[inaudible] i have the honor of being the executive director of the reagan president ial foundation. [applause] oh, thank you very much. Thanks for coming this evening. In honor of our men and women who defend our freedom around the world, if you would please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under god, indivisible with hinter and Justice Liberty and justice for all. [applause] please be seated. Okay. Greg, if i could have your attention, greg, this may come as a surprise to you, but before you arrived here this evening, we conducted a threequestion survey of all those who came here tonight. Most of the people. And the first question we asked as they came through the door was whether or not they wanted to hear a longwinded introduction of you by me . [laughter] one that, you know, recounts all the successes youve achieved in life [inaudible] i know. [laughter] well, and it would also include the previous bestsellers youve written, the models that youve dated [laughter] who, you know, who youre wearing [laughter] and the fact that you are star on the five, your show on fox. We have about 700 people here this evening, and only three said they wanted us to do that. [laughter] okay. So the second question we asked the audience was whether they wanted to spend an evening politely listening to you drone on and on [laughter] in a wellcrafted speech. They said that sounded nice, but like so many other speeches, they felt the odds were that by the time they got to their car, they werent going to remember a word you said. [laughter] [inaudible] [laughter] thanks for having me. Seventeen people voted for that. But when we asked the final question; that is, how many in the audience thought i should just take a seat, briefly interview you and then let them ask the questions, well, we had 600 voted for that. [applause] so majority rules. But before we begin, in the interest of full disclosure, we found in that same survey that 227 people thought they were here to see dana perino [laughter] [applause] what are you going to do . Ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, please welcome to the Reagan Library mr. Greg gutfeld. [cheers and applause] here . Yeah. I forgot. Always with a dana perino joke, huh . When you cant think of anything, youve got to bring up her and her dumb dog. Lovely dog, her lovely dog. [inaudible conversations] its not a real dog, and we know it. [laughter] so i have to tell you the whole background of the dog, where it came from, who it really is . You know its brian kilmeade, right . [laughter] it is. He has to shave every day before he does fox friends. Very little man. All right. Before we get into the book, its inevitable, somebodys going to ask, so im going to ask it anyway, your take on what happened in paris. Well, i, you know, if you watch my show on sunday nights, you realize it wasnt on last night, it was preempted. And, you know, i spent the weekend, basically, in a ball of fury, as i always am, actually. [laughter] nothing was any different. And the attack made it worse. But i had written a monologue for my show, and the show was preempted. And i taped it anyway, but no one has seen it because it wasnt aired except, i think, it was on judge janine. But its i dont know be anybody saw it, but i thought that i would just read you my monologue [applause] its a 70page haiku. [laughter] and im doing it in esperanto. [laughter] all right. Actually, its fairly serious, but thats why i make jokes, because its too serious for me to actually fathom it, so thats why i make jokes. This paris terror attack reveals a truth many have known, but western leaders have been refusing to admit. We are at war. Instead we watch those elected to protect us transfixed by identity politics, fears of islam phobia and microfractional upticks in celsius. As ive said before about terror, its not a wakeup call if you go back to bed. [applause] its not enough for temporary promises of solidarity or putting john lennons imagine on repeat. It is a war that wants us. We no longer have the choice of talking our way out of it like a skittish hostage in a bank heist. And so we need four things. First, we need a leader. Someone who [cheers and applause] im not used to applause during monologues. [laughter] the first thing we need is a leader, someone who understands the threat, is happy to state it by name and is ready to commit to its destruction. This is someone who understands the adult conclusions that steer National Security and surveillance, someone who understands that freedom and security coexist. They do not clash. This leader must have no truck with edward snowed snowden unless hes tied up in the back of it. [laughter] sorry, libertarian friends be, this guy is bad. This is a leader who knows that terror change, which is the increase in mayhem when Technology Trumps climate change. Forget climate change, remember terror change. [applause] and this infantile, urgent global consensus devoted to warming must instead be focused seriously on terror. To track evil, we need coordination, communication, borders, sharing of intel and leadership that inspires the world. The second thing we need is a people. We need a country that pulls itself out of its selfobsession, its politics of me. We need a unified citizenry, one that finally realizes the pleasant world that theyve grown used to denigrating is about to come to an end unless they act. Three, three and i went four. I also have an extra finger with me. You