D'Souza: Debate with me.
Student: My question for you is more based on discourse.
In a climate right now with what's going on outside
and what can happen in here,
the word bigot being thrown around,
how do we maintain a level of intellectual discourse
that keeps conversation happening, instead of not happening?
And then how do you, also,
because you've made mistakes that you admit to,
how do you check yourself?
And then do you have people in your life that check you
when you make mistakes?
D'Souza: Yes.
I think that the whole experience that I went through
with regard to my case, forced confinement,
I found myself in a totally different world.
I had been used to the rarefied world of political debate.
In fact, I thought of American politics as a debate.
We've got these two sides and it's kind of like
a great clash of ideas.
And it's frankly only by seeing politics
from the other side, in fact, in some cases
from behind bars and seeing other people with me locked up,
and realizing, look, I'm a controversial political figure.
I'll land on my feet when I get out of here.
These people's lives are completely destroyed.
Their American Dream is actually gone.
And my American Dream will probably come back.
I couldn't at that time anticipate the phone call I received
when I was in my office this past May,
which is "Hello, this is the White House operator.
Hold the line for the President of the United States."
That's a good call to get.
And I held the line and it was Trump
and he was in a very Trumpian mood.
And by pardoning me, he gave me my American Dream back.
But what I'm saying is their journey...
Very eye opening, very introspective.
You only have to be locked up with a bunch of guys
who are in for, there are coyotes, drug smugglers,
murderers, rapists, sleeping next to you
and talking to you everyday to realize
my life has actually taken a Boethian twist here.
And I have to learn from that.
And the best I can do is come out better
at the other end of it.
So I've tried to do that.
Now, the other part of your question is this
use of the word bigot.
You got to be very careful because
when I was here at Dartmouth,
I was a freshman here in the aftermath of what's called
the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.
And it was all these guys who were like,
"Free speech, free speech, free speech."
And we supported them.
Our newspaper on campus was partly modeled
on the "Berkeley Barb" that was behind
this kind of activism.
It's only later I realized that when those guys
take control, they will immediately start suppressing
the speech of others.
In other words, they don't actually believe in free speech.
They believe in free speech for them.
Bigot is a very loaded term,
and because it has real sting and applies to real people,
there's an effort to try to pin it on people.
See, like these guys who are walking out,
they're too lazy to debate with me.
They're not going to.
I mean, they aren't. They aren't.
[audience cheers]
Because I'll tell you why.
[audience applause]
Hold on.
Look, I'm here.
I'm here.
Student: If you respect this institution, though...
Think about that.
If you respect the institution and the standards
that this institution upholds, for you to say
that they're lazy is kind of a bit out of line.
D'Souza: I'm not saying that they're lazy people.
I'm simply saying that they are not willing to do
the intellectual work to stand up face-to-face with me.
Look, if I said those things on those posters,
and if I believe them, and if they're all true,
this is a slam dunk against me.
All someone has to do is stand up here,
quote my own words back to me in the complete confidence
that I would have no rebuttal, right?
And crush me.
And I'm saying they can't do that and they're not going to.
Or if they will, I'm actually anticipating that
and waiting for it, but it hasn't happened yet.
So I'm just saying that the enemy of free speech is not me.
The enemy of free speech are the people who would rather
that I never came, that they never would have to have
that kind of debate,
that they would win this confrontation by default.