After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the Trump-Russia collusion hoax should have died—just another dirty campaign trick that didn’t work. Instead, it escalated. Lee Smith explains how Russiagate turned from campaign smear to a nearly successful coup to overthrow the President of the United States. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Russiagate: The Real Scandal, Part 2 Presented by Lee Smith After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, “Russiagate,” or the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax, should have disappeared into the dustbin of history, just another “dirty” campaign trick that failed. That’s what should have happened, but it didn’t. Far from being dead, the baseless conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent, was revving up. If it failed to derail Donald Trump’s candidacy, it could still derail his presidency. So believed outgoing President Barack Obama, CIA director John Brennan, and FBI director James Comey, among others. There was no time to waste. This was November and Trump would take office at the end of January. The plotters' first move was to make a flashy display of expelling Russian diplomats and shutting down Russian “intelligence gathering facilities” in Maryland and New York. This conveyed the impression that the Obama Administration had proof, as The New York Times put it, that the Russians had “enabled the publication of the emails it harvested [from the Clinton campaign] to benefit…Trump’s campaign.” The Administration had no such proof. It was all for show. Around the same time, Obama ordered CIA chief John Brennan to produce an intelligence community assessment, or ICA, about Russia’s role in the election. It had to be done before the end of his term— that is, before Trump’s inauguration. But there was a problem. The intelligence officers assigned to the task couldn’t find any evidence of significant Russian interference. Brennan rejected their report and ordered them to write a new one. The revised version conveniently presented unconfirmed rumor as fact. This revised ICA was released to the news media. They swallowed it whole — hook, line, and sinker. The problem wasn’t just biased reporting. And it wasn’t just that the media had missed the real story — how US intelligence agencies and the Obama White House were undermining the new administration. No, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post were essential players in the anti-Trump plot. Day after day, they published “leaked” intelligence slanted to advance the Russiagate narrative and destabilize the nascent Trump Administration. To cite just one example, The Post targeted Trump’s incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn. In a January 2017 article, the paper asserted that Flynn had spoken with the Russian ambassador. The story was sourced to a classified intelligence intercept — which someone had illegally leaked to the media. This should have been the big story, not Flynn’s call. The presidential transition team is supposed to speak with foreign officials. But because Obama and his aides had created a frenzy around anything related to Russia, the media turned the Flynn story into a national crisis and the retired three-star general was forced from the White House. The drumbeat of Russia stories continued nonstop, all built around two plotlines — that Russia got Trump elected, and that Trump was beholden to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Democrats demanded a special counsel investigation into “Russian interference” in the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who like Michael Flynn had been accused of “improper” communications with a Russian diplomat, should have shut down any talk of such an investigation. Instead, he yielded to pressure. On May 17, 2017, Robert Mueller, the former director of the FBI, was appointed special counsel. Mueller hired a staff of nearly sixty people, including FBI agents, forensic accountants and other personnel. This was in addition to fifteen lawyers. The investigation ran for two years and cost over thirty million dollars. ..access the full transcript here 👉 https://l.prageru.com/46cnw4H

