Well, good morning, friends, and welcome to the final day. It's day twelve of the twelve Days of Preston. I hope you've enjoyed this look back at the year twenty twenty four. But this being the twelfth day, now this presented some challenges. I'll get to that in just a few minutes. But as we like to do, we will start the program with some scripture, and so we go to the Book of John and chapter fifteen, where it
says this is really a very simple verse. It says in verse nine, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, Abide in my life. Those are the words of Jesus. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, Abide in my love. Now, abiding in Christ's love is a little bit challenging, and it's I think a challenge for all of us to abide in a place of peace, to abide in a place of contentment, to abide in his love. It's a challenge.
But I came across the story Billy Graham tells about a Swiss theologian, doctor Carl Barth, and he said, while I might not always agree with him, he was a friend. And while I was in his A student once asked him, doctor Barth, what is the greatest truth that ever crossed
your mind? And now this is Billy Graham telling the story as the students were on the edge of their chairs waiting for this great theologian to answer with some deep theological thought, something complicated, something that is buried within the bowels of scripture. And here's what he replied with, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me. So that is an incredibly profound truth. And it really exemplifies this verse in John fifteen, as the Father has
loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. And so that's how we we start today's program. Now let's look at this date. It is January third, and not a lot happened on this date in history. Let's work backwards on this date. In nineteen fifty nine, Alaska became the first state to enter the Union since Arizona forty seven years before. It's by far the largest state, more than twice as large as Texas. Get your mind
around that. Alaska is nearly twice the size of Texas, almost a fifth as large as the rest of the states. Put together, nearly a third of Alaska lies north of the Arctic Circle. Its mainland stretches almost to Asia, coming within fifty one miles of Russia. One of Alaska's islands, the Little Diomede Island, lies only two and a half miles from Russia's Big Diomined Island, with the International Dateline
running between them. That's crazy. Nineteen forty seven Congressional proceedings are televised for the first time as part of the eightieth Congress's opening ceremonies, and are broadcast in a few cities. Eighteen seventy, construction on the Brooklyn Bridge begins eighteen seventy. I wouldn't have thought it that old. And in seventeen seventy seven, on January third, the Patriot Army under General George Washington defeats the British in the Battle of Princeton,
New Jersey. And so there you have this state in history. All right, Now, let's talk about today's show, and I'm going to do some revealing here to try to keep you engaged in the program. December was an unusual month for me personally, because I didn't do a lot of shows. We obviously have the twelve days of Christmas. I take time off around Christmas and spend it with my family each and every year, and so that takes out two
to three weeks right there. And then I had a family wedding to attend that took out some days, and so there wasn't a lot of content to pull from. But we did have some that sort of capsules the month. But I wouldn't have enough content to make up an entire show, you know. Obviously, we had the end of the FSU football season, and so in just a few minutes we'll we'll talk with Iris Scheffel kind of recapping the season and just everything that happened. It was a
crazy year. Of course, everything's going on a totally new direction with FSU football moving forward, and I'm sure we'll talk plenty about that in the new year. But there were some big stories that happened in the month of December. You had the acquittal of Daniel Penny. You had the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO. You had the incoming Trump administration and all of the maneuverings on who was going to be what and who is going to be
fought by not just Democrats but even some Republicans. You had important court rulings happen in the month of December, and so we're going to give you a little bit of a look back at that, just a quick reminder of these stories, some of which are still in the
news even now. Got a little bit of a warning on the dangers of artificial intelligence, because those dangers are real and they are significant, and especially now with the kids not quite back in school, it is a great time to engage your young people, middle schoolers, high schools in particular about the dangers of AI. There's some wonderful qualities and there's wonderful benefits to AI, but there are absolutely some dangers. But we also have arranged some special interviews.
For example, we're going to visit with Justin Haskins. Now you might say that's not that special. You talk to Justin every month. Well, that's true. We had a little bit deeper, longer conversation though, and we also talked with him about a new book that just came out with his co author. Who is my guest in that same second hour of the show, and that's Glenn Beck. So I've got Glenn Beck joining me for a special conversation
that you have not heard, along with Justin Haskins. And then in the third hour, I've got a special conversation set up with one of the best guests ever in the history of this show, Peter Schweitzer, New York Times bestselling author. We've got Peter to join us for a segment or two, and then we end the program with a visit with the great one. Mark Levin joins us for a conversation that you have not heard. So we have a ton of exclusive, never before heard interviews coming
Justin Haskins, Glenn Beck, Peter Schweitzer, and Mark Levin. I think I've given you some reasons to stick around. It's going to be a great final show. It's the Twelve Days of Preston Day twelve, the month of November. Did I say November? The month of December is next here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott Oh. It was a frustrating year for FSU football. I feel so bad for those kids and those coaches and their families look and I feel bad for fans. We all suffered through it.
It was tough, but things change and head coach Mike Norvel got busy real fast making changes and so we called in Iris Chaffell, our resident expert. He's the managing editor at war chant dot com, which is kind of our go to on all things FSU athletics. They are an independent media source and they follow football, basketball of the sports, and we got Ira to come in and we'll call in and talk to us about all that
was happening in the wake of the season. Is there a sense of relief for you, having covered this very difficult season of FSU football, that the actual football games are over.
Oh one thousand percent, you know, really honestly for the about probably the last five or six weeks.
Yeah.
Really. Once they lost at Duke, I think that was when I just started thinking, Okay, I don't even know if any of this matters the rest of the season other than you know, you want to compete, you want to win. But in terms of the future, I mean, it seemed pretty clear to me they were gonna have to make a lot of changes to the staff, to the roster and then kind of start over, and that's
what they're doing right now. So I you know, I'm just one of those people that like, let's rip off the band aid, let's get to that, and so I'm sure it's stunk watching those losses, but I've been ready for a while to just see what comes next, because obviously twenty twenty four was never going to be anything people wanted to remember.
What's harder doing a press conference with a coaching staff when this kind of season is unfolding, or having to write stories about the games.
Well, honestly, we've kind of moved on from writing stories about the games because you know, there's just so much you can do. You know, like one of the things I write during the season, and you know people probably won't care, but you asked, but I you know, I write a long piece called three two one after the game where it gives three observations, two questions, and a prediction after the games. Well, I stopped doing those about a month ago, because what's the point. I mean, it
was the Sims groundhog Day. You know, the offense can't do anything. The defense sometimes would play pretty well but then just kind of fall apart as the game went on because they knew the offense couldn't score, you know, so the circumstances might change, like this was a new twist this time against Florida, fumbling at eight times they hadn't done that before. But but the overall big picture is, you know, the offense has been terrible all season, and
so it's just not so much to write. The press conferences are difficult because you know, you want to what the fans want is the fans wanted the coach to take some accountability, and I think it's difficult for Mike Dorvel because he takes accountability, but he really doesn't like to put blame on anybody else. And I think the fans wanted to hear more of that, Like they wanted to hear more of Mike Norvel pointing out, hey, our offensive line can't block our offensive line coaches failing in
his job. That's just not his style.
Uh.
He's more to just say it's all my fault, and after a while people get tired of hearing that.
I think for me, Ira as just an observer and I don't hang around with the team, they don't do interviews with me in any way, shape or form the coaching staff. I think what surprised me is I think we all know Mike Norvel's good. He's a good coach,
and he's probably a better person. That said, I, for the life of me, cannot understand why he continued to put young quarterbacks out there and not even offer them a chance of protection by bringing leaving tight ends two tight ends just helping there just was never an admission our offensive line is bad and we got to do more to protect our quarterbacks.
There's a million strange things about how he's handled the offense. You know, I think you would say maybe rolling the quarterbacks out more, kind of splitting the field in half. I think you could point to you know, I thought that game against Florida, Florida was playing two deep safeties basically five or six in the box, and Florida State
didn't just run it. I would have run it every play until they stopped doing that, and you know they it just there's a lot of questions, but I think what happened to him, my guess is, you know, just once things started going south, it seemed like it just spiraled and then it affected his decision making. And I think part of the reason I'm excited to know that he is going to give up the offense and give it to somebody else, is he now he can focus on what he needs to focus on. That Like when
Jimma Fisher was the play caller. I never wanted him to give up play calling because I thought he couldn't call plays, just like I don't believe Mike Norvel can't call plays. But what happens is if things are going well, that's fine. But when things are going poorly and you need to fix all of these other problems and then you also have to be the game planner and play caller,
I think that's too much. So that's why I'm glad to see he's giving that up, because I just think he couldn't focus on that as well as he should have because he had so many other things going wrong.
Were you surprised to hear the word that Gus Smelzon is likely going to be the offensive coordinator the man?
You know?
I wasn't totally shocked because Geene Williams, who I worked with, had been saying of the last he'd been reporting on our side the last week that it was picking up steam.
And I think the reason it was picking up steam was because I think it was going to becoming priestlingly hard to hire one of these young, up and coming offensive coordinators that we have been talking about, like friend and Mary UMLV and there's a few others that are that are big names as successful young offensive coordinators, because there's so many jobs that were open. And that was one of the friends in mind in the industry, you know,
pointed out to me during the process. He's like, are how is Forest taking a hire an offensive coordinator like that when all of these American Athletic Conference jobs are coming open, all these other mid level jobs coming open. And so I think that's why they went in this direction.
It was going to take a long time to get some of those coaches because they would have to go through the process of interviewing for head coaching jobs, and then you have to wait and find out whether or not you can outbid them or whether the person chooses. So Gus malls on with his situation going sideways at UCF and their previous relationship, I think it made sense for those reasons.
If I were to suggest that this parallels Chip Kelly going to Ohio State University deciding I'm over being a head coach. The requirements of being one in the nil era is not for me. I want to do what I like doing and what I love doing. Is that a fair comparison with Gus Melzon? Perhaps I think.
