Tucker at American Principles Project

Thank you. I just want to start.
First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm sorry I'm dressed like a homeless person.
This is how I normally dress, but I tried to up the game a little bit this morning as I left my house and realized I had no suit pants. None.
I mean mean that I had not one gray pair of trousers. I'm 54.
You'd think I'd have one. I threw them all away So it's a measure of how just totally off the grid I am So it's it's a blessing to be in a room full of people.
I know like half the room And I like the other half too. So it's it's been a long time since I've been around this many people I like.
And I got to say, seven children? It makes me ashamed to be a Protestant, honestly, when I hear that. I mean it.
It does. Seven children? I don't care if you are sentenced to life without parole and lead a disgraceful life.
If you have seven kids, you beat me in some fundamental way. And by the way, you know, if you're in a church that doesn't encourage you to have seven children, it's not really a church, actually.
It's something else. I mean, I grew up in a world where, and in a church that maybe not explicitly, but there's nothing explicit about the Episcopal Church, everything is by implication.

But it was like, that would be like revolting.

If you had seven pups and tried to show up to an Episcopal Church service,

they'd be like, no, service entrance, please.

It's like, why, actually?

Why the anti-fertility instinct in so many? I mean, obviously, it's a form of suicide. I mean, that's actually what it is.
If you're not reproducing, then you're not, well, you're missing the point of life, for one thing, but you're also, there is a way in which you're dying. and, well, not a way in which you are dying.
Your people are dying. And so it's very dark.

And it's taken me so long to realize that.

You know, you have to overcome all kinds of, as you age,

all kinds of ingrained assumptions that are rooted only in like the dumbest possible justifications. Like I grew up that way.
But to be in a room full of people with lots of kids and to see children in the room, I don't know why it always makes me emotional, but I love it. Anyway, I just feel really welcome, so thank you.
By the way, none of that's pandering since I guess a lot of you are Catholic. I really mean all of that.
I see Gary Bauer over there. I don't think he's Catholic yet, but anyway, you know what I'm talking about.
So I loved what Terry said about staying cheerful in a moment like this, and it really is a moment like this, and the issue that you all are the most famous for really tells you everything, the trans issue, which I've thought an awful lot about. I didn't sort of expect to make it to midlife and be thinking about trans stuff.
But the main question I've had from the very beginning is like, what is the point of this? I mean, I grew up in a world a world where there were you know I grew up in Southern California in an affluent zip code where like everybody had a freaky personal life like everybody and I was sort of taught not to judge them and I'll just be totally honest I'm still kind of there. I just not that interested in getting involved in other people's stuff Even if I disapprove of it, maybe especially if I disapprove of it But they have made it impossible for me to live the life if I hope to lead, which is just like leaving other people alone because they're way up on my face with, you know, I'm a girl.
No, you're not. Yes, I am.
Shut up. And I'd be happy to even leave it there.
But it's like, we're going to punish you unless you repeat the trans catechism. And you have to ask yourself, like, what is that? What's the point? Joe Biden announced, I think I just saw a piece in which Riley Gaines, who I love, is responding to Joe Biden's declaration that trans issues are non-negotiable.
Really, of all the issues that this kind of, this is a sincere question, especially in a country where everything's kind of crumbling at once. When you have this weird convergence of like 19 different irresolvable crises, why the trans thing? You know, I mean, it offends a lot of the country.
Certainly every Christian believer has to be offended by it. I know Christianity Today is not, but it's not Christian magazine anymore.
That's why. So, but an actual Christian is going to be like, no, I'm not going to repeat that.
Pardon me, that was so catty. I couldn't control myself.
Sorry, Russell Moore But, like, what is the point? Why would you want to offend people on purpose? And then you realize, oh, that is the point. That is the point.
That's the whole point. That issue is appealing to the people who promote it, most of whom are not trans and wouldn't wish that on their children, because why would you not want grandchildren? Why would you want to wreck the lives of your own children? Like it's very not natural.
But the people who are pushing it are pushing it precisely because it is so offensive to believing Christians. That's exactly why right there.
And what is that? Well, it's like foretold in some detail in documents I could refer to called the New Testament. And there is a point, I mean, this is like kind of the core promise of the religion that you will be persecuted for adopting it.
I mean, unless I'm missing something. It kind of says that in black and white several times.
If you believe this, you'll be punished for believing it. And so once you sort of remember that, and I'm hardly a Bible scholar, but because that is so often repeated and emphasized, I don't know if there are exclamation points in the original text,

but it certainly jumps right off the page, sign up.

You're going to suffer a lot.

It's like my favorite pitch ever.

So great.

That's how you know it's true.

You know what I mean?

