Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Abdul & Kamala Champion “Birthing People,” Right-Wing Socialism Would be a Disaster, and 1619 Project Founder Inadvertently Endorses School Choice

Transcript

Abdul & Kamala Champion “Birthing People,” Right-Wing Socialism Would be a Disaster, and 1619 Project Founder Inadvertently Endorses School Choice · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: you as well. Senator, we've got a lot to talk
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: about in today's show as we're getting closer and closer
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: to the midterms and things that the Democrats are doing,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: they get weirder and weirder by the day.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Well, there are certain things that are tells. You know,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: when you're playing poker, a tell reveals what kind of
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: hand you have. And in politics, there's a tell. that
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: tells you whether a campaign is in trouble or not.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: And on the Democrat side, there is a tell that
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I think has a pretty close to 100% accuracy, which
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: is if you're a Democrat running for office, your campaign
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: is in real, real trouble if you have to ask
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris to come campaign for you. That is a
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: sign that your campaign is a dumpster fire, on fire,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: going off a cliff into a giant pile of manure.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: And Abdul Al-Sayed, a candidate who is tied with James
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Tallarico as the most radical and dangerous Democrat nominees in
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: the country... Abdul Al-Sayed, every day his campaign keeps getting worse.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: He keeps having more and more extreme facts. His sister,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: the facts how much she hates America, his father-in-law, the
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: fact that he's founded a charity linked to the Muslim Brotherhood,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: the fact that his pal Hassan Piker says America deserves 9-11.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: It's so radical that I'm sure they sat down at
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: a strategy session and said, what do we need? How
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: do we save this failing campaign?
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Let's invite Kamala Harris. And amazingly, they did. And even
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: more amazingly, but to the surprise of nobody and amazingly
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: as thoroughly tongue in cheek, her appearance only made things worse.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to bring you into this absolute nightmare. of
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: around people between Kamala Harris and Abdul Al-Sayed. And spoiler alert,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Kamala looked at him and said, wow, you're even wackier.
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: Than I am.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: She didn't actually say that, but she implied it. We're
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: going to break it down right now.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very interesting story. We got that for
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: you in a second.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Something just happened in Massachusetts, by the way, and most
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of the country has no idea. The state just passed
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: a law allowing abortion through the eighth and ninth months
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: of pregnancy. right up until birth, based on any reason
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: an abortion doctor gives. No exceptions, no limits, and this
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: could include babies capable of easily surviving outside the womb.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And under this law, the fact would not stop it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: The law also strips away formerly mandatory safety requirements for
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: abortion providers and removes specific accountability when women are harmed.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Less oversight, less protection, no consequences. Now, Gallup's polling shows
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: that most Americans, including most who call themselves pro-choice, don't
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: support abortion this late in pregnancy. This isn't a fringe position.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: This is common ground. And Massachusetts just ignored all of it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: And that's why I want you to know about Americans
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: United for Life, AUL. For more than 50 years, they've
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: been the legal backbone of the pro-life movement, fighting in
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: legislatures and courtrooms across the country. They know how to
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: fight these laws. They have done it before, and they
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: are already building the response to what Massachusetts just did.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: But they cannot do it without resources, and that's where
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you come in. A gift of $ 50 today will help
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: fund AUL's legal work, their legislative strategy, and the advocates
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: standing between these babies and a law that says their
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: lives don't matter. So please get involved. Go to aul.org
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: forward slash verdict and get $ 50 today. That's aul.org forward
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: slash verdict. Massachusetts passed this law. AUL is going to
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: fight it. The only question is whether you'll be part
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: of that fight as well. All right, Senator, so let's
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: get to this really interesting moment. I agree with you completely,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: by the way. If you're bringing in Kamala Harris, you've
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: got a really big problem. And that is either people
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: aren't excited about you or you're desperate for funds or
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: all of the above. Or maybe even, I guess, Kamala
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Harris is more mainstream than you are, El-Said. So therefore,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you're like, all right, let's bring her in and maybe
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I won't look as radical as many are afraid that
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I actually am.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think Abdul thinks Kamala moves it more
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: to the middle, which really speaks volumes. But, you know, look,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: if you think about where the country is and what
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: the country is longing for, if the very first thing
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: on your list of what the country is longing for
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: is more DEI, That we were just not woke enough
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: at peak wokeness. We need DEI everywhere. And by the way,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: we're not talking Berkeley. We're not talking Vermont. We're talking Michigan.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: We're talking a swing state. We're talking a state that
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: voted for Donald Trump twice.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And if you're saying, well, what the people of Michigan
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: want is more DEI, well, that was the central point
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: of the roundtable. So Kamala Harris... said that any criticism
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: of DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, is a, quote,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: attack on maternal care. And here was her quote. Quote,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: the attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: including the need to protect black women in connection with
