Point of View May 7, 2025 – Hour 2 : Higher Education Should Learn From Hillsdale College

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, and now, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] Second hour today, we're going to spend some time talking about higher education, and if you've been paying attention to my commentaries, and of course we've been talking about that this week, the Viewpoints commentary yesterday was on Elite Universities Part 1, which some of that was taken from a very good piece by Victor Davis Hanson.

[00:00:36] We talked about yesterday in the commentary about how, first of all, the very increased amount of expense of universities over the past half century, tuition has generally risen at twice the rate of inflation. Of course, you've had a number of students defaulting on their loans and the rest. The second problem we talked about yesterday is the lack of intellectual diversity on campus.

[00:01:01] Oftentimes, we have nothing but liberal and progressive professors, rarely a conservative one, and sometimes as much as a 10 to 1 ratio to pick just a few. My commentary today talks about another, which we'll get into with our guest, and that is the Supreme Court ruling against Harvard and the University of North Carolina concerning their use of racial and gender bias in admissions.

[00:01:23] Foreign influence on the campus, which I talk about in my commentary, but also in the piece you'll see a little bit later we'll talk about by Victor Davis Hanson, where he spends most of his time really talking about the attacks on Donald Trump, but then does digress into what's happening at Harvard, which has been kind of eye-opening. Then the failure to protect students on campus, well-known, whether it's Harvard or Columbia or others, and then just a lower academic standard.

[00:01:49] So my two commentaries are a very good setup for the piece which we do want to point you to right now, and that is written by Ryan Silversine. And he has written this piece, and I found it a while back in Real Clear Politics and wanted to get him on the program. He is an individual who is a law candidate at Villanova University, also a fellow with Villanova's McCullen Center for Law, Religion, and Public Policy. He's an individual that we really need to know more about.

[00:02:19] And, Ryan, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Thanks for having me. I might just mention the piece that we have. It's on pointofview.net. Of course, you can also go to Real Clear Politics to find it. Higher Education Should Learn from Hillsdale. And you begin by talking about the fact that higher education is at a crossroads, and in some respects you can understand why there's been this growing conflict,

[00:02:43] and now it's really come to a head, between the Trump administration and Harvard University and other universities, because in some respects there has been an unwillingness, especially at Harvard, we'll pick on them for just a minute, to actually deal with the need to not discriminate. We do have a 1964 Civil Rights Act. We do have all sorts of other legislation that would suggest that you should obey the dictates of the federal government,

[00:03:12] and you even have a Supreme Court case against you. And so when then the Trump administration has tried to implement that, Harvard has come back reacting and saying, you don't have a right to tell us or to dictate what we can teach, who we can admit, and who we can hire. So in some respects, that's why you wrote the piece, isn't it? No, it is. And I'll be frank, I was a little bit stunned by Harvard's response, because I didn't expect an institution of higher education like Harvard to go from, you know,

[00:03:41] championing civil rights legislation to actively calling for it to not apply to them. It was really eye-opening and stunning. And so one of the things I think we're seeing here is that your theme is, I think, a good one, higher education should learn from Hillsdale. Now, again, we've had Larry Arn, president of Hillsdale, on the program. I've had a couple of professors on there. I've had a colleague that for a while taught there.

[00:04:05] But talk about that whole issue, because many years ago, first Hillsdale, but also Grove City College and others said, it's probably not a good idea to take federal funds in the first place. I oftentimes refer to it as the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. And if you don't want the government to misinterpret Title IX or all sorts of other issues,

[00:04:31] it does seem to me that there is some wisdom that some of these independent colleges have taken by not taking funds from the federal government. What's your thoughts? Yeah, so first I just want to give your viewers some context. And that context is I'm someone who has no affiliation with Hillsdale whatsoever. I didn't go there. I don't have many friends who have gone there. I just heard of Hillsdale because of its pristine reputation. This is why I felt compelled to write this piece. Now, specifically, I want to talk about what happened in the 1980s.

