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Dec. 27, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
50:16
OUTLOOK 2025 Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep989
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Thank you.
Coming up, Debbie and I are doing our Friday Debbie and I are doing our Friday Roundup, and we're going to discuss how history will view the Biden-Harris legacy.
This is Looking Back.
Also, outline the top priorities for the incoming Trump administration.
This is Outlook 2025. And offer some New Year's resolutions for the family and also for the country.
If you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, listening on Apple, Google, or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
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Debbie and I are here for our Friday Roundup, although I think we have to confess that we normally do these on Friday and they're a review of the week.
But in this case, it's an unusual week, right?
It's the last week of the year.
We're closing out for 2024. This segment is called Outlook 2025. We're pre-taping this one.
We're doing it early.
This is Christmas Eve, actually.
But the stuff we're going to cover is both a review of the Biden-Harris years.
I mean, I think we also have to talk about the calamity that we nearly averted as a country.
And then look at whether we really can expect brighter days ahead in 2025. What is your mood now that we are kind of looking in the rearview mirror at the year gone by?
I mean, as always, it goes by so fast.
And it was kind of an eventful year for us on so many fronts.
Well, we went to Australia.
Mm-hmm.
And that was an unexpected turn of things.
We both really liked it a lot.
It was a sad year for me personally because I lost my best friend.
You lost your mom.
And in fact, you know, it's when something like that happens, you have the first Thanksgiving where your mom isn't there.
And of course, this is the first Christmas where your mom isn't with us.
And she died in July.
So it's been, well, it's not quite half a year, but it is five months.
Of course, it was on a happier note, we got Brandon Gill across the finish line, and he's now a budding member of Congress.
And we just recently visited those guys to do a sort of early celebration.
I find it remarkable how knowledgeable both Brandon and Danielle are about the intricacies The inside scoop.
Oh my gosh.
They speak as if they're seasoned authorities about who this guy's in line for this chairmanship.
And I think what's fascinating is that one of the points we learned is that once you get into the Congress, so much of what happens is is not ideological but transactional.
In other words, it's not based upon the fact that the Republicans have a common commitment to free enterprise and loosening, you know, getting rid of regulation and it's rather, it's sort of like, I need to get this done and this is who I know and I'm gonna ask this guy if he knows that guy Or, you know, you're getting calls from the speaker to find out if he can cajole you to vote for this thing, whether or not you're in agreement with it or not, but he's going to offer you something else if you do this.
It's different than the sort of textbook understanding, I think, of government.
You know, it's not entirely surprising.
These are, after all, people who come there with their own interests.
They want to be re-elected.
And so a lot of these kind of normal human motives are at play.
Yeah.
And the interesting thing, too, I think now more than ever, are the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans.
You know, it's just the ideological divide is way more pronounced than it was back in the 80s or 90s.
where you weren't really sure if this guy was a Republican or a Democrat.
Now you kind of know what the look is.
Like, you know, that guy must be conservative.
That guy must be a liberal, you know, because just of their outward look, their, I mean.
You know, one amusing thing is that Brandon's neighbor right next to him, the office next to his, is the trans person.
Is this biological male who's getting a lot of attention because I think he originally wanted to use the women's bathroom and then Nancy Mason, a bunch of people spoke up and said, no, not happening over my dead body and so on.
So I don't think that's going on.
But I think it's interesting because at least according to Danielle, She goes, a lot of the Democrats are, they're really drawn from the bohemian world of the Democratic Party.
You know, they're trans or they're, you know, they're wearing a mask even though they're outdoors by themselves.
Exactly.
They look like these Antifa types and the Republicans look like Republicans.
Very straight-laced.
Maybe not so much, you know...
I think that the Republicans have also changed stripes a little bit.
Yeah, talk about that.
That's fascinating.
Yeah, because it used to be that a Republican was very, very straight-laced in all aspects of their life.
Right.
Fuddy-duddy in a way, but not in a bad way.
Exactly.
Boring, boring fuddy-duddy with a little, you know, what is that called?
The bow tie, you know, very like, yes.
The little pin.
Well, a little bit like Johnson, I'm sorry.
Like Mike Johnson or Mike Pence.
Or Paul Ryan.
