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March 14, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
53:23
OUR FAVORITE EV Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1041
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up, it's a Friday weekly roundup.
Debbie and I will talk about Doge and the plight of fired federal workers, Trump's tax and tariff policies, the delightful peculiarities of the Trump-Musk relationship, including Trump's new red Tesla, that Columbia University terrorist Mahmoud Khalil, and also how both of us first encountered Ronald Reagan.
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This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
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.
Debbie and I here for our Friday roundup.
And it's a fun way for us to pick up on all the themes that we've been talking about throughout the week.
And engage in this kind of format.
Now, the funny thing is, we've been talking throughout the week on the issue of tariffs.
But you have your favorite tariff, right?
Which one is that?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It is.
Trump threatens 200% tariffs on alcohol from the EU countries after U.S. whiskey tax.
So apparently the...
Ha, ha, ha.
Well, first of all...
A lot of people don't know that Canada and the EU have massive tariffs on certain U.S. goods.
And so when they say, you know, we're going to respond to the Trump tariffs as if they don't have any and are just putting on tariffs, no.
They have far more extensive tariffs than we do.
But it is also true, and I've expressed this on the podcast, is...
You know, there is a danger to getting into these trade wars.
But you're saying with regard to alcohol, the effect can only be...
Oh, it's awesome!
Well, first of all...
Trump doesn't drink.
Right.
I don't drink.
He doesn't care.
You're not affected.
I don't drink, so therefore, we don't care.
Right.
But I wonder if this is Trump's way of trying to get everybody off the alcohol.
Just saying.
I don't know.
Reducing alcohol consumption in this country.
Oh, yeah.
Debbie of late has been, I don't know if this is just a trend on Instagram or what, but you have been bombarding me with videos from various...
Oh, yeah.
Well, either they're doctors or they're purporting to be doctors.
Because after all, there's no way to verify these people.
They're like, recent studies show that even...
Any amount!
Yeah, any alcohol whatsoever is really bad for you.
Yeah, it causes cancer, you know, all kinds of things.
And I send them to you, and I send them to, you know, Juliana, and she's like, Mom, stop.
I don't drink, Mom, stop.
And I'm like, well, just in case you want to take one little drink, here we go, you know?
Exactly.
And so, of course, you know, Justin's a teetotaler, and Danielle's a teetotaler, and, you know, so am I. But, no, I mean, I think that it's kind of funny because Trump doesn't drink alcohol, and to do that, I'm sure people are like, what are you thinking?
And he's like, what?
What do you mean?
What's going on?
Let's talk about the other article of consumption that's been in the news this week, and that is the red Tesla.
Oh, yeah.
So, you know, Trump, I think Trump realizes that Elon Musk is paying a really heavy price for the work he's doing with Doge.
He's really threatening a very powerful set of people whose livelihoods are dependent on all this.
Because they've built a racket up over 30 years.
And no one previously has even attempted to really take it down.
And Elon Musk is only beginning this important task.
But they're going after him on all fronts, right?
The Tesla protests, the...
In fact, didn't you tell me, you read an article about how Tesla drivers are now changing out their...
Oh, yeah, they're changing out like the Tesla logo and they're putting another car logo so that people don't vandalize their cars.
It's ridiculous.
I mean, that's taking things to a...
Isn't it ridiculous?
And I approve of the...
I approve of treating this as a form of political terrorism because it is an effort to intimidate.
Well, it's actually intimidating a federal official, which Elon Musk is.
But Elon Musk is not intimidated.
I think that's what people need to understand.
This man is made out of I don't know what.
He doesn't care.
You know, I think what's going on here, it's not just that Elon Musk doesn't care because of the money.
And he, you know, he's the richest man in the world.
So the idea that you can financially topple him is preposterous.
That's not going to happen.
Not to mention the fact that he is endlessly creative.
I mean, he has the number of companies that he has that are billion-dollar companies.
Is innumerable.
He has like seven companies that are, and all of them are massively successful.
So even Tesla is only part of his larger empire.
He's got the SpaceX, he's got the Boring Company, he's got this, he's got that.
I think what it is, is that Elon Musk has come to believe, I think rightly, That the country itself hangs in the balance and that the amount of damage that's been done under the Biden-Harris years is so extensive that if we don't do something like this, if we don't put the house in order, so to speak, basically that's the beginning of the end for America and certainly for America as a world leader.
But leaving even aside being a world leader is one thing and something else is just...
Essentially seeing an implosion of your economy and your way of life.
