Trump v. the Others

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.

I won't miss you, and I won't ever take you back. Girl, your memory won't ever haunt me, 'cause I don't love you, and I'll fuel by that. I got some oceanfront property in Arizona. I'm not going to say that George Strait automatically means that I'm here, but it's a good— it's, it's a good signal. Mark Davis in for Dennis Prager. A certain Texas twang coming from George, if not from me, but a certain Texas flavor when I am here. And it is always a joy to be here. Mark Davis from 660 AM The Answer, where I am the happy morning host. And boy, was I happy to be here this morning. Happy being a relative term, so it's demanding for everybody, uh, because I'm here in Central Time talking to the, the West Coast crew out there Pragerland, where everybody was working really late between radio and the Salem News Channel. Just fantastic coverage last night, you know, post-debate, all kinds of opinions flying thick and fast. So I'm just really enormously pleased to be here in one of my frequent fill-ins. It's always a joy to be here for Dennis. And you can follow me on Twitter or X or guacamole or whatever they're calling that thing these days, @MarkDavis, M-A-R-K Davis. And the best way to get a hold of us, of course, is the phone lines that are used in the show every day, 1-877-718-PRAGER. 776. Again, I'm Mark Davis here in the big bustling DFW, and wherever you are, I have some things I need to know from you. You ready? And what I'm going to do is put some of it in question form. Most of my obvious offering is to get your thoughts and ask the blanket question: What did you think of the two big things that you could see last night? One of them was the debate on a stage in Milwaukee, and the other one was seen by perhaps 10 times more people. I mean, are we at 200 million? At some point, everyone in America, if not around the world, will have seen Trump on Tucker. And we'll talk a little bit about whether it was smart for Trump to do Tucker instead of the debate. It certainly wasn't dumb. It certainly didn't hurt him, because after all, as we've learned by now, nothing hurts him, at least not yet. And by the way, every candidate on the stage last night, Every candidate on the stage last night dreams of having a bump, having a boost like Trump will get today from another arraignment, this time under the aggressive thumb of Fani Willis in Fulton County in Atlanta, Georgia. He will turn himself in at some point, and you will then almost be able to palpably sense the fundraising boost, The poll boost. Here is the, the, the truth of the poll of the Trump poll numbers. There's something we know, but there's something numerical we don't know. Again, 1-877-876-18776. Talk about Trump's decision not to be on that debate stage, and then we'll talk about everybody that was on that debate stage because it was a fascinating night for Vivek, a so-so night for DeSantis. A really good night for Tim Scott, a surprisingly momentarily at least interesting night for Mike Pence. Nikki Haley did great, but did she get enough mic time? Chris Christie, that New Jersey bully boy thing that just gets really old really fast. And Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson were there as well, which is about the old— God, I got nothing bad to say about these guys. I've got nothing bad to say about these guys. Hutchinson was an okay governor of Arkansas, really needs to be awakened on some of the gender clarity necessities. Doug Burgum seems like a wonderful guy and what a tough nut. Keyword nut. Who plays basketball the night before a debate? Who does something that has even a remote injury risk? My colleague Mike Gallagher and I were talking and he said, if I'm on the debate stage the following day, I'm putting myself in lockdown. I'm going to be like in bed. In some type of pneumatic bubble. Nothing will get to me, but so that I don't rip open my Achilles tendon, which he did. So he had to crutch himself onto the stage. And I don't want to be cynical enough to say that this strikes me as debate theater and that it was faked. I don't believe that. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that cynical, but I will be this judgmental. How dumb is it to do something the night before a debate that can hurt you? So of course, I know driving on the highway can hurt you. And da da da da da. So I have all kinds of hot takes on how I think everybody did. I'm gonna frame it in terms of what I expected versus how they did. And then we'll talk about what I expected from Trump on Tucker. I expected it to be stratospherically good, and it was. So we have specific Trump on Tucker observations, and we have specific debate participation observations. And it all takes place against this glorious, fascinating backdrop of late August 2024. Here we are. We are still September, October, November. We're still 4.5 months before anybody votes for anything. Change is still possible. But how plausible is it? How many times have you heard people say, yeah, in this particular year, by this point, Newt Gingrich was in the lead. Yeah, this particular year Rudy Giuliani was in the lead. Well, guess what was not going on when Newt— obviously neither gentleman ever became president or ever will, it seems, for multiple reasons. There was no Trump. Nobody had a 50-point lead. It was just wide open. It was 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 or 14 or 17 people all running. Now Trump is the alpha dog, the king of the hill. There is nothing that has dented his support yet. I will tell you the one thing— I wouldn't even say might. I'd say the only thing that can. The only thing that can. And I'll do that here in a second. In fact, probably got to get to that first. 1-800-PRAGER-776. 1-800-PRAGER-776. And again, my name, Mark Davis. Follow me on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it. I can't say X. It's Twitter to me. I don't know, I'm an old fart, what can I say? @MarkDavis, and I'll take a look at those during the break. But the best way to get a hold of us, of course, with your thoughts, 1-800-PRAGER-776. Okay, I do have a fresh column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I'm proud to write for the Star-Telegram and the McClatchy newspaper chain and Newsweek and Town Hall. But the thing I did an immediate I pretty well do mean immediate turnaround reaction column for was the Star-Telegram. So if you go to star-telegram.com and look at opinions, find me, Mark Davis, there is my column that talks about how Vivek and Pence and Tim Scott helped themselves. Doesn't mean they're the only people who did, but they did. But the enduring question, the enduring question is, can anybody catch Trump? Is that even possible? So if we start with the premise that they say anything is possible, not anything. Okay. Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, or Will Hurd winning the nomination is as close to not possible as the English language permits. Okay. But let's just say that in these turbulent times where almost everything seems volatile, it was volatility that kind of lofted Trump in 2016. There are a lot of frustrations. There he was. He seemed anti-establishment. He caught the wind of that in the sails of so many Americans. It just— the timing was just— it was perfect for Trump. Um, now 8 years— is next, next month— wow, can you believe this? Next month, September, is 8 years since he and Melania came down the, uh, the golden escalator at Trump Tower. In a way, it seems like yesterday. In a way, it seems like 100 years ago. But, but anyway, everybody knows they, they— his Everybody knows him now, and the love for him and the hatred of him are both baked in so solid. So two things are true at the same time. With Trump as the nominee, you're going to get two things guaranteed, two things. The love for him and the devotion to him and the desire to flip a huge middle finger to the establishment that now pursues and persecutes him. That will be on fire with energy. The other thing that's gonna be on fire with energy, every Democrat who, if Biden could be actually dead and on the ticket, And Democrats will crawl on broken glass and walk through fire to deliver another loss to Trump. So that will be in furious force. So which of those forces, which of those phenomena is greater? I don't know. And neither do you. Are there risks to making Trump your nominee? There sure are. But are there risks that a whole lot of people seem totally willing to take? Yes, indeed. So what is the one thing that might erode Trump support, and I'm not saying it will, but it's the only thing that can. I'll tell you next and take your calls next. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Mark Davis in for Dennis. The Dennis Prager Show.

