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Dinesh D'Souza Imagines a World Without America in New Book & Documentary

PoliticKING with Larry KingJun 13 '14

Bestselling author & filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza joins Larry and accuses Obama of intentionally shrinking America's power in the world & opens up about his new book & documentary, which examines whether the U.S. should be seen as a source of pride or shame.

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

LARRY KING: He’s been described as one of the most influential conservative thinkers in the United States: the bestselling author, political commentator, and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. Why does he believe the United States is in the midst of creating national suicide and who does he blame for the undoing of America’s founding values? It’s all next on PoliticKing.

[Movie clip from America plays]

KING: Welcome to PoliticKing. I’m Larry King. New York Times bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza joins me here in studio. His latest book is entitled America: Imagine a World Without Her. He is co-writer and director of a documentary by the same name, which will be out July 2nd and we’ll see some clips from that during the program. Why this title?

DINESH D’SOUZA: Because I am an immigrant to America.

KING: From?

D’SOUZA: From India. I grew up in Bombay. I came to this country at the age of 17. I’ve written 12 books. This is my 13th book. And I realize as I look back on them—I’ve written books on education, civil rights, on capitalism—they’re all in some ways about America, because as an immigrant, I think I have a dual perspective. I see America from the inside. I’ve grown up here. I went to college here. But I also retain a little bit of that outsider feeling of America in which I’m always comparing America to other cultures, to the rest of the world. And I think that dual perspective informs all my writing.

KING: And the idea of a world without her would leave the world where? Well we’d have a tremendous space between the oceans.

D’SOUZA: Well, right [laughs]

KING: The Atlantic to the Pacific would be a giant—it’d beat the Indian Ocean.

D’SOUZA: There are different ways for America not to exist. So if a meteor hit the continent and vaporized it 10,000 years ago, there would be no America. But here’s another way: if a British sniper had shot George Washington and the American Revolution hadn’t gone down, there would be America the landmass. There’d be people here, but we wouldn’t have an American Revolution, an American Constitution. This America would not exist.

KING: We’d be Canada.

D’SOUZA: We’d be Canada. Or if Hitler got the atomic bomb. Remember, Hitler had the most sophisticated bomb project under Werner Heisenberg. He would’ve dropped it, and America would not be the way it is now. So the reason I’m asking these questions is I’m thinking forward. What would the future look like if America begins to recede in importance? To me, as an immigrant, it’s a terrifying idea. Why? Because America has meant so much in the world. America is something very special in history. A new sort of form of government, a new lifestyle, a new American dream? Nobody else has a dream the way we do in America. And as an immigrant, that’s what I came here for. And it’s sad for me to see that this America, this dream, I think is shrinking a little bit today.

KING: But haven’t we overcome some of our faults? We’ve overcome, hopefully, racial bias. We’ve overcome inequality for women. We’ve created an atmo—we’re a pretty great place. And where do you see that diminishing? Where are we not great?

D’SOUZA: First of all, it’s important to remember the things we overcame weren’t our things. So for example, slavery was going on all over the world, right? There was slavery in India, slavery in China. Greeks and Romans had slaves. American Indians had slaves long before Columbus. So what is uniquely American is not slavery. What is uniquely American is we’re the only country to fight a big war in which 600,000 people died to get rid of slavery. Nobody else has done that.

KING: That’s what I mean. We overcame it.

D’SOUZA: Right. And the reason we did that is because right from the beginning, there was the principle of, “All men are created equal.” So even though it wasn’t being practiced, it was nagging on the American conscience and ultimately a whole bunch of white guys who didn’t have slaves went to their deaths to end slavery as an institution.

KING: Let’s discuss some current issues. I’m anxious to read this and we’re going to show clips from it. I imagine there’s more books coming from you, Dinesh. You’re not going to slow down. The book is America: Imagine a World Without Her. It’s also going to be a major motion picture. A documentary, obviously.

D’SOUZA: Now this is new for me. I did the film 2016, which is about Obama’s history. And I thought, look, Obama is important and interesting and so is Hillary, but the big topic here is America and what has America meant to the world. So the new film is called America and it’s out in theaters for the July 4th Independence Day weekend.

KING: Good timing.

D’SOUZA: Good timing.

KING: We’ll get to some political subjects and parts of the book, too. What’s your thoughts on the release of the American prisoner exchange?

