Reparations

Check out monorail.com, America's affordable investment app made for conservatives who want to keep their hard-earned money with companies that share their values. Download the Monorail app today. Join Monorail. Hi everybody, Dennis Prager with you. It's already February. My theory about January has been vindicated. California's reparations panel is pushing for the state's legislature. Did you know that, California? Which is run by people who only know how to destroy. To think of California when I moved here as a young man in the 1970s and to think of it today is to think of two separate countries, civilizations. They have ruined this paradisical place. Yes, Paradise had serpents, remember that. Paradisical does not suggest perfect, but they've ruined it. So now there's a reparations panel. There is no end to what the left will push for. No end. People thought that when same-sex marriage was approved, the most radical redefinition of marriage in history, that the left would say, okay, we really— we've achieved our goal and we will now leave the sexual arena. But they never do. The next battle is to celebrate. That's what gay pride— oh, excuse me, LGBTQI+ pride is about, celebrating. You will celebrate people who change sexes or who believe they have changed sexes. You will celebrate or you're a hater. That's why it's called gay pride, not gay acceptance, not gay tolerance. Pride. Is it an achievement to change sexes? Don't you take pride in achievement? Is it an achievement to be gay? My gay friends would laugh at the idea. That's who I am. It's not an achievement. But after all, we take pride in kids just plain, right? What we don't take pride in is achievement. So that we have— in some schools they have just abolished valedictorians. So there's no pride in real achievement, but there is pride in no achievement. Everything in the left world is upside down. Chaos. Do you have someone in your life who is constantly upsetting things? What is the term for these people again? People always overthrowing the apple cart. Yeah, no, I know they are disruptors. No, this is a term anyway. It's driving me crazy. Uh, oh well, it'll come to me. That's what the left is. Yes, disruptors is, is exactly a synonym. California's reparations panel is pushing for the state's legislature to close 10 prisons. So crime is up and they want 10 prisons closed because a disproportionate number of the people in the prison are Black. Now you have to understand, everything makes sense. Truth is not a left-wing value. Therefore, they don't ask, do Blacks commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes? Because that's a truth question, and it is not a left-wing value truth. They just note that that is true, and therefore what do they do? They don't work on, for example, ways to have more Black kids grow up with a father figure or father, real father, in, in his or her life, especially his. Instead, they close prisons. These are rotten human beings, and people don't want to believe that. They look at a picture of Gavin Newsom and they don't see a rotten human being. They see a handsome man. And for most Californians, handsome and Democrat, that's it. What else do I need? Why he was not recalled for betraying— not betraying, yes, I guess betraying the truth that he didn't give a damn about masks, that he shut down restaurants because he could, not because it mattered. I can eat in a restaurant without a mask. You can't. That's not hypocrisy, that's evil. I can live with hypocrisy. It's not a charming trait, but it's not evil, generally speaking. So they, uh, they want to close 10 prisons in California, this reparations panel, in addition to ensuring that current inmates also receive fair wages and are eligible to vote. I guess in the stupider age of the past, which is the way the left looks at all of the past because they truly believe they're finer, wiser human beings than anyone who preceded them, they felt that if you committed a certain crime against society, you should not choose society's leaders. Does that sound reasonable? Mass murderers, or even murderers, rapists, should not vote, at least while in prison. It was earlier reported, but they know, I just want to add, the Democrats know that that's just more Democratic voters. As a general rule, violent criminals are not Republicans. Is that fair to say? Yes, it's hard to imagine on death row a lot of MAGA signs. It was earlier reported that the panel was seeking to pass laws creating a wealth tax, mansion tax, and/or a property tax in order to fund the billion-dollar reparations. I, I have to say, it will ultimately become unaffordable except for the very, very, very wealthy to stay in California if this were to pass. I would, I would almost be doing my, my family a disservice by staying in California. It's the purported figure being mentioned per person is $223,000. So let's, let's say that happened. First of all, who, whom do you pay and who pays? Let's begin with whom do you pay? Do you pay all Blacks living in California? Well, what if a Black lived in California until 5 years ago? Do you pay him or her? What if the Black is the descendant of people from the Caribbean? What if the black person was never enslaved? Well, California was not a slave state, right?

No.

So why is California paying reparations if it never had slavery?

What kind of question is that?

Oh, you're right. Okay. I was berated by my producer who said with a wry smile, which is not common for him, what kind of question is that? You mean I'm asking about something that doesn't make sense?

Yeah.

