The Eric Metaxas Show - Michael Medved

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

America: Unique Guilt or Unique Greatness?

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs 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 him. But he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest.

Eric the Texas! Socrates in the city in Seattle. How this happened, all right? The question is, what am I doing in Seattle besides this? Well, here's the bottom line. I was invited to speak in Alaska. I've never been to Alaska before. And, you know, for a New Yorker, Alaska is very exotic.

And so when I was invited to speak in Alaska, my daughter, who pretended not to be my daughter just a moment ago, she and I thought we're going to go to Alaska. And I got to tell you, I said, are there any direct flights from, you know, New York to Alaska? And there aren't. And so I said, well, can you get me a flight through, you know, like West Palm Beach? And, you know, these travel agents, let's be honest, they don't want to work, okay? I don't think she tried.

I don't think she tried. She made it sound like the only way you could get to Alaska is through Seattle. And, you know, I was tired of arguing because people just don't want to work these days, okay? So I found out that in order to get to Alaska to speak there this Sunday, I would be passing through Seattle today. And I got this crazy idea. I said, hey, maybe that would be a good time to have a Socrates event. Turns out I was very wrong. I thought, wait, who can we get?

This is extraordinary. And I have to tell you, for quite some time now, I've wanted Michael. Medved to be my guest at Socrates in the city. The problem is we would have to do the event on a Friday night. Turns out Medved is a Jew. Not just a Jew, but an observant Jew observes this thing they call the Sabbath. I don't know what that means. So the fact that he agreed to do this is he's even more gracious than he normally is in agreeing to do this. So he normally is in agreeing to do this tonight. He's going to be whisked away from here by Rickshaw, I believe, is the, that's the biblical, okay, in scripture they use Rickshaws. You can look up the original word.

It's Rickshaws. Anyway, why are we in this club, in this hotel? About 12 years ago, I was invited to speak to Seattle. I only put me up at this hotel, and I was so enamored of it. I was stunned by it. I wanted up to this room, and I said, wouldn't it be amazing? Tavis Socrates in the city event in Seattle in this room. And here we are. We don't have time because the sun is setting and the Sabbath is arriving. We don't have time for me to go into the glorious history of this club. But since we are on the subject of Jewishness, I have to tell you, I can't believe this is true.

It's something I would make up. Sophie Tucker. Most of you don't know who that is, but Michael, I think, might know. Sophie Tucker was called the sweetheart of the Arctic Club. She doubtless performed right here with her risque red fox type humor. And it's unbelievable to me. Literally every bathroom in the rooms here has a picture of Sophie Tucker. So I just thought, this is, I feel like this is meant to be.

I'm schvitzing. You know what I'm saying? All right. What is Socrates in the city? At Socrates in the city, we've been doing this for years. Most of you know. we ask the big questions. The big questions. What are the big questions?

Those are the questions that you don't talk about at a cocktail party. Certainly not in Manhattan. I don't know about maybe Seattle. You're a little more thoughtful. But the big questions. Questions like, does life have meaning? If it does, what would it be? What is the meaning of life? And can I make money off of it? Questions like that? No, we do ask the big questions.

Tonight we're sort of asking the question with Michael, as my guest. Does history have meaning? If there is a God, does God operate in history? Does God, what does it mean to be chosen by God? So we ask the big questions. What is time? Are you my mommy? You know, are you, mama?

We ask, we have fun. asking the big questions. And I think we're trying to create a culture where we ask. So if you go to our website, we ask the big questions as much as possible. Now, I just have to tell you the particular

reason that I'm excited to talk to Michael Medved tonight, a few years ago I read a book called The American Miracle. I was not less than astonished by this book. Not just because of what it says,

principally because of what it says. It's called the American Miracle Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic. It's a masterful compendium of things in our history, American history, that cannot help if you are rational, but be viewed as the result of divine providence. And if you have another theory, I'd love to hear it. But it really is an extraordinary book. and I think it's important to talk about it. And I happen to know the author, Michael Medved.

And he happened to be free tonight for a little while. He's done a million things, and I don't know where to start. He has a three-hour radio program daily. He's the author of many other books, a number of which are truly extraordinary. He was for over a decade on TV, co-hosting Sneak previews. So, he, you know, he's the triple threat, right? TV, radio, books. He's widely considered the Jewish Sammy Davis Jr. Except once Sammy Davis converted, you know, Sammy Davis Jr. is now considered the Jewish Sammy Davis Jr.