It's not like this is going to make you lose 30 pounds and cure your ED.

It's like, no, you'll probably be beheaded, actually. Really? I will? Yes, you will.
Okay. It's so awesome.
Anyway. But we should not be surprised.
And actually, if you think about it, virtually everything that is happening in this country,

and also I would say around the world,

and I'm not getting into foreign policy

because I'm sure everyone disagrees with me,

but if you look carefully,

Christians have borne the brunt of a lot

of what's happening around the world

in conflicts that we fund.

Did the State Department not notice

when all the Christians in Iraq had genocided?

Did no one notice that? 90% of them are gone. They're not all dead.
A lot of them are dead,

but they don't live in Iraq anymore. Well, the US government was in charge of that.
Did no one

notice that? It seemed like it would be a priority because, by the way, they are a religious minority,

but they're also Christians, as is the majority of our population. The country was founded by Christians, and no one noticed it.
Of course, they noticed it. They liked it.
That's the point. The same in a lot of countries, including Syria.
Whatever. I'm not getting into my eccentric views, but I'm just saying this thread, whether you agree with me or not on specific conflicts around the world, if you decide to assess what's happening in this country and around the world through that one lens, how does it affect Christians? Well, you see it a lot differently.
And in fact, you will find yourself taking the position that's the mirror image of the position you're being told to take in every country and on every issue in the United States. I mean that.
And just when you're alone, and don't tell anybody because you're going to have forbidden thoughts, the most forbidden of all is like you're allowed to care about what happens to other Christians around the world, which you've been told relentlessly, whether you know it or not, that you're not allowed to care about. And sorry, with respect, most of your churches don't care.
Make a real point of not caring. Christians get killed.
Do you hear about it? I'm saying, no, of course not. That's embarrassing.
We've got some mission to people who, you know, and I'm totally in favor

of missions to people who aren't believers and who aren't Americans and all that. It's a universalist religion.
That's the best thing about Christianity. It applies to everybody.
So I'm not arguing against that. I'm just saying, why does no one ever mention this? Because you're not supposed to.
That's why. You're not supposed to.
And, you know, I'm opting out. Why shouldn't I mention it?

And it does sort of point up the core problem, which is that people who are upset about what's happening now, let it happen to them. And that's just true.
I know a guy called Bill Ackman, who's a hedge fund manager, center left, very smart. And I know him personally.
I've argued with him about some things. I agree with him on other things.
I'm not here to attack Bill Ackman. But Bill Ackman is a Harvard guy.
He gave a lot of money at Harvard. He's very mad about the way pro-Israel students are treated and not good for him as far as I'm concerned.
First of all, he's a donor. And I'm strongly in favor of people giving to things they agree with and withholding funding from things they disagree with.
Like, why wouldn't everyone do that? So Bill Ackman is in a total, you know, he's very upset about what Harvard is doing to people who are pro-Israel who go there. And again, I totally support that.
But you have to sort of wonder, like, where, okay, so because he cares about this issue, great. But what about people who are Christians? Like, try being, like, a Bible-believing Christian at Harvard.
How would you get treated? No, seriously, how would you get treated? Not that there are any, because they're not allowed there, actually. And a lot of us have ancestors who like helped build Harvard, actually, or who went there, or Yale, or Princeton, or any of them.
The fabled Wharton School. And they all take it as just like, well, it's just kind of par for the course.
Yeah, of course you can't like talk about the Bible or express views that reflect what's written in the Bible because then you're like a freak and you just sort of put up with it. Well, I've got to go to some other school.
And so everyone winds up at Hillsdale, which I strongly support because I love Hillsdale. No, I do.
I talked to Larry Arnn yesterday. But you do sort of wonder, and I think Hillsdale is thriving and will continue to thrive.
Amen. Some of my smartest people I've ever hired came from Hillsdale.
But you sort of wonder like what happened to every other school, like the ones your grandparents went to? Well, you're not welcome. Your kids are definitely not welcome there if they're out of step with the prevailing view, which is very different from the view of the people who founded it, who may or may not be your ancestors, but it doesn't matter, they were Americans.
And conservative Christians are not welcome, and nobody says anything about it. So I guess my point is not to attack Bill Ackman, is to say, you go, Bill Ackman, I want to be a little bit more like you, as I resist what's happening to people who share my beliefs or my own children.

And that kind of is the problem, is that people with our views, and particularly Christians, I will say, are passive. Now, I actually believe in the Christian nonviolence stuff.
I believe in self-defense completely and would exercise it unhesitatingly and sleep like an animal afterward. So I'm not in any way, and I'm a gun lunatic, so obviously I feel that way, but I don't think Christians should be celebrating violence.
I mean, it's all over the Bible. Don't do that.
In the Old Testament too, which is incredibly violent, David committed a lot of violence, and he felt really bad about it and asked God for forgiveness for us all over the Psalms.

