Curt Schilling believes his conservative views are keeping him out of baseball's Hall of Fame

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Curt Schilling believes his conservative views are keeping him out of baseball's Hall of Fame

Former Major League Baseball star Curt Schilling weighs in on his omission from Cooperstown, President Trump's agenda and re-election chances.

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," January 20, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin. This is "Life, Liberty & Levin." Great guest again, Curt Schilling, how are you, my friend?

CURT SCHILLING, FORMER BASEBALL PITCHER: I'm good. How are you?

LEVIN: It's a pleasure.

SCHILLING: Thank you.

LEVIN: We've met in the past.

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: But now we get to talk to each other and I'll tell you why I wanted you here because you fascinate me. A great athlete. You know, I'm from Philadelphia. You played for the Phillies for some time. You played for the Diamondbacks. You played for Boston, and a tremendous record. And also you're an outspoken Conservative.

Now first things first, 1993, you pitched in the World Series with the Phillies, they lost; 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, 2004, 2007 Boston Red Sox championships. You are an 11 and 2 post season record. I just want the nation to understand how phenomenal that is. That is the greatest postseason record of any pitcher who's pitched 10 or more games in the postseason and 8.846 winning percentage.

And I'm doing this for a reason. So you have the Major League record when it comes to that. You also struck out over 3,000 batters. One behind Gibson. You're tied for third or one behind.

SCHILLING: One behind.

LEVIN: One behind on third and you routinely and it's not that long ago you routinely pitch past six and seven innings which really isn't done anymore. This is a tremendous record.

SCHILLING: Thank you.

LEVIN: And you're not in the Hall of Fame. You're not in the Hall of Fame. Is that because of your views? You think it's political?

SCHILLING: Part of it is. I mean, it's not a guess. The people that have not voted for me specifically because of the things I've said or did, they've said it. They've about come out and said I can't vote for him because of what he said or what he did and --

LEVIN: Isn't that pretty outrageous? I mean, aren't they supposed to be voting based on your career as a baseball player? As an athlete? Not whether they agree with your Conservative views or not?

SCHILLING: Well, the two words come up -- the character clause. And there's a couple of issues with that. First of all, I'm putting -- I'm now -- I've seen recently, I've been put in the in the Clemens and Bonds category. You know, character issues this and that, which kills me because Roger Clemens was such a big influence on my career, but I don't doubt for a second that I -- he cheated.

They are equating me and something they think I've done or said with guys who willingly did -- Lance Armstrong, in a sense destroyed other people's lives to preserve their legacy. We're on the same moral turf somehow.

So my dad told me, don't ever live your life trying to please people you don't know and that's -- but you know, I've lived. You know, you can go back and look at 22 years of my career and you know, every -- I've never had an incident with a teammate. I meant, not a serious incident. Every day, you have so fans, clubhouse guys --

LEVIN: Isn't this what they do to Conservatives generally? Look what they've done to the President of the United States.

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: Before he became a Republican, before he decided to run, before he was the nominee, before he was President of the United States, the Liberals loved them. The media loved him. Hollywood loved him and they couldn't say enough good things about him. They took his money. They took his donations. They made money off of his program. All of that was well and good

Then he decides to run for President the United States. The next thing you know, he's a reprobate. He's Hitler. He's Stalin. He's a thousand things that they say. Isn't that what we all come up against? He came up against it. You came up against it. Guys like me, we come up against it every single day. Isn't it the effort to just destroy your reputation and your character if they can, rather than engage?

SCHILLING: I would argue, it's probably the same reason you have a hard time getting a Liberal sit in this chair because the second you -- I'll converse and debate anybody. I am open -- one of the things I was when I played, I was coachable. I would listen to anybody about anything because it would help make me better.

My thirst for knowledge after I get done playing is the same. I'll debate, I'll talk to anybody about anything because military history is my passion outside of sports. And I read probably -- my mom taught me how to speed read when I was young, so I've got a stack of books about 15 high next to my bed. I read about a book at night.

I find something I don't know and then I'll read it -- because a book is just someone else's interpretation of something that I can look up myself, but I want different perspectives and viewpoints because especially where we are now. You know, you look at where this country is now and --

LEVIN: Where is this country now?

SCHILLING: As Conservatives, we're up against a group of people who don't have any forethought, who don't think ahead. You can't, in any realistic scenario in the real world play out this socialist dream and come to a conclusion that benefits the people. It's never worked anywhere ever.