Yeah, and just recently, I think yesterday, a Clinton appointee basically said that they had to reinstate all of those temporary workers that were laid off.
Well, that's what these, it's the Clinton judges and the Obama judges, and the way our system works is it allows a federal judge in any part of the country To issue a nationwide injunction.
Now, the extreme example of this would be, can you imagine the United States were mounting an operation in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some judge in, let's say, Montana or Hawaii said, you have to stop doing that.
I'm putting a temporary restraining order.
This would be...
A serious assault on our constitutional structure because that is an action squarely within the executive branch.
That's really what's going on here.
Trump is taking actions that are squarely within the executive branch.
He's not making new laws.
He is doing what the executive branch is supposed to do.
Admittedly, the judges are not saying you can't do it, but they're saying you can't do it pending our review.
Well, he just said reinstate these people.
But the reinstate these people means for now, put them back in.
Yeah, but how can we stop this from happening?
Because this is going to continue to happen.
They're seriously trying.
And I don't get it.
There's such a push from the media to demonize.
Elon and Trump for doing something that is actually beneficial to the American people?
You know, that's to be expected, because these people are in with the Democrats, and what we would consider the ruin of the nation is, in fact, their goal.
I mean, if you look at the actions of the Biden-Harris administration, and if you just took the operating assumption, they're trying to destroy America as we have known it, all their actions are coherent.
If you want to destroy America as we know it, open the border.
Let in the criminals.
Let in the terrorists.
Put confiscatory taxes and regulations on the economy.
Enlarge the size of the federal workforce vis-a-vis the private sector.
I mean, all the things that they're doing undermine the moral fabric of the society, promote abortion.
So, in other words, I think what's happening here is that these judges, now Elon Musk and some others are like, impeach them.
It's very difficult to impeach a judge.
So I'm afraid that solution, although it sounds to me a little bit like when people say, let's pass a constitutional amendment.
Do you have any idea what's involved?
So the judges are not going to be impeached.
Yeah, but can't the Supreme Court put a stop to it and say that the judges don't have jurisdiction to do this?
Yes, the Supreme Court can do that.
And there's another possibility, which I think is worth considering.
And that is when you have an action that is squarely in the executive branch, Ignore the decision of the federal court and appeal it to the Supreme Court on the grounds that we are doing exactly what the Constitution empowers us to do.
The judge is out of line, not us.
And we're putting it before you so you can decide the issue.
Has that been done?
That has not been done yet.
Trump has been playing within the system.
He's basically being, okay, you want me to put the money back?
I'll put the money back.
You want me to send out the $2 billion and aid?
I'll agree to do that.
You want me to give these federal workers back their credit cards?
I'll agree to do that.
So Trump, believe it or not, even though the left is saying, oh, he's already become a dictator.
This is the road to dictatorship.
Trump, in fact, has been quite conventional in taking a system that is, I think, very flawed.
And going along with it pending the review and appeal process.
Oh, for sure.
I mean, look at this.
And this is from the AP. Meet the federal worker who went rogue.
I hope that it lights a fire under people.
Now, let's go through it.
What are they talking about?
Who is the federal worker?
Basically, Karen Ortiz.
Maybe just one of many faceless bureaucrats.
But some of her colleagues, she's giving a voice to those who feel they can't speak out.
Ortiz is an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency in charge of enforcing U.S. workplace anti-discrimination laws that has undergone tumultuous change since President Donald Trump took office.
Like millions of other federal employees, Ortiz opened an ominous email on January 28th titled, Fork in the Road, Fork in the road, giving them the option to resign from their positions as part of the government's cost-cutting measures directed by Trump and carried out by Doge under Musk.
An unelected official, they write.
You know what I mean?
They don't care when it's their unelected official.
Let's drill into this a little bit here because, first of all, We have a civil rights law of 1964 that is a non-discrimination law.
You cannot discriminate in hiring.
The whole purpose of the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency that this woman works for, is to promote discrimination.
Now, how does it achieve that goal?
Here's how it achieves that goal.
They go to a company, let's just take, you know, Here in Texas, HEB, right?
Which is a food company.
Or it could be a company that makes metal.
It doesn't matter what the company does.
They will file a suit and they will say, all right, so-and-so company, tell us the percentage of whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, men, women, straight, gay, that work for your company.
And so the company goes, okay, well, here it is.
And then they look at it and they go, well...
All right.
Let's say that even with regard to men and women, it's an equal number of men and women.
