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July 18, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
44:58
THE NEW GOP Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep877
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Coming up, I have Debbie in studio and on the podcast for the whole show.
We're going to talk about her mom passing away, which happened a few days ago.
We're going to talk about our trip to Australia and London, but also about the developments at the Republican National Convention last night.
Great speech by JD Vance, the full implications of that, the transformation of the Republican Party.
And then also about the character of Donald Trump.
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In fact, Brian here at the studio reminds Debbie and me that it's been a whole month since we were right in this, our normal venue.
And the reason for this is that we were traveling for almost three weeks.
We get back, hurricane, studio doesn't have power, and it's taken quite a while for the power to come back.
So finally it's back.
And I'm here but Debbie's also here and Debbie's been attending to a matter we're going to talk about in just a moment.
So for us it's exhilarating.
There's a lot of stuff going on in the news, the RNC, the Secret Service, lots for us to talk about.
We're going to talk the whole show and in fact we're going to do our normal Well, I've been doing these shows just by myself, and in fact, without even guests, because in order to have a guest, we need power.
So, I've been monologuing my way through the shows, and I thought it'd be nice to have some conversation for a change.
I want to start, honey, by talking about, you know, a tragedy in your life and our lives, which is to say your mom passing away.
You, I know, it's now been exactly one week, but you still feel strongly the emotion of it.
So talk, say a little bit about that and about your mom.
Well, you know, I've been preparing for this since about February, as you know.
Right.
And I think, you know, I came on the podcast back then and I talked about how I had put mom in hospice care in March.
And we thought we were going to lose her then, but she miraculously recovered, came back better than ever.
She started eating, she started walking, she started doing all the things that she did even better than before she got sick.
Yeah, and she had some quips like, you thought I was a goner and things like that.
Oh, yeah, you thought I was, yeah, exactly.
And, Debbie, where are my papers?
You seem to have removed my papers.
Yes, why did you take my important papers?
What are you thinking?
What, are you planning my funeral?
What?
No, I'm not dying, you know, things like that.
And so, on the back of my mind, I thought, thank you, God, for giving me this extra time with Mom, where she's lucid and where she's talking and making sense and all those things.
But also, on the other hand, I thought, I don't know how long this is going to last, which is why it was really difficult when I made the decision to go to Australia with you and then London after that, because my biggest fear, as you know, was getting that dreaded phone call while we were out of the country and not being able to come back.
You mean the observation that it's almost as if your mom got better to give you the psychological comfort that you could go because had she been on her deathbed, but she seemed to be recovering.
And she said, Debbie, go have fun.
You and Dinesh have a great time.
I will be taken care of.
I will be fine.
So, you know, when we get to there, that's when things started getting a little bad for her and she started getting weaker and weaker.
But I do remember telling her, Mom, you've got to wait for me.
You've got to wait for me.
So, I know that tomorrow we have planned to talk about my mom and how it all happened and how she passed away.
And a little bit about also the brevity of life and how, well, you know, at whatever age, Now, you lost your dad when you were 17, which is really young, and that comes as a shock, and that carries a certain amount of fear that, how am I gonna make it?
My dad- And I wasn't prepared, right?
You weren't prepared.
I didn't say my last goodbyes.
I didn't know he died of a heart attack, sudden heart attack.
So, with my mom, I got this precious time with her.
So, I've had it both ways.
Well, when I think about it, you know, my dad died in the year 2000.
So, you lost your dad at a much younger age.
I was well into my 30s when that happened.
And then my mom died five years ago in 2019, as you know.
So, your mom is the last of the... Outlived them all.
Yeah, she outlived them all.
But I think that in some ways that doesn't make it any easier because think about it.
You left Venezuela when you were 10.
You came to America and in a sense your mom has been the parent there for you and your brother this whole time.
And we were commenting on the car on the way here.
You and I have known each other Well, it'll be 10 years in this fall, married eight years, but that's just a pittance compared to the 58 years you've had with your mom.
So that's just a big absence that you are bound to feel and it doesn't go away immediately, right?
I don't think it ever will.
I have a big hole in my heart and I always will.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Let's talk a little bit about our trip in Australia and London.
It was, Australia is a fascinating place and we didn't see it in a sightseeing way but because obviously, well, we had a couple of sightseeing type events.
We went on this guy, a Clive Palmer super yacht, that was really nice.
We did a cruise of Sydney Harbour on a different yacht, that was really nice.