never know. [laughter] three [laughter] its like a stunt finger. Three. [laughter] a media, a soberminded industry whose priorities are based on authentic but not be symbolic concerns. Enough solemn portraits of the whiny coeds weeping over hurtful words, imagine if [applause] imagine if during world war ii instead of covering adolf hitter you focused solely on the book a boo bangs of veronica lake, thats a reporter amplifying cry babies over islamic terror. Theyre missing the story of their lives. [applause] it will cost them their lives. Four, a defense. Four [laughter] a defense. Im not talking about a national defense. That goes without saying. We should have the strongest, greatest, you know it. Nor do i mean gun ownership which also, by the way, goes without saying. Let us not forget that the cops usually end up arriving there after its already happened. We need to protect ourselves. [applause] the kind of defense, the kind of defense that i am talking about is a new education, a mentality in schools that teaches selfdefense needed when terror or Mass Shootings strike. We must make our soft targets harder through security, barriers and most of all, mentality. We have to think differently. I say this, by way, not to judge others responses when it comes to terror. I have no idea how i might act. But regarding my own personal need to change my own behavior as a citizen, i have to play a role in knowing how to stop something awful. The cops cant be everywhere, so it is up to all of us to be like that vendor in new york who stopped a car bombing in times square. We all have to be that person. The word would be vigilance, but i came up with a new word called villagence which is vigilance in your village. Im beginning to have second thoughts about that word. [laughter] but the fact is s. W. A. T. Teams and the military burst into buildings knowing one of their own might die. And the passengers on flight 93, they did the same thing, and they did it because they knew, ultimately, that that was the only choice they had left. And they did it for the betterment of our country. They saved, who knows, thousands of lives. So its time that we accept that choice as a country, because it is the only choice we have left. That was my monologue. [applause] thanks. So one question related to the topic. You know, as everyone knows, im sure you must know in the last two days the medias been reporting that one of the terrorist attackers slipped his way in through the refugee flow coming from Eastern Europe and the mideast. And obama just said yesterday that we should not, quote, somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism. And i just wanted to get your take on that given that according to the president we should be obligated to take tens of thousands of such refugees. Its always that reflex that he relies upon when Something Like this happens. However, that reflex is missing when it comes to gun crime. When there is an act of gun violation, its not like he says, whoa, lets not go after all people with guns. He does the precise opposite. [laughter] he becomes this strident superhero about gun control. But he has, he doesnt have that same emotion and strength when it comes to terror control. Terror control, to me, is more important than gun control, because gun control generally targets people who are lawabiding citizens. And we are about targeting violent people who want to end our life. Look, i am, i am for an open society and a strong border. The metaphor that i always use is, you know, when you cant sneak into disneyland [laughter] ive tried. [laughter] i try to tell them that im, like, one of the employees at its a small world [laughter] they, but im too short. [laughter] but you cant sneak into disneyland. Theres a gate. There are walls. You cant get in. America is the earths disneyland. Everybody wants to come to this magical kingdom. And who can blame them . I mean, if i was im lucky that i was born here. If i was born in pakistan or syria, hell, canada [laughter] and i love, and i love canada. I love canada. But what im saying is i dont blame people for wanting to come here. But that does not make us, force us to relinquish any responsibility about our security, about looking at the people that are coming here. You could have both. The greatest people in this country come from other places, and some of the worst people in the world are born here. Lets face it. I would like to trade a few. [laughter] trying to think offhand [laughter] how many people we could get for keith olberman. [laughter] or [applause] but anyway, my point is the border, for us, is just like a fence around disneyland. It just makes perfect sense that there are people climbing the fence to get in, you find them. You figure it out, obviously more difficult than that. But you have a process. And without a process, what youre seeing is whats happening now in europe. You have open borders, and they dont know what to do. I mean, its terrifying how many people might be there who wish harm on their country. You have an invading army now. You have an invading force that is blended into the community. And god forbid, you know, you voice any alarm about it. I was watching msnbc not by choice [laughter] its mysterious how at every gym in new york thats the only thing thats on. [laughter] they let off an led off an hour of news with online back lash. And im thinking, god, i wish that was our problem. I wish that our problems were online. I wish our violation and