There's no example where you can say -- they love the point --

LEVIN: Scandinavia.

SCHILLING: Scandinavia and all the other things and they don't realize first of all, it doesn't scale. There's six or ten million people in those countries combined. We're over 300 million people and how many tens of millions of those people aren't even in the system, taking billions of dollars. It doesn't work.

And so you know, you look at a generation. My kids are between 16 and 22, so they're in college and they're pretty conservative and they're listening to Liberal professors say things and they'll text me and the only -- my son has one professor who said, "I don't want you to take what I say at face value. I want you to challenge me." Which is the first time you ever heard anybody left-of-center say that.

LEVIN: So you think the country is moving in the wrong direction because of this socialist pressure that's in place in our schools, in our society, in the media even though there's a push back. The President the United States and other conservatives and so forth?

SCHILLING: Here's the thing. I gamed this out, right? I mean, you know where we are right now. You're kind of in the eye of the storm in a sense given your influence on people on the right and the hatred that comes from the left for you, which means you're on target doing something right.

But you game this out. Trump is going win in 2020. There is just no feasible way unless the Russians and Democrats get together again and try and rig another election, but he wins in 2020. They're not going to suddenly scale back. They'll be apoplectic, more so than they are now.

LEVIN: You don't think this ends well?

SCHILLING: No, it doesn't. It can't end well because the left has proven that they won't let it end until they get their way.

LEVIN: And that's an example on the wall.

SCHILLING: The wall is a great example. You were mentioning how much the left love Trump. Back when they were loving Trump, they were also approving $25 billion and $40 billion to fund a wall because you can go back and look at the sound bytes of Obama and Clinton and everybody saying, "We need this. We need border security."

And all of a sudden, they hate it and they only hate it because President Trump wants it. Period.

But I'm -- I feel good about the thing. He's not going to give in. He is not going to end this shutdown until he gets his money.

LEVIN: Now, you're describing a political party that puts power before a country because why in the world would they change their position, everybody knows a nation needs to secure its border. Everybody knows it's a bad thing for drugs and drug runners to come into the country. Everybody knows that we need to know who's coming into this country.

SCHILLING: Those are all common sense.

LEVIN: All common sense, but they reject it. They don't reject it because it's irrational or bad policy or bad for the country. They reject it because it's bad for their own political fortunes and yet they have a propaganda machine at CNN and MSNBC and in the "New York Times" day-in day- out, you were talking about your kids. They have academia in their back pocket with tenured professors who are mostly hardcore left-wing and much like you in sports.

Leftist in sports can do pretty much whatever they want to do. They can take knees. They can do this. They can do that. Conservatives in sports had to be very careful because even the sports media is quite left-wing.

SCHILLING: Look, there's no better example in the last nine years. Two athletes have been pretty much persona non grata. Tim Thomas carried the Bruins to the Stanley Cup in 2011, did not go to the White House.

LEVIN: For Obama.

SCHILLING: He's like Voldemort, he-who-must-not-be-named in -- I mean, he carried the Bruins to a Stanley Cup and he was the greatest thing ever until then me, I said "Vote Bush in 2004." It blew up. The Patriots refused to go to the White House. They are icons. They are people to follow it's just and so --

Like I said, you can't, like the Hall of Fame vote stuff. I can't live my life for those people to -- because they are never going to like you. There's a certain part of the world that just doesn't like you for whatever reason. The reasons they don't like me have to do with, I think character and integrity and morals and ethics and honor and all the things that my dad taught me to believe and we were talking earlier, I said -- one of the most powerful lessons in my life was Roger Clemens pulling me aside and talking about --

My dad passed away about eight months before I made my major league debut.

LEVIN: He never saw any of this?

SCHILLING: No.

LEVIN: No.

SCHILLING: No from ground level, anyway, but Roger told me when you walk out in the field, the name on the back of your Jersey, that's not your name, that's your father's name and I never forgot that.

I left a ticket for my dad every game I ever played.

LEVIN: Really?

SCHILLING: I left a ticket -- there's an empty -- because I wanted an empty seat in the stadium during the World Series, so he knew, next time I get a chance to talk to him, he's going to know I never forgot about him.

LEVIN: You have flirted with running for office. Massachusetts would be a tough place to run.

SCHILLING: I would -- yes, but that's -- I mean, that's why I chose Boston over New York to play.

LEVIN: Really?

SCHILLING: Oh, sure.

LEVIN: Why?