D’SOUZA: I think it’s just a terrible idea and the question I’m thinking about is why would someone do that? You have these hardened Taliban commanders and they’re clearly guys who have been captured in shooting wars against America. They’re very anti-American. Now, you might say that’s a price worth paying to get an American back. And I understand that. But—

KING: Israel does it all the time.

D’SOUZA: Israel does it all the time?

KING: They release thousands.

D’SOUZA: And we exchanged prisoners with the Nazis. I mean, this is part --

KING: It’s always been done.

D’SOUZA: This is part of the practice of a war.

KING: What’s so unusual?

D’SOUZA: Well, I think what’s bad about it in this particular case is that that the soldier that they’re bringing back seems to be similar to the Taliban in his view of America. In other words, here is a guy who is apparently a deserter. Here is a guy who apparently caused other Americans to risk their lives—

KING: But we don’t know all that yet.

D’SOUZA: We don’t know enough.

KING: So you’re jumping the gun a little.

D’SOUZA: We don’t all the facts. We will know them as they all come out. But I’m just saying going on what we know, this looks like a very questionable deal. I think part of the—there’s a bigger picture here. And that is, under Obama, you’ve seen American interests weaken around the world. Look at the Middle East. You couldn’t do one thing in the Middle East without America having a big say-so. But recently, it seems like from Egypt to the Arab Spring, you have, one by one, American allies like Mubarak—not a perfect guy by any means.

KING: [laughs]

D’SOUZA: Yeah, a dictator. But, in getting rid of the bad guy, you always want to make sure you avoid the worse guy. Poor Jimmy Carter helped to get rid of the Shah and the Shah had a secret police. But look, we got Khomeini. So from the frying pan into the fire, America has had a nightmare in Iran for 30 years because of the Khomeini revolution.

KING: And how about—do you think going to Iraq was correct?

D’SOUZA: I think, in retrospect, it was a mistake. And I certainly think—

KING: Terrible mistake.

D’SOUZA: Yeah. You can’t say, “We’re going in for weapons of mass destruction. Oops! There aren’t any.” To me, that’s unconscionable.

KING: So why do you level Obama so much and not level Bush, who created this?

D’SOUZA: Well, I think the Iraq invasion was a mistake. Now, Afghanistan is a different deal and I think with Obama, he came in and he seemed to understand the distinction. In fact, he campaigned. He said, “Iraq is a bad war. Afghanistan—”

KING: He sent more troops to Afghanistan.

D’SOUZA: “—it’s the good war.” But look, the Taliban—those are not good guys. They’re not good guys not only in the foreign policy, but they are the most radical Muslims in the world. And radical Islam is probably the most illiberal force in the world today. So I don’t understand why we don’t recognize that in Afghanistan we are dealing with a serious problem and we need to deal with it.

KING: How do you react to Obama’s statement that America is a hammer, but all problems aren’t ants?

D’SOUZA: Well, I agree with that. I don’t think we’re the world’s policemen. I’m a young Reaganite. I came of age in the Reagan years and if you remember, Reagan had something called the Reagan Doctrine. Now, the Reagan Doctrine is this: we do not fight for other peoples’ freedom. They fight. We help. So when the Mujahideen in Afghanistan were fighting to push the Soviets out, we didn’t send hundreds of thousands of troops. We just sent some advisers. We gave them some Stinger rockets to shoot down Soviet helicopters. So I think America should be careful in committing the use of force, but we should be a friend to liberty around the world.

KING: In today’s Republican Party, where would Reagan be?

D'SOUZA: I think Reagan would be… 

KING: He wouldn’t be a tea party? 

D'SOUZA: ...he would be baffled because I think to me, the republicans today are really out of it, in fact they’re in a little bit of a huddle here, how do we take back the senate? You know the left recognizes that this is a much broader argument about America so the left is marching through education, academia, the media, Hollywood, influencing young people and so shifting the goalposts of the culture, meanwhile the republicans are fighting in one corner of the battle field so part of what I’m trying to do, I’m a think tank guy, I used to, I have been mainly writing books, but the reason I’m making movies is I said listen, I want to join this big American argument, I want to get out there, talk to ordinary people, and so films are a way to reach millions of people. 

KING: Are you virulently anti-Obama? 

D'SOUZA: I’m not virulently anti-Obama, because I sort of understand Obama, I mean to me, to me, Obama and I have traveled opposite paths. I’m a third world guy who has embraced America, Obama is an American born guy, that’s where the birthers are wrong, he was born here. But because of his dad and his unique background, growing up in Hawaii, Indonesia, his multiple trips to Kenya, I think he is sort of embraced as a third world-ish or global ideology, so the two of us have sort of gone in the opposite direction. I admire him. 