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: their pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care. She says in a
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: roundtable event with El Saeed on black maternal health. Quote,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: These are the facts when we talk about what is
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: at stake in this moment as it relates to these
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: midterms and who occupies seats in one of the most
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: important bodies in our nations, if not the world, which
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: is the United States Senate. Now, there are several things
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: that are interesting. Do you know in 2024 who El-Said
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: backed for president?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to guess it was Joe Biden slash Kamala Harris.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Well, you would think so, but if you were guessing that,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: you'd be wrong. So, El-Said was part of the uncommitted
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: movement in Michigan. And these were the Islamists who were
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: so radical that they were furious with Joe Biden because
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: he wasn't anti-Israel enough. Now, mind you, Joe Biden is
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: the most anti-Israel president this country has ever seen. And yet,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the Dearborn, Michigan radicals, he wasn't... He was not.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Full-throatedly pro-Hamas.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And so there was this whole movement, uncommitted in Michigan,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: to say, we're not going to vote for the Democrats
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: because they are not as anti-Israel as we want them to.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: And one of their key leaders was Abdul El-Sayed. And
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: so I want you to listen to this exchange because
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: El-Sayed gets gets very unhappy when he gets asked about
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: his support for the uncommitted movement and not supporting Joe
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Biden and Kamala Harris. Here, give a listen.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in fact, Senator, we've got two clips. The first
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: one I'm going to play for you.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: This goes back to the uncommitted movement and what he
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: had to say back in twenty twenty four. So here's
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: El-Sayed then proudly saying I'm in this uncommitted group.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: Look, in all of the states that you named, they
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: did not have the kind of tumultuous 2024 election season
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: that we had in Michigan. And as folks know, if
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: you look back to 2024, one of the hardest issues
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: to deal with was the genocide in Gaza. And I
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: was proudly supportive of Uncommitted because I understood that I
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: wanted the party to understand that this was going to
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: be a devastating situation for a lot of folks.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: So you listen to that, Senator, and now let's go
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: to that clip you were mentioning where El-Sayed loses it
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: when he was pressed about his support for the 2024
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: uncommitted movement, even though in that last clip he was
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: totally proud of it. Here he is in his own
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: words now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Can you explain what uncommitted was? What was it about?
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: And who was the president we were uncommitted to? Is
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: Vice President Harris the same as President Biden?
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: Was Vice President Harris running for president at the time
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: we were uncommitted?
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Answer the question.
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, ask a fact-based question and then I'll answer
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: your question. No, no, but who are we uncommitted to
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: who was the actual leader of the presidential ticket?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Who was that?
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: So we were uncommitted to President Biden and then he
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: did what?
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: What did he do?
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: No, no, no.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: What did he do?
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: You're asking a question based on false premises. So I'm
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: just getting you to clarify your premise. What did he do?
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: He dropped out of the race, correct? And then there
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: was a new person running for president, right? So factually,
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: is the premise you're basing this question on actually a
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: real premise?
• 8:50
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Next question.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: He was not happy there, Senator, at all.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Goes back to the point you were making. He was furious.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: He was even having to answer the question at all.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Well, look, he was, in his own word, proudly supportive
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: of the uncommitted movement when the ticket was Joe Biden,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris. He was like very proud to say we
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: ain't voting for her. And the dumpster fire is so bad,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: he's like, hey, you know, the person that I wasn't
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: willing to vote for, now I really need her help. Now,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting. You know that it's a problem
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: when even the New York Times admits it. I'm just
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: going to read this headline from the New York Times.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Many Democrats are avoiding Kamala Harris. Abdul Syed welcomed her.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: The former vice president wants to help her party in
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: the midterms, but not many are taking her up on
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the offer, except for the Senate nominee in Michigan, who
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: appeared with her on Tuesday. When even the New York
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Times is saying, wow, this Kamala character, I'm not sure
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: she's gonna help in a whole lot of these races.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Maybe you ought to, like, if she calls and offers,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: it ought to be a new phone. Sorry, wrong number.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: But if you want to know why, if you want
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: to know why, Abdul Al-Sayed says, well, maybe Kamala will
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: help moderate me, help me seem more in the middle.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I want you to think and I want you to
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: listen to this bizarre discussion at their roundtable. I'm just
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: going to play it and then we'll comment afterwards here.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Give a listen. This is this week, Kamala Harris and
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Abdul Sayed. And I'm going to give you a preview.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: They're just like you. They relate to you and your
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: family just like anyone else would. Give a listen.
