Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 5, 2021 - Dinesh D'Souza

01:03:08

AMERICAN PRAVDA Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep61

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Has the media become an American pravda?
	Lester Holt says fairness is overrated, but is Lester Holt overrated?
	And how come media coverage of mass shootings always seems to depend on the race of the shooter?
	This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
	The times are crazy in a time of confusion, division, and lies.
	We need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
	This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
	Digital censorship may be the most serious problem we face as a country today.
	It's certainly one of the most serious problems because it strikes right at the heart not only of civil liberties but also of democracy.
	It intercepts, it blocks, it shadowbans, it restricts.
	Our basic ability to speak, to say our piece, to articulate our point of view.
	But how does this digital restriction work?
	How does it work kind of on the inside?
	I want to talk about Facebook here.
	And I got a couple of strikes on my Facebook.
	I'm not banned or anything.
	But the point of these strikes is that they mark your post as being false or Or missing context?
	The basic idea is they're alerting people that you're spreading, in their words, misinformation.
	But is it misinformation?
	And who decides if it's misinformation?
	And what does misinformation in this context really mean?
	Now, the way that Facebook works is that they act as if they're not making the decision directly, or at least they're making the decision based upon somebody else's decision, these so-called fact-checking sites that they apparently rely on.
	I'm not quite sure if Facebook is using the fact-checking sites as a pretext or if they really do say, oh, the fact-checking site says so, therefore, you know, we're going to go along with that.
	And if the fact-checking site is putting out misinformation themselves, then Facebook is being duped.
	Now... I mentioned before on this podcast that some time ago, this is a few months ago now, I had posted about Biden.
	Biden merely saying what he said in the debate, Antifa as merely an idea.
	Ding! Facebook.
	Missing context. And I'm thinking, what context?
	I mean, that's all that Biden said about it in the debate.
	It's not that Biden made a lengthy statement.
	I deceptively edited it to make it seem that he said something different than he did.
	That's what he said.
	I quoted him. And literally, the quote itself was flagged for missing context.
	And I think this is kind of a classic example, where there are two recent examples.
	They ding me for saying that Kamala Harris is a descendant of slaveholders.
	Wow! Now, this is a story that actually I broke.
	I wasn't the only one who covered it, but I put it out there.
	I found Kamala Harris' dad, Donald Harris, who was talking about how he was descended from one of Jamaica's largest slave owners, Hamilton Browne.
	I also found the genealogy, the family tree that showed the direct line of descent from Kamala Harris through Donald Harris, through a free woman of color named Christiana Brown.
	And then Christiana Brown on through the son of the slave holder, Hamilton Brown.
	Hamilton Brown, by the way, had more than five plantations and more than 200 slaves.
	So this is a fact.
	And it's a fact that was initially disputed.
	When I first put it out, there were a couple of people, Nicole Hannah-Jones, the kind of lead architect of the 1619 Project.
	She didn't dispute the genealogy.
	She tried to imply that I was missing the fact that there had been rape on the plantation.
	And so she contested that aspect of what I said.
	But when I showed that the slave owner's son had married a free woman of color, this was not a product of rape on the plantation.
	Nicole Hannah-Jones deleted her tweet, and so did another historian, Kevin Levin, who said basically, I'm sorry, I got it wrong, Dinesh is right.
	So the bottom line of it is, these are facts.
	Now, I kind of looked up what the fact-checking sites are saying about Kamala Harris.
	So here is Snopes.
	And interestingly, when you read the Snopes account, it basically corroborates my account.
	Yes, Snopes realizes that Kamala Harris is descended from Hamilton Brown.
	They trace the lineage the same way I did.
	And then at the end, they say this, which is kind of the giveaway.
	They go, even if it is the case that the Harris family, by way of Christiana Brown, are descendants of Hamilton Brown, those who seek to attack or undermine Senator Harris for the wrongdoing of a man who died almost 200 years ago should first get a better understanding of the often complicated, traumatic histories of black families in the United States.
	So their point is, it may be true, but don't say it because, you know, you're missing what blacks have gone through My point is that Kamala Harris is not one of those blacks.
	That Kamala Harris did not go through the sort of American slavery experience.
	Her father was an immigrant from Jamaica, and he is descended from slaveholders.
	By his own admission.
	So, this is not a misstatement of fact by me.
	In fact, what Snopes is really doing is corroborating the fact while expressing distress that the facts are as they are.
	I'm sure that they would rather Kamala Harris didn't have this lineage.
	Then we turn to another.
	We turn to PolitiFact.
	Looking at claims that Kamala Harris is a descendant of a slave owner.
	And let me read.
	Records in online genealogy archives suggest Harris' great-great-great-grandfather was a slaveholder.
	There you go. And then they go on.
	They talk about the article that Donald Harris, Kamala's father, published in a Jamaican magazine listing his lineage.
	They talk about looking up a genealogy site called FamilySearch, a reliable site, and they go...
	They go, according to the family tree, Hamilton Brown Jr., this is the son of the slaveholder, had a son named Hamilton Brown, who with a woman named Jesse and Prince had a daughter named Christiana Brown.
	Christiana Brown and Joseph Alexander Harris had a son named Oscar Joseph Harris.
	Oscar Joseph Harris and Beryl Finnegan had Donald Harris.
	And Donald Harris married Shamala Gopalan, and the couple had Kamala Harris.
	And there it is.
	So, what I'm getting at here is that, oh, at the end, after providing all this documentation, here's PolitiFact.
	They conclude, they go, in the end...
	We don't have enough documentation.
	In other words, what they're waiting for is some additional documentation.
	Think about the documentation we do have.
	We have genealogy. We have Kamala's dad's own account.
	Undisputed. And that's not enough.
	So bottom line of it is what Facebook really is doing here is either relying upon a deception or promoting a deception themselves.
	So this is very, very bad on Facebook's part.
	I now want to turn to Facebook's second example.
	They accuse me of saying that AOC was not actually in danger during the Capitol riots.
	And Facebook, again, relying on fact-checking sites, says, or apparently relying on fact-checking sites, says that's lacking context or not true.
	But it is true.