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So whether you are watching or listening or both, we appreciate it. Mark Davison for Dennis here on debate night. They, uh, mostly say morning after, depending on your time zone, the day after. What do we think? Um, I'm going to take some calls here and sort of intermingle my specific thoughts about how each candidate did. And of course, you know what the short part is? How Trump did with Tucker? Simply superb. It was just vintage Trump for 47 minutes, and it was awesome. It was just a reminder of how great he is and why everybody wants him back, or nearly everybody wants him back. I will tell you, not to be a curmudgeon about this, but I still think he should have been on the debate stage. I totally understand his logic. Why should I? They're 50 points behind me. I don't need to show up for this. I totally get it. He's right about that. It did not hurt him. To not be there. But it was a missed opportunity. There are millions of people for whom the last 10 times they heard Trump talk, it was all about Jack Smith and Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg and this persecution and that lawsuit and this vendetta and that witch hunt, all of which is true. But it just, it can be fatiguing to some folks who are not a junkie for this. And this would have been an opportunity for Trump with a bunch of rivals and a bunch of pretenders to be sure, and a bunch of people at 0.5%. And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. But it would've been him talking about borders. It would've been him talking about crime. It would've been him talking about climate and him, which by the way, he did with Tucker. But he could have done that too. Not to get greedy, but why not do the debate and then sit down with Tucker tonight? Wouldn't that have worked? So anyway, but it was a statement. I understand it was a statement. It was a positioning statement that says, I don't even need to be on that stage as they all run for who's gonna be the last person left when there are two candidates left standing. That is, by the way, what last night's debate was about. That's what the entire campaign is about for everybody not named Trump. At some point in the spring, there will be two candidates left. One of them will be named Donald Trump and the other one will not. And everybody wants to be that other person. And forever it looked obvious that it was going to be DeSantis. It doesn't look that way so much right now. Now it could really be Vivek. Will that sustain? Is this kind of a flash in the, in the summer pan? I don't know. Your thoughts are welcome. 1-800-PRAGER-776. As I get ready to go to the phones, here's the thing, everybody. I get asked this all the time. Is there anything that could change the calculus? Anything where Trump just doesn't have that 50-point lead anymore? Because while we're talking math, here's what's undeniably true. Trump can win the nomination, can breeze to the nomination without poaching one single supporter from anybody on that stage last night. Obviously he could do it tomorrow. DeSantis, just to pick somebody, or Vivek, but go with DeSantis for the moment. He needs to poach half of the Trump poll numbers. He's got to go get half of those people, half of the people saying we want Trump, half of the 50-some percent, if not more, who say we want Trump, who say that now in August have to stop saying that by the time people are really voting in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, etc., etc. So what is the one way that happens? And this is a half-court shot, maybe a full-court shot. And that is that some of the poll emotions right now, some of it, most of it is we want this guy to be president. We loved him then. We love him now. We want this guy to be president. Candidate, you know, the usual earth logic that people use in expressing support for a candidate. But some of it, and it'll have to be a lot of it, and I don't know that it is, but certain X percentage of it has to be folks who may or may not require Trump to be their next president, but they are furious at what's being done to him. It is a show of support. I mean, why do you think the poll numbers will go up up after he is arraigned today in Atlanta? Is it because a bunch of people will just look at issues around America and decide, oh, he is my guy? Well, some may, but most of the poll bursts and the fundraising bursts that happen after each continuing litany of indictments is people saying, oh, hell no. It's what I call the Jason Whitlock effect. Jason Whitlock is the wonderful broadcaster, blogger, who, uh, who was on the Tucker one. I, I think might have been after, after the first indictment or the second one. I lose track. Jason Whitlock was on with Tucker when Tucker was on Fox and said, I don't even know what I think about Trump. I'm halfway with him, halfway not. I like some of what he does, some of it not. I, I, you know, I don't know. But tonight I'm hardcore MAGA, Tucker. Tonight I am hardcore MAGA, Jason Whitlock said. And it was, it was as a statement of revulsion at what was being done to him. Now, if that's a bunch of Trump support, if— because here it is in one nutshell. By the time we get to— we go through Christmas, we go through the holidays, everybody digests their holiday meals, and then we all get rolling in January of 2024, and millions of Republicans go, whoa, okay, now Now it's, it's, it's, it's always been serious, but now it's time. Time with a capital T. It's not about whether we don't like Jack Smith or whether we, you know, think 2020 was rigged or whether we're just not about anything else. It's other than it's about one thing, one thing. Who beats Biden? Who gives us the best chance of beating Biden? And if the similar numbers of people who think so today think that that's Trump, and by the way, it may well be, then nothing will change. All these campaigns, all the DeSantis's, all the Viveks, all the everybody's, I don't wanna say it'll be for naught, but it will not bear fruit. It will not bear fruit. If, however, and it's funny because right now we got the sort of the fresh angst, the renewed emotion and determination of what will happen after Trump is dragged before yet another tribunal for yet another non-crime. We can talk about this some today if you want. There's really only one thing out of all, out of every single one of these stupid persecution prosecutions, all these indictments, all these things. Really, they only got him on one thing. There's one thing that he just really should have done differently, and that's the handling of those stupid documents. Give back the stupid documents. If you do that, then that's not even a problem. But all this election-related stuff is insane. He thinks he got screwed, and guess what? So do I. Guess what? So do most of you. We don't get to believe that. And if we're him, we don't get to act on that and make phone calls and secure meeting space and tweet to somebody to watch a TV show, all of which which has been criminalized by these lunatic prosecutors. But in January of 2024, it's not gonna be about that anymore. No matter how we feel about that, no matter how we feel, and no matter how resentful we are of that and how much we wanna stick with him. And I mean, in that regard, if millions of people say, God bless you, sir, God bless you, we loved your presidency, We want those policies back, but the damage seems to have been done. Voters seem tired, and we've got to, we got to beat Biden. We've got to. And we think that to get your policies back, it might take DeSantis to do it. It might take Vivek to do it. Now, that's a huge if. It's a massive if. But that's the only way that the, the poll numbers change. Your call's next. Mark Davidson for Dennis Prager.

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And hey, Dennis, let me piggyback on that for you, because August is a big fundraising month for PragerU. Donate today and your gift will be triple matched. Holy cow, how does that happen? A $50 donation is really a $150 donation. $100 is $300, and, and, and, and $610 is really $1,830. I could go on. How did I even— I thought, do I I knew I was going to mess that up. PragerU.com, PragerU.com, or 833-PRAGER-U. Let's make it a big, big, big banner month for PragerU, teaching what isn't taught. And by the way, PragerU in the news everywhere. Have you seen how people are freaking out in 12 languages that PragerU is allowed, not forced, it's not mandated. Teachers can use PragerU videos in Florida. And here in my great state of Texas, there is a desire for them as well.

Ha ha ha.

