Twisted Twitter

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Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw it, you would even think it glows. Hello everyone and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. You know, I'm used to some Billy Joel playing at the start when I guest host. I don't know what this Christmas music is about, Sean, but we got to get back to Billy. Just kidding. I'll make an exception for today. It is December 12th, 2022. 1-2-1-2-2-2. My name is Julie Hartman. I co-host the Dennis and Julie podcast with the one, the only Dennis Prager, who is in New York City today, hence why I'm sitting in his chair. And I also just launched my brand new show, Timeless with Julie Hartman. Which is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So you can watch Dennis and Julie on Mondays, and then you can get Timeless the next 3 days of the week. So I encourage you all to check that out if you haven't already. 51 years ago in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, and this past weekend Elon Musk released rounds 3 and 4 of the Twitter Files. And they prove what we have known all along, that under the previous ownership of Twitter, there was a robust apparatus to suppress and censor conservative content. So some of you may know through Dennis's reporting on this that Musk has enlisted journalist Matt Taibbi to help release these files and explain their contents. And I think Taibbi has done a pretty good job of this. If you go on his Twitter page, he posts screenshots and he explains each story one by one. He has a few errors in his explanations of this past weekend. For instance, he called Mike Huckabee the former governor of Arizona when in fact he's the former governor of Arkansas. And of course, many people will point to this to claim that the entirety of Taibbi's work is illegitimate. But putting aside those understandable small errors that one would probably make if they were pouring through hours and hours of Twitter Files, he has revealed some really damning things. So let's go through the latest. We know for certain now that Twitter executives had weekly meetings with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And Twitter employees, we see from their internal deliberations, wanted to refer to these meetings publicly as partnerships instead of disclosing that they were in fact meeting with federal agencies. Another thing that we have found out this past weekend is that Twitter had a separate Slack channel devoted entirely to assessing whether or not to censor Trump tweets. And for a while, Twitter was waiting for the right moment to completely kick Trump off of Twitter. They were talking over their Slack channel and they were trying to find a violation so that they could reverse their public interest policy, which allowed Trump to stay on Twitter for the sake of public information because he was then the president of the United States. And above all else, we can see from these files that Twitter approached evaluating the content of conservative or Trump tweets far differently than how they evaluated the content of left-wing tweets. So let's look at some examples of how they handled the right-wing ones. President Trump, a week before the election back in 2020, tweeted, and I quote, "Big problems and discrepancies with mail-in ballots all over the USA." "Must have final total on November 3rd." Now, this tweet, of course, was 100% true. Wisconsin, for instance, they got, Wisconsin law says that absentee voting is a privilege and that only must be done in extenuating circumstances. And nevertheless, Wisconsin allowed many people to vote with mail-in balloting and they just overlooked that law. So that's a big discrepancy. Wisconsin law also says that in order to vote by mail, you have to show an ID unless you are indefinitely confined. Now, if you're indefinitely confined, that means that you're disabled or otherwise sick and unable to show an ID. And there was evidence even back in October of 2020 that the clerks of the state's two biggest Democratic counties, that's Milwaukee and Dane Counties, falsely told voters to claim that they were indefinitely confined, even when they were not. So this means that 195,000 of the 1 million Wisconsin voters who voted by mail did not have to show an ID. Again, that's a big discrepancy that we knew at the time. Another example is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania law code says that ballots that go against election rules, i.e., ballots that have faulty signatures or faulty dates must not be counted. But in Philadelphia, which is a Democratic county of Pennsylvania— sorry, I think I was referring, by the way, to Pennsylvania's Philadelphia. I get the two confused. But in Philadelphia, a Democratic county, 3,000 ballots with faulty dates and signatures were counted. But in Westmoreland County, which is a Republican county in Pennsylvania that more strictly follows the rules, election officials did not count improperly signed or dated ballots. So that's another discrepancy that we knew about. But Twitter decided to suppress this tweet by Trump, even though again, there were mountains of evidence that Trump's claim was right. And you can see in their internal deliberations that there was no apparent reason for them to suppress it. They didn't highlight an accuracy problem. but they said that they chose to flag it, quote, "Given it's POTUS." So these Twitter employees are essentially admitting, given that it's Donald Trump and that we hate Donald Trump, we are going to censor this tweet even if it's accurate. Another thing that these Twitter Files highlighted this past weekend is that actor James Woods highlighted that Trump tweet for being flagged. He said, wait a minute, this thing that he just posted is totally accurate. There are huge discrepancies in the way that votes are being counted. Why is Twitter flagging Not flagging this, suppression. And so the Twitter Files have revealed that Twitter employees on their Slack pages took offense to James Woods saying this, and they wrote that they would try to, quote, hit him hard on a future violation. In other words, they were going to punish him, retaliate against him for his support of Trump, and try to relentlessly monitor his Twitter accounts so that they could get him on a small thing. A final example that we see here is that Georgia Republican Congresswoman Judy Heiss tweeted, say no to big tech censorship. Mailed ballots are more prone to fraud than in-person voting. Now, of course, we know this to be true. A 2005 bipartisan commission headed by Democrat Jimmy Carter found that mail-in voting is the biggest potential source of fraud in the country. So this is not exactly a new idea. And nevertheless, Twitter flagged it because they thought it was misinformation. So those are some examples of what Twitter did with right-wing tweets. Now let's look at what they did with left-wing tweets. Some comedian named Elijah Daniel tweeted a photo of Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation and said, "This is disgusting and terrifying. Republicans are going to try to steal the election. If you haven't voted yet, don't." "Mail it, drop it off, or vote early." So this tweet is essentially expressing concern like the Republican tweets that I mentioned to you did, but Twitter did not flag this tweet. The internal deliberations reveal that they said that they would not flag it for misinformation or they would not flag it for being incorrect because according to their logic, quote, "It still encourages people to vote." and just expresses concerns that mail-in ballots might not make it in time. Another example is that former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a tweet that the Postal Service was, quote, deliberately crippled by the Trump administration. He didn't say in the tweet by the Trump administration, but it was implied when he said that the Postal Service was deliberately crippled. This is referring to the fact that the Trump administration started to roll back the use of some mailboxes because, as we know, people don't use mail a lot anymore. People tend to send text messages or emails. This is not exactly a new thing. Under the Obama administration, they removed 14,000 mailboxes around the country that had gone out of use. But still, Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted that the Postal Service was being deliberately crippled because Trump was removing some of these mailboxes. And Twitter initially flagged this, to their credit, but then the internal deliberations revealed that executives pushed back saying that it was accurate, so they unflagged it. Finally, we see that the hashtag #StealOurVotes, which referenced the theory that a combination of Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation on the Supreme Court to protect Trump and Trump himself would try to steal the election, That hashtag was not suppressed. It was used hundreds of thousands of times. Again, even though it was arguably peddling misinformation and Twitter just decided to yawn at it. Again, in these Slack internal deliberations, Twitter employees said that this message is understandable. These are just rounds 3 and 4 of the Twitter Files that Matt Taibbi has exposed. We probably have at least 10 more coming. And if this is what they're revealing so far, well, we better buckle up. More on this when we're back. I'm Julie Hartman. Rudolph, you red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history.