I was just reading it yesterday.

So we shouldn't be enthusiastic about killing people.

I'm sorry.

That's just not part of Christianity.

It's not the cluster bomb religion.

Sorry, guys.

Despite what they tell you on the hill, it's just not.

Maybe use cluster bombs because you have no choice,

but you're not acting as an evangelical when you do that. You're a violence worshiper, and that's like one of the oldest forms of sin.
So anyway, the point I'm saying is I don't think Christians should ever be violent, ever, unless they're forced to, to defend themselves and their families. But I don't think that they should be wusses.
And I don't think that they should say,

well, you know, everyone hates us. How about take the Bill Ackman approaches? We're not putting up with that for one freaking second.
How about zero tolerance for that? Like, no, I was born here. I'm not putting up with that.
No, you can't humiliate me. You can't tell my children that they're evil because of the way they look.
You can't try to convince my children to adopt, sexual practices that result in no grandchildren for me?

That's the end of my family. People don't think that was the end of my family.
I met the shillings today, like one third of the entire family. Oh, it made me emotional.
First of all, it's like the world's most handsome family ever. It was overwhelming.
I said, Terry, what happens when you go into restaurants? He's like, they're afraid, but we tip, so it's cool. I had the opposite experience.
I was just like, oh, this is what abundance is. And they're trying to end that.
They're trying to end that. So in other words, they're trying to take everything from you of value and not through higher capital gains taxes, but through extinction, which is a little worse.
No offense to you policy guys. And so how do you respond? So really quick, I want to go right to the, before I get so radical that I get arrested, but I...
Yeah, yeah, baby. I just want to, just a couple of things, some of them are sort of inchoate, but that I've been thinking about, about how to respond to all this.
And I spent 35 years in Washington, I got here in mid-high school and left at 50. And so I'm not an expert in D.C., but I've certainly watched it closely and I've watched the watched the whole nonprofit constellation of which I have been a part.
My first job was at Heritage. My politics have been rough.
I've always been on the right, never had one of those liberal phases. If you have a heart, you're a liberal.
No, actually, if you're cruel, you're a liberal because you can justify hurting people by claiming it's compassion. So I've never been a liberal.
But I've watched the whole thing. And one of my conclusions is, and I mean no disrespect, is that we might emphasize a little bit too much legislative change and winning elections.
And the only reason I say that, I think elections are super important and occasionally get whipped into a frenzy and like try to help somebody. It always doesn't work because I should not be around politics at all, obviously.
But I'm totally for that. And those are levers of power and good people should use them to the benefit of their children if they can.
But that is hardly the most important thing you can do. The most important thing you can do by far is become strong.
It's by far the most important thing. And especially now, because Terry alluded to this and I won't go into detail because everybody here knows, but like we are entering a period and there's just absolutely no chance that this country will be the same country a year from today.
There's just not a chance of that. December 7th, 2024, a lot of things will be different and one hopes they'll be better.
Some will not be better, but it'll be definitely different. Like bet on that.
So how do you deal with that? You know, there's only one election between now and then. Its outcome can't be controlled by any single person in this room or even the room collectively.
That is literally beyond our control. Doesn't mean we can't do our best.
What is in control is how we behave and live. And that's the most important thing.
And so again, gird your loins. Prepare yourself.
If you thought you had to run an Ironman a year from now, you'd probably stop eating fig noodles. You just would.
I mean, I wouldn't, which is why I would never make it. But so what does that look like? Well, the first thing,

the first way to become strong, I believe, and I mean in your soul, not in your body,

though I think that's worthwhile too, is to tell the truth. That is the fastest way to become

strong. It is an observable phenomenon that you will experience if you do it.
It clearly has

Let's go. fastest way to become strong.
It is an observable phenomenon that you will experience if you do it. It clearly has supernatural roots in my opinion.
Words are the most powerful and enduring thing, far more than cluster bombs. Words endure for millennia, weapons don't.
So if you say something true, that has a greater effect, and I think Terry or someone else wise Maybe it was Brent said that tonight the words are the most important thing Telling the truth out loud is the most important thing you can do even though it seems like you're shouting Into the wind so often If you wondering if that is true reverse engineer it and ask yourself What's the one thing that they don't want me to do? What's the one thing the founders decided I had an absolute right to do first on the list? And that's, of course, to speak what you think is true. And if you do that, you will find yourself becoming bolder and stronger and harder to knock down.
And I mean real truth, actual truth, not simply in your public life. By the way, I'm not calling for