Meaning that that the liberals— and we do indeed have liberals in Texas, we just don't let them run the place at the moment— and so there's a lot of back and forth about whether PragerU videos are going to be in Texas classrooms. Classrooms just get better when PragerU videos are there. They just do. It's a point of view and a perspective on history and climate and culture and 14 other things that just is not usually there as a result of the curricula that are in place. So there you go. Okay, look, 1-800-PRAGER-776. Let's talk to some folks. On the radio, and then I, I will intersperse some of my individual thoughts about the individual candidates and various other things. I got 2.5 more hours. Y'all are moving and grooving through your day, and I am grateful. We are in Anaheim. Joey, Mark Davison for Dennis Prager. How are you?

I am just great, and I'm so glad you're on, Mark. I always enjoy listening to you.

You're very kind.

Well, I'm very honest, actually. I watched the debate and I watched the Tucker Carlson interview with Donald John Trump afterwards. My take on the interview was that it was excellent, and the thing I liked best about it was that my president was very low-key, very calm, low-key, and he didn't say anything radical or crazy. And so I really, really enjoyed that, that, and he is of course my, you know, my candidate. But to get to the debate, I think that two people should be taken off, Asa Hutchinson and, um, and, um, Doug Burgum.

No, Christie. Wow. So Doug Burgum survives, but Chris Christie's got to go. Gee, I wonder why.

Because those two, uh, they promised, you know, they, they promised that they would vote for whoever was president, including the loyalty pledge.

Yes, ma'am.

They didn't keep their promise already, you know, in the, in the debate. So they're They're out for more reasons, but that's one. And then I thought, unlike many others, I thought that the governor of Florida did really, really well. I was very impressed with him. And I don't know why everybody says, oh, he's low-key, doesn't connect. He doesn't.

It's weird. I've got— I've been formulating an answer to that. And I appreciate the view because people can feel however they wish. And you love— a lot of people who really love Trump don't like DeSantis at all, probably because they view him as something like a threat. It's weird because it seems like a lot of people expected with so much anticipation about DeSantis that when he announced, and he announced like the third week of May, that instantly he was going to be equal to Trump or halfway to Trump or have 30% or something like that. Nobody should have expected that. It's going to take that phenomenon that I was just talking about. It's almost going to take till January, and then it's a huge if where people go, we love Trump policies, but only somebody else can bring bring them to us. So they'll pivot to DeSantis or Vivek if they do that. That's a huge if. But, and so he's been dogged. It's like the, the, the bar was set so high. It's like, well, he's, he's not that stellar. He's not that great. He has got, he's been doing fine and he did fine on the debate stage last night. It wasn't a bunch of home runs. I think Vivek did better. I think Tim Scott and Mike Pence probably helped themselves more. Uh, but, but DeSantis was fine. Slow, you know, slow and steady. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I think Vivek also should be off the stage. He's not qualified to be president. It's like, dude, based on what?

Careful. If you don't like him, that's fine. But based on what?

No, I like—

what makes him not qualified?

He could sell anybody a vacuum cleaner. But I think that Haley really pointed out that he has no foreign— he has— he just doesn't have experience. He told—

how much? How much? How much experience did Donald— how much experience did Donald John Trump have?

A lot. Oh, really?

He's not—

not at being president. He didn't— no, I know what you mean. He had, he had life experience and wisdom and business experience. Absolutely.

But Vivek just, you know, he, he acts like he knows it all and that he has all these, uh, foreign policies towards Ukraine, towards Taiwan, towards Israel. And I disagree with all of them.

Really? Okay, then let me carry that forward. I am so grateful because I think he was 100% right on Ukraine, but maybe not on some other stuff. We'll be right back. It is the Dennis Prager Show for Thursday, August 24th, debate night, the day after. Mark Davis filling in from Texas, taking your calls, mixing your thoughts and mine. So, all right, I mentioned on my show this morning locally, and I'll mention it, and I may have already touched on it here, so many debate reactions are going to be filtered through what you think of everybody, which is fine, and I'm not immune to that. I try to resist it, and I hope I'm a worthy tour guide through this because I love Trump. Do I know that he's our best shot versus Biden? Nope. I respect DeSantis. Is he— is the hype— is the reality going to live up to the hype? I don't know. I'm impressed by Vivek. I got hesitations about Vivek. I'm just paying attention. I'm letting the game come to me. For many of you who have totally made up your mind, which you're completely entitled to do, if you just love Trump, then for many of you, DeSantis is a bum. And the last lady, God bless her, Vivek, is unqualified. Let me give you a definition of qualified. Qualified's a weird word. First of all, the Constitution makes it clear. You gotta be 35, natural-born American citizen. That's about it. But I know that conversationally, we say qualified and we mean that you seem to have a body of experience in your past, in your brain, in your heart. You seem to have a life that lends itself to being president of the United States. But if you come after Vivek and say, well, he doesn't have like foreign policy experience, how much foreign policy experience did Trump have? And he was great on foreign policy. I literally, I don't know how many of you agree with me on this. I don't know how much I care about experience anymore at all, because there are people with loads of experience who are terrible. One of them is president of the United States right now. And there are plenty of people who have very little experience, none in elected office, who are awesome. Trump, the prime example. Talk about learning, talk about on-the-job learning. He certainly did it. Now, Vivek being 38, I was talking to the great Kurt Schlichter, who writes for Town Hall and who's just great in everything he does. Kurt is a take-no-prisoners conservative. He is an admitted DeSantis fan, a great respecter of and fan of everything Trump did. But it's his belief that the only way to get those Donald Trump's policies back. It ain't Trump, it's DeSantis. And so that's where his heart lies. But he gave me a quote about Vivek that I just— I probably have cited it 15 times since. He said, we just can't have a commander in chief who first heard Nirvana on a classic rock station. I love that so much. And I don't want to be ageist and I don't want to be the old coot in my yard shaking my fist at a cloud, telling the kids to get out of my yard. I'm 65. I like to think I'm a youthful 65, so do we all, but it's not like Vivek is 20, he's 38. But there's— today we ain't growing 38-year-olds, we ain't growing 19-year-olds like we used to, or folks who are double that age. See, more math. So it's not like I think he's gonna wig out and do weird millennial things, but maybe I'm looking for a certain seasoning, a certain measured approach. That he just doesn't have yet, which is not harsh criticism because I think the guy is truly remarkable. Here's a little chunk of him from last night. See what I mean?

Roll it.

This primary is this: do you want a super PAC puppet, or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth? Do you want incremental reform, which is what you're hearing about, or do you want revolution? Okay, and I stand on the side of the American Revolution. We're going to take control See, this is the energy he brings. And that was actually a moment where he said— he's kind of funny. He says 90% of the stuff he says is awesome. Okay, 80% is awesome. 15% is really great. And 5% was dumb. I'm the only candidate up here who's not bought and paid for. What kind of a weird slap was that? But the guy is great. He's great on TV. He's very telegenic. He's very smart. He's very sharp. His 10 You know, 10 truths. There are 2 genders. God is real. The Constitution is the greatest guarantor of freedom in world history. We have 3 branches of government, not 4, which is, I guess, a slap at the media and whatever, however many more, the other 6. They're all great. He's great in a bunch of ways. Does he need to be the nominee? I don't know. Does he need to be the running mate? I don't know, especially if it's Trump. And listen, Trump's going to outlive all of us. He'll be 120 eating a cheeseburger Dennis Prager and going, I told you. But if that is not in the cards, Vivek, a heartbeat away from the presidency. He has a future, as a friend of mine has often said. He has a future. I don't know when that future is. He certainly has a future in this race. I think he'll be one of the last, certainly one of the last 3 or 4 standing. Let me hit some more calls here and then we'll talk a little bit about some of the individual performances that were of note. We are in Detroit. Mike, hey, Mark Davis sitting in for Dennis Prager.

