The Daily Signal - #415: Dennis Prager Discusses Anti-Semitism, Free Speech at Colleges

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Radio host and columnist Dennis Prager joins us to discuss his upcoming movie, "No Safe Spaces," and the rise of political correctness on college campuses. Prager, who is Jewish, also discusses the rise of anti-Semitism. Plus: We talk about the old radio interviews Tucker Carlson did that Media Matters unearthed.We also cover these stories:•President Trump releases a new budget that would cut spending.•Democrats are heading to Milwaukee for their 2020 convention.•An actress apologizes for implying all women have female body parts and thus implying transwomen are not women.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, March 12th. I'm Kate Trinko. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, anti-Semitism is surfacing more and more these days, and it's raising the question, how do we respond? Especially when it comes over and over again. At CPAC recently, Kate sat down with Dennis Prager to discuss that, along with free speech and censorship.

Today, we'll bring you that exclusive interview. Plus, Tucker Carlson is under fire for some unearthed comments he made years ago. We'll discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please subscribe. Now on to our news headlines. President Trump released a new budget Monday that calls for cuts of 5% to non-defense discretionary spending, and it would lower spending by $2.7 trillion over the next decade compared to current projections. And the budget would include $8.6 billion for the border wall.

But it wouldn't balance the budget for another 15 years, according to the White House's own analysis. Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vote, formerly of Heritage Action for America, spoke to the media about the plan Monday. The president has added historically large numbers to the national debt instead of keeping a promise to actually pay it off. Look, again, the last administration nearly doubled the national debt. And when this president ran for office, he made a commitment to the American people that he wouldn't attempt to tackle the debt within eight years. This president did that the very first year that he came to office by sending forth a budget that balanced within 10 years and had more spending

reductions than any in history. He's added two trillion, more than two trillion to that. He also came into office and had an economic recovery that was needed to put people back to work, get the economy going, and to rebuild the military, and had historic levels of military at $700 and $716 billion in national defense dollars. At the same time, Congress has been ignoring the President's spending reductions for the last two years. It's only now in our third budget that they're willing to have a conversation about the national debt. We've been trying to have it since we got to office. The President has putting forward these reductions.

He's putting forward a 5% cut to non-defense discretionary spending. He's putting forward reforms to mandatory programs that are on autopilot while keeping his commitment to American seniors by not making changes to Medicare and Social Security. Well, Democrats are calling the president's new budget proposal dead on arrival in the House. Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Nita Lowy, called the proposal reckless and untethered from reality. Majority leader Steny Hoyer said it, quote, puts our country at risk of another costly shutdown in October by demanding nearly $9 billion for a border wall that the Congress has already rejected, end quote. The first hearing on the proposal is set for Tuesday. Democrats are heading to Milwaukee for their 2020 convention announced Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez. The official Democrats' Twitter account tweeted in reference to the news.

After a decade of Republican attacks on working people, labor unions, and communities of color, Democrats saw some of our biggest and most historic gains in Wisconsin in 2018. End quote. Meanwhile, the Republican Convention in 2020 will be in Charlotte, North Carolina. Well, tempers are high in Venezuela right now as the country enters its fifth day of a nationwide power outage, the worst in the country's history. The blackout has left food riding in refrigerators, homes without water, and phones without electricity towers. This all comes amid a growing economic and political crisis brought on by years of corruption and socialism. Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro is clinging to power.

He blames the power outage on U.S. sabotage. Count Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, as a fan of controversial Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted of Omar, who has been under fire for making anti-Semitic remarks. Representative Omar, a survivor of war, is one of the most effective voices right now at cutting through the authoritarian foreign policy tendencies of this administration. Well, authorities in Ethiopia have recovered the black boxes of a Boeing 737 that crashed over the weekend, killing all 157 people on board. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 crashed just minutes after takeoff en route to Kenya on Sunday.