our death violence and the death and the mayhem that we incur every day or every month was online. I mean, how insidious. My god, theyre saying horrible things about you online. Yes, because of this terrorist attack we immediate to discuss your feelings d we need to discuss your feelings because theyre saying bad things about you on a message board. [laughter] i know. We have therapists nearby. [laughter] thats not a problem. That is not a problem. But were live anything a world where that is almost perceived as an equal problem as the actual physical threats to our lives. On campus they are equating that words are now seen as violent. We have conflated words with actions. Its crazy. Its crazy. I think about, you know, im at the Reagan Library, and i was saying this to my budly on the way over here buddy on the way over here, how would Ronald Reagan figure this out . I mean, he would figure out isis. He would figure that out pretty clearly. But how would he figure out the native opposition, the opposition here . How could he stomach the idiocy from the people that are here telling us that we must meet hatred with love and that we must worry about, you know, we must worry about how we articulate our outrage as opposed to responding to evil. I dont know what he would do. Itd be just like bill and teds excellent adventure. [laughter] when they show up and theyre, like george washingtons, like, what the hell happened . But this was only 30 years ago. How much has changed . Yeah. A good movie. [laughter] second one, not so good. Having read your book thank you for that. Yeah, no problem. [laughter] by the way, one important thing about book, as you notice, there is absolutely no cloth or paper cover, so that means if you take it on the airplane, people see what youre reading. [laughter] you cant, you cant take it off. [laughter] and hide it. [laughter] i know what you do. Go ahead, sorry. [laughter] well, you come right out in the book, and you say, look, this book is all about making you better at saying what you think. And so as i read it, it was kind of like a selfhelp manual in a way. Yeah. I just wondered if, you know, is that conservatives are too tonguetied . They cant get their arguments across . I have no idea what youre talking about. Yes, you do. [laughter] yes. First of all, it is a service book. I come from a background in service. I worked at mens health and, you know, in the 90s during that horrible time when all you read about were abs, that was me. [laughter] three steps to flatter abs, youre welcome. [laughter] all those headlines, it was made by four guys in a room who wanted to kill themselves [laughter] for five years. Sos it is a selfhelp book. Its based on a couple of premises. Number one, whenever i do book signings, people ask me how i do my monologues and the goal of my monologues on the five. T they like them because i pick an idea that might be kind of complicated, and i try to boil it down into 80 seconds so that i can have one persuasive point in that monologue that allows you its like i gave you a rhetorical weapon in case this comes up. So every day, like, it cant just be something that i find funny or upsetting. In that monologue i have to have something in there that you can use thats serviceable, so when it comes up in a conversation, its there. It could be a statistic, it could be a moral reason for the belief that it has to be if im not giving you that thing, then ive failed. And people ask me how i do that, and i thought it would be a great book idea to explain how youre able to persuasively be correct rather than just be correct. Because the thing that drives me nuts is i have plenty of friends in which i agree with we agree on everything. But the way they articulate it makes me not want to agree with it. They take up a fairly cogent point, but they get angry or emotional, or they dont attach facts or reason to it. And they ruin it. This happens a lot with immigration. Immigration is a winnable issue for us. Not when its married to nativism. And so my goal is to strip away shrill anger and emotion from our arguments. I would be a hypocrite if i were angry and emotional, because thats the thing i always make fun of liberals about. Conservatives arent supposed to be angry or shrill, theyre supposed to be sharp and prepared and funny. And i think that we need more humor. And thats why i wrote the book. The other reason why i wrote the book is i say it i think in the first chapter, i say that the left is really good at selling deadly ideas, and the right is really bad at selling great ideas. And i dont know if its the rights fault, because i think the ideas are so great that they work. And when that great idea works, you forget about it. So we take it for granted. Whether it is law and order, police, i mean, like, lets face it, the reason why theres this reaction against police isnt over simply police brutality, its because weve become used to this amazing, dramatic advance in Crime Reduction for the last 30 years. We have seen a reduction in violence crime like Violent Crime like weve never seen. It is only when you have these long periods of success that you are able to rip apart the things that bring you success. And that is why conservatives have a hard time. Like, we, you know, what makes what frees countries . Free markets, capitalism, spring opportunity. We have no need to explain it, because we think its natural and because its working. Meanwhile, we have a socialist running more