All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 31, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
48:04
UNITED NATIONS OF HAMAS Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep759
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Coming up, I'll discuss the extraordinary phenomenon of large numbers of United Nations refugee staff either participating in the October 7 Hamas attack or being closely connected with pro-terrorist forces and institutions. Congressman Wesley Hunt of Texas joins me. We're going to talk about Biden's foreign policy and what a Republican or conservative foreign policy might look like.
And I'll continue my introduction to Harry Jaffa's classic work, Crisis of the House Divided, a study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Hey, if you're watching on Rumble or listening on Apple, Google, or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
America needs this voice.
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.
I titled this podcast United Nations of Hamas but the organization I want to talk about is a subsidiary of the United Nations.
It is the organization that is often referred to as UNRWA. It's U-N-R-W-A. And what that stands for is United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
So this is the agency that dispenses humanitarian aid in trouble spots around the world, aid that is supposedly directed at civilians.
And the United Nations has emphasized that its aid workers are non-political, They are not taking sides in these conflicts.
They are supposed to be kind of like the Red Cross, kind of like the Salvation Army.
We are motivated by humanitarian concerns and when we see women and children who are no part of this conflict suffering, we deliver food, we deliver shelter, we deliver medical care.
Now, It has emerged through several sources, but now coming from the government of Israel, that multiple members of this agency, the Relief Agency, the United Nations Relief Agency, were part of the fighting force of Hamas that came into Israel on October 7th and participated in the October 7th attacks.
Now, this is a shocking development because it means this would be similar to saying that the Red Cross or the Salvation Army is actively engaging in terrorism, participating in the attacks themselves.
And This caused an immediate shockwave around the world.
Even the Biden administration was startled and said, oh, we need an investigation into this.
We're going to suspend aid to the United Nations Refugee Agency until this is clarified.
Of course, the agency also panicked.
They realized the implications of this because...
Frankly, if you have United Nations staff that are participating in attacks, there's no reason not to attack them back.
There's no reason to leave them alone and say, okay, they're serving food and shelter.
So this has massive implications.
You can't run a relief agency when you are taking sides in a conflict.
Your whole stance is that we need to be left alone because we are doing, in a sense, the Lord's work.
Now, Bernie Sanders put out an angry statement saying, in effect, we cannot allow millions to suffer.
He means we cannot allow millions of people in Gaza to be deprived of refugee services because of the alleged actions of 12 people.
12 people?
Wait. There might have been 12 people that took part directly in the attacks, but according to Israel, 190 members of the UN staff We're good to go.
Which is, I'm just quoting from his testimony now, a telegram chat group of over 3,000 UN UNRWA teachers in Gaza is replete with messages, photos, and videos cheering and celebrating the massacre of October 7.
So what he's saying is that you claim to be neutral, you claim to be a refugee agency, and yet here you are dancing and chanting and posting videos in this chat saying how great it was that this attack occurred.
And according to...
Hillel Noor, his group, by the way, is called UN Watch.
He says that 1,200 employees of the United Nations Refugee Agency are part of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, and 6,000 employees have close family members in these terror organizations.
Let's remember, the United Nations Refugee Agency has 12,000 staff in Gaza.
So what Hillel Noor is saying is that one half of them Are in the terror network in one way or another.
So these are remarkable.
This is remarkable data.
And some 10 countries, by the way, including the US and Germany, have suspended payments to the UN agency.
and the UN agency is now scrambling to rehabilitate its reputation in the wake of these discoveries and allegations that appear to have at least some or perhaps a lot of truth to them.
Something else I want to talk about very closely related is that there were many people on the left recently including Mehdi Hassan but also this guy who writes for the Guardian. His name is Owen He's a leftist journalist in Britain.
And they're talking about an Israeli attack that was, in my view, brilliantly carried out.
This is what really happened. Israeli trained soldiers in a special unit.
The unit is called Shin Bet.
And these soldiers are...
A, they look Arab, so they can pass for Arab.
B, they speak fluent Arabic.
And C, they are highly trained snipers and sharpshooters.
and this unit was deployed to identify and kill three Hamas terrorists who were inside of a hospital in Gaza.
Now how do you get into the hospital without being detected, without causing a flurry, without the word going out, without the terrorists disappearing or being protected?
It turns out what you do is you put on doctor's garb. You put on civilian clothes.
