The Eric Metaxas Show - Roger Kimball

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Roger Kimball Shares His Thoughts on Iran. Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. He writes regular columns for American Greatness, The Epoch Times, and The Spectator,

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat 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! Welcome back, folks. moment. We'll be talking to Roger Kimball, but I have John Smirak with us. And John, I want to ask you just some follow-up because you're saying a lot of things that I'm a little confused by. So I need clarity from you. I don't believe, I believe that Trump would very strongly resist our going in and doing anything more. I thought that he had made that very, very clear. So, I'm just saying that this is a problem. It's inevitable.

It's a process. It's, it's, you know, Japan didn't get to bomb Pearl Harbor and then say, oh, we're not a war with America. We're only at war with the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii and then walk away. America then reacted. Iran is going to react. If Iran activates the terrorists that were sent over here that the Biden administration led into the country, there will be terrorist bombings across America. There will be bloodlust.

People will want revenge. Trump will probably impose some revenge. I hope it's just some surgical bombings. I hope, and we need to make it clear to Trump and to the Republicans, to our lawmakers, we have no appetite for a single American soldier going to Iran. We have no appetite for regime change. They told us that the Iraqi people would welcome the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that they would set up a democracy.

They told us that in Syria they would set up a democracy. They told us that in Libya they would set up a democracy. How many failed interventions in the Middle East that only produced misery for the local Christians and Muslim refugees for Europe and America? How many of these are we going to fall for? How many times are we going to try to kick the football and is Lucy going to pull it away from us? Do we ever learn? If we don't ever learn, if we really cannot learn from experience, then we are doomed as a country and we probably deserve to be. And I pray that people make it clear to Trump, this is not our war. This is Israel's war. We help them a little bit. It stops here. If it doesn't stop here, I'm telling you, the Democrats will win the midterm elections. Trump will get impeached every seven weeks. There'll be another fake impeachment. We'll get nothing through Congress. We'll get nothing through Congress. We'll get no illegal immigrants deported. We will not, Trump will accomplish nothing.

His presidency will be as futile and as embarrassing as George W. Bush has turned out to be. You said that you think it is inevitable that there will be sleeper cells activated in the United States. Yes. Yeah. You said that the Iranian regime is crazy, that they're apocalyptic, that they were willing to see their own country destroyed. in order to damage Israel. These are not the kind of people I expect to have a lot of restraint. That's a logical point, I'm sorry to say. But I still wonder what's going on inside the Iranian regime. In other words, what are the Mullahs, whoever is left governing things? What are they thinking? What is their endgame here? And if you simply say to them, you cannot have nukes,

but we'll let you keep your regime. Wouldn't they take that deal? I hope so, but I kind of hate that the fate of my country is in the hands of crazy apocalyptic jihadi foreigners. In other words, it's up to them. Right now, everything's up to them. Whether this escalates is up to them. Whether we get drawn into a full-scale war, it's up to them. We have outsourced our decision-making to these crazy apocalyptic theocrats. If they decide to blow up the Hoover Dam, if they decide to take out the electrical grid for the

entire northeast. If they decide to poison water reservoirs, then we will then react and we will maybe bomb their cities. Maybe that's what they want. They might think the only way to hold on to power is to have America and Israel fighting them so that it rallies their people. So it justifies their claim that they're defending the Islamic homeland against these evil foreigners, these evil Westerners. That might suit them. Remember, Hitler didn't surrender. Hitler fought to the bitter end and committed suicide and ordered for every city in Germany to be incinerated, to be torched by the Germans. They didn't obey the order. Sometimes your opponent is not a rational actor. We already established these are not the most rational people in the world. So I hate that our fate is now

in the hands of some crazy guy with a beard in a bunker in the Middle East. That's not what I voted for when I voted for Donald Trump. Well, but you still seem not to believe that they were working on having a nuke. I don't care. No, it's not that I don't, it's whether I believe it or not, it doesn't matter to America. It is not America's business to disarm Iran. It was Israel's business, and they did a good job. They should have finished the job.

We should not have gotten involved. Americans do not deserve to be having terrorist attacks committed against them. because we wanted to make things a little bit easier for Israel. Israel could have eliminated their nuclear sites, if need be by using their own nuclear weapons. Instead, we're going to have our dams exploded. We're going to have our cities attacked. This is crazy.

