The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 70 ｜ Don’t Feel Guilty Celebrating America’s Miracles ｜ Michael Medved ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

00:00:00.000 I guess today, the first time I ever saw him, I knew him as a movie critic,

00:00:04.440 but he'd been a bestselling author for years before that. American history expert,

00:00:09.640 longtime conservative talk radio host. In a way, when you get to know his history,

00:00:15.620 he's like an intellectual Forrest Gump. And I mean it this way, his life seems to intersect

00:00:20.700 with major political and entertainment figures throughout the decades. I mean, he worked for

00:00:26.500 the Robert Kennedy campaign, and he was at the hotel that night that Robert Kennedy was assassinated

00:00:32.560 in 1968. His study partner at Yale was Hillary Clinton. He hung out with Barbra Streisand.

00:00:39.600 That's kind of the turning point for him, where he started to go, maybe I'm a conservative. He

00:00:44.120 became friends with Dick Cheney during the Ford administration. He co-hosted the PBS movie review

00:00:49.180 show, was started by Siskel and Ebert. As a young man, Democratic Party loyalty. He was a pretty

00:00:55.180 hardcore Democrat. And if he had continued along that track, he probably would have been a big

00:01:00.620 star on the left. But he had a six-week experience that'll let him tell you about that put him on a

00:01:06.140 very different political path. One that he never thought capable of traveling. And that eventually

00:01:11.560 led him to the world of talk radio, where in the last 23 years, his show has consistently been one of

00:01:17.520 the most listened to programs in the nation. He is a sharp cultural critic who is not afraid to take

00:01:23.880 his own side when necessary. He'll take it on. And he has. And it's made him unpopular at times and

00:01:30.520 very popular other times. But he lets the chips fall where they may. The left has never really learned

00:01:36.600 this over the last few years. But if you get into an argument with this guy, you're probably going to

00:01:43.900 lose. But he is decent and civil all the way along. He's written or co-written 14 books, many of them

00:01:51.940 bestsellers. His latest is God's Hand on America. It's the kind of subject matter that makes everybody

00:01:56.900 on the left squirm. But remember, he's Yale trained. So he's got the credentials to back it up and the

00:02:03.660 history to back it up. It traces some of the most remarkable coincidence and astounding events of

00:02:09.520 American history that are hard to explain if it wasn't for divine providence. He is one who still

00:02:15.320 believes in America, our Constitution, and our future. Michael Medved. He's just kind of old-fashioned

00:02:23.000 that way.

00:02:36.860 Michael, when I first got into the media,

00:02:40.060 uh, uh, I thought it was going to be glamour and exciting and everything else, everything that it's

00:02:45.600 not. Um, and, but the one thing I hung on to was that there were really good, decent people.

00:02:56.000 No, you are truly, uh, I can count them on one hand, uh, one of the real decent, uh, members of the

00:03:06.080 media. Thank you. Um, and you have tried really hard over the years and you have, you have come from a

00:03:15.780 surprising place. I mean, I don't know if most people know this, but 16 years old, you're at Yale

00:03:22.660 university. I went to Yale at 30 and barely made it. Um, uh, so you're obviously very, very bright.

00:03:33.840 Then you go to California and you try your hand at screenwriting.

00:03:38.780 Actually, I did politics first. Oh, did you? Yeah. Which is more embarrassing because at the time

00:03:45.800 when I was at Yale, my junior year, I took a leave of absence, um, second semester, my junior year to

00:03:51.960 work for Robert Kennedy. And, and I was there when I was there when the ambassador was shot. Yeah,

00:03:58.980 I write about that. Um, can you talk about it? Sure. Um, I was, let's see, I was, uh, 19 years old

00:04:10.340 and, uh, I, uh, I was very, very taken when, when Kennedy came in cause he, he, I still admired RFK and when

00:04:23.620 he jumped into the race and, and it was the new Hampshire primary where Eugene McCarthy didn't

00:04:30.040 win the new Hampshire primary, but someone challenging Lyndon Johnson, who I had come to 0.83

00:04:35.560 believe, and I still believe was a terribly corrupt, horrible man, um, destructive president

00:04:41.380 and who had lied and lied and lied about the war and everything else. In any event, uh, Eugene 0.93

00:04:48.460 McCarthy got 42% in the New Hampshire primary and RFK came into the race. President, brother

00:04:58.400 of the martyred president. I was so excited by it. Also to tell the truth, my girlfriend was

00:05:04.660 in California and, you know, so I, I, I, I came out and worked on the campaign cause the

00:05:14.600 California primary is going to be decisive. And, um, it was incredibly exciting and you

00:05:21.060 felt like you were part of history and there was a great sense that he would be president

00:05:27.720 cause it was going to be another Kennedy Nixon race cause Nixon was going to be the Republican

00:05:32.100 nominee. And I think he would have won. Oh, I think so. And, and by the way, of all those

00:05:38.320 brothers and all those children. Yeah. And partially cause he was the one who was sincerely religious.

00:05:44.700 Uh, but that's another story. Um, what happened was went to the victory celebration, worked all

00:05:55.260 day, I actually, uh, trying to get voters to the polls and, uh, organizing the polling operation

00:06:04.320 and Kennedy won that primary against Eugene McCarthy and he won it fairly narrowly. I think

00:06:09.500 it was four and a half points, but we're all celebrating. And then he came and gave his speech

00:06:14.240 and, you know, I remember everything about it because the thing was, I was like two rows

00:06:22.460 back from the podium when he's giving a speech in the ambassador ballroom at the ambassador hotel,

00:06:27.740 which was one of these creepy old Hollywood places was already seedy. It's since been torn

00:06:32.760 down. You know what they have there now where they tore the ambassador down? Robert F. Kennedy

00:06:37.840 high school. Wow. Yeah. But in any event, um, he gave his speech and, and I remember calling

00:06:45.700 out and in some of the tapes, you can actually hear my voice and I go, we love you, Bobby.

00:06:50.680 And, you know, as a kid, uh, and then he said, and, and so, and it's going to be on to Chicago

00:06:57.720 and we're going to win it there. And he flashed the V for victory sign, which is also a peace

00:07:02.420 sign, went into the, uh, hallway. Uh, and you know, everybody's breaking up and looking to

00:07:11.340 get a drink or something like that. And, uh, all of a sudden there's, you could hear the sound. It's

00:07:19.440 like popping balloons and people say firecrackers. This was not like firecrackers, popping balloons

00:07:26.000 and then horrible screaming. And I will never forget the scream, uh, came from that kitchen area where

00:07:34.340 he had walked off into. And it came from the front of the room and went all the way to the

00:07:39.460 back of the room, sort of a progressive scream and then back. And because his brother had been

00:07:47.780 killed just five years before, uh, everybody kind of knew what had happened. And then they locked us

00:07:56.860 up the, the, uh, FBI and the, um, you were not allowed to leave the building. Uh, and because,

00:08:04.860 and this is one of the reasons I don't, I don't hold by any of the conspiracy theories. I, I did not

00:08:09.500 witness the actual shooting, but I was in the front of the room. They could identify me by photographs.

