The Values of Our Youth: VDH Interviews Julie Banderas

50m

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson interviews Julie Banderas about her new book "A Monumental Mistake" which gives advice to youth both on personal conduct and to respect for traditional values.

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This is unconstitutional.

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Julie, it's so nice to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yes.

So

you're,

in preparation, I went back and looked at a lot of things you've said.

You're one person who's,

I guess, and I have the same concerns that we deprecate people who came before us or handed down these traditions that were not this particular generation, I don't know if it started with the boomers.

but doesn't show reverence for the world they inherited or the people who gave us this inheritance.

And one way you wanted to address that was through a children's book.

Yes.

First of all, I think that the parents are dropping the ball.

And I think it's time for the parents to teach positive lessons about history, teaching our children to respect those who came before us and to respect their peers and to respect those in society and their authority figures, such as teachers, law enforcement.

How many times have we heard stories in the news where older college students who were raised by parents maybe that lacked this sort of lesson at home are now doing these hateful things on college campuses, preaching against, you know, or for anti-Semitism.

It's just the hatred level in this country as an all-time high.

You talked about the baby boomer generation.

When did this all start?

I believe the political divide right now has hit an all-time low.

And I do believe it started in 2016, but it obviously was in existence well before then since I was a mother.

My oldest is 15.

I've been seeing disrespect in this country since my kids were toddlers, but now more and more I think that it's gotten worse and it's time to take it back.

Otherwise, if we don't, our next generation is doomed.

Are you worried about where you're going to send your kids to college, the three of them?

Very much so.

And I will certainly not be sending them to these liberal schools that allow for hatred.

Hatred seems to be the norm.

It's almost as if you can major in hatred these days.

And that's why my kids go to Christian schools and they have a different moral and value scale there where they don't allow bad language.

My child, none of my children are allowed to even say the word hate in my house.

I mean, that's how strict I am.

Never mind the curse words, okay?

They don't say the words shut up.

They don't say any derogatory words, but the word hate is like the number one word that is never allowed in our household.

Until this day, I have a 15-year-old, a 15.

Now, if you're, you know how most 15-year-olds are, okay?

When she highly dislikes something, she says, I H-word that.

And some of my friends have overheard my 15-year-old and they're like, she must be talking about hell or like another really bad word, which they would never say hell, right?

That's a curse word in my, my, in my book for my kids.

But that's the way my children speak.

And I'm not saying everyone needs to parent their children as conservatively as I do, but to teach them that the word hate is not okay, to hate those that are around you because they disagree with you, it's not okay.

To dislike someone, to disagree politely, that's okay.

But those are the lessons that are lacking.

Our parents are not.

Yeah, I agree.

I think all of us have to kind of

react in the opposite direction.

I know that on our podcast, we one time one of us said the eight said hell, and we got a lot of people angry.

But

the F word, what I've been really shocked about, especially with young kids listening, is

it tends to be more on the left, although there are people on the right.

But have you noticed how

they cut a video, the Senate liberals, where they use the S-H-I-T again and again and again, they use the F word.

It's just, it's just,

I never imagined that.

And it's part of the general course.

And when you fly today, and I just wrote a little thing on our blog today,

people show up in beachwear, yoga pants.

There's no respect for the people next to them about decorum.

They bring in taco boats or something

right in front of you.

And then when they announce...

group one, group four goes.

And it's just, it's a general coarsening.

And I think all of us, I just gave the graduation speech at Hillsdale College.

That's something you might consider because

it's trying to inculcate tradition.

And what I like about it, and I think this is something that you've talked about, is that it's so pernicious to take the

mores or the customs of today and then retro fit them back on prior generations when people were so poor

that it was hard to just survive one more day and we say, well,

they didn't respect transgenderism or they didn't do this.

Well, they were working 15 hours a day to survive.

They didn't have antibiotics.

They didn't have anything that we have.

And yet we want them to be perfect.

And if they're not perfect, they're not good.

I really don't like that trait both in our generation.

I think our generation started it, the Boers,

that to condemn entire generations that none of us could survive Okinawa or Normandy Beach or flying in a B-17.

And yet we damn those people, if I could use that word in a less

profane sense.

And then the same thing is, have you noticed about these people

in a therapeutic sense or psychodramatic,

they start to fault their parents when they get about 30 or 40 and all their disappointments then can be explained by a parent who didn't meet their expectation.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

And, you know, maybe part of it is right, but the other part is this expectation to be given everything and not have to earn it and not have to work for it, you know, and those who came before us, those who fought in wars that entitled us to our freedom, it doesn't mean we're entitled to freedom.

It's because we are so fortunate that those who fought and were here before us gained us our freedom.

And we should appreciate that and show gratitude and show humility.

And those are characters that you don't see in young people these days.

And it's really upsetting.

You mentioned the airplane thing, the whole decor.

I mean, that's so funny that you mentioned that because my parents were very conservative.

And every time that we got on a plane, you'd think we were going to church.

I mean, we were in our Sunday best.

I'm talking skirts and little pump heels.

And I mean, I looked like I was going out to the opera and I was stepping foot on a plane.

But that was how my parents presented us.

You know, when we go out on a plane, you were supposed to be dressed presentable.

And now people are going into schools in their pajamas, for example.

I know that.

That's how public school kids dress, right?

