The Eric Metaxas Show - David Barton

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

David Barton of Wallbuilders, a man who knows this country's history inside and out, looks into the current action by thoughtless and ignorant people attacking American history by tearing down statues and threatening to fundamentally transform our nation.

show. It's the show that answers the questions. Could you milk a cockroach? By the way, cockroach milk is really yummy. Some would even say numbing. This announcement has been brought to you by the Cockroach Dairy Council. And now the man who wants wrangled cockroaches for a living in Kansas City. Eric Mataxis. Hey there folks, welcome to the program. I have as my guest today, David Barton, he's with wall builders. David, thrilled to have you. When I think history, when I think American history, I think of you. And I'm so glad. we were able to get you because we are having a tough time in this country. There are a lot of people trying to tear down history, there are mixed motives. It's complicated. There are always two sides

to the issue. But what's your opinion of what's happening right now? Well, this is a great illustration of how little we know about our own history. As you look at, I'm just surprised, even as I see statues coming down, not just those related to Independence Day, but how many of those statues are actually of anti-racist kind of folks. I mean, to tear down the mass 54th statue, oh my gosh. I mean, that's the second black regiment in the Civil War. To tear down the statue in Minnesota of the guy, it's a, it's a monument to those who were lynched, racially lynched. They're tearing that down. They're just tearing anything down with the three. Can we explain that? Now I'm confused because I hadn't heard. This is a grant monument. That's crazy.

I hadn't heard about the, uh, the first two that you mentioned. Where are they? And, uh, Tell us a little bit more about those. The Massachusetts 54. What is that? Sorry? The Mass 54th is a monument in Boston. And the Mass 54th was a black regiment in the Civil War that fought for liberty. It was founded by Frederick Douglass, one of two regiments he founded. And so Frederick Douglass recruited black men to go five for their own freedom of liberty. It was a very significant unit.

It fought in the battle of Fort Wagner. That's where actually the nation learned, hey, blacks and whites are equal. These guys are great soldiers. They're great warriors. Let them fight. And so the Mass 54th became a very significant unit and a monument in Boston to the mass 54th, which is a monument of equality, was attacked and defaced. But we're seeing that going across there.

By the way, they're tearing down the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Boston as well. Now, tell me how Abraham Lincoln is a racist in any way, shape, fashion, or form. Well, look, he's a white guy. He's a white guy. And if somebody's crazy enough to use that as their arbiter, you know, that makes sense. But when you're talking about the mass 54th, my question is, how is it possible that anyone could do that? I mean, it's one thing if somebody is unhinged and they're doing irrational things. But this is a level of irrationality that, you know, you always look for the threat of rationality within the irrationality.

I can understand if somebody, as I say, tears down Grant or Lincoln out of pure ignorance, that these were white leaders and we want to tear them down just because we're being vague and sloppy. But can anyone explain? Did anyone explain why they would tear down the statue of Massachusetts 54th? And two other quick questions. Is this the regiment that was in the movie Glory with Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick? And then the third question. question is, I'm stunned the media hasn't reported on this. I've never heard about this

until just now when you said it. So that's like the biggest news of all that nobody's reporting on this. Yeah, it is. And by the way, this is the regiment that was in the movie Glory. So this is the one that was featured there. This was a breakthrough unit in the Civil War that really kind of brought equality to the military. So you have that. The reason they're doing this, the best I can say is they're completely ignorant of history because they're tearing down so many racial equality advocates. And they just don't know what they are. They just assume if it's a statue, it's a bad deal. And, you know, the same thing I would point to.

I mentioned that monument in Minnesota. It's erected to honor those who died from lynchings. It's a monument against racial injustice, and they deface that and tear down a monument against lynching. I mean, it is crazy. So what you're seeing is a great, this is a. display of American education at work because these people know nothing about history one side or the other. They're responding to sound bites and memes and phrases and this has no thinking behind it. I want to be clear, we're not talking about black people tearing down statues. We're talking

about all kinds of people tearing down statues, most of whom, it seems to me, are white Antifa Marxists, Black Lives Matter advocates who are in fact Marxists who have high hijacked this moment of strife in America. They've hijacked it, and there's a deep cynicism, and it's very evil because it's confusing, on the one hand, what is an important issue, which is the issue of justice, the issue of do we have equal justice under the law for everyone? Do we have corruption in our police systems, which needs to be rooted out, whether it's racially motivated or not, any kind of corruption? So there's some real issues here, but there are people who are sloppily, or I would say actually in this case, evilly, intentionally hijacking something that needs attention to just cause chaos. And the examples that you've just given, I'm just aghast that the media has not reported on these, David.