Okay, that's fair. The savings made from closing the prisons will be used to fund the work of the new government agency being set up to dispense the reparations, the California American Freedman Affairs Agency. Oh, freedman. Agency. Get it? Of course you get it. That makes perfect sense. So they will fund the commission by closing prisons. Then more innocent Californians, mostly Blacks, will be killed by those released. But it doesn't matter. I once characterized the left as an experiment in moral onanism. Onanism is a fancy word for self-pleasure. That is all it is. I want to feel good about myself because my secular left-wing life is empty, so I will adopt cause after cause I'd like to introduce you to Monorail, America's investment app that takes you from where you are to where you want to be. Monorail is an investment and savings app that is made for patriots by patriots. Doesn't matter whether you're an Apple fan or if you prefer Android, Monorail is available in both environments and online at monorail.com. Monorail is safer for users with bank-level encryption and biometrics. Your money is protected with Monorail through Securities Investor Protection Corporation and the FDIC. No matter how you engage with Monorail, you're getting the security and safety that you need. Whether you're adding funds to your investment account, looking to buy a stock, or putting money aside for future purchases. With Monorail, you can put your money where it matters and utilize the economic power that built this country. Don't go somewhere else to trade stocks. Monorail gives you the freedom to purchase whole or fractional shares in companies you believe in. It only takes 5 minutes to download the app and set up. Join the pro-America money movement. Join Monorail. Wow, when I— oh, by the way, I'll tell you the term I was looking for. Even my beloved did not come up with it. She thought it was borderline personality disorder. What did you think? What was the term you came up with? You know what, there's a game I play it with my, uh, my grandchildren and my son where you, you give a definition or something and you can't make reference to the word or whatever, something like that. This is what this was. So someone who disrupts the lives of others, and what did you come up with? Disruptor. Yeah, well, I didn't say disrupt. Yeah, you can't, you can't use the same term. I, in that sense, drama queen. That's what I had in mind, drama queen. The left are drama queens, and they have the exact same psychological stability as a drama queen. They thrive on it. The, uh, COVID was orgasmic for the left. The— it gave them excitement, purpose, and most important, control over other people's lives. This is a very, very big desire on the part of the left. It is not a desire on the part of the right. Conservatives want to be left alone and basically leave you alone. Then, so, well, what about abortion? Okay, if you believe that the human fetus has any worth more than a worm, then you cannot have an attitude that It doesn't matter why or when you kill it. Okay, I mean, that has nothing to do with religion. I mean, you might as well say we're not allowed to steal, although under the left you are, because if you steal under $900 worth of stuff, uh, basically nothing happens to you. Drama queen. Anyway, back to what they're doing in California. So they want to close 10 prisons. They want to give every black, or every black they choose, $223,000. Ironically, other blacks will be contributing into that fund. It'll be called the California American Freedmen or Freedman Affairs Agency. The group has recommended more cushy treatment for current inmates. Includes eliminating certain types of punishment and paying them more money for work done while incarcerated. The panel's report recommended removing the right to cancel visits as a form of punishment. So it's an interesting question: what do you hold over an inmate to help ensure that he doesn't hurt other inmates or guards. I, I don't know the answer to that. By the way, I do think that there are terrible aspects of incarceration in America, including solitary confinement, which is a form of torture, and torture should not be allowed except in the most extenuating circumstances. The report also recommended developing safe spaces for prisoners to spend time with their children, quote, in non-institutional, non-punitive setting. Really? So you've committed a violent crime and you should be allowed to visit with your children outside of the prison?

How—

I read this now, what it means in a non-institutional, non-punitive setting.

Well, presumably they're going to create the kids' room inside the prison.

Well, but that's not— that's institutional. It's a punitive setting. I don't understand what it means. Okay, let's put it that way. Task force member Cheryl Grills— shocking, a woman— said this past weekend, we want to be as inclusive as possible because the harm is everywhere, it's omnipresent, and it touches all Black folks. Kamala V. Moore, the task force chairperson— that's surprising, a woman— said that the panel may support allowing those who were harmed in California but moved to another state subsequently to apply. How are you harmed in California? Just by being a Black? But I thought it's reparations for slavery. This is now reparations for being harmed in some way. Other recommendations included giving the right to vote to inmates— I mentioned that— allowing inmates to be paid a fair market rate for work done while imprisoned, eliminating the death penalty. I thought the death penalty has been eliminated in California. I, I am passionately pro-death penalty. But that's not the discussion for the moment. More college scholarships for Black high school graduates and making zero-interest loans available for Black-owned businesses. The, the entire edifice of the left is now based on race. I read to you yesterday that in Canada— well, I was in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada— they've— they have all-black audiences now for some performances. You have to be black, or to be precise, self-identify as black, in order to get a ticket. The vast majority of racism in the country comes from the left. Almost all the institutional hate of the country comes from the left. Charles M. Blow, the New York Times columnist, and with a close second of Paul Krugman, are exemplars of the hate that permeates the left. Among the inmates who could be afforded the right to vote include Death Row Records founder and career criminal Marion 'Suge' Knight. Huh, it's pronounced 'Suge' as in sugar. That's why is it S-U-G-E. Okay. Or Marcus Wesson, who is on death row after being convicted of murdering 9 of his children in addition to 14 counts of rape, as well as Chester Turner, who was convicted of murdering 10 women in 2014, and Michael Hughes, who killed at least 10 women in the early '90s. They'll be able to vote. They should have all been executed. Hi everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show, or welcome back actually. I am truly delighted, as you will imagine, to have the CEO of PragerU, Marissa Streit, on. Let me embarrass her by saying it's inconceivable that PragerU would achieve anything near what it has were it not for her. Have I embarrassed you sufficiently?

Hi Dennis, you're very consistent in embarrassing me every time.

Okay, we all know it's true, so you're allowed, you're allowed to deal with it as you will. So, uh, we have, uh, Marissa has an extremely important, uh, then frankly disturbing subject, so I'll let you begin.

Okay, so today I'm here to talk to you about NewsGuard. Now, probably most of the listeners like me didn't know or don't know who NewsGuard and what they're behind, who are they? And so I'll explain briefly. NewsGuard is an organization that has basically decided that they are the arbiters of truth. They are the fact-checkers of the internet. They are the ones who are here to monitor misinformation. Now, generally, we wouldn't care. Why would we care if a company decides that it is going to self-report that they know what is true and what is false? The reason we care at PragerU, and many other media companies care, is because they have amassed so much power through their connections. And so, what has happened with NewsGuard is that they have targeted organizations like PragerU, Breitbart, The Daily Wire, Fox News, epic times, and they have slapped these labels on us claiming that we are propagating misinformation. Once they slap the labels on these media companies, then they, they go to partnering companies that basically service our website and our, and our, and our organizations. And they say to them, "Hey, why would you work with companies that are propagating misinformation. You should stop working with them. And if you continue to work with them, you are just as bad as they are. And so what has happened to us a couple of years ago, we discovered the nefarious dealings of NewsGuard through an interaction with a company called JW Player. JW Player was a company that hosted our videos for our website. We received an email from them where they told us that we have a month to remove all our videos and they are canceling their contract with us. They do not want to work with us anymore. When we asked them at J.D. Booth Player, "So why do you not want our money anymore? What do you, you know, what have we done wrong?" Their response was, "Well, NewsGuard labeled you as misinformation and hate speech, and therefore we cannot work with you." And so we went down this rabbit hole to discover who is NewsGuard. And what we found was just mind-boggling. First of all, Give you some context. So the bad ratings are for PragerU and Fox and Breitbart. Who do you think gets 100% great rating? The New York Times gets 100 out of 100, as if they never produce any misinformation. The LA Times, CNN, Democracy Now, which is funded by Soros, is, you know, gets what they call a green label, which means that they're, it's a positive label, where PragerU gets a red label. And so once we started looking into that, we were like, well, who is behind this stuff? Who is sponsoring NewsGuard? Why do they have that kind of power? Why do they have that kind of, I guess, authority to make these decisions? And what we discovered was, first of all, one of the biggest discoveries, at least for me, was that they have partnered with Publicis. Publicis is one of the largest communications firms in the world. They represent Pfizer and many other big pharma companies. They work very closely with the European Union. And so it is not a surprise to me that when we receive threatening emails from NewsGuard questioning why are we allowing our personalities, including you, Dennis, to speak about issues like climate or COVID treatment and vaccines, or a recent email I received for them was questioning us, why are we allowing Amala to speak about the World Economic Forum? And so, it is, it is incredibly frightening. I mean, I know you speak about PRavda all the time, but how frightening it is that an organization here in America has amassed so much power where they can put that kind of pressure on companies to label small and, and large media institutions, uh, to not speak about this.