It’s the biggest political scandal in US history. Millions were led to believe that a presidential candidate was a secret Russian agent. The media ran with it. Intelligence officials fueled it. But behind the headlines was something even more alarming. Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President, tells the story. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Russiagate: The Real Scandal, Part 1 Presented by Lee Smith It’s the biggest political scandal in US history. There’s no close second. Looking back, it all seems almost unbelievable — absurd. But at the time, millions were convinced that the 2016 Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, was secretly working for Russia. This was the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax or “Russiagate,” a label borrowed from the 1970s Watergate scandal. The instigators of this deception were not foreign adversaries. They were domestic actors—a presidential campaign, senior intelligence officials, and, perhaps most importantly, powerful media outlets. They all shared the same goal: defeat Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate. Ironically, what became Russiagate began as an “insurance policy” to protect Clinton. While serving as secretary of state, Clinton used a private, unsecured email server for official business — a clear violation of federal record-keeping rules and a serious national security risk. In 2015, the FBI opened an investigation. Clinton’s advisors knew this could become an election-threatening scandal. If it blew up, she needed a way to redirect attention — away from her own misconduct and toward her opponent. Among those who helped develop this strategy were senior members of President Barack Obama’s national security circle, including CIA Director John Brennan. The strategy came to be known as the “Clinton Plan.” The idea was straightforward: if Clinton’s emails became a liability, media attention would be redirected to the supposed culprit who stole and leaked the emails: Russia. And why would Russia steal them and make them public? To help Donald Trump win. Because, the story went, they supposedly had compromising material with which to blackmail him. To construct this narrative, the Clinton team hired a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele. Even a cursory glimpse into Steele’s past would have revealed that he was not to be trusted. A “spy for hire” of dubious credibility, he had worked both for the FBI and London-based Russian oligarchs—and he made no secret of his hatred for Donald Trump. Steele produced a collection of sensational memos — the now infamous Steele Dossier. It contained lurid and unverified claims. Still, the idea that one of the world’s most famous businessmen — now the Republican nominee for president — was secretly a Russian intelligence asset was irresistible to Trump’s political opponents. That — sadly — included most of the media. Never mind that Trump’s celebrity-studded career in television, real estate and casinos meant he was under constant scrutiny. Steele’s material gave Clinton’s team exactly what they wanted: a salacious narrative that could dominate the headlines. In early July 2016, Clinton’s worst fears materialized. At a highly publicized press conference, FBI Director James Comey announced the findings of the FBI’s investigation: emails containing classified information were found on her unsecured server, a national security violation. Comey declined to recommend prosecution but described Clinton’s conduct as “extremely careless.” It was a public relations disaster. But the Clinton team was ready. Articles based on Steele’s dossier began to seep into media outlets like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Slate, alleging Trump had secret ties to Russia. ...access the full transcript here 👉 https://l.prageru.com/45rtK0i

Before Affirmative Action, black Americans were closing education gaps, increasing incomes, and joining the middle class at record speed. But since the introduction of Affirmative Action, that progress has significantly slowed. How can we account for this? Jason Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explains Affirmative Action’s troubling legacy. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Did Affirmative Action Work? Presented by Jason Riley Before Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell was for Affirmative Action, he was against it. This is noteworthy because Bell is best known for his contributions to critical race theory—which claims that racism is embedded in American institutions and that the historical mistreatment of black people largely explains current disparities. In a 1970 law-review article, Bell objected to using different criteria to assess student performance depending on race. In the past, he noted, the small percentages of blacks admitted to selective law schools “not only met the usual academic criteria, but were often characterized by a strong inner drive to equal and, if at all possible, excel their white classmates.” Admitting blacks who did not meet accepted standards was, in Bell’s words, “a form of benevolent paternalism.” He warned that racial preferences risked tainting the accomplishments of those who succeeded—in the eyes of whites and blacks alike. “Whatever arguments are used to justify such a policy,” he wrote, “there is little denying that it robs those black students who have done well of receiving real credit and the boost in confidence that their accomplishments merit.” Although Bell later changed his mind, he offered a preview of a half-century of arguments that would be made against racial preferences. That might give pause to those who are inclined to dismiss criticism of affirmative action as racist. Bell’s concerns about the psychological toll of affirmative action turned out to be prescient. More than five decades of racial preferences have created the impression that black advancement is impossible without them. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, that the Court’s ruling “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the majority had “detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences.” This doom-saying assumes racial favoritism is a prerequisite for black accomplishment. Because it has been asserted for decades that affirmative action and government programs produced today’s black middle class, few bother to question the claim. But when we do, a very different narrative emerges. During the first two-thirds of the 20th century—long before affirmative action and an expanded welfare state—black Americans experienced remarkable progress. Education gaps narrowed, incomes rose, poverty declined. This history is often ignored because activists and politicians prefer a narrative of suffering. Yet it should be a source of pride for blacks—and inspiration for other minorities. In 1940, 25- to 29-year-old whites had 3.6 more years of schooling on average than blacks. By 1960 both groups had advanced, but blacks outpaced whites and the gap had narrowed by more than half, to 1.7 years. Between 1940 and 1960, the percentage of blacks with a high school diploma more than tripled, again growing faster than whites. But as colleges began compromising admissions standards in the late 1960s, these trends slowed. According to Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and co-author Shaylyn Garrett, the “fastest and most dramatic progress toward parity [in education] between blacks and whites finishing high school was achieved before 1970.” The same story can be told about income. More education meant better jobs and higher pay. And just as educational gains among blacks were speedier before affirmative action, so too were wage gains. Yet affirmative action policies were given far more credit than they deserved, mainly because proponents started the story in the middle. In 1939, the annual median income was $350 for black males and $1,000 for white males. By 1960, those figures had reached $3,000 and $5,000, respectively—an increase of 570% for blacks vs. 360% for whites. All of this occurred before affirmative action and the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s. ...access the full transcript here 👉 https://l.prageru.com/4bBTquX