Jump pants, pajamas, and slippers.

How is that acceptable?

When you're...

Raising your own children, and that's obviously reflected in your book, both the experience of doing that and then the prognosis of trying to

enlighten larger society.

But do you feel that it's almost a 24-hour struggle for their decorum, their clothing, their language?

It is.

That you're kind of an island in a vast sea of...

It 100% is because I have taught my children to behave a certain way, to respect others, and to be polite and courteous.

And all that work sometimes takes several steps back after they cut home from school.

So, you know, all the work that I've done, when they, you know, I have a daughter who's right now in public school only for this year, and then we're going back to private.

My kids have been in private Catholic schools their whole lives, but she sees all the other kids dress and then she tries to walk out of the house with like slipper ugs.

And I'm like, no, no, those are slippers.

You are not going to school while everybody else does.

I don't want to hear it.

I have a certain rule and we walk out presentable and you will be

respectfully dressed.

You know, you're going into a school where the teachers are expected to dress a certain way.

Why should you dress as a slob?

So I think that's just sort of a disrespectful way in presenting yourself.

You wouldn't go to a job interview dressed like that.

I mean, what are we preparing our future for?

I don't know.

I think, I mean,

I grew up in, I was born in 53, and I remember growing up in the late 50s and 60s.

And I guess we would call it a shame cult.

Everybody falls a shame culture because it's

pre-modern.

But there was one thing about it.

It was kind of a deterrent to bad behavior.

So if somebody, I remember in my freshman year, a guy broke into the local foster freeze.

And you know what the local paper said?

It said, John Smith, age 15,

no latitude, but he's a juvenile,

son of Mr.

and Mrs.

John, at 16,

Selma, is now

facing charges.

And his parents expressed deep regret in the way and promised to make restitution to the owner of Foster Freeze.

That's completely completely, today that would be considered child.

But it was based on shame.

You don't want to shame your ancestors or your family name.

First of all, it's based on accountability.

That's what that was.

I bet you that 15-year-old never did that again, right?

But now, not only are these kids getting away with it, the parents are defending them and

they're not punishing them.

I know it.

I'm speaking on the farm.

I commute to Stanford, but I'm on my farm today.

Okay.

And it's been in my family six generations.

But I can remember my grandfather telling me,

when you go to town, I don't want to see a cigarette hanging out of your mouth, and I don't want you drinking.

But remember, your middle name is Davis, and your last name is Hansen.

That was my maternal name.

His name was Davis.

And if you do anything, you not only disrespect

you, but me and all of our ancestors.

And that seems like it's out of Roman history today.

It's so ancient.

But I wish...

I'm starting to get a little indication that this young generation is,

all generations rebel.

Maybe they're rebelling against this left-permissive therapeutic culture.

I see a little bit of hope is what I'm trying to say.

I think this last election, a lot of youth started to have an awakening.

And I hope that they're starting to see

the hardcore leftist liberal woke agenda is nothing but hateful.

I mean, and they accuse Republicans and conservatives of being hateful by being discriminatory, by being racist,

for not

saying it's okay for a trans woman to participate in women's sports.

It's not about being anti-LGBTQ.

That's not what this is all about.

It's about fairness and it's about earning a place, right?

You can't win a track competition when you're a biological woman racing up against a biological man.

I mean, biologically speaking, men are faster and stronger.

So I did an interview.

I think that's a really good point.

I did an interview the other day when somebody asked me, you wrote something and transgendered people are just the same as biological people.

And I said, if that is true, why do biological men who transition to women kind of warp or weaponize the sport and win?

But women.

biological women who buy who transform to men never win any male.

They never do.

You know what I mean?

Because they're biologically a woman.

They're framed.

So

transgenderism is not quite what you're saying as a separate third sex.

Right.

Because if it were, then, you know, it wouldn't make any difference if you were biological men or women.

You could, you could compete equally in the particular sport

you transition to, but it's not true.

It's really weird how the left has embraced this, the so-called feminist left.

It's really destroying the aspirations of thousands of young girls.

I just can't understand that.

I mean, I have two daughters.

And if I ever had a trans female in the same locker room as one of my daughters, and that's a biological male changing in a locker room or sharing a bathroom, I mean, I personally am offended when there's unisex bathrooms in New York City now.

You know, there's all of these bathrooms or he, she.

And I hadn't experienced that because I moved out during the pandemic.

So since the pandemic, there's all these unisex bathrooms.

I was in the bathroom one day.

Now they're all like separate doors, you know, with locks, right?

But then I go out to wash my hands and next thing you know, this man walks up next to me and is washing his hands.

It took me back.

I mean, it freaked me out.

I was thinking, oh my God, how did this man, why is this man in the bathroom?

And then I walked out of the bathroom and I looked at the sign out front and it said, men and women.

What world are we living in?

Why is this okay?

I don't even understand how politics has anything to do with safety.

I don't want a man in the bathroom with me.

Let me ask you, because

you're a Fox regular, you're a nationwide media figure, but as you were ascending,

to what degree, if you look back in your career, did your traditionalist or if I could use the word conservative social culture, whatever,

to what degree did that affect your career or did you ever, did that ever come up?

Because that was a minority point of view.

No, it was.

I have to say, I worked in local news for many years.

So I started my career in 1997.