We went to a kind of crocodile park and we saw crocodiles.
Aside from that, it was work.
In other words, we had a flight in the morning, we generally had the big event at night, and four speakers.
Tucker and I were the two Americans, and then there was Clive Palmer and a doctor speaking about COVID-related issues.
What was your take on the Australia trip?
I've talked about it a little bit on the podcast, but you saw it up close and you also got some I think Tucker is a huge fan.
Well, Tucker was very pleasant to me, but I think he really adores you.
Because in my subsequent texting with him, he always mentions you.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's really funny that you say that because I really didn't know what to expect.
Because you see, you know, we had met with Tucker briefly at the DNC convention in 2016.
Yes.
So, you know, I got to pleasantries with him, but obviously didn't get to chat.
But we sat down and started chatting and all of that.
And then, of course, you know, I was super flattered when he could not believe my age.
You know, he was like, what?
Wait, you were born in 1966?
Really?
You're 58?
Really?
You know, so that was really sweet of him.
That brought a big smile to your face.
It did, you know, flattery.
But anyway, but all that to say is that he's a really, really nice guy.
Yeah.
And he's really funny.
Really, really funny.
And he's funny in a kind of hokey way.
He is, yeah.
I think it's really cool to see how he, first of all, he laughs at his own jokes.
When he's speaking, he'll say something and then he will erupt in laughter before, even before the audience.
But it's endearing because it prompts the audience to chuckle with him, you know.
And he's very down to earth.
You know, I mean, I've met a lot of these people that are, you know, I guess you can call them celebrities or you can call them pundits or whatever, but a lot of them have a big ego.
I did not see that with Tucker.
Yeah, no, I agree.
And I think also his, the points that he made to the audience, the one of them that stuck with me is he basically said, look, and I think this is just as true of America as Australia.
He goes, the left has now become the master of exploiting the kindness and decency of people.
People who believe that if you're screaming, you must have something to be upset about.
I need to attend to why you're upset.
And if you tell me I have to wear a mask, there's probably good reason because you're trying to prevent me from getting a disease or giving it to someone else.
It doesn't dawn on people that you're being ruthlessly manipulated by some very sly, evil people.
Who recognize your virtue but take it to be a weakness.
And I think that's a pretty profound point.
It's a variation on something I've talked about, which is the fact that they, you know, were the party of live and let live, go along and get along, unity, you know, Trump gonna talk about national unity, turn the other cheek, and the other side is like, you know what?
These are excellent opponents to have because they're weenies.
These are the Namby Pambys.
We can take advantage of people like this.
I think Tucker is very much on, you know, on the same.
What do you make of the country, Australia, and the people, the Australians?
Oh my gosh!
It is beautiful.
The people are beautiful.
I was, I really, you know, it's funny because a lot of people that knew that I was going to Australia are like, Oh, watch out for those nasty spiders.
I have to say, I didn't see a single spider.
I see more spiders here.
You know, so, but all that to set aside, I really loved Australia.
I think it was just beautiful.
The coast is gorgeous.
I would have preferred to go in the summer because it's winter there now.
And it's a little too chilly for me, but I think it's just gorgeous and the people are so down-to-earth and just salt-of-the-earth individuals.
Let's come right back and we'll talk more about Australia, a little bit about London, and then we'll turn to the topic of the Republican National Convention.
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Debbie and I are talking about our trip to Australia.
Twelve days I guess it was from start to finish.
Now it's a ridiculously long way to get there and I think you were worried that it would knock you out so completely that you wouldn't even enjoy it.
But somehow we managed the time quite well, and we were able to adjust our bodies, even though, as you said, we're flipping them on their head.
I mean, it's night over there when it's day over here.
It's 15 hours ahead of central time.
But you know what really helped us was making the journey to Sydney a little bit short, you know, like going to LA early, then departing the following day, Unfortunately, when we got to Sydney, we couldn't get to Cairns.
We missed our connection, but I mean, you'd think it was a blessing.
It was a blessing, because we got to stay in Sydney overnight, and then we went to Cairns.
So we broke it up into three pieces, and that made it easier.
It did, for that journey.
And then the journey to London, I thought, okay, that's it.
We're going to be, like, I'm not going to enjoy London at all.
Because it was Sydney to Hong Kong, nine hours, Hong Kong to London, 14 hours.
And just a straight connection.
And a one hour connection.
So it was crazy.
But I did get to sleep on the plane and so that helped a lot.
