The Eric Metaxas Show - Ben Stein

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Ben Stein Shares His New Book "The Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend".

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blob, starring Steve McQueen? The Blood Curdling Prep of The Blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat them. But he kept spitting him. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric the Texas!

Folks, welcome back. In this brief segment, I'm going to talk to the author of a brand new book. Now, the title of the book should be obvious. In fact, not only should it be obvious, it is obvious. The title of the book is obvious. Albin Seder is the author, obviously. Albin, everything in the book is the statement of things that we've got to say over and over because they're true, and we're living at a time where people are trying to shove lies down our throats.

So the book is humorous, pithy, and unfortunately important, obvious, seeing the evil that's in plain sight doing something about it. There's something in here, the beautiful part of this book, one of the beautiful parts of this book is your kindergarten picture. You actually, in the book, there's a picture of your kindergarten class. I could cry. It's so cute and beautiful. I know. The children are so cute, especially those two twins in the back row. I'm telling you, they're the cutest.

Are you one of those twins, I'm guessing? I might be, and my identical twin brother is standing right next to me. I think. I can't tell because I can't tell us apart. Are you both identical? Yeah. My mother and father assured us, let's just put it that way. So because it doesn't really, if only one of you is identical, then you can't be identical twins.

That's just the way. There's a mirror. Yeah, there was a mirror at the end of that aisle. And I think it's just, but anyway. It's a picture of your kindergarten class. You and your twin brother are in the back row. So go ahead. Yeah.

And this is, okay, I'm going to give a little bit about my age here. This was the East Street School that doesn't exist there anymore. They tore it down for I-279 or something like that in Pittsburgh. Anyway, but we're all lined up. This is May of 1960, okay? This is as early as you can get in the 60s. And I talk about just specific things in the photo itself. It's besides the fact everybody's cute.

And none of the kids is overweight. We're all, you know, we're all in our Sunday best as it were. There's like 22 of us. And there's another era. None of these kids is doing blow. I mean, exactly. It's an era where kindergarten. are not doing cocaine,

but seriously, it really, it's so, and it's such a beautiful picture. I really could get choked up looking at it. Yeah, and I, it's so funny, because I'm even looking at the little girl that I found so cute, I was like, boy, I'd like to marry that one down there. And here I am five and a half years old, of course. There's even, in the middle, there's even, this is 1960, folks, there's a black baby doll among the toys in the front of the picture.

I thought Mattel in 1990 came up with, black baby dolls. What? They had them actually in the 1960s. Oh, yeah, folks. And there's like four black children in the in the group. And then, you know, at the time is probably, I don't, you know, which was about, what is that, about 15, 20, 20 percent of the, the, the children. And we're in a neighborhood. It's like a lower middle class neighborhood with that kindergarten was. So it was representative. And this is 1960, folks. Remember what happened at the end of 1960? How all H.E. double toothpicks broke out. Yeah. But anyway, that's why I love that picture. No, Chris, in the literal picture. You should really spell out the word toothpicks if you

don't mind in the future. Well, or hockey sticks. So either way. So this is a picture of your kindergarten class. And what is the larger point that you're making? Because that's, I mean, the title of this chapter, these are all very short chapters, is what a difference a decade makes. Yes. One of the obvious things I'm stating, and the reason why I have the children there, There's an article that goes along with that. And I think it's a title of one of the chapters, racism is for losers. And when my mother was picking us up at the kindergarten one day, another mother, I overheard this, said to my mother, oh, look at your twins. They're playing with that little black boy over there.

And I overheard this. And I'm like, what, what are you, what are you, what is she talking about? Because our best friend there was one of the little black boys in the school. And we were not aware of him. as being black, he was just your friend. Yeah, because he played with the same toys and had the same, you know, kind of sense of fun that we had because we were children. And nobody was saying, hey, you know, you may think you're a little boy, but you twins,

you're not identical twins, want to use a little girl and want to use not a little girl. You see what we're talking to? Nobody was shoving any of this stuff down anybody's throat back then. This is 1960, folks. What happened at the end? Where are we today? How far are we come? Like how far backwards have we gone?

