Dennis’s Thoughts on Memorial Day, Nigeria’s Christian Persecution & the Failing New York Times

Dennis, I guess we would say happy Memorial Day as Memorial Day is coming up this weekend, and I've been thinking a lot about how America thinks about and approaches Memorial Day. You know, I lived in Israel for several years, and when in Israel they celebrated Memorial Day, there was really a moment where the entire nation stands still for about a minute and thinks about those who sacrificed for their country. And here in America, Memorial Day has frankly become this day that we just go shopping, we go to the mall. I'm not sure that anybody fully thinks about the sacrifice. I mean, a few do, but less than less so. And I'd love your comments on what does this mean to our nation where Memorial Day has become a day to go to the shopping mall rather than actually honor those who have fallen? Well, it's sort of like July 4th. It's a day to have hot dogs, not celebrate the founding of the freest, most prosperous country, spreader of freedom in world history. A Memorial Day, I saw it once in Israel. You people have to see videos of it if they don't go, obviously, on that day to Israel. Everything comes to a halt, including the busiest highways, freeways, through ways in Israel. People get out of their car in the middle of the highway and stand there for a minute of silence. And it's no wonder that young Israelis fight for their country, that they return from all over the world from often prosperous businesses in order to fight for their country's survival, which is what all Israel's wars are about, it's survival, because they know what they stand for. If we don't know what Americans died for, then we don't know what we stand for. It's very basic and very simple. You know, I think about it because I went to Normandy Beach many years ago with my family and I was blown away. It shook me up. The number of 20, 21, 22-year-olds buried there, they walked onto the beach, like the most fortified wall in the world, the German wall on the French border with English Channel. And they knew a lot of them are going to be blown up, killed, maimed, whatever. But they went, they knew what they were fighting for. But as I said, we have lost the idea of what we stand for. This is a crisis. I agree that it's a crisis. And you mentioned 4th of July, which many of the viewers know that we have created a ritual for people to remember and celebrate Independence Day. And many people around the country are probably going to be doing it this year. We're going to be sharing time at the White House during the 250th celebration. We're going to be doing this ritual. Do you think we could create a ritual also for Memorial Day? I mean, is there a way where Americans could stand silent for one minute for our great country? Maybe we decide that it's, I don't know, 8 p.m. Eastern. Everybody just takes one minute to think about those who've served our country. Well, I'll tell you this. It would be very instructive to have a vote in the country. Should we do that? Should we come to a one-minute standstill all over the country on Memorial Day? I would be very interested to see how the vote would go. And frankly, I make no predictions. Well, it reminds me that we designed these freedom trucks that for our celebration of America's 250th, the six trucks are driving all across the country. It's a partnership with Freedom 250 and the White House. And the first time I visited one of our trucks, there was a U.S. vet who walked through the truck and he stood outside and he remained staring at the truck. And they oftentimes have that U.S. hat. And so I walked up to him and I said, he had no idea who I was. Obviously, I just said, you know, what do you think? What do you think about this experience? How is the truck for you? And what was really interesting was that his reaction was relief. He used the word relief. And I said, sir, of all the things you're walking through this historical exhibit, you're not saying, oh, I'm amused, I'm entertained, I'm inspired. The word he had was relief. And I said, sir, why are you saying relief? And he said, you know, I have had so many friends who died in service to this country. And oftentimes when I look at U.S. exhibits, historical exhibits, the narrative is that my friends have died for a bad country. My friends have sacrificed for a country that isn't great. How do you think that makes me feel as a person who's lost so much for this country? And he said, I'm just really relieved that I can bring my grandkids through this museum where they can feel the pride that I have for this country and why I sacrifice for this country. So when you talk about whether Americans are going to even want to honor those who served and died for our country, whether they need to be given a chance to vote on whether to remember those who sacrificed, for just one minute, it's so symbolic. No kidding. I could write the opposition columns to it. Oh, it's government overreach. It's unconstitutional. I don't know. I don't know exactly why, but they would give every argument, including what you just said. So many of them died, you know, in the wrong war. Are we honoring the guys who died in Iraq? That's what they'll say. Which by the way, yes, I want to honor them too. They didn't fight good guys in Iraq. It was a mistake, the war, but it was a noble cause. They died fighting awful human beings who roasted human beings