So how is it this came to your attention? Because this is the craziest thing I have heard of all this crazy stuff. I have a running list of all the statues that are being defaced and torn down all the memorials that are being attacked. It's crazy stuff. I mean, anything that is a memorial right now is under attack. The World War I Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, the Armenian Genocide Memorial, the pioneer fathers of Oregon, the Founders University of Oregon, they tore those statues down. I mean, anything that's a statue right now has got to go.

And so I keep a running list of all the statues that are being torn down, and I keep pictures of them. I follow that away. It is amazing. All of American history is under attack right now. And they're extremists, but what's interesting is the media is not calling them out for it. The media is not highlighting the ridiculous things they're doing. And so they're really kind of justifying this as the anger and rage that stems from racial

injustice, systemic racism, et cetera, but it's way beyond that. It is way beyond any of that discussion. Well, look, I mean, I think it's obvious that anybody who cares about blacks in America would never want to tear down some of the statues you've mentioned. So we have to be very clear. We're talking about people who have hijacked peaceful protests and who have hijacked what were legitimate grievances that can be dealt with in a certain way. They've hijacked that. for their own ends. Now, when we're talking about wiping out history, you know and I know that that is one of the most evil things

anyone can done. And when we look at history to see who has torn down history, we think of the French Revolution. We can think of the Taliban blowing up those Buddhist statues. There's a particular kind of evil that wants to destroy the past so that it can remake the present and the future in its own wicked image. And I know that you know that.

That's why you love history. Yeah, and one of the things that we point out is you teach the good, the bad, the ugly of history. You learn a lot from the bad and the ugly of history. I can point to a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was a Confederate general, and I can tell you that he may be the worst guy in America. I can tell you what he did at Fort Pillow. I can tell you what he did and started in the Ku Klush clan. And as long as you leave that statue there, I can tell you about all the wickedness that came from him. You take that statue down, it's not the same as being able to talk about it anymore.

So I'm struck with the fact that when you look at Israel, not only do you have all these statues to King David, you've got monuments to Absalom. Absalom, are you kidding me? He's one of the worst insurrection guys. Yeah, but that helps them remember the good guys, the good stuff. You look in Germany. Germany right now, despite what they did with Nazis, is one of the most anti-Nazi nations in Europe.

and they still maintain museums on Nazism to teach the people what it looks like and what to avoid and what not to let come back. And so the notion of destroying all history, you lose lessons that go with it. And that's what really concerns me is I can learn as much from the bad and the ugly as I can from the good. That's true. Although I think we all would agree that lines can be drawn. We don't have a statue to Adolf Hitler. people would draw the line there. But there are statues to Lenin.

It's complicated. We're going to go to a break. We're going to be right back, folks. Don't go away. I'm talking to David Barton. It's the Air Comtaxas show. Love is a burning thing. And it makes a fiery ring.

Bound by wild desire. I fell into a ring of fire. Here, folks, I'm talking to David Barton, wall builders, you can go to wallbuilders.com and find out all kinds of things about American history. Two things I want to cover with you, David. First of all, I want to talk about the role of faith in American history. One thing I have learned in part because of you is the inextricable bond between liberty and faith, mostly Christian faith, biblical faith in America, how we cannot have the freedoms that we have, how we cannot care about racism unless we understand

we got all those good ideas from the Bible. That's incontrovertible biblically. I want to touch on that. And then I also want to touch on the history of the end of the civil war and the graciousness that Lincoln and Grant showed to their defeated enemies in the Confederacy. So let's start with the first one and lay the base so folks understand what we mean. Yeah, when you go back to the founding of America, actually you have two models. There was really a very interesting wall map that was produced in 1888 showing the two strands of thought in America, one bad, one good. And it shows that out of Jamestown came slavery and intolerance and classism and racism. And out of Plymouth came liberty and freedom and constitutional government, bills of rights, etc. And what you have is both of those groups

were Christian, but Jamestown was not biblical. They professed Christianity. That's much of what we see in America today. Seventy-two percent of the nation professes Christianity. Only six percent have a biblical worldview. In other words, they look at the world through what the Bible says, which is why in many categories you cannot tell the difference between Christians and non-Christians and behavior. That was Jamestown. They came with a Christian profession, They had ministers. They set all the right things. They didn't know the Bible.