Yeah, but now it seems that the, because, you know, it's funny, Brandon and Dee came from the MAGA world, but But we came from the Reagan world, and then I was very involved with the Tea Party movement.
So these movements came before MAGA, right?
And they were just a little bit of, they were just kind of the changing of the guard in the Republican Party.
And so the Tea Party movement wasn't as strong as the MAGA movement because it wasn't able to do as much as the MAGA movement has been able to do.
But that being said, the people that are in the Republican Party are not the same as they used to be.
Right.
Number one.
You're saying the Tea Party was a bridge.
It had a populist thrust.
It did have a populist thrust.
It didn't have enough to get across the finish line in winning the presidency.
It was a protest movement.
And MAGA began as a protest movement, but MAGA was a protest movement that did convince an electoral majority and now a populist majority as well.
Because the MAGA movement has candidates that actually got in, whereas the Tea Party movement, not so much.
And the Tea Party did put up, I suppose this is also true of MAGA, you know, some of the candidates were well-meaning, but they were a little too far out.
They were kooks.
Or in some cases, they were good people, but they just didn't have what it takes.
Because it's not enough to have enthusiasm.
It's not enough to have grassroots.
I mean, we've talked about the elements that you need to be elected, let's say, to Kong.
And one of the key elements is you need a lot of money.
Another key element is you need a very dedicated and efficient organization.
A well-oiled machine.
A well-oiled machine.
And you need a candidate with gravitas.
Right.
That's very important, right?
If the media is able to portray you, you know, as a weirdo, and then if you act in a manner that corroborates that, then you're basically done for.
Yeah, it is interesting.
But yeah, so just back to the point of the Republican-Democrat Congress, is that, you know, it's going to be really interesting to see if they're going to be able...
Because I'm a little bit of a Debbie Downer...
I kind of have a feeling that it's going to be very difficult to pass Trump's agenda because we have a very narrow majority.
Well, I mean, you don't have to be like a pessimist to notice that this is a very...
Legislatively, it's very tight.
It is.
Right?
Just a couple of seats in the House.
Well, Trump has named some appointees, like Elise Stefanik, out of Congress.
Now, that's going to be a Republican seat, but it may take some weeks to have a special election.
Yeah, not to mention, hopefully these Republican seats are safe, but, you know, you also, people have to understand that a lot of these congressional seats, you know, the people, the electorate might like this particular Republican, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll like another Republican.
Yeah, in other words, you cannot assume that any Republican will win that seat.
Exactly, so you could potentially lose that seat.
Right.
Right.
We have to hope that doesn't happen.
Let's look back or just begin the process of looking back in this segment.
We'll pick it up in the next one at what we've been through as a country over the past four years.
I think that some of the things that we're seeing now You know how we sometimes talk about the icing on the cake as a positive thing?
The cake is really good.
We have icing on the cake.
This is like bad icing on a really bad cake.
You know what I mean?
In other words, we have been living through, I think, a difficult, in some ways, almost hellish, politically hellish, four years.
And all this nasty, crazy stuff that is being done at the end.
I mean, let's think about it.
They're like handing out DEI contracts at the last minute.
They're like trying to flood the border before Trump comes in.
What the banks are trying to do, which we'll talk about later.
The banks are doing their thing, exactly, through the Federal Reserve.
They are trying to, you know, essentially do quickly process criminals so that these guys get out.
Biden commuted the sentences of a bunch of murderers.
Now, he didn't free them.
I mean, there were some Trumpsters implying that he freed them.
No, he didn't free them.
But, you know, some of the families are extremely disturbed that their, you know, loved ones are not going to get the justice that they thought they were going to get.
Some of these murders, I mean, really, just to me, if you are sentenced to death, I don't know.
I mean, it's just, you know, it just, and I told you that some of the wardens and some of the people that actually, you know, do the deed are very happy about this because they claim that they get death threats.
And they're very afraid for their safety when they conduct these operations, you know, when they do this.
So I don't know how true that is, but...
That's really interesting.
It reminds me of something Adam Smith says in The Wealth of Nations.
He says that one of the highest paid jobs in the English society of his time is execution.
And he goes, the reason is obvious.
It's a very hard job.
People don't want to do it.
Nobody wants to be the guy who brings the guillotine or the hatchet down.