It was my very first job in television.

It was for an ABC affiliate.

But we are all news.

There was no opinion.

So opinion really wasn't a thing when I started news.

It wasn't until the C, you know, the Fox News channel, the CNNs and the MSNBCs came around.

You know, the mainstream broadcast media, the networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, nightly news, they've always tilted to the left.

But in local news, you do not express opinion.

So I never said the word I.

You know, I would never say I believe.

It's always they say or you would source it, you know, and I was very careful about that.

It was once I started working at Fox News channel and it was touted as being fair and balanced.

And I didn't quite understand what that meant because I saw Fox News channel and knew that Fox News Channel was considered conservative.

And a lot of people called it a Republican right-leaning bias.

What I realized after working at Fox News Channel, and it wasn't until I started there in 2005, in fact, and I had been in the business for some time by that point.

that it was the other side that was biased.

So all the media was left.

And then you have Fox News Channel all by itself.

So this is the mainstream media and this is Fox, right?

And so Fox was considered biased because it was expressing the one view that you never heard over here.

But this view has been dominant for so long that the damage has been done.

I mean, you look at the news just this week alone when you've got the Jake Tappers of the world that have come out to admit that they lied for the former president because he was a Democrat, only because he was a Democrat.

He wasn't best friends with Joe Biden.

He lied because he was dishonest to the American public to prevent a Republican from taking office.

That is so irresponsible.

irresponsible, and any journalist should lose their jobs for that.

I thought so.

I just finished a few minutes ago a two-hour interview with Megan Kelly, who had him on yesterday.

She's a good friend of mine.

Yeah, I saw the Lord.

I thought that was an excellent interview on her part.

But what was even more shocking is

he would have never come out and said anything if Joe Biden had been president now.

So it's only after that he has no power

to reward or punish Jake Tapper.

And then the second thing,

he never would have said anything unless he had a book out.

And then once the book out, third, he's saying this because obviously his publishers called him and said, we've got a problem.

This is a tell-out tall, tell-all book that you co-authored, but things have changed so rapidly.

The narrative now is that Joe Biden is a pariah and you're on record blasting people who said he was, so you're going to have to come out.

And then he went out and hired, he hired a specialist that had worked on how to rehabilitate.

You know,

he used the word, I feel humility.

What does that mean?

I feel humility.

He didn't apologize.

He didn't say, I did a lot of damage.

And then it doesn't end.

Now we're supposed to believe that Joe Biden got his last PSA prostate antigen test in 2014.

2014?

Did anybody believe that after a little bit?

No.

No, absolutely not.

When he was 70 years old.

You know, there are some people that say that they stop testing after 70.

That makes no sense.

It's a simple blood.

It's a simple blood test.

The president of the United States is true.

The president of the United States is going to be tested for everything.

So that's not true.

That's just simply not true.

But it doesn't surprise me, obviously.

It doesn't surprise you.

It doesn't surprise anybody.

It's so weird, though, is that when you look back at this,

there was the Russian collusion that was all.

concocted the dossier was and then we had laptop disinformation right the 51 intelligence authorities then we had all these pollsters that were telling us I think

the NPR

PBS final poll on election night of 2024 said that Kamala Harris was going to win by four points beyond the measure of error.

And she obviously lost by a point and a half.

But all of those polls that had her ahead, and the only ones that didn't, were the ones that were always accurate, Rasmussen, Trafalgar, Insider Advantage.

But the point I'm making is that they never apologize.

And then we're told that all the inside polls for Camilla Harris always said that she was going to lose.

That's the ones that are accurate because you pay for them.

Right.

So they were all lying.

And yet, I just saw the 100-day evaluation of Trump.

Once again, Rasmussen,

Trofalgar, inside,

they all said he was either equal or a couple of points approval.

And every one of those discredited had him down as much as eight points.

They just keep doing it.

There's no consequences for lying and distortion.

And that's what's, I think that's what's so bothersome.

It gets,

I think what happens to a lot of people on the conservative side, they look at this sometimes and they get overwhelmed and they just kind of throw up their hands

give up.

That's why I think you've been really good on television.

And I, you know,

my wife's a big fan of yours, the Gutfield show, when you're out.

I think it's really important to be outspoken and

not to try to round the edges or anything.

That's the biggest problem we have.

Yeah, no, I think the biggest problem is that we're at a place in this country where people are very ignorant and they are very naive and they believe everything they hear.

And I'm hoping that this round after this election, that people actually are starting to see the truth.

I mean, when you hear Democrats come out and say that they don't believe that illegal criminals who have raped and maimed and murdered Americans should be deported, you know there's a problem.

Those are the people that you voted into office.

If it were your sister, if it were your mother, if it were your daughter and she was raped, would you feel the same way?

I don't think so.

How could you possibly protect an illegal criminal from being deported and thrown into a prison in El Salvador or in any other prison, as long as it's not in our country?

That's when you know we have a fundamental problem when you have Americans who are elected officials who are not trying to protect their fellow Americans.

Why are they in office?

I don't know.

I thought I was watching today the clips of Marco Rubio.

He was wonderful.

He was amazing.

He was amazing.

Yeah, when Val

Senator Van Holland was a complete demagogue, and he just, he he didn't back down.

That's very important that the Trump appointees are not like the first administration appointees.