00:08:14.740 And, uh, I was interviewed three times by the FBI and a really intense, who did you know? Did you

00:08:23.180 know anybody there? In any event, uh, it was, it was one of those things that, um, that made

00:08:33.500 me deeply involved in politics. And I was, so when I graduated and then I started in law school

00:08:41.480 and, uh, my first semester at law school, Hillary Clinton was my study partner, Hillary Rodham 0.91

00:08:48.220 at the time. Uh, but then I left law school, uh, to do politics, just like I'd left junior year.

00:08:56.380 And I got a job as a speechwriter for a Senate candidate and, and I came up to California

00:09:00.700 working and then, and I honestly believe it was providential for me. Um, I, uh, I got a job

00:09:10.420 working briefly as a campaign manager, very briefly because I quit for a really corrupt, horrible, 0.64

00:09:17.960 U S congressman. Six weeks you were with him or something. Correct. Ron Dellums, uh, who's

00:09:22.840 really far to the left. He helped make me a conservative because sometimes it's, it's actually

00:09:29.880 seeing the bankruptcy of liberalism. In other words, there, I still think there are good people

00:09:36.140 who identify as liberals. I think there's good people on both sides and good people who actually

00:09:41.820 believe it. And then there are the people who just use it right on both sides. Absolutely right.

00:09:47.960 So in any event, so, uh, you were just talking, so I was doing politics in, in California before

00:09:57.060 I got into screenwriting, actually got into screenwriting through doing book writing.

00:10:01.680 So wait, before you leave politics, um, you, was there one thing that happened that made you go,

00:10:09.280 okay, I'm, I'm out. It was a lot of things. I've always been anti-drugs. I mean, I'm, I'm weird

00:10:15.840 enough anyway, you know, and in that campaign, there was a, um, a great deal of drugs. I'm

00:10:22.720 not talking about marijuana. What do you mean? Yeah. Hard drugs, more serious stuff. And it was

00:10:27.360 crummy. And I was, began being worried. There was also a lot of, um, uh, paper bags with unmarked

00:10:36.940 bills. And wow. And this was a U S congressman who was running for reelection. Wow. And I was

00:10:43.760 afraid that, you know, I had not finished law school, but I take it out of law school. I did

00:10:48.860 not want to be indicted at a young age. And so I left the campaign. And what happened in

00:10:55.440 Barbara Streisand's living room? As she called me over, um, I was, I was working for her on

00:11:04.900 her screenplay for Yentl. Wow. And, um, I had become, uh, religious and conservative, um,

00:11:15.500 already at this point. And I had a book called the shadow presidents, which was about the, um,

00:11:23.780 chiefs of staff, the, the chief aides to all the presidents of the United States since

00:11:28.820 that institution was authorized by Congress, which was 1857 under president Buchanan. But

00:11:35.100 in any event, uh, Barbara was interested because I was working on the screenplay with her and she,

00:11:42.340 I'd given her a copy of my book, which had just come out recently. And, um, and she, uh,

00:11:50.660 called me over to, uh, talk about the book. And like everyone was shocked. And she had a number

00:11:58.120 of fairly famous people there and they were interrogating me because I'd done this stuff on

00:12:02.980 the white house. And I, I was saying good things about, uh, president Ford and, um, who had just

00:12:11.460 left office and you were letting the chips fall where they may. Correct. And I was saying good

00:12:17.240 things about president Eisenhower, I think was a great president. And, uh, and basically part of

00:12:24.520 what, and it's so funny cause Gerald Ford's chief of staff was Dick Cheney. And I was very impressed

00:12:32.240 with Cheney. I interviewed him several times and I thought he was really bright and good guy.

00:12:37.940 And they were so shocked that, and it basically killed my, my association, my, my, uh, ability to write

00:12:49.180 for Streisand, but they were so shocked that anyone could say anything positive about Republicans. Um,

00:12:57.600 and I don't think a lot has changed. No, no, it's gotten worse because, because now it's not just the

00:13:05.520 negativity about Republicans. It's regular negativity about moderate Democrats, uh, people who are woke.

00:13:13.540 Um, I mean, it's, it's a craziness. I, there was, I'll tell you an example of it. There's a piece in USA Today

00:13:23.840 by this woman complaining about the, the way that Trump handled the killing of Soleimani, which I think

00:13:33.420 was emphatically a good thing for the world that this guy was taking out. And she said, look at all the

00:13:39.380 pictures. It's all white males who are advising him. Why can't there be some generals who are people

00:13:48.940 of color and women? And okay, we're talking about national security here, right? I don't want to 1.00

00:13:55.620 balance. I want the best person. Exactly. And that's the point. And I, I, okay. I made the point that,

00:14:02.940 that if you look at that picture of Barack Obama, the best night of his presidency, when he killed

00:14:08.120 Osama bin Laden, no hardest night in 400 years, as Joe Biden said, it was the hardest decision in 400

00:14:14.500 years, right? It was a good night for president Obama, but they have a picture of him in the

00:14:20.420 situation room in the white house. And there's one person of color who was president of the United

00:14:26.140 States and one woman who was secretary of state, all the rest are white males. Okay. But I guess

00:14:33.340 that's okay because it's Barack Obama, but this whole idea of trying to judge people by the color

00:14:40.420 of their skin rather than the content of their character. Opposite. Right. It's the exact opposite.

00:14:45.640 And the left, you know, you say woke. I think, I think sometimes what the left says is the opposite of

00:14:54.580 what the word means. You know what I mean? Political correctness is for some reason, not scary to

00:15:00.920 everybody. Those two words that should scare the heck out of you. Politically correct, not correct.

00:15:07.040 Right. Politically correct. And you just said woke. And to me, the left has gone dead asleep because

00:15:16.760 at one point they still were the people that were fighting, apparently fighting for the little guy.

00:15:27.900 They were the ones who would stand up for the racial injustice. It's not, none of that I don't

00:15:35.120 think is happening now. The one thing that has changed, it seems to me, is if you go back and you

00:15:41.020 look at the American left, there was patriotism there once upon a time, once upon a time. Robert

00:15:49.180 Kennedy, the Kennedys. Kennedys wouldn't be allowed in the Democratic Party. Not, not a chance. You're 0.99

00:15:54.300 absolutely right. I mean, Scoop Jackson, who was the last Democrat I ever, ever worked for, was a real

00:16:01.300 patriot. People who loved America, understood America was no accident. The reason I write about

00:16:07.480 the Kennedy assassination in, in God's hand on America is because I remember right after the

00:16:14.460 assassination, I was very, I was addicted to watching the funerals and everything. The novelist

00:16:20.000 John Updike said, with the killing of Bobby Kennedy, God has now withdrawn his special blessing on

00:16:27.660 America. And I remember at the time being so chilled by that and at the same time enlightened by it,

00:16:36.620 because what it showed is that even this very liberal Harvard educated novelist

00:16:41.320 understood there was a special blessing on America. John Kennedy understood that. Franklin

00:16:47.020 Roosevelt understood that. Harry Truman lived that. Lived it. And, and again, it is only today

00:16:54.660 that the left has abandoned the idea that America has not special privileges because we have been

00:17:04.280 selected by providence, but special obligations. And that's the whole idea of the chosen people

00:17:09.180 notion in the Bible is it's not chosen for special benefits for more rights or privileges than anybody

00:17:17.040 else. It's special responsibilities. And that's something that Americans have understood from,

00:17:23.900 from the time of our founding, from long before independence. It's something that Jonathan Edwards

00:17:30.680 talked about. By the way, do you know who Jonathan Edwards' grandson was? Most famous grandson?