In response, multiple countries, including China, have suspended the use of Boeing's new 737 Max 8 aircraft over safety concerns. Ethiopian Airlines reported the plane's digital flight data recorder, and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered, allowing experts to determine exactly what happened in those final moments. Two-thirds of millennials in Generation Z think that the government should provide free college, according to a new Harris poll that Axios exclusively reported on. Just shy of half of millennials in Gen Z would prefer to live in a socialist country. However, nearly 79% of Gen Z and millennials think that the government should continue to allow private health care insurance,

and two-thirds think that high earnings result because of free enterprise. Well, first it was the Washington Post, and now CNN is likely to be sued for big bucks by one of the Covington kids, according to Fox News. The exact amount being sought is $250 million. Back in January, CNN jumped on the story of students from Covington Catholic High School standing adjacent to a Native American man who was banging a drum. Initial depictions put the kids in a negative. and even racist light, but as more details emerged, the students were pretty much exonerated.

The student's lawyer, L.N. Wood, told Fox News that CNN mounted vicious and direct attacks on the kids' reputations. He said he planned to file suit Monday or Tuesday. So, Deborah Messing, one of the stars of Will & Grace, posted on International Women's Day a photo of cupcakes decorated with vaginas. Now she's apologizing, but not for oversharing. No, Messing is apologizing because she excluded transgender women. To quote her Instagram update, I did not, however, think, but there are innumerable, beautiful,

unique, and powerful women who don't have a vagina. And I should have. And for that, I am so, so sorry. Thank you for writing my wrong. Well, daylight savings time has some Americans questioning the practice of changing clocks every six months, including President Trump. On Sunday, he endorsed the policy on Twitter,

saying, quote, making daylight savings time permanent is okay with me, end quote. American clocks have been changing every six months dating back to World War I. And I understand you would advocate for this proposal, Daniel? Absolutely. It's a horrible, it's a perfect example of government overreach, having unintended consequences such as feeling drowsy in the morning and not feeling on schedule. It's every six months too. Okay, well next up, we'll have my interview from CPAC with Dennis Brager.

Did you know you can now listen to all of our. events through SoundCloud or just by visiting our events page on Heritage.org. You now have access to hundreds of events and compelling discussions on policy issues from your car, on the train, or the comfort of your own home. Visit heritage.org slash events for more information or search for the Heritage Foundation on SoundCloud. Okay, we're joined at CPAC today by Dennis Prager, a radio host and author, and I understand you've got a new movie coming out, no safe spaces. That's right. Later in the year Adam Carole and I have collaborated in making this movie, which will be both funny. You will probably cry and laugh. Cry at the state of free speech in America and laugh because

Adam is uniquely funny. And the episodes are both. It'll be a terrific film. Okay. So what, does it get into the college space? Yes, that is exactly right. That's based on the safe spaces concept. of if a speaker comes to campus that you differ with, you can retreat to a safe space where they give you stuffed animals, Play-Doh, Hot Chocolate, and watch video clips of animals frolicking. Lest you be traumatized.

No, this is very serious. Do you understand the task of the left is to keep you an infant? I mean that sincerely. This is a classic proof. This is not an opinion. if my child if my Jewish child

retreated to a safe space if a neo-Nazi came to college I would think my child was wrong and there's no comparison there are no neo-Nazis coming but I want my child to be strong not weak weakness is a virtue on the left

so they they take these kids it's mostly girls the job that's been done on, no wonder there were a lot of girls who were depressed. The depression rates among college girls is astonishing, and it makes perfect sense. I attribute most of it to what the left has done to young people, especially girls. Okay, expound on that a little bit more. Sure. You are, first of all, any time you tell people you are a victim, you are literally handicapping them.

To Walker, I've written a book on happiness, which is a major selling books. since 1999, I've spoken around the world on this subject. Anyone who walks around thinking he or she is a victim, that that is their primary identity, is incapacitated in terms of dealing with life, incapacitated with being a happy human being. It's not possible. No one who believes that their essential identity

is that of a victim can be happy. Girls are told you are a victim of a sexist, misogynist society, and you are at a rape culture. By the way, the proof that, you know what, my one question, I've been studying the left since I was at the Russian Institute at Columbia University.