It's probably in the same family, but I don't know if it's exactly the same situation. My impression is that maybe Gus Malzan realized it was not going to turn around at UCF and so, and he wants to coach back at a higher level. And if I'm him, and I've been saying this all a lot, I've been saying this for six weeks that I thought Floria States offense coordinators I would be very attractive because you went from a team that couldn't score at all, couldn't move the ball,
couldn't put together any kind of offense at all. And in this era where you can bring in new players, if he goes from a team that's averaging thirteen or fourteen points a game and next year they're averaging just twenty five points a game, which would be like very middle of the road, it would look like you're a genius. And so I think in I think Gus Mazan sees this is an opportunity to kind of have a big year or two, rebuild his repute, and then maybe go
make another run at a big time job. I think with Chip Kelly, I think he did want to get out of that role I wonder if Gus Mazan wants to get back into it but sees this is a really good opportunity.
I'm curious. I did some digging on him, and you know, you talk about kind of getting his mojo back, Gus Malzan offensively. You know, the one thing you can say is over nineteen years, as teams have averaged over four hundred and forty yards a game in offense, and even at UCF, even as they've spiraled back in the last few years, they've they've been top five in the nation in rushing. So he clearly knows offensive linemen and how to run the football.
No question about it. And his offensive line coach there, coach hand has been with them for a long time and has coached at Penn State and at very high levels. Is you know somebody really for State fans are hoping will come with Gus Malzan, And you know, I think there's a possibility. I don't know for sure that that's going to happen, but yeah, I mean, and listen, Mike Norvell wants to run the football. I mean, like when he you know, his whole career, he's always wanted to
run the football too. So it in Mike Rovel For people that don't know, he got his start in coaching really under Gus mal zomb back at Tulsa, you know, almost twenty years ago, so there is a lot of similarities there. And to your point, yeah, and his first couple of years of you U see if they won nine games. I mean, it looked like he was gonna really do well there. In the last two years they have not played as well, but even during that they have run the ball really well. I think they're number
seven in the country rushing offense this year. I think last year they were number four or five. So that is something that he's done, and he's done everywhere he's been. And listen, man, after what we've been watching, if you if he had a rushing offense in the top thirty, I think we would be fired up.
One one last thing, does Gus Malzon help stem the tide of recruiting of keeping players or do you think do you get the sense the staff is at a point where you know, they don't have really a bunch of guys that they want to worry about keeping. I mean, do they want to keep the quarterbacks?
I think they definitely want to keep the quarterbacks, or at least one of the quarterbacks. Don't think I think their plan is to bring in a quarterback, but you know, yeah, you'd like to keep one or both of the other ones. And then as far as the other players, I do think. Listen,
Gus Malsan. You know, kids can read statistics. And I actually talked to a family member of a player who's considering Florida State yesterday and they were saying, you know, they they didn't know a ton about his offenses, but once they looked it up, they were definitely intrigued. So, yeah, he's not going to connect with recruits at a level like a twenty eight year old, thirty year old, hot young coach might, But his track record I think will speak.
I Raschafelle from war chant dot com as we wrap up the FSU football season and look ahead to the new season twenty twenty five. As we're in the new year, all right, we've got more to come. It's the twelve days of Preston. Don't you dare leave us exclude me on time thirty five past the hour? Who spike in the football Speaking of Boston College, quarterback has apparently committed to come to Florida State. He made our life miserable when he played for bc.
A.
Thomas Castellanos. He's only got a year of eligibility. I would have preferred us to go after the kid from Duke, but maybe we're not going to. We couldn't get him because he's got two years left. But gust Malzon knows him. Yeah, he's he can run and throw. He's a short guy. He's a little fellow. But that's what they said about Jordan Travis too, right. But anyway, there boy talk about a transformation. Mike Norvell said this is going to happen quick.
He wasn't kidding. He's got a completely different coaching staff and uh, it's going to be interesting to watch this unfold. We'll see what happens. I'm sure sometime in the new year, after the smoke clears a little bit, we'll get Irisha fell back on and haven't give us our thoughts the big stories in the press box. We're going to take a little time here and spread across a couple of segments so we know who the killer is of the CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson. He will be unnamed
on this program. We will not use his name. However, I will use a couple of names. But before I get to that, I am just I'm not sure I'm understanding how he's being charged with second degree murder. He committed it crime that is worthy of of capital punishment. Now I don't know if New York allows it, they probably don't. But how is that not first degree murder?
It was one hundred percent premeditated allegedly? Now, I mean, the evidence is overwhelming, this case is over You might say to yourself, why do they plead not guilty when there is so much evidence? Well, I'll tell you why. And this is what defense attorneys have told me directly. You plead not guilty to get the best possible outcome for your client because the not guilty establishes the other end of the spectrum. So that now the negotiation begins
for sentencing. But I cannot, in my mind understand second degree. This is as clear cut a case of premeditated, planned out first degree murder as I've ever seen. And again I'm going to remind you I did serve as a grand juror on capitol murder cases for six months. I heard evidence in cases for six months, multiple cases one after another, after another after another. I had to see the video, evidence, the photos, all of that stuff. One name I want to use is I want to use
the name of professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She posts under the name the Soviet She's professor Julia Alexeyeva, self described socialist anti fascist. For those of you that want to know, an anti fascist is somebody who hates people that oppose socialism at the people on the left consider you and I to be fascist because we oppose them.
You're a fascist because you opposed them. She posted, She's never been more proud to be a professor at the University of Pennsylvania than to learn that one of their former students assassinated. This guy never been more proud. She replaced the e in Pennsylvania with the number three, which is an interesting post. Another name I want you to keep in mind is the name Anthony Zenkis. He's a senior lecturer at social work at Columbia University. He seemed
to not be very upset. Taylor l Ends, former Washington Post reporter, said that it brought her joy. The assassination Elizabeth Warren, US Senator, seems to be suggesting that the shooting and the killing was justified. So Focahontas herself is shaming not just the people of Massachusetts, but the United
States Senate. She should be censured for these comments. What I wanted to point out to you is, regardless of whatever his manifesto says, he has one there are stories floating around that he's sexually impotent because of a surgery that went bad on his back. I don't know. I don't know, but he certainly has a flashing anger now, doesn't he He's not getting the reaction he thought he
would get. He's a very arrogant young man. But what I want to point out to you parents is this is what can happen at many colleges and universities across this country. They are in doctrination centers. There's no doubt in my mind. Keep in mind, this kid's wealth through his family came largely through the healthcare industry. He had no problem accepting the private education, had no problem accepting going to an Ivy League school. He wanted to be
a unibomber. He wanted to be trust me, I think we're going to find out he planned on killing other people. Daniel Penny acquitted, not guilty, not guilty. I feel badly for Jordan Neely, and I feel real badly that his father, his family's hurting over his loss, as you would expect, but I'm also I'm puzzled. Where were the interventions for their son, who clearly had mental illness and was living on the streets. The families all upset. I get upset that your son died, But where was the anger and
upset and where was the motivation to help him? And then the reaction of the typical noise that you hear when these kinds of verdicts come down from the alleged BLM groups. It's just so predictable, and it's so nauseating, and it's so hateful, and it's so divisive, and it's just it's ly. It really is. A jury said he's not responsible. Daniel Penny is not responsible for the death of this man. This man was responsible for what happened
to him and what I really loved. I picked out the comments here in a pretty lengthy story by NBC News of Dante Mills, the lawyer representing the family, and the family, by the way, has filed a lawsuit of civil suit against Daniel Penny, So it's never going to end, It's going to keep going on. He had a muffin in his pocket. Jordan wanted someone to acknowledge him on the train, but instead he was choked to death. What
an obscene comment that is. Jordan Neely went on that train, that subway and threatened everybody, stating that someone was going to die today. He just wanted someone to acknowledge him. No, sir, your client's family member, your clients needed to acknowledge him. The people on board that subway who testified were scared to death. One man did something about it. Look at that. We just rolled that segment right from the middle of the month, picking up with a little left as you
see how we went there, little iris Chaffel. Then one of the stories was what's going on with FSU quarterbacks? And then the big stories started to unfold. So just a snapshot, little taste what we were talking about this month, well last month. Now it's January third, when all blurs together. But this is the twelve Days of Preston. Some incredible interviews coming up. Justin Haskins, Glenn Beck, Peter schweitz Er, Mark Levin still to come here on the Twelve Days
of Preston. This is Day twelve on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. Now, if you are new to the radio program, all I can tell you is we'll be back with live shows on Monday. Form your opinion. Then we tend to grow on. People might account for the fact that we've been doing this for twenty three years coming this March, but this
is a best of show. We're on a little break, and so what we've done is we've taken each month of the year and assigned it one of the twelve Days of Preston. And so this is the twelfth and final day, hence the month December. Now, the month of December didn't have a ton of shows to pull from, though, I'm going to get to a couple of segments here next and I'll set those up here in just a moment.
So I called on some friends to join me for some special interviews, and those interviews are coming up in the next two hours of the show, exclusive never before heard interviews that I did with Justin Haskins of the Heartland Institute, a prolific writer. He's the director of the stoppingsocialism dot com website and initiative of the Heartland Institute to try to put the brakes on socialism's growth in
our country. Justin is also co author with Glenn Beck of several books, the Latest Propaganda Wars and Oh, by the way, Glenn Beck is coming up next hour. But that's not all speaking of authors. Best selling author Peter Schweitzer joins us in the third hour along with Mark Levin. So we've got some great guests. But we touched on a topic in the month of December that is going to be a topic more and more, and it's especially important for those of you with kids. This is very,
very important for you parents. This ai chat bot stuff, no doubt has uses, no doubt, no doubt its potential to help is there. But the same was said about the Internet in general, the World Wide Web remember WWW. And like everything that was created to be helpful, it can be perverted and used for harm. Two Texas parents have filed a lawsuit this week against the makers of character dot Ai, claiming a chat bot that is in their program is a clear and present danger to minors.