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From now on. Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show. I'm Julie Hartman guest hosting today. I just went through a few examples of the contents that came out this past weekend in the Twitter Files. There are myriad examples of Twitter under the previous administration censoring conservative content and protecting left-wing content. The reason why it is so important for us to know these examples is that these Twitter Files expose another piece of a larger pie of a new reality that exists in this country. That conservatives are currently the most discriminated against group in the United States. I said this on Dennis Prager's show the last time that I guest hosted a few weeks ago, and I got into some trouble for it. I had a lot of people emailing me saying that they thought it was an outrageous statement. But if we go through the examples, it really isn't that outrageous. Let's look at schools. If you are a conservative student, you are a social pariah, you are shouted down and bullied into silence and submission by leftist vigilantes. We saw this with one of the former administrators of Trinity High School, Jennifer Norris, who went on tape with Project Veritas. Of course, she didn't know that she was on tape, and she admitted to this reporter that she tries to prevent Republican speakers from coming to her school and that she views her Republican students as, quote, really awful people who are, quote, protected by capitalism and feel entitlement to express opposite opinions. Another example that's come out in recent years is Lake Engel, a senior at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who was kicked out of his class for saying that there were only two genders. Or Maggie DeJong at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, who was served a no-contact order by her school administration, prohibiting her from talking with certain students because she offended her classmates so much with her views on abortion, policing, and her defense of Kyle Rittenhouse. So those are conservative students, and we just know from everyday life— I just graduated from college— you just know from living in the world that if you are a conservative student, you better keep quiet or you will be shunned. And if you're a conservative teacher, it's the same thing. You either have to hide your beliefs or you will risk being fired, as French teacher Peter Vlemming was at West Point High School for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student. We also know, of course, about the example of Joseph Kennedy, the football coach in Washington State whose case recently went to the Supreme Court, who was fired for the grievous offense —of praying on a football field. And this discrimination doesn't stop at schools. It also carries into the workforce. Members of a company can be accused of violating their company policy simply by expressing conservative beliefs. And this is because political affiliation is not a protected class under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws. So if you say something in your workplace that fellow employees or your boss disagree with, there is a big chance that you might be fired. How about we look at the example of vaccinations? Those who have conservative views on vaccinations, excuse me, have been relentlessly punished in this country. They've been prevented from being able to go to school, going to work, even going to restaurants. Back in August, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had a policy where students 12 and older who were not vaccinated were not allowed to return to D.C. public schools. Famously, airline employees and many others in the workplace were let go for not taking the jab. So again, these are just all examples of how conservatives are discriminated against. And unfortunately, you would think that law enforcement would step in and protect people regardless of their political affiliation, but we even see that law enforcement is discriminating against conservatives. Black Lives Matter rioters in the summer of 2020 were not arrested writ large, and those who were, were bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which was supported by Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, there to this day are January 6th prisoners like John Mellis, who Dennis Prager interviewed on his show a few weeks ago. It was just a devastating interview. They are still in prison, these January Sixers. And in the case of John Mellis, he has no bail. He's been in solitary confinement for months of his imprisonment, and he's not allowed any visits. And as of right now, there is no trial date for him. Are you telling me that isn't discrimination against conservatives? How about the policies under our Attorney General and Merrick Garland? Sam Bankman-Fried, who's at the center of this cryptocurrency collapse, he donates tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates. So now when his company's exposed for fraud, he's allowed to remain in the Bahamas at liberty. No one has come to try to take him back into custody. But yet Merrick Garland over the past few weeks has sent FBI SWAT teams not to Sam Bankman-Fried, but to arrest fathers whose only offense was praying in front of abortion clinics. Even if you look at this Brittany Griner prison swap that happened last week, that is an example of discrimination against conservatives. She was exchanged for the arms dealer. Yet veteran Paul Whelan was left behind despite the fact that Whelan A) has been in Russia for longer, B) is serving a longer prison sentence, and C) unlike Greiner, did not actually commit the offense that he is in Russian prison for. But Greiner, since she is a Black lesbian female basketball player, is higher up on the intersectionality scale So she gets preference under the Biden law enforcement. And now we see the Twitter Files, which just confirm that conservatives are the most discriminated against group in the country. And the sad thing is that this information that's being released thanks to Elon Musk is just scratching the surface of conservative censorship by big tech companies. Another example that came out last month, or perhaps the month before, is that Google and Google Maps have suppressed crisis pregnancy centers. Crisis pregnancy centers are places where people can go if they want to consider getting an alternative to having an abortion. And often they are run by volunteers who will help mothers go through that process and again find alternatives to terminating their child. And so Google and Google Maps have said, no, we don't support this. We don't like that there are these alternative measures for people. We want people to go and get abortions. So we are going to suppress these centers so that when people Google abortion clinics, we will only display clinics that can perform abortions when people search it. And the scariest part of this is the people who are behind all of this don't appear to have any shame for their desire to create a two-tiered system, that if you're in one political camp in this country, you're favored, and if you're in another, you're not. We'll be back with more domestic news. I'm Julie Hartman.