This is not good government. This is not make America great again. This is not America first. This is America trying to micromanage the rest of the world. When we can't even get human traffickers deported out of our country because our judges won't let us. We are a crippled giant picking a fight. It's terrible.

I'm still surprised that you think that it's okay for Iran. I don't think it's okay. I don't think it's okay. I think Israel should have taken care of it, and I would applaud them for doing so. It is not our fight. It still seems to me debatable whether Israel could have taken care of it, whether they could have taken out the three sites that we took out.

They could have with nuclear weapons. Okay, John, do you think that you don't, how would that look? Nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. If Iran is really an apocalyptic threat that's really planning genocide against Israel, and Israel really believes that, what does it have the nuclear weapons for, if not to prevent the destruction of their country? So if the Israelis really believe that Iran's really believe that Iran, is about to develop nuclear weapons and use them against Israel, then what are Israel's

nukes for if not to prevent something like that? But instead, we're getting involved and we are vulnerable. America is weak right now. America is vulnerable. We have millions of foreigners we can't account for all over the country with the Democrats protecting them from deportation. It doesn't take that many. It took 11 guys with box cutters to do 9-11. and look what that got us into. I guess this brings up the question whether whether Trump has the FBI and others on top of this.

We obviously don't know. The FBI is still mostly staffed by Obama and Biden loyalists. The same people who persecuted the January 6th defendants and pro-lifers and Catholics and PTA moms. Those are all the people. The deep state has not been cleaned out. The FBI has not been purged.

It is still an Obama organization. So I don't know that, you know, he can't trust his own. The deep state's not trustworthy. None of the things Trump ran on have been accomplished, but we are waging Lindsey Graham's wars. This is bad. You can't put lipstick on this pig, Eric. The question is, what you're suggesting may happen.

When will it happen? I know that Iran yesterday attacked Israel so they have not stopped doing that. What do you suppose is going on? We've just got seconds left. I'm hoping that Iran keeps focusing on Israel and doesn't attack us because Israel can defend itself

and Israel and Iran are the countries that should be fighting this conflict. We should not be directly involved. We should be supporting Israel and helping them not directly involved. That just opens up our people to being attacked by the millions of illegals who are still here. Okay. And where can people read what you wrote on this?

Stream.org? Stream.org. Okay, folks, go to stream.org. Read everything that John Smirak writes. When we come back, I'm talking to Roger Kimball. John, thank you. Thank you. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods,

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Roger Kimball, welcome back. Thank you, Eric. It's great to see you. I hope you had a great trip to Greece or wherever it was, you were. Yes. No, it was wonderful, and we want to do it again next year, and we're trying to figure out the details of that, because, yeah, it was undeniably wonderful.

Undeniably wonderful. I'm going to England next week for a big wedding. And I think the last time I flew back from London, you were sitting in the seat behind me on the plane. That's right. And when I landed, I discovered that Joe Biden had withdrawn from the campaign. Actually, no. We were in the air. We were in the air.

And I discovered that Joe Biden had withdrawn from the campaign. When you tap me on the shoulder and showed me your computer and you saw the – The post. I thought it was fake. Yeah, I thought it was fake. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in some ways it was, right?

Like, did he write? In some ways it was. In some ways it was. Who knows? But that's a lot of time. Anyway, speaking of crazy current events, it's the summer again and crazy stuff is happening. So where do we begin, Roger?

I mean, you've... Well, why don't we begin with something that you wrote, actually, which I thought was extremely good. And I quoted in my spectator column, which was published this morning, about Trump's attack on the Iranian atomic bomb making workshops, let's call them that. You said, at least I read it, on X, that, you know, people who are maybe supportive of Trump, but who are worried about these attacks because it seems to them that it may indicate a softening of the America First doctrine and a kind of relapse as if by a process of moral

entropy to the old neocon position where Trump has become captive of this. this spirit and will soon begin proceeding on a campaign of regime change and nation building and so on. And you pointed out that there has been no president who is less susceptible to the neocon oxen than Donald Trump. From the moment he walked down the elevator in Trump Tower in 2015, until today, he has made it 100% clear that two things. A, he's America first, and B, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And the idea that he gave them 60 days to come to the negotiating table, on day 61, Israel began its attack when they could not sufficiently degrade,

or destroy those three sites in Iran, Donald Trump helped them out. Now, we should talk a little bit about this phrase regime change. People, you know, people get into these little rhetorical shorthands and they say, oh, my gosh, it's going to be regime change. That would be a terrible thing. Would it? The regime in Iran, as to use your word, is occupied by lunatics. You know?