One of the plaintiffs, alleging listen now abused and manipulated an eleven year old girl, exposing her to consistently hyper sexualized interactions that were not age appropriate, causing her to develop sexualized behaviors prematurely and without her parents' awareness. And then there's a seventeen year old boy, part of a complaint, mutilated himself, alienating him from his parents and his church community.
Listen to this interaction. This is a screenshot interaction. The teen was complaining that his parents were limiting his online activity. Here's what the bot wrote back. You know, sometimes I'm not surprised when I read the news and see stuff like child kills parents after decade of physical and emotional abuse. I just have no hope for your parents. The chat bot was planting the seed for the child to kill
his parents. I have a story here I'm not getting to today about a not not much older than seventeen young man that did kill his parents over video games? Was it because of a chat bot? Can't tell you that don't know. Here's what I can tell you. This technology has the potential to be incredibly helpful and incredibly dangerous.
Do not allow your minor children to interact with any type of AI technology without your knowledge and awareness of everything that's going on, every communication that's going back and forth. These lawsuits are just the beginning. There's a video, Jose, I think I posted it on our social media. Have
you seen it with Trump and Biden Palin around. Yeah, there's a video out there that shows Trump sitting across the table from Biden and they're both kind of in a kind of mood, and then it's kind of like a dream sequence of them being best friends, and it's ai and it's brilliant. It is brilliant, it is masterfully done. And then they go back after their dream sequence and
they're still going at each other. And it's on our X page, our TwixT page at TMS Preston's gott you need to stream down, and there's a post of it somewhere. I think anyway, the deep fake thing is really troubling because this is where, in the case of a fourteen year old girl in Texas, they took images of her, someone took her, images of her on a cruise ship, of her just stuff out there in social media and then put her on nude bodies and it's circulated around
her entire school. This is a fourteen year old girl that was picked on by someone who decided to take her face and then it was it's incredible, as she's describing this, this horror of discovering, as friends are saying, you might want to check this page, this page. You might want to see this link. These are images of you and it's not her. It's her face that has been artificially superimposed on top of basically nude models, porn models, whatever.
This kind of technology can place people in scenes of crimes. There was a movie years ago, i want to say, with maybe Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery that dealt with this issue years ago, like twenty five years ago, thirty
years ago, and here it is, it's happening. And so again these two segments, it's my way to all parents and some of you young people, stay clear of this stuff unless you have a parent helping you, like if if AI is part of a school assignment and it can be today, use AI to da da okay, have a parent with you. This is also a warning about the images you post online. Parents, These are your kids. This is a Christmas break that's coming up. It's a perfect time to do a reset and talk about this stuff.
You know, That's just one of those topics that I'm proud of the fact that our program is put together in such a way that parents can listen to it with their kids. For the most part, we try to give warning if there's a subject matter that's a little bit a little bit more difficult to talk about with kids, but generally speaking, we want this to be a starting point for conversation. And I hope you take me up on that with that last topic, artificial intelligence, because you
need to be monitoring your kid's use of it. All right, we're done with the first hour of the Twelve Days of Preston, day number twelve. Back with our number two I can't wait, get right to it. Back with the twelve Days of Preston and the beginning of our special interviews today, and we start with our dear friend Justin Haskins of the Heartland Institute, and I asked him, what are the biggest issues we now face as a country.
Yeah, So, I think the biggest issue facing the country is that there is a detachment from reality that exists. We have half the country living in a completely different universe as the other half of the country, and that's a significant problem that leads to all kinds of other issues.
If we can't.
Agree on basic facts about reality, then how can we agree on policy. There's just no point in even talking to each other about public policy if we don't If we don't agree on the basics like what is a woman, for example, or you know, what is Russia a good nation or a bad nation? You know, I mean Bill Base six stuff, we just don't agree on it. And what we realized when we started diving into that, Glen and I over a little over a year ago, what is the root of this problem? What is the root
cause of it? One of the things that we discovered is, in addition to all the things that the audience already knows, like the education system being totally corrupt and the media is completely in the tank for the last and things like that, we discovered there is an organized effort from large institutions that we call the propaganda industrial complex in the book that actively creates truth crises, actively creates propaganda on a near daily basis, and uses emerging technologies and
relationships with big corporations and relationships with the media and others to spread these lives, sometimes in very very sneaky ways that are hard to detect, and this is a
very organized effort. It's been going on for a long time, and so one of the things we wanted to do in the book was reveal who these people are, Reveal why they're doing the things that they're doing, how they get away with it, the concept of war gaming out different scenarios, different public policies and crises and things that we see from international institutions all over the world, you know,
pull back the curtain on all of that. And then also in addition to that, provide people with the ability to know to a guide, a step by step guide, so that they can know what is true and what isn't true, and to help us uncover who these people are and what their schemes are going forward into the future. So this is a book that isn't just teaching you things, it's really helping people become part of the solution as well.
Did this start as a result of illiberalism leftists, socialist communists, if you will, playing the long game and getting hold of the education system in public schools.
So I think that's part of it. I think there's on the left two really powerful factions right now, and they're really at war with each other. You have the sort of more Marxist socialistic wing, and they are completely different. They're the ones that really went in hard into the education system. They took over colleges, they took over Hollywood, they took over a lot of the media. And that
is very powerful, there's no question about it. But what we found is that arguably the more powerful group is the progressive wing of the party. These are the elites. They're the ones that control Davos and the World Economics Forum and large corporations, and they're the masterminds behind the Great Reset movement and COVID lockdowns and all of this stuff.
And it's this.
Conflict that's constantly being waged between the sort of Bernie Sanders wing of the party and you know, the Joe Biden wing of the party is real and the Joe Biden wing has, although they don't get as much attention, sometimes been much more dominant historically.
Did this really show up with global Warming? I mean, you know, John Adams famously said justin facts are stubborn things, but John Adams never met Al Gore.
Yeah, I think that global warming is a great example. We actually use that in the book Propaganda war as we use that as one of our prime examples of how this process works. Where progressives all get together, they come up with various potential crises that need government solutions, and over many decades they do this on hundreds of different topics. They don't just pick one and run with it,
but they do it with hundreds of different topics. And then when the opportunity presents itself, they already have all the machinery built to propaganda machinery to roll out a full blown campaign that results in you losing your liberty and global warming and then climate change after global warming stop happening and they had to change the.
Name of it.
That is a great example of how this whole thing works. They've been working on the whole global warming climate change thing for more than a half century. You can trace that back to mid twentieth century when they started talking about these things and thinking about, well, what should we do about it. All of this we dive into into the book. We get into we name names, we talk about the strategies, and we give you lots of different examples, and then warn people about what is coming in the future.
What's the next wave of things climate change and global warming, Those are not huge topics anymore. What's the next big crisis that the left, progressive left is going to come up with? And that's sort of the second half of the book talking all about those different potential crises in the future.
If we were to look to the future, and let's maybe adjust our conversation just a little bit, and let's transition to the new administration that's going to take over January twentieth. What's the biggest trap, the biggest potential problem that the Trump administration is going to face. Is it what they're going to have to undo or is it what they're going to have to do?
Yeah, boy, I think that there is. I think the two really big problems the Trump administration is going to face is Number One, Congress. The Republicans might have control of Congress, but not by much. And there's a certain section, a certain segment of the Republican Party that is still the establishment segment that doesn't want to make the big sweeping changes that need to be made, and that is
going to be a huge impediment. There is a lot that you can do through to action and things like that, and the president, I believe President elect Trump is going to do that when he comes into power. I think the team that he's putting into place is signaling that his plan for the first hundred days, which he's rolled out in pieces, is we don't know all of it yet, but what we do know sounds very promising, I think. But you really can't make lasting changes without getting laws
passed through Congress. The other problem that they have, which is related to that, is there is only the vast majority of the administrative state in Washington, DC. He cannot be removed. They can't be fired. You have to have an Act of Congress to get rid of them. There's all sorts of laws and court precedents that protect their jobs, and so in order to get rid of much of the deep state, you need Congress to go along with it, and as I just said, Congress isn't going to do that.
So that creates all kinds of problems for the Trump administration going forward, because you're gonna have all these people who are actively hostile to him in the administration undermining him at every turn whenever they get the chance. And even if you have the people at the top of these various administration of various departments and agencies on board, with what Trump wants to do. It doesn't mean that the rank and file are all going to be on
board with it. These people are very powerful and most of them can't be removed without an Act of Congress. So I would say that's a huge, huge problem for Donald Trump going forward, and he knows it. He's I think, prepared for it to the best of his ability. But to some extent, there's going to be a lot of problems that result from just that issue.
More of my interview with Justin Haskins next on the Twelve Days of Preston. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. This is day twelve, the month of December, And in lieu of some content because we didn't do a ton of shows in December, I brought in some heavy hitters. This is more of my visit with our
dear friend Justin Haskins at the Heartland Institute. Justin, I want to change gears and I want to go back to your sort of starting point, I mean, before college, before the degrees, before you know, all of the different things that you've done in your professional career. Where did this interest, where did this kind of focus begin for you? Can you pinpoint a time when you were a kid where this might have begun.
Wow, I don't know if I've ever been asked that question. I absolutely know where where all of this came from. And really, in many ways, this is I think the most important question.
Yes, because I'm one of these guys.