That helped tremendously.
I gotta say we ate some of the best food that we have eaten in Australia and in Sydney in particular.
Oh my goodness.
There's a restaurant right out overlooking the famous Sydney Opera House and the bay.
It's called Aria.
And I remember this lawyer that we had met recommended it to us and you and I went and it's sort of fusion French and Australian food and we didn't know what Australian food means and here's what I think it means.
I mean all the cities in Australia are on the coast and they have really good cattle in Australia.
So they have excellent beef and they have excellent fish.
And that's all that Australian cuisine means.
So if you marry really good ingredients with, let's say, a little bit of French flair, you get this amazing cuisine.
And I remember you saying, I think this is the best meal I've ever eaten!
It was absolutely delicious.
I still think about that meal.
Yes, and the Australian, the people.
I mean, we ran into a bunch of different people from different sort of spheres.
Many of them, of course, connected with Clive Palmer, but I'm just talking about advanced guys and security guys and guys who, you know, manage the yacht.
So it wasn't all sort of hoity-toity people.
And they're all really upbeat.
Well, you know, on that note, so is Clive.
Yeah, so is Clyde.
He's an amazing individual.
I mean, I really like him.
He's a very down-to-earth human being.
He's another guy, well, I gotta say something that, you know, to me, the most memorable thing he said, and he said it almost casually.
He was talking about possessions and boats and all and he has more than one boat and beautiful.
But he's like, Debbie, I think he said to you, he goes, Debbie, you know, we don't really own anything.
He goes, we're given temporary possession of things.
And it's our job to like, manage them well.
Wow, what an interesting and profound thing to say.
I was floored when he said that.
And now with your mom's passing, you're even more aware that that is true.
It is true.
And going to mom's house, and I'll talk about this again tomorrow, but giving away some of her possessions, that's going to be very difficult.
But, as he said, it's not ours.
Really, we're just here renting the place.
The Australians, we talked to a couple of people, these are young guys who are in the Australian Senate and you're like, they're Senators?
They're like 32!
That was fun.
The other thing that was fun was just the fact that they're just, they're goofy.
Oh yeah, one guy, you know, who's a really nice guy.
His name is Senator Babbitt, B-A-B-E-T, and he was in the green room, and I think he was stretching out, but he split his pants, and he was so self-conscious.
He's like, I'm the emcee.
I can't go up on stage.
I've just split my pants down the bottom.
And he kept talking about it, and I kept laughing.
I couldn't stop laughing.
In fact, I was laughing so hard that tears were falling.
I couldn't help it, but it's just that's the way they are.
They're just very, like, normal, just, you know, And then Jared, who's the husband of one of the speakers, Melissa McCann, he was hilarious.
And my favorite comment from him was, he's like, I don't know why you Americans are so hung up on Crocodile Dundee.
He goes, we rural Australians don't think that's a big deal.
Wrestle crocodiles?
We do that all the time!
So, he was not impressed by Crocodile.me.
My favorite of all was the Big Mike talk.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
And what I found fascinating is you have a guy in the woods of Australia and he's explaining to us that Michelle Obama has got to be a man.
Well, leaving aside the merits of that, the level of detail with which they follow American politics is unbelievable.
They all do.
They all do.
If I didn't know I was in Australia, I thought I was in Texas.
You know what I mean?
Because not only do they follow American politics, but they love Trump.
They love Trump.
To the same extent that many people here love Trump.
I mean, these two dudes, we're talking about coming from Australia.
Yes.
to America to go to a rally to show their support for Trump.
Yeah.
And again, that italicizes the way in which we are now dealing with a global movement.
Absolutely.
MAGA is a kind of global thing.
Absolutely, it is.
And, you know, we've talked about Maloney in Italy, we've talked about Millet in Argentina, I guess Gert Wilders, I guess there are others, but there is an Australian MAGA contingency.
And I was able to make jokes about Trump and so on, and the audience roaring with laughter.
And, you know, they say humor doesn't travel, because people don't get the premise.
Right.
They don't know what you're talking about.
Exactly.
But here?
Not in this case.
They totally do.
Oh, absolutely.
They are MAGA all the way.
And Clive pointed it out that MAGA also means Make Australia Great Again.
Yeah, that's a good point.
So, it was quite funny, but all that aside, it was a fun trip.
It was work, as you say.
We were getting up very early every morning, flying to a different city.
Well, we reached thousands of people.