I did my work on leftism and communism. And this one question I still don't know the answer to, does the left believe their lies? I don't know the answer. When a parent says, when a leftist parent said, college is a rape culture, but then sends their daughter there,

I don't understand. Do you believe it's a rape culture? then how can you send your daughter? Do you not believe it? You probably don't believe it, but you're saying it because you're sending your daughter. So which is it? You can't say the colleges are rape culture,

but honey, here's $50,000 to go to a rape culture. Good luck. Yeah, and I think one of the things that's upsetting about that is on one hand, some of the statistics about sexual assault in college are problematic and lump in a lot of things together, which should not be lumped in together. At the same time, though, and you've written about this in some of your columns that we've carried at the Daily Signal,

like obviously we have a really toxic sexual culture right now. And one question I had for you, actually, was you've talked a lot about how feminism has let down women, which, you know, I would agree a lot of liberal feminism has hurt women a lot. But how do you think that things like the sexual revolution, the easy access to porn, you know, this sort of gross culture in our college campuses has hurt men? Men have been hurt in a different way, I believe. Men have been hurt because they have been emasculated. And a truly masculine man, I could define it because I was raised in a culture that said, Dennis, be a man.

Which you can't say now, by the way. You cannot, according to the left, you cannot say to a boy, be a man. Right. I'd say a lot of women would say that's a real problem. And they're right. That's exactly correct. And what it meant was, be a man meant first and foremost, get married and take care of a family. That is what BMA. Ask anyone who grew up in my generation, what did be a man mean? That's what it meant. Now men have no such sense. Women tell me they go on dates and the guy is, you know, adamant that they pay 50-50 on the date.

This is, this is, everything's 50-50. You know, okay, it sounds great in theory. It does not work in practice. This, the notion that I, I want to take care of a woman and children, is considered by the left, actually, to be, to be heterosexist because it's heteronormative. Number one, that's a bad thing. Number two, it implies that it is not 50-50. Why isn't she?

care of the family. And why should they even bother having a family? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just announced that because the worth is going to basically come to an end in 12 years, there's no reason to have children. The first thing she said I agree with, if you believe her don't have children. That's a service to society. If you believe the world will end in 12 years, you are such a fool that we don't want you to have children.

So I'm with her. So how do we make boys and demand? And especially, you know, again, on the college scene, I think there's a lot of guys who should be told, don't drink this much, don't encourage a girl to drink this much, don't use women. How do we get men to actually step up? Well, it was done. Religious life, which I was in my case, Jewish,

and in Christian cases, that is how boys are raised, in fact. I don't know, it's not easily done without religion. It's not easily done without models. The male models that I had were strong men who took care of women. They weren't going around screwing everyone in his skirt now today, pants. But our models were different. Look at the movie models. I have a friend who's on the left, not liberally, he's on the left.

And he told me, just as a project, he decided to see every film from the 50s he could. He wanted to understand that terrible era. It had a big effect on him. He came to understand how much healthier, so much of life. was at that time when he looked at the characters in film and the way they were depicted. I had so many male models. I had male teachers. I had a male rabbi. I had my male father, my male uncles, and male figures in movies. Who does a kid have today? Every one of his teachers essentially is a female, his principals are female, his therapist is a female. His father may or may not be

in the home, or he may not even have a connection if he's not in the home. And what does he watch Tom Cruz, is that the male model? I mean, think about it. Gosh, I hope not. All right, but he is. But that's what's out there. Yeah, no, it's definitely a dire situation. You've mentioned your faith a bit, and I wanted to ask you, do you think we have a growing problem with anti-Semitism in this country? Yes, and it's due to the influx of Muslims from the Middle East

and parts of North Africa, like Somalia, or Northeast Africa, to be technical. who bring with them the Jew hatred that is as part of the society as Pita. You ingest Jew hatred in the Arab Middle East. You do. It's just a fact. And they bring it here, and then we're shocked when Slaib, or Ilhan Omar, make a comment, oh, yes, it's Jews, it's Jews. That's what she was taught.