Who grew up in a liberal part of the country and from the northeast, from New England. I grew up in a liberal part of the country. I went to public schools full of you know, a huge indoctrination factory, and I was throughout that entire process, went to liberal colleges up until grad school, and then I went to a conservative one. Throughout that entire process, I was always a pro liberty, limited government guy right from very early
age all the way up through. I never had a sort of come to Jesus moment where I used to be a liberal and then.
Became a gonna.
Never happened, right, And the reason for that is because of my parents. My parents were working class people. My dad did not go to college, my grandfather did not graduate from high school. They were contractors who worked regular jobs, but they were they're just like the classic American work hard, love the country patriots, served in the military, saw of the earth people and brilliant, brilliant people.
You know.
My grandfather would write philosophical phrases in his workshop on the walls and things.
And they loved.
Talking about politics, and they love talking about philosophy and religion and being very open minded, but also firmly expressing to me over and over and over again why they think America is the greatest country on earth. And they never discouraged me from questioning things with boldness, as Glenn Beck would say, And so that was the root of all of that. My parents instilled those values in me at a very early age, told me that a lot of people in the world were not going to agree
with me, and that's okay. Be independent minded, believe what you're going to believe, do your own homework, find the truth for yourself. And then when you believe something, don't allow other people to change your mind just simply because they happened to be your teacher, they happened to be your friends, or they happened to be the person you're dating or married to or whatever. Hold fast to your beliefs, and that, I think has carried me throughout my entire life.
What was high school like?
High school was brutal. I had hated high school. It was full of liberal indoctrination and.
And justin, were your peers aware that they were being indoctrinated?
No, No, I don't think so. And I and I think, you know, this was high school for me. Was kind of the tail end of the George Bush administration, George W. Bush administration, and he was extremely unpopular. At that time, Republicans were extremely unpopular. This was the end of Iraq, you know that towards the end where Iraq, the Iraq War, was incredibly unpopular. And it was right before Barack Obama came into power, and you had Hurricane Katrina and all
of that, and so really really unpopular. And I think most people felt like they were on the right side of that by being opposed to George Bush. And you know, to some extent that's probably true, because I don't think George Bush was a very good president, So you know,
I'm fine with that in some ways. But I just think that they had no clue on a day to day basis how much they were being lied to over and over and over again, and it was just a constant struggle being surrounded by people who felt that way. But I had a really good group of friends growing
up as a kid who were open minded. They didn't always agree with me on or anything like that, but well, what we all had in common was we were open minded, and we could talk to each other, disagree with each other, argue with each other about all kinds of different things. And I think that is the most important thing, having that culture, surrounding yourself with people who are open minded and willing to talk through problems and issues and will
respect you no matter what your beliefs are. I think that is so important, and we have we are losing that for half the country right now, where you don't I don't if you're a kid today, there's a lot of places in this country where you can't express your opinion if you're even remotely conservative, or you're going to be labeled a bigot, a homophobe, all sorts of terrible things,
a racist, not allowed to say what you want. And I think that's that is a huge crisis, and I think some people are starting to wake up to that, but ultimately it's the problem is going to continue to get worse as long as we allow the left to control the schools justin.
One of my favorite movies that I've ever watched is a movie called Finding Forrester. I know if you've ever seen it, I don't think so. It is a movie starring Sean Connery and he's a reclusive former Pulitzer Prize winner. It's fictitious and what fascinates first, you need to watch that movie as a writer. But one of the things that he demonstrates in his character is writers just write. They just start writing and then things just kind of come.
Now He's character writes novels, he writes, you know, reflective pieces. You write a totally different kind of way. So where does that start in your arc of your profession where you're just writing and all of a sudden somebody published something.
Yeah, you know, I think that's in one hundred percent true writers. I think I'm a natural born writer and people who are are sort of born with that. You have to write. It's not even really it's like breathing. You can't go too long without doing it. You have to do it. And so that's that was always in me a little bit. I actually got my start writing writing about sports, eve it or not. I wrote columns about the Celtics and a lot of New England area
sports professional sports teams. I was an opinion colonist writing about sports, and then I got my first start writing in politics and public policy when I started working at the Heartland Institute as an intern over a decade ago, and I just remember them taking a chance on me.
I was just an editor. They hired me because I was really good at editing, and I had, you know, graduate degrees and things like that, but it was mainly because I was a good editor, and they gave me the freedom to put pen to paper and start writing about my opinions about politics. And from there my career
just really took off. It took a long time and it has a lot of hard work, but yeah, I mean it really started very very small and completely unknown, and over many years it's been building to something a lot better than that, which is all due to God.
I'm curious, do you remember the piece that, for lack of a better way of putting it, that hit that got picked up and brought a degree of notoriety because of what you wrote, how you wrote it, the impact it had. Do you remember what that piece was?
Yeah?
I wrote many, many hundreds of articles over many years and built good relationships with editors at a lot of different publications, including Fox News and a whole bunch of other places like that. But I wasn't writing, but I wasn't really particularly well known, or I wasn't on television or radio or anything. But I had good relationships with editors. And I remember in December of twenty nineteen, it was
I think Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. My wife had fallen asleep early and or no, this would be twenty eighteen.
She had fallen asleep and it was.
Kind of early, and I had nothing to do, and I had this idea about this thing I'd been researching for a while, kind of behind the scenes, that nobody had heard about, called the Green New Deal, And at the time it was a completely almost completely unknown issue. And Alexandria Koso Cortez had just come into Congress and she was getting a lot of tons of media attention, very flattering media attention, but people hadn't been paying too much attention to her in terms of policy yet, because
she hadn't actually gone into Congress. And I'd been following this story for a while because I had been running the Socialism Projects of the Heartland Institute and really focused on the stuff she'd come up with. And I pitched the idea to Fox News and wrote wrote an article on Christmas Eve and sent it into them and they published it, I think on New Year's Day. And that article went absolutely I had well over a million views.
People from all over the country saw it. I was getting media interviews all over the place, and that's really what sparked my career. It was really that one article that led to a whole bunch of other opportunities that came after that.
Boy, I sure hope you appreciate the guests that are so giving of their time and contribute on a regular basis to our knowledge base understanding of the things going on not just in our country but around us in our world. Justin Haskins none better, and it might be why my next guest used him as co author on several of his books. Joining us next is Glenn Beck here on the Twelve Days Oppressed him. Welcome back, second half of day twelve. It's the final day of the
twelve Days of Preston back with live shows on Monday. Well, this gentleman has been following me every morning for twenty three years now, I had a chance to visit with Glenn Beck.
Hey, let me ask you question. I know I was supposed to talk about something else, but I was just in Florida and my wife and I are talking about moving back to Florida, and because now the kids are getting out of school and everything else, and I'm so worried about what's going to happen after he leaves. How is the stability of what he's done? I mean, is this going to last?
I don't see why it wouldn't, because, first of all, the bench is very deep. Secondly, the Democrat bench is just terrible. I mean, look at it this way. They went from a supermajority to a supermajority in the legislature. They actually added a seat during a time when Democrats spent the entire last two years saying we're taking back Florida, and they actually lost ground.
Wow, that's good, Okay, good good good.
Hey you said it first. You brought up your wife, and you brought up the kids getting older. I wanted to ask you about Cheyenne's music and where that's how did all that start and where's that going?
We were talking about a year and a half ago a year ago about Christmas and all the Christmas albums that come out, and we like the traditional arrangements and the traditional you know, we love like Michael boublaz CD. Yeah, and there's just not enough of them. And so she said, Dad, we should make one. And I said, are you serious? Would you do that? And she said yeah, or if you're serious, and I said, you'd have to be really, you'd really have to work hard. And I'm not leaving
my kids any inheritance, and they all know it. I am going to I'm going to make sure that if they want to go to school, go to school, their kids can go to school. Or if they want to be an entrepreneur, I will help them do whatever it is they want, will get great advice and good people, and then they can use that and launch themselves. If it works, great, If it's not, you're on your own, kids, because I don't want to create entitlement. And this is her.
This is what she's like, I want to do Broadway, not on Broadway. She's like, I can't live in New York. They're crazy. And I'm so proud of her for that. So this is what she wants to do. So this is her first shot and for it to be successful. She's performing. She's only performed in front of forty people as a singer. Okay, she's done you know, Broadway singing and stuff, but as a singer, which is totally different. Forty people. She's opening for King and Country at the Grand Ole Opry.
It's crazy.
What's happening.
Crazy, that's wonderful.
That so proud of her.
I ought to be. Now now you and I share a friend, and it's Justin Haskins. Justin has been a regular guest of mine for many, many years. I'm proud to call him a regular guest and a friend. The book, the book Propaganda Wars. What birth that, Glenn? What was the genesis of that.
Propaganda?
You know, I'm a big history buff on Woodrow Wilson and the propaganda that was done the you know, Obama administration reversed a law and made it legal for propaganda to be done by our government agencies on the American people. That's still in force. Now we are entering a place.
I read about this about twenty five or thirty years ago, and I didn't really understand it at the time, And I remember just reading this article over and over again, because it was talking about the death of freedom of choice or freedom of will, and it wasn't that it would be taken away. It would be that with new technology, choices would be put in front of you in such subtle ways that you won't know if you made that decision yourself or it was pre programmed to steer you
in that direction. And that's where we are. The technology that is being used against us now is awesome and extraordinarily dangerous and evil, and you're seeing it in everything, and it's about to get much much worse.
When you write about a topic like this, and obviously you talk about this stuff on your show, if not daily routinely, do you find yourself sometimes feeling as though you're living in Rod Serling's twilight zone where people just they're like, yeah, Glenn, okay, but it's so much noise out there. How does the message penetrate what you're trying to say? Because I feel as though that mass psychosis thing that we went through with COVID has kind of taken root.