confrontation. I think it's awful because I'm the recipient very often of like hassling people in restaurants or you know what I mean? You see Chuck Schumer on a subway platform and scream at him.
That's not the truth. That's rude.
Don't ever be rude. It's counterproductive and bad for you, obviously.
I mean telling telling the truth in a way that is courageous and doing it, again, not simply in public, but in private. I think part of the key is to honestly, if I'm being honest, become a better person.
Like that's what you need. And I'm not accusing anyone of being a bad person.
I'll say that I am. And so this is something that I think about quite a bit in my own life.
If you want to be strong, live a life that you are not ashamed of. Be more virtuous.
That's actually true. I think that actually works.
Every time you do something that you know is wrong, you become weaker. Not just vulnerable to blackmail, but weaker inside.
Live decently. And if you resolve to do that, and it's not complicated, everybody knows what that entails.
I mean, there's no magic formula. You know when you're doing it.
And when you're doing it, people can feel it. They feel it coming off you.
You're not someone to mess with. It's like, you know, you read these, talk to people who've been to prison or whatever.
And there are some people in prison who get hassled immediately and sold for a pack of cigarettes on the, you know, on the yard. And there are other people that nobody messes with.
And it's not simply a matter of your bulk. It's a matter of your vibe.
And if you are a truth teller, people can feel it and they listen to you and they mess with you far less. Okay.
that's the first thing. The second thing is remember where your strength lies, okay? And that's in, well, it's in God, but in this world, it's in the people around you.
It's in your family. I have to say Riley Gaines came to visit us in Maine last summer or two summers ago or whatever, and we always have people coming up who are like in the heart of some controversy, and I really hate interviewing college students

because it's what we call on television stunt casting.

It's like someone who's in the news, and, you know, we should interview this person.

They never have anything to say, and it's all fake, and they're reading talking points

or whatever.

So Riley Gaines shows up, and I'm like, whoa.

You know, this chick is totally for real.

She really means it, and she's completely unafraid.

And that's such a rare thing at a person that age. It's much easier when you have no mortgage and your kids are out of the house.
It's like, what are you going to do to me now? I really don't care. That's my morning catechism.
But Riley Gaines is at the beginning of her life, and I'm like, what is it about you? And then I found out Riley Gaines is married. And that's the first thing I said when I started tonight.
I wanted to meet your husband. And why is that interesting? I mean, everyone's married, right? In our world, actually no one outside this room is married anymore.
But young people don't get married at that age. And I thought that was so unusual.
I never forgot that. I called my wife.
I was like, you love this chick. She's married.
We get married at 22. And the reason that's significant, first of all, it's good for a whole bunch of other reasons, but it makes you so much stronger to have a teammate, to have that core at home.
I literally couldn't, I'd be terrified if I didn't have my wife, not that she's going to like protect me in a fistfight or something. She's like 110 pounds.
But because when I go home, I know there's one other person who understands me completely and is on my side totally and forever. And that assurance right there will allow you to walk right through a wall.
And I do think that's one of the reasons that Riley Gaines had this vibe like, no, I'm not joking. No, I'm not reading talking points that some foundation gave me.
I really mean it. You can't intimidate me, congressperson, whatever your name is.
So focus on your spouse and on your children and on your employees and on your parents and your siblings and your cousins and the people in the immediate orbit around you, the people who are put there by God for you to serve and commune with. It's not an accident you find yourself coming into contact with people.
Nothing is ever an accident, in my view. And those are the people from whom you draw strength and who get it from you.
And if you focus on that first, you will become immensely stronger, immensely stronger. And the third thing I would say is to, as Terry, I thought wisely said, stay cheerful.
Stay cheerful. I actually think that's like a command.
I think that's important in all circumstances, especially when it's fake. I really believe in faking it.
I do. I've given this lecture to my children many times, you know, because I was saying, you know, don't lie, be authentic, and always pretend to be happy.
And they're not stupid. And some of them caught the internal contradiction there.
Wait a second. Don't lie, but lie about being cheerful.
Yeah, do that. It's like a Zen cone.
It doesn't make sense right at first, but meditate on that and you'll get it. But it's still true.
I don't care if it doesn't make logical sense. It's still true.
And there are a couple reasons for this. The most obvious is if you pretend to be cheerful, guess what happens after a while? You hear your own voice and you convince yourself to

be cheerful. The second thing you do is you elevate the spirits of everyone around you.
And by the way, you don't bore them because there's nothing more tiresome than listening to someone complain about himself. Oh, really? You're the only person ever to be sick or bankrupt or fired? I don't think so.
stop you're not special

but it gives the people around you think so. Stop! You're not special!