[00:05:01] Well, really, back in 1975 was when I think Title VII first became a thing, and Grove City College was really opposed to it, and Hillsdale was so opposed to it that they went to their border regions and said, you know what, we're going to stop taking federal student loans for our students because we don't want to have to violate our values when teaching our students or violate our admission standards. Grove City decided to challenge it. They went to court, and Grove City lost in 1984. You know, the Supreme Court held that if you take federal monies,

[00:05:29] you're subject to federal anti-discrimination law whether you like it or not. So for higher education that now turn around and say, oh, well, we want to have our cake and eat it too, and that's not how it's worked. It's not how it's worked for over half a century. You know, they just want to do their own thing, and that's silly. When the reality is, if you wean yourself off federal funds, you don't have to rely on the federal government for money, which means you're not subject to their regulations, and more importantly,

[00:05:57] you have more academic freedom, and you can be more affordable for families. One of the things I think is interesting is you mentioned that case in 1984. I might even do a commentary on that because during that same period of time, you also had the Internal Revenue Service saying, we think it is most appropriate to pull the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University. And I was writing newspaper columns at the time, and I think the column appeared in the Dallas Morning News,

[00:06:25] the Miami Herald, Houston Post, few places like that. And I got a lot of pushback because they were saying, well, what are you doing? Are you supporting what's happened at Bob Jones? I said no. I mean, just because they have a policy that does not allow interracial dating, that isn't quite the same as violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, now they're talking about whether or not Harvard could lose its tax-exempt status

[00:06:53] because I think it is clear to point out that the Supreme Court has ruled that you're in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. True? Yeah, and, you know, I think the Bob Jones case is really interesting because you had all these liberals and leftists in the 1980s, like cheering on this case as a prevailing of liberalism. And now down the road, they're suddenly thinking, well, wait a second. This is going to affect our institutions too, not just institutions that serve its values.

[00:07:25] And, again, I think that's a good point. And back to – well, we'll take a break because we're coming up to one of the mandatory breaks. When I come back, I want to actually read that entire statement by the president of Harvard. And kind of figure out where we go because we are talking about millions of dollars of federal grants. We're talking about freezing billions of dollars of federal funds. We're talking about pulling the tax-exempt status.

[00:07:52] And as we've mentioned before, I think Harvard could survive. After all, it has an endowment of more than $50 billion. But the state point is well taken. And I think Ryan Silverstein has a great opportunity here to really remind them of the fact that maybe you could look at Hillsdale and Grove City and others

[00:08:12] and reevaluate whether or not this enterprise, known as Harvard University, is one that should be receiving both tax-exempt status as well as federal funds. So we're going to take a break, and we'll continue our conversation with Ryan right after these important messages. Stay tuned.

[00:08:54] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Yesterday, I talked about the question Victor Davis Hanson asked, Do elite universities really wish to fight the federal government? In his commentary, he unveils a half a dozen problems at universities that might cause American taxpayers to reconsider how much money should be given to them. The first two problems we talked about were the rising cost of university education and the lack of any intellectual diversity on campus.

[00:09:22] A third problem is the Supreme Court ruling against Harvard and the University of North Carolina concerning their use of racial and gender bias in admissions. Unfortunately, many of these colleges have merely rebranded their DEI office with other euphemisms. Foreign influence on campus is another problem. Over the past few decades, he says, foreign governments without audit have poured some $60 billion into America's purportedly most prestigious universities.

[00:09:48] They obviously expect to receive something for these ideologically driven investments. These universities have also failed to protect students on campus. They also turn a blind eye to when a conservative judge or a Christian speaker is shouted down on campus. Administrators may issue a statement about not tolerating violations of free speech, but then do nothing about it. A final problem is lower academic standards.

[00:10:13] Victor Davis Hanson documents that the best universities now ensure that 70% or 80% of students in their classes receive A's. But it isn't that these students have become smarter. In fact, many of these elite universities have had to provide remedial classes for incoming students. It's time for universities to restore their reputations and encourage academic excellence. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:43] For a free booklet on a biblical view of intelligent design, go to viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. Viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, Ryan Silverstein with us as we talk about his piece, Higher Education Should Learn from Hillsdale. As he pointed out, he's never been to Hillsdale, doesn't have an affiliation, nor do we.

[00:11:11] But nevertheless, I think it's a great illustration of what happens when you take money from the federal government. And so, Ryan, first of all, let me just give the quote from the professor, actually now the president of Harvard, who said, No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

[00:11:38] First of all, some of that might make some sense. We do want universities to be free. But if you're going to receive federal funds, take us through some of the conditions, because we're talking about more than just one or two federal laws. We're talking about quite a few, aren't we? Yeah, we're talking about, like, Title VII, which prohibits race or religious discrimination. Title IX, prohibiting gender discrimination.