They don't take it anymore, and they get back.

That's very important.

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You wrote the book, and did you had a co-author as well?

Brave Books

does these children books where they pick a different author once a month and there's a Brave Books subscription.

So Brave Books worked on the book with me.

So

they have a

market for what what is a readership age-wise?

Oh gosh.

I mean you could read this book to a toddler as young as two.

The pictures are great.

So maybe even a you know a one-year-old.

But

and then I would say through 12.

But I mean, I read my book to my 15-year-old and she loved it.

I mean, she was fully into it.

So I think that these books are important because they do

they basically go back to American traditional values.

And I hope that my book reminds parents that it doesn't have to be old-fashioned to say, yes, ma'am, no, sir, thank you, and please.

You know, these are just the fundamental, respectful ways that we should be communicating to our peers, to our friends, and to anyone that we have any social interaction with.

So bravebooks.com is where people can pick up the book.

And you can also get a monthly subscription, or you can get both of my books for free.

My first book was on perseverance, which was another very important thing to me is that, you know, when you do not succeed, do not give up.

Keep trying, trying, trying.

That was a lesson my father always taught me.

Tenacity is what he used to always say.

And where, where did, and you can buy them on Amazon.

Do you have your own website that they could?

You can go to Amazon and you just put in a monumental mistake.

It was the number one kids' religion section book on Amazon.

So you can purchase it on Amazon or on BraveBooks.com.

And then along there, you can get a subscription to BraveBooks.com as well.

So, Julie, walk me through

a general day what you're doing, because I see you on Twitter.

Oh, my God.

Just give us some idea.

My day

is insane.

Yeah.

Start us off with your children or what do you what happens all right day starts at 6 a.m i'm a single mom of three kids i've got one bus that shows up at 6 30 in the morning that's my 15 year old you're in the new york area and i'm in southampton long island right now but i am planning on going back to new york but how long is that for you to get you have to come in the studio three hours three hour

yes yes so i leave here once i get my kids off on the bus so i've got one kid that gets on a bus at 6 30 um the other two get off at eight i get them up i get them breakfast.

I pack their lunches.

I get them all ready.

What time do you get up?

I get up at 5.30.

Okay.

And I get the first one up at 6.

I'm in my shower while the other kids are getting ready.

And then I have a car service, thank God, through Fox that comes and picks me up.

We leave here at about 7.15, 7.30 in the morning.

And it takes three hours to get into Manhattan.

And in the morning at that hour, it will take three hours.

It takes approximately two hours and change coming back, depending on what time of day.

So then what do you do when you get on a typical day at Fox?

And then when I get into Fox, I I go into hair and makeup.

Thank God they have that because I don't get much sleep.

So they have magicians that work at Fox News Channel.

They are the best.

So we do hair and makeup.

I spend about an hour doing that.

And then I go into whatever studio I'm hosting.

Sometimes I'm a guest on shows.

For example, last night I was on Jesse Waters.

The night before that, I was on Gutfeld.

Other hours I'm hosting, if I'm hosting the 11 a.m.

hour or I'll appear with Brian.

Killmead on One Nation.

I also do, you know, guest appearances on a bunch of other shows too.

So you're there from, say, I don't know, nine o'clock till when?

It depends.

So last night I didn't get out of work until 9 p.m.

And then it's a two-hour commute home.

So I got home at like 11.20.

What time do you go to sleep?

And I go to bed the second I get home.

So, I mean, but of course, two of my

five or six hours is good.

If I get four hours, I'm lucky because I got to get the older ones to bed.

I don't get much sleep.

That's where the makeup is.

So does the Carver service bring your kids to your home where you're gone?

No, no.

The kids come home on the bus and then they wait for me when they're home.

But my kids have learned a lot of responsibility since moving out here because they do spend a lot of time.

Wait, your 15-year-old is in charge of everything?

Pretty much, yes.

You have extended family, like relatives?

No, not here.

No.

Not here.

Because I live in Long Island and my mother is in Connecticut and I have a sister in New York City.

So I'm on my own out here.

Okay.

So that's your five-day a week ritual?

It is.

But actually,

it's a four-day a week.

Wednesdays are my home time.

Okay.

So don't you get, what do you do about invitations to speak, travel?

Do you do that?

Yes, I do.

But I haven't done a speech in a while.

I went to Oklahoma State University and did a speech there.

It was awesome.

I was married at the time, so the kids stayed with the husband.

My ex will watch the kids if I do

desire to travel.

I've put travel on hold until I get back into the city and I have like a more easy commute back and forth.

But right now, my life is a bit hectic.

So in June, I'm actually moving back to the city.

I've been living here since the pandemic.

So I got this house and I rented this house annually since 2019, but then in 2020, the pandemic hit.

And then they were all homeschooling through Zoom, which I did not want to do.

So I found a Catholic school out in Southampton where they were in person September 2020.

So I'm like, we're going to have to move out there full-time.

And so we've been here since.

I did not expect to be out here this long, though.

It's very far away.

That's amazing.

It makes it really tough.

So you can, on an average day at Fox, you can be on two, three, four different venues yes yeah there's days i've been like on i had five things the other day last week i had five different oh and i go on radio as well for fox

i did i try to limit two interviews a day and then i do fox monday tuesday and wednesday but oh cool uh you know on jesse waters uh laura monday jesse tuesday and sean tonight but i and then i write the rest of the day yeah And I have a full-time job at Stanford,

and it's a long commute.