president. How can that be after a century of socialist hell . Or presentday venezuela where toilet paper costs as much as a suit made of toilet paper . [laughter] ask me how i know later. [laughter] anyway, my point is this only in contemporary society can socialism be romanticized and capitalism be demonized when capitalism has freed billions of billions of people and socialism has imprisoned so many. [applause] you know, the one theme that seems to run through almost all of your chapters, greg, is that conservatives dont do their homework. You know, theres an obligation to do homework. What do you mean by that . You know what . Its not that they dont do their homework, they have to do more homework. Global warming is a good example because if you are skeptical about what youve been told see, my skepticism of Global Warming isnt about science because i read the stuff. I read it constantly. And i be hoof you to behoove you to find the experts so that when you are faced with that kind of conflict, that argument that you have the data that suggests the pause or the slight increases are, could be a rounding error or, you know, just a tiny, incremental like, what do you call it, it could just be a percent of error that you get in science. It is important that you have the data so that you can argue. And you dont have to argue with emotion be, you can argue with a smile, with data points and stats. And its actually a lot of fun to have that with you. So i think its very important. I dont think we are less, i dont think were less prepared, its just that we have to be more prepared, because the left doesnt have to be prepared. Remember, the left argues from the arena of compassion that they care more than you do. And you have to have the facts that show that their beliefs are actually more harmful than yours, that you can show that their belief in a welfare system is actually more dangerous. You can show that over the last four or five decades that weve seen cities falling apart. The cities that are in the biggest trouble run by liberal mayors. You can show that liberal policies are painful to people. You have that as your fact base, and you cant lose. You wrote with a really neat twist. Ill quote you directly. You say when a liberal asks you why are you a conservative, simply state so you can be a liberal. And [laughter] what did you mean by that . Thats like, thats end of a chapter where i was trying to show people how to explain why theyre conservatives, because youre always going to have a friend, especially in college, who says how can you be a conservative . Republicans, theyre stodgy, they wear ties, they own 40 pairs of khakis, and they eat babies [laughter] half of that is true. [laughter] but anyway, the point is in order for a liberal to get what he wants, a conservative has to build something. And i think i used the example of minimum wage. Its like you have, you know, you have these people demanding i want 15 might be mum wage minimum wage, but they werent there when you were starting your business. So you need a conservative to decide to start a small business, to hire people, to sleep on the floor while hes trying to not even make a profit, just trying to break even. Hes not even taking a salary. Hes putting, hes hiring people to work in this little restaurant. Finally this restaurant is kind of thriving, and he might make a profit, and then this person shows up and says we demand an increase in minimum wage. And hes like, well, wait. I where were you . Ive been doing this for, i took ten years. These people are happy. If hay dont want to work here if they dont want to work here, they dont have to work here. No, we demand it. That cant happen in reverse. The person has to build a business, work his ass off, hire people in order for the liberal to come in demand their cut. I say the left is the mafia in [inaudible] [applause] liberalism is the barnacle on the conservative boat. [laughter] all of the principles that you, that you have from the moment you wake up in the morning to going to bed are absolute. Theyre objective. Theyre not relative. Theyre when youre trying to do your job, there are standards that you follow. Theres no mambypamby liberalism or how you feel when youre trying to build a car or write a song. A song has a distinct melody, and it has notes. When youre a chef, you have a recipe. And if the recipe isnt followed, the food is terrible. You have to make it, everybody has to make it right. Those are conservative principles which are completely sacrificed when that person who is a chef or a musician steps out of his profession and starts thinking about politics. He just divorces himself from it. He has no idea that none of those, none of these liberals beliefs would exist if it wasnt for the conservativism that you put inside your daily life every day to make thingses work. I mean, you know, you know best way to get to work every morning. You know . Liberals are, like, well, whos to say thats the best way . [laughter] its like, you could go, like, thats kind of really rude. What about the other ways . Like, when you say youre going to take that way, the other way i mean, thats like totally violating my safe space. [laughter] when you say, okay, it takes you 11 minutes to get to work this way and it takes 45 minutes and youre saying thats better just because its shorter . [laughter] i mean, where i dont understand that. I mean [laughter] so it takes three times as hong to get to work as long to get to work