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Speaker 1: Life Audio.

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Speaker 2: What a dream is primarily good for is getting you

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Speaker 2: moving in the world. A dream is good for getting

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Speaker 2: you out of bed. A dream is good for getting

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Speaker 2: you out of your front door.

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Speaker 1: I like that.

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Speaker 2: But if you hang on to dreams too tightly, they

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Speaker 2: can destroy you. You'll end up not taking the steps

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Speaker 2: that God puts in front of you because you're so

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Speaker 2: convinced of what those steps ought to be.

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Speaker 1: Today I'm joined by someone who has become one of

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Speaker 1: the most influential voices in the world of culture, media,

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Speaker 1: and faith. His name is Jeremy Boring. Jeremy was the

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Speaker 1: CEO and co-founded The Daily Wire along with Ben Shapiro.

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Speaker 1: As you're going to see, Jeremy Boring has a lot

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Speaker 1: to say. And it's not boring. You're going to hear

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Speaker 1: things maybe you've never thought about before. Jeremy and I

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Speaker 1: are going to be talking about the cultural moment that

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Speaker 1: we're living in and how important it is for us

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Speaker 1: as Christians to engage it. I have to say, of

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Speaker 1: all the interviews I've done over the years, this is

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Speaker 1: absolutely one of them. No, I'm kidding. Of all the

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Speaker 1: interviews I've done over the years, this is one of

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Speaker 1: the most interesting. Jeremy has so much to say, as

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Speaker 1: you're going to see. Let's dive in. Jeremy, thanks for

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Speaker 1: coming and being here.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to meet you in person. I've seen

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Speaker 1: you on camera, on your podcast, on The Daily Wire

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Speaker 1: a lot. I'm sorry. No, you know, here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: You shouldn't be sorry because you really are good at that.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know. I'd seen you on The Daily Wire

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Speaker 1: moderating discussions and opining some. But I'd never seen you

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Speaker 1: interviewed as much as you've been lately. And also just,

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Speaker 1: you know, hosting your own show and opining. And, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of giftedness there that you were helping others.

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Speaker 1: You seem to have a gift for discovering others who

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Speaker 1: have giftedness, helping them develop it, launching them. But you

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Speaker 1: were sort of behind the scenes, or at least my

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Speaker 1: perception was. Is that incorrect?

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Speaker 2: Well, no, I think that's exactly right. You know, a

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Speaker 2: lot of my career... has been sort of behind the

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Speaker 2: scenes helping talent develop themselves.

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Speaker 1: And you must have started very young, because.

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Speaker 2: How old are you?

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Speaker 1: 47. Okay, so when you started out doing all this,

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Speaker 1: how old were you?

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Speaker 2: Well, we started The Daily Wire in 2015, but of

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Speaker 2: course I'd been active in Hollywood for a decade before that.

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Speaker 1: Were you working in the film industry?

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Speaker 2: Working in the film industry. I grew up in West Texas,

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Speaker 2: and I had a lot of opportunities early in life,

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Speaker 2: to do a lot of local entertainment, radio, theater, music.

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Speaker 2: My childhood best friend's father sort of ran the local

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Speaker 2: entertainment scene. And, you know, at 21, go west, young man,

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Speaker 2: and see what you can accomplish out in L.A., which was,

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Speaker 2: you know, as it turns out, not very much. I

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Speaker 2: failed pretty instantly when I got there.

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Speaker 1: But you learn from failures, don't you?

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Speaker 2: You learn an awful lot from failures. I've said many

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Speaker 2: times I hope to make a billion-dollar mistake in my life.

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Speaker 2: Maybe looking back at The last 18 months with The

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Speaker 2: Daily Wire, maybe I've made it. But I know that

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Speaker 2: when you fail big, if you're willing to keep moving,

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Speaker 2: you get to learn big lessons.

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Speaker 1: Why do you say that, what you just said? Explain that.

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Speaker 2: Well, my time at The Daily Wire came to an

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Speaker 2: end about 18 months ago. And it's an enormous loss

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Speaker 2: to have been a part of building something at that

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Speaker 2: scale and then to have it come to an end.

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Speaker 2: So there are a ton of lessons there, of course,

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Speaker 2: and a ton of sadness and pain as well. which

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Speaker 2: you also learn an awful lot from. One of the

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Speaker 2: difficulties in failure is to not learn the wrong lessons.

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Speaker 2: It's easy to, when you go through hardship, it's easy

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Speaker 2: to learn to not take risk. It's easy to learn

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Speaker 2: to not have trust. It's easy to learn the things

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Speaker 2: that keep you from moving forward. In fact, I think

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Speaker 2: those are the lessons that probably destroy most people. I've

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Speaker 2: said many times that whatever success I've had in life

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Speaker 2: and whatever success I've had in business is actually just

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Speaker 2: because I'm not smart enough to learn the lessons that

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Speaker 2: would cause me to stop. If you keep going, then

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Speaker 2: you can actually, I think, get to the better lessons

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Speaker 2: that success requires and that failure teaches.

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Speaker 1: Right. It's interesting because you have a background in Hollywood storytelling,

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Speaker 1: and then you went into a medium of communication, a

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Speaker 1: conservative platform, The Daily Wire, you helped to build. That

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Speaker 1: really changed everything in so many ways. you opine on

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Speaker 1: what's going on in the culture and in politics, but

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Speaker 1: there's an artistic side of you as well. That's sort

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Speaker 1: of a rare combination because you don't usually think of

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Speaker 1: art and conservatives. Maybe the big exception would be Andrew Klavan.

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Speaker 1: And he was like my entry-level guy for the whole

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Speaker 1: world of The Daily Wire. My wife found him on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: and I started watching him, and I still watch him

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Speaker 1: every week. I love Andrew Klavan.

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Speaker 2: I think Andrew Klavan's show is... Week after week, the

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Speaker 2: best thing produced by The Daily Wire.

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Speaker 1: Well, I agree with you. And I don't know that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know about Andrew Cleveland. I've

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Speaker 1: interviewed him. He's interviewed me. He's just a fascinating guy,

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Speaker 1: obviously a very successful writer, had some of his work

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Speaker 1: done in films in Hollywood, Clint Eastwood, etc., continues to

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Speaker 1: write his books. But I love his commentary on culture

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Speaker 1: and politics. And So he's sort of the rare, what

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Speaker 1: do you call it, the unicorn, whatever. He's the rare exception.

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Speaker 1: But you seem to have that giftedness, obviously, as well.

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Speaker 2: Well, when Ben Shapiro and I first started working together,

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Speaker 2: it wasn't clear to Ben which one of us would

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Speaker 2: be in front of the camera and which one of

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Speaker 2: us would be behind the camera. You know, I was

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Speaker 2: working in Hollywood at the time and he was working

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Speaker 2: as an attorney at the time.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: But it was much more clear to me.

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Speaker 1: But he was a good attorney.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He was a good attorney. It was more clear

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Speaker 2: to me. I saw Ben's talent right away.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting. What did you see in a young Ben

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Speaker 1: Shapiro that you thought this guy should be on camera?

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Speaker 2: In a way, it's all of the things that caused

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Speaker 2: people a generation ahead of us to believe that he

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Speaker 2: wouldn't be successful in media. Ben talks too fast. He's

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Speaker 2: too smart. He uses words that are too big. He's

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Speaker 2: not pandering to an audience's I actually thought that in

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Speaker 2: the emerging world of online media in particular, that those

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Speaker 2: were actually superpowers. I thought, you know, everybody in this

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Speaker 2: sort of emerging space listens to things, you know, on

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Speaker 2: 1.5 or 2x speed. Anyway, you don't have to do

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Speaker 2: that with Ben. You get that naturally.

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Speaker 1: That's true.

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Speaker 2: But mostly what I thought was, you know, there is

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Speaker 2: a craving for a kind of authenticity against the backdrop

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Speaker 2: of hyper-partisan media. And Ben says what he believes, and

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Speaker 2: he can defend what he believes at the highest level.

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Speaker 2: I saw him as a kind of successor to David Horowitz,

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Speaker 2: who at the time I thought that David would retire.

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Speaker 2: Of course, David, you know, won another 12 or 13

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Speaker 2: years after that. But I thought Ben would make a

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Speaker 2: natural successor to David, you know, high IQ Jewish knife fighters,

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Speaker 2: you know, just willing to wade in. David Horowitz famously

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Speaker 2: said of his freedom center, that it wasn't a think tank,

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Speaker 2: it was a battle tank. And I thought, well, that's

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Speaker 2: the exact mentality that Ben carries into this. But he

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Speaker 2: brings a millennial sensibility that at that point was still

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Speaker 2: missing in the media. And I thought he could really

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Speaker 2: be something. And so it was a very natural thing

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Speaker 2: for me to come alongside Ben and help him cultivate

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Speaker 2: that talent.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of diversity there. You have Andrew Klavan,

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Speaker 1: you have Ben Shapiro, you have Matt Walsh, you have

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Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. So I found out listening to an interview

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Speaker 1: you did recently originally was an actor. Yes. I did

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Speaker 1: not know that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: When I met Michael, he was doing social media for

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Speaker 2: Andrew Klavan.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Part-time, because what he was really doing was going to

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Speaker 2: auditions and trying to make it in Hollywood. Yeah. And,

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Speaker 2: you know, Michael tells the story better than I do,

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Speaker 2: but there was a point where I took him to

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Speaker 2: my favorite breakfast restaurant in Sherman Oaks called Jinkies.

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Speaker 1: Oh.

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Speaker 2: And I sat him down and I said, Michael, you

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Speaker 2: have a very difficult choice to make because you're a

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Speaker 2: very talented guy. I said, you can keep pursuing this

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Speaker 2: career acting bug.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Or you can do the thing that I think you're

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Speaker 2: actually put on earth to do, which is to carry

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Speaker 2: these ideas into this new podcast space and engage in

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Speaker 2: the real battle of our time. You don't have to

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Speaker 2: give up your creativity in order to do it. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it will benefit greatly from your creativity. I don't even

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Speaker 2: think you have to give up your dream of being

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Speaker 2: an actor. But dreams, what a dream is primarily good

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Speaker 2: for is getting you moving in the world. A dream

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Speaker 2: is good for getting you out of bed. A dream

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Speaker 2: is good for getting you out of your front door.

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Speaker 1: I like that.

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Speaker 2: But if you hang on to dreams too tightly, they

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Speaker 2: can destroy you. You'll end up not taking the steps

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Speaker 2: that God puts in front of you because you're so

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Speaker 2: convinced of what those steps ought to be. So your

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Speaker 2: dream has done you well. It brought you to LA.