	AOC was in her office.
	And by her own account, the only other person to enter her office was a Capitol Hill policeman.
	She was not, in fact, in danger.
	At one point on January 6th, AOC went to a different building and supposedly hid in someone else's office, but no Trump supporter, no protester, no rioter got into that building or came near that office either.
	Representative Mack, who was right next door to AOC, says, I was there.
	My office was right next door.
	No, nobody got in.
	So the bottom line of it is any danger that AOC felt, or any danger that AOC was in, was only in her head.
	In her head. So I'm not denying that she felt afraid.
	I'm denying...
	Or I raise the question of whether she was in fact in any real danger, and clearly she wasn't.
	Now, the point I want to make here with regard to Facebook is this, and that is that in all these situations, Facebook acts like they're correcting misinformation.
	Why? Because they don't actually care about misinformation.
	Those would be misinformation. But you notice that they're dinging me on things that matter to them, things that matter to the left's ideological narrative.
	Why pick Kamala Harris?
	Because, after all, Kamala Harris's identity politics depends on the idea that she's sort of this multiple victim, and particularly she's descended from slaves.
	So if she's descended from slave owners, oops, ah, that disrupts the narrative.
	That's why Facebook cares about it. That's why they want to sort of make sure that the narrative is sustained. AOC put out this dramatic account, January 6th, oh, I was hiding from my life. I peered through the door, this, that. So Facebook wants to support this narrative, even though the narrative was based upon, at the very least, false fears.
	But because I'm calling out those fears as being factually false, factually based upon no genuine danger.
	Ding! Lacking context, missing information.
	And the latest thing with Facebook is this business about taking down Laura Trump's interview with Trump.
	Now, this is an escalation because it's one thing to say, you know, Trump poses a clear and present danger, his comments about the election.
	We're not going to allow those comments.
	That is level number one.
	Level number two is we're going to ban Trump.
	We're going to ban Trump permanently because presumably not only has he made offenses, we have to prevent against future offenses.
	So he's permanently banned.
	Level three, and even further escalation, is that a man who is clearly newsworthy, who is the de facto leader of the Republican Party, does a media interview, which is then posted, and that is taken down.
	So this is not actually Trump posting himself, but somebody else posting about Trump, and they won't allow that either.
	So this is, I think, a terrifying regime of censorship.
	I mean, it's almost as if when I look at this, it's almost like if we look back, we say we had a 44th president, we have a 46th president, but there was really no one in between.
	Why? Because as far as Facebook and some of these sites are concerned, Trump has been communist-style erased from history.
	Sleep is one of my favorite activities.
	I sleep better when I have the right pillow, the right sheets, and the right pajamas.
	I love wearing Mike Lindell's pajamas.
	Well, they're not his pajamas.
	They're my pillow pajamas, and they go very well with Mike's Giza Dream Sheets.
	Mike has an amazing offer for you.
	Buy one, get one free on his incredible sheet sets.
	He's come out with the world's most comfortable bed sheets.
	He found the best cotton in the world in a region where the Sahara Desert, the Nile River, and the Mediterranean Sea all come together to create the ideal weather conditions for growing cotton.
	His new Giza Dream bed sheets are made with this long staple cotton.
	Mike guarantees, and I guarantee, they'll be the most comfortable sheets you'll ever own.
	The first night you sleep on them, you'll never want to sleep on anything else.
	The Giza Dream Sheets are available in a variety of colors.
	Like all of Mike's products, they come with a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year warranty.
	So right now, you can buy one, get one free by calling 800-876-0227 and use promo code Dinesh for a limited time.
	Buy one, get one free, 800-876-0227 or go to MyPillow.com, but make sure to use promo code Dinesh.
	This podcast episode is called American Pravda, and so it seems only appropriate that I should hand out an American Pravda Award.
	Now, this is not an easy thing to do because there's, like, tremendous competition.
	Lots of people sort of in the running.
	But I think if I were to give the award now, I'd have to give it to Lester Holt.
	Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC. Now, interestingly, Lester Holt recently got an award.
	It was the Edward R. Murrow Award.
	And while receiving that award, Lester Holt made some very interesting comments about journalism that were then embraced by a lot of his colleagues.
	The basic theme is that fairness is overrated.
	Listen. The unprecedented attacks on the press in this period I'm sure will fill plenty of books and be studied in classrooms, maybe even here.
	But I have a few early observations I'll share about where this moment brings us and what we can learn.
	Number one is, I think it's become clearer that fairness is overrated.
	Well, before you run off and tweet that headline, let me explain a bit.
	The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in.
	That the sun sets in the West is a fact.
	Any contrary view does not deserve our time or attention.
	So, evidently, according to Lester Holt, There are, in general, not two sides to every issue, or perhaps multiple sides to every issue.
	There is only one side to every issue, or at least to most issues, because in his view, the debates that we're arguing about in America today resemble claims that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
	But, is this an actual correct description of what we're debating in America?
	What we're fighting about?
	Here I see a video.
	This is from a Democratic Congresswoman, Nakeema Williams.
	And she picks up really the Lester Holt theme.
	She goes, there are no two sides to this issue.
	You are either on the side of democracy or you're not.
	So you can see that this rhetoric isn't just in the media.
	It is also percolating into the larger society.
	And Nakeema Williams, this Democratic Congresswoman, is talking about Georgia.
	She's talking about the Georgia Election Integrity Law.
	And she's acting as if there aren't two sides here.
	There's just one side.
	Either you love democracy or you don't.
	Now, I think what is so deeply deceptive about this is that with any restrictions, with any kind of requirements to do anything, there's always a kind of risk on both sides of the coin.
	So let's look, for example, at the Georgia laws.
	Let's just take something as simple as voter ID. Now, with voter ID, there is a risk that if you impose any requirements at all, some legitimate voters may be discouraged from voting.
	Or, here's a guy, he's homeless, he's never been able to get an ID, or he changed his name 17 times, he can't get an ID, this guy can't vote.
	So that's the risk of having ID. This legitimate voter is unable to vote.
	But there's also a risk on the other side.
	And that is if you don't have ID, all kinds of illegitimate guys who shouldn't be voting will vote.