Absolutely.
I mean, if you add them up, you know, you had audiences, the smallest one was Cairns, because it's a small city, about 1,500, and Adelaide is a small city, there was about 2,500, but all the others were bordering on 4,000, 4,500, and the kind of throbbing, pollulating crowd, I mean, it's exhilarating to be up on stage.
Not only that, but they were so hardcore that the program started, what, at 6.30? 6.30.
And it went until like 11.
Yeah.
And these people were... They wanted more.
They wanted more.
I couldn't even believe it.
I would want to be kind of in bed by 9 o'clock, but they were so hardcore.
Well, the other thing is to be, let's, you know, I mean, Clive Palmer said, look, I know, I mean, he put out a bunch of money to make this happen.
Obviously, he paid us, he paid Tucker.
I think he said that all together they probably lost a million dollars, right?
Yes, but they did, but think about it.
He does everything on a lavish scale.
They charge $200 a ticket, and that's Australian dollars, but okay, it's $150 US dollars to go to a one-day event, no food, and four hours of like programming, superb acoustics, and very well organized.
That's a lot of money for a large number of people to pay, and it shows how Into it, these Aussies are.
Yeah.
And from there we go to London.
We had a really nice week.
It was kind of a family reunion with some relatives from India.
We did Wimbledon for a day.
And Alkiraz, it looks like he made it.
We saw him play, which was kind of fun.
He's a young kid, 20 years old, but it's the story, it's what dreams are made of.
He's been wanting to be a tennis player since he was 3 years old.
So, I think it's just an amazing story that he has.
And there's a little bit of poignancy with Alcaraz and Djokovic because Djokovic is still a great player.
I mean imagine getting, what is it, is he 40 years old?
I think he's 40, yeah.
To get to the finals of Wimbledon is astonishing.
Astonishing.
And he has just, he has more titles than he can count.
He's a little bit like the older lion, and then there's the younger lion, who's Alcaraz, and you get that feeling that the torch is passing to a new generation.
Yeah, and then Marigold makes it, but... Oh my gosh, little Marigold comes with Danielle and Brandon, but her, poor Marigold, I mean, she's 11 months old, I think her cycle was so disrupted that she... Yeah, that's it, because it's a six-hour difference.
And for a baby, they don't know that they have jet lag.
You know, they don't understand that.
They don't know how to cope with it.
They don't know how to cope with it.
So anyway, they had a good time.
It was nice that they met the India relatives, but they did scoot out a couple of days early just to get back into the normal routine.
I think for babies, routine is absolutely critical.
Let's take a pause.
When we come back, a little more about London, but we're going to dive also into the Republican National Convention.
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It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
Debbie and I are talking about the, well, we're at the conclusion of the trip to Australia and London.
We saw a couple of plays in London, Les Miserables, which I didn't think I would enjoy so much having seen it before and seeing it more than once.
Beautiful play.
If you haven't seen it, you need to see it.
Yeah, it's very profound.
I think it's probably the greatest of the Broadway plays.
Of the past generation.
Now, I say that recognizing that there are other good ones, but I don't think there's another play that comes close to a 10.
And this one really does.
It does.
And by the way, there's so much hype.
The Book of Mormon, largely, in my view, rubbish.
Hamilton, rubbish.
I mean, these are ridiculous.
And I was excited about Hamilton when I saw it, thinking, oh wow, this is an attempt to come to terms with the American founding.
It's going to be very creative.
And I didn't object to the fact that they were doing it in a rap mode.
I just objected to the sheer mindless stupidity of it.
And I just couldn't even enjoy it.
And then as I thought about all the extravagant, you know, praise of Lin Miranda and so on, I'm thinking, this guy is a semi-literate moron.
And so, the disjunction between the kind of...
Almost sickening type of praise and the horribleness of the play.
I mean, I don't know what to say.
But Les Miserables is not like that.
It's got profound Old and New Testament themes.
Well, they didn't change it.
They didn't change it.
Maybe they... No, that was Cabaret, sorry.
I'm thinking of the wrong play.
No, this play they did not change.
A cabaret.
Well, Kat, the thing about cabaret was... I cannot believe that you made me go see that.
Well, not to mention my very straight-laced family.
Oh.
Not to mention my niece, who's like 16 years old.
Oh, Dinesh.
And we're trying, obviously, with the younger generation, not to corrupt their innocence, but you get it.
Well, you went a little ahead of us.