KING: It doesn't make him anti-American, he just has a different philosophy. 

D'SOUZA: He has a different philosophy, I never say that he hates America, or that he… 

KING: But you said that he wants America power to shrink… 

D'SOUZA: Right so… 

KING: why would he want it to shrink, why would anyone want power to shrink? 

D'SOUZA: Well i’ll tell you why. Let’s say I’m a believer in, let’s not say I, Obama, Obama believes in global justice, so Obama believes that the West got rich through Colonialism, invading and occupying these poor countries, Obama says, why should America, who has 5% of the world’s population enjoy 25% of the world’s wealth? why should we use so much energy? Why should we use to much health care? What right do we have to tell other countries what to do? So I think what Obama would like to see, he’s not trying to destroy America, he’s just trying to make America a normal country, like Greece or Uganda, one country at the big dining table of nations. Now to me, that’s bad, because I like America to be the sole superpower, I don’t see the commerce of the world’s oceans traveling smoothly without the U.S. Navy sitting there to make sure pirates don’t board ships… 

KING: Well sometime when you’re that way, you can have the world disliking you, and if the world dislikes you, you don’t get support when you need support, it’s a small world... 

D'SOUZA: It’s a small world… 

KING: You need the Chinas and you need Europe, you need Asia, you need that. 

D'SOUZA: I couldn’t agree more, but I think that we need to exercise both soft and hard power and what that means it, we need to make friends wherever we can, but we also need to be tough, so for example, China is modernizing its military, China is building up its nuclear arsenal, if I was America I would say, alright, let me make friends with India and Japan and Korea to block the rising power of China, so it’s one thing to say we all want to be happy friends, it’s another thing to say, there are powerful forces in the world that are coming up and America needs to protect its own interests. 

KING: We recently marked the 70th anniversary of D-day, I remember it very well because I was 11 years old, you call it one of the triumphs of America’s so called greatest generation, you write, “the greatest generation failed in one important respect, it couldn’t produce another great generation.” How is it supposed to do that? 

D'SOUZA: Well 

KING: was it their responsibility to produce another generation, how… 

D'SOUZA: No, I wouldn’t say it was it’s responsibility, to me what I love about the greatest generation, it wasn’t just that it won World War II, it’s what it did afterward, because lots of people would have fought World War II, the Japanese attacked us, it’s not surprising we got into it, but, we rebuilt Japan and Germany after the war, that is unprecedented, the Romans would never have done that… 

KING: It was Truman, the Truman doctrine which conservatives opposed. 

D'SOUZA: If they opposed at the time, they would be wrong to do that. 

KING: They did oppose 

D'SOUZA: Yes alright, well I think that was a mistake because, you know we see a small glimpse of it even later in Afghanistan, where American planes are bombing these Taliban targets but dropping food, and I’m like, wow, you know, what other empire does this? Consider the fate of civilians on the other side? So, the point I want to make about the greater generation was, it was created by the depression and World War II, it was a generation formed in hardship, so I understand in the 50’s, when America started doing well, these people said, ‘let’s give our kids everything they wanted’ but the problem was you then created the spoiled brats of the 1960’s, the Clinton generation, so when I compare the World War II generation with the 60’s generation, I’m going with the World War II generation. 

KING: More with the best selling author and film maker, Dinesh D’Souza, right after this

D'SOUZA: In 2009, Barack Obama was asked, do you believe America is unique? Do you believe in American exceptionalism? Obama said yes, but then he added something odd, he said ‘I believe America’s exceptional in the same way that the brits believe Britain is exceptional, or the greeks believe Greece is exceptional’ so in a sense, Obama was undercutting his previous answer because obviously if everyone thinks they’re exceptional, the implication is that no one really is. So American exceptionalism, which the founders believed in, has become controversial in our time. I think what’s fascinating about this debate about American exceptionalism is that today, on the right and the left, both sides afirm American exceptionalism. The difference is that the conservatives believe America is exceptionally good while the progressives, the Obama types, believe America is especially bad.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

D'SOUZA: I love America, I chose this country. And like millions of immigrants I’ve been blessed by my life in America. This country does something truly unique, it allows you to write the script of your own life.

