I Hate PragerU | Short Documentary

On today's show, we talk about Prager U. Talking about Prager U today. Come on, think. Think, Alden. Alright, I gotta figure out an angle. You call yourself a journalist? Come on, Alden, get your crap together. Uh, inside. No, no, no, no, no. Take that. No, that's stupid. Come on, think. Dummy. Ugh, look at me. Pitiful. I haven't always been this way. This was supposed to be my big break. The takedown of Prager U. A five-minute YouTube empire. Brought to its knees. It was gonna be the story that got me out of the freelance basement and into the glossy halls of legacy media. Instead, well... You've been accused of leading a propaganda machine. I know what you're thinking. Alden, how did it come to this? Ah, what the heck. It's easier just to show you. All my life, I've considered myself a go-getter. I've never been satisfied with being a regular dude. I always felt like I was just meant to do more. The name's Alden. Alden Travis. And lately, I found myself feeling ready to change the world. There you go. Awesome, thank you so much. Namaste. But man, where do I even start? I've tried everything. Art? Too time-consuming. Academia? Bad memories. Business? Ugh, too much math. But journalism is where my passion has always been. And I think it's finally time to write my breakout piece. Look, we all know the world's gone crazy. But man, conservatives? Why don't they see that they're on the wrong side of history? I've got to expose them for their lies. Question is, who do I start with? Newsmax? Daily Wire? Breitbart? Meh. Low-hanging fruit. Hmm. Pra-ger-you? What is this? Some sort of weird propaganda school or something? Media organization that creates content promoting conservative and pro-capitalist viewpoints? Ugh, I hate capitalists. What are the real journalists saying? Florida will allow PragerU materials... Oh, PragerU. So there's two different problems here. Number one, PragerU is funded completely by right-wing billionaires. Right-wing billionaires? Pfft. Of course. A well-known and controversial media outlet known for spreading misinformation. PragerU, which of course is not an actual accredited educational institution. It's not a university. Not a real university, mind you. This place sounds awful. Because why teach accurate history when you can just teach the watered-down conservative version of it? This was it. This is when it hit me. To think that there's some radical right-wing company out there that calls itself a university. That fights against everything I stand for as a human. And they're not even a real university. They're frauds. This was my moment. I knew what I had to do. I was going to destroy PragerU. How do I take down PragerU? Conduct a formal interview? Yeah, sure. I'll just talk to them. Alright, you can do this. This is where your journalism career skyrockets. 10 a.m. Thursday. Let's do this. Yes, yes. Correct. PragerU. I have exclusive access to their little brainwashing facility. Give me a break. Hello? Marissa, great to be here. Let's just get into this. How much are they paying you? Kid, I've got nothing for you. Be honest. Be honest. If I were you, I would not call this number. I can't help you. Sorry. I was just hoping to get one... Hello? What does PragerU even mean? He named it after himself? Pretty selfish. We don't really talk about articles we wrote. I've got nothing for you, man. I'm sorry. I know I don't talk to you all the time, but... Please help me, Barack Obama. PragerU is a big propaganda machine. One of the most controversial university... Controversial? Interesting. Yeah, why don't you let us know when you have a little bit more of a story. Let's go. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end for PragerU. Hi. You must be Alden. Yeah. Welcome. Lovely to meet you. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So, our executive director, Alan Estrin, will be free in just a moment, but in the meantime, can I get you something to drink? We have coffee, water, tea, sparkling water. Yeah, just some sparkling water would be great. Okay, great. Follow me this way, have a seat, and I'll go grab that for you. Thank you. Of course. Well, she seems friendly. The 20th century was the most murderous century in recorded history. And who did all this killing? Big governments. Evil individuals without power can do only so much harm. But when evil individuals take control of a big government, the amount of harm they can do is essentially unlimited. Hey, here's that sparkling water for you. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. The right fears big government. The left fears big business. But Coca-Cola can't break into your house or confiscate your wealth. Only big government can do that. As irresponsible as any big business has ever been, it is only big government that can build concentration camps and commit genocide. That actually kind of made sense. Of course it does, Alden. All right, Alan's ready for you now. Great. Okay. Thanks, Alan. Appreciate your time. Sure. Happy to be here. All right, let's get into this. So, Alan, you co-founded PragerU with Dennis Prager. Can you give me kind of an explanation or the cliff notes, if you will, on why you started this media company? It started because I was the producer of the Dennis Prager radio show. And I had a frustration. And the frustration was we weren't reaching young people. So the first inkling of the idea was, how do we get Dennis to talk to young people? And I figured the best way to do that was to get him on the Internet. Why university? Why not Prager Video School? Pretty good. Well, because we really wanted to communicate this idea that this was a place where you could come to learn. So we landed on this idea, five-minute videos. All right, Jill, let's get into it. Okay. What is PragerU Kids? PragerU Kids is more than 1,200 videos and worksheets and books and downloadable materials to educate children about our American values so