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Everyone's a kid at Christmas time, a holly jolly kid at Christmas time. Everyone from Maine to Baton Rouge got the news. Hello everyone, welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show. Julie Hartman here. We've been covering the Twitter Files rounds 3 and 4 were released this past weekend by journalist Matt Taibbi. We will continue to keep you updated as more information comes out. But on the lighter side of things, the World Cup is going on right now, and we are in the semifinals. The World Cup, everyone else in the world seems to think, is the biggest event right now. But people in the United States and Canada don't really seem to have the same enthusiasm for it as people around the world do. Canadians care more about hockey than soccer, and for some reason, we here in the United States don't seem to think that soccer is as big of a deal as other sports. We— I've noticed that we tend to prefer sports that have more frequent scoring, like football, basketball, and tennis. Maybe that reveals that we as Americans are an impatient people. But that's just the reality of things. Now, the history behind the inception of the World Cup actually stems from the fact that we Americans, compared to other people, have a lukewarm attitude towards soccer. In 1932, Los Angeles, which is where we're broadcasting from right now, was planning to host the Summer Olympic Games, and they announced that they did not plan to include soccer as part of its sports offerings, precisely because soccer was not that popular in the United States. So FIFA, which is the world's governing body for soccer, decided to hold an international men's tournament of its own. Hence, the World Cup was born. It started in 1930 in Uruguay with just 13 teams, and now it has 32 teams preceded by a 2-year qualifying process. So this right now is the 22nd time that the World Cup has been held over the past 92 years. It was canceled in 1942 and 1946 because of World War II. And this year, this World Cup has already made history. First, because it's held in Qatar, making it the first World Cup to be held in the Arab and Muslim world. And second, and relatedly, the semifinal round that we are in now— that's the final 4 teams— includes Morocco, which is the first country in Africa, in the Arab world, to ever reach the semifinal round in the World Cup. In a stunning upset this past weekend, Morocco beat Portugal 1-0 despite being down a player in the final minutes of the game as their substitute got 2 yellow cards and they couldn't sub another person in. So this sent Ronaldo home in tears. I'm sure all of us know who Ronaldo is. He is one of the world's most decorated players, but he's also one of the world's most decorated players who will never win a World Cup. He's never won one before, and this is probably going to be his last one, so he is quite upset. Tomorrow at 2 PM Eastern, Argentina is going to face Croatia for the final spot. And this Wednesday, also at 2 PM Eastern, France will face Morocco, which is another historic match in and of itself. France is the defending champion. They won back in 2018 when the World Cup was held in Russia. And also, it's an interesting game because France had a protectorate over Morocco from 1912 to 1956 until Morocco established its independence in 1956. So needless to say, the Moroccan players are putting a lot into this match that they have on Wednesday, even though only 12 of Morocco's 26-member team was actually born in the country. And by the way, that's the lowest ratio in the tournament. These Moroccan players have said that it's really important for them to establish themselves against, A, their former colonizers, and B, against other countries that are famous for its soccer. So the goalkeeper of the Moroccan team said to reporters this past weekend, we're here to change the mentality with this feeling of inferiority. We have got to get rid of it. The Moroccan player can face any in the world. The generation coming after us will know that we can create miracles. Well, we will see if they can create miracles on Wednesday. I am rooting for them. I hope that they will win. I think that would be very exciting. And You guys, we have all got to start caring more about soccer as a country because the next World Cup is going to be hosted here in 16 cities around the United States. So why don't we all start caring between now and then? I'm certainly going to start paying attention more. I'm Julie Hartman. We'll be back. The Dennis Prager Show.

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It is me. Hello, welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show. It is hour 2 of this show. It is December 12th, 2022. The American Girl doll franchise has released released a new body image guidebook for children 12 and older that is its first issue to address gender identity and expression. You can see where this one is going. These books have been around for a while. I'm sure some of you have given them to your kids. I actually used them when I was younger and I loved them. My mom bought me an American Girl doll book to help me understand puberty and the confusing body changes that young girls experience, and I found it to be extremely helpful. But this new issue that came out over the past few days, I would definitely not show to my child. There are several pages dedicated to gender stereotypes and the idea that body dysmorphia is a natural thing for a young girl or boy to experience. So I've printed out some pages here of the book, and I'm going to read you just a few blurbs to give you an idea of what makes this book different from the previous issues. So there's this one segment that's called Gender Joy, and there are these images of girls and boys imagining what their gender stereotype should be. And it says, messages about how bodies should look are different depending on a person's gender. Girls tend to face more pressure to have thin bodies and long hair and to wear clothes like skirts, dresses, and blouses. Boys tend to feel more pressure to have a muscular body, keep their hair short, and wear pants and shorts. Luckily— this is the American Girl doll book saying this— luckily, it's not your job to look the way people expect. It's your job to be you. The way you show your gender to the world through clothes and behavior is your gender expression. Your gender expression can be feminine, masculine, or somewhere in between, and it might change. Maybe you'll experiment with bright dresses and long feminine hairstyles, or you might try baggy shorts, plaid shirts, and a buzzed haircut. Your gender expression should make you feel at home in your body. So for those of you who are watching this, I am holding up the page and you can see these images of boys and girls who look different than a stereotypical boy or girl might look. Now, this page— look, if this were one page in the entire book and that was it, I wouldn't have a large problem with it. But the problem is it's not just one page in a large book that's otherwise straightforward. This book talks a lot more about how it is normal to feel differently about your body. It's one thing to make people aware that some may feel not at home in their body, but they again seem to make it feel quite common for young people, which is a, a dangerous road to go down for 10 and older children who are reading this book and perhaps going through tumultuous puberty changes and thinking that it's okay, or again, normal and natural to question their gender identity itself. So let me read to you this other page that, um, certainly is a bit problematic. So it says, being transgender is not an illness or something to be ashamed of. If you're questioning your gender identity, or if you already know for sure that you're trans or non-binary, talk with an adult you trust, like a parent or school counselor. Okay. But then they go on to say that person can connect you with a specially trained doctor who can help you and your family decide what's best for your body. At first, you and the doctor might talk about wearing the clothes and using the pronouns like he, she, or they that make you feel like the most true you. If you haven't gone through puberty yet, oh, this is the kicker, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body's changes, giving you more time to think about your gender identity. And if you've already gone through puberty, a doctor can still help, they say. Studies show that transgender and non-binary kids who get help from doctors have much better mental health than those who don't. Okay, so this is why I deemed it problematic about a minute ago. They're saying— they're encouraging people to go out and get medicine from a doctor to delay body changes, and they're sort of nudging you and encouraging you to do it and make it, making it look like a good thing by saying that studies show that these kids who get help have much better mental health than those who don't. So I'll just read to you this last part. It says, if you don't have an adult you trust, there are organizations around the country that can help you. Turn to the resources page on page 95 for more information. So they're trying here to subvert parental authority. And connect 10 and older children with these organizations across the country that can help clandestinely facilitate their gender transformation. And finally, it says, if you're transgender or non-binary, loving your body might feel a bit different than it does for a cisgender person. Does a 10-year-old know what a cisgender person is? I'm sorry, I still don't really know what a cisgender person is. I never learned any of these terms when I was younger. The last sentence is, parts of your body might make you feel uncomfortable, and you might want to change the way you look, and that's totally okay. So of course, conservatives have rightfully so pushed back on this and said, wait a minute, this is just too much to put on a child, and this is inappropriate to tell children 10 and older. And of course, the left has pushed back against the conservatives' pushback. USA Today published an article that said that conservatives are spousing anti-LGBTQ hate by opposing this American Girl doll book. And of course, they're making us out to be these mustache-twirling cartoon character villains who hate gay people, hate trans people, and want to create a Handmaid's Tale-like utopia, or dystopia according to them. So what I want to highlight for you And this is what I would say to the individuals who criticize conservatives for criticizing an American Girl doll book, is that there's a huge difference between tolerance and full-fledged enthusiastic endorsement. A lot of LGBTQ and transgender groups over the past few years have said, all we want is tolerance. And tolerance is the willingness to allow something to exist without trying to change it. And tolerance implies that you may disagree with that thing, or you may not approve of it. And so the only way that a pluralistic society can function is if everyone extends tolerance to one another. We have to extend tolerance to people who we disagree with in, in many forms in order to live comfortably around one another. But what's going on here, what's going on in this American Girl doll book, what's going on in schools across the country, what's going on in TV show and movie storylines that promote and normalize transgenderism and puberty blockers, that is not tolerance. This is getting into the realm of demanding that everyone enthusiastically support and endorse what their position on this issue is. Again, when I was in school, in my, uh, 9th grade health class, we were told that there is a segment of the population that is transgender, and that was making us aware that this segment of the population exists and accordingly having us extend tolerance to those individuals. But again, there's a big difference between learning that a segment of that population may exist in a health class and having your health teacher say, hey, are you sure that you know for certain that you are a guy or a girl? That dress you're wearing, is that really what you want to wear or are you just conforming to gender stereotypes? You know, you can go see a doctor and get some medicine. It's nudging. What they're doing nowadays to kids, and it's sick, they're nudging them. It's about— this is about proselytizing. It's about creating converts, which is creepy. It's just creepy that they're seeming to want a large segment of the population to not identify in accordance with their gender. They want a large segment of the population to have gender dysphoria and take these puberty blockers and get these surgeries that are offered at Boston Children's hospital and Children's National Hospital. It's odd. You know, in schools back in the day, in the '60s, if you were left-handed, the teachers would try to teach you to write with your right hand. And then we figured out that that's probably not the best thing to do. I'd like to ask the question, how is this indoctrination of gender any different than that example? Call and let me know, 1-800-PRAGER-776.