How long is it

from your farm?

To Stanford?

Yeah.

183 miles.

So I have an apartment.

I have to drive over there and I stay in an apartment.

Oh my gosh.

So how many hours does that take you?

Well, it's California.

So when I was a graduate student, I went there as a graduate student.

It was two hours and 45 minutes.

Okay.

The freeways literally have not changed.

We went from 17 million people when I was a graduate student to 41 million.

And it's the same infrastructure.

So I have to literally be almost scientific about when I leave.

If I make a mistake and I get caught,

my record is seven hours of traffic.

Yeah, I was going to say,

I have to do it.

I'm coming in.

I have to do always the opposite flow of the commute into the Bay Area.

I don't like the Bay Area.

So I like out here, it's where I grew up.

It's southwest Fresno County, right in the center of the state.

And we have, I have an almond orchard, 40 acres right around the house.

Awesome.

That's so cool.

And that's where I raised.

I had three children, too.

It's a lot.

They say from, you know, you go from one kid to two kids is a lot.

But then when you get to three kids, there's these funny things on Instagram where it's like, go from one kid to two kids, you're having two kids.

You have three kids, it's like having 15 donkeys, 12 cows.

I know.

You change it too.

The first child, you're so paranoid and analytive and everything.

And then by the time of the third, you're so much more mellow.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes.

My third child gets away with everything.

And my first child calls me out all the time.

She's like, mom, you would have never let me do that.

I'm like, I'm too tired to tell him no anymore.

Like, I can't.

So, Julie, what's the future?

Where do you envision yourself in five years?

Oh, my gosh.

I envision myself.

I will be living in Connecticut, hopefully within six months.

And I'll be working at Fox News Channel.

I mean, Fox News Channel is my home.

What's that?

Oh, an hour, an hour, hour.

Much easier then.

Oh, yeah.

It's a dream.

That's good.

Yeah.

That's good.

And Fox News Channel is home.

I mean, I've never been in another place where I didn't ever want to leave.

You know, when you start in journalism, you work in small markets and you work your way up.

And I started in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and then I moved on to Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania.

Then I moved to Hartford, Connecticut.

Then I went to WNYW, the local Fox affiliate Fox 5 in New York City.

And then in 2005, I made the job to Fox News Channel and I've been there ever since.

And I stopped looking for jobs.

You know, when your contract comes up, you're just ready to resign.

I mean, it's not a place that I would ever leave.

I really love it.

That's good.

Good.

And the people, it's the people I work with really that make the job.

I do.

I did Tucker for five years right after his monologue every Monday, but

I like going on, Sean.

I like all three of them.

And so they're all great guys.

I always say no to CNN or MSNBC.

They don't even ask anymore.

They really degenerated.

I mean, they've gone.

Their quality of everything is.

I don't know how why.

I don't know if they even, how they can maintain.

I don't know how jag tabbert can have an audience after this but apparently he does i don't know why the executives at these networks haven't reined in their anchors quite frankly because the level of hatred that i see whenever i watch is just so disturbing i mean sarah wallace is that her name yeah okay so i've seen nicole wallace thank you i don't watch she used to work for george w bush okay it's really shocking to see her conduct interviews i mean i watch that if i were a manager i'd be like could you try to be a little bit more you know impartial and try to be a little more valid?

She's vicious.

She's vicious.

She's angry.

I mean, the woman is angry.

Like nobody, first of all, Roger Ells always used to say that when you select what you want to watch on TV, you notice people's faces.

And you, if with the mute button on, he used to turn on the TV with the mute button on.

Would I want to stay tuned?

You go into these networks, even if the mute button was on, they all look angry.

I mean, it's just they're filled with venom.

You know, I want to see someone who is pleasant and is not hateful toward the people that they're talking about.

And that's all you see on the other networks.

I don't understand how anybody gets through a program.

They're angry and

they say the view is just,

I can't even remember.

I can't even imagine that Barbara Walters once envisioned that.

No, that's not what she envisioned.

No, she didn't.

She didn't.

And they are.

paranoid, they're schizophrenic, they're conspiracy-minded.

They're just, and the quality is so, so bad.

It's one thing that

there is no real competition in cable news for Fox anymore.

I mean, that's good, but MSNBC and CNN, I remember years ago.

Yeah.

It was,

you know, it was Greta Van Sestern.

You remember her way back in CNN?

Of course.

We worked together for years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

it was quasi-normal in those days.

Larry King show, he was left-wing, but he wasn't obnoxious about it.

was just no, no.

Even if he was, yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, even Wolf Blitzer back in the day, you know, he wasn't as

staunch, liberal,

jam it down your throat.

You know, he obviously was left-leaning, but, you know, the Wolf Blitzers and the Larry Kings of the days past at CNN are gone.

There was nobody like Brian Selter or Don Lamon or Jim Costa.

There was nobody like that.

They wouldn't have allowed that to happen.

I I don't know if it's ever going to return.

I think that the left is getting angrier and angrier because in that last election cycle, every one of their signature issues, the transgender, the border,

crime, DEI, the foreign policy, Israel, Hamas,

campus politics,

they were

down 60-40, 70-30 on the right.