I did.
I did, and I walked in to what I thought was the red light district, okay?
Well, it's like a dungeon.
It was... It was like a cave.
Well, it was so bad, I don't even want to describe it, okay?
I just walk in, and I'm like, I need to leave.
I started kind of feeling like my throat was closing up, and I started getting very uncomfortable, and I thought, you know, Satan is telling me that this is a Satan place, you know?
I felt very uncomfortable.
Cabaret, now remember cabaret, the theme of cabaret in my view, and I'm talking now here, I never saw the play on Broadway originally, I did see the movie with Liza Minnelli, I haven't seen the remake, and in the original play, it shows you how the decadence of Weimar Germany Gives rise to authoritarianism.
Gives rise to Hitler.
And that is depicted very well in the movie.
And it's done, even though the decadence is highlighted.
And Liza Minnelli conveys that.
As does Joel Grey, who's the MC of the cabaret.
It's not done in a disgusting or vulgar way.
And you get the point.
And of course the music is beautiful.
But I think what they did here is they went full LGBT, full trans.
And so they took decadence to an almost Sodom and Gomorrah level.
And they were reveling in it.
And not only that, but I think the key point was they missed the point of their own play.
I think they were trying to celebrate something that wasn't actually celebrated in the original play.
Excellent point.
The original play makes the point that if you do this, if you put all the rules to the side, there will be a yearning in the part of the public for order to clean up this filth.
And that's how you get Hitler.
And the play just Ignored that and acted like, let's affirm LGBTQ.
Let's also show this Hitler little stuff that almost happens concurrent, but we're not going to allow any linkage between the two, which defeats the whole point of the original play.
Kind of a betrayal of the play.
Yeah, and it was just set up in a really weird arena.
It was like we were looking down.
It was just... Like a snake pit.
It was a very strange... And, you know, your poor sister, she was getting claustrophobic, as was I. Yeah.
You know, she kind of wanted to leave, as did I. Two or three times you gave me the elbow.
Two or three times.
You were like, gosh, do we really need to stay?
When they had intermission, I was like, I think I'm gonna go get an Uber.
And you're like, you're not going anywhere.
I'm like, okay, fine.
No, I'll get there.
The music actually was great and, you know, I'm not sorry we went, but there was an element of it.
Maybe you're a little more hip than I am.
I don't think hip is the right word.
I think that's what we're trying to convey here.
No, no, no.
I'm very judgmental.
I mean, I don't hold back from assessing these things.
No, but you were very much, you know, and I'm the artist.
Yeah, that's right.
You've had a lot of exposure.
Exactly, I have.
I've had a lot of exposure in that world, you know, but I don't know, that day I didn't feel like an artist, I'm just saying.
Well, because it wasn't, I think the key point was that you're used to performing with artists who may be gay, but on the other hand they're good dancers, they're good singers, good ballet, and so, but this was a kind of Affirmation of decadence yeah, I think that's really maybe what what that's right.
That's what we object to really here Yeah, all right.
Let's talk about the RNC going from one from one venue to another and Big big night at the RNC last night JD Vance speaks I thought of you know pretty powerful because what you what you have here with Vance is a guy First of all, stop right there, but I predicted that this man was going to go places, as you know.
You know you did.
In fact, not only that, but you pulled out the proof.
Yes, so we had him on February and March of 2021.
And in one of those, I don't remember which one, as we were going from one segment to another off camera, I said, you know, you really should consider going into politics.
And this is... He hadn't even run for Senate.
He hadn't run for Senate, he hadn't run for anything.
And he just kind of went, thank you, whatever.
And he just kind of, you know, smiled.
And then we had been exchanging emails because we were trying to set up the next interview.
And as we ended, he was like, I had a lot of fun.
It was great coming on.
And then I said, you know, someday maybe you should run for Prez.
I said P-R-E-Z.
Prez.
You know?
And I had that email and I forwarded it to you.
You showed it to me.
I couldn't believe it.
This is like, I had this feeling about this guy.
You know, I can tell when someone has gravitas, and he definitely has it.
Yeah.
And, and I thought, you know, maybe not now, because we were still, you know, Trump, well, in 2021, obviously, we didn't know if he was going to run again.
But I was thinking more in the future, like 2028, you know, 2032.
Well, you know, the stars have to align for this kind of stuff to happen.
It is inherently improbable.