KING: That was a clip from the new documentary ‘America, imagine a world without her’ based on this book, it opens by the way, in July. The co-writer and director of that film is Dinesh D’Souza, he’s my guest. The book with the same name is out now. I’ve been calling you DinIsh, it’s DinEsh, I apologize.

D'SOUZA: It’s quite okay. 

KING: But I like DinIsh better, in fact, you oughta think, about calling yourself DinIsh. It has more impact. 

D'SOUZA: You know, my middle name is Joseph, and my friends once said to me, you can’t write books with names like Dinesh or Dinish, nobody knows, no one can pronounce that, use your middle name. But I find actually using my real name is more memorable. 

KING: You recently, last month, you plead guilty to a charge, you used straw donors to make a $20,000 illegal contribution. Why did you plead guilty? Why’d you do that? 

D'SOUZA: I was a complete idiot. My friend… 

KING: what did you do? 

D'SOUZA: well, I’ll tell you, my friend, Wendy Long, was running for the senate in New York City, and I told her, Wendy, please don’t run, you have no chance to win… 

KING: Against Gillibrand? right? 

D'SOUZA: Yes, against Gillibrand. It was the incumbent with a lot of money. Uh, so in any event, what I did was I gave $20,000 to Wendy Long above the campaign finance. you’re allowed to give $10,000, per couple, I gave $20,000 more. I had no bad intentions, I was swamped, I should have set up a PAC, there are ten legal ways to do it, I just did something really stupid and so I plead guilty to it and I’ll get my lumps for it. 

KING: But you’re telling me you won’t be able to vote 

D'SOUZA: I’m just going to have to use my influence to convince others to vote, yes, it’s terrible, as an immigrant, I never thought I’d be in this position. And I must say, I am worried that with the Obama guys, and I’m not talking about my case, as I look around the landscape, my partner, Jerry Molen, who's the producer of Schindler's List and Jurassic Park, right after we made the film 2016, boom, he gets approached by the IRS, our investors get approached by the IRS… 

KING: That’s Nixonian 

D'SOUZA: Yeah, this is all bad stuff, because, and I don’t think, to be honest, this is not a liberal-democratic or republican thing, I don’t see Clinton doing this, I don’t see Jimmy Carter doing it, there’s a certain sense in which, when you have control of the government, you shouldn’t be using it as a weapon against your critics. 

KING: But you did wrong? 

D'SOUZA: I did do wrong and I admit it. 

KING: Do you think you might go to jail? 

D'SOUZA: I think I might. I hope I don’t and I’ll make the case for why I shouldn’t. I haven’t done this, obviously, before… 

KING: $20,000, that seems minor, you can plea deal that, can’t you? 

D'SOUZA: Well, the other thing about it is, the election laws are there for corruptions, and usually when people do this stuff they’re bundling and trying to get something out of it, there’s some quid pro quo, there’s none of that in this case. It was a misguided effort to help a friend.

KING: Are you meeting with prosecutors?

D'SOUZA: I’ve already met with them, they are sort of out to get me I would have to say. My confidence is really more in the judicial system than it is in the judge and he’s the one who decides my fate.

KING: In an interview you said some years back you said, “same sex marriages don’t work because marriage does not civilize men.Women do, “ but now you see the tide going the other way.

D'SOUZA: The tide is definitely going the other way --

KING: What’s wrong with it?

D'SOUZA: I don't really know. I mean I have to say historically this is completely untested, you know? There have been...historically marriage has been in so many different forms polygamy has existed in many known cultures. Incest. You know, the ancient egyptians and so on. Gay marriage is new. And its impact on society, on kids, completely unknown. So we are sort of in uncharted territory here.I can see how we got here.The point that I was making in that quip, and it was only a quip, was to say “listen, that the way men behave themselves is not because they are married, its because of the civilizing influence of women. Women have a way of transforming men,” and that’s all I was saying.That gay marriage doesn’t do that. So we’ll have to see. I mean I’m open to the idea of what’s going to happen but we’re just have to watch it carefully

KING: But as a realist, you see it coming

D'SOUZA: As a realist --

KING: I mean the tide is in.

D'SOUZA: The tide is in, and I think the reason why the tide is in is because what the gay movement has done very effectively is piggyback on the civil rights movement. So in the civil rights movement, essentially the argument was that race is the painted face, right? Race is not something that tells you anything about the inside of somebody and so race established the nondiscrimination principle allowing other groups to piggyback on it and say “well yeah” --

KING: Many blacks resented --

D’SOUZA: Well blacks are very uncomfortable by this because gay is not the new black for the way they see it

KING: All right, lets get to some political things.Do you have a republican in the mix?

