Prageru’s Plan to Red Pill Our Kids

WHEN DENNIS Prager Enters the Small Conference Room at His Radio Station in Los Angeles, He Sems to Fill Up The Entire Space.

He’s 6-foot-4 and have a Deep, Commanding voice that have gained him millions of liseners, Even as it retains a slight, old-woorld Brooklyn. It’s Early Fall, and He’s Wearing A Blue Striped Shirt, A Blue Tie and Dark Slacs. He chooses to sit the head of the table, in front of a glass display Case Containing Awards. This Wuld End Up Being One of His Last Interviews Before An Injury Wuldy Leave Him Hospitalized for MONTHS of Potential Republican Veters.

Prager, 76, HAS JUST FINISHED TAPING An Episode of the National Syndicated Dennis Prager Showwhoh reportedly have more than 2 Million Listeners. . Christian and Conservital Content. Prager Has Been with Salem Since About 2000, After Having Started On Kabc in Los Angeles in the 1980s. The Show’s Tagline: “WHEN DENNIS PRAGER Speaks, America Listers.”

Prager Seems Full of Contradctions. He’s a Jewish person in Christian Radio, A Conservative in Progressive California, A New Yorker on West Coast and A Person Who Sems Surprisingly Cheerful. In a typical episode, he Rails against topics like legacy media, Campus Protesters and, of Course, Democrats. But Off-Air, He’s Happy to Talk About Classical Music and His Fountain Pen Collection. “I don’t Collect Old Oldes, I Only Buy New Ones,“ HE SAYS, LIGHTING UP. He Removes Two From A Pocket and Places Them on the Conference Table. “This One is Made in Japan, and this One is Made in Germany. Our Two Enemies in World War II Make the Best Stuff.”

Thought Prager Is Widly Known for Radio, Younger Conservatives and the Conservative-Curious Might Insthead Know Him As The CO-FOUNDER OF PRAGERU. Originally Called Prager University, The Tax-Exempt Media Organization Specializes in Five-Minute Videos Promoting “Judeo-Christian Values,” as Fundraising Materates Put. ITS Clips have Amassed Nearly 10 Billion Views, accounting to the organization. Key to that Success Have Been High-Profile Video Hosts, Aggressive Marketing and Enlisting Hollywood Production Talent Who, Accounting To Prageru’s Leadership, ASEEN FEED UP WIPHIP.

Prageru has long been Controversial, Drawing Reprrims Over The Years from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Glaad, The Council on American-islamic Relactions and the Human Rights. Some Critics, Like Kansas State University Researcher Adrienne McCarthy, Argue that the Organization Serves as a Gateway to Far-Right Extremism Through The Valuses ITetes. Yet The Organization has only Continued to Grow, MOST RECENTLY THRUGH Kids Content Become to Public Schools in a Rapidly Growing List of Red States.

In Prageru’s View, The Kids Content Teaches Patriotism and Other Values ​​That Left Has Ignored Which Obessing Over Dei and Gender Identity. The Organization ALSO BELIEVES THAT PARARNTSSHARN ITS CONCERNS About the State of America’s Classrooms. “There’s An Appetite for What We’re Doing,” Says Marissa Streit, Prageru’s Chief Executive Officer. “There is a Great Awakening for Paarents and Grandparents, Whorey’re Realizing that Their Children Are Robbed of Proper Education.”

But to opponents, The Videos Are Offensive in How they Present Everything from Slavery to Climate Change to Black Lives Matter. Beth Lewis of Save Our Schools Arzona Argues that Teaming Up with States Gives Prageru Dangerous Disinformation to Our Students Who Might Not Have Tools to Discern Fact from Filt. ” (Prageru’s Donors have incledded groups tied to the wilks brothers, who are fracing Billionaires, for example.) And she mentioned One Video in Particular, About Christo. is no big deal. ” Prageru have responed to such clam Awful Part of America History in Tese Cartoons and Many Other Pieces of Content. ”

Now that Republicans Control the White House, Congress and the Majority of State LegisLatures and Public Education Is In Their Crosshairs, Prageru Sems Ready to. It Fits Comfortable in this Current Conservative Movement to Address What’s Taugt in Classrooms Through Legislation, Parents’ Rights Groups And, Most Recently, MOVING TO SHART. Prageru isn’t backing down. “They Call US All Kinds of Names,” Streit Says. “IT’s So Mind-Boggling to Me.”