And they got angrier and angrier.

I think they just rely, they always rely on not popular support, but the manipulation of institutions, the media, academia, foundations.

That's where

they get their message amplified, but they don't have grassroots support.

And I think that really, that's why they're so troubled right now.

They just can't figure out why Donald Trump got elected or why a recent Erasmus and Poll I just saw for his first 100 days, it was 52, 50, but 61% of Hispanics said they approved of the first 100 days.

And to them, that's unfathomable.

I live out here with about 95% demographic of Mexican-American.

And

one brother had a Mexican-American wife, and the other has two Mexican-American children.

And anybody who lived here could have told you that there was a sea change in the Hispanic community

from 2016 to now.

They were sick and tired.

Huge.

They were tired of high gas prices, of high construction materials, of the atheism, the open borders where they dumped people in their communities.

They were tired of DEI,

and they never saw it coming.

And they still don't understand.

That was what's so phenomenal about Trump.

He kind of displaced race and made it more class so that

I think that a Hispanic working family or a black working family

has about as little in common with

Jasmine Crockett or AOC as

a white working family has with Chuck Schumer.

You know what I mean?

The elites don't, there's no such thing as because I'm black or Hispanic or somebody, I have a constituence anymore.

It's more, what did you do for the everyday

viability of me?

That was brought about this.

That was the best thing that Trump did.

He took this kind of aristocratic golfing, even though he's a very good golfer.

Right.

But he took that party that had that, was stained or tagged with being elitism, whether it was or not, I won't get into it.

He made it into a more of a middle-class party.

And

that's what the Democrats are so angry about.

Yeah, I mean, the Democrats obviously thought that they had the minorities, they had the Hispanics and the blacks, and they had the middle-income Americans in their back pocket.

But quite frankly, if you look at the polls, the ones that matter and the ones that are truthful, the number one issue for Americans was not only the economy, but illegal immigration.

And all of the Hispanics that live in California are being treated worse than the illegal immigrants that are taking up 10 cities and are taking advantage of our taxpayers' dollars

and getting free health care and free everything else.

So, of course, the Hispanic

middle American who's paying their tax dollars doesn't want to be taken advantage of.

And I think Democrats made a huge mistake by assuming that they had those demographics in their back pocket.

They didn't.

They lost them.

I know.

I mean, that's what helped Trump get elected, was the Hispanic community in this country because they're sick and tired of being put in the back seat and illegal immigrants and criminals taking the front seat.

Oh, hey.

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This place isn't bugged, is it?

Bugged?

Wait, Jamie, what's going on?

It's just, you're my only lawyer friend, and I need your professional opinion.

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Every time I went in this campaign of 2024 into the food market, post office, I was probably the only white, so-called white person there, or maybe there was 10%.

But every Hispanic male especially came up to me, some of them I'd known my entire life, would say,

Victor, why don't when you go in Fox, why don't you tell everybody we're paying $5.50 a gallon?

Why don't you tell that I can't get my mother into dialysis clinic anymore because there's seven illegals ahead of her?

Why don't you tell everybody that my son is at school and one of these guys in M13's kids has threatened him because he doesn't speak Spanish?

Why don't you tell the bank teller, why don't you tell people that I reported a gangbanger to somebody and his cousin called me from Mexico and knew where I lived here and said he was

kill me.

That if I go to Stanford and tell my colleagues there what's going on, they have no clue whatsoever.

What the effect of illegal, of 12 million people was on communities that had to absorb it.

I think that really was really one of the reasons they just said, I'm not going to do this anymore and vote Democratic.

That's good.

And none of the media, none of the mainstream media covered it.

So just imagine a huge swath of this country is absolutely oblivious to the stories that you told.

And if they did hear those stories, they would believe that they were false if they were coming from another network.

So if Fox News Channel tells it, then it must be fake news or a lie.

But, you know, unless you hear it from the mainstream media, they don't believe it to be true.

And unfortunately, the mainstream media is never going to tell these stories.

So then you talk about how we are going to reverse this culture.

And the only way, quite frankly, to reverse this culture is to start at home by properly educating our youth so that our next generation is not mind-blown and not, you know, their minds aren't completely shattered by this irreversible culture that we've created.

And the media is 100% to blame for it.

They've been brainwashed.

Our kids have been brainwashed by parents who are watching mainstream media.

I think you're right.

I think it was important when I had three children.

I don't know if it was wise or not, but I said, you're going to go to the public schools.

You're all going to work on the farm.

They all worked since they were five years old.

It's funny, funny.

My son was an expert

forklift driver here.

We used to have 200 acres.

And anyway,

when he was 12 years old, but then when he went to Cal Poly, he went to show you our culture, he went to,

it was kind of like a Home Depot, and none of the people knew how to drive a forklift.

They were trained.

They had a little forklift certificate.

You know, they went to a certificate.

So a big truck came in, and it had blocks, these cinder blocks, and there was nobody there at lunch to unload.

And the guy had a schedule.

So he started swearing, where is the,

and my son said, well,

I can do it.

And he said, get on there.

So my son.

Wait, how old was he at the time?

He was 18, 17 or 18 at college.

But he'd been driving a forklift since

10 years.

So he just whizzed around and unloaded the whole thing and the guy was happy.

That's amazing.