	So, the simple fact of it is you have to make a decision here in imposing a requirement.
	Hey, is imposing this requirement going to do more to protect democracy or to undermine democracy?
	This is a judgment call.
	And the idea that there's only one side to the issue, that there's no two sides, this is like the sun rising in the eastern ash, this reflects a deep ignorance of what our policy debates are all about.
	Let's think about it. We have a two-party system.
	We have liberals.
	We have conservatives. So we have two rival ways of looking at the world that I think are in the end based upon two rival conceptions of human nature.
	But be that as it may, whether they are or not, the truth of it is these two sides have two completely different destinations that they want the United States to go in.
	One party wants to raise taxes and believe it will have no impact on productivity or upon the GDP.
	The other side believes that confiscatory tax rates are very bad.
	One side wants to expand entitlements and the apparent belief that's government spending more and more money, no problem.
	Doesn't matter what the effect is on the deficit.
	The other side believes that no, it's better to have smaller government, better to do things at the local level.
	One side wants to emphasize identity politics.
	The other side wants to emphasize our common identity as Americans, a multiracial commitment, if you will, to patriotism.
	So, the whole idea that these rival conceptions of the good society, of where America should go, rival conceptions that involve facts, But they also involve values.
	At the end of the day an ideology is not a fact but it's not purely a value.
	It is combining the two in laying out a kind of policy, a vision for where to go that's laced with policy recommendations of how to get there.
	So, to compare this in some kind of obtuse way with the sun rising and setting, I mean, I don't even know what to say about the level of stupidity, the level of ignorance involved.
	Now, Lester Holt might say, well, I'm not talking about that, Dinesha.
	I'm talking about issues where there's real clarity.
	Well, even on issues where there's supposed to be real clarity, there really isn't.
	We ought to listen to the science.
	Well, the science on COVID is ongoing.
	There are new findings, new studies.
	Someone comes up with a new study out of Sweden, another study out of London.
	This study is criticized by other experts.
	So the idea that sort of science itself is jumping out of the grave and speaking like an oracle, this reflects the misunderstanding of what science is.
	It's based on hypothesis, verification, criticism, testing.
	Or even take something like voter fraud.
	Dinesh, voter fraud.
	There's no systematic evidence of voter fraud.
	That's like the sun rising in the east.
	Wait a minute. First of all, whether there's systematic evidence or not, this is ongoing.
	There are cases that are ongoing.
	Maricopa County just requested, demanded an audit of the votes.
	There are legal cases that are still pending on this issue, sort of just to claim that something is settled.
	Maybe there is no systematic evidence of voter fraud, but that doesn't mean that no systematic evidence is forthcoming.
	To simply shut down the whole discussion, this is like the sun rising in the east, again, no it's not.
	January 6th, we had a riot, we had terrorism, we had an insurrection.
	Wait a minute, these are loaded words.
	A riot? I've seen riots, property damage, things on fire, riots, violence, systematic violence going on.
	It's very debatable whether what we saw on January 6th was a riot, an insurrection.
	Were those guys milling around, making jokes, taking selfies, playing with Nancy Pelosi's podium?
	Were they trying to take over the U.S. government?
	Did they think that they could displace the U.S. military, then tell the military what to do, kind of Pinochet-style in Chile?
	Was it a coup? Were they trying to overthrow the U.S. government?
	I mean, my point is, at the very least, this is not a settled matter.
	And so for this Lester Holt guy to sort of put on his kind of Walter Cronkite look and act as if he's, you know, in an oracular way proclaiming, facts are facts.
	Our job is to state the facts, not to give both sides.
	We have a two-party system because there are two sides.
	We have progressives and we have conservatives because there are two sides.
	Now, maybe there are three sides.
	They're libertarians. But the idea that there's one side, this is one-party state thinking, and it's very pernicious.
	It reflects the way in which our media has become Pravda-ized.
	Think about totalitarian societies.
	They only see one side.
	And they would listen to Lester Holt, and they would go...
	He's right on. He's doing exactly what we've been doing all along.
	Let's talk about censorship on social media sites and what you can do about it.
	The left wants to silence and remove any voices they don't agree with.
	Twitter and Facebook were supposed to be open platforms.
	I don't need their content moderators acting like the op-ed section of the New York Times.
	So instead of letting social media sites revoke your right to free speech, how about revoking their right to your data?
	Now you could just deactivate all your social media accounts, but that would be giving the left just what they want in the first place.
	Instead, I use ExpressVPN.
	Ever wondered how free to access sites like Facebook make all their money?
	Well, by tracking your searches, video history, and everything you click on, and then selling your valuable data.
	When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence.
	By hiding your IP address.
	That's what makes your activity more difficult to trace and sell to advertisers.
	And ExpressVPN couldn't be easier to set up.
	You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected.
	ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your data to protect you from hackers and internet bad guys.
	It's time to say no to censorship and take back your online privacy at expressvpn.com slash dinesh.
	By visiting my special link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free.
	Again, that's expressvpn.com slash Dinesh.
	ExpressVPN.com slash Dinesh.
	The press continues to cover up for Hunter Biden.
	And this is beyond disgusting.
	Remember that there was a tremendous cover-up for Hunter Biden before the election.
	I think Jack Dorsey of Twitter has now admitted that they were completely wrong to do what they did, which is to block and ban the Hunter Biden story.
	But that occurred, and I think it had an impact on the election result.
	But nevertheless, Hunter Biden now has a book out Beautiful things.
	Beautiful things. And the book is getting coverage.
	I saw Ron Stelter, whom I'm going to affectionately call my dad, because although 35...
	I refuse to believe the guy is 35 years old, but...
	Even though I'm almost 60, this guy looks older than me.
	In fact, almost old enough to be my dad.
	Anyway, he's like, I found this so moving!
	This guy is apparently like, he has a tingle down his leg.
	Not because he's reading, you know, Hamlet or All's Well That Ends Well, but because he's reading the Hunter Biden memoir and he identifies with it so much.
	Well, NPR is asking Hunter Biden in an interview...
	How much money he made on the Burisma deal.
	And I want to quote Hunter Biden.