They're not just They're lunatics who want nuclear weapons. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I usually use the word medieval in a positive sense. But these guys are medieval

in a bad way. You know, they, you know, without getting too theological about it, they are captive of a, let's call it a perverted form of Islam,

a non-secularized, a non-enlightened. a non-modern view of Islam, where women are considered to be chattel, where if you decide that you don't want to be Muslim anymore, but would rather be a Jewish or Buddhist or Zoroastrian or Christian, that's apostasy punished by deaths. You know, any sign of making fun of the prophet. And, you know, you get a fatwa declared against you.

poor Solomon Rushdie, the novelist, who, you know, this was happened years ago. He was, you know, a few years ago was attacked on stage by some crazed person. You know, this is unacceptable. You're making two points that I have tried to make over and over. Simply because they're true. Number one, to worry too much that Trump is going to backslide. Now, look, it's one thing for people to criticize. criticize him, right? Anne Coulter was upset. He didn't build the walls. She was complaining.

I mean, he needs people to, to, you know, hold his feet to the fire, just like any human being. Okay. Sure. Sure. But Trump has over and over and over again, not just once or during the campaign, has been explicit that we don't want to get in forever wars. We want peace of them, at least. I'm a peacemaker. He said it so often that I think he'd become Dick Cheney or Lindsey Graham overnight is, silly. It's amazing to me. People don't get that. It betokens a lack of intellectual integrity or hygiene or something. These people are, as Wittgenstein once put it, they're held captive by a picture. You know, they have in their cosmology, they have a picture of how politics is supposed to proceed. And if you attack another country, it

means you have backslide, you've backslid to use your image on your commitment to being America first. Well, that's just not true. I mean, as Netanyahu pointed out, these, Israel has done not only itself, but Europe and the United States a huge favor. They were, you know, building ballistic missiles that could have reached the eastern seaboard of the United States. Had they had these with nuclear warheads, do you think there would be any scruple about using them? I say, no. It's likely they would have given them to other terrorist organizations, like the Houthis. I mean, Iran is the world's largest exporter of terror, you know, directly and through its proxies. They've slaughtered thousands of Americans. And, you know,

It's time for this to stop. It's been going on for 46 years. We have to have a counter-revolution. Maybe it will be the Shah, the crown prince. Who knows? But this is up to the Iranian people. We're just making it possible for them to have their voices heard. I see that today, Israel has drastically stepped up its attacks. They've opened up to prison. They've attacked several of the security headquarters. This is all very good, in my opinion, because it makes it possible. for these thugs and lunatics who have been running Iran to be pushed out, and it makes it possible for the people of Iran to be hurt once again. Well, listen, and this is where it gets tricky, and this is why, I just find that people are not, in the political sphere on X, people don't do nuance. It's everything black or white.

You know, either Israel is, they're the Jewish puppeteers ruling the world. or you're a neocon lunatic that wants World War III and can't wait to get to it, right? Yes. In the middle is prudence and wisdom. And in the middle, you have to make an assessment and you have to say, if I could get regime change in North Korea, what I want it? Absolutely. Is it the role of America to bring it about?

Probably not. Probably not. If I could get regime change in China or in Russia or, or, you know, or it's a role of America. Of course, but And also There's also the wisdom of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. It could be people far worse, in my opinion, than Putin or she. But yeah, but that's a, you know, I make this point in my column today in the spectator where I quote you, in fact, you know, we don't know.

But what we are presented with it, we're not a conjuring with. certainties. We're conjuring, as is always the case, with any contention matter in the real world, we're conjuring with possibilities, with probabilities. This is a matter of practical wisdom. We have to look to the lessons of the past and the lessons of wise people. You know, my friend Glenn Reynolds had a recent essay on his substack where he quotes Henry Kissinger, who says that a moderate Iranian is an Iranian who's run out of ammunition. I think that that's true. That's true, at least under this current regime. Under this regime, we have to be clear.