But it gives the people around you heart.

I saw two family members die this summer

and close family members.

Of course, it's incredibly sad, but I will

say, and there are older people who come from a different

time, both women, and I would

say the thing that distinguished both

of them in the end, and I was there,

was that both of them, both of them maintain the end, and I was there, was that both

of them, both of them maintained their dignity, and I mean to their last breath, to their last breath. They just were not going to be undignified.
They were never going to complain. It didn't matter what happened.
They were always going to force a smile, look you straight in the eye, even when their eyes were cloudy. And it had such a remarkable, I saw one of them right before death who looked me straight in the eye

and was just unbowed by the whole thing.

Both were believers and I think that's where their strength came from but the effect on me seeing someone facing something like that, which I don't care how deep your religious faith is. Mother Teresa was afraid to die.
Everybody's afraid to die at some point on some level. Watching that filled me with courage and strength and left their dignity intact in the toughest, I mean, everyone here, most older people here have seen what I'm talking about, in the toughest possible circumstances.
You could retain that in that moment. And it was honestly an act of will and a gift from God.
And I think we should maintain that at all times. There is nothing worse than hearing someone bitch and complain.
I just can't deal with it. I mean, I grew up in an affluent family in an affluent world, but my father was, you know, raised in an orphanage and his legs are bent from rickets.
And you know what I mean? He was like one of these guys. My brother and I brother and I were having breakfast one morning in the town we grew up in, in California called La Jolla, hot climate.
There's always bugs in all the, yeah, it's, it's lovely, decadent, creepy also, but whatever, lovely. And don't get me going on why money is bad for people, but I have a PhD in that.
But, and we lived just with my dad or since we had breakfast cereal, like three meals a day. And I remember one time, maybe it was dinner, we were eating breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, of course.
And my brother goes, Pop, to my dad, Pop, there are bugs floating in my cereal. My father's like, you know, gave us the rich kid lecture.
They always, oh, kids in La Jolla, like you're imagining bugs in your cereal. Just eat your cereal.
And my brother's like, no, actually, there are bugs in the cereal. And he holds it over to my father and all these little bugs floating around in the milk.
And my father was like a dare. My father was like, bugs.
And he ate the whole thing looking at us like that. They're good.
Yeah, the bugs. Oh, I'm so afraid of bugs.
I won't even eat bugs. Eat your bugs.
He was the only person in the Ohio who had those attitudes. Anyway, that's a true story, I promise you.
But anyway, it's not just that it's tiresome to complain. It's that people who are winning don't whine.
Who is in a good mood? People who have succeeded or who know that they're right or who know that they have some great reward awaiting them, whether they live or die. That's their posture.
And so you have an obligation, in my opinion, an obligation to assume that posture of cheerfulness and lightness. You're not weighed down by it.
Yeah, everything's falling apart. Is there going to be an economic collapse? Oh, yeah.
Could we have a nuclear war? Possible. We have tens of millions of military-aged men wandering around the country.
Are they some kind of foreign army? Probably. Are they coming to my house? Totally possible.
Am I concerned? Yeah. Am I panicked? Never under any circumstances.

I'm riding this ship to the bottom.

Not only am I going to get the brass band to play a song,

I'm going to dance to it.

That's what people who are strong look like.

Really strong.

Not just all these weird supplements strong, but strong inside where it matters. And if that vibe comes off you, nobody can stop you, and you will scare the crap out of the other side because they are weak.
And one of the reasons you know they're weak and dying inside in an agony, one of the things we forget about evil, it doesn't just destroy people, it destroys the conduit through which it flows. It destroys the person who conducts it every time because it's a purely destructive force.
Evil, it is binary, actually, sorry. It's constructive, destructive.

You build, you tear down.

There are only two categories.

I assess everything through that lens, okay?

And the destructive category,

which is reigning supreme on the earth right now in every area, not just of our lives,

but of global affairs, is purely destructive.