And so if you want people to do it, Not unless you're a little bit like Mengele or something.
Exactly.
You enjoy the fun.
I'll volunteer.
I'll do it for free.
Sometimes when I see these...
We sometimes watch these murder shows and stuff like that.
I'm so indignant that I feel like, listen, I'll do it.
Because you're just inflamed by the injustice.
No, and then this latest thing where this Guatemalan...
You know, short guy sets this woman on fire.
I mean, it's like I told you.
I said, you know, in my opinion, they should set him on fire and see how it feels.
You know what I mean?
It's like an eye for an eye, in my opinion.
So, I don't know.
This is really what retribution means, right?
Retribution means that you treat the person in kind based on what they did.
You may not give them the identical punishment, but you give them something similar...
Because a lot of people, I think, you know, this is especially smart-ass college students.
No, Dinesh, punishment is about deterrence.
And I'm like, no, it's not.
Because if you think about it, deterrence does not have anything to do either with the perpetrator or the victim.
It's almost like deterrence is designed for the punishment to influence the behavior of some third guy, some would-be criminal, as if to say, hey, let's make it, you know, let's create some incentives so the third guy doesn't do this.
Well, that could be at the best a secondary motive for the kind of punishment that's imposed, but the primary purpose of punishment is retribution.
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Debbie and I are talking about the Biden-Harris legacy, and we talked briefly about these atrocious pardons.
It's really not what the pardon power is about.
Because when Biden says something like, you know, I have a principled objection to the death penalty, The pardon power, I think, at least as originally envisioned, had to do with a particular case.
You're familiar with the case.
Let's say, for example, some guy got 30 years for a crime.
You think that this was an injustice done in that case.
You're like, all right, I'll commute a sentence.
Or in your case, I think you got screwed, Dinesh.
I'm going to pardon you.
Right.
Exactly.
You are the recipient of a presidential pardon.
Right.
But Biden is using it in a much broader ideological way.
And guess what?
I think it opens the door to Trump because I think if Trump had pardoned all the January 6th defendants, people would say he's being ideological.
He's not doing it case by case.
But now that Biden has done all this, that's going to look like a walk in the park.
Yeah.
Trump goes, you set the precedent.
I'm merely following in your footsteps.
So that's probably how that's going to come out.
But you know, when we look at this past four years, in some ways, I think it was far worse than even Obama's terms.
Because under Obama's terms, I think, it isn't that Obama was...
A better guy.
In fact, you and I think are fairly convinced that Obama is still quite active in the depravity of what's going on.
You make the point that Obama is still very much in Washington DC. And we talked about, we actually joked about whether or not Obama, they've created a system where Obama can secretly slip into the White House.
Well, here's the thing.
Why does he live so close to the White House?
I mean, that's weird in and of itself.
Right.
Right there.
I think it's because he needed to have instant access.
And perhaps they created some secret way of getting in without being detected.
Like, you know how you have to basically log in to go to the White House?
There's a record of everybody who goes, yeah.
Of course.
But not with him, right?
Right.
So, what you're saying is that the reason this is important is because I think what you're saying is that Obama could live anywhere in the country and have a sophisticated electronic system where, you know, he's on a big screen, he can see what's going on in the White House rooms, and they could communicate that way.
But you're saying that the reason to be in Washington...
Yeah.
And also, the other way, there's kind of an electronic imprint, you know, with that, obviously.
Someone's going to find out.
Exactly.
So you know how sometimes you're like, yeah, I can't text that to you.
I can't email it to you, but let me call you on the phone.
Or let's meet in person.
So that's his way of saying, let's meet in person.
Let's not have any electronic record of me doing this.
So that's why.
Why else?
Right.
Well, interestingly, in Obama's first and second term, there was a lot of blowback.
Even though Obama won very easily in 2008, and he won fairly easily, not so easily, in 2012, he got walloped in the midterm of 2010, and he got walloped again in the midterm of 2014. And so I think his options were less.
He was able to maneuver.
He got Obamacare through, but remember, just by one vote.
Yeah, very narrow.
Legislatively, he didn't do much else.
He did a lot of harm on the foreign policy front.
Remember, he fomented the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in Egypt.
Fortunately, that was ultimately reversed.
Yeah, and I mean, look at the Iran deal, right?