00:17:37.640 Aaron Burr. Which just shows you, there's one guy who's incredibly virtuous, this great

00:17:44.200 preacher who helped awaken American religiosity in the 1740s, which led to the revolution. And then he

00:17:51.660 has a grandson. Well, people have seen the musical Hamilton. They know it doesn't work out so well for

00:17:57.080 yeah. And it's, uh, it's not surprising. Um, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's one of the problems we

00:18:05.820 have now, uh, where people have worked so hard and we've come so far. I mean, I really 2005, 2000,

00:18:19.240 I really thought we were making tremendous progress on race. I'm from the Pacific Northwest. So you know what

00:18:26.120 that's like, no, we didn't have those kinds of problems ever. You know, we weren't a state. We did. We did

00:18:32.840 against the Chinese. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. There was actually lynching of Chinese immigrants.

00:18:39.700 Correct. Uh, Seattle was a really dicey place, really dicey place in 1800. Yeah, it is homeless. It is. Um,

00:18:49.120 but, uh, we didn't have the black, white issues. So I never saw it that way. Um, cause I wasn't raised

00:18:58.520 in that kind of situation, but I saw it elsewhere. I saw it in the rest of the country and I really

00:19:05.300 thought, wow, there's some bad places still, but on the whole, we've really come a long way.

00:19:12.040 But I think we've gone back so far because we've do it with the left has dismantled Martin Luther

00:19:22.060 King. Right. And, and they've, they, they have taken away from his memory. That's the last

00:19:28.660 major chapter in my book is Dr. King and, uh, it's Providence and the Prophet. And again, it,

00:19:37.720 it is impossible to read about his life or to read his speeches or to read his letters without

00:19:45.200 recognizing that he was accurate and seeing God's working in his life, that God had a purpose for

00:19:53.220 him. Uh, there was an attempted killing of Dr. King where he got, it was actually a letter opener

00:20:01.360 in the shape of a samurai sword. I didn't even know this until I read your book. I had no idea that

00:20:06.260 this crazy woman plunged into his chest and he was talking about it. It was 10 years before 0.55

00:20:12.300 he died. The night before he died in April of 1968, he's giving his final speech where

00:20:20.520 he says, I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promised land. I may not get

00:20:26.360 there with you. And next day he's, he's killed. He was talking in that speech about the assassination

00:20:34.360 attempt where if he had coughed, he would have died. It would have ruptured his aorta because

00:20:38.580 he had this thing that he had to remove surgically because he'd been stabbed. And he said, I am

00:20:44.840 so glad that God has given me this last time that I didn't cough because of what I've seen

00:20:51.680 and the progress that I've seen. And see, here's the basic thing. We're very lucky to be here in

00:20:58.820 America. I mean, your life is unimaginable anywhere else. My life is unimaginable anywhere

00:21:04.800 else. We're so fortunate. I, um, um, my, my grandfather, uh, decided to bring his family

00:21:12.620 from Ukraine in 1910. It took him 14 years because of the interruption of the revolution and civil war

00:21:19.200 in Russia to get my grandmother and her one surviving child. They lost during that nightmare.

00:21:27.580 This is world war one. Uh, she lost five daughters and, and then when he finally got her to America

00:21:37.580 in 1924, um, there was an assumption that she was terribly sick. Uh, and she like poor people 1.00

00:21:47.860 never been to school. She didn't want to go to the doctor. Didn't want to, she finally went

00:21:51.760 to the doctor and she was convinced because her neighbors had told her she had a terrible tumor

00:21:57.180 and she probably wouldn't survive. And so she's crying, crying. Doctor says, sit down, sit down.

00:22:04.060 And he says, do you know what the problem is? And she says, I have a tumor, right? He says, no,

00:22:11.160 you have a baby. Um, she said, I'm 49 years old. This is not possible. Says, well, your name is Sarah

00:22:19.080 and it is that baby was my dad. Whoa. This American miracle baby for a land of fresh starts and special

00:22:29.220 hope. And here's the basic thing. And the reason that I wrote this book is what happens is Americans

00:22:37.560 are so blessed. You're either going to feel grateful for that. And if you don't, you're going to feel

00:22:44.820 guilty because you, you understand that you have it so much better than people anywhere. I call it the

00:22:53.600 golden ticket. It's like Willy Wonka. We've won the lottery. We're born in America. Okay. If you don't

00:23:02.000 feel grateful for that, then you're going to feel guilty that we have gotten all these things

00:23:07.400 because our ancestors stole and they pillaged and they exploited and they destroyed and they were

00:23:13.000 uniquely racist and it's slavery and it's native Americans and it's despoiling the environment 0.99

00:23:18.080 and it's American imperialism. All that crap is, is a way that people can understand their own good 0.99

00:23:28.040 fortune, which is a very negative way. It's psychologically unhealthy. It's historically nonsensical. 0.99

00:23:34.580 And the right way of understanding it is, yes, God has blessed us uniquely, but not because

00:23:41.120 we're so great. It's because he calls us to be better. And he calls us to actually continue this

00:23:48.980 work. Dr. King said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

00:23:57.100 And he understood that we must as well.

00:24:00.100 I, um, about 10 years ago, eight years ago, I started reading Dr. King and I just devoured

00:24:08.920 anything I could, um, because I was convinced his message is the message for today as well. I mean,

00:24:16.980 it is the answer. Um, you know, Jesus knew that Lincoln knew that Gandhi knew that Bonhoeffer knew

00:24:23.980 that it's the same thing over and over again. Um, and, uh, but even if you tell religious people,

00:24:33.200 love peace, don't, don't, don't be angry, let it go. You know, they almost to a person I hear.

00:24:47.800 Yeah. Yeah. All that's fine, but we've got to do something. Well, he did do something,

00:24:54.620 but he just did it in the, the atypical way, unless you want to win. Uh, and, and people that

00:25:05.380 claim to have so much faith almost don't have faith that God's got us. Just do what you're

00:25:12.080 supposed to do. Well, it's interesting. King gave this remarkable speech to a high school

00:25:18.980 graduation at one point. It was a largely black high school. And he, he said, my message to you

00:25:27.800 is, um, uh, you know, and he, he went through the great people in human history and he said,

00:25:36.020 um, uh, we've had great people in human history and he didn't mention all black people. Cause Dr.