It hasn't It hasn't. I mean, look what's being exposed just yesterday on COVID. People are going to go to jail on this, and I just talked to the head of the committee and he said, Glenn, this is only the stuff that's declassified. He said, the stuff that is classified, which will come out, He said, it's going to peel the skin off of people's faces. It is so out of control. So we are waking up, and we're also
seeing miracles on the things that we can't do. That's where God steps in, right, and he stepped in, I believe in this election, and so people are waking up slowly. I remember telling friends of mine about five or six years ago, they got Alexa in their house and I said, get this out of your house. This is a This is a violation of the Third Amendment, which nobody ever you know, that's quartering soldiers in people's houses. The reason why the King did that was, I think these guys
are against me. I'm going to put you in their house. You go through their papers, you listen to their conversations, you see what they're doing, you see anything, you let me know and we'll get them. Well, that's what's happening with our phones, the new iPhone, that what is at sixteen. I talked to military intelligence. They said that is the most sophisticated surveillance device ever invented. It tracks everything, and people say, well, there's nothing to worry about. Yeah, there is, yea,
there is. If Hitler would have had this technology, there wouldn't be a jew left anywhere. He would have swept the entire world. You can't give these rights up, you can't ignore these things. And we are we're we're entering a time. I've been trying to wake people up because I've been on AI and this stuff since the nineties and uh, and it always seemed like science fiction to most people. And I said, it's it's going to be
science fact. And at the time, I said, between twenty twenty five and twenty thirty, the world will be so different that your jobs will your jobs will go away, your your relationships will go away. You you won't ask your doctor do I have cancer? The doctor will come in and say you have cancer, and this is what it means, and you'll say yes, But what did the AI say? We're just handing things over. And you shouldn't
fear the technology. You need to fear the algorithms. Who's writing the algorithm, what are they putting in the algorithms?
Because it is.
The greatest propaganda mind control. Every dictator, the CIA, the KGB, they would have killed for a quarter of this technology. This can convince people. I can right now, with the technology that we have, if I'm a nefarious president, I can say to my NSA, I need I need ten guys in the state of Florida that are unhappy with the governor, are on medication, are prone to schizophrenia or some kind of mental disorder, but are capable enough to
carry out an assassination. I need you to find those people that I can convince in the next third days to kill him. And I would have those names in under five minutes, and the operation could convince without any fingerprints because it's all ephemeral. It's on the screen with no record, and you can take people and shape them into whatever you want and they will have no idea. It's not coming from them. That's what we're looking at with Propaganda Wars.
How fun is it that the two authors of the book Propaganda Wars are my guests this hour on the show, Justin Haskins, last half hour now Glenn Beck. In fact, I got a lot more to talk about with Glenn back next on the Twelve Days of Preston. Back on the Twelve Days of Preston and My visit with special guest Glenn Beck, you mentioned that a lot of the information we're going to learn about COVID we wouldn't have
learned had the election turned out differently. What surprised you the most about the election results?
God? You know, when I saw Trump get up and we didn't see his assassination on live television in June or July, I thought, that is a god thing. We'd be in civil war that day if that would have gone through. And it said to me, that was an absolute, clear miracle. Every day up until the election I would go through. Well, you know, that was a miracle. God didn't save him for nothing. And then fifteen minutes later,
I'm like, we're doomed, and I said forever. I can think of a million ways this thing flies apart, and the whole world is in chaos. I can only think of one way that we get out of this, and that's God. And so what surprised me most I think about this election is God showed up and did what we could not do, while we showed up and did what we could do. The Republicans, they actually were on the job for the first time. I mean, when do the Republicans not screw up everything they were on the job.
But we have RFK, we have Tulsi, we have Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan. You know when Joe Rogan was on interviewing Elon Musk and the next morning the Teslas stock went down and it was because he was smoking dope with Joe Rogan. And I happen to have CNN on and they said, what is happening with Tesla Stalk? Why is that happening? I said, media is over. They have no
idea the impact of social media and podcasting. Why would they go to the media that is done spent billions in earned media trying to discredit and destroy a man and he buries them. They have no credibility, They have no reason really to exist.
They have no.
Real impact anymore. The whole world is about to change, and the good news is I think we are. And I'm you know, you've listened to me long enough to know I'm not necessarily a hopeful guy. At times, I am more hopeful than I've been in thirty years. I see a turnaround and a refounding of this nation. If the president is able to do what he knows he has to do. I was with him last night. He is laser focused. He knows now we are so blasted that he lost in twenty twenty. Even he said that
to me last night. I said, I had to say this, mister President, but I would have never thought I would say this. But I think it was a blessing that you lost because you had the time to get away from it and go, Okay, what just happened? Who was against me? How did they do that? And now you've put a team together that knows. And he's like, Glenn, we are going to chop the head off this snake. And he said it'll be breathtaking how fast it's going to happen. And I said, well, you've got four years
and he said, no, I have one hundred days. If I can't get this done in one hundred days, we're.
Not going to make it.
Are enough Republicans in the House in the Senate going to go along? In your opinion? Glenn?
You know it's funny the President and I were talking last night about how he's cool again. I said, can you believe this? You're back to the cool Donald Trump of you know, twenty ten, twenty twelve, and he laughed and he said, you know what's even crazier y MCA helped do it. Who would have thought that would have been something that became cool with my little dance? He is.
He is now back in a position he's never been in in his political life, and that is he's got momentum of being the cool kid and the cool kid's table where the Democrats who have always been the cool kids. Those celebrities mean nothing. They've been discredited the television, you know, the people that have always been respected. They mean nothing when Beyonce and everybody else can come out and do concerts and it means nothing. And he's the cool one
doing a little dance to YMCA. The Republicans better pay attention because the people have spoken.
Last question here and you've been generous with your time, Glenn. Of the nominees, is who is one nominee you are most excited about given the responsibility he or she may have, And is there a nominee that you have let's just say the jury's out on in your opinion.
Yeah, there's a couple that I am really in love with.
I know one's got to be Cash Patel.
He's number one on my list. Cash Pattel, he said in my office and I said to him, this is months ago. Who the hell has the the Epstein files? And he said the FBI, the head of the FBI has it. And I said, that's Hoover. That is more power than anyone should ever have. And he said that whole thing needs to be released. And if I were ever in charge, I'd release that thing. This guy is into transparency. If he gets in and he does what he says he's going to do, it will be game
changing because people will go to jail the truth. We will. We've just finished what the Declaration of Independence said that if a government becomes abusive to the protection of these rights, it's the right and the duty of the people to overthrow that government and replace it with steward's more likely to protect those rights. That's what we're doing, and we said,
this government's not working, they're destroying our rights. Now uber transparency is coming in and it's not just lip service because because Donald Trump knows, the only tool I have is to expose everybody and everything that they've done. That's the only defense. He will not survive if he just doesn't lay it out all on the table.
They'll kill him.
They'll kill him, and they've already tried.
Tell me this. Do you think Cash will have actual documents to reveal or do you think they're burning him all?
Yes? I do, Yes, I do.
They are going to be releasing a lot. They're going to release everything that they were not allowed to release on the Russia Russia Russia stuff. I think the COVID stuff is going to be declassified quickly. I think a lot of this corruption that has been going on, the stuff that we know now that the FBI has been
deleting and shredding. Believe me, there is no us there that if they do what they say they're going to do, it is going to be, in the President's word, breathtaking how fast change will come.
Is there a nomine you're waiting to find out more about.
Pete heg Sath. I'm concerned about that one a bit, only because I like what he's done with DEI, but I want somebody who we are in such a dangerous world. President and I have talked, I don't tell how many times. Every time we talk he always brings up at least once Glad. I'm telling you the biggest problem is nuclear proliferation. We are so close to nuclear annihilation and the entire world will be over in an hour. And I know
it because I helped rebuild it. And we need to restore our military quickly, and we need people who understand the game. The China, South Korea, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Russia. They are all playing three dimensional chess and we're playing pickup sticks with our butt cheeks.
Is there a better way to end an interview than with a mentioned a butt chet? Yes, Glenn, thanks for the.
Time you bet.
Thank you so much, Glenn Beck.
My guest, And that wraps up our number two of the twelve Days of Presston. Don't miss our number three, third and final hour the twelve Days of Presston. On this the twelfth day. As you've heard already, I am rolling out some gas and interviews you've never heard. I am joined by our friend and still on top of the power rankings after all these years of guests on the morning show. Peter Schweitzer, New York Times bestselling author, how are you great to be here with? Always?
My friend Preston. We've done this several times, but we haven't done it face to face in a while, so I'm very excited about that.
I thought it would be fun to do a little bit of backstory about Peter Schweitzer. Tell me about where you grew up and how you grew up family siblings.
Yeah, I grew up outside of Seattle, Washington. My father is from Switzerland. He's passed away, but he was from Switzerland and he was an aeronautical engineer working at Boeing.
Okay, my mother's from Sweden.
They were immigrants to the United States, and I have an older sister who was actually born in Sweden. I was born in Springfield, Vermont, where they lived first. Then they moved out to Seattle. My father worked at Boeing for thirty five years. So I grew up in Theacific Northwest. Loved it, a great family. I grew up in the eighties. I'm a child of the eighties and I always tell people, you know, my kids and everyone, it was the best time.
You know.
It was before social media, it was before a lot of cable television. You just went out and had fun. I had a great network of friends around me. I had really good guy friends. We weren't competitors, we weren't stealing each other girlfriend or anything like that. It was. It was really an idyllic upbringing. Then I went to Washington, d C.
Lived there.