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Speaker 2: It brought you through your education. It helped you cultivate

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Speaker 2: this talent. The But this is the step that's in

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Speaker 2: front of you. I'm not saying it precludes acting in

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Speaker 2: the future. I'm not saying that it precludes... I don't

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Speaker 2: know where the path leads. But I know that if

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Speaker 2: you don't step onto this path, in my opinion, you'll

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Speaker 2: really be missing the opportunity of a lifetime. And of course,

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Speaker 2: here's what Michael Knowles heard. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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Speaker 2: You're not good enough. Give up your dreams. Don't be

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Speaker 2: an actor. All actors have this insecurity, right? So I

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Speaker 2: just crushed all these dreams there at Jinkies.

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Speaker 1: But Michael.

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Speaker 2: is a very smart guy and a very charming guy.

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Speaker 2: And he took me up on it. And he's had

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Speaker 2: huge success. I think that he's probably one of the

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Speaker 2: most important conservative Catholic voices in the country today. And

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Speaker 2: along the way, he's still gotten to do a lot

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Speaker 2: of those things that he dreamed of. And I think

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Speaker 2: he'll get to do more of them in the future.

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Speaker 1: Now, what was your dream as a young boy?

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Speaker 2: I also wanted to be an actor. And it took

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Speaker 2: about I don't know, three minutes in Hollywood to realize

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Speaker 2: that I wasn't good enough. You know, that what I

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Speaker 2: had really learned in that childhood that I had with

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Speaker 2: all those opportunities afforded by these huge figures in my life,

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Speaker 2: Don and Terry Caldwell, Jane Prince Jones and others who

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Speaker 2: ran these sort of local theaters and in West Texas

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Speaker 2: and had really invested in me from the time that

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Speaker 2: I was very young. I thought that what I'd been

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Speaker 2: learning was to be an actor, but what I'd really

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Speaker 2: been learning was to create. It was to make things.

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Speaker 2: I would walk around before a play would start. It

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Speaker 2: didn't matter if I was directing the play, if I'd

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Speaker 2: written the play, or if I was acting in the play.

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Speaker 2: I would walk around with a can of black spray

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Speaker 2: paint 30 minutes before the doors opened and touch up

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Speaker 2: scratches on the front of the stage. I was thinking

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Speaker 2: at all times, how do we make the best thing

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Speaker 2: that we can make out of nothing? We had virtually

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Speaker 2: no resources at that time. How do we put forward

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Speaker 2: the best experience for the audience so that they can

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Speaker 2: be transported by what we're doing. And what I came

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Speaker 2: to realize, again, through failure, through my acting career not

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Speaker 2: working out, I came to realize that what I really

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Speaker 2: was was a guy who makes something out of nothing.

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Speaker 2: And that making something out of nothing has all kinds

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Speaker 2: of application. Yes, I've gone on to make a lot

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Speaker 2: of films. I've even gotten to act in some films.

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Speaker 2: I've gotten to create these very successful companies. I've created

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Speaker 2: a bunch of companies that weren't very successful too along

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Speaker 2: that path. I've gotten to help create this entire medium

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Speaker 2: in a very real way, and this entire sort of

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Speaker 2: approach to alternative conservative media, which other people, both who

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Speaker 2: agree with my politics and who don't agree with my politics,

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Speaker 2: have become beneficiaries of and have found success with. That

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Speaker 2: is actually what my childhood prepared me for, and I

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Speaker 2: didn't know it at the time. When The Daily Wire

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Speaker 2: was really picking up steam and starting to succeed, and

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Speaker 2: I wasn't doing Traditionally creative work at all. We hadn't

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Speaker 2: moved into film yet or any of the things that

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Speaker 2: we did later. I did have a friend in Hollywood ask,

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Speaker 2: you know, do you regret no longer being a creative?

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Speaker 2: I said, what are you talking about? I've created jobs

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Speaker 2: for 100 people. I've created kind of an industry that

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Speaker 2: didn't really exist in this form beforehand. It's the exact

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Speaker 2: same thing the way that I've approached it.

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Speaker 1: Wow. What role has your faith played in all of this?

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Speaker 1: I know you're a Christian. And in fact, I was

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Speaker 1: surprised to find watching one interview you did, you said

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Speaker 1: you were like a lay pastor of sorts. Tell me

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Speaker 1: about how you came to faith in Christ. And then

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Speaker 1: what do you mean by a lay pastor?

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Speaker 2: So, you know, I grew up in that part of

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Speaker 2: the country and in that particular time when being a

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Speaker 2: Christian was sort of a default state. My parents, My

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Speaker 2: maternal grandfather had a late life conversion to Christianity and

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Speaker 2: changed the direction of my family, certainly. But by the

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Speaker 2: time I came along, we were just a Christian family.

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Speaker 2: You grow up in the church and I have come

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Speaker 2: to believe that there's no such thing as a second

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Speaker 2: generation Christian. But I didn't know that as a child

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Speaker 2: because I was one, whatever that means. You know, there

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Speaker 2: are various points along that journey where you make different

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Speaker 2: kinds of decisions, you know, where you, you know, I

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Speaker 2: grew up in a sort of non-denominational place. charismatic church

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Speaker 2: called Trinity Church in Lubbock, Texas. There's the time when

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Speaker 2: you're eight years old and you ask Jesus into your heart.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean?

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: As an adult, I can't actually tell you what that

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Speaker 2: meant at eight years old. There's that time at 13

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Speaker 2: when you make a decision to be baptized. And my

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Speaker 2: baptism was a very meaningful experience, but also looking back,

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Speaker 2: it's hard to know exactly what it meant. There was

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Speaker 2: a time in college when I would argue with my

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Speaker 2: Professor was supposed to be teaching me to play the

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Speaker 2: piano and instead was arguing with me about politics and religion.

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Speaker 2: And at first I would argue against his sort of

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Speaker 2: view of the gospel. And in time I realized I

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Speaker 2: was arguing on behalf of his position on the gospel.

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Speaker 2: Then there's, you go West, you get to LA and

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Speaker 2: LA requires a lot of you. If you're going to

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Speaker 2: have what in that one party town are heterodox opinions,

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Speaker 2: you have to meet them. LA won't allow you to

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Speaker 2: have casual conversations. conservatism or casual Christianity, because the city's

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Speaker 2: trying to spit you out of its mouth at all times.

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Speaker 2: And you've given it two really good reasons to. And

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Speaker 2: so I took a deeper look at my own faith

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Speaker 2: in those early years in LA. I was invited to,

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Speaker 2: there's a really great story in my life, probably one

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Speaker 2: of the most important moments in my life. I would

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Speaker 2: meet some of my friends for a buffet at Pizza

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Speaker 2: Hut on Wednesdays on Ventura Boulevard. And we were all

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Speaker 2: super poor. So we like scrounged quarters and You know,

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Speaker 2: but if you came up with six bucks, you could

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Speaker 2: have all you eat, all you can eat Pizza Hut.

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Speaker 2: And they were Christian guys, but they were Christian guys

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Speaker 2: in the same sense that I was a Christian guy,

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Speaker 2: you know, all at different places in our early 20s

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Speaker 2: in our walk. And this particular day, I got to

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Speaker 2: the restaurant early, 30 minutes early or something, because you

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Speaker 2: never know what time to leave in order to arrive

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Speaker 2: at any given time in LA. And so I got

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Speaker 2: to the Pizza Hut and I'm just sitting in my

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Speaker 2: little Nissan pickup. And a friend of mine had bought

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Speaker 2: me a very, very small Bible, like the kind of

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Speaker 2: Bible you can easily throw in a backpack and carry around.

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Speaker 2: And he'd been sitting in the front seat of my

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Speaker 2: truck for some time. And I thought, you know, I

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Speaker 2: actually don't know where the idea came from. But I thought,

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Speaker 2: I'm just going to read one of Paul's letters as

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Speaker 2: a letter, which seems obvious, but we rarely, rarely actually

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Speaker 2: do it. I thought, I've got 20 minutes, I need

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Speaker 2: something really short. So I kind of thumbed through, I

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Speaker 2: didn't even know what short, you know, what are the

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Speaker 2: short ones, but I arrived at Galatians and I read

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Speaker 2: Galatians straight through, you know, no, no acknowledgement of chapter

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Speaker 2: headings or breaks. I spread it sort of as dear Paul,

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Speaker 2: you know, or dear Galatians, love Paul. He kind of

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Speaker 2: inverts that the way he does it. And I got

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Speaker 2: to the end of, you know, it's four pages or something.

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Speaker 2: I got to the end of reading Galatians straight through.

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Speaker 2: And I was, I'd been a Christian my entire life.

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Speaker 2: I was dumbstruck. I felt like everything that I had

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Speaker 2: ever thought changed in that moment. Wow. And I couldn't

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Speaker 2: gather my, I couldn't rally myself. I actually saw my

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Speaker 2: friends arrive, you know, one at a time and go

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Speaker 2: into the pizza hut. And it took me another 15

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Speaker 2: minutes probably to collect my, myself and go inside. And

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Speaker 2: I walked in and walked over to the table where

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Speaker 2: they were sitting. And, and one of my good friends,

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Speaker 2: Ryan Chase said, Hey, everything okay?

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Speaker 1: I said, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Can I read you guys this thing I just read

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Speaker 2: in the Bible? And of course, they're good Christian guys. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: read us a verse. I didn't read them a verse.

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Speaker 2: I read them Galatians. I just stood there and read

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Speaker 2: Galatians straight through. And one of my buddies didn't talk

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Speaker 2: to me for like three months after that. Now, here's

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Speaker 2: the amazing thing. He had a type of the exact

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Speaker 2: experience I had just had. But whereas I found the

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Speaker 2: experience completely liberating, he found it completely offensive and insulting.

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Speaker 2: There was no commentary I offered. No one offered me

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Speaker 2: any commentary when I read it. I offered him no commentary.

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Speaker 2: I read it straight through and had a kind of

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Speaker 2: life-changing moment. I read it straight through to him 20

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Speaker 2: minutes later, and he had an equally passionate reaction in

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Speaker 2: the exact opposite direction. Again, no commentary exchanged. Now, three

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Speaker 2: or four months later, I was teaching Galatians in a

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Speaker 2: little Bible study in his apartment. It took him longer

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Speaker 2: to process it, but he kind of arrived at the

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Speaker 2: same place. And not long after that, I... through a

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Speaker 2: very funny series of events, wound up at a men's

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Speaker 2: Bible study that was run by a bunch of young actors,

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Speaker 2: a few of whom were having real success, early success

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Speaker 2: in their early 20s. One had been a huge commercial

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Speaker 2: actor and just booked his first major movie, which went

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Speaker 2: on to be kind of one of the definitive comedies

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Speaker 2: of its time. And another who was on an NBC

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Speaker 2: TV show at the time. And I was there because

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Speaker 2: of that Nissan pickup that I had. through a friend

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Speaker 2: of a friend, they had asked me to move a sofa,

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Speaker 2: which happens a lot when you have a truck in LA.