And the people who are its servants are themselves being destroyed. That's just totally real.
And one of the reasons you know they're weak is that they will never apologize for anything. And they will never admit fault.
And that's just the tell right there. Like the one thing every monotheistic religion has in common is you begin with, I'm not God.
I'm sorry. I pretended I was.
That's also, by the way, the first thing you do in AA or in any program or theology that uplifts people or gives you any chance of becoming fully human and knowing God. The first step is admitting you're not him and that you are in need of help.
Number one. So if you find people who are unwilling to admit what they've done wrong under any circumstances, you're looking at people who are serving the other team, no question about it, and you're looking at people who are being destroyed by their service to the other team, and they're terrified, and you can see it in their eyes.
They're afraid. I interviewed a congressman the other day, and Thomas Massey from Kentucky is one of my all-time favorite members of Congress, and he's such a math geek that he doesn't even realize, I think, that a lot of things he says are controversial.
He's like, oh, two plus two is four. It just is.
And people are like, shut up, Thomas Massey, you bigot. Huh? Anyway, so we're having, I love that guy.
But anyway, we're having this conversation, and he's like, yeah, I was at a classified briefing the other day with Toria Nuland and she said I was like whoa whoa whoa Toria Nuland is giving classified briefings to Congress I last saw Toria Nuland in say 2002 when she was in Dick Cheney's office and at the time she's the person that she is now no interest in the United States of America in fact a very obvious latent hostility to the United States. No interest at all in this country.
And she is the originator of every bad idea, but she's certainly one of the architects of something that really hurt the country. Now, trust me, I've gotten behind all kinds of bad ideas.
But the different, and I hope I've admitted every single one and repented for it. But Tori Nolan, like everybody else, she's just one example.
In this city, they wreck something, they get promoted, and they move on to the next thing. Now, I would hire, and I have hired, a bunch of convicted felons because I like redemption stories.
Once was lost, now was found. I mean that, too.
There's nothing, in fact, I like more. As a former drinker who's been sober

21 years, I love that. But I'm telling you, the one group I would never hire or allow in my house is the person who commits a crime and never admits it.
Because that person is scary, damaged, also very boring, because everything that person says is about hiding the lie. Don't want to deal with that.
That's the entire U.S. government right now.
So I'll just end on this and then I'll take your hostile questions. If you want to survive this moment and protect what you have and have even a possibility of making this country and the world better, you can do a lot.
You can achieve that, I think. And you do it by telling the truth in a way that's completely unashamed at every possible opportunity in a gentle, polite, thoughtful, compassionate, maybe even empathetic way to the people around you, but without ever stopping, without ever being embarrassed for a minute, without ever not smiling, without a single scowl or any hostility.
Nope, that's not true. The Riley Gaines method.
Nope, that's just not true. And you'll never make me say that it's true.
And oh, you want to kill me now? Totally fine. Totally fine.
You're marching me out to the gallows. I am not gonna say that men can become women by wishing it so.
Because that's a lie. It won't take many people to adopt that position before the entire system comes crumbling down because it's built on lies.
And not just lies that are politically expedient or in some way make the people who tell them richer. That's like one of the dumbest analyses ever.
Oh, everyone who's lying is doing so because they're making money. Yeah, a lot of people are making money on scams.
Well, everything's a scam at this point. But that's not why they're doing it.
They're telling lies for their own sake. For the pure animal thrill of lying.
And that's how you know

what it is. And the kryptonite that stops it is the truth, right in their face every freaking time.

And you'll survive. Anyway, thank you, and I will take your questions.
This man is a hostile one.

Why are you wearing khaki trousers at a black tie event?

Okay, I'll admit it.

Yeah, just a short question.

Oh, Dave.

Hey.

Sorry, I'm on my last time.

Good to see you, brother.

Hey, do you like Melania?

Do I like...

Oh, I was like...

I was like...

Gelato flavor?

You mean the former Frasati?

Of course, yeah.

I like her.

I don't know her, really.

I've met her a couple of times.

I mean, her counsel this week

about you'd be an excellent VP.

Okay. I mean, I'm quite well suited to politics, as you can see.
I'm sorry. I know there are politicians here.
I just can't help it. And I know none of you are in this category.
But I just hate anyone who wants power. I just think it's a super ugly thing to want.
And increasingly as I get older, I hate anyone who wants too much money too. I think greed's a category.
Sorry, I think that. Remember that when they were like, oh, you're not allowed to say greed is real? What do you mean it's not real? It's totally real.
I don't have greed. I do have gluttony.
But whatever. It's all kind of branches from the same tree.
I think you'd be great. Well, thank you.
I don't know if it's on camera or not, but God would have to yell at me very loud. To do that? I mean, my four kids are gone, and I live the most idyll know, with my wife and our many dogs and in nature and everything.
And I just, the idea of being around politicians, no offense, and by the way, I support your congressional victory. But it's so repulsive to me.
They're so awful. Not all of them.
I mean, I just, I was a huge fan of yours and Massey, and there are a couple others I really like. And I have family members who work in politics and all that.
But most of them are just the worst. So sleazy.
And the other thing I will say about it is, it's a hall of mirrors. Everyone's got like nine different motives, but only declaring one.
It's like, what is even going on? Everything's some weird bank shot trying to manipulate this person to get that. And it's like, that's exactly the environment I detest.
I wouldn't have a single person like that in my life, not one person. Every person, you know, I don't, in Washington, intelligence is considered a moral category.
In my life, it's not. Like, I think my dogs are fine people and I mean that and they're not geniuses by human standards probably, you know

Probably go to like Elon not Columbia. You know what I mean?