So they don't have a gender case.
But then they go, we notice that Hispanics are 60% in the greater, let's just say, Houston area or this particular area, which they get to decide what area it is.
We notice that you only have 37% of Hispanics working at your company.
Therefore, we presumptively hold.
that you are discriminating against Hispanics.
Now, you have to notice when a federal agency does this, they deploy so many resources, you have to hire lawyers, that the company usually immediately folds and goes, okay, we'll hire 60% of Hispanics.
And so this is how racial preferences are implemented.
So what I'm saying is this woman is a pernicious bureaucrat enforcing malign laws that are the exact opposite of what the civil rights laws say.
Oh, but get this, okay.
Her alarm grew when her supervisor directed administrative judges in her New York district office to pause all of their current LGBTQ plus cases and send them to Washington for further review in order to comply with Trump's executive order, declaring that the government would recognize only two sexes, immutable sexes, male and female.
Ortiz decried management's lack of action in response to the directive, which she said was the antithesis to its mission, and called upon some 185 colleagues in an email to resist complying with illegal mandates.
Okay, so this goes to the heart of what we mean by the word illegal.
Because think about it again.
Do the civil rights laws say anything about sexual orientation?
Not a word.
Not a word.
The laws pertain to race and they pertain to gender discrimination.
Men being discriminated against, let's say, because you're a woman.
But nothing to do with...
So the whole LGBTQ agenda has been imported.
Into a law that is completely silent on this topic.
So what I'm getting at is, this is the runaway bureaucracy.
And I also notice how they frame it.
You know, why would an email that you're sent, that let's just say, for example, tells you that, hey, guess what?
If you want to quit...
We're going to give you eight months of pay.
We're not making you quit.
We're giving you the option to quit.
Why would that be ominous?
It's only ominous.
I mean, it's expanding your options, right?
It's giving you more choices.
But what they're doing here is they are recasting the useless federal bureaucrat.
In fact, as I say, more than useless.
It's bad enough to be useless when you do nothing.
It's even worse when you're doing something really bad.
You're actually harming the cause of racial equality and the Martin Luther King idea we should be judged on our merits as individuals.
So what I'm getting at is this person is now the hero of this article.
And who's the villain?
The villain is in fact Trump, who is the one elected leader holding these unelected bureaucrats.
Who elected her?
Mm-hmm.
Right?
That's...
That's right.
So...
Yeah.
No, it's really...
These laws are really silly.
And you know what happened to me many, many years ago back in...
I guess it was 1989, early 1990. Yeah, you had an interesting experience applying for a job.
Yeah, so I applied for a...
It was a city job.
I mean, my degree was in political science, and I was just looking for a job.
I didn't really care if it was with my degree or not, but I thought, okay, this is kind of cool.
It was really just basically data entry into, and it was, I believe it was a prison system in the city.
It was becoming automated, right?
Yeah, yeah, right, right.
So anyway...
So I go for an interview, and I was married at the time to an Anglo, and so my last name changed.
It was not my maiden name.
So I went for the interview.
I did really well.
They called me.
I think I went for two more follow-ups, and then I didn't hear anything.
And so I called them, and I talked to, I think she was even just the secretary or the administrative assistant, the receptionist.
And I said, hey, you know, what happened to the job?
I thought I was, like, going to get it.
And she goes, well, she goes, don't say anything.
Like, you know, she was kind of giving me the scoop.
She goes, but, well, you know, we have kind of a quota.
And she said that they had to give it to a Latino.
They had to reserve the job for a Hispanic.
What did you say?
And I go...
Oh, really?
And she goes, oh, yeah.
She goes, I'm really sorry.
And then I go, so, are you saying that I was more qualified than this Hispanic?
She was like, yeah, but I don't really want, please don't say anything.
Like, she was really embarrassed.
And I go, well, you do realize I'm Hispanic.
100%.
Yeah, and she goes, well, really?
She's like, but your last name?
And I go, well, I said, yeah, that's my married name.
I said, but I'm Sestero.
She goes, What?
Just in miniature, that's an example of how all this works or doesn't work.
It's a mess.
It is a mess.
What I don't understand is how an entire...
It shows you how a bureaucracy can have a mind.
A collective mind that is stupider than every single individual within the bureaucracy.
The bureaucracy itself takes on something inherently ridiculous And it doesn't have the ability to correct itself.
Like, for example, she couldn't say, oh, wait a minute.
Guess what?
Let me call my supervisor because you actually meet the criteria and you're well qualified.