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: And that's what the people of Michigan need from you,
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: from our leaders. That's what Black women and Black birthing
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: people need in order to move themselves forward, their families forward,
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: their communities forward, the state forward, and this country forward.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Senator, birthing people. They haven't let that go, have they?
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: With these birthing people. So that's a dude who's acting
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: like a chick that they want you to believe can
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: get pregnant if we're translating what a birthing people are.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: So look, I'm just going to say right now, if
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: you have ever used the phrase black birthing people unironically,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: like actually to describe something, you know what? You probably
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: ought to vote for Abdul.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: You are.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: clearly a whacked out nut job. But for the rest
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: of us, this really does tell you how extreme these
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: people are. They're unable or unwilling to say the word mother.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Like mom, and I will tell you several years ago,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee where
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: one of the Senate Democrats made a reference to birthing people.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And I pulled it aside afterwards on the Senate floor
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and I said, Is your party's base really that whacked
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: out that you can't say mom? Yeah. And he just
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: looked at me and nodded and said, yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Like, I mean, that's a staffing call, right?
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: That's somebody in the staff's like, hey, you can't say
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that anymore.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: You got to say birthing people.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And that'll give us cover with the with the with
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the hardcore primary radical lefty voters.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: That's that's a political decision.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: This is six weeks out from the general election. This
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: is when they're trying to pivot to the middle. And
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: their campaign is we are fighting for black birthing people.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: That's how extreme they are.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Everybody listening to this, if you go watch the clip,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: we've got this one up on YouTube, this episode.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You can watch.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: No one's shocked by what was said there in that moment.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: It was as normal as it's saying, welcome, good Tuesday morning.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: It's so good to have you here at this Harris-El-Saeed event.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Like, there was no pause. Like, what are they talking about?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: What is she saying? Why are we going here?
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Like, this was check the box, radical leftist organization 101 stuff.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Look, this is embodying something we've talked about on Verdict
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: for a long time, which is the power center, the
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: center of gravity of the Democrat Party has moved from
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: the union hall. It used to be in the FDR era,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: the union guy was the heart of the Democrat Party.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: It's moved from the union hall to the faculty lounge.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: And birthing people is the sort of thing that that
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: that woke communists in the Ivy League or Berkeley say,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: it's the kind of thing, you know, people who snap
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: instead of applauding, or who hiss if you dare deviate
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: from their orthodoxy, those are the people who say black
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: birthing people, and that is Abdul. That is especially Abdul's sister,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: who is a professor at the University of Chicago, who
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: says she hates the University of Chicago, hates Thanksgiving, hates
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the Fourth of July, and hates America. And that is
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris as well.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: By the way, that's how you get tenure now, isn't it?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Isn't that how you get tenure at one of these universities?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: You just tell them you hate them and you hate
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: everything about this country. They'll give you a job for life.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: You know, it is sad. It is extreme. It is radical. Now,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you what, though. Unfortunately, the radical is not
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: exclusively on the left. Listen, the Democrat Party is facing
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: a hostile takeover from the Islamists and the communists. And
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: that's something that we have to fight back and defeat.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: But there's also a separate group on the right, the
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: so-called woke right, that have decided that, and this is
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: the Tucker Carlsons of the world, these are the people
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: who are embracing, number one, anti-Semitism, hatred of Israel, hatred
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: of Jews, hatred of Donald Trump. hatred of America, hatred
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: of capitalism. And they're calling themselves, they claim they are
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: on the right, but there is nothing that they are
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: saying that is remotely conservative. And this week I went
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: on Will Kane on Fox News, and he actually asked
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: me about the woke right embracing socialism. And I got
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: to admit, I didn't know the question was coming. And
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: when he asked me, it pissed me off. So I
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: want you to hear my answer because I did get
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: pissed off.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, before we get to that, I do want to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: talk to you real quick about a organization that you
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: should know about and the amazing work they're doing. It's
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: called Compassion International. If you're going to change someone's life,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: you want to know what actually lasts. And that's one
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: reason Compassion International has become one of the most trusted
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: child development ministries in the world. Independent research shows children
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: sponsored through Compassion stay in school significantly longer. In fact,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: they're 40% more likely to graduate from high school. And
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: this stat's amazing. 80% more likely to finish college. And
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that's because sponsorship isn't just temporary relief. It's a long-term
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: investment through the local church, meeting the physical needs while