	Hunter Biden goes, I think it's reported.
	I don't want to say the exact number right now because I don't want to get it wrong.
	Hunter Biden, I know the number.
	I've actually seen the documentation.
	You got $89,000 a month for a period of roughly five years.
	So that's about a million dollars a year.
	And you know the amount.
	You're acting, and this is the comedy of the situation, you're acting like you're reluctant to say is not because you know it's a gigantic, gargantuan number.
	You know you have nothing to do with energy.
	You know that this was a payoff.
	You're acting like, Well, I can't release the number because I'm a little worried I might get it wrong.
	In other words, you have such a scrupulous dedication to facts that you just can't recall the exact number and you're going to have to get back to them.
	But of course, the whole point about it is they never press you on these questions.
	Here's Hunter Biden being interviewed about his laptop.
	Listen. Was that your laptop?
	For real, I don't know. I know, but you know that.
	I really don't know if the answer is.
	You don't know, yes or no, if the laptop was yours.
	I don't have any idea.
	I have no idea. So it could have been yours.
	Of course, certainly. There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me.
	There could be that I was hacked.
	It could be that it was Russian intelligence.
	It could be that it was stolen from me.
	Now, look, I'm not surprised that this guy is, like, lying through his teeth.
	It could be my laptop.
	It could be the Russians might have planted it also.
	But, you know, it could have been mine.
	Now, but what I really want to highlight is the fact that the reporter questioning him doesn't push him.
	All she has to say is, Are those your emails?
	There are innumerable emails on that laptop.
	The emails have been revealed.
	They came from that laptop.
	Are those your emails? Did you send them?
	Because think about this. Hunter Biden has just written this book, Beautiful Things.
	He recalls all this stuff that he writes about his early life.
	It's full of all this riveting detail.
	Are you telling me that this guy, A, can't remember if those were his emails, if he sent them?
	B, can't remember how much money he made from Burisma?
	Oh, the exact number just escapes me now.
	Hard to say. You know, it could be anything.
	No. This is Hunter Biden doing the Hunter Biden, you know, criminal crackhead.
	How do I get out of this one thing?
	And the media, while pretending to be tough on him, will you admit that it's your laptop?
	It could have been your laptop, is actually letting him off the hook at every stage.
	There's always a side door that Hunter can jump out of.
	So the bottom line of it is...
	Think again. If this had been Donald Trump Jr., do you think that the journalist would have let it go?
	Oh no, those could have been your laptop.
	Let's leave it at that. Yeah, well, we'll take your word for it.
	You know, Don Jr.?
	No. The disproportion between the way in which this American Pravda operation we call our media treats our side and their side is absolutely staggering.
	I'd like to introduce you to Nutramedix, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993 and now available to you.
	Nutramedix produces high-quality natural herbal remedies and popular supplements from nature's richest resources like the Amazon rainforest.
	Ingredients as pure and raw as possible.
	Nutramedix products provide targeted support for detoxification, the immune system, and optimum health.
	For me personally, I recommend RelaxMedics.
	A good night's sleep is hard to come by.
	I've never slept as well as I have since taking RelaxMedics before bed.
	Get 10% off by using the code Dinesh10 during checkout.
	The best part about Nutramedics?
	Every year they donate a minimum of 50% of their profits to global charities and missions.
	That's right. 50% of profits.
	Take it from me. Go to Nutramedix.com and order RelaxMedix.
	You'll thank me in the morning.
	Go to Nutramedix.com N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com and use the code Dinesh10 for 10% off.
	Remember when Trump was faulted by the media for constructing, quote, an alternative reality?
	This was, by the way, over kind of a relatively minor issue.
	It was the size of the inauguration audience.
	But Trump and Kellyanne Conway were blasted because they were said to exaggerate the size of the audience and therefore creating a, quote, alternative reality.
	Well, Biden has been presenting alternative facts in Georgia.
	He's been repeatedly caught and publicly corrected And directed to the actual statements in the Georgia law that show that he is, at the very least, saying some major whoppers.
	But the key point is, he refuses to correct them.
	He keeps saying them. So let's take a look at this.
	This is an interview on ESPN. Biden goes, talking about Georgia.
	Imagine passing a law saying you cannot provide food or water for someone standing in line to vote.
	Can't do that! Come on!
	Or you're going to close a polling place at 5 o'clock when working people just get off?
	So there are two claims here.
	Imagine you can't give water to someone, voters standing in line.
	And imagine closing voting at 5 p.m.
	And this is not just Biden saying it once.
	Biden keeps saying the same thing.
	This is on another occasion.
	What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is.
	It's sick, says Biden.
	Deciding you're going to end voting at 5 o'clock when working people are just getting off work?
	March 26th.
	Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can't cast their vote after their shift is over.
	Now, the Washington Post, many other places have pointed out that none of this is even true.
	Let's start with the business about water.
	The law does not prevent Water being served to people voting.
	Not at all. The law simply says that political operatives who are wearing signs that designate them as such can't do it.
	Think about it. There have been laws that restrict politicking in the voting line.
	You don't want Republicans or Democrats making last minute appeals while people are standing in line.
	Hey, vote for my guy. Hey, do this.
	Hey, do that. And the way to do that is to keep political operatives a certain safe distance away from the voters.
	Now, what was happening is that in Georgia and elsewhere, they were getting around the law by pretending, we're just serving cookies and water.
	We're just standing here.
	We're just helping the voters out.
	But the truth of it is that this was a way to circumvent the law that prevents politicking in the voting line.
	So, the point is that water can be served, but it can't be served by these guys.
	It has to be served by people who are not attached to either of the political campaigns.
	And if you do, if you've got people who have no political identification, who are working for some sort of a non-profit that is sort of, let's just say, the Salvation Army or the water-serving company or whatever, they can serve water.
	There's no prohibition against it.
	Number two, election hours in Georgia are 7 to 7.
	There's no change in the law to that degree.
	In fact, the Georgia law expanded voting dates and voting hours.
	So voters can start casting ballots as early as 7 and as late as 7 p.m., the same as Election Day in Georgia.
	And Georgia also added a mandatory day of early voting on Saturday.