SCHILLING: Because if I went to New York and helped them win the 28th and 29th World Series, ho-hum. If I go to Boston and break -- and help break the curse or whatever they call it, there's something no one's ever seen in there.

I want the challenge. I wanted out -- you know, and it turned out to be partially a great thing, but I got I got what I asked for.

LEVIN: Do you think you'll run?

SCHILLING: No, not now. After I watched -- you know, when you look at what the left has done to people that they don't like especially politicians, when I watch the Kavanagh hearing and realized that Conservative wives, spouses and children are now in play for the media, my family doesn't deserve that. And they're not -- they spent 20 years following me around baseball. I'm not going to subject them to that.

LEVIN: I want to talk more about that, the Kavanagh hearings, your philosophy, your view of sports because sports to me seems to be following the Democratic Party, pretty much.

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: Folks don't forget to join us almost every weeknight on Levin TV. Go to blazetv.com/mark where you can sign up blazetv.com/mark or give us a call at 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV. A lot of conservatives are there. We would like you to join us. We'll be right back

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Curt Schilling, was there an event, a book, a person your upbringing that caused you to be a conservative and a Republican?

SCHILLING: No, my father was -- I grew up an Army brat and I grew very lower middle class and I was fortunate enough to have a father who taught me the pride in ownership and what it feels like to work for something and I played sports. I was always about the winners and losers.

LEVIN: Competition.

SCHILLING: Right. I mean, which is capitalism. I mean capitalism is -- I mean and I've been a victim of it, too with the studio that I opened, it ended up failing after I put over $50 million of my own money into it, but that's what happens.

The capitalism weeds out the weak and it's why we are where we are, but I think I entrenched my stance as a Conservative when I when I was old enough to read and understand the Constitution. I think I was like 11 and --

LEVIN You're far ahead of Nancy Pelosi.

SCHILLING: Right. She still doesn't, but that's fine. But I read it and it's a pretty cool document and then when you think about -- we were talking about foresight. The amount of foresight these men had to put this document together knowing full well that we are a horribly flawed species and that somebody somewhere was going to try and do many, many bad things to get it -- it's just mind-boggling to me that they were all that smart and we've gone through some changes as a country.

We've had to live through some of the worst things, but we fought a Civil War to end slavery. Nobody else did that. Almost a million we're killed in a conflict to eliminate slavery. We have scars of the past, but those scars of the past, that's why we are where we are and there's -- I've been -- I've got to tell you, I've been wanting to get in front of you and ask you this question for the longest time.

LEVIN: You ask me. Go ahead.

SCHILLING: So when you talk about, you know, "racist" is the word everybody's throwing around. Everybody's a racist. If you don't agree with us, you're a racist this and that, but I look at the Civil War, all right and you know the three amendments that were passed post-Civil War -- 13, 14, and 15 -- what they meant and what they did.

I want to know why we had to have a Civil Rights Movement in 1960 to give minorities the rights that they were given in 1870?

LEVIN: I'll tell you why. And it's interesting you bring this up. Those amendments had to be adopted by what? The states. And it's often said, while quote-unquote "states" rights, I call it Federalism is a problem because you look at it pre-Civil War, well, it's the states that fought the states.

And I know it's the Union, but then in the end it was states fighting states and it were states that passed the post-Civil War amendments, abolishing slavery, conferring equal rights formally and due process on former slaves.

And when you look at the Declaration of Independence, there's no reference there to religion, race, sex or anything --

SCHILLING: Again, intentional.

LEVIN: Intentional. They were embracing not just the enlightenment, but Aristotelian logic. The logic that came from Cicero, who was murdered and all these people -- John Locke -- who's on the wall there, Montesquieu -- these were the great thinkers, the great minds of humanity and only in America when they set up the government did they embrace these things not Marx who would come later.

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: Not Hegel, who would come a little later, but was somewhat of a contemporary and Rousseau, who was followed by the French and then they had 10 years of terrorism and the French Revolution. The reason why there had to be a Civil Rights movement is because there was resistance, that word, particularly in the South among the old Democrats and the Democratic Party.

You have to remember that as recently as 1924, at the Democratic convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Klan controlled the convention.

SCHILLING: Yes, I know.

LEVIN: People don't know that Franklin Roosevelt's first appointment to the Supreme Court --

SCHILLING: Was a member of Klan.

LEVIN: Was a member of the Klan in Alabama who'd been a lawyer for the Klan and his excuse was, "I didn't know right."