And so there's a video on social media, you can find it, where you see these Israelis coming in. They look like doctors. They're in scrubs, but they have guns.
And what they do is they move people to the side. Notice they're not trying to massacre the hospital.
They're not trying to just shoot people randomly.
They're going after these designated three terrorists.
And here's who they are.
Mohammed Jallama, a spokesman for Hamas's military wing, Basil Ghazawi, and his brother Mohammed, who are both members and participants in Islamic jihad.
That's the name of the organization.
They were part of the so-called Janine Battalion, which has been waging war against Israel.
So these are legitimate military targets.
But there are guys on the left.
Here's Owen Jones. Dressing up as medical staff to kill injured and unarmed suspects in a hospital is a war crime.
And Mehdi Hassan was implying, you guys, you conservatives have been complaining that Hamas uses civilian cover.
Hamas uses human shields.
And here are the Israelis.
And what are they doing? Pretending to be civilians.
And yet they are military men.
So there's an attempt here to make a moral equivalence between what Israel did in the hospital and what Hamas does, which is use civilian shields.
But Where's the moral equivalence?
Hamas is grabbing a civilian and basically saying, or Hamas is saying, we're going to create communications facilities in a hospital.
Or underneath a school.
And so if you target the school, you're going to be killing all these civilians.
That's one thing. That's not the same as these Israeli soldiers doing what?
Engaging in basically an old military strategy known as camouflage.
They're just dressing up as doctors, not to perform terrorist acts, but to kill actual terrorists.
If it was Hamas doing it, if the situation were reversed, yes, the Hamas guys would dress up as doctors, but what would they do then?
They would go from hospital room to hospital room, shooting, massacring, burning, and raping, and the Israelis didn't do that.
They identified the three terrorists, they killed them, they killed nobody else, everybody else was protected, moved out of the way, and then the Israeli guys got out of there.
Debbie and I started taking Relief Factor three years ago, and we have noticed a huge difference in our joints.
Nothing short of amazing. Aches and pains are totally gone thanks to this 100% drug-free solution called Relief Factor.
It's a natural way to fight pain.
Relief Factor is a daily supplement.
It helps your body fight back against pain.
It's 100% drug-free.
Relief Factor was developed by doctors searching for a better alternative for pain.
Relief Factor uses a unique formula of natural ingredients like turmeric, And Omega-3s to help reduce or eliminate the everyday aches and pains that you are experiencing.
Whether it's neck, back, joint, or muscle pain, Relief Factor can help you feel better.
Unlike pills that simply mask your pain for a short time, Relief Factor helps support your body's natural response to inflammation so you feel better all day, every day.
See how Relief Factor can help you with this, their 3-week quick start kit.
It's only $19.95 and it comes with Relief Factor's Feel Better or Your Money Back Guarantee.
So why not give it a try?
Visit relieffactor.com or you can call 800-4-RELIEF. Again, it's 800-4-RELIEF or go to relieffactor.com.
When you feel the difference, you know it works.
Michael Lindell and his employees at MyPillow want to thank my listeners for all your continued support.
Thank you. They're having an overstock clearance sale right now for the best prices ever.
When you use promo code Dinesh, you also get free shipping on your entire order.
Get 50% off the MyPillow 2.0.
That's the pillow. And also the brand new flannel sheets that just came in.
They're not going to last long.
You can get six pack towel sets for just $29.98.
Also take advantage of the free shipping on larger items like mattresses and mattress toppers.
100% made in the USA on sale for as low as $99.99.
Everything is on sale from the brand new kitchen towels, the bath towels, the dog beds, the blankets, couch pillows, so much more.
So check it out.
To get the best specials ever, go to MyPillow.com or you can call 800-876-0227.
The number again, 800-876-0227.
Make sure to use promo code Dinesh and take advantage of free shipping on your entire order while supplies last.
Guys, I'm really happy to welcome to the podcast Congressman Wesley Hunt.
He was raised in Houston, educated at West Point, later Cornell University.
He spent almost a decade in the Army as an aviation branch officer.
He flew Apache Longbow helicopters.
He was deployed to Iraq, two deployments to Saudi Arabia.
Now, of course, in Congress.
His website, Wesley4Texas.com.
Wesley, thanks for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
Let me start by asking you about foreign policy because it looks like the...