	Now, New York has harsher rules than Georgia.
	For example, New York has fewer early voting days.
	New York has a restriction on passing out food and water over $1 in value.
	And... What's very interesting about this is that even though Biden knows this, Jen Psaki knows this, she reads the media, but she has been repeating the same lies as Biden.
	She basically has been going along with Biden.
	So here are people who are being presented with, hey, that's not the way it is.
	But they don't care.
	And the reason they don't care is because they know they've got American Pravda on their side.
	So you've got these people with press badges marked media, but they're in it with the Biden administration.
	They're, in a sense, part of an extension of the press team.
	That's why you see the buddy-buddy, you know, our friends in the press are going to be asked to leave.
	Our friends in the press...
	They are friends. They're not just friends.
	They're doing the Biden administration's bidding.
	So the simple truth is we are in this precarious situation in a democracy where we have no real functioning press.
	And that means that all kinds of abuses are going to get detected, all kinds of bad deeds are going to be covered up, and all kinds of lies are going to go unchallenged.
	Mike Lindell at MyPillow has just an abundance, a cornucopia of products, more than a hundred of them on his side, and he's done it again now with his new product, slippers, my slippers.
	Mike has taken over two years to develop these slippers.
	They're designed to wear indoor or outdoor all day long.
	They're made with MyPillow foam and impact gel to help prevent fatigue.
	They're made with quality leather suede.
	For a limited time, Mike is offering 40% off his new MySlippers.
	The MySlippers are so comfortable that you will want to get some for the whole family.
	Debbie and I just love ours.
	I got the moccasins, she got the slip-ons.
	Go to MyPillow.com and use promo code Dinesh.
	You'll get deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including the Geezer Dream bedsheets, the MyPillow mattress topper, and MyPillow towel sets.
	Call 800-876-0227 or go to MyPillow.com and use promo code Dinesh.
	One of my favorite satirical sites on the web is the Babylon Bee.
	My friends and I often exchange Babylon Bee memes and chuckle over them.
	I post them periodically myself.
	Here's a pretty good one. Babylon Bee, they have a picture of a crime scene.
	They go,"...unclear how bad mass shooting is until authorities release details of everyone's skin color." And boom, the Babylon Beat through satire here gets to the heart of the matter, which is to say, have you noticed the widely discrepant coverage of shootings and violent incidents in general?
	And it all seems to depend on who the perpetrator is.
	Of course, from the media's point of view, they're looking for the white Trumpster.
	They've already got the blame ready to go.
	Their article's already written, front page.
	You know, white supremacy is responsible!
	Right? But it turns out that we've seen incident after incident recently, one after the other, mass shootings, violent attacks, or just routine harassment, and none of it seems to be done by white supremacists.
	In fact, none of it is. So, the Atlanta incident, the Atlanta mass shooting, was done by a white guy, but not a white supremacist, some sort of a sexual pervert who hated these massage parlors.
	And even his victims weren't apparently chosen by race.
	Six out of eight were Asian, but that's because there are a lot of Asians working in the massage parlors.
	And then we turn to the incident in Boulder, where you have an Islamic attacker.
	And then the recent incident in the capital where the guy rams his vehicle and kills a policeman.
	Turns out it's a black guy, Noah Green, Nation of Islam guy.
	Believer in black supremacy, which is what the Nation of Islam apparently believes.
	And suddenly the big story goes away.
	Why? Because it doesn't fit the narrative.
	I've been seeing case after case of Asian-Americans who are being assaulted.
	And in almost every single case, it's being done by an African-American attacker.
	Here's Andy Ngo. A black male robbed a Korean-American-owned convenience store in Charlotte, North Carolina.
	He destroyed the shore.
	He shouts racial slurs.
	Not described as a hate crime.
	That's what you get, you Chinese MF! Sounds like hateful rhetoric to me.
	Recently, a bunch of Black Panthers entered a nail salon in Milwaukee.
	Now again, this was not an attack.
	It's just a confrontation.
	But notice the racial element in it.
	Listen. Yeah, I'm talking to you.
	You know you did it. And didn't make the fun.
	Black lives matter. Black lives matter.
	You know what I'm talking about.
	Am I right or am I wrong?
	No. Am I right or am I wrong?
	What'd he say?
	He said something slick.
	Oh, I can't understand him. He said something slick.
	Don't do it again. That's why we're here.
	Every bitch thing is like every bitch.
	I'm gonna come set you down for good.
	No justice! No B! No justice!
	No B! No justice!
	No B! I think you'd have to agree that this is bad.
	I mean, this is a kind of brownshirtism.
	This is basically what was going on in the early Nazi period where they would threaten the Jews, push them around.
	This was a prelude to much worse things that happened later.
	But this is all inexcusable.
	So, who's to blame for it?
	White supremacy? Did white supremacy make them do it?
	No. I remember some time ago when an Iranian woman went into Google and shot up Google.
	The leftists at Mashable, the media site Mashable, what did they do?
	They took this woman's features and she looks completely Iranian.
	Dark hair, dark eyes, the kind of classic Iranian look.
	But what they did was they lightened her skin and they made her eyes green.
	Why? Because they wanted to make it look like, hey, that was a white woman who did that.
	Some kind of European.
	So what you have here is when the facts don't fit the narrative, Don't change the narrative.
	Change the facts.
	The truth of it is, from the empirical evidence before us, We don't have a white supremacy problem here.
	What we do have is ethnic groups motivated by, in some cases, religion, possibly, in the case of the Islamic attackers.
	In other cases, possibly ethnic grievances, resentment, envy, why these groups are so successful and we're not.
	And all of this is fueling resentment.
	Antagonism, confrontation, attacks, and in some cases, mass shooting.
	If we're honest, we'll stop putting the blame where it doesn't belong and start looking at where it does belong.
	Legacy Box is an ingenious mail-in service to have all those irreplaceable moments trapped on videotapes, camcorder tapes, film reels, and pictures converted to DVD or digital.
	It took just six days for us to get the digitized version of our first order of old photos and a VHS, and we sent off a bunch more.
	Check out Debbie's classic 1980s look.