[00:12:08] We're talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against disabled individuals. There is a plethora of federal laws that exist that these universities statutorily must comply with. And statutorily, accreditors in the Department of Education have to ensure that these universities are complying with these requirements. That's why, for an example, in the wake of Students for Fair Admission, a lot of these universities were scrambling to change their admission standards and procedures.

[00:12:35] And, again, this was a ruling that was against Harvard and University of North Carolina. And it does seem to me that whether you're looking at Americans with Disabilities Act or the Civil Rights Act or Age Discrimination Act or a number of others, we have, as you said, a very significant ruling in 1984 against Grove City College. It basically said, if you're going to accept federal funds, your subject in this case was to Title IX regulations.

[00:13:01] And, of course, the argument was made for a while under the Obama administration that even though, really, since 1975, Hillsdale College has not received money from the government, just the fact that a student might get some benefit, could be a student loan or something like that, GI Bill, whatever it might be, that's enough for us to justify imposing all sorts of Title IX regulations on Hillsdale. They didn't get very far with that.

[00:13:30] But I think it shows you that then for Harvard's president to stand up and say, nobody has the right to tell us who we can admit and who we can hire. Well, actually, yes. And we have talked about this in many cases with the issue of religious liberty. And, of course, we're learning a lot more about Harvard as well. The article we'll get to later by Victor Davis Hanson really talks about how the media has been attacking Donald Trump.

[00:13:58] But since one of those attacks was about Harvard, he reminds us, interestingly enough, that then after the statements being made that we should still receive federal funds, then you found out about a China-Harvard program that actually allowed Chinese paramilitary organizations to participate, even though they had sanctioned the role of the state Chinese violence against the Uyghurs.

[00:14:25] You had something else in terms of a comprehensive Harvard University study and report that came out talking about the anti-Semitism on the campus. And then the one that still just causes me to roll my eyes, since you are in the law school as well, Harvard Law Review actually is right now being investigated by the Department of Education Civil Rights Division

[00:14:49] because they bestowed a $65,000 fellowship to a law student. And that $65,000 went to an individual who, either for or despite the fact that he was attacking the Harvard Business School Jewish student during one of the anti-Israel protests and actually had misdemeanor criminal charges.

[00:15:16] And so spending $65,000 for an anti-Semitic attacker was even kind of beyond the pale. And, of course, you also had last year in graduation a number of students disrupted their own graduation with walkouts and shouting, Free Palestine. So it does seem to me, Ryan, that for the Department of Education, for certainly the Justice Department,

[00:15:42] and for the President to say, Harvard, either you comply with federal regulations or you lose all the federal funding and maybe even in the future you lose your tax-exempt status. Does that make sense? No, no, it absolutely does. And you already had them, the Secretary of Education, come out and say, Hey, Harvard, don't even bother applying for federal grants because we're going to deny you those grants because you're not complying with federal anti-experimentation law. And it's funny, there are two routes Harvard honestly could follow.

[00:16:12] The first route is to just follow the Hillsdale model and reject federal money, and they can become more affordable that way. But they don't want to do that. So their other option, what they can do, is they can follow Dartmouth, right? And what Dartmouth did is really, really smart. You know, unlike Harvard, where Harvard just refuses to comply with federal anti-discrimination law. You know what Dartmouth did? Within a day of those encampments being set up on Dartmouth's campus, Dartmouth sent in the police, broke it up, and refused to let students run these islands.

[00:16:38] And, again, let's face it, Harvard could afford that in your piece. And, again, I'm not necessarily endorsing Hillsdale, although I think it's a great place for your kids to go. But you do point out the fact that, first of all, since 1975, Hillsdale College has not received a dime from the government. And that has been very helpful because then they're able to keep true to their own values, their own curriculum. They have academic freedom. Of course, they've been receiving the Imprimus newsletter for decades.