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Speaker 2: But they politely asked me if I'd stick around for

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Speaker 2: their Bible study after, and they were teaching from Galatians.

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Speaker 2: And there wasn't a seat for me, or there were,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, a dozen or 18 people in this

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Speaker 2: little condo. So I was sitting up on the stairs,

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Speaker 2: and I must have kind of squirmed or had a

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Speaker 2: look on my face as the guy was sort of

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Speaker 2: expositing the text. And he said, hey, new guy, you

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Speaker 2: got you have something you want to add to this?

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Speaker 2: And I said, you know, yeah. And I essentially told

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Speaker 2: him that I thought the entire approach was wrong. Sometimes I,

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Speaker 2: sometimes I speak when I shouldn't, you know, but within

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Speaker 2: a few months I was teaching that Bible study and

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Speaker 2: that Bible study over time evolved into a home church

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Speaker 2: and grew, grew in part, I think because we were

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Speaker 2: doing something a little bit different and grew in part

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Speaker 2: because some really famous guys were attending, you know, so

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Speaker 2: there were always, you know, pretty girls who would show

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Speaker 2: up and I would, try to congratulate myself that it

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Speaker 2: had something to do with my unique insights into the text.

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Speaker 2: But in the end, I think it's just because they're

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Speaker 2: a really good looking and really successful Hollywood guys attending

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Speaker 2: the Bible study, you know, but that went on for

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Speaker 2: 15 years.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: And, you know, was certainly one of the most important

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Speaker 2: roles I've ever occupied in life. I, you know, got

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Speaker 2: to participate in people's lives and in that way that

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Speaker 2: only a pastor can, got to counsel people into their marriages,

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Speaker 2: officiate dozens of weddings, you know, help people through really

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Speaker 2: difficult times. It was a season of life that I

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Speaker 2: would say probably allowed me to come to understand my

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Speaker 2: own faith through helping other people.

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Speaker 1: Right. I have one question I was going to ask

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Speaker 1: you later, but I'll ask you now. Was that the

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Speaker 1: happiest time of your life, do you think?

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Speaker 2: Hmm. You know, it's a long season and parts of

407
00:19:44,814 --> 00:19:47,475
Speaker 2: the season were very difficult because I still hadn't found

408
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Speaker 2: any success anywhere in life. I didn't have any economic security.

409
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Speaker 2: I didn't have a clear path for how I could survive.

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Speaker 2: i still had those dreams yeah they had all been

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Speaker 2: changed they weren't they weren't what they started out as

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Speaker 2: but i hadn't found a way to to pursue them

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Speaker 2: successfully yet and that's a very difficult thing for a

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Speaker 2: young man i always loved the part where i was

415
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Speaker 2: investing in the lives of my friends i always loved

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Speaker 2: um getting to teach the text every week. I didn't

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Speaker 2: always love other aspects of my life during that time.

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Speaker 1: What was your original vision for The Daily Wire? When

419
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Speaker 1: you set out, this is what I would like to accomplish.

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Speaker 2: My first goal really was Ben-centric. Ben and I started

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Speaker 2: a precursor to The Daily Wire called Truth Revolt at

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Speaker 2: the David Horowitz Freedom Center. I had been running for

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Speaker 2: a few years at that time an organization in Hollywood

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Speaker 2: called Friends of Abe, which was founded by the actor

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Speaker 2: Gary Sinise. And it really was just a social group

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Speaker 2: for people with conservative leanings in Hollywood. Gary had this

427
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Speaker 2: unique insight. People would always ask you, what does FOA do?

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Speaker 2: We don't do anything. Gary's unique insight, because he's sort

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Speaker 2: of a humanitarian.

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Speaker 1: Sort of.

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Speaker 2: He's one of the great humanitarians, really, of our time.

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Speaker 2: And what Gary sort of realized was there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of people who kind of have what are unorthodox opinions

434
00:21:12,935 --> 00:21:16,404
Speaker 2: in this town. And because it's such a one-party town,

435
00:21:16,865 --> 00:21:20,354
Speaker 2: they often feel alone. He said, I'm just going to

436
00:21:20,375 --> 00:21:22,514
Speaker 2: get them together and we can all have dinner. So

437
00:21:22,534 --> 00:21:24,434
Speaker 2: that's what he did. We would get together. We'd have

438
00:21:24,475 --> 00:21:28,334
Speaker 2: lunches at first. We would, along the way, bring in

439
00:21:28,375 --> 00:21:30,195
Speaker 2: some speakers. And that became sort of a part of

440
00:21:30,215 --> 00:21:31,754
Speaker 2: what we did. We'd hear from people in the movement.

441
00:21:31,774 --> 00:21:34,034
Speaker 2: But really, it was just a place where people could

442
00:21:34,715 --> 00:21:39,695
Speaker 2: know they weren't alone. It didn't have political ambition in

443
00:21:39,734 --> 00:21:42,104
Speaker 2: and of itself. It really was just a social ambition

444
00:21:42,135 --> 00:21:45,975
Speaker 2: for people with a particular passion. political view. But as

445
00:21:45,994 --> 00:21:48,015
Speaker 2: Gary moved into helping the troops and starting the Gary

446
00:21:48,034 --> 00:21:51,815
Speaker 2: Sinise Foundation, he asked if I would oversee Friends of Abe.

447
00:21:51,854 --> 00:21:55,715
Speaker 2: And in that capacity, because at various, at that moment,

448
00:21:55,734 --> 00:21:57,285
Speaker 2: we were kind of the cool kids in town, you know,

449
00:21:58,264 --> 00:22:02,344
Speaker 2: which was a position I had never occupied before. But

450
00:22:02,385 --> 00:22:04,705
Speaker 2: we had a lot of sort of movers and shakers

451
00:22:04,764 --> 00:22:07,304
Speaker 2: around Hollywood who would come in. And many of them

452
00:22:07,324 --> 00:22:09,165
Speaker 2: were on the board of the David Horowitz Freedom Center,

453
00:22:09,185 --> 00:22:11,435
Speaker 2: which I had always envisioned that Ben could be a

454
00:22:11,475 --> 00:22:14,154
Speaker 2: natural successor to David, as I said. And so I

455
00:22:14,175 --> 00:22:17,354
Speaker 2: would start cozying up to the board members of the

456
00:22:17,395 --> 00:22:19,215
Speaker 2: Horowitz Freedom Center and trying to get them to see

457
00:22:19,334 --> 00:22:22,434
Speaker 2: the same thing that I saw in Ben Shapiro. And

458
00:22:22,455 --> 00:22:26,494
Speaker 2: eventually it worked. And David invited Ben and I into

459
00:22:26,534 --> 00:22:29,094
Speaker 2: the Freedom Center. And Ben had a great idea at

460
00:22:29,115 --> 00:22:32,375
Speaker 2: that time for a website that would sort of expose

461
00:22:32,854 --> 00:22:34,695
Speaker 2: things that happened in media in particular.

462
00:22:34,935 --> 00:22:35,135
Speaker 1: Right.

463
00:22:35,294 --> 00:22:37,175
Speaker 2: And we hired up a writing staff. I brought a

464
00:22:37,215 --> 00:22:39,655
Speaker 2: sort of video sensibility to it. I wanted Ben on camera.

465
00:22:39,675 --> 00:22:42,514
Speaker 2: I didn't just want him being an editor. Mm-hmm. So

466
00:22:42,935 --> 00:22:45,074
Speaker 2: we hired Andrew Clavin, was one of our early hires,

467
00:22:45,115 --> 00:22:48,875
Speaker 2: and we hired a crew and we would produce these

468
00:22:48,915 --> 00:22:52,304
Speaker 2: five minute online videos. I had been doing a lot

469
00:22:52,344 --> 00:22:53,964
Speaker 2: of work with Bill Whittle at that time, who was

470
00:22:54,044 --> 00:22:56,625
Speaker 2: famous for these five minute videos. So we extended that

471
00:22:56,705 --> 00:22:58,884
Speaker 2: to five to 10 minutes. We extended that to Drew

472
00:22:58,965 --> 00:23:02,484
Speaker 2: and to Ben. And we had a good run. We

473
00:23:02,524 --> 00:23:05,685
Speaker 2: found a lot of early success. But my goal at

474
00:23:05,725 --> 00:23:08,304
Speaker 2: that time really was I just wanted to see Ben.

475
00:23:08,744 --> 00:23:10,004
Speaker 2: I wanted to make a couple of bucks because I'd

476
00:23:10,044 --> 00:23:12,195
Speaker 2: never made any dollars in my life. And this was

477
00:23:12,244 --> 00:23:13,864
Speaker 2: something where I thought, oh, I know exactly how I

478
00:23:13,885 --> 00:23:17,004
Speaker 2: could get into this. And I wanted Ben to be

479
00:23:17,604 --> 00:23:20,844
Speaker 2: the heir to the Freedom Center. And within a year,

480
00:23:20,905 --> 00:23:23,524
Speaker 2: it became clear that that wasn't going to work out.

481
00:23:25,024 --> 00:23:29,475
Speaker 2: David was, as many great men are, David could be

482
00:23:29,494 --> 00:23:35,635
Speaker 2: a bit mercurial. And he soured on us. And he

483
00:23:35,675 --> 00:23:38,414
Speaker 2: brought us up to his office on a Sunday and

484
00:23:38,514 --> 00:23:41,364
Speaker 2: fired me, which told us we had to fire our

485
00:23:41,405 --> 00:23:46,695
Speaker 2: entire team and then Ben quit in solidarity. Now, I

486
00:23:46,734 --> 00:23:49,994
Speaker 2: have nothing but love for David Horowitz. David then calls me.

487
00:23:50,155 --> 00:23:53,074
Speaker 2: This is the amazing thing about David. He fires me.

488
00:23:53,135 --> 00:23:56,364
Speaker 2: That causes this Ben to quit, which causes problems on

489
00:23:56,375 --> 00:23:57,925
Speaker 2: the board because the board thought Ben was going to

490
00:23:57,945 --> 00:24:00,524
Speaker 2: be the successor. So now David's in trouble with his board.

491
00:24:01,584 --> 00:24:04,505
Speaker 2: And David calls me this maybe two days later and

492
00:24:04,604 --> 00:24:06,725
Speaker 2: asks me if I'll go to breakfast. And I think,

493
00:24:06,764 --> 00:24:07,874
Speaker 2: why does he want to go to breakfast with me?