SCHILLING: Right, and I asked you that question because I wanted that answer but I also -- there's been -- our kids are miss-taught or are not taught the true history of this country and it's just -- I think it's damning to the education system, but the KKK was borne out of the end of the Civil War because it was a way for the Democrats to -- even those amendments were in play, we can make them fear us enough to keep them away from the polls and all the other stuff.

LEVIN: While they hanged people. They raped people.

SCHILLING: They were. Yes.

LEVIN: They were terrorists even then.

SCHILLING: They were the terrorism arm of the Democratic Party. Period. And you know, you have these people talking about the big switch in the sixties. There was one person that's switched and then you talk about what -- everybody that followed Goldwater. Goldwater --

LEVIN: You're talking about Strom Thurmond.

SCHILLING: Right, and everybody that voted against the Civil Rights with Goldwater, well Goldwater wasn't voting against Civil Rights, he was voting against giving the Federal government more power.

LEVIN: Well, here's what I want to add to this. The first Civil Rights amendments were the post-Civil War amendments. The first Civil Rights law was proposed by Eisenhower in 1956. The '64 Civil Rights Act, the '65 Civil Rights Voting Rights Acts, the vast majority of Republicans voted for both. I happen to disagree with Goldwater on this.

I understood his philosophy. He had no animus whatsoever. His was a Constitutional argument. That's fine. The problem I have is that the Democratic Party and their mouthpieces in the media keep accusing Republicans of what they were.

Well, I think they have lurched in a completely different direction, a radical left direction.

SCHILLING: There's no doubt about that.

LEVIN: And that's a very bleak place to take the country. Very dangerous. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARIANNE RAFFERTY, CORRESPONDENT, FOX NEWS: Live from "America's News Headquarters," I'm Marianne Rafferty. A location is being narrowed down for President Trump's second summit with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Bloomberg News reporting the meetings is expected to be held in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Two other cities in Vietnam are also being considered. The White House on Friday said the President will meet with Kim in late February. The leaders will continue talks on North Korea's nuclear program.

And U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn may have skied her last race. The Olympic gold-medalist competed in a World Cup Super G event this weekend in Italy. She failed to finish the last race of the weekend. This is her first event back after recovering from her latest knee injury. After the race, Vonn said immediate retirement was a possibility that her injuries might get the best of her. I'm Marianne Rafferty. Now back to "Life, Liberty & Levin."

LEVIN: Curt Schilling, were you always a Republican?

SCHILLING: I think I was. I registered and when I registered in 18, I registered as an independent and I think I was -- and I think to this day, I'm probably more an independent Republican because I think socially, I'm very progressive, but fiscally I'm not.

LEVIN: Socially your view is be and let be.

SCHILLING: I don't care who you sleep with. I don't care about any of the other things that I have might -- I have a son on the spectrum and he is one of the greatest human beings you're ever going to meet and he formed the LGBTQ Club in high school.

And now as far as I know, he's straight. I don't know, I don't really care, but I've had kids coming into my house for eight years that are gay, that our transgender, that are making the change from boy to girl, girl boy. I don't use pronouns around Grant's friend just because I don't want get in trouble with them but --

LEVIN: I use pronouns because I don't know what else to say.

SCHILLING: And they're the greatest kids in the world, and I keep telling them who you are dating? That's absolutely nothing to do with --

LEVIN: But you're not a Republican because of that.

SCHILLING: Right.

LEVIN: You're a Republican why?

SCHILLING: I'm a Republican because I love competition. I think competition brings out the best in human beings. I think --

LEVIN: So this whole notion of centralized government, of uniformity, of redistributing wealth, kind of destroys all those motivations and principles.

SCHILLING: Well, here's the thing. I'm -- the second you say you're against Obamacare, you're hoping people die according to the media. I want everybody to have healthcare. First of all, let's be clear.

No one can -- you can't be denied healthcare.

LEVIN: Right, you go into -- that's Federal law.

SCHILLING: You can't be denied -- you keep walking in it -- you cannot be -- you can be denied health insurance, but you can't be denied healthcare. The fact that of the matter is, in capitalism, if we force people to -- under a single-payer government-run healthcare system, then we are going to be telling people who go to medical school to become doctors just how much money they're allowed to make every year and that's that slippery slope.

And when has our government ever proven to us that they are fiscally competent?

LEVIN: And I have this question for you. When Bernie Sanders talks about government, when Elizabeth Warren talks about government, when all of these people talk about government, can they give us some names? In other words, exactly who's going to the healthcare system? And exactly where do these experts come from? They're not experts. They're people who are in the bureaucracy. They are civil servants. They're members of unions in some cases, some of them have seniority. Do they have expert tests?