[00:17:07] And, interestingly enough, when the national average for tuition is $43,000 a year, Hillsdale is $31,000 a year. Very attractive. And as a result, it has certainly got great academic rigor. It's well-rated by U.S. News and World Report. And, in some respects, I think that some of the success of Hillsdale came because they chose not to be influenced by the federal government

[00:17:33] and then begin to teach some of these really important values that have made Western civilization great and made America great. So, I just appreciate the fact that you brought attention to an organization that, from time to time, we get a chance to talk about. Yeah, you know, I think it's important to point out as well that Hillsdale is not only affordable, it's hard to get into. They only have, like, a 20% acceptance rate. And they're one of the top 50 national liberal arts colleges in the United States.

[00:18:01] They're a nationally regarded university college that has great curriculum and is academically rigorous. So, again, I think that is one issue. The other one, and, of course, this maybe is beyond your column, but it's one I've been talking about. If you actually went to a point where instead of the federal government guaranteeing a student loan, the universities did so.

[00:18:23] And let's look at Harvard because, according to your estimates, maybe $53 billion in endowment, they could very easily actually provide scholarships and loans. Now, scholarships, I know going to an Ivy League school myself, are actually ones that don't have to be repaid, but student loans do.

[00:18:43] But there would be a greater incentive, I think, for the university to make sure that students were actually serious about their education, maybe taking various kinds of courses that would contribute to their success. And they'd have a much more vested interest in making sure that they graduate in four years. So I think there is a lot to be said about Harvard being willing to go its own way.

[00:19:08] And if it wants to have the academic freedom to determine what they teach, who they admit, who they hire, and all the rest. By the way, I think in some cases they would still receive lawsuits for some of that. That would be probably in their best interest. So, first of all, Ryan, I thank you for writing this piece. And we hope we can call on you in the future. I know that you have appeared on Fox News and you've written for Real Clear Politics and New York Post and others.

[00:19:33] And so I appreciate the fact that we found this article by you and I hope that we can call on you again to write about some of these other very important issues here in our society. Anytime. Thanks for having me. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, let's get into some of the issues in the news. Did want to talk about tariffs. I've got one piece on tariffs in Canada, another one on tariffs in India, two different responses to the tariffs. Kevin McCullough has been on the program with us before.

[00:20:01] It doesn't have to be this way. I wanted you to hear that piece very quickly because you're going to hear some very tearful stories about individuals being deported. And he dug into one which I think is really helpful for you to understand that sometimes what you hear or see in the media isn't complete. Doesn't tell you the whole story. And then we'll come, of course, in this last segment, if we can, to the piece by Victor Davis Hanson.

[00:20:31] He calls it one fake left-wing hysteria to the other. I called it fables, scandals, and hysteria in which he just again takes some time to back away and say, this is what they're saying in the media. And so we'll get into some of those, one of which, of course, has to do with the Trump administration and Harvard. But he takes on many other issues as well, including the economy.

[00:20:54] And it's just a reminder as we wind down the program for today about the fact that you shouldn't take everything that you see, read, and hear at face value. Read widely. Check it out. That's why we even have a link to his article there, which then has a link to other things that you can read as well. Lots of things for us to put on the table. Let's take a break, and we'll get to those right after these important messages.

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[00:22:45] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again. Let's, if we can, talk about some of the tariffs.

[00:23:13] And then we'll talk about deportation because a couple of very important issues on the table. First is that we have had a situation with Canada. And the other day, we had President Donald Trump and the new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, in the Oval Office, I should say. And they made an announcement during the press conference about that.

[00:23:38] But while they were talking about it, I was struck by the fact that even as he's sitting next to Mark Carney, he's also pointing out that India had the highest tariffs in the world and its government has agreed to drop it. And so he was talking about the fact that they were going to drop that to nothing. We'll get into more of that in just a minute.

[00:23:59] But while you have the two leaders there, they were talking about everything from tariffs to the possibility that Canada would be the 51st state of the United States. Of course, that's not going to happen. But nevertheless, the question at one point was, is there anything we can say to you in the course of your meetings with him today that would get you to lift the tariffs on Canada? And Trump's blunt reply was no. And the reporter asked, why not?

[00:24:29] And he said, well, it's just the way it is. And so basically, they went back and forth about the tariffs. And then, of course, they got into the whole question of what was going to be happening with Canada. And this is where Mark Carney said, well, Canadians' views on all these issues, whether it's, you know, the Canadians will be part of the 51st state of the U.S. or something like that, just not going to happen.