494
00:24:07,905 --> 00:24:11,054
Speaker 2: He just fired me. And I sat down and he said, Jeremy,

495
00:24:12,094 --> 00:24:14,375
Speaker 2: I've really made a mess. And you're kind of close

496
00:24:14,395 --> 00:24:15,815
Speaker 2: to some of the members of the board. I wonder

497
00:24:15,854 --> 00:24:18,554
Speaker 2: if you'd help me navigate it. And I realized in

498
00:24:18,594 --> 00:24:23,564
Speaker 2: that moment that while David could be mercurial, he was

499
00:24:23,604 --> 00:24:27,365
Speaker 2: sort of guileless. He didn't carry grudges. I wasn't even

500
00:24:27,445 --> 00:24:29,644
Speaker 2: sure at breakfast if he remembered that he had fired me,

501
00:24:29,665 --> 00:24:32,905
Speaker 2: that that's what had actually started the whole thing. And

502
00:24:32,945 --> 00:24:35,165
Speaker 2: we had a lovely relationship for the rest of David's life.

503
00:24:35,225 --> 00:24:37,225
Speaker 2: And he was a good friend and mentor to me.

504
00:24:38,064 --> 00:24:40,695
Speaker 2: But here we were, Ben and I, in this peculiar

505
00:24:40,734 --> 00:24:44,134
Speaker 2: situation where we created something that was succeeding yeah and

506
00:24:44,175 --> 00:24:45,994
Speaker 2: now we didn't have it anymore we had to fire

507
00:24:46,195 --> 00:24:49,155
Speaker 2: all the very talented people we had just hired and

508
00:24:49,294 --> 00:24:50,835
Speaker 2: we were dividing up the list you know you call

509
00:24:50,854 --> 00:24:53,914
Speaker 2: these five guys and I'll call these five guys and

510
00:24:53,935 --> 00:24:55,345
Speaker 2: I said but you know in addition to these five

511
00:24:55,375 --> 00:24:57,304
Speaker 2: guys I'm going to call this guy Caleb Robinson that

512
00:24:57,324 --> 00:24:59,904
Speaker 2: I've been talking to lately who represents a high net

513
00:24:59,925 --> 00:25:02,225
Speaker 2: worth family out of Texas that wants to be involved

514
00:25:02,264 --> 00:25:04,305
Speaker 2: in culture I'm just going to kind of pitch them

515
00:25:04,365 --> 00:25:07,404
Speaker 2: on the idea that we carry this over you know

516
00:25:07,645 --> 00:25:10,784
Speaker 2: yeah And we did. They ended up, that family out

517
00:25:10,804 --> 00:25:13,044
Speaker 2: of Texas, invested in what became The Daily Wire. And

518
00:25:13,284 --> 00:25:15,965
Speaker 2: we hired up all of our Truth Revolt friends again.

519
00:25:16,054 --> 00:25:20,394
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, you're fired. And on Friday, how would you

520
00:25:20,435 --> 00:25:23,334
Speaker 2: like your new job? But by then, my vision for

521
00:25:23,375 --> 00:25:25,675
Speaker 2: my own role in it had changed. I no longer

522
00:25:25,734 --> 00:25:28,955
Speaker 2: saw it exclusively as being about Ben becoming the heir

523
00:25:28,975 --> 00:25:32,125
Speaker 2: to the Freedom Center. I really thought there's, I felt

524
00:25:32,165 --> 00:25:35,045
Speaker 2: something new happening. It's one of my only big insights

525
00:25:35,185 --> 00:25:38,764
Speaker 2: that I've ever had. Most of success in life in

526
00:25:38,804 --> 00:25:41,545
Speaker 2: my experience, just comes from iterating and doing and iterating

527
00:25:41,564 --> 00:25:44,445
Speaker 2: and doing, as I say, not stopping. But in this moment,

528
00:25:44,494 --> 00:25:46,914
Speaker 2: I had a real generational kind of insight, which in

529
00:25:47,014 --> 00:25:51,114
Speaker 2: retrospect will feel obvious. In fact, that's not an insight.

530
00:25:51,155 --> 00:25:55,555
Speaker 2: That's everybody knows. And the thought was simple. It was social,

531
00:25:55,715 --> 00:26:03,264
Speaker 2: this emerging medium of social media presents an once-in-a-generation opportunity

532
00:26:04,104 --> 00:26:08,104
Speaker 2: to go around the gatekeepers to create new institutions that

533
00:26:08,685 --> 00:26:13,034
Speaker 2: And if we invest into it economically to create an

534
00:26:13,135 --> 00:26:17,794
Speaker 2: economic engine that doesn't require us to be another conservative nonprofit,

535
00:26:18,175 --> 00:26:20,215
Speaker 2: I can put a dollar of marketing into this Facebook

536
00:26:20,695 --> 00:26:24,374
Speaker 2: mechanism and I can from that get an audience that

537
00:26:24,395 --> 00:26:27,804
Speaker 2: will turn into a dollar a month worth of ad inventory.

538
00:26:29,044 --> 00:26:31,185
Speaker 2: And I had tried to explain that to the board

539
00:26:31,225 --> 00:26:33,324
Speaker 2: at the Freedom Center and they had not, because they

540
00:26:33,344 --> 00:26:35,884
Speaker 2: were a nonprofit, they couldn't see it. But when we

541
00:26:35,925 --> 00:26:40,095
Speaker 2: went to pitch the investors who, who, uh, the family

542
00:26:40,115 --> 00:26:43,014
Speaker 2: who invested in the daily wire. That was, that was

543
00:26:43,034 --> 00:26:44,715
Speaker 2: kind of the core idea. That was the insight on

544
00:26:44,734 --> 00:26:48,634
Speaker 2: which we built it. And even then I thought I

545
00:26:48,655 --> 00:26:49,655
Speaker 2: would build this for Ben.

546
00:26:50,264 --> 00:26:50,435
Speaker 1: Yeah.

547
00:26:50,604 --> 00:26:53,444
Speaker 2: And it's Andrew Clavin who told me, uh, I got

548
00:26:53,465 --> 00:26:54,925
Speaker 2: on the phone with Andrew and he said, well, what's

549
00:26:54,945 --> 00:26:56,144
Speaker 2: your involvement going to be? And I said, well, I'm

550
00:26:56,165 --> 00:26:57,565
Speaker 2: going to like be there for the first three months

551
00:26:57,604 --> 00:26:58,804
Speaker 2: to get you guys set up. And he said, no.

552
00:26:59,784 --> 00:27:00,884
Speaker 2: So you've got to do that. If we're going to

553
00:27:00,905 --> 00:27:02,205
Speaker 2: do it, you've got to come do it. You've got

554
00:27:02,225 --> 00:27:05,004
Speaker 2: to come and lead it. And I said, well, But,

555
00:27:05,044 --> 00:27:06,484
Speaker 2: you know, I still have I still want to make

556
00:27:06,504 --> 00:27:09,325
Speaker 2: movies and I still want to. He said, well, yeah.

557
00:27:09,905 --> 00:27:11,844
Speaker 2: And he kind of gave me the speech that two

558
00:27:11,865 --> 00:27:14,635
Speaker 2: years later I would give Michael that you have to

559
00:27:15,635 --> 00:27:17,494
Speaker 2: you have to hold on to your dreams lightly. They're

560
00:27:17,675 --> 00:27:20,455
Speaker 2: they're useful, but they can be very destructive if you

561
00:27:20,834 --> 00:27:22,894
Speaker 2: if you don't take the steps. And so I embraced

562
00:27:22,915 --> 00:27:25,114
Speaker 2: the daily wire and and we took off like a

563
00:27:25,135 --> 00:27:25,575
Speaker 2: rocket ship.

564
00:27:25,715 --> 00:27:28,365
Speaker 1: And now there's a whole industry and others out there.

565
00:27:28,544 --> 00:27:31,004
Speaker 1: You know, you've got Turning Point. You've got The Blaze.

566
00:27:31,675 --> 00:27:33,314
Speaker 1: You know, because there was a time when you may

567
00:27:33,395 --> 00:27:37,314
Speaker 1: recall when, like, you'd get your news at six o'clock,

568
00:27:37,375 --> 00:27:41,324
Speaker 1: the six o'clock news. There were three major networks and

569
00:27:41,344 --> 00:27:44,345
Speaker 1: they were all liberal, maybe not liberal in the way

570
00:27:44,405 --> 00:27:48,804
Speaker 1: we would define it today, but it was liberal generally

571
00:27:49,044 --> 00:27:51,854
Speaker 1: for the most part. And then with the emergence of

572
00:27:51,905 --> 00:27:55,054
Speaker 1: this entire new medium and now with podcasting and now

573
00:27:55,135 --> 00:27:59,234
Speaker 1: with with all kinds of variations and people splitting up

574
00:27:59,274 --> 00:28:02,864
Speaker 1: from other people. And it's kind of the Wild West

575
00:28:02,945 --> 00:28:05,085
Speaker 1: out there all of a sudden. I mean, as you

576
00:28:05,125 --> 00:28:08,065
Speaker 1: look at it, because you wouldn't say, what have I created?

577
00:28:08,125 --> 00:28:11,105
Speaker 1: You didn't create it. You created what you created. But

578
00:28:11,324 --> 00:28:15,834
Speaker 1: now there's all these responses and other expressions of it.

579
00:28:16,405 --> 00:28:20,175
Speaker 1: And I think I read somewhere that in your podcast,

580
00:28:20,215 --> 00:28:24,234
Speaker 1: you wanted to offer something more constructive. Because so much

581
00:28:24,274 --> 00:28:27,294
Speaker 1: of it seems to be built on, I'm going to

582
00:28:27,375 --> 00:28:30,615
Speaker 1: tear this person down. I'm going to critique this thing.

583
00:28:30,635 --> 00:28:32,764
Speaker 1: And there's a place for that, of course. But it

584
00:28:32,865 --> 00:28:36,784
Speaker 1: seems to be lopsided to me. And it seems like

585
00:28:37,604 --> 00:28:40,285
Speaker 1: you were emphasizing you wanted to do something else. I

586
00:28:40,305 --> 00:28:43,245
Speaker 1: guess what I'm really asking you is, what is your

587
00:28:43,305 --> 00:28:46,174
Speaker 1: opinion of how things are going and what could be

588
00:28:46,255 --> 00:28:47,755
Speaker 1: done to make it better?

589
00:28:47,775 --> 00:28:51,485
Speaker 2: Well, certainly with what I'm building now with the Jeremy

590
00:28:51,505 --> 00:28:54,505
Speaker 2: Boring Show and my sort of broader vision for the

591
00:28:54,545 --> 00:28:55,985
Speaker 2: next chapter of my life.

