Notable Speeches

In this address, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) talks about his conservative approach to governing and his willingness to push back against critics and naysayers. Mr. Santis spoke on July 14, 2021, at an event sponsored by the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email feedback@notablespeeches.com .

On July 7, 2021, former President Donald Trump announced he would be the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Google, and Twitter. The suit alleges the tech companies' "broad, vague, and ever-shifting" content-moderation policies effectively violate the constitutional guarantee of free speech. You can see the filing against Facebook at https://aboutblaw.com/Yur?campaign=2CEA0...

During a June 22, 2021, floor debate on the confirmation of Kiran Ahuja, President Joe Biden's nominee to head the U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) spoke out against critical (race) theory.  Critical theorists, he said, "pit whiteness and blackness against each other in a manner that reduces every American, no matter their character or their creed, to...

Speaking at a May 18 event sponsored by the Claremont Institute's Center for the American Way of Life, author J.D. Vance warned that "the biggest businesses, the most powerful institutions, the most powerful banks in this country have aligned themselves against [political and social conservatives]." He urged conservatives to fight back and outlined a plan for doing so. "We’re never going to beat t...

Speaking at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said conservatives are "facing a fight for the republic itself."   He warned that an alliance of "radical liberals" and large corporations "want[s] to run this country, and if we don't do something, they are going to."  Sen. Hawley, a former state attorney general, called for federal action to "break...

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a key figure in American political discourse for more than three decades, died this month following a battle with lung cancer. In this excerpt from a 1995 broadcast, he explained one aspect of how he would use ludicrous humor to make serious points. If you have a comment or question about the Notable Speeches podcast, email feedback@notablespeeches.com .

Speaking on the Senate floor on January 26, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) decried the upcoming impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, calling it a "sham" and a "kangaroo court." He said such a trial would be at odds with the impeachment criteria set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Further, Sen. Paul argued that Democrats, who have accused President Trump of inciting an attack on the Cap...

Addressing a massive "Save America" rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump vigorously disputed that former Vice President Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election.  He urged the crowd to "peacefully and patriotically" support the U.S. senators and House members who had pledged to object to accepting disputed electoral votes. Mr. Trump also presented a rundo...

President Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural address, considered by many historians to be one of the best inaugural speeches in U.S. history, came five weeks before the end of the U.S. Civil War and six weeks before Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. Portions of this address are etched in stone in the Lincoln Memorial. The recording used on this podcast, by Lincoln impersonator Walter Trumbull, attempt...

Our most-listened-to podcast of 2020 featured this address by President Donald Trump, delivered at South Dakota's 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration on the eve of Independence Day. Mr. Trump honored the four presidents whose images are presented on Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Citing the "radical ideology attacking our country...

Our second most-listened-to podcast of 2020 featured a graduation speech by Antonin Scalia, a member of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until his death in 2016. This 2015 address, presented at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Md., pokes fun at the platitudes often offered in graduation speeches, such as "follow your star" and "never compromise your principles." Justice Scalia's...

Our third most-listened-to podcast of 2020 featured British-born philosopher Roger Scruton , once hailed as “the most influential conservative thinker since Edmund Burke.” Mr. Scruton died Jan. 12, 2020, at the age of 75. His books include The Meaning of Conservatism (1980, 2001), An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture ( 1998, 2005), and The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terror...

Our fourth most-listened-to podcast of 2020 featured a 1981 graduation speech by President Ronald Reagan. On May 17, 1981, just six weeks after being shot and wounded by a would-be assassin, President Reagan delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "[I hope] that you will always be able to speak of an America that is strong and free," he told the graduates, "t...

This was our 5th most-listened-to podcast of 2020 — a speech by then-Attorney General Bill Barr. The Chinese Communist Party "seeks to...overthrow the rules-based international system and to make the world safe for dictatorship," he warned in an address delivered July 16, 2020. "How the United States responds to this challenge...will determine whether the United States and its liberal democratic a...

For more than half a century, Paul Harvey was one of America's most popular radio personalities.  Millions of listeners tuned in for his daily mid-day broadcast via ABC Radio, Paul Harvey News and Comment . On his Christmas program each year, Paul Harvey re-told a modern-day parable, "The Man and the Birds." This episode features his re-telling from Dec. 25, 2004.  If you have a comment...

This episode features an address by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.), recently pardoned by President Donald Trump.  Gen. Flynn served briefly as Mr. Trump's National Security Adviser in 2017. He resigned in the wake of allegations that he had held unlawful policy-related discussions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition in late 2016.  In this address, at...

Walter Hooper, an American who spent his life helping preserve and promote the literary legacy of British writer C.S. Lewis, died Dec. 7, 2020, at age 89. In this address from 2007, Mr. Hooper talks about how he met C.S. Lewis and eventually came to manage the writer's literary estate following Lewis's death in 1963. Walter Hooper went on to edit many collections of C.S. Lewis's essays, poems, and...

With the U.S. presidential election outcome clouded by claims of vote fraud, Republican legislators in several swing states have convened "election integrity" hearings to hear testimony from various witnesses, including members of the legal team. On Nov. 30, 2020, Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani was among those speaking at an unofficial hearing organized by Arizona state legislators. This episode...

In this Nov. 12, 2020, address, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito said "the COVID crisis has highlighted constitutional fault lines."  Speaking to a virtual gathering of the Federalist Society's annual National Lawyers Convention, he reflected on "emerging trends in the assessment of individual rights." In particular, he spoke of a "growing hostility" to First Amendment guaran...

Influential author, philosopher, theologian, Jonathan Sacks died November 7, 2020, at age 72. Baron Sacks, a member of the British House of Lords, served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom (United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth) from 1991-2013. He held degrees from the University of Cambridge and The University of London (King's College). His books include The Politics of Hope (200...

In an October 19 speech at Michigan's Hillsdale College, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos urged returning K-12 educational decisions to parents and families via school choice and other initiatives.  "We want parents to have the freedom, the choices, and the funds to make the best decisions for their children," she said. "We must...reorder everything about education around what the fami...

Was it an abuse of presidential power for Donald Trump to ask the president of Ukraine to "look into" potential corruption involving Hunter Biden and Ukrainian oil company Burisma? That was the key issue in President Trump's impeachment trial earlier this year. Burisma hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in 2014, while his father — Joe Biden — was vice president of the United States and taske...

During the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) presented a "civics lesson."  "[Somewhere along the way,] we decided to forget what civics are and allow politics to swallow everything," Sasse said in his opening statement. He noted that Democrats on the committee were focusing on political matters unrelated to t...

On Oct. 13, 2016, weeks before scoring one of the biggest political upsets in U.S. history, Donald J. Trump delivered a "closing argument" speech before an enthusiastic crowd in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Republican nominee pledged that, if elected, he would work to "remove from our politics the special interests who have betrayed our workers, our borders, our freedoms, and our sovereign rights as...

In this address, the U.S. Secretary of State calls on Catholic leaders, as well as other religious leaders, to exercise a "bold moral witness" against religious persecution — especially persecution in China. The secretary spoke at a symposium titled "Advancing and Defending International Religious Freedom through Diplomacy," sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. That event was held in Rom...