So slavery gets started there, we're told, in 1619. That's a 1619 project. But when you look at the pilgrims in 1620, it's interesting the second load of slaves arrived to the pilgrims, and they quoted Exodus about man stealing, and they freed all the slaves and imprisoned the slave owners. And so it's a whole different view. Hold on, David Barton. Every time I talk to you, I learned something mind-blowing.

And I've got to hit pause, and I've got to say, please, my friend, say that again. I have never heard what you just said. I've never heard that before. Please say that again and tell us where we can find that. Yeah, the second load of slaves that came to America arrived up in the Massachusetts area. In the Massachusetts area, the Pilgrims and Puritans, they said, man stealing. That's real clear in the Bible. The Bible forbids man stealing.

and so they freed the slaves and imprisoned the slave owners off that ship. The punishment was what they saw biblically. These are biblical-thinking people, and that's a whole different view of what you get from Jamestown. Was that the Speedwell? What was that ship? No, the Speedwell was one of the ships that was destined to come over, never made it. It was a ship that arrived in 1643. So slavery didn't get an early start in America.

It came 1643, 1619 to Jamestown, and then 1640. 43 to Plymouth. And it's interesting that historical records make clear there was not a time in Massachusetts history when blacks could not vote. As a matter of fact, you find blacks being elected to office back in 1768 in New Hampshire, 1793 in Pennsylvania. Blacks were elected to office in the biblical portions of the country. In the other portion of the country, you've got this racism and this distinction. You're black. We're white. You're inferior. We're superior. We're superior. That's the model. The problem we have today is we all know about the 1619 stuff.

We don't know about the other stuff that happened, which is, and this, by the way, is the base of the Civil War. You have a mentality in the North that says equality, all men are created equal. Did you know, in 1793, John Hancock had an equality ball in Massachusetts that honored blacks across Massachusetts, an equality ball by the founding fathers in 1793 honoring blacks. Absolutely. That's the parts of history we're not going to hear today, which is why it's amazing to see all the statues of founding fathers being torn down when so many of them were anti-slavery equality guys. It's a stunning thing, and it's just good to have you on to clarify some of this for us. No one is talking about a number of the things that you have mentioned, no one anywhere on any station. And so this is hugely important. For folks listening who want to find out more, I'm assuming wall builders is the place or is there a specific place on the website? No, wall builders is the place.

We have all of this on the website. We actually, in about two weeks, we'll have a book out called the American story that looks at America from the lens of what's being taught today. And so it looks at the racism theme. It looks at the inequality theme. It looks at those themes. And while some of that did happen, it's the rest of the story that is so significant that Americans don't get today.

So that book will be out in two weeks called The American Story. I want to get you back on this program, David, if possible, when that book comes out, because there is nothing more important generally and certainly today than understanding our history. You know that I came to this game a little bit late. I never thought I'd write biographies. I discovered some of the same things that you're talking about in the course of writing my books. When I wrote about Wilberforce, I thought to myself, this is amazing. In the 18th century, in England, everybody says they're a Christian.

All that meant was, I'm not a Jew, I'm not a Mohammedan, I'm not a free-thinking atheist, so I guess I'm a Christian. And they had a completely anti-Christian worldview with regard to slavery and so on and so forth. And it took the evangelicals, it took the Methodists, the enthusiasts as they were scorned in those days, to say, no. If you want to follow what the Bible says, and the Quakers, of course, as well, they said, you've got to abolish the slave trade. You've got to abolish slavery. It's interesting we're talking about this because there is so much bad history mixed in with our own history.

