DERSHOWITZ SAYS THE UNITED STATES HAS LOST ITS STANDING TO TALK ABOUT DEMOCRACY AS A RESULT OF SOME LOCAL D.A. WHO PROMISED TO GET TRUMP
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Summary
Alan Dershowitz, former White House lawyer and author of the new book, Get Trump, joins Lou Dobbs on the Great America Show to discuss the Trump Indictment and why it is unlikely to survive in court.
Transcript
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Hello everybody, I'm Lou Dobbs and welcome to the Great America Show.
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Good to have you with us as we fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
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There's no doubt this week that the country's careening between one crisis and the next,
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and the nation is without a doubt in decline. And there's little evidence that decline is in
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any way manageable. Only a fool would think those crises are anything but orchestrated.
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A hardly stealthy Chinese spy balloon that Biden permits to float over our secret bases
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coast to coast for a week. The obvious alliance that Biden struck up with the Mexican drug cartels
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and the 2,000 mile border that they now control. Or the conspicuous weaponization of the entire
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federal government against decency, the rule of law, the American way of life, our heritage,
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our history, and our values. Nothing about these crises is normal or natural. The indictment of
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President Trump, his arrest, with even some of the Marxist dims saying, it's enough, stop.
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Guess who might have been listening? The most liberal appellate court in the nation,
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the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which on the same day that President Trump was indicted
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by the Manhattan D.A., ruled that porn star Stormy Daniels had to pay President Trump
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$121,972 in legal fees from a 2018 defamation lawsuit that she lost. Our guest is an icon in
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American law. He once represented President Trump in his first impeachment, for which the left has
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never forgiven him. Our guest is Alan Dershowitz, attorney, Harvard law professor emeritus, and
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author of the new book, Get Trump. Alan, great to have you back with us here on The Great America
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Show. Let's begin with the indictment, a historic and dark document. Your thoughts on its adequacy and
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its likelihood of survival. I've been reading indictments for 60 years, teaching at Harvard Law
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school, practicing. I've never read an indictment like this. You can read it over and over and over
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again, and there's just no crime. Here's the basic theory underlying the indictment. Donald Trump
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allegedly paid $130,000, his hush money, to make sure that a former porn star doesn't reveal to his
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wife, his friends, his voters, his business associates, et cetera, that they had an adulterous
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affair. The purpose of the money was to keep quiet, to make sure it doesn't become public. And Bragg says,
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in order to avoid being prosecuted for felonies in New York, he then immediately had to go and
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publicly disclose on an open corporate form, the fact that he paid the hush money in order to keep
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people quiet and prevent the public from learning it. Has there ever been so ridiculous a claim
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in the history of America from the day that Alexander Hamilton paid his hush money to prevent
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an adulterous affair from coming out? There have been thousands and thousands of hush money payments
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never in the history of the country has anybody ever been prosecuted for not then putting it on a
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public form. Why would anybody ever pay a nickel in hush money if they then had to report, oh, I paid
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the hush money to prevent from coming out what I'm now going to put in a public record? It's absurd.
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I can't even say it without smiling. Do you think that the the courts will smile as well?
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Perhaps chuckle when they see it? No, not the courts in New York City, not the courts in Manhattan.
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The courts in Manhattan know this is an injustice, but no judge in New York, elected judges in New York,
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no judge in New York is going to be the guy who walks around town with people pointing the finger
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at him saying, that's the man that freed Donald Trump. How do I know that? Because I defended
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Donald Trump once in the floor of the Senate and nobody in Manhattan would talk to me. Nobody on
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Martha's Vineyard would talk to me. I became the devil incarnate. But just because I defended him
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once, I can imagine how much more so that would be for a judge who freed him, who actually freed him.
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You know, a robe doesn't give you courage and no judge would have the courage to throw this
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indictment out, even though they all know that it's not worth the papers written on.
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Including the judge, Judge Merchant in the in the court in New York when that indictment was handed down.
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No, he's not going to have the courage to do that. You know, he has family connections to the Democrats.
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He's just not going to do it. Even if he knows he's going to be reversed, he'd rather blame the
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people upstairs in the court. It wasn't my fault. Those damn judges up in Albany, they reversed it.
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They're the ones who freed Trump. I didn't free Trump. No, nobody wants to be the one responsible
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for freeing Trump in the borough of Manhattan. In the borough of Manhattan, you cannot get a fair trial.
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Remember, Greg ran and won the DA on the promise to get Trump. Now he wants the very people who voted
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for him to get Trump to serve on the jury to determine whether he has, in fact, gotten Trump.