And remember, when Trump first picked Mike Pence, going back to 2016, a lot of people said, well, Trump is such an egotist that he can't pick someone who is intelligent.
Who has their own limelight, who has their own things to say.
He needs somebody who's just nothing more than a pale reflection and a sycophantic.
And maybe Mike, you know, I suppose maybe that fits Mike Pence's personality, but I think Trump's selection of Vance shows that he's not afraid to pick somebody who is themselves interesting in their own right, have their own important story, a story very different than Trump.
Trump grew up in a pretty affluent circumstances, right?
His dad was a millionaire, ran, you know, rent-controlled and low-income apartments in Queens, and so they were very well off.
J.D.
Vance, on the other hand, grew up in conditions of, you could almost call it... Food stamps.
Yeah, but also... Welfare.
Cultural degradation, you know, because poverty is one thing.
Drug addicts.
I mean, yeah, poverty is endurable if you have If you have skills, and you have a work ethic, and you have a close family, okay, you're in poverty.
But if your circumstances are better, you're going to flourish.
But when you're culturally degraded, and I think here not just of obviously poor whites in Appalachia, but poor blacks, Hispanics in the barrio, when you have cultural dysfunction, it's hard to get out of that.
Even if opportunity comes your way, you don't know what to do with it.
It is.
Because you're in that world and you stay in that world.
Yeah.
You know?
Exactly.
And so his story... I was thinking about the scene in Hillbilly Elegy where JD is describing his grandmother, you know, pouring, I forget if it was kerosene or gas on his grandfather and lighting him on fire.
And this is because his mom is a drug addict and he has to be raised by his grandparents and this is his grandparents.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to think to myself, You know, I cannot even imagine a world in which my grandparents operated like that.
Yeah, but you know, he loved his grandma.
And in fact, there was, I think, in that storyline somewhere, it was where the grandma kind of lied about the Meals on Wheels so that he could have a meal as well.
I mean, this is, it's heartbreaking.
It is.
It's heartbreaking.
And look how far he's come.
I mean, if this isn't the American dream, I don't know what is.
Yeah.
It's crazy!
And to have somebody like this who can speak credibly about his own background and then connect it to the plight of working-class people and emphasize that this is the new thrust of the Republican Party to look after working men and women, it's very inspiring.
Debbie and I are talking about JD Vance and the Republican convention.
I mentioned on the podcast a day or two ago, this was Frank Luntz talking about it and making the point that he's like, I was kind of amazed to see the audience.
He says, I've been to Republican conventions and it has a stock Portfolio of people and you and I know who those people are they're the kind of people we see at GOP dinners and so on and he goes but he goes I was kind of startled to see so many people of different walks of life He's not just talking about sort of racial diversity.
I think he's talking about the fact that there are like working class guys of a type that you'd see normally in a Democratic convention, but here they are at the Republican convention.
And you see rap guys and you see guys with, you know, with tattoos and you see it's people who don't fit the stereotype.
And there is a little bit of pushback against that.
In fact, I mentioned that when Amber Rose spoke, you know, this is a woman who's like, A little out there, to put it mildly.
Covered with tattoos, very revealing outfits and so on.
There were some social conservatives who started bashing her.
And I have to say that there is a little bit of a disconnect.
between the evangelical sensibility and the MAGA sensibility.
This has not been commented on enough so I want to highlight it.
The evangelical sensibility is sort of, you know, let's go to a mega church and let's all go out for coffee or go out and do a Bible reading afterward.
A potluck.
Let's go to a potluck and let's talk about Jesus as our best friend.
This is not quite the current GOP sensibility, which incorporates some of the issues of the evangelicals, but it's almost like the evangelicals have blown it.
And by blown it, what I mean is they had tremendous leverage in the GOP.
They kind of came into their own under Bush.
But part of it was their short-sightedness.
their doctrine that when they emphasize that character matters.
It's not that they're wrong about that, but it's again the fact that the left ruthlessly exploited that.
Okay, then if we find a guy and he's fallen short in some respect, we now rely on you the evangelicals to pull out your long knives and murder him in front of us.
Right.
Politically.
Right.
Well, you're right, and you know, you have to go back to even Jesus, because people assume that when the Bible says, turn the other cheek, that Jesus- That he always did that.
That he always did that, but look how he fought Satan.
Like, that's how we need to fight the left.
Yeah.
Like, Jesus fought Satan, not turning the other cheek.
Well, not to mention that even with the woman on the well, where Jesus was very gentle, it's go and sin no more.