And I get fired up about this stuff, right? Well, no, it's just astonishing that the innocence, this is one of the great crimes of our time. And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, you need to be doing your part in the war against evil, whatever that means, running for school board, homeschooling your kids, being a poll watcher, whatever God calls you to do. Because God has a job for every one of us. But to combat the lies, you have to face the fact. And again, this is one of the points of the book that one of the things that is obvious is the loss of innocence. And that to me is one of the most heartbreaking, maybe the most heartbreaking thing is the loss of innocence that little kids, because of the madness on the left, they're growing up in a world where they're being made aware of things that they should never be made aware of at a young age. They should not hear about this at a young age.

They shouldn't be confused about sexual identity. It shouldn't be even introduced to them. And little kids are being forced to deal with this. They're being forced to deal with the concept of racism. It is so wrong to impose this kind of stuff on children. It's bad enough when you try to impose it on adults. But the idea, just looking at that picture in the book, that it really was a more innocent time.

Yeah. And again, we're not saying, things were perfect back then and perfect for everybody. That's certainly not true, but we were making progress. Too slow for some people, you know, that's true. But you don't go where we are today. It's like, I don't like you, unless you say black lives matter the way I say it. You know, and to me, that's a chapter in the book too. It's like we can't say all lives matter. Did God not say for God so love the world that he gave his one and only begotten son, the world, who's in the world, past, present and future, all people. So do they matter to the living God that loves us? I think so.

So they should matter to us. So when these people yell in your face, they're trying to convince themselves. They don't think that's true. We think it's true. They don't think it's true. So, you know, get off your high horse and maybe learn something, right? There's every chapter, these really are very short chapters. I want to say you did that intentionally. So you could read this. For example, if you fall out of a building on your way down, you could probably read a chapter before, well, I guess before you die. But anyway, the point is that they're short chapters. You could read them fairly quickly. But everyone wants to, is a statement of the obvious that needs restating. That's why the book is titled obvious. And you,

What else should we talk about? We just get about two minutes left, but I do want to, oh, no, we're out of time. Sorry, folks. We will have more. Do we have time? We have time. We have two minutes. What should we talk about in the two minutes?

Sorry about that. Go ahead. Okay. One thing I really want to emphasize, and you said a little bit about it, is that everything's like short and pithy. Like if you pick it up, you can start in the middle. You can start at the end. There's short little parables, some of them funny.

Some of them you might have heard of before, but you realize, oh, yeah. There was a cartoon that I could not find that I did. kind of described it here in the beginning, there's a bunch of sheep and there's this mean shepherd with a whip. And the one sheep stands up and the shepherd looks at him. And then the next panel is all the sheep have stood up and the shepherd drops his whip and he's scared. And I'm like, that's an example of one person. And I've had this happen to me too sometimes. Even in public, there was a guy harassing my wife by actually blocking the doorway and not giving her room. And I asked them politely to move. And he said, you white people think you.

You own everything. And this was a white kid saying it. And I said to him, oh, so you're a racist, eh? So the next stop, people get off the subway. And one young black woman walks by me, smiles and says, have a nice day. And I said, you too. She was like, yeah, somebody said something. There are good people everywhere.

And when you speak up, it's happened to me a few times, they're listening. They're watching. And every one of us can be that person and needs to be that person. And so this book is a great encourager, I guess I would say, along those lines. Just the cartoons and the memes I've found. Well, there's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun stuff in the book. And by the way, folks, in case you're unaware of the title, it should be obvious.

And it actually is obvious, obvious by Albin Seder. Albin, congratulations. Thanks very much, Eric. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I'm proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left.

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legacy PM Investments.com. Check it out. Folks, welcome back. As promised, I don't know how to put it. I'm not going to mince words. My guest is Ben Stein. At least he identifies as Ben Stein, the actor. You will remember him from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He's a writer. He's a speech writer. Was a speech writer for Nixon. Not many people have been in popular films with Matthew Broderick and we're friends with Richard Nixon. I don't think there's anybody except for Ben Stein. Ben Stein, welcome to this program.