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: sharing the.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Hope of Jesus.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Now you can do what I've done. And for just
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: $ 43 a month, you can help shape a child's future.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You can sponsor a child today, and it's really easy,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: at Compassion.com. That's Compassion.com. All right, Senator, for everybody listening,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I love, by the way, these organic moments. They make
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: me smile when I see them go viral. This is you,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Will Cain Show, and this is what you had to
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: say when asked about the radical right now, the woke
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: radical right.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Take a listen to this.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: You can see it in online circles of the right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: And the question is whether or not the right should
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: embrace at least elements of socialism.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to give you two answers to that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: No and hell no. You are right that there are
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: a handful of online influencers that are trying to push
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: socialism to young people. And young people historically have been
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: susceptible to arguments for socialism. One of the aspects of
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: being young, all of us, every older person has been young,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: no young person has been older. Young people don't have
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: historical experience to know that socialism doesn't work. 100% of
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: the time, everywhere it has been implemented, socialism is a
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: train wreck. By the way, I know something about this firsthand.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: My father, when he was a young person, when he
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: was a teenager in Cuba... My father fought alongside Fidel Castro,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: who came promising free things, promising to overthrow a tyrant.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: And young people, as my father put it, the people
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: who fought in the Cuban Revolution were 14 and 15
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: year old boys who didn't know any better. They discovered
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: what socialism means when Fidel Castro took over and he
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: began executing dissidents and seizing people's lands. And Cuba has
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: been trapped in utter poverty forever. For 60 years since then,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: the same was true in the Soviet Union. The same
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: was true in North Korea. The same has been true
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: in China. The same has been true in Nicaragua. Socialism
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: does not work.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm ready when you are. Diaz, tell me when.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Senator, this the point you just made was was brilliant.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: But you also went on to say something else that
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I think is really important is a warning of what
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: it means for this country and losing elections if we
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: allow this to continue to grow and fester on the right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And here is that warning. And I want you to.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Pay attention because this is exactly why we do this
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: show so that we can talk about things like this
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: and then you can share it with your family and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: your friends.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Take a listen.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: So, Senator, you and I agree, obviously, in the historical
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: diagnosis and the economic failings of socialism.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: I think the question then becomes... is when these.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: Arguments are made, they're made through the lens of populist appeal.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: This is what you must do to win elections. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: instead of a socialism under the banner of Islamism, they're
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: advocating for a socialism under the banner of red, white,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: and blue as a means to win elections. And the
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Trojan horse of this entire thing is the affordability conversation.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: How do you combat that argument?
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Look, I agree with you. There are people that are
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: selling this siren sign. And it's an interesting beast. We
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: used to have a couple of decades ago what would
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: be called rhinos, essentially weak Republicans, Republicans in name only,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: that would say, we're going to spend money too. We
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: just won't give away as much as the Democrats. Today,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: instead of coming from the moderate mushy middle, where that
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: urge is coming from is the self-declared populist. Look, I'll
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: be clear. I consider myself very much a populist. The
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: base that has elected me every time has been blue-collar workers.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Here's the difference. The way to be a populist is
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: not get in the Bernie Sanders game of giving away
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: free stuff. The way to be a populist is fight
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: for the jobs of working men and women, fight for
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: small businesses. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris's tax policy and
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: economic policy does not work And you are right. There
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: are some misguided voices in MAGA saying, let's embrace socialism light.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: You know what? If we campaign and say we'll be
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: just like the Democrats, except not as a generous Santa Claus,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: that's a path to lose.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: You know, the parallels that you talked about there, about
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: the young people that were behind Castro, they're 14, 15
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: years old. They didn't realize or have the historical context
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: of what they were supporting. And then they started watching
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: what actually happened afterwards. I think there's a lot of
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: truth to that here in this country. And look, I
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: have people that I know well that are in this
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: kind of Republican, socialist, isolationist, kumbaya, giveaway stuff, campaign strategy
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: for MAGA. I think it's, like you mentioned, a disaster
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: for election of conservatives that this is where we allow
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: the party to go and we got to stop it
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Well, and listen, I think it is still fringe. There
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: are a handful of vocal so-called influencers that are promoting it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: But there is a danger of young people. Young people
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: are susceptible to indoctrination. And it's why the Bernie Sanders