All right, I'm going to continue with you, Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, about NewsGuard and offer some thoughts in a moment. Many investment advisors have been recommending cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. They claim it's the new gold. This is Dennis Prager for AmFed Coin and Bullion. Why would you buy the new gold when you can buy real gold and silver? Which have maintained value for thousands of years versus the highly volatile crypto market. When I purchase gold and silver, I do so from my friend, and I don't often say my friend in these ad copies, Nick Grovich, owner of Amped Coin and Bullion. I like the fact that it's tangible. I can hold it and control how it's stored, unlike digital currency that's held in a digital wallet. I want to preserve my wealth, which is far from the case with Bitcoin's spiraling drop in price. Nick's been in the precious metals industry for over 41 years And he has established a reputation built on trust, transparency, and fair pricing. Call Nick and his team at AmFed Coin and Bullion to take advantage of his honest advice and extensive expertise. 800-221-7694. AmericanFederal.com. AmericanFederal.com. Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. In the history of the United States, there has never been as concerted an effort to censor speech as there is now. We are in the dark age in the United States of America. I'm sorry, I'm not here to cheer you up. I'm here to tell you the truth, and that is what you do when you fight. You tell, you tell the army the truth. The enemy has the following number of military equipment and of military members, people, fighters. Otherwise you can't win a war. That America has produced so many awful people is one of the most sad things I can tell you. How people sleep at night at NewsGuard is proof of something I wrote recently. The conscience is useless in most people. The conscience is a euphemism for what I feel is right. Shutting down opponents is what Putin does in the name of misinformation. So if someone like myself says that I believe it is panic-inducing To tell people that the world will come to an end in X number of years because of carbon dioxide, that is called misinformation. So in other words, if you, if you simply say that they are panic-inducing, then you should be shut down. Doctors should lose their licenses if they recommended or recommend any therapeutic like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, even though at worst they're harmless. It is an amazing and horribly amazing thing how much free speech is shut down in this country. NewsGuard, something new to all of you, is new to us. Is a perfect example of the Stalin-type apparatuses that are at work to shut down in the name of misinformation. Marissa Stridas, CEO of PragerU, we have been affected by them. You mentioned, Marissa, that the New York Times— of course, all left-wing sources, I presume— get a hundred or get a green light I was reading yesterday, uh, and, uh, that the Columbia Journalism Review has a scathing article, which I'm amazed that it does, about how the New York Times lied about Russian collusion for, for years. Just out and out lied. And there is no response from the New York Times. This is the Columbia Journalism Review. You think NewsGuard will give a yellow or red light to the New York Times? Of course not. They're both functionaries of the left. So what could PragerU do? Why are you coming on to tell people about this?

So as you always say, we fight. We fight because we have to fight, whether we win or not. I mean, this is a very big fight that we're taking on, but we have no other choice. And we've positioned ourselves in a place where we fight for America, we fight for freedom of speech and for clarity and for the For those who are listening now, I'm sure that they're wondering what can they do, and also how can they get more information about this. There's a lot of details, a lot of information that is worth looking into. So I want to invite everybody to our website, to prageru.com, so you can see in your own eyes the screenshots of where the funding is coming from, who's involved, how are they using their connections to exerts power and influence on, on Americans, also in schools. By the way, they have a partnership with the largest teachers' unions in America. They have 1.7 million teachers using NewsGuard as a filter for the type of information that is going into classrooms. And so if you are curious about it, go to prageru.com and learn more. Sign our petition. The reason I think people should sign the petition petition is number one, show us that you're with us. This is a very big fight. It took a lot of courage from us, even, I mean, even from our team, and we're used to fighting, but this, this is a big one. And so show us that you're behind us, sign the petition. This will enable us to make sure that you stay informed about new ways where NewsGuard is bringing additional censorship to our country. And more important, probably most importantly, is show others that you don't believe that hate speech or misinformation or PC speech, whatever the PC police is calling it, should exist in America. Show us that you're— you still believe in that First Amendment. And so please go to prayyouru.com, sign the petition, show us that you're with us. And our commitment is to keep fighting.

I think of all the things you have said, the fact that they have partnered with the national— is it the— which, which, which teachers union are they partnering with?

So the— first of all, I'm sure that they've partnered with many, but their official partnership is with the, um— just look it up so I can give you the exact, uh, dates and everything because I want to make sure that we get this completely accurate. Um, okay, so they partnered last year with the American Federation of Teachers and to, quote, to combat misinformation, especially around COVID-19 and elections.