You're a very kind to say so. I'm happy to be here. The acting was the most fun part of my life, but a very, very small part of my lifetime. I'm a lawyer, economist, a commentator, on financial fraud. I spent a large part of my life writing, and talking and speaking about financial fraud,

and I spent really probably 40 years doing that, and I don't do it much anymore because they don't have the big audiences for it anymore because of the fake pandemic. I got to ask you, are you renting your voice from Harvey Firestein? No, I've heard of him, but I'm not renting. I think I'm older than he is, so I think I probably had this voice before he did. But God bless him. All right, well, we won't talk about Harvey.

Firestein. That's a policy on the program not to talk about him. That's funny. I don't really know. I know he's a famous person. I think he's famous for being gay, but I'm not sure what he's. I was going to say, if you remember Torch song trilogy, and I certainly don't, but we're here to talk about you, and we're here to talk about Richard Nixon. That's what I like. Oh, my Nixon. And I want to say that some people will know you from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, But you were a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. And I can't imagine anything less fun than being a speechwriter for Gerald Ford. You're wrong.

It was the greatest possible respect, Eric. He was a great guy to work for and with. And I enjoyed every minute of it. And I really was sorry when Donald Rumsfeld called me and told me that I was going to be moved to somewhere, as he said, in the bureaucracy. And so there you are. But I love what you like is getting a call from Don Rumsfeld. Let's be honest.

That's quite funny. It's quite funny. I want to, well, I was saying to you before we went on the air, I had the privilege of meeting you in Las Vegas. I hate Las Vegas, but I had the privilege of meeting you there at the Mark Skousson event. George Gilder was there. He's been on this program. John Cleese was there.

I had a joy of meeting. Love him, love him. John, please. Love him, love him. So we did meet, we connected things. I didn't know then that you were writing a book about Richard Nixon. So, folks, the principal topic of conversation is Ben Stein's brand new book. It's called The Peacemaker, Nixon, the man, president, and my friend.

Tell us, Ben Stein, when did you meet Richard Nixon? Well, the first time I ever met Richard Nixon was when. and he came to speak in my hometown, in Silver Spring, Maryland, at an authentic whistle stop in Silver Spring, what was then called the B&O Railroad, and he was speaking,

and there was a small crowd, and my mother lifted me up to see him, or maybe it was my father, and that was when I first met him. I thought he had a very nice face, and all my neighbors. since your mother lifted you up I assume you were not a teenager at the time

No no no she was strong but not that strong But anyway And I just loved him for the minute I saw up And as if I may say this All my neighbors hated him I don't know why I still I still don't know why people hated him I really don't I think he was

A genuine savior of America In several different ways But a lot of people My neighbor had hated him and broke my heart I really really loved him Before we give you to that, I want to get to my father, who's 96, loved Nixon and made me love Nixon. And we can talk about that. But what I wanted to say, just to get the dates correct, when you say your mother lifted you up or doing it, I'm assuming this was during the 1960 presidential election.

No, you would be, if you assumed that, you would be wrong. It was during the 1952 election because he was Ike's vice president. Okay. Exactly right. That's why I bring it up. I want to get the dates for a minute. Exactly right. I was seven.

Now we know exactly how old you are. I can tell you, I can tell you 78. You can tell me 78? That's how old I'm 78. I'll be 79 at the end of the month. God allows me to live that long. Amen. So you were a kid in 52.

Ike is running his vice president, of course, Richard Nixon. So that was your first introduction to names. Nixon. What were you doing in the early years of your life that led you to a career as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, the president of the United States? Well, I was, it was not a career, really. It was, I only did it for about a year, a little longer than a year. But what led to it, I said, one, I loved him. I just thought he was a honest stand-up guy. To me, Kennedy always had a kind of a snake oil sales. about him that I didn't particularly care for. But Mr. Nixon stood out as an honest man, very rare in Washington, very rare in politics, period. What I was doing when I first met him in enough of a sentient capacity to actually make conversation with him was I was a lawyer.