I mean, that's very significant because that actually led to October 7th.
It led to October 7th.
It's also led to the ultimate collapse of the U.S. efforts in Iraq.
I mean, the U.S. made a lot of mistakes in Iraq, but really the Shia of Iraq would not have been able, I think, on their own to come back to power.
They needed the assistance of the most powerful Shia country in the world, which is Iran.
Yeah, and the rise of ISIS, we cannot forget, was a direct, direct, like, I mean, Trump even said Obama is the founder of ISIS. Exactly, he's the founder of ISIS, directly with him.
And again, the Arab Spring, all of those things.
He set the Middle East on fire, and it's on fire again.
So I think that And, you know, all of these things that are coming out that they knew that Biden from day one was not capable of making any rational decision from day one.
I mean, let's talk about this because we basically have not had a functioning president for four years.
And we also almost got into a situation where we would have a non-functioning president for the next four years.
Oh, yeah.
Think of the level of deceit that the Democrats have had to orchestrate.
Think of all the people who have known about this and been in on it.
It's not one or two.
It's not even 10 or 20. Obviously, Schumer knew.
Obviously, Pelosi knew.
Many other people knew.
And yet they have formed a ring of deception around Obama.
They were okay with it.
And lots of people in the media would have known.
There are people in the media who had direct access to Biden.
They saw Biden, if not every day, they saw him regularly.
Okay, but during, you know, when the whole Afghanistan thing happened, you know, with the 13...
The retreat, the pullout, the disaster.
So they claim that they couldn't even find Biden.
Physically they couldn't find him, or you mean he was just gone mentally?
He was just mentally gone.
Mentally gone.
And so that tells you that he was really just there to, like, okay, you sit here.
Okay, don't say anything.
Don't do anything.
We're going to do it for you.
And so the decisions that were made with Afghanistan, I mean, it reeks of Obama.
I mean, it does.
Now, there are certain things that happened in the Biden-Harris years that were different than Obama.
I'll mention a few.
Obama deported a lot of people.
He did not have the porous open border that Biden has.
So it's almost like, but I don't think this is a contradiction.
I think this is Obamaism carried to the next level.
It's almost like, you know, Obama round three, Obama's third term.
He's like, I wasn't able to unseal the border last time.
This time I'm going to go for it.
Another key difference, I think, with Obama is the digital censorship.
We didn't have that in the Obama years.
In fact, we could savage Obama.
And I did.
And you did and I did.
We both did.
In different ways.
In our own ways.
But the digital censorship was an escalation.
Now, I think that it took COVID to enable that.
That's why we didn't get it under Obama.
It's not that Obama wouldn't have wanted it.
He would have loved it.
He would have loved it.
In fact, at one point, Obama famously said, this was in 2013, he says, I really envy the leadership of China because, remember that?
It was reported in the New York Times.
They buried it.
It was the last paragraph of a story, but it was very telling.
And there it was.
Obama basically envious that he didn't have the kind of authoritarian or totalitarian power of, say, Xi Jinping.
And so he has that dictatorial mindset.
Yeah, he even joked about being in the basement and like running things.
He joked about that.
He joked about it.
But I was like, yeah, that's not a joke.
That's not a joke.
Let's put it this way.
It's been black humor at the very least.
It's been a rather dark reality that we've been living with.
And, you know, if I take a slight relish in it, it is that that hyena, think about him, He's probably sulking and pouting.
Oh, you know it.
He's been driven from the pride lands.
His fourth term came to an end.
It came to a brutal end.
And I think that the icing on the cake, and this is some genuine icing on the cake, was all these black guys, after being pompously lectured by this...
At one time in his younger years, Obama looked kind of dapper.
He looked like he belonged on a basketball court, for example, but now he looks emaciated.
He looks hollowed out.
He almost looks like he's on the verge of making an AIDS announcement.
He actually looks a little bit like how Bill Clinton looks.
Yeah, but Bill Clinton was a lot older.
No, I know that.
That was my age.
I know that, but Bill Clinton started kind of looking like that after.
He did.
I think at one point I put Bill Clinton into one of those programs where it estimates your age.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I think he was in his late 70s at the time and it estimated he was 95 years old.
Yeah, 95. I bet you, I mean, you know, in Obama's America, you have, I had the scene where I put myself alongside Obama.