The Biden administration is facing multiple interrelated crises in foreign policy.
And I think we can probably agree that they're doing a horrible job of it.
They did a bad job in Afghanistan.
They haven't done a stellar job in Ukraine.
They're not handling the Middle East all that well.
Recently, of course, the three US soldiers killed in Jordan.
My question is, what is the Republican alternative?
If I flash back to the Reagan days, it appeared that Republicans had a coherent, unified foreign policy, really built around anti-communism.
Now there seem to be some strands in the Republican Party, some people saying, let's get out of there, focus on our own problems, or let's go all in there.
This seems to be kind of Nikki Haley.
And then there might be some positions in between.
How do you think about foreign policy in 2024?
We don't have to go back to Reagan.
We can go back to President Trump and Mike Pompeo when he was Secretary of State.
We can go back four, five years.
If you've noticed, we weren't having any conversations about what's happening in Israel.
We weren't having any conversations with Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine.
We weren't having any conversations with China and Taiwan.
None of this was happening because we had a policy of peace through strength.
We are the biggest dog on the porch.
America is the greatest country in the world.
We have the greatest power in the world.
But when we have weak leaders, the entire world realizes that you bring up Reagan.
The last time we were this week was right before Reagan with Jimmy Carter.
And that's the kind of feckless policies that we saw that began actually the more conservative movement with Reagan and us regaining our strength back.
But we're on the verge of World War III, if you're not paying attention.
And when I saw what happened last week with those three American soldiers that were killed by an Iranian drone, I asked you a simple question.
Would that have happened four years ago?
Would Iran have the gall to send any kind of weaponry for any American after what happened to Soleimani or al-Baghdadi?
That's what I mean by leading through strength.
We don't have to put troops on the ground.
We don't have to send $150 billion to the Ukrainians if we were just simply respected.
If people believed what we said that we were going to do, we wouldn't be here.
And Dinesh, I'm an Apache pilot.
When I flew 55 combat air missions in Baghdad, the one thing that I always found very interesting is we would be called in to a firefight or to a sniper or to an IED or to American coalition forces that are being pinned down.
And the second the enemy would see us on the horizon, they'd drop their guns because they knew that the Apache meant business.
That needs to be our foreign policy moving forward.
I mean, part of what you're saying, Wesley, is that...
In a sense, deterrence is the key to our foreign policy.
And had Trump been in office, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine.
And the moment Putin invades Ukraine, in some ways you've, I wouldn't say lost the battle, but your deterrence has certainly failed.
And now your options are more limited, which is, should we send arms?
Should we send money? Should we send troops?
So Biden, in a sense, he provokes these conflicts because of this sense of weakness.
Now, do you think that with Biden, he thinks he's being tough or he thinks he's being clever from the point of view of the people running Biden's foreign policy, whether it's Jake Sullivan, whether it's Blinken, what is their compass?
How do they see it?
They have an anti-American compass, in my opinion, no offense to the current president, that he has really no clue what's going on.
This is simply more of an issue of weekend at Bernie's every single week, and this is what's heading off foreign policy is Joe Biden.
I'm telling you a story about President Trump.
While he was president for the past, for the last two years of his presidency, not a single American soldier was harmed in Afghanistan.
He told the Afghanistan leadership this, if you harm a single American, I am going to kill you.
And then he reached in his pocket and handed the head of the Taliban a picture of his home, a solid imagery.
Now, would Joe Biden do anything of the sort?
No. No. I think the idea that Joe Biden being a tough guy has completely lost its luster.
The entire world is watching this guy fall down steps, stutter all over everything, eat ice cream every day, shuffle around aimlessly, can't find his way off the stage.
We see this in America.
Imagine what Xi Jinping sees.
Imagine what Vladimir Putin sees.
And I'm not trying to bag on the guy because he's old and doesn't know where he is.
He's in the early stages of dementia.
I am talking about how the world views Americans right now.
The reason why President Trump is doing so well amongst moderates and also in swing states is because we Americans see this too, and we know that we need a strong man in what is what I call the attitude era of global politics.
We may have bullies in our midst, and right now it's time for America to step up and put the bullies to bed.
And I think what you're saying is that with Biden, you're not just saying that he's feeble, you're saying that his feebleness has almost become a symbol of weak policies.
And people connect the two.