I just graduated from Yale Law School. And I know you went to Yale too. God bless you, but I don't know whether you had to Yale as an undergraduate or a couple. went as an undergraduate and that did sufficient damage. I know. I think it was kind of fun. I was not an undergraduate there, but I think it would have been a lot

of fun. Anyway, I met him mostly, I think, because my father, God bless his soul, Herbert Stein, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Mr. Nixon, and he, Mr. Nixon, invited my father and mother

and my sister and me, although my sister never went to go to one of their Sunday prayer meetings in the eastern of the White House. And he was standing out there shaking hands with high-ranking people. And I saw this incredibly beautiful girl, incredibly julius, now his daughter,

with her dog, at least one of her dogs. I think it was with King Timaho or maybe Pasha or maybe Vicky. And I was just stunned by how beautiful she was. And I smiled her, and she smiled at me. and Mr. Nixon smiled us both. And my father is probably saying something to me like,

don't dare talk to her, but I did talk to her. And she and I have been very close friends ever since. And I said to him something along the lines of, I know a lot of people don't like you, but I love you and I think you're wonderful. And I think you're the best president that's been in my lifetime. And I still, I would still make the same assessment. What year was it that you met him?

at the White House? Let me think. He was elected in 68, sworn in 69, so probably would have been 71 or 72. And he was president. He had a very full plate. He had a war in Vietnam. He had tremendous amounts of anti-Nixon,

anti-American demonstrations. He had people in the White House saying terrible outlandish things. They had no connection with the truth of all. He had some health problems. I don't think that was widely known, but he had some health problems.

Plytis is all I remember. I'm sorry? Phlebitis is all I... That was later. He had some problems, some musculoskeletal problems, but I don't remember their exact nature. But I just remember we had inflation,

the war, crises after Christ's Christ in the Middle East. And he was just doing a great job. He was just all hands on deck, one might say, doing a great, great job. And he had great, great people in his cabinet, not like today where they're selected on the basis of their race. These were selected on the basis of their ability.

And he did an incredible job with them. And I was impressed as hell then and now with what high-end people he had working for him. I never will forget the fact that he had in the room, in the cabinet room, people who were undoubtedly geniuses working for and with him. And I thought, wow, what an incredibly impressive guy. And he was. And we had a, I think, it may be wrong, sir. I think that very morning we had a sermon by Billy Graham, whom I had always loved. I am a Jew. My family have been Jews since the beginning of Judaism. But I love Billy Graham. I just loved him. If you could look to my right here, you would see a picture of my father with Mr. Graham and Mr. Nixon. I loved him. And I loved

Mr. Nixon. I just loved everything about it. Julie just blew my brains out. It was so beautiful and so sweet and so nice. I'm still so impressed by her. I can't even start to tell you. Well, listen, it's just fun to talk to you on many, many levels. I had the privilege of being friends with Chuck Colson. And I loved him. I want to talk to you about all this stuff. I loved him. Folks is called the peacemaker.

Nixon, the man, president, my friend, by Ben Stein. We'll be right back with Ben Stein. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question, well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal, and I agree with them. And the doctors who formulated relief factor for them selected the four best ingredients, yes, 100% drug-free ingredients, and each one of them helps your body deal with inflammation. Each of the four ingredients

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Go to MyPillow.com right now. Click on the radio podcast specials to receive this amazing offer of only 2998 on the six piece set from MyPillow towels. Just go to Mypillow.com, click on the radio podcast specials, and enter promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057. That's Mypillow.com promo code Eric. Mypillow.com promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057. I use these towels. They work. I promise you. I am talking to Ben Stein. You may know him from the game show win Ben Stein's money. You may not.

You may know him from other places. But the point is, he was a friend of Richard Nixon, wrote speeches for Nixon, and right now has a brand new book out called The Peacemaker, which is about Richard Nixon. So, listen, I was saying to you earlier, my dad, who's 96, was a great admirer of Nixon, And principally, because, as my father always said, Nixon was a staunch anti-communist. Nixon understood the wickedness of the communists. Excellent, excellent. Oh, my God, are you right?

May I now jump in here? This is, you're my guest. Don't even hesitate. You're younger than I. I don't have very long to live compared with you. Nixon understood that there was not much difference between Bolshevism and Nazism. Both were fraudulent promises of a paradise on earth. And if you did the slightest thing, even if you did nothing, you could be executed, tortured, starved to death, beaten to death by the powers that be.