00:25:42.520 King, he mentioned Beethoven and, uh, Michelangelo and, and, uh, he said, not all of you are going to

00:25:52.640 be great artists, great athletes, great entertainers, great media people. He says, some of you are going

00:26:00.380 to be street sweepers, be the greatest street sweeper. You can be the Beethoven of street

00:26:07.340 sweepers, be the Beethoven of gardeners, uh, be, uh, and whether you're a doctor, whatever you are,

00:26:15.980 the, and the point about being part of America is you talk about love, love is important, but what love

00:26:26.780 is really based on is gratitude. And, and part of the reason that America, uh, Americans don't feel

00:26:36.480 thankful is we've forgotten to whom thanks are due and it's uncomfortable for people. And, and again,

00:26:46.180 it does create a sense of, of obligation. It means that you have to do more than, but how much

00:26:53.380 of this, how much of this is natural? Cause I think there is a natural tendency to forget about

00:26:59.640 divine providence, to divine providence, different than manifest destiny, but to forget about divine

00:27:06.560 providence and to forget about, uh, what came before you and, and the struggle today. It's just

00:27:13.320 me, me, me, me, me. Oh, poor me. And oh, poor us. Look at how bad things are right now. Um, how do you,

00:27:20.880 how do you get people to, um, look at that when, let me phrase it this way, how much of it is real

00:27:29.720 just lost and how much of it is intentionally been distorted and covered? Well, I think a lot of it

00:27:36.680 has been distorted and covered because it's, um, to actually look at America and to the history of

00:27:44.960 America. Uh, it is impossible to think it was an accident. And, um, my immediate previous book,

00:27:53.760 The American Miracle, has stories from early in our founding history where you can actually

00:28:02.180 calculate odds against it. In the new book, I talk about the Battle of Midway, which everyone who

00:28:08.160 participated, including people who, again, were self-described atheists. And yes, they existed

00:28:14.700 in America. They always have. Um, where what you cannot mistake is what Hegel talks about is the

00:28:23.940 will of history is that there is a pattern here. And yes, you can write it off as, oh, it's just happy

00:28:31.700 accidents, but a pattern of happy accidents is still a pattern and it's going somewhere. And I

00:28:38.840 think part of what's happened in America is this sour mood that we have, which is so profoundly

00:28:47.760 ungrateful, uh, for what we have. I, um, I was talking to you just off the air about, I had serious

00:28:57.900 medical problems. Uh, I know that you've dealt with that in your, in your family. Um, how grateful

00:29:05.400 that we live when we do, when they, when they can, they can prolong life and, and life in America is,

00:29:14.480 is so sweet. And I, I, you know, you know, I, one of the things that I, I despise about the left at the

00:29:23.920 moment is people will say, oh yes, uh, you say, do I love America? I love America for what it could

00:29:32.000 be, for what it might be someday. And okay. That's like telling your wife, uh, do you love me, honey?

00:29:40.520 Well, I love you for what you could be if you had, if you had to lose a few pounds and if you had to

00:29:45.800 change your hairstyle, please, uh, that that's, that's a way to head toward a divorce. And the 0.97

00:29:54.960 point is that I love America for its craziness, for its incredible variety. There's the Shakespearean

00:30:03.320 line about Cleopatra, neither time can wither nor custom stale her infinite variety. America is a land

00:30:10.420 of infinite variety, but it is also the kingdom of kindness. And there's a very great rabbi, the

00:30:19.500 last, the greatest rabbi, the last generation, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who, uh, who, who said that

00:30:26.560 he used the term, um, Malchus Shel Chesed, a, a kingdom of kindness. That's what America is.

00:30:33.480 And what I would do to call people back to some recognition of it, other than reading my book

00:30:38.840 is, um, to recognize the history of your own family. Because when I look at the history of

00:30:48.060 my family on my mom's side, my dad's side, my wife's family, um, every American family,

00:30:55.560 look where they were. Look where we are. Uh, this is, this is not a downward progress. It

00:31:05.160 is, it is a lie that America is in an irreversible moral decline. Uh, there's a, another poem by

00:31:13.200 Langston Hughes, um, great black poet, let America be America again. And what that requires

00:31:22.080 most of all is an appreciation for what we have been and what we are.

00:31:43.620 Are we, um, are we able to salvage it with where we are right now? If we

00:31:51.900 don't. Sure. And I'll, let me give you examples. Um, when president Reagan became president,

00:32:00.160 you know, think about it. We had just had four years of Jimmy Carter. We had just gone

00:32:05.180 through the Vietnam war, the Vietnam. Watergate. Watergate. We had the only American president

00:32:11.660 to leave office under a cloud to resign. Um, we had cities burning down when Dr. King was

00:32:21.480 killed. His, his memory was defaced. There were riots at 163 cities and most of them deadly

00:32:30.720 riots. Uh, we had, I don't know if you remember this, you probably are too young, but there was

00:32:36.200 a, there was a guy, math graduate student who was murdered at the University of Wisconsin

00:32:42.960 because he went to the building late and the left blew up the building. Uh, we had the Symbionese

00:32:48.760 Liberation Army. It had all, all these horrible stuff here. There was fighting on the streets.

00:32:55.000 The Democratic Convention of 1968. You know, the, I, I, okay. The country was a mess and crime was

00:33:05.560 skyrocketing in every major American city and drugs were a plague and this, this huge explosion out of

00:33:13.660 wedlock birth and the collapse of the family and all of this going on. It really did kind of turn

00:33:19.820 around and most of that stuff turned around. You know, that, that actually, and there's pretty

00:33:26.180 good evidence of this when we have this terrible problem with opioids right now, which we have to

00:33:32.300 get a handle on. But in terms of, uh, the heroin, even the meth things have been getting better a little

00:33:41.220 bit. Uh, the abortion rate in America is way down, is been cut by two thirds. And, uh, and all, all the

00:33:52.440 surveys show that this remains, uh, a country where, where people do well and people say, well, it's,

00:34:00.340 it's hard for people on the bottom to rise to the top, but it is still overwhelmingly people at that

00:34:08.740 bottom quintile. The next generation is higher, is higher. And the, the, the, that's unthinkable

00:34:17.200 elsewhere. Well, it is. They say there are reasons to believe that Europe is also, uh, now there are

00:34:24.300 European nations where there's also more social mobility, economic mobility. And yes, but, but that's

00:34:32.440 because the whole world, which has been blessed by America is, is so vastly better. The percentage

00:34:39.680 of people in the world, uh, I was, I was reading this recently and it's a UN number. Okay. So

00:34:45.960 a UN number that when the UN was formed, about 60% of all people living in planet earth were in

00:34:56.900 desperate poverty. They did not have enough to eat. That's down to 6%. I mean, we have, we have

00:35:03.980 made so much progress against, uh, and, and again, which is one of the reasons not to believe all the

00:35:11.160 stories about the end of the world and, uh, because of climate change, we're, we're going to have hundreds

00:35:16.720 of millions. If you look at the climate change predictions that Al Gore was making for 2020,

00:35:22.240 we were not supposed to be sitting here in Texas. I think Texas was going to be underwater.

00:35:26.460 Yeah. No, they just, they just had to change at one of the national parks, a glacier national

00:35:31.500 park. They had to change the signs. Correct. I love it said park gone. These glaciers will be gone

00:35:37.400 by 2020. Yeah. I mean, look, just the, the, the, the everyday miracles of American life. And okay. I got on a

00:35:49.600 plane last night and it threw, threw a snowstorm, flew here. Plane even landed pretty close to on time.