[00:24:57] And so basically, his statement was, we are the largest client of the United States in the totality of all the goods. So we are the largest client in the United States. We have a tremendous auto sector between the two of us. And the changes made have been helpful. Fifty percent of a car that comes from Canada is American. That's not like anywhere else in the world. And to your question about, is there one thing? No, this is a bigger discussion. There are going to be bigger forces involved. And this will take some time and some discussions.

[00:25:27] And that's why we're here, to have these discussions. And that's represented by who's sitting around the table. Well, at this point, the president had to make a few statements. And he continued by making this statement about auto manufacturing. Quote, we don't really want cars from Canada. And we put tariffs on cars from Canada. And at a certain point, I won't make economic sense for Canada to build those cars. And we don't want steel from Canada because we're making our own steel.

[00:25:54] We're having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak. We really don't want Canadian steel. We really don't want Canadian aluminum and various other things because we want to be able to do it ourselves. We have a tremendous deficit with Canada. In other words, they have a surplus with us. And there's no reason for us to be subsidizing Canada. Canada is a place that will be able to take care of itself economically. So we'll see where this goes. But again, a lot of people say, why are we treating one of our best friends that way?

[00:26:23] And Donald Trump says, well, because they are taking advantage of us. And so that meeting ended with a lot of back and forth and some very strong statements about, no, Canada is not going to be the 51st state. Trump again said, well, you just never know. So there is the case. But you might remember that Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs, which he announced in the beginning of April.

[00:26:47] And that brings us to a very different reaction in a joint press conference with an individual here who was from India. And that is where he said the Indian government will actually drop that. He says they'll drop it to nothing. They've already agreed they would have done that for anybody else but me. They would never have done it for anybody else but me. I guess I read that wrong. So we're going to put some numbers down.

[00:27:16] We're going to say our country is open for business. And they're going to come in and they're going to pay. So, again, we have some interesting comments being made there. So you had a press conference with a Canadian prime minister. You had the announcement from India. And I think you see two remarkably different reactions to that. And so when people say, well, do tariffs work? Well, they worked at least in terms of a threat to India. And we'll see where that plays out in the next couple of weeks.

[00:27:45] I posted most of the articles there so you can read all the details. I probably went into it in more detail than we need. But I also wanted to leave some time for a piece by Kevin McCullough. He's been on the program with us in the past. And he says, just think about there's a knock at the door, 530 a.m. You're kind of waking up. Maybe your child's still asleep. Maybe you're awake and getting coffee. All of a sudden, the door is kicked in. Individual forces his way into your home, snatches your child, and disappears in the early morning dark.

[00:28:14] Well, that is a nightmare, obviously. But he says it didn't have to be. The man he's talking about is Ramon Escobar Garcia, who is not only a violent predator. He's not even supposed to be in this country. He's from Guatemala. He has no legal right to be here. But instead of protecting the American citizens, Kevin says,

[00:28:36] The blue city judge and the DA dropped the charges against him, charges that included home invasion and child abduction. And he says, let's make this plain. Every crime this man committed represents a real victim. When Escobar Garcia illegally entered the U.S., he wasn't just a line in a government file. He trespassed. It wasn't some minor offense. He was violating someone's sanctuary.

[00:29:06] When he kidnapped a child, it wasn't a dispute or a misunderstanding, as the left loves to phrase these things. It was the most traumatic moment in that child's life. It was a trust broken forever. It was the stuff that shatters a family. And when a blue city prosecutor, Kevin McCullough says, decided to drop those charges, that wasn't restorative justice. It was dereliction of duty. It was aiding and abetting unknown criminal.

[00:29:35] It was the betrayal of the oath to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. And this, in some respects, what he says we've come to. It's no longer protect and serve. It's release and reelect. And so, again, he says this is what it looks like. And if anything, what we should have been seeing is this. Here's what he would recommend instead.

[00:30:01] Ice agent chasing him down after the courts releasing him. This is what it looks like when the governor, Glenn Youngkin, telling the feds to do their jobs when the local jurisdiction fails to do theirs. This is what it looks like when Homeland Security is tracking and detaining someone who never should have been here in the first place. And he says this is what leadership looks like. So when you hear these stories sometimes, you say you only get part of the story.

[00:30:31] You hear about this man being removed, but you don't hear the rest. And as he points out in the rest of his article, this man, again, an individual by the name of Ramon Escobar Garcia, didn't just fall out of the sky. He was arrested in March for multiple felonies. Police believed him to be a dangerous enough individual to publicly warn the community.