We'll be back. The Dennis Prager Show.

Moving on to an international news story that should worry us all. Xi Jinping, the president of China, met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last Thursday at the Saudi royal court during Xi Jinping's visit to the Middle East. So China is the world's top oil importer and Saudi Arabia is the world's top oil exporter. And it appears that they are becoming far more close in terms of economic relations. Last week, they signed a multi-billion dollar deal. Some are estimating it's up to $30 billion, which they call a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement. This allows China to build more in Saudi Arabia and move more of its economic power over to the Middle East. And both sides called this a, quote, new era in Sino-Saudi relations. So again, they signed multiple deals, up to I think 34 deals involving hydrogen energy, coordinating on China's Belt and Road Initiative, which of course is China's effort to grow more economic power around the world by going to these different regions and trying to industrialize them. And most prominently, The agreement agreed to bring Huawei, which is a Chinese tech corporation that makes cell phones, to build high-tech complexes in Saudi cities. Now, we know that this tech company has been in the news in the past few years because it is one of the chief modes of surveillance that China and Xi Jinping use to spy on Chinese citizens. And so the United States has tried to prevent Huawei from coming into our borders. But now Saudi Arabia is welcoming it with open arms, which will hugely enrich China. So when I introduced the story about a minute ago, I said that this should worry us. And it seems benign, but it actually reflects that both sides, that is both China and Saudi Arabia, are seeing the United States as less relevant. In their economic dealings. China is trying to diversify its customer base and its revenue base. So they're trying to do business with countries like Saudi Arabia in manufacturing and business rather than doing business with the United States. And similarly, on the flip side, the Saudis are also trying to diversify their business. But they're trying to diversify who they buy things from and who invests in their country so it isn't just the United States. So the Saudis here are giving business to Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party instead of giving it to Americans. Now, in both cases, it also may reflect a bit of anti-Americanism or malice or trying to tear us down. Obviously, Sino-American relations have been fraught over the past few years because China is sending fentanyl over to Mexican drug cartels, which funnel it across our border. And fentanyl is the number one cause of death in the United States for ages 18 to 45. China has also used TikTok to spy on Americans. 80 million Americans in this country have TikTok. So that means the CCP has access to all of their data. And we have opposed, at least conservatives have opposed publicly, Xi Jinping's hard-lined zero-COVID measures where the CCP will weld apartment doors shut in their country to prevent their citizens from leaving their apartments and going outside and breaking their quarantine. So I think on the Chinese side, again, they're certainly doing this to retaliate against the United States and bring business elsewhere. And the Saudis famously have a bad relationship with President Biden. President Biden said something unkind about the Saudi crown prince, which was probably warranted, but not the best diplomatic move. And Biden begged the Saudis a few weeks ago to pump more oil so that we could buy it. By the way, what a crazy thing for him to do. Isn't he supposedly this Green New Deal guy who wants to end fossil fuels and oil pumping, but then he's entreating the Saudis, a dictatorial regime, to give us oil? It's just absurd. But the point is Biden asked the Saudis to pump more oil and the Saudis originally said yes, and then they went back on it and said no because the Saudi crown prince does not like President Biden. But again, as I said earlier, in addition to this sort of act of retaliation against Americans, I think the scarier thing is that it reflects that both the Saudis and the Chinese think that we are becoming less relevant as an economic power. Because look, even though both of them don't like us, if we were the robust economic power that we used to be, they would still do business with us because both of those countries rarely do things that are not in their, their country's best interest. Unfortunately, I can understand why they think we are becoming less relevant as an economic power and frankly, as a world power. We are $32 trillion in debt. Our population has an obesity problem. An opioid and cannabinoid drug addiction problem. We're heavily medicated. Unfortunately, a lot of us are clueless, even though we're extremely academically credentialed and educated compared to previous generations of Americans and compared to people around the world. China and the Saudis knew, know that we are being taught these woke diktats in our school, which is making us dumber. We have let 5 million unskilled, illiterate, and sometimes criminal immigrants into the country. That's between 1.5 and 2% of our population. That's the population of Montana, West Virginia, Delaware, North Dakota, and South Dakota combined. And they know that we are beset with these internal political conflicts that keep us from seeing things clearly and doing what's best for our country. And so I think that both of these powers think that the United States is on its way out as a global superpower. And again, the saddest thing is I can see why. We'll be back. I'm interviewing Vivek Ramaswamy in a few minutes. See you then. Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. Hello everyone, and welcome back. Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show. I have a very special guest for this second half of the hour. He is the CEO and founder of Strive Asset Management, which is a non-ESG fund. He is also a New York Times bestselling author of Woke Inc., which is one of my favorite all-time books, and Nation of Victims, which I have not had the opportunity to read, but I will read very soon. He is one of the smartest commentators out there right now. I am very pleased to welcome my friend Vivek Ramaswamy. Everyone wants you, Vivek. I've seen you on Tucker, on Megyn Kelly, all of these news shows. I'm so honored to be able to interview you. Thanks for being here.