	Now we can send this to family and friends, although some of them may wish we didn't.
	Legacy Box is a way for you to digitally preserve your past.
	The process from start to finish is so easy.
	You pack and send, and their team digitizes everything by hand.
	Get back perfectly preserved digital copies on thumb drive, DVD, or the cloud, ready to watch, share, and enjoy.
	They've thought of everything.
	They even provide state-of-the-art tracking and send you updates at every step of the process.
	Today, Legacy Box is the world's largest digitizer of home movies and photos.
	Over 850,000 families have trusted them to digitally preserve their past.
	Go to LegacyBox.com slash Dinesh to get 40% off your first order.
	Buy today to take advantage of this exclusive offer.
	Send the photos in, the videos when you're ready.
	Go to LegacyBox.com slash Dinesh and save 40% while supplies last.
	Many of you know me, well, you know Debbie and me, from our documentaries, our political documentaries.
	But last year we were executive producers on a feature film, Infidel.
	And we have the writer and director of that movie, Cyrus Naraste, joining the podcast because the three of us have some pretty exciting news to share with you.
	Listen. Cyrus, you've made Infidel, and guess what?
	We are giving it the Faith and Freedom Award for the Movie Guide Awards.
	Well, thank you so much.
	I'm thrilled. I really am.
	I can't thank Movie Guide enough for recognizing Infidel, because it is an edgy movie.
	But this movie is firmly planted in sort of the reality of a man being kidnapped and taken to a prison in the Middle East.
	I also want to thank, and this is important, is...
	I want to thank Dinesh D'Souza and Debbie D'Souza, who sort of committed themselves now from going from the world of documentary to dramatic films and giving me the opportunity to be the first one to sort of run with that ball with them.
	And they've been fantastic.
	And I want to say, you know, we really appreciate the themes of faith and freedom in the movie.
	So thank you so much for coming in.
	Well, thanks, Evie, and thanks to MovieGuide.
	So this is great news, Cyrus.
	And of course, we are sharing this excitement with you.
	And quite honestly, I did not expect us to win this award.
	Can you say a word about who is giving the award and what it's for?
	And also why we probably were a little surprised to be notified that we were going to get the best movie choice.
	Well, this award was given to us by MovieGuide.
	And MovieGuide.org is an organization that's been around for many years, focused on family and faith-driven movies.
	So they decided to honor this year for the Faith and Freedom Award an R-rated movie.
	That's very unusual.
	Infidel, as you very well know, is an edgy, edgy thriller.
	So it was kind of surprising that they, you know, decided to honor us with this and I'm thrilled.
	You know, when I read their review of the movie when it first came out, it was a positive review.
	But down at the bottom, they have certain kind of markers, you know, like extreme violence and in some cases salty language.
	And all of this is an infidel.
	And, you know, to quote Caviezel, the star of the movie, when Jim Caviezel went on Shannon Bream, I think he goes, well, this is no candy-ass Christian movie.
	And I think Shannon Bream was like, but it conveyed some of the edginess of the movie.
	That all being said, I think the movie guide guys seem to have seen that you have to be in the culture these days, and it's a gritty culture.
	So you have to make gritty films that live and swim in public space, that treat the world as it is, and that in some ways that is better than making a kind of...
	Anodyne niche movie that is only aimed at a very limited segment of the movie-going audience.
	Oh, absolutely. And look, we're depicting a Christian...
	Who is kidnapped and imprisoned in Iran.
	And we know from, you know, the many stories and horror stories that we've heard what that's like and what that's about.
	And we depicted it honestly.
	And I think Movie Guide recognized that.
	Absolutely. So, you know, Cyrus, we chat about how providential this movie was and how it was made.
	And some people don't know what role we played and all of that.
	But one of the things that, to begin with, that began the providential aspect of the movie...
	Was, you know, on our trip to India, we were thinking of a movie that would have absolutely what you just said about the depiction of someone in Iran getting put in prison and knowing that no Hollywood director would ever want to direct it.
	So when I told Dinesh, I said, well, you know, I think there's a guy that just might.
	And there's a movie called The Stoning of Soraya M that I want you to see.
	So Dinesh was like, okay, sure, yeah.
	And so we saw the movie and Dinesh was like, I know that guy.
	I know Cyrus.
	Boom! Right then and there.
	Well, Cyrus, I didn't know the quality of work that you were capable of.
	I feel bad saying that now because I'm very familiar with your work.
	The Pat to 9-11, which you made in the 90s, which was made for a mainstream TV network, as I understand, but was somewhat suppressed by the Clintons.
	I don't know. Say a word about that, and then I want to say and talk about it.
	It was actually broadcast 2006 on the fifth anniversary of 9-11.
	And the path to 9-11 basically depicts, from the first attack on the World Trade Center to 9-11, sort of the opportunities missed, the mistakes made that led to that horrible, you know, attack.
	And we also, of course, depicted the numerous opportunities, especially that President Clinton had, to sort of get Osama bin Laden pre-9-11.
	And when you watch that in a miniseries, And it's dramatized contextually within the drama, the building drama of that story.
	It's pretty agonizing.
	And it was clear that the Clinton people were very upset about it.
	And they set about doing everything they could to stop the path to 9-11 from airing in 2006.
	And that sort of, you know, got a lot of attention placed upon me.
	And, you know, fortunately, it did air.
	They did cut three minutes out of it.
	But it aired only once.
	It was number two in the ratings the first night, number one in the ratings the second night.
	It was a two-night miniseries.
	It has never been rebroadcast.
	It has never been released on DVD. And it was effectively buried successfully by the Clintons.
	It's almost a chilling preview of the stuff that we're seeing today, but it happened early on.
	And let's talk for a moment about Soraya M, because I remember being very riveted by that movie when I saw it.
	Now, in fairness, I thought, this movie has a horrible title.
	Because if you say the stoning of Saraya M, it's going to make a lot of people who are going out on a date on a Saturday night go, do I really want to see a woman stoned?
	You know, her whole movie is going to be excruciating.
	But with that all being said, you put it out there, you didn't hold back.
	This is a story that takes you into a small village in Iran, where a woman is falsely accused of adultery.