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: and AOCs of the world target young people. And it's
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: also why you have the woke right targeting young people.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: And this podcast, look, the answer to lies is truth.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: The answer to socialism is the facts and reality that
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: every time it's implemented, it doesn't work. And the result
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: is poverty and misery and suffering. And the single greatest
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: engine for prosperity the world's ever seen is the American
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: free enterprise system. The greatest engine for opportunity, for lifting
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: people out of poverty, is the American free enterprise system.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: And we need to respond with facts to the lies
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: the other side is saying.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Let's go to another story, and this one is very interesting.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and remind people about what the 1619 Project is, because
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the founder of that, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: a big regret that is now being said publicly about
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: sending their child to a failing public school.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Well, we started this podcast by talking about the woke left,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: and Kamala and Abdul arm-in-arm embracing DEI and talking about
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: black birthing people. At the same time as at the
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: height of woke lunacy was the 1619 Project. The 1619
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Project originated with the New York Times. And it was
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: designed to fundamentally change American history. And to say, you know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: we just celebrated America's 250 because it's the 250th birthday
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: of America. of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Well,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: the 1619 Project was designed to say America did not
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: begin with the Declaration of Independence. It did not begin
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: with the Constitution. Instead, it began in 1619 when the
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: first slaves were brought to America. And the 1619 Project
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: is designed to tear down our nation's founding, tear down
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: the principles that America was built upon, and instead indoctrinate
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: children with the lie that America is fundamentally racist and oppressive.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: The 1619 Project.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Is a Marxist endeavor from the New York Times, and
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the person who led all of that is a woman
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: named Nicole Hannah-Jones. She was the driving force behind the
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: 1619 Project. And by the way, they produced a curriculum
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: that they sent out to public schools, and public schools
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: all over the country taught this garbage to our kids. Well,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: this week, Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote a long op-ed that I
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: actually want to read from because it's one of the
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: most astonishing and sad admissions of just the failure of
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the left. And I don't think she fully understands what
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: she was writing, but these words are a more damning
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: indictment than anything I could say about the failure of
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: left-wing ideology. It begins as follows. In fighting for every
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: black child, did I betray my own? A decade ago,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: I made a decision about my daughter's education that I
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: hoped would challenge New York City's separate and unequal school system.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice. I
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: could feel her looking at me, her body slung in
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: adolescent impertinence against the front passenger seat door, shoulders turned
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: so she could face me fully. Usually, when I picked
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: up my daughter, Najah, from middle school, She'd tumble into
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: the car and bombard me with a day's escapades, chattering
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: nonstop about her friend group or complaints about an annoying
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: teacher or a wonder at the test she'd aced despite
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: thinking she'd failed it. But not this day.' Did you
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: know my school was bad like this when you decided
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: to put me here?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: she asked.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I worked
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: to keep my face neutral, buying a few moments to
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: gather my thoughts. As they neared the end of her
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: seventh grade year, Najah and her closest girlfriends were thinking
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: about their futures. Honors students, they searched the nation's top colleges,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: and that led to a curiosity about New York City's
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: highest-ranked public high schools. Wondering about their chances of getting in,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: they decided to Google their own school and its ratings.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: And in doing so, Naja and her tight trio of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: black girl nerds confronted not only the reality of the
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: city's deeply segregated educational landscape, but also that the Brooklyn
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: school they all attended existed firmly on the wrong side
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: of the divide. By dismissal time, Naja's shock had turned
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: into boiling, and the seatbelt was barely clicked before she
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: was confronting me. I had braced myself for this moment,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: spent nearly a decade expecting it, preparing for it. When
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Najah was entering pre-K, my husband Faraji and I decided
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: to send her to the type of school that wealthier
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: families with choices uniformly avoid, one that is low income
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and mostly black. Our decision had been informed by values
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: shaped by my years of reporting on the enduring and
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: too often seemingly hopeless battle for school integration. I've lost
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: count of how many times I've written some version of
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: this sentence. Nationally, a black student is less likely to
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: have teachers who are qualified and experienced, and to be
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: offered rigorous and college prep curriculum, to have up-to-date technology,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: and attend school in modernized facilities. In New York, a
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: combination of housing segregation and academic sorting, called school choice,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: that begins as early as pre-K, means most black students,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: even middle-class ones, are forced to attend racially segregated schools
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: with high rates of poverty. And nationally, schools in predominantly