So basically what these leftists are telling us is that the people in the bureaucracy are smarter, more experienced, more noble than all the plebes out there.

SCHILLING: But isn't that the message they've been telling us?

LEVIN: Yes, but how is that the case?

SCHILLING: Right, no but they've been making it clear to us as Conservatives that we're deplorable. You're just stupid rednecks and we know better than you so just shut up and let us do what we do.

LEVIN: But we pay most of the bills.

SCHILLING: With no background of success in doing anything. The government is never -- that's why capitalism -- private sector has kicked the crap out of the government forever because of the competition.

LEVIN: Are you happy -- you're Republican. Are you happy with how the Republicans generally conduct themselves in Congress?

SCHILLING: No.

LEVIN: Why not?

SCHILLING: No, because I think the Republic -- most of the Republicans in Congress stopped representing me about seven or eight years ago and started representing themselves and running for office the day they got into office.

LEVIN: Is it because they don't stand for Conservative principles? Is it because they don't fight?

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: They drive up the debt? What is it?

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: All of these things?

SCHILLING: Yes. The Democrats, when they want something, they don't care. They'll go -- they'll ruin your life. They'll ruin lives. They'll do whatever they need to do to get what they want. We've always been, "Excuse me." "May I, please." "I'm sorry." In the sense that you know, we don't want to play dirty pool because we don't believe that dirty pool is a way to play.

But when two groups are competing on a playing field and they're playing by separate rules, it's not a fair game and that's exactly what's happened. The Republican Party -- the Freedom Caucus has more my speed now -- Jim Jordan and the guys --

LEVIN: Who are conservative elements.

SCHILLING: Yes, they're -- that's what a Conservative is. A conservative looks at the Constitution as an ironclad document. It's easy, it's simple, it makes sense and it's perfect.

LEVIN: What do you of this battle over the budget and the wall and the State of the Union? What do you make of all that?

SCHILLING: Well, I find it ironic. I don't know if irony is the right word, but a couple years ago, I remember before the election, weren't we all screaming for something different? We don't want a career politician. We want somebody to break the mold.

You couldn't break the mold any more than we broke it with the guy we put in there. He's not a politician. This is what it looks like when you put someone who isn't a politician in the Oval Office, which is -- he's a pragmatist. He's a problem solver and that's what he's done. He's put up --

LEVIN: Yes, he's very Conservative.

SCHILLING: He is very Conservative, but he's the first politician in our lifetime that kept his work. That's why I believe -- and Mr. President, if you're watching this show, do not give in. The American people are behind you. Don't give in until the Democrats give you what they were giving each other ten years ago, that $40 million or $50 million for the wall, a billion dollars for the wall.

He's standing on principle. He's standing on things that we've never -- we watched eight years. I mean, I suffered in eight years watching the Obama administration do things that are going to take us decades to get out of, but President Trump, I do find it -- I don't know what the word that the media treats -- they hate his guts, obviously. They can't stand him.

But they never call him President Trump. You ever notice that? They always call him Donald Trump. You never heard them say Barack Obama. It was President Obama and it's just the little things. I don't get caught up in them, but it's just kind of funny how they do that.

LEVIN: All right, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, you can join us most weeknights on Levin TV. Give us a call at 844- LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV or go to blazetv.com/mark, that's blazetv.com/mark. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Curt Schilling, as a broadcaster -- radio, TV, digital TV -- I actually find sports broadcasters to be even more liberal than the so- called mainstream media and they like to talk about politics all the time.

First of all, why is that and why do they like to talk about politics all the time?

SCHILLING: I don't have an answer for why. I do know and I believe the number is 86, but it might be 88% -- they did a poll on sports writers and 88% of the people in the media -- in sports media are liberal.

LEVIN: Why is that?

SCHILLING: Well, I think that it's a byproduct of our education system, first off. Most of them have gone to college and got a degree in Gender Studies or whatever they get degrees in these days and that's what they do.

I've got to tell you when I got -- when I realized that, when I was done playing and I looked back on that, I think about these guys that are -- they've got four-year degree from BU and they've got a journalism degree and they're standing in front of a kid who's 21 years old, doesn't speak English from the Dominican and he's making $15 million a year and they're taking home, you know, $1,500.00 a month after tax or whatever and there was some bitterness. You can always see in the writing.