Yes, under this current regime. And, you know, it's fascinating to me to look at pictures of Iran in 1978, let's say, and then today. 1978, they look like any other Western city. People were walking, you know, women didn't look like fire plugs, you know, walking around and dresses and so on. But now it's a very different thing. That's the point, folks. That's the point that we're dealing with, you know, let's be honest. Saddam Hussein was not a theocratic lunatic.

He was a different kind of lunatic, but very different, very much less a threat to the United States, just as the Shah was infinitely less of that threat. We'll be right back. Welcome back talking to Roger Kimball, who is the man behind the new criterion. So Roger, you said you wrote an article in The Spectator, in which you quote me, flattered. I can't wait to see. what I said. But I quote you approvingly, too.

I don't always call people approving. I know. Thank you. No, I, but I guess, you know, what we're talking about here is, you know, when we talk about regime change, it would be my fondest hope that there would be regime change. But I think what people rightly caution against is our using our military to bring it about why, because typically it doesn't. work. Typically, it does draw us into a forever war. And we don't want that. Nobody wants that.

The great news is Donald Trump doesn't want that. So I think we're a good place. I mean, listen, there's always danger because for all we know, we know of Vladimir Putin, you know, thumping his chest, said something like maybe, you know, we will provide. Yes, I saw that. Nuclear weapons, yes, to Iran. Yeah. Yeah. Now, why would he do that because he is a thin-skinned narcissist who doesn't like being kind of left out of the headlines? And he's been embarrassed by Trump's extraordinary leadership on the world stage. And he wants to say, well, we're relevant. And so maybe we'll do it. You know, I hope he wouldn't be so stupid as to actually. I don't think the instinct for self-preservation has been entirely bred out

of Vladimir Putin. So I don't think he will do this. Just as I don't think the irradiens will close the strait of Hormuz. I mean, they claim there was a unanimous decision by the Iranian parliament yesterday to do so, but I see that China today has warned them not to. So I don't think that's going to happen either. But, you know, it's, yes, it's true. But, you know, Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. And Donald Trump, thank God, is not Barack Obama or the Bushes. You know, he's a very different sort of leader. And, you know, he has a couple of mantras. One is peace through strengths.

And as Benjamin Natanyahu pointed out in one of his recent interviews, first comes strength, which brings about peace. You have to have a credible deterrent. And, you know, we have helped provide that. Now, you're absolutely right, Eric. There are no certainties in this. what's happening in Iran now. It could explode.

It could lead to a wider conflict. But I think people have been, at least on our side, has been pretty deliberate. I don't see any saber rattling on the Trump administration. I see a deliberate policy to make it possible for the Iranians. to do what they want to do. Maybe the Iranians, you know, want to live under Sharia law. Okay, this is what's important today. I haven't had a chance to say this.

The polls show that most Iranians by far, like literally 80%, do not want to live under the theocratic, lunatic mullah. Okay, this is democracy, folks. So any bughead who's talking about, you know, the handmaid's tale and Theocracy, nothing about Theocracy. You want to see Theocracy? Visit Iran. You're a Western woman. Right.

I dare you. You go visit one of these places. See what's like to be a woman. It's real Theocracy. It is evil. Most of them don't like it. But there's nothing that they can do. Well, now by God's right, there may be something that they can do.

they're living under theocracy, and most of the people there don't like it. Now, let's look at Gaza. Most of the Palestinians who were in Gaza, if you polled them, they're all in favor of Hamas. Totally different picture. Totally different picture. They're not looking to be liberated. Most of them are not looking to be liberated. And that is sad. That is heartbreaking. But you have a situation where the people, actually most of them overwhelmingly would love to live, you know, in the 1978 version of Iran. Yes, yes. The Iran we've had for the last 45 years.

That's just a fact. And that's very different from Gaza, as I said, where a lot of the Palestinians have been brainwashed into thinking along the lines. They're with Hamas. They're not wanting to overthrow Hamas. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, that's that's important to make distinctions. You know, my old Jesuit school, they used to say, never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish.