alive like a Jordanian pilot that they captured. I mean, it's so angering to me. I so get it about relief. What about the 36,000 Americans, 36,000 who died in Korea? The only reason there is a South Korea and all Korea is North Korea, that hell hole. That's a real concentration camp. Not Gaza, which was not a concentration camp. North Korea is and 36,000 Americans die solely to keep Korea free. That was the only reason we had no interest in any of the, uh, any of the natural resources of Korea or anything like that. So as we speak about America and America's role in the world, I started paying quite a bit of attention to Nigeria. For those of you who haven't been following Nigeria, they have an explosive population growth. I think now they have about 242 million residents in about 20 years. They're going to eclipse the United States. They're looking at a population the size of 355 million people in 20 years from now. They obviously have incredible amount of resources and oil, smack in the middle of Africa. You're seeing Islamism over there. There is massacres of Christians. And Dennis, I love your take on Nigeria because my sense is that what is happening in Nigeria is going to become a bigger and bigger focus, even for those of us here living in the West. Well, I just want to say for at least 10 years on my radio show and in speeches, I have talked about the Muslim terror against Christians in Nigeria and other places in West Africa. And since 2000, 60,000 minimum Christians have been slaughtered, not to mention kidnapped, enslaved and raped by Muslim terrorists. And nobody gave a damn. And it angered me. And I'm not Christian, but it angered me because it's evil. Evil bothers me. And now finally, we have a president who really is bothered by evil. And he took out the head of the of the terror groups in Nigeria, called by many the biggest terrorist in the world. And that's just another example of America's role in the world. Who else is going to take out the terror, the terror apparatus in Nigeria? We're going to depend on France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, the UK, Australia. Those are the good countries, but none of them will do a thing. It's the United States. People need to remember. That's what America first means. America must be first in the world. But that means that we have to play a world role. For America and for goodness. So what would be your answer to those who say that President Trump has so many issues here in the United States? Again, this is the same question we talk about almost every single week. President Trump is involved with all kinds of issues all over the world while we have our own problems here. Gas prices are high. There is a military industrial complex that needs to be dealt with. And meanwhile, the president is focused on other countries across the other side of the world. Yeah, Nigeria is is is it's a problem. And of course, we are always upset when people are dying, but we have to take care of our own. Why Nigeria? Why should the president spend resources on Nigeria and not resources and focus on the United States? That could have been said at any time in American history. In fact, France could have said that. When they helped us fight our revolutionary war and they were indispensable, French citizens could have said, you know, we got a lot of problems here in France. Why are we helping these colonies on the on the other side of the world? I mean, that's endless. That's like saying, why should I help my neighbor who's being killed down the street? I have so many problems in my own house. And anyway, they're not mutually exclusive. You can do both. And he is doing both. How many billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud is he uncovering with regard to Medicare, for example? Why is that hurt by taking out the biggest terrorists in the world in Nigeria? It's not a moral position. I'm working on the fifth volume of my Bible commentary, the book of Leviticus. There's a very important law there. Do not stand by the blood of your neighbor. That's right. You can't stand by. That's God's law. You mentioned morality. And I just I want us to have an honest conversation. Do you believe that President Trump and the United States is intervening in Nigeria for moral reasons? Or do you think that there are security reasons or even other geopolitical reasons? Why Nigeria? There are both exactly correct. If it were just morality, I would agree with it. We can intervene in every case. I'm not for bombing Pyongyang as much as I would like to get rid of that bestial regime. But yes, you preceded your question with speaking about what a power Nigeria is becoming. So helping that country is definitely in our interest. That's again, America first is first in the world. It doesn't mean America only. Yeah, I would say that the Nigerians that I know here in the United States are, you know, oftentimes exceptionally smart and capable human beings. They have done very well. I have a few friends that are Nigerian who are doctors, and, you know, they don't really absorb that victimhood mentality that sometimes we see with certain groups and populations. And so if you look at the economy of Nigeria and how they're building the country there, there is so much potential in Africa with Nigerians. And, you know, one has to acknowledge that having them be on our side is probably a good thing. Well, the key is, if we don't exercise