Good to talk to you. How you doing?

I'm doing great. I love guest hosting. It's very fun. And the best part of this job is being able to interview smart people like you. So let's get into it. Let's get into it. Yes. Before I ask you about the news, I wanna talk to you a bit about Strive because I've learned a little bit about it through talking with you about it off the air, but I think my listeners might like to hear your story. So please tell us, why did you found Strive? And do you have any projections on how you expect your fund will do in its results compared to a fund that invests in ESG companies?

Well, I, I would just take a step back and talk about the issue we're addressing, 'cause a lot of people aren't aware of the basic issue of how their own money is invested in the economy. Right, so Julie, the problem today is probably 100+ million Americans believe that they're invested in the economy exclusively to advance their financial goals. In fact, the asset managers who are investing their money, including firms like BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard, are using their money to vote in favor of policies in corporate America's boardrooms that most everyday citizens do not agree with. Racial equity audits at companies like Apple and Home Depot, Scope 3 emissions caps at companies like Chevron, 2050 emissions cuts, net zero pledges at U.S. energy companies across the country. If you ask most doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, hardworking Americans across this country, is that what you want your money to be used to advance, or do you want your money to be used to exclusively advance long-run profit for your investment account. Many of them, if not most of them, would say they want the latter. Yet the reality is that their money is being used actively to vote in favor of all of those political and social and cultural agendas in corporate America's boardrooms. That's a problem. It is a breach of trust. I think about it as the largest-scale breach of fiduciary duty in the 21st century. But the frustrating part is that nobody was doing anything about it. And so my goal in founding Strive was to create alternatives that didn't differ in trying to offer better investment performance through stock selection, you know, the kinds of things that historical fund managers might try to claim, but to offer a different approach as a firm to proxy voting, to shareholder engagement, delivering a message to corporate America's boardrooms with the capital in hand on behalf of shareholders to say that they ought to focus exclusively on developing excellent products and services for their customers and make money for shareholders in the process, period, without regard to any other social or political agenda. And ironically, I saw that missing in the marketplace, and that's what led me to found the company.

Well, it is so important what you're saying because it's one piece of the pie of how Americans are getting the wool pulled over their eyes. They send their kids to school and they think they're learning, uh, reading and math, and then their kids come home with knowing about pronouns and body dysmorphia and what cisgender is. They— Americans think that they're paying taxes and then these taxes are going to these government programs that they may not support. So I, I think what you're doing is great. And the transparency is certainly very important because there are just so many ways that Americans don't know what's happening with their money and resources. So I want to ask you, because it's such a bold thing that you're doing, it shouldn't have to be bold, but it is. Have you gotten pushback from the economic or financial titans in this country?

Of course. I mean, it's been, um, it's been significant, right? You're shaking up a system, you're calling out hypocrisy. And not just calling out hypocrisy, but here calling out hypocrisy that has potential legal violations attached to it, right? We have fiduciary duty laws in this country that say you cannot use someone else's money without their consent to advance a non-pecuniary agenda. You know, we're going right into the, you know, right into the target zone here. I mean, I guess I'm told, I haven't read it yet, but there was a full profile of me in The New Yorker that came out this morning. Um, I don't, I don't know how, how kind or charitable that was. May not have been as nuanced as I would have liked, is based on what I've heard about it. But that's just one example. I think that, right, the knives have come out, and that's okay. I think that for me, one of the things that motivates me to do this—