	And I just felt at the end of the movie, like, I know these characters.
	They're so familiar to me.
	And you just unfurl that story with this kind of clinical detachment, and yet enormous sympathy.
	It was a very powerful movie.
	It convinced me that you were the perfect guy.
	Yes.
	Yes. Yes.
	The Count and the Count of Monte Cristo.
	Jesus and the Passion of the Christ.
	How do we get Jim Caviezel to play the lead in this movie?
	Chain stores have different price tiers for professional mechanics and do-it-yourselfers.
	RockAuto.com's prices are the same for everybody and are reliably low.
	RockAuto.com always offers the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based upon what the market will bear like the airlines do.
	RockAuto.com is for everybody and doesn't require membership or account login.
	RockAuto.com is a family business serving auto parts customers online for 20 years.
	Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers.
	They have everything from engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, motor oil, and even new carpet.
	Whether it's for your classic or daily driver, get everything you need in a few easy clicks delivered directly to your door.
	The RockAuto.com catalog is unique and remarkably easy to navigate.
	Quickly see all the parts available for your vehicle and choose the brand, specifications and prices you prefer.
	Best of all, prices at RockAuto.com are always reliably low and the same for professionals and do-it-yourselfers.
	Why spend up to twice as much for the same parts?
	Go to RockAuto.com right now and see the parts available for your car or truck.
	Write Dinesh in their How Did You Hear About Us box so they know I sent you.
	Easy to find, easy to use, and reliable low prices.
	All the parts your car will ever need.
	RockAuto.com.
	Hey, Debbie and I are back with writer and director Cyrus Neraste, whose movie Infidel just won the Movie Guide Best Picture Faith and Freedom award.
	Cyrus, we were talking about how we got Jim Caviezel to play the lead, and I think, Debbie, you kind of had the starting position in this project, which you never thought would come to this conclusion.
	No, so when we were thinking about a movie depicting a man going to Iran, being incarcerated, I immediately said, it has to be Jim Caviezel.
	And so when, you know, fast forward, when we got together with Cyrus and Cyrus wrote the script and all of those things, I go, so Cyrus, what are the odds of Jim Caviezel playing the lead role?
	So take it from there, Cyrus.
	Well, I forget my exact response, but it was something along the lines of slim and none.
	I had worked with Jim, and I just know the realities of dealing with agents, managers, and an actor like Jim Caviezel is a big name.
	He's expensive.
	We were working on a very tight budget.
	So my strategy initially was, well, we'll offer him a small part, and then we can afford him for that, and then he'll work a couple of days.
	But You know, in the back of my mind was the idea he's going to read the script because he has to read the script for whatever part he's offered.
	And of course, Jim came back and said, gee, who's playing a lead role?
	And I said, you if you want it.
	And so we all commiserated.
	We figured out a way to do it.
	And Jim came aboard and he's fantastic in the movie.
	Well, I noticed that when he did the publicity for the movie, he seemed so committed to the premise of the movie, and he saw the movie almost as a cause.
	In other words, he saw the movie as reflecting the need for people all over the country and the world.
	To be more bold in speaking out for their faith.
	And when we made the movie, we were thinking of it as a political thriller with a faith component.
	But I don't think I thought of it as, and I don't think you did, as a mission movie, as a movie that would somehow be a form of evangelism.
	I don't think we thought of it quite in that light.
	But it seems like for Jim and for some people who saw the movie, they took it that way.
	Yeah, I think so.
	And Cyrus made it edgy, which, you know, I'm not sure that we had that in mind either.
	But, you know, Cyrus is like, yeah, we're going to make a mainstream edgy movie with a Christian theme.
	And I was like, oh, no, that's not going to work.
	That's not going to work. Well, let's talk about that.
	I mean, it seems like some of that edginess almost developed on the set in your interaction with the actors, not just Caviezel, but the guy who plays the villain.
	Is it Hal Ozan? Is that...
	I don't know if I'm saying... Hal Ozan.
	Look, when I was writing the script, I was writing that East London accent.
	Because years ago, I'd been in the London Museum and been approached by a group of guys just like that to sort of join in the cause.
	And so I've always thought that I'd never seen a character, an activist terrorist like that who'd grown up in London.
	So anyway, I was at a cigar party while I was writing the script, and I heard a guy 20 feet behind me speaking in that accent, turned around, and I thought, well, he looks like he could come from Iran.
	I went over and talked to him, not about the movie, and found out that he had quit acting three years earlier.
	And was developing TV shows as a writer.
	So I walked out of that party convinced he was the part.
	And he's a terrific actor.
	And you don't hold guys like that back.
	I mean, right away, as soon as he worked with Jim Caviezel, Jim came over to me and said, this guy's perfect.
	And we just got to let him go.
	And it's true. And Hal gives a wonderful performance and oftentimes thrillers.
	You know, in movies like this, heroic movies, A Man on a Mission, so much is determined by who he's up against.
	And it has to be someone formidable.
	And in this case, it was.
	Hal delivers a wonderful performance.
	I'm very happy with all our leads.
	Jim was great, of course, but we knew that.
	You know, Claudia Carvan plays his wife, who's on this journey to find him, and I thought she was extraordinary.
	We were very, I think, fortunate in the cast.
	And a movie like that is critical.
	I mean, you made a telling point about the strong villain.
	I've often thought back to movies I really like.
	I mean, just think back to even something like Dirty Harry, where, of course, Clint Eastwood is the hero.
	But you notice that the guy he's up against, the sniper, the murderer, is a very cunning, resourceful guy.
	And even when he gets beaten up, he plays to the cameras.
	So he's not only ruthless...
	But he's media savvy and you respect him as a villain.
	And that, of course, raises the stakes of the movie and makes it a more engaging thriller because you've got your hero, but your hero has his work cut out for him.
	No, absolutely. I mean, we can go down the list of movies.
	I mean, the classic to me is Ben-Hur.
	After Masala dies, you almost forget the rest of the movie.
	We forget that there's a whole hour after that.
	So because Masala was so vivid and powerful, a villain against Ben-Hur that when he dies, that's a very memorable scene.