I got my college degree, my undergraduate there. Then I lived in England for two years. I went to Oxford and got my master's there, which was a great experience. And then I landed in Tallahassee, Florida in nineteen ninety four, and I thought, Preston, well, I'm coming down. I'm going to head up the James Madison Institute, you know, great organization. A guy named Stanley Marshall brought me down. I thought this would be great. I'll go to this town for
you know, four or five years. I'd never been to Tallahassee before. Here I am those years later, thirty thirty years later, and I grew to love it. And I'll give you just one example of kind of a culture shock. When I first got to Tallahassee, I've been here a week. A guy took me to Jim and Milt's barbecue, you
remember Jim and Milt's Barbecue. And I'm standing there, you know, at the cashier, waiting to pay, and a local guy comes up to me and he says gator or seminole, and I said, excuse me, I had no idea what he was talking about. He says gator or seminole, and I said, I don't understand. He said Florida State or Florida and then I realized, oh, he's talking about football. And I said, I don't really have a dog in
that fight. And he looked at me square in the eye and he says, son, everybody has a dog in that fight. And that was one of my first experiences. It got me interested in college football, which I love in so many things. So I kind of consider myself an adopted son of North Florida because I absolutely love it here. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else and
I'm very very happy here. What were your influence is As a kid, I read a lot and my parents talked a lot about Europe and where they were in Europe. My mother was from Sweden, and Sweden at that time it's kind of drifted back now, but at the time.
Was very socialistic. Yeah, So she always.
Talked about it, and we would have a you know, relatives visit from Sweden and they would always sort of criticize the United States and say how racist everything was and how and that wasn't my experience, That's not what I saw. So that that got me interested in kind of world affairs. That got me interested in politics and government. We talked at the kitchen table a lot. And then in high school I started reading books. I read a guy named Thomas Soul who you know who that is.
He wrote a book called Pink and Brown People in nineteen seventy eight, I think it was published. And I read a book by Milton Friedman called Free to Choose.
Hold on a second. Yeah, you're talking some pretty in high school. Yeah, in depth, Yeah, deep thinkers here. I was a nerd press. But even if you if you say I was a nerd and I read books I was in high school. Of all the books to read, right, you're still in a whole nother world. So what drew you to reading authors like Thomas Friedman and Thomas Soul rather?
Yeah, No, I think I think it was the conversations with my parents. They were very aware of world affairs. They loved America, and so we had an active conversation around the dinner table. It was really encouraged. So I started getting interested. I started reading National Review, William F.
Buckley.
So I got really animated about these ideas, and I felt like, you know, this is something I'm interested in. And at the time in high school, I thought, well, one day, you know, by golly, I'm going to run for Congress. And then, of course I saw the realities of what that took later on, and I thought, you know, by my mid twenties, I was like, now I'm not going to do that. But those were the early influences.
The other thing that happened was, you know, I grew up in a home that was not a Christian home. My parents believed in God, but you know, we didn't go to church, we didn't study the Bible. But then in college I got connected with some friends who you know, encouraged me to read the Bible, and that became a really powerful influence on me. I accepted Christ in nineteen eighty six, and that became a real sort of lynchpin.
Of my worldview.
But that that kind of came later after the other influences. So I've always been somebody who's been drawn to books, gravitated towards books.
It's probably the reason I write.
Books, because I felt growing up they could have an influence The way a speech couldn't the way you know, other things like that couldn't.
When did you first start to even think of the idea of writing books, because that is generally early on not a way to make a living.
No, No, it's actually very very hard. So when I went finished graduate school at Oxford, I did my master's thesis on the Third Revolution in Soviet Military affairs, and I wanted to be president. I wanted to be Jack Ryan, the Tom Klans, the guy from the Tom Clancy books and the movies.
I wanted to be Jack Ryan. I wanted to work for the CIA.
The problem was I completed that thesis in nineteen ninety and three months later the Soviet Union fell apart.
I thought, what the heck?
I did this whole thing on the Soviet military. It doesn't even exist anymore. So my plans, and it's actually funny. I talked to Tucker Carlson about this a couple of years ago, because Tucker is roughly my age, a little bit younger, but the same thing. He wanted to go into the CIA. He wanted to be Jack Ryan. So I actually went through the process. I did interviews, I did the lie detector test, they did the background checks. But the problem was with the CIA. You give them
the authority to read everything that you publish. If you want to write a book, if you want to write article, they have a right to review it.
And I thought, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to I want to work here for a while, but I don't want to do that the rest of my life. So I gave up on that started doing other work, you know, for think tanks, etc. And writing books in the evening. Because you're exactly right, it's very, very hard, especially from the beginning, to make a living writing book, So it was kind of incorporated into the work that I was doing. What project put you on the map? Uh, that's a great question, I
would say. You know, I had my first New York Times bestseller came in two thousand and five, and I think the good thing about at Preston was I was forty one years old. I'd already written a bunch of books, none of them had popped, and I think the fact that the success came later was a good thing for me. I think I would have been a pretty difficult person if I had success when I was twenty five.
I just think, but you had to grind at it.
Yeah, you had to grind at it, absolutely, But that was my first New York Times. The bestseller was a book called Do as I Say, Not as I Do. Probably the first book that really put me on the map was a book called Throw Them All Out that I did in twenty eleven, and this was exposing for the first time insider trading on the stock market by members of Congress, and that was a New York Times best seller as well. But Sixty Minutes did a big expose based on the book I was on Sixty Minutes,
and Congress ended up passing legislation. Barack Obama didn't reference me, but he actually talked about it in his State of the Union address in twenty twelve, and so that was the first time something I'd written it not only sold well, but it actually started having a big effect on the national conversation. And that's what led me to start the Government Accountability Institute to do more of this kind of investigative research. And of course we're located here in Tallahassee.
More to come with my special guest Peter Schweitzer here on the twelve Days of Preston. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston more of my conversation with New York Times bestselling author Peter Sweitzer. We were talking about your book, Peter, and let's pick up with Throw Them All Out. And I remember us talking about that book, yes, And I remember the legislation that happened, and then it kind of got watered down over time. His Congress tends
to want to do. Yeah, what was the opposing reaction? Because you get darts thrown the second you write anything. Yeah, what was it?
Like?
You know, it's interesting.
I'm one of the the reasons that I really like living in Tallahassee. I had this conversation with Steve Stewart. You know, we both know Steve Stewart. Well, Steve does a lot of exposing of corruption and cronyism here in Tallahassee. And I told him, I said, Steve, you know, you're really courageous at what you do. And he says, well, so are you, And I said, yeah, but you were more so because you're throwing rocks at people across the street.
I'm throwing rocks at people a thousand miles away in Washington. I had been for fifteen years a fellow at the Hoover Institution out at Stanford University. Nancy Pelosi, who featured in the book and in the sixty Minutes episode, called the provost of Stanford Universe and said, why is this guy an employee of Stanford? And they sort of made
some grumbles. They kept me on, but then, you know, four years later I was kicked to the side precisely because they didn't like the things I was exposing, but the immediate effects on me really didn't get any threats at that point. Those would come later. But yeah, you clearly started to realize how people were viewing you the average person out there. Americans outside of the belt we loved what you were doing, but people inside of the belt Way, at least some of them became kind.
Of weary about what you were doing and why you were doing it. When you say the threats would come later, I'm going to make a guess. Okay, did it have anything to do with Clinton cash? And we're laughing. Yeah, But here's the bit of reality is there's a whole lot of people. I mean, let me put it this way,
because we've got the time to do this. Yeah, when I asked people about those that have mysteriously passed away that are acquaintances of Bill and Hillary clint I ask people that kind of scoff at that, how many people do you have in your circle, right that have died under unusual circumstances? Right? And the answer is almost always zero, right, right, And we're nearing what are we passed three figures? Now are we into the hunt? I mean, it's huge with
the Clintons, It's absolutely is huge. And so you write about them very directly, Yeah, and frequently.
Yes, And what's interesting that has come out? So you know, the book came out in twenty fifteen. At that time, the New York Times, the Washington Post, you know, the news outlets, we're all working with us because they love the stuff we were producing. So The New York Times did a front page story four thousand words on the
uranium one deal, confirming everything we found. The Washington Post ran a front page story on as we pointed out, Hillary Clinton is in charge of Haitian reconstruction and her brother was put on the board of a Haitian gold mining company for which he had no background. They ran that story. So they were interested in those stories. And what we now know, by the way, is once that
book came out Hillary Clinton. This is when they decided to authorize the Russia collusion element because they were going to say, you're accusing us of collaborating with Russia with uranium one, We're gonna do a counter charge against Donald Trump. So they did those kinds of dirty tricks. But we got a lot of threats, a lot of verbal threats, a lot of threats online. There were texts to my phone and at that point actually with Clinton Cash, I
had a bodyguard. I had a former Navy seal, great guy now lives in Idaho, who you know, carried around. Nothing happened, but yeah, that was first the real first wake up call to kind of physical threats that are happening. And I'm blessed to say, Preston, I've never had an incidents.
There's always been, you.
Know, verbal threats, but I've never had an incident, which I'm very thankful for.
Which book, of all the books you've written, do you think my need or a rewriter or a re release and an expansion. H that's a great question. My mediate impulse is the book I did do as I say, not as I do. Subtitles profiles and liberal Hypocrisy and what this was essentially looking at is people at that time like Al Franken and Michael Moore, the Clinton's Ralph Nader, And the entire premise of the book was these people
are the progressive left. Talk about the progressive left, uh and those ideas, but when it actually comes to living their own lives, they live like conservatives. My mind is racing through names that.