that kids as young as kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade can be equipped to grow into citizens who contribute to our society. Xavier, thanks for doing this. Nice to meet you. You were once very much against PragerU. Mm-hmm. And now you find yourself here working for PragerU. What happened? I mean, it's a full circle moment at this point. I found new information, and I can only lie to myself so much. Once I saw the truth, I couldn't just go back and be blind. If five-minute videos are so effective and great, what about 10-minute videos would be twice as great? I want the next generation of kids to be able to question, to be very curious in learning about our history. Or 20-minute videos would be four times as great and effective. Just something to think about. No matter what your perspective is, left or right or in between, it's raising Americans who understand that through our differences we are one nation. I understand that you see PragerU, you might think it's a racist organization or bigoted. I tried to look into it, and one, there's no racism here, there's no bigotry here, and everything is rooted in facts and truth. You can see our sources. We have them listed out all over our website. And for me to be able to see the receipts, that told me everything I needed to know. I mean, funny enough, I was basically in your position like three to five years ago where I was asking the same questions. I didn't understand what was happening on this side. I can kind of see that you feel like you're walking down that same path. I won't rush you down the process, but just do your own research. The true mission of PragerU is to try to just help people live a better life. That's all we want to do. So we made more videos and more videos, and then we started to realize, look, this is getting too big just for Dennis and me. We need to bring somebody in who's really going to be able to build up this organization. Marissa Street. Strait? Straight. No. Strait. Oh, boy. Hi. Hey. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming in. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is more official than I thought. Yeah? Yeah. All right. Well, you know, no need to be nervous. No, I'm not nervous. All right. Let's start with the basics. What is PragerU? PragerU is an educational media organization that teaches what should be taught through digital mediums. So we make videos. We make clips. We make supplementary educational content, books, magazines, but mostly we make digital content online, and we are available for free for everybody who wants to learn something new. When you say educate, who are you educating? Well, we're really looking to educate everybody. Everybody should have an opportunity to hear different perspectives, to learn about America and why America is so prosperous. Some people online or in life have accused you guys of leading this big propaganda machine. What do you say to that? I actually think that if you want to investigate the people who are accusing PragerU of certain things, you will find out that they're the ones who should be accused for intolerance and fake news, and once you actually visit the PragerU website and watch our content, you might actually find it to be really inspiring and honest. It was somewhere around hour three of talking to these people that I had the horrible thought, this isn't going as planned. I mean, where are all the employee propaganda indoctrination rooms? Why is everyone walking around and smiling and happy? All right, thank you so much. Thanks for doing this and sitting down with me. You've given me a lot to think about. Well, if there's anything else you need, you know, don't hesitate to reach out. And it was great talking to you. Awesome. Thank you so much. These people don't sound as crazy as I was told they are. What is going on here? I need to let off some steam. And the only way I know how is through artistic expression. The system's rigged. It's a capitalist cage. Workers bleed and sweat while the rich turn the page. They sip their lattes, wealth in their towers. While we march for the planet, for people, for power. Yeah. Thank you. I still don't have any change. So, the interviews didn't go as planned. So I called the critics who wrote those pieces trashing Prager U. My name is Alden. I am writing a little article about Prager U. Hi. I was wondering if you guys could answer some questions about an article you guys published a few months ago. I begged them for facts. Bob. Hey. Access to their insight into whatever Prager U truly is. Anything I could use to bring this company down. You guys said that Prager U was anti-Semitic. Where did you get that research and can you send it to me? Here is white Christian nationalist Barbie over here. White Christian nationalist Barbie? Um, I don't really have time for this. Why don't you go do your own research? I am kind of by calling you. I thought you... Hello? Prager U was founded by suspected white supremacist Dennis Prager. Do you have any links or anything you guys could send to me about Dennis Prager being anti-Semitic? Uh, you know, you wrote an article. I was just thinking maybe you guys could give me some insight. I am doing an article about Prager U. Hello? Alright, man. I'll give you this. Look up Prager U Louisiana House Resolution. Check it out for yourself. What do we have here? A resolution to urge and request the Louisiana Department of Education to prohibit the use of videos that are discriminatory and anti-Semitic. Videos by Prager U, a right-wing media non-profit. Yes! Yes! Finally! Anti-Semitic bigots! I knew it! Yes! Wait, what? No, no, no, no, no. Is Dennis Prager anti-Semitic? What? He's Jewish? Give me proof that Dennis Prager is anti-Semitic. Okay. So why would a Louisiana House bill call Prager U anti-Semitic if it's clearly not true? The bill uses the word anti-Semitic as a political weapon. Wait, what? He wouldn't just lie, right? Ugh, what's