592
00:28:56,025 --> 00:28:56,805
Speaker 1: Tell me about that.

593
00:28:57,205 --> 00:28:59,525
Speaker 2: Well, in the same way that I saw this social

594
00:28:59,565 --> 00:29:05,295
Speaker 2: media opportunity 12 years ago, there's a similar generational moment

595
00:29:05,555 --> 00:29:07,495
Speaker 2: happening right now with AI.

596
00:29:07,895 --> 00:29:08,275
Speaker 1: Oh, yes.

597
00:29:09,115 --> 00:29:12,835
Speaker 2: And it looks exactly the same to me as what

598
00:29:12,895 --> 00:29:16,654
Speaker 2: social media looked like over a decade ago, which is

599
00:29:17,655 --> 00:29:19,844
Speaker 2: conservatives are very reticent about it.

600
00:29:21,005 --> 00:29:21,864
Speaker 1: What do you think that is?

601
00:29:22,205 --> 00:29:24,884
Speaker 2: Well, I think generally part of the nature of being

602
00:29:25,225 --> 00:29:28,664
Speaker 2: conservative is that you look back, not forward. And I

603
00:29:28,685 --> 00:29:31,485
Speaker 2: think that that is part of what we bring to

604
00:29:31,505 --> 00:29:32,145
Speaker 2: the conversation.

605
00:29:32,165 --> 00:29:34,174
Speaker 1: Conserving. We're conserving. Yes.

606
00:29:34,455 --> 00:29:37,875
Speaker 2: But it also causes us to miss the other very

607
00:29:37,935 --> 00:29:41,215
Speaker 2: important part of life, which is building. And so with

608
00:29:41,395 --> 00:29:46,604
Speaker 2: social media, here's how it worked. Conservatives were skeptical of

609
00:29:46,665 --> 00:29:51,245
Speaker 2: social media and then, uh, conservatives began to see the

610
00:29:51,285 --> 00:29:55,075
Speaker 2: importance of social media, but they, um, but they didn't

611
00:29:55,094 --> 00:29:57,174
Speaker 2: know how to organize around it. And so everybody sort

612
00:29:57,215 --> 00:30:00,174
Speaker 2: of did their own thing, which is another conservatives are

613
00:30:00,215 --> 00:30:02,735
Speaker 2: like herding cats. It's all a bunch of individualists, you know, uh,

614
00:30:03,815 --> 00:30:07,655
Speaker 2: And then conservatives become frustrated that social media is becoming

615
00:30:08,875 --> 00:30:13,335
Speaker 2: another place where the left has gatekeeping power against them.

616
00:30:14,675 --> 00:30:16,955
Speaker 2: So conservatives start failing at social media because of the

617
00:30:17,015 --> 00:30:20,075
Speaker 2: new gatekeeping. So they begin complaining to their audience and

618
00:30:20,115 --> 00:30:23,955
Speaker 2: raising money, which is a you only win by losing

619
00:30:24,015 --> 00:30:26,155
Speaker 2: mentality that I don't agree with. I think you only

620
00:30:26,175 --> 00:30:28,955
Speaker 2: win by winning. This is a major problem for conservatives.

621
00:30:29,005 --> 00:30:31,425
Speaker 2: It's why we do well with nonprofits, even though theoretically

622
00:30:31,465 --> 00:30:34,315
Speaker 2: we don't believe in nonprofits. Theoretically, we believe that the

623
00:30:34,375 --> 00:30:38,615
Speaker 2: profit motive is the most efficient and superior motive for

624
00:30:39,295 --> 00:30:42,505
Speaker 2: creating human flourishing, but we don't embrace it in promulgating

625
00:30:42,565 --> 00:30:46,065
Speaker 2: our worldview. Meanwhile, the left, which purports to hate capitalism,

626
00:30:47,125 --> 00:30:50,865
Speaker 2: almost exclusively embraces capitalism to promulgate their worldview. So we,

627
00:30:51,265 --> 00:30:55,785
Speaker 2: by our own standard, are embracing the less efficient model

628
00:30:56,225 --> 00:30:58,325
Speaker 2: for how we're going to succeed in the marketplace of ideas.

629
00:30:59,094 --> 00:31:01,975
Speaker 2: I say, no, you only win by winning. You can't

630
00:31:01,995 --> 00:31:06,765
Speaker 2: be in this cycle of fail, complain, fundraise, repeat, because

631
00:31:06,825 --> 00:31:10,684
Speaker 2: that actually incentivizes failure. You want to be banned on

632
00:31:10,725 --> 00:31:13,565
Speaker 2: social media so that you can send out that donor email,

633
00:31:13,604 --> 00:31:17,745
Speaker 2: so that you can raise another $ 10, 000. That is a

634
00:31:17,885 --> 00:31:20,425
Speaker 2: horrible cycle the conservatives have to break themselves out of.

635
00:31:21,165 --> 00:31:22,684
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons we were successful at The

636
00:31:22,725 --> 00:31:26,185
Speaker 2: Daily Wire is we were a for-profit company. We couldn't

637
00:31:26,604 --> 00:31:30,295
Speaker 2: win by fundraising. We could only win by solving the problem.

638
00:31:30,715 --> 00:31:33,834
Speaker 2: And so we became very, very good at iterating around

639
00:31:33,875 --> 00:31:37,635
Speaker 2: the changing algorithm. We became very, very good at finding,

640
00:31:38,935 --> 00:31:40,394
Speaker 2: they would try to box us out and we would

641
00:31:40,435 --> 00:31:43,235
Speaker 2: find an opening and we'd avail ourselves of that opening.

642
00:31:43,525 --> 00:31:44,785
Speaker 2: And then they would go try to build a gate

643
00:31:44,825 --> 00:31:46,085
Speaker 2: over there to block us out. And we'd go look

644
00:31:46,104 --> 00:31:48,065
Speaker 2: for another opening. We'd test the fence for weakness. And

645
00:31:48,165 --> 00:31:49,945
Speaker 2: every time we found it, we'd charge it with everything

646
00:31:49,965 --> 00:31:54,595
Speaker 2: we had. What I see now, though, and then 10

647
00:31:54,594 --> 00:31:57,934
Speaker 2: years into this, or 20 years into this, conservative donors

648
00:31:57,955 --> 00:32:01,035
Speaker 2: start saying, how come we ain't got a Facebook of

649
00:32:01,135 --> 00:32:03,275
Speaker 2: our own? And you go, well, because you would have

650
00:32:03,334 --> 00:32:06,285
Speaker 2: never built that. I've said this before, but if a

651
00:32:06,325 --> 00:32:09,005
Speaker 2: kid with a backpack walked in and pitched to you

652
00:32:09,065 --> 00:32:11,705
Speaker 2: that his app that he had designed for judging how

653
00:32:11,765 --> 00:32:15,285
Speaker 2: hot girls on his college campus were, said, hey, if

654
00:32:15,305 --> 00:32:16,585
Speaker 2: you give me a few million bucks, I can turn

655
00:32:16,604 --> 00:32:20,045
Speaker 2: it into the most important medium for disseminating information ever

656
00:32:20,104 --> 00:32:21,604
Speaker 2: conceived of in the history of man, you would have

657
00:32:21,625 --> 00:32:22,505
Speaker 2: called security on that.

658
00:32:22,565 --> 00:32:22,825
Speaker 1: Yeah.

659
00:32:23,045 --> 00:32:23,825
Speaker 2: Because you're a conservative.

660
00:32:24,225 --> 00:32:25,065
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, yeah.

661
00:32:25,104 --> 00:32:29,295
Speaker 2: That's right. But what do we see happening now? Well,

662
00:32:29,315 --> 00:32:31,715
Speaker 2: we see the same thing. Conservatives weren't a part of

663
00:32:31,795 --> 00:32:36,154
Speaker 2: creating AI. They didn't invest in AI early. They're loathe

664
00:32:36,235 --> 00:32:39,805
Speaker 2: to embrace AI now. They're already fundraising off of potential

665
00:32:39,844 --> 00:32:41,905
Speaker 2: failures from AI. And of course, AI is going to

666
00:32:41,945 --> 00:32:44,364
Speaker 2: be very disruptive. Of course, there's going to be job loss.

667
00:32:44,665 --> 00:32:46,945
Speaker 2: There were with social media too. You may remember newspapers.

668
00:32:47,635 --> 00:32:51,195
Speaker 2: or the nightly news were basically destroyed by social media.

669
00:32:51,354 --> 00:32:54,674
Speaker 2: And this may happen even on a larger scale. Nevertheless,

670
00:32:55,094 --> 00:32:59,884
Speaker 2: the cycle is the same, which is there is a huge,

671
00:32:59,985 --> 00:33:02,104
Speaker 2: just as there was for the Daily Wire with social media,

672
00:33:02,125 --> 00:33:05,485
Speaker 2: there's a huge opportunity to embrace this new technology now

673
00:33:05,545 --> 00:33:08,905
Speaker 2: when no one else is and actually find ways for

674
00:33:09,525 --> 00:33:12,205
Speaker 2: our worldview to succeed within it. And I want to

675
00:33:12,255 --> 00:33:13,555
Speaker 2: make sure that I'm a part of that.

676
00:33:14,115 --> 00:33:19,465
Speaker 1: Is that programming the... AI platforms with a more conservative,

677
00:33:19,885 --> 00:33:23,925
Speaker 1: even biblical worldview? Or is it much more than that?

678
00:33:25,305 --> 00:33:28,884
Speaker 2: Well, it's both more and less. It's less in a

679
00:33:28,945 --> 00:33:30,684
Speaker 2: way for me because I'm not the guy who can

680
00:33:30,705 --> 00:33:33,725
Speaker 2: build an AI. I wish that we had that guy.

681
00:33:33,825 --> 00:33:36,565
Speaker 2: Maybe we do. I think that guy needed to be

682
00:33:36,625 --> 00:33:40,145
Speaker 2: operating 10 years ago. I think as usual as conservatives,

683
00:33:40,165 --> 00:33:43,365
Speaker 2: we just weren't a part of that conversation. Yeah. Now,

684
00:33:43,425 --> 00:33:45,475
Speaker 2: I think what it's about is availing ourselves of the

685
00:33:45,515 --> 00:33:48,435
Speaker 2: technology as a mechanism for making sure that our worldview

686
00:33:48,795 --> 00:33:50,455
Speaker 2: exists in the place where people are going to be

687
00:33:50,495 --> 00:33:55,295
Speaker 2: shopping in the future. The place where people fish for ideas.

