we're still learning the story. And a highly respected psychiatrist by many, including me, Dr. Miriam Grossman. She's one of the stars, by the way, in Matt Walsh's excellent documentary What Is a Woman? You can see her there in the, in the documentary, which I watched and was riveted by. Okay, so what is it? Child Protective Services have been— were visiting your home? Who exactly is visiting your home?

I was the reason she wasn't getting better.

Uh-huh, that's what they claimed. Who is the they again? Is it Child Protective Services? I didn't hear.

Yes, yes, they, they showed up at my door. Well, actually, I wasn't home at the time. They just got a letter and shoved it between the door and the door jamb. And at the time, I got— I had the lawyer, and she just said, you know, they feel you're to blame because you're not, uh, going along with all this stuff.

Was, uh, was Samantha getting angrier and angrier with you?

To a degree, yes, because I wasn't just going along with this stuff, A, and B, the hospitalizations she had, uh, were less than stellar. Uh, you know, the staff wouldn't work with me. I'm not sure what they were telling her because of this transgender therapy law. They were probably limited. I'm sure that, you know, other kids that were there along with her, they have just as much illness as she does. Who knows what, you know. I was basically—

so where, where is Samantha today?

Well, we'll fast forward as fast as I can. I'm trying to condense over 3 years of stuff. I understand it's very difficult, but in August of 2019, behind my back and without authorizing anything my daughter was taken to a two gay male foster home, and the reason they were picked is to limit her contact with other women. That's why they picked those two guys in the foster homes setting on the opposite end of the state. And it began hormone therapy drugs and hormone blockers almost immediately, and they never told me her address The reason I found out the address was purely by a mistake. The school she was at that would send me updates of how she was doing, by accident put her address there. And the state appointed my daughter a lawyer. Her name was Rebecca Goodrich. She was not independent at all for my daughter. She didn't say, well, let me think what's 'What's the best thing for my client?' No, she was on board with everything that DCF wanted to do and did. And then we had the, uh, DCF caseworker, Michael Clark, did everything in his power to restrict us from seeing her. So what happens is, because of the transgender therapy law and the therapists have no loyalty to family or afraid to even mention it because they could lose their license whichever the case may be. My daughter's on powerful drugs such as lithium, and, you know, she has a sense of being empowered because they're giving her and doing whatever she wants to do, even though it's not the right thing to do. She feels that they are doing the right thing for her. So what they get the child to say is, I don't want any contact with my family anymore, and use that statement of a mentally ill child to block you from ever seeing them again. And that's what happened. From August 2019 to now, have not seen her. And when we protested, my lawyer protested like you wouldn't believe. She's a trooper. She would not let them just get away with whatever they wanted to do. What the trouble is, every step along the way that you try fighting them, it's already populated by professionals, by judges, by all these people that are going to be all on the same side. And that's the very, very difficult part. They put the decision to give her— hormone therapy drugs are only good for like about 2 years. When they went to the second, more powerful drug, they put the decision in a 12-member medical panel, which, well, it sounds like an independent thing. But I said to my lawyer, you know, I, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night, Lisa. Find out who these 12 members are. It didn't take her very long. 6 of the 12 members of this medical panel are DCF members. So how does that make that panel independent?

What's DCF?

Uh, Department of Connecticut Department of Children and Families. 6 of the 12-member medical panel who decided it's okay for her to have these drugs, 6 of those 12 members are DCF members, not medical people.

Okay, uh, Miriam Grossman, we're going to get to you, and then we're going to get up to exactly what is happening today when we come back. My heart goes out to him and to Samantha, or whatever her name is now. Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of Pragertopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at pragertopia.com.