So it's not like a matter of cleverness who's smart or not

It's who's straightforward if you have to question a person's motive for a single second I don't want to have dinner with you. In fact, I won't I can't even deal with it and politics is like

every creepy

Thank you. In fact, I won't.
I can't even deal with it. And politics is like every creepy, weird, sexually ambiguous high school class president comes to the same city and then starts attacking each other.
No, no. You know what I mean? Yeah, you serve there.
Talk about weird personal lives. Holy smokes.

And it's totally fair. And I'm coming out of a lifetime in television where people have like,

you know, I was polygamist or whatever. It's pretty dark, but it's nothing compared to the Congress.
Oh my gosh. And it's not even fun.
You know, it doesn't even look that fun. Anyway, so to answer your question, excuse me.
Well, I would never, look, I have no interest in that. I'll just be totally clear.
I have no interest. I have no interest in that.
I've never been in politics. The other thing I really believe in, if you know anyone who works for me, I only give one lecture, which is stay in your freaking lane.
I really believe that. Stay in your freaking lane.
And that is a theological point for me, as well as a matter of observed reality. I don't think you can be whatever you want to be.
I think that's like the most ridiculous lie ever. It's some post-war fantasy that comes out of the GI Bill, like so many bad things.
And that's just not true. I believe in human nature, which is immutable.
It never changes. And if you're interested in reading books from 2000 years ago, you will see people are motivated by the same.
They're the same people. They're just like Babylonian, but they're recognizably people because that people don't change.
And so that's what I believe. And I believe every person is made with strengths and weaknesses, skills and deficits.
And I certainly see it in my life. There are some things I'm really good at and some things I can't do at all.
Parallel park, do my taxes. Like I wouldn't even attempt either one of those things.
You know, I'm dyslexic or whatever. So do the thing that you were made to do.
And when you do that, you'll be happy. You'll probably make some money doing it because high skill tends to produce in this country success.
But the last thing you should ever do is decide because you're good in one thing, you'd be good in another. But what I really want to do is direct, said the girl who wins best actress.
No, act. You're good at it.
You know what I mean? LeBron, James, just bounce your little ball or whatever. Stop telling me about the vax.
You know, like stay in your freaking lane. And so the idea of going from, I'm out of control.
And I know that. I know that.
I know that. But the idea of going from my job, which is like, say whatever you want, especially now, since I'm unemployed, you know, it's like awesome.
But to go from being like a well-paid street corner schizophrenic to like a politician, like, ugh, just kind of hard to envision, you know? Last question. Oh, make it a good one.
Well, this is a tactical question for you since you've talked so much about truth. First of all, thank you.
Hold on. Let me get a zin.
Okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
No, no, no, no, no. But now that we're getting into tactics, I'm going to need some chemical assistance.
Okay. It's not a sin.
Zin is not a sin. I'm just saying.
I already told you I'm not a theologian, but I'm going to pronounce that anyway. Okay.
Okay. Ready? Well, first of all, thank you, Terry, so much for your leadership.
So grateful. So I'm a mom of five kids.
And we're actually, I went to UC San Diego in La Jolla. We moved here from California about four years ago.
We went into the Fairfax County public schools because we were told when we moved here that Fairfax County was the best schools that you could be in. So coming from California, trust me, it was actually a little bit better.
That being said, COVID really opened our eyes to the curriculum, right? And so like many parents, we moved our kids to a private Catholic school in McLean. And what's happened is the schools are still failing our kids.
The education is not very good. And when you question, you're kind of stuck because the same teachers that are not being held accountable are the ones who give your kids the recommendation on the next school that they will go to.
I know how it works. Right? So you have like my kid who was a superstar in math ended up failing her grade on the state test last year.
In fifth grade, she was on trend to be in honors math. She wanted to be an architect.
Sixth grade, she failed her class. I had to spend the entire summer tutoring her through math class.
We were debating whether or not we wanted to put our kids out of Catholic schools to homeschool them. And so now I'm just thinking, like, what we do? If I go back to the school and say, I want to hold you accountable, the recommendation I'm going to get from my kids to get to another private school is going to be terrible.
So the tactical question is, what do you do? You have the public school system that wants to mask your kids, enforce the vaccines, keep them out of the schools, indoctrinate them. And then I have the Catholic school who's basically not holding their teachers accountable.
What is the answer? How do you hold this establishment, the elitist of the education system accountable for what they're doing to our kids? It's such a great question. It's the obsession of every parent with kids at home.
And I just have the true blessing of having missed a lot of it. Our youngest is 21.
Our fourth child is 21. Our oldest is 29.
So they, you know, it was bad, but it wasn't like, now we're going to destroy your kids' lives, which is where, you know, where it is, especially in the private schools. And I'll just be honest.
We send our kids, we literally sent our kids, all our kids, the same high school that we went to, my wife and I. So, you know, I we didn't really think about it that much.
Because we educated our kids the same way we were educated, the same way our parents and grandparents educated it. It's like we just followed a template that we're only now in midlife realizing was insane.
And we're just so grateful that all four of our kids turned out as well as they did and that they're as close to each other and to us as they are. But it could have ended very, very differently.
And so I think the first thing is knowing, you clearly already do know, that this matters really more than anything with a child. Not simply because of the material they'll learn or not learn, but because they're molded as people by their peers in these schools, away from your attention all day long.
And we just didn't really fully understand the stakes of that at the time, again, because of the circumstance we were in, just like repeating the same formula that had been applied to us as children. So I would just remember that the recommendations of other parents mean nothing because 90% of the parents in the affluent zip codes I've lived my whole life in care mostly about prestige.
It doesn't mean they're bad people, but they're trained to care about the brand name. Oh, my daughter goes to NCS, you know, or Sidwell.
Are you serious? You freak? You literally sent your kid to Sidwell Friends? No, come on now. You're joking.
I'd rather send my kid to like work in the carnival. I'm serious.
Go be a carny.