And that was the greatness of the communism promised a great. life for everybody. It was the biggest lie ever in history. You know, the second, the word Nazi comes from national, that's an socialist. And the party under Mr. Disgusting Hitler was National Socialist Party. And that's what Nixon understood right away about both socialism and Nazism, was they were out to kill you. They're going to grab you, squeeze you, you, torture you, kill you, but at the end of the day, you were going to be dead. And I guess we're all dead at the end of the day.

But you're going to be dead. But you're not a Keynesian. I am. Well, I am a bit of a Keynesian. A bit of a Keynesian. I want me to take you down that rabbit trail. But the point you're making is that Nixon understood the evil of communism. I mean, this is just one of the things.

Yes, he understood a lot. He understood a lot. The history. But the top of your book is the piece of, I want to start there just because we're in such difficult times. And the hoodlum, I apologize, the husk of a man in the White House today who stole the very good. Wait, wait, Eric, don't leave that phrase.

That is a great, great phrase. The husk of a man. Very, very good phrase. Very good and very apt. Scientific term. I am very important. The husk of a man. known as for my own best.

But when we're talking about statesmanship, when we think of Nixon, of his ability as a statesman to be a peacemaker and to lead and to think wisely on a global scale, his foreign policy was genius. We're living at a time right now where we have the exact opposite.

I'm an admirer of Trump's foreign policy and by God's grace he'll get back in. But in the meantime, we have a nightmare of an administration almost seemingly intentionally doing every single thing wrong. And so let's talk about Nixon as peacemaker. For an audience that's many people listening are too young to remember this era, talk about him as peacemaker because that's the title of your book.

Well, Mr. Nixon had two primary wars to deal with. There were many other wars, but Mainland was, of course, for him, the war in Vietnam. And that was a nightmare because people have been completely hoodwinked into thinking that the communists were the good guys and our side were bad guys. And the communists would win. They would bring peace to Vietnam. They'd bring a paradise life on earth.

That phrase again, for these poor but very good-looking people in Vietnam. And that would be – but that turned out to be completely wrong. They turned out to be, as all communists always are, mass murderers, terrible mass murderers. It's an interesting thing, Eric, but people may or may not remember the Tet offensive in 68 slash 69. The main feature of that was, well, first of all, Walter Cronkite said that proved they had won the war, which was a total lie. But the second was, they killed a lot of civilians, hell of a lot of civilians. But the other war that was incredibly important was the war between Israel and Egypt and the other Arab states. And I want you to imagine that you, like me, are a Jew, and you're seeing the world around you,

disintegrating as the Arabs, Egyptians mostly make a gigantic push into Israel because of the negligence, incredible negligence, of Mrs. Meyer, and are about to win that war and crush Israel, and Nixon saves him. And everybody's saying, oh, he's the anti-Semi, he's the anti-Semi? No, he stepped up, he saved Israel. He went to the Jews of the world and said, I'm going to save you. Everybody said, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. You're anti-Semi. No.

Nixon loved Jews. He was the savior, the literal, the literal savior of Jews. Wait, I have to pause for a second. my dear friend sir you that's you my nurse somebody's at the door i don't know who but let's whoever it is let's have been stopping my physical therapist lauren please let him in right away thank you sorry that's okay i uh we have doors in our houses and people come to my it's a it's a perfectly human thing and we're gonna let you i will allow you know listen you what you just said um this is one of the reasons i'm excited about your book i have a copy of it

back in our studio i don't have a copy here uh i'm in dallas temporarily. But when you talk about Nixon as a peacemaker and when you talk about Israel, I don't know that story. So when we come back from the break, I want you to tell the story. I want you to tell the story because I'm a little bit surprised that I don't know it or I don't remember. You're going to hear it, sir. So we're going to be right back, folks. We're talking to Ben Stein and the book, brand new book, The Peacemaker, about Richard Nixon. Don't go away. We'll be right back. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion travel and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies.

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That's inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Advisory services are offered through Inspire Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Welcome back talking to about Richard Nixon, his book, he knew Nixon, was friends with Nixon. You, Ben Stein, have written a book called Peacemaker. Tell us about... The peacemaker.