688
00:33:55,755 --> 00:33:57,515
Speaker 2: People used to ask Google whether or not they should

689
00:33:57,555 --> 00:34:01,495
Speaker 2: kill themselves. Really think about that. And then people started

690
00:34:01,555 --> 00:34:03,315
Speaker 2: asking their followers if they should kill them. So in

691
00:34:03,354 --> 00:34:06,265
Speaker 2: the early days of the internet, you would ask Google,

692
00:34:06,344 --> 00:34:09,694
Speaker 2: the deepest, most profound questions. Questions that people should ask

693
00:34:10,055 --> 00:34:11,815
Speaker 2: in prayer, that they should ask if they're a family,

694
00:34:11,835 --> 00:34:14,515
Speaker 2: they should ask if they're pastors. They were asking Google,

695
00:34:14,875 --> 00:34:17,435
Speaker 2: but it's also a place where people go to discover

696
00:34:17,475 --> 00:34:19,094
Speaker 2: their faith. It's a place where people go to meet

697
00:34:19,135 --> 00:34:21,875
Speaker 2: their spouse. It's a place where people go. We have

698
00:34:21,915 --> 00:34:25,335
Speaker 2: to make sure that the correct ideas exist in these

699
00:34:25,375 --> 00:34:27,755
Speaker 2: places because these are the places people are looking for

700
00:34:27,795 --> 00:34:33,125
Speaker 2: the ideas. And in very short order, five years from now,

701
00:34:33,995 --> 00:34:38,875
Speaker 2: people won't ask, uh, They won't ask Google. They won't

702
00:34:38,895 --> 00:34:41,715
Speaker 2: go look for a website to find these answers. They're

703
00:34:41,735 --> 00:34:45,995
Speaker 2: going to be asking AI. They're already asking the AI.

704
00:34:46,475 --> 00:34:49,375
Speaker 2: But it will become, in very short order, the ubiquitous

705
00:34:49,415 --> 00:34:52,725
Speaker 2: place that people are seeking out this information. And conservatives

706
00:34:52,765 --> 00:34:55,305
Speaker 2: are great at catastrophizing. And of course, we're always right

707
00:34:55,515 --> 00:34:58,325
Speaker 2: because of the fallen world, because of entropy. The worst

708
00:34:58,365 --> 00:35:01,545
Speaker 2: things do happen, although they rarely happen quite the way

709
00:35:01,585 --> 00:35:04,145
Speaker 2: we predict, because God is still God and beautiful things

710
00:35:04,205 --> 00:35:06,905
Speaker 2: also happen. We tend to only focus on the half-empty

711
00:35:06,945 --> 00:35:10,165
Speaker 2: part of the glass as conservatives. But the future is

712
00:35:10,205 --> 00:35:14,905
Speaker 2: going to be here. And while it will be accompanied

713
00:35:15,035 --> 00:35:18,595
Speaker 2: by many of the things that we're concerned about, we

714
00:35:18,635 --> 00:35:21,015
Speaker 2: can't stop that. What we have to do is make

715
00:35:21,055 --> 00:35:24,215
Speaker 2: sure that it also is accompanied by all of the

716
00:35:24,255 --> 00:35:26,975
Speaker 2: great things that could be. The gospel has to be there.

717
00:35:27,355 --> 00:35:32,425
Speaker 2: A belief in human agency. has to be there. A

718
00:35:32,485 --> 00:35:36,025
Speaker 2: belief in personal responsibility has to be there. A rejection

719
00:35:36,065 --> 00:35:40,165
Speaker 2: of victimology has to be there. And so I believe

720
00:35:40,225 --> 00:35:43,425
Speaker 2: that this next chapter for me is about trying to

721
00:35:43,545 --> 00:35:46,785
Speaker 2: answer that moment. What does it look like? I don't know.

722
00:35:46,885 --> 00:35:48,105
Speaker 2: You never know what it's going to look like. I

723
00:35:48,125 --> 00:35:49,904
Speaker 2: gave up on knowing the future a long time ago.

724
00:35:50,625 --> 00:35:52,835
Speaker 2: I don't even have an eschatology, essentially, because I think

725
00:35:52,895 --> 00:35:54,575
Speaker 2: that like all the people who knew the future nailed

726
00:35:54,615 --> 00:35:56,755
Speaker 2: Jesus to a tree when he showed up, like the

727
00:35:56,775 --> 00:35:59,275
Speaker 2: guys who really understood the prophecies didn't understand the prophecies

728
00:35:59,315 --> 00:36:01,075
Speaker 2: at all. I tend to think that like God gives

729
00:36:01,115 --> 00:36:03,735
Speaker 2: prophecy so that when prophecy is fulfilled, we'll go, oh,

730
00:36:03,775 --> 00:36:06,495
Speaker 2: you were God. Not so that we can know it.

731
00:36:06,515 --> 00:36:09,615
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know nothing. But what I do

732
00:36:09,655 --> 00:36:11,175
Speaker 2: know is the steps that are in front of us

733
00:36:11,235 --> 00:36:15,135
Speaker 2: right now are to make sure that the entertainment of

734
00:36:15,175 --> 00:36:17,075
Speaker 2: the future has our values, to make sure that the

735
00:36:17,515 --> 00:36:20,215
Speaker 2: technologies of the future have our values, and to make

736
00:36:20,255 --> 00:36:23,135
Speaker 2: sure that people aren't just left to the wolves who

737
00:36:23,175 --> 00:36:24,995
Speaker 2: are already occupying all these spaces.

738
00:36:25,035 --> 00:36:28,955
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, you mentioned the gospel. You know, I'm

739
00:36:29,015 --> 00:36:31,995
Speaker 1: a pastor. My background before I became a Christian was

740
00:36:32,515 --> 00:36:36,655
Speaker 1: I was a cartoonist. And my sole goal in life

741
00:36:36,835 --> 00:36:39,614
Speaker 1: was to be an animator one day. And I kind

742
00:36:39,675 --> 00:36:43,345
Speaker 1: of defaulted to that because my mother was married and

743
00:36:43,365 --> 00:36:46,665
Speaker 1: divorced seven times. And so I had to create my

744
00:36:46,705 --> 00:36:49,485
Speaker 1: own little world to retreat to. There were no iPads

745
00:36:49,525 --> 00:36:51,645
Speaker 1: back then, you know. So I'd get out a drawing

746
00:36:51,665 --> 00:36:54,965
Speaker 1: tablet and create my little cartoon adventures there. and this

747
00:36:55,065 --> 00:36:57,425
Speaker 1: is something that was all I was doing. Even as

748
00:36:57,525 --> 00:37:00,425
Speaker 1: I started my ministry, I was known as, you know,

749
00:37:00,445 --> 00:37:02,864
Speaker 1: the cartoonist who preaches. And one day I was the

750
00:37:03,345 --> 00:37:06,385
Speaker 1: preacher who draws and then the drawing took a back seat,

751
00:37:07,035 --> 00:37:10,215
Speaker 1: but I've been able to work in film a little bit.

752
00:37:10,275 --> 00:37:13,575
Speaker 1: We have a mutual friend in Brandon Gregory, Andy Irwin.

753
00:37:14,115 --> 00:37:17,775
Speaker 1: And in fact, it was Brenda then introduced us through

754
00:37:17,815 --> 00:37:20,255
Speaker 1: a text, but I've worked with them. They made a

755
00:37:20,275 --> 00:37:23,605
Speaker 1: film about my life called Jesus revolution. And, or working

756
00:37:23,645 --> 00:37:26,725
Speaker 1: on some other things in the future, I'm always looking

757
00:37:26,805 --> 00:37:30,305
Speaker 1: for ways to reach people with the gospel. I think

758
00:37:30,325 --> 00:37:33,015
Speaker 1: of it this way. I want to reach unexpected people

759
00:37:33,175 --> 00:37:37,295
Speaker 1: in unexpected places with an unexpected message. It's not like

760
00:37:37,355 --> 00:37:39,775
Speaker 1: I want to mislead them, but I don't care if

761
00:37:39,835 --> 00:37:41,835
Speaker 1: I sneak up on them a little bit. In other words,

762
00:37:41,855 --> 00:37:45,105
Speaker 1: like in this world that they're in, all of a sudden,

763
00:37:45,245 --> 00:37:47,945
Speaker 1: here's the gospel. Because that's how it happened for me

764
00:37:48,635 --> 00:37:51,355
Speaker 1: I was walking across my high school campus, you know,

765
00:37:51,415 --> 00:37:54,235
Speaker 1: doing drugs, going the wrong way in life. And they

766
00:37:54,255 --> 00:37:57,115
Speaker 1: had a Bible study on my high school campus, and

767
00:37:57,155 --> 00:37:59,835
Speaker 1: I overheard the gospel being proclaimed. No one even sat

768
00:37:59,875 --> 00:38:02,515
Speaker 1: me down and said, Greg, this is who Jesus is.

769
00:38:02,535 --> 00:38:05,735
Speaker 1: And I heard it in a way I understood, and

770
00:38:05,775 --> 00:38:08,535
Speaker 1: my life was changed. And really from that day forward,

771
00:38:08,575 --> 00:38:12,865
Speaker 1: I wanted to reach people that are often not reached.

772
00:38:12,985 --> 00:38:15,625
Speaker 1: And so I'm really intrigued when you say the gospel,

773
00:38:15,685 --> 00:38:19,785
Speaker 1: because I wonder— you know, how can we use AI

774
00:38:19,925 --> 00:38:24,015
Speaker 1: or these platforms even more effectively in the future? And

775
00:38:24,055 --> 00:38:26,835
Speaker 1: I think often we can use art, we can use film,

776
00:38:27,295 --> 00:38:31,495
Speaker 1: we can use animation. I know you're interested in children's programming.

777
00:38:31,855 --> 00:38:33,775
Speaker 1: We can do, I kind of feel like all these

778
00:38:33,855 --> 00:38:37,395
Speaker 1: things and more. And then there's, I like just straightforward

779
00:38:38,275 --> 00:38:41,305
Speaker 1: preaching and teaching from the Word of God, you know?

780
00:38:41,905 --> 00:38:43,645
Speaker 1: Like before I go to sleep at night, I love

781
00:38:43,685 --> 00:38:47,075
Speaker 1: to listen to podcasts from great Bible teachers, most of

782
00:38:47,095 --> 00:38:50,114
Speaker 1: them in heaven, like Charles Stanley or Chuck Swindoll, who's

783
00:38:50,135 --> 00:38:52,915
Speaker 1: still with us. I just interviewed him. It was fascinating.

784
00:38:52,955 --> 00:38:55,835
Speaker 1: But coming back to the question, how do you see

785
00:38:55,915 --> 00:38:58,154
Speaker 1: this as an open door for the gospel? Yeah.