I say we were born in the same year.
But you look so much younger than Obama.
Like so much younger.
Yeah.
Well, I don't have AIDS. Neither does he.
But he looks like he does.
He looks like he's on the verge of making an announcement.
Anyway, the point we're trying to make is he was lambasted and rhetorically savaged by a lot of black guys.
And by the way, a lot of inner city, urban black guys.
The kind of black guys, I think, who were once...
Securely in his camp.
We never saw those kinds of people attack Obama for eight years straight.
I think even they, their eyes were opened.
What I found very reassuring is many of their eyes were opened not just to Obama but to the Democratic Party.
A lot.
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Our topic for this segment is Outlook 2025.
And we've alluded to some of the legislative hurdles.
It's not just the fact that we have a narrow majority, because if we had a narrow majority and it was solid, we could say, because the Democrats by and large can hold their votes.
If they had a 51-49, they would be running things because they would whip their 51 into line.
Part of the problem, I think, of the Republicans is our 51 do not march in a kind of organized formation.
Yeah, they don't march in unison.
And part of it is that there are moderates who won't go along because the Trump measures are, in their view, too much for them.
But then you have conservatives And right-wingers who won't go along because the measures are not enough.
So it's not just that Trump has to...
Because see, if all the resistance is coming from one side, you can always say, let's bend a little bit to that side and scoop all those guys up, and then we do have a unified.
So if it was coming either from the right or from the moderate side, there would be a programmatic solution.
But if it's coming from both sides, you're in a trap.
And I think this is a little bit of what Mike Johnson feels.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I think, you know, conservatives, we're a little stubborn.
And so I think that stubbornness is what causes us to self-implode.
One of the things that Brandon and Danielle were talking about, which I thought was...
Very interesting is that the Trump people are kind of dropping in on the moderates, they're dropping in on the right-wingers, and they're basically saying, look, the only way for us to succeed is to go with the Trump agenda, because the Trump agenda is in the middle of these two camps.
Right?
So their idea is that if you oppose the Trump agenda, we're going to have to primary you.
Why?
Because we cannot have a dysfunctional situation, almost like a tug of war, except it's a tug of war not between you and the other side.
It's like a tug of war on your own side.
And you're being pulled this way by the moderates and you're pulled this way by the right.
And so I think what Trump is saying is, look, you may not all agree with me, but I'm in the middle of you two camps.
Let's go with this.
It doesn't give the conservatives everything they want.
And it's maybe too conservative for some of the moderates.
But this is the way to hold our team together.
And I think strategically, he's right.
Yes, I do too.
But as I said, I think we're very stubborn.
And it's going to be very difficult to get both sides to agree on this.
This is, I think, where leadership is really critical.
And it may be that John Thune...
John Thune is more moderate, I think, in his own views than Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson is more conservative, but John Thune, I think, is a shrewder leader and politician.
He knows That he doesn't want to go against Trump.
He knows that the base of the Republican Party is very much in the Trump column.
He knows that Trump, and not the GOP, really won the 2024 election.
And I think his view is, let me get it done for Trump.
Which is a little different than the Mike Johnson approach.
And so we may have the great irony that we see more success in the Senate.
This will matter because things like judicial appointments have nothing to do with the House.
Normal legislation needs the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
But judicial appointments only need the Senate.
Cabinet confirmations only need the Senate.
And what are your thoughts as we...
I mean, this is all going to heat up come January.
Do you think that any of these cabinet nominations are in trouble?
I mean, quite clearly, given the report they leaked on Matt Gaetz.
Had he been up for Attorney General, it would be a firestorm.
I think that's the only one that would be a firestorm.
I'm not even sure that with Pete...
The Hegseth thing, I think, has blown over to a large degree.
Yeah, I think he's got the votes.
I think everyone does.
I don't hear any chatter about any of them.
I mean, this would be really interesting.
If Trump is able to get his full slate through, that will be...
When we compare that...
I mean, Democrats get their...
Now, do...
Does everyone that Trump has mentioned have to go through the Senate?
Because like Monica Crowley and people like that, do they have to as well?
Not necessarily, no.
In other words, sub-cabinet officials, I'm not sure what the rules are on them, but I don't think there's an automatic Senate confirmation process.