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: non-white districts receive $ 23 billion less in annual funding than
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: their heavily white counterparts, according to a 2019 analysis by EnBuild.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: In everything that we measure, these schools have less, even
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: though the economically struggling student bodies they serve need more.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: And so the test scores and poor academic performance they typify,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and that typify these schools, reflect not just the disadvantage
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: of the students, but more essentially the disadvantage of the schools.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: New York City is a diverse school system. All right,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: I'm going to skip forward a little bit. So, like
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: the generations of black parents who came before us, Faraji
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and I felt an obligation to make educational decisions based
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: on the collective good and not just our individual advantage.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: New York is considered one of this nation's most liberal
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: cities while operating a school system that is among the
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: most racially segregated. This segregation exists because policymakers and affluent parents,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: even those who profess a belief in integration and equality,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: shed their advocacy at the schoolhouse door and refused to
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: take or support any substantial action to integrate the city schools.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Faraji and I decided that our role in this struggle
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: meant upending the status quo and sending our child not
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: to a wealthy white school, but to a poor black one.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: That may appear paradoxical, but only if we forget that
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: the battle for school integration wasn't catalyzed by the desire
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: to put black students next to a white student, but
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: by an effort to ensure that black children received access
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: to equal educational resources. We thought that By sending Najah
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: to a mostly low-income and black school, we could help
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: improve it for all the children there. From my past reporting,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: I knew that PTAs at poor schools often can raise
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: only a few thousand dollars. But Faraji and I could
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: write checks that exceeded the annual PTA budget. I witnessed
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: how dismissive school officials could be to lower-income parents who
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: lodged complaints or made demands for resources, and how deferential
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: they were to the wealthy ones. I believe Faraji and
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I could bring some of that power with us. We
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: had connections and time and status that should not matter,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: but we all know do. And more than that, we
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: believe strongly that if families like ours went into schools
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: like this one, it would challenge other families with similar
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: values to do the same. After much internal debate in
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: our household, in 2015, we enrolled Najah in pre-K at
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Public School 307, a segregated high-poverty school across from the
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Farragut Housing Projects in Brooklyn. I hadn't intended at first
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: to write about our decision, but a few months into
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: the academic year, PS307 became embroiled in an integration battle
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: when parents protested the reassignment of their children from a
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: wealthy and predominantly white school to ours. It felt impossible
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: for me not to weigh in. In 2016, I wrote
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: an essay in this magazine called, quote, Choosing a School
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: for My Daughter in a Segregated City, about our experience
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: in a system in which educational inequality was widely accepted.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Our daughter, then a kindergartner with Afro puffs, a plaid
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: school uniform, and Jordan-clad feet, appeared on the cover. The
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: piece struck a chord in a way I could not
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: have predicted. Readers flooded my inbox and posted hundreds of comments. Okay,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to skip forward a little more. In
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: the outside world, my choice had earned me valor. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: yet that day, under the withering glare of my daughter,
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the words that I was formulating formulating sounded hollow to
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: my ears even before they passed my lips. Your school
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: is not bad, I told her, modulating my voice. What
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: are you talking about? Naja grew agitated. You know what
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about. We looked up our school. We saw
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: the test scores. We saw the ratings. She ticked off
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the school's below average reading and math scores and that
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: it ranked poorly on a popular school rating website. I
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: said I was aware of her school's academic rankings, but
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: that test scores alone do not define a school. Glancing
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: between her and the road, I told her that everything
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: I had said a hundred times on stages, in interviews
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: and discussions, since I had made her a symbol, since
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I had made her a symbol of how the choices
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: we make can help sustain or dismantle educational inequalities. I
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: talked about the deep inequality in New York schools and how,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: like black families who came before us, we had an
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: obligation to be part of the struggle of our larger community.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Even if her schools were not academically the strongest, I explained,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: her father and I knew we could provide for her
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: tutoring and any other assistance to make up for what
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: her school may have lacked. But my child just shook
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: her head. Her face, a mask of disbelief. And something else. Betrayal.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: So you had the money to send me to one
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: of the best schools. And you chose not to. Wow.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: She said, her voice hurling the words. Because other kids
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: are disadvantaged. You didn't want to put me in a
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: great school? Najah was asking what I'd accomplished by not
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: choosing the quote best school for her. And the honest
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: answer is, I don't know. When it comes to the
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: choices my husband and I have made about public education,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: these days I feel that I failed both my values