And then they came, but this is what I'm getting at.

So then rather than rewarding the initiative or even the courage to just jump on a thing and try to help out, they fired him.

Because he wasn't a certified authorized person with a jacket with a little thing around.

And he said the guys that were would have taken an hour to do that.

But even though he probably shouldn't have done it,

they should have rewarded him and told him that they liked his initiative, maybe let him the day without pay or something.

He came to me and he said, I got fired.

And I said, you should have been promoted.

That was great to take that initiative.

But

I don't know what it is about, we don't reward the right things and we punish the wrong things.

But it had an effect on him.

And

but anyway, I never thought, because I had gone to UC and Stanford, and I thought it was just a negative environment.

So I never wanted my kids, you know, I think parents push their kids for these, they don't understand that these blue chip universities, Harvard, Yale, Princeton,

they're not the same as they were 10 years ago, much less 20.

I'm in the Stanford campus, and they have remedial math now.

They give 80% A's, and they're under the gun by the government.

But I would never send my kid where I went to school there because

they would get a worldview that's 90% of the faculty would be negative about the United States and negative, it would be obsessed with race, separate dorms, separate graduation, separate spaces.

There would be no rules of enforcement.

If Hamas wants to set up a camp and

damn Israel every day, they would be given.

exemption, laxate.

Nobody would enforce it.

That's what happened.

They trashed the president's office, swarmed it.

And then finally, the alumni stopped giving to the same degree.

And now all of a sudden we have a great new president.

He's trying to make reforms.

But the higher education is not a place to send your child to get a positive or healthy view of the country.

And it's, you should consider your daughter going to Hillsdale College.

I think she'd like it.

You should visit.

Yeah, no, it sounds great.

There's also a Christian college in Newport, Rhode Island that I'm also interested in.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me do before we finish.

So

your name is Banderos.

Tell me about your mother was from Colombia.

Yes.

So my legal name is actually Bidwell.

Fun fact.

Yes.

So my father, his last name was Bidwell.

And then when I got into New York City, I was asked to go with my mother's maiden name to appeal to the Hispanic demographic.

Now, this would never happen in this day and age, but this is back in, gosh, it was 2001, 2003.

Did you grow up speaking Spanish?

I did.

And my mother's maiden name was Rodriguez.

And they wanted me to go with my mother's maiden name.

My father's name was Bidwell,

British ancestry.

And I said, no, I don't want to go with my mother's maiden name.

First of all, I don't identify with the name Rodriguez.

That name is never spoken.

And I have, no, I don't want that.

So they said, okay, well, come up with a Spanish name.

Believe it or not.

I mean, could you imagine this actually flying in this day and age?

Are you freaking kidding?

It would never happen.

But it was my, you know, job opportunity in the number one market.

My agent's like, don't worry, just come up with a name.

So ultimately my sister went through celebrity names and she named me.

She goes, well, you could be, you know, to keep my initials.

She's like, you could be J-Lo and go with Lopez.

And I said, absolutely not.

I'm not going with Lopez.

So she said, J-Lo.

Nope, I would not do that.

She goes, how about Banderas, Antonio Banderis?

You can keep.

Your initials.

And I said, done, sold.

So I went to my agent.

I said, how about Banderis, Julie Banderis?

They're like, fine.

But, and I said, I don't want to keep this name, but it could be a deal breaker, as I was told.

And so I got the job.

And three years later, I was hoping that I would go back to Bidwell.

But at that point, it was too late.

I was known as Banderis in the community.

But at least it was authentic that your mother was Colombian.

She is Colombian.

Yes.

Although Banderis isn't even a Colombian name.

I think it's Spanish.

It's from Spain.

So it doesn't even make sense.

But I got stuck with it.

And then by the time I got to Fox News Channel, I played around with wanting to go back to Bidwell.

But at that point, you know, I was already kind of known for.

did you take your husband's name at any point?

No, I did not.

No, not even legally.

I think there was a sign there from the very beginning.

I knew this was not forever.

And so I never changed my name except for to Banderas, not legally.

So Bidwell is the name.

Does anybody ever ask you about Bandera's work?

I mean, it's out there.

Like if you Google my name, you'll see, and it's on Wikipedia and so forth, but a lot of people don't understand.

What's your children's last name?

Their names are Bidwell Samson.

So they have their father's name hyphenated in there.

But that's their last name.

How did your mother and father meet?

On a singles cruise.

So my mother, yeah, this is the funniest story.

So my mother came from Median, Colombia.

She came to this country legally

55, 56 years ago.

She had never had a boyfriend.

She was raised by a very strict mother who actually sent her to

a monastery or, you know, catholic all catholic girl you know boarding school so my mother never had a boyfriend in her whole life okay that's how strict my mother was so or my grandmother so she went on a singles cruise and she met my dad and how old was she again she was probably

in her 30s at this point

living in the u.s She was living in Queens, New York.

By the way, when she wanted to come to this country, her mother came with her because she wasn't letting her come by herself.

So they both lived in Astoria, Queens.

And I'll never forget my mom's funniest story ever.

On their first date back in the United States, after they got back from their cruise, my father drove from Connecticut to pick my mom up for a date, picked her up, took her out to dinner, brought her home.

I mean, my mother was so innocent.

Like there was no goodnight kiss.