00:35:59.000 Thank you to Alaska airlines. And, uh, you know, these are everyday miracles. You think of what that

00:36:05.720 means. I have a chapter about the transcontinental railroad and the reason that railroads were so

00:36:11.980 amazing to people, Lincoln was the one who in the middle of the war, they passed the bill for the

00:36:19.440 transcontinental railroad because it was an obsession of Lincoln's always. And partially because you could

00:36:26.320 go back and there was, before the railroad came, before we invented railroads in the 1830s, uh,

00:36:36.320 no human being could travel faster than Pharaoh on his chariots in the Bible. Think about that.

00:36:44.900 You couldn't travel faster than a galloping horse. And all of a sudden you've got this amazing machine

00:36:50.940 that can cross the continent in seven days and relatively safely. Yes. Um, very safely. I mean,

00:36:59.760 unless you were working on it, correct. And, and even the working on it, uh, the, the sense of

00:37:07.260 godly purpose that drove, I, I write in my book about this unsung American hero who really deserves

00:37:15.400 more attention, whose name was, uh, Ted Judah. And he was known universally as crazy Judah

00:37:22.000 because he was obsessed with his dream of building a railroad that would connect the Midwest

00:37:28.920 to California, which is already a state going through nothing. And there was vast, vast emptiness

00:37:35.700 between. And he, he believed that that was the right answer to binding the nation together after the

00:37:44.100 divisions of the civil war and his story and the story about the role he played in organizing the

00:37:51.820 central Pacific and the churches everywhere gave thanksgiving for the creation of this railroad,

00:37:59.980 which bound us up as one nation. See that kind of story, um, which is the, it's the first

00:38:05.940 transcontinental railroad ever built anywhere. And before that, to get to California,

00:38:14.100 you had to either go over land, which took about six months, or you had to, to take a boat,

00:38:22.820 a ship that would go around the tip of South America. Theodore Roosevelt hadn't built the Panama

00:38:28.540 Canal yet. And, um, the, that would take two months and all of a sudden you could make this trip in

00:38:36.620 seven days. And all of that is incredible. I'll tell you another thing. Most people don't know this.

00:38:42.860 They should, it's, it's a blatant miracle. Um, when, when we were, had a war with Mexico and I know 0.60

00:38:53.900 it's controversial. We had a war with Mexico. Guess what? We won. Um, but president Polk sent down

00:39:01.540 the chief clerk of the state department, whose name was Nicholas Trist, who's fascinating guys, former

00:39:19.540 private secretary to Thomas Jefferson. He married Jefferson's granddaughter, former private secretary

00:39:26.420 to James Madison and to Andrew Jackson. Okay. He comes to Mexico to negotiate the peace. And Polk has

00:39:38.340 gotten it in his, uh, in his head at this point that we should take all of Mexico. They had the all

00:39:44.500 Mexico theory in the house because we had beaten them in the war. Why not? Now that would have been a 1.00

00:39:49.620 terrible idea that would have made us an imperialist power. And Trist didn't want to do that. So he's

00:39:56.840 negotiating, he's negotiating. The one thing he's concerned about is we'll get California.

00:40:01.500 Okay. And we'll leave the rest of Mexico to Mexico. So Polk fires him, sends a, says, no,

00:40:08.420 you're no longer represent the United States in these negotiations. So he tells the Mexicans, 0.62

00:40:13.860 you want to continue negotiating with me. And they did. He signs on, um, February 2nd, 1848,

00:40:23.040 the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Okay. Now if that date, he signed on virtually the same day

00:40:32.500 they discovered gold in California and had they known that California, and this is why America had

00:40:40.180 this huge economic advantage in the 19th century. Now, now all of this people who are participating

00:40:46.020 said this is, and by the way, Polk went from having fired Nicholas Trist and having ordered

00:40:52.600 troops to come and arrest him for disobeying the president to wait a minute, he got this treaty

00:40:58.480 and he got to California. We've got all this gold. Um, 300,000 people came out to California in the

00:41:05.240 first 18 months after discovery of gold. Wow. And it was a state year and a half later.

00:41:11.820 And it's another story in any event, this, this stuff, the, the idea that all of this

00:41:20.120 is accidental. I don't think holds, I don't know how we go from fire for 5,000 years to the light

00:41:33.620 bulb a hundred years after, you know, people are set free and able to keep their, you know,

00:41:40.880 the reward of their risk. Um, people have a hard time. Um, for instance, I, I, I'm a big

00:41:50.600 Churchill fan. Oh yeah. But if you read about Churchill from the Indian perspective, the guy's 0.98

00:41:58.180 a monster. And when I first started looking into it, I thought, okay, so how do I put these two

00:42:05.440 guys together? And then I just realized, uh, it's pretty easy. He sees one part that he's not

00:42:15.040 really there and been raised to believe this. He sees that this way, this another way. And by the

00:42:22.700 end of his life, he's like, you know, I really made some mistakes. Um, he didn't completely renounce

00:42:27.200 all the stuff that he said in India, but he was moving in the right direction. And I'm

00:42:32.160 comfortable with that. I'm comfortable with guy being wrong and really bad over here and

00:42:38.540 really right over here. Same guy. We can't give that to ourselves. We can't give that to

00:42:44.520 our country. It seems. And we have to absolutely have to, because it's not that, that America

00:42:50.900 doesn't lose. We lose, we have setbacks, but the, the pattern. And we make mistakes. Absolutely.

00:42:59.260 But the pattern is upward and for the enormous benefit of the world. There's a, um, uh, recently

00:43:07.880 retired historian at university of Pennsylvania, Walter McDougall, who writes, I think, very provocative

00:43:14.860 question. If you look at history, what is the biggest event of the last 500 years? It's a long

00:43:25.120 time. He says, without question, it's the rise of the United States of America because it's changed

00:43:32.240 everything, everything all around the world. I think the biggest, actually, if you had to tie

00:43:38.420 to event, what event would it be? Again, he, he talks about the rise of America. Okay. But that's

00:43:45.040 not an event. That's a, oh, he, okay. An event, event, a development, if you will. He uses the term

00:43:50.100 event. I, I, I, because I think that starts with the greatest mission statement of any person,

00:44:00.740 country, or business ever. The declaration. Declaration. Of course. It's like when people say,

00:44:06.260 you know, America, blah, blah, blah, even Martin Luther King talked about America, live up to your

00:44:12.040 promise, live up to your vow here. We so, you know, dismiss this mission statement. You want to get rid

00:44:20.820 of America? Great. You have a better mission statement. There's, there's also the fact that,

00:44:28.120 and again, this is one of those unbelievable accidents. Most important event of 1787 is

00:44:34.640 Constitution of the United States Constitutional Convention. Before the Constitutional Convention

00:44:39.580 gets together in September, August, September of 1787. Something else happens under the Articles

00:44:47.420 of Confederation. Northwest Ordinance. Now, the Northwest Ordinance forever bans slavery.

00:44:58.120 Mm-hmm. It, and what's amazing is this country, would people, people want to talk about America's

00:45:06.000 guilt for slavery, and of course we bear some, some guilt for slavery, but one of the things

00:45:11.120 that's very important to understand is that slavery was universal at a time when they organized

00:45:18.800 in the 1680s, the first anti-slavery society in Philadelphia, and what was not universal was the

00:45:30.840 move by Christians, particularly in Britain, and then later in the United States, to dismantle 0.99

00:45:39.780 the evil of slavery. And you know, when you talk about mission statement, in the Constitution,

00:45:44.840 at the Constitutional Convention, despite the fact that some of the delegates were slaveholders,

00:45:48.880 not a majority, but some. One of the slaveholders, George Mason, wanted to abolish slavery in the

00:45:56.620 Constitution. But in any event, they built into the Constitution the ability to ban the slave trade

00:46:03.220 in 1808, 20 years later, which they did.