There may be in some cases.
I know that the cabinet level all requires Senate confirmation.
By the way, ambassadors require Senate confirmation.
Okay.
lower priority than getting the cabinet in place.
What do you think about the ambassadors, the people that...
The only thing that I thought was odd was that he named somebody to be the Mexican ambassador.
And I'm not sure that that person even speaks Spanish.
That's not surprising because...
I say this because...
And this is, for some people, like a little bit of a surprising discovery.
But I noticed this myself when I... I mean, I was invited years ago to speak at the U.S. Embassy in Italy.
By the way, a magnificent facility.
But I noticed that the ambassador at that time was an Italian-American.
You'd think it would be because, you know, one of the things about this country is we have people from all over the world, right?
So you would think...
I mean, to me, it just seems like common sense.
If you have somebody that's serving as an ambassador to this country, that they would be able to communicate with that country.
We have white guys who are ambassadors to the Congo.
We have...
You know, you'll have some guy who's from the Deep South and he's the ambassador to India.
You know, you'd think it'd be an Indian-American, but not necessarily.
A lot of times the ambassador positions are, and this may not be the best thing, but it's the way it is, they're like rewards to donors.
People who have given large amounts of money, who have been very helpful with the campaign, are given their choice of plum pickings for ambassadorial positions.
Okay.
Now, do you think, coming back to the cabinet for a moment, that there will be a big fight over Tulsi Gabbard or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
Yeah, maybe both of those.
Yeah, maybe.
Look, I'm looking forward to those.
I think with RFK Jr., it's going to be about the polio vaccine and about vaccines in general because...
As you know, I mean, I am pro-vaccine.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer by any means.
I do feel like a lot of these childhood diseases – I can't even say that word – have been thwarted because of these vaccines.
And I think it's important that we do not lose them because we're going to have kids dying of things that they – That they died of 200 years ago, right?
Many of these diseases, by the way, are still prevalent in other parts of the world.
In fact, it was a discovery to me when I came to America to realize that there are diseases I was quite familiar with and have seen people who had them.
And I realized, you know, we don't have them in America.
And you have to credit some of those other...
See, I think our objection to the COVID vaccine was and is that it doesn't function like the other vaccine.
It doesn't function and it wasn't tested thoroughly.
No.
And it was kind of crammed down everyone's throat, you know, prematurely, I think.
And we were lied to.
So those things make it really bad.
I think with RFK, the point he makes, and generally when I hear him, I agree, is he says, look, they're not up front with you on the other vaccines either.
It's one thing.
I mean, think of all the other things that we do that have labels, right?
Warning about this, and this can give you cancer, and don't smoke.
So when the government wants to warn you, they certainly will.
But when they don't, they omit.
Or lie.
They just go on the down low about that.
Yeah, that's available.
You can go read the literature if you want to.
Whereas in other things, it's like sign over here that shows that you're aware of these risks and dangers.
Think about the documents you sign when you go into a hospital, for example.
So I think RFK's big theme is transparency.
And I'm really looking forward to the Food and Drug Administration program.
You know, exposure.
I mean, like, you know, just he's going to open up those floodgates where...
Big food is in a way no less corrupt than big pharma.
Yeah.
And so these industries which have had...
First of all, they're industries that have a great deal of money.
So they buy off these politicians.
Mm-hmm.
And they also offer these lucrative jobs to people in the very agencies that are supposed to regulate them.
So all these guys who serve in the FDA and they serve in the regulatory agencies, they go, well, I want a job at Moderna.
I want a job on the board of one of these companies.
I'm not going to do anything that offends them.
In fact, I'm going to show that I'm one of them.
But, you know, here's the thing, too, about the food and drug is, like, all of these, like, dyes and things they put in the food, like when they changed it to high fructose corn syrup and all those things like that that are so bad for you.
And you can see the results.
Yeah, they make you obese.
People are sicker.
They're larger.
Type 2 diabetes.
Lots more childhood cancers.
I mean, a lot more cancer.
You would think that the human level that is working at the FDA would say, you know what?
This can affect my family.
My child could get cancer.
I don't want this.
But yet, no.
I think it's a case where the money talks, to be honest, because someone says, yeah, you have those concerns, but guess what?