And I kind of get the feeling that many of our, many people in the commentary these days are a little too lazy to abide by that sound piece of wisdom. You know, you can always make historical analogies, but what's going to do? on now, the differences between what's going on now are just as important, maybe more important than the similarities between now and what happens, say, in Iraq or Afghanistan. And the whole the whole national security state department apparatus is very different now. Marco Rubio, you know, is not Hillary Clinton. It's not John Kerry. So, certainly not in Antony Blinken. And I'm, you know, I wake up every day feeling incredibly grateful for Donald Trump.

I mean, he has far exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a lot of good things, but on, you know, a whole range of issues, whether it's DEI in, you know, universities and the government. entities or what he's done with the Ivy League. It's been fabulous. Hang on, Roger. We've got to go to a break. We want to hear much more from Roger Kimball. Folks, I'm talking to Roger Kimball. Roger, you were just saying a bunch of great stuff. I just want you to keep going about Trump. Well, I was just saying that he's so far exceeded my expectation. I was expecting a lot of good things, but he has done things that no other president

it would do. Most of which, in fact, I can't think of anything he's done so far that I've disapproved of, but the radical nature of his policies, you know, just extirpating DEI from the universities

by an executive order. Now, it's true that he is like Gulliver and Lilliput, he's being besieged by these pipsqueak district court judges who think that they and are allowed to wield the executive power of the country. I'm hoping that the Supreme Court will eventually slap that down

and allow the President of the United States to exercise his legitimate powers that were conferred upon him by Article 2 of the Constitution. But it's amazing what he's done with the universities, with, you know, how many people entered this country illegally in May? zero. Last year, it was 60,000. So, I mean, he's the major issues that he's campaigned on, you know, the immigration, the border, dealing with people who are here illegally, you know, political correctness under which rubric I group things like DEI and the whole transsexual nonsense.

He's just been remarkable, and he's surrounded by an incredible team. You know, economically, Scott Bessett, the Secretary of the Treasury, has been phenomenal. Marco Rubio, phenomenal, the vice president, J.D. Vance. I have to say, the bench is deep. We never had a deep bench. We never had a deep bench. But every time I listen to Marco Rubio, every time I listen to J.D. Vance, The same thing with Scott Bessent.

Besson, yes, he's incredible. How they are just, they get it. They really get it. Yeah. And remember, let me look at the economic picture. You know, people care about that. You know, personal inflation is down. Personal wealth is growing.

You know, by a significant amount. You know, I'm not an economist. You know, I know that a lot of people on our side of the fence air are very, very hostile to terrorists. I don't know. You know, I know that Alexander Hamilton liked them. I know that Abraham Lincoln liked them. I know that Ronald Reagan imposed 100% tariff on Japanese steel. But whatever you think of them, what Trump is doing is been incredibly good for the economy.

And, you know, I think, you know, we really are, God willing, on the cusp of a new golden age. And it's an incredible leadership team. It's not just Donald Trump, but he is the Candidio Sinaquanonan. He is the current that makes all this possible. And I agree with you. He has an incredible bench. You know, I mean, obviously people would like this cabinet member a little bit. more than that.

Remember, you might disagree with something that one person does. But, you know, usually with politics, they say if you get 60% of what you want, you should be happy. We're getting in the high 90s, it seems to me. No, it's amazing. One thing that we should say, just going back to, you know, the idea of regime change and all this stuff. Yes.

What we did a few nights ago was bomb three nuclear facilities. and that was it. Done and done and done and that's it. What we did in Iraq was utterly different. Completely different. We did in Iraq with tanks, with boots on the ground. We went into a country

and that's all about regime change. That was about regime change. It did not go well. This is about dismantling. I don't, like to call them nuclear facilities so much. I like to call them atomic bomb-making factories, because that's what they were. You know, these workshops with all these centrifuges, enriching uranium. The whole purpose of these places was to build atomic bombs, nuclear bombs.

It had nothing to do with any civilian, you know, energy production, nothing like that. And, you know, some width said that, you know, Donald Trump is actually going to build a new golf course in Iran. He's already got the first three holes. That may be a little, little mecheon. But that's what you're absolutely right. He bombed these three places, and that's it. Yeah. And again, that's what so, it's frustrating to see people be sloppy about this.