00:46:07.720 Which you would think progressives would understand.

00:46:09.960 Yeah.

00:46:10.620 That's the progressive, you can't get it done, so let's put in one piece to take that first step.

00:46:15.600 Correct. And again, and it put, Lincoln used the term, putting slavery on the path to its

00:46:22.560 ultimate extirpation, to get rid of this evil, evil crime against humanity.

00:46:29.080 So I bought an 1830 engraving of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

00:46:37.480 Wow.

00:46:37.960 Have you ever read it?

00:46:39.040 Yeah. It's before, by the way, it's one of the very few things that's ever been improved

00:46:45.260 by committee.

00:46:46.280 Yeah.

00:46:46.680 But it's because who was on the committee?

00:46:48.220 Yeah.

00:46:48.340 John Adams, Benjamin Franklin.

00:46:49.840 Exactly right.

00:46:50.700 Roger Sherman, Robert.

00:46:51.660 But in there, even his handwriting changes. Jefferson's handwriting changes. You know, this so-called

00:46:59.940 Christian king is now, it goes to people on the other side of the world who've never offended

00:47:06.820 him, and he enslaves them and then puts them on a ship. If they survive that, he then sells

00:47:15.200 capital letters, men, on the open market. Men.

00:47:21.040 All men are, he knew. Right. They just couldn't get it done. And I don't, I don't know how we 0.61

00:47:27.660 can't. It was a unanimous document. It had to be. That was agreed on beforehand. What is

00:47:35.180 it? Two states said no to it. Well, how can we not give ourselves the break? Because how are

00:47:47.380 we going to be judged? Are we perfect now?

00:47:51.580 Yeah. And again, and you think about the war between the states and what that meant. And

00:47:58.940 the battle hymn of the republic, and that was the title that Julia Ward Howe gave to it,

00:48:03.540 the battle hymn of the republic. The last line, last verse of the battle of the republic,

00:48:09.160 the ACLU hates it. It says, in the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,

00:48:16.480 with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let

00:48:25.440 us die to make men free. And 330,000 union troops did.

00:48:31.460 I was in Richmond, Virginia. This is 2002, maybe. And holding a big event. There were about

00:48:41.220 30,000 people there. And I said, so on the program, I've invited this black gospel choir,

00:48:52.900 and they're going to do the battle hymn. And everybody in the room went, this is Richmond.

00:48:58.380 You can't do that. And I said, this is America. Yes, we can. And they gave me all these dire

00:49:04.960 predictions on what was going to happen. Everybody loved it. Of course. People were crying. People

00:49:10.920 don't, they're not who people say they are. Correct. Because we are the kingdom of kindness.

00:49:20.600 One of the stories that obsesses me, and also because there's a family connection,

00:49:26.000 is the story of the end of life for Franklin Roosevelt. And how close America came to having

00:49:36.460 basically a communist agent as president of the United States. Because the sitting vice president

00:49:42.900 in 1944, Roosevelt is running for a fourth term. He's terribly sick. And people who were close to him,

00:49:51.180 he didn't know it. But people who were close to him knew he could never live through his fourth term.

00:49:56.660 And his vice president, Henry Wallace, is, has a big man crush on Stalin, is a very clear

00:50:07.940 leftist who has a background of guru worship. One of the things in my book is I, I, I, I quote from

00:50:16.840 some of the guru letters that he sent to his guru, who was a nutty Russian named Nicholas Rorick. 0.99

00:50:24.080 And this is all exceedingly weird. There's a group of people who are all democratic officials

00:50:32.480 at the time. They all happen to be religious Catholics who get together and they formed what

00:50:37.740 they called the conspiracy of the pure of heart. They were led by a guy named Bob Hannigan,

00:50:42.400 who was a former baseball star for University of St. Louis. And their determination is somehow

00:50:50.840 to prevent Vice President Wallace from being re-nominated, because they knew. And they had

00:51:00.220 the idea, because Bob Hannigan was from Missouri, he knew the senator from Missouri, Harry Truman.

00:51:05.520 And the story of the manipulations behind the scene, this was a real conspiracy, the conspiracy

00:51:12.640 of the pure of heart. But it succeeded in giving us a pretty remarkable president, President

00:51:20.300 Truman, and, and sparing us from Henry Wallace. And what's fascinating about this, and I didn't

00:51:26.780 know this when I started doing the research for the book. As he approached the end of his

00:51:31.640 life, Wallace realized that they had done the right thing. He wrote a piece, which, honestly,

00:51:40.340 other history books don't have this. He wrote a piece called Where I Was Wrong, where he talks

00:51:45.460 about the indescribable, pure evil of communism. And this is a guy who, at one point in 1948,

00:51:53.640 he ran for president against Truman, an independent party, totally funded by communists, and creeping

00:52:00.260 with communists. In any event, like, like, some people, he came to see how wrong this was, how

00:52:09.740 fortunate, what a close call America had. And the story, the story is, they were about to

00:52:17.240 re-nominate Wallace for vice president by acclamation. And the conspiracy of pure of heart,

00:52:26.040 a lot of political bosses, frankly. And again, they're serious Catholics, they felt God was

00:52:32.980 behind this. Bob Hannigan, the key orchestrator, in any event, I'll get to him in a moment, but

00:52:40.180 what happened at the convention was they had this roaring demonstration on behalf of Wallace,

00:52:46.580 and then Senator Claude Pepper, who was another old leftist, had the idea, let's nominate him

00:52:52.960 right now, because with this hall right now, he'll be re-nominated. So he pulls for a microphone,

00:52:58.600 his microphone goes dead. He starts rushing the podium, and barreling up there, it's like a broken

00:53:05.340 field runner. And he's trying to get to the podium, so he can get to the podium. I move,

00:53:11.240 we nominate, re-nominate Vice President Henry Wallace by acclamation. And literally, he is 10 feet

00:53:19.680 away from the podium when the gavel comes down. The chairman of the convention at the time was a

00:53:30.020 senator who had just been appointed to senator from Indiana, Samuel Dillon Jackson. He only served in

00:53:36.560 the Senate for six months, taking the place of a senator who had died. But this was his one great

00:53:43.440 moment. He saw Claude Pepper coming. He put down the gavel. He said, okay, the convention, I move the

00:53:50.340 convention adjourn. And all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, no! The ayes have it. Convention is adjourned.

00:53:59.860 And it is because of that, that we escaped having Henry Wallace as President of the United States,

00:54:06.100 because Roosevelt died 82 days after his inauguration for the fourth term. Bob Hannigan

00:54:12.200 said, on my tombstone, I want, here lies the man who saved the United States from Henry Wallace.

