Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy was joined in studio by all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain.
During the second hour, Swain discussed how common sense is not being displayed by our Congress at the national level and urged young people to develop that sense. She later talked about how nationalism and putting one’s country first does not make one a xenophobe or bigot.
Leahy: And we have the pleasure of the company of our good friend and all-star panelist, former Vanderbilt professor, Carol Swain. Good morning Carol.
Swain: Good morning.
Leahy: You are looking bright and chipper and positive this morning.
Swain: I can tell you that I am well over 60 and I’m not panicking about the coronavirus. (Giggles)
Leahy: As am I. By the way, I feel fabulous this morning. Do you want to know what the key to feeling fabulous is when you’re over 60 is? Well at least for me.
Swain: OK.
Leahy: Eight full hours of sleep. (Laughs)
Swain: That’s good.
Leahy: That’s a big plus!
Swain: That’s always good.
Leahy: And a wonderful cup of coffee in the morning.
Swain: And a beautiful wife.
Leahy: And a beautiful wife. These are all great things. Thank you. I just won some points at home. She’s probably listening to us as she’s driving into work. She always listens to Carol Swain. By the way, you have a posse.
You have a lot of people that listen to you and make a point of dialing in and listening to The Tennessee Star Report every Thursday because they know you’re going to be here. And we hear it if you don’t have your full hour and a half. Because they want to hear you. (Laughs)Â
Swain: I speak their language, which is common sense.
Leahy: There’s a paucity, a dearth, a lack, of common sense these days wouldn’t you say, Carol?
Swain: You know the tip that we can give young people is that common sense will take you far. Because it is a shortage, and we live in a society where the adults are not modeling it at the national level.
Leahy: Ahhhh.
Swain: Especially Congress.
Leahy: Preach it! Preach it, sister!
Swain: I would love to see young people and more people going to Congress that are true statesmen and stateswomen. That they are there for the nation. For other people. They are there for service, and not to benefit themselves.
Leahy: Let’s start out with one little case and point. Nancy Pelosi, (Chuckles) did you see this? She is calling upon minority leader Keven McCarthy to apologize and the reason he should apologize according to her is that he referred to the coronavirus as the Chinese coronavirus. That in her view is BIGOTED AND XENOPHOBIC!
Swain: The problem with the Democrats and I don’t want to just make it about the Democrats, but they don’t understand strong leadership. And I feel like that is what we see from President Trump and his reaction to the coronavirus.
And we should be nationalists in the sense that we should put our nation first. For too long we’ve looked after other countries, and we have not looked after our own. So if that makes me a nationalist or a racist, then so be it.
Leahy: By definition, we are citizens of a constitutional republic that is sovereign. What’s wrong with that?
Swain: If you are a globalist, you want to erase the boundaries between nations. And so for that reason, the reaction is whenever you are trying to put America first, there is something wrong with that. For too many decades we’ve not put America first.
And I’m glad we have a president now that recognizes that we’ve lost a lot of ground. I believe it’s totally ridiculous for us to be so dependent on China for our medicines and our food. And that’s our enemy in the world and yet we are dependent on them for some of our basic needs.
Leahy: I could not agree with you more. And the question is, I think central to the president’s whole theme. Why he got elected. How did that happen Carol, how did our leaders on Wall Street and in manufacturing and even in the federal government allow it to happen?
China controls and has a monopoly right now in terms of many elements of the manufacturing world? Many elements of the pharmaceutical world? Apparently, I’ve read that all of the reagents that are used to manufacture antibiotics, like 100% of them come from China. And we’ve not diversified. That seems to be very very reckless when it comes to national security. What do you think?
Swain: It’s all about the dollars. And the same with Saudi Arabia and a lot of the antisemitism on college campuses. It tends to be worse in those places where the universities have taken money from the Middle East. They’ve set up Middle Eastern studies programs.
And so you get the boycott movement against Israel because of the money. It’s always about the money. So our leaders have sold us out. They have enriched themselves. Many of them have gone to Congress with modest means and have left as millionaires. Multi-millionaires.
Leahy: You are talking about institutional leadership, one example of that when you mention Middle East funding, Georgetown University has got a lot…
Swain: It’s not just Georgetown, it’s Vanderbilt, it’s Harvard, it’s all of these universities.
Leahy: Yeah. I don’t disagree with that characterization at all. And the president I think in terms of institutional leaders, as head of the executive branch is really the first person at a position of power to push back against that over-reliance upon china and other foreign countries.
Swain: Well, our national security is at risk. So I’m glad we have a leader for this hour that is pushing back.
Leahy: And it’s very interesting. So you heard the president’s speech last night?
Swain: I did. I thought it was great.
Leahy: What is your assessment of the quality of that speech?
Swain: I read this morning that The Guardian attacked the president.
Leahy: Just a second, for our listening audience, The Guardian is basically a far-left publication from the United Kingdom. And these are like far left. These are the guys that liked Jerry Corbin. The quasi-communist labor leader who got his “you know what” kicked in the election there by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Swain: They were saying that the president referred to it as a foreign virus and so that feeds the xenophobia and all of those kinds fears of foreigners.
Leahy: Yeah. I saw that. (Swain laughs) And of course, I’m looking at it the virus originated in China.
Swain: So yes. It’s a China virus.
Leahy: It’s a Chinese virus. It is a foreign virus.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Great interview! I agree with Dr. Swain as well. We need to have those things that relate to our national security at home. This threat could be much worse. Certainly it is a wakeup call.
I agree with Swain on this particular issue of outsourcing services that our own country could provide. This is one of the few times that I agree with Swain on something.