You know, these debates are fine, but people need to remember that part of the Democratic strategy is always divide and conquer. And, you know, it's almost like, what is there to debate? You know, we're watching the Democratic Party dismantle and destroy our republic, you know, before our very eyes. You know, the political violence that they've inflicted on this country is just unprecedented. And you get with the political corruption, you can start with the bedwetting narrative to the military occupation. You know, people need to remember this, the military occupation under a false narrative, under false pretenses by the Democratic Party. As a, as a former officer, I can tell you 99% of the officer corps would have refused that order as illegal.

And what order, what order are you talking, what order are you talking about?

The order that Pelosi gave to Milley to occupy our nation's Capitol.

But aside from that, hey, Mike, can I be really frank and speak with love? I'm wide open about all kinds of things, but we're kind of doing something here. And these are platitudes. They're good, high-quality platitudes, but not really what I'm doing. So then, yeah, yeah, yeah. Says you're listening to a show. And if it seems to be doing something that— see, if somebody says, hey, Constitution to apple pie recipes, call me. That's great. But here's something, a suggestion with love. If there's kind of something we're doing here and you got 6 index cards in front of you, sit tight with them and wait for another day. Okay? And I say that with a huge amount of love. All right. 1-800-PRAGER-776. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Let's do, let's do as follows. When we come back, more of your calls. Focus, people. Focus. And by the way, there are 100 different things you can say about the debate, about the race, about our country, about Trump and Tucker. I'm all about that. So we'll be back in just a moment on The Dennis Prager Show. Always a good idea. Mark Davis in for Dennis. Artie, we are in West LA. Steve, Mark Davis in for Dennis. How are you, sir?

Oh, good, Mark. Um, two things, uh, that, uh, stuck to me last night. Um, we have these lying activists at ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS, CBS and others, of course CNN, that allow the abortion topic to destroy conservative America. We need them to start sticking mics in front of the left-wing Congresspeople and senators and say, when should abortion be not allowed?

Yeah. What are your limits exactly?

The second thing I have to say is Asa Hutchinson calling Jan. 6th an insurrection. Hutchinson is a disgrace. He needs to get the F out of this race. He's a disgrace to the Republican Party.

Voters will take care of that very soon. I know.

How do you overthrow the biggest government in the world without any weapons? It wasn't an insurrection. He was horrible.

And the marketplace will take care of him. The thing is, what do we got to wait for? Iowa, New Hampshire? And listen, I would say this about some people who I don't hold in that high regard, like Asa Hutchinson. People who I do hold in pretty high regard, like Doug Burgum, somebody who I used to hold in high regard before he became a Trump hate monger, Will Hurd. But I would ask of all three guys, why are you running? What exactly are you thinking? Is this an ego trip? Is it a vanity project? Is it— and I'm going to make a point here because there's somebody else who's at about 1% in the polls. There's a strong reason for him to be running. His name is Larry Elder. It's not just because he's a talk show guy, not just he's my friend and my former It's because Larry has things to say that nobody else would have said on that stage last night. There's a reason for him to be running. There's a narrative that only he can tell. There's something truly unique about him. And the RNC screwed him, and that's not good. And I wish him well in his action against the RNC and through the FEC. I hope that works out. All righty, Mark Davis in for Dennis. Stick around. We got 1 hour down, 2 to go. All kinds of things happening. Grab a line at 1-800-PRAGER-776. We'll be right back. With you.

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Everybody knows that the days are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. It is the Thursday, August 24th Dennis Prager Show. Mark Davis filling in from 660 AM The Answer here in bustling Dallas-Fort Worth, where the best show prep I can ever do for filling in for Dennis Prager is my own actual hot-happening show in Morning Drive. And boy, boy, was that an adventure, because I got a bunch of calls from people on the exact same things that I'm seeking calls about from you. How did the debate strike you? How did Trump versus Trump and Tucker, very much conjoined in their quest to attract attention to some issues and themselves, and they both enormously succeeded. Is that thing up to 200 million views? Views already, Tucker and Trump. So we've talked a little bit on should Trump have been on the debate stage. There's an argument for yes, certainly an argument for no. It's the argument that he makes. My thought is, is you can have it all, that he could have done Tucker tonight and gotten the exact same number of hundreds of millions of views and could have been on the debate stage last night talking about something, please, anything other than this continuing litany of, uh, arraignments and persecutions, the next of which happens today. In Atlanta. How's that going to go? And you know, well, hey, you know how it's going to go in terms of fundraising and poll numbers. It will probably expand his lead because he garners very deserved and righteous empathy from people who just want to flip a massive bird toward the prosecutorial cabal that is out to get him. So phone numbers: 1-800-PRAGER-776, 1-800-PRAGER-776. Let me do the lightning round through how I think everybody did versus what I expected them to do. And then you can do the same, pick and choose, do whatever you want to do. Again, 1-800-PRAGER-776. And follow me on X/Twitter or whatever you want to call it, @MarkDavis, M-A-R-K Davis. Vivek, he was great. He was, it was vintage Vivek. It's kind of funny, I said this morning, is there such a thing as vintage anybody when you've only been around in our public consciousness for about 15 minutes? I guess there is. Is, his is a recognizable act now. And I don't say act dismissively. There's a Vivek way to do things. There's a way that he phrases things. There's a way that he comes at— and the audience last night pretty well loved it until they didn't. He got a little snotty and a little millennial, short and peekish with people. I'm the only candidate up here that's not bought and paid for. Shut up. But generally speaking, his points were great. His style was compelling. And I think by and large, he did a really good job. The greatest compliment is paid not by me or anybody even on his own staff. The greatest compliment is last night, the storyline wasn't even what a lot of people thought it was going to be, because as everybody's running to be second in the polls, because that's all last night was about, who's going to be second in the polls? Because we know who's first. The buzz was that folks were going to be gunning for DeSantis. This, that they were going to be trying to, you know, put some dings in the armor of DeSantis. Nope. They all came for Vivek. Christie came for Vivek with that dumb, I'm tired of somebody who talks like ChatGPT. Shut up, Jersey boy. The last time somebody talked about being skinny with a funny last name, it was Obama. He's right about that, by the way. But then I think we are in danger of the same kind of amateur Dennis Prager, like, gosh, what is the reason for the Chris Christie candidacy other than Trump hatred? And what is the reason for the Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum candidacies at all? I'm a big— miracles happen, not like this. I'm teasing. Anything truly is possible, but there is zero reason to believe that somebody at 0 or 1% is actually going to be the nominee. It's a free country. You get to run, and if you meet the debate criteria, you get to be on the stage. Stage, unless you're Larry Elder. Larry got absolutely hosed by Ronna McDaniel and the RNC, and I wish him well in his actions against them. Meanwhile, I wish all of you well here on this Thursday as the month of August flies by. It's funny, time is moving quickly and slowly at the same time, and by that I mean, where did summer go? I mean, I know there's plenty of it left, especially here in Texas, where it's— let me look outside— it may be 108 degrees by now. But So we do truly have a lot of time. There is— we have all of September, all of October, all of November, all of December, and we get into January before any human beings actually vote, before anybody actually votes. Is there room for all kinds of things to change? There is. Does that mean they will? Nope, not necessarily. So what do you think? What do you think of what happened last night? And what do you think moving forward? Okay. 1-800-PRAGER-776. We are in Orlando. Hi, Patrick. Petra, Mark Davison for Dennis. How are you?