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I mean, if somebody wrote a novel about this, it would be rejected for being too ridiculous. But that
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novel came true in the courthouse where I have practiced for many years in New York. And it was a sad,
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sad, sad day. Well, it's a pretty sad day right now. A historic event, a dark event in this country's
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history. I think you agree with me on that. And the reality here is New York has become something
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unto itself. In addition to all of the evil we see in the partisanship and the ideological conflict that
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grips its nation. We're balkanizing the country on the basis of Marxist ideology, if you wish,
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progressive partisan politics or conservative politics. We really, you know, it's one thing to
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say this about Manhattan and New York, that they are entitled to their ridiculous politics.
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But I can't excuse it. And I don't think the judicial system at large should do it.
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It's getting worse. It's getting much worse, not better. Why? Because the future leaders of the
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bar, the future judges, the future professors are now at Stanford Law School, at Yale Law School,
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at Georgetown Law School, stopping people from speaking, saying that the Constitution doesn't
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matter, that it's a white male, a patriarchal document and should be ignored. There are now
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a hundred chapters of the National Lawyers Guild in law schools around the country. What's the
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National Lawyers Guild? It started as a communist front organization. It supported Hitler when Stalin
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made the pact with Hitler because the Soviet Union told it to do so. It supported Israel in 1948 because
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the Soviet Union told it to do so. It then rejected Israel in 1967 because the Soviet Union told it to
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do so. And so you have this, quote, woke, progressive, hard, hard, hard left becoming more and more
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influential in law schools. And by the way, the hundred chapters of the National Lawyers Guild have a
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lot of professors in them as well. And so we're seeing our next generation of leaders today are in
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the elite law schools are being taught to disvalue the Constitution and to put politics, ideology,
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partisanship above it. In my book, Get Trump, I go through all of this and I go through the history of
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how we got there. And I go through all of the four counts that are now being investigated against
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Donald Trump and show there's nothing to any of them. And if the shoe were on the other foot,
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if these were investigations being done of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Hunter Biden,
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everybody would be on a different side. All these progressives would be saying, oh, my God,
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what a terrible distortion of justice. But now they're they're rooting for injustice. They're
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rooting for violations of civil liberties. Well, they are rooting and cheering. And at this point,
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there is very little that suggests to me, at least, that President Trump is going to have an easy time
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of it. I know that his one of his lawyers, Joe Tacopino, says he doesn't believe this case will
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get near a jury. But if it does, you know, God help the president because they don't want to give up
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venue. They don't want to give up jurisdiction over this case because he is their avowed enemy.
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Being Donald Trump. Your thoughts? I look, I think this case will get to a jury because I don't think
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judges will have the courage to throw it out. And I think a jury will convict a member of the jurors
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will be the same people who voted for Alfred Bragg and the judges will be the same people who voted
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for Alfred Bragg, many of them. If there's a change of venue, things could be different.
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If the case, there are two motions that can be made early on that might be appealable, might be
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appealable. One is the change of venue motion and the other is the statute of limitations. And if
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they're made quickly, they'll be denied by this judge. But they can then be taken up to the Court
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of Appeals before there's any trial. But I do think we're going to have a trial here. I don't think we're going
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to see this case dismissed without a trial, although that would be the right thing to do.
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Should we have anything at all in the New York appellate courts? Are they any better than the
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Well, it's a divided Supreme Court. I mean, it's called the New York Court of Appeals. It's divided.
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It has Republicans and Democrats. So at least there'll be some dissenting views. But the Supreme
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Court of the United States, I think, will ultimately not tolerate this. But it'll take, you know,
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a good part of a year to get to the United States Supreme Court, even on an expedited basis. And by that
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time, we're well into the presidential campaign. This is the first time in history, forget about the fact
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that it's the first time in history that a former president has been indicted, the first time in
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history that a current presidential candidate has been indicted. And I think it was the president of
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San Salvador, I'm not sure, one of the South American countries, who said yesterday in a tweet,
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don't lecture us about democracy anymore. You're prosecuting and threatening imprisonment of the
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man who's running against your incumbent president? And you're lecturing us about democracy?
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The United States has lost its standing to talk about democracy as a result of some local DA who
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promised to get Trump. The title of my book, Get Trump, is not original with me. It's completely
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plagiarized from the campaign promises of Letitia James and Alvin Bragg. And that's the campaign to
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get Trump beyond New York. It's spread, you know, all over the country. And we're going to see,
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and then we're going to see some pushback. We're going to see some local Republican DAs
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trying to get Hunter Biden, trying to get other Democrats. And it's going to destroy the neutrality
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and objectivity of our legal system, which is a great tragedy.