	I saw the movie when I was a kid.
	So yeah, villains are important for our heroes.
	Yes. So Cyrus, tell everybody where they can see the movie because it's all over.
	It's streaming right now, but let us know where we can tell the listeners to go watch it.
	Well, it's streaming video on demand on just about every platform that offers that from, you know, iTunes to Amazon to Redbox, Google.
	So, you know, it's very exciting.
	I think the movie has had good legs on the video on demand format.
	And I hear from people every day who see the movie.
	I gotta say, with my reputation, having won some Razzies as worst actor and worst director, I'm used to critics' ratings of like 4% and 5%.
	And this movie actually got a respectable showing from the critics.
	And then, of course, a fantastic audience rating.
	The audience rating was around 90%.
	So let's... Cyrus, thanks for joining the podcast.
	We'll leave you. We want to play the trailer for Infidel so people can see it.
	And we urge you to go watch this movie.
	Thank you, Cyrus. Thank you.
	You start this, we're gonna finish it.
	These are good people.
	I've known Mr. Rossini for some time now.
	Bye.
	Have you ever seen him exhibit extremist behaviors or attitudes?
	What? The man's Muslim, so you enter his house without a warrant.
	Islamophobia! Come with me.
	He's running a terrorist nerve center or recruitment website.
	Or am I just an Islamophobe?
	What does that tell you?
	He is the one that said, go to Cairo, talk about the faith.
	You're not suspicious? I'm asking you, don't go.
	I will call you.
	It's gone viral in the Middle East.
	That you're preaching to Muslims.
	Well, I was invited.
	Not by me, mate.
	Who's there?
	Doc!
	Can you hear me?
	He's caused an international incident.
	Keep hiding, Plummer!
	He was kidnapped.
	This is terrorism.
	You are in the middle of nowhere.
	And it's gonna stay that way.
	We're green.
	You gotta get him out.
	They're working on it, right?
	The government.
	Not a chance.
	The days of Entebbe are long over.
	As far as the law's concerned, you did it, Bert.
	I can't give up on it.
	I can't give up on it.
	Is here your husband?
	You're CIA.
	The two of you set him up.
	Is here your husband?
	You're CIA.
	The two of you set him up.
	The two of you set him up.
	He act as if nothing happened in Virginia.
	Try to get me arrested. I came here to plead for his life.
	It is clear you are an American spy.
	I didn't come here to watch you die.
	We're not afraid to die.
	Do you think our nation's economy is going to be insulated from Biden's planned massive tax increases? Think again. There's only one way to protect your savings. Do what over 10,000 other smart investors have and convert a portion of your retirement accounts into
	gold and silver with Birch Gold. When inflation hits and it will, gold and silver are your safe haven and Birch Gold Group is the company I trust to help you convert an IRA or eligible 401k into an IRA backed by gold and silver. Through April 30th on qualifying purchases, when you buy physical gold or silver or open a precious metals IRA with Birch Gold, they will send you a free home safe. Text to NESH to 484848 for your free information kit on
	Precious Metals IRAs or to speak with a Birch Gold representative today.
	With 10,000 customers, an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, countless 5-star reviews, they can help you too.
	Text Dinesh to 484848 for your free safe with qualifying purchase.
	It's time now for our mailbox.
	And by the way, if you want to send in a question, I prefer audio or video, send it to questiondinesh at gmail.com.
	Let's go to today's question.
	Listen. Hi, Debbie.
	Oi, Dinesh. Believers throughout history turn to the scriptures or biblical prophecy in times of war, disease, decay.
	So could the Great Reset or the New World Order, the madness we're in, be a chapter right out of the Book of Revelations?
	To those who say that apocalypse is now, Dinesh, what say you?
	I'll be here with my MyPillow that I bought with the promo code Dinesh waiting for your answer.
	Ciao guys, thank you.
	You know, the MyPillow touch?
	Love it. I'm delighted with people who are just loading up on the MyPillow merchandise, as Debbie and I have.
	We've become a very powerful force supporting Mike Lindell through all this.
	Now, turning to your question...
	On biblical prophecy.
	When I think back to the prophets, the Old Testament prophets, they weren't prophets, at least not all of them, in the predictive sense.
	Not all of them said, hey, this is going to happen and on so and so date and in such and such a way.
	Some of them did do that, but Prophecy is also a witness.
	It's standing up and testifying.
	So the prophet would go before Pharaoh and testify to, this is Yahweh, this is God, you're worshipping a false god.
	It's that kind of witness that is, I think, the essence of prophecy.
	Does the Book of Revelation unfold the story of the end of the world?
	Now, it does in a general and sometimes metaphorical way.
	It's very difficult to know how to apply that.
	I remember thinking back to the 1980s when Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth, in which he interpreted the Book of Revelation to be a kind of description of a great war between the Russians and America, out of which would rise a sort of Antichrist who would rule Europe.
	Now, looking back, we see that wasn't really right.
	That was a misreading, if you will, of the prophecy.
	And we know it's a misreading because it didn't happen.
	Now, it does say, I believe, in Scripture somewhere that only...
	God the Father. Only God knows when the world will come to an end.
	And I think that warning alone is a sign that we should be a little careful to plug in dates or events.
	We can think of things.
	There are some people who argue, you know, we're in the last era.
	But by the last era, they don't mean it's going to be 5 years or it's going to be 10 years.
	It could be 50 years.
	It could be longer.
	I think we should approach Biblical prophecy in that sense with a note of caution.
	I'm not saying don't do it.
	It's actually fascinating to try to read what the Bible is saying about future events.
	And the Bible does say some very important things, including the fact that the Jews who were scattered in a worldwide diaspora, if somebody had said a hundred years ago that in 1948 the Jews would come back to their ancestral homeland as a nation, This would have seemed preposterously unlikely, and yet this is exactly what happened.
	So here is one sort of definitive biblical prophecy that has come true and is difficult to argue against because it happened.
	It came true, and it wasn't a likely event.
	Bottom line, biblical prophecy, it's fascinating, it's interesting.
	I sometimes like to engage in it, but we should also do it with a note of caution.

▲