So we can now have a Hispanic and a qualified person.
So we'll rectify this immediate.
No.
Yeah, no.
It's like that ship has sailed.
Exactly.
That ship sailed because they offered the job to this other person and they were already on the payroll and all those things.
And they checked off the box.
Yeah, absolutely.
So that is the end of that.
And then I thought to myself, Really, the fact that I even had to go there, I was like, man, maybe I shouldn't have changed my name.
Maybe I should start using my maiden name and my marriage.
Well, you and I have been, I think, for most of our lives in the interesting position where we are, I guess, minorities, right?
We recognize that.
We don't take the view that our background or ancestry is irrelevant.
You're very proud of the fact that you were born in Venezuela.
You do have a sort of native or ancestral attachment to Venezuela.
I obviously had a happy childhood growing up in India.
I've never repudiated my background or anything like that.
On the other hand, we both see ourselves as fully American.
We don't like to travel on...
That's right.
Well, as you know, when I was in college, I kept getting approached by this LULAC person that wanted me...
So tell what LULAC is.
So LULAC is...
I know what it is.
It's the League of United...
Latin American citizens.
Think of it.
You're a citizen of Latin America, not of America.
Exactly.
So anyway, they kept coming to me and saying, hey, you need to join our organization, man.
I was like, no.
They're like, oh, what's wrong with you?
Are you saying that you're not proud of your heritage?
And I was like, listen, I'm very proud of my heritage.
My mom may think I'm not proud of her heritage because I'm half Mexican, half Venezuelan.
She thinks I only go for the Venezuelan, but clearly this is all Latino related.
I go, so I am not, you know, ever saying I'm not one or the other.
I'm both.
And he's like, well, then, you know, then you should join.
And I go, no, because I don't think, I want to be an American.
I want to assimilate.
I want to speak the language.
I don't want to demonize Anglo-America.
And not to say that you, I mean, you are a native Spanish speaker.
Yes.
Right?
In fact, many of these Lulac guys, you told me.
Yeah, so he didn't even speak Spanish.
Right.
And I was like, so I speak to him in Spanish.
And he was like, what are you saying, man?
I goes, okay, there you go.
You're saying that I'm not proud of my heritage yet?
That's my first language.
I speak it very well.
And you...
Clearly don't, so you're the one that's not proud of your heritage.
So what these guys do, at Dartmouth it's the Afro-American Society, and in Texas it's LULAC. They live off of their ethnic identity, right?
In fact, remember this earlier this week, or yesterday I guess it was, I was talking to Chase Hughes, and he was talking about how one of the ways that you fracture a society, You drive people into identifying not with the whole, but with a group, in this case.
Groupthink.
Yeah, a kind of ethnic identity.
And then you set that ethnic identity against other identities, so it becomes us against them.
And you use that as a lever to divide the society, to kind of, in a sense, fracture it.
That's right.
And that's what they were doing.
Absolutely.
That's their goal.
They were driving a wedge, and they wanted me to take the bait.
And they wanted, they really, I mean, to me, it was just really ridiculous.
And I was like, just leave me alone, please.
I don't want to have anything to do with your organization.
I think Texas is Texas.
It's not Mexico.
Because that was the other thing that they were like, oh, you know, we really need to reclaim this land for, you know, to Mexico.
I was like, get out of my face.
Well, not only is that, I mean, think about it.
Not only is that.
Impractical, i.e.
dumb.
But even more important, I mean, think about your ancestry on your mom's side, right?
So your mom is descended from Mexican families that were on the Texan side of the border.
And when the U.S.-Mexican war erupted, these were originally Mexicans, but now siding with Texas.
And the liberation of Texas from Mexico, which occurred for nine years, and then Texas elected through the same people to join the United States.
So in other words, what I'm getting at is your ancestry is precisely why we have a...
How all this land came into the possession of the United States?
Your ancestors actually made that happen.
Well, I mean, I go back six generations.
At least.
Yeah, at least six generations.
And I can't think of any of my ancestors that were born in Mexico when it was Mexico.
So, you know what I mean?
So, anyway, back to...
So, I told them, I said, this is just ridiculous.
I don't want to have anything to do with your organization.
Stop sending me these...
I would get mail from them.
And what they do is they go through all of the art.
And then I was like, you know what?
I'm going to stop putting Hispanic.
You know how in some of the student boxes that you check, you know, Hispanic or whatever.
And I was like, I'm just going to stop.