00:54:23.300 And... Is it on his tombstone? No, because he died shortly thereafter. He had a stroke,

00:54:31.800 heart attack, heart attack in the stroke. And he was a young man. And he, a lot of people thought he

00:54:37.820 would be, he's a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, but the kind of very patriotic,

00:54:44.940 seriously religious Democrats we need more of. He would be called a Nazi in today's Democratic

00:54:51.400 Party. Let's talk a little bit about, you talk about Theodore Roosevelt, and... I know you don't

00:54:57.880 like him. No, I, I, there's parts of me, I love him. Okay. I love him. He's a product of his time.

00:55:05.460 You know, he's a product, and we saw what this turned into overseas. You know, this progressivism,

00:55:12.400 this Fabian socialism, it, it's ugly at the end. But you can understand it the first time. You can 0.98

00:55:19.360 understand it when everything is changing, and you don't know how to adapt. Here's a new scientific

00:55:26.180 way to look at things, et cetera, et cetera. But you, you, you go into the divine providence

00:55:35.680 of... Well, of his whole life. ...Theodore Roosevelt. Because he, he, he, his entire life was dueling

00:55:42.120 death. And it's astonishing the number of near-death experiences he had on the battlefield at the

00:55:51.080 San Juan Hill. He's the only one on horseback. Because they hadn't gotten their horses. It

00:55:57.000 was a typical army snafu. The Rough Riders had to charge uphill on foot. There are a fourth

00:56:06.680 of his regiment is either wounded or killed. He's riding on a horse with a big bandana around

00:56:12.580 his cab, leading his troops. Like Washington. Untouched. Right. Mm-hmm. And there are people

00:56:19.880 there, witnesses, and, and not one of them said, it is a miracle that he wasn't killed. And

00:56:26.840 it was the most foolhardy thing anyone had ever seen. He, he had near-death experiences as

00:56:33.580 a boy. He had this unbelievable dramatic situation where the same night, uh, that his, his first

00:56:45.580 child, Alice, was born, his wife died and his mother died. And he was crushed. And that sent

00:56:52.680 him out to the West to rediscover himself. And, um, he also, a lot of people don't know this.

00:56:59.840 He made his living. He lost all his money on these ranches. He, he had some inheritance from

00:57:04.640 his dad. But he lost it all on these ranches. And he made his living from that time forward as a

00:57:09.900 writer. He wrote 34 books. Mm-hmm. And some of them are pretty darn good history books. The Naval

00:57:15.800 War of 1812, still in print. He has a great biography of Thomas Hart Benton. In any event, what I talk

00:57:21.940 about is this moment in 1912, he's running for president as progressive and, uh, he's chugging

00:57:32.120 into Milwaukee and there's 10,000 people literally at the civic stadium who are going to hear TR

00:57:41.080 speak. Um, his voice is shot, things like, okay, he's coming out. He's about to go to the speech

00:57:47.540 after a dinner. And from 10 feet away, uh, he's shot, takes a bullet in the chest. He crumbles.

00:57:57.200 Blood is oozing out. They said, we have to go to a hospital, Colonel Roosevelt. He says, no,

00:58:03.900 I'm going to deliver this speech. And, and he delivers this piece. The first line, he says,

00:58:09.400 you may not know this, but I have been shot, but it takes more than a single shot to kill a bull

00:58:14.580 moose. And he spoke for more than an hour. And, and again, part of what is remarkable and he always

00:58:23.200 considered remarkable was in his coat pocket. He had, it was 50 page speech. He had folded it over

00:58:32.800 twice, stuck it in his pocket and he had his glasses case that slowed the bullet. And had it not, he

00:58:39.800 certainly would not have lived because it was right, right near his heart. It's like Reagan. It was

00:58:44.620 very close to his heart. So the question is, he was spared. Uh, this is 1912. He died seven years

00:58:52.900 later. What is it that he did in that seven years? He was the, the leading light for American

00:59:01.220 preparedness. At the time that he began beating this drum for American preparedness at the beginning

00:59:06.880 of the great war, said, we are going to end up getting into this war like it or not. It's,

00:59:13.160 it's going to happen. Uh, and, and he clearly was the, we had, we had, we had, our army was

00:59:19.480 the same size as Portugal at the, the beginning of the war. And, uh, and Roosevelt was a very

00:59:28.580 religious guy, always went to church and liked to walk to church. And, uh, there are stories

00:59:35.500 of him walking to church when he was president, um, with the secret service huffing and puffing

00:59:41.760 to keep alongside him because he believed in the strenuous life. And he spoke to a minister

00:59:49.020 right before he died. And he died very suddenly. And he said, this is, this is what I was kept

00:59:56.240 to lie for. And he said that even after his son, Quentin had died in that, which was the

01:00:02.260 most painful thing in his life. In any event, what's fascinating to me is that Roosevelt,

01:00:08.880 like so many other important Americans, virtually all the other important Americans,

01:00:14.520 believed that there was providence, that there was a plan and wanted to be part of it. And I think

01:00:23.900 manifestly he was, um, we, we don't have the Panama Canal without Udara Roosevelt and frankly,

01:00:31.540 establishing our system of national parks and national forests to, to be what they are,

01:00:39.080 which is a great gift to the country where they can take, take down the signs about the

01:00:43.800 missing glaciers in a glacier national park. That's also a, uh, Rooseveltian gift.

01:00:49.240 So let's talk about future history. You happen to make it to Ray Kurzweil's dream of 2030.

01:01:07.260 You're now, I don't know, downloaded. And so Michael Medved lives on. It's a hundred years from now.

01:01:14.100 So, what's being written about these days about America right now?

01:01:25.000 Well, for one thing, I, I think that, um, there, there are people out there and I know this who, uh,

01:01:36.480 believe that they see God's hand in our current situation, uh, because of the victory of president

01:01:44.620 Trump and because what president Trump has been able to achieve. And this is taking nothing away

01:01:50.760 from his achievements, which are real. But I think one of the problems that we have is putting too much

01:01:59.700 importance in a single individual. Now, sometimes those individuals can be, Reagan changed everything.

01:02:08.160 Pope John Paul II changed everything. Is it possible Trump will be remembered like that? I think it's

01:02:14.060 possible. Is it possible that, uh, he'll be remembered in very different terms? I think that's possible.

01:02:22.680 The point being that I, I, um, I go back to a biblical passage. It's actually, it's, uh, in, uh, book of Exodus, it's 33, uh, chapter 33, I think, um, 23. I'm almost sure.

01:02:45.500 Okay. Uh, Moses, clearly a man of God, a servant of God, as he's described, um, wants to see God's face

01:02:55.440 and God says, no man shall see my face and live. And he says, however, see places have been a cleft of

01:03:03.060 the rock and says, God passes by and Moses could see his back. What the heck does that mean? Does God have

01:03:12.900 a physical back? One of the ways it's understood in Jewish tradition is that it means that you can't

01:03:21.540 see history head on. Can't see what's happening. You can see God's back. You can see it as it passes.

