Newt talks with Fox News contributor, Tammy Bruce, about her new book “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda.” They discuss Biden's announcement that he will not be running for a second term and the quick consolidation around Vice President Kamala Harris, including the role former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi played in the process. Tammy shares her belief that the current political climate is not normal and can be defeated. They also discuss her recent article on foxnews.com about “Biden, Democrats use fear, threats and intimidation to win."
On this episode of newt World. As progressive policies get more extreme and challenging them becomes more dangerous, the left expects us to submit to the madness. In her new book Fear Itself, exposing the Left's mind killing agenda, Tammy Bruce uncovers how Marxists and their leftist wingman induce fear as the tactic to achieve their ultimate personal goal, killing your mind. And Fear Itself, she reveals how an alliance between government, academia and business weaponized COVID climate change, systemic racism, terrorist parents, identity politics, vandalizing language, and cancel culture. So here to talk about a new book. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, a really smart woman who I look forward to watching every time she's on TV. Is the best selling author of The New Thought Police and the Death of Right and Wrong. She's also the host of a national podcast, The Tammy Bruce Show, serves as a Fox News contributor, and writes regular columns for amac us. Tammy, welcome and thank you for joining me on Newtsworld.
Well, it's an honor I obviously, as we all are a great admirer of your work and in this fight together and it's an honor to be here, so thank you.
It's hard to know where to begin. There's so much going on right now, but let's just start with Biden's announcement on Sunday that he will not be running for another term, and then his speech on Wednesday night. What was your reaction to that whole thing?
Well, you know, I felt that he had no upside to leave, right He's clearly from the beginning, no one was surprised about his condition, and I think that there was just this desperation, obviously to demonize Trump, to get somebody that people knew. He clearly, even in twenty twenty, was not prepared to be president. But the bureaucracy always thinks that it's the president anyway, and that who needs the actual president because the actual president doesn't do anything. And I think that there was an agreement that the only way to really overcome Trump and that outsider individualism that appeals, of course to Americans because things have gone so wrong for so long, was to get somebody that people they thought they knew, And of course the rhetoric in that campaign was reflected that that he was the unifier, he was the adult things would get back to normal. Now for the system, the disaster we have now is normal and they want that. And I can get into that later if we like. But I think from the beginning this was the arrangement nobody thought, including the Bidens. I would argue that he was going to be working on a daily basis being president, and I'm sure the argument was there was a bureaucracy and a team of people, hundreds of people that will make this work. And of course we've seen the result, and I consider that part of the lie to the American people about what was happening. And because we expect the president and the founders expected the president to be a man, or we can have now a woman, a man of action of somebody who at which Trump embodies perfectly, and certainly Joe Biden did not. I think the left had exhausted the American people and so they went for COVID was so disruptive and ultimately we know the result. But I think the Biden's problem now was that they are understandably and were perplexed about why the original arrangement, understanding his limitations, suddenly was no good. His reputation, their public commitment, and so you've got people. And that's why he fought it as I was hoping he would, because if he would run, he at least had a chance of winning. And I'm sure everyone was shocked that they won in twenty twenty, so why not do it again? Well things have changed, of course, and of course the polls that planned for Trump to be in jail and for people to abandon him in the public failed miserably, and so suddenly their idea didn't work. They were just going to run them again. No one would be asking these questions newte about Biden's condition because they would have had no choice. That was the issue. And so I think that he became perplexed and angry some of the news reports, and it really cast the Bidens as angry as they should be because they were doing their job. They were presenting the front. It was the plan to get rid of Trump that everything relied on that failed. So it was the masters of the universe who set the Bidens up, who will pay no price, and casting Biden as the problem. I mean, my goodness, So if he runs, he would maybe be able to win. If he quits, he loses the only power he has with a family under more investigation. He's the president of the United States, that's the fact of the matter. And if you're a private citizen, then there's nothing you can do. That's why I worry about the next six months, about the nature of the choices he may make. Some could be good and some could be bad. And then, of course his speech, which I mean really announcing the original decline to run on Twitter with a digitally signed note, with the nation in this condition and with our enemies watching and our friends was a shocking development. And then he's at the resolute desk and not sounding really resolute except repeating, look, nothing would change. It's an operation built on lies and manipulation, and this was a speech of lies and manipulation. We didn't get any answers. We don't know really why he did. If it's not his health, it's because it's the polls, which means it's the ultimate inelection interference. It's madness.