Because every time I do, I get, you know, these letters from these groups.
And, you know, they obviously realized I was a Republican.
I was not going to join their group.
But I think it's interesting because you ended up missing out on opportunities that you could have had had you checked that box.
Well, but I don't really think that because, you know, again, what opportunities?
Well, what I'm saying is you were approached by colleges that said to you that you were in the top, was it the top quarter or the top half?
I was like in the top 10%.
You know, quintile.
They were like, hey, we want you to apply to this prestigious college and that prestigious college.
Oh, yeah.
My mom had this stack of applications for minorities because you get your school paid for, you get all this stuff.
And I was like, I don't want to do that.
I just don't want to use my ethnicity as a crutch.
Or as a, you know, leg up on other people.
I don't believe I need to do that.
I mean, the reason this is actually quite striking and commendable is that, you know, you grew up in the barrio.
So your family was poor.
I mean, you didn't, it's not like you hadn't, because your dad died when you were young, it's not that you had money to go to college.
So it cost you to take that position.
I would have otherwise.
You would have otherwise.
Because as a...
I tell many people that when I moved to the valley at the age of 10 from Venezuela, I thought I had moved to a third world country.
That is how rich and prosperous Venezuela was at the time.
So yes, I went from having a really nice lifestyle to practically having nothing.
But no, I wasn't going to use that as a crutch.
I wanted to...
Succeed on my own merits.
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Let's talk about something else.
And I want to...
Set it up by alluding to this case right now involving Mahmoud Khalil.
You know this guy?
Oh, yeah.
So this guy is a Syrian national.
Yep.
Now he's married.
To a woman who is eight months pregnant and they're playing this up that, oh, his wife is pregnant and they act like the U.S. government abducted him.
He's not abducted.
He has been arrested by Department of Homeland Security.
Because it is against our immigration laws to be a supporter of terrorism.
I do want to highlight that this is not a guy who is just like, I don't like Israel or I'm a Palestinian.
This is a guy who is very pro-Hamas.
This is a guy who revels in October 7th.
This is a guy who celebrates the top leadership of Hamas and has posters glorifying these guys.
And you know how I feel about those roaches.
In fact, I think I said last night, I go, you know, I feel really bad I said that because that's kind of a diss to roaches.
Right.
I mean, what it is is you have on your phone a...
Just an absolutely heartbreaking assembly of videos.
Yeah.
And I think what is so incriminating about these videos is that a lot of them were made by Hamas.
They were.
They're not even made by the IDF. This is not Israeli propaganda.
It is not.
Hamas took these videos while they were shooting people.
They were either their GoPros as they were doing it, or iPhones, or even...
Even more bizarre and more barbaric, they were using the victim's phones to live stream on their Facebook page their murder.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah.
So you tell me that these barbarians, roaches, anybody that supports them needs to be deported.
End of story.
So you're not sympathetic to the good old...
He's merely exercising his free speech.
I mean, the big thing that the Democrats are focusing on is he hasn't been convicted of any crimes.
As if to say that if you're in violation of the immigration laws...
By the way, they say the same thing about illegals.
That's right.
Well, why are we deporting this guy?
He hasn't committed any crimes.
Well, he broke the law by getting here.
So he has committed a crime.
That's right.
Right?
So similarly here, this guy, Muhammad Khalil, has in fact broken our laws, our immigration laws.
It's just that he hasn't committed any additional crimes.
That's what they really mean.
They say he hasn't committed any crimes.
They mean he hasn't broken the law in any other way than the one way that he's being arrested for.
Well, you know that all of these pro-Hamas supporters, like they surrounded Trump's Trump Tower.
Right.
Yesterday.
And they were protesting to get this guy out.
And so I said, I actually did it in all caps on Twitter, I'm like, deport all these people!
Not just him!
All of these people!
Because if they support him, they support Hamas.
And if they support Hamas, they support terrorism.
And we do not need them or want them in this country.
Yeah, I mean, what is amazing is the degree to which some of these elite universities are now dominated by students who are not from America.
Yeah, and they should not be allowed.
And, you know, remember, I always talk to you about these boys that I met when I was in college.
Yeah, talk about that because go into the detail of that.
In 1986, I met these...
I'm thinking there was probably five or six.
And they were from the Middle East.
Not from the same country, but they kind of all were buddies.
Because I would sometimes go to international student meetings just to see what everybody said.
And maybe I could meet a Venezuelan or two and whatnot.
And we did various study groups.
But these boys, I had actually never...