They go, there's a weak man, and so he's got weak policies.
And presumably what that means is that were Biden to be re-elected in 2024, We could probably look forward to Xi Jinping moving in on Taiwan.
We could look forward to all kinds of other bad things happening in the world because the bad guys will have been getting away with it.
Exactly. And they're probing.
And China right now is already staging their troops against an attack in Taiwan in case President Trump doesn't get elected.
There's a reason why we lost three soldiers, because they're simply probing to see what kind of reaction would we have and what would happen.
There's a reason why Vladimir Putin did what he did to the Ukraine at that time, shortly after what happened in Afghanistan and that disastrous withdrawal.
If you can imagine a world to where you had leaders that have been waiting for decades to overtake the United States, why would you not choose this time now with Joe Biden and this weakened state of mind in our military?
We have our generals that are more concerned with what the definition of white rage is instead of being concerned with putting steel on target and eliminating our enemies with destructive forces.
If the world sees this and they are focused on taking us down and China has been doing this for decades, for generations, they operate in dynasties.
Now's the time. Dinesh, you are so correct.
If Joe Biden comes back and he wins in 2024 and in November of this year, and if he comes back, let me tell you, this world will be, if not on the verge, in the midst or in the middle of World War III. The world wants America to be strong, but the American taxpayer doesn't want us spending taxpaying money on endless wars.
You mitigate both by just leading from a position of strength.
Wesley, you alluded to the phenomenon of wokeness in the military, something that has puzzled me as well as disappointed me because I often thought of the military as made up of the kind of guys who are tough guys, alpha males, guys who like to fight, guys who are patriotic.
And so, how has this woke infestation taken a hold of an institution like that?
Is it just that it comes from the top, and the military is trained to follow orders, and so even if reluctantly they're like, okay, I was told what to do, I'm gonna do it, or is it the case that somehow the military has persuaded a majority or a big chunk of America's fighting men and women You know, you need to do this stuff.
You need to be careful about your pronouns.
This is a really important part of our fighting strategy.
They say this in public, but it seems to me so ridiculous that I wonder if anybody believes it.
Stopped down leadership. We didn't have this problem four years ago, sir.
Bottom line. And imagine trying to recruit a 16, 17, 18-year-old man or woman that wants to go defend this country.
What's their mindset? They're Americans.
They're patriotic. They don't want to kneel for the flag.
They want to defend this nation like I did.
My sister went to West Point.
I went to West Point. My brother went to West Point.
And it was at a time before the military was woke.
Because we just wanted to serve our country.
And then imagine entering the military where we're having discussions as to rather or not taxpayers are going to pay for gender reassignment in the army.
Imagine a world to where at the Air Force Academy we're having a conversation as to rather or not you could say man or sir.
This is ridiculous.
We have got to get back to recruiting these people to where they are and who they are as Americans, as patriots.
Amongst white men, recruiting is down by 30%.
Why? Well, that's because white men are being attacked.
But keep in mind, there were a lot of white men that died on the beaches of Normandy, running into a barrage of machine gun fire to ensure that the world didn't speak German.
So, if we're going to have a really serious conversation and compete with China and compete with Russia and compete with other countries that are laser-focused on making sure they have the best military to prepare for the future, we've got to get back to those principles.
We can do this overnight, but it starts from the top and it's trickled downhill.
And you were right. Crowdowns, transgenderism, wokeness in the military, that's what kills recruiting.
When we come back, Wesley, let's talk about Texas and let's talk about the border.
Absolutely. Elections in Taiwan, North Korea on the brink, Iran increasing its aggression.
There's a lot of global instability as we plunge into primary season.
Now, how have you sheltered your savings and investments from potential major setbacks to the economy?
It's not too late to diversify an old IRA of 401k into gold, and Birch Gold Group can help you to do that.
Now, as opposed to many other investments, gold thrives in times of uncertainty.
It's an important part of diversifying your savings.
It's part of my savings strategy.
And here's how Birch Gold can help make it a part of yours.
Birch Gold will help you to convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered IRA in gold.
And it doesn't cost you a penny out of pocket.
Just text Dinesh to 989898 for a free information kit so you can learn more.
With an A-plus rating, with a Better Business Bureau, countless five-star reviews, and thousands of happy customers, I encourage you to arm yourself with the knowledge of diversification through precious metals.