Didn't it strike you as extraordinary that here's a guy that got fourteen and a half million votes, had ninety nine percent of the delegates, and boom, Pelosi and others step in and say, you know that no longer counts. You're gone, and a couple of weeks of pressure, he was gone. I mean, isn't that the equivalent of a coup.
What it does prove to the American people, and this should have a wider discussion, is that their concern for democracy has been a foe concern for democracy, that this was natural for them. They wanted to do it, and then they did it, and it was like there was no concern, and they knew the media would not say boo to them in doing it. And now the media is falling into place as we've guessed, you know, Kamala Harris is the second coming, and Joe Biden is a hero said by it the same people who had threatened him, and he clearly had to be threatened, likely as I think you might agree with the twenty fifth Amendment. With Nixon, it took the impeachment vote in the House where he knew what was coming, but that was bipartisan. In this case, it was a bunch of people masters again of the universe, who just decided that the votes of their own base didn't matter. That they've decided they can't win, and that's part of democracy. Part of democracy is losing sometimes, and they just decided they don't like that, and so they're going to change the game. That is certainly an attack on democracy, it's an attack on their own base. It was just a remarkable thing to watch, and it put this nation in does put this nation in greater danger because our enemies are watching. They know no one is leading the country. And certainly if they think Kamala Harris is going to be a co president, why would she need to be doing that if Joe Biden is just fine. So it's mixed messages everywhere. But what we do know is that what the Democrats say they are has been a lie and that our system continues to be at risk, not ironically all the things they've said about Trump, but because of the people making the accusations, the projection of the nature of how they operate they've been putting on Trump and anyone who challenges what it is they're trying to do to us.
Were you surprised at the sheer speed with which they consolidated around Kamala Harris?
Not really. I think there are some I'm not an expert in this, but there was. I know that the war Chess, the ninety one million dollars that existed because it was donated to the ticket with her name on it, but that money could have just then gone, I believe to the party. One of the only not very good argument. You think, if you're going to blow up the presidency because his numbers are bad, not because he's old, but because the policies have destroyed people's lives and have destroyed the world. The world's at war in one way or another, that you take the opportunity to put someone in and have it be your person, like a Joe Manchin, even not that I would recommend that, but somebody who could legitimately say, or even a Robert F. Kennedy who's a liberal problem, but who has no association with the border and with the crime and with the riots and all the things, and with Jew hatred and Israel the things that Americans are like no way, which is why Biden's numbers are so low, which is why her numbers are so low. But if your goal is to let's say a gambit to try to win Georgia or North Carolina, and or it's the down ballot where you're worried about various districts in Michigan or Minnesota, places where a little bit of a shift might save people down ballot, and then they'll promise that she'll be the next in line for twenty twenty eight. Other than that, it is perplexing that they would choose the person who has as much baggage and is as responsible as Biden for the things that have caused the collapse of the party itself.
In many ways, the most effective person driving Biden out was Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, and as she said in her own statement endorsing Kamala, she said, I have seen Kamala Harris as strength and courage, as a champion for working families. Personally, I have known Kamala Harris for decades as rooted in strong values, faith, and a commitment to public service. So you have a San Francisco Speaker of the House getting the president to resign, to withdraw, and then turning and getting a San Francisco radical who she's known for decades as the Democratic nominee. Isn't isn't all of this sort of a little too clever.