On September 10, 2025, an assassin took the life of @RealCharlieKirk the 31-year-old Founder and President of Turning Point USA. The world mourned. What was it about Charlie that brought so many people together in shared grief? What impact did he have on the country he loved? And how might his influence continue to endure? @realtalkwithmarissa, CEO of PragerU, offers a tribute to her friend. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he wasn’t just using poetic language—he was laying down a radical vision for a free society. But what did he and the Founders really mean by “liberty?” And how has that definition changed over time? Robert George, Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, explains. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru)

In this year’s 2019 PragerU Commencement Address, Navy SEAL (Ret.) and best-selling author Jocko Willink offers some hard-learned, practical advice. It all starts with Discipline. That’s what will get you on the road to personal fulfillment and success – and keep you there. Watch and find out why. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Discipline = Freedom Presented by Jocko Willink There are no shortcuts. There are no hacks. If you want to take the easy road, I promise you: it’s longer and more painful than the hard road. I know. I’ve lived it. I’ve ventured down the easy road at times in my life and it never led to anywhere good. The positive things in my life always came when I faced the biggest challenges. I joined the Navy. I took the hard road in the Navy and made it into the SEAL Teams. There, I had the honor of leading men in combat. I learned some lessons along the way, lessons that have been tested on the battlefield and, when implemented, lead to success in any arena. One of the best things I’ve learned is that anyone has what it takes to travel the hard road—to walk The Path that leads to success. That includes you. It won’t be easy. It will demand everything you’ve got to give. But you can do it, and I want to give you three key principles I’ve learned that will help you to get it done. Principle number one: Discipline. Equals. Freedom. That’s not a contradiction—it’s an equation. Discipline might appear to be the opposite of freedom. But, in fact, discipline is the path to freedom. Discipline is the driver of daily execution. Discipline defeats the infinite excuses that hold you back. Some people think motivation is what will compel them to get things done. But motivation is just an emotion—a feeling, and like all feelings, it’s fickle: it comes and goes. You can’t count on motivation to be there when you need to get through truly challenging times. But you can count on discipline. Discipline is something you dictate. Motivation won’t make you exercise every day; discipline will. Motivation won’t stay up late and finish a project for you; discipline will. Motivation isn’t going to get you out of bed in the morning; discipline will. Make discipline part of your daily life and your daily life will get better. Principle Number Two: Stay. Humble. In life, you are going to have to do things that you don’t want to do. Maybe things that you don’t think you should have to do—things that offend your precious ego. When I got done with Basic SEAL Training and reported on board SEAL Team One, you know what I was assigned to do? I was assigned to clean toilets. That’s right—despite having just graduated some of the most difficult military training in the world, despite being assigned to an “elite” commando unit—my first mission at the actual SEAL Team was to clean toilets. Not exactly a glorious job. But you know what? I did it. I did it to the best of my ability and took pride in doing it well. And that attitude got noticed: if I cared that much about how clean the toilets were, people knew I would do a good job with even more important assignments. After a short period of time, I got those more important assignments. But it was humility that opened the door for me. Now, being humble does not mean that you shouldn’t be confident. You certainly have to believe that you are a capable person. But don’t let confidence turn into arrogance. So keep your ego in check and stay humble. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/discipline-freedom

How much do you know about Christmas—about its origins and its many beloved traditions? Do you know where the idea of stocking-stuffers comes from? Or how lights found their way onto the Christmas tree? Or why we all have the jolly, red-suited, white-haired image of Santa Claus in our heads? In this video, historian William Federer explores the holiday’s rich and unique history. 📲 Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Follow PragerU on social media: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) Twitter ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/)