My alma mater Yale University is named for a man who wasn't just a slave owner. He profited from the slave trade, Elihu Yale. And I think if you're going to cancel anything, you need to cancel that. I think Yale University would do well if they want to lead the charge. charge in this direction, and they certainly have been leading the charge and educating generations of people against most of what you and I now believe, that they ought to deal with their past, which actually couldn't be more racist in a foundational sense. Yeah, and that, you know, that's one of the significant things in America is we look at past

generations through today's filter and today's lens, and you really can't do that. It's interesting to me that back in Genesis 9, when you see about Noah, and God chose Noah. And the Bible in Genesis 9, 6 says that Noah was a righteous man. And then it says, in his generation. We know that Noah had trouble with drunkenness and other things as well. But when you compare him to where he was in his day, he was so far ahead of everyone else. And so what's happening is we're comparing our standards of today and trying to impose them back. And let me explain why that matters, because you wrote the book on Wilberforce. We have 5,500 years of recorded history at the time of Wilberforce.

England is the first nation in the history of the world to abolish slavery, and we're talking 1833. People think abolition and equality has been the state of the world all the way through. We're talking recent America, 1865, when we passed the 13th Amendment, 1865, we were the fourth nation in the world to abolish slavery. So abolition is a relatively new thing in the world. And by the way, there are 94 nations in the world today where slavery is still legal. So half the world still has legal slavery. And we're all concerned about America and how that we had racism in 1865.

It took us that long to abolish slavery. No, no. We're one of the leading nations in the world and shooting for equality. We were not late to the party. We were early to the party. Number four in the world. And by the way, we were number one in the world in passing a law to abolish a slave trade. That's 1807.

So all the notion that America is institutionally racist, you've got to see what the atmosphere was like in that day. We were leading the world in the right direction in that day. Now, we can look back from where we are today and say we weren't perfect. No, we weren't. But we're not the racist nation everyone is trying to make us out to be when you know history. You see that very clear. We have instance of racism, no question. but the way's portrayed today, not the same.

And it needs to be said also, David, that, you know, if somebody says, hey, what's wrong with racism? You and I have an answer. We know what's wrong with it and why it's wrong. We point to the Bible. We point to the God of the Bible who says, I'm no respecter of persons. I love everyone the same. That is not the view of people that we would call blind Darwinists or secular humanists. they may say they're against racism, but they can't explain why. We can explain why. And it should

be no surprise to folks that if you look at history, it has been the outspoken Christians, the Bible thumping Christians who have always led the way to abolishing slavery and to lifting up those who've been enslaved. We're going to be right back, folks. I'm talking to David Barton of Wall Builders. Stick around. The Trump campaign has a special offer just for you. President Trump wants to meet you. This will be the first opportunity he's had to meet with American Patriots like you since our country started reopening. His team will cover the flight and hotel and give you VIP access for yourself and a guest. He'll even take a picture with you. All you have to do is text VIP to 88022 today for your chance to meet President Trump. Again, that's VIP to 88022 for your chance to win

and join President Trump in the fight to keep America great for four more years. Hi folks, trying times. Just know they won't last. Trying times can be hard on our digestive track. So why not try life change tea at get the tea.com? Life change tea is an herbal blend of tea that helps the digestive track and the colon cleanse from intruders. For years, people have experienced the benefits from life change tea. And so can you. Log on to getthetot com.

That's get the tea.com. And for those of you that want to go a step further, we have non-chemo or gregn't. organic supplements. If you're listening to Eric, you're informed and educated. So how about free shipping? Just go to the checkout, find the coupon code, enter Eric, E-R-I-C, hit apply, and receive free shipping. Again, Eric, in the coupon code, hit apply, free shipping. These historic times will pass. The yuck in your gut will pass also with get-thot-com. That's get-the-ttee.com. Welcome back to Eric from Taxis Show. to David Barton of wall builders. David, you had something you wanted to say before I asked my final question. Yeah, you were talking about how that it was Christianity that raised the value of life.

Interestingly, a national poll came out this week, and it was quite shocking for those who conducted it. They, based on Black Lives Matter, the question is, does life have intrinsic value? Do all lives matter? only one in three Americans, only 37% said that life has intrinsic value. Those that were of an evolutionary viewpoint said, no, you'll attain value at some point in life, but life doesn't have intrinsic value. There were all sorts of answers. It's interesting, for those who had a biblical worldview, 93% of that group said life has an intrinsic value. All life has worth.

Two out of three Americans did not believe that life has worth. So again, that goes to the point you made. If you have a biblical worldview, you have a different view of life and equality. If you have a secular worldview, you don't have that view of life and equality. Well, of course that's right. And in my Bonhofer book, I discovered that the Nazis had exactly that worldview, which you described two out of three Americans as having that says life is not intrinsically valuable. Some life is more valuable than other life, and some life has no value.