And I see. And so in other words, the classroom— they don't want the classroom anywhere in America to be allowed to show, for example, a PragerU video on James Knox Polk. Because a vast number of our videos have nothing to do with politics. They're, they're just 5-minute educational videos. That's really what this is about, that there should not be any non-left exposure to children. They— so the American Federation of Teachers is using a Stalin-esque group to, uh, to suppress speech. You should all know this. All right, Marissa, God bless you. And please, folks, go to prayouru.com and sign the petition.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. It's really something. I didn't predict this. I grew up in an America— I lived most of my life in America where there was one given really just one, that you can say what you want. But I forgot, anywhere the left gains power, that freedom ends. Hello, my friends. There needs to be a listing, a compilation— that's the better word— of folks on the left who do the opposite of what they demand that you do, that they force people to do. Not to show that they're hypocrites. Of course they are, like all the people jetting in on private jets to environmentalist conferences, spewing more carbon dioxide than you will in a year. So that's, that's not the reason. The reason is to show they don't believe what they say in these matters. Like Gavin Newsom did not believe that being unmasked in a restaurant was dangerous because he doesn't want to kill himself. That's proof. So when he was caught while shutting down restaurants some of which never reopened. And of course, it had a shattering impact on the quality of life in California, as it did in other states like the benighted state of Illinois. Another truly awful human being and somewhat of a moron, Pritzker. But they're a dime a dozen, they're interchangeable, these people. What you need to understand is that Newsom did not believe that unmasked is dangerous because he did it. So here's another, the latest example. A former New York University professor was slammed by Governor Ron DeSantis's aide after telling parents to send their kids to public school Despite sending her own kids to private school, Diane Ravitch, a former education professor, also a former person who was worth listening to— something's happened to her— advocates for public school education, but a recent tweet led Republican political aide Christina Pushaw to dig into Ravitch's past and reveal that she sent both of her sons to private school. Ravitch was called out on Twitter after pausing her usual bash-of-school-choice tweets to discuss how public schools bring people together. 'the best choice is your local public school,' Ravitch wrote. 'It welcomes everyone. It unifies community. It is the glue of democracy.' Hmm. The glue of democracy, ladies and gentlemen, is shared values, not public school. Public school is the destroyer of Democracy. Why didn't you send your sons to your public school, your local public school, Pushaw, the Republican aide to DeSantis, questioned. You didn't want the best for them, so you paid for private school in New York City? Make it make sense. To which Ravitch responded, I paid for it. I didn't ask taxpayers to pay for my private choice. That's quite an answer. So in other words, I was rich enough to get the hell out of a public school. Those of you not rich enough to do so, screw you. Truly, Americans do not understand— some do— the contempt with which every leftist holds others. We can play around with you like your little figurines and you will shut up. And if not, we will get NewsGuard to list you as misinformation. That's the way it works. Again, she was asked, Diane Ravitch, this former New York University professor, You, you deny people choice. You're against school choice so that they are forced— those who can't afford private school, they are forced to go to public school. They don't have a choice. But you had a choice because you're wealthier and you sent your kids to private school. Well, I paid for it. Hm. So then, the response from the Republican aide to DeSantis: "So what about parents who can't afford to pay for private school but want to make the best choice for their kids? They don't deserve the same opportunities as your sons?" Ravitch did not immediately respond to Pushaw. But the Florida aide further commented, "Behold the logic of a liberal. I paid for my sons to go to private school because it's the worst choice. It excludes the poor. It unglues democracy." That's right, private schools unglue democracy, and Diane Ravitch sent her two sons to private schools. So does she believe that the public school could lose democracy? Did Newsom believe that you could die if you went to a restaurant without a mask? I don't know the answers to this. When people lie, many of them believe what they're saying, but when they act in the opposite way of what they're saying, it's hard to believe they believe it. Ravitch didn't want her children to go to the anti-glue of democracy, right? Any more than Newsom wanted to risk his life having, at the height of the COVID crisis, an unmasked meal in a restaurant. So do they believe their lies or not? It is a difficult question to answer. Some do, some don't. Some have such a weak conscience, it is so malleable, it is like silly putty in their mind that they don't even ask. Did Newsom ask, you know, I shut down restaurants depriving people of a livelihood, ruining the social life of millions of Californians, And here I am doing exactly what I shut down. Do I believe what I'm saying or not? It is inconceivable to me that he self-examined himself in that way. Theological Point Note: The Hebrew word "to pray" is a fascinating word. English does not have reflexive verbs, but many languages do. So for example, if you say in French, I wash my hands, je me lave les mains, I wash myself the hands. Se laver, if you add SE to a verb, it goes back onto the doer. That's why it's called reflexive. The Hebrew word to pray is reflexive. That's odd. Don't you pray to God? Not to yourself. Well, the actual etymology of the Hebrew word is to self-examine. That's a fascinating understanding of prayer. You're examining yourself. L'hit palel. Hit is like SE in French. There is no leftist— there are liberals who might, but there are no leftists who examine themselves. They would leave the left in an hour. So they don't ask these questions. Diane Ravitch clearly did not ask, how could I announce you can't send your kid to a, to a private school and that the public schools are the glue of democracy, but I'm sending my own children to a private school which is not the glue of democracy. How could I do that? Wouldn't you think she would ask that? But they don't. That is a different mind, the mind of a leftist. It's a scary mind because it's so unreflective. No blacks can be racist, say all of the left. They did when I was at Columbia University in the '70s. A Black cannot be a racist, but a Black cop can be a racist. Can a Black fireman? Can a Black accountant? Can a Black criminal? Can any Black other than a Black policeman be a racist? There's no self-reflection on the left. That's why your child comes back from college often less intelligent than when he or she left. My friends, a food shortage could be coming. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's true. So survival food is important. Create your own stockpile of the best-selling 4 Patriots Survival Food Kits. It's not ordinary food. We're talking good for 25 years super survival food, hand-packed right in a family-owned facility in the USA, giving jobs to over 200 Americans. The kits are compact, sturdy, water-resistant, and stack easily. They have different delicious breakfasts, lunches, dinners. You can make these meals in less than 20 minutes. Just add boiling water, simmer, and serve. Right now, you can go to 4Patriots— that's the number 4— 4patriots.com Use the code Prager to get 10% off your first purchase on anything in the store. Get their famous year-long guarantee after your order and free shipping on orders over $97. Just go to 4Patriots.com to get 10% off with the code Prager. 4, the number 4, Patriots.com, code Prager. Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. It's hard to overstate the value of Breitbart.com. I'm amazed every day at how much important information it reveals. The senior editor-at-large, who is a writing machine, is Joel Pollack. He's been on the show a number of times. So I have said I think Joel Pollack will get a kick out of this. I'm very open with my listeners, as my listeners know. I have said on a few occasions about some writers, you know, if your next book is on broccoli growing in Paraguay, I will have you on. Did I hear the beginning of a chuckle? So I want you to understand, Joel Pollack's book that has just come out is not about broccoli growing in Paraguay. It's actually Ecuador. Actually, it is a, a fascinating journey away from what you would expect this political writer, social writer to write. It's called Rhoda. A biography. Comrade Khedali, you are out of order. It is a biography of, of all people, his late mother-in-law. Now, most of us, nearly all of us, have had mothers-in-law and cannot imagine writing a biography of her when when the day comes that she passes away. But you had a special mother-in-law, so tell us a little about her.