It's dirty, it's dirty, it's too clever, And of course it's just amusing when you hear Nancy Pelosi talking about, you know, faith and decency, and all of that. The fact of the matter is I think that this again, it's their nature, right. They have such a contempt for the American people and they've clearly have been successful for a long time pretending, and we've fallen for it. Trump has been the fly in that ointment, and it shows you how weak what they do is that one person or voters saying just a minute, you know you people have been in charge. Look at our lives. And that's why I think for the black communities and the black vote, and when Trump first said in twenty sixteen, what have you got to lose? And it's one of the arguments even in my book, is that what the left does is so fragile and so dumb. All the energy goes into stopping people from looking up, making them afraid to look up, making them too poor to look up, making them too busy to look up because you're working three jobs. It's like hanging on to a roller coaster that has no breaks, and they're thinking you won't look up and say, wait a minute, and that's now what we're doing. And I think that Look, she's a woman, she's been very powerful. She clearly is effective based on raw power, but Americans want good governance. You know, this might be a game for them, it's not a game for us. And she, of course is thinking about Gavin Newsom and the pipeline from Sacramento into Washington. They have all these generations mapped out, they have all the races mapped out, who's going to be president when. And the Republicans did the same thing for a while. But the fact is the American people, we have a certain amount of patients. But how many times can you send your children off to a war that you just have no idea and you can't ever be won and it goes on for twenty years. I have no problem with war if you go in there and you go in to win. And then you've got Trump who goes in and says, okay, you know, we're going to get rid of ices and the establishment. These same people say, oh, it'll take thirty years. We can't do it, it'll insult all the Muslims, as though all Muslims liked isis Trump gets rid of ices in eighteen months, because you can do it. And I think that this is for a Pelosi who's used to just fear mongering, but gas lighting, manipulating people and then as it works, their opinion of the American people declines, their own opinion of themselves go up, and it becomes, as we've now seen, nude hubris, a hubris that couldn't consider that maybe their plan to destroy Trump wouldn't work, a hubris that kept them from understanding why Trump was popular in the first place, and rating Mara a Lago was only going to increase that support because too many Americans have been in a smaller version but have dealt with the government, the IRS, or local police or some local council members, or taxes on their property or other things that go on where there's no way to fight back, and we just want fairness. And what we saw happening to Trump was unfair, but that's how they operate. So now it's dirty and it's ugly what we've allowed to occur. And now it's up to us to say enough is enough. It's Corey, our young man, our dad, who got murdered at the Trump rally, who was killed by the sniper's bullet. His last tweet, I think, was to a tweet from the Biden Harris headquarters account with them saying some dumb lie and he tweeted back and paraphrasing, but why are you saying this? We are not dumb. The average person is sitting back thinking just that. And I'm very excited and I'm proud of us, and it's horrible we have to do this, but you know what, it is the greatest country on earth, and bad people want it, and we're charged with making sure that bad people don't get it. It's that simple.
When I first knew of you, you used to be a leftist community organizer, so you came with all of this from a unique and a different angle. How did that experience shape your analytical approach and the way you see the world?
Well, you know, look, I was a true believer. People who are attracted to the left usually are because they're damaged or they're looking for some kind of redemption or a way to make up for something, and the left praise on that. Right. It's what the Democrats do. They romanticize victimhood. You're elevated based on victimhood. They need to maintain result victimhood. I went in really on the issue of women and violence against women and wanting to make the world better for women, partly because of my mother's life and then my first girlfriend, your audience may not know that I'm gay, an actress in her thirties, considerably older than me at the time, and she killed herself and there was a combination of issues of mental illness and despair and other things that people deal with, and she took her life. And so I was a perfect person to move into the left after those kinds of experiences, and more Americans are familiar too. Many Americans familiar with situations involving despair, and so they rely on that and there is a manipulation of that and it becomes cult like. But I wanted to really be successful. I wanted to fix things. And for me, the switch was when I was complaining to my feminist mentor, who has since passed away, that we are making certain things worse and that didn't make sense to me. And this is through the National Organization for Women, and I was on the national board and I was the president of the Los Angeles chapter, and she said to me, you know, Tammy, every now and then, we have to rubsalt into the wound, because if we organize ourselves out of business by being too successful, then we won't be here when we're needed again. And I thought, my god, this is all a scam. This is a way for certain people to make money and to be in the news. So I was being thwarted. They ended up hating me, of course, because I wanted to be successful on our issues. So yeah, went into talk radio at a station, and I'd write about Rush in the book as well, where Rush had his show KFI and Los Angeles, and I was the token liberal at the time. I think I was working on the weekends and sometimes filled in during the week and Rush came in as they do visit their various stations. Nor were the audience. The audience was Christians for the most of our conservatives, but Rush was not what they said he was. Surprisingly, I met a man who was charming and generous and interesting and interested in me and offered advice, was not afraid of me as being a liberal or put off. And I began, through talk radio in particular, to realize that things I'd been told by the left were not true about other people. And you know, it culminated with Clinton and Lewinsky, when the feminists and all the women and the Democratic Party were you know, hug and Bill Clinton and all of this is a lie. Was like enough already and being able to be open enough to know when a mistake has been made, and then to be willing to because sometimes you have to change your life. You know, that's an identity issue. Feminism and being on the left is an identity and you have to be ready to change and to have your life change.
And I was.
I Thank goodness I was young enough to make those changes. And I know my generation of women doing the feminist work in the eighties and nineties feel exactly as I do. Many of them can't leave because it's their family, but my generation gets it now. I think that my story is the American story. We all start out in a certain way. Look, I can talk with you. We're both you know, in our local places, and we can hear conversations that matter, which used to be and they still tried with censorship with Twitter before Elon, they tried to keep us from having certain conversations. And we're fighting that as well.