01:03:30.260 It's like that, that Bismarck passage, listen to God's footsteps in history and then grab his coattails

01:03:36.540 and hang on. So I have no idea. Anyone who says they know what God has in mind or what American

01:03:45.580 destiny requires for the election of November, 2020 is, uh, puffing something that's legal in

01:03:52.660 Washington state, Colorado, but, uh, it, cause we don't know. We don't know. In other words,

01:03:59.280 when, when you look at things, I could give, there's so many examples, but one that immediately

01:04:06.460 comes to mind, something we were talking about, Harry Truman is never went to college. You know,

01:04:13.780 he was a failed businessman. He had a haberdashery store. It never worked. Uh, he was a small time

01:04:19.660 machine politician from Missouri, but Bob Hannigan, a number of others saw something in him

01:04:24.560 that was godly, that was a firm, that was smart, that was dedicated. If, if you were reacting

01:04:35.480 in April of 1945, Franklin Roosevelt and now Harry Truman is president, there's a lot of

01:04:41.220 disaster. It turns out what a great presidency, the whole network, the whole setup of what won

01:04:49.780 the cold war of, uh, of, of NATO and of the containment strategy and, and recognizing Israel

01:04:59.140 12 minutes after Israel's independence is proclaimed. Harry Truman was a great blessing

01:05:05.440 for this country. It was. Didn't think so, uh, on the April day he took over. Who knows? I, this is a

01:05:14.540 very, very, very long elaborate and emotional dodge of your question. I don't, I, I hope that they

01:05:22.900 write about the history of our country, that, um, America is going to make another comeback. It's

01:05:33.900 not make America great again. I don't think we've ever ceased being great, but we'll make another

01:05:38.740 comeback as we did in the 1980s under President Reagan. And not just economically, but you know,

01:05:45.520 you grew up, you remember what it was like when we were afraid of nuclear war and the Soviet menace and 0.90

01:05:52.440 the Russians were, I remember Mortsal, a comedian, had a joke. He said, well, today all of the, uh, uh, 0.99

01:06:00.480 optimists are teaching their kids how to speak Russian and the pessimists are teaching them how to

01:06:05.280 speak Chinese. Uh, okay. You know, America's here, still the dominant power in the world, 0.76

01:06:12.740 still the dominant force of the world. And it's not again, because we're better. It's because we are

01:06:19.080 an instrument. Lincoln used that term a lot. He said, I am an instrument, an humble instrument of divine

01:06:27.620 will. And that really is, is I think the situation for America. If, if you believe that there is a God

01:06:35.540 who has an influence on history, I think most people have to recognize that. What's he going to

01:06:44.600 use Belgium? We will, it'll be difficult, but he will if we don't do it. Well, yeah, no, I mean, we,

01:06:54.960 we, we, we, we are the, uh, the, the biggest, most significant, the last great hope. We are the

01:07:02.960 last best hope. Yes. Thank you. And the last best hope because we are, um, we are called upon to be

01:07:10.860 not only great, but good. Uh, let me just switch topics real quick. Uh, cause you know, you're film

01:07:17.880 critic for a long time. Yeah. Have you seen 1917 yet? Yes. What'd you think? I loved it. I did too. 0.53

01:07:24.880 I thought it was a fantastic film and unbelievably well made. I don't think we're going to ever have

01:07:32.160 a film that gets us closer to what, uh, that battlefield. I have to tell you, I, I, I went in

01:07:40.340 hoping that it would be better than, or I mean as good as saving private right. I think it was

01:07:46.400 better cause I felt like I was in it. I wasn't, it wasn't a star driven thing. And the way they

01:07:53.080 filmed it, I felt I was in the trash. It's, it's immediate and it's almost, almost done as if

01:07:59.300 you're experiencing it in real time. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of those things that people blog

01:08:04.040 about is like, it's one shot. You're following these guys and every step of the way. And it's

01:08:09.340 it's so well done. And, and again, and you think back on that war and, um, the waste and,

01:08:18.620 and the tragedy and, uh, you know, 125,000 Americans died in that war and 16 million people altogether.

01:08:29.320 But, um, again, if you look at 1917 to 2017,

01:08:38.100 and what's happened in the world and how much closer we are to justice, to opportunity,

01:08:44.840 I'll tell you one thing. Did you see that Peter Jackson movie, uh, about, yeah, where he

01:08:51.200 reconstructed the actual footage? Unbelievable. It was the first time it became, they became

01:08:56.760 people. Correct. What was the biggest difference between the Tommies, the British soldiers you

01:09:03.480 see in 1917 and the Peter Jackson people, you know, what was the teeth? Oh yeah. Yeah. The,

01:09:10.720 the people looking for something deeper than that. That's exactly right. The pictures of all those

01:09:15.680 people. And I, do you, do you know what a blessing dentistry is? No, it really is. I mean, for,

01:09:23.380 for guys like us, right? Teeth. It's, it's wonderful. Now all of this, you can say, oh,

01:09:29.860 that's so shallow. It's not shallow at the, at the end of the day, you know, it's flesh,

01:09:34.920 flesh, blood, the opportunities that, that we have. I mentioned before my dad, um, my grandfather

01:09:45.660 who came here from Ukraine was a barrel maker. Uh, my dad, because of public schools and, uh, 0.99

01:09:53.940 because he was very hardworking and clever, uh, ended up getting scholarships and then GI Bill,

01:10:01.600 um, and getting a PhD in physics and, um, doing, having an amazing life. He was in the scientist

01:10:10.300 astronaut program. And again, and my dad, he became religious later in life. But even when,

01:10:20.520 when I was a little kid, when he really wasn't religiously involved at all, he was, he was very

01:10:25.660 involved with the knowledge that America was evidence of God, that there was something godly

01:10:33.720 and special about America. And, um, and if you think about it, every single one of our patriotic

01:10:42.860 songs has some kind of God reference. Um, the last verse of the star spangled banner, uh,

01:10:50.360 uh, I love it. We should sing that one. Yeah. No, all the, all the time. I mean, this is one of

01:10:56.740 those things that, that people can recapture this be our motto and God is our trust. That's where it

01:11:01.760 comes from. It's from the star spangled banner and, uh, America, America, God shed his grace on thee

01:11:08.460 and crown thy good with brotherhood. Uh, and she wrote that song when she rode up to Pike peak

01:11:16.120 and looked out over the plane and, uh, even, uh, Woody Guthrie, um, who, uh, he, you know,

01:11:28.800 he wrote that song, this, this land is made for you and me. This land is your land. This land is my

01:11:33.100 land. He wrote it as an answer to God bless America because Irving Berlin was a kind of noted

01:11:40.200 Republican and, uh, big Patriot. And, uh, so Woody Guthrie, who was a communist, uh, but even him

01:11:50.660 writing about the country, this land is made for you and me who made it, uh, ultimately. And that

01:11:58.520 implication is there, uh, even, even where people who are not at all religiously minded would not

01:12:09.440 expect it to be, uh, which is seeing God's hand on America. That's the name of the book. God's hand

01:12:18.400 on America, divine providence in the modern era. Michael Medved, it's just so nice to have you.

01:12:24.180 Oh, it's wonderful to talk to you, Glenn. And thank you for being such an ideal, sympathetic reader.

01:12:29.820 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it

01:12:42.140 can be discovered by other people.

The Glenn Beck Program - March 07, 2020

Ep 70 ｜ Don’t Feel Guilty Celebrating America’s Miracles ｜ Michael Medved ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

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