[00:30:55] Yet somehow in this democratically run Fairfax County court, they dismissed every charge. Now, what possible excuse is that? Is this, as he says, what a Soros back prosecutor calls compassionate justice? Is this what the ACLU means when it says our immigration system is too harsh? He says, tell that to the family whose front door was shattered. Tell to the parents whose child was snatched in the dark.

[00:31:25] Tell it to the neighbors who now check their locks five times a night. And he points out that every release of a violent illegal criminal is a sentence handed down on the American people. And don't let them pretend you to the way that that is rare. He then begins to give you the list. New York, Los Angeles, sanctuary cities, unwillingness to cooperate with ICE and on and on and on. And so he says this isn't just about the criminals.

[00:31:52] It's about the judges, he says, who sign the release forms. It's about the prosecutors who drop slam dunk charges. It's about city councils who tie law enforcement's hands. It's about every elected Democrat who tells you it's racist to want your family to be safe. They say walls don't work, but the only walls that seem to be torn down at the moment are the ones between your family and chaos.

[00:32:17] And so he says these judicial activists don't see criminals like Escobar Garcia as threats. They see them as political talking points. This isn't soft on crime. Kevin McCullough says it's complicit in crime. It doesn't have to be this way.

[00:32:32] Imagine a justice system where citizens come first, where immigration law is enforced, where dangerous individuals are deported before they can harm anyone, where the law actually protects the innocent instead of enabling the guilty. This is not fantasy, he says.

[00:32:51] That's exactly what ICE, Governor Yunkin of Virginia and Homeland Security are trying to do in spite of some of the sabotage coming from the other side. So he ends by saying, thank God for ICE, thank God for Governor Yunkin, thank God for the Department of Health and Department of Homeland Security, I should say. If nothing else, it's basic common sense because it doesn't have to be this way.

[00:33:18] And so the title of this, it doesn't have to be this way, is just a reminder of sometimes we see something and we only get part of the picture. But he also says, it doesn't have to be this way. Let's catch people before they commit crimes because they're here illegal in the first place. And that's exactly what his piece is about. It's on our website if you'd like to read more. And we'll be back right after this.

[00:33:52] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let's see if we can focus on this last article by Victor Davis Hanson. But let me just give you kind of a preview of tomorrow. Penn and Dexter will be joining us by phone for just a few minutes because we'll be talking about, again, the Viewpoints commentaries that we encourage you to sign up for. But then we'll have Robert George, Professor Robert George, talking about his book Truth Matters.

[00:34:18] And that was an interview we were going to have with him a while back and we're not able to do so. And then we're going to spend the entire second hour with our good friend Lee Strobel. His new book, Seeing the Supernatural, as you are well aware, he's produced a whole bunch of books lately that are all about apologetics, you know, arguing for the existence of God, is God real, talking about heaven and talking about out-of-body experiences. This one, Seeing the Supernatural, gets you back into, of course, he's done one on miracles. A lot of great books.

[00:34:48] And this is the newest book out, New York Times bestseller, as you might imagine. And so we'll spend some time with a good friend in the second hour tomorrow with Lee Strobel. Just before we wind down, let me mention that Victor Davis Hanson has been saying we're just dealing with all of these, if you will, scandals and various kinds of, if you will, collusions

[00:35:12] and any kind of various kinds of paranoid looks at the world. And he says, you know, we had decade-old fables like the Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, the whole cause of COVID and all of those. And we thought maybe that would be the end of it. And he reminds us, no, we just hit midstream.

[00:35:36] Because more recently, just in April alone, he points out that you had Trump either has guaranteed inevitable recession or Trump has engineered a losing trade war that we're going to regret or that Trump has crashed the stock market or that Trump has lost his majority favorability railings or that Trump has had mostly a failed first 100 days or, he says, F, all of the above.