I didn't know anything about Islam.
Or Muslims?
I'd never met any.
How would I, right?
Well, Venezuela is quite a diverse society, and you mentioned that there were...
Iranians.
There were Iranians, but you know what?
They were probably Iranians who fled...
That's right.
...from the revolution, and so they would be...
They're Muslim, perhaps, but they are probably...
They're certainly not...
More secular.
They're not Islamic radicals.
Yeah, right, right.
So I had no idea what Islamic radicalism was or anything, except that I... Followed very, very closely the bombing in, oh gosh, the Beirut bombing, right, in 82, right?
And one of the guys, like, just, you know, matter-of-factly said that he was related to that bomber.
And I was like, what?
And he was acting like it was a great thing.
And then my antenna went up and I was like, this is really creepy.
What the heck?
And they clearly hated America.
So I was like, why are you guys here?
Yeah, people often realize that in the mind of the Islamic radical...
Israel doesn't operate on its own.
Israel is like the 51st state.
Israel is part of America.
Their battle is against Israel, the little Satan, but also against America.
This guy, Muhammad Khalil, if you look at the themes that are stressed in the literature of his organization, which has divest in its name, is We have to eradicate Western civilization.
And this is so reminiscent of something that when I first began to write in the early 1990s at Stanford University, they were having these protests in the name of multiculturalism and chanting.
And Jesse Jackson was there, part of the group.
Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's got to go.
So notice how this stuff doesn't go away.
It resurrects in a different form.
It only gets worse.
It gets worse.
They get more bold.
Yeah, and I think also what's interesting is that what used to be the Western or American left has now morphed with radical Islam.
That's not something that one would have anticipated.
I discussed this in one of my earlier books called The Enemy at Home.
And when that book came out, people were like, Dinesh, what are you saying?
How can the radical left, you know?
And today we now take it for granted that the radical left and the secular Western left...
Are, in fact, strange, but nevertheless, very real bedfellows, right?
Exactly.
No, this is...
And so, anyway, so this was 1986, and I became just aware that this was not good, that these guys shouldn't be here.
And I told my mom, I said, you know...
I'm really afraid of these guys because they clearly think bombing things are good.
And I was always kind of afraid to go anywhere they went because I didn't want to be in an elevator with them or anything.
I had no idea what they would do.
But anyway, this was 86. And then guess when the Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum came out?
Was it 91, I believe?
So think about it.
This was five years before that happened.
So when I read that...
I already kind of knew that these people were in it for the long haul.
They're very patient.
And, you know, they really...
Look, I don't...
We have a lot of Muslim friends and dear friends.
And I am never, never saying that all Muslims are terrorists.
But I'm just saying that there's a good portion of them that are.
A good portion.
Especially when you think of how many Muslims there are in the world, and if you say, well, 10% are radical, that's a huge number.
I think in some of the surveys that were done, both after 9-11 and subsequently, the number is actually much bigger than 10%.
I bet you, even though people often say today about Gaza, like, don't confuse Hamas and the Palestinians.
The truth of it is, how did Hamas get to power in Gaza?
It was voted into power by the Palestinians.
Hamas has not had a subsequent election, but I don't see the Palestinians demanding that it do, that it have another election.
Well, look, and I have a lot of video footage, you know, as we just discussed.
And a lot of it is people on the streets that clearly aren't wearing Hamas uniforms or have the Hamas bandana.
They're just civilians.
And they are, like, happy and Allah Akbar this and Allah Akbar that.
And they're, you know, clearly also very proud of the fact that they did this on October 7th.
So, look, I mean, I feel like where do you think these Hamas people came from?
Those people, the very people, the children get indoctrinated into this.
Their entire population probably is of this mindset.
So, you know what?
Baloney that these people are, you know, oh.
Hamas uses them as human shields.
And I think in a lot of instances, they're okay with it.
You're saying the propaganda has gotten through.
It's worked.
They believe it.
And they, you know, the other thing about it I think that is so strange is that, let's say, you have a society, and let's say that they're second-class citizens under Israeli rule.
The truth of it is, these are people who have made their whole existence one of overthrowing the Israeli Authority, which is ruling over them.
That's right.
And as a result, terrorism is the vehicle to do that.
Yeah.
Well, you know, also another interesting thing to note is that there are actually Islamic radicals living inside of Israel.
Not just Gaza, but Israel.
And that's where a lot of the, like, suicide bombings happen, and like, you know, on buses and, you know, that kind of thing, because there are people among them that are radical.