So check it out. Text Dinesh to 989898.
Claim your free Information Kit and protect your savings with gold today.
There's no better time than right now to call our friends at PhD Weight Loss and Nutrition to start your journey to a healthier you.
As I hear from many of you about how PhD Weight Loss and Nutrition has changed your lives, I know each one of us has our own reasons for starting.
I started because I was feeling occasionally kind of sluggish and even tired.
I Debbie tried everything else and nothing would work, so we thought, we need some help.
I've heard from countless listeners who did what we did, started the PhD weight loss and nutrition program.
I heard from one listener who went for his yearly physical.
He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
The medicine made him sick, so he goes, hey, let me do PhD instead.
He has completely reversed his diagnosis.
Debbie talked to a lady who, just like her, could not get the menopause weight to go away.
Dr. Ashley and her team helped her lose the weight and keep it off.
So there are so many reasons to start, and honestly, I can't think of even one good reason to put it off.
So make 2024 your year.
Call PhD Weight Loss and Nutrition today.
Here's the number. Write it down.
864-644-1900 to get started.
Or you can go online at myphdweightloss.com.
Once again, the number to call, 864-644-1900.
I'm back with Congressman Wesley Hunt, by the way, Texas38.
His website, Wesley4Texas.com.
You can follow him on x at WesleyHuntTX for Texas.
Wesley, let's talk about the...
Let's talk about the efforts on the part of Governor Abbott to at least make a dent in the invasion, as he's described it, coming into this country.
And the Biden administration is now in an interesting position because they have a Supreme Court ruling That lifted the injunction that said that the federal government could not cut these fences.
So they have presumably the right now to cut the fences.
But Texas would also seem to have the right to keep putting fences up.
The Supreme Court didn't say one word about what Texas can or cannot do.
fracas going? Do you think the Biden guys have decided we're gonna back down on this? This is not a fight we really want. What do you anticipate is gonna come next and do you support Abbott's move on this? I fully support Abbott's move on this to ensure that we secure our southern border.
Unfortunately, the federal government is not, we're not doing our job to make sure we have a sovereign border.
And so now Governor Abbott is taking the correct and proper action to secure the people of his state.
We have a constitutional republic.
He has the absolute right to do that.
And I have a feeling and an inkling he is going to continue to do that.
But let's talk about how we got here in the first place.
A couple of years ago, we had some very good Trump policies, Trump administration policies, that gave us a relatively secure border, one of the more secure borders that I've seen in my lifetime.
And on day one, Joe Biden walks in and then overturns those policies via executive over with the stroke of a pen.
And then just yesterday, he's blaming us.
He is saying that I will help out Congress if they do their part.
We didn't get here because of Congress.
We got here because of your executive orders.
Let's be clear about that.
The fact that Governor Abbott is taking this into his own hands is exactly the kind of leadership that we have got to see across this country.
And to see the 25 governors that have signed on to help him out, to see citizens, brave Americans, Or down into Texas to help us out.
This is what should have probably happened two years ago.
I don't want to say it's a day late and a dollar short, but we can also transform these policies again in November of 2024.
This is the worst border crisis I've seen in my lifetime, Dinesh.
It's been unbelievably ridiculous.
10 million people entering our country.
Enough fentanyl to kill every American five times.
The cartels are running our southern border.
And the border of Kamala Harris hasn't even been to the border.
And she's been searching for the root causes.
But we all know the root causes are at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Oh, that's an excellent point.
I mean, what's maddening here, to me anyway, is the duplicity of Biden.
He says things like,"...I wish that Congress will finally give me the authority, which I will exercise the very moment the bill arrives on my desk." As you just pointed out, he has the authority to seal the border.
He doesn't even have to wait for the number of illegals to hit 5,000.
He can do it with the number of illegals.
He can block every single illegal from coming across if he had the resolve to do it.
We seem to have a problem, however, which is that Biden engages in this routine duplicity.
the media rushes to his defense and with a straight face acts as if he's making an excellent point. Republicans now own the border problem guys so how do we you know it's comical how do you break through to your own constituents in Houston what do you say to them when they go Wesley Biden is doing all he can to secure the border He just said so himself. I read this on the Houston Chronicle.
What do you say to that?
How do you deal with this kind of nonsense?