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: and my child. I did not, when we chose PS 307,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: go into this with naivete. I understood exactly what we
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: would face, could cite studies and statistics by heart. But
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: when I wrote my essay, we were in the propitious years.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: was Naja just a kindergartner with two caring and astute co-teachers.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: The district had placed one of its new universal pre-K
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: programs at Naja's school, and it had attracted other well-off
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: families who enrolled their children the year we did, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: many had stayed for kindergarten. Naja adored school and seemed
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: to be reading and doing math on grade level. She
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: was also developing a strong sense of herself as a
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: black girl in a classroom that, unlike the rest of
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: the school, was multicultural and economically diverse. a reflection of
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: the city and the world. At the start of each year,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: the students created self-portraits, and I chuckled with my husband
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: when our light-skinned child chose to draw her with the
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: chestnut-colored crayon and not the beige one, because that's how
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: she saw herself. But this did not, I suppose could not, last.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: The dynamic, exceptional principal who headed the school when we
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: enrolled Naja into pre-K said, a woman who had herself
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: grown up in the public housing across the street and
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: had turned this high-poverty school into a vibrant learning community,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: retired at the end of the year, it was soon
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: clear that the new principal was not up to the
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: task of sustaining the work of the veteran educator she
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: had replaced. Towards the end of first grade, Naja started
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: sometimes saying she didn't like her school and complaining about
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: how chaotic it was at lunch. I decided to visit
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: during the lunch period. and I was shocked by what
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I saw. Najah's class and another class were sitting at
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: their tables in the cafeteria with no lunch and no
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: adult supervision. Children were running wild, chasing, hitting, and pushing
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: each other while the teacher's aides and cafeteria workers stood
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: by looking bored. Several times, I had to instruct children
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: to stop striking each other and to sit down and
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: at one point physically pulling two boys apart. When I
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: asked one of the aides why the children weren't being supervised,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: she told me the lunch period was short-staffed. After I
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: sat back down with nausea, she told me, it's always
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: like this, and that's why I don't want to go
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: to this school. It was not that the children horrified me.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Kids of all incomes are rambunctious at lunchtime. It was
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: the callous disregard of the adults. Students respond to the
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: high or low expectations of institutions and the grown-ups who
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: operate them. And it was clear that these messages, that
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: these children were getting the message. After lunch, I headed
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: straight to the principal's office to meet with her. Afterwards,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: I sent a lengthy email about what I had witnessed
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: and demanded the unsafe lunchroom conditions be addressed. And what
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: had become a pattern when we raised concerns, it took
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: several days before the principal responded, and several more weeks
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: of emails and calls before she announced a plan to
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: address the lunchtime issues. Okay, and I'm going to scroll
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: forward a little more, and I know this is lengthy,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: but I just think this is so incredibly powerful that
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: it's worth really listening to her words. She continues, but
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: fourth grade was the worst year. At the first parent-teacher
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: conference in November 2019, Najah's teachers told us that she
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: was not performing on grade level in any of her
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: academic subjects, and that her assessment given at the start
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: of the school year had shown she was not a
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: proficient reader. We were perplexed. Naja was always a good student,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: and her past reading assessments were always at or above
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: grade level. When I got home that night, I emailed
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: her teachers and copied the principal. We needed to understand
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: why our daughter was suddenly floundering. I told them we
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: wanted to see Nadja's reading assessment and all the graded
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: classroom work so we could determine what she didn't understand
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: and get her tutoring. I was trying to signal that
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: we were active and involved parents and that we wanted
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: to be partners with them in our daughter's success. Neither
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: of Nadja's teachers, nor the principal, bothered to respond. What
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: follows was a series of emails and phone calls and
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: meetings trying to get basic items, copies of Nadja's graded work,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: her reading assessments, her test results. and receiving nothing. Then
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: one day in December, Naja came home and excitedly informed
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: me that she had suddenly jumped three grade levels in
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: reading in one month. Knowing that this was virtually impossible,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I reached out to the school's literacy coach and learned
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: that after we began asking reading assessment, Naja's teacher had
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: instructed the coach to perform the evaluation and that she
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: found Naja was reading just fine. What became clear to
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: me was that Naja's teacher had most likely never performed
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: the school's mandatory reading assessment for Naja or any of
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: her classmates, but instead had assumed the flagging competency of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: these mostly low-income black children. Finally, a few days before
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: school let out for winter break, I received a folder
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: from Naja's backpack with the math assignments I'd been requesting
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: since our conference. Once I tucked her into bed, I