You know, and I think this is true because, first of all, as you know, there are Arab, there are many Arabs who live in Jerusalem.
There are Arabs in the Knesset, in the Israeli parliament.
There is also the West Bank.
Now, the West Bank is not run by Hamas.
It's run by the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
But, so-called Abu Mazen is what he calls himself.
But anyway, the point is that the Palestinian Authority has a lot of radicals who consider the Palestinian Authority to be too weak.
And the Palestinian Authority has never had an election in the West Bank because they're afraid Hamas would win.
What does that tell you?
What does that tell you?
So you've got two unelected regimes, Hamas and Gaza, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and all of this is existing very uneasily inside of Israel.
I also told you I'm so amazed that you could...
See, it's one thing if you have your own country.
You grab a bunch of hostages, you bring them to your country, and now the Israelis can't find them.
It's another matter to say we are in Israel.
It's kind of like someone who says, I'm going to abduct somebody inside your house.
I'm going to take a part of the house, let's just say your garage, where I live, and I'm going to hide them so well that you won't be able to find them.
The homeowner.
The homeowner in your own house, right?
Israel can't find the hostages inside of Israel.
That's part of what makes the whole thing so surreal.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's why these people are...
So cunning and so barbaric and, you know, kind of like...
Let's talk a little bit about...
Let's shift gears a little bit, if you don't mind.
Talk about Reagan.
Oh, did I tell you about the Hezbollah terrorists?
Let's cover that.
So apparently there is a Hezbollah terrorist that is finally going to be deported.
He came in with the Biden regime, right?
They captured him.
And he told the U.S. medical personnel that he had a bomb and he was going to build a bomb.
And they didn't deport him immediately.
What?
So anyway, back to the fact that I think that the Biden administration is responsible for a lot of these people getting in, staying in, and I can't wait to see all these people.
Leave America.
I mean, you've seen the recent reports about how with Biden, apparently virtually all his actions over four years, executive actions, were signed by the auto pen.
Think about that.
He who controls the auto pen essentially controls the country.
And the reason we know this is that when Biden agreed to step aside and you look at his signature, he signs Joseph, I think it's Joseph P. Biden.
Right?
The auto pen doesn't sign like that.
It's a completely different signature.
So what that is a way of telling you, because think about it, there is a reason to use an auto pen, right?
The reason you use an auto pen is when something has to be done, like, in a great volume.
Like, let's say, for example, I'm signing, you know, 50 pardons.
Let's just say for 50 people who are involved in something.
Well, I'm not going to sign 50 times I use the auto pen.
But on the other hand, if I'm making an important decision about the border or an important decision about fiscal policy, you would think Biden himself would sign, but it looks like the auto pen sign.
So this is something we've long suspected, but it's confirmation.
Perhaps he was using an auto brain as well.
Well, here's where some people think, and conservatives will say, He deteriorated over his four years.
That's quite clearly true.
But I think, and I think you agree with me on this, that with regard to Biden, and I think the same deal was going to apply to Kamala Harris, namely that there was an arrangement that you are a figurehead president.
We, the guys behind the scenes, we run the auto pen.
We tell you what to do.
Your job is just to be the face of the country.
I mean, don't you think that was throughout the Biden presidency?
I told you that it was Obama's third term.
Like, you know?
Oh, yeah.
If not Obama directly, it was Obama's little gang.
Yeah, I think so.
Running the place.
I think so.
And do you think that that would have extended through Kamala had she won?
Yes, because Kamala has no brain either, for a different reason.
For a totally different reason, right.
But yes, I do think that whole cabal was run by these horrible, nefarious people.
I really do.
And they probably scooped Pelosi and Schumer into it, because you can't fully pull it off if you don't have the, at that time, leader of Congress, of the House, and the leader of the Senate.
Because now you have a real cabal.
You have a cabal in the executive branch whose tentacles reach also into the legislative branch.
Yeah, no, I agree.
I do think that.
And it's really, it's scary.
It really is scary.
And I'm so glad we dodged that bullet with Kamala because I can only imagine what would have happened had she won.
And it was.
I mean, you know, Trump says I went by landslide, but the truth of it is it was still fairly close.
It was too close for comfort.
I mean, really too close.
I think there are a lot of people that are just, you know, like Chase.
Yesterday, Chase Hughes that you had on, he said that it is, you know, people just cannot think for themselves anymore.
They kind of get into this groupthink mentality, and they just can't.
You know, I'm...