How oxymoronic is Joe Biden over the course of the past week?
I mean, really every day, but the last week.
Did SUM ask, what can I do in my district?
I don't have to say anything.
We've lived it. We have all watched it.
We knew what happened just four years ago, and then Joe Biden took office, and then we saw the border crisis escalate.
I don't have to say anything.
The number one issue in this country is the border.
Joe Biden has the lowest approval rating at 31% than any president at this point in modern history.
Do you know why? Because of the border.
And what I get asked every single day, Wesley, what are you going to do about it?
You're in Congress. Sir, I am one of 435 people.
And if anybody knows me and my conservative record, I would seal the border and shut it down 40 years ago.
But what we're at right now is a place where they are going to try to blame this and hang it on to us because we're in the midst of an election year.
And this is their time and their opportunity to try to salvage what has been a disastrous Biden administration by blaming us.
But his approval rating is so low because nobody believes him.
And how could they believe them?
We didn't have a federal crisis four years ago.
There weren't 8 million, 10 million that we know of people pouring into our country.
There weren't a quarter million people entering our country in a month, a couple of years ago.
We already know what happened.
And quite frankly, this is why we're going to win in November.
This is the sole issue, even more than the economy, even more than what's happened to oil and gas industry.
And this is going to be the number one issue that when people go and pull the lever for Donald John Trump is gonna be because of, we have got to make sure that we have a sovereign border.
And I'll say this, I've been deployed to Iraq, I've been deployed to Saudi Arabia, I've spent my life all over the world.
No country behaves this way.
If you were to walk into any country and say, we're going to arbitrarily allow millions of people to pour into your country, they would say, hell no.
So why would we behave that way if no one else would?
Yeah, excellent point.
It seems like what Biden is trying to do now is to count on the predictable strategic miscalculations of Republicans.
And he's in the Senate, as you know.
He's trying to get this deal working with a handful of senators.
The deal appears to be behind closed doors so we don't, for a fact, know what's even in the deal.
And I've seen some Republicans who have shown some sympathy, like, you know, guys, we're not just trying to win an election and make Biden look bad on the border.
We care about policy.
This was James Lankford recently.
I saw him on TV saying something to this effect.
If we can make some policy progress, we should do it.
But... Let me ask you this.
Do you think the Senate is actually going to make a deal with Biden that will include Republicans?
And if so... I doubt it.
Yeah, I don't think so either, but...
I really doubt it. People like me, absolutely not.
I'm not voting for that. I would never support that.
It has to come to us at some point anyway.
So it's going to get kicked back to Biden.
He's going to have to make a decision as rather or not, he's going to sign executive orders to fix this thing.
And my guess is he's not.
And for the record, we signed HR2, Dinesh, a year ago.
A year ago! We've already passed the most conservative border security package this country has ever seen.
A year ago! So I'm not interested in having a conversation with Joe Biden about how this is our fault.
He needs to do his job and fix this via executive order because he messed it up via executive order.
I mean, would you agree that what Biden is trying to do is salvage his poll numbers on the one hand, and on the other hand, move the legal goalpost from...
Illegals are illegals and should be kept out of this country to now, well, why don't we just let in 5,000 of them a day, and then we will spring into action?
I mean, there's a certain inherent comedy in this whole thing, and yet he's out there with a straight face and summoning up all his kind of characteristic urgency, you know, and...
And you're laughing and I'm chuckling.
And I think the country is also, I mean, there's a certain bitterness about this, right?
Because this is a serious topic.
Yes, there is. But there is also something inherently ridiculous with this administration.
I mean, let's just say as Republicans, don't you think that we should laugh a lot more at these guys?
Because we're often very earnestly debating them on policy points.
And there's room for that.
But I think there's also room for ridicule, don't you?
Of course, this is how Democrats operate.
Problem, reaction, solution.
They create the problem, they listen to their reaction, and then what's the solution going to be?
Mass amnesty. I said this seven months ago in a hearing, and look at what's coming through fruition.
We cannot allow them to get to mass amnesty.
Over my dead body sitting in my congressional office, am I going to allow them to allow another, to allow the administration or this other federal government to arbitrarily allow illegal immigrants and to grant them amnesty after we have had 10 million people enter our country illegally?
That's what they want, and we cannot let them have it.
Speaker Johnson had came out yesterday and he said, nope, this is dead on arrival.