That's the kind of declaration you can make only if you don't believe in the Bible. And so there are many Americans who would say, well, I'm a Christian, but it's a meaningless statement because they're supporting a worldview that is absolutely contrary to what the Bible says, which is that every human being in the womb, in a common. in a coma at the end of life, everyone is made in the image of God and therefore has inestimable infinite value is sacred because we're creating the image of God. That's a dramatic thing to think that many people think they're Christians, but they don't think that.

And I just want to say in case, you know, you don't have time, just remember that was the Nazi worldview. When they killed people, that was precise. the worldview they had and they were willing to act on it and to kill anyone that they thought was not as valuable as they are. We're not ready to go there because we are still in our guts in this country, a Christian nation, even though we're not so officially. We have freedom of religion. I want to ask you, it seems to me that Lincoln was particularly Christian in the way that he dealt with his defeated enemy in the Confederacy. When he gives his second inaugural, he talks about with malice toward none.

There was a grace and a grandeur in the grace and graciousness in the way that he dealt with his defeated enemy in the Confederacy. And I submit to you that that is a part of the reason that he and Grant allowed many of these Confederate monuments to stand because they said, we don't want to shove this in their face. We don't want a scorched earth policy. This is not Sherman's March to the Sea. we're going to treat these people with some dignity, which really has always been the American way, certainly the Christian way. And that's why a lot of these monuments are up. Yeah, there's no question that Christian faith shaped the way that Abraham Lincoln approached the enemy and trying to reconcile them at the end. Because he tried to keep them reconciled. We had the split.

He tried to bring them back. He did all sorts of things that, probably we think he shouldn't have gone that far, but he was trying to reconcile. And so that passage out of First Corinthians about a ministry of reconciliation, he took very seriously. And by the way, we have a great letter written by the pastor of Abraham Lincoln, talking about how Abraham Lincoln came to faith very late in life, and how the pastor mentored him, and how that shaped what he did. So as he's coming into the presidency, he's still a fairly young, zealous Christian,

who has really studied the Bible very thoroughly. And I think that really did affect what happened with him. We have testimony from even clergy that it was first in 1863 when Lincoln professed openly that profession of faith in Christ. He had come to faith earlier, but he first professed it in 1863. And then you see that 1864 second inaugural address. Oh, my gosh, it's better than many sermons we'll ever hear in our lifetime. It's more biblical.

So I think you're exactly right, Eric. It was his biblical view that brought him to act the way he did and try to have some grace and accommodation for an enemy that had been defeated. I guess I wonder if that can serve as a precedent for removing some of our Confederate past. In other words, the idea of thinking about the weaker brother, the weaker brethren, the graciousness that the North exhibited in dealing with the defeated South that allowed these Confederate statues to stand. I suppose we can think about it both ways and that some people could say, look, what they did was treasonous and we ought not to hold them up. So there's a lot

to be said on that, but I do think people need to understand the motivation of why the North did not destroy the South and shove it in their face because they said, we need to come together. It's time to come together. And that's an important part of our history. And people don't know that about Lincoln. I mean, what he did, when I think about Lincoln, I just think, my goodness, what other president could have been so magnanimous and could have behaved and if he hadn't been a Christian, how would he behave? We've just got 30 seconds left, David. Any final thoughts? Yeah, the final thought is that a biblical view is what solves most of these problems, the secular view is not. And so the accommodation of understanding the weaker

brother and what offends them from a Christian standpoint, I'm going to hear you. help that, but at the same time, I still want truth. And balancing those two as the real difficulty America has today. Brilliantly put, my friend, thank you for your time. We'll have you back as soon as possible. Look forward to it, Eric. Thanks for all you do. I hope you've enjoyed the show thus far. We're going to do some jokes. There are jokes that some of us wrote. And Chris Himes is driving a car, so I don't know if he can participate. We don't want him to crash. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. I just got a one-star rating for my last passenger. That's really bad. That is so bad. Listen, I don't think you're going to succeed as an Uber driver.