sorry, Vivek, let's hold it right there because we have to go to commercial, but we will continue with Vivek Ramaswamy when we're back. Born the King. Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show, everyone. It is hour 3. I am Julie Hartman. I do a podcast with Dennis called Dennis and Julie, which comes out every Monday. So in 2 hours from now at 1 PM Pacific, 4 PM Eastern, you will see the latest episode of Dennis and Julie. And I also host my own show called Timeless with Julie Hartman. Dennis Prager Show. And that is on the air Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen to it in podcast form on Apple and Spotify. And what I do in my show is I try to talk about news and give you a fact-rich analysis of the current events. But I also try to talk about more eternal, timeless subjects that I think that many of us nowadays are missing out on discussing. As much as the news is important, we don't talk about history so much anymore. We don't talk about religion or about the elemental issues and choices that each of us face every day. So in my show, I try to do that as much as cover the news. And I also really try to be an example to young people. I'm 23 years old, and particularly to young women, since that is a demographic that we need to encourage the most right now. So please, if you will, tell young girls that you know, young boys, anyone really, to tune in to Dennis and Julie and to Timeless. I promise you they will not regret it. So I mentioned that Timeless, in my show, we like talking about history. And that's what I want to do today. Those of you who have listened to me host this show before know that I am a history major, or I was, excuse me, a history major in college. I'm a self-proclaimed history nerd, and I feel that history holds a lot of the answers. So today I'm going to give a history of Iran. Obviously, Iran has been in the news a lot over the past few weeks because of the protests that have happened among the citizenry against the Iranian government, specifically the ayatollahs and their brutal misogynistic policies. And Iran just announced, I believe it was last week, that they are abolishing their morality police. The morality police was one part of Iran's police force that was created in 2005 to target and punish people who violated Islamic law, and they are especially harsh on those who violate the dress code. So the morality police came into the news because all of these women in protest of the Iranian government's misogynistic policies have started to take off their hijabs, which of course are the headscarves. and they have taken to the streets. They have lit them on fire and waved them in the air in protest. And so Iran has capitulated to some of their demands and have abolished this morality police, which is a big move. And also, the Iranian attorney general said recently in a stunning admission that the government is considering altering the requirement to have women wear these hijabs in public in the first place. So if that ends up happening, that would radically change the country as we know it. Now, as background, these protests against the Iranian government erupted across the country starting this past September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13th for refusing to wear the mandatory headscarf. That was according to some reports. According to other reports, she was wearing the hijab, but a piece of her hair was showing. And the morality police, the vigilantes in the street working on behalf of the ayatollah, took offense to that and arrested her. After she was taken into custody in a van and apparently severely beaten, the police told her brother that she had suffered a heart attack and a brain seizure. And so she went to the hospital in a coma, and tragically, she died 3 days later on September 16th. So this murder, again alongside many policies that target and oppress women, have impelled the Iranian people to take to the streets in protests. And the hijab has become a symbol of these other policies. And I want to read some of them to you because they are just so shocking. And above all else, I mean, this is a colossal understatement, it will make us realize how utterly lucky we are to be American. Americans nowadays, specifically American women, have adopted this in vogue woke idea that we live in a sexist country. And we pursue these idiotic demands. Like at Elon University, the wokesters at the school told Elon's administration to ban the word freshman from being used on campus because it has the word man in it and not woman. That is what we are dealing with in the United States. Oh, so terrible. But why don't I read to you what real oppression is, what real misogyny is? These are some of the Iranian policies that I found in my research under the Ayatollah. Women and men are segregated, excuse me, in all public spaces where people congregate. Marital rape is legal. Non-marital rape to be to be prosecuted requires a testimony of at least 4 Muslim men or a greater number of men and women. So this means that 80% of rapes go unreported. Girls can be legally married at 13 compared to 15 for boys. The age of criminal responsibility for females is 9 years old compared to 15 years old for males. Women are far more likely to be prosecuted and stoned to death for adultery than men. Iranian men can have multiple wives, but women can only have one husband. Men do not need to cite a reason for requesting a divorce, but women are limited to a small number of causes. Children of an Iranian Muslim father and a non-Muslim mother are automatically Iranian citizens, but if the father is a non-Muslim and the mother an Iranian Muslim, then the children must petition to a court to obtain their citizenship. Just a few more here to give you an idea. In a divorce, the father gets custody of children aged 7 or older, whereas the wife only gets custody of the children until they each reach the age of 7. A father who murders his daughter faces a maximum 10-year sentence, whereas a mother who murders her daughter faces the death penalty. Husbands must consent for their wives to work outside the home, And finally, women in higher education are barred from majoring in several subjects ranging from the hard sciences to the humanities. So as I was reading more about the misogynistic policies in Iran, I was startled to learn that the Iran that we see today that is so, so oppressive of females is barely recognizable from the Iran that existed just 60 years ago. Today, as I said, the Iranian government persecutes, and in the case of Mahsa Amini, murders women for not wearing hijabs. But in the 1950s and '60s, the Shah's soldiers were actually going into the streets and ripping hijabs off of women's heads. So, for the rest of our time today, I want to give you a brief, understandable history of this story, of what happened, how Iran changed so quickly in just a few decades, and the United States' role in that change. So, Iran was once part of the Persian Empire, and then in the 20th century, it became its own country. And from 1941 to 1951, Iran was ruled by a monarch called Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His title is Reza Shah. That's his sort of anecdotal nickname. So for the rest of this commentary, I'm going to call him Reza Shah. So Reza Shah was head of state for those 10 years, but in addition to his reign as Shah, the Iranian people would elect various prime ministers to serve alongside of him as head of government. But in that 10-year period from 1941 to 1951, the prime ministers that served alongside Reza Shah pretty much went along with whatever Reza Shah wanted. That all changed though in 1951 when the Iranian people elected a new prime minister named Mohammad Mosaddegh. Unlike the previous prime ministers who operated hand in glove with the Shah, Mosaddegh hated the Shah. The Shah was actually quite pro-American and pro-Western, and after World War II, he allowed Western oil companies to operate in Iran. And the biggest of these was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company of Britain, And so the Iranian people were not happy with the Shah allowing these Western oil companies to come into their country. So they elected Mosaddegh, who was a socialist and an anti-Westerner who shook things up. After the break, I will tell you why. We'll be back. More on Iranian history. I'm Julie Hartman. The Dennis Prager Show. It's full up to the top. I notice lots of pennies. Nice music selection, Sean. I've never heard this one before. It's hard to believe, but I guess it's less hard to believe because of Sean's music, but Christmas is 2 weeks from yesterday, which means that there are only 13 more days for our Angel Tree volunteers to arrange for a special Christmas celebration for children with a mom or dad in prison. So please go to DennisPrager.com right now and click on the Angel Tree banner to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2022 Angel Tree drive. Your gift of $25 or more makes the magic happen. As we hear from Myra, one of our Angel Tree volunteers, Angel Tree is not only about getting a gift. Angel Tree is about building Lives, building relationships, nurturing families, opening the door for that family that actually needs that support. Angel Tree, it's heaven-sent. Who wouldn't want that? But we're only 13 days away from Christmas, so we're turning to you to donate to our Angel Tree campaign. Just go to DennisPrager.com and click on the Angel Tree banner. Or phone your gift to 888-206-2801. $125 gives 5 children of prisoners personalized Christmas presents and a personal note from their incarcerated parent. Plus, every Angel Tree family is also given access to a free, easy-to-read copy of the Bible in English or Spanish. Again, it's getting late, but there is still time before the weekend to make Christmas special for a boy or girl who really needs hope. Right now, today, please consider going to DennisPrager.com and click on the Angel Tree banner, or again, you can call 888-206-2801. And thank you very much for caring. This is the History Hour. I am trying to give you a brief, simple understandable history of Iran. Don't worry, I'm not going to make this an academic seminar, but it is really important for us to understand the way that Iran has changed over the past 60 years, excuse me, because nowadays the Ayatollah and his regime are persecuting women for not wearing hijabs. But just 60 years ago, the Iranian government was going into the streets and ripping the hijabs off of women. So, I was trying to explain in the last segment how this happened, and briefly, I'll tell you why. From 1951 to 1951, Reza Shah was in power. Reza Shah was a pro-American, pro-Western leader, and he allowed, among other things, Western oil companies to operate in Iran. And so, understandably, many Iranians said, well, why are you letting these Western companies come and take our oil? And the most damning part was that Reza Shah actually gave a bigger cut to the British, specifically people who worked at the Anglo-American or the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, excuse me. The Shah gave a bigger cut to the British than they did to Iranians themselves, even though the British were taking Iranian oil. So, the Iranians decided in 1951 to elect a new prime minister who would change this named Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mohammad Mosaddegh was the complete opposite of the Shah. He was anti-American and anti-Western, and in 1951, he made the bold move of nationalizing the oil industries. So essentially, the Iranian government owned and controlled the oil assets instead of these Western countries owning and controlling them. And so obviously, this did not make the United States and Britain happy. They preferred Reza Shah, who was sympathetic to their interests, than to Mosaddegh, who was not. So in 1953, the CIA and the MI6, which is the British CIA, reinstalled Reza Shah as leader of Iran in a coup, subverting the will of the Iranian people who had elected Mosaddegh. So, Reza Shah was in power from 1953 to 1979, and these were the years when the Shah's soldiers were going into the street and ripping hijabs off of women. Because the Shah, as I mentioned, was pro-Western and pro-American, and he had this idea that Iran had sort of slipped into oblivion compared to other Western countries over the last few decades in the 20th century. He thought that the United States and Britain and France and Germany and all these other European countries were beating Iran in the Middle East economically, and so he wanted to westernize the population. He thought that by adopting more American or western cultural values, then Iran could modernize and then catch up with the rest of the west. So again, one of these things that the shah did was that he targeted hijab wearing. He thought that it was sort of an antiquated symbol, that Iranians shouldn't strictly adhere to Islamic law and instead try to embrace more American ways of living. He also, as Shah, was pro-American in the sense that he allowed the oil companies to return to the country. I think that was probably a stipulation of the CIA reinstalling him in a coup. They said to him, you have to allow us to bring our oil companies back to Iran. So he did that. And he also, and this is especially hard to believe given the policy positions of Iran today, Iran under the Shah was actually one of the most pro-Israel countries in the Middle East. They established diplomatic relationships with Israel and bought arms from Israel and the United States. So, what's important here is that this combination made a lot of Iranians at the time angry. A lot of Iranians hated the Shah because they saw him as a Western puppet. Obviously, as I said, the West installed him in a coup, so they viewed him as an embodiment of the United States and Britain trying to subvert the will of the people. They also disliked the fact that the Shah allowed these oil companies to return. They obviously disliked the fact that the Shah was sympathetic to Israel. And most of all, they disliked that the Shah was tearing the hijabs off of women in the streets. Because at the time, even though Iranian people then may not have wanted extremely strict adherence to Islamic or Sharia law, The hijab has been a part of their culture for decades, and they thought that it was an affront to their culture, and I can understand why, to have the Shah so brutally try to take it away from them. So in 1979, in the famous Iranian Revolution, the Iranian people kicked the Shah out once and for all, and they installed Ayatollah Khomeini. Who is the opposite of the Shah in every way. Ayatollah Khomeini promised the Iranian people that he would try to make up for the humiliation that the West inflicted on Iran and try to bring a more Islamic and Persian culture back to the country. But unfortunately, he became a militant dictator that started to enact the anti-women policies that we'll see today. 1-800-PRAGER-776. If you want to call in and talk about Iranian history, please do so. We'll be back. So I'm doing a history on Iran right now, and I'm trying to tell you about how much Iran has changed over the past 60 years. And the greater point that I'm trying to come to is that it seems that the United States' intervention in 1953 to install the pro-Western Shah backfired. Certainly, I'm not trying to imply that the United States holds full responsibility for the situation that Iran is in today. But we do bear some measure of responsibility for our actions in 1953. We installed this pro-Western shah who in many ways tried to make Iran culturally Western, which impelled the Iranian people, among other things, to have a revolution in 1979 and install Ayatollah Khomeini in the hopes that he would protect Iranian culture and bring an Islamic and Persian character back to the country, but instead, the Ayatollah just enacted a brutal regime which involves oppressing women to extents that we don't see in other countries except in the Middle East. And I want to turn to some calls. We have Shaw from Clarksville, Indiana. Shaw, hello. Thank you very much for calling in.