and youre going to be late, but why is that worse . [laughter] thats how, thats what happens if you applied liberal thinking to actual life. Thats to how life would be. You would never be able to make judgments. I mean, imagine baking a cake from a liberal, like, you know, why that . Why cant i put more sugar in that . [laughter] well, its going to i want to cook it for ten minutes. Lets see what happens. [laughter] i dont even know what that, i dont even know what that voice is. [laughter] its a good one. I think i channeled, i dont know who i channeled. [laughter] it was reagan from the exorcist. Not Ronald Reagan yeah, the other one. The other reagan. When i read this in the book, i thought, thats it. I figured it out finally. What makes you as interesting more than anything else, and ill quote, you said my simple, perhaps sole tactic has always been to extend liberal beliefs to absurd levels. I push the obvious until the argument can only the tip in my favor. And explain that. Yeah. I, you know, its funny because i, like, answered that was, i just did that with the [laughter] yeah. Im trying to think of to, oh, jeez, there was a really good one in the book that i used. [laughter] what chapter are you on . [laughter] well, for example, Animal Rights. One of the first articles i ever wrote was for the San Francisco chronicle in 1989 after id been, i went to an Animal Rights concert, and i guess it was the b52s or something, and i started thinking, wow, i wrote a whole thing on bacteria rights. So you are killer of broccoli. But the opinion is were high on the food chain. This is what people by the way, this is not to say you should be cruel to animals. I go back and forth about meat. While eating it. But when people talk about being inhumane, they are eating living thingsment you take the Animal Rights to its furthest territory, which would be vegetable rights. Its going to happen. And i think i even with identity, the fact that now we can selfidentify, we had a white female activist claim she was black. We had a white male activist claim the was black, black lives matter or Something Like that. I cant remember. And what stops us . I want to why cant i be i dont know an aboriginal unicorn . What is keeping me from selfidentifying . Because right now your feelings trump that, in the world of identity. No one can tell you what you cant do. And so why not just take that and all selfidentify as whatever we want in the end that will completely deflate the movement and turn into it the joke it is. And i am a unicorn. Lets go to the audience. If you have a question, raise your hand, but dont ask the question until you have a microphone in front of you. Some things offlimits. Not about dogs well, nothing about a dog. I had a dog named jasper, so didnt totally rip me off. Right over here. Jukes good evening, mr. Gutfeld. Good evening. Good evening, sir. Strange seeing you here again. It has been many years. No, only i thought you said youd never come here. Only been since march of 2013. Well, close enough. Give us your question and be gone. Ill do that. My name is katherine. My family owns a bed and breakfast, and being from california, going to santa monica college, im surrounded by people that are very ignorant of world problems, and then at the end itself, we find the they dont want to believe that politics can be in good. And my question is, it seems that a lot of people in america where theyre ignorant of the worlds problems and dont want to admit theres evil, and then all the young people are frustrated about things that dont matter. So my question is do you think it will pass or is it the beginning of a bigger problem . I think it might have always been like this, but we dont know because were living in this now. Yesterday, trending on twitter, was mtv stars. I dont know what it is. That was a day after the paris attack, the number one trending thing. Today on twitter every single trending item, which reflects what people twitter is a bathroom wall for the vacuous. Which is why enenjoy it. But i like to go on there just to yell and scream at the world, but every single item there was not about paris. And i think politics doesnt become part of your life until it actually affects your life. Its like nobody understands taxes until they see it taken out of their check. And then suddenly there are run theyre republicans. Its so funny. Its why you become a republican later in life. Drives me crazy. Im going to good off on a tangent here, but somebody on the five in the left seat they all blend geraldo beckle. They said Something Like, greg talking about taxes and economic inequality, and they said, but, greg, youre loaded. And i go, what wait a minute. Im 51 years old. So im thinking about this, about life. This is the fallacy, that people have on the left, that people who are conservative, republicans, somehow block the need for money. Theyre just rich. We didnt spend 30 years climbing a ladder and doing really dirty work to get where we were. When i was in my early 20s, i can remember my salary at American Spectator, 12,000 a year. That was like takehome of 700 bucks a month. At prevenges if was 225, then at intel, in the 30s. It wasnt until 2000 i started make something actual money. And the government didnt care about me until i started making real money. I didnt exist. And now im hated. Its as though when youre wealthy unless youre born into it, most people 0 who make money made it after years and years of hard work. And