So, so that title has been ripped away from Michael Medved. I have to say, it's a great privilege to introduce my friend, Michael Medved. Thank you for coming. I can't believe you got both Sophie Tucker and Sammy Davis Jr. in the introduction. I never mentioned Elizabeth Taylor, you'll notice, or Don Rickles. But that's for the next

Socrates event. Michael, Michael, Michael, listen, I try not to gush too easily, but when I read the book, I didn't say it in my introduction, but the substance of the book is astonishing, and we're going to cover that. But the writing of the

book, I'm a writer, and most of the books that I read that have important information in them, part of me feels like, I wish I could rewrite it a little bit. Your book is gloriously written. Thank you. The sequel to it is gloriously written. So I just wanted to say that up front. Actually, before I go, folks, I want to remind you about our friends at the Herzog Foundation. Are you rethinking your child's educational path?

You probably should be. If you're not doing homeschooling, everybody knows doing homeschooling, it's amazing. And people say, I'm not qualified. If you're smart enough to think you're not qualified, you're qualified. Believe me, you have no idea. If you want to know more about how to do this kind of thing, let me direct you to the Herzog Foundation, Hertzog Foundation.com. Herzogfoundation.com.

The Trump administration, of course, is working to abolish the federal. Department of Education. Hooray. That's great. We need to send education back to the states. But the more local, the better. Homchooling is fantastic. Genuine Christ-centered K-12 education is fantastic. If you want to know more, again, herdsogfoundation.com. They are our friends. We trust them. And they're there to help you. So check it out, Herzog Foundation.com. They also have a newsletter, readlion.com. R-E-A-D. L-I-O-N, readlion.com, all kinds of must-read articles. You know, this is important.

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Mypillow.com. Use the code, Eric. Before we get into the details of what are these miracles in American history, I guess the question that I have had as I've been reading, rereading the books, is how did you come to know these magnificent stories? because I was astonished not to have known most of them myself, to discover them in your book. How is it that you found yourself discovering these almost unbelievable but true stories?

It started with my dad, because my dad's story was unbelievable. My dad's story, to put it briefly, my grandparents, were from Ukraine. And my grandfather came over to earn enough money to bring his wife and his six children over from Ukraine. And unfortunately, by the time he had earned enough

and sent money back so that they had steamship, steerage to come here from Bremen, World War I had just begun. So my grandmother and her, her father and six children were riding in the train, and then they came to the border with Austria-Hungary, which was a combatant, of course, it's World War I.

And in September, right after the guns of August, no passage. They had to go back. My grandparents were separated for 10 years. And my grandmother lost five of her six children. because of the violence and the revolution and the civil war and the horrors. I mean, one of the fine books about that part of the world is called Bloodlands. This was a place where the horrors of communism were first visited. In any event, she came over to the United States.

She reunited with my grandfather after 10 years of separation. and then immediately she got sick and badly sick, and she became very concerned about her own survival. She wasn't unable to keep any food down. She was 50 years old, and she had seen so much death with her five daughters, my aunts, as it turns out, but they she went to the doctor and she told the doctor of her symptoms he examined her he said sit down

I have to talk to you and she started crying why are you crying she said it's a tumor right so no it's not a tumor it's a baby she said not possible I'm 50 years old my husband is 50 years old he said your name is Sarah

isn't it My dad was so aware of this story because his older brother, the only survivor from the Ukraine, my uncle Moisch, was 21 years older than my father. My dad always viewed his life the fact that he was born in the United States of America in Philadelphia as a miracle. My dad was born in the sesquicentennial year, 1926. My grandfather, who had been born in Ukraine, was born in 1876. the centennial year. My dad was the most natural, spontaneous patriot because he understood that everything he had, everything that he had achieved

was a gift from God because he could have been together with his sisters who he never knew, who died on the other side. And my dad was born in Philadelphia. I was born in Philadelphia. Now you're making this stuff up. No, but I remember being three years old and my dad taking me to see the Liberty Bell

and Independence Hall and we went to Valley Forge. And when I was six years old, the first time they allowed me to go trick or treating, I dressed up as George Washington. I mean, this has been a lifelong obsession and honest to God, I think, for anyone to be seriously read American history, and I major in American history at Yale, and to not recognize that America is no accident,

that you talked about a purposeful universe. America is a purposeful country, and not as a reward for our goodness, but because we have been chosen as an instrument. It's what Abraham Lincoln says, I write in the book about Lincoln speaking to the state legislature in Trenton, New Jersey, not too far from Philadelphia, that Lincoln described America as the almost chosen people. And not chosen for special privilege, but chosen for special responsibility.