LEVIN: So you think they're bitter because they see athletes making all this money and they make chump change -- many of them.

SCHILLING: I don't think that's the sole reason. I think that that's part of it. I've seen that dynamic at work, but I do know that -- I was surprised by that by what you said. There were a lot more liberals in the booth and ESPN was -- I mean, I had people literally come up to me. It's almost like being a member of the underground railway, I guess.

They would come up and say "Hey, listen I agree with your political views, so keep it up." Like, no one can hear them say that and it turned out to be true. There were no -- almost no outwardly concert -- except for me at ESPN and they made that end pretty quickly, so ...

LEVIN: Could it also be in part, you see a lot of the athletes taking the knee, not all of them, a lot of them taking the knee. You see like at the NFL at the highest levels, they cave to the left and also Conservatives don't use sports to make statements. You know, you just said, you're competitive, you're an athlete. You do your thing. You go home or you do your commercials or whatever you do.

Could the problem be that for progressivism, witting or unwitting, whatever the format is, whatever the forum is. Sports -- we're going to devour it with our ideology. That's my sense of this. Whatever is out there, we have got to superimpose and project our ideology.

SCHILLING: And isn't that what they kind of do is as an -- they chew something up, spit it out move to the next thing. I'll give you a great example. Christine Blasey Ford. When was the last time you heard her name?

LEVIN: You're right. I haven't heard --

SCHILLING: I mean that -- but that was -- she was the linchpin of the Trump administration's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh and it turned out she had nothing and it turned out that all the people involved including Michael Avenatti and the lady in Newark, they were lying about this man.

They say they -- and Lindsey Graham was right. I think Lindsey Graham justified his political life in the statement he made at the end of that.

LEVIN: That was his great ...

SCHILLING: That was.

LEVIN: You know that was his great sort of Welch speech.

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: "Have you no decency?"

SCHILLING: And I try to tell people, and I tell my kids, listen if the left will destroy a man like that to get what they want, nobody's off- limits. Look at what they did to General Flynn. This man served his country honorably for how long. He didn't know -- there was -- it wasn't a misleading --

LEVIN: Setup.

SCHILLING: Right, he was set up and we're going to find out when the Mueller stuff is all done that that -- if we can get the truth, it's going to be stunning.

LEVIN: Well one of the things we'll be able to get is in that chair, I hope General Flynn, who will for once be able to tell his side of the story. People don't understand that when a prosecutor is holding a legal gun to your head, you're not allowed to speak ...

SCHILLING: And threatening your family.

LEVIN: And threatening your son, threatening your family. They have enormous power and in this case, there's really no check and balance.

SCHILLING: Insider power, yes.

LEVIN: And as a matter of fact, Congress, even Republicans keep saying we need to protect the prosecutor. No, you need to protect his targets because there's no check and balance right now, he's got enormous power beyond any U.S. Attorney.

SCHILLING: And when you think about the NSA and you think about Google and all of the social media companies and their invasiveness into our lives, you know, they could go tomorrow and plant whatever they wanted on your computer.

LEVIN: What do you make of the unmasking of General Flynn, the unmasking of these individuals during the Obama administration? Why aren't we getting to the bottom of that? Why aren't we getting to the bottom of that whole Russia collusion?

SCHILLING: That's half the challenge. We ask questions we already know the answers to. We are talking about -- we know for a fact the President didn't collude in any fashion with Russia, but Hillary Clinton gave somebody -- that is tied to a Russian, you know, companies access the 20% of our uranium?

LEVIN: She gave -- that's right, a state-controlled company and also it is she and the DNC that funneled money through a law firm and so forth to a foreign ex-spy who worked with the Russians.

SCHILLING: And how is that not the story?

LEVIN: Isn't that amazing to you?

SCHILLING: It's more scary than amazing because it's again -- you know, in many -- I've told you this in many ways, the media can do whatever they want to if they don't like you. They can do whatever they want to if they do like you. They've managed to marginalize me in many ways for things I've never done, but when I think about it, like I said, if General Flynn is not off-limits, if Hillary Clinton can give access to our uranium to the Russians and not be held accountable, then the justice system is broken horribly.

LEVIN: All right, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Curt Schilling, you read a lot of history you said. Military history, in particular. You see what the President of the United States is trying to do with North Korea. It's very, very difficult. He was handed a real bad hand there. He's accused of going soft on Russia, yet he's tougher on Russia than Obama has ever been.