you have right to complain about it. You have a right to complain because you have the hoyt behind you that got you there. Its like when people say, shut up, there are people out there that are struggling. Yeah, that was me. I astrossing. We were all struggling once, and im trying to tell you, im an example of how to get out of that. Did i answer that question . Perhaps. A good answer. Over here. Hello. I had a question. The stabbing at merced, the stabber was shot and killed on campus. Of cows, course, he used a knife so not a lot heard about it because it wasnt a gun. So my question is, they jump on the gun band wagon whenever Something Like thats happens. When are people going to Start Talking about Mental Illness and the ebb Mental Illness problem in our country and not being taken care of properly. Theres a lot of ways you can go with that. Theres different kinds of Mental Illness and im not sure its Mental Illness leading you look at statistics, these shootings arent on the rise. It could be because i have friends believe it has to do with overmedication. I dont know about that. But i look at the statistics and i wonder if its just because we heres my feeling on it. We are creating copycat crimes through Media Attention of things. When the police lets say theres a teen suicide. The police usually urges the press in that area not to cover it because it create as copycat effect. Auto erotica asphyxiation, appraisers act, pops up now and then. They dont talk bat it because they dont want people to do it. These are things you dont do. You dont cover, for fear it height be replicated. Something we completely suspend when it comes to shootings. When you look at a lot of these killers, we find their obsession with previous spree killers. They found they have a scrapbook theyre obsessed with the guy that got the most victims. This is a regular thing. And always on the five i say the media is complicit in this business, because we immediately stop everything and we focus all of our attention on that, and that is the reward. That is the reward for the first person seeking attention in this lonely, alienated, horrible life. This what a loser does. A loser says, my god, can get attention by taking out all these people and thats what he does, and we still give them the attention. So i feel its a combination of factors. Having said that, i dont think we do enough for people who are mentally ill. We let people out of institutions and not and by virtue of rights. It is not incumbent on us to help them because its their right to roam the streets and be sick. As somebody who lives in new york, its a horrible thing. We need to help these people and putting them in prison isnt the right way to do it. Over here. Hello. Hi. I grew up in san mateo congratulations, what street . I live near aragon high school. I used to run by there i lived by hillside. Aragon, played a lot of 1 00 soccer there and had good tennis courts. Youre welcome. I never really like aragon. Didnt carlos sanaa go there . Yes. Guest yes, he did. Neal sean went there. From journey, and karl los santana. That was before my time. Your time is up, sir. Thank you. Aragon is responsible for downey. Just want you to know that. At least its not starship. I also went to berkeley. Oh. Oooo. When did you graduate. 1974, well, you werent there when i was there. No. How did you grow up in a lace like that go to a college like that, and be in an environment where all of the thought was left wing thought and get to your current level of wisdom . Copious amount of familiar suit cals pharmaceuticals. Actually, its easy to be a liberal when youre young because its just like being in high school. All the romantic notions are not based on fact. Theyre in this cloud of emotion so its easy to be a liberal when youre in high school, and i probably was and probably a liberal loud mouth because i was just as obnoxious as i am now but i was liberal. You didnt have to think that much about it. I worked for the Nuclear Freeze briefly in order to get extra credit for a class at high school. That meant getting signatures for the Nuclear Freeze, which was to ban the transport of Nuclear Weapons in california, like in the late 70s and early 80s. I didnt care. I just wanted to get they can move you a half grade if on a sunday you stood out in front of a church and collected signatures. I decide that but i didnt think about it. It was also its easy to be a liberal when youre young because all you have to say is war is bad, love is good, and why cant we live in peace, because as a young person you dont have to connect the dots. Just say one thing and everybody goes, isnt that sweet . I got berkeley as kind of a liberal, and within within i guess six to 12 weeks i completely switched because i was at the finish line of liberalism. I saw what my beliefs had created and it stunk. And i dont mean that metaphor include. There were some definite hygiene problems going on. Bancroft and durant, as you well know. Even after that it got worse. People living in the trees in berkeley. Thats how bad it got. Cant get people out of your trees because that would be wrong. There were tree people, people. But that i think what interesting about when youre young, you have no idea theres another side. There was no other side because we never talked about politics in my home. We had abc, cbs, nbc, and this thing called pbs, which i watched for monty python but other things were strange. You didnt have any idea there were other