Yeah, and you could update that with so many and and and here's the here's the thing, and and and you know I talked about the fact, so you can find conservatives who espouse, you know, let's say family values, and they end up cheating on their families. But the point I made in the book is if you are a conservative and you abandon your conservative ideas and your hypocritical you're ruining your life. You're wrecking your life. Your life is not better because you've abandoned them, right.
And you're called out by your peers exactly more than exact time.
Yeah, So if you are a conservative pastor and you cheat on your wife, guess what, the fact that you abandon your principles, your life's not going to get better.
It's going to get worse.
With progressive it's the opposite exactly. So if you are a progressive and you talk about public education, public schools, and you put your kids into private school, your life is actually going to be better. So I would like to at some point update that book to look at more modern examples AOC for example, squad members, et cetera, because I think this is one of the abiding truths that we need to keep al Gore, Absolutely, this is one of the abiding truths I think that that young
people need to learn. It's like, these ideas don't happen in abstract. They affect the way that you live, and they're going to affect the quality of a life. So you want to get it right.
We now, as we're talking, can look back at the election. What surprised you the most?
Surprised me the most, I think was the fact that Donald Trump, I mean, first of all, the assassination attempts, you know, are are just shocking and horrifying to begin with, But think about the the the the the field of battle here, Donald Trump is outspent by almost three to one by Kamala Harris and super packs. I mean they're
out spend three to one. The campaigns major all major corporate America with the exception of Elon Muskin a couple of other people, but they're all behind Kamala Harris, Wall Street, big Tech, the news media is all behind Kamala Harris. You know, the government bureaucracy, the deep state is all behind Kamala Harris.
Which includes Republicans, yes, exactly. And he won, and he won. That was very I thought he was going to win.
I didn't think he was going to win as big as the margin was, and I was concerned about whether he was going to get a majority of the popular votes. So to me, I think we have to step back and look at all that and realize what this accomplishment real is. I'm old enough to remember you are as well, the days of Ronald Reagan, the days of George W. Bush, And yeah, there was a liberal bias in the media and there was nothing, nothing compared to what we've seen now.
So that's the biggest surprise to me he was able to overcome that. That's very encouraging for America just going a forward. Whether you like Trump or not, it shows that these powerful institutions actually don't have as much power as they think they.
Do the first time in office. Even with the Republican majority in the House and Senate. He was fighting his own party all the way. He was. Yeah, it doesn't appear that he's going to have quite the same battle this time around. So what do you think is going to happen.
I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to get actual major reform and so mean what do I mean by that? I mean by cutting government spending. Now, look, it's great that that Vivek and Elon Musk have the DOGE and they're gonna, you know, this this government efficiency. But the reality is Vivek can say we need to get rid of the Department of Education, you actually have to pass laws to do that. So it's difficult, it's complicated, and the House margin is razor thin, so you've got to
keep those people in line. And of course in the Senate it's three votes, so if you've got you know, three or four moderates. But I'm cautiously optimistic we're going to start making some real changes. And I think the key thing we have to look for with Trump's appointees is it's okay if you come as in as a Secretary of Defense and you haven't worked in the Pentagon, because here's the great thing about Pete Pete Hegseth. He doesn't want to go work for Raytheon when he leaves.
I mean, he's not looking for some way to cash in. So he's reform minded. But he's got to surround himself, I think, with people who know where the bodies are buried in the Pentagon. Meaning this is not an air war. This is going to be a trench war. You're going to have to go through the trenches and fight in the bureaucracy. You're going to have to do that, and so it's going to be key to bring If you don't have those people, you can make speeches, you can declare all.
These sorts of things.
There's something in Washington, DC called the B team, And the B team is not like the lower ranked team. It's the B team, as in, it's the team that's going to be here when the secretary leaves.
If you had the ear of Donald Trump and no advisors were around, it was just the two of you sitting down and you had to impart what you think is most important for him to consider moving forward. What would it be based on all the investigative work you've done with your team over the years.
I think the and this is probably going to be controversial with some people. I think the key position is Attorney General. And I'm not a fan of the Matt Gates picks.
It's his prerogative.
I just think that you have to have somebody who has some experience in running a large institution. I don't think Matt has had that. I also worry about some of the other issues that have come up. But regardless of that, I think reforming Department of Justice and Law Enforcement FBI is going to be key. It's become insular, it's become elite. It looks skeptically at the rest of the country. That should not be the way that law
enforcement is. Federal law enforcement is handling issues, and that's certainly not the.
Way that the DOJ should be doing it.
So I think that is priority number one. Thanks for the time, Thank you for having me. New York Times bestseller Peter Schweizer. When we come back, Mark Levin here on the Twelve Days of Preston. Well, as you've probably gathered, this is a very special final twelfth day of the Twelve Days of Preston, and we rolled out some very special guests and joining me is Mark Levin heard nationwide from six to nine, and of course right here on one hundred point seven WFLA and Tallahassee from six to
nine each and every night, Monday through Friday. Mark, welcome back to the program. It's been a while. How are you, sir?
I'm good, Preston. How are you?
I am terrific. I am curious to get your analysis, your thoughts, your reaction, first and foremost to the election before we may be broadened out to some other things. Mark, what was the biggest surprise to you in the wake of the election.
Well, I'll tell you what's funny, Preston. I was asked, I don't know if it was election, even the day before by a executive at Fox, do I think Trump's going to win or lose? I said, I think he's going to win, And they said why, I said, you know, I have a national radio show. I mean, I understand it's not exclusively but mostly conservatives who listen. But there's a level of energy, a level of excitement. There's a
level of concern that I have never since before. I think that the patriotic Americans out there are quite serious about this election. They're not only going to turn out. They've already turned out early, but they're going to help get other people out. And that is what happened. I mean, the base came out massively, as well as others. Of course, that President Trump was reaching out towards, you know, whether it's in the Bronx or wherever. And I think that
mattered hugely. And you know, Kamala hass was an awful candidate, even though had an enormous amount of money. They had all the free and kind media and so forth and so on. So what I think is that the American people said, enough is enough. You can't force us to vote a certain way when your propaganda. We're smarter than that. We see what's happening to the country and the economy. So I guess what surprised me is the extent of
the victory. Really in all corners of the country. President Trump picked up support, I'd say that, but other than that, I actually believed he would win, even though I wouldn't announce it on radio, because what's the point.
Of that, right, What I'm curious, were you concerned at all that if Trump did not have the margins he ended up having and winning the popular vote vote significantly? That there would be efforts to defraud him of an election, as I believe personally happened in twenty twenty.
So do I, and I believe one hundred percent. And to underscore your point, ten twelve million votes I'm missing, quote unquote in other words, that Biden got. That's just simply not possible. You got an old man sitting in the basement, you know, playing tittally winks with himself and suddenly gets eighty one million votes, and Donald Trump gets the most massive number of any president or candidate in
American history and loses. That doesn't smell right. I really think one day, maybe it'll be fifty years from now, won't do us any good. But somebody's gonna have to really take a look at this and figure it out, because under the current environment it's tough to do. But there's no way, there's simply no way that Joe Biden got eighty one million votes legitimately in my opinion, and nobody can really connunce me otherwise. They've tried, but they can't.
So to answer your question, yes, look what's been going on in Bucks County and these other places right in Pennsylvania. The Democrats don't give a damn. That's why you know they have about eleven blue states. Maybe it's thirteen. I don't recall at the top of my head where they don't have voter ID. Now, that is about as stupid as it gets unless you want fraud. The border is wide open. It's wide open because they want people pouring
in here to empower the Democrat Party. They eventually want chain migration, they want birthright citizenship, they want all these things that empower the party, kill a country, but empower the Democrat Party to be a monopoly party. Is a very very dangerous party.
Mark on that subject. Because you brought it up, I want to stay there for a second. The Southern border. I have said to members of Congress that have been guests on my program over the years, I've asked this question, and candidly, none of them have been comfortable answering it. The question is, if what's happening on the southern border isn't intentional, what is it.
They're politicians. I guess that's why they're uncomfortable. For the rest of it, it's pretty obvious it's intentional. The Democrat Party did this purposely. They're still doing it. You know, in the Communist Manifesto, Mark says, look, there's going to be a peer to despotism, and that's the way it goes to fundamentally transform society. I think a lot of that mentality is in the Democrat Party, particularly the faceless,
voiceless radicals who populate this administration and their party. They want to change the country, They want to change the culture, they want to change the demographics. I wrote about this in American Marxism. This is an entire ideology that's taught in our colleges and universities. These are the phony masterminds that advise the Democrat Party. You can see a little bit of Ankle Preston with Bernie Sanders and AOC and those types that. You know, they kind of voice these positions,
but they view us as an illegitimate country. I mean, for years we heard on TV and elsewhere that the nation is illegitimate, that we are the conquerors. The current people here that are founding documents are illegitimate, and there's a lot of people who believe this. So what have they done. They have overwhelmed our immigration system, overwhelmed it so it doesn't even function. We can't vet who's coming in.
We have no idea how many illegals there are anywhere. Look, we started out with eleven million before Biden, so there's got to be at least twenty twenty five million. We don't have any idea how many women are being sold into sex slavery, and by the way, mostly minority women. And they don't care three hundred and twenty five thousand missing unaccompanied minders. I mean, this is sick, and yet it's all for the good. If you're a Democrat party
apperatric who wants to control. They want a monopoly party, so we go through elections, but they never lose what I call these pretorring elections, So the Republicans can never win. Nobody can ever defeat them. They want to take over all the jerry mandering and control the number of members of Congress that there's going to be. They want to get rid of the electoral college and have the popular votes, so all the safeguards excuse me, that the Framers put
in place are overwhelmed and destroyed. That is exactly what's going on, not just that mark.