Hello, Julie. Thank you so much for taking my call. And I'm so happy that you found Dennis, and I'm happy that Dennis found you. —me too, thank you—and in addition to this network, and your common sense speaking as a young woman goes a long way, and I want to tell you my appreciation. I've been a long-time listener to the show. I've been a long-time Iranian living in the United States. I have— I'm a U.S. citizen, proudly U.S. citizen, and I was a student here when the revolution happened back in Iran. What sparked the recent demonstrations with Mahsa Amini, with the morality police, as you mentioned, is just an excuse for people to get rid of their regime. They do not want this regime, who was the first Islamic terrorist group of people, cabal of people, that took over a rich, modern, modernizing country. And for the first decades, they could live off the land, they could— the economy was fine. But they have done nothing for Iranians to progress anything, to establish anything, to modernize anything. So Iran, who was a rich country culturally, monetarily, in so many ways, in international relations, Iran was playing a great part, as you said, a good friend of the West. West has become the pariah. There are 4 or 5 regimes in the world that unfortunately, the ayatollahs have taken Iran to that level of horribleness.

So, Shah, let me— I'm sorry to cut you off. We just have such limited time, but I love that you called in. I want to ask you, would it be a fair assessment to say that most Iranians today would prefer to have the Shah if given the choice between the Shah and the ayatollah? Would that be a fair assessment? And also, more broadly, what do Iranians think of the Shah and the revolution?

Julie, I'm not kidding you, but in tens of cities, people are calling for the return of the Shah, for the return of the Pahlavi regime, because now they have realized what a horrible error they made. I can send you videos, I can send you articles to prove that. But they are calling, and the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, he's 4 years younger than me, he's in early 60s now, he lives in the United States and he's a pro-Western educated person. Iranians do not want this anymore.

Shah, thank you so much for calling. It's been a joy to speak with you, and I appreciate your insight. 1-800-PRAGER-776 if you'd like to call in. More on Iranian history history. I'm Julie Hartman.

We'll be back. The Dennis Prager Show.

Hit up your reindeer, go straight to the ghetto. Julie Hartman here, the final hour of The Dennis Prager Show. I am making it a history hour and talking about how much Iran has changed over the past 60 years. Iran obviously has been in the news a lot recently as anti-government protests have erupted against the country. Specifically against the Ayatollah's brutal oppression of women. Before we get to more calls, and our call board is just lighting up, I'm delighted by this. I want to quickly publicize my show Timeless with Julie Hartman. Timeless with Julie Hartman is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. You can see it on YouTube and listen to it in podcast form on Apple and Spotify. And the reason why I bring it up now is because I talk a lot about history on that show. As much as it is important to me to cover news and to give people a fact-rich analysis of the current events of the day, it's equally as important to me to talk about topics like this, like Iranian history. People don't learn about this in school nowadays. We learn about pronouns, we learn about heteronormativity and cisgenderism, but we don't learn about this fascinating story of how Iran has changed over its 60 years. And so what I'm trying to do as a young woman entering this business is I'm trying to talk about subjects like these more, especially to people my age who have never heard it, because A, it's fascinating, and B, it's incredibly consequential to understanding our world. So let's move on to another call. I see Nima from here in Los Angeles. She says that she is an Iranian who just returned from Iran. I am very interested to hear your impressions, Nima. Thank you very much for calling. Uh, yes, except it's not a she, it's a he. Forgive me for misgendering you. It is the most grievous offense nowadays. I am so sorry, sir.