You're going to have to simply make more money as a producer. And what that means is that people are going to have to go to MyPillow.com and spend a lot of money put in the code, Eric. That's the only way we can make money at this point to pass on to the producers. I don't know what else to do. All right, so Alvin, before I do my jokes, you have a letter you want to read? And by the way, I'm not driving an Uber. I'm selling Girl Scout cookies and apples. So if you want to buy an apple. Sure.

Kind of sad. Okay, this letter, I am not kidding. This letter came in about a half an hour ago. This is so funny. It's a great way to introduce this segment of jokes, right? This guy named Peter, okay, I'm just going to use his first name, Peter from Oakland Gardens, New York. He wrote, he said, hi, Eric, please do me a favor. please stop acting so cute and amusing.

I can't take it anymore. Joking around every once in a while is fine, but too much is too much. Please, thank you. All right, Peter has really took me off, and so I'm going to now deliver, I'm going to deliver nothing but jokes now, Peter, all right? Just don't be cute.

But I won't be cute. That's, okay, that's my concession. I won't be cute. Well, actually, sometimes when I'm on Twitter or Parley, I've been on Parley. You know, it's a new thing. It's like Twitter, but it's just starting out. And there's another one called Gab.

So you can go to Parley.com or gab.com. And it's just like Twitter, but it's not as nasty, evidently. But anyway, a lot of times when I'm reading the news in the morning, just to process it, Like my brain just, you know, thinks of jokes rather than just get angry at what I'm reading. And so I sometimes I post them on Twitter and on Parley and on Gab and probably on Facebook, too. But I probably shouldn't say these are jokes. That kind of spoils it. So let me pretend that I'm being totally serious.

And Albin, have you heard about the situation with Mount Rushmore? I heard a little bit about that. Yeah, it's made out of white rock or something. So that's a problem. It's a wind formation. That's the amazing, amazing thing is that people think that it was sculpted by human hands. But, you know, really, it's just a wind formation that it just happened, basically. No, that's not true. Actually, it was carved, I believe it was carved by the Native Americans like a thousand years ago. And so the Antifa cult and all the anti-American protesters are demanding that, you know, Well, actually, what they're saying is that if they gain power by getting their puppet, I mean, candidate Biden elected, they vow to return Mount Rushmore to the Native Americans who carved it. And I just thought that's really, that's sweet, that's sweet, because they have told us that Mount Rushmore is a white supremacist statue or carving.

and they want to return it to the Native Americans who carved it. And also, I was going to say, did you hear that Joe Biden said that we've lost 120 million Americans to COVID? Did you guys hear that? Yeah, I heard that. I was one of the 120 million. I was going to say, if you do the math, all of us are. So we're dead. But then actually, he corrected himself.

He said he did not mean the 100. and 20 literally. He said it was just a figment of his, a figment of speech. And he wanted to clarify, he said, it's just a figment of speech, man. And I just wanted to be clear that Joe Biden, he corrected himself.

The 120 million, 120, he did not mean it literally. He was just a figment of speech. So thank goodness. Otherwise, we'd be dead. So, yeah, one of his sayings, and this is a true saying, He said, I don't care about facts. I care about the truth.

That's what he said. So, in other words, his truth may not include facts. Right. Right. It's like a deeper truth. Yeah. Well, okay. In case anybody's just tuning in, this is a fun July 4th week celebration.

And we're just having some. By the way, this is something I read in the newspaper, the B.S. Bentley News. Here's something from the poorest town in America, how they celebrate. There's a little town called Got Nothing, New York. It's in upstate New York. Yeah, it's so poor, they can't even afford a fireworks display on the 4th of July. Instead, every Independence Day, the townsfolk, they gather in a little park to watch Mayor Bill Hankeren blow fireflies out of a pea shooter. You know what?

That's just kind of the charming kind of Americana stuff that people tune into this program to hear. And I want to thank you, Alvin, for being a part of that until now because you're fired. Okay. Please, please buy an apple. Yes. Hey, Alvin, I did hear about that. And I heard that sadly a couple of years back when they had another mayor who did the same tradition, there was an accident, much like they had with fireworks. He accidentally inhaled in the peace shooter.

Wow. And the firefly. And the firefly, I actually read about this. The Firefly ignited an M80 in his in his stomach. And that was that. He's gone. He's gone. And that's why he's the new mayor.