D’SOUZA: I don’t in fact I’ve been a little bit alarmed by the quality of the republican candidates over the past 20 years.It seems to me the party has been inept in picking strong candidates to run against the democrats. Its a big country, they exist.But somehow they are not being fielded and it must be something about the process thats not coughing up --

KING: The primary...

D’SOUZA: The right guys.

KING: If the tea party has such impact so a candidate who might be able, lets say that Jeb Bush, he might not be able to win the primaries, right?

D’SOUZA: I do think that in this year, I was at the Republican Leadership Conference to speak in a couple of months ago and I noticed a newer awareness.Pick if you will the most conservative candidate who can win. So not pick the most conservative candidate, period, but pick the most conservative candidate --

KING: So who in your mind is that?

D’SOUZA: Who is electable? I don’t know because I think Hillary would be a very formidable candidate. She’s historic first woman running. I dont really know. I focus, I have been focusing my energy on issues and little bit on Obama and the Democrats in my book and in my film I really focused on the power of the progressive movement as it has developed since the 1960s. I’ve been sort of neglecting the conservative side.

KING: I guess you feel Hillary is a definite run?

D’SOUZA: I think that she is very likely. And remember that she’s, you know I think an interesting question would be of Hillary’s, is she more like Bill or is she more like Barack? So I think a lot of Americans are hoping that she is more like Bill so that they will get Bill-ary. But if you’ve --

KING: You agree Bill was a pretty good President?

D’SOUZA: I agree Bill was a pretty good President. I think that he was a good guy. And of course he is a patriot and America did very well in the ‘90s. I think that that being said that Hillary ideologically is probably closer to Obama than she is to Bill.

KING: Do you think that she was in an effective Secretary of State?

D’SOUZA: I think that she was an effective Secretary of State but she was an effective Secretary of State under a bad leader. So in other words, an effective Secretary of State would carry out the mission that is just like an effective Commander in the military will carry out a mission. But it needs to be a good mission in order for it to leave us better off.

KING: So she failed? Or she succeeded? Or --

D’SOUZA: Well she succeeded -

KING:What does she get? An A or a B? --

D’SOUZA: Right. She succeeded operationally. So a little bit like if I were to say, “Reagan succeeded, you know in arming the contras, right? But if you think the contras were a bad idea, his success won’t matter to you. In fact, you’ll count it as a failure in the big picture. That’s kind of my point. I think Obama’s foreign policy has been very bad for America. America is weaker today than it was when he took office, but Hillary has I think been effective and carrying out his wishes.

KING: One of the areas the Republicans appear weak is is in immigration. And some progressives, George Bush tried to change the immigration laws.You were an immigrant --

D’SOUZA: Yes

KING:Is your party behind the times?

D’SOUZA: No, I think that both parties are wrong on this. I think Democrats --

KING: Both parties? --

D’SOUZA: Yeah both parties are wrong on this because the democratic party is undiscriminating its idea of let everybody in. In fact there’s even a scandal now about the idea of going to other countries and telling people, “listen if you show up with their kid they have to let you in. You know you’re a hopeless case,” and so on and so. And the lawlessness on our border - I was down at our border Larry just about 2 months ago talking to a border guy, and he was saying, “look, with today’s technology look at the NSA surveillance”, we have great surveillance. We can see people coming over the border. And he said, “I went to my supervisor and I told him ‘Our cameras are recording all these guys coming up the border.’ And the supervisor goes, ‘Move the cameras.’ Meaning we don’t want to show the American people what we’re allowing to happen.” So this is bad stuff. Now the Republicans I think are, where their mistake is, this is a country built by immigrants. The immigrant spirit is totally American.So what I do is, I would be very Pro-Immigrant. But I would want entrepreneurial immigrants who love America, who want to be a part of this --

KING: Who do you think these people coming in, want to come in, they want to succeed

D’SOUZA: No no no no no, they’re coming in for stuff. But there are two ways to get stuff. One way to get stuff is to work for it and earn it, and the other way is simply for them to become eligible for it. So we have become, we are now a strange society. We are a welfare magnet, but we are also an entrepreneurial magnet.

KING: So how do you do it?