I am very well, thank you. My comment is basically, why was abortion even brought up by the commentators? Because this issue has been resolved right now. It has gone back to the states, and they are not running for governor, they are running for the president.

You know, I know, but here's the answer to your question. The reason it was brought up and the reason it's important for the candidates to weigh in is now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, and thank goodness, because because it was a constitutional fiction. And now that right now, right now, it's all in the hands of the states, meaning my state of Texas can protect the unborn and other states can be ghoulishly permissive about it. That's where we are now. The question now, the fork in the road, is do we need to, as pro-lifers, seek a federal law of some type, which we totally can do— we don't have to, but we can— that creates, let's say, a nationwide 15-week standard? That's a thoroughly valid question. And clearly on the stage last night, there were people who wanted to do it and people who didn't. So the question is completely valid.

Okay.

Well, I did not think maybe not for the first debate. You know, there are so many others in terms of, well, because of the Immigration Reduction Act, we had the anniversary of Afghanistan, you know, you know, with packing the Supreme Court.

There are a lot more people. There are a lot more people walking around right now caring about abortion than there are who caring about Afghanistan. Trust me on that one. And I know that part of the angst is that it gets us in trouble. It gets us into uncomfortable conversation. I'll tell you where there's abject fear right now. And I do not have this fear. I am not afraid. I am pro-life. I want a federal 15-week, for starters. For starters. Was the overturning of Roe v. Wade enough for me? I call it a good first step toward a country, a country that actually steps up to prevent babies from the carnage of abortion. Now, I also know that you can't have everything you want right now. There's a national freakout going on because of the Dobbs decision. There are people who, you know, running their cars off the road still because Roe v. Wade was overturned. And there's a perception that there this hurts us, that there have been some election results that show that people are recoiling about this. And with all of these choices being left to the individual states, there are some folks, some of them Republicans, stepping forward to say, you know, I don't know how pro-life I want to be. Which, by the way, is the choice of every American. Everybody's entitled to feel the way they feel about every issue. But I am unapologetically I am personally pro-life. That means I want laws that protect babies from the holocaust of abortion, and I'm unapologetic about it, and I'm in no ways tired, and I will never grow tired of having those views. I know full well that I may not convince enough of America to have this in my lifetime. Took 50 years to get rid of stinking Roe v. Wade. How long will this take? I don't know. Maybe the ball's rolling a little quicker now. There are hearts to be changed, minds to be changed. And I'm all about that. I'm all about the patience and diligence and discipline and skill needed to change hearts and minds on the truth of what abortion is. And so the overturning of Roe v. Wade was great. It laid a better— but we said, well, we're done now. It's left to the states. What, like I'm supposed to be okay that California is a killing field for unborn babies? I'll never be okay with that. That? Never. Now, the one thing you can do is move to a pro-choice state, move to a pro-abortion state and try to change their policies. By the way, go do that. Absolutely all about that. Or, or maybe and/or, because these don't have to be binary, one or the other. We can work on a federal law that would protect life at 15 weeks. And I mean, that's for starters. In Texas, we have the heartbeat bill. I would love that nationwide. Now, I know we're 1,000 miles from I understand that. But you know what you gotta do when you gotta travel 1,000 miles? You get in the car and you drive that first mile. And you drive that first 100. And you drive that first 500. And eventually you get to 1,000. I don't know how long it'll take. And I don't know how long it'll take for us to get 60 votes in the Senate and a majority of the House to, to make such a federal law to protect unborn babies. But that is what I'm going to advocate. And I want my presidential candidates to advocate it too. Nikki Haley doesn't want to do that. I understand there's a lot of good things about Nikki Haley. She is not pro-life enough for me on that issue. Tim Scott appears to be. Listen, I know DeSantis is. I got a question or two about Trump. Didn't Trump call the heartbeat bill a bit extreme? Uh-oh. But that's one of many issues. I have a lot of moving parts in my consideration on some of this. I know you do too. So grab a line, 1-800-PRAGER-776-1888. 888-Prager-776. Mark Davison for Dennis. Stick around. Any way that you can consume Dennis Prager content is a good use of your time. Hopefully equally rewarding, or at least almost as much, when the fill-in guys are here. Mark Davis from here in DFW on 660 AM, The Answer each morning. And then usually my habit is to get out, run some errands, and listen to Dennis, except the days when I'm doing the show, and this is one of those days, which I'm very, very grateful for. 1-800-PRAGER-776. We'll get ready to go back to your calls. It's obviously one big night of issues from the debate stage to Trump sitting down with Tucker, but 50 issues come pouring off of both, which makes it a multilayered thing. Glad to be here with you. You to cover all of it. Two really quick things, like 30 seconds apiece, of some pretty huge international news stories this week. First of all, uh, Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead. Who's that? He's the Wagner Group guy. And if all this sort of makes your brain leak out your ears— who's that? Are they pro-Putin? Are they anti-Putin? What kind? Are they his strongmen, uh, uh, mercenary force? What even are they? Well, this was the guy a guy who apparently grew sufficiently frustrated with the way Ukraine war was going that he mounted— remember when the caravan of like tanks and stuff was rolling toward Moscow and it was like going to be a coup against Putin and then it stopped and then Putin's people thought, oh, surely this guy's dead by dinnertime, but he wasn't. And there was this a couple of days where Putin seemed to be making nice with him, healing up the relationship. Yevgeny, don't worry, it'll be okay. Don't worry about the thing. Yeah, Yevgeny got plane yesterday at like 20-some thousand feet. Well, well, I said got blown up. Whoops, Freudian slip. Something happened to his plane. Nothing suspicious about this at all. The other story involves India. Huge props to India. How thrilled was all the 10 billion people they have in that country. Where is— what, China, India, nobody else is close. That's a lot of happy people. As their moon lander, the Chandrayaan-3, didn't just land on the moon, landed on the south pole of the moon, which carries some excitement because there's apparently like some frozen something or other down there. Might be ice, might be water. If that's the case, you got hydrogen, you got oxygen. Oxygen for breathing, hydrogen for power. This could be pretty cool. And listen, I'm total space dork if you haven't picked that up. Earlier I revealed that at 65, that means I'm 11 for the human footprints on the moon. Couldn't be more thrilled that astronaut Reid Wiseman will lead a NASA crew back to orbit the moon right after we win back the White House in late 2024, and then more human footprints on the moon in late 2025. And I just love that additional generations of people, not just kids, but people of all ages can maybe have the wonder that I had at the time of this being man's nature to explore. And as Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott said there in his first steps on the moon, this is exploration at its greatest. So it's unmanned, but listen, and you ever hear people say, you know, launching something toward the moon 238,000 miles away is like going out in the backyard yard with a baseball and then fill in the blanks. You know what it's like? Landing a craft on the moon at a specific place a quarter million miles away is like going out in your backyard with a baseball and throwing it and hitting something a quarter million miles away. I mean, there's just no need for the proportionality of the— it's— God bless them, it's incredible. Way to go, India. Oh, by the way, speaking of Russia, tough week for them all around. Oh no, I know the, the Luna What was it, the Luna 25? Yeah, they were going to land a couple of days ago. Uh-oh, that did not happen. That thing crashed and burned like the Will Hurd campaign. So there you go. Alrighty, 1-800-PRAGER-776, 1-800-PRAGER-776, and we are in Orlando. And Dennis, that is you. Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. I'm Mark Davis filling in. How are you?