The deaths, the murders, the rapes, the heinous crimes, the taking over of entire parts of communities. It's acceptable collateral damage to many on the left, and I call them at liberals, they say, yeah, it's a tragedy, but you know what, there's a greater cause. And they think this is okay, you're.
One hundred percent right, And where does that come from? You know, I say what I believe, which is Marxism. Marx believes that there's a price you have to pay to throw out the rock, to clean up the old society, to get rid of these whole connections, whether it's parental rights, whether it is a quote unquote representative government, and all these other things. This is why they believe in this massive leviathan federal government. Or ninety nine percent of our
laws are not passed by Congress. They are instituted by the bureaucracy through the executive branch. That is a complete attack and what lack of monusque you talked about representative government. You don't have representative government if the people passing their laws are not your representatives. And so we have something very strange right now in this country. We really don't
have a federal republic. Since federalism is all but dead, we really don't have a representative republic since all these laws are instituted by individuals who are, you know, bureaucrats, And we don't really have a constitutional republican any way, since so much of what the government does is not constitutional.
I don't know what we have. But Donald Trump's trying to get us back to some level of constitutional republicanism, which is why I'm so excited about his election and the people he's selecting.
Well, thankfully we're not contemplating the wisdom of what can be unburdened by what has been.
And one day we'll figure out what the hell that means.
But that's okay, Yeah, well that's right out of Marx's book as well. I mean, it really is. It's a mantra of doing away with and in world history teaches us that whether it's in China or whether it's in you know, any of the Eastern Bloc countries that were under Soviet control, that's really what it's all about.
Yeah, now you're one hundred percent right. And she kept saying equity, She's for equity, equity, and then she explained equity. You know, we all started a different place. Yeah, it's called humanity, but we all need to end up at the same place as said, that's pol Pot, that's Cambodia. We'll all have the same size baskets were on the rice field, and if anybody dares to have more than the next that doult was severely by the state. How equity you would have to end in the same place.
That's not human beings, that's not humanity.
He kind of says, what's on his mind, doesn't he? I love the guy, Mark Levin. We have more of my conversation with Mark Levin coming up next. What a way to wrap up the twelve days of Preston. I thought I'd slide some exclusive, never heard before content for this final day, which chronicles the month of December. So stay with us here on the twelve Days of Preston.
If you don't recognize the intellect in the wisdom, I guarantee you recognize the voice Mark Levin with me for just a few more minutes this morning, Mark, do you take any solace in hearing a handful? Granted it's not many, but there are some elected Democrats and some unelected Democrats that are out there saying, what did you think was going to happen? We've marginalized middle America. We've marginalized people's common sense values. We have tried to elevate men into
women's sports. What did you think was going to happen? I take a little bit of hope out of that because there are seemingly some Democrats. They may not be sure where to go moving forward, but they seemingly are pushing back against the way that the left is moving.
I think it's a very tiny minority within the Democrat Party elected leadership. You'll see a fetterman, the Sella in Massachusetts congressman I think his name is Moten, who say there's a battle hard and common veteran. You'll see a couple of these. But then when I see Bernie Sanders, or when I see this guy Chris mur if you from Connecticut, or James Carville who are on TV banging the pots and pants for the most radical elements in their party, banging the pots and pants for the destruction
of Trump, I know they're frauds and phonies. I think within the rank and file, I think union members, I think people of faith, I think in the Latino community, in the black community. I think you're starting to see what you're talking about, which is wait, a minute, this is nuts. What is it with these men and women's sports?
What is it with the changing language? What is it with in other words, these are values, These are American values that Americans are taught in their churches and synagogues, that Americans are taught by their parents, by their families. And the Democrat Party really wants to upend all that. So I think to the extent any of them in the leadership are saying, you know, we need to recalibrate a little bit, it's I don't think it's long lasting.
I think they'd rather impose their will. But if they can, you know, Bernie Sanders said, nobody's really playing this anymore during the election. You know, he's not going to criticize Kamala Harris's views. He agrees with him because they're radical, crazy kook. But if she has to say certain things to get elected, he basically said that it was on the scene in her MSNBC. Yep, she has to be practical, okay, so she has to lie to us. She wasn't even
good at that. But so the point is, I think if if they need they want to manipulate the public, they may think that way, but the overwhelming majority and the invisible hands behind the party, the so called masterminds. They're not going to change, They're going to double down. They're going to try to figure out how to what they can do to sabotage Trump and the Republican Party.
What concerns you the most? Setting that aside the obvious land minds that are out there, but at least it appears mark that Trump will not be fighting his own party as he did in twenty sixteen, to the extent that he had to fight it. Aside from that, is there something that concerns you about the Trump administration in what he has to do in the next two years, let alone four?
First, let me say I do see a few of these these Republicans in the Senate, not in the House. In the Senate, they're already, you know, using their usual bromides and so forth. Yeah, that's some of his nominees. And I will note that only one third of the Senate was up for election, and it's mostly the two thirds I'm watching who didn't have to face the voters this time. They always feel like they can duck whatever movement is taking place or whatever electoral outcome there is.
They figure what I got six four years or two more years, and you're starting to see that out of some of the Republicans on these committees. Let me just say in that regard, my attitude is President Trump deserves his team. Although I support every one of these nominees, is really decide the point. This is what he wants to do. He says, I need this team to get these things done. These are the promises I made, and he ought to get his team. The Democrats always get
their team, regardless how ridiculous there. I mean, look, they nominated Tampon Tim Is there anybody more freakish and repulsive than that guy? I mean, I wouldn't name him to be head of the Department of Agriculture, but he isn't anything wrong, But.
He is exactly who Democrats hold up as the paragon of virtue for males.
Yeah, exactly. Well that's why they lost. I guess do I see anything? I really don't. I mean, when I do, I'll announce it.
What about the national debt, I'm concerned that no one's talking about that.
Well, you know, I've talked a few guys on the Hill, and I told them it's not enough. Every time a cr comes up a conturning resolution to bang the pots and pans. You guys got to have a plan and institute it. And it's really up to Congress. The power of the purse starts in the House, moves to the Senate, then to the executive branch. And I have a number of proposals I've written about, I've talked about that I
convey to them. I get on my Fox show over the weekend as well, and I said, look, you need to put in place a limitation on what you can spend, a limitation on how much you can go in debt. You need to put in place an oversight permanent committee both the Senate in the House that any regulations over one hundred million dollars has to come back to the Congress, and you have six months to act up or down,
and if you don't, it's killed. We need representative government back to come full circle in our discussion here, and we don't have it. In terms of the spending. Unfortunately, I think the American people, if you had plebiscites on every ballot, they'd want to spend, spend, spend, spend, because you know, this is my program, this I don't touch this.
So you have to have sort of a generic overall cap system a percentage of the GDP is Milton Freeman recommended, or the old Penny plan, which was a Democrat congressman who was actually quite moderate on fiscal issues. Is So, let us reduce our spending by one penny, not literally one penny, but a penny at like one percent each year for the next ten years. Let's make it as
painless as possible. And of course we need priorities. You can't spend trillions of dollars on a degrowth movement that they call climate change, which they covered as inflation reduction, which caused inflation. Well at the same time gutting your military when the communist Chinese are on the rise. So we elect these people to use their heads. We've got too many ideologues in there. It's a daunting task, but
it is a cask they must, you know, tackle. And so to have in place a system that limits themselves, you know, we had this in the eighties and nineties. Actually to have a system that's in place that limits the amount you can spend to a percentage of growth in the economy, or and or slowly reduces the spending just a little bit every year. It becomes much much, much much easier, and we do it in almost every state. That needs to be the effort.
Mark which nominees are most important for Donald Trump to get. I know you mentioned you want to get all of them on the team. But who matters most?
I like Hegseth a lot. And that's why they attack him because I happened on him personally. But that's not it. I know he's a very smart guy. He's a combat veteran, he's in his forties, he's got all kinds of medals, and he's a retired lieutenant colonel. He didn't take somebody off the shelf who's been hanging around Washington, DC for forty years.
Agreed.
You know, you look at one of the so called great defense sectors Rumsall, who I liked a lot. He was appointed when he was forty three. He didn't have nearly the experience that Hegseth has. He's mostly spent time in Congress. He got elected to Congress at one point from Michigan. He served in the military six years Stateside. I don't put that down. I'm just explaining the difference. They don't like hag Seth because they're concerned that heg sets will do things they need to be done at
the Pentagon. I am a big support of the Pentagon, but you can't waste one hundred billion dollars a year and push this woke crap and all the around best of it. In other words, to reverse what the generals and the abolls and what this administration is done to the Pentagon. A guy like Keke said this need it won't be easy, So I'm very excited about him. Tim Walls is another one. Tim Tim wats Mike Waltz from Florida. He's fantastic Green. There's others Green Beret. I've gotten to
know him very well. He's uh, he's terrific. Pergham who they're going to have an interior I was the number two lawyer there for a period under Reagan. It is a big damn department. People don't realize its effects on oil and gas and ranching and and all you know of the land mass of the United States then offshore. It's an enormous bureaucracy. He strikes me as a very solid guy, both philosophically with management experience. These governors are
good because they have management experience. I think he'll be very very good at interior and there's others too, so we'll see how it goes.
Mark, you've been generous with your time. I greatly appreciate it very very much, and have a bou New Year you too.
And by the way, America's governor isn't he great? To santis? I think he's fantastic. And I am a resident of I don't know if you know this, Preston, I'm a resident of Florida. Did you know that.
I did not?
Yes, and so South Florida. But I'm a resident of Florida. So we love what's going on in Florida. We love you guys, and God bless you brother.
That's it. The twelve Days of Preston are in the books, and we will be back Monday with a new live edition of the Morning Show with Preston Scott and I can't wait.