things out there. I didnt know there was a thing called conservatism. I just knew there was this mainstream liberal thought, and i didnt even call it liberal. Just the way things were. Until a friend of mine, patrick fleisher, was subscribing to oAmerican Spectator and National Review. And theirs a section in National Review called this week and week and the back of American Spectator, there was at column, wisdom from liberal magazines and they put a funny headline on, this week was a riff on ridiculous stuff, and i thought this is weird. Theyre making fun of stuff that nobody is making fun of and its okay to make fun of. It blew my mind so quickly that applied at the National Journalism center to be an intern at the American Spectator. In arlington, virginia. It was like somebody opened a window in your brain and said, get out of where you are. Come with us. Theyre crazy. All it took, though, was another side. Somebody to show me that there was Something Else out there. You just need that one person two do that, and do it in a good way, friendly way, not a pushy way. And that is what my buddy did. I dont e the American Spectator was after oversized weird illustrations and all these amazing writers like p. J. Orourke, and and joe queen and tom wolfe, really was influenced. Hi, greg, this is elizabeth brown, we used to Work Together at intel. Oh, my god. Still working out, i see. Yes, and i used to make 23,000 back then. I remember. I was making more than you. I remember you at the energy center, working out. You were teaching arrow picks arrow arrow picks. I was teaching kitchen class and you gave me my name. Host kitchen vixen. We did an interview together for you said you should be something sexy, look kitchen vixen. Thats the kind of wisdom you get from me. Be the kitchen vixen. I lost track of you after that. You ended up on fox news. I want to know how you made it to those different venues. Its interesting because most of the stuff in my career i didnt plan on, which i always think is a great piece of advice. If you just move forward and work hard, sooner or later you end up where were supposed to be. On fox news what i do is no different than the editorial meeting at meantel, where we would talk about the issues of the day and put in a magazine and i would crack jokes. That is mapped on to things i did in high school in the back of homeroom where i ma make jokes and be stupid. Who enough i created a profession out of bag wise ss. But its like you like the transition was more like, i guess, kind of like the world kind of found out where i was, as i kept moving. I mean, if you think about how it happened, its very strength. I was at maxum in london, and the reason why fox found me is because of me agreeing to do the huffington post, because matt, a writer, said he couldnt do it so he hooked me up with air ran na, and then she asked me and i got to now andrew breitbart. He launched the huffington. We got close and he told people about me, then i meat met a guy in a bar, sounds weird. From fox. How i had to end that sentence to talk about a show and that how it happened. So you fall forward into these things and thats how i ended up at red eye and then the five. Wasnt an active career pursuit. Just something that naturally happens if you keep saying yes to work. In fact you covered that. That is true. Theres an entire chapter on my resume, which i will read right now but its that. I decided a lot of people like me when i was young i didnt know what i was doing and didnt know how to get where i was going. It was sort of miserable so i tried to figure out by tracing my steps how its possible to get from a to z. Because everybody wants to get from as to zdont want to get a to b to c. Im talk ben when youre young you. Want the thing right then but dont know how to get there and you dont realize there are all these steps in between that you should be doing and happy your doing and it take a breath and not think that its a race. I thought it was a race. I was constantly thinking it was a race until i got to be got happy and figured out what it was. Hi, greg. My wife and i discovered you late one night about 2 00 a. M. On a show called red eye i thought you were going to say in a certain parking lot. Discovered you at 2 00 a. M. Late at night in a parking lot. You werent wearing any clothes. One of your frequent guests back then was andrew breitbart. And i noticed that the two of you really had a lot in common, not only were you able to dismantle the fallacy of progressivism, and do it with a sense of humor, and you also had pretty good taste in music. You both start off as liberals and did that have something to do with this . Were you pretty happy that you came from that background and got the cultural side of that . And if so, im also curious in your opinion what are your three most underrate bands of the 1980s, you cant say the crans. That the you take away ill give you a second. But i al wanted to know, can you tell us more about andrew on the personal side . We miss him a ton. [applause] when you talk about when you answer that question you have inevitably creates some criticism that is necessary about conservatives in general, that we have to admit, and that is we are conservative and we are repulsed by crass pop culture but within crass pop culture thats awesome stuff and we have to stop rejecting that sort of thing because its actually good. I think that what youre getting at. Andrew hi and were both into subversive