I really like what he's doing with China, which has been stealing our technology and is expanding militarily in so many ways. I wish our media would focus on some of that and he's reversed the Obama administration's policy vis a vis Iran, which is a terrorist state that has killed American soldiers, which obviously is building ICBMs not for Tel Aviv, but for Los Angeles.

But they're grave threat is -- they are on a grave threat to us, too and yet he's not given a lot of credit for what he's doing in foreign policy, which is essentially Reaganism and they attack Reagan, too and Reagan was very, very successful. What do you make of that?

SCHILLING: Well the first thing, I think the most obvious issue for me is, I find it stunning that when the President of the United States says "America first," people get offended. That's a dog whistle. Now, when the left says dog whistle, America first. Americans are black, white, yellow, brown, green -- I don't -- they're all colors, all races, all religions. America -- that's what makes us so great.

But that seems to offend everybody when he says America first. He is the first President --

LEVIN: Why does that offend the left?

SCHILLING: Well I think because --

LEVIN: Do they view us as part of a global community?

SCHILLING: Oh sure they do. Well, you heard them. I mean, Hillary wanted hemispherical borders.

LEVIN: Well is this why they don't, at this point now, they want open borders. They don't even talk about national sovereignty. Would they actually have us surrender our form of representation to international organizations?

SCHILLING: Yes, I think they would. First of all, you can't be a sovereign nation without borders. I mean that's just a simple fact. But I've got to tell you, on the foreign policy side, I think, I was struck by a couple of things.

When he was running and he -- when he was interviewing people for his Cabinet, he was talking about people for his Joint Chiefs and I can't remember the General's name. I want to say it was Flynn, but it wasn't. It was somebody else. He said that he came away with an impression of President Trump that he didn't go in with. He said, "A lot of times I view people and their intelligence by the questions they ask rather than the questions they answer, and the questions he asked me were just brilliant," and you know, I'll take his word that they were that.

I think he's getting advice from the people in -- his inner circle is smaller than any President in our lifetime.

LEVIN: But I'll tell you, it's so solid with Bolton and Pompeo, and folks like that. If you don't believe in America first, what do you believe in? America second?

SCHILLING: If your foreign policy is not America first, what is it? China first? I mean, part of the reason I was so distraught over the eight years of Obama is -- whoever was President this time, hopefully it was a conservative, he was going to have to unravel the kowtowing and the bending and the kissing of butt globally that the administration did, apologizing.

I mean, our soldiers are buried on foreign territory all over the world and I don't know of any foreign soldiers that are buried on our ground that helped us get what we got now.

LEVIN: Some French --

SCHILLING: There are some French -- yes, there are some French, absolutely. Absolutely, but when you go to the graveyard above Normandy Beach above Utah Beach and you look at the rows and the rows and the rows and you watch French citizens react to World War II veterans which is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life, you realize that the media doesn't represent not just American interests but the common man.

LEVIN: All right, we'll be right back

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: I want to circle back to where we began the program -- the Hall of Fame. For people who don't know, who decides who gets into the Hall of Fame?

SCHILLING: So there's a Baseball Writers Association, a Sports Writers Association, once you get ten years in, you're qualified to get a Hall of Fame ballot.

LEVIN: So ten years in as a writer?

SCHILLING: Yes, as a member of the association, so -- and you don't have to be a baseball writer.

LEVIN: So you can be an expert on boxing.

SCHILLING: You could be an expert on anything, but baseball and some of the people that are on there have never watched baseball.

LEVIN: How many of them are there in this group?

SCHILLING: I think there's a little over 400 now, this year.

LEVIN: Is that typical or is it normally 400?

SCHILLING: Yes, it fluctuates. You lose -- if you don't vote, you lose your ballot and there's rules.

LEVIN: So how does somebody get on the ballot?

SCHILLING: You have to play ten or more years in the big leagues and once you get that threshold, five years after you retire, you go on the ballot.

LEVIN: But that means -- so you go on automatically?

SCHILLING: Yes.

LEVIN: How do you qualify to go on there?

SCHILLING: You have to play ten years in --

LEVIN: Just by seniority?

SCHILLING: Yes, by playing a specific amount of time, yes.

LEVIN: So every baseball player who's played a certain period of time is on a ballot?

SCHILLING: Yes, and what happens, if you get less than 5% votes, you're off the next year, which is what happens to the ballots.

LEVIN: What's the highest percentage you ever got?

SCHILLING: Fifty-something.

LEVIN: You know when?

SCHILLING: I think two years ago because it went down last year.