Rhoda was a very prominent civil rights activist who began her career as a Black left-wing feminist And by the time she passed away, was a diehard Trump supporter. Now, her journey is perhaps not unfamiliar to those of us who have moved from the left to the right. There are many black conservatives that are familiar to us who have made that transition. But Rhoda really lived the struggle, so to speak. She was born in apartheid South Africa, when racial segregation was the law, her family was forcibly removed from their home because their neighborhood was declared a whites-only area. And so they were removed from their home and sent to live in a segregated part of Cape Town. She went to a segregated university. And she became part of the anti-apartheid struggle. That much is conventionally part of the South African story, a story that many black South Africans lived. What's different about Rhoda is that in addition to struggling against the apartheid regime, she also began to criticize and question the anti-apartheid movement. Specifically its treatment of women. She felt that they were not sensitive to women's rights, women's issues, so she became a very prominent feminist. And when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, he appointed her to the Human Rights Commission. She was one of 11 commissioners who oversaw human rights in the new South Africa. After several years, she then resigned in protest because she felt the new South African government elected by a black majority, was not taking the issue of human rights seriously. And she went from being a stalwart anti-apartheid activist on the left to being one of the most important members of the opposition, at least in terms of her writing, starting to move toward the right. She became a very prominent opinion columnist in South Africa routinely castigating what we would today call wokeness. She was an early critic of wokeness because in her mind it was destroying the gains of the anti-apartheid struggle. The job that she had undertaken as an activist was to get racial discrimination and gender discrimination out of the way. At that point, she wanted to see her society flourish, and it was the wokeness of the new South African government that destroyed that country's ability to provide a better life for the poor, and it also destroyed the quality of South Africa's democracy. So she became a vociferous opponent of the new government of South Africa, even though she continued her social development work. She funded various poverty programs in South Africa, and she wrote about politics. She took an interest in American politics as well and was the first person I knew who predicted that Donald Trump would be the president.

All right, hold it there. This is an unbelievable— I have some thoughts already. The book Rota is up at DennisPrager.com. Joel Pollack, senior editor at Breitbart, is my guest. Yeah, you can hear the show anytime without commercials. Also almost 20 years of shows available there. It's, it's rich stuff. PragerTopia.com. My guest is the remarkable senior editor-at-large for Breitbart.com, Joel Pollack, and he's written a biography, not because she was— of a woman, not because she was his mother-in-law, But because she was a great woman, as I hear the story and what I've read, she's a perfect example of a person guided by principle rather than the desire to be with the herd. Most humans are sheep. Many of the sheep are very nice, but sheep nevertheless. Clearly, his mother-in-law marched to the beat of a moral drummer. She was a Black woman in South Africa. She rose so high in the book, you could see a picture of her with Nelson Mandela, appointed her as one of the heads of a commission there. So she, she was very prominent in South Africa, but then she realized that the regime was headed to wokeness before the term woke was actually created. And then she ultimately became a Trump supporter. When did your mother-in-law leave South Africa?

She left in 2018 after her own parents had passed away. She had helped take care for them in their older years, and she came to live with us. And her daughter, my wife, converted Orthodox to Judaism. So when Rhoda moved in with us, she had to learn how to keep a kosher kitchen, and she did so. In fact, she knew the laws of kashrut, the dietary restrictions, better than I did, and she would scold me when I would use the wrong pot or pan around the kitchen. So she became a part of our family She remained a committed Christian her whole life, but ran a kosher kitchen in our house. And she also embraced Israel, and that was both in South Africa and here in the United States. She was very pro-Israel, and that position marginalized her within South African political discourse. But she rejected completely the analogy between Israel and South African apartheid. She felt the Palestinians were wasting their opportunity to build a state. And again, she just always took the view she believed was right. And we were close as a mother-in-law and son-in-law, and she became part of our family. And really, if you had a child convert to Orthodox Judaism, as Donald Trump has, you know it's very difficult. It's not an easy transition.

So there was a lot of love there and a lot of mutual respect.

She was also someone I admired, and you said it during your introduction, Rhoda was someone who really lived the worst of the experience of racial discrimination.

She lived it.

It wasn't an imagined reality for her. It wasn't something that happened in a prior time or to somebody else. And yet she came out of that experience with the same ideals that I had as an American conservative. A respect for the individual, a respect for faith, a veneration of the Constitution and limited government, because she understood that was the only way to liberate the potential of the individual human being. And so I saw her as an inspirational figure. When she was diagnosed with cancer in September 2021, I said, we have to sit down and write your life story. So we worked together while she was going through chemotherapy. We did interviews, she gave me her files, her papers, intimate details of politics and personal life. And I wrote this book not only because she was a very special person, but I wanted to create an intellectual history of her transition out of what really was a Marxist or neo-Marxist left to an embrace of Conservatism as we understand it in the United States. She would not label herself that way. She never called herself a Marxist or a liberal or a conservative, but she embraced freedom. And under apartheid, freedom meant fighting white supremacy. But after apartheid, freedom meant protecting the Constitution. And the reason she liked Trump in the United States was she saw American politics and the American media as an increasingly elite oligarchy that she believed Trump would disrupt, and he did. And she was the only person I knew who understood Trump at the time he came down the escalator. I didn't understand the Trump phenomenon. She had to educate me about what he represented.

Wow. I wish I had known. I would have had her on my show.