It wasn't like that.

My mother, so conservative.

Anyway, my grandmother was not happy with how late they arrived.

She came down their three-floor walkup.

Okay, opened the door and grabbed my mother by her hair.

She was 32, 32, grabbed her by the hair, yelling at her in Spanish.

What are you thinking?

Staying out until this late.

And she went back up to her room and threw herself down on the floor and had like a complete nervous breakdown, screaming, crying of embarrassment.

She was in her 30s.

So I tell my kids, you will start dating when you're 40.

I'm going to, I'm going to beat my mom.

I'm going to beat my mom.

Your dad must have been a very

patient person.

Yes, very patient.

Is your dad still alive?

No, he's not.

No, he's not.

He would right now be, he was born in 1930.

So how old would that make him?

95.

Yes.

So he passed away when my youngest, who's now 15, was 16, six months old.

He had Parkinson's among asthart issues and so forth.

So this has been fascinating, everybody.

Get to know Julie Banderas better.

And her book is,

it came out in April.

Monumental.

It came out in April.

It's called A Monumental Mistake.

And it does talk about history and respecting historical figures and monuments.

And that's where the monumental comes in.

That's where the monumental.

So the monumental.

It's not the adjective just great.

It's a monumental.

Yes, but it has couple meanings because we are making a monumental mistake by not teaching our children respect.

But you also have to respect monuments in this country, which is another thing that for some reason in the past administration, they were taking them down because, God forbid, they represent

history.

They toppled all these beautiful statues.

Yes.

What are they?

They stood for something in history that we're not proud of.

Well, yes, that's how we got to where we are today.

And some of them weren't even controversial.

No, they weren't.

It was almost like 1984.

Well, I came to work one day and

we had

Father Junipio Serra Plaza.

You know, where you see pictures of Stanford, you see the big tower.

My office is at the top.

So I always would park and walk on Junipio Serra Plaza.

But I had been gone overseas for a month.

So I went there and there was no plaza.

I I said to my assistant, so what happened?

He said, where have you been?

Junipio Serra, who did a wonderful thing.

He came from Spain and although they were, you know,

it was the mores of the time, he created basically California agriculture.

He introduced

viticulture, pomology,

the mission system.

And they said, well, didn't you know he whipped the Native Americans?

And so we have delisted him.

I said, you depersonalize him, you trotskyized him.

So we took it down.

But then I said, but there's Junipio Serra Boulevard, the main thoroughfare.

And they wouldn't touch that wood.

Oh, no, no, no.

Too many people love the address and everything.

So they pick and choose.

Right.

And they completely erased it.

And they didn't even,

it was like I was in a different planet.

And all these references, the first 15 years were gone.

They just

and that's, and somebody decided that they were afraid.

And then it's very funny about the name changing,

you know, they always do it opportunistically.

They take things that are representative or iconic or just examples, but not things that affect them.

So I had an argument with a faculty member and I said, well, the Chumash Indians were not too far.

And so if you believe this is an, why don't we change Stanford's name?

Because Leland Stanford the founder of the university, was the head of the Union Pacific Railroad and he used Chinese labor.

And we have a letter from him where he described the Asian labor in racist terms in

1868.

So

let's use the values of today to condemn him for eternity and rename the university Chumash.

And

the first thing the guy said was he didn't even try to hide.

He goes, who would want a degree from Chumash?

And that just told the whole thing that

they're just opportunistically picking and choosing, but they don't ever want to touch Yale or Harvard.

You're so right.

That's a great example.

Yeah, they're cowardly.

Well, this has been fascinating, Julie.

And given what you described about your day, I'm going to have to let you go because even if you're home, you're probably going to be.

The kids are, my Wednesdays are their day with their dad.

So my Wednesday is like my breathe day because it's the one day a week that they go with their father.

So actually, notice how it's quiet in here.

It's because they're on your own.

Are you talking to people from Fox for tomorrow?

Yeah, I do through through email.

But Wednesdays, I'm pretty much, I do my own thing.

And then, you know, I do this.

Last question.

So what's your next children's book?

Or is it going to be a children's book?

I believe that eventually I'm going to be writing an autobiography because I think

a lot of life stories that I think people could apply to their to their lives today and hopefully help them make smarter choices when they go into their careers.

Smarter.

So you're going to think you're all your things that you got right and a few you got wrong?

Oh, I will be, oh, there's a lot that I got wrong and that will take up probably half the book.

And then, you know, eventually I'll get to where I actually started to make right decisions.

But I mean, we all make mistakes.

And I think that's, that's what's also important for parents to teach their children that nobody's perfect and to be humble and learn from your mistakes and admit them, admit your mistakes.

Kids can't say I'm sorry anymore.

Why can't they say I'm sorry?

Apologize.

Jake Tapper didn't do that.

He just said he felt more humility, but he didn't.

Yeah.

He didn't say that.

No, he should have said to the American people, I am so sorry for lying to to you.

I lied to you.

I lied to you.

Take responsibility for your actions.

I know he should have.

Anyway, it's been fascinating.

Thank you, Julie Banderas.

And everybody, go out and buy the monumental mistake.

Bravebooks.com.

Thank you so much.

It was so lovely talking to you.

This was really enjoyable.

Thank you.

Same here.

See you.

I'll see you tonight on television.