One is Palestinian background, one is Somali. background? That's what they're taught. Jews are the reason for the problems of the earth, just like Hitler believed. And do you know that there is a, there is an area code now in Sweden where UPS does not deliver because it's filled with Muslim immigrants? Now, there are fine people. You always have to make this statement as if we're denying it. But here goes. There are many wonderful Muslims. It's a given. However, the proportion of people who come with bad values from that area of the world is higher than the proportion of people with bad values from Uruguay. Okay, it's just a fact. That's one reason, and the left is the other. Leftism has always been anti-Semitic since Carl Marx.

This is my field of study. I can cite you chapter and verse. Not liberals. Liberals were anti-left. This is the tragedy of our time. Alan Dershowitz is a lifelong liberal. said to me, you will see it in no safe spaces. Him saying to me in his apartment in Manhattan, Dennis, as an American, as a liberal, as a Jew, as a Democrat, I fear the left much more than the right. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit more about the left in anti-Semitism because you brought up representatives Ilhan Omar.

She, you know, has, let's say, made some very controversial statements, but she still is sitting on the House Foreign Relations Committee. Do you think the left is taking seriously enough? anti-Semitism? No, of course not. Liberals do, but the left doesn't. Of course not. The left feeds it. The very notion, you know, this notion, oh, we're not anti-Jew, we're anti-Israel, or anti-Zionists. If the only country on earth you help destroy, and every anti-Zionist is against the existence of Israel, this is not who criticizes Israel. You can criticize any country you want. No one gives a I'm talking about the anti-Zionist left.

These people have chosen of the 200 plus countries in the world to work to ruin to destroy only one, the Jewish state the size of New Jersey. If that's not anti-Semitic, then I who have written a book on anti-Semitism who taught it at Brooklyn College, taught Jewish history, don't know what it is. That is the personification of anti-Semitism.

All countries are legit. except the Jewish country. You're an anti-Semite fellow. You are my enemy. Period. End of issue. Okay. And you are based in California. Is that correct? I am indeed. That is correct. When I'm there, I'm owned on the road a lot. Well, I, so I originally grew up near San Francisco, so I always want to ask fellow Californians, how do you survive being a conservative out there? Do you know that the Renaissance, a big part of the Renaissance of Conservatism is coming from Southern California. Prager University is located within a few blocks of Prager University is Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire.

Pajamas, Bedia is there. I mean, this is a very serious conservative area. We're dwarfed in size, by sheer numbers, obviously, by leftists. I understand that. But I never walk around thinking I'm surrounded by people who

are hostile to what I believe in. I believe I'm walking around. I mean, these are the people I associate with. I spoke a couple of months ago, and your listener should watch it. I have a lot of videos on the on YouTube, but this is one that should really be watched. I spoke to 1,200 Jews in L.A.

1,200 Jewish conservatives. Wow. At the biggest synagogue west of the Mississippi, biggest, I think, or I think it's a big, Valley Beth Shalom. And you got to watch it. How they were, they were so excited to meet one another and to hear me speak. It was really, it was a great night, and people should watch it. So we exist.

You in San Francisco, that's a much bigger problem. There you really are surrounded by people who hate us. It's a fun place. We're not. Okay, all right. You still live there? I do not, but my parents are still there and they give me regular updates. But it's an interesting place.

Hopefully it'll change around. But anyway, Dennis Prager, your movie No Safe Spaces, is there release date? It's later this year. We don't have a specific, but please watch for it, go, watch the trailer. And you see, here's a good example. People can support media, major media, that are not, that's not on the left. Just going to the movie does that. I mean, you'll have the greatest time. You'll love it. But even if you don't love ever going to the movie, it's a good thing to support the making of non-left-wing movies. Hopefully there'll be more.