D’SOUZA: Like every other country. Canada sits around and says, “you know what? We have too few doctors. Let’s take more doctors.We need more nurses, we need more people to invest money and start new businesses.” So you write the immigration laws so you’re taking in one million immigrants a year, but you’re choosing the immigrants you want.

KING: But image wise the Republicans look bad on the issue.

D’SOUZA: They look very bad on the issue and party, you’ll notice in the book and in the film. It’s a film told by an immigrant that champions immigrant virtues. And by the way the left’s attack on America, I see as an attack on immigrants. Because when the left says, “you know you took the country from the Indians, who took the country from the Indians?” Not the rich one percent.Not the guys living in mansions on the east coast.It’s poor immigrant, penniless settlers who went out west. They had no land, and here’s this vast country, they fought the indians, they took the land. Who took half of Mexico from the Mexicans? Immigrants. Irish guys who went down south, they fought the Mexican war. So the left is kind of indigenous. They are saying, “We’re attacking the one percent.” No, you’re attacking the immigrants.

KING: How do you feel about the concept of the second amendment? How do you read it? I can read it my way, you can read it your way --

D’SOUZA: Well my way, I don’t know.I mean, that’s a strange one for me.I grew up in a society where no one has guns. If you basically want to conduct robbery you have to use your kitchen knife --

KING: Seems logical to me -

D’SOUZA: Seems logical to me, but I also come to this country and I look at it, and I study it historically. I recognize that this is a settler country. It’s a pioneer country. The guys who went out west, there was no police to protect them. They needed guns.

KING: No, but they don’t need them now.

D’SOUZA: Well [LAUGHS] they would argue with you on that. They would argue that having a gun is a big deterrent for someone who is going to pull a gun on you.

KING: I interviewed the head of Scotland Yard once.He could not believe that an American could get a handgun. He saw no use for an American to have a handgun. It was inconceivable to him. Wouldn’t we be better off if there were no handguns? None made. You couldn’t get one. There were no, criminals couldn’t get them, we can’t get them. You can’t get them. There are no handguns.

D’SOUZA: That would be a wonderful idea. But that would be like saying, “Wouldn’t the world be better off if nobody had a nuclear bomb.” Yes it would.

KING: Yes!

D’SOUZA: Yes, but that’s a fantasy because even if we could do that, the knowledge of how to make a bomb exists. So the guy who made three bombs would then be king of the world.But. the world is very unsafe when you outlaw something and no one has it but a few guys can get it. Because then those guys have power over everybody else. So for example, if China has 300 nuclear bombs, as they do roughly about now, in that kind of world it is very dangerous for America to go down to 300 because in a first strike they could wipe out most of us.

KING: But when you start thinking like that, well then Iran says, “Wait a minute, Israel has nuclear bombs. We better have nuclear bombs.” --

D’SOUZA: Correct.

KING: So then you say, “Iran has nuclear bombs, we better have nuclear bombs.” So everybody has to say, “we better have nuclear bombs,” and soon you have a world with nuclear bombs. And when you have that, someone is going to shoot it off. Could be a good guy too.

D’SOUZA: Correct. No, you’re absolutely correct. You know the Cold War that the American military plays war games every day --

KING: Every day --

D’SOUZA: To think about what those contingencies look like. I’m terrified by the power that science has given us to obliterate the planet. By the way, not just nuclear bombs. Chemical weapons, there are so many technologies today you wish you could turn away human nature and notdo that --

KING: Somebody’s building something somewhere --

D’SOUZA: Yeah -

KING: Are you therefore optimistic or pessimistic?

D’SOUZA: I’m generally an optimist. But I’m also a realist. And so, you know, if you look at the cover of this book you see an interesting site. You see the Statue of Liberty and you see

KING: I like the color --

D’SOUZA: There’s a storm that’s kinda pulling it apart but the torch is held up high. So there’s a foreboding element to it but hey, I’m not giving up on America.

KING: The great lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, I asked him once if he was an optimist or a pessimist. He said of I’m a pessimist, I’m smart. [KING &D’SOUZA LAUGH]. Thank you Dinesh --

D’SOUZA: My pleasure. Good to be on the show.

KING: The book is America, Imagine a World Without Her. It’s out now and the documentary with the same name hits theaters in July.My thanks to Dinesh, for joining me on PoliticKing. To my viewers out there I want to hear from you. Join the conversation on my Facebook page, share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting @KingsThings and using the #Politicking hashtag. And that’s all for this week’s PoliticKing.

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