[00:36:06] And so he takes on some of those for just a few minutes and, first of all, reminds us that when you look at some of the economic issues, you do have to put a smile on your face or roll your eyes or something else because when the Biden administration had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, which are the classic definition of recession, all the pundits out there that were supportive of Donald Trump, I mean of Joe Biden,

[00:36:36] were assuring us that the data was meaningless. We don't have two consecutive quarters of negative GDP because, of course, we've only had one quarter under Trump anyway. But nevertheless, we're already being assured that we're in the midst of that. And so in some respects, that is amazing to me that at a time when they were so willing to say,

[00:37:02] well, I don't think that two consecutive quarters of negative GDP should qualify as a recession. Now, if there's even a dip in the stock market, well, then we're headed for recession. I think you could honestly say we've been in recession for some time, but that's a different story for a different day. Well, then, what about this? Because the argument being made, the polls are showing that Donald Trump is losing and all the rest,

[00:37:30] but he says, as for those polls showing that Trump was all but through after three months in office, almost all of them were wrong during the 2016 presidential campaign and were again wrong in 2020, and yet again were wrong in 2024. This is the same bunch of pollsters who assured us with final authority in the 2024 election poll

[00:37:57] that Kamala Harris was going to win the race by four points, a lead that supposedly was outside the margin of error, and instead she lost the popular vote by 1.5% of the votes and lost the electoral college 312 to 226. And so as soon as you get some of these polls that don't look good, those are front and center. And he does a comparison,

[00:38:26] and you can go and read it in your leisure if you'd like, between, say, a Washington Post poll, a New York Times poll, maybe a Rasmussen poll, a Trafalgar poll, or some of the others. And I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about polls because, if nothing else, we've found that it really depends on who you're polling and whether or not you have had any successful track record in the past. And there is a reason to have some doubts about all of that.

[00:38:54] But then, as he goes on to talk about the economy, which I wanted to focus some time and attention on, as far as the supposed economic and stock meltdown for March and April, if you look at March and April so far, the monthly economic reports show that job growth was not only impressive, but even above market expectations, with a special emphasis on permanent rather than part-time jobs,

[00:39:22] even as the number of federal workers went down. In the past, oftentimes, you had to pay attention to those job numbers to see how many of those were federal workers being hired under the Biden administration. But in this particular case, the job numbers were better than predicted. Bet you didn't hear that in the mainstream media. And, of course, then something else you probably didn't hear, unless you're watching maybe some of the conservative programs,

[00:39:49] the number of multi-trillion dollar investments and relocations of businesses to the United States continue as was predicted by Donald Trump. Again, you probably don't hear that in the mainstream media. Well, what about inflation? Because that's another thing people are talking about. And, again, inflation in March and April either did not increase or, in fact, actually declined. And so, again, you can see some of those issues.

[00:40:19] And then he devotes a little bit of time to, of course, the conversation we had just a few minutes ago with Ryan Silverstein, and that is the media, and especially the people in the university settings, have been almost, as he says, in hysterics over Trump's threats of suspending federal funding to higher education unless it makes reforms that are consistent with the Supreme Court decisions and the Department of Education guidelines.

[00:40:48] And then goes into quite a bit over time of talking about what has happened at Harvard. And, of course, I get into some of that today in my commentaries dealing with what I called the elite universities part one and part two. But there are others that have just surfaced now since I've even written those. One has to do with the fact that there is a program, an actual funding program between China and Harvard,

[00:41:15] and yet some of the Harvard programs actually aided members that have been part of the Chinese paramilitary organization that have been those that were previously sanctioned for their role in the Chinese state violence which was conducted against the Uyghurs. You also, of course, have the whole issue of anti-Semitism. And the in-house report that came from Harvard University itself

[00:41:45] about the routine harassment and threats to Harvard Jewish students. And then, of course, the one that I mentioned with Ryan about Harvard Law Review, which is now being investigated by the Department of Education Civil Rights Division, bestowing a fellowship grant to a law student who has been charged, and I believe now convicted, of criminal charges

[00:42:10] as he was attacking students during some of the anti-Israel protests. So, again, the problems from China get worse as every day goes further, and we're learning some other things that will, again, be topics we will probably cover on Friday. Let me, one last time, just mention tomorrow, we'll have Professor Robert George with us, as well as our good friend Lee Strobel for an entire hour,

[00:42:39] two hours, the second hour, seeing the supernatural. Some great opportunities to spend some time with him, learning, again, how we can make the case for Christianity. So, let's, if we can, first of all, say thank you to Karen being in studio and behind the scenes as well. Of course, to Megan, engineering the program, as well as Steve, producing the program. And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow on our Thursday edition of Point of View.

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