That was one of my questions. You know, what does it mean to be chosen? when we talk about Israel being chosen, it doesn't mean you win a prize. It means you've been given a burden, a tremendous responsibility. And it seems inescapable when one reads your book that America has been chosen,

like it or not. I've written about this myself in a couple of books, but it comes with tremendous responsibility. But I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, where I mention a few of these miraculous things, which make it seem unavoidable that America is chosen by God for his purposes in history. But when I read your book, I just couldn't believe. how many other stories, extraordinary stories, you had discovered.

What was that process of discovery? Because I really do mean that it is almost unbelievable how many of them there are in this book and then crazily in the sequel, which goes on. And I did, how did you find these stories? Well, there's stories, there's stories I grew up with. and I mean, again, I've been obsessive, compulsive about this stuff my whole life.

I mean, I, the one board game was a board game with the presidents of the United States. And basically, and I used to do tricks of memory when I was a kid, and I don't have all the stuff anymore. It doesn't stay, but memorizing the secretaries of the treasury and the vice presidents. Well, who doesn't know them?

Right. We can go down the room. We all know. There have been some pretty great... All the way back to Sam and Pete Chase. Right. Well, it's Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin. Yeah.

In any event. So, again, this is... You're basically saying you're a freak? Yes. That's like the explanation. You're a freak. You know all this stuff. No, and it's also because if you are sensitized to it,

I'm one of those people, and I know you've had these conversations with many of your other guests. My father was always, and my mother, were always conscious of God in terms of two countries, America and Israel. And it was something that they felt deeply, but they weren't conventionally religious people until much later. and when I began to become more personally religious in my early 20s, it just, I began to start looking for exactly what you're talking about. Those proofs that something is very weird here.

I'll tell you one of the proofs, one of the stories in this book is about how it is that America, well, got, for better or worse, the state of California. And a great deal more. And it's mind-boggling.

No, look, it is mind-boggling. It's why I've got to tell you, you've got to read the book, because you won't believe it until you read it. And that story, I mean, tell it if you can. No, no. It's just... It is unbelievable. Briefly, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was the Treaty of

treaty by which Mexico and the United States ended the Mexican war. And America agreed not to do what a lot of people in Washington wanted, which is to take over all of Mexico, but to just get a big chunk of Mexico. And it was signed on February 2nd, 1848. And they had no idea when they signed the treaty, because the treaty was signed in disobedience to President Polk. there was a guy named Nicholas Trist, who had been private secretary briefly to Thomas Jefferson, who had been sent down to Mexico because he knew Spanish, and he was a clerk in the State Department at the time. And he insistently negotiated this treaty and was very focused on California, making America a continental country from one ocean to the other ocean.

And they signed the treaty. They did not know at the time the treaty was signed, that three days before they had discovered gold in California. Your touch has thrilled me like the rush of the wind. And your heart had held me safe from a rolling sea. There's always been a quiet place to hobby. If you talk to economists, and we probably have some here, part of what made America an economic power was the gold from California.

because it was the largest collection stash of gold that anyone had ever found anywhere. And you know, in California, within the first year after the discovery of gold, 300,000 people had moved there and from all over the world. And again, I hate to be glorifying California in any way, but it is part of the United States of America. It was. It was. It was. No, but I have to say that that story, that's one of the stories.

When I read it, I sort of couldn't believe it. I said, this is outrageous. This seems inescapably planned by God. God, you know, a zillion years ago, puts gold ore under

what today we call California. And works it out so that when the United States of America kind of needs a boost we get California, we discover gold, and it changes I mean the story of how gold, the discovery of gold

changed America's fortunes and strengthened us. I never knew that story. No, and again, there's so much of this. I mean, one of the things that I'm obsessed with is the, I'm sure we have other people here, use the term freak before, who are civil war freaks. Right? And the Battle of Antietam. The Battle of Antietam, which allowed Lincoln to sign the

Emancipation Proclamation, he had been waiting for a union victory, or something that looked like a union victory. The Battle of Antietam was won, and again, this is not even in doubt. This is not argued. It was won because a corporal who was marching to, to try to head off Robert Lee's invasion of Maryland, had fallen asleep, then he woke up because they had to march again. They were looking around, they were trying to get some coffee. He was looking for some pieces of wood so they could eat the coffee,

and he found a bunch of papers wrapping four cigars. Scars looked pretty good. Those cigars had Lee's entire battle plan on it. It was General Order No. 181. And it was because of the discovery of the four cigars and the fact that a general who had served alongside Lee's chief of staff in the peacetime army before the war, that general recognized the handwriting and was able to confirm that this was authentic. That allowed them to win the battle of a... Antietam. And again, that was in September 17, 1862, January 1st, 1863, the slaves are

emancipated with the Emancipation Proclamation, at least the slaves who were living under the Confederacy. But change the world! You can't, and now I just have to say, and I knew this would happen, but you really can't do these stories justice in a form like this, because it's the details. It is, you know, we kind of think, oh, that's a coincidence. When you provide the details, as you do beautifully,

it is nothing less than impossible to believe except you know it's true. But, I mean, these are moments in history. You know, when we think, what if he hadn't been looking for firewood? What if he hadn't?