No, no, it's quite all right, and thank you so much for covering this topic. And, uh, I wanted to tell you I really enjoy your show and please keep up the great work that you're doing. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to make a couple quick comments. Um, first off is that, uh, so Reza Shah was the father of the last Shah of Iran, which was, uh, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. So there's two Shahs, and the first Shah, Reza Shah, he ruled from 1925 1941. And it was during his reign that the hijab was, uh, removed from the head of women. And the reason behind that was, was because he in effect was emancipating women who had become little more than chattel slaves in the previous monarchy that had ruled Iran for 130 years. And, uh, Muhammad Right. And that was something that he did, and he really set the tone for modernizing Iran that his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi continued on. And I would also like to add that Mr. Mossadegh, the prime minister, was not an anti-Western prime minister. What he was just asking for, because at the time that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which later became BP was doing was they were taking 85% of the oil revenues from Iran and giving Iran 15%, and Mr. Mossadegh was asking for a 50/50 split. The, the Shah of Iran, he, once the '53 coup, he was restored, he was able to renegotiate the terms and he got 35% of the oil as opposed to 15%, and that led to tremendous boom and economic growth and education growth. It's called the White Revolution of the '60s in Iran. Uh, it's also important to understand that most Iranians in the 1979 Revolution were not buying onto a theocracy. That was actually a second revolution that happened because there was so many factors and factions that all united There was the socialists, the communists, the student movements, and the theocrats, and they all came together—

to oppose the Shah, right? Right, exactly.

And it was never the deal that Iran was going to become a theocracy.

However, yes, they were probably very disappointed when they saw what the Ayatollah was, was doing when he came into power in '79, right?

Absolutely. And when they enacted hijab laws after the revolution, women rioted. There was protests in the streets and there was a brutal crackdown at that time because women did not want to accept that. They weren't going to go back after they had been emancipated.

And— Nima, thank you. Thank you so much for your commentary. I don't mean to cut you off, but we have such a limited time and I have other phone calls that I want to get to. But that was a very interesting analysis. I did not know about fact about Reza Shah, the father, earlier on starting the hijab policy, though it sounds like his son sort of took it in a different direction. I also want to say, because I was publicizing Timeless, that I had the honor of interviewing Masih Alinejad, and she is an Iranian-American activist. She was born in Iran just 3 years before the '79 revolution, and And she has been very outspoken in her criticism of the Iranian government. And in fact, she was exiled from Iran and now lives here in the United States in a safe house in New York City. And I had the opportunity to interview her on my show Timeless. That interview airs tomorrow, so you can all watch it tomorrow, Tuesday, on YouTube, or again, listen to it in podcast form on Spotify. And it is just a remarkable story. You know, when I interviewed her, she had a security guard in the room with her, which just shows the extent to which she gets death threats and how consequential her work is that she needs security at all times. I want to get to another call. I believe, Sean Wright, we only have 1 minute left. So I want to hear very quickly from Howard in Westwood. Howard, in 15 seconds, can you please say your point?

I'm sorry to rush you. Yeah. Hey, it's Howard. As the U.S. government has to operate overseas with way more transparency, to take a lot of— to take a bigger percentage of oil revenues, the people find out. We don't go into these operations working with the people enough, and it always backfires, and we wonder why they don't like us overseas. Not everyone wants to be Westernized. So it's a delicate issue. We have to be way more awake and aware when we go overseas to operate.

You raise a very legitimate point, Howard. I thank you for your call. I'm going to address this in the next segment. I only will have 3 minutes, but please stay tuned. We'll be back. The Dennis Prager Show. The most famous reindeer of all. This is the final segment of The Dennis Prager Show for today. I'm Julie Hartman. I want to remind you that it's only 13 days away from Christmas, so we are in our final days to donate to the Angel Tree campaign. $125 gives 5 children of prisoners personalized Christmas presents and a personal note from their incarcerated parent. And during the show today, I'm pleased to announce that we hit the 2,000 mark. So 2,000 kids will be able to have these presents. We are trying to get to 2,600, so please consider going to dennisprager.com and click on the Angel Tree banner, or you can phone your gift by calling 1-888-206-2801. And thank you very much. So I have been covering Iranian history for this hour, and Howard from Westwood just called in. And to synopsize what Howard said, he said, you know, the United States goes to these Middle Eastern countries and sometimes we get in the way. And sometimes the populace doesn't want to Westernize in the way that we may think that they would want to. And I have to say, Howard, I think that you raise a legitimate point. The ayatollahs in Iran today, literally up until this day, seize on the United States' removal of Mosaddegh in 1953 as an all-purpose excuse to justify implementing harsh Islamic fundamentalism. And so again, although the United States doesn't bear full responsibility for the state that Iran is in today, it does bear a measure of responsibility for its actions in 1953. And Howard, I think you're right that when our country does these dramatic foreign policy interventions, whether it's this 1953 coup in Iran or the assassination of President Diem in South Vietnam in in 1953, or when we went into Cambodia and Iraq and Afghanistan, we tend to have an excessively short-term focus. We may, and in fact many times we did, have good intentions, but we don't think 20, 50, 100 years down the line. And oftentimes we'll go into these places and it seems to be working out in the short term. but we get tired and impatient and we forget why we're there. We saw this in Vietnam, that we got tired and impatient and then we pulled out in the '70s and the country was reunited under communist rule. The same thing happened in Iraq when we invaded and got rid of Saddam Hussein, and then now the country's been taken over by Shiite fundamentalists. And a similar thing obviously happened in Afghanistan when we invaded 20 years ago, and now the Taliban is back in power. So I am not against asserting American power where it's helpful or when it's in the world's best interest, but I do think that we need to think these things through more. So we will continue to keep you updated about Iran. It has been so much fun being here with you today, and please again tune in to my show Timeless with Julie Hartman. I interview an Iranian activist. It airs tomorrow. You can follow me on Instagram @JulieRHartman and email me at julie@julie-hartman.com. Thank you for being here with me today, and thank you to my Salem team.

Goodbye, everyone. 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.