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It is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that is not only unfolding before our very eyes,
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but taking root throughout. I think it's, by the way, I want to compliment you on the book,
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Get Trump. I don't think I've seen a more timely, not even from you, a more timely title. And you are
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sagacious in your timing, as well as your interpretation of law and politics.
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But I, and I recommend the book to everyone, Get Trump by Alan Dersowicz. But there is in this
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now, I think there has to be a recognition on the part of our thought leaders, our once leaders in
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business, academia, you name it, that this country is now contending with a new force,
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something we've never seen in this expanse. And that is a Marxist force within the Democratic Party
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that has taken hold and now controls the federal government. And we have to acknowledge that.
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I don't think we can get much done. Do you not agree?
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I do not agree. And that's why I'm remaining a Democrat to fight from within the Democratic Party.
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I think there is an effort to do that. I don't think it has yet succeeded. And I'm going to fight
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back. I'm almost 85 years old. I have been a Democrat all my life. I'm a Democrat, not because
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of any particular person, but because I support a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, reasonable
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gun control, reasonable climate control, separation of church and state. I buy the Democratic agenda
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over the Republican agenda. But I don't buy the effort to try to push the Democrats into the kind
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of woke progressive extremism that we're seeing happen. My greatest enemies, by the way, are not
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conservatives at all. They are the radical left. That's the people that I fight against every day.
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And I'm trying, trying to prevent the Democratic Party from becoming what you've described it as being.
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I don't think it's there, but I think there's a risk it could become that. And I think it's important
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for people like me, the few remaining Democrats who believe in a more centrist, libertarian approach
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to fight from within until until we've given up. I'm not ready to give up.
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Well, we've heard this audience has heard Alan Dershowitz, icon of American law, say that you can't
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trust the courts of New York. You cannot trust the Marxist Dems. And it's even at best an even bet on
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the appellate courts. We know in the federal courts that we've got almost a thousand people
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who've been incarcerated, some of them in prison for two years without trial. We have seven years of
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political persecution of a president without so much as a yawn from the left or the progressive
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Democrats, or even if there is such a remaining thing, a moderate Democrat. It is, we have to
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acknowledge what it is. The woke madness has permeated every department in the federal
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government. There is no exception, whether it's the IRS, the Department of Defense, the Department
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of Justice, the FBI, the IRS. I mean, I just don't find an exception to the domination of the
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Marxist Dems and the Democratic Party in alignment with the deep state that control
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the federal government. Look, I think there are two events that have occurred over the last few years
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that have transformed America for the worst. One was the election of Donald Trump and then the loss
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of Donald Trump, but the whole Donald Trump phenomenon, which created Trump derangement syndrome.
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People are just nuts. You can't talk to them. Larry David runs up to me on Chilmark. We've been friends
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for years. I helped his daughter get into college. We, you know, he comes to my house for dinner. He works
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out in my gym, screams and yells at me. I'm disgusting. I'm despicable. There's that syndrome. And then there
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was the murder of George Floyd. That turned America into an identity politics country where every branch
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of government now must, must make reparations for the horrible evils of slavery. And it's permeated every
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institution of America, the academy, the media, corporate America, political America. You cannot
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today say, I believe in racial equality. You cannot quote the Bible that says, don't recognize faces or
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implicitly don't recognize races or genders. Everything turns on identity politics today.
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And those two events are transformative events. And people have taken sides. You can't have a
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conversation in the middle. You can't say, look, you know, Donald Trump, as I've said, did a great deal
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of good on the Middle East. The Abraham, of course, is fantastic. The recognition of Jerusalem,
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the Golan Heights. I played a small role in some of these events. I worked with President Trump. I admire
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that. I think that's great. I don't like his views on ABCD. You can't say that anymore. Or you can't say,
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look, it's important to increase the number of minorities in universities, but let's not do it
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through racial quotas. You can't say that anymore. There's no middle ground. That's what I worry so
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deeply about. And in my book, Get Trump, I propose middle grounds. I propose ways of dealing with some of
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these issues that don't hand over the narrative to the extreme extremes on the left or the extreme
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extremes on the right. And where would we find such bipartisanship, such moderation that we would
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accommodate the Marxist Dems who are demanding control of this country and the reversal of our
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heritage, our values, whether it be the Judeo-Christian culture that has created all of this.
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I can tell you where to find them. I can tell you where to find them. At the ballot box.
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Okay, you find it at the ballot box, because I think that when radical right or radical left people
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run for office against good moderates, they tend to lose. Not always, but they tend to lose. America
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is a centrist country. We need centrist leaders. We need courageous leaders who are willing to lose
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the votes of the extremes on either side and say, look, America is a country in the middle.