Or if he just smoked the cigars and use the general orders to light them. That's a normal thing to do. Yeah. The discovery of those plans, I remember when I had interviewed you about the book on my radio show a few years ago, that's the one that took my breath away, or one of them that took my breath away. But it goes, Michael, it goes on and on and on. And Lincoln recognized it. Lincoln recognized it because he had a deep sense of providential purpose.

and understood that he had a purpose. Because the whole story of Abraham Lincoln, we've had presidents who have not been wealthy, but people who have been absolutely destitute, he didn't own a pair of shoes until he was 11. Again, you're talking about dirt floors in those log cabins. I know the reconstructions are cheerful, but Lincoln's life is a miracle.

How did this happen? he's certainly one of the greatest writers of prose in the English language and phenomenal and and again and then of course the end of Lincoln's life where on Palm Sunday 1865 Lee surrenders to granted Appomatics and on Good Friday after Holy Week Lincoln is killed and dies on good for and every one of the times time recognized the religious symbolism and understood that there was a message here and that there was a purpose for which all of the dying and the suffering had taken place, which is the theme of Lincoln's second inaugural address which he had just delivered six weeks before.

It's, now you have to trust me on this, folks. There's an entire book full of these kind of stories. It's not just a couple, because sometimes people will have two or three interesting stories and they can stretch it into a book. I've done that. But you have become aware of so many of these and I really part of me in reading this book and the sequel, which is equally fascinating, I'm shocked to say. It's kind of like, what are the odds Godfather 2 would be as good or better? It doesn't make any sense. There are this many stories and I think Michael, what, what, makes me, it thrills me, and then it makes me angry at the same time. It's like, why don't we all

know these stories? These stories are true, and how does it fall to you at this late date in our history to bring these stories to people? I mean, why don't we all know this? Like you, Eric, and I know this because, again, your book, if you can keep it, is wonderful at obviously working on the same themes. We live at a very difficult time. We live at a time when Americans have a fundamental choice to make about the way we view our country. Should we view our country with guilt or gratitude? And again, America is so extraordinary. I mean, and the history of America is so amazing. You basically have a core choice. You can either say it's because America is corrupt and evil and vicious and exploitative and racist and selfish and sexist and despoiling the environment.

It's all these terrible things. America has gotten rich and powerful and gone from being a largely uninhabited, and it was, wilderness continent to being the center of the world economically and culturally and militarily and every way you can find. It's either that because America is guilty or there's another aspect. which is not accidental. And it seems to me that the most important point we can make with our children in teaching history is America is no accident.

It's not, and then people say, well, it's a pattern of happy accidents. One of the things that I think the most important line in the book is a pattern of happy accidents is still a pattern. because normally if all of a sudden you're playing with dice and you keep rolling number seven or any other number you think well there's a pattern here and the pattern here was enunciated by one of my favorite quotes ever

and it's from not an American it's from Otto von Bismarck the Iron Chancellor of Germany he said the good lord has special protection for lost dogs imbecils small children

drunkards and the United States of America one of these books I do but the fact is that I mean this many things are like this where if you dare to look at the facts you're going to

be troubled because there's only one conclusion so you have the opportunity to avoid the facts or you're going to come to this conclusion. It seems to me that it becomes pretty quickly overwhelming as a conclusion. But you practically gilded the lily by telling one story after the other. It's almost funny to me because it would only be a handful of these and you'd

say that settles it. It's obvious that America came into being in a way that, you know, it doesn't seem conceivable. It's a coincidence. It just seems like God's hand. You know, I guess the point is that even these stories would make you believe in Providence, would make you believe in the hand of God in history. But there are so many of these stories.

That's what astonished me. That's why it seems to me that they're important because the other alternative is this idea of the 1619 project or any of that work, that whole worldview, that suggests that America really has a terrible and unique guilt. And by the way, this is not to say that America hasn't done terrible things. Of course we have. And of course there have been flaws.

But the idea that America is uniquely guilty, not uniquely great, everyone agrees America is great. Walter McDougal, who's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, actually he's now just a professor emeritus, but Walter McDougal says that if you look at the history of humanity for the last 500 years, the most significant development that has impacted everything in 500 years has been the rise of the United States.