LEVIN: So you're like perennial. You keep popping up on their ballot.

SCHILLING: I do wonder how my percentage is. I haven't won a game or struck out a hitter in ten years and I apparently, I'm getting better and worse.

LEVIN: Do people tell you, writers tell you what's going on? They must talk to each other?

SCHILLING: So -- but I don't know, 15 years ago, I was in Tampa Bay and the Hall of Fame voting had come out and I think -- I want to say Nolan Ryan had gotten elected and a writer walked into the clubhouse and said -- and this guy was -- he was an ass. He was a pompous guy. He was the 500- pound guy who tells everybody he was the greatest athlete in the world when he wasn't 500 pounds.

He turned out to be a horrible human being. He came in and said, "I didn't vote for a Nolan Ryan." Proud and I said, "What do you mean you didn't vote for Nolan Ryan?" He said, "No, if Don Sutton didn't get in unanimously, Nolan Ryan doesn't deserve." And he wrote a huge article on it.

And I said, "So you didn't vote for Nolan Ryan so you could get content because you're too lazy to go out and get it yourself." And you realized that this is -- you're being asked to pass judgment on a career you have no business giving comment on, but anyway.

I realized that it was a good lesson because I learned early in my life that they don't vote their conscience. They vote a --

LEVIN: There are a lot of other reasons.

SCHILLING: Right, but for a lot of other thing.

LEVIN: I want to ask you this, I don't want the public to know this. You haven't complained about this to me at all. I'm the one who keeps bringing it up.

SCHILLING: I never will.

LEVIN: Let me ask you this. In your mind, who are the three greatest pitchers in modern baseball history?

SCHILLING: Greg Maddux is the best pitcher in the history of the game.

LEVIN: Why?

SCHILLING: Because what he did when he did it belies logic. I think Randy Johnson, probably the greatest --

LEVIN: And you played with him?

SCHILLING: Yes. Probably the greatest power pitcher.

LEVIN: Let me tell you, if I were standing at the plate and this guy's up there, what was he? Six nine or something? And his arm's speed, I mean he's like 30 feet --

SCHILLING: He basically almost brushes your nose when he lets go of the baseball.

LEVIN: I'd be scared to death.

SCHILLING: You should be because he flexes --

LEVIN: Quasi sidearm, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

SCHILLING: Yes, he's throwing a hundred miles an hour.

LEVIN: I know and that's a big dude.

SCHILLING: I got to watch that.

LEVIN: Yes.

SCHILLING: Honored to watch that and I think Pedro Martinez had one of the greatest runs ever. What he did before that three-year period was -- but I would say Maddux and Johnson and there's Clemens before he did the stuff he did.

LEVIN: What about Ryan?

SCHILLING: I think Nolan Ryan was one of the greatest strikeout pitchers of all time. Nolan Ryan was a guy -- his last pitch was 95 miles an hour.

LEVIN: I mean, that's unbelievable.

SCHILLING: He was like 79 years old when he threw that.

LEVIN: Yes, I mean -- I would consider him one of the greats.

SCHILLING: Yes, I -- yes, okay, that's fair.

LEVIN: I also consider you one of the greatest.

SCHILLING: Well, I appreciate that.

LEVIN: I mean, there's nobody better in the postseason -- nobody.

SCHILLING: I had two goals when I said -- I'll never and -- I honest to God, my wife and I were laying in bed in 1992, right after my first season in the big leagues and she said to me, "You know, what do you want to happen?" I said, "I want two things. I want to win the Roberto Clemente Award, which is -- because Roberto Clemente is my dad's favorite player and I want to retire having all of the teammates that wore my jersey say, "If I had a game to pitch, win or lose, life or death, I would want him on the mound."

In 2001, I won the Roberto Clemente Award which is still the highlight of my career. A quick story, my dad, I went to one game as a fan in my lifetime -- in my lifetime. It was Roberto Clemente's final game in 1972. He doubled off John Madden like for his 3,000th hit and he died in the plane crash not long after.

The first time I ever saw my dad cry, but that -- that he meant the world to my dad, so he meant the world to me and I got to meet the Clemente family, which was the greatest thrill of my life.

LEVIN: You're fascinating.

SCHILLING: Thank you.

LEVIN: And I want to thank you for coming on the program.

SCHILLING: It's a pleasure. It's always a pleasure.

LEVIN: God bless you.

SCHILLING: God bless you.

LEVIN: All right, ladies and gentlemen see you next time on "Life, Liberty & Levin."

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