So you took all this and your first book, The New Thought Police, came out in two thousand and one and it was immediately a bestseller, and it seems to me it sets the stage for what you've been saying ever since talk just a minute about the new thought police.
Well, you know it's Orwellian right, every writer, especially Orwell who's writing during and in the aftermath of World War Two, recognizing the threat and what fascism really was. Ray Bradbury coming after that as well, who is a big influence on me. But the ability to move through fiction the stories of what man does, what humanity is capable of, and that we had to be warned because even though we would defeat and had defeated the Germans and the Italians and the Japanese, the fascism that had emerged, that it was always going to be a threat because it's the human condition, and America was particularly well positioned to be that bulwark against it. And so I think that for that book, it was my first book having left now and wanting people to know what was happening and the nature of the attempts to change language. As leftists, we did that a lot, and you know what spurred us on a great deal was that the Republicans and the Conservatives would never respond because they were afraid. And it's still the case we controlled media. I write about that, or write about that my second book, But there is a control of establishments and it kind of inspires you to keep on doing it. And so for me, I felt, how can I make the mistake I've made, but you know, not on purpose. How can I make sure my experience and what has happened to me is not in vain? That maybe what I've learned for other feminists and women that maybe this is not what you want to spend your money on. Don't get invested in this because it's a fraud. It's not good. And I think, especially with political correctness and identity politics, political correctness in particular, the issue of beginning to train people about what it is that they're allowed to think, because if saying something is too dangerous because the rules keep changing and you don't know, then you stop thinking about the issues. And that's what the left wanted, were people who would be quelled and too afraid to push back because you'd be called a racist, a sexist, a homophobe. And that's the subtitle, is that on the left is where all of that ugliness, all of that bigotry lives, and it's the left co opting issues that Americans care about. Of course, there's racism and sexism and homophobia of course there is, but we're not drowning in it. It is something we work on and we become a better people and a better country. But the left co opts these issues and then rides them to death, using them to divide us even further. And so where are we now? Because gays can get married and we've been successful, So now what is it? It's now trensgender people. There'll always be something new and different to be able to use to call people bigots and unacceptable, and that's part of the fear mechanism. So for me, at first, it was the obviousness about the attempts to control language and to keep changing it to keep people from not knowing what the rules were. And then the moment you captured people and their minds, then you could start changing everything else. And then identity politics, of course, which is part of that. It's easier to condemn and control a group of people when they're isolated, and that is also deliberate. The main thing from the new book and from all my books, really is that none of what we're experiencing in our culture with politics is normal. It's not natural or organic, it's not inevitable, and it can be defeated, but you have to know it. You have to see it before you know what it is you're having to defeat.
And you came back to this theme in an article you wrote at Fox News in July called Biden Democrats use fear threats and intimidation to win. Here's how we resist. I mean, isn't that almost exactly going to be the experience of the Trump campaign is an overwhelming effort to use fear threats and intimidation.
Yes, yes, it literally is their only language. It would be like somebody coming up, you know, who speaks only English and expecting them to speak French. They can't speak any other language. That's what they know. And that thing about toning down the rhetoric after the guy gets shot in the face, that lasted what new eighteen hours? I mean just I was just sitting back. It was like they couldn't do it. After the Kavanaugh attempted assassination, they couldn't stop themselves. After the baseball diamond shooting that we know grievously injured Steve Scalise and could have been the murder of members of Congress. Even after that, they couldn't stop themselves. And those instances all were provoked someone based on the rhetoric that had been used, demonizing, personalizing, demonization on individuals, and it's not going to end. And that's why for me, if this is the last book I write, if it's the last thing I can draw from my experience knowing what's happening, it's to get people to be prepared for this doubling down again. It will never end. But they have control over the rhetoric and over media, but it's personal. The reliance is on how each of us as individuals respond to the idea of being called a bigot. What I tell people is also like if you're called a racist, some people think, well, how can I prove I'm not? But imagine reacting as if you would if somebody called you a cocker spaniel, right, You wouldn't look at your brear end looking for the tail, would you know? You wouldn't because you know you're not a cocker spaniel. So that's a juxtaposition about how we know ourselves. So when somebody says you're transphobe, you're as you hate the women and you know it's not true. You're also not a cocker spaniel. Our reaction internally is the key. I have packs at the end of this book, packs with ourselves that you don't need to do something big and public because there is danger out there. You couldn't get fired, get kicked out of school. So you pick and choose your battles. But the first battle, the left relies on you personally standing in the kitchen thinking maybe they do have the high