Sorry, The peacemaker. I assume we're talking about the Yom Kippewpillar. War of 1973. Yes. Here's what happened. Israel had won a smashing, incredible, unbelievable victory in 67.

They had taken over all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev and they had fortified supposedly impregnably the west, sorry, east bank of the Suez Canal. It turned out Mrs. Mayer had

totally screwed that up, just unbelievably mind-bogglingly screwed that up. When you say this, so the prime minister of Israel at the time was Golda Ma'eer, and how did she screw that up? She neglected to keep the repairs in terms of manpower and equipment on the east bank of the Suez Canal in tip-top shape, so that then when the Arabs, the Egyptians, are always the top grade of Israel's hostile neighbors. Anyway, but when they wanted to cross with Russian help, of course, lots of Russian help, they found that the East Bank was nowhere near as well fortified as the Israelis had claimed it was, and the Arabs could cross it, get across, get up those banks of the canal, and flood like waters into Israel.

And Mrs. Meyer really should have been arrested, maybe in Brue. risen for her negligence. But anyway, the Israelis generally could stop any invasion by the Arabs with their superb Air Force, just pound for pound, the best Air Force in the world. But this time, the Russians, who are wizards at this kind of thing, had given the Arabs, especially the Egyptians, a super good anti-aircraft missile, I believe it was called the SA7. and they could shoot down the Israeli planes, fighter bombers, at will. That means the Israelis were losing their planes very, very fast,

and their tanks and other armored vehicles could cross over, start zooming up the pathways into the Sinai. And Israel was, there was nothing basically to stop them. Once the Israeli Air Force was out of business, Well, Israel had good tanks, good artillery, but the airplanes were their main card, their primary card. If that was gone, they were in terrible ship. They were in terrible ship. Mrs. Meyer and her colleagues begged the Americans for the so-called black boxes,

which were devices that could jam the Russian super-sophisticated anti-aircraft rockets. The people at the Defense Department said, no, no, no, no. If one falls out of the sky and falls into Russian hands, they'll be able to learn from it and manipulate it and create an impregnable, fabulous anti-aircraft rockets that can shoot down anything they want, I should say. Mr. Nixon said, I don't care what you guys at the Department of Defense say. I want Israel to have those black boxes. And the people of the Defense Department were shuffling their feet, sitting on their hands,

and Nixon said, look, I want those planes, planes carrying those black boxes. boxes be taking off right now, right now from Andrews Air Force Base. I'm not going to get off the phone until I hear those planes going down the runway with those black boxes. But they had to do it. Nixon ordered them to do it. They did it within, I don't know how long a flight is, maybe seven or eight hours. Within seven or eight hours, the Israelis had the boxes.

They could stop the planes from getting, stop the rockets. It was just a horrible, horrible situation now suddenly for the Egyptians, because now the Israelis could jam their anti-aircraft rockets, and the fabulous Israeli Air Force could do pretty much whatever it wanted in terms of knocking out Egyptian armored vehicles. Suddenly, the Israelis could push back the Arabs, and what they did is not only pushed them back, but they went south of the Suez Canal, crossed the Red Sea, came up behind the Egyptian 7th Army, and surrounded Cairo, not completely, but almost completely.

And the Russians were frantic about this, and they said, if you keep doing this, we're going to drop our super skilled Russian paratroopers into the Sinai and go to war with you Israelis. and that we don't promise that we won't use nuclear weapons. And Nixon went to what I think was called either DefCon 2 or DefCon 3, very high state of readiness, which was just one step away from using nuclear weapons on the Russians. And this was a big, big thing to risk nuclear war to save Israel. No other president, no other world leader, no other leader of a country had ever, ever, ever done anything like this.