She was a great admirer of yours, and in fact, she wrote in her journal— I read all of her diaries over the years going back to the 1980s. She wrote in her journal in the final months of her life that she wanted to encourage PragerU to do work with black conservatives. And I know that PragerU takes them very seriously, and she admired the work that PragerU did. So she was very much a fan of yours, and I regret that many people didn't get to know her. But she did get to know Andrew Breitbart. She was here before he passed away. She visited and she got to know Andrew a little bit. So she had contact with many conservative political figures off and on. And she also had friends who were in the Democratic Party. For a time, actually, in the 1990s, she worked with George Soros when he was funding projects in South Africa. She later turned against Soros because she felt his work around the world was undermining freedom, not promoting it. So really just a fascinating person who made a huge difference in South Africa, and I really wanted her legacy and her ideas. Her embrace of pluralism and liberty. I really wanted that to endure. She was the kind of person who loved a good argument. She liked it when her friends disagreed with her. She had friends from every political persuasion.

That's right. I believe that. That's why I wish I had met her. I'm living her through you, and everybody can do so. I'm delighted that I had you on. It's a service. The outlier is the only one who does good. She was clearly an outlier. She marched to the beat of a better drummer. Well, congratulations to you. The book Rhoda is up at DennisPrager.com. Joel Pollack of Breitbart, thank you.

Thank you, Dennis.

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It's great to be with you.

Where do you live, by the way?

Yeah, I live outside of Seattle, Washington, in a small town on the Kitsap Peninsula. So, uh, a bit far away from Florida, but I found myself for the last few years spending a lot of time in the Sunshine State and really having a huge admiration for what Governor DeSantis has been doing there.

Listen, Washington State to Florida is a serious trip. I salute you. The last two weeks, you may be the only person working full-time in Florida who's living— you know, pilots do that, you know, where are you based? Denver. You know, where you fly out of? LaGuardia. Okay, but you, you really got it, uh, bad or, or fascinating. All right, so let's explain everything. This is beyond interesting. It's equally important. So he contacted you, Governor DeSantis, to do what?

Yeah, as you know, I've been working with the governor and his team on critical race theory, on gender ideology in schools. I helped with the Stop Woke Act and attended a number of events with him, including the bill signing for the legislation. And then I got a call last month from one of the governor's team, and he said, hey, look, we're, we're going to overturn— we're going to take over the whole board of New College of Florida, which is Florida's smallest public university. It has about 700 students. It's notoriously kind of left-wing and progressive.

Where is it located in Florida?

It's in, it's in Sarasota. So it's on the Gulf side of Florida, uh, of the state. And, uh, and, and it's actually, you know, been really failing. It actually has the lowest scores on all the performance metrics, um, for the state of Florida. Um, you know, high dropout rates, can't recruit enough students, huge problems for years. And the situation that they described was this: the legislature is ready to actually just dissolve the university entirely. They're so frustrated. The university has been failing for so long, they're ready to actually shut it down. But the governor had a different idea. He said, rather than shutting it down, why don't we do an experiment? We're going to get a new majority of board members that are kind of solid conservatives, intellectuals from Hillsdale, from other institutions, and we'll take over the board and we'll reform it from the top down. And so I said, great, well, how would you like me to help? And he said, we want you to be on the board, which, which is a bit surprising at first. And But it's turned out to be really, I think, just a great experiment, and it really is the future, is saying, hey, look, when conservatives win elections, when they get to appoint people to boards of trustees at public universities, those people should actually take action. They should actually start doing something so that the public institutions start reflecting the values of the public. And so I look at it really as an experiment in reinvigorating the democratic governance of these institutions. And actually making it meaningful. When conservatives have political victories, they should actually use those political victories to start changing policies and institutions.

Yeah, well, it's painful how weak Republicans have often been. Of course, I'm passionately pro-voting Republican because it's the only alternative to the Democrats, which is not a little thing, but they don't have the fight that DeSantis and a few others have. Okay, so because it's the smallest of the public universities, I assume that you and certainly the governor regard this as an experiment.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it certainly is an experiment, and it has— it operates on really two levels. The, the, the immediate experiment is to say Can we take a university that is notoriously low-performing, can we change it to a classical liberal arts model, bring in conservative faculty, bring in conservative leadership, bring in a new president, which we've just done? We terminated the contract of the current— of the former president, now former president, on our first board meeting. Can we bring in great, strong people, conservatives, and give the university a new mission, a classical liberal arts education? In some ways drawing inspiration from a place like Hillsdale College. And then can we actually make it popular? Can we make it high-performing? Can we make it a great place to learn? Can we attract a new demographic of students? So top performers in Florida public high schools, their parents, their, let's say, conservative parents can say, we can send our kids to New College, we know it's going to be a good education, we know they'll be in good hands. And will that succeed in itself? But the bigger experiment is more abstract. The bigger experiment is Can conservatives actually govern public institutions? Can they start changing the culture of the public universities? And then can this be a model for every red state in the country to go away from the, you know, DEI-style bureaucracy, to go away from the UC Berkeley-style system of public education, and conservatives actually have a better answer and say, you know what, we're not going to use the universities to train political activists. We're going to use the universities to pursue knowledge, to do great research and scholarship, and to re-elevate the true, the good, and the beautiful, that vision of the classical liberal arts education that's been the cornerstone of our tradition for, you know, 2,500 years. Can we actually bring that back in as the guiding principle of these universities?

I'd like to just offer a parenthetical thought I believe you and my listeners will find interesting. Oh, about 15 years ago, I was invited to give the commencement address at a very prestigious Christian high school where not only Christians attended, but it was nominally Christian in Minnesota. And their motto was the true, the good, and the beautiful. Just what you mentioned. This is why I'm repeating this. So I gave my talk on the war against the true, the good, and the beautiful taking place in American educational institutions. The high school never posted the video of my speech.

Wow.

The faculty were incensed that I gave that speech. And it never went up. I can't get a hold of it. I would put it up with great joy. That it, it's so indicative because you also note the term holding hostage, that a handful of radicals hold the rest hostage, which we'll get to as well. But that you want the true, the good, and the beautiful immediately means you're anti-left. Because they hate the true, they hate the good, and they hate the beautiful. It really resonated with me. Okay, so my— the obvious second question is, what are you going to do about the faculty? Uh, you can get rid of the president, you can get rid of the board. What are you going to do about the faculty at this college?