our influence in the world, the vacuum we will leave behind will be filled by really bad anti-decency, anti-good, anti-American influencers like China and Russia. While on the subject of the Nigerian Muslim terrorists and in West Africa generally, part of the moral inversion that I keep alluding to is that Americans have no problem in acknowledging that who is good and who is the victim and who is the perpetrator in Nigeria and West Africa, the Muslim terrorists. But in the Middle East, the Muslim terrorists are resistance fighters. And Israel is at least as villainous. Everything is inverted when it comes to the United States and Israel. So as we talk about bad influencers, I can't help but think about the New York Times. So they just came out with an article, Nick Kristof, who I honestly don't know what the right thing to do is. Do you make a person like him more famous by talking about him and the absurdity of what he has written about? And I mean, I'm sure many people have followed this article and you can go into it. But part of me feels like why give people like him more oxygen? People may have never heard his name until I brought it, you know, until we even brought it up now. But on the other hand, we have to refute and rebuke them. So do we give oxygen to the bad actors or do we or or do we ignore them? In this case, it's my belief that the issue is not Nick Kristof. The issue is the New York Times. The New York Times has an agenda. It's a left wing agenda. It hates Israel. It's not particularly enamored of the United States of America. I say the New York Times more than Kristof. Why did the New York Times publish these probable lies about Israel? Why did they publish this canine rape story when they did? And the reason I am certain is that is the same weekend that Israel released this extremely detailed and filled with eyewitnesses and and even videos of all the rape and torture or not all but much of the rape and torture that was inflicted by Hamas on Israelis on October 7th. It was a way of diffusing, getting attention away. Oh, you think Hamas is bad? Look at what Israel does. This is the moral inversion of our age. North is south and east is west. Up is down and down is up. Men can men can become women. Women can become men. It's it's endless. No wonder so many kids are confused. This is a good example of the induced confusion of the life of the moral compass of America. It's so true, because if you're reviewing the past week's social media posts, Nick Kristof got more attention than the articles that came out about all the evidence of the rape and and the maiming of of of bodies on October 7th. I don't know how many people have even noticed that there is this massive study that has come out, yet both the people who support the New York Times and the people who don't support the New York Times are continuing to speak about the New York Times and not speak about the actual study that came out. That's right. That's my point. That's why I say the issue is the New York Times and how much harm it does to civilized Western world. Another example was on the front page of the New York Times last year was a picture of a Palestinian mother with her baby or a very young toddler, and he was emaciated, and it was about Israel starving Palestinians. Everything about it, including the picture, was a lie. That child had a genetic disease from childhood. That's the reason he was so thin. And his brother, who was also in the picture but not published, was completely healthy looking and not in any way starving. And that's what they did. They just they made up a picture, as it were. Look, the New York Times downplayed the Holocaust when it was happening. They would relegate it to little articles in the back pages of the newspaper. They got a Pulitzer Prize for denying that there was a famine in Ukraine, one induced by Stalin, which killed five to six million Ukrainians. This is the New York Times. I don't give a damn about Nick Kristof. It's the New York Times that is the bad player. Do you think the New York Times should be sued by the Israelis for slander and defamation? Well, look, they're not going to win in an American court because I don't think a country can win in a defamation suit. But if it brings out more information, absolutely should be done. And I wish other countries would do the same. But in any event, yes, it is the right idea. It's unbelievable the amount of damage that the New York Times has caused. Just unbelievable. How can there be an American company that's supposed to be the paper of record that continuously causes damage to us? Let me say this in a sentence. The world is a worse place because of the New York Times. Yeah. On a more light note, I'm holding here an article by the Boston Globe, and that one's actually about one of our projects. The title of the article is Trump Approved Freedom Trucks Are Doing an American History Roadshow. We took a tour of one. And actually, the author of this article did interview me, and there are some quotes of mine in here. But I thought you'd find this very interesting because we had a conversation, the author from the Globe, he and I, about how American history is being taught. And this ties into what we chatted about a little earlier. And I said that for me as an educator, I was always incredibly concerned about the fact that we're teaching young Americans to hate America. And it's just not right. It really just