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: sat at my dining room table and scanned one page,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: then another, then another. None of them were graded. I
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: started checking Naja's work and discovered most of her answers
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: were wrong. Naja believed herself to be good at math.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: It was her favorite subject. But now I understood she
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: thought she was correctly solving all her problems because her
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: teacher was not checking her work. Similarly, Naja's writing assignments
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: were rife with uncorrected punctuation, capitalization, and grammar errors. I
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: sat there silently for several minutes, conjuring the image of
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: my little girl thinking she was soaring in class when
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: she was failing, and my devastation morphed into hot rage.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: All right, now I want to skip forward to the end.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: She describes continued challenges in the public school. Eventually she
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: transfers to another school because her daughter insists, and then
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: she has enormous difficulty at the more challenging school because
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: she failed to get the education she needed as a
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: young girl. Here's how the article ends. One day in June,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: as I was immersed in writing this essay, my phone rang.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: It was Naja. She was 16 and was finishing the
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: final weeks of her sophomore year. She was making her
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: daily call for lunch money, a ritual I created to
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: force her to check in with me once during the
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: school day. Hello, baby cakes. I tried to sound cheery.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: I failed. What's wrong, Mommy? She asked immediately. I'd been
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: making my way through pages and pages of email exchanges
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: with Nadja's principals and teachers, and this had jostled loose
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: a truth I could no longer suppress. For years, I
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: had been defending my decision to Nadja, trying hard to
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: balance empathy for her with the justification of her father's
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and my choices. I wanted my child to see it
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: my way, to see the struggle she was having as
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: part of a lineage and a mandate, to understand the
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: tremendous privilege that I believe inoculated her against the worst
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: consequences of the dysfunction and at times educational malpractice that
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: she and her classmates experienced. But now, I felt overcome
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: with regret. Naja deserved better. They all did. But she
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: was mine. This girl My only child looked to me
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: And I had not chosen her. I almost cannot type
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: the words because when I do, an image of her
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: in her blue school uniform, her hair and beaded cornrows
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: that clicked when she swung them with her sweet baby
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: tooth smile springs to mind. and the tears come. On
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: the phone, I knew that if I tried to brush
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: off Naja's question, she would simply keep asking. She was
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: like me in that way, relentless. So I told her
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: that I'd been reading through the old emails and that
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I was feeling really sad that she had gone through
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: so much and that I hadn't listened to her more.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: I feel like you got cheated, I said, and I'm
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: sorry for that. For a moment, Naja said nothing. Then
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: she told me, Sometimes I wish, instead of always thinking
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: about other kids, you would have thought about me. I
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: never really got the education I wanted. I got to
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: tell you, Ben, that is one of the saddest essays
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I've ever read. And I left out quite a bit.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: It's substantially longer than that. But look, Nicole Hannah-Jones is
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: still a left-wing ideologue. She still passionately opposes school choice.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: She opposes giving scholarships to kids in failing schools. to
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: attend better schools. She's fighting to close the door on
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: other kids that want to get an education, want to
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: learn to read, want to learn to write, and she's
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: doing it because she embraces the hardcore leftist ideology. But
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: I will say those words, you can feel her pain,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: you can feel the tragedy of sacrificing her own child.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Activism over child.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: And you know, look, I hope I will commend her
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: for writing this essay. This was not an easy essay
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: to write. Very few people in public life ever say
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: I was wrong. That's a hard thing to say. And
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: she goes on to write, well, this just shows that
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: the whole world is racist and everything's horrible. She takes
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: no lessons from it that are the lessons one should,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: which is we should be fighting for school choice and
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: scholarships for kids so they can get great education. She
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: doesn't take that. But it is the inevitable logical conclusion
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: of what she said. And I just, in 14 years
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: in the Senate, the single thing I'm most proud of
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: doing is authoring the federal school choice tax credit that
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: will kick in next year that is going to unleash
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships so that
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Even if he's failing schools. Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: So that other kids in that circumstance can get a
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: lifeline of hope. And in that that essay, I think powerfully,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: powerfully shows why it's needed and why I believe with
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: all my heart that school choice is the civil rights
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: issue of the 21st century. Yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Couldn't agree with you more.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And by the way, we you can find that article,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: read the entire thing if you want to.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: It's powerful.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: That's why we read it here for you. a large
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: part of it. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: and Friday. You can also watch the show on YouTube
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: as well. Hit that subscribe or auto-download button. And the
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Senator and I will see you back here on Friday morning.