Oh, very good. Thanks so much for taking the call. Um, yes sir, I was, uh, very— I'm very interested to know if there's a chance that a third-party candidate could become president under this current environment, uh, with the proper, uh, steps to get their name and information that perhaps is not being spoken.

Something like Larry Elder Yeah, the short answer, the short answer, the short answer is no. The short answer is no. The dirty little secret about third parties is there's a reason why they usually get between 0 and 1 and 2%. Ross Perot in 1992 was a wild outlier at 19%. I don't know if anybody will ever do that again in my lifetime. The dirty little secret is that everybody bags on the two-party system, but most people people find a way to become comfortable with it. The vast majority of people are either going to vote for the Republican or the Democrat, and the number of people left over— it's, listen, in a country of 330 million, if it's 5 or 10% of everybody that's miffed at the two-party system, that's still millions of people. So is there room for a, you know, a Cornel West who's— for a Joe Manchin, RFK Jr., when it becomes clear to him that he's not going to be the Democrat? Nominee. Could that be something of consequence? You ask, could that person win? That's a hard no. But as Ross Perot did, he can sure make sure somebody else wins. Because Ross Perot— and God bless Mr. Perot, wonderful man, wonderful Texan, wonderful American— he gave us Clinton because he took votes right away from George H.W. Bush. I love Larry, but I don't want him running third party because he'd take votes away from the Republicans. Second. There may be some enthusiasm for having a Joe Manchin or a Cornel West, RFK Jr. as a third-party candidate, because that would probably take away from Democrats. What are your thoughts?

Yes. Well, I'm a candidate for president. I'm Dennis Andrew Ball.

Great. Then I hope I delivered the bad news to you with some level of skill and love. Good grief. Good. I got it. I got it. I got it. That was a long— that was a— I should almost give the guy's website at this point. So anyway, all right, because that, that's— I gotta tell you, I got you, sir. You got a gift. You got it. You, you are instantly at least as interesting in your presidential campaign as Asa Hutchinson is, and you may in fact get more votes. All righty, 1-800-PRAGER-776. Let us roll to Prescott, Arizona. Neil, hey, Mark David person for Dennis. How are you? And are you in fact on the ballot anywhere?

I had an eye operation, so I see clearly now. I found out—

Johnny Nash, we'll roll it out for you.

Johnny Cash was a customer. The whole idea of abortion is sickening. I took a girlfriend to an abortion. She almost died. It wasn't mine after all, she said, but it still hurts. I find the left since I was in the farms business. The left tells us don't shoot the rapist, we'll get you the abortion later, but don't execute the rapist that murdered your unborn baby. Yeah, Putin might have made a situation on that airplane, post-birth abortion to his enemies.

Yeah, that's, that's, there is a certain danger to running afoul of Putin, and I can't sit here and say that I absolutely know that he had, had Petrosian killed. But as Joe Biden himself might say in a lucid moment, come on, man. All right, uh, here comes the bottom of the hour break. We'll come back, take some more of your thoughts about the Republicans on stage last night, the one Republican who was not on stage but was sitting there with Tucker doing a great job in that broadcast, and a number of other things lying ahead. Mark Davison for Dennis Prager, stick around. We have all kinds of things for you to read and see and do. I gotta tell you, we Salem Media Group people, we will keep you busy. Talk shows, books, and Regnery is Awesome. They saw fit to print a couple of my books. I ought to crank out another one at some point when I get a minute. It was Lone Star America in 2014, How Texas Can Save Our Country. Every word's still true. In 2016, I wrote Upside Down, How the Left Turned Right into Wrong, Truth into Lies, Good into Bad. That's a long subtitle. Just do Mark Davis Upside Down on Amazon and grab that and let me know what you think. Real interested in knowing what you think right now at 1-800-776-6377 as we do debate the day after and talking also about Trump and Tucker the day after, because a lot of folks got some words in, in the evening's pursuits that did them some good. The surprises for me, and debates don't tend to yield a lot of surprises, you pretty well know what people are. DeSantis could have had a better night. It was okay, it wasn't crippling, but he really needs to kind of gear up, sort of needs to keep pace with Vivek's energy now. Mike Pence, who has bored me greatly for months, and he's a good man, a good father, a good husband, a good Christian, a good conservative, he's a good vice president, but I just didn't see any groundswell of people wanting him to be president. I still don't, but he stepped up and defended himself in some ways and did some things that were of value. Nikki Haley did. Tim Scott really did. I don't I don't think Brother Scott is getting enough love. I think that amid some of the sniping, Vivek versus Christie and, and, you know, everybody versus everybody else, that, that gave Tim Scott some moments to sort of be the above-it-all grown-up, just saying some good bedrock valuable things. He's not going to be the nominee either, but I think that he, to me at least, enjoys the inside track for running mate. Don't you think? 1-800-PRAGER-776. We are in Arlington, Virginia, there in the Washington Lucy, Mark Davidson for Dennis. How are you?

I'm fine, thank you. I wanted to disagree with you about Trump being at the debate. I don't think he should have been there. He shouldn't have been there because they would have just beat the hell out of him on J6 or any of these indictments. You think?

How do you think he couldn't handle that? You think he would? Don't you think it would have been masterful to see him beat back those attempted attacks?

Yes, I do. I agree with that. But the problem is I want the other guys to hear, I want to hear their views because in 2016 Trump was like number 10 or 12 for me. I had so many people ahead of him, but at the last time when it was all over and done with, when no one was left standing but him, I knew I wasn't going to vote for no one but whomever the Republican candidate is. So it gave me a chance to hear all these other guys' views. And if I, if they had, if he had been there, they would have just, I wouldn't have heard those views. So I want to rate them. I want to, I want to hear what they say so I can rate them because I don't want to do, and I don't want the voters outside to do what I did. I made the mistake when Romney and McCain and Romney were running against Obama. I couldn't hold my nose and vote for either one of them. And I regret it.

I know it's okay.