Okay, Dennis Prager, we carry his syndicated columns on the Daily Signal. Check them out, and thanks for joining us. I read you all the time. Thank you. Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? Then subscribe to Scotus 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to. So, Media Matters went into the archives and found remarks that Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who in the interest of disclosure received a prize from the Heritage Foundation last year, made around a decade ago, I think, were the most recent, while on a crude radio show, Bubba the Love Spunch.

Among the comments, Media Matters claims Carlson made, includes him when the host discusses girls at his daughter's boarding school engaging in lesbian experimentation, reportedly saying, if it weren't my daughter, I would love that scenario. Carlson reportedly used the C word to describe Martha Stewart's daughter, Alexis, who was grown up at the time, and also reportedly said that Justice Elena Kagan was unattractive. Carlson responded on Twitter, quote, Media Matters caught me saying something naughty on a radio show more than a decade ago, rather than express the usual ritual contrition. How about this? I'm on television every weeknight live for an hour. If you want to know what I think, You can watch. Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why. So, Daniel, what do you think? What do I think?

Man, this is, you know, it's becoming a ritual where we have some unearthed comments from years ago or some kind of picture and it's, it really ranges. Like sometimes it's scandalous and horrible. Sometimes it's kind of like this where we're not going to play the comments here because they are vulgar. but they're not as bad as some, but they are still, I think, bad. I mean, you know, listening to them is pretty awful. So I think the interesting question we have to face is society is, you know,

we have access to what people have said in the past, like literally sound bites from years ago, that that kind of thing did not exist, you know, before recordings. It's a very new problem. And we're going to have to deal with how do we handle cases where people, where people might have said something inappropriate or might have said something bad, but they may not deserve to lose their job over it. How do we as a society handle that?

Because right now it seems like we have either you are completely innocent or you are in the wrong and you got to, you know, apologize and maybe you should be fired. Yeah, and I think something that, you know, we discussed briefly before the show is, of course, you know, there's just so much more of a memory now, whether it's, you know, social media, which obviously can live in some form forever,

whether it's just, you know, the access to recordings. I mean, you know, all of our phones can record things. Even you don't have to have called and do a radio show. And so, yeah, I think there's going to be, I mean, videos. Just think about it. Like, honestly, you could be saying something to a friend right now. And a stranger near you could be videotaping something. And they could even not be intending to videotape you, but they happen to catch you and years later.

I mean, this is sort of an extreme scenario. But I think, yeah, there is so much more proof of stuff that we didn't used to have. I think it changes things. But yeah, my feeling was, I mean, I was honestly disappointed. I like Tucker Carlson's show. I think that often, you know, he brings up amid his more irreverent things, which I kind of enjoy, he brings up good points. Yes. I especially enjoy his, you know, point that there's something really wrong in this country that, you know, he says we can see based on the suicide rates and the opioid rates and all of that.

And I think he's definitely right about acknowledging certain illness. in our society that not that many other voices are picking up on. And I was also disappointed that he didn't apologize. And I'm a little bit torn on this. And frankly, you know, if, if listeners have comments, please email me. It's just katrina.trinkgo atdailysignal.com. And I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. I think Media Matters is a bully. I don't think they would have done this to someone on the left and gone through all their stuff. But, and I don't think that necessarily people should apologize for everything all the time. And I don't think Tucker should resign. But I wish he had said something like, hey, I wasn't young, but I was younger, and I've changed.

I've matured. I regret that I went on this crude show and made these crude comments. And, yeah, I think that would have been nice. Yeah. No, I agree on that. The other thing I wanted to mention, though, this whole dynamic where some people say things and other people didn't say things, where they weren't recorded saying something, and then they can therefore look down on those who said them.