creates so many problems. I believe that even it creates anxiety for young Americans to grow up believing that the country that they're living in is a horrible place. And so they actually quoted a study in here, and I thought it would get a chuckle out of you because it's so absurd that I'd like to read it to you. A sprawling 2024 study conducted by the American Historical Association found no evidence of widespread indoctrination or politicization in classrooms after serving more than 3,000 middle school and high school U.S. history educators and reviewing educational materials from all 50 states. I'll just let you react. Well, that's ideal. The American Historical Association or society, which one is it? Association. It's oftentimes an association. Yeah. I mean, I can't even think of an analogy because it's so absurd to have them measure the bias in schooling. Let me just ask anybody watching this. Do you think that children attending the vast majority of schools in America from elementary through graduate school come out with a positive or negative view of the United States of America? That's it. That's all you need to ask. Ask most high school kids about Jefferson or Washington. They'll tell you they were slave owners. I don't think they know anything else about it. That's why, by the way, we who treasure this country have failed in the upbringing of the next generation. And this goes back to three generations. That's why it's so important to explain America's values with what I call the American Trinity. And I got it from every coin and banknote in America. E Pluribus Unum, that is from any one. We don't care where you're from or what you look like as long as you identify with the American project and with America. Liberty, as explained by the Liberty Bell, the iconic symbol, and in God we trust because we get our rights from God, not from government. As the Declaration of Independence put it, if you know those three things, you know what America stands for. You know what, Dennis? You just gave me an idea. We should run a survey and get 10,000 people to respond and let us know whether they think their children are actually learning American exceptionalism in school or not. So let's do a survey and see what the audience thinks about the answer and whether this American Historical Association is correct in their observation that they themselves are doing a good job or not. It is so silly. So I'd love to bring up something personal with you and I hope the audience is okay with this because I think they might relate to this story. So I went on a business trip for a couple of days and my husband stayed with the kids and I come home from the trip and I share all these details with my husband. What I ate, what I had for breakfast, what the appetizers tasted like, where I went, who I spoke with, what desserts I had, what time I woke up, what time I went to bed. And I give him all the details because I want him to feel like he's part of the experience. And then I say to him, well, what did you do this weekend? And he's like, yeah, I mean, we did some stuff. That's it. No details, no nothing. I'm like, do you have amnesia? Do men not remember what they do? I mean, are you senile? In your forties? So I just thought it was such a classic example. Well, you know, for 25 years, I did a male-female hour every single week. So this stuff is my bread and butter. I love this subject, male-female differences. And I cite a study done at some university. I got to get the details. Many years ago, they put a college, a bunch of college kids separately, boys and girls or young men and young women alone in a room for a few hours, just staring at the walls. And they would ask them afterwards, what did you think about? And the boys basically said, sex and sports. And the girls said, and this is what really interested me, because I knew it wasn't sex and sports. They reviewed conversations. And for a man, that is absolutely revelatory. That's what women do. They review conversations. They review what happens. That's why the husband usually falls asleep faster than the wife. He's reviewing nothing. He might be reviewing baseball averages, batting averages of his favorite team. It's fascinating. And that's why I've often said, if men and women traded brains for one day, this is what would happen. Men would largely commit suicide. They would go nuts with all that is going on in the brain. And women would just go free, free at last. You know what? I'll take that as a compliment. Maybe that means that you think that women are able to handle a little bit more than the simplicity that men get to live with. It's not a compliment. It's just a fact. Women need men and men need women. Yeah, completely agree. It's just unbelievable how we're so different. And it's really the magic of being in a relationship. So what a fun perspective. I'm sure many people can relate to that. On that note, I just want to wish you and all the Americans who are listening to this a meaningful Memorial Day. I hope that you'll be, even if we can't have a national moment, I hope that all of you listening can take at least a moment. I'm going to do it at, let's say, 8 p.m. Eastern time. I'm going to be thinking about those who served our great country and honoring them because I am so grateful for what we got to inherit here. And so happy and really meaningful Memorial Day to you, Dennis, and to all of our listeners. Thank you.