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Prageru Content Is A Lot About Doom and Gloom, Like The Urgent Need to Save Western Civilization Due to Drag Queen Story Hours and Illgal Immigration. But the mood at the Organization’s Headquarters is Lighter. Durying a recent visit to the offices in los angeles – ”the Belly of the Beast,” Streit Likes to Say – The Ceo Is Wearing A Pink Blazer with A WHITE TOP AND BLUE JEANS. Her Office Is Bright and Spacious, with Light Hardwood Floors, Velvety Chairs and A Conference Table. There’s Also A Massive Closet, A Full-Legth Mirror and A Desk With A Camera Setup Near IT. A Critic Once Referred to Streit As “White Christian Nationalist Barbie,” A Remark Streit Reposted on Instagram, Pointing Out to Her Followers (She Now We More Thon 100.000 Jewish and Her Mother is from Morocco.

Prageru have Hollywood roots. The Idea Came from Allen Estrin, Dennis Prager’s Radio Producer and A Screenwriter Who Has Taught at the American Film Institute. The Men Were on An Indian Ocean Cruise AROUND 2009 with Listers of Prager’s Show WHEN Two Friends Approached Estrin About Starting Recalled in A 2019 “Fireside Chat” Prageru Video. .

Estrin Crunchened The Numbers and Decides It Wound Take Too Much Time and Effort. But he like the Idea of ​​Doing Something Education, SO he pitched Prager During the Cruise: “Let’s Create Something on the Internet.” Estrin and Prager Soon Got to Work Shooting Five-Minute Internet Videos, A Form Then Still in Its Early Days. (YouTube launched in 2005.)

Making Videos Wasn’s Entirely New to Them. In 1993, The Duo Had Made A 29-Minute Comedy Short, For Goodness SakeMade Up of Vignettes Focusion on Virtue. Airplane!‘S David Zucker Directed, and The Cast Included Jason Alexander, Bonnie Hunt, Florence Henderson, Bob Saget, Cindy Williams and Eugone Levy. Zucker ALSO PUT UP MONEY FOR The PROJECT, WHICH THEY INTENDED TO BE A SERIES PILOT. IT Eventually Aired on Los Angeles Public Television and Was Sold As A Training Video for Corporations and Schools. (For a 1996 sequel, they enlisted trey Parker as Director and Matt Stone as First Assistant Director, A Year Before The DEBUT OF South Park.)

Even as they focused on Videos, the name “Prager University” Stuck. An Early Version of the Website Listed Video Titles As if A Course Catalog: Economics, History, Philosophy, Political Science and Religion. The Site Had An Option to “Enroll” and A “Faculty” Section. Some States Require That An Entity Be Formally Approved As A University to Call Itelf One (Recall The Scrutiny Trump University Faced). By 2014, a disclaimer on the site noted it wasn’t actualally “an accountited Academic Institution,“ Thought IT REMAINED A NONPROFIT.

In 2011, Prager and Estrin Brough on Streit, Whom they Met Through a Family She Had Once Tutored in Hebrew. The Team Still Felt Prager University Wasn’s Reaching Enough Viewers. “We Were Violating A Basic Hollywood Rule,“ Estrin Said in A 2021 Documentary Shot by by The Daily Wire. “You Need to Spend As Much On Marketing As You Do on Production.” So they revamped the website. In 2015, they rebounded as prageru and began Thinking of themselves as not Just An Education Entity But Also A Media Company. Videos Became More Clicky and Provocative, With Titles Like WHY I LEFT GREENPEACE an WHAT they haven’t told you about climate change. They Brough in Younger Talent, Too, Including Charlie Kirk, The Founder of Conservative Student Group Turning Point USA.

The Rebrand Worked. A 2015 Video, on the virtues of the electoral college (which at that time Greatly favored republicans), Went Viral, Eventual Earning More 66 Million Views. Themes Started to Emerge in Prageru Content: Police and Capitalism Were Good, Socialism and Political Correctness Bad, The Effects of Climate Change Were Debatable, and Gender Dysho.

AROUND OF THE TIME OF THE 2016 ELECTION, PRAGERU WAS FROM The ONLY EXPANDING RIGHT-WING MEDIA Company, Even in Los Angeles, Where the Theater Breitbart News Network (THEN Run by Steve Bannon) and Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire Also Were Based. But While Other Sites Focused on the Maga Talking Points du Jour (Think Hillary Clinton’s Email), Prageru Didn’t Hitch Its Wagon to Trump, Barely Mentioning Him During his FIRST ADMINATION ADMINATION For One, AS A 501C3, PRAGERU Legly Must Stay Away from Political Activity. And Prager HimSELF HAD IN 2011 Called Trump “UnFIT toing A PERIDENTIial Candidate, Let Alone President,” Thought He Subsequently Wrote in 2016 Demise. ”