We are not going to do this.
So that means it's going to be on Joe Biden and Joe Biden's hands alone to decide in the next few months if he wants to fix this problem via executive order.
And do you support, Wesley?
I mean, Trump has been saying, if I'm elected in November, starting next year, I'm going to be sending these people back because they don't belong here.
They've been allowed here by Biden, but it might be time to have a repatriation program.
This is a slap in the face to those immigrants that have come to our country legally.
Of course, we should send them back.
And if they want to come to this country, and if they want to work via legal immigration, I'm fine with that.
But he is exactly right on day one.
We must send these people back because, quite frankly, this country cannot afford it.
Thank you very much, Wesley Hunt.
Really appreciate having you on the podcast.
Follow him on x at WesleyHuntTX for Texas and the website WesleyForTexas.com.
Thanks a lot. Always a pleasure, Janice.
Thank you so much. Great job, sir.
Thank you for having me. Welcome to my show!
Now, why did we choose Balance of Nature?
Well, many reasons, but probably one of the most important is that they are always made from whole food ingredients.
Have you started getting more serious about your health goals like we have?
I strongly urge you to check out Balance of Nature.
Whether you order online or call them direct, you must use the promo code America to get the special offer of 35% off.
So call them. Here's the number.
800-246-8751.
Once again, it's 800-246-8751.
Or you can go online, balanceofnature.com.
Use discount code AMERICA and you'll get 35% off.
I'm continuing my introduction to Harry Jaffa's classic work of political science and political philosophy.
It's called Crisis of the House Divided.
It's a study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
And this is a difficult book for me to talk about because, as I mentioned yesterday, underneath each of the issues that are being debated is usually another bigger issue.
And so...
There is a need very often to talk about the third floor, but then realize we need to go to the second and the first floor, and not to mention there's maybe a basement even underneath the ground floor, and we'll need to at least go there to understand what this conflict, what this debate, what this argument, what this great schism is all about.
A second problem is that there is a background knowledge that the debaters assumed.
And this is actually a phenomenon impressive in itself because Lincoln and Douglas both assumed that Americans knew what the Missouri Compromise was.
That Americans understood the Mason-Dixon line.
That Americans knew, sort of, what the founders agreed and didn't agree would be done with slavery.
And they're debating the meaning of those propositions in their own time.
Now obviously, the people listening to Lincoln and Douglas lived at that time.
So there was a certain familiarity with what was happening in Missouri, what was happening in the so-called border states, as opposed to the northern states.
Let's remember this debate is taking place in Illinois, which is to some degree a northern state.
It's north of the Mason-Dixon line.
It's a free state.
There are no slaves in Illinois.
But nevertheless, Illinois is kind of in the middle of the country.
And the southern part of Illinois, as it turns out, was pro-Confederate.
There were a lot of Confederate sympathizers in the southern part of Illinois, and many of these people gravitated toward Douglas over Lincoln.
I thought what I would do today is talk just about the kind of overall structure of this debate.
What is the debate really about?
Because that will help us as we plunge into some of the details of it.
Here is Harry Jaffa.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates are concerned in the main...
With one great practical and one great theoretical question.
So there's a practical issue, generally meaning what is to be done, and there's a theoretical or another way to say it is philosophical issue.
So what was the practical issue?
The practical question, he writes, was resolved into the constitutional issue of whether federal authority may So let's unpack that a little bit.
Let's remember that the United States was smaller then than it is now.
And the federal government was pushing further and further west, recognizing one after another new federal territories that were being consolidated and that would eventually apply for statehood and become part of the union.
So the real issue was not whether or not to have slavery in the country.
The founders agreed, and Lincoln also agreed, that slavery, where it already existed, which is by and large in the southern states, south of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery would continue to be legal.
Why? Because this was an agreement, a compromise, a deal that had been made more than a, well, almost 100 years previous in 1789, and Lincoln said, I'm not going to try to undo or redo the work of the founders.
Where slavery is legal in the South, it will remain legal.
And where it is, we have free states in the North, they will remain free.
The real question is, what about slavery in the new organized federal territories?
And so the practical question here is, number one, does the Constitution allow Congress to To forbid slavery in the territories.
And then there's the second question, even the Constitution allows it, that doesn't mean it should be done.
The Constitution may allow certain things.