music and we loved the wed run into conservative where i work that arent familiar with the music i listen to or the movies i see and its not their fault. Just that the Natural Inclination to resist thing that are risky, and i talk about it in my book, that the left tends to be take more risks in all areas, whether it is pop culture, sex, drugs, you name it, except for business. They dont take risk with business. Thats on the right. But the right is more conservative so theyre more interested in more traditional types of music and points of entertainment, and i believe that has to change. That andrew always said that politics is downstream from pop culture from culture, and he is right. If you see the way the world works. If you can master the culture, you can master politics, and i i think thats why president obama has been so successful among young people. He speaks their language. Oddly, i think trump has that in a way as well. His pros are also his cops. Very troping pros and also really bad cons. One thing he hays is a cocoon around him that is from pop culture. He is an entertainer so he can get away with saying things that other politicians cant say, because they have he says im an entertainer. I say things. What aim going to do, and people go, yeah, its trump. Maybe thats not so bad. Maybe it doesnt hurt to have a politician who is immune to the same hyper sensitivity they used against all our politicians are so to long in a weird way they has the obama museumity. Obama hey the immunity for being an historical first. If you went after him your were branded a bigot so he had this incredible cocoon around him to make it to the white house helped it he was articulate and charging and smart and i have to say funny. He mastered the world of pop culture. Trump kind of does that now. To your point, though, it is important, as breitbart and i talk about endlessly, we have to invade pop culture. We have to join bands, youre young. You have to write for magazines. You have to get involved. You cant separate yourself. You have to go in there so people know you. As for three underrated 8 sod 80s bands, i like gang of four, even though their communist. I listened to them a lot. Im going to hate my answer. Wire. I love wire. Another british band. Lets pick i just say, x. From l. A. There you go. Last year billy zoom was here at the Reagan Library. Youre fan of x, the band. Great. Up here in the balcony. Hi. I am nicolas, and im in sixth grade, and my question is, how tall am i . Youre youre already taller. I get it. My friends like Bernie Sanders but i want them to like ben carson so what do i do . Do the Deserted Island question that i always do. Imagine that you are on a plane and youre either on a plane with bernie or ben, and the plane goes down youre the only survivors. So youre on this Desert IslandDeserted Island or Desert Island desserted island. I go back and forth on this. Its Deserted Island, not a Desert Island. Some island dont have desert so hat to be a Deserted Island. Anyway, Deserted Island, ben carson, Deserted Island, anywhere sanders, desertedded island Bernie Sanders, were going to whatever we find, were going to split equally. We got to listen to each other. We got do you have any skills . No. Youre on this Deserted Island with ben carson. Might have some extremely conservative views about guy gays, virk religious views you might find different, but he can operate on you if you fall on a sharp object. Who do you want on the Deserted Island . Somebody who knows how to do something, and hat spent decades figuring out how to do something, that is lifesaving or somebody who has been running for office since 1972. Thats a good actually the Deserted Island metaphor, you can probably use with any right or left. I think. Except for howard dean because he is a doctor. Last question i shouldnt have allowed that. Time for one last question. First of all, thank you for being here at the Reagan Library. Thank you for having me. Also, reagan being what i feel is one of the greatest president s in modern history, my question to you is, can you tell me with any specific person running for republican candidate or the top few who you think would be the best, and also, excuse me my french beat the liar running on the other side . How dare you call Martin Omalley a liar. This is a very weird time. Lets face it. Youre watching governors who, in their title, they govern. And theyre not winning. Its amazing. That is the definition of your occupation, is to govern. If you look at florida, if you look at texas, these are bigger than most countries, and we are not impressed anymore by this. Im not sure thats healthy. I think that we owe governors a chance to explain their successes and this gets i may not answer your question but i will say this. I am sick and tired of the im mere conservative than you are mentality. Its driving me crazy the namecalling. This seems to me relatively new. I dont remember this under reagan. You had sure, you had annoying liberal republicans like bob packwood. You had arlen specter, liberal republicans but you knew they were liberal republicans. Not everybody in your party is a liberal republican because they disagree with you on ten percent of the issues. Reagan said, if we disagree 25 of the time, youre 75 of the time with me, and thats how it should be, and i think its really dangerous that we are were in competition amongst ourselves to prove who is more right than it is weird. Calling people a rhino