become of me? Watching cooking TikToks on a Wednesday afternoon. Zero progress in my Prager U takedown. This was supposed to be a slam dunk. What am I missing? Who else could I talk to? Alan, Marissa, Jill, Xavier. They all put on a nice show for me, I'll give them that much. But I know they're hiding something. I need to talk to someone who has seen Prager U from the inside, but isn't on the inside of Prager U, and isn't afraid to talk. Dave, hi. Thanks so much for taking the time. Hey, Alden. Glad we could make it work. Alright, let's just start here. You were progressive once, like a real one. Like Young Turks Progressive. My name is Dave Rubin. I am the newest host here on the Young Turks Network. We're doing a show called The Rubin Report. Now you're Mr. Liberty? What happened to you? Look, I was a progressive. I mean, that is, it's recorded, it's documented, it's on the internet. And then a few things happened. One of them actually was, I had Dennis Prager on my show, and Dennis and I disagreed about a lot of stuff. But what was interesting was that Dennis was smiling the whole time, he was very warm and welcoming, and immediately when the show ended, even though it was a little combative, Dennis was like, you know, in his booming voice, you know, we should do that again. I think you're an interesting guy. I thought, well, alright, we will do that again. So let's talk PragerU. You've made videos for them, you've worked with them. Are you honestly proud of the work you've done with them? Yeah, I'm proud of the work, man. You know, I did the Why I Left the Left video with them, which I think is the biggest one, that was the first one. And then I did other videos for them that subsequently, I think, really hit on the other issues of the day. If you watch my videos that I've done with them, it tells a really beautiful story that I think is connected to the cultural story of America over the last ten years. Okay, well, why do you think so many people hate PragerU? Well, I would say a lot of the hate probably is jealousy. You know, anyone that's getting clicks, getting eyeballs, making people think, you know, there's going to be a certain set of jealous, angry people doing it. You know, if you're not getting hate, then you're probably not doing anything worthwhile. But, like, doesn't PragerU whitewash American history? Well, I guess if you, by whitewash, you mean washes off the state-run education institutions have put on top of the brains of young people, then I suppose I would agree with you. If I told you that I was starting to doubt everything I've ever believed in, what would you say to me? I mean, Alden, I hate to tell you this, but you're just like me. A lot of what you're saying here, a lot of the questions, the sort of dancing around what I think you already suspect, I mean, that's me ten years ago. But I'm telling you, man, just keep following the path. You're going to be just fine. All right, Dave, thanks for your time, man. Seriously. My pleasure, Alden. I'll talk to you later. I just feel like everything I believed has fallen apart. Everything I thought was true seems like it might not be true. And everything that I hate is starting to make a lot of sense. You know? Like, I hate that it's starting to make sense, and I hate that it might be true. I don't know if that makes sense. It's just a lot. You know what I mean? Birds, pigeons, they're free. Like, free? What do you mean? You take them home. That's not what I'm talking about at all. Oh, jeez. All right. Let's get Chipotle. And so, I find myself right here where we first met. How could I have failed so miserably? I was told multiple times, explicitly, that PragerU is this evil, bigoted company. And when I dive in headfirst to expose it, I literally can't make anything stick? How's this possible? I mean, the media wouldn't lie to me, right? I mean, everyone said PragerU videos are the worst. Are they the worst? Wait, have I even watched a PragerU video all the way through before? I've been so focused on what everyone else is saying that I haven't even watched a full video for myself. Do What You Fear? That's a fitting title. So then one of the most important questions in life is, how do I conquer my fears? For hours, I scoured through the PragerU website, looking for everything and anything I could that proves this company is as vile as I was told they were. What did I find? Videos about how to improve my life. How to be a happier person. Mini bios about fascinating people and hard-hitting discussions with interesting, well-known guests. Children's shows about financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Even a show all about the classic books of Western literature. I mean, what's going on here? Am I blind? Where's all the hate-filled propaganda? Where's all the white nationalism? Where's all that racist stuff I heard about? So here I was, wanting so desperately to destroy a company just because everyone I knew told me they were evil. Then ultimately I realized this was actually what I feared the most, that everything I believed was a lie. What's up? Hey, uh... Hey, Marissa. Can we talk? So I didn't write the expose. Couldn't do it. Somewhere between the research and the interviews and my PragerU binge watch, I realized maybe they aren't the ones who are misleading people. Marissa, I called everybody. I've searched high and low. I've looked everywhere. I dug deep. I can't find anything on you guys. So there I was, a die-hard progressive. And the main thing that was always ingrained in me was to never even speak to these people. Now I know why. Because there's nothing more terrifying than hearing things that make sense from the exact people I was supposed to hate. Am I some full-blown raging right-winger now? No. Just a normal dude trying to think better and live better. And perhaps that's all PragerU's been trying to encourage all along. She's been so nice, and I guess what I'm saying is... Are you hiring?