Exactly.
I mean, there's no approval of the conduct at issue.
And then I also think, very interestingly, when the Roman soldiers came to get Jesus, remember, one of them drew his sword, Peter drew his sword, apparently the soldier struck Peter and struck Jesus.
And then Jesus didn't go, well, you struck me.
Here's my other cheek.
He says, why do you strike me?
Jesus.
So one has to take all of these actions by Jesus in context and recognize that in this circumstance, this, but in that circumstance, that.
Exactly.
So as Christians, we need to be aware and embrace Jesus's character as a whole, not the quips that we want to embrace.
Yeah.
And again, I think that part of what you were talking about is the fact that a lot of evangelicals did not accept and still do not accept Trump because they don't think he's principled.
They think he's a man of moral decay and all those things.
And so, of course, if they don't accept the leader, they're not going to accept people that like the leader that are kind of like him.
Right?
So, again, they are short-sighted in the sense that we have to unite in order to defeat this evil that has overtaken our country.
This moral decay that has overtaken our country is going to take all of us.
I mean, it reminds me a little bit of... I mean, think about this.
You have a moral evil in Lincoln's time slavery.
You have a crusade, a political crusade led by the Republican Party and ultimately by Republican armies.
And you have at the head of those armies General Grant.
Now, imagine an evangelical coming up to Grant or coming up to Lincoln and going, you have to fire General Grant.
He's a bum.
He bankrupted his father's store.
He cheated on his wife.
He uses very foul language.
He loves the bottle.
This is not the kind of character that we need in someone.
And Lincoln, I think, would not know what to say to you because this is a moral crusade, but this is not a moral crusade to save General Grant's soul.
That is a different battlefield for that.
We're talking about a moral crusade to save the country.
And so when I listen to these Russell Moore, you know, these guys, the moral blindness, the sheer stupidity, the unbelievable kind of self-righteousness, it's almost like You're speechless because the level of myopia and I think rightly the MAGA people are like, well, you know, these kinds of people will be the ruin of us.
Not to mention, look, I have a brother that's not a believer, and I think a lot of his, I guess, resistance is some people like that, because he's like, if that's what being a Christian is, then I don't want any part of it, you know?
I mean, and let's be honest about Trump here, because all these people who say Trump's character, I'm like, alright.
We need to measure people's character in the round, right?
So it's not enough to say something like, you know, yeah, he used to be a playboy when he was 30, okay?
All right, yeah, he used to be a playboy when he was 30.
Let's compare that with the moral bravery this man shows.
Let's compare that to your level of moral bravery.
When have you actually put your own life and safety at risk?
When have you actually jeopardized your own way of life and taken the kind of risks that Trump takes?
Never!
Nor can we expect you to do it in the future.
So, again, yes, you want to do an inventory of Trump's character.
Look at the number of investigations that there have been of this man, right?
They have investigated everything.
They have looked at his tax returns, they have looked at his family, they have looked at his past associations going back as far as they can go, and if you look at these cases, like, that's the best they've got.
That's all that they've come up with.
Now, let's look at other politicians in Washington.
Let's do the same inventory on them, across the board, and let's see what you come up with.
I bet you that even the most sort of sacrosanct Republican will have a lot more to show for on that investigation sheet than Trump.
Trump is one of the cleanest people in the political world that we can talk about.
But because he's the most hated, and we'll talk about that later, I mean we're looking at this for our book and movie and I think I will say that just to give you an idea that this is going to be a full-on as-is case for Trump.
So not a hypothetical Trump.
I wish Trump did this.
I wish Trump did that.
I want a different Trump.
I'll vote for that Trump.
No.
The Trump we have is actually the best Trump.
We don't need to fix him.
We actually need to fix our perception of him.
And we're going to make this case like I think no one else has.
I think it'll be really eye-opening for a lot of people to see the real Trump and the real reason why we have to stand behind Trump.
Because not to stand behind Trump is to stand for a destruction of America.
That's putting it so bluntly but so accurately, right?
On our current course, I think our premise is on our current course, America is going off the cliff.
And we don't have to do anything, we just have to keep doing what we're doing and that's what's going to happen.
So the question is, and I think you said it very well yesterday to me, you're like MAGA means sort of averting the train from going off the precipice.
That's what it means.
That's what make America great.
It's turning it around and because before you make America great, let's just stop the level of destruction that we see happening in front of us.
Exactly.
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