And it's something that no one could have predicted. There was no one, not Nostradamus, not anybody who actually said, hmm, in North America where there was a, yes, there was an indigenous population, but it was not a large population, nor was it a particularly advanced population. I know that's terrible, and you can't say that. But the point being that the entire story of America is so unwarranted. likely that you either have to come to this conclusion of unique guilt or unique

greatness. And by the way, one of the other stories, you know who agrees with me about this and agrees with you? Vladimir Putin. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because one of the stories, a story with which I begin the second book, which is called God's Hand on America. And again, it's one of those things. I remember waking my wife up when I found out some of the medical details involved here. The night that Lincoln was murdered.

Oh, this, yes, please, go ahead. The night that Lincoln was murdered, his secretary of state, who would become virtually his best friend, who had a house that he was renting right across from the White House, William Henry Seward. The plan was by a conspiracy, and it was a real conspiracy, received by John Wilkes Booth to murder President Lincoln, which he succeeded in doing, and the same night to murder the vice president where the fellow who had been assigned to do that,

got drunk and didn't do it, and then to also murder Secretary Seward, who was the most important, the leader of the cabinet. Now that's in the sequel to this. It is. It's the very first story. and the idea as Seward had literally nine days before the end of the war and Lincoln had come to visit him

because he had a terrible carriage accident he was going out with his son and his daughter on a spring day it was April like now and they went out on a carriage accident the horses got out of control he tried to stop the horses because he was afraid his daughter would get hurt He fell down, he broke multiple ribs and completely shattered his jaw. This is nine days...

Before the assassination. Before Lincoln is assassinated. Correct. Seward has this really horrifying accident. And I, again, I had never heard this, and it begins the sequel to the American miracle. But the details of that are crazy. Keep going. Sure.

So what they did, he cared about being able to speak again. The doctors all thought he was going to die. And what they did was they fashioned a metal plate that fit underneath his jaw, tried to set his bones so they would come together again. By the way, Seward would never allow himself after this to be photographed. from the left side because the jaw was so distorted. And they wrapped this metal plate in canvas. The night that Lewis Payne, a booth's chosen assassin,

forced his way into the Seward household, went up to the top floor, took his bowie knife. And it was a bowie knife because he had used up his revolver. His revolver he had fired at Seward's son, who was trying to protect his father, the revolver misfired, which doesn't happen that often. So he took

the revolver and broke it over Frederick Seward's, the younger Frederick Stewart's head. I just want to tell you you need to buy after you buy this book, you need to buy the sequel because this story, which again we cannot do justice, it's a mind-bending

story. We're just getting the top of it. So Frederick Sword, who is the son of William Henry Soord, who was the assistant secretary of state, little nepotism. He was in a coma for five weeks afterward and could not speak here and thought he was going to die. Pain comes up to the old man who is lying in bed with this contraption on his neck that is metal and he can't speak, he can't eat. And so he doesn't have the gun because he broke that over the son's head.

he takes out his bowie knife comes down four times stabbing for the jugular vein there is a metal plate there the knife blade breaks off sword survives

and because of that Vladimir Putin says we won the Cold War why? Because Alaska right? This is your trip the Putin makes the point that if Russia

had retained in 1867 what was known then as Russian America they would have had missiles there and everything would have been different and Russia would have won the Cold War. He said this in the

anniversary of the purchase of Alaska which was the last person in 1867. So we're Because of William Seward surviving through this strange thing, obviously Alaska is called Seward's Folly.

Right. And again, and it's a very big part of the emergence of Seattle, too, because where we are, Seattle, the Klondike Gold Rush, that's the, all of the travel to Alaska came through Seattle, just like you. But Seward basically had to over. overcome tremendous opposition because basically Alaska didn't have anything. Horace Greeley, the editor called Alaska. He didn't nickname it. It hadn't been named as Alaska. It was just Russian America. He called it Walrusia, as in Walrus, because they said that there were more people

who lived there than Walruses. More Walruses than people. Pardon me. More Walruses than people. That's right. but in any event Seward Now, okay, one last thing And this is just a punchline Yeah, trying to wrap it up. We're getting bored.

Okay. No, this is, come on. This is so beautiful. Please, give us... While he is in the middle of negotiating with this corrupt Russian count who wasn't even really Russian... Okay, we're talking about William Seward.

William Henry Seward. Who freakishly survives four stabbings with a bowie knife because he happened to have... I mean, honestly, and there's more to it.