ground. Maybe we should just think about economics, because then you begin to wonder. And that's what domestic violence does. A batterer strikes constantly with the same message, to destroy your self esteem, to gaslight you, like the Ingrid Bergman movie in the forties, which is where that term comes from, where her husband started changing like he would make the gas lights go on and off a bit in the house and would cause noise in a secret compartment behind the walls to make her think she was losing her mind, and the reality was it wasn't real. And he wanted, of course her to assign all their money over to him as usual. Of course, even though it was Ingrid Bergmann, that should have been enough for him, but it wasn't. You're standing there. If you hear it enough, you begin to think, wait, maybe maybe it's true, and not because you're weak, but because it's the human condition. And that's the technique. Constant berating everywhere you look is people telling you you're not good enough. You are a bigot. If you don't want men and women's sports, you're a transphobe. You're going to not like Kamala Harris. Ooh, there's also Manysm's there. It's about deciding to not allow strangers to control what you think of yourself. Re embrace especially your values. You're a Christian and you're white. Oh my goodness, you know it's hopeless. You reject it as much as you would reject if your parent going to a school board meeting and you get on the terrorist list. Think that you've just been put on the cocker spaniel list. You don't have to wonder if they're correct. So that's the first pack. And again, things you can do privately. It's like one of my favorite things with the budlight boycott that was not organized using the transgender person to sell the bud light. It wasn't organized, but people made a personal decisions to not buy that product, even something as simple as that. Reinforcing your values, acting on your values and not letting strangers who are malignant to control what you think of yourself, your values in your life. Enough is enough with that?
You now write for AMAC group I've talked with for many years, the Association of Mature American Citizens. How did you come to work with them?
Well, you know, I learned about them, as many Americans did, during Obama's push for Obamacare, and the AARP was like on board, and it was like, this is going to just expand the gap between the rich and the poor when it comes to healthcare. It's nuts. But of course now we've learned that, you know, they supply you know, additional insurances to go along with Obamacare. And but there also seemed to be a center left, if not leftist organization, and suddenly AMAC was there and it was the conservative alternative and they were very vocal about the dangers that Obamacare presented for seniors. It was a reality based examination of the nature of what was happening that you didn't get with the AARP. And they are presented as like, you know, nonpartisan or whatever. Well, just like the American Medical Association with Obamacare, I mean, the people that just fell into that disaster. It was amazing to me at any rate. It was amazing to see and this is what I like as an organizer, you know, a smaller entity people again, I think, you know, coming together and working together other it's the appeal of unions until they were co opted, but that it's important. It works when you can come together and you can make a difference. So I learned about them then and was of course doing work on Fox and was always admired them. And I've always had a column and I felt that, you know, we're at a point perhaps I'm also moving into the age, not that it will ever retire, because you know, we don't want to. A lot of people can't retire, even though they do want to. But there's an importance in our generations because of what we've seen, what we've understood, has already happened. That is invaluable. But also, and I think now they're presenting themselves as it's not just for seniors or people who are retiring. This is about the American movement of a desire to have real information, honest conversations, and an economy that helps everyone. And of course that is a problem for the left because they need victimhood and the more successful we are the fewer people are attracted to left wing politics because they get a taste of freedom, and every living creature wants to be free. So for amac, for me, the people behind it, their founder, it's a family dynamic speaking about values again as well, and you know their openness to have me be one of their columnists. I'm a spiritual person. I have issues with organized religion. I believe in God. I believe Jesus is the guy, but I think what human beings tend to get their hands on, they tend to ruin. So I'm always very appreciative of people of faith, the nature of a genuine openness and the importance of faith and a love of this country and of the American people. And they seem to embody that. So I'm very happy to be there.
I have to tell you that you are not just a breath of fresh air, but you're a national treasure because you bring such clarity and such depth of understanding. I want to thank you for joining me. Your new book, Fear Itself, Exposing the Left's mind Killing a Gen is available now on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere, and I want to let our listeners know they can find out more about your podcast, the columns you write for AMAC and other things you're involved in by visiting your website at Tammy Bruce dot com.
Excellent. Well, I'm honored, sir. Thank you. You've made a huge difference in my life, everyone's life, and I can't thank you enough.
Thank you to my guest Tammy Bruce. You can get a link to buy her new book, Fear Itself, Exposing the Left's mind killing agenda on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newt World is produced by Gingrig three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show Who's created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of nuts World can sign up from my three freeweekly columns at gingwishwe sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Nute Gingrich. This is Newtsworld