I regret it because I have put Obama in office and I don't want to do that again. This time I would probably have to hold my nose and vote for So far I can see I'd have to hold my nose and vote for Pence, but I will do it because—

Well, and that's wisdom and that's called getting smarter. And I'm so grateful to you. And you got a lot of company too, because that's nothing but smart. Because if you don't get exactly the person you want, then if you have any Republican, any conservative, any kind of that DNA in you, you got to ask, okay, is 4 more years of Biden okay? And if it's not, you got to vote for whoever the Republican is, period, paragraph, End of story.

And I do—

correct. And I do hope our side is doing something. They better be mirroring every single thing the demon rats are doing because those guys are demon evil geniuses. They are.

So, hey, with about 60 seconds, if you could, who would you like right now? And knowing everybody as you do, who would you like the Republican nominee to be right now? Who'd be your choice?

Trump.

Yep.

Gotcha.

I know what the man did. I know what he will do again. And this time I think he has learned his lesson with the personnel that he put in there the last time. He has learned his doggone lesson this time. He is not going to put Fatty Boy in there. He's not going to leave anymore.

From Scaramucci to John Kelly.

He is on it.

Yeah, I completely agree with you, Lizzy. Thank you. I so— I value— thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And this was a lady who was a Trump skeptic. What'd she say? He was 10th on the list. You know how many people for whom he was 10th on the list, 5th on the list, 3rd on the list. For me, he was second on the list. I was a Ted Cruz guy, stuck with him until Trump beat Ted in Indiana, May of 2016. Well, that's the end of that. Amount of time it took me to pivot to Trump? One millisecond. Never looked back. That was great, worked out superbly. She knows it, I know it. Do you know it? Mark Davison for Dennis Prager. Stick around. In a Shanghai noodle factory, place where I once used to be. Nowhere to— it is Dennis Prager. Show, hour number 3 on this Thursday, 24th of August. It is debate night, the day after. Your reactions? We've all slept on it. I assume we have. I did. And it was a late night because I had to log the debate and then watch all 40-some minutes of Trump and Tucker. And Trump and Tucker was fantastic. I'll have some excerpts from that here a little later on this hour if you missed that. And that's the thing, is Trump and Tucker was something you could watch anytime. You could watch it last night, you could watch it today. I mean, that's the nature of dropping your shows on Twitter or anywhere online. You can watch them anytime, it's on demand. The debate was happening. I know there's such a thing as the DVR. There are people who watched the debate this morning, and that's fine too, but it was kind of happening as a live broadcast. And so you could do it all. And that's what led me to believe that Trump could have done it all. He could have had the huge impact, the 200 million or so views of sitting down Tucker Carlson while at the same time showing up on a debate stage and reminding anybody who needed to be reminded not just what a great president he was, but what a great candidate he can be. Because listen, we've learned that today. I've heard from some folks who say, listen, I love the president's policies. I wish he could win again, but I just don't think he can. That is a nagging doubt that some people have. And to have him on a stage duking it out, not just over 2020, uh, rigging or, uh, the continuing mountain of, um, of prosecutions, but on the border, on the economy, on climate insanity, the reason on, on battling the woke agenda. Does anybody believe that Trump remains kind of tight-lipped on wokeness because that's kind of DeSantis's baby? I'd like not to think so, because every time DeSantis goes after Disney, every time DeSantis goes after Bud Light, every time DeSantis goes after, you know, critical race theory, every time DeSantis goes after gender lunatics, you know Trump agrees. You know he does. Part of— please. But he doesn't talk about it as much because, I mean, he may be concerned that people will go, that's Trump agreeing with DeSantis, and Trump doesn't want to be seen as agreeing, as being like second to the dinner table on anything, but he's not. Trump was talking about much of this stuff during his first term. So I just— it's a crazy dynamic these days, and we're obviously analyzing that dynamic this morning. Join us this morning. Listen to me, I'm doing the West Coast vibe since it's the Prager Show, because it is indeed just after lunchtime here in Central Time. No matter what time zone you are in, glad you are here. And of course, I'm using to saying good morning, because that's the show that I host here on 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas-Fort Worth. So look, oh, hang on a sec, we've got, uh, interesting, um, uh, so there are huge developments in Georgia today. Uh, number one, Trump shows up to be arraigned, fingerprinted, booked, mugshotted. I don't know, they gotta throw him in a holding cell. I, I don't think so, but any wacky thing is possible. So there's big number one. Number two is House Judiciary Congressman Jim Jordan has announced he is going to probe the DA's motivations, District Attorney Fani Willis there in Fulton County, in a search for political motivation. And the other bit of news is from Ms. Willis herself, who has recommended a trial date on the Georgia charges. When do you think it is? Usually a lot of these things move at a glacier's pace, right? And there's been a lot of talk about, well, what's it going to be like if some Trump trial is like in the spring of 2024? 2024, like, you know, right after Super Tuesday or right before Super Tuesday or something like that. What will it be like if there are like 2 or 3 people left in the race and it's Trump and DeSantis and Vivek, and all of a sudden he's got a trial he's got to go to in April or May of 2024? Well, DA Ms. Willis wants no part of that. She wants a trial a couple of months from now, October of this year, meaning one of 2 things happens. Either Trump carries the stain of a conviction in, if it is indeed a stain, or the booster shot of a conviction. That's probably a bad usage in the era of COVID The wind in his sails, the benefit of a conviction, or the sting, or depending on how you look at it, of a conviction. Or he's vindicated, or he is simply, or we find a jury, even in Trump-hating Atlanta, that at least has the clarity to recognize that he didn't do anything illegal, that he broke no law in his vigorous, righteous attempt to get to a correct result in 2020's results when he thought that the ones that had been arrived at were flawed. And were suspicious and were unacceptable. And he's completely entitled to that view, as was Al Gore in Florida in 2000. Al, you know, do we remember Bush v. Gore in 2000? I think we do. And, uh, and that was a hotly contested, very close race, and, uh, and Gore had a slate of alternate electors Nobody ever called them fake electors, though. Gee, I wonder why. Gore had a slate of alternate electors just in case he was awarded the state of Florida through the court battles. And by the way, that's exactly what he should have done. I gave Al Gore all kinds of holy you know what during that campaign, before and after. But was he entitled to have a slate of electors ready to go if his team prevailed in Florida? Of course he did, as was Trump so justified in Georgia in 2020. All righty. Here we are in '23 looking at '24, and I'm looking at your calls. Here you go. 1-800-PRAGER-776, 1-800-PRAGER-776. We are in Westminster, California. And George, that is you. Mark Davison for Dennis. How you doing?

I'm doing fine, Mark.

Hi.

I'm a Trump supporter because I think he's the only one that will be able to stand stand up to what the deep state has been doing to him and will do to our next president if he's a Republican.

So there's no doubt that Trump has that skill set. I have a feeling that DeSantis says the right things and that Vivek says the right things about that, but they just are being unproven. They have persuade you, correct?

That's right.

And that concerns me, you know, but I do feel that any of the Republicans is better than any of the Democrats.