786
00:38:58,455 --> 00:38:59,675
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, one of the things that I

787
00:38:59,715 --> 00:39:02,695
Speaker 2: appreciate about you is that you're a true evangelist. You know,

788
00:39:02,795 --> 00:39:06,575
Speaker 2: even from the outside, it's just undeniable that you've devoted

789
00:39:07,185 --> 00:39:09,485
Speaker 2: so much of your life to proclaiming the gospel, as

790
00:39:09,505 --> 00:39:13,385
Speaker 2: you say, in all of these different mediums. You've got films.

791
00:39:13,505 --> 00:39:16,875
Speaker 2: You've even, I mean, Who still does giant crusades and

792
00:39:17,195 --> 00:39:21,015
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of people throughout the years? Children's entertainment,

793
00:39:21,035 --> 00:39:23,075
Speaker 2: I think you've done, which I'm sure is kind of

794
00:39:23,095 --> 00:39:27,055
Speaker 2: a fulfillment in some ways of those early aspirations. And so,

795
00:39:27,075 --> 00:39:30,455
Speaker 2: of course, AI is a place where evangelism is going

796
00:39:30,495 --> 00:39:32,935
Speaker 2: to take place. And I think that it probably, you know,

797
00:39:33,235 --> 00:39:35,425
Speaker 2: I don't see the shape of all of it yet.

798
00:39:35,915 --> 00:39:38,625
Speaker 2: of exactly what it means. What I know is that

799
00:39:39,075 --> 00:39:40,985
Speaker 2: this is the place where people are going to go.

800
00:39:41,005 --> 00:39:45,945
Speaker 2: And I know that we're, over time, it's going to

801
00:39:45,965 --> 00:39:49,905
Speaker 2: become harder and harder. You know, AI works because it

802
00:39:50,645 --> 00:39:53,025
Speaker 2: has human knowledge to sample from.

803
00:39:53,105 --> 00:39:55,975
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. All those sources would be, you know, we think

804
00:39:56,095 --> 00:39:59,495
Speaker 1: AI is just some nebulous thing. But when you ask

805
00:39:59,555 --> 00:40:02,555
Speaker 1: it a question, it's studying all these sources, sources, quotes,

806
00:40:02,615 --> 00:40:05,595
Speaker 1: going through, searching. So, but forming it together.

807
00:40:05,795 --> 00:40:07,795
Speaker 2: And it doesn't understand anything.

808
00:40:07,875 --> 00:40:08,075
Speaker 1: Right.

809
00:40:08,285 --> 00:40:10,685
Speaker 2: Right. This is the guys in Silicon Valley who are

810
00:40:10,705 --> 00:40:13,125
Speaker 2: sort of creating it. They're so smart and I'm so

811
00:40:13,165 --> 00:40:15,844
Speaker 2: grateful that they exist on the earth. But they're also

812
00:40:15,885 --> 00:40:18,725
Speaker 2: kind of dumb. Like they don't understand people. So they

813
00:40:18,785 --> 00:40:21,725
Speaker 2: envision this world where like the machine replaces man as

814
00:40:21,745 --> 00:40:23,825
Speaker 2: though God made the world for machines, which he didn't.

815
00:40:24,005 --> 00:40:27,665
Speaker 2: He made the world for us, that we would have

816
00:40:27,685 --> 00:40:30,405
Speaker 2: faith in him. I guess he made the world for Christ,

817
00:40:30,485 --> 00:40:34,825
Speaker 2: but I know that it doesn't know. I know that

818
00:40:34,845 --> 00:40:38,005
Speaker 2: it predicts. I know that it's a tool. But it's

819
00:40:38,045 --> 00:40:40,995
Speaker 2: a tool that's helping us sift through knowledge created by man.

820
00:40:41,605 --> 00:40:43,615
Speaker 2: And the weird moment that we live in is one

821
00:40:43,635 --> 00:40:47,445
Speaker 2: where it's collapsing all the incentives that man has to

822
00:40:47,485 --> 00:40:50,925
Speaker 2: continue to create what it needs to be its sources.

823
00:40:51,565 --> 00:40:54,685
Speaker 2: So there is this weird moment coming with AI where

824
00:40:55,595 --> 00:40:58,895
Speaker 2: AI is going to rely on its own, or it's

825
00:40:58,915 --> 00:41:01,535
Speaker 2: going to either rely on like source material or its

826
00:41:01,615 --> 00:41:05,315
Speaker 2: own creations. That's a very dangerous moment. We need humans

827
00:41:05,355 --> 00:41:08,235
Speaker 2: to still be creative. If God put us on earth

828
00:41:09,325 --> 00:41:11,845
Speaker 2: And gave us dominion. He told us to be fruitful

829
00:41:11,885 --> 00:41:14,905
Speaker 2: and multiply. He called us to kind of hope, optimism,

830
00:41:14,945 --> 00:41:18,305
Speaker 2: and creativity. As I've said before, the part of God

831
00:41:18,345 --> 00:41:21,085
Speaker 2: that he associates most with man is the one through

832
00:41:21,125 --> 00:41:24,465
Speaker 2: whom all things were made. Christ is man and Christ

833
00:41:24,625 --> 00:41:28,465
Speaker 2: is the creative power of God. And so in a way,

834
00:41:28,665 --> 00:41:35,645
Speaker 2: we participate in God's creation through our acts of creation. Imperfectly,

835
00:41:35,885 --> 00:41:38,395
Speaker 2: he doesn't need us. But part of the mystery is

836
00:41:38,415 --> 00:41:41,505
Speaker 2: that he nevertheless uses us. And so we have to

837
00:41:41,545 --> 00:41:45,165
Speaker 2: continue to do. And one of the things that I

838
00:41:45,285 --> 00:41:48,085
Speaker 2: feel right now is happening in part because of AI

839
00:41:48,125 --> 00:41:50,395
Speaker 2: and fear that people have, particularly on the right about it,

840
00:41:50,785 --> 00:41:55,045
Speaker 2: fear of the economic disruption, fear and sometimes exacerbated by

841
00:41:55,065 --> 00:41:56,765
Speaker 2: the fact that the guys who are creating this thing

842
00:41:56,805 --> 00:42:00,085
Speaker 2: don't understand people. And they make these huge pronouncements about, oh,

843
00:42:00,885 --> 00:42:02,305
Speaker 2: you're not going to need to work anymore as though

844
00:42:02,325 --> 00:42:04,605
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, as though we weren't put on

845
00:42:04,625 --> 00:42:07,355
Speaker 2: the earth to work, as though dignity isn't found. through

846
00:42:07,375 --> 00:42:09,345
Speaker 2: the act of creation. No, we'll just give you a

847
00:42:09,375 --> 00:42:11,045
Speaker 2: wage and you'll... And we'll what?

848
00:42:11,625 --> 00:42:11,864
Speaker 1: Yeah.

849
00:42:13,005 --> 00:42:15,185
Speaker 2: Don't listen to those guys. Listen to those guys about

850
00:42:15,285 --> 00:42:17,245
Speaker 2: the ones and zeros. Don't listen to those guys about

851
00:42:17,885 --> 00:42:19,805
Speaker 2: the nature of the universe and the nature of man.

852
00:42:20,565 --> 00:42:22,985
Speaker 2: Don't give in to nihilism. Don't give in to despair.

853
00:42:23,065 --> 00:42:25,705
Speaker 2: Don't give in to anger and conspiratorial thinking. Don't give

854
00:42:25,765 --> 00:42:30,875
Speaker 2: in to fear. Don't give in to anti-Semitism, which has

855
00:42:30,955 --> 00:42:32,835
Speaker 2: accompanied all of those things because it's a kind of

856
00:42:32,875 --> 00:42:33,635
Speaker 2: expression of those things.

857
00:42:33,695 --> 00:42:36,815
Speaker 1: And reemerging like on a grand scale... Maybe that's the

858
00:42:36,835 --> 00:42:41,135
Speaker 1: wrong way to put it, but the massive scale. I

859
00:42:41,355 --> 00:42:44,855
Speaker 1: was in the Holocaust Museum recently in Washington, D.C., and

860
00:42:44,875 --> 00:42:49,275
Speaker 1: they walk you through the progression of the hatred toward

861
00:42:49,315 --> 00:42:52,595
Speaker 1: the Jews. First you have to put Star of David

862
00:42:52,655 --> 00:42:54,895
Speaker 1: on your window. Now you have to wear the Star

863
00:42:54,995 --> 00:42:57,955
Speaker 1: of David. Now we're going to destroy your businesses. Now

864
00:42:57,975 --> 00:42:59,895
Speaker 1: we're going to put you in a ghetto. Now we're

865
00:42:59,915 --> 00:43:03,215
Speaker 1: going to put you in trains and kill you. I mean,

866
00:43:03,255 --> 00:43:07,015
Speaker 1: but it started off with caricatures and distortions, and it

867
00:43:07,095 --> 00:43:10,884
Speaker 1: seems like we're in a similar state historically, just we've

868
00:43:10,905 --> 00:43:17,025
Speaker 1: got emergence of anti-Semitism and re-emergence of communism. Like, wait,

869
00:43:17,225 --> 00:43:19,145
Speaker 1: I thought we were done with those. I mean, not

870
00:43:19,205 --> 00:43:22,865
Speaker 1: done completely, but we're like, and because of social media

871
00:43:23,525 --> 00:43:26,094
Speaker 1: and a whole new young generation that seems to know

872
00:43:26,175 --> 00:43:29,675
Speaker 1: so little about history. It's just sort of exploding. A

873
00:43:29,715 --> 00:43:30,675
Speaker 1: crazy time, no?

874
00:43:30,755 --> 00:43:34,194
Speaker 2: Well, it's a time of nihilism and despair. And that

875
00:43:34,255 --> 00:43:37,435
Speaker 2: is the thing that we most have to combat. Because

876
00:43:37,915 --> 00:43:41,075
Speaker 2: whatever the future is, it still depends on our creativity.

877
00:43:41,205 --> 00:43:42,325
Speaker 2: It still depends on us doing.

878
00:43:42,625 --> 00:43:48,405
Speaker 1: So we have to create. Not just react. Not just criticize. But, okay,

879
00:43:48,425 --> 00:43:50,945
Speaker 1: we're going to give you an alternative. And really what

880
00:43:50,965 --> 00:43:53,965
Speaker 1: we're giving them is what they're searching for deep down inside.

881
00:43:55,105 --> 00:43:55,475
Speaker 2: Meaning.