The Constitution, for example, may permit a death penalty.
It still doesn't tell you whether you must have the death penalty.
It remains a political question, should we have a death penalty?
It's allowed, but should we do it?
So that's the practical question as described by Jaffa.
And now we come to the philosophical or theoretical question, which runs considerably deeper than that.
The constitutional and political questions are interesting enough, but now we have the theoretical question.
What is that? The theoretical question was whether slavery was or was not inconsistent with the nature of republican government.
That is, whether it was or was not destructive of their own rights for any people to vote in favor of establishing slavery as one of their domestic institutions.
Now, here we have a philosophical question which I want to try to state with the utmost clarity.
On the one hand, you have slavery.
On the other hand, we have, in this country, Republican government.
Republican government is not confined to majority rule, but it does involve majority rule.
The majority does rule.
The president is the guy who gets the most electoral votes.
So any constitutional democracy is going to respect the decisions of a majority.
And similarly, if there are issues within a state, states have majorities.
Within a state, states can make laws based upon majorities in those states.
Now here's the question. What if the majority of the people, through the electoral process, decides we like slavery?
We want to have slavery.
So even though slavery is the forcible rule of one man over another man, essentially it is forced labor, isn't it?
It's a way of getting another guy to work for you for free.
The question is not whether one guy should be able to do that to another guy, but whether in a constitutional democracy, The majority can decide, rightly, that, guess what?
We're going to vote up or down on slavery.
We're going to put slavery on the ballot.
And we're going to decide, using the normal processes of majority rule and elections and representatives, whether or not slavery should be allowed, yes or no.
And this becomes a crucial difference between Douglass and Lincoln.
Essentially Douglass takes The Democratic, and here I mean small d.
Douglass is in fact a member of the Democratic Party.
But he also takes the small d Democratic view that, listen, we're a democratic society.
He says, how do we decide questions where people disagree?
He goes, slavery is not the only issue.
There are a lot of issues on which people disagree.
You can't expect in a free society to have everyone have the same opinions.
So when they don't have the same opinions, especially on controversial and fraught moral issues, Douglass says, Why don't we just put it up for a vote?
Why don't we let each state, each territory, decide for itself if it wants to have slavery?
And if it does, okay.
And if it doesn't, no.
And so Douglas goes, this is a marvelous procedural solution that is not only consistent with our democratic and republican system of government, it is a reflection of that democratic and republican system of government at work.
That's what a republican and democratic government means.
Lincoln on the other hand is going to make an argument that is in some ways less familiar.
The Douglass argument is very easy to understand.
That if there's a difficult issue, whether it's divorce, abortion, whether it's slavery, just put it up for a vote.
That's what Douglass is saying.
And Douglass is saying, that's not being pro-slavery.
That's being pro-democracy.
That is being pro-choice. Notice here the interesting similarities between Douglas' position and the abortion debate. Lincoln, on the other hand, is going to make a different kind of argument and the argument is surprising because Lincoln is going to say that we do put things up for a vote but not everything.
There are certain things that should not be put up for a vote.
There are certain fundamental principles of right and wrong that are not up for adjudication.
Lincoln will argue that the opening statement of the Declaration of Independence, which is that all men are created equal, is a moral proposition that comes out of the natural law What is the natural law?
The universal law of right and wrong.
We'll talk more about this but Lincoln is making a kind of natural law argument and he's saying in effect that there are certain questions that even the American people do not have the right to decide.
These are questions that are prior to democracy.
Democracy itself depends upon these principles of right and wrong that are not made by people.
They are sort of given by nature.
Now, like the founders, Lincoln is a little bit cagey.
Are they given directly by God?
Are they given by the laws of nature?
The founders are a little ambiguous on this question, and Lincoln is too.
But you can see right here, what is brewing is a massive philosophical dispute between one guy, Douglass, who's going to say, let's decide the question in the way that constitutional democracies always do, put it up for a vote, And Lincoln is going to say, no, there's something inherently contradictory in putting it up for a vote.
And not only that, but our whole democratic and constitutional system relies on universal principles of right and wrong that are external to the document.
Lincoln can't find them in the Constitution.
He's going to find them in the Declaration.
And Lincoln is going to argue that the Declaration is the moral compass of the American Constitution.
Subscribe to the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
▲
Export Selection