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You can be a liberal conservative. You can be a conservative liberal. You can be a moderate. You could be
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a libertarian, but we have to marginalize the extremes on either side. And that's what I've been
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standing up for all my life. That's what I'm going to spend, whatever the good Lord gives me,
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left of my life to fight for moderation, Americanism. When I walk into my house every day,
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my little apartment in New York, I turn to a wall, the entry place, and I see an original copy,
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an early copy of the Declaration of Independence. I see an early copy of Tom Paine's book. I see an
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early – a letter from George Washington. I see a letter from Alexander Hamilton, from Jefferson,
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from Lincoln. These are the people who inspire me. These are the people who keep me going. I want
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to make sure that the values that they created for America, separation of powers,
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checks and balances remain the central part of our constitutional democracy.
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I admire your idealism. I admire your patriotism. I think it's wonderful. But I know right now,
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anyone in this country listening to this show and to you, who is a Marxist dem, just said,
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my God, he recited how many names, founding names of this nation who own slaves and should – as part of
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the national original sin. That is the way they view the world. And when you talk about modern –
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That's the way they do it, and we have to fight back, and we have to tell them that the Declaration
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of Independence did not include the right of property in the Declaration, because Jefferson didn't want to
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permanentize the ownership of slaves. These are complicated issues. Washington's wife owned
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slaves, but he didn't. You know, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Not everything he said
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about blacks was perfect. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And we've had phenomenal leaders,
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and I fight for our legacy. And my family loves America. We've been here since 1889.
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We were rescued from the pogroms of Europe. So many Americans were rescued from discrimination,
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and bias, and bigotry. We don't want to see it returned to America.
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There is systemic racism. There is systemic extremism. And it is mostly, mostly, if not
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predominantly on the left. Well, I'm fighting it on the left, because that's my tradition. And that's
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where I come from. And that's where I have to fight the fight. And I think people on the right
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should fight the fight against extremism on the right. Yeah.
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I wish that every progressive in the country would follow the standard that you carry, repair to that
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standard. And the country is on its way to salvation. But right now, Donald Trump, you made
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it almost sound like it was Donald Trump's fault, but that there was Trump's arrangement.
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No, no. I'm suggesting it's a phenomenon. No, it's a phenomenon that he was in part responsible
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for in the sense that he was the person who said, I'm running against the establishment. I'm running
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against the deep state. I'm running against this. You know, he's a provocative person. You can
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describe provocative in neutral terms. I'm not blaming it on him. I'm just attributing part of
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it to him. Yeah. And I think that because he is Donald Trump, he stood up for America first,
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for balanced trade, the withdrawal of our troops from foreign remote outposts and postings,
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that he should be applauded by the left because I'm a product of the sixties. I remember when that
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was a serious issue for the left, they wanted our troops at home and moderates wanted a modest
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foreign policy. That is precisely what Donald Trump offered America and was rejected. Maybe not at the
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ballot box, but by a rigged election as Donald Trump predicted in May of 2020. All I want is nuanced,
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moderation, recognize the goods of every side. Every side has some goods to say. You know, I even
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agree with what President Trump said when he went to Charlottesville. He was talking about people who
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don't want to tear down the monuments. And in that context, he said there are good people on both sides
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and there are bad people on both sides. And of course, that was totally misunderstood and misinterpreted.
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There are good people on, not on every side, not for every issue. Obviously, the people who
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marked in Charlottesville saying we want to replace them, et cetera, those aren't good people. But there
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are good people who don't want to tear down the monuments. I'm among them. I want to move them to
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museums, perhaps, where they can be subject to education and teaching. But I want moderate solutions,
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and that's what I'm opting for. Unfortunately, one of my moderate solutions requires me to leave in
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a minute because I have another obligation. But it's always a pleasure to return to your show,
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which I had so many good times on in past years. And I hope you continue educating America for many,
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many more years. We're going to take that as your concluding thoughts, Alan. And you're leaving us with
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with the inspiration to find moderation. I hope that that can be achieved. I am highly skeptical,
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I'm a skeptical person as well. I'm a skeptical person as well. But my final message is please
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buy my book, Get Trump, because that will send a powerful message to Bragg and others. There are
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people out there watching him. There are people out there holding him accountable.
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Alan Dershowitz, a great American. Thanks, everybody, for being with us. Here tomorrow,
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Republican strategist and pollster John McLaughlin on the extraordinary polling numbers for the 45th
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president. Please join us here tomorrow. Till then, God bless you. God bless America.