Well, there's, there's, there's two things that we can do, and I think we're going to do them in, in a reasonable tempo as is appropriate after we get, you know, Richard. He was also Governor DeSantis's Commissioner of Education. He's coming on as president in a month. So I think we're going to see some, some acceleration once he's on board. But we're going to do two things. And these are, these are going to be met with some resistance, but we're going to do them because it's the right thing to do. The first is, you know, I was with Governor DeSantis 2 days ago, and he announced $15 million for a new college, for new faculty hiring. So we're going to get some great people with this money to come in. And look, I've gotten calls from, from people at Ivy League universities, folks at flagship public universities in other states calling me, calling my colleagues and saying, get me out of here, I want to go to a college. Right.

Okay. So, so what are you— are you going to fire a lot of the current faculty?

Yeah, so this is what we're getting kind of legal advice on right now, but the basic thing is this, is, well, not all the faculty is gonna— the current faculty is gonna make it, I think, a year out from now. We have authority as a Board of Trustees to shut down any academic program that we'd like, and then the lawyers are looking through the collective bargaining agreement, etc., but the initial word that I'm getting from the attorneys is absolutely, if you shut down an academic program, Let's say gender studies, that's on the chopping block, that's not going to survive. Any full-time faculty attached to that program, you can terminate their employment. And there are some rules about hiring back within 2 years, but as long as we don't actually revive the gender studies program, which we're absolutely not going to do, those faculty can be let go and not rehired. And so I think the legislature in Florida is also instituting some new, new reforms as this package to do 5-year, 10-year reviews. And look, Dennis, I think here's the bottom line is no one is entirely—

hold on. Remember, remember, you want to talk about the bottom line. I don't want to interrupt that. Christopher Rufo, Chris Rufo, and the experiment in Florida. MyPillow is excited to bring you their biggest bedding sale ever, and just in time for Christmas. For a limited time, get the Giza Dream bed sheets for as low as $29.98. A set of pillowcases for only $9.98, and rejuvenate your bed with a MyPillow mattress topper for as low as $99.99. They also have blankets in a variety of sizes, colors, and styles. They even have blankets for your pets. Get duvets, quilts, down comforters, body pillows, bolster pillows, and so much more, all with the biggest discounts of the year happening now. They're also extending their money-back guarantee for Christmas until March 1st, 2023. Making them the perfect gifts for your friends, your family, and everyone you know. So go to mypillow.com and use the promo code PRAGER, or call 800-761-6302. You'll get huge discounts on all MyPillow bedding products, including the Giza Dream bedsheets, for as low as $29.98. And get all your shopping done now while quantities last. Tell me if I'm wrong. Christopher Rufo, who is working with Ron DeSantis in Florida, though he lives in the state of Washington, to redo the smallest of the public universities to pursue truth, beauty, and what was the third again?

Goodness.

Yeah, the good.

Yeah, true, the good and the beautiful.

That's true, the good and the beautiful. Oh God, I tell you, it's, it's such a beautiful thought. So I asked you what you're going to do about the faculty. So it's an interesting question because you don't know yet, or maybe you do, is the entire faculty woke or is it half woke and half sheep?

Well, I mean, there's, there's good news and there's bad news, but I'll start with the good news because it's important. I've spoken with a lot of faculty over the past few weeks since I've been appointed as a trustee, and, you know, I would think actually the majority of the faculty is with us. These are reasonable people, especially in the math and sciences. They feel bullied and intimidated by the left-wing activists and the administration and the faculty among students. To the point where they're literally, you know, you have these reasonable academics being bullied to put their pronouns in their email signature or to shut up when they have an inconvenient opinion. So I think we have strong support within the faculty, but there are frankly some faculty members and faculty positions and faculty in academic programs that don't add anything to the rigorous scholarly debate. Kind of left-wing activism masquerading as scholarship. And, you know, we're going to take a hard look at those programs, and as necessary, we're going to shut some of them down. The university has big problems, and look, taxpayer expense—

Wait, wait, I'm sorry, it broke up. I don't know if it's your connection or ours. You were saying you're going to take a hard look, and then it broke up.

Yeah, we're gonna take a hard look at academic programs, and those programs which don't meet a scholarly standard, those programs which are really left-wing political activism masquerading as knowledge production, you know, we're gonna take a hard look, and as is necessary, we're gonna shut some of those things down. And so we're not afraid of the fight, we're not afraid to take action, we're gonna go to the fullest extent of the law that we can. And the bottom line is that, you know, You don't have an entitlement to lifetime taxpayer-supported employment to pursue your private political activism. That's going to stop. And I think we're going to start here and then learn and see how it goes. But we're not going to shy away. We're not going to be scared for taking on these folks. And at the end of the day, most of the faculty at New College, most of the faculty elsewhere, they just want to do good work. And we're going to actually protect their academic freedom, protect open inquiry. And we're going to stand up to those left-wing bullies that have been in charge of the academic system for far too long.

Have you— well, you have had— tell us about your meeting/confrontation with— was it faculty or board members? Who was it with?

Before, you know, before we had our first board meeting, I went to New College and I held an open town hall, first with faculty and then another one with students. And, you know, we had a plan set, we had security set, we were going to have an open exchange. And then a few minutes before we were set to start, the provost of the university, a woman named Provost Suzanne Sherman, she comes up guns blazing, very upset. She says, we're going to cancel this event. There was a kind of vague death threat overnight against one of the trustees, one of my colleagues, and we're going to shut it down. We can't have this conversation. And, you know, she's kind of shaking, very hysterical, kind of head wagging. And look, these folks want to shut down conversation. They wanted to shut down us. They wanted us to shut up. And I was very clear with her. I was very firm, very calm, very, very direct and said, look, we're in charge here. We're not going to shut down. We've taken security precautions. You can't just let the hostage takers and the people who threaten violence shut down the governance of this institution. We're setting a new standard. And, and we've overridden you. We've taken a vote of the board members present, present, you know, it's time for you to sit down. And so she was very upset, she was not used to that happening, but, you know, we asserted our constitutional authority and we went ahead with the event, which went very well. The professors were actually great, they were very respectful, we had a great dialogue even when we disagreed. But here's the thing, is that have an administrative class represented, I think, in very kind of colorful character of the provost here, that they will bow down and kind of, uh, to anything, any, any corruption, any threat, any protest. And, and they're so weak, uh, they're so, uh, cowardly.