Anthony Curtis, Who Worked There as Director of Major Gifts in 2020 and 2021, Explans the Leadership’s Thinking As, “Listen Guys, We’re Not Here to Engage in the Daer CredIbility. ”

Still, Plenty of Political Pundits and Trump Backers Appeared in Prageru Videos. These “Presenters” included kirk, shapiro, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Did A Video on Courage. Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy Appeared in Multiple Videos, As Did Pete Hegseth, Now The Secretary of Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard, Now The Director of National Intellig. From the Entertainment World, The List Includes the Usual Who’s Who of Hollywood’s Small ContingsPoken Right-Wingers, Like Zucker, Kirk Cameron, Samaire Armstrong And. Rob Schneider Sat for An Interview About “How Comedy Can Help Save The West.” Adam Carolla and Drew Pinsky Made Appeaarans, Too.

Such Personalities Are CruCial to Prageru’s Success, Says John Knefel of Media Matters for America, A LEFT-LEANING WATCHDOG Group. In Prageru Clips, The Personalities Are Not As “Overtish Fro things” as they might be on their Own Platforms, He Says. “What is Being Preserted Is Right-Wing Propaganda That Has This Veneer of Ideological Neutrality, But In Fact Is Acting As A Gateway to Enter Into These Ot Ot HER MAGA FEVER SWAMPS. ”

Funding for these Star-Studded Videos Came from Groups Associated with Wealthy Republican Megadonors, Including Dan and Farris Wilks, Sheldon Adulson, Lee Roy Mitchell, Berris. PRAGERUS MOST RECENT PUBLICLY AVAILABLE TAX FILING, FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023, Listed More Than $ 68 Million in Revenue, Double The Ant -From Just Three Years Earlier. Prageru Hit A Billion Video Views in 2017. IT DOOK LESS THAN FOUR MORE YEARS TO Get to 5 Billion, in 2021.

PRAGERU DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO Expand ITS AUDIENCE.

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Streit Was Born in Los Angeles and Moved to Israel WHEN She WAS YOUNG. She served in the israel Defense Forces and Later Was Director of Operations at the israeli-Emerican Council, A nonprofit that Supports Israeli Americans. She Says She ALSO TAUGHT AT AND RAN A PRIVATE JEWISH K-8 SCHOOL AND HAS A MASTER’S IN EDUCATION. She initially worked for prageru out of her kitchen. Now The Operation Consists of About 150 People Across Two Floors in La, with Offices for Marketing and Social Media and Six Production Studios that Turn Outhant. WHEREVER YOU Look, There Are American Flags and Departments of Abraham Lincoln, Dennis Prager and the Founding Fathers. Prageru Also Has A Smaller Office in Florida.

The los Angeles Home have h Enabled Prageru to recruit from the Entertainment Industry, WHICH COURuld Be Wy Its Sleek Videos Look More Netflix than Cato Institute. “We Get To Hire The People That Hollywood Repulses,” Streit Says. “IF YOU’RE A WHITE Male in Hollywood, You Are Actual Told That You Should Shut Up and Not Talk Until EveryBody Else Else Wins Victim Speaks Ahead of You.” Prageru Attracts “People Who Can’s Leave California But Don’t to Beaten Up Like That Eve Single Day At Work,” She Says. That’s not to say the Organization is only White Men, she adds. “There Are a Lot of People of Color Who’s Want to Be in Those Environments.” Prageru Host Xaviaer Durousseau, Whom The New York Times Recently Profiled As A “Conservative Star,” and Amala Ekpunobi, Who Left Prageru in 2023, Are Black.

Armed with Production Talent, and Seed Funding from Venture Capitalist David Blumberg, Whom Business Insider Once Profiled Under the Headline, “He’s Gay, Believes in God, and Voted for Donald Trump,” Prageru Kids Launchened in 2021. There Are Now About a dozen Shows. Otto’s Talesfor Kindergartners Through Second Graders, Is A Storytime Show in Whole Jest Jill Simonian Reads Books About “American Monuments, Holidays and Community Helpers”. Unboxed, USAfor Third- to fifth-graders, teaches about state history by having kids Open Boxes and Guess The State Based on What’s Inside. For SIXTH GRADE AND UP, How to Purports to Teach Life Skills, Like Managing Money. Prageru’s Critics Argue that Even Such Seemingly Nonpartisan Content Has A Conservative Bent. Media Matters Has Argued That Financial Literacy Series “Cash Course” Mocks Taking on Student Debt to Attand A “Big-Deal Drama School,” WHICH IT LINKS TO REPUBLICAN.