882
00:43:55,855 --> 00:43:59,225
Speaker 1: Yeah, meaning. And that comes from a relationship with God

883
00:43:59,425 --> 00:44:03,045
Speaker 1: as given to us in this scripture. And so many

884
00:44:03,125 --> 00:44:05,485
Speaker 1: people know nothing about this at all.

885
00:44:06,105 --> 00:44:11,225
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've, we've failed. I'm, I'm late Gen X,

886
00:44:11,255 --> 00:44:13,915
Speaker 2: you know, last couple of years of Gen X and

887
00:44:14,795 --> 00:44:17,935
Speaker 2: Gen X and the boomers have, have, we've created a

888
00:44:17,955 --> 00:44:19,035
Speaker 2: lot of good things. We've done a lot of good

889
00:44:19,055 --> 00:44:21,895
Speaker 2: things in the world, but as with all people, we're

890
00:44:21,915 --> 00:44:23,555
Speaker 2: fallen and we're broken and we've done a lot of

891
00:44:23,575 --> 00:44:27,575
Speaker 2: bad too. We, allowed this generation that's emerging, this Gen

892
00:44:27,595 --> 00:44:32,355
Speaker 2: Z generation, we allowed their young men to be raised

893
00:44:32,855 --> 00:44:34,395
Speaker 2: in a culture that told them they were the enemy,

894
00:44:35,095 --> 00:44:37,935
Speaker 2: that told them that they were responsible for historic evils that,

895
00:44:38,035 --> 00:44:40,545
Speaker 2: of course, they had nothing to do with. Why? Why

896
00:44:40,585 --> 00:44:43,645
Speaker 2: all of this? Well, because we've, because we let them down.

897
00:44:43,665 --> 00:44:46,045
Speaker 2: I mean, as a conservative, one of the places we

898
00:44:46,085 --> 00:44:49,305
Speaker 2: make a mistake is we always put forward the, here's

899
00:44:49,345 --> 00:44:52,605
Speaker 2: how it should be. Here's the things you should do,

900
00:44:53,065 --> 00:44:57,305
Speaker 2: kind of rules, you know, graduate high school, don't have

901
00:44:57,345 --> 00:44:59,465
Speaker 2: a baby before you get married and all these sort of,

902
00:44:59,705 --> 00:45:01,844
Speaker 2: and it's true. If you do those things, you will

903
00:45:01,875 --> 00:45:04,635
Speaker 2: find yourself in a tier of, of people who's largely successful.

904
00:45:04,935 --> 00:45:05,134
Speaker 1: Yeah.

905
00:45:05,455 --> 00:45:08,355
Speaker 2: But that's fair. That's useless information to people who've already failed.

906
00:45:09,255 --> 00:45:12,235
Speaker 2: You know, we, and sometimes conservatives, when someone says, well,

907
00:45:12,275 --> 00:45:13,435
Speaker 2: I didn't do one of those things.

908
00:45:13,495 --> 00:45:13,875
Speaker 1: What now?

909
00:45:14,155 --> 00:45:15,895
Speaker 2: Well, you had, you had choices.

910
00:45:16,195 --> 00:45:16,415
Speaker 1: Yeah.

911
00:45:16,935 --> 00:45:20,175
Speaker 2: Which is a kind of abandonment of, of our fellow man.

912
00:45:20,315 --> 00:45:20,575
Speaker 1: Yes.

913
00:45:21,015 --> 00:45:25,275
Speaker 2: The truth is most people, uh, find themselves falling short. Well,

914
00:45:25,675 --> 00:45:27,715
Speaker 2: I suppose not most people. All fall short of the

915
00:45:27,735 --> 00:45:31,815
Speaker 2: glory of God. And we have to accept that people

916
00:45:31,955 --> 00:45:36,495
Speaker 2: don't really make choices from the hypothetical slate of infinity choices.

917
00:45:36,875 --> 00:45:39,935
Speaker 2: They make choices from what's put in front of them

918
00:45:39,995 --> 00:45:42,805
Speaker 2: by the culture. If you live in a country today

919
00:45:42,845 --> 00:45:46,125
Speaker 2: where no one smokes, it's very easy to choose not

920
00:45:46,165 --> 00:45:46,525
Speaker 2: to smoke.

921
00:45:46,745 --> 00:45:46,925
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

922
00:45:47,695 --> 00:45:49,995
Speaker 2: If this were 80 years ago, everybody in this room

923
00:45:50,015 --> 00:45:51,495
Speaker 2: right now would be smoking and you and I would

924
00:45:51,515 --> 00:45:54,075
Speaker 2: be smoking while we're doing this. Would we have had

925
00:45:54,095 --> 00:45:56,895
Speaker 2: the choice not to smoke? Certainly, just like today, we

926
00:45:56,915 --> 00:45:59,525
Speaker 2: have the choice to smoke, but that's actually the novel

927
00:45:59,585 --> 00:46:03,525
Speaker 2: choice in those environments. And as conservatives, the boomers and

928
00:46:03,545 --> 00:46:05,945
Speaker 2: Gen X in particular, we've done a bad job of

929
00:46:06,125 --> 00:46:09,125
Speaker 2: offering good choices to this next generation. We can say

930
00:46:09,145 --> 00:46:11,435
Speaker 2: they're historically illiterate. Well, whose fault is that? They didn't

931
00:46:11,475 --> 00:46:15,735
Speaker 2: teach themselves. We can say they're too online and given

932
00:46:15,775 --> 00:46:19,035
Speaker 2: over to pornography and true crime and conspiratorial thinking and

933
00:46:19,075 --> 00:46:22,455
Speaker 2: anti-semitism who locked them out of their schools and locked

934
00:46:22,475 --> 00:46:24,605
Speaker 2: them in front of their computers for two years during

935
00:46:24,625 --> 00:46:27,305
Speaker 2: the most socially and ideologically formative years of their lives

936
00:46:27,325 --> 00:46:29,205
Speaker 2: yeah they didn't do that to themselves we did that

937
00:46:29,245 --> 00:46:32,565
Speaker 2: to them uh and it's still our world it's not

938
00:46:32,605 --> 00:46:34,425
Speaker 2: their world yet they you know they're young and they

939
00:46:34,465 --> 00:46:36,825
Speaker 2: think it's their world uh what do they want when

940
00:46:36,865 --> 00:46:40,965
Speaker 2: do they want it okay but it's still ours we

941
00:46:40,985 --> 00:46:43,065
Speaker 2: still have time to do something about this we've we've

942
00:46:43,085 --> 00:46:47,185
Speaker 2: made mistakes and uh we've given them bad options And yes,

943
00:46:47,265 --> 00:46:49,805
Speaker 2: some of them will still choose the right thing, but

944
00:46:49,885 --> 00:46:51,925
Speaker 2: only the ones who go above and beyond to locate

945
00:46:51,965 --> 00:46:53,545
Speaker 2: the right thing, because we sure haven't put it in

946
00:46:53,585 --> 00:46:58,625
Speaker 2: front of them. So let's do. That's what remains for

947
00:46:58,725 --> 00:47:01,365
Speaker 2: you and for me and for our generation. If we

948
00:47:01,405 --> 00:47:03,924
Speaker 2: want to see, if you start to feel that maybe

949
00:47:03,965 --> 00:47:08,185
Speaker 2: we're on step one of the 10 steps toward the

950
00:47:08,285 --> 00:47:12,565
Speaker 2: worst expressions of anti-Semitism, it doesn't follow necessarily that the

951
00:47:12,605 --> 00:47:14,415
Speaker 2: next step is step two. It could be that the

952
00:47:14,455 --> 00:47:16,685
Speaker 2: next step is the step back. But the only way

953
00:47:16,705 --> 00:47:18,165
Speaker 2: we're going to get the step back is if we

954
00:47:18,205 --> 00:47:21,505
Speaker 2: put better choices in front of people, not not grant

955
00:47:21,545 --> 00:47:24,025
Speaker 2: their every premise because they're young and some of their

956
00:47:24,045 --> 00:47:30,805
Speaker 2: premises are wrong, not sacrifice our values and destroy our

957
00:47:30,845 --> 00:47:33,625
Speaker 2: country to give them the things that they're demanding. No,

958
00:47:34,225 --> 00:47:36,325
Speaker 2: to help them see that the things that they actually crave,

959
00:47:36,345 --> 00:47:39,465
Speaker 2: the things that they actually desire aren't found in a

960
00:47:39,485 --> 00:47:42,985
Speaker 2: sort of Christ is king tribal sloganeering, but are found

961
00:47:43,025 --> 00:47:45,225
Speaker 2: in the substance of the gospel because Christ is king.

962
00:47:46,055 --> 00:47:49,735
Speaker 2: that they're not found in a politics of tyranny and oppression. No,

963
00:47:49,755 --> 00:47:51,935
Speaker 2: they're actually found in a politics of freedom because it's

964
00:47:51,975 --> 00:47:54,375
Speaker 2: for freedom that Christ has made us free, that they're

965
00:47:54,395 --> 00:47:58,195
Speaker 2: not actually found in this sort of radical atomization in

966
00:47:58,235 --> 00:48:01,815
Speaker 2: which we've, this desert of radical atomization, but found in

967
00:48:01,855 --> 00:48:07,785
Speaker 2: community and found in actual geographic community, looking at someone,

968
00:48:07,905 --> 00:48:11,305
Speaker 2: sitting in a place with someone at a time. Those

969
00:48:11,405 --> 00:48:14,495
Speaker 2: are Well, that's us. That's what we still exist on

970
00:48:14,535 --> 00:48:17,885
Speaker 2: the planet to do. And I happen to believe that

971
00:48:17,905 --> 00:48:20,165
Speaker 2: this new technology is a great frontier for that, but

972
00:48:20,205 --> 00:48:21,425
Speaker 2: it's hardly the only frontier.

973
00:48:21,825 --> 00:48:22,525
Speaker 1: What are the others?

974
00:48:22,805 --> 00:48:24,725
Speaker 2: Well, we actually have to sit down with young people

975
00:48:24,785 --> 00:48:28,025
Speaker 2: and invite them into our geographic communities. And we still

976
00:48:28,065 --> 00:48:29,795
Speaker 2: have to be active in social media and we still

977
00:48:29,815 --> 00:48:32,075
Speaker 2: have to be active on the Internet. And, you know,

978
00:48:32,335 --> 00:48:35,555
Speaker 2: having dominion over the Earth has always been a pretty

979
00:48:35,615 --> 00:48:38,915
Speaker 2: expansive proposition. And the digital age only makes it more

980
00:48:38,955 --> 00:48:40,955
Speaker 2: expansive because there's just more places that we have to

981
00:48:40,995 --> 00:48:41,765
Speaker 2: have dominion.