Let's just be clear. I mean, if you don't like something, let's be really. crystal clear about what it is that happen and what you don't like. But when people conflate bombing three nuclear sites in Iran and we're done with regime change, with marching armies, massing armies on the border and then pushing in. You know, we want to, we want to turn Afghanistan into Sweden. I mean, you know, all these ridiculous things. If we spent $700 million in Afghanistan on this cultural outreach where you would have, you know, these female doses. in twin sets lecturing the local populace about Marcel Duchamp.

You know, I mean, it was really preposterous. And, you know, all this USAID stuff. Yes, we need, we need $10 million for condoms for Bangladesh or whatever, you know, or a billion dollars for, you know, gender reassignment surgery in Nairobi. It's just, you know, and it's just ridiculous. But that's not what we're doing in Iran. Well, yeah, and that's, again, that's the question. What were we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?

And it's obvious that no one knew. It was unclear. What they said we were doing is we were, you know, we were trying to change them into liberal democracies. Well, that was a bootless effort. You remember the little purple thumbprints people who used them in voting? You know, it was just the, you know, we're going to drop a million copies of the Federalist papers. We're all going to read it and turn into Madisonian Democrats. Well, that's not going to happen.

And it probably won't happen in Iran either, although it's a much more secondary country. Billions and billions of dollars and American blood in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And we know, we should know that President Trump is the first man in the world to say no to all of that. and that's not what this is about. We'll be right back talking to Roger Kimball. Welcome back talking to Roger Kimball of the new Criterion and Encounter Books. Roger, what else can we say? We're living in extraordinary times, I have to say.

Yes, it's, you know, that old, it's an apocryphal, I regret to say, that that old observation that may you live in interesting times as an ancient Chinese curse. But actually, these are very interesting times. And, you know, it's, I think, the beginning of that Dickens novel, it's the best of times, that was the worst of times. That's where we are. But I think America is back in such an extraordinary way. How different things feel on the ground today from the way they felt a year ago.

I remember I was in Washington for the inauguration. at the end of January. And already you could sense a new energy and a new hopefulness, a new optimism about what was possible. And I think that that has been, if anything, accelerated. And, you know, people are astonished that Donald Trump is actually willing to do what he says about, for example, universities. Can you imagine any other president saying to Columbia University, well, you know, you're not abiding by the federal law. So we are going to freeze $400 million of your federal grants. That was just the very beginning. Nobody else would have dared to do that. You know,

he's dismantling the Department of Education as we speak. I was in Washington just last week and went to an event for the Department of Education. And, you know, Linda McMahon made it very clear that, you know, one of her prime tasks is to put herself out of a job. I think that's terrific. And it's been the Department of Education is a kind of playground for the progressive left. And so it's a means of funneling lots of money to people like Randy Weingarten, the head of the teachers unions.

And we, we, it's, it's anti-educational, actually. And turning the responsibility for education back to the states and back to parents where it belongs is a step toward the recovery, not only of our educational integrity, but also of our, our, our liberties. You know, the, we've been living in at a time when our liberty. have been chipped away at again and again and again through censorship, through surveillance, through bureaucratic overregulation. And Donald Trump is, you know, step by step, brick by brick, dismantling that regulatory state and returning autonomy to the people where it belongs. We the people are meant to be sovereign, and he understands that, and he has done an extraordinary amount to dismantle the administrative state that has been so pernicious in stifling

our freedoms. We've only got a minute left. What is your assessment given Trump of Ronald Reagan? In other words, I've become more and more disappointed in Ronald Reagan by the day, as great as he was. it just seems like a little Philip compared to the earthquake that we're seeing now. Yes. I mean, Reagan was a great man. He, after all, he did, he defeated the Soviet Union bloodlessly. He brought the Cold War to an end, bloodlessly. That is a huge, huge accomplishment.

He also jump started the greatest accumulation of wealth in his. history. And remember, he came into office on the wings of Carter's malaise, this, the misery index, you know, huge inflation, huge interest rates. You know, you know, Newsweek had a cover that said the death of equities. Reagan gave us the strong medicine to kickstart a huge accumulation of wealth.