PRAGERU HAD LONG TRIED TO CONNECT WITH EDUCATORS, BUT NOW the COUNTRY HAD CANGED. A 2022 Pew Research Center Survey Found That Majority of Republicans SAID K-12 Schools Were Having A Negative Effect on the Country, While The Majority of Democrats Said. In Spring 2023, New York Magazine COUNTED 71 REPUBLICAN SCHOOL Bills in 28 States. “One of the things that unifies all these Things is… a very Powerful Narrative that Public Schools in America Have Been Taken Over by By History at Binghamton University. “The Factors of the Matter Are, that’s Just Not True.”

SO WHEN PRAGERU STARTED COURTING STATE EDUCATION OFFICALS FOR Partnerships, Those Officials Likely Saw It As A Win-Win. “IT’s Low-Hanging Fruit for An Ambitious Superintendent in a Conservative Area to Say, ‘Hey, Look, We Have Put This on The Approved List,’ ‘Laats Says. “IT MIGHT LIKE IT HAS A BIG IMPACT, EVEN IF IT HAS A NOT MEASurable and Probably Not Very Significant Impact.” The Shows Were ALREADY AVAILABLE FOR FREE ON PRAGERU’S WEBSITE. But to Prageru, State Approval Meant Teachers Could not Be Punieded for Using the Content, and It Could Make It Easier for Teachers To Access The Resources Thing of the Unifa. Lesson Planning and Grading.

The First State to AnnogonCa A Deal Was Florida, the Center of the Curriculum Culture Wars Due to ITS 2022 “DON’T SAY GAY” LAW and the MAY 2023 Expansion of that LAW. “Drumroll… Prageru Kids is Now An Approved Curriculum in Florida Schools,“ Prageru’s Simonian SAID IN A LIVE BROADCAST IN JULY 2023.

Next camera Oklahoma, Followed Quickly by New Hampshire, whoh Brought Prageru Kids to A NEW LEWELS Existing State Program Called Learn EveryWhere. New Hampshire’s Education Commissioner, Frank Edelblut, Tells Thr He’s Aware of the Opposition. “If the Students Are Learning, We Don’T Care WHERE they learn, we just care that this learn,“ He Says. More States Followed: Idaho, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arizona, Montana and Texas. Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters SAID IN THAT STATE’S ANNOUNCENT THAT HAD USED PRAGERU MATERIALS AS A HISTORY TEACHER. “You’re Actuly Telling History The Way It Was,“ Walters Said. “The LEFT FOR SO LONG HAS Controlled the Narrative.”

The Scope of the Partnerships Varies. NEW HAMPSHIRE MAKES Credit Available, While Arzona Links Prageru Content on the State Education Website. The Texas Arrangement is Less Clear. PRAGERU ANNUNCED IT WAS “NOW IN TEXAS” AND “ON THE APPROved Vendor List.” (A Texas Education Agency SpokesPerson Said in A Statement, “Prager U Has Not Been Approved by the Texas State Board of Education (sboe) or the Texas Eduction Agency

Tom Horne, The Arzona Superintendent and A Republican Former State Attorney General, Tells Thr He Encounted Some Opposition Even in His Family. “My Youngst Daughter’s Very Liberal,” HE SAYS. “She Wrote me, ‘How Can You Put Up Prager Videos? They’re for Slavery.’ SO, I Sent Her About 10 of Their Videos that Were Historical Videos, Completely Objective, There Was No Ideology In Them at All, and I Never Heard Another Complaint from Her. ” While Teachers Don’t to Use The Videos, He Says, “I would Certainly encourage It.”

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A Political LEFT-LEFT-LEANING High School Teacher in Deep-Red South Carolina, Cliffford Lee, Learned About the Prageru Partnership from the South Carolina Education Association, Were. He Wrote to the Superintendent and His State Legislars to Voice Opposition. He Believes the Materials Cany’t Trusted and that Content Should Teach Students to Think, Not Do the Thinking for them. “They Hijack My Legitimacy, They Hijack My Relationships That I’V Had with My Students,“ He Says. He Never Heard Back from The Legislators or the Superintendent, He Says, SO HE DOOK IT UPON HIMSELF TO URGE CO-WORKERS NOT TO Use the Videos. “The Stakes Are Too High To Let This Go Unchallced,“ He Says.