He's one of the 120 million that have died from COVID. This is so fascinating. It's really inexplicable that the whole country isn't riveted to this show. I don't get it at all. Let me just share one more thing from the news before we go to our break, which people can't wait for. This is horrifying, but true.

But you know the Chaz Chopp place, they've had like two murders there now, and I think three or four shooting. Okay. I just want to be real clear. The idea of an autonomous zone, you understand

there's no such thing. Like it's made up. It's like when the kids take the couch cushions and they say we're going to build a force, it's not a real fort. Like you just say, yeah, have some fun. Do what you need to do. And they build a fort.

And the autonomous zone, it's the same kind of thing. It's not an actual autonomous zone. You can't have those in the United States. Mom and dad need to shut it down. Need to shut it down. So that's all I have to say. When we come back, we've got more important information. Folks, do not go away.

All my pictures seem to face. to black and white. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. Alvin, we got a number of things to mention, but first, you had something. Yeah, well, Carl Reiner passed away today, and I got to tell you,

I admire that guy so much. He was 98 years old. He was the producer, the writer, creator, of the Dick Van Dyke show. And when I was growing up, that was my favorite show. I wanted to be Rob Petrie.

In a way, I did. I'm a producer. I'm a writer for your show. You're my Alan Brady. My wife is my Laura Petrie. It's great. And I live in Terrytown, which is right across from New Grouchel, by the way. I know.

Now, he, I'm trying to think in the show, he played Alan Brady. Yeah, he did. But he was in the pilot. It was called Head of the Family. And it aired like 60 years ago in July 19th of 1960 was the pilot. And then a year later, they did it as the day. What happened? How did that happen?

I know. Where has the time going? Now, just so people are clear. Paul Ryan Reiner is a comedy legend. So he passed away at the age of 98. His son, Rob Reiner, became Mike Stivick on All in the Family, the famous Meathead, and he went on to direct all kinds of films. His wife was, he put her in, well, we won't go into that.

Okay, so he was a comedy legend. But I think one of the greatest things that he ever did, Carl Reiner, he did with Mel Brooks. was called the 2000-year-old man. Yes. And that is one of the, that is one of the craziest things where Carl Reiner interviews Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks pretends to be the 2000-year-old man. Yeah. But comedy legend, Carl Reiner, 98 years old.

Now, Dick Van Dyke himself is still alive at 94, but the rest of the cast, except for Larry Matthews, who played his son, who's 64 now, but the rest are gone. And Rose Marie was alive until just a few years ago. Yeah, she was like 96 or something when she passed away. I'm not kidding. And Mori, Amsterdam actually died before he even appeared on that show. That's right. Okay, so a couple of other things to mention.

Tomorrow, we're going to have Newt Gingrich on the program. Ladies, you know, you're ready for Newt. He's a little grumpy, but I'll tell you, he's a genius, and he's going to be on this program tomorrow. Actually, I was told he won't be grumpy tomorrow. He's going to be on this program. We're also going to have Bridget Gabriel. He is an expert on the Islamic world.

Also tomorrow, we're going to re-air the dramatic reading of Yankee Doodle Mugsy. So if the kids missed it, if you want to grab the kids, pull them around the radio after the shadow. I believe our program. No, we come on after Jack Benny. Anyway, we're going to air that again tomorrow. That's the 11-minute dramatic reading of Yankee Doodle Mugsy celebrating the 4th of July. And then on Thursday, we're going to hear from our friend John Rankin. And I'm going to say it again.

John Rankin came up. He's running for Congress in Connecticut. And he came up with a slogan. We're going to talk about that on the program. And after we taped the program, he decided to change the slogan. So you're going to hear how I helped change his mind on the program. By the way, we were trying to figure out about the coffee, good to the last drop. Yeah.

We got a friend of the show, Michelle Jean. She wrote in. She's 72 years old. She says, that's Maxwell House. Of course, Maxwell. How can we forget? Maxwell House, get to the last drop. Not to be confused with honorbound coffee.

No. Honorbound coffee.com. Honorbound coffee, they give 100% of their profits to helping military families, honorbound coffee. And did I mention it tastes great? It's excellent. Taste great, less filling. Honorbound coffee.com.

Check them out. Please, that concludes today's program. But there's another one coming up right behind it. There's always another one. Albin, thanks for all you do to make this possible and impossible at the same time. Thank you, Alan Brady. Thank you.