Well, you are, you are correct about that, and thank you for the clarity on that. Because I— and I— listen, if Trump is the nominee and you are one of the, uh, one of the Republicans who is not just thinking we need to turn the page age, but just, you just don't want him anymore. He was never your cup of tea. I get that everybody's entitled to their, their personal tastes. But, uh, and I had these talk shows in 2016 where people had, you know, they were big Trumpophobes. They, they're just, they had a problem with Trump because they were hardcore Ted Cruz or hardcore Marco Rubio, or if anybody was hardcore Marco Rubio or whatever, they wanted somebody else. And, and I— and they said, well, I don't know if I can vote for Trump. And I would tell them, person after person, caller after caller after caller after caller, I tell them, so, so a Hillary presidency is okay with you? And they go, oh no. I go, yes it is. Yes it is. If you refuse to show up and vote for Trump, that means a Hillary presidency is acceptable to you. And if it's not acceptable to you, then you got to get over yourself yourself and get in there and, and vote and vote for Trump. We're in Greenville, South Carolina. Mark. Hey, Mark Davis in for Dennis. How you doing?

Hey, very well, thank you. And I'm so glad you're in. I love Dennis Prager because he talked about the most valuable and rarest of courage— of character qualities is courage. And that's what Donald John Trump has that even DeSantis doesn't to the extent. Now he's, he did many courageous things in Florida, but I'm so thrilled with what Donald Trump did. But specifically, I wanted to talk about Mike Pence and this specific question. When he, when the topic comes up about his failing to hold strong on July, June, January 6th, right? I, I cannot overquote, I cannot overturn the election. That's not the question. He is strawmanning the question.

The question was, that is, you're 1,000%. All he was asked to do was pause the process so that we could examine what had happened. You're completely right about that.

Exactly. He could just use to certify the election and he keeps mischaracterizing it. And I think he's a great deceiver in that regard because he's got his own, he's got his own reputation to protect.

And, and the other thing that he says, and this is one of his favorite lines, and I don't know who he thinks thinks this attracts maybe a disgruntled Chris Christie voter. He said, you know, Donald Trump asked me to choose between him and the Constitution. No, Mike. No, he did not. No, he did not. All righty. Well, I'm going to choose between many of your calls, and it's a delightful choice to make. And place more of them, please, at 1-800-PRAGER-776. Mark Davison for Dennis. And we will be right back on this Thursday post-debate, post-Trump-on-talk Tucker pre-2024 type of talk show.

Stick around.

Thank you, Dennis. Mark Davison for Dennis Prager Today, Thursday, August 24th, debate night, the morning after Trump and Tucker, the morning after the summer, before the fall, before the winter, before the spring, when all kinds of voting takes place leading to the fall that really matters, the fall of '24. All righty. We are in Columbus, Ohio. Cameron, Mark Davison for Dennis. How are you? Happy Thursday.

I'm good. How are you, Mark?

Good, thank you.

Hey, listen, this is mostly to the hardcore Trump voter. These people aren't playing on the left. This isn't like Trump saying, hey, I'm going to lock her up, lock her up, and not do it. They will do it. These are hardcore leftists. They will put him in jail. There are states that will keep him off the ballot. File it and it will go to the courts and it's completely unconstitutional. But they don't care. They don't care about the Constitution. And by the time it gets litigated to the Supreme Court, there's 3 good justices out of the 6 conservatives. 3 of them will not reverse this election. So if they want to keep their guy out of jail, they better start opening their eyes and look to a different candidate than Trump because they are going to put him in jail and they are going to keep him off the ballot.

Ballot.

Well, I have a question because you said if you— it doesn't look like you feel that they can keep him out of jail. It seems that you feel that him winning is impossible. So is this a call from you for people to have a hard look in the mirror, a hard look at the circumstances, lay down your arms, plan to win, and bail off of Trump and go find you somebody else? Is that your general message?

Yeah, that, that's exactly right, because I, I would vote for him if he's on the ballot. I'll vote for him, no doubt in my mind. Yeah, but yeah, they are going— these— there are probably 6 blue states, and you know which ones they are, that are going to keep him off the ballot. And it is completely—

well, I think maybe I don't— I don't know if they're going to be able to keep him off the ballot. I, I don't know. But let me ask you, from that perspective, from the— well, I know nothing should surprise us. Who, um, okay, if— who would you— who do you want? Who do you— who do you think? Then who do you think is our best bet to be Biden. Who do you like?

Oh, I think Ron DeSantis, hands down. Hands down. He actually did MAGA. He did MAGA.

I know. I know. I know. That's exactly— these guys, Trump and DeSantis, are cut from such similar cloth. And it is only the vicissitudes and oddities of the way a presidential campaign is going to go that has them at odds with each other. We are in Oregon. Hi, Cindy. Mark Davis in for Dennis. How are you doing?

Hi.

All right. Glad I could talk with you.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think we all need to stand back a little and stop looking at life like a game show. The debates right now are politics as usual, and Trump is actually laying His life on the line in real life for the freedom of America and has been for some time.

What do you mean by politics as usual? Because with 8 people on stage, there are some who I would say that about. I don't think Vivek is politics as usual. I don't think DeSantis is.

The debates are good and necessary, but where the real fight is going on is with the courts. It's not about they don't like his personality.

I know.

Oh, I know he's promoting America and he's not listening to them and he's willing to lay his life on the line. Nobody else has shown that.

Well, nobody else has had to. So, well, you know, DeSantis was in the military, so I would give him a little bit of credit for that. All right. We are in Idaho. Preston. Hey, Mark Davis in for Dennis. How are you doing?

I'm doing fine, Mark.

Can you hear me?

I can indeed. Okay, great. My comment was, if they say Trump committed a crime by asking Mike Pence to hold back a bit and review the electors, and, and this is some kind of a crime, why would not the legislators that asked Pence to hold back and send the electors back to their state legislature to be reviewed, why would those people not be guilty also of trying to subvert the Constitution?

Why don't they ask?

Well played. And you know what, listen, and that is superbly put. And if we want to extrapolate further, if there is such a thing as an illegal thought, an illegal motivation, an illegal wish, why aren't they coming to get me for doing this radio show? And the radio show that I do, which is, which has proclaimed from every mountaintop I can find that the 2020 result was flawed, that there were doubts, proper righteous concerns about the accuracy of the vote, and that a pursuit of the truth, not to overturn something or to subvert anything or to terrorize anything or to thwart constitutional democracy or blablabla, not any of those things, just to ask those questions. Why isn't the show that I do illegal? Why isn't your call to me something that could get you arrested? I know that sounds like I'm writing a new Orwellian novel, but this is what the left is up to right now. This is what they are about. We are long past the days of simple debate where I say something and somebody else says something else. Trump says something and some other candidate says something else. A Republican says something and then a Democrat says something else. Those, those were good days. How I miss them, both doing what I do for a living or as, and just as an American. We are now at the point where if you thwart what the left says, you are a hater, you are a terrible person, you are stupid, and we may lock you up. Because if from your belief that there are only two genders is something that is being driven from the public square by these people. Your belief that the 2020 result was not as pure as the driven snow is something that is being driven from the public square. It is silenced in our media culture. It is sidelined by elites and authoritarians in power. Power. And it is a deeply, deeply troubling and concerning road that we are on. The road we're on for the show takes us through this break, and on the other side, to more of your calls. I look forward to that. Mark Davison for Dennis Prager. Stick around.

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.