As artificial intelligence transforms the world, it’s triggering an unprecedented demand for energy. So where will that power come from—and what does it mean for America’s future? Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics (@energyrealities ) explains what history tells us about innovation and the unstoppable force of progress. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: What Will Power the AI Revolution? Presented by Mark Mills Here’s a law of the universe: Revolutionary inventions lead to massive new demands for energy. Think about it: the steam engine led to a massive new demand for coal. The automobile led to a massive new demand for gasoline. The commercial jetliner led to a massive new demand for jet fuel. The light bulb – or the air conditioner? Massive new electricity demands. Here’s a second law of the universe: When new energy demands arise, supply inevitably follows. Right now, we’re in the early days of another revolutionary invention: Artificial intelligence. AI is a big deal, perhaps the biggest in history. That’s why Google, Meta, and dozens of other tech giants are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to deploy it. Skeptics wonder if it will pay off. History, however, suggests that it will. Like all earlier tech revolutions, AI not only creates new kinds of services, but dramatically increases productivity. This is important because, over the last two decades, America’s productivity growth has slowed. When that happens, real wages decrease, and the economy creates fewer jobs. “Wait a second,” I can hear you saying. “I heard that AI is going to trigger a jobs apocalypse — or worse. I’ve seen The Terminator and The Matrix. I know how this goes.” That makes for good science fiction, but it’s not how tech revolutions play out. Just as the steam engine, automobile, and jetliner boosted economic growth, so will artificial intelligence. It’s hard to predict exactly how — which scares some people — but odds are high that history will repeat. ...access the full transcript here 👉 https://l.prageru.com/3Yo33pc

The Spanish got to the New World first. The French built the biggest forts. The Indians knew the land best. So how did the English come to dominate North America? Thomas Kidd, author of American History Volumes 1 and 2, walks us through the unlikely rise of the English colonies—and how they laid the foundation for the United States of America. Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Colonial America: Why Do Americans Speak English? Presented by Thomas Kidd Why do Americans speak English? Why don’t we speak Spanish? Or French? Or Algonquian, for that matter? It may seem like a silly question, but it’s not. The Spanish were in the Americas for a hundred years before the English arrived in Jamestown in 1607. The French had a major military presence in North America and the largest army in the world for most of the 18th century. The Indians, of course, had been here for untold millennia and knew the land better than their European adversaries. So, how was it that the English came to dominate them all? Our answer begins with Columbus. When the great explorer opened the way to the New World, he oriented the Spanish not toward North America, but toward Central and South America. There, the Spanish discovered gold and silver, making them the richest and greatest power in Europe in the 16th century. In 1588, they used those riches and their vaunted armada of warships to launch an invasion of England. But this attempt at conquest ended in disaster, thanks to a brilliant English naval strategy and a big assist from Mother Nature in the form of ship-destroying storms. Spanish dominance of Europe ended with this defeat. Had things gone differently, it’s more than likely they, at some point, would have added North America to their empire. The French also had a chance to take control of the continent. The explorer Jacques Cartier sailed into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1534. French fur traders were doing business with the Indians not long after. To support the lucrative trade, the French built a series of impressive fortifications across North America. But as lucrative as the business was, it curiously never attracted many French settlers. The Indians had a different problem: no immunity from European diseases. This turned out to be — unintentionally — the Europeans’ most powerful weapon in subduing the Native American peoples. The other problem the Indians had was that they were completely outgunned. Europeans had weapons far in advance of anything the Indians possessed. If timing is everything, the English arrived in North America at just the right moment. The Spanish were spent, the French were indifferent, and the Indians were simply overmatched. It’s not like the continent was handed to the English on a silver platter; it took 150 years and countless setbacks, disasters, and hardships for the English to pull it off. But they succeeded. How did they do it? To answer that, we need to look at what distinguished England from its neighbors. Beginning with Magna Carta in 1215, the English, more than any other European nation, had a tradition — written into law — that respected individual rights and limited the power of the monarchy. While this tradition of liberty emerged in the British Isles, it found its most fertile soil in North America. The Mayflower Compact of 1620, in which the Pilgrims committed themselves to establishing a self-governing colony, personified that tradition. An ocean away from the Mother Country, they had no choice but to rule themselves. And once they tasted true freedom, they couldn’t give it up. The case of Roger Williams is a good example. Williams argued bitterly with the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts colony. They believed the state could command religious belief. Williams asserted faith was a spiritual matter between the individual and his God. Threatened with arrest, Williams slipped out of Massachusetts in the middle of a blinding snowstorm to avoid capture. ...access the full transcript here 👉 https://l.prageru.com/4iI8nNu