Lee isn’t the only One Pushing Back. Americans United for Separation of Church and State Launchemed a Probe Into The Florida and Oklahoma Partnerships. In New Hampshire, Cinde Warmington, Who Was on the State’s Executive Council and Ran Unsuccessful In 2024 in the Democratic Primary for Governic LAW by Calling ITSELF A “University.” (The Ag Said It Did Not.) In Louisiana, Lawmakers IntroduCed A Resolution The State to Bar “Edu-Tainment Children’s Videos that Discriminatory and Anti-Semic. The Proped Resolution Died.

OPPONENTS ARGUE RATHER THAN Teach Facts, Prageru Videos Illustrate Already-Drawn Conclusions to Spread A Problematic Agenda. “IT’s Simply Propaganda,” Says Kevin Kruse, A Princeton Professor of History and Director of Undergraduate Studies. “Prageru Starts with Certain Conclusions It Has and Works Backward Through History to Try to Cerry-Pick Evidence that Supports Itis,” He Says. “IT’S BAD-FAIT MOTIVATION, DOING BAD HISTORY, TO DRAW BAD CONCLUSIONS.”

Knefel of Media Matters and Colleagues Watched Every Prageru Kids Video and Released a September 2023 Report. Some of the Clips they Found MOST TRUBLING CAME FROM THE ANIMATED SHOW Leo & Layla’s History Adventuresfor Elementary Schoolers, in WHICH Siblings Time-Travel to Meet Historical Figures. In one they highlighted, A Cartoon Booker T. Washington Says Slavery Has “Been A Reality Everywhere in the World” but that “America Was One of the First Places” responsible for the sins of the past. ”

In Another Clip They Found Concerning, an Animated Christper Columbus Says the Place He Discovered “Wasn’t Exactly A Paradise of Civilization, and The Native Pare Were From. This Columbus Adds Some Tribes Were “Vicses, Warring Cannibals,“ that “Being Taken As A Slave Is Better Than Being Kild, No?” And that, While He’s Glad The Perspective Has Changed in the Future, to “Judge Me by Your Standards From The 21st Century” is “Estupido. ”

The extent to kind of teachers are actualy using the Material is Unclear. WHEN A FOX AFFILITA IN OKLAHOMA CITY REACHED OUT TO SCHOOL DISTRICSS IN THE STATE, they Generally Responed that Were Not. In New Hampshire, An Education Department SpokesPerson Told Thr That 19 Students have compleced Prageru’s Financial Literacy Course and Received Certificates, and 43 Were Enrollled. The State Has About 54,000 Public School High School Students.

Streit Says She Doesn’T have noumbers on how many teachers are using the Content, and that as “A Freedom Junkie,” she dosn’t to be “hovering over” People. “I don’t’tkhthstic tracks every parent and Teacher that uses their product, but does that mean that scholastic is not in the classrooms?”

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On a tuesday morning in november, exactly a week after the presidential election and a coupple of weeks after speaking with ThrDennis Prager Fel at His Home and Was Rusned to The Hospital. Doctors Determined He Had Injured His Spinal Cord, Impairing His Breating. The Cedars-Sinai Intensive Care Unit Plaked Him on A Ventilator. IT WAS PESSIBLE HEWD Nver Walk Again, Just As Prageru’s Influence Seemed Bigger than.

For MONTHS, PRAGERU HAS RELEASED HEALTH UPDATES, INCLUDING ONE INFRUARY TO SAY THAT PRAGER WAS TALKING AND EATING BUT COURCK In a March Video Update, His Son David Prager, The Organization’s Chief Development Office, Shared A Voice Recorder from His Father that Said, “I Intend to Go Back on the Radio. Soon After, Salem AnnounCed Hew Be Back On-Air in June, Thought The Company It Had Given His Old Time Slot to Charlie Kirk, The Past Prageru Present Who Pers THEN THERE WAS A SETBACK. In May, Prageru Said Prager Had Made It Home But Caunght Pneumonia and Returned to the Hospital. “That was a serious step back,” estrin said in an Update while adding that prager was again on the p fath to recovery. Salem Delayed His Ret URN DATE AND HAS NOT GIVEN A New One.

If Prager Returns, He’ll DO SO IN ANVIRONMENT THAT DIFFERENT DIFFERENT FROM The one HEFT IN November, One That’s Arguably More Favorable to His CAUSE, BUT ALSO MORE CROWEDED. His Son Said in the March Health Update that It Was Not Time for Complacence. “People Think We’re Entering this Golden Age of Conservatism,“ He Said. “IF YOU DON’T KEEP FIGHTING WHEN IS The Golden Ages, It Will Come Back to the Dark Ages.”

This Story Appeared in the May 21 Issue of the Hollywood Reporter Magazine. Click Here to Subscribe.