The first person to say, I don't like something that Trump does or whatever, you know that.
I'm very honest about it.
I try to be very objective about it.
And I think that there are just some people that are so ingrained in that belief of, you know what, nothing the right does and nothing is good.
I mean, you could even test it because if Trump were to take, think of it this way, the left was a great champion.
Oh, exactly.
Case in point.
Yeah, they love electric cars.
Electric cars are the future.
This is the most important thing we can do for the climate.
In fact, Elon Musk was kind of a hero to them because he was the pioneer of the electric car.
Their venom toward Elon Musk is solely because of his association with Trump.
Absolutely.
So just as we know that Trump himself became radioactive the moment that he...
He went down that elevator, announced for president as a Republican, and that's it.
Okay, there we go.
All bets are off.
All bets are off.
Oh, yeah.
So this is what you're saying.
This is the lobotomization of the left.
Yeah, it is.
And so we were going to talk about Reagan because...
Yeah, let's close out on Reagan.
Yeah, so Reagan, I mean, look, he was a really, really solid, good, salt-of-the-earth man.
I mean, I can't...
I can't say...
He's always been my favorite president.
Now, of course, Trump is definitely going to be...
Well, Trump isn't done.
Trump is in his second term, so I don't think you can really include Trump in an evaluation just yet, because...
By and large, judgments about presidents have got to come after their terms in office.
And some people would say much later.
Although with Reagan, he was my favorite president before he became president.
That's right.
You were only 14. I was 14 when he ran the first time.
Right.
And, you know, I've told this story many times on the podcast, but my grandma had this Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn...
You know, commemorative plate in the kitchen.
And I just remember thinking to myself, you know, obviously I was a kid, and I wasn't really into politics that much.
I was in Venezuela, though, as a younger kid, because my grandparents belonged to the Copay political party, which was the center-right party.
And so I kind of knew what those stood for.
Acción Democrática was center-left.
The other one was center-right.
Obviously, you know, through the years.
But America was new territory.
Yeah, yeah, totally new territory.
So I really didn't know the parties, but I wanted to know what the Democrats stood for.
And I asked my grandma, and she said, you know, they're for the poor.
They're for the little guy.
The Republicans are for big corporations.
They're for the rich.
And so I thought to myself, Well, I think I know what's going on here.
I think that the Democrats...
Did you already smell a rat a little bit?
I was smelling a rat.
I think the Democrats are actually for, not so much for the poor, but for keeping you poor.
Because they want to stay in power, so they need your votes.
I was kind of starting to figure all that out.
So when I was 14, Ronald Reagan came to town and I was fortunate enough to go see him.
And I just remember him saying that Latinos are Republican.
They just don't know it.
And he talked about a lot of other things like family and freedom and all the things.
Self-reliance.
Self-reliance.
All the things that I stood for.
Like, as a kid, I mean, I was, you know, obviously I was 14, very young.
But, you know, I knew those were instinctively my beliefs.
And so I did go home and I announced that I was going to vote for Ronald Reagan.
And my grandma was just like, oh, no, you can't do that.
You know, you have to vote for Jimmy Carter.
And I said, nope.
And then she was like, wait a minute, you're only 14. How are you going to vote for him?
And I said, well, not this term, but the next one.
And, of course, my grandma didn't live long enough to see his next term.
She died in 83. Yeah.
But I sure did.
I voted for him in 84. In 88. I'm sorry, in 88. Because you couldn't vote in 88. 88 was Bush.
That's right.
So I voted for him in 84. Yeah.
And so I got to vote for Ronald Reagan.
Well, that's, you know, I think with Reagan and Trump, they have both...
Come along at a fairly critical juncture for the country.
Because with the 70s, I mean, we think back, right?
Inflation, stagflation, 20% interest rates, a Soviet bear on the prowl.
I mean, the country was not going in the right direction.
I don't think it was as bad as it became under Biden and Harris, but it was pretty bad.
Hostages in Iran, you remember?
Oh, yeah.
No, I remember thinking, what kind of a doofus president is Jimmy Carter, that he's leaving these people in captivity?
And you have the U.S. president seemingly being tied up and helpless in the face of all that.
And the one thing that Reagan projected, and Trump as well, is this aura of...
That's right.
I'm in charge, and it's like, you better be on notice that you're not going to get away with this, and don't wait for me to take action because it's going to be somewhat extreme.
I remember that was Reagan's view.
That was Reagan's message to Khomeini, and that's Trump's message right now to Hamas.
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