Have you fired her yet?

Control, uh, you know, as a board we can't. She serves at the pleasure of the president. But, you know, I'll be very clear, is, uh, uh, I think everyone knows how I feel. I think that As we get an interim president on board in the next month, my first recommendation, not on behalf of the whole board, but my own personal recommendation, you know, she's gotta go. She's presided over the disastrous decline of this university for, you know, more than 2 decades, and I think that she'll be on her way out very shortly.

How did you— well, it'd be interesting if she finds another job immediately. She probably will, but I'd like to follow her career. You are really engaged in what I would call a liberation tactic. It's like when the Berlin Wall fell down and how much the East German authorities were disgusted by it. I think the parallel unfortunately is actually almost precise. What did the students— what is the students' reaction?

This university is kind of notoriously left-wing, and so the students, they've kind of cultivated a kind of low, like a kind of lower performing students over the years compared to previously. There are some students that were upset, there were some students that were, you know, kind of protesting. But I'll tell you this, when I actually had a chance to have a town hall with students, I found them to be very respectful. I found them very open to what I was— to the message that I was bringing. And I found them actually to be more mature in some ways than people like the provost who couldn't handle the debate. The students were actually very good. And so look, some students aren't going to be happy. Some students are going to self-select out of this newly transformed university. I think we should work as hard as we can to figure out how we can get them to somewhere that would be a better fit. But, you know, again, we have to do the right thing for the people of Florida. And We're going to try to attract very strong students and there might be kind of some dip-off in the first year, but I think by year 2, by year 3, we're going to have a lot of applications.

You sure will. Hold on there, final segment coming up. This is big. Couple more minutes here with Christopher Rufo and this America-changing project that Ron DeSantis, he and others are working on. A college, the smallest in the public university system. What is it called? New College, is that correct?

That's right, and it was called New College because they were modeling it after the New College of Oxford. That was the initial vision.

Well, they both departed from their initial visions. So yeah, you're— this is a, like, this is like a beautiful dream when I hear you speaking about what is going on there. You, you have not appointed a new president yet, correct?

We have. We'd appointed an interim president, uh, Richard Corcoran, who was, uh, the former DeSantis education commissioner, and then before that, the speaker of the Florida House. And so he starts next month, so he's available next month. That's when he's really going to begin working.

Are you on the left's radar? Not you, Chris. Chris, I know you are. Is this project?

Oh yeah, I mean, it's on the left's radar internationally. So we had, you know, kind of multiple stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post and Politico and Axios. All of the big left-wing programs. MSNBC has actually been covering our trustee meetings. So the trustee meeting of the smallest public college in Florida is making the nightly broadcast on MSNBC, which is quite extraordinary. But when I was there, I was actually shocked. I did a presser after some of the drama, and I was talking with reporters from Scandinavia, reporters from other parts of Europe. This is ground zero, and I think it's a Governor DeSantis' credit, he's taking the kind of bold action that conservatives have maybe contemplated secretly and quietly, and he's actually going out with guns blazing and really making it happen. And I think it's drawing so much attention because, hey, it is really the great hope for the conservative recapture of the institutions, and it's really the great fear for the left in the United States and elsewhere that, wait a minute, conservatives are actually going to start governing This is a threat to our ownership of the public institutions. And so that's why I think this is becoming a focal point, even though it's, you know, relatively small in size.

Well, I'll tell you, I very rarely make predictions, but this, this is a no-brainer. Should you even begin to move in the direction of the true, the good, and the beautiful, as opposed to lies, the ugly, and and the bad, which now dominate our universities, you will be deluged with applications. It— can it grow?

Yeah, actually, and it has to grow. You know, the legislature 5 years ago set an expectation— set the goal for the college to have 1,200 students. They were unable to get that number of kids even though it's on the beach in Sarasota. The tuition is only $6,900 a year. No one wants to go to the school that is just kind of a— was, was really perceived as a social justice ghetto. But as we transform it, as we make it an incredible and exciting place, as we differentiate it from all the other public universities which have become homogeneous, DEI-style institutions, I think we're going to get huge surge in applications. We're going to be reaching out to the classical school network, the parochial school network. Homeschool network. We're gonna have a kind of a wider variety of kids that are going to be applying, and I think that we can get up to 1,200. I'd like to see us within 5 years get up to 1,500, maybe even 2,000. At that point, the university becomes, you know, very viable financially. We can deliver the value for the Florida taxpayers, and that can create a real excellent institution so that conservative families in the state of Florida can say, you know what, there's at least one place— it might be small, but at least one place— that aligns with my values. This is a place where I'd be, you know, not only comfortable but proud to send my kids. And that's really the goal here. And I don't think we should be— we shouldn't mince words. We should be very clear that this is what we want to do. And it's in the best interest of the voters who elected Governor DeSantis in an overwhelming margin.

I know Sarasota, Tampa area pretty well. Sarasota is beautiful. Is the campus particularly beautiful?

Oh yeah, so the campus is gorgeous. It's right on the beach. I mean, it literally has its own waterfront property, and the, the key historical buildings were built by the Ringling Brothers. It was the Ringling Brothers Mansion, uh, uh, uh, and then a building that Charles Ringling built for his daughter, another beautiful historic mansion on the water. And that's where some administration buildings are, some classroom spaces. So it is, you know, kind of triple— I mean, beautiful real estate, beautiful historical buildings, beautiful campus.

It'll be like the anti-Santa Cruz.

Yeah.

Hold on, I can't let you go. It's such a joy to, to hear about this. 1-800-PRAGER-776. We've got a number of calls from Sarasota, in fact. 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 pragerutopia.com.