Nixon literally risk the nuclear annihilation of Israel and maybe of the whole Middle East in order to save Israel. Nobody else had ever done that. And yet at the same moment, people were saying Nixon was the anti-Semite. What a colossal, horrible lie. Well, first of all, the idea of this, it doesn't seem to be well enough known because I not familiar with this. Of course, and you're a smart and well-informed guy. I try to be well-informed. This is in my book in considerable detail. At the time it was happening, we Jews were on our

hands and knees thanking Nixon for saving as we Jews to the era of Israel. And he did it. Meanwhile, as I said, all these Jews in the media and in Congress were calling him terrible names telling the world on anti-Semiteos. And God bless his soul, he risked everything to save Israel. That's an astonishing, unbelievable act. No other president has ever done anything like that. He did it. If he were such an anti-Semite, I'm not sure that he would have had Henry Kissinger

as a secretary of state. Or Herbert Stein, or Herbert Stein as the chairman of the council of economic advisors, which is your father or you as a speechwriter. This is fascinating. And again, so part of the news of your book, the peacemaker, is to get out the facts on how Nixon seems to have saved Israel from annihilation. He didn't seem, Eric, if I mean, he says he didn't seem, he did it. He did it.

Who else in the history of the world has ever done anything like that for the Jewish people? bear in mind, I'm an American. I'm not in Israeli. America is my first priority. It's my wife's first priority. No doubt about it. Forgive me for we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back with Ben Stein on the other side.

Big bright, shiny, yellow Welcome back. We're talking to Ben Stein. The new book about Richard Nixon. This seems to me to be a significant book for many reasons. It's called the peacemaker of Ben Stein. You just told us about

how Nixon, in a moment of genuine leadership and statesmanship, saved Israel in 1973. Yes. So my question is, why isn't this more well-known? This is a reason we don't know about this. What is that? Well, same reason that we don't know that Mr. Trump created, made it happen, namely the, sorry, the cohorts with a number of,

Arab neighbors of Israel, the so-called Abraham, of course. And these were incredible breakthroughs in terms of working towards a lasting peace in the Middle East. You never hear about it. The media never talks about. The media might as well be describing Trump as the head of the American Nazi Party. The media will not get out the truth about Nixon. They never will. I mean, I'm 78 years old.

I'll be 79 in a few weeks. I doubt if I will, pretty sure I will not live to see the media ever get to a state of honesty about who Richard Nixon was. I don't think they'll ever get to a state of honesty about who Richard Nixon was or who Donald Trump was and his. And it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy that the American people are so misled,

hoodwink lied to about who conservative candidates are and who are conservative people who will do anything to behave, and as you put it, rather well, perfect, perfect adjective, statesman-like fashion. The amazing courage of a Trump or of a Nixon, it goes totally unnoticed in the world today. Well, I mean, look, we've seen this before. You talked about how Nixon was hated. I'm old enough to remember that. I'm old enough to remember how Reagan was despised.

And whenever you have a strong America-first, patriotic, conservative, leader. They are vilified by the left wing press, led by the New York Times, which, by the way, is now dead. As far as I'm concerned, they were always really, really sick, but they are effectively dead. They threw journalism out the window because they had to save the world from Donald Trump, who's Hitler 2.0, so they had to treat the rules. I was a columnist. Sure, I was a columnist for them for two or three years. I've forgotten now many, maybe three years. I'm not sure. And I was writing about economics, and this is really a good one. These are pretty non-controversial things, but I produced, helped to write, and start in a movie called Expelled, No Intelligence, About How the Media Will Not Allow Anyone to Question Darwinism or gradual creation of life on the planet.

and for saying, I believe that God did it. There was, there's always been a God, and God did it. And for that, I was kicked off of the New York Times. You know what, Ben, I cannot believe that in my introduction, I did not mention expelled. Oh, that's okay. It's very kind of you to say that now. And anyway, and they said, not only that, they said, we're doing this because without telling us, you are a highly paid spokesman for, I think,

they said Goldman Sachs, some big investment bank. And you never told us that. You're not supposed to be a spokesman for an investment bank if you're also doing columns about investment banking and finance on Wall Street. And I said that I've never gotten one penny for Goldman Sachs, not a single cent. And I've not know what you're talking about. And they just ignored me.

And I mean, I might as well have been spitting into the wind. That is the New York Times. And that's, if I may say so, Wall Street. The New York Times is a joke. Bad joke. They had Walter Durante covering Stalin, covering for Stalin. He got a Pulitzer Prize. They were the people behind the 1619 project.

Ladies and gentlemen, the headline, The New York Times is dead more with Ben Stein on the other side.