I'll see you next spring when it rolls through town. Like the outcome is better than sending him to someplace like National Cathedral School.
And the world I lived in was like 100% of that. And so, you know, other parents are not, not because they're bad people who don't love their kids, but because they don't get, they're not thoughtful.
And the way that schools are set up in the United States, particularly private schools and colleges, it's a prestige system. No one even knows what happens at Princeton and nobody even cares.
If little Dylan gets into Princeton, then's a massive win. And if little Dylan like becomes a complete self-hating freak or trans or something at Princeton, well, at least he went to Princeton.
Then you can tell your friends. I mean, that is literally the attitude among good people who love their children.
They're not evil at all. They're just thoughtless and shallow like most people.
And my feeling is, especially now that I've reflected on it, I've already told you that I was thoughtless and shallow. It's like, oh, you know, we went to boarding school, you're going too.
That's not a good reason. And my children are so nice to me that they never throw it at me, or not very often, occasionally.
There's too much wine that it does come up. But be thoughtful.
And I think it's really simple. Like your kids are your treasure.
The most important act of creation you will ever commit is having a child, is reproducing. And the most sacred duty you will ever have is to protect and guide that child through childhood.
And everyone knows that, of course, that's not a controversial statement, but how many feel it?

And now I think more feel it because the stakes are obviously so high and the perils are so out in the open now, so out in the open.

You get molested in the bathroom in Fairfax County,

and then you get arrested for saying something about it.

Anyway, last thing I'll say is here's what I don't understand.

Why don't parents get together?

I don't know what a Catholic school tuition in Fairfax County is, but, you know, it's a lot per kid. And certainly private school is a lot.
Why don't they get together like three like-minded families and just hire a tutor and teach all the kids? I don't understand that. I mean, homeschooling is obviously the best.
They win all the spelling bees. That's all I need to know.
And schools are terrible.

Homeschooling, the reason we never did it

is we didn't have time.

But if we had taken the tuition

that we spent on St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School

in Washington, D.C.,

probably the worst school in this country.

All four of my kids went there.

If we'd taken the money we spent,

I worked a second job to pay for that. I hosted a morning show.
Try that for four years, okay, to pay for that. If we'd taken that money and just said, we're going to hire like three bright kids just out of college to, you know, I don't know, read the Iliad aloud or whatever.
I'm serious. We're just like, how about read the Bible?

We would have been so much better off, and we could have gotten like an awesome hunting cabin in West Virginia with the leftover money. Why don't people do that? I mean, that's not like a super creative solution, is it? If you find a parent in this room who lives in your county, and you have roughly similar views, why don't you get together, be honest about how much you're spending in education, ask yourself, oh wow, we're spending $114,000 or whatever it is this year, could we hire a smart person to teach our kids together? They wouldn't be weird and isolated like those homeschoolers supposedly are.
I don't think that's true, by the way. Teachers union propaganda, but whatever, just to ensure that they don't become weird, they're all together in your kitchen learning great stuff.

Why is that bad? Why is that hard? Why does no one do that?

Because people aren't radical enough in defense of their own children, that's why.

Ha! Thank you.