I feel like that kind of creates an artificial distinction because I think most people in some moments that were never recorded and will never be heard again uttered things that were shameful. I think most people would admit that they've done that. I think, you know, that's just human beings being fallen creatures. And I also think that's just the things that people have said. But what about the things that we've thought in our minds and not uttered? I think anyone would be.

scandalized and shamed and have to leave town if like all your all the thoughts that you've thought in a single day were put up on a screen and everybody your co-workers saw that oh my goodness that'd just be horrifying so so i just think it creates a somewhat of an artificial distinction it still means something if you don't say it like that's good you should keep it don't say it but the same time how many of us are thinking things that we shouldn't be thinking yeah and i i was going to say that it's sort of interesting because i'm sure not everyone agrees with me Theologically on this. But, you know, I was always taught that at the end of the world, we will know everyone's like every thought and every sin. And, you know, that's something that I have thought of at certain times when I've, you know, had thoughts I wasn't proud of or private or whatever. And it's interesting when you try to live your life sort of thinking about that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's sort of interesting in a way that it's theologically understood in certain circles to be necessary for kind of like complete harmonary. But we. We We are not in that world yet.

So, yeah, I think that's a good point. And I also wonder, not to get back to theology, but I wonder if this is another sign of our post-Christian kind of modern America that we don't really have a way for forgiveness. And I don't know how to handle that because obviously people can be hypocritical and take advantage of that and not change and just say they're sorry. But at the same time, like, yeah, everyone sins. So there's got to be some way to discuss this. Yeah, no, it's a good question. and I think a lot of people are dealing with that because we still have a sense of shame and guilt,

but it's now been kind of moved away from, I think, what were the traditional Christian standards of shame and guilt, but we still have the shame and guilt. It's just only on certain issues, and sometimes it's maybe blown out of proportion. And I think maybe Tucker Carlson is reacting to the shaming by saying, well, I'm not going to feel any shame. I'm just going to say what I think and be who I am.

and like that's not great either. Sometimes things are shameful and we should apologize, you know? Yeah, and I mean. And you can apologize without coutowing to the left. That's the point. And he's trying to avoid that. Right. And I think this is where it becomes hard when like, you know, media matters.

This is clearly a politically motivated shaming. But. Totally. You know, at the same time, I don't know who surfaced, you know, for instance, that video of Ilhan Omar, the representative Democrat of Minnesota, making an anti-Semitic comment in a D.C. restaurant, you know, at a panel or something. I don't know who filmed that, who put it out. But if it was someone on the right, I wouldn't say we ignore it.

Or I wouldn't say the Democrats could get away of saying we're going to ignore that. So, I mean, Tucker is not a politician. But, yeah, I mean, I just think this is interesting. I think it's going to be something we're going to continue to deal with. I noticed the other day that a feminist site, I read occasionally, Jezebel was upset because the New York Times reporter whose name is escaping me. But he got in trouble for me too kind of stuff. I don't remember exactly what it was.

It was not like Harvey Weinstein levels, but it was not choir boy stuff either. Anyway, he's apparently doing more prominent reporting after having been demoted and they were sort of saying like, well, can he come back to this? Is that okay? And it's so interesting because I have very mixed feelings on this. Like part of me is saying, you know, penance, contrition, repentance, that is a religious thing that's not for workplaces to enforce. But part of me is like, well, I mean, when it interacts with your work, as he was, this reporter was accused of doing, I don't know. You know, Carlson, in his professional capacity, I believe, was on this show.

I don't know. Yeah, because there are certain things, there are certain actions that have real world, like, consequences. that in a spiritual sense you can be forgiven, but you still have to go to jail for killing someone or you can't get off the hook in a legal system, rightly so. You should not be let off the hook. So there's a sense of like earthly justice there. Right, but as you were pointing out, of course,

we're not talking about the legal system right here. And that's like we're in this weird gray area. It's such a gray area. Where nothing Carlson did, of course, is legally objectionable. You know, this reporter didn't have any charges filed against him that I'm aware of. So it's sort of like, how do we as a society process stuff? Well, I can say one thing.

I don't trust the New York Times editorial board to navigate these waters for me. I'm going to leave it there for today. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review and a five-star rating on iTunes. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast,

Executive produced by Kate Trinco and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.