There's a $600,000 a year job waiting for you as a vice president on this company.
And then you're like, well, guess what?
I guess I'll watch out for my own family's eating habits because this is too irresistible an offer for me to turn down.
2025 is right around the corner, and I guess this is about the time when people start thinking about New Year resolutions.
We don't customarily do resolutions per se, but on the other hand, I think it's natural to do a bit of an inventory.
And look at how your life is doing at the end of a year and think of things that you want to do in the new year.
It may be something as simple as, hey, we didn't travel at all in 2024. We should do a little bit more of that.
Or we don't do enough getaways, so let's plan a couple more.
Now, as it turns out, we have quite a bit of travel planned in 2025. We're working on a project involving Israel, so chances are we'll We'll go to Israel.
Now, chances are we are going to go to Israel in 2025. Maybe twice.
Maybe twice.
That's right.
Maybe twice.
We are anticipating the opening of a massive archaeological exhibit that we've contributed to in Israel.
And so the organizers of that have said, hey, we'd love to have you guys come when the exhibit is opened.
We are very close to this project because we think that the idea of having Biblical archaeology that validates the Old Testament and the New and does it in a manner that's indisputable.
It's like God is speaking through the stones.
This is something that appeals to people all over the world because you could come and visit Jerusalem or even watch a documentary about it and you see this evidence and you realize that it gives a historicity, a...
I love Zeb Ornstein saying, it's not just a matter of faith, it's a matter of fact.
Right, right.
Which is something that you can say if you are an archaeologist.
It's not something that a theologian can generally say.
A theologian is going to say, the Bible says this, the Bible says it so I believe it, those kinds of things.
Whereas, I think what really appeals to us is the ability to have a conversation.
And the conversation involves faith.
But it begins with certain, like, indisputable, incontestable premises.
And that's exhilarating for us.
So, you know, we're not, like, professional philanthropists and so on, but we do feel very much moved to want to help a project like this because we think it does lasting good, not just for the world, but it does lasting good for people's souls.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And really, in going there...
Is absolutely life-changing, I feel.
You know, I can honestly say that I didn't really get it.
I, you know, sort of got it because a lot of, like my mom, I sent her to Israel, you know, 10 years ago.
A lot of your friends in your prayer group would go to Israel.
And I was like, yeah, I'm good.
I'm fine.
And I would read the Bible, you know, in a faith-based way.
But it wasn't until I actually went to Israel that And saw it for myself and walked those steps that the Bible came to life in a way that it wouldn't have had I not gone.
Interestingly, the whole society, I think, communicates the ethos or at least the vibe of the Bible.
I say this because...
In a lot of parts of the world, you might have their history.
Like, for example, you can go to Rome and you can look at the ancient Romans, but the Italians today are not the ancient Romans.
They're very different.
The world has changed and Rome is now part of the, you know, it's something you see in monuments and museums.
I think the point that Zev also makes, which I think is very striking, is that unlike the Carthaginians who were defeated in the Punic Wars and unlike the Babylonians or the Egyptians, What you have with the Jews is the same people.
They're recognizably the same.
They have a lot of the same habits.
Same customs.
They maintain a tribal identity.
They pray in the same way at the wall.
And part of what's going on with the archaeology is they are reconstructing things that were there at the time of Jesus.
Right.
That Jesus himself was part of.
He took part in it.
And there's a certain chill that runs through your bones when you stand there and you recognize that...
Jesus stood there.
Exactly.
The God that became man was right here.
Now, there are some parts in Israel, as we both know, where things are contested.
Like, where is Calvary?
Where is the Via Dolorosa?
And so, we want to be open to the fact that there is not certainty on some things, but there is certainty on others.
There's no dispute about where Pontius Pilate had his palace.
We have been there.
We've seen it.
We saw it.
It has tablets that attest to the fact that this was Pilate's.
And there's his race course for his horses.
Pontius Pilate was here, right?
Doesn't it say something like that?
In effect.
I mean, it doesn't say exactly those words, but it gives his name and his title.
And his title is the same as the title that he had in the Bible.
Yeah.
So that's a great thing for the new year.
But as far as a resolution, did I say that right?
Resolution.
Well, it is, you know, the reason you say it, you speak, you say these things because of your Spanish background.
You say resolution.
Most people would say resolution.
Resolution.
The normal English pronunciation is to slip in a little bit of a Z. Resolution.
Oh, I try to say it just with an S. Right.
With an S sound.
Yeah, you're actually saying it phonetically.
Resolution.
Yes.
See, I'm trying to say it in Spanish.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Right.
So you sometimes say, well, I get these things wrong, but I say to you that 99% of it, you are right on.
I know.
But every now and then.
But I don't think in Spanish anymore, though.
I know.
And I don't dream in Spanish anymore.
Right.
But I used to.
But there was a time when my brain just kind of switched over and now my dreams are in English.
But anyway, back to the resolution.
Two years ago, it was to lose weight.
That's right.
But it was mostly, look, I need to eat healthy.
I need to cut out the sugar.
I need to cut out the carbs because then the carbs turn into sugar.
I need to exercise more.
And we did that through a program that we did, PhD Weight Loss, and we both lost a lot of weight.
We've kept it off.
And so now mine is to continue and to exercise more because I think I've gone downhill on that.
You keep both of us kind of on the path with regard to eating.
I'm a little more flexible than you are, but I do weigh myself once a week, so I do keep an eye.
I think that is critical because one of the things we learned from PhD weight loss is that a lot of this is training your mind not to see it as an extreme diet.
but rather to see it as a modification of a lifestyle.
But as I've told you before, I don't drink alcohol, and not just because it has sugar, not just because it has carbs, not just because I don't like how I feel after I drink, but it also has a lot of negative things.
I mean, it's a carcinogen, basically.
It's a poison that you're putting in your body.
And a lot of people drink it because they think that it's going to relax them, but it ends up doing the exact opposite.
It makes them more hyper, more focused on their worries.
Anyway, I just don't do it.
I don't drink.
I don't drink wine.
I don't drink beer.
I don't drink anything.
Any alcohol, period, end of story.
And with you, you know, I'm trying to get you not to do it.
I know you like wine, but it's the alcohol I don't want you to drink because it's so bad for you.
Right.
No, it's true.
And I'm sort of...
But you don't drink it daily.
You drink it on weekends.
And the thing is, you're like, yeah, but it's social.
I'm like, yeah, who cares?
You could say, I just want sparkling water.
I don't even think that's my prime reason.
My prime reason is that over...
The past several years, we've collected some really nice bottles of wine and I don't really know what to do with them.
I feel like they need to be drunk.
I know.
Maybe I should stop after drinking them.
The only problem with them is it's about 70 bottles.
Oh no!
So it would take me about three years, at least at my current rate.
Because remember, if I was, if I had a daily glass of wine, I mean, hey, it's only four glasses of wine to a bottle.
So if I had a daily glass of wine, I'd be finishing a bottle, you know, in four days.
And so almost two bottles a week, and that means 70 bottles goes in 35 weeks.
Hey, I mean, that's just a few months.
No, because then you keep getting more bottles.
That's the problem.
We get another one and another one and another one and...
Right.
So as I get my head around this, and it is a big change because this is something that, you know, that I would say has been something of a lifelong habit, which is moderate social drinking.
And so, and I'm not, you know, I'm no wine connoisseur, as you know, but on the other hand, I've gotten a little more knowledgeable about it.
Look, you've sent me a bunch of videos where doctors will tell you there's really nothing good about it.
There was, I think, a period where there was some news reports about it's like a glass of wine is really good for your heart.
And then they came right back and said, no, not so much.
Those have sort of been debunked, apparently.
So not necessarily that we want to leave people with a little bit of a...
Well, you know, here's the other aspect of drinking, and that is...
There are a lot of accidents on the road because people drink too much.
You mean like New Year's Eve?
New Year's Eve.
Especially.
Yeah.
Even during the year.
Really during the year people drink in excess and then they get behind the wheel and they end up killing a family of five or whatever.
It doesn't matter, really, how many people you kill.
In some cases, just themselves, but it's still a tragedy.
It's a tragedy.
And so, alcohol is bad on just so many levels.
And I'm sure that, you know, when Jesus partook in the wine and all of that, it was fine because he was Jesus.
But, you know...
So, guys